Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Islamism

  • Is Islam a Religion of Peace?

    A video by Aayan Hirsi Ali. 5:09. Can you spare five minutes to improve your thinking on this topic? Is Islam a religion of peace? Is it compatible with Western liberalism? Or does Islam need a reformation, just as Christianity had the Protestant Reformation? Somali-born author and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains.

  • Iconoclasm: Another Similarity Between Muslims and Leftists

    Muslims are well-known for their iconoclasm, hostility to the arts, and destruction of cultural artifacts. Leftists are like unto Muslims in this regard too. There is also the iconoclasm of the Left. For now, a couple of links to introduce the topic. Leftist Iconoclasm Must Stop Stomping on Jesus: The Iconoclasm of the Left The…

  • Islam and the (Destruction of the) Arts

    Here: Which brings us back to the arts. Among the things that Islam finds offensive are paintings, statues, mosaics, music, and song. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the razing of the Roman temples and arches in Palmyra are just the most recent in a long line of vandalism that stretches back to Muhammad.…

  • Robert Spencer Poisoned in Iceland

    Robert Spencer explains on YouTube. Mark Steyn, The Poisoning of Robert Spencer

  • Robert Spencer’s Ban from the U.K.

    The following from a London correspondent: Quite incredibly, Spencer is still banned from visiting the UK because of what he says in this short (2:07) YouTube video. The letter from the Home Office, then under the auspices of Theresa May, said: You are reported to have stated the following: >>It [Islam] is a religion and a…

  • Nazis Hid Their Crimes; Islamists Exult in Theirs

    By Kevin Myers. The Sunday Times, 11 June 2017. Via Karl White who provided me with the text and who tells me that "Kevin Myers is one of Ireland's most controversial writers." The 'purple passages' are by your humble correspondent. ……………………………….. A suicide bomber attacking a concert for little girls is a little earlier in…

  • There are Moderate Muslims but No Moderate Islam

    This is an important distinction explained with great clarity by Robert Spencer. London Ed summarizes: He [Spencer] believes that there are moderate Muslims but there is no moderate Islam, giving the example (3:25) of the Catholic Church's official teaching on contraception: "Contraception is wrong, contraception is immoral, don’t contracept." Yet  "Surveys show that 70-80-90 percent…

  • Quotation of the Day

    From Malcolm Pollack's Cower of London entry: When you won’t build a wall around your country, you must build walls around everything inside your country. Along the same lines, is it not insane for Western countries to expend blood and treasure battling ISIS and other Islamist terror groups in their lands while allowing Muslims to…

  • Dalrymple on Creative Appeasement, Candles, and Teddy Bears

    Here:  They perceive ours as a candle-and-teddy-bear society . . . We kill, you light candles.  And so acts of terrorism are not expressions of nihilism or desperation, but reasonable, methodical steps to topple a society that has become too weak and decadent to have the will to defend itself even though it has the…

  • Theresa May: Still Pussyfooting Around

    The prime minister is right that ". . . our values – pluralistic British values – are superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate." But her Enough is Enough statement shows that she and her countrymen lack the will to take the steps necessary to deal adequately with the Islamist scourge…

  • Time for a Moratorium on Immigration from Muslim Lands?

    Here we go again. The third terrorist attack in the U. K. since March of this year. And so time to re-run the following entry from 5 December 2015. Please think it through for your own good and that of your descendants. …………. And now San Bernardino.  It is surely 'interesting' that in supposedly conservative…

  • Isn’t the Rope Too Long?

    "Isn't the rope too long?" I wrote to the man who sent me the graphic a sinistra. He replied, " The idea is the tree will grow and eventually be tall enough to hang him." "I got that," said I.  "But trees grow slowly and there's a lot of rope that has to hoisted before the…

  • Immigration Policy Comes First

    I have been discussing Islamist terrorism with a couple of Brits who are open to the sorts of things I say. One of them I know is a conservative; the other I think is.  What struck me is that both make a curious lefty move.  The move is well-described by Heather Mac Donald: Defenders of…

  • Andrew C. McCarthy on the Islamist Challenge to Religious Liberty

    McCarthy knows this subject from the inside and sees things with blinding clarity: . . . the challenge of Islam must be confronted head-on and without apology. That is unavoidable. You can’t flinch. It is a certainty that the Democrat-media complex — of which Islamist organizations are members in good standing — is going to…

  • From the Mail Bag: Islam and the West

    This from a U. K. reader: You wrote: So what measures should we in the West take?   I will mention just the most obvious and most important one: severely curtail Muslim immigration.  There is no right to immigrate, and correspondingly, we are under no obligation to let in subversive elements.    We have a culture…