A pernicious trick was played on the western world and not by Islam but by our own politically correct leftists who have won undue influence in the western world with accusations using ‘power’ words of racism bigotry etc. Politicians are not able to stand against those running anti western agendas disguised as ‘rights movements’ as applications of these terms usually means political career death. and when they do not, the cure may be worse than the disease.
Leftism is a dangerous societal infection. It uses the best aspects of liberal societies against its own liberal interests.
To illustrate, should a leader suggest that a particular group that enjoys protection as a threatened minority (no matter whether they are threatened or indeed even a minority) may be acting against the interests of the social body his career is over. While this is clearly a dangerous state of affairs its likely true that if it where not, and racism bigotry and similar terms become worn out and ineffective the hidden threats to liberal democracy will enjoy a new spike in influence and this of course would be as bad a situation as we have now where no criticism of any group no matter how that group is defined can act with impunity, protected by irrational degrees of egalitarianism.
The fix is simple but not easy.
Before we can loo at a solution, its necessary to see how protection for group has been applied from the noble reasonable and important to the irrational trivial and even patently absurd.
to approximate the history of rights movements in the west, lets begin with women’s movements. The system of chivalry was characterized rightly or wrongly but certainly in a filtered manner in order to change the roles views and opportunities for women in civilized western nations. The idea was that (initially at least) men and women would be equal before the law.
This was clearly the right goal and the right way to proceed. Now women have special rights in many western nations of the kind where they cannot be given without taking them from someone else. Even so this was a correct initial set of goals. That all people should be seen as equal before the law while actual equality was an individuals burden. Some are taller shorter stronger or smarter but before the law, the person whether male or female should have equal weight of rights and one hopes responsibilities.
The next group was race based. What anthropologists used to call ‘Negroid’ as a designation of sub species (the designation of course has been renamed several times) was the next significant group to seek equality.
The history of black rights within the west mirrors in the important aspects the women’s movement and again for all the right reasons with similar results. Equality before the law in a meaningful way has been replaced with ideas of statistical equality of result and in this authors opinion no less racist than the ideas it was meant to replace. Even so, this began with the right ideas and the right general thinking behind it
The next group was Jewish people. There is a very important difference in creating rights groups for Jews as opposed to women or racially based groups.
Jews historically where discriminated against for their beliefs and traditions in specific areas and times. Refusal to accept the authority of leaders of politically powerful religions of the day made life very hard for Jews unless they converted to the dominant religion. This was true and draconian under Islamic rule throughout the Muslim dominated world in Europe and Asia as well as during the Catholic and protestant dominated world of Europe and the Americas to varying degrees.
Speaking generally, Jews where discriminated against for their refusal to mix with the dominant views where Jewish people lived. It wasn’t until Hitler and the Nazi movement that Jews where seen as a race and to be persecuted no matter how Jewish individuals behaved, what actual religious views they held or what their politics where.
As a consequence, a group which, for any practical purpose is impossible to define as a set of attributes in any actionable, way needed real protection under some sort of rights group banner. For example it wasn’t until the 1960s that a quota on Jewish people entering universities in North America was lifted and by quota I mean a maximum number of qualified people who would be let in as opposed to the modern version of a quota meaning that a university has to make special allowances to guarantee a certain number of a given group attends whether qualified or not.
The consequence of this, was the continued view of Jews as a race, something which the Islamic world embraced shall we say, ‘religiously’ but in fact other than some minor evidence of a genetic history only revealed by the science of DNA as opposed to any obvious attributes, is not an identifiable group.
Jews in other words, where discriminated against and genocide was attempted upon them as a race, and therefore it is reasonable to grant protection for them as a race.
This paved the way for rational and progressive rights granted to actual races and women and Jews.
The subtle shift in granting of rights to a group without a clear designation however has led to groups demanding protection for themselves in both the rational and rightful ways, as well as getting special rights beyond the mainstream cultures legal rights granted under multiculturalism policies, to groups defined by their behaviours and beliefs.
Homosexual people seeking initially to be free from harassment and violence against their community and the rational freedom to live however they chose to as individuals, now also have the rights to force the embracing of their choices onto the mainstream in schools and institutions. In Canada some people and organizations have been punished with fines and cease and desist orders for speaking out against the behavior of gay people as if all actions done by self declared homosexuals are sacred,
Rights afforded now to groups which are defined by a common behavior created a very important change in how the public generally see rights.
Its not much of a stretch to go from protecting a group who share a common sexual preference as the sole defining aspect of their group without racial gender or even cultural lines to extending rights to other groups with a shared set of beliefs.
I often think that had the Nazi’s waited till 2005 to begin their movement, the hatred brutality and ambitions of global conquest would be paid for by the allied nations while criticism of it would be illegal under hate speech laws. To say anything negative about Adolf would be a kind of blasphemy as the Nazi’s revered him as the one true prophet and the Nazi right to preach global domination and death to all who are in unfavorable groups or unbelievers would be protected under the kinds of religious freedom we allow for anyone other than Christians in the western world today.
While this seems like a quasi comedic logical extreme, a close look at P.E.T.A. and its real agenda of ‘total animal liberation’ complete with funding terrorist attacks on animal research labs as well as black liberation theology, a draconian extreme of anti white sentiments in the name of black rights (and this thinking has become very influential in the US) as well as other groups seeking legal protection from criticism based on any shared ideas at all show how this thinking destroys rational debate and therefore democracy.
One wonders why the Democrats in the US have not yet sued any one who exposes any action which may cast them in a poor light. The answer of course is that the US is the last remaining place where free speech is entrenched in law even for neo-nazis. Canada and Europe however are a diferent story and while hate speech and thought laws may seem like a good idea to some of you, it should be noted that like the Human Rights commissions in Canada, these laws are always selectively enforced to guarantee more rights for in fashion groups and political agendas.
(Here I intended to link to an excellent video in which Ezra Levant makes minced meat out of a HRC bureaucrat but the video has mysteriously vanished from youtube. In a way this makes the point of the danger of these organisations more than the video itself did, but in it, it was made clear that the HRC’s decide on the guilt of the accused in the selection process and not in the hearing.) (POST SCRIPT I re found the video and it now works)
Now of course we have Islam. A group defined by one thing and one thing only. A common political-religious philosophy which itself violates every aspect of the Canadian and European hate crimes laws in its genocidal views on the Jewish peoples as well as its absolute determination that women are property and may be murdered on a whim without any due process. Yet this group enjoys the protection as a minority by western nations.
Islam’s holy books have many references and dictates which are illegal for instance in Canada, yet only Christian’s seem to be fined and forced to silence when quoting their religious beliefs.
In essence, the solution must be to remove protection from a group based on its beliefs. That rights afforded to guarantee equality of rights and responsibilities may and probably should remain for groups that may be discriminated against not for its actions but for what gene pool they may swim in or are percieved to swin in such as the jewish people to the purpose of equal opportunities within main stream western nations.
However granting rights to groups based on a common beliefe is deleterious and destructive to any society which allows its members to choose its leaders and values as this requires an informed electorate.
Islam is a political movement of manifest destiny. It uses the language and fervor of religion to justify its politics but politics it is. One does not see a Buddhist blowing himself up at a Chinese Restaurant even though the justification for that would be far more reasonable than what we see in Islam many times a day.
Special rights and protections as a minority must not be allowed to apply. Then perhaps we can start to address the new inequalities extensions of rational rights have created.
Eeyore
(from time to time I will make subtle corrections and add supporting links to the claims herein)
