Outraged! "Not That There Is Anything Wrong With It", Part 2

In today's New York Times , Mr. Nicholas D. Kristof is outraged at the calumny being cast on Islam and Muslims. Of course, good Liberal that he is, he tries to confuse the discussions about Obama's religion, or the acceptability of having an observant Muslim (or a Muslim "nationalist", for that matter) as a presidential candidate, by injecting in all that nonsense about the Antichrist. This is a classic technique for diverting the discussion away from what are legitimate issues and concerns by dragging in the absurd extreme.

A more relevant context to discuss this issue is whether, during the Cold War years, it would have been proper to inquire whether a candidate was a Soviet-sympathizing communist. While the electorate should have the freedom to vote for someone who is sympathetic to our enemies in an on-going conflict, it is imperative, first of all, to KNOW where his sympathies lie and not to provide him blanket cover because of political correctness or an overblown sense of non-judgementalism.

As it stands now, Muslims are – and should be – suspect in their sympathies and loyalties. ALL evidence now points to the unsuitability of Muslims as residents in Western societies, let alone as candidates for high office. Though the “intellectual” classes (and not a few fuzzy-headed religious leaders) would not admit it, Europe is now deathly afraid of “their” Muslims. They shudder every time someone says or writes something that might be “offensive” to Muslims or Islam. They have surrendered any sense of intellectual honesty and wrapped their fears in the cloaks of “tolerance” and “diversity”, mouthing endless inanities about the “religion of peace”, “Muslim tolerance” (back in the dim past!) and – in the extreme - adopted Muslims (and Muslim causes) as the most fashionable of protected classes currently making the rounds.

We in the United States have set ourselves up for the same outcome by our idiotic immigration “reform” of 1965 and unquestioning acceptance of just about any excuse to grant amnesty even to the most virulent haters of our societies (Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, where are you?). We could have handled the few native clowns like the Nation of Islam, but we are now getting inundated just as Europe has already been.

The “intelligentsia” in the West has let itself be seduced by the “intellectual” Muslims now seeded in our think tanks and universities (often funded by the rich Arab countries) into accepting the notion of Islam to be truly a “religion of peace”. In fact, Islam by its very nature, is a religious AND political system (as the Roman Catholic Church once aspired to be). Therefore a candidate being a Muslim is a legitimate question to ask - and to fear. As a side note (we can only hope that he was a poor example), the only known Muslim leader of a Western nation in recent times was the very “secular” Carlos Saúl Menem, former president of Argentina – and he has been accused of covering up Hezbollah’s involvement in the bombings in Buenos Aires. Not a very reassuring precedent and gives lie to the proposition that religion (or ethnicity) doesn’t matter.

As for Obama, the NY Times OP-Eders can’t have it both ways: if his exotic background is going to make him a “light unto the world”, then questioning every aspect of his background is entirely legitimate.