RSS Feed MenuRamesh Ponnuru and Calvin Freiburger both take me to task for supposedly misrepresenting the thinking of National Review’s Andrew McCarthy. Are they right? You decide.
Last week, here at FrumForum, I wrote that
McCarthy suggests we might have to reconsider whether the First Amendment ought even to apply to Muslims. After all, he argues, ‘intolerance is not just part of al-Qaeda; it is part of Islam.’
Ponnuru objects. He notes that in the McCarthy column that I cite, McCarthy writes, “No one credibly questions the legal right of Muslim landowners to use their property in a lawful fashion.”
Freiburger agrees. I have, he insists, “flat-out lied about Andy McCarthy.” No surprise there, he adds. “That sort of thing is standard operating procedure at FrumForum.”
Let’s see.
The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion. But McCarthy does not agree that Islam is a religion in the sense protected by the First Amendment. Thus, he writes in his new book, The Grand Jihad:
“Islam is not merely a religion. It is a comprehensive socio-economic and political system, which believers take to be ordained by Allah. To be sure, its elements include tenets we in the West would regard as religious creed… Such tenets, however, constitute only a fraction of the overarching Islamic project.
What we thoughtlessly call the ‘religion’ of Islam also includes an all-encompassing corpus of law: not just religious canons but civil and criminal rules and procedures. Moreover, Islam entails voluminous guidelines for social interaction, including sexual conduct, other relations between men and women, and relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.
It prescribes guidelines for the foundation of government; for property ownership use, development, and inheritance; for the conduct of commercial transactions; and for the use of force, the striking of treaties, and the circumstances under which seemingly solemn agreements may be abrogated.
If Islam is not a religion, or “not merely a religion, [but rather] a comprehensive socio-economic and political system,” then large elements of Islam must not be protected by the First Amendment. There’s no First Amendment protection, after all, for the abrogation of treaties.
As Daniel Luban keenly observes in the online magazine, Tablet:
At times, McCarthy speaks the language of religious tolerance, arguing simply that Islam should not have a ‘sacrosanct status’ denied to other religions. Yet it becomes increasingly clear that he is in fact arguing for special targeting and discriminatory measures against Islam, and he eventually concedes that he believes it is wrong to place Judaism and Christianity ‘on a par with an inherently discriminatory, supremacist doctrine.’
As a result, ‘foreign Muslims should not be permitted to reside in America unless they can demonstrate their acceptance of American constitutional principles.’ (But how, given [what McCarthy calls] the Muslim propensity for dissimulation, can we be sure that their professions of loyalty are genuine?)
McCarthy has written that “Islam is innately political,” and that “Islam and Communism are aligned… Both are diametrically opposed to the core assumptions of American constitutional democracy: individual liberty and free-market capitalism.”
He has called Islam’s legal code “totalitarian.” He rejects the concept of moderate Islam as an “invention” that “does not currently exist.” He declares, in the subtitle of his book, that Islam — not radical Islam, but Islam — is a fifth column political movement intent on “sabotaging” America.
Perhaps McCarthy holds a personal mental reservation that extends the First Amendment even to totalitarian saboteurs. But whatever his inner views, his writings would certainly lead others to believe — would “suggest” in my language — that Muslims do not qualify for First Amendment protection.
And ominously: McCarthy is not alone.
Over at David Horowitz’s NewsReal Blog, for instance, David Swindle insists that:
It’s time to stop regarding Islam as though it’s a religion. It’s not. The ‘faith’ practiced as written and following the example of its founder is a totalitarian political program seeking world domination. That’s always been the core of what Islam is all about. The ‘religious practices’ inherent in the ideology are mere window dressing.
You can dismiss Swindle as an extreme voice, but his views are shared by retired Lt. Gen. William Boykin, the Special Forces commander turned conservative icon.
Indeed, Islam “is not a religion,” Boykin told Human Events. Extending First Amendment protection to Muslims, he added, was a “fundamental mistake.”
Nina Shea, writing at National Review Online, doesn’t go quite that far. However, she does argue that “there are limits” to religious liberty.” And so, she explores “where religious freedom [for Muslims] might be limited.”
Most ominously, Newt Gingrich, a front-running candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, seems to agree with McCarthy and other anti-Islam conservatives.
Thus, in a July 29 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Gingrich called the planned lower Manhattan mosque “stunningly outrageous” and a “political act, not a religious one.”
Sharia, he added, “is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and the world as we know it… I’m frankly very tired of being lectured about religious liberty…”
If Gingrich is tired of being lectured about religious liberty, it may be because he and others on the Right – including Andrew McCarthy – are insufficiently respectful of the First Amendment. Indeed, they’ve suggested – and, in McCarthy’s case, argued explicitly – that Islam is incompatible with American democracy.
But as I pointed out last week, this implies that the constitutional protections of American democracy cannot apply fully to American Muslims. The American founding fathers knew better and our Constitution says otherwise.
You can follow John Guardiano on Twitter: @JohnRGuardiano
CO Independent // Sep 2, 2010 at 5:14 pm
@ Easton,
That was strike one.
None of the wars or events you cite were religious wars. They were political wars. The wars were fought for political reasons, directed by political leaders and military leaders. None of the armies fought under the banner of a Church. They were no more “Christian” wars than our own Civil War. Do Christians fight wars? Yes. Do they fight religious wars? No, not since the 30 Years War.
Again, please try to stay focused. My assertion is that mainstream Christian and Jewish Doctrine has explicitly disavowed the more violent, repressive passages of the Old Testament and New Testament. Ergo, mainstream Christians and Jews cannot find support in their respective religious Doctrines for wars or acts of mass violence. By contrast, Muslims can and do find support in their religious doctrine for wars or acts of mass violence.
You can refute that by providing a list of modern wars or acts of mass violence which leaders of a mainstream Christian denomination or a leader of the Jewish faith advocated and/or instigated based on the teaching of their faith. Good luck finding them, because there aren’t any.
busboy33 // Sep 2, 2010 at 5:36 pm
“Does the First Amendment Apply to Muslims?”
Are they citizens? Then yes.
Next question.
busboy33 // Sep 2, 2010 at 5:39 pm
@JohnG:
I see you never answered my question in your last post . . . clearly you were working on this one.
So while you’re reading comments and replying, what metric would you consider “winning” in the War on Terror or Operation Iraqi Freedom?
Politely awaiting your ideas,
bus
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 2, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I think Easton’s out of gas because he doesn’t really understand Islam. He made no reply to my question regarding whether sharia law permits criticism of The Prophet or any other sacred persona of Islam. I supplied at least one interpretation suggesting that was the case. Perhaps he can rebut that with another interpretation.
easton // Sep 2, 2010 at 9:25 pm
CO, obviously you never heard of Rev. Paisley
The Pope is the Antichrist
A Demonstration from Scripture, history, and his own lips.
Being a Precis of Dr. J. A. Wylie’s Classic, “The Papacy is the Antichrist”
By Ian R. K. Paisley M.P., M.E.P. ‘The same line of proof which establishes that Christ is the promised Messiah, conversely applied, establishes that the Roman system is the predicted Apostasy. In the life of Christ we behold the CONVERSE of what Antichrist must be; and in the prophecy of the Antichrist we are shown the CONVERSE of what Christ must be and was. And when we place the Papacy between the two, and compare it with each, we find on the one hand, that it is the perfect CONVERSE of Christ as seen in His life; and on the other, that it is the perfect image of the Antichrist, as shown in the prophecy of him. WE CONCLUDE, THEREFORE, THAT IF JESUS OF NAZARETH BE THE CHRIST, THE ROMAN PAPACY IS THE ANTICHRIST.’
— Dr. J. A. Wylie
Yeah, calling the Pope the anti-Christ is Political, sure. And Check all the crazy things he said, and he ended up being First Minister of Northern Ireland.
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996
From: David L. Carlton
Subject: Re: Biblical justification for slavery
Re. Alabama State Senator Charles Davidson, running for the U.S. House from Alabama–An AP story of May 11 reports that he’s dropped out of the race amid criticism of his defense of slavery. BTW, he denies any “racial motivation.” Re the biblical justification for segregation, the most striking use of scripture to such ends that I can recall from my youth was Acts 17:26 (KJV): “And [God] hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” This verse is extracted from Paul’s Sermon on Mars Hill, and is normally interpreted as a declaration of Christian universalism; indeed, it was commonly used in the nineteenth century to refute racist theories of polygenesis. But the phrase “bounds of their habitation” was used to claim that segregation, as an existing “bound,” must ipso facto be divinely ordained.
But hey, Segregation is cool right? What could their be any harm in this. I have hundreds of recent justifications by Southern Christians.
And are you seriously suggesting that the Afghan’s fight against the Soviets was a religious war?
Of course they used it as their justification but the soviets were occupying them. Everything is not religious.
and there is this:
In 1967 the Lutheran Church in South Africa held its own conference on politics and Christianity at its Pastoral Institute in Mapumulo, Natal. The conference centered on the theme of “the two kingdoms as a basis for a Lutheran participation in a possible socio-political witness Papers given at this meeting were later reproduced in mimeographed form under the unrevealing title Lutheran Theological College (Mapumulo, 1968). This collection is divided into two sections: (a) Theological Discussion, and (b) The Present Scene. A valuable aspect of the collection is the publication of an enlarged version of a lecture given by Dr. W. Kistner on “The Interrelation Between Religious and Political Thinking with Regard to the South African Racial Problem, 1652-1967.” Other essays in the work tackle the problem of church and state relations, missionary policy, nationalism, and similar issues from a distinctly Lutheran viewpoint.
The most recent publication in this field is Human Relations and the South African Scene in Light of Scripture (Cape Town: D.R.C. Publishers, 1976). This is an official translation of the authoritative report Ras, Volk en Nasie en Volkereverhoudinge die hg van die Skrif (literally translated “Race, People and Nation and People: United in the Light of the Scripture”) which has the approval of the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church. Clearly, this is one of the most important documents available for a discussion of contemporary attitudes among Christians in South Africa.
Apartheid was fine, right?
Try to stay focused, ok. Wars have many, many reasons. Osama attacked the US, not the Vatican. If it were strictly a religious thing they would have flown planes into the Vatican, Westminster Cathedral, etc. How is it you didn’t notice this. Talk about a one track mind.
“My assertion is that mainstream Christian and Jewish Doctrine has explicitly disavowed the more violent, repressive passages of the Old Testament and New Testament.”
And of course you are utterly wrong. You are claiming that Osama Bin Laden represents mainstream Muslim thought, but you know he doesn’t. I can bring up thousands of “Christian” ministers advocating the most outrageous things based on Biblical teachings.
It is, in fact, utterly obnoxious to state, oh, it was a generation ago, so that made it ok. but for the backward, ignorant societies not to keep up with us is evidence that they are all evil, right, but when we did it, it was a normal process of development.
And of course Milosevic used religion as the basis. Expelling and murdering Muslims is Political?
That is just sickening. When Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox peoples fight and kill each other when they speak the same language, shared the same country for generations, only a fool would pretend that it is not religious.
And, of course, you ignored the massacre at Sabra and Shatila.
Religious wars are political, hell a lot of political wars are Religious.
And in Nigeria there is a Christian/Muslim war going on. You can blame it all on the Muslims if you like (I am sure you will) but religious leaders on both sides justify their actions.
easton // Sep 2, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Fairy Hardcastle
I don’t sit in front of this all day waiting for questions. Yeesh, I have a life away from this blog.
regarding if sharia law permits criticism, you are aware that Biblical law does not permit criticism either. The first Commandment for example. Read the Bible sometime.
OK, fine, banish the Bible and the Koran. Such silliness. Besides, I don’t have to justify Islam, I think it is false, I think Mohammed was probably a schizophrenic. I feel the same about Joseph Smith (more likely his was just a fraud). I don’t care in either case. It is free will. Any Muslim in America who leaves me be, I will leave him be. Is that so hard for you numbskulls to understand. Tolerance is not approval.
GEValle
Hey, easton…
I guess you didn’t know that Arab nationalists supported Hitler, did you?
Massive fail on your part, genius.
Hey, you know that Catholic Fascist Spain and Catholic Fascist Italy supported Hitler too, right?
You do get the part about nationalists, right? They had the British and French colonial powers as their enemies.
Hey, you also know that Americans and British supported Stalin during WW2, right?
Double super infinity FAIL on you GeValle. Too funny, you guys crack me up.
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 2, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Ok, any thoughts on sharia law and freedom of speech Easton?
Fairy Hardcastle // Sep 2, 2010 at 9:52 pm
I posted before I saw your post. You are aware are you not that sharia law is a civil law with civil punishments for infractions. The canon law, which is the most comparable to sharia in the catholic sense, provides for no civil punishments if say a grave sin is committed. The question is really more an academic one than one which has any practical aspect of banning this or that. It is a question which is designed to get at the difference between Western civilization and Islam.
JonF // Sep 2, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Shari’a law is irrelevant in the United States. We are governed under the Constitution and religious law is out, period. We might as well be debating the canons of the Council of Trent. Intresting work for the theologically minded, but irrelvant politically.
busboy33 // Sep 2, 2010 at 11:31 pm
@Fairy:
Some Muslims may want Sharia law. Some Christians want Scripture to be the law of the land. I’m sure there’s some Wiccan somewhere that wants to re-write law to allow the Mother Goddess to settle social disputes.
To Paraphrase JonF , goodie for them. Do you actually think a “hey, why don’t we adopt Sharia Law at the Federal or State level?” bill has any possibility of being voted in? At all? Hell, “Let’s replace the Constitution with the Bible” has no chance of being accepted, and that has about a thousand times better chance than Sharia Law.
btw, this topic and this post (John G’s) are EXACTLY why there is a 1st Amendment. “Sure, we’ll let people freely practice their religion . . . but only if we like it. We don’t want people practicing religions we don’t like, after all.” That is precisely the thinking that the Founding fathers wanted to block. Same for “Sure you have freedom to say whatever you like . . . but only stuff we like”. It reminds me of that line in The Blues Brothers — “We have both types of music here. We have Country AND Western!”
There might not have been alot of “Mohamedians” in th e coloniews, but they did intend for them to be allowed to be Islamic. Passing judgement PERSONALLY on religions is absolutely fine. Passing judgement AS A GOVERNMENT on religions is why the Colonies were founded in the first place.
Is Islam a morally bad religion? Better question — is it morally worse than worshipping SATAN? Satanism is protected. So is Wicca. So are over a hundred recognized religions. So is Islam.
Don’t like it, fine. But this Country has as one of its absolutely core beliefs the idea that the merits of a religion are not the pervue of law and government.
CoZ // Sep 2, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Daniel Lubin quotes Andrew McCarthy:
“At times, McCarthy speaks the language of religious tolerance, arguing simply that Islam should not have a ‘sacrosanct status’ denied to other religions. Yet it becomes increasingly clear that he is in fact arguing for special targeting and discriminatory measures against Islam, and he eventually concedes that he believes it is wrong to place Judaism and Christianity ‘on a par with an inherently discriminatory, supremacist doctrine.’”
But the openly hateful, discriminatory, supremacist doctrine of these leading Israeli rabbis is far worse than anything I’ve seen emerge from proponents of Islam. I mean, it just doesn’t get any worse than that.
If someone can show me an example of Islamic racial supremacism, I’d like to see it.
CO Independent // Sep 3, 2010 at 12:04 am
@Easton,
OK, I’ll be perfectly honest and will tell you that I couldn’t be bothered to read that rambling diatribe that appeared to have no point whatsoever.
But I scanned it close enough to note that you did not provide a list as per my request. So I’ll call that strike two.
One last chance. Please provide a list of modern wars or acts of mass violence which leaders of a mainstream Christian denomination or a leader of the Jewish faith advocated and/or instigated based on the teaching of their faith. I won’t hold my breath.
communists-basher // Sep 3, 2010 at 12:17 am
CoZ, you’re a progressive liberal fascist. Hahaha. You deserve the sharia law.
Klansamfunnet « minerva // Sep 3, 2010 at 7:55 am
[...] var ”insensitivt”, utviklet seg raskt til at debattanter godt innenfor mainstream har stilt spørsmålstegn ved muslimers tros- og ytringsfrihet. I en kvalmende fornærmelse mot seks millioner myrdede jøder, millioner av falne russiske [...]
easton // Sep 3, 2010 at 10:45 am
Ok, any thoughts on sharia law and freedom of speech Easton?
Busboy covered it pretty well. I am not an expert on Sharia law and I seriously doubt you are either. Much of our laws came from prohibitions in the Bible, it doesn’t make them invalid. Thou shalt not kill sounds like good advice for anyone.
And CO, you didn’t read what I wrote and then say strike two. Wow, you are sillier than I thought. Do you ref. at baseball games blindfolded. You can not rebut what I say so you dismiss it. How utterly trite and uninformed.
Even in Israel there is Jewish intolerance. From TNR:
Rabbi Ovadia, the head of the Council of Torah Sages of the Shas party, a pillar of the Netanyahu coalition.
Here’s a fuller account of Ovadia’s ravings against the Palestinians:
…[O]ur enemies and haters. May they vanish from the world, may God smite them with the plague, them and the Palestinians, evil-doers and Israel-haters…It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send must send missiles to them and annihilate them.
Maybe the torah sage would make do with another Dr. Baruch Goldstein who, 16 years ago on Purim, massacred 29 Muslims at prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs at Hebron.
So CO is now down for the count, utterly destroyed. I listed and can continue to list Christian and even Jewish religious leaders who advocate religious wars and oppression based on nothing but the religion of the other.
But he will just say, I didn’t bother to read what you wrote since I know it will be wrong, yada yada.
And again, this whole thread is about McCarthy saying incendiary things against Muslims. Guardiano proved it, CO stuck his head in the sand saying McCarthy only wants reform, I showed a video of McCarthy stating the Islam is the problem and it is an inherently violent religion. CO could not rebut this, so he dismissed it as “copy and pasted”
This is like arguing with Conservatives who have had lobotomies. Anyway, I got work to do today, school starts next week and I got lessons to prepare.
CO Independent // Sep 3, 2010 at 11:04 am
That’s strike three, Easton. You’re out.
Again, I asked you to supply a list of modern wars or acts of mass violence which leaders of a mainstream Christian denomination or a leader of the Jewish faith advocated and/or instigated based on the teaching of their faith.
You replies are non-responsive. I did NOT ask for a list of a bunch of fringe Christian or Jewish leaders who have advocated violence.
To your credit, you found one act of religious inspired violence. A lone Jewish gunman. Death toll: 16.
You’re completely clueless, and still a bit of a lunatic.
GEValle // Sep 3, 2010 at 11:18 am
easton:
“Hey, you know that Catholic Fascist Spain and Catholic Fascist Italy supported Hitler too, right?
You do get the part about nationalists, right? They had the British and French colonial powers as their enemies.
Hey, you also know that Americans and British supported Stalin during WW2, right?”
No “s”, sherlock.
But actually, if you’d done your homework, you’d know that Fascist Spain was actually neutral during WWII.
And we were allied with Russia against a common enemy. It was a marriage of convenience, not love. I know that breaks your leftist, commie-heart to pieces, but there it is.
Nice try, einstein.
Next time you’re called-out and made to look stupid, take it like a man, not a girlie-man.
Mulva // Sep 3, 2010 at 1:03 pm
“The answer is simple as well: Only progressive liberal socialists defend Islam and Muslims because indeed their goals are aligned. And these goals are: to destroy Christianity, to give way to Islam, to establish sharia law as a part of the Liberal Socialism they are building. There is no contradiction here: sharia law can be a useful tool for increased government control.”
Seriously? Do you really believe that progressive liberals want sharia law (which is the antithesis of progressive liberalism) to implemented in the USA?
CoZ // Sep 3, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Communists-basher wrote:
CoZ, you’re a progressive liberal fascist. Hahaha. You deserve the sharia law.
According to these Talmudic rabbis I deserve to be killed, and so do you. Unless, of course, you’re not a gentile.
And God help you if you’re a Palestinian.
“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle),” Friedman wrote in response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its “Ask the Rabbis” feature.
CoZ // Sep 3, 2010 at 11:05 pm
The answer is simple as well: Only progressive liberal socialists defend Islam and Muslims because indeed their goals are aligned. And these goals are: to destroy Christianity, to give way to Islam, to establish sharia law as a part of the Liberal Socialism they are building. There is no contradiction here: sharia law can be a useful tool for increased government control.
Classic! This xenophobic conspiracy theory could only come from a total wing-nut.
Tim.Chid.1 // Sep 10, 2010 at 5:19 am
Although I understand why some people would argue that preventing the building of a mosque at Ground Zero is an apparent display of xenophobia, I think that there are two major points to be acknowledged. Firstly, 9/11 is fresh in the hearts of the American people who affect domestic policy, and this act of building a mosque strikes at the hearts of Americans because it was people of Muslim heritage who killed so many people on 9/11. Throughout American history, many groups have been relegated out of society because a minor proponent of their group struck at the heart of Americans, for example the Germans during WWII were persecuted, the Japanese in WWII were put into war camps, the Native Americans were prevented from practicing any forms of religion other than Christianity in the early years of America being a nation, etc. However, despite this previous relegation the groups mentioned above are welcomed into American society, with little animosity being held up to them. Likewise, it will take a while for the American people to re-accept Islamic culture as a part of normal society, and until then little can be done. This nature of the American people is not inherently racist or discriminatory, but is rather a factor of democracy in this nation. Secondly, the First Amendment to the Constitution does not ensure that all people have “freedom of expression”, the Constitution also clarifies that if this freedom results in violence then then it can be suspended, and thus is the case with Islam in America today. For these reasons, no, the First Amendment does not apply to Muslims in America, not until public opinion and perspective has changed.
-Timothy Chidyausiku