MacIntyre Shocked, Shocked! That Harper is a Conservative.

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Feb 15

Linden MacIntyre, a nice fellow in person, is an author and a retired investigative journalist from the CBC.  He started work for the CBC in 1976 and headed the 5th Estate program from 1990-2014.  A couple of days ago he spoke at an event, delivering a speech entitled, "Propaganda in the age of media decline."  The story was reported by Daniel Nolan and published in the Hamilton Spectator.

In the course of his remarks, Mr. MacIntyre is quoted as calling Prime Minister Stephen Harper, "The most ideologically driven Prime Minister we're ever had..."

Below are my comments to the Spectator.

 

Linden MacIntyre is quoted as saying that Stephen Harper is “The most ideologically driven Prime Minister we’ve ever had…”  Mr. MacIntyre, an investigative reporter by trade, apparently has never heard of Pierre Trudeau.

 

The ideology Mr. Harper allegedly is addicted to has a name.  It is called “conservativism.”  The investigative reporter finds it shocking that the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada would adhere to a philosophy of conservativism.  And not just adhere to it, but adhere to it in a principled way.  He is not corruptible by the prospect of favorable treatment in the press.  MacIntyre is appalled by Harper’s incorruptibility!

 

The larger aspect of Mr. MacIntyre’s talk was about the parlous state of reporting in this day and age.  One can see why in his remarks reporting is in such a state.  Mr. MacIntyre himself is addicted to, what is called in the game, the “narrative.”  What gets reported and how it is reported is done to support the “narrative.”  Facts are selectively presented to the public to support the larger “narrative.”  At present, and for many decades, the narrative has run against conservative themes, beliefs, and values.  How many times have we heard in the media that this or that was immoral, illegitimate, suspect, or just plain wrong?

 

The Conservative government knows this.  The hostility of the narrative carried by the CBC towards conservatism explains why Conservative governments are hostile to the CBC, and why Liberal governments are favorable to the CBC.  Mr. MacIntyre was a long-time employee of the CBC and he expresses surprise and disappointment that a Conservative government would try to suppress the anti-conservative value narrative of a tax-payer subsidized government entity.  Who does he think is running the store?  Do elected governments have real legitimacy only if they support the values de jure of left-wing-ism?

 

There are perfectly reasonable arguments to be made for the government of Canada and the Canadian taxpayer to get out of the television broadcasting business.  It may be unwise, but to advance such a position is not beyond the pale of morality, as Mr. MacIntyre seems to hold.

 

The parlous state of reportage is in part due to the persistence of “narratives” in reporting.  The public chooses to watch things that are congenial to it, and left-wing-ism is not innately congenial to even the majority of people, which explains the persistence of conservativism through the ages.  Sooner or later the narrative gets boring, the people delivering it get boring, and people who don’t like listening to it will find other amusements.  In a business, this results in a fall off of audience share and a loss in revenue.  The company has to change or die.  Changing or dying is harder to accept when one works for a government agency dedicated to the advancement of that which is boring.

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Black Writer Calls for Segregation. More concern for community than children.

Vincent J. Curtis

19 Feb 15

Evelyn Myrie is a stupid woman who happens to be black.  Because she is black, no one has the nerve to say that she is stupid.  The proof that she is stupid comes from all the of allegedly progressive ideas she advocates without any consciousness of the consequences of what she is saying.  There are many intelligent people of the left, but holding left-wing ideas is no sign of intelligence.  It takes a nimble intelligence to advocate left-wing ideas without tripping over oneself, and Evelyn Myrie stumbles over herself practically every time she says something publicly.

In an Op-ed article published today in the Hamilton Spectator, Myrie attacked the Children's Aid Society for racism disguised as racial insensitivity.  The occasion for this attack was the discovery that 41 % of the CAS caseload in Toronto were black children.  Myrie was of the opinion that this indicated that the CAS was "too quick" to seize black children from abusive situations.  In the same article, Myrie also dredged up the outrage of the (Islamic) Somali community that found that Muslim children in the custody of the CAS were - horrors! - being placed in non-Muslim homes.

Evelyn Myrie has parlayed her blackness and her sharp tongue into a career of prominence in Hamilton.  She may be a heroine for some, but for me if what she does was an act of consciousness, she is race huckster.

Below are my remarks to the Spectator on the occasion of Myrie's attack on the Children's Aid Society.


Sirs;

When race hucksters like Evelyn Myrie complain, the wrong people get hurt.  In the case of this article, it is children in the care of the Children’s Aid Society.  It is her opinion that many of them belong back in the homes from which they were taken.

When 8.2 % of the population contribute 41% of the cases in Children’s Aid, the problem is not with racist Children’s Aid Workers, or workers who are acting “too quick;” the problem is with a dysfunctional culture and a dysfunctional community.  Evelyn Myrie’s community.

Evelyn Myrie calls for a CAS exclusively for black families.  She needs to rub her eyes and look at those statistics again: 41 % of the caseload of the CAS is black.  If by a CAS exclusively for black families she means a CAS staffed entirely by black people who only look after black children, then there would have to be an exclusively white CAS who looked only after white children, and blacks be damned.  I thought the days of segregation were over!

As Evelyn Myrie stumbled about looking for other excuses to throw at the CAS, she came up with the criticism by the Somali community that some Muslim children were not placed in Muslim foster homes.  If she knew anything about Islam, Myrie would have recognized that the argument of Islamic exceptionalism is the same one used to justify Islamic extremism.  Children’s Aid as we understand it is not something that occurs in the Islamic culture, and it comes as no surprise to me that there might be a shortage of foster homes in the Muslim community.

In her call for the creation of an exclusively white and Christian Children’s Aid Society, Myrie not only serves to harm the children who need Children’s Aid but she reinforces racism that we all that thought was abolished decades ago.

The one thing Myrie did not do was take responsibility for those children who are harmed as a result of a CAS made gun-shy by folks like her.
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Did the Imams Lie?

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Feb 15

In the Saturday, February 14, 2015 edition of the Hamilton Spectator was published an article written by Hannah Allam which was an interview of Jocelyne Cesari.  Ms. Cesari directs the Islam and the West program at Harvard University and leads the Berkley Center's Islam and World Politics program at Georgetown University.  The article was distributed by McClatchy Washington Bureau.

Ms. Cesari is clearly an expert in Islam, perhaps more expert than the local imams.  On the basis of her job description she ought to know everything an Islamic scholar would know plus the implications of Islam in the larger world.

What makes this interview interesting is that Jocelyne Cesari directly contradicts what the imams told the Islamic conference, entitled "Who is Mohammed?"

The following is a note I sent to the Spectator editor.  As of this moment it remains unpublished.

There may be hope for the Spectator yet.  In today's Spectator a letter written by Tom Airth of Burlington was published under the title, "It's more than just 'a few radicals.'"  Mr. Airth has been receiving Islamic material from Dr. Raza Khan (of more, see below) and he is greatly unimpressed with the peaceable intentions of Islam and of the capacity of its adherents to live in peace in a western country.  More of that a little later....

First, the comparison of what Jocelyne Cesari says as compared with what the imams said at their recent conference:


Sirs;

This was an interesting and nuanced piece.  The expert quoted in this article, Jocelyne Cesari, said things that were completely at variance with what the local imams said at their Islamic conference last week, the one entitled “Who is Mohammed?”

At the local conference, the imams listed 14 different meanings for the word “jihad,” and specifically denied that “Holy War” was one of them.  Jocelyne Cesari, comes right out in the first question and says that in the Islamic theory of war “The ruler had to declare jihad….”

If Cesari is right, and she has no apparent interest in falsification, then either the local imams lied at the conference for the benefit of the westerners present or they don’t know what they are talking about.  In either case, the local imams were not reliable as experts in the subject in which they spoke.  Westerners could, therefore, take no comfort in their reassurances of the peaceable intentions of Islam.

The second interesting point about Cesari’s analysis is that she observes that the Islamic State does justify its atrocities in Islamic terms.  They do so by “cherry-picking” certain statements, she says. But the essential fact remains that selection and interpretation of Islamic verses are crucial to deciding whether Islam is a religion of peace or a religion of conquest and submission.  Some verses apparently do support ISIS actions, while perhaps others do not.

Condemning ISIS atrocities on the basis of bad form fails to address the core issue.  Imams have to say where and why ISIS is wrong in Islamic terms, and so far as I can tell they do not.  They need to cite the passages of the Koran or the Hadith which clearly show that ISIS actions are condemned or forbidden in Islam; and I don’t see these quotations cited by Muslims.  They condemn bad form, but never individuals for being heretical.

One is left with the belief that the Islamic conference in Hamilton of the previous weekend was completely inadequate in the way it handled the issue of Islamic terrorism.  If Cesari is right then, at best, the imams did not know what they were talking about.  If they lied, then you have to wonder what they were covering up.
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Jihad: War Upon the non-Believers

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Feb 15

My hometown newspaper has for the last three days published reports from an Islamic conference held in Hamilton.  The title of the conference was “Who is Mohammed,” and a lecture of Friday’s session was called “Jihad: Myths and Facts.”

Imam Hosam Helal delivered the lecture.  According to the Spectator report, written by Daniel Nolan, Helal said that there were 14 different types of Jihad, none of which include offensive actions against others.  The list included hypocrisy, the devil, corrupt passions, the tongue and helping to develop a civil society.  To isolate one, and to ignore the others, is an act injustice in the faith, he said.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is the understanding of Jihad…Holy War is one common description from non-Muslims.”  Admitting that there are extremists in the Muslim world who do believe that Jihad means war he went on, “They will say Jihad means war.  They do exist in the community, but they are very small.  They are a minority.”

When he asked for a definition of Jihad from the crowd, a man yelled out, “eternal struggle.”  Helal said other descriptions involve ‘refinement of the soul’ or ‘energy to achieve a difficult, noble task.’  Another definition, given by Mohammed, was ‘to say the word of the truth in front of a tyrant, to stand up to a tyrant ruler through speech.’

A Mississauga imam said that Jihad had been misappropriated by radicals to mean waging a Holy War.

Daniel Nolan is not allowed to editorialize, but on the basis of what he reported, let’s take a stab at analysis of what was reported.

As Pope Benedict XVI noted in his famous lecture at Regensburg, the Muslim world abandoned Hellenic reasoning in the tenth century.  The bedrock principle of Hellenic reasoning is the Law of Non-contradiction, laid down and explained at length by Aristotle in his Metaphysics.  The law of non-contradiction holds that a thing cannot both be and not be in the same respect at the same time.  Since in matters of faith at least, Muslims reject the law of non-contradiction, they are free to contradict themselves and to hold contradictory and conflicting views, particularly on religious matters.  One example of this is the Special Pleading that concerns every matter of Islam with respect to the world and other religions.

Thus there is nothing unusual for an imam to say that there are 14 different meanings of Jihad, not one of which includes Holy War, while admitting that some Muslims, whom he described as extremist and a small minority, believe with non-Muslims that Jihad does mean war.  Another imam admitted that radicals had misappropriated the term Jihad so that it means Holy War to them.  The man in the audience who apparently yelled out “eternal struggle’ as the meaning of Jihad was on to something and hit the heart of the matter.  Reporter Nolan probably misheard the word used, and the expression yelled out was most likely internal struggle.

Internal struggle as the meaning of Jihad subsumes all the meanings described by imam Helal, in which the struggle is directed towards different aims.  What is common about all these aims is the improvement of oneself as a Muslim by means of advancing the cause of Islam.  Thus one is purified as a Muslim via Jihad, and the struggle for the advancement of the cause of Islam.  Of course, war for the addition of territory under Islamic rule aims at advancing the cause of Islam.  War upon the non-Believers is the very meaning of the word Jihad, if the word of Allah counts for anything to Muslims. (See Sura 47.   Reliance of the Traveller.)

An honest intellectual discussion, which is what we ought to expect from an imam, would have included Holy War as one of the meanings of Jihad held by Muslims.  Extremist Muslims may be extremists, but they are also Muslims, and by admission they hold the view that Jihad means Holy War.  The Muslims of ISIS as well as Saudi Arabia hold this view of Jihad, and if they are a minority, they are a crucial minority.

Jihad, the struggle for the advancement of Islam by an individual, favors the development of “extremism” both inside and outside Islamic territory.  If a Muslim conceives that his government is insufficiently Islamic, he is compelled by his religious beliefs to rebel against them, whether it be ostensibly Islamic or not.  That rebellion is his Jihad, his struggle for the advancement of Islam.

But we didn't get honest intellectual discussion from the imam; at least not honest as those raised in Hellenic reasoning would call honest.  The imam delivered his opinion or  his wishes, not facts; and he didn't say so, or at least that say so was not reported.


A review of the relevant passages of the Koran Sura 8 and Reliance of the Traveller makes it plain that, to Allah, Jihad means making war upon the non-Believers.  What the imam offered to the conference was a personal opinion at variance with the teaching of Allah.  (See article below on Saudi Savagery.)

One purpose of the conference on “Who is Mohammed?” was intended to quieten fears about the Muslim community in the midst of southern Ontario.  That community is numerically weak, and given Islam’s own pre-disposition towards minorities in its midst, local Muslims fear the western community in which they reside.  They understand western communities enough to know how to manipulate public opinion to their advantage, and how to do so while remaining faithful Muslims.  Recall the four terms of “No Word of a Lie,” and the fact that Muslim apologists condemn acts not fellow Muslims who commit the act.

A proper understanding of Jihad and of a Muslim’s requirement some time in his life to engage in Jihad is necessary for a westerner to evaluate the wisdom of allowing more Muslim immigrants to settle in Canada.  As the Muslim community gets numerically stronger, there will be calls to make the Canadian legal and political regime more sharia compliant.  As we have seen in France and Britain, Muslims will settle together in communities and run their own little sharia-compliant territory in the midst of a western country.  Members of these communities will engage in violence to enforce sharia-compliant behavior on the part of westerners, and will strike at those who offend Islam such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

The conference on “Who is Mohammed?” changed no minds.  The business of the real meaning of Jihad apparently made no references to the relevant passages in the Koran or the authority of Sharia law.  What was offered to the conference was intended to dull the wits of westerners who want to be comforted rather than confronted.

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Saudi Savagery

Vincent J. Curtis

9 Feb 15

From the UK newspaper, The Independent, written by Ben Tufft and published on 16 Jan 2015:

"Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim, a Burmese woman who resided in Saudi Arabia, was executed by sword on Monday after being dragged through the street and held down by four police officers.

She was convicted of the sexual abuse and murder of the seven-year-old step-daughter.

A video showed how it took three blows to complete the exectuion, while the woman screamed 'I did not kill.  I did not kill.'...

There are two ways to behead people according to Mohammed al-Saeedi, a human rights activist: 'One way is to inject the prisoner with painkillers to numb the pain, and the other is without the painkiller,... this woman was beheaded without painkillers - they wanted to make the pain more powerful for her.'"

Saudi Arabia is considered to be a key ally in the fight against ISIS.  Yet, as the home of Wahhabism, it is one of the leading sources of ideology that leads to violent Jihad.  Saudi Arabia contains the territory most significant to Islam: the cities of Medina and Mecca, and it's regime of law is strictly sharia.  It is by and under Sharia law that Saudi Arabia beheads and lashes people.

From Andrew McCarthy one learns from authorized English versions of the Koran, and Allah commands Muslims in Chapter 47 to "Therefore, when ye meet Unbelievers (in fight) smite their necks."

Explaining, "When one the fight (Jihad) is entered upon, carry it out with the utmost vigor, and strike home your blows at the most vital points (smite at their necks), both literally and figuratively.  You cannot wage war with kid gloves.

In Sura (or Chapter) 8, Allah exhorts, "I am with you: give firmness to the believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: Smite ye above their necks and smite ye all their fingertips off them."

In the authoritative English translation of Reliance of the Traveler the sharia manual endorsed by scholars in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, "Jihad means to war against non-Muslims."
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The authorities for the English translation of the Koran are the "King Fahd Holy Qur-an Printing Complex" and "Ministry of Hajj and Endowments."
The authorities for the English translation of Reliance of the Traveler are al-Azhar University and the Islamic Fiqh Academy.

Supreme Court Screws up the Law

Vincent J. Curtis

7 Feb 15

The Supreme Court of Canada last week overturned existing law and permitted assisted suicide on the grounds of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a clause which declares for the protection of life.  The Spectator editorially welcomed the decision because a retired colleague of the Spectator, Eric McGuinness, sought assisted suicide in Canada, was turned down, and ultimately gained the fate he sought in Switzerland.  The Spectator evidently approves of this suicidal kind of progressivism.

In addition to welcoming the decision, the editorial took a shot at Prmie Minister Stephen Harper, who opposes this kind of progressivism, and also at the leaders of the other two parties who have been ducking the issue.

Below is my response to the Spectator editorial of 7 Feb 15.


The decision by the Supreme Court to allow assisted suicide under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is extremely bad.  It turned the law on its head.  Not only is the reasoning profoundly unsound, but will involve the Court in endless cases legislating from the bench about who and whom and by what means and under what conditions exactly.  How many times have they gone around the horn on prostitution?

The purpose of the Charter is to protect rights, largely individual rights.  The individual right protected under Section 7 is the right to life, the right not to be killed.  Erroneous logic might get you to the point of saying that the individual right to life includes the right to choose one’s own death.  On that stretched basis, suicide, the killing of oneself, would not be a criminal offense.  But the Supreme Court decision enables assisted suicide, that is the external intervention of someone else in the killing of the person who wants to die.  Under the criminal code, helping to kill someone makes one an accessory to murder.  How will the courts and Parliament deal with that one?

If the defense against being an accessory is that the underlying act, the killing of oneself, is not a criminal offense, then there is no principled reason to limit the accessory to a physician.  Why not a nurse, for example?  A close friend?  These are some of the obvious consequences of turning the law on its head.

The Supreme Court is making such a mess of the law, Stephen Harper is fully justified in his rows with them.  As you observed, Harper has refrained from introducing socially divisive legislation that would be to the liking of a right-wing Christian and conservative constituency.  Well, now his hand is being forced, and you may not like the laws that his majority can force through before the next election.  Never mind the Notwithstanding Clause, how about a law that declares the Supreme Court to be vacant, enabling the Prime Minister to appoint a whole new set of judges, ones more congenial to his point of view!

I know Eric McGuinness has a special place in the hearts of Spec employees.  Columnist Susan Clairmont today laments that it was too bad that Eric didn’t live long enough to see this day.  Think about that sentiment for a minute!!  If Eric had had his way, he would have seen a lot less than he did!  That is what is wrong about assisted suicide is that life is always better than death.

If someone wants to off themselves, then they should off themselves.  Assisted suicide is about smearing the guilt of self-murder on society as a whole and not accepting it oneself.

McGuinness was wrong, and the Supreme Court was wrong.  The Charter Right to Life is just that: the right not to be killed.
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Destroy Israel and Terrorism Disappears, implies Imam

 

Vincent J. Curtis

 

6 Feb 15

 

I did not attend the Islamic conference that was held at the Hamilton Spectator auditorium last night, as most likely I would have been thrown out.  However, ace Spec reporter Daniel Nolan did attend, and reported on the event in an article headlined, “Terrorism tied to colonialism, says imam.”  The sub-headline read, “200 attend forum in Spec auditorium.”

 

The subject of the talk was “Who is Muhammad?” and according to the story featured three imams fielding questions about Islam and its prophet.

 

An audience member asked when the association between Islam and terrorism started.  The rest of the story consists of the answers the various imams gave to that question.

 

I cannot tell at this remove whether the question was planted or not, and how much of the evening was spent dealing with current political issues instead of the question at the point of the evening, namely “Who is Muhammed?”

 

Had I been either the moderator or one of the imams, I would have deferred answering the question on the grounds that it was not relevant to the question of the evening but would be glad to take it afterwards.  Evidently, that was not done.

 

It is the pith of the answer to that question from the audience that is revealing, and disturbing.  The answers to the question rehearsed the usual grievances that professional Muslims (and, probably, the private practicing ones as well) offer about the West.  There is the false accusation of colonialism, the U.S. intervention in Iran in 1953 that put Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi back onto the Peacock Throne, and general prejudice against brown people by white westerners here in Canada, for example.

 

What these answers say is that acts of terrorism, however evil the acts might be, are somehow justified or ultimately the fault of the West or westerners.

 

Imam Shabir Ali came right out and said it, “What has been seen is that this modern phenomenon of terrorism is a response to these greater powers…terrorists commit acts of terrorism in the name of Islam…because of this foreign interference.  Some of their beliefs may not be justified, but if we want to deal with terrorism effectively, one of the important factors is that modern, Western nations have to rethink their international policies.”

 

To the uninitiated, the remark about rethinking international policies means that Israel must be destroyed by western powers if westerners expect to live a quiet life free of Islamic terrorism.

 

The business of western colonialization of allegedly Muslim lands is a combination of arrant nonsense and special pleading.  Because Islam is special, what is or was once under the domination of Islam rightfully belongs to Islam, and that would include Andalusia, or modern-day Spain.  The heart of Arabia was never colonized by the British or the French.  It was colonized by Turkey, and was called the Ottoman Empire.  The Ottoman Empire was finally brought low by British Empire forces at the end of World War I, and several Arabs states came into being.

 

In the course of fighting the War, the British and French governments secretly negotiated in 1916 the “Sykes-Pico Agreement.”  By this agreement, the British and French governments delineated their respective spheres of influence in these otherwise ungoverned areas should the war end with the complete collapse of the Ottoman Empire.  As a result of this agreement and the favorable end of the war, France established Syria and Lebanon, while Great Britain established Transjordan, Palestine, Iraq, and Arabia, which soon became Saudi Arabia.  The governments of these countries during the 1920s and 1930s were heavily influenced by Britain and France, but these countries were never colonized as British India was or North America or Algeria were.  Such is the complaint of colonization.

 

Plainly put, it was morally wrong of Christian Europeans to exert such influence in the heart of Islamic territory.  And for that, revenge is permissible today by the excitable, according to Imam Shabir Ali.  The concept of Islamic territory being inviolable by Christians is at the heart of the complaint about the Crusades and Crusaders, which are also used to justify acts of terrorism.

 

The serious outcome of the evening was that Muslims who can speak authoritatively on behalf of Islam espouse Islam’s grievances against the West, justify terrorism on the grounds that Westerners have it coming, and offer the destruction of Israel as the salve which might temporarily  pacify excitable Muslim lads who will leave the West in peace.

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Minarets Rise over Berton's Spectator

The publisher of the Hamilton Spectator, Paul Berton, is hosting a conference at the Spectator building on the evening of February 5th, 2015, on the subject "Who was Mohammed?"  The conference is sponsored by local Muslim groups.

 

As noted elsewhere, Paul Berton is an Islamophile.  The conference in all likelihood will turn out to be not a familiarization session, but an effort at proselytizing - as noted previously.

 

The letter below was submitted to the Spectator on January 23rd, and as of this date has not been published.  Likely, it won't.

 

In regards to the general question of "Who was Mohammed?" the relevant answer today, as noted below, is: "It doesn't matter."  What matters today is what the Imams and Islamic scholars say Mohammed meant.  The ISIS killers who burned that Jordanian pilot alive went to great lengths to justify his killing, saying that he was not a Muslim; that he was an apostate; that he was a killer of Muslims himself - all the justifications for killing permitted under Islam.  ISIS killers care very much about their religion - which happens to be Islam.

 

Attendees at the conference should listen very carefully to the speakers and see if the killers themselves are damned as heretics or whether it is merely the gruesome act that is condemned.

 

RE:  Hussein Hamdani interview

RE:  Hillary Clinton says Canada, world must fight terrorist propaganda

 

Sirs;

 

The Spectator published an interesting interview of Mr. Hussein Hamdani.  Three telling questions I would like to have seen answered were not asked.  These are:

 

1.      Should Canadian law be more or less Sharia compliant?

2.      If the population of Canada were 50 % Muslim, would the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms be made more Sharia compliant?

3.      Since you, Mr. Hamdani, are not an Islamic scholar or an Imam, what weight would other Muslims place on your opinion of what Islam is or says?

 

The questions concerning Sharia are the real test of Islamic Supremacism.  Those who believe in the imposition of Sharia law are, whether they are violent or not, Islamic Supremacists; and Islamic Supremacism is the actual threat to Western Civilization.  The answers that Mr. Hamdani would give to questions 1 and 2 would be most illuminating.

 

The correct answer to question 3 is nothing, or next to nothing.  The consequence of that answer is that westerners can take no solace from what Mr. Hamdani says about Islam and the intentions of its adherents.  If other Muslims won`t listen to him about what Islam is or says, then his opinion is valueless to westerners.  Al Azhar University in Cairo, the Islamic scholars and Imams who advocate jihad are the ones to whom westerners need to pay attention, since those are the institutions and people who do say authoritatively what Islam is and says and that inspire ISIS, al Qaeda, and lone-wolf terrorists around the globe.

 

The problem for Mr. Hamdani is that, as a result of the scholarship of Al Azhar University, there is no principled distinction between a devout Muslim and an Islamic Supremacist.  A measure of one’s devoutness as a Muslim is the degree to which one supports the supremacy of Islam, the enforcement of Sharia law, and the submission of all to Allah.  And Mr. Hamdani is, apparently, a devout Muslim.

 

For the same reason, Hillary Clinton offers empty, worthless words when she says that Canada and the world must fight terrorist propaganda.  The objective of the Islamic scholars is the submission of all to Allah, or Islamic Supremacism.  This is achieved through jihad, and jihad need not be violent.  Thus, for a Westerner, to attack terrorist propaganda is to attack Islam itself because the terrorist propaganda is the self-same Islamic texts that devout Muslims rely on whether they be violent or not.  And for Clinton to say that democracy is the answer to Islamic violence, it flies in the face of the experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Since Sharia law is not amendable by a democratic vote, true democracy is impossible under a regime of Sharia law, and there is no mind-set to expect democracy to work.

 

Nobody blames the swamp when they are being set upon by mosquitos.  Initially, they blame the mosquitos.  After a while, however, getting rid of biting mosquitos means having to deal with the swamp.  The swamp is the habitat in which those noxious mosquitos breed and grow, and destruction of habitat is the surest way of making a species disappear.

 

The surest way for Western Civilization to avoid being bitten by mosquitos in future is to drain the swamp in their midst.

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Latham Hunter ‘Fesses Up

 

Vincent J. Curtis

 

4 Feb 15

 

I promise this will be my last posting on Latham Hunter.  I had hoped that my previous was my last, but in her column of 31 Jan 15, headlined “Education and Anger” she answered a lot of questions.  She ‘fessed up to being a neurotic.

 

Neurosis goes far to explain her obsession with hatred.  She thinks men hate and oppress women because at one time she hated and oppressed herself, a hatred which expressed itself in anorexia nervosa.

 

In her ‘fessing up article, Hunter says that “an affliction suffered so overwhelmingly by females shouldn’t be classified with illnesses like bipolar disorder, which is evenly divided among males and females, and depression, which is diagnosed in two females for every male (probably because men are less likely to seek help for depression than women.)”

 

She thus opposes the classification of anorexia as a kind of mental illness.

 

Let’s analyze this for a bit.  Anorexia is expressed as a refusal to eat, despite there being no biological reason for such refusal.  Not being biological, only mental is left as a cause, and thus it is reasonable to say that the root cause of anorexia is mental.  Hunter’s own successful treatment for anorexia consisted of psychological counselling, which serves as confirmatory evidence for the classification.  Nevertheless, Hunter rejects the obvious for the spurious reason that men and women ought to be equally subject to it.

 

Men and women are not equally subject to pregnancy.  Hunter apparently has not thought that post-partum depression should affect females and not males at all, and PMS and menopause are afflictions known to affect women exclusively.  Even her comment that women seek help for depression at twice the rate that men do says that there is something different mentally between men and women; and still she refuses to see it.  Her ideological prejudice that men and women ought to be absolutely equal in every respect forces her to think of excuses to explain away the real world.  Her anger arises from the real world contradicting her prejudices at every turn.

 

How toxic is this ideological frame of reference?  “Looking at the politics of things like food and gender not only became passion, it became my career.”  There is politics to food, and politics to gender?  “Wow,” is all I can say.  That would not be my first association.

 

She says of anorexia and its sufferers, “…as if the disorder were a personal thing with the sufferer, rather than misogyny, at its root.  And it’s the sufferer who bears the responsibility for ‘getting better’ when in fact we should all bear the weight of the gargantuan task….”

 

Got that?  The cause of anorexia is not mental in the sufferer, but misogyny; and the sufferer is relieved of the responsibility for getting better because it is society as a whole that ‘ought to bear the weight of the gargantuan task.’  (A little bit Freudian slip in that irony, comparing anorexia with gargantuan and bearing weight.)  Since even women are included in ‘we all should bear the weight…’ then women also are responsible for misogyny.  So if you suffer from anorexia, blame others; and women are also responsible for misogyny, in the same sense that men are.  Such is the reasoning at the root of her claim.

 

It is only in this climate of victimhood that a person with the reasoning power of Latham Hunter could get a job of professor.  Luckily, that job is not in the Math department, or Engineering, or one of the hard sciences.  Her field of study is so soft that the name of the discipline doesn’t even end in –ology.

 

Hunter has managed to turn her personal demons into an ideology and a job.  Good for her.  Not good for her students.  I suspect they are bullied if need be into regurgitating Hunter’s prejudices if they expect to pass her improbable courses.

 

Let me end this subject with a positive word for Dr. Hunter.  In a previous column she admitted to being a mother of five.  That is a fantastic thing in my books, especially in this day and age of self-hatred by westerners.  Modern environmentalism holds that the spread of westerners is a curse upon the earth, and here the real humanity of Hunter overcame her political dispositions.  Her children probably are all good looking and intelligent.  She has managed a career and motherhood.  When all is said and done, the greatest thing in her life will be her children and grandchildren, and that is the way it should be.  And politics be damned.

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