RUTHFULLY YOURS

Who can forget the clueless thugs protesting last May in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, holding up their brand new shiny placards––mmmm, where did those pricey things come from?––and expressing rage at….what?

Not at the lack of esteem they believed white America owed to the black-lives-matter movement.
Not at the shooting a year earlier of Michael Brown (for which police officer Darren Wilson was exonerated by a Grand Jury) or the phony “hands-up/don’t shoot” mantra.
Not at the devastating fact that under Barack Obama the unemployment figures for African-Americans were––and remain––at record sky-high levels. According to Larry Elder at Townhall.com, “By every key economic measurement, blacks are worse off under Obama…in some cases, far worse off.”
Not at the tragic fact that black-on-black crime was––and remains––the single biggest killer in the black community (other than abortion).
Oh no. They were protesting because the anarchic, hate-America moneybags who bribed or rather enticed them to show up and act out didn’t pay them! Reportedly, some of the protesters “who looted, rioted, burned buildings and overturned police cars….were promised up to $5,000 per month to join the protests.”

That’s right, according to Newsmax.com, “Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), the successor group to the now-bankrupt St. Louis branch of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), stiffed the protesters.”

So much for the high-minded ideology that drove these unemployed know-nothings into the streets!

OLD BOTTLE, SAME WINE
This is exactly what we just witnessed in Chicago on Friday night, March 11th, as a bunch of protestors––both black and white––were convinced for a pittance or for a pile of dough to act like hyperactive children off their Ritalin in order to disrupt a massive rally, anticipated to be attended by over 25,000, for presidential-frontrunner Donald J. Trump. It was hilarious to see the protestors, when asked by reporters why they were there, robotically announce, “I’d rather not give my reasons.” Translation: I have no clue why I’m here, but I’m making a few bucks, so what the heck!

The venue was perfect, wasn’t it?––the home of the arch community organizer Barack Obama, who before his ignominious, race-baiting, hate-whitey, loathe-the-opposition tenure in the White House, specialized in fomenting the same kind of protests, almost all of them to bring down “the man.” The goal, of course, has always been to extort money from individuals or corporations perceived to be “racist,” to create or reinforce in the protestors the notion that they are perpetual victims, and to convince them to vote for Democrats who promise to address their grievances––but never do. The net result: The cities in America with the highest crime rates share one thing in common––each one has a Democrat mayor!

My only minor quarrel with what Donald Trump said regarding Islamic “hatred” for the West (see the prior post) involves his assertion that it is “hard to tell who’s who” – i.e., to sort out anti-Western from pro-Western Muslims.

Trump is right in the sense that (a) the American tradition frowns on examining people about their religious beliefs (or even on whether beliefs that they regard as “religious” necessarily are), and (b) even if we conducted such examinations, respondents who are hostile to us can always lie about their true sentiments. Nevertheless, sharia (Islamic law) is useful here.

Sharia is antithetical to Western principles and American constitutional law in fundamental ways. (I have addressed this many times, see, e.g., here.) A Muslim who is overtly sharia-adherent and believes sharia should be adopted as the law of the land is highly likely to be hostile to Western culture. A Muslim who is not overtly sharia-adherent and who does not favor its imposition as governing law is very likely to be pro-Western. (See, e.g., my 2011 column on the “Mapping Sharia” study.)

I am not as sheepish as Republicans tend to be about the propriety of examining the sharia adherence of Muslim aliens who want to enter the United States. The vast majority of sharia seeks to control matters we in the West regard as the province of civil and criminal law, not religious belief. Plus, even if sharia were mainly about religious belief, aliens who want to enter our country have no First Amendment right against questioning by our government.

I’m also not as pessimistic as many commentators about the potential effectiveness of such examinations. To those who say the respondents will lie, I say (a) government interrogators are trained to detect lying; (b) the government is often able to prove lying beyond a reasonable doubt even when the government bears the burden of proof and the person accused of lying is presumed innocent; and (c) we are dealing here with the opposite situation: The burden is on the alien to prove he merits entry into our country, there is no presumption of innocence, and the government does not need a reason to keep a suspected threat out, much less bear a burden of proving that its suspicions are valid. If the government suspects a Muslim alien is lying or is otherwise a threat, the alien should be denied entry, period.

In an interview by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Donald Trump was asked whether he thought “Islam is at war with the West.” He replied, “I think Islam hates us,” adding that there is such a “tremendous” and “unbelievable” amount of “hatred” that we must “get to the bottom of” it. But when Cooper pushed him, it became clear that Trump was far less interested in getting to the bottom of it than shielding the country from its consequences.

Cooper pressed Trump about whether this “hatred” was inherent “in Islam itself?” Trump answered, “You’re going to have to figure that out.” He went on to opine that the cause was less important than what we do to protect ourselves: “We have to be very vigilant, we have to be very careful, and we can’t allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States and of people who are not Muslim.”

Cooper, however, continued homing in on the root cause of the hatred: “Is there a war between the West and radical Islam, or is there a war between the West and Islam itself?”

Trump responded, “It’s radical, but it’s very hard to define, it’s very hard to separate because you don’t know who’s who.”

Before I address Trump’s remarks on Islam (in this post and a second one that follows), let’s clear away the underbrush. I am a Cruz supporter. I also do not have a view about whether Trump’s comments reflect what he really thinks or what he thinks people want to hear. On the matter of Trump’s candor, I lean more toward Kevin than Camille Paglia, but for present purposes it is beside the point. My objective here is twofold: (1) to assess what Trump said; and (2) to urge other candidates not to condemn it just because Trump, who often says condemnable things, is the one who said it. Already, the usual suspects are attacking Trump as a bigot and demanding that other candidates do likewise. That would be a mistake. One needn’t be a Trump supporter to see that there is a lot more right than wrong in his remarks.