RUTHFULLY YOURS

I switched to CNN to find out the ‘true facts’ in the aftermath of what New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, had perceptively described as “an intentional act.” First, I was reassured by a ‘terrorism expert’ that the incident was most unlikely to have been a terrorist act, otherwise de Blasio would not have said at his news conference that there was no evidence of it. Seems logical, I thought dimwittedly. But, at the same time as being reassured on the one hand, I was alarmed by the suggestion, repeated on my count on six or seven occasions, that a toolbox near the scene could have been responsible; presumably by spontaneously exploding.

I have two toolboxes. You can image my feelings of trepidation at ever again visiting my storeroom, where they are kept. However, I took my courage in my hands and posted a notice on the door. “Beware!”, it says, “Approach with caution, potentially-explosive toolboxes inside.”

You think I am making this up. I am not imaginative enough to make it up. I kid you not — CNN did indeed proffer the suggestion, again and again, that a toolbox was the potential culprit. Most of the media, in the greatest nation the world has ever seen, is now so hopelessly biased in favour of the Religion of Peace™ that reporters act like blithering idiots without a hint of intelligent self-reflection or embarrassment. Donald Trump stands alone, a giant, against the crumbling of our civilisation for which the US media is a standardbearer.

The media here in Australia tries to match its US counterpart in the race to the bottom but still has a way to go. Don’t worry, they will get there. In the meantime, the lack of objectivity when it comes to anything Islamic is evident enough. This brings me to Pauline Hanson’s maiden Senate speech. After reading about this so-called ‘bigoted’ speech in the media I thought I would read it myself.

A first thing to say, with due respect to Ms Hanson, is that she is undoubtedly employing a good speech writer. It is a very well put together speech. “Of course, I don’t agree with all of it.” This isn’t me folks. It is the obligatory weasel line of those conservatives who ‘defend to the death’ her right to speak her mind; and to hell with 18C.  For example, Tim Wilson was at it in The Australian (22 September). “There are certainly sections of her speech that legitimately raised eyebrows.” Which sections, Tim?

There are two media camps: Those who damn her unreservedly — whatever she says — and those faint-hearted conservatives who give themselves a blank get-out-of-jail card. Some of what she says is okay, they say, and some is not. Some they agree with, some they don’t. The key here is not specifying which parts they agree with and which they don’t.

Hanson’s speech covers four broad areas of concern: the extent of foreign investment, the growth in the costs of welfare and healthcare, injustices within the family law system, and immigration. It would be nice, would it not, if those conservatives who disagreed with some of what she says identified precisely which parts.

Seldom does anybody agree with everything someone else says. To say that you don’t agree with everything someone says, without specifying what you disagree with, is trivial beyond words. Let’s be clear, if her partial critics disagreed only with her stance on foreign investment, and/or on welfare and/or on family law, they would say so. No, it is immigration, and those dreadful charges which might be laid of bigotry and Islamophobia, which lie behind their constructive ambiguity.

Hanson is clear. She calls for stopping further Muslim immigration, for banning the burqa, for no further building of mosques or Islamic schools, for monitoring those already existing, and for disallowing sharia law. I agree with all of this unambiguously. Like Pauline Hanson, I do not believe that adherence to the tenets of Islam is compatible with our Western secular values of religious tolerance, lifestyle tolerance, gender equality, and the primacy and universal application of parliamentary law.

There it is! And I am not the least bigoted. I’ll prove it. I don’t mind atheism, paganism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism and many other isms. As a Christian and beneficiary of The Enlightenment I draw the line at Islam out of self-preservation.

I know that most of the Australian media already exist in a latent state of dhimmitude, as in the US. And will, sooner or later, be describing Islamic terrorist bombs as exploding toolboxes. What I want to know before it is too late and the game is totally lost is where the few conservative commentators that we still have precisely stand.

I saw Andrew Bolt the other night remaining largely silent as one of his guests was given a ranting platform to claim that 99.9% (or was it 99.999 per cent?) of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are peaceful and moderate (or words to that effect). He knew that because the Indonesia students he taught were admirable people. “Sad” was the way he described a recent Essential Report poll which shows that 49% of Australians would like to stop Muslim immigration. Give us a break; those of us with at least half a brain.

That 49% might know a few things. They might know of the imposition of strict sharia law in the Indonesian province of Aceh. Know of Pew poll after Pew poll demonstrating the medieval views of vast swathes of the Muslim world. Know about no-go Muslim ghettos in Europe. Know about Rotherham and its child-groomers and rapists. Know about bigamy, child brides and FGM. Know that thousands upon thousands of terrorist barbarities committed by Muslims over the past twenty years do not spring from nothing and suspect, rightly, because they are not useful idiots, that it must have something to do with Islam.