RUTHFULLY YOURS

In challenging my article about Marine Le Pen’s election loss, Michael van der Galien accuses me of “overlooking one rather important detail: the Front National is simply a horrendous party” with a dark past. Yes, it is; the media haven’t been shy about reporting on this subject; everybody who cared about this election has already heard every last particular, and I didn’t see any need to go through it all one more time.

Nor am I unaware of the party’s essentially socialist platform, its unfortunate support for what Galien quite rightly calls “France’s untenable and unaffordable welfare state.” Presumably by way of summing up my thesis, Galien writes:

Yes, yes, I’m aware that we all have to celebrate the rise of populism, and yes, to some degree those parties certainly have an important role to play in modern Europe. Even if you disagree with Le Pen’s policy ideas, you can at least respect her role as a battering ram against political correctness.

No, my concern isn’t with supporting populism per se. I am no fan either of the National Front (FN) or of Ms. Le Pen. My overwhelming interest is, quite simply, in standing up against the Islamization of Europe.

Yes, I wish Le Pen had more sensible views on the French welfare state; I wish her party didn’t have such an ugly history. But there were two choices in this run-off election, and only one of them was promising to strive to keep France from becoming overwhelmed by Islam.

Le Pen’s opponent, Macron, has said nothing to indicate that he considers France’s Islamization a problem. On the contrary, if anything he’s an outspoken enthusiast for the Religion of Peace. According to former Le Monde journalist Yves Mamou, “Macron’s political movement has largely been infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood militants.” Like the politicians in Stockholm who have done so much to drag Sweden down the drain, Macron has denied that his own country has a culture of its own that is worth defending: “French culture does not exist, there is a culture in France and it is diverse.”

Last October, after terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice, Macron, according to Reuters, “said…that France had sometimes made mistakes in unfairly targeting Muslims, suggesting the country could be less stringent in applying its rules on secularism.” Reuters quoted Macron verbatim: “No religion is a problem in France today.”

Six months later, after a jihadist murdered a policeman on the Champs Élyssés, Macron gave a TV interview in which, as Gavin Mortimer noted in the Spectator, he “couldn’t bring himself to utter the word ‘Islamic’ until the 14th minute of his interview, and then it was in the context of what has been happening in Syria.” After briefly “offering his condolences to the dead policeman,” Macron “spent most of his time discussing education, tax and whether there is such a thing as French culture. Not really, concluded Macron, who said the richness of France lies in its diversity.”

Intimately connected with this refusal to criticize either Islam or Islamization is Macron’s strong loyalty to the European Union – which has steadily drained power from the people of Europe while encouraging disastrous immigration policies that have never been put to a public vote. So high is Macron on the EU that when he stepped out at his campaign headquarters to celebrate his election victory, the music playing was not La Marseillaise but the EU anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

Galien writes: “It must give American ‘nationalists’ a great feeling of superiority to simply declare that Europeans have surrendered to political correctness and have forgotten who they are.” Since Galien is replying to my article, I assume he is suggesting here that I, personally, take some kind of pleasure in the political correctness of too many European voters and their failure to protect their countries from being overwhelmed by an alien and hostile culture. CONTINUE AT SITE

South Korean voters turned out in record numbers Tuesday, and early returns showed leftist Moon Jae-in leading with a comfortable plurality to become the next President. The left turn is understandable after the impeachment of Park Geun-hye for corruption, but it will complicate U.S. efforts to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear-missile threat.

Mr. Moon was leading as we went to press with about 40% of the popular vote, as he took advantage of a divided center-right majority. Ms. Park’s downfall split the conservative Saenuri Party, and her former supporters were divided between two candidates who each received more than 20% support.

Ms. Park was wise regarding North Korea but her domestic failures opened the door to Mr. Moon, a human-rights lawyer. Prosecutors have indicted her on 18 counts of bribery and abuse of power, and the revelations have sparked a backlash against the country’s largest companies, the chaebol. Mr. Moon has promised long-overdue reforms to create a level playing field for smaller companies.

But instead of cutting the government’s role in the economy, the true source of corruption, Mr. Moon has pledged fresh intervention. He wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and large companies, increase the minimum wage, and force companies to give temporary workers permanent status and reduce working hours. The French Socialists would approve.

Mr. Moon’s desire to appease North Korea marks a return to the Sunshine Policy that failed in the mid-2000s when he was an aide to center-left President Roh Moo-hyun. Mr. Moon wants to pursue reunification based on economic integration, offering a formal peace process if the North will give up its nuclear weapons. He also wants to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Zone, which provided the North with $100 million a year in hard currency until its closure in 2016.

People have, it seems, often been arrested or detained on the basis of a rumor; then convicted without trial, counsel or often even the chance to mount a defense.

As Amnesty International points out, “In many countries where people were sentenced to death or executed, the proceedings did not meet international fair trial standards. In some cases, this included the extraction of ‘confessions’ through torture or other ill-treatment”.

The laws under which these people are sentenced to death are often not only vague and open to interpretation. Charges that warrant the death penalty, for instance, include being “corrupt on earth”, “enemies of Allah on Earth”, or alleged “crimes against chastity”. What exactly does “corrupt on earth” or “enemies of Allah on Earth” mean?

Just how strict and brutal it is to enforce Islamic law, sharia, has now been revealed by Amnesty International.

Amnesty’s study, which details the number of reported executions around the world, clearly maps out the most at-risk populations. Lands ruled predominantly by sharia are apparently the most vulnerable to multitudes of executions without fair trials. At the top of the list, with the most executions, are those nations that enforce Islamic sharia law. Despite many human rights violations, these nations, apparently undeterred, continue to execute their citizens.

Sharia makes those in authority infallible and untouchable. Therefore, whatever the government or those in power deem to be “just” can be carried out without question or consequence. Under sharia law and the Islamic penal code, executions can be carried out in sickening forms. Those convicted may be beheaded, hanged, stoned, or shot to death.

As disturbing as the numbers in the report may be, they do not represent the reality that the citizens in these nations across the world face every day. There is, evidently, a connection between radical Islamist governments and extremist groups. The report does not include the gruesome executions that are carried out on a regular basis by extremist Islamist groups and non-state fundamentalists, such as members of the Islamic State (ISIS) and their affiliated groups.