Man arrested in New York, two felonies for flushing Quran..

Here is my favorite journalist Christopher Hitchen's take on it:


http://www.slate.com/id/2171371/fr/flyout
God-Fearing People: Why are we so scared of offending Muslims?
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, July 30, 2007, at 12:33 PM ET

During the greater part of last week, Slate's sister site On Faith (it is jointly produced by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, both owned by the Washington Post Co., which also owns Slate) gave itself over to a discussion about the religion of Islam. As usual in such cases, the search for "moderate" versions of this faith was under way before the true argument had even begun. If I were a Muslim myself, I think that this search would be the most "offensive" part of the business. Why must I prove that my deepest belief is compatible with moderation?

Unless I am wrong, a sincere Muslim need only affirm that there is one god, and only one, and that the Prophet Mohammed was his messenger, bringing thereby the final words of God to humanity. Certain practices are supposed to follow this affirmation, including a commitment to pray five times a day, a promise to pay a visit to Mecca if such a trip should be possible, fasting during Ramadan, and a pious vow to give alms to the needy. The existence of djinns, or devils, is hard to disavow because it was affirmed by the prophet. An obligation of jihad is sometimes mentioned, and some quite intelligent people argue about whether "holy war" is meant to mean a personal struggle or a political one. No real Islamic authority exists to decide this question, and those for whom the personal is highly political have recently become rather notorious.

Thus, Islamic belief, however simply or modestly it may be stated, is an extreme position to begin with. No human being can possibly claim to know that there is a God at all, or that there are, or were, any other gods to be repudiated. And when these ontological claims have collided, as they must, with their logical limits, it is even further beyond the cognitive capacity of any person to claim without embarrassment that the lord of creation spoke his ultimate words to an unlettered merchant in seventh-century Arabia. Those who utter such fantastic braggings, however many times a day they do so, can by definition have no idea what they are talking about. (I hasten to add that those who boast of knowing about Moses parting the Red Sea, or about a virgin with a huge tummy, are in exactly the same position.) Finally, it turns out to be impossible to determine whether jihad means more alms-giving or yet more zealous massacre of, say, Shiite Muslims.

Why, then, should we be commanded to "respect" those who insist that they alone know something that is both unknowable and unfalsifiable? Something, furthermore, that can turn in an instant into a license for murder and rape? As one who has occasionally challenged Islamic propaganda in public and been told that I have thereby "insulted 1.5 billion Muslims," I can say what I suspect—which is that there is an unmistakable note of menace behind that claim. No, I do not think for a moment that Mohammed took a "night journey" to Jerusalem on a winged horse. And I do not care if 10 billion people intone the contrary. Nor should I have to. But the plain fact is that the believable threat of violence undergirds the Muslim demand for "respect."

Before me is a recent report that a student at Pace University in New York City has been arrested for a hate crime in consequence of an alleged dumping of the Quran. Nothing repels me more than the burning or desecration of books, and if, for example, this was a volume from a public or university library, I would hope that its mistreatment would constitute a misdemeanor at the very least. But if I choose to spit on a copy of the writings of Ayn Rand or Karl Marx or James Joyce, that is entirely my business. When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law, except perhaps the one concerning litter. Why do we not make this distinction in the case of the Quran? We do so simply out of fear, and because the fanatical believers in that particular holy book have proved time and again that they mean business when it comes to intimidation. Surely that should be to their discredit rather than their credit. Should not the "moderate" imams of On Faith have been asked in direct terms whether they are, or are not, negotiating with a gun on the table?

The Pace University incident becomes even more ludicrous and sinister when it is recalled that Islamists are the current leaders in the global book-burning competition. After the rumor of a Quran down the toilet in Guantanamo was irresponsibly spread, a mob in Afghanistan burned down an ancient library that (as President Hamid Karzai pointed out dryly) contained several ancient copies of the same book. Not content with igniting copies of The Satanic Verses, Islamist lynch parties demanded the burning of its author as well. Many distinguished authors, Muslim and non-Muslim, are dead or in hiding because of the words they have put on pages concerning the unbelievable claims of Islam. And it is to appease such a spirit of persecution and intolerance that a student in New York City has been arrested for an expression, however vulgar, of an opinion.

This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.

It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. For all I know, this commonplace observation could be true. But, if so, it must cut both ways. How about reminding the Islamists that, by their mad policy in Kashmir and elsewhere, they have made deadly enemies of a billion Indian Hindus? Is there no danger that the massacre of Iraqi and Lebanese Christians, or the threatened murder of all Jews, will cause an equal and opposite response? Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.

 

Oh and here is The Muslim Brotherhood's American organization called "CAIR", and their delight over the arrests.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-30-2007/0004635479&EDATE=
"We commend the NYPD for its appropriate handling of this case," said
CAIR-NY Civil Rights Coordinator Aliya Latif. "We must all be concerned
when any actions cross the line from protected free speech to acts designed
to intimidate. Just as there is a difference between someone burning a
cross in their own backyard and burning that same cross in the yard of an
African- American family, there is a difference between desecrating a
religious text in a private setting and doing so in a setting that will
create a hostile learning environment."


Also creating a hostile learning environment in New York: Islamic Terrorism.

And from the Conservative pundits, who are right on top of this, widespread condemnation. Uh, right?

Actually, Bill O'Reilly has come out on the side of CAIR on this one, felony charges and all. Same for Conservative radio guy Mike Gallagher. Way to stick up for your fellow Americans, douchebags.

 

1) I get a feeling you have hostility against religious people?
Some how I wonder if you would tolerate being around religious people or if you would join the ACLU and fight against religious people.
Only atheists are as smart as you religious people are stupid?
2) Is that Cindy Shehan in your picture?
3) If that is Cindy Shehan than at least I know where you are coming from.

The thing that I hate the most about these boards is that it is better to know where people sit before they tell you where they stand.
It really stinks when you are having conversations with people about subjects and they tip toe around their positions.
The guessing game that goes on here aint no fun.

Just some food for thought!

 

Very good questions.

"Hate" crimes should not exist in America. For a country that values freedom, we sure are celebrating weak-minded folks with inferiority complexes.

This aggravates me to a level that precludes me even typing out my thoughts.

It's such an inherently illogical proposition that I can't get my mind around it.

 

Fascinating.

PS: Look closer into the Sheehan picture. If you don't get the joke in 5 minutes, pm me and I'll draw a big circely arrow thingy pointing to the other woman's middle finger.

 

usm tiger's hitchens column echoed my points:

"When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law, except perhaps the one concerning litter. Why do we not make this distinction in the case of the Quran? We do so simply out of fear"

that is certainly a valid point. it is absurd that we have taken some views and put them aside and given them special protection from being insulted. especially in the case of islam where we are cowards, and out leaders claim that these killers are extremists have perverted the "real" "peaceful" islam. please. the real islam, the real faith, any faith, is what you make of it.

i have been screaming this for a long time, that i wish all views were considered by the mainstream and questioned with the a consistent level of ridicule or respect. like hitchens mentioned, the bible and the koran are not the only books that people are invested in. we are perfectly willing to taunt the college senior who is just getting throu his 2 year long ayn rand phase. we all laugh collectively as a society at the absurdity of tom cruise's status as a high shaman of scietology. but so few of us are willing to drop a bomb where it belongs, on the concept of faith itself.

not only are we not wiling to hold faith up to the same scrutiny that we do any other method of acquiring knowledge, but we go the opposite direction, affording them special protections, as if they bring some inherent value to society. now i know you fellas do not buy my perspective that faith hurts the world. but at least most americans ought to be able to accept that islam in particular is a terrible scourge. that we cannot be more open about that is tragic.

 

i took a guess that you typed "angry muslims" into google image search and this is what you got. sure enough, it is the first image listed. there certainly was no shortage of angry sand N's to choose from.

 

Actually, I searched for Islamic Rage Boy. Check him out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_Boy

 

Islam is based on hate. Let's go ahead and outlaw Islam if we're looking into hate crimes.

Not long ago I went to several of the online-Quran sites to look for the often quoted orders to kill Jews and Infidels....couldn't find it. Then I noticed that, on each site, only about half of the Quran was included. That garbage belongs in a toilet.