Aged coffee

Now and again I trip down memory lane to old essays I wrote years ago on my erstwhile blog, The Hesperado (which at times contain even older links that lead me into my former life as a commenter on Jihad Watch back in the mists of time); and while doing so I find lots of stuff I wrote that's good (to toot my own horn), occasionally I find an essay that rises even above that. At the same time, I marvel at how "evolved" I was even nearly a decade ago -- evolved that is, in terms of the problem of Islam.

One such essay, from 2013, I reproduce here:

The dreaded "A" word

That word my title refers to is "All" -- as in "all Muslims".

Even back then, I see I had made the connection between the problem of Islam and the problem of all Muslims, and proceeded to delve in detail into a complex of related points. And what really surprised me was that in that essay, I linked to an old Jihad Watch comments field from 2010, where even then I was on my mark as I fended off a robust Counter-Jihadist's underlying nougat of softness.

The essay should be read in its entirety, including that older link, which I denoted as my "scintillating rebuttal" of that Ol' Softy.

"Money can't buy me Jihad..."

It's been years since Hugh Fitzgerald has trotted out his "Esdrujula Elves".  Years ago, Hugh articulated a supposed explanation for why Westerners would either defend Islam, or even jump ship altogether by converting to Islam -- and for each reason, he came up with a handy label, each word following the obscure syntactical rule known as esdrújulo, which means a word with 3 or more syllables is to be accented on the penultimate syllable.

Thus, if the reader thinks or, or better yet speaks out, words such as Timidity, Cupidity, or Stupidity, he will see that the accent falls on the second to last syllable.  Anyway, Hugh just used that device to make his framework more mnemonic and alliterative. The important thing, of course, is the meaning of those words.

Over the years, I have written a few essays on the problem with Hugh's Esdrújulo Explanation, and the reader can consult those for deeper analysis.  But the flaw in the ointment here is not really all that complicated.  Hugh purports to be explaining why it is that Westerners either defend Islam or even convert to it by adverting to motivations like "he did it for the money" (Cupidity), or "he does it out of fear" (Timidity -- either the fear of violating political correctness or the more subconscious fear of Muslims exploding); or "he does it because he's ignorant of Islam and generally dumb" (Stupidity). 

As my essays linked above argue in detail, these are not really explanations; they function more as superficial characteristics that end up begging the question, when you think about them for more than a few seconds.  The main reason for this deficiency is two-fold:

1) the abysmal culture of ethics of Islam

2) the relative superiority of the culture of Western ethics.

Thus, unless the Westerner in question is a criminal sociopath slash (pun intended) psychopath, he or she would never defend Islam much less convert to it for money or sex -- knowingly -- unless he or she hates the West and wants to see Islam replace it.

With Stupidity and Timidity, there's a little more leeway; but the former quickly becomes complicated by innumerable Westerners one could cite who are reasonably (if not, at times, remarkably) intelligent, yet still defend Islam (or even convert to it), while the latter -- when it concerns the rational fear of Muslims -- is just a matter of the sometimes reasonable response of someone scared for their life. While we can say it would be laudable for the timid Westerner to go boldly forward regardless of the threat of death and/or torture, it would be imprudent to castigate the person for being afraid.

In Hugh's latest esdrújulo spasm, he quite clearly, even bluntly, conjectures that what motivated two recent Western converts to Islam -- two relatively intelligent men who had been part of sorta kinda anti-Islam movements in the Netherlands -- was likely sex and or money (both I suppose would fall under "Cupidity").  That can't be the real reason; since it is reasonable to suppose that when a Westerner knows how evil, dangerous and anti-Western Islam is, then he or she would not join it for sex or money (or any other reason). The real reason why these Westerners did so was because they hate their own West and have been profoundly detached from their own West as a consequence -- psychically and spiritually. Along comes Islam, which also hates the West, and has a rich, complex, diverse culture of its own complete with an absolute explanation of life and a social network of comraderie -- the perfect vehicle for the self-hating Westerner (whether extreme Left or extreme Right) to realize his full potential for self-hatred, by turning his Western Self into a hated Other, from the vantage point of having submitted to being adopted by the Mother of All Others, Islam.

The difference between Muslims and Christians ain't like coffee vs. tea...

I saw this amusing and interesting quote, from a site that reproduced an old newspaper article about the Beatles circa 1966.

...Lennon’s earlier remarks referencing Jesus [specifically, he said that the Beatles are "more popular than Jesus"] drew waves of criticism from Americans including some of the group’s fan base. 

A similar response from local newspaper subscribers was inevitable. “The Christian right of Oak Harbor responded quite strongly,” Funk recalls. “One woman addressed a letter to City Hall saying, ‘Let Mr. Funk know I cancelled my subscription’.” 

Compare that reaction to Muslims rioting all over the world and killing people over Mohammed t-shirts, not even a half century ago, but in the 21st freaking century.

Muslim Roulette

Some (maybe most, possibly all) of my readers may wonder why I pick on Robert Spencer so much.

This old essay of mine I published nearly 8 years ago on my former blog, The Hesperado, is one of literally dozens I wrote -- and one of the better ones, if I don't say so myself -- analyzing the reasons why:

I guess it's not so dire a dilemma after all, eh Bob...?

Note that it is essentially the second part of a 2-part essay; and needless to say, part 1 should also be read -- not to mention all the internal links in both parts should be followed up by my diligent readers (that is, if they want to fully appreciate my actual position -- as opposed to a straw man of my position -- on this and related matters).

"Hey, Flo, this coffee smells a little hinky...!"

Over the years, and increasingly (it seems) recently, Jihad Watch has had quite a few guest columns from irregulars.  Sometimes (like for example with a Joshua Winston or Nicolai Sennels) they contribute many articles from time to time; other authors only seem to contribute once.

Like this one:

"From Disillusioned Muslim to Christian Arab Zionist" by Rami Dabbas.

Sounds good so far (though one must keep one's guard up).

But wouldn't you know it, he has to type stuff in his first paragraph that sound fishy:

My name is Rami Dabbas. I was born in 1989 in what is now the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, to a non-practicing Muslim Arab father and a Russian mother. When I was three years old, we moved to Jordan, and I was raised in a non-religious home.

A "non-practicing Muslim" father in Kazakhstan?  Sure, there may well exist those; but we need to know more to explain this, which of course Rami doesn't provide.  And raised in Jordan "in a non-religious home"?  Ditto. (And he even throws in a mention of a "Buddhist center" in Amman, Jordan).

What's being subtly telegraphed here is how there supposedly exists a vaguely amorphous demographic of effectively non-Muslim Muslims.

But is there such a demographic on a large enough scale to make a difference to the metastasizing problem of Islam around the world?

Another depressing shot...

 

About an "ex"-al Qaeda operative -- recently granted asylum (naturally) by Great Britain -- who claims that al Qaeda is un-Islamic, Robert Spencer opines:

...now he says that al-Qaeda’s jihad is un-Islamic, without explaining with reference to the Qur’an and the Sunnah why exactly that is so — which is what would need to be done if he hopes to dissuade young Muslims from joining the group.

Which raises the screamingly reasonable question: Who gives a flying fitna what "needs to be done" to "dissuade" "young Muslims" from joining Al Qaeda, and what this Mohammedan "hopes" to do? That's the least significant aspect we should be digesting about this Muslim operative. What we should be doing is working to wake up our fellow Westerners to the long-term danger of mainstream Islam. Not to mention that we -- "in the Counter-Jihad" -- should have reasonably concluded long ago that such a "need" is a pipe dream. And not only a pipe dream, but positively deleterious to what (one would think) is the Prime Directive of the Counter-Jihad: Again, to wake up the majority of our fellow Westerners still pleasantly sleep-walking through this protracted catastrophe of a global revival of Islam.

Talk about the eye off the ball...  One would grievingly expect a pundit of the broader Western Mainstream to spout such retrograde stuff, not a Leader of the Counter-Jihad (though as it is really a Counter-Jihad Mainstream, one should no longer be surprised...).

Just under the wire...

In the back of my mind, I had the idea to use a deliciously cheeky pic of Robert Blake I had found (giving the finger to the camera), and I hit on putting it on my now defunct former blog, The Hesperado.  I almost forgot that today is the one year anniversary of the last post I put up there. Just barely, I remembered at 10 p.m. on the the night before, and I got the post in at 12 midnight, February 21, 2019, one year after my final posting there.

My last two postings there had Ol' Blue Eyes and Deano, their world-weary yet innately savvy visages somehow appropriate to my sense of jaded Islamonnui, ever since I "snapped" a couple of years ago, and morphed from The Hesperado into The Desperado.  But something had seemed missing to definitively cap it off; and what better than to have Barretta flippin' the bird.

The other thing I wanted to mention here is that I was pleased to note that on that first page of that ol' Bessie Lou of a former blog, as I scrolled down, I could see at the very bottom, yet still there on the first page (for those readers who don't venture further), two important posts about the shameful treatment the Counter-Jihad (including starlets who hover around it, like Jordan Peterson) subjected Faith Goldy to.

Robert Spencer still can surprise...

... and not in a good sense. As followers of my blog (and of my erstwhile 10-year-long blog, The Hesperado, and before that, Jihad Watch Watch) know, over the years I've written scads of criticism of Robert Spencer's views of the problem of Islam (and of the problem of the problem -- the problem of the West's failures to grasp & grapple with the problem of Islam).  After all the gaffes and faux pas I've seen him do, and repeat, I thought I'd pretty much seen 'em all.

No so.  Today, I almost did a spit-take of my coffee when I read these words from the éminence grise of the Counter-Jihad Mainstream, Robert Spencer:

”...a cult is generally centered around a charismatic leader who demands strict obedience, and there is no such in Islam...”

And wouldn't you know it, our old friend "The Big W" was right on the ball, and deposited this characteristically pithy comment that nailed it:

thebigW says 
Feb 19, 2019 at 10:37 pm 

” a cult is generally centered around a charismatic leader who demands strict obedience, and there is no such in Islam” 

Ahem, there sure as hell is such a thing in Islam, and his name is Muhammad. 

How to explain Robert's egregious lapse here? I'm still wondering.  Not only does Muhammad qualify as a cult leader, he's probably the Mother of All Cult Leaders throughout history.  Is Robert perhaps disqualifying him because he's been dead for centuries?  That would be a silly reason to disqualify him; for, unfortunately, Muhammad is still very much alive in the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of Muslims around the globe.

At any rate, probably the biggest objection (which Spencer didn't mention) to calling Islam a "cult" is that all the cults we've come to know over the decades have been relatively small, and usually fairly limited in geographical extent (with exceptions -- e.g., Scientology; though even Scientology can't hold a candle to the immensity, both in time and space, and in numbers, of Islam).  But that would be singularly simple-minded to conclude that Islam can't be a cult, just because it's too big.   Nor does being a cult exclude being a religion: A movement could be both (at least for people who are capable of patting their head and rubbing their stomach at the same time).  And this isn't to open that other kettle of fish, the "Islam isn't a religion" meme, about which I've written before.

Confusing Categories

Omar is a far Leftist and a devout, Sharia-adherent Muslim; neither group is distinguished for mavericks or original thinkers. In fact, both are marked by an ideological lockstep that brooks no dissent, disagreement, or fair consideration of opposing ideas. That makes Omar’s future drearily predictable.

So opined Robert Spencer, on a recent Jihad Watch posting on the new Muslim Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar.

Why would Spencer think that a Muslim can also be a "Leftist" (much less a "far" one)?   I've seen him write locutions that come to the edge of making this conflation, but never as baldly explicit as this one. The principle in the Anti-Islam Movement (consequent upon our digestion over the years of the indigestible horrors of Islamic texts, history, culture, and news) should include, among many other principles, the understanding that whenever we see a Muslim occupying any non-Islamic ideological, cultural or psychological space, we reasonably conclude that the Muslim in question is using that foreign garb as both a disguise and as a weapon; but not really inhabiting it.

So when we see a Muslim occupying the space of Leftism, showing signs & symptoms of "being a Leftist", we reasonably conclude that Muslim isn't really a Leftist; he or she is just using Leftism to advance Islam.  Similarly for the most virulent strain of Leftism, Communism.  In this regard, the last time I noticed such a conflation problem, it was on the Lawrence Auster blog, among commenters Auster approved and esteemed (the only commenters he would allow to publish on his blog). But that time, it was even worse than Spencer's gaffe -- that commenter (and Auster seemed to readily lap it up) actually argued that the "Communist Muslims" we see among the mujahideen in, for example, Iraq, are really, deep down inside, Communists; and only using their Islam as a "green coat of paint".  That commenter got it precisely ass-backwards.  (See my Hesperado essay -- Counter-Jihad 3.0: Old updates available for download... -- from 3 years ago for further details.)

Ideologies and/or worldviews such as Leftism, Communism, conservatism, atheism, politically correct multi-culturalism, and nationalism are Western products; and as such, a Muslim cannot inhabit any of them -- though he or she can don it like a garment in order to weaponize it for the jihad, whether stealth or sword. (In this regard, that same Hesperado essay I linked above at the end of the previous paragraph, also analyzes another Counter-Jihad luminary, Hugh Fitzgerald, seeming to make a similar error not only of conflation, but of bass-ackwards reverse engineering, with regard to the so-called "Nationalist Muslims" like Saddam Hussein.)

This isn't merely a matter of Muslims themselves inhabiting a macro-cultural domain outside the West (pace its parasitical pretentions to an "Abrahamic" identity); it's also as importantly (if not more importantly) a problem of the Islam which they inhabit being inimical -- in explicit, complex, fanatically robust, and profoundly comprehensive ways -- to our civilization.

As an aside, I've seen -- and written many times about -- Spencer's rhetoric veering regularly too far into an implication that Leftism is the main or only (the lines get blurred with his heated rhetoric) reason for the problem of the problem (the problem of the West tending to whitewash -- if not positively support -- Islam, rather than roundly condemn Islam as it should).  This may be related to the conflation problem I identify here today (though I haven't figured out how exactly); yet it is a distinct problem.

It's worse than I remember...

In a fairly recent posting here (Conservatives for Islam), I mentioned among other things how one group of conservatives (or at least their more vocal and influential representatives) -- the "Voegelinians" -- have demonstrated appalling ignorance of Islam.  For example, on October 26, 2001, just a few weeks after 911, Fritz Wagner, an éminence grise of that group, wrote:

"In any event, with the help of Maryam Sharief and Peter von Sivers, I have tried to learn something about Islam and what we are dealing with when we talk about "Islam". As Richard Geldard put it: "Islam is not the problem."

I recently was Googling around and became reminded of a worse statement by ol' Fritz, in a footnote to the document in question, which he wrote in the wake of 911 (and, as I noted grimly in my above-linked previous posting, reiterated 10 years later without any signs of having learned a damn thing):

This friend is Ms. Maryam Sharief, an Oxonian of deep learning and memory, spiritual depth and richness—a person whom I feel privledged to know.

Other than the grief I guess I want to visit upon myself in my grimly pessimistic, masochistic depression at our West for its suicidally benighted neurosis in this regard, I also noted an interesting thing: This apparently very important person, Maryam Sharief, esteemed so highly by one of the grand doyens of the Voegelinians, and an academic in her own right (yea, an Oxonian) who was into Voegelin (as I recount in the above-linked essay and through further links therein), has no paper trail at all at the official Voegelin View website (with which Fritz Wagner has been deeply involved since the beginning, as far as I can tell).  When one Googles another name mentioned in Fritz's footnotes, for example, one Peter von Sivers, one finds he has contributed a few things over the years there. But with this apparently very important person, Maryam Sharief, who (along with Richard Geldard, whoever the hell he is) so profoundly helped Fritz Wagner see that "Islam is not the problem" -- she has not done anything with regard to Voegelin since?  That seems most curious.  I Googled "maryam sharief voegelin" (without specifying the Voegelin View website) just to make sure; and sure enough -- nothing.  One wonders what happened to her. Did she settle down to become a baby factory for some Muslim husband (along with another wife or 2, or 3...?).  Was she murdered by her Muslim husband, or btothers, or uncles, or father (or combination thereof) in an honor killing...? Has she gone on to fry bigger fish with some Muslim Brotherhood or generously UAE-funded consortium or Jihad-of-the-Think-Tank...?

A closer look at the Austrian Counter-Jihadist, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

In my previous posting, I reported my discovery from ancient archives going back to 2009, in which the valiant Counter-Jihadist, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, anxiously assured the world that she can tell the difference between "Islamists" and Muslims.

The giant camel in the room, of course, is the question: How!!!???

How, pray tell, Elisabeth, can you tell the difference? One can only reasonably surmise that this difference is told through a variety of superficial data -- the clothes they wear, the beards they don't have, the hijabs that don't swaddle their heads, the friendly smiles on their faces, the soothingly nice and normatively secular words that come out of their mouth (or flow from their pen).

This might not be grimly laughable, were there not the problems of taqiyya and the stealth jihad.  Surely Elisabeth knows this, and surely she is able to see how those problems undermine (if not devastate) the distinction she so glibly affirmed back in 2009.

And even short of that, often the seemingly anodyne words from the "non-Islamist" Muslims meant to mollify our growing alarm are riddled with sophistry. I.e., even when Muslims are spouting secularisms, if one probes beyond their nice-sounding memes with some hard questions -- and intelligent follow-up questions -- one invariably encounters someone who is either very confused or very cunning. And sometimes one hits the jackpot when one's interrogation of a Moderate Muslim doesn't take too long to uncover the Extremist Within who just couldn't sustain his or her mask after a while.  Surely, Elisabeth has had experiences like this as well.

So why in bloody heck did she make that affirmation back in 2009?

[To be continued...]

Another Counter-Jihadist bites the double-virtue-signalling dust...

After all these years, I'm no longer surprised -- but still dismayed -- when I see otherwise stalwart Counter-Jihadists reveal asymptotic spasms.  Thus Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff (I wish she had an easier name to spell...):

From a 2009 article on Gates of Vienna about her:

She had the entire interview published in right-wing blogs and websites and was admonished and criticized by other critics of Islam for having been too mild in her answers and for her liberal views. She promptly defended herself: “Did you consider that I might have chosen my words carefully? That I might have followed a strategy with what I have said? I do know the difference between a Muslim and an Islamist.”

How do you say Oy, Vey in German...?

Saving the decaffeinated Muslim from our need to wake up and smell the coffee

Okay; I couldn't think of a pithier title for my posting today, so it'll have to do.

It refers to this annoying tendency I've noticed in Hugh Fitzgerald, a major contributor to Jihad Watch (and many moons ago, actually "Vice-President" of Jihad Watch for years, before he mysteriously disappeared, only to mysteriously reappear again).

What annoying tendency is that, Pepe? you might ask...

It's his asymptotic tendency to assume, and then with painstakingly meticulous analysis argue, that a given Muslim who seems to be a "reformer" is really being sincere and thus is exhibiting baffling symptoms of cognitive dissonance as they try to deny their Islam whilst incoherently and paradoxically continuing to promote it (I've written about this spasm of Hugh's a few times, such as in my essay "The Ponytailed Muslim").

Hugh's elaborate essays on this seem to me to be a waste of time, frankly; they seem almost determined to find a way to explain and defend these exercises in "reformist" apologetics of Islam by these supposed Muslim "reformers" -- a way other than what should be the axiom of our rational prejudice:

Don't trust any Muslim when they try to tell us Islam isn't a grotesquely monstrous horror from the start in the 7th century to the hot present.

And by "don't trust", of course, I mean: Assume they are doing taqiyya.

This assumption should not be the fruit of laborious investigation. It should be axiomatic (hence, rational prejudice).

This is not to say that there probably do not exist many Muslims who are, in fact, caught in various complex gauzy webs of cognitive dissonance, relative ignorance of their own Islam, and fear of other more devout Muslims. But it is to say that, given the roilingly complex dangers from Muslims on the macro level (particularly as that macro dimension is increasingly metastasizing and interpenetrating our Western world), we cannot afford to err on the side of presuming some elaborate form of innocence of any significant demographic of Muslims -- which means we must suspect all Muslims.  Unless we don't care about preserving our civilization past the 21st century, that is.

The reason I bring all this up is another recent Hugh Fitzgerald multi-part series where he probes a Muslim reformer and wonders, scratching his head, why they are whitewashing Islam (as if we shouldn't already assume why).  One recent installment of his was about a Muslima named Souad Mekhennet.  Throughout his 3 parts, Hugh probes and probes, and scratches and scratches his head, then we finally glimpse his asymptotic problem, thanks to our old friend Big W, who spotted it early on:

thebigW says Feb 1, 2019 at 1:25 pm 

[quoting Hugh] ” I have the distinct feeling that Souad Mekhennet, born into a Muslim family, may never have read, that is, never allowed herself to read, the complete Qur’an, for fear of what she might discover. ” 

This Hugh Fitzgerald feller seems determined to find a way to save this Muzzlima from the only conclusion we should make, that’s she’s just another lying taqiyyist. I coulda told you that without even reading her bullcrap. 

Hey Flo! Buy my friend Big W a cuppa joe and a dish of your hot apple pie!

"Yo Flo, gimme some of that Key Lime pie...!"

More (after my previous post) from my former self ("lemonlime") in approximately 2014, half a decade ago, in my commenting activity on Jihad Watch back then. Although I had already changed my moniker to "voegelinian", my readers will see that I had to tell everybody there that I was really lemonlime.

This particular comments thread I see to my pleasant surprise had several comments by moi -- and I was not a little shocked to see another commenter coming to my defense. Granted, that other commenter was not a long-time regular (as far as I know), and most certainly wasn't part of the "Rabbit Pack". Still, it was a refreshing change from the norm, when the busiest beaver of the Rabbit Pack -- "Angemon" -- would pester me for my too-strong coffee (too anti-Muslim, apparently) hundreds of times, while none of the other regulars (much less the Rabbit Pack) would step in to lend me a hand; even, at times attacking me when I dared go against one of them in the name of my robust condemnation of all Muslims.

Anyway, my readers -- all 3.5 of them -- can see for themselves by perusing this old Jihad Watch comments thread what I'm talking about.  That link may not take you to the start of the drama, so it's best to just do a CTRL + F for "voegelinian" and start with the first one (where I introduce myself as "lemonlime").

And you will see that my lone defender, one "thomas_h", notices what I notice, that the stalwart Counter-Jihad regulars of the Rabbit Pack seem intent on not noticing the egregious softness of one of their clique members ("Angemon").

As I pointed out, mid-stream:

I wonder if gravenimage has asked herself why Angemon, a seasoned Jihad Watch reader, would be making these points that are refutable in such elementary ways — e.g., his pointing out that there are dangerous non-Muslims as though that’s relevant to Jihad Watch? Something is obviously seriously wrong with his template.

And thomas_h answered, appositely:

“…refutable in such elementary ways…”

Indeed, that’s what strikes one immediately.

Otherwise, I think it is quite possible gravenimage did ask herself and arrived at a conclusion that she, being a nice person, would rather not reveal. In other word[s], we will never know.

Five years later, and I still don't know where gravenimage stands.