The recent sexual assault in Cologne of women on New Year’s Eve has shocked the nation. As many as 1000 men, allegedly set upon women and made them run a gauntlet as they were grabbed, their clothes ripped, and their bodies groped. Police sources and witnesses have said that many were refugees — triggering renewed objections over a spate of rapes and assaults of women in the country attributed to recent immigrants. To make matters worse for the government, newspapers are reporting that one man told police “I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me.” The result has been a rising tide of criticism of Merkel for her open-door policy. Yet, that criticism may now be muted by a move by the government to crackdown on anti-immigration comments as a form of “hate speech.” As we discussed today with the effort to ban Donald Trump, free speech is being rolled back in Europe under hate crime and anti-discrimination laws as an alarming rate. It is particularly worrisome when the government is under attack on an issue like immigration and responds by prosecuting people for such criticism. News reports indicate that 18 of the 31 known suspects from Cologne were asylum seekers, including “nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, an Iraqi, a Serbian, an American and two German nationals.
We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in France (here and here and here and here and here and here) and England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Much of this trend is tied to the expansion of hate speech and non-discrimination laws. We have seen comedians targeted with such court orders under this expanding and worrisome trend. (here and here).
Prosecutors are charging people who are “inciting hatred” in Germany by speaking out against immigrants and their impact on German society. Prosecutors and judges are determining what criticism will be allowed and what will be treated as criminal. In the meantime, the government has reached a deal with Facebook, Google and Twitter to crackdown on Internet speech. It is an effort to create the artificial appearance of agreement and tolerance by denying free speech to critics.
While it is still not clear how many of the Cologne attackers were immigrants (as many as 22 have been identified as refugees), the incident has been a flashpoint as numerous stories of women and girls being harassed about their clothing or assaulted by immigrants. For example, a 26-year-old Berlin man’s home was raided by police, who confiscated his computer and phones after he had posted the image of a dead 3-year-old Syrian boy on a Turkish beach and wrote “We are not mourning, we are celebrating!” A disgusting comment and one that is worthy public condemnation. However, it is also an act of free speech.
Nevertheless, many citizens are celebrating the denial of their own free speech rights. So long as they disagree with the speakers, there appears little concern over the rising tide of censorship and criminalization of speech. People are now unsure what they can say about immigration, which is precisely the chilling effect that governments seek in such measure. The result is a forced silence . . . which is golden for governments like Merkel’s that do not like what they are hearing.
Ralph/Olly/Bambam, it gives me great pleasure to state that the more you spew your hatred, the more people become curious enough to read the Quran and end up converting to Islam.
Fastest growing religion in the world…
Most diverse religion in the world…
White, western women are converting to Islam in HUUUUUUUUGE numbers…I wonder why?
Even Catholic priests, Olly! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHBY2nGxJS8
And then another priest testifying on Islam…Ralph https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UlXHvKvkc
Les chiens aboient, la caravane passe 🙂
Tom Nash
1, January 10, 2016 at 2:20 am
Hdegard. ….If you feel that the New Testament “does not accurately reflect Jesus’ teachings” , then what source(s) DO you recommend?
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http://reluctant-messenger.com/alternate-gospels.htm
po – if you kept up with your religious history lessons you would know that the alternative gospels were probably written about 400 AD and are Gnostic gospels.
Paul, I suspect there is a point there, isn’t there?
Additionally, it is FASCINATING to me that people keep speaking on a book they NEVER read!
Hilde, I appreciate the sentiments but please don”t follow Ralph on that slippery path. Muhamad was the spirit of the Quran:Mercy!
Just as Jesus was the spirit of the real Gospel, not the bible which isn’t original.
So in the spirit of rehashing arguments, another batch reheated for Ralph’s consumption: Thanks for not using the word ultrasubcretin today.
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po
1, December 11, 2015 at 9:17 pm
What is it about these commentators that they keep asking questions but refuse to answer one?
Ralph, It is hard to refute facts when they conflate all kinds of disparate standards. I answered every one of your points however, you have yet to address any of mine. Please answer these questions below to give us a better insight into what your argument is.
1- Is islam a religion, an ethnicity, a culture, a location?
Who do we mean when we talk about Muslims (yes, Muslims are the adherents of Islam)?
2- Does the Nobel prize celebrate a religious accomplishment? An ethnic one? A national one?
3- What happens to a Jewish neuroscientist when he converts to islam?
4-Is Ben Carson a lesser neuroscientist because he is not a white scientist?
5- Asian and Latinos have won very few nobel prizes, does that mean they are inferior to white, Christian and Jewish people? Even when they are Christian?
6- According to your standard, Buddhists are really waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay at the bottom of all people, i doubt they have won even one single nobel prize.
So lazy, these buddhists!
7- Are you saying the nobel prize is an objective process? What, is it computerized? No? A group of people pick their nominees and they vote on it?
So each one of them picks the nominee they like? Subjectively?
No way!!
8- Where did you find the word #ultrasubcretin?
I have never heard anyone use it…perhaps because everyone is smart enough NOT to use it!
What, did you pick it up at recess? Someone called you that?
Ultra suggests waay above standard …
Sub suggests waay below standard…
Cretin is French for, well, you…
Ultra and sub cancel each other out
Leaving cretin, alone, lonely…you
So, basically, you called me…YOU… twice…? Weird!
Ralph, I can see that you are rehashing the same idiocies you keep spewing every single time.
So let me offer the same replies I used before to shut you up, hoping it will do the trick again:
————————————
Come on, Ralph, I can’t win with you man.
Damned when we do, damned when we don’t…
If the issue is that Islam is antithetic to civilization, how do you explain that everything that western civilization is built upon, was borrowed from islamic civilization? BAM! BAM!
While you recover from that one, let me ask you, what makes one a Muslim?
Please answer, what makes one a muslim?
Please answer, what makes one a muslim?
Please answer, what makes one a muslim?
Please answer, what makes one a muslim?
Han? Han?
(Just making sure you don’t miss that question.)
I noticed how you were quite specific with the type of Nobel prizes you mention…the trope used to be that Muslims have not won nobel prizes, now it is, Muslims have not won Nobel prizes in ….
Yep, islam is violent, yet the last few nobel peace prizes were given to Muslims!
You knew that, hence the framing the nobel peace prize thus :”the real Nobel Prizes benefiting mankind, not the subjective, political ones”…hahahaha… i see you coming miles away…
Meanwhile you are using the Nobel prize as the differentiating standard WHILE at the same time undermining it.
You are giving us a whiplash!
I see you differentiate between christian, Jews, atheists and Muslims. Accordingly, I am assuming your standard is religious.
If one is a Christian arab, or a jewish arab, where do they fit in your scheme.
If one is a white scientist who converted to Islam, how does he fit into your scheme?
So if Ben carson were Muslim, he could not be a neuroscientist?
Where did you go to school? Fox news autodidact?
Or were you, by any chance, one of Paul’s students? That would explain A LOT!
Ralph Adamo; “Hildegard, you are deluded if you truly “think” that Mohammad’s teachings “were benevolent.”
Are you assuming that the Koran reflects Mohammad’s true teaching? Do you assume the Bible reflects Jesus’ true teaching? Do you assume the teachings of Buddha are contained in a book used by most Buddhists? My opinion…those books contain almost NONE of the true teachings of these enlightened men. If you look long and hard you may find their true teachings, but not there. Otherwise the various Bibles of these “great” religions are pure rubbish.
At best they may be historical reference books and at worst vile fictions spewed from the minds of the power possessors who created them for purposes of building empires and controlling the masses through fear. From what I’ve learned, I believe Mohammad, Moses, Jesus, Buddha, etc. would be appalled at what’s being taught in their names. Some food for thought:
http://www.absolutoracle.com/SufiMaster/Articles2/sufismBeyondIslam%20.htm
” Sufism Beyond Islam by Osho
Once a learned Mohammedan came to me and asked, ‘You are not a Mohammedan, then why do you speak on Sufism?’ I told him, ‘I am not a Mohammedan, obviously, but I am a Sufi all the same.’
A Sufi need not be a Mohammedan. A Sufi can exist anywhere, in any form – because Sufism is the essential core of all religions. It has nothing to do with Islam in particular. Sufism can exist without Islam; Islam cannot exist without Sufism. Without Sufism, Islam is a corpse. Only with Sufism does it become alive.
Whenever a religion is alive it is because of Sufism. Sufism simply means a love affair with God, with the ultimate, a love affair with the whole. It means that one is ready to dissolve into the whole, that one is ready to invite the whole to come into one’s heart. It knows no formality. It is not confined by any dogma, doctrine, creed or church. Christ is a Sufi, so is Mohammed. Krishna is a Sufi, so is Buddha. This is the first thing I would like you to remember: that Sufism is the innermost core – as Zen is, as Hassidism is. These are only different names of the same ultimate relationship with God.”
Hdegard. ….If you feel that the New Testament “does not accurately reflect Jesus’ teachings” , then what source(s) DO you recommend?
Ken asks: “And what do you propose as “civilization’s” proper response to the existence of this “pedophilic, mass murdering cult” of 1.6 billion people, RA?”
First, civilized people must recognize that Islam isn’t a race or a religion. It is a cult and an ideology — like Naziism, and, in fact, Islam has so much in common with that other cult that the two cults were virtually joined at the hip during WW II.
The answer for civilized nations, or those who aspire to be civilized, is to severely limit immigration of practitioners of the cult of Islam, or, ideally, to cut it off altogether. Further, any attempts by existing practitioners within civilized nations to Islamize any aspect of civilized society must be prohibited. Yes, they should have free speech, much as Nazis enjoy free speech in the USA. But if any of them engage in groups or organizations promoting terrorism, they should be immediately deported.
Another key part of the answer is that major governments of civilized nations should not be directly or indirectly providing any aid whatsoever to Islamic nations. For example, the USA has been propping up the Saudis for scores of years. At one time, there was some rationale for this. The USA needed the Saudi’s oil. But that is no longer the case today. In fact, the world would benefit with a lot less Saudi oil, as the Saudis have been “paying back” the USA for its military support of the Saudis by dumping massive amounts of oil on the market with the goal of destroying the American oil entrepreneurs and the USA’s economy. Thus, all military and other support for the Saudis should be cut off completely, and other Islamic nations should be encouraged to “take them out,” as Iraq once attempted to do. (Bush, like Obama, are friends of the Saudis and enemies of America, and so, they have been following the opposite strategy to what I propose.) Because Islam is inherently barbaric and bellicose, civilized nations should do what they can to encourage them to direct their inherent Islamic natures against each other to the extent possible.
If anything can be learned from this particular situation in Germany, it is that the leader of a democracy should not make a major decision based on emotion.
@Ralph Adamo
1, January 9, 2016 at 11:57 pm
“Islam is a simply a cult founded by a pedophile and a mass murderer. Its adherents today that you read about every day — assuming you actually read and pay attention to the news, which covers but a small fraction of Islamic ‘activities’ — are simply following the teachings of the Islamic cult.”
And what do you propose as “civilization’s” proper response to the existence of this “pedophilic, mass murdering cult” of 1.6 billion people, RA?
Ralph – Yes, I would agree with your incompatibility conclusion. This Turkish author recognized this dilemma back in 2013 when he wrote the following: “As news of fundamentalists’ actions spread across the world, Westerners have begun to fear the effect of these fundamentalists in their own societies. Especially in Europe, they are mostly worried about immigration from Islamic countries and the rising number of fundamentalist Muslims in their societies. It is obvious that some Western politicians have used the fear of Islam and encouraged Islamophobia in order to gain political power, but this does not hide the reality that fundamentalist Islamist ideology is incompatible with the values of Europe and U.S. It looks that this century will be a battle ground for the clash of these two worlds and two ideologies.”
http://www.diplomaticourier.com/is-islam-incompatible-with-western-values/
And finally, I would like any Islamopanderers or actual Islamonazis here to explain why no Muslim has won a Nobel Prize in the fields of science, medicine, or economics, even they represent more than 25% of the world’s population and there are quite a few members of the cult that are billionaires and multimillionaires who could easily fund educational, cultural, and scientific endeavors if they were not so inclined to spend their money on funding Islamoterrorism worldwide. The fact is Islamopanderers and Islamonazis cannot — or rather — will not explain this irrefutable fact. And that is because the only rational explanation is that the cult of Islam and civilization are simply incompatible.
Hildegard, you are deluded if you truly “think” that Mohammad’s teachings “were benevolent.” Violent, yes, but not benevolent by any stretch of perverse “reasoning.” Islam is a simply a cult founded by a pedophile and a mass murderer. Its adherents today that you read about every day — assuming you actually read and pay attention to the news, which covers but a small fraction of Islamic “activities” — are simply following the teachings of the Islamic cult.
Let it be noted that I have never posted an anti-Islamic post nor will I ever. We all know who said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” We could include ‘not judged by their religion…” Mohammad’s teachings were benevolent indeed but like ALL religious teachings the men on whom the religions are based would be appalled at how their message of divine conscience and love have been subverted and perverted. Still, you can’t deny the fact that there are people who take great comfort in their religious beliefs and live as good and just a life as they can.
Po, you demonstrate again why you have zero credibility and are only capable of making feckless irrelevant jejune “arguments.” Do you realize how absurd you sound to any thinking person when you attempt to “argue” that Islam is superior to civilization? The reality of Islam is clear to any thinking person, or even just a feeling person. http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/new-video-afghan-woman-barbarically-lynched-after-being-falsely-accused.
But even though you consider the facts and overwhelming evidence about Islam as something to be ignored, let me encapsulate for you again why Islam is incompatible with anyone who favors freedom, liberty, and civilization. It’s a fact that no Muslim has won a Nobel Prize in the fields that most directly benefit humanity — i.e., science, medicine, and economics — in nearly two decades. And even before then, they seldom won any of those prizes. Yet Muslims represent more than 25% of the world’s population, and there are many Muslim billionaires and multimillionaires, but they don’t spend their money helping to advance science, medicine, or to do anything remotely benefiting humanity. They do, however, spend plenty of money funding Islamic terrorism worldwide.
In stark contrast, 75% of those Nobel Prizes are won by Christians and atheists, while Jewish people win an astonishing 25% of those awards, even though Jews represent less than 0.2% of the world’s population. This is probably another reason that the Muslims hate the Jewish people and they train their children in such hatred from birth. Jews have traditionally been a powerful force in advancing freedom, liberty, and civilization, as that is the environment they most thrive in. Thus, it was no surprise that when the experiment in freedom that came to be called America first began, Jews such as Hyam Solomon were among those who financed the budding experiment.
And there also many billionaire and multimillionaire Christians and Jews, but unlike their Muslim counterparts, they give much of their money to causes that benefit humanity, Simply look at all of the world’s great cultural and health institutions and creations that make our world a better place to live in, and then look at the individuals that funded them to make them possible.
But ignore these facts, Po. I wouldn’t expect any less of you. But maybe you tell us some lies about so-called Muslim “contributions” from centuries ago to support your Islamonazi cause? You might fool some leftist dupes who enjoy reading worthless, irrelevant tripe that is your particular “forte.”
And Merkel gets the “Selfie of the Year” award for 2015 if you click on my prior reply’s link.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/10/10/germany-flirts-with-solidarity-tax-to-help-pay-for-eu-redistribution-funding-of-migrants/
John, I agree with you, but what is the solution? Perhaps some organization would be willing to subsidize women who want to bear and raise children rather than work? That’s the only solution that I can see. If a single or married woman has to work, she’s going to have to limit the number of children she has. Childcare costs as much or more than most women earn. Some governments do subsidize child rearing. I heard that the government of Finland pays women enough that they don’t have to work if they have a child younger than 5. But Finland spends its tax money on its own people, not stupid foreign entanglements. So that is never going to happen in the U.S. Unless some private organizations are willing to subsidize child-rearing, the birth rate among whites will stay what it is. But I still maintain that materialism among whites has a lot to do with it. I lived in a largely Hispanic immigrant neighborhood when I was in grad school. It was totally blue-collar. The men worked in the building trades and the women stayed home. The families all had 4-5 kids in small, older homes that whites wouldn’t want. And one vehicle per family – usually a work truck for the husband. They lived a working class lifestyle that whites had in the 1940s and 50s, but now reject in favor of less children and more material items.
Riesling
As I have said many times, how fun would this be if I did not get to slap some idiots around?
I have other places I head to for logical, rational, poised and respectful discussion (now Frankly/Nick has joined us there)…this ain’t it.
It once was, but Nick and his ilk chased great people away.
I do this when I can’t head to the gym, release some steam…and make sure the bigoted don’t have the closed cipher to indulge.
By the way, who is a greater patriot, the one hurt by what the government does in our name and fights against it or the one who is complicit and distracted?
The one who says let’s stop waging war on people or the one yelling support our troops?
By the way bambam…I almost offered videos and link featuring Jewish domestic violence…..but I thought better of it. based on my remembering this verse :”” Only argue with the People of the Book in the kindest way–except in the case of those of them who do wrong–saying, ‘We believe in what has been sent down to us and what was sent down to you. Our God and your God are one and we submit to Him.’ (Surat al-Ankabut, 46)
So I’ll let always let Jewish rabbis speak for me…it would be unfair for me to indulge into the tit for tat of whose religion is worse… especially when you do not know much about yours.
http://jews-for-allah.org/join-our-team/jews_for_allah_mission_statement/
The end result of Merkel’s mess will be the closing of all borders in Europe. It will be the only way to restore order. Maybe Angela Merkel is the only one who understands her fantasy utopian dream, but even she cannot control the chaos of her own creation.
Ordnung braucht nur der Dumme, das Genie beherrscht das Chaos.
@Don de Drain
1, January 9, 2016 at 5:18 pm
“If we showed a video of Pat Robertson spouting some of his “wisdom”, should we ascribe his views to all Christians?
“Better yet, let’s look at this: http://christwire.org/2009/04/is-it-ok-for-a-christian-husband-to-gently-beat-his-wife/
“I’m wondering how what is said at this link is different than what is on the videos linked by bam bam.”
Thanks for posting the christwire link.
Even though both are deplorably patriarchal and advocate physical violence against wives, after watching the Muslim videos and reading the Christian explanation for its being OK to beat your wife, the Muslim advice was actually the less violent of the two, and cited the explicit Koranic prohibition against striking the wife in the face, no matter how gently.
Of course, the pathetic attempts of a few commenters here to demonize all Muslims, rather than limiting their criticisms to the obviously odious behavior of the Islamic jihadi extremists, say much more about the psychology and morality of the critics than about Muslims, and their silence regarding the common disconnect between religious ideals and their observance by the non-fanatical majority of religion adherents in every religion is also telling.