Easter's New Place of Worship

From Easter Parade to Easter shopping

Terrorist bombers during Easter don't need to go to churches, or even to social events like Easter parades. No, they just need to stop by at the corner mall. That's where everyone is celebrating.

Al-Qaeda terror plot to bomb Easter shoppers

Police were forced to round up the alleged plotters after they were overheard discussing dates, understood to include the Easter bank holiday, one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.

Levant's Fight is Picked Up by a Politician

There is good news that Ezra Levant's energetic cross-country tour to promote his book Shakedown on the atrocities of the Human Rights Commissions is bearing fruit.

Levant writes at his website:

I'm delighted to see that Randy Hillier, a candidate for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, has made the abolition of Ontario's human rights commission part of his campaign platform. Here's his statement on the subject -- I love his tagline: real justice, real judges. That gets to the heart of it pretty well. Ontario's HRC is run by a failed Toronto mayor, a Marxist crusader named Barbara Hall. She's no judge, and what she's meting out is not justice.

Levant was called to the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Mohammed cartoons in his Western Standard magazine. His case was rejected after three years and, according to Levant, about $100,000 of his own money. Conversely, Canadian taxpayers probably footed about $500,000 to pay for the Commission's bills.

An Imaginative Leap Back to Reality

Please read the formidable piece that Lawrence Auster at the View From the Right has posted: A Real Islam Policy for a Real America. It is the speech that he gave at the recent Preserving Western Civilization conference.

He took us on a imaginative leap away from this liberal world that we currently live in, yet what he really did was to bring us back to earth and reality.

ABC - Washington Post Poll on Isalm

Do you think mainstream Islam encourages violence
against non-Muslims, or is it a peaceful religion?

Diana West quotes from a recent poll printed in the Washington Post, and discusses this question:

Q: Every religion has mainstream beliefs, and also fringe elements and extremists. Thinking of mainstream Islam, do you think mainstream Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims, or is it a peaceful religion?

I have presented these poll responses visually to make it easier to compare the patterns. I've gone to the original pdf file to get more complete data, with information also available for 2006. I have averaged the two sets of data for 2002 and 2006. Besides what is presented here, the pdf file has many more additional interesting information.

The comparatively low numbers in 2002 for those who think that Islam encourages violence are probably due to the public still getting used to this new phenomenon of Islamic terrorism, and the violence of Islam after 9/11.

The numbers for those who think that Islam encourages violence do increase sharply from 2002-2003, but the trend shows a gradual decrease from 2003 to 2009. There is no reason to think this decrease will not continue, unless something dramatic happens, similar to 9/11.

Conversely, the group which thinks that Islam is a religion of peace has steadily increased, bypassing even the 2002 levels.

So, more people think that Islam is a religion of peace in 2009 than they did in 2002, and the trend shows that they will continue to do so. And less people think that Islam encourages violence in 2009 than they did in 2003, with the trend continuing in that direction.

Why is that?

Firstly, I think it is complacency. Nothing as terrible as 9/11 has happened yet, so people haven't had to face again the violence Islam is capable of.

But, I think more importantly, the Islam experts and conservatives, with their almost daily output of information, and some with eloquent books, haven't managed to convince the public about the dangers of Islam.

These experts may react in vitriolic and ad hoc manner as the atrocities of Islam arise (like honor killings, especially the recent one in Buffalo), but they haven't come up with clear terms for Islam, Muslims, and even how to combat it, confusing the public about the nature of this religion.

For example, many Islam experts are still using the terms "moderate Muslims" and "extremist or radical Muslims", when it has become more and more clear that such differentiation of Muslims is incorrect.

While obfuscating the terms thus, they are unable to come up with concrete solutions to the problems, making it seem that only a minority of Muslims (i.e radicals), and an extreme fringe of Islam are what we should be dealing with.

This inability to take the bull by its horns is translated by the general public as the problem not being that great or important to begin with, while in fact, the problem is a very big one, tantamount to a civilizational war, that could destroy life as we know it.

As a final point, three other things stood out for me from the data in the pdf file.

1). Muslims make up only 1% of the American population (2% in Canada).

2). People who know a Muslim tend to think it is a peaceful religion rather than one which encourages violence.

3). Even though more people now think Islam is a peaceful religion than in 2003, 41% have a favorable opinion of Islam now compared to 47% in 2003.

But, as this statistic is broken down, those who tilt the percentage toward a favorable one in 2009 are:

- those more knowledgeable about Islam - 53% favorable towards Islam
- those who know "a" Muslim - 52% favorable
- liberals - 60%a favorable, and Democrats - 47% favorable
- and younger people - 44% favorable

In contrast, only 26% of conservatives and 33% of Republicans view Islam favorably, amongst other groups.

Liberals and Democrats are going to be difficult to convince otherwise. But, this information implies that those with increased interaction with Muslims are more likely to have favorable opinions about Islam. Those who have some knowledge about Islam, those who know a Muslim (or two), and younger people who have increased relationships with Muslims through work and social life, are more likely to have more tolerance for the religion and for Muslims.

Astute and knowledgeable politicians and experts can deal with this complacency (increased trust of Muslims and Islam) by:

- simply reducing the number of Muslim immigrants, and preferably having a moratorium on all Muslim immigration for the foreseeable future. At the very least, this will reduce interactions with Muslims, which clearly influences the view on Islam.

- and by the experts providing honest and unfiltered information about the dangers of Muslims and Islam.

And, 1% (and even 2%) of Muslims is a minuscule amount. Surely we can make sure this percentage doesn't grow, and that the 1% already present doesn't hijack our society. I am optimistic that we can do both.

How to Fight the War Agaist Islam

Jim Kalb was interviewed by the bloggers 2BlowHards on January 2004. It is a three-part interview dealing mostly with conservatism.

I remembered reading this part of the interview a while ago. In view of my last post, How Not to Fight the War against Islam, I thought it appropriate to present it here.

Here is the pertinent part:

2B: I find many media conservatives (Bill O'Reilly, etc) unappealing -- gloating bullies who like to use ridicule and tell people, "Tough, kid, suck it up." To what extent to such people represent the kind of conservatism you discuss?

Kalb: They are indeed conservative, since what makes their views what they are is that they choose some things that are inherited or natural at the expense of liberalism -- that is, at the expense of a direct attempt to maximize the equal satisfaction of individual preferences. They're not thoughtful, though, so they can't explain why they reject the liberal program in favor of something else. The result is that their conservatism takes on an aggressive and arbitrary quality, at least in style.

This has been my problem with conservative writers (pundits, bloggers) for a while. This is why I don't follow the vituperative writings of Main Stream Conservatives (a new term here?) such as Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham (notice how these are all women - is there a connection?). Talk show hosts and Fox News presenters are perhaps the more volatile of the male version of these female bloggers. In fact I no longer read them, or listen to them, unless there is a link to them from other blogs or sites.

In Canada, we have bloggers Kathy Shaidle, Wendy Sullivan (and the more obscure Kate McMillan), TV host Michael Coren and magazine publisher Ezra Levant, who are part of this vocal conservative group.

In my own humble way, I think I recognized the trend that Jim Kalb discussed in his interview in 2004 (which I only recently found, and was not influential in my decision) after a year or two of reading their sites.

I think that there are various levels to the thoughtlessness that Jim Kalb is describing. I think Coulter is actually quite sharp and witty, and comes up with sophisticated arguments. But, it gets tiring to just get a string of complaints (amounting to rants, at times) on her weekly articles, all aimed at "liberals". No solutions, no new ideas, just the kind of arbitrariness that I discussed here about Shaidle's recent post, which was thoughtlessly acquiescent to the leftist run-of-the-mill idea of "diversity".

I feel that we have been led (or led ourselves) on a wild goose chase, without realizing what we are chasing, why we are chasing it, and what to do about it if we ever caught it (not that we'd even want to catch it.)

In truth, what we should have done is to define our own principles better, and forget about "catching up" or acting in defense. It not necessarily an offensive mode that I am suggestion, but a tactic that includes better articulation of our ideas, better understanding of the consequences of liberal/leftist ones, and strategies and principles to advance those, and protect what we already have. This of course takes time and study, and is not privy to the sound-bite type reactions which we have borrowed from the left.

Besides the knee-jerk reactions, which Kalb mentions in his interview with 2blowhards, here are two articles which explain this phenomenon more clearly.

For the sake of brevity, I will just posts some relevant quotes from both, and leave you to read the articles for yourselves, since the authors discuss their ideas in depth, and convincingly.

From Jim Kalb's Reason and the Future of Conservatism:

[M]odern tendencies of thought have deficiencies that make them destructive if left to their own devices. What do we do about it?

There is an inarticulate "I just don’t like the way things are going" response. That takes two forms: first, things were better the way they used to be, and second, "thus far and no further." Neither of these options is going to stand up. Something more principled is needed.

Many conservatives therefore adopt what might be called the neoconservative or moderate modernist response...But that doesn’t work either.

[...]

What conservatism needs, then, is a non-modern understanding of reason—of what makes sense. Otherwise conservatives will always be playing defense, with no clear idea what the game is about.

How do we articulate a different understanding of reason?...We can start, though, by noticing some things lacking in modern reason with regard to the good, the true, and the beautiful.

As to the good,...rational action is not a simple matter of means and ends...Loyalty, for example, is rational because it’s a matter of acting in accordance with what I am. I’m loyal to my country and my family not simply because I happen to feel like it or to achieve some other goal but because I’m part of them and they are part of me.

As to the true, we need the transcendent. The modern outlook lacks a way of dealing with realities that we cannot fully grasp

[...]

Religion is the obvious source. You can pretty much define religion as a scheme of orientation toward goods and truths we can neither do without nor understand completely.

One final point [on beauty]: a great point in favor of conservatism should be a superior understanding of beauty. Beauty is one thing that modernity can’t give us at all. The point of beauty, after all, is to be exactly what it is. It’s irreducibly non-technological. For these reasons, a conservatism that does not take beauty seriously is rejecting something essential to its own life. Burke said that a social order has to have something in it that inspires love. He was right.

From Lawrence Auster's How to Oppose Liberal Intolerance:

While conservatives complain endlessly (one might even say boringly) about the double standard, however, they have signally failed to understand it. One explanation may be that today's leftists deceptively describe their politics as "liberal," a fiction to which conservatives have all too willingly subscribed.

Conservatives have done this partly out of naïveté and partly out of a desire not to be polarizing, since their most basic need as conservatives is to affirm the harmony and cohesion of the existing order. Treating leftists as "liberals," they are constantly surprised and scandalized at the "liberals'" illiberal intolerance.

Let us therefore go beyond these futile complaints about the double standard and instead ask why the double standard is so characteristic of today's "liberalism." Once we answer that question, we may be in a position to combat the double standard effectively, instead of spending the rest of our lives complaining impotently about it.

[...]

The basic reason for the "liberal" double standard...is that today's "liberals" are really leftists who have rejected the older liberal belief in a shared equality of citizens before the law and have embraced the socialist vision of "equality as a fact and equality as a result," as Lyndon Johnson famously put it.

Moreover, since socialism has been discredited following the fall of Soviet Communism, the left has for tactical reasons largely shifted its demand for equality of results away from the economic sphere to the cultural/moral sphere and the advancement of "oppressed" cultural and ethnic groups. The result is cultural socialism...In order for the desired state of equality to be attained, we, the unfairly dominant group, must be condemned, excluded, and dragged down, while the Other must be celebrated, included, and raised up.

[...]

The key point is that the double standard results automatically from the demand for equality between inherently unequal things. The double standard is not a mere excess or defect of leftism, but its essence.

[...]

Therefore the real debate that we conservatives must seek to join with our "liberal" adversaries is not between their alleged support for equality and tolerance and our alleged bigotry and hatred. The real debate is between their desire to dismantle our traditional morality, institutions, and culture, and our desire to preserve our traditional morality, institutions, and culture—indeed our very freedom and existence as a people.

Modern liberalism is a leftist and nihilistic rebellion against the inherently unequal nature of the human condition. If we conservatives named this ideology for what it is, we would have a fair chance to defeat it or at least stem its advance. If we are effectively to oppose modern liberalism with its destructive double standards, we must oppose it on principle.

How Not to Fight the War against Islam

Ironic book title by Kathy Shaidle,
given the nature of her most recent post

I've always been ambivalent about our Canadian self-appointed conservative spokesmen, from Kathy Shaidle to Wendy Sullivan (she of the I Am Sarah Palin video fame), and even the boisterous Ezra Levant.

For all their outspokenness, I find them to be "conservative-lite". Or maybe it is the Mark Steyn Kool Aid that's influencing them (the link is to a photo at groupie Wendy Sullivan's blog with her and Steyn.)

I've put Shaidle to task about her appearance on public television, coming unprepared to speak on topics at hand (the last one was on atheism at TVO), and just spouting out a couple of irritated and angry words. I've also written about her interview with Robert Spencer on Islam, where she gave him a lot of slack.

Wendy Sullivan did the same on the Michael Coren Show, and I actually think Coren was more in the right (no pun intended) than in the wrong for chastising her.

This same group has also spent an inordinate amount of time sympathizing with Chinese minorities for an innocent gaffe that an adversarial leftist - Warren Kinsella - wrote on his blog.

And now here's Shaidle's latest post.

Ezra Levant is on a book tour for Shakedown, his latest on Human Rights Commission revelations, which he did a great job of describing here on the Michael Coren Show. Yesterday, he posted a photo of his Calgary book signing, which was nothing unusual, except I hope that he has the permission of these people to have their faces all over the internet - they could be potential HRC victims!

Well, Shaidle has picked up on that photo and uses it as a great example of...diversity! Look at those minorities in "redneck" Calgary, and how they support freedom of speech (because the whole point for this group regarding the HRC is the stifling of freedom of speech.)

She then goes on to write a completely unrelated story about that neo-con conman Conrad Black (look at all those cons!), and a cocktail party she attended, filled with elite immigrants and non-whites (Mark Steyn is also in there somewhere.) Yes, we all know what elite immigrants are really up to in Canadian politics (bringing in more immigrants.)

Well, the funny think about Levant's photo is all I see are two non-whites, or as Shaidle writes, "a black guy and an Asian dude", which doesn't make for much rejoicing, if that's what Shaidle is doing.

Also, there is no knowing why these two showed up, maybe they just want to say whatever they please, and "don't want no" Commission telling them what to do. Who knows if they really care about Canada as a nation, which is the whole point of true conservatism, I would think.

I've tried to figure out what the real purpose of her post might be. I think she’s getting a lot of flack from her readers for her sporadic “Your religion is f***ing retarded” outbursts about Muslims, and her various attacks on Toronto blacks. I think its getting to her that people are calling her "racist." She just doesn’t want to be called racist anymore, and needs her readership to keep on supporting her.

Another thing I have to mention is that she doesn't have any real idea of what she wants for Canada. As long as there are those who will violently or obnoxiously disrupt the peace, then she'll be at the forefront. She hates Islam because it is "retarded", writes about blacks and their attraction for guns and welfare, hates Warren Kinsella because he pokes fun at "conservatives".

All this from someone who wrote Tyranny of Nice, yet wants to be nice herself (for now)!

I’ve always maintained that the biggest problem with the fight against Islam is the vitriol that comes from the conservative side. Instead of name-calling, get the facts straight. Win your arguments based on information rather than rants. And you will win. Don’t give the Muslims (or liberals, or minorities) fodder for attacking you with your ill-conceived and unnecessary attacks.

Shaidle's attention in the media is purely based on her outspokenness on issues she doesn’t like. And I don’t think this makes for a very good conservative spokesman.

I definitely miss the outspoken, intelligent and erudite Kevin Michael Grace, who I hope is faring well since he's been absent from his website for many months now. We need more people who can articulate the problems, and find solutions to them. Not those who just yell at the top of their voices when they find something they don't like. Unfortunately, this is really what Shaidle is, or has become.

I wish her the best in her uneven battle to right what she thinks is wrong. But she's better off taking time to think, study and attack on foundations, rather than just on anger.

The Diversity of Support for Free Speech

I've always being ambivalent about our Canadian self-appointed conservative spokesmen, from Kathy Shaidle to Wendy Sullivan(her of the I Am Sarah Palin video fame), and even the boisterous Ezra Levant.

For all their outspokenness, I find them to be "conservative-lite". Or maybe it is the Mark Steyn Kool Aid, that's influencing the group.

I've put Shaidle to task about her appearance on public television, coming unprepared to speak on topics at hand (the last one was on atheism, previously it was a panel on the ordination of the recent pope), and just spouting out a couple of irritated and angry words. I've also written about her interview with Robert Spencer on Islam, where she gave him a lot of slack.

Wendy Sullivan did the same on the Michael Coren Show, which I actually think Coren was more in the right (no pun intended) than in the wrong for chastising her.

This same group has also spent an inordinate amount of time sympathizing with Chinese minorities for an innocent gaffe that an adversary leftist - Warren Kinsella - wrote on his blog.

This all comes to Shaidle's latest post.

Ezra Levant is on a book tour for Shakedown, his latest on Human Rights Commission revelations, which he did a great job of describing here on the Michael Coren Show. Yesterday, he posted a photo of his Calgary book signing, which was nothing unusual, except I hope that he has the permission of these people to have their faces all over the internet - they could be potential HRC victims!

Well, Shaidle has picked up on that photo and uses is as a great example of...diversity! Look at those minorities in "redneck" Calgary, and how they support freedom of speech (because the whole point for this group regarding the HRC is the stifling of freedom of speech.)

She then goes on to write a completely unrelated story about that neo-con conman Conrad Black (look at all those cons!), and a cocktail party she attended, filled with elite immigrants and non-whites (Mark Steyn is also in there somewhere.) Yes, we all know what elite immigrants are really up to in Canadian politics (bringing in more immigrants.)

Well, the funny think about Levant's photo is all I see are two non-whites, or as Shaidle writes, "a black guy and an Asian dude", which doesn't make for much rejoicing, if that's what Shaidle is doing.

Also, there is no knowing why these two showed up, maybe they just want to say whatever they please, and "don't want no" Commission telling them what to do. Who knows if they really care about Canada as a nation, which is the whole point of true conservatism, I would think.

I've tried to figure out the real purpose of her post might be. I think she’s getting a lot of flack from her readers for her sporadic “Your religion is f***ing retarded” outbursts about Muslims, and her various attacks on Toronto blacks. I think its getting to her that people are calling her "racist." She just doesn’t want to be called racist anymore, and needs her readership to keep on supporting her.

Another think I have to mention is that she doesn't have any real idea of what she wants for Canada. As long as there are those who will violently or obnoxiously disrupt the peace, then she'll be on the forefront. She hates Islam because it is "retarded", writes about blacks and their inadvertent attraction for guns (and welfare), hates Warren Kinsella because he pokes fun at "conservatives", and wrote her book Tyranny of Nice, yet wants to be nice herself (for now.)

And this from someone who just wrote a book called the Tyranny of Nice!

I’ve always maintained that the biggest problem with the fight against Islam is the vitriol that comes from the conservative side. Instead of name-calling, get the facts straight. Win your arguments based on information rather than rants. And you will win. Don’t give the Muslims (or liberals, or minorities) fodder for attacking you with your ill-conceived and unnecessary attacks.

Her attention in the media is purely based on her outspokenness on issues she doesn’t like. And I don’t think this makes for a very good conservative spokesman.

I definitely miss the outspoken, intelligent and erudite Ambler, who I hope is faring well since he's been absent from his website for many months now. We need more people who can articulate the problems, and find solutions to them. Not those who just yell at the top of their voices when they find something they don't like. Unfortunately, this is really what Shaidle is, or has become.

I wish her best in her uneven battle to right what she thinks is wrong. But she's better off taking time to think, study and attack on foundations, rather than just yell whenever things go wrong.


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