Hatewatch Tweets
Hatewatch is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
Lew Rockwell’s Website Warns of Coming U.S. Civil War
You thought President Obama had his hands full sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan? That’s small potatoes compared to the other big military plan on his agenda: returning 200,000 troops from other countries to the U. S. Northern Command in preparation for an imminent civil war at home.
At least that’s the word from some on the right wing-fringe — in this case, LewRockwell.com and pastor and former presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin. And from where did they get this surprising information? The European Union Times (EUT). In the likely event you’re unfamiliar with it, that online publication carries links to American white supremacist publications like American Renaissance (whose editor says black people cannot sustain civilization) and carries section headings that include “European Pride” and “Survival.” Among the stories in the first category are pieces about Christians in Moldavia tearing down an outdoor menorah, and the decline of mixed marriages in Russia. Stories featured in the “Survival” section include another citizens’ “grand jury” planning to “indict” Obama — this time in Tennessee — and the “great victory” in Switzerland, where voters recently backed an arguably referendum to ban the erection of minarets. A third section carries a litany of accounts of black-on-white crimes.
The EUT claims that Obama has issued orders to “begin immediately” preparing for a 200,000-troop increase to the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based U.S. Northern Command, formed seven years ago to oversee homeland defense. That’s so it can prepare for “an expected outbreak of civil war within the United States before the end of winter,” the EUT claims. The supposed implosion of the nation’s banking system will foment this explosion of violence. “Russian military analysts” are the source for this shocking news, as well as “reports,” which claim that there are “over 220 million American people armed to the teeth and ready to explode.” Of course, no actual analysts or reports are named. But that didn’t stop somebody named Michael Gaddy writing for LewRockwell.com, and Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party’s presidential candidate in 2008, from hyping the story.
Rockwell is a libertarian commentator and blogger and former aide to U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), as well as current chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Auburn, Ala. Gaddy is a contributor to his website. Gaddy’s only qualifications appear to be that he is an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada and Beirut. “Either the government is anticipating a total financial breakdown, there are plans to confiscate firearms, a new false flag event is in the works, or any combination of the three,” he concludes from the EUT story.
“On the minds of many Americans and politicians is exactly how will the military and law enforcement react if told to confiscate firearms or move American citizens to FEMA camps,” Gaddy added on LewRockwell.com. “Brace yourselves and prepare, this is going to get real ugly.”
Not to be outdone, Baldwin also dug up the FEMA camp canard — a central, and completely groundless, conspiracy theory of the militia movement of the 1990s — in a piece he wrote on his website last Friday. “This would help explain the reports of all those potential detention camps that have been constructed (including the abandoned military installations that have refurbished fences, guard towers, etc., around them),” he wrote.
Baldwin called for a “revolution of the individual states: to reclaim their sovereignty and fight for the liberties of their sovereigns (We the People). Furthermore, such a revolution would be constitutional, lawful, moral, and, yes, in compliance with the laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Still, the Pensacola, Fla., pastor hedged on the reliability of the EUT story, saying that Obama “might be” worried about a civil war. That, however, was reason enough for him to write a lengthy, alarmist essay about it.
on December 14th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
SPLC once again can’t seem to get its facts together. The minaret ban referendum was carried out in Switzerland, not Sweden. And besides that, why is that a problem? The Swiss didn’t ban the Islamic mosques themselves, just those big steeple like minaret towers whose very presence is a symbol of Islam taking its root.
on December 15th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
More facts about Michael Gaddy:
-He contributes to newswithviews.com
-He has appeared as a guest on The Political Cesspool
Hope that helps.
on December 16th, 2009 at 6:15 am
So I take it the Swiss government will soon create a ban on church steeples to even things out right?
on December 16th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Emmett thinks it is okay for a country to ban minarets not because of some secular reason like preserving mountain views, but as an act of the state to stop the spread of Islam.
Emmett, what you just recommended would be ILLEGAL in the United States, and it would be un-American.
You’re being un-American, Emmett. We believe in freedom of religion in the US.
Go live somewhere else if you don’t like the US, Emmett.
on December 16th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
This is not the first Reich Wingnut extremist who has mentioned Civil War. This is the new buzzword out in Reich Wingnut land.
We are in great danger because of these whackos. They have gone mainstream and are now on FOX “News”.
We are in the same situation we were in in 1860.
A bunch of armed racist rednecks wants to secede from the Union.
My great grandpappy wore Union blue and I’d be proud to fight for the Stars and Stripes against these rebel traitors.
on December 17th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I’m trying to figure out how the hell these people know so much. They know this is gonna happen or that’s gonna happen….always after the fact might I add. I say, “shut the hell up let’s get together and change things together for the betterment of us all”. Stop throwing rocks and hiding your hands.
on December 17th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
This Civil War Prediction seems like a 90′s argument that is being upgraded for this decade. Yet it’s lack of detail seem to impeach it’s credibility. (Yes I know…I should read the full post first before commenting)
The ‘Russian Analyst’ is probably Igor Panarin, who predicted a U.S. Break Up in 2010, Using the break up Soviet Union as his model. The reference to a banking implosion is probably the rumor that the U.S. will default on it’s debt in 2010. Interesting that there were no Scahilian referecnes to Xe private contractors.
Also…Keep in mind all of this will be occuring amid the back drop of chaos causing massive solar flares that others are forecasting for 2010.
on December 17th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I run into ignorant, hate filled , paranoid rednecks all the time out here in Missouri. Gives me the creeps. There is no kind of any reasoning with them. Like little boys playing cowboys and indians, they circle their “wagons” (SUV’s & pick-up’s) and buy, trade, and sell guns, ammo, and all sorts of crazy literature touting ‘take back our country’ and usage of words like ‘liberals, commies, Marxists, socialism’ and the “God Bless America” ad nauseum…
I fear these wing-nuts much more than any Muslim’s or terrorists from the middle east.
on December 17th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
In my own family, there are ancestors who fought on both sides of the American civil war.
I agree with Snorlax that they’re a bit whacko, but don’t see that we’re back to where we were in 1860. The constitutional questions in play then have since been resolved with the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments, and finally, a century later, enabling legislation in the voting rights and public accomodation acts.
Instead of a population nearly equally divided over these issues (as in 1860), I believe the ratio is more on the order of 99:1 or less. The fact is, white supremacist and similar organizations are criminal gangs who have a history of resorting to domestic terrorism in the United States, and it is law enforcement and the courts that must see justice done.
on December 17th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Snorlax is correct, as usual. Emmet, did you actually read the article posted? It didn’t say “Sweden”, it correctly said, “Switzerland”. In any case, all this talk of “civil war” should be nipped in the bud instead of just ignoring these idiots as reich wingnuts. If there are “detention camps” these fomenters of civil war should be the ones incarcerated. They are Traitors as is defined by Federal law. My great grand daddy was also a boy soldier for the Union, joining at the age of 18, listing his occupation as a farmer. These civil war fomenters should be seriously careful or they will run up against some very loyal Americans
on December 17th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
The funniest thing about the right’s applause for the Swiss decision on minarets is it’s based on the interesting delusion that Switzerland is a democratic country.
As a friend of mine who once worked there always said, Switzerland is a country where the voters don’t work and the workers can’t vote. Even the money in the banks is hiding from justice and democracy.
on December 17th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
This is a problem if Switzerland is a free democracy because freedom of speech applies to all. Did anyone see the HBO Special Shouting Fire where Jewish lawyer, Martin Garbus defends the Nazis? Very good documentary.
But this is the point, freedom of expression has to be defended otherwise we have tyranny (power).
Ruslan Amirkhanov’s point hits it on the head, unless we ban all, including church steeples.
HBO: Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech. (n.d.). HBO Online. Retrieved December 15, 2009, from http://www.hbo.com/docs/progra.....index.html
on December 17th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
snorlax.. you’re the only traitor i see. asia is for asians, india is for indians, africa is for africans, but the white nations are supposedly for everyone. what if non-africans started to flood into africa. non-mexicans started to flood into mexico. non-indians started to flood into india. race is real and any individual thinker realizes this. multiculturalism is not some beautiful utopia, its a cesspool.
on December 17th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I blame the WORLDWIDE right-wing propaganda machine for most of the divisions we face as a society today.
I have a friend who is under the spell of Fox News in general, and Glenn Beck in particular.
How do good people fall for the crap that Beck expouses ?
It must be some sort of Svengali (sp?) effect. Hypnosis? Maybe it’s the eyes.
on December 17th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
We’re accustomed to thinking of the libertarian Right as smug economic fundamentalists with an inflated sense of their own intelligence.
Here in north Alabama, there’s a strong crypto-Kluxer thread in the libertarian Right.
on December 17th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
“Of course, no actual analysts or reports are named.” Sounds like the SPLC to me. And no I don’t actually believe any of this garbage, I just find it ironic the the SPLC of all organizations complains about unnamed sources.
on December 17th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
To Ruslan, on the issue of banning church steeple to “even things out”;
Why do that? It’s not like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and many other Islamic states outright ban any non-Muslim religious symbols and buildings, at the pain of arrest and torture. Oh wait, the DO. And in the supposedly “secular” Egypt, its constitution explicitly favors the Muslim Arabs over the indigenous Coptic Christian minority, whereupon a Muslim man can marry a Christian woman, but if it’s the Christian man who marries a Muslim woman, he’ll be lucky if he’s the only one who gets lynched by the angry Muslim mob and not his family members too. But hey, where are the liberals who tout mixed marriages, when situations like that happen? Even in the “liberal” and “modern” Muslim states, like my distant ancestral homeland Tunisia (which I once considered visiting), I was told not to bring pork and not to wear my Christian cross in public, or else. I gladly scrapped my travel plans there, and instead visited (and spent my money) in the American South. And what about the beleaguered Pakistani Christians, Hindus and Sikhs who suffer rapes of their women, arson attacks on their monasteries and lynchings? Not from Taliban, mind you, but at the hands of their ordinary Muslim neighbors. And the remnants of (less that 400 people) the Jewish community in Yemen? Look, I can go on about the Islamic intolerance, but this is not the only main issue here.
The issue really is about reciprocity. For years now, the Muslims in Western nations have been allowed to build their mosques, wear their Islamic dress and even have their own prayer rooms at workplace, while in Islamic states none such freedoms are ever (or even remotely similarly) are afforded non Muslims. Tolerance, something that SPLC allegedly promotes, is something that’s supposed to be MUTUAL. Whenever the issue of religious freedom is brought up, the Western nations are always forced to hold themselves at a ridiculously high standard, while the Islamic nations are allowed to slip. As a result, there’s only ONE SIDED tolerance, where Muslims are afforded religious freedoms in non-Muslim nations, while Muslim nations would NEVER give even one-tenth of such freedoms to non-Muslims.
on December 17th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Thi is sad… all this is happening just as I’m starting to make money on Wall Street.
If it ain’t one thing it’s a another… Jesus Christ… get a life people!
on December 17th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
ALSO… if you’d like to identify “Rebels” (or confederates)… just look for those who fly the American Flag day and night.
It’s the NEW symbolism Confederates are using to identify themselves.
Also, Goat Tees, and Fleecy White Gray Hair.
But that “Goat Tee” is a dead givaway.
on December 18th, 2009 at 12:04 am
If they want a civil war, they will find a lot of people like
me ready to defend the government. I am also still waiting
for the race war. I hope it comes soon, because I am
eager for the fight. I would take no prisoners.
I can’t think of a better reason to fight, or a better cause
to die in.
on December 18th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Snorlax, there is absolutely nothing un-American about pointing out the fact that while Muslims are allowed to thrive in Western nations, they’d never let the Jews, Christians, Hindus and other non-Muslims the same freedoms in their own countries. Considering that even in the most “liberal” (and I use that term loosely) Islamic countries you’d be lucky if they let you install a toilet seat in a church, the Muslims themselves are in no position to argue about the Swiss people banning minarets. My college classmate who’s from Afghanistan told me that while he’s resentful about the Swiss minaret ban, he can understand why Swiss made their decision. To quote my Afghan friend, after all in Afghanistan they’d “never let Christians practice their faith in a million years.” There must be a point when all civilized Western nations whether it’s South Korea, Switzerland, France and yes United States put their foot down and say say something about this Islamic hypocrisy. Of course Snorlax, judging about your previous attacks on Christianity and the Bible, I don’t you even care about that. To you probably, as long as it’s only the Western countries that keep offering concessions and giving into Muslims’ demands, while demanding nothing in return (hey, that would be wwaycist) that’s all that matters to you. Because this one way, one sided tolerance that favors Muslims, while screwing everyone else, that’s all that “religious freedom” means to you. And as for “spread of Islam”, I highly recommend you look up history. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out that Islam (and not Christianity) that was the first religion to be spread by fire and sword. After it arose in the Arabian Peninsula in the 6th century, the Muslim Arabs went on to invade other people’s countries. Here’s an interesting fact; all of today’s Islamic lands that are to the West of the Arabian Peninsula, whether it’s Syria, Palestine, Egypt or North Africa, they were all previously Judeo-Christian lands. Yep, back in 7th century A.D, the Arabs invaded those lands, systematically massacred and enslaved the indigenous population (Copts in Egypt, Syriacs in Syria and Lebanon, and Berbers in North Africa) and utterly destroyed their civilizations. And after all of this was done, they brought in their Arabs tribes to settle those newly conquered and depopulated lands. Hmmm, so look at this Snorlax. The invasion, enslavement, and the subsequent displacement and replacement of those native peoples of North Africa and Middle East with Muslim Arabs…. that looks a lot a like colonialism. Except of course, this was all happening in 7th century, almost a thousand years before the European colonialism. Of course, while the Americans are chided about the European conquest and settlement of the Americas, no one would dare for example, go to Algeria or Morocco and scold the Arabs about their brutality and oppression towards the indigenous Berbers. Or how about the ferocious sanctioning and isolation of South Africa during the apartheid, while right now Sudan is being given a pass for the Muslim Arabs’ mass murder and enslavement of the black Africans in Darfur? Where are the boycotts and mass protests?
on December 18th, 2009 at 6:25 am
It’s nothing like 1860.
Then, there was a bloc of states where those who held political power were terrified, afraid they would lose all power. They imagined the Federal government was about to force the abolition of slavery on them, they would suddenly have millions of former slaves given the vote – and these new voters would vote for whomever their liberators told them to. The South would be totally under Washington’s thumb.
There was a strong element of paranoid fantasy in this, even as there is now in the radical right’s various scare stories, but at least it made a coherent narrative. There is no such single issue today, instead you have a grab-bag of various paranoid fantasies – which only a small percentage of the populace find at all persuasive.
The idea that we’re on the brink of a civil war is just another paranoid fantasy. It’s intended to rally the reactionary fringe (“We all gotta stick together, it’s gonna be war!”) and intimidate the majority (“Don’t push us too far, or it’s gonna get ugly!”)
It ain’t gonna happen, folks.
on December 18th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Geez Emmett, give it a rest! You are an angry man and we know it! Bring on the revolution, i would love to bag me some racist thug head for my mantle. God Bless America and its multicultural society. I would defend it to my death!
on December 18th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Emmet, you seem to be partially educated, but you are missing one huge point: the United States of America has a different vision and goal than the Islamic states you mentioned as being intollerant. We are not a “tit for tat” country; we do not lower our standards and ideals based on the history of other countries. Your “history lesson” notwithstanding, why don’t you read the inscription on the Statue of Liberty or the Preamble to the Constitution of the USA?
Small minds grasp at the opportunity to feel superior to others.
on December 19th, 2009 at 1:04 am
No, I do not believe in “tit for tat” actions either. However, whenever there’s a time when Muslims don’t get things going their way, in this case the Swiss ban on minarets, I think for them it should be serve as an opportunity to look at themselves and realize how simply not being able to build a minaret is absolutely nothing compared to the hellish life that non-Muslims living under Islamic laws forced to endure. I’ve mentioned about how in Islamic lands the religious as well as ethnic minorities are treated and since couple of people here have been talking about how their ancestors were so and such, let me tell you about one of mine. My own maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Tunisia, who along with his family members was forced to flee his country for the United States in the 1950s. Why? Because he was an ethnic Berber who had converted (or given the historical context of the Muslim Arab conquest of North Africa, he reverted) to Christianity. He was a proud member of the indigenous Chelha Berber community, and who’d refused to abandon his native language in favor of Arabic, and be assimilated into the dominant culture of the Arab invaders. And that is despite the harassment and abuse he suffered from the ethnic Arabs. And after a chance encounter with a Lutheran priest from Denmark, he and his family converted from Islam to Christianity. And while in United States his decision to choose what religion he wanted to follow may be a simple act of exercising religious freedom, in an Islamic state like Tunisia it was considered to be an apostasy. Something that under the Islamic laws warrants a murder. He was no criminal, or anything like that. But just for finding Christ, he was run out of Tunisia by his Muslim fellow citizens. When he came to America, in his words that he told me, to him American dream did not meant becoming rich, or prosperous. To him it meant simply being able to walk down the street without being spat on or kicked just because he was wearing a crucifix around his neck. Or having his windows shattered and receiving death threats. It was from my grandpa that I first learned how the world is a cruel place no matter how much you view it through (or want to view it) with rosy eyeglasses. And it also was from him that I first learned at young age that even some of the basic freedoms that we as Americans get to enjoy are something that are not to be taken for granted.
on December 19th, 2009 at 3:32 am
I have been to several majority Muslim territories and countries and not all of them have the kind of persecution or limitations you describe. This is all irrelevant though, since the Swiss can’t give a legitimate reason as to why minarets need to be banned. I’d like to see the bastards focus on more important issues such as women trafficking.
Now I can’t ignore the comments by the fledgling WN JJohnson. First off JJ, “race” is not real to most people. That means that in “Asia”, there is no “Asian” race. Ditto in Africa and Europe. People immigrate to countries which are more industrialized and offer a higher standard of living, while capitalists in those countries welcome this because it is a source of cheaper labor. As a result, countries like South Africa, India, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Malaysia, and so on- all have masses of foreign immigrants. So stop pretending that someone is persecuting your poor “race”.
on December 19th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Emmett I see what you see. Try to understand that some ppl are either ouwardly Anti Christian/Conservative/White etc and some keep it to themselves. Oh it comes out and here and there and that is what ppl like you and myself try to make sense of. I personally think the upcomming civil war is not something that all coming from white person who are members of this movement or that. I see the Climate Of Fear is actually against White persons who is they are from any group that doesn’t matter. How about shedding some light on the Hate movements against the lighter skinned ppl in this country for a day or two? Oh wait, we have requested this from the SPLC a thousand times before. What you on any given website is what they really are about. Anti White, Anti Christian, Anti Conservative and that is cause for Climate Of Fear…
on December 19th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I observe that one can learn more about what is going on in this country from YOUTUBE better than VDAR or SPLC and or other. Observer, this is a bias site and it does it blanetly. I am not considered white but I see it clear as day that your site on purpose leaves out MASSIVE HATE from other groups that are not considered white.
on December 20th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
In case you have not noticed, we ARE ALREADY in a civil war – thank goodness it remains bloodless.
We have a large power base that thinks Marxism is the way to go, and these folks are acting as fast as they can to cram their agenda down our throats before we figure out how to stop them legally.
Those who worry about the rednecks might want to consider that about 10% of the population of the Colonies supported the Revolution but all enjoyed the fruit of the labor of those who did.
As the sheeple in the cities are no longer capable of caring for themselves without the Government infrastucture, we are in a sad condition.
We need to ensure our youth read the Federalist Papers so they understand history, and we are not forced to repeat it.
on December 22nd, 2009 at 4:44 pm
What a bunch of crap! We don’t have marxists! You dont even know what a marxist is! I never heard one person speak of abolishing private property. But checks and balances on laissez faire free market greed, that they and I speak against. Don’t like rednecks.
on December 22nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
This private property right wing militia Ron Paul ideology reminds me of the the Guilded Age. These folks want to return to small government where business rules with machine like patronage .
on December 22nd, 2009 at 5:54 pm
SPLC: Stirring up Hate in America is not a public service. The likes of you people are much too prominent in our own government and media, suggesting that any disagreement with the president is tantamount to racism. I am disgusted with SPLCs willingness to print names like Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, and Chuck Baldwin in hate watch? The only people we hate are tyrants! And please, feel free to Google “Civilian Intern Labor Camp” or “Jobs Internment Specialist”.
on December 23rd, 2009 at 4:03 am
Hellen, have they set a date for that coming Civil War? I’m only asking because right-wing yahoos have been talking about that since the middle of the 80s, and it was always “just around the corner”. Perhaps you could indulge us all and point out what was said here which is “anti-Christian”,or “anti-white”.
Now as for Bob, who is one of the elite and not part of the “sheeple”, no doubt in part due to years of education by talk radio and Youtube videos, I am wondering about this “large powerbase that thinks Marxism is the way to go”. You see, the Democratic party(yeah, I know that’s who you’re referring to) is basically a party of rich people, funded by the same class as the Republicans. I’m pretty familiar with Marxism and general history, and I cannot think of a single example of when the ruling class of a country deliberately funded a Communist movement in order to overthrow and expropriate itself. If Obama and co. are Marxists, I hope you can explain as to why the major bank lobby donated something like $3 million more to his campaign than to John McCain.
on December 23rd, 2009 at 3:00 pm
JT- Martial law and FEMA camps have been “just around the corner” for over two decades. What the hell is taking them so long?
on December 24th, 2009 at 10:58 am
The Minarets is not the equivalent to any other religious symbol on their place of worship. The Muslims Minarets are more like their symbols of territory of an area. Sort of like when man placed a flag on the moon or when man placed a flag on top of the highest mountain. It’s laying claim. That is why Switzerland said NO WAY. As for civil war alarmest thinking, talking as if it’s all going to happen because of the returing troops??? That is a distraction from the real threat of civil war is from people allready in the states. So many hateful splintering groups and of so many colors too!
on December 24th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Ruslan… Left wing yahoos have been talking the same talk for years but they are getting much louder. Listen to people like Rev Wright lately? And or thopse who repeat his words and ways? Would you consider him to be a conservative White Christian? No not realy woudl be your response. So then take him for example… Why no talk about him adding fuel to the fire or articles abotu his comings and going here on SPLC. Him for example but hey, there are many cut from the same cloth as he is give or take a few garments. Enlighten yourself to recognize Anti this or that even when you don’t see the actual words. It sort of rounds your intel out…
on December 27th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Another strange conspiracy story sourced in Russia that appeals to populist right-wing paranoia. Do we really need more of this? Such behavior increases the divisions between right and left and makes it less likely we’ll find common ground.
on December 28th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Emmett,
I’m afraid your history of the early Muslim conquests, which you describe as being the first (as in before Christianity) religion to spread itself with the sword gives something of a one-sided perspective. In regard to Egypt, the Coptic Christians had already found themselves a minority denied equal rights, not by Islam but by the Byzantine Empire which practiced a different form of Christianity. When the Muslims came to Egypt there was indeed violence, but rather than being forcibly converted the Christian and Jewish population were, under a system called jizya, allowed to practice their religion and exempted from military service. They had to pay taxes that Muslim citizens were not subjected to, but this was a system that had already existed in the Middle East for centuries and was only adapted by Islam. During the pagan years of the Roman Era, the Copts in Egypt had been subject to it, as had been non-Christians following the conversion of the Roman Empire.
Speaking of Rome, following the conversion of the Empire officially toward Christianity, a process which began with Constantine, pagan citizens of the Empire found themselves subject to increasing restrictions. These included first the closing of temples and the stealing of religious treasures, and later the banning of pagans from employment and institutionalized violence. This violence was well before Islam existed, and indeed many of the Middle Eastern areas you describe being taken from the Christians had in fact only become Christian by being forcibly taken from the pagan populations already living there. The Christians would continue this practice, peacefully where people willingly converted, by the sword where they would not, until all of Europe was Christian. In this regard, they differed little from the Muslims, save that in most Christian countries minority religions were subjected to far, far worse than added taxes. The history of the Jewish population of Spain during the Reconquista provides some examples of this, although neither Christian nor Muslim was tolerant of Non-Abrahamic religions. Sadly, blood stained pasts are a commonality shared by both of the world’s largest religions, and if Christianity’s violence began first, this is probably only because so too did Christianity exist first.
Saying that minarets are a specific symbol of Islamification is misleading. Laura Wilson’s above statement both enlightens and obscures in this regard. Yes, minarets are symbolic to a Muslim community in an area, but they are symbolic in the same way that the tall steeple of a Christian church in the middle of a town is a symbol to the Christian community. Equally unimpressive are arguements attempting to justify the ban because of bans against Churches in some Muslim nations or fundamentalist Islam. If we believe in human rights and we believe that this separates us from these nations, we must live in accordance with those rights, including freedom of religion.
A moral you abandon when you become uncomfortable or threatened is not a moral you truely hold. It does not take courage to be brave when we are not threatened. Is Islam a threat? Say instead that fundamentalist religion, including fundamentalist Islam, threatens human decency and human rights. I do not believe this is a threat that can be overcome by abandoning the values of equality, dignity, and freedom; banning minarets tells the Muslim community as a whole that when fundamentalists rant about the West attempting to destroy Islam, they are correct. By allowing Muslims to practice their religion, we make liars of those fundamentalists, and help the moderates within Islam who represent the best real chance of bringing the 1.2 or more billion Muslims in the world toward embracing human rights not because we tell them to, but because they observe for themselves that they are a better way.
on December 30th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Try building a church (or any non-Muslim building) in a Muslim country and see how tolerant and “multicultural” their attitudes are lol. You guys are a joke.
on December 31st, 2009 at 2:30 pm
R Lavigueur,
I agree that for both Islam and Christianity, there’s a history of intolerance and violence. However, the events and circumstances surrounding them are completely different. While the Hebrew and Christian Bibles condemn paganism and polytheism, intolerance and hate of non-Muslims is something that’s actually ingrained in Koran as in the chapter 9, verse 29;
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
According to prophet Mohamed’s teachings, Muslims are truly ordained by Allah to go and invade the lands of non-Muslims and enslave and slaughter their inhabitants. The only way those non-Muslims could save themselves were either conversion to Islam or paying the jizya money, as you pointed out. However, those who could not (or would not) pay the jizya were murdered or enslaved, along with their families. In layman’s terms, today that would be called racketeering. Religiously endorsed racketeering. Throughout the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, the Arabs assaulted all the major European towns and cities along the Mediterranean coast. These incursions were carried out with the sole purpose of collecting plunder and slaves And that’s discounting their conquest of Spain, Portugal and Southern Italy. These attacks (called ghaza in Arabic) didn’t happen just once or twice. They occurred every other year for three centuries straight. These Islamic brutalities were the main cause of the Europeans’ hardened attitude towards the non-Christians. The idea of “Islamic Golden Age in Spain” is nothing more than myth created my the Islamic apologists who wish to paint a rosy picture of something that never existed. The whole time Spain was ruled by the Moors, the Christian and Jewish population were required to pay jizya, or else. The most infamous example of the Islamic “tolerance” towards Jews was the Granada massacre in 1066, where the Muslims viciously murdered over 4000 Jews in one single day. A feat such as that would not to be repeated until the
Shoah during WWII. And the Reconquista? It was an agonizing 700+ year war that the Christian Spaniards were FORCED to wage, because they have had enough of the Muslims destroying their churches, plundering their cities, and raping their children. Likewise, the Crusades were originally a response of the Christian Europeans to the continued Muslim assaults upon them. After getting a taste of their own medicine, the Muslim Arabs’ bemoaning of the Crusades (which is something that they do to this day) is equivalent a bully crying after getting his nose bloodied.
on December 31st, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Emmett,
I don’t deny that the Koran contains passages that specifically promote intolerance, but this seems to be endemic in the Bible as well as the Koran. The Old Testement contains within Deuteronomy God ordering the Jews to commit genocide against the Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites; and at 7:1-2 specifically forbidding treaty or mercy (or tolerance as we would see it today); or in the New Testement Luke 27:19, which reads “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”
As for the Reconquista, one of the first acts the Christians took upon reclaiming Spain in 1492 was to sign an edict expelling all converts to Islam along with all Jews from Spain, citing the “great harm suffered by Christians from the contact, intercourse and communication which they have with the Jews, who always attempt in various ways to seduce faithful Christians from our Holy Catholic Faith.” Indeed, expelling non-Catholics from Spain was one of the key driving forces behind the Inquisition, and modern estimates of the number of Jews who left Spain at the time are actually lower than the estimates given by Christian sources at the time. Though some schollars, such as Bernard Lewis, do argue that the accounts of co-existance in Islamic Spain are merely the work of apologists, the truth has been debated for centuries by Western schollars with little conclusive results. The massacre you cite is a good example. Some schollars, such as Lewis, label it as typical; others consider it to be as unusual as the circumstances that led to it; with the Islamic mob storming the palace where Joseph ibn Naghrela, a Jewish Vizer to a Berber king, had sought sanctuary.
Funny you should mention the Crusades, since they provide an excellent example of how religion can be used to justify violence on both sides. The Arabs destroyed the Christian Church of the Holy Selpulchre; and between that time and when it was rebuilt pilgrims were attacked and killed. The Arabs eventually realized that there were economic benefits to the pilgrimages and stopped the killing, but by then the Byzantine Empire had suceeded in getting the Papacy’s support, and the First Crusade was called. In the following 200 years wars were fought mostly against the Muslims, also against the pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemies of the popes. Byzantium was sacked by its fellow Christians, helping to weaken it further (eventually the Muslims would lay a bloody siege and conquer it and the Byzantine Empire, yet more violence). Neither side showed any interest in following the more peaceful passages in their religion, and most of the admirable elements of Islam and Christianity were sidelined in favour of a bloodbath.
Christianity and Islam both contain within them the seeds of violence, namely passages that directly state that followers of other religions are inferior, that their religion is the only path to salvation and goodness, and at least in some passages that it is perfectly acceptable to kill these non-believers. Both religions have acted on these beliefs in the past, and fundamentalist Islamists continue to use these passages to ‘justify’ their campaigns of terror and violence today.
Since I don’t think either religion (or any religion) is likely to go back and remove those passages from their holy texts; the best we can hope for is that Muslims (like more and more Christians) learn to just ignore such passages entirely. Regrettably, I don’t see it happening any time soon, most people would much rather be right than compassionate.
on January 1st, 2010 at 12:28 am
To smear a man like Michael Gaddy is kinda like trying to smear Mother Teresa. He is a person of excellent character and to suggest he is a white supremacist could only be out of hate or ignorance for the cause of human liberty.
on January 2nd, 2010 at 4:34 am
Seriously Emmett, you sound shrill and pathetic. Most people here are probably more familiar with the Quran and Islamic history than you, so you can peddle your paranoid fantasies elsewhere, on those rare occasions when you find the courage to come out from under your bed.
on January 6th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
R Lavigueur,
Actually, there was a period during early to mid 20th century, when some Arab states (such as Syria and Lebanon) embraced Western liberal values such as secularism and gender equality. However, due to its immense oil wealth and never having been under Western sphere of influence, Saudi Arabia (the birthplace of Islam) has been able export its Wahhabism and the Shariah law throughout Middle East and the Islamic nations elsewhere. And Wahhabi Islam is not a Saudi innovation. It’s merely Islam being practiced exactly as it was during the times of Mohamed. With the child marriage, polygamy, Jew hatred, and everything else included. It’s only shame that because of so many Western nations’ dependency on Saudi oil, it makes world leaders turn a blind eye.
on January 6th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Ruslan,
I can’t help but laugh at your ludicrous claims. Shrill and pathetic? Those are the words that are best used to describe the Muslims who went berserk, rioted and rampaged when those amazingly hilarious caricatures of prophet Mohamed were published in Denmark in 2005. And when some people tried explaining to Muslims that in Europe there’s freedom of speech and expression, what was their response? “Freedom go to hell” and “Islam will conquer the World” were just some of the gems. As 1/4 Berber (and the rest of my ancestry being Hungarian, French Huguenot and Lithuanian), I’m proud of my indigenous North African roots, and I also know that North Africa will permanently be a land of Islam and Arabs. And how the situation will never be reversed due to Berbers being rendered a minority in their own homeland. But Europeans at least are still in control of their own lands and are still in a position do defend themselves, but most of them are too ignorant to realize wherever there’s Islam there’s no freedom. And it isn’t just in Muslim countries, but due to Islamic immigration, increasingly in the West also. After all, Theo van Gogh’s murdered by a pious Muslim immigrant. Or a few days ago Kurt Westergaard, one of the authors of Danish cartoons, was almost killed by a Somali. I still remember a nasty incident few years ago, when in solidarity for the Danish cartoonist’s freedom of speech, I wore a shirt with one of the Mohamed cartoons. While coming from college, I was confronted by a burly Palestinian Arab guy who was a foot taller than me. He proceeded to accost me, as I tried to reason with him to no avail. Enraged, he raised his fist to take a swing at me. As soon as he did that, I immediately grabbed both of his hands and headbutted him in the face with everything I had. I thought then how perhaps this was one of the reasons why my Tunisian grandfather renounced Islam and became a Christian. While I watched my would-be assailant go down with a broken nose and blood jettisoning down his face, I thought to myself if only all of my Berber ancestors had the same courage to stand up to the Muslim Arab aggressors 14 centuries ago, today North Africa would’ve continued being an integral part of the Western civilization as it was during the Roman times, instead of becoming Islamized and Arabized. Or if the Persians had successfully stood to the Muslim Arabs back in 7th century, today Iran would never have been an “Islamic Republic”.
on January 7th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Emmett,
I agree with your dissapointment in regards to Saudi Arabia, nothing makes us look quite like the hypocrites we become when our national governments condemn human rights abuses in places like Afghanistan while giving the Saudi monarchy pretty much whatever they want so long as the oil keeps flowing. Our dependancy on oil in general is a weakness in that regard, in the same way that China is empowered by our dependancy on their cheap labour and products.
A large number of Arab nations during the early and mid twentieth centuries took what seemed to be promising steps toward more democratic, secular and progressive policies. Arab Socialism, especially in Egypt, Syria and Iraq, while not atheistic or even strictly socialist, attempted to overcome tribalism, feudalism, religious extremism and the oppression of women while maintaining a separate identity from the Cold War spheres of influence. Other nations like Turkey attempted to put forward the same while taking a more traditional Western approach. These reforms were not entirely successful, and many were later overturned with the rise in Islamic fundamentalism throughout the region, but they do demonstrate that the possibility of internal change exists. Turkey is still struggling with its secular and religious values almost a hundred years after the republic was formed as a secular nation.
In response to what you mentioned to Ruslan about the Berbers in North Africa, don’t forget that the Roman Empire had mostly collapsed in Europe and North Africa well before the spread of Islam began, and that even the Roman presence was largely restricted to the coastline and to land expropriated from the Berbers for Roman settlers. Indeed, Rome required an entire network of fortresses, walls and garrisons to protect these holdings from the native population of the area. The Germanic Vandals, who were Arianist Christians, took over the region from the Romans and managed to induce a good deal of religious bigotry and violence attempting to suppress and convert the non-conforming Christians in Northern Africa. The Byzantines took back the region and expelled and enslaved the Vandals less than 200 years before the Muslim conquest of the area began.
It is important not forget how recent the values expressed by human rights are even in the Western world. Women’s sufferage was basically ensured in the USA after 1920, while in the Canadian province of Quebec, at the time more or less controlled by the Roman Catholic church, full sufferage wasn’t granted until 1940. These days, Quebec is still mostly Catholic, but the stranglehold of religious dogmatism has been mostly broken in Canada at the legal and increasingly at the civil levels. Sadly, this is not fully the case in many American states and it is most definately not the case in the Muslim world.
on March 13th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Don’t be fooled by the Government. The problem today is, We have politicians that do not represent US any longer and the Fed is bankrupting OUR COUNTRY, not just one side of the isle or another. Let’s vote out these bastards who view the citizens of this country as a Meal Ticket. We make this country thrive, We keep it working everyday. If you want a socialist country, Then move to one. We have been fighting that shit since the beginning. America IS NOT and WILL NOT be a socialist/communist state as long as people like me are still drawing a breath.
on March 15th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I used to be afraid of words like “socialist” and “big government.”
But then I turned 12.
on March 16th, 2010 at 6:28 am
Jason, you started out making perfect sense about politicians who don’t represent the people. Then you seem to be saying that socialism is what’s bankrupting this country. That’s not where most of the money goes – it’s our huge, bloated military budget that sucks up most of it.
on March 20th, 2010 at 12:04 am
Oh and for the record
http://www.govtrack.us/congres.....l=h111-645
http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84
North patterned the plan [of Rex 84] on a 1970 FEMA report written by [then] FEMA chief Louis Giuffrida which proposed the detention of up to 21 million American negroes in the event of a black militant uprising in the United States.
From 1967 to 1971, the FBI kept a list of over 100,000 people to be rounded up as subversive. This was known as the ‘ADEX’ list. The reason given for such installations usually ranges from “emergency centers” that are used for the “protection” of American citizens during a national emergency, to holding centers to detain illegal aliens.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx0529b07
See National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive (National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20
on March 20th, 2010 at 12:06 am
Please replace “american negroes” with African AMericans. This was taken from an old report. MY sincere apologies.
on February 27th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
I don’t know about the timing or veracity of the troop deployment claim, but my observation is that the US is on the road to civil war if in fact the federal government doesn’t just financially collapse and peacefully go away like the USSR did in the 1990′s.
Civil war easily will erupt when the pain and suffering from living under a plundering and controlling government exceeds the pain that people perceive will come from confronting it violently. If you look at the official bonded debt of the US government it exceeds per capita that of Greece. If you add in the obligations under Social Security and Medicare then the actual debt is six times bigger than the bonded debt alone, something that cannot possible be paid. So default in some form is inevitable, and that will come on the backs of those depending on Social Security and Medicare.
If you look at the distribution of wealth, it resembles more a slave plantation than a free society. This is because of years and years of legislation, lobbies for by special interests and voted for by venal politicians, which effectively rigs the economy to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
If you look at history, there are parallels today to the lead up time to the American Revolution and the Civil War. Each was preceded by an awakening to political conditions and a reevaluation of these arrangements. The Ron Paul “revolution”, the Tea Party, and the Occupy movement are simply the early, peaceful efforts to address what has essentially become a fascist system, particularly from an economic point of view, and as these efforts fail, the avenue will open to violent resolution, the outcome of which cannot be know.
on March 11th, 2013 at 10:58 am
Wow. Seems that the calls for the SPLC to be classified as a hate group are not as fringe as I had previously thought…
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.....group.html
http://www.humanevents.com/201.....e-group-2/