I Haven't Changed My Stance

After putting yesterday's post up over on Facebook, I got some blow-back. Not a lot and not too strong because I think the people doing the blowing-back know that as distasteful as my position is, it's the right one. It isn't nice, but it is how I see it and the comments received haven't changed my mind.

Think of it this way. You have invited a family into your home. Your mother, sister, a trusted friend, or someone else in whom you have confidence says, 'take them in, they're good people' or 'take them in, they need a safe place to stay'. So you do. You open your home and let them in and, for a while, all is well.

You get along okay although they have different ways and a different language. Still, it's no more than a little awkward at times. When you bump up against one another there's a nervous chuckle, an awkward smile and you get on with things.

Then, after a while, one or two of them start fussing. They want more space in the refrigerator, or a different kind of food, more or different selection. They don't like the television shows you do, so they start to insist on having the right to pick what shows you all watch. Then they want a different bathroom schedule. They start pushing back against basic courtesy and fight against living by your rules. They aren't assimilating to your standard.

Still, while you're less than thrilled with how things are going, you made a promise. You said that they could stay so you shrink back and bite your tongue, watching as they take more and more territory. The others reassure you, 'it's okay. It's just his/her way. S/he doesn't mean anything by it.' But the territory is gone, handed over, and until they leave there is no going back. It's the new normal.

This is what has happened in the EU and, to a lesser extent, in America with the people we have accepted from the Middle East.

They came and most, the vast majority slid into place without a ripple - and that's great. Welcome to my home.

Some, however, got to fussing, to pushing back and demanding that they wanted things done differently.

In Britain, instead of assimilating to the standard and trying to fit into their new home, some Muslims started fussing. They wanted more control, a separate system within the system so they could be 'free' and kept apart from the rest of the population.

As a result of that non-assimilation, eighty-five Shari'a courts have been set up and instituted to settle disputes within the Muslim community. They don't (yet) have more power than the British courts, but how long will it be before that's not good enough either? How long will it be before the Muslim Imams and leaders demand still more control over their communities?

It's called creeping incrementalism.

First it's a baby step. Nothing big, nothing overt or threatening. Just a teeny-tiny accommodation to keep folks happy. It settles into place, becomes the norm and people adjust and accept it. Then, months or years later another step is taken. That first quarter-inch becomes half-an-inch. It happens again sometime later and then it's an inch, then a foot and finally a mile.

Eventually, what was unthinkable becomes not only thinkable but actuality - and going back is no longer an option.

That is what is happening in Europe right now. That is why this situation is so dangerous.

After yesterday's post I was corrected - there have been protests against ISIS in the streets of Europe but, according to those who corrected me, they're not being covered by the media.

Why not? Well, golly! Let me guess. It's because it would be seen as one of two things: 1) it would be racial profiling and that is not politically correct; or, 2) it would foment reaction from the other citizens which might lead to violence. Either way the result is the same. Media silence is giving a pass to the violent factions and that is encouraging the violent factions to keep doing what they are doing - like bombing airports and subways and killing dozens of innocent people.

By hiding it, by not showing the disgust of the good people for the behavior of the bad, it's opening a door to more of the bad.

What would be far more effective is if those protests against the wicked were carried live on national television. What if those marches and protests were shown to all and sundry? What if it was made clear that the radicalized are pariah and not accepted by the larger community? What if people known to be in sympathy with Daesh or ISIS or IS or whoever it is today are shown to be shunned by their communities? Could that possibly have an effect?

I think so. People are herd creatures. We don't do well in isolation. If parents shun their radicalized children and it's seen by others, that would be a step. If family members of all stripes shun their radicalized parents or siblings or other family members, that would also be a step. If neighbors and colleagues and others in the community do the same, that's another step.

If not-yet radicalized people see that the behavior is unacceptable, if they recognize that there are serious negative consequences within their social network to that life-style, that might deter at least some of them from following that path. Isolation can be a powerful tool - but it must be total or it won't work.

It's also not something that's going to turn the tide in a day or a week or a month. It will take time and persistence, but it can be done and if we start now, all of us who might be able to encourage or support or engage, we could save untold numbers of lives in the future.

Most importantly, though, people within the Muslim community have got to speak up. If they know of something being planned, or something suspicious is going on, they have got to speak up and tell someone who can do something about it. Otherwise they are just as guilty as the perpetrators of the act - accessories before the fact - and they deserve to be vilified and treated just as the guilty.

The people within the community have also got to stand up directly to the Imams and religious leaders - to make it crystal clear that their children are not available to be taught to hate. Madrassas are fertile training grounds used to indoctrinate the next generation to hate. Hate the Jew. Hate the Christian. Hate the secularist. Hate the Shi'a and hate anyone who doesn't think, look, act or worship as you do. That has got to change. Faster than the rest, the drip-drip of hate mongering has got to stop.

If the Madrassas came under the control of good people, loving parents who worship as the Koran allegedly intends based on what we're all being told - that it's the Religion of Peace - that would save a generation.

Parents throughout the society have also got to make it clear that their children are not there to be used as cannon fodder. And that statement is not hysterical hyperbole. It is a well documented fact that families are handing their children over to ISIS to become 'soldiers'. It is a sick and disgusting trend that makes the battlefield that much worse. How does one fight against child soldiers, after all?

If the good upright people in these groups are not willing to take a hard and fast stand, to make it known with no doubt whatsoever that the behavior will not be tolerated to any degree, the battle will be lost before it's begun. Only Muslims can make the fundamental change within the Muslim community that is required for it to be effective.

If they are not willing, if they will not take charge and take back the hearts, minds and souls of their children and brothers and sisters, then my position stands as it did yesterday. Round them all up - the good, the bad and the ugly - and send all of them back to where they came from so they can fight and kill and live or die by the rules they are willing to tolerate.

The alternative is that Western culture disappears under a burqa. Women who now live free and independent become less than sheep and goats on the social scale. All of us will lose our rights and our liberty.

Take your pick because it is glaringly apparent there is no middle road in this fight.

Best~
Philippa

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Life & Living & Marching On

I'm pissed off and depressed and anxious and all sorts of other messy things. So much so that I have taken a couple of days away from writing. As in I have done NO writing in the past few days - and for me that's a lot like holding my breath until I turn purple.

There were the vermin in Paris last week, and the babbling cacophony that's followed ever since.

There have been declarations that I am "ignorant" because I do not take a moderate view toward vermin like those who promulgate and perpetrate such acts. Well, I've got news for those who say that: I have never declared myself to be a scholar on the subject. But I read and I assimilate the information I read and I form opinions and attitudes. And I have just as much right to express my view and opinion as anyone else. But there are some who disagree that I have that right. It appears, based on what was written and exchanged between me and the two in particular, unless I am in precise lockstep with their view of the world, I and others like me should just STFU.

Farther out on the tree limb are the people like the man in Virginia who's all over the news yesterday and today. A public hearing regarding construction of a new mosque and he's standing there accusing everyone who's a Muslim of being in league with the vermin of ISIS. Now there is ignorance. It is as stupid and blind and nasty as saying that all white people are card carrying KKK members, or all blacks are members of the Black Panthers or that all Asians run dry cleaning establishments or restaurants. It's ignorant, insulting and, as I said above, downright stupid.

However, it is based on fear so while it is decidedly wrong, there is at least a handle to grasp for understanding. It's a tiny little thing, a barely there protrusion of a handle, and once the heat of this moment passes I sincerely hope the individual who said such hateful things will see the error of his ways and recant. I also hope that the people to whom this idiot directed his remarks will take the high road, that they see his fear and lack of understanding for what it is: ignorance. As unpleasant as it is, at least ignorance of something can be overcome by education.

There is the wider worry of who is coming across our borders. Eight Syrian men were caught in Texas the other day. Five were caught in Honduras with stolen Greek passports on their way into the US. How many have been missed and why are they here? Are they simply seeking asylum or are they here to do harm? I don't know and neither does anyone else, except for the individuals themselves.

On top of all of this is the news that ISIS is actively, aggressively seeking chemical weapons technology. They've already used sarin against their "enemies" in Syria so it is not beyond the realm of imagination that they'll cheerfully use anything they can lay hands on to spread their terror. What if they do something using chemical agents in the Paris metro or in a place like Stade de France or some other place where many people congregate? It's a horrible thought because some of the things I've read about are seriously scary shit. Like agents that are so deadly that if you touch them with bare skin you die. Agents that cling to surfaces for hours or days or weeks and are just as effective weeks after "application" as they are in the first moments.

With all of this, is it any wonder that I'm depressed and anxious?

I don't want to live in an ugly world where going to a public place means I'm packing worry or fear in my bag along with whatever else I'm taking. I don't want to live in a world where I have to strip down and submit to being x-rayed in order to get onto an airplane. I don't want to live in a world where there are a few vermin negating the rest of civilization - and yet that is precisely where we are.

I don't fear that anything is going to happen to me or my family. We don't go to public places very often. We stay close to home and go about our normal lives. We don't travel. We don't do much of anything, really. So we're safe. Reasonably so, anyway.

Beyond that, when I drill down to the bottom line of my life and living, I'm a pragmatist. I know that no one survives life. At some point I will die. It is just a question of when and how. Truth is, I'm not ready yet, so I hope it doesn't happen anytime soon. I have too many plans, too many things to which I'm looking forward to doing to want it end anytime soon.

I have my bucket trip several years from now. Providing, of course, the vermin are controlled. Wiped out would be better, but that's too much to hope for so I'll settle for controlled.

Sooner, in the not too distant future (based on observation and assumption), I have other changes that will take place. My MIL will pass and I'll enter a new stage of life. I will become the "oldest generation" for our family and I have things in the works that are going to make that first a scary and then a hopeful and hopefully wonderful time. It is scary, though, looking to the future I've mapped out. Once I get there and get my sleeves rolled up, it'll be fine. It's just this preliminary time in which it looms overwhelmingly large. It'll shrink as I get closer. At least I hope so.

In the meantime, I'm going about my business and not losing sleep over that which I can't control, anyway. I hope you do, too.

Have a lovely day!

Best~
Philippa

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