Bigotry, Islam the Religion of Peace, and "Are You Going to Believe Me or Your Eyes?"

“Absurd – foolishly contrary to reason, ridiculous.”

“Bigot – someone obstinately and intolerantly devoted to his own beliefs, creed or party; bigoted – narrow-minded, prejudiced.”

Those terms come to mind again and again of late, in a manner and with frequency far exceeding anything prior to my adventures in the chat rooms and forums of the Internet, watching television news programs like Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, and the like, and discussing the various issues with friends. As I wrote the other day, my concern for both the health of the nation’s discourse and what might be called its national mind grows daily.

There seems no issue that doesn’t devolve swiftly to polarization, two or more parties simply shouting slogans mindlessly at one another or the group. Questioning, where possible, of the principals invariably reveals all but total ignorance of the subject beyond that provided by the arguer’s favorite affiliations and sources of information. Asked what he knows about an opposing point of view, or why its own adherents hold such view or views, he goes into a kind of catatonic state, reciting his creed's slogans mindlessly. Anyone and everyone, moreover, who does not share his point of view is an idiot or worse – sometimes, far, far worse.

Cornered rhetorically, he demands a change of subject. Or that “we agree to disagree.” That last is a threat. In the Land of Free Speech, you can not only lose your job by what you say, you can damned well lose a friend by defeating his argument.

The ploy perhaps most typical of the arguer hoist on his own petard rhetorically and polemically is “that’s only your opinion, not a fact.” Matter of fact, liberal and humanist intellectual alike – there doesn’t seem to be any liberal or humanist who doesn’t consider himself an intellectual, does there? - will tell you archly that there is no such thing as a fact. EVERYTHING is an opinion. The other extreme – somehow termed “conservative” – knows everything is a fact because it’s HIS opinion. Et cetera.

Try as I may – and it should come as no surprise – I have not yet found one of these great minds who recognizes the word “epistemology.” Repairing again to the dictionary, we find: “epistemology . . . the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity.” Epistemology is the science of knowing, and how you know it.

When I mention the word “forensics,” the results aren’t much better. These folks who are so certain of their facts haven’t the vaguest idea of what they’re talking about, even in that respect. Forensics is the study of debate, especially legal argument. Forensic science is the study and application of facts and argument to legal problems - "Finding of Fact."

One more term that might as well be a foreign language for polemicists in the U.S.A. is“ scientific.” That’s, “using methods based on well-established facts and obeying well-established laws.” Demand these three and you shut out of the national debate ninety six percent – that’s an actual statistic and conclusion from my own investigations, by the way – of today’s benighted public. Jay Leno stuff. Or worse. The public here in the land of the free isn’t very damned bright.

Of late, though, things seem to have gone from bad to worse. I’ve written about extreme bias - absurd bigotry – here before. Matter of fact, I wrote about it yesterday, and it’s a scary thing, a mental disorder that seems to absolutely freeze the thought processes in its victims. I’ve had some experience with people in that condition, one a client who had been MKULTA-ized by none other than our benevolent government. Formerly a cryptographer at the Pentagon, Richard has had a part of his brain lasered away, in order to erase everything he once knew about our criminal activities overseas and domestically.

Talk to my friend on any subject other than U.S. military affairs or foreign policy, you would never guess that he was discharged from the military as totally unfit for service, suffering from “atypical psychosis.” Apparently, he is perfectly normal. Say the right words, however, and it’s like throwing a switch on circuitry that scrambles transmission from brain to vocal cords. He recites, parroting what has been programmed, however irrelevant, immaterial, or otherwise unrelated to the subject or question. It’s spooky, I can tell you, like a conversation with a zombie. It's also too much like a conversation with a bigot to be suggestive where the latter is concerned.

If there is a better example of this Manchurian Candidate programming than where the nation and people of Israel and the Arab nations and factions sworn and dedicated to eradicating them are concerned, I can’t imagine what it might be. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – that can be said in the Israeli’s defense that will not draw contradictory response from those who hate her, however patently absurd and thought-paralyzed. For the bigot, to concede a point, ANY point, represents and act of treason to what the individual seems to consider a sacred cause.

A conversation yesterday with an otherwise good friend is an example of the mental condition I refer to. The friend, incidentally or not, is among those who against all scientific demonstration including that of opportunity (in law, the Physical Fact Rule) – the claim is not physically possible – believes that the World Trade Center was brought down by controlled demolition, rather than as the result of being hit by jetliners. I started things yesterday when I commented that the cease-fire in Lebanon would undoubtedly provide for a terrorist nuclear attack somewhere in Israel or the U.S. (you may recall that I said the same thing here).

My friends and I, parenthetically, have been for some time now deliberating and debating about what we need to do to prepare for the cataclysmic events that have been brought racing down upon us by our absolutely corrupted government.

Anyway, I made my remark and my friend shot back that he didn't agree. Hezbollah and the Arabs weren’t the villains, he asseverated, Israel was. Israel “started it” (yeah, I know - he simply ignores the kidnapping of the soldiers and the murder of the rest of their squad; he also ignores the Hamas kidnapping of the soldier to Gaza - only Israeli actions "start" things). Israel is the terrorist, killing thousands of innocent civilians in Lebanon (and later, everywhere else).

If you’ve listened to any of the apologists for Hezbollah – or those seizing an opportunity to demonize the U.S. government - during the recent shooting, you’ve heard the rest. To be honest, I got pretty angry. People who support by condoning terrorists like Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO, Black September, and the rest really piss me off. I have a pathological hatred of bullies. To me, terrorist is just a bully.

During the debate, I managed to make just four definitive statements. I make them again here for all those who have e-mailed me to speak in a manner similar to my friend:

1. I have no interest whatever in who the principals here are. If the man who sent suicide bombers into crowds was my brother, I would eradicate him. If my sister were responsible for hijacking airliners, or blowing them up in mid-air, I would turn her in or kill her – immediately, lest she do it again and put it on my conscience.

2. If someone were to begin shooting into my house from amidst a crowd, I would shoot back, and with all the firepower I could muster – it’s the people in MY house I'm concerned for, not the people in his house.

3. No Israeli has ever committed acts of terror similar in nature or number to those perpetrated by Arab terrorists; neither do the Israelis, their government, or their military call – as do several or all Arab nations and factions where Israel is concerned – for the eradication of any Arab nation or faction or its people.

4. For Hezbollah, Hamas, or any Arab state to cease fire on the Israelis is in the minds of a very large number – even a majority – of Arabs a repudiation of the Koran, and a bar to heaven.

Oh, now I can hear the chorus of howls – the avalanche of bullshit. Save it. I’ve read the Qu’ran – the Koran – folks. And you, obviously, either haven’t or you are a liar. The Koran leaves no room for doubt whatever about what the Prophet and Allah demand of their followers. It says that anyone who kills another Muslim “has killed the whole of mankind . . .”

It also says, “Indeed, the punishment of those who fight Allah and His Messenger and go around corrupting the land is to be killed, crucified, have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or to be banished from the land.”

You call that tolerant, peaceful? Bull! Striving to be as clear as possible, in any language you state it, the Koran says all too clearly that while Mohammed teaches its followers to respect life of other good Muslims, those who "fight Allah and his Messenger" – Mohammed – “should be killed and mutilated, or banished.“

Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Arab press everywhere are leaving no doubt whatever that the Koran makes it clear to all good Muslims that Israel, the U.S., and most of the free world – anybody who isn’t a Muslim - qualify as anti-Allah and "corrupters of the land." They’re screaming it at the top of their lungs, mobs of them. How can a mind not crippled by bias draw any conclusion other than what these lunatics are screaming at the top of their lungs? If you can be faced with an Arab jumping up and down, screaming for your death, and shooting at you, and believe that he’s trying to do anything other than destroy you, you are mentally altered. Biased. You’re crazy, in fact.

Well, my friends say, Hezbollah and the rest are only out to kill the Jews (only? – isn’t that the otherwise hated word, genocide?). They wouldn’t attack us with a nuke (no, just wide-bodied jetliners). Check this, Sura 27 in the Koran: “And there were in the city nine individuals, who worked corruption in the land and did not set things right.... They schemed a scheme and we schemed a scheme, while they were unaware. See then what was the outcome of their scheming: We destroyed them together with all their people. Their houses are in ruin, on account of their wrongdoing. There is a sign for a people who know. And we delivered those who believed and were God-fearing.”

The italics are mine, in case you might miss it. Tell me that doesn’t mean what it says. Tell me it doesn’t tell the devout Muslim that there can have been no innocent victims of “Jihad” anywhere.

I’m just following my finger here, and I come to Sura 9.73: "O Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and deal harshly with them. Hell shall be their home; an evil fate."

Next, I come to, ". . . .make war on the infidels who dwell around you and let them see how terrible you can be.”
Religion of peace, huh? The Israelis are the aggressors? Sure.

Sura 22 has some more dandy exhortations for peace and brotherhood among men: “To the unbelievers, garments of fire shall be cut up and over their heads boiling water shall be poured; Whereby whatever is in their bellies and in their skins shall be melted; And for them are iron rods.“ The concordance explains, "To beat their heads with."

And there’s more. For instance, “Fight those among the People of the Book” – that’s Christians and Jews – “who do not profess the true religion, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued.”

Religion of peace? “Then their Lord revealed to them: ‘We shall destroy the wrongdoers,’ those who refuse to accept Allah and Mohammed. ‘Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that you hate a thing which is good for you and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you.’”

He’s not talking about football, folks. Peace, brother: Sure. “Allah revealed His will to the angels, saying: ‘I shall be with you. Give courage to the believers. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers!"

It goes on and on, verse after verse. COME ON! You think it’s just a co-incidence that the Hezbollah, Hamas, and the rest have in their charters resolutions demanding the destruction of Israel, and “death to the Jews?” And you're telling me THE ISRAELIS AND THE UNITED STATES ARE THE AGGRESSORS?

Let’s cut the crap. That you can – and do – prove you hate somebody does NOT mean you’re right, and he’s wrong. It sure as hell does not mean that anyone who won’t accept your illogical, unscientific, and unproven statements about him is on his side, either. The last three decades have seen continual examples – literally hundreds, now - of every kind of despicable terrorism the mind of evil men can devise, terrorism perpetrated by young, Arab Muslim men – all screaming the name of Allah. And death to Israel.

I mentioned logic, forensics, and epistemology. The rules of the truth sciences that relate here are these:


1. An act, any act, is not made more or less evil by the fact of who does it. A thing malum in se – evil in itself (the rape and/or murder of a child, for instance) – is just, plain evil. The corollary is true, too: When you are incapable of condemning an act malum in se until you know who did it, you are a bigot.

2. The fact that a person is a son-of-a-bitch is not proof that he is wrong. Even proof that he is stupid, or insane, does not prove that he is wrong - i.e., in error.

3. That fact that a person has been wrong in the past does not prove he is wrong now, but – The Physical Fact Rule – the fact that he is shooting at you and screaming “die!” means you either kill him, or he will probably kill you. Your choice.

4. The fact that someone points out your error – including ad hominem remarks and the odious like against your supposed enemy – does not mean, or prove, that he agrees with or supports your enemy. He may damned well be embarrassed that he agrees with you otherwise, though.

5. The rule of evidence known as “admission against interest” means that when someone is screaming that he intends to kill someone, he probably will do that, given a chance. When he boasts that he HAS killed someone, and shows you hands dripping in what he says are his enemy’s blood, you should believe him.

6. When you are a bigot, your opinion on any subject having to do with what you are bigoted about is worthless to anyone but yourself. It’s worthless to you, too – you just don’t know it.

7. If you profess a religion or an ideology, if you are an adherent to a social “ism” or the like, you are saying that you a capable of believing – that is, able to act upon – what cannot be found or proven in the physical world. You are also saying that you are capable of constructing reality from nothing but words. That's close to the definition of schizophrenia and it means there is no way any reasonable – that’s sane – person can trust you, because there is no certain connection between what you believe, and do, and anything your sane neighbor can be aware of and know.

8. Human beings are responsible for their actions and failures to act. If you consort and co-operate with terrorists, or let terrorists live in your midst, you have no right whatever to plead innocence when those who have been attacked by the same terrorists or their supporters fight back. If your children are killed by those counter-attacking the terrorists you harbored, the death of your children is your responsibility. It's YOUR fault.

9. You cannot prove you are right by proving another wrong; neither, a corollary, do you justify your action by proving that your opposition does or has done the same. That's the tu quoque fallacy.

10. When you condone or justify an act malum in se – for whatever reason – you are suborning it, a crime in itself malum in se. More, to rejoice over or take satisfaction from an act malum in se – whether you did it or it was done by another – is an act malum in se. A crime against my enemy is no less a crime.

Wake up, people – we’re getting pretty sick. To hear a friend condone and justify terrorism out of racist-like and bigoted hatred for its victims is a thing that will shake an honorable man to his soul.

To see his kind bargain with the devil, knowing full well that it means for the future nuclear or biochemical terrorism instead of the Katyusha rockets kind is even worse. The pseudo-humanism of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century man has cynically tolerated Islamic extremist terrorism in all its hideous aspects, all the while Mr. Pecksniffing a sober world Fifth Profession that would have destroyed it, LONG ENOUGH. There is no justification for the actions of Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO, and the rest, because there can BE no such justification.

Who would know better than I? The United States government utterly ruined my life, drove from me my wife (twice), tormented my children, and took effective steps to assure that I would never again earn a living. And I hated. I hated with every cell in my body. I hated so that I glued a sign on the ceiling over my bunk, stuck it to the wall of the tents I was forced to reside in by a cruel and implacable enemy. The sign said, “He who fights with monsters ought take care lest he, too, become a monster.”

Thank god – he doesn’t pay any attention, of course, but it’s good to do, nonetheless – that I didn’t become such a monster that I could, for instance, kill my friend’s grandchildren in an insane act of vengeance against their country. My friend might have been able – I doubt that he is THAT bigoted - to sublimate and assuage his anguish and rage by blaming the government, but I couldn’t.

No, right is still right, and wrong is still wrong – and there are rules by which you can determine both. Bigotry is the antithesis of science and logic. And when you have to know first who shot in the head an old man in a wheelchair, then threw him over the side of the ship, before you can decide whether that was terrorism, you're a bigot.