IS DEMOCRACY THE KILLER OF LIBERTY

The following article by Amil Imani can be found at Islam Watch—Islam Under Scrutiny by Ex-Muslims. While I think Mr. Imani has written a superb essay on democracy and the threat it faces by Islam, I do have a problem which the language stated in the title. It is not democracy that is killing liberty, but democracy's enemies from within and without that is the quiet assassin of liberty. Imani's essay:

I repeat: Is democracy the killer of liberty? The dictionary defines democracy as the rule of the people. Even at its best, “democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest,” according to Winston Churchill.

Is democracy a very bad form of government? Does it hold the threat of destroying humanity’s most precious right – liberty? Here are a few things to think about.

In the so-called democratic societies, a semblance of democracy hobbles along with fits and starts, always on the verge of complete subversion and collapse. For instance, the Western democracies are representative democracies where the ordinary citizens do not rule. A representative democracy is, in effect, a plutocracy where moneyed people and powerful interest groups rule.

The society’s rulers form a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, we have the closest thing to democracy. The individual citizen has some sway on the locally elected officials such as the sheriff, the mayor, the city councilman, and the like. As we go up the pyramid, the voice of the individual citizen diminishes while the influence of money and power groups expands.

It is a fact that, without funds, one cannot even run for the city’s dogcatcher. At the very least, the aspiring candidate needs money for posters or some handbills to make himself known to the electorate and argue why they should elect him and not his opponent.

Never mind the post of the city’s dogcatcher. How about seeking to be the mayor of New York City? Michael Bloomberg is presently running for election to his third term as the mayor of the city. This man is reportedly the 17th wealthiest person in the world. He spent $73 million of his own money on his first term campaign ad and apparently he is spending at least $18.5 million of his own funds again for a third mayoral term in 2009 campaign.

Is Bloomberg, one of the greatest mavens of business, a fool to spend that kind of money for a post that doesn’t pay even a fraction of what he is spending? No. He is not a fool. In fact, he is probably one of the best people running for a public office. That’s beside the point. The point is that it takes huge amounts of money to become a part of the pyramid. And not everyone is a Michael Bloomberg with a very deep pocket and the willingness to tap it.

Bottom line: If you aspire to become a part of the ruling pyramid, you require funds commensurate with the position you seek. Unless you are a Michael Bloomberg, you need others to pony up with the dough. And people don’t part with their money unless they get something for it in return. It is here that big money and interest groups come forward and deal-making takes place. In the process, the ordinary independent citizen is basically left out. The voter is presented with a choice between two equally purchased candidates or not voting at all. And you can see why so many people refuse to exercise their precious right of voting in elections.

This is bad enough. But, there is more danger in the wings. Equal to the corruptive role of money is block-voting. A combination of money and block-voting is the certain death knell of liberty. In a democracy, when a large number of people, motivated by an ideology or a common goal, marry their wallets with their votes, then liberty can be subverted and eventually completely wiped out. And that’s exactly what Islam is doing in much of the world.

Reinvigorated Islam, flush with trillions of oil money, mostly from the pockets of the oblivious and uncaring “infidel” nations, is extinguishing the flames of liberty as it moves toward imposing the monolithic Islamic Sharia on lands near and far. The stone-age rule of Sharia is not limited to the ranks of the ever-swelling faithful, but encompasses all others.

The very word "Islam" is derived from the root word of “taslim,” which means submission, submission to the will and dictates of Allah as stipulated by Muhammad and elucidated by the medieval Islamic clerics.

Free people withstood the assaults of tyrannies such as fascism and communism and paid dearly in preserving liberty. Now, liberty is once again in mortal danger. This time, it’s from Islam. And democracy is indeed a great potential friend of the enemy.

As I mentioned earlier, money and powerful interest groups play the critical role in a representative democracy. Islam has them both and is using them both. In the traditionally democratic societies such as those of Europe, Canada, and the United States, wave after wave of Muslim immigrants are forming powerful blocks of voters. With virtually unlimited funds, these immigrant communities are running deep roots in towns and cities of the host countries and influencing the staffing of the governance pyramid.

In a democracy, a politician’s first and foremost priority is to get elected. Once elected, his highest priority is to get reelected. The imperative of getting elected makes, per force, the politician a representative of the forces that bring and keep him in office.

Unfortunately, there are about one and a half billion people deeply entrenched in many democracies, including the United States, who are enemies of democracy and devotees of Ummahism—the Islamic theocracy, theocracy of the kind that rules in places such as Saudi Arabia—a Sunni version—and Iran—a Shi’a’ version. It is a fact that in Islamic societies liberty is dead. The individual is a vessel of the state and the state is the executor of the suffocating Sharia law.

Less my warning be seen as the unwarranted rants of an alarmist, all one needs is to observe what is already happening in these newly Muslim-invaded lands. Sharia law is already in effect in many places in Europe. Significant numbers of indigenous Europeans are either fleeing to other lands or are so hopeless regarding their way of life that they refrain from having children. Even in the United States and Canada, the bulging Muslim populations are more and more aggressively pressing for the adoption of Sharia law.

Demographic changes in a democracy play a critical role in shaping the society. For example, only a couple of hundred thousand Muslims lived in the U.S. only two decades ago. By 2008, the number has swelled to seven to nine million. Once the numbers are wedded to the deep pockets of the Wahhabi and Shi’a paymaster, the fate of freedom is in serious jeopardy.

Democracy is the guardian of liberty. Imbedded in democracy are provisions that can make it implode from within. Democracy also has its own guardian: A resolutely vigilant, proactive and ethical citizenry.

What can be done? Is there a way of resisting and reversing the imminent coming Islamic assault on our most cherished right of liberty? Here are some suggestions.

Become an active worker of liberty, instead of a passive non-caring devil-may-care nihilists. Many Europeans are already paying the price of non-caring complacency as Islam is rapidly gaining greater and greater power and casting its suffocating pall on their lives.

Interact with Muslims in your locality and try to wean them away from Islam by pointing out how the Quran and the clergy are enslaving them in a defunct ideology of intolerance, backwardness and death.

Use the political process, while it is still responsive to the demands and wishes of freedom-loving people, by supporting laws that guard freedom and reject those that infringe on liberty.

Actively support political candidates who are deeply committed to the tenets of freedom.

Run for office, any office. Encourage your friends and other liberty advocates to pitch in and help in any way they can.

Hold to account those politicians who sell themselves to the Islamists and promote Islam. These for-hire politicians will do anything they can to keep their position and benefit from the generous financial backing of the Islamists.

Be an active educator by informing others about the creeping danger of Islamism. Islamism is seriously eroding the very foundation of liberty by a variety of means. Powerful moneyed Islamic organizations threaten anyone who dares to criticize Islam with ruinous lawsuits and even death.

Resist the flourishing of mosques and Islamic schools. Mosques and Islamic schools are not for worshiping a loving God and for enlightening minds. They are incubators of Islamic bigotry and myopia.

Contribute money, small or large amounts, to causes and individuals who are fighting to preserve liberty. As the old saying goes, freedom is not free.

In short, liberty is your most prized possession and democracy is the shield that protects it. Yet, this shield of democracy is vulnerable and needs to be repaired and strengthened on a regular basis. I am calling on you, the individual freedom-loving person, to play your part in the defense of freedom, not only for your own sake, but also for mine and all others who cherish this precious blessing of life.

Amil Imani is an Iranian born, pro-democracy activist who resides in the United States of America. He is a poet, writer, literary translator, novelist and an essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran.

FLAGS OF ISLAM

THE MISNAMED WAR ON TERROR takes more casualties. The smiling day is overcast. The incessant caterwauling continues. Lest we forget who we are fighting in the name of freedom and liberty, regardless of the soil, the oil, the misery, the toil, let's turn an eye to the flags of our enemies, before the Marxist Left and the Unrepairable George Bush completely miss the point.

Note that the flag of Islam in the era of its warlord prophet was solid black. Someone over there in the Camp of Islam should notice that the would-be renewed caliphate has lost its path, forsaken the mores of Mohammed, and abandon the green flag with white crescent facing right with a five pointed star (shown above) to return to its all-black all the time flag. Makes sense, at least as far as following the often incomprehensible halal and haram strictures of the flag waving thuggery.

In fact, I have seen pictures of Middle Eastern Muslims toting the solid black flag. Those hardliners must be the Al-Qaeda reps in the crowd. Hey, there's a clue for the Crusaders. Grab it!

THE MYTH OF PEACE

FROM RELIGION OF PEACE.COM (Thanks to Mackie!)

The Myth: Islam is a Religion of Peace
Muhammad was a peaceful man who taught his followers to be the same. Muslims lived peacefully for centuries, only fighting in self-defense when it was necessary. True Muslims would never act aggressively.

The Truth:
Muhammad organized 65 military campaigns in the last ten years of his life and personally led 27 of them. The more power that he attained, the smaller the excuse needed to go to battle, until finally he began attacking tribes merely because they were not part of his growing empire.

After Muhammad’s death, his most faithful followers and even his own family turned on each other almost immediately. There were four Caliphs (leaders) in the first twenty-five years. Three of the four were murdered. The third Caliph was murdered by the son of the first. The fourth Caliph was murdered by the fifth, who left a 100-year dynasty that was ended in a gruesome, widespread bloodbath by descendents of Muhammad’s uncle.

Muhammad’s own daughter, Fatima, and his son-in-law, Ali, who both survived the pagan hardship during the Meccan years safe and sound, did not survive Islam after the death of Muhammad. Fatima died of stress from persecution within three months, and Ali was later assassinated. Their son (Muhammad’s grandson) was killed in battle with the faction that became today’s Sunnis. His people became Shias. The relatives and personal friends of Muhammad were mixed into both warring groups, which then fractured further into hostile sub-divisions as Islam grew.

Muhammad left his men with instructions to take the battle against the Christians, Persians, Jews and polytheists (which came to include millions of unfortunate Hindus). For the next four centuries, Muslim armies steamrolled over unsuspecting neighbors, plundering them of loot and slaves, and forcing the survivors to either convert or pay tribute at the point of a sword.

Companions of Muhammad lived to see Islam declare war on every major religion in the world in just the first few decades following his death—pressing the Jihad against Hindus, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Buddhists.

By the time of the Crusades (when the Europeans began fighting back), Muslims had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world by the sword, from Spain to Syria, and across North Africa. The Arab slave-trading routes would stay open for 1300 years, until pressure from Christian-based countries forced Islamic nations to declare the practice illegal (in theory).

Today, there is not another religion in the world that consistently produces terrorism in the name of religion as does Islam. The most dangerous Muslims are nearly always those who interpret the Qur’an most transparently. They are the fundamentalists or purists of the faith, and believe in Muhammad’s mandate to spread Islamic rule by the sword, putting to death those who will not submit.

The holy texts of Islam are saturated with verses of violence and hatred toward those outside the faith. In sharp contrast to the Bible, which generally moves from relatively violent passages to far more peaceful ones, the Qur’an travels the exact opposite path. The handful of earlier verses that speak of tolerance are overwhelmed by an avalanche of later ones that carry a much different message. While Old Testament verses of blood and guts are generally bound by historical context within the text itself, Qur'anic imperatives to violence usually appear open-ended.

By any objective measure, the "Religion of Peace" has been the harshest, bloodiest religion the world has ever known.

Under no circumstances, should we, the American People, permit or accept that this fate of creeping jihad into our country, although it is already here. Battles are already being fought, and yet, the administration continues to hamstring our military and name our enemy, while allowing unchecked immigration from Islamic countries to flood onto our shores.

Some of our "leaders" need to be informed in no uncertain terms, by whatever means necessary, of the words of Samuel Adams, early American patriot:

"If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

—Samual Adams, 1776

FREEDOM WITH STRENGTH

"Whatever are we to do in the face of Islamic terrorism?" says Alice through the looking glass.

Of course, there are freedoms that can be sacrificed in the name of security. If one blindly follows intellectual papers written at the end of the 18th century without consideration, one will fall behind in a rapidly changing world. Tough times require tough decisions and sacrifices. Some people sound like a spoiled children who don't want a toy taken away.

It's easy for Americans in our geographically comfortable position to sometimes criticize Europeans for whom they choose to ally themselves. Look at whom we have claimed as allies over the years and currently. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia just to name two.

European countries have known the terrors and futility of war and so it is understandable that they will try every thing they can to avoid it, even if it means appeasement to what many consider the Islamic enemy. Europeans feel the sensible thing is to keep their neighbors happy for as long as is reasonably possible. They don't do this because they are cowards. They do this because they have seen death, starvation and the complete destruction of their cities for centuries upon. America is still a young nation and full of brash overconfident fools. Until the US has had to endure foreign troops marching through its own cities hoisting opposition flags, we will never understand the deep and lasting cultural effect war has on nations.

Europeans are hesitant of confrontation for now but they are not cowards.

CULTURAL IDEOLOGY COUNTS

A western education for an Islamic true believer only makes him a more efficient and capable jihadi. Western education will not convert or moderate a true believer. It's a mistake to think that these scholastic immigrants already enslaved by an aggressive philosophy like Islam will be able to connect the good things and bounty of the western free world to the principles at the foundation of those nations, particularly when at any given moment the popular culture of that civilization seems hell-bent on its own destruction through feckless greed, trendy idolatries, and willful neglect of those higher values which gave them the platform to exercise those freedoms and advantages.

It's not an accident that the western-style representative republics with their guaranteed protection of minority and individual rights ONLY developed in the West. It's not by chance that ONLY in the western-style representative governments that rule of law is the norm, with due process, an independent judiciary and application of impartial law to enforce contracts and protect property rights has come into being.

Just as it's no accident that the nations under sharia law have ended up the way they are.

The performance of nations in any objective measurement is due to its institutional systems, and hence we can easily observe disparity in results.

Case in Point: Haiti and the Dominican Republic occupy different halves of the same island. Haiti, under a series of despotic rulers, is a land of squalor virtually unmatched on the planet while the Dominican Republic with its transitional representative democracy, sports beautiful forest reserves and exports cigars and world-class baseball players.

In another example, genetically, the people of India and Pakistan are very similar if not directly related. A major reason for the accelerating success of India and the seething marginalization of Pakistan is the difference in belief systems. The Islamic belief system leads to regression in a bankrupt and fragmented Pakistan while India grows stronger in trading and more educated, while playing well with the free world.

What is the primary cause of such huge disparity in results worldwide?

The answer is simple. Governing belief systems. The third world will continue to experience cholera, genocide, child starvation, oppression of women and minorities and the rest of the preventable tragedies associated with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse until the world as a whole demands more effective and compassionate behavior from local governments. The scourge that plays out in places like Darfur, Sudan, Tehran, Iran and Pyongyong, North Korea will continue as it always has until unenlightened leaders and belief systems used to control peoples are held accountable as the root cause of unnecessary death and destruction.

If the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a founding document of the United Nations, were to be honored by every regime on earth we'd have something to be proud of as members of the human race.

The UN must start enforcing its own standards, subsequently removing members not meeting them. Having a seat at the UN should not be a 'right'. A seat and a voice should be earned through measurable, objective results.