timeimmortal

“We sanctify life, not death,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday during a Mount Herzl ceremony for victims of terror attacks.

“I cannot help but think of how deep the moral gap is between us and our enemies,” he said. “We make every possible effort to limit and focus our attacks on the terrorists and we never intentionally harm the innocent. We don’t have jihadists, shahidim or mothers who joyfully send their children with bomb belts to blow themselves up in packed buses or in busy malls.”

It’s a pity that Olmert’s actions, as Prime Minister of Israel, haven’t always demonstrated the understanding of his terrorist enemies as his words do here.

Still, he makes a valid point, one which is worth repeating.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Nicholas has some questions.

The title of your site comes up on my machine as

STOP ERROR 0xC5FA721B or MEDIA_JIHAD_STATUS_FAIL (Time Immortal)

Do you happen to know whether this a glitch in my settings, or what? (I use the hated IE7 - sorry!)

I think there’s also a glitch in the link to the Hoffmann article.

By the way, I look at your site occasionally because your photos are wonderful, and you write well about matters that interest me. Usually, I strongly disagree with you. But if I only read things I agree with, I might as well be dead.

Also by the way, I think the gospels have some historical basis, though deciding exactly what’s history, what’s legend, and what’s myth, is difficult. Maybe I’ve got it wrong, but I thought that was what Hoffman was saying too.

Firstly, the site title is correctly displayed, O Reader, if in fact it reads as Nicholas is reporting that it reads. As far as I know, no Microsoft error code incorporates the term “jihad” into its error variable name. Moreover, as far as I know, 0xC5FA721B is not a valid hexadecimal error code in the Windows environment. Both the error code and the error variable name are of my own composition.

This is what nerd humour looks like. Periodically, I change the site title on a whim — this one is probably due for a change.

There was, however, a glitch in the link to the Hoffman article in my previous reply to Nicholas — Wordpress added a line-break after the URL, which I have now removed. The link should work now. Not that I particularly recommend the article, of course.

I am glad to hear that Nicholas enjoys the photos; quite a number of people tell me that, in fact. This is a bit of a tangent, of course, but I have offered in the past to make full-resolution (usually 3000 x 2000, except in the cases of panoramics) available to people who have written in concerning pictures I’ve taken.

It can’t hurt to make the same offer public, so please consider this notice of that offer. I don’t charge for pictures, so if anything strikes the Reader as compelling, simply provide me a link (either to the relevant Pic of the Day article or the gallery entry) and an email address to send the high-res version to, and I will get it sent out.

Moving on, while the opening parts of the Hoffman article could be looked upon as being an attempt to sort out history from fallacy in the Gospels, it quickly gets mired down in a discussion of contradcitions between the accounts and ends up more or less dismissing the historicity of Jesus entirely. The problem, of course, is that discussions of contradictions are entirely too subjective to provide a substantive basis for a rejection of the validity of the Gospel accounts. After all, any student of criminal trials knows that eyewitness testimonies often contradict each other to a certain extent (usually pertaining to side details). What is important in eyewitness testimony is that A, B, C, and D saw X do Y to Z. If A, B, C, and D can’t quite agree on the time of day, the number of bystanders, or whether X was wearing a sweater or a hoodie, that is okay, and in fact is to be expected.

If anything, I find that what few inconsistencies exist between the Gospel accounts add to the credibility of the accounts as a whole. Each approaches Jesus’ life from a different angle, and at the end of the day the exact count of women at the tomb is substantially less important than the fact that the tomb itself was empty.

Best to read the whole thing. Interestingly, Rehmat does deny that Islam is a “Religion of peace” — although, laughably, he does claim it to be a “religion of tolerance.” That’s a rather ironic comment in light of his later comments praising Ayatollah Khomeni.

Traditional jihad is waged with scimitars and their contemporary equivalents, e.g., stolen Boeing 767s, which make handy instruments of mass homicide. Soft jihad is a quieter affair: it uses and abuses the language and the principles of democratic liberalism not to secure the institutions and attitudes that make freedom possible but, on the contrary, to undermine that freedom and pave the way for self-righteous, theocratic intolerance. Soft jihad is patient. It can add and multiply as well as Mark Steyn can (and here). It, too, sees the demographic writing on the wall and is content to wait a few years to occupy the West’s real estate — it’s so much easier, when you come right down to it, than blowing the stuff up and then finding yourself with a massive clean-up and rebuilding bill. Just sit tight and watch the infidels tie themselves into knots making excuses for you while, elsewhere in their lives, they embrace barrenness as an “environmentally friendly” alternative to Genesis 1:28.

Speaking as a right-wing, knuckle-dragging Eurocentric infidel, however, I feel it incumbent on me to point out that where traditional jihad is probably best dealt with by talented chaps like General Petraeus, soft jihad might often be more effectively countered by quieter crusades. Clever readers will doubtless have many fertile ideas to contribute to the fulfillment of what I hope will become the West’s new Quiet Crusade to make the World Safe for Christendom (remember that?). Here’s a modest proposal to get the ball rolling. It was suggested to me by another story from the London Times today. Under a headline shouting “Muslims shocked to learn that crisps contain alcohol” is the illuminating news that that Walkers snacks “contain traces of alcohol” and that eating them is therefore prohibited by Islam.

Shuja Shafi, who chairs the food standards committee of the , said that he intended to investigate. “Certainly we would find it very offensive to have eaten food with alcohol.”

Is that so? Well, here’s my modest proposal, which I offer to British Food and Beverage industry free and for nothing: start putting a bit of alcohol in everything edible or potable. There are, of course, other reasons for wishing to increase one’s usual consumption of alcohol, but here is a patriotic imperative to guide you: what if you went into food hall or your local grocery shop and every item had at least some trace amount of alcohol (or, alternatively, pork residue)? I understand that there might be certain logistical difficulties, but if the EU can effectively police the system of mensuration used in its jurisdiction, if it can prohibit certain types of bananas because they deviate too markedly from the perpendicular, then surely they can employ the vast apparatus of their bureaucracy to assure that a drop of alcohol or a dollop of bacon fat is added to any food stuff sold in Britain.

I think the alcohol suggestion is the better one — Jews have no problem with alcohol, and both Jews and Muslims are supposed to avoid bacon (and all pork-related things). We wouldn’t want to unduly penalize Jews, after all.

My agreement with the above is mostly facetious, but I think the point one can derive from it is this: there has emerged in the West a tension between two ideals. One one side, we see arrayed the laws and traditions that have formed, and informed, the various nations of Europe and North America and made them, to one degree or another, free. On the other side, we see arrayed the tenets of Sharia law (a barbaric and misogynistic system dating back to 7th century Araby) and the violence and noise of those who demand that sharia be made into the law of the land in places like Britain. Increasingly, the West — its thinking mired down in the cowardice and confusion of multiculturalism — caves in to the demands of the barbarians.

We don’t give away piggy banks (to say nothing of other “pig related items”) “for fear of offending Muslims.” We don’t draw cartoons of Mohammad “for fear of offending Muslims.” We mustn’t publish articles pointing out the demographic disparity between the Muslims of Canada and Europe and other parts of the population “for fear of offending Muslims.” We mustn’t even publish books saying critical things about “Saudis and terrorists” “for fear of offending Muslims.”

And so we come to the point of all the above — that it is not the place of those who immigrate to a new country to demand that the new country become more like the old one. But to effectively communicate that truth, the culture of the country to which these immigrants have come must have the courage to hold itself up as (let us be honest) superior to the one that these immigrants have left behind. It must be willing to exert and assert itself in cases where some demand that it be thrown down. And it must be willing to say “to heck with your backwards traditions; this is how we do things here.”

There’s a certain…attractiveness to the idea that every demand for, say, sharia banking be met with, say, an increased prevalence of something considered haram in run-of-the-mill foodstuffs. There’s a certain poetry to the idea that every demand for sharia courts be met with, say, increased restrictions on the production and sale of halal meats.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

RightGirl puts in a comment on Islam that I admit gives me pause:

It used to be easy for me to say that if you want to live under 7th century Sharia, go back to Crapistan and do it there. After all, why come to the free West, right? But I now realize that the whole point of coming here was to take over. Our touchy-feely naiveté leads us to believe they are “escapees” and “refugees”, running from oppression. But in fact they have sought out free lands in order to spread that oppression in the name of the devil Allah.

Even up to very recently I believed that the women of Islam were oppressed and that they should be freed. This, I have come to learn, is utter hogwash. On more than one occasion we have seen the women take up arms, the women strap on explosives, the women preach jihad to their sons and husbands. Enough is enough. Our leaders - be they political or religious - are too wrapped up in politically-correct doublespeak to be able to defend us from this insidious evil. It saddens me that it’s up to a bunch of bloggers and cartoonists to save the world from the new Caliphate, but I have seen more guts come from Dutch filmmakers than I have from my own government, who no longer even believe in freedom of the press.

I cannot advocate open season on Muslims in the street. But I think for our own sakes we make ready for the coming onslaught, and brace ourselves to fight them. Not in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in London and Toronto and Detroit. And the first way we can fight them - a way that will not cause bloodshed by any act of our own hands - is to say NO. No to Sharia. No to Islamic banking and trade. No to muzzeins screeching at dawn. No to polygamy and incestuous marriages. No to welfare for those perfectly capable of working - like our Khadr family here in Toronto. No to visas and citizenships for terrorists. No, no, no.

I’m reminded of Lenin’s (at least, I think it was Lenin) observation that capitalism would sell the rope to hang itself with to the communists. In a perverse sort of way, I think the same may be true of the tendency toward multiculturalism in most Western nations — that is the rope that we may well end up hanging from. It’s really just a question, I suppose, of whether the hangmen will be Sunni or Shia.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

In the interests of peace and unity with someone I hold very dear, I’ve removed — after some intense discussion — all the “This Machine Kills Jihadists”-related media from the site. While the initial motivation behind the creation of that logo was Kathy Shaidle’s proposed parody of Woody Guthrie’s “This Machine Kills Fascists” sign (seen here taped to his guitar), it has become clear to me that regardless of any initial intent, that logo can and will be taken very differently by people today. Given the very harsh anti-jihad tone that this site already adopts, I’ve been told that some people might mis-interpret the attempt at pop-culture parody as an incitement to murder.

And we don’t want that, O Reader.

So, in the interests of peace and of clarity, I’ve withdrawn the content from the site. And to my dear friend, I can only offer, once more, my apologies.

David Warren provides a quick, three-paragraph summation of the challenges that the Western world is facing today. In what can’t really be called a surprise (except perhaps by a progressive mind to crippled by multicultural pieties), Islam takes the lead role:

We (the U.S. and allies) are winning in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and losing everywhere else. The Syrians are now murdering independent Lebanese politicians with impunity. The pressure on Iran has been relieved. Pakistan is teetering towards a civil and military collapse from which only the Islamists can gain. Islamist demands for the imposition of Shariah, and for the legal persecution of religious minorities, have entered the mainstream of political life in countries that were once free of religious zealotry — Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia. Islamist terrorists are winning effective control over the remoter Muslim-settled regions in many countries of Asia and Africa, creating streams of Christian refugees from the southern Philippines, of Buddhist refugees from southern Thailand, of Christians and Animists fleeing south across the breadth of Africa.

Saudi-sponsored Wahabi Islam is consolidating its hold over the mosques of the West, and radicalizing the huge Muslim immigrant communities that have congregated in almost every major European city. Across Europe, and increasingly in North America (and as we’ve seen in Canada in the obscene “human rights” trials of Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant), the most radical Muslims are exploiting state multiculturalism, to score victories over free speech and win pathetic apologies from anyone accused of the thought crime of “Islamophobia.”

Islam is a broad and ancient religion — we are not discussing that, today. We are discussing instead the contemporary reality. For internationally, Islam has been morphing into a violent and puritanical cult. Yet this very large and very hard fact is being rendered undiscussable, in historical or any other terms.

And a quick note on the current state of affairs in Egypt, a concept which is broadly applicable to the whole of the Muslim world at present:

In Egypt as elsewhere, to say that “the great majority of Muslims are peaceful, unaggressive people, just trying to get on with their lives” is to utter something deeply fatuous. The great majority of Germans were likewise, in the 1930s.

As Kathy Shaidle is fond of pointing out, Paul Revere was not credited with shouting “Some of the British are coming!” And that is because he did not need to, nor did the Minutemen need to be alerted to the impending onslaught with a wordy explanation that the Redcoats about to descend upon them were not representative of the wider majority of British folk world-wide. Likewise, in World War II, we didn’t go to war against some of the Germans, or some of the Japanese.

The common thread between those two examples, which is unfortunately missing from many peoples’ analysis of the current situation of the West vs. the Islamic world, is the concept of war. Whether a war for independence, or a globe-spanning war against fascism, it’s easier to look at the historical examples above and note that while it may be true that while our forebears weren’t so careful as to classify the enemy beyond using broad cultural categories, that is explicable because of the urgency of the conflict taking place at the time. The extension of such an argument, then, is that we in the West today are not currently embroiled in a war with Islam.

Which is true, in a sense…that is, in the sense that no war has formally been declared by means of the normal diplomatic channels. But in a more important sense — objective reality — the war is already on, and has been for some time. If, under Sharia, the average Muslim (even though s/he might otherwise be a decent sort, and quite personable), regards the world as divided into two realms — that of Islam and that of harb (War) — then whether or not any Islamic nation or group has formally issued a declaration of war is irrelevant. If in fact it is the religious obligation of Muslims everywhere to “fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection,” (Sura 9:29), then whether or not any war has been formally declared is irrelevant. Under Sharia, it is the religious duty of every Muslim to strive to bring about the day when Islam rules over all other faiths and demands their submission.

And even the rather typical sidestep that some will attempt to do in regard to the opening like of the passage above — that is, make the argument that the Muslim Allah and the Judeo-Christian God are the same being, so the above passage does not apply to other monotheistic religions — is, at best, a half truth. Even if it were completely true, and even if Christians and Jews get a pass (and if one believes the rhetoric coming out of the two major players on the global Islamic scene, Iran and Saudi Arabia, there is no way that Jews will get a pass), that still wouldn’t bode well for many people in Western society, and so is still an idea which cannot be tolerated.

But here’s the thing: the Muslim Allah and the Judeo-Christian God are, theologically, not the same being. Oh, I’m willing to grant that in the final summation, they may well be the same, but unfortunately that is beyond the scope of human knowledge. And if one looks at the revelation that has come to Christianity (which inherits directly from Judaism), and if one then looks at the teachings that purportedly came to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, there is no way to reconcile the Judeo-Christian conception of who and what God is with the Islamic one.

So even Jews and Christians aren’t exempt from Sura 9:29, if in fact they, and Muslims, stick to their theological traditions and exegesis.

War may not have been declared, but there is a war going on, pitting the ideals of the West — which, unfortunately, few enough people in the West have the necessary courage to defend — against those of the jihad. Already, this war has claimed many lives. But mere exchanges of casualties are but a small part of any war. Territory is what matters. And, as has been pointed out on this blog and elsewhere, in many parts of the West, the West is losing ground to radicalized forms of Islam, especially in Europe. That trend may already be irreversible, as well as the trends being seen in places like Pakistan, which even now teeters on the brink of falling into Islamist hands. When nuclear-armed nations like Pakistan fall into the hands of the jihad, and when nations like France begin to adopt an ever more Islamic character — and then of a decidedly Islamist bent — what will that do for the safety and security of the rest of the Western world?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Who can doubt it? Jihadists promise to “Behead The Enemies Of Islam” and demand the Pope be executed and threaten to rain down a second 9/11 on Europe and call Britain’s Tube bombers “the Fantastic Four” - and no-one ever suggests restraining their free speech. On the contrary, in London the guys calling for the beheading of infidels are flanked by constables of the Metropolitan Police so zealous in their defence of jihadist free-speech rights they threaten to arrest any members of the public who get too near.

What’s at issue here is the non-jihadists’ right to free speech.

Mark Steyn is in fine form today.