It isn’t radical Muslims’ hatred for “our freedoms” that drives terrorist acts on U. S. soil, William Grigg argues. It is the regime’s continued policy of aggression on foreign soil, and its leveraging of Muslim outrage to justify its perpetual wars.
Read the Full Article by William N. Grigg
Afterwards, discuss it below.
Article: Blowback, Provocation, and Perpetual War Read Post »
Newt Gingrich, a serial adulterer and disciple of New Age futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler, makes a singularly unlikely Crusader. Yet apparently at some point in the past year or so Gingrich looked in a mirror and saw Don John of Austria looking back at him.
An epiphany of that kind would explain Gingrich’s perverse determination to depict the contrived controversy over the “Ground Zero Mosque” as a contemporary Battle of Lepanto. A more reasonable explanation would be that Gingrich, one of the most penetrably insincere figures in American politics, is trying to distill irrational populist resentment into a propellant for a presidential campaign.
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Gingrich the Compulsive Mosque-Baiter: Reveling in WeaknessRead More »
Gingrich the Compulsive Mosque-Baiter: Reveling in Weakness Read Post »
Lew Rockwell interviews Turkish Journalist Mustafa Akyol. They discuss the capitalist origins of Islamic thought and the recent embracing of socialism by anti-colonialist movements in the Muslim world. From the show notes:
Islam was founded by a successful merchant, and the religion was largely pro-market until the colonial disease of socialism infected the Muslim world. The Koran calls the merchant the most honorable man, saying that nine of ten of God’s bounties come from trade.
See also Akyol’s talk “Are Islam and Capitalism Compatible?” at the 2010 Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society:
PFS 2010 – Mustafa Akyol, Are Islam and Capitalism Compatible? from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.
TLS Podcast Pick: Islamocapitalism on The Lew Rockwell Show Read Post »
The New York Times is reporting the story of Terry Jones’ plan to commemorate the 9/11 attacks by burning 50 Qur’ans. While I find his actions repulsive, and needlessly offensive to me and every other Muslim, irrespective of our political views, I must say that he nonetheless has every right to burn his own property or that which is voluntarily donated to him. In a similar manner, a property owner may build a mosque on his own property. Perhaps all people can eventually learn to either ignore such actions, or use them as springboards for conversation rather than conflict.
A Pastor’s Provocative Attack on Islam Read Post »
The furor over the “Ground Zero Mosque” (which is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero) doesn’t make me very optimistic about the prospects for liberty.
As a libertarian and just a live-and-let-live kind of guy, I can’t imagine caring much about, let alone vocally protesting, what someone is building two blocks away from me.
Yet apparently many of my fellow Americans are such busybodies that they’ll whine for weeks about something being built hundreds or thousands of miles away from them, in a city where they don’t live and probably won’t even visit. And many of the complainers are among the Tea Party set whom we are occasionally told are “libertarian,” even though they seem to hate Muslims and Mexicans and love war at least as much as they hate the federal government and love liberty.
Jonah Goldberg claims that the conservatives who object “mostly” recognize that the Muslims have a legal right to build their center. But what I hear on talk radio makes me doubt this. A common argument there seems to be that since “liberals” don’t care about the constitution or property rights in general, they aren’t entitled to invoke them now — as though liberals somehow have the power to waive Muslims’ rights.
In any event, even if Goldberg is correct, it’s hard to imagine that the spirit of liberty resides in the sort of people who get so worked up over this sort of thing. The ease with which they’ve been distracted by this issue suggests that reducing government isn’t going to be their top priority once their team is back in control in Washington.
(Cross-posted on my blog.)
The “Ground Zero Mosque” and the Prospects for Liberty Read Post »
