Enforced Belief II: Blasphemy Laws

It shouldn't really be surprising that our Progressives have endorsed international blasphemy laws. After all, what are "Speech Codes" if not the Progressive version of such laws?

Which makes this as good a time as any to post Part II of "Enforced Belief".

The non-Theistic State Religion claims to be based on reason and rationality, but when you examine its precepts together (rather than separately), and in depth, the seams start to show and how irrational and arbitrary it is appears along with how its premises are invoked not only irrationally, but selectively to gain ideological advantage and discredit opposition become apparent. See also the concept of "Liberating Tolerance"/"Liberating Toleration"

Note first I am not saying that the precepts of the Enforced Belief are all bad, just as the State Religions of European nations, being Christian, were not all bad. What is bad is the enforcement of any belief, and the manipulation of the precepts - be they good or bad - in order to gain and keep power and to compel others to submit.

Lets (briefly, I hope) examine two of the fundamental precepts of today's Enforced Belief: Tolerance on the one hand, and not giving offense on the other. Note that both of these are good qualities, when used with sound judgment. Note also that they are contradictory, and these contradictions can be manipulated when someone is empowered to enforce them. Note also that another of this Faith's teachings is Non-Judgmentalism: Don't be judgmental. This is taught, to negate sound judgment in the individual conscience. But this does not eliminate judgment, it simply displaces it to the scions of this faith (who replace our individual judgment with their own, and thus are able to enforce it). Etiquette of decency is dissolved (as a byproduct you get the coarsening of the culture, a rise in vulgarity and other things people formerly simply wouldn't say or do in polite company, out of understood courtesy).

Surely you've heard of hate crimes legislation, hate speech codes on campuses, and the like. I am not for hateful speech, but one must also examine the enforcement and effects of these, and how they are employed with respect to the twin precepts we are examining, toleration/offensive: What we are asked to be tolerant of, and what people are encouraged to take offense to. A lot of what traditional people would find offensive, we are expected to tolerate, and a lot of what was normal and expected in our civilization, people are encouraged to take offense to, and thus drive from the public square: Take your common-sense example from the other mail, and your question regarding if we should tolerate X, Y, and Z, why can't people tolerate God? This is your answer: Selective enforcement, rooted in what is in reality a religious war (being waged not by traditional Americans/Westerners, but against them, by their domestic ideological opponents).

Lets examine a neighboring country that is slightly ahead of us (though we are aspiring to catch up under the current Administration) in the enforcement mechanism regarding "hate speech" and the like, Canada, quoting from here:

Anyway, my New York Times bestseller (and Canadian hate crime) America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It is released in paperback across the Dominion’s bookstores this week, and, if a mere excerpt in Maclean’s was enough to generate two “human rights” prosecutions, the softcover edition should be good for a full-blown show trial followed by a last cigarette and firing squad – although, this being Canada, there’ll be no last cigarette. . .

I’m using “up to your neck” metaphorically, but a lot of chaps are more literal. Naeem Muhammad Khan, the unemployed Torontonian whose website urges that the “apostasy” of Maclean’s contributor Tarek Fatah and other Muslim moderates be punished by death, says of one of his targets: “Behead her!!! And make a nice video and post it on YouTube.” There is no point wishing Mr Khan would fly away and not sing by our house all day. He’s here to stay, and anyone who advocated, say, his deportation would find himself assailed by moderate reasonable Canadians horrified at such a betrayal of our multicultural values.

Now the author of that was brought before a "Human Rights Tribunal" for hate speech, incitement to hate, and the like, because he *quoted* *accurately* people such as Naeem Muhammed Khan. The reason being that it created a hostile environment for Muslims in Canada, might incite hatred and violence, and the like. But was or will Naeem Muhammed Khan be charged for his? No, that we are expected to extend tolerance and understanding to, and indeed ask ourselves why he hates, with the implication that something within us is the cause, and we must change/adapt in order to sooth the feelings and make them feel welcomed. This is a sort of double-think.

It is also on display here:

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the [US] President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism".

Btw, remember that phrase next time you hear someone claim "they don't hate us for our freedom, that's absurd, they hate us for our policies". They hate us for free speech, the freedom to be athiestic or Wiccan or whatever, the freedom of homosexuals and women, &tc &tc. Anyone who says "they don't hate us for our freedom" is a Multiculturalist, which means not knowing anything about other cultures, simply projecting their own ideology upon them. Such people need to read their Qtub. But they won't: Progressive Multiculturalism is ignorance masquerading as understanding and knowledge.

They called for Sharia Law to be "the source of legislation" and said that women should not be "permitted to hold a position of leadership in government".
Now, Sharia is what women in Afghanistan lived under during the rule of the Taliban. Sharia is what women in Saudi Arabia live under. Sharia is what gives Saudi husbands of American women the right (according to Sharia) to kidnap children and bring them back to be raised in Arabia. Sharia is what leads to enforced marriages, where women get no choice of spouse. Sharia is the foundation of the law in Iran that leads to the stoning of homosexuals.

This is another way in which our State-Enforced Religion is irrational. Because, in the course of pursuing their age-old fanatical religious war against their historical hatreds (traditional West, and Christian expression that is not in accordance with theirs), they are in effect making common cause with forces that are destructive of the very beliefs they claim to hold most dear. Gay Dutch filmmakers are thus murdered by fanatics without even a mention at the Oscars (when they give their tribute to fallen film-industry personalities, and to free expression) while the likes of George Clooney hold forth on how bravely people like him are speaking truth to power, to the celebration of all in the room, when really they are just beating tropes that were tired 30 years ago, and haven't had an original transgressive idea in at least that long. They betray their own supposed ideals - ideals I actually joined the Army for, and went to Iraq (and would have gone to Afghanistan) to help extend to women and the oppressed, not just our own people: I took up arms on behalf of and alongside moderate Muslims, while they end up making common cause with the fanatics (but, then, the kind of people for whom Rev. Jerimiah Wright is a non-controversial figure, well...). THIS is why I despise them. THIS is why I hold them in utter contempt. They are a shameful disgrace. Please do look deeply into their own beliefs, and how in their philosophy it all boils down to "power dynamics".

They do not speak truth to power: They speak power to truth. And that is why they are simultaneously able to pretend to be an oppressed resistance, and be in control of how the rules are written and, more importantly, enforced. For if they were truly the underdog they honestly believe themselves to be, the boot would be on the other neck, instead of them enforcing their beliefs upon others and deciding what to protect as tolerable, and what to declare a shunnablly offensive offense.