American Samizdat

The “Qatif girl” won a reprieve last week. On Dec. 17, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah pardoned the young woman, who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after she pressed charges against seven men who had raped her and a male acquaintance in 2006. Two weeks earlier, Sudan’s president extended a similar reprieve to Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher convicted of insulting Islam because her 7-year-old students named a teddy bear Muhammad. Gibbons had been sentenced to prison, but government-organized street demonstrators were loudly demanding her execution. [...]

No international furor saved Aqsa Parvez, a Toronto teenager, whose father was charged on Dec. 11 with strangling her to death because she refused to wear a hijab. “She just wanted to look like everyone else,” one of Aqsa’s friends told the National Post, “and I guess her dad had a problem with that.” No reprieve came for Banaz Mahmod, either. She was 20, a Kurdish immigrant to Britain, whose father and uncle had her killed last year after she left an abusive arranged marriage and fell in love with a man not from the family’s village in Kurdistan. Banaz was choked to death with a bootlace, stuffed into a suitcase, and buried in a garden 70 miles away. More than 25 such “honor killings” have been confirmed in Britain’s Muslim community in recent years. Many more are suspected. [...]

By Western standards, the subjugation of women by Muslim fanatics, and the sometimes pathological Islamist obsession with female sexuality, are unthinkable. Time and again they lead to shocking acts of violence and depravity: [...] In San Francisco, a young Muslim woman was shot dead after she uncovered her hair and put on makeup in order to be a maid of honor at a friend’s wedding. [...]

All these are only examples – the tip of a dreadful iceberg that will never be demolished until Muslims by the millions rise up against it. As for the rest of us, we too have an obligation to raise our voices. It took a worldwide outcry to spare “Qatif girl” and Nazanin. But there are countless others like them, and our silence may seal their fate.

[Article continues at link. The West is largely a Christian culture, but a secular Christian culture. Christianity is still tied to the Bible and all its support for slavery, all its oppression of women, all its scientific nonsense. But secular Christianity can simply ignore these cruel and foolish practices, picking out the good stuff from the Bible and getting on with things. The Muslim world has so far rejected the secular and has no intention of getting rid of its support for slavery, all its oppression of women, all its scientific nonsense. I hope the Muslim world can get its act together, keep the good stuff and join the rest of us in the 21st Century (even joining the 19th would be an improvement), but there isn't much the West can peacefully do to make that happen. But we can do something about honor killings in the West. Prosecute the murderers and their murderous support system. Use the same techniques that were successful against the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia - crushing taxation, relentless arrests and incarceration, and inescapable social opprobrium. No honor for honor killers, not one second of respect for their sacred traditions and ancient culture. - Trevor Blake]

All this and more was published in OVO blog during the past month:

• What Can God Do with 32 Virgins? “Numbers 31:40 states that God wanted thirty-two of the virgins reserved for Himself. What can God do with thirty-two virgins?”
• Where are you NOW? NOW and Sharia: “Does the National Organization of Women refrain from commenting when women are sentenced to lashings? If so, this is a change from 2001 when they spoke out against it. Does NOW refrain from commenting about Muslim law (also known as sharia law)? If so, this is a change from 2002 when they spoke out against it. In the past NOW has spoken out against lashings and against Muslim law.”
• Mamie Manneh: “Mamie Manneh is an attempted murderer who illegally imported the remains of endangered species into the USA for the purpose of eating them. Handling and consuming this animal can lead to some of the most nightmarish diseases known to humanity. Only spongiform encephalopathy and religion can soften the mind enough to cause a person to hold Mamie’s ‘culture’ or ‘sincere beliefs’ worthy of consideration in this regard.”
• The Get Out of Your Mind Free Card: “When is a movie theater not a movie theater?”
• CAIR: “The Council on American-Islamic Relations has called for an end to rights violations against women and volunteered support for House Resolution 32.”
• Ulam’s Spiral: “It was an act of idleness, not labor, that brought this curiosity forth. I place this discovery in the realm of dreams and not wakefulness.”
• Ten Thousand: “Ten thousand people have been killed by Muslims in the past six years. These men, women and children were not killed in self-defence, nor were they killed in the heat of the moment, nor were they killed for money, nor were they killed in war. Ten thousand people have been killed by Muslims in the past six years as human sacrifices, as part of the religion of Islam, as Muslims submitting to the invisible monster that lives in the sky.”
• Theo-genital Mutilation, Two Versions: “Perhaps tax dollars could be used for something more pressing than the unnecessary mutilation of men and women’s genitals.”
• The War on (T)Error: “Two members of the religion of peace who bombed London on July 7, 2005 were able to do so only because the US government let them walk.”
• Sen. Charles Grassley: “Superstitious non-profit agencies are also tax exempt, but they are not accountable for how much money they take in nor are they accountable for what they spend the money on. Some superstitious non-profit agencies must surely do good work with every penny they can find. But others surely do not.”
• What Prevents Sexual Predation? “If there are two claimed ways to reduce sexual predation, one that seems to work and one that seems to not work, we can at least do some good with that real world information.”

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Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) has asked six non-profit agencies to account for their earnings. These six agencies are led by Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn. Sen. Grassley has no legal means to compel these six to account for their earnings. That is because these agencies serve an invisible monster that lives in the sky.

Secular non-profit agencies are accountable for how much money they take in and what they used that money for. By providing social services in the private sector they lessen the burden of the government to provide those services. By reducing the burden of the government to provide those services they reduce the amount of tax the government can justify taking in. By reducing the amount of tax the government can justify taking in the secular non-profit agencies are awarded with tax exempt status. Secular non-profit agencies are accountable for how much money they take in (to determine how much tax they can be exempt from) and what they used that money for (to demonstrate they relieved the burden of the state).

Superstitious non-profit agencies are also tax exempt, but they are not accountable for how much money they take in nor are they accountable for what they spend the money on. Some superstitious non-profit agencies must surely do good work with every penny they can find. But others surely do not.

The ideal and simple solution would be to get the government out of the superstition business (as suggested by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America). Hold superstitious non-profit agencies accountable to the same standards as secular non-profit agencies. Require superstitious non-profit agencies to account for how much money they take in and what they spend it on. Where they do good work, let them be rewarded. Leave magic spells offered to an invisible monster that lives in the sky up to individuals and families.

I welcome Sen. Grassley’s inquiry. He and those like him might benefit from my January 2006 essay The Case Against Tax Exemption for Religious Organizations in Oregon in OVO 16 Anti-Christ. “At every turn in its thought, society will find us – waiting.”

Robert, September 11, The date which will live in infamy:
Now it has been six years. The global jihad proceeds apace, with well over 9,000 deadly attacks carried out in the course of those six years by believers in the proposition that “Islam must dominate, and not be dominated.” Yet we are no closer as a society to recognizing how exactly to combat this foe, and our responses flail wildly — witness this report that prisons have removed Jewish and Christian books from their libraries so as to allow them, within today’s suffocating multiculturalist ethos, to remove also books advocating jihad violence and Islamic supremacism. [...]Six years after 9/11, the jihad proceeds apace, and the UN investigates…Islamophobia.

Want to end Islamophobia? End violent attacks committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. I guarantee that Islamophobia will then vanish utterly.

Adrian Morgan, Six Years After The Wake-Up Call:
It is now exactly six years to the day that the world woke up to the true horror and the evil of Islamism. [...] Since that time, some people seem to have forgotten what created that day of slaughter and the loss of innocence. Conspiracy theorists, taking denial to the furthest degree, still try to capitalize on those tragic and gut-wrenching acts of Muslim terrorism to blame the CIA, the US government, anything to suggest that followers of a barbaric, bloodthirsty, punitive religion invented by a genocidal 7th century caravan-raider could never have committed such a dastardly plan. The wake-up call was made, but too many people prefer to forget, or to minimize the reality. Islamists try to rule through fear. They violently silence a few brave people and the rest of us hide in the shadows, fearful that if we too speak out, or if we are identified as enemies of Islamism, that we too will be silenced by violence.

David Charter, Young Muslims begin dangerous fight for the right to abandon faith:
A group of young Muslim apostates launches a campaign today, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, to make it easier to renounce Islam. The provocative move reflects a growing rift between traditionalists and a younger generation raised on a diet of Dutch tolerance. The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of religion but has already upset the Islamic and political Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim community in the Netherlands.

Ehsan Jami, the committee’s founder, who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about public figure in the Netherlands. He has been forced into hiding after a series of death threats and a recent attack.

[Originally appearing at OVO blog. Let every day be one day closer to the withering away of Islam, Christianity, Judaism and all religions. - Trevor Blake]

A new [Canadian] federal law, which received royal assent in June of this year, will require Canadians to prove their identity before casting a ballot. Voters will be asked for government issued photo-id before being allowed to vote. Those without the required id can provide two other pieces of acceptable identification or have another voter in the district vouch for them.

While Muslim women will be asked for photo-id such as a driver’s license, they will not be required to remove their veil. A spokesman for Elections Canada tells CJAD that women may choose to remove the veil but if they opt not to, they can simply provide a second piece of identification in addition to the driver’s license. Women who choose not to unveil will also be given the opportunity to swear an oath and have another voter vouch for them, but Elections Canada says two veiled individuals will not be allowed to vouch for each other.

[Article continues at link. What is being protected by this law, and what is being lost?]

At a hearing earlier this month, Chief Judge Raymond Dearie of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn ruled that Mamie Manneh, 39, of Staten Island, has legal standing to argue that her religious beliefs should exempt her from criminal prosecution for smuggling the contraband bushmeat. [...] Manneh, who is also known as Mamie Jefferson, was charged in January 2006 with smuggling 65 pieces of bushmeat into America from the West African nation of Guinea in violation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Government agents seized “skulls, limbs and torsos” of primates, including green monkeys and hamadryas baboons, according to court papers. The meat had been smoked.

The U.S. Supreme Court may have bolstered Manneh’s prospect of winning last year, when it ruled 8 to 0 in favor of exempting a small group in New Mexico from prosecution for using a hallucinogenic plant to make tea. The court in that case, Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao De Vegetal, found that practice by followers of a Brazilian religion was protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law passed by Congress that protects groups who use illegal substances for religious purposes. But bushmeat brings new issues into play, including conservation of protected species and public health threats that experts say can stem from eating primates. Diseases linked to primates include HIV, SARS, Ebola, Monkeypox, and Lassa Fever, the federal government says in its complaint in the case, signed by a special agent of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Philip Alegranti. [...]

Manneh took the stand for the first time this month, where she testified that she was baptized as a Christian, but that she eats the monkey meat at religious ceremonies like Easter “because monkey from the wildlife is a very smart animal,” according to a court transcript. Her testimony suggests that she practices a hybridized religion that borrows both from Christian concepts and indigenous African religious beliefs. Seventeen congregants of Manneh’s church in Staten Island, the First Christian Church at 54 Thompson St., filed an affidavit in July testifying to the importance of bushmeat for their religious beliefs. “This is something our forefathers did, it is something we learned as children, and it is a part of our treasured relationship with God as African Christians,” the congregants wrote. “We eat bushmeat for our souls,” they said.

[Article continues at link.]