Just a few links for tonight, from two thoughtful observers.
First, a couple of items from Bill Vallicella. The first is a meditation on the “No True Scotsman” fallacy; given how much rubbish we’ve been hearing about who is and isn’t a true Muslim lately, it is timely.
In the second item Bill, citing the philosopher of religion John Hick, examines the totalitarian nature of Islam, and its fusion of religious and political authority. He asks whether, in light of this, a case cannot be made that it is exempt from certain Constitutional protections.
Our other source tonight is John Derbyshire. Last week’s Radio Derb, which was devoted almost entirely to the Paris event and its reverberations, was especially good, and so I am going to send you off to read the transcript. (The first weekly Radio Derb podcast of every month is free, at Taki’s Magazine; the other recordings are available, for a very modest fee that is well worth the expense, here.)
Derb agrees, generally, with our commenter David Duff’s opinion that, however bad mass Muslim immigration has been for the West, it can’t be undone:
We’ve let this dreadful thing happen, and I can’t see the slightest possibility of it un-happening. The toothpaste is out of the tube. Or, as the Chinese say: The wood has been made into a boat. It can’t be unmade back into trees.
Having said so, though, he qualifies this gloomy opinion in various small ways. Go and read.
One thing I did notice: John D. and I enjoy serious metaphoric congruency on the question of what constitutes “hate speech”. Here’s me, the day before Derb’s podcast:
I find it wearying to see the world divided into a) those who welcome mass Muslim immigration to the West, and b) ”˜Islamophobes’. Where once ”˜tolerance’ meant acceptance without endorsement, it seems now that the range of possible orientations toward any group or cause whatsoever has been narrowed to only two: enthusiastic support, or ”˜hate’. But one doesn’t have to ”˜hate’ Muslims to prefer that they live in their own countries, under their rules and customs, while we live peacefully in our own. I don’t ”˜hate’ antelopes, for example, but that doesn’t mean I want them in my house.
And here’s Mr. Derbyshire:
[I]t’s possible to believe that Islam is a fine, enriching, and noble religion in its homelands while not wanting it in my homelands. I don’t want koala bears in my living room, but I do not hate koala bears. I’m actually rather fond of them; but I like my living room the way it is.
Antelopes, koalas. I believe the acronym here is ‘GMTA’.
6 Comments
Morons: our top story.
And, dammit, you and Derb weren’t the only ones to do the animal metaphor. This is just like when I wrote, “I may like 4.6-headed Moebius-tesseract dragons, but this doesn’t mean I’d ever want one teleporting into my hyperspace diffraction chamber!” several months back.
Credit where credit is due!
Going Dutch is good, so far as it goes, but it’s only halfway there.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
You guys might find this funny, tragic or pathetic; probably all of the above:
“Your Excellency” Big Henry..
That post is dystopian wicked!
I thought so, too. It reads like the parodies IowaHawk writes.
BTW, WW, you need to be someone who says things like “chap” or “m’Lord” to call me “Your Excellency”. Everybody else calls me Henry, Big H, or TBH.
I recently learned that TBH is now being used by texters for “to be honest”. But my claim to it predates that by many years.