Yesterday thousands of people protested “against extremism” in the streets of central London.

The march was organized by John Meighan.

To say the past three weeks have been a whirlwind for 32-year-old John Meighan would be an understatement. The property manager and Tottenham Hotspur fan woke up after the London Bridge attack – just days after the Manchester bombing – and felt an overwhelming sense of emotion and helplessness.

From an interview with John Meighan by Shy Society (whose introduction to it is quoted above) –

John Meighan says:

The turning point for a lot of people was the Manchester bombing and the fact that children got killed. And then with the London Bridge attack coming so close after, as a Londoner I really felt strongly that something needed to be done,” the father-of-three explains. …

So the “extremism” spoken of is Islamic terrorism – not named.

The British government is doing nothing about it.

Thousands of people were waiting for a signal to do something. Wanting to express their feelings about the horror that has befallen the nation.

John Meighan gave the signal:

Initially the aim of the group was to get people onboard and to try and drum up some support. Then it’s grown to “let’s get thousands of people onboard” and then it went to “let’s get tens of thousands of people onboard” and grow it to a movement where we’re going to bring London to a bit of a standstill and disrupt day-to-day life. Not in a violent or aggressive way – in a manner that says “well we’re here, we need to be heard. There are a lot of people here so you need to take note. It’s costing you a lot of money to police this so you need to listen to people and act”. …

We’ve gone with our instinct and with our own thing. We’ve said we didn’t want flags, chanting, drinking on the streets – the typical things that have probably hindered the groups that have run before because unfortunately it gives the Press a stick to beat you with. …

When we got to Cannon Street Station on Saturday and it’s almost on a bit of a slope and you could just see a sea of people – it was unbelievable – it was just all the way back. We were going past shops and building sites and people were just standing there in shock – I was in a bit of disbelief myself really that 1.) So many people turned up and 2.) That it all went exactly to plan. We laid down wreaths on London Bridge where the vigil is, had a minute silence for the victims which was really well respected and then had a minute of applause for the police to say thanks for how good they were. I’ve had some really good feedback from them since and that, considering the numbers, it went very well.

I’m feeling a lot of positive energy at the moment. The adrenaline is still pumping and I’ve had people who I don’t even know ringing me up and saying “thanks for doing this”. It has really captured people’s imagination – we’ve got 40,000 members on our private Facebook group and that has grown by 10,000 in the past 24-48 hours.

I’m a family man with a good job and of course you worry when you are thrust into the limelight like this. In terms of the organization itself my biggest fear is counter-groups – without a doubt. I’ve been in touch with some left-wing and far-right groups already to pretty much tell them ‘you’re not welcome, please stay away’ – so that’s one of our plans to actually interact with them proactively and be quite explicit. A bit like the whole no flags idea, it’s a bit different and off-cue – not what everybody is used to. If you get good press you’ve won half the battle and that’s what we’re looking to do.

We’ll be launching a new website fairly soon and although we are keeping the name for now, I might look at slightly rebranding the group as we expand to something like Football Lads Alliance in association with Football Family Alliance because I’m really keen to broaden this out and make it more appealing to everyone, not just the male population.

We probably need to create a mass movement here – of 50-100,000 people – and yes it might be a drain on police resources but we have to make the politicians sit up and listen now.

Moving forward I’ll be trying to get some big names onboard – we’ve already got SAS legend Phil Campion onboard and someone like the boxer Tony Bellew would be great too. I’ve had contact with Danish and Dutch Press and I think there’s a bit of interest in Europe as well – further down the line one of my ambitions is to bring together European football clubs and maybe march as one if possible. While it’s still a pipedream at the moment that would probably raise it more of a global problem because ultimately this is very much an issue in mainland Europe as well as in Britain. I think collectively the more people you get onboard the more of a voice you have.

Don’t be afraid to come – our motto is “no racism, no violence: together we’re stronger” so it doesn’t matter who you are or what walk of life you’re from, if you’re willing to walk with people who want change and want an end to extremist terrorism on our streets then please come.

We’ve got a date booked in for the 7th October and we think it’s going to be London again – a lot of people want us to go north but we feel we need to probably stamp our identity on London first before we go elsewhere.

The pro-Islam lying Left is planning a counter-demo. Its organizers are saying it will be “against racism”. The all-too-predictable lie is that these protestors are “racists”. The liars will also accuse them of being: “bigots, xenophobes, Islamophobes, colonialists, imperialists, and far-right white supremacists“.  Just as they do in America.

 

Yes! These are picture of a West Point cadet who has repeatedly and publicly expressed his hatred of  the Army and his country, was guilty of numerous misdemeanors, treated his superior officers with rude contempt – yet was allowed to go on wearing the uniform he despised, to graduate as a soldier in the US Army and become a commissioned officer.

The Daily Caller reports:

The Army officer who outed himself as a radical Marxist had been reported back in 2015 for publishing inappropriate and outright anti-American views online, according to a scathing report obtained by The Daily Caller.

So what? The Army didn’t care.

The report gave details on 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone’s insubordination at the U.S. Military Academy and out-of-regulations online activity. Rapone graduated almost two years later in 2016.

Then – “Rapone made the news last week for his pro-communism tweets during the #VetsForKaepernick social media craze.”

Oh, gosh! The scandal was out! Only then did the Army swing into action.

West Point’s Public Affairs office quickly released a statement last week condemning Rapone’s actions, saying that they “in no way reflect the values of the U.S. Military Academy or the U.S.  Army … Second Lieutenant Rapone’s chain of command is aware of his actions and is looking into the matter”.

They are going to “look into the matter” which came to their attention in 2015.

The statement leaves readers with the idea that Rapone’s chain of command (and indeed the academy at large) was unaware of his radicalism and frequent Uniform Code of Military Justice violations. [But] it turns out a senior officer reported Rapone to his chain of command nearly two years ago.

In a social media post that concerned retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Heffington, an Academy history professor at the time, Rapone wrote, “F*ck this country and its false freedom.”

In November 2015, after being removed from his Ranger battalion for violating standards, Rapone was a cadet in his final year at the academy. According to the report obtained by TheDC, after the latest in a series of incidents involving Rapone’s penchant for insubordination, Heffington became aware of Rapone’s radical leftist activity on social media and notified the cadet’s chain of command.

“From his various online rantings and posts, it appears that DCT Rapone is an avowed Marxist, which is completely out of line with the values of this nation and its Army,” Heffington said in a sworn statement. “Moreover, CDT Rapone’s posts indicate that he hates West Point, the U.S. Army, and indeed this country. One post dated 16 November 2015 states, ‘F*ck this country and its false freedom.’ He also … even implicitly justifies the actions of ISIS and blames the United States for terrorist attacks.”

Heffington concluded in his report, “I cannot reconcile the image of a first class cadet at West Point with the things he has posted online for the world to see. To me, these are red flags that cannot be ignored, and I fail to see how this individual can possibly graduate and become a commissioned officer in six months.”

The same day he wrote this report, Heffington contacted then-cadet Rapone’s training, advising, and counseling officer. The officer was disgusted, but not shocked, Heffington said.

“Unfortunately, I’m not surprised,” the officer said, according to Heffington.

This reaction is merely one of many indications that Rapone’s activism, radical views and immature opposition to authority were well known around the academy — and especially obvious to his chain of command. According to a former head of the Military History and International History divisions at the U.S. Military Academy, Rapone’s plebe year history professor also reported him to the chain of command.

Heffington characterized Rapone as routinely “going out of his way to flout authority”. 

In one incident described in the report, the lieutenant colonel confronted Rapone when he heard yelling in a professor’s office. The cadet reportedly answered in a “loud and extremely disrespectful tone,” “Sir, you don’t have the right to use my honor against me!”

Rapone — a supposedly brilliant cadet, according to his mentor, Professor Rasheed Hosein of the History Department — responded with a childish tantrum: “Sir, this isn’t fair! You’re just putting me on blast!”

One has to wonder what Professor Rasheed Hosein taught Spenser Rapone.

Heffington notes in his report that he told Rapone he did not understand what “putting someone on blast” meant, a rare comedic moment in an otherwise infuriating account. Rapone’s response, that he felt “singled out” is puzzling when one considers the lengths to which the cadet went in order to cast himself as a righteous nonconformist.

In fact, Rapone had singled himself out during his confrontation with Heffington, being in civilian clothes in an academic building (a violation of regulations), by refusing to stand when a superior officer entered the room (a breach of military protocol), and by refusing to answer a superior officer’s direct question regarding who had been yelling (refusal to obey a lawful order).

Most incredibly, Rapone had the gall to respond with righteous indignation.

“He seemed to look at me with nothing but contempt and hatred, no matter what I said or how I tried to reason with him to show him how wrong he was,” Heffington said in his 2015 report.

Multiple other sources contend that Rapone willfully put his anti-capitalist, anti-military and anti-American views on display for the world to see, both in person and over social media. Two recent academy graduates, when reached for comment, suggested that Rapone’s reputation at the academy preceded him. Although they did not personally know Rapone, they stated that they were aware of his radical leftist views and his rebellious reputation long before his activism hit the news this September.

On social media, Rapone’s account (including his Instagram, with the handle “punkproletarian”) abound with praise of communist leaders, interspersed with scathing criticism of his nation, its military and even his chain of command.

Rapone’s rantings unequivocally condemn what he refers to as the military’s “brutally hierarchical rank structure,” and he deems Defense Secretary Mattis “the most vile f*ck in the current administration”. 

This 2015 report unambiguously states that Rapone’s vehement anti-American views and his obsessive insubordination made him a dangerous liability to this nation’s military. Its author urged his chain of command not to allow then-cadet Rapone to commission as an officer. And, according to Heffington, every officer he spoke to agreed with this conclusion.

So why wasn’t he kicked out of West Point?

The conservative columnist Kurt Schlichter comments at Townhall:

It gives me no pleasure to have to wonder whether the Army I served in both in active and reserve status for close to 28 years is broken. And it’s not just the Army.  The Marines and the Special Ops community, well, they seem to be holding on to the standards the rest have forgotten, but the Navy and the Air Force – they’re broken too. Our military – in terms of strategy, equipment, and leadership, is in crisis. American troops will die if we don’t fix it.

Hell, they already have.

We have a Navy that can’t even sail its few remaining ships without running into giant cargo vessels. …

It is, in fact, a disgrace. Our sailors, the precious young men and women we commissioned officers are charged with leading and protecting, are dying because our officer corps tolerates incompetence. One collision is an accident. Two is a lifestyle.

And yeah, they’ve fired some admirals, and that’s a good start, but the problem is a cultural rot, not just one ‘ed-up command. The Navy focused on things besides its mission – “to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas” – and in the last few months that misplaced focus has killed 17 sailors and taken two major vessels out of action in the Western Pacific at the very moment we are on the edge of war.

Did you know several senior Navy officers are being or have been charged for corruption? Corruption. Graft. Bribes. Hookers. Senior leaders, and they’re scumbugs – criminal scumbags. But hey, the Army has its problems too. General Petraeus…sheesh, what a punch in the gut it was to see him use the Army values as a latrine. Then there was the 82^nd Airborne general court martialed for using his billet to build himself a sex harem. And how about the colonel who played games with contracts and ditched his wife to marry an Iraqi chick – the Army was so upset he got a reprimand and to keep his pension. No jail time.

Let me say that again. No jail time. Yeah, that would totally have happened to a sergeant who did the same thing, according to several high-ranking unicorns in the Judge Advocate Office.

Want to know what generals and admirals don’t get in trouble for? Failing to win wars.

The military senior leadership has turned into a fraternity, where they cover up for each other and make sure everyone graduates with a gentleman’s “C”. And it’s not even a fun fraternity – the senior leadership is painfully politically correct, parroting all the right buzzwords and received wisdom of our failed ruling caste. Many of these people are courageous on the battlefield – they’ll happily charge a Taliban warrior wielding an AK-47. But they quake in their boots back home in the face of an enemy they don’t understand and that can destroy their careers – the Social Justice Warrior.

That’s why you don’t see them saying what every damn one of them knows is true – that women, despite their heart and commitment, are a net liability in ground combat units, that trans troops are an expensive distraction and damaging to morale, and that the insane focus on “diversity” programs sucks up priceless training time and fuels, rather than quells, discord in the ranks.

But they don’t dare object. That’d be risky. And these are the senior leaders who we will allow to lead our sons and daughters in battle if Korea goes hot. How’s your confidence level?

And we have now reached the pinnacle of the military’s moral bankruptcy with the revelation that one Second Lieutenant Spenser Rapone is a communist. Not like a wannabe communist, not like a routine college-years liberal dummy, but a full-on, dictatorship-of-the-proletariat communist.

While at West Point.

Yeah, and the Academy knew. The chain of command knew what this guy was, because he told them (Army alumni have done the job the MSM, which probably sympathizes with this idiot, has failed to do, digging up plenty about him and putting it out on social media). But the Academy let this creep slide through anyway.

They let a guy who unequivocally stated his hatred for this country get a security clearance. … Then they gave Rapone a commission as a United States Army officer.

And they did it knowing who he was, because in the leftist-loving environment Obama created, they were terrified to throw the bum out on his Marx.

Hell, he felt comfortable enough to post this all on social media, and the Army chain of command didn’t act until we outside the military made a stink and it had to do something.

You’ve seen the photo of this disgrace wearing a Che t-shirt under his uniform and showing it off. Question: Who took the photo? He was with other cadets so some other cadet saw it and did nothing – doesn’t West Point have an honor code, or is honor now a microaggression? Imagine how interested CNN and the Democrats would suddenly be if his undergarment icon was Hitler, or even Robert E. Lee, instead of the racist, gay-murdering dorm room darling of the campus commies.

“But, he has a right to express his…”

No, he doesn’t.

A United States officer cannot be a communist, or a Nazi, or a jihadist. These vile allegiances are incompatible with military service, and we are under no moral obligation to enter into a suicide pact by letting these vermin into our officer corps. Haven’t enough people died, like at Fort Hood, because the chain of command was too cowardly to risk getting called jihadiphobic to get rid of an insider threat?

Apparently not. …

But the real story isn’t this one loser. It’s not even the other losers who knew what he was and said and did nothing. It’s the chain of command.

We need to know exactly what the faculty and staff at West Point knew about Comrade Cadet Rapone’s treachery. If they did know – and I bet we will find out that he was counseled in writing about it – every officer from his first line supervisor to the USMA Superintendent must be relieved and reprimanded. West Point is supposed to be the heart of the Army, but we may find that, after the pernicious influence of Obama and his ilk, it won’t even take its own side in a fight.

This is a symptom of a bigger disease. The Army, and the military in general, has lost its way.

Fortunately, we [now] have a president who actually loves America …

So will the US military switch its allegiance back to the United States?

The US government has two foreign policies: one is President Trump’s, the other is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s.

In the case of US policy towards Iran, for instance, President Trump abominates the “deal” Obama made with that evil regime and wants to tear it up, while the Secretary of State wants to preserve it.

The “deal” (it is not a treaty, it isn’t even signed by either side) requires the president of the United States to certify, every 90 days, that Iran is complying with it.

Iran is not complying with it.

Against his better judgment, for reasons we have to assume were sound at the time, President Trump has re-certified it twice. He must have done so with great reluctance, such a horrible thing it is, giving the America-hating mullahs the right to start building a nuclear arsenal in a few years from now. Under its cover, Iran isn’t even waiting the few years; it is working constantly towards its nuclear goal.

So President Trump cannot certify for a third time that it is in compliance.

And according to AP, he won’t.

AP reports:

President Donald Trump could announce his secret decision on the future of the Iran nuclear deal next week.

U.S. officials familiar with the president’s planning said Wednesday he is preparing to deliver an Iran policy speech in which he is expected to declare the landmark 2015 agreement contrary to America’s national security interests. …

Trump faces an Oct. 15 deadline to tell Congress if he believes Iran is complying with the seven-nation pact and if it advances US interests.

The president has called the 2015 deal, which forced Iran to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for broad relief from international economic sanctions, one of the nation’s “worst and most one-sided transactions” ever. But many of his top national security aides don’t want to dismantle the deal, and America’s European allies have lobbied the Trump administration heavily not to walk away from the agreement.

Even AP – which cannot conceal which of the two US foreign policies it favors – cannot claim more for the “deal” than that it “forced Iran to scale back its nuclear program”. But it is not scaling it back much, if at all. So much for the “forced”.

“We’re going to give him a couple of options of how to move forward to advance the important policy toward Iran,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters Wednesday. He said the Iran deal comprised “only a small part” of the government’s approach to Iran, a traditional US  adversary in the Middle East that Washington considers the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

President Trump’s Secretary of State is going to give him, the president, a couple of options.

Tillerson will preserve the deal, but will do it in such a way that the president doesn’t lose face!

The Iran deal’s future may hinge on a face-saving fix for Trump so he doesn’t have to recertify the Islamic republic’s compliance every 90 days …

Several officials familiar with internal discussions say the periodic deadlines have become such a source of embarrassment for Trump that his aides are trying to find ways for him to stop signing off on the accord without scuttling it entirely.

So having to certify that Iran is in compliance when it isn’t, is only a source of embarrassment to President Trump? Not a lie to America and the world against his own will and principles? Those officials should not be in the White House or the State Department or wherever they are lurking!

Trump has said repeatedly that he doesn’t want to certify Iranian compliance again after having done so twice already, declaring last month he even had made his mind up about what he’ll do next. “Decertification” could lead Congress to reintroduce economic sanctions on Iran that were suspended under the deal. If that happens, Iran has threatened to walk away from the arrangement and restart activities that could take it closer to nuclear weapons.

That last sentence is one of many in the report which shows AP’s bias. A warning to the president. “Walk away from the deal?” It is walking away from it. “Closer to nuclear weapons”? It is close to them now.

The UN (along with Europe) is on the side of keeping the deal. Because (like Europe) it is on the side of Iran. Its International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has recently admitted that it cannot verify that Iran is implementing the most important part of the “deal”, Section T – the part that prohibits Iran from developing nuclear weapons for 10 to 15 years from the time the “deal” was agreed.

The plain fact is  that the IAEA is not just useless in keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power, it is helping it on the excuse that if it asked for the permission of Iran to inspect its  military bases – which according to the stupid “deal” it must – it knows Iran will not give it. And that would confirm President  Trump’s criticism of the deal. “We just don’t want to give them [the US] an excuse” to “bring down the deal”, an IAEA official said.

Since the IAEA cannot inspect the sites, and so cannot say that Iran is not keeping to the “deal”, AP declares that the agency has found Iran in compliance:

Because the UN nuclear watchdog has found Iran in compliance, it’s difficult for the US administration to say otherwise. However, Trump and other officials, including Tillerson, have said Iran is violating the spirit of the agreement because of its testing of ballistic missiles, threats to US allies in the Middle East, and support for US-designated terrorist organizations and Syria’s government.

So Tillerson does at least admit that Iran is “violating the spirit of the agreement”.

But he and US Defense department officials, including the Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, still want to keep it. Since the IAEA has not certified that Iran is in breach of it, they pretend that means it is not in breach of it.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Iran “is not in material breach of the agreement”.

Why do they pretend this?  Because –

At the same hearing, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he believed the deal is still in the US national security interest.

For US officials involved in the decision-making process, the focus on finding a way for Trump to avoid anything looking like approval for the accord has become a source of frustration. Various options are in play to resolve the problem, but none are clean solutions, according to officials.

And they will  not consider simply accepting President Trumps wish to scrap the useless “accord”. So all their difficulties are of their own making – finding a way to implement their own policy rather than the president’s, while making the president think that they are implementing his!

The most likely strategy centers on Trump not certifying Iran’s compliance. Below the president, diplomats and officials would then strive to manage any fallout with Tehran and US allies by emphasizing that Washington isn’t leaving the deal or immediately applying new nuclear sanctions on Iran. After that, Trump wouldn’t have to address the certification matter again, officials said.

And as long as the issue doesn’t come before him for his signature, they can merrily proceed with their own plans?

Whether AP is aware of it or not, its report reveals a contempt for President Trump on the part of Tillerson and the generals. It suggests that they regard the president as so naive that he can be hoodwinked by a trick which removes the need for him to certify that Iran is keeping the deal, but yet preserves the deal. 

Mattis hinted his boss may try to decertify without breaking the deal.

His boss may try? He, Mattis – along with Tillerson – will try.

“You can talk about the conditions under one of those, and not walk away from the other,” he said.

While Mattis described the issues of certification and upholding the deal as “different pieces”, they overlap.

How can Iran’s breaking of the deal – which is what decertifying means – not cancel it? The breaking cannot just be a “different piece” which “overlaps” the deal as a whole. It is the essence of an agreement that it must be kept by both sides or it is invalidated. By a “different piece” they can only mean that the clause calling for certification is not the whole of the agreement. By saying it “overlaps” the clauses, they are tacitly acknowledging that declaring the agreement broken by Iran does affect the whole thing.

They are trying to preserve a broken deal!  Of course it’s a strain even on the skills of an equivocating diplomat to reconcile “broken” with “not so broken we have to discard it”.

Why are they straining to keep it?

In January, Tillerson must waive multiple sets of sanctions on Iran for the US to uphold its part of the deal. The issue of US national security interests is relevant to those decisions.

How “US national interests” are protected or advanced by the “deal” is not explained. It has never been explained.

Obama’s “deal” makes it possible for the belligerent, America-hating theocrats of Iran,  who believe absolutely in Shia Islam and its centuries-long ambition to subdue the world under Shia Muslim rule, to become a nuclear power. How is that in the interests of the United States?

President Trump sees that it is not. As AP itself reports: President Trump “is expected to declare the landmark 2015 agreement contrary to America’s national security interests”. 

May he do so! Then let’s see by what contorted argument the resistance within the administration tries to justify preserving the abominable “deal”.

This seems to be Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas mass murderer, at an anti-Trump rally, wearing a pink “pussy hat” …

… among the demonstrators against “hate”.

What do our readers think – is it Stephen Paddock in the video?

The great novelist Vladimir Nabokov said that progress was “always a knight’s move forward” – alluding of course to the move a knight makes in a game of chess: one straight and one diagonal.

It seems he may be right. And though I hate to admit it, a knight’s move forward is quite similar to the Hegelian/Marxist dialectic: thesis -> antithesis -> synthesis.

What has this to do with our concern with what’s happening in our world, our time?

Well, one politician, in one country in Europe, has come up with an idea that neither accepts the status quo – his country being flooded with Muslims who will increasingly change the culture and politics of his country for the worse – nor the extreme remedy prescribed by angry protestors, to expel them all. He takes the way things stand (call it the thesis), observes the growing protest (the antithesis), and comes up with a series of practical steps that could possibly turn the Muslim invaders into acceptable Europeans (the synthesis).

Soeren Kern writes about this politician and his idea at Gatestone:

A groundbreaking new law regulating the integration of immigrants has gone into effect in Austria. The so-called Integration Law — which bans full-face Muslim veils in public spaces and prohibits Islamic radicals from distributing the Koran — establishes clear rules and responsibilities for recognized asylum seekers and refugees who are granted legal residence in the country.

Austrian officials say the main goal of the law is to promote respect for Austrian values, customs and culture; Muslims claim that the measure unfairly targets them and will promote “Islamophobia”. 

As of October 1, anyone covering his or her face in public with a burka, niqab or mask is subject to a fine of €150 ($175).

By itself, that law is not new. Other European countries have it too.

The law, which follows similar bans in Belgium, France and the Netherlands, requires the face to be completely visible in all public spaces, including bus, rail, air and sea transport. Those who refuse to comply are subject to arrest.

But Austria is doing more than that:

The new law also requires immigrants from non-EU countries to sign an “integration contract” which obligates them to learn written and spoken German and to enroll in courses about the “basic values of Austria’s legal and social order”. Immigrants are also required to “acquire knowledge of the democratic order and the basic principles derived from it”. 

Immigrants are subsequently required to take an “immigration exam” to prove that they have “in-depth knowledge of the German language for independent use” and “in-depth knowledge of the fundamental values ​​of the legal and social order of the Republic of Austria”. 

Immigrants have a period of two years to prove their compliance with the integration agreement. Those who fail to comply are subject to fines of up to €500 ($585), imprisonment of two weeks and the loss of social welfare benefits — but not deportation.

The new integration law is the brainchild of Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, the leader of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). Kurz, who has taken an increasingly hard line on immigration, is leading the opinion polls in the run-up to parliamentary elections on October 15 and is on track to becoming Austria’s next chancellor.

He explained the rationale behind the new law:

The new integration law regulates the central framework conditions for the integration of people who want to settle in Austria: We need clear rules and regulations in order to achieve social solidarity and social peace. The principle on which this law is based is “integration through performance”. People are not judged by their country of origin but by their will to contribute to Austria. The main goal of this law is to promote integration. … We will not tolerate any symbols that aim to build a counter-society with us.”

Previously, Kurz was instrumental in reforming Austria’s century-old Islam Law (Islamgesetz), governing the status of Muslims in the country. Kurz’s other new law, which was passed in February 2015, is aimed at integrating Muslims and fighting Islamic radicalism by promoting an “Islam with an Austrian character”.

It also stresses that Austrian law must take precedence over Islamic Sharia law for Muslims living in the country.

Austria’s Muslim population now exceeds 700,000 (or roughly 8% of the total population), up from an estimated 340,000 (or 4.25%) in 2001 and 150,000 (or 2%) in 1990, according to data compiled by the University of Vienna.

The massive demographic and religious shift underway in Austria, traditionally a Roman Catholic country, appears irreversible. In Vienna, where the Muslim population now exceeds 12.5%, Muslim students already outnumber Catholic students at middle and secondary schools. Muslim students are also on the verge of overtaking Catholics in Viennese elementary schools.

At the same time, Austria has emerged as a major base for radical Islam. Austria’s Agency for State Protection and Counterterrorism (BVT) has warned of the “exploding radicalization of the Salafist scene in Austria”. Salafism is an anti-Western ideology that seeks to impose Islamic Sharia law.

Sebastian Kurz

“The immigration seen in recent years is changing our country not in a positive but in a negative way,” said Kurz, who is campaigning on a “law and order” platform: “Uncontrolled immigration destroys the order in a country.”

His plan might work.

Yet … the knight’s movement will not stop. Impossible to predict what antithesis will arise from an integrated Austrian Islam, to give rise to what synthesis.

What is certain is that Europe has been changed forever by mass Muslim immigration.

Whether it can in any way be made into an asset rather than the ominous threat it is now, remains to be seen.

This is a near-repeat of our post Morality, Crime, and Justice (December 6, 2012). We have adapted it to be a comment on the mass-murder that was carried out last night (Sunday October 1, 2017) in Las Vegas:

An all-powerful all-knowing good god was at work again last night when 58 people were shot to death and 515 injured (as known at the time of this writing) at a concert in Las Vegas by a 64 year old man named Stephen Craig Paddock. God will be thanked for saving some of the audience. And there will be much talk by Christians of praying, and about forgiveness. Forgiving by the unharmed on behalf of the victims is arrogant and foolish, but forgiveness is part of the Christian doctrinal revolt against justice.

If some must believe in an all-powerful all-knowing god who controls the universe, it would make a lot more sense to believe he is evil. An evil god can be whimsical. He can decide not to do evil now and then. Believers could even ascribe good deeds to him without falling into a mess of inconsistency, since an evil god would enjoy confusing his creatures.

But enough bothering with absurd beliefs. Let’s say how we view such human deeds. Throughout our lives we are continually and inevitably to a certain extent in the hands of other people. We should try not to do harm to one another. That is a very high standard of morality. We will not always succeed, but we can and should try.

And what of those who deliberately do harm? Whenever possible they should be punished. He who has taken a life (and lives on) should have his life taken from him. If he has taken many lives,  nothing more than that can be done. Punishment of the mass-murderer cannot be commensurate with his crime. Justice is elusive. We cannot always, or often, achieve it. But again, we can and should try.

When someone who has killed 58 people then kills himself as Stephen Craig Paddock has done, so putting himself beyond even such justice as is within our power, all we can do is blame him and express – yes – our hatred not just of the crime but of the criminal. Hold him responsible. That is all we can do in such a case to uphold the principle of justice. To forgive him, even if only in theory, would be to commit another crime – and betray the principle.

As we say in our Articles of reason: Justice may be elusive, but judgment is inescapable.

Muslims are forming political parties in Europe, and are succeeding in getting candidates elected to parliamentary seats.

Long before they have enough seats to form governments, they will have turned West European states into full-blown tyrannies. The process has begun with the suppression of free speech (criticizing Islam) in Germany, Austria, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy.

Judith Bergman writes about some of the Islamic parties at Gatestone:

Sweden’s brand new first Islamic party, Jasin, is aiming to run for the 2018 parliamentary elections. According to the website of the party, Jasin is a “multicultural, democratic, peaceful party” that is “secular” and aims to “unite everyone from the East … regardless of ethnicity, language, race, skin color or religion”. Jasin apparently knows what the Swedes like to hear.

In an interview, the founder and spokesperson of the party, Mehdi Hosseini, who came from Iran to Sweden 30 years ago, revealed that the leader of the new political party, Sheikh Zoheir Eslami Gheraati, does not actually live in Sweden. He is an Iranian imam, who lives in Teheran, but Jasin wants to bring him to Sweden: “I thought he was such a peaceful person who would be able to manifest the peaceful side of Islam. I think that is needed in Sweden,” said Hosseini.

The party does not, however, fit the description Hosseini gives it. He uses the vocabulary of tolerance to deceive Swedish voters. It is deliberate deception – taqiyya – which is not just permitted but prescribed by Islam.

But the lies he tells for the ears of Swedes won’t do for Muslim voters who don’t want democracy and tolerance of other religions. They want a party that will do what the Koran and the hadith say  it must do. So for those who don’t like that description of his party, Hosseini has another:

The purpose of the Jasin party, however, does not appear to be either secular or multicultural. In its application to the Swedish Election Authority, the party writes – with refreshing honesty – that it will “firstly follow exactly what the Koran says, secondly what Shiite imams say”. The Jasin party also states that it is a “non-jihadi and missionary organization, which will spread Islam’s real side, which has been forgotten and has been transformed from a beautiful to a warlike religion …”

In mid-September, the Swedish Election Authority informed Jasin that it failed to deliver the needed signatures, but that it is welcome to try again. Anna Nyqvist, from the Swedish Election Authority, said that a political party with an anti-democratic or Islamic agenda is eligible to run for parliament if the party’s application fulfills all formalities.

And what does it matter if the leader of a party which might in time form a government in Sweden lives in another country? (Government of one country by another used to be called “colonialism”.)

Nyqvist considers it unproblematic that the leader of the party lives in Iran. “This is the essence of democracy, that all views should be allowed. And it is up to them to choose their party leader,”  Nyqvist said.

Can any literate person raised in the West be as stupid as that? Oh, yes. Many.

Islamist parties have begun to emerge in many European countries, such as the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, and France.

In the Netherlands, two Dutch Turks, former members of the Socialist party, founded a new party, Denk, only six months before the Dutch parliamentary elections. Despite the short timeframe, they managed to get one-third of the Muslim vote and three seats in parliament. The party does not hide its affinity for Turkey: Criticism of Turkey is taboo just as is their refusal to name the Turkish mass-slaughter of the Armenians during the First World War a genocide. The party ran on a platform against the integration of immigrants into Dutch society (instead advocating “mutual acceptance”, a euphemism for creating parallel Muslim societies); and for establishment of a “racism police” that would register “offenders” and exclude them from holding public office.

In Austria, Turkish Muslims also formed a new party, the New Movement for the Future (NBZ), established in January 2017. According to its founder, Adnan Dincer, the NBZ is not an Islamic party or a Turkish party, despite being composed mainly of Turkish Muslims. [Yet] several of the party’s Facebook posts are written only in Turkish. [And] Dincer has made no secret of the fact that his party strongly backs Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan … 

Who is taking Turkey back from the secular democracy it has been for nearly a century, to Islam-flavored autocracy.

In Belgium, several Islamic parties are preparing to run in the next elections. Dyab Abu Jahjah, apparently behind one of them, while not having presented a formal platform yet, has said he wants to “be part of an egalitarian radical renaissance that will conquer Brussels, Belgium, Europe and the whole world, with new politics of radical equality… defeat the forces of supremacy … of sustained privileges … of the status-quo … in every possible arena”.

Jahjah is a Lebanese immigrant, who emerged on the European scene, when he founded the now defunct Brussels-based Arab-European League in 2001. It was a pan-European political group aiming to create a Europe-wide “sharocracy” – a supposedly sharia-based “democracy”. In 2001, after the September 11 terror attacks, Jahjah said that he and many Muslims had felt a “sweet revenge feeling”. In 2004, Jahjah said that he supported the killing of foreign troops in Iraq. “I consider every death of an American, British or Dutch soldier as a victory.” He has also been opposed to the assimilation of Muslims, which he has described as “cultural rape”.

Jahjah used to be considered a Hezbollah-supporting extremist, and, although he describes himself as a “political friend” of Jeremy Corbyn, he was banned from entering Britain. In Belgium, however, he is seen as a respectable activist, leader of a group called Movement X, and formerly with his own weekly column in the Belgian daily De Standaard. The Belgian political magazine Knack named Jahjah the country’s fourth most influential person, just behind Manchester City footballer Vincent Kompany. In January 2017, however, De Standaard fired Jahjah after he praised a terror attack in Jerusalem. “By any means necessary, #freepalestine,” Jahjah had tweeted after a Muslim ISIS-affiliated terrorist plowed a truck through a crowd of young Israeli soldiers visiting Jerusalem, killing four and injuring countless others.

Jahjah will likely experience fierce competition from the “I.S.L.A.M.” party, founded in 2012, and working to implement Islamic law, sharia, in Belgium. The party already has branches in the Brussels districts of Anderlecht, Molenbeek and Liege. The party wants to “translate religion into practice”. …

The party has put forth a mayoral candidate for the Brussels municipal elections in 2018: Michel Dardenne, who converted to Islam in 2002. In his program, Dardenne speaks mainly of how much the party respects Belgian democracy and its constitution, while simply wanting to help an undefined populace against “the elites”. He may have found it easier to appeal to “progressive” non-Muslims that way. Brussels, 25% Muslim, has enormous potential for Islamic parties.

In France, several Islamic parties are also preparing to run in elections. One party is the PEJ, established in 2015 by French-Turkish Muslims and reportedly connected to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP. … The PEJ has already approved 68 candidates and wants to abolish the separation of church and state, make veils mandatory for schoolgirls in public schools, introduce halal food in all schools and fight “Islamophobia”.

Do Europeans want Islam to replace their own political systems and cultures? Are they aware that that is what is happening? Hard to tell.

Judith Bergman can’t tell. She asks –

How many Europeans are even paying attention to their [the Islamic parties’] agendas?

And who opened their paths to power?

The short answer is, the Left. Governments that are socialist in fact even when the parties in power are “conservative” in name. Bureaucrats who saw their populations shrinking to a point where it would become difficult to maintain their socialist welfare states, so in order to have people, lots and lots of people to pay into the welfare system, they imported millions of Muslims from the Third World, without a moment’s consideration of what values, what laws, what customs, what antagonisms the masses of newcomers brought with them. And, ironically, the majority of them are takers from the state rather than contributors to it. (For instance, 90% of immigrants to Austria are wholly dependent on state welfare.)

There’s nothing in the Koran about social security, free education, or national health services. Or democracy. Or the equality of women. Or same-sex marriage. Or against slavery.

But that will be just fine with West European leaders as long as the application of the Islamic party in power “has fulfilled all formalities”.

 

Note: Germany has allowed a terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), to register as a political party and – on a joint list with the Marxist-Leninist Party – nominate candidates for the federal parliament. See our post A strange, ironic, and tragic historical moment, September 9, 2027.