No 942 “En mi opinión” Mayo 7, 2015

“IN GOD WE TRUST” LAZARO R GONZALEZ MIñO EDITOR

Questions about Barack Obama colonizing America with Muslims

Obama wants to bring terrorist attackers to America.
Check it out:

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., has received a response to his letter demanding answers from Secretary of State John Kerry about the planned resettlement of dozens of foreign refugees in his state.

But the answers failed to shed much light on the secrecy that surrounds the refugee program. The process by which cities and towns across the U.S. are selected to receive displaced persons from United Nations refugee camps remains largely a mystery.

As Gowdy discovered, the city of Spartanburg, South Carolina, was approved for an infusion of 60 refugees, mostly from Syria and Africa, by its own state government headed by Republican Gov. Nikki Haley.

And if the program plays out in Spartanburg as it has in communities in Minnesota, California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and other states, then the 60 refugees will blossom into hundreds and eventually thousands every year. Minnesota, for example, is now receiving more than 2,000 Muslim refugees annually, mostly from Somalia. Texas receives more than 7,000 per year, and California more than 6,000, directly from the Third World.

Here are the top 10 states for refugee resettlement based on fiscal 2014 figures from the State Department website:

Texas, 7,2011

California, 6,110

New York, 4,079

Michigan, 4,000

Florida, 3,519
Read more at http://conservativebyte.com/2015/05/questions-about-barack-obama-colonizing-america-with-muslims/

Pero W. Churchill lo vió hace años

IRÁN   1970
IRAN 2012
AFGHANISTAN
EGYPT (Cairo University) 1959
EGYPT (Cairo University) 2012
NETHERLANDS (Amsterdam) 1980
NETHERLANDS (Amsterdam) 2012
... Y algunas personas todavía no ven una razón para preocuparse.

Winston Churchill dijo en1899:

Los musulmanes pueden mostrar cualidades espléndidas, pero la influencia de la religión paraliza el desarrollo social de aquellos que lo siguen. No existe ninguna fuerza retrógrada más fuerte en el mundo.
Esto es increíble. Aún más sorprendente es que esto nunca se ha publicado mucho antes.

CHURCHILL sobre el Islam... Increíble, pero el siguiente discurso fue escrito en 1899.

(Haciendo abstracción de su nacionalidad)
El adjunto breve discurso de Winston Churchill, fue entregado por él en 1899 cuando era un joven soldado y periodista. Probablemente expone la opinión actual de muchos, pero expresa en el maravilloso churchilliano vuelven de la frase y el uso de la lengua inglesa, de los cuales era un maestro del pasado. Sir Winston Churchill fue, sin duda, uno de los hombres más grandes de los siglos XIX y XX. Era un joven soldado valiente, un brillante periodista, un extraordinario político y estadista, un líder de la gran guerra y primer ministro británico. Estaba como un profeta en su propia época. Él murió el 24 de enero de 1965, a la edad de 90 años y tras una vida de servicio de su país, se le confirió un sepelio de Jefe de Estado.

He aquí el discurso:
¡Qué terribles son las maldiciones que el Mahometismo establece en sus devotos! Además del frenesí fanático, que es tan peligroso en un hombre como la hidrofobia en un perro, hay esa apatía fatalista que es temerosa. Los efectos son evidentes en muchos países, los hábitos imprevistos, desaliñados, sin sistemas para la agricultura, métodos lentos de comercio y la inseguridad de la propiedad existe dondequiera que los seguidores del Profeta se instalen o vivan. Un degradado sensualismo priva a sus vidas de la gracia y el refinamiento, los aleja de su dignidad y santidad. El hecho que en la ley mahometana cada mujer debe pertenecer a un hombre como de su absoluta propiedad, ya sea como un niño, una esposa o una concubina, retrasa la extinción definitiva de la esclavitud y hasta la fe del Islam ha dejado de ser una gran potencia entre los hombres. Los musulmanes individuales pueden mostrar cualidades espléndidas, pero la influencia de la religión paraliza el desarrollo social de aquellos que lo siguen.

No existe ninguna fuerza retrógrada más fuerte en el mundo. Lejos de ser moribundo, el Mahometismo es un militante y proselitismo de su fe. Ya se ha extendido a lo largo de África Central, crian a guerreros sin miedo a cada paso y si fuera que el cristianismo no está protegido en los fuertes brazos de la ciencia, la ciencia contra la cual han luchado en vano, la civilización de la Europa moderna podría caer, como cayó la civilización de la antigua Roma.

Sir Winston Churchill; (Fuente: "El río de la guerra", primera edición, Vol II, páginas 248-250 London).
Lo vió venir...

Michelle Obama a Secret Financial Genius?

RedState Spotlight

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Matt Badiali
Editor, Stansberry Research

Meet One of Wisconsin’s Organized Crime Bosses

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Bob Allen —

District Attorney John Chisholm is no better than an organized crime boss… because he IS a criminal running an organization, the state.

Meet yet another poster child for severely limited government: Milwaukee County, Wisconsin District Attorney, John Chisholm.

Here’s a review of his actions from the Daily Signal: “Wisconsin Home Invasions: When the Government Upends Democracy.”

These raids—engineered by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm—represented nothing less than an attempt to upend democracy, to use law enforcement to thwart the will of the people and punish political enemies.

Because he opposed Republican Gov. Scott Walker—especially his reform of Wisconsin public employee unions—Chisholm used his position and a unique Wisconsin law to harass, threaten and embarrass Walker’s supporters and other Wisconsin conservatives.

Using a legitimate criminal case as a pretext, he opened a “John Doe” investigation and went after Walker’s office and anyone remotely connected to him. The unique provisions of John Doe law “permits Wisconsin officials to conduct extensive investigations while keeping the target’s identity secret.”

The covert investigation’s methods created a low-accountability recipe perfect for political targeting. Investigators took very public actions like home invasions in populated neighborhoods, and their targets could do nothing to defend themselves—not even contact a lawyer during the raids. Nor were they permitted to give any explanation to save their reputations.

You can read more about these pre-dawn or dawn raids here.

As long as men like this are allowed to severely abuse their power and authority—to be completely lawless and terrorize innocent citizens, in the name of the law—no one is safe.

These draconian tactics had the desired effect. Organizations were subpoenaed for all their business records. The Wisconsin Club for Growth had to shut down fundraising because they could no longer guarantee that donors’ privacy would be protected.

And as long as law enforcement officers are willing to be disgusting pawns in outrageous criminal acts, they deserve every bit of the blowback when the darkness is exposed. When officers are more concerned about preserving their paycheck and obeying lawless orders than they are about upholding their oath to the Constitution, they are not worthy of the badge.

Imagine if one of these completely innocent homeowners had opened fire and killed an officer–or even worse, if an officer had murdered one of them. And make no mistake, when law enforcement uses such tactics against people who know they’re not guilty of any crime, there’s a definite risk of tragedy.

I put myself in their place: I know there’s zero reason for any kind of Gestapo raid on my house, so in a similar event I’m going to legitimately assume whoever is breaking into my house is a criminal impersonating police. This madness of SWAT-type raids for non-violent offenses needs to end, everywhere, and immediately.

John Chisholm should be in prison, and forfeit every benefit of his office. Period.
Read more at http://politicaloutcast.com/2015/05/meet-one-of-wisconsins-organized-crime-bosses/#q8OB5fLMS5fyLZ8D.99

BOOM: Texas Traffic Cop Saved the Day at ‘Draw Muhammed’ Shooting, Armed with Only a Handgun

Posted on May 5, 2015

Kudos to this police officer for serving and protecting the citizens of Texas!

A Texas traffic cop saved untold lives Sunday night when he took down two heavily armed men bent on storming a building where a ‘Draw the Prophet’ Muhammad contest was taking place, killing both before they could make their way inside.

The police officer, who has not been identified by Garland Police Department officials, “probably saved lives,” said police spokesman Joe Harn, who added that “his reaction, and his shooting with a pistol, he did a good job.”

Harn said the two suspects, believed to have driven some 1,100 miles from Phoenix to invade the contest at a suburban Dallas venue, shot assault rifles outside, wounding a security guard and hitting at least one police car. Local police, a SWAT team, FBI and ATF agents were on hand for the event, attended by 75 people, which authorities anticipated could anger Muslim hardliners. Authorities in Garland said the men — wearing body armor — drove up to the Curtis Culwell Center on Sunday night and began shooting at a security officer with assault rifles.

Two tweets apparently sent out prior to the shooting from two social media accounts linked to radical Islam seemed to foreshadow the attack. One, sent at 6:35 p.m., some 15 minutes before the attack, used the hashtag #texasattack. “May Allah accept us as mujahideen,” it said.

“We think [the suspects’] strategy was to get to the event center [and] into the event center,” Harn said. “We were able to stop those men before they were able to… shoot anyone else.”

But it was the unidentified Garland police officer, who spends most of his shift assigned to traffic duty, who killed both suspects, who were each dead at the scene.

“[The officer] did what he was trained to do,” Harn said.

Police were searching a Phoenix apartment complex Monday as part of the investigation into the attack.

Police did not say whether the shooting was related to the event, a contest hosted by the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) that would award $10,000 for the best cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The suspects were identified as Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, a senior federal law enforcement official told Fox News. The men were roommates.

Although the suspects’ ties to a specific terrorist organization could not be immediately confirmed, Simpson was known to U.S. intelligence and had been part of a recent terror investigation for allegedly trying to travel to Africa, home of the Al Qaeda-linked militant group al-Shabaab, sources told Fox News.

Court documents show that a man named Elton Simpson was convicted in Phoenix of lying to the FBI in January 2010, about whether he’d discussed traveling to Somalia. According to trial testimony, Simpson is an American Muslim who became the subject of a criminal investigation in 2006 because of his association “with an individual whom the FBI believed was attempting to set up a terrorist cell in Arizona.”

Simpson was convicted, but a judge ruled that prosecutors hadn’t proven the false statement involved terrorism. Simpson was later sentenced to three years of probation.

FBI agents have been at the Phoenix apartment complex — some 1,100 miles from the Garland, Texas, crime scene — since late Sunday night and are reviewing computer records from materials found at the residence. Police tape continues to surround the area, KSAZ reports.

Agents had broken into a white minivan and spent hours looking at it, taking pictures and removing items. They’re also are examining and photographing pages of a notebook or papers in the trunk of a second vehicle, a silver sedan. The sedan is parked in a covered spot near the building where the apartment is located.

Read more: Fox News

Jorge A. Villalón

The Koran Does Not Forbid Images of the Prophet

BY CHRISTIANE GRUBER 1/9/15 AT 4:43 PMOPINION

The Charlie Hebdo killers were operating under a misapprehension. TOPKAPI PALACE LIBRARY

Filed Under: Opinion, Islam, Religion, freedom of speech

In the wake of the massacre that took place in the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, I have been called upon as a scholar specializing in Islamic paintings of the Prophet to explain whether images of Muhammad are banned in Islam.

The short and simple answer is no. The Koran does not prohibit figural imagery. Rather, it castigates the worship of idols, which are understood as concrete embodiments of the polytheistic beliefs that Islam supplanted when it emerged as a purely monotheistic faith in the Arabian Peninsula during the seventh century.

Moreover, the Hadith, or Sayings of the Prophet, present us with an ambiguous picture at best: At turns we read of artists dared to breathe life into their figures and, at others, of pillows ornamented with figural imagery.

If we turn to Islamic law, there does not exist a single legal decree, or fatwa, in the historical corpus that explicitly and decisively prohibits figural imagery, including images of the Prophet. While more recent online fatwas can surely be found, the decree that comes closest to articulating this type of ban was published online in 2001 by the Taliban, as they set out to destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

In their fatwa, the Taliban decreed that all non-Islamic statues and shrines in Afghanistan be destroyed. However, this very modern decree remains entirely silent on the issue of figural images and sculptures within Islam, which, conversely, had been praised as beneficial and educational by Muhammad 'Abduh, a prominent jurist in 19th century Egypt.

In sum, a search for a ban on images of Muhammad in pre-modern Islamic textual sources will yield no clear and firm results whatsoever.

Figure 1. The Prophet Muhammad enthroned, surmounted by angels, and surrounded by his companions, Firdawsi, Shahnama (Book of Kings), probably Shiraz, Iran, early 14th century.FREER/SACKLER MUSEUM OF ASIAN ART/SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

While Islam has been described as a faith that is largely aniconic—i.e., that tends to avoid images—figural imagery has nevertheless been a staple of Islamic artistic expression, especially in secular, private contexts (and today, Muslim majority countries are saturated with images, dolls, and other representational arts). Indeed, a variety of Muslim patrons commissioned illustrated manuscripts replete with figural and animal imagery from the 13th century onward.

Over the past seven centuries, a variety of historical and poetic texts largely produced in Turkish and Persian spheres—both Sunni and Shiite—include beautiful depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. These many images were not only meant to praise and commemorate the Prophet; they also served as occasions and centerpieces for Muslim devotional practice, much like celebrations of the Prophet’s birthday (Mawlid) and visitations to his tomb in Medina.

As a result, this visual evidence clearly undermines the premise that images of Muhammad are banned in Islamic law and practice, thereby providing us with a less ideologically divisive and more fact-based way to speak about a subject that has grown increasingly contentious ever since 2005.

Figure 2. Black ink sketch of the Prophet Muhammad enthroned, Iran, 14th century. STAATSBIBLIOTHEK ZU BERLIN

Representations of the Prophet in Islamic traditions have varied over time, and they have catered to different needs and desires. During the fourteenth century, a number of Persian drawings and paintings depict Muhammad as an enthroned leader surmounted by angels and surrounded by his companions (figures 1-2). These images show the Prophet as a human messenger entrusted with divine revelation through the angelic figures that protect and accompany him.

At other times, medieval paintings depict Muhammad alongside other Abrahamic prophets, the latter frequently represented in 16th century illustrated copies of popular texts concerned with explaining the lives and tales of the prophets (qisas al-anbiya). In some instances, Muhammad is accompanied by Jesus Christ—revered as the Prophet ‘Isa in Islamic traditions—both of whom are said to have been seen in an apocalyptic vision by Isaiah (figure 3).

Figure 3. Isaiah’s vision of Jesus riding a donkey and Muhammad riding a camel, al-Biruni, al-Athar al-Baqiyya ‘an al-Qurun al-Khaliyya (Chronology of Ancient Nations), Tabriz, Iran, 1307-8. Edinburgh University Library. EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

In other tales, especially those dedicated to narrating and illustrating the Prophet’s heavenly ascension (mi‘raj) from Mecca to Jerusalem and onward through the celestial spheres, Muhammad is depicted surrounded by the Abrahamic prophets as he sits in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (figure 4). In these medieval paintings, some of which were commissioned by a Sunni ruler in Iran, Muhammad is praised as the leader of his faith community, as the bearer of divine revelation, and as a messenger belonging to a long and respected line of monotheistic prophets.

Figure 4. The Prophet Muhammad sits with the Abrahamic prophets in Jerusalem, anonymous, Mi‘rajnama (Book of Ascension), Tabriz, ca. 1317-1330. TOPKAPI PALACE LIBRARY

After 1500, a major shift in representations of the Prophet occurs in both Persian-Shiite and Ottoman-Sunni lands. Muhammad’s facial features become covered by a white facial veil while his body is engulfed by a large gold aureole, visual devices that doubly stress his unseen, numinous qualities (figure 5).

Figure 5. The Prophet Muhammad receives revelations at Mount Hira, al-Darir, Siyer-i Nebi (The Biography of the Prophet), Istanbul, Ottoman lands, 1595-1596. TOPKAPI PALACE LIBRARY

While these more abstract depictions of the Prophet certainly show an emerging tendency to shy away from figural representation, they also praise the Prophet according to a metaphorical language that is a hallmark of Sufi (mystical) traditions found in both Sunni and Shiite spheres. Particularly interesting is a series of late 16th-century Sunni-Ottoman paintings of the Prophet’s biography (sira), in which Muhammad is shown confronting the very issue of idolatry as he approaches the Ka‘ba in Mecca (figure 6).

Figure 6. Ka‘ba, al-Darir, Siyer-i Nebi (The Biography of the Prophet), Istanbul, Ottoman lands, 1595-96. TOPKAPI PALACE LIBRARY

In this and other cases, the image of Muhammad is preserved in a pristine state, while the gold idol and its prostrating idolater have been rubbed away by the painting’s viewers. Here then, the problem is not so much the depiction of the Prophet, but rather paganism and polytheism, which are here visually excised in order to make symbolic way for a strictly monotheistic world order.

While images of the Prophet have waned since 1800, there nevertheless exist a number of modern and contemporary representations that reveal a rather unsteady, and thus not cohesive or uniform, approach to the production of Muhammad-centered imagery. While “blessed icons” of the Prophet made in Iran during the 19th and 20th centuries show Muhammad in his full corporeal form and touched by God through the symbol of the golden halo, depictions in Sunni and especially Arab lands remain largely abstract and show a clear preference for textual representations describing his physical attributes. Known as hilyas, these aniconic icons most recently have been printed in As portable icons, these cards give details about Muhammad’s birth date and place as well as the date of his endowment with prophecy. Moreover, they depict the Prophet through three metaphors: the rose (known as the “rose of Muhammad”), his seal impression (reading “Muhammad is the Messenger of God”), and calligraphic renderings of his name in Arabic script.

The contemporary ID card of the Prophet highlights a number of issues that are of particular concern today. First, just last week these laminated hilyas were used as invitation cards for celebrations of the Prophet’s birthday in Turkey. At exactly the same time, ISIS suppressed all Mawlid celebrations in Iraq, and recently a document has revealed that Saudi Arabia has discussed plans to exhume the Prophet’s remains from his tomb in Medina, supposedly in order to prevent his worship.

Taken altogether, these images, sites and celebrations have one thing in common: namely, a very contemporary urge to erase various forms of devotion to the Prophet within discourses emanating from extremist and Salafi spheres. Such discourses, which present themselves as representing a “true Islam,” have been loudly present in the public sphere.

Couched as normative and thus representing a general consensus, they have the net effect of turning images of the Prophet into items that should not, in principle, exist. Theory and practice, along with fact and belief, find themselves at odds here, to say the least.

When one speaks of a “ban” of images of the Prophet in Islam, the negative repercussions are many. First, all doors to constructive dialogue on the topic are closed a priori, thus precluding a nuanced and apolitical discussion of historical Islamic images freed from the polarizing narratives of today. In addition, such images effectively become further endangered as a form of artistic heritage if merely speaking of and illustrating them is seen as a subversive, rather than a productive and reconstructive, act.

And so we must pose ourselves yet another question: why not celebrate this global artistic patrimony by flooding our eyes with beautiful images instead of unseemly cartoons? In so doing, such images will invite us to ponder, at least to a small degree, all that connects us as visual human beings, regardless of creed and conviction.

Christiane Gruber is associate professor and director of graduate studies at the University of Michigan. Her primary field of research is Islamic book arts, paintings of the Prophet Muhammad, and Islamic ascension texts and images, about which she has written two books and edited a volume of articles. She also pursues research in Islamic book arts and codicology, having authored the online catalog of Islamic calligraphies in the Library of Congress as well as edited the volume of articles, The Islamic Manuscript Tradition. Her third field of specialization is modern Islamic visual culture and post-revolutionary Iranian visual and material culture, about which she has written several articles. She also has co-edited two volumes on Islamic and crosscultural visual cultures. She is currently writing her next book, titled The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images.

Jorge Alberto Villalón Y.

Sorry, But It’s Islam’s Fault If People Are Islamophobic

Matt Walsh is a blogger, writer, speaker, and professional truth sayer. Share This

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Is it too late to have an opinion about the terrorist attack in Texas?

I know it’s been, like, three whole days. No story can stay “relevant” for three days, unless it’s something of historic importance like a royal baby or a transgendered reality TV personality. But Garland? Well, that was just two Muslim militants in the U.S. recruited by Islamic State to slaughter a group of American citizens for the crime of exercising their free speech.

That’ll get you a day in the headlines — maybe two, if the media is feeling especially generous — no more. Sure, add a few more bodies and a few more gallons of blood and you might have a 72-hour news item on your hands, but that’s not how it played out in Texas.

Because, well, it’s Texas.

The dead bodies stacked up from this incident were just the terrorists themselves. A fortunate detail, but it didn’t help the story’s staying power. Frankly, that isn’t the body count the media prefers, nor is it the typeof dead body they’re after. These were radicalized Islamists trying to kill right-wing free-speech advocates only to be taken out by an armed off-duty cop. Every single part of that last sentence flies directly in the face of at least a half dozen progressive narratives.

FBI crime scene investigators document the area around two deceased gunmen and their vehicle outside the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, Monday, May 4, 2015. Police shot and killed the men after they opened fire on a security officer outside the suburban Dallas venue, which was hosting provocative contest for Prophet Muhammad cartoons Sunday night. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)

It’s all quite inconvenient. Reality, I mean. Reality is just so uncooperative. You know, sometimes I get the feeling that it happens regardless of our agendas and ideologies.

Crazy, right?

Anyway, after watching and reading the analysis of this incident, and seeing the simpering parade of henpecked apologists predictably heaping more blame and scorn upon the “draw Muhammad contest” organizers and participants than on the idiots who showed up and tried to kill everyone, I thought I’d add a few thoughts of my own.

Four thoughts, to be exact. I have to get it all out now, before the weeks ends and this objectively significant and urgent event is officially scrubbed from every news cast and forgotten by the public conscience, never to be spoken of again:

1) Two heavily armed terrorists with automatic weapons were quickly defeated by a local off duty law enforcement officer with a pistol. That speaks partly to the fact that these Muslim attackers were inept, cowardly, ill-prepared fools who learned the hard way that just because you have body armor and big guns doesn’t mean you’re an assassin. More importantly, though, it highlights the skill and bravery of the officer.

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The word “hero” is tossed around pretty frequently and pretty frivolously these days, but to engage and dispatch a couple of gun-toting bad guys is the very definition of a heroic act. Certainlynot as heroic as smacking your son around on national television, yet still pretty impressive in its own right.

Since we’re so eager to burn down a city every time a police officer crosses the line, do you think we should take maybe a second out of our busy cop-bashing schedule to give them a little credit when they risk their own safety to save countless lives? I’m a little tired of, and a lot nauseated by, this routine where a bunch of apathetic, non-contributing, selfish zeroes sit on the sidelines waiting anxiously for a reason to tear down anyone who wears a uniform, while refusing to acknowledge that sometimes the evil police actually perform the rather valuable service of standing between us and a murderer with a gun.

That’s not some sycophantic platitude, it’s just the truth. Go ahead and criticize these men and women when they screw up, fine. Fair game. But recognize that many of them are doing dangerous, courageous work, while you’ve likely never done a dangerous, courageous thing in your life, and never will. Acknowledge and appreciate that, or I will not acknowledge and appreciate your opinions about police brutality.

2) I’ve heard it said that the organizers of this event were intentionally trying to provoke a violent response from Muslims. Maybe they were. I don’t know. I can’t see inside their hearts to know their intentions. Whether they were trying to provoke or not, doesn’t it say something profoundly troubling about Islam that it can be so easily provoked in the first place?

I know I can provoke my 2-year-old daughter by saying the word “juice” or “cracker” around her without immediately producing either juice or crackers for her to consume. I was recently delighted to discover that I can also seriously annoy her by pretending that her baby doll farted. And yes, sometimes I antagonize a toddler by making farting noises, because I’m bored and I’m in fourth grade.

The point is, it’s OK for my daughter to react like a 2-year-old. She is a 2-year-old. It would, arguably, be far more troubling if she turned to me and maturely stated, “I find your antics quite tedious and vulgar. I would prefer it if you stopped, but I respect your right to behave in this manner. I shall now remove myself from this situation before it boils over into something rather unpleasant. Good day, Father.”

Pakistani protesters burn a representation of a French flag during a protest against caricatures published in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015. Pakistani students are clashing with police during protests against the French satirical magazine that was attacked last week for publishing images of the Prophet Muhammad. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

She’s not expected to have that attitude. She’s a child. Society tolerates a certain amount of childishness from children. They’re children, after all. That’s why we call it childishness.

Grown adult Muslims, however, are not children. Even if they were, they should still be expected to refrain from committing mass murder because they don’t like a cartoon someone drew.

It boggles the mind that we’re even having this conversation. Drawing incendiary pictures of Mohammad might be a base form of expression, but that’s also why anyone anywhere in the world should be able to do it without worrying about getting their head cut off. Of course that’s not the case, but the reason why it’s not the case isn’t that dastardly provocateurs just won’t stop drawing pictures; it’s that Islam has encouraged large swaths of people to react like mindless barbarians to an image on a piece of paper.

It seems kind of odd that when someone is killed by police I’m not allowed to ponder whether their life of crime may have led to the altercation, but when a cartoonist is murdered everyone seems to ask, “well, what was he drawing that caused that to happen?”

The cartoon didn’t cause anything to happen. It’s a cartoon. Cartoons don’t kill people. Muslims kill people over cartoons.

Cartoons don’t kill people. Muslims kill people over cartoons.

3) Free speech is valued by intelligent and moral people, which is why our country has grown increasingly hostile to it.

We — many of us, anyway — do not value the open exchange of ideas anymore. We actively oppose it, in fact. We’re afraid of it. That’s how you get “Free Speech Zones” on college campuses and pizza shop owners run out of business for expressing untrendy beliefs. Thanks in part to public schools, mass media, and our general moral and intellectual decay, we have come to desire conformity over all else.

Why should a person’s right to be offensive be protected, we wonder?

Well, according to some people, including a news anchor at CNN, it shouldn’t be and it isn’t:

Tragically, Chris Cuomo, the esteemed legal scholar, is not in the minority. Or at least it isn’t a very small minority. Many people contend that “hate speech” — i.e. speech they’ve subjectively determined to be distasteful and yucky — doesn’t “count” as free speech. In the wake of this attack, others have wonderedwhether tighter restrictions should be placed on “provocative” ideas, while the Washington Post published an article demanding that Pam Gellar, the organizer of the Draw Muhammad event, apologize for exercising her First Amendment rights.

Clearly, this is all fantastically absurd.

As many have pointed out this week, offensive speech should not just be a protected form of speech — it’s the only form of speech that should be protected. Non-offensive speech needs no safeguard or consideration. You can go anywhere on the planet and utter things that are not viewed as offensive to the powerful, the privileged, and the violent. As long as your thoughts are agreeable to the people in those groups, you can say anything you want, anywhere you want. Hooray.

You can’t call that free speech anymore than you can say a prisoner has the “freedom” to go anywhere he wants as long as it’s somewhere within his 8×10 foot cell.

A country can be considered a haven of free speech, then, only if people can, for instance, hold peaceful anti-Muslim demonstrations without fear of being killed or imprisoned. Currently, we don’t have to worry about the imprisoned part of that equation, but I think that could change, and probably will.

A Jordanian chants slogans during a protest against cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, after Friday prayers in Amman, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015. A rally by Pakistani students against a French satirical weekly’s latest publication of a Prophet Muhammad cartoon turned violent on Friday, with police firing warning shots and water cannons to disperse the demonstration. A photographer with the Agence France-Presse was shot and wounded in the melee. But although there were concerns that rallies against Charlie Hebdo’ new cover depicting the prophet — an act deemed insulting to many followers of Islam — would unravel into violence across the Muslim world, most of the protests elsewhere passed peacefully. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh)

4) Speaking of unpopular speech, try this on for size: “Islamophobia” is rational.

That’s the other problem with calling people “Islamophobic” for criticizing Islam. It suggests that there isn’t a sane, justifiable reason to harbor any negative feelings about Islam at all. I certainly don’t think we should hate Muslim people, but is it really so unreasonable to feel slightly apprehensive about the religion itself at this point?

Taken literally, Islamophobia means “fear of Islam.”

OK, well, there are many Muslims who have gone to great lengths to convince us to fear it. So what if I finally oblige them? Who is to blame if individuals, after over a thousand years of sustained violence and barbarism, begin to, you know, notice?

Personally, I don’t fear Islam, simply because I won’t give the terrorists that satisfaction. But if I’m a Christian living in the Middle East or North Africa, I think I might. I would in that context be extremely susceptible to bouts of severe Islamophobia, if only for the moderately compelling reason that Muslims have raped and murdered my family and friends, destroyed my home, demolished my village, burned my church, and driven my people out of our homeland. Do you think, with all of our great western empathy, we could find a way to understand why some folks feel a little salty about an ideology that has wreaked that sort of untold havoc across the globe?

I don’t think the people at the event in Garland feared Islam — if they did, they wouldn’t have been there — but did some of them feel pangs of Islamophobia while they were locked inside, listening to the gunshots on the others side of the door? Maybe. And whose fault is that?

Let me put it this way: some people feel uncomfortable with Islam because of the actions of many, many, many Muslims. If you want to chastise someone for Islamophobia, chastise the people who cause it, not the people who respond to the people causing it.

You know, there are problems in the Christian faith, also. We don’t go around strapping suicide vests to children, or blowing up buses, or flying planes into buildings, or murdering hundreds of thousands of people every single year in the name of our religion, but we’re not perfect. There’s a wide breadth between “launching a continuous millennia-long campaign of brutality” and “perfect,” and most Christians fall somewhere in between.

But when talking about the perceptions people have of the Church, and the fact that so many are fleeing, and that our culture has been won over by progressivism and secularism, guess who most Christian blame? Themselves. We blame ourselves. Christians are very willing to turn the focus inward and find the sickness in our own ranks.

I believe it is the Church’s fault that people are leaving the Church. Certainly, everyone makes their own choices, but it is our responsibility to reach out and win them over to our cause. We have consistently failed in that regard. I am not shy about saying it. I have never met a Christian who is shy about saying it.

I believe our society has some wrong perceptions about Christianity, and I believe it is my responsibility, as a Christian, to change them.

Maybe Muslims should take the same approach.

Yes, Muslims, many people have a negative opinion of Islam. Guess whose fault that is? Yours. Do something to change it. That’s on you. I take responsibility for how my faith is viewed, now you take responsibility for yours. You can tell me that Islam doesn’t condone what so many Muslims are doing around the world, but those words mean nothing if there isn’t a dramatic change in the way these Muslims behave.

That’s a change you need to initiate. Don’t blame me for seeing what is happening and forming opinions about it. Blame the people doing it. Blame yourself for not denouncing it loudly enough or often enough.

That’s the way this works.

And now is a good time to start.

Listen to Matt’s latest podcasts here. Email Matt with general comments and speaking requests at MattWalsh@TheMattWalshBlog.com

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Breaking: ISIS Forces Are 20 Miles Away From What Could Be Their Greatest Success Yet

His forces are losing ground every day.

Yochanan Visser May 6, 2015 at 1:58pm

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Earlier this week, Western Journalism reported that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have suffered a series of setbacks that are difficult to reverse. The tide of the war in Syria is turning against the Assad regime, we reported.

Today, Israeli TV Channel 1 reported that Islamic State forces are now less than 20 miles from Damascus Airport. Channel 1 Middle East expert Oded Granot said that Assad’s statement during his first public appearance in six weeks shows that he realizes that he is in trouble.

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En memoria de Rafael Díaz-Balart. Añadido su profético discurso

by iclep • May 6, 2015 • 1 Comment

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“Creo que esta amnistía (a Fidel Castro) tan imprudentemente aprobada, traerá días, muchos días de luto, de dolor, de sangre y de miseria al pueblo cubano, aunque ese propio pueblo no lo vea así en estos momentos”.

Rafael Díaz-Balart

El Instituto La Rosa Blanca

Miami, FL – Hoy, 6 de mayo de 2015, se cumplen 10 años del fallecimiento del fundador de La Rosa Blanca, Rafael L. Diaz-Balart.
Lo recordamos, con gran devoción. El amor por Cuba de Rafael Diaz-Balart y su inquebrantable fe en que el pueblo cubano será libre, siempre están con nosotros.

PROFÉTICO DISCURSO Este discurso fue pronunciado en la Cámara de Representantes de la República de Cuba en mayo del año 1955 por el Dr. Rafael L. Díaz-Balart, en ese momento el líder de la mayoría y presidente del comité parlamentario de la mayoría en la Cámara, contra la ley que amnistió a Fidel Castro y demás asaltantes al cuartel Moncada, cuando habían cumplido solamente dos años de cárcel y después de haber sido condenados por un tribunal civil. Castro había recibido una condena de 15 años.

La Amnistía (1955)
Por Rafael Díaz-Balart

Señor Presidente y Señores Representantes:

He pedido la palabra para explicar mi voto, porque deseo hacer constar ante mis compañeros legisladores, ante el pueblo de Cuba y ante la historia, mi opinión y mi actitud en relación con la amnistía que esta Cámara acaba de aprobar y contra la cual me he manifestado tan reiterada y enérgicamente.

No me han convencido en lo más mínimo los argumentos de la casi totalidad de esta Cámara a favor de esa amnistía.

Que quede bien claro que soy partidario decidido de toda medida a favor de la paz y la fraternidad entre todos los cubanos, de cualquier partido político o de ningún partido, partidarios o adversarios del gobierno. Y en ese espíritu sería igualmente partidario de esta amnistía o de cualquier otra amnistía. Pero una amnistía debe ser un instrumento de pacificación y de fraternidad, debe formar parte de un proceso de desarme moral de las pasiones y de los odios, debe ser una pieza en el engranaje de unas reglas de juego bien definidas, aceptadas directa o indirectamente por los distintos protagonistas del proceso que se esté viviendo en una nación.

Y esta amnistía que acabamos de votar desgraciadamente es todo lo contrario. Fidel Castro y su grupo han declarado reiterada y airadamente, desde la cómoda cárcel en que se encuentran, que solamente saldrán de esa cárcel para continuar preparando nuevos hechos violentos, para continuar utilizando todos los medios en la búsqueda del poder total a que aspiran. Se han negado a participar en todo proceso de pacificación y amenazan por igual a los miembros del gobierno que a los de oposición que deseen caminos de paz, que trabajen a favor de soluciones electorales y democráticas, que pongan en manos del pueblo cubano la solución del actual drama que vive nuestra patria.

Ellos no quieren paz. No quieren solución nacional de tipo alguno, no quieren democracia ni elecciones ni confraternidad. Fidel Castro y su grupo solamente quieren una cosa: el poder, pero el poder total, que les permita destruir definitivamente todo vestigio de Constitución y de ley en Cuba, para instaurar la más cruel, la más bárbara tiranía, una tiranía que enseñaría al pueblo el verdadero significado de lo que es tiranía, un régimen totalitario, inescrupuloso, ladrón y asesino que sería muy difícil de derrocar por lo menos en veinte años. Porque Fidel Castro no es más que un psicópata fascista, que solamente podría pactar desde el poder con las fuerzas del Comunismo Internacional, porque ya el fascismo fue derrotado en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y solamente el comunismo le daría a Fidel el ropaje pseudo-ideológico para asesinar, robar, violar impunemente todos los derechos y para destruir en forma definitiva todo el acervo espiritual, histórico, moral y jurídico de nuestra República.

Desgraciadamente hay quienes, desde nuestro propio gobierno tampoco desean soluciones democráticas y electorales, porque saben que no pueden ser electos ni concejales en el más pequeño de nuestros municipios.

Pero no quiero cansar más a mis compañeros representantes. La opinión pública del país ha sido movilizada a favor de esta amnistía. Y los principales jerarcas de nuestro gobierno no han tenido la claridad y la firmeza necesarias para ver y decidir lo más conveniente al Presidente, al Gobierno y, sobre todo, a Cuba. Creo que están haciéndole un flaco servicio al Presidente Batista, sus Ministros y consejeros que no han sabido mantenerse firmes frente a las presiones de la prensa, la radio y la televisión.

Creo que esta amnistía tan imprudentemente aprobada, traerá días, muchos días de luto, de dolor, de sangre y de miseria al pueblo cubano, aunque ese propio pueblo no lo vea así en estos momentos.

Pido a Dios que la mayoría de ese pueblo y la mayoría de mis compañeros Representantes aquí presentes, sean los que tengan la razón.

Pido a Dios que sea yo el que esté equivocado.

Por Cuba.

“FREEDOM IS NOT FREE”

“En mi opinión”

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Lazaro R Gonzalez for Miami Dade

Thursday, May 7, 2015

No 942 "En mi opinion" Mayo 7, 2015