What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
So, a few days ago I received an e-mail from Dave Reaboi of Big Peace asking me to help get the word out about Tennessee's proposed Material Support to Designated Entities Act of 2011 legislation.
Pressure by a Red-Green alliance (a coalition of ideology and convenience of far-left groups like the ACLU, Soros-funded extremist blogs like Mother Jones and ThinkProgress, and Islamist Muslim Brotherhood-linked pressure groups like the Muslim Public Affairs Council and CAIR) to defeat the bill has been fierce and growing. Willingly influenced by misleading propaganda, the Associated Press ran a headline on the bill, incorrectly reporting it “would make following Shariah a felony.” In the article, AP reporter Lucas L. Johnson II claims the bill’s focus on the Shariah law of jihad “represents the boldest legislative attempt yet to limit how Muslims worship.”
Amplified by the far-left, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)—unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terrorist funding trial in US history—have launched a media campaign to distort the law and defame its author, Center for Security Policy General Counsel David Yerushalmi.
I wrote back and said, "Hey Dave, get the word out yourself. Come join Ricochet." Ricochet, please welcome our new member Dave Reaboi, who's here today--and I hope tomorrow--to join the conversation. (The bonus of this story is the big gossipy dust-up between Dave and Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, but Dave, you're not allowed to call anyone a "classless hack" on Ricochet; our Code of Conduct forbids it.)
Now, to the subject at hand. Dave, what I don't fully understand about this legislation is what, precisely, it criminalizes that wasn't illegal before. Is it not already illegal to provide material support to designated terrorist groups? What does this bill actually do besides make its sponsors sound tough?
The floor's all yours.
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Dec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
While we're waiting for Dave to show up, it looks to me like the purpose of the bill is to grant state and local officials the ability to prosecute acts currently covered by Federal law only. From the Big Peace article:
The proposed law is pretty straightforward, and is based almost precisely on the federal material support of terrorism statute upheld recently by the US Supreme Court. The Court found that Americans found to be providing “training,” “expert advice or assistance,” “service,” and “personnel” to designated terrorist organizations constitute material support and, thus, would be in violation of the law.
Jun '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
These days, if every left-wing judge were also a commercial airline pilot, you might have to write a specific law, stating that airplanes may not be intentionally flown into buildings. How else would they know? It's not like they have any internal commonsense.
Jul '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Why does the bill specifically target supporters of violent Shariah? Would a person or party that offered support to a Timothy McVey- or Weather Underground-type domestic terrorist fall under the provisions of this law? If not, why? There is a clear need to enable law enforcement to more effectively find and prosecute terrorists, but I don't understand the need to restrict the scope of this law to only one type of terrorist.
Edited on March 5, 2011 at 6:41pmDec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Douglas Pologe: While we're waiting for Dave to show up, it looks to me like the purpose of the bill is to grant state and local officials the ability to prosecute acts currently covered by Federal law only. From the Big Peace article:
...
· Mar 5 at 6:11am
Given the current administration's reticence in enforcing standing federal law; immigration law and DOMA come to mind, this is not unimportant.
Dec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
@Jerry: Absolutely.
Mar '11
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Thanks, Clare, for posting the story, and for allowing me to elaborate on it for a bit. (I'm not going to comment at length about the TPM business, unless it's somehow important, and I'll try to keep to the Ricochet code of conduct while so doing!)
I was prompted to write the piece because of the unbelievable mischaracterization of its provisions and its intent by that alliance of the radical left and Islamists we've come to see so much of in the past few years. (Andy McCarthy has just written on this at National Review, tracing the roots of what my friend Caroline Glick has called the Red-Green alliance back to Rousseau's admiration for early Islam and its rejection of individualism. So I'll recommend that as background reading.)
The bill is important because, finally, it gets jihad as part of an ideology on the map for law enforcement and legal purposes. Since 9/11, policy has been made to address terrorism (like, for example, the material support provisions in the Patriot Act), but no effort has been made to really understand its wellspring-- the centrality of jihad within mainstream Islamic jurisprudence.
Mar '11
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Jerry/Douglas: That's the point of the bill exactly; it allows the state's AG to designate a jihad-supporting Shariah-adherent organization and, by law, deny it material support. For example, the bill empowers Tennessee to deal with Jamaat al Fuqra (which has camps in various US states but is not designated currently as a terrorist group) and deny it material support *before* it commits an actual terrorist act. It allows law enforcement the tools to recognize that an organization that supports violent jihad is a problem.
We have been dealing with the source of Islamic terrorism as something unknowable; modern trends in sociology and elite opinion has even convinced many that the source is alternatively economic, a retaliation to globalization and American imperialism (on the left), and a reaction to despotic rulers in the Muslim world (on the neoconservative right). Unfortunately, none of these explanations is in any way related to the motivations of the actors themselves or their worldviews. You can have plenty of fun imagining the shapes on the walls of Plato's cave, but you can't have a coherent counter-terror policy based on it.
Dec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
The area of an erstwhile farming community cum Nashville bedroom-suburb in Murfreesboro has become a focal point of yet another ground-zero Cordoba House in the incipient array of “mother of all mosques” scattered around our land.
First, the Mohammedans erect minarets, like stakes in the ground, to consecrate the sovereign territory of their mosque. Then, they plant a legal tower of Babel on top of the local courthouse with exigencies for this or that tidbit of shari’ah jurisprudence to which compliant—not to say treasonous—judges hastily acquiesce without exception.
Each state has to amend its Constitution with affirmative provisions setting forth the specific form of law that rules its courts and which all its citizens must obey. Tennessee is joining other states—Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Wyoming, and soon Oklahoma—in doing that in order to banish from America the most insidious domestic threat to our way of life.
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Dave, from a legal point of view, what does it mean--what does it achieve--to "get an ideology on the map?" Do you mean that it raises awareness of the ideology? Does this have any meaning, legally? Or ramifications? How in practice does this add anything to the legal apparatus already in place? Is Douglas correct to say that this is intended to give state and local officials the ability to prosecute acts currently covered only by Federal law?
Oct '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
The issue is law as an aspect of sovereignty.
In the US, the Constitution is sovereign in terms of law; it is the "supreme law of the land".
In the context of radical Islam, sharia does not recognize the sovereignty of the Constitution; Allah is sovereign.
The Islamist agenda is to dupe the American public into thinking that sharia is akin to something like a private religous law, like an Islamic equivalent to Catholic canon law, which has no legal authority in the judicial system in the US. Once this false idea has taken root (it has already been planted in Detroit and beginning to take root there), they will then push to have sharia accepted as an alternative law base for those who profess Islam and agree to be subject to its provisions. If this occurrs it will be like giving diplomatic status to "citizens of Islam" in the USA, putting an end to the "one law" concept of American jurisprudence.
Edited on March 6, 2011 at 12:06amDec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
In football (American) this is what's known as an interception.
The intent must be that belief in jihad itself would be sufficient to prove criminal intent. Exactly how that would work and exactly what types of crimes it would cover are questions that I cannot answer.
Believe it or not.
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Dave,
After reading your post, I started Googling around to make up my own mind about the writing of David Yerushalmi. I see that his critics accuse him of having published a lot of racist and anti-Semitic writing. The excerpts they quote are pretty awful. But when I click on the links, it appears that the articles in question have been removed from where they were originally posted. In one case, access via the Way Back Machine was even blocked. Is it your position that these critics have fabricated the offending quotes or taken them out of context? Do you know why the original material was removed from the Web?
Also, you characterize Mother Jones as an "extremist blog." I read Kevin Drum there every day. I've yet to encounter anything very extreme. Could you point me to the content that justifies that description?
Dec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Conor,
You report that the person documenting the Mohammedan jihad against the West has “critics [who] accuse him of having published a lot of racist and anti-Semitic writing.”
Does that refute the existence of jihadists who yap “Allahu Akbar” as they murder Americans?
Does that refute the Mohammedan ambition to insidiously infiltrate shari’ah into American jurisprudence as it already has in the UK?
Are you informing us that we can read in Mother Jones that Mohammedan jihadists are not murdering Americans and submission to shari’ah is not a threat to our way of life?
Or are you informing us that Mohammedan jihadists who yap “Allahu Akbar” as they murder Americans and our submission to shari’ah is good?
Thank you for the clarification of how you think.
Dec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Humza Ahmad: Why does the bill specifically target supporters of violent Shariah? Would a person or party that offered support to a Timothy McVey- or Weather Underground-type domestic terrorist fall under the provisions of this law? If not, why? There is a clear need to enable law enforcement to more effectively find and prosecute terrorists, but I don't understand the need to restrict the scope of this law to only one type of terrorist. · Mar 5 at 9:02am
Edited on Mar 05 at 09:41 am
Perhaps they will amend the law with further provisions when Insurgent Catholic Fundamentalists start detonating themselves while furiously thumbing their rosaries.
Until such becomes necessary though, I think this is a good start.
And for the record, anything published by Mother Jones is only slightly less credible than something shouted out on the street corner by a crazy old homeless guy.
Edited on March 6, 2011 at 9:25amRe: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Charles,
Almost the entire political spectrum in the United States is anti-Islamic terrorist. The folks at Mother Jones, the people at the ACLU, the average student at Brown University – all are quite antagonistic to radical Islamists. These aren't uninformed observations. I read Mother Jones. I have friends who work at the ACLU. I've lived in Park Slope, a neighborhood thick with recent Brown graduates, and in other liberal enclaves – Washington DC and Venice, California to name a couple. I've never encountered an alliance between leftists and radical Islamists.
But when I read Andy McCarthy and Big Peace, I'm told that the alliance is mainstream and pervasive.I am not hostile to those outlets because I am soft on Islamic radicalism. My antagonism comes from the belief that their arguments are sloppy, their bedfellows are creepy, and their agenda has more to do with domestic politics than they're inclined to admit.
When you tell me that your critics are trying to "defame David Yerushalmi," and then I Google around and see very good reasons for criticizing him, I am not inclined to trust you.
And already I wasn't inclined to trust Big Peace.
Feb '11
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Conor Friedersdorf: Dave,
... The excerpts they quote are pretty awful....
Conor,
I'll also admit to being horrified when I first saw the quotes demonstrating Yerushalmi's putative extremism. While there are hundreds of blog posts on the subject now, their evidence is mostly recycled from something written by Matt Duss. Duss' cites are taken from articles written by Yerushalmi for the Spectator and the American Thinker (links below).
I've never met Yerushalmi, and for all I know he's secretly a Wahhabi under deep cover. Based on what he's written, though, there's just no way one can conclude that he's racist or fascist. His political views are no more extreme than those of Justice Scalia.
Yerushalmi himself has repeatedly tried to set the record straight at http://www.saneworks.us/indexnew.php (especially at the entries dated Nov. 11 2010 and Oct 17 2009). It doesn't seem his detractors are much interested. By the way, the latter entry also gives an explanation as to why it was decided to take the discussions private (basically, self-defense).
-----
http://www.americanthinker.com/david_yerushalmi/
http://spectator.org/people/david-yerushalmi/all
Feb '11
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
The proposed legislation, by the way, does not necessarily reflect Yerushalmi's views. The articles cited below give, I think, the best account of what he thinks the main problems are. (The first is the briefer, and the most pertinent to the present discussion.)
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18588.xml
http://epubs.utah.edu/index.php/ulr/article/viewFile/76/68
Dec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Conor,
Interesting observation about your personal acquaintances.
It’s not that we expect in your neighborhoods where leftists congregate that everyone chants political devotionals in rhythm for the Religion of Peace, like the folklore of a Komsomol choir. Granted, they are as yet still but a few.
It’s that leftists and jihadists have the common history of using intimidation—it’s only intimidation here, like the easy slander of racist, it’s much worse than intimidation over there—to subdue into silence anyone faltering in acceptance of their version of transformational purity.
It’s also that our American way of life is their mutual enemy. Leftists and Mohammedan jihadists do not have to deliberately form with locked arms as a monolithic phalanx haranguing Allahu Akbar; it’s that on more and more occasions they stand side by side giving comfort to each other as tactical allies in their desire for conquest over us.
By the way, you disagree with Andy McCarthy. Why such anti-Irish racism?
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Charles,
I don't share the conceit that it's cathartic or fair game to lazily conflate American liberals and progressives with our Islamist enemy. And if you think that the far right doesn't also have a "history of using intimidation" it's long past time to educate yourself about actual history as opposed to the blinkered version on offer inside the ideological echo chamber where everything is a dig against the other side.
Dec '10
Re: What Exactly Would the Proposed Tennessee Anti-Shariah Bill Do?
Conor Friedersdorf: Charles,
I don't share the conceit that it's cathartic or fair game to lazily conflate American liberals and progressives with our Islamist enemy. And if you think that the far right doesn't also have a "history of using intimidation" it's long past time to educate yourself about actual history as opposed to the blinkered version on offer inside the ideological echo chamber where everything is a dig against the other side. · Mar 6 at 2:55pm
Yes, it is terribly lazy to look at the records of what they say and do, and then throw it back in their faces when they try to lie about it.
Show me a single main stream right group that spends as much time with Islamists as Code Pink does, and then you can lecture about the right and left being equivalent in history's eye.
Just an FYI, Cato is not a valid answer, as they have been called out and ostracized for their relationships, while Code Pink has been repeatedly embraced and held up as the model by leftists.