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Another Attack on Free Speech
Apparently, things have been too quiet for Rep. Ilhan Omar. And we’ve been free of Islamist attacks for a long time. So, it’s time to stir things up on behalf of Muslims. Omar has decided to stand up for Muslims by creating a position in the Department of State (without consulting the department) to protect beleaguered Muslims everywhere. She submitted a bill that passed in the House to establish the Office to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia. According to CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, there have been 500 documented complaints of “anti-Muslim hate and bias” this past year in the U.S. Given that CAIR is an outgrowth of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, I tend to be skeptical of this data. The bill passed in the House on a party-line vote on Dec. 14.
So why do I care? This bill isn’t intended to protect Muslims worldwide from acts of violence. Instead, I believe Omar plans to further destroy our already debilitated commitment to freedom of speech.
The incentive for this bill was probably a response to the “rude and ill-advised” reference to the “jihad squad” made by Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. But the implications of this bill are much more far-reaching. Essentially, the bill targets those people who use “hate speech”; these statements are elevated into the category of “hate crimes”:
‘Hate speech’: this means that trivial incidents in which someone who is rude to a Muslim gets counted in as a hate crime, inflating the numbers of those crimes and contributing to the false impression that Muslims are victims of widespread discrimination and harassment in America today. With that low a bar, it’s no surprise that the press release at Omar’s site goes on to note that ‘in March, the United Nations Human Rights Council cited discrimination and hatred towards Muslims has risen to ‘epidemic proportions.’
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a practicing Muslim and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, has been sounding the alarm about radical Islam for many years and states the following:
The freest nation on earth is now unbelievably on the verge of creating a position in our State Department charged not with protecting inalienable human rights, but with protecting a faith ideology. This will be celebrated by our theocratic Islamist enemies across the world. The U.S. government will have a sanctioned ‘American Grand Mufti’ who will determine what is, and what is not, Islam. Every American Muslim, especially anti-Islamist (anti-theocratic) Muslims, will be marginalized by the new US government arbiter on Islam.
Any critic of radical Islam will potentially be accused of Islamophobia. Ironically, loyal Muslim Americans who attack Islamism are considered the worst Islamophobes. We have already experienced Americans accused of being racists and bigots, while the political left refuses to criticize (or comments lamely about) racist comments from Muslims in government positions. We have watched too many government agencies weaponized in the past five years: the departments of Justice (including the FBI and CIA), Education, Energy, Defense, and Health and Human Services. It’s the state’s turn.
* * * *
The Senate bill was presented on the same day, Dec. 14, by Sen. Cory Booker, ending with the following amendments:
(viii) wherever applicable, an assessment and description of the nature and extent of acts of Islamophobia and Islamophobic incitement that occurred in that country during the preceding the year, including—
(I) acts of physical violence against, or harassment of, members of the Muslim community, acts of violence against, or vandalism of, Muslim community institutions, instances of propaganda in government and nongovernment media that incite such acts, and statements and actions relating thereto; and
(II) the actions taken by the government of that country to respond to such violence and attacks or to eliminate such propaganda or incitement, to enact and enforce laws relating to the protection of the right to religious freedom of members of the Muslim community, and to promote anti-bias and tolerance education.
Of course, no one has described “hate speech,” “harassment,” “propaganda,” “incitement,” or even “Islamophobia.” We needn’t worry in the U.S. about the inappropriate or unlawful use of this bill because it is directed internationally.
Right?
Let’s hope the Senate sees through this malignant effort to further infringe on our rights to free speech.
Published in Foreign Policy
Islam doesn’t believe in freedom of speech or separation of government and faith.
Neither does the political left so that’s why they’re together.
Indeed. A match made in heaven–or whatever they call it.
I’ve always thought Ilhan Omar should be escorted out of Congress by someone who reminds her that Islam doesn’t allow women to have such a position. Or the education she has, etc.
Ha yes
Not really, they just share a common enemy. And enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Just add islamophobic to the pile: sexist, racist, homophobe, Christian, gun nut, implacable opponent of the Designated Hitter Rule…
Looks like Ilhan Omar modelled her bill on this one, which set up the Office of the Special Envoy To Monitor and Combat Antisemitism – apparently a thing since 2004. Whether it has muzzled
antisemiticfree speech in the US since then or not you can decide for yourself.Regarding this particular bill, from the text (bolding added):
Which seems relatively benign. It might even have saved some lives in Myanmar, what with their
FinklerRohingya question and all. And frankly I think it’d be a good thing for India.I can’t see any drawbacks to the US having a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, what’s the issue with having one to monitor and combat Islamophobia?
Hmm, maybe because the Left IS anti-semitic and ignores that rule when it suits them, but would beat their opponents over the head for supposedly being islamophobic?
The Jews in this country don’t want to take over the country; radical Muslims do.
I often wonder what the faces of my former super lib LGBT acquaintances will look like should the USA be flipped to Muslim supremacy, as some in the various Trilateral Commission and other Elite Power Think and Activity Tanks desire.
Gays are stoned in Muslim countries. (And I am not referring to consuming too much reefer.)
How has this fact not dawned on any of the LGBT crowd’s leadership?
Stoned, hanged, beheaded, thrown off the roofs of tall buildings… They have a range of options.
And previously, I left off the possibility of someone like Ilhan Omar being deserving of an “honor killing” by her father or brother(s) or other male relative(s).
So what? How is that an answer?
Isn’t the one she was married to disqualified or something?
It is the new Red-Green Alliance. See here in 2019. And here earlier in 2019. And here in 2021.
Maybe, but there would be others who could do it. That’s in addition to the very large “slant” generally in favor of men, in islam, especially radical islam. For example, a woman who accuses a man of rape gets killed because she admitted to having illicit sex. But the man is considered innocent unless some number of other men actually saw him do it, or something.
This Act can be used to silence Americans who might alert the PTB of an imminent danger of an Islamist terror attack. They will be empowered to make inroads with sharia. We’re talking the radicals here, Zafar.
She was briefly married to her brother, if I remember correctly. I don’t know think that qualifies for an honor killing.
I think that was about the brother she was married to, being disqualified from carrying out the honor killing.
How can it be used to silence Americans who want to alert the PTB of a terrorist attack? What is the mechanism? I don’t think it can be. Tell me how.
Is that bad?
Really? Could it be any simpler? Anyone trying to alert the PTB of a terrorist attack would be accused of islamophobia.
The mechanisms aren’t in place yet. I’m waiting for it to be illegal to speak against Islam. I believe they did it in Canada and the U.K. Like criminal.
Thank you for adding this excellent point to the conversation, Clifford. For those in doubt, check it out!
But you’re sure that they will be put into place? And this is why you don’t want the US Govt to monitor Islamophobic acts in other countries, the way that it monitors antisemitic acts?
I believe it’s illegal to speak in a way that incites hatred or violence against a specific group (like Muslims. Or Jews. Same law.) It seems unlikely that this will happen in the US, why do you think it will? It isn’t illegal to be antisemitic is it, despite the Office for Antisemitism being around since 2004. So why would it become illegal to be Islamophobic?
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Conflict of interest or something.
Or witness intimidation?
This is a faulty comparison and I refuse to make it. Islamism is bent to take over the world, and they have their representatives right in our government. Jews don’t have those aspirations.
Nothing good will come out of government action to monitor and combat phobias.
I’m not comparing religious ideologies or Jews and Muslim, I’m asking why you think this law will result in reduced freedom of speech in America when a pretty much identical one passed in 2004 did no such thing.