New in PJ Media:
The battle for the freedom of speech is heating up this week, with Elon Musk chasing out the Twitter fascists and beginning to open up the platform for free discussion and dissent (amid howls of rage from the Left), but the other social media giants are showing no signs of retreating from their fascism. New English Review Press announced Sunday that a book it published back in 2017, The Islam in Islamic Terrorism: The Importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology by the renowned ex-Muslim scholar Ibn Warraq, has been pulled for sale from Amazon without explanation or the possibility of appeal.
It’s a strange move. I have the privilege and honor of having known Ibn Warraq for many years and calling him my friend. I’ve also read The Islam in Islamic Terrorism. Before I met him, his groundbreaking and courageous work Why I Am Not A Muslim was a powerful influence on me in the 1990s and had a great deal to do with my beginning to write about jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women myself. Ibn Warraq is a gentle soul, a careful scholar, a superb writer, and a profound and original thinker. The Islam in Islamic Terrorism is not some flame-throwing hate screed but a carefully documented exploration of the elements of Islam that jihad terrorists use in order to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims.
Amazon, however, is run by Leftists, and for Leftists, any criticism of Islam, including any hint that it may have some connection to Islamic terrorism, is “Islamophobic” and thus to be rejected out of hand without any discussion of the actual evidence. For years now, the notorious far-Left smear machine, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), has defamed opponents of jihad violence and Sharia oppression as “hate group leaders,” and Amazon has banned counter-jihad 501c3 charitable organizations from its Amazon Smile charity program on the basis of the SPLC’s “hate” listings.
Amazon has also shown a readiness to ban books that counter the Left’s nonsense. A few years back, the Leftist behemoth banned Ryan Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. It has also banned other books that jihadis and their allies would find offensive, such as Peter McLoughlin’s Easy Meat: Inside Britain’s Grooming Gang Scandal, and Mohammed’s Koran by McLoughlin and British activist Tommy Robinson.
There is more. Read the rest here.
Wellington says
Leftism, aka modern liberalism, has taken over old-fashion liberalism and has pretty much destroyed freedom in the process (because it is man’s newest totalitarian ideology, just as Islam is man’s oldest totalitarian ideology, and all totalitarian initiatives destroy liberty).
Modern conservatism, by contrast, mirrors the Ronald Reagan conservatism of the 1980’s and the Barry Goldwater conservatism of the 1960’s (RINOs of course don’t count here). There’s very little difference, if any, between these three (and all three mirror the liberalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries since a “180” has occurred since that time, with liberalism ever increasingly since the mid-19th century wanting more government and conservatism less, exactly the opposite of some two centuries ago).
In other words, conservatism has been remarkably consistent over the past half century or more. Liberalism has not; indeed, it has been hijacked, for instance by Amazon and with other “culprits” being The New York Times, NPR, CNN, MSNBC and first and foremost the Democratic Party in toto.
Conservatism in our era stands for true freedom. By the decade (even the year?), what passes for liberalism now is nothing more than a thinly disguised form of totalitarian inclinations and directives. Amazon led by Bezos comes to mind. So does the entire Democratic Party, the MSM and also big business, including major league sports franchises and which is why I refuse to watch NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL games any longer. After all, sports are important but country and truth are far more important and the Left has a way of distorting and destroying everything it touches, another example being what has happened to academia in America, now almost entirely corrupted by Leftthink.
James Lincoln says
Wellington,
Excellent post, my compliments.
Interestingly, you referenced Barry Goldwater. Both of my parents voted for him during the 1964 US Presidential election when he ran against LBJ.
I was just a youngster at the time; years later I understood that they had made the right decision, even though Goldwater lost in a landslide…
Wellington says
Thank you, James. I remember the November election of 1964 since I was almost 13 at the time. I also remember my father and mother voted for Goldwater and also remember my father saying to me after LBJ was elected President that the country had made a great mistake and it would pay for it over and over again. All the billions (trillions?) spent on the War on Poverty alone since that time and with no decrease in the poverty rate to date only validates my father’s assessment.
My father also thought that LBJ handled the war in Vietnam horribly by not deciding to either win the damn conflict or get out, that incrementalism in warfare is a waste of men and materiel and highly unethical. As usual, my father was correct.
bill carr says
The RC church has been quite totalitarian through most of its history as well
Wellington says
No, I disagree. The Roman Catholic Church has traditionally been monarchical, not totalitarian. There is a difference.
Besides, once Pope Leo XIII came to the papal throne in 1878, the Catholic Church has adapted to democracy with relative ease—and remember that before Leo democracy was looked upon very negatively by still many in the West and certainly throughout the world.
Moreover, when the Roman Empire fell in the West in the late 5th century, it was the RC Church which filled the gap and thus steered Western Civilization into maintaining many of the attributes of the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. Then there is Roman Catholicism acting as a major stimulus to thought and art. As two examples, I would refer you to the 12th and 13th Century Renaissance as exhibited by such scholars as Abelard and Aquinas and the unequaled support of the arts by the Italian Renaissance Church.
In short, I think you too harsh and too inaccurate respecting your assessment of the Roman Catholic Church. Your turn if you care. And keep in mind I write all this to you as the agnostic I am.
PRCS says
primary
PRCS says
as free respectable women
PRCS says
primary purpose
PRCS says
primary purpose