Mark Steyn is the Canadian born, British educated author who in 2006 published a book that I suggested a You Tube phenomenon was taken from. Steyn now lives in the USA because his hate filled writing is no longer welcome in Canada. Steyn has found an audience here and that should be troubling.
A few days ago I posted a blog entitled “Spreading Fear about the faith of Islam- who’s responsible” which I described as having the potentially to incite hatred for Muslims. I made a comment related to the video about Mark Steyn on Twitter that caught the interest of tweeter @jason_hart. Jason is a devoted supporter of all things conservative, Republican and of Chuck Devore for Senator in the 2010 CA race against Barbara Boxer. I didn’t realize it then but Jason is also a big Mark Steyn supporter (Tweet May 13 “Mark Steyn at his best http://ow.ly/6C8G”). In my comment I suggested that Steyn was inciting hatred for Muslims and had been quoted as referring to President Obama as a Muslim on more than one occaision. Jason asked me to conjure up “one- only one” quote from Steyn that could be described as racist.
@BaltimoreTom got into the debate on Twitter and Jason replied to Tom
@BaltimoreTom @dmooney9 I was pointing out that 1) Obama is not a muslim but sympathizes via dad & 2) comments were in 2007 b4 hubub
@dmooney His book, “America Alone” is a must read. Very little that people can refute there.
The “hubub” Jason refers to occurred in 2007 after the publication of the book that put Steyn on every conservatives faves five list.
For those who have not read Steyns book “America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It ” let me spare you the Amazon $11.53 paperback cost and the waste of time. Here is his own summary from a book excerpt that appeared in the Oct 20 2006 issue of Macleans Magazine in Canada.
“The Muslim world has youth, numbers and global ambitions. The West is growing old and enfeebled, and lacks the will to rebuff those who would supplant it. It’s the end of the world as we’ve known it.”
While Jason thinks there is little to refute in what the book claims as fact, there is much to question in terms of the conclusion to which it leads the reader. Steyn, having had to deal with Canadian court and the Canadian Human Rights Commission that deals with racism and race inspired hate in Canada, is an expert at playing with words, getting close but not specifically saying anything directly racist.
Anyone who reads Steyn’s book and follows it to its intended conclusion will decide that most Muslims are bad people and that American needs to change its demographic direction in terms of Muslim immigration, that Islam is basically a religion that has been co-opted by radicals and so is the enemy religion to American basic religious beliefs and is not to be tolerated in the USA. And finally, that Muslim young people, as demonstrated frequently in European cities, are not to be trusted and are bent on creating an Islamic state in America.
Here are some of Steyn’s claims, you draw the conclusions
“Islam…has serious global ambitions, and it forms the primal, core identity of most of its adherents — in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere”
“In the old days, the white man settled the Indian territory. Now the followers of the badland’s radical imams settle the metropolis….In the old days, the Injuns had bows and arrows and the cavalry had rifles. In today’s Indian territory, countries that can’t feed their own people have nuclear weapons.”
“On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic.”
“Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists — though enough of them share their basic objectives (the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America) to function wittingly or otherwise as the “good cop” end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine.”
There was outrage in Canada over Macleans’ printing of the book excerpt. A court case ensued and a letter followed from Jennifer Lynch, Q.C., chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, whose department investigated Mr. Steyn. In her letter she wrote that Steyn “provides no substantiation for these claims”. She concluded
“Steyn would have us believe that words, however hateful, should be given free rein. History has shown us that hateful words sometimes lead to hurtful actions that undermine freedom and have led to unspeakable crimes. That is why Canada and most other democracies have enacted legislation to place reasonable limits on the expression of hatred.”
Lynch herself became the object of criticism from one Canadian government official and some media who accused her department of being too vigilant in attacking “hate crimes”.
This lead The National Review to comment “So an attack on Steyn in Canada is an attack on America”.
So you get the idea? Due to his writing style and anti-Islamic content, Steyn has become a favorite on the Hewitt Show and appears on and sometimes substitutes for Rush Limbaugh.
Michelle Malkin wrote of Steyn’s book that it is “high velocity assault…. over the threat of Islamic imperialism”
And Hugh Hewitt wrote “Mark Steyn is the world’s funniest and wittiest observer of Islamic fascism”.
In January 2007 Steyn referring to then candidate Obama said
“He’s young, gifted and black, and white, and Hawaiian, and Kansan, and charismatic, and Congregationalist, and Muslim….He was raised in an Indonesian madrassah by radical imams”
Referring to the left he says
“it seemed bizarre to find the progressive left making common cause with radical Islam. One half of the alliance profess to be pro-gay, pro-feminist secularists; the other
half are homophobic, misogynist theocrats”.
Steyn now lives in the USA but continues to try to knock the chip off his shoulder left there when Canada didnt make him feel welcome anymore. Many of his recent website blogs and speeches reference Canada and its intolerance for his style of writing.
Its interesting to see what Amazon says other people who bought Steyns book also bought-
“Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark R. Levin”
“While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within” and
“The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate “.
I am not alone in my opinion that Steyn’s writings incite fear and hatred of Muslims. His popularity among conservatives like Malkin, Hewitt, Pat Buchanan and Limbaugh place him in a category of people who have shown intolerance for other cultures. His claim that Obama is Muslim means he is prepared to lie outright to those willing to believe anything he says.
Canada gave him the cold shoulder, America should send him back there before his twisted ideas about Muslims and the Islamic faith cause more harm then they might have already.
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In #23, kevfors wrote: “DMooney, there will come a day when you realize the information that you have been consuming lo these many years has been wholly managed and packaged to keep your opinions about reality conforming to the requirements of certain mass populist ideologies. …you will wonder how your mind had gotten so clouded and who was responsible. And it will make you angry.”
Either way:
“When I say that the Obamanauts are about to enter a world of pain, I mean that they will eventually know the dark side of the wave of fantasy upon which they are riding. ..
“…it has been estimated that fewer than ten percent of the American public are reliably in Piaget’s highest cognitive developmental stage of formal operations thinking. And even then, one cannot escape the cosmic law of bs in –> bs out. ..”
Fewer than 10% of the American puplic are reliably in the Formal operational stage:
The formal operational period is the fourth and final of the periods of cognitive development in Piaget’s theory. This stage, which follows the Concrete Operational stage, commences at around 12 years of age (puberty) and continues into adulthood. It is characterized by acquisition of the ability to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available. During this stage the young adult is able to understand such things as love, “shades of gray”, logical proofs, and values. HERE
One example of the behavior that reveals the cognitive development of those who fall into the 90 percent-plus catagory (of the pre-adolescent, “Concrete Operational Stage” is shown HERE
…The important point is that the fantasy precedes the reality, and will look for conditions in external reality to support it, identical to the manner in which the paranoid mind operates. According to deMause, the state of the group fantasy is what national opinion polls actually capture. That is, they take a snapshot of the “mood of the country,” which mostly consists of “gut feelings” that have varying degrees of connection to actual conditions, and more to do with the shifting nature of the group fantasy.
Remember, the bulk of the population is not thinking logically, so it doesn’t matter how many cognitively mature individuals there are at the margins of a poll. That the economic downturn was largely caused by Democrat regulation (the Community Reinvestment Act), that we have won the war in Iraq, and that President Bush kept us safe for seven years, are inconsequential. In contrast, FDR was able to sustain a unifying group fantasy despite economic polices that aggravated and extended the Great Depression for years.
Likewise, job one for Obama will be to forge and sustain a unifying fantasy, not to deal with reality. This is one of the reasons the Democrats will be unable to let go of President Bush, because they desperately need him as a “poison container” in order to keep the toxins out of Obama (more on which below). …”
To continue, click “show original post” HERE
Marshall Gill wrote in #20 above: “And disparaging of Islam isn’t racist, imbecile. Islam isn’t a race, but you really only have one accusation for all who disagree-”racist”?
Thank you! I was reading the comments and was going to make that very point if I hadn’t seen it made by someone else.
His false premise was the first thing I noticed reading dmoon’s commentary.
Another thought– If this crap is starting to emerge in Europe (no idea) then somebody needs to report on it. Clearly the European Press has been cowed by the Muslim opposition and maybe they don’t want to incur these idiot’s wrath. Still believe though that they are part of the Left vice Right!
Yea– Looks like we may be at again. Here is the actual paragraph Steyn wrote “A Federation of Euro-harmony filled by ultra-nationalist xenophobes is almost too droll a jest. My favourite of these new national parties is Ataka, which is a Bulgarian word meaning—oh, go on, take a wild guess. That’s right: “Attack.” What a splendidly butch name. The Attack party was formed from last year’s merger of the Bulgarian National Patriotic Party, the Union of Patriotic Forces and the National Movement for the Salvation of the Fatherland, and in nothing flat managed to get 13 per cent of the vote.
Like Attack, many of these lively additions to the political scene favour party emblems that slyly evoke swastikas while bending the prongs in different directions just enough to maintain deniability. Other than that, they don’t have a lot in common with their colleagues in the no-bloc bloc. I don’t just mean in the sense that the leader of the Slovak National Party said a couple of years back, “Let’s all get in tanks and go and flatten Budapest,” which presumably is not a policy position the Hungarian nationalists in Jobbik would endorse. But there are broader differences, too. The SNP is antipathetic to homosexuals, whereas Krisztina Morvai, the attractive blonde Jobbik member just elected to the Euro-parliament, is a former winner of the Freddie Mercury Prize for raising AIDS awareness. I can’t be the only political analyst who wishes that, instead of a victory speech last Sunday, Doktor Morvai had stood on the table in black tights and bellowed out, “We Are The Champions.” http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/printer-friendly.asp?tid=5490&mid=
I see nothing that is untrue and certainly not as subversive as the article that is condemning him. In fact, maybe you can read Steyn’s actual article (see link) and point out what is factually untrue? Maybe a bit politically incorrect in how he says it but nothing untrue that I can see.
To those still on the email list for updates I’ve taken off the limit for comments only during 2 weeks. This great column came out in a recent Macleans http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/06/19/the-feeble-%E2%80%98march%E2%80%99-of-euro-fascism/ and one of Mark’s own colleagues at the magazine takes him on full frontal for his inaccurate comments about the recent Euro elections. Mark is caught using generalisms like “facism” “swatikas” and thinking no one is checking his “facts”.
The writer Paul Wells looks at Geert Wilder’s film and shows how Steyn can stretch a fact to fit his needs. The same way he stretched the truth in his summary of the Euro elections.
“In his film Fitna, Wilders displays a bar graph that shows 54 million “Muslims in Europe.” The number comes from the Central-Institute Islam Archive in Soest, Germany, which notes that only 14 million of those Muslims are in the European Union. Another 25 million are in Russia and 5.9 million in Turkey. When asked whether he wants Turkey in the EU, Wilders said, “No. Not in 10 years, not in a million years.” Yet he’s eager to put Turkey’s Muslims in his bar graphs. No wonder Steyn likes him. They’re both sloppy counters.”
Oh, and D Mooney- I commend you for encouraging this debate to occur. Thanks.
Thanks Canuck. Superbly put, I must say.
To take your point further (and because, as you pointed out, any comparison between the prophet Mohammed and a Pope is absurd):
Jesus Christ is recognized by Muslims too- as a (mere) prophet who preceded the arrival of the greatest prophet, Mohammed. But it would be difficult to find two men more different in terms of their conduct and their teachings.
For arguments sake, if Christians were to follow the example of Jesus to the letter- just imagine how near-perfect this world would be! His most violent act was to turn the tables on seeing the temple (his Father’s house) turned into a market place.
Mohammed on the other hand- where to begin?? Is there any commandment which he did not break- with a few others thrown in for good measure?? It is very easy to see understand the case for Mohammed as “anti-Christ”, for that’s exactly what he preached and how he behaved.
If we examine the respective lives and teachings of Jesus and Mohammed, and argue that “true followers” conduct themselves according to their respective “teachers”, this alone settles the argument.
As to how millions of individual Christians and Muslims actually DO conduct themselves – that is another matter. There are plenty of “bad” Christians and “good” Muslims, but this does not alter the facts: there is a stark contrast in the way in which followers are supposed, ideally, to live their lives according to their respective faiths.
Like night and day.
I don’t “twitter”, DM. Consider me a Luddite if you like, but I feel any thought worth discussing is worth developing fully; everyone enjoys a nice, pithy putdown, but I don’t see much value in tossing rhetorical peanuts back and forth on weighty issues. I appreciate why some like the 140 character limit and I know I ramble a bit, but I’ll try to make my bloated comments worth your while.
It’s hard to decide where to start with the absurdities you have passed off as commentary/defense, DM, but here’s a good place to begin if only because it’s such a common canard it almost always goes unchallenged, and certainly doesn’t appear to have been here, yet.
From your 05.19.09 post:
I’ve had Koran versus quoted to me (Ibn Rushid, if that’s his real name)
Well here is one in the Christian bible
George said “The prophet of Islam happened to instruct followers to slay the unbelievers.” He might remember Popes that have sanctioned killing of Muslims. In any case all these things happened between 550-632 and 1101-1272…Is this the same context? Maybe, maybe not, but there are many violent references in the Bible.
Two points here, but I’ll deal only with supposed equivalency between these qur’an and bible verses and the calls for violence by “religious leaders” of the two faiths. I’ll post separately on your use of the bible here.
While context of both passages bears my point out even more fully, your quotes are selected well enough that no context is needed to distinguish the two passages qualitatively. The Qur’an passage is a generalized command to “search and destroy” those of other faiths who worship idols. The bible passage is a command for those of the Jewish nation themselves not to engage in idol worship—that is, not to abandon their own faith. Frankly, I see no parallel besides a common condemnation of idolatry. Well, not quite: the first calls for violence against idolaters while the second condemns the practice of idolatry . Again, a noteworthy distinction: sinner versus sin, etc.
The bible passage goes on and speaks about punishment etc. etc., by implication for idolatry. This statement applies to all sins, not just idolatry. God condemns sin unequivocally and threatens punishment on those who do so. But observe that while the Qur’anic passage calls the believers (muslims) to rain down that punishment, in the most explicit and unyielding fashion, upon the sinners, the biblical passage merely contains a promise that God himself will take care of punishment, in whatever way he decides.
We are not splitting hairs here, DM, the difference is fundamental, unequivocal, and irreconcilable. It is not apples and oranges, but tomatoes and hand-grenades. The bible passage contains no incitement to violence. The Qur’anic passage does. Try to find anything like Romans 12:19 in the Qur’an: Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge, I will repay’, says the Lord. In the Qur’an, while judgement belongs to Allah, it is the job of rank-and-file muslims to carry out his wrath.
Can one find masses of pious, widely read Islamic literatur that parallels, for Jihadic violence, the centuries of handwringing by great christian leaders over the transgressions of the crusaders? You can’t, because the great bloody victories of Jihad over the infidels are still universally celebrated in Dar al Islam as great moral victories.
Ask yourslef how is it that the crusades wound down after a few misbegotten, bloody campaigns, but the Jihad simply repeatedly reinvents itself every time it is beaten back.
If you can’t distinguish the attitudes of the two faiths in this matter, if you are insistent on tarring both faiths with the same brush, then you are fully unprepared for the rising confrontation between the Islamic world and the West.
Let us move on to Mohammed’s calls for violence versus the Pope’s role in the crusades. Mohammed (the final prophet of Allah!) called for violent war to conquer the unbelievers. He engaged in such conflict himself, participating in numerous raids against people who were at peace with him. While Islam, in direct response to the command of their prophet and of Allah himself (note the Qur’an is not regarded as the word of the prophet but of God), carried out this bloody campaign, the christian world retained a largely defensive posture. It is easy to see why: “Love your enemies” doesn’t provide quite the same divine incentive for military aggression as “slay the unbelievers wherever you find them”.
This went on for approximately a 400 year period before, with the Eastern church under threat of complete destruction by the Jihad and the believers in the Holy Land under severe oppression by their Islamic overlords, the Roman church (commanded by temporal leaders, only a small part of a long succession of popes who routinely modify and recind their predecessors’ edicts) finally roused from its long slumber and responded militarily.
It is important to understand that the Crusades were clumsy, ill-prepared campaigns to reclaim land that had been wrested violently from the christian world. Yes, they were badly executed, and yes, the crusader committed numerous inexcusable atrocities themselves, there is no question about these things.
But you cannot simply say — look, they are both violent. Nasty, nasty religions, let’s just paint them all black and relegate them to the garbage heap. Religions, despite the best efforts of luminaries like C. Hitchens, are not one giant monolith in several putrid flavours, jointly responsible for all the evils in the world. Christianity and Islam, for two, are as different as day and night, particularly in this matter of invoking violence.
Mohammed’s call to violence is central and integral to the Islamic message. It would be impossible to extricate the hundreds of passages like the one you cited. The Jihad to which the crusaders were responding was merely a faithful manifestation of that religion as written.
But Jesus’ call contains no detectable incitement to violence at all. The Roman church cobbled together some way of justifying a response, desperately, and after trying for 400 years to fend off the Jihad in ways less inimical to the Christian faith. The Crusades, and violent campaigns carried out in the name of Jesus, are not so much an expression of the core christian faith as a violation of it, and in any case make a very uncomfortable fit.
I have this sinking feeling, however, that rather than retracting the absurd parallel you’ve attempted, you’ll simply produce a bunch more of the standard old testament fodder commonly invoked to shore up this awful piece of tu quoque.
Canuk—
You hit the nail on the head better than I did. If an individual is espousing a belief and that belief is based on assertions that can be demonstrably proven either wrong or taken out of context is it not the participants responsibility to show with facts where the original assertion is wrong? (Heck of a long sentence!)
I do get emotionally involved in these type debates because it feels like what I did for over 20 years is getting trashed by misrepresentation and falsities. I see this on the left and right. You want to see some real morons see some of the far right blogs in P4ALL. I just can’t let certain things stand and maybe go overboard.
Okay DM (if I may call you that), I’ll get started. You say to Antoin,
I’ve tried to discuss with you and see your side of things but you keep coming back with one more example of where I’m wrong
If I misunderstand you then say so, but if this is an admission that Antoin is repeatedly identifying your errors, I don’t grasp your complaint — is that not, after all, one of the purposes in permitting comments? If you recognize such, you should just admit it to the errors rather than complaining that the list just keeps going on. If you don’t like people enumerating the faults in your statements I expect you won’t like where I’m headed in the next few comments.
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