The Struggle to Reach People

I received a letter from a woman named Cheryl who lives in Wales, UK. She only recently found out about orthodox Islam's supremacist agenda and I asked her what caused her to awaken. I am intensely curious about the circumstances that lead to an awakening, and if you would like to write to me about how you came to realize Islam has not been "hijacked by extremists," I would love to hear it. Write to me here.

I asked Cheryl if I could excerpt some of her letter in an article, and she said yes. Here's what she said:

The first time I became aware of things was when some people at Mass at my church said the UK would be Islamic within 50 years, the way things are going. After hearing this a few times I began looking it up on the net, being skeptical but just wanting to see why they said that, and to prove them wrong. Well of course I soon found that there was no real counter-argument and that in fact it's a lot more like 10 years. Maybe less.

I then took a deep look at the history and teachings of Islam itself. By this time I had joined the British National Party and was receiving relevant material, videos, etc., from them and other websites like JihadWatch and LionHeart.

When I told my daughter we are in danger of becoming Islamic she said, "So what?" She didn't even want to know about how it isn't exactly the picnic she imagines. She accused me of racism and is disgusted at my nationalist leanings. She's 21 and at college.

My son is 23 and has a six-week old baby girl, who is a real blessing and a joy. First of all, my son was interested in all this but very surprised at my views, and said that if civil war broke out the police and MI5 would look after us. For a time I was comforted by that. But then I began to see that these people who we've traditionally relied upon will in fact not help us, though I do believe MI5 are trying to foil bomb attacks, but I have no faith in the police. I don't know about the army.

But it seems to me no one would do anything much to stop us being killed. I showed my son a film called Islam's Not For Me but very soon, he got fed up, said it was all hate propaganda and he didn't want to discuss this whole topic any more. It depressed him, and even if I'm right, he said, the problem seems so advanced and the odds stacked so heavily against us that we may as well just enjoy however many years we have left, and stop worrying, otherwise "the Muslim bastards are winning now, robbing us of our peace and happiness."

I am now banned from any Muslim conversation with my family. They feel sorry for me, that I'm in this state of worry. All my family are clueless about Islam. They think it's a bunch of guys who worship a guy called Mecca who lives in Mohammed.

Mind you, I've no room to talk...I knew very little about Islam either. I had the usual vague idea that it was similar to Judaism and Christianity. Even while staying in Egypt and Turkey, I never bothered to look into it.

I actually studied theology at university but Islam wasn't covered in that. Maybe it would have been in comparative religion, I don't know. Anyway, although I've looked at many religions and cults, for some reason I never looked at Islam. Obviously, I have now and I can see how it's unlike any other belief system. I actually think it's demonic and a counterfeit Christianity.

Some of my friends think I've been brainwashed and Islam will never take hold here. One friend believes that even if I'm right, God will stop this happening. This friend has a sense of peace about it all and is sure I'm worrying unnecessarily. He doesn't see it being resolved by war or violence at all. He lives in London and is surrounded by Muslims but really feels that, in some way we can't begin to imagine, just like a few years back we couldn't have dreamed what's happening now, the situation will change in our favour. He thinks they might convert, or return to their own lands due to something we can't see yet, or maybe they'll all die from some plague or virus through their dreadful halal meat. He doesn't give them the satisfaction of worrying. As for making plans to move to a remote part of Scotland or something, he thinks that's crazy.

But this same friend cannot accept that Muslims hate us and deceive us. I have another friend, from Ireland who thinks the whole thing will dilute, as many young Muslims, especially women, enjoy the freedoms they have here and want to keep the Western way of life. They like our clothes and don't want to wear the burqa. They will see that their religion is junk. Actually, a lot of them here say they do see that, but how can you trust them?

Some people I've spoken to agree with me, but they already had that view. So in other words I'm not conveying the message very well.

I moved to North Wales a long time ago from Manchester. There are many English people here but it's still a Welsh place, with Welsh being spoken and still some very anti-English attitudes. There are, by comparison with other areas of the UK, very few Muslims. However, there are some. An extended family from Pakistan have bought at least 12 convenience stores, sometimes with post offices as well, all across the area in different villages.

I think the main hurdle I had, in coming to grips with the Islamic situation, was that I couldn't understand their hatred for us. I actually felt a sense of of personal hurt, and then outrage when I realised how they've conned us.

Some Muslims can now have 4 wives here and dozens of children, all sponging off our welfare. If these marriages happened in Islamic countries we have to recognise them.

At this point, Cheryl went on to discuss other matters. The reason I wanted to publish Cheryl's letter is because her description of the responses she has gotten from the different people in her life seem to correspond with the whole gamut I have personally experienced, as well as the experiences I have heard about from other people who have written to me.

In other words, when someone first hears about basic Islamic teachings, they have one of several different kinds of reactions:

1. They might be interested and curious, realizing that they really don't know anything about Islam. This is a very rare response unless you are very good at presenting the information.

2. Like Cheryl's daughter, they might wonder what difference it would make. This stems from an ignorance of both Islamic law and our own culture.

3. Like Cheryl's son, they might think the experts — the military, the police, the politicians — will take care of it, so we don't need to worry about it.

4. And also like Cheryl's son's second response, many people want to write it off as "hate propaganda." Or the subject is so depressing, they want to avoid talking about it. Or that our best response is to ignore it, because if it bothers us "then the terrorists win."

5. Like one of Cheryl's friends, another response you'll get is the belief or hope or ardent wish that God will take care of it. Or that luck or fate will intervene and save us.

What all of these responses have in common (except the first one) is a desire to avoid having to deal with it. People are hoping it's not true. They want to write you off. They desperately desire to ignore this issue because they've got a life to live, and nowhere in their plans have they included time spent dealing with such an unpleasant topic.

On top of that, the underlying belief in all the responses except the first one is that there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. Worrying certainly doesn't help. What else can we do? They don't know. And because they don't know, and it seems to them (in their haste to write it off and stop thinking about such a distressing subject) that nothing can be done about it, what's the point of being upset just to be upset?

But all of these notions contain thought-mistakes. The hopelessness is mistaken. The feeling of helplessness is mistaken. We are not helpless in this, and that is the message we must hammer home when we talk to people. Address the issue directly. We've got to continue to try to reach these people, constantly improve our delivery, and turn them around. Failure is not an option.

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Answers to Objections When You Talk About Islam

Below is a list of responses you are likely to get when talking about the terrifying brilliance of Islam to someone who knows little about it. The responses link to an article giving you suggestions about how to effectively respond.

If you ever come across a response not on our list, and you have difficulty answering it, please let us know; we'll work on it and add it to the list.

The good news is that the responses you will typically get are a fairly small number. You'll hear the same few objections over and over (1-7 are the most common). When you have some good answers to these objections ready at hand, you will be able to answer smoothly and with poise, without feeling tense or antagonistic.

We're hoping you will add more possible responses or advice in the comments on the articles linked below. And if you have any possible answers to the unlinked responses below, we'd love to hear them.

When you talk about Islam with non-Muslims, they are likely to say one of the following:

1. But it is just a small minority of extremists.

2. My friend is a Muslim and he's really nice.

3. What you're saying is racist.

4. Aren't you being religiously intolerant? People in this country have a right to worship as they please. Isn't religious tolerance one of our most important principles?

5. Christianity is just as bad.

6. Not all Muslims are terrorists.

7. We can't go to war with 1.3 billion Muslims!

8. Are you an Islamophobe?

9. Isn't this bigotry?

10. Are you a hatemonger? I don't believe in promoting hatred.

11. You should really talk to some Muslims. You're getting all this from books.

12. There are peaceful passages in the Qur'an too.

13. People take what they want from any writings. You can pretty much justify anything if you quote it out of context.

14. There are millions of Muslims in this country and they're not blowing things up.

15. You are a xenophobe.

16. Fundamentalism is fundamentalism.

17. Haven't mosques and churches and synagogues sat side-by-side in the Middle East for a thousand years?

18. You're taking the verses of the Quran out of context.

19. But jihad is an internal struggle.

20. Criticizing Islam will push the moderates into the arms of the extremists.

21. You're cherry-picking verses out of the Quran.

22. Wouldn't it be better to support the peaceful Muslims (than to criticize the violent ones)?

23. What about the good verses in the Quran?

24. The majority of Muslims are peace-loving people.

25. Who are we to tell Muslims to change their beliefs?

26. What can we do about it?

I also have an all-purpose response to any objection you get. Simply ask: "How did you learn about Islam?" Your question will probably reveal to both of you how little the other knows about Islam, and that is a good place to start.

For more good responses, check out Frequently Asked Questions from Islam 101. The author, Gregory M. Davis, provides some good answers.

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What's Missing From Their World View?

Many non-Muslims instinctively defend Islam because they see Muslims as weak. They see Islam as the underdog, and out of their kindness, they don't want to anybody to pick on a weak underdog. But is Islam weak?

What do these people not know about Islam that leads them to think Islam is the 98-pound weakling and the West is the big, mean bully?

What do they need to know to see the situation clearly? For example, they need to know that Islam is an ideology that consumes and subverts other cultures until eventually nothing is left of the previous culture. And they need to know that the process is underway in all Western democracies today. Islam is by nature and design a dominating, usurping, continually spreading ideology that now has the largest voting block in the UN.

If these facts, and many more, were understood, more people would see Islam as worthy of criticism. A major barrier to the criticism (the automatic defense of 98-pound weaklings) would have been removed.

So what's your answer? What do people not understand about Islam that makes them see Muslims as disadvantaged, vanquished, helpless victims bullied by omnipotent, intimidating, domineering non-Muslims?

Please post your answers here. Or email them to us and we'll post them for you (anonymously, unless you say otherwise). We'll be posting the strongest answers in a future article, so give it your best shot!

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Whatever You Do, Don't Panic

WE GOT A COMMENT the other day on the article, How to Stay Relaxed and Feeling Good While Talking About Islam. The commenter said:

Citizen Warrior, do you expect people to feel relaxed when talking about an unpleasant, oppressive subject (that one has to tread carefully when talking about it for fear of offending their fanatical followers) that is related to a totalitarian ideology?

This commenter is bringing up an important point, and it's worth talking about. When you first grasp what's happening on the world stage, you feel upset, and if you're not prone to demoralization, you also feel highly motivated to do something about it. And then when you try to talk to others about it and they either don't have a clue, don't care, or have already made up their minds there's nothing to worry about, it is even more upsetting. Your feeling of urgency may rise to the level of panic. But then your feeling of urgency is perceived as hysteria, and since there are no actual bombs dropping on the person you're talking to at the moment, they look at you and think, "What a kook." Your panic has made your message even less likely to get across. And this can increase your sense of panic even more.

Many people handle this unendurable emotional spiral of frustration and panic by shutting it off. They decide "everyone is a moron" and "it will take a nuclear bomb going off in Chicago to get their attention." Or they just decide it's too much strain to deal with, so they stop trying to tell people about Islam.

The commenter above said, "Do you expect people to feel relaxed" when talking about such an ugly, disturbing subject? The answer I gave him was, "Yes. I expect all of us to do whatever we need to do to feel relaxed. "Let me put it this way: If your family was being held hostage and you had to walk into a bank and calmly — without arousing any suspicion — withdraw all your money to get your family back, would you be able to do it?

"You would find a way. That's what we need to do. If we can't get through to people because they won't listen to us because we're too hysterical, and all we are doing is blaming them for not listening to us, then shame on us.

"When the stakes are high, you do whatever you have to do. So find a way to stay calm and relaxed so you can be effective."

I know this is a tall order. I know it will take effort and it won't come naturally. But we've got some resources to help you:

To help you formulate answers to the responses you get, refer frequently to the Answers to Objections page.

To help you get ideas for how to approach this subject, read How to Approach a Conversation About Islam.

For ideas on how to go beyond the give-and-take of a normal argument, read How to Think Outside the Persuasion Box.

To find out how others are succeeding with their conversations, read Talk About Islam Among Non-Muslims.

To get some ideas about what to do besides talking to people, read What Non-Muslims Can Do About Islam.

And to get some ideas about how to remain relaxed and feeling good even though you're participating in conversations about Islam, read How to Resist Islamic Encroachment and Still Be Happy.

We need to do whatever we need to do. We don't need every single person to understand Islam's prime directive, but we need many more to understand, and the sooner the better. So we need your participation. But luckily, you can't be perpetually upset and miserable while you're doing that. You're going to have to find a way to be relaxed and happy while you go about stopping orthodox Islam from invading the free world. Does that seem impossible? Then we're going to have to start getting more creative, starting now.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

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Wanting An Excuse Not To Become Alarmed

THE FOLLOWING is an article published on Jihad Watch by Ronald Shirk, entitled, When Islam is Just "Stuff White People Like." I thought Shirk really nailed it when he said, "They wanted excuses not to become alarmed, and they wished above all to sound like the voices of reason against the 'alarmism' spread by 'jingoists' and 'militarists' like Winston Churchill."

That's it! That's exactly what we're up against in one sentence! I think it really helps to understand what underlies the incomprehensible refusal to listen to simple facts when talking to some people.

Here's the article:

It's hard for most of us who have already had our individual epiphanies on the subject of Islam to understand why so many of the very communities targeted for the worst abuse by sharia seem least willing to acknowledge the nature of the threat. Perhaps the comparison I've drawn with the phenomenon of anti-anti-Communism helps make today's self-willed blindness less surprising.

Reading the historical record, it is shocking how slow one key community was to awaken to the Communist threat: Christian clergymen. As Paul Kengor documents in Dupes, elite, mainline Protestant clerics served as a particularly gullible audience and important transmission belt for Soviet propaganda in the West. A number of prominent ministers, led by Soviet friendly professors like Corliss Lamont, embarked on subsidized cruises to the new utopia, and returned to America or Britain to discredit the truthful reports of religious persecution in Russia. After carefully arranged visits to Potemkin villages and rigidly controlled tours of select districts in Leningrad or Moscow, these veal-calves in collars would disembark in New York to tell the respectable press to disregard all the (factual) reports that Soviet Russia was persecuting Christians.

To some degree, these clergymen's attitudes may have reflected class, ethnic, and denominational bias; low-church, progressive ministers trained at Yale Divinity School or the Union Theological Seminary had little or no use anyway for bearded monks whose ceremonies were for them an embarrassing relic of Christianity's superstitious past. Such ministers, whose theological uncertainties had been neatly replaced by Social Gospel dogmas, were much more sympathetic to secular progressives like the atheist John Dewey (for years the leading dupe in America) than to exiled clerics with wild tales of labor camps and NKVD killing squads. (To some degree, the current apathy of even conservative Christians in America must stem from a similar distaste for "foreign," "archaic" forms of faith such as Assyrian Christianity in Iraq.) More important (because it's closer to the surface of consciousness) is the fact that many Western Christians today are deeply concerned about burnishing their credentials as good progressives, and distinguishing themselves from a) low-status, intellectually non-respectable Evangelical Christians, and b) low-status, ethnically intolerant working class Americans.

In other words, their embrace of foreign clerics with alien religions is just a niche form of urban white snobbery. It's akin to the behavior of an Upper West Side Manhattanite who preens about his cosmopolitanism by only seeing foreign films and overpronouncing words like Neek-a-ROU-gua. Of course, this political form of social climbing extends beyond our poshest neighborhoods and out into the Heartland. My favorite recent example of it appears in a town I'd never heard of, Norman, Oklahoma. There, Margarita Banos-Milton of St. Stephen's United Methodist Church is sponsoring a gabfest on "religious intolerance toward Muslims," featuring such luminaries as Muneer Awad, executive director of the [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations, Oklahoma City chapter; Malaka Elyazgi, a Muslim who serves on the University of Oklahoma's Women's and Gender Studies board of directors; Michael Korenblit, co-founder and president of the Respect Diversity Foundation of Oklahoma; and Nathaniel Batchelder, director of the Peace House in Oklahoma City. ... [As Banos-Milton said,] "I personally am deeply concerned about the misinformation, the heated emotion and blanket rejection of the Muslim faith. We have such wonderful Muslim brothers and sisters."

Kay Antinoro, St. Stephen's director of educational ministries, said the interfaith gatherings are designed for people seeking a better understanding of other faiths and their own faith. "This round table is an important affirmation of our church's respect for religious difference and an opportunity to offer another voice in a culture of misunderstanding, fear and hatred," Antinoro said.

You have it all right there: Ms. Banos-Milton is keen to display her post-Christian virtues of "deep concern," and the "wonderful Muslim brothers and sisters" whom she parades like adopted pets. Her colleague, Kay Antinoro is fluffing her church's peacock tail of "respect for religious difference." Could there be a religion on earth with less respect for "religious difference" than Islam? Not since Jim Jones handed out the Kool-Aid in the (leftist Christian) People's Temple. But what we need to remember is that appeasement of Islam really isn't about the Muslims, any more than it is about the victims of Islam around the world.

Religious dupes of the Communists weren't really concerned what was going on in Russia, either — or else they would have displayed more intellectual honesty than to accept without question the bromides dispensed by their hosts on foreign junkets. In much the same way, war-weary Englishmen in the 1930s weren't interested in what was really happening in the Sudetenland or Poland. They wanted excuses not to become alarmed, and they wished above all to sound like the voices of reason against the "alarmism" spread by "jingoists" and "militarists" like Winston Churchill.

When people swallow blatant lies, when they shut their eyes to so much evidence, only to maintain an intellectual position that raises their social status and makes them feel better about themselves, we don't need to wonder hard or wonder long why they prove immune to fresh evidence and solid arguments. Indeed, the more alarming facts an "Islamophobe" presents to such a person, the more violence you adduce and ugly connections you present, the crasser and more unpleasant you'll seem to him. You represent all the realities he doesn't wish to face. You're the oncologist who has spotted him smoking, the rehabilitated junkie who saw the needle fall out of his knapsack. You represent narrow, ugly, frightening thoughts; in effect, you become (in Freudian terms) the Id he'd rather pretend does not exist. So he'll repress all the information you try to pass on to him, the better to convince himself of his own high-mindedness. In fact, you'll become the scapegoat for whatever anxieties you've provoked — which explains why Oklahoma Methodists like these really do believe that the threat to religious tolerance in the West arises from...Christians.

Some people can't be reached. But many can if you do it skillfully.

Here are some resources to help you:

Focus on the Undecided

How to Approach a Conversation About Islam

How to Think Outside the Persuasion Box

Talk About Islam Among Non-Muslims

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Your First Impulse Was Correct

You awakened from your slumber. You somehow became aware of the unsettling brilliance of Islam. Your first impulse was to share your enlightenment with others. More often than not, you were shot down, intensely and with more anger than you expected. You discovered, perhaps, that this topic is not like other kinds of topics — people are both ignorant and self-righteous about what they "know" about Islam and terrorism.

It's quite a shock.

Now you are reluctant to share what you've learned about Islam. It's too upsetting. But you are still awakened and you want to do something about it. You feel motivated. Every news item you read motivates you even more. The situation is getting more and more urgent. Something must be done. But what?

We have created a page full of answers at WhatYouCanDoAboutIslam.com, but I think it's important to point out that your first impulse was the correct one. Your response, however, was mistaken.

Your first impulse was that others must know about this. That is correct. If enough non-Muslims knew about a few basic principles of Islam, the problem is essentially solved. New legislation would be easily passed. We would have enough support for the right kind of military and legal actions. Islam's relentless encroachment would be stopped in its tracks.

Your first impulse was correct, but your subsequent response was mistaken. You tried to educate your fellow citizens and ran into a brick wall of resistance. Your response to this hostile reaction was to find some other way to express your intense motivation. But rather than finding something else to do, you should keep doing what you want to do, but learn to do it differently. Get better at it.

We must learn better ways to respond when people throw hostile arguments back at us. When you can successfully respond to their counter-arguments, you will stay calmer, the conversation will be less upsetting, and you may very well change their minds. That's what we need.

Study the Answers to Objections. Really study them. And study the Frequently Asked Questions. Download lectures from YouTube, put them on your iPod and listen to each one ten times. Study the principles of influence and practice them. Get the book How to Win Friends and Influence People on CD or as a digital download and listen to it ten times.

Prepare yourself in earnest, keep sharing what you know about Islam, and constantly improve your ability to get through to people. Let's get really good at this. Your first impulse was correct: This is the most important thing that needs to be done.

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Listen and Learn About Islamic Supremacism

AN EASY way to learn more about Islam is to listen to information on an MP3 player or iPod. And some of the most interesting things to listen to can be found on YouTube.

I just found a way to convert the audio track from a YouTube video to an MP3 or iTunes file, and I've enjoyed listening (on my iPod) to Robert Spencer debating with Islamic apologists, Geert Wilders being interviewed, and other great audio tracks of YouTube videos.

Not only do these videos have good information, but you will hear some good rebuttals you can use in your own conversations. Listen to these audio tracks many times, and these rebuttals will come to mind easily in your conversations. Think of this as a kind of citizen warrior training.

Here's how to convert YouTube videos to audio files: First, go to Vixy.net and download the "Converter Desktop Version" (BETA), which you will see on the lower right of the page. It's a small program and only takes a few minutes to download.

Once you have the Converter installed, open the program, find a YouTube video you want, copy the URL and paste it into the box, select what you want to convert the file to (choose MP3), and click "convert."

When it is done converting the file, open iTunes, click on "File," then click on "Add to Library" and choose the newly converted file. Bingo. It is now a "song" on iTunes, which you can then put on your iPod.

Here are some good YouTube videos to get you started:

This whole series by Robert Spencer
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam
Stealth Jihad
Robert Spencer vs Dinesh D'Souza
Islam's War on Freedom
No Mosque at Ground Zero

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What Does It Take To Get Through To People?

I RECENTLY RECEIVED the following email:

I just read your article on Citizen Warrior, "the struggle to reach people", along with many others. I'm from England in the UK and have to say I've had all the same reactions as Cheryl did in your article when discussing Islam. I've spent at least 6 months now spending my Sundays when I'm not busy researching thoroughly into jihad, Islamic teachings...etc. Everything I say about the issue to people is based on unbiased information and from Islamic teachings and quotes. Yet still, people have this political correctness and "you're a racist!!!" barrier around themselves.

It scares me to think that within maybe 40 - 50 years my children may be living under Shari'a law...all because of the ignorance of everybody even when faced with facts and the truth is just too great.

I began researching into Islam after a conversation with an atheist or "infidel" and a Muslim. The atheist guy I knew was talking to me actually at work about how they were attempting to dominate the world and their view of Jews and infidels...etc., are inferior to believers of Islam...etc. I at that time thought the guy who was saying this to me was just being a typical racist...then this Muslim guy who's a coworker butted in denying everything, and after an intense 2 minute argument...became a fight started by the Muslim.

That situation then actually really made me want to research into it...and by the way, I've even been deemed a "narrow-minded racist" for saying "Muslims" and categorising them as Muslims...now you see how ignorant people are...

Anyhow, I just thought I'd write to express how I got into the whole studying of Islam....and to actually have a conversation with someone who is educated on the topic and doesn't spit on me and march off.

This brought up such an important point, I decided to ask him if I could publish his letter, to which he graciously agreed. Here is what I replied to him:

We have exactly the same problem here in the U.S. Anybody who has learned about Islam and tried to share what they know with friends runs into the same brick wall.

But we will get through to most people eventually. We just need to be smart about it, keep improving our persuasion methods, and never give up.

And this is really the main point I have tried to get across, and the point of awakening for me: That it's not enough to be right. It's not enough to know what you're talking about. We will fail if we can't get through, regardless of how correct we are. We have to be not only informed but good at getting through to people, and that cannot be done with forcefulness. You can't make people get it when they don't want to get it. You have to use "skillful means."

After I wrote back to him, I realized this needs more explanation. What do I mean by "skillful means?" We need to develop the skill to influence what people believe. Simply delivering information doesn't work most of the time, as I'm sure you've discovered.

And those of us who like to learn are in luck: There are so many books (on the subject of influencing others) it is almost overwhelming. As we study about Islam, we should also study how to influence people. It is at least as important. You should spend equal time on the two subjects.

The work we need to do is change minds, change beliefs. Do you know a lot about how to do that? Do you know how to gain and maintain rapport with people? Do you know how beliefs are changed? (Hint: It is not by arguing.)

What kind of books am I talking about? The classic on the subject is How to Win Friends & Influence People. It is about basic things like acknowledging people, listening well, finding common ground, becoming likeable, etc. If someone doesn't like you, they find it much easier to reject what you're saying. And because of the nature of your message, your listener may be looking for an excuse to reject it.

Even though How to Win Friends is basic, my observation is that most of us don't actually practice those principles very often. If you're having difficulty getting through to people, get that book and study it. And then practice those principles. It will increase your success rate.

The best way to take in this information is listening to CDs or a digital audio file, so you can listen repeatedly. Use your drive time to master this material. Take in a little every day and practice it every chance you get.

You are a citizen warrior and this is a key factor in your training. Sometimes a warrior needs to be trained in things she or he may not enjoy learning. Too bad. Trust me, you need to learn this material well if you want to be effective.

Once you've got that well in hand, the next level of skill is using principles of influence like social proof and commitment and consistency. These are from the excellent book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

For advanced influencing techniques, I recommend these two books:

Sleight of Mouth

Magic of Rapport Revised

These deal with more sophisticated methods like matching and mirroring representational systems, posture and gestures, voice tone, tempo and volume, breathing rate, and specific words and phrases.

Those are NLP principles (Neurolinguistic Programming). NLP was created by studying outstanding therapists — psychotherapists who had exceptional success in treating patients. One of the most important people they studied was Milton Erickson, arguably the most successful therapist of all time. They noticed his point of view on "client resistance" was completely the opposite from that of less successful therapists.

The standard way of thinking about resistance in therapy is that it is the client's problem and the client needs to get over it before therapy can proceed. Erickson's point of view was that resistance was an indication that he, Milton Erickson, was being inept.

That's the way we need to think about it. If we did, we could reach a whole new level of skill at influencing people.

You may not want to learn this. It may bother you that people don't just "get it" when you say it straight. But this is how the world is. I know it's not "right." I know people should decide simply based on the facts, but that's not how the world works, and it never will be. Emotions have a strong influence on decisions, on the forming of beliefs, and on behavior.

You already know this. You know that someone with a less-than-cogent argument can have more influence on people (if he gains rapport) than someone with a perfect argument that irritates people with his pompous or arrogant attitude, for example. Emotions trump facts. Rapport is the key.

We need to win. That means you, who already understand the terrifying brilliance of Islam, need to be effective. You need to use all the skillful means at your disposal to change the way others think and feel about Islam. You can do it! You must do it, for all our sakes.

If you don't have time to become good at influencing, you should switch your focus to getting people involved in the Girl Effect. It will be much less difficult, but you will still be doing necessary work toward our ultimate goal of reversing Islam's relentless encroachment on the free world.

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