The Point Where This Conflict Will Be Won Or Lost

Orthodox Muslims continually put the free world in one double bind after another. In psychology, a double bind is "a situation in which a person is given conflicting cues...such that to obey one cue is to disobey the other." It is a "no win" situation, "an emotionally distressing dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, in which one message negates the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other (and vice versa), so that the person will be automatically wrong regardless of response."

"Double binds are often utilized as a form of control without open coercion — the use of confusion makes them difficult to respond to or resist."

The key to Islam's ability to affect the free world is their use of double binds (read more about that). Right now, Islamic hackers are interfering with the Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Wells Fargo, demanding that YouTube pulls the video trailer for the movie, Innocence of Muslims.

It is a double bind. The free world can either give up a little freedom of speech, or the economy may suffer. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. The recent rioting was another double bind: Either curb free speech or innocent people will die. It almost worked. White House officials asked Google to pull the video trailer from YouTube (Google refused) and many people would agree — this simple removal could potentially save lives in the short run.

Orthodox Muslims are involved in many projects, from altering American textbooks to supporting suicide bombers. But freedom of speech is where the conflict between Islam and the free world will be won or lost. If we lose free speech, we're done. Every encroachment, every concession, every accommodation they want to wrest from the free world will be easy once we can no longer communicate critically about Islam.

Free speech is the battleground where the future will be decided. And this is not a theoretical issue. Impeding free speech has already been successfully accomplished many times with Islamic violence. When these cartoons were published in a Danish newspaper (the Jyllands-Posten), for example, the ensuing riots resulted in the deaths of 187 people. What happened to free speech? Bruce Bawer wrote:

Not a single newspaper in Britain reprinted the cartoons. And both the Swedish and Norwegian governments provided textbook cases of cowering dhimmitude. But none of that was really a surprise. What did surprise, and disappoint, me was the American political and media establishment. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush condemned the Jyllands-Posten cartoons out of hand. The State Department denounced them too, and only reversed itself after getting an earful from the Danish government, one of its few allies in Iraq. In the entire United States of America, exactly one major newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, reprinted the cartoons. And while the major broadcast networks, as well as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, reported extensively on the cartoon riots, none of them ever showed the cartoons at all.

This means that by putting the free world into a double bind, Islam successfully created an accommodation to Islamic standards. To that small degree, Islamic law was established in the Western world. The West's proud tradition of free speech yielded to Islam. Why? We are vulnerable to double binds, and orthodox Muslims are exploiting that fact. Why are we vulnerable? Our collective feeling of guilt is our Achilles' heel. We must each resolve this in ourselves and then help our fellow non-Muslims resolve it, and we had better do it quickly.

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Why We Are Afraid: A 1400-Year Secret

The following was written by Bill Warner:

There are two critical questions for our age:

1. What is the true nature of Islam?

2. Why are we afraid to know about it?

My books have answered the first question and now my new talk answers the second question.

A few months ago a man videoed two talks that I gave in Chattanooga, TN. When he asked if he could post them on You Tube, I said sure and thought that no one would watch a 45-minute talk. Wrong! In two weeks time about 51,000 people have watched the entire talk. Now it is being subtitled in German, French, and Spanish. Who knew?

This talk ties together the rise of Islam, the annihilation of classical civilization, the Dark Ages, the Islamic Golden Age, the doctrine of jihad and the psychology of the Western mind as analogous to the abused wife, all based on two large sets of data. The idea is the result of 10 years of research and it took 6 months to prepare the content and the graphics.

For your viewing pleasure:

Why We Are Afraid

and

A Rational Study of Radical Islam

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Christianity Face to Face With Islam

A friend of mine sent me a small book entitled Christianity Face to Face With Islam. She knows I'm not a Christian, but she thought I would find it worth reading, and she was right. It gives an excellent overview of Islamic history and its impact on the Christian world. It was written by Robert Louis Wilken, professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia. The little book is an essay adapted from his 2008 Erasmus Lecture,

I thought Wilken was extremely charitable toward Islam, but that might make his message penetrate better with people who are skeptical of the idea that Islam is not a religion of peace. Wilken was generous toward Islam where he could be, which gives extra heft to his warnings and criticisms when he makes them.

So I thought I would recommend this book to you so you can share it with your skeptical Christian friends. Even though I have a hard copy in my hands, I cannot find any place online to buy the book. If you can find an outlet that sells the book online, please send the link to me by clicking here. Thank you.

But in the meantime you can find the article online here. The history of Islam's impact on Christianity is a good demonstration of Bill Warner's principle of Islam's annihilation of civilizations. A few quotes from Wilkin's book might whet your appetite:

By the year 750, a hundred years after the conquest of Jerusalem, at least 50 percent of the world's Christians found themselves under Muslim hegemony. In some regions, most notably North Africa, Christianity went into precipitous decline. At the time of the Arab conquest there were more than three hundred bishops in the area, but by the tenth century Pope Benedict VII could not find three bishops to consecrate a new bishop. Today there is no indigenous Christianity in the region, no communities of Christians whose history can be traced to antiquity. Though originally conquered by the sword, most of the subject peoples eventually embraced the religion of their conquerors. By a gradual process of soft coercion, Islam was able to gain the loyalty and kindle the affections of those who were subjugated and make them part of the Muslim umma — no small accomplishment.

In greater Syria — including the Holy Land, Egypt, and Iraq — the rights and privileges of Christians were limited by their legal status as dhimmis: members of a restricted and inferior minority subject to an onerous tax...

In the eleventh century, the population of Asia Minor was almost wholly Christian. By the sixteenth century, Muslims constituted 92 percent of the population. During those centuries, the Church lost most of its property, its ecclesiastical structures were dismantled, and its bishops prohibited from caring for their dioceses. At the beginning of the period, there were four hundred bishops; by the end, 97 percent had been eliminated. Because there was no centralized state, only petty rulers, a dhimmi system was never put fully into place. As Muslim institutions flourished, the Christian population fled, and the disoriented and dispirited who remained gradually adopted the religion of their masters. Today there are only tiny remnants of ancient Christian communities in Turkey...

To state the obvious: Most of the territories that were Christian in the year 700 are now Muslim. Nothing similar has happened to Islam. Christianity seems like a rain shower that soaks the earth and then moves on, whereas Islam appears more like a great lake that constantly overflows its banks to inundate new territory. When Islam arrives, it comes to stay — unless displaced by force, as it was in Spain...

Of even greater significance is the growth and establishment of Islam in southeast Asia, in the archipelago between the Bay of Bengal and the China Sea. From India, Islam spread along trade routes into the region and, by the sixteenth century, Muslims had become the dominant religion in what is today Malaysia and Indonesia. Here Islam made its way not by military conquest but peaceably, through the gradual conversion of people who had contact with Muslim traders and through the quiet labors of itinerant Sufi preachers. With Muslim growth came Muslim culture and law and, eventually, Muslim rule. 

In a way that is not true of Christianity, Islam is territorial. One of Islam's most enduring innovations was that religious law became also the law of the body politic. Shari'a is more encompassing than the Church's canon law, and historically its authority depended on a community with territorial boundaries and political jurisdiction.

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Interviews Through the Weekend

The World Truth Summit interviews are underway this week. Monday, Elsa Schieder interviewed Mark Durie. It was excellent. Wednesday night she interviewed Bill Warner, which I haven't heard yet, but I'm sure it was great.

These are personal interviews rather than talking about Islam itself. How did these counterjihadists end up doing this work? What led them to reject the politically correct view of Islam? What has it been like for them? What is their personal background?

Elsa will keep all five of this week's interviews available until this Sunday, September 23rd.

An interview with Pamela Geller is tonight (Thursday). Here's how to listen: First go to this link and register (you'll see the registration form in the top right sidebar):

Home Page of World Truth Summit

Then go to the link below to listen to all the interviews Elsa has done so far:

Interviews

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Had Enough of the Apologies?

The following is ACT! for America's latest email alert. Please sign the petition and get others you know to sign it:

U.S. embassy in Cairo

Since our Egyptian and Libyan embassies were attacked we’ve seen a steady stream of statements from the Obama administration and some in Congress who blame an obscure 14 minute film for the outbreak of the violence.

This is as dangerous as it is misguided. It emboldens radical Muslims across the world and ensures that every time they feel they have a grievance they have a right to engage in attacks like these.

More apologies and more appeasement equals more violence. Plain and simple.

If you’ve had enough of this public relations campaign of apology and appeasement, please add your name to our new petition, which we will deliver to the White House and leaders of Congress.

The text of the petition is below. VISIT HERE to add your name, or click on the image above. Then FORWARD this to everyone you know!

Let your voice be heard today!!

Here's what the petition says:


We’ve Had Enough!!

Since the unjustified assaults on the U.S. embassies in Cairo and Libya, many in the Obama administration, the Congress, the media, and academia, have apologized, blamed or insinuated that a satirical film about Mohammed was the catalyst for all the violence.

We, the undersigned, know better—and we’ve had enough.

We’ve had enough of the Obama administration’s efforts to placate Islamist mobs motivated by ideology, or hatred of America, or just plain thuggery, with its repeated references to this obscure film that prior to September 11, 2012, no one had ever heard of.

We’ve had enough of the Obama administration and some Members of Congress insinuating or even implying that the violence against our embassies would not have occurred had it not been for this “offense” against Islam.

We’ve had enough of those who say a single blog post about an obscure film satirizing Islam is somehow responsible for the violence and anger raging throughout the Muslim world.

We’ve had enough of political leaders who cower in the face of the intimidation and bullying tactics of radical Muslims around the world who can never be appeased enough or accommodated enough.

We’ve had enough of the “establishment media’s” double standard, who defend satirical films and art that offend Christians and Jews as “free speech,” but condemn satire that offends Muslims as “hate speech.”

We’ve had enough of American politicians who fail to see or refuse to see the clear and present threat the Muslim Brotherhood poses to the United States.

We’ve had enough of the message of weakness coming out of Washington when what is required now is a defense of America, a defense of our values, strength, courage and resolve.

We are the silent majority in America.

We don’t riot when offended. We don’t storm embassies, kill ambassadors, or torch government buildings.

And we know that we’ve been here once before.

In 1979, we said “enough” to an economy in shambles, skyrocketing gas prices, and a president whose weakness emboldened Iranian radicals to hold Americans hostage for 444 days.

On November 6th, we will again say “enough,” just as patriotic and responsible Americans have said “enough” in the past.

We will VOTE.

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