NRO's Derbyshire wants to deny Muslims entry to the U.S. and "expel foreign Muslim residents"
In a September 20 column headlined "Islamophobophobia," National Review Online columnist John Derbyshire explained why he takes issue with the concept of Islamophobia, which he previously discussed in a review of Robert Spencer's Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't (Regnery, 2007). In the column, Derbyshire wrote that it would be wise to "deny entry to foreign Muslims" and "to expel ... resident foreign Muslims":
It's odd that I don't like Islamophobia because I would answer a prompt yes to all the following questions
- As religions go, and taking historical and geographical variations into account, has Islam been, on average, the most intolerant and obscurantist of the big world faiths?
- Whatever may have been the case in the past, and however things may develop in the future, is it true that Islam today is bringing forth an exceptionally large crop of homicidal fanatics willing to perform deeds of staggering cruelty, inhumanity, and stupidity in the name of their religion?
- Would it be wise of Western countries, in the present state of affairs, to "fence off" Islam -- that is, to deny entry to foreign Muslims, to expel -- regretfully, politely, and humanely, but firmly -- resident foreign Muslims, and to restrict the activities of Muslim citizens (preventing them, for example, from proselytizing in our jails, or working in defense establishments)?
- Has Islamic civilization, wherever it has settled, been, by comparison with Western civilization, culturally very arid? (Thanks to Bill Buckley, in a private conversation on this topic, for the mot juste there.)
Derbyshire continued:
As to my third bullet point -- I'm working through them -- it is surely clear now that our troubles with immigrant Muslims are a mere aspect of our larger troubles with the great floods of Third World immigrants we have allowed to come into our countries this past forty years. This was a horrible and insane blunder, as wise men pointed out very early in the process. "Diversity" is a bust.
[...]
Would I exclude foreign Muslims from settlement in the U.S.A.? Yes, I would; but this is not actually saying much, as I would stop all mass immigration if I could. Islam needs particular attention because of the sheer quantity of lunacy it has thrown up in the present generation; but it is not the only counterexample to the Diversity Theorem, only the most pressing one.
Finally, in a footnote to his article, Derbyshire explains why he dislikes the word "Islamophobia," stating that while phobias are irrational, "fear of Islam is perfectly rational":
Roger Kimball tells me this is the wrong word. A phobia (says Roger) is an irrational fear of something. Fear of Islam is perfectly rational! I leave you to discuss this among yourselves.
According to this clown, unless you're a lily white, anglo-saxon, God-fearing person, you have no right to pursue the American dream.
To correct Kimball, Fear of Right Wing Idiots (especially when they are in power) is perfectly rational.
John Derbyshire said "Islam needs particular attention because of the sheer quantity of lunacy it has thrown up in the present generation;"
As compared to the lunacy that is bred into some conservative Christian white persons (Jena, LA not withstanding) coupled with all the painfully obvious fear that they carry or about those that are different than them?
Oh wait, I see, its ok if a Christian can spew hate and vile at others and this is somehow ok or seen as the American way...... but if a Muslim does it they must then be a terrorists or at the least untrustworthy?
Long live the right-wing Christian ideology!
This is where the Conservative/Republican "revolution" gets it's strength. Xenophobia. Fear of gays, fear of secularism, fear of science, fear of welfare queens, fear of socialism, fear of turrists, fear of Muslims. It's a powerful motivator for black and white thinkers.
Don't forget, this is the same ditwit who actually advocated killing Chelsea Clinton, for one reason only, that she is a Clinton.
http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire021501.shtml
He has NO credibility, NO sense of decency, and NO class.
I agree and he needs to take a good long look in the mirror before even bringing someone's physical appearance into question. What is wrong with these people?
We don't, of course, institutionalize such principles in our society, and a good thing too.
No, he did not advocate killing her. If you had actually read the piece, you would have seen that.
Nope, he just subtly suggested that the world would be a better place if someone did kill her.
What if someone killed Mr. Derbyshire? Would the world be a better place? I believe it would.
And by the way, I'm not advocating his murder, just daydreaming about a better America, without racist Nazi scumbags like this guy.
SAVE DEMOCRACY, VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT!!
In my mind this is an example of the principle reason Republicans are incapable of leading our democracy in the world today. If your leadership chooses to address complex social, geo-political, and military issues from a religous point of origin, by maligning a whole region's primary religion, should it be any suprise the result is choas?
Why do Republicans suffer fools so fervantly?? Could they be pandering to the Evangelical fanatics, and their fears of a religion they have little understanding of other than we had the Crusades with them, and Christ was born in the region and for them is to rise again???
The Palestine must be Jewish for their prophecy of Armagedeon??
A Republican Plank, a policy priority to bring the second coming, or Armagedeon?
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
Wow, Archae - just read that link you posted. I've never seen such an unabashed hater in my life. He even praises Stalin and the Nazis for killing the family members of their enemies.
Real sweet guy, I wonder if he's friends with Fred Phelps?
I wonder if anyone is actually friends with the Phelps', I know I couldn't stand to be with them. Ever.
But Derbyshire is a hack. The journalistic version of a cheap whore.
Who is a whore to? The "raw meat and rush" so-called "conservatives."
I just looked him up on Wikipedia, too. He's not a U.S. citizen, he's from England and became a citizen in 2002.
Can we send him back, please? I thought these guys wanted to stop the evil foreigners from entering our country. Here's an idea - go back to your own d**n country!
Wow, a little more research, and I find out that the guy was an illegal alien! He's even proud of it!
http://www.olimu.com/Journalism/Texts/Commentary/Straggler03-IWasIllegalAlien.htm
It's crazy how so many conservative nutbags preach against how bad xxxx is, and then turn around and do it themselves! What a bunch of lying hypocrites.
Seriously, can we deport this guy? He should be banned from this country. He even said it himself:
"We need to...impose draconian penalties on visa overstayers, including lifetime exclusion from the U.S."
You're right John, starting with you!
Derbyshire is also the manly man who attacked the victims of the Virginia Tech shooter for not rushing the guy.
He's a piece of work, all right.
So, Muslims are the most violent, eh? --You just have to ignore the CRUSADES, the Spanish Inquisition, the forced conversion and execution of thousands if not millions of Native Americans, the German wars between Lutheranism & Catholicism (and all associated peasant rebellions), the numerous executions between Henry VIII, through Edward, (the aptly-named) Bloody Mary, and Elizabeth I when the official state religion flip-flopped between Catholicism & Protestantism according to the whims of the Tudor ruler of the day, the Holocaust, and Northern Ireland.
Homicidal fanatics? --Oh, I never knew Timothy McVeigh was Muslim!!! I guess all those people who bomb abortion clinics must be Muslim too. Let's also throw in for good measure Osama Bin Stalin, Adolf Muhammed Hitler, Augusto Al-Pinochet-Zaqarwi, Belgians in the Congo, Prophet Mao, apartheid, and assorted other tyrants and despots that have cropped up in the 20th century.
Culturally very arid? --This claim has ZERO credibility. Oh, but that doesn't mean anything, because the whole concept of zero was invented by Muslims, so clearly that can't have any use or value. Ever heard of ARABIC numerals? Al-jabr (aka algebra) is also entirely useless compared to the simplicity and elegance of XVI +VLIII = LIX. Not to mention great advances in architecture, medicine, and philosophy.
None of this, of course, excuses any of the terrorists or murderers that kill in the name of Islam (or anyone that kills in the name of anything else). And we do need to consider the geopolitical and global economic forces that are fostering unrest and therefore hatred in regions where Muslims live. However, it is extremely important for all of us to remember that human beings of any religion, race, origin, or century, are capable of extraordinary acts of cruelty as well as extraordinary acts of kindness.
All of us, as human beings, must acknowledge the atrocities many different groups of humans have committed in order to LEARN from them and dispense forever with this false hero-villain complex. If we fool ourselves into thinking that "we're" always the good guys and "they're" always the bad guys, we will turn into this xenophobic fool who wants to strip people of their civil rights and treat them like second-class citizens. Or, worse, we'll end up like Blackwater and will think its OK to shoot at civilians.
This relates pretty strongly to something I have been mulling over.
I think it is safe to say that Muslim countries are perceived as ultra-conservative and ultra fundamentalist. And in the secular muslim countries like Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan there is a huge fear of a popular Iranian-style Islamic revolution in their countries from the ultra-conservative and ultra-fundamentalist masses - which is what NRO themselves are attacking above.
I submit to you that the problem in the Middle East stems from a lack of a strong secular liberal counter-weight to oppose the over-bearing conservatism and fundamentalism there. In the West, liberalism and conservatism have worked to largely balance each other through our common history.
What gets me is that many conservatives drink the kool-aide from Coulter, Limbaugh and Savage when they dream of a world without liberals. They don't have to dream, the Middle-East is largely full of that already. If there were no liberals here, we would already be just like the Middle East, assuming the obligatory world wars would have turned out in our favor and we were still here.
That is dead on, an excellent point.
It is sort of funny to hear conservatives railing about how women are treated in Islamic cultures, but who opposed the ERA here? Was it liberals? What about Islam's stance on homosexuality? Drugs? Pornography? Religious dogma as a basis for law? None of these things are in line with liberal views at all.
If conservatives were to run things completely unopposed, many of the extremist elements would rise to the surface, and we would begin to look very similar to these countries we denounce so loudly.
They had periods of worthy secular leaning. Yes many times fanatism drownd promising societies. It would be easy to show western equivelents, a point but not relevent right now. If we can't have secularism, how bought rational religous types. They do exsist in the Middle East. I don't think Shurb Co. wants to find them. They could do with some rational help. To produce what they think they should be or try to become. Trick, well consider options.Ones that don't eventually turn horrible into tragic.
I was walking thru a park last week and came upon a bunch of old fashionedly dressed nuns sitting around in a circle, about 20 of them. I walk closer and I hear the gibberish. The're Muslims. I'm sorry but that just creeped me out. I used to play softball where they were talkin up God knows what. I know I'm a bad person for thinking this way but I can't help it.
You're right. You are a bad person. It is called bigotry. Look it up.
Derbyshire is a proponent of what's known as "scientific racism," the claim that genes matter very much to civilizational output. Thus, Derbyshire doesn't just want to deny mere Muslims entry to the US but ALL people who aren't European. He might make an exception for North East Asians since they tend to on average outscore whites in IQ tests--but africans, south/central americans--anyone from the 'third world'--is to be denied entry to the U.S under this guy's vision. He sincerely believes that he had a greater fundemental right to become an American citizen than, say, an immigrant from India--because that immigrant isn't white, and Derbyshire is.
This is a viewpoint that pops up in nearly every article he writes. Race is his main intellectual occupation despite being quite knowledgable about mathematics. None of this is surprising really. For instance, Derbyshire would never come out and say a truly hateful remark about black americans that could be easily used against him--instead every time he discusces black america he subtlely, quitely urges to the reader the conclusion that they are genetically inferior and beyond help.
He's someone that all people of color need to be concerned about.
No your bad if you don't work past a rational fear of the people unlike your self. We all fear that which is unfamiliar being thrust into our perceptions.
This is not that kind of self help website. However, investigate the culture. Familarity and understanding work as good as anything on these types of fears.
Despite feelings expressed questioning the worth of the culture, we own it a number of debts. Our Western culture would not be the same without the input we've recieved from the Islamic culture over a long mutual history.
Our Western culture would not be the same without the input we've recieved from the Islamic culture over a long mutual history.
That and a economies based largely on the exploitation of a lessed technologically developed culture or nation.
Part of the problem is that events in history are taught as they are independant strands of cloth when history is really a like a quilt, with each patch or strand connecting to and relating to it's surrounding pieces as well as the tapestry as a whole.
Sweet Jeebuz Maria and Jose I butchered that post.
"Our Western culture would not be the same without the input we've recieved from the Islamic culture over a long mutual history."---Eweston
You reminded of the attempted takeover of Europe by them. I don't feel like a bad person after considering that. That probably wasn't your intention but thanks anyway.
Well you are talking about a time when conquest is what empires DID. I mean didnt England and Spain 'take over' the Americas? Didnt the Holy Roman Empire 'take over' as much of the world as they could? Didnt Britian? Its hard to talk about 14th Century conquests as if they were evil when that was just what powerful nations DID.
I don't dig any of the governments of those countries from back then that you mentioned. At least though the're not still at it. I still feel better about myself.
Actually, this country needs to allow even more Muslim immigration. As the Muslim community here grows and finds its voice in public life, mainstream American society will become more acquainted with and sympathetic to Islam and Muslims the world over. This will have great benefits for our foreign policy: 1. It will become much harder for the US to wage illegal, immoral wars against Muslim countries that lead to the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocents; 2. US policy will finally stop treating Israel as if it's always right about absolutely everything and will stop giving the Israelis US-made weapons to wage their slow-motion genocide against the Palestinian people.
Without the Muslims we wouldn't have or know about the compass, Algebra, Arabic numerals, glass blowing, many popular spices, cornea surgery, coffee, some types of tea, distilled alcohol, hospitals, writing on paper, some astronomical concepts, certain medicinal plants, certain inks, certain colors of dye, and certain engineering marvels such as advanced self winding clocks...the list is endless.
Mr. Derbyshire can hate and fear Muslims all he wants but he has to go back to living in a hut, scratching out of his thoughts on animal skins, wearing bland colored wool,lighting his house with a candle (electric and gas lights would not have been possible without the ability to blow glass), eating bland food, counting in Roman numerals, navigating by dead reckoning, winding his clock by hand, and not understanding math more complex than 2+2 = 4. Pretty much Europe before contact with Muslims brought about the Renaissance.
There are more than 1 billion Muslims in the world. The overwhelming majority live out their lives quietly and in peace (well except in Iraq). It's a shame that nuts like Osama bin Laden have soiled Islam's reputation. Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) is probably spinning in his grave. On the other hand Derbyshire is getting the Western world all dirty. With friends like this bigot, who needs enemies? Bigoted attitudes like his are one of the reasons some in the Islamic world views the US with a certain disdain to say the least.
I was thinking more of the Andalusion society in Spain. When the noise died down the Jews in Spain were exposed to Arabic poetry. In a short time Hebrew, which was dieing out, became a language of poets. Later sung. Syncopation may have started here.
Two things the Ottomans gave us were the first Meritocracy and coffee.