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Salman Rushdie stabbed on stage in New York, condition unknown “What’s on your mind?” asks the WordPress dashboard at the top of the little box where you put your content. This. This is on my mind. Salman Rushdie getting stabbed. Back in the 1990s I bought a copy of The Satanic Verses as a contribution to his security costs. I’ve read it, and Midnight’s Children, and found them memorable but they were not books to which I wished to return. I thought all that stuff about the Iranian fatwa had faded away. I guess not.
Edit: “I’m literally a communist” Ash Sarkar sinks to the occasion:
Don’t have anything particularly clearheaded to say, but the stabbing of Salman Rushdie (though it has decades-old origins) alongside the campaign of threats and intimidation against drag queens in the US makes it feel like a very grim, dangerous time for artistic expression.
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I’ve just commented on another blog, and I think it’s worth saying more than once:
no report that I’ve read or heard is making enough use of the words: Islam, muslim, condemned to death, incitement to murder, and again, Islam, muslim.
Some time today I expect some public figure to say something like ‘Religion of Peace, mis-interpretation of a great faith, beware of far-right backlash’ and so on.
Law enforcement sources told The Post that an initial investigation suggests (Hadi) Matar has made social media posts in support of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard, and in support of Shi’a extremism more broadly.
New York State Police, however, said that Matar’s motive remained unclear.
“We don’t have any indication of a motive at this time,” Major Eugene J. Staniszewski told reporters
Not even a slight indication Eugene?
Same in the Telegraph:
Police… said they had not yet established a motive.
In cases like this, one wonders more about the motives of the police than of the assailant.
Rule number 1 is, “Musn’t offend the Mullahs.”
I see – so objecting to the sexualisation of children is the same as stabbing a critic of Islam. Thank you Ash Sarkar.
As for the legal matter – it is true that there are differences between the Shia School of Islamic jurisprudence and the various Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence – but there is no difference on these matters.
The charges against Mr Rushdie are two fold.
That he is guilty of “mocking” Muhammed, and that he (Mr Rushdie) is guilty of apostasy – of leaving Islam.
For a man, both of these charges (if proved) carry a death sentence.
Nothing to do with being “extreme” or anything like that – it is just a matter of what Islamic Law is.
The fact that simply saying the above carries the risk of punishment shows just how weak and corrupt the WEST has become.
A non Muslim can not commit the crime of apostasy – they can not leave Islam, because they never entered Islam.
But any man can commit the crime of “mocking” Muhammed – and that carries the death penalty.
I have been careful to say “man” not “person” as, I am told, some of the texts use the Classical Arabic word for “man” – thus leaving the possible (possible) defence that if it was a woman who engaged in mockery, a lesser punishment (say a beating) might be enacted. This is contested – it is a point of legal debate.
However, Mr Rushdie is a man.
“Ah but did an established Islamic authority try the case and deliver the verdict?”
Well yes they did – more than 30 years ago.
Some Iranian newspapers are reporting, with glee, that the attack has been carried out.
It is true that, as far as I know, no Sunni court has actually tried the case – but it is hard to see how they could come to a different conclusion.
A possible defence would be that Mr Rushdie was not living in an Islamic country when he, allegedly, committed these crimes in Islamic Law – but Islam claims that Allah created the universe and that (thus) His law is universally valid.
When Muhammed captured Mecca some people who were well known to have engaged in mockery of him were executed – even though when they engaged in the mockery Mecca was not Islamic governance.
“You were not the legal authority here at the time” was not accepted as a legal defence.
Obviously we must remain open to Islamic legal scholars whose arguments are based on their knowledge of the texts in Classical Arabic (of which I am ignorant). When dealing with another legal system error is always possible – and we must be open to correction.
But a Guardian newspaper style response “Islamophobe!” (and so on) is worthless.
Meanwhile in Virginia…
On May 18, 2022, in a legal action that threatens the free speech rights of all Virginians, a Virginia congressional candidate, represented by a Virginia delegate, sought and obtained an order finding probable cause, based on limited, one-sided evidence, that two well-received, well-reviewed books, Gender Queer and A Court of Mist and Fury, might be “obscene for unrestricted viewing by minors”. Initiated under an obscure state law that allows any Virginia citizen to file a complaint against any book sold in the state, the order obtained by the Virginia delegate asks the authors and publishers of the books to present evidence that the books are not obscene so that the judge can make a final decision regarding whether the books may be legally sold in Virginia.
No, it is not the same as a frenzied stabbing but it has the same-aim – censorship. Note the bit I bolded is essentially a trouble-makers charter and there is no reason that concerned citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia might not be an imam stirring the pot…
The Supreme Court has established a narrow test for obscenity that requires that the text as a whole, even if it references sex or nudity, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Emphasis again mine but that bit seems deeply subjective. The apocryphal Mull of Kintyre Rule was at least objective. There are a great many literary works by Nobel Prize winners and the rest that I just think are utter rot whilst it is only quite recently that graphic novels are considered by many as having any artistic merit whatsoever.
Paul,
Regardless of the intricasies of Classical Arabic (which is a dead language – more so than Latin or even Classical Greek) one thing that can be said poisitively about Khomeini’s fatwa is that it was and is crystaline in its lack of ambiguity.
The Rushdie case wasn’t tried as such – even in a shariah sense. The fatwa was just edicted* by the Ayatollah in a similar way to a Papal Bull.
As to the sexualization of children… I think we have to be very careful. For me the ideology-based “medicine” of the Tavistock Centre** is a whole different kettle of fish from “Drag Queen Story Hour” which seems in many ways really quite quaint in the traditon of panto and the like… But, Hell’s Teeth! The reaction to it in places was absurdly over the top. As indeed from “the other side***” is the “non-personing” of JK Rowling. She’s gone up a lot in my estimation.
*Is that a word? Is now.
**Am I the only one who sees profound similarities between that place and the Middlesborough Child Abuse scandal of about 30 years ago.
***I’m away that even talking of sides in “binary” and that is bad.
Crap. It is not censorship for me to use the legal tools provided to have influence over what materials are used by the system I finance to educate my children. Those books are still available wherever books are sold. The only limitation sought here is that they cannot use those materials as teaching aids in the places where I send my kids.
You’re reading “censorship” to mean that I must allow the woke teachers of my young kids to use any material they deem desirable to indoctrinate my kids to their own point of view. That’s incorrect. I have no duty to read those authors’ works, nor to care a whit what philosophies of life our hired teachers prefer. They can get other jobs in other places. Teachers’ personal “rights” can be exercised in their personal lives, not in the functions for which I pay them.
Bobby.
Please read the whole thing. It is about what books can be sold in VA. If it were just the public school system then that’s another thing but it isn’t.
Rushdie is a leftist so we are seeing lots of outrage and sadness from left-liberal media about this.
Sadly we know if Rushdie was on the right the reaction would be different. We know this because look what happened with Pim Fortuyn or Theo van Gogh. The left liberal reaction was largely that while it was unfortunate they died they kind of had it coming to them because they were on the right. So Charlie Hebdo and Salman Rushdie get lionised when attacked by Islamic fundamentalists while anyone on the right gets blamed for stirring it up.
NickM
Have you got a link to the actual statute? The piece you linked to does not appear, at my end, to name or to cite the statute in question, so do you have any notion of what it says? Even your link accepts that States have scope under 1st Amendment case law to prohibit obscene materials, and without an examination of the facts, this cannot be determined by simple scaremongering; it seems that your own link is unhelpful to the point your appear to be making. Unfortunately at present I can’t devote time to finding the likely statute.
Mr Ed,
https://slate.com/culture/2022/08/book-banning-republicans-gender-queer-obscenity-supreme-court.html
Not the statute itself but there should be enough there. Soz, I’m v busy right now.
I’d also like to get back to Martin on his excellent point. Tomorrow OK?
Although not related to Islamic fundamentalism, I did note the left liberal western press did not seem particularly peturbed by the recent murder of Shinzo Abe in Japan. Again I’d maintain that as a right-wing nationalist, the liberal press probably think Abe got what was coming to him.
I did, actually. I’m also slightly familiar with this legal effort, and have a few problems with it on my own, but the fight isn’t what the NCAC says it is.
The complainants went into this effort trying to establish that the books were “obscene for unrestricted viewing by minors”. They had no intention to ban the books generally.*
But the wokesters immediately jumped on the idea that the complainants were trying to ban the book generally, not just for school viewing by young kids. That’s misdirection. It allows for quite the noble-sounding defense, but its goal is to keep those books in the schools.
Picture trying to pass a law making it illegal to bring gallons of gasoline into crowded theaters. The NCAC would be screaming that you’re “trying to ban gasoline!”
The NCAC has in the past showed an ability to make distinctions such as this. I believe that, in this case, they’re trying to erase such distinctions because they are firmly in the woke camp. Even good orgs can be misused.
(* – My specific problem with this action is that the old outdated statute they’re trying to use may not allow for anything but the binary choice of “obscene” or “not obscene”. There doesn’t seem to be a remedy available of “obscene for kids.” It was imaginative, but I think it ultimately has to fail.)
P.S. – here’s the hook the complainants are trying to use in the statute to get the books out of the schools. Don’t know if this can work:
(It’s out of this statute.)
bobby,
But, alas, that binary is essentially a *huge* problem. Back soon. I am truly on a deadline here which has nothing to do with blogs!
Some comments, especially the early ones, are unduly negative about the media, in my opinion. (And that is a truly extraordinary thing for me to say.)
Look at the first BBC article i read this morning.
No reader with a functional brain can be left in any doubt about the likely motive of the murder attempt. Not beyond the 3rd paragraph. And there is more further down.
The only ambiguity is in the 8th paragraph:
But if you have to blame anybody for that, it’s the NYPD.
And it seems to me that they are only doing their job.
@NickM
No, it is not the same as a frenzied stabbing but it has the same-aim – censorship.
Whenever someone starts talking about concerns with censorship of books, whether in libraries or elsewhere I like to ask them how much they really believe in free speech. For example, are they profoundly opposed to the efforts of tech companies to stifle speech they don’t like? As they demand that a kindergarten library have access to “Heather has two mommies” do they demand with equal vehemence that Donald Trump’s Twitter and Facebook feed be restored immediately?
I am opposed to both types of censorship, though I think parents have a right to control what information is given to their kids to manage it in an age appropriate way (and FWIW, I think it is good to learn young about different types of family structures). But the true test of one’s commitment to free speech is how vehemently you support the right to speak of those you consider vile and dangerously wrong.
I know nothing about Salman Rushdie’s work, it is a bit too esoteric for me. But I think Britain should be proud of its support for him, and proud of his knighthood. For those of you interested you might check out this discussion on it, including the fabulous, though now departed, Hitchens.
I’d also say I share with the “establishment” a concern with labelling this “muslim” and so forth. Irrespective of what Islam teaches (and like Christianity the range of things it teaches is very wide indeed) the vast majority of Muslims in America are honest, decent people who are just as horrified by this attack as the rest of us. I am fortunate to have many Muslim friends and I object to the tarring them with the same brush as we do this horrendous brutality.
Back in court days, if you had one of the old-guy judges with the weak bladder in a trial, you could time things so that testimony halted right at the end of your own questioning because it was the judge’s regular and predictable bathroom break time. Always good to let jurors and judges sit and think about your chosen stuff for a while before the other guy starts hammering on it.
Old habits . . . 😉
NickM
Fro.m my reading of the statute bobby b helpfully posted, i would day that this law is essentially a run of the mill anti-obscenity statute which the Left are complaining has been ‘weaponised’ against one of their pet projects, and as with Dobbs and Alito’s searing judgment, they shy from examining the issue or debating the actual legal points.
Let us imagine a book, being sold in Virginia, ‘The 100 best Congressional dick pics sent to Capitol staffers – 2022 edition’:
Is such a book capable of coming within the statute? Almost certainly, I would venture.
Would the 1st Amendment mean it can be published and sold across the USA*? Not a case I’d be happy paying for, however rich I were, I’d have doubts it would succeed.
Would the Left scream about it being banned? Depends whose wieners were in it, for most of them, I guess.
*Find a State or jurisdiction were it’s lawfully sold, if you can, and try an inter-State commerce argument as back-up.
There is a considerable amount of recent footage showing US school board officials, including in Virginia, getting worked up and actually killing the microphone when concerned parents attempt to read out extracts from the highly sexualised books freely available in school libraries and even included in course materials.
I am pretty sure these officials would be firmly against the banning of such books as they obviously consider them suitable to be read by the young teenagers under their care yet they apparently believe equally firmly that the same books are not suitable to be read out at board meetings where any attempt to do so will be censored ……….….. for reasons.
It’s another puzzler.
Nick M – the people who started off this movement to spread homosexual activity among young children (some of these activists were NOT homosexuals themselves) were quite clear about their aim – they were “New Left” people out to destroy the “capitalist” West, we know that because they said so (at very great length). Trying to pervert young children was (and is) just one of their tactics for trying to destroy society. Teacher training colleges, and so on, are easy to “capture”.
And it does not stop at homosexual acts in relation to children – now the sexual mutilation of children is being pushed. There is a large scale (and powerful and well funded) movement pushing the sexual mutilation of children (“Trans Rights for eight year olds” was the position of Joseph Biden in 2020 – and, supposedly, this senile puppet got “81 million votes”). Why? For the same “New Left” objective of course – to smash society.
The theory is that a wonderful new society would emerge out of the ashes of the old – even Joseph “Stalin” doubted that, which is why he ruled AGAINST the Frankfurt School interpretation of Marxism – “Stalin” wanted to take over functioning societies, not utterly destroy society in the hopes that a wonderful new society would emerge from the ashes of the old. However, Frankfurt School Marxism, and French Post Modernism, now dominates the institutions of the United States – culturally modern American institutions are actually to the LEFT of “Stalin”, as he rejected going this far (he rejected the Frankfurt School interpretation of Marxism).
“Be that as it may – there is still no right to censor books in Public Schools” – fine, then STOP FUNDING these “Public Schools”, then there will be no debate about whether or not certain books are taught in them – as the government schools will not exist.
Remember, at the time the Public School movement was being pushed in the United States (by Horace Mann and others) the claim was NOT that it would lead to some great improvement in literacy or numeracy, the claim was essentially a moral claim. Supposedly a system of Government Schools would “improve the morality of the people”.
Given the condition of American government schools it is hard to consider that “argument” without laughing.
“But some children will not learn to read and….” – again vast numbers of American children spend many years at, incredibly expensive, government schools and can not read (or write, or do sums, or….).
The claim that standards of basic skills would fall if this system was defunded in the various States is as absurd as the claim that the system improves “the morality of the people”.
“No, no, no, we must REFORM the present system – not turn our backs upon it”.
Like President George Walker Bush and the “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001 – a horrible failure.
His father, President George Herbert Walker Bush, also declared himself the “Education President”.
As for State level efforts at reform – will the Governor of South Dakota (not the present one – the one before) greatly increased the Sales Tax (which applies to food and all other basic goods) in order to “reform education”.
bobby b will know more than I do, about whether there has been a dramatic improvement in South Dakota schools after this extra money.
If State governments must be involved, then give the tax money back to parents to spend on the school of their choice (even leftist Maine does that – in rural areas where there is no government High School).
If the parents choose to spend the tax money on a school that will try and pervert their young children – well there we are, that sort of parent would have most likely have perverted their children even if they stayed at home.
Hopefully, even in these evil times, there are not many such parents.
Marxists support a lot of things in the West, in order to destroy the West, that they certainly would NOT support in a country that they themselves ruled.
For example, the People’s Republic of China eagerly supports “Woke” (Frankfurt School Marxism) stuff in he West. But try this sort of thing (say “Black Lives Matter” or “Trans Rights for Eight Year Olds”) in CHINA – and you will be vivisected.
But it is not “just” cultural matters – it is economic stuff as well. For example, the People’s Republic of China strongly supports “Collective Bargaining” (trade unions and the “strike threat system” – see W.H. Hutt) IN THE WEST – but not in China.
There is no inconsistency here – the People’s Republic of China supports all this in the West for the same reason that it forbids it in China.
The undermining of society and of the economy.
Policies that undermine manufacturing industry in the West are obviously good (from the point of view of the Chinese Communist Party) – and it would be obviously bad to follow those policies (“New Zero” and so on) in CHINA.
Just as the Chinese Communist Party is happy to see pervert teachers in Virginia trying to corrupt the young – but would execute teachers who did this in CHINA.
Indeed there is a new character in Chinese that means “white leftist” – it is not a complement. No Chinese would use this word about another Chinese – and not expect a punch in the face.
Of course, it’s not just perverting children: perhaps more important for the establishment, it’s inducing mistrust of parents in children’s minds. The family is a potential antagonist of establishment propaganda (as are religious institutions) and the establishment cannot tolerate that. Not an establishment that is unable to offer rational arguments.
Now, you can believe me or not but I was not taking a “technical break”. I have a ticklish web-design project for a commedian and I need paying. That’s why I mention his job (because he’s in Edinburgh a lot at the mo) and I need to get invoices sorted so I can eat next month. But the wonders of modern tech? He’s a bit of a duffer on that score. I’m also a kinda church warden and Saturdays are busy for me because I have to get the place clean for Sunday Worship (we rent out the space to various community groups through the week).
OK, rather than drag this out (and OT) I’ll just state my case here. I am fully in favour of free expression and against censorship. And, yes, that does include things I find utterly distasteful. It’s a fixed point for me both in principle and practically. At a deep level I think we have a very deep cultural issue here to do with the definition of “society” and what that abstract (artificial?) entity objects to. With minor children then this is to an extent something that ought to be under parental/guardian control. With adults then it really is up to them and what people find obscene/erotic/dull, challenging/offensive/meh or whatever else is spectacularly wide-ranging. I suppose that is just the human condition and part of me likes that sheer diversity*. For the sheer fun of it as much as not wanting to see people persecuted. Practically speaking it also makes us more creative. I can’t take a hacking threat seriously from a country that has state-prescibed hair-styles.
Now, before anyone bites my head off on my seeming equivocation on parental control I’d like to clarify that. Within any even vaguely free society (unless you go all Amish or something and even they send their youngsters out on a “gap year” amongst the “English”) your kids are gonna see things that are out of your control and probs not what you’d maybe like them to but that is life and if those kids are gonna cope with independence from you then they’d best get used to dealing with it. That tolerance is not the same thing as embracing or even accepting a “woke” agenda.
I think I made myself clear on my position with respect to the ideological drive behind a lot of the trans stuff. I thought the Middlesborough comparison was enough. Maybe that just resonates more deeply with me because I’m from the North East of England and I vividly recall the scandal.
Anyway, back to Virginia. Yeah, for sure there is a sort of Kulturkampf going on but I don’t see overall banning books as any sort of solution. I’m sorry but there is really only one solution and it is hard. That is to just not personally buy into it. And, yes, that might mean taking school boards to task (I have no kids and am not American so feel free to just ignore me on that for I know not of what I speak) but culture is essentially an emergent property of myriad personal cultural choices. It should not ever be a matter for legislation. In the few cases where this has “successfully” happened the results are always utterly dire. It is the choices we make and not the ones forced on us that make us human. So, sorry Mr Ed, but your bumper book “Dicks of Congress”** is not on my Amazon Wish-list. Neither would be the companion piece “Cunts of Parliament”*** (which in any case would have to be in three volumes). We literally have to make it “Go Woke”, “Go Broke”. In my business I buy (for myself and others) a lot of computer kit. I go out of my way not to source from the PRC****. Not easy but do-able – at least whilst Taipei and Seoul stand.
And so do you and I.
*I mean “diversity” as a plain rather than ideological term.
**Not to be confused with “Dicks in Congress”. I’m sure there is a better quip there but it alludes me…
***Those should never be left together in the same room. Otherwise what rough-hewn beast shall be whelped?
****They can kiss my ASUS!
Sorry NickM, I fail to see a clear point in what you have said above, from what I might infer, it appears to be along the lines of: Some Lefties are complaining about a long-established Virginia statute limiting the sale of obscenity being deployed to try to stop a book being used in State education, and I agree with the Lefties, the case should not even get to court because the law is wrong even if it is compatible in its application with both the Federal and Virginia Constitutions.’.
If this is what troubles you, when you live in the UK, there is a lot of bad news right under your nose you might not have noticied yet.
NickM. I know what it’s like to have a work deadline when one has something to say on Samizdata. 🙂
That said, I’m confident bobby b will prove right about this: this litigation is not about censorship; it’s about preventing the woke teachers of young kids using the state schools and the compulsory attendance laws to censor education.
Were a Virginia court to rule that a consenting adult could not legally purchase a copy of Gender Queer within the bounds of that state, I feel sure that would go to the supreme court on some 1st amendment case – and we would blog about it. Until this visibly goes beyond just using the available legal tools to try to get Virginia teachers to teach instead of propagandise, I will think it does not need discussing in a thread about Salman Rushdie and the distressing longevity of the fatwa against him.
I think I made it explicitly clear that my objection is to the general ban. What school districts do is another matter which I also said I honestly don’t know how that works practically.
I also said that ultimately it came down to individuals which I always thought was the essence of libertarianism rather than some half-recalled fever-dream of the ’50s being imposed.
So, Mr Ed, enjoy your self-righteous grief over a conception of the future being The Jetsons not being realised.
I am well aware how inperfect my nation is. I’d move if somewhere else was perfect.
We live in a world where things are often not what they seem.
The ACLU, supposedly about civil liberties, was founded in the 1920s by people who were supporters of the most repressive regime on Earth at the time – the Soviet Union.
As some of them later admitted – we wrapped ourselves in the flag of the United States, which we hated – and we claimed devotion to the Constitution of the United States, which we intended to destroy.
The “nice” teachers and administrators who “just want children to be tolerant of Drag Queens”, actually want to sexually mutilate children.
Sexually mutilate children – because this is the ultimate way of getting rid of a “reactionary” population they hate – Americans.
Convince a boy that he is a homosexual and he may some day decide that he is not – but cut his sexual organs off and it is “problem solved”.
The “problem” being Western civilisation.
No people – no civilisation. Of course this is just one small policy among many – basically every policy since the start of the 1960s seems to have been designed to undermine the family, to undermine society.
A few years ago the American fertility rate was still above replacement rate – it is NOT now, it is well below replacement rate.
The left tell themselves that they want to create a wonderful new society out of the ashes of the old – but I suspect that, deep down, they just wish to destroy.
Niall,
My whole point was that it is seeking a complete ban. A ban on “Frottage Fun For Fives” (or whatever) being supplied to state-funded schools etc. Fine! Except I’d be left wondering how it even came to that. That is the wider cultural issue I did mention.
And to put it bluntly – law has to come from culture and not the other way around.
That’s what I always assumed, but many newer laws seem designed to specifically quash culture, in order to improve it.
So, “we can’t do that anymore”, in spite of the fact that the culture would surely continue to encourage us to do such things – with majority support – in the absence of such laws.
It came to that because we didn’t pay attention while our public office managers hired inappropriate people to inculcate our kids with knowledge and philosophies, and they took advantage to sneak in much that we would rather be presented to our kids in different places and manners, and now they’re claiming that they have a “free speech” right to do so. They have that right on their own time. They do not have that right when functioning as our hired teachers, teaching our kids.
Personally, I’d rather kids be raised to be accepting of all non-injurious lifestyles, and mine were. But it was my place to do that. Unless I was specifically asked for permission, I would not accept a third-grade teacher with purple hair doing it. I think he’d lack balance.
“What school districts do is another matter which I also said I honestly don’t know how that works practically.”
As I understand it, school boards are actively censoring parents – as in shutting them down, preventing them from speaking, even having them ejected from meetings and/or arrested – to prevent parents from reading out materials that parents object to.
To be clear, parents object to borderline pornographic materials being made available to their children by the school board. School board then claims that parents should not be allowed read this material in public at their meetings because it’s obscene…
The Pendant-General – it is worse than you say.
The FBI and the “Justice” Department targeted parents who were just trying to protect their children – protect their children from the most sickening abuse, including sexual mutiliation.
Sadly NickM has got things the wrong way round – it is not the parents who are the threat to liberty, it is the bureaucracy that is the threat to liberty.
As for laws following the culture. Frankfurt School Marxism and French Post Modernism is NOT a culture – it is a weapon to destroy culture, to reduce society to ashes.
This is what, I think, Nick fails to grasp.
The degeneracy pushed by the left in the United States is not a culture – and it is not meant to be a culture, it is meant to destroy society. And this has been going on for a very long time.
Allegedly a wonderful new society is supposed to appear from the ashes and dried blood – but even Orthodox (as opposed to Frankfurt School) Marxists do NOT believe that.
Destroying society is not (even according to Orthodox Marxism) a way to get a better society.
I repeat – the people pushing such things as Drag Queens to young children and the SEXUAL MUTILATION of children, are to the left of “Stalin”.
Orthodox Marxists such as “Stalin” wanted to take over society – the “New Left” (who now have such power in American institutions) want to DESTROY society.
Their true objective is not power – their true objective is DESTRUCTION.
Observe such developments as the “Admiral” who is now “Surgeon General” of the United States – with their claims that sexual mutilation of children is a good thing.
This is not part of any functioning society – and it is not meant to be part of a functioning society.
This is a part of an effort to DESTROY society – that is what needs to be understood.
I am not a good person – there is a lot of darkness in me. That is, perhaps, why I find the left easy to understand.
They are inflicting harm – because they ENJOY inflicting harm.
That is what, for example, the activist teachers in Virginia and elsewhere are about – they get a “kick” out of corrupting young children, and they also get pleasure from the idea of sexually mutilating children.
Whenever they see something good, something pure, something decent – they want to corrupt (DESTROY) it, because they enjoy doing stuff like that.
Ditto when they see a person who is good, pure, decent – they want to corrupt (to destroy) them.
Remember such people now control the FBI and the IRS – “oh Paul the IRS are just like the Inland Revenue in Britain”.
The IRS have firearms – and they are going to get a lot more.
Soon the domestic Police State agencies of the Federal Government will have more armed people than the British Army does.
That is the threat to Civil Liberties. Senator Roscoe Conkling was far sighted – even in the 19th century he understood what would happen if a professional bureaucracy was created.
As a certain person used to (quite rightly) say – “they are not really after me, I am not the real target, they are after you and your family – I am just in the way”.
Paul, I did say…
…With minor children then this is to an extent something that ought to be under parental/guardian control…
I also explained my “extents”. I think quite clearly.
You are tilting at windmills here.
Reading the thread, this post is not related to the censorship issues discussed above. I do enjoy the back and forth, and the arguments – in a non-pejorative sense.
Has anybody else actually read the book that earned Mr. Rushdie the fatwa, the “Satanic Verses”. I myself could not finish it. A page-turner it is not.