Islam's Dhimmitude ll

    Before dhimmitude, something personal: As many of you know I have on the back of my pickup cap "Be Armed & Able To Save USA." I went outside today and the "USA" was wiped off. I asked an eighty-two year old woman if she understood I was referring to terrorists, and she said, Of course, I do."
So it's an understandable, polite sign, and I am calling on all people who support the Second Amendment to put those very same words on the backs of their trucks and cars. If people see the same phrase all over America, the impact will be very good for the gun ownership cause. I hope the National Rifle Association will support this. People are traveling now for vacations. Imagine the impact if these people see multiple vehicles all around America with the same sign "Be Armed & Able To Save USA." It is a postive message for gun ownership. You can buy white window marker at the Dollar Tree or Walmart, or Dollar General probably.
    Back to Karen Armstrong and Dhimmitude or non-Muslim submission: eminent religious scholar and writer who lies in her book Islam, that non-Muslims in Muslim ruled lands were "protected" subjects, and it was always a point of honor for Arabs to treat non-Muslim subjects well. The truth is that non-Muslims were persecuted and dishonored by Muslims in Muslim controlled land, and nowadays it only takes about 4 percent of the population being Muslim before they start pushing for the other 96 percent to observe dhimmitude like stopping in the middle of the road so Muslims can lie in the streets and roads to pray five times a day and having foot baths and time out to wash in them in the public schools.
    This is dhimmitude today as part of Sharia Law: The subject peoples, according to a contemporary manual of Islamic law, must pay the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya) and are distinguished from the Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar) and are not greeted with the traditonal Muslim greeting, they must keep to the side of the street like the blacks in the South USA hundreds of years ago, may not have a building as high or higher than any Muslim's. If they do, it will be torn down. They cannot openly display pork or wine. Cannot publicly display their feast days or funerals. Cannot recite the Bible or Torah aloud. Cannot build new churches. The penalties for disobedience of any of these rules can be death or being sold into slavery. It is the discretion of the Muslim leader. From The Politcally Incorrect Guide to Islam (And The Crusades) by Robert Spencer.
    You can bet that before death or slavery, there are many despicable, sick tortures first. I believe I have shown the truth and that the non-Muslim people of the world,  and even many in the undifferentiated Muslim ego mass, the ummah, can logically and reasonably see that these ancient, sandy rules are highly unfair, and evil-sick. I would like to speak to you as an individual and urge you to do what you can to change these rules. At the same time, I don't want you or your family tortured and killed because you were caught trying to make changes. I think there is a God because one cannot create something out of nothing (but Quantum Physics may say I'm wrong). That is all I can say about God because the rest comes from man. But I still want to say "May God be with you" out of respect of you or hope for you. Don't go on military jihad. Struggle to improve yourself so you have skills that you can use to make money with and have a great life and family! May God be with you!

    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va (Birthplace of the American Revolution in the South)
    The measure of a man
    Is not what he says
    But what he does
    And what he allows
    Others to do
    In his presence.
       - Navy Seal Instructor

    

Islam's Dhimmitde

    I was on the treadmill last night at the gym when the two top bodybuiders started talking and ended up about six feet away so that even I could hear them. One is the biggest bodybuilder I have seen in real life. He is about six feet tall and three hundred pounds of packed muscles. The other is a kid who came into the gym three years ago, loved weights and the weights loved him back. He slowly built up muscles while his buds who came in with him remained looking like me. Some people, a very few, can muscle up, and it's much easier with the shorties. The kid was back in the gym after his first year at UCLA and as he worked out on the Stairmaster, carrying on a conversation with Big Man, I heard him say, "There's just as many Christian extremists as Muslim extremists. They when in and slaughtered people during the crusades." It wasn't my conversation but I had to say something: The Crusaders were taking back land that the Muslims took from them. They don't teach you that!"
    "Yes, they do teach us that. But they just slaughtered people!"
    "The point is: what is happening now. Christian extremists are not slaughtering people. Muslim extremists are!
    "Any kind of extremist is wrong," the UCLA student declared."You're an extremist."
    When he said that, I was walking out of the aerobic room back to a weight station. I looked over my shoulder in disbelief that he could say such an absurd, demeaning thing. He concluded that from what I said, or is he hearing voices? He gave me a sarcastic smile. I walked on. I figured I had got a whiff of the insanity the professors and college administrators are promoting, and it stunk.
     Continuing with insanity leads to Karen Armstrong, a nun for about nine years, and renowned "scholar" on religions of the world. I've read that she is an apologist for Islam, and I think the person who wrote that was pussy-footing. She is a liar. Here it is: "One the Jews, Christians, and Zoaoastrians in their new empire had become dhimmis (protected subjects) they could not be raided or attacked in any way. It had always been a point of honor among the Arabs to treat their clients well, to come to their aid, or to avenge an injustice done to them. Dhimmis paid a poll tax in return for military protection, and were permitted to practise their own faith, as the Quran enjoined. This is from Karen's book, Islam.
    Compare that to Robert Spencer's The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS. First, Spencer writes that the rules of dhimmitude were enforced to keep Christians beneath the ruling Muslims. Second, Christian were so persecuted by dhimmitude in the Otttoman Empire Caliphate that Christian parents were relieved when the Muslims would seize their strongest and brightest sons, convert them, and train them to be the special forces for the Muslims.
To be continued.

Islam Hates

    I was on the treadmill last night when the guy next to me, a teacher at a private school. told me about the Islamists slitting the throat of a priest. "Why did they do that to an 84 year-old man?" he lamented."
    "Because they hate," I replied.
    I could have pointed to Brigitte Gabriel for the answer. This is what she wrote: "There is a three-word answer that is both simple and complex: because they hate. They hate our way of life. They hate our freedom. They hate our democracy. They hate the practice of every religion but their own. They don't just disagree. They hate." This is from Brigitte's book, aptly titled, Because They Hate.
What's the basic reason for their hate because these are absurd things to hate? Where is the fountainhead of  hate that started this hell on earth? If I knew maybe I could work for the CIA. Maybe it all started with the blistering, hot weather in the desert. Combined with tremendous lack of resources (before oil was discovered) which were constantly fought over. Combined with men who had to be away from their women, leaving them open to rape and kidnapping, These men would worry that their wives and families would be gone, either killed or sold into slavery by the time they returned from their attacks. For their wives and young sons, that slavery would mean not only work slavery but rape slavery. You would be a man or a woman and you have all this eating at you
and you would be full of hate, it seems. Then you just start blaming others, hating them and wanting to torture, rape, mutilate, enslave or kill "the other." To spread your hate, you merely find people who are suffering, convince them not to get educated, hold any job available and climb vocationally, and live a stable life, especially within a marriage and making it work, but convince them that it's "the other's fault." You also structure their lives with five prostrate prayers each day and a million dos and dont's to keep them busy and teach submission to them. Am I hired, CIA? Oh, we have a president who says it's anything else but Islam - guns, Republicans, Putin, anything but Islam! Yeah. He's not going to let his employees fight Islam on the battlefield of ideas and values. We'd win there.
    I wrote that I changed the sign on the back of my truck to "Be Armed And Able To Save USA."
I got a compliment about it a while ago in the parking lot of the cafe.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va.
    The measure of a man,
     Is not what he says,
     But what he does,
     And what he allows,
     Others to do in his presence.
         - Navy Seal Instructor

Islamic Freedom ?

    Having read exclusively of Islamic hate, paranoia, and domination, I was heartened to read last night these sentences: First: "God had given human beings free will and, and since he was just, he would punish such evildoers as Muawiyyah, Uthman, and Ali, who by betraying Islam had become apostates." In all that darkness, I saw some light with the mention of free will. Second: So important was the political leadership as a religious idea that it led to discussions about the nature of God, predestination and human freedom."
Both of these sentences are found on page 35 of Karen Armstrong's Islam, and I understand she is an apologist for Islam. I read on for a few pages, but saw no more mention of free will or human freedom. I googled "Kharjities" and when I read they were the original sect and known for puritanism and fanaticism, I wondered what free will and human freedom I would find with them.
    I read a witticism from a Wall Street Journal reader in Scotland. He wrote that the devil, meaning Hillary, is so bad that we should vote for the devil, meaning Trump, that we don't know about. Isn't it wonderful that America has become so corrupt that two devils are the choices for president of the United States? But are we now so corrupt or now so knowledgeable due to the Internet? But not to worry, our president who is best understood as being an Islamist soldier plans to give over the Internet to Russia, Red China, and North Korea. Has he included his new caliphate, ISIS, too?  We'll see the real truth on the Internet with all these wonderful nations are in charge! But are the American sheep doing anything about it? No, they are too busy with their phones, their games, and their porn. Well, Putin will change all that.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia.
    The measure of a man,
     Is not what he says,
     But what he does,
     And what he allows,
     Others to do,
     In his presence.
       -Navy Seal Instructor
    

Users' Books About Islam

    I have finished two books by women who have lived with Islamic values. The first book is Infidel by Ayaan Ali. She is the woman who had a death threat note left pinned by a knife on Theo van Gogh's body. A Muslim terrorist had just shot van Gogh five times, cut into his throat with a knife, and with another knife pinned the note to Ali onto his chest. Van Gogh had filmed a short skit about Muslim women who had been abused and killed for absurd reasons. On the fake bodies of these women, she had written the Quaranic verses that justified such barbarous, absurd behavior.
    In addition to a thorough discussion of this murder and how it resulted in her having to flee Holland with her Dutch security detail, there is a vivid description of her childhood which was spent under ridiculous, stifling oppression. Where are the American feminists on this? You know, "I am woman, I am strong, Hear me roar!" Apparently, they only dare roar at weak, Christian, white men.
    The other book is Because They Hate by Brigitte Gabriel. She writes a gripping account of the naive Lebanese allowing more and more Palestinian Muslims to immigrate into Lebanon until they become numerous enough to win some political representation and then begin war on the Christians. She shows how the Israelis helped the Christians by providing them food, medical care, and most of all, armed defense against the Muslims. She shows in strong, precise sentences how Lebanon went from the Paris of the Middle East to another Muslim hellhole because of allowing Muslim immigration. If only Trump would stop talking about himself and learn something about the real world, he could make his stance against Muslim immigration and his stance for border walls make sense. Grow up, Trump!
    After our president lied that there was "no credible evidence" that the Impulse homosexual massacre in Orlando was done by an Islamist, he started trying to take our guns away from us, trying to use the massacre as a reason. To counter that, I wrote on the back of my truck cap "Be Armed And Able To Protect Us."
Unfortunately, after that the news was about cops killing blacks. After that, the news was about blacks killing cops. Americans needed protection from so many people, that it apparently became unclear that I was referring to Islamic terrorists. Two people told me they thought I was talking about cops. The second charming person greeted me as I got out of my truck yesterday at a convenience store. I was dining out that night- getting two hot dogs at a store. The man yelled at me from his truck, "What does that f-    sign mean. You want to f-  shoot the government?"
     I replied, "Why don't you f-    mind your own f-   business?"
   He drove on. But today, just to make things clear, I erase "Us" and made it "USA." But it's a damn shame Americans should have to wonder whom I'm referring to when I write that Americans are being shot at - is it by terrorists, cops, or blacks. We should be very careful: I understand that Islam highest rate of recruitment in America is with blacks. I am not advocating that blacks be exempt from the law but law enforcement needs to be honest and open. Hiding something is often considered worse than what one is trying to hide. People are fed up with the establishment which they see as arrogant, covert, and self-serving. It is an organic wave sweeping the world. First, the Arab Spring, then Brexit, and next Trump. God help Donald Trump grow up before he's inaugurated.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va.
    The measure of a man
     Is not what he says,
     But what he does,
     And what he allows,
     Others to do 
     In his presence.
      - Navy Seal Instructor

Sharia Islam And Crusaders

    Imagine having your home and property taken by a biker gang, and there was no law to protect you. You trained, amassed friends and anybody you could get who was trained, and you took back your home and property from the big, burly, murderous bikers. Suddenly a TV crew showed up, and immediately the clever bikers became crying little boys who claimed you had taken their house and property from them. You were now the bad guys, child abusers at least.
This is the clever, lying myth of the "Crusader." The West was not taking; the West was taking back. Have you seen any Western colonies in the Middle East  or anywhere in the world lately? Did you see the West take one barrel of oil from Irag?
    In the seventh century, military Islam came roaring out of the Arabian Peninsual and began a long period of imperialism. It went across the Middle East and North Africa with a sword. In 711 it conquered Spain and Portugal and stayed in the Iberian Penisula for eight centuries. Islam invaded France but was pushed out in 732. Imperialistic Islam took Sicily and large parts of Italy. Islam beseiged Vienna three times and were driven out for the last time in 1683. I thank Brigitte Gabriel in Because They Hate for the history lesson.
    The Crusades were begun to recover lost land, just like your property taken over by the biker gang. If the weasely - no disrespect to real weasels who can't help themselves- biker gang turns cry baby and calls you "Crusader" be proud of it. Remember that when the weasely Islamo-fascists call Westerners crusaders. Not only is the West recovering lost land, but it is trying to free people from the living hell of Sharia law before the Islamo-fascists get nuclear bombs and flow up the world so they can go to Paradise to fornicate with seventy women. What a lofty goal Islam has! Do Islamists really believe God is going to provide such a vulgar, adolescent reward?
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. peternickerson12@yahoo.com
    The measure of a man
     Is not what he says,
     But what he does
     And what he allows
     Others to do
     In his presence.
        -US Navy Seal Instructor

An Anti-Sharia Confrontation

    This is a small confrontation, but it is a beginning. I had just finished another confrontation and driven to my favorite cafe for a relaxing cup of coffee. I sat down at a table with my coffee and started unwrapping two books on Islam ordered from Amazon. A female friend, who also likes to read, came over to see what books I had. A young woman, a friend of hers I didn't know, followed. I explained to the young woman that I wrote a blog critical of Sharia Law.
    "Alright," she said unenthusiastically.
    "It's more than alright; it's absolutely necessary. Sharia Law is very dangerous," I snapped.
    "It's complicated," she replied still unenthusiastic.
    "No, it's not. It's very simple. Would you like your genitals cut?"
    The young woman turned around, uttered something very short, and walked off. I asked my friend what she said. She's a very quick thinker and a lady who likes having a fun, not acrimonious, time.  She said, "I didn't hear her" and shrugged. We turned to my two new books.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia  peternickerson12@yahoo.com
    The measure of a man
    Is not what he says,
    But what he does,
    And what he allows others,
    To do in his presence.
       - U.S. Navy Seal Instructor

Burning Muhammad's Aunt?

    I opened a new book last night and in a few minutes read that Muhammad wanted to burn his aunt and uncle, and it's in the Quaran- 111:15? Immediately, I am confused. First, why would you want to burn your uncle and auntie because they don't want to take up your new-found religion? You want your auntie to be covered with faggots and have a rope of fire around her neck? Who talks in such a savage way about his auntie even in the 8th Century? I thought the Quaran supposedly transmitted orginally from Allah, through Michael, through Muhammad. So who wanted Auntie and Uncle dead? Allah? Why all the murderous, cruel rage about two people who don't jump to Islam as fast as you want them to? Once again, I have to ask if Islam is so great why do Islamists kill people, even their aunties, if they don't join up? And kill them if they leave? Why don't you let becoming and unbecoming a Muslim to be voluntary? Your behavior makes it appear that Islam is a terrible thing. Is that what you mean to say? The book was The Politically Incorrect Guide To Islam(And The Crusades) by Robert Spencer.
    I have an uncle who told me that I was not born from my mother and father because around the time of that blessed event he was dancing with my mother in Massachusetts - and he didn't know why mother was out dancing with him!- and my father was in Alaska, serving his country. My uncle also served as a pilot. Shame on me! It took me years to get the nerve up to confront my uncle about his comments. First, I talked to my aunt who said my uncle had remarked that he hoped I didn't think he was my true father. Then I talked to my uncle who not only denied what he had told me but also denied that his wife had just told me she that he didn't want me thinking I was his child. So he denied that he said anything to me and that his wife said anything to me. Did I want to burn alive my uncle and drap my auntie with "faggots" and a rope of fire? No. Should I have? Of course not. I kept my temper because Auntie had told me that he was loosing his memory.  I cut him some slack and merely said, "Well, I hope we can still be civilized and talk to each other." Uncle said nothing. I then said, "Good-bye." Uncle said nothing. I hanged up. It was a pitiful end to our relationship. He and his wife and another aunt and uncle had been bright lights in my dark childhood. But again, it was probably loss of memory, and the confusion and rage that brings and not mendacity. I certainly hope so as this was an Air Force Major (ret.) Why couldn't Muhammad cut his uncle and auntie some slack too? Isn't that the manly thing to do? Does a man want to murder by fire Auntie and Uncle because they won't give up their religion for his religion? Not in my book.
    P.S. It would have been nice to have received a call or letter from Auntie thanking me for my restraint. Not hearing from her made me think she had flushed me down the toilet just like her husband had done. Especially when you are enjoying the life of a millionaire, and your nephew is at the other end of the spectrum, not enjoying much at all.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. peternickerson12@yahoo.com
    "The measure of a man
      Is not what he says
      But what he does
      And what he allows others
      To do in his presence."
          - Navy Seal Instructor

Sharia Hate ll

    The second thought while reading books about Islam is the issue of individualism versus collectivism. Individualism is warm for it is concerned with a real person. It is human and alive. Individualism is for people who love people and wish them well. Collectivism though is cold for it is not concerned with a real person but a mental concept that is often a misconception. It is not human or alive. It is artificial and has no life. It is for people who don't particularly like people and other animals. They don't have warm relationships with people but calculating ones. Having warm relations with your children does not count for children often are loved by these kinds of people as possessions or narcissistic reflections of their selves. Collectivists are always looking for a utopian or perfect person as they define that.
    From what I have read about Islam and what I have learned from living with a beautiful Druize Islamic woman for about four years and my experiences with her clan, I see Islam, especially Sharia Islam, as completely collectivist with the exception that someone or something in Islam has said there is free will. I don't know yet where that comes from but I certainly have seen no indication that free will is honored in Sharia Islam. To the contrary, it is hated, and the known possessor of it could be doomed to death. Obviously, there is a complete dearth of warmth in Sharia. People aren't religiously loved but highly controlled. "Islam" is said to translate to "submission." Submission to the Quaran, the hadith, the immans, the fatwahs, your father, and then your husband, if you are a woman. Submission is your life. While I believe that submission to my best values is my life, I decide what my values should be by reason. I also try to rid myself of unreasonable values I was inculcated with by parents, preachers, friends, society, etc. I understand that the Arabs, for instance, do not operate by reason when it comes to Islam although I personally know they are often brilliant people, and they can do things. How can you do things without reason?
I know that some Arabs can drive. How can Arabs have no reasoning and drive?
Are they divinely inspired in getting from point A to point B? I doubt that even they would claim that. They must have reason. So why does it stop at religion, at Sharia Islam, at Islam period? Would Allah demand that you put aside reason when considering him and what he is, if anything. Why would Allah not want you to use your mind in an evidence-based way? Do you imagine that he is afraid of that? Surely not.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. peternickerson12@yahoo.com
    The measure of a man,
     Is not what he says,
     But what he does,
     And what he allows,
     To be done,
     In his presence.
       - Navy Seal Instructor
   

Sharia Hate

    I'm reading several books on Islam and two thoughts have germinated. The first is the role of hate in Sharia Islam, in the Quaran, and in the Hadiths. The hate is there, but where did that hate come from? Did it just come from Mohammad who said he was quoting the Archangel Gabriel who in turn said he was quoting God? Say it was. Then why was it accepted by so many people? I am thinking psychologically now. Why did the Arabs need to hate? I have read that in Mohammad's raids against Jewish trading caravans, he called the Jews pigs and dogs, I believe it was. Psychologically, that's standard fare: You always villify the ones you are about to hurt. But were the Jews villified before Muhammad? What was going on with the Arabs when Muhammad came along? I thought I had read that the Arabs were considered bottom-feeders, some sort of desert carp, but I haven't been able to find that passage in my books. We soft American civilians have no emotional appreciation for how hard life was in the desert in the seventh century and before. If a race was looked down on, like the African was in 19th Century in America, by many, but certainly not all, Americans, and the race had to try to exist in the burning desert heat, then there is the possibility of tremendous hate for "the other."
    I believe that latest word in genetics is that plants can acquire traits and pass them on to the next generation, thus beating evolution handily. But I believe the current thought is that very few animals pass on acquired traits immediately to their offspring. But suppose that happened with Arabs: their aquired hate became genetically encoded so that their children hated genetically. Then there are 1.6 billion Muslims, and they aren't all Arabs. There's a sales slogan that it takes 9 positives to overcome 1 negative. Maybe hate is simply so powerful that it seizes people and very few work their way out of it. Let's remember too that Sharia also makes it very difficult to even talk outside the party line. The penalty is death. Leaving the party is a death sentence too. Sharia, like communism, is a totalitarian system. Like Stalin said, "Everything belongs to the State [meaning Stalin]. Sharia is the same. So working your way out of hate would be a death sentence if you told anyone you didn't hate the whomever you were told to hate. Isn't that a lovely way to live? Better to hate?
 Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of Willliam and Mary,
Williamsburg, Virginia. peternickerson12@yahoo.com

Muhammad and Trump: Riding An Organic Wave ll

    In the recent times, Muhammad's tribe, the Quraysh, had become wealthy due to trading profits much like the upper financial class in America has done very well, particularly with their stock market holdings as corporations fire their primarily lower and middle-level employees and free up vast sums of money.
The feeling in Mecca was apparently (according to Karen Armstrong in her book, Islam: A Short History) that the upper financial member of the tribe had ignored the needs of the poor members and this had been at the expense of the poorer tribesman. Though Karen doesn't explain just how richer members got rich at the expense of the poorer members of the tribe, let us take for granted that it, if not actually supported by the facts, was a prevalent feeling at the time. Likewise, there is a feeling in America that the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer. One hears that the middle class hasn't had a true raise in fifteen years. On the other hand, the evidence not only on paper, but by your eyes, is that minimum wages only decrease the number of jobs available. People see the proof of that when they see robots replacing human clerks in stores and fast food restaurants. The customer is also asked to do more which frustrates many people, especially seniors, not adept with using computers and looking up the numbers for the items you want to buy. People don't know the way out, and now stipends for the every citizen are being discussed and voted on. Karen writes that there was a great feeling of unrest on the Arabian Peninsula, and any sentient being today can say the same in respect to the world today.
    The times of both cultures were ready for change. We don't know the day to day detail of life in Mecca during 610 C.E., but we do know what is happening now. Trump is riding a wave of anger and need for change that emanates from the people. He is so on top of things that every event that comes up reinforces his positions. He is spending no money on advertising yet while his opponent spends millions. He hads almost no organization, and his opponent has one that has put her husband into the White House twice plus she has the full cooperation of her party and it's support. Trump's party is still largely holding their noses.
    And yet, Trump is neck to neck with someone who is spending everything she can get her hands on and demeaning him every day. All he does is be Trump. The people have chosen him as the vehicle to express their anger and dissatisfaction with the status quo of the smugness, contempt, and intrusions of the political class. Both Muhammad and Trump have profited from a popularity not contrived by mass advertising and snarky speeches, but a popularity that comes spontaneously from the people. An organic popularity just like Brexit a week ago.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. peternickerson12@yahoo.com.

Muhammad and Trump: Riding An Organic Wave

    When Muhammad began hearing in a cave during Ramadan what became the Quaran, there was spiritual unrest not only in Mecca but throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Today America has a spiritual unrest that perhaps was best summed up by a woman's comment: "I want my country back!" There is a feeling that Americans have erred and can't get out of the hole. Even America electing a "black" president - he is at least half white, was deserted by his black father, and raised by his wholly white mother- turns out to be spitting into the wind for this president looks down at Americans "clinging" to their guns and their Bibles. When he travels outside of America, he habitually apologizes for America. We are gravely threatened by Sharia Islamists yet his foreign policies seem to benefit them and not America. An Islamist caliphate has sprung up in land soaked with the fresh blood of American soldiers during this president's tenure. Yes, America is spiritually very uneasy now just as Arabia was in the time of Muhammad.
    To be continued.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. peternickerson12@yahoo.com

No Individuality In Sharia Islam

    Irshad Manji in her book, The Trouble With Islam writes: "I propose that, as a
guiding value, we in the West agree on individuality. When we celebrate indivuality, we let most people choose who they are, be they members of a religion, free spirits, or both. For a lot of Europeans, individuality might ring too much of American individualism. It doesn't have to. Individualism- I'm out for myself- differs from individuality-I'm myself, and society benefits from that uniqueness. My question to non-Muslims is this: Do you believe that your 16 million Muslims are capable of contributing as individuals? The question is not whether they're capable, but whether you believe they are.
    I believe Irshad is asking that the Muslims be considered as citizens of the European countries they live in. That cuts both ways, Irshad. The Muslims are not assimilating in my very limited knowledge. They are staying Somali Muslims, Ethiopian Muslims, etc. Which is normal. Birds of a feather like to flock together. It reassuring and comfortable with people like yourself instead of being with diverse people who share nothing with you but the air you breathe. It's going to take a long time to assimilate with the Europeans especially if it is forbidden by Islam and the immans.
    Irshad, I was dismayed to read that you think individualism, especially in America means "I'm out for myself." I am a born American, and that's not how I define it, so I looked at it at Internet Oxford Dictionary. It reads that individualism is" the idea that each person should think and act independently rather than depending on others." The example is "Americans believe strongly in individualism." That means we think and act on our own thought process, instead of being forced to think and act like others. It has nothing to do with being out for myself in the context of getting something from others. It means being "in" for yourself -making your mind up yourself not being made to think certain things by others. Or being made to think everything by the dictates of Sharia law and Islam and hadiths and fatwas and your parents. We are free persons. That is the end of it. And it's not because society benefits from it. That is not a criterion for our freedom. You are still thinking like a Muslim, like a collectivist.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary,
Williamsburg, Virginia.
   

Sharia Islam Appears Little

    An innate need of man appears to be having something bigger than himself. Even atheistic communists worshipped their dictators. Agnostic liberals deified Barack Obama upon his inauguration. Last night, I was thinking about what I upheld as bigger than myself. There are so many things like truth, reality, and love. But what was more personal? At first, I thought it was doing the loving thing which is different from Christ's love as I think that turning the other cheek can be wrong. However, if I were in Christ's day and as powerful a thinker as he is alleged to have been, I would probably have seen that the Jews were seething with anger toward the Romans but they could not express it as they would be wiped out as it turned out a few years later they were. Hence, I might counsel turning the other cheek. But my idea of doing the loving thing did not seem manly enough. So I decided on being the best I can as my highest good. That is something a "manly man" as well as any other person can aspire to be.
    I applied the standard of being the best you can be to Sharia Islam as I had to write an essay (this is it) today. I looked at the bombing, the torture, the mutilation, the demeaning, the superior attitude, the authoritarianism, the wish to live in the seventh century, the overwhelming need to control others, and the cast of death over Sharia Islam, and I saw smallness. I saw tremendous constriction, hate, and the pathetic need to control through force. I saw the individual squashed into a mere speck of a life desperately trying to do every little thing and say every little thing as Allah supposedly wanted him to as - and here's the impossibility- interpreted by individuals who resort to force to make us do and say what they say Allah said to do and say. Not only that, but Allah was told by the Archangel Gabriel? I worked full time at a state mental hospital for four years. I heard many people coming into the hospital saying God was talking to them. If they had attempted to use force to make us comply to what they heard God say had to be done, we would have put them in a locked ward or sent them to the maximum security building. Why can't Sharia Islam stand on its own two feet and not demand force to make people comply with what it teaches?
Isn't that an admission that it is no good? Why should you believe someone who says it is for the good of your afterlife? Especially if these things are written for the first time by people 150 years after Muhammad's death. And this is a religion that rejects people by murder and so many tortures ? Why do you trust these people? Because you can use them to further your force  over others? It all seems so small, so little, so pathetic, so unmanly that you can't leave people alone and give them the freedom to choose.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary.

The First Jihad Or Crusade

    Muhammad supposedly exiled two Jewish tribes in Medina and destroyed all the males of the third tribe, and took their property.  Then he began raiding caravans passing by from Mecca that were not owned by Muslims. He went with his warriors to murder, mutilate, loot, rape, and enslave females and young men. He assured his men that they would go to Pardise if killed in battle while his enemies would go to hell. These are called the first jihads apparently.
    I fail to see anything noble or religious about such jihads. Before the Industrial Revolution, the way to get rich was to loot. There was nothing noble or religious about it even if people, including Muhammad, said it was. It was simply making money and growing your power. In addition, Muhammad was teaching that Islam had lethal superiority over all religions. People of all other religions could be killed, looted, raped, mutilated, enslaved. Where did that come from? The Quaran, the book he said was given to him in pieces by the Archangel Gabriel over twenty years and finally written down long after his death.
    Thinking about warriors about go to war, I visualized a US Army Chaplain giving a prayer before a battle to the young men who get killed while the politicians and their sons stayed home. I cannot visualize a US Army chaplain supporting anything that Muhammad was doing in the above paragraph including making Christianity so superior and so intolerant that the troops should be advised that the "enemy" soldiers (other young men who were also forced to serve while the politicians and their sons stayed at home) were going to hell if they died in battle. It's just too fragile and hateful for the US Army as I visualize it. I took alleged facts from Glenn Beck's It Is About Islam, page 39.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary.

Murder For Islamic Body Bags

    "In March 2002, compliance [with the muttawa or religious police) meant that young women couldn't escape a school fire until after they'd thrown on their full-length abayas. According to Saudi Arabia's own news reports, fifteen female students died and dozens sustained injuries when religious police forced the girls back into the burning building to retrieve their abayas, which literally became body sacks." This is from Irshad Manji's book, The Trouble With Islam, page 152.
    As a beginner in reading about Islam, it appears that women are considered as somewhat a minor. Her decisions are made by her father, and then by her husband. She doesn't even get to look at men in the eyes. It's too assertive. Also, there is still much anger in some sects about a woman even being educated, which could have played a part in the Saudi religious police forcing girls back into the burning school to put on their body bags. Why wear body bags? From what little I'm reading, it is because men think women exude such sexuality that if their bodies were exposed, any of it for some sects such as the Wahhabis, men would go into instant, uncontrollable sexual frenzies, and the world would immediately fall into chaos. So how come that isn't happening in the West? In fact, the East seems to be in frenzies, and the West seems to be orderly, with exceptions? I believe the Islamic answer to that would be that Western men aren't men at all. While I would agree that the Western city man seems to be becoming more effeminate and danty, there are still plenty of men with sexual desire in the West, especially the country people, and they are not having nervous breakdowns and jumping on women like barnyard roosters because they see thighs and breasts.
    I do worry about our college kids who as high school graduates accepted into high tier colleges, are so impressed with themselves and are so righteous in their economic dependency on their parents, loans, and scholarships that they don't think they have to be exposed to anything different or contrarian. Instead, they demand the absence of that and plead for "safe areas" where they won't be challenged or expanded in knowledge. I compare these to our same age kids who are soldiers fighting grueling battles with Islamists who will torture and kill them and worry that the difference is too great between the two sets of kids. I worry that the soldiers will return to America and see how soft, corrupt, and immature the civilians have become and say "F-   this sh- ! We're taking over."
Is this already happening with the Dallas police killings?
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary
   

Islamists Crusaders And Colonists First

    It appears that the Islamists are projecting, that is, blaming others for qualities they have but are uncomfortable with. I say that in regard to Muhammad crusading in and colonizing Mecca first by forcing the exile of two Jewish tribes and then killing all the males in the third Jewish tribe and taking all the propety and possessions of that tribe. This is where the Jews being "apes" and "pigs" stems from. From there, Muhammad and his armies went on to crusade and colonize the Arabian peninsula. I quote,"Conquest continued with bloody battles in the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad united most of the tribes of the Arabian Desert under his political and religious vision. Christians and Jews were allowed to remain in Muslim lands as long as they paid additional taxes [I do not believe that was the only requirment but that there were other humiliations under dhimmitude]. Muhammad provided protection in return for taxes and loyalty to the Islamic faith. Atheists and polytheists were forced to convert to Islam or else face execution." This comes from page 40 of the book It Is About Islam by Glenn Beck.
    The paragraph also begs the question "If Islam is such a great religion, why don't you let it speak for itself and let its goodness convert people voluntarily? Why does it have to be done by the threat of death? What kind of respect is that? Where is the love? Is that why Islam treats women like second class citizens? Because women will emphasize love, and love is irreconcilable with unreformed, ancient desert Islam? Thus women must be demeaned and hushed up? Can this even be discussed without male Islamists defensively talking and acting like psychopaths? Islam recognizes free will. Well, here it is. Can you deal with it like adults who freely discuss issues or do you just threaten and kill?
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary

Islamic First Sex Experience

    I blogged about Ayaan Ali's Islamic sexual mutilation yesterday. What follows is her first sexual intercourse. It is with a man, her cousin, she has just married earlier in the evening. Women shouldn't have to live this way. What was left of her genitals was sewned up and scar tissue  formed giving her a macabre chasitity belt. This is what her husband would encounter: "It wasn't rape. I wanted to have sex with Mahmud - just not this way. He gasped and shoved and sweated with the effort of forcing open my scar. It was horribly painful and took so long. I gritted my teeth and endured the pain until I became numb. Afterward Mahmud fell heavily asleep, and I went and washed again in the hideous bathroom. In every respect my wedding night had turned out exactly as Jawahir had described hers, a year before in Kenya."
    The next day Mahmud left Somalia for Russia to study thanks to a prestigious award. Ali went home where she washed with disinfectant the cuts she suffered from the penetration. Her scar hurt so much she could barely stand, and she never wanted to see her husband again. After a few days, she was able to get up and walk, although the cuts still hurt. This is from Ali's book, Infidel, page 143.
    Besides being a book Islamic men could read to make sure they never allowed the sexual mutilation of their daughters, it is a slice of Islam life from the viewpoint of women that should be very valuable for Western young women thinking of going to the caliphate to read. Don't go. Also, Westerners are having a lot of trouble getting back home after they slip out of the Caliphate. Everyone is afraid they are terrorists and unsafe to have back home. Don't give up on the Western world easily, it's not approaching utopia, but it's the best. At the very least, know as fully as is reasonable what you're thinking of getting into and compare it to the Western world.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary.
peternickerson12@yahoo.com

Mutilating Little Girls

    In studying Islam to argue against joining ISIS and other Islamic terrorists groups, I read this: "In Somalia, like many countries across Africa and the Middle East, little girls are made 'pure' by having their genitals cut out.There is no other way to describe this procedure, which typically occurs around the age of five. After the child's clitoris and labia are carved out, scraped off, or in more compassionate areas, merely cut or pricked, the whole area is often sewn up, so that a thick band of tissue forms a chastity belt made up of the girl's own scarred flesh. A small hole is carefully situated to permit a thin flow of pee. Only great force can tear the scar tissue wider, for sex." This comes from Infidel by Ayaan Hirst, page 31. She goes on: "Many girls die during or after their excision, from infection. Other complications cause enormous, more or less lifelong pain."
Then Hirst writes, "But in Somalia, where virtually every girls is excised, the practice is always justified in the name of Islam."
    If that is Islam, then Islam needs a reformation. What kind of man would do this to his daughter? Why is it so important for his daughter to be a virgin, when he believes his gift for dieing in warfare (blowing up innocents is warfare? I'd call it pussyfare!) is to deflower some thirty virgins? Isn't that the hypocrisy of the double standard? Does he think he owns his daughter? It is his daughter's decision, at say 16, if she wants to have sex. It's not his body or his dominion. If he or Islam has good reasons for a girl keeping her virginity, tell the girl the reasons and see if they are intellectually compelling enough not to have sex until marriage. You don't destroy her genitals, making sex probably painful the rest of her life! You're going to deprive her of orgasms the rest of her life so you can rule her like an object? Do you see her as a person, as an individual, who has a right to enjoy life with her own meaning of enjoyment. Not yours, not a desert religion from the seventh century. Not your undifferentiated ego mass where you think your identity is her identity and what she does is what you do. That's craziness.You and your daughter are two separate people, and each of you has a right to your own individuality. Surely you see this is a better way than acting like a crazy, cruel person who doesn't dare to exercise his free will. Free will, by the way, is, I understand, Islamic. Reconcile that with complete submission. You can't. You must get out of the box. Grow up. It's not a world for this kind of craziness.
Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary.

Don't Join ISIS! #3

    A very practical reason not to join ISIS this week is that it is on the run,
pouring out of Falujah, being easier to rout than expected - so the news goes.
The news in the Wall Street Journal today includes a big article about the antiterrorism programs in Germany brought about by the sharp increase in joining the Salafi strain of Islam. The article was prompted by some young guy who threatened to break the neck of a Jewish student and was enrolled in a program designed to stop would-be terrorists from becoming ones. This young guy did well in the program, which is apparently talking therapy, giving no indications supposedly in counseling he was about to pop, but he did. He threw a bomb at a wedding. No one was hurt. He's charged with attempted murder. But his computer shows he was still enthralled with terrorism. So how do you talk someone out of it? Germany is changing its laws to allow greater electronic surveillance. This makes sense since very few people seem to become terrorists by themselves. That is, without communicating it. People who say they want to break a Jew's neck should be monitored closely in most cases, I'd say. History is prelude. Want to know what a person is going to do? Look at his history.
    I am reading three books about ISIS and Islam and am in The Problem With Islam, the deepest. What I've been struck with are the contradictions of the Koran which can only be solved if you take it metaphorically and not literally.
I am a literalist by nature so I'm not comfortable with a metaphorical Koran, no more than I was comfortable with the Episcolpalian priest telling me, about a year ago, that the Bible was a series of metaphors. My reply was "Then it's all solipsistic, then?" This merited the priest muttering something to the priest on the other side of him, who laughed harshly and replied, "Now remember. we're supposed to have a big tent!" They were sick of me asking so many questions, and that was my last day at that church.
    I also recognize that this is not a good time for you to be looking for people to respect. I may be behind the ball but my understanding now is that the most powerful man in the world, as president of the USA, Barrack Obama, is claiming that he ordered a military rescue to Benghazi, but the order broke down in the chain of command. I have concluded that the best way to understand Obama, using Occam's Razor that recognizes the overall accuracy of the least convoluted thinking, is to posit that Obama is an Islamist soldier. Has anyone taken him or Leon Panneta, the Secretary of Defense, at their word and asked, "Who broke down the chain of command and why didn't you fix it? You just don't command and go  to bed. You command and make sure your command is executed. Let me assure you that there are men in America - I'm one - who, if the chain of command was broken in the military, and I couldn't fix it, I would have grabbed a rifle, torn the Secret Service away from their prostitutes, and headed for Air Force One. We'd reinforce the Benghazi Alamo by ourselves if needed. Of course, if a president acted like a man, like that, he'd have been followed by everything America had, not just all the Army, Navy, Marines, Seals, Deltas, etc, but by the Conservatives, the Tea Party, and some southern Democrats with their bear, hog, and deer rifles. That's what real man, a real leader, does. He leads and not from behind and not from his bed.
    It seems like all you have to compare ISIS right now is cowardness, lying, and other weaknesses in the West. But look again. Look at Brexit. Look at the fact that Obama's Islamic Sister, Hillary Clinton, is spending millions of dollars with a super-organized party apparatus to demean and beat Donald Trump who has only one million dollars in his campaign budget and no party apparatus. Yet based on the electoral college vote, the race between the two is very, very close. How can that be? It is because the support for Trump is organic. It doesn't come from Hillary's screeching lies or all her money. It comes from the people who are fed up with the lies and the arrogance of the public employees who have become
interested only in themselves and how much they can get from the people and how many laws they can jam down the people's throats. The people are tired of the tail wagging the dog, and they're not going to take it any more. Hillary can lie, slander, and screech all she wants, and it's not going to make any difference. The people know she's no good and nothing good will come from her. They'd rather give their vote to the buffoon Trump who might just stumble onto something good. Certainly, their guts tell them that Trump would go to the rescue of our Americans who were in a 13 hour gunfight at Benghazi.
     Have some hope in the Western world. We have the freedom to question the leaders and make changes. You do that in ISIS, and you're dead or worse.
Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, College of William and Mary.