What is a free country? Is it a country that is free of being ruled by any other country, or is it a country of free people who are not afraid. The truth is that no country can be free, unless its people are free. Not freedom as embodied in legal documents or stirring anthems, which nearly every country has, but free in their minds. Unafraid to believe, to speak and to live.
Tyranny isn't a man holding a gun to your head and telling you what to do. Tyranny is when you do what you're told, because you're holding the gun to your own head. And then you have become a collaborator in your own oppression. It is possible to be enslaved without ever becoming a slave. And it is sadly possible for people to act like slaves without any chains being anywhere in sight.
No regime, no ideology and no power can maintain absolute physical control of all the people, all of the time. To rule, they need to control not their bodies, but their minds and their souls. Tyranny wants loyalty, but it will settle for fear. And fear once internalized, destroys moral courage and replaces it with moral cowardice, eroding the strength of beliefs and ideas with the poisonous liquid of dread. The individual becomes an agent for the forces of tyranny, warning himself against any action that could get him into trouble. And then he is finally a slave.
In Stockholm Syndrome, hostages try to take control of their powerlessness by identifying with their captors. Under tyranny, entire populations can suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, paying devoted obeisance to the tyrants who murder them in numberless amounts. Because once oppression is internalized, it comes to seem like a benediction. The mind forged slave embraces his chains as a moral good, clings to them as an expression of all that is right and sensible in the world. He will even die for them. Because to a slave, freedom is more terrifying than death.
Recently we rediscovered the simple fact that even on Cable television, on a network where anything goes, one thing does not go. Depicting Mohammed. Even in a bear suit. That same iron law has been unofficially passed in country after country, where operas, newspapers, books, television programs have all been censored in order to avoid offending the people who might kill them if they were not censored. Speech and image have been blocked, cut out, snipped and silenced. Not because anyone has actually been killed, but because attempts have been made to kill some people. Which is apparently enough to make free speech go the way of the Dodo.
And that is exactly the point. They don't have to silence us, if we silence ourselves first. They don't have to oppress us, if we oppress ourselves first. They don't have to demand our surrender and submission, if we surrender and submit first. Islam, we love it. Sharia law, we'll gladly adopt it. Free speech, it has to have its limits. Women's rights, we'll have to walk a fine line. Freedom. Ha, what freedom. We've already traded that away for a nice set of multicultural bongos, a few curry shops, a glass of arack and a leatherbound copy of the Koran.
A free country is not one that nickel and dimes its birthright of freedom like a ten year old begging his parents to extend his curfew. It is a country whose people uncompromisingly refuse to surrender their freedoms, in the face of tyranny, torture and death. In the face of armies, tanks, secret police and all the forces of the world arrayed against them. And a country that compromises on its freedom is no longer free. It will know fear. It will know terror. It will be oppressed, and there will be no relief from that oppression, until they choose freedom over tyranny once again.
Fear is a reflex. Tyranny thrives on it, imbues it and feeds it. It kills randomly in order to spread that terror further. To create populations who never know when their day will come. When the suicide bomber, the black van, the sword and the secret police will come for them. Men will fight and die for freedom on the battlefield, but the struggle to remain defiant in a society where everyone is afraid all the time is a much harder fight. Yet overcoming that reflex to find safety by surrendering and collaborating, by learning to love Big Brother and embracing his ideals, is what it takes to be a free citizen of a free nation.
Pavlov, the formulator of the Pavlov Reflex, knew quite a lot about conditioning. His own experiments showed that fear could be conditioned by the ringing of a bell. Perhaps those insights were what enabled Pavlov to go on defying the Soviet Union for decades. At a time when most scientists and researchers were terrified out of their minds at a slip, a wrong word that might send them to a long death in the basements of the Lubyanka or an even longer death in the Gulags-- Pavlov would ride buses and lecture the passengers on the fascism of the Soviet regime. And while those scientists eventually ended up in the Gulags themselves, Pavlov died a natural death.
Where so many Russians had become conditioned to hear the ringing of the bell everywhere, and to search for it when they didn't, to be afraid all the time, and to love the thing they feared in order to have some measure of security-- Pavlov understood the reflex and rejected it. He chose to be a free man instead. And freedom comes from standing up to evil. From confronting it and defying it. Not from submitting to it and collaborating with it. From silencing yourself in the hope that you will no longer be afraid when the bell rings.
Today the bell is Islam. The bell is Mohammed. That two headed religion with its two faces, the Religion of Peace and the Religion of Death. And if you focus hard enough on it as the Religion of Peace, perhaps you won't notice the grinning skull on its other side. And so the bell rings, and the poodles run to their master, licking his hands and showering him with adoration. Oh yes Islam is a wonderful religion. It has so many human rights. Truly it is a paragon for us today. If only we could be as free as Muslims. If only.
And what is the source of Islam's power? Comedy Central reminds us of that again. Its power is simple enough. Its followers are more willing to kill those who resist, than those who are not its followers are willing to resist them.
No military victory. No superior technology. Not even sheer numbers, as there is still no First World country in which Muslims have officially become a majority. Their power comes from fear. From being prepared to murder anyone who disagrees with them. Until the mere threat alone, from a worthless source, is enough to badly panic a multibillion dollar corporation. The same corporation that would never take protests from Jews or Christians seriously, caves when a single Muslim on a previously obscure website threatens a beheading. What is the difference? The difference is murder. Muslims murder people who offend them. And having gained a reputation for that, they are quickly parlaying it into practical political power.
A nation's police, legal and military divisions are entirely useless if they cannot protect the exercise of such basic freedoms. Without that they become nothing more than glorified social service centers that enforce the law only when it isn't too dangerous for them. Only when it won't offend the wrong people. The wrong people being those who kill on casual provocation. And such a country, though it may have documents to its name attesting its freedoms, and endless ranks of judiciary appointees and professors debating those freedoms-- they mean nothing if the people cannot actually exercise those freedoms.
The Bush Administration's War on Terror did not actually put an end to fear of Islamic terrorism, instead it fed it with endless alerts and prolonged battles thousands of miles away, while in the heart of civilization, terror remained emboldened enough to wave its green scimitar decorated flag. That is why the assault on Salman Rushdie was in some ways a more significant strategic blow than 9/11. On 9/11 thousands of our fellow Americans died. But when we surrender to Islamic terror and intimidation, our freedom dies. For everyone. And the bell begins to ring.
Only by defying Islam, can we begin the process of taking back our freedoms. Only by speaking out, do our voices matter. Because they don't have to silence us, if we silence ourselves first.
No regime, no ideology and no power can maintain absolute physical control of all the people, all of the time. To rule, they need to control not their bodies, but their minds and their souls. Tyranny wants loyalty, but it will settle for fear. And fear once internalized, destroys moral courage and replaces it with moral cowardice, eroding the strength of beliefs and ideas with the poisonous liquid of dread. The individual becomes an agent for the forces of tyranny, warning himself against any action that could get him into trouble. And then he is finally a slave.
In Stockholm Syndrome, hostages try to take control of their powerlessness by identifying with their captors. Under tyranny, entire populations can suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, paying devoted obeisance to the tyrants who murder them in numberless amounts. Because once oppression is internalized, it comes to seem like a benediction. The mind forged slave embraces his chains as a moral good, clings to them as an expression of all that is right and sensible in the world. He will even die for them. Because to a slave, freedom is more terrifying than death.
Recently we rediscovered the simple fact that even on Cable television, on a network where anything goes, one thing does not go. Depicting Mohammed. Even in a bear suit. That same iron law has been unofficially passed in country after country, where operas, newspapers, books, television programs have all been censored in order to avoid offending the people who might kill them if they were not censored. Speech and image have been blocked, cut out, snipped and silenced. Not because anyone has actually been killed, but because attempts have been made to kill some people. Which is apparently enough to make free speech go the way of the Dodo.
And that is exactly the point. They don't have to silence us, if we silence ourselves first. They don't have to oppress us, if we oppress ourselves first. They don't have to demand our surrender and submission, if we surrender and submit first. Islam, we love it. Sharia law, we'll gladly adopt it. Free speech, it has to have its limits. Women's rights, we'll have to walk a fine line. Freedom. Ha, what freedom. We've already traded that away for a nice set of multicultural bongos, a few curry shops, a glass of arack and a leatherbound copy of the Koran.
A free country is not one that nickel and dimes its birthright of freedom like a ten year old begging his parents to extend his curfew. It is a country whose people uncompromisingly refuse to surrender their freedoms, in the face of tyranny, torture and death. In the face of armies, tanks, secret police and all the forces of the world arrayed against them. And a country that compromises on its freedom is no longer free. It will know fear. It will know terror. It will be oppressed, and there will be no relief from that oppression, until they choose freedom over tyranny once again.
Pavlov, the formulator of the Pavlov Reflex, knew quite a lot about conditioning. His own experiments showed that fear could be conditioned by the ringing of a bell. Perhaps those insights were what enabled Pavlov to go on defying the Soviet Union for decades. At a time when most scientists and researchers were terrified out of their minds at a slip, a wrong word that might send them to a long death in the basements of the Lubyanka or an even longer death in the Gulags-- Pavlov would ride buses and lecture the passengers on the fascism of the Soviet regime. And while those scientists eventually ended up in the Gulags themselves, Pavlov died a natural death.
Where so many Russians had become conditioned to hear the ringing of the bell everywhere, and to search for it when they didn't, to be afraid all the time, and to love the thing they feared in order to have some measure of security-- Pavlov understood the reflex and rejected it. He chose to be a free man instead. And freedom comes from standing up to evil. From confronting it and defying it. Not from submitting to it and collaborating with it. From silencing yourself in the hope that you will no longer be afraid when the bell rings.
Today the bell is Islam. The bell is Mohammed. That two headed religion with its two faces, the Religion of Peace and the Religion of Death. And if you focus hard enough on it as the Religion of Peace, perhaps you won't notice the grinning skull on its other side. And so the bell rings, and the poodles run to their master, licking his hands and showering him with adoration. Oh yes Islam is a wonderful religion. It has so many human rights. Truly it is a paragon for us today. If only we could be as free as Muslims. If only.
And what is the source of Islam's power? Comedy Central reminds us of that again. Its power is simple enough. Its followers are more willing to kill those who resist, than those who are not its followers are willing to resist them.
No military victory. No superior technology. Not even sheer numbers, as there is still no First World country in which Muslims have officially become a majority. Their power comes from fear. From being prepared to murder anyone who disagrees with them. Until the mere threat alone, from a worthless source, is enough to badly panic a multibillion dollar corporation. The same corporation that would never take protests from Jews or Christians seriously, caves when a single Muslim on a previously obscure website threatens a beheading. What is the difference? The difference is murder. Muslims murder people who offend them. And having gained a reputation for that, they are quickly parlaying it into practical political power.
The Bush Administration's War on Terror did not actually put an end to fear of Islamic terrorism, instead it fed it with endless alerts and prolonged battles thousands of miles away, while in the heart of civilization, terror remained emboldened enough to wave its green scimitar decorated flag. That is why the assault on Salman Rushdie was in some ways a more significant strategic blow than 9/11. On 9/11 thousands of our fellow Americans died. But when we surrender to Islamic terror and intimidation, our freedom dies. For everyone. And the bell begins to ring.
Only by defying Islam, can we begin the process of taking back our freedoms. Only by speaking out, do our voices matter. Because they don't have to silence us, if we silence ourselves first.
Comments
The main stream media is silent lest they offend. Your articles have become depressing, though brilliantly written. Time we pack and head to the insane asylum Israel.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
ReplyDeleteThe infuriating thing about the whole South Park/Comedy Central censorship is that writers Matt Stone and Trey Parker had absolutely no choice in having their work censored. They were willing to withstand the risks but the network surrendered.
Sheesh. Islam...ONLY Islam would take offense at something on South Park. The great thing about South Park is that you can't really take offense at anything because it's jabs at everyone and everything--starving Ethiopians, Scientology, gays, straights, fat people, Jews, Christians, old people, aliens, metrosexuals, Mormons etc.
Mohammed as a cuddly bear. That's some insult.
As for why they bleeped Kyle's little "I learned something" speech about fear and intimidation at the end, which had nothing to do with Mohammed or Islam I have no clue.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker deserve a LOT of credit for trying to stay true to their art and not cave in to threats.
The Left is not going to stand up to Islam.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of us will have to stand up and refuse to be silenced. If we give up our freedom to spare our pitiful lives, then our lives are truly worth nothing. A man enslaved in his soul will never really be free.
For in the truth, the issue is not about Islam. It is about us.
They can seek to release it uncensored on Youtube. There are ways around the cowardice and fear of the ComedyCentral leftists. Now is the time to take a stand.
ReplyDeleteDon't feel too much sympathy for Comedy Central.
ReplyDeleteI see over at Atlas Shrugs that the network offers a game called I.S.R.A.E.L. attacks, about an evil robot named Israel, who, apparently, attacks cute little fairies and pointy-eared elves.
They're not just being dhimmis; they might be on Islam's side. (As somebody over there pointed out, can you imagine a game called, "I.S.L.A.M. attacks?"
/Wing Manion
Norm: Yes, that's what the writers are trying to do. Thanks to You Tube snippets of the show are already on You Tube.
ReplyDeleteUnless Google decided to cave in to Islam censored material can see the light of day.
The continuing in your face attitude of Muslims and the quite natural opposition to Islam, is really beginning to frighten me.
ReplyDeleteRev Patrick Sookhdeo in his most recent publication claims very persuasively, Muslim integration in the West is impossible. It is prohibited by the teachings of the Qur’an and the ministry of Muhammad. In these the Muslim is always regarded as superior to the non-Muslim.
Such a situation will lead to continuing and ever bitter invective hurled across the religious divide – Muslims vs others. This increasing hostility could lead to a third world war or civil war, has been brought about by the total ignorance of the political elite, who have allowed in tens of millions of Muslims into Europe, thus forcing people of totally different cultures to live together cheek by jowl – it is an unmitigated disaster. Far better for everyone’s safety and peace of mind, that Muslims live in Islamic countries, while Christians in Muslim countries are offered residence in the West. That way we can respect each other without the ever-growing possibility of a general war or worse, a civil war, which will leave tens of millions of innocents killed, and eventual “ethnic” cleansing.
This was predictable from the moment that Muslims were allowed into the West - that freedom of speech would, sooner or later, be under threat. And so it was - Salman Rushdie was the first bell that tolled the death of the West.
No one ever bothered about these matters until Muslim immigrants took offence at our freedom to be rude about any religion, and most particularly about Islam and its founder Mohammed. Though western governments are trying to pretend that this type of behaviour is common to all religions, reality is that they are trying to cover for their gross negligence, if not downright treason, in letting in millions of Muslims into the West.
Who stands up to this type of oppression?
ReplyDeleteOnly Free Men.
Are there any left?
Or has the politically correct movement castrated them all?
We shall see...
Islam- the satanic cult of mass murder, mass forced conversion and gangrape- is the root cause of most of the problems of world. In any part of the world they reach, they start breeding faster than rabbits to gain control of that area, they live in their ghettos and never integrate with the mainstream and what is more, then they demand favours from governments for their backwardness which is due to their own practices. When they reach 15-20%, they start demanding a separate nation and waging jihad for it. When they reach majority, forced mass conversions, riots and arsons in and about their ghettos starts. And after reaching 70-80%, they start cleansing the country of Kafirs by mass persecution, murders and rape (example- Bangladesh). Open-minded Europeans and Americans blundered by treating the Muslim serpents as fellow human beings, allowed them to settle in their countries and now are paying the price! In India, we can see the effects- already they've reached 15-20%. Do you think 26/11 was perpetrated without the help of local Muslims? Open your eyes and see, the truth is there for everyone to see. In India, alas, we have a whole mass of 'pseudo-intellectual' pseudo-secular Muslim appeasers and sycophants, who have made blatant lying, Hindu-bashing, distortion of facts and Muslim glorification the only mission of their lives. But you can't turn the day into night by just tightly closing your eyes! Don't believe me? Go watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTV1spgb1-k. Go to http://www.faithfreedom.org/, http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ and http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html. Find out what happened in Lebanon and Malaysia. Find out about Kashmiri Pandits, Bangladesh. And, dear 'liberals', tell me were Beslan massacre, Beirut bombings and 9/11 in response to Gujarat riots? Mind you, once they are finished with getting rid of us unbelievers, they will turn upon you and kill you also, unless you convert or pay Jaziya and surrender your womenfolk for 'comforting' of the tired 'holy warriors'!
ReplyDeletePost a Comment