Counterterrorism Blog

I have some thoughts on Andrew Cochran’s latest post, in which he expresses annoyance with Bill Maher’s recent comments about the Pope. Unlike Andrew, I come at this issue as a proud secular humanist, and someone who has chosen not to bring any religion into my household, lest my wife divorce me.

Andrew’s post refers to the recent exchange on Counterterrorism Blog between Fahana Ali and me, over whether the Danish editors should apologize for running the anti-Islam cartoons. I disagreed with Farhana that we are doomed unless we avoid the temptation to ridicule religion, at a time when there is a legitimate threat that people offended by this ridicule will violently act out on their grievances. The better course, I believe, is to refuse to accede to threats, and to support those like Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirschi Ali who refuse to be intimidated. So it is with Bill Maher, a guy I often want to strangle because he reminds me of so many nihilists I have known in my life. I might find him obnoxious, but would nonetheless support him if he was violently targeted by religious fanatics.

Andrew’s post makes it clear he does not qualify as a religious fanatic. His view of Bill Maher is similar to mine, though mine is based on the sense that Maher seems not believe in anything other than that America is an evil empire, and his comments about the the Pope are undoubtedly an extension of his membership in this milieu.

What I find amazing is how much anti-Christian animus is tolerated, by those who claim that Muslim “perceptions” should require us to pull our punches. Two recent books by liberals illustrate this phenomenon. Here are some quotes from those books. To show this double standard, I have replaced the references to Christianity with Islam:

What ______ wants is a cultural revolution. He’s trying to train a generation of leaders, unscathed by secularism, who will gain political power in order to subsume everything - entertainment, law, government and education - to Islam, or their version of it. That might sound like a fantasy, but it’s worth pondering what ______ has achieved so far …. Islamism rejects the idea of government religious neutrality. The movement argues that the absence of religion in public is itself a religion - the malign faith in secular humanism - that must, in the interest of fairness, be balanced with equal deference to the Koran…That doesn’t mean that non-believers will be forced to convert. They’ll just have to learn their place…Most radical Islamic theology - a very strict Shari’ah that mandates the death penalty for homosexuality and apostacy, has little appeal to outsiders and is controversial even among moderate Muslims…Talk of persecution is common. [They] worry that one day in the future, the American government might start rounding up Muslims and executing them…Yet there are totalitarian elements in the Islamic movement, particular its attacks on decadent internal enemies and its drive to replace society’s apprehension of reality with its parallel version. As Islamism gains influence, it is changing our country in troubling ways, and its leaders say they’ve only just begun… Those who aren’t Muslim - or who aren’t the right kind of Muslim - can never be full citizens of the country the Islamists want to create…Thus for those who value secular society, apprehending the threat posed by Islamism is tricky. It’s kind of like being a lobster in a pot, with the water heating up so slowly that you don’t notice the moment at which it starts to kill you.

* * *

Islamism…seeks to politicize faith. It has, like all fascist movements, a belief in magic along with leadership adoration and a strident call for moral and physical supremacy of a master race … America becomes, in this militant Islamism, an agent of Allah, and all political and intellectual opponents of Islamic leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan … Woman will be removed from the workforce to stay at home, and all those doomed insufficiently Muslim will be denied citizenship … The only legitimate voices in this state will be Muslim. All others will be silenced.”

As I said, the authors of these two quotes are liberals - Michelle Goldberg of Salon in her book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism and Chris Hedges, formerly of the New York Times, in American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, respectively. Their actual quotes contain references to Christianity where I replaced them (in bold) with references to Islam. With these changes, their words would certainly raise accusations of Islamophobia, as my writings occasionally do. That they can get away with such language in relation to American Christians without any protests, I suppose, proves Andrew’s point. Elite U.S. opinionmakers can criticize Christianity without worrying about the reaction of their fancy friends, and without the fear that they will not be invited to tony cocktail parties or Martha's Vineyard. These same words, if used in relation to Muslims, would resonate more in the American heartland and with readers of FrontPage Magazine. My bet is that Goldberg and Hedges would be disturbed by this observation, and they would dispute that others' fears about radical Islam are as legitimate as their concerns with Christian nationalism.

Where does this leave me with Andrew’s post? I would rather have the option not to watch Bill Maher than have the government or outraged Catholics make that decision for me, especially if the latter would also mean that I could not listen to most talk radio these days or that some of my readers may follow the lead and organize a boycott of my ideas. Here, I agree with Michelle Goldberg: it’s better to err on the side of freedom of expression. As in most First Amendment disputes, the answer to speech that makes religious minorities feel bad is more speech.

Still, the double standards - the parallel universe that exists within America these days - does not get as much attention as it should. It is a dynamic on display in Eric Lichtblau's new book, Bush's Law, which argues that the Department of Justice is hopelessly corrupt and far too secretive and afraid of public accountability. That this argument comes from a reporter from the New York Times, which has suffered through the Jason Blair scandal and refuses to disclose its confidential sources to the world, for legitimate reasons - is ironic. Those real misfires described by Lichtblau - which are a fraction of the "scandals" he lists in Bush's Law- can be expected in an organization with 90,000 employees. After all, the Times is not that big, and it still had at least one very bad apple. Few have seized on the Blair scandal as a sign that the Times is dangerously trying to remake American journalism, as Lichtblau claims about the post-9/11 Justice Department and American criminal justice. I will address that particular adventure in the parallel universe in a separate article. Stay tuned.

The views in this article are not those of the Department of Justice.