In the free West, we tolerate a wide diversity of ideas. That tolerance is a healthy strength. But it is also very confusing and painful. We always seem to be in a struggle to try to decide who is right. But in the wide view, our back-and-forth arguing over competing ideas is actually an expression of our unity. Our ability to argue, to contrast and compare ideas peacefully but competitively, is the big thing that separates us from Islam, as a way of life.
Sure, we disagree a lot, even with people on our own side. But the exchange in the conversation is often really valuable, to refine our policies to become more widely accepted. At worst, if we are careful listeners, we discover how horrible our opponents think we are.
But let’s compare this approach in our society versus Islam. We need to get it through our heads that this is a civilizational war. This is a true clash of civilizations. A similar Marxist threat also exists. But perhaps it is not as advanced as the kind of war that Islam wages against us.
In our battles of ideas, there are different levels that people disagree on. You can have a civil debate about, for instance, transgender bathroom laws. On the fringe Left, revolutionary violence aborts such debate. So we must be vigilant against those people. But our unity remains among those of us who are willing to debate such ideas, rooted in free speech values.
Sometimes, it feels like we get bogged down in these things that are ultimately very meaningless. But in the end, we adopt some change ideas, and we discard others. The core of our civilization model is tolerance to negotiate through that balance of our competing free wills. That moral value, our willingness to negotiate all our differences of opinion, is what brings us all together, as one people, with one unified way of life.
Yes, that endlessly frustrating negotiation is a distraction from the actual existential war which threatens us. But those of us who debate and vote in good faith are all doing the same thing as each other—We are finding our unity, in our own freedoms of thought and expression. We reach our negotiated consent to live in peace with each other most successfully when we maintain a proper balance of our powers, as our founders engineered for us. Our shared strength is in those checks and balances which keep one side from destroying the other. It actually unites us as a free people; and so it is precisely what separates us from the Islamic way of settling all issues.
A challenge we face is how to effectively explain why Islam is different. We end up with leftist schools and textbooks which ignorantly promote ridiculous fantasy versions of Islam—ones that would never be accepted by any adherent Muslims in an Islamic land under Sharia.
For an American or Canadian, go to an Islamic country and try to practice Islam in the way that so-called Muslims here fraudulently pose with it. In America, they can hide behind our Constitution. The freedoms they enjoy here—to avoid the rules of Sharia—only exist for them here because we are a free people. Our shared consent to live under a fair system of self-governance with each other is the exact opposite of Sharia. And that is why Sharia is the actual existential threat we face. Sharia is the legal mechanism for a way of life we would abhor. Sharia is completely alien to our core values of how we choose to engage with each other.
People get confused because they see Muslims in the West who clearly break Sharia rules all the time. They appear to just do their own thing, without consequence. But what people need to understand is that there are levels of Sharia adherence, depending on where a Muslim is.
There are people here who are identified as Muslims, only because their parents are Muslims. They live here in a country where they are not going to be at any risk from the Islamic government; or perhaps also, their parents don’t care much. They still cling to the cultural identity they know. But their example does not express Islam, as a doctrine.
And on the opposite end, Muslims wear niqabs on the streets in New York City. They deeply believe in it and are deeply committed to Shaira. But that wide range of behavior is a result of our own system of freedom. It does not come from any concept of choice and tolerance within Islam. That is the key point that people need to understand—there is still just one Sharia; there is one Islam.
The differences you find among Muslims are not even relevant. Among over a billion people, they are all people who think different things. I never make an attempt to say that every Muslim believes anything in their heart. I don’t know what they each might think or feel. I cannot know that.
But what I can know is that Islam was built as a total control system. That is why it has been so successful. Of course Islam has its divides—the Sunni versus Shi’a split. But those divisions do not infer that any part of Islam contains our own values of humanity and freedom. The sects all uphold the supremacy of the Quran and the Sunnah of Muhammad.
By definition, a Muslim is one who believes that Quran is the word of Allah, and that Muhammad is his Messenger. Those fundamental things are what all adherent Muslims agree on, even as they are killing each other (and us) for not being properly obedient slaves of Allah.
Americans will argue about this or that policy. They will endlessly anger and frustrate each other with competing ideas and harsh tactics. But Americans generally maintain a fair and balanced system that keeps us all involuntary order. Our laws and politicians are of our own making. If we are lucky, we will keep our right to bear arms, so that no group of us will weaponize government against others of us.
But with all our troubles in getting along together, we are not slaves. We do not make each other suffer and die by any horrific, ancient commands of a murky, supreme being who is not human like us. We are not at the mercy of the lifestyle whims of an ancient, devious warlord who lacked any compassion for our failures to submit according to his own “excellent” examples. With all of our own squabbles, we live freely among each other. Our diversity is often nasty when we collide. But our shared ability to bounce off those collisions, and to still live and work among each other in a negotiated tolerance, is our unity. The submissive slavery of Islam, on the other hand, is simply against that freedom and tolerance. It does not belong among us.
