Dakota Beacon

It always happens - as soon as one of our local “thinkers” (most recently Elliot Glassheim) scolds us for having an adverse opinion of Islam, an event takes place which should instruct them as to why we are better off without it.

Syed Farook was a textbook “success”, a Muslim American who had made it in our world: a good job (many of us would like to have), a young wife, a new baby, a nice car (better than many of ours), supportive co-workers, a workplace environment which catered to all of his special Muslim needs, including paid time of for prayer five times a day, a nice home.  One would think he could live with this.  But he and his wife hated us.  They hated us enough to fill their home with weapons, ammunition, bombs.  One wonders where they found room in it for all the gifts they took home from the baby shower his co-workers held for them. And then, symbolically, as these same friends and co-workers were gathered for a Christmas celebration, the Farooks murdered as many of them as they could.

Now, in days and weeks to come, we’ll be told it was our fault.  Our fault for being Americans.  Our fault for celebrating Christmas.  Our fault for not joining Syed in his prayers to Allah.  Our fault for breathing the air.  No doubt “guns” will be blamed.  Maybe Christmas will be blamed.  Maybe depictions of the Nativity stirred them up.  Maybe Santa.  But it will never be Islam.

The truth, of course, is that it IS Islam that is to blame.  Not “radical” Islam.  Anyone who reads the text of the Qur’an will learn to fear those who live by its teaching.  Not “radical” interpretations, not “aberrations”.  The Qur’an itself directs Muslims to perpetrate violence, to lie, to kill, to maim, to subjugate in the mission of spreading Islam.  It teaches its followers total intolerance of others - even of other Muslims who are perceived as not being observant enough of Islamic teachings and law.  This view is eternally incompatible with American law and values.

We cannot accept or accommodate Islam because it is against everything we believe as Americans and against the way Americans live.  

And by the way, Mr. Glassheim, the “Islamic State” does have territory under its control, it has systems and protocols in place to enforce and pursue its stated objective - a worldwide caliphate.  It has laws and prosecutors.  It has an army.  It has guns (we ran them, remember Benghazi?).  Let’s just go ahead and call it what it is - a dangerous enemy state created in the vacuum we left when we helped to depose other leaders, and one which we must find a way to defeat.  As such, we must cease to bring its “refugees” into America.  They must be resettled in Muslim countries, not the West.  As to our “rigorous” vetting system, we all know there is no vetting system.  It is, according to the experts whose job it is to do so, impossible to vet them.  

For now it is enough to recognize the enemy.  The enemy is Islam and its faithful practitioners, whether in Lahore, Baghdad, Damascus, San Bernardino, Chattanooga or Fort Hood.  Beware - especially if you celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas, because if you do, according the Muslim teaching, you are “people of the book” and a prime target for terrorism.

So - shall we reject our own peaceful religious practices?  Hide the creche, the Christmas tree, the star, the menorah?  Shall we whisper “Merry Christmas”?  Or forego the wish altogether for fear of irritating these so-called Americans who put Mohammed above civil order and American law?  I would say, rather, those who cannot abide our Constitution should make their homes elsewhere.