Saturday, March 24, 2018

The gunman said Allahu akbar

I noted in Nov. 2017:
Wajahat Ali writes in the NY Times:
Allahu akbar. It’s Arabic for “God is greatest.” Muslims, an eccentric tribe with over a billion members, say it several times in our five daily prayers. ... I say “Allahu akbar” out loud more than 100 times a day.
It also means "Allah is greater than the Christian God" and "Kill the infidels".
But now the NY Times refuses to say that, and says instead:
About 50 people were in the market in Trèbes at the time of the attack, Mr. Molins said, although he could not specify how many were taken hostage. The gunman shouted “God is great” in Arabic as he entered, witnesses said.

“Saying that he was ready to die for Syria, he called for the liberation of his brothers, before shooting at a client and a store employee, who both died on the spot,” said Mr. Molins, speaking at a news conference in Carcassonne.
No, the gunman said Allahu akbar. It is what a billion Muslims say every day, and it means to kill the infidels who believe in an inferior Christian God or any other non-Mohammedan belief.

The NY Times is sugar-coating this for you because it is run by others who don't like Christians either.

NY Times columnist David Brooks writes:
Now we are at a place where it is commonly assumed that your perceptions are something that come to you through your group, through your demographic identity. How many times have we all heard somebody rise up in conversation and say, “Speaking as a Latina. …” or “Speaking as a queer person. …” or “Speaking as a Jew. …”?

Now, when somebody says that I always wonder, What does that mean? After you’ve stated your group identity, what is the therefore that follows? ...

I’m a columnist and I’m supposed to come to a conclusion, but I’m confused.

Our whole education system is based on the idea that we train individuals to be critical thinkers. Our political system is based on the idea that persuasion and deliberation lead to compromise and toward truth. The basis of human dignity is our capacity to make up our own minds. One of the things I’ve learned in a lifetime in journalism is that people are always more unpredictable than their categories.

But the notion that group membership determines opinion undermines all that. If it’s just group against group, deliberation is a sham, beliefs are just masks groups use to preserve power structures, and democracy is a fraud. The epistemological foundation of our system is in surprisingly radical flux.
White Christian cis-gendered straight men are in the last group to think for themselves. Brooks is Jewish, and recites stereotypical Jewish opinions. Ditto for Latinas, queers, Mohammedans, and all the others who have infiltrated our democracy. Yes, democracy is a fraud if we let all those people immigrate into the USA.

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