We have been living and investing in a low-inflation environment with falling interest rates for more than 20 years. Currently, all the evidence indicates we are headed for higher inflation and higher interest rates soon.
In his Ramadan speech in August to an audience of Muslim leaders, President Barack Obama chose to lecture Americans on freedom of religion. His comments were both insulting to Americans and incongruous. Indeed, Islam demonstrates daily in dozens of countries that it has no concept of religious freedom.
Instead of lecturing Americans, Mr. Obama could have been factual about America and Islam. He could have contrasted the freedom Muslims enjoy in America with the oppression they experience in Muslim countries. He could also have spoken of the plight of non-Muslims in Muslim countries. He could have challenged his audience of Muslim leaders to call upon Muslim countries to give all religions the same rights they give Islam. Unfortunately, perhaps because of a predisposition towards Islam or an unfavorable view of the United States, Mr. Obama chose to lecture Americans.
While it is remarkable that Mr. Obama lectured the world’s freest country on freedom, it is even more remarkable to hear American Muslims talk about freedom of religion as if Islam embraces the concept. There is no freedom of religion in Islam. American Muslims are free thanks to the Constitution of the United States which gives Muslims in America freedoms that Islam denies everyone wherever it is dominant.
Supporters of the mosque project in lower Manhattan, like Mr. Obama, argue that it is a First Amendment issue because Islam is a religion. This is a simplistic argument devoid of historical context and made in a vacuum. While it has a religious tradition, Islam has been and continues to be a great deal more political than religious. In most Muslim countries, Islam exerts immense political authority and it is often impossible to distinguish between religious and state matters.
To assuage legitimate fears about terrorism, the mosque supporters argue that Imam Rauf, the mosque project leader, practices moderate Islam. Talks of moderate Islam confirm a grave misconception. There is no such thing as moderate Islam. There is Islam. What seems to constitute moderate Islam is an apparent acceptance of the separation of church and state by some Muslims living in Western countries and, to limited degrees, by even fewer Muslim living in Muslim countries.
The “moderate” Islam argument raises a key question about freedom of religion and mosques. Would the First Amendment protect al Qaeda or Taliban mosques on U.S. soil? If not, the mosque debate is not as much about religion as it is about politics. And Islam is both religious and political. Most Muslims countries have not even attempted to separate religion and politics. Most Muslims would argue that such separation violates Islam itself.
Religions are deeply rooted in their founders’ lives and believers often seek inspiration in the founders’ actions. Thus, Christians who want to emulate Christ will strive for peace; when attacked they will “turn the other cheek”; they will not judge “lest they be judged”; they will “love their enemies and pray for their persecutors.” While Christians have, throughout history, committed unspeakable brutalities in Jesus’ name and in violation of His message, Christ never engaged in violence, not even to save his own life.
By contrast, Muslims seeking inspiration in Mohamed’s life will learn that Mohamed repeatedly engaged in jihad–holy war against non-Muslims. Now, many Muslims define jihad as a spiritual struggle. While that may be true in certain contexts, it does not change the fundamental meaning of jihad. Jihad is war; jihad is bloodshed. It is, after all, with sword in hand that Mohamed established Islam. And Mohamed used the sword unsparingly.
Raids on towns and oases, rather than Sermons on the Mount, were the foundational impetus of early Islam. Mohamed used Islam to politically unite Arabs. And Islam turned desert tribes into conquering tidal waves that spread out of Arabia into the Christian Middle East, and westward into Christian North Africa, northward into Christian Spain, Portugal and France; and eastward into Persian lands and beyond. Islam’s expansion stopped because Muslim armies were defeated in battles. Throughout this expansion, mujahedeen–Muslims engaged in jihad–were often as brutal towards conquered populations as Crusaders were towards Muslims and Jews three centuries later.
History clearly shows that early Islam was a conquering political movement immersed in religious fervor. Islam provided religious zeal to Muslim soldiers and Muslim armies provided more territories for Islam to expand into. It was a symbiotic relationship rooted in jihad–in bloodshed.
Today’s so-called Islamic terrorists see themselves as modern mujahedeen who kill infidels in order to expand Islam just as Prophet Mohamed did. Accordingly, until Muslim religious leaders unequivocally repudiate Mohamed’s bloodshed as un-Islamic and as sins of the prophet, Islam will continue to turn Muslims in search of inspiration into mujahedeen. Moreover, Islam will continue to be a threat to freedom wherever it takes root. The mere fact that there are no free Muslim countries denounces any pretension that Islam is peace or that it nurtures freedom.
Against this reality, it can be argued that the First Amendment ought to grant Islam no more protection than it would have Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, had McVeigh chosen to preach his religious views while building his bomb.
Given opportunity and time, Islam will use the First Amendment to kill the Constitution.
-Joseph Beaudoin holds degrees in economics and finance, and worked in the banking and investment industries for 20 years. He is a contributor to Reflections.
