Lynching Herman Cain

Sultan Knish

Herman Cain is being lynched for taking a stand. And the people doing it are Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives. Commentators who complain about the "race card" are eagerly laying down the "bigot card" because Cain did what few candidates are ready to do. He clearly spelled out the problem with Islamic involvement in American public life.

If as some insist, Cain's campaign was brought down by his statements about Islam-- then Republicans have accepted the Dhimmi Principle that the viability of a candidate depends on taking a moderate position on Islam. A moderate position being skeptical, but not particularly confrontational. A position that easily leads back to that old "Handful of Extremists" saw.

All this comes down to is an Islamic vetting of presidential candidates. And everyone attacking Cain over it has given CAIR their victory.

All the little condescending pieces on how Cain was a good candidate until he went a little too far off the reservation deserve a head pat from a black gloved hand. What better victory for the Islamists than to have conservative pundits falsely attribute Cain's campaign problems to his opposition to Islam? What did Cain say that was so wrong? He questioned how Muslims could reconcile a theocracy with participation in American public life. And he came out on the side of communities fighting back against mosque projects. And that's bigotry. Don't ask why it's bigotry. It is. And if you don't believe me, go ask CNN or the Washington Post.

Playing the bigot card is cheap and easy. It's free. And value free.

The real question we should be asking, is it permissible to question the bona fides of members of an ideology that has murdered millions around the world and thousands in America? Can we actually ask whether a theology that calls for the subjugation of the world disqualifies you from taking an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States?

There are two obligations here and they are incompatible with one another. We cannot look into the soul of another person, but the contradiction between the two must be asked and answered. And if we cannot do that, then we have already given up freedom of speech and thought, and exchanged it for the conformity of political correctness. So we say that after a Muslim kills he may be criticized, but not before the fact. And close our eyes to the origin of the act.

Is there a "Good Islam" and a "Bad Islam". The Islam of decent people and of evil terrorists. But where do we find this "Good Islam"?

Not in Pakistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia. What about Indonesia, with its genocides, Malaysia with its church burnings or Egypt with its persecution of the Copts? Forget Muslim countries then, what about countries with Muslim minorities. Nigeria, Thailand and the Philippines. How many heads would you like to see.

Why must we ask is the Muslim world less pluralistic, less free and more intolerant than the countries where they are demanding the right to impose their theocratic legal system on others. And what exactly will happen when they gain that power?

Can you imagine that America will retain its freedoms under a president who believes that the Koran is the writ of heaven, that non-Muslims are inferior, that women are subhuman and that only laws based on the Koran are just?

Can you imagine that police chiefs who believe that women cause their own rapes will protect rape victims? Why even bother asking, when cabbies who believe that seeing eye dogs drive away angels refuse to carry the blind.

When cartoonists go into hiding and Muslim soldiers open fire on their fellow troops, there is no serious debate to be had over what happens when the Koran and the laws of the United States intersect with one another. And the results are bloody.

If religious and ethnic minorities are persecuted in the Muslim world, and if even religious and ethnic majorities are set on by Muslim minorities in the non-Muslim world, then how hard is to figure out what comes next for America? Do we really need a map or a diagram. Should we go once again to the Ground Zero Mosque to understand how much contempt and how much deception is woven into the campaign to subjugate us. To wipe away our laws and freedoms and replace them with the ravings of a 7th century bandit who murdered and raped his way across the desert, turning a multicultural society into a fanatical wasteland.

It is easier not to deal with these uncomfortable questions. To assent to CNN and the WaPo and all the other outlets of the manufactured consensus. To nod your head and say, "Cain went too far. There may be some bad eggs out of Mecca, but we shouldn't be bigots."

So let's talk about bigotry. Talk to the Copts of Egypt, the Christians of Pakistan and Malaysia, or the Jews of Iran. Learn about bigotry from them and what happens when political power is vested in the hands of members of a cult that preaches the absolute political dominance of their theocracy.

Do you want bigotry? The cemeteries of the world are filled with the victims of the Koran. And their number grows year by year. Go the graves of the murdered and the dead, and mumble to them about bigotry. Tell them that singling out Muslims isn't nice. It's not proper. It's not the American Way-- or that flavor of the American Way cooked up by liberals around 1965.

When Orwell wrote 1984, few Americans imagined being too afraid to speak their minds. Now it's 2011 and we are learning to be afraid. And when someone stands up to speak what we know is the truth, then we shiver and bring out the rope. We lynch him as a sacrifice. The way that Europeans denounce Israel, and prosecute Koran burning. An offering for the Dhimmi altar.

This isn't about Cain, who has backtracked his earlier comments. This is about cowardice. Not physical cowardice, but the cowardice of the mind. The timidity of stepping beyond a reasonably safe opinion and following it to its logical conclusion. Of even raising the subject. And the glee of destroying the man who steps slightly to the right of you. Who dares to say what you do not.

Should we be banning Muslims from public office or keeping mosques out of communities? Certainly we should be able to have that question, without cries of "bigot" coming from people who should know better.

If nothing else, the butcher's bill we have paid in the last decade gives us the right to ask those questions. The dead on our side and the killers on theirs means that we have paid for the right to ask those questions in blood. And we go on paying for it with unrecognized sacrifices and unspoken terror. A conspiracy unmasked there, a bomb plot exposed here. An assault there, a rape here.

But will we ask those questions? The Constitution won for us Freedom of Speech, but what worth is it if isn't used. It won for us Freedom of Religion, but what use is it if we allow that freedom to be taken away from us by a theocracy that does not recognize the existence of such a thing. There is no need to take a red pencil and X out any parts of the Bill of Rights. By allowing them to fall into disuse, by destroying the reputations of anyone who makes use of them, we will have accomplished the same thing.

It is startling to me sometimes to see how much bolder the Europeans are than us. What would the condemners of Cain make of Geert Wilders and Oriana Fallaci, or Brits like Pat Condell. Europe may be under siege, but it still has men and women who rise up and speak the truth. And we who have Freedom of Speech enshrined in the Constitution are prisoners of politically correct timidity.

Maybe your back has to be up against the wall to be able to speak out that way. And maybe we must wait for our own No Go Zones, and our own Islamic Councils. To see firsthand that we are losing the country. Maybe when that day comes it will be the shushers of Cain who will be shushed and the ridiculers of a man who dared to speak the truth who will be humbled . When speaking out in the face of terror is no longer a crime and when challenging theocracy is no longer out of sorts.

I would hope and pray that it doesn't take that. That we need not be schooled to desperation before we are allowed to ask whether we can retain our freedom under the rule of a creed that calls every man a slave.