The
Criminalizing of Islam
Does our First Amendment protect the
so-called religion of Islam in this American
Constitutional Republic ? For years I have been saying no! Now I have evidence that demands a verdict. Islam
may already be illegal under current law.
Another point of view...
By de Andréa
June 9, 2012
I have been studying the Constitution for longer than
I care to remember as long as some of you have been alive, but recently within
the last couple of years, I have taken a course in constitutional law from the University of Hillsdale
in Hillsdale Michigan . (I offered this course “Free” to my readers
in an article titled Torch
The U.S. Constitution, dated April 28 2012.) I still have no official law degree but I do
have a little more legal standing and certainly more power in my punch…Sometimes we must stand in a different place to get a another point of view.
This is
extremely important
If you value your country and your freedom as I do, I
would encourage you, not only to read this rather lengthy article (8 pages),
but to study and research the information in it. If necessary, take a couple of days or a
weekend to digest this and discuss it with your friends. I would welcome any comments and/or criticisms
of its content, especially from lawyers.
One might think criminalizing or banning the
so-called religion of Islam would be more difficult in the United States than it
would be in… let’s say, Europe or Australia, all because of our First
Amendment. But it may not be ‘because’
of the first Amendment at all. Our First
Amendment may instead prove to be our best ally after all. It may only depend on whether or not we have
the guts to turn our back on the deception of political correctness and just think
outside the box. In the end, our very
survival may depend on making that decision.
The Muslims deceptively hide their agenda of supremacy and their oppressive
world domination behind our First Amendment and we ignorantly let them get away
with it.
On the surface of the First Amendment it seems to be
a straightforward
formulation protecting “we the people” and barring the
legislative branch of the government from taking any action to create a state
religion, or barring congress from interfering in the practice of any religion,
or anything one arbitrarily identifies as a religion or any practice that is
part of a religion. But this’ my friend,
may not completely true, either legally or historically. Now, as Paul Harvey used to say, you will hear
the rest of the story,
A little
history
The founders of our Republic were British citizens -
and well aware of the way in which religion could stoke political
violence. In the late 18th Century,
Cromwell for example was not yet ancient history. Neither were the Covenanters nor the
Gunpowder Plot. While they did not
anticipate specifically the likes of an Islamic terrorist attack or Islamic Jihad
on’ and in’ America ,
they understood historically that ‘religion and violence’ could and would eventually
intersect.
That of course was one of the reasons for barring a State Church ,
to avoid giving the government or any central authority, control over religion,
a situation that had resulted in much of the religious violence in the United Kingdom . By giving independence to religion, but not
political power, the First Amendment sought to avoid a repeat of the same
ugliness that had caused centuries of wars in Europe
and elsewhere.
This of course is a key point. The “separation of church and state” even
though not specifically in the Constitution was
understood to protect the integrity of both and avoid power struggles
between opposing religious groups. There
was to be no state religion, the government could not leverage religious
authority, and religious factions could not begin civil wars in a struggle to
gain power or autonomy. For the most
part it worked. That is until now!
In recent history, the only real support for this
approach, involved the Mormon Church, an ugly fight on both sides that has been
mostly buried under the weight of time. More
recently is Scientology, regarded as a cult it evolved into what the followers
called a church that demanded its own autonomy and did its best to make war on
the government and its critics.
And then
Islam cometh:
The first problem with using the First Amendment in
defense of Islam-is that Islam’s goal, agenda and purpose, is to violate the
First Amendment. Islam's widely stated’
goal is to become a State Religion, and to replace freedom and the protection
of our Constitution with the oppression and supremacy of Sharia, not only in America ,
but around the world.
Sharia has been making steady advances in Africa and
parts of Asia .
Muslim Majorities in the UK
have said that they want Sharia law. Several
years ago now; leading British figures such as the Archbishop
of Canterbury have supported the introduction of Islamic law into the British
legal system. And so recently Sharia
has now been officially’ adopted in the U.K. putting it on the downhill side of losing any
freedom it once had, racing toward the despotism of yet another Islamic state Domestic advocates for Sharia, such as Noah
Feldman, are pushing for the normalization of Sharia law in the United States
as well. Sharia would in effect by its
very practice, turn Islam of America into a de-facto government established religion
in the United States ,
itself a violation of the First Amendment.
Furthermore Islam abridges the remaining portions of
the First Amendment, which protect Freedom of Speech and of the Press. Islam rejects both of these. To protect Islamic rights therefore – it
would deprive non-Muslims of freedom of religion- and both Muslims and
non-Muslims the freedom of speech and of the press.
These are not hypothetical scenarios my friend, the
Mohammed cartoon controversy in Denmark
for example, has demonstrated exactly how this will work. So did the persecution of Salman Rushdie. To accept Islam as a religion protected under
the First Amendment, is to reject freedom of speech and religion ... in the
same way that accepting Communism or Nazism meant rejecting freedom of speech
and religion. Islam and the Constitution
of the United States
are incompatible in the same way that Communism and/or Nazism are incompatible with the Constitution.
The Founders sought to protect religious freedoms; at
no point did they seek to protect religious terrorism. And Supreme Courts throughout American
history have found that the First Amendment does not provide license for
significant lawbreaking.
That is why polygamy of the Mormons has been
established as illegal in the United
States .
Having to choose between religious freedom and the rights and dignity of
women and children-America correctly chose the latter. One must ask themselves then why is the
polygamy of Islam not specifically banned.
In 1785, James Madison, considered to be the Father
of the Constitution, wrote, "We
hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth that religion or the duty which we owe
our Creator and the manner of discharging
it can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or
violence."
Yet Islamic history and recent events in Eurabia
demonstrate that Islam is indeed directed and spread by force and violence. Upholding the right of Islam to force its
statues and views on Americans violates Madison 's
fundamental and undeniable truth.
In 1802, Jefferson
wrote his opinion and explanation for the First Amendment to the Danbury Baptist
Association. This incidentally is what
is ignorantly used for the bases of the so-called constitutional law of
separation of church and state - the quote is as follows. "Believing with you that religion is a
matter which lies solely between man and his God, and that he owes account to
none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of
government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign
reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that the
legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of
separation between Church and State." Thereby defining exactly what he meant by the
wall separating Church and State.
There is a key phrase in this statement, and that is’,
“that
the legitimate powers of government reach actions
only, and not opinions”. This statement was used as a legal principle
by the Supreme Court in 1878 in the case of Reynolds vs. the United States . Reynolds had been charged with bigamy and
claimed that his faith required him to engage in polygamy. The Court found that while Reynolds had the
right to believe that polygamy was his duty, he did not have the right to practice
it-thus upholding Jefferson 's distinction between
action and belief.
As the court put it; “In our opinion, the statute
immediately under consideration is within the legislative power of Congress. It is constitutional and valid as prescribing
a rule of action for all those residing in the Territories, and in places over which
the United States
have exclusive control. This being so,
the only question which remains is, whether those who make polygamy a part of their
religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. If they are, then those who do not make
polygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished,
while those who do, must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new element into
criminal law. Laws are made for the
government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious
belief and opinions, they may with practices.
Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a
necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the
civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a
sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously
believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead
husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her
carrying her belief into practice? So
here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of
the United States ,
it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary
because of his religious belief? [98 U.S.
145, 167] To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious
belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen
to become a law unto himself. Government
could exist only in name under such circumstances.”
The outcome then was that we could not have a
situation in which crimes could be committed in the name of religion and
protected by the First Amendment. Belief
in a criminal act could not be criminalized, but the practice of it could.
But what does that actually mean and how exactly do
we distinguish between action and practice?
Does it merely mean that it is legal to believe in seizing America
in the name of Islam, but not to practice it?
We can begin
by pointing out
that any number of Islamic practices
which violate
American law or promote an unhealthy social
consequence can be banned, for much the same reason that polygamy was. In Reynolds vs. the United States , the Court upheld the
right of the government to brand the spread of polygamy as a threat to innocent
women and children that had to be arrested through strong measures. The spread and threat of Islam's practices
can be seen in the same way.
For example, France has treated the Hijaab in a
similar way. The United States can too, if it finds
any abuse or violence associated with its enforcement or use. Honor killings over the Hijab or Burka demonstrate
that this is the case. State
Legislatures can then move to ban the Hijaab and or Burka.
Thus while we cannot Charge someone with believing in
Islam, but under the precedent of the Supreme Court ruling, we can stamp out
many Islamic practices that are dangerous or abusive. The First Amendment does not protect religious
practices that are illegal; it protects
only the beliefs themselves. That being
said we will move on yet to another part of the law that could just as in the
case of Communism ban Islam itself from America !
There is
another aspect of the law regarding this issue
We can go much further than that, at an
organizational level, based on the “Sedition Act of 1918”
and the “1954
Communist Control Act”, which give us even more legal guidelines
for cracking down on Islam as a whole.
The
Communist Control Act:
“Sec. 2. The
Congress hereby finds and declares that the Communist Party of the United States , although purportedly a political
party, is in fact an Instrument of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of
the United States . It constitutes an authoritarian dictatorship
within a republic, demanding for itself the rights and privileges accorded to
political parties, but denying to all others the liberties guaranteed by the
Constitution.
Unlike political parties, which evolve their policies
and programs through public means, by the reconciliation of a wide variety of
individual views, and submit those policies and programs to the electorate at
large for approval or disapproval --- the policies and programs of the
Communist Party are secretly prescribed for it by the foreign leaders of the
world Communist movement. Its members
have no’ part in determining its goals, and are not permitted to voice dissent
to party objectives.”
This applies to Islam the same as it applies to
Communism. And this preamble was part of
a passage demonstrating the fundamental distinction between Communism and legitimate
political parties. The assumption of the
Communist Control Act was that the First Amendment did not apply to the
Communist party or to Communist controlled parties ... because they did not fit
the democratic template of the First Amendment.
As such the Communist party was not a legitimate party, but an overseas
directed conspiracy to overthrow the United States and replace it with a
totalitarian system. By the same token,
Islam is not a legitimate religion but an overseas directed conspiracy to
overthrow the United States
government and replace it with a totalitarian system. I really hope that you can draw a parallel
between the two, because if you can’t, then either I am not a very good teacher
or I know less that nothing about reason logic or the Constitution. But please give me some latitude here and read
the rest of what I have to say.
Not only can this same argument apply to Islamic
organizations such as CAIR, The Counsel on American Islamic Relations, ‘a known
terrorist support group’, but Islam itself can be distinguished from other religions
on similar grounds. The following phrase
from the original document represents the key point here; It constitutes an
authoritarian dictatorship within a republic, demanding for itself the rights
and privileges accorded to political parties, but denying to all others the
liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
And that is at the core of the Issue/problem. While we cannot criminalize individual
beliefs alone, we can criminalize organizations dedicated to overthrowing the United States
for the expressed purpose of replacing it with a totalitarian system. An organization is not merely "belief',
it also represents historically an attempt and a stated agenda to put those
beliefs into practice.
The Internal Security Act of 1950, along with the
1954 Communist Control Act provides extensive legal grounds for criminalizing
organizations dedicated to the overthrow of the United States , as well as
membership in such organizations-and even provides for the removal of
citizenship from members of such organizations.
Had the United States truly gotten serious
about the War on Terror after (9/11), it could have passed a real ‘Patriot Act’
that would have clamped down on Islamist organizations in a similar way. The bill could have easily retrofitted some
of the language of the Communist Control Act and all of its legal jargon as
follows;
Sec. 3. Islamic organizations, regardless of their
assumed name, whose object or purpose is to overthrow the Government of the
United States, or the government of any State, Territory, District, or possession
thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein by force and
violence, are not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and immunities
attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the
United States or any political subdivision thereof; and whatever rights,
privileges, and immunities which have heretofore been granted to said party or
any subsidiary organization by reason of the laws of the United States or any political
subdivision thereof, are hereby terminated:
Sec. 4. Whoever knowingly and willfully becomes or
remains a member of such organizations, or any other organization having for
one of its purposes or objectives the establishment, control conduct, seizure,
or overthrow of the Government of the United States, or the government of any
State or political subdivision thereof, by the use of force or violence, with
knowledge of the purpose or objective of such organization shall be subject to
all the provisions and penalties of the Internal Security Act of 1950.
The question then becomes one of defining what
exactly an Islamist organization is. If we
define Islamist under the same guidelines as Communist, but specifically
modified as representing a belief in the overthrow or takeover of the United States or any part of it, thereby placing
the United States
under Islamic law ... we already have a very broad brush to paint with. Or to simply state the Internal Security Act
again…
Sec. 4. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person
knowingly to combine, conspire, or agree, with any other person to perform any
act which would substantially contribute to the establishment within the United States
of a totalitarian dictatorship. Since
Islam represents a totalitarian dictatorship, any organization or individual
seeking to establish Islamic Law or Sharia within the United States, can be
held liable and charged over its violation. This would apply to both Muslims
and non-Muslims.
The Quran itself represents a plethora of passages
implicitly calling for the violent overthrow of the United States . Consider Sura 9 of the Quran, which governs
the interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims. Particularly Sura [9.29] “Fight those who do not believe
in Allah, or in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle
have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been
given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and
they are in a state of subjection.”
As I said there are a plethora of other verses in the
second half of the Quran which similarly call for Muslims to subjugate and or
kill non-Muslims and take power. This
parallels the charge against the Communist party and places Muslims who believe
in the Qu’ranic Sharia law on the same level as Communists who believed in the
overthrow of the United
States .
Participation in any Muslim organization therefore
becomes the equivalent of participating in a Communist organization-and could
be banned under this provision.
So back to the original question, can we criminalize and ban Islam? While we cannot ban an individual from
personally believing in Islam, we sure can ban Islamic practices and
organizations, which would be a de-facto ban any practice of Islam in an
organized way. As I discussed earlier,
while the First Amendment does not permit a ban on any specific religion, this
is limited to religious belief, not, illegal religious practice. And the laws enacted against Communism in the
1950's demonstrate that organizations aimed at the overthrow of the United States
can be banned and membership in them can even be criminalized. Anything less than this is just plain
ignorance! And thus just as Communism
would, Islam will in fact destroy America and every fundamental accomplishment
and attribute of freedom in our history.
Thus we can criminalize and ban Islam from the public
sphere, ban Muslim organizations as criminal organizations, criminalize Muslim
practices and even denaturalize and deport Muslims who are United States citizens. The legal infrastructure is already there, we
just have to develop the guts to enforce it.
Despite the fact that the United States is far more
protective of political and religious rights, sometimes to a fault, within a
decade every single Muslim organization, from the national to the mosque level,
under the law, could be shut down.
Moreover the majority of practicing Muslims can be deported from the
United States regardless of whether they are citizens or not.
THE
BOTTOM LINE: We can’ do it. Whether we could or will do it is another
matter. It would require rolling back a
number of Supreme Court decisions that are a legacy of this modern corrupted
Court system. It was possible in post
9/11. And hopefully, it may yet become
possible once again.
The problem in coming to terms with this reality, is
that, as in Euroslam, by the time we understand that our future and the future
survival of this country depends on our decision to do the right thing, it may
be too late to do the right thing.
Think about it; think long and hard about it my
friend…
“If America ’s
Constitution can no longer be used to protect its people, then maybe it can be
used to defeat its enemy.” -- de Andréa
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