El-Sayed, Mamdani, And The Muslim Wave In America - A Return To The Desert And An Irreducibly Militant Faith

Islam is the most rapidly growing religion in the world, with millions of new followers each year.  Some of this increase is due to demographics - the Middle East and Africa are limitless in their fertility, and have some of the highest rates in the world.  Both regions are already Muslim, and thus natural increase simply adds to the total. Muslim Indonesia and Bangladesh, both with high rates of fertility, add significantly to the total

 

With the exception of the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, these Muslim countries are among the world's poorest. Indonesia and Bangladesh while showing modest economic growth still are low on the World Bank's economic indicators. 

Islam is also a religion of brotherhood.  One is Muslim first and foremost, and nationality comes a far second; and with that divine solidarity, the world's Muslims are united far more than any secular movement could ever possibly expect. 

Islam is not only an evangelical religion but a militantly aggressive one.  Christianity with its missionaries, Biblical homilies, and celestial promise is nothing compared to Islam whose most ardent believers want not only to convert individuals but to bring entire regions under an Islamic caliphate.  Iran has shown how it is willing to use military power, and the threat of nuclear war to both intimidate non-believers and to consolidate those who believe in the supremacy of Allah's will. 

Islam is a simplistic religion. It, unlike Catholicism, requires no understanding of a complex theology.  There is none of the intellectual sophistication of the Trinity, the dual nature of Christ, and the mystery of redemption. A declaration of faith, prayer five times a day, fasting, alms giving, and a pilgrimage to Mecca are all that is required - simple, direct, and within the intellectual reach of everyone. 

The rewards are limitless - an eternity in a celestial paradise, not just in the presence of God, enough for Christians, but in a divinely earthly paradise of bounty, beauty, and ineffable pleasure

Why wouldn't a poor Bangladeshi, left behind by secular governments, and suffering as the latest of generations of poor, destitute peasants, join the armies of Allah, become militantly engaged in furthering his divine empire?

Christianity is tepid and uninspiring by comparison.  'Do unto others...turn the other cheek...love they neighbor...' all are idealistic, fairytale inspirations, hopeless principles in a harsh, brutal, short, and limitlessly violent world.  Ask Jesus to be your personal savior, and then what? 

The Muslim is part of a militant brotherhood with defiant belief in the absolute righteousness of the religion and a deep commitment to spreading it throughout the world.  Muhammed is the last prophet, says the Koran, there can be no others.  Islam, therefore, is the true religion, and there can be no others. 

There is a headiness about Islam that no other religion has - a combination of brotherhood, defiance of the infidel, a militant evangelism, and the expectation of eternal bliss. 

Islam is not a tolerant religion nor a peaceful one.  How can it be if it is the only religion and has Koranic injunctions to kill the infidel?  How can it possibly exist within a liberal democracy which promotes tolerance and secular community?

There is something about Islam and its particular moralism and defiant, all-encompassing demands for faith above all, that is a factor in poverty.  While there are many socio-economic variables which determine levels of poverty, one cannot not ignore the association between Islam and the poor.  If celestial paradise awaits the martyr and the faithful, and Allah is the be-all and end-all of existence, it should not be surprising that Protestant secular ambition as an expression of faith is absent.  At the same time poverty anneals Muslim faith, feeds militancy and secular defiance. 

El-Sayed and Mamdani, two Muslim American politicians, one newly elected Senator from Michigan, the other mayor of the United States' biggest and most important city, preach Democratic Socialism, a radical progressivism directly adapted from Marx, Engels, and Lenin; but each has expressed his fealty to Allah and never hesitated to stated that God's law will always supersede man's.  Within that irony - a political progressivism which is based on diversity and inclusion espoused by a man whose religion demands nothing of the kind.   Which El-Sayed or Mamdani are we supposed to believe?

When El-Sayed was running for office, he said his abbreviated name quickly and with an American pronunciation, but in his acceptance speech, he gave his full name Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed and pronounced it with the same Arabic diction spoken by his parents and ancestors. If there wasn't a clearer intention of who he was, the identity he wanted to project, his very ethos, it it would be hard to find. 

At least he is not like the radical mullahs and imams now preaching hate and Muslim uprising in the mosques of Europe and who demand an imposition of sharia law, say credulous Americans.  But conservative states like Florida have looked at France, understood the threat, and already explicitly and legislatively banned sharia law.  Given all the above - the comprehensiveness, exclusivity, and militancy of Islam - shouldn't Americans be wary of El-Sayed and Mamdami?

Are there American Muslims who have integrated well into modern, secular, democratic society and whose religion has only been a source of personal faith and hope?  Of course.  Millions are devout, compassionate, and devoted to family for whom religion and deep faith are the foundation on which to survive an unpredictable, often difficult life. 

Are there Muslims from the Parisian northern suburbs who are similarly faithful and content with living a simple life of devotion within a secular world?  Again, of course, but militant Islam is viral, a deadly  infection that spreads rapidly.  For how long can the simply devout Muslim in Seine-St. Denis resist the Islamicist forces around him?  Individual resistance to such social pressure is impossible.  The hesitant Muslim is branded an infidel, a traitor, an apostate - not a Muslim at all. 

Islam is not like every other religion, for it tolerates no dissent and never budges from its conviction that it is the world's true religion and last religion.  Non-believers are infidels, dangerous enemies and must be eliminated. God's law supersedes and obviates all other laws. A Muslim living in a secular society lives within an apostasy and must do all he can to reject it, destroy it, and replace it with Allah's rule.

Those who assume that Islam is just one the many world religions and no different from them in a belief in a higher power, are wrong.  'Suicidal empathy' is the current meme for this assumption. 

For a conservative, it's bad enough that both El-Sayed and Mamdani are Socialists; but when Islam is lurking in the wings, they are doubly dangerous. 

Will Democratic Socialism Fill Potholes? - Redistribution Of Wealth And The Politburo Of The Nation's Capital

The Mayor-Elect of Washington, DC, a Democratic Socialist in the mold of Zorhan Mamdani, Mayor of New York already had her first 100 days planned out.  She would ask the City Council for a redistributive tax on the wealthy - an increased tax rate for those in the highest income brackets and a rise in property taxes for the highest assessed homes. 

She would put a freeze on any new residential high rise buildings that did not include a significant proportion of low-income, low-rent units.  She would shift municipal resources from the wealthy white wards of the city to the poorest.  Residents of Ward 3 would have to wait for their streets to be plowed, paved, and repaired until the inner city had been served. 

A 'Reparations Fund' would be created from these increased, fair, redistributed taxes, and each black resident of the District beginning with the all-black wards across the Anacostia, would get a yearly stipend with no strings attached. 

'The time has come for equality, justice, and hope' she said, 'an end to systemic racism in our city, and end to unearned wealth and undeserved privilege, and a bright beginning for our diverse, multicultural union.'

Mayor George who had been concerned about a Republican Congress' meddling in District affairs - despite home rule it still wields considerable power of the purse - was relieved and delighted when it flipped and turned Democrat.  Not just Democrat but liberal, socialist-leaning progressive; and if anything the new House of Representatives would do all in its power to help the District become a model socialist city. 

The wealthy, white taxpayers of the city, already bled dry by the punitive taxes and drunken sailor spending of previous administrations, quickly met with their accountants to see how best to shield their wealth from DC tax collectors. They sat with lawyers to see how to work property law to their favor - reverse titling with out-of-state family members, residences in Florida and the Islands as first homes, and the shielding of income and investments through offshore banking. 

The Mayor-Elect when she heard of these maneuvers, stood in front of her headquarters and warned the white people of the city, 'Don't you dare! Don't you dare move one penny of the money earmarked for the more deserving, the proud, the defiant, the black!'

But the legal and financial dealings were quite legal, and the accountants and legal advisors in City Hall could barely balance their own checkbooks let alone understand the Wall Street-style creative vehicles Washington's wealthy were putting in place.  Those residents with the highest net worth and about to retire, quickly put their homes up for sale before the new tax tsunami hit, and moved to St. Bart's. 

The rental housing market came to an abrupt standstill.  No developer would touch rental properties, and no mortgage lender went anywhere near them. White people weren't such patsies after all, and with all the sheltered income, the halt on the core promise of the new mayor - free housing for all - and the defiant refusal to take the Mayor's discredited, antiquated, discarded theories lying down, Ms. George was taken aback. 

For years her predecessor, Marion Barry had milked white people for millions while giving them nothing in return - and they still stayed.  What happened to that white cash cow?

Ward 3, the white, wealthy ward of the city was ironically uniformly progressive, had voted Democratic for decades, and were for every cause in the canon - the climate, the black man, the transgender, and all immigrants. They all sat on million dollar homes, drove Lexus and Mercedes, took expensive vacations to Aspen, Palm Beach, and St. Tropez; but this time around they were nervous.  It was all well and good to vote for the black man as long as he kept his distance.  

This new mayor was, like former President Biden, opening the borders, and before long Anacostia would be emptied and white neighborhoods would be inundated with ho's, pimps, and welfare. 

Mayor George still held to the white-people-are-patsies theory of District governance, and was unprepared for the unsettling shift in public and political opinion in Ward 3.  She needed the white man to fund her giveaways, and if they shipped all their wealth offshore or tied it up in trusts and legalese, she would be in trouble. 

'Don't worry Janeese', said soon to be Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries, a black far left progressive. 'We've got your back.  You don't need these ofay plantation owners no more'. 

A longtime white resident of the city remembered when it was eighty percent black - 'Chocolate City' - but when the wealthy residents of Spring Valley, Cleveland Park, and Georgetown were untroubled by racial issues.  They paid their fair share and were left alone.  

Now? A racial miasma; and to make matters worse it will be run by a socialist! It was high time to move to Montana, a white conservative state. 

'Go to Montana', the Mayor-Elect shouted to a crowd of supporters. 'Or to Idaho or Wyoming. Good riddance.  Bugger off!'

The young mayor's foul mouth was becoming a trademark and she loved the press attention. 'Fuck 'em', was how she always ended her black-only rallies referring to DC's wealthy white population. 'We don't need 'em no more'. 

Which left the 'metrosexuals', the young tech entrepreneurs who came to Washington profit in the growing hi-tech industries in Maryland and Virginia, and to enjoy the gay life of the city.  These newcomers had money to burn, were as liberal as the day is long and who paid no attention taxes. 

'Whatever' said a Silicon Valley to his lover. 'Whoopee! and Janeese George welcomed these white people with open arms as members of the new, socialist, diverse city. 

There is no such thing as a free lunch of course and when wealthy white people leave the city in droves, when mortgage bankers bail, and when land developers go south, even with generous Congressional support, the city will soon be bankrupt.  No one will get their potholes filled or their streets plowed, let alone reparations. 

Already every black hustler in the city is lining up at Mayor-Elect George's headquarters.  Her administration will not be a rainbow coalition but a black as coal uniformity.  She was openly shameless about it. 'The black man has been oppressed for too long, and now that we own the plantation, we're taking what's ours'

Both sides of the experiment will fail.  Socialism will fail as miserably as it has in the past and black racial politics aggressively dismissive of white intelligence, ability, and experience, will founder and come up empty. 

'Viva South Africa', Janeese shouted at an event celebrating the end of apartheid, but what she should have seen was that after all the whites - the most productive, able members of society - were forced to leave, the country descended into political chaos and economic ruin. 

'We shall overcome', yelled Janeese.  Hardly. 

Nathan Had Two Mommies - Until Uncle Phil Cut Him Loose

Laura and Felicia Grant-Middleburg were married in a simple ceremony in the Vermont woods, in a verdant copse they had discovered when walking in the Green Mountains. 

'Isn't it perfect?' Laura said to Felicia, hugging her and giving her a big kiss.  'Just the place for our marriage.'

The young women were in love.  Their paths had crossed at Harvard when they were both undergraduates, found each other delightful, compatible, and sympathique, and were soon an item on campus.  

Harvard administrators were delighted when they learned about the affair.  They had deliberately recruited gay students, and had found ingenious ways to skirt the affirmative action strictures imposed by the Supreme Court.  The promotional brochure for admission said this:

Harvard is a welcoming, open society of thoughtful, intelligent, and caring students. We are looking for the brightest but also the most unique.  The Harvard campus can only benefit from the presence of those who value difference, who love differently, and who think differently. 

That paragraph ran the gamut of lawyers, and finally passed muster.  Nothing about actively recruiting gay students was in the text but its meaning was clear.  The accompanying photos, where the gazes of young women at each other in 'that way' would be an unmistakable confirmation of Harvard's intent. 

So, it was not exactly a coincidence that Laura and Felicia found each other.  There were quite a few women like them from whom to choose, but there was something ineffable - the way of love - which drew the two girls together. 

College is a time for temptation.  The first time away from parents, family, and familiar surroundings should not be wasted, and so both young women were thrilled at the prospect of sleeping with so many beautiful, talented classmates; but in some women the urge for bonding is strong, and Laura and Felicia remained faithful.  

More or less of course.  Both laughed at former President Bill Clinton's famous, 'It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is'.  Fellatio under the Lincoln desk was not exactly sex as he insisted to Congress. 

So the two girls admitted to a little 'what is, is' sex that really didn't count against the capital invested in their relationship. After all, being out of the closet had its perks. 

In any case after law school the two women were married in Vermont surrounded by bridesmaids dressed in sylphlike white, flowing dresses.  The minister, herself a lesbian performed the ceremony, and rings and kisses were exchanged. 

Laura wanted more of a femme to marry them, but this jackbooted bull was the only priest willing to make the long trek from Boston. Life out of the ordinary was often make-do. 

Felicia and Laura argued bit over who was to be wife and who was to be husband; but they both agreed that 'husband' was far too straight.  They would be each other's wives and be done with it.  

If, God willing, they had children, the issue of 'Father' on the birth certificate would be sticky, especially since the biological father would be Donor 357; but Vermont was at the forefront of liberal sexuality, and had changed the format of official birth certificates to accommodate the increasing number of 'unique' marriages in the state. 

Both women were lawyers.  Although the commute between New York (Columbia) and Cambridge (Harvard) was tedious and the law school curriculum devilishly time consuming, they met up at least every other weekend, graduated with honors, impressive clerkships, and headed to Washington where they would work. Laura with McKensie, Locke & Finch, and Felicia in the Justice Department. 

The bought a condo in a new building on Thomas Circle, and were very happy. 

The time soon came for pregnancy. Both women wanted a child, and IVF via an anonymous sperm donor was a relatively simple operation.  The agency that facilitated all this was top of the line, and the women trusted them completely.  They did as much donor DNA screening as was technologically possible, and insisted on elaborate donor bios. After much thought, Donor 357 was the one. 

Laura, the younger, would be the birth mother.  The pregnancy went well and she gave birth to a baby boy. 

At first both women were disappointed.  They had of course wanted a girl, but the decoding of the genetic double helix had not gone that far.  They could be sure of some things when they chose a donor but not the sex of the child. 

Now, double motherhood does not come easily.  Both women were brought up with fathers who were indeed father figures - strong, decisive, but loving men who provided the right amount of discipline and support - and so they foundered a bit when it came to raising a child, a boy in particular. 

The luck of the draw was such that Nathan turned out to be a terror, a willful, rude, nasty little boy who allowed no refuge. As he grew older, he became a discipline problem at school, and the two mothers were repeatedly called in for consultation.  At the first meeting only Laura attended. Felicia was prosecuting a federal case in Minneapolis and would be away from home for an extended period of time. 

'You need to get the boy's father involved, Mrs. Middleburg', advised the third grade teacher who had not been informed of the double-mother marriage.  The school had been advised by lawyers from the School Board never to inquire about the sexual orientation of anyone, students or parents. 

‘Don't say you heard it from me, but the boy needs a good hiding', said the teacher. 

Laura and Felicia were discouraged.  They were doing their best, but despite their sexual orientation, they were still women and lacked that unique male, testosterone-driven anger and intimidation.  'Wait till your father comes home', was the old, now ridiculed meme of an earlier era; but there was truth in it. Had Felicia and Laura had a girl none of this would have been an issue.  But there it was.

Things only got worse. Nathan's willful disobedience, disruptive behavior, and downright meanness only grew, and the two women were at the end of their ropes.  Worse, the boy was heard joking about 'my two dyke mommies', and wanted nothing to do with them.  All his friends had fathers, and he had gotten screwed out of one. 

The high school suggested consultation with a child psychologist.  The boy refused, but finally after the threat of expulsion and having to leave his friends - a very bad bunch from 'across the tracks', bussed from deep ghetto Anacostia to white Northwest for 'diversity' - he gave in. 

'He's resentful for not having a real father', the psychologist explained to Laura and Felicia, 'and', he added, 'some nasty bits from the donor's DNA decided to show up'.  

He was a bad seed, Laura said, remembering watching the 1956 movie The Bad Seed, when a mother’s vague suspicions about having been adopted are confirmed: she is the biological daughter of a notorious serial killer and was adopted at two years of age by her foster father and his late wife. The mother now worries that the serial killer and therefore she herself is the cause of her daughter Rhoda's sociopathy, and that her homicidal behavior is genetic, not subject to influence, let alone reversal, by parenting or a wholesome environment.

'Same deal', Laura said to Felicia. 'Luck of the draw.  Out of the billions of XY chances, we get dealt a bad hand'. 

'Yes, but we love him', replied Felicia, 'Let's not forget that'. 

'Why not ask Uncle Phil to help out?', Laura added; but Felicia refused.  If there was ever a throwback, an unreconstructed male chauvinist pig, it was her Uncle Phil.  'I don't want that scum anywhere near our boy', but the suggestion had resonance, and Felicia finally let up and Uncle Phil had a sit-down with the boy over beer and cigarettes.  

Everything from then on was 'Uncle Phil this, Uncle Phil that'. Talk about father figures! The boy was desperate for one. 

The two women felt defeated and disconsolate.  They assumed, out of a firm belief in the gender spectrum that sexual orientation was a choice, not a given, and believed with conviction that homosexual sex would become universal in the coming Utopia.  They were not prepared for the Uncle Phil Effect, so casually referred to by the school psychologist who shared his observations about Nathan.  

'Sorry, ladies.  The boy needs a father - a real father', for which statement he was censured; but the truth of the matter was undeniable; and when he explained the entire situation to his supervisors, they cut him some slack, for quietly and secretly they thought the whole two mommies thing was weird. 

Now, the combination of the reprobate Uncle Phil and the bro's from the 'hood was the perfect storm, and although Nathan finally settled the two mommies issue in his mind - they were dismissed as his parents once he turned eighteen - he was, as the now released school psychiatrist said to a colleague, 'one fucked up kid'.  

But who wouldn't be with that setup?  Uncle Phil felt that he had rescued the boy, Nathan was living somewhere in Texas 'punching cows' and happy.

Laura and Felicia led out the rest of their lives as old maids, as Phil called them, picky, bitchy single ladies in a Miami condo.  Be careful what you wish for.