Update: As promised by Brit Hume, Fox News has republished the offending cartoons. If you’re waiting expectantly for other drive-by media to follow suit, don’t hold your breath. There’s only one religion in contemporary society whose mockery is verboten. 

Mark Steyn, as usual, cuts to the heart of the matter. The refusal by almost every North American media outlet of consequence-with one glaring exception-to republish the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo-like their choice to ban the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed caricatures, is an example of cowardice. This is a decision motivated by base, craven fear, masquerading as a sop to Muslim sensibilities. That said, the decision by most European newspapers to republish those same satirical cartoons shouldn’t be seen as an indication that the continental media have any firmer grasp of what’s at stake, as the  groupthink denunciation of grassroots anti-Islamization campaigns, as well as of those political figures who’ve criticized the multicultural ideology that contributed to Wednesday’s massacre, makes clear. The consistent obfuscation of who is responsible for the series of horrific anti-Semitic violence being but one example of how muddled the Fourth Estate’s evaluation of Islam’s relationship to the West is.

Unfortunately, I think that Steyn has hit upon a difficult truth to digest. The journalists who were assassinated by jihadists in Paris were not simply irreplaceable in terms of their unique talent for clarifying the relationship described above. They were irreplaceable in a much more immediate, practical sense. There are only so many people willing to place themselves in the crosshairs of the perpetually aggrieved religion before our reserve of martyrs is exhausted. And then, notwithstanding the faux solidarity of people who posture as journalists, the terrorists really will have won.
h/t Gates of Vienna.

Freedom as it’s been known and experienced since the Enlightenment is in a death spiral on the European continent, as we’ve explored on this website in the past. One of the most cherished freedoms-for both Europeans and Americans-is the ability to speak openly about anything and everything without fear of government suppression or reprisals.

The fight to achieve this ideal has been an arduous struggle that took Europe centuries to even approach, and whose history is embedded in Europe’s DNA. From the trial of Socrates, to  John Milton’s seminal refutation of censorship, Areopagitica, there has been a constant fight to defend the right of individuals to exercise their natural right to speak and write unmolested by the state. Unfortunately, that right has fallen victim to a pincer movement of centralized European Union bureaucracy and a revanchist, violent, muscular Islam unleashed by Europe’s lax immigration policies.

That’s why I’m pleased to bring you news of an upcoming talk by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a tireless human rights activist who herself has been persecuted for expressing opinions that those in power view as inimical to political correctness, i.e. offensive to Islam. You can find out how to RSVP to this undoubtedly illuminating lecture by clicking upon her name-you must RSVP by the end of today.

A message from Pamela Geller.

You must stand up. Now. No one is going to do this for you. Only YOU can save you.

I strongly urge every Atlas reader, twiiter and Facebook friend that can be in Tennessee to join us in a major demonstration for free speech on June 4th at 5:30pm  Manchester-Coffee County Conference Center, 147 Hospitality Blvd, in Manchester, Tennessee to be there.  Change your plans, get off from work – g. Tweet it, Facebook share, get the word out.

AFDI, SIOA, and other major organizations will be rallying for free speech. On June 4th, an event titled “Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society” will be held from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at the Manchester-Coffee County Conference Center, 147 Hospitality Blvd, in Manchester, Tennessee. Speakers for the event are Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee and the FBI special agent that runs the Knoxville office.

 Plan on attending the meeting in Manchester.Don’t think that they is just going away. They have declared war on very freedoms. While we still have freedom of speech – we must use it. Bring FREE SPEECH signs. Peaceful resistance. 

Those of you in the Volunteer State can RSVP here.

The global jihad against speech-aided and abetted by our enemedia-was the primary subject of discussion at the SION conference this past Tuesday, and the panels assembled represented the full spectrum of thought and action that is being suppressed as a result of the collaboration between government officials-both elected and unelected-intent on “managing” our ever-diminishing pool of  liberty, the custodians of the fifth estate, and the presumptive caliphate which is using them as its ideological cat’s paw. The mobs overwhelming embassies in North Africa and the Middle East and slaughtering American citizens represent the physical violence that most associate with the term jihad, yet there is another more potent element of jihadist doctrine which involves employing coercive means more subtle than car bombs, rocket propelled-grenades, and Kalashnikovs.

The most powerful and efficacious weapon against jihadist ideology is, in fact, the truth. Which is why the vanguards of Islam and their accomplices go to such great lengths in order to suppress the means through which the truth is disseminated. That was the main theme of the second panel of the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress, which comprised men and women from England-until recently, one of the most resilient bastions of free expression on the planet-and Australia, a much younger parliamentary democracy whose citizens find themselves caught beneath a resurgent Islamic tidal wave facilitated by its leaders abandonment of sound immigration policy.

Debbie Robinson, of the Q Society, gave us a detailed overview of the parlous situation Australians find themselves in due to the proliferation of Muslim immigrants faithful to the Koran now living on a continent built upon British common law. The most recent  manifestation of this danger can be found in Muslim Brotherhood acolytes calling for the summary execution of the filmmaker who, in their eyes, committed blasphemy, exploiting the very freedom which they could never hope to enjoy in one of the many despotic Muslim nations from which they emigrated.

However, the question of sharia law’s application in Australia is not one of recent vintage, despite the befuddled media coverage of jihadi demonstrations in that nation’s capital this week. In fact, it is a question which has become so embedded within national discourse that a former Chief Justice of Australia has publicly rejected the notion that sharia law can coexist with the laws of his country. You need look no further than the scourging  a convert to Wahabbism received at the hands of his masked attackers to realize that this isn’t a theoretical debate for Australians. Is it really that far-fetched to conceive of a day when the punishment meted out to a member of the Burns’ Gang in the drama The Proposition might befall the unfortunate recipient of justice from a sharia court?

That question is even more pertinent to the men who came to New York City from England, which some would characterize as Ground Zero in the war between Islamic supremacism and Western societal norms.

Kevin Carroll of the English Defense League-seen above-described some of the battles in this titanic struggle. Currently running for sheriff in a newly created constituency, Mr. Carroll and other members of the EDL have been subjected not only to physical attacks-some so violent as to require hospitalization-by crypto-fascist, Marxist goon squads and their Islamist accomplices, but have been persecuted by the English authorities, which view those exercising their rights to assemble lawfully and express support for the United Kingdom as posing more of an exigent threat than those organizing terror plots in what is now the hub of pan-Islamic nationalism and jihad within Europe.

The extent to which the inherent rights exercised by Englishmen and women have been curtailed in the name of insulating Islam and its practitioners from any substantive criticism was brought home by Tommy Robinson, the founder and leader of the English Defense League. A life-long resident of town of Luton in the county of Bedfordshire, England,  Robinson embodies the selfless patriotism and commitment to family that were once hallmarks of the English working class. Unfortunately, today he represents a besieged minority under attack on the streets, in the courtroom, and in the yellow press for defending what the intelligentsia consider antiquated notions of Englishness. Instead of resisting the Islamists and their leftist shock troops who are threatening the lives of Robinson and his family, the British police have instructed him to remove himself from Luton-his childhood home-lest he antagonize the Muslim supremacists behind  one of England’s numerous, unofficial Sharia law zones.

The skewed priorities of UK law enforcement-which view the EDL as posing a more exigent threat than the intellectual progeny of Bin Laden did not come as a surprise. What did strike me though was Tommy Robinson’s almost apologetic defense of the gifts he brings to bear in this struggle against Islamic nationalism and its infection of contemporary Europe. He made the inexorable point that, unlike the rest of the continent, Great Britain-with a few notable exceptions-does not have any towering intellectuals or courageous political leaders to rally public opinion on behalf of the Enlightenment values which are now imperiled. The political class within the UK is effectively neutered, spinelessness being virtually a prerequisite for public office, as Tommy and his cousin Kevin Carroll pointed out during their speeches.

The same can be said of most British pseudo-intellectuals, who are equally culpable for the disastrous cultural and spiritual degradation of contemporary Great Britain. The political extermination Northern Irish classicist, poet and parliamentarian Enoch Powell experienced at the hands of England’s opinion-shapers for daring to question the status quo is one of the main reasons why the fight against Islamist ideology is being led by men like Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, although I don’t believe either man has to qualify the vitally important elements of courage and honesty in identifying the problems facing Britain they both bring to this task. After all, the battle over whether sharia law and Islamic doctrine should prevail over the values of the Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution will be decided in the streets and the homes of ordinary Britons, not intellectual salons in London.

That said, the address delivered by George Igler, the creator of the Discourse Institute, outlined the intellectual argument against the UK’s increasingly restrictive view of individual liberty. At least, that liberty not enjoyed by Islamic ideologues. The son of parents who experienced the absence of liberty firsthand behind the Iron Curtain of Communist Hungary, Igler recognizes the inherent tenuousness of liberties that most Westerners have taken for granted for centuries. His speech focused upon the ways in which British bureaucrats and politicians had distorted the relationship between man and state, pointing out that our sufferance of government is tied exclusively to the protection of inalienable-and non government-derived-rights. This compact has been abrogated by a state that now views its function as maintaining stability in inter-communal relations, which means that some groups, e.g. Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-as well as their offspring-are given protection from the critical speech of groups like the EDL. This fundamental negation of rights illustrates why conferences like the Stop Islamization of Nations Congress are so urgent at this moment in time.

They, along with the Discourse Institute, wouldn’t be necessary if the “free” press exercised its right to dissent from political and religious orthodoxy, rather than attempting to hunt down individuals who blasphemed Islam or to blacken the name of patriotic citizens who want to ensure that their children enjoy the same freedoms they once did. But the fact remains that we are not only facing an aggressive, resurgent political Islam, but a much greater threat posed by those who would do away with our patrimony from England, and ultimately, Greece, in order to placate the sensitivities of an ideology with whom no mutual reciprocity exists and which, according to its holy book-none can be achieved.

In Part III of our report, we’ll be examining how the threat of Islamic jihad is experienced by those in the continent from which the armies of Mohammed first emerged.

Update: My full live-tweet of the SION Conference is online! Read it here. 

Today marks the eleventh anniversary of the catastrophic attacks upon the Pentagon and World Trade Center, as well as the thwarted assault aimed at the U.S. Capitol, which led to the loss of thousands of lives and introduced millions of Americans to the apocalyptic ideology of Al Qaeda and assorted Sunni jihadists.

As the democidal tyrants in Tehran inch ever-closer to acquiring the second Islamic bomb, one which will be at the disposal of adherents to an apocalyptic, Shia millenarianism, it’s worth noting that violence is merely the chosen expedient for people who want to impose their dogma upon the entire globe. A much more existential, and efficacious, threat to our civilization is the campaign to erode, and eventually abolish altogether, the fundamental natural rights we exercise every day of our lives and which we have taken for granted for far too long. The foremost right among them being the freedom to debate issues such as this one without the fear of coercion and reprisal from those who disagree with our opinions.

That’s why the SION Freedom Conference, organized by my dear friend Pamela Geller and slated to take place later today, is such a watershed moment. It will serve as the chief forum from which to illuminate the dire threat posed by an ideology that wishes to permanently redact, to criminalize, any critical observations about it inside of nations where speaking your mind is enshrined as a bedrock constitutional principle.

In addition to Atlas, there will be a roster of courageous dissidents from across the globe showcased this afternoon, including Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has experienced firsthand the animosity some Muslims feel towards those engaged in critical inquiries regarding the Religion of Peace. I will attempt to live-tweet both speeches-along with the rest of the proceedings-provided my not-so-smart phone doesn’t fail me-as it so often does.

You can follow my updates here, and ask questions of your own @OddLane. For those of you blessed to have some disposable income during the worst economic recession in recent memory, might I suggest putting some of it towards defraying the immense costs that events such as the SION Freedom Conference impose upon their sponsors? If inclined, you can do so by accessing this link.

Hopefully, tomorrow’s event will honor the memories of those thousands-from New York and elsewhere-who can no longer speak for themselves.

There are a number of lessons to be gleaned from the rapidly imploding criminal case against the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Beyond the usual, insincere breast-beating and lamentation over the media’s predictable rush to judgement, as well as questions of whether the traditional perp walk is a violation of a defendant’s due process rights, there is a much broader discussion that has yet to be broached. And that discussion entails the morass of fraud that lies at the heart of our country’s immigration system, especially the application process for potential asylum-seekers. 

The New York Post had an extensive analysis of why the credibility of DSK’s accuser has been called into question in yesterday’s edition. Although there are numerous accusations being leveled against the Guinean maid, including charges of tax evasion and lying about the aftermath of the alleged sexual assault by Khan, the allegations that I’d like to explore involve the deception she employed in order to get into this country in the first place.

One of ugly truths that the rah-rah, open borders at any cost crowd refuses to admit-but which is acknowledged by almost anyone else with a shred of integrity-is that political asylees and foreigners applying for refugee status in Western countries, including the United States, lie. They lie in order to gain access to the bounty that is Western Europe, or Australia, or North America-Mexico excluded-and they lie in order to protect their status within these very special places once they have arrived there. So the fact that this woman created an elaborate patchwork of lies, starting with a fictitious gang-rape that allegedly took place within her home country of Guinea, in order to gain political asylum  is not surprising in the least. In fact, those of you with good memories might recall the case of Adelaide Abankwah, a phony Nigerian “princess” whose story of  a potential clitoridectomy gained her the favor of our own esteemed, open borders pinheads, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Senator Chuck Schumer. Interestingly enough, Mr. Strauss-Khan’s accuser also maintains that she was the victim of genital mutilation-and that her daughter in Guinea is under threat of FGM-a claim that might or might not withstand increased media scrutiny in the coming days. The similarities between these two examples of West African immigration scams might strike some as uncanny, until, that is, you remember that this sort of deception is par for the course.

Misrepresenting your circumstances in order to remain in a wealthy, industrialized nation is such a common occurrence that women’s rights activist and Islamic apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali devotes an entire chapter to her own asylum case in her engrossing memoir, Nomad. She readily admits that she lied during the application process in order to avoid an arranged marriage and remain in The Netherlands, and that most asylum-seekers also fudge the facts in their cases, for better or worse. The mendacity of asylum-seekers is so widespread-it can be said to be almost universal-that it was satirized in a Steven Spielberg-directed film called The Terminal, a tedious comedy starring Tom Hanks as a wholesome immigrant who is forced to live inside of an airport because of overly officious Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureaucrats.

And if you think immigration fraud is limited to the United States, then you obviously haven’t been an avid reader of UK tabloids and broadsheets, or a follower of the BBC, which recount cases of fraudulent asylum-seekers gaming the system on a daily basis. The only surprising part of this case, in my opinion, is the shockingly long time it took the mainstream media to investigate the claims lodged by the accuser in this case. Unfortunately, I doubt this will lead the same journalists to question the wisdom of our government’s endorsement of unfettered immigration. To the contrary, the revelation that many of her initial claims were falsehoods was accompanied-at least in the New York Times-by a series of soft focus stories lamenting the potential negative repercussions these new developments will have on Guinean immigrants living in New York City. Leave it to the drive-by media to miss the point yet again. That is why this website exists, my friends.