America Alone

I have to say, I find it somewhat remarkable that the first story the New York Times has deigned to publish on the despicable farce ongoing in Canada - the Steyn affair, I mean - includes almost no analysis of the actual article in question, and indeed seems calculated to leave the reader with the following two impressions: First, that Mark Steyn (and, by extension, the world of "conservative magazines and blogs") belongs to roughly the same universe of public hatemongering as the American Nazi Party, and second, that the First Amendment is a peculiar and quite possibly outdated feature of the American political system, along the lines of, say, the Electoral College or the District of Columbia's lack of congressional representation.

Maybe I'm overreacting. You could also read the piece as the essence of balanced journalism, in which the reporter sets aside all preconceptions - including any preconception in favor of the First Amendment - to craft a studiously neutral take on a hot-button issue. But at the very least it's interesting to imagine how the Times would be covering the Steyn case if he were, say, an earnest atheist a la Sam Harris being brought up for censure by a Mexican "human rights commission" created to protect Catholics from hateful or offensive speech. Slightly differently, I imagine ...

Comments

Of course it's interesting that this article comes on the day the Supreme Court restored habeas corpus despite the best efforts of Ross's party to kill it, yet Ross has nothing to say about THAT.

I wish Steyn well against this wrongheaded prosecution, but I have been watching the Bushpigs erode our rights for too long to think Steyn's case is the most important basic rights issue these days.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | June 12, 2008 7:47 PM

It's all fun and games until your rights are the ones under attack. Kinda sucks when the morality getting legislated doesn't jibe with yours. Ross, maybe you should ponder the implications of this realization.

Posted by Pooh | June 12, 2008 7:53 PM

So in other words:

its teh libral media!!!!11

How did you put it earlier, Ross? Oh right: the result is the same, but the style is so much more thoughtful.

Posted by Jeff | June 12, 2008 7:56 PM

I found the entire thing shocking, and said "Thank God I live in America." It was all the more horrifying for the tone the author took.

So I'm not sure the effect is what Ross fears. I mean, I post on dailykos, so I'm not exactly a fan of Steyn.

Posted by John DE | June 12, 2008 7:58 PM

Well, restoring Habeas Corpus is just a sign of the Supreme Court's political bias.

Oh wait...that can't be right.

Nice that the one thing left and right agreed on in that earlier post was the Supreme Court is political.

Given that preserving the rule of law is the one thing that would protect an equivalent Steyn in US, it could have been mentioned perhaps. still, was only vaguely important i guess.

Incidentally Moe, on Ambinders blog someone has basically said that if we can't be nice we should go away. I have to wonder what his response would be to your inventive invective.

Posted by James | June 12, 2008 7:58 PM

It's impressive that Ross brings up Steyn's case when he is so virulently pro-abortion.

Oh, sorry, anti-abortion. But that's got nothing to do with anything, except when you vote for a man who has sex with prostitutes as (R) President.

Posted by James | June 12, 2008 8:08 PM

James writes: "Incidentally Moe, on Ambinders blog someone has basically said that if we can't be nice we should go away. I have to wonder what his response would be to your inventive invective."

No doubt something I've seen before. I especially like the death threats and the 57 times Leavitt has called me a "vulgarian." It always cracks me up but makes me a little nostalgic for my childhood village in Vulgaria.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | June 12, 2008 8:12 PM

The New York Times' story gets at the central issue involved, which is whether American-style free speech protection or European-style prohibitions on hate speech are superior. And the reason why there's a lot of stuff about Nazis is because those are the sorts of groups whose speech is claimed as the justifications for hate speech laws.

Further, Steyn's speech about Muslims is offensive. Indeed, there's a lot of "clash of civilizations" rhetoric that paints Muslims in the same sorts of broad brushes that anti-semites use to paint Jews.

So, you have a hate speech law that clearly is intended to ban, among other things, the sort of anti-Muslim bigotry that Steyn expresses, because other forms of bigotry are thought to have led to terrible outcomes during the last century. That's the issue, isn't it?

Look, in the end, like MoeLarry, I wish Steyn well in his fight for free speech, because I believe strongly that America is right to protect anti-Muslim and other forms of bigotry as a form of free speech. But what Ross wants is for a clear distinction to be drawn between the bigoted statements of the conservative movement and other forms of bigotry. There is none.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 12, 2008 8:21 PM

Sheesh, can we please put away the silly partisan bickering and wish Steyn well against his asinine prosecutors? What is really frightening are the US legal scholars quoted in the article advocating limits on speech in America.

O, Justice Black, where art thou?

Posted by Casey | June 12, 2008 8:39 PM

It's time to boycott vacationing in Canada until basic human rights are respected in Canada.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 12, 2008 8:55 PM

I guess I read this differently than you. Where you saw "America is alone in this regard and should change to be more like everyone else" I read "America is alone in this regard and that is why we're AWESOME!" I'm thinking I might have brought my own biases into my reading, so I'll try and give it another, more dispassionate read.

Posted by Cain | June 12, 2008 8:57 PM

Kleagle Sailer writes: "It's time to boycott vacationing in Canada until basic human rights are respected in Canada."

What's truly sad is that no one in the US executive branch has the standing to bring this up with Canada and expect anything but derisive laughter in return. A country that tortures loses credibility in any discussion of human rights, and a country which tortures with the "we'll do whatever we want" arrogance of the Bushpigs has lost the last shred of such credibility.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | June 12, 2008 9:12 PM

Instant Credibility:

http://www.migrationexpert.com/canada/Visa/work_visa_canada.asp

Posted by tao9 | June 12, 2008 9:33 PM

I guess I read this differently than you. Where you saw "America is alone in this regard and should change to be more like everyone else" I read "America is alone in this regard and that is why we're AWESOME!" I'm thinking I might have brought my own biases into my reading, so I'll try and give it another, more dispassionate read.

Here was the article. Canada is trying to ban Mark Steyn. America permits the Nazis. No equivalence was suggested between the two--the idea is that we permit something clearly worse than something they're trying to ban.

Legal experts defending both American free speech and Canadian/European rules against bigotry were posted.

I'll grant Ross one thing--while there's no suggested equivalence between Nazis and Steyn conservatives, it never occurs to the author that Steyn might be right, and that Free Speech might be a good thing not in spite of Steyn's words, but because of them. And that would be different if it were an atheist being prosecuted by a pro-Catholic government.

Still, that's entirely reasonable because all decent people would find Mark Steyn to be a terrible person who writes bullshit. To the extent that he changes the world he makes it a sadder, more miserable place. He sings falsehoods that appeal to the evil in human hearts. In terms of utilitarian bad, he probably does exceed that of the present-day American Nazi Party. The farce in Canada may be despicable, but he is more despicable. (Two wrongs don't make a right, I know.) His writings are not worthy of analysis in any serious newspaper. He and his fans are a joke.

But yeah, he should be allowed to continue publishing his bullshit.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 12, 2008 10:10 PM

Consumatopia,

Islam is a gravely deficient religion, in the words of the current Pope Benedict, as compared to Christianity. Islam denies the divinity of Christ, denies that God is bound by reason, denies that morality is anything but the arbitrary command of God, punishes "apostates" by death, and permits a man to "marry" a 9-year old girl, as did the "Prophet" Muhammed. This is not bigotry, it is the plain truth.

These things deserve to be said, and protected, not on the basis of 'free speech' but because they are true. A regime that, in the name of tolerance, forbids one to argue that one religion is better than another, deserves no allegiance from any man of conscience.

I never cease to be amazed at the suicidal degree of Islamophilia among too many liberals.

Posted by Hector | June 12, 2008 10:33 PM

Boy it really pisses you off that people like Harris are allowed to criticize Catholicism, doesn't it?

In any case, I'm a big fan of Steyn's response to his persecutors. Lots of things take balls and gusto, but his put down their efforts was masterful and principled to boot.

Posted by Bad | June 12, 2008 10:45 PM

The NYT article didn't quote a single word from Mark Steyn's article, but Adam Liptak's article did use the words "hate/hateful" 18 times, "Nazi" 3 times, and "Hitler" once.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 12, 2008 10:45 PM

Dilan, what in Steyn's article did you find to be bigoted? Plenty of people criticize plenty of religions without being bigots... what is it that distinguishes Steyn's piece and crosses the line?

Posted by Chris | June 12, 2008 11:12 PM

Hector,

I never said Steyn's words were bigoted. I did say they were bullshit, and they are. Sure, you can say Islam is frequently factually wrong and sometimes ethically wrong, and I imagine most secularists would agree with you. But that's not the extent of Steyn's claim--he argues that it's an impending demographic onslaught that can only be countered by breeding and armed force. Of course, his demographic arguments have been pretty soundly debunked (he was exaggerating the projected number of Muslims in future decades many fold.) But where he truly goes wrong is the necessary assumption that essentially Muslims are automatons, compelled to accept whatever they are told by Muslim leaders.

So he preaches demography as destiny, and his demographics are broken. Those assertions are not quite bigotry by themselves (though close), but it's nonetheless clear that a desire for conflict with foreigners is the causal origin of Steyn's claims, not any dedication to the truth.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 12, 2008 11:22 PM

How is it "restoring" habeas corpus when the Court's decision in fact EXPANDED habeas corpus to a class of individuals who never previously were held to be entitled to them? You may support the Court's decision, but please don't mischaracterize it.

Posted by CCBiggs | June 13, 2008 12:34 AM

"Islam is a gravely deficient religion, in the words of the current Pope Benedict, as compared to Christianity." Hector

TR: And so is Buddhism or Baha'i or Taoism or Zoroastrianism. "Gravely deficient" I don't think is meant to be as dramatic as it sounds. For example as an Anglican you are not gravely deficient, you are merely deficient. And in this particular case a defender of fornication who bordering on being an apologist for the Manichean heresy. This isn't an insult it's merely a factual interpretation of what you say.

"denies that God is bound by reason, denies that morality is anything but the arbitrary command of God"

TR: This is generally true of Islam, but they do have a more scholastic and rationalist element. Unfortunately this element declined, and was largely destroyed by the fourteenth century, but it's not been exterminated a 100%.

"and permits a man to "marry" a 9-year old girl, as did the "Prophet" Muhammed."

TR: The age and nature of Aisha are debated. Some Muslims insist that God made Aisha a grown woman at nine-years-old. This might sound absurd, but mythology contains stories of people being born as adults so a nine-year-old adult is not beyond the range of posssibility. Others state that she was betrothed at 9, but the marriage was not really consummated until about 14 or 15. (A middle-aged man marrying a 14-year-old is gross, but not strange in any culture at that time) These theories are based on description of how old Aisha's sister was and her own level of education at the time of marriage.

As to the NY Times article I really don't like the NY Times, but I think the article was fine and Ross is being unfair. The article was trying to be fair and give defenses for why either system exists, but I think it's sympathies were more for America's. I'm guessing what Ross wanted is something that clearly and unequivocally states Canada's way is repressive or bad or otherwise foolish. I might agree it didn't do that.

Posted by Thomas R | June 13, 2008 12:34 AM

"Islam is a gravely deficient religion, in the words of the current Pope Benedict, as compared to Christianity." Hector

TR: And so is Buddhism or Baha'i or Taoism or Zoroastrianism. "Gravely deficient" I don't think is meant to be as dramatic as it sounds. For example as an Anglican you are not gravely deficient, you are merely deficient. And in this particular case a defender of fornication who bordering on being an apologist for the Manichean heresy. This isn't an insult it's merely a factual interpretation of what you say.

"denies that God is bound by reason, denies that morality is anything but the arbitrary command of God"

TR: This is generally true of Islam, but they do have a more scholastic and rationalist element. Unfortunately this element declined, and was largely destroyed by the fourteenth century, but it's not been exterminated a 100%.

"and permits a man to "marry" a 9-year old girl, as did the "Prophet" Muhammed."

TR: The age and nature of Aisha are debated. Some Muslims insist that God made Aisha a grown woman at nine-years-old. This might sound absurd, but mythology contains stories of people being born as adults so a nine-year-old adult is not beyond the range of posssibility. Others state that she was betrothed at 9, but the marriage was not really consummated until about 14 or 15. (A middle-aged man marrying a 14-year-old is gross, but not strange in any culture at that time) These theories are based on description of how old Aisha's sister was and her own level of education at the time of marriage.

As to the NY Times article I really don't like the NY Times, but I think the article was fine and Ross is being unfair. The article was trying to be fair and give defenses for why either system exists, but I think its sympathies were more for America's. I'm guessing what Ross wanted is something that clearly and unequivocally states Canada's way is repressive or bad or otherwise foolish. I might agree it didn't do that.

Posted by Thomas R | June 13, 2008 12:34 AM

Hector says: "Islam is a gravely deficient religion, in the words of the current Pope Benedict, as compared to Christianity. Islam denies the divinity of Christ, denies that God is bound by reason, denies that morality is anything but the arbitrary command of God, punishes "apostates" by death, and permits a man to "marry" a 9-year old girl, as did the "Prophet" Muhammed. This is not bigotry, it is the plain truth."

Hector, Pope Ratzinger has no moral standing to accuse any member of any other religion in regards to pedophilia. He was too intimately involved in his own Church's child-rape problem to be used as a moral leader in that context.

And what makes denying the divinity of Jesus "gravely deficient"? There's no rational reason to think he was divine. Get a grip, man!

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | June 13, 2008 2:23 AM

the Court's decision in fact EXPANDED habeas corpus to a class of individuals who never previously were held to be entitled to them?

Sad that you see a distinction that says some individuals are entitled to these rights and some aren't. The great thing about America was supposed to be that ALL humans are entitled to these basic rights, not just those with the legal definition of citizen. I guess it all depends on just how human you are, right? Some of us are more human than others? amirite?

Posted by Andy | June 13, 2008 5:15 AM

Thomas R.,

Fair enough, I'll plead guilty to being, in the eyes of the Catholic church, to being deficient. You might throw my defence of contraception and of some anti-clerical politicians in there while you're at it. :)

As a point of information, what is the Catholic understanding of transubstantiation as it pertains to "invalid" churches? For example, I'm aware that Catholics do not consider the Anglicans (unlike, say, the Orthodox) to be a real church since they hold that the Anglican apostolic succession was broken at some point. When a Anglican priest (let's postulate a male one of relatively orthodox belief) consecreates the bread, is it believed (by Catholics) to undergo a change of essence or not? Just curious.

The point is that Hinduism, Taoism and Zoroastrianism don't seek to defeat Christianity and supplant it. And the problem with your interpretation of Aisha's age is that the 9-year-old interpretation is the official one in several Muslim countries. The laws of Yemen and Iran for example permit a man to marry a 9-year old and justify this on the purported example of the prophet.

Posted by Hector | June 13, 2008 7:33 AM

Consumatopia,

I don't know exactly what Steyn said but it's true that Muslims have a higher birth rate than non-Muslims over most of the world. In Lebanon, in India, in Yugoslavia, in Western Europe. Fertility rates have fallen greatly over most of the rest of the developing world- in India, in Southeast Asia, in East Asia, in Central America, in South America. Africa and the Muslim world are the only areas where fertility rates are still very high.

Posted by Hector | June 13, 2008 7:46 AM

I think you are over reacting.

I read the article, thought it was fairly balanced, and came away thinking, "Thank God I live in the U.S."

Posted by Andy | June 13, 2008 9:28 AM

1. Ross, you ARE overreacting. I think that Steyn has a point but makes it in an hysterical way: in short, I don't think he resembles the Nazis. And I don't think the NYT article made it seem as though he does.

2. The really big omission in the NYT article is the absence of any discussion of the Canadian commission's legal standards or lack thereof. By all accounts, the Canadian commission's trial of Steyn has not followed what we would call "due process" - there are no rules about admissible evidence, cross-examination, etc., and the commissioners get to judge Steyn's work without any apparent bounds to their discretion. If it's dangerous to ban hate speech, it's even more dangerous to do so according to the whims of unelected and unaccountable commissioners - but that is exactly what Candada is doing.

Posted by Joe Magarac | June 13, 2008 9:31 AM

What Joe said. Supposedly, the Human Rights Commission has never found anyone innocent (or not guilty) in its entire thirty year plus run.

Posted by J Mann | June 13, 2008 9:37 AM

Hector, as I understand it Catholics do not believe that any Anglican eucharist is valid for Catholics - not even one confected by a male Anglican priest of relatively orthodox belief. Here's why:

1. The priest was not validly ordained: the rites of Anglican ordination of bishops and priests changed following the break with Rome in ways that Rome considers to be invalid. (The rites of Orthodox ordination are also different from Rome's, but those differences are acceptable). When Anglican priests come home to Rome, they receive a new ordination.

2. The priest did not use the proper rite to confect the eucharist: the Anglican Mass is invalid just as the rites of ordination are invalid; see #1 above. With a few changes, the Anglican Mass can be made valid, and is so at Anglican Use Masses.

Posted by Joe Magarac | June 13, 2008 9:54 AM

Hector, yeah, Muslim fertility is high, but not high enough that there's any concern about them replacing, but it would take centuries, not the less-than-two-decades of Steyn's Clash of Civilizations fantasy, for them to overwhelm western states.

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1082 Steyn is a joke. That, of course, does not change the absurdity nature of Canada's actions.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 13, 2008 10:20 AM

"The great thing about America was supposed to be that ALL humans are entitled to these basic rights"

This statement is false. It is simply not true to say that the U.S. ever provide enemy combatants the right to avail themselves of the full protection of U.S. Courts. Were the Nurenberg trials unconstitutional? We didn't give habeus rights to Göring, Speer, et al.

Posted by CCBiggs | June 13, 2008 10:22 AM

"The great thing about America was supposed to be that ALL humans are entitled to these basic rights"

This statement is false. It is simply not true to say that the U.S. ever provide enemy combatants the right to avail themselves of the full protection of U.S. Courts. Were the Nurenberg trials unconstitutional? We didn't give habeus rights to Göring, Speer, et al.

Posted by CCBiggs | June 13, 2008 10:22 AM

CCBiggs writes: "Were the Nurenberg trials unconstitutional? We didn't give habeus rights to Göring, Speer, et al."

What a stunningly ignorant comparison. The Nuremberg defendants were given speedy, open trials and representation. Some of them were even found to be innocent and were released.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | June 13, 2008 10:54 AM

Leaving aside the blatant unfairness of telling people which ideas they may discuss, one under-recognized problem with the Canadian approach is its dubious assumption that removing noxious ideas from explicit circulation will substantially improve the discourse. More plausibly, content-based speech regulation will foster indirect ways of expressing similar ideas and attitudes to those the law finds objectionable.

Sometimes indirect expression of bias is preferable to its alternatives. But it can be insidious as well; elegant, disguised expressions of prejudice regularly sneak into allegedly civil discourse, where they can be more difficult to delegitimate than clear expressions of hostility. Fundamentally, designing law and public policy with an aim of avoiding the immediate harms of incivility is often counterproductive. In the last analysis, I would argue, conflict needs to be worked through constructively rather than suppressed at its first sign of messiness if the experience of communication across lines of diversity is actually going to foster a sustained, broadly shared sense of community.

Posted by jason | June 13, 2008 12:20 PM

CCBiggs, I don't think "military show trials" has ever been considered an accurate description of Nurenberg.

please try again.

Posted by Pooh | June 13, 2008 12:20 PM

Consumatopia,

I get your point. The problem with making demographic forecasts (well, one of the problems) is that human societies are rapidly changing things, and unlike (most) animals we can consciously respond to our environment. More than one social or economic prediction has been obviated because people made the conscious effort to work to ensure that the prediction would not become a reality. It would be foolish to say there will come a day when Sweden or Denmark is a majority Muslim country, and if Steyn says that then he's a fool. (That doesn't mean he shouldn't be allowed to get published though- lots of fools get published all the time.)

However, I'm still concened that 1) in some countries, high growth rates combined with a large base population could cause the demographic balance to tilt in favor of Islam as it did in Bosnia and Lebanon; 2) Muslims exert influence in Europe disproportionate to their numbers since too many Christians are lackadaisical about their faith. If more Europeans did a better job about asserting and defending their faith then the creeping Islamization of Europe could be defeated. In this I agree with Michael Nazir-Ali, the Anglican Bishop of Rochester, who is of Muslim descent and was born in a Muslim country, and knows the dangers of creeping Islamization. Nazir-Ali makes me happy to be both an Anglican and a South Asian.

Posted by Hector | June 13, 2008 12:56 PM

Dilan, what in Steyn's article did you find to be bigoted?

As I said before, it's the clash of civilization rhetoric that shifts the focus of our fight from terrorism to something intrinsic in Islam. Hector's equally hateful rhetoric aside, there are plenty of nonviolent Muslims and there isn't anything intrinsically horrible about that religion anymore than the huge amount of violence by professed Christians establishes something intrinsically horrible about Christianity or the huge amount of violence endorsed by the God of the Old Testament establishes that Judaism is intrinsically violent.

When conservatives go on and on about Muslims and the supposedly Islamic nature of the threat we face, they fan the flames of hatred of all Muslims, including the hundreds of millions of them who are no threat to the US or the West.

So yeah, I think Steyn, and in fact, every conservative who spouts clash of civilization rhetoric is a bigot. And I think there are a lot of simple-minded people out there who really would like to make the war on terror into some sort of latter day version of the Crusades where the forces of Christianity establish the superiority of their religion over Islam. And that sort of thing, in addition to being uneducated and disrespectful of Muslims' free exercise of religion, is also likely to be self-fulfilling and to put us in more danger.

But even dangerous, evil, uneducated speech should be legally protected, so yes, I condemn the Canadian government's efforts to prosecute Steyn.

Posted by Dilan Esper | June 13, 2008 1:03 PM

Dilan,

Is it bigoted to say that Christianity is better than Islam? Put simply, if Jesus Christ was divine, and if his death on the cross achieved our salvation, then Christianity is a better approximation to the Truth than Islam is. Whenever anyone asserts their faith in the divinity of Christ, implicit in that is that they assert that those creeds which deny His divinity are false, Islam included among them. By your logic any serious Christian is a bigot.

Islam and Christianity flatly contradict each other in re: the divinity of Christ. On this matter one of them must be true and the other must be false. Either Christ was divine or he was not.

Posted by Hector | June 13, 2008 1:10 PM

I guess the first council of nicea was pointless then Hector, if Christ is either divine or man, rather than a mixture of both.

Does cover several hundred years of christian theology. Nothing major though.

Posted by James | June 13, 2008 2:00 PM

I guess the first council of nicea was pointless then Hector, if Christ is either divine or man, rather than a mixture of both.

Does cover several hundred years of christian theology. Nothing major though.

Posted by James | June 13, 2008 2:08 PM

there are no rules about admissible evidence, cross-examination, etc., and the commissioners get to judge Steyn's work without any apparent bounds to their discretion.

Well, when you are fighting a War on Bad Writer(rorism), the elimination of some protections is necessary, inevitable and good. And torture. More torture.

CC,

This statement is false. It is simply not true to say that the U.S. ever provide enemy combatants the right to avail themselves of the full protection of U.S. Courts.

So all the US need do to suspend habeas for writers around the world is to have the President declare that we are in a War on Writer(rorism). Then we drop some Seals or Special Forces guys into various countries and we offer to pay the people of those countries if they'll round-up any Writer(rorist)s and hand them over to us. Once we are given a couple hundred Writer(rorist)s, we can ensconce them, without trial, on some base on an Island somewhere and then, if we feel like it, we can set up a secret, kangaroo court to convict them.

All I'll say, CC, is if this scenario wouldn't violate the Constitution (and Justice Roberts writes in favor of such a system in Boumediene) under your reading of the Constitution, then you are Un-American. Justice Kennedy understands this and, thus, the majority opinion.

Dance on your rhetorical pinheads as long as you'd like CC, but you're ultimately arguing for a deeply Un-American cause.

Posted by keatssycamore | June 13, 2008 3:19 PM

I am a lawyer practicing in British Columbia. I also oppose the law. However, some of the claims about the process followed in the Human Rights Tribunal here are just plain wrong.

The Human Rights Tribunal is a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal. It is independent of the executive branch (which is currently in the hands of the conservative B.C. Liberal Party). Hearings do include cross-examination, evidence under oath and other due process requirements. Decisions can be reviewed by the courts, and of course this one will be, at least if it goes against Steyn.

The NYT is correct that the post-Warren Court attitude to freedom of speech in the US is unique among western democracies. (Which is not to say that freedom of speech is "absolute" even in the United States). I don't see much argument for subjecting Holocaust deniers to liability and letting people like Steyn off, since Steyn has a lot more influence, and anti-Semitism is a minor problem in Canadian society compared with hostility to Muslims. Faced with that dilemma, I would prefer to let Holocaust deniers talk. But that's a minority view -- in Canada and in the United States.

Posted by Pithlord | June 13, 2008 4:17 PM

The precedent of the Nurenberg trials show that the rights of the individuals on trial there -- whatever they were -- could be satisfied in a system other than the United States federal court system. Once you grant that principle, then we're only arguing about whether the current military tribunal sytem provides similarly adequate protections. I hear a lot of accusations about "kangaroo courts," but I'd like to see a real argument explaining why the military tribunal system established by Congress is on its face inadequate for providing the same level of protections as the Nurenberg trial system.

Posted by CCBiggs | June 13, 2008 4:29 PM

"As a point of information, what is the Catholic understanding of transubstantiation as it pertains to "invalid" churches?" Hector

TR: I'm not a theologian, others answered this better.

To be honest I've not heard this issue come up though. The Church of England is traditionally vague as to whether they even accept transubstantiation so I didn't think the matter was even an issue. I don't believe Anglicans are allowed to take Catholic eucharist though.

"The point is that Hinduism, Taoism and Zoroastrianism don't seek to defeat Christianity and supplant it." Hector

TR: The three you chose don't really seek converts at all. They may accept converts, but they don't seek them. I'm not sure if the others I named see themselves as supplanting Christianity, but I wouldn't say that's precisely Islam's goal either. Islam, like Catholicism and to an extent other Christianity, sees itself as true. It is not merely to be seen as a method of life or cultural tradition. Hence Islam favors truth winning over falsehood as does Christianity. Islam's initial and main goal was to supplant polytheism. However as it believes in a preference for what's true and real the world at the end of time will ultimately be Muslim. As in Christianity Christ is real and will return so the Universe is ultimately Christian.

"The laws of Yemen and Iran for example permit a man to marry a 9-year old and justify this on the purported example of the prophet." Hector

TR: Yemen is rather backward even by the standard of the Muslim Mideast. I didn't know that on Iran.

The Muslim world is not monolithic. If you want to say elements of the Islamic world are X that's fine, but you indicate Muslims or Islam in a more sweeping way.

Posted by Thomas R | June 13, 2008 4:53 PM

Thomas R.,

I guess you're right. Of course there are lots and lots of individual Muslims who are peaceful, progressive, and don't support the Quranic injunctions about apostasy or whatever. But I do think that their are critical problems with basic Muslim teachings and scriptures themselves.

I looked it up and Iran apparently raised the age of consent from 9 to 13 a few years back, so that's no longer accurate.

Anglo-Catholics as far as I know believe in "consubstantiation" -- as far as I understand that means that the sacramental wine is simultaneously wine and blood and so forth.

Posted by Hector | June 13, 2008 5:27 PM

sytem provides similarly adequate protections. I hear a lot of accusations about "kangaroo courts," but I'd like to see a real argument explaining why the military tribunal system established by Congress is on its face inadequate for providing the same level of protections as the Nurenberg trial system.

Well, you've seen them and ignored them, but here goes anyway.

- Right to counsel.

- Right to see/confront witnesses and evidence presented against you.

- Right to present evidence in your favor.

- Impartial fact finder

Minor trifles, all. But of course, all these concerns magically vanish once you decided, a priori, that all those captured are Really Bad People.

Posted by Pooh | June 13, 2008 6:46 PM

Hector:Islam and Christianity flatly contradict each other in re: the divinity of Christ. On this matter one of them must be true and the other must be false. Either Christ was divine or he was not.

James:I guess the first council of nicea was pointless then Hector, if Christ is either divine or man, rather than a mixture of both.

James, Hector never denied that Christ is man. Hector never said that Christ was ONLY divine. What he said was that Christianity teaches that Christ was divine, and Islam teaches that Christ was NOT divine. Christianity teaches that Christ is simultaneously man and God. Islam teaches that Christ is ONLY man. Those are two different doctrines. Obviously they cannot both be true.

So Hector does have a good point: if you say that it is bigoted to call one religion inferior or superior to another, you are essentially saying that to actually believe according to any particular religion is to be a bigot.

Posted by Glaivester | June 13, 2008 6:57 PM

Glaivester,

Islam says he was a messenger of God, which is still a completely different doctrine, but not quite as either/or as painted here.

I'm impressed you can divine such insight from Hector's post, when what he said was:

Either Christ was divine or he was not.

He didn't bring up duality at all, which was a debating point for several hundred years, and was essentially only settled by decree.

Posted by James | June 13, 2008 7:19 PM

I'm away for a couple of weeks, and so my post doesn't get taken to be confrontation, the point I was trying to make is that Christianity used to have a huge variety of views depending on what part of Christendom, and it is only recently that things have become more uniform.

To make it Islam/Christianity as right/wrong, when Christianity has been obsessed with who are the right Christians for most of their history, hides that there even now pluralities in Christianity and in Islam.

And we may yet see Islam's Reformation. Where are you Mirza Luther?

Posted by James | June 13, 2008 7:47 PM

James,

No one is denying that. The point however is that there is more room for interpretation and diversity of views in Christianity than in Islam, for the following two reasons:

1) in Christianity God is made manifest primarily through Christ and only secondarily through the Bible, whereas in Islam the written scriptures enjoys a much higher pride of place
2) the Quran is a comprehensive scripture with precise instructions for the details of how we are to live, whereas the New Testament (again, I'm generalizing here) consists largely of general principles and it is left to the church to interpret those principles in specific situations. This is why the history of Christian moral philosophy and theology is more conflictual and "interesting" than in Islam- in Islam there hasn't been as much for the theologians and moral philosophers to do because most of it was already set down in the Quran and the hadiths.

By the way, the council of Nicaea did not say that Christ was a "mixture" of divine and human. That would be Monophysitism. The council of Nicaea, if I remember correctly, said that Christ had two natures, a fully divine nature and a fully human nature, which coexist with each other. I didn't bring up the humanity of Christ because we are talking about Islam, not the Albigensians or the Docetists or anyone else who accepted Christ's divinity without accepting His humanity.

There's still quite a diversity of views within Christianity of course.

Posted by Hector | June 13, 2008 8:00 PM

Your hypothetical Mexican example is probably no good. Last I heard Mexico was aggressively secular, and the Catholics complained about it.

Posted by John Emerson | June 13, 2008 8:03 PM

Your hypothetical Mexican example is probably no good. Last I heard Mexico was aggressively secular, and the Catholics complained about it.

Posted by John Emerson | June 13, 2008 8:04 PM

Hector,

I just wrote a long post about your comments, which went on for several paragraphs, and not only did this server not process it, the browser crashed. I don't have the heart to rewrite it, especially as i have to pack for a holiday, so anyway, thanks for taking the earlier posts in the spirit they were intended.

Posted by James | June 13, 2008 8:13 PM

"Last I heard Mexico was aggressively secular, and the Catholics complained about it."

TR: Mexico has elements that are aggressively secular and ones that are more devoutly religious. The Mexicans coming to this country are, largely, not of the secularist class. The secularist class, as I recall, tended to disproportionately be the military and the professionals.

However many of the Mexican Catholics coming here are no more devout than your average American Catholic. The immigrant group that, per capita, is putting out the most priests is Southeast Asians. In particular the Vietnamese and to an extent Filipinos. (In European Catholic immigrants from Africa might be the most devout Catholics, in comparative terms I don't think we get as many African immigrants)

In addition to that the Mexicans have a highly active Pentecostal population as do other Latino nations. Latino Protestants have often been more conservative and zealous in their faith, in part as many of them are converts or children of converts.

Posted by Thomas R | June 14, 2008 4:31 AM

Thomas R.,

I think that _the Mexican state_ however used to be "aggressively secular". At least up until about the early 1990s (if I recall correctly priests were not even allowed to vote or to wear collars in public.) The bulk of the people, not so much of course. That is interesting about Vietnamese and Filipino Catholics. (By the same token some of the most devout Protestants I know are Korean or Chinese Americans).

I do feel uneasy about the rise of Pentecostalism and other Protestant sects in Latin America, much the same as I do about Islam in Europe. EVen though I'm not a Catholic. Catholicism, for better or worse, was a corporate endeavor that provided a moral framework for society and the state in Latin America. Pentecostal Christianity tends to be more of an individualized thing between the individual and God, with society and the state in a minor role. I'm not sure that's a good thing. Religion should be a collective thing not just an individual one. As Khomiakov said, "We can be damned alone, but we can be saved only with others."

Posted by Hector | June 14, 2008 8:16 AM

Re: Africa and the Muslim world are the only areas where fertility rates are still very high.

But also declining, at least in the Middle East. (In Africa the demographics are complicated by the high death rate from AIDS).

Re: The priest was not validly ordained: the rites of Anglican ordination of bishops and priests changed following the break with Rome in ways that Rome considers to be invalid.

Interesting. It was my understanding that the issue was not the rite itself, but a break in the apostolic succession in the late 16th century, when the bishops appointed by Elizabeth I were not consecrated by other valid bishops.

Re: The priest did not use the proper rite to confect the eucharist: the Anglican Mass is invalid just as the rites of ordination are invalid

Careful. some Orthodox hard liners consider all Western Eucharistic rites invalid because of the lack of a proper epiclesis (invoking the Holy Spirit, e.g., "Changing them by the Holy Spirit") My own feeling is that we ought no split hairs here. Christ said "Do this in memory of me" not "Argue about this in memory of me"

Re: Muslims exert influence in Europe disproportionate to their numbers since too many Christians are lackadaisical about their faith

??
what influence do Muslims exert in Europe? Except for a tiny wealthy elite (like the Fayyed clan in England) most Muslims are underclass helots stuck in slums.

Re: the Quran is a comprehensive scripture with precise instructions for the details of how we are to live

It's my understanding that the Qu'ran is a very messy and incoherent work which contradicts itself frequently (OK, the Bible is sometimes like that too). And Islamic Law, the Shari'a, is not found in the Qu'ran explicitly (like, say, the Levitical law) but is a huge body of precepts and rulings built up over the centuries that requires Islamic legal scholars to interpret and apply-- which is why there are so many diverse interpretations.

Re: The council of Nicaea, if I remember correctly, said that Christ had two natures, a fully divine nature and a fully human nature, which coexist with each other.

A minor correction: that was Chalcedon, not Nicaea.

Re: I'm not sure that's a good thing. Religion should be a collective thing not just an individual one.

Good point. Less known in the Pope's supposedly anti-Muslim speech at Regensburg is hat he also mentioned the more ecstatic sects of Protestantism as making the very same error as islam in respect to God and reason.

Posted by JonF | June 14, 2008 10:42 PM

"Pentecostal Christianity tends to be more of an individualized thing between the individual and God, with society and the state in a minor role." Hector

TR: I don't think that's entirely accurate. What I remember of polls from Latin America Pentecostals were currently more likely to see their faith as having a societal and state role. I'd do the link, but I remember that's discouraged at Douthat's blog. Still it's at the Pew Research Center from two years ago. I'm not sure they're that individualist either. Even the ecstatic experiences are largely communal and in some respects they seem more conformist than contemporary Catholics I know.

Still traditionally Pentecostalism in Latin America is more "Right-wing", in the American sense, and supportive of capitalism. It's a bit more "liberal" in that they seem to encourage self-made men over aristocrats and criticize Catholics for supporting traditional powers. Hence several of the Pentecostal groups in Brazil seem to actively encourage the idea that the faith will lead poor people to greater prosperity and importance, making it a bit more like a Horatio Alger church. So in that sense it's more "individualist" I suppose.

Posted by Thomas R | June 15, 2008 12:51 AM

I read the NY Times article, and I thought that far from being biased in favor of Canada etc., it showed that the Canadians are pathetic, Islam-worshipping, surrender monkeys. But then again maybe I just saw what I wanted to see.

Posted by Woodrow | June 15, 2008 1:37 AM

Thomas R.,

Yeah I should not have been so general (and I defer to your greater knowledge of religious history). There are certainly left-wing Pentecostal preachers too, in the US (like Eugene Rivers in Boston) and in Latin America as well. There's such a diversity within Pentecostalism that I should not have generalized. However I do think that _as a whole_ from what I understand, Pentecostal and other evangelical groups tend to put greater emphasis on the relationship between the individual and God rather than including the broader society in the equation.

Part of the problem of course is simply a historical one- evangelical Protestantism has no historical experience of being the ruling faith of a society and hasn't had to meet the challenge of developing a philosophy of natural law, social theory, etc. that the Catholic, Orthodox, and to a lesser extent the Anglicans in England and Lutherans in Scandinavia have.

JonF,

I think the difference is that the Quran and hadiths are fairly explicit in their moral commandments and instructions about how to live, whereas the New Testament is much more implicit.
(The Old Testament of course is explicit, like the Shariah, but there has been debate in Christendom about which aspects of it are still valid for Christians and so forth).

Joe Magarac,

Interesting. My question though wasn't about whether Catholics can validly satisfy their Sunday obligation at a Anglican eucharist. As a technical matter, what does the Catholic church believe is the substantive nature of the host after it is 'consecrated' by a Lutheran or Anglican clergyman- is Christ present in it or not?

Posted by Hector | June 15, 2008 11:45 AM

Oh I don't know if I know religious history better than you. I have a history degree, but it wasn't specifically in the history of religion. Sometimes maybe I come off professorial or superior acting and I'm a bit sorry if so. I've just gotten a bit defensive online about my intelligence because grammar and punctuation are weaker areas for me so sometimes people treat me like I'm dumb. That and, until I starting going bald, I kind of looked like a 10 year old because of my condition.

Anyway Islam does seem to be more of a "total experience" or "high intensity" about how you live your life. Curiously I'd say it's most like ultra-Orthodox Judaism in that regard. Although with Orthodox Judaism the rationalist element provides a restraint and seems to have become almost paramount. In Islam the rationalist element either services a narrow legalism, as in some Shi'a, or it's been largely marginalized due to several historical and political factors.

The most moderate Muslim cultures I've found due tend to be "half-pagan", mystical, heterodox, or offshoots of Shi'a. For example the Ismailis, although once the Assassins, are fairly tolerant these days.

Posted by Thomas R | June 16, 2008 3:29 AM