Andrew C. McCarthy writing in NRO
* * *
Donald Trump’s rhetorical excesses aside, he has a way of
pushing us into important debates, particularly on immigration. He has done it
again with his bracing proposal to force “a total and complete shutdown of
Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can
figure out what is going on.”
* AGREED! (THAT IS... AGREED THAT TRUMP'S RHETORIC PUSHES
UNCOMFORTABLE BUT NECESSARY DEBATE AMONGST US!)
I have no idea what Mr. Trump knows about either
immigration law or Islam. But it should be obvious to any objective person that
Muslim immigration to the West is a vexing challenge.
* YEP.
(*NODDING*)
HOW COULD ANYONE DISPUTE THIS?
Some Muslims come to the United States to practice their
religion peacefully, and assimilate into the Western tradition of tolerance of
other people’s liberties, including religious liberty — a tradition alien to
the theocratic societies in which they grew up.
* ...IN WHICH MANY GREW UP.
* AGAIN... IT MATTERS WHICH COUNTRIES WE'RE TALKING
ABOUT!
Others come here to champion sharia, Islam’s
authoritarian societal framework and legal code, resisting assimilation into
our pluralistic society.
* THERE'S SHARIA... AND THEN... THERE'S SHARIA...
(*SHRUG*)
* BUT, YES... I "GET" THE POINT AND TAKE IT
SERIOUSLY.
Since we want to both honor religious liberty and
preserve the Constitution that enshrines and protects it, we have a dilemma.
The assumption that is central to this dilemma — the one that Trump has stumbled
on and that Washington refuses to examine — is that Islam is merely a religion.
* IT'S... NOT.
(*SHRUG*)
* BUT ALLOWING MR. MCCARTHY TO CONTINUE...
(*SMILE*)
If that’s true, then it is likely that religious liberty
will trump constitutional and national-security concerns. How, after all, can a
mere religion be a threat to a constitutional system dedicated to religious
liberty?
But Islam is no mere religion.
* AND THAT'S THE RUB...
(*SHRUG*)
As understood by the mainstream of Muslim-majority
countries that are the source of immigration to America and the West, Islam is
a comprehensive ideological system that governs all human affairs, from
political, economic, and military matters to interpersonal relations and even
hygiene.
It is beyond dispute that Islam has religious tenets —
the oneness of Allah, the belief that Mohammed is the final prophet, the
obligation of ritual prayer. Yet these make up only a fraction of what is
overwhelmingly a political ideology.
Our constitutional principle of religious liberty is
derived from the Western concept that the spiritual realm should be separate
from civic and political life. The concept flows from the New Testament
injunction to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.
(*NODDING*)
Crucially, the interpretation of Islam that is mainstream
in most Muslim-majority countries does not accept a division between mosque and
state.
In fact, to invoke “mosque” as the equivalent of “church”
in referring to a division between spiritual and political life is itself a
misleading projection of Western principles onto Islamic society.
A mosque is not merely a house of worship. It does not
separate politics from religion any more than Islam as a whole does. There is a
reason why many of the fiery political protests that turn riotous in the Middle
East occur on Fridays — the Muslim Sabbath, on which people pour out of the
mosques with ears still burning from the imam’s sermon.
The lack of separation between spiritual and civic life
is not the only problem with Islam.
* FROM AN AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE...
(*BITING MY LIP*)
Sharia is counter-constitutional in its most basic
elements — beginning with the elementary belief that people do not have a right
to govern themselves freely. Islam, instead, requires adherence to sharia and
rejection of all law that contradicts it. So we start with fundamental
incompatibility, before we ever get to other aspects of sharia: its systematic
discrimination against non-Muslims and women; its denial of religious liberty,
free speech, economic freedom, privacy rights, due process, and protection from
cruel and unusual punishments; and its endorsement of violent jihad in
furtherance of protecting and expanding the territory it governs.
* I VERY MUCH DOUBT THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF MUSLIMS ARE
INVOLVED - OR NECESSARILY EVEN IN FAVOR - OF VIOLENT JIHAD AND CONQUEST OF THE
NON-MUSLIM WORLD. MOST SIMPLY WANT TO BE ALLOWED TO PRACTICE THEIR FAITH IN
PEACE IN THEIR OWN LANDS.
Let’s bear in mind that permitting immigration is a
discretionary national act.
* YEP!
There is no right to immigrate to the United States, and
the United States has no obligation to accept immigrants from any country,
including Muslim-majority countries.
* I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!
We could lawfully cut off all immigration, period, if we
wanted to.
* AND FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH... I PRETTY MUCH WANT TO!
Plus, it has always been a basic tenet of legal
immigration to promote fidelity to the Constitution and assimilation into
American society — principles to which classical sharia is antithetical.
* IT IS... AT LEAST TO A LARGE EXTENT.
So why isn’t that the end of the matter?
Why is Trump being vilified?
Why isn’t he being hailed for speaking truth and refusing
to bow to political correctness?
* ALL RHETORICAL QUESTIONS...
(*SMILE*)
Because Islam is more complex in practice than in theory.
* AGREED! (WHICH IS WHY I REJECT KNEE-JERK - OR PLAIN
JERK - BLANKET DENUNCIATIONS OF ISLAM AND MUSLIMS!)
In our non-Muslim country, there is no point in debating
what the “true” Islam says or whether Muslims are at liberty to ignore or
reform classical sharia. There may not be a true Islam. Even if there is one,
what non-Muslims think or say about it is of little interest to Muslims.
(*NODDING*)
Our job, in any event, is to preserve the Constitution and
protect our national security regardless of how Islam’s internal debates are
ultimately resolved — if they ever are. With that understanding, it is simply a
fact that many Muslims accept our constitutional principles and do not seek to
impose sharia on our society.
* YEP...!!!
(*STANDING OVATION*)
They have varying rationales for taking this position:
Some believe sharia mandates that immigrants accept their host country’s laws;
some believe sharia’s troublesome elements are confined to the historical time
and place where they arose and are no longer applicable; some think sharia can
evolve; some simply ignore sharia altogether but deem themselves devout Muslims
because they remain Islamic spiritually and — within the strictures of American
law — culturally. For those Muslims, Islam is, in effect, merely a religion,
and as such it deserves our Constitution’s protections.
* ABSOFRIGGIN'LUTELY!
For other Muslims, however, Islam is a political program
with a religious veneer. It does not merit the liberty protections our law
accords to religion. It undermines our Constitution and threatens our security.
Its anti-assimilationist dictates create a breeding ground for violent jihad.
If we continue mindlessly treating Islam as if it were merely a religion, if we
continue ignoring the salient differences between constitutional and sharia
principles — thoughtlessly assuming these antithetical systems are compatible —
we will never have a sensible immigration policy.
* AGAIN... ABSOFRIGGIN'LUTELY!
I have no idea what, if anything, Donald Trump knows
about sharia. I do know that it’s a system we must account for if we are going
to succeed in welcoming pro-Western Muslims who will be a boon to our society
while excluding Islamic supremacists who want to destroy it.
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