Islam's Most Eloquent Apostate

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Photo: Sarah Roger/THE DAILY BEAST

I stole my post's title from a story about Ayaan Hirsi Ai that appeared in today's WSJ (paywall). The title seemed a little off at first glance. "Islam's Most Eloquent" makes it sound like she is pro-Islam, but what's this "Apostate" bit tacked on the end? Apostate is someone who renounces their religion, so it's like a big negative, and boy is she negative. According to her, Islam is out to undermine and destroy Western Civilization. I think she may be right. If we don't find a way to counteract it we may be heading for a brutal future.

Looking around for a similar story that wasn't hidden behind a paywall, I found one by Ayaan on the Hoover Institution's website. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Speaking in Youngstown, Ohio, on August 15, 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave a speech on what he unequivocally referred to as “radical Islam.” He declared:

Nor can we let the hateful ideology of radical Islam—its oppression of women, gays, children, and nonbelievers—be allowed to reside or spread within our own countries . . . [W]-e must use ideological warfare as well. Just as we won the Cold War, in part, by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so too must we take on the ideology of radical Islam. Our administration will be a friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, and will amplify their voices.

Since Mr. Trump’s election victory and inauguration as president, much attention has been focused on hurried and probably temporary restrictions on refugees, visitors, and immigrants from a number of majority-Muslim countries. Almost no attention has been paid to the broader goals outlined in the Youngstown speech.
I argue that the speech heralded a paradigm shift away from President Obama’s doctrine of focusing solely on the violence committed by “extremists” to a more comprehensive approach that seeks to undermine, degrade, and ultimately defeat political Islam (or Islamism) as an ideology and a movement seeking to infiltrate and undermine our free society.

Trump speaks! And he makes sense! Who knew? Not me, I never listen to any kind of news, I ain't got time for that. So this makes it look the media really has a liberal bias. But now I'm thinking that the propaganda-ists might know what they are doing, and so they are promoting this 'Islam is just another religion' idea because if we were to start stirring up people we might get more violence than we want. I am sure there are Westernized Muslims who are content with life here, and you certainly don't want to be subjecting them to any kind of attack, but how can you tell the Westernized Muslims from the died-in-wool fanatics? Especially when the fanatics are masquerading as Westernized?

It's all about what you believe. In the middle of the last century the fascists believed they were right and everyone else was wrong. We showed them that their thinking was incorrect. I am not sure but I suspect Islam's problem stems from not believing the evidence of the senses, but rather relying on mystical religious revelations to reveal the truth. Western Civilization is built on the Bible and Science. Science is a growing influence, but Science doesn't have all the answers. When that happens we can fall back on the Bible. The great thing about Science is the ability to settle disagreements peacefully, but that only works if everyone at least agrees that Science is good. For (some? extremist? devout?) Muslims, Science is no more than a plaything. All truth comes directly into your mind from God. They might be right, but there is also a lot of bullshit that gets into people's minds, so you will excuse me if I am unwilling to accept that you have heard the word of god. Maybe it was God speaking to you, or maybe it was the Devil, or maybe it was just the ghost of a squirrel.

I also found a story by Carla Power on Time.com that says Ayaan is wrong and Islam is okay. Carla is a weasel and an Islam apologist and you should not listen to anything she says.

Update 10 hours later: changed ' I think she maybe right.' to ' I think she may be right.' My inner grammar Nazi spotted this.