Islamist Assault on the U.S. Constitution
The U.S. Constitution
This past weekend, a fanatical Islamist group, Hizb ut Tahrir, which calls itself a "Global Islamic Political Party," convened at the Hilton Hotel in Chicago in order to rally the jihadi troups to overthrow the U.S. Constitution and to impose Islamic sharia law, with all its oppression, brutality and censorship.
In the first place, the double standard held by hotels lately is blatant: The conference featuring Islam critic and Dutch politician Geert Wilders in Florida was cancelled at the last minute after the Delray Beach Marriott hotel refused to hold it. We know the culprits behind that piece of censorship. Now, however, we find individuals essentially attempting to conquer the U.S. given free rein at another hotel.
If these individuals calling for the destruction of the U.S. Constitution are American citizens, they have basically committed treason and should be charged with that crime. If they are not American citizens, they should be deported as soon as possible. How long would such anti-government rabble rousers have lasted in Saudi Arabia or Iran, calling for the destruction of the constitutions there?
Free Speech is Sacred
Secondly, availing themselves of the First Amendment these anti-American fanatics in Chicago were evidently carrying signs declaring, “Freedom of Speech is an Attack on Islam.” Many people outside of the Muslim world hold free speech as a sacred tenet; hence, the censorial commentary itself represents an attack on their religion. These same individuals cherish the U.S. Constitution as a truly sacred scripture.
Regarding this gathering, American Atheists president Ed Buckner remarked:
The ‘enemy’ they cite is free markets, free ideas, and freedom from imposed religion… We know that is not what most Americans want, including, we hope and think, the vast majority of Muslims who, while religious, accept the values embodied in the Constitution, including free expression.”
We can only hope that the majority of Muslims in the U.S. revere the freedoms that the American Constitution affords—including freedom from imposed religion—and that, rather than committing treason, they will uphold and defend that sacred piece of legislation. However, we must keep in mind the chilling example of “creeping sharia” in the U.K. and other parts of Europe, and we must never lose sight of the old adage widely ascribed to American Founding Father and President Thomas Jefferson:
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Patriotic Old Lady Immigrants Make American Flags
Let us never forget the steep price so many Americans have paid over the past centuries in order to establish and preserve those freedoms. And let us also never capitulate our hard-earned right to free speech, which we may claim as one of our “religious” tenets. Indeed, such censorship constitutes an attack on basic human rights that we as freethinkers holdsacred. Our future generations are depending on us.