Half-naked sluts and Jezebels are everywhere, defiling the land with the corruption of their exposed flesh. They are the basest of creatures, sent by demons, to torture the souls of righteous men and lead them astray from The Path.

Insh'Allah, the Sword of the Prophet (pbuh) will strike down these daughters of Shaitan so that the men of God will be spared from the wickedness of their wanton temptations.

Who knew that No Veil= slut?

Of course, libertarians and the Left likewise think that because Muslim women don't want to dress like sluts they must be ashamed of themselves.

I haven't seen anyone proposing that as an actual argument. Personally, as a woman the hijab truly frightens me, and I'm fairly modest in my own attire. It isn't just a modest covering, it's a blanket with slits only showing the eyes. It's a mask and I see it as scary step backwards.

Monica:

Exactly. It's about you.

Pepys:

It's simple math where Veil=slave/terrorist.

Of course, libertarians and the Left likewise think that because Muslim women don't want to dress like sluts they must be ashamed of themselves.

Wow. A non sequitur, an ad hominem and a straw man all in one irrational group grope.

I'm not claiming it's about me. I simply expressed my opinion. Apparently you disagree.

Mr. Tremayne:

It's not about men.

Raoul:

One word suffices: irrational.

A lady at the restaurant was wearing a shirt w/II Cor. 3:18:

18And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect[a] the Lord's glory,...

...are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Personally, after looking it up, I prefer this:

13We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.

Islam's radiance is fading away.--

----

As to the modesty argument, we're here to fight temptation and rise above basic human nature.

Of course, since their uncovered hair drives men so wild they can't contain themselves, I have a solution - go bald.

The essence of our humanity is that we can't rise above temptation. Muslim women obey God when they cover themselves, thereby honoring Him.

We hate the orthodox of every religion because they point up what slackers the rest of us are.

Then they will need to cover their souls as well for, when we see them, we will be inconsolable.

Considering the bra-less look and the number of 11 year old girls I have seen with "Juicy" on the back of their shorts, I have to side with OJ. Thinking back to how people looked 100 years ago, The culture has not shown itself to be up to keeping up standards.

Monica:

In this debate I'm under the impression that, whatever the strict definition, the hijab just refers to head covering and modest dress-- this kind of stuff. I think it is a sad comment about us in the West that hardly anybody is able to draw a coherent distinction between the two. I'm starting to get the impression that if just one Imam urged women to wear gloves in public, we'd be showered by angry screeds about what psycho-sexually warped misogynists they all are and how such would constitute a direct attack on civilization as we know it. Let's face it, we've arrived at the point where we object to any notion of public modesty at all.

That's too bad because it leaves us with nothing much to say to them. Christian societies traditionally rejected the separation and subjugation of women that was practiced in the Muslim world and accorded them far more integration and legal respect. Bernard Lewis recounts how shocked visiting Turks in the 18th century were by the forward ways of Western women and their social ubiquity, which should give our modern feminists something to think about. The veil may indeed be close to the symbolic line on that score. But we hardly rejected notions of public modesty or the reality of human sexuality. However, since we invented the androgynous society, it's gender-blind party time and we'll all go self-righteously to battle for muffin-tops. We can't even begin to understand what amoral, suicidal fools we look like to them. If they raise the cesspool of multi-billion dollar hardcore porn and sex trades, our response to to send a gaggle of libertarians to lecture them on freedom of contract. Just who is enslaved here?

BTW, has anyone noticed how that modern incarnation of evil--the Muslim man--is given to pretty strict notions of modesty himself? True, he doesn't veil, but how often to you see him in trainers and shorts or lounging by the pool in his spandex? And I don't think he wanders freely into his friend's kitchen to nibble on the goodies and chat up the women folk. In fact, I think I know what the women folk would do if he tried, and the word cower doesn't come to mind.

Here is the tale of one who wore the veil for a day and the charming, respectful responses she encountered from us enlightened folk. And here is somebody who gets the real issue.

Way to go, Lou. You've just proven racism has no genetic foundation.

Say, who is this "we" in whose name you are always speaking? The Pope, the Queen and Lou Gots are the only people I know that talk like that. Is there something you would like to share with us?

It would indeed appear that religious conservatives should not be underestimated.

I agree. Your Islamophilism is irrational.

Of course religious belief is irrational. That's all that's at issue here, the Rationalists vs. the religious.

The culture has not shown itself to be up to keeping up standards.

So then why all the effort to "reform" a superior alian culture that shares nothing with ours that it didn't steal and pervert from us since the day Muhammed switched from facing Jerusalem to Mecca in mid-prayer? If our culture has made a wrong turn, it would seem that the effort should be made in reforming our own, or showing that contempt by leaving it completely.

This dhimmi Islamophilism shows how ingrained multi-culti-ism has become in our culture, where even its critics adopt its premises. Those who easily toss out the so-called Isamophobe charge, like Leftists and their Communism infatuation of the last century, are promoting an alien culture they claim is somehow superior, yet one in which they repeatedly demonstrate that they would never consider living in voluntarily, either by actually following its tenets personally, or by emigrating to a place where their program is actually implemented. It's good enough for those masses over there, but don't force me to give up my decadence.

Islam won't have much trouble replacing Europe's secular decadence, just as Christianity had little trouble taking over the decadent remnants of Rome.

The reason that this discussion appears to make so little progress is due to the obtuse insistence that objections to things like the chador and the niqab are entirely due to a rejection of 'modesty and piety'.

I cannot speak for anyone else but I can say, for my own part, that this is absurdly wrong. I object to them because they are the cultural totems of an aggressive, oppressive, imperialist and absolutist ideology that may well encompass 'modesty and piety' but does so only as part and parcel of a programme of conquest and submission. For the record, I have no discomfort with anyone's modesty or piety.

"Islam won't have much trouble replacing Europe's secular decadence.."

Time may well prove you right, Mr. Judd but allow me just to remind you that the Soviets (in common with much 'informed opinion' in the West) absolutely believed the very same thing about communism. Now you might argue that Islam is a stronger force than communism and I would readily agree with you but that does not mean that its victory is anything like inevitable.

I object to them because they are the cultural totems of an aggressive, oppressive, imperialist and absolutist ideology that may well encompass 'modesty and piety' but does so only as part and parcel of a programme of conquest and submission.

Actually TT, I think that is why the discussion is making so little progress. Although, perhaps that's your idea of a moderate, reflective opinion that we can build a good debate around.

Peter B,

Let me tell you that I have been here before. I grew up in Britain in the 1970's and even as a schoolboy I was passionately and overtly anti-communist - a position which was not only difficult to maintain but which was widely considered to be 'extreme' and immoderate and even laughable. The vast weight of received wisdom at the time held that the victory of communism was inevitable and that my vociferous objections were nothing more than the last reactionary gasps of a doomed and decadent society whose collapse was imminent. Even my own father tried to persuade me that I was on the losing side and it was best just to give in and prepare for a life under communism.

But I wasn't on the losing side, was I Peter. I was on the winning side. Back in the dark days of 1970's that outcome was inconcievable and it is amazing to me how much this debate echoes that one.

The circumstances of this one, however, are different is only because Islam is a much stronger force than communism ever was or ever could be. So maybe, this time, I will be on the losing side and maybe I had better get used to the idea that my children and grandchildren will grow up in an Islamic society. This is a possibility, maybe even a probability, but it is not inevitable because nothing is.

Just a couple of more points:

I have lost count of the number of times that I was told that my hostility to communism was the result of my rejection of any notions of decency or fairness and also my alleged antipathy towards the poor. If only I was a more decent and moral person, I would learn to embrace communism rather than reject it.

Also, when I used the 'progress' in terms of this discussion, I meant progress to the point where you and Mr. Judd understand me. I do not expect you to see things my way, any more than my teachers and classmates saw it my way back then.

Communism is wrong for exactly the same reasons judaism/Christianity/Islam is right.

You have that exactly backwards, of course. Communism was dangerous because it was a heresy within the West. Islamicism is a heresy within Islam only and can't even succeed there, nevermind here.

THE BREAKING STORY on the Philadelphia news--at this very moment: Armed bank robbers, dressed head to foot IN MUSLIM GARB, pulled guns out from their BURNOOSES, took out a bank, later shot it out with the police (the robbers lost the fight) who caught up with them while they were changing out of their burnooses with the aid of a GPS device thrown into the moneybag.

Mr. Tremayne:

How'd Godless Communism do in its confrontation with the Crusader State?

Lou:

Ya' gonna ban Halloween because they usually wear character masks? or Winter because they tend to use ski masks?

"Islamicism is a heresy within Islam only.."

Oh my Lord, this is uncanny. And Stalinism was a heresy within communism.

Mr. Tremayne:

No, within Christianity. That's why Communism and Darwinism were dangerous, they were heresies within the most powerful portion of mankind. Islamicism is weak because occuring within a rather feeble portion.

Er, no, Mr. Judd. The point you missed is that one of torturous excuses for Soviet repression that I used to hear back in the bad old days is eerily reminiscent of the torturous excuses that you are bandying about now.

The only reason Communism is wrong is because it violates God given rights. Islam doesn't. Islamicism does.

Yes, whatever, Mr. Judd. So long as you understand me. You don't have to like it. Let's just see who ends up on the winning side.

Why wouldn't I like it. The Abrahamic side will always defeat the non-Abrahamic side. God is not neutral.

Inevitably?

.

In the end---though that end may take a long time acomin'---Truth (!) tends to defeat Lies.

Or more accurately, those societies/cultures/religions that strive to tell the truth more often, or for which the truth is a higher value (if those societies are willing to defend themselves---though that is part and parcel of the equation), will prevail.

(And it really doesn't matter whether those lies emanate from the lips of secularist or religious ideologues or fanatics.)

Of course, because the victors decide which is which.