Paris Riots: Coming to an American Street Near You

Funny how the rioters are described as immigrants, youths, but you really need a fine toothed comb to find where they’re described as Muslims.

Is it Plagiarism if you lift my thoughts?

Welcome to the America of tomorrow??

Too many weapons in private hands in America for this to happen on a widespread scale here.

Rioting muslims wouldn’t get 50′ into my neighborhood before they were rendered inert. The first one torched a car would be summarily shot and tossed into the canal as gator bait.

Daniel Druilhet … you should not kiss a muslim’s … as you french do so well. You compare christanity to islam, you are … or being obtuse.
ronnied

[Edited to remove name-calling]

Daniel
The answer to your question lies with the Bible (not Pat Robertson mouth). Perhaps you should read it in its entirety

Folks, we’re not immune to this stuff just because the immigrants that we are letting in are mostly Hispanic. When a country is not selective about which immigrants it admits, and gives no thought to the education level, cultural background, and assimilability of the immigrants, conflict becomes more, not less likely. I am sure a lot of people are saying “whew, glad we’re taking in a bunch of nannies and dishwashers instead of those wacky Muslims,” but I have my doubts about whether the goals of, say, MALDEF and CAIR are really all that different. Both are antagonistic toward American traditions, language, and culture and would, if they could, replace it with an undemocratic, collectivist state based on ethnicity and/or religion.

“Those Muslim rioters in Paris, angry about being unemployed or whatever their excuse, need to be crushed.”

In the first article I read about the rioting, I learned that two teenageers had been executed by electrocution.
Ummmm…we ain’t talkin’ about Texas, where such things are the freaking norm.

I think that blaming it on Islamism is a bit of a stretch. There are a lot of problems with Dhimmitude, political correctness etc but I think that quite a lot of the reasons of this riot are the same as LA’s Rodney King riots rather than anything specifically religious

More at my blog: http://www.di2.nu/blog.htm?20051103

Hello !
I am French and as you are a Black woman, I am going to tell you something really ridiculous about the French: our word to say “black” is “noir”… but “noir” is considered racist, visibly… (why, is it that bad to be black ???)… so we use the ENGLISH word “black” to say “noir”… !!! but of course it means the same. When the english word “black” will be considered racist, what word will we use ? I wonder. I hate all this politically correct hypocrisy. I think people who cannot say the words are the racists… maybe they are so frightened by their own inner racism that they need to accuse the others constantly ?
Same remark about the word “youth”. Everybody knows, in France, that when a journalist says “youth” it means “Arab / immigrant”. It has become ridiculous. Don’t you think a society which is not able to NAME things is a sick society ?
Anyway, thank you so much for your site. I will pass the link to as many people I can. What you say about the French riots is incredibly true and believe me, it is not at all what the media say in France.
The thing is, all that creates extreme right votes and it is not going to end up in a very peaceful configuration, I am afraid.
Take care,
Elisabeth, Paris

Jackie:
“In the first article I read about the rioting, I learned that two teenageers had been executed by electrocution.
Ummmm…we ain’t talkin’ about Texas, where such things are the freaking norm.”

The two teanagers were not “executed” Jackie. They foolishly went running away from police who were NOT chasing them and got themselves killed in the process. What this has to do with capital punishment in Texas is beyond my comprehension. However, you are free to move to the liberal blogs and chatrooms where they discuss excuses like this with no basis in reality.

Jon

I’d caution against definitively ascribing a Islamic characteristic to the riots based on the fact that most rioters are Muslim. That may sound like a bit of doublespeak, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate a religious link with the riots, and one truth I’ve seen is that when an Islamic riot is going on (e.g. the “Qu’ran flushing” riots) this connection is usually obviously and explicitly made. On first glance, I’d deem the motivation more political and less religious.

Further discussion on this here.

You are right on the money on this one, La Shawn.

Of course, not all Muslims advocate violence, but that may be because like many Christians, Jews, and others, they do not take seriously what seem to be the tenets of their faith.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees religious freedom (even for Christians, although that is becoming questionable). Muslims should be free to practice their religion in the United States; however, there is the concept of compelling interest that has long been recognized to limit certain religious practices. That’s why laws were passed against the official Mormon practice of polygamy. The state argued it had a compelling interest in prohibiting it, so there was no concern about violating the First Amendment.

If Islam continues to be recognized as a religion of violence, perhaps there may be compelling interest in limiting how it is practiced in the U.S.

Radical idea?

Ask the French.
Ask the British.
Ask the Spanish.
Ask New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

If, indeed, Islam, is a “religion of peace,” the burden of proof is upon Muslims to demonstrate it.

Christians are quick to decry and to distance themselves from abortion clinic bombers claiming to act in the name of Christ. The denouncing of Islamic violence seems to be but murmurs from the Muslim community.

Hmmmm. Several disparate thoughts:

1. Throughout the various European countries, the Muslims seem to clump tightly together.

2. I have not seen many signs that the Muslim youth in various European countries are particularly religious or even try to avoid “wine, women and song.”

3. The Muslims in various European countries seem to run afoul of the law at a rate disproportionate to their population.

4. The Muslim sections of cities in various European countries are far from prosperous.

5. Islam is the tie that binds these people and that includes those who hardly practice the religion. But if an outside force pushes against them, they will use Islam as their identity.

6. Muslims must find a way and make the effort to meld into the host culture or they will be segregated and kept segregated in an evermore escalating spiral of clashes.

7. Liberals (in my experience) who practice a religion only engage in religions of convenience that permit them to chart their own moral codes and destinies. Therefore, liberals look at religious beliefs as negotiable. The point being that Liberal Europe acts out of the belief that Muslims can be persuaded to change their beliefs.

8.Making war on Islamofascism is a thorny problem at best because the “enemy” is apt to be anywhere and he does not play by the simplest of rules of war, such as wearing a uniform of identity.

9. We are fast approaching the point where every Muslim is suspect of at least “looking the other way.”

What an excellent post! I love the word “Islamofascism” and intend to use it if that’s okay. I don’t know if it’s original to you or not.
Anyways, here’s a post of mine where I used the word “Muslim” in the title: http://ruminationsbythelake.blogspot.com/2005/10/muslim-teens.html

God bless.

Paris Burns
Chirac Fiddles

Now we know which historical leader Chirac admires… Nero

France needs to impose a curfew and enforce it with bullets…once the behavior is under control then, and only then, can discussion led to a permanent solution

It will happen here real soon and that is what the real power wants. they won’t be a crack down on anything until the government is in Muslim hands, this is what you get when you have massive immigration and it will happen here.

I was thinking that the same thing could so easily happen here.

La Shawn,
“Lax immigration policies, prostration to the god of multiculturalism, and the refusal to fight fire with fire are three reasons why Muslim “youths” in Paris are rioting in the streets.” As you say these are just 3 of the reasons. Do you think France’s history as a colonial power has anything to do with it? France has many interests in countries around the globe. Most of the immigrants are from countries France has exploited or otherwise received something from over the years. Many of the young French are the children of immigrants who migrated to France to share in the wealth their homelands helped to create, only to be treated as second class citizens. What we’re seeing is former European colonial powers beginning to reap what they’ve sowed. This is happening not only in France but throughout the world. I think the press in the West is using terrorism and the Muslim faith to deflect attention away from the historical policies that helped to create many of the world’s current problems, including here at home.

“The law must be applied firmly”, but “in a spirit of dialogue and respect”.

Ya’ see, Mr. Chirac, that’s where you go wrong in all of this.

Hello,

I still fail to realise how exactly this has got to do with radical Islam. It has nothing to do with radical Islam. NOTHING.

Are most of the rioters Muslim, yes? But they are not fighting and rioting because they believe in some jihad concept (like OBL, Taliban, Al-Quida)! THey are just upset with the discrimination that they face as Muslims, that’s all. The people involved are not the terrorist that we are figthing on “war on terror”… these are just upset immigrants, who happen to be MUslim. Actually let me take the “immigrant” out… THESE ARE FRENCH BORN Muslims, NOT immigrants, who have never bene thought of as “french” in french society.

And to also note… European Muslims and American Muslims, are two differnet classes. European Muslims seem to be poor and uneducated. American Muslims are actually the MOST educated in America, along wth one of the richest populations in America. What drives terrorism and riots like these, are poverty… Muslim American do not have this problem.

salaam

La Shawn,
I think your headline is wrong. There are just too many armed patriots in the US, that will shoot those that try to burn their property!

Red Bull -

You bring up an interesting point. It is a little known fact that as bad and nasty as Saddam undeniably was, Iraq under his rule had a sizable Christian minority that worshipped freely in Christian churches. Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam, was a Christian! And there was even a small community of Jews in Iraq.

Christians also make up a fairly large minority among Palestinians, and hold high positions within the leadership. Anan Ashwari, leading spokesperson for Palestinians, is that rare combination as a leader in the Middle East: both Christian and a woman.

You cannot imagine such a thing in many of the countries in the Middle East that we count as our “allies”, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia is the virtual source of militant, extremist, anti-American Islam – a rabid sect known as Wahabbism. In both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Islamic fundamentalist groups with known ties to terrorism are both based and funded.

It all makes me wonder why we invaded Iraq, when it was just about the most western, secular regime in the entire region. And it is not really Islam, per se, but rather Islamic fundamentalism (indeed, religious extremism of any kind) that is the enemy of humankind.

Blah, the only reason the riots continue is that the French can’t figure out who to surrender to

“How often were you able to attend Mass during your three years in Muslim countries?”

Suek – three decades, not three years. My ability to attend mass depended on where I was in the country. Obviously, there weren’t a lot of Cathlic churches in those areas, just like there aren’t a lot of mosques in Ireland.

I had the most opportunities to attend mass in Turkey, while Saudi Arabia had no Catholic churches (outside of U.S. bases). Turkish people could care less that I was Catholic. There were plenty of Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and even Jews there.

In Saudi Arabia, the rich people where MINO (Muslim in Name Only). Luckily, those were most of my contacts. Wahabbism was still nascent in those days, so there really wasn’t a big backlash against all things non-Muslim or Christian. The government simply discouraged non-Muslim religons and as a result, there weren’t any churches, at least that I could find. I must say though that my time spent in KSA was the shortest of all my Middle East stints, and even then, I stayed in and around ARAMCO, which was like a city in of itself.

However, at no time did I feel threatened, even when dealing with the poorer, less educated, and more devout Muslims in Saudi Arabia.

Jordan was more like Turkey in their attitude towards Westerners and Christians. Suprisingly enough, there are plenty of Catholic churches there. I had no idea before I went that there was such a flourishing Christian community there.

Nylecoj – I’m truly sorry about your friend. I’ve never been to Iraq, so I don’t know much about the place or how Christianity is dealt with there. I can say that you can’t take one person’s hardship in one country and extrapolate that to an entire religion, or region.

On a historical note, remember that the Ottoman (Muslim) Empire had conquered and controlled most of Southeastern Europe/Balkans for hundreds of years. Despite this, Orthodoxy flourished, as did Catholicism in places like southern Croatia and Romania.

If Muslims were hell-bent on killing all infidels, the populations of Greece and the Balkans today would be Muslim. This is not the case.

Oops. Posted the wrong link. That’s what happens when I have too many windows open! I don’t know how to correct it, so I will repost the correct link here. Sorry about that LaShawn!

“inherently incompatible with the concept of liberty.”

Exactly! Speak that truth!

Delving deeper, Islam is inherently incompatible with the concept of ‘free will’. Islamic ’submission’ is about ridding your life of temptation, as a Muslim does not believe they have the ‘free will’ to resist certain temptations.

Its often asked: ‘Are we at war with Islam?’
We are at ideological war with whatever portion of the Islamic world does not believe in free will.

Speaking of riots…

“When the strongest nation in the world can be tied up for … years in a war … with no end in sight, when the richest nation in the world can’t manage its own economy, when the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness, … and when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration – then it’s time for new leadership for the United States of America.”
— Richard Nixon, 1968

Re: #93

Do I detect yet another Nixon comeback in the works, this time in 2008? Makes sense – he is squeaky clean compared to Hilly the Hun!

Nixon in ‘08! As a Democrat this time of course.

AS a Christian I know that Christianity is not about democracy. God lays down the laws and expects us follow them. I don’t seen anywhere in my bible where God ever asked anyone for their opinion or vote. God is omniscient and all powerful, truly the first and last word.

Sorry, I lived in France for 2 years and your description of it as a place with “Lax immigration policies, prostration to the god of multiculturalism, and the refusal to fight fire with fire” is completely backwards.

There is no western nation more opposed to the idea of multiculturalism than france. French liberals and conservatives alike will tell you that it’s a purely “Anglo-saxon” invention. The only acceptable option in France is absolute assimilation to their idea of “Frenchness” The immigration laws are much stricter than ours – Muslim clerics get expelled for preaching undemocratic values. and there is constant tough talk about getting tough on immigrants (see Sarkozy, or worse, Le Pen and his 18%).

You could not have picked a worse country to make your case. If anything France should be an American conservative’s paradise. But you know what? It’s been a total failure. the french talk till they’re blue in the face about how there can only be “French” citizens, not hyphenated “Arab-French”, “African-French” etc. somehow that hasn’t made the ghettos vanish. you basically have traditional white french people, a few arabs (& others) who’ve fully adopted white french ways, and the remaining arabs who are considered suspect b/c they are not indistinguishable from white people. just watching the officials on french tv, it is clear how out of touch they are with this segment of french society.

It’s well past time someone stood up for America’s “liberal” approach to ethnicity. We have our divisions but I’ll say this – go into any inner city black neighborhood here and you’ll find black cops who stand for law & order as much as the next cop but don’t hide the fact that they’re black and that black culture belongs as much to them as to any gangbanger. same goes for latinos. compare that to the CRS (french nat’l cops) in the projects- they look like a foreign occupying army. America has lots of people who bridge cultural gaps. France’s obsession with forcing everyone into the preexisting notion of Frenchness hasn’t worked. Too many people are still outside it and the “real” french refuse to deal with that, since their ideal works in theory. They have no idea what to do now b/c authority is held exclusively by traditional french elitists, they have no one who’s used to the streets and knows how to stand up to the thugs. That’s what a get tough conservative approach gets you.

April -
Good points. I have heard much the same thing from African-French friends who live in Paris. The French are terribly racist – which is very ironic since they seem always to hypocritically condemn Americans for racism.

While predominantly North African, and hence Muslim, you are also correct in pointing out that there are surely quite a few Christians among the youths engaged in these riots. This doesn’t have to do with religion, but with the tensions built up in an impoverished underclass. That does NOT mean that the violence is anyway justified… but it is also not accurate to say that the violence is somehow inspired by or indicative of Islam.

La Shawn,
IMHO you are half-wrong. Not about Islam, which gives these young people neither sustenance in spirituality nor hope of a better world to come. You are wrong not to attribute the major part of the blame to the French and to their revolution. Truth is that Liberty, Egality and Fraternity form a triad that mocks the Trinity but, God is not mocked and every now and again the same old vicious cycle of revolutionary violence and unbelief breaks out again.

It was all mapped out in Groen van Prinsterer’s Lectures on Unbelief and Revolution which are best available in English in Harry van Dyke’s book. Islam is a menace, especially for those who believe its tenets but France’s secular revolution is worse and deserves closer examination by ourselves.