A devout Christian and friend in the Midwest forwarded this to me, asking if I as a New Yorker had to contend with such outrages. I do — but not because of praying Muslims. You can’t block roads here unless you’re one of our rulers. Obama or some other pooh-bah comes to town, and the streets his motorcade will cruise are closed to vehicles while cops force pedestrians to stand waiting until His Majesty has passed: God forbid the leech should sit fuming in Manhattan’s notorious gridlock alongside mere taxpayers. One of these “freezes” caught me for 10 minutes a year or two ago; a friend recently endured 30 minutes on the corner opposite her destination. Neither our time nor our lives matter to the self-important grandees in office.
A week or so after I’d received the first email, another Midwestern Christian forwarded a second. This time it was a video of the praying Muslims, and though the pictures in the prior email were clearly outtakes, the filmmakers claimed to have shot their footage in Paris. Under the subject heading “It’s Coming,” the text warned that “It is widespread in France and has now started in New York.”
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Neither of my friends has ever travelled internationally, let alone to Islamic countries. I’m also fairly certain they don’t know any Muslims.
But I do — or at least I think I do: they are so nonchalant about converting me, not to mention praying in public, that I’m uncertain what their religion is, if indeed they have any at all. One called Mohammed works as a security guard in a building I visit; we only exchange pleasantries, so I assume his faith from his name.
Another is the sexton at church. He’s about 19 but so responsible and mature that he alone cleans our 12,000 square-foot building. He’s also charming and unfailingly courteous; it isn’t cool for guys his age to chat with a woman older than they, but he does. He tells me about his family and his dreams for the future (each remarkably similar to yours or mine); he even introduced me to his sister when I bumped into them on the street rather than ignoring me as American teens would have. His English is accented, but it’s so good I initially thought he’d spent most of his life in New York. Then I learned he immigrated only a year ago.
Like Mohammed, our sexton is so diffident about converting me that the topic of religion never arises. And that’s despite my casting about for a way to introduce it because I long to tell him of salvation in Jesus Christ.
I do occasionally see Muslims praying in the streets. New York City licenses vendors to sell fruit and vegetables, souvenirs, hot dogs and pretzels, even clothing, from stands on the sidewalks. The fruit-guys seem to be mostly Indian or Pakistani immigrants; sometimes, they unroll a prayer rug beside the kiwis and cucumbers and pray. I always consider it a resounding rebuke to us Christians: when was the last time any of us called on our Lord in public?
Ditto for the infamous “fatwas” Islamic leaders issue. Killing cartoonists and movie directors is obviously sinful, but adherents who take their faith this seriously are a living challenge to tepid Christians. Had we been as faithful to the Bible as Moslems are to the Koran, America would not now rot and reign as a socialist Sodom.
So I puzzle over the fear and hostility many Americans who’ve never met a Muslim nonetheless bear them.
But we all know who’s poisoning their minds, don’t we? Despite politicians’ coy protests that they aren’t battling Muslims but “radical Islam” or, even better, “Islamists,” the Warriors on Terror need more than just Al Qaeda’s paltry numbers to fight. The billions and billions of taxes they squander, the liberties they’ve stolen from us, all require more than just a few hundred terrorists overseas. There must be an active, breathing menace right here in the ol’ Homeland lest we balk at relinquishing the last bit of our money and freedom.
And so politicians and their lackeys in the servile, shameless press imply that American Muslims yearn to impose Sharia law while forcibly converting us all.
And again, I’m puzzled. Why does the threat of Islamic tyranny rile so many Americans? These are folks who shrug each time the Feds decree they’ll eavesdrop on more of our communications, who queue up at airport checkpoints despite the Transportation Security Administration’s strip-search X-ray machines, who condemn Social Security not for its communism but because its “benefits” aren’t munificent enough, who cheered as the government incinerated whole families at Waco and shot a mother holding her baby, a boy, and his dog at Ruby Ridge, who applaud the Warriors on Drug Users as they ruin life after life over a few joints or a gram of cocaine. Really, can Sharia law be any more dictatorial, merciless, or absurd?
I might also understand the abhorrence for Muslims were it directed against those who persecute our Christian brothers and sisters. But it isn’t: these emails never mention the Church militant; the authors seem neither to know nor to care that Christians under Islamic governments suffer horrendously. They are instead solely concerned for the neoconservative agenda — even if they have can’t get the story straight as to whether it’s Paris or New York that Moslem prayers endanger.
One of the State’s favorite ploys is creating threats from which it “saves” us; another is pitting us against our fellows. Rather than falling for either, let’s recognize our masters, not Muslims, as the enemy.
Becky Akers, an expert on the American Revolution, writes frequently about issues related to security and privacy. Her articles and columns have been published by Lewrockwell.com, The Freeman, Military History Magazine, American History Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Post, and other publications.
