Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Bacon: The New Hate Crime

Thee article below was posted today by Christine at the 910 Group Blog.

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Here’s the latest alert from Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):

CAIR SEEKS FBI PROBE OF ‘HATE CRIME’ AT TN MOSQUE

Political, religious leaders asked to repudiate growing Islamophobia

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/10/07) — A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on the FBI to investigated what Tennessee law enforcement authorities are calling a “hate crime” targeting a mosque in that state.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations CAIR said worshipers at the Islamic Center of Clarksville found a defaced copy of the Quran, Islam’s revealed text, on the front steps of the mosque just before communal prayers (Jummah) on Friday. Two strips of bacon, which is prohibited for Muslims to eat, were smeared in the Quran. Local police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

SEE: Muslims on Alert After Hate Crime (Leaf-Chronicle)

“We once again urge local, state and national political and religious leaders to repudiate the growing level of anti-Muslim rhetoric in our society that can lead to such troubling incidents,” said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.

mmmmm… bacon….According to the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle, two hours before the 1 p.m. Friday service, the Koran was found on the front steps of the Islamic Center. Someone had written “Mohammad pedophile” on the front, and an (unnamed) expletive was on the inside, smeared under two strips of bacon. Not only did the local police report it as a hate crime, but they said they would contact the FBI. Mosque representatives are meeting with the City Mayor Johnny Piper to see what he can do as well.

This is a clear example of how hate crime laws are being used to impose sharia law, in the guise of religious special accomodations, and in place of U.S. federal or state laws. I’m not a lawyer, so correct me if I’m wrong — that’s why we have a comments section — but under the current laws in Tennessee and the U.S., these are facts of the case:

1. The Koran — simply a book under our laws, rather than “Islam’s revealed text,” and therefore not subject to the special treatment required by sharia law — belonged to whoever put it on the steps. So no theft or defacement of someone else’s property was involved. If I had left a Bible on their steps, would that have been a hate crime? Or a Koran from Yemen, not accepted by the Wahhabi cult?

2. Leaving a Koran on a property’s steps — again, just a book like any other, under our law rather than sharia law — does not vandalize that property. Maybe you can define it as littering, but “hate crime littering” seems a bit of a dhimmitude stretch when it’s a single book and two pieces of bacon, neatly placed inside the book.

3. Writing in a book, including a Torah, New Testament, Bible, Lolita, The Pentagon Papers, the Yellow Pages or the Koran (again, just a book under any laws other than sharia) is permitted under the First Amendment. Writing an expletive in a book is permitted under the First Amendment. Writing that Mohammed was a pedophile is permitted under the First Amendment, and is also amply documented by both Islamic and other scholars of the Koran.

[Scriptural Evidence] Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64: Sahih Bukhari [the most venerated and authentic Islamic source]

Narrated ‘Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).

4. Bacon is not illegal in Tennessee, and putting bacon in a book is not illegal in Tennessee. It’s a waste of good bacon, but it’s not illegal. In fact, Tennessee is the new home for the Pig Improvement Company, the world leader in genetic pig stock production (“Selling breeding stock and boar semen is a profitable business…”):
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In 2005, the Tennessee pork industry had over $52 million in cash receipts and ranked 24th in the United States in pork population. Tennessee’s 1,300 pig farms take up 51,876 acres of land and constitute the state’s 10th most lucrative agricultural industry.

Where was the underlying crime that must exist for this to be a “hate” crime, under U.S. or Tennessee laws? Or was the underlying crime one that exists only under sharia law, followed with meticulous political correctness by the Clarksville police in reporting it as a hate crime? Will leaving a book on the steps of a mosque become criminal trespass, in order to find some underlying crime to make it “hateful” under the National Incident Based Reporting System (pdf format) of the Department of Justice? The methodology for gathering hate crime statistics uses 3 categories of crimes: against people, against property and against society. Since this was not a crime against property or people, under U.S. and state laws, should we assume that the Clarksville police department has found it to be a crime against society under sharia law?

Or are we in the never-never land of searching for or inventing underlying crimes, to criminalize hostile and critical speech, so that it can be prosecuted as a hate crime? The 2005 Department of Justice “Study of Literature and Legislation on Hate Crime in America” (pdf format) warned of the risks:

Over the past 25 years, the federal government and all but one state have passed pieces of legislation addressing hate crime in some way. Still, there remains no national consensus about whether hate crime should be a separate class of crime, and among those supporting hate crime statutes, there is disagreement about how these statutes should be constructed and focused. The keys issues in the debate include:

(1) the necessity of considering hate or bias motivation when the core offenses(e.g., assault, vandalism) are already covered by criminal law;

(2) whether there is a danger in basing additional penalties for crimes upon the thoughts motivating offenders, rather than keeping the focus of criminal law on the behavior itself;

(3) whether it is possible to determine with legally-acceptable levels of certainty the motive behind a person’s criminal acts;

(4) whether, in practice, hate crime laws result in crimes against certain groups of people being punished more severely than equivalent crimes committed against other groups, and if so, whether that is fair and legally defensible;

(5) whether having hate crime statutes deters potential offenders; and

(6) whether having these statutes hinders law enforcement’s ability to investigateand prosecute crime.

Until we determine otherwise, assume that Clarksville, Tennessee is operating under sharia law regarding the First Amendment. Make sure you don’t criticize the violent verses in the Koran while jaywalking, owing time on your parking meter, or buying bacon at Target. You don’t know who in Clarksville’s finest may be watching and reporting you for hate crimes.

19 comments:

songdongnigh said...

True or not, the great problem with this situation is that it will aid CAIR's efforts to push through laws specifically protecting Muslims.
It will give the liberals the opportunity to lambaste the mean spirited conservatives for "insensitivity". Although a petty juvenile act, it will be played up in the national media as a major threat to Muslims.

Then again, it may be another self-inflicted ”hate crime” by a Muslim as a propaganda tool. There have been incidents in recent years of Muslims, liberal professors and disgruntled church members inventing “hate crimes” for their own reasons. The authorities must be extremely careful during the investigation to insure fairness and accuracy.

Unfortunately, in this age of instant communication but 30 second memory, the damage has already been done.

FluffResponse said...

am not sure that any damage was done. am ever hopeful that the story of islam, of how it elbows into the belly of the superior cultures it attacks, is becoming more understood. if so, many of the purposeful whines of the CAIR/Hamas contingent will be met with a dismissive wave of the hand and an upraised fist: no accommodation.

But is there really room for hope? The cumulative effect might be to make people ever-more sensitive about "respecting" the Islamic social order.

If only articles like these would make the grievance-creators a laughing stock.

Profitsbeard said...

Was the bacon cooked?

I prefer my bookmarks crispy.

Cybrludite said...

Though to play Devil's Advocate here, would we be reacting the same if it were a Torah with "arbeit macht frei" scrawled on the cover & left on the steps of a synagogue with the bacon bookmarks?

anti-uffe said...

We probably wouldn't. But consider the context: there is no menace to society from Jews demanding special protection, no threat or implied threat of violence for defaming their culture or religion, no long term demographic threat of being outbred by Jews and becoming dhimmis in our own countries. Et cetera.

You are correct that we, strictly speaking, could be said to be guilty of double standards. I personally don't care one whit. This bacon incident I would label under non-violent civil disobedience, an act of antidhimmitude, exposing the alienness and incompatibility of islam in our societies, or an act of defiance towards those we see as imposing their supremacist culture upon us.

In the context of what we must increasingly endure from them, this to me counts as a justifiable act. Whether or not it is justifiable in legal terms we will have to see.

Unknown said...

Visit:
http://holocausto-shoah.blogspot.com

Stuart Brogden said...

Which state does not have a "hate crimes" law? I may want to move there.

ziontruth said...

Cybrludite,

Those were my thoughts as well. This isn't a good thing, it makes us look like rabid fanatics instead of the freedom fighters we really are. My only caveat is that the Muslims always extract high fees from any apology or condemnation of "Islamophobia", usually in the form of demanding their advances toward shariah law be unhindered, therefore we cannot afford the luxury of doing the civil thing here.

Also, it must be established that CAIR's report is true. It may be a total fabrication, or it may have been done by a Muslim, staged as were the photos in Lebanon last summer.

And I think all "hate crime" and "hate speech" laws should be repealed, everywhere, in favor of a free marketplace of ideas where the only thing pushing an idea out is its lack of merit, its having failed all intellectual tests.

Alexis said...

Actually, I prefer Shakespeare over Bacon...

Anonymous said...

Indeed, Muslim activists around the West see "Islamophobia" and "hate" everytime when non-muslims open their mouth. They prefer not to notice any hate remarks from radical imams though.
Can anybody explain why they push their agenda so aggressively, ignoring other people's opinion at the same time?
Is any consensus possible at all?
‘Islamophobia’on campus, report finds

turn said...

We're already halfway down this slippery slope that 'hate crimes' legislation has tilted the 'level playing field'. Special status groups can cry that just about anything is a hate crime.

What were the police thinking when they took a call about a book on the steps?

I mean, really!

"Clarksville P.D. What's your emergency?"

"Whinge, whine, natter natter"

"Was anyone hurt, sir?"

"Natter, whine moan and piss"

"So...nothing broken or damaged? Any paint or graffiti?"

"Moan, natter, BACON, hate"

"Allright, then, just settle down. Perhaps you're making more of this than is necessary."

"Whinge, natter, CAN"T TOUCH!"

"Well, of course then. We'll send a cruiser over right away".

Can't someone get the 911 tape of this?

Anonymous said...

OK, is THIS hate or not?

Radical Muslim website in London

Profitsbeard said...

Alexis-

"...I prefer Shakespeare over Bacon..."

Roger? The old philosopher Francis? Or the modern painter Francis?

So much Bacon, so little thyme.

Have to agree with Cybrludite and zionistyoungster, in that this hammy act is just a move that will gain undeserved sympathy for "the poor Muslims".

"No Pedophile Prophets" is more to the point. It opens the problem of Mohammad's documented child molestation to wider infidel scrutiny.

The bacon bit was unnecessary.

Unless you're making an artistic reference to William "Naked Lunch" Burroughs and the Beat Poets.

Intolerant Islam should be interrogated, not given irrelevant public pity through this kind of (to the Islamically-uninformed public) "hurtful" and "assault".

Which is why I suspect an inside job for sympathy-getting.

I'd check the supermarket receipts for the mosque's imams and look for "Bob Evans" or "Jimmy Dean" on any of the slips.

Patrick said...

Cybrludite, I think a better analogy would be a Torah with the words "The King of the Jews was a murderer and adulterer"....

There is nothing particularly menacing about “Mohammad pedophile", nor does it reference any sort of historical mistreatment of muslims... rather, it is just an exerpt from the book itself, just as my suggested analagous quotation is.

Unknown said...

I think this is a good thing. it is time we set a precedence in the courts where doing anything on a book should be allowed. In fact some one should do this on purpose and get suit by CAIR so once and for all kill this idea that burning the Koran is a crime.

X said...

Wait a minute, I thought the Koran prohibited whine...

Christine said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Christine said...

I think the question of comparing a burning cross to a book with bacon and some words written on it is a good one, but it requires us to think clearly about what constitutes a threat. If an individual had stood outside their building holding a Koran with the words written on it and bacon within the cover, would that have been political speech, political assembly, theater, or intimidating or terrorizing behavior? If a Muslim is intimidated by an individual who leaves the Koran in front of the mosque, or who stands there with it, is that therefore intimidating behavior? Is the degree of intimidation based on a legal standard, or is it set by the "victim"?

A book is different from a burning cross, at the minimum to the extent that setting a fire on someone else's property is commonly understood to be vandalism and dangerous because of the fire itself. A book is not dangerous (except in the political sense of course), and putting a book somewhere is not vandalism.

If an individual (Muslim, apostate or non-Muslim) says "Islam has aspects of a violent political ideology and is associated with almost all terrorist acts in the last 40 years," is that statement therefore a hate crime, simply because a second Muslim states that it intimidates him?

In the Clarksville incident, the Koran was actually left on the common sidewalk shared by several buildings in a strip mall. It's not clear that it was even on the Islamic Center's property. Perhaps this depends on how the strip mall treats common areas as part of the Islamic Center's rental agreement. See the video at http://wkrn.com/node/88398#top

Seth Patinkin said...

Dear Oprah,

I am writing to you about discrimination which has been expressed by the selective enforcement of city ordinances against me with respect to my rental business in Southern Indiana once city officials discovered that I am a Jewish person.

More about me: I was named to the "30 under 30" list by my alma mater and did my PhD work at Princeton Univ. under John Nash. I am a applied mathematician/ entrepreneur in my day job.

In the years since I completed my undergraduate work at IU in 1998, I proceeded to buy a small number of rental properties in Bloomington, Indiana, which I have successfully run as a side business for a number of years.

However, about 2-3 years ago, the normal flow of my side rental business ran into some serious roadblocks.

It started when two housing inspectors made a number of explicit anti-semitic statements to me and to a Jewish tenant at one of my rentals.

Soon thereafter, four (4) groups of my otherwise law-abiding and happy tenants were threatened with $10,000 + fine (assessed PER tenant) for alleged ordinance violations.

Long story short, I was soon stuck with numerous vacancies and left paying the mortgage payments on these properties which were subsequently burglarized and vandalized. At the same time, the Housing Department caused complaint inspections to take place at these properties, identifying dozens and dozens of "defects" in the properties not otherwise noted in previous move-in inspections and causing me to incur thousands of dollars of needless "improvements".

And then the Legal Department went to work on me, filing at least five (5) lawsuits against me for alleged ordinance violations, and at the same time, the Legal Department Chief's wife, over at Student Legal Services, encouraged my erstwhile tenants to sue me for recovery of their security deposits, in spite of their breaches. I was soon dealing with about ten lawsuits at once.

So in April 2007, I filed a lawsuit against the City of Bloomington for violating my right to equal protection of the law, and a number of other civil rights violations. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I have become of the despotism of city government in small town Indiana. My attorneys have recently discovered that my case is not unique. Another Jewish landlord also has a case pending in federal court against the City, regarding the improper withholding of a building permit based upon the impermissible consideration that the prospective buyer of the commercial property in question was a Jewish investor from New York.

My life has been turned upside down by the systematic abuse of ordinances and
judicial proceedings. I find it outrageous that such a negative spirit still thrives in modern America. I would love the opportunity to talk about my story on your show, as I think it is in the public interest.