Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Buckley on Islam in Britain by Lawrence Auster

In a column at Real Clear Politics, William F. Buckley meanders in and out on the subject of the growing threat of Islam in Britain. It's all quite trivial and inconsequential as only Buckley can be, until he gets to the end:

[I]t is time for the mother of parliaments to look unruly, unassimilable creeds in the face and say: No more.

Oddly, the British way of life tolerates an established religion. In the end, the English are not hampered by toplofty commitments to freedom of speech and of conscience. Still, when the United States was seriously inconvenienced by our commitment to freedom of religion, we found means to handle Mormon polygamy. All the world waits to see how Parliament handles this threat to the British way of life.

The U.S. of course outlawed polygamy and the advocacy of polygamy in the late 19th century. It did not outlaw the Mormon religion, but only the Mormon custom of polygamy. What then is the intended analogy to Islam? Buckley here is not speaking of any particular Muslim custom as a danger. The danger he's speaking of is Islam itself. Therefore Buckley's plain implication is that Britain should outlaw Islam. He is suggesting, without saying so explicitly, that while the U.S. with its First Amendment cannot outlaw Islam, Britain can.

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