Why Won’t Pamela Geller Behave?

by Lorna Salzman (June 2015)

Thought Precedes Action. Sometimes it is just speculation or daydreaming or what precedes a work of fiction, a conversation or mere opinion. It is a fundamental characteristic of the human species. Those who would ban the expression of “hurtful,” disrespectful, controversial or dissenting views are those who believe in Thought Control. Like pornography, defamation is in the eyes of the beholder.

Why is a racist thought that vanishes within seconds considered indefensible? Why is an act of violence purportedly motivated by hate deserving of a harsher sentence? What external evidence determines that hate is the motivation behind a specific crime? Are those famous Polish jokes told around the family table hate speech deserving punishment? And, to be fair, what about the anti-Semitic comments made by blacks like Louis Farrakhan and Cynthia McKinney’s father? Why did American Jews not file a complaint about those? Or the public vilification of Israel and the Jews by American Muslims (and some Jews) on our college campuses? If hate speech were ever banned, the practitioners of these attacks would be the first to go to jail. Now they hide behind our First Amendment right but would deny Pamela Geller that same right. Nor are those Jews who tried to prevent the performance of John Adams’ opera, The Death of Klinghoffer any different from the Muslims who want to silence Geller and other critics of Islam. 

Just why do religiously motivated criminals get cut more slack for their crimes than someone like Geller who has committed no crime at all? It all goes back to the Marxist belief that only society shapes humans and that human failings and criminal acts are the result of societal failure. This implies that humans have no innate sense of morality or justice, and that they are at the complete mercy of society’s inadequacies or their upbringing or their lack of education. The list of excuses for committing crimes is endless. 

Nothing demonstrates the failure of liberalism more than the contemporary tolerance for anti-social behavior and intolerance of those who point it out. Classic American liberalism has basked in self-adoration too long and for little reason. Compassion, tolerance, social justice, free thought, human rights, civil liberties: all of these were taken as liberal doctrine for decades. The latest manifestations are the attacks on the “mass incarceration” of the American prison system where the majority of prisoners are black men. Not all of them are guilty of serious crimes and distinctions need to be made in how sentences are applied. But no one has yet suggested that most of them never committed ANY crime. If America has so many prisoners, liberals assert, then something is wrong with the system. Our gun worship, sexist power hierarchy, military and academic rape culture, domestic abuse, economic inequality….all of these indeed are the cultural contributors to crime just as Islam motivates Muslim terrorism. But in the end the one who commits the crime is, correctly, the only one to be held responsible. 

Liberal dominance has fallen by the wayside. In the face of uncontrollable alien forces and events, liberal tolerance is being challenged on all fronts. But the reaction of liberals has been perverse. Instead of doubling its commitment to these values, liberalism has gone over to the dark side, refusing to acknowledge human agency in evil. It has, instead, chosen to defame and cast out those individuals who insist on pointing out evil even-handedly, wherever it exists. The ad hominem tactic has found its perfect target in Pamela Geller. Geller alone, liberals have decided, is the one who can restore the power and influence of liberalism because (they reason) she is such an abomination and a behavioral anomaly that society will flee from her dire predictions and blindly embrace the preachings of liberalism.

Since the attack on the “Draw Mohammed” exhibit in Garland, Texas, quite a few critics of Geller have, in essence, rationalized the attack by saying that she was being deliberately provocative, and that she should not be surprised that those who were “poked in the eye” responded angrily. This point needs dissection. Who decides what kind of “poke” is defamatory? In this case it was simply Speech. It was not a threat nor was it an attack, verbal or physical, on individual Muslims but graphic commentaries on a prophet of a religion, and Muslim leaders have unilaterally decided that they and they alone set the criteria for what is offensive. Their own threats against and attacks on Christians and Jews are, of course, acceptable.

If speech (and cartoons in this case) are offensive, then the debate is over, completely pre-empted by Muslims who have set the rules in concrete. The rules are simple: anything Muslims consider offensive is provocative and Islamophobic. End of discussion. No other religion has taken this position of complete authority over an entire society, in pure contempt for that society’s own laws and principles. No other religion has asserted that no matter where they live, Muslims’ own religious doctrines take precedence over other religions and non-Muslims. No other religion has made it mandatory to forcibly convert non-Muslims and to kill them if they refuse. No other religion has deprived half of its population of its rights. This arrogance, sense of superiority and continual demand for the highest position of privilege are unique to Islam. Muslims should therefore not be surprised that the rest of the world fears, distrusts and dislikes them. Islamophobia is a normal human response to religious authoritarianism, especially that which ceaselessly announces its violent objectives with clarity and consistency.

Stephen Schwartz, in the Huffington Post and Middle East Forum, wrote this: “I despise Wilders and Geller….(their) vulgar and prejudiced campaign…they are participants in the cynical industry of fear.” Quite a mouthful there, but what does it accomplish? Nothing except a self-burnished medal declaring that Schwartz, unlike the target of his vitriol, is an unbiased liberal of good will who would never dream of indulging in such outlandish behavior….even though he professes in that same article to be an enemy of radical Islam and terrorism. No, this attack on Wilders and Geller has no substance, no purpose, except to underscore Schwartz’ contrasting goodness and moral superiority.

But let’s reflect on his statement that he “despises” Geller and Wilders. What does it mean to despise someone whom one has never met and probably never will, who, unlike Hamas, Anwar Awlaki or Jahar Tsarnaev, has never slandered or harmed you or threatened to do so, who does not infringe upon your rights or in any way inconvenience you? What it means is that you despise that person’s OPINIONS, which is (and should be) quite different from despising that person. But wait a minute: why is it all right for a liberal to despise someone because of her opinions……but not all right for someone like Pamela Geller to express HER hatred of a religion and its violent strictures? Why is Schwartz’ hatred justified but not Geller’s? 

So then there is our president. Being bi-racial is half the game for liberals. The other half is his Ivy League education, his higher degrees, his social and political accomplishments starting with community activism, rising to state government, to the U.S. congress and finally the presidency. Highly intelligent, well-spoken, a person of self-respect and public integrity, he has played by the rules of liberalism and won the prize. His wife and children became instant social symbols to emulate. Obama is the summa cum laude of politicians, embodying the civility liberals expect of the leading public liberal in the nation. I would wager that no four-letter word ever enters his mind, much less conversation. Indeed, he is as equally respectful of radical Islam as liberals: he has banned any mention of it. He plays by the rules of the liberal game, re-naming the unnameable, deleting the unthinkable. He is well-mannered, respectful, moderate. He is worthy of being taken seriously.

Politics as if Evolution Mattered,” which addresses the intersection of evolution with socio-political policy. 

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