Muslim Student Association’s Case Against Shoebat

He was controversial when his speech was announced, and he remains controversial.

Walid Shoebat will speak at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee tonight.

And his talk will be followed by a panel sponsored by the Muslim Student Association attacking Shoebat and supporting Muslim belief.

We have advance copies of some of the material that will be used to attack Shoebat.

The handouts include:

• An article claiming that his biography made up, and questioning whether he really was a terrorist
• A list of talking points likewise questioning his background, and attributing extreme beliefs to him
• A statement from the Muslim Student Association at UC Davis that “called today on the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate and deport Walid Shoebat, a self-confessed ‘ex-terrorist.’”
• A handout claiming that Shoebat has preached violence, rather than peace
• A statement from the UWM Muslim Student Association claiming that Shoebat is a “purveyor of hate, fear and violence.”

This latter statement has some bizarre elements.

For example:

We firmly believe in Shoebat’s right to promote his hateful views and his right to demonize Islam and Muslims. Neo-Nazi’s, the KKK and Shoebat all have the right to speak and we firmly uphold that right. However, we also believe that a venue other than a university would have been more appropriate for Shoebat to disseminate his bigotry and xenophobia. Shoebat has no academic credentials. He is a charlatan, a snake oil salesman and a fraud. Shoebat is a former “nobody” and is now an extremist Christian terrorist.

This sounds a bit bizarre in the face of the fact that the Muslim Student Association did try to get Shoebat’s speech cancelled.

Our experience in dealing with the Kennedy assassination might give us some insight on issues like this.

In the first place, people will come forward to tell “interesting” but quite false stories about their participation in important historical events. For the most part, these people are attention seekers.

On the other hand, when a witness gives testimony that certain people don’t like, it will get twisted out of context and all sorts of bogus claims will be made against the witness.

Either way, the Muslim students may have much more success discrediting Shoebat than they had trying to shut him up. In the very tolerant American culture, people automatically side with the person who is the object of a censorship attempt. But if it’s just speech (Shoebat’s) against speech (Muslim student’s) it’s an equal playing field.

There is a lesson here.

End of lecture.

New Blog Roll Entry: Taking a Sharp Right

From UWM student and frequent writer for Frontpage Milwaukee Rebecca Kontowicz, a blog called Taking a Sharp Right.

Two recent posts of great interest:

• An account of how homosexual city workers in Oakland, California, got official city recognition and used the city e-mail system to promote “National Coming Out Day,” among other things. When a Christian group of city employees put up fliers opposing “all views which seek to redefine the natural family and marriage” a lesbian worker claimed this was discriminatory, and that she felt “excluded” and “targeted.” A court sided with the lesbian, although the Supreme Court may take this up, and hopefully overturn the decision. It is apparently alright to target and exclude Christians, but don’t you dare say anything that homosexuals object to!
  
  What we have here, quite simply, is an attempt by liberals to define as “discriminatory” the expression of any political opinion of which they disapprove.
  
  
• A new Federal policy calls for the removal of religious books from Federal prisons. Not all books, but the number available is now strictly limited. The policy is apparently aimed at radical Islamic texts that might incite violence on the part of inmates. Kontowicz approves of the policy, which we think is very shortsighted.

This is clearly a blog to watch.

Politically Correct Racism: UWM and “The View”

Both of these are via Jessica McBride’s blog.

In the first case, there were two cases of suspicious behavior near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus. How did UWM administrators respond? They sent out an e-mail warning students about the situation. They described the suspect as follows:

The suspect in both of these cases was described as a white male, in his mid-20s, 5 feet 11 inches tall, 185 pounds, brown hair and blue eyes. He drives a blue Buick sedan with Wisconsin plates.

What’s odd about that? They included the suspect’s race.

Why is that odd? Because they routinely refuse to reveal the race of black suspects.

UWM student Kyle Duerstein, in Frontpage Milwaukee, asks:

What’s the moral of the situation? If UWM’s administration wants to be idiotically “politically correct” by excluding important identifying characteristics of black suspects, at least be consistent, and leave it out for white suspects as well. Better yet, why not just send out all information that you have available, regardless of whose feelings you might hurt?

Of course, given that the people who get the UWM e-mails (and anybody attentive to media outlets that are similarly politically correct) will simply begin to assume that if the race of a suspect is not given, the person is black.

And that would be a sound assumption.

The other case involves the fact that politically correct race hustlers can’t admit that the Duke Lacrosse players were the innocent victims.

First, there is Eugene Kane, Milwaukee’s own journalistic race monger.

Eugene Kane says the Duke lacrosse players bear responsibility for their own nightmare

That’s what he told an individual I know who talked to him about the case. He thinks because they hired a stripper, they somehow deserved what they got. That’s sort of a gender twist on the old “the victim deserved it” argument.

He also thinks the “white” cops and DA are mostly responsible. The accuser doesn’t even make his list.

Just is bad are the airheads on “The View,” who insisted that it was fair to prejudge the Duke athletes, since they are white, and “white boys” do things like that.

And if they didn’t actually rape that woman, they were probably guilty of doing something like that.