Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia thought Justice Robert Jackson (1941-1954) “the greatest legal stylist of the 20th Century.”
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It was Jackson who said the Constitution cannot be read to be a suicide pact. Considering how many federal judges, and arguably the current Supreme Court in the birthright citizenship case, are contributing to national suicide, it’s worthwhile to understand the context of Jackson’s wisdom:
Jackson coined the line in a 1949 dissent in Terminiello v. Chicago, a case about the limits of free speech. He was not arguing that constitutional rights should give way whenever they become inconvenient, nor was he defending expansive government authority. His concern was methodological. Jackson criticized the majority for relying “on a conception of freedom of speech so rigid as to tolerate no concession to society’s need for public order.” There was danger, Jackson warned, that “if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”
How many illegal aliens are living among us while advocating for the destruction of America? How many Americans, including members of Congress, are doing the same? And how many of those illegals calling for the destruction of America are serious about it, not just spouting rhetoric? In other words: Muslims? Robert Spenser provides a partial answer:
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Ragab Abdelmoneim is not some wild-eyed fanatic screaming obscenities on a streetcorner. On the contrary, he is a prominent, respected member of the Muslim community in the U.S. today. Alabama’s 1819 News reported recently that he is “now the Imam and ‘Resident Scholar’ at the Islamic Center of Maryland.” An Alabama publication is reporting on him because before he moved to Maryland, he served as an imam at the Islamic Academy in Huntsville, Ala., and was also a “part-time lecturer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).”
Abdelmoneim’s educational credentials are apparently the Islamist equivalent of graduating from three or four Ivy League schools. He’s well educated and respected, at least by Islamist standards.
“In a now widely circulated video on social media,” according to 1819 News, “Abdelmoneim called for Muslims to expand Sharia law by any means necessary, including through bloodshed.”
Abdelmoneim said: “We need to… have some people to love their religion and to sacrifice for their religion, sacrifice their money and their blood and their wealth for the sake of Allah.”
It’s easy to understand what Abdelmoneim meant when he said that Muslims should be willing to sacrifice their money and wealth for the sake of Allah. Every religion takes up collections, and the Qur’an exhorts Muslims to “spend your wealth for the sake of Allah” (2:195).
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OK, this is just another example of protected speech, isn’t it? Joe Methodist down the street might make some intemperate comments from time to time, but he’s not going to kill Mohamed Muslim on the next block. Unfortunately, Mohamed just might kill Joe:
Also, Abdelmoneim most certainly knows that the Qur’an calls upon Muslims to “kill them wherever you find them” (2:191, 4:89, 4:91, cf. 9:5), and makes it clear that Allah favors those who fight unbelievers over those who do not do so: “Those of the believers who sit still, other than those who have an injury, are not equal with those who wage jihad in the way of Allah with their wealth and lives. Allah has conferred on those who wage jihad with their wealth and lives a rank above the sedentary. Allah has promised good to each, but he has bestowed on those who wage jihad a great reward above that of the sedentary, degrees of rank from him, and forgiveness and mercy. Allah is always forgiving, merciful.” (Qur’an 4:95-6)
Islamists do indeed try to subvert societies within and impose Sharia. They think it their religious duty, which also includes raping non-Muslim women and killing other infidels just because. Europe has some substantial experience with Mohamed Muslim.
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Abdelmoneim isn’t kidding or throwing loose, figurative rhetoric about. He’s encouraging the violent overthrow of America and bloody Jihad. USC 1451 addresses revocation of naturalization and citizenship, but like many immigration laws, such as the law that prevents the admission of people who can’t provide for themselves, it’s little known and less enforced.
People like Abdelmoneim are arguably who Justice Jackson was talking about. Why do we allow people like him to stay in this country? For that matter, why are all manner of other violent Islamists and American useful idiots still here?
Letting them stay is the kind of suicidal empathy about which Jackson was speaking. Perhaps it’s time more Americans exercised their free speech right to encourage the invocation of USC 1451.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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