Daily Archives: October 17, 2012

By Daniel Greenfield

In 1941, FDR proposed his famous Four Freedoms. Some seventy years later it may be time to add a fifth freedom to that list. Freedom from Islam. Freedom from Islam would have seemed like an unlikely candidate back in 1941 when the worry was over secular ideologies, but as the West and its ideologies have fallen into a soporific state of decline, the fascism that concerns us no longer wears a military uniform or any of the trappings of nationalism, but instead wraps itself in the turban of religion. Of those four freedoms, three are directly endangered by Islam. We have seen Freedom of Speech being burned in effigy across the Muslim world, and even in the urban centers of Western nations. The Muslim bomb plots aimed at synagogues and the specter of Americas first, albeit unofficial, blasphemy trial, warns us that our Freedom of Worship is also under threat. Coptic Christians, who for many centuries were forced to live in an atmosphere of terror, subject, like all Christians in the Muslim world, to blasphemy trials as tools of persecution, have found that their land of refuge here is not so different a place from their old homeland after all. As Coptic Christian churches are patrolled against the threat of Muslim violence and one of their own is on trial for offending Muslims, they cannot help but wonder what happened to the vaunted freedoms to worship and believe, to speak and be free, that first drew them to this country. And third, Freedom from Fear, not a right but the outcome of a well-managed system of government, has been under attack by decades of Muslim terrorism whose purpose is to terrorize the non-Muslim into surrendering to its demands. Instead of freeing us from Muslim terror, government authorities have universalized it, spreading it about as much as possible to avoid offending Muslims by drawing attention to the motives and religion of their terrorists. Finally, there is Freedom from Want, which like Freedom from Fear, was an example of positive rights being snuck into a national compact based on the negative rights of minimal government, and yet it is interesting to note how the liberal mega-state has failed to uphold even its own four freedoms. Domestic drilling is banned, while the oil wells of Saudi Arabia and the other backward monarchies, that fund terrorists with one hand while slipping bribes to our officials with the other, go on pumping day and night. Gas prices in America keep climbing and the terrorists draw out those record profits to expand their sphere of terror. Despite all this wealth, created by non-Muslims for Muslims, where Islam goes then poverty soon follows. Even with wealth, the Muslim world remains a place of great poverty where powerful families and organizations control access to the economy and women are kept out of the workplace. Muslim economic failure has been chronicled elsewhere and yet it is worth noting that Muslim immigration fills up not only the prisons of the West, but also its social service centers. When Islam has the freedom to undermine freedom of speech and freedom of religion then no freedom is safe. And when Muslim immigration is unleashed on the free world, then freedom from fear and even freedom from want also become distant memories. Why discuss the Four Freedoms at all? Perhaps because they remind us that the freedoms inscribed into the Bill of Rights are meant to protect us against the abuses of government authority. And yet there is a more primal form of freedom that must first be defended if those freedoms are to have any meaning at all. Before the American colonies were free of British rule, the Bill of Rights could have no function. The first freedom, before all freedoms from domestic government authority, is the freedom from rule by external oppressive forces. Only when a people are free of foreign dominance and alien rule and are able to lift their heads and make their own laws without fear of their oppressors, can there be true freedom. The first freedom in the days of the American Revolution was freedom from British rule. The first freedom in 1941 was freedom from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The first freedom during the Cold War was freedom from Communism. The first freedom in our own time is freedom from Islam. The freedoms of our Constitution express a relationship between us and our government. But when a third party invades this relationship and imposes its will on both parties then the relationship can only be rebuilt by banishing this external oppressive force. When that oppressive force is comprehensive enough, when like Nazism, Islamism or Communism it represents both a physical means of conquest as well as a political ideology with its own cult, then freedom comes to be defined in terms of being free of that external force. Islam is not a subject for civil liberties debates. Those only address the relationship between a people and their government. It is not a constitutional issue because Islam already has its own Constitution, its own government and its own set of laws. It is a wartime matter. There are two kinds of wars: wars of survival and wars of choice. The war of choice is optional; it may be fought or it may not be fought. There may be compelling moral, political or economic reasons why it should be fought, but if it is not fought then life for most people will still go on much as it has before. And then there are wars of survival. Those wars are no more optional than fighting off a shark circling you in the water is optional. A war of survival is a conflict where an external force is determined to conquer the United States and eliminate the rights, freedoms and identities of all Americans. And in a war of survival, freedom is defined by remaining unconquered. Freedom from Islam is the fundamental freedom of our time. It is the freedom in whose shelter America can still be America. It is the freedom on which all other freedoms depend.

Daniel Greenfield is a blogger, columnist and freelance photographer born in Israel, who maintains his own blog, Sultan Knish.

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Freedom from Islam

A group of rebel pastors is breaking the U.S. tax code which prohibits churches and other non-profits from engaging in electoral politics

John Adkisson / Reuters

Pastor Mark Harris of First Baptist Church gives his sermon during the fifth and largest "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" in Charlotte, N.C., Oct.7, 2012.

Cohen is the author of Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America

On Sunday Oct. 7, about 1,500 pastors of various faiths engaged in an organized act of civil disobedience: they endorsed political candidates from the pulpit, and many will continue to do so until election day. That may not sound like a crime, but the pastors were violating the U.S. tax code, which prohibits churches and other non-profits from engaging in electoral politics.

(MORE: The Decline of the WASP President)

Pulpit Freedom Sunday, organized by a group called Alliance Defending Freedom, has been an annual event since 2008. The participants are trying to bait the IRS into coming after them so they can mount a legal challenge to the politics ban. So far, no luck, though they show no signs of quitting.

Many of the participants are from conservative evangelical churches, and one critic Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Church and State has argued that the Pulpit Freedom clergy want to elect Mitt Romney. It is hard to know how all of the actual endorsements broke down, but Lynns take may not be completely off.

(MORE: How Romneys Faith Could Help Him Win)

Indiana pastor Ron Johnson told his congregation that for people who believe in the Bible voting against President Barack Obama is a no-brainer. Jim Garlow told Skyline Church, a San Diego megachurch, that he himself planned to vote for Romney though he did not make a formal endorsement. (Some pastors avoided the presidential race altogether; Mark Harris of the First Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. only endorsed a Republican candidate for state Supreme Court.)

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Pulpit Freedom: Should Churches Endorse Political Candidates?

CLARKSTON, Mich., Oct. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Clarkston, Mich.-based Freedom One Financial Group, a 401(k) plan recordkeeping and administrative service provider, announced today that Freedom One Investment Advisors, Inc. will provide 401(k) plan advisory services for Port Huron, Mich.-based Blue Water Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C. Freedom One Financial Group Vice President of Strategic Growth & Development Errol Hau made the announcement.

Blue Water Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C., provides a full-spectrum of health care for women, offering knowledgeable and compassionate obstetrical care. Freedom One Financial Group will work with Blue Water Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C., to handle the company's retirement assets for participants.

The addition of Blue Water Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C. to Freedom One Financial Group's growing client roster expands upon the company's continued storied growth in Michigan. As a Michigan-based company, the firm prides itself on partnering with other local companies within the state.

"By adding Blue Water Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C., to our roster of Michigan-based clients we are continuing to expand our footprint in the healthcare industry, which is a critical part of the state's economic landscape," said Hau. "We look forward to providing them our industry-leading participant education programs, which ensure employees stay on-track for meeting their retirement goals."

In a prepared statement, JoAnn Brooks, Office Manager of Blue Water Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C., stated "We recently decided to upgrade our existing profit sharing plan to add a 401(k) plan. When comparing potential providers we felt that partnering with an organization that specialized in providing advisory and administrative services for qualified plans was important. Freedom One has relieved us of a significant administrative burden, has brought us into full compliance and will save me hundreds of man hours a year; all while significantly reducing our fiduciary liability by providing independent investment advisory services. The transition was quick, smooth and professional. We have reduced our annual costs while adding a 401(k) to our plan, a real win-win!"

Continued here:
Blue Water Obstetrics & Gynecology, P.C., Retains Freedom One Financial Group as 401(k) Plan Advisor