P.J. O'Rourke: Dear Mr. President, Zero-Sum Doesn't Add Up

...But the worst thing that you've done internationally is what you've done domestically. You sent a message to America in your re-election campaign. Therefore you sent a message to the world. The message is that we live in a zero-sum universe.

There is a fixed amount of good things. Life is a pizza. If some people have too many slices, other people have to eat the pizza box. You had no answer to Mitt Romney's argument for more pizza parlors baking more pizzas. The solution to our problems, you said, is redistribution of the pizzas we've got—with low-cost, government-subsidized pepperoni somehow materializing as the result of higher taxes on pizza-parlor owners.

In this zero-sum universe there is only so much happiness. The idea is that if we wipe the smile off the faces of people with prosperous businesses and successful careers, that will make the rest of us grin.
There is only so much money. The people who have money are hogging it. The way for the rest of us to get money is to turn the hogs into bacon.

Mr. President, your entire campaign platform was redistribution. Take from the rich and give to the . . . Well, actually, you didn't mention the poor. What you talked and talked about was the middle class, something most well-off Americans consider themselves to be members of. So your plan is to take from the more rich and the more or less rich and give to the less rich, more or less. It is as if Robin Hood stole treasure from the Sheriff of Nottingham and bestowed it on the Deputy Sheriff.

But never mind. The evil of zero-sum thinking and redistributive politics has nothing to do with which things are taken or to whom those things are given or what the sum of zero things is supposed to be. The evil lies in denying people the right, the means, and, indeed, the duty to make more things.

Or maybe you just find it easier to pursue a political policy of sneaking in America's back door, swiping a laptop, going around to the front door, ringing the bell, and announcing, "Free computer equipment for all school children!"

However, domestic politics aren't my first concern here. The question is whether you want to convince the international community that zero-sum is the American premise and redistribution is the logical conclusion.
I would argue that the world doesn't need more encouragement to think in zero-sum terms or act in redistributive ways.

Western Europe has done such a good job redistributing its assets that the European Union now has a Spanish economy, a Swedish foreign policy, an Italian army, and Irish gigolos.

Redistributionist political ideologies, in decline since the fall of the Soviet bloc, are on the rise again. Will you help the neo-Marxists of Latin America redistribute stupidity to their continent?

The Janjaweed are trying to redistribute themselves in Darfur. The Serbs would like to do the same in Kosovo. The Chinese have already done it in Tibet. Al Qaeda offshoots are doing their best to redistribute violence to places that didn't have enough.

And Russia and China would like the global balance of power to be redistributed. Since China has plenty of money to lend and Russia has plenty of oil to sell, your debt and energy policies should go a long way toward making the balance of power fairer for the Russians and Chinese.

While redistribution—or "plagiarism," as we writers call it—is a bad idea, zero-sum is even worse. Zero-sum assumptions mean that a country that doesn't pursue a policy of taking things from other countries is letting its citizens down. That's pretty much the story of all recorded history, none of which needs to be repeated. It has taken mankind millennia to learn that trade is more profitable than pillage. And we don't have to carry our plunder home in sacks and saddlebags when we're willing to accept a certified check.

The Chinese don't seem to understand this yet. They think trade is a one-way enterprise, the object of which is for China to have all the world's money. They've got most of ours already. Mr. President, validating China's economic notions isn't a good thing.

A zero-sum faith in getting what's wanted by taking it can extend to faith itself. In some places there is only one religion. If other people have a religion of their own they must be taking away from my religion. Give up that faith, infidels.

Speaking of infidel faiths, Mr. President, please consider the message of this Christmas week—a message of giving, not taking. And consider your prominent position as a messenger of peace on earth and goodwill toward men. When you embrace a belief in the zero-sum nature of what's under the Christmas tree and propose to redistribute everything that's in our Christmas stockings, you're asking the world to go sit on the Grinch's lap instead of Santa's.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324660404578199363527441002.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

The other, other cliff: With no farm bill, milk prices set to soar

A few weeks back, Department of Agriculture Secretary Vilsack lamented the declining influence of rural America and the agricultural lobby’s inability to push next year’s farm bill through Congress. What he conspicuously failed to mention, of course, is that the farm bill and the USDA’s many decades-old agricultural programs in general (numbering in the hundreds and ranging from direct cash payouts to trade barriers) primarily benefit large agribusinesses and hardly ever the small, struggling family farms they claim they are trying to “protect.” In reality, all of these subsidies only help special niche interests, distort free-market signals, provide rent-seeking channels to industries that neither need nor merit it, create virtual taxpayer-sponsored rackets, and come at the cost of a net drain on our economy.

The dairy industry is just one example of the utter convolution perpetuated by the federal government deigning to award market-distorting special treatment, on behalf of what they deem to be ‘fairness’ and at taxpayers’ expense. Sorry to throw another “cliff” metaphor at you, but this is happening:

Distracted by dealing with the Bush tax cuts, lawmakers are running out of time to pass the latest version of the country’s sweeping farm bill and avoid what’s become known as the “dairy cliff.” If Congress misses the Jan. 1 deadline, the price of milk could rise significantly — some say by more than $3 a gallon — as the country’s farm policy reverts back to laws dating from 1949. …
At the heart of the trouble is an old provision designed to create a floor for how much dairy farmers are paid for milk — a kind of minimum wage. The formula for calculating that price, however, is based on assumptions that are a century old, predating the improvements in dairy farming. That old formula, if not replaced by a new farm bill, would push prices higher.
How much higher is difficult to determine because of the complexity of milk pricing. There are middlemen who help determine the price of the supermarket gallon, including processors and companies such as Dean Foods that market dairy products to consumers.

Hmm — perhaps it would have been better if the federal government had never made it their personal business to spend our resources coddling their politically-preferred industries in the first place, no?
I think I’m with Krauthammer on this one; maybe it would be better for us to go over the “dairy cliff.” Few things could as immediately and effectively drive home the costs of federal encumbrance like a sudden spike in the price of that previously innocuous half-gallon. Maybe Americans need to be hit where it hurts before they’ll finally stop supporting backwards and interfering policies like the ones sustained by the USDA. Everybody wants to eliminate expensive subsidies, just not their subsidies:

I do think if we went over the milk cliff it would actually be a good idea. [If] people actually saw the milk price double, it would be less abstract than watching a debt clock. They would finally understand that we have the insane laws, that acquire barnacles over the decades. And the farm laws are the worst. They are all kind of pressure, special interest favors, pay offs which make no economic sense. I’d like to wipe them out and start all over again, and it would be good if the law expired. People would actually be awakened to how insane our system is and how much we really need tax reform. It wouldn’t be an abstraction, it would be real.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/28/the-other-other-cliff-with-no-farm-bill-milk-prices-set-to-soar/

Feinstein bill would impose $200 tax on many semi-automatic rifles

The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action warns gun owners that Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s new assault weapons ban would impose a $200 tax on hundreds of existing semi-automatic rifle models.

According to Feinstein’s bill summary, the legislation requires owners of semi-automatic rifles – deemed as assault weapons – to register their gun with the Federal Government under the National Firearms Act.
The National Firearms Act, first enacted in 1934, was passed to choke the sale and transfer of automatic weapons.

Under the current NFA, owners of automatic weapons are allowed to keep their weapons but requires an owner to submit photographs and fingerprints to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE).

A $200 tax on an NFA firearm is imposed each time a NFA weapon is registered or transferred to a different address. Presumably, each weapon registered as an NFA firearm would be subject to the same restrictions.

But Feinstein’s bill goes even further, which would ban the transfer of “assault weapons.” According to the NRA-ILA, that means current owners of the banned weapons would only allow them keep them until they die. Instead of the gun passing down to an heir, the NRA-ILA warns, it would be forfeited to the government.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/nra-feinstein-bill-would-impose-200-tax-on-many-semi-automatic-rifles/article/2517022#.UN27uqxBWSr

The similarity of Obama to Evita Peron

A few weeks ago, I watched the movie "Evita", a musical story about the late First Lady of Argentina. It was fun, enjoyable and very eerie. It reminded me of President Obama.

First, Evita told everyone what they wanted to hear. She sold the Argentine people an unsustainable list of promises. It got her husband reelected but it also wrecked the country.

Second, she "walked on water" for her supporters. She was "Saint Evita" for millions of people who wanted something to believe in. At the end of the day, she got people to vote for her husband (President Peron) by demonizing the opposition and scaring voters. (Does that sound familiar?)

Third, she campaigned for her husband (the aforementioned President Peron) by making promises no one could keep, telling the unfortunate that a fortune was around the corner, and getting a free ride from a media madly in love with her too. (Again does that sound familiar?)

There is a lot of "Evita" in Obama, especially the personality cult of so many of their supporters and the willingness of so many to overlook "results or performance".

I am just hoping that the people of the US are smarter than those of Argentina. Unfortunately, Argentina is still paying the price of Peron's populism sold to the masses by Evita's charm.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/the_similarity_of_obama_to_evita_peron.html

Little time left to head off longshoremen's strike

Shipments of products as varied as flat-screen TVs, sneakers and snow shovels could sit idle at sea or get rerouted, at great time and expense, if more than 14,000 longshoremen go on strike as threatened - a wide-ranging work stoppage that would immediately close cargo ports on the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico to container ships.

Commerce could be brought to a near standstill at major ports from Boston to Houston if the strike takes place on Sunday, potentially delivering a big blow to retailers and manufacturers still struggling to find their footing in a weak economy.

"If the port shuts down, nothing moves in or out," said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation. And when the workers do return, "it's going to take time to clear out that backlog, and we don't know how long that it's going to take."

The 15 ports involved in the labor dispute move more than 100 million tons of goods each year, or about 40 percent of the nation's containerized cargo traffic. Losing them to a shutdown, even for a few days, could cost the economy billions of dollars.

In addition to transporting goods, U.S. factories also rely on container ships for parts and raw materials, meaning supply lines for all sorts of products could be squeezed.

"The global economy moves by water, and shutting down container ports along the East and Gulf coasts while the national economy remains fragile benefits no one," Deborah Hadden, acting port director at Massport, the public agency that oversees shipping terminals in Boston. It is not a part of the contract dispute.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said "the livelihood of thousands of Florida families lies in the balance."

The master contract between the International Longshoremen's Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, a group representing shipping lines, terminal operators and port associations, expired in September. The two sides agreed to extend it once already, for 90 days, but they have so far balked at extending it again when it expires at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

The union said its members would agree to an extension only if the Maritime Alliance dropped a proposal to freeze the royalties workers get for every container they unload. The Alliance has argued that the longshoremen, who it said earn an average $124,138 per year in wages and benefits, are compensated well enough already.

Federal mediators have been trying to push negotiations along, but there has been no word from either side on the progress of the talks since Dec. 24. As recently as Dec. 19, the president of the longshoremen, Harold Daggett, said the talks weren't going well and that a strike was expected.

The work stoppage would not be absolute. Longshoremen would continue to handle military cargo, mail, passenger ships, non-containerized items like automobiles, and perishable commodities, like fresh food.

Joseph Ahlstrom, a professor at the State University of New York's Maritime College and a former cargo ship captain, called container ships the "lifeblood of the country."

"We don't fly in a lot of products. It's just too expensive," Ahlstrom said. "The bulk of the products we import come in inside containers."

The White House has weighed in on the issue, urging dockworkers and shipping companies Thursday to reach agreement "as quickly as possible" on a contract extension. Obama spokesman Matt Lehrich said the administration is monitoring the situation closely.

If it happens, the walkout could be the biggest national port disruption since 2002, when unionized dockworkers were locked out of 29 West Coast ports for 10 days because of a contract dispute.

The ports only reopened after President George W. Bush, invoking powers given to him by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, ordered an 80-day cooling-off period. Some economists estimated that each day of that lockout cost the U.S. economy $1 billion. It took months for the retail supply chain to fully recover.

An East Coast port freeze would have its biggest impact at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where 3,250 longshoremen handled 32.3 million tons of cargo in 2010. The authority is not a party to the contract dispute.

Other major ports affected would include Savannah, Ga., which handled 18 million tons, and Houston and Hampton Roads, Va., which each handled more than 12.5 million tons.

Thousands of other jobs would be directly affected by the shutdown. Truck drivers might not have any cargo to transport, tug boat captains no ships to guide and freight train operators nothing to haul.

Simultaneously, another labor dispute involving dock workers was playing out on the West Coast.

Longshoremen at several Pacific Northwest grain terminals worked Thursday under contract terms they soundly rejected last weekend. The owners implemented the terms after declaring talks at an impasse. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union has yet to announce its next move.

Workplace rules, not salary and benefits, have been the obstacle to a new deal.

The dispute involves terminals in Portland, Ore., Vancouver, Wash., and Seattle, where longshoremen have been working without an agreement since the last contract expired Sept. 30.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_LONGSHOREMEN_CONTRACT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-12-28-08-29-11

Was Liberal Idiocy Legal Insanity?

One can only wonder if the fool at The Westchester Journal News who made the decision to publish the names and addresses of New York gun owners has ever heard the legal term, proximate cause? I'm sure the newspaper's legal counsel has as well as the risk management people at their corporate headquarters, but the fool who actually pulled the plug? Here's the Wikipedia definition:

In the law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to a legally recognizable injury to be held to be the cause of that injury. There are two types of causation in the law: cause-in-fact, and proximate (or legal) cause. Cause-in-fact is determined by the "but for" test: But for the action, the result would not have happened. For example, but for running the red light, the collision would not have occurred. For an act to cause a harm, both tests must be met; proximate cause is a legal limitation on cause-in-fact.

May I submit that if a criminal seeking to steal guns breaks into any one of those homes whose address was published by the Journal News, any legal gunsel worth his salt will do his very best to tie the crime to the publication by the newspaper of the victim's address. So, no big deal you say? Well picture this scenario: highly-paid, business executive type husband at home with three daughters while much lower paid wife is away on job-related travel; gun-seeking burglar breaks in, kills husband and one daughter before shooting other two daughters in the face, leaving them alive but permanently brain-damaged.

To a personal injury lawyer, that scenario is the sound of a big dollar slot machine that just keeps going and going. The damages to be demanded in a civil suit with such facts of the case are in the tens if not hundreds of millions. And guess who made it possible? BUT FOR those high-minded liberal folk at the Journal News who saw fit to put very private and personal information in their newspaper, nothing else could have led that murdering burglar directly to the targeted residence where he inflicted all that pain and suffering on folks who most likely would have lived out their lives peacefully, fruitfully and happily. Can the nosy newsies claim a defense that the information is all a matter of public record? Well, sure, they can and will try, but then you come back to that but for principle: would the lazy, murderous thug have been intelligent enough or resourceful enough to have uncovered that address, but for its publication in the newspaper?

So, was there proximate cause? Oh yeah, and you can bet there are lawyers combing that article for potential clients just to get them on retainer so that if any such, any such, unfortunate incident occurs, the legal beagle's nose knows exactly which trail to follow to the very deep pockets of the multi-billion dollar corporate parent, Gannett Company, to seek justice and new-found wealth for his clients and fame and fortune for himself. That idiot editor at the Journal News may have just painted himself and his corporate masters right into the hottest liability corner in the history of newspaper publishing.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/was_liberal_idiocy_legal_insanity.html

Best Dog Whistles of 2012

A dog whistle makes a sound or sends a command that only a canine can hear. A rhetorical dog whistle is a coded message for select listeners, usually the politically correct. Euphemism is the breath that blows rhetorical dog whistles. A few examples suffice to make the point.

"Affirmative action" usually means racial or gender quotas. "Revenue" usually means taxes. Calling "addiction" sickness is a dog whistle that allows drunks and addicts to think they are ill, not irresponsible. Glaucoma treatment has become a dog whistle for legalizing pot. "Title IX" is a dog whistle that signals football and basketball to carry all those sports that don't pay their own way -- or subsidize sports that nobody wants to watch anyway. "Nation building" is a dog whistle that summons Soldiers and Marines to do social work. And goals like "stability" or "transition," in their strategic incarnations, usually signal retreat or defeat. You get the idea!

Dog whistles are a way of life in politics. Plain speaking is dangerous, not the way to get reelected in a democracy. The most pernicious political dog whistles are used for national security and economic matters.
In the Mid-East, the "two-state solution" is a dog whistle. Those trills call the West to pander to, or appease; Arabs in particular and Muslims in general. We are led to believe that the UN actually needs more members; especially a Palestinian state, another Muslim basket case. Never mind that there are in fact three Arab claimants; Hezb'allah, Hamas, and Fatah. None of these represent all Palestinians, or are reconciled to each other, to say nothing of Israel. With which of the three Arab border thugs is Israel supposed to make a suicide pact? Real arithmetic is inaudible in the "two" state whistle.

And speaking of bad numbers, international economic dog whistles are perennials. Karl Marx and Maynard Keynes are still blowing from the grave. The socialist dog whistle calls for justice, but really signals an attack on success and wealth -- as if economic equality were not an affront to history and common sense anyway. And the Keynesian whistle would have government provide what the market will not; subsidies, bailouts, stimuli, and deficit spending. Where Marx and Keynes merge, the whistles might even hurt a dog's ears.

Another ugly signal lies under all that noise about justice, fairness, and equality. A majority of voters in Europe and America have come to believe that a shrinking class of employed or entrepreneurial can support a growing class of dependents, fiscal barnacles. Neither government nor voters believe that they need to separate wants from needs anymore. Yet the free lunch crowd has the vote; and may now have a quorum; enough votes to repeal common sense -- or mandate suicide.

Arts and entertainment too have been infiltrated by dog whistlers. Pussy Riot, Madonna, and Chris Mathews might be symptoms of the slide. Gone are the likes of Twain and Mencken, commentators who would skewer the mendacity of the Right and Left with abandon. Some of the best writers and directors now forfeit their integrity to celebrity, cash, and Hollywood politics.

Remember Elia Kazan? He took on the Hollywood Left and Mob controlled unions in On the Waterfront? Kazan won an Oscar for candor, a feat that might not be possible today.

Before the recent presidential election, there was Act of Valor, a US Navy approved film where real SEALs fight a fake enemy. If you saw that flick, you would never know that all those Muslim wars in the real world feature real Islamists as the real enemy. And why would the military cooperate with Hollywood, in an election year, to produce a "documentary" that might compromise clandestine methods and tactics? Was the Navy brass blowing a bosun pipe for the commander-in-chief's reelection? Hard to imagine!

And now after the election, but before a second inauguration (20 January), Hollywood is about to release (11 January) a film about a real operation played by fake SEALS; the Osama bin Laden smackdown. This film was scheduled for a fall release; however, the blowback from earlier administration/Hollywood politicization of special operations set back the play date for Zero Dark Thirty.

And if you read the early reviews, monitor the awards buzz, see the director/writer interviews, or watch the trailer; the advance dog whistles for Zero are creating a kind of hallelujah chorus.

Pet owners should deploy their dogs now, in December. Here are a few signals they might want to listen for.
First would be the "greatest manhunt" flack. Calling the bin Laden kill the "greatest" anything is a little like celebrating a home run in the middle of a ball game where home team loses ten to one. In the real world, the Islamists are winning, not just in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but in most small wars worldwide. Need we recount how many Arab and Muslim national states have succumbed to Muslim religious fanatics since 1979?

The second signal is a little harder to hear; call it macho feminism or chicks with giblets. The action in Zero Dark Thirty revolves around an acerbic redhead, a girl from the Obama era who prevails against Bush era dinosaurs at CIA.

Selecting a distaff analyst as the hero, as opposed to one of the guys who actually put their azimuths at risk, is consistent with all things politically correct. Never mind that the film director is a woman. Jessica Chastain actually looks like a younger Kathryn Bigelow. Such plot choices and casting, no doubt, are coincidental.
The writer for Zero is Mark Boal who made his bones at the Village Voice, Playboy, and Rolling Stone. Now there's an apprenticeship where a journalist might cultivate political objectivity. As a reporter turned screenwriter, Boal would not be unacquainted with political spin. Nonetheless, both Bigelow and Boal claim that their rendition of events is "a true story." We shall see, real scholars are still digging.

We shouldn't make too much of the feminist coloring. But when Kathryn Bigelow makes a film about the Yemen fiasco, the Lockerbie sell-out, the Beslan child massacre, the slaughter of Jews in Mumbai, little girls shot in the face in Pakistan, or the recent Susan Rice/ Hilary Clinton dog and pony show after Benghazi, then we can believe that Ms. Bigelow isn't priming the political pump.

Recall the food fight that followed the attack in Yemen against the USS Cole. The woman in charge, Ambassador Barbara Bodine, couldn't play well with the boys from FBI or CIA. Now there's a story that wants telling. That great manhunt, and others like the Lockerbie capitulation, was a bust. So before we take Bigelow/Boal hyperbole on the decade-long bin Laden soap opera too seriously, we might recall that the Russian FSB killed Shamil Besayev and his lieutenants in less than two years after the Beslan atrocity.

But the true signal behind the wonder-woman whistle in Zero Dark Thirty is the notion that CIA, or the Intelligence Community, is outsmarting or outthinking the unnamable enemy. American Intelligence and the Obama administration have been pedaling this narrative for four years. And now Hollywood has picked up the thread.

Alas, the Muslim wars didn't begin with 9/11 and the enemy was never just bin Laden, nor just al Qaeda. As long as the "one and done" myth prevails, tactical success will be confused with strategic failure. One homer does not win baseball games; and one successful raid doesn't win a war. Special operations warriors probably run a half dozen missions, like the bin Laden hit, in any given week. Yet, the viral spread of Islamism, a global disaster, is ignored -- and that strategic war is being lost. War strategy is made or approved at the White House.

The Kathryn Bigelow/Mark Boal team did a splendid job on The Hurt Locker (2008), a narrow, claustrophobic look at a small subject, explosive ordinance disposal (EOD). That film won an Academy Award. Zero Dark Thirty is on a similar awards track, but the differences between the two movies are profound.

One is realistic film noir about an obscure specialty; the other is a sleight of hand that ignores a strategic truth. A Barack Obama character never appears in Zero; thus creating an invisible elephant. Nonetheless, in pre-release interviews, the Bigelow/Boal team readily claims that the bin Laden kill was history, a "defining moment" for the Obama presidency. In the Huffington Post, Bigelow claims that the "real hero" is some Intel drone in Washington. WW 2 was fought and won in half the time it took to US Intel to find OBL. The heroes of special operations are the guys on the pointy end of the spear, not rear echelon paper pushers.
They also claim that the "hopes of a nation' were carried on the mission. Hopes for what; revenge, victory, summary justice -- or just a second term?

Indeed, Bigelow and Boal have answered that question in advance; they claim "the presidency" was riding on the raid. If Zero Dark Thirty is art and not politics, why are the film principals answering questions about politics; on Obama or his legacy? In a few short years, Bigelow may have sold her soul and gone from promising storyteller to political shill.

The difference between the two Bigelow military action flicks is candor, Hurt Locker had it; and Zero Dark Thirty, if we can believe the pre-release hype, and early reviews, is likely to be just another Hollywood dog whistle for a president's flaccid foreign policy. The high drama in Bigelow's film and the well-crafted action scenes will not mask the truth in a continuing saga of small wars where Osama bin Laden and Barack Hussein Obama are bit players. Ms. Bigelow may get another Oscar in 2013; but in 2012 she will have to settle for best dog whistle.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/best_dog_whistles_of_2012.html

The Sharia Threat to America

There is a great deal of misinformation circulating with regard to sharia and the threat it poses to America and Western Civilization.

Some misinformed observers and members of the Muslim Brotherhood liken concerns over sharia to prejudice and bigotry, but the facts say otherwise.

Terrorism experts in the law enforcement, military and intelligence communities have cited sharia as the Jihadists' enemy threat doctrine in an intensive study called "Shariah: The Threat to America," a scholarly, 352-page book based on authoritative sources of sharia, or Islamic law. While sharia does include "prayer and fasting" and "worship," sharia is also an all-encompassing legal and political code that covers aspects of life that have nothing to do with religion.

Perhaps most importantly, unlike other forms of religious law, such as canon law and Jewish law, sharia is the only form of religious law extant that is also meant to apply to people of other faiths, i.e. non-Muslims.
The threat from sharia has nothing to do with prejudice or bigotry. The threat from sharia is real and multifaceted.

Some claim that sharia is no threat to the American legal system, but research shows such a threat does exist. Just as sharia has gradually become embedded in the legal systems of many European nations over the past generation, it is beginning to be found in US court cases. An initial study by the Center for Security Policy entitled "Shariah Law and American State Courts: An Assessment of State Appellate Court Cases," examined 50 cases from 23 states that involved conflicts between sharia and American state law. The study's findings suggest that sharia has entered into state court decisions, in conflict with the Constitution and state public policy.

This incursion of sharia into US court systems usually manifests itself in the form of foreign law from nations such as Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Syria and other predominantly Islamic nations. As a result, four states, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arizona and Kansas, have passed into law "American Laws for American Courts," legislation. Several more states are considering American Laws for American Courts. Unlike Oklahoma's infamous constitutional amendment, American Laws for American Courts does not ban sharia. American Laws for American Courts protects individual, fundamental constitutional rights by preventing courts from applying foreign law when the application of that foreign law in the case at hand would result in the violation of a fundamental constitutional right, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, due process and equal protection.

Among the organizations that are clouding the issue on sharia is the Saudi-backed Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

ISNA was named as an unindicted co-conspirator and revealed to be a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in the US v. Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history.

ISNA was co-founded in 1981 by Sami Al-Arian, a man who is now in federal prison after having been convicted on terrorism charges as a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

According to two reports in the San Francisco Chronicle, the other co-founder of ISNA, Mahboob Khan, twice hosted Ayman al-Zawahiri on fundraising trips here in the USA.

In addition, a regional representative for ISNA, Abdurahman Alamoudi, was found to be a chief fundraiser for Al Qaeda here in the USA and was convicted on terrorism charges. Alamoudi founded the Islamic Society of Boston using ISNA's tax-exempt, non-profit status.

ISNA board member Muzammil Siddiqi told the San Francisco Chronicle in June 2001 that he "supported laws in countries where homosexuality is punishable by death."

Siraj Wahhaj, who served as vice president of ISNA, is on record as supporting all aspects of sharia, including its call for brutal punishments like the removal of one's hands as the penalty for theft, and death by stoning as the penalty for adultery. According to Wahhaj, such harsh measures are wholly justified by Islamic scripture as he preached in a May 1992 sermon: "I would cut off the hands of my own daughter [if she stole] because Allah stands for Justice." On another occasion, Wahhaj stated: "If Allah says 100 strikes, 100 strikes it is. If Allah says cut off their hand, you cut off their hand. If Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it's the obedience of Allah and his messenger-nothing personal."

Islamic scholar Stephen Schwartz has described ISNA as "one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States."

These hardly seem like the kind of people who should be leading interfaith outreach in the USA.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/the_sharia_threat_to_america.html

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