Lex Anteinternet: Islamic Violence, Islamic Silence and Western Rela...

Lex Anteinternet: Islamic Violence, Islamic Silence and Western Rela...: This past week the world has been witness to another outrage committed by those who claim devotion to Islam.  If this event were unique, a ...

Of note, on this matter, in the past week protests, some pretty heated, have broken out in Pakistan, Algeria and Jordon.

Protesting violence in the name of Islam?  No.

Protesting Charlie Hedbo's post assault cover showing a crying Mohammed.

Most would think this a pretty innocuous cartoon, perhaps even slightly reverent, but  Muslim crowds have not in those locations, demonstrating the nature of the problem here.

Even more demonstrative, the paper, which in my view is not at all admirable in general, as I made clear in my Je ne suis pas Charlie post, attacked Christianity and the Catholic church viciously in the same issue, and proclaimed itself to be atheist.  Taking pride in that status, it took vicarious credit for the large crowds that came out in Paris, perhaps failing to understand that sympathy for victims, which in this case is perceived as the French Republic as much as anything else, does not really equate to sympathy with the papers crude cartoons and sometimes crude text.

But was there a violent Christian or Catholic reaction?  No, not at all.

There was a reaction, with even the Pope commenting, but of note it tended to once again find sympathy with the victims and also plead for all Faiths to be treated with respect.  This too highlights the nature of the problem the West faces here.  In the West, most agree with the Christian view of turning the other cheek.  In Islam, it seems that a large percentage of the faithful do not agree with that view at all.  As that's the case, this problem can't be regarded as minor, or isolated.

And while we were watching Paris. . .

The Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group in Nigeria whose name means "Western education is forbidden" killed 2,000 villagers and displaced 30,000 in an assault on that that town.  They also sent explosives into a target area strapped on the back of a girl believed to be about ten years old.

This is in the news, but not like Paris, no doubt because it's activities are principally in Africa, rather than somewhere else.

Just thought you'd want to know.

Today In Wyoming's History: Update: Today In Wyoming's History: January 14

Today In Wyoming's History: Update: Today In Wyoming's History: January 14: Today In Wyoming's History: January 14 : 2015:  Governor Mead delivers his State of the State address to the Legislature .

Tom Hanks on His Two Years at Chabot College

Tom Hanks on His Two Years at Chabot College

Protection is sometimes not needed until it is. A bill to protect the clergy

Yesterday I commented on one of  Wyoming's, indeed the entire West's, perennial bad ideas, that being that the Federal government should give (not sell) its land holdings in the West to the state's where they're located.  My suspicion is that this makes us look foolish in the extreme in the East, where the citizenry wishes that they had what we had, and also knows that they are included in the putative landowners whose property we seek to expropriate gratis from the Federal government.

Today, however, I'm commenting on something that goes the other way, that being a bill that's in the legislature which would protect a person from suit who will not preside over a same gender marriage.  The Tribune editorialized in opposition to this bill the other day.

That editorial was extremely telling, really, as it shows the mindset of those who just don't grasp this issue. Starting off with the claim that there are no worries, as the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects anyone in that position, it then goes on to express the view that the bill is just sour grapes as a Federal judge forced this on the state, and that same gender unions are good for marriage overall.  So, in one fell swoop the editorial actually states the fears that this bill seeks to address, those being that:  1)  the Federal courts can make something that was never conceived of as being legal the law overnight, and 2) if you don't agree with this change you ought to, so you have no legitimate complaint anyhow.

Beyond that, this is the first inkling of a concern by those who backed this change (as the Tribune did) that its likely be extremely temporary.  The elephant in the room on this issue is that that U.S. Supreme Court hasn't ruled on it yet, but is likely to do so in the next two terms, and when it does, it's probable that the ruling will either uphold prior state laws or the Court will hold that the entire issue doesn't belong in Federal court at all, and remand all of it to the states.  In that case, the local ruling would basically evaporate overnight and it would become a state issue.  Nobody really knows what the Wyoming Supreme Court would do with this issue, but its pretty certain that the legislature would not be in favor of any changes in the reading of the law.

So what about the first point in the editorial. Is the Tribune right?

Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't.  We need to also keep in mind that there's a bill also pending in the legislature which would prohibit discrimination based upon a person's orientation.  People everywhere in the US tend to already think that this is the law, and most people aren't in favor of any kind of real discrimination, but that actually isn't the law.  Chances are that it will be, either legislatively our through court action in the foreseeable future.

For most people, that actually won't matter, but there are a collection of people for whom this creates a moral crisis.  And its one that isn't often understood and is unfairly dismissed by those who don't look at it.

To start with, its very clearly a problem for ministers of most monotheistic religions that hold the long established theology of their faiths.  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all regard the conduct that this surrounds as sinful, and none of them regard marriages between same gender couples as valid.  Now, before somebody seeks to correct me, I do concede of course that there are present examples of individuals in Judaism and Christianity, including their ministers, who hold the opposite view, but they are all reformist in some manner.  That is, in order to take that view, they have to qualify or reinterpret part of what was very long held doctrine.

Now this post isn't intended to be a theology treatise, which I'm not qualified to attempt to do in depth anyhow, but rather to note the next item, which is that Conservative and Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, Muslim mullahs, and ministers in the Catholic, Orthodox and some Protestant denominations hold the view that same gender unions cannot be regarded as marriages and that they cannot perform them.  Indeed, they'd regard preforming them as an immoral act with enormous personal consequences.

Beyond that, members of these various faiths, at least in some cases, also hold the views that cooperating in such unions is itself a species of religious fraud, as it gives evidence that they, as loyal members of their faiths, disagree with the faith.  Frankly, the average person in most faiths seems able to ignore big chunks of it if they're average members, but for those who are serious about their faiths, this can present a very real problem if they're asked to participate in some fashion, which can include everything from simply attending to being asked to provide some sort of service, like photographs or a cake.

Because so many people have very casual views about everything in this area, the fact that this can in fact create a moral crisis is lost to many people.  Indeed, many people are pretty comfortable with a judge ordering a priest or rabbi to do something, as they feel "well, he doesn't have to believe. . but what's the harm. . .".  And a larger group yet is very comfortable with the idea, for example, that a Jewish bakery can be ordered to provide a cake, as to not do so would be "mean", or that a Catholic flower shop can be ordered to provide flowers, as to not do so is hateful.

But if any of those individuals feel otherwise, and they stick to their guns, the full sanction of the law could impact them, as it already has in some states where the law has changed, in so far as laymen are concerned.

And, as touched on earlier, this is already a present problem, at least on a theoretical basis, for those who hold clerk positions.  If a young Muslim woman is working in a county clerk's office and is asked to issue a marriage license, can she get canned if she refuses and it has to go to another clerk?  What if a Greek Orthodox judge decides that he doesn't want to preside over civil unions in his courthouse?  Is that the end for him?

It could be.

The Tribune, which has sued more than once when it feels its Constitutional rights are being trampled upon, feels that the 1st Amendment neatly solves all of this.  The 1st Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

All the 1st Amendment really says, of course, regarding religions is that no U.S. state was to go down the same road that England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, or Denmark had, and make a certain religion the state religion.  Indeed, of significance to this discussion, in each of those instances the establishment of a state religion came about when the state acted to overthrow the religions establishment of the country and get it to do something it wasn't going to do voluntarily, so in essence the state acted to tell the established church what to do.

The First Amendment has been interpreted, of course, to allow "the free exercise" of any faith, and the Tribune's thought is that as this is the case, everyone is protected. And the Tribune might be 100% correct.  Having said that, the states in fact do already restrict the free exercise of religion  and always have.  While I'm not advocating for a change in this particular aspect of state law (although that's coming about through court action anyhow) one such example is in that marriages are limited to one spouse a piece.  What are sometimes referred to as "fundamentalist Mormons" believe that one man should be able to have multiple wives.  Muslims believe that one man can have up to seven wives, although their faith doesn't mandate that they do so.  Other examples could be found.

It's safe to say, in any event, that sooner or later some priest, rabbi or mullah would get sued for refusing to preside over a same gender union.  And some flower shop, bakery, caterer, or banquet hall would as well.  It'd be inevitable.  Maybe the First Amendment would operate to protect them, it probably would, but to be concerned that it might not, or to feel that added protection might be in order, isn't unreasonable.

The truth of the matter is that Americans have sort of a dual religiosity and the United States is a fairly religious nation.  But part of that is that there's sort of a widely held civil religion that's relativistic and which holds tolerance of everything and being nice to everyone as a primary virtue, without looking at any one topic too deeply.  For the thousands, and maybe millions, who also take the tenants of their faiths seriously, however, there are lines they cannot cross.  For most Americans, up until now, that's mattered little, although again there are tens of thousands and maybe millions who have actually do face trials of one kind or another of this type everyday, where things that they'd reject have crept into civil life over the decades.  But what we've seen recently has come as a court made, in part, revolution and has placed these conflicts squarely in issue.  The early history, indeed over half of our history, was marked by extremely deep religious bigotry  in which certainly Catholicism and Judaism were deeply despised, and even Puritans could find themselves facing the death penalty for passing over a colonial boundary (giving us a rare early example of women being executed in what would become the United States).  Without some protection for those who hold deeply held believes that do not square with civil trends, we face returning, to some degree, to that era in a more minor way, with the enforces of the civil religion oppressing the holders of other religious views.

Now, of course, the bill might not actually be effective.  But some protection is at least worth affording.

Today In Wyoming's History: January 13 Updated

Today In Wyoming's History: January 13: 2015  Legislature commences general session.

Mid Week At Work. The docks.

Movies In History: Monuments Men

This has been an unusual year for me (by that meaning 2014 and 2015) as I've seen more movies than I usually do, including this one.

I should have added this one here some time ago, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know that much about this particular unit or series of events, other than that there was an American unit, at least, that was dedicated to trying to preserve European cultural works.  We have the book, but I haven't read it yet.  I'll come back and update this after I do.  Most of what I know about this unit is from reading an article on this topic in The New Republic. I read that article some time ago, and don't recall the details of it really well other than that I think I recall that at least some of the details of the film depart from the actual history of the unit.  At least some of the story depicted in the film almost certainly departs from the actual history and was added for dramatic and storyline effect.

For the meantime, what I'll do is restrict my comments to just the material details of the film and not try to post on any larger historical items.  I will note, of course, as is well known that the Germans looted vast amounts of European art, quite a bit of which is still missing (apparently one major item noted in the film is actually strongly suspected of being in certain private hands, which has yet to return it but which there is anticipation that they will at some point).  Some is lost to history, no doubt, for all time, having been destroyed at one point or another during the war. 

That the Germans went to such extent to loot art is truly amazing. The removal of significant artifacts by invading armies isn't a wholly new thing, but to engage in it to this extent is in the modern world.  This reflected the sick and debased nature of the Nazi regime, which viewed itself as the pinnacle of everything, and therefore entitled to own everything.  In reaction, the U.S. did form a unit of specialist who attempted to preserve and track down works of art.  Whether that unit had an international composition, I don't know.

I also don't know if the unit was generally made up of middle aged men, as depicted in this film, but the use of middle aged men for various roles during World War Two actually was fairly common, contrary to the opposing supposition that's quite common.  So, whether accurate to this endeavor or not, it's accurate to the war.

In material details, the uniforms and equipment are largely correct.  About the only departure I could see was the odd use of British sidearms, which would have been very unlikely.  Troops being equipped, in this unit, with M1 Carbines is correct for their use.  Use of a captured German Kübelwagen is shown, which wouldn't have been surprising for a unit of this type.  Other Allied vehicles depicted are correct.  Amazingly,  Red Army vehicles depicted are also correct, a pretty surprising thing for an American movie and demonstrative of the increased effort we've seen in recent years to be accurate in material details.

All in all the movie is worth seeing in part because it's a "small story", which World War Two offers quite a few of, but which have generally not been touched by film makers in the context of World War Two for quite some time.  They're worth doing, and when done well, as this film is, they add to our overall understanding of the war.

The Oil Business in Wyoming | WyoHistory.org

The Oil Business in Wyoming | WyoHistory.org

LLB, LLM, JD, oh my!

The other day, I was reading the biography of a long practicing lawyer which noted that when he'd graduated from law school (from another state) in the early 1950s, he'd received a LLB degree, which is a Bachelor of Legal Letters, a now extinct degree.  When the US uniformly went to JD's, i.e., Juris Doctorates, his school allowed that holders of LLBs could exchange them for JDs, which he did.  I probably wouldn't have, but that's just me.  Still, that there were other degrees, and now are not, is an interesting fact and it actually says something about the history of the practice of law, and maybe something about where we are today.

Law degrees, as a professional degree, date back to the 11th Century in Europe, which is stunningly early, and they were actually doctorate degrees at the time.  This certainly doesn't mean that every practitioner of the law held one, but such degrees did exist.  Indeed, as sort of an interesting and peculiar aside, you can find quite a few references in the lives of various Saints to their having studied or obtained a law degree. St. Francis de Sales provides such an example (and you can read about him here, in the They Were Lawyers page on this site).

We in the United States, save for Louisiana, use a Common Law system, so we're heirs to the 1292 decree of King Edward I that lawyers actually be trained for their professions, but that didn't mean that they had to be university trained by any means.  Indeed, that gave rise to the "reading the law" system which predominated for most lawyers in the Common Law countries for eons.  However, even as early as the 1700s in both England and the American Colonies there were those advocating for university education for lawyers, with such a significant figure as William Blackstone taking that position.

In both England, and the United States, the first law degrees were bachelor's, not doctorate, degrees, something that set us apart, for good or ill, from continental Europe.  In England, the LLB became the common degree, while the first degree offered in the United States was the Bachelor of Law, which soon became a LLB, but without the training in classical liberal arts that the degree included in England.

J.Ds started to appear around the turn of the previous century, and they reflected the fact that law school had already become a post graduate degree. Therefore, people in the US graduating with LLBs already normally  had one bachelor's degree, and it was felt that medical degrees, such as the MD and DDS degrees were sort of unfairly elevated by title, when all the post graduate degrees of that type were in fact doctorate degrees. And the fact that Germany at that time (but no longer) had a practice that required a doctorate in law influenced American academic thinking.   However, not every school changed, and so it was still the case in the mid 20th Century that there were LLBs, LLMs, and JDs, all of which were basically more of lest the same, even if they bore "bachelors", "masters" and "doctorate" titles respectively.

Meanwhile, in England, things went the other direction and things evolved to where law was a bachelor's level course of study, but one of a more traditional nature mixed with other disciplines.  A more academic degree than that in the US, it's none the less one that a person can simply go to university and major in.  Canada and Australia, on the other hand, have followed the US post graduate model.

JDs became the US norm, indeed absolute, at some point in the late 1950s, as the bodies that concerned themselves with law, such as the ABA, pressed for that to be the universal degree.  While already mentioned, there was a certain pitiful aspect to this in that the profession's bodies felt cheated that physicians had doctorates and lawyers didn't, which is a rather odd concern.  At the same time, the same bodies pressed for the elimination of "reading the law" or admission to the bar by people without JDs, which of course raised their importance.  At some point by the 1970s the old practice of allowing people to simply take the bar had died off, and in most, but not all states, a person is required to have a JD from an ABA approved law school before being admitted to the bar.

Ironically, perhaps, the US JD is the least difficult of any of these degrees to obtain, contrary to what American lawyers imagine.  Indeed, law school has increasingly become a sort of trade school in the United States, but not in the other Common Law nations.  Given the origin of the law as a "profession" in the Common Law, this is truly ironic, and probably not good.  On the other hand, its no surprise that JDs are not as "broad" as English LLBs, as American law school students already have a BA or BS, and therefore (hopefully) obtained that broad education there.  Indeed, looked at that way, American lawyers, by the time they graduate with their professional degrees, probably have a broader education than English lawyers do.

And they'll be a bit older as well, rather obviously, as they're in school longer than their English counterparts.  Indeed, as I've often wondered how well suited any person is to find a career just out of law school, I've wondered how many English lawyers really knew that this was their career aim, accurately, when they started off and then later completed their degrees.  It would seem to be the case that American lawyers, maybe, would have accessed their career goals somewhat more accurately by being older when they entered a post graduate program.

Or maybe not, based upon what little I've read about it, as it shows up in bar journals and legal websites, career questioning is pretty high in both the UK and the US in regards to the law, so perhaps being 22 instead of (presumably) 18 when a person enters law school isn't that big of difference, although it would be hard to see how it wouldn't be.  Or perhaps that says something about a legal education in both countries.  I'm not that familiar with it in other countries, but at least here in the US law schools have been criticized for being divorced from real practice to some degree, and therefore poorly preparing their charges for the practice.  Of course, if they did focus on that more, and they are indeed working on it, they risk become more of a trade school than they already are, which would not seem to be a good thing.

Added into this odd mix the various bodies that so concerned themselves with raising the standards of practice have seemingly passed their prime and their relevance declines.  The ABA still certified law schools, and is still a power, but not like it once was and membership is not nearly as universal as it once was.  A quick look at the organization is telling, as its clearly a left coast liberal entity that many lawyers do not really subscribe to in terms of views and its taken up bothering itself with social concerns that lawyers are really no more qualified to spout off about than anyone else.  JDs, that doctorate degree, became increasingly easy to get over the years and more lawyers were produced in recent years than there was work for.  Bar exams, which didn't even exist in some state's mid 20th Century, are now universal but they've gone from featuring a nationwide Multistate exam combined with a state exam to, in at least ten or so states, including mine, to a "Universal Bar Exam" which removed examination on the state's own law completely.  One state, Iowa, has returned to no bar exam for local law school graduates.

Not that much of this matters to the average person.  In the end, people in the UK, US, Australia, Canada, etc., all have a common law system that works pretty much in the same way, and in all those locations practitioners schooled in that system have little concept of changing it to any other, which of course would seemingly raise the question of whether competing systems, and there are others, deliver justice more, or less, efficiently.  Or maybe it does matter, or at least in the US perhaps it matters.  With a general perception that the quality of a college education isn't what it once was, which may or may not be accurate, and law schools that are perceived as not being as rigorous as they once were, combined with a trend towards bar admission without even a state test being administered, the "doctorate" and "professional" quality claimed by lawyers will start to mean less than it currently does, and already doesn't mean what it once did.

The Big Picture: Southern Big Horns

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Fort Laramie and the Plains Indian Culture

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Fort Laramie and the Plains Indian Culture

Economics 101 Explains Why Plunging Gasoline Prices Aren't Making You Travel More

Economics 101 Explains Why Plunging Gasoline Prices Aren't Making You Travel More

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Patrick's Presbyterian Church, Greeley Colorado

Churches of the West: St. Patrick's Presbyterian Church, Greeley Colorado...



This is St. Patrick's Presbyterian Church in downtown Greeley Colorado.

Europe 1 on Twitter: "À 87 ans, Uderzo reprend la plume pour #CharlieHebdo #JeSuisCharlie. Interview à 8h30 http://t.co/2HBhhbdqJr #E1matin http://t.co/8GwH9cPMaQ"

Europe 1 on Twitter: "À 87 ans, Uderzo reprend la plume pour #CharlieHebdo #JeSuisCharlie. Interview à 8h30 http://t.co/2HBhhbdqJr #E1matin http://t.co/8GwH9cPMaQ"

One of the cartoonist from the famed Asterix and Obelix cartoon has come out of retirement to pent a comment on the recent assassination of Charlie Henbo cartoonist.

This cartoon is largely unknown to Americans, but it's a very well known French cartoon set in ancient Gaul.

Words of endurance: Russian Hussar | 1870 to 1918

Words of endurance: Russian Hussar | 1870 to 1918

And in other odd news. . .

ISIL in Syria set up a police force to administer its view of Islamic religious laws.

Which includes not smoking.  I don't know that this is actually a tenant of Islam.  I'm ignorant on that, but at least the Turks are pretty strongly associated with tobacco, so it strikes me as odd.

And smoking is really popular in the region.

Well, in the last few days a deputy ISIL police commander was assassinated and his severed head left with a cigarette in his mouth.  ISIL policemen are getting kidnapped.

I'm not sure what this means, and I don't condone killing or kidnapping anyone.  But one recent interview I heard of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq noted that Al Queda banning cigarettes is one thing that really upset the locals.  There's some sort of lesson in this, although I am not certain what it actually is.

Je ne suis pas Charlie

Earlier today, I posted about Islam and the problem it has in convincing people that its non violent.  Indeed, it's an open question if the truly devoted in Islam can take that position without straying into heresy, or perhaps being regarded as heretical.  I think they can, but then I'm not Moslem, which is the added problem addressed in my earlier post, ie., if the voices we mostly hear saying Islam isn't violent, aren't Moslem, that sends some sort of different message.

This came about, as noted, in part because of the assassinations at Charlie Hedbo by Islamic terrorists.  But let's be clear, this taps into, a bit, my other message. And let's start off with a couple of basic propositions.

First of all, killing journalist isn't warfare.  Its murder.  Its murder in any religion, or if it isn't, it should be. And its murder for the non religions as well.

But, being the victim of murder, even if you are killed for your statements or beliefs, doesn't convert you into a hero.

And Charlie Hedbo's cartoons weren't heroic, they were vile.

They truly were insulting. They insulted Islam, and they insulted Christianity.  Christians, of course, can't murder those they disagree with, and indeed to be insulted for your faith is regarded in Christian tenants as a symbol of your praiseworthiness.  Christ promised his followers that they'd get exactly that sort of treatment.

But even if Christians are required to forgive their tormentors, and hopefully Moslems will somebody get around to that position, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't take note of the offense.  Hedbo's cartoons were vulgar and insulting, and fit into a long French leftist tradition in that regards. They were not artful, sophisticated satire.

And for that reason, in part, I'm not joining the "Je suis Charlie" campaign.  Indeed, Je ne suis pas Charlie. 

On this front, I'll stick with an earlier identification offered by this symbol:

The Arabic equivalent of the letter "N", standing for Nazarene, or Christian, which has come to symbolize those Middle Easter Christians under assault by ISIL. 

I'd offer that, like identifying with European Jews of the 1930s and 1940s, this serves a higher purpose, no matter what a person's belief, rather than associating cartoonists whose cartoons were insulting and vulgar, unless of course we make it clear that we're standing for Freedom of the Press everywhere. But aren't we really standing for more than that, and not only Freedom of Expression, but Freedom of Belief, for all? For everyone of every belief, including Moslems and to include the Moslem policeman killed by the Parisian terrorist?  If we aren't, I suggest that we should be.

Islamic Violence, Islamic Silence and Western Relativism

This past week the world has been witness to another outrage committed by those who claim devotion to Islam.  If this event were unique, a person could discount it as not really having a basis in Islam in some fashion, but as its far from unique, a person can't and shouldn't.

Over the past couple of years alone we've seen Moslems blow up a bomb during the Boston Marathon, kill French cartoonist and magazine staffers, murder a British soldier in his home country in the street, attack the Canadian parliament, and wage a war combined with barbarity in Iraq and Syria.  Each time this occurs, people in the west, indeed people in much of the world, are told that we are not to assume that this means such actions accurately reflect any tenants of Islam.  Indeed, a White House spokesman was quoted in The Weekly Standard as saying this past Thursday:

There are some individuals that are using a peaceful religion and grossly distorting it, and trying to use its tenets to inspire people around the globe to carry out acts of violence. And we have enjoyed significant success in enlisting leaders in the Muslim community, like I said, both in the United States and around the world to condemn that kind of messaging, to condemn those efforts to radicalize individuals, and to be clear about what the tenets of Islamactually [sic] are. And we’re going to redouble those efforts in the days and weeks ahead.

That's all well and good, but a statement by the U.S. Presidency to this effect has exactly zero effect as a statement on behalf of Islam, influencing Moslems, or really doing anything at all.  Something like this would mean something if it came from a really influential Moslem cleric, but it does not, at least in so far as this statement is concerned.  So, does this accurately reflect real Islam, or not, or can these acts be squared with Islam, or not?

Well, maybe they do not, maybe these people are nutty outliers (I suspect at least some of them clearly are, if not outright mentally disturbed) but unfortunately maybe they do, at least to some Moslems.  Indeed, a recent poll of Saudis found that over 90% view ISIL's actions as consistent with Islamic tenants.  Now, a person has to be careful about that, as consistent with, and mandated by, are two completely different things.  Indeed, its completely possible for a person to abhor something in a faith, while being a loyal member of it, but while also regarding that thing as "consistent with" the faith.  So, I don't take that to mean that Saudis all are supporting ISIL by any means.

But all of these things together, combined with a poll figure like that, should tell us something. And the general, or at least apparent, silence up until quite recently of Islamic leaders who count when these things occur means even more.

Generally, the people who are quick to assert that "Islam is a religion of peace" aren't Moslem, and in fact, Islam really isn't a religion of peace consistently in regards to non Moslems.  The founding document of Islam, the Koran, isn't consistently peaceful by any means.  Nor does it recognize a separation between religious and civil government.  As Christians well know, Christ instructed his followers to "render until Caesar things which are Caesar's" but Mohamed, who of course rejected Christ's divinity (although in actuality may have been more of a Gnostic in reality, rather than as he was later remembered and quoted), left no such instruction.  For that reason, early Islam featured a unified government for its adherents, and that government waged war against its neighbors.

This early history, and the foundation of the religion, is extremely important in this context.  From the outside, when observed in a historical context, the origins of Islam can be and are debated, but a long held school of thought which still holds much historical weight would place very early Islam in the category of Gnosticism but advanced by a very charismatic leader.  That early Islam probably didn't really hold all of the same tenants of the current one, but it did fight its neighbors, sometimes with Christian allies even in Mohammed's time (which again would tend to suggest that early on it was actually a species of Gnosticism, rather than a new religion).  The Koran itself, to non Moslem students, seems to have been written in an evolutionary fashion, with earlier portions being less aggressive than later, perhaps reflecting the evolution in conditions on the ground that Mohamed and his followers were facing. 

Of course, to almost all Moslems, and certainly to any adherent Moslem, this view is all wrong and they would argue that the Koran is the word of God, and that's the way it is. And for Moslems, therefore, the violent portions of the Koran cannot be ignored as Moslems have to deal with them in some fashion.

But they can be interpreted differently, and there are those who have argued that they should be.  Particularly recently.  Indeed, a major Egyptian figure is arguing that this be done right now, and there have been Moslem clerics also arguing the same, recently.

That modern conditions aren't exactly the same ones that Mohamed faced in his lifetime are pretty obvious, and that humans have largely evolved past the point where every national difference must  be solved by violence or warfare, if that was ever really the case, are gone.  Indeed, the world is becoming more peaceful, not less, so this violence stands out more and more as an aberration.  But it doesn't seem to be an aberration in Islamic terms.

And it won't seem to be until that point at which most Moslems make it clear that they not only aren't resorting to the gun, but that they don't approve of it being done.  And so far, that really hasn't been the case.  Much like peaceful Communists, or the hard right, in the 1920s and 30s in Europe, people tend to wink or be silent in the face of violence committed by those they agree with on other issues, and that truly ended badly. The time has really come for Moslems in Europe and the United States to take a stand, one way or the other, and hopefully against violence.  Not until they take that brave act will this trend abate.  Of course, doing that is made doubly difficult now, as for anyone to do it in this climate they risk being branded a traitor or heretic by those who support a violent view, and beyond that there's no recognized central authority in Islam and hasn't been since the original Caliphate fell apart many centuries ago.  Indeed, the only body really claiming the the title of central authority is ISIL, and even thought the overwhelming majority of Moslems don't recognize that claim, at the same time there's no other central authority and there doesn't appear to be any way for one to be recognized in the present age.  And so, almost by its very nature, its really difficult for any Moslem leader to have a voice, unless he's very much in the global news, and that only tends to be nobody at all. So even when Moslem clerics do decry violence, and they sometimes do, it's almost never heard by anyone, even when they do occupy a position of respected authority.

That is particularly problematic, as with no central authority, there's no vehicle for reformation or interpretation that is really controlling.  Indeed, the complete lack of a central authority really makes Islam unique, as almost every other faith has one.  Even highly fractionated Christianity has that in that the various denominations do, and even though some would be reluctant to admit it, the ancient structure of the Catholic and Orthodox world is looked on for guidance by everyone.

So we face a crisis of collision of cultures in a way that we have not for some time, with an absolute need for a group now highly associated with violence to declare against it, with no easy way in which for them to accomplish that.  But they really need to.

Assuming we aren't too late now.  We've been near a tipping point in Europe for awhile, and now that we've seen this in France, a nation that has a long and complicated, and not always peaceful history, with Islamic residents, things are going to get much worse in terms of the political climate in Europe, or at least they could.  The time, therefore, for a large and effective Moslem declaration that this isn't what they support is here now.  Assuming, of course, that they really truly do, as a group, abhor such actions.  If they do, they should make that loudly plain now.

But at the same time, we should also take note, contrary to the claims of some, that the story of Islam in the West isn't really one solely of immigration, but also one of conversion.  There's a lesson to be learned here as well.  Islam is filling a void in the west left by something, and that something may be the demise of clear religious and philosophical sets of purposes.  

What exactly has occurred here remains unclear, and is still an evolving story, but as late as World War Two it was still the case that a large majority of Europeans adhered to at least some world view based on Christianity or, if not, social justice in a concrete sense.  Not all of the political movements were admirable by any means, but most people did have a sense of the greater and lesser, and the founding central focuses of those views was pretty concrete. This has tended towards collapse in recent years leading towards an increasing view of absolute relativism on everything. As a result, Europeans have been shocked with cultures that have not taken this path collide with them, as they increasingly are, and not just in regards to Islam, but also to Europe's giant eastern neighbor.  

And relativism turns out not to be a satisfying philosophical concept for anyone. As the "everything is equal" and "all conduct is okay as long as it doesn't hurt anyone" ethos has crept in, human desire to find meaning in something, anything, other than money, has likewise increased.  Ironically, at the same time, central institutions of all type have increasingly adopted relativism as their more or less official positions. As traditional European institutions or institutions that were traditionally strong in the west have weakened, many have been aimless and others have turned towards those institutions that have their base in distant lands, but which seem more absolute.

As official positions, relativistic institutions don't work, particularly on anything founded on a strong thesis. This doesn't mean that a person must agree with one particular thing or another, but it does mean that institutions shouldn't hide their basic concepts or dilute them to the point that they're nearly meaningless.

For when they do, there is always something left to fill that vacuum.  And in an age when many of the Christian religions in Europe have diluted their faith to the point that it isn't very recognizable, and when many social and political institutions seem mainly focused on what the best way for an economy to make money is, those who are looking for something to give their lives meaning have to look pretty far.  And for some of them, that will be Islam, as whether a person agrees with it or not, Islam seems to know what it believes.  Countering a strong belief with the ethos of "it's nice to be nice to the nice and everyone is nice" isn't going to cut it with people who are searching.  Indeed, it  really doesn't cut it with anyone.

So we've reached this point.  And its a bad one.  Maybe its time for those who have a foundation in something to declare what it is, and for those who have a foundation in something that others feel licenses violence, when they feel otherwise, to state that.

Postscript

Of note here, and of interest, a fair number of newspapers in the Middle East have, in fact, run cartoons from their cartoonist decrying the terrorists' acts.

That's a brave thing to do, given where they are from, and  its exactly the type of reaction from that quarter that's needed here.

Postscript II

And there was indeed a good turn out for the March in Paris, which did indeed include some significant Moslem figures, including clerics and King Abdullah of Jordan.

So, perhaps things have turned a corner.

Postscript III

For the first time, I've heard a really good explanation, but a noted religion writer, on the topic of this type of violence and Islam.

Of note, according to this author, who seemed very well informed indeed, such violence is in fact not sanctioned by Islam, even if Islam's history and texts have some violent aspects. A partial reason is that there's no authority that has authorized it, which can authorize it.  Indeed, there would appear to be no authority which can in fact authorize it.

Additionally, it appears that the violence has in fact turned off a large segment of the Islamic population everywhere, to such an extent in fact that the religion is loosing a significant number of adherents in some areas, including Iran, where those abandoning the faith are either completely abandoning any faith, or are converting to Christianity.

Matters of preception. "Rancher"

This past Sunday, the local paper ran an article on Frank Robbins.

Robbins is a Thermopolis area landowner who ranches around that area.  Often the articles about him repeat his often stated desire, at age 59, to protect his way of life from the Federal government.  He's been involved in a variety of spats with the government since he showed up there.

Yes, I said showed up. Robbins bought three or so ranches in that area and combined them into one, after selling a ranch in Montana.  He did that about a decade or more ago.  And he came into Montana from Alabama.

In Alabama, apparently, he was in the lumber and flooring business, and did very well at it. So well that he amassed a fortune of this type, or so I've read, seeing as I only know about him what I've read.

Now, out of staters coming in to ranch isn't new, it's indeed the original story of ranching in the region.  Homesteaders were not, after all, from here.  But in terms of "way of life", do you have a good claim to that in an area you aren't native too, particularly as the modern story of ranching is that the vast amount of money required to buy a ranch now effectively means that locals, including many families and individuals with strong connections, are priced out of owning their own places.  In a way, Robbins is preventing other people, purely accidentally, from engaging in their way of life, as we're from here and don't have that kind for fortune.  Under those circumstances the "way of life" claims rings pretty hollow to natives.