Love, Hate and Liberalism at Saturday Market

At Saturday Market the other weekend myself and Billy Rojas were talking about Islam and passing out ACT!4America pamphlets.  We had a conversation with a Mr. Jim Page and below you can read his letter to the RG and our reply.  The left has no grasp of anything which would call into question their warm and fuzzy logic regarding the world and the place of Islam in it.  Read it all and see the link to the original letter here. 

Challenge the anti-Muslim table

I was at the Eugene Saturday Market last weekend. There was a new political table there with a handmade sign talking about the dangers of Islam and opposing the “mosque” at ground zero. There were two older men, one wearing a red, white and blue flag hat.

They were from a group called “Act!ForAmerica.” They told me that Islam was a dangerous religion and it had to be stopped. I asked what should be done and was told that (a) America must allow no more Muslim immigrants, period, and (b) all Muslims must be deported. I said I was born in California, as were my parents. If I became a Muslim, would I have to be deported as well? They said yes. I said, deported to where? They said, deported to a Muslim country.

I asked them where were their shiny black boots and armbands, and the guy with the flag hat said “Hitler methods” are called for in this case.

This is a free country; we allow people to have ideas and express them, no matter how repugnant. But the line of thinking that these two gentlemen were espousing was very troubling, especially when “Hitler methods” were suggested. I recommend that if these people show up again at the market, or at different locations, people engage them. We should not believe that they will simply go away if ignored. Freedom of speech also means the freedom to challenge bad ideas.

Jim Page

Eugene

In response to Jim Page regarding his accusations

of Hitler methods against Muslims, and  other misinformation.

In letters (Oct 3) Jim Page opens himself up for libel with his statements about myself and my friend,  in what  was said at Saturday Market.  Free speech is, as Mr. Page says, allowed and encouraged, yet by blatantly lying and misrepresenting what actually was discussed his disingenuous and relativistic dogma shines through.

First, the group ACT!forAmerica is, as stated in their  mission statement “…an issues advocacy organization…committed to informed  and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that  promote America's national security and the defense of American  democratic values against the assault of radical Islam.”  As chapter leader of Eugene/Springfield ACT!4America it is my role to explain what  “radical Islam” is.  Islam as defined today by the four main schools of Islamic

jurisprudence, and acted upon by millions of Muslims world-wide,  is not the “religion of peace” we often hear.  This does not mean that there is no capacity for compassion, justice and equality in Muslim  religion but those qualities have always been  have been relegated to the  back burner and angry, mean and vindictive Islam is what has been  normative behavior from the beginning.

The conversation between myself, the co-founder of  ACT!4America in Eugene/Springfield Billy Rojas and Jim Page, left no doubt  that if he could he would make sure our voices were stifled.  His questions were phrased similar to “when did you stop beating your wife” and left no room for a cogent response.  He was the one who kept dragging Hitler and the Nazis into the talk, demanding to know where our armbands and boots were.  That kind of childish questioning serves no purpose except to demonize those with who you cannot debate rationally.

Both Mr. Rojas and myself denounce and repudiate, in the strongest possible terms Nazis, Hitler and the philosophy which drove the NSDAP in Germany.  We despise what the Reich did to not only Jews but all groups, both ethnic and social during the reign of Nazism.  Never in our conversation with Mr. Page did either one of us call for “Hitler methods”.

Mr. Pages claim that either one of us said we wanted “Hitler methods” to prevail in dealing with Muslims or Islam is a lie.  His allusion of conflation is not, and never has been what myself or Mr. Rojas believe, condone or approve.  We are, however very specific in how we view Islam in America, and Muslim behavior and actions regarding non-Muslims.

In the course of talking about Muslim immigration it was Mr. Page who asked Mr. Rojas specifically what should be done about the immigration problem and it was Mr. Rojas who replied with his personal  opinion that Muslim immigration should be stopped and Muslims deported  because any believer in Islam necessarily upholds values which oppose  principles of American law and the Constitution..  I agree that Immigration from Muslim countries should be stopped but disagree with Mr. Rojas on deportation.  My view is that if you are here legally you should be given one chance to prove you’re worth the label “American” and if you screw up, back to Pakistan or Iraq.

Most troubling about Jim Pages letter is that by using  the word “Hitler” he immediately draws the narrative into the gutter,  emotional outrage trumping critical analysis.  I asked him if he ever read the Qur’an and he responded with “I don’t have to”.  Yet he claimed to quote from the Bible as if that was all he needed to know and anything else would not be challenging his beliefs.  His quotation, when we looked it up was a complete falsehood.

His last point is for those who see us at Saturday Market, or anywhere else is to engage us.  We welcome anyone who wants to talk with us because we believe conversation and education give people power and control over what is sometimes uncontrollable and confusing in life.   

Islam as defined today and practiced by millions of Muslims is a problem which will not go away.  This article cannot, in limited space explain Islam adequately.  We do recommend for those who wish to learn more on Islam and Muslims to visit www.islamtodayoregon.blogspot.com

or www.actforamerica.org.  We invite anyone, especially Muslims, to accept our invitation to discuss Islam and the theology, doctrine and tenets that define the world’s second largest religion.  Free speech means never having to say “don’t say that”.

To the Editor :

Comments by Jim Page in Sunday's Register Guard cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.  His side of the story grossly misrepresents Act! for America , a registered lobbying group in Washington, DC, and features outright fabrication of remarks made by Barry Sommer and Billy Rojas. Although we were not mentioned by name, we are the two individuals directly referred to in the letter to the editor.

Mr Page approached our information table in what is best characterized as an argumentative frame of mind and proceeded to try and bait us with questions that, it is safe to say, reflect a Leftist political perspective. In the letter he put words in our mouths that, from every indication, where what he assumed Right-wingers must say, as if we had said them. But we are political Independents and our views are not Right-wing or remotely neo-Nazi, as Page falsely imputed.  It was Page, NOT US, who brought up 

the subject of  "Hitler methods,"  which we reject unequivocally, and we greatly resent his malicious false attribution.

We are committed to the general outlook and values of Act! for America, founded by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian journalist, now an American citizen, who knows, first hand, the terror which has befallen non-Muslims throughout the Mid East. Both of us have professional level knowledge of Islam and precisely because of this fact, in common with a growing  multitude of Americans, we regard Islam as antithetical to America's core values 

and as a subversive presence in our country. People like Mr Page, and probably most people with Left-wing political views, are almost universally ignorant of even the basics of Islam and don't know what they are talking about. Page ended with a call to try and shut us up through public censure. As a modest suggestion, Page might consider doing some actual research into the Quranic sources  of Muslim criminality before  seeking to deny us,

or any other critics of  Islam, our legitimate free speech  rights.

Billy Rojas