Montesquieu and Islam: The Peaceful Crusade in Dunedin - Forgive my Discomfort.

I find every form of theocracy dangerous and repugnant, whether it be Christians handing my life over to their angry God; Moslem’s to that contradiction, Allah; or socialists to the butchering machine of the twentieth century, the State. The most evil thing a society can do against itself is hand over its individuals - their liberty of mind and body - to the caprice of an Other: the ills in our welfare state, including the need for John Campbell’s Lunchbox program - which I’ve just donated to - can be traced back to the destruction of self-reliance and self-responsibility, thus natural love, affection, and compassion, within our Gulags of Forced Altruism.

It is on this footing, as a libertarian, I can say that though I respect the right of every individual to believe whatever they like, so long as they don’t breach the non-initiation of force or fraud principle, that does not mean I have to respect what it is they believe in, especially if it is a creed that bases itself on anything other than the liberty and volition of the individual human to pursue their happiness.

And so while I would (figuratively, that is, don’t test it) die for the right of New Zealand’s Moslem population to purchase this former Catholic school in Dunedin, and to set up a school for their young there, don’t expect me to like it, and see it as anything but another step back from the road to freedom that civilised man has as their goal in the only life-time that exists: this one on Earth. A road I saw as my birth right since signposted in 1776, but that has been detoured yet again down the road to serfdom of Orwell's Big Brother State.

I have written before on how the father of modern thought on multiculturalism, Montesquieu, would be appalled at how modern man has misinterpreted his writings:

… Montesquieu; particularly in his 1748 ‘The Spirit of Laws’ – (a line of thought that has been undermined by Left politics, with serious consequences). Namely, while Montesquieu professed a delight in cultural diversity, he always held that while all cultures might be equally valuable, they were not equally good, thus underlying any celebration of cultural diversity, there was (is) a justice that is eternal. He called it the ‘eternal flame’.

From this our Western rule of law must not hold a hand out to Sharia, and I hope this first South Island Islamic school does not become the breath that might ultimately blow out the eternal flame of a humanist, classical liberalism; for while I am willing to delight in the cultural diversity it will bring, the celebration must not draw a curtain across the fact this faith is not ‘equally good’ to a humane morality based on man qua man.

Regarding Islam, I do not respect a faith in which you can work side by side with a man, who for years behaved like a good bloke, indeed, with a grace that could convert an agnostic to the notion of a moderate Islam, but then two weeks after he has disappeared from the workplace, find he’s taken his 16 year old daughter, brought up in New Zealand as a Westerner, to Pakistan and an arranged marriage. I think that is barbaric, his daughter treated at best as a chattel, at worst, cattle. And though I have no respect for the Catholics who will form a major opposition bloc to MP Maryan Street’s Euthanasia Bill should it make it out of the ballot, I have even less respect for the faith that is replacing it in this school in Dunedin. Because for all the talk of it being the religion of peace, you must excuse me, because I’ve yet to come across an atheist (or latter day Catholic) Taliban, so I’ll be throwing my lot in with the atheists. The world won’t know the enlightenment of a peaceful, free society, until we can cast off both schools of superstitious mysticism: as Voltaire wisely said, those that believe in absurdity, will always be capable of atrocity, and in that I include every religion.

Praise be to man. Have a good weekend.