Classical Liberals are Liars When it Comes to Islam

The reason I don't support civic nationalism is because none of the civic nationalists actually believe in it.

Libertarians are divided into two camps. One is the radical camp focused on moral principle. The side of Rothbard, the Mises Institute, the Mises Caucus, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, (and me). The other side calls themselves “Classical Liberals.” They’re mild mannered. They’re friendly to the Establishment. They’re the side of Reason Magazine, Students for Liberty, Friedrich Hayek and the Koch brothers.

Helen Pluckrose wrote an essay on how people ought to talk about the UK muslim rape gangs. The essay reveals a lot about the “Classical Liberal” mindset.

Pluckrose’s essay begins with this statement:

People are right to be both angry and worried about this and being so does not indicate racist or anti-Muslim sentiment.

Why do we need the perfunctory reassurance that opposition to rape gangs does not indicate anti-Muslim sentiment? More to the point, what is wrong with anti-Muslim sentiment? Islam is not a race, it is not an immutable characteristic, it is a set of doctrines. Aren’t we allowed to criticize ideas? According to classical liberals, aren’t we supposed to judge people based on the ideas they profess, rather than their immutable characteristics?

Suppose there were a country whose state ideology was Neo-Nazism and the country had a population of 2 billion people. Suppose that people from that country immigrated en masse to Britain, where they voted for parties who promised to invade and annex neighboring countries. Suppose their community leaders loudly declared that there’s actually nothing morally wrong with rounding up and exterminating undesirable ethnic groups. Whenever anyone condemns these immigrants and their ideology, the critic is denounced as “Naziphobic.”

A man from the Neo-Nazi country, named Hans, wants to immigrate to Britain. He has some tech skills and he’s a family man, but he’s always believed in and espoused Neo-Nazi ideology. Should he be allowed to immigrate?

Classical Liberals say they believe in peace, the rule of law and freedom of speech. Neo-Nazis actively work to destroy those things. Obviously, mass immigration of Neo-Nazis who can vote and organize politically in the new country, would destroy that country’s liberty.

If Classical Liberal civic nationalism means anything at all, it means excluding Hans. When we exclude Hans, we’re not judging him on an accident of birth, we’re judging him on the content of his character.

Classical Liberals would understand this in the Neo-Nazi example, but they completely flip positions when it comes to Islam. Islam is a totalitarian ideology. For more than a thousand years, Islam has waged brutal wars of aggression against its neighbors. Islam is (at least) as hostile to Classical Liberal values as Nazism is. Islam is diametrically opposed to peace, the rule of law and freedom of speech, as well as “women’s liberation,” and homosexual rights.

The Classical Liberal dodge is to say that we ought to oppose “Islamism” but not Muslims. That is like saying that we ought to oppose “political Neo-Nazism” but not Neo-Nazis.

Put simply, the reason why Classical Liberals don’t apply this reasoning to Islam is because Classical Liberals - like all other moderates - have different standards for Whites and non-Whites.

Classical Liberals also like to say that the vast majority of Muslims reject the views and actions of the extremists. But that’s simply not true. Polling consistently shows that huge percentages of Muslims support the most horrific forms of injustice imaginable. Most support strict Sharia and believe it should be illegal to draw cartoons of Mohammed. Double digit percentages of Muslims worldwide support suicide bombings of civilians and the death penalty for apostasy from Islam.

In Rotherham, 14 Muslim men were convicted, another 24 were charged and another 68 were interviewed with suspicion as of October 2018. At the time that the crimes occurred there were about 10,000 Muslims living in Rotherham. If we assume that 50% of them were male and 75% of them were adults, there were about 3,750 adult Muslim men in Rotherham. 106 Muslim men convicted, charged or interviewed with suspicion out of 3,750 Muslim men total, so about 1 in 35 were credibly suspected of being directly involved with the rape gang crimes in some way. The police can never catch 100% of perpetrators, and they were reluctant to investigate the issue at all, so the percentage of men who were involved was larger than the percentage of men on the police’s radar. And a still larger share knew about it but did not speak up. Countless sisters, wives and parents of the perpetrators knew what was happening, but they did not turn in the perpetrators. And not a single Muslim organization has condemned the rape gangs - instead they have run cover for them. They condemn Elon Musk for raising the issue. Huge percentages of Muslims in Britain do not in fact abhor sexual violence when it is committed by Muslims against Kaffirs.

Pluckrose continues:

We must reject and ignore the virulent racists who care only about… what religious background they have and nothing for what their values are…

This is an incoherent statement. A religion is, among other things, a set of values. Most people get many of their values from their religion. When people object to a religion, whether it’s liberals objecting to Evangelical Christianity or Westerners objecting to Islam, their objection is based on a criticism of that religion’s values.

The thrust of Pluckrose’s essay is to say that we ought to condemn the Muslim rape gangs and also condemn “anti-Muslim bigotry.” But the phrase “anti-Muslim bigotry” makes no sense. It should be laughed out of intellectual circles the same way we would laugh at “anti-Nazi bigotry.”

Key Takeaway #1: Classical Liberals’ views on Islam are totally irreconcilable with the rest of their philosophy. They apply a leniency to Islam that they would never apply to other philosophies such as Neo-Nazism.

Key Takeaway #2: The reason why Classical Liberals refuse to be logically consistent when it comes to Islam is that

a) They apply different standards for whites and non-whites

b) They are terrified of being “racist”

c) They are desperate for mainstream approval.