Definition of a Memetic Immune System

In any collection of memes, you will often find memes that help protect the memeplex from being attacked or destroyed or weakened. For example, when non-Arabic speaking non-Muslims learn what is in the Quran, Muslims will use something in the Islamic memeplex: That the Quran can only be understood in Arabic.

So unless someone reads the Quran in Arabic, anything they say can be discounted. This is an example of Islam's memetic immune system.

Read more about this in the book, Thought Contagion.

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Tit For Tat

In the 1970's the political scientist Robert Axelrod created a computer "world" using the famous Prisoner's Dilemma as a game computer programs could play against each other. He wanted to find out which computer program would succeed the best.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a hypothetical situation used to test whether someone will cooperate or compete, and how well the strategies work in the long run.

The game is played by two people. If one cooperates and the other competes, the one who cooperated will lose and the competitive one (the selfish one) will win. If they both compete, they both lose, but not as badly.

If they both cooperate, they both win. That's how the game is set up.

If you were one of the prisoners, what would you do? That's the dilemma. How much can you count on the cooperative nature of the other person?

The game is often played repeatedly with the same two people, each of them choosing to cooperate or take advantage of the other through successive rounds of the game.

The Prisoner's Dilemma game is designed to parallel real life. If two people in real life cooperate with each other, it very often works to their mutual advantage. But if one person cooperates and the other takes advantage, it often works out very well for the selfish one and very poorly for the cooperative one.

On the other hand, if you go around preempting people — trying to take advantage of them before they take advantage of you — you will miss out on the advantages of cooperation, people will resent you, and you might get people working against you.

What is the best long-term strategy? This is the dilemma we are faced with every day, personally as well as culturally.

Robert Axelrod, the man who created the computer world, invited computer programmers to create a program to play the Prisoner's Dilemma with other programs. The question is, which program would succeed the best?

In a game that resembles the real dilemma we all face, what strategy is the most effective?

The program that proved the best was named TIT FOR TAT. It was designed by Anatol Rapoport and it was one of the simplest programs submitted. For the first interaction, it would cooperate. After that, it would repay in kind whatever the other did. That was the whole strategy.

If the other cooperated, TIT FOR TAT benefited. So did the other. If the other took advantage, TIT FOR TAT cut its losses immediately.

As the game went on, TIT FOR TAT gained more (and lost less) than any other program. In The Moral Animal, Robert Wright wrote, "More than the steadily mean, more than the steadily nice, and more than various 'clever' programs whose elaborate rules made them hard for other programs to read, the straightforwardly conditional TIT FOR TAT was, in the long run, self-serving."

And it's the most fair to everyone involved.

I suggest we in the West use the same program when dealing with other countries and other cultures. We should begin with tolerance and cooperation, and then be as tolerant and cooperative as the other is from that point on.

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Tests for Defining "Moderate:" What parts of Islamic doctrine should Muslims reject if they wish to live in free countries?

IS THE MUSLIM in question an orthodox Muslim or a heterodox Muslim? And which teachings does the Muslim reject? These are vital questions for Muslims who wish to live in a non-Muslim country, and these are vital questions to know for non-Muslim countries when deciding who to allow to immigrate, to build mosques within our borders, to get jobs in government security, to join the military, etc.

How can non-Muslims discriminate between those who follow Islam's prime directive, and those who have rejected it?

An organization called Former Muslims United has come up with one good possibility: A Muslim can sign the Freedom Pledge.

The 878-word Freedom Pledge outlines the principles of Islamic law under which apostates from Islam are subject to the death penalty. It notes that the four schools of Sunni Islam — Hanafi, Miliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali — “unanimously agree that a former Muslim male, also known as an apostate, must be executed” and that a woman, at best must be “imprisoned or beaten five times a day until she repents or dies” and at worst, like men executed outright. It then goes on to cite 1978 and 1989 religious rulings — from the Fatwa Council at Al Azhar University, the closest Muslim equivalent to the Vatican, and the Mufti of Lebanon, each, respectively consigning a renegade Muslim to death if they “do not repent.” Perhaps “a misunderstanding on his part may have taken place, and there would thus be an opportunity to rectify it,” intones the Mufti. But he must do so within three days, or die.

By signing the Freedom Pledge, a Muslim promises to “renounce, repudiate and oppose any physical intimidation, or worldly and corporal punishment, of apostates from Islam, in whatever way that punishment may be determined or carried out by myself or any other Muslim including the family of the apostate, community, Mosque leaders, Shariah court or judge, and Muslim government or regime.”

Only two of the 111 Muslim leaders in 50 U.S. Muslim organizations to whom FMU sent the Freedom Pledge actually signed it. Those two heroes are Zuhdi Jasser (American Islamic Forum for Democracy) and Dr. Ali Alyami (Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia).

The results of the FMU Freedom Pledge — to date sent to 163 American Muslim leaders at 50 organizations — show that less than 1.3% of American Muslim leaders are actually moderate.

Read more about this: Peace, Tolerance and Religious Freedom? No Way.

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Tawfik Hamid proposes the following test in his article, ABC's Test for Radical Islam. He writes:

The time has come to define Radical Islam. Please ask your local mosque, Islamic Shool, and Islamic organization to clearly, unambiguously and publically denounce the following concepts:

Apostates killing
Beating women and stoning them to death for adultery.
Calling Jews pigs and monkeys.
Declaring war on Non Muslims to spread Islam after offering Non Muslims three options - subjugate to Islam, pay Jizia (a humiliating tax), or be killed.
Enslavement of Other Human Beings.
Fighting and killing Jews before the "End of Days".
Gay Discrimination and Hostility.

A true moderate person or organization must be able to immediately denounce the above concepts and stand publicly and unambiguously against them.

The Muslim world can not expect the world to consider Islam peaceful as long as they teach and promote such tenets.

A clear stand is needed from leading Islamic Scholars all over the world against such teachings.

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Another simple test, which should be added to all others, is that Muslim men must shake hands with a non-Muslim woman before being allowed to immigrate into a free country.

From a story entitled France denies citizenship to Muslim man:

A Moroccan man who refused to shake hands with a French female official and whose wife wears the full Islamic veil has been denied French citizenship, the immigration ministry said Friday.

The man, who has been living in France since 1999 and married a French woman in 2004, failed to "assimilate into French society" and displayed a "discriminatory attitude toward women," said the ministry.

He "refused to shake the hand of a female official whom he met at the state prefecture because it was 'against his religion'", said a statement.

The man's wife wore the full veil and only agreed to uncover herself in a room where no men would be present, the statement added.

The decision was announced a few days before the National Assembly is to vote on a bill banning the full-face Islamic veil as part of what the government has described as an effort to assert French values.

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THE FOLLOWING is an excerpt from What is Moderate Islam? by Reuel Marc Gerecht:

So what might be an American definition of a “moderate Muslim?” Perhaps the following two entries would be a good place to start.

1. A believer who unqualifiedly rejects terrorism against anyone. This is America’s Eleventh Commandment. If a Muslim cannot renounce terrorism against Israelis, that person should not be allowed to build an Islamic center near Ground Zero. Testing for unacceptable deviancy isn’t hard. Just borrow from the former al-Qa’ida philosopher, Abd al-Qadir bin Abd al-Aziz, aka “Dr. Fadl,” who sees Palestinian suicide bombers as destined for hell. Thus: “Do you, Feisal Abd ar-Rauf, believe that Allah damns eternally Palestinian suicide bombers?” “Do you believe that rockets launched at Israeli towns by Hamas and Hizbollah are acts of terrorism, which will bring down upon the perpetrators Allah’s wrath?” Mr. Rauf’s answers ought to be short.

2. A believer who embraces the doctrine of “neo-ijtihad,” which holds that Muslims today are not chained to the Qur’anic interpretations and legal decisions accepted centuries ago as canonical. Specifically, a “moderate Muslim American” is someone who unqualifiedly renounces the applicability of the Sharia, the Holy Law, in American society. The “Americanization of Islam” here means that the traditional Muslim understanding of orthodoxy as orthopraxy (it’s not what you believe in your heart—that is between you and God—but how you act, i.e., apply the Sharia, in the public square that matters) is null and void. Thus, women may veil or not veil as they please; a woman’s testimony is equal to a man’s; polygyny is verboten; marriage to a menstruating child is an abomination; accepted corporal punishments—amputations and stonings—are immoral; apostasy reflects bad judgment but isn’t criminal; and Jews and Christians should spiritually no longer be viewed as dhimmis, a properly subordinate species who really don’t deserve the same social status and legal rights as Muslims. Jewish and Christian power in America and Europe isn’t an offense against the divinely-sanctioned natural order; it’s just the product of a long, difficult, and tortuous evolution. The Sharia is a lengthy and complicated corpus that developed over centuries and often constrained the worst instincts of despots. A “moderate Muslim American” would see it in much the same way that a faithful “moderate Jewish American” views the Old Testament and the Talmud: documents of a certain time that contain considerable “divine” wisdom (as well as much looniness) and many imperatives for a good, healthy life.

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I thought this was interesting. It's called the Ground Zero Declaration. It states certain basic American principles, and asks the promoters of the Ground Zero mosque to sign it. Since the American principles are incompatible with some aspects of basic Islamic doctrine, the question is, which principles will the "moderate Muslims" involved choose? Here is some of the text of the declaration:

The Ground Zero Declaration Affirmations

As citizens of the United States of America, we hold these truths to be self-evident:

* that all men and women are created equal
* that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
* that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

In particular, we believe in:

1. Freedom of Religion

Freedom of conscience is an inalienable right for all Americans, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. No person or group, religious or secular, has any right to impose religious beliefs on anyone else. American citizens are entirely free to choose and practice (or not practice) whatever religion they believe is best as long as they uphold the right of others to do the same.

2. Equal Protection

Men and women have equal status under the Law, entitled to protection from harm, even from family members who may think it is unacceptable to leave a religion, convert, or date and marry someone of another religion.

3. Human Dignity

All human beings have equal dignity, and thus must not be subject to slavery, ethnic, racial, or religious discrimination, or cruel and unusual punishment.

4. Peaceful Assembly and Free Speech

Everyone has the right to meet with others of like mind to share ideas, even those contrary to majority views. However, this carries the shared responsibility to allow others to safely express ideas we may disagree with and strongly object to.

In particular, we must always be free to criticize religions and religious choices in a responsible manner. This is essential precisely because we respect religion as a serious intellectual matter, deserving of thoughtful consideration and informed debate.

Read the whole declaration.

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Practicing Muslims

In an interview, the interviewer said to Brigitte Gabriel, "You have made statements about 'practicing Muslims.' Tell us precisely what you mean in these statements."

Gabriel's answer is worth studying. I have used the term Islamic supremacists, but in many ways "practicing Muslim" is even better. This was Gabriel's answer:

In any religious faith, and that includes Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, there are people who are very orthodox and very devout, and then there are others who are less so. There are Christians who read their Bibles, attend church regularly and pray every day, and there are those who don’t. The same dynamic is true in Judaism.

And the same is true in Islam. There are many, many Muslims who have never read the Koran in their own language, who don’t even know many of its teachings or closely adhere to its teachings and those of the Hadith, and who don’t pray five times a day. These are the Muslims who are often described as “moderate,” or less devout, or even “secular.”

Then there are those Muslims who take the Koran and Hadith very seriously. They follow the Islamic shariah law and they subscribe to the supremacist political ideology embedded within the Islamic holy books. They aspire to emulate Mohammed, who any honest historian will tell you spread Islam by terror and the sword. They agree with the doctrine of jihad. They believe that Islamic shariah law should reign supreme over all and that man-made laws are invalid. They agree with the Islamic command that their allegiance is to the “ummah”, the Islamic nation, rather than to any country.

It is these Muslims, who are typically referred to as practicing “radical Islam,” that I refer to when I say such Muslims cannot be trusted to be a loyal citizen to our country – or any country for that matter – and who do not acknowledge that here in America we recognize the Constitution as the “supreme law of the land.” It is these Muslims I have referred to as “practicing.”

Just look at what Imam Al-Awlaki, the American Al-Qaida leader in the Arabian Peninsula, said just last week: ”I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other Muslim.”

Brigitte Gabriel is the founder of the nonprofit organization ACT! for America, and one of the leading terrorism experts in the world. Her expertise is sought after by world and business leaders. She has addressed the Australian Prime Minister, members of The British Parliament/House of Commons, members of the United States Congress, The Pentagon, The Joint Forces Staff College, The US Special Operations Command, The US Asymmetric Warfare group, the FBI, and many others. She is the New York Times best selling author of Because They Hate and They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It.


Read more about this issue: Muslim in Name Only.

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The Meaning of Jihad

The following is an excerpt from a carefully-documented investigative report called Islam in American Classrooms: History or Propaganda? (PDF document):

According to the Concise Encyclopedia of Islam jihad means: "Holy war, a divine institution of warfare to extend Islam into the Dar-al-Harb (non-Islamic territories)." This is a driving doctrine of Islam that is responsible for its violent expansionist history. When Mohammad was asked what the greatest deed that a Muslim could do besides believing in Allah and His Apostle, he answered, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say: none has the right to be worshiped but Allah." A 2007 Pentagon-based study proved conclusively that Islamic religious law (sharia) extols violence as a primary means of spreading the ideology. It also notes that Islam‘s‘ goal to subjugate the entire world to Islam and sharia law is based on unalterable, long-standing religious and legal doctrines.

Microsoft‘s on-line encyclopedia, Encarta, unequivocally states in its article, Islam, Spread of: "The remarkable speed of this religious expansion can be attributed to the fact that it was accomplished primarily through military conquest. Mohammed drew Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula to Islam by his forceful personality, the promise of salvation to those who died fighting for Islam and the lure of fortune for those who succeeded in conquest. The caravan raids of the early years of Islam soon became full-scale wars, and empires and nations bowed to the power of this new religious, military, political, economic, and social phenomena."

According to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, in its List of Wars in the Muslim World, since the death of Mohammed there have been 63 major Islamic wars of conquest involving over 201 major battles. It also documents 18 current conflicts involving Muslims, which represent over 95% of the world's armed conflicts. Historians have estimated that Muslims killed over 270 million people during the last 1400 years in their wars of conquest, plunder and enslavement.

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