I previously mentioned an article called Lights Out on Liberty by Mark Steyn. I'd like to balance that out with an article in Asian News called "In the name of the law" by Dan Bell, from Asian News's sister paper, The Guardian. "Asian News is strictly non-sectarian" coverage of news of interest to those of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian origin in the U.K.
If you've never met a Muslim, you may see them in the way the Pentagon wants you to see them: terrifying, inhumane, violent terrorists. I haven't met a lot of Muslims, but they have all been ordinary, reasonable human beings, and decent Americans.
Similarly, the popular perception of sharia law is one of brutal punishments carried out by hardline states. Bell's article shows a more human side.
It also shows that "pluralism" is an impossibility. "Pluralism" is always a path of transition from one theocracy to another. "Theocracy" is an inescapable concept. The question is not "whether Theocracy," but "whose theocracy."
If Sharia law takes over in Britain, as Steyn suggests, then the British transition will have been from (1) a Christian Theocracy to (2) a Secular Humanist theocracy to (3) an Islamic theocracy. Those who advocate pluralism are saying that the new theocracy and the old theocracy should "live in peace, side by side" -- until the new theocracy completely supplants the old one.
The U.S. is not struggling against Islamic theocracy like Britain is. Here, "pluralism" has meant a struggle between an atheist theocracy (where "man" is god) and Christian Theocracy, such as existed under the Puritans, the Declaration of Independence, and the first 150 years under the Constitution -- a land of "Liberty Under God." Atheists want a world where Christianity is purged from public, and the State grudgingly allows Christians to think Christian thoughts only in their heads, and practice the Christian religion only in private, so that atheists do not have to be confronted with ideas that "offend" them.
Liberty depends on shared morality. My "right" to property depends on your obedience to God's command, "Thou shalt not steal."
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