The following editorial from the Charlotte News & Observer attacks North Carolina Reps. George Cleveland and Ric Killian for introducing HB 640. This legislation is “AN ACT TO PROTECT RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES GRANTED UNDER THE NORTH CAROLINA AND UNITED STATES CONSTITUTIONS IN THE APPLICATION OF FOREIGN LAW.
This legislation has passed its first reading and is currently in Judiciary Committee C. No corresponding legislation has been introduced in the NC Senate and the May 12th crossover deadline is fast approaching.
Don’t be misled by another “News & Observer” attempt to divert our attention. At worst, this legislation is just an affirmation of our legal system. However, this legislation is necessary to protect us from Sharia law as it it being implemented across the world to justify the introduction of Islam into our legal system.
Are the warnings from this article from CBS also just an attempt to waste our time:
The notion that Sharia law is coming to America has been percolating in the
conservative media for a while. Fox News’ Sean Hannity suggested the arrest of the
Christian missionaries in Dearborn reflected the possibility that “Sharia law is
taking over in Dearborn,” as did Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, who interviewed one of the men who was arrested.
At the Values Voters summit in September, Newt Gingrich said – to a standing
ovation – that “[w]e should have a federal law that says Sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States.” He has also warned that jihadists are trying “to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Sharia.”
I will place my trust in Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Killian instead of any “News & Observer” misdirection.
David DeGerolamo
A waste of legislators’ time, and then some
You have to wonder if the staffers who draft bills at the N.C. legislature laugh or cry when people like George Cleveland and Ric Killian walk in the door.
Cleveland, a Republican from Jacksonville, and Killian, a Republican from Charlotte, are the primary sponsors of one of the more unnecessary bills the state has seen in years. The bill is political pandering that is detached from reality, wastes legislators’ time and quite possibly could cost the state jobs.
Their proposal would require that N.C. courts and other state agents not violate people’s constitutional rights by applying foreign law like Shariah when making rulings.
This is the crux of House Bill 640, which is working its way through the legislative process: “A court, administrative agency, arbitrator, mediator or other entity or person acting under the authority of State law shall not apply a foreign law in any legal proceeding if doing so would violate a constitutional right.”
It goes without saying that the U.S. and N.C. Constitutions and U.S. law trump any foreign law in American courts. Or so one would think.
Cleveland could not, when asked by News & Observer reporter Michael Biesecker, cite a single real-world example of foreign law infringing on anyone’s constitutional rights in U.S. courts. But he says he worries that Shariah law could gain a foothold in heavily Muslim communities.
Shariah law spells out how an observant Muslim should behave and is the basis for legal codes in some countries. And though it is not relied upon in U.S. courts, it makes a wonderful bogeyman for politicians looking to play upon people’s fears. The bill from Cleveland and Killian puts North Carolina in company with Oklahoma, which was widely scoffed at last year when voters there passed an act banning Shariah law. The N.C. bill tries to dodge legal challenges by not naming Shariah, but Cleveland said fear of Shariah is one motivation.
The bill could be worse than merely a distraction to the state’s important business. It could be a threat to job creation. Critics and a UNC expert in international law say the legislation could have unintended consequences, interfering with the state’s ability to attract foreign companies. At times like these, legislators need to be focused on improving the economy, not robbing the state of new investments in the name of battling phantom threats to justice.
An article at American Thinker documents the enlightenment of society in submission to Islam:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/08/top_ten_reasons_why_sharia_is.html
10. Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped
9. Islam allows husbands to hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear highhandedness in their wives
8. Islam allows an injured plaintiff to exact legal revenge—physical eye for physical eye
7. Islam commands that a male and female thief must have a hand cut off
6. Islam commands that highway robbers should be crucified or mutilated
5. Islam commands that homosexuals must be executed
4. Islam orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped and adulterers to be stoned to death
3. Islam orders death for Muslim and possible death for non—Muslim critics of Muhammad and the Quran and even sharia itself
2. Islam orders apostates to be killed
1. Islam commands offensive and aggressive and unjust jihad
“you” (the PC public, N&O, whoever) may celebrate this nonsense …
I WILL NOT SUBMIT.
Regarding the legislation, HB 640
“AN ACT TO PROTECT RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES GRANTED UNDER THE NORTH CAROLINA AND UNITED STATES CONSTITUTIONS …
NC legislators need remedial instruction.
Constitutions do not grant Rights.
Rights are inherent in man.
Never confuse a Right with a Privilege.
This sounds like the basis of an article.
There have been 140 cases filed throughout the United States that addressed Shariah law and 137 are in Family Court. Go to American Public Policy Alliance, they have a condensed list of 17 legal cases in 11 states where plaintiffs or defendants attempted to use Shariah law. The states for these sample civil cases are Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.
I suggest the reporter referenced in this article (Michael Biesecker), politicians (Rep. Joe Hackney), professors (Gene Nichol and Mark Weisburd), Abdullah T. Antepli, the Muslim chaplain for Duke University, and readers conduct some simple research on the subject of Shariah law and Shariah finance and our fight against it. Do you remember our two wars with Islamic nations? I doubt if the wars are even referenced in our school history books now.
We need to read our history with fighting Islamic nations. A good place to start is David Barton, WallBuilders newsletter, winter 2006, A Muslim Sworn Into Congress.
We fought two wars, the Barbary Wars which lasted 32-years and spanned four presidents, starting with George Washington. Here is one quote:
“In 1784, Congress authorized American diplomats John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to negotiate with the Muslim terrorists. Negotiations proceeded, and in 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson candidly asked the Ambassador from Tripoli the motivation behind their unprovoked attacks against Americans. What was the response?
The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet [Mohammed] – that it was written in their Koran that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that is was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.
Given this “spiritual” incentive to enslave and make war, the Muslim attacks against American ships and seamen were frequent. In fact, in the span of just one month in 1793, Algiers alone seized ten American ships and enslaved more then one hundred sailors, holding them for sale or ransom. Significantly, when Adams and Jefferson queried the Tripolian Ambassador about the seizure of sailors, he explained:
It was a law that the first who boarded an enemy’s vessel should have one slave more than his share with the rest, which operated as an incentive to the most desperate valor and enterprise – that it was the practice of their corsairs [fast ships] to bear down upon a ship, for each sailor to take a dagger in each hand and another in his mouth and leap on board, which so terrified their enemies that very few ever stood against them.
First, go to ACT! for America website and read the material there by Brigitte Gabriel, author of Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America and her second book, They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It.
Her Christian nation of Lebanon was taken over by those wanting Shariah law in Lebanon. They succeeded. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue, it is an American issue and we must do everything to shut down Shariah law and Shariah finance before we begin to have the same problems as in France, England and the rest of the world. This is the third attempt by those believing in Shariah to take back the world.
The media has a responsibility to research a subject prior to taking a position.
Top Assistant:
Outstanding response on your part. I am also a student of foreign affairs and was amused and a little bothered by Biesecker’s “story” in the N and O and then the editorial director of the Charlotte Observer’s subsequent editorial. I questioned both through email about whether they had studied some of the scholars on the issue such as Bernard Lewis or Samuel P. Huntington. I also suggested another recent book, “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe” by Christopher Caldwell. To Biesecker’s credit, he responded and was open to the possibility that some empiricism might broaden his horizons a bit.
The average person who reads news stories and editorials such as this accord expertise where it should not be. An informed person would have big problems with both the story and the editorial. It is too bad, however that most folks simply have not poured through the relevant literature.
In addition to being uninformed, Biesecker’s story was not an objective news story. It was biased and should not have been.
He was simply wrong on both his lack of understanding of the issue(s)and his lack of understanding of what objective reporting should have been.
Good job on your part.
Chuck
Everyone must face the fact that NEITHER political party has ever asked the Speaker of the House or Majority Leader to hold hearings to determine our enemy nor has the military ever taken the time to determine our enemy and how to defeat them.
Read an online article by the president of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, S. Eugene Poteat, Refusing to Identify or Name Our Enemies: A War That Dare Not Speak Its Name. This article says it all; our government has not identified our enemy. Why? This must be a presidential issue open for debate.
Read online Stephen Coughlin’s thesis: “TO OUR GREAT DETRIMENT”: IGNORING WHAT EXTREMISTS SAY ABOUT JIHAD”.
The writer of the article unwittingly admitted his error of writing in the leap to the bill costing jobs. He quotes “critics (of the law) and a UNC expert in international law” to begin. I thought his point was that American courts couldn’t entertain international law. Why, then, ask advice from and international law expert on what effect such a law would have. And why would foreign companies be bothered by a seemingly useless law that has no effect on American courts. The writer can’t have it both ways. But this seems to be the current logic used by the left.