The U.S. Conference Of Catholic Bishops Needs To Stop Apologizing For Islam
Islam’s inherent disdain for non-Muslims must not intrude on the pieties of interfaith harmony, according to the USCCB.Islam’s inherent disdain for non-Muslims must not intrude on the pieties of interfaith harmony, according to the USCCB.
AOC declares, ‘WE ARE SANE’ in crazed Mamdani rally speech
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the stage at a rally for NYC mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani with a thunderous speech.
“We are not the crazy ones, New York City. We are not the outlandish ones, New York City. They want us to think we are crazy. We are sane,” AOC boomed.
“Jews escaping Holocaust, black Americans fleeing slavery and Jim Crow, Latinos seeking a better life, native people standing for themselves, Asian-Americans coming together in Queens, in Brooklyn, in the Bronx, in Manhattan, in Staten Island, in this country,” she yelled.
BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales can’t help but laugh, though she is well aware of the disaster that looms in New York City.
“There’s no way that anyone else gets elected as the mayor of New York City, and this guy is going out there telling fake stories about his aunt. So, we’re supposed to believe, what, that it was the Muslims that we really actually should feel sorry for after 9/11?” Gonzales says, referring to Mamdani’s recent statement that his hijab-wearing aunt was a victim in the aftermath of 9/11.
BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden is also concerned, saying that we not only have a “communist infiltration in the United States,” but an Islamic one.
And Mamdani is using the term “Islamaphobic” against those who recognize what’s happening.
“It really has been fascinating to watch him try to use this Islamophobia term. I would say, I will agree with him in part. I do agree. I am actually very scared of Islam,” Gonzales says.
“I just don’t agree that it is unreasonable, which would be the phobia part. ... I am afraid. I just don’t think that it’s some sort irrational fear, is the thing,” she adds.
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Labeling you ‘phobic’ is how the left dodges real arguments
No one wants to be called a coward. But fear is a natural and important human emotion. It gives us caution and hesitance in situations that pose a danger to oneself or others. Nevertheless, fear must be rational, and it must be controlled. Being afraid of the wrong things — or being excessively afraid of things that pose trivial risks — can be crippling.
Despite being a core component of human experience, fear is stigmatized in our society. Americans, in general, tend to be risk-takers. We instinctively recoil at cowardice. So it’s strange that the people who are dedicated to “destigmatizing” everything in our society are the same ones who work tirelessly to amplify the stigma attached to fear.
Don’t accept the framing. Don’t let the debate become a psychiatric evaluation. Don’t apologize for noticing reality.
Here, I refer to a common trend in political discourse — the left’s attribution of “phobias” to political opponents. You know the epithets: homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, transphobia. Some may bristle at the claim that this fixation on phobias is a strategic tactic used exclusively by the political left. But it’s undeniable: What equivalent “phobic” label do conservatives use to discredit progressives?
We don’t have an equivalent.
Are we to believe, then, that the political left is without fear? Certainly not. Many progressives treat Christianity with the same suspicion that some on the right harbor for the LGBTQ agenda. No one calls the former group “Christophobes,” but the latter are routinely charged as homophobic. Globalists often disdain the nationalist politics of identity, referring to nationalists as xenophobes. But no one calls the Americans who disparage everything about our nation “oikophobes” (people with an irrational fear of home).
This double standard shows that the labeling of “phobias” is a rhetorical strategy. But how does it work?
Abusing the ‘phobic’ label
Start by asking who gets branded “phobic” — and for what. These days, it doesn’t take much. Express moral concerns about “gender reassignment” surgeries for children? You’re a transphobe. Feel fatigued by the endless parade of “Pride” observances on the calendar? You’re a homophobe. Object to the illegal entry of millions of unvetted foreigners? You’re a xenophobe — just another American unwilling to embrace people “searching for a better life.”
The ease with which the left assigns the “phobic” label undermines its credibility. Can someone oppose gay marriage without harboring fear of gay people? Can a citizen reject open borders as reckless policy without fearing foreigners? Can one favor vetting immigrants from Muslim-majority countries without fearing Muslims as a group?
Two answers follow. The first, and more reasonable, says yes — of course people can hold such views without irrational fear. That would make the “phobic” smear inaccurate. But if that’s true, why does the left cling so fiercely to these labels? The second answer assumes the opposite: that you must be afraid — of gays, of immigrants, of Muslims — if you hold such views. But if every opinion stems from fear, then “phobia” becomes a catch-all insult, not a diagnosis.
And yet the accusation sticks. Why?
Exploiting social fears
The power of the “phobic” label stems from how society treats fear. We treat fear not as a natural response, but as a sign of weakness or irrationality — especially when aimed at supposedly harmless things.
Admitting fear carries a social cost. Labeling someone “phobic” pressures the person to conform, not through persuasion but through social coercion. It’s a tactic, not an argument. It manipulates the desire for status and respect by suggesting the presence of a psychological defect. And it works — not because it’s true, but because it shames.
RELATED: The next time someone calls you a ‘transphobe,’ send them this video
Are unvetted illegal immigrants always harmless? No. Most aren’t violent, but some are dangerous. Yet the “xenophobic” smear exists to deny that fact and humiliate anyone who dares say it aloud. Does importing large numbers of military-age men from Yemen pose no threat? Some Yemenis are admirable people. But recent history offers proof that some have come here to commit acts of terrorism. Labeling such concerns “Islamophobic” is an attempt to gaslight the public — dismissing valid fears and punishing the act of remembering.
Diagnosing as ‘crazy’
The label does more than stigmatize. It diagnoses. “Phobia” is a clinical term. To call someone a homophobe isn’t just to accuse the person of bigotry; it’s to classify the person as mentally ill. Arachnophobes are “crazy.” Agoraphobes are crazy. And society doesn’t argue with crazy people — it ignores them. Once someone becomes “irrational,” you don’t debate that person. You dismiss him. His views no longer require engagement. They require containment.
Attaching a “phobic” label turns political opposition into psychological pathology. It justifies censorship and marginalization. Ironically, the only people the left eagerly diagnoses and silences are those it brands with a phobia. So much for compassion around mental illness.
Conservatives must reject this tactic outright. Don’t accept the framing. Don’t let the debate become a psychiatric evaluation. Don’t apologize for noticing reality. Push back, not only by refusing the label but by highlighting the contradiction. If leftists truly care about destigmatizing mental illness, they should stop flinging “phobia” at every disagreement. Expose the hypocrisy. Force them to play by their own rules — and win.
Christopher Hitchens’ dark prediction that just came true
The late great Christopher Hitchens was an undeniable intellectual force — and, unfortunately, some of his darkest predictions are coming true.
“Give it up or give it to your deadliest enemy and pay for the rope that will choke you,” Hitchens said in a 2009 interview. “This is very urgent business, ladies and gentlemen.”
“I beseech you, resist it while you still can, and before the right to complain is taken away from you, which will be the next thing. You will be told you can’t complain because you’re Islamophobic. The term is already being introduced into the culture as if it was an accusation of race hatred,” he continued.
“The barbarians never take a city till someone holds the gates open for them. And it’s your own preachers who will do it for you, and your own multicultural authorities who will do it for you. Resist, resist it while you can,” he added.
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” is floored.
“Christopher Hitchens warned his country, he was warning the entire world, but he was warning his country — resist it while you can,” Rubin says, noting that Democrat politicians are now openly discussing how “they’re going to censor misinformation.”
“You might go, 'Oh, it doesn’t really make sense that these gender queer weirdos are working together with the Hamas people except if their goal is complete and total power.' Then it actually does make perfect sense, and that really is where we are at,” he adds.
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Pakistani family blamed the far right for torching their house. A few candlelit vigils later, the truth has come out
A home belonging to a family of Pakistani migrants was set ablaze in the German town of Wächtersbach on Christmas Day 2023.
Phantasmal right-wingers were immediately blamed for the arson. The family members, meanwhile, were depicted as victims of so-called Islamophobia and xenophobia.
This narrative, agreeable to European leftists and the liberal media, recently went up in smoke.
A convenient spark
The fire began around 1 a.m. on Christmas morning and did roughly $379,000 in damage.
The fire brigade found anti-migrant slogans scrawled inside the smoldering ruins. Der Spiegel reported that the words "foreigners out" had been spray-painted on some of the inside walls. The graffiti had apparently been written before the fire broke out.
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Andreas Weiher, the town's leftist mayor, said, "If the suspicion of a xenophobic crime is confirmed, it would of course be a catastrophe."
The Wächtersbach Foreigners Advisory Board reportedly stated, "We are deeply shocked that such an inhumane, possibly racially motivated arson attack was carried out on a family with children."
The state security agency swiftly launched an investigation into the possibility that right-wing extremism may have been responsible for the fire.
Vigils and demonstrations were held in the days that followed, both in solidarity with the family and in opposition to the supposed racists believed responsible.
Banners that read, "Right-wing terror threatens our society," were carried down German streets.
Leftist politicians eagerly embraced the narrative, giving impassioned speeches and firing off angry missives — suggesting the arson was politically motivated and possibly executed by neo-Nazis.
Sawsan Chebli, a German politician with the Social Democratic Party and staunch critic of Israel, was one of the leftists who attempted to exploit the incident, stating in German on Dec. 29, "It makes me sad, but it doesn't surprise me. People tell me every day that they have racist experiences, be it at work, in everyday life or at school."
Chebli suggested the arson was reflective of an anti-Muslim undercurrent in Germany, intimating right-wing politicians were responsible and that "what is happening at the moment is putting democracy at great risk."
Janine Wissler, a parliamentarian with the aptly named Left Party, stated, "It is not enough to condemn these acts, you have to fight the breeding ground that promotes right-wing violence: the strengthening of the right and the racist incitement against people with a migration background and refugees," reported the local broadcaster.
"The slogans that were discovered on the walls are despicable and inflammatory," said Martina Feldmayer, a parliamentarian with the eco-socialist Green party. "Anyone who commits such acts attack our entire society."
It turns out that the societal attack condemned by Feldmayer was not perpetrated by right-wing extremists but rather by those widely portrayed as victims.
Another hate hoax
The German newspaper Bild recently reported that the homeowner, 47, has been arrested along with his wife, 33, his 18-year-old son, his brother-in law, 34, and another Pakistani migrant, 55, who allegedly gave the family a false alibi.
According to the German paper Junge Freiheit, the family has been slapped with various charges including joint serious arson, feigning a crime, attempted insurance fraud in a particularly serious case, and serious fraud.
The father and brother-in-law, both Pakistani nationals, are accused of burning down the building using an accelerant. The son is said to have both reported the damage to the insurance company at his father's behest and attended an inspection of the aftermath with insurance agents. The mother is said to have been altogether complicit in the scheme.
The 55-year-old Pakistani national said to have given the family a false alibi has reportedly been charged with "attempted obstruction of justice."
The Hanau public prosecutor's office indicated that the arson served to net the family a six-figure insurance settlement. Additionally, the prosecutors office noted that ahead of the house burning, the owner's wife sold off various household items in an apparent effort to maximize their return on the scheme.
Investigators turned their attention to the homeowner after noticing he had fresh burns despite claiming he was not home when the fire started on Christmas morning. The family told authorities in their statements that they had been visiting with friends on the day of the incident.
The Alternative for Germany in Hesse, the local chapter of the country's increasingly popular right-wing party, said in a statement obtained by Rebel News, "For our political competitors, the house fire was obviously a welcome opportunity to inflict hatred and agitation on our party and our voters. Almost reflexively, the SPD, the Left and the Greens classified this crime as politically motivated."
"Waechtersbach's mayor (a member of SPD), who is said to have known the affected Pakistani family to be well integrated, took the same line," continued the AFD. "Anyone who attracts attention with criminal acts in their freely chosen host country at least raises doubts about successful integration. But we now trust that the German judiciary will make an appropriate assessment. And an apology from the protagonists of the vigil is now in order."
The South East Hesse Police indicated last week that the five suspects remained in custody due to the risk of concealment and escape.
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