Orange County Register gets 46 letters in favor of charging Muslim students at UC Irvine who attacked Michael Oren
The Orange County Register (via Jihad Watch) got at least 46 letters from people who support bringing charges against 11 Muslim students who antagonized Israeli ambassador Michael Oren. I'm going to specially cite this letter here:
I was appalled at UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s opinion piece Feb. 9 saying that the District Attorney’s office should not pursue criminal charges against UCI Muslim Students Union members [“Don’t prosecute UCI hecklers,” Orange Grove].If this is how Chemerinsky is going to behave on his part, that's why I would like to make a suggestion of my own to the good people of Orange County and the Irvine district: if you own a resturant and he wants to eat there, turn him away. Come to think of it, turn him away from the local amusement park to boot; he doesn't deserve any entertainment. That would be an effective way of sending a message to such a disgraceful man that if he's going to act so poorly, he should only expect that sooner or later, the public will ostracize him for upholding lawbreaking.
Chemerinsky acknowledged that, “The school’s Muslim Student Union orchestrated a concerted effort to disrupt the speech, “ and “the students behavior is wrong and deserves punishment.” He then offers the most perverse objections to the DA defending the First Amendment rights of the speaker and the public. He says they should not be prosecuted because of “scarce resources” that “criminal prosecution makes the students into martyrs” and, the worst objection, “criminal prosecution should be a last resort and used only when there are injuries or destruction of property of serious threat of harm.”
As a law professor he should know that violating civil rights rarely involves destruction of property of physical harm. Using his logic anyone could come into Chemerinsky’s classroom and shout him down on a daily or weekly basis and be confident knowing that they will never be arrested or prosecuted.
Labels: islam, United States
Exactly. Barry Rubin has some good remarks on his site from Tarek Heggy, an Egyptian intellectual whose views represent the thinking of the elite about the Muslim Brotherhood. In sum, he says it needs to be transformed before it is ready to participate in a democratic society. There are enlightened Arabs who want to build a positive and democratic future for their societies. They represent a minority viewpoint in the Arab World today but they need to be encouraged and supported by the West. A truly democratic Egypt would not only ensure the survival of the peace between Israel and Egypt, it would encourage the spread of democracy throughout the Arab World.
Such a day is a long ways off and Heggy made the relevant point allowing an unreformed MB to participate in free elections in Egypt would mean an end to democracy, civil society, pluralism, women's rights, the free market and peace between Egypt and Israel. Democracy has to be built gradually and the way Egyptians think has to be changed and this cannot be done overnight.
If there is to be a democratic Egypt, then brave men and women like him will have to do the hard work of making it happen.
Posted by
NormanF |
2/12/2011 06:38:00 PM