Religion of Sticks

Remember the Berlin Wall? How odd it is to have to explain it to a kid who was born after the wall fell in 1989. You see the wall was to keep people in. No really, they were afraid that if people could do as they pleased, they'd all leave. No really. Well what was so wrong with their side of the wall that people wouldn't want to stay on their side, where their homes are?

Exactly.

But there is a wall today that you can point to as an example. It's Islam's wall. Michelle Malkin is covering another case of Islam erecting a wall to keep it's people in. Lina Joy faces the same situation that Abdul Rahman faced earlier this year. She converted to Christianity, so many Muslims would like to see her murdered. Maybe also, many Muslims would like to join her in climbing over that wall.

So ask the simple question, the one that "good" Muslims aren't allowed to ask: What is so wrong with that side of the wall? Why would anyone want to leave? Westerners can see it. Sharia law doesn't just strike us as wrong, many parts of it strike us as insane. It's insane to charge a rape victim with adultery. It's insane to mandate rape of a sister as punishment for a brother's crime. Yet these things happen on their side of the wall.

Remember this?:

Muslim 'Purity Police' Beat Young Girls To Prevent Them from Leaving Burning School
15 Saudi Arabian girls died today because the religious police or muttawa prevented them from escaping a school fire because their hair was not covered and they were not wearing long robes.
A civil defense officer told Al-Eqtisadiah he saw three members of the muttawa "beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school."

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia offered his condolences to the families of the girls that burned alive in the fire and is calling for a high level commission to investigate. The Saudi press is also claiming to be outraged over the whole incident. Evidently this is the first time Saudi Arabian newspapers, which are privately owned but under heavy government supervision, have ever attacked the religious police....

And that's the problem. Why do old men with sticks, the muttawa, go around beating Muslims into doing their interpretation of God's will, and no Muslims raise their voices in complaint? The answer is in the question: it's those old men with sticks. And that is somewhat understandable. What has me scratching my head, is why westerners aren't speaking out more. Now would be the time I think, because once Iran has nuclear weapons, those old men will have a stick that can reach us all. And I'm afraid the old men with sticks are insane enough to use the big stick, even though it would mean their sure destruction.