maddogs hideaway

My American Freedom Defense Initiative, or AFDI, colleague Robert Spencer and  I flew to Tennessee Tuesday to join throngs of patriots and freedom lovers, all  happy warriors who had converged in Manchester, Tenn., to oppose the latest  Obama administration salvo against the freedom of speech – a seminar led by an  Obama-appointed U.S. attorney on how civil rights laws could and should be used  to shut down speech deemed “inflammatory” against Muslims (a label that has been  used before to shut down truthful speech about jihad and Islamic  supremacism).

This was a fight for the very soul of America in a very small town:  Manchester, Tenn., a town no bigger than 10,000 people. (Almost 2,000 people  were there.) This was the perhaps unlikely venue for a seminar led by a U.S.  attorney and an FBI special agent on how “inflammatory” speech against Muslims  violated civil rights laws. Nowhere was it ever explained how there could be  honest examination of Islam’s teachings of jihad that wouldn’t be “inflammatory”  – and that was just the point. 

What was really beautiful was that when the event started, more than 600  people couldn’t even get in, but they stayed outside and held a freedom rally.  They weren’t missing much – unless they were in the mood to be admonished and  hectored as xenophobes, bigots and racists by an Islamic supremacist spokesman  and two Obama officials who steadfastly refused to address the elephant in the  room: the reality of jihad terror and Islamic supremacism, no matter how many  times the boisterous crowd called them on their nonsense.

U.S. Attorney Bill Killian gave a PowerPoint presentation on hate crimes and  hate speech. From beginning to end, it was full of condescension, smears,  charges that the crowd was racist and thinly veiled threats that truthful speech  about Islam could be prosecuted. Never once did he address the fact that people  aren’t concerned about Muslims because of racism and xenophobia, but because of  the reality of jihad terror and the uniform denial and obfuscation, and  victimhood posturing that follows from Muslim communities after every jihad  attack.

Killian even stooped so low as to claim a sharp rise in “religiously  motivated hate crimes,” without ever informing the crowd that he was lumping in  anti-Semitic hate crimes (which are at worldwide record levels, largely due to  Islamic anti-Semitism) with anti-Muslim hate crimes. FBI special agent Kenneth  Moore was little better. Both echoed the Islamic supremacist speaker’s opening  remarks, all about how the people of Tennessee had to learn to be welcoming of  people who were different.

The media coverage of our free-speech rally and the anti-free-speech event  was typically deceptive and mendacious. One would think that the industry that  has the most to lose from restrictions on free speech would fight the fascism.  But you would be wrong. These tools are so in the bag for the Obama regime that  the knaves are attacking the patriots (and there are many of us) who are  standing between freedom and tyranny.

The headline of every news story should have been “Obama’s Department of  Justice seeks to criminalize free speech.” Instead, the headlines spun the  Muslim victimhood myth narrative: Muslim outreach program disrupted by  racist-islamophobic-anti-Muslim-bigots. Nothing on the constitutional putsch.  They didn’t bury the lede; they never recovered the body.

USA Today’s headline was “Tenn. Muslim group’s forum disrupted by protesters.” UPI  went with “Protesters, hecklers disrupt Muslim forum in Tennessee.” And  WBIR-TV’s headline was “Protesters disrupt Tenn. Muslim group’s meeting.” Nowhere in  the coverage did the media deign to mention why folks were there. People came to  protest Killian’s vow to criminalize criticism of Islam on social media. Folks  were boisterous, and well they should be. Does anyone think we should go quietly  into the night? The Department of Justice and FBI, taking their orders from  Islamic supremacist groups, said the meeting would be an open forum. It was even  titled “Public Discourse.” But they changed the rules. Instead of an open forum,  they said no questions. Instead, we were told to write questions on index cards.  Yeah, uh huh. And, of course, at the end of hours of condescension and  accusations of racism, they only read two questions.

Yes, people called them on it. Yes, people grimaced and moaned when Holder’s  name was mentioned. He is second only to Obama in greatest threats to our  freedoms.

I was there. It was a great American moment. Americans aren’t going to sit  quietly while our freedom of speech is taken away, and are never, ever, going to  submit and stop telling the truth about the jihad that threatens us all. We are  an army.