Appeasement of Islamists by leftist politicians

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Sep 16, 2012 at 02:19

Dear Dr Pipes:

The reader Seneca has warned against appeasement of Islamists by the western politicians. Unfortunately, appeasement of the minority votebanks is a fundamental weakness of modern democracies. Democracy was not designed for groups of people voting as vote banks and for politicians catering to the demands of the vote banks. Unfortunately this is what is going on. As I write this note and you read it, a very strange event is unfolding in India: A copy of a religious book was defaced (you can guess which book it must have been). Soon after the defacing, a mob attacked everyone that they could attack and that included a police station. They injured 2 policemen and it is said that "the mob had to attack the police because the police failed to placate their hurt feelings". After the attack on the police station and torching of about 80 vehicles, the police was forced to shoot at the mob. There were six deaths. Now comes the best part: the democratically elected government of the Indian state where this happened promptly announced a taxpayer funded relief of $10,000 each to the families of those who were killed. A reader pointed out in a letter to an Indian newspaper that only in India a government will be allowed to financially reward its minorities to attack the law enforcement and destroy property.

If you think it can happen in only in India but not in western democracies, you will be wrong. You have written about tax payer funded Islamic charter schools in the US. Governments in western Europe are spending tax payer money to satisfy the "needs" of Muslim students. Financial rewards for police attackers in the US and western Europe is just a few percent points of additional Islamic population away! I have thought about it but it seems that democratic form of governments have no antidote against vote-bank politics.

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