The Dougout

Earlier this month I received an email from the editor of History News Network, Rick Shenkman:

Subject: Clio Boards
6/19/08

Hi Grant,

Ralph Luker is objecting to your posts. He insists that your recent comments have been off-topic and distracting [heh]. I do not want to ban you from HNN; in any case your posts haven't been in violation of our civility rules. But I would like to request that you not post on Clio anymore.

Rick

Cliopatria is a group history blog operated by Ralph Luker under the auspices of HNN. Cliopatria has the tendency of smearing all critics of Islam and Jihad as "Islamophobes." A case in point is Manan Ahmed's two posts on a New York Times article by Edward Luttwak, "President Apostate?." The subject of Luttwak's article is that under Islamic Law Senator Obama is an apostate:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

Ahmed's responses are classic examples of the ad hominems and appeal to authority used by Jihad apologists. In his first post of 12 May 2008, "Once a Muslim," he begins with an attack on Bernard Lewis and then rants about Luttwak's "claptrap" that is "incredibly offensive." Of course, to Ahmed, and his ilk, all criticism of and open discussion about Islam is "incredibly offensive," so it is no surprise that Luttwak is attacked on that score.

On 1 June 2008, Ahmed posted a follow-up titled "Luttwhack," so much for dispassionate discussion. In it, Ahmed cites a New York Times "Public Editor" mea culpa for publishing Luttwak's thoughtcrime.

It was my comments on the 1 June post that raised Luker's ire. I asked two questions neither of which were addressed by Luker, Ahmed or their numerous "experts" on Sharia Law. My first question was, given all this expert opinion on the benign nature of Islam and its fluffy bunny treatment of apostates, then why is Ayaan Hirsi Ali in hiding? No answer, except a response from Luker claiming that I was off topic.

My next question was how is it that so many Moslems don't understand their own religion. I cited numerous examples from recent news reports, with links, on the treatment of apostates and non-Moslems in the dar al-Islam. Luker responded by calling me an "ignorant troll" and trying to have me banned from his electronic faculty lounge.

Luker and Cliopatria's behavior represents academia's standard treatment of "conservatives" and all other thoughtcriminals. First they evade the issue and if that doesn't work their next step is to silence the apostate.

Update, 1 July 2008: I just received an email each from Ralph Luker and Rick Shenkman. Ralph wrote/typed:

Grant,

The tender mercies of a Randy atheist for Christian converts from Islam are deeply appreciated. Cutting and pasting every story you come across, however remote from the subject of Manan's post at Cliopatria, is *not* intelligent discussion. You are acting like a troll and, until you change your behavior, I will ask Rick Shenkman to remove every comment you make at Cliopatria. You are simply being a rude, ignorant troll.

Ralph

Ralph's crack about me being "a Randy atheist" stems from his hostility for a philosophy based on reason. On 3 June 2005, Luker posted his list of the "ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century." Along with Mein Kampf, The Clansman and Protocols of the Elders of Zion appears Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. When challenged by several readers, including professional philosophers, Luker refused to state his reasons for including The Fountainhead on his list. The comments of one of Luker's critics, Irfan Khawaja, disappeared from Cliopatria. This is typical. All the comments on Ahmed's post "Luttwhack" have also been stuffed down the Memory Hole.

Shenkman's email reads:

Hi Grant,

In June I asked you to voluntarily stop commenting on Cliopatria. Apparently, you decided to continue. Bloggers at HNN have the right to ban people from their corner of HNN. Ralph wants you banned. From now on do not post comments on Clio's discussion boards. You are welcome to post elsewhere at HNN. If you insist on posting at Clio your privilege to post anywhere on HNN will be revoked.

Rick

Shenkman's new book is on the dumbing down of American voters. He doesn't seem to understand that this is the work of his colleagues whose closed mindedness he defends.

Update II, 2 July 2008: One should consider the source. It was on Memorial Day 2005 that Shenkman chose to post a piece titled "A Spike Helmet for Every Young American" by the anti-American German novelist Hans Koning. The article concludes:

Americans felt a righteous contempt for this brand of [Prussian/European] militarism as a left-over from the middle ages. Now we begin to honor it. Dying and killing in Iraq is heroic. Young Americans fled, and will flee in a warlike future from rather than to America.

We are forced by our government to become a warlike nation like the horde of Attila the Hun, like the France of Napoleon who lost half a million soldiers in his invasion of Russia and left them in the snow while he rode back to Paris in a heated carriage. He, like Bush in his National Guard days, certainly did want to live forever.

You can draw your own conclusions on the character of a man who would post such a thing on Memorial Day.

As for Ralph Luker, when he was denied tenure at Antioch in 1994 he went on a hunger strike, seriously. Let's not forget that this is the same Ralph Luker who back in January 2005 launched an attack upon another HNN historian blogger, Thomas Reeves for ... drum roll please ...

Ooops Alert: What should happen when an academic blogger delivers himself of opinionated pieces of his mind, but ignores everything said by readers of his blog? He has the option of disabling comments, but he ignores both it and the comments posted there.

Why you would call the hypocrites Ralph Luker and Cliopatria. The behavior can be called Lukerism.