Tennessee passes worst law ever

While everyone in the counter jihad movement lauded Tennessee for the recent passage of a watered-down (and mostly symbolic) "anti-terrorism" bill, another bill that the Tennessee Legislature quietly passed could be the worst law ever.

Completely under the radar screen, with no debate or histrionics, Tennessee has just criminalized thought and intent. According to journalist Timothy B. Lee, writing at the Ars Technica website, "A new Tennessee law makes it a crime to 'transmit or display an image' online that is likely to 'frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress' to someone who sees it. Violations can get you almost a year in jail time or up to $2,500 in fines."

This legislation is a milestone in the history of free speech and free thought in the United States – yes, a milestone that Sayyid Qutb would love: a deathblow to free speech. You can be sure that among the first people who will try to capitalize upon this gross violation of the First Amendment will be the Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S. that are bent on silencing people who are telling the truth about Islam and jihad.

I can just see Muslim Brotherhood groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Circle of North America and the rest getting their jackboots all shined up to march all the staunch defenders of freedom to jail and shut up this century's Paul Reveres.

At the height of the Muhammad cartoon controversy, newspapers all over the country were too afraid to stand up for free speech and print the images. But you could find them all over the Internet. And you still can – at least until a Muslim in Tennessee decides that these inoffensive toons are causing him "emotional distress."

Yet hardly anyone has noticed this legislation in all the excitement over Tennessee's anti-terror law. Forgive me for not jumping up and down over all this anti-Shariah legislation. I appreciate and respect its intent, but, ultimately, I think it is pointless. The Constitution specifies the freedoms that the government is not supposed to take away, and these include the freedoms that Shariah denies. So the Constitution covers the same ground as anti-Shariah legislation. The Constitution is supposed to have our backs. If we can't rely on the Constitution and the First Amendment in particular to safeguard our freedoms, then watered-down "foreign law prohibition legislation" is not going to save us.

And the Tennessee anti-Shariah law and similar legislation being considered in other states is watered down. You can't use the word "Shariah" in such legislation, even though Shariah is an all-encompassing political system that institutionalizes oppression, subjugation, misogyny, gender apartheid and more. And why not? Essentially, because to do so would be … against Shariah. It would be considered blasphemy. American lawmakers have willingly watered down laws designed to protect our freedoms from being eroded by Shariah to placate Muslims who revere Shariah and want to implement it here.

And please don't tell me that they had to leave such language out of the proposed legislation so as to avoid infringing upon Muslims' freedom of religion. People say that Shariah is just like Jewish law or Catholic law, but there is no compulsion in Jewish law or Catholic law, no coercion of unbelievers, no political system that relegates them to second-class status. There is no freedom of religion under the Shariah – but our First Amendment should protect us from its encroachments.

Of course, anti-Shariah legislation is not completely an exercise in futility. It does increase awareness of the nature of Islamic law and provides a teaching moment amid the media blackout on the truth about jihad and Islam. But, ultimately, I don't believe prohibitions of the use of foreign law have teeth. They are a waste of time and money. When I testified before the Alaska Legislature in support of the passage of the foreign-law prohibition, many of the cases I cited would be unaffected by such legislation. Further, anti-Shariah legislation puts the Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the United States into attack mode, such that now most lawmakers won't even discuss this type of legislation.

We need to fight the real war to stop the Islamization of America – in the schools and in the neighborhoods, on Wall Street (Shariah finance), and in the Shariah-compliant media.

And in that battle, the other law that Tennessee just passed is ultimately more significant. It is not an exercise in futility in any sense; instead, it is frightening. It has real teeth.

This law must be overturned, and fast.