The New Know-Nothings
By Robert Holloway
By Robert Holloway
Retailers of a Conspiracy Theory
Ethnic and religious intolerance has periodically surfaced in America since the earliest colonial days but there are indications that this ugly monster is emerging once again. Not long I received a widely distributed email from one John Kachelman, a minister in Arkansas, who is spreading the theory that there is a Muslim conspiracy to take control of the United States.
Kachelman is retailing this conspiracy theory, with the orginal creator of the theory being Anis Shorrosh. The claim can be found on the World Net Daily, an Internet publication of poor quality and reliability. (See my discussion of the poor quality of the World Net Daily from several years ago. ) The details of the alleged Muslim plot can be found here. (The World Net Daily has a consistent record of bashing Muslims and of bashing most viewpoints more moderate than those of Attila the Hun.)
Shorrosh, a refugee from the Muslim Middle East, thinks he has discovered Islam's 20-point plan for conquering the United States by 2020. Shorrosh poses as something of a scholar, although oddly, he does not provide supporting evidence for the existence of the 20 point plan other than his own assertion. Most of the 20 points are ridiculous on their face but unfortunately, since many Americans are already primed to think the worst of Muslims, many will believe it, just as the many wild claims made by Hitler about the Jews were believed by Germans in the 1930s.
Anis Shorrosh adds to his credibility by pretensions of scholarly activity. He is a member of the Oxford Society of Scholars and has two Ph.D.s from Oxford Graduate School. Impressed? Don't be. Both of these organizations have no connection at all with Oxford University in England. The Oxford Society of Scholars is a part of Oxford Graduate School, an unaccredited "school" in Dayton, Tennesse. It claims "approximately" 100 students and 15 faculty members. Some of these faculty members have degrees from other unaccredited "universities" and some others are listed as faculty members of at least two other unaccredited "schools". I would not want to unjustly accuse Oxford Graduate School of being a diploma mill but it is worth noting that a common strategy of diploma mills is to use names that are similar to but not exactly identical to famous universities. A skeptic might say that both Oxford Graduate School and Anis Shorrosh are attempting to profit from the similarity of names without having earned the right to benefit from the prestige of Oxford University.
But you don't have to look into the background of Anis Shorrosh to know that he is incompetent on the issue of his claims. A claim that there is a Muslim conspiracy to take over the country is a very major claim and important if true. What does Shorrosh offer as evidence to support his claims? Absolutely nothing. I believe that his claim is irresponsible and needlessly inflammatory. I believe it is also irresponsible for John Kachelman and others to spread such a claim, especially since there is no supporting evidence.
The Know-Nothing Movement of the 19th Century
The present day concern about immigration and the paranoia about domination by Muslims echoes the feelings that gave rise to the Know-Kothing movement of the 1850s. In the case of Know-Nothings, it was fear of Catholics and immigrants in general. Below is a brief description of that movement from Wikipedia and below that some comments by Lincoln on it. Some of the ideas of the Know-nothing movement are similar to some of the claims surfacing now. Notice below how a conspiracy theory surfaced, just like it surfaced recently in the material from the World Net Daily. The term "Know-Nothing" was a slang term to describe members of a party called the American Party. It was a secret organization and they were called "Know-Nothings" because when asked about their organization, they were urged to say "I know nothing."
>>>>>>>>>The immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics to the U.S. in the 1830-1860 period made religious differences between Catholics and Protestants a political issue. The tensions reflected European battles between Catholics and Protestants, but were much less intense. Violence occasionally erupted over elections. Many of the anti Catholics were themselves immigrants. The biggest fear was that Catholics would undermine American democracy by creating a political network controlled by the Pope in Rome through Catholic bishops and priests. They argued that the strong allegiance of Roman Catholics to the Pope ran counter to democratic values.
Although Catholics asserted they were politically independent of priests, Protestants alleged that Pope Pius IX had put down the failed liberal Revolutions of 1848 and was an opponent of liberty, democracy and protestantism. These concerns encouraged conspiracy theories regarding the Pope's purported plans to subjugate the United States through a continuing influx of obedient Catholics controlled by Irish bishops obedient to and personally selected by the Pope. In 1849, an oath-bound secret society, The Order of the Star Spangled Banner was created by Charles Allen in New York City. It became the nucleus of some units of the American Party.<<<<<<<<<<<
With the above description as a background, here is what Lincoln had to say about the Know-nothings:
August 24, 1855
"I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
-- Abraham Lincoln
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I believe that if Lincoln were alive today, he would urge that we avoid this type of wild speculation and rumor in dealing with Muslims. Muslims constitute only 2 or 3 percent of the population of the United States. It is unreasonable to think that this tiny minority can have any major negative influence on politics in America for at least several decades. Above all there can be no excuse for spreading false information. Information that cannot be verified is identical to false information in my opinion. It is remarkable how many people such as John Kachelman lose any sense of objectivity where their religious beliefs are concerned. In most other situations, Kachelman would probably not accept a crackpot idea without evidence but in this case, he was extremely gullible.
Paranoid Politics
The unreasonable fear of domination by outside forces has been called paranoid politics. Here is a description of that style by the historian Richard Hofstadter:
"The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization... he does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated — if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes."
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It is interesting to compare the above description with the comments of John Kachelman that accompanied his distribution of the Muslim conspiracy theory. Kachelman's remarks are given below:
"Dear friends,
Here is more on the dangerous threat of Islam to the way of life as we have known it in the USA. I have one more news article that I will forward later on this topic.
Please beware of this very present danger! Knowledge empowers and obligates!
Read and focus on all but especially consider #12. Please remember we are in a war whose ramifications will alter the affairs of earth. The only hope is that Christianity and its worldview will triumph. This triumph will come only from choice and not coercion. Any revised strategy that fails to acknowledge and address only helps Islam. To me one of the great tragedies of our time is that too many are focused upon a comfortable lifestyle they are blind to the confusion surrounding them and are ignorant that we teeter on the precipice of losing the American way of life. Public opinion simply underscores the reality that this very present danger is not grasped."
-- John Kachelman
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The Unlikely Probability of a Muslim Conspiracy
Most likely, the spread of rumors such as put forth by the World Net Daily and John Kachelman would not happen except for the fact that terrorists who happened to be Muslim attacked the U.S. a few years ago. What Kachelman and others fail to understand is that moderate Muslims are far more numerous than those who are terrorists. Americans need the good will of moderate Muslims and moderate Muslims need the United States in helping to control the terrorists. One of the several problems with this rumor is that there is no recognition of the fact that Muslims are as varied in their behavior and beliefs as are the many sects of Christians. Surely Christians would not like for non-Christians to lump all Christians together as being like the sects of David Koresh (Remember Waco?) or the sect that commmited suicide in South America (Jim Jones).
At the present time, there are several million Muslims in the United States, constituting a very small percent of the population. They tend to be better educated than the average American with many of them in professions such as medicine. As a practical matter, Americans have had several years of experience with these Muslims and this experience does not show that they are a threat to this country. It is noteworthy that none of the terrorists of September 11 were residents of this country. On the contrary, I am sure that a case can be made that American Muslims are loyal citizens or good candidates for citizenship. During the last 20 years, I have become acquainted with several Muslims and have visited Jordan and Turkey. In Jordan in particular, I spent several days with Arab Muslims, toured the Jordanian Parliament, and was very favorably impressed with what I saw. I learned that Arabs have a tradition of hospitality to strangers that is unusual. I suspect that it easier to demonize a particular group when you have had no contact with them, as probably is the case with John Kachelman.
During my visit to Jordan, one event made a lasting impression on me. I was attending a conference in their capital of Amman and as entertainment, the host invited us to attend a children's musical recital in the evening. The children played mostly classical European music on violin, piano and other instruments. The standard of living in Jordan is approximately equal to that of the United States and the climate in Amman is similar to California. The atmosphere at the recital was identical to that of any similar recital in an upscale community in any American suburb. Except for the portraits of the present and former King of Jordan, there was nothing to suggest that the location was outside of the United States. An American transplanted to Jordan would quickly adapt to life there and might even see some advantages. We were only a few miles from Israel, across the Jordan Valley. It struck me as ironic that a few miles away, in Israel, children there were also probably going to recitials just like the one we were attending but separated also by enormous political differences. Of course Jordan is not necessarily typical of all Muslim countries but the attempt to paint Muslims as drastically different from Americans is sometimes far from the truth, at least that has been my experience.
Why do some people accept uncritically a rather bizarre theory that would be rejected by most intelligent people? John Kachelman is not stupid and in fact he has probably a little better than average intelligence. I believe the reason is that he, like so many others, is not skilled in critical thinking, in the ability to use good judgment in evaluating an idea. It does take some training and experience to do this well. One source of information that I have recently found concerns the writings of Bertrand Russell on critical thinking. It was a term that was not much used in his lifetime and only in recent decades has it become widely used. But Bertrand Russell has some very good ideas on critical thinking, even though he often used other terms for it. Here is a link to a summamry of Bertrand Russell's ideas.
In concluding this page, I would like to add the following comment. Wouldn't Osama Bin Laden love to see a situation where Muslims and Christians in the United States are in open and violent war? Nothing would suit his purposes better. Christians should refrain from fanning the flames of religious strife. One way to do that is to stop malicious and false rumors such as are discussed on this page. It requires only a little study of such publications as the World Net Daily to see that it is not a reliable source of information. Highly religious people seem somehow more prone to accept dubious information, such as this Muslim conspiracy theory, than those not so religious. Possibly their own religious views may contribute to a lack of objectivity on these issues.
Mark Twain on Fanaticism in Religion:
"Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven.." - "The Lowest Animal"
"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing." - Autobiography of Mark Twain
"I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's." - Mark Twain in Eruption
"Man is kind enough when he is not excited by religion." - A Horse's Tale
"I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat." - "The New Wildcat Religion"
"Zeal and sincerity can carry a new religion further than any other missionary except fire and sword." - Christian Science
"I was educated, I was trained, I was a Presbyterian and I knew how these things are done. I knew that in Biblical times if a man committed a sin the extermination of the whole surrounding nation--cattle and all--was likely to happen. I knew that Providence was not particular about the rest, so that He got somebody connected with the one He was after." - Autobiography of Mark Twain
"My land, the power of training! Of influence! Of education! It can bring a body up to believe anything." - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Other Links of Interest
Newspaper Article on Religious Freedom, Las Vegas Review Journal - Requires a Free Registration
Daniel Pipes, Mideast Expert - Pipes is often critical of radical Muslims but is a far more reliable source of information than sources such as John Kachelman, The World Net Daily and Anis Shorrosh.
Website on Religious Tolerance with Objective Information
Little Mosque on the Prairie - Canadian Situation Comedy
I welcome comments on this issue. Please send email: holloway3@aol.com