From Going Postal to Going ISIS
Are we entering the age of beheadings?
A woman was beheaded by a fired co-worker, who recently had been trying to convert co-workers to Islam. Because the ISIS beheadings are so much in the news, one has to wonder if the perp was motivated by those beheadings, as opposed to “going postal” and using a firearm or just stabbing people.
A newly fired employee at a food processing plant in Moore, Okla., allegedly stabbed and beheaded a 54-year-old front office worker, police said Friday, according to local media.
Police said the FBI was asked for assistance in the case because of the “manner of death” of the victim and reports from co-workers that the suspect, 30-year-old Alton Nolen, had recently started trying to convert several employees to Islam.
Nolen had just been fired from Vaughan Foods on Thursday afternoon when he drove to the front of the building, hit another vehicle and walked inside, according to police, KFOR-TV reports.
“Nolen encountered (fellow worker Colleen) Hufford with a knife,” said Sgt. Jeremy Lewis with the Moore Police Department. “During the attack, Nolen severed the victims head.”
Local television reports:
Jonah Goldberg wrote last week, Do-It-Yourself Jihadism (via Instapundit):
On Thursday, Australian authorities claimed they thwarted a plot by supporters of the Islamic State to grab random people off the street and then behead the captured citizens on videotape. Australia’s attorney general said that the massive raid, the largest counterterrorism operation in the nation’s history, involving more than 800 police officers and raids of at least twelve properties, was necessary because, “If the . . . police had not acted today, there is a likelihood that this would have happened.” …
Now, the fact that the Islamic State didn’t do this is a little encouraging. It suggests that it’s either unwilling to cross that Rubicon quite yet or it has reason to believe that few people would follow through on the public command, making it look weak. That’s all to the good.
But there’s too much potential bad news here as well.
For starters, it’s hardly as if such people do not exist in the West. The fact that, collectively, thousands of Europeans, Canadians, and Americans have gone to Syria and Iraq for “jihadi tourism” is also an indicator that people willing to do such things live here. It would be nice to think they’ve all left for jihad abroad, but that seems unlikely.
I would not be surprised if we see many more such beheadings by lone wolves motivated by ISIS-style ideology.
We may be entering the age of Going ISIS.
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Comments
Side Note: This guy’s rampage ended when one of the bosses pulled a gun and shot him.
Side Note: This guy’s rampage ended when one of the bosses pulled a gun and shot him.
Which probably means the feds will log it as two cases of ‘workplace violence’.
We can combat this by making it mandatory that all eligible Americans obtain a CCW and require that they carry ALL THE TIME.
Why are right-wingnuts losing their heads over a local workplace violence story?
No one can say the mainstream media is fanning the flames a la Ferguson, in this case. They are currently a case study of measured, conscientious disinterest.
In other news, ABC’s Brian Ross is furiously combing Moore, Oklahoma’s Tea Party roster for any “Alton Nolens” to help find a motive in this baffling attack.
I have to give ABC a bit of credit: That’s where I first heard of the story, and the report did say he’d been trying to convert people to Islam.
This has nothing to do with Islam, the religion of “peace.” And you’re a rayciss Islamophobe for even thinking that. This is merely “workplace violence.” Everybody knows that Tea Partiers, veterans, and fundamental/evangelical Christians are the real homegrown domestic terrorists.
/sarc
Islam is a universalist religion, similar to Christianity. However, unlike Christianity, Islam is spread through coercion, rather than proselytization. Islam shares the same left-wing orientation and faults of Marxism, another universalist religion, which is popular among Atheists.
That said, it is useful and necessary to distinguish between left and right-wing biases in Islamic states. The latter are not imperial, and mostly confine their ambitions within a national sovereign state. It’s telling that Obama’s executive regime change (e.g. assassination) has focused on changing right-wing Muslim leaders for their left-wing (i.e. Caliphate) alternatives.
I suggest “Left” and “Right” are inappropriate in this context. With the Mohammedans they are either secularized, such as Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein or even Sadat, or they are radicalized, such as Osama bin Laden or Khomeini in Iran or the leaders of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Divisions break between Sunni and Shia, and then again among smaller groups. Within the group of Sunnis there may be some in favor of smaller government and lower taxes, who are on the right, and those who favor big government and lots of taxes and regulation, they are on the left. I don’t think so. In this context “left” and “right” sound like smoke screens.
Don’t forget that Muslims are charged with telling lies to infidels. that is acceptable. While some in Islam will denounce this group or that group, we in Christendom have falling outs. There are, for example, Baptists who will say Catholics are not Christians. (Interestingly most Catholics are willing to acknowledge that Baptist could still go to Heaven, and my indeed be Christian. But I digress.)
Marxism popular among atheists? Where did you get that idea?
Islam, the Religion of peace. Now let’s hear from those Imams who are getting fed up with those occasional rogue Muslims making their religion look bad. Waiting………..
Your request is timely.
Here’s one.
http://binbayyah.net/english/2014/09/24/fatwa-response-to-isis/
Here is another
http://www.christianpost.com/news/international-coalition-of-muslim-scholars-refute-isis-religious-arguments-in-open-letter-to-al-baghdadi-127032/
Do be aware that the people who have issued these statements have taken their lives in their hands to do so.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/09/female-human-rights-activist-tortured-murdered-by-isis/
Thanks for the cites. Several readers on here have made the logical fallacy that simply because one does not *hear* a Muslim religious leader (or follower) condemn violence that he does not in fact condemn violence. It seems as if the readers do not recognize that the media they subscribe to has to first cover that viewpoint for that topic (unless the reader himself is interviewing imams). There is a lot of evidence that Islam can peacefully coexist with Christianity and secularism in the U.S. One murderer, be he Muslim or Christian or Atheist, should not taint the whole class, even if he murders because of his beliefs. Similarly, one “saint”, be he Muslim or Christian or Atheist, should not lead us to think the entire religion is correct (though it should inspire exploration).
As Thomas a Kempis said in the Imitation of Christ (15th century), “Ask not, who has said this or that, but look to what he says.” If you’re going to condemn Islam (which might easily be worthwhile), don’t resort to unfair calumnious arguments which could easily boomerang. Instead, look to the text and its teachings themselves in their totality. I’m convinced faulty and inflammatory argumentation techniques helped fuel several religious wars (and probably secular ones too).
True that one murderer should not be used as emblematic of a religion.
How about a few dozen? Is that enough? A hundred?
100 Christian murderers? 100 Atheist murderers? We could find them.
@filiusdextris – Don’t be obtuse. The point is that Islamocrazies who are ready, willing, and able to commit murder and mayhem in the name of their religion far outnumber Christians who would even contemplate doing the same. You besmirch Christianity when you attempt to draw a moral equivalency between the two.
Please start gathering a list of Christian and Atheist murderers who do so as an organized group, and do it daily in the most barbaric way possible. And be sure to let us know they killed others because they did not believe as they do. That last criteria leaves out Jim Jones. Please try to keep your search within the past 13 years, say, since September 11, 2001. I’ll be waiting.
You think he was part of an organized group? If group-think is your logic, then how do you explain all the non-violent Muslims in the USA for the past 13 years? I’ll give you some degree of money funneling, but that won’t account for all Muslims here. If they’re not violent, then they must be failures as far as their faith goes, according to the way you describe it. That’s possible, but the far more suggestible explanation is that Islam is not inherently evil. The imams cited above somehow still seem to get followers despite their peace advocacy.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Islam is a bunk religion. I think it contains enough truth to be capable of being a vehicle to God for some people that otherwise love God and neighbor. But I would rather fight its many errors on the level of logic and good Christian examples than with inflammatory suggestions.
Those first two links are intended by their authors to be tools that parents and decent clerics can use to keep impressionable young Muslims from serious and soul-killing error.
In my view, the reason why they need to do this is that the Muslim Brotherhood, through Hamas, contracted to engage in an advertising campaign to convince Muslims that they have an individual, religious duty to kill every Jew on the face of the earth and re-conquer every square inch of land ever held by a “Muslim” regime. That advertising campaign has been in place since 1988 and it is still active.
The next step is to repudiate the Hamas covenant, and put an end to the blasphemy, which is the root of the ill opinion many people of good will have, of Islam.
What makes you think a Muslim beheading an infidel is blasphemous?
Quran 8:12: “So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger.”
My point is this: why do you lump Christians and Atheists into this group or even with this story? There is no comparison. There has been no WIDESPREAD condemnation of the atrocities in the Middle East by the Muslim community in the Western sphere – period. Getting back to the point: this one man, who wants others to join his religion, beheads a woman but it has nothing to do with recent events in the Middle East? Is that what you want me to believe? It is just coincidence?
” There is a lot of evidence that Islam can peacefully coexist with Christianity and secularism in the U.S. “
Of course there is. This is the problem for the West. 99.99% of Muslims living here are peaceful. However, all of the hijackers on the September 11 planes were Muslim. Since Mohammedans are schooled in lying to the infidels, we have a hard time telling who is going to betray us until they have in fact, betrayed us. This is why Queen Isabella had to expel all Muslims living in Spain. She didn’t know when one would turn traitor.
There is tons of empirical evidence of Muslims moving into a host country, patiently waiting for their population percentage to rise, and then start asserting their right privileges. Once the Muslim population grows large enough they can then start a stealth war on the non-Muslim locals, driving them out. Witness southern Thailand for how this is done, or many parts of England.
Could someone explain to me how a “religion of peace” can seemingly take a average person, and turn them into one capable of casually cutting a fellow human’s head off, with a knife?
What am I missing?
From what I’ve read, Nolen was already a bad guy before his conversion. Multiple arrests and time behind bars for drug charges and even one count of assaulting an officer. However, somehow I can’t shake the feeling that his conversion to Islam did not make things better in regards to his behavior and attitude.
And HOlder has been militating to make criminal background checks a “civil rights issue”.
So, we get killers in the the work-force over the PC drives of racist “activist” Collectivists at the highest levels of government.
Jesus had a parable for this. He said that the Word of God was like good seed a farmer sows in his field, and the hearts of men are like the different types of soil it falls upon. Where the seed lands on rocky soil, it may sprout, but it then dies for lack of water. If it falls on the footpath, it will be trampled and die. But where it falls on good soil, it sprouts and grows and yields a hundred-fold.
Islam has its origin in Judaism and Christianity. There’s enough of the word of God to in it to grow well in a good heart. Nolen had choices about what he would pay attention to.
Valerie you left out the most important part of Yeshua’s parable which applies to Muslims.
“As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.”
God’s word didn’t even take root in their mind.
Islam worships the god of the so called prophet Mohammed. This is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Islam’s lying will not change that.
He may have converted in prison, and let me tell you what a lovely group they can be.
“Nolen was already a bad guy before his conversion”
It’s not exactly uncommon for criminals to convert to Islam in prison, rather than to Christianity, because Christianity demands true repentance and reform while Islam offers excuses for doing evil to “infidels”.
In 2011, he was pulled over by the Ok Highway patrol. When the officer ran his name, 2 outstanding felony warrants popped up. When the officer attempted to take him into custody, he attacked her and he was finally picked up after a 12 hour manhunt. His punishment? Less than a year and a half in prison. I’m thinking it’s long past time to look at other options for non violent offenders and use prison space a little more wisely… like keeping violent thugs away from the rest of society.
I’m just glad the COO of Vaughan was armed and able to stop this guy before he could carry out his rampage any further! Islam is not popular here in Oklahoma and this is definitely going to sink peoples’ opinions of that faith in this state even more.
So what’s going on here? First there’s Obama vs the Islamic State (which isn’t Islamic, we’re told). Then we have this grisly event.
Normally it would have been disclosed without ever mentioning the Islamic connection. You can bet there’ll be some attempt at clarification (he wasn’t REALLY Islamic).
It’s just so out of character for the news media to report on a “protected class” that this stands out. Or maybe someone at ABC News will get fired over it.
No word from Eric Holder? He’s still the AG . . .
And nothing from the esteemed Leader of the Free World . . .
Why, if he had a son — Alton Nolan’s turn?
Ha.
This guy was trying to convert. The converter could not convert the convertee … so the convertee lost her head. That’s OK and no punishment is due under Sharia law, correct?
It’s akin to an honor killing. Zero said the sweetest sound is the call to prayer … I think he meant the swish of a sword.
Nothing to see here people, just your regular, run-of-the-mill workplace beheading.
Updated my post on this subjectto include a link here.
“Going postal” or “going ISIS”. I’m not sure whether laughter is appropriate, but it’s now a valid question.
Is the “it can’t happen HERE” crowd paying attention yet?
I think its great that we are all “this is not represented of Islam blah blah blah”. Okay fine.
But lets not forget that “radical” Islamists intent on destroying the West number around 300 million.
For comparison, US total population is currently 314 million
We have accepted lots of strange organizations as “religion” over the years and given them protection of the 1st amendment. A very few have been rejected.
Congress can declare that only religions – or their heirs – established as of the time of the ratification of the 1st amendment get that protection. All others must receive congressional consideration one at a time. Or they could just go for clear truth and declare that Islam simply does not fit. You still can have Mosques and such, just no 1st amendment protection.
Are you aware that Islam was established over a millenium before the ratification of the First Amendment?
Is it past time for another crusade? I’d say so.
This is serious stuff, but I’ve seen people making Highlander and Seven “What’s in the box?” postings over this atrocity. But of course it makes sense, because the same people, consciously or unconsciously, are avoiding the Truth about Islam. It isn’t a religion of peace.
He was an American, so does that make Americans evil? How does isolating a single factor of a man’s life justify stereotyping all who share that same characteristic? Were all the Christians during the time of inquisitional torture evil? Were all the secularists during the time of the Stalinist purges evil? We paint with too broad a brush here.
There is such a thing as community guilt.
His behavior is inconsistent with any other group except Islam. Yes, we do need to paint with this brush. Only Muslims practice honor killings over misbehaving women folk. Think about those jihadis who butchered Lee Rigby, they were certainly Muslim. (Well, ok, Mexican drug gangs have been known to behead victims, but they usually behead people and leave the heads around as a warning. This beheading was Muslim style.)
filiusdextris: why are you so keen on defending Muhammadans and their behavior?
This is sad. The same mistake post after post. I can offer you many Muslims against whom his behavior is entirely inconsistent. Therefore your comparison is lacking as the truism you clearly want to make it out to be. A better comparison is to a subset of Muslims practitioners (ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc.).
Your logic would make me want to extrapolate that all Christians have similar beliefs as the Westboro Baptists. Violence is not an element there, but should I paint all Christians to be so uncharitable? Just because some faith groups have common denominators with others who practice their faith in an extreme manner does not prove the fallacy of their faith.
Why do I defend Islam here? For my own sake. I am an ardent Catholic very much in love with my faith. I think Islam is brimming with error. But it seems to allow some people to come to God, and if that’s the best it can do, I can respect that to some degree. I wish I had one ounce of the discipline that many Muslims show in honoring their Five Pillars – fasting, daily prayer, almsgiving, etc. They have a constant presence of God that is very admirable in this worldly society that likes to turn God on/off based on whether it is a Sunday. It’s a noble witness that reminds us Catholics that we need to set better examples. If I condoned the kind of argumentation that people use here, it could boomerang against my own faith. People constantly say that most/all priests are child abusers since several have been (but probably less than 1%). It’s fundamentally the same argument.
Condemn Islam for its beliefs on a religious forum; don’t condemn Islam here for the beliefs of a few of its extremists.
“People constantly say that most/all priests are child abusers since several have been (but probably less than 1%). It’s fundamentally the same argument.”
No it isn’t. Child abuse violates Catholic teaching. Beheading infidels for refusing to submit to or convert to Islam obeys Muslim teaching. You should condemn Islam because it deems a thief, rapist, pedophile, and mass murderer the highest example of what all Muslims should strive to emulate. If Muhammad did it, it is by definition just, right, and moral. I don’t care if any particular Muslim isn’t trying to kill me right now, he venerates a madman, and at any time he could decide that emulating that madman is exactly what his faith demands.
Your arguments are just clumsy. You are saying we should accept that not all Muslims are violent. Fine, then you are essentially saying that we should accept the fact that 1% of 2.1 billion people (Muslim worldwide population) want to kill us while the other 99% of that population does virtually nothing to stop the slaughter. You can reduce the 1% to whatever you think is acceptable, but it’s still a large number. You may find that acceptable — I do not.
I’ll just quote what I said earlier in this thread in response to Valerie who gave some examples of imams speaking out against violence: “Thanks for the cites. Several readers on here have made the logical fallacy that simply because one does not *hear* a Muslim religious leader (or follower) condemn violence that he does not in fact condemn violence. It seems as if the readers do not recognize that the media they subscribe to has to first cover that viewpoint for that topic (unless the reader himself is interviewing imams).”
Using Westboro Baptists as an example of Christians doesn’t help your argument. The Westboro Baptists are best known for their characteristic behavior that is directly contrary to, and completely irreconcilable with, the teachings of Jesus Christ. The New Testament does not contain even a single reference to Jesus ever having taught, said, or even insinuated that “God hates f@gs.” In fact, just the opposite. Jesus repeatedly emphasized that God is love, and love, by definition, does not and cannot hate anyone. Jesus urged his followers to “turn the other cheek” when attacked by a fellow man, and insisted that the most important duty of our faith is to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The Westboro Baptists may call themselves Christians, but that does not make it so. They have dedicated themselves to hatred, in clear defiance of the teachings of Christ contained in the Bible. By contrast, the Muslims who are killing non-believers (i.e., infidels) are acting in accordance with the instructions contained in their own holy book, the Qu’ran, which contains over 100 verses describing how it is the duty of Muslims to conquer, subjugate, and even kill non-believers.
IOW, the Westboro Baptists are not “extremist” Christians, because they are not Christians at all, while Muslims who murder non-believers are not so much “extremist” Muslims as “devout” Muslims.
That the guys goes off just as he’s being fired from his job doesn’t sound like any planned attack by a domestic Muslim convert and terrorist mole or wannabe. Sounds to me like a last straw event pushing an already sick puppy over the edge.
Too early to say whether he was radicalized by terrorist agents (as was the Ft Hood workplace violence perpetrator), or if in some possible ongoing mental decompensation, he sought out Islam because he’s seen the ISISA beheadings and they match violent impulses already in his head. Converting to rad Islam would justify fulfilling those sick impulses, or possibly voices.
Cults recruit vulnerable people: runaways, failures, spiritually bereft, and chronic seekers of the mystic, who change philosophies and religion on a dime. Radical Islam is a murderous religious cult who would value a guy like this, and a guy like this would love a murderous cult, no?
We know too little. He could simply be a schizophrenic who was decompensating till he could no longer hold a job, got fired, and went off. He might hear command hallucinations – voices. Schizophrenics do not interpret external stimuli like others do. Where we might recognize a sound as the fan in a ceiling tile, the schizophrenic may process it as the breathing of a happy dragon in the ductwork, or if a paranoid schizophrenic, that buzz or hum might be CIA recording devices. But if he’s schiz and hearing voices commanding violence, and he;s desperate to identify the source, well, perhaps they’re the voice of Allah. Who knows.
A horrendous crime, but the timing – fired literally moments before going off – points away from terrorism in the standard sense. This guy feels bone crazy to me. I apologize for the technical language.
Pretty much agree with all that. The fact that the knife he used in his rampage was typical of the tools used at the facility augers in the direction of “not premeditated”.
Major Hassan also left it no doubt what he was doing and why, with a freaking six-lane “trail of bread-crumbs” that are ONE of the American Rotherhams
But their is this, too… This guy was a “couldn’t get it done” person. He just went from one thing to another and generally failed at what he was doing, including proselytizing for Islam if the accounts are true.
He would want to go out big and notoriously. And how better to do that in this climate than by beheading? So, we have ISIS and radical jihadis in general to thank for that little evil enhancement to our media-dominated culture.
We can expect more, because…for some reason (since dead is dead)…decapitation is very effective at making an impression on people, and we have lots of small, failing, desperate people who want their time on CNN or the local news. It will be the coming thing for a while.
“Not premeditated” and “not terrorism” are not synonyms. The Quran commands Muslims to strike terror in and strike at the necks of unbelievers. I’d say he accomplished both objectives.
Can a prosecutor strike Muslims during jury selection?
Should a prosecutor strike Muslims during jury selection?
What happens if a Muslim juror in this case votes to acquit?
If a Muslim juror votes to convict, will he or she and the enire extended family need the witness protection program?