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The Complete Infidel's Guide to Free Speech
From Robert Spencer, the New York Times bestselling author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS, comes a bold defense of freedom of speech—the single most valuable freedom humanity has, a freedom now endangered world-wide.
256 pages, Paperback
Published July 24, 2017
25 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Robert Spencer
117 books328 followersROBERT SPENCER is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of seventeen books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). Coming in November 2017 is Confessions of an Islamophobe (Bombardier Books).
Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a consultant with the Center for Security Policy.
Spencer is a weekly columnist for PJ Media and FrontPage Magazine, and has written many hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism. His articles on Islam and other topics have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, Fox News Opinion, National Review, The Hill, the Detroit News, TownHall.com, Real Clear Religion, the Daily Caller, the New Criterion, the Journal of International Security Affairs, the UK’s Guardian, Canada’s National Post, Middle East Quarterly, WorldNet Daily, First Things, Insight in the News, Aleteia, and many other journals. For nearly ten years Spencer wrote the weekly Jihad Watch column at Human Events. He has also served as a contributing writer to the Investigative Project on Terrorism and as an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.
Spencer has appeared on the BBC, ABC News, CNN, FoxNews’s Tucker Carlson Show, the O’Reilly Factor, Megyn Kelly’s The Kelly File, the Sean Hannity Show, Geraldo Rivera Reports, the Glenn Beck Show, Fox and Friends, America’s News HQ and many other Fox programs, PBS, MSNBC, CNBC, C-Span, CTV News, Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News, France24, Voice of Russia and Croatia National Television (HTV), as well as on numerous radio programs including The Sean Hannity Show, Bill O’Reilly’s Radio Factor, The Mark Levin Show, The Laura Ingraham Show, The Herman Cain Show, The Joe Piscopo Show, The Howie Carr Show, The Curt Schilling Show, Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, Michael Savage’s Savage Nation, The Alan Colmes Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Rusty Humphries Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Peter Boyles Show, Vatican Radio, and many others.
Robert Spencer has been a featured speaker across the country and around the world and authored 17 books. Spencer’s books have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Italian, German, Finnish, Korean, Polish and Bahasa Indonesia. His Qur’an commentary at Jihad Watch, Blogging the Qur’an, has been translated into Czech, Danish, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Spencer (MA, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history in depth since 1980. His work has aroused the ire of the foes of freedom and their dupes: in October 2011, Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups wrote to Homeland Security Advisor (and current CIA director) John Brennan, demanding that Spencer be removed as a trainer for the FBI and military groups, which he taught about the belief system of Islamic jihadists; Brennan immediately complied as counter-terror training materials were scrubbed of all mention of Islam and jihad. Spencer has been banned by the British government from entering the United Kingdom for pointing out accurately that Islam has doctrines of violence against unbelievers. He has been invited by name to convert to Islam by a senior member of al-Qaeda.
Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a consultant with the Center for Security Policy.
Spencer is a weekly columnist for PJ Media and FrontPage Magazine, and has written many hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism. His articles on Islam and other topics have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, Fox News Opinion, National Review, The Hill, the Detroit News, TownHall.com, Real Clear Religion, the Daily Caller, the New Criterion, the Journal of International Security Affairs, the UK’s Guardian, Canada’s National Post, Middle East Quarterly, WorldNet Daily, First Things, Insight in the News, Aleteia, and many other journals. For nearly ten years Spencer wrote the weekly Jihad Watch column at Human Events. He has also served as a contributing writer to the Investigative Project on Terrorism and as an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.
Spencer has appeared on the BBC, ABC News, CNN, FoxNews’s Tucker Carlson Show, the O’Reilly Factor, Megyn Kelly’s The Kelly File, the Sean Hannity Show, Geraldo Rivera Reports, the Glenn Beck Show, Fox and Friends, America’s News HQ and many other Fox programs, PBS, MSNBC, CNBC, C-Span, CTV News, Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News, France24, Voice of Russia and Croatia National Television (HTV), as well as on numerous radio programs including The Sean Hannity Show, Bill O’Reilly’s Radio Factor, The Mark Levin Show, The Laura Ingraham Show, The Herman Cain Show, The Joe Piscopo Show, The Howie Carr Show, The Curt Schilling Show, Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, Michael Savage’s Savage Nation, The Alan Colmes Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Rusty Humphries Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Peter Boyles Show, Vatican Radio, and many others.
Robert Spencer has been a featured speaker across the country and around the world and authored 17 books. Spencer’s books have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Italian, German, Finnish, Korean, Polish and Bahasa Indonesia. His Qur’an commentary at Jihad Watch, Blogging the Qur’an, has been translated into Czech, Danish, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Spencer (MA, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history in depth since 1980. His work has aroused the ire of the foes of freedom and their dupes: in October 2011, Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups wrote to Homeland Security Advisor (and current CIA director) John Brennan, demanding that Spencer be removed as a trainer for the FBI and military groups, which he taught about the belief system of Islamic jihadists; Brennan immediately complied as counter-terror training materials were scrubbed of all mention of Islam and jihad. Spencer has been banned by the British government from entering the United Kingdom for pointing out accurately that Islam has doctrines of violence against unbelievers. He has been invited by name to convert to Islam by a senior member of al-Qaeda.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 12, 2017
Full of stories that the mainstream media won't report anymore, this book is a must-read for anyone who's concerned that the rise of so called "hate speech laws" is endangering our world.
August 27, 2017
Robert Spencer ha solo messo in fila tutti i mattoncini della storia. E ne è uscito un piccolo capolavoro.
Ancora non sappiamo se è stato tradotto in italiano (se così non fosse gli editori dovrebbero fare a gara per accaparrarsi un blogger definito «New York Times bestelling author»). Il suo titolo originale è The Complete Infidel's Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). La cultura occidentale e in specie quella americana (basata sul primo emendamento) ha come suo architrave la laicità dello Stato e la libertà di parola e di espressione in tutte le sue forme (free speech). Ebbene, queste caratteristiche non sono proprie degli Stati islamici. E su questo passi. Il libro di Spencer ci racconta, con fatti, date, interviste, sentenze, come stiamo rinunciando a questi principî. Dal caso Fallaci, che conosciamo, a quello del presentatore tv americano Schilling, fatto fuori per un tweet in cui diceva che solo il 5 per cento dei musulmani è terrorista, in confronto al 7 per cento dei tedeschi che era nazista. Kaputt, dopo una violenta campagna di stampa e nonostante le sue ripetute (e non dovute, secondo Spencer) scuse è stato radiato. E che dire di quell'ufficiale dell'esercito americano, Hassan, in corrispondenza (cosa che sapeva bene l'Fbi) con un reclutatore dell'Isis e mantenuto al suo posto di lavoro, anzi promosso, fino a quando ha ammazzato tredici persone?
L'Occidente, dice Spencer, è vittima del politicamente corretto, si autocensura sulle questioni che riguardano l'islam. Stiamo tragicamente seguendo il consiglio di Mohamed Atta, il leader degli attentatori dell'11 settembre, che ai passeggeri del suo volo diceva: «Dovete solo stare calmi e vedrete che tutto sarà ok». Lo hanno preso in parola e il volo American Airlines 11 si è schiantato su una delle Torri gemelle. E la nostra libertà di parola e di critica si sta affievolendo, almeno quando si parla di questioni che riguardano il mondo islamico. «La libertà di parola contiene esattamente la libertà di disturbare, di ridicolizzare e di offendere. Se così non fosse, la dottrina del free speech sarebbe lettera morta. Dopotutto, le parole, i discorsi inoffensivi non hanno alcun bisogno di protezione, per di più con un emendamento costituzionale». La cosa sembra banale, ma non lo è. E Spencer ricorda centinaia di casi, dalle vignette danesi alle denunce dei vicini di casa, in cui per il solo fatto che a essere toccato fosse un nervo islamico, l'Occidente, l'America, e le Nazioni Unite si sono fermati. D'altronde, come scrive l'Oic (la rispettata Organizzazione per la cooperazione islamica che riunisce 56 nazioni), «il mondo islamico considera le vignette satiriche come una versione differente dell'attacco dell'11 settembre». Come dire: insultare il Profeta è per la nostra cultura un delitto simile a quello che voi occidentali attribuite al perpetrare una strage. Spencer scrive poi che «la sinistra internazionale» ha le sue buone ragioni per condividere queste posizioni: non ha mai amato e tollerato il dissenso. O almeno dopo gli anni '60 la sua involuzione è stata autoritaria, è diventata allergica al dissenso. Un libro che varrebbe la pena tradurre il prima possibile. Ci riguarda da vicino e ci spiega come la tendenza Boldrini non sia una prerogativa italiana. Tutt'altro.
(Nicola Porro - Biblioteca liberale - Il Giornale)
Ancora non sappiamo se è stato tradotto in italiano (se così non fosse gli editori dovrebbero fare a gara per accaparrarsi un blogger definito «New York Times bestelling author»). Il suo titolo originale è The Complete Infidel's Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). La cultura occidentale e in specie quella americana (basata sul primo emendamento) ha come suo architrave la laicità dello Stato e la libertà di parola e di espressione in tutte le sue forme (free speech). Ebbene, queste caratteristiche non sono proprie degli Stati islamici. E su questo passi. Il libro di Spencer ci racconta, con fatti, date, interviste, sentenze, come stiamo rinunciando a questi principî. Dal caso Fallaci, che conosciamo, a quello del presentatore tv americano Schilling, fatto fuori per un tweet in cui diceva che solo il 5 per cento dei musulmani è terrorista, in confronto al 7 per cento dei tedeschi che era nazista. Kaputt, dopo una violenta campagna di stampa e nonostante le sue ripetute (e non dovute, secondo Spencer) scuse è stato radiato. E che dire di quell'ufficiale dell'esercito americano, Hassan, in corrispondenza (cosa che sapeva bene l'Fbi) con un reclutatore dell'Isis e mantenuto al suo posto di lavoro, anzi promosso, fino a quando ha ammazzato tredici persone?
L'Occidente, dice Spencer, è vittima del politicamente corretto, si autocensura sulle questioni che riguardano l'islam. Stiamo tragicamente seguendo il consiglio di Mohamed Atta, il leader degli attentatori dell'11 settembre, che ai passeggeri del suo volo diceva: «Dovete solo stare calmi e vedrete che tutto sarà ok». Lo hanno preso in parola e il volo American Airlines 11 si è schiantato su una delle Torri gemelle. E la nostra libertà di parola e di critica si sta affievolendo, almeno quando si parla di questioni che riguardano il mondo islamico. «La libertà di parola contiene esattamente la libertà di disturbare, di ridicolizzare e di offendere. Se così non fosse, la dottrina del free speech sarebbe lettera morta. Dopotutto, le parole, i discorsi inoffensivi non hanno alcun bisogno di protezione, per di più con un emendamento costituzionale». La cosa sembra banale, ma non lo è. E Spencer ricorda centinaia di casi, dalle vignette danesi alle denunce dei vicini di casa, in cui per il solo fatto che a essere toccato fosse un nervo islamico, l'Occidente, l'America, e le Nazioni Unite si sono fermati. D'altronde, come scrive l'Oic (la rispettata Organizzazione per la cooperazione islamica che riunisce 56 nazioni), «il mondo islamico considera le vignette satiriche come una versione differente dell'attacco dell'11 settembre». Come dire: insultare il Profeta è per la nostra cultura un delitto simile a quello che voi occidentali attribuite al perpetrare una strage. Spencer scrive poi che «la sinistra internazionale» ha le sue buone ragioni per condividere queste posizioni: non ha mai amato e tollerato il dissenso. O almeno dopo gli anni '60 la sua involuzione è stata autoritaria, è diventata allergica al dissenso. Un libro che varrebbe la pena tradurre il prima possibile. Ci riguarda da vicino e ci spiega come la tendenza Boldrini non sia una prerogativa italiana. Tutt'altro.
(Nicola Porro - Biblioteca liberale - Il Giornale)
January 22, 2018
Robert Spencer looks at free speech and how it is under assault by leftists and Islamacists using public correctness, threats, intimidation and double-standards. Protected under an umbrella that states "you shouldn't offend this group" verbatim quotes from the Quran and the accurately-rendered Muslim names of terror suspects are squashed in an effort to placate the Islamofascists; on campus snowflakes confronted with ideas they disagree with (or simply can't understand) are protected by limiting the dissemination of such ideas to "Free Speech Areas," also known as liberal gulags.
We must wake up and recognize that free speech is a cornerstone of our civilization and Robert Spencer does an excellent job of discussing the importance of such speech. He provides many examples of how free speech has been threatened, everything from threatening emails to the producers of South Park to the murder of the Hebdo Charlie staff. And far from defending free speech, those who should be its greatest proponents (artists, writers, politicians, clergy) are almost desperate in their efforts to excuse those who attack (physically and verbally) those they disagree with but even imply on occasion that "they had it coming."
If we lose the power to say "2+2=4" then we truly are lost.
We must wake up and recognize that free speech is a cornerstone of our civilization and Robert Spencer does an excellent job of discussing the importance of such speech. He provides many examples of how free speech has been threatened, everything from threatening emails to the producers of South Park to the murder of the Hebdo Charlie staff. And far from defending free speech, those who should be its greatest proponents (artists, writers, politicians, clergy) are almost desperate in their efforts to excuse those who attack (physically and verbally) those they disagree with but even imply on occasion that "they had it coming."
If we lose the power to say "2+2=4" then we truly are lost.
August 9, 2019
Revelador y perturbante.
Realmente damos por hecho que el derecho a la libre expresión está garantizada, pero después de escuchar los casos y ver desde dónde proviene la censura, te das cuenta que no es así. Que hay ciertos temas y doctrinas que no desean ser puestos bajo la lupa.
El libro como tal está estructurado de una forma un tanto repetitiva, pues en cada capítulo existen las mismas secciones como el "did you know" (sabías que), que le da un aire libro de texto podrá pasar una materia; además, me hubiera gustado que se incluyeran varias de las caricaturas e ilustraciones a que se hacen referencia para visualizar mejor esos aspectos.
Finalmente, encontré diversas inconsistencias entre el ebook y el audiolibro; principalmente texto que no está incluído en la narración o que se encuentra en un orden diferente.
Realmente damos por hecho que el derecho a la libre expresión está garantizada, pero después de escuchar los casos y ver desde dónde proviene la censura, te das cuenta que no es así. Que hay ciertos temas y doctrinas que no desean ser puestos bajo la lupa.
El libro como tal está estructurado de una forma un tanto repetitiva, pues en cada capítulo existen las mismas secciones como el "did you know" (sabías que), que le da un aire libro de texto podrá pasar una materia; además, me hubiera gustado que se incluyeran varias de las caricaturas e ilustraciones a que se hacen referencia para visualizar mejor esos aspectos.
Finalmente, encontré diversas inconsistencias entre el ebook y el audiolibro; principalmente texto que no está incluído en la narración o que se encuentra en un orden diferente.
July 30, 2020
After reading this book I am in agreement with the authors' conclusions. Without a doubt our country as well as many others have been subtly and surely silenced about Islam and Muslims. If you can't argue or criticize an obvious fault or problem in society then you do not have freedom of speech. This is a frightening and chilling treatise on freedoms and what should be happening in the U.S. but is being withdrawn from our culture. In our culture there is certainly dangerous speech and hateful speech but they are protected by the 1st Amendment of The Constitution. Being able to talk about something, reason it out, argue for and/or against is our great privilege in this country and elsewhere. You (everyone) should read this book. It is eye opening and urgent for our society to address and dangerous to ignore.
October 1, 2018
I found The Infidel's Guide to Free Speech while browsing and picked it up because of it's apparently excellent review history and high rating. I didn't realize until I was a good way into the book that it was written the Robert Spencer who's one of the more visible and outspoken members of the american white nationalist movement. I already didn't trust the book at that point, and this discovery put into perspective why the book took a flying leap off the diving board of reality into the dark, confused morass of conspiracy theory, factless accusations, and lies by omission during chapter three.
I was familiar with a good chunk of the examples used, and it would be difficult if not impossible to account for the ways in which they are either presented misleadingly or outright wrong. For example, Spencer claims the US signed an accord at the direction of the OIC regarding blasphemy laws. While a lot of people were afraid the administration would agree to the accord, it didn't actually happen. A similar book that's actually about free speech - Fleming Rose's The Tyranny of Silence - acknowledges this, but Spencer tries to claim otherwise so the lie will bolster his argument. In another example, Spencer tries to claim that Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones got Milo Yiannopoulos banned from Twitter over some hurt feelings, which is distinctly NOT what happened. Yiannopoulos was banned because he ran a harassment campaign that resulted in in his hundreds of thousands of followers sending Jones torture, rape, and death threats. THAT is why his account was stripped of verified status and banned, not because someone complained about hurt feelings and Twitter felt like trampling over freedom of speech. This whole book is littered with similar examples, and unfortunately, the author's determination to create an alternate reality both in his books and the real world makes it hard to take any of his mostly false ranting seriously.
I am an advocate of free speech, and I think the only speech that should be banned is that which is explicitly threatening (such as, 'I will kill you') or that which calls for violence against others (such as, 'There is a holy reward coming for anyone who kills [insert name/race/religious affiliation/profession/etc here]'). However, I can understand why there are few who might seriously believe free speech rights are under attack from religious fundamentalists (ALL religious fundamentalists, btw; not just those who are muslim) worldwide if this delusional-sounding liar is the spokesperson for the issue. What little useful information and good points there are buried in The Infidel's Guide to Free Speech are couched in so much misleading framing and outright lies that they are useless to a reader who isn't very familiar with the topic of the book and the many examples used.
I would not recommend this book, except perhaps as an example of what writing from an alternate universe looks like (and, even then, I would insist that the person read my copy that has all my notes in the margins). The only reason I forced myself to finish it is so I could leave it the 1 star review that it rightly deserves, so hopefully at least a few others will be able to avoid wasting their time with this sad excuse for a book. If I could leave it 0 stars, I would. For those who are interested in learning more about free speech issues in the context of the 21st century and the value's struggle with resurgent religious fundamentalism, I suggest The Tyranny of Silence. It is written by Fleming Rose, now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who is probably most well known for commissioning the cartoons that became the epicenter of the 2006 cartoon crisis when he was the culture editor for the right-leaning danish paper Jyllands-Posten. The Tyranny of Silence is a well-written half memoir, half free speech manifesto that is both more coherent than The Infidel's Guide to Free Speech and actually based in fact.
I was familiar with a good chunk of the examples used, and it would be difficult if not impossible to account for the ways in which they are either presented misleadingly or outright wrong. For example, Spencer claims the US signed an accord at the direction of the OIC regarding blasphemy laws. While a lot of people were afraid the administration would agree to the accord, it didn't actually happen. A similar book that's actually about free speech - Fleming Rose's The Tyranny of Silence - acknowledges this, but Spencer tries to claim otherwise so the lie will bolster his argument. In another example, Spencer tries to claim that Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones got Milo Yiannopoulos banned from Twitter over some hurt feelings, which is distinctly NOT what happened. Yiannopoulos was banned because he ran a harassment campaign that resulted in in his hundreds of thousands of followers sending Jones torture, rape, and death threats. THAT is why his account was stripped of verified status and banned, not because someone complained about hurt feelings and Twitter felt like trampling over freedom of speech. This whole book is littered with similar examples, and unfortunately, the author's determination to create an alternate reality both in his books and the real world makes it hard to take any of his mostly false ranting seriously.
I am an advocate of free speech, and I think the only speech that should be banned is that which is explicitly threatening (such as, 'I will kill you') or that which calls for violence against others (such as, 'There is a holy reward coming for anyone who kills [insert name/race/religious affiliation/profession/etc here]'). However, I can understand why there are few who might seriously believe free speech rights are under attack from religious fundamentalists (ALL religious fundamentalists, btw; not just those who are muslim) worldwide if this delusional-sounding liar is the spokesperson for the issue. What little useful information and good points there are buried in The Infidel's Guide to Free Speech are couched in so much misleading framing and outright lies that they are useless to a reader who isn't very familiar with the topic of the book and the many examples used.
I would not recommend this book, except perhaps as an example of what writing from an alternate universe looks like (and, even then, I would insist that the person read my copy that has all my notes in the margins). The only reason I forced myself to finish it is so I could leave it the 1 star review that it rightly deserves, so hopefully at least a few others will be able to avoid wasting their time with this sad excuse for a book. If I could leave it 0 stars, I would. For those who are interested in learning more about free speech issues in the context of the 21st century and the value's struggle with resurgent religious fundamentalism, I suggest The Tyranny of Silence. It is written by Fleming Rose, now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who is probably most well known for commissioning the cartoons that became the epicenter of the 2006 cartoon crisis when he was the culture editor for the right-leaning danish paper Jyllands-Posten. The Tyranny of Silence is a well-written half memoir, half free speech manifesto that is both more coherent than The Infidel's Guide to Free Speech and actually based in fact.
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January 2, 2019Spencer Nails it yet Again
An urgent call to the West to defeat the dual totalitarian threats posed by the unholy alliance of Islam and the Left. Both need to be utterly crushed before it's too late.
Our leaders have to stand up and be counted. Free speech must be encouraged not suppressed.
An urgent call to the West to defeat the dual totalitarian threats posed by the unholy alliance of Islam and the Left. Both need to be utterly crushed before it's too late.
Our leaders have to stand up and be counted. Free speech must be encouraged not suppressed.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews