Keith Self Warns of ‘Political Islam’ in McKinney. Where Is the Evidence?

Opinion By R.J. Morales | TX3DNews

U.S. Rep. Keith Self says a serious threat is growing in North Texas.

He calls it “Political Islam.”

In an interview with Dallas Express host Sarah Zubiate Bennett, Self said Muslims are “commanded to take over whatever culture they’re in,” moving from “get accommodated” to an “intimidation phase” to “taking power at school board, at the city council, at the county commissioner’s court.” He said Muslim officials “are openly saying that we will change the White House and we will change Congress to be Muslim.”

Those aren’t vague warnings about religious extremism. They’re accusations about American government, and he points to McKinney as proof.

Enough with the generalities. Who in TX-03 is he talking about?

If Muslim elected officials in North Texas are secretly working to supplant the Constitution, identify them. If an organization is directing it, name it. If there’s evidence, show it. Being Muslim and winning an election isn’t evidence of infiltration.

He’s had the chance. Bennett cited research alleging ties between a Sharia-finance network and McKinney Islamic Association leadership, and asked whether he’d laid them out when he spoke to the council.

He hadn’t.

“No,” Self said. “I had two minutes … I tried to go through history.”

Two minutes doesn’t excuse skipping the evidence.

An investigation isn’t a conviction

Self has also pointed to a North Texas Islamic arbitration group he says operates as a judiciary “alongside” American law. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating whether the tribunal improperly held itself out as a court.

But Paxton’s office says it’s seeking evidence to determine whether illegal activity occurred. That’s an investigation, not proof Sharia has replaced Texas law.

Self says some Muslims want Sharia contracts to take precedence over U.S. law. Where has that happened? Show the court cas Show the ruling.

The same demand applies to how he describes Sharia generally. At the Aug. 4 McKinney City Council meeting, Self said child marriage, honor killings, wife beating and polygamy are condoned under what he calls “Sharia political Islam,” and that the penalty for leaving it “is death.” None of it has been tied to the McKinney Islamic Association.

A congressman leveling accusations this serious should back them up.

Stop using Britain’s rape victims to make a case about McKinney

Self’s rhetoric becomes troubling when he invokes Britain’s grooming-gang scandals to warn North Texans about Islam.

The crimes were horrific. Children were raped, exploited and failed by authorities who should have protected them. Nobody should minimize what happened.

Self goes further. In that interview, he said at least “250,000” girls in Britain were abducted off the street and “passed around” among “the gang members … like chattel, like property.” He said rape was “a symbol of the dominance” Muslims “intend to exercise over the British populace,” and that Britain is “already” being turned into “an Islamic state.”

He made the same claim at the Aug. 4 city council meeting. No documented national count supports it. Britain’s own audit found serious data problems and said the full scale of the abuse couldn’t reliably be determined.

But he’s never connected any of it to McKinney. Self hasn’t named a single victim, arrest or case in TX-03 resembling what happened in Britain, and hasn’t tied the Islamic Association or any Muslim to any of it.

What do raped children in England establish about Muslims in McKinney? Nothing that Self has shown.

Self needs to explain what he wants constituents to conclude about the Muslims living among them.

These are our neighbors

The Muslims being discussed aren’t characters in a political argument. They’re neighbors who own businesses, send kids to local schools and vote.

Self has also worked to make sure nothing they say can count as a defense. In a radio interview, he called taqiyya a license for Muslims to “lie to us to further the cause of political Islam.” Scholars and local Muslims dispute that: taqiyya means concealing faith under persecution, not deceiving about politics. In Self’s telling, any Muslim who denies the accusations can be waved off as lying.

Dr. Taha Ansari denied them anyway, at a McKinney City Council meeting. “Sharia is not a secret political conspiracy, and it’s not going to replace the Constitution,” Ansari said. “Muslims are Americans. They are subject to the same Constitution and laws as everyone else.”

If Self believes Ansari is lying, he should say so. Otherwise: name the people, identify the organizations, produce evidence linking local Muslims to what he’s warning about.

Someone needs to ask the follow-up

Bennett never pushed back. She called his perspective “clear,” “balanced” and “factual” right after he described Britain’s rape gangs. She never asked where the 250,000 figure came from, which officials are part of the “taking power” strategy, or what any of it has to do with Muslims in McKinney.

Those are questions a member of Congress should have to answer.

Self has also declined to debate his Democratic challenger, Evan Hunt, and has not responded to TX3DNews’s requests for comment on his Sharia claims.

This isn’t about silencing Keith Self. He has every right to warn Americans about radical Islam. But the public has an equal right to demand evidence before those warnings become accusations against their neighbors.

If Self has that evidence, publish it. If he knows who is infiltrating TX-03, name them. If he can connect Britain’s crimes to a threat in McKinney, establish it.

But don’t use raped children in another country to frighten people about their neighbors and leave the evidence blank.