Re I don't

Then my statement stands. Someone once said,"How were we to know they'd turn airplanes into missiles?"

-- ondelette

I'm a frying pantheist.

Then my statement stands. Someone once said,"How were we to know they'd turn airplanes into missiles?"

I see. And how do you distinguish Shinto from Nichiren Buddhist again?

I'm a Unitarian.

It's about the religion of peace and its campaign for tolerance and understanding here in the States. Enjoy.

-- Golden Boy

Blow it out your ass. Any irregular and imperfect mortal can pervert and manipulate the "revealed word of any supreme being or prophet" (cough, bullshit, cough). Heretics from the enlightenment, apostates from reason. That's why Thomas Jefferson and most of the founders were Deists. Bring the age of reason and the enlightenment back. The difference between us and them is that we don't burn them at the stake or stone them to death. OTOH, if they hole up in a compound with lots of guns and molest kids or break other laws, you might get "coerced" out. Do the "righteous" thing and let the kids out first. If you don't, it's because you are a cowardly little shit. The law is the law, right? God didn't make the law. Man made the law and no man is above the law. If you hide behind women and children, you deserve to die. That includes Christians, Muslims, Libertarians, Scientologists and Pastafarians. You don't like the state and its laws, buy an island and make your own damn laws. See how long that lasts.

I see. And how do you distinguish Shinto from Nichiren Buddhist again?

I think you've let yourself be worked into an unwarranted lather by getting a very unrepresentative view of Islam from those you talked to. If you'd stumbled onto the ones I know first you might have saved yourself alot of worry.

You heard her. All you neocons and loyal Bushies: OUT!

If you are speaking of those who are already citizens, can't do that. I'm addressing the criteria by which we permit immigrants to become citizens or to be legal residents. Nobody is entitled to that. I'm very pro-immigration, but not by people who are diametrically opposed to our core (read, BoR) political values, and especially if they have been associated with violent groups.

True enough. I think the problems that Europe faces are probably more along the lines of what you see anywhere you have different cultures trying to live together where the one is much better off than another. We're more likely to see the violence of the kind we saw in France where the unemployed kids finally felt disenfranchised enough to start burning cars and generally terrorizing the 'hood than we are to see them join Osama. But as long as the economic fortunes of so many Mulsim immigrants remains so dismal, the chances for recruitment by Muslim extremists are vastly improved. And it is important to take a strong stand against those extremist, who would like to keep their women quiet and gays stoned. They give our worst bigots a real run for the money. The package deal gives some of my european friends real concerns.

I wouldn't suggest codifying norms, as I think that when folks are all able to prosper, they manage to accomodate each others values quite easily, but i do think they're going to neeed to do some real work to make that happen. I have a feeling that if Europeans don't do some smart assimilating, things could get ugly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Enlightenment

Retrogade motion is the new _____________.

We do not owe citizenship to those who do not accept our fundamental political order and its liberties, and especially if they have known associations with violent groups. -- Mona

And if President Bush leaves the country, does this mean we shouldn't let him back in?

Mona... To become naturalized, would-be citizens must pass a civics exam and swear fidelity to the Constitution. Anyone who would do that cynically, as a background check would possibly indicate, need not apply.

Would-be drivers take a test... Arggh! Nevermind. Most of them are immigrants! From Iowa! All straight lines.

Yes, anyone who is overtly hostile to the Bill of Rights and associated with violent organizations that are also hostile to it, has no right to become U.S. citizens.

You heard her. All you neocons and loyal Bushies: OUT!

That should read, "apologizing for Islam", of course.

Oh, and here is something you folks may enjoy reading:

http://www.charlotte.com/nation/story/235266.html

It's about the religion of peace and its campaign for tolerance and understanding here in the States. Enjoy.

This piece is actually interesting because Greenwald doesn't carp on Bush, for once. He is speaking through a third person account but is actually speaking for himself, and he will not come out and admit it. The quote from the article frames the issue clearly and unambiguously:

"I call on my friends on the Left –- straight or gay -– to help defend that real source of liberalism the Enlightenment, because if we lose and fall under religious law, there not only will be no gay marriage, there will be no women's rights, no freedom of the press, no basic human rights, not even – as in the case of Iran – any music."

What Greenwald is sort of saying is that if one "reads between the lines" there is merit to the conservative view that Islamofascism is (1) toxic to liberalism (2) is spreading faster than most of us think and (3) what will the next (likely Democratic) president do about it?

These revelations are not exactly the talking points of a John Edwards, or even HRC, so as not to give any more prominence to the GWOT. The official Dems position on the GWOT is that it is an imaginary wedge issue contrived by the Repugs to steal elections.

It is a difficult position for a leftist like Greenwald to contemplate because he knows intellectually that once the Dems takes power, he or she will have to deal forcefully with al-Qaida and their Islamofascists allies and lefty secular pacifists like Greenwald will have to get real, for once.