-
The Incredible Shrinking Monsieur Hollande
May 7, 2013 | 11 comments
-
Islam and the Closing of the Secular Mind
September 19, 2012 | 97 comments
-
A Book That Changed Reality
August 15, 2012 | 5 comments
-
The Prophet of Europe’s Crisis
July 2, 2012 | 9 comments
-
Why Austerity Isn’t Enough
June 8, 2012 | 26 comments
A Further Perspective
The Arab Spring’s Forgotten Freedom
The Islamic world continues to suffer from one particularly severe blind spot when it comes to human liberty.
For at least one group of Middle-Easterners, the Arab Spring is turning out to be a decidedly wintery affair. And if confirmation was ever needed, just consider the escalation of naked violence against Christians throughout the region. The recent instance of Egyptian army vehicles crushing and killing Coptic Christians protesting against a church burning was merely one of numerous incidents that must make Middle-Eastern Christians wonder about their future under the emerging new regimes.
Syrian Christians, for instance, are regularly taunted and harassed because of their hesitations about joining the anti-Assad uprising (as if the choice between Bashar al-Assad and the Muslim Brotherhood is a simple one). Then there are the ongoing brutal attacks on Iraqi Christians: so much so that two-thirds of Iraq’s pre-2003 Christian population has fled the country.
More broadly, these trends appear to confirm that despite all the current freedom-and-democracy talk, much of the Islamic world continues to suffer from one particularly severe blind spot when it comes to human liberty. And that concerns the acceptance and protection of authentic religious freedom.
In 1900, about one in every five Middle-Easterners was Christian. Over the past century, that figure has shrunk dramatically. In 1948, for example, Bethlehem was 85 per cent Christian. Today it’s less than 12 per cent. Since 1970, Jordan and Syria’s Christian populations have halved.
In some cases, the shrinkage of Christians primarily flowed from nationalist animus against particular ethnic groups. This largely explains, for instance, the expulsion of Greek Christians from post-World War I Turkey. Other Middle-East Christians left because they realized the limited scope for their seemingly genetically-ingrained entrepreneurial skills inside the socialist-corporatist economies established by nationalist caudillos such as Atatürk and Nasser.
Nonetheless, it’s also true that despite many Middle-Eastern governments’ long-standing formal commitments to religious liberty, their willingness to protect non-Muslims’ religious freedom has always been limited. This ranges from acquiescing in the use of bureaucratic regulations to inhibit 2,000-year-old Christian communities from repairing their churches, failures to stop Christian women from being cajoled into marrying Muslims, ignoring cases of forced conversions, to a barely-disguised reluctance to stop anti-Christian violence.
One suspects this owes something to politicians seeking to appease or co-opt hard-line Muslim sentiment within these societies. But there’s surely no question that the general Islamic view of religious liberty is part of the problem. Certainly there are variations of Islamic thought about this issue. Nevertheless, Islam has a long history of unreasonably restricting the religious liberty of non-Muslims in Muslim-dominated societies.
Of course, other religions have imposed and enforced analogous restrictions at different times. But Islam confronts two specific dilemmas that raise questions about its ability to accept a robust conception of religious liberty.
First, from its very beginning, Islam was intimately associated with political power. That’s one reason why there is no church-state distinction in Islam that limits (at least theoretically) the state’s capacity to coerce religious belief or unreasonably inhibit religious-shaped choices.
Second, since approximately the 13th century, the dominant theological understanding of God’s nature within Islam has been one of Voluntas (Divine Will) rather than Logos (Divine Reason). And this matters because if you believe in a God that can, on a mere whim, act unreasonably, then it isn’t so problematic for such a Divinity’s adherents to engage in plainly unreasonable practices such as killing apostates.
If, however, God is Logos, the case for religious liberty is much easier to make insofar as a reasonable God would never demand compulsion in religion. Why? Because as St. Augustine wrote long ago, “If there is no assent, there is no faith, for without assent one does not really believe.”
In recent years, we’ve seen some pious Muslims emerge who understand that Islam must wrestle with these deeper theological questions if it is accommodate itself to life in free societies. That’s a central message of a new book, Islam Without Extremes, authored by the Turkish Muslim journalist Mustafa Akyol. The same message underlies Akyol’s courageous condemnation of the recent death sentence meted out to Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani by an Iranian court because of this ex-Muslim’s choice to embrace Christianity.
Akyol, incidentally, is no religious relativist or covert-secularist. He firmly believes in Islam’s truth-claims. But he also recognizes that the integrity of one’s faith depends upon one’s free assent to that religion.
Unfortunately, Akyol is presently a minority voice within Islam. But perhaps even more disturbing is how little much of the West understands the importance of addressing such theological matters if robust religious liberty protections are to be secured in Islamic countries.
European religious figures such as Benedict XVI and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow have regularly condemned anti-Christian violence throughout the Middle East. The comparative silence, however, from most secular Western intellectuals and governments is deafening and, frankly, disgraceful.
This may reflect the latent Christophobia often encountered in these circles. But it’s probably more indicative of that intellectually lazy, historically ignorant modern tendency to treat all religions as the same, to regard all religious traditions as infinitely adaptable sociological phenomena, and, in some cases, to imagine that religion will just “go away” once the unenlightened masses grasp that the universe just somehow spontaneously evolved out of nothingness.
But in the end, non-Muslims can’t resolve Islam’s religious liberty challenge. Only theologically educated, historically informed and believing Muslims can do that. In the meantime, those reading the Arab Spring as a uniformly-positive event might like to consider that it appears to be doing little to secure the freedom, if not the very existence, of ancient Christian churches, many of which were founded by people who in all likelihood knew Christ or his first disciples. The loss of such a civilizational and religious heritage would be immeasurable — and not just for Christianity, but for the future of liberty within the Islamic world itself.
About the Author
Samuel Gregg is Research Director at the Acton Institute. He has authored several books including On Ordered Liberty, his prize-winning The Commercial Society, Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy, and, most recently, Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and America’s Future.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (45) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Samuel Gregg
More Articles From A Further Perspective
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/10/14/the-arab-springs-forgotten-fre
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Harry Hunter| 10.14.11 @ 6:28AM
Who will help the Copts?
Herb| 10.14.11 @ 7:01AM
Short answer: nobody.
Just as nobody will help the Melkites, Chaldeans, Assyrians or any Christian minority named for pre-Arab pre-Muslim ancestors (just like the Copts are said to be the only true Pharaonic Egyptians).
Israel has gathered in Jewish refugees from horrific Islamic despotic states. America should do the same for Christian refugees. That may be the only real help to be offered.
Bob K.| 10.14.11 @ 7:39AM
Where did we ever get the idea that Democracy was inseparable from Freedom?
Our mindless foreign policy of following Woodrow Wilson's foolish idea "To make the world safe for democracy" has helped to bring these brutalities about!
Mike D.| 10.14.11 @ 8:16AM
Nobody, their only Christians, they are expendable and not politically correct. God help them.
Occam's Tool| 10.14.11 @ 12:59PM
I seem to recall one despicable clown here arguing that the Arab Spring in Egypt was going to be "secular." Ha.
Clint, take a bow, you Paulbot vermin.
Mike D.| 10.14.11 @ 2:31PM
Anybody with any brains new exactly where this was going and how it was going to end. Christians are the easiest targets in these countries and nobody stands to defend them, thats sad. Its only Christians and Jews, Muslims and Communists favorite expendable targets.
Clint| 10.15.11 @ 11:38AM
You're A Serial Slandering Liar Screwball Israel Firster Neo-Chickenhawk Traitor Bastard , Tool Job.
I Agree With Our tea Party Co-Favorite Presidential Candidate Dr.Ron Paul.
Dr.Ron Paul,
“As the President prepares to send even more support to Egypt, we should
be reminded that it was our foreign aid that helped Mubarak retain power
to repress his people in the first place. Now we have to deal with the
consequences of those decisions, yet we keep repeating the same mistakes.
“I am not the only one who can see the absurdities of our foreign
policy. We give $3 billion to Israel and $12 billion to her enemies.
Most Americans know that makes no sense.
“We need to come to our senses, trade with our friends in the Middle
East (both Arab and Israeli), clean up our own economic mess so we set a
good example, and allow them to work out their own conflicts.”
The Tea Party Rebellion Steps On Tool Job's Face.
Mike D.| 10.15.11 @ 12:50PM
Damn Dave, I Liked Being A Rodent. (Did you catch that all caps spelling?)
Clint| 10.16.11 @ 10:52AM
ObamaBoy Israel Firster Brooks Is In The Building, Poseur Punk Posting Again.
Get Bent Rodent.
Mike D.| 10.16.11 @ 7:37PM
Dave Hitler Jr. Looks like your boys have joined up with the protesting scum.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.co.....-movement/
"And dreams of stars of david danced in their heads"
Nighty night, sugarplum. My work is almost done here, but things are in the works.
Anonymous| 10.14.11 @ 7:34AM
Well... I think the dominant understanding of God within Christianity also holds that he can do whatever he wants. So... that whole Voluntas/Logos thing seems more like an opportunity to show off your Latin than anything else. More importantly, your case for fairness toward a particular religious group is not at all strengthened by your obvious unfairness toward a different one.
Brian Mc| 10.14.11 @ 8:09AM
Frankly, Anon, I will not be 'fair' to the intolerant and am offended by a 'book' that finds my personal pilgrimage offensive. I choose not to submit. I hope I made that 'obvious'.
TrueBlue| 10.14.11 @ 1:20PM
The Truth is neither fair nor unfair. The Truth just IS. Fact will always remain fact (that's why it's so important to distinguish theory from fact, like with Evolution). Facts and Logic will always anger the so-called intellectuals because they can do nothing but scream in rage in response to being proven wrong time and time again.
The FACT is that Islam is an intolerant religion that consistently forces others to convert, either by oppression or outright slaughter, far more often than it actually acquires true converts. The religion does not allow for free thought, the word of their religious leaders is absolute and anything said against them results in that person's censure at the very least.
It has always amused me how people try to say that the parts in the Qu'ran that specifically mention killing of the unbelievers is taken out of context when there are far more parts of that book that show how unpeaceful Islam is than vice versa. The whole "religion of peace" bit is what is taken out of context, not the other way around.
If that offends you... I'd say I was sorry, but I'd be lying. If the truth offends you then you have other problems, and myself and others like me are the least of them.
Margie| 10.14.11 @ 1:32PM
And.. the Truth is ALWAYS your friend!
Jn. 14:6.
PJ| 10.15.11 @ 5:27PM
Anonymous,
"I think the dominant understanding of God within Christianity also holds that he can do whatever he wants." ----->Wrong!
God is pure love. He is incapable of doing anything that is evil. To say otherwise is showing your ignorance of a Judeo-Christian belief.
cicero| 10.14.11 @ 10:42AM
Trying to reconcile Islan with modernity is like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. I can think of no country or culture that has adopted Islam voluntarily. Conversion has always been by conquest.
Since its inception, Islam has denied equal rights to non-believers, and has never practiced toleralnce. Only contervailing force has allowed non-believers to exist in an Islamic society without overt persecution.
I am all for inviting the persecuted Jews and Christians into the U.S., but would sugest that we first stop importing the Islamists, and maybe send home those that preach destruction to the Great Satan.
Drogo| 10.14.11 @ 12:12PM
I think it extremely irresponsible to suggest that Islam is potentially reconcilable with reason, religious freedom and democracy. For all its potential, this reconciliation has not occurred over the 1400 years since Islam first burst out of the Arabian desert to ravage the Mediterranean and Persian worlds. The reason it has not occurred is because the religion practiced and preached by Mohammed and his disciples, by his immediate successors, and set forth in the Koran, the Hadith, and their other writings, is simply more consistent with God conceived of primarily as omnipotent Will than God conceived of primarily as omniscient Reason. (No Latin used here, Anonymous. Can you follow?) The efforts of the handful of Muslim philosophers to reorient Islam toward Truth as opposed to Will have failed, not because Islam has been hijacked or perverted, but because the religion has actually been faithful to its own religious tenets and "philosophical" tendencies. Those who have tried to change it have met with widespread, consistent and fierce resistance and, for their efforts, they have suffered marginalization, ostracism, persecution and death. What happens consistently over 1400 years is no accident.
So, is it possible that Islam will suddenly turn itself around and become the "religion of peace" our leaders want it to be? Sure, it's "possible." But it's possible in the same way that it's possible that the oxygen atoms in the room where I'm sitting right now might just wander off toward the wall on my left all at the same time, leaving me gasping for air. It's possible, but it's not going to happen. And anyone who bets that it will happen is a sucker.
By seriously entertaining the possibility that there could be an unprecedented sea-change in Islam's self-conception, by basing our hopes and our policies upon it, we are making exactly that sucker's bet and leaving ourselves open to mortal danger. The question is not what Islam might become; the question is what Islam is right now, this year, next year. Because within that time, Iran will explode a nuclear bomb.
nathan| 10.14.11 @ 1:14PM
First can conservatives quit using the term "democracy" please? The form of government that the Founders universally condemned and that Madison called the "vilest on earth"? Words matter and "democracy" and "freedom" are not synonyms. Thank you all.
We need some perspective here. Christianity had it's "convert or die" moments too. Anyone remember the Inquisition? At one point Jews were by far safer in muslim areas than they were in many Christian areas. Please recall that it was at least people calling themselves "Christians" who built Auschwitz, not muslims and that the Catholic doctrine of deicide made it easier for many French to herd those Jews onto the cattle cars they knew would take them to Auschwitz. When Madison wrote the First Amendment regarding freedom of religion he wrote it in the context of Puritanistan where the charming Puritans of Boston used to execute anyone who came up and dared preach anything different than they did.
So in a sense what we see in islam today is not dissimilar from our past. Let's not be too holier than thou here. Our own history as Christians doesn't justify it. Just as it took several hundred years of reformation to get Christians away from things like the Inquistion (deicide used to abuse Jews didn't cease to be official Catholic doctrine until after the war) it's probably going to take awhile for islam to have its reformation which we see starting now in places like Alexandria and elsewhere.
In the meantime while I am totally opposed to the neocon let's go out and bring democracy go the natives at the point of gun which isn't much different than islam's convert or die doctrine, there are probably things we can do to defend ourselves and at the same time encourage the reformation at a distance. Do I believe it will happen? Yes. Afterall the Inquisition ended didn't it?
TrueBlue| 10.14.11 @ 1:23PM
Democracy is mob rule, where the majority can take from others just by voting for it to be so. We live in a Republic... or at least, we used to. It's getting closer and closer to a Democracy by the day.
Brian Mc| 10.14.11 @ 6:09PM
Thanks to the sixteenth and seventeenth, T.B.
Brian Mc| 10.14.11 @ 6:13PM
If I killed a Jew, I could not point to a single passage in the New Testament and declare, "See, the Bible tells me so..."
Occam's Tool| 10.14.11 @ 1:27PM
My condolences to the Ron Paul supporters on this website, over the death of another Paul supporter:
"Premature detonation syndrome strikes again.
(AFP) — A Palestinian militant was killed in northern Gaza near the border with Israel on Monday, the DFLP group and medics said, in circumstances disputed by the Israeli army.
Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesperson for Gaza’s emergency services, said a man had been killed by Israeli tank fire but his body was so badly disfigured that medics were not immediately able to identify him.
The Israeli military denied any involvement in the incident, saying the man had been killed when an explosive device he was trying to plant went off prematurely — in what it referred to as a “work accident.”
“The army had nothing to do with it. Initial information indicates two suspects were handling an explosive device which killed one of them,” a spokesperson told AFP."
nathan| 10.14.11 @ 2:28PM
As opposed to the Israeli army going in and destroying the homes of Palestinians accused of no crimes, convicted of nothing, winning in Israeli courts and being told, as the Cherokees did when they were expelled from their lands in the east by Andrew Jackson, that Marshall has made his decision now enforce it? So that their lands, in some cases held by them for centuries can be handed over to settlers who have no legal/moral/ethical right to those lands?
Sir, if you were one of these law abiding Palestinians, guilty of absolutely nothing, deprived of your rights, told by the Israeli government that redress in the courts is of no consequence, having been reduced as TJ phrased it to a state of despotism, how would you respond? These Palestinians, and we're not talking about the jihadists here, just farmers, businessmen, nobodies, who have unalienable rights which they are being deprived of, how should they answer Patrick Henry's question: Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? How would you sir advise them to respond?
Because on the west bank at the hands of that one true "democracy" in the middle east, our one true "ally", it happens every week. People who have committed no crimes, done no one any harm, blown up no buildings, strapped on no suicide belts, have no family members have done so, these people are deprived of their rights all the time time. You sir raised on the wisdom of the Founders, advise them on a course of action since the Israeli govenment ignores ruling in the courts in their favor.
Jim| 10.14.11 @ 4:06PM
You are one sicko to equate American supporters of Ron Paul with terrorrists. Does it make you feel good this Palestinian was killed?
Clint| 10.15.11 @ 11:50AM
Uh Oh !
Screwball Israel Firster Fanatic Neo-Chickenhawk Tool Job Gnawed His Way Out Of His StraitJacket.
Dr.Ron Paul,
“Our military’s purpose is to defend our country, not to police the
Middle East.
“As the President prepares to send even more support to Egypt, we should
be reminded that it was our foreign aid that helped Mubarak retain power
to repress his people in the first place. Now we have to deal with the
consequences of those decisions, yet we keep repeating the same mistakes.
“I am not the only one who can see the absurdities of our foreign
policy. We give $3 billion to Israel and $12 billion to her enemies.
Most Americans know that makes no sense.
“We need to come to our senses, trade with our friends in the Middle
East (both Arab and Israeli), clean up our own economic mess so we set a
good example, and allow them to work out their own conflicts."
The Tea Party Rebellion Is Here.
Skippy| 10.14.11 @ 2:49PM
I'll wager that if all the poor mistreated Arabs huddled in their self-imposed camps were to go a whole year without a single bus bombing or random missle launch, that their Israeli hosts would be a lot more willing to extend basic rights to them.
If not, it's almost time to turn the camps into artillery firing ranges.
nathan| 10.14.11 @ 3:54PM
Does anyone here really understand the unalienable rights doctrine? Or individual rights in general? @Skippy: My rights, or anybody rights are not, repeat not dependent on what the person next door does. They are dependent only on what actions I and I alone take. Israel cannot take away the rights of someone who has not been charged or convicted of a crime. Why is that so hard to understand. That means if I have a home on the west bank, a farm on the west bank, and I am not involved in any terrorist activities that the Israelies can prove, then they have no right to arbitrarily take my home and farm and give it to some settler who has no legal/moral/ethical right to it. Why is this so difficult to understand for those of us raised on the traditions of Jefferson, Madison, Washington and others?
Or is this a case of they're just filthy muslims who aren't entitled to rights? Just like in the old days when those Indians were just savages who didn't deserve any consideration either? Or the slaves? Tread carefully here folks. Again, to secure our own rights we have to defend the rights of those we hate. Tom Paine was right two hundred years ago, he's right today.
nick raslan| 10.14.11 @ 4:47PM
1) holding an entire people responsible for the acts of a few terrorists doesn't strike me as particularly fair, especially considering the LUDICROUSLY disproportionate military action that Israel doles out
2) why, LOGICALLY, would a native population accept the extension of "Basic rights" from an occupying force that has killed and disenfranchised millions of its people?
3) turning the Refugee camps into firing ranges? You're about 63 years too late on that.
4) in what way are refugee camps "self-imposed"?
5) One can't help but find irony in the fact that you posted this bigoted nonsense in response to an article pertaining to the heterodoxy of Christianity to the Middle East...
Mike D.| 10.14.11 @ 8:06PM
Heres a new one for you. How about a whole new paradime. How about acknowledging the right of Isreal to exist and see what happens. Is that been tried in 63 years? No, You know why? Because if any Arab or "Palestinian" leader ever went to that position he would be dead within 24 hours. Muslims love killing Muslims who aren't Muslim enough. Keep provoking Isreal and they will defend themselves. Heres what the PLO thinks of the concept of Palestinians:
on March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
While your at it read some about the Muslim nazi and father of Muslim terrorism:
http://tellthechildrenthetruth.com/amin_en.html
And after 63 years, nobody on the arab side will acknowledge the right of the state of Isreal to exist, I wonder why.
Mike D.| 10.14.11 @ 8:08PM
A few terrorists? Are you serious?
Rich Rostrom| 10.14.11 @ 6:38PM
"A few terrorists"? Israel just agreed to release over 1,000 of them for the release of kidnapped soldier Gil Shalit. There are thousands more at large in Gaza; the would-be murderers who shoot thousands of rockets into Israel - with the consent and support of their neighbors. Those same neighbors support Hamas, which is explicitly pledged to the destruction of Israel. They celebrate whenever terrorists kill Israelis.
"4) in what way are refugee camps "self-imposed"?"
During the 1948 war, about 450,000 Arabs were displaced from what became Israel. Most of these moved into refugee camps (along with other Arabs who thereby got on the UNRWA dole). They've refused to leave - insisting, after three generations, that they must only go "home". Even if they want to leave the camps, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza won't let them move out. And Abbas stated that the camp-dwellers would not be citizens of his new Palestinian state.
Thus the continuing residence of these Palestinian Arabs in refugee camps is a choice by them and the other Palestinians - not Israel.
FeralCat| 10.15.11 @ 3:26AM
"Then there are the ongoing brutal attacks on Iraqi Christians: so much so that two-thirds of Iraq's pre-2003 Christian population has fled the country."
I believe this is called "ethnic cleansing". This is what "Nation Building" in Iraq has done. I wonder what kind of a nation would do that kind of "Nation Building". Must be some Muslim nation.
Margie| 10.16.11 @ 1:58PM
Blame America First lives and reigns here at Amspec with all the Paul-bots.
Sick.
jan| 10.15.11 @ 1:18PM
What do you call people who adore the pedophile mohammed , who married Aisha at age 6 and raped her when she was age 9??
Skadi| 10.15.11 @ 1:20PM
Oh come on. All of you are making it way too complicated.
Sarah Palin spoke on the Arab Spring in South Korea a few days ago. It's just a Facebook thing.
She said she always carries her IPad and gets her news from many different sources, not just one.
That's all it is. Got a question? Quit listening to the so-called experts and just listen to Sarah Palin.
Oh, and by the way, she's gonna be the United States' ambassador and senior diplomat, whether anyone likes it or not. That's what she's here for and that's what's gonna happen.
Richard Baker| 10.15.11 @ 7:48PM
Islam is a warrior code similar to Bushido. Since the word Islam means submission and the Koran speaks endlessly of submitting to Islam or being killed, where exactly is the path to compromise with such a "religion?" A far cry from Jesus saying that "my yoke is easy and my burden light."
Look Margie, a Catholic knows Scripture. Ain't it amazing?
Margie| 10.16.11 @ 2:01PM
Richard, you hypocrite!
Why... how DARE you be such a bigot and take a stand on the truth concerning another "Religion!"
Just WHO do you think you are?
God?
Margie| 10.16.11 @ 5:29PM
p.s. Richard the hypocrite,
Aren't Muslims permitted into the cult of Free Masonry, to which you belong?
susan| 10.15.11 @ 10:08PM
I live in nowhere Montana. I am not a politician. I simply try to stay informed. Even I knew this was coming. Anyone in Washington, with access to the kind of intelligence that is available to those in Congress, who claims to be surprised by these events should be ashamed of himself.
POST American| 10.15.11 @ 11:19PM
"Observe, whenever they move into
these places, using 'rebel leaders' with
Oxford (ie Globalist) accents. Once in,
the first thing they do is set up MASS
injection operations (ie sterilants/
dumb down and cancers) ---and also
DEMAND all agriculture come under the
GMO seed supplies from Monsanto.
These are sterile seeds which produce
no further generation of seeds so next
season you're back buying them from
Monsanto. NOT incidentally, these
GM crops have been found to create
TOTAL sterility by the second and third
generatio by those who eat them---"
-ALAN WATT
(superb coverage of the CON online)
-----------HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012---------
asdf| 10.15.11 @ 11:49PM
We can solve the immigration dilemma from Islamic majority countries by stopping immigration from countries with Islamist regimes who suppress other religions and practise religious apartheid. This is an ideological struggle at the end of the day. If South Africa can be punished by sanctions for practicing racial apartheid and eastern europe and russia for practising a communist agenda, We SHOULD most certainly STOP all regular immigration from Islamist regime countries.
nathan| 10.17.11 @ 9:29AM
All? Conceded that immigration is a priviledge not a right but if an American citizen marries someone from a country with an islamist regime, you would say on that basis alone that the spouse of the American citizen would not be allowed into the country even if there was no evidence whatsoever linking that person to any terrorism? What about children of American citizens from such countries? What stop them too?
Look closely at American immigration law. It's mostly family based. What you are proposing in this case is that if say an American citizen wishes to bring his elderly parents from such a country you would block that too?
Or how about this scenario? Not all people who live in these countries are muslims. Some are Christians, some are Hindus, some are bahais, and other religions. Would you block them from migrating here (assuming they meet all other requirements), even though they are not muslim and have no say in the actions of the countries they live in.
My point is we again treat people as individuals. We as Americans do not accept collective guilt/responsibility. I mean didn't the relocation of the Japanese to interment camps in WWII teach us anything. As we celebrate the MLK memorial we need to remind ourselves again, "content of character" and the fact that someone calls themselves a muslim tells us nothing. Just as the fact that General Sharon surrounding those two refugee camps outside Beirut and allowing the Christian militia to enter them and massacre hundreds of women and children doesn't make all Israelis human rights abusers. (Although Israel did elect him prime minister later. Just as they did Menachim Begin, a member of the Irgun which blew up the King David Hotel. Israel has a bad habit of electing terrorists or human rights abusers to the highest office in the land.)
Again we judge people individually not collectively.
Richard Baker| 10.17.11 @ 6:21AM
Margier:
You do keep stepping in it, don't you?
Richard Baker| 10.17.11 @ 6:22AM
Margie:
Sorry. Misspelled your name. By the way, shrillness unbecomes you.