You're right; anyone who holds a different opinion is wrong; my thinking has no merit at all - it is "dead-end".

How is that not a lecture?

You sound to me just like a guy I talk with every now-and-then. He's a devout Communist, but the idealogy is unimportant. What is important is that every time I see him the first thing he says is "Have we reached a consensus yet?" I have to remind him that I'm not blind to the fact that he's not really interested a consensus. What he's really asking is "Have you come around to my way of thinking yet?"

You're the same. There is no question but that you are right, and anybody who disagrees is wrong, and needs to be taught the truth. So yes, you do lecture.



And another interminable tribute to the greatest man who ever lived.


And of course all this came about because I support the legal right of someone to erect a building.

Lecturing again. I don't think you mean to make us total slaves. What I do think is that your mindset will lead to exactly that, and you don't see it. That is what makes you dangerous to my mindset.

Your idea of what I said, not what I actually ever said. I allow that they must be allowed to speak, and to build. I allow that the law must not be changed specifically for them, but that they must be watched closely, as should all who would take away freedom. What you don't see is that to my mind that applies to you as well.

You have consistently railed against my thinking and lectured me on how wrong I am. What you have not done once is defend yourself against my accusation that you are as bad as them. I don't see you as any different. Show me that I'm wrong on that.


And you apparently fail to see that every dictator, every tyrant who has betrayed, destroyed and crushed people has at some point said exactly the same thing: "It's only a little freedom." "It's only for someone else, not you." "I'm doing it for your own good."

Do you start to see it now? Can you show me that I'm wrong on this one? Can you show me that you are not a danger to everything I believe in?

Sorry to disappoint you but we Muslims don't get easily offended over such things that you describe. I don't have a problem sitting next to my mate while he enjoys his bacon butty roll. The local mosque and halal butcher seems to get by and exist happily next to the Chinese restaurant. Have you ever been to a Chineese restaurant that doesn't have pork on the menu? Jews and Muslims have heard it all before over the centuries regarding pork. It's old news. :zzz: Now do you have anything contructive to add to the debate? If not then your post borders on spam if you will pardon the pun. :spammm:

I'm glad you can speak for all the 1.6 billion muslims out there.......

I've never spoken for all, just those I know in the community in addition to myself of course. :)

Moved into a house with a few colleagues last week, one of whom is Muslim. I stuck my head around the door on the second day.

"Making lunch if you want any, mate."

"Ah, Ramadan?"

"....oh"

"aaaand, it looks like you're making bacon sandwiches"

".....ah"

He wasn't offended or anything, and we had a good laugh about it. But lord I felt stupid.

You shouldnt feel stupid, he should:arrgh!: Will never get the guilt some people get over things like that.

Sigh. :dead:

As long as you cannot show wrong the reason and sane argument in the statement in my sig, it is impossible for me to take you serious, and I have nothing more to say to you on this. Either you get it, or you do not get it.

I short-quoted the title of the book by Popper in the past. The title is not "The Open Society". The title is "The Open Society And Its Enemies." You may want to meditate a bit on why that is so.

But honestly said - one does not need to read a book to understand that tolerating the intolerant necessarily leads to the destruction of the tolerant. even little kids at elementary school already form an understanding of this.

And you still haven't shown how you're going to accomplish this tightrope walk without destroying everything you claim to be protecting.

You want to take something I said in the old 'Gay Marriage' thread - "You either have freedom or you don't", and claim I feel that way about everything. Can you tell me how many times I've said things like "I go into every discussion assuming I might be wrong", "I don't know anything", "Nothing is ever black and white" and "Nothing is absolute"? No, you pick that one out of a crowd just so you could attack one statement.

The fact is that everything needs a starting point. When I say something like "All taxation is evil", it's a starting point, not a final answer. Same with my comment on freedom. How many times have I said in this discussion that I recognize that everything has limitations, including freedom? Yet you keep coming back to the same lecture - that I don't understand, and need you to save me.

I know that the radical Islamists are dangerous. Here in America we lock up people for what they do, not for what they say.

You still haven't explained why I shouldn't be frightened of you. You still haven't explained why they shouldn't be allowed to build a building. You still haven't explained why I shouldn't see you as the enemy of freedom just as much as they are. Mostly what you have done is preach.

Sigh loudly all you want. You like to lecture, you like to be right, and you like to talk down to people, and you like to tell my how stupid I am over one thing I said while ignoring everything else I've ever said as well.

Where's Murphysville ? didn't catch the state apparently they don't want one built there either. http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/sto...8301&catid=175

thats sad. Thats something that would happen in Iran if you tried to build a church. This is the U.S.A where we should be better than that.

It's in Tennessee. The site of the new mosque is about a mile and a half from the site of a mosque that has existed for decades...

:nope:

Let this lurker be a third-party
 

By setting limited objectives. Despite the sometimes slippery slope nature of this, Western society play this "tightrope walk" all the time. For example, in Germany, public denial of the Holocaust is IIRC a crime. That will actually of course be a crimping of freedom of speech. But it doesn't necessarily destroy the rest of free speech in Germany.

Let me try an analogy. I'm not too familiar with the finer points of American law, but I suppose that considering all the freedom of speech and religion provisions, it would be legal for a certain major TV-station to allocate say 4-hours of prime time to radical Islam propaganda. Of course, it'll be just as legal not to allot them the time.

Now, given that the above is indeed legal, do you think that this is all hunky-dory?

IMO, it is one thing to not arrest a radical, be it a Islamist, Creationist, Communist or whatever as soon as he opens his big mouth. But a society can rightly choose not to give them the bright part of day, to allocate them less than prime-cuts of land, to make them put their propaganda in the relative recess of the Internet rather than on national TV, without necessarily harming freedom of speech.

I believe that Germany is far over the line in making things like that a crime. To me it shows the same exact lock-step mindset that created those things in the first place.

But that's just my opinion, and since I don't live there it's none of my business.

Absolutely. Just as the courts approved right of modern Neo-Nazis to hold a rally in a predominately Jewish neighborhood, this would engender contoversy and open discussion. And it would ruin the station's reputation, which is why none of them would ever do it in the first place.

And in my opinion it's just the opposite. Society can choose not to watch, but if a station is stupid enough to air somebody's racist crap, that's their problem. And it will be a problem, because most people aren't as stupid as some like to think.

Freedom of (political) speech in the US is absolute as long as you are not suborning a crime. It's the 1st Amendment. Ditto religion, though the "establishment clause" can certainly be read to prevent government sponsorship of religion—since personal belief is a "Natural Right" and the government can't grant you something you already have. I find the german laws which ban some speech abhorrent. I understand the context, but the end result is to treat citizens like children—which is always the wrong answer, IMHO. I suppose it is easier to accept in societies that are fine with the State as mommy and daddy. Myself, I'll willing to takes some lumps in the name of liberty. If that means listening to idiots I disagree with, so be it.

This puts the US in a pickle vs Islam. I won't even say "radical" Islam, because even so-called "moderate" Islam is "radical" by Western standards. Look at the "moderate" cleric in question's remarks (translated from Arabic media, not the BS he throws at the US press) regarding apostasy, etc. What % of Christian churches would be considered "radical" if their doctrine included death for leaving the church, or publicly denouncing it's beliefs? Right, 100% would be.

The best solution, IMHO, is to have a strict separation. Dump all special treatment of religion. Tax them. If they engage in activity that is dangerous for national security, shut them down. Note that many religious people in the US would happily have the government do this to "cults"—a cult being some silly belief system that is not YOUR silly belief system as far as I can tell.

Hold all religions to the same standard. Christians are hated (by some) as fundamentalists for Biblical literalism. The same people should equally hate any muslim sects that hold the same literalist beliefs. Instead, here, we routinely see people that hate Christians, defending a far worse fundamentalism. Boggles the mind, frankly.

We have to make sure we don't defend enemies of enlightened, democratic pluralism in the name of political correctness (which is what the left here bends over backwards to do—and the right often times, too, look at W's talk about Islam being "hijacked"—what rubbish, it was Islam being itself).

It is a radical, a conqueror's ideology. Muslims indeed obeying it's dogma and rules, necessarily must be radicals. Muslims refusing to be that, thus are jus that: Muslims disobedient to (and not representative for) the dogma. Islam itself is as radical as the term "radical" can mean.

I also point out that many muslims are offended by this Western deamnd to differ between radical and moderate Islam. On eof the ost prominent voices who have very angrily protested aginst this wetsern idiocy, is Turkey'S pr9me momsiter Erdoghan, who said in real word that it is an offence that the Wesat constantly refers to a distinction between moderate and radical Isalam. He insisted that it is an offence, and that there is and always have been just one islam.

Of curse, the usual band of western idiots and braindead suicide candidates did not consider one minute the possibulity that he might be right and that he might know it better than them. they know so much better what Islam is, these hyperintellectual supermen.

Well, that is what defines an idiot, amongst other criterions: he never listens, he is fully immune to learning, and he always thinks he knows it better.

The West knows better what Islam is than Islam knows itself. :haha: :har: Yeah. Sure.

The West is a mental asylum where doctors and patients are one and the same. :03: