But they perfectly know how to make best use of their Muslim identity opportunistically to gain advantages for them. But I am not certain about your claim anyway. Studies found the third generation of Turkish migrants being far more religious and orthodox than their grandparents who came to Germany in the 50s and 60s ever have been. Turkish nationalism is spreading, and the active denial of turning German and living a German identity, is immense. Additionally, German-mobbing by young Arabs and Turks at schools is rapidly increasing, and "radical" movements like the Salafists gain acceptance in the young Muslim subculture rapidly.

It should give Germany plenty of worries. But we have chosen to act as if all these problems do not exist and would be meaningless. It will backfire at us.

America is not Germany. We're far larger, far more diverse and far less Xenophobic. They don't call our country a cultural melting pot for nothing.

America was founded by conditions that do not compare to what European nations have to face. The only culture you had to face as a potential rival, you just overrolled and almost wiped out, and since then, you are not used to be questioned in your national and cultural self-understanding. In Europe, with with two millenia of identity-forming history, dozens of local cultures and traditions, people, and nations, this is a bit different. So, the starting conditions for the Us have been totally different than for European nations, it just doe snot compare. Many Americans do not understand this and judge Europe by the standards they exclusively know:_ that of America. And then they are surprised again and again that their recipes may not work in Europe, or other parts of the world.

Some years ago, I saw a docu aboiut the US on TV, and some American there said something which made pretty good sense to me, he said something like this: that America in principle lacks the idea of a national self-concept like European states have - and that is the reason why patriotism as a surrogate is more prominent in the Us, while in many European areas patriotism has a bad reputation.

I think there is some truth in that. Before you now go and try to bang heads with me again, I do not mean that as any form of America-bashing, but I mean it sober and factual. I indeed think that the American sentiment about itself is based more on patriotism, while in Europe it is more based on nationalism. And that has historic roots that lead back in history, over centuries and centuries. And that is why it is so difficult if not impossible to change it fast and on-.the-fly.

You are right that Germans have been quite xenophobic - in the past. And you know what? That is probably true for all European people, due to the history of the past three thousand years. This continent has always been a place of rivalry, war and fighting- something that American history does not know in this form and dimension, since America founded its root on the principle of being a nation of migrants (the natives almost got wiped out...). So it is no surprise that then America is different in its attitude towards migrants, and national identity. The German xenophobia has started to change, already some longer time ago.Today, every fifth person living here has foreign roots from outside Germany. The change is slow, and maybe not obvious at first sight. But it is real - sometimes for better, and sometime for worse.

Then we agree that the German experience with immigrant communities does not really apply to America. Our culture is far more (for lack of a better term) "corrosive" and while foreign culture enclaves might form and exist for a time it's never in our history been very long before they become diluted and Americanized. I expect the same will happen to the Muslims.

In fact Islam might want to consider what effect that Americanized Muslims might have on the home countries. Cultural exchange is a two way street and we're the biggest culture exporters in the world. Wanna burger with those fries Mohammed?

Shhhhoossh! This is top secret info.:har:

In my 56 years living here I have never been subject to any fear, or retribution for being an agnostic turned atheist. This type of stuff does happen, not in major metropolitan areas but in the smaller rural communities and I don't believe it's very widespread at that. I also think that is an attitude that was more prevalent a few decades ago before women's liberation changed the work force and standard family unit.

EDIT: This just in from the religion of peace.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/ir...om-jail-81291/

You thjoiught like that with regard toi Iraq. Afghanistan. NBorth acfrica, recently Libya. And what have you got in return?

In Turkey, Attatürk may have thiought like that too, that Islam could be "abnned" or suporessed" or kepot in check by a strict secular order. He was wrong, as we see today. Islam - real Islam, I mean, never was gone, it onmy slept for 50, 60 years, and then came back - stronger and more vital than before ion the past 150 years.

You either underestimate the potence and attractiveness of monolithic Islam, or you overestimate the attractiveness of the American model. Or most likely: both. And when other people in other countries resist to your society model, and turn hostile when you try to put it on top of their heads, then you tell them that they are only greedy about what you have gotten, or that they are angry over their own lack of your characteristics or freedoms or whatever it is.

But even the American model is just one contender amongst many others. And by far not everybody in the world likes it. Not even mentioning the contradiction between claim, and reality. For many, the rigidness and clear compass provided by a totalitarian society simply is as attractive as American ideals are to you.

Maintenance of a complex machinery does not go very well if there is only just one single tool in the maintenance kit. You are well-equipped for the problem where the wrench you have fits the screw. With all other situations where screws either play no role or are only one item of interest, you have a problem.

As you are someone who advocates the use of nuclear weapons as an end to the situation, I reject your analysis and conclusions. You are simply attempting to use fear to warmonger, and that is neither apt nor admirable.

Call again when the ME nuclear arms race threatens to turn the world into a hot radiating hellhole, or Western nations openly get blackmailed to play ball -else, or the first nuclear dirty terror bomb has gone off in some Western metropolis, or near Edgar C. Hoover dam.

If you are so concerned about it, then lobby your government to pressure the EU to nuke 'em. And the dam is named for US president Herbert Hoover, not J. Edgar. I have no idea who Edgar C. Hoover is.

Hmm, I would have to wonder about that. Give any human a clear choice between a totalitarian state or a free and democratic state and I think we all know what they would choose. How about you? :hmmm:

He is a brother of Henry

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..._henry_001.jpg


Yeah yeah 1500years and none of them have ever comeclose, any that have approached coming close threw it out with the other trash as it was just soooooo attractive.
But hey don't let rational thought intrude on your crazy phobias

Just to elaborate. J Edgar Hoover was the head of the FBI. Whos favorite pastime was to use his agency (and our tax dollars) to dig up dirt on politicians in order to control them.

Herbert Hoover was a president and ex engineer who believed infrastracture and efficiency was the way to go.

His plans laid the groundwork for FDRs New Deal, which put a great many Americans to work, during a depression 100 times worse than what we are in now.

Huge difference, one wanted to blackmail America, the other wanted to heal it.

Don't forget us Pagans, Nobody pays a lick of attention to us anymore. :woot:

Zeus is just pointing and laughing at the religious unrest with two hotties wrapped around him. :O:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmC62Eg82E8

China is not comparable to Western standards of law and order, and freedom. Still a huge majority of Chinese want China to be like it has unfolded to be over its history, and want its sometimes - in our eyes - queer legal standards as well.

80 years ago, many people in Europe, namely Austria and Germany, but also in other countries, embraced totalitarian governments with open arms.

The overwhelming majority of Muslims worldwide want Sharia to be the basis of law, state, social life, and the definition of "freedom". Sharia-Islam is the global mainstream Islam, it is no sectarian minority.

That would be around 2 billions already. Now count tribal cultures in Africa, several oligarchic regimes in south American and Russia, and it becomes more.

You just showed the typical Western mistake: to assume that all the world wants to be like us- the glorious white Western man - are. But that is a megalomaniac erratic assumption. What they want, is our wealth and material standards, maybe. Not mistake that with what they mean when saying "freedom". The concept of freedom and tolerance in Islam is totally different from the way we define it on basis of Western history, for Islam, Sharia goes first, freedom and laws must be second to it. In Asia, traditionally the mentality dominates of "collective before individual" - in our places, it is the other way around.

And me, while >>in general<< (meaning: not always) I comply with the tradition of humanism, a twisting and turning of ideas and conceptions has taken place that make that and the dominating social conceptions of the political correctness movement disagreeing strongly on terms like "solidarity", "tolerance" and "freedom". Even here in the West people sue the same words - but mean different ideas behind it. And ironically it is those who consider themselves to be socially and culturally oh so advanced and progressive who have distorted these ideas to degrees and eroded them so much that they have started to move backwards and move back to totalitarian social controls while thinking they do it in defense of freedom. A mistake that many socalled conservatives also do, but being motivated by different thinking patterns and going there due to different ways - the first group wants totalitarianism being sued to enforce freedom, the second groups accept technology and security means turning freedom into totalitarianism. And then there is the EU, using freedom to erode it in the process of turning Europe into a regime of lobbies and technocrats forming a huge neo-feudalistic order that melts itself perfectly into this socalled globalised economy.

Worldwide, theocracies, oligarchies, plutocracies and tyrannies are winning ground, while democracies lose ground. We live in post-democratic times already, and the idea of freedom in modern Western understanding already is beyond its historical zenith. We see it clearly since 9/11, in the increase of security, technology turning us all into transparent glass-citizens, social networks eroding the concept of privacy and face-to-face contact.

And I do not even touch upon my new favorite theme, drone warfare, and autonomous drones. An abyss of implications and political problems arise from that that so far the media have not even become aware of. The spreading of this technoloy will not make wars less likely, but will increase the using of lethal force by no loner to be identified actors - m,ay it be companies, states, or individual persons. We are heading back into history by several centuries there.

Are you still tempted to claim that if given the choice people would all chose the same way of living? I would even go so far and say that the cultural developements are racing away with a self-dynamic that most people do not even have a choice to chose at all. Not to mention that they would not all make the same choice, too. You cannot chose by free will if you are not aware of how you are getting influenced - and thus you get decided and made believe that it was your free will. Ha! That is perfect dictatorship - when the censor is inside people's brain and they censor themselves. Almost a Dickian dysutopia.