[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

First, I must conclude that you are unable or unwilling to counter the inherent logic in Popper'S analysis, or that you do not care for freedom allowing it's own destruction by not defending freedom. that alone already says a lot about the rational inconstency of your understanding of freedom. It is idealism-driven, I think, but it ignores unwanted hard aspects of life in the real world.

Or perhaps what you see as "inherent logic" is only logical to you. Like all 'true believers' you have a sacred scripture and it 'proves' you are right.

I did not advocate the preemptive elimination of Muslims in Europe or America or New York.

Then what exactly do you advocate? Please tell us your solution, in plain language, not what the problem is (believe it or not I not only understand but I actually agree with you that they are dangerous). Saying that they are dangerous solves nothing. What do you want us to do about it?

The freedom you will to Islam - gets used to erode the fundament of your precious freedom from within.and you refuse to do anything about that. you even refuse to understand your enemy. And as an ex-soldier you shoild know that this is the worst mistake one can make in a conflict.

But what do you want us to actually do about it? I do understand. What you fail to see is what I pointed out - that you walk a very fine line when you want to fight those who would take away freedom by taking away the freedom yourself.

Wrong, I know whether I am right or wrong in my assessement of Islam, at least I know it a hiundred times better than you do.

I'm sure you do, but where you are wrong is in the lack of understanding of just how dangerous your own argument is. You don't defeat your enemy by becoming him.

Like many islamophiles,

Ah, now you're getting personal. Where did I ever say I supported Islam, or even liked it? I disagree with the belief, and the extremists do indeed scare me. This is about building a building, and the freedom to do so. Stick to the subject, please.

you call islami-critical assessements a symptom of "hate" (and somewhere above I think you also mentioned "fear") becasue of your own lacking understanding of islam, and you then imply that others miust know as little about it as you do. Well, that is your problem, and yours alone.

No, I called your ongoing extremist ranting "hate", and nothing else. I agree that they are dangerous, and I agree that we must keep an eye on them. But you apparently don't see how frightening your own diatribes can be sometimes.

That compares to saying "fighting against the Nazis made the Allies the same like the Nazis".

As opposed to fighting the Nazis before they actually did anything.

Again, exactly what do you advocate we do?

Again: argue that with Popper. He already has proven that you are wrong.

Only in your own mind.

You demand a freedom in terms of an unconditional absolute - and this is what makes YOU destroying freedom, not them.

How so? I support freedom of speech. They can say what they want, and do what they want as long as they don't break any laws.

You keep talking, but you haven't yet said one particular thing: WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE US DO?

And to soembody else in the above discussions you said that Bietnam made you relaise that you were fighting for freedom. I took that as a comment on that you were taught your understanding of freedom by fighting in Vietnam.

Then you took it completely wrong. I simply came to recognize that the right to protest against your own country when you believe it is wrong is one of the greatest rights we have. Dissent is vital to a free society, and any attempt to quell that dissent, even in the name of patriotism, goes against everything America stands for.

It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it. Poland fought for freedom as no other country did. The Czech nation was prepared to fight for its freedom in 1938; it was not lack of courage that sealed its fate. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 — the work of young people with nothing to lose but their chains — triumphed and then ended in failure. ... Democracy and freedom do not guarantee the millennium. No, we do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
(...)
Although I consider our political world to be the best of which we have any historical knowledge, we should beware of attributing this fact to democracy or to freedom. Freedom is not a supplier who delivers goods to our door. Democracy does not ensure that anything is accomplished — certainly not an economic miracle. It is wrong and dangerous to extol freedom by telling people that they will certainly be all right once they are free. How someone fares in life is largely a matter of luck or grace, and to a comparatively small degree perhaps also of competence, diligence, and other virtues. The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.

Nice quote. Please show one thing I have said that disagrees with it. And please show one thing in that quote that justifies your desire to deny freedom in order to preserve it.