all decisions are of great consequence

Submitted by trans-parere (Canada), May 6, 2008 at 18:59

Dear Taj.

As an apologist for Islam I wouldn't expect you to share my personal view. My view wasn't arrived at institutionally but through my own personal investigation and power of reasoning. All of it debatable and as such any debate welcomed by myself. That distances me from Islam and that institutionalised social oppression and ingrained fear of philosophical/theological debate with in the "supreme authority" of Islam.

If you don't think prisons are a testament to the appreciation of freedom ask why recidivism is as high as 80%. One would expect any person who cherishes their personal freedom would behave socially with due regard and respect for their fellow neighbour and not behave criminally. Most certainly one could reasonably expect of an individual who values their personal liberty that having been imprisoned, returning would be out of the question. And their behavior would be adjusted to live as decent human beings and not chance that liberty by playing their liberty against the life or property they chose to steal.

Whether the justice system is flawed, and I don't agree that it is, or the rates of incarceration by race which have nothing to do with "the system". The greatest percentage of the population in prison is white and no one refers to white as being race. The exception is those few, not your alarming percentage, who by no fault of their own end up in prison. The reality is that it boils down to the individuals choice. Wanna be a gang banger, sell drugs, rape, steal, kill, freely choose to accentuate negativity rather than creativity and contribute to your society, hang around with a crowd of people who perpetuate a "I don't give a shit" attitude. Pay the cost.

Pay the cost to be the boss. For criminals that is removal from the benefits offered by a social order and respectful co-existence. And in a society based on individual freedom, each individual holds responsibility for their choices. The justice system does not randomly nor with intent choose to incarcerate anyone. Individuals are tried before the law and can bring witness to their testimony.
Are there mistakes? What part of human nature is with out error? What human system would be with out error?

And yes. All this social freedom and respect for individual rights are courtesy of western democracy where the individual is held accountable for their freedom of choice as part of the responsibility of citizenship. It's also why ~ 5 million Turks, ~5 million Arabs and Berbers, ~200, 000 Somalians and another ~5 million sub-Saharan and Afro-Caribbeans, ~2.2 million Latin Americans, ~4 million south Asians, ~1 million Pakistani and ~250,000 Tamils, ~1.5 million Armenians, ~1.5 Million Kurds, ~1 Million Chinese, ~500, 000 Filipinos, ~420,000 Vietnamese, and ~130,000 Assyrians have migrated to European democracies during 2007. ~1.8 million Moslem's migrated to Europe during 2007. Then there are those ~300,000 people who migrate each year to Canada. The United States who during 2006 accepted 37.5 million immigrants. Included in that number are a great many Moslem's. In 2006 some 96,000 Moslem's alone migrated to the "Great Satan".

I'd say that proves the benefice of democracy. Why you would attach yourself to any ideology or behavioral thinking that would undermine that benefice is beyond me. Then again the destroyer has always been uncomprehensible to me.

"This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual." John Steinbeck

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