Safraz, redux

Submitted by Daisy (United States), Oct 24, 2006 at 17:05

"You cannot be serious that America is one culture?!" Oh really? Learn what "E Pluribus Unum" means and get back to me. "Go into our homes and you will find that Americans come in all colors and cultures."

Despite your condescending tone, I repeat, diversity is a fact of life .. not a goal ... of a free society. Of course Americans retain traces of their cultures of origin ... as we assimilate, various aspects of these original cultures are shared. This ought not be confused with Multiculturalism .. which is an entirely different proposition, as I've already explained.

"We don't live in Nazi Germany where you must assimilate or die." Uh, Safraz, "assimilation" was not quite the point in Nazi Germany, any more than it is, say, in Saudi Arabia. Doubt that? Read Mein Kampf. I understand it's an Islamic best seller these days, so it ought to be an easy buy. As for Saudi Arabian totalitarianism, simply refer to Sharia Law (the Saudi Arabian Constitution).

" My point is that Westerners, including Americans - focus on fatwahs issued by those bent on violence and use those violent fatwahs to define Islam. It is simply intellectually dishonest to do so when the mass majority of Islam and Muslim leaders preach and practice peace and have indeed issued fatwas stating as such..". "Intellectually dishonest" is a pretentious and useless term. Either something is honest or it's dishonest. If you want the world to know what the 'vast majority' of imams declare - do not expect to have members of a free society follow you into your mosques to learn about the latest fatwah. Participate civilly. The issue at hand here involves Muslim cabbies practicing religious discrimination in a free country and then framing this as an issue of their religious rights being trespassed upon. This, is an outrageous attempt to impose Sharia in place of our civil law.

If you think freedom of religion is an important right to uphold (and I certainly hope you do) then speak up civilly. In my opinion, gaining separation of mosque and state is the single most important task for Islam. This separation issue is equally compelling in terms of Islam's interaction with the free world. When Muslims involve themselves at a civil level in declaring solidarity with freedom (as defined by our culture .. not Islam's) then you will gain a moderate voice. It is wrong to expect to enjoy the fruits of a free society (and free enterprise) without full participation in the processes of freedom. This expectation is a central problem in the Arab oil states .. where a few dictators (religious and 'royal') hope to enjoy the bounty of capitalism without practicing the moral and social obligations of capitalism.

" It is only over the last generation that America changed from being a universally Christian nation - to now a Judeo-Christian nation." Completely inaccurate. Learn the history of the USA and get back to me. In fact, learn the history of Christianity - which is itself "Judeo". Don't confuse yourself - the spread of Jewish food products etc. can be understood as part of the regular assimilation process. You can expect, as Muslims learn to assimilate into American culture, that whatever might be of lasting value from Muslim culture will intersperse itself throughout the unified culture. For any positive influential interaction to take place however, first Islam needs to undergo enough reformation - this in order to even begin the assimilation process.

If Islam continues to resist reformation into modernity, it runs the very real risk of maintaining an underclass sub (or even counter) culture status. Count on this reliably, Safraz. Islamist fantasies of world domination will be the complete undoing of Islam if moderate reformers continue to refuse to step up to the civil plate and participate civilly. Stubborn resistance to civil law will only undermine what works within the religion -- and leave your religion fully owned and operated by Islamists. This would be a disaster.

"I believe census figures show that in 20 years Islam will be the second largest faith in America." Inaccurate again. These are Islamist CAIR's figures not US census figures. European culture, as we know it, will be decimated within 20 years .. not only due to the demographics that show Muslim birthrate far outnumbering native European's birthrate .. but Socialism is simply not economically viable as an economic force. European Christians and Jews, unlike their American counterparts, are overwhelmingly dedicated to the proposition of secularism as religion. Bye bye Europe. So, as you can see, the rise of Islam in Europe, despite the pipe dreams of Islamists, is not due to conversion to Islam.

The life style Muslims currently enjoy in Europe will be very significantly lowered as Muslims replace Europeans who can no longer afford to support themselves .. nevermind African and Middle Eastern immigrants .. on depleted governmental largesse. Unless Islam comes to terms with itself in the modern world (I think it's too late for Europe to change) Islamically dominated Europe will soon come to resemble the rest of the Islamically dominated world. In all honesty, this would be a tragic outcome for all concerned.

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