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hi Mr.SilvioReader comment on item: Pope Benedict Criticizes Islam [in Regensburg] Submitted by cassano (Canada), Jan 3, 2007 at 02:10 Hey Mr.Silvio, nice to hear from you Your point interests me because you are right, ideals are at the heart of persons actions, but you have to admit that money is needed to get things to happen, especially if the people whose cooperation you might need are powerful to. Sometimes ideals are enforced by military power and that costs money, money is important but maybe it should not be as important as it is. I agree that freedom is good things but consider that freedom is a double edge sword that can do great good in the hands of a ideologically good person but my freedom and maybe your freedom aren't necessarily the freedoms enjoyed in the Muslim world, for example. I believe in gender equality and believe that a woman should never be treated the way the Taliban treated them, to the Taliban, their treatment of women is their concept of freedom. freedom is paid for in blood and is such a important gift that those who ( who God has charged ) paid the price , should not be betrayed by implementing freedom in such a way that would betray the people who paid the price and God who sent them to pay that price . When some one says " I disagree with what " X" but I would die for his right to say it " , that is wrong headed capitulation because to me that say's you support that person's freedom to say or do something that I don't think is correct and to me and that is self defeating . freedom is great when it is guided by western ideology, even if the west make's a mistake now and then, we in the west have a strong regard for life and compassion which the rest of the world seems to be lacking in to some degree, every one thinks America is wrong but what would the world look like with out uncle Sam. All the important things in the world cost a lot to do , world bank , patrolling the seven sea's the global GPS system , not to mention the big problems of fighting Muslim terrorists , I could go on , china ,Russia , they don't want to do the costly things because they don't want to spend the money , Europe has no army because it cost to much and so on . Ah , the soul . man has a soul that God has given us, and created us in his image , quite correct , but God also gave us instincts which I consider a expression of God's will and if our God given gift of instincts are found to be in conflict with any law including religious law . who should be considered right ,example , one commandment say's " thou shall not kill ", does that mean no killing under any circumstances , then why has God given us instincts of self preservation that might require a man to terminate another physically? and "thou shall not steal" , what if a man is in a situation that he is starving and has no choice because of once again , self preservation? see my point , life requires flexibility that a simple set religious commandments ( rules ) by any religion , does not fully address . Our instincts are a type of hard wired code written on our souls and DNA by God before we took our first breath. maybe we should give human instincts, even animal instincts more weight. You are not your body, if that were the case, a man who loses a body part would be less of a man? if you think about it carefully , and this is important , God created your soul , only God can destroy your soul. logically this leads one to understand that true death is an illusion because if pieces of our bodies can be destroyed and legally and morally ,we are still considered full people ,then the essence of a life is not physical but spiritual. the death of part of the body does not kill a part of the soul. therefore because humans cannot kill the soul and because our bodies are bio-mechanical machines, we cannot kill what is the real human . Therefore we can't kill another human because we can't kill the soul, death is, to one that believes in God and heaven, the greatest illusion, your thoughts? Mr. Silvio, capitalism is like nature , wild and self regulating. the strong live the weak fade away. when Marxism ( this include European socialism )forces the system to work by rigid means ,it always creates a destabilized condition that leads to a run away-break down , high taxes ,low productivity ,weak job markets , gigantic social programs that cost a lot and force the socialists to raise taxes and the circle gets larger and slower . some people are poor because they are less ambitious but they should accept the poverty or do something to improve their situation. sorry I am a conservative and we believe in personal responsibility and self reliance. remember – the cavalry isn't coming . taking from the rich to give to the poor means that we are lowering the strong in level , we should create an environment that encourages the poor to climb up not pulling people down . people still vote for the communist party in our societies because they are misguided and think total material equality can really be achieved. but in every communist society the people are only equal to each other , the politicians always get more that the regular people. maybe the communist wana-bes think that if therer was a communist system in power , that they would be the elite who would benefit from the system without regard for their personal abilities . Mr.Silvio, no one lives for ever , even senators and my Bella Italia as all European countries , have been around for a long time and there must be something in the European soul that says " enough ! " , but that point has not been reached yet . but it will. left wingers will bankrupt Europe and then the people will thirst for a ideology to sweep the garbage out of power . I fear that this will only happen in a violent way as it has the last two times ( ww 1 and ww 11 ) , Europeans seem to fight only when their backs are against the wall , from where I stand , the sooner the fire comes , the sooner we can rebuild but it does hurt to watch because it could ,and should be, unnecessary . Democracy doesn't work, I wish it did, but politicians are afraid that their ideas and the "majority "of the population will not match. This practice of senator for life should be stopped when the left falls. yes the left will fall when they bankrupt Italy , look in France , the hard right might win there , Europeans like all people will eventually react they are afraid , angry or when the dolce vita is over . By the way I am going to visit my aunt in Cosenza ,maybe in the spring and nothing feels or smells like Italia. for those who are interested , when you step off the plane , usually in the morning , the sun is always bright and the air is alive , and for some reason , somebody is always burning wood , you always smell wood burning but rarely see a fire. and if you ever approach the Italian coast at early morning , there is a sight you will remember , the sea, the mountains , very impressive . Sorry I tend to run on Mr.Silvio, thanks for reading. Cassano Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. 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