To Jaladhi - Tuning vs. Abolishing - just to clarify

Submitted by Michel C. Zala (United States), Feb 3, 2007 at 15:47

Thank you, Jaladhi, for your clarification. - Much appreciated.

My comments regarding censorship jihad stand as they are.

I have been following your debate with Noah and Susan but have never responded to you. I notice that your calls to "moderate" Muslims to come your aid to confirm that a large majority of moderate Muslims exists have not yet materialized. Perhaps, it is because no such entity exists in the world. I have long maintained that all Islam is one and it is all radical. Actions of its followers for the past 1400 years and continuing to the present day clearly prove that. Obviously, you and I have opposing viewpoints here.

Fair enough. I accept and respect your position.
There is no evidence, I can bring to the table to prove you wrong. The moderates of all breeds have been silent, no matter, what anyone tried. Noah, Susan and Dhimmi challenged them hard and aggressively, Plato by means of difficult questions as to their book and religion, and I have tried in my own way – to no avail.

ISLAM, as depicted by scholars across the board, seems to be in fact based upon teachings which go against any modern interpretation of co-existence. The call for a needed reform seems justified.

My angle: – I have met modern Muslims here in the US as well as overseas. The same business negotiations, the same small talk, and in their homes the same idle chatter about neighbors, school, boy- and girl friends and so on. I have also worked for a year with a Muslim owned IT corporation in Sunnyvale. Door to door in close proximity. (Pakistani mainly). Yes, I was on my own several times a day, when they went into a back room to pray, but other than that, I was never treated disrespectfully or discriminatory in any way, even though I never held back as to my Jewish ancestry.

My own, personal, individual conclusion from the above is not to state that they represent a majority. It is just my hope that they are, as there is reasonable evidence, that the same applies to our own society with a definitely silent majority, I call, for the lack of a better expression, "moderate".

Secondly, if the maybe 40-50 Muslims I actually met personally were the only moderates on the entire planet, that would prevent me personally still to apply extreme measures against their entire culture. Come on - If your own personal friends were the target of any attacks ( verbal or violent), wouldn't any normal friend with a minimum amount of courage stand up and try to protect them?

Now – turn this around and I must absolutely accept, that any person who had personal experiences of the negative kind ( Like Noah) will argue from that mindset. In addition to that, there is ample evidence to build a logic for extreme measures, just looking at the middle east or Islam's expression of terrorism. Who am I not to respect and appreciate it?

You may or may not agree that it is impossible to have an honest and truthfull dialogue with Muslims. Because as soon as one points out any passges from Quran which shows them in bad light , they immediately go into denial mode or start blaming it on Islamophobia or say we don't understand Arabic or these are taken out of context or some other thing like that. In this day and age when people all over the world are learning so much about other religions and cultures besides their own, their arguements don't hold water. They forget that non-Muslims understand their Quran much better than them because they(non-Muslims) are not constrained in their thinking as Muslims are (because of their religious requirement). Muslims cannot question Quran as others can!!

Once again I can not deny my own cognitive dissonance. I have not seen any intelligent debate to that fact. I personally have not heard any call for reform from within the Muslim community, but mostly propaganda in return. I am still around here, because I waited for an answer to Plato's questions. I ask again any Muslim willing to respond to a fair question:
Can you indeed not question your Quran?
I do not know myself.

I have and can question the Bible and still call myself a Christian, even though, I have found strong opposition at times, when I did.

You also wrote: "Maybe, just maybe, it would be time to revisit our Freedoms and tighten them? "

I can't believe you are saying this. You know, its slippery slope when we start tinkering with our constitution, there will no return to freedoms as we have known since the birth of this country. Obviously, we we don't agree on this point either.

Jaladhi, I appreciate the US constitution as a beautiful document. I hold those freedoms dear.
My question was provocative, to say the least.

Albeit, this document has seen erosion of its principles. If Freedom of speech is being misused to slander people at will, if freedom of Religion is being misused to spread fanaticism, heck outright militancy, to condone terrorist attacks and war, as it is in fact being done by Muslim Imams throughout the Western World, then I can not believe that this was the intent of our founding fathers.

Enormous amounts of criminals are being let go due to "technicalities", equality is a joke by now, where rich get off and poor do time. In the name of our constitution millions of tax dollars are being wasted for frivolous lawsuits. Separation of Church and State? A joke again.

Just to remain with the topic of Freedom of Speech, Germany for instance has fairly successfully implemented legislation as to limiting its freedom of speech, as far as Nazis are concerned.
Germans do not feel oppressed or restricted in their freedom, but the Gov actually were able to put a solid lid on this movement. The same could be done here in the US and then also draconically enforced. I promote: make preaching hate and intolerance a capital crime. Tighten, not eliminate freedom of speech. That Imam in Birmingham, UK, should never be allowed to continue. Especially, as they had ironclad proof of the nature of his teachings.

Canadian Chris said, that one should not violate the principles in order to defend the very same principles. The so called moral high ground.

Well, In that regard I feel that, while the notion is certainly well-intended, reality may force us to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Here, my personal stand is somewhere in the middle between Noah and Chris, as the lesser evil for the greater good sometimes must be chosen. Carefully and wisely, I might add.

Terrible analogy: I personally would not refrain from torturing a terrorist to find out, where his comrades plant a bomb. (However only, if I had 100% certainty, that the man was part of it and a respective independent control mechanism in place to prevent abuse)

In the same context I see the "tightening" of our freedoms as a lesser evil to protect the greater good.

You also say : "The silent majority of moderate Christians, Buddhists and Muslims has been so far my biggest disappointment. Tragic confirmation of Pipes depiction of our (western) society righ there - in this blog."

Why lump moderate Christians and Buddhists with Muslims in your call? They are not the one who are causing all this problem. Your disappointment should be with "moderate" Muslism. Remember your call was to "moderate" Muslims and none of them have shown up here. May be because they don't exist.

All I wanted was to hear from the average john doe. No matter, if he was Muslim or anything else.
There's gotta be someone out there, who can confirm, what I personally experienced. There's gotta be someone out there, who shares my position of a segmented strategy. Your conclusion is fully understandable. Neither Muslim nor Moderate of our own showed up en masse. Of course would I have preferred to engage in an intellectual, non-emotional discussion with a modern US Muslim.
What can I say, other, than to regret the silence tremendously?One would think that if Muslims come to the West to improve their living standards and all that, they should remember to respect the laws of the countries they migrate to. Instead, as their numbers grow, they quickly forget that, and they want to impose their will and religious laws on the host country in the name of religious freedom. For example, they are asking for prayer rooms everywhere, in schools, work place, airports and anywhere else they think they can get away with.

My only slant is, that you feel, that they don't exist, whereas I think, that they are as cowardly as our own moderates. Like you, who watched me getting hammered, before you engaged, I dare to venture that some Muslims read this thread and saw the onslaught of aggression against a member of their own culture….and maybe, just maybe did not want to submit themselves to this.. Again - I do not know either way.

I think, Jaladhi, that the majority here does that. According to one estimate I read, we are looking currently at around 30 M Muslims here in the USA. That would be a significant amount of people.
percentage wise, hence the incidents to the above are about on the same level, as other religious organizations try to sneak in the church again through the backdoor.

If you read my posts, you may have seen, how strongly I oppose religious infiltration into our way of life. I condemn equally discussions as to school prayers. Burkas, prayer rooms, swearing an oath off Gov Office on the Quran, turbans, elimination of "under God" off the pledge, the forced removal of the "ten commandments" off a district court house, hell, they even want to mess with our money. In a strange way, I consider the ACLU as some form of "Church" which should be treated as such.

Secondly, you deliver a strong argument for my position, as to enforcement of separation of church and state, tightening of freedom of speech and the frivolous lawsuits in that context.
How can we allow some stupid attorney out of St. Barbara, to sue (successfully) Ventura to remove a historical landmark, which happens to be a cross, then not apply the same right to another organization who proposes prayer rooms? We set legal precedence and should not be surprised, if later another entity comes along and asks for the same. Is it an urban legend that a lawsuit has been mounted to force a high school to integrate Creationism into their science teachings?

You are darn right – it is a perversion of our system. NO ORG, INDIVIDUAL OR ENTITY SHOUL D BE ALLOWED TO INFILTRATE OUR SCHOOLS OR OTHER ARENAS OF THE Secular DAILY LIFE WITH THEIR RELIGION.

On the other extreme, where the ACLU is taking separation of church and state to the surreal and absurd, that would be covered by legislature, tightening the specs for frivolous lawsuits at least 5 notches.

I agree with you, that, if one comes to the US, one has to be US first, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Taoist, Wicca or Marsian second. I promoted several times that the US must apply some form of "forced assimilation" a la Switzerland.

This is what is going with the likes of CAIR and other Muslim organizations in our country, and organizations like ACLU are helping them to achieve their goals. This is what the Muslim taxi drivers are trying to do in Minneapolis. If they succeed there, the taxi jihad is coming to your town soon. Just remember, people of different religions from all over the world are migrating to rich Western nations, but do they ask for special rights while violating the rights of others? No, its always the Muslims who have to have special rights, others be damned. Why can't they live like everybody else?? One wonders why is that and why should we accede to their demands?

Yes, Jaladhi, the opening and loopholes our constitution admittedly has, has definitely led to strange bedfellows. Because extreme positions can so easily be promoted, and these entities have money, the perversion of the intent of our constitution is very evident.
I do not see it so much as a violation of our rights, but more so as a perversion of their intents. They all, not just Muslim, are (ab) using the liberty we are given.

And I agree with you on even more: We should never succumb to any such demand.

As you can see, we do not fundamentally disagree. IN the context of just this specific topic, domestic Muslims, I just do not single them out, but feel that America is in grave risk of encountering a socio-demographic catastrophe, based upon our own (mis-)handlig of immigrants of all breeds.

Mainly because there is no ‘en-forced". Assimilation and the country more and more becomes a heterogeneous conglomerate of clusters of various subcultures and minorities, all clamoring for special treatment. Within the framework of our current legislation, they are fully in their "rights" to pursue such. Having said that - just because one can do it, is it right to actually go ahead and pursue it? It is because of the sad fact that humans tend to fully explore and use given rights, unless otherwise legislated, that we must close those loopholes.

A personal experience may be allowed here in support of the above:

For my last interview, before becoming a proud US Citizen, I 1. had to study a simple booklet about the US history and constitution and was 2. mandated to have a test on English language.

Wanna know, how the INS tested for my preparedness to be an US Citizen? (Assimilation???????) After an average duration of 15 years within the country?

1. What is independence day?, Whom did we fight during the revolutionary war?

2. please write down, what I dictate: …."This is a sunny day".

This is, how I had to "prove", that I had assimilated. That I understood, what America stands for.

Many of the people in the same waiting room did not speak a word in English.
Strangely enough, I met them after the interview with the same certificate in hand…..

What does that tell you? Do you in light of above understand now, why I call for a reform of our own society with emphasis of tightening our legislature - heck, even fine tuning - some of our precious freedoms?

The crisis we experience here, is to my opinion a self-imposed one. If we fix our own system, we will prevail against any fanatic minority, as they could not scratch us.

The nutshell, as I see it:

We do not need lowering ourselves down to entertaining banning and deportation. All we need is to repair our own broken system and the threat, as far as our direct own domestic minorites are concerned, would become irrelevant. That is within our powers and realm of control.

That was just a raw outline of my stand, as far as the US is concerned. There is much to besaid about other categories of the "Muslim Threat".

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