Buffalo Springfield and the Founding Fathers (one heck of a combination)

Submitted by moderate muslim (United States), Mar 8, 2007 at 18:39

There's somethin' happenin' here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun, over there
Tellin' me I got to beware

(I think it's time we)
Stop, children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?

There's battle lines bein' drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speakin' their minds
Gettin' so much resistance from behind

(It's time we)
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singin' songs and carryin' signs
Mostly sayin', "hooray for our side"

[ Lyrics found on http://www.metrolyrics.com ]

(It's time we)
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away

(We better)
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?
(We better)
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?
(We better)
Stop, now, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?
(We better)
Stop, children, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's goin' down?

Also, I wasnt pushing conversions, i dont know where I said that.

In his autobiography, Jefferson recounted with satisfaction that in the struggle to pass his landmark Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786), the Virginia legislature "rejected by a great majority" an effort to limit the bill's scope "in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan." George Washington suggested a way for Muslims to "obtain proper relief" from a proposed Virginia bill, laying taxes to support Christian worship. On another occasion, the first president declared that he would welcome "Mohometans" to Mount Vernon if they were "good workmen" (see page 96). Officials in Massachusetts were equally insistent that their influential Constitution of 1780 afforded "the most ample liberty of conscience … to Deists, Mahometans, Jews and Christians," a point that Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons resoundingly affirmed in 1810.

The Founders of this nation explicitly included Islam in their vision of the future of the republic. Freedom of religion, as they conceived it, encompassed it. Adherents of the faith were, with some exceptions, regarded as men and women who would make law-abiding, productive citizens. Far from fearing Islam, the Founders would have incorporated it into the fabric of American life.

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