Sad Day in France

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Certainly we don't have to allow immigration, but I don't think we can selectively ban immigrants based on religious practices. Trying to do that would most likely be challenged under the First Amendment; but even if it was ruled constitutional, I think a majority of people in this country would be against it. If we ban fundamentalist Muslims, what's to stop someone else from banning Buddhists, or Jews, or even Unitarians?

And re: fundamentalist Christianity, that's exactly what I meant. Fundamentalist Christianity as a political movement is very much oriented toward establishing a de facto theocracy here, and that's why I said it was incompatible with our culture.
 
JGoodish said:
We don't have to "wipe out" Islam, but there's nothing in the Constitution which requires us to permit anyone entry into this country. Again, the "nothing can be done" excuse is complete nonsense. We need to stop permitting folks entry who intend ill will toward us. Period. That used to be called "common sense."
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I agree, but the criteria for keeping them out should IMO be either a criminal history, or affiliation or evidence of support for terrorist organizations, not religion. There are many very conservative Muslims who do not espouse jihad.

I believe that is how it is currently being done, and I think we simply need to do it better. And some will still end up committing violent acts, no matter what we do, or become radicalized after they get here. To prevent that we would have to be willing to give up certain "essential liberties" in Ben Franklin's famous words, and I for one am not willing to do that.
 
azure said:
I agree, but the criteria for keeping them out should IMO be either a criminal history, or affiliation or evidence of support for terrorist organizations, not religion. There are many very conservative Muslims who do not espouse jihad.
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Note that my advice to contain threats offshore isn't defined by religion. However, Muslim immigrants as a group represent a much greater risk of becoming a threat to the U.S. and other Western countries. If that isn't obvious to you, you're either in denial or haven't been paying attention.

There exists a false belief in the West that the Islamic threat is niche and limited to a small group of people. It isn't. It's inherent in the religion, which is "peaceful" only to those who completely submit to Islamic law. A Muslim can't submit to both Islamic law and the U.S. Constitution at the same time, because the values represented by both are radically different. Yes, there's a "Westernized" version of Islam which is practiced by many Muslims who live in the U.S. and other countries, but that in fact is the "niche" version of Islam and is essentially apostate.

Our political leaders over the past 15 years have failed to acknowledge Islamic culture as a legitimate threat. We will never solve the problem unless we correctly identify it. The guys who send their kids into crowds with bomb belts, fly airliners into buildings full of people, and mow down dozens of innocent bystanders with trucks aren't free-range whackjobs who misinterpreted a message at the mosque--their practices are quite consistent with Islamic teaching. Even if that wasn't the case, though, the reality is that we need to identify threats, profile them, and then keep them out--regardless of what they are or where they're from.


JKG
 
"The guys who send their kids into crowds with bomb belts, fly airliners into buildings full of people, and mow down dozens of innocent bystanders with trucks aren't free-range whackjobs who misinterpreted a message at the mosque--their practices are quite consistent with Islamic teaching."

You don't even believe that nonsense yourself, which is evident in your next five words. In fact, murdering innocent civilians, non-combatants is in fact antithetical to Islamic teachings.
 
azure said:
I agree, but the criteria for keeping them out should IMO be either a criminal history, or affiliation or evidence of support for terrorist organizations, not religion. There are many very conservative Muslims who do not espouse jihad.

I believe that is how it is currently being done, and I think we simply need to do it better. And some will still end up committing violent acts, no matter what we do, or become radicalized after they get here. To prevent that we would have to be willing to give up certain "essential liberties" in Ben Franklin's famous words, and I for one am not willing to do that.
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Good points. One minor correction though. All Muslims espouse jihad. Jihad is the principal of fighting evil, tyranny and injustice in the world. Via the word, the pen, the heart, and lastly, the sword. The prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) told his companions that the "greater jihad" is the struggle of the negative forces of ones own soul. The "lesser jihad" is actual physical combat.

Jihad is never a license to indiscriminately slaughter people (for any reason)! That's called murder!
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Would you mind going and telling them that?
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Not at all. However, thus far in my 50 years on the planet, I haven't been in the presence of anyone with that mindset, and I'm not about to actively seek any of "them" out. Instead, I tell it to my children, friends, family, co-workers and fellow pilots.
 
Not sure any of this is a new norm. . .just the same norm as always. As in, recorded history always. I just don't see this stuff as significantly diffrent than 20, 40, 80, 200, or a 1,000 years ago.
 
JGoodish said:
No, I'm saying that fundamentalist Islam (not just "radical" or "jihadist" Islam) is not compatible with Western culture. The reason that these same problems don't exist in Muslim countries is because they operate as absolute theocracies, but those societies to not possess, tolerate, nor celebrate the same values as most Western countries.

I personally don't think that we should ban Muslims from the U.S., I think that we should ban everyone who doesn't want to assimilate and adopt our general values and culture. Otherwise, there will always be some type of conflict that threatens those values and that culture.
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So much wrong with this.

First, the threat to the US is your kind, not Muslims. https://www.rt.com/usa/269506-american-terroist-attacks-study/

Second, what you propose isn't "our" values. They are yours. Millions of people signed up for what's written on the statue of liberty, not the twisted version of the US as christian-english that you're selling.

Third, some muslim countries *absolutely* have terrorism problems. That you're unaware of this is pretty startling and speaks volumes about how seriously we should take your opinions.
 
redtail said:
You don't even believe that nonsense yourself, which is evident in your next five words. In fact, murdering innocent civilians, non-combatants is in fact antithetical to Islamic teachings.
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The problem is that in Islam, guilt and innocence is determined by Islamic law, not secular law.

I've studied enough about Islam to have informed opinions based on fact, and supported by observed behavior apart from the events which make the news. Virtually none of the the talking heads, and none of the news media, are very well informed.


JKG
 
172andyou said:
So much wrong with this.

First, the threat to the US is your kind, not Muslims. https://www.rt.com/usa/269506-american-terroist-attacks-study/

Second, what you propose isn't "our" values. They are yours. Millions of people signed up for what's written on the statue of liberty, not the twisted version of the US as christian-english that you're selling.

Third, some muslim countries *absolutely* have terrorism problems. That you're unaware of this is pretty startling and speaks volumes about how seriously we should take your opinions.
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I won't comment on the credibility of the source you linked, except to say that the data cited in the article doesn't appear to match government data on the same subject.

I'm not promoting any "twisted" values, nor am I speaking specifically with regard to the U.S. What I'm saying is that the values that we live by in Western countries--freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, etc.--are not widely practiced in Middle Eastern theocracies. Contrary to the belief of many Westerners, people in those countries are largely satisfied with the conditions under which they live. When individuals who have grown used to living in a theocratic society suddenly find themselves in a free one, an adjustment becomes necessary one way or the other--either the individual adapts, or the free society adapts. This seems to surprise many in the West, and is incredibly concerning. When European immigrants came to the U.S. during the World Wars, they were largely motivated by the prospect of freedom and opportunity. They didn't lose their identities when they immigrated, but they learned the language and adapted to and respected the values and culture of their new country.

I never claimed that Muslim countries are void of terrorism. Terrorism isn't something constrained to a country, a religion, or an ideology. All I have been doing in this thread is attempting to provide a broader context for why the threat of Islamic terrorism is increasingly evident in the West.


JKG
 
JGoodish said:
Note that my advice to contain threats offshore isn't defined by religion. However, Muslim immigrants as a group represent a much greater risk of becoming a threat to the U.S. and other Western countries. If that isn't obvious to you, you're either in denial or haven't been paying attention.
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So you would define it by requiring all immigrants to express a willingness to assimilate? Leaving aside for a moment the question of how well that would work, I'm amazed you can't see how quickly it would be challenged and how incompatible with the Constitution that would be. You are in effect suggesting to allow immigrants in but withhold from them the protections of the 1st Amendment. That's not going to fly. There are ways to discourage ghettoization, but this is a very difficult and sensitive area as France found out when they tried to ban traditional Muslim clothing. Frankly, your ideas sound a lot more incompatible with Western values than those espoused by most Muslims I've known.

And yes, I used to live in an area with the highest concentration of Arab-Americans in the country. Many of the graduate students I worked alongside were recent immigrants from Muslim countries (some on study visas, admittedly) and were Muslim themselves, most working in traditional garb, women wearing the hijab, etc. Not a single one espoused the values you ascribe as "normal" in Muslim culture.

And then comes the practical problem of judging willingness to assimilate... if you don't think a committed terrorist could fake it well enough to pass any such test, I think you're being naive. And let's face it, most of the recent terrorist attacks here have been committed by apparently assimilated citizens who became radicalized whilst living in the West. (In some cases, they are likely the work of deranged individuals using support for radical Islam as an excuse, e.g. the Orlando shooter.)
There exists a false belief in the West that the Islamic threat is niche and limited to a small group of people. It isn't. It's inherent in the religion, which is "peaceful" only to those who completely submit to Islamic law. A Muslim can't submit to both Islamic law and the U.S. Constitution at the same time, because the values represented by both are radically different. Yes, there's a "Westernized" version of Islam which is practiced by many Muslims who live in the U.S. and other countries, but that in fact is the "niche" version of Islam and is essentially apostate.

Our political leaders over the past 15 years have failed to acknowledge Islamic culture as a legitimate threat. We will never solve the problem unless we correctly identify it. The guys who send their kids into crowds with bomb belts, fly airliners into buildings full of people, and mow down dozens of innocent bystanders with trucks aren't free-range whackjobs who misinterpreted a message at the mosque--their practices are quite consistent with Islamic teaching. Even if that wasn't the case, though, the reality is that we need to identify threats, profile them, and then keep them out--regardless of what they are or where they're from.
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I'm certainly not qualified to judge what is mainstream and what is niche in Muslim culture, but my impression is that what you're saying is exactly what groups like ISIL want us to believe - that we're in a war with Islam as a whole. I don't believe that for a second and I don't think most Americans do either.
 
JGoodish said:
The problem is that in Islam, guilt and innocence is determined by Islamic law, not secular law.

I've studied enough about Islam to have informed opinions based on fact, and supported by observed behavior apart from the events which make the news. Virtually none of the the talking heads, and none of the news media, are very well informed.


JKG
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You're entitled to your opinions, but your prior claim that killing innocent civilians, flying airliners into buildings and mowing down crowds of people with trucks,... "is consistent with Islamic teaching", ...is false!
 
redtail said:
You're entitled to your opinions, but your prior claim that killing innocent civilians, flying airliners into buildings and mowing down crowds of people with trucks,... "is consistent with Islamic teaching", ...is false!
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So there is teaching within Islam that tolerates other faiths ? I recall the only options being to convert, be taxed or be killed ?

I'll be sure to keep a sharp eye out for the newly built YMCA when next I'm in Dubai !
 
redtail said:
Good points. One minor correction though. All Muslims espouse jihad. Jihad is the principal of fighting evil, tyranny and injustice in the world. Via the word, the pen, the heart, and lastly, the sword. The prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) told his companions that the "greater jihad" is the struggle of the negative forces of ones own soul. The "lesser jihad" is actual physical combat.

Jihad is never a license to indiscriminately slaughter people (for any reason)! That's called murder!
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Interesting. I wonder whether JGoodish's (and similar) views might stem partly from a misunderstanding of this point. Good to know and thanks for the correction. I learned something today! :)
 
azure said:
I'm certainly not qualified to judge what is mainstream and what is niche in Muslim culture, but my impression is that what you're saying is exactly what groups like ISIL want us to believe - that we're in a war with Islam as a whole. I don't believe that for a second and I don't think most Americans do either.
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Our Constitution does demand respect and compliance with the values it promotes, and the laws which flow from it. Allegiance to those values and this country is part of the requirement for citizenship. It should go without saying that if we permit folks to settle here who do not share our values, and don't care to respect them, then we will quickly lose those values. This problem in particular is what European countries have been struggling with during the refugee crisis.

Whether it's a religion or Communism or another type of threat, we have to correctly identify and acknowledge it to protect ourselves against it. If we don't know what the threat is, we need to keep looking at all options until we identify it, which precludes quickly dismissing any option. That doesn't seem to be the course that we're on today.

And that quite frankly is all I care to say about it, as I've already spent way too much time in this thread.


JKG
 
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Art VanDelay said:
So there is teaching within Islam that tolerates other faiths ? I recall the only options being to convert, be taxed or be killed ?

I'll be sure to keep a sharp eye out for the newly built YMCA when next I'm in Dubai !
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Yes there is tolerance for other faiths and the "people of the book", all throughout the Qur'an and the Muslim world. What you're taking out of context, was some of the early battles between the Muslims and those who rose up as enemies, determined to destroy them. I don't have time to go into the whole historical context of the taxation of non-Muslims, etc, etc. Jaybird covered that in great detail back in the days of the "zone".

All I know as a Black man born in America is, if I don't pay my taxes to Uncle Sam I'll go to jail. Yet my tax dollars are paying the salary of cops who are more likely to kill me during a "routine" traffic stop for a broken taillight, than they are to kill you! Just saying
 
redtail said:
Yes there is tolerance for other faiths and the "people of the book", all throughout the Qur'an and the Muslim world. What you're taking out of context, was some of the early battles between the Muslims and those who rose up as enemies, determined to destroy them. I don't have time to go into the whole historical context of the taxation of non-Muslims, etc, etc. Jaybird covered that in great detail back in the days of the "zone".

All I know as a Black man born in America is, if I don't pay my taxes to Uncle Sam I'll go to jail. Yet my tax dollars are paying the salary of cops who are more likely to kill me during a "routine" traffic stop for a broken taillight, than they are to kill you! Just saying
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Ok, so you wouldn't mind then if the next time you needed the assistance of law enforcement to take a short wait so they could find an officer of color to come to your aid ?
Because ALL the white ones are just evil monsters - right ?
 
JGoodish said:
Contrary to the belief of many Westerners, people in those countries are largely satisfied with the conditions under which they live.
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This explains the tide of immigrants fleeing their home countries... how? :confused2: :sigh: :skeptical:
 
redtail said:
All I know as a Black man born in America is, if I don't pay my taxes to Uncle Sam I'll go to jail. Yet my tax dollars are paying the salary of cops who are more likely to kill me during a "routine" traffic stop for a broken taillight, than they are to kill you! Just saying
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That is not only the most ridiculous thing I have heard in quite a while but it is quite a racist thing to say not to mention paints the entire police force of America as killers. What an asinine statement you have made. I guess everything has to be about race to some people even though it matters none to most.
 
steingar said:
France has got it bad. They imported lots of Muslim North Africans as their cheap labor. Never really brought them into the fold. Now they have all these French citizens who really don't feel part of the deal. Just a huge base for a foreign insurgency to use or radicalize.
Muslims in the US feel American, they even help our security services track down terrorists. That is, some current politicians not withstanding.
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I agree with this, except that the current administration is rushing to bring in so many from areas of the globe infested with Islamism that we are likely to see a dramatic change in the majority view of resident Muslims toward our fair country.
 
steingar said:
I apologize for going into the realm of the political, but it is apropos to the subject. It concerns me when politicians go on TV and denigrate Muslims. Our best weapon against extremism to be be as welcoming as we can, and to make them feel at home and that they are just as American as anyone. People ascending to power by denigrating them just pushes them away. That's how you get extremism.
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No, the Islamists have not gone to extremism because we won't let them in our country. I am sorry, but that's just not true.
 
azure said:
Good luck with that. The Constitution gives people the freedom to assimilate or not, as they please. As long as they don't try to commit criminal acts, there is really nothing you can do.
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Only for citizens. Their is no constitutional right to immigrate. We can pick and choose whomever we want to let in. Nothing requires us to let in folks who don't want to assimilate but rather want to replace our justice system with Sharia.
 
PPC1052 said:
Only for citizens. Their is no constitutional right to immigrate. We can pick and choose whomever we want to let in. Nothing requires us to let in folks who don't want to assimilate but rather want to replace our justice system with Sharia.
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My point was that we cannot discriminate on the basis of religion, and once they have become citizens we cannot force them to culturally assimilate without depriving them of their constitutional rights. Also, I know of no reliable way to test someone to see if they want to assimilate before allowing them in. Until a brain scan that can read minds and motivation is developed, any such test can be faked and I'd expect terrorists to learn to be very good at it.
 
I grew up in South Africa under Apartheid. Then I moved to Saudi Arabia and spend 2 years living there, and then 2 years in Dubai.

The level of institutional, cultural and religious disdain that Islam has towards women absolutely dwarfs the worst treatment I've ever seen of black people under Apartheid. I can't speak for slavery, but if it's not worse, then it's at least close to that. And it's all sanctioned, all accepted, and all legally supported. And all justified by the Quran.

Worst thing is, it's not just supported by men, but by women as well. Two of my coworkers who lived in Saudi immigrated there from Palestine, because their wives forced them to. You see, in Palestine women don't have to wear a burka, and their wives didn't like that they their husbands can even see other women walking around town. In Saudi they didn't have to deal with that, which they liked. Apparently, this is not uncommon.

In our culture though, you don't change the behavior of other people because of problems you have. If you don't want to drink, you don't drink - you don't go and make alcohol illegal. If you want to be committed to someone, you figure out a way to do that - you don't tell all other people to go hide themselves. And if you want to retain your employees, you pay them a decent wage - you don't physically lock them up at night.
 
Acrodustertoo said:
That is not only the most ridiculous thing I have heard in quite a while but it is quite a racist thing to say not to mention paints the entire police force of America as killers. What an asinine statement you have made. I guess everything has to be about race to some people even though it matters none to most.
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The stats bear witness to what I wrote. Bye
 
deonb said:
I grew up in South Africa under Apartheid. Then I moved to Saudi Arabia and spend 2 years living there, and then 2 years in Dubai.

The level of institutional, cultural and religious disdain that Islam has towards women absolutely dwarfs the worst treatment I've ever seen of black people under Apartheid. I can't speak for slavery, but if it's not worse, then it's at least close to that. And it's all sanctioned, all accepted, and all legally supported. And all justified by the Quran.

Worst thing is, it's not just supported by men, but by women as well. Two of my coworkers who lived in Saudi immigrated there from Palestine, because their wives forced them to. You see, in Palestine women don't have to wear a burka, and their wives didn't like that they their husbands can even see other women walking around town. In Saudi they didn't have to deal with that, which they liked. Apparently, this is not uncommon.

In our culture though, you don't change the behavior of other people because of problems you have. If you don't want to drink, you don't drink - you don't go and make alcohol illegal. If you want to be committed to someone, you figure out a way to do that - you don't tell all other people to go hide themselves. And if you want to retain your employees, you pay them a decent wage - you don't physically lock them up at night.
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Thank you for sharing your experience. I honestly think that most people have no real understanding of what the Islamic world is really like. They have no concept of these things which you describe. Maybe they have heard them, but they discount them as not possible because they are so foreign to how they themselves think, or to how the Muslims they have met in this country behave. They mistakenly believe that everyone is, deep down, just like themselves. This is not true.

In Qatar, they seize the passports of the foreign workers hired to build the World Cup stadiums so they can't leave, force them to live in squalid labor camps, and work them like dogs, killing many of them in the process. It is modern day slavery, but it's okay because the laborers are kafir.
 
Lachlan said:
Here's some light reading from a site that is purportedly based in fact...

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx
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Oh please, not this again lol.
I spent a considerable amount of time in the "zone" proving how this site and others like it, are setup to confuse people, by taking verses out of context and presenting bits and pieces of a larger narrative. Especially the "killing" verses. Y'all love to take those out of context.
But you know what? I'm not about to repeat that here.
 
PPC1052 said:
In Qatar, they seize the passports of the foreign workers hired to build the World Cup stadiums so they can't leave, force them to live in squalid labor camps, and work them like dogs
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They did the exact same thing to my girlfriend in Dubai, and 5 other Filipinos I knew there. Completely enforced by government. If you're a labor-level worker (which pretty much means Indian or Filipino) you need permission from your employer to leave the country. The employer don't even have to hang on to your passport (even though they do), you can't actually leave without what's called an "exit visa", which is basically permission from your employer.

And this is Dubai... by far the most liberal place in the Arab world.
 
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