Youe said "The most offensive aspect of radical Islam is its refusal to recognize freedom of speech or religion. The proposal I excerpted did exactly the same. Using your Nazi analogy, it would be like gassing a few million people of German descent to battle Hitler.
If you want to give up the fight to persuade people not to choose Islam by imposing your own religious and speech restrictions, you’ve lost your way. After Islam, what’s next? Liberalism? Atheism? Oh, you might not think so now, but just wait for the next rationalization for expanding prosecution of thought crimes. The only difference between Islamism and what that “amendment” would lead to is who started it."
Well, I think I do understand what you are trying to say. One should not sink to the level of those that are trying to hurt you. I believe, IN GENERAL, that this is so. However, I also believe at this point that this enemey we face (And they ARE enemies to us) is unlike any other we have ever faced.
It is tempting at times to allow oneself to dehumanize a foe, easier to hate and kill that way. But truly, these Radical Islamists have lost most if not all theiur humanity when they even teach their children to hate and kill in the name of their 'religion'.
I believe we are not facing a religion, but a cult of death. Life seems to have no value to these people. 'Traditional' rules just neither seem to work or apply to the struggle against them. One cannot go halfway in stopping them.
I also believe in the basic goodness of our selves. Look at us, questioning how far we should go to defeat them. Are we worried to become like them? Should we unleash our own 'ugly' side to defeat them? THEY have no such inner review of themselves.
That’s not quite it. I’m for being as brutal to those who support terrorism as the terrorists are to us. I seriously think we should drop “insurgents” from terrorist nations on their country capital buildings at 10k feet. (After a military trial of course.) It would be such a great media demonstration of who’s sponsoring terrorism, so disrespectful of terrorist governments, so terrorizing to the terrorists and such a great demonstration of our moral commitment. But we absolutely have to punish people only for their actions, not their thoughts! That is THE most fundamental principle behind our civilization, legal system, liberty and freedom. It’s THE thing that separates us from the Islamists, not any supposed “cult of death”.
I’d be the first to honor martyrdom of even my kids in defense of THEIR values, not someone else’s. I don’t fault Muslims for marching their kids around in war parades, just for sending them to attack school busses and for attacking people perceived of having engaged in thought crimes. Those two things are what most makes them evil, and one of them is what that ridiculous “amendment” wants to do as well. It outlaws thought and speech, the exclusive hallmark of every degenerate regime, potentially with death if resisted.