Posted on 02/07/2015 11:33:55 AM PST by Steve Newton
Ok. This is the final version of an Act to remove the tax exempt status from all Islamic organizations. Let's FReep this petition.
Star if there is such a thing as a Muslim that is pushing back against them, then I might agree.
But we should be watching very close. Especially since it is in the Quaran that it is ok to lie to infidels.
You mentioned the founding fathers, which makes it relatively easy to put a date to it ... :-) ...
And if you don’t think the US Constitution protects all religions, in that Mosques are fully protected ... then ... take it to court, and get it applied the way you view that the Constitution really says it. It’s that simple. “Just do it!” ... :-) ... Report back when you get it done.
I hear a lot of people saying that the U.S. Constitution is this or that ... and all I have to say about it is ... “Fine, let me know when you get it taken care of.” ... :-) ...
AND ... if someone says that the courts won’t decide the right way (which means the way “they” say it is supposed to be) ... I remind them that the people of the USA can override the court by a Constitutional Amendment, and they can make that amendment as explicit and as absolute as the people think is necessary to allow no different interpretation. THAT is how the American people can take care of things IF they think a tiny group of people in the Supreme Court is overriding the will of the entire country! Again, “Just do it!” ... :-) ...
In terms of “agreeing” ... one agrees when they follow the laws. You don’t agree if you break the laws. If Mosqies disagree, they will break the laws, and then the tax exemption will be removed because of breaking the laws. If they obey the laws, they keep the tax exemption ... thus, the “agreement”.
And “in practice” (namely in real life) there exist Muslims in the USA who are religious Muslims. And the other group out there are Islamists who practice Political Islam. They are mainly found in other parts of the world, but the USA has had a number of them inside the country, and their Political Islam has been stopped dead in its tracks, when they have been arrested, charged, tried, convicted and jailed for their crimes.
What we find is religious Islam and Political Islam. The Mosques here in the USA practice religious Islam which complies with our laws. The Islamists, on the other hand, try to impose Political Islam on everyone else, and here in the USA, they meet with a speedy end.
I don’t have any trouble supporting Muslims who practice religious Islam, in the manner of Dr. Zuhdi Jasser and his group of Muslims in the American Islamic a forum for Democracy - in their support of America and the U.S. Constitution. On the other hand, I do not support in any way the Islamists and their Political Islam. Those Islamists who violate our laws will meet a speedy end!
I would point to their actions rather than what they say. Sure they are going to “say things” ... but then the question is ... is there any demonstratable and tangible follow through and action? With Dr. Zuhdi Jasser and American Islamic Forum for Democracy, it’s been shown to be tangible.
NOW ... further than this ... even mere words are very useful, by themselves and without any action. If you get Muslims denouncing CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood and explaining why ... those “words” then become a banner against these groups (CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood). It then becomes a “standard”. CAIR knows this and that’s why they do everything they can to discredit Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, in the eyes of other Muslims, and in the eyes of the American public. THAT is very telling.
Star Traveler wrote, “And then ... in terms of the Supreme Court decision about DOMA, if the people of the USA disagree with the Supreme Court, they do have the ability to override the decision. A Constitutional Amendment is the mechanism that gives the people of the USA, the final word over the US Suoreme Court. That’s the route to go.”
To my understanding, the authority for “judicial review” does not establish the Supreme Court as the final word on constitutionality. Those Founders would have been foolhardy to recognize that “whenever any form of government becomes of these [Rights]”, only to put that same fox in charge of deciding what’s legitimate in the hen house.
Beyond that, and particularly involving DOMA, but having a wider application as well, there is no need for any amendment to the Constitution to give Congress the authority for what it clearly has the authority to do, in order to overrule the Supreme Court for a decision it had no jurisdiction over, was not a ripe case in need of any remedy, and when the Court issued directives on the law which it has no authority to do.
It’s silly to need to go through the lengthy process of an amendment to dictate that the Court has no authority to do what it does not have authority to do, and the Congress has authority to do what it does. That would be having to rewrite the Constitution yet again, and would serve as a “colorable pretext”(ref to Hamilon, Federalist #84) to do violate the Superation of Powers, absent any explicit preclusion. Translation: it would set a very bad precedent.
However it does point out the lawlessness of the Court. Have you read Scalia’s scathing dissent?
We already knew the Court was lawless and disregarding the Constitution in the review of Obamacare, with Roberts providing the judicial sophistry that the power “to tax” was a broad authority that allowed virtually any law, in disregard of the utter absence of any authority respective of health care, in order to write a Bill of Attainder that is explicitly forbidden Congress, and includes among its takings some 90% of the Bill of Rights.
Given the tremendous likelihood that Roberts was improperly ‘influenced’ to switch his vote at the last minute, originally writing some 3/4 of what became the dissent, we cannot rely on the court exercising impartial review, much less upholding the Constitution.
Maybe Star.
And it sounds like you are coming around to accepting that they should not be tax exempt.
If nothing else we should agree we should not be financing Islam.
In the judicial process, the US Supreme Court is the last stop. After that, you have nowhere else to go in the Judicial system. If you disagree with its determination on some issue being constitutional or not ... you have the one and only recourse of a Constitutional Amendment.
It’s pretty straightforward ... and simple ... (1) it’s the end of the line at the U.S. Supreme Court, (2) the one and only recourse to that decision is a Constitutional Amendment.
It’s not any more complicated than number one and number two above.
We already knew the Court was lawless and disregarding the Constitution in the review of Obamacare, with Roberts providing the judicial sophistry that the power “to tax” was a broad authority that allowed virtually any law, in disregard of the utter absence of any authority respective of health care, in order to write a Bill of Attainder that is explicitly forbidden Congress, and includes among its takings some 90% of the Bill of Rights.
Yep
I don’t like CAIR or the Muslim Brotherhood because of what those two, in particular, represent and they are trying to do in the USA. But that has been longstanding viewpoint with me.
In terms of the legal system and tax exemptions though, I do know that the government must make a case and prove their case in a court of law so that a jury agrees with them ... just like the government did with the Holy Land Foundation case. That’s not an easy thing to do and it may not be possible. That remains to be seen.
Either the Constitution comes first or not. Polygamy was not illegal. The Free Exercise Clause would trump anti-polygamy laws, but it didn’t did it? So which is it?
I don't think history happened the way you think it did. Our Founding Fathers allowed Tories to be purged from the nation, nearly completely. Their property was taken and they were forced out because their ideas of government where in conflict with the American way of thinking and of life.
They weren't idiots and they wouldn't bow down to communists, socialists or Islamists. Your perspective has been taught you by communists/socialists via the media and government schooling. No Founding Father would tolerate subversives, ever. They designed the country and it's Constitution around Christianity and no other system of belief. Our current wholly foolish and dangerous method of immigration - both legal and illegal - would shock the Founders as stupid and contrary to the ideal of preserving liberty, American liberty.
THAT is our system of government as put into place by our Founding Fathers.
Sure it was illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court held it was illegal in 1878. And the Court said the prohibition did not infringe on the Freedom of Religion clause.
The court, in addition, said ... about polygamy, that it had ... “always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.”
The court said, furthermore:
... at common law, the second marriage was always void (2 Kent, Com. 79), and from the earliest history of England polygamy has been treated as an offence against society. After the establishment of the ecclesiastical [98 U.S. 145, 165] courts, and until the time of James I., it was punished through the instrumentality of those tribunals, not merely because ecclesiastical rights had been violated, but because upon the separation of the ecclesiastical courts from the civil the ecclesiastical were supposed to be the most appropriate for the trial of matrimonial causes and offences against the rights of marriage, just as they were for testamentary causes and the settlement of the estates of deceased persons.
By the statute of 1 James I. (c. 11), the offence, if committed in England or Wales, was made punishable in the civil courts, and the penalty was death. As this statute was limited in its operation to England and Wales, it was at a very early period re-enacted, generally with some modifications, in all the colonies. - U.S. v. Reynolds, 98 U.S. 145, 164-65 (1878)
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Polygamy has always been illegal here.
This is EXACTLY the system of government that our founders put into place, PLUS our 33 Constitutional Amendments in which the people decided to AMEND. That’s what we have today and it was this situation that I described above ...
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Yes, even Nazism and Communism is ALLOWED in the USA. What is not allowed ... are certain “actions” by these organizations. They can freely teach and recruit members and speak out in public, as those things are protected by the USA. What they can’t do is forcibly take over governmental functions and buildings and actively and violently overthrow the government. They CAN, however, vote and put into place “representatives” in our government, if they get enough voters to agree with them.
BUT, at the same time, we can talk in public and argue against their position and persuade voters not to pay any attention to them.
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If you don’t like what the 33 Amendments say, plus what the US Supreme Court decisions say in subsequent court cases ... then I guess you can say it’s not what the Founding Fathers created ... BUT ... they also created the ability of the people to Amend the Constitution, and also the court system.
Inevitably, having an “agenda of government” involves the state choosing winners and losers. It calls for government officials to decide what each of us should have based on their subjective sense of fairness. The animating feature of a government agenda is not individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but the assumption that all assets are essentially corporate, and that we are obliged to share them as government decrees, a windfall for those favored by the ruling class.Curiously that is precisely the sort of government we suffer under today, but not as a result of what the Constitution actually indicates.
No, I’m saying that we’re a Constitutional Republic which doesn’t allow tyranny of the majority, which is why Communists and Nazis (as they are much smaller than the majority view) are not subject to the popular view that they shouldn’t be allowed here at all ... but instead ... their Constitutional rights in this Constitutional Republic are protected from such a “Democracy” that you or I don’t want.
No, I’m saying that we’re a Constitutional Republic which doesn’t allow tyranny of the majority, which is why Communists and Nazis (as they are much smaller than the majority view) are not subject to the popular view that they shouldn’t be allowed here at all ... but instead ... their Constitutional rights in this Constitutional Republic are protected from such a “Democracy” that you or I don’t want.This sounds quite similar to some of your previous distortions of this country's principles, such as post #112 suggesting that Nazism and Communism cannot violently overthrow this country, but they can institute their designs (agendas) if they get their representatives put into government, which sounded quite a lot like Democracy to me. The Constitution does not "prohibit tyranny of the majority," it just does not indulge that tyranny, denying it leverage in the government and license to dictate to others as occurs under Democracy. However this is not the same thing as our "rights .. being protected from such a Democracy". If our rights are to be protected, then by whom? Government itself has fabricated this corruption since the Civil War so as to empower itself in actions regarding "rights", when those rights are specifically recognized to protect us from the direction of that government itself. Government has even fabricated a non-existent collective "Rights", and used this to presucute inviduals, when it neither authority to create rights, nor to prosecute individuals anywhere in the Constitution, even modified by those "33 amendments." This "Free Speech" referenced in the First Amendment is not a right to say whatever one wants, wherever one wants to so, but rather is indicated as "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." Nowhere in this reference to speech is there any sort of compulsion for others to listen to us, or that we shall be heard in any venue, nowhere does this freedom compel others to listen to us, engage us, or tolerate us. Nowhere does this serve as an obligation to indulge any particular "speech" t-shirt in our schools, much less provide fodder for law suits. Nowhere does this serve as any sort of "Demand License" to be used against fellow citizens, but this is how government itself has corrupted it. Similarly, "Freedom of Religion" indicates two things, that Congress shall make no law 1) establishing religion or 2) or prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]. Nowhere does this freedom of religion provide a license to exercise that religion in whatever place, at whatever time. "Free exercise" of religion does not necessitate it being done in any particular community. Nowhere does this compel communities to welcome any particular religion into that community, nor to accept their houses of worship, as as misstated regarding the Mosque at "Ground Zero". Nowhere does this freedom of religion prohibit a community from excluding in their midst any particular organization, religion or faith based on their own recognition of conflict with that community. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits individuals, or communities from discouraging religions in their midst, but rather it only address Congress specifically, and government more generally, particularly "laws" (i.e. "establishment"). Nowhere does that "Freedom of Religion" prohibit Islam and Mosques from being recognized as invariably (without exception) being political organizations, which are incompatible with this country's principles, given disallowing freedom of faith, and other compulsions such, thereby subject to taxation. None of the prohibitions in the First Amendment are violated by indicating Islamic organizations and Mosques are subject to taxation. Again, nothing expressed or implied in the Constitution involves any obligation to indulge everything calling itself a religion in community.
Let me just get to the bottom line of it right away. It’s not working the way you portray it to be. But it is working the way I portray it ... as we speak.
It sounds like you’re trying to say, “this is the way it should be” ... while I’m saying how it’s actually working.
If you think it’s not any problem (by the way you present it) to say that a Mosque is a political organization, as a methodology to tax it (namely remove the tax exemption) ... THEN ... obviously no one thinks it should be done, because it hasn’t happened and it’s not happening.
It’s like I say with all other people who say ... “No, you’re wrong; it’s not really that way ... it’s THIS way.”
I say, very simply ... “What’s taking you so long? Make it happen!” ... :-) ...
AND THEN ... we’ll see that you can never make it happen, and yes, indeed, it is exactly the way I’ve portrayed here.
Let me just get to the bottom line of it right away. It’s not working the way you portray it to be. But it is working the way I portray it ... as we speak.If you believe it's actually working, you're going to be at an utter loss to explain what will soon transpire.
It sounds like you’re trying to say, “this is the way it should be” ... while I’m saying how it’s actually working.
"There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom for in that way one captures volition itself."We no longer have any of the actual rights and freedoms we are guaranteed, only the belief we do.
~ Rousseau
If you think it’s not any problem (by the way you present it) to say that a Mosque is a political organization, as a methodology to tax it (namely remove the tax exemption) ... THEN ... obviously no one thinks it should be done, because it hasn’t happened and it’s not happening.Islam and Mosques are undeniably political entities. The Quran is replete with evidences of the social, economic, and political interests being inexorably bound to the "religion". TO understand this, and our future, we only have to look at what's going on all over Europe, with Spain and Britain being primary examples. Yes, something should be done, but given the refusal to do what must be done, things will likely escalate to the point of what never should have to be done under a Constitutional Republic.
It’s like I say with all other people who say ... “No, you’re wrong; it’s not really that way ... it’s THIS way.” I say, very simply ... “What’s taking you so long? Make it happen!” ... :-) .Your blithe disregard for what's going on in this country will not change the fact. You won't find this on the Alphabet Soup evening news, but Americans are arming themselves in record numbers, and already there are extremely alarming events occurring that will get no direct mention in those news broadcasts until they can be ignored no longer. One way or another, it will happen. Were you to make a conscious choice, I'm certain you would prefer this means to "another".
Like I said, when you get a Mosque declared to be a political entity and tax it, then you’ve got something to say.
Short of that, what you’re saying is like saying the moon is made of green cheese and talking around and around that, hoping someone will believe you.
What I describe is exactly what the situation is today, that the Mosque qualifies under law as tax exempt. That’s simple observation.
You can ping me when you get those Mosques declared to be political entities and tax them ... which I know means you’ll never be pinging me on that one ... LOL ...
Well stated, LibertyBorn.
Like I said, when you get a Mosque declared to be a political entity and tax it, then you’ve got something to say. Short of that, what you’re saying is like saying the moon is made of green cheese and talking around and around that, hoping someone will believe you. What I describe is exactly what the situation is today, that the Mosque qualifies under law as tax exempt. That’s simple observation. You can ping me when you get those Mosques declared to be political entities and tax them ... which I know means you’ll never be pinging me on that one ... LOL ...Star Traveler, if the world operated by this mentality, we'd all still be in Dark Ages, little more than cave dwellers, living for nothing more than survival, and praying for Gullible Warming. Your warped understanding of the Constitution and the limited terms by which our government has its only legitimacy, would soon have us returned to those Dark Ages, and medieval mentality.
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