Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: SJackson
That is the crux of the problem: Is there really a distinction? If so, then the "peaceful" Islamics should take responsibility for policing their religion and exorcise those who taint and bastardize the true Islamic religion.

However, since the "peaceful" Islamics remain relatively silent in regard to their fellow 'radical Islamic' brethren, I go with a quote from Robert Bolt attributed to Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons:

Sir Thomas More: ... The maxim is "Qui tacet consentiret": the maxim of the law is "Silence gives consent". If therefore you wish to construe what my silence betokened, you must construe that I consented, not that I denied.

17 posted on 09/18/2006 6:09:38 AM PDT by TomGuy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: TomGuy
There is also a telling question in Kurt Vonegut's Mother Night, in which a disaffected American playwright living in Germany before WWII is approached about working for the Americans as an undercover agent.

The playwright holds allegiance to "the nation of two" (him and his wife) but accepts the offer. He essentially rises to the rank of a propagandist on par with Lord Haw Haw, spewing Nazi hate in English over the radio. He sends out coded messages based on coughs, pauses, and inflections; messages that even he is unaware he is sending, they are coded by an undisclosed speech writer.

Only 3 people know of his placement, one is the agent who approaches him, one is FDR, and I don't recall the third.

He encounters the agent at a few key points in his life. In one of these encounters (where the author is denying any sympathies for the Nazis), the agent asks him what he would've done if the Nazis had won. Would he have then stood up to their regime and announced his rejection of their world view?

What of the silent peaceful muslims? Would they become the new terrorists striking down Islamic rule if the extremists get their way?
21 posted on 09/18/2006 6:19:36 AM PDT by weegee (Remember "Remember the Maine"? Well in the current war "Remember the Baby Milk Factory")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]

To: TomGuy

This author gets it. I think he would agree with what you've written and quoted.


25 posted on 09/18/2006 6:28:45 AM PDT by twigs
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson