I presume it's Adams you are misquoting. Why not throw in a spurious Madison quote while you're at it?
Jefferson himself was a non-denominational Christian
Perhaps. And he was WELL aware of Islam (or do you think he just missed that part of his studies, and didn't really know where the Barbary Pirate captives went?)
OH, but wait...you're the one suggesting that they were well aware of it! Yet, funny thing, Jefferson and the other Founders didn't suggest banning Islam in America.
In fact, one of his three proudest creations, by his own account, was The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom. Therein, he wrote: "...truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."
Quite clearly, Jefferson--and those who passed this--felt that FREEDOM was right, and they had more faith than you that truth would prevail. And heck, you made it quite clear they were not unaware of Islam's potential threat.
Too bad so many FReepers are anti-American these days and want to silence dissenters, ban those they can't shout down, exile those who believe differently, etc.
Also, the Constitution was most certainly NOT designed to protect minorities' rights as you wrongly assert. That is a modern fable spun by some factions of the P.C. left wing - of which such statements make it appear you are a willing part.
Oh, that pesky second person pronoun... singular or plural "you"?? Tough to tell, considering you pinged a bunch of people here or not here. I suppose I'll answer as if you wrote to me.
And ask you to learn to read...try starting with Federalist X, for example. It's quite clear that the Constitution was created to prevent a mobocracy. Majority rights are also protected by it, but that would have been the case in a pure democracy anyway. And it protects against takeover by the majority or a minority.
I do not deal in conjecture, hyperbole, emotionalism, and wishful thinking - I deal in historical facts, including discernibly repeated patterns of behavior which offer object lessons.
Misquotes and logical fallacies seem to be in your playbook, though. ;-)
How about the discernibly repeated pattern that when there's not a strong protection against majority or minority takeover, such a takeover is bound to occur, and as such we must be vigilant against weakening any protection of citizens' rights? Or have you missed that one?
Don't presume to make me responsible for the Islamist's choice of spokespersons, and don't you dare presume to lecture me about the U.S. Constitution. I have forgotten more about it than you have apparently yet learned!
Yes, you seem to have forgotten nearly all of it, and I admit that I might not have learned a full 100% of it. I'll try to go slowly for you. ;-)
Bottom line: militant Islamists are a very strong threat to the US, moreso if we give in to fear and weaken that which protects us most--our Constitutional committment, moral high ground, resolve, vigilance, etc. I agree with you that we must be vigilant, but we must STRENGTHEN our concept of citizenship, not weaken it! You might not be advocating internments, but note how the post before yours puts encouraged in quotes in discussing Muslims leaving the US.
>"I presume it's Adams you are misquoting. Why not throw in a spurious Madison quote while you're at it?"<
If anyone desires to look up the quote, I can assure you they will find I was not far off the mark. In any event I did not claim to be exactly quoting his words, but rather citing the general intent of his remarks. If I quote, you will know it, and I never quote spuriously.
>"Yet, funny thing, Jefferson and the other Founders didn't suggest banning Islam in America."<
With an ocean between them, it likely did not strike them as necessary, but rather as a forgone conclusion that readers would understand if it ever became an issue.
>"unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."<
This is precisely the point; debate and free argument seem sorely lacking, as the dominant paradigm in the media and the political marketplace appears to insist to us that we accept Islamists at their word - virtually blindly with hands bound - despite reams of historical evidence, and both distant and recent precedent to suggest we should NOT TRUST them.
Tell you what, as soon as countries like Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, et al will allow other religions to build churches and practice their faith with freedom from persecution and prosecution, I'll consider the playing field to have been levelled significantly. Until then, I feel wholly justified in regarding them with a jaundiced eye because the simple fact is: wherever Islam is practiced without enforced limits or strictures, it becomes the predominant religion, to the detriment and destruction of all other religions. Islam empowered does not permit "free argument and debate"; it is not permitted to contradict the Imams, the mullahs, the greedy, murderous paedophile false prophet muhammad, or the false moon-rock god, alla-uzza/satan. To contradict them is to invite death and/or dismemberment
When ALL of Islam (and I mean ALL) begins to respect women rather than dominate, brutalise, enslave, objectify, and terrorise them as they have done for 1,381 years, then I will give it some more thought. Until then, neither I nor my neighbors should afford ourselves the luxury of being much more open-minded than we are right now.
>"And ask you to learn to read...try starting with Federalist X, for example. It's quite clear that the Constitution was created to prevent a mobocracy. Majority rights are also protected by it, but that would have been the case in a pure democracy anyway. And it protects against takeover by the majority or a minority"<
Spare us all your ill-founded attempts at analysis. The U.S. is not now, nor has it ever been, a democracy. We have always been a representative Republic. I grant that this is, by Greek standards, a form of a democracy - but a balance of power was presumptive in the design of the three branches of government. In every society where Islam could grow unchecked, and gain as much power as it has a will toward, they take over, or leave blood in the streets in the wake of trying. To contend otherwise is to willfully ignore the repeated lessons of 1,381 years of history, and insist that those lessons do not apply to us here and now, that things will be different this time, because this time we can take their word for things...really really really.
>"Misquotes and logical fallacies seem to be in your playbook, though. ;-)"<
I'll see your winking smiley face and raise you with a (repeated) request to cite any misquoted lines which I had presented as accurate full quotes. Logical fallacies? Hardly. Unless one considers it a fallacy that,"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".
>"Bottom line: militant Islamists are a very strong threat to the US,<"
Try this bottom line instead: Islamists are a very strong threat to the US...because they are virtually indistinguishable from militant Islamists. This is owing to the fact that imams in their mosques tell them to live their daily lives among the "infidel" as if they are in a time of war behind enemy lines, therefore they have carte blanche to lie, cheat, dissemble, and tell the infidel anything they want, so long as their own minds are of a purpose to serve allah.
>"moreso if we give in to fear and weaken that which protects us most--our Constitutional committment, moral high ground, resolve, vigilance, etc. I agree with you that we must be vigilant, but we must STRENGTHEN our concept of citizenship, not weaken it!"<
We already have the moral high ground, and a very long way to go before we are in any danger of losing it. Vigilance is exactly what I am suggesting, along with resolve. "Strengthening our concept of citizenship" is bull-hockey, however. That sounds to me like a euphemistic way of suggesting that we do not already offer immigrants enough opportunity, or that US citizenship does not have enough benefits already.
Let me alternatively insist that it is the Islamists who must move in OUR direction; that they must become proactive in turning in their own for disloyalty to America, that they must begin to stringently, aggressively pressure their own to assimilate into our language, customs, and culture in America. Thus far they simply have not done so - not in America, nor in any other non-muslim host country that I can name. Their chief distinction is actually that they do not do that.
Buddhists have done it, Hindus, countless others, but the Muslims stubbornly refuse to. Curiously they also seem to have trouble "playing nice" in the sandbox with these other religions in other countries (India, Pakistan, Philippines)
Sorry to restate the obvious, but the ones who are religiously intolerant everywhere they go as a matter of course are the ones who have their butts in the air five times a day, bowing to Mecca.
>"You might not be advocating internments, but note how the post before yours puts encouraged in quotes in discussing Muslims leaving the US."<
So what? That's not MY quote, is it? Even so, as delineated in my previous paragraphs, if Islamists are not going to blend in and exhibit the same tolerance towards others which they agitate for, maybe they SHOULD leave. They will NOT be permitted to turn the US into an Islamic state theocratic 'paradise', except for over my (and several others', I imagine) dead body.
They began their influx into the Netherlands very much the same way they have embarked into the US. As if the news accounts of Theo Van Gogh's murder, the daily assaults, muggings, rapes, and other petty crimes, the in-classroom intimidations of Dutch teachers for not teaching about Islam... are not enough, I have many friends who live there. In Amsterdam, in Huizen...all across the country Dutch folk live in fear of this formerly benign, innocuous minority.
Should this begin now? No, but if they do not mend their ways and immediately begin making nice in all of the ways I stated, it should not be off the table whatsoever.
The concept of citizenship in America is quite strong enough, thank you. What needs to be strengthened is the concept that would-be American citizen aspirants should be prepared to bring something to the table - that they must like all other immigrants before them, forswear other loyalties, and freely give the US their allegiance with an honest heart. What needs to be reiterated is that there are responsibilities which accompany the privileges, and it is past time for them to show that they mean to honor that.
For a comparable idea of the meaning of being a loyal American citizen, let's look at the first and second generation of "Ellis Island" Italians. In WWII, against the Axis powers - Germany and Italy - more than 40% (yes that number is correct) of all enlisted men in the US Army WERE ITALIAN.
They went to war fighting to demonstrate their loyalty for their "new" country, and in part to 'free' their old country. I hear of no such numbers of Muslims signing up for the military now - not even .25%. The Muslim contribution to American cultural life, is in fact, rather negligible to this point, and too much, it could be argued is detrimental.
I will not intern them, not even encourage them to leave, but if they don't shape up as a group, I won't miss them one bit.
A.A.C.