"The vase majority of Nazis were not mass murderers and to paint them all with a broad brush is..."
What, exactly?
Posted on 11/14/2002 5:36:24 AM PST by Damocles
Convert to which religion?
My understanding is that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Also, to the poster who wanted the mosques emptied and Muslims deported, are you aware that a big chunk of Muslims in the US are natural born citizens of this country? They are as American as anyone else.
Bush is right to denounce bigotry. I think he'd be ashamed of some of the posts on this thread.
If you bastards would do the same to your terrorists (repudiate) , you might find more Americans on your side. As it stands, the vast majority of Americans do not trust Muslims, regardless of what our leaders say. We support freedom of religion, but we do not support terrorism in the name of religion.
Then why hasn't there been a concerted effort by "peace-loving" Islamists to expose those on U.S. soil who have links to terrorist organizations?How do you think the Buffalo Al Qaeda cell was rolled up?
-Eric
The Lefties never think about the consequences of what they want- that's what makes them lefties. They can't (or won't) speculate more than 10 minutes down the road. But we need to put the brakes on a minute here and act like Conservatives and people who call for less Government intrusion into our lives. You give the gov't the power to do it to Muslims- what's to protect the Hindus, Jews and Christians?Nothing of course. Start a precedent like this and the Hindus are in real trouble, along with the atheists, agnostics, and "pagans". The Jews, the Mormons, and the Catholics are next, followed by whatever Protestant sect attracts the ire of the "true faithful". It's called theocracy and its about as compatible with freedom as communism is. This is why the Founders and Framers decreed that we should have a secular government that would neither help nor hinder religion.
Bigots don't think these things through, though. All they care about is seeing those "evil people" put in their place. Those who think we should go to war against Islam probably thought that before September 11th. They are just more vocal about it now. Most undoubtedly have no clue about what a "war" actually is, either.
-Eric
The way I see it, people are pissed off. They fall back on the ole "Round 'em up!" argument. It's a good way to vent fustrations and blow off some steam- but I'm sitting here asking myself- "Hmmmm. Well, how would that work exactly?"
Would President Bush just say "all Muslims will report to detention areas, effective immediately"? And this would work?
I don't think so.
Muslims would go underground like many of the Jews did in Europe during WWII. So you'd have to make a special task force charged with figuring out who is a Muslim and who not. You'd have to give them special powers because short of reading someone's mind, how else would you make this determination without tapping their phones, monitoring their email traffic, putting agents on their tail etc?
Then there would be the problem of Christians and other Patriots who saw the order as unConstitutional. Some of these people would probably offer the Muslims sanctuary in their basements so that they might worship. Would the Religion Police then have to round these Christians and other Assorted Patriots up as well? And what would they do with them all?
Then there's the military. What if the top Generals decided that this banning of a religion flew in the face of the Constitution (and they'd have a strong argument) and decided that the gov't that ordered such a thing must be removed from power?
It'd be a mess. I don't want to see a "Religion Gestapo" roaming around checking for the Koran. I don't want to see innocent people get stomped on by the government because of their religion. I don't want to see Christians faced with the choice of going along with someting that's clearly against the Constitution and a danger to their own religious rights.
People have to think this through. The government needs to stay out of my affairs. When I get in my closet and pray, it's none of anybody's business who I pray to or how many times a day I do so. As long as I'm a citizen of the USA, I'd hope that I'm innnocent until proven guilty. If I haven't broken any laws, the government should just leave me alone and let me worship who or what I please.
There are much simpler ways of dealing with this problem than scrapping the Constitution.
"The vase majority of Nazis were not mass murderers and to paint them all with a broad brush is..."
What, exactly?
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