Conflicted

I’ve been struggling with this subject for some time.   Not just the subject, but even if I should post this.   Publishing my thoughts on this – feels dangerous.  But the First Amendment is backed up by the Second.  So here it is:

Here’s the thing.   Sometime ago I observed a TSA Agent going about her business of providing Security Theater at the Airport.  She was Muslim, and wearing her traditional Muslim head-covering.   My knee-jerk reaction was that of anger.  It was her people are the reason why we have the TSA now.  Why we have to take off our shoes at the Airport.
But what got me even more angry – was that I got angry about that.  Damn it!  I’m not racist.  I never have been.  I’m not against anyone of a different faith than mine!  I’ve been wired against Hate all my life!
You see, I swore an Oath that I took and still take very seriously.  To protect the constitution.  To protect those that believe and say things that I might disagree with, but I’ll fight to the death to protect their right to say it.   That includes Muslims who wish to worship Allah and hold to the beliefs and practices of Islam.
Here’s another thing.  I’m a Mormon.  One of our Articles  of Faith says:

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

We know what it feels like to be looked down upon for being different.  Mormons were driven out of their homes, several times.  Our church built homes only to be forced to leave them.  We built a whole city, only to be forced to leave it… A new temple that took so much sacrifice to build.  (Nauvoo) We only got to use it for a little while.  The Hayes Administration tried to block Mormon Immigrants.  A Governor declared a genocide on us.   If you study Mormon history, you find you are studying persecution and abuse for a very long time.  One of my own family was murdered for simply being Mormon.

So when we hear people speak like how Donald Trump is speaking, a part of us feels sick inside to see this happening again, even to another people.   It’s wrong, and all of my upbringing is against it.

And yet, there is a part of me that agrees with Trump’s assertion that we should hold off until we “figure out what’s going on” as he said.  Is holding off until we have a viable vetting process such a bad idea?  President Jimmie Carter did just that.  Yet when Trumps says that, he’s a badguy?  I don’t get that.

Because one part of me is saying that all this happening is indeed a Religious War.  One brought on by Political Correctness, Blindness, and an “Anything But Jesus” agenda that goes beyond just what Muslims could ever do by themselves.    I’ve got friends who are Preachers in other Faiths.  Priests of the Catholic Church.   I’ve got friends who are Buddists, Taoists, Hindus, Sikhs, 7th Day Adventists, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists… All manner of different faiths.  But none of them believe that they have the right to Lie to me.  To kill me.  That they are better than me because I am not of the same faith as them.   But Muslims believe that.

Is that video false?   Maybe?  Let’s see…

They believe that I am a second class of citizen or even a lesser cast of human because I am not Muslim.  Because I am an Infidel.   And this… this is a line that I did not draw.  This is their line. And they are acting on that.   The news is full of reports of Muslims crossing that line.

How can I trust?  How can I believe that we can all get along when this is happening?   Damn it, I hate this.  I don’t hate muslims.  I never have.  I love a lot of things that come from the Middle East… Food, bellydancing, lots of things that stem from the Middle East – including my own God.   The God of Abraham. The same God that ties Jews, Muslims, and Christians together. I don’t hate Arabs. It’s not Race.  There are Muslims other than Arabs that concern me greatly.  Louis Farrakhan for example, an American.

No, what I hate is that when I’m around Muslims I get uncomfortable.  My defensive posture goes on Alert.  I don’t trust them.  No, I don’t hate them.   My Grandfather didn’t hate the Germans during his time in WWII.    There is too much hate in the world.  No… it’s not hate I feel.   It’s resolution and disappointment.

120 thoughts on “Conflicted”

  1. Noting to be ashamed of. Your concerns are valid and you’re only being reasonable. The folks who think we shouldn’t notice are the ones that have problems.

    1. Islam has not gone through its Enlightenment, and decided as a group that the literal text in the Suras and the Hadiths is outdated.

      Enlightenment was forced on Christianity by secular rulers and leaders, and the religious killings didn’t stop in the US until well into the 19th Century, as any Mormon is aware of ( the last witch burning in Europe was by Scottish Calvinists in 1790 … the judge executed everyone responsible, and had their church burned down ).

      Islam will need the same correction. Until then, they need to be treated as potentially dangerous.

  2. I understand your wariness of Muslims because they have been making a preponderance of terrorist attacks. However, keep in mind that the Bible also has things in it that nor all Christians follow. Only some Christians believe that drinking and dancing are sins. Not all Christians believe that they should kill people who call themselves witches.
    Part of the problem is that when we get rhetoric reported in the US media (correctly or not) that comes across as anti-Muslim, it plays directly in to Daesh’s hands. They can say to the ignorant and easily misled “See, we are right. It is a war between Muslims and the non-believers.” I prefer to provide Daesh with as little ammunition as possible.

    1. If a group of Christians were going around killing people, for not being Christian, they would be denounced (and fought) by Christians.

      1. Plenty of Muslims denounce and fight back against the radical nuts. So, by that standard, Muslims and Christians are equal.

          1. Do they? You’re saying that you’ve personally interviewed 1.6 billion Muslims, and at least half of them “just shrug” when it comes to terrorism?

            1. There is a sever shortage of moslems denouncing violence, Flint. It’s a matter of survival.

              I can count on one hand the number who have come out publicly in the last decade.

              1. You apparently have not been paying much attention, because there is a non-stop flow of Muslims denouncing terrorism.

        1. Horse crap. The suras and hadiths require violent jihad. Currently, there are only jihaddi moslems and less brave moslems. Anyone else is considered an apostate, or is engaged in Islam sanctioned deception against the unbelievers.

          There are a few moslems trying to change this, but their lives are in constant danger.

            1. Do it yourself, lazy liberal. Learn to use google.

              As for myself, my copies of the koran, suras, and hadiths were supplied by http://www.cspipublishing.com, and are sitting on my desk right now.

              Try looking up the doctrine of abrogation, and the differences between the medina and mecca hadiths, and why they are different.

  3. To me the most poignant statement is a reflection of my own position on the matter, “I can’t trust them”. That’s the big deal to me because if I do trust them and made a bad miscalculation it could cost me my life. I’m simply not willing to be careless. I’d rather risk offending than risk dying.

  4. First off don’t ever think for a second that you are a racist, because you furthest from that. You are falling for the leftist tactic of calling someone a racist when they disagree with their agenda and it’s a word the left throws out when they can’t think of something to say. It’s nothing more than a “shut up” word. You’re good to go in my book for what that’s worth.

    Next there are some pretty big differences between the Mormons and Muslims so again you shouldn’t even be thinking about comparing you with them. When Mormons go on their mission they are very peaceful about it and don’t believe that people who don’t convert need to die unlike the Muslims which is either to eventually convert everyone to Islam or die. There are more radical Muslims than any other religious group and they are extremely violent for basically no reason at all other than their victims aren’t Muslims. Speaking of that’s one thing that I’ve NEVER heard of is a radical Mormon…what would that look like?

    1. Radical Mormon? We have them. Elitists that think they are super righteous and above all others. But I’ve seen the same sort in other Christian faiths.

      1. But do they believe they have some kind of right to kill those who disagree with them? I know more than a few Catholics who think similarly, but while they look down on non-Catholics they don’t advocate or actually murder them. Muslims do; not all, but enough.

      2. The shovel bearded polygamists at the fringe don’t blow up Christmas parties, last time I checked.

    2. Mormons rarely like to hear them mentioned but the Lafferty’s and their murders are a pretty good example of violence committed by radicalized Mormons.

      Interestingly, the official LDS church response to Jon Krakauer’s book includes this criticism: “One could be forgiven for concluding that every Latter-day Saint, including your friendly Mormon neighbor, has a tendency to violence. And so Krakauer unwittingly puts himself in the same camp as those who believe every German is a Nazi, every Japanese a fanatic, and every Arab a terrorist”.

      1. I’ve not read that book… but it’s evidently very narrow minded.
        Every HUMAN has a tendency to violence. Violence is part of human nature.

    3. Forcing others to convert to Islam is against Islamic law. Based upon the sort of crime, the penalty for forcing someone to convert would be death.

      There are well over a billion and a half Muslims on the planet. There are around 15 million Mormons. Huge disparity of numbers – each radical Mormon is the equivalent of a hundred radical Muslims. Are Mormons, on average, more peaceful than Muslims? Sure. Just like Buddhists, on average, are more peaceful than Mormons.

      With that many Muslims, a small percentage being nutcases means a large absolute number of nutcases, but it does not mean that the overwhelming majority support their nuttiness.

        1. Well, I’m more concerned about Sharia than I am Islam.
          The only problem is that it’s often quite difficult to separate the two. Turkey does it – but it seems like Sharia is only a matter of time there as they are supporting ISIS more and more.

          1. Turkey’s secularism is waning. The EU demanded Turkey remove the Turkish Army’s constitutional right to violently dissolve attempts at a theocratic government as a precondition for EU admittance. They did so, and the EU backstabbed them and voted against admittance.

            Erdrogan is an Islamist, and would have been removed under the old constitution, and his party banned. The current fracas with Russia is a result of Russia bombing the ISIS held refineries that his son was smuggling fuel from.

      1. I am not sure the convert by sword is illegal in Islam, both the Koran and Hadith support it as I recall and the basic division between Islam and all other is:
        The Arabic word Islam means “submission,” not peace. A Muslim is a person who submits. Technically speaking, it is true that the terms Islam and Muslim are derived from the same three-letter root (s-l-m) as the word salaam. Salaam means peace, just as shalom does in the related Semitic language Hebrew. Yet that does not mean that Islam is peaceful. On the contrary, it indicates that peace is only possible after submission to Islamic rule and Islamic law. Peace is identical with submission to Islam. The absence of sharia law is the absence of peace. Islam is therefore essentially an ideology of eternal global war. It advocates the permanent incorporation of the non-Islamic Dar al-Harb, the “House of
        War,” into the Dar al-Islam, the “House of Islam” or “House of
        Submission.” The term “House of War” indicates that all areas under non-Islamic rule are viewed as a place of war until such areas cease to exist worldwide and submit to forces which are loyal to Allah and his Prophet. Some Islamic theologians use intermediate categories where Islam is making progress, yet
        does not yet reign supreme. However, the basic divide in Islamic theology is between the House of War and the House of Islam.

        1. “Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things. ” 2:256

          The prohibition on forced conversion to Islam is absolute and without exception.

          Anyway, as far as the meaning of the word “Islam,” you’re quite correct – I wasn’t aware that was even in question. But submission to the will of God is hardly a concept unique to Islam. It’s the foundation of Christianity, as well. “God knows best; believe in God and have faith, and God will save your soul.”

          1. “…slay the idolaters wherever you find them…take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush…” K. 9:005 Set 33, Count 91

            1. Yeah – the Judeo-Christian Bible says pretty much the same thing about idolatry, doesn’t it?

              But that does not apply to monotheists like Christians and Jews, among others.

              1. The Christian faith was reformed nearly 500 years ago. Again show me the global effort to kill all non Christains and Jews by a movement in the millions.

                1. Show me a global effort to kill all non-Muslims by a movement in the millions? How many Muslims actually believe that radical nonsense?

                  You list the most radical of interpretations, and then propose that the mainstream are all believers in that same interpretation.

                  And, as I’ve noted many times, the Christians who perpetrated the Holocaust don’t seem to have been very “reformed.”

            2. Of course, what the Bible doesn’t say are the following verses. Which lists all of the exceptions to that rule. Like not attacking them if they don’t prevent Muslims from praying. And not attacking them if they deal honestly with Muslims. Et cetera. It uses the same sort of structure as our legal codes do (or, rather, our legal codes use its structure, since that’s where we got the structure). “Killing another human being is murder” with another section that adds, “except in self defense” and other such.

              You can’t read just one verse, and say that you know what that verse means, because it’s very likely that the following verses list the modifications, just as with statutes.

          2. Weird how wherever the armies of Islam were victorious, that area converted.

            Must have been friendly persuasion.

            1. The government converted (because it had been captured). Some of the people did, and some of the people often did not. Just about the same thing that happened when Christianity expanded.

          3. Mecca hadith, there.

            After Mohammad’s sect became powerful, and moved to Medina, his archangel abrogated the old stuff, and told him it was now time to get the sword out.

            Look up the Medina period hadiths, and open your eyes.

      2. Pew in 2013 asked Muslims in 39 countries whether they want sharia to be law of the land where they live. (Sharia Law means death to homosexuals, death to non-Muslims (unless they convert), and horrific oppression of women.)
        The percentage who answer yes is very, very high in some countries: 99 percent say yes in Afghanistan, 91 percent in Iraq, 84 percent in Pakistan. On the low end, just 12 percent of Muslims in Turkey say they want sharia to be the law of the land; the number is 10 percent in Kazakhstan, in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa, the yes to Sharia is 84%, 77%, 74%, and 64% respectively. Now take the very lowest % that demand Sharia globally and do the math as a percentage of 1 billion Muslims. Go ahead, I’ll wait…Those are who we are now fighting in WWIII.

        1. Sharia law does not mean death to non-Muslims. Sharia law actually includes provisions for how non-Muslims must be treated, and how they must treat Muslims, so it clearly cannot be calling for their deaths, or there would be no reason for such rules. Some are actually quite open-minded. For example, Muslims are required to tithe, but Sharia law recognizes that it would be oppressive to ask non-Muslims to do the same, so it creates a separate tax of equal magnitude that non-Muslims are to pay, so they do not have to submit to a religious practice like tithing (while also, of course, not getting a free ride – they have to pay exactly what their Muslim neighbors pay, but are not forced to use a religious term for it).

          “Sharia law” means different things to different people. Many Christians would respond the same about having “Judeo-Christian laws” in the US. But how many actually want all of the rules of Leviticus imposed? The percentage of Muslims who actually want each and every one of the Islamic laws imposed in full force is not high, just as the percentage of Jews and Christians who want all of the Levitican laws imposed in full force is not high.

          Heck, Saudi Arabia just had an election in which women were allowed to both vote and to run for office. Most Muslim nations are actually moving towards less and less strict interpretations of Islam.

          1. Abdul Samad, a militant Pakistani cleric in an audio lecture posted on jihadi online forums by Al Qaeda broadcaster Al-Sahab. He is typical of “Radical” Islam, not what you WANT to pretend it is:
            “Our enmity towards Hindus is not due to the Kashmir issue; our enmity towards America is not due to Iraq and Afghanistan; the enmity between us and the Jews is not due to the Palestine; the real cause is that they do not accept our system and Islam,” he said (emphasis added).“Our enmity towards them (the non-believers) will continue even if they renounce all their crimes,” he added.According to the cleric, hostility is a requirement. “Enmity towards infidels is a must. It is part of our faith. Islam says the Muslims should stay away from the infidels and their countries,” he said.And the solution is jihad: “The best way to get rid of them (infidels) is to continue jihad until the Allah’s faith (Islam) is completely enforced all over the worldF

            1. Um, yes, there are lunatics like that. They don’t speak for 1.6 billion human beings.

              Or should be take scum like Westboro Baptist Church as speaking for all of Christianity? “Christians cheer whenever soldiers die!”

                1. No, a comparison. You are applying one standard to Muslims, and a different one to Christians. If all 1.6 billion Muslims are responsible for each and every radical lunatic, then all Christians are responsible for each and every one of their radical lunatics.

                  Or, if Christians can say, “this guy is nuts, and doesn’t represent us” (as they should be able to do), then Muslims can do the same. Integrity demands that the same standard be applied to both.

          2. The Arabic word dhimma (what allegedly free citizens are being forced to become on pain of government sanction) means “protected” and refers to the status of a non-Muslim community living under Muslim rule. Muslims commonly brag that they have been good to the minorities whom they “protected,” but never mentioned is why they needed protection and from whom. Think of the life of Negroes in the Deep South in the ugly heyday of “Jim Crow” when white trash called every Negro man “boy.” And you have an idea how Muslims treat “others” even “moderates”. As per sharia law, the “others” as dhimmi were allowed to practice their religion but only by paying a huge, communal tax each year called the jizya. No house or building could be any higher that the lowest Muslims, they cannot in public wear clothing better than any Muslims etc. Commonly, the chief rabbi would deliver the cash to the local pasha who took the coins and, in these very public ceremonies, ritually slapped him in the face as a concrete manifestation of the Koranic commandment to “oppress and humiliate” the dhimmi and punish them for refusing to convert to Islam. For fourteen centuries, on a daily basis, Jews in Islam were abused like this. Muslims clearly do not come to Europe to become Europeans but only to enjoy a higher standard of living. The goal of these immigrants is not to assimilate into Europe but to force its conversion.

            1. You’re describing a few individuals, and attempting to claim that 1.6 billion human beings all behave the same way. It’s like the nuts who say that everyone with a Confederate flag is a Klansman.

  5. ” I’ve NEVER heard of is a radical Mormon…what would that look like?” Google: Avenging Angels….all religions have had their “radical” moments. Christians as well but have the reformation. Islam has had no such change and as it is structured it can’t…

    1. Individual Islamic countries have had success, but, that has been accomplished by keeping the religion out of politics.

  6. Your observation are shared by more than you may know. I believe in tolerance, I hope for Peace, I pray for wisdom. I lived in Iran back in the 1970’s, I have Arab friends, Jewish, Morman, Buddist, and even a few atheists.
    I don’t advocate hatred either, but encourage the wisdom to “know your friends.”

  7. I’ve been looking up the Avenging Angels (who I assume are/were the Danites, yes?) but from what I read they were a 19th century group and anything modern seem to “police” other Mormons…I don’t know how accurate the second part is because my reading has been very limited.

    But my point is that I’ve not heard about any other groups committing terrorism in the name or religion. In the past pretty much every major religion has been pretty violent but has since “matured” for lack of a better word. It’s like Islam is stuck in the middle ages when wars were waged in the name of God and you were killed for worshipping in a different way.

    1. The Danites were not Avenging Angles. The only guy I know that was called an Avenging Angel was Porter Rockwell.

  8. Like I noted above, there are well over a billion and a half Muslims. Doesn’t take any large percentage to make a large number of nutcases. The Holocaust was, by and large, carried out by Christians, and many more knew something evil was happening and refused to fight back, or even denounce it. Should we judge all Christians by that? Or all Europeans?

    There were 8 million members of the Nazi Party, at its peak. And there were many others who were not Party members, who took part in or supported its atrocities. Given a total Christian population of around 750M at that time, we could say that 1% of Christians were as unspeakably evil as Al Qaeda, and several percent were at least as evil as the worst criminals we’ve ever seen. Are there currently 15 million Muslims actively fighting for Al Qaeda or its equivalents? Perhaps. Perhaps not. There are certainly no so many more that we can say that Muslims are appreciably more evil than Christians were, not too many decades ago.

    What it boils down to is that evil folks will always find a way to do what their evil hearts desire. And they will pervert anything convenient in an attempt to gain credibility. All we can do is fight back when they crop up.

    Blaming all Muslims for the actions of some nuts is exactly what those nuts want us to do. That’s the direct goal of their attacks, because that’s what gets them recruits. We need to stress that we know they do not represent Islam; that, in fact, they are the enemies of all decent Muslims, and we want to help Muslims defeat these enemies. Imagine if we’d had folks other than Wilson and FDR as Presidents at those times? Wilson’s Progressive policies are what shaped the “peace” after WWI, which inevitably led to the rise of the Nazis, and FDR refused to help those who wanted to fight against those scum, which allowed them to grab and hold power, and bring WWII and all of its atrocities. Imagine a world in which we told Europe to settle its own affairs during and after WWI or, failing that, told the German people that they were the victims of a takeover and that we would help them fight back. It would have been messy, but nothing like what the world saw because of the Progressives.

    1. Polls in Muslim countries are FAR worse in support of Jehad and killing of any non Islamics that do not submit:
      In a poll of 600 Muslims in 2012, 98 percent of the respondents were American citizens, and 97 percent were registered to vote. The poll found that “40 percent of Muslims in America believe they should not be judged by U.S. law and the Constitution but by Sharia standards.” Further, 46 percent of the respondents said that they believe those Americans who offer criticism or parodies of Islam should face criminal charges. One eighth of these citizens, 12.5 percent of the respondents, said they think those Americans who criticize or parody Islam should face the death penalty, while another nine percent said they were unsure on the question. The hard core, 7.2 percent of the respondents, said they “strongly agree” with executing those who parody Islam, and another 4.3 percent said they somewhat agree. Thus, 21.5 percent of the respondents “cannot say they believe Christians or others who criticize Muhammad should be spared the death penalty.” A full 39 percent of the respondents “said they believe existing U.S. courts should consult Sharia law when adjudicating cases involving Muslims, and 21 percent of the respondents said the U.S. should establish separate courts based solely on Sharia law to adjudicate cases involving Muslims. And nearly a third, 32 percent of the respondents, stated that Sharia should be the supreme law of the land in the United States.

    2. England has reported that more young men have left the country to join the caliphate then have enlisted in the Army in 2014…

      1. The numbers are not amazingly different for other religions. How many Christians oppose abortion on religious grounds, and want it banned because of that? Homosexuality? How many states, counties, cities, and towns have blue laws? How many times do Judeo-Christian religious phrases appear in government documents? How many iterations of “in God we trust” have been printed on our currency? How many US presidential candidates have actually made “amend the Constitution to match the Bible” part of their campaign platforms, and been taken seriously by millions as a result? The Constitution has, in fact, been amended by Christians for theological reasons (Prohibition – and more were killed over that than over cartoons of Mohamed).

        Whether any of those are right or wrong is for others to judge; the point is that religion is hardly separate from public life in America. The fact that some religious group would like to be able to do the same thing others already do is hardly surprising.

        1. How many Christians, Budists etc are globally killing anyone that does not submit? And actively have plans to make the entire world submit?

          1. If you can find one instance of budist terrorism, Islam is innocent…or something. Anyway, I need to go interview 1.6 billion people.

            1. Dude, never bet against the human capacity for violence and their ability to justify it by any means necessary (religion being a particularly convenient one):

              http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/25/deadly-violence-between-myanmar-buddhists-muslims-spreads-to-3-more-towns-in/

              http://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/bodu-bala-sena

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo (Buddhist and Hindu mix)

              https://books.google.com/books?id=9pePrUSs7kMC&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=league+of+blood+incident&source=bl&ots=dzst6HaDOo&sig=opoFS8lExxT2E5FF9Qefo3GUbiE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj224HT8dzJAhXJ6IMKHcrUAOEQ6AEIMTAE#v=onepage&q=league%20of%20blood%20incident&f=false

              Your focus on interviews as the only way to interpret history is a little strange. Is your entire view of history based solely upon the oral tradition?

              1. Oranized focused global movement that has been in play for over two hundred years without let up? Don’t think so…

          2. How many Muslims are globally killing anyone who does not submit? How many? Calculate the percentage. It’s not appreciably different from the percentage of Christians who supported the Nazis.

            1. If its 1% that’s millions that are supporting it percenages mean nothing when you are discussing total numbers in action. Move into the 21 century and stop using straw man arguments some over 500 years old as examples.

              1. What 500-year-old example have I used? I’ve used the Holocaust extensively (and that certainly was not 500 years in the past). Any others?

                Percentages are what matters, if you’re going to hold a whole population responsible for the acts of some of its members. There are probably numerically-more Whites who are racist against Blacks than there were during the slave years, now. Not because racism is on the rise, but because the population is far larger. A smaller percentage equates to a larger number. But racism is on the decline, as the percentage proves.

  9. I just tuned in here, but I need to address something:

    “There were 8 million members of the Nazi Party, at its peak…
    …we could say that 1% of Christians were as unspeakably evil as Al Qaeda.”

    I won’t bother to debate your numbers, but here’s the thing: The entire western world – Christian Nations – rose up against Hitler and defeated him. They recognized the evil for what it was, and destroyed it.

    Today’s Muslim Nations need to show the same drive and initiative in combating and defeating the Islamic State and AlQaeda, rather than tacitly agreeing with them.

    1. It sounds nice and clean and heroic when you put it this way but the path of the “entire western world” and the “Christian Nations” rising up against Hitler is anything but that.

      The first concentration camp, Dachuau was created in 1933 and thing went downhill from there. Terrorism, both isolated and widespread (Kristallnacht) was a fixture of Nazi Germany over the next six years.

      Britain and France didn’t declare war on Germany until 1939, six years later and AFTER Poland had been invaded. At that point treaty obligations compelled them to. Ireland, however, elected to remain neutral. Italy, the center of the Catholic faith, allied themselves WITH the Nazis.

      Meanwhile, the US elected to stay out of the whole thing with a declaration of formal neutrality. We only declared war on the Nazis in 1941 AFTER they made a declaration of war against us.

      So to show the same drive and initiative would require six-plus years of watching and waffling, a nation-level invasion of a sworn ally, and maybe a few more years for the countries not geographically-contiguous to the problem.

      In size and actions Daesh is closer to the Nazis on 1933-36 than to those of 1939. I dunno about you, but I for one hope that today’s Muslim nations DON’T follow the drive and initiative that preceded WWII.

    2. As Armoured notes, your description does not match reality.

      The Nazis were ignored or supported by most of the West. It wasn’t until after they had invaded multiple other countries and shocked the world with how fast they could do so, that there was any major push-back.

      And that was not a push-back against their evil. Many still supported their ideals (Fascism was considered a mainstream political philosophy, at the time, and had “respectable” adherents in all major nations). The push-back was against their militarism. Had they contented themselves with a slower expansion, Germany might still be under a Nazi regime, and might rule much of Europe by controlling puppet governments.

      No, they did not rise up against evil. They fought back solely out of fear that they would be next, or that their economic allies would be next, or other similar reasons. Had the Nazis not caused that sort of fear, they would have continued to be left alone, just as they had been for years prior to the war.

      1. Then one would think that arab nations should be fighting against IS for THOSE reasons. Unless they are secretly allied with them.

        1. Not really – IS isn’t a real threat, and their neighbors actually understand that. Their particular “interpretation” of Islam is so extremely strict that they will destroy themselves faster than they will expand. For example, if you know that someone has committed heresy, failure to report them means the death penalty, and if someone else reports any acquaintance of yours first, you’re going to be accused of knowing about it and hiding it. But if you report someone and the court decides it was a false report, then the penalty for you is death. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. This sort of stuff runs throughout their system; long term, they’re going to go the way of Jonestown.

          If Canada threatened to invade us, would you take it seriously? France? Belgium?

            1. A White Christian shot up a Black church a few months back, didn’t he? Does that mean that “White Christians” are a threat?

                1. Roof is a Lutheran. That was included in pretty much every single biographical article about him. His own pastor (Rev. Tony Metze of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church) confirmed it.

                  1. That’s a statement without proof or source so far…
                    So you are saying that Lutherans are an ancient global cult with a written mandate to kill or enslave any that are not Lutherans or refuse to convert?

                    1. The source is “every single biography of Roof.” Just like the source for “George Washington was the first US President” is “every single biography of Washington.” This is not some big secret. Pick any biography you like. It’s kind of disturbing that you’re trying to present yourself as a terrorism expert of some sort, and don’t know that.

                      And no, Lutherans are not “an ancient global cult with a written mandate to kill or enslave any that are not Lutherans or refuse to convert.” Guess what? Neither is Islam. Islam actually prohibits forced conversion.

      2. And with ICBM’s, Jet aircraft – one of which was specifically designed to reach NY with the Atom bomb they were less than a year away from perfecting we would be speaking German now. Hitler’s plans were very plan world conquest by the master race.

        1. To get off topic a bit, the V2 was hardly an ICBM. It doesn’t even qualify as an IRBM or a MRBM. Even if it had a range 10X its actual (putting it just within IRBM class) the accuracy was so poor that you couldn’t be sure of hitting NY state, let alone NYC.

          The Amerika-Bomber was started in 1942, a year after the US entered the war (in response to the Nazi declaration of war against them, see above). The project was in the weeds from the start and was clearly going nowhere.

          Diebner’s heavy water reactor was seriously flawed and far more than a year from completion. There was also a severe resource crunch for the Nazi atomic research program. Both in terms of brains (pretty much everyone but Diebner and Hahn were at Los Alamos or Columbia) and materials. Britain had cinched up the Belgian uranium mines and multiple commando raids on Vermok Norsk Hydro crippled their supply of the only neutron-moderator known to them and required them to sink what heavy water they did have into restoring the cascades.

          Even if they had the resources and somehow managed to make a working reactor they would still have been a long way – years – from making a bomb. Enrichment, tamper design, development of a reliable initiator, and invention of the explosive “lenses” necessary for an implosion-type bomb. These all took most of the world’s brightest physicists working around the clock with essentially unlimited resources to perfect, and even then a lot of luck was involved. The handful of Nazi scientists might’ve stumbled on one or two, but the odds of them developing the bomb in five years, let alone one, are astronomically small.

          Unfortunately places like the History Channel like to greatly over-exaggerate all of this for entertainment value…

          1. I was responding to the idea here that if we had just left the Germans alone all would have been well. The V2 was a first gen rocket, do you think Von Bran would have stopped at that?. The jet fighters alone could have tipped the war in Eroupe had time not run out. It was far closer than most people realized.

            1. Meh, the Nazis were pretty much imploding by the end of the war. Himmler and the SD actually ARRESTED Von Braun during his work on the V-2. By that point they were in such a materials crunch that developing much beyond the V-2 would have been extremely difficult, even without the D-Day invasion.

              Likewise, they had a tough time manufacturing more than a handful of Me-262’s and those they did make had Junkers Jumos that needed replacement every 20 hours or so. Major resource suck. Meanwhile, the Allied war machine kept cranking up. Rest assured, the jet fighter was not a game changer. On that note, let’s not even talk about such desperate follies as the Me-163 and the Ba-349…

              The Americans tried very hard to leave the Nazis alone. What finally brought that to the end was the Nazis declaring war ON THEM. What better evidence of strategic breakdown than the decision to declare war on YET ANOTHER enemy when they already had their hands full with both a massive front and constant bombing raids.

              Regardless, the Nazis did choose to antagonize yet another powerful country and ended up taking it one step too far. Sure, given 10-20 years of complete isolation the Nazis might very well have had jet bombers, IRBMS, and an atomic bomb but that’s very far from the situation they were in, even in 1940. Even if all aggressors had declared “hands off” the Americans and the Brits would have won the race to the atom bomb handily.

        1. I didn’t say that. I said ignored or supported. While it might be necessary to interview someone to find out what they supported (but, in many cases, was not – the Nazis kept lists of Party membership and the like), it’s rather easy to determine whether the Nazis were ignored by someone, since that can be judged by his actions: did he, or did he not, act to stop them?

          Most of the West did nothing to stop the Nazis until after they were well into their invasion of other countries.

  10. First off, Muslim is not a race, it is a chosen religion so its not racsist to be wary…
    Second, not every Muslim is a Jihadi, but EVERY Jihadi has been a muslim….
    Third, (Syria specific) if you had 10,000 M&M’s in front of you and only 10 would kill you dead, how many would you eat? Taking a pause is a sane response. It’s OUR country. We have no need or laws that say we have to take in refugees. They have NO RIGHTS here. The constitution speaks only to the rights of US citizens.

    1. I believe we are all aware of that, yes. However Racism is the charge thrown out against those that are uncomfortable with Islam.

    2. Actually Islam as “received from God” by the Mohammid is a combined religion and fascist ideology that mandates complete and utter control of every part of human life and gathers to itself the right to enforce its edicts with death for any human anywhere that does not submit.

  11. Prejudice is only what Left Wing progressives claim is racist. They refuse to acknowledge any argument of that.
    Take Mitt Romney, a very good man and a Mormon. There was great concern that Mitt’s religion could jeopardize the country if he was elected president. The Left refused to look at Mitt’s life and accomplishments and instead vilified him. He is, in fact, an extraordinary man whose deeds and charity far surpass most other public figures by a wide margin. I am not Mormon, but I believe in him simply by the measure of his life.
    But I bring this up to ask you a question: if Mitt were a Muslim rather than a Mormon, the Left would be foaming at the mouth if anyone were to question his particular faith. Left wing progressives hate the religion of their fathers, but condone the excesses of others. Its a two-faced game they play, all the while wrapping themselves with a mantle of Political Correctness. I, for one, am d**n sick of them.

    1. If Mitt was indeed Muslim and not Mormon, I think we all know how that would have turned out. Republican or not he would have been supported for Diversity and by money flowing in from Super Packs getting money through the middle east.

  12. This has all been going on for FAR longer than they want you to know about:
    “We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretentions to make war upon Nations who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.
    The Ambassador [Ambassador of Tripoli, at his House in London] answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet,1 that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

    American Commissioners (John Addams, Tomas Jefferson) to John Jay Grosr. Square March 28th. 1786

    http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-09-02-0315

  13. Bingo. Nothing new here with the possible exception of the technology involved. Lest any of you get too complacent about the staggering number of “moderate” muslims vs their “radical” brethren remember the origin of the terms taqiyyah and jihad.

    They both originate in the Qur’an along with the concept of shariah. All three are very specific concerning the treatment of non-muslims by muslims. Taqiyyah in particular is especially troubling because it validates the all too human concept of the end justifying the means.

    When you realize that you are considered a second class citizen at best and an enemy at worst by the majority of the muslim population of the earth it sort of brings things into focus, no? You simply cannot fail to take this into consideration when the future of you and your children and your grand children is at stake.

  14. Islamic scholars claimed for 400 years: Islamic law is perfect, universal and eternal. The laws of the United States are temporary, limited and will pass away. It is the duty of every Muslim to obey the laws of Allah, the Sharia. US laws are man-made; while Sharia law is sacred and comes from the only legitimate god, Allah.
    Sharia: Sharia is based on the principles found in the Koran and other Islamic religious/political texts. There are no common principles between American law and Sharia.
    Life Under Sharia law:
    • There is no freedom of religion
    • There is no freedom of speech
    • There is no freedom of thought
    • There is no freedom of artistic expression
    • There is no freedom of the press
    • There is no equality of peoples—a non-Muslim, a Kafir, is never equal to a Muslim
    • There is no equal protection under Sharia for different classes of people. Justice is dualistic, with one set of laws for Muslim males and different laws for women and non-Muslims.
    • There are no equal rights for women
    • Women can be beaten
    • A non-Muslim cannot bear arms
    • There is no democracy, since democracy means that a non-Muslim is equal to a Muslim
    • Our Constitution is a man-made document of ignorance, jahiliyah, that must submit to Sharia
    • Non-Muslims are dhimmis, third-class citizens
    • All governments must be ruled by Sharia law
    • Unlike common law, Sharia is not interpretive, nor can it be changed
    • There is no Golden Rule

      1. Islamic writing a white wash of Islam carries no weight even in Islam its.o “Kitman”, the religious authority to lie by omission.
        Taqiyya the religious authority to lie straight to your face.
        Wonder what you would say to the Nazi’s use of the NY Times and other papers where they defended their “law” as just and nessesary before the WWII. Same same

        1. That makes no sense. By that standard, anyone who makes an accusation is automatically right, and the accuser cannot possibly respond. So, when Muslims extremists say that Americans kill and eat their babies, that’s automatically true, and if we try and say anything against it, that’s just “American whitewash.”

          Makes no sense. Try actually reading the letter. I know, it goes against your idea that Muslims oppose this, but try to open your mind even slightly.

          1. Some may oppose ISIS and violent Jehad but the vast majority remain silent. You seem be under the delusion that here is some central religious authority for Islam that all Muslims accept, there is not, each imam posts his (there are no her) interpretations and all are accepted depending on who is doing the acceptance. ISIS would kill who ever writes anything they don’t approve of. If ISIS posts American practice cannibalism they will kill any who say otherwise and the Muslim world including vast majority in the US will say nothing. This letter is all well and good but to the Muslim world at large it means nothing and will have no effect on anything.
            Just the beginning, world wars have started as small in regional conflicts moving to general conflicts, but in this case they have a different plan: The Jihadist’s will not be happy until and their stated and published plan is the world is in flames, their hidden imam is returned by spilling enough infidel blood and the world submits after all infidel armies are ground to dust and bone. Their plan is turning the world into a cinder with them ruling in 7th. Century style what’s left. Read what they say, watch what they do to their own and any who get in their way.
            As to Ocare and gun control you obviously have not read some of my newspaper columns.

            1. As to having an open mind I watch what they say AND what they do(!) and then balance that against some defenders with no contact with reality or an evil design. I decline to have such an open mind that my brains fall out.

            2. The “vast majority” of any group does not speak out. That’s a trait of all humanity, not just Muslims. The “vast majority” of Christians ignored what the Nazis were doing. Even when they finally decided to fight back, it was against threat of invasion, not to end the evils the Nazis were carrying out against the Jews and other groups.

              If the Nazis had contented themselves with just exterminating Jews in their own country, the rest of the Christian world would have left them alone. When Jewish refugees tried to come to America to escape the pogroms, they were refused – the same that is being suggested in regards to Muslim refugees.

              Just as the Soviets collapsed because they “purged” their best and brightest, ISIS is dooming itself. And, just as the Soviets who defected were the precise ones who we wanted to save (ie, the ones who were /not/ toeing the Party line), the refugees from ISIS are the ones we should be saving: the reason they are at risk, is precisely because ISIS – our enemy – wants to kill them for opposing it. If ISIS wants someone dead, there are good odds that we want that individual alive. If we help ISIS purge those who oppose it, then we are actually helping radical Islam.

              I’m not aware of your newspaper columns.

              1. But they will slaughter a lot of people while we watch and the majority do nothing….The majority by the way have all the power they need to stop this if they really wanted too.

                1. They? The ones who oppose ISIS? No, the ones who oppose ISIS are not going to be slaughtering a lot of people. They’re running from ISIS to avoid /being/ slaughtered.

                  ISIS certainly wants to slaughter a lot of people. We should definitely fight ISIS.

  15. Google: ThreatKnowledgeGroup.com they keep track of ISIS arrests in the USA by date and arrest info. Its at the bottom of the page. Anyone that thinks ISIS is NOT a threat will get the pants scared off them with this list of (last I knew) near 80 ISIS related arrests in the last 3 years! They also have a threat analisis report you can download for free by Dr. Gorka’s team.

    1. 80 arrests out of a population of well over 300 million? Doesn’t sound that dangerous. Hillary Clinton is a more substantial threat to America, all by her lonesome.

      1. Agree on the Hildabeast, but multiply 80 arrests or 1000 investigations times 130 dead per arrest or investigation and you start to raise eyebrows even in the White House. Garoontee these are very low numbers because of how they are recorded and how many have not been found out yet…

        1. Only problem is that most of those arrests are of folks who do not have the capacity to kill 130 others. Most would kill themselves due to incompetence before they would manage to hurt anyone else. Even those who are capable of carrying out an attack, do not tend to kill 130 individuals, per attacker. It usually takes multiple attackers to manage that. So, if you’re going to multiply, you also need divide to account for multiple attackers per attack, and for competence to actually carry them out.

          The numbers are certainly not accurate as to the number of potential victims of terrorists in the US, but that inaccuracy applies in both directions. Still, they pale in comparison to the number of Americans who have been killed by policies like gun control and the like, or the number who are going to suffer and die because of the substandard medical system which will result from Obamacare. Those who enact such nonsense are a far greater threat to America than IS, and I don’t hear you calling for their heads (nor should you – we’re supposed to be the civilized ones).

  16. I used to think that Jews, Christians, & Muslims all worshipped the same God of Abraham, but not anymore. The Muslim god is Satan. I truly believe that. The great deceiver has been deceiving Muslims since Mohammed put ink to parchment.

      1. Sura 3:151, “Soon shall we cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers.”
        And last one for this thread, going in circles now…

  17. The whole debate around shutting down immigration for all Muslims is a complete red herring; it has nothing to do with combating terrorism. Donald Trump did not say what Jimmy Carter said during the Iran hostage crisis, Jimmy Carter temporarily shut down immigration from a specific location where there was a lot of anti-American violence; it had nothing to do with a specific religion. To say that we need to ‘temporarily’ shut down immigration to all Muslims is completely unconstitutional. It would be one thing to say,” let’s shut down immigration temporarily from Syria, Iraq and Yemen etc..”, but to say that everyone from a specific religion is banned from coming to the US is outrageous.

    I also don’t understand what people mean when they say “until we figure it out”, figure what out? At what point do you reopen immigration. To the best of my knowledge, no one has come up with a plan for that, just calls to “shut it down!” What does simply shutting something down do to fix anything?

    No Mad Ogre, you are definitely not a racist or a bigot, but I do believe that you are misguiding your legitimate feelings to the wrong course of action. It is profoundly un-American and un-conservative (I’m not calling you either of those things, I’m simply calling the policy decision that) to be for shutting down immigration to an entire religion, even if its restricted to those Muslims who are not American citizens.

    By the way, I do believe that it is appropriate to temporarily halt immigration from a few hotspot like Syria; all immigration, not just Muslims. I also believe that we shouldn’t bring in the Syrian ‘refugees’ that the President wants, most of whom are males, not women and kids.

    1. Unconstitutional, no not really:

      Quite obviously the Constitution’s provision on religious tests for public office has no application to immigration policy. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment is equally irrelevant, as it applies only to states. (It does prohibit state discrimination against aliens, including in some contexts illegal aliens, but decisions about which aliens to admit are entirely under federal purview.) Title 8, Section 1182 of the U.S. Code provides in relevant part: Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. FDR and Carter barred whole groups from entry for far less during their terms.
      What about the First Amendment? The 1972 case Kleindienst v. Mandel strongly suggests the Trump proposal would pass muster. In a decision for a 6-3 majority, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote (citations omitted). It is clear that Mandel personally, as an unadmitted and nonresident alien, had no constitutional right of entry to this country as a nonimmigrant or otherwise. The appellees concede this. Indeed, the American appellees assert that “they sue to enforce their rights, individually and as members of the American public, and assert none on the part of the invited alien.” The case, therefore, comes down to the narrow issue whether the First Amendment confers upon the appellee professors, because they wish to hear, speak, and debate with Mandel in person, the ability to determine that Mandel should be permitted to enter the country. Supreme Court said: “no.” The US government’s authority to set immigration policy, (Mandel was a revolutionary Marxist the advocated the over throw of the US government), at least as applied to nonresident aliens, outweighs any free-speech claim an alien may wish to assert. There is no RIGHT to entry to the US, WE set the standards at our whim.

      1. You’re citing FDR and Carter? I think that rather proves his point, doesn’t it? This is an entirely un-Conservative position. It’s a position that was invented by Progressives, to support the Progressive agenda. Always has been – always will be. That’s who invented it, and that’s who it serves.

        What boggles the mind is that Conservatives are now parroting the Progressive party line.

        1. It was not placed as a left/right issue and it’s not. The question was about its constitutionality which has been decided at least twice in prior, yes left wing administrations. It’s an issue of national security vs talking points for politicians. You seem to side with the talking heads of the right and are comfortable with dead countryman as a policy. I am not. And how exactly does not wanting unrestricted immigration of Islamic a progressive issue anyway? The examples of Carter and FDR who are two of the lefts gods doing something so non progressive as stopping immigration places the whole left at a disadvantage. You lost the debate on Islam now you are just making noise…GTHU

          1. Actually, none of those cases applies to creating a religious test for entry. Restrictions can be based upon location of origin (eg, if an area is known to be experiencing an epidemic disease), harboring anti-American political views (as in the case of the Commie), criminal record, or the like – what a particular person has actually done, or a blanket geographic restriction which does not discriminate. A religious test would not pass muster any more than a racial test would. And be glad of that – some militant atheist could get the idea of banning all Christians.

            And yes, I am “comfortable” with dead Americans, if the other choice is destroying America. Americans have a long history of choosing death over dishonor. Every soldier who volunteered during wartime to fight and (if necessary) die in order to protect America made that same choice, for example. Sometimes, doing the right thing means accepting a certain level of risk. But that risk does not change which thing is the right thing.

            Progressivism has long supported immigration restrictions. It is rooted in racism and intolerance. FDR’s behavior and Carter’s behavior do not put the left at a disadvantage or demonstrate non-Progressive ideas – their behavior is entirely in line with Progressivism. All major Progressive policies have similar racist and bigoted roots. The minimum wage, for example, was designed to keep less-educated Blacks and immigrants out of the workforce, since companies would be required to hire better-educated Whites in order to get their money’s worth at the new, higher wages (and that’s not hypothesizing – that was touted to the public as the reason for the law).

            Last I checked, I haven’t “lost” any debate. You keep posting nonsense and I keep refuting it. I keep posting facts, and you state that you won’t listen because they disagree with your preconceptions. That would not be /me/ losing a debate.

            1. I have provided court decisions from the US Supreme Court; I have supplied quotes from Muslim historical documents; I have quoted documents from the founders of this country, you have not, nor have you refuted any of them. You make hyperbaric statements like, that’s why the law was passed with out sourcing, or claim to know the religion of a shooting suspect but STILL have not suppled the source. Except for providing a link to a hyperventilating Imam’s opinion you have supplied NOTHING to back up your arguments except bloviating opinion. I am done with you.

  18. OK last one I promses couldn’t help my self:
    Isis sanctions ‘harvesting’ the organs of ‘apostates’, document seized during US raid reveals | Middle East | News
    The Independent‎ – 1 day ago
    Isis has reportedly endorsed the ‘harvesting’ of organs from live non-Muslim prisoners in order to save Muslim lives…
    ISIS Fatwa: OK to Harvest Organs from Living ‘Apostates’
    PJ Media‎ – 2 days ago
    ISIS sanctioned harvesting organs from live captives
    New York Post‎ – 2 days ago
    They also OK’ed cannibalism as it’s an “appropriate” use of non-Muslim bodies…

    1. Yeah, ISIS is a bunch of scumbags. They’re so evil that even al Qaeda hates them. That takes some doing.

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