patrick wrote:All citizens are bound by the same laws. Muslims in these countries can't do anything anyone else can't. Banning minarets is pointlessly divisive, ridiculously hypocritical and creates a legal second class of citizen. Imagine the firestorm that would erupt if a ban on steeples were next. Stop being frightened by your own shadows and use your damn brains every once in a while.
Brilliantly put.
As for my previous post in this thread - banning something for the sole purpose of putting some minority "in it's place" is inherently anti-democratic and shows a complete lack of respect or understanding of the principles upon which all western societies were built. Fascism is on the rise in the west and this is a threat a thousand times greater than the "threat" posed by islamic immigration.
glennjridge wrote:I at least understand the misgivings that muslims have a certain baggage that comes along with them where they expect this and that,yet in their own lands they dont have such tolerance
The key thing you're missing is that they left "their own lands." And quite frankly this is a silly argument anyway, because it's the equivalent of claiming every last American is guilty of My Lai and responsible for the second class citizenship of gay people, even though only a handful committed the former and tens of millions are against the latter.
since when do you care about gay people or them getting machete'd? when you play this devils advocate for muslims you essencially betray gays AND women and cancel yourself out given their attitudes on both.
Why do you think all Muslims have it out for women and gays? That's like me pointing to Uganda or Promise Keepers and claiming all Christians have it out for them. I know you live in the middle of nowhere and have probably never actually met a Muslim, for FFS this line of "reasoning" is just absurd.
I see it on the net alot with the war in afganistan when liberals who always support gay rights were complaining about poor misunderstood muslims. oh...blah.. liberals cant even tolerate watered down western christians,now they are on board for Islam?
Do you actually think any of these things through before typing? Leaving aside the fact that millions of liberals are Christians, there's a difference between defending equality and endorsing a particular faith. Ideally there would be no religion of any kind. I find Islam as ridiculous as Christianity and Scientology. That doesn't change the fact that it's wrong to ban minarets or stereotype more than 1 billion people as a single collective. If Switzerland had banned church steeples and people were characterizing all Christians as responsible for George Tiller's death, I'd be making the same arguments.
you just arent the go to guy who has the credibility to wipe the slate clean on muslim views and make us think its all been a jedi mind trick regarding their backwards views on such things.
besides, I already said I could care less if they have these minerets BUT....I at least understand human nature and people are getting fed up with the double standard of muslims.you saw the poll about switzerland. cripes sake nuetrality is their identity. even they cant stomach muslims.
as far as this facism of the west blueswan mentioned, thats simply an imagined idiosyncracy certain people are hypersensitive and indoctrinated to the goofball concept the west is facist so they somehow start getting all these freaky quirks and weird conspiracy laden thoughts where video cameras here and there monstrositys of facism.
its all silly, but makes for good songs I guess when PSB makes integral and we're all criminals now.
BTW, I dont live in the middle of nowhere. look me up on the phoogle map thing you can see even where I live. theres a airport and everything!
My first impression when I heard of this was, it seemed in character for that country. Whether right or wrong about this issue, no one's mentioned much the specific traits of Switzerland as a whole that make it unsurprising. The Swiss have their own unique way, always have, and I don't mean to generalize, but I will meaning no offense or even value judgement. Switzerland is one of a kind, and some of why.. just my impressions solely, not really facts, so take this just as discussion.
Mostly, it's not that the Swiss - especially the rural Swiss- are against Musims specifically, though the issue of their integration in modern Europe does bear on that. It's that the Swiss are traditionally insular and wary of outsiders in general, forever. It's a very conservative society in the classic sense- they hate change, they like regularity and order. There's some national psyche in those watch and clock- making skills. They appreciate modesty and discretion in a sort of especially Protestant way, which might be why additional minarets might strike a nerve- it's a visible expression of religion period, not just Islam. The northern parts, and rural populations of Switzerland wouldn't be crazy about a Catholic cathedral either, perhaps.
Ironically, it's that very discretion- and interest in discreetly laundering other people's money without asking questions, infamously- that led to sheikhs and the like parking their money there, and funding the construction of these mosques- or rather, the visible minarets which are at the heart of this issue. I decry anti-Muslim bigotry, I really do, but on this specific issue I think the Swiss are within their rights to preserve their way of life in a changing world. Minarets are not a requirement for worship, and I don't think this as anti-Muslim as it is pro-Swiss. It's a small country, the people there are very international-minded (towards the affluent or at least bourgeois and solvent at least), but they are also famously stubborn in going their own way. Admirably or not- that famous paradox of theirs, historically.
"See this, Janie? It's called a Swiss Army Knife- which is funny, because they send other people to do the fighting for them!"- paraphrase, Curb Your Enthusiasm
glennjridge wrote:you just arent the go to guy who has the credibility to wipe the slate clean on muslim views and make us think its all been a jedi mind trick regarding their backwards views on such thing
You know the views of all 1.6 billion Muslims?!
And just for the record, neither you nor Blue Swan appears to know what "fascism" means.
glennjridge wrote:I at least understand the misgivings that muslims have a certain baggage that comes along with them where they expect this and that,yet in their own lands they dont have such tolerance
The key thing you're missing is that they left "their own lands." And quite frankly this is a silly argument anyway, because it's the equivalent of claiming every last American is guilty of My Lai and responsible for the second class citizenship of gay people, even though only a handful committed the former and tens of millions are against the latter.
since when do you care about gay people or them getting machete'd? when you play this devils advocate for muslims you essencially betray gays AND women and cancel yourself out given their attitudes on both.
Why do you think all Muslims have it out for women and gays? That's like me pointing to Uganda or Promise Keepers and claiming all Christians have it out for them. I know you live in the middle of nowhere and have probably never actually met a Muslim, for FFS this line of "reasoning" is just absurd.
I see it on the net alot with the war in afganistan when liberals who always support gay rights were complaining about poor misunderstood muslims. oh...blah.. liberals cant even tolerate watered down western christians,now they are on board for Islam?
Do you actually think any of these things through before typing? Leaving aside the fact that millions of liberals are Christians, there's a difference between defending equality and endorsing a particular faith. Ideally there would be no religion of any kind. I find Islam as ridiculous as Christianity and Scientology. That doesn't change the fact that it's wrong to ban minarets or stereotype more than 1 billion people as a single collective. If Switzerland had banned church steeples and people were characterizing all Christians as responsible for George Tiller's death, I'd be making the same arguments.
Problem is that the VAST majority of muslims have been suppressing and killing infidels while you cherry-pick some very rare cases of Christians and put it on the same level. Fact is that we Christians are far more tolerant to a fascist, antisemitic Cult that whenever it is in power, it destroys democracy. So what is the difference between real Islam in power and Hitler again?
Are we supposed to downplay the Islam threat just like people who didn't take Hitler seriously? Are we supposed to allow more and more muslims gain more and more power until at some point they are gonna be strong enough to overthrow our democracy? Where are all those muslims protesting against Al Qaeda? Where are those muslims protesting the killing of Christians in their Islamic home countries? Where is the muslim solidarity with Christians? As glenn put it, living in the West has addled people's mind to such an extent that taking jackassed positions has become the hip way to flaunt one's sophistication and enlightenment when in fact it's nothing but propagating fascism and destroying the west. I used to be one of those "enlighted" people...makes me shudder.
alig wrote:
Problem is that the VAST majority of muslims have been suppressing and killing infidels
Can you provide evidence for this wild and groundless accusation? Links to iffy web sites for dementedly paranoid cranks don't tend to convince reasonably intelligent people. I really hope you can, because I'd hate to suppress your freedom of hate speech.
Drico.
The pale kid that hides in the attic behind his PC...
glennjridge wrote:you just arent the go to guy who has the credibility to wipe the slate clean on muslim views and make us think its all been a jedi mind trick regarding their backwards views on such thing
You know the views of all 1.6 billion Muslims?!
.
you dont seem to be giving any lee way to christianity yet your apologetic for islam.
theres no taking your seriously.
alig wrote:
Problem is that the VAST majority of muslims have been suppressing and killing infidels
Can you provide evidence for this wild and groundless accusation? Links to iffy web sites for dementedly paranoid cranks don't tend to convince reasonably intelligent people. I really hope you can, because I'd hate to suppress your freedom of hate speech.
Drico.
I dont think the VAST majority of muslims are supressing and killing infidels.
I think the violent minority is, and the vast majority are in silent collusion.
people are tired of the media and the self appointed intelligentsia telling them they arent smart enough to process whats going on in the world.theres no way else to explain the surprising poll from switzerland.
glennjridge wrote:I dont think the VAST majority of muslims are supressing and killing infidels.
I think the violent minority is, and the vast majority are in silent collusion.
I'm glad to see some clear blue water between yourself and the g-spot.
glennjridge wrote: people are tired of the media and the self appointed intelligentsia telling them they arent smart enough to process whats going on in the world.theres no way else to explain the surprising poll from switzerland.
Of course there is. Racist ignorant prejudice. In 2007, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) produced posters featuring a white sheep kicking a black sheep off a Swiss flag. That party was an instigator of the referendum on whether the country's mosques should be allowed to have minarets. As things stand, only a handful of them have minarets. During the referendum, the SVP put up posters featuring a woman wearing a burka against a backdrop of minarets drawn to look like missiles all standing on the Swiss flag.
Anybody who still thinks the minarets ban is anything other than the expression of naked prejudice is either very delusional or a fellow traveler of the Swiss People's Party.
Drico.
The pale kid that hides in the attic behind his PC...
alig wrote:Problem is that the VAST majority of muslims have been suppressing and killing infidels while you cherry-pick some very rare cases of Christians and put it on the same level.
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Given your use of the plural, let's be conservative and estimate two killings per Muslim. That gives us 3.2 billion bodies to account for. Where do you recommend we start digging?
I mention muslim violence and you say, hey there are 1.6 billion muslims on earth.
and then in another post you go on to mention christians with machetes killing people in uganda.
how many billions of christians are there?
besides,you are the guy who also said there are only a couple hundred violent muslims in the world.
doh!
oh, I think people have an issue with the posters only in as much as they harken back to the posters of WW2 or the cold war and it irritates the usual types, and they see them as propagana of "big brother/facist system.
it just happens to be that mosques have a documented history of being recruitment centers for young muslims to incite violence and hatred.thats whats happening in modern history.
so, now we are seeing a backlash against muslims. its human nature. the tide is turning. people are getting fed up with being told theres no problem when its clear there is a problem with muslim culture right now. democracy works both ways.
