America's slide to Nazism

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Ok, suppose now an Islamic terrorist group manages to get a hold of a pound of ricin powder and release it in downtown Los Angeles. Then a few months later they release more in New York, then DC, then Seattle...at what point do you think Americans will break and demand sanctions be taken against Muslims in general?

I know this is an extreme example, but if the levels of violence being committed in the name of Islam continues to rise it will become all to easy for public opinion to move further into distasteful areas.

This is why it is critical that Islamic people begin to speak out against terrorism. That is why it is so important that Muslims begin to take these people down themselves, before they can commit their attacks.

The only problem is that they are scared to speak out. Not only are they scared of the terrorists, but they are scared of being kicked out of their own church. There is a case here in Tulsa of an Islamic man who spoke out against violence in the name of Islam and he got kicked out of the mosque and told not to come back until he apologizes.

I won't take this thread off topic with the story, but if someone is interested in discussing the details I will research and find some links and start another thread.

 

I'm glad that Franklin popped up in this - He was perhaps, of all the founders, the most democratic in nature, especially in his later years. One only has to look at his original draft for the state government of PA, with its dual governors and its single house of representatives, (rather than having a state senate), to see the complete transformation of a man who went from the desire to be just another lackey of King George, in his middle years, to being the titan of representative government he became during the Revoluton.

In fact, the last letter Franklin wrote, from his deathbed, was to the other most democratic of the Founders: Thomas Jefferson. It's easy to see that Franklin viewed the younger Jefferson as his own heir, in regards to the principles of '76, and that they had worked closely on a number of projects during the Revolution, including the draft of the Declaration of Independence. But Franklin has the distinction of being the "First American" and as a completely self-made man, the title is well-earned.

 

They have been. For instance, the candlelight vigil in Tehran honoring the dead of 9/11.

It's just that when you start adding to people to 'the axis of evil' and then attack one of the countries comprising it, the people on the list might rethink things. 'Hey, you guys honored our dead? You aided in the fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda? Good news: it's now 2002, and you're now our enemy!' is not going to inspire friendly behavior. In anyone in the region.

Invading a country and then watching ethnic, tribal, and religious violence flare up is not going to inspire friendly behavior either.

Oh, yes, and after invading a country, when its neighbor comes hat in hand and says, 'look, we'd like to negotiate. Everything's on the table, including our nuclear program. We'd rather not be enemies,' responding that 'we don't talk to evil' isn't going to inspire friendly behavior. Especially when it's plainly not true (Libya, Uzbekistan, Pakistan; we talk to them, right?)

Sure, it's as more an internal issue than it is an external problem, and we can't solve it, but we can influence it. And since 9/11, our influence has made things worse, not better. Change (no, not regime change ) starts at home.

 

Saber:

Um - that's not what I said. I said that they'll follow a charismataic leader - I did not in any way mean Bush. If they had a charismatic leader to follow then things could possibly go downhill very quickly.

Chandos:

Well, I disagree that being given the choice of two terrible options - one of which you'll have to live with as leader of the nation for at least the next four years - really counts as a good democracy. Plus the idea that 51% of the population can dictate the rules for the 49% on the other side just doesn't sound in the spirit of democracy to me.

... but that's probably irrelevant.

Thank you for totally missing the point. Good job.

 

It was a nice gesture, but I am talking about actually condeming these attacks and rooting them out and eliminating them.

Speaking of Iran though, as long Ahmadinejad is the President of Iran, and keeps making statements like the following, I am not going to look to give or get much compassion from Iran:

“Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury,”

“The Butcher of Sabra and Shatila has joined his ancestors and others will soon follow suit”,

“We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world”

“The Global Oppressor [the U.S.] occupied these countries with the aim of putting pressure on Iran, but God let the fruit of this fall on the lap of the Iranian nation”

"They are angry with our nation. But we tell them 'so be it and die from this anger'. Rest assured that if you do not respond to the divine call, you will die soon and vanish from the face of the earth,"

 

Ahmadinejad is a demagogue. Also, let's be honest, we know where the real power is in Iran.

However, tool that he is, he can create a vicious circle: he rants about Israel, the USA, the West, and the lack of yellow flamingos, then either of the first three decides he's too dangerous and enacts some "sanctions", then the people of Iran actually believe more of the bull he's saying, thus he's emboldened, etc. IMO it's a classic case of provocation. If the situation subsided, Iranians might think more about "hey, why is our economy in such a mess the last few years, in spite of the oil price rises?", so he has an interest in keeping the flames fanned.

Of course, right-wing parties in Israel, and probably elsewhere, couldn't be happier from a political point of view (as imo they probably know Iran can't bite them, and probably never will dare to). Now, if they're also in power, they can join in the ranting, fear-mongering, and have the entire mess escalate.

 

They did. They actively aided us against the Taliban and in planning for the post-war government. Then Bush decided Iran was part of the Axis of evil.

When the Iranians came to us in the wake of the Iraq invasion, putting everything on the table, we rebuffed them.

So imagine you're Iranian. Are you going to want to pursue reconcilliation with America? You already have twice in the past five years, and both times America didn't want it. And now America's been making noise about attacking you, sponsoring forays into your country, and so on. How are you going to react?

As for the quotes, the first, second, third and fourth are from '05, the fifth from '06. Which really makes my point quite nicely: we've made things worse, not better. It may well be, at this point, that reconcilliation with Iran isn't gonna happen in the near future. If so, we have only ourselves to blame.

I say again, change starts at home. If Iran's too late to salvage, we can at least not repeat our mistakes.

Read the bit from Isreal's Deputy Defense Minister in the Hersh article I linked to. Essentially, Israel's worry is that a nuclear Iran can 'end the zionist dream' without ever having to push the button.

 

This is way off topic...I will be happy to discuss this in another thread, but I will close this sidebar in this one by stating that you are looking at this issue from a small historical standpoint, and at a narrow perspective.

 

To the topic...

I think it's silly to single out America as increasing in anti-muslim sentiment. It's the west in general, for starters, and things are much more serious in Europe, seeing a much greater shift in this direction than America is.

Take a look at the termoil in France right now. Anti-Muslim violence is a major problem there. Jean-Marie Le Pen, a very conservative politician who's pet policy favors deporting all Muslim immigrants, may well win France's presidency in 2007. Belgium is having similar divides now too. France is experiencing a huge shift to the right, which is surprising for such a traditionally socialist nation. France is a lot closer to Nazi-esque national consciousness than we are, by far. Anti-muslim violence - though not unheard of - is still very rare here.

I tend to think that the poll's 39% number is a fluke and strangely high, but it is notable. Thanks to the Bush administration referring to "Muslim extremists" and "Islamic terrorists" every five minutes for the last 5 years, many people who otherwise knew very little about Islam are now automatically associating all of Islam with 9-11, which is unfortunate. I agree that the Islamic community needs to do a better job of denouncing al Qaeda if that's not how they feel, but our government also needs to do a better job of choosing their words and distancing al Qaeda from Islam at large, because the doctrine al Qaeda follows - though it's popularity has greatly increased in recent years thanks to Bush's rhetoric and the Iraq war - is a fringe, warped, and violent interpretation of the Qu'uran. Islam in and of itself is NOT the problem.

EDIT: Here's an excellent piece from NPR last month that I feel is particularly poignant to this discussion...

linky

 

There's not much anti-muslim sentiment here in New Zealand. I would classify us as being part of the "West".

 

You must be joking, there's no chance he'll win the French election. He might get some 15% max votes but the chances of him winning are very very slim. He benefits quite a lot from the anti EU feelings that are quite strong in France right now but that's not nearly enough for him to win. His party is much less popular than the socialists or the moderate conservatives in France. The last time he got to the second round mainly because of poor voting activity and even then was completely trashed on the second round by Chiraq.

 

@HB - Well that's because you have hobbits.

@ Morg,

I hope you're right, and as a European you almost certainly know more about it than I. But what I mentioned is based on several articles I've read on the subject over the last year. Enough so that I give it more credibility than if it'd been one or two articles here or there.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think 11% support for a party like his is very worrying for the future of EU and for France. However there is very little support that he'll win, all parties united against him the last time and they'll do it again. Le Pen would need to reach a coaltion with either the moderates or the socialists, the moderates are not going to do that because they have the best chance to win right now and the socialists can't do it because of major idelogical differences so in the end Le Pen is very much alone and won't have a snowball's chance of winning the election.

EDIT: I'll go as far as to eating my hat if that idiot becomes the president of France in the next elections.

 

Ha! Your hat could be made of bologna for all I know. If you TRULY held the courage of your conviction, sir, you'd say you'd eat Splunge's shorts if he won. THEN I'd believe you were serious.

The gauntlet, sir, has been thrown.

 

It remains to be seen what kind of government the U.S. will end up with. Fascism is possible although we are currently heading toward socialism. What is certain is that the Oligarchs in Washington continue to consolidate power while the public snoozes. The question is, will the American people wake up before it's too late and they've lost the power to return to the Constitutional Republic that was intended by the Founding Fathers. The key, then is whether or not the American people will continue to be distracted by the meaningless crap fed to them by the media (Hollywood celebrities, et al.) and the spurious "crises" that the government dreams up in order to take away a little more of their liberty, or they finally remember that they have a responsibility to reclaim their government from the Oligarchs who currently hold sway (Republicrats).

 

I wasn't.

To be clear, my point was not that America is solely responsible for Muslim feelings. Far from it. However, America is responsible to some extent, and to the extend it has been responsible for influencing Muslim feelings in the past five years, its influence has been negative.

Second point was that given the first point, our first priority ought to be working on 'fixing' ourselves.

I'll quit derailing the thread with that clarification.

 

Yeah sneaky little devils. We should round 'em all up put them somewhere safe so they can't cause any more trouble with their "pipe weed" and their bare feet. They so subversive. The people need to be protected from them. We are the superior race.

 

It is kind of counterintuitive pointing out European anti-Islam violence after the riots of France, the murder of van Gogh, the blatant hatred displayed after the Mohammed caricatures or even events as far back as the vandalism around Rushdies "Satanic Verses". Not to mention several (Muslim) critics of Islam, opposing certain tendencies in that religion, who have to be secreted away by the authorities.

It stands to reason who has a claim to victimization here.

As for the anti-Islam violence that's supposedly virulent around here - do you have a link, DR? I must say have heard very little about that. Certainly nothing comparable to assassinations, deaththreats etc. some of the Muslims have to offer.

 

Dendri hit the nail on the head. The West is far more tolerant of Islam than Islam is of the West. They consider us the enemy, why shouldn't we reciprocate. Our tolerance is being used against us as we will discover to our cost.

 

Dinsdale, no, no. To respond in kind wont get us anywhere. I for one am pleased with the thoughtful reactions of Europe so far. There is indignation, yes, and tensions are on the rise. That's exactly what some people are aiming for: To push us over the edge, escalate. We must resist that. I want our values and culture protected, but in a fair-minded, constructive fashion, not handed over and destroyed by hardliners. :/

No marking of Muslims, please...