But, I do think it's a cancer. Everywhere in the world Islam has cropped up, violence and terror against non-Muslims has followed in some fashion.

Any example??????

Then how come we never hear them speaking out forcably against the 10%?

---drmiler

Good question.

I do. Just like the article I posted. I wonder how many of them you miss? I wonder how many you missed after 9/11. My personal feeling is you don't see it because you are only interested in the stuff that backs up your biases.

---Baker

Pot and kettle....both black. As I said, Baker, read the article for what it says, not simply what you want it to say. Give it up, Baker...before you have a stroke.

I refuse to impose such on fellow Americans that have lived peacefully, Koran in hand, Mosques in our neighborhoods, for 100 years. I would be giving in to paranoid delusions if I risked validating the hateful prophesies of the people who really are threats.

---Baker

90%, 10%....but the 10 wants very, very much to kill you, and them. If no one is willing to do anything serious, they will. Talk to me then, and we'll see what you have to say. Read the article you linked for what it really says, rather than its cultural value to your argument.

I refuse, however, to see threats where there aren't any.

---Baker

Problem with this is....you tend to deny them, then, when you DO see them. Which is exactly what you're doing.

Delusions are about seeing things that aren't there, believing things that aren't reality. I openly admit the problems we have with radical Islam. I openly acknoledge that there are dire threats from a narrow slice of the Muslim world.

---Baker

Do you know what else was a "narrow slice" of a culture? Nazism. The Nazis were a minority, and a joke. The term "Nazi" itself was a play on words by a German journalist dismissing them. Know who else were a "narrow slice"? The Bolsheviks. they were a joke, too. Look what became of them.
How about the Fundies in Iran that kicked out the Shah and installed Khomeni? For many years, they were a "narrow slice", too. Now they, like the Nazis and Communists in their turn, run the place. All it takes is determination. And they ARE determined. That narrow slice is willing to kill millions of people to get what they want. THAT is what bothers me. Well, that, and the fact people like that you won't do anything to stop it.

If you want to enable hateful, radical Muslims by validating THEIR paranoid predictions about us, keep right on doing what you are doing.

---Baker

The only difference here is that we don't hate them unreasoningly, and pose no real, papable threat to them. We never really have. They just hate us because of what and who we are, and who we support.

For decades we heard that it would be the communists. Sure, there is a threat of a catastrophic attack from radical, wacko Muslims, just like there was a threat of nuclear war then.

---Baker

And what happened? Did we spend those decades sitting on our hands, doing nothing in the face of that threat? Well, for the four years of the Carter admin. we did, but by and large we took action. We played chess with them. We accrued allies---some not so clean and pure---to oppose them. We fought, and facilitated the fighting, of Communist insurgencies. That's why it was called the "Cold War".
With Reagan's policies, we ultimately broguht down the major player in their world, and many of its little brothers and sisters. We won because we took action.
We have already been catastrophically attacked by radical Islam; they took a helluva lot more American lives in one hour than the Communiststs did in 70 years, not counting Korea and Vietnam, which were actual wars. They will do it again.

Also, let's not forget that the Soviets were willing to negotiate on a more or less level playing field, and to stick by their words and agreements. More or less. Islamics, however, find it a virtue to lie to and decieve infidels and outsiders. That's why talking gets you nowhere.

You can expect the same kind of dire things from other groups as well. Eventually SOMEONE is going to cause great death and mayhem, there can be little doubt. Not all of them are Muslim, though

---Baker

And I never said radical Islam was the ONLY threat in the world; hell, Hugo Chavez doesn't like us much, either----and he IS butt buddies with Ahmedinejad, now.....it's the biggest one right now.
Not many others have sworn to wipe the US and Israel off the map and kill us. As I've said, it doesn't worry me so much if they can actually do it or not....it worries me that they're willing to try. That could, and will, "if these shadows remain unchainged", cause a lot of destruction and innocent death.

Any example??????

---BX

From the article Baker linked:

"in Bali, Istanbul, Spain, London, Egypt, Jordan, and other places."

That's just the larger attacks since 9/11. He forgets to mention untold numbers of suicide bombings and attacks in Israel and the Mideast, the Muslim butcherings of Christians in Africa, two fairly recent incidents of which I posted as "Happens all the time." Morocco is another that leaps to mind. I shouldn't have to go into much detail on this point, unless you don't watch much news or, like Baker, are in some serious denial.

Later, gater.

"...but the 10 wants very, very much to kill you, and them."

So hundreds of thousands of Americans are bloodthirsty and want to create mayhem for decades, but just... haven't bothered? Not even so much that they'll create, say, an anti-Jew militia, or a little getaway in Idaho, or a Branch Dividian style compound, or even the lone bomber?

With all these guns freely available to US citizens? Nothing? Yet the rest of us have produced all those things in frightening numbers? Yet Islam is naturally violent? Strange that no one can find any American Islamic terrorism without it being connected to Al Qaeda or the usual suspects.

"How about the Fundies in Iran that kicked out the Shah and installed Khomeni? For many years, they were a "narrow slice"

They still are. That's why they almost had enough votes a couple of weeks ago during an impeachment vote in their congress.

"Did we spend those decades sitting on our hands, doing nothing in the face of that threat? Well, for the four years of the Carter admin. we did, but by and large we took action. We played chess with them. "

Think you are confusing "communism" with "The Soviet Union". The only thing we ever did to American communists was persecute them and make nasty moral blots on our History. If you think the McCarthy trials were "playing chess"... well, no, I guess it wouldn't surprise me.

"That's just the larger attacks since 9/11. He forgets to mention untold numbers of suicide bombings and attacks in Israel and the Mideast, the Muslim butcherings of Christians in Africa, two fairly recent incidents of which I posted as "Happens all the time." Morocco is another that leaps to mind. I shouldn't have to go into much detail on this point, unless you don't watch much news or, like Baker, are in some serious denial."

Again, as I have said, places where a) the brutality is cultural and political, and therefore the religion is too, and most certainly not representative of "wherever it cropped up" since you have Islam basically everywhere.

Healthy nations don't have Islamic terrorism. Period. When they are attacked it is from outside from nations with serious problems, and from people who find it difficult to get any kind of a foothold. If Islam was naturally violent, a "cancer", that wouldn't be true.

So hundreds of thousands of Americans are bloodthirsty and want to create mayhem for decades, but just... haven't bothered? Not even so much that they'll create, say, an anti-Jew militia, or a little getaway in Idaho, or a Branch Dividian style compound, or even the lone bomber?

Are you "that sure" they're not working on it?

Healthy nations don't have Islamic terrorism. Period. When they are attacked it is from outside from nations with serious problems, and from people who find it difficult to get any kind of a foothold. If Islam was naturally violent, a "cancer", that wouldn't be true.

So according to you there are no healthy nations in the world?

So according to you there are no healthy nations in the world?

IMO, I agree, there are no healthy nations.

Lets think about this for a sec, healthy implies things are running smoothly in a decent, if not optimum fashion. Economy, Social equality, Politics, etc...

Can you tell me, honestly, that there is a nation in the world (full of humans...) that is 'healthy'?

~L

'Are you "that sure" they're not working on it?'

For a hundred years? Damn, that's patience and secrecy... Are you sure the "Jews" aren't out to get you? Paranoid much? Qestions like that could be painted about anyone. Are you 'that sure' there isn't a Zionist plot to take over the world?

"So according to you there are no healthy nations in the world?"

If you believe that there are terrorists springing up in every nation in the world, contrary to all perceivable reality, I guess you could say that. You could say a lot of other idiotic stuff, too. Facts are, there is no terrorist tradition in ISLAM in America. Other religions, granted, haven't been so spotless.

Like I've said dozens of times, there's no spontaneous terror in America from Muslims that isn't directly connected to these broken, awful nations. You can scoff at that, but so far you've been unable to dent it with your fear mongering. Every example you've ever posted has been traceable directly to Middle East terrorist groups for funding, training, etc.

So, instead of twisting what I say, why don't you prove that Islam in America is violent. Why don't you show us our American Islamic terrorist tradition, spanning the hundred years or more that Muslims have lived here with their Mosques and their Koran.

Just fekkin show something. Not nutjobs that went on vacation to Afghanistan and came back loonier. Not radical people who have close contact with the Middle East. If Islam itself is tainted, show me terrorism that wasn't funded, coordinated, trained, etc., by the same terrorist groups in the Middle East.

If you could show one, hell ten, you'd still not come close to the terror that groups like the IRA has committed in their nation. Yet, Christianity isn't a "cancer" because of them, or the abortion clinic bombers we deal with. Oddly, you can't show ANY Islamic examples of such here in America. I guess all of our terrorists are 'sleepers'...

You know....no, forget it. I'll just take the point up and go with it. But you're wearing me down, Baker....I have to say. Not that I think you're right at all, mind you.....I'm just getting tired of this little war you've engendered.

I've been nice, I think...even tried a few times to inject some humor into this debate. You'll have none of it. You take yourself much too seriously, I think.

This is a blog, Baker....a virtual beer joint; a place to meet new people, talk, discuss any and all topics, exchange information, ideas and opinions. Nothing will ever get solved here,though. How many people's minds have you ever, really, changed here? How many people have slapped their foreheads and said "Oh my God! Baker! You're absolutely right! Holy crap! Never thought of it that way, before! You're a friggin' genius!" Not too many, I'd think.

Still, you sit there at your keyboard and throw your textual monkey poop, drip your endless scorn and utterly, entirely dismiss the opinions of others you don't agree with, yet at the same time endlessly insisting that those others should see the light of your vast greatness and superior intellect, and simply accept your opinions. Fuck you.
I try to debate from a standpoint of common sense and practicality. More often than not, you debate---argue, really, even berate---using semantics, Baker. For all your highfalutin talk and "facts" and your smarts....you argue like a liberal. Like Clinton...."Depends on what your definition of 'is' is..."

I'm so tired of having to qualify every goddamned word I say with some kind or other of disclaimer, simply because you tend to "debate" from a standpoint of absolutes, of which there are, of course, none. Yet you accuse me of the same thing.
You disdainfully tell me I see terrorists everywhere. Yet you seem to see racists and bigots and crazed militia recruits wherever you see a person who merely questions, let alone---HORRORS!---opposes---your multiculturalist outlook. What's the difference?

I'm growing tired of you, Baker. I may just come to the point where I'll concede the match to you. I mean, I do have a life beyond JU. Maybe you don't, I don't know.
We're not going to agree on this. I'm not a multiculturalist pussy like you. Sorry.

I'll get to at least some of this in the morning, if I can.

I don't want you to concede that match to me. If that's what you believe, that's what you believe. End it without conceding anything, whatever. If it wasn't for absolutes I wouldn't have taken issue with your points. If you think I take it too seriously, ponder the response people here give to folks who come in and say Christianity is a cancer, or Judaism.

I just think Muslims who work hard, raise their families right alongside us, are our doctors, etc., deserve the same friggin benefit of the doubt as any of us. To me, THAT is what makes America different than places like Iran, and when I see people saying things like you have said it makes me feel like we are losing what that means.

I don't wonder if the fundamentalist Christians I know are building abortion clinic bombs in their basement, and I would be a hypocrite to wonder that about Muslims who have shown themselves to be easily as peaceful here in America. If you can't treat people equally according to their actions, not the actions of people half the world away, then we have no common ground to find.

You know....no, forget it. I'll just take the point up and go with it. But you're wearing me down, Baker....I have to say. Not that I think you're right at all, mind you.....I'm just getting tired of this little war you've engendered. I've been nice, I think...even tried a few times to inject some humor into this debate. You'll have none of it. You take yourself much too seriously, I think. This is a blog, Baker....a virtual beer joint; a place to meet new people, talk, discuss any and all topics, exchange information, ideas and opinions. Nothing will ever get solved here,though. How many people's minds have you ever, really, changed here? How many people have slapped their foreheads and said "Oh my God! Baker! You're absolutely right! Holy crap! Never thought of it that way, before! You're a friggin' genius!" Not too many, I'd think. Still, you sit there at your keyboard and throw your textual monkey poop, drip your endless scorn and utterly, entirely dismiss the opinions of others you don't agree with, yet at the same time endlessly insisting that those others should see the light of your vast greatness and superior intellect, and simply accept your opinions. Fuck you. I try to debate from a standpoint of common sense and practicality. More often than not, you debate---argue, really, even berate---using semantics, Baker. For all your highfalutin talk and "facts" and your smarts....you argue like a liberal. Like Clinton...."Depends on what your definition of 'is' is..." I'm so tired of having to qualify every god damned word I say with some kind or other of disclaimer, simply because you tend to "debate" from a standpoint of absolutes, of which there are, of course, none. Yet you accuse me of the same thing. You disdainfully tell me I see terrorists everywhere. Yet you seem to see racists and bigots and crazed militia recruits wherever you see a person who merely questions, let alone---HORRORS!---opposes---your multiculturalist outlook. What's the difference? I'm growing tired of you, Baker. I may just come to the point where I'll concede the match to you. I mean, I do have a life beyond JU. Maybe you don't, I don't know. We're not going to agree on this. I'm not a multiculturalist pussy like you. Sorry. I'll get to at least some of this in the morning, if I can.

RW, if I might? I'd like to echo your sentiment in it's entirety! Baker, he's exactly correct on at least one thing. If someone doesn't agree with you 100% you "usually" have nothing but scorn for and or dismiss their ideas entirely out of hand! I too tire of this endless arguement with you.

" If someone doesn't agree with you 100% you "usually" have nothing but scorn for and or dismiss their ideas entirely out of hand!"

Yet, oddly, I get along with a lot of people here at JU that normally DISAGREE with me 100% of the time. You guys are just particularly annoyed with people you consider traitors. Your gab reminds me of KFCs "lukewarm" statements toward me.

If there's anything extremists hate its moderates, and the same, tired tactic is to paint them as extremist. I don't mind, because it doesn't benefit your argument. If you want to call me an "Uncle Tom" to your cause, fine. There's a thin line between "right wing" and fascist.

I don't want you to concede that match to me. If that's what you believe, that's what you believe. End it without conceding anything, whatever. If it wasn't for absolutes I wouldn't have taken issue with your points. If you think I take it too seriously, ponder the response people here give to folks who come in and say Christianity is a cancer, or Judaism.

---Baker

I know what you're saying, but until any significant numbers---say, 10%---of Christianity and Judaism start loudly calling for the deaths of all others who don't believe as they do, and/or start regularly killing themselves in order to murder as many others as possible, I'll consider this argument to be vaild....till then, sorry.

I just think Muslims who work hard, raise their families right alongside us, are our doctors, etc., deserve the same friggin benefit of the doubt as any of us. To me, THAT is what makes America different than places like Iran, and when I see people saying things like you have said it makes me feel like we are losing what that means.

---Baker

I agree with that completely....it's not like I want to throw them in concentration camps like we did the Japanese. It's not just a matter of heritage or nationality here...it's a faith. A people can have geopolitcial loyalties bred out of them, or simply decide to be loyal to their adopted nation---there were few Germans, Italians or Japanese who returned to their homelands after we got into the war---but faith is a different matter altogether.

So dammit, yes, I do question their loyalty, because none of them in any number will stand up and say "no!" to the zealots, or take any serious action to oppose them. That's what bothers me. For the fortieth time, that's what bothers me.
The article you linked, written by an American Muslim, says the same thing exactly, and you thought enough of it to link it. Yet, I said it, too, but that makes me wrong and a clueless bigot. Please make up your mind. Dump the Diversity crap---which leads its believers to make such unfair distinctions along racial/ethnic lines---and make up your mind.

I don't wonder if the fundamentalist Christians I know are building abortion clinic bombs in their basement, and I would be a hypocrite to wonder that about Muslims who have shown themselves to be easily as peaceful here in America. If you can't treat people equally according to their actions, not the actions of people half the world away, then we have no common ground to find

----Baker

Well, yes, okay.....but again, there's the issue of saying "no". Many, many Christians and Christian leaders have come out in condemnation of such things as bombing abortion clinics. I'm one of them.
And I mean, just off the top of my head, that "God Hates Fags" church out in Kansas(?)--they often send their nutty followers to military funerals in the area, to show that "this soldier died because this country supports homosexuality". Other churches, Christian organizations, even "Bikers for Jesus", or whatever it's called, routinely send people to the funerals to shield the mourners from these whackjobs. They stand there for the whole service and hold up bedsheets or sheets of plywood between the crowd of whackos and the family/friends of the soldier. They act to oppose an extremist part of their faith. They say "no". For me, not enough Muslims do so.

Yet, oddly, I get along with a lot of people here at JU that normally DISAGREE with me 100% of the time. You guys are just particularly annoyed with people you consider traitors. Your gab reminds me of KFCs "lukewarm" statements toward me.

---Baker

I get along with you, Baker.....as I said, I've tried to be nice, even funny. Did "The Stand" really have anything to do with anything?
It's you who opened the bomb bays first, not me, and who has kept it serious, and angry. I simply responded in kind, where I felt it necessary. And I never CALLED you a "traitor"....just a multiculti PC pinhead who will gladly hand our nation to the Muslim whackos when they come, because, with your set of values, you'll see nothing wrong with it.
And you'll probably wonder "why?" when they stick a knife in your chest. Or maybe you won't....it's just another quaint aspect of their culture to be unquestioningly respected.

If there's anything extremists hate its moderates, and the same, tired tactic is to paint them as extremist. I don't mind, because it doesn't benefit your argument. If you want to call me an "Uncle Tom" to your cause, fine. There's a thin line between "right wing" and fascist.

---Baker

That's because moderates don't really stand for anything, especially, or even, when the fan hits the shit. Take a side...give weight to one position or the other. Simple physics. It's the only way things move. If that makes me an extremist, I guess I am.
A Fascist? I don't know about that, though. I'm not that bad. Just to a multiculti PC pinhead like you.
As for your "Uncle Tom" statement....well, heh.....I couldn't have said it better. Heh heh heh.....heh heh heh.

drmiler: Feel free to say anything you want. This is a beer joint, after all.

We can get back to the debate, Baker if you wish....I'll reply to some of your previous comments this evening, maybe.

I can only speak for the narrow slice of Islam with which I am familiar, but Muslims do become involved with trying to fix the bad sides of their religion. Indonesian Muslims, for example, support literally thousands of charities which seek to improve educational standards in pesantren and madrassahs, or the quality of Islamic scholarship. There's also the more pragmatic, and in my opinion more useful, groups which seek to remove or limit the root causes of deadly extremism - poverty and underemployment - microcredit organisations, political action groups, anti-corruption watchdogs etc, many of which are blatantly Islamic (much like many such groups in the West are blatantly Christian or Jewish).

It's a mistake to assume Muslims do not make attempts to control or eliminate extremism simply because it doesn't happen in our sphere of awareness. Grassroots organisations are rarely bilingual and news services rarely speak Islamic languages. It's no surprise few 'good' Islamic groups come to international attention. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

Was there a global crusade against the IRA? Please. Christians won't get up off the couch to change channels, much less promote a 'jihad' over something some other Christian did in the name of God. You expect Muslims to? How many Christians demonstrate after abortion clinic bombings? A percent of a percent?

And do what? March around with signs? Kick their neighbor's door in so Righwinger doesn't have to? What's the workaday Muslim in podunk America supposed to do about a bombing in Tel Aviv?

The argument is a joke. If you are talking about the Middle East, well that's where the damned problems are. If you are talking about America, I dunno what you expect them to do. Do the people here realize that if you are saying 10% of the Muslims worldwide are bloodthirsty, you're talking about 100 MILLION people?

Was there a global crusade against the IRA? Please. Christians won't get up off the couch to change channels, much less promote a 'jihad' over something some other Christian did in the name of God. You expect Muslims to? How many Christians demonstrate after abortion clinic bombings? A percent of a percent? And do what? March around with signs? Kick their neighbor's door in so Righwinger doesn't have to? What's the workaday Muslim in podunk America supposed to do about a bombing in Tel Aviv? The argument is a joke. If you are talking about the Middle East, well that's where the damned problems are. If you are talking about America, I dunno what you expect them to do. Do the people here realize that if you are saying 10% of the Muslims worldwide are bloodthirsty, you're talking about 100 MILLION people?

This is "exactly" what RW and I were talking about!

Baker, he's exactly correct on at least one thing. If someone doesn't agree with you 100% you "usually" have nothing but scorn for and or dismiss their ideas entirely out of hand! I too tire of this endless arguement with you.