There are still morons claiming the Bill of Rights shouldn't apply to religions and ideas they (and I) despise -- even though there is a perfectly good body of law to deal with persons who commit despicable acts. And most of the group also claim that when I state this simple fact, I am condoning Islam.
Wrong, witlings. I don't condone any religion and I'm none too fond of atheism, either -- I think they're all too damn sure of themselves. Personally, I will be very let down if I die and find out this great big complicated universe was just a cheap magic act; but I do not fail to observe how much comfort people find in their faith. Even the ones I think suck more than others.
Saying the other guy can't have his faith -- even if he is some seething Christian Identity jerk or a race-baiting Liberation Theology weirdo or yes, gasp, a Muslim -- is a profoundly unAmerican attitude. On the other hand, stopping any of them (or that agnostic, Baptist or Buddhist over there) in the commission of a criminal act (for the kids that took the short bus, this would include conspiring to commit a crime, too) is patriotic; it supports civil order.
I don't know why some of you can't get that through your heads. I know why it bugs me: you're wanting to jettison one of the most basic notions behind this country. If we're so far gone that a sizable minority are seriously considering Nuremberg Laws, the U.S. of A. is done for. Walking dead. Something might live on but it won't be the Republic. And it sure won't be my country any more. Perhaps it will be yours; more likely you will be its.
(But until you bastards amend the Constitution, it still is my country. Like it or lump it. You got your bedammed "USA PATRIOT Act" and you're not likely to ever be rid of it but there is, still, at least for a little while longer, a limit to just how hard the State can stamp on a citizen's face, or at least to the excuses it can use to do the stamping).
And for the paranoids who think every terroristic act is committed by Muslims, will you pleeeeeeeeze look up the last dozen spree shootings here in the U. S. and tell me how many Muslims were among them? Wait, wait, I'll tell you: one. Most of the shooters gave all kinds of signs they were about to do something way outside of normal, signs that were obvious in hindsight but the lesson there is, You Are Not Safe And You Never Were. Are you any deader if the guy shouts "Allahu Akbar" before he shoots you instead of "I Hate Mondays?" Are you any more terrorized? --Coward.*
Odds-wise, you need to be more concerned about cooks and waiters who don't wash their hands, but you never were safe. I'm sorry it feels all awful to have the scales yanked from your eyes but even if you got your wish and every last Muslim on the face of the Earth vanished overnight, you would still not be safe. You never will be. It's not a safe world and the featherless bipeds all around you are, on average, not that tightly wrapped. A lot of them plain hate you, for any number of reasons. Nearly all of them don't give a damn about you; the few that might are so small a minority as to be statistically insignificant. All of which is another reason to not go policing their thoughts: we'd run outta jails.
Those who would trade their liberty for security will eventually find they have neither.
________________________
* Seriously, if these clods scare you more than any other criminal or warrior, you are a coward.
It's too late. The republic was finished with the sighning of the patriot act. Fay victus
ReplyDeleteHell, Anonymous, I've had a commenter at my blog tell me that the Republic was finished upon the ratification of the Constitution. You're a mere piker by comparison!
ReplyDeleteThe Republic has survived worse that the PATRIOT Act - see the Alien and Sedition acts sometime.
ReplyDeleteI may not have the way with wordst hat you do, Roberta, but you're not the only one who feels the way you do.
Well I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed Roberta...but even I can see that there is no adequate 'body of law' that deals with properly with terrorism. Even our judiciary says so. I also see a huge difference between a 'religion' and a blood cult.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that the values represented in your bill of rights are incompatable with those of Islam - and most moslems will live by the Koran before the BoR. Hell, as a woman you should see the incompatibility of the BoR with role of women in the moslem faith.
You are right that statistically speaking, militant moslems are not really a viable threat to me personally. Yet.
By the same token, my rights would not be violated one iota if some rag head terrorists were stood up against a wall and shot without a trial either.
All I know is that wherever those idiots go - they take racism, violence and ignorance with them. Just ask the Europeans.
Now if anyone needs me I will be finger painting with the other retards. I like your blog, Roberta,it is a worthy effort.
Jim
There are still morons claiming the Bill of Rights shouldn't apply to religions and ideas they (and I) despise...
ReplyDeleteWho?
Anon says, "...even I can see that there is no adequate 'body of law' that deals with properly with terrorism."
ReplyDeleteSo it's legal in the United States to kill people who present no threat? It's legal to blow stuff up? It's legal to enagage in conspiracy to commit such acts? Riiiight.
"Even our judiciary says so."
Cite a source.
"I also see a huge difference between a 'religion' and a blood cult."
Which is why we have the First Amendment. It irked Founding Father John Jay, too -- he saw a huge difference between Christianity and Catholicism. So did D. C. Stephenson.
"The fact is that the values represented in your bill of rights are incompatable with those of Islam - and most moslems will live by the Koran before the BoR."
And if they do so in this country in a manner that infringes upon the rights of others, they will go to jail. This is why we have the Bill of Rights.
"Hell, as a woman you should see the incompatibility of the BoR with role of women in the moslem faith."
Well, it's one of the many reasons why I don't belong to that faith. Kind of like the way that Christian rule about women needing to be silent in church and defer to their husbands is why I'm not a member of that faith, either.
"By the same token, my rights would not be violated one iota if some rag head terrorists were stood up against a wall and shot without a trial either."
You're so sure a government with the power to do that would never, ever do it to you? You have a lot more faith in the Feds than I do.
"All I know is that wherever those idiots go - they take racism, violence and ignorance with them. Just ask the Europeans."
Europe stopped shooting mad dogs. The United States has not. You think we should shoot all dogs.
I will admit that I take issue with those of the Muslim faith that insist that they take it upon themselves to enforce sharia. Cutting and raping women for failing to wear a veil, for example. Killing infidels and apostates for refusing the "one true faith" for another.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't as though the Christian bible doesn't have similar edicts, it is just that there are not any Christians left who insist on enforcing those particular parts of the Old Testament.
As an atheist, I find all religions to be equally silly. That however does not mean that I will refuse to protect your right to believe in one. I just have a problem when you try to force it on others, or try to use the COTUS and your religion to commit atrocities upon others.
Roberta,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading your blog and I appreciate the stand you are taking with the intolerant jerks who know how to fix us, Bill of Rights and laws be damned.
We live in a Nation with a representative government where we have elected folks at every level to represent us, make laws,enforce laws and put in place a means to judge the application of those laws.
The bill of rights has stood the test to time as a means to calibrate and re-calibrate the actions of these branches of government and without this constant I have no doubt we will soon sail into extinction as a free nation.
I really dislike self-appointed, sanctimonious jerks who know everything, and when a subject comes up they tend to lower their voices slightly and preface every other sentence with, “What most people don’t know…… blah, blah, blah.” (Lots of gun store clerks suffer from this affliction.) In their own minds they are always better informed and they view the majority of us people as dim-witted, uninformed extras in their ego-centric personal life story. They know how to fix it, no matter what the problem or complexity and they are willing to ignore and throw away any logical, time-honored, concepts such as out Bill of Rights which might get the way of their quick-fix solutions.
I am not fond of the decisions of the current majority voting patterns that have given us our set of leaders who tend to amaze me with their ‘special enlightened decisions’. However we now have a chance to communicate with others, participate in the next election and we can attempt to make a course correction which is not easy nor is it fast but I have faith that in time, as 'chickens come home to roost', we might reset our Nation on a better course. Our Bill of Rights gives us, we the people, the ability to pull this off, over and over.
How history will view our nation twenty or thirty years down the road will be interesting, and at my age I will be dead anyway, but I do know that if we don’t uphold our Bill of Rights and if we try to short circuit the process we will not be the unique nation of free men and women I have loved and appreciated all of my life.
We are still a strong wonderful nation built upon a solid foundation that needs time to re-adjust and that might take decades, not just an election cycle or two.
We might be bruised and beaten up a bit but I know we are a Nation that can handle the current threats to out safety and at some point these extremist threats will burn themselves out and become replaced with a new ones.
We all held our breath in the 1950’s and practiced ducking under our school desks so we would be ready for the deadly bombs the commies were going to send our way any day. I remember hearing our teachers and preachers tell us how bad off we were living in those modern times and how the world had goneto ‘hell in a hand basket’ and now in retrospect I see that we not only survived but today those are the ‘good old days'.
My grandma, who was born soon after her dad came home from fighting in the civil war, had lived a very long life and she thought the 1950's were a terrible time.
Anyway Roberta,
Thank you ever so much for sharing your thoughts and ideas and especially your gun, fun passion with all of us.
If there were an adequate body of law to address terrorism, the men currently languishing in Gitmo would have been dealt with ages ago. No, I don't advocate mass murder of moslems as being a solution to the problem.
ReplyDeleteWe are basically looking at this from opposite ends of the issue Roberta. I am looking at moslems as a group, you are looking at them as individuals. I am looking at what they have done as a group in other countries, you are looking at what they have done in America to date.
Islam is giving America a choice. Either you can have your BoR and the random moslem terrorism that it will enable - or you can redefine the rights in hopes of addressing terrorism - not only moslem terrorism, but that from other groups as well.
I am realistic enough to realize that politicians have been crapping on the constitution and BoR forever - but to me that thing is just a bunch of paper the same way the Koran is. The guys that ignore such things will continue to ignore them, the mindless dolts that are enslaved to their interpretations of them will continue to be so, and the tides of history will come out on top.
If it comes down to moslems vs libertarians my money is on the moslems - although I would rather see you guys win that one.
Sorry for the blog-clogging, the final word is yours - and I shall look forward to it.
Jim
"I am looking at moslems as a group, you are looking at them as individuals."
ReplyDelete"I am looking at what they have done as a group..."
And what exactly is that group made up of again?
"Islam is giving America a choice. Either you can have your BoR and the random moslem terrorism that it will enable - or you can redefine the rights in hopes of addressing terrorism"
Were the *actually* a strictly either/or case, I'd still take the Bill of Rights. Unless you'd like to include a new clause requiring tornados to give one day written notice before striking a trailer park, earthquakes to fill out form 1906b before hitting San Francisco, muggers to call ahead at least one hour, and all flat tires to occur on a scheduled basis. Attempting to legislate against the inherently unpredictable should be, on its face, an idea comprised of unfettered jackassery, and yet just because it's a different flavor of unpredictable it suddenly turns into a great idea in many minds. Nobody promised me a safe world, and stepping on someone else trying to bring about a nerf-wrapped utopia is much more offensive than the notion that I might get blow'd up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Then again anyone who wants to trust the government with something more complicated than a slinky, let alone the power to decide whether or not huge groups are on the "you get to stick around" list has a few screws loose anyway.
Hmpfff. Moral relativism. Not really the basis for a sound argument. Are the BoR and the Constitution suicide documents then?
ReplyDeleteI personally hope the Americans are smarter than the Euros.
Some people can see a problem coming - others just have to whiz on the electric fence and find out the hard way...
Jim
I particularly like
ReplyDelete"All I know is that wherever those idiots go - they take racism, violence and ignorance with them. Just ask the Europeans."
Shall we ask the Incas, Tasmanians, and Cherokees? Oops, too late.
Also, the Bill of Rights didn't prevent a century of quite widespread terrorism in (mostly the south of) this country, but no one called for a dissolution of freedom.
Nor is it much help in the actual, serious "terrorist" war that's chewing on us, the one with a couple of hundred thousand casualties a year. But we still put up with it.
The Moslems are nothing. I'd be ashamed to suggest that they can bully us into ditching Madison and Mason and the rest.
Our founders looked at history- especially their great grandparents'- and decided that religion was just too dangerous to let government even touch it.
I'd submit that the only genuinely original thing in the U.S. Constitution is the official, up front, intentional disestablishment and freedom of and from ALL religions.
*HUG!*
ReplyDeleteMan, I hope you're not allergic to wookiiee suit fur. All these hugs and you might be sneezing up a storm. ;)
WV: "ingly" -- Dern it, in this country we speak ingly!
The Republic was finished during FDR's tenure. Just because there's still a government here doesn't mean it's a constitutional republic. Unlike the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were allowed to expire or were repealed on grounds of unconstitutionality, the New Deal reforms became standard operating procedure. Your perspectives on governance are therefore colored by the prevalence of post-New Deal philosophy.
ReplyDeleteThere is no body of law adequate to deal with everything, because law is created by fallible humans. There will be no law that adequately addresses "terrorism", because to be terrorized is a state of mind. We already have an Islamic subculture that is hostile to Western civilization. I fail to see how the addition of government hostile to the liberty of its people is going to encourage trust and cooperation, especially considering this government seeks to disarm its people and make illegal their attempts to defend themselves.
The binary aspects of this situation are the de facto political groups in this country: statists and individualists. The former are placing their hope in mind-reading, clairvoyance and secret lists. The latter place their trust in the ability of the people to stop the threat when it makes itself known, but eschew the existence of the perfect defense.
This is what I read/write for. I couldn't agree more Roberta. We are of like mind. Check my blog sometime and you'll know a kindred spirit.
ReplyDelete