Bin Laden gaining strength with help from Tea Party / Republicans

No one said that. The point is that the hateful rhetoric may end up helping the extremists with their recruiting.

 

You seem to come into a lot of his threads for no reason other than to make personal attacks and call him a drama queen. If you have such a problem with the guy, why don't you ignore him?

 

That's nice. But it is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

My values are not wanting to see the spread of ideas/value systems which 1) makes unjustifiable/unprovable claims and/or 2) give violent directives or are open to violent interpretation.

I have no problem living up to those values. I will not force my values on other people at the barrel of a gun or the fuse of a bomb, but I will work peacefully to see less people adopt those ideas which I oppose across the world. If that pisses people off, oh well, that's their problem, not mine.

Like I said, this is not a popularity contest. I don't care whether they think I suck for believing that Islam (or any religion for that matter) is a bad thing. If they support/think favorably of Bin Laden, or think they can cause violence, because I disagree with them, then I think that pretty much instantly puts them in the wrong on this issue. I will not bow to threats.

Stop being so condescending and assuming things, please.

So we should compromise our values because of threats? Or because we want to win a popularity contest? No thanks.

Sounds more like bowing to threats and violence again. No thank you. I will continue to peacefully oppose and spread my values, and if they kill me for it, I can die saying I stood up for myself and never resorted to violence to do it.

Again, stop being so condescending and assuming things, thanks

 

Where did I say that I wanted to restrict people's freedom of religion or their philosophical choices? Can you point that out please?

And yep, I don't care if you think I'm wrong. If you get "inflamed" because I have a different opinion than you, oh well. Why should I change my opinion because you don't like it? Because you will cause violence? That's not a good reason at all.

 

Opposing the spread of ideas does not mean that I would restrict their freedom to do so. I made it expressly clear that I would not force people to believe anything at the barrel of a gun. Which is pretty much the bottom line when it comes to freedom of religion.

When I say "you", I'm referring to anyone. Not you in particular.

I have seen things from enough perspectives and looked at this issue from enough angles that I am extremely comfortable and at peace with my values and opinions.

And yeah, comparing me to Bin Laden, classy.

 

I think it would be helpful to know who is the type of person that would be driven to kill because some other group doesn't like where a house of worship of their religion is being built. Gather all of those people up and neutralize them somehow. That group is too stupid and/or radical to be allowed to associate out here in normal society with the rest of us.

Why it would be okay to support building a mosque (or temple, shrine, church, whatever) somewhere but not okay to oppose it is beyond me. I can understand the government not getting involved, because it is a constitutional issue, but I see nothing wrong with a protest, even if I think it is dumb. I am a Christian, but if someone wants to protest building a church somewhere, I don't give a crap. I certainly would not feel an intense hatred for the entire nation where those people live, nor would I take up arms to fight them. This entire issue is r****ded to me.

 

It is not a restriction of others freedom unless the government (which, for all intents and purposes, is basically the equivalent of a weapon, because if you do not do what they say, they can use force to make you do it) gets involved.

If a bunch of people protest, and the project managers decide not to build, that is not a restriction of freedom, since it is they themselves that made the decision, and no one else.

 

Incorrect.

"Political pressure" would qualify as government intervention, so you have to remove that from the discussion.

People are allowed to protest and oppose anything they want, as long as they do not do anything illegal or bring the government into the picture, then they're just expressing their views and not applying any restrictions to others.

Were civil rights protestors in the 50s and 60s "restricting" people's rights by having sit-ins, boycotts, and picketting? No.

Peaceful, legal protest and demonstration is just another form of expression.

 

You are coming at this from an American point of view where you understand the nuissances of the issues. That doesn't mean that some one living in the Middle East wouldn't understand that but would just happen to see a lot of angry people criticizing Islam as a religion of violence.

For example frequently anti-American protesters in the Middle East are shown to justify fear of Muslims. At the same time we don't always know what the laws of these countries are where these people are protesting, for example Egypt is an US Ally, or all of the reasons why they are protesting.

 

I've already stated I don't approve of getting the government involved.

Unfortunate, but still not government intervention, so not a restriction. People are allowed to do these things.

I've already stated I don't approve of getting the government involved.

You seem to be.

Mmm. Tasty fail. You are judging people's right to protest based on *what* they are protesting for/against, and not *how* they are protesting. Doesn't work that way. As long as people aren't getting the government involved or doing something violent/illegal, they're allowed to protest against someone else's expressions as much as they want.

You want people to not be able to peacefully and legally protest against ideals that they disagree with, and you're calling *me* unamerican?

No where in the constitution does it guarantee that John Doe isn't allowed to take exception to your religion or expressions, and no where does it say that he isn't allowed to do anything within the boundaries of the law to stop your expression or counter your religious ideals.

 

Political pressure to me means government intervention. If you mean something else, explain it. If this "political pressure" isn't using government resources to take part in the protest, then I don't really care.


Even if they're yelling bad words at you and calling you names, as long as the protestations aren't illegal, you have to deal with it. Being a jerk isn't against the law as far as I know.

 

Is it against the law? If not, you have fun with that. I'll be rocking my iPod.