I've gone off the deep end? LMAO...

What you asked me on that other blog was, when I stood with the mothers of Islamic kids, picking up our kids from elementary school, if I wondered whether or not their husbands were in their basements at home making bombs. You wanna talk about me going off the deep end?

That is way off the deep end. That's the kind of paranoia that people would socially shun you for if you, say, wondered if black kids' parents were selling crack or raping white women. You could even sit and use statistics of attacks and arrests, the racial diversity of the American prison population, etc., to back that up. Google it, racists do it all the time.

We don't tolerate that. We would shun you like the filth you would be. In America now, though, you can proudly say that Muslims are a "cancer" and anyone who jumps on you for it is "going off the deep end". No one is willing to say out loud what the cure for this Islamic "cancer" is, but I can guess given the attitudes reflected here.

I'm ashamed of my country.

P.S. no one should apologize for calling Rightwinger a fearmonger. He is one. As far as "hate", I don't know, maybe I do hate Rightwinger, in the same way I'd hate anyone who is willing to insult and vilify people for their religious beliefs or ethnicity. I thought I lived in a nation that was about 50 years beyond that. I guess I was wrong.

P.S. no one should apologize for calling Rightwinger a fearmonger. He is one. As far as "hate", I don't know, maybe I do hate Rightwinger, in the same way I'd hate anyone who is willing to insult and vilify people for their religious beliefs or ethnicity. I thought I lived in a nation that was about 50 years beyond that. I guess I was wrong.

---Baker

Man, I used to really admire you; your articles were, and are, eloquent and well-presented. The problem is that, somewhere along the way, you became so very open-minded that, as the saying goes, your brains fell out. You can no longer see the forest for the trees, or some other cliche'd saying. Whatever, man. Go do what you do. i don't care anymore.
Maybe I am a fearmonger...but you're an apologist and an appeaser, and I'm at least trying to save lives, and our way of life, doing what I do. Doing what you do, people will die. Will you be one of them? Probably. But at least it won't be on my head. Nice knowing you Baker....the old Baker, that is, the one who still had some sense about him. Ashamed of your country....go live somewhere else. Maybe a Muslim country. You should be happy, there.

This is like people sitting around and blaming "Nazism" for the crimes of Hitler's regime. An "ism" can't do a damn thing. It has no hands or feet. No, what I am is someone who doesn't slur people for the actions of others, while you are here branding a billion people for the actions of a small minority.

---Baker

A "small minority" that MUSLIM organizations estimate at perhaps 100 million or more. Yeah, small compared to 1.3 billion, but still a big chunk of hate and violent ideas. Your main problem is not that you CAN'T see the forest, but that you WON'T. Your desire is to be so understanding and compassionate, or something....that you just simply refuse delivery of anything that might poke a hole in your perfect world. You're good at fighting with words, though, I give you that. Your semantics are flawless.

Well, it wasn't "Nazism" that pulled the lever in the gas chambers, and it wasn't Islam that flew planes into buildings. People did that, you have their names. You have no right to point to anyone as being an apologist, when you, yourself, are building excuses for evil people.

---Baker

You're right there, sure....Nazism itself didn't do a thing....except provide the rationalization for their acts of evil, just as Islamic Fundie nutbars use Islam as their justification. You just won't see that, will you?
There is no excuse for evil, Baker; it must be punished and destroyed, or it takes over.
"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," right? Sit back and turn away from the window, Baker; you might accidentally see the Evil you deny. Have another Pepsi, Baker...grab you a handful of Doritos. Change the channel. Watch TVLand or Gameshow Netowrk; you won't chance seeing the Evil there. Do nothing. You're doing it so well, why stop now?

I think you purposely miss the points of even your own arguments.

That's why in the end of these conversations I can always walk away with a smile on my face. How bad it must suck for you for your opinion not to be worth a damn more than mine. And just think, I can express mine without spitting crumbs on people.

---Baker

No, you walk away smiling because you've lost it. Crazy people do that. Our opinions may be equally valid, overall, but at least there's caution in mine. And I'd rather be spitting crumbs than drooling on myself.

Wow, now I understand where you are coming from Baker and I have to admit you are making a lot of sense. People live their lives since the day they are born seeing the world as separate pieces of land with different people living on them when in reality this is just one really big rock with some water on top of it full of human beings that bleed red blood and eat, sleep, pee, drink and procreate all in the smae way. We refuse to accept that we are all the same people, that the differences are actually minor and should not be seen as a reason to maintain some imaginary "clean bloodline".

In my case, I don't acuse an entire race or religion of being terrorist or hateful. But I can not ignore that, at the moment, it is a particular race with a particular religion, that has declared war on our way of life. I can not help but feeling a bit suspicious when ever I see a Muslim person, just the same way I can't help but avoiding people who (reguardless or race) dress like gangsters, with their pants inder their buts and shirts twice their size, a backwards cap and an attitud as if they rule the world. While not all of them are bad people, obviously, it has been accepted in our culture as a "Don't mess with" statement. Music videos portray it, rap music sings about it, movies set around problematic neighborhood televise it. Those who play the roles accept it, those who watch the movie accept it, those who the movie portrays that actually live in these places accept it; so what shoudl I do? Ignore it? I can't help watching every step I take and every move I make before I take them. I've always been causious of my surroundings. I drive defensively, as far as I'm concerned when I'm on the road everyone else is a bad driver and I have to watch every car around me and expect them to cut me off, hit me or road rage me. I don't think I am stereotypical; I simply would rather have everyone as guilty till proven innocent when it comes to surviving. It just doesn't work the other way around for me as strange as it may sound. At least not in this reality we live in. While our culture may claim to see people as innocent till proven guilty, the fact that you get arrested for a possible crime, put in jail, all this before you even go to court to prove your innocence. But that's just me.

I'm not excusing rightwings opinion, as you already know by the above I don't exactly agree with his point of view, but to a certain extent I can see where he's coming from.

It would seem that todays current probelsm between US and the rest of the world really has us more devided that we wanna believe. This will be our downfall in my opinion. Sad, so sad.

Have they? Who is their spokesperson? Was it democratically decided to declare war on your way of life?

We're talking 1.3 BILLION people, one in five people in the whole world. The Muslim family down the street has no control over whether a guy in a cave in Pakistan decides to blow something up. During 9/11 Muslim Americans were mortified by what happened, and they spoke vehemently against it.

This stuff about moderate Muslims not saying anything about terrorism is totally bogus. Anyone with the Internet can see differently, I've posted example after example, and people like Rightwinger just wait a tick and make the same silly accusation again. It's the same tactic as Col Gene; insane bias making war by attrition.



Okay, great. Now take that perspective and imagine yourself an American Muslim. Imagine living assuming the people you are walking past are going to report you to Homeland Security if they see you coming out of Radio Shack with a spool of wire.Imagine assuming that if there is another attack that you'll be rounded up to visit sunny Gitmo.

Your philosophy works both ways. Do you really want 5 million American Muslims who haven't harmed anyone assuming that we are all like Rightwinger? Frightening prospect. If people like Rightwinger become convincing enough, we might just see what the results are.

Like I said about the kid above, we just expect American kids to pop and take a gun to school a couple of times a year these days. The Osama kid in the linked article above could have as easily decided to take a few people with him; non-Muslim kids do. Rightwinger, though, would see that as vindication, and not the sadly ironic judgment of the usefulness of his hatefulness.

One more thing. People like Rightwinger vilify the "Christian" position on this. The idea of turning the other cheek, of allowing people to be innocent until proven guilty., etc. is to them weakness. After all, it just makes us sitting ducks to them, right?

No, if I had to pick one aspect of American culture that serves Osama bin Laden's purposes, it would be people like Rightwinger. A terrorist site wouldn't want to link anything I write, because it proves them wrong. They'd proudly quote Rightwinger, though, because he says what they want people to see Americans saying.

Terrorist propaganda portrays us as hating Islam. They say that we are really bent against the religion as a whole, that Muslims aren't safe in a world that we lead. They say that down deep we are all like Rightwinger, and that we'd just as soon have a world with no Islam or Muslims at all.

How could we better serve Osama bin Laden than offer proof of his recruitment propaganda? Saying Muslims are a threat and that their religion is a cancer. That we'd better start doing "something" about it. How happy he'd be that we are offering false witness against them, lying about their supposed crimes, baiting hate and bias against them.

In the end, when Osama bin Laden kills a bunch of people, he's COUNTING on people like Rightwinger to step up and prove his points for him. Sadly, they always do. He plays the pipe and they dance for him.

You're right, 9/11 never happened, neither did the attack on the USS Cole, or the barracks at Kobar Towers. Gangs don't freely run the inner city streets, I never pulled a patient out of a gutter with 23 bullet holes in him, and child molestors don't prey on our kids.

The thing is, terrorism IS a threat, but it isn't anything that should keep us up at night. It should't stop us from flying, travelling, driving to work, going on vacations or anything else. If anything, it should motivate us to live our lives the way we see fit and don't let the terrorists affect our lives.

What it DOESN'T mean is that we should deny it exists. You remind me of the little kid that figures if he closes his eyes, it will all go away. We closed our eyes for decades... it didn't go away.

While we're on the subject of false fear though, how's that global warming, or is it global cooling, wait no, the hole in the ozone, or is it the greenhouse effect! Or is it the inversion, or the eggs... or the... oh nevermind, just keep telling me that Repubicans are the fearmongers and we'll quake in our boots together.

Isn't it great to just say, "right wing bs" and you don't have to actually think for yourself. The fact is, fear tactics are done on both sides... which was my point.

As for original thought, nothing you said seemed original either... oh and btw, what makes you think Ft. Dix is "heavily fortified"?

"Basically dick?"

There is a whole war based on fighting it. It's been in all the papers.

Yeah, Prs. Bush has used scare tactics, but at least his scare tactics are based on fact. The scare tactics from the left are just jokes!

The fact is, no president (including Ronald Reagan) has done squat against terrorism against the US, except Prs. Bush.

And for well over a thousand years we used Christianity as a justification. Yet, oddly, Christianity is still here, and we don't behave that way. Christianity wasn't to blame, evil people were. We didn't change the Bible, we just decided to stop justifying our evils with it.

---Baker

See, you keep saying this.....Christianity had its Reformation, and I suppose Islam could, too, sure....but will they have time? "For well over a thousand years", for Christians, was long before the era of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, for example. I don't know, but don't doubt, that yes, Crusaders may well have used nukes, given that option....they were, after all, reacting to Muslim militarism and encroachment on Christian Holy ground. But they didn't have that option, did they? No, and Christianity had its Reformation, and here we are. Islam? I just don't know if they'll have time before something really tragic happens.

As I said, if one percent of American Muslims decided to attack that would be hundreds of attacks per state. Not a damn thing we could do about it, either, and that doesn't count all the foreign nationals that come here every day.

---Baker

American Muslims aren't constantly propagandized and indoctrinated from the womb to hate the Jews and the Great Satan, either, as they are in the MidEast. American Muslims don't worry me so much, beyond the fact that they won't, as a group, speak up or act in defense of their faith and country.

Making sweeping generalizations and stretching the truth in order to provoke fear in people makes you a fearmonger. Tar an entire race or religion for the acts of a small minority, and you are a bigot. If you characterized Judaism a "cancer", you'd be banned. If you posted statistics on prison populations and crime statistics saying we're in danger of black people, you'd be banned.

---Baker

Do me a favor, you freakin' nut.....stop pretending I'm "tarring an entire race or religion"....how many damn times do I have to use the word "Fundamentalist" or "Radical"? You won't see those words in my posts, though, because you don't want to....you want me to be a racist and bigot, hating and fearing the little brown peoples, just so you can tar me, and thus sniff haughtily, dismiss and ignore me. And, I might add, Jews and Blacks are not a threat. RADICAL, FUNDAMENTALIST Islam is.

There are somewhere around 5 million in the US. It took 19 to commit the WTC attack.

---Baker

But none from the US itself. What you don't seem to want to recognize is the fact that there are OTHER Muslims in the world BESIDES the smiling, happy ladies at the bus stop---lots of people who want Americans (and Israelis) DEAD. Who want America (and Israel) DESTROYED. Who want Western Civilization itself BURIED, and replaced with an Islamic Caliphate. Why won't you acknowledge this? Is it that much of a threat to your perfect, PC, Multicultie pinhead world view?

Nope, they aren't. They're still Muslims, though. Kind of defeats your point, huh? Obviously, if Islam was the problem, the indoctrination would be anywhere the religion was found. Instead, you only find it in places where the people are politically and economically oppressed, and radical Islam is a tool that is used.

The idiotic part of this is that anyone who ever read anything I wrote on Islam knows that I am not an apologist for it. I never have been. I've been scathingly critical of it. I hate any literalist silliness that makes people deny reality in favor of something some guy wrote hundreds or thousands of years ago.

I hate it with Christianity, and I hate it with Islam. People talk about how I "changed", but I haven't changed. I still think Islam lacks their reformation. I still think literalism and fundamentalism is killing a lot of people around the world.

Why I seemed to change is because as I saw the mob I was in getting closer to the deep end, I slammed on the breaks. They didn't, and continued roaring toward the abyss of irrational fear and loathing they now live in. As they saw me disappearing in their rear view mirror, I guess it seemed like I was moving away from them.

It doesn't take much to come back to it. Just dedication to the ideals that this nation was founded upon. Simply asking yourself what the current slur that is oozing out of your mouth like diarrhea is really going to accomplish. Pondering "Is this something that Osama bin Laden would quote to prove Americans hate Muslims".

Short of that, people will just keep creating the same environment he predicts here. He'll call us monsters, in response we'll act like monsters, and another generation of young Muslims around the world will fear us in the EXACT same way that Rightwinger fears them. Like I said to charles above, all this "self preservation" bias works both ways.

P.S. Rightwinger: I gave you a lot more than one insightful, and frankly I would again. On this point, though, you are wrong, and the efforts that you and people like you undertake on the Internet defame yourself and your country, and serve the interests of evil people.






Let them throw fits, and kill at the very least self-confessed terrorists. We may not know where Osama is, but we know there are storefront offices for terrorist organizations in numerous Middle Eastern nations. If this is really a war on terror, and we know where there are terrorists, we should demand that the nation in question deal with them, or deal with them ourselves.

We are actually allowing Hamas to be a government faction in Palestine. Terrorists, walking around in daylight, giving speeches, and what are we doing? Nothing. That doesn't sound like a war on terror to me. If Israel wants to play patty cake with them, whatever, but they look like nice plump targets to me.

No surpise, though, Clinton invited terrorists to the White House. All a terrorist has to do is buy a suit and call himself a politician. So long as that is true, there is no war on terror.

Let's see, Saddam, Osama, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Muqtada al-Sadr. I can keep going. It's ironic that while they are not all from the same country or even from the same tribes they all have 2 things in common, the destruction of Israel and the destruction of Western society.I don't know what world you live in but you seem to be ignoring the ones making the treats and only focusing on the ones who are hiding in fear or the one here in the US who don't seem that dangerous to you.



Yes interesting enough that 1 fifth of this worlds population is the only one who's race just can't stay off the media's lips. I don't see the entire world having trouble with radical Chinese or radical N Koreans or radical Brazilians. If you wanna ignore the fact that it is of the Muslim race and of the Islamic religion the group of people wanting our annihilation is from, fine with me. In the end this is only your opinion and these are just mine. I chose to see the world for what it is, money hungry, power struggle, survival of the smartest. A world where we will all live in peace as brothers and sisters one day is far far away. While hope must not be lost, reality must still be accepted and dealt with as necessary.

"I don't know what world you live in but you seem to be ignoring the ones making the treats and only focusing on the ones who are hiding in fear or the one here in the US who don't seem that dangerous to you."

Yeah, in the same way that I wouldn't tar black people for everything mumbled by Louis Farrakhan or Jesse Jackson. I'm not ignoring anyone, I'm just not applying the sins of the few to the whole. Christians just love it when they are judged by the acts of molesting priests, the Pope or Jimmy Swaggart. I'm pretty sure none of those people you listed asked for a vote on their opinions.

Here's a thought, how would you like it if you were judged by Hillary Clinton's speeches. She's one of your "leaders" after all. Heck, she's even in the same nation as you. More of an association than what you guys are citing more often than not.

"Yes interesting enough that 1 fifth of this worlds population is the only one who's race just can't stay off the media's lips."

Again, are you talking about one fifth the world's population, or are you talking about those that are actually doing harm? You realize there are white Muslims, too, right? Philippino Muslims? Indian Muslims? Chinese Muslims?

It's like the technology thing before. I don't even think you know who you are talking about when you speak this way. You have a fixed image in your mind that doesn't apply to a tenth of the people you are directing your ire at.