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The Founding Fathers Weren't Anti-Islam
The Founding Fathers were not nearly as anti-Muslim as many current American Christians.
As Ted Widmer writes at Boston.com:
The
Founders were way ahead of us. They thought hard about how to build a
country of many different faiths. And to advance that vision to the
fullest, they read the Koran, and studied Islam with a calm intelligence
that today’s over-hyped Americans can only begin to imagine. They
knew something that we do not. To a remarkable degree, the Koran is
not alien to American history — but inside it.No book states
the case more plainly than a single volume, tucked away deep within the
citadel of Copley Square — the Boston Public Library. The book known
as Adams 281.1 is a copy of the Koran, from the personal collection of
John Adams. There is nothing particularly ornate about this humble
book, one of a collection of 2,400 that belonged to the second
president. But it tells an important story, and reminds us how worldly
the Founders were, and how impervious to the fanaticisms that spring up
like dandelions whenever religion and politics are mixed. They, like
we, lived in a complicated and often hostile global environment,
dominated by religious strife, terror, and the bloodsport of competing
empires. Yet better than we, they saw the world as it is, and refused
the temptation to enlarge our enemies into Satanic monsters, or simply
pretend they didn’t exist.Reports of Korans in American
libraries go back at least to 1683, when an early settler of
Germantown, Pa., brought a German version to these shores. Despite its
foreign air, Adams’s Koran had a strong New England pedigree. The first
Koran published in the United States, it was printed in Springfield in
1806.Why would John Adams and a cluster of farmers in the
Connecticut valley have bought copies of the Koran in 1806?
Surprisingly, there was a long tradition of New Englanders reading in
the Islamic scripture. The legendary bluenose Cotton Mather had his
faults, but a lack of curiosity about the world was not one of them.
Mather paid scrupulous attention to the Ottoman Empire in his voracious
reading, and cited the Koran often in passing. True, much of it was in
his pinched voice — as far back as the 17th century, New England
sailors were being kidnapped by North African pirates, a source of
never ending vexation, and Mather denounced the pirates as “Mahometan
Turks, and Moors and Devils.” But he admired Arab and Ottoman learning,
and when Turks in Constantinople and Smyrna succeeded in inoculating
patients against smallpox, he led a public campaign to do the same in
Boston (a campaign for which he was much vilified by those who called
inoculation the “work of the Devil,” merely because of its Islamic
origin). It was one of his finer moments.This theory was
eloquently expressed around the time the Constitution was written. One
of its models was the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, which John Adams
had helped to create, and which, in the words of one of its drafters,
Theophilus Parsons, was designed to ensure “the most ample of liberty
of conscience” for “Deists, Mahometans, Jews and Christians.”As
the Founders deliberated over what types of people would ultimately
populate the strange new country they were creating, they cited Muslims
as an extreme of foreign-ness whom it would be important to protect in
the future. Perhaps, they daydreamed, a Muslim or a Catholic might
even be president someday? Like everything, they debated it. Some
disapproved, but Richard Henry Lee insisted that “true freedom embraces
the Mahometan and Gentoo [Hindu] as well as the Christian religion.”
George Washington went out of his way to praise Muslims on several
occasions, and suggested that he would welcome them at Mount Vernon if
they were willing to work. Benjamin Franklin argued that Muslims should
be able to preach to Christians if we insisted on the right to preach
to them. Near the end of his life, he impersonated a Muslim essayist,
to mock American hypocrisy over slavery.Thomas Jefferson,
especially, had a familiarity with Islam that borders on the
astonishing. Like Adams, he owned a Koran, a 1764 English edition that
he bought while studying law as a young man in Williamsburg, Va. Only
two years ago, that Koran became the center of a controversy, when the
first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Keith Ellison, a Democrat from
Minnesota, asked if he could place his hand on it while taking his oath
of office — a request that elicited tremendous screeches from the talk
radio extremists. Jefferson even tried to learn Arabic, and wrote his
Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom to protect “the Jew and the
Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of
every denomination.”Jefferson and Adams led many of our early
negotiations with the Islamic powers as the United States lurched into
existence. A favorable treaty was signed with Morocco, simply because
the Moroccans considered the Americans ahl-al-kitab, or “people of the
book,” similar to Muslims, who likewise eschewed the idolatry of
Europe’s ornate state religions.
What are Muslims Like?
Some Muslims really are terrorists.
Some Christians are as well.
In
truth, the percentage of Muslim and Christian terrorists is very small
compared to the huge numbers of adherents of those faiths.
Just
like Christians range from abortion doctor killers to mystics, Muslims
range from jihadis to poets like Rumi (Sufism - the mystical branch of
Islam - is peaceful and contemplative).
As prominent Christian writer, psychiatrist and former army doctor M. Scott Peck wrote, all humans - no matter what religion might be dominant in their culture - go through 4 stages of development:
1st: Chaos (a heroin addict, for example, who robs to support his habit)
2nd:
Fundamentalism (clinging to dogma in order to fight off chaos;
believing the book - whether Bible, Koran or Bhagavad Gita - is THE
truth, and anyone who disagrees is evil)
3rd: Skepticism and questioning (feeling stable enough to question the dogma of the dominant religion and other institutions)
4th:
Maturity (keeping the skepticism and questioning, but also being open
to life's beauty, love and mystery; using both one's head and heart;
being passionate and dedicated to making the world a better place)
(These
4 steps are not necessarily the full and complete truth, but they
present one possible description which is useful for starting a
discussion on religion).
Ignore the clothes, the skin color and the accent, and what do we see?
A drug addict in Saudi Arabia, America or Israel will look fairly similar. Fundamentalist
Christians, Muslims and Jews all think the other guy is evil, and that
God wants them to wipe the other guy out. Skeptics look the same
everywhere. And people who integrate their head and their heart all are
operating out of the same basic dynamic.
We Helped Radicalize Islam
Moreover - in order to know our history and perhaps become a tad more humble in the process - it is important to recognize that we helped to create "radical Islam".
President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has openly admitted that he created the Mujahadeen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. And it continued under President Reagan (here's a picture of President Reagan meeting with some of these folks).
As the Council on Foreign Relations writes:
The 9/11 Commission report (PDF)
released in 2004 said some of Pakistan's religious schools or
madrassas served as "incubators for violent extremism." Since then,
there has been much debate over madrassas and their connection to
militancy.
***
It was Pakistan's leading
role in the anti-Soviet campaign in neighboring Afghanistan during
this time that radicalized some of these madrassas. New madrassas
sprouted, funded and supported by Saudi Arabia and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, where students were encouraged to join the Afghan resistance.
And see this.
And veteran journalist Robert Dreyfuss writes:
For
half a century the United States and many of its allies saw what I
call the “Islamic right” as convenient partners in the Cold War.
***
Today
it’s convenient to speak about a Clash of Civilizations. But ... in
the decades before 9/11, hard-core activists and organizations among
Muslim fundamentalists on the far right were often viewed as allies for
two reasons, because they were seen a fierce anti-communists and
because the opposed secular nationalists such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel
Nasser, Iran’s Mohammed Mossadegh.In the 1950s, the United
States had an opportunity to side with the nationalists, and indeed
many U.S. policymakers did suggest exactly that, as my book explains.
But in the end, nationalists in the Third World were seen as wild cards
who couldn’t be counted on to join the global alliance against the
USSR. Instead, by the end of the 1950s,
rather than allying itself with the secular forces of progress in the
Middle East and the Arab world, the United States found itself in
league with Saudi Arabia’s Islamist legions. Choosing Saudi
Arabia over Nasser’s Egypt was probably the single biggest mistake the
United States has ever made in the Middle East.A second big
mistake ... occurred in the 1970s, when, at the height of the Cold War
and the struggle for control of the Middle East, the United States
either supported or acquiesced in the rapid growth of Islamic right in
countries from Egypt to Afghanistan. In Egypt, Anwar Sadat brought the
Muslim Brotherhood back to Egypt. In Syria, the United States, Israel,
and Jordan supported the Muslim Brotherhood in a civil war against
Syria. And ... Israel quietly backed Ahmed Yassin and the Muslim
Brotherhood in the West Bank and Gaza, leading to the establishment of
Hamas.Still another major mistake was the fantasy that Islam
would penetrate the USSR and unravel the Soviet Union in Asia. It led to
America’s support for the jihadists in Afghanistan. But ... America’s
alliance with the Afghan Islamists long predated the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979 and had its roots in CIA activity in Afghanistan
in the 1960s and in the early and mid-1970s. The Afghan jihad spawned
civil war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, gave rise to the Taliban,
and got Osama bin Laden started on building Al Qaeda.Would the
Islamic right have existed without U.S. support? Of course. This is not
a book for the conspiracy-minded. But there is no question that the
virulence of the movement that we now confront—and which confronts many
of the countries in the region, too, from Algeria to India and
beyond—would have been significantly less had the United States made
other choices during the Cold War.
And the chief of the visa section at the U.S.
consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (J. Michael Springmann, who is now
an attorney in private practice) says
that the CIA insisted that visas be issued to Afghanis so they could
travel to the U.S. to be trained in terrorism in the United States, and
then sent back to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.
In other words,
if the U.S. and our allies hadn't backed the radical violent Muslims
instead of more stable, peaceful groups in the Middle East, radical
Islam wouldn't have grown so large.
Stopping the Bad Guys
That's
not to say that we don't need to stop the handful of Muslim terrorists
that are threatening the U.S. (to give you an idea of numbers, there
may be less than 50 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan according to the CIA itself).
But war is not the way to protect America, and defeating Islam is the way to safety. And see this.
Specifically, according to top security analysts, the global war on terror is weakening, rather than strengthening, our national security, and making us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks:
For
those who still think that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are
necessary to fight terrorism, remember that a leading advisor to the
U.S. military - the very hawkish and pro-war Rand Corporation -
released a study in 2008 called "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida".
The report confirms that the war on terror is actually weakening national security.
As a press release about the study states:
"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism."
Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative". And Newsweek has now admitted that the war on terror is wholly unnecessary.
(And no ... 9/11 did not "change everything".)
Beware of False Prophets
The neoconservatives who launched the wars in the Middle East may not even be people of faith themselves.
As I noted last year:
The godfather of the Neoconservative movement - Leo Strauss - taught
that religion should be used as a way to manipulate people to achieve
the aims of the leaders. But that the leaders themselves need not
believe in religion.As I have previously written:
Leo
Strauss is the father of the Neo-Conservative movement, including
many leaders of the current administration. Indeed, some of the main
neocon players were students of Strauss at the University of Chicago,
where he taught for many years. Strauss, born in Germany, was an admirer of Nazi philosophers and of Machiavelli.Strauss believed that "A
political order can be stable only if it is united by an external
threat . . . . Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external
threat exists then one has to be manufactured" (quote is by one of Strauss' main biographers).Therefore, it is unknown whether the [Neocons] who [launched the wars in the Middle East] actually believed that the brown-skinned people they wished to [destroy] were Satan-worshippers who needed either to be converted or destroyed.
More
likely, they just followed the old Straussian playbook in creating a
threat which didn't exist - Satanic Muslims who wanted to take over
the world - and using religion to rally the mid- and lower-level
participants in the ... program to carry out their orders.
Atheists Versus People of Faith
I want to address one more divisive issue related to religion, which I think disempowers those of us working for a better world.
Many
atheists believe that all religious people are pedophiles, idiots,
crackpots or charlatans, and many people of faith think that all
atheists are selfish, rootless, valueless and crude.
But let's look at the facts.
Initially, about two-thirds of American scientists believe in God if you count the social sciences. About 40%
of physical scientists believe in God, and that number has stayed
constant for almost 100 years. So atheists shouldn't assume that all
people of faith are idiots.
And the Bible says that you shall know them by their fruits, not by what they say. So believers shouldn't assume that all people who say they are Christians are good guys.
Some Christians are pedophiles, murderers and con men. But others are fighting hard for justice, truth and social justice.
Some
atheists are selfless, valueless hedonists. But others are tireless in
their struggle for liberty, have a passion for freedom which they are
willing to sacrifice their lives for, are selfless in their service and
their love for the smallest of us.
Making the other side the "bad guys" only adds to the ability of the powers-that-be to divide and conquer us.
The
left-right split is false, and hundreds of millions of Americans are
waking up to the fact that the whole Republicans-Versus-Democrats
things is a dog-and-pony show. They are waking up to the fact that
both parties serve the big banks, big pharma, military-industrial
complex, and the whole oligarchy.
These
Americans realize that it doesn't matter whether a politician wears a
red tie or a blue one: he or she either serves the big money boys or
the American people, and that the "team" he's on doesn't matter.
We also have to wake up to the false dichotomy about faith.
Just
as it is urgent that we recognize the left-versus-right split for the
game it is, we atheists have to tolerate religious folks ... and we
people of faith have to tolerate non-believers.I am lucky to call
some incredible atheists and some amazing believers my friends and
colleagues in the struggle for a better world. We may not see
everything exactly the same ... but it is a big tent.
Postscript: Granted,
there have always been some radical factions in Islam, just as there
have always been radical factions in Christianity and Judaism. But -
contrary to what fundamentalists would tell you - Muslims claim that
the Quran does not promote going out and killing non-Muslims.
While
there might be some stage 2 (using M. Scott Peck's system) Muslims
who believe the Quran commands them to kill the "other guys", just
as some stage 2 Christians or stage 2 Jews think that the Bible
commands them to kill Muslims (the Crusades, for example) or atheists or abortion doctors or others. And remember, governments often use tactics to make the other guy seem more violent.
But again, the problem isn't any
particular religion, it is the immaturity of a small handful of its
followers, and the misuse of religion by the powers-that-be to divide
and conquer us.
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Turkey is a democratic state. I would not necessarily call it free though. It is secular in nature when founded by Ataturk in the 1920's. It would be hard to find any nonmuslim living within Turkey. The only other large nonmuslim group is the Orthodox Christians living in Istanbul who are slowly being driven out of their own country.
About 2/3 of the Founding Father's who signed the Declaration of Independence were Freemasons. Freemason's respect other monotheistic beliefs even if we disagree with them. This does not surprise me. GW, you are right in this sense. The Founding Fathers were deists and Christians. They were Christians in the traditional sense of what would be called mainline denominations; Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist and etc. Those "modern Christians" who throw a big fit about this tend to be evangelicals whose literal Bible doctrines did not exist until around 1900.
The muslim faith does not encourage terrorism. Those who claim they are muslims and are terrorist are disobeying their own religion being hypocrites.
As for Christian terrorists, it works the same way. The classic example would be the Klu Klux Klan. Other variations would be abortion clinic bombers.
I think this whole thing is just to drive some traffic to singlemuslim.com to the ad on the left and pay some bills...
For your obvious attempt at a failed strawman, you'd have to know that it is the Ku Klux Klan ...
Which clearly shows that you don't know what the heck you're talking about (as is the case when anyone invokes the KKK and doesn't even know that it isn't Klu) ...
<sarc>Yes, I know Hitler was a *Christian* too .. </sarc>
I would have a hard time calling Hitler a "Christian" in any traditional sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_views
Forgive my spelling error. No, I have no affiliation with the Klan and will never. Just because someone claims they are Christian does not necessarily mean their actions are.
Not a spelling error ... most people who don't know crap about the KKK use "Klu" ...
It is an obvious tell of ignorance on the subject.
Next you are going to tell me that the Klan is not a terrorist organization?
Only if you tell me of the last act of "terrorism" that the KKK performed in the name of Christianity in the United States in the last 25 years that resulted in the death of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of civilians ...
Your argument is tantamount to my suggesting that Hamas is proof that all Muslims are terrorists ... absurd, trivial, and logical fail on the highest order ...and the KKK does not prove:
Christians == terrorists
Which is what the article asserts and is absolutely absurd.
I think this misunderstanding illustrates George's point that emotions can all too easily overwhelm reason, IS. The whole point of the article was clearly that NO religion--Christianity included--equates to terrorism.
NO, not all muslims are terrorists. NO, not all Christians are terrorists. The vast majority of both groups (>99 %) are peace loving people. Small groups of muslims and Christians are terrorists though. Those few who use the terrorism moniker do NOT properly represent their faith.
The difference is the no one is forced to be Christian. But it is the way of life in Islamic states. You must be Muslim. This is not a religion. Rather, it's a system of totalitarian government. Islam is the embodiment of the real life freakin Borg. Remember the Borg?
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated (said the huge set of tits)...
Knock yourself out. By all means convert to Islam & go find a hole to live in over in Saudi or Syria or Egypt, etc.. Take your pick. See how sharia appeals to you after you've known & evidently not appreciated the freedoms afforded you in the Bill of Rights.
A most deeply misunderstood group of philosophical philanthropists keeping noble values alive in an era of nihilism. I understand that they're actually tireless activists serving the sick and the poor.
They throw great parties, too . . . bring your firebombs and rope, though.
LMAO! Damn, that was funny.
There's nothing like a good party--but I'm just a simple beer and blue jeans kinda guy. Cocktails (molitov) and white robes just ain't my scene.
The rest of the Christians rooted out the KKK members and sent the abortionist murderer to jail for life. Still waiting for the Muslims to denounce jihadists on any meaningful level.
Didn't the Vatican protect child molestors? Oh that must be different because Muslims are scum LOL - the fact is there is a HUGE amount of hypocrisy involved in religion. Power and control is the name of the game.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html
Yes, they did, to their everlasting shame. No, it's all evil. Muslims aren't scum, but islam is scummy - it's a religion custom built for control of the masses. Other religions don't generally say convert or die.
There is a huge amount of hypocrisy with people. Hell, gore prounounces judgment on carbon footprints and then jets around the world spewing the same stuff he condemns. PETA slaughters animals, even after rescuing them. And speaking of pedophiles, the scandal in the US public schools is much worse in numbers than the vatican, but it's not popular for the press to pick on the NEA and schools to clean up their act. Our politicians... well, enuff said.
Delta, what goes on as calls for the destruction of Israel and jihadists is NOT true Islam. They are all hypocrites. Jihadism in it's true sense means struggle in a moral and spiritual sense. NOT killing people. It is easy to pervert religion for subversive means.
It's not so easy to pervert religion unless that religion allows for such perversion. It IS easy to pervert adherents, as is evidenced by all the cultists. My experience in studying cults of Christianity, however, is they always contort the written word itself, by merely changing the words around or substituting one word for another. Doing so in islam is itself considered blasphemy, which makes one wonder how they are supporting it unless the word itself supports it...
That's why muslims consider only the arabic writ to be the only "accurate" writ, and translations are largely rejected, at least when it suits them. A study of their holy documents indicates that there are plenty of actions by the founder of islam that lead any sane person to know it is a religion that is designed for control of masses, not control of self. Jesus had self-control, and left it up to his followers to make moral decisions. Mohammed controlled others for his own benefit, and left it up to his own wish to slay them if they rejected him. The religion itself was and is just a facade behind which the true political structure feeds.
Some Muslims really are terrorists.
Some Christians are as well.
Stopped reading about here .... thanks for making sure I (and many others like me) did not waste any more time on this dreck ... obvious dreck when you equate Christians with terrorists ...
Like someone wrote above ... point out the next time a Christian fundamentalist straps a bomb on themselves and blows themselves up in Times Square in the name of Jesus Christ or goes on a shooting rampage in the name of the Virgin Mary on a military campus (or at their workplace) ...
Until that happens ... STFU with these articles of ignorance and fake "tolerance" ....
What assumption qualifier do you use to not read an article, but then post ignorant bullshit?
Sadly, you (like most on ZH) demonstrate the profound lack of maturity which cannot entertain ideas that conflict with your own without hanging your emotions out like a little schoolgirl.
Your emotions of degrading school girls is showing.
I see you've corroded multiple posts of mine.
Go troll someone else.
Because when you have money to buy smart bombs your are automatically not a terrorist.
Murder is always justified if you have enough money, right?
When you use drones to launch missles upon unarmed people from the other side of the world, it's okay if they're "cowards" with no respect for either human life or "freedom."
Of course.
Killing with drones has proven to be the particular specialty of the Barack Obama administration, has it not?
See chart herein: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan
Obama became a murderer on the third day of his presidency when he ordered a drone attack on Pakistan. And America footed the bill financially and morally.
I'd be curious what you would rely on in that situation?
Going to war, and ending up with a war (or two) have entirely different ethical/moral considerations from an operational perspective, don't you think?
I note the irony you do which is why Obama is no peacemaker by the black and white measure.
I'd be curious what you would rely on in that situation?
I would rely on my natural inclination as a reasonable man not to murder innocent people.
Who would deny that? It's especially ironic that some take such ignorant delight in using his full name, including the "Hussaine," isn't it?
including the "Hussaine,"
I'm thinking that maybe he should change his middle name to "Husscriminallieinsane."
Let's give it a try: "Barack Husscriminallieinsane Obama." Yep. Works for me.
Ha! Brings back memories of usage of term Bushitler. Same mentality, different ideology.
Both Obama and Bush are murderers, thieves and liars. That's objective reality.
Collateral damage. If they don't like it, why don't they protest against their own government actions?
Because they agree with what their pack thinks.
Do you think American soldiers go to Irak an say: I WANT TO KILL CITIZENS?
HELL NO!!
But if you're confronted DAY IN DAY OUT with scum that constantly tries to kill you for helping them, you turn into the animal of which your serounded with.
So why are US soldiers in Iraq?
So now any government/war action is apropos to terrorism?
Go back to eating your cheetos and watching Oprah, troll ...
Yes it is - sorry
Would you care for a demonstration of US government action in your neighborhood?
Also, does Timothy McVeigh count?
I would sure like to see one in YOUR neighborhood!
I was part of the US government action. You sure talk tough when you are protected by internet anonymity, but I bet that you would be one of the guys who puddles and gravels for mercy.
Easy remark. I kid you not when I tell you you'd have a knife in your neck if ever confronted with me in a aggressive situation.
I've never felt threatened by Muslim scum like you. If your kind bothers me or just works on my nerves I'll smack them. You dare to say stuff like that because you've only dared to confront weaker persons you can easily handle.
You're only able to defend yourself when in groups X5 larger then the opposing group. And still your species wonders why we enjoy squashing your kind like bugs.
Your right, that was a cheap shot. The point is that no one want government military action in their neighborhood, and if it was they would be inclined to think of it as terrorism.
PS: In America they teach you not to bring a knife to a gun fight.
PSS: I may be scum, but I'm not Muslim. I just happen to beleive in America's founding principles.
PSSS: This is how the US military works, and as of yet no one has been able to squash it.
Oké, I was to rude. Sorry.
But don't underestimate the problems with Muslim ghetto's. In Europe this is a pain in the ass.
These last few years, here in Europe we are starting to see a revolt happening with the native Europeans. I've seen it already a few times where 5 or more muslims running amok on the streets are suddenly attacked by white people all non related.
A few month ago, I was in a cinema where over a hundred people started kicking a group of muslims because they where spitting at the people in the cinema for fun.
After that, everybody left the room and went home like nothing happened.
Also this summer when everybody in my city was having a drink in the sun, a group of muslims where beating up a handicapt kid just because. The first 5 minutes nobody did anything. After that A LOT of people stood up, and kicked the hell out of those kids. When the police came, nobody had seen anything.
Also this summer, I've seen a few muslim kids calling a white girl a hooker. The girl was 14 or 15. Suddenly a few guys passing by, kicked the hell out of these muslim kids.
Last year the cops in my city shot a Marok guy because he was shooting with his gun to the cops. THE ENTIRE Marok community went to the street to burn everything they could get their hands on! The cops backed up, but another VERY large group of anti protesters of white people showed up, protecting what was their and faught those muslims. That was a sea of people fighting!
The newspapers didn't mention a word about it but that was a true battlefield.
Enough is enough.
Meh. A cop shooting a non-white seems to run a high risk for a little civil disobedience in the US.
Wasn't aware the McVeigh invoked Christianity as his reason for the Oklahoma City bombing ... must have missed that one in the cross-examination for motive ...
... actually thought it was someone who was anti-government, but then to a statist such as yourself who obviously buys into the left-right false dilemma (based on your comments so far) ... it is obvious that anti-government == Christian Fundamentalist who wants to turn the U.S. into a Jesus Freak theocracy ...
Or was that not where you were going with your inability to formulate a logical argument for:
Christians == terrorists
Because I would still assert the case cannot be made except through: projection, deception, and false motive (see the always played example of Timothy McVeigh)
When did I say Christians == terrorists?
I know that you are a logic master, but put your straw man away.
You raised a strawman with the ignorant "government money supplied smart bombs" ... the Timothy McVeigh reference was an attempt to circle what defense of George Washington's absurd:
Some Christians are terrorist too.
Give it up man ... the United States is not a "Christian" nation ... once you understand that, you'll realize that this whole article is a load of crap from the onset of the assertion above ...
Bingo. Didn't you know: Moneyness is next to Godliness.
Regards
GW, all negative posts aside you raise many issues which most are obviously uncomfortable with.
However, I urge you to delve into the demise of the common good by corporations not religion... religion is distraction and the red-herring by design.
The passionate douches on this forum can't see that separation of church and state was simple by design. Any deviation from this simplicity is a dead end while the vaults are emptied.