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Sydne Archambault

9 Years Ago

Politics 2016

The general election should start heating up, the Republican and Democrat political wheels are turning. Who and what do you foresee will be the future candidates and platforms. Who and what do want to see for the future of our country in 2016.

This OP I expect will be challenging in the debate, but I also believe it can be informative. By the time we get to the polls we might have learned something here, that brings a more intelligent and informed vote to the ballot.

Keep the discussion respectful in your responses and be open to points of view that disagree with yours. This should be an interesting thread.

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Donna Proctor

9 Years Ago

Whoa... great thread, Sydne.

I'm going to have to think about all of it before addressing it. But, I think it should prove to be educational, informative, enlightening and certainly entertaining thread as time goes by!

 

John Crothers

9 Years Ago

I think it should be against the law to promote a candidate more than 6 weeks before any election.

We are 21 months from the election.

Who wants to hear from these damn politicians now?

 

Donna Proctor

9 Years Ago

Ohhhh, John. Me thinks truer words were never spoken. I think 6 weeks sounds about right though.

 

Patricia Strand

9 Years Ago

I'm looking forward to contributions to this thread! Great idea, Sydne. I've never been much into politics, so I'll probably learn from this. I think we might be ready for a female candidate, but I'm not sure Hilary is the right one.

 

Sydne Archambault

9 Years Ago

Going by history, it will be a republican and I don't see any women on the possible list of candidates.

 

Lawrence Supino

9 Years Ago

I was going to start a politics thread 2 weeks ago...but was afraid to ;))

 

Lawrence Supino

9 Years Ago

Have you heard the news?...Have we heard the "news"? lol
(btw...I didn't fact check this, but I think it's all true)


ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, National Security Adviser.

CBS President David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Obamas Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications.

ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman is married to former Whitehouse Press Secretary Jay Carney

ABC News and Univision reporter Matthew Jaffe is married to Katie Hogan, Obamas Deputy Press Secretary

ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obamas Special Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood

CNN deputy bureau chief Virginia Moseley is married to Hillary Clinton’s deputy, Tom Nides,

 

Patricia Strand

9 Years Ago

I'm sure that people who travel in the same circles hook up eventually, don't they? News reporting and politics go together. Or maybe I'm missing the point.

 

Joseph C Hinson

9 Years Ago

People in the media can't be married to politicians? Or can't be married to Democrats?

 

Lawrence Supino

9 Years Ago

yes, you're missing the point ;))...but since you felt you were...then you do see the potential for false news.


People in the media, like all people (unless gay) can marry who they want. My statement was not a dem vs. rep statement...it's about the news we hear.
About six major corps run all our news media...within the six corps are those that have inside information of the white house.

 

Patricia Strand

9 Years Ago

Lack of true objectivity in major news reporting is kind of a given, anyway. One learns to read between the lines. What is a good, unbiased news source? I listen to the International channel on occasion. I'll tune into CNN sometimes, because they dramatize everything to a nauseating degree, and I like to be entertained. Sad, but true.

 

Mario Carta

9 Years Ago

I don't expect nothing but the same old BS in the political arena, nothing new, nothing innovative, nothing worth even tuning into even for entertainment's sake. Politics Sucks, they always have and they always will for me. I can think of a million things better than politics. I am politics free and will be til the day I die.

 

John Crothers

9 Years Ago

My mind is not for rent, to any God or government.

 

Bob Galka

9 Years Ago

I'll go out on a limb with nothing to back it up and, predict a Democrat for POTUS.

As mentioned Nov 2016 is a long way away.. ;O)

 

Sydne Archambault

9 Years Ago

It is, but it will heat up starting this summer. So Bob as a democrat what direction do you think they need to put their horse?

 

Bob Galka

9 Years Ago

I have no idea, other than tax reform, health care, renewable energy, infrastructure upgrades, bring manufacturing back to the U.S., free internet for everyone.... oh and world peace of course ;O)

The republicans do well on some state level where they can target the local agendas, but on the national level is where they will fail again. They will say things that will upset the poor and middle class, women, ethnic minorities, and gays/lesbians. They just can't help themselves. And more and more their seems to be many different republican parties all competing for the same vote.

 

Sydne Archambault

9 Years Ago

That is a pretty good list Bob!

Well I am very curious.....a Clinton and Bush ticket at the end of the day?

 

"I have no idea, other than tax reform, health care, renewable energy, infrastructure upgrades, bring manufacturing back to the U.S., free internet for everyone.... oh and world peace of course."

Sounds a bit like Bob's prescription for Ameritopia...


...the game is afoot.

 

Bob Galka

9 Years Ago

;O)

 

Sydne Archambault

9 Years Ago

The game is afoot! Bob is going for Ameritopia!

 

Bob Galka

9 Years Ago

Aim high.. ;O)

Well aren't all those things good for Americans... oh, oh.. Immigration reform too... ;O) Republicans like to talk about that one.

 

Lawrence Supino

9 Years Ago

tonight Jeb is having a fund raising dinner for $100,000 a person...hosted by Henry Kravis. He started early so he can beat his brother...who raised the most money of any pres. ;)

http://www.newstalkflorida.com/dinner-tonight-jeb-bush-100000-per-person/

 

Bob Galka

9 Years Ago

Oh yea, that reminds me.. campaign finance reform... ;O)

 

Lawrence Supino

9 Years Ago

Ahhh, Bummer....

Bob Simon...(correspondent for 60mins etc.)...was killed in a car crash tonight.

I really liked his segments on 60mins...plus I always had respect for him since he was a prisoner of war!
(a NY'r, too.)

RIP, Bob.

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Patricia Strand

9 Years Ago

Terrible news! I was so sad to hear that. He was a favorite of mine.

 

Rudy Umans

8 Years Ago

Y'all is southern slang for "you all" as in "Howdy y'all. How's it hangin"? LOL


in this case it was mainly Bob and yourself I suppose since you two were discussing Muslims. Bob said Muslim is a religion that you replied to and I wanted to make sure if that was a slip of the pen (keyboard) or not.

 

Vanessa Bates

8 Years Ago

Yep, I'm familiar with the plural second person of southern yore and felt it might have missed the nuance of that particular exchange :D

But you might like Eric Hoffer's work. With the term "true believer" you wouldn't need to define the religion or politics of a particular radical. Perhaps you might specify the location but only for the convenience of understanding how close it was and whether you had need for creative dodging in the near future.

 

Islamists are advocates of globally implementing Sharia Law - by force, if met with resistance - as well as advocates for globally initiating the Quran's doctrine of the End Times (they're not waiting for the apocalypse to happen...they're making it happen), neither of which is compatible with the US Constitution, nor with the American way of life; think of the word Islamist as a contraction of the term Islamo-Fascist.

Furthermore, it's time you got a fucking clue about the true nature of this abominable religion...it IS about Islam.

 

[ Excerpted from Glenn Beck's book, 'It IS About Islam: ]

Jefferson’s Quran

One block from the U.S. Capitol sits the Library of Congress. Housing more than 160 million books, manuscripts, photographs, recordings, and maps, it’s the largest library in the world. If you put its bookshelves together in a single line, they would extend 838 miles.

The current collection owes its start to one of America’s greatest Founding Fathers. After the Library of Congress was burned to the ground by the British during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson, then in retirement at Monticello, offered once more to be of service to his young nation. Jefferson, who owned the nation’s largest private collection of books—6,500 at the time—offered the entire lot to the newly rebuilt library “for whatever price found appropriate.”

Jefferson was a voracious reader and a distinguished intellect. Along with hundreds of books that matched his varied interests was a well-worn two-volume set that he believed offered his nation a warning.

Jefferson had bought these volumes, bound in leather and filled with yellowed pages that crackled when you turned them, forty years earlier when he’d been a young red-haired law student in Williamsburg. By then he’d already developed a reputation as a passionate debater in the service of justice—even if it meant challenging the laws of the Crown. In 1765, the young rabble-rouser had become known for his strident opposition to Parliament’s passage of the Stamp Act, the latest in a series of unjust taxes imposed by the British on the colonies without representation.

As a student of the law, Jefferson was curious about laws of many kinds, including those that had a voice in exotic lands or claimed to carry the word of God. That is why, when he wandered into the offices of the Virginia Gazette, the local newspaper that doubled as a bookstore, one day in October 1765, Jefferson found the two-volume set so tantalizing. Printed in London by a British lawyer named George Sale, the books were one of the first English translations of the Quran. After paying sixteen shillings, Thomas Jefferson held in his hands the holy book of Islam. He kept them among his possessions for the following four decades.

When I first heard that one of our nation’s Founding Fathers owned one of America’s earliest copies of the Quran, I endeavored to do some research on it. I was curious as to why Jefferson, a man famously curious and cosmopolitan, but also skeptical of organized religion, had it in his possession.

We don’t know exactly how closely Thomas Jefferson read the Quran he owned. We do know that he is the only Founding Father to have a basic understanding of Arabic. We do know that he promoted and championed the creation of an Oriental languages department at his alma mater, the College of William & Mary. And we do know that he would be the first American president to go to war with Islamic radicals.

It is clear, however, that Jefferson was, to put it mildly, suspicious of Islam. He compared the faith with Catholicism, and believed that neither had undergone a reformation. Both religions, he felt, suppressed rational thought and persecuted skeptics. When combined with the power of the state, religion would corrupt and stifle individual rights. Islam, to Jefferson’s mind, provided a cautionary tale of what happened when a faith insisted on combining religious and political power into one.

As a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Jefferson cited Islam as an example for why Virginia should not have an official religion. A state religion, he argued, would quash “free enquiry,” as he recorded in his notes at the time. He knew Islam held little tolerance for other faiths.

But Jefferson was neither a bigot nor an Islamophobe. The irony of Jefferson’s observations about Islam is that they were made in service of an argument that would ensure that Muslims—along with Jews, Christians, atheists, and adherents of every other faith—would have full citizenship as Virginians, and ultimately, as Americans.

The landmark legislation Jefferson championed, “A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” which served as a model for the United States Constitution a decade later, ensured that there was no official religion of state. Between 1776 and 1779, Jefferson drafted more than one hundred pieces of legislation, but he was most proud of number 82, which is referenced on his gravestone as “the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom.” The fiercely controversial bill disestablished Christianity as the official religion of his state.

Jefferson’s legislation was nothing short of revolutionary, a first in the history of the world: absolute freedom of religious conscience and permanent separation of church and state. And as evidenced by his copious notes, Jefferson’s knowledge of the Quran and Islam had shaped his views of the importance of protecting religious liberty.

Jefferson believed that everyone should have the right to worship, or not to worship, as they choose. It was, unfortunately, not a view shared by the Muslims he eventually encountered.

In March 1786, after America had won its independence, Jefferson was serving as minister to France, shuttling between European capitals to secure commercial agreements. One of the thorniest challenges he had to confront was the growing power of the Barbary States, four North African territories that sponsored marauding pirates who were increasingly confiscating thousands of dollars in American shipping and enslaving hundreds of U.S. citizens in prisons across the Mediterranean.

In London, Jefferson and his fellow diplomat John Adams met with the ambassador from the pasha of Tripoli, a man named Abdul Rahman, to resolve the growing dispute. The war that existed between his nation and America, the ambassador explained, “was founded on the Laws of their Prophet.” The capture of U.S. ships and people was a just and holy war, sanctioned by the Quran.

Jefferson and Adams took meticulous notes of the meeting. “It was written in their Koran,” the two Americans noted, “that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

Jefferson needed only reference his own two-volume translation of the Quran to understand that everything in the ambassador’s explanation of the Barbary States’ “holy war” against America was accurate and faithful to Islam’s holy book.

The Quran’s Sura (or chapter) 9, verse 29, explains the Islamic duty to make war upon non-Muslims:

Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allah, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e., Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.*

Sura 47, verse 4 sanctions the taking of captives as spoils of war:

So, when you meet (in fight Jihad in Allah’s Cause), those who disbelieve smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly (on them, i.e., take them as captives). Thereafter (is the time) either for generosity (i.e., free them without ransom), or ransom (according to what benefits Islam), until the war lays down its burden. Thus [you are ordered by Allah to continue in carrying out Jihad against the disbelievers till they embrace Islam (i.e., are saved from the punishment in the Hell-fire) or at least come under your protection], but if it had been Allah’s Will, He Himself could certainly have punished them (without you). But (He lets you fight), in order to test you, some with others. But those who are killed in the Way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost.

And Sura 2, verse 154, clearly outlines that Allah will reward holy warriors who fight on his behalf:

And say not of those who are killed in the Way of Allah, “They are dead.” Nay, they are living, but you perceive (it) not.

What the ambassador of Tripoli was explaining to the future second and third presidents of the United States was the concept of jihad—God’s lawful war against nonbelievers. To drive the point home, the ambassador left Jefferson and Adams with a final image of what American sailors would face on the high seas. The two American diplomats recounted what the Barbary ambassador had told them:

It was a law that the first who boarded an enemy’s vessel should have one slave, more than his share with the rest, which operated as an incentive to the most desperate valour and enterprise, that it was the practice of their corsairs to bear down upon a ship, for each sailor to take a dagger in each hand and another in his mouth, and leap on board, which so terrified their enemies that very few ever stood against them, that he verily believed the Devil assisted his countrymen, for they were almost always successful.

Again, the ambassador was hewing closely to Islam’s holy text. Prisoners could be killed, sold into slavery, or ransomed. Sura 33, verses 26 and 27:

And those of the people of the Scripture who backed them (the disbelievers) Allah brought them down from their forts and cast terror into their hearts, (so that) a group (of them) you killed, and a group (of them) you made captives. And He caused you to inherit their lands, and their houses, and their riches, and a land which you had not trodden (before). And Allah is Able to do all things.

* * *

I started with this story because I want you to follow the path of Thomas Jefferson, a path that starts with reading the primary sources and original texts of Islam in an effort to better understand how millions of Muslims interpret their faith.

Every day around the world Islamist fanatics are plotting ways to kill us. They do so under the banner of a supremacist ideology that pits Islam against the rest of the world and commands the murder of those who do not willingly submit.

It is no understatement to say that Islam has the power to change our way of life. It already has. From mindless security protocols, like toiletries stuffed into clear bags and shoes being removed, at airport checkpoints, to entire parts of the globe now being impenetrable to Western travelers, to an emerging nuclear arms race that threatens global stability, to shaming and silencing those of us who defend freedom of speech, Islam is on a crash course with the free world.

The ultimate irony is that, fifteen years after 9/11, we’re actually farther away from understanding the threat than we were in the days following the most brutal attack in our history.

That’s why this book is necessary.

This work is not meant to be a polemic, but rather an exercise in free inquiry in the tradition of one of our nation’s most cherished Founding Fathers. As such, it’s going to tell the truth about Islamists and the fundamental things they believe. I’ll spare you the political correctness and the pleasant-sounding niceties. The time for worrying about being insensitive or hurting other people’s feelings is long past.

Put simply, it is about Islam.

People do not want you to know that truth. They don’t want to hear it. They certainly don’t want to discuss it. The mainstream media has essentially ordered a blackout of anything remotely to do with it.

When you say that the siege against America under way today is about Islam itself, the PC crowd gasps and says you’re attacking a religion, or disrespecting people’s right to worship how they choose.

That’s nonsense. Do Americans have a problem with people worshipping any supreme being they choose? Of course not. Our country was founded on religious freedom. Thomas Jefferson himself ensured that the Constitution protected religious freedom, including for Muslims, Scientologists, Jews, Mormons, Catholics, and everyone else. Our forefathers came here expressly because they wanted every citizen to worship, or not to worship, as they see fit.

Is every Muslim in the world predisposed to violence or thinking that America is the Great Satan? Of course not. Does every Muslim in the world share a belief in spreading a Caliphate or support the mandatory implementation of sharia law? Absolutely not. Here in the United States, many Muslims disagree with the radical beliefs of Islamists around the world.

There’s a crucial distinction to be made between Islam and Islamism. When discussing a topic this important, terminology is critical. Islam is the faith of 1.5 billion people around the world. Islamism is the supremacist political ideology that insists on imposing sharia, or Islamic holy law, on the world. Tens of millions of Muslims around the world are Islamists. They include terrorists in groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS—variously known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (or Levant, meaning the lands including Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, hence ISIL), and Daesh (the Arabic acronym of ISIS, pronounced “desh”)—but they also include millions more who may not resort to suicide bombings and beheadings but who would like to see people like you and me convert to Islam or else be treated as second-class citizens. There is no such thing as a “moderate” Islamist.

These Islamists—people who believe in Islam as a political and governing force—are the heart of the problem. They have a clear agenda. They are not trying to hide it. And they are succeeding in executing on it.

There are, however, moderate Muslims—and while I know this comes off as being overly political correct, it’s not an exaggeration to say that they are our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and our family members. They are the reformers who seek to make Islam compatible with our individual liberties and freedoms and with a twenty-first-century society. They are also the victims. The Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other Islamist terrorist groups kill their fellow believers for not being Muslim enough. Thousands of Iraqi and Syrian Muslim Kurds have died fighting the Islamic State and its totalitarianism.

But increasingly I fear these Muslims are the exception. But there are troubling signs, including here in America. A June 2015 poll of Muslims living in the United States by the Center for Security Policy showed that a shocking number (51 percent) seek to embrace sharia over the U.S. Constitution. In addition, nearly one in four of Muslims polled believed that “it is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed.” One in five respondents agreed that “the use of violence is justified in order to make shariah the law of the land in this country” while only 39 percent believed that Muslims in the U.S. should be subjected to American courts.

If, as the Pew Research Center estimates, there are approximately 3 million Muslims in America, that translates to roughly half a million U.S. Muslims who believe acts of terror and murder are legitimate tools in order to replace the U.S. Constitution with sharia law.

One of the consequences of living in a free, open-minded, tolerant nation like ours is that we don’t always see what is really going on elsewhere in the world. In the Middle East, for example, there are many countries where the vast majority of Muslims share the fundamentalist view that Islam is the only true religion and that it must be spread through any means necessary. They are growing in power, influence, and size.

Islam—as it is interpreted and practiced by these people—is, quite simply, incompatible with freedom the way we understand it. It is incompatible with open elections, rights for minorities, trial by jury, and all the other institutions familiar to the Western way of life. It is incompatible with basic morals and decency. It is incompatible with man-made laws and the rights of mankind to adapt and progress and modernize.

This book is going to prove that. Not through theory or opinion, but through facts and quotes of primary source material. You can understand the Islamists only if you first understand what they truly believe.

Those who claim Islam is not the problem, or deny that it’s incompatible with freedom, are racist, homophobic, and sexist. Why? Because the Islam that millions of Muslims believe in, practice, and promote envisions a world in which we are required to accept a lower standard of life for women, for homosexuals, for Christians, or for anyone else who is different from their standard.

In America we like to believe that all religions are equal. But that’s not the truth. A religion that believes in stoning and killing people who don’t share their views and values is not equal to the rest. A religion that supports the beheading of human beings in the twenty-first century simply is not equal to Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism or any of the world’s great faiths.

The PC police in America will be aghast at this thought—and this book. How, they’ll ask, could you say that the radicals and fanatics of Iran or ISIS have anything to do with Islam? ISIS is a terrorist group that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.

That is a lie, and it’s time to label it as such.

Islam is at the root of everything that terrorists from ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas say and do. Islam is the reason they have recruits. To argue that it has nothing to do with terrorism or violence is the equivalent of going back to the sixteenth century and telling Martin Luther that the corrupt actions of the Catholic Church had nothing to do with Christianity.

If you take Islam out of ISIS, you have nothing left. They are called Islamists for a reason: their references to Islam—to what they call a holy war against our Roman Empire—are what help them gain recruits and money and support.

As a nation we bend over backward to accommodate—yes, to appease—some of the most vile practitioners of Islam. As I write this, the Obama administration is making a deal with the radical ayatollahs of Iran—a country that roots for the death of the Jews and the end of America; a country that refuses basic rights to women and denies not only the rights, but the very existence, of homosexuals. In Tehran, Bruce Jenner would not have a widely televised special where he talks about his transformation into a woman; he would be in pieces, torn limb from limb, hung from a crane, or stoned to death in public.

Let me repeat that: stoned to death. You will find that word repeated again and again throughout this book. Millions of practitioners of Islam believe that God wants us to literally stone people to death when we find their lifestyle offensive.

We haven’t had stoning in America, well, ever. But in the Islamic Republic of Iran, stoning is one of the punishments currently available for a variety of offenses. Here’s how a report by Amnesty International put it:

Iran’s Penal Code prescribes execution by stoning. It even dictates that the stones are large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately. Article 102 of the Penal Code states that men should be buried up to their waists and women up to their breasts for the purpose of execution by stoning. Article 104 states, with reference to the penalty for adultery, that the stones used should “not be large enough to kill the person by one or two strikes; nor should they be so small that they could not be defined as stones.”

What the Amnesty International report neglects to mention is the full name of the statutes that allow stoning: the Islamic Penal Code of Iran (emphasis added). Here’s what Chapter 21 of that code authorizes in cases of attempted theft: “up to five years’ imprisonment and up to 74 lashes.”

Lashes? Also known as flogging, as in taking a strap to human flesh seventy-four times. Hitting a human being repeatedly and violently so that pieces of their flesh tear off the body. That’s sanctioned under Islamic law.

How about forced amputations? This, too, comes from Amnesty International’s report on the Islamic Republic of Iran:

Sentences of flogging and amputations continued to be imposed for a wide range of offences, including alcohol consumption, eating in public during Ramadan, and theft. These sentences were increasingly implemented in public.

Under Islamic law, at least as interpreted by Iran, you can lose a hand for things that teenagers in America do on a typical Friday night. Even crucifixion is not off-limits in Iran as well as in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria.

In this book, we’re going to use the Islamists’ own words to show what they really believe. To show what they stand for. To show what their laws actually say. To show what they hope to impose on the rest of the world.

Again, we’re going to do this in their own words.

We’re going to quote straight from the Quran, Islam’s most holy book, so you can see what it really says. We’re going to quote straight from the Hadith, the collected deeds and sayings of Allah’s prophet Muhammad, which form one of the primary bases of Islamic law. And we’re also going to expose the foolish, naïve, and, as we’ll learn in some cases, intentionally deceptive views of Islam apologists in the United States who have worked hard to convince everyone that there is nothing to see here. That there isn’t something inherently wrong with the way millions of people are practicing the Islamic religion. That Islam has nothing to do with the fact that so many people want us dead.

The first chapter will take you into the heart of the Islamist agenda—an agenda that seeks to bring about, in the words of many Islamists, Armageddon and the End Times. This is why reasoning or negotiating with terrorists is pointless. They believe they have literally been tasked by Allah with bringing about the end of the world—and that the time for it is rapidly approaching.

Chapter 2 offers some history of the Islamic faith, going back to the time of Muhammad and the spread of Islamic empires.

Chapter 3 chronicles the rise of modern Islamist ideology and the use of terrorism as a response to Islam’s stagnation and the rise of Western powers.

Chapter 4 outlines how Islamist terrorists have used everything from 9/11, to the war in Iraq, to the rise of ISIS to bring about a final confrontation with the West, one they hope will result in World War III. We will chronicle, in their own words, their twenty-year plan to build a new empire, or Caliphate, and expand it to the rest of the world.

The book also contains a section about the many lies that are told about Islam and its followers, using other people’s words and sentiments as much as possible. The lies include the oft-heard claims that Islam is a religion of peace, that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, that Islam respects the rights of women and Christians, and that sharia law is a myth made up by Islamophobes.

Finally, we’ll talk about the future. What can we do about any of this that will make a real difference? How do we protect ourselves against people who believe they are taking their cues to destroy us directly from Allah?

In doing all this and asking the hard questions we will be following in the path of Thomas Jefferson himself, who read and thought deeply about Islam. He stood as representative of a nation that had hundreds of captives languishing in prisons across North Africa. He was face-to-face with jihad and saw the threat it posed.

Which brings us back to Jefferson’s Quran.

Today it resides in the Library of Congress in the great round room that replicates his original collection. Other than the fact the two volumes arrived at the Library of Congress in 1815 from Monticello, how do we know the book is in fact Jefferson’s?

On page 113 in volume 1 of George Sale’s translation are Thomas Jefferson’s own initials beside one of the Quran’s most warlike passages: “God hath preferred those who fight for the faith [mujahideen] before those who sit still.”

What possessed Jefferson to mark this page, and this page only, in his Quran? We will never know. Perhaps he was struck by Allah’s blessings bestowed on the mujahideen—the holy warriors who strive and fight in His name. Perhaps he turned to this passage before his meeting with Abdul Rahman in 1786. Or perhaps he turned to this passage in 1801, when, as commander in chief, he finally gave the order to take America to war against the Barbary pirates, the mujahideen of the Mediterranean. Regardless, it seems clear that Jefferson undertook a serious effort to understand the motivations of his enemies.

The mujahideen of 2015 are no less devoted than those of 1800. They seek Allah’s reward with even greater fervor. So, to truly understand the threat they pose, we must follow Jefferson’s example and go straight to the source of their beliefs.

 

Rudy Umans

8 Years Ago

Thanks for reminding me why I stopped posting here. You are still foul in the mouth (which is a sign of weakness as is copying a book), you still don't know how to read, and you still make assumptions you shouldn't make.

 

Vanessa Bates

8 Years Ago

Patrick, if you want a clue, quote Samuel Adams to make your point. Otherwise, leave the insults to those who really offend you. Say hi to Carly :D

 

Sydne Archambault

8 Years Ago

Excellent research Patrick, I am impressed, very thorough.

Careful, careful with the expletives my dear friend.

 

Vanessa Bates

8 Years Ago

The real issue, beside the futile expletive designed distract from the subject and silence those who hold another opinion, is how Patrick expounds on what happens under Sharia as if we couldn't possibly understand ourselves.

On top of it all, Patrick distinguishes between Muslims and Islamisists jut like others here. So who here doesn't have a clue? I refer to the following

"There is no such thing as a “moderate” Islamist.

These Islamists—people who believe in Islam as a political and governing force—are the heart of the problem. They have a clear agenda. They are not trying to hide it. And they are succeeding in executing on it.

There are, however, moderate Muslims..."

My point is why not identify the behavior rather than label this one Islamist, and the other fascist. These people are True believers and will often work in tandem with one another when it suits their common goals. They have the same chemistry, recruit the same people, and harbor the same destructive force.

 

Thanks, Sydne, but it isn't so much research on my part as it is a simple copy-&-paste [ the excerpt from the intro to Glenn's book ].

Vanessa: I expounded on nothing at all in regard to the specific tenets of Sharia Law; if you're curious, do your own research, find out for yourself. I merely pointed out that Islamists will use every old saw in their arcane bag of tools to take down Western civilization in its entirety. They want to wipe us off the face of the Earth, and if that means they have to destroy themselves in the process in order to attain their cluster-fuck of an 'End Times' goal, so be it.

I also posited that Islamist and Fascist [ as in, Islamo-Fascist ] are one and the same; in order to to ensure comprehension, reading still requires a modicum of focus and effort, but it's well worth it.

Fourteen centuries of inbreeding has corrupted the genetic code of the Muslim population to such an extent that it has caused irreversible brain damage; this condition bolsters mass delusion.

Rudy: You remain true to your namesake: The word 'rude' is the root of Rudy, and you excel at being just that.

Just wait...

 

Vanessa Bates

8 Years Ago

Patrick, I'm already well aware of what goes on and so are others here, and that is my point. Perhaps assume people have done their research throughly before speaking to them as if they hadn't. You may have "posited", but that theory was Eric Hoffer's before it ever found it's way here. Again, why not give "True Believer" a try? You'll discover many branches in the family of intolerance.

P.S, I want to amend my last. I know what's going on as much as sitting in front of a computer screen would allow. I doubt that can compare with what anyone has witnessed or experienced while there.

 

Vanessa: I assume nothing; you assume too much.

In addition to the frequent posters who show up here, consider the 'drive-by posters' and those follow but never post, otherwise known as the lurkers.

Also, thanks for the heads-up regarding Eric Hoffer's, 'True Believer;' any book worthy of Ike's attention must be a very good read, indeed.

 

Vanessa Bates

8 Years Ago

Ok. Well, I'm still baffled by "I expounded on nothing at all in regard to the specific tenets of Sharia Law; if you're curious, do your own research," The Lurkers probably aren't paying much attention to us at all.

I hope you enjoy the read, and then have even more fun mulling over how Mr. Hoffer worked on his theory. I found that part mind blowing.

 

Rudy Umans

8 Years Ago

"drive-by posters" sounds like stab at me.

That I would have no clue is very funny. I almost wet my knickers. Just when I was about to feel bad because you present yourself so often as unhappy, frustrated and bitter, you show a sense of humor after all. It was my bd yesterday so that was nice. Thank you.

It is particularly funny because I haven't indicated yet whether I have a clue or not, but to give you a hint,

My copy of the Qur'an is not as old as Jefferson's, I bought mine about 35 years ago and have been following the middle east ever since. Fanatic fundamentalist come in many forms and are everywhere all over the world and the west is no exception, but they are nothing but the convulsions of a dying society and they will go away in time.

In the case of the Muslims (not Islam), many fanatic actions find their roots in the differences between the two major sects of Islam, the Sunnis and Shiites or Shia. Both sects have radicals who don't make things easier. In case somebody doesn't know, the differences are about the successor of Muhammad, how leadership is determined, and the attitude towards western civilization.

To stay in line with the subject of this thread, It is mind blowing to me how some politicians can be so ignorant towards Islam to a point they are willing to put restrictions on some basic rights in this country like freedom of religion. Again, if they talk about religious fundamental extremist that break the law, they should say so and not throw them all on one heap called Muslims, because that is just not right. Either way, religion is per the constitution not allowed to play part in the nomination and election of a presidential candidate and or president.

Islam is a religion of peace and I will always defend it as such. The passages in the Qur'an about violence have a historical reason based on certain events at the time and the Qur'an is BTW not half as violent as the Bible.

This hangs in my office:

"How excellent, how honorable is man if he arises to fulfill his responsibilities; how wretched and contemptible, if he shuts his eyes to the welfare of society and wastes his precious life in pursuing his own selfish interest and personal advantages. Supreme happiness is man's, and he beholds the signs of God in the world and in the human soul, if he urges on the steed of high endeavor in the arena of civilization and justice. "We will surely show them Our signs in the world and within themselves"
Qur'an 41:53

I only post this because it doesn't sound like a barbaric violent religion to me and I wanted to make that clear regardless of how you and other people may feel about Islam.


Last, but not least, are you calling me rude based on my name now? You do have a short and selective memory don't you? I have been on these forums for a while now and so far there is only one person rude. I (and others) just react. I am not calling you names, use foul language or spew insults like a machine gun to the core of what you believe in. And now you are threatening me?

Even though I don't respond very well to foul language and injustice, no matter to whom it may be directed to (my problem), I really don't want to reply to your posts (I gave up on you some time ago remember) and I would appreciate it if you don't reply to mine.

"To overcome evil with good is good, and to resist evil by evil is evil."
Qur'an 41:34

 

Sydne Archambault

8 Years Ago

Yesterday was your birthday Rudy? Well Happy Birthday to you! And if I may digress a bit from the politic speak in this thread, I am going to play my favorite birthday song ever! And no it is not my birthday.

 

Patricia Strand

8 Years Ago

Driving by and waving Happy Birthday at Rudy!! Hope you had a wonderful day! :)

 

Rudy Umans

8 Years Ago

Thank you Sydne and and Patricia

 

Sydne Archambault

8 Years Ago


What about Regan, Ted Cruz on Colberts show.

 

Sydne Archambault

8 Years Ago

A great article on the government shutdown.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/23/pf/federal-government-shutdown/

 

Lawrence Supino

8 Years Ago

What a "political party", eh, Syd? ;)) They disagree with many things their "God" on earth (Reagan) did and they disagree with God in heaven's main man on earth (the Pope).
lol




happy (belated) birthday, Rudy...salute'
btw...I think you know that whether one book is more "violent" than another book, is based on "interpretations" of each...right? :)

 

Rudy Umans

8 Years Ago

could be, but it has to be the right interpretation that is not based on prejudice and speculations.

I think some people see just the good in things and some just the bad, but more often than not it seems a matter of "pick and choose". Whatever is more convenient for a particular individual or group. Especially individuals and groups with a certain personal ideology. They pick and choose whatever fits the bill. Their interpretations are for that purpose too.

Once it gets to this point, it means the beginning of the end of the life cycle. (hence my remark about convulsions)

I think we should leave that for another thread. No need to hijack this thread more than we already have.

 

Sydne Archambault

8 Years Ago

Speaking of this thread, it is running slow when posting, I am thinking of closing this one and add Politics 2 OP and a link to this thread. I can leave this open, and add the Politics 2 as well. What do you think?

 

Mario Carta

8 Years Ago

could be, but it has to be the right interpretation that is not based on prejudice and speculations. -Rudy

Very good Rudy, the problem usually with those that proclaim "it's a matter of interpretation" is that they are only looking for loopholes to discredit anything that doesn't line up with there world view.

just a thought, aren't most real Italians watching the pope?

 

Sydne. I think you should close this monstrous thread, open another like it and provide a link in the OP.

Also, I think you should close all those 'dead threads' that clutter this group's forum; too bad you can't just 86 them altogether.

 

Roseann Caputo

8 Years Ago

Whoa! I'm as real of an Italian as you get. If it wasn't for the fact that Francis is likable, I could care less what the pope does.

 

Lawrence Supino

8 Years Ago

not "could be"...IT IS ;) And yes...of course the interpretation shouldn't be based on prejudice. The point I was trying to make was that for the quote that hangs in your office...there's others from the same book, you'd never hang...if you know what I mean ;)

...and some people just "proclaim" it's a matter of interpretation...because IT IS a matter of interpretation and will remain a matter of interpretation for all who read them. Is not what's done in their name proof enough of that fact??


Now I'm just guessing here...But Rudy feels "the Qur'an is not half as violent as the Bible." and someone else here secretly feels...well, that's just his "interpretation". ;))



Yes, Syd it's time for "Politico Numero due thread" ;)

 

Sydne Archambault

8 Years Ago

I still have not the power to close, close, but I will seek Abbie to do so. But I can say closed which I am about to do so, and start a new OP, with link!

 

Sydne Archambault

8 Years Ago

CLOSED, Politics 2 is open.

 

This discussion is closed.