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.

As for 100 million Muslims, if that many were truly violent, we'd be dead. 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.

You want to talk about crazy, but you are the one that rejects reality. You don't want to look at the statistical facts of threat and violence in the US. 15,000 murders or more a year, and the best you can come up with is a handful of spurious events over decades, sprinkled with outright lies.

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.

Yet, here you are, calling the second largest religion in the world a "cancer", and people line up to offer a hoot and a holler. It's sad and telling. It so tragically mirrors our past in terms of other ethnicities and religions, but we are too ignorant to see the similarities.

Ponder this chart. One in five people in the world is a Muslim. There are somewhere around 5 million in the US. It took 19 to commit the WTC attack. So far the fearmongers here can't even put together a short list of attacks in the US without falsely tagging at least one with Islam.

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.

that's cheney's "1 % doctrine." it's not the probablility of the threat that matters, that can be 1 percent. it's our response to that perceived threat that matters.



preach on...

except i do like our chances in the "insurgency." the NRA has ensured that we are "armed to the teeth." and i think if anyone did have the gaul to go beyond a punk attack and actually attempt an "invasion" they would get their clocks cleaned in just about every neighborhood in america. neighborhoods filled with hunters and ex military and patriots armed to the teeth and united in cause. our insurgency would make the iraqi insurgency look weak and feeble.

kinda like what we got in iraq. except we're better trained and equipped. ya gotta love the 2nd ammendment. it ensures our freedom.

and that's not even considreing our actual military. that's IF they got by them. which is more likely if the attack is from within.

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.

Nah, if 1% of American Muslims decided to attack us THEY'D be the insurgency. Imagine 50,000 armed Muslims running amok, about what, half the number of troops we have in Iraq total? American Muslims have the ready ability to make this nation total chaos.

The reason that Iraq is a bloodbath is because the people who are being attacked most often aren't willing to behead the families of the people who are attacking them in the same way their loved ones are beheaded. Neither are we, admirably. We aren't evil, and in cases like this, sadly, evil usually wins, at least in the short term.

It's the guy who is willing to do what humanity rejects that can force humanity to bow to him, again, at least in the short term. The farce is that with almost universal access to weapons and ammunition, easy access to bomb making materials, etc., American Muslims have shown themselves to be even less a threat than our own racist "Christian" militias who openly train and have their little getaway camps around the country. Rightwinger has to imagine threats, and that, in and of itself, defeats his point.

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.

i was pointing out to a good friend the other day that if he were an iranian, who was 30 or younger (give or take)...that pretty much all you know, from your perspective, is that the USA is a country that has been threatening to ahnialate you, your family, your friends, everyone you love and your nation. and he might be a bit defensive about that.

and for someone older, up thru their 60's, all you pretty much know is that the USA is a country that put their puppet dictator in place in your country. and when they dared defy his brutality, the usa has been threatening to destroy you, your family, your friends and your nation. and he might be a bit defensive about that.

especially since you consider that iran is reportedly a pretty decent place to live, relatively speaking. then you consider that much of that progress is since they booted the shah. then consider that they have, percentage wise, one of the youngest populations goin...and maybe that they don't look at everything exactly the way we do. and it's all not based on being a nut-job.

i'm not saying , i , as an american, agree with that perspective, but not acknowledging that they might feel a lil different and giving that a nudge of respect, might help us avoid another disaster of a war.

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.

that isn't at all what i'm saying. your just parroting right wing bs talking points now ted...cmon...i haven't denied anything about terrorism's existence. or said anything close to suggesting we shouldn't fight it. i do question the administration's tact in fighting via iraq and many other blunders...but i never said anything you suggest. that's just right wing bs and it wore thin a couple years ago. that's why it didn't work in 2006, and it doesn't work here.

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"?

Isn't it great to just say, if you don't buy the hype you don't believe that terrorism exists at all? I don't agree with Sean very often, and I literally despise Keith Oberman, but come on, you have to see this for what it is. If I chide Clinton for tossing missiles to distract from Monica, I'd be a hypocrite to not agree that Bush is hyping penny ante crap to distract from the fact he's done basically dick about international terrorism.

"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.

Do you think the war in Iraq has done much to hamper the efforts of international terrorism? Really? You could make the case that they lost a breeding ground in Afghanistan, but then the jury is still out on how much of that country we actually control, and whether the tribal leaders will just revert back once we lose interest.

I'm not saying Bush hasn't done anything at all. I appreciate the fact that Hussein is gone, and Hussein did support terrorism in his own small ways. What I said, though, was he's done basically dick about international terrorism. Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, all of them are up and running, still churning out propaganda, still doing their business.

I've always been a Bush supporter, you know that. I supported this war until he proved he was more comfortable with our troops being killed than Iraqis. I supported the Afghani war until I saw that we were just leaving the real power structure, the tribal warlords, in place to do whatever they want.

So now, me supporting Bush? Not so much. Lotta talk, little results. The day my mind started changing is when we got bullied out of Fallujah. From that day on, I haven't been able to close my eyes to the complete lack of respect Bush has for the lives of our soldiers, and his willingness to toss them into the mix and then abandon the effort, and then go back again to wash and repeat the next week.

I'm not a peacenik. Had he leveled Fallujah I would have called it an understandable cost. Nothing is understandable about this wishy washy bullshit. Stand our troops out like targets and try not to offend people while they are blown to pieces.

I'm a proponent of the idea that war is hell and it should be bloody and brief. Bush, on the other hand, seems to believe that war is about winning the hearts and minds of the world at the cost of American blood. That, along with the fact that I haven't seen a single terrorist group meet their end in any major way, makes me believe he's done basically dick about terrorism.

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?

I will agree with you on that point.  But what can Bush or the next President really do?  We can't act militarily because the U.N. and europe will have their fits, we can't round up terrorists individually because "people" don't want terrorists locked up in Gitmo.