57 Comments

1. Panday:

As it is, I’ve already been anxiously waiting for the Left to implode. Their tent is too big: one simply can’t get militant gays, Black muslims, feminists, and latte atheists under the same umbrella and keep them there. Many of these groups are diametrically opposed.

I look forward to the day that they turn on each other like sharks with blood in the water.

Dec 2, 2008 - 4:32 am 2. gumshoe:

“Saul Alinksy once wrote that you can beat the Establishment to death with their own book of rules. Now that the liberals are the Establishment the lesson still holds.”

well put,wretchard.
and timely too.

for those not familiar with it,
Stephen Hicks “Explaining Postmodernism”
is good mental floss for cleaning out the dross
that passes for “thought” from the wacademic world
and transported by the current crop of “activists”.

another recommendation
is the essay/book excerot “Nihilism” by Eugene Rose.

It can be difficult to know where to begin
“beating them with their own rule book”
if they themselves are unaware of the gigantic hole
they have at their center.

Rose covers a span of history larger than
the memory-hole/sound-bite variety we get
from the crop of journalists.

That Rose was initially ‘of the left’
recommends his insights as well,imo.

NIHILISM by Eugene Rose
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/nihilism.html

on a more upbeat note,
this little person from taiwan
was adopted by an american couple last year:

http://benandbethany.us/images/bigbuddhaviolet.jpg

thought it’d be nice to share a smile.

Dec 2, 2008 - 5:16 am 3. Mike Sylwester:

The protestors oppose the establishment of an Islamic college.

The protestors way they don’t oppose Catholic schools, only Islamic schools.

The protestors are kooks.

Dec 2, 2008 - 5:27 am 4. 3Case:

Answer the “It’s segregation, not integration,” point, MS.

To my knowledge, Catholic schools do not segregate their populations from the community.

Your response has avoided the issue of concern. Deflection is weak argument.

Dec 2, 2008 - 6:13 am 5. steveaz:

Panday, same here. I expect the Left to turn to watery Jello and flow down the nearest drain soon.

I mean…what do Global Warming Kyoto-ists have in common with heavy industrial workers’ unions in the first place. It is absurd, really: the enviros are killing Detroit’s auto industry deliberately, and yet auto workers are being told by their unions to vote for, wait for it…enviro’s.

Same goes for gays and Islamo’s: there’s no love there, but, as long as the Left can convince most that both are being oppressed by Mormons and “White” wealthy patriarchs, then corrupt urban Democrats can expect the two groups to vote for the party’s local secular hedonists every time.

And, in the meantime, the pot-holes in Main Street ain’t getting fixed, Obama’s Dow dropped 690 points and Thailand is lurching towards civil war. But, but, but…Bush Lied!

The Dem’s can’t keep this facade up for long.

Dec 2, 2008 - 6:44 am 6. Raoul Ortega:

The deflection is because he concedes the argument.

Dec 2, 2008 - 6:46 am 7. Ruby:

What is homeschooling here in the US if not a segregation of children from society at large with the aim of passing traditional values to them untainted by the stain of the world? Well and good. And if those children start out in life believing the earth is six thousand years old and dinosaurs walked with men, they will have an evolutionary disadvantage when they try to enter the workplace and compete with other kids who have degrees, as surely as if they had spent K-12 memorizing the Q’u'r’a'n.

Dec 2, 2008 - 6:47 am 8. Peter Boston:

He denied it was hypocritical to oppose Muslim and not Christian schools.

“Catholics aren’t a different culture,” he said.

“They are the same as us.”

And Brother there is the nub of it all. Muslims organized into groups are not like us. Islam is a collective of obedient robots that see “us” as their enemy. enemies can coexist but never give them an advantage.

Dec 2, 2008 - 6:49 am 9. trangbang68:

Teresita, Home schooled kids don’t enter society as ignorant fools contrary to the propaganda you and others spout. They also don’t enter brainwashed with politically correct nonsense the public schools trade in. Maybe that’s your complaint ; that other people’s children won’t be taught the mandatory block in social studies that sodomy is swell and normal. If anyone’s children are group thinking in lock step like Muslims; it is the graduates of our dumbed down public schools.
Sylwester once again proves to be on the wrong side of everything.

Dec 2, 2008 - 6:58 am 10. RWE:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think you even have to be Catholic to attend a Catholic school.

Panday and Steveaz: I agree with you wholehearedly, but do not underestimate the ability of the Left to stick their fingers in their ears, close their eyes, and hum “We shall Overcome” or “Imagine” when presented with overwhelming cognitive disonance.

Bill Clinton proved that the Ultimate Liberal was one who disavowed liberalism except when he found it useful. Obama is further amplifying and expanding that concept as we speak.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:01 am 11. Paul:

RWE:

You are correct. My younger brother (Presbyterian) attended a Catholic high school. You just have to pay the tuition.

I would also think that anyone can attend Notre Dame University. Most anyone can attend BYU also.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:09 am 12. Mike Sylwester:

My grandfather founded a Lutheran college, Concordia College, in Portland, Oregon. In its first years, the language of instruction was German, and practically all the faculty and students were first- or second-generation immigrants.

When the USA entered World War One, much of the local population had suspicious and hostile attitudes toward the college. Therefore my grandfather went door-to-door selling war bonds to show the neighborhood his American patriotism. He also changed the college’s language of instruction from German to English.

The establishment of an Islamic college in Australia will foster the integration of Moslems into Australian society. The faculty will exercise a moderating, modernizing influence on the students, and the graduates will exercise a moderating, modernizing influence on Australia’s Moslem communities.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:10 am 13. Peter Boston:

Mike Sylwester

What is the basis of your belief? There is not a single Islamic College in the world where faculty exercises a moderating, modernizing influence on the students.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:18 am 14. Jrod:

The two brothers I know who were home schooled through high school are whip-smart, articulate, well-adjusted, funny, family men; both of whom are productive members of society. Though we’ve never talked about dinosaurs walking on men and the literal belief in the earth being created 6,000 years ago, I strongly suspect that they do not believe that to be the case. Go figure.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:20 am 15. dan:

Mike – Islam is not like Catholicism. Islam is self-segregating, a total way of life, the essence of which is a legal code which, if obeyed, is entirely foreign from and incompatible with any modern legal code. that it has injunctions encouraging generosity and supporting the family is insufficient basis for a rapprochement. also there is that troublesome other foundation – the eternal jihad against the dar al harb.

the catholic and protestant churches were broken through physical and political warfare; they were further reduced by total revolutions, whether on the french or russian models. islam has experienced no comparable chastisement – and besides, its essense is Arab tribal law and war, not Judeo-Hellenic metaphysics and peace.

the charm and rapport you have with individual muslims or muslim families? that is because they are human beings. it is *in spite of* Islam.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:41 am 16. Peter Boston:

JRod

I don’t know if your comment is tongue in cheek or not but it comes off, to me at least, as an ignorant characterization of home schooling.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:41 am 17. Aristide:

RWE @ 9
You may recall that the muslim Barry Soetoro attended a Catholic school in Indonesia!

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:44 am 18. Jrod:

PB, not tongue and cheek at all (except for the creationism part). I know exactly two home schooled people, and they are in life as I have characterized them in this thread. That’s all I know about home schooling. For all I know everybody who’s been home schooled is that way. My post was more an affirmation of what trangbang68 said than anything else.

Dec 2, 2008 - 7:51 am 19. comatus:

Sylwester, my father’s family changed its name twice before it was unGerman enough, so you can’t out-Kraut me. Have you ever looked into what happened to WWI German-speaking Americans who did not volunteer to sell war bonds? It’s a fertile field for research.

I have no doubt that all patriotic Muslim-Americans wil show their true colors, just as soon as, like your grandfather and mine, they find themselves “speaking the wrong language” in a declared world war. You may hold your breath waiting for that to come about.

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:04 am 20. steveaz:

What is so compelling to me about this post is the inter-campus battle it illuminates.

One campus, an alleged “Muslim School” is applying for a license to function as a subsidiary campus in a larger campus, which is the permit-awards council in the local parliamentary jurisdiction in Australia where the “Muslim Community” seeks to install its school.

And yet, there is much evidence to suggest that the subsidiary applicant’s goals and techniques are apposite to those of the super-campus to which the applicant is applying. That is, the constitution of local, Anglo-Saxon, parliamentary governing campuses (or bureaus) exist to enforce the coterie of liberal, Western civil-protections and the Helenic democratic virtues that underpin Anglo culture.

In contrast, it is clear just from recent past (see November’s Mumbai attacks, 2008 edition of Madrassa teaching manuals, “Mohammed Cartoons” controversy, the Koran) that the applying subsidiary campus does not.

As to homeschooling, the subsecting campuses of “family.” “clan,” and “citizen” need no license in English Common Law to function. In fact, Western Anglo societies enshrine these “first campuses” in their governing constitutions. These and their subsidiary offices are largely free from civic inspection (more so in America), and the individual’s rights to self-determination are held as paramount.

Sharia schools, not so much. Now, if an Australian family of any faith wanted to home-school its kids in the parents’ native languages and religions, there’d be no issue, would there?

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:11 am 21. steveaz:

Typo Alert in ‘graph 3 of #19, above: “Apposite” should be “Opposite.”

Cheers, mates!

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:20 am 22. Mark:

Dan writes:

“. . . the catholic and protestant churches were broken through physical and political warfare; they were further reduced by total revolutions, whether on the french or russian models. islam has experienced no comparable chastisement – and besides, its essense is Arab tribal law and war, not Judeo-Hellenic metaphysics and peace.”

Was it Pope John Paul II who said that “The Church can only propose; it cannot impose”? Perhaps the Catholic Church comes to this conclusion following the trials through which it has passed, as Dan notes.

The motto of [militant] Islam might be the opposite to what JP II announced?

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:21 am 23. Peter Boston:

In response to impassioned student protests, Iran’s President Mohammed Khatami has urged the country’s hard-line judiciary to review the death sentence of Hashem Aghajari, a Tehran history professor. He has been convicted of blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed by questioning the authority of the country’s clerics. WSJ

There’s your moderating, modernizing influence.

The remainder of the article discusses why we are not likely to see an Islamic college in the USA anytime soon.

While there are individuals who identify as Muslim that fit comfortably into our value system they are the exceptions swimming against the tide. Islam does not allow dissent or even discussion. The penalty for individualism in Islamic countries is state-sanctioned, state-imposed death.

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:25 am 24. Mike Sylwester:

Most people who receive religious education receive it from their local clergyman — their pastor, priest, mullah, etc. — who is occupied primarily in leading his congregation. He conducts religious services, collects and spends money, maintains the facilities, officiates at weddings and funerals, counsels individuals and married couples, teaches children, and so forth and so on.

Religious education received from a clergyman is relatively basic, routine and conservative. Most of a clergyman’s interaction is with his own congregation, which already believes the religion or wants to believe the religion and does not challenge the clergyman’s teaching and authority.

Whenever a religion establishes a college, it establishes an academic faculty, which eventually develops into an alternative authority for the believers. Professors have the time and position to read, discuss, teach and write at a much higher intellectual level. Professors must familiarize themselves with the thinking of other professors in their field who do not share their religion. Professors must teach intelligent young adults to defend their religious beliefs against sophisticated criticism.

In general and over time, academic professors become careful about what they think and teach. Some might have mistaken or extreme opinions, but they try to present their arguments in a careful, reasonable, rational manner.

If Australia’s Moslems are educated by their local clergymen and also by their college’s professors, then their religious education will be broader and more intelligent. If an Australian Moslem wants to discuss difficult religious questions, then he can turn to his local clergyman or he can turn also to a college professor or to an educated graduate of such a college.

A higher education is better than an elementary education. People who think that Australian Moslems will be better people if Australian Moslems are prevented from establishing a college are kooks.

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:25 am 25. trangbang68:

Home schooling which we have participated in is a rejection of the homogenization of thinking which public education fosters. It is also a way of sidestepping the often toxic youth culture in working class schools. My local high school in Tucson has serious gang and drug problems as well as pro-illegal immigration curricula created by La Raza. No thanks to that.
Home schooling is a rejection on a local level of statism. I don’t want Bill Ayers or Amy Goodman writing the lessons my children will learn.
It also affords an opportunity to tailor a child’s learning to their particular interests. My second son read every Shakespeare play in high school, participated in state wide youth legislature and mock trial competitions and many other fascinating learning experiences he never would have got at the ghetto school in our neighborhood at the time.
Home schooling is essentially American and conservative while madrassas brainwash children with a hateful cult of murder and anti- Americanism.

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:31 am 26. Ruby:

Trangbang: Maybe that’s your complaint ; that other people’s children won’t be taught the mandatory block in social studies that sodomy is swell and normal.

I’m a hardcore libertarian, so I don’t have a complaint about private schools of any stripe. If parents want their kids to spend K-12 rote memorizing the King James Bible (or Koran) instead of learning about biology or geology or history, good for them! And when those kids apply for scarce jobs in a recession with first generation US begotten Asian chemical engineering graduates and they come home empty handed they better not come to me for a bailout. They better learn to ask “You want fries with that?” and like it.

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:35 am 27. Mike Sylwester:

Peter Boston (#22):

You give the example of a history professor in an Iranian college who is threatened with a death sentence because his teaching challenges his country’s religious authorities.

Thank you for adding your superb example to our discussion, because it supports my own argument so well. Indeed college professors do provide an alternative, non-clergy, intellectual authority that exerts a moderating, modernizing influence on Moslem societies.

Thanks again. If you can provide more such superb examples, please keep adding them to our discussion.

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:35 am 28. trangbang68:

Mike Sylwester as a previous commenter wrote presents a model of tolerant behavior which Islam offers no evidence of having produced anywhere. (nor does your average American liberal arts university).

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:36 am 29. Mark:

Dan also writes:

” . . . and besides, its essense is Arab tribal law and war, not Judeo-Hellenic metaphysics and peace.”

Islamic philosophy adopted the concepts and methods of Aristotle with great success. Averroes (Ibn Rushd), “The Commentator” on Aristotle provided the Middle Ages of Islam and then Western Christendom with a comprehensive guide to a metaphysics adaptable to philosophy and theology.

But Ibn Rushd “blinked,” so to speak, failing to push to the conclusion that his great follower, Tomas d’Aquino, eventually reached: There can only be one truth. There cannot be two truths, i.e., the truth of science and the truth of revelation.

What we see in Islamic thinking is a general schizophrenia, also evident in many Christian churches and sects, regarding apparent irreconcilability of science and religion. If the Koran is the word of God, it is all you need to know. But if it is all that you need to know, then everything else . . . well, you see where that leads.

The Catholic Church decided long ago (and not without a fight forming around Tomas) that what we know about God cannot conflict ultimately with science. Almost any scientist will acknowledge that what we know is evolving and likely to look different within new and emerging contexts. Therefore a certain modesty regarding science, and regarding our understanding of God’s ways, befits a Christian, or at least a Catholic.

About home schooling in the U.S., there has always been great local resistance to home schoolers, and for some good reasons. Home schoolers in most states need to register and show students’ progress. The state has a stake in the education of every student (pun intended).

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:37 am 30. trangbang68:

Teresita,
It is a sign of your own ignorance the assumption that Christian schools don’t teach geology, history and biology. If anything they teach a much more diverse history than public schools as well as turn out better performers than most public schools.

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:41 am 31. trangbang68:

Contrary to Mike’s ode to Muslim liberal arts;
Osama Bin laden, Mohammed Atta and many others were radicalized in the universities. Where is the evidence of Muslims being moderated in Middle Eastern schools?

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:45 am 32. Peter Boston:

Mike Sylwester

Do you really want to defend the position that the routine execution of Islamic college professors for teaching views inconsistent with Muslim clergy is going to encourage free expression?

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:51 am 33. Mike Sylwester:

steveaz (#19):
“One campus, an alleged ‘Muslim School’ is applying for a license to function as a subsidiary campus in a larger campus …. there is much evidence to suggest that the subsidiary applicant’s goals and techniques are apposite to those of the super-campus …. campuses (or bureaus) exist to enforce the coterie of liberal, Western civil-protections and the Helenic democratic virtues that underpin Anglo culture …. the applying subsidiary campus does not. ”
=========

Gradually the Moslem school’s faculty will adjust itself to established academic principles, standards and practices. The Moslem professors will participate in academic conferences, read professional literature and try to publish their own articles and books.

Some professors will manage to get themselves promoted to higher-paying faculties of larger, secular universities. Those departing professors will be good examples for the remaining faculty members who likewise strive for promotions.

The Moslem colleges will adjust themselves as institutions so that they earn better credentials from various academic and government agencies.

Moslem colleges have a lot to learn from religious and secular colleges in modern societies. Moslem colleges are far behind, and they will follow the examples of colleges that are far ahead.

Dec 2, 2008 - 8:57 am 34. Mike Sylwester:

Peter Boston:
“Do you really want to defend the position that the routine execution of Islamic college professors for teaching views inconsistent with Muslim clergy is going to encourage free expression? ”
============

If the Moslem clergy can only threaten to execute college professors but cannot carry out the threats, then many people will be encouraged to express defiant professors’ opinions. Furthermore, they will be encouraged to develop and express their own opinions.

In a Moslem society without colleges, the clergy are the only intellectual authority. When colleges are established, their professors become alterative and eventually much more influential intellectual authority. The clergy are reduced to leading their local congregations and stop trying to control the entire society’s intellectual discussions.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:06 am 35. Peter Boston:

I went to Catholic schools for 12 years. 100% of my senior high school class was accepted at college, including the Ivies and the military academies. I had four years of Latin and now wish it were more. The point I want to make is that Catholic schools were focused on traditional education. Reading, writing, ‘rithmatic.

Although I’m certain that religion was taught in school I do not have any vivid memory of religion classes. I do recall one discussion about the Bible (and that in a history class) and the gist of it was that you had to read the Bible as literature before it would ever have any spiritual value. It took me 40 years to understand what that meant.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:07 am 36. trangbang68:

Mike said:
“Some professors will manage to get themselves promoted to higher-paying faculties of larger, secular universities. Those departing professors will be good examples for the remaining faculty members who likewise strive for promotions.”
I wonder if Edward Said at Columbia and Sami al Arian at South Florida fit Mike’s model. Both were radicals pimping for Hamas and other terrorist groups.
It must be wonderful to blissfully believe things that have absolutely no ground in reality.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:08 am 37. David M:

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 12/02/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:22 am 38. Captain Ramen:

I think that Mike would eventually prove right, given enough time. Problem is, we don’t have it.

Out here in the real world, Iran is ever closer to a nuclear weapon. The only other Islamic state to have them, Pakistan, is coming apart at the seams.

Perhaps the GWOT will prove to be successful, convincing the Islamic World that the best system to govern a society is not Sharia but Anglo-Saxon-Judeo-Christian-Federalist-Capitalism, e.g., Australia. However, as I have stated before, I think it will fail.

Nuclear or Bioterror Attack on U.S. Likely by 2013, Panel Warns

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:22 am 39. Ruby:

Trangbang: It is a sign of your own ignorance the assumption that Christian schools don’t teach geology, history and biology. If anything they teach a much more diverse history than public schools as well as turn out better performers than most public schools.

That is remarkable, considering that many homeschoolers use textbooks like Biology for Christian Schools, which declares on its first page, “If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them,” and “Christians must disregard [scientific hypotheses or theories] that contradict the Bible.”

But like I said, I don’t care what they teach their kids. They’ll learn what they need in the School of Hard Knocks soon enough.

I myself was edumacated in Catholic schools, that isn’t what we’re talking about here. The topic is Muslim schools that self-segregate from society. I don’t like double standards. There oughtn’t be one rule for Madrasses and another one for fundamentalist Christian home schools. If home schooling is extolled as a response to Statism, then why turn around and exercise that same Statism by getting the state to close Muslim schools?

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:23 am 40. Peter Boston:

One of the Big Lies being foisted upon us by both government and the media is that because Islam is monotheistic that is just like Judaism and Christianity with insignificant differences. Whether it’s intellectual laziness, inability to reason, or intentional deception I do not know. But, a lie it is.

The core tenet of the Judeo-Christian tradition is that each individual is responsible for finding his place in the cosmos, and that with proper guidance and effort each individual will arrive at the One Truth. Blind obedience is neither required nor desired (Abraham-Issac). Judeo-Christian Wisdom Documents emphasize community – how people can live together in peace.

Islam begin and ends with absolute obedience to an arbitrary god. Human beings exist only for the purpose of extending Allah’s dominion over the earth. The only community with any value is the one that serves Allah and then only for so long as it does. Individualism is prohibited and punished by death.

The Judeo-Christian tradition and Islam are as different as light and darkness, life and death. One sanctifies humanity and elevates the human spirit, the other crushes the human spirit and treats human beings as mindless agents.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:48 am 41. dan:

ruby, do you come here to practice your communist disinformation riffs on us or something? you can’t possibly fail to detect the difference in kind between these two doctrines and the habits of their adherents. so please, kick it up a notch yo. this is getting boring.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:50 am 42. Mike Sylwester:

I attended Lutheran schools through my sophomore year of high school. I stopped only because my family moved to a town that did not have a Lutheran high school.

I received an excellent education. I studied the Bible at least an hour every school day. I have continued to study the Bible and read a lot about religion and philosophy to the present time.

I have the impression that people who grow up attending religious schools do not normally become religious fanatics. Rather, it is people who come into religion later in life and then get their educations in non-institutional, cult-like, isolated circumstances.

Dec 2, 2008 - 9:55 am 43. Panday:

I’m a hardcore libertarian, so I don’t have a complaint about private schools of any stripe. If parents want their kids to spend K-12 rote memorizing the King James Bible (or Koran) instead of learning about biology or geology or history, good for them! And when those kids apply for scarce jobs in a recession with first generation US begotten Asian chemical engineering graduates and they come home empty handed they better not come to me for a bailout. They better learn to ask “You want fries with that?” and like it.

For someone with pretensions of being an intellectual, Ruby, you sure don’t know your facts: like how homeschooled students consistently academically outperform public school grads. It seems you’re also ignorant enough to take the knee-jerk and bigoted approach in assuming what homeschool students actually study.

The next time you complain about anti-sodomite bigotry, look in the mirror at your own.

Dec 2, 2008 - 10:04 am 44. Lifeofthemind:

Islamism is different. Islamist schools are different. The threat from Islamist subversion is different and it is real. Given that how do we respond? You can go with fred and call for mass expulsion and bloodshed or you can think of what actions to avoid, because they increase the threat as creating a seperate Islamic educational system will, and what actions to encourage, such as a range of other vibrant religious and secular institutions.

Dec 2, 2008 - 10:16 am 45. Alexis:

Mike Sylwester:

One question about Lutheran colleges that should be answered is whether the pro-war hysteria of WWI had the effect of Americanizing various ethnic groups in the United States. The social pressure to conform was intense, but the fear of a fifth column at home was also real.

Imagine if there had been no social pressure to learn English and integrate into American society. What would have happened then? I think it’s hard to say. It is easy in retrospect to assume that the gravitational pull of the English language is so immense and the power of American culture is so intense that immigrant communities would necessarily have embraced speaking English. And yet, while I do think that loyalty to our Constitution is far more important than speaking a common language, we need to realize that assimilation is primarily a political event.

Remember, the de facto language of the United States of America is English. It isn’t Choctaw, Cherokee, Seneca, Lakota, or Navajo. Many parts of the United States have been colonized by people who have not assimilated to Native American cultural norms. So, let’s be honest and say some projection is involved in the fears of English speakers.

I see modern Lutheran schools as harmless. However, imagine if Nazi Germany had systematically attempted to take over existing Lutheran schools in the United States and massively funded the building of dozens of new Lutheran schools that taught German and hundreds of churches that taught Nazism. This is precisely what the Saudi royal family is doing with its promotion of madrassas and mosques throughout the world.

It is one thing for Muslims to want religious instruction for their children. It is an entirely situation if the local school or mosque becomes a carrier of a totalitarian ideology that tells children that they must not have any non-Muslim friends. It is important to distinguish the two so Muslim schools in the West are controlled by rational Muslims who sincerely want to live in peace with their neighbors. Unfortunately, that is not happening enough.

Dec 2, 2008 - 10:28 am 46. Roderick Reilly:

“”"”"”I look forward to the day that they turn on each other like sharks with blood in the water.”"”"”"”

Certain elements of the “progressive” left can be drawn away from the others. The best example I can think of at the moment are the disabilities activists, who are appalled by the “utilitarian” notion of euthanizing old people and severly disabled toddlers and encouraging officially-sanctioned suicide.

Dec 2, 2008 - 10:56 am 47. DanM:

Ruby/Teresita,

You stated – “If home schooling is extolled as a response to Statism, then why turn around and exercise that same Statism by getting the state to close Muslim schools?“..

When was the last time Catholicism, or any of it’s followers, state that their intent was to destroy the United States? Please… Your moral equivalence illustrates the reason so many people stay away from the Libertarian Party. If you truly believe there is moral equivalence, then you really belong in the new Democratic Party (HT- Drudge). Now THERE is moral equivalence demonstrated. When you have only revenue/power in mind, moral equivalence is mandated.

That is not to say that businesses should take political stances, they should not. They should deliver share-holder value to their owners. Individuals? Now there is where a free person takes a stand…

Dec 2, 2008 - 11:09 am 48. DanM:

Hmm.. Looks like my link didn’t take…

New Democratic Party

Dec 2, 2008 - 11:11 am 49. DanM:

Maybe I need preview… Should have read – When was the last time Catholicism/Christianity

Or maybe I should quit posting…

Dec 2, 2008 - 11:14 am 50. Fletcher Christian:

Personally, I think that the opening of Muslim schools should be allowed. I also think that the Muslims “educated” in such establishments should not have any preferred status when it comes to employment. I also think that the existing laws against incitement to murder, riot, treason and sedition should be rigorously enforced.

One more reason for wanting such schools to be opened; it will make it easier to round them up when the time comes to expel the would-be traitors and murderers from our societies.

Dec 2, 2008 - 12:28 pm 51. Leon:

Islam is not Catholicism. Catholic nuns don usually go in gun rampages around town.

Dec 2, 2008 - 1:06 pm 52. Leon:

90% of current terrorism is muslim and happens mostly in societies where there is a substantial muslim presence. The world is not politically correct, why should we be?

Dec 2, 2008 - 1:14 pm 53. Ruby:

Fletcher Christian: …it will make it easier to round them up when the time comes to expel the would-be traitors and murderers from our societies.

Oh, is that your Final Solution? Not even God knows the future, but you claim to know who is going to commit treason and murder and you will round them up with prior restraint? You and what National Civilian Security Force? This is where all the righties say, “Oh crap, maybe we shouldn’t have given Bush all that power after 9-11, because now it passes to Obama, and it was a Democratic President who ran America’s ten concentration camps from 1942-1945.

Dec 2, 2008 - 2:26 pm 54. EvilDave:

I have seen Colin Hay (Men at Work) twice in concert in the last 5 years.
His shows are a good mix of comedy story-telling and songs.

Dec 2, 2008 - 2:40 pm 55. Fletcher Christian:

Ruby, if the time doesn’t come then it doesn’t, and they won’t have a thing to worry about.

Followers of which religion are most likely to commit treason, mass murder, sedition, arson, conspiracy to cause an explosion and riot? Let’s see. Catholics? Nope – not in America, anyway. Sikhs? Nope. Pentecostals? Maybe – some of them like bombing abortion clinics. Buddhists? Nope – not in America, anyway. Wiccans? Do me a favour. Baha’i? Doubt it. Jews? Nope – not since 1940s Palestine. Hindus? Nope. Who does that leave? Hmmm… let’s see…

Muslims have no place in any civilised society. Period. and they shouldn’t be given one, and they should have no concessions given, of any sort whatsoever, while they are still here. No time off for prayers or Friday Sabbath, no prayer rooms, no exceptions (halal? ugh!) to animal welfare laws. Nothing. The sooner that Westerners realise that, the less likely we are to end up having to kill them all.

Dec 2, 2008 - 3:41 pm 56. Joshua:

Captain Ramen: Perhaps the GWOT will prove to be successful, convincing the Islamic World that the best system to govern a society is not Sharia but Anglo-Saxon-Judeo-Christian-Federalist-Capitalism, e.g., Australia. However, as I have stated before, I think it will fail.

Islamic supremacists don’t promote shari’a, and rank-and-file Muslims don’t observe it, necessarily because they believe shari’a is the best system to govern a society (their Western-aimed propaganda notwithstanding). Islamic supremacists promote shari’a, and rank-and-file Muslims observe it, because they believe shari’a is the will and the writ of Allah, and as such is the one and only way, short of martyrdom in jihad, to stay on Allah’s good side and get into heaven.

This points to what strikes me as the real source of the rift between the West and Islam: The former’s priorities are to enjoy and improve its people’s experience in this life; whereas the latter’s are to do whatever the Qur’an says they must in order to keep up their standing in the next life.

Dec 2, 2008 - 5:45 pm 57. Micha Elyi:

Ruby (#7) wondered, “What is homeschooling here in the US if not a segregation of children from society at large with the aim of passing traditional values to them…?”

What greater form of questioning authority is there than to deprive the State’s politician-run schools of the minds of ones children? I suggest that Ruby bone up on the arguments for homeschooling in the Left’s canon. Long before those traditionalists Ruby finds so icky were homeschooling, flower-power types were homeschooling.
http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/intro.html

Dec 3, 2008 - 11:03 pm

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