The Glade 4.0

By the way, last I checked, there's still all sorts of ethnic violence going on in Africa and some parts of South America (well, Narco Violence in a lot of cases here). Some of it even in Mexico. And we won't even get into some of the **** that's happening in South East Asia.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Arathain:

There are different metrics than number of people dying for "worse" ...

Yes, it pretty clearly is.

No, it's not. You're confusing me with another poster. I have no real beef with religion. I'm saying that it's all about perspective.

Diamondeye:

Except, Wwen's post isn't about religion or any anti-religious position on his part. You may want it to be, but it's not. It's about people getting in other people's faces and telling them how to think about ****. Sort of like you telling us we don't need to move past our tragedies.

By the way, last I checked, there's still all sorts of ethnic violence going on in Africa and some parts of South America (well, Narco Violence in a lot of cases here). Some of it even in Mexico. And we won't even get into some of the **** that's happening in South East Asia.

But, you know, 3000 people? One major terrorist attack of any success in the last however long? We can and should move past that. We've got bigger issues to address.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

I don't know about one of the worst things to ever happen in the world, but 9/11 was definitely AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES.

That doesn't really square with your comment blaming it on religion and claiming both religions are equally on some hair trigger of violence.

Again, I'm not.... I guess I'm not explaining myself very well which is my own fault. Either way, I doubt I'd convince you. So I'll just let you win this argument. Congratualtions! /confetti

DE: Are you really saying that 9/11 is one of the worst things to ever happen in the world?

We do have other issues to address. That does not mean we should move past it. We should not, because our enemies will not. They'll be back again and it will be something else.

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.


Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.


Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.


Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.


Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.


Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.


And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

For American liberals, that two out of three Americans oppose the construction of an Islamic center on its current cite occasions no second thoughts. To the contrary, it likely confirms a view of the American people as dangerous yahoos. In fact, it probably confirms the liberal view that the war on terror is less a war against radical Islamists than a more general battle between moderates and extremists of all varieties.

Yesterday at the Council, Imam Rauf made this explicit. "The real battlefront, the real battle that we must wage together today," he said, "is not between Muslims and non-Muslims. It is between moderates of all faith traditions against the extremists of all faith traditions."

Now, the world has its share of Christian, Jewish, Hindu and other religious extremists. Sometimes that extremism leads to violence. At least in America, however, to compare this to the sustained, organized international war crimes planned and carried out by Islamic extremists beggars belief.

No one walks the streets of Manhattan fearing a Methodist may blow up his office, hijack his flight, or kill his son fighting in Afghanistan. Unless you are Angelina Jolie or the dean of Yale Law School, this is not only true but obvious.

So where the Council on Foreign Relations may see in Imam Rauf the model of moderation, Americans may wonder whether a leader who cannot see what is uniquely threatening about Islamic extremism is the most effective spokesman for Muslim moderation. Maybe too his more troubling statements can be explained in context. But there sure are a lot of them, from his charge that the United States was an "accessory" to the September 11 attacks to his more recent declaration that we must build his center for "national security" reasons—or else.

Yes, we have Republican politicos who have made cloddish efforts to capitalize on public sentiment, here vowing a government witch-hunt if elected, there saying no mosque near Ground Zero until we see a church in Saudi Arabia. Without the liberal hectoring, they would have no currency. For President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg and their allies like to sermonize about a proposition not in dispute—the legal right of the imam to build on the property he's bought—while imputing the lowest of motives to anyone who disagrees with them.

How different their approach (not to mention their results) is from that of George W. Bush, who could visit a mosque while the ruins of the Twin Towers were still smoldering, remind us that Muslim-Americans are free and equal citizens, and talk about how ordinary Muslim moms and dads wanted for their children what we want for ours. Maybe it had something to do with his being clear about the fight. Whatever the reason, when this "cowboy" was in the Oval Office, we didn't have prominent politicians campaigning against mosques, Qurans being desecrated, or Gen. David Petraeus having to issue warnings about the consequences of such actions.

"is not between Muslims and non-Muslims. It is between moderates of all faith traditions against the extremists of all faith traditions.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered a fiery address on Monday accusing the United States government of orchestrating desecrations of the Koran by right-wing American Christian groups last weekend, Iranian state news agencies reported…

In Tehran, about 1,000 protesters chanting “Death to America” and “U.S. pastor must be killed” clashed with the police and threw stones at the Swiss Embassy, Reuters reported. The Swiss have handled American interests in Iran ever since the United States severed diplomatic relations with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

What's happening now with Islam is no different than what happened then with Christianity.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Justice Stephen Breyer: Is Burning Koran 'Shouting Fire In A Crowded Theater?'

Last week we saw a Florida Pastor – with 30 members in his church – threaten to burn Korans which lead to riots and killings in Afghanistan. We also saw Democrats and Republicans alike assume that Pastor Jones had a Constitutional right to burn those Korans. But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on "GMA" that he's not prepared to conclude that -- in the internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning.

“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theater,” Breyer told me. “Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And what is the crowded theater today? What is the being trampled to death?”

Last week President Obama told me that Pastor Jones could be cited for public burning – but that was “the extent of the laws that we have available to us.” Rep. John Boehner said on "GMA" that “just because you have a right to do something in America does not mean it is the right thing to do.”

For Breyer, that right is not a foregone conclusion.

“It will be answered over time in a series of cases which force people to think carefully. That’s the virtue of cases,” Breyer told me. “And not just cases. Cases produce briefs, briefs produce thought. Arguments are made. The judges sit back and think. And most importantly, when they decide, they have to write an opinion, and that opinion has to be based on reason. It isn’t a fake.”

Breyer, the author of “Making Our Democracy Work,” told me it’s a “rickety system” -- but it’s worked “fairly well” for a long time.