In the wake of Fort Hood, questions about that "Peaceful Majority" are again being asked. I frankly don't think that the "peaceful majority" poses a threat from a terrorism point of view, but I do believe it poses a threat of a different kind:
Hardi, is perhaps one of the most pleasant Canadian women anyone could ever meet. In her capacity as a care giver of seniors, she is gentle, loving, and incredibly patient. She laughs deliciously at the kind of comical moments that only seniors can deliver and her mood seems to be permanently stuck on happy. Hardi is, an angel.Those who encounter Hardi for the first time will be struck not by her character, that comes later, but by the fact that she is virtually covered from head to toe by tradition Indonesian Muslim attire. She covers her entire body with colourful costume that leaves only her hands and face exposed. Hardi is devout, in fact, so devout that during Christmas any appreciation given her by way of gifting must be void of any reference to the season. Furthermore, during quiet moments when Hardi is free to discuss her Muslim faith, it becomes clear that she believes wholeheartedly in the strict observance of Sharia. For her, Islam in it’s pure non-secular form, is truth.
I think you will find this mindset in other 'groupisms', such as orthodox Judaism, as one example.
It provides an emotionally satisfying lifestyle for SOME people, but only if nested within a larger supporting society which is not bound by this lifestyle. By this I mean, and you refer to it, as a secular society.
In particular, Islam is a lifestyle that rejects science, individual freedom of thought, etc, and so, it cannot provide technological or medical progress. The orthodox of any group, quite frankly, rely on the secular freedoms and their technological results...and they are 'nested' within this progress.
I may not be making myself very clear, but I don't think that an orthodox ideology has any chance of success in the modern world because it freezes technology and science.
"Being a "good person", is irrelevant when it comes to the survival of Western values."
That's an outstanding point, thanks for putting that so well. We need to make that very unpopular (and for most people) counterintuitive and unthinkable point more often.
And ET you are right. The only thing the Amish have contributed to Western civilization is the occasional pie. They could never survive without being parasites on the broader culture.
Of course they don't fly planes into buildings either.
ET said "but I don't think that an orthodox ideology has any chance of success in the modern world because it freezes technology and science."
An orthodox ideology shouldn't have a chance of success in the modern world but for various reasons an orthodox ideology is slowly taking over the modern world. Then the tables will be turned and the modern world won't have a chance of success within an orthodox ideology.
I don't think that an orthodox ideology has any chance of success in the modern world because it freezes technology and science.
You mean like Fat Albert Gore and his rabid, brain-washed followers?
Not all religions have a god, some just have whacky beliefs and lots of fear.
It might be a good idea to remember that the reason freedom loving became the most successful human societies in the history of the world is because we were the most efficient at killing the enemies of freedom.
Why did we let go of that edge?
Orthodox Jews and Amish, unless I am mistaken, have no oficial position regarding a complete takeover of the world, and an enforced enslavement of 51% of the population (women). Sure they're a little nutty in their customs, but like Kathy said above, no wanton death cults. Evangelical Christians and Catholics may want to get everyone to convert, but it's been a few hundred years since the sword was used.
Hardi lives in a Christian Nations thus I really don't care if she finds Christmas offensive or unIslamic she can always move to an Islamic Nation. As for the other chicklet, let's see how happy she is if her husband follows the tenets of the Koran that allow for spousal beatings via a whip or twig? They can live their lives as the see fit, within the confines of our laws there is no room for compromise or submission to the demands of the Political Supremists' Islamists for the west to surrender to Sharia law.
I'm not really sure about this.
A short time ago we moved into an upper middleclass neighborhood mainly populated by Orthodox Jews.
While I would be a little more comfortable with cowboy boots, everyone gets along and seems to be pretty nice.
They dress in traditional Jewish garb and all live close to the synagogue, because it turns out they have to walk to their services. These are not Reform or Conservative Jews; they are definitely Orthodox.
However, as it turns out, Orthodox Jews are the one Jewish group that is very conservative politically and economically. Furthermore, outside of their one day of having to avoid appliances, everyone is otherwise technologically oriented.
In fact, Israel is regarded as a serious high-tech industry center these days.
So here is an Orthodox community that would not fit into an anti-Orthodox paradigm.
However, Islam is a different story entirely.
We do not need any Muslims moderate or otherwise in Canada. Just the fact that they believe in the Koran should disqualify them from any status in Canada. It is not a religion it is a cult that calls for the elimination of anyone and everyone that is not one of them. You can try to sugar coat it any way you want but it still always comes to that. We are the infidels and must be eliminated There is no other way for them according to their own book. Ship all of them and their offspring back to where they come from and declare them an enemy of all free people.
I would feel a lot better about our future prospects (Western Civilization) if more people were as open and blunt about Islam as Pat Condell (second video linked at C-Junk).
More to the point, that most Muslims aren't Islamic extremists is at once absolutely true but also completely irrelevant.
That's because all Islamic extremists are Muslims.
Two groups are guilty of denial here:
1. Western "bien-pensants" who can't handle the hard-nosed concept that the latest round of terrorism is Muslim in nature, not Presbyterian.
2. The Muslim world which seems utterly incapable of accepting there's a BIG problem inside the faith. Where's the Ottoman Sultan when you really need him?
The IRA factions responsible for the chaos in Northern Ireland were miniscule in number - a few hundred at best. Look what they achieved. And, in countering them, the British and Irish governments didn't waste any time profiling Norwegian Lutherans.
As Frederick Douglass said about the Union campaign against the Confederacy in the early part of the Civil War, "we strike at the effect and leave the cause unharmed."
Funnily enough some of the most innovative people I have ever known were Orthodox in their beliefs. Some of the most doctrinaire stuck in the past mugwumps were highly educated secularists. Let's not get too far into generalizations. Each of us needs the other and the sooner we realize that fact the better off we will be.
The fact is that we are all orthodox amongst our own. The real challenge is adapting another's reality.
Joe: There is no adapting to the Muslim reality. It is anathema to Western values.
Ive been saying for years. Islamic emigration is in reality colonization. Do you think the Greeks asked the permission of the Celts when they dotted Europe with colonies from Hellas.
Colonizers come to change the societies their taking over. Not to become part of them. The Romans did the same thing with their "Settlements". Making sure Ronmanization kept apace of the Empire.
The British planted colonies all over the Planet. So why shy from the fact that militant Islam does the same as every would be Supremacists?
There here not to be Canadian by increase the political death cult Islam is under the guise of Religion.
I have no problems with folks coming here for a new life. None for those who would destroy our lives & make us slaves.
JMO
I often wonder what some of our main stream modern religions would be like if they had huge majorities with rabid followers. Look in the not so distant past and it really makes me wonder.
Would socialism not be in the end very similar to the Muslim way of life if left to run its course? Followers are followers.
If a Muslim repudiates Islam and its deceptions, he would be welcome in our church.
In fact, that's exactly what happened on Sunday when a family of five, who escaped Sharia law in Sudan (just south of Egypt), repudiated Islam.
Baptism will follow later this month.
As I have written before, the father reports more and more people who understand that Mohammed is an immoral fraud are leaving the cult (do not give it the dignity of calling it a religion).
This Sunday, he said that if educated people in places such as Indonesia would take the time to better inform themselves about the true nature of Islam, they would leave the next day.
He did not hold out much hope for the Middle East, an area he considers uneducated.
He has been ostracized by the rest of the Muslim community and has even been harassed at work by Muslim factions. Pray for this brave fight for his family's freedom.
Yeah that's great just wait until her hubby has a bad day and come home and see's her eating bon bons and watching oprah ...and decides that she needs a good ass kicking and sends her to the peter laughheed hospital in north east calgary that is packed on any given day with muslim women who get caught on the wrong side of there faith ...they get the snot beat right outta them ...so to say she WILL learn the hard way ...she can say good bye to her career and her pride she will be a breeeding machine and a slave to her husband and her faith ....what a dummy !!!
i know this because i have a close friend who works in triage at that hospital and she say's it is sick and discusting ..what is even worse is when these woman are offered a safe haven or protection they refuse it ...how ass backwards and messed up is that ? THIS IS A FACT .
Paul in calgary
I cried when I read this. What an uplifting statement about the warmth of Political Correctness, diversity, and embracing multi-culturalism.
And, I too am going back to my cultural roots. I am going back to the faith of Set, the Snake God. Others will embrace gentle Thor, or wise Wotan.
Aaaargh. Lets go a-Viking! Open borders, my fellow Vikings!
For all this talk about orthodox Islam being anti-technology, they seem to have mastered the complexity of the remotely triggered fuse and the chemistry of semtex explosives artfully placed to defeat the composite metal and ceramic armour.
If its a weapon... they embrace it.
God bless Hardi.
That is, if indeed the story is true.
atric: I wrote this from personal experience. Hardi is an absolutely wonderful woman, a real angel.
But ...
If these people claim to be Muslim first, Canadian second, why do they not go back to where they came from? Or in Mubarka's case, to Pakistan with her new husband? Or, does this mean that he is coming to live here off our largess? Does this mean that his parents, siblings, et al are coming next?
THIS HAS GOT TO STOP
Here's a partial win: 23 year old German Turkish girl reverts to Western civilization, has interest in science
We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
– Plato
Good cop, bad cop.
Blow ,em up Jihad and soft jihad.
Sorry. Don't buy it. This "lady" knows exactly what's she is doing.
chris at November 16, 2009 6:57 PM :
For all this talk about orthodox Islam being anti-technology, they seem to have mastered the complexity of the remotely triggered fuse and the chemistry of semtex explosives artfully placed to defeat the composite metal and ceramic armour.
If its a weapon... they embrace it.
Love it :-)
religious nut cases
that's ALL BELIEVERS
GYM:
We are all equal in the eyes of God.
The IRA factions responsible for the chaos in Northern Ireland were miniscule in number - a few hundred at best. Look what they achieved. And, in countering them, the British and Irish governments didn't waste any time profiling Norwegian Lutherans.
Posted by: JJM at November 16, 2009 6:29 PM
That's the point I keep trying to make to my shrinking short list of liberal "friends". It's. The. Vanguard. Stupid. This whole liberal-denial "only a small percentage" counter argument is simply stupid. Radical, expansionist, murderous Islam is BOSS at this moment in history. The Muslim vatican, Al Alzar (sp?) University consistently confirms as mainstram tenets that which western apologists call "extremist" hijacking.
In the massive tome, The Black Book of Communism [written by former communists] what was most striking was the small number of Bolsheviks - members of the Communist Party -- at the time of the 1917 revolution. As I recall, is was only about 2,000 (20,000?).
And as to the niceness of this lady, that matters not one whit. Psychopathic fraudsters can be very very nice too, eh. Just ask people who've been ripped off: "Why he was such a nice man".
If she's a devout Muslim, she would think it LOVE to kill or subjugate infidels to bring them to Islam. If she favours Sharia law [and understands it] she is for the subjugation or murder of infidels.
Remember we were all Muslims once!
Great post on a tricky issue, Paul. The matter of the aggregate force of a powerful belief system is a separate issue from the personal characteristics and likability of any given individual who holds those beliefs. To understand that, though, requires a degree of negative capability that's frankly beyond those who have been excessively indoctrinated by political correctness. Many people on the reflexively progressive/left side of things - I'm thinking of people like Dr. Dawg, for example - reflexively and falsely deem any assertion that Islam is dangerous to our values as concomitant with a belief that all who hold Muslim beliefs are bad people.
I've met several Muslims who were really nice people. I genuinely liked them because they were kind, calm, thoughtful and polite, and yet, I absolutely wouldn't want to live in a country full of people who shared their beliefs. Similarly, I don't want my country, or any western country, to back up one inch in the face of Islamic demands. It's not about hating someone for holding Muslim beliefs; I mean, I have nothing against water, but I don't want to live under twelve feet of it, either.
When I lived in Vancouver I knew a couple of self-described communists. When we were discussing something other than politics - hockey, or dogs, for example - I got along with them just fine, and I'd venture to guess that anyone else I know who met them would find them to be convivial and polite. IF their Communist views were in the ascendant as a aggregate political force, though, and IF there was a manifest, widespread trend to accede to their political demands in response to violence or to threats of violence on the part of their less convivial Communist bretheren, the demands and - yes - beliefs of the friendly communist-dudes would have to be opposed with whatever force is necessary. Aggregate force, in other words, becomes personal, NOT because of the characteristics of the individuals who hold those beliefs but because of what the aggregate force of those beliefs would be doing to other individuals including myself and my friends and my family.
In the case of Islam, there are Muslim countries and non-Muslim western countries like Canada. People of all faiths have been welcomed into the west, but Islam is a bit of a special case, and for the foreseeable future it has to be treated differently than other faiths simply because Islam has proven itself time and time again to be, in aggregate, a demand on others, in a way that, oh, say, Hutterite or Lutheran beliefs aren't.
Anyway, superb post, Paul.
Time for a reality check ...
I'm a Dutchman, born in Indonesia. Father's side of the family goes back to the late 1700's/early 1800's - as colonials. Mother and her parents lived there both before and after the war. Parents met/married in Indonesia.
Family albums dating back to the early 1900's are replete with scenes from Indonesia, in all manner of contexts - city, country, plantation.
Indonesia is - ostensibly - over 80% Muslim; "ostensibly" because Indonesians have had a centuries-old, strong tradition of freely adapting whatever elements that struck their fancy, of whatever religion rolling over/through these islands over the ages, to their daily lives, and indeed their language.
I defy anyone to post any photograph of any Indonesian woman, prior to the mid-60's, wearing so much as any headdress even approaching a hijab. This new-found Islamic piety grew out of the headiness of the successful post-colonial drive for independence, and is nothing more than the majority lording it over the remainder of the non- and so-so-Muslim populace.
Oh yeah, and the way I remember it stated ... an Indonesian has a smile for every emotion; including the one just moments before sticking the kris between your ribs!
A gently, loving Sharia, eh?
Zo stom ben ik niet!
Selamat malam.
Aren't all Muslims 'moderate' till the moment they cut your head off at the TV station or run you over in their Jeep Cherokee?
A moderate Muslim is just one who has not completely embraced his faith yet.
Duck and cover when they do....
So quit being such sheep. Show some spine and start TELLING your MLAs and MPs that you expect them to show some respect for your concerns.
And let them know you don't want to hear any excuses.
The Rev has it.
Plainly and simply, they are going to one day BE Canada.
Birth control and abortions have paved the way for them.
And our stupid immigration policy that would allow her to bring a husband here from Pakistan.
Anyone keeping count at immigration??
Watched as CNN interviewed persons regarding the Fort Hood "incident", as expected the mother of one of the 911 victims stated she thought that the 911 "suspects" should be tried in New York to give them a fair trial - her sons name was Muhammad. I would like to hear what the 2999+ think.
So quit being such sheep. Show some spine and start TELLING your MLAs and MPs that you expect them to show some respect for your concerns.
Politicians of all stripes will sell you out and not think twice about it. The fight is ours.
Muslim suffers bruised ego in Fort Hood Tragedy
–Fake headline on Ann Coulter website
Ignorant people who lump Christians, Jews, Hutterites and Amish in with Muslims scare me just as much as the Muslims do. Is the issue not about freedom? At least that's what I understood from Pat Condell.
MSM uses "activists". Why?
"Simon Deng, a Sudanese man who was enslaved, also spoke about the need to protect Rifqa."
...-
"Activists hold 'Rally for Rifqa' outside courthouse (Columbus)
Across the street from the courthouse where Fathima Rifqa Bary's fate is to be decided, about 120 people gathered today to pray for her and rally against Islam.
They were bloggers, Christian activists and friends of the 17-year-old Northeast Side girl who said her father would kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity.
The girl, who goes by Rifqa, ran away to Florida in July and was returned to the custody of Franklin County Children Services late last month. She is living in a foster home while a dependency case deciding where she should live is pending in Franklin County Juvenile Court.
A hearing had been scheduled for today; it was continued until Dec. 22.
The "Rally for Rifqa" was held in a small park across from the courthouse at 373 S. High St. Speakers included bloggers such as Pamela Geller, who warns against Islamic law encroaching on the freedoms of America.
"I'm telling you, it is up for us. We have to take back our own country," she told the crowd. Some held signs reading "Free Rifqa," and a few wore T-shirts that read: "Islam is of the devil."
Nonie Darwish, who is founder of the group Former Muslims United, and Simon Deng, a Sudanese man who was enslaved, also spoke about the need to protect Rifqa.
The girl and her supporters have said the violent ideology of Islam will force her father to kill her for leaving the faith."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2387788/posts
"The Rev has it. Plainly and simply, they are one day going to BE Canada." - gellen (7:49pm)
Sorry, gellen, but - in the Canadian context - we're a long bloody way from that. You're broadly on the right side of things, and I really do appreciate your "ooopmh" in that regard - keep it up - but to make a ridiculous assertion like that just does a disservice to the important work of ensuring that we don't *inch* backwards in the face of Islamist demands. What's biting us in the ass is political correctness - that's the source of the inching. Let's not misidentify the problem; Paul certainly didn't in his cogent post.
If the members of a founding society start backing up to newcomers out of politeness, at a time when they outnumber their political opponents twenty to one, well, that's a good time to try to correctly re-identify what, exactly, is the nature of the problem. What's that line from Pogo - "we have met the enemy, and he is us"? Something like that.
Your comment is certainly applicable in the context of parts of Europe - e.g. Rotterdam - and if you were referring to that, I apologize. But even in Europe it was the "backing up" and the blindness that created the problem. We're in a position to learn from that, and to act on it, and I believe Jason Kenney's recent public statements are a sound and welcome - and striking - indication that this current government is taking a strong and reasonable stance. You don't have to strain your eyes to read too deeply between the lines to see that he's saying "we welcome immigrants, but they have to respect our founding culture." That's a strong approach, and the best one.
EBD - Phyllis Chesler had a nice column, at Pajamas Media, praising the Canadian Government for its blunt, open articulation on this issue, particularly, its open insistence on gender equality, rejection of 'honour' killings, genital mutilation, etc.
The comments were filled with praise for the Canadian action.
Politicians of all stripes will sell you out and not think twice about it. The fight is ours.
Posted by: Mississauga Matt at November 16, 2009 7:59 PM
Indeed Mississauga Matt. That is the most important thing I got out of my readings on Islamic Imperialism esp. a book by Efraim Karsh. The elites will sell us out.
Here's a fascinating piece which ties Mississauga Matt's spot-on remark to an earlier discussion on intellectual property here at sda.
GET THIS: The UK's Conservative Party is miffed about some Islamic bullshit posted on their Conservative Muslim Forum.
LOL: Not miffed by the radical content; miffed about property rights -- that the content was stolen from Islam on Line.
Conservative Muslim Forum Investigated by Tories.
I'll say it out loud: if I were a Brit I'd be voting for the despicable and revolting BNP.
Everyone seems awfully anxious to say these women are good people. How do you know that? They sound like a couple of really bad people.
I get the impression that one of them is a care giver for a family member of Cjunk's. I realize that puts you in an awkward position. You really want to believe that your loved ones aren't at the mercy of someone who considers them less than human.
Thanks for that link, ET. In light of the - reflexively complaining - nature of the right-ish blogosphere in the last few years it's surprising that Kenney's statements have been largely un-remarked-upon in the same realm. Perhaps more to the point, even the reflexively progressive Canadian media seem to have understood that his statements weren't actually *unreasonable* or racist in anyway, and have refrained from criticism, perhaps out of an understanding that such criticism would have alienated the constituency of....news consumers that the outlets are, one way or another, beholden to. It's almost like they were telling a lie, but when someone calls them on it they've got *nothing.*
Kenney's statements are actually quite a bold, in the western-world context, and entirely commendable. It's clearly the case that what is considered "reasonable" has shifted, to a certain extent.
I live in the rural, putatively "redneck" part of Alberta, and I can't help but notice that the Muslim storekeepers I see daily are treated with the greatest of respect at all times. I buy the National Post in one such store, and I'm utterly convinced that, if someone were to ever disrespect one of these Muslim staff members, some "redneck" customer would flatten the nose of the offending party. This ongoing reasonableness within Canada is - ironically, I suppose, to some - exactly what provides room for such eminently reasonable statements such as Kenney's. I'd be surprised if the storekeepers even disagreed with him.
These passive women may not pose a direct threat to any one person but their very aquiescence to a death cult allows it to survive.
"I get the impression that one of them is a care giver for a family member of Cjunk's. I realize that puts you in an awkward position..."
Your supposition puts Paul in an awkward position? That's too easy.
Even if Hardi was a caregiver to a member of Paul's family, would that disallow Paul from simply noting that she's a nice person? Maybe it would make him more qualified to make his final assessment, which comes down on Islam as an *aggregate force.*
People continue to mistake the aggregate force - a real concern - with particular individuals.
Paul's post gets better and better, and more honest, and more cogent, with each passing comment.
EBD: I'm thinking and speaking in the same time frame as Islamists. You won't be here, and I definitely won't. It's like Hitler's 1000 year reich. He thought it was inevitable, and so do they.
The Conservative party are on the right track but they can't go far enough. I praise them for making the changes that are proposed. With a majority they could make all the changes necessary.
We cannot continue to allow Muslims with Canadian citizenship to return to the homeland to bring in husbands and wives. It's a scam.
England is finished. Kaput. There is no party that can undo the damage without causing a great deal more damage. Don't think they have the stomach for it. They lost two generations and those that followed have all been spoonfed pap.
Oomph. Hah! I went through the 40's and all the young men in uniform. In those days, you needed oomph.
Okay, gellen, I apologize. To the extent that you're talking long-term, you may be right. And to the extent that it's true that Muslims with Canadian citizenship may return to the homeland to bring in husbands and wives, it IS a scam. Furthermore, England is well-night kaput-ish, as you suggest, but, - I'd like to reiterate - this is mostly a result of their own characteristics and their own history. We're in a better position, and we can learn from them.
Also, I bow in cred-acknowledgement to your life experiences in the 40's.
There's a crucible we need to run through, though, which involves going through a - not entirely unreasonable - gauntlet of accusations about unreasonable hatred. In light of our own best characteristics, if people start inflaming hatred against the most reasonable Muslims in our midst, who certainly, in some cases, have come to Canada to escape the most excessive and angry aspects of Islam, such hatred is going to be ultimately counterproductive in both the long and the short-term.
I thought Paul's post astutely addressed, in the interests of political viability, the negative-capability-borne consideration that acknowledges the distinction between the individuals' humanity, on the one hand, and the dangers of letting aggregate forces - Islam, in this case - rampage in an unfettered way.
I have no doubt that, albeit yours are rather strongly-expressed views, you're on the reasonable side. My final position is that we need more of people who are *broadly* on your side, but hopefully we'll understand that it is us, and not the enemies we outnumber and who we acquiesce to, who are the problem. I suspect, based on your comments, that you wouldn't disagree.
EBD - what is needed is for the Muslims to reject the 'unreasonable hatreds' within their own ideology.
I am far more positive than some. I think it will happen, because it must happen. The Islamic ideology is a technologically and scientifically unproductive one. It can destroy; but it cannot create. Such an ideology can't support a growing population.
The technological products that are in use in the Islamic world were ALL created by free thinkers of the West. The Islamic world cannot produce such innovations.
As long as the Islamic world could parasite on the West, it could survive and, population wise, increase exponentially. BUT, there comes a threshold to this delicate balance, and this means that IF the Islamic world gains control, and inhibits freedom, THEN, technological capacities end...and...the population can't be supported.
So, I'm saying that unless we suggest that our species could become extinct, then, the 'will to live' will take over, and the repression of freedom will be stopped.
We are now seeing a backlash against multiculturalism, against Sharia, against Islamic repression..which was unthinkable a decade ago. This will increase.
We are seeing open discussions of the Qu'ran and Hadiths - by westerners who a decade ago never heard of either. Intelligent criticism - something that Islamists have never, ever had to face. And even among Muslims, discussion and debate are emerging more and more.
We are seeing informed discussion of Islamic militantism, of its history of aggression in Europe. Again, this is something that the Muslim world has never had to face - that Others actually know something about them!
Think of the difference in ten, twenty years, of the depiction of the 'Arab' in our media, in films. From the romanticism of the old films to the terrorists of today. That's quite a change.
We are seeing the people of the Middle East trying to move out of tribalism and into democracy. We helped in Iraq. They are trying on their own in Iran.
So, I'm far more hopeful that this Islamic refusal to enter into the modern world, and its attempt to remain frozen in the 7th c, will not succeed.
EBD:
I speak plainly because at my age I might not be here tomorrow to speak at all.
I have heard many ex-Muslims speak of their conversion to Christianity. It does happen. I listen frequently to ex-Muslim Faisal Malick on his Christian TV programme. He believes that God has revealed the Destiny of Islam in the Endtime, which is the name of his book.
He is very sympathetic. I might be sympathetic to a group of people locked into a system they can't break free of, but not when they bring it into Canada.
Mass immigration from Islamic countries is suicidal for any western country. I pray ET is correct: it will not succeed.
Why is this such a surprise? I'd say most Christians probably consider themselves to be Christian first, and Canadian second. It's not exactly a big surprise - if you belong to a death cult which tells you that your 80-ish years on this planet are just a farce and that your REAL existence only begins after you die, how could your primary allegiance ever be to a nation?
The reason we don't hear Christians making such statements is because most Christians are moderate enough that their views and beliefs match those of our society. They don't need to identify as one or the other - they don't even think about it. Even so, we've seen plenty of attempts by Christianity to control the actions of other Canadians (luckily, mostly unsuccessful). Why is it any surprise that some Muslims would seek to do the same? How is it any different?
The silence of moderate Muslims only becomes a problem with the emergence of an extremist fringe. This is a problem for all religions. If a new pope were to come to power tomorrow and call for his followers to implement regressive practices, is there any doubt in anyone's mind that millions of his "sheep" would follow?
Persecuting the moderates only exacerbates the problem by turning them to extremism. You don't fight fanatics by becoming a fanatic yourself and mistreating those who have done nothing to harm you. Luckily, our leadership clearly understands this, as has been shown in the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would be nice if the armchair-warriors could get a handle on it, too, but I suppose that's asking too much.
"I might be sympathetic to a group of people locked into a system they can't break free of, but not when they bring it into Canada."
I do hear you.