Maybe not a solution, but the people most likely to hold the violence of Islamic teaching closest in their hearts aren't ones who've tasted all the pleasures of modernity. These are bad years for finance, but only a blip in our relentless expansion of global wealth: The planet, viewed whole, continues to get richer and richer. As the decades roll on, fewer and fewer people will need the cold burlap love of Islam to sustain them.

We'll fight as we need to, because we're right and because we'll win... But who knows how much fighting will be necessary?

What happened to the 'US Muslims are better adjusted that those in Europe!!'

That is what Europe is saying ~ it is not what you do for Muslims, it is what they do to you!

What many Muslims expect is to live in a country where there is Shari'a law. In Europe Muslims are openly calling for Shari'a law. That means that they expect that any violation of these laws ~ should be dealt with by the state. But in a free democracy that is simply not feasible. So we will get these attacks. And we will get attacks on our freedoms and rights systems around the protection of Islam.

There is really no difference. What you will have is those Muslims who want to go along with the democratic system and those who will try to subvert it. In Europe those who try to subvert it, have far more influence than in the US ~ where the Constitution bans the making of religious laws.

Look at Turkey Crid regarding your modernization idea. It doesn't work when the traditional Islamic ideals are held by those who reproduce more than the modernists.

Maybe not a solution, but the people most likely to hold the violence of Islamic teaching closest in their hearts aren't ones who've tasted all the pleasures of modernity.

Crid, I would like to believe you, but...the founders of RevolutionMuslim.com include American converts who were not born to Muslim families. These are people who were born into all the pleasures of modernity, and ran away from them to the safety of medievality. There are others like that. Belonging to a strict faith is comforting to many. Forgot which of the RM.com founders I was reading about last week, but he came across as a loser by modern standards...post-conversion, he has a wife, a son, and a whole lot of compatriots/attention. So far, his retreat from modernity is working out for him well. Granted, in the context of the fact that he doesn't have to worry about deportation, but still. There are more than a few people who see only what modernity has cost them, rather than realizing how wonderful it is to live in a place where babies rarely die, people regularly live into their 70s and 80s, and violence is relatively rare. Some of these people find radical Islam very appealing, both men and women.

One I don't see any solution to...do you?

No, which is why, until some definite solution is found, we should stop letting Muslims in.

There is a solution, but nobody wants to talk about it.

It goes by many names: Colt, Mossberg, Beretta.

Every time there's a terrorist attack (failed or otherwise) in America, some Allah-humper will wail and cry about the "backlash" against "peaceful muslims".

There's not been a backlash. Yet.

When that time comes (and it will come, as it always does), there will be no doubting that it has.

The truth is, I was hoping he was an Amish...

This was a (pathetic) reminder that the "Religion of Pieces" is still around. I think we give way too much credit to the Revolution Muslim group. I mean, are they an Islamic version of the Westboro Baptist Church?

If they got airtime, they won.

Anybody catch the public apologies by Bloomberg and Geraldo? I missed them.

I must have been out tea partying, or buying propane or burning crosses or something.

Sarcasm aside, why do these people think it is OK to smear political opponents, then ignore the fact that they are wrong? I don't live near the city, but Bloomberg couldn't buy my vote, and Fox can keep Geraldo, because I'm not watching.

Advertisers ought to rein these morons in, because I just might equate the products with the shills. Or do Nike and Buick think Tiger has helped their image?

"The site called for Parker and Stone to "understand the tastelessness of their portrayal, apologize and reflect on the words that follow.""

As Cartman would say, 'Fuck you guys!' No apology necessary. Those jihadist assholes can just pull up their panties and go home.

Mainstream Media is barely doing damage control for the appearances. I am old enough to remember MTV apologize for Madonna's raunchy videos.

I think the New Media and the young generation is understanding the hogwash offered by Comedy Central. This being said, the DVD version of the cartoon will sell like hotcakes.

"As the decades roll on, fewer and fewer people will need the cold burlap love of Islam to sustain them. "

Crid is right. This is what killed the animosisty between Catholics and Protestants in Europe and America finally, and it was a long time dying. That hatred was at least as bloody as this jihadi stuff.

However. Sio has a point:

"Look at Turkey Crid regarding your modernization idea. "

There is always back-sliding - the persistence of Wahhabism in SA, the re-emergence of Fundamentlaism among newly middle-class Americans.It's a reaction to the disorientation of modernization. It may eventually need Brian's soultion; we don't know yet for sure.

But if Jews were able to put aside a lot of the bloodier apsects of the Torah - stoning an adultress is honor killing, pure and simple, and it's right there alongside the pork thing and the shellfish thing and the meat and milk thing - then there's hope for their Muslim brothers in Abraham. The Qur'an is no more binding in every jot and tittle on Muslims than the Torah is on Jews from what I hear.

The Qur'an is no more binding in every jot and tittle on Muslims than the Torah is on Jews from what I hear.

Islam is the uncriticizable, uncontradictable, unchallengable, state protected ideology from Morocco to Indonesia. The only, sort of, secular muslim majority countries are the former soviet republics, along with Turkey and Syria, and maybe Lebanon. Nothing can contradict the ideology.

Unlike the Torah or the Bible, the Koran is one, unbroken narrative - the Word of God as revealed to one man, Mohammed, via the angel Gabriel. As such, it's not subject to questioning or reinterpretation.

Slightly off topic but here it is. I have this acquaintance of mine who is a young male in his early 30s, very devout and opinionated Muslim (the whole lot of Muslim devotion, in speech, rites and social behavior; kind of scary). Here's the punch line: he works... as a security agent for an airliner's regional office. I can't stop thinking about it. What in the world are we doing?

"...the people most likely to hold the violence of Islamic teaching closest in their hearts aren't the ones who've tasted all the pleasures of modernity."

You've got that backwards. There are hundreds of millions of Muslims living in utter, less-than-$2-a-day poverty. They're not the ones flying airplanes into skyscrapers. Mohammed Atta was quite wealthy & comfortable by Egyptian standards, and fully exposed to modernity, in Hamburg & elsewhere. When Ramses the Great was Pharaoh, ancient Egypt was # 1. Muslim Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak is Pharaoh, is about # 150 - a backwards, poverty-stricken place where millions would starve if it wasn't for tons & tons of grain from the US, Canada, & Australia, a joke of a country that was utterly humiliated in battle by puny Israel several wars in a row. Don't you think this contrast was part of what drove Atta to do what he did?

Muslims everywhere, rich & poor, share a conviction that Islam is not just the will of Allah, but the best & greatest civilization & way of life there has ever been. If you're an illiterate goatherd in the desert, you can take comfort in the superiority of Islam, because you don't know any better. But if you're an educated, prosperous Muslim coming face to face with the modern world, you can't. When you have an unshakable belief in the supremacy of Islam, yet you're confronted every day with the fact that Islamic countries are at the bottom of the heap & the infidel West is on top, something's gotta give.

When you have an unshakable belief in the supremacy of Islam, yet you're confronted every day with the fact that Islamic countries are at the bottom of the heap & the infidel West is on top, something's gotta give.

This remembers me a debate I had with a devout Islamist on YouTube. He was all over the "Fact" that heavier-than-air flight was described in the Koran centuries before the Wright Brothers's first motorized flight.

I don't remember the insult he hurled at me after I have pointed out that, if his claim was true, the entire Islamist World had been ignoring a fact that could have make them rich (I used the term "Collectively Pwned") while two infidels ran to the bank with tons of money.

For the last fifty years, The Middle-East countries have sit on an opportunity only witnessed every millennia; the access to an immense wealth for little effort. They could have turned their countries in beacon of civilization yet they refused. I compare this situation with the Japanese's Meiji era. What if the Nippon archipelago refused to modernize? They would have been ignored.

The age of Oil has reached his peak. Just like the age of Steam, his obsolescence is predicted by the current technological wonders. When it will be over, Dubai and the Islamist Civilization will return to their previous state; a mirage.

> regarding your modernization
> idea. It doesn't work when the
> traditional Islamic ideals are
> held by those who reproduce more
> than the modernists.

Fertility plunges with affluence. But even if it didn't— If you think we can reproduce our way out of this, you're mistaken. And having as few children as you like describes modern life almost perfectly (especially, and not coincidentally, for women): That's the part of civilization we want to defend. This may be the planet's last simple argument about what it means to be a human being. The clarity and strength of our beliefs –our certainty that our lives are books which we write anew as individuals– should have enough appeal to convert our enemies. We can spread these beliefs enthusiastically, even when we're using Daisy Cutters as a sales brochure. Yeah, sure: Illiterate, sullen people living in mud huts and squalor are probably making bad choices because they don't recognize just how good life can be. Well, we already knew that, didn't we?

> the founders of RevolutionMuslim.com
> include American converts who were
> not born to Muslim families

And the Mafioso probably includes nice Catholic kids who weren't born into lives of crime. It's fanaticism itself that attracts them, and Islam has had a good decade for recruitment: Have you seen the newspapers lately? A dim bulb would assume they're the latest and greatest. The fact that it's so obviously a lost cause is probably part of it's appeal.

More to the point, you're citing RevolutionMuslim.com, a world wide web site new to me. Golly, there's so much great information available on the internet nowadays! So many resources, so many perspectives. Sometimes it's difficult to keep up with all the treats made available through this miraculous new medium.

People, Mohammed don't browse. If these bitter American boys are setting up websites, they're already so deeply plugged in to the modern world that they won't be able to survive in the primitivism that Islam will demand of them. And it's a safe bet they're logging in to FuckMeNaked .com or BigGirlBikini .com now and then for web site design tips... Yeah, that's the ticket! The go to those sites (and the WWE wrestling site and sometimes EBay) for ideas about how to make their own website more appealing easier to use! Sure....

(The following paragraph is a rerun from an earlier comment.)

A few weeks ago I was horsing around on Google Earth while looking at auto racetracks and came upon this Mosque in Malaysia. The first thing you or I will notice is that it's pointed towards Mecca, and second is that it's surrounded by parking. That's a little scary, because it means that modern people are eager to practice Islam. But a Martian would see it differently. A Martian would say that believers insist on having convenient, tidy access by automobiles before they go to church. And automobiles come from modernity, not from Mohammad. I can't name the latest technological convenience that came from Islam... Can you?

This is a fight that probably has to happen, but we won't lose.

I know the line about Quakers is a joke and I agree with you about Muslims, but I have to tell you - some of the angriest people I've ever met online have been self-described Quakers, with Buddhists running a close second. No kidding. I think people with serious anger issues are often drawn to religions that have a rep for peacefulness. It's almost as if they think just talking the talk will rub off on them, even though they're demonstrably so far from walking the walk that it's clear that something additional (anger management classes, perhaps) is needed.

I found this very interesting. When I fired up my internet this morning, Yahoo's lead article was "American Citizen Suspected in Bomb Scare" or something similar and the line under it was something to the extent of "Suspect led 'quiet life' in Connecticut". So, I immediately guessed a white guy; a Unabomber type. Because they stressed in that lead that it was an American citizen, didn't give his name, and and didn't imply any religious/political motivation. Isn't it interesting the way they chose to represent him? Or, at least, I think so.

"As such, it's not subject to questioning or reinterpretation. "

And neither was the TOrah, and for some it isn't yet. That's the point. At what point will most Muslims evolve to the same understanding of their primary text? The point is that if it was possible once, it is probably possible twice.

There are some examples of this happening. Clandestine drinking is reported to be widespread in Iran. Thus has as much to do with Islamists in the revolutionary movement and later government discrediting the religion by having made promises they can't meet. Note that this doesn't preclude Islamist idiocy in the Iranian government.

Indonesian Muslims are quite lax in their actual observance of shari'a. This doesn't mean that there is no Islamist movement in Indonesia; in fact this probably is why there is one, as a reaction.

I can't name the latest technological convenience that came from Islam... Can you?
-crid

For that matter can anyone name one advancment that has come from islam?

dunno luj, I think they have that suicide bomber thing fairly refined

Even suicide bombers are indicitive of islams lack of progress, every thing the employ is either stolen from or created by other cultures

It's been a while, but al jabra is theirs.

X**2 - Y**2 = (X + Y)(X -Y), that kind of thing. Kind of useful.
--
phunctor

Actually, the Greeks beat them to it by a few centuries, and then promptly put their civilization in the shitter. The Persians found it and reintroduced it to the world, and then did some of the follow-up work.

Somewhere around 1100, they stopped any kind of real advancement and sank into the morass that haunts them to this day.

Somewhere around 1100, they stopped any kind of real advancement and sank into the morass that haunts them to this day.

It happened when Al-Ghazali, an Islamist philosopher pulled an "Humerian" argument that since cause and effect is unrelated, they should stop study these matters and pray Allah instead. Any attempt to explain ANY physical phenomenon sank at the level of blasphemy.

An example of this morality is when a obscure Africano-Islamist sect started attacking schools in Africa because they taught that rain came from vapor water and not from the will of Allah. They got mauled by the local authorities.

India had algebra before the greeks.

And any real acheivments in the middle east were from persains and zorastrians before they were overrun. Islam knocked the region back to the bronze age

I hate to point this out to you crid, but almost all the significant terrorist acts over recent years have been either perpetrated by well off to outright WEALTHY muslims, or financed by them.

The 9/11 hijackers were an elitist lot.
That PLO leader some years back...arafat, he was worth over 900 million if I recall correctly.
Ossama is rich as can be.

Wealth has nothing to do with it. Ignorance on the part of the poor is certainly something to consider, but obviously its not even a major factor, just an easy source of recruits since there aren't that many muslims that are NOT poor, illiterate, or otherwise left behind in the modern age.

Poverty and ignorance just means you'll probably be easier to delude. Wealth just makes you angrier that your way isn't on top.

-------------------------------------

In the end it may very well come down to the very thing muslims say we're trying to do, and the very thing we're bending over backwards to avoid.

I'd hate to see an overt war between the two civilizations. But frankly, if it weren't for the excessive amounts of sensitivity amongst the liberal idiots, it would probably already be under way...who knows, maybe this boo hooing on the liberals part is doing some good, giving time for a different solution to be found.

IIRC, only one out of five Muslims, worldwide, is of Arab background.

So if the problem is Islam ideology rather than U.S. foreign policy, why are there relatively few non-Arab Muslim terrorists who even get mentioned by the media? Can't be all media bias.