Thursday Briefs and Events Announcements

By David GreenwaldSeptember 27, 2007264 comments
Last week’s peace rally draws criticism

A letter to the editor last night from our old friend Bob Glynn criticizes the co-sponsorship of last week’s peace rally by Code Pink. Glynn was last seen railing against the Davis HRC and opposing the City Council’s resolution that asked for our withdrawal from the war in December of 2005.

Last night he writes:

The real supporters of peace

Last Friday night, a vigil co-sponsored by Code Pink was was held in Central Park. I want to direct your attention to an article dated Aug. 25, 2005, titled “Anti-War Protests Target Wounded at Army Hospital.” You can find it at CNSNews.com. Conservative supporters of the war called the protests “shameless.” “Code Pink has a controversial leader and affiliations,” the article states, reporting that Code Pink’s co-founder supports the Communists in Southeast Asia and Cuba.

Ask yourself if this is the kind of people we want influencing our children in Davis. My son is going back to Iraq for his fourth tour of duty in January and if anyone wants peace, it is me. I think the full-page ad on Page D6 of Sunday’s Enterprise sums it up beautifully, “They Have Sworn, Never to Leave a Man Behind, We’ve Done the Same.”

Bob Glynn

Davis

I respond to this statement: “Ask yourself if this is the kind of people we want influencing our children in Davis.”

Mr. Glynn was not at the rally last Friday. If he were, would have realized that Code Pink had a representative to the rally, but it was but a small part of the rally itself. The majority of the people at this rally were a group of Davis High School students who were part of the campus Teach Peace, Dave Dionisi of Teach Peace, Hamza Al-Nahkal representing the Muslim community, a student representing the Muslim Student Association on the UC Davis campus, a number of UC Davis students who helped to put this meeting together. The message was one of peace and of working together to try to end the war.

Mr. Glynn has no idea what was said or who was at this particular event because he was not there, but he was able to tie a local event, made up of local people to communists in SE Asia and Cuba. He was able to attempt character assassination. And yet, he has no idea what went on or how the rally was structured. In the future, I suggest Mr. Glynn talk to the organizers or attend the event before he attempts to attack those who attended or suggest that certain people that he considers objectionable are influencing our children.

Muslim Fast-a-Thon TOMORROW

The Davis High School Muslim Students Association PRESENTS: Fast-a-Thon

Cosponsored by the Islamic Center of Davis, the UC Davis Muslim Students Association, and the Council for American Islamic Relations

Learn about Ramadan

Try fasting for one day: Avoid eating and drinking during daylight; Break the fast with the community and a delicious, FREE dinner; Hear outstanding guest speakers; Congressional prayer for Muslims

When: Friday, September 28th; 6:30 to 8:00 PM
Where: Davis High School Multipurpose Room; 315 W. 14th St, Davis CA 95616

Democratic County Central Committee Bean Feed–SATURDAY

Yolo County Democratic Central Committee’s

31st Annual Bean Feed

Major Sponsors:

Congressman Mike Thompson

Assemblymember Lois Wolk

West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon

Great BBQ Dinner with Chicken and Ribs!

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

Veterans Memorial Center
203 East 14th St., Davis

6:00 pm – No-host social hour
7:00 pm – Dinner and program

Tickets: $35

Sponsorships still available!

$1000 – 10 tickets, $500 – 10 tickets,

$250 – 4 tickets, $100 – 2 tickets

Contact: Andrew Ramos
(707) 330-0697

—Doug Paul Davis reporting

Author

  • David Greenwald

    Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

    View all posts

Categories:

Civil Rights

264 comments

  1. “I want to direct your attention to an article dated Aug. 25, 2005, titled “Anti-War Protests Target Wounded at Army Hospital.”

    More people should have paid attention to those protests – perhaps many of the casualties since Aug 2005 could have been prevented. I still have not heard a good reason for being in Iraq – a monumental waste of people and resources. I support Code Pink because they are not blind followers.

  2. “I want to direct your attention to an article dated Aug. 25, 2005, titled “Anti-War Protests Target Wounded at Army Hospital.”

    More people should have paid attention to those protests – perhaps many of the casualties since Aug 2005 could have been prevented. I still have not heard a good reason for being in Iraq – a monumental waste of people and resources. I support Code Pink because they are not blind followers.

  3. “I want to direct your attention to an article dated Aug. 25, 2005, titled “Anti-War Protests Target Wounded at Army Hospital.”

    More people should have paid attention to those protests – perhaps many of the casualties since Aug 2005 could have been prevented. I still have not heard a good reason for being in Iraq – a monumental waste of people and resources. I support Code Pink because they are not blind followers.

  4. “I want to direct your attention to an article dated Aug. 25, 2005, titled “Anti-War Protests Target Wounded at Army Hospital.”

    More people should have paid attention to those protests – perhaps many of the casualties since Aug 2005 could have been prevented. I still have not heard a good reason for being in Iraq – a monumental waste of people and resources. I support Code Pink because they are not blind followers.

  5. Bob Glynn, a self described conservative supporter of the Iraq war, is a proponent of the discredited position that only by supporting this war are Americans supporting the troops and peace as well as defending our country. He made that quite clear in appearances before the Davis Human Relations Commission and the Davis City Council in 2005/2006 when he vehemently opposed a resolution by the City of Davis to ask our government to withdraw our military from Iraq.

    Mr. Glynn is the type of person who questions anyone’s patriotism if they oppose the Iraq war or the policies of the Bush/Cheney administration. He now justifies his position by hiding behind his son’s honorable service in the military to attack those citizens who from the beginning have opposed this unnecessary war. Had our leaders listened to these patriotic citizens we would not be in the mess we are in today.

    By the way Mr. Glynn, it is very likely that had the congress (including both Democrats and Republicans) known in 2003 what they know today regarding the bogus assertions by the Bush/Cheney administration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, was an eminent threat to our country and actively seeking uranium for a nuclear weapons program they would not have voted to authorize the possibility of war.

  6. Bob Glynn, a self described conservative supporter of the Iraq war, is a proponent of the discredited position that only by supporting this war are Americans supporting the troops and peace as well as defending our country. He made that quite clear in appearances before the Davis Human Relations Commission and the Davis City Council in 2005/2006 when he vehemently opposed a resolution by the City of Davis to ask our government to withdraw our military from Iraq.

    Mr. Glynn is the type of person who questions anyone’s patriotism if they oppose the Iraq war or the policies of the Bush/Cheney administration. He now justifies his position by hiding behind his son’s honorable service in the military to attack those citizens who from the beginning have opposed this unnecessary war. Had our leaders listened to these patriotic citizens we would not be in the mess we are in today.

    By the way Mr. Glynn, it is very likely that had the congress (including both Democrats and Republicans) known in 2003 what they know today regarding the bogus assertions by the Bush/Cheney administration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, was an eminent threat to our country and actively seeking uranium for a nuclear weapons program they would not have voted to authorize the possibility of war.

  7. Bob Glynn, a self described conservative supporter of the Iraq war, is a proponent of the discredited position that only by supporting this war are Americans supporting the troops and peace as well as defending our country. He made that quite clear in appearances before the Davis Human Relations Commission and the Davis City Council in 2005/2006 when he vehemently opposed a resolution by the City of Davis to ask our government to withdraw our military from Iraq.

    Mr. Glynn is the type of person who questions anyone’s patriotism if they oppose the Iraq war or the policies of the Bush/Cheney administration. He now justifies his position by hiding behind his son’s honorable service in the military to attack those citizens who from the beginning have opposed this unnecessary war. Had our leaders listened to these patriotic citizens we would not be in the mess we are in today.

    By the way Mr. Glynn, it is very likely that had the congress (including both Democrats and Republicans) known in 2003 what they know today regarding the bogus assertions by the Bush/Cheney administration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, was an eminent threat to our country and actively seeking uranium for a nuclear weapons program they would not have voted to authorize the possibility of war.

  8. Bob Glynn, a self described conservative supporter of the Iraq war, is a proponent of the discredited position that only by supporting this war are Americans supporting the troops and peace as well as defending our country. He made that quite clear in appearances before the Davis Human Relations Commission and the Davis City Council in 2005/2006 when he vehemently opposed a resolution by the City of Davis to ask our government to withdraw our military from Iraq.

    Mr. Glynn is the type of person who questions anyone’s patriotism if they oppose the Iraq war or the policies of the Bush/Cheney administration. He now justifies his position by hiding behind his son’s honorable service in the military to attack those citizens who from the beginning have opposed this unnecessary war. Had our leaders listened to these patriotic citizens we would not be in the mess we are in today.

    By the way Mr. Glynn, it is very likely that had the congress (including both Democrats and Republicans) known in 2003 what they know today regarding the bogus assertions by the Bush/Cheney administration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, was an eminent threat to our country and actively seeking uranium for a nuclear weapons program they would not have voted to authorize the possibility of war.

  9. “Cosponsored by the Islamic Center of Davis, the UC Davis Muslim Students Association, and the Council for American Islamic Relations”

    I want to first congratulate the Muslim community of Davis and UC Davis for building their new mosque on Russell Blvd. I’m sure it took a lot of effort, fundraising and plain hard work to bring about this project and get the building erected. However, with all due respect, that is a really ugly building. I see that Maria O. designed it, and I usually like her work. But she missed the mark with the new mosque. It’s a terrible shape, plain facade and bad color. It feels cheap. The chromed minatet on the east roof looks nice. But otherwise, the building is a disaster.

  10. “Cosponsored by the Islamic Center of Davis, the UC Davis Muslim Students Association, and the Council for American Islamic Relations”

    I want to first congratulate the Muslim community of Davis and UC Davis for building their new mosque on Russell Blvd. I’m sure it took a lot of effort, fundraising and plain hard work to bring about this project and get the building erected. However, with all due respect, that is a really ugly building. I see that Maria O. designed it, and I usually like her work. But she missed the mark with the new mosque. It’s a terrible shape, plain facade and bad color. It feels cheap. The chromed minatet on the east roof looks nice. But otherwise, the building is a disaster.

  11. “Cosponsored by the Islamic Center of Davis, the UC Davis Muslim Students Association, and the Council for American Islamic Relations”

    I want to first congratulate the Muslim community of Davis and UC Davis for building their new mosque on Russell Blvd. I’m sure it took a lot of effort, fundraising and plain hard work to bring about this project and get the building erected. However, with all due respect, that is a really ugly building. I see that Maria O. designed it, and I usually like her work. But she missed the mark with the new mosque. It’s a terrible shape, plain facade and bad color. It feels cheap. The chromed minatet on the east roof looks nice. But otherwise, the building is a disaster.

  12. “Cosponsored by the Islamic Center of Davis, the UC Davis Muslim Students Association, and the Council for American Islamic Relations”

    I want to first congratulate the Muslim community of Davis and UC Davis for building their new mosque on Russell Blvd. I’m sure it took a lot of effort, fundraising and plain hard work to bring about this project and get the building erected. However, with all due respect, that is a really ugly building. I see that Maria O. designed it, and I usually like her work. But she missed the mark with the new mosque. It’s a terrible shape, plain facade and bad color. It feels cheap. The chromed minatet on the east roof looks nice. But otherwise, the building is a disaster.

  13. “Missed the mark” I should say. It isn’t grand enough for the “religion of peace” in my opinion. It should be 5 stories tall surrounded by 15 story minarets. For those of you who think so highly of Islam, I should remind you that homosexuality is absolutely banned in Sharia law countries like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Pakistan. I personally know people who went to Davis who fled the Middle East for this very reason. Where are the “moderates” in their defense? When Christianity opens to gay people, where is the public acceptance in Islam? The gay community of Davis should be outraged! In Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., Jews (human beings) are absolutely banned from stepping foot on their soil; which is WRITTEN in their laws. It is legal to kill anyone who blasphemes Allah, the Qu’ran, or anyone who converts from Islam to any other religion. So much for pluralism! It is written in the Qu’ran that they should not take “unbelievers” as friends, and we wonder why this religion breeds more terrorists than any other.

  14. “Missed the mark” I should say. It isn’t grand enough for the “religion of peace” in my opinion. It should be 5 stories tall surrounded by 15 story minarets. For those of you who think so highly of Islam, I should remind you that homosexuality is absolutely banned in Sharia law countries like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Pakistan. I personally know people who went to Davis who fled the Middle East for this very reason. Where are the “moderates” in their defense? When Christianity opens to gay people, where is the public acceptance in Islam? The gay community of Davis should be outraged! In Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., Jews (human beings) are absolutely banned from stepping foot on their soil; which is WRITTEN in their laws. It is legal to kill anyone who blasphemes Allah, the Qu’ran, or anyone who converts from Islam to any other religion. So much for pluralism! It is written in the Qu’ran that they should not take “unbelievers” as friends, and we wonder why this religion breeds more terrorists than any other.

  15. “Missed the mark” I should say. It isn’t grand enough for the “religion of peace” in my opinion. It should be 5 stories tall surrounded by 15 story minarets. For those of you who think so highly of Islam, I should remind you that homosexuality is absolutely banned in Sharia law countries like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Pakistan. I personally know people who went to Davis who fled the Middle East for this very reason. Where are the “moderates” in their defense? When Christianity opens to gay people, where is the public acceptance in Islam? The gay community of Davis should be outraged! In Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., Jews (human beings) are absolutely banned from stepping foot on their soil; which is WRITTEN in their laws. It is legal to kill anyone who blasphemes Allah, the Qu’ran, or anyone who converts from Islam to any other religion. So much for pluralism! It is written in the Qu’ran that they should not take “unbelievers” as friends, and we wonder why this religion breeds more terrorists than any other.

  16. “Missed the mark” I should say. It isn’t grand enough for the “religion of peace” in my opinion. It should be 5 stories tall surrounded by 15 story minarets. For those of you who think so highly of Islam, I should remind you that homosexuality is absolutely banned in Sharia law countries like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Pakistan. I personally know people who went to Davis who fled the Middle East for this very reason. Where are the “moderates” in their defense? When Christianity opens to gay people, where is the public acceptance in Islam? The gay community of Davis should be outraged! In Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., Jews (human beings) are absolutely banned from stepping foot on their soil; which is WRITTEN in their laws. It is legal to kill anyone who blasphemes Allah, the Qu’ran, or anyone who converts from Islam to any other religion. So much for pluralism! It is written in the Qu’ran that they should not take “unbelievers” as friends, and we wonder why this religion breeds more terrorists than any other.

  17. I’m at the loss on the comparison between the criticism of architectural design of a Davis Mosque and Middle Eastern policy in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

  18. I’m at the loss on the comparison between the criticism of architectural design of a Davis Mosque and Middle Eastern policy in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

  19. I’m at the loss on the comparison between the criticism of architectural design of a Davis Mosque and Middle Eastern policy in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

  20. I’m at the loss on the comparison between the criticism of architectural design of a Davis Mosque and Middle Eastern policy in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

  21. anonymous 7:38

    Your selection of muslim countries to be considered include the most totalitarian and,incidently,some of the US’s staunchist allies. Muslim Iran, on the other hand,does have Iranian-Jewish legislators sitting in its Parliment.

  22. anonymous 7:38

    Your selection of muslim countries to be considered include the most totalitarian and,incidently,some of the US’s staunchist allies. Muslim Iran, on the other hand,does have Iranian-Jewish legislators sitting in its Parliment.

  23. anonymous 7:38

    Your selection of muslim countries to be considered include the most totalitarian and,incidently,some of the US’s staunchist allies. Muslim Iran, on the other hand,does have Iranian-Jewish legislators sitting in its Parliment.

  24. anonymous 7:38

    Your selection of muslim countries to be considered include the most totalitarian and,incidently,some of the US’s staunchist allies. Muslim Iran, on the other hand,does have Iranian-Jewish legislators sitting in its Parliment.

  25. Unfortunately, most people are either uninformed or misinformed or both about Islam Here’s a nice quote from the Qur’an from three different translators:

    Qur’an (98:6)

    Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures.

    Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings.

    Surely those who disbelieve from among the followers of the Book and the polytheists shall be in the fire of hell, abiding therein; they are the worst of men.

    In case one doesn’t know who
    “people of the Book”, “followers of the Book”, and “people of the scripture” are, perhaps one needs a little more education and a little less brainwashing. I challenge anyone to find passages even half as hateful as these in the Bible or any other Holy book. The Qu’ran is full of this stuff.

  26. Unfortunately, most people are either uninformed or misinformed or both about Islam Here’s a nice quote from the Qur’an from three different translators:

    Qur’an (98:6)

    Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures.

    Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings.

    Surely those who disbelieve from among the followers of the Book and the polytheists shall be in the fire of hell, abiding therein; they are the worst of men.

    In case one doesn’t know who
    “people of the Book”, “followers of the Book”, and “people of the scripture” are, perhaps one needs a little more education and a little less brainwashing. I challenge anyone to find passages even half as hateful as these in the Bible or any other Holy book. The Qu’ran is full of this stuff.

  27. Unfortunately, most people are either uninformed or misinformed or both about Islam Here’s a nice quote from the Qur’an from three different translators:

    Qur’an (98:6)

    Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures.

    Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings.

    Surely those who disbelieve from among the followers of the Book and the polytheists shall be in the fire of hell, abiding therein; they are the worst of men.

    In case one doesn’t know who
    “people of the Book”, “followers of the Book”, and “people of the scripture” are, perhaps one needs a little more education and a little less brainwashing. I challenge anyone to find passages even half as hateful as these in the Bible or any other Holy book. The Qu’ran is full of this stuff.

  28. Unfortunately, most people are either uninformed or misinformed or both about Islam Here’s a nice quote from the Qur’an from three different translators:

    Qur’an (98:6)

    Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures.

    Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings.

    Surely those who disbelieve from among the followers of the Book and the polytheists shall be in the fire of hell, abiding therein; they are the worst of men.

    In case one doesn’t know who
    “people of the Book”, “followers of the Book”, and “people of the scripture” are, perhaps one needs a little more education and a little less brainwashing. I challenge anyone to find passages even half as hateful as these in the Bible or any other Holy book. The Qu’ran is full of this stuff.

  29. The U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are not close to being staunch allies of the United States.

    They may be “allies” of specific leaders such as Bill Clinton and George Bush, I and II.

    The State of Israel is a staunch ally. France is a staunch ally. Australia is a staunch ally.

  30. The U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are not close to being staunch allies of the United States.

    They may be “allies” of specific leaders such as Bill Clinton and George Bush, I and II.

    The State of Israel is a staunch ally. France is a staunch ally. Australia is a staunch ally.

  31. The U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are not close to being staunch allies of the United States.

    They may be “allies” of specific leaders such as Bill Clinton and George Bush, I and II.

    The State of Israel is a staunch ally. France is a staunch ally. Australia is a staunch ally.

  32. The U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are not close to being staunch allies of the United States.

    They may be “allies” of specific leaders such as Bill Clinton and George Bush, I and II.

    The State of Israel is a staunch ally. France is a staunch ally. Australia is a staunch ally.

  33. Mr. Glynn writes:
    “Ask yourself if this [sic] is [sic] the kind of people we want influencing our children in Davis. My son is going back to Iraq for his fourth tour of duty in January and if anyone wants peace, it is me. I think the full-page ad on Page D6 of Sunday’s Enterprise sums it up beautifully, “They Have Sworn, Never to Leave a Man Behind, We’ve Done the Same.”

    –By way of reply:
    Did Mr. Glynn ever get in harm’s way himself? Though I’ve never, thank God, been in that position, I’ve heard soul-shattering stories of how cheap life is on the battlefield.
    If Mr. Glynn had, himself, ever been in shooting war, he wouldn’t use borrowed rhetoric so glibly in his “dashed-off” comment.
    He wouldn’t glorify war.
    Which, based on his rhetoric, I dare say, he’s never honestly talked to his son about.
    Here’s a poem that may help Mr. Glynn “break the ice” if he ever talks about his son’s experiences in combat honestly with him. Maybe then his son’s feelings about his dead and mangled friends and what their deaths and suffering meant in his son’s life will penetrate his father’s rhetorical mentality:

    HERE DEAD WE LIE
    Here dead we lie
    Because we did not choose
    To live and shame the land
    From which we sprung.
    Life, to be sure,
    Is nothing much to lose,
    But young men think it is,
    And we were young.

    A E Housman

  34. Mr. Glynn writes:
    “Ask yourself if this [sic] is [sic] the kind of people we want influencing our children in Davis. My son is going back to Iraq for his fourth tour of duty in January and if anyone wants peace, it is me. I think the full-page ad on Page D6 of Sunday’s Enterprise sums it up beautifully, “They Have Sworn, Never to Leave a Man Behind, We’ve Done the Same.”

    –By way of reply:
    Did Mr. Glynn ever get in harm’s way himself? Though I’ve never, thank God, been in that position, I’ve heard soul-shattering stories of how cheap life is on the battlefield.
    If Mr. Glynn had, himself, ever been in shooting war, he wouldn’t use borrowed rhetoric so glibly in his “dashed-off” comment.
    He wouldn’t glorify war.
    Which, based on his rhetoric, I dare say, he’s never honestly talked to his son about.
    Here’s a poem that may help Mr. Glynn “break the ice” if he ever talks about his son’s experiences in combat honestly with him. Maybe then his son’s feelings about his dead and mangled friends and what their deaths and suffering meant in his son’s life will penetrate his father’s rhetorical mentality:

    HERE DEAD WE LIE
    Here dead we lie
    Because we did not choose
    To live and shame the land
    From which we sprung.
    Life, to be sure,
    Is nothing much to lose,
    But young men think it is,
    And we were young.

    A E Housman

  35. Mr. Glynn writes:
    “Ask yourself if this [sic] is [sic] the kind of people we want influencing our children in Davis. My son is going back to Iraq for his fourth tour of duty in January and if anyone wants peace, it is me. I think the full-page ad on Page D6 of Sunday’s Enterprise sums it up beautifully, “They Have Sworn, Never to Leave a Man Behind, We’ve Done the Same.”

    –By way of reply:
    Did Mr. Glynn ever get in harm’s way himself? Though I’ve never, thank God, been in that position, I’ve heard soul-shattering stories of how cheap life is on the battlefield.
    If Mr. Glynn had, himself, ever been in shooting war, he wouldn’t use borrowed rhetoric so glibly in his “dashed-off” comment.
    He wouldn’t glorify war.
    Which, based on his rhetoric, I dare say, he’s never honestly talked to his son about.
    Here’s a poem that may help Mr. Glynn “break the ice” if he ever talks about his son’s experiences in combat honestly with him. Maybe then his son’s feelings about his dead and mangled friends and what their deaths and suffering meant in his son’s life will penetrate his father’s rhetorical mentality:

    HERE DEAD WE LIE
    Here dead we lie
    Because we did not choose
    To live and shame the land
    From which we sprung.
    Life, to be sure,
    Is nothing much to lose,
    But young men think it is,
    And we were young.

    A E Housman

  36. Mr. Glynn writes:
    “Ask yourself if this [sic] is [sic] the kind of people we want influencing our children in Davis. My son is going back to Iraq for his fourth tour of duty in January and if anyone wants peace, it is me. I think the full-page ad on Page D6 of Sunday’s Enterprise sums it up beautifully, “They Have Sworn, Never to Leave a Man Behind, We’ve Done the Same.”

    –By way of reply:
    Did Mr. Glynn ever get in harm’s way himself? Though I’ve never, thank God, been in that position, I’ve heard soul-shattering stories of how cheap life is on the battlefield.
    If Mr. Glynn had, himself, ever been in shooting war, he wouldn’t use borrowed rhetoric so glibly in his “dashed-off” comment.
    He wouldn’t glorify war.
    Which, based on his rhetoric, I dare say, he’s never honestly talked to his son about.
    Here’s a poem that may help Mr. Glynn “break the ice” if he ever talks about his son’s experiences in combat honestly with him. Maybe then his son’s feelings about his dead and mangled friends and what their deaths and suffering meant in his son’s life will penetrate his father’s rhetorical mentality:

    HERE DEAD WE LIE
    Here dead we lie
    Because we did not choose
    To live and shame the land
    From which we sprung.
    Life, to be sure,
    Is nothing much to lose,
    But young men think it is,
    And we were young.

    A E Housman

  37. Hey, Mr. Glynn,
    Upon further thought, I remembered a story my father told me, just before he passed away in 2002:
    It was 1944 and he was walking along a peaceful country road in Italy, guns mostly silent. His friend pointed emphatically to reinforce something he was saying. There came a crack. My father looked up and his friend’s head was gone. His neck spurting blood like “a fountain,” my father said.
    Ask your son if he ever lost a friend like that. Maybe, as the soldiers say, “you’ll wise up.”
    And glorify war no more.

  38. Hey, Mr. Glynn,
    Upon further thought, I remembered a story my father told me, just before he passed away in 2002:
    It was 1944 and he was walking along a peaceful country road in Italy, guns mostly silent. His friend pointed emphatically to reinforce something he was saying. There came a crack. My father looked up and his friend’s head was gone. His neck spurting blood like “a fountain,” my father said.
    Ask your son if he ever lost a friend like that. Maybe, as the soldiers say, “you’ll wise up.”
    And glorify war no more.

  39. Hey, Mr. Glynn,
    Upon further thought, I remembered a story my father told me, just before he passed away in 2002:
    It was 1944 and he was walking along a peaceful country road in Italy, guns mostly silent. His friend pointed emphatically to reinforce something he was saying. There came a crack. My father looked up and his friend’s head was gone. His neck spurting blood like “a fountain,” my father said.
    Ask your son if he ever lost a friend like that. Maybe, as the soldiers say, “you’ll wise up.”
    And glorify war no more.

  40. Hey, Mr. Glynn,
    Upon further thought, I remembered a story my father told me, just before he passed away in 2002:
    It was 1944 and he was walking along a peaceful country road in Italy, guns mostly silent. His friend pointed emphatically to reinforce something he was saying. There came a crack. My father looked up and his friend’s head was gone. His neck spurting blood like “a fountain,” my father said.
    Ask your son if he ever lost a friend like that. Maybe, as the soldiers say, “you’ll wise up.”
    And glorify war no more.

  41. “But she missed the mark with the new mosque. It’s a terrible shape, plain facade and bad color. It feels cheap. The chromed minatet on the east roof looks nice. But otherwise, the building is a disaster.”

    You may have more credentials to express your opinion on architecture than I do, but my lay opinion is this: wait. Buildings or even colors which don’t seem right at first can grow on you. Some will always be unappealing. But others you get used to and you even can appreciate them over time, especially as the trees and shrubs grow up. With the new Islamic Center of Davis — I don’t know if there is a distinction between an Islamic Center and a mosque — it might take a few years to fully flower. I’m willing to reserve judgment.

    By the way, for good religious architecture in the Davis area, I recommend everyone check out the Unitarian Church on Patwin Road. It was built in the 1960s, when most contemporary buildings were pretty shabby in my opinion, but the Unitarian Church looks great. It needs better air conditioning. But I like it a lot as architecture.

  42. “But she missed the mark with the new mosque. It’s a terrible shape, plain facade and bad color. It feels cheap. The chromed minatet on the east roof looks nice. But otherwise, the building is a disaster.”

    You may have more credentials to express your opinion on architecture than I do, but my lay opinion is this: wait. Buildings or even colors which don’t seem right at first can grow on you. Some will always be unappealing. But others you get used to and you even can appreciate them over time, especially as the trees and shrubs grow up. With the new Islamic Center of Davis — I don’t know if there is a distinction between an Islamic Center and a mosque — it might take a few years to fully flower. I’m willing to reserve judgment.

    By the way, for good religious architecture in the Davis area, I recommend everyone check out the Unitarian Church on Patwin Road. It was built in the 1960s, when most contemporary buildings were pretty shabby in my opinion, but the Unitarian Church looks great. It needs better air conditioning. But I like it a lot as architecture.

  43. “But she missed the mark with the new mosque. It’s a terrible shape, plain facade and bad color. It feels cheap. The chromed minatet on the east roof looks nice. But otherwise, the building is a disaster.”

    You may have more credentials to express your opinion on architecture than I do, but my lay opinion is this: wait. Buildings or even colors which don’t seem right at first can grow on you. Some will always be unappealing. But others you get used to and you even can appreciate them over time, especially as the trees and shrubs grow up. With the new Islamic Center of Davis — I don’t know if there is a distinction between an Islamic Center and a mosque — it might take a few years to fully flower. I’m willing to reserve judgment.

    By the way, for good religious architecture in the Davis area, I recommend everyone check out the Unitarian Church on Patwin Road. It was built in the 1960s, when most contemporary buildings were pretty shabby in my opinion, but the Unitarian Church looks great. It needs better air conditioning. But I like it a lot as architecture.

  44. “But she missed the mark with the new mosque. It’s a terrible shape, plain facade and bad color. It feels cheap. The chromed minatet on the east roof looks nice. But otherwise, the building is a disaster.”

    You may have more credentials to express your opinion on architecture than I do, but my lay opinion is this: wait. Buildings or even colors which don’t seem right at first can grow on you. Some will always be unappealing. But others you get used to and you even can appreciate them over time, especially as the trees and shrubs grow up. With the new Islamic Center of Davis — I don’t know if there is a distinction between an Islamic Center and a mosque — it might take a few years to fully flower. I’m willing to reserve judgment.

    By the way, for good religious architecture in the Davis area, I recommend everyone check out the Unitarian Church on Patwin Road. It was built in the 1960s, when most contemporary buildings were pretty shabby in my opinion, but the Unitarian Church looks great. It needs better air conditioning. But I like it a lot as architecture.

  45. Please people, the world wants peace/anti-war argument is getting old. War is NEVER going away. Has anyone ever had a history lesson before the radical left go a hold of the textbooks and public school curriculum? Look around the world. Look at all of the conflicts. Count the percentage where all forms of Islam are involved in some way; Muslims against Christians; Muslims against Buddhists; Muslims against Jews. You’ll get somewhere in the 90s, and they ALWAYS have an excuse.

  46. Please people, the world wants peace/anti-war argument is getting old. War is NEVER going away. Has anyone ever had a history lesson before the radical left go a hold of the textbooks and public school curriculum? Look around the world. Look at all of the conflicts. Count the percentage where all forms of Islam are involved in some way; Muslims against Christians; Muslims against Buddhists; Muslims against Jews. You’ll get somewhere in the 90s, and they ALWAYS have an excuse.

  47. Please people, the world wants peace/anti-war argument is getting old. War is NEVER going away. Has anyone ever had a history lesson before the radical left go a hold of the textbooks and public school curriculum? Look around the world. Look at all of the conflicts. Count the percentage where all forms of Islam are involved in some way; Muslims against Christians; Muslims against Buddhists; Muslims against Jews. You’ll get somewhere in the 90s, and they ALWAYS have an excuse.

  48. Please people, the world wants peace/anti-war argument is getting old. War is NEVER going away. Has anyone ever had a history lesson before the radical left go a hold of the textbooks and public school curriculum? Look around the world. Look at all of the conflicts. Count the percentage where all forms of Islam are involved in some way; Muslims against Christians; Muslims against Buddhists; Muslims against Jews. You’ll get somewhere in the 90s, and they ALWAYS have an excuse.

  49. I’m more concerned with stopping the war than worrying about whether peace is possible now or in the future. It is clearly not possible now, however, that doesn’t mean we should not strive for it. Regardless of that, stopping this war in imperative.

  50. I’m more concerned with stopping the war than worrying about whether peace is possible now or in the future. It is clearly not possible now, however, that doesn’t mean we should not strive for it. Regardless of that, stopping this war in imperative.

  51. I’m more concerned with stopping the war than worrying about whether peace is possible now or in the future. It is clearly not possible now, however, that doesn’t mean we should not strive for it. Regardless of that, stopping this war in imperative.

  52. I’m more concerned with stopping the war than worrying about whether peace is possible now or in the future. It is clearly not possible now, however, that doesn’t mean we should not strive for it. Regardless of that, stopping this war in imperative.

  53. Doug Paul Davis said…
    I’m at the loss on the comparison between the criticism of architectural design of a Davis Mosque and Middle Eastern policy in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

    Well Doug, perhaps you’re more enlightened that I about mosques and Islam in general. The truth of the matter is that Islam is a recent development in the United States, which is not welcomed by those of us who care to uncover and expose the truth about the so called “religion of peace”. Where was the outrage in the Muslim community on 9/11? Why are beheading videos the hottest downloads in the Middle East? Do they not all read the same Holy Book? Sure…let CAIR and the mosques sneak their way into Davis like they have in Europe and Africa. Did you know that France is literally paying “immigrants” (mostly Muslims) to leave their country, $8000 per family. It’s no joke, and France is the “envy” of the enlightened world.

  54. Doug Paul Davis said…
    I’m at the loss on the comparison between the criticism of architectural design of a Davis Mosque and Middle Eastern policy in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

    Well Doug, perhaps you’re more enlightened that I about mosques and Islam in general. The truth of the matter is that Islam is a recent development in the United States, which is not welcomed by those of us who care to uncover and expose the truth about the so called “religion of peace”. Where was the outrage in the Muslim community on 9/11? Why are beheading videos the hottest downloads in the Middle East? Do they not all read the same Holy Book? Sure…let CAIR and the mosques sneak their way into Davis like they have in Europe and Africa. Did you know that France is literally paying “immigrants” (mostly Muslims) to leave their country, $8000 per family. It’s no joke, and France is the “envy” of the enlightened world.

  55. Doug Paul Davis said…
    I’m at the loss on the comparison between the criticism of architectural design of a Davis Mosque and Middle Eastern policy in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

    Well Doug, perhaps you’re more enlightened that I about mosques and Islam in general. The truth of the matter is that Islam is a recent development in the United States, which is not welcomed by those of us who care to uncover and expose the truth about the so called “religion of peace”. Where was the outrage in the Muslim community on 9/11? Why are beheading videos the hottest downloads in the Middle East? Do they not all read the same Holy Book? Sure…let CAIR and the mosques sneak their way into Davis like they have in Europe and Africa. Did you know that France is literally paying “immigrants” (mostly Muslims) to leave their country, $8000 per family. It’s no joke, and France is the “envy” of the enlightened world.

  56. Doug Paul Davis said…
    I’m at the loss on the comparison between the criticism of architectural design of a Davis Mosque and Middle Eastern policy in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

    Well Doug, perhaps you’re more enlightened that I about mosques and Islam in general. The truth of the matter is that Islam is a recent development in the United States, which is not welcomed by those of us who care to uncover and expose the truth about the so called “religion of peace”. Where was the outrage in the Muslim community on 9/11? Why are beheading videos the hottest downloads in the Middle East? Do they not all read the same Holy Book? Sure…let CAIR and the mosques sneak their way into Davis like they have in Europe and Africa. Did you know that France is literally paying “immigrants” (mostly Muslims) to leave their country, $8000 per family. It’s no joke, and France is the “envy” of the enlightened world.

  61. Vincente, your intentions are pure and obviously no one WANTS war except for companies that supply military equipment. However, had it not been for the Crusades that defended against the spread of Islam throughout Europe, I absolutely guarantee you that we would not have many things that we take for granted like vaccines, cell phones, satellites, and automobiles. Individualism is antithetic to the Islamic world view. Individualism and liberty are closely tied together. Suppress individualism and you suppress liberty, suppress advancement, suppress creativity, suppress art, suppress progress, suppress alternative views, suppress rights (esp. of women). Look at how many patents come out of the Middle East per capita compared to 3rd world countries like Mexico. There’s no comparison. I like to look at hard numbers, so here:

    Wonder how many Canadian patents have been issued to the U.A.E., ever. Out of 1905564, only 49. Israel has 4966, Turkey 117, Saudi Arabia 66, Egypt 62, UAE 49, Iran 33, Kuwait 15, Lebanon 15, Jordan 13, Pakistan 11, Iraq 6, Bahrain 4, Libya 2, Sudan 2, Syria 2, Afghanistan 0, Argentina 343, Mexico 606, Taiwan 1066, Australia 10162, Sweden 13580.

    This has nothing to do with money and everything to do with individualism.

  62. Vincente, your intentions are pure and obviously no one WANTS war except for companies that supply military equipment. However, had it not been for the Crusades that defended against the spread of Islam throughout Europe, I absolutely guarantee you that we would not have many things that we take for granted like vaccines, cell phones, satellites, and automobiles. Individualism is antithetic to the Islamic world view. Individualism and liberty are closely tied together. Suppress individualism and you suppress liberty, suppress advancement, suppress creativity, suppress art, suppress progress, suppress alternative views, suppress rights (esp. of women). Look at how many patents come out of the Middle East per capita compared to 3rd world countries like Mexico. There’s no comparison. I like to look at hard numbers, so here:

    Wonder how many Canadian patents have been issued to the U.A.E., ever. Out of 1905564, only 49. Israel has 4966, Turkey 117, Saudi Arabia 66, Egypt 62, UAE 49, Iran 33, Kuwait 15, Lebanon 15, Jordan 13, Pakistan 11, Iraq 6, Bahrain 4, Libya 2, Sudan 2, Syria 2, Afghanistan 0, Argentina 343, Mexico 606, Taiwan 1066, Australia 10162, Sweden 13580.

    This has nothing to do with money and everything to do with individualism.

  63. Vincente, your intentions are pure and obviously no one WANTS war except for companies that supply military equipment. However, had it not been for the Crusades that defended against the spread of Islam throughout Europe, I absolutely guarantee you that we would not have many things that we take for granted like vaccines, cell phones, satellites, and automobiles. Individualism is antithetic to the Islamic world view. Individualism and liberty are closely tied together. Suppress individualism and you suppress liberty, suppress advancement, suppress creativity, suppress art, suppress progress, suppress alternative views, suppress rights (esp. of women). Look at how many patents come out of the Middle East per capita compared to 3rd world countries like Mexico. There’s no comparison. I like to look at hard numbers, so here:

    Wonder how many Canadian patents have been issued to the U.A.E., ever. Out of 1905564, only 49. Israel has 4966, Turkey 117, Saudi Arabia 66, Egypt 62, UAE 49, Iran 33, Kuwait 15, Lebanon 15, Jordan 13, Pakistan 11, Iraq 6, Bahrain 4, Libya 2, Sudan 2, Syria 2, Afghanistan 0, Argentina 343, Mexico 606, Taiwan 1066, Australia 10162, Sweden 13580.

    This has nothing to do with money and everything to do with individualism.

  64. Vincente, your intentions are pure and obviously no one WANTS war except for companies that supply military equipment. However, had it not been for the Crusades that defended against the spread of Islam throughout Europe, I absolutely guarantee you that we would not have many things that we take for granted like vaccines, cell phones, satellites, and automobiles. Individualism is antithetic to the Islamic world view. Individualism and liberty are closely tied together. Suppress individualism and you suppress liberty, suppress advancement, suppress creativity, suppress art, suppress progress, suppress alternative views, suppress rights (esp. of women). Look at how many patents come out of the Middle East per capita compared to 3rd world countries like Mexico. There’s no comparison. I like to look at hard numbers, so here:

    Wonder how many Canadian patents have been issued to the U.A.E., ever. Out of 1905564, only 49. Israel has 4966, Turkey 117, Saudi Arabia 66, Egypt 62, UAE 49, Iran 33, Kuwait 15, Lebanon 15, Jordan 13, Pakistan 11, Iraq 6, Bahrain 4, Libya 2, Sudan 2, Syria 2, Afghanistan 0, Argentina 343, Mexico 606, Taiwan 1066, Australia 10162, Sweden 13580.

    This has nothing to do with money and everything to do with individualism.

  65. agreed, don. i wonder how many of of the folks shooting their mouths off here have actually gotten to know any muslims, or have studied the quran beyond cutting and pasting talking points. pretty ugly stuff, i think people forget that they’re talking about human beings here.

    as for the mosque, while i’m generally unimpressed with most of ogrydziak’s buildings, i find this one less “angular loft-y” than usual. i was sort of hoping for a bit more filligree and perhaps a mosaic-decorated dome, though. maybe they’re not done yet?

    i wonder if the islamic center is going to hold an open house, when it’s completed? perhaps they’ll have something at eid al-fitr. if you get word, DPD, please post it.

  66. agreed, don. i wonder how many of of the folks shooting their mouths off here have actually gotten to know any muslims, or have studied the quran beyond cutting and pasting talking points. pretty ugly stuff, i think people forget that they’re talking about human beings here.

    as for the mosque, while i’m generally unimpressed with most of ogrydziak’s buildings, i find this one less “angular loft-y” than usual. i was sort of hoping for a bit more filligree and perhaps a mosaic-decorated dome, though. maybe they’re not done yet?

    i wonder if the islamic center is going to hold an open house, when it’s completed? perhaps they’ll have something at eid al-fitr. if you get word, DPD, please post it.

  67. agreed, don. i wonder how many of of the folks shooting their mouths off here have actually gotten to know any muslims, or have studied the quran beyond cutting and pasting talking points. pretty ugly stuff, i think people forget that they’re talking about human beings here.

    as for the mosque, while i’m generally unimpressed with most of ogrydziak’s buildings, i find this one less “angular loft-y” than usual. i was sort of hoping for a bit more filligree and perhaps a mosaic-decorated dome, though. maybe they’re not done yet?

    i wonder if the islamic center is going to hold an open house, when it’s completed? perhaps they’ll have something at eid al-fitr. if you get word, DPD, please post it.

  68. agreed, don. i wonder how many of of the folks shooting their mouths off here have actually gotten to know any muslims, or have studied the quran beyond cutting and pasting talking points. pretty ugly stuff, i think people forget that they’re talking about human beings here.

    as for the mosque, while i’m generally unimpressed with most of ogrydziak’s buildings, i find this one less “angular loft-y” than usual. i was sort of hoping for a bit more filligree and perhaps a mosaic-decorated dome, though. maybe they’re not done yet?

    i wonder if the islamic center is going to hold an open house, when it’s completed? perhaps they’ll have something at eid al-fitr. if you get word, DPD, please post it.

  69. Hey Don, I see that you’re another “free speech” supporter. No doubt, you’re also a big fan of Hillary Clinton and Barak Osama.

    Perhaps this anonymous poster should bring a civil suit against the owner of this blog for violation of my constitutional right to free speech.

    If you have anything to say in defense or rebuttal to what I’ve written, then lets see how smart you are… or just wimp out and delete me.

    My previous post on individualism has everything to do with why the new Davis mosque is an absolute eyesore.

  70. Hey Don, I see that you’re another “free speech” supporter. No doubt, you’re also a big fan of Hillary Clinton and Barak Osama.

    Perhaps this anonymous poster should bring a civil suit against the owner of this blog for violation of my constitutional right to free speech.

    If you have anything to say in defense or rebuttal to what I’ve written, then lets see how smart you are… or just wimp out and delete me.

    My previous post on individualism has everything to do with why the new Davis mosque is an absolute eyesore.

  71. Hey Don, I see that you’re another “free speech” supporter. No doubt, you’re also a big fan of Hillary Clinton and Barak Osama.

    Perhaps this anonymous poster should bring a civil suit against the owner of this blog for violation of my constitutional right to free speech.

    If you have anything to say in defense or rebuttal to what I’ve written, then lets see how smart you are… or just wimp out and delete me.

    My previous post on individualism has everything to do with why the new Davis mosque is an absolute eyesore.

  72. Hey Don, I see that you’re another “free speech” supporter. No doubt, you’re also a big fan of Hillary Clinton and Barak Osama.

    Perhaps this anonymous poster should bring a civil suit against the owner of this blog for violation of my constitutional right to free speech.

    If you have anything to say in defense or rebuttal to what I’ve written, then lets see how smart you are… or just wimp out and delete me.

    My previous post on individualism has everything to do with why the new Davis mosque is an absolute eyesore.

  77. additionally, i find anonymous 9:40’s assertion that islam and science to be anethema especially absurd, given a) how much of the european rennaisance both in terms of philosophy and science were directly based upon centuries of islamic scientific and classical scholarship, and b) how many of the muslims who worship at the davis islamic center are science students or professors at UCD.

  78. additionally, i find anonymous 9:40’s assertion that islam and science to be anethema especially absurd, given a) how much of the european rennaisance both in terms of philosophy and science were directly based upon centuries of islamic scientific and classical scholarship, and b) how many of the muslims who worship at the davis islamic center are science students or professors at UCD.

  79. additionally, i find anonymous 9:40’s assertion that islam and science to be anethema especially absurd, given a) how much of the european rennaisance both in terms of philosophy and science were directly based upon centuries of islamic scientific and classical scholarship, and b) how many of the muslims who worship at the davis islamic center are science students or professors at UCD.

  80. additionally, i find anonymous 9:40’s assertion that islam and science to be anethema especially absurd, given a) how much of the european rennaisance both in terms of philosophy and science were directly based upon centuries of islamic scientific and classical scholarship, and b) how many of the muslims who worship at the davis islamic center are science students or professors at UCD.

  85. Hey Wu Ming, human beings, yes- so what? Jews are human beings too, and every Muslim is taught to hate Jews from birth. The Hitler of Iran has publicly called for the destruction of Israel, with all 7 million of it’s citizens one can only assume. So your friends at Columbia let him speak in NYC, which is home to 2 million Jews and the site of a religiously-motivated attack on my Nation.

    I know that your Muslim friends pray every day that you will convert else face the wrath of Allah.

    Yes, Davis is full of Muslims students who are hard at work learning the machinery of a developed Nation. If you knew anything about the Qu’ran, you’d know that this is allowed if it furthers Islam. Also, in case the apologists at the BBC covered it up, Muslim medical doctors in England drove burning trucks into the airport.

    As for Barak, if both his fathers were not Muslim, I would not have one single issue with him running for president. Hey, if unbelievers are not to be befriended according to the Qu’ran, then I don’t have to like the man either.

    Please don’t insult my intelligence. I can rattle off more verses from the Qu’ran than you can count. It’s full of vile hate for Jews and Christians.

    If you’re so educated on the subject, then please tell me what Jiyza is for? For all you non-believers out there, Jiyza is sort of like high oil prices (get it?).

    Sorry if my posts are offending anyone. I get offended to.

  86. Hey Wu Ming, human beings, yes- so what? Jews are human beings too, and every Muslim is taught to hate Jews from birth. The Hitler of Iran has publicly called for the destruction of Israel, with all 7 million of it’s citizens one can only assume. So your friends at Columbia let him speak in NYC, which is home to 2 million Jews and the site of a religiously-motivated attack on my Nation.

    I know that your Muslim friends pray every day that you will convert else face the wrath of Allah.

    Yes, Davis is full of Muslims students who are hard at work learning the machinery of a developed Nation. If you knew anything about the Qu’ran, you’d know that this is allowed if it furthers Islam. Also, in case the apologists at the BBC covered it up, Muslim medical doctors in England drove burning trucks into the airport.

    As for Barak, if both his fathers were not Muslim, I would not have one single issue with him running for president. Hey, if unbelievers are not to be befriended according to the Qu’ran, then I don’t have to like the man either.

    Please don’t insult my intelligence. I can rattle off more verses from the Qu’ran than you can count. It’s full of vile hate for Jews and Christians.

    If you’re so educated on the subject, then please tell me what Jiyza is for? For all you non-believers out there, Jiyza is sort of like high oil prices (get it?).

    Sorry if my posts are offending anyone. I get offended to.

  87. Hey Wu Ming, human beings, yes- so what? Jews are human beings too, and every Muslim is taught to hate Jews from birth. The Hitler of Iran has publicly called for the destruction of Israel, with all 7 million of it’s citizens one can only assume. So your friends at Columbia let him speak in NYC, which is home to 2 million Jews and the site of a religiously-motivated attack on my Nation.

    I know that your Muslim friends pray every day that you will convert else face the wrath of Allah.

    Yes, Davis is full of Muslims students who are hard at work learning the machinery of a developed Nation. If you knew anything about the Qu’ran, you’d know that this is allowed if it furthers Islam. Also, in case the apologists at the BBC covered it up, Muslim medical doctors in England drove burning trucks into the airport.

    As for Barak, if both his fathers were not Muslim, I would not have one single issue with him running for president. Hey, if unbelievers are not to be befriended according to the Qu’ran, then I don’t have to like the man either.

    Please don’t insult my intelligence. I can rattle off more verses from the Qu’ran than you can count. It’s full of vile hate for Jews and Christians.

    If you’re so educated on the subject, then please tell me what Jiyza is for? For all you non-believers out there, Jiyza is sort of like high oil prices (get it?).

    Sorry if my posts are offending anyone. I get offended to.

  88. Hey Wu Ming, human beings, yes- so what? Jews are human beings too, and every Muslim is taught to hate Jews from birth. The Hitler of Iran has publicly called for the destruction of Israel, with all 7 million of it’s citizens one can only assume. So your friends at Columbia let him speak in NYC, which is home to 2 million Jews and the site of a religiously-motivated attack on my Nation.

    I know that your Muslim friends pray every day that you will convert else face the wrath of Allah.

    Yes, Davis is full of Muslims students who are hard at work learning the machinery of a developed Nation. If you knew anything about the Qu’ran, you’d know that this is allowed if it furthers Islam. Also, in case the apologists at the BBC covered it up, Muslim medical doctors in England drove burning trucks into the airport.

    As for Barak, if both his fathers were not Muslim, I would not have one single issue with him running for president. Hey, if unbelievers are not to be befriended according to the Qu’ran, then I don’t have to like the man either.

    Please don’t insult my intelligence. I can rattle off more verses from the Qu’ran than you can count. It’s full of vile hate for Jews and Christians.

    If you’re so educated on the subject, then please tell me what Jiyza is for? For all you non-believers out there, Jiyza is sort of like high oil prices (get it?).

    Sorry if my posts are offending anyone. I get offended to.

  89. most of this blather isn’t worth the breath, but for the record, jizya was a sort of poll tax on non-muslims, analogous to zakat, the 2.5% tithe to support the poor required of muslims.

    historically, jizya was applied differently in the many different kingdoms in the islamic world, but in general islamic countries were comparatively far more tolerant of non-muslims living in their midst than was the case in christian countries, until very recently.

    at any rate, none of this has anything to do with the davis islamic center, and most of your tirade is ignorant in the extreme. in its tenor and sweeping prejudice, it reminds me as nothing so much as the old antisemitic tropes that used to be levied against another religious group.

    again, i suspect that you haven’t spent much time actually talking to actual muslims about their beliefs.

  90. most of this blather isn’t worth the breath, but for the record, jizya was a sort of poll tax on non-muslims, analogous to zakat, the 2.5% tithe to support the poor required of muslims.

    historically, jizya was applied differently in the many different kingdoms in the islamic world, but in general islamic countries were comparatively far more tolerant of non-muslims living in their midst than was the case in christian countries, until very recently.

    at any rate, none of this has anything to do with the davis islamic center, and most of your tirade is ignorant in the extreme. in its tenor and sweeping prejudice, it reminds me as nothing so much as the old antisemitic tropes that used to be levied against another religious group.

    again, i suspect that you haven’t spent much time actually talking to actual muslims about their beliefs.

  91. most of this blather isn’t worth the breath, but for the record, jizya was a sort of poll tax on non-muslims, analogous to zakat, the 2.5% tithe to support the poor required of muslims.

    historically, jizya was applied differently in the many different kingdoms in the islamic world, but in general islamic countries were comparatively far more tolerant of non-muslims living in their midst than was the case in christian countries, until very recently.

    at any rate, none of this has anything to do with the davis islamic center, and most of your tirade is ignorant in the extreme. in its tenor and sweeping prejudice, it reminds me as nothing so much as the old antisemitic tropes that used to be levied against another religious group.

    again, i suspect that you haven’t spent much time actually talking to actual muslims about their beliefs.

  92. most of this blather isn’t worth the breath, but for the record, jizya was a sort of poll tax on non-muslims, analogous to zakat, the 2.5% tithe to support the poor required of muslims.

    historically, jizya was applied differently in the many different kingdoms in the islamic world, but in general islamic countries were comparatively far more tolerant of non-muslims living in their midst than was the case in christian countries, until very recently.

    at any rate, none of this has anything to do with the davis islamic center, and most of your tirade is ignorant in the extreme. in its tenor and sweeping prejudice, it reminds me as nothing so much as the old antisemitic tropes that used to be levied against another religious group.

    again, i suspect that you haven’t spent much time actually talking to actual muslims about their beliefs.

  93. additionally (apologies for pulling the thread in this direction everyone, i’ll pipe back down if it gets tiresome), i find this rather humorous:

    I know that your Muslim friends pray every day that you will convert else face the wrath of Allah.

    given that davis’ own bob dunning defended basically a similar catholic practice aimed at jews, just a few months ago:

    On the Good Friday prayer controversy: “Jews are upset because we’re praying for their conversion, asking God to remove the veil from their hearts and overcome their blindness. … If I was Jewish, I don’t know if I’d make a big deal out of that.”

    it’s not like people are freaking out about the catholics (well, not since kennedy back in 1960). and of course we’ll all be converted to mormonism after we die, due to the rigorous geneological work done by adherents of that religion, but i’m not going to get worked up about mitt romney because of it.

    shrug

    the ones that scare me are the ones trying to write their religion into my law, ie. conservative fundamentalist christians. as long as people leave me alone legally and otherwise, i don’t worry about their supposed hopes to convert me. for the record, the evangelists i’ve come across in my own life haven’t been muslims, but rather christians.

  94. additionally (apologies for pulling the thread in this direction everyone, i’ll pipe back down if it gets tiresome), i find this rather humorous:

    I know that your Muslim friends pray every day that you will convert else face the wrath of Allah.

    given that davis’ own bob dunning defended basically a similar catholic practice aimed at jews, just a few months ago:

    On the Good Friday prayer controversy: “Jews are upset because we’re praying for their conversion, asking God to remove the veil from their hearts and overcome their blindness. … If I was Jewish, I don’t know if I’d make a big deal out of that.”

    it’s not like people are freaking out about the catholics (well, not since kennedy back in 1960). and of course we’ll all be converted to mormonism after we die, due to the rigorous geneological work done by adherents of that religion, but i’m not going to get worked up about mitt romney because of it.

    shrug

    the ones that scare me are the ones trying to write their religion into my law, ie. conservative fundamentalist christians. as long as people leave me alone legally and otherwise, i don’t worry about their supposed hopes to convert me. for the record, the evangelists i’ve come across in my own life haven’t been muslims, but rather christians.

  95. additionally (apologies for pulling the thread in this direction everyone, i’ll pipe back down if it gets tiresome), i find this rather humorous:

    I know that your Muslim friends pray every day that you will convert else face the wrath of Allah.

    given that davis’ own bob dunning defended basically a similar catholic practice aimed at jews, just a few months ago:

    On the Good Friday prayer controversy: “Jews are upset because we’re praying for their conversion, asking God to remove the veil from their hearts and overcome their blindness. … If I was Jewish, I don’t know if I’d make a big deal out of that.”

    it’s not like people are freaking out about the catholics (well, not since kennedy back in 1960). and of course we’ll all be converted to mormonism after we die, due to the rigorous geneological work done by adherents of that religion, but i’m not going to get worked up about mitt romney because of it.

    shrug

    the ones that scare me are the ones trying to write their religion into my law, ie. conservative fundamentalist christians. as long as people leave me alone legally and otherwise, i don’t worry about their supposed hopes to convert me. for the record, the evangelists i’ve come across in my own life haven’t been muslims, but rather christians.

  96. additionally (apologies for pulling the thread in this direction everyone, i’ll pipe back down if it gets tiresome), i find this rather humorous:

    I know that your Muslim friends pray every day that you will convert else face the wrath of Allah.

    given that davis’ own bob dunning defended basically a similar catholic practice aimed at jews, just a few months ago:

    On the Good Friday prayer controversy: “Jews are upset because we’re praying for their conversion, asking God to remove the veil from their hearts and overcome their blindness. … If I was Jewish, I don’t know if I’d make a big deal out of that.”

    it’s not like people are freaking out about the catholics (well, not since kennedy back in 1960). and of course we’ll all be converted to mormonism after we die, due to the rigorous geneological work done by adherents of that religion, but i’m not going to get worked up about mitt romney because of it.

    shrug

    the ones that scare me are the ones trying to write their religion into my law, ie. conservative fundamentalist christians. as long as people leave me alone legally and otherwise, i don’t worry about their supposed hopes to convert me. for the record, the evangelists i’ve come across in my own life haven’t been muslims, but rather christians.

  97. Wu Ming- you are clearly a Muslim apologist. Jiyza is a tax on non-believers, plain and simple. Your arbitrary 2.5% rate for the poor is a joke at best- the Jiyza was a way to make the lives of Jews and Christians difficult so they would convert. In Islam you have three choices: 1) convert, 2) pay Jiyza, 3) die. I’d like to see any one of your Muslim friends ask their Imam to publicly refute this fact. In Islam, we are all born Muslim, it’s just that some of us don’t know it yet. If you like it so much, then perhaps you should convert?

    Don’t compare me to antisemitism. Your blindness will be your downfall. The Jewish people are among the hardest working and nicest people on the planet. Not all cultures are created equally.

  98. Wu Ming- you are clearly a Muslim apologist. Jiyza is a tax on non-believers, plain and simple. Your arbitrary 2.5% rate for the poor is a joke at best- the Jiyza was a way to make the lives of Jews and Christians difficult so they would convert. In Islam you have three choices: 1) convert, 2) pay Jiyza, 3) die. I’d like to see any one of your Muslim friends ask their Imam to publicly refute this fact. In Islam, we are all born Muslim, it’s just that some of us don’t know it yet. If you like it so much, then perhaps you should convert?

    Don’t compare me to antisemitism. Your blindness will be your downfall. The Jewish people are among the hardest working and nicest people on the planet. Not all cultures are created equally.

  99. Wu Ming- you are clearly a Muslim apologist. Jiyza is a tax on non-believers, plain and simple. Your arbitrary 2.5% rate for the poor is a joke at best- the Jiyza was a way to make the lives of Jews and Christians difficult so they would convert. In Islam you have three choices: 1) convert, 2) pay Jiyza, 3) die. I’d like to see any one of your Muslim friends ask their Imam to publicly refute this fact. In Islam, we are all born Muslim, it’s just that some of us don’t know it yet. If you like it so much, then perhaps you should convert?

    Don’t compare me to antisemitism. Your blindness will be your downfall. The Jewish people are among the hardest working and nicest people on the planet. Not all cultures are created equally.

  100. Wu Ming- you are clearly a Muslim apologist. Jiyza is a tax on non-believers, plain and simple. Your arbitrary 2.5% rate for the poor is a joke at best- the Jiyza was a way to make the lives of Jews and Christians difficult so they would convert. In Islam you have three choices: 1) convert, 2) pay Jiyza, 3) die. I’d like to see any one of your Muslim friends ask their Imam to publicly refute this fact. In Islam, we are all born Muslim, it’s just that some of us don’t know it yet. If you like it so much, then perhaps you should convert?

    Don’t compare me to antisemitism. Your blindness will be your downfall. The Jewish people are among the hardest working and nicest people on the planet. Not all cultures are created equally.

  101. Anonymous all night long!

    Wu Ming is usually so full of himself. I’m glad to see other people can hang with him. I am not sure I agree with all you say but I like your responses. Islam is a paradox for me. They preach love but their actions are hate!

  102. Anonymous all night long!

    Wu Ming is usually so full of himself. I’m glad to see other people can hang with him. I am not sure I agree with all you say but I like your responses. Islam is a paradox for me. They preach love but their actions are hate!

  103. Anonymous all night long!

    Wu Ming is usually so full of himself. I’m glad to see other people can hang with him. I am not sure I agree with all you say but I like your responses. Islam is a paradox for me. They preach love but their actions are hate!

  104. Anonymous all night long!

    Wu Ming is usually so full of himself. I’m glad to see other people can hang with him. I am not sure I agree with all you say but I like your responses. Islam is a paradox for me. They preach love but their actions are hate!

  105. “However, had it not been for the Crusades that defended against the spread of Islam throughout Europe, I absolutely guarantee you that we would not have many things …”

    As I recall, the Crusades generally failed and that did not result in the end of civilization. Furthermore some of the lasting benefits from the Crusades were the scientific and engineering ideas that were brought back from the Middle East.

  106. “However, had it not been for the Crusades that defended against the spread of Islam throughout Europe, I absolutely guarantee you that we would not have many things …”

    As I recall, the Crusades generally failed and that did not result in the end of civilization. Furthermore some of the lasting benefits from the Crusades were the scientific and engineering ideas that were brought back from the Middle East.

  107. “However, had it not been for the Crusades that defended against the spread of Islam throughout Europe, I absolutely guarantee you that we would not have many things …”

    As I recall, the Crusades generally failed and that did not result in the end of civilization. Furthermore some of the lasting benefits from the Crusades were the scientific and engineering ideas that were brought back from the Middle East.

  108. “However, had it not been for the Crusades that defended against the spread of Islam throughout Europe, I absolutely guarantee you that we would not have many things …”

    As I recall, the Crusades generally failed and that did not result in the end of civilization. Furthermore some of the lasting benefits from the Crusades were the scientific and engineering ideas that were brought back from the Middle East.

  109. Wu Ming- you’re just another Jesus hater who thinks that anything but Judaism and Christianity has to be a better alternative.

    Conservative fundamentalist Christians are the only hope for this Nation- as a matter of demographics, they have more babies than any other religious group besides Muslims. 2.11 per couple is what we need, now look at the birthrate for liberals, easily < 2.0. I'm sorry, but single Mom's on welfare do not make for better children on average. In your world, you better start importing more Muslims like France did- oops, did I say something true again. Read Mark Steyn. Oh, and you’re aware that most Muslims are essentially conservative fundamentalists too (it makes a lot of sense doesn’t it, especially if you know anything about the Qu’ran). Actually, the rise of Islam is in direct response to the rise of liberalism around the world (porn, euthanasia, unrestricted abortions, sex parties, degeneracy, drugs, all the good stuff). Imagine that? Wow- so true… I reject your appeal to ignore what’s going on around the world and in this Nation as long as it doesn’t affect you directly- how pathetic!

  110. Wu Ming- you’re just another Jesus hater who thinks that anything but Judaism and Christianity has to be a better alternative.

    Conservative fundamentalist Christians are the only hope for this Nation- as a matter of demographics, they have more babies than any other religious group besides Muslims. 2.11 per couple is what we need, now look at the birthrate for liberals, easily < 2.0. I'm sorry, but single Mom's on welfare do not make for better children on average. In your world, you better start importing more Muslims like France did- oops, did I say something true again. Read Mark Steyn. Oh, and you’re aware that most Muslims are essentially conservative fundamentalists too (it makes a lot of sense doesn’t it, especially if you know anything about the Qu’ran). Actually, the rise of Islam is in direct response to the rise of liberalism around the world (porn, euthanasia, unrestricted abortions, sex parties, degeneracy, drugs, all the good stuff). Imagine that? Wow- so true… I reject your appeal to ignore what’s going on around the world and in this Nation as long as it doesn’t affect you directly- how pathetic!

  111. Wu Ming- you’re just another Jesus hater who thinks that anything but Judaism and Christianity has to be a better alternative.

    Conservative fundamentalist Christians are the only hope for this Nation- as a matter of demographics, they have more babies than any other religious group besides Muslims. 2.11 per couple is what we need, now look at the birthrate for liberals, easily < 2.0. I'm sorry, but single Mom's on welfare do not make for better children on average. In your world, you better start importing more Muslims like France did- oops, did I say something true again. Read Mark Steyn. Oh, and you’re aware that most Muslims are essentially conservative fundamentalists too (it makes a lot of sense doesn’t it, especially if you know anything about the Qu’ran). Actually, the rise of Islam is in direct response to the rise of liberalism around the world (porn, euthanasia, unrestricted abortions, sex parties, degeneracy, drugs, all the good stuff). Imagine that? Wow- so true… I reject your appeal to ignore what’s going on around the world and in this Nation as long as it doesn’t affect you directly- how pathetic!

  112. Wu Ming- you’re just another Jesus hater who thinks that anything but Judaism and Christianity has to be a better alternative.

    Conservative fundamentalist Christians are the only hope for this Nation- as a matter of demographics, they have more babies than any other religious group besides Muslims. 2.11 per couple is what we need, now look at the birthrate for liberals, easily < 2.0. I'm sorry, but single Mom's on welfare do not make for better children on average. In your world, you better start importing more Muslims like France did- oops, did I say something true again. Read Mark Steyn. Oh, and you’re aware that most Muslims are essentially conservative fundamentalists too (it makes a lot of sense doesn’t it, especially if you know anything about the Qu’ran). Actually, the rise of Islam is in direct response to the rise of liberalism around the world (porn, euthanasia, unrestricted abortions, sex parties, degeneracy, drugs, all the good stuff). Imagine that? Wow- so true… I reject your appeal to ignore what’s going on around the world and in this Nation as long as it doesn’t affect you directly- how pathetic!

  113. sah- you’re partially correct. You’ve been influenced by the Muslim propaganda machine (CAIR, etc.)

    When Islam spread through the Middle East, they borrowed the majority of the ideas from Arabs (developed pre-Islam).

    Got this off the net:

    “The Arabic numerals are more properly called Hindu-Arabic numerals because they did not originate in Arabia but originated with the Hindus as early as 200 B.C. The system was adopted by the Arabs by about A.D. 800 at the very earliest. They brought it to Spain about 900. It was brought to the rest of Europe about 1100…

    Very few Arabs at the time of Mohammad could read or write or know arithmetics. Mohammad himself said we are a nation that does not know how to write or to do arithmetics (nahnu ‘omah la takteb wa la tahseb).”

    Wu’s a good guy- I don’t fault him for anything. He’s good practice for me.

    Good night everyone!

  114. sah- you’re partially correct. You’ve been influenced by the Muslim propaganda machine (CAIR, etc.)

    When Islam spread through the Middle East, they borrowed the majority of the ideas from Arabs (developed pre-Islam).

    Got this off the net:

    “The Arabic numerals are more properly called Hindu-Arabic numerals because they did not originate in Arabia but originated with the Hindus as early as 200 B.C. The system was adopted by the Arabs by about A.D. 800 at the very earliest. They brought it to Spain about 900. It was brought to the rest of Europe about 1100…

    Very few Arabs at the time of Mohammad could read or write or know arithmetics. Mohammad himself said we are a nation that does not know how to write or to do arithmetics (nahnu ‘omah la takteb wa la tahseb).”

    Wu’s a good guy- I don’t fault him for anything. He’s good practice for me.

    Good night everyone!

  115. sah- you’re partially correct. You’ve been influenced by the Muslim propaganda machine (CAIR, etc.)

    When Islam spread through the Middle East, they borrowed the majority of the ideas from Arabs (developed pre-Islam).

    Got this off the net:

    “The Arabic numerals are more properly called Hindu-Arabic numerals because they did not originate in Arabia but originated with the Hindus as early as 200 B.C. The system was adopted by the Arabs by about A.D. 800 at the very earliest. They brought it to Spain about 900. It was brought to the rest of Europe about 1100…

    Very few Arabs at the time of Mohammad could read or write or know arithmetics. Mohammad himself said we are a nation that does not know how to write or to do arithmetics (nahnu ‘omah la takteb wa la tahseb).”

    Wu’s a good guy- I don’t fault him for anything. He’s good practice for me.

    Good night everyone!

  116. sah- you’re partially correct. You’ve been influenced by the Muslim propaganda machine (CAIR, etc.)

    When Islam spread through the Middle East, they borrowed the majority of the ideas from Arabs (developed pre-Islam).

    Got this off the net:

    “The Arabic numerals are more properly called Hindu-Arabic numerals because they did not originate in Arabia but originated with the Hindus as early as 200 B.C. The system was adopted by the Arabs by about A.D. 800 at the very earliest. They brought it to Spain about 900. It was brought to the rest of Europe about 1100…

    Very few Arabs at the time of Mohammad could read or write or know arithmetics. Mohammad himself said we are a nation that does not know how to write or to do arithmetics (nahnu ‘omah la takteb wa la tahseb).”

    Wu’s a good guy- I don’t fault him for anything. He’s good practice for me.

    Good night everyone!

  117. Don Shor said…
    Again, I’d urge that the Vanguard review the policy regarding anonymous postings.

    9/27/07 9:17 PM

    Mr. Don Shor,
    Well here we are again with
    your pubicly aired narcissistic needs we all now have to consider?
    C’mon, man: this is just a virtual reality, on the internet. Why are you feeling so threatened and ready to hit the “censorship” button?
    Unless your own positions are so objectively fragile?
    Why not have an objective airing of different opinions? If anonymity brings them to the surface so much the better in a reasonable world of rhetoric.
    Unless some opinions make you personally feel insecure? Uh-oh.
    Democracy, Don, is sloppy, but it is the lifeblood of our society.

    Why do you think we have secret ballots?

    Without the free flow of ideas,
    society grinds to a halt. (as it pretty much has in many areas of affluent Davis!)

    Thanks very much DPD, for providing a place (virtually) in which opinions and ideas, despite the Don Shors of this world, get play and due consideration!

  118. Don Shor said…
    Again, I’d urge that the Vanguard review the policy regarding anonymous postings.

    9/27/07 9:17 PM

    Mr. Don Shor,
    Well here we are again with
    your pubicly aired narcissistic needs we all now have to consider?
    C’mon, man: this is just a virtual reality, on the internet. Why are you feeling so threatened and ready to hit the “censorship” button?
    Unless your own positions are so objectively fragile?
    Why not have an objective airing of different opinions? If anonymity brings them to the surface so much the better in a reasonable world of rhetoric.
    Unless some opinions make you personally feel insecure? Uh-oh.
    Democracy, Don, is sloppy, but it is the lifeblood of our society.

    Why do you think we have secret ballots?

    Without the free flow of ideas,
    society grinds to a halt. (as it pretty much has in many areas of affluent Davis!)

    Thanks very much DPD, for providing a place (virtually) in which opinions and ideas, despite the Don Shors of this world, get play and due consideration!

  119. Don Shor said…
    Again, I’d urge that the Vanguard review the policy regarding anonymous postings.

    9/27/07 9:17 PM

    Mr. Don Shor,
    Well here we are again with
    your pubicly aired narcissistic needs we all now have to consider?
    C’mon, man: this is just a virtual reality, on the internet. Why are you feeling so threatened and ready to hit the “censorship” button?
    Unless your own positions are so objectively fragile?
    Why not have an objective airing of different opinions? If anonymity brings them to the surface so much the better in a reasonable world of rhetoric.
    Unless some opinions make you personally feel insecure? Uh-oh.
    Democracy, Don, is sloppy, but it is the lifeblood of our society.

    Why do you think we have secret ballots?

    Without the free flow of ideas,
    society grinds to a halt. (as it pretty much has in many areas of affluent Davis!)

    Thanks very much DPD, for providing a place (virtually) in which opinions and ideas, despite the Don Shors of this world, get play and due consideration!

  120. Don Shor said…
    Again, I’d urge that the Vanguard review the policy regarding anonymous postings.

    9/27/07 9:17 PM

    Mr. Don Shor,
    Well here we are again with
    your pubicly aired narcissistic needs we all now have to consider?
    C’mon, man: this is just a virtual reality, on the internet. Why are you feeling so threatened and ready to hit the “censorship” button?
    Unless your own positions are so objectively fragile?
    Why not have an objective airing of different opinions? If anonymity brings them to the surface so much the better in a reasonable world of rhetoric.
    Unless some opinions make you personally feel insecure? Uh-oh.
    Democracy, Don, is sloppy, but it is the lifeblood of our society.

    Why do you think we have secret ballots?

    Without the free flow of ideas,
    society grinds to a halt. (as it pretty much has in many areas of affluent Davis!)

    Thanks very much DPD, for providing a place (virtually) in which opinions and ideas, despite the Don Shors of this world, get play and due consideration!

  121. blah blah blah blah blah blah

    blah blah blah hate Islam blah blah

    hate muslims blah blah blah blah blah

    blah generalization blah blah generalization blah blah hate muslim blah blah capitalize Nation for some stupid reason blah blah blah

  122. blah blah blah blah blah blah

    blah blah blah hate Islam blah blah

    hate muslims blah blah blah blah blah

    blah generalization blah blah generalization blah blah hate muslim blah blah capitalize Nation for some stupid reason blah blah blah

  123. blah blah blah blah blah blah

    blah blah blah hate Islam blah blah

    hate muslims blah blah blah blah blah

    blah generalization blah blah generalization blah blah hate muslim blah blah capitalize Nation for some stupid reason blah blah blah

  124. blah blah blah blah blah blah

    blah blah blah hate Islam blah blah

    hate muslims blah blah blah blah blah

    blah generalization blah blah generalization blah blah hate muslim blah blah capitalize Nation for some stupid reason blah blah blah

  133. Wow this thread falls into the realm of you just never know what is going to trigger discussion. I’d never have guessed this thread would get over 30 comments in it or that a Muslim break the fast would trigger controversy. I will make a polite suggestion that people on here get to know local Muslims living in Davis and Sacramento, I think they will be pleasantly surprised.

  134. Wow this thread falls into the realm of you just never know what is going to trigger discussion. I’d never have guessed this thread would get over 30 comments in it or that a Muslim break the fast would trigger controversy. I will make a polite suggestion that people on here get to know local Muslims living in Davis and Sacramento, I think they will be pleasantly surprised.

  135. Wow this thread falls into the realm of you just never know what is going to trigger discussion. I’d never have guessed this thread would get over 30 comments in it or that a Muslim break the fast would trigger controversy. I will make a polite suggestion that people on here get to know local Muslims living in Davis and Sacramento, I think they will be pleasantly surprised.

  136. Wow this thread falls into the realm of you just never know what is going to trigger discussion. I’d never have guessed this thread would get over 30 comments in it or that a Muslim break the fast would trigger controversy. I will make a polite suggestion that people on here get to know local Muslims living in Davis and Sacramento, I think they will be pleasantly surprised.

  137. Maybe in meeting these local, peaceful, folks, we can talk them into planting a bunch of large trees to soften the harshness of their new building. It is really overbearing and ugly. And the color….it reminds me of the color of government buildings in the 60’s. Maria should never be allowed to design public buildings of this size.

  138. Maybe in meeting these local, peaceful, folks, we can talk them into planting a bunch of large trees to soften the harshness of their new building. It is really overbearing and ugly. And the color….it reminds me of the color of government buildings in the 60’s. Maria should never be allowed to design public buildings of this size.

  139. Maybe in meeting these local, peaceful, folks, we can talk them into planting a bunch of large trees to soften the harshness of their new building. It is really overbearing and ugly. And the color….it reminds me of the color of government buildings in the 60’s. Maria should never be allowed to design public buildings of this size.

  140. Maybe in meeting these local, peaceful, folks, we can talk them into planting a bunch of large trees to soften the harshness of their new building. It is really overbearing and ugly. And the color….it reminds me of the color of government buildings in the 60’s. Maria should never be allowed to design public buildings of this size.

  141. Don Shor said…

    Again, I’d urge that the Vanguard review the policy regarding anonymous postings.

    Don.. These Anonymous postings that seem to give you discomfort are real opinions of real people in Davis, whether anonynous or not. While they usually do not rise to the intellectual level that calls for a response, the Vanguard’s mission of exposing Davis’ “dark underbelly” is served by offering a public venue for such opinions.

  142. Don Shor said…

    Again, I’d urge that the Vanguard review the policy regarding anonymous postings.

    Don.. These Anonymous postings that seem to give you discomfort are real opinions of real people in Davis, whether anonynous or not. While they usually do not rise to the intellectual level that calls for a response, the Vanguard’s mission of exposing Davis’ “dark underbelly” is served by offering a public venue for such opinions.

  143. Don Shor said…

    Again, I’d urge that the Vanguard review the policy regarding anonymous postings.

    Don.. These Anonymous postings that seem to give you discomfort are real opinions of real people in Davis, whether anonynous or not. While they usually do not rise to the intellectual level that calls for a response, the Vanguard’s mission of exposing Davis’ “dark underbelly” is served by offering a public venue for such opinions.

  144. Don Shor said…

    Again, I’d urge that the Vanguard review the policy regarding anonymous postings.

    Don.. These Anonymous postings that seem to give you discomfort are real opinions of real people in Davis, whether anonynous or not. While they usually do not rise to the intellectual level that calls for a response, the Vanguard’s mission of exposing Davis’ “dark underbelly” is served by offering a public venue for such opinions.

  149. We are on the verge of another manufactured war with Iran, with the prospect that the Iranians will face the challenge of surviving in a society with no infrastructure and no civil order after having them destroyed by the US military, not mention casualties in number beyond all comprehension, just like we have done to Iraq.

    If we launch another war of regime change, hopefully, the Iranians possess sufficient assymetrical military capabilities to escape the horrible fate of the people of Iraq. Because, the Iraqi lesson is clear, neither the peace movement, nor the Democratic party, nor former generals and intelligence officers . . . none of them can save Iran from destruction, only the Iranians themselves can.

    –Richard Estes

  150. We are on the verge of another manufactured war with Iran, with the prospect that the Iranians will face the challenge of surviving in a society with no infrastructure and no civil order after having them destroyed by the US military, not mention casualties in number beyond all comprehension, just like we have done to Iraq.

    If we launch another war of regime change, hopefully, the Iranians possess sufficient assymetrical military capabilities to escape the horrible fate of the people of Iraq. Because, the Iraqi lesson is clear, neither the peace movement, nor the Democratic party, nor former generals and intelligence officers . . . none of them can save Iran from destruction, only the Iranians themselves can.

    –Richard Estes

  151. We are on the verge of another manufactured war with Iran, with the prospect that the Iranians will face the challenge of surviving in a society with no infrastructure and no civil order after having them destroyed by the US military, not mention casualties in number beyond all comprehension, just like we have done to Iraq.

    If we launch another war of regime change, hopefully, the Iranians possess sufficient assymetrical military capabilities to escape the horrible fate of the people of Iraq. Because, the Iraqi lesson is clear, neither the peace movement, nor the Democratic party, nor former generals and intelligence officers . . . none of them can save Iran from destruction, only the Iranians themselves can.

    –Richard Estes

  152. We are on the verge of another manufactured war with Iran, with the prospect that the Iranians will face the challenge of surviving in a society with no infrastructure and no civil order after having them destroyed by the US military, not mention casualties in number beyond all comprehension, just like we have done to Iraq.

    If we launch another war of regime change, hopefully, the Iranians possess sufficient assymetrical military capabilities to escape the horrible fate of the people of Iraq. Because, the Iraqi lesson is clear, neither the peace movement, nor the Democratic party, nor former generals and intelligence officers . . . none of them can save Iran from destruction, only the Iranians themselves can.

    –Richard Estes

  157. davisite –

    just because one posts at a site about davis politics doesn’t necessarily mean you are actually in davis. the davis vanguard is on ipsosacto.com’s regional feed, and if my own experience with my humble blog is any guide, a lot of folks stumble across blogs from all over while doing google searches.

    not that such attitudes are unthinkable in davis (sadly, far from it), but i don’t think we can assume the flood of anonymous cowards are necessarily local.

  158. davisite –

    just because one posts at a site about davis politics doesn’t necessarily mean you are actually in davis. the davis vanguard is on ipsosacto.com’s regional feed, and if my own experience with my humble blog is any guide, a lot of folks stumble across blogs from all over while doing google searches.

    not that such attitudes are unthinkable in davis (sadly, far from it), but i don’t think we can assume the flood of anonymous cowards are necessarily local.

  159. davisite –

    just because one posts at a site about davis politics doesn’t necessarily mean you are actually in davis. the davis vanguard is on ipsosacto.com’s regional feed, and if my own experience with my humble blog is any guide, a lot of folks stumble across blogs from all over while doing google searches.

    not that such attitudes are unthinkable in davis (sadly, far from it), but i don’t think we can assume the flood of anonymous cowards are necessarily local.

  160. davisite –

    just because one posts at a site about davis politics doesn’t necessarily mean you are actually in davis. the davis vanguard is on ipsosacto.com’s regional feed, and if my own experience with my humble blog is any guide, a lot of folks stumble across blogs from all over while doing google searches.

    not that such attitudes are unthinkable in davis (sadly, far from it), but i don’t think we can assume the flood of anonymous cowards are necessarily local.

  161. “Don.. These Anonymous postings that seem to give you discomfort are real opinions of real people in Davis, whether anonynous or not.”

    Abusive and bigoted posts give me discomfort, and really don’t require any validation from you or others. People might be less likely to use terms like “Jesus hater” if they had to at least choose a moniker.

    Plus, it would be easier to keep track of who is saying what. More than half the posts on this thread are by “anonymous,” and it’s a little confusing. Except for the one who always calls us narcissists. We all know who that is.

  162. “Don.. These Anonymous postings that seem to give you discomfort are real opinions of real people in Davis, whether anonynous or not.”

    Abusive and bigoted posts give me discomfort, and really don’t require any validation from you or others. People might be less likely to use terms like “Jesus hater” if they had to at least choose a moniker.

    Plus, it would be easier to keep track of who is saying what. More than half the posts on this thread are by “anonymous,” and it’s a little confusing. Except for the one who always calls us narcissists. We all know who that is.

  163. “Don.. These Anonymous postings that seem to give you discomfort are real opinions of real people in Davis, whether anonynous or not.”

    Abusive and bigoted posts give me discomfort, and really don’t require any validation from you or others. People might be less likely to use terms like “Jesus hater” if they had to at least choose a moniker.

    Plus, it would be easier to keep track of who is saying what. More than half the posts on this thread are by “anonymous,” and it’s a little confusing. Except for the one who always calls us narcissists. We all know who that is.

  164. “Don.. These Anonymous postings that seem to give you discomfort are real opinions of real people in Davis, whether anonynous or not.”

    Abusive and bigoted posts give me discomfort, and really don’t require any validation from you or others. People might be less likely to use terms like “Jesus hater” if they had to at least choose a moniker.

    Plus, it would be easier to keep track of who is saying what. More than half the posts on this thread are by “anonymous,” and it’s a little confusing. Except for the one who always calls us narcissists. We all know who that is.

  165. First off, I would not believe anything that a quisling Columbia U humanities professor says. I have a Ph.D. too, and not all Ph.D.’s are created equal. Columbia is part of the problem, not the solution. They give a murderous dictator a public forum in my country?! Who do they think they are? I’d lock up the whole bunch of them under charges of treason throw away the key.

    Why is it that Professors are held up on some pedistile of truth? Are people becoming so stupid that they cannot even think on their own?

    The slippery slope here is the growing inability to question Professors, which is essentially what it’s like in Europe. Now people there cannot even say the word Islam, Allah, or Qu’ran without being arrested. First homosexuality, then Islam- which is quite ironic because Senator Kennedy is trying to pass the same kind of laws in this country.

    Yes, the Crusades were viewed as a failure, but they did succeed in keeping Islam out of the core of Europe (else we would not have had the Renaissance as we know it today). I invite anyone to visit the Muslim art exhibit at the Rotterdam Wereldmuseum. The only art you’ll find is basically reproductions of the Qu’ran, with absolutely no painting of human beings whatsoever. Hummm…not exactly a legacy that I’d be proud of. The Arabic script looked kind of cool. You’ll walk away feeling as if you just visited one of the darkest places in the world. Anyone ever heard of Theo van Gogh?

    Ask your Muslim friends why their art does not contain paintings of human beings.

    Ask they why their Holy Book contains so many unfriendly references to nonbelievers.

    Ask why the Qu’ran is placed on the highest shelf in book stores.

    Ask if the Qu’ran permits Muslims to befriend nonbelievers only if it furthers their cause.

    I could care less how nice they are or how nice they appear. It’s not about that AT ALL.

    Blah, blah, I hate Jews and Christians, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, no facts to back up what I say, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, I hate my country, blah blah.

    Blah, blah, I hate people who disagree with my twisted views, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, I love the BBC, ACLU, and CAIR blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, legalize all drugs, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, people who have kids are just breeders, blah, blah.

    Wake up people!

  166. First off, I would not believe anything that a quisling Columbia U humanities professor says. I have a Ph.D. too, and not all Ph.D.’s are created equal. Columbia is part of the problem, not the solution. They give a murderous dictator a public forum in my country?! Who do they think they are? I’d lock up the whole bunch of them under charges of treason throw away the key.

    Why is it that Professors are held up on some pedistile of truth? Are people becoming so stupid that they cannot even think on their own?

    The slippery slope here is the growing inability to question Professors, which is essentially what it’s like in Europe. Now people there cannot even say the word Islam, Allah, or Qu’ran without being arrested. First homosexuality, then Islam- which is quite ironic because Senator Kennedy is trying to pass the same kind of laws in this country.

    Yes, the Crusades were viewed as a failure, but they did succeed in keeping Islam out of the core of Europe (else we would not have had the Renaissance as we know it today). I invite anyone to visit the Muslim art exhibit at the Rotterdam Wereldmuseum. The only art you’ll find is basically reproductions of the Qu’ran, with absolutely no painting of human beings whatsoever. Hummm…not exactly a legacy that I’d be proud of. The Arabic script looked kind of cool. You’ll walk away feeling as if you just visited one of the darkest places in the world. Anyone ever heard of Theo van Gogh?

    Ask your Muslim friends why their art does not contain paintings of human beings.

    Ask they why their Holy Book contains so many unfriendly references to nonbelievers.

    Ask why the Qu’ran is placed on the highest shelf in book stores.

    Ask if the Qu’ran permits Muslims to befriend nonbelievers only if it furthers their cause.

    I could care less how nice they are or how nice they appear. It’s not about that AT ALL.

    Blah, blah, I hate Jews and Christians, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, no facts to back up what I say, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, I hate my country, blah blah.

    Blah, blah, I hate people who disagree with my twisted views, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, I love the BBC, ACLU, and CAIR blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, legalize all drugs, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, people who have kids are just breeders, blah, blah.

    Wake up people!

  167. First off, I would not believe anything that a quisling Columbia U humanities professor says. I have a Ph.D. too, and not all Ph.D.’s are created equal. Columbia is part of the problem, not the solution. They give a murderous dictator a public forum in my country?! Who do they think they are? I’d lock up the whole bunch of them under charges of treason throw away the key.

    Why is it that Professors are held up on some pedistile of truth? Are people becoming so stupid that they cannot even think on their own?

    The slippery slope here is the growing inability to question Professors, which is essentially what it’s like in Europe. Now people there cannot even say the word Islam, Allah, or Qu’ran without being arrested. First homosexuality, then Islam- which is quite ironic because Senator Kennedy is trying to pass the same kind of laws in this country.

    Yes, the Crusades were viewed as a failure, but they did succeed in keeping Islam out of the core of Europe (else we would not have had the Renaissance as we know it today). I invite anyone to visit the Muslim art exhibit at the Rotterdam Wereldmuseum. The only art you’ll find is basically reproductions of the Qu’ran, with absolutely no painting of human beings whatsoever. Hummm…not exactly a legacy that I’d be proud of. The Arabic script looked kind of cool. You’ll walk away feeling as if you just visited one of the darkest places in the world. Anyone ever heard of Theo van Gogh?

    Ask your Muslim friends why their art does not contain paintings of human beings.

    Ask they why their Holy Book contains so many unfriendly references to nonbelievers.

    Ask why the Qu’ran is placed on the highest shelf in book stores.

    Ask if the Qu’ran permits Muslims to befriend nonbelievers only if it furthers their cause.

    I could care less how nice they are or how nice they appear. It’s not about that AT ALL.

    Blah, blah, I hate Jews and Christians, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, no facts to back up what I say, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, I hate my country, blah blah.

    Blah, blah, I hate people who disagree with my twisted views, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, I love the BBC, ACLU, and CAIR blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, legalize all drugs, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, people who have kids are just breeders, blah, blah.

    Wake up people!

  168. First off, I would not believe anything that a quisling Columbia U humanities professor says. I have a Ph.D. too, and not all Ph.D.’s are created equal. Columbia is part of the problem, not the solution. They give a murderous dictator a public forum in my country?! Who do they think they are? I’d lock up the whole bunch of them under charges of treason throw away the key.

    Why is it that Professors are held up on some pedistile of truth? Are people becoming so stupid that they cannot even think on their own?

    The slippery slope here is the growing inability to question Professors, which is essentially what it’s like in Europe. Now people there cannot even say the word Islam, Allah, or Qu’ran without being arrested. First homosexuality, then Islam- which is quite ironic because Senator Kennedy is trying to pass the same kind of laws in this country.

    Yes, the Crusades were viewed as a failure, but they did succeed in keeping Islam out of the core of Europe (else we would not have had the Renaissance as we know it today). I invite anyone to visit the Muslim art exhibit at the Rotterdam Wereldmuseum. The only art you’ll find is basically reproductions of the Qu’ran, with absolutely no painting of human beings whatsoever. Hummm…not exactly a legacy that I’d be proud of. The Arabic script looked kind of cool. You’ll walk away feeling as if you just visited one of the darkest places in the world. Anyone ever heard of Theo van Gogh?

    Ask your Muslim friends why their art does not contain paintings of human beings.

    Ask they why their Holy Book contains so many unfriendly references to nonbelievers.

    Ask why the Qu’ran is placed on the highest shelf in book stores.

    Ask if the Qu’ran permits Muslims to befriend nonbelievers only if it furthers their cause.

    I could care less how nice they are or how nice they appear. It’s not about that AT ALL.

    Blah, blah, I hate Jews and Christians, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, no facts to back up what I say, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, I hate my country, blah blah.

    Blah, blah, I hate people who disagree with my twisted views, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, I love the BBC, ACLU, and CAIR blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, legalize all drugs, blah, blah.

    Blah, blah, people who have kids are just breeders, blah, blah.

    Wake up people!

  169. I lived in Davis for several years, and now I live close by. I work in Davis, and I enjoy the freedom of anonymity. I learned about this site at the Davis Farmer’s Market, so eat that.

    The real cowards are those who refuse to face the facts and holler bigotry and racism at the drop of a hat, including those who refuse to question academia as if it’s their Church.

    I understand my role in politics. Risking my career and safety of my family to fend off the gnashing teeth of you radical leftists is not part of it.

    Freedom of speech is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. (From the liberal-biased Wikipedia.)

    Imagine that, my views could be threatened in our “free” society? Remember this- the government is only interested in preserving your freedom to spend money and their power, that’s it, period, end of story.

    For Don- my moniker is now duarte. Anyway, it doesn’t take much effort to figure out which posts are mine. You can stop crying like a baby now.

    The traffic to this site will increase exponentially as a function of my comments alone (some real narcissism for ya).

  170. I lived in Davis for several years, and now I live close by. I work in Davis, and I enjoy the freedom of anonymity. I learned about this site at the Davis Farmer’s Market, so eat that.

    The real cowards are those who refuse to face the facts and holler bigotry and racism at the drop of a hat, including those who refuse to question academia as if it’s their Church.

    I understand my role in politics. Risking my career and safety of my family to fend off the gnashing teeth of you radical leftists is not part of it.

    Freedom of speech is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. (From the liberal-biased Wikipedia.)

    Imagine that, my views could be threatened in our “free” society? Remember this- the government is only interested in preserving your freedom to spend money and their power, that’s it, period, end of story.

    For Don- my moniker is now duarte. Anyway, it doesn’t take much effort to figure out which posts are mine. You can stop crying like a baby now.

    The traffic to this site will increase exponentially as a function of my comments alone (some real narcissism for ya).

  171. I lived in Davis for several years, and now I live close by. I work in Davis, and I enjoy the freedom of anonymity. I learned about this site at the Davis Farmer’s Market, so eat that.

    The real cowards are those who refuse to face the facts and holler bigotry and racism at the drop of a hat, including those who refuse to question academia as if it’s their Church.

    I understand my role in politics. Risking my career and safety of my family to fend off the gnashing teeth of you radical leftists is not part of it.

    Freedom of speech is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. (From the liberal-biased Wikipedia.)

    Imagine that, my views could be threatened in our “free” society? Remember this- the government is only interested in preserving your freedom to spend money and their power, that’s it, period, end of story.

    For Don- my moniker is now duarte. Anyway, it doesn’t take much effort to figure out which posts are mine. You can stop crying like a baby now.

    The traffic to this site will increase exponentially as a function of my comments alone (some real narcissism for ya).

  172. I lived in Davis for several years, and now I live close by. I work in Davis, and I enjoy the freedom of anonymity. I learned about this site at the Davis Farmer’s Market, so eat that.

    The real cowards are those who refuse to face the facts and holler bigotry and racism at the drop of a hat, including those who refuse to question academia as if it’s their Church.

    I understand my role in politics. Risking my career and safety of my family to fend off the gnashing teeth of you radical leftists is not part of it.

    Freedom of speech is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. (From the liberal-biased Wikipedia.)

    Imagine that, my views could be threatened in our “free” society? Remember this- the government is only interested in preserving your freedom to spend money and their power, that’s it, period, end of story.

    For Don- my moniker is now duarte. Anyway, it doesn’t take much effort to figure out which posts are mine. You can stop crying like a baby now.

    The traffic to this site will increase exponentially as a function of my comments alone (some real narcissism for ya).

  173. Wu-ming said:
    “but i don’t think we can assume the flood of anonymous cowards are necessarily local.”

    ..not NECESSARILY local but I have been witness to such vitriolic anti-Muslim beliefs/statements in other venues than the Vanguard that are definitely local. IT exists in Davis.

  174. Wu-ming said:
    “but i don’t think we can assume the flood of anonymous cowards are necessarily local.”

    ..not NECESSARILY local but I have been witness to such vitriolic anti-Muslim beliefs/statements in other venues than the Vanguard that are definitely local. IT exists in Davis.

  175. Wu-ming said:
    “but i don’t think we can assume the flood of anonymous cowards are necessarily local.”

    ..not NECESSARILY local but I have been witness to such vitriolic anti-Muslim beliefs/statements in other venues than the Vanguard that are definitely local. IT exists in Davis.

  176. Wu-ming said:
    “but i don’t think we can assume the flood of anonymous cowards are necessarily local.”

    ..not NECESSARILY local but I have been witness to such vitriolic anti-Muslim beliefs/statements in other venues than the Vanguard that are definitely local. IT exists in Davis.

  181. LOL!
    Check out the discussions about 3rd and B, particularly comments at the Guest Commentary from ONDNA, and you will find several of us diagnosed with narcissism.
    BTW: October is a great time to plant Narcissus bulbs.

    Thank you, duarte, for selecting a pseudonym. BTW, just for the record, I’m not a radical leftist, and don’t put professors on pedestals (except my dad, and he’s a geophysicist with little to bring to this discussion).
    I’ve developed an aversion to simplistic answers about the causes or future of this war. Your views on Islam seem like a caricature, but I’m not an expert on how many practicing Muslims follow the theology you describe to the degree you seem to believe. Most people I know who belong to any religion don’t entirely share the extreme doctrines one can find. They have other reasons for being what they are: upbringing, comfort, community.

    Bob Glynn is entitled to his views and I respect his son’s service. I’m not thrilled that Code Pink chose to demonstrate in front of Walter Reed. The soldiers inside don’t benefit from that, regardless of the intentions of the protestors.

  182. LOL!
    Check out the discussions about 3rd and B, particularly comments at the Guest Commentary from ONDNA, and you will find several of us diagnosed with narcissism.
    BTW: October is a great time to plant Narcissus bulbs.

    Thank you, duarte, for selecting a pseudonym. BTW, just for the record, I’m not a radical leftist, and don’t put professors on pedestals (except my dad, and he’s a geophysicist with little to bring to this discussion).
    I’ve developed an aversion to simplistic answers about the causes or future of this war. Your views on Islam seem like a caricature, but I’m not an expert on how many practicing Muslims follow the theology you describe to the degree you seem to believe. Most people I know who belong to any religion don’t entirely share the extreme doctrines one can find. They have other reasons for being what they are: upbringing, comfort, community.

    Bob Glynn is entitled to his views and I respect his son’s service. I’m not thrilled that Code Pink chose to demonstrate in front of Walter Reed. The soldiers inside don’t benefit from that, regardless of the intentions of the protestors.

  183. LOL!
    Check out the discussions about 3rd and B, particularly comments at the Guest Commentary from ONDNA, and you will find several of us diagnosed with narcissism.
    BTW: October is a great time to plant Narcissus bulbs.

    Thank you, duarte, for selecting a pseudonym. BTW, just for the record, I’m not a radical leftist, and don’t put professors on pedestals (except my dad, and he’s a geophysicist with little to bring to this discussion).
    I’ve developed an aversion to simplistic answers about the causes or future of this war. Your views on Islam seem like a caricature, but I’m not an expert on how many practicing Muslims follow the theology you describe to the degree you seem to believe. Most people I know who belong to any religion don’t entirely share the extreme doctrines one can find. They have other reasons for being what they are: upbringing, comfort, community.

    Bob Glynn is entitled to his views and I respect his son’s service. I’m not thrilled that Code Pink chose to demonstrate in front of Walter Reed. The soldiers inside don’t benefit from that, regardless of the intentions of the protestors.

  184. LOL!
    Check out the discussions about 3rd and B, particularly comments at the Guest Commentary from ONDNA, and you will find several of us diagnosed with narcissism.
    BTW: October is a great time to plant Narcissus bulbs.

    Thank you, duarte, for selecting a pseudonym. BTW, just for the record, I’m not a radical leftist, and don’t put professors on pedestals (except my dad, and he’s a geophysicist with little to bring to this discussion).
    I’ve developed an aversion to simplistic answers about the causes or future of this war. Your views on Islam seem like a caricature, but I’m not an expert on how many practicing Muslims follow the theology you describe to the degree you seem to believe. Most people I know who belong to any religion don’t entirely share the extreme doctrines one can find. They have other reasons for being what they are: upbringing, comfort, community.

    Bob Glynn is entitled to his views and I respect his son’s service. I’m not thrilled that Code Pink chose to demonstrate in front of Walter Reed. The soldiers inside don’t benefit from that, regardless of the intentions of the protestors.

  186. .not NECESSARILY local but I have been witness to such vitriolic anti-Muslim beliefs/statements in other venues than the Vanguard that are definitely local. IT exists in Davis.

    Listen to you up on your high horse. Hey, I didn’t write the Qu’ran or invent the religion. Hating people and disagreeing with their beliefs are completely different. You’re just another apologist full of labels to throw at people who disagree with you.

    Compare the Bible and the Qu’ran side by side and you’ll see which one is the true religion of peace. Those of you who co-exist with Islam so well have been forewarned. Islam thrives in liberal enclaves because of two things- there’s an overwhelming rejection of Christianity and Judaism and they find sanctuary in the overbearing political correctness in these areas (which has nicely manifested its ugly face here I am proud to say).

    Give me an example of the golden rule in the Qu’ran that applies to non-Muslims.

    Every other Holy Book is existence has a golden rule compatible with pluralism.

    I cannot for the life of me figure out why people in this country, particularly liberals, defend Islam. It must be because you hate Bush more than anything. Liberal, “enlightened” Europe is desperately struggling against Islam.

    The news you see on television is heavily pro-Islam and cannot be trusted. Your government cannot be trusted. Who is paying Bill Clinton 10 million these days? The wonderful U.A.E. of course. The same country that rounds up Pakistanis like cattle and ships them out. How compassionate of them. Billy is the same sicko that sold us out to China, which is now poisoning our food, toys and planet. Bushy boy is selling us out to Mexico. What more has to happen before you people wake up! You have tremendous but misguided passion!

    Inform yourselves people!

  188. .not NECESSARILY local but I have been witness to such vitriolic anti-Muslim beliefs/statements in other venues than the Vanguard that are definitely local. IT exists in Davis.

    Listen to you up on your high horse. Hey, I didn’t write the Qu’ran or invent the religion. Hating people and disagreeing with their beliefs are completely different. You’re just another apologist full of labels to throw at people who disagree with you.

    Compare the Bible and the Qu’ran side by side and you’ll see which one is the true religion of peace. Those of you who co-exist with Islam so well have been forewarned. Islam thrives in liberal enclaves because of two things- there’s an overwhelming rejection of Christianity and Judaism and they find sanctuary in the overbearing political correctness in these areas (which has nicely manifested its ugly face here I am proud to say).

    Give me an example of the golden rule in the Qu’ran that applies to non-Muslims.

    Every other Holy Book is existence has a golden rule compatible with pluralism.

    I cannot for the life of me figure out why people in this country, particularly liberals, defend Islam. It must be because you hate Bush more than anything. Liberal, “enlightened” Europe is desperately struggling against Islam.

    The news you see on television is heavily pro-Islam and cannot be trusted. Your government cannot be trusted. Who is paying Bill Clinton 10 million these days? The wonderful U.A.E. of course. The same country that rounds up Pakistanis like cattle and ships them out. How compassionate of them. Billy is the same sicko that sold us out to China, which is now poisoning our food, toys and planet. Bushy boy is selling us out to Mexico. What more has to happen before you people wake up! You have tremendous but misguided passion!

    Inform yourselves people!

  190. .not NECESSARILY local but I have been witness to such vitriolic anti-Muslim beliefs/statements in other venues than the Vanguard that are definitely local. IT exists in Davis.

    Listen to you up on your high horse. Hey, I didn’t write the Qu’ran or invent the religion. Hating people and disagreeing with their beliefs are completely different. You’re just another apologist full of labels to throw at people who disagree with you.

    Compare the Bible and the Qu’ran side by side and you’ll see which one is the true religion of peace. Those of you who co-exist with Islam so well have been forewarned. Islam thrives in liberal enclaves because of two things- there’s an overwhelming rejection of Christianity and Judaism and they find sanctuary in the overbearing political correctness in these areas (which has nicely manifested its ugly face here I am proud to say).

    Give me an example of the golden rule in the Qu’ran that applies to non-Muslims.

    Every other Holy Book is existence has a golden rule compatible with pluralism.

    I cannot for the life of me figure out why people in this country, particularly liberals, defend Islam. It must be because you hate Bush more than anything. Liberal, “enlightened” Europe is desperately struggling against Islam.

    The news you see on television is heavily pro-Islam and cannot be trusted. Your government cannot be trusted. Who is paying Bill Clinton 10 million these days? The wonderful U.A.E. of course. The same country that rounds up Pakistanis like cattle and ships them out. How compassionate of them. Billy is the same sicko that sold us out to China, which is now poisoning our food, toys and planet. Bushy boy is selling us out to Mexico. What more has to happen before you people wake up! You have tremendous but misguided passion!

    Inform yourselves people!

  192. .not NECESSARILY local but I have been witness to such vitriolic anti-Muslim beliefs/statements in other venues than the Vanguard that are definitely local. IT exists in Davis.

    Listen to you up on your high horse. Hey, I didn’t write the Qu’ran or invent the religion. Hating people and disagreeing with their beliefs are completely different. You’re just another apologist full of labels to throw at people who disagree with you.

    Compare the Bible and the Qu’ran side by side and you’ll see which one is the true religion of peace. Those of you who co-exist with Islam so well have been forewarned. Islam thrives in liberal enclaves because of two things- there’s an overwhelming rejection of Christianity and Judaism and they find sanctuary in the overbearing political correctness in these areas (which has nicely manifested its ugly face here I am proud to say).

    Give me an example of the golden rule in the Qu’ran that applies to non-Muslims.

    Every other Holy Book is existence has a golden rule compatible with pluralism.

    I cannot for the life of me figure out why people in this country, particularly liberals, defend Islam. It must be because you hate Bush more than anything. Liberal, “enlightened” Europe is desperately struggling against Islam.

    The news you see on television is heavily pro-Islam and cannot be trusted. Your government cannot be trusted. Who is paying Bill Clinton 10 million these days? The wonderful U.A.E. of course. The same country that rounds up Pakistanis like cattle and ships them out. How compassionate of them. Billy is the same sicko that sold us out to China, which is now poisoning our food, toys and planet. Bushy boy is selling us out to Mexico. What more has to happen before you people wake up! You have tremendous but misguided passion!

    Inform yourselves people!

  193. “The traffic to this site will increase exponentially as a function of my comments alone….

    I would encourage everyone who finds the People’s Vanguard a worthwhile addition to Davis’ political dialogue
    to read or not read rantings like “duarte” but NOT fill up our postings with tit-for-tat responses…. .. the best option is to just let authors of such vitriol howl into the cyperspace night without recognition…. Anonymous, named or monikered.

  194. “The traffic to this site will increase exponentially as a function of my comments alone….

    I would encourage everyone who finds the People’s Vanguard a worthwhile addition to Davis’ political dialogue
    to read or not read rantings like “duarte” but NOT fill up our postings with tit-for-tat responses…. .. the best option is to just let authors of such vitriol howl into the cyperspace night without recognition…. Anonymous, named or monikered.

  195. “The traffic to this site will increase exponentially as a function of my comments alone….

    I would encourage everyone who finds the People’s Vanguard a worthwhile addition to Davis’ political dialogue
    to read or not read rantings like “duarte” but NOT fill up our postings with tit-for-tat responses…. .. the best option is to just let authors of such vitriol howl into the cyperspace night without recognition…. Anonymous, named or monikered.

  196. “The traffic to this site will increase exponentially as a function of my comments alone….

    I would encourage everyone who finds the People’s Vanguard a worthwhile addition to Davis’ political dialogue
    to read or not read rantings like “duarte” but NOT fill up our postings with tit-for-tat responses…. .. the best option is to just let authors of such vitriol howl into the cyperspace night without recognition…. Anonymous, named or monikered.

  197. Vitriol! You have no idea Mr. Administrator. Perhaps you need to read up on the vitriol coming out of the Middle East towards Christians and Jews. The media suppresses it for reasons I don’t fully understand.

    You all go prancing around like there’s no cares in the world, as if everyone by and large has the purist intentions. The UN is the highest authority, and all that crap.

    Jesus said that there will come a time when those who wish to kill you will think they are doing so in service to God. Look it up!

    Some people are anti-war. Well I’m anti-Wahhabi Islam. If it was a modern religion, as so many others are, I would not have reason to warn people.

  198. Vitriol! You have no idea Mr. Administrator. Perhaps you need to read up on the vitriol coming out of the Middle East towards Christians and Jews. The media suppresses it for reasons I don’t fully understand.

    You all go prancing around like there’s no cares in the world, as if everyone by and large has the purist intentions. The UN is the highest authority, and all that crap.

    Jesus said that there will come a time when those who wish to kill you will think they are doing so in service to God. Look it up!

    Some people are anti-war. Well I’m anti-Wahhabi Islam. If it was a modern religion, as so many others are, I would not have reason to warn people.

  199. Vitriol! You have no idea Mr. Administrator. Perhaps you need to read up on the vitriol coming out of the Middle East towards Christians and Jews. The media suppresses it for reasons I don’t fully understand.

    You all go prancing around like there’s no cares in the world, as if everyone by and large has the purist intentions. The UN is the highest authority, and all that crap.

    Jesus said that there will come a time when those who wish to kill you will think they are doing so in service to God. Look it up!

    Some people are anti-war. Well I’m anti-Wahhabi Islam. If it was a modern religion, as so many others are, I would not have reason to warn people.

  200. Vitriol! You have no idea Mr. Administrator. Perhaps you need to read up on the vitriol coming out of the Middle East towards Christians and Jews. The media suppresses it for reasons I don’t fully understand.

    You all go prancing around like there’s no cares in the world, as if everyone by and large has the purist intentions. The UN is the highest authority, and all that crap.

    Jesus said that there will come a time when those who wish to kill you will think they are doing so in service to God. Look it up!

    Some people are anti-war. Well I’m anti-Wahhabi Islam. If it was a modern religion, as so many others are, I would not have reason to warn people.

  201. duarte said:

    “What more has to happen before you people wake up!”

    To those of us old enough to remember Kubrik’s “How I Learned to Love the Bomb” , this apocalyptic posting has a familiar ring but overlooked the conspiracy to poison our mojo with water flouridation … Purity Of Essence!

  202. duarte said:

    “What more has to happen before you people wake up!”

    To those of us old enough to remember Kubrik’s “How I Learned to Love the Bomb” , this apocalyptic posting has a familiar ring but overlooked the conspiracy to poison our mojo with water flouridation … Purity Of Essence!

  203. duarte said:

    “What more has to happen before you people wake up!”

    To those of us old enough to remember Kubrik’s “How I Learned to Love the Bomb” , this apocalyptic posting has a familiar ring but overlooked the conspiracy to poison our mojo with water flouridation … Purity Of Essence!

  204. duarte said:

    “What more has to happen before you people wake up!”

    To those of us old enough to remember Kubrik’s “How I Learned to Love the Bomb” , this apocalyptic posting has a familiar ring but overlooked the conspiracy to poison our mojo with water flouridation … Purity Of Essence!

  205. don shor said…
    LOL!
    Check out the discussions about 3rd and B, particularly comments at the Guest Commentary from ONDNA, and you will find several of us diagnosed with narcissism.

    Don, I presume you meant to put the word diagnosed [sic] in quotation marks. Just a Freudian slip of your fingers tapping the keyboard, am sure.

  206. don shor said…
    LOL!
    Check out the discussions about 3rd and B, particularly comments at the Guest Commentary from ONDNA, and you will find several of us diagnosed with narcissism.

    Don, I presume you meant to put the word diagnosed [sic] in quotation marks. Just a Freudian slip of your fingers tapping the keyboard, am sure.

  207. don shor said…
    LOL!
    Check out the discussions about 3rd and B, particularly comments at the Guest Commentary from ONDNA, and you will find several of us diagnosed with narcissism.

    Don, I presume you meant to put the word diagnosed [sic] in quotation marks. Just a Freudian slip of your fingers tapping the keyboard, am sure.

  208. don shor said…
    LOL!
    Check out the discussions about 3rd and B, particularly comments at the Guest Commentary from ONDNA, and you will find several of us diagnosed with narcissism.

    Don, I presume you meant to put the word diagnosed [sic] in quotation marks. Just a Freudian slip of your fingers tapping the keyboard, am sure.

  209. “Compare the Bible and the Qu’ran side by side and you’ll see which one is the true religion of peace.”

    I read this thread a day late. It is on the one hand quite disturbing, but on the other one of the first which actually feels free-flowing. I’m glad Sharla Harrington didn’t censor the comments. The whole “blog administration” thing seems heavy handed to me.

    I think the negative commentary on Islam is mostly wrong. I think it confuses contemporary culture in many Muslim-majority societies with the Islamic religion. They are not the same.

    To understand why not, consider Chrisianity, a more familiar topic to most of us. For a very long time (most of Christian history, in fact), the culture in Christian societies was terribly intolerant. You had things like burning “witches” at the stake in the name of Christ; the various Inquisitions, in which large numbers of non-Christians were terrorized by Christians; forced conversions; laws against Jews living in various countries — all Jews were expelled from Christian England, for example, in the late Middle Ages. The list of bad deeds done in the name of Christianity is endless.

    But that is not the Christian culture most of the world knows today. The culture in Western Europe and the Americas, all of which have Christian majorities and hence a culture eminating in many ways from that religion, is tolerant, liberal and respectful of other faiths (for the most part).

    In Islamic societies, none of that is the case. I think without exception (maybe Bosnia is an exception, and to a lesser extent Malaysia), Islamic societies are conservative, intolerant and disrespectful to non-Muslims. But just as with the Christianity of the Middle Ages, that is not a reflection of the Islamic faith or the Koran or even Islamic teaching. Rather, it is the current state of the culture in those backward societies.

    No one knows what will happen 100 years from now. But I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the cultures in today’s backward Muslim countries will change dramatically, and in all likelihood they’ll be modern and liberal (which I use in the sense of Locke and Jefferson, not Reid and Pelosi) and tolerant. They need to progress fast to catch up with the modern world. And I expect that they will. But no doubt, those cultures are terribly behind and seem bad to us.

    I would remind everyone about the Shinto religion, which was 75 years ago blamed for the visciousness of the Japanese culture. The Japanese were brutal and bellicose back then. And they were mostly practitioners of the Shinto faith.

    Well, they have been peaceful and friendly to all nations since they lost WW2, and they still are a Shinto country. Their culture simply changed with changing circumstances. Much like Christian culture has changed. And Islamic cultures will.

  210. “Compare the Bible and the Qu’ran side by side and you’ll see which one is the true religion of peace.”

    I read this thread a day late. It is on the one hand quite disturbing, but on the other one of the first which actually feels free-flowing. I’m glad Sharla Harrington didn’t censor the comments. The whole “blog administration” thing seems heavy handed to me.

    I think the negative commentary on Islam is mostly wrong. I think it confuses contemporary culture in many Muslim-majority societies with the Islamic religion. They are not the same.

    To understand why not, consider Chrisianity, a more familiar topic to most of us. For a very long time (most of Christian history, in fact), the culture in Christian societies was terribly intolerant. You had things like burning “witches” at the stake in the name of Christ; the various Inquisitions, in which large numbers of non-Christians were terrorized by Christians; forced conversions; laws against Jews living in various countries — all Jews were expelled from Christian England, for example, in the late Middle Ages. The list of bad deeds done in the name of Christianity is endless.

    But that is not the Christian culture most of the world knows today. The culture in Western Europe and the Americas, all of which have Christian majorities and hence a culture eminating in many ways from that religion, is tolerant, liberal and respectful of other faiths (for the most part).

    In Islamic societies, none of that is the case. I think without exception (maybe Bosnia is an exception, and to a lesser extent Malaysia), Islamic societies are conservative, intolerant and disrespectful to non-Muslims. But just as with the Christianity of the Middle Ages, that is not a reflection of the Islamic faith or the Koran or even Islamic teaching. Rather, it is the current state of the culture in those backward societies.

    No one knows what will happen 100 years from now. But I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the cultures in today’s backward Muslim countries will change dramatically, and in all likelihood they’ll be modern and liberal (which I use in the sense of Locke and Jefferson, not Reid and Pelosi) and tolerant. They need to progress fast to catch up with the modern world. And I expect that they will. But no doubt, those cultures are terribly behind and seem bad to us.

    I would remind everyone about the Shinto religion, which was 75 years ago blamed for the visciousness of the Japanese culture. The Japanese were brutal and bellicose back then. And they were mostly practitioners of the Shinto faith.

    Well, they have been peaceful and friendly to all nations since they lost WW2, and they still are a Shinto country. Their culture simply changed with changing circumstances. Much like Christian culture has changed. And Islamic cultures will.

  211. “Compare the Bible and the Qu’ran side by side and you’ll see which one is the true religion of peace.”

    I read this thread a day late. It is on the one hand quite disturbing, but on the other one of the first which actually feels free-flowing. I’m glad Sharla Harrington didn’t censor the comments. The whole “blog administration” thing seems heavy handed to me.

    I think the negative commentary on Islam is mostly wrong. I think it confuses contemporary culture in many Muslim-majority societies with the Islamic religion. They are not the same.

    To understand why not, consider Chrisianity, a more familiar topic to most of us. For a very long time (most of Christian history, in fact), the culture in Christian societies was terribly intolerant. You had things like burning “witches” at the stake in the name of Christ; the various Inquisitions, in which large numbers of non-Christians were terrorized by Christians; forced conversions; laws against Jews living in various countries — all Jews were expelled from Christian England, for example, in the late Middle Ages. The list of bad deeds done in the name of Christianity is endless.

    But that is not the Christian culture most of the world knows today. The culture in Western Europe and the Americas, all of which have Christian majorities and hence a culture eminating in many ways from that religion, is tolerant, liberal and respectful of other faiths (for the most part).

    In Islamic societies, none of that is the case. I think without exception (maybe Bosnia is an exception, and to a lesser extent Malaysia), Islamic societies are conservative, intolerant and disrespectful to non-Muslims. But just as with the Christianity of the Middle Ages, that is not a reflection of the Islamic faith or the Koran or even Islamic teaching. Rather, it is the current state of the culture in those backward societies.

    No one knows what will happen 100 years from now. But I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the cultures in today’s backward Muslim countries will change dramatically, and in all likelihood they’ll be modern and liberal (which I use in the sense of Locke and Jefferson, not Reid and Pelosi) and tolerant. They need to progress fast to catch up with the modern world. And I expect that they will. But no doubt, those cultures are terribly behind and seem bad to us.

    I would remind everyone about the Shinto religion, which was 75 years ago blamed for the visciousness of the Japanese culture. The Japanese were brutal and bellicose back then. And they were mostly practitioners of the Shinto faith.

    Well, they have been peaceful and friendly to all nations since they lost WW2, and they still are a Shinto country. Their culture simply changed with changing circumstances. Much like Christian culture has changed. And Islamic cultures will.

  212. “Compare the Bible and the Qu’ran side by side and you’ll see which one is the true religion of peace.”

    I read this thread a day late. It is on the one hand quite disturbing, but on the other one of the first which actually feels free-flowing. I’m glad Sharla Harrington didn’t censor the comments. The whole “blog administration” thing seems heavy handed to me.

    I think the negative commentary on Islam is mostly wrong. I think it confuses contemporary culture in many Muslim-majority societies with the Islamic religion. They are not the same.

    To understand why not, consider Chrisianity, a more familiar topic to most of us. For a very long time (most of Christian history, in fact), the culture in Christian societies was terribly intolerant. You had things like burning “witches” at the stake in the name of Christ; the various Inquisitions, in which large numbers of non-Christians were terrorized by Christians; forced conversions; laws against Jews living in various countries — all Jews were expelled from Christian England, for example, in the late Middle Ages. The list of bad deeds done in the name of Christianity is endless.

    But that is not the Christian culture most of the world knows today. The culture in Western Europe and the Americas, all of which have Christian majorities and hence a culture eminating in many ways from that religion, is tolerant, liberal and respectful of other faiths (for the most part).

    In Islamic societies, none of that is the case. I think without exception (maybe Bosnia is an exception, and to a lesser extent Malaysia), Islamic societies are conservative, intolerant and disrespectful to non-Muslims. But just as with the Christianity of the Middle Ages, that is not a reflection of the Islamic faith or the Koran or even Islamic teaching. Rather, it is the current state of the culture in those backward societies.

    No one knows what will happen 100 years from now. But I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the cultures in today’s backward Muslim countries will change dramatically, and in all likelihood they’ll be modern and liberal (which I use in the sense of Locke and Jefferson, not Reid and Pelosi) and tolerant. They need to progress fast to catch up with the modern world. And I expect that they will. But no doubt, those cultures are terribly behind and seem bad to us.

    I would remind everyone about the Shinto religion, which was 75 years ago blamed for the visciousness of the Japanese culture. The Japanese were brutal and bellicose back then. And they were mostly practitioners of the Shinto faith.

    Well, they have been peaceful and friendly to all nations since they lost WW2, and they still are a Shinto country. Their culture simply changed with changing circumstances. Much like Christian culture has changed. And Islamic cultures will.

  213. One parting thought on comparing Islam, Christianity and Judaism. I once heard the great Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, say this (paraphrasing):

    “Judaism is a balancing act as a religion. On the one hand it is a religion of laws and as such it is about ensuring justice. When people don’t follow the law, there is a punishment. But on the other hand, Judaism is also about a loving God and loving thy neighbor as thy self. At times, justice predominates; at other times, it is love. But the two are both forces in Judaism trying to achieve a balance.”

    “Christianity, on the other hand, is a religion which foresakes the law. The Christian ethos is to turn the other cheek. It is not at all a religion about justice. It is almost entirely about a loving God. In contrast with Judaism, Christianity is imbalanced, all to one side of the spectrum.”

    “And Islam, another step-child religion which sprang from Judaism, is just the opposite of Christianity. It is almost entirely about justice and the Islamic law, and very little about a loving God. So again, from the Jewish perspective, Islam is out of balance. It is all to the justice side of the equation.”

  214. One parting thought on comparing Islam, Christianity and Judaism. I once heard the great Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, say this (paraphrasing):

    “Judaism is a balancing act as a religion. On the one hand it is a religion of laws and as such it is about ensuring justice. When people don’t follow the law, there is a punishment. But on the other hand, Judaism is also about a loving God and loving thy neighbor as thy self. At times, justice predominates; at other times, it is love. But the two are both forces in Judaism trying to achieve a balance.”

    “Christianity, on the other hand, is a religion which foresakes the law. The Christian ethos is to turn the other cheek. It is not at all a religion about justice. It is almost entirely about a loving God. In contrast with Judaism, Christianity is imbalanced, all to one side of the spectrum.”

    “And Islam, another step-child religion which sprang from Judaism, is just the opposite of Christianity. It is almost entirely about justice and the Islamic law, and very little about a loving God. So again, from the Jewish perspective, Islam is out of balance. It is all to the justice side of the equation.”

  215. One parting thought on comparing Islam, Christianity and Judaism. I once heard the great Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, say this (paraphrasing):

    “Judaism is a balancing act as a religion. On the one hand it is a religion of laws and as such it is about ensuring justice. When people don’t follow the law, there is a punishment. But on the other hand, Judaism is also about a loving God and loving thy neighbor as thy self. At times, justice predominates; at other times, it is love. But the two are both forces in Judaism trying to achieve a balance.”

    “Christianity, on the other hand, is a religion which foresakes the law. The Christian ethos is to turn the other cheek. It is not at all a religion about justice. It is almost entirely about a loving God. In contrast with Judaism, Christianity is imbalanced, all to one side of the spectrum.”

    “And Islam, another step-child religion which sprang from Judaism, is just the opposite of Christianity. It is almost entirely about justice and the Islamic law, and very little about a loving God. So again, from the Jewish perspective, Islam is out of balance. It is all to the justice side of the equation.”

  216. One parting thought on comparing Islam, Christianity and Judaism. I once heard the great Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, say this (paraphrasing):

    “Judaism is a balancing act as a religion. On the one hand it is a religion of laws and as such it is about ensuring justice. When people don’t follow the law, there is a punishment. But on the other hand, Judaism is also about a loving God and loving thy neighbor as thy self. At times, justice predominates; at other times, it is love. But the two are both forces in Judaism trying to achieve a balance.”

    “Christianity, on the other hand, is a religion which foresakes the law. The Christian ethos is to turn the other cheek. It is not at all a religion about justice. It is almost entirely about a loving God. In contrast with Judaism, Christianity is imbalanced, all to one side of the spectrum.”

    “And Islam, another step-child religion which sprang from Judaism, is just the opposite of Christianity. It is almost entirely about justice and the Islamic law, and very little about a loving God. So again, from the Jewish perspective, Islam is out of balance. It is all to the justice side of the equation.”

  217. “…great Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine”

    One of the best”throw-away” lines from Woody Allen’s” Annie Hall” was that “Commentary had changed its name to Dysentery”, a typical Allen funny/very serious comment on Podoretz’s “conversion” from Jewish
    liberal thinker/writer to Jewish neo-conservative.

  218. “…great Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine”

    One of the best”throw-away” lines from Woody Allen’s” Annie Hall” was that “Commentary had changed its name to Dysentery”, a typical Allen funny/very serious comment on Podoretz’s “conversion” from Jewish
    liberal thinker/writer to Jewish neo-conservative.

  219. “…great Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine”

    One of the best”throw-away” lines from Woody Allen’s” Annie Hall” was that “Commentary had changed its name to Dysentery”, a typical Allen funny/very serious comment on Podoretz’s “conversion” from Jewish
    liberal thinker/writer to Jewish neo-conservative.

  220. “…great Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine”

    One of the best”throw-away” lines from Woody Allen’s” Annie Hall” was that “Commentary had changed its name to Dysentery”, a typical Allen funny/very serious comment on Podoretz’s “conversion” from Jewish
    liberal thinker/writer to Jewish neo-conservative.

  221. Podhoretz is really an amazing guy. It’s a bit incorrect (I believe) to say he was “a liberal.” I think it’s more accurate to say he was a radical left-winger. Nevertheless, you are right to note that he committed apostasy, foresaking the left and shifting far to the right. Along with a handful of other intellectuals, Podhoretz was the original “neo-conservative.”

    What is bizarre, but not without some foundation, is that people today who are right-wingers or other variations on the conservative theme, and have always been to the right of the American center, are called “neo-cons.” Dick Cheney, for example. He is not in the least a neo-con, as he was never anything but a conservative. The same is true of Rumsfeld and Rice and most of the rest of the GW Bush team. They are just conservatives or right-wingers, depending on which term you prefer.

    The reason, of course, why liberals mislabel some conservatives as “neo-cons” is because a small number of the right-wing intellectuals who first promoted the idea of a much more aggressive American foreign policy — doing things such as overthrowing a Middle Eastern dictator in order to transform his country into some kind of a democracy — were in fact neo-conservatives. And hence, all those other conservatives who agreed with this foreign policy adventurism (at least since the invasion of Iraq) are incorrectly called “neo-conservatives.”

    Ironically, a goodly number of actual neo-conservatives opposed this adventurism. (I read a 2002 article on their opposition to the PNAC Doctrine in Commentary, and it was signed by about 20 self-titled neo-cons.)

    All that said, political terms are always somewhat misleading and changing. What a liberal was when the term joined the American lexicon was largely a person who wanted limited power for the federal government and as few restrictions on free trade and business as possible. Today’s so-called liberals want a larger federal government and more restrictions on trade and business.

    Conservatives 150 years ago wanted to maintain the existing order of society. (In the South, that meant keeping slavery.) They opposed unfettered capitalism, because it upset the apple cart. They opposed merit-based advancements, and preferred using birth and connections as the way to judge people. But today, of course, most so-called conservatives are gung-ho about free market capitalism, about upsetting the apple cart, and they oppose preference systems (such as affirmative action) which judge people based on their birth status.

  222. Podhoretz is really an amazing guy. It’s a bit incorrect (I believe) to say he was “a liberal.” I think it’s more accurate to say he was a radical left-winger. Nevertheless, you are right to note that he committed apostasy, foresaking the left and shifting far to the right. Along with a handful of other intellectuals, Podhoretz was the original “neo-conservative.”

    What is bizarre, but not without some foundation, is that people today who are right-wingers or other variations on the conservative theme, and have always been to the right of the American center, are called “neo-cons.” Dick Cheney, for example. He is not in the least a neo-con, as he was never anything but a conservative. The same is true of Rumsfeld and Rice and most of the rest of the GW Bush team. They are just conservatives or right-wingers, depending on which term you prefer.

    The reason, of course, why liberals mislabel some conservatives as “neo-cons” is because a small number of the right-wing intellectuals who first promoted the idea of a much more aggressive American foreign policy — doing things such as overthrowing a Middle Eastern dictator in order to transform his country into some kind of a democracy — were in fact neo-conservatives. And hence, all those other conservatives who agreed with this foreign policy adventurism (at least since the invasion of Iraq) are incorrectly called “neo-conservatives.”

    Ironically, a goodly number of actual neo-conservatives opposed this adventurism. (I read a 2002 article on their opposition to the PNAC Doctrine in Commentary, and it was signed by about 20 self-titled neo-cons.)

    All that said, political terms are always somewhat misleading and changing. What a liberal was when the term joined the American lexicon was largely a person who wanted limited power for the federal government and as few restrictions on free trade and business as possible. Today’s so-called liberals want a larger federal government and more restrictions on trade and business.

    Conservatives 150 years ago wanted to maintain the existing order of society. (In the South, that meant keeping slavery.) They opposed unfettered capitalism, because it upset the apple cart. They opposed merit-based advancements, and preferred using birth and connections as the way to judge people. But today, of course, most so-called conservatives are gung-ho about free market capitalism, about upsetting the apple cart, and they oppose preference systems (such as affirmative action) which judge people based on their birth status.

  223. Podhoretz is really an amazing guy. It’s a bit incorrect (I believe) to say he was “a liberal.” I think it’s more accurate to say he was a radical left-winger. Nevertheless, you are right to note that he committed apostasy, foresaking the left and shifting far to the right. Along with a handful of other intellectuals, Podhoretz was the original “neo-conservative.”

    What is bizarre, but not without some foundation, is that people today who are right-wingers or other variations on the conservative theme, and have always been to the right of the American center, are called “neo-cons.” Dick Cheney, for example. He is not in the least a neo-con, as he was never anything but a conservative. The same is true of Rumsfeld and Rice and most of the rest of the GW Bush team. They are just conservatives or right-wingers, depending on which term you prefer.

    The reason, of course, why liberals mislabel some conservatives as “neo-cons” is because a small number of the right-wing intellectuals who first promoted the idea of a much more aggressive American foreign policy — doing things such as overthrowing a Middle Eastern dictator in order to transform his country into some kind of a democracy — were in fact neo-conservatives. And hence, all those other conservatives who agreed with this foreign policy adventurism (at least since the invasion of Iraq) are incorrectly called “neo-conservatives.”

    Ironically, a goodly number of actual neo-conservatives opposed this adventurism. (I read a 2002 article on their opposition to the PNAC Doctrine in Commentary, and it was signed by about 20 self-titled neo-cons.)

    All that said, political terms are always somewhat misleading and changing. What a liberal was when the term joined the American lexicon was largely a person who wanted limited power for the federal government and as few restrictions on free trade and business as possible. Today’s so-called liberals want a larger federal government and more restrictions on trade and business.

    Conservatives 150 years ago wanted to maintain the existing order of society. (In the South, that meant keeping slavery.) They opposed unfettered capitalism, because it upset the apple cart. They opposed merit-based advancements, and preferred using birth and connections as the way to judge people. But today, of course, most so-called conservatives are gung-ho about free market capitalism, about upsetting the apple cart, and they oppose preference systems (such as affirmative action) which judge people based on their birth status.

  224. Podhoretz is really an amazing guy. It’s a bit incorrect (I believe) to say he was “a liberal.” I think it’s more accurate to say he was a radical left-winger. Nevertheless, you are right to note that he committed apostasy, foresaking the left and shifting far to the right. Along with a handful of other intellectuals, Podhoretz was the original “neo-conservative.”

    What is bizarre, but not without some foundation, is that people today who are right-wingers or other variations on the conservative theme, and have always been to the right of the American center, are called “neo-cons.” Dick Cheney, for example. He is not in the least a neo-con, as he was never anything but a conservative. The same is true of Rumsfeld and Rice and most of the rest of the GW Bush team. They are just conservatives or right-wingers, depending on which term you prefer.

    The reason, of course, why liberals mislabel some conservatives as “neo-cons” is because a small number of the right-wing intellectuals who first promoted the idea of a much more aggressive American foreign policy — doing things such as overthrowing a Middle Eastern dictator in order to transform his country into some kind of a democracy — were in fact neo-conservatives. And hence, all those other conservatives who agreed with this foreign policy adventurism (at least since the invasion of Iraq) are incorrectly called “neo-conservatives.”

    Ironically, a goodly number of actual neo-conservatives opposed this adventurism. (I read a 2002 article on their opposition to the PNAC Doctrine in Commentary, and it was signed by about 20 self-titled neo-cons.)

    All that said, political terms are always somewhat misleading and changing. What a liberal was when the term joined the American lexicon was largely a person who wanted limited power for the federal government and as few restrictions on free trade and business as possible. Today’s so-called liberals want a larger federal government and more restrictions on trade and business.

    Conservatives 150 years ago wanted to maintain the existing order of society. (In the South, that meant keeping slavery.) They opposed unfettered capitalism, because it upset the apple cart. They opposed merit-based advancements, and preferred using birth and connections as the way to judge people. But today, of course, most so-called conservatives are gung-ho about free market capitalism, about upsetting the apple cart, and they oppose preference systems (such as affirmative action) which judge people based on their birth status.

  225. Rich Rifkin, you’re waaay off the mark if you think that Muslims are intolerant because of culture instead of religion. You couldn’t be farther from the truth on this. Please read a book on Islam authored by a non-Muslim why don’t you? Just compare what Mohammad said vs. what Jesus said at face value. Mohammad’s sayings were full of intolerance. Jesus’ saying were full of tolerance. Incidentally, I posted several examples of parallel scripture from the Qu’ran and Bible recently, but the dictators of this blog censored them. Now there’s some intolerance for you. I will repost if anyone is interested, though I’m sadly doubtful.

    Muslim intolerance is nearly ubiquitous across the globe. Here’s a partial list: Saudi Arabia, UK, Netherlands, Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Iran.

    I also reject your appeal to the brutality of early Christians and Jews. Muslims were at least as brutal if not more so, and the brutality continues to this day. You don’t hear about it because popular media withholds information ON PURPOSE. This is likely because oil-rich Muslims own a significant fraction of all media.

    Christianity and Judaism evolved over time and Islam has not. Let me reiterate- according to the Qu’ran, non-believers have 3 choices: 1) convert, 2) pay jiyza (dhimmitude), 3) die. Please direct me to similar stipulations in the Bible.

    I love how you announce that you’re a day late, and walk in like you’re some kind of authority on the subject. If you get your information from alphabet soup networks, then your apologist views are perfectly understandable.

    I also love how no one here has the capacity to hang with me on any of my factual arguments, whatsoever. It’s like no one has ever taken a research and bib class. I’m throughly disappointed, as I was under the impression that Davis was home to a high concentration of thinkers. It sounds like you’re a bunch of theorist sheeple to me.

  226. Rich Rifkin, you’re waaay off the mark if you think that Muslims are intolerant because of culture instead of religion. You couldn’t be farther from the truth on this. Please read a book on Islam authored by a non-Muslim why don’t you? Just compare what Mohammad said vs. what Jesus said at face value. Mohammad’s sayings were full of intolerance. Jesus’ saying were full of tolerance. Incidentally, I posted several examples of parallel scripture from the Qu’ran and Bible recently, but the dictators of this blog censored them. Now there’s some intolerance for you. I will repost if anyone is interested, though I’m sadly doubtful.

    Muslim intolerance is nearly ubiquitous across the globe. Here’s a partial list: Saudi Arabia, UK, Netherlands, Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Iran.

    I also reject your appeal to the brutality of early Christians and Jews. Muslims were at least as brutal if not more so, and the brutality continues to this day. You don’t hear about it because popular media withholds information ON PURPOSE. This is likely because oil-rich Muslims own a significant fraction of all media.

    Christianity and Judaism evolved over time and Islam has not. Let me reiterate- according to the Qu’ran, non-believers have 3 choices: 1) convert, 2) pay jiyza (dhimmitude), 3) die. Please direct me to similar stipulations in the Bible.

    I love how you announce that you’re a day late, and walk in like you’re some kind of authority on the subject. If you get your information from alphabet soup networks, then your apologist views are perfectly understandable.

    I also love how no one here has the capacity to hang with me on any of my factual arguments, whatsoever. It’s like no one has ever taken a research and bib class. I’m throughly disappointed, as I was under the impression that Davis was home to a high concentration of thinkers. It sounds like you’re a bunch of theorist sheeple to me.

  227. Rich Rifkin, you’re waaay off the mark if you think that Muslims are intolerant because of culture instead of religion. You couldn’t be farther from the truth on this. Please read a book on Islam authored by a non-Muslim why don’t you? Just compare what Mohammad said vs. what Jesus said at face value. Mohammad’s sayings were full of intolerance. Jesus’ saying were full of tolerance. Incidentally, I posted several examples of parallel scripture from the Qu’ran and Bible recently, but the dictators of this blog censored them. Now there’s some intolerance for you. I will repost if anyone is interested, though I’m sadly doubtful.

    Muslim intolerance is nearly ubiquitous across the globe. Here’s a partial list: Saudi Arabia, UK, Netherlands, Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Iran.

    I also reject your appeal to the brutality of early Christians and Jews. Muslims were at least as brutal if not more so, and the brutality continues to this day. You don’t hear about it because popular media withholds information ON PURPOSE. This is likely because oil-rich Muslims own a significant fraction of all media.

    Christianity and Judaism evolved over time and Islam has not. Let me reiterate- according to the Qu’ran, non-believers have 3 choices: 1) convert, 2) pay jiyza (dhimmitude), 3) die. Please direct me to similar stipulations in the Bible.

    I love how you announce that you’re a day late, and walk in like you’re some kind of authority on the subject. If you get your information from alphabet soup networks, then your apologist views are perfectly understandable.

    I also love how no one here has the capacity to hang with me on any of my factual arguments, whatsoever. It’s like no one has ever taken a research and bib class. I’m throughly disappointed, as I was under the impression that Davis was home to a high concentration of thinkers. It sounds like you’re a bunch of theorist sheeple to me.

  228. Rich Rifkin, you’re waaay off the mark if you think that Muslims are intolerant because of culture instead of religion. You couldn’t be farther from the truth on this. Please read a book on Islam authored by a non-Muslim why don’t you? Just compare what Mohammad said vs. what Jesus said at face value. Mohammad’s sayings were full of intolerance. Jesus’ saying were full of tolerance. Incidentally, I posted several examples of parallel scripture from the Qu’ran and Bible recently, but the dictators of this blog censored them. Now there’s some intolerance for you. I will repost if anyone is interested, though I’m sadly doubtful.

    Muslim intolerance is nearly ubiquitous across the globe. Here’s a partial list: Saudi Arabia, UK, Netherlands, Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Iran.

    I also reject your appeal to the brutality of early Christians and Jews. Muslims were at least as brutal if not more so, and the brutality continues to this day. You don’t hear about it because popular media withholds information ON PURPOSE. This is likely because oil-rich Muslims own a significant fraction of all media.

    Christianity and Judaism evolved over time and Islam has not. Let me reiterate- according to the Qu’ran, non-believers have 3 choices: 1) convert, 2) pay jiyza (dhimmitude), 3) die. Please direct me to similar stipulations in the Bible.

    I love how you announce that you’re a day late, and walk in like you’re some kind of authority on the subject. If you get your information from alphabet soup networks, then your apologist views are perfectly understandable.

    I also love how no one here has the capacity to hang with me on any of my factual arguments, whatsoever. It’s like no one has ever taken a research and bib class. I’m throughly disappointed, as I was under the impression that Davis was home to a high concentration of thinkers. It sounds like you’re a bunch of theorist sheeple to me.

  229. Duarte,

    I enjoy a good debate, as long as my opponent is polite and doesn’t make ad hominem attacks and appeals to reason rather than to prejudice. So, with that admonition, I’ll weigh in on your latest post:

    “Just compare what Mohammad said vs. what Jesus said at face value. Mohammad’s sayings were full of intolerance. Jesus’ saying were full of tolerance.”

    I don’t disagree with that, as a general proposition. Yet, this question is beyond my expertise and probably beyond yours. What I paraphrased from Norman Podhoretz stands as my answer, though I admit that I don’t have enough of a scholarly education in comparitive religion — surely reading a book or two on the subject is insufficient — to adequately address this large of a subject. So to repeat, Christianity and Islam are, as you suggest, different religions. The principle message of Jesus is one of a loving God (though not a “tolerant” one — he certainly didn’t tolerate “the money changers,” for example, or divorce or a large number of other things), while the focus of the Islamic faith is about obeying and living by the laws of God. The former is more feminine in nature; the latter more masculine.

    “Muslim intolerance is nearly ubiquitous across the globe.”

    The easiest way to understand how this is more about contemporary culture than it is about the tenets of a faith, compare Christian “tolerance” in Medieval England with Muslim “tolerance” in modern Bosnia. In the former, heretics were routinely burned at the stake. Every single Jew was forced at the threat of immolation to either convert to Christianity and renounce the Jewish faith or to pick up and leave the Britain immediately, without any of his property or be killed. By contrast, if you go to Sarajevo or any Muslim village in Bosnia today, you will find an open, friendly, tolerant culture. Essentially the same level of tolerance of people of other faiths and cultures as you will find in the Muslim community in places like Davis.

    If that comparison seems unfair and too distant in time, then just compare the behavior (culture is too large of a term here) of the Orthodox Christian Serbs in the wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia less than a decade ago. The Orthodox Christians were brutal and viscious and intolerant of their Muslim and Roman Catholic neighbors. The Catholics of Croatia behaved nearly as badly, nearly as brutally. But the Muslims, involved in the same wars, were far more civilized and remained far more tolerant of the minorities who lived among them.

    The Muslim behavior was not more tolerant and civilized than their Christian neighbors in Yugoslavia because of their faith; and the Christian behavior was not so brutal because of theirs. It was the culture of the time in each case. And cultures change. The Christian world, which was so brutal and intolerant for 1500 years has now transformed. The Muslim world is mostly behind and backwards. But eventually, the Muslim world will change, just as the Christian world had to.

    “I also reject your appeal to the brutality of early Christians and Jews. Muslims were at least as brutal if not more so, and the brutality continues to this day.”

    It was not “early Christians.” Even if you absolve Christianity of the crimes of the Nazis — despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians — Christian brutality extended well into modern times. It began at the time of Constantine and lasted more than 1600 years. If you think it is the inherent nature of Christians to be tolerant, then consider the intra-Christian religious violence which until very recently marred Ulster. A few years ago, a friend of mine (who happens to be an Irish-Catholic-American) was only four blocks away from an IRA bombing of a Protestant elementary school, in which 23 children were killed.

    “You don’t hear about it because popular media withholds information ON PURPOSE. This is likely because oil-rich Muslims own a significant fraction of all media.”

    This is unbelievably crazy. It parallels the “Jews control the media” craziness, which incidentally is widely believed among Muslim anti-Semites*. If you hope to appeal to reason, Duarte, I suggest you not make such prejudiced and irrational claims.

    “Christianity and Judaism evolved over time and Islam has not.”

    To a degree, this is true. But that simply confirms what I have been saying: that the transformations are cultural, more than religious, and they reflect economic advancement in the West. Most Muslims who live in advanced countries, such as in the United States, are culturally indistinguishable from non-Muslims. But there are some Muslims who carry the cultural baggage of the countries they came from — and those people can be as backward as the places they came from.

    “Let me reiterate- according to the Qu’ran, non-believers have 3 choices: 1) convert, 2) pay jiyza (dhimmitude), 3) die. Please direct me to similar stipulations in the Bible.”

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    As far as paying higher taxes for non-Christians go, you surely know that this was the practice in all of Christian Europe for more than 1,000 years. Jews were always forced to pay these taxes. When Jews were run out of Spain and Portugal due to the infamous Christian Inquisition, one of the reason many of them fled to Turkey was because Muslim Turkey was far more tolerant of Jews than any Christian country, and because the taxes that Jews had to pay in order to live as Jews in Turkey were far lower than they were in Christian Europe. And speaking of the Inquisition and other Crusades against Jews (and other, now non-existant minority religions in Europe), it was those events which caused a significant percentage of Jews to convert to Christianity, or at least to pretend that they were Christian converts. Such was the level of “tolerance” in those times.

    “If you get your information from alphabet soup networks, then your apologist views are perfectly understandable.”

    I have a broad, liberal and advanced academic education. I’m not relying on “a network” for my scholarship.

    * One bit of evidence of how cultures change is with the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism in the last 50 years. Public opinion polls in the 1950s revealed far more Jew-hatred among Christians around the world than among Muslims. That is not to say that there was not widespread prejudice in the Arab world, even back then, against Jews. There was. But it is far worse today. The culture has changed. In this respect, it is far worse. If and when the Palestinians decide to make peace with Israel, I am quite certain that the status quo ante will return. Ordinary Muslims in places like Malaysia and Ghana will be far less attracted to anti-Semitic grandstanding than they are today. But because of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and because of demagogues spreading this message, Islamic anti-Semitism is at an all time high.

  230. Duarte,

    I enjoy a good debate, as long as my opponent is polite and doesn’t make ad hominem attacks and appeals to reason rather than to prejudice. So, with that admonition, I’ll weigh in on your latest post:

    “Just compare what Mohammad said vs. what Jesus said at face value. Mohammad’s sayings were full of intolerance. Jesus’ saying were full of tolerance.”

    I don’t disagree with that, as a general proposition. Yet, this question is beyond my expertise and probably beyond yours. What I paraphrased from Norman Podhoretz stands as my answer, though I admit that I don’t have enough of a scholarly education in comparitive religion — surely reading a book or two on the subject is insufficient — to adequately address this large of a subject. So to repeat, Christianity and Islam are, as you suggest, different religions. The principle message of Jesus is one of a loving God (though not a “tolerant” one — he certainly didn’t tolerate “the money changers,” for example, or divorce or a large number of other things), while the focus of the Islamic faith is about obeying and living by the laws of God. The former is more feminine in nature; the latter more masculine.

    “Muslim intolerance is nearly ubiquitous across the globe.”

    The easiest way to understand how this is more about contemporary culture than it is about the tenets of a faith, compare Christian “tolerance” in Medieval England with Muslim “tolerance” in modern Bosnia. In the former, heretics were routinely burned at the stake. Every single Jew was forced at the threat of immolation to either convert to Christianity and renounce the Jewish faith or to pick up and leave the Britain immediately, without any of his property or be killed. By contrast, if you go to Sarajevo or any Muslim village in Bosnia today, you will find an open, friendly, tolerant culture. Essentially the same level of tolerance of people of other faiths and cultures as you will find in the Muslim community in places like Davis.

    If that comparison seems unfair and too distant in time, then just compare the behavior (culture is too large of a term here) of the Orthodox Christian Serbs in the wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia less than a decade ago. The Orthodox Christians were brutal and viscious and intolerant of their Muslim and Roman Catholic neighbors. The Catholics of Croatia behaved nearly as badly, nearly as brutally. But the Muslims, involved in the same wars, were far more civilized and remained far more tolerant of the minorities who lived among them.

    The Muslim behavior was not more tolerant and civilized than their Christian neighbors in Yugoslavia because of their faith; and the Christian behavior was not so brutal because of theirs. It was the culture of the time in each case. And cultures change. The Christian world, which was so brutal and intolerant for 1500 years has now transformed. The Muslim world is mostly behind and backwards. But eventually, the Muslim world will change, just as the Christian world had to.

    “I also reject your appeal to the brutality of early Christians and Jews. Muslims were at least as brutal if not more so, and the brutality continues to this day.”

    It was not “early Christians.” Even if you absolve Christianity of the crimes of the Nazis — despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians — Christian brutality extended well into modern times. It began at the time of Constantine and lasted more than 1600 years. If you think it is the inherent nature of Christians to be tolerant, then consider the intra-Christian religious violence which until very recently marred Ulster. A few years ago, a friend of mine (who happens to be an Irish-Catholic-American) was only four blocks away from an IRA bombing of a Protestant elementary school, in which 23 children were killed.

    “You don’t hear about it because popular media withholds information ON PURPOSE. This is likely because oil-rich Muslims own a significant fraction of all media.”

    This is unbelievably crazy. It parallels the “Jews control the media” craziness, which incidentally is widely believed among Muslim anti-Semites*. If you hope to appeal to reason, Duarte, I suggest you not make such prejudiced and irrational claims.

    “Christianity and Judaism evolved over time and Islam has not.”

    To a degree, this is true. But that simply confirms what I have been saying: that the transformations are cultural, more than religious, and they reflect economic advancement in the West. Most Muslims who live in advanced countries, such as in the United States, are culturally indistinguishable from non-Muslims. But there are some Muslims who carry the cultural baggage of the countries they came from — and those people can be as backward as the places they came from.

    “Let me reiterate- according to the Qu’ran, non-believers have 3 choices: 1) convert, 2) pay jiyza (dhimmitude), 3) die. Please direct me to similar stipulations in the Bible.”

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    As far as paying higher taxes for non-Christians go, you surely know that this was the practice in all of Christian Europe for more than 1,000 years. Jews were always forced to pay these taxes. When Jews were run out of Spain and Portugal due to the infamous Christian Inquisition, one of the reason many of them fled to Turkey was because Muslim Turkey was far more tolerant of Jews than any Christian country, and because the taxes that Jews had to pay in order to live as Jews in Turkey were far lower than they were in Christian Europe. And speaking of the Inquisition and other Crusades against Jews (and other, now non-existant minority religions in Europe), it was those events which caused a significant percentage of Jews to convert to Christianity, or at least to pretend that they were Christian converts. Such was the level of “tolerance” in those times.

    “If you get your information from alphabet soup networks, then your apologist views are perfectly understandable.”

    I have a broad, liberal and advanced academic education. I’m not relying on “a network” for my scholarship.

    * One bit of evidence of how cultures change is with the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism in the last 50 years. Public opinion polls in the 1950s revealed far more Jew-hatred among Christians around the world than among Muslims. That is not to say that there was not widespread prejudice in the Arab world, even back then, against Jews. There was. But it is far worse today. The culture has changed. In this respect, it is far worse. If and when the Palestinians decide to make peace with Israel, I am quite certain that the status quo ante will return. Ordinary Muslims in places like Malaysia and Ghana will be far less attracted to anti-Semitic grandstanding than they are today. But because of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and because of demagogues spreading this message, Islamic anti-Semitism is at an all time high.

  231. Duarte,

    I enjoy a good debate, as long as my opponent is polite and doesn’t make ad hominem attacks and appeals to reason rather than to prejudice. So, with that admonition, I’ll weigh in on your latest post:

    “Just compare what Mohammad said vs. what Jesus said at face value. Mohammad’s sayings were full of intolerance. Jesus’ saying were full of tolerance.”

    I don’t disagree with that, as a general proposition. Yet, this question is beyond my expertise and probably beyond yours. What I paraphrased from Norman Podhoretz stands as my answer, though I admit that I don’t have enough of a scholarly education in comparitive religion — surely reading a book or two on the subject is insufficient — to adequately address this large of a subject. So to repeat, Christianity and Islam are, as you suggest, different religions. The principle message of Jesus is one of a loving God (though not a “tolerant” one — he certainly didn’t tolerate “the money changers,” for example, or divorce or a large number of other things), while the focus of the Islamic faith is about obeying and living by the laws of God. The former is more feminine in nature; the latter more masculine.

    “Muslim intolerance is nearly ubiquitous across the globe.”

    The easiest way to understand how this is more about contemporary culture than it is about the tenets of a faith, compare Christian “tolerance” in Medieval England with Muslim “tolerance” in modern Bosnia. In the former, heretics were routinely burned at the stake. Every single Jew was forced at the threat of immolation to either convert to Christianity and renounce the Jewish faith or to pick up and leave the Britain immediately, without any of his property or be killed. By contrast, if you go to Sarajevo or any Muslim village in Bosnia today, you will find an open, friendly, tolerant culture. Essentially the same level of tolerance of people of other faiths and cultures as you will find in the Muslim community in places like Davis.

    If that comparison seems unfair and too distant in time, then just compare the behavior (culture is too large of a term here) of the Orthodox Christian Serbs in the wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia less than a decade ago. The Orthodox Christians were brutal and viscious and intolerant of their Muslim and Roman Catholic neighbors. The Catholics of Croatia behaved nearly as badly, nearly as brutally. But the Muslims, involved in the same wars, were far more civilized and remained far more tolerant of the minorities who lived among them.

    The Muslim behavior was not more tolerant and civilized than their Christian neighbors in Yugoslavia because of their faith; and the Christian behavior was not so brutal because of theirs. It was the culture of the time in each case. And cultures change. The Christian world, which was so brutal and intolerant for 1500 years has now transformed. The Muslim world is mostly behind and backwards. But eventually, the Muslim world will change, just as the Christian world had to.

    “I also reject your appeal to the brutality of early Christians and Jews. Muslims were at least as brutal if not more so, and the brutality continues to this day.”

    It was not “early Christians.” Even if you absolve Christianity of the crimes of the Nazis — despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians — Christian brutality extended well into modern times. It began at the time of Constantine and lasted more than 1600 years. If you think it is the inherent nature of Christians to be tolerant, then consider the intra-Christian religious violence which until very recently marred Ulster. A few years ago, a friend of mine (who happens to be an Irish-Catholic-American) was only four blocks away from an IRA bombing of a Protestant elementary school, in which 23 children were killed.

    “You don’t hear about it because popular media withholds information ON PURPOSE. This is likely because oil-rich Muslims own a significant fraction of all media.”

    This is unbelievably crazy. It parallels the “Jews control the media” craziness, which incidentally is widely believed among Muslim anti-Semites*. If you hope to appeal to reason, Duarte, I suggest you not make such prejudiced and irrational claims.

    “Christianity and Judaism evolved over time and Islam has not.”

    To a degree, this is true. But that simply confirms what I have been saying: that the transformations are cultural, more than religious, and they reflect economic advancement in the West. Most Muslims who live in advanced countries, such as in the United States, are culturally indistinguishable from non-Muslims. But there are some Muslims who carry the cultural baggage of the countries they came from — and those people can be as backward as the places they came from.

    “Let me reiterate- according to the Qu’ran, non-believers have 3 choices: 1) convert, 2) pay jiyza (dhimmitude), 3) die. Please direct me to similar stipulations in the Bible.”

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    As far as paying higher taxes for non-Christians go, you surely know that this was the practice in all of Christian Europe for more than 1,000 years. Jews were always forced to pay these taxes. When Jews were run out of Spain and Portugal due to the infamous Christian Inquisition, one of the reason many of them fled to Turkey was because Muslim Turkey was far more tolerant of Jews than any Christian country, and because the taxes that Jews had to pay in order to live as Jews in Turkey were far lower than they were in Christian Europe. And speaking of the Inquisition and other Crusades against Jews (and other, now non-existant minority religions in Europe), it was those events which caused a significant percentage of Jews to convert to Christianity, or at least to pretend that they were Christian converts. Such was the level of “tolerance” in those times.

    “If you get your information from alphabet soup networks, then your apologist views are perfectly understandable.”

    I have a broad, liberal and advanced academic education. I’m not relying on “a network” for my scholarship.

    * One bit of evidence of how cultures change is with the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism in the last 50 years. Public opinion polls in the 1950s revealed far more Jew-hatred among Christians around the world than among Muslims. That is not to say that there was not widespread prejudice in the Arab world, even back then, against Jews. There was. But it is far worse today. The culture has changed. In this respect, it is far worse. If and when the Palestinians decide to make peace with Israel, I am quite certain that the status quo ante will return. Ordinary Muslims in places like Malaysia and Ghana will be far less attracted to anti-Semitic grandstanding than they are today. But because of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and because of demagogues spreading this message, Islamic anti-Semitism is at an all time high.

  232. Duarte,

    I enjoy a good debate, as long as my opponent is polite and doesn’t make ad hominem attacks and appeals to reason rather than to prejudice. So, with that admonition, I’ll weigh in on your latest post:

    “Just compare what Mohammad said vs. what Jesus said at face value. Mohammad’s sayings were full of intolerance. Jesus’ saying were full of tolerance.”

    I don’t disagree with that, as a general proposition. Yet, this question is beyond my expertise and probably beyond yours. What I paraphrased from Norman Podhoretz stands as my answer, though I admit that I don’t have enough of a scholarly education in comparitive religion — surely reading a book or two on the subject is insufficient — to adequately address this large of a subject. So to repeat, Christianity and Islam are, as you suggest, different religions. The principle message of Jesus is one of a loving God (though not a “tolerant” one — he certainly didn’t tolerate “the money changers,” for example, or divorce or a large number of other things), while the focus of the Islamic faith is about obeying and living by the laws of God. The former is more feminine in nature; the latter more masculine.

    “Muslim intolerance is nearly ubiquitous across the globe.”

    The easiest way to understand how this is more about contemporary culture than it is about the tenets of a faith, compare Christian “tolerance” in Medieval England with Muslim “tolerance” in modern Bosnia. In the former, heretics were routinely burned at the stake. Every single Jew was forced at the threat of immolation to either convert to Christianity and renounce the Jewish faith or to pick up and leave the Britain immediately, without any of his property or be killed. By contrast, if you go to Sarajevo or any Muslim village in Bosnia today, you will find an open, friendly, tolerant culture. Essentially the same level of tolerance of people of other faiths and cultures as you will find in the Muslim community in places like Davis.

    If that comparison seems unfair and too distant in time, then just compare the behavior (culture is too large of a term here) of the Orthodox Christian Serbs in the wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia less than a decade ago. The Orthodox Christians were brutal and viscious and intolerant of their Muslim and Roman Catholic neighbors. The Catholics of Croatia behaved nearly as badly, nearly as brutally. But the Muslims, involved in the same wars, were far more civilized and remained far more tolerant of the minorities who lived among them.

    The Muslim behavior was not more tolerant and civilized than their Christian neighbors in Yugoslavia because of their faith; and the Christian behavior was not so brutal because of theirs. It was the culture of the time in each case. And cultures change. The Christian world, which was so brutal and intolerant for 1500 years has now transformed. The Muslim world is mostly behind and backwards. But eventually, the Muslim world will change, just as the Christian world had to.

    “I also reject your appeal to the brutality of early Christians and Jews. Muslims were at least as brutal if not more so, and the brutality continues to this day.”

    It was not “early Christians.” Even if you absolve Christianity of the crimes of the Nazis — despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians — Christian brutality extended well into modern times. It began at the time of Constantine and lasted more than 1600 years. If you think it is the inherent nature of Christians to be tolerant, then consider the intra-Christian religious violence which until very recently marred Ulster. A few years ago, a friend of mine (who happens to be an Irish-Catholic-American) was only four blocks away from an IRA bombing of a Protestant elementary school, in which 23 children were killed.

    “You don’t hear about it because popular media withholds information ON PURPOSE. This is likely because oil-rich Muslims own a significant fraction of all media.”

    This is unbelievably crazy. It parallels the “Jews control the media” craziness, which incidentally is widely believed among Muslim anti-Semites*. If you hope to appeal to reason, Duarte, I suggest you not make such prejudiced and irrational claims.

    “Christianity and Judaism evolved over time and Islam has not.”

    To a degree, this is true. But that simply confirms what I have been saying: that the transformations are cultural, more than religious, and they reflect economic advancement in the West. Most Muslims who live in advanced countries, such as in the United States, are culturally indistinguishable from non-Muslims. But there are some Muslims who carry the cultural baggage of the countries they came from — and those people can be as backward as the places they came from.

    “Let me reiterate- according to the Qu’ran, non-believers have 3 choices: 1) convert, 2) pay jiyza (dhimmitude), 3) die. Please direct me to similar stipulations in the Bible.”

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    As far as paying higher taxes for non-Christians go, you surely know that this was the practice in all of Christian Europe for more than 1,000 years. Jews were always forced to pay these taxes. When Jews were run out of Spain and Portugal due to the infamous Christian Inquisition, one of the reason many of them fled to Turkey was because Muslim Turkey was far more tolerant of Jews than any Christian country, and because the taxes that Jews had to pay in order to live as Jews in Turkey were far lower than they were in Christian Europe. And speaking of the Inquisition and other Crusades against Jews (and other, now non-existant minority religions in Europe), it was those events which caused a significant percentage of Jews to convert to Christianity, or at least to pretend that they were Christian converts. Such was the level of “tolerance” in those times.

    “If you get your information from alphabet soup networks, then your apologist views are perfectly understandable.”

    I have a broad, liberal and advanced academic education. I’m not relying on “a network” for my scholarship.

    * One bit of evidence of how cultures change is with the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism in the last 50 years. Public opinion polls in the 1950s revealed far more Jew-hatred among Christians around the world than among Muslims. That is not to say that there was not widespread prejudice in the Arab world, even back then, against Jews. There was. But it is far worse today. The culture has changed. In this respect, it is far worse. If and when the Palestinians decide to make peace with Israel, I am quite certain that the status quo ante will return. Ordinary Muslims in places like Malaysia and Ghana will be far less attracted to anti-Semitic grandstanding than they are today. But because of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and because of demagogues spreading this message, Islamic anti-Semitism is at an all time high.

  233. despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians

    Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the Nazi’s. Nazi’s were anti-Christian. If there’s any relation, it’s that they manipulated Christianity for their own evil purposes, calling for “All German Christianity”, manipulating the symbolism (swastika-cross), etc. They closed Catholic churches. They worshiped the Aryan race. Hitler demoralized his people with rampant sex parties and indiscriminate murder of both Christians and Jews. In fact, many Christians died at the hands of Nazi Germans for helping Jews. Some estimate that as many as 3 million died.

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    Oh, you think that you’re so clever. Let me see, I’m missing the parallel between physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist and the deterrent/belief of damnation to an eternity of Hell for disobeying 10 simple commandments, aka. sins. There’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about taxing non-believers or even that non-believers were subject to the same strict adherence as believers.

    I’ll finish this later.

  234. despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians

    Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the Nazi’s. Nazi’s were anti-Christian. If there’s any relation, it’s that they manipulated Christianity for their own evil purposes, calling for “All German Christianity”, manipulating the symbolism (swastika-cross), etc. They closed Catholic churches. They worshiped the Aryan race. Hitler demoralized his people with rampant sex parties and indiscriminate murder of both Christians and Jews. In fact, many Christians died at the hands of Nazi Germans for helping Jews. Some estimate that as many as 3 million died.

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    Oh, you think that you’re so clever. Let me see, I’m missing the parallel between physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist and the deterrent/belief of damnation to an eternity of Hell for disobeying 10 simple commandments, aka. sins. There’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about taxing non-believers or even that non-believers were subject to the same strict adherence as believers.

    I’ll finish this later.

  235. despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians

    Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the Nazi’s. Nazi’s were anti-Christian. If there’s any relation, it’s that they manipulated Christianity for their own evil purposes, calling for “All German Christianity”, manipulating the symbolism (swastika-cross), etc. They closed Catholic churches. They worshiped the Aryan race. Hitler demoralized his people with rampant sex parties and indiscriminate murder of both Christians and Jews. In fact, many Christians died at the hands of Nazi Germans for helping Jews. Some estimate that as many as 3 million died.

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    Oh, you think that you’re so clever. Let me see, I’m missing the parallel between physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist and the deterrent/belief of damnation to an eternity of Hell for disobeying 10 simple commandments, aka. sins. There’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about taxing non-believers or even that non-believers were subject to the same strict adherence as believers.

    I’ll finish this later.

  236. despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians

    Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the Nazi’s. Nazi’s were anti-Christian. If there’s any relation, it’s that they manipulated Christianity for their own evil purposes, calling for “All German Christianity”, manipulating the symbolism (swastika-cross), etc. They closed Catholic churches. They worshiped the Aryan race. Hitler demoralized his people with rampant sex parties and indiscriminate murder of both Christians and Jews. In fact, many Christians died at the hands of Nazi Germans for helping Jews. Some estimate that as many as 3 million died.

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    Oh, you think that you’re so clever. Let me see, I’m missing the parallel between physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist and the deterrent/belief of damnation to an eternity of Hell for disobeying 10 simple commandments, aka. sins. There’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about taxing non-believers or even that non-believers were subject to the same strict adherence as believers.

    I’ll finish this later.

  241. despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians

    “Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the Nazi’s. Nazi’s were anti-Christian. If there’s any relation, it’s that they manipulated Christianity for their own evil purposes, calling for “All German Christianity”, manipulating the symbolism (swastika-cross), etc. They closed Catholic churches. They worshiped the Aryan race. Hitler demoralized his people with rampant sex parties and indiscriminate murder of both Christians and Jews. In fact, many Christians died at the hands of Nazi Germans for helping Jews. Some estimate that as many as 3 million died.”

    Duarte, you have confused two very different things here. I said specifically that the people (Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians, Austrians, French, et cetera) who bloodied their hands in the crimes of the Nazi regime were Christians. Perhaps 99% of them. I did not say that Naziism was a Christian phenomenon. Nor were many of the main leaders of the Nazi Party Christians. (Of course, a goodly number of Nazi Party officials were practicing Christians, despite the dogma of the Nazi Party.) The Holocaust and its related crimes were not carried out by a small cadre of Nazi Party activists. It was the product of (to use Daniel Goldhagen’s phrase) “Ordinary Germans.” As you should know, only a small percentage of the 5.5 million innocent Jews who were annihilated were killed in death camps. The vast majority were murdered by German soldiers with handguns and rifles. The German Army, as it made its way east into Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine (where most of Europe’s Jews lived, then), asked ordinary people — all of whom were Christians, of course — to tell them who the Jews were and where they were hiding. Some brave Christians, of course, would not go along with the Germans and they sometimes actively protected the Jews. But the vast majority were terribly anti-Semitic and wanted the Jews killed. So they pointed, “He’s a Jew; She’s a Jew; He is,” etc. And the Germans (or Austrians or Hungarians, etc.) simply rounded up the village of Jews and killed them with handguns and rifles. That was how most of the Holocaust took place. It wasn’t sophisticated. It was just slaughter on a very large scale with a malicious purpose in mind. Much like ordinary Hutus (led by Catholic priests in many cases, by the way) set out to slaughter ordinary Tutsis (who are also Catholic Christians), not so long ago in Rwanda.

    For you or anyone else to wash the hands of the ordinary Christian Europeans of their crimes in the Holocaust and say “it was just the Nazis” and “the Nazis were anti-Christian” is ridiculous, ignorant and counterfactual. It is nonetheless true that almost all of the heroes of those times, the people who put their lives on the line to save Jews and Gypsies and other victims of Nazi ideology, were Christians. But they were quite rare. You could never have had such horrific crimes in countries where 90% or more of the people were church-going Christians, if it were the case that Christians were not going along with the crimes. Many of them went along just fine with those crimes. And most of the rest just watched and did nothing to stop them.

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    Oh, you think that you’re so clever.

    Regardless of the regard I have for my own intellect, I requested up front that if you debate me, you debate the facts and not make (snide) ad hominem remarks. So if you want this exchange to continue, stop with attacking me personally.

    “Let me see, I’m missing the parallel between physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist and the deterrent/belief of damnation to an eternity of Hell for disobeying 10 simple commandments, aka. sins.

    That is quite a misrepresentation of Islamic practice and of Christian belief.

    First, non-Muslims have lived since the 600s as minorities in Islamic majority countries and have never faced “physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist.” If you think that is some kind of Muslim tenet, then how do you explain the Coptic Christians of Egypt, who have lived peacefully with the vast majority of Muslim Egyptians for well over 1,000 years? There are countless other examples which parallel the experience of the Copts.

    Nonetheless, it is the case that in today’s cultural climate, in which many Muslims are attracted to a fanatical radicalism — called Islamism — that minority believers (and even moderate Muslims) are endangered by this ideology. But that is not a reflection of Islam as a faith. It is a reflection of the extremism within Islam which is currently so prominent and so dangerous. And because it is so new — really spreading since the 1979 Iranian revolution — it is easy to see it is cultural, not religious.

    Of course, you can point to Wahabiism, which itself was a cultural reaction to the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century. That is a fanatical form of Islam, and it is spreading. But it is not Islam per se. It is just a cultural expression of Islam, one which is reactionary and backwards.

    And second, most Christians believe that in order to go to heaven, one must accept “Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.” Even if they violate the Decalogue, even if they live a life outside of the law, a simple affirmation of their faith in Jesus will get them into heaven. At the same time, most Christians believe that anyone who rejects “Jesus as Christ” will go to Hell, even if such a person abides by all 10 Commandments and lives a good and decent life. So a man such as the Dalai Lama would go to Hell. But (if he accepted Christ before he was executed) a man such as Timothy McVeigh would forever go to Heaven. You might have a different interpretation of Christian teaching, but I believe that most Christians understand their religion as I have explicated it.

    “There’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about taxing non-believers or even that non-believers were subject to the same strict adherence as believers.”

    Did I say it was in the Christian Bible? No. I said it was historically the case that non-Christians living in Christian countries in Europe, when they were not expelled or killed for being non-Christians, were subject to special higher taxes, designed to raise revenues and discourage people from continuing to practice religions such as Judaism. It also should be noted that for much of that history, anyone who was born a Christian would be executed by the Church if he committed apostasy. Nevertheless, in the hinterlands of Europe, thousands and thousands of Christians did convert to Judaism at various times, just as Jews converted to Christianity, some willingly.

    And regardless of what the Koran dictates, in modern (or semi-modern) Muslim countries today, non-Muslims do not have to pay any special taxes in order to avoid being killed. That is obviously a backward practice, one that no modern nation would employ.

  242. despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians

    “Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the Nazi’s. Nazi’s were anti-Christian. If there’s any relation, it’s that they manipulated Christianity for their own evil purposes, calling for “All German Christianity”, manipulating the symbolism (swastika-cross), etc. They closed Catholic churches. They worshiped the Aryan race. Hitler demoralized his people with rampant sex parties and indiscriminate murder of both Christians and Jews. In fact, many Christians died at the hands of Nazi Germans for helping Jews. Some estimate that as many as 3 million died.”

    Duarte, you have confused two very different things here. I said specifically that the people (Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians, Austrians, French, et cetera) who bloodied their hands in the crimes of the Nazi regime were Christians. Perhaps 99% of them. I did not say that Naziism was a Christian phenomenon. Nor were many of the main leaders of the Nazi Party Christians. (Of course, a goodly number of Nazi Party officials were practicing Christians, despite the dogma of the Nazi Party.) The Holocaust and its related crimes were not carried out by a small cadre of Nazi Party activists. It was the product of (to use Daniel Goldhagen’s phrase) “Ordinary Germans.” As you should know, only a small percentage of the 5.5 million innocent Jews who were annihilated were killed in death camps. The vast majority were murdered by German soldiers with handguns and rifles. The German Army, as it made its way east into Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine (where most of Europe’s Jews lived, then), asked ordinary people — all of whom were Christians, of course — to tell them who the Jews were and where they were hiding. Some brave Christians, of course, would not go along with the Germans and they sometimes actively protected the Jews. But the vast majority were terribly anti-Semitic and wanted the Jews killed. So they pointed, “He’s a Jew; She’s a Jew; He is,” etc. And the Germans (or Austrians or Hungarians, etc.) simply rounded up the village of Jews and killed them with handguns and rifles. That was how most of the Holocaust took place. It wasn’t sophisticated. It was just slaughter on a very large scale with a malicious purpose in mind. Much like ordinary Hutus (led by Catholic priests in many cases, by the way) set out to slaughter ordinary Tutsis (who are also Catholic Christians), not so long ago in Rwanda.

    For you or anyone else to wash the hands of the ordinary Christian Europeans of their crimes in the Holocaust and say “it was just the Nazis” and “the Nazis were anti-Christian” is ridiculous, ignorant and counterfactual. It is nonetheless true that almost all of the heroes of those times, the people who put their lives on the line to save Jews and Gypsies and other victims of Nazi ideology, were Christians. But they were quite rare. You could never have had such horrific crimes in countries where 90% or more of the people were church-going Christians, if it were the case that Christians were not going along with the crimes. Many of them went along just fine with those crimes. And most of the rest just watched and did nothing to stop them.

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    Oh, you think that you’re so clever.

    Regardless of the regard I have for my own intellect, I requested up front that if you debate me, you debate the facts and not make (snide) ad hominem remarks. So if you want this exchange to continue, stop with attacking me personally.

    “Let me see, I’m missing the parallel between physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist and the deterrent/belief of damnation to an eternity of Hell for disobeying 10 simple commandments, aka. sins.

    That is quite a misrepresentation of Islamic practice and of Christian belief.

    First, non-Muslims have lived since the 600s as minorities in Islamic majority countries and have never faced “physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist.” If you think that is some kind of Muslim tenet, then how do you explain the Coptic Christians of Egypt, who have lived peacefully with the vast majority of Muslim Egyptians for well over 1,000 years? There are countless other examples which parallel the experience of the Copts.

    Nonetheless, it is the case that in today’s cultural climate, in which many Muslims are attracted to a fanatical radicalism — called Islamism — that minority believers (and even moderate Muslims) are endangered by this ideology. But that is not a reflection of Islam as a faith. It is a reflection of the extremism within Islam which is currently so prominent and so dangerous. And because it is so new — really spreading since the 1979 Iranian revolution — it is easy to see it is cultural, not religious.

    Of course, you can point to Wahabiism, which itself was a cultural reaction to the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century. That is a fanatical form of Islam, and it is spreading. But it is not Islam per se. It is just a cultural expression of Islam, one which is reactionary and backwards.

    And second, most Christians believe that in order to go to heaven, one must accept “Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.” Even if they violate the Decalogue, even if they live a life outside of the law, a simple affirmation of their faith in Jesus will get them into heaven. At the same time, most Christians believe that anyone who rejects “Jesus as Christ” will go to Hell, even if such a person abides by all 10 Commandments and lives a good and decent life. So a man such as the Dalai Lama would go to Hell. But (if he accepted Christ before he was executed) a man such as Timothy McVeigh would forever go to Heaven. You might have a different interpretation of Christian teaching, but I believe that most Christians understand their religion as I have explicated it.

    “There’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about taxing non-believers or even that non-believers were subject to the same strict adherence as believers.”

    Did I say it was in the Christian Bible? No. I said it was historically the case that non-Christians living in Christian countries in Europe, when they were not expelled or killed for being non-Christians, were subject to special higher taxes, designed to raise revenues and discourage people from continuing to practice religions such as Judaism. It also should be noted that for much of that history, anyone who was born a Christian would be executed by the Church if he committed apostasy. Nevertheless, in the hinterlands of Europe, thousands and thousands of Christians did convert to Judaism at various times, just as Jews converted to Christianity, some willingly.

    And regardless of what the Koran dictates, in modern (or semi-modern) Muslim countries today, non-Muslims do not have to pay any special taxes in order to avoid being killed. That is obviously a backward practice, one that no modern nation would employ.

  243. despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians

    “Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the Nazi’s. Nazi’s were anti-Christian. If there’s any relation, it’s that they manipulated Christianity for their own evil purposes, calling for “All German Christianity”, manipulating the symbolism (swastika-cross), etc. They closed Catholic churches. They worshiped the Aryan race. Hitler demoralized his people with rampant sex parties and indiscriminate murder of both Christians and Jews. In fact, many Christians died at the hands of Nazi Germans for helping Jews. Some estimate that as many as 3 million died.”

    Duarte, you have confused two very different things here. I said specifically that the people (Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians, Austrians, French, et cetera) who bloodied their hands in the crimes of the Nazi regime were Christians. Perhaps 99% of them. I did not say that Naziism was a Christian phenomenon. Nor were many of the main leaders of the Nazi Party Christians. (Of course, a goodly number of Nazi Party officials were practicing Christians, despite the dogma of the Nazi Party.) The Holocaust and its related crimes were not carried out by a small cadre of Nazi Party activists. It was the product of (to use Daniel Goldhagen’s phrase) “Ordinary Germans.” As you should know, only a small percentage of the 5.5 million innocent Jews who were annihilated were killed in death camps. The vast majority were murdered by German soldiers with handguns and rifles. The German Army, as it made its way east into Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine (where most of Europe’s Jews lived, then), asked ordinary people — all of whom were Christians, of course — to tell them who the Jews were and where they were hiding. Some brave Christians, of course, would not go along with the Germans and they sometimes actively protected the Jews. But the vast majority were terribly anti-Semitic and wanted the Jews killed. So they pointed, “He’s a Jew; She’s a Jew; He is,” etc. And the Germans (or Austrians or Hungarians, etc.) simply rounded up the village of Jews and killed them with handguns and rifles. That was how most of the Holocaust took place. It wasn’t sophisticated. It was just slaughter on a very large scale with a malicious purpose in mind. Much like ordinary Hutus (led by Catholic priests in many cases, by the way) set out to slaughter ordinary Tutsis (who are also Catholic Christians), not so long ago in Rwanda.

    For you or anyone else to wash the hands of the ordinary Christian Europeans of their crimes in the Holocaust and say “it was just the Nazis” and “the Nazis were anti-Christian” is ridiculous, ignorant and counterfactual. It is nonetheless true that almost all of the heroes of those times, the people who put their lives on the line to save Jews and Gypsies and other victims of Nazi ideology, were Christians. But they were quite rare. You could never have had such horrific crimes in countries where 90% or more of the people were church-going Christians, if it were the case that Christians were not going along with the crimes. Many of them went along just fine with those crimes. And most of the rest just watched and did nothing to stop them.

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    Oh, you think that you’re so clever.

    Regardless of the regard I have for my own intellect, I requested up front that if you debate me, you debate the facts and not make (snide) ad hominem remarks. So if you want this exchange to continue, stop with attacking me personally.

    “Let me see, I’m missing the parallel between physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist and the deterrent/belief of damnation to an eternity of Hell for disobeying 10 simple commandments, aka. sins.

    That is quite a misrepresentation of Islamic practice and of Christian belief.

    First, non-Muslims have lived since the 600s as minorities in Islamic majority countries and have never faced “physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist.” If you think that is some kind of Muslim tenet, then how do you explain the Coptic Christians of Egypt, who have lived peacefully with the vast majority of Muslim Egyptians for well over 1,000 years? There are countless other examples which parallel the experience of the Copts.

    Nonetheless, it is the case that in today’s cultural climate, in which many Muslims are attracted to a fanatical radicalism — called Islamism — that minority believers (and even moderate Muslims) are endangered by this ideology. But that is not a reflection of Islam as a faith. It is a reflection of the extremism within Islam which is currently so prominent and so dangerous. And because it is so new — really spreading since the 1979 Iranian revolution — it is easy to see it is cultural, not religious.

    Of course, you can point to Wahabiism, which itself was a cultural reaction to the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century. That is a fanatical form of Islam, and it is spreading. But it is not Islam per se. It is just a cultural expression of Islam, one which is reactionary and backwards.

    And second, most Christians believe that in order to go to heaven, one must accept “Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.” Even if they violate the Decalogue, even if they live a life outside of the law, a simple affirmation of their faith in Jesus will get them into heaven. At the same time, most Christians believe that anyone who rejects “Jesus as Christ” will go to Hell, even if such a person abides by all 10 Commandments and lives a good and decent life. So a man such as the Dalai Lama would go to Hell. But (if he accepted Christ before he was executed) a man such as Timothy McVeigh would forever go to Heaven. You might have a different interpretation of Christian teaching, but I believe that most Christians understand their religion as I have explicated it.

    “There’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about taxing non-believers or even that non-believers were subject to the same strict adherence as believers.”

    Did I say it was in the Christian Bible? No. I said it was historically the case that non-Christians living in Christian countries in Europe, when they were not expelled or killed for being non-Christians, were subject to special higher taxes, designed to raise revenues and discourage people from continuing to practice religions such as Judaism. It also should be noted that for much of that history, anyone who was born a Christian would be executed by the Church if he committed apostasy. Nevertheless, in the hinterlands of Europe, thousands and thousands of Christians did convert to Judaism at various times, just as Jews converted to Christianity, some willingly.

    And regardless of what the Koran dictates, in modern (or semi-modern) Muslim countries today, non-Muslims do not have to pay any special taxes in order to avoid being killed. That is obviously a backward practice, one that no modern nation would employ.

  244. despite the fact that 99% of the Germans and other ordinary Europeans who committed those crimes were in fact Christians

    “Wow, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about the Nazi’s. Nazi’s were anti-Christian. If there’s any relation, it’s that they manipulated Christianity for their own evil purposes, calling for “All German Christianity”, manipulating the symbolism (swastika-cross), etc. They closed Catholic churches. They worshiped the Aryan race. Hitler demoralized his people with rampant sex parties and indiscriminate murder of both Christians and Jews. In fact, many Christians died at the hands of Nazi Germans for helping Jews. Some estimate that as many as 3 million died.”

    Duarte, you have confused two very different things here. I said specifically that the people (Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians, Austrians, French, et cetera) who bloodied their hands in the crimes of the Nazi regime were Christians. Perhaps 99% of them. I did not say that Naziism was a Christian phenomenon. Nor were many of the main leaders of the Nazi Party Christians. (Of course, a goodly number of Nazi Party officials were practicing Christians, despite the dogma of the Nazi Party.) The Holocaust and its related crimes were not carried out by a small cadre of Nazi Party activists. It was the product of (to use Daniel Goldhagen’s phrase) “Ordinary Germans.” As you should know, only a small percentage of the 5.5 million innocent Jews who were annihilated were killed in death camps. The vast majority were murdered by German soldiers with handguns and rifles. The German Army, as it made its way east into Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine (where most of Europe’s Jews lived, then), asked ordinary people — all of whom were Christians, of course — to tell them who the Jews were and where they were hiding. Some brave Christians, of course, would not go along with the Germans and they sometimes actively protected the Jews. But the vast majority were terribly anti-Semitic and wanted the Jews killed. So they pointed, “He’s a Jew; She’s a Jew; He is,” etc. And the Germans (or Austrians or Hungarians, etc.) simply rounded up the village of Jews and killed them with handguns and rifles. That was how most of the Holocaust took place. It wasn’t sophisticated. It was just slaughter on a very large scale with a malicious purpose in mind. Much like ordinary Hutus (led by Catholic priests in many cases, by the way) set out to slaughter ordinary Tutsis (who are also Catholic Christians), not so long ago in Rwanda.

    For you or anyone else to wash the hands of the ordinary Christian Europeans of their crimes in the Holocaust and say “it was just the Nazis” and “the Nazis were anti-Christian” is ridiculous, ignorant and counterfactual. It is nonetheless true that almost all of the heroes of those times, the people who put their lives on the line to save Jews and Gypsies and other victims of Nazi ideology, were Christians. But they were quite rare. You could never have had such horrific crimes in countries where 90% or more of the people were church-going Christians, if it were the case that Christians were not going along with the crimes. Many of them went along just fine with those crimes. And most of the rest just watched and did nothing to stop them.

    Happily. In the Christian religion, you have two choices: 1) accept Jesus and go to heaven; or 2) go to Hell for eternity.

    Oh, you think that you’re so clever.

    Regardless of the regard I have for my own intellect, I requested up front that if you debate me, you debate the facts and not make (snide) ad hominem remarks. So if you want this exchange to continue, stop with attacking me personally.

    “Let me see, I’m missing the parallel between physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist and the deterrent/belief of damnation to an eternity of Hell for disobeying 10 simple commandments, aka. sins.

    That is quite a misrepresentation of Islamic practice and of Christian belief.

    First, non-Muslims have lived since the 600s as minorities in Islamic majority countries and have never faced “physically dying at the hands of a Jihadist.” If you think that is some kind of Muslim tenet, then how do you explain the Coptic Christians of Egypt, who have lived peacefully with the vast majority of Muslim Egyptians for well over 1,000 years? There are countless other examples which parallel the experience of the Copts.

    Nonetheless, it is the case that in today’s cultural climate, in which many Muslims are attracted to a fanatical radicalism — called Islamism — that minority believers (and even moderate Muslims) are endangered by this ideology. But that is not a reflection of Islam as a faith. It is a reflection of the extremism within Islam which is currently so prominent and so dangerous. And because it is so new — really spreading since the 1979 Iranian revolution — it is easy to see it is cultural, not religious.

    Of course, you can point to Wahabiism, which itself was a cultural reaction to the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century. That is a fanatical form of Islam, and it is spreading. But it is not Islam per se. It is just a cultural expression of Islam, one which is reactionary and backwards.

    And second, most Christians believe that in order to go to heaven, one must accept “Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.” Even if they violate the Decalogue, even if they live a life outside of the law, a simple affirmation of their faith in Jesus will get them into heaven. At the same time, most Christians believe that anyone who rejects “Jesus as Christ” will go to Hell, even if such a person abides by all 10 Commandments and lives a good and decent life. So a man such as the Dalai Lama would go to Hell. But (if he accepted Christ before he was executed) a man such as Timothy McVeigh would forever go to Heaven. You might have a different interpretation of Christian teaching, but I believe that most Christians understand their religion as I have explicated it.

    “There’s absolutely nothing in the Bible about taxing non-believers or even that non-believers were subject to the same strict adherence as believers.”

    Did I say it was in the Christian Bible? No. I said it was historically the case that non-Christians living in Christian countries in Europe, when they were not expelled or killed for being non-Christians, were subject to special higher taxes, designed to raise revenues and discourage people from continuing to practice religions such as Judaism. It also should be noted that for much of that history, anyone who was born a Christian would be executed by the Church if he committed apostasy. Nevertheless, in the hinterlands of Europe, thousands and thousands of Christians did convert to Judaism at various times, just as Jews converted to Christianity, some willingly.

    And regardless of what the Koran dictates, in modern (or semi-modern) Muslim countries today, non-Muslims do not have to pay any special taxes in order to avoid being killed. That is obviously a backward practice, one that no modern nation would employ.

  245. don shor wrote:
    “What are you trying to prove?”

    Don, you are asking the question of the ages that’s bugged everybody who’s ever been alive.
    (Of course Shakespeare put it a little better in Hamlet’s Soliloquy.)
    Which is why so much has been written about it, perchance.
    Asking religious zealots for proof is like asking, “Where’s the beef?”
    Rhetorically, of course.
    –Brian Elsasser

  246. don shor wrote:
    “What are you trying to prove?”

    Don, you are asking the question of the ages that’s bugged everybody who’s ever been alive.
    (Of course Shakespeare put it a little better in Hamlet’s Soliloquy.)
    Which is why so much has been written about it, perchance.
    Asking religious zealots for proof is like asking, “Where’s the beef?”
    Rhetorically, of course.
    –Brian Elsasser

  247. don shor wrote:
    “What are you trying to prove?”

    Don, you are asking the question of the ages that’s bugged everybody who’s ever been alive.
    (Of course Shakespeare put it a little better in Hamlet’s Soliloquy.)
    Which is why so much has been written about it, perchance.
    Asking religious zealots for proof is like asking, “Where’s the beef?”
    Rhetorically, of course.
    –Brian Elsasser

  248. don shor wrote:
    “What are you trying to prove?”

    Don, you are asking the question of the ages that’s bugged everybody who’s ever been alive.
    (Of course Shakespeare put it a little better in Hamlet’s Soliloquy.)
    Which is why so much has been written about it, perchance.
    Asking religious zealots for proof is like asking, “Where’s the beef?”
    Rhetorically, of course.
    –Brian Elsasser

  249. from what i can tell, don, he’s trying to convince us that

    a) muslims are untermenschen
    b) islam is a mortal threat to us all
    c) this is true of all muslims, across all sectarian divisions and throughout all time, including (to get back to the original point of discussion) our neighbors at davis islamic center.

    and then implying that something must be done about them.

    it’s a rather sinister line of reasoning.

  250. from what i can tell, don, he’s trying to convince us that

    a) muslims are untermenschen
    b) islam is a mortal threat to us all
    c) this is true of all muslims, across all sectarian divisions and throughout all time, including (to get back to the original point of discussion) our neighbors at davis islamic center.

    and then implying that something must be done about them.

    it’s a rather sinister line of reasoning.

  251. from what i can tell, don, he’s trying to convince us that

    a) muslims are untermenschen
    b) islam is a mortal threat to us all
    c) this is true of all muslims, across all sectarian divisions and throughout all time, including (to get back to the original point of discussion) our neighbors at davis islamic center.

    and then implying that something must be done about them.

    it’s a rather sinister line of reasoning.

  252. from what i can tell, don, he’s trying to convince us that

    a) muslims are untermenschen
    b) islam is a mortal threat to us all
    c) this is true of all muslims, across all sectarian divisions and throughout all time, including (to get back to the original point of discussion) our neighbors at davis islamic center.

    and then implying that something must be done about them.

    it’s a rather sinister line of reasoning.

  253. ” It’s a bit incorrect (I believe) to say he was “a liberal.””

    I’ll “buy” your characterization of Poderhetz as a radical as it doesn’t denote that much of a shift in who he really IS. This fits in well with the concept that the political spectrum is more circular than linear with regard to a proclivity for ideological hubris and authoritarianism. When you move far enough to the left on this circular diagram, you run smack into the neo-conservatives.

  254. ” It’s a bit incorrect (I believe) to say he was “a liberal.””

    I’ll “buy” your characterization of Poderhetz as a radical as it doesn’t denote that much of a shift in who he really IS. This fits in well with the concept that the political spectrum is more circular than linear with regard to a proclivity for ideological hubris and authoritarianism. When you move far enough to the left on this circular diagram, you run smack into the neo-conservatives.

  255. ” It’s a bit incorrect (I believe) to say he was “a liberal.””

    I’ll “buy” your characterization of Poderhetz as a radical as it doesn’t denote that much of a shift in who he really IS. This fits in well with the concept that the political spectrum is more circular than linear with regard to a proclivity for ideological hubris and authoritarianism. When you move far enough to the left on this circular diagram, you run smack into the neo-conservatives.

  256. ” It’s a bit incorrect (I believe) to say he was “a liberal.””

    I’ll “buy” your characterization of Poderhetz as a radical as it doesn’t denote that much of a shift in who he really IS. This fits in well with the concept that the political spectrum is more circular than linear with regard to a proclivity for ideological hubris and authoritarianism. When you move far enough to the left on this circular diagram, you run smack into the neo-conservatives.

  257. Wu Ming said: “from what i can tell, don, he’s trying to convince us that

    a) muslims are untermenschen”

    I agree with all your points except that one. I don’t think Duarte believes Muslims are sub-human, quite the contrary. I think he believes they are powerful evil people. No matter how you look at it, his views are troublesome.

    There are too many people like this, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other religion or sect you can name.

  258. Wu Ming said: “from what i can tell, don, he’s trying to convince us that

    a) muslims are untermenschen”

    I agree with all your points except that one. I don’t think Duarte believes Muslims are sub-human, quite the contrary. I think he believes they are powerful evil people. No matter how you look at it, his views are troublesome.

    There are too many people like this, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other religion or sect you can name.

  259. Wu Ming said: “from what i can tell, don, he’s trying to convince us that

    a) muslims are untermenschen”

    I agree with all your points except that one. I don’t think Duarte believes Muslims are sub-human, quite the contrary. I think he believes they are powerful evil people. No matter how you look at it, his views are troublesome.

    There are too many people like this, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other religion or sect you can name.

  260. Wu Ming said: “from what i can tell, don, he’s trying to convince us that

    a) muslims are untermenschen”

    I agree with all your points except that one. I don’t think Duarte believes Muslims are sub-human, quite the contrary. I think he believes they are powerful evil people. No matter how you look at it, his views are troublesome.

    There are too many people like this, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other religion or sect you can name.

  261. “This fits in well with the concept that the political spectrum is more circular than linear with regard to a proclivity for ideological hubris and authoritarianism.”

    This is wrong with regard to N. Podhoretz (at least as he describes his political views). In his book, Ex-friends, he said that what troubled him about the left (and by that he really meant his fellow intellectuals on the far left, many of whom called themselves “Trotskyites”) was that they were comfortable with authoritarians, as long as those authoritarians advanced the lefty policies which they favored. He said it was this sort of friendliness to dictators which began his personal shift to the right. Now, whether he was hypocritical — that is, if he cosied up to right-wing dictators for their adherence to his later ideas — I don’t know.

  262. “This fits in well with the concept that the political spectrum is more circular than linear with regard to a proclivity for ideological hubris and authoritarianism.”

    This is wrong with regard to N. Podhoretz (at least as he describes his political views). In his book, Ex-friends, he said that what troubled him about the left (and by that he really meant his fellow intellectuals on the far left, many of whom called themselves “Trotskyites”) was that they were comfortable with authoritarians, as long as those authoritarians advanced the lefty policies which they favored. He said it was this sort of friendliness to dictators which began his personal shift to the right. Now, whether he was hypocritical — that is, if he cosied up to right-wing dictators for their adherence to his later ideas — I don’t know.

  263. “This fits in well with the concept that the political spectrum is more circular than linear with regard to a proclivity for ideological hubris and authoritarianism.”

    This is wrong with regard to N. Podhoretz (at least as he describes his political views). In his book, Ex-friends, he said that what troubled him about the left (and by that he really meant his fellow intellectuals on the far left, many of whom called themselves “Trotskyites”) was that they were comfortable with authoritarians, as long as those authoritarians advanced the lefty policies which they favored. He said it was this sort of friendliness to dictators which began his personal shift to the right. Now, whether he was hypocritical — that is, if he cosied up to right-wing dictators for their adherence to his later ideas — I don’t know.

  264. “This fits in well with the concept that the political spectrum is more circular than linear with regard to a proclivity for ideological hubris and authoritarianism.”

    This is wrong with regard to N. Podhoretz (at least as he describes his political views). In his book, Ex-friends, he said that what troubled him about the left (and by that he really meant his fellow intellectuals on the far left, many of whom called themselves “Trotskyites”) was that they were comfortable with authoritarians, as long as those authoritarians advanced the lefty policies which they favored. He said it was this sort of friendliness to dictators which began his personal shift to the right. Now, whether he was hypocritical — that is, if he cosied up to right-wing dictators for their adherence to his later ideas — I don’t know.

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