Very well. At the same time, those who swear on the Christian Bible may explain why they feel more of a devotion to it than our country.
I don’t think you’re stupid - your writing ability belies that assumption - but I find it hard to think that anyone in the history of the world could possibly have displayed more willfull ignorance than you have in this thread.
magellan01 - Defending ignorance since Jul 2004
Two years ago 30% of cars in the United States were Japanese.
There were 43,433 highway deaths in the United States in 2005.
This extrapolates to 13,029 deaths that can be laid at the feet of the Japanese automakers for 2005. The Japanese killed more Americans…perhaps even more Christians…than any other threat in the world.
If Takeo Fukui ever gets his hands on a Koran we are seriously fucked people!
For those who missed it back on January fourth, this is the assurance given to the nation by Congressman Ellison on the subject of his allegiance. Why this isn’t sufficient for everyone, I can’t imagine. Some might feel the absence of one book or presence of another might reinforce or attenuate an oath, but that isn’t merely ignorance, or merely bigotry, nor merely hypocrisy, it’s all three, plus an example of thinking so muddled (the holy text intensifies the significance of an oath if you’re Jewish or Christian, but reduces it if you’re Muslim) that it can only be the product of a fearful and badly confused brain.
Thing is, there are traditions which are thoughtful and purposeful and rooted in a common philosophy, and then there are traditions which are mere accidental by-products of a group’s homogeneousness. Taking an oath to defend freedom of religion (among other things) is an example of the first. Taking it with your hand on a bible because you happen to have that faith is an example of the second.
Perhaps magellan01 is simply following a tradition of his own group. Maybe there was a magellandoublezero who defended the tradition, unbroken since Reconstruction, of Senators using the “whites only” bathrooms, a magellanminusone who decried Jeannette Rankin’s breach of Congressional tradition by refusing to pee standing up (come to think of it, she voted against a war, too, the bitch!), and a magellannegativetwo who was absolutely incensed at new Congressman Levin’s break with tradition in having been circumcised. Eerie how the concerns here have all revolved around a particular anatomical feature and function: it kind of parallels how the magellans of history have generally been little dicks trying to piss on the Constitution.
Most fun of all (aside from magpie conflating non-Christians with non-Americans) is the fact that to satisfy the “traditionalists” and their ilk (and you know you’ve got to be obnoxiously ignorant in order to develop an ilk), Ellison would have to take the oath to defend the Constitution in a way that vitiates the oath and violates the Constitution. Perfectly in keeping with those who can mouth the word “freedom” but will never understand what it actually means, or even that it should mean something.
Next up from the magpie: why doctors taking the hippocratic oath should do so in a ceremony that includes human sacrifice.
Do doctors still take the Hippocratic Oath? I thought it prohibited abortions.
Do you really think that a few fanatics are really a credible threat to take down the United States? Give me a break.
Incidentally, terrorism and fanatacism are socio-political pathologies, not religious ones. The specific religion is incidental not causal.
Two wars, in fact. She served exactly two terms in Congress, timed just perfectly to vote against both world wars. Jeannette Rankin
saoirse, (I’m glad I don’t have to pronounce that) you’re mostly right, but I needed an illustration of an oath the taking of which violated the principles the oath was meant to uphold, and that one fit the bill. And thanks to Frank, because I didn’t remember Miss Rankin’s second term.
I’d just like to point out, by the way, that a Congressman’s oath requires him not to defend the territory of the United States, nor the President of the United States, nor the property of the United States, nor the citizenry of the United States, nor the “traditions” of the United States; still less does it promise to defend the dominant religion or bigoted assumptions of even the tiny-minded subset of a majority of Americans, or to assuage their fear that someone different from or disagreeing with them might someday attain a position of influence and authority. It requires obedience to and reverence for and defense of the Constitution of the United States, which would be irretrieveably undermined by a devout Muslim coerced into using a holy text other than his own in solemnizing an official oath. But, once again, the magpies among us would rather pretend to have freedom than actually have it, if freedom can’t be restricted to folks like themselves.
From what I can see, the only purported “lie” you are pretending that Ellison has told is for you to put words in his mouth about “venerating” a book where he made no such claim.
The essay by Kevin Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an” (summer, 2004), notes that Jefferson purchased the Qur’an specifically because he was reading a work on Law the made frequent references to other works, including the Qur’an, and Jefferson preffered to track down the quotations in context. Hayes notes that Jefferson was disenchanted with English Common Law and was seeking other sources on whch to build a new philosophy of rights and Law. This is perfectly consistent with Ellison’s statement that “It would have been something that contributed to his own thinking.”
So, basically, you have simply called a man a liar for no reason other than to promote your own false argument.
As to the issues regarding Ellison and Farrakhan, you will note (if you read complete references and not those cobbled together from sites that make a practice of xenophobia and Islam-bashing), that Ellison’s “defense” of Farrakhan was in a college setting defending the rights of Americans to voice their views with some mild approbation for the aspect of the Nation of Islam that actually takes it as a duty to provide clothing and food and housing for the poorest inner city citizens. Ellison never joined NoI and has consistently opposed its anti-white and anti-semitic rhetoric,l condemning those statements regardless whether they were issued by Farrakhan or one of Farrakhan’s lieutenants. We know exactly where Ellison stands on those issues because he has never hidden any of his connections or statements (although there are some cherry-picked claims by hate groups that appear to obscure that information).
Am I exagerating it? You’re the one drawing comparisons between Ellison and Muslim terrorists. You’re the one who keeps saying we can’t be sure what Ellison’s beliefs really are, or how much of an extremist he is, or how he feels about killing Americans. If what I wrote is a gross exageration of your fears, what exactly are your fears? What is your worst-case scenario in electing Ellison to Congress?
No, that’s not ever going to happen. Not if we let people like you get your way. If your attitude became the standard for Americans, what Muslim in his right mind would want to be a part of this country?
You know, that’s not altogether a bad point. I made pretty much exactly that point to you not long ago, in that thread about electing atheists to political office. At the time, you insisted that having religious faith - any religious faith, as I recall - was better than having none, because someone who believes in God is less likely to break their word, as they have to worry about God’s retribution for being a liar, as well as the secular repurcussions. I made exactly the same argument you’ve made here: electing people who believe in God is more dangerous than electing atheists, because of the danger of split loyalties. Glad to see that you’ve come around on that issue, at least.
Okay, so this was an advertisment. What do you think Ellison was trying to sell us? Seems to me, he’s trying to sell the idea that one can be a good Muslim and a good American at the same time. Don’t you think that’s a message we want to be broadcasting, particularly to all the other Muslims in the world? You’re very concerned about the dangers Islam poses to this nation. How do you think we can best resolve that danger? Do we want to win Muslims over to the Enlightment ideals of democracy and a pluralistic society? Or do we just try and wipe them all out? Because I’m not really seeing a middle path in this particular issue, and since I’m not really up to killing over a billion people, I’d much prefer the former strategy. I’m assuming you agree, so perhaps you can show me how telling Muslims, “We don’t want your fucking holy book in our government,” advances assimilation, and not extremism?
No, he’s advancing his own interpretation of Jefferson’s life and writings, just as you do below. What you’re doing here is exactly what you complain about liberals doing to you on these boards: attacking a person’s character because he has a different opinion about something that is, ultimatly, not verfiable fact.
That doesn’t tell me anything about what Jefferson thought about Islam. It tells me what Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja thought about Islam, but Ellison isn’t using Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja’s Koran, so that’s not particularly relevant. Was Jefferson able to seperate the political and financial motives of the Barbary pirates from the faith of Islam? I don’t know. He was a pretty smart guy, so I suspect that he was able to pull that trick off.
Those are pretty piss-poor comparisons. We all drive on the right side of the road and pay income tax because if we didn’t, we’d have immediate slaughter on the roadways, and social collapse as the infrastructure of the country disintegrated from lack of funds. I’ll grant that you’ve got a point about national holidays, but I think you’re factually wrong about animal sacrifice, which I can’t imagine being illegal. It’s okay to cut off a chicken’s head if you want to make McNuggets, but not if you want to worship your loa? How could that possibly pass Constitutional muster? But that’s a whole different debate.
Claiming that Jefferson stood for religious tolerance taints his reputation? That’s a pretty telling comment.
You haven’t shown where he lied in the first place.
In other words, he’s not allowed to be both a Muslim and a congressman, which means that you were lying earlier when you said you didn’t have a problem with having Muslims elected to high office.
Isn’t that at odds with your demand that he keep his religion out of government?
Since he’s correct in both of those stances, I’d say that those would both be bad moves for him to make.
How do you feel about the Japanese internment during WWII? I ask, because it seems there’s a certain degree of similarity in the two situations. We were at war with Japan, Japan had killed thousands of Americans, and planned to kill more. Were we right, in your view, to suspect everyone American of Japanese ancestry as potential traitors? Does the fact that no Japanese American traitors were ever found alter your view at all?
This is where your argument is fundamentally absurd. You keep saying that we don’t know what Ellison believes, because he hasn’t talked about his faith at length. Well, he has talked about other stuff, right? Like what he’s going to do when he’s in office, what sort of policies he’ll favor, how he feels about controversial issues in modern society, and so forth. For the example closest to my own heart, how does he feel about gay rights? Turns out, he’s strongly in favor of them. Well, that doesn’t sound too much like an Islamic fundamentalist stance to me. What about, say, abortion? He’s pro-choice. Does that sound like an Islamic fundamentalist to you? How’s he feel about other religions? He’s certainly been making a lot of noise about religious tolerance lately, although there’s obviously a certain degree of self interest in that one. How about women’s rights? That’s a pretty big one for radical Muslims. Does Keith Ellison think that women should be forced to wear burqas? I don’t see where he’s addressed that issue specifically, but he doesn’t seem to have a problem with his wife appearing out of the home with her head uncovered. He’s in favor of state sponsored education. And not, apparently, madrasas, but regular old secular American public schools. Also, he thinks that sex education should be taught in these schools, which is a position I’ve never heard from any type of religious fundamentalist. He does support a Palestinian state, but only alongside a “secure Isreal.” Most radical Islamists tend to be more on the “push them into the sea” side of that debate. This cite offers his position on a number of other issues, but I’m not sure what the Al Qaeda position is on things like the enviroment or public transportation. I suppose it’s possible that he only wants more trains so that he can put bombs on them, but that seems a bit of a stretch. None the less, his position on all of these issues is consistent with a liberal democrat. Which is why all this palaver about his religion is so stupid. We don’t need a “dialogue” about his religion to know what sort of a person he is. We can tell that by his position on the actual issues, and assuming he isn’t lying through his teeth about all of them, he’s pretty clearly not a radical Islamist fundamentalist. Of course, if he is lying about all of that, then quizzing him about his religion is just going to get us more lies.
Seriously, the guy ran on a platform as a liberal democrat, and your chief worry is that he’s a conservative Muslim? That’s not stupid, magellan. That’s flat out fucking insane.
At last. But you know damn well, Miller, that that isn’t magpie’s chief worry. His chief worry is beyond any attempt at repair or even amelioration: his descendants and ours will almost inevitably become darker of skin, more diverse as to religion, and much broader as to culture and language. His torture is that he can’t see that as a good and natural thing, and that these future Americans will not revere those antecedents who fought hardest against inclusion. Instead they will try hard to ignore them, as later generations have always disavowed those predecessors who argued against any expansion of the rights of man. It must be difficult to see your own inevitable extinction, and intolerable to foresee the shame with which your descendants will regard you, but let us be honest – who but the magpies of the world deserve that fate more?
I rather doubt that the issues of skin tint or religion are particularly important to magellan01 and I suspect that the implications of racism or religious bigotry that such associations imply are off the mark.
The “broader as to culture and language” issue does seem to bother him quite a bit. I would speculate that he sees the U.S. has having established some sort of normative goodness many years ago and that apparent changes to those “norms” are simply frightening. (I also suspect that he minimizes the actual changes that have been wrought, prefering to believe that assimilation has always meant that immigrants all became good little “Americans,” (aside from the occasional importation of pizza or egg foo yung), and does not realize how much immigrants have always changed the U.S., pretty nearly always for the better.) I see things from the other side, where my ancestors were actually persecuted for failing to be of the “norm” and where I see the U.S. as being stronger for having been compelled, (albeit reluctantly–nay, dragged kicking and screaming), to finally accept the changes brought by my ancestors. So while I clearly disagree with his “last one in close the door” xenophobic mentality, I think it is wrong to ascribe racism or religious bigotry to his motives.
Excuse me? You doubt that the issue of religion is particularly important to magellan01? After reading even his own posts? Than you must agree that his concern for Ellison’s religious affiliation, proclaimed by him throughout this thread, must merely be a pretext for what he really cares about. What might that criteria be? Personally, I think religion is as important to him as he himself says it is. If it is not, it must be a stand-in for some other common characteristic of American Muslims. Perhaps a tendency to shun pork? Hmmm.
Anyway, bless your heart. But when magpie’s cultural and language-based biases extend to people whiter or more steeped in Christianity, instead of exclusively toward those darker-skinned and/or tending to worship Allah or Vishnu, it may be appropriate to reassess what kind of a bigot we’re dealing with. As long as the cultural and social and other “traditions” he defends align themselves along easily definable racial and religious lines, why should we assume that he’s a more sensitive and nuanced ignorant bigot than he appears to be on the surface, especially if the one underneath the surface is no more palatable?
Nope. magellan01 has expressed different opinions of different religious beliefs at different times. However, nothing that I have seen him post indicates anything more than a vague notion that seems to say “our society has always given lip service to Christianity and even though I hold no particularly Christian beliefs, it is important to me that we cling to that ‘ceremonial deism’ as a way to bind the country culturally.” (It is similar to a view previously championed (at tedious length) by the former poster John John who considered all religions silly, but insisted that only good Christians were worthy of respect in our “Christian” society, despite the fact that he neither practiced nor believed the tenets of any Christian denomination.)
If you need to perceive magellan01 as either a racist or a religious bigot, I cannot stop you. In the interest of accuracy, however, I offer my dissenting view that you have misunderstood his motivation.
In conjunction with magellan01’s immigration threads, it’s not an unreasonable perception.
Yes, but the problem is how much damage can be done by a relative handful of people. 9/11 is an example, but can you imagine if they got hold of a dirty bomb? And, I, too do not advocate any action against Islam as a whole. My point during the whole thread has been that because of the modern-day violence associated with the religion against us, vigilance is wise. A higher degree of vigilance than is required towards buddhists, for example. Or, from what I am aware of, even Muslims fifty years ago.
I would say that there is nothing more useless than to attempt to force a man to believe as you do, particulalry with a belief held as deeply as a religious one. That notion has never been proferred by me. Also, for the record, I have conceded on the legislative aspect.
I’ve commented on this (what I see as) false equivalency more then once. Please see responses to both tomndebb and Miller.
But what exactly does this have to do with a Muslim Congressman swearing on the Qur’an instead of the Bible? What’s the connection between terrorist attacks and swearing-in ceremonies (or photo ops as the case may be)? Is Al-Qaeda’s cunning plan to get a Muslim elected to Congress, then have him smuggle a dirty bomb into the Capitol concealed in his Official Oath-Taking Qur’an?
It’s what I was saying about 20 pages ago–militant Islam is not (in the United States) a political threat; it’s a security threat. The danger is not that the Islamist Party USA will be swept into office on a platform of enacting Sharia Law and restoring a new Caliphate that will rule from Morocco to Indonesia–that might be a threat in Jordan, but not here. The threat is that your small handfuls of people–on 9/11 it was foreign-born, not-even-citizens; maybe a handful of disaffected American Muslim fanatics in some hypothetical future attack–will blow something up. Showing that nice moderate All-American Muslims can be elected to Congress, while still being Muslims and swearing on the Qur’an and all that, might, in some degree, help defuse the danger of attacks. Maybe young Ahmed will be inclined to say to the Militant Mullah at his local mosque in Detroit “Hey, America’s not so bad–the President himself has said we’re not at war with Islam; there are Muslims in Congress, that one Congressmen even took his oath to defend our Constitution with his hand on the Qur’an–you can be a good American and a good Muslim at the same time”.
Your argument is that magpie can’t be a bigot because he isn’t a good enough Christian to be one? That’s a position with which you can amaze your friends at parties.
As you know, hypocrisy is one of the defining elements of bigotry, along with obstinacy, intolerance and willful blindness to facts and reasoning that would cast doubt on one’s opinions. My only excuse for suggesting that magellan01 qualifies is the dictionary. But his defining creed, in which he is slavishly devout, is not Christianity, it’s Uniformity: an enforced superficial sameness protecting him from contamination by cultures, languages, and generally, people not like him. He is willing to violate the Constitution and render meaningless Ellison’s oath to defend it, to protect himself from a single manifestation of diversity.
But if you need to avoid the word “bigot” when describing such a repugnant set of values, I shan’t stop you, either.
No, my position is that he is neither a racial bigot, (because all his positions through which there appears to run a color line also come with a built-in cultural and NIMBY line), and that he is not a religious bigot (because he does not actually hold to any particular belief–his religious expressions are not actually Christian and his belief appears to be ceremonial deism, “our country has always sort of believed in a sort of Christian god and we need to hang on to that sort of unifying belief or be fragmented”). Had he lived in 1850, he would have been using his identical arguments againt the terrible effects of letting papists come here and do what they want. He was born late enough that those terrible papists have already reshaped the country and blended in, so he now unwittingly accepts them as “us.”
If you wish to claim that he is, (based on horribly fallacious reasoning), anti-Muslim or still maintain that he is bigoted regarding cultural Americanism or xenophobia or any number of more or less related issues, I am not going to stand in your way. I am only pointing out that I believe his motivations are neither racial nor religious. I do not suggest that you agree with his positions–I certainly do not–I only suggest that accusations of religious bigotry or racial bigotry are off the mark and will lead to a strawman argument in which each side talks past the other. (We’ve already seen that in this thread. A number of posters kept attacking magellan01 for denying Buddhists, Hindus, American Indians, and other religious groups the right to hold office because they would not swear on a bible whereas he kept pointing out that they were perfectly free to hold office as long as they chose to affirm rather than swear on their holy book. The whole issue was one of show, not substance and different posters kept missing it.)
If you still see him as a religious or racial bigot, I am obviously not going to persuade you otherwise and I am not going to continue this hijack. I’ve thrown in my $.04 and you can consider my comments or not.
