Political Roundtable - Part VII

[dobrojim]

Is there a more inappropriately named advocacy group than the National Religious Liberties Conference?
(they have a very narrowly defined view of religious liberty)

Will any commenter at tonight's 'debate' dare to ask the 'gotcha' question to Cruz (Huck or Jindal
were there @ NRLC too but are relegated due to pathetically low polling numbers to the kids table)
as to what he was doing in Des Moines at the National Religious Liberties Conference run by
well known homophobe (putting it mildly) Kevin Swanson. Pleading ignorance about the Pastor
won't cut the mustard. Cruz had advance knowledge. The pastor guy is a raving lunatic. Really scary
for anyone with an ounce of compassion for people who happen not to be heteros.

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/maddow_spotlights_political_religious_liberty_conference_that_advocates_death_to_gays

At the risk of bringing Goodwin's law down on me, the Pastor is very reminiscent of a typical
speech by Adolph Hitler. Gracious.

[nate33]

Is there a more inappropriately named advocacy group than the National Religious Liberties Conference?
(they have a very narrowly defined view of religious liberty)

Will any commenter at tonight's 'debate' dare to ask the 'gotcha' question to Cruz (Huck or Jindal
were there @ NRLC too but are relegated due to pathetically low polling numbers to the kids table)
as to what he was doing in Des Moines at the National Religious Liberties Conference run by
well known homophobe (putting it mildly) Kevin Swanson. Pleading ignorance about the Pastor
won't cut the mustard. Cruz had advance knowledge. The pastor guy is a raving lunatic. Really scary
for anyone with an ounce of compassion for people who happen not to be heteros.

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/maddow_spotlights_political_religious_liberty_conference_that_advocates_death_to_gays

At the risk of bringing Goodwin's law down on me, the Pastor is very reminiscent of a typical
speech by Adolph Hitler. Gracious.

I followed some of those links.

Yes, this guy Kevin Swanson is indeed a whack job and his implicit death threats on homosexuals should be fully condemned. (Although to be accurate, I didn't see him specifically advocating death of homosexuals, but rather pointing to where the Bible advocates corporal punishment.) I haven't the foggiest idea how people build up such rage against homosexuals. Nearly every homosexual person I've gotten to know in my life seems to be pretty nice, upstanding person.

I do have issues with the guilt by association line of reasoning however. I'm assuming Kevin Swanson has a following of some sort, and that some of his followers are religious-leaning but maybe not up to the extreme position where they wish gay people to be stoned to death. Is it not permissible for Cruz, Huck and Jindal to try and get their vote? Is everybody who has any association with this National Religious Liberties Conference forever forbidden from participating in politics?

How is this really different from the ginned up conservative outcry about Obama's association with Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers?

[dobrojim]

How is this really different from the ginned up conservative outcry about Obama's association with Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers?

I'd say in different in both the recency of when it happened and the extremity of the speech.

No serious candidate should do anything besides condemn these kinds of hate mongers.
It's completely irresponsible to lend any semblance of respectability to the ilks of this guy.

Watch a video of what Pastor WhackJob said this past weekend at the same event Cruz went to.

[pineappleheadindc]

Marco Rubio is a really great debater IMO. If you're in Hillary's camp, your running scared of him. Republicans have a couple of really good candidates IMO (Rubio, Kasich)

[pineappleheadindc]

BTW - That gentleman from the WSJ is a good questioner. He adds a lot of quality to the debate.

[pineappleheadindc]

Rand Paul just schooled Donald Trump, who was ranting against China when talking about the TPP.

Rand: (After Trump's long rant) Uh, China isn't part of the deal.

D'oh!

[pineappleheadindc]

Rand Paul with another strong moment talking about Russia.

[pineappleheadindc]

Dang, let me say this again -- Marco Rubio can debate!

Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich also strong.

Carson and Trump (to a lesser extent, Jeb too) - not their strongest debate.

[pineappleheadindc]

Decent job by Fox Business News. The moderator from WSJ should be on every panel henceforth. He's good.

I love political debates. The GOP scheduling lots of debates is a great thing!

[stevemcqueen1]

Donald Trump's campaign has been the single most entertaining thing to happen in American politics since the rollicking days of the 20's.

He's a 30 Rock character brought to life.

[dckingsfan]

Nothing about France? No worries since it is happening in Europe and not here.

They clearly brought it on themselves - we should probably just ignore it. Probably need to get our troops out of Europe

[Induveca]

Wondered who would say something first. I lived for a number of years in Paris, it's such a laid back country. It makes little sense, other than the perception Algerians and Tunisians are marginalized.

That being said Obama's statement about still allowing Syrian refugees into the US is foolish. There is zero way to do any background checks on these people.

If an Argentinian wants to come live in the US, they go through extensive background checks with locks authorities at a US Consulate. There are no databases to check with the Syrian refugees.

[nate33]

Nothing about France? No worries since it is happening in Europe and not here.

They clearly brought it on themselves - we should probably just ignore it. Probably need to get our troops out of Europe

My thoughts:

1. It will happen again, and again, and again. Diversity is not a strength. It's a weakness the undermines the bonds of community and leads to mistrust and ultimately violence.

2. It will get worse as more and more Muslims invade Europe. The majority of Muslims are peaceful, but a significant minority are not. Europe as we know it is probably already doomed. The fertility of Muslims relative to Westerners will take care of that. Muslims are having 4-6 kids, Westerners are having 1-2. In two generations, Muslims of Middle Eastern and North African descent will be the majority in many European nations. Europe will become Turkey. A great civilization will be lost - lost because the people lacked the political will to defend themselves from invasion.

3. Our wars in the Middle East are a clear failure. It inspired massive anti-Western sentiment while doing very little to subdue radical Islam. Our tactics need to change. They won't.

4. To defeat radical Islam, we would need to kill a whole lot of people, take over the land, seize the oil to fund the occupation, and forcibly either moderate Islam or convert them to Christianity. We clearly do not have the will to do this (and understandably so) so the next best thing is to pull out altogether and isolate the region from the West. That's what I would do. Pull out. Let them have the Middle East. Let Israel fend for themselves.

5. Islam and the West are culturally incompatible and should be separated. Both Europe and the U.S. should halt all immigration from Muslim nations. A careful vetting procedure should be set up where only highly educated Muslims with no history of violence and a high probability of assimilation should be admitted. Everyone else should be denied entry. Furthermore any recent Muslim immigrant who is not yet a citizen should have their visas revoked and they should be expelled. Immigration policy should be set up for the good of the country, not the good of the immigrants.

6. This of course will never happen. Every other nationality and ethnicity has the right to exist, but Westerners are not allowed to defend their culture. We must be understanding and accepting of diversity. Japan can be xenophobic and not permit immigration. Muslims can kill or expel all Christians. Jews can establish a Jewish-only state. Mexico can have draconian anti-immigration rules. But Westerners have to let everyone in and watch their institutions and traditions be undermined.

7. All the liberal politically correct do-gooders on this board will tell me that I'm Hitler and continue to vote for the status quo. If we start letting in hundreds of thousands of Muslim "refugees", 20 years from now, we will be where Europe is now. There will be more terrorist attacks from within, greater community strife, more rapes and crime, worse educational institutions, and an eventual collapse of the welfare state. 20 years further down the road, our society will begin to fail. Civil war will be the likely outcome. Liberals will still manage to blame conservatives.

[TGW]

I actually agree with you Nate. Get the hell out of the Middle East and other Islam-influenced areas.

However, you're last point is goofy and non-sensical. We are involved in the middle east because of conservatives. They want to fuel the war machine and keep our large defense based contractors with an endless stream of revenue, paid by us, the tax paying citizens. You can't deny that.

[nate33]

I actually agree with you Nate. Get the hell out of the Middle East and other Islam-influenced areas.

However, you're last point is goofy and non-sensical. We are involved in the middle east because of conservatives. They want to fuel the war machine and keep our large defense based contractors with an endless stream of revenue, paid by us, the tax paying citizens. You can't deny that.

No. I don't deny that conservatives drive much of our war policy in the Middle East (as does the Israeli Lobby who fund both Republicans and Democrats). I'm hoping that will change. We will see if the Trump/Rand Paul viewpoint triumphs over the neocon Rubio/Carson/Bush viewpoint.

But it's liberals who will permit Muslim immigration against the wishes of the majority. Heck, none of the Democrat candidates could even say the phrase "Islamic Terrorist" in the last debate. They steadfastly refused to link the Paris attacks as having anything whatsoever to do with Islam or even Fundamentalist Islam.

[bsilver]

I actually agree with you Nate. Get the hell out of the Middle East and other Islam-influenced areas.

However, you're last point is goofy and non-sensical. We are involved in the middle east because of conservatives. They want to fuel the war machine and keep our large defense based contractors with an endless stream of revenue, paid by us, the tax paying citizens. You can't deny that.

No. I don't deny that conservatives drive much of our war policy in the Middle East (as does the Israeli Lobby who fund both Republicans and Democrats). I'm hoping that will change. We will see if the Trump/Rand Paul viewpoint triumphs over the neocon Rubio/Carson/Bush viewpoint.

But it's liberals who will permit Muslim immigration against the wishes of the majority. Heck, none of the Democrat candidates could even say the phrase "Islamic Terrorist" in the last debate. They steadfastly refused to link the Paris attacks as having anything whatsoever to do with Islam or even Fundamentalist Islam.

It's easy to simplify the administrations position when you don't have to run the country.
We have many Muslim allies including those that practice radical Islam (Saudi Arabia).
We have important relationships with other Muslim countries that are unstable and could be jeopardized (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc)
We have about 6 million Muslims in the US that could potentially be radicalized if rhetoric and policy becomes too anti-Muslim.
We could stop accepting Syrian refugees, but not stop accepting Muslim immigrants. That's illegal.
The problem is too important to politicize. We're at war with ISIS, the Taliban, and al-qaeda and its off-shoots. We should fight these groups and skip the broad labeling of enemies when it accomplishes nothing other than harming our long term interests. We have to live in a world with 1.57 billion Muslims whether we like it or not.

[DCZards]

It's easy to simplify the administrations position when you don't have to run the country.
We have many Muslim allies including those that practice radical Islam (Saudi Arabia).
We have important relationships with other Muslim countries that are unstable and could be jeopardized (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc)
We have about 6 million Muslims in the US that could potentially be radicalized if rhetoric and policy becomes too anti-Muslim.
We could stop accepting Syrian refugees, but not stop accepting Muslim immigrants. That's illegal.
The problem is too important to politicize. We're at war with ISIS, the Taliban, and al-qaeda and its off-shoots. We should fight these groups and skip the broad labeling of enemies when it accomplishes nothing other than harming our long term interests. We have to live in a world with 1.57 billion Muslims whether we like it or not.

I would add that this country has millions of peace-loving Muslims, many of them American citizens and veterans who are as patriotic as any of us on this board, who could potentially become targets because of the anti-Muslim rhetoric.

[TheSecretWeapon]

Nothing about France? No worries since it is happening in Europe and not here.

They clearly brought it on themselves - we should probably just ignore it. Probably need to get our troops out of Europe

My thoughts:

1. It will happen again, and again, and again. Diversity is not a strength. It's a weakness the undermines the bonds of community and leads to mistrust and ultimately violence.

2. It will get worse as more and more Muslims invade Europe. The majority of Muslims are peaceful, but a significant minority are not. Europe as we know it is probably already doomed. The fertility of Muslims relative to Westerners will take care of that. Muslims are having 4-6 kids, Westerners are having 1-2. In two generations, Muslims of Middle Eastern and North African descent will be the majority in many European nations. Europe will become Turkey. A great civilization will be lost - lost because the people lacked the political will to defend themselves from invasion.

3. Our wars in the Middle East are a clear failure. It inspired massive anti-Western sentiment while doing very little to subdue radical Islam. Our tactics need to change. They won't.

4. To defeat radical Islam, we would need to kill a whole lot of people, take over the land, seize the oil to fund the occupation, and forcibly either moderate Islam or convert them to Christianity. We clearly do not have the will to do this (and understandably so) so the next best thing is to pull out altogether and isolate the region from the West. That's what I would do. Pull out. Let them have the Middle East. Let Israel fend for themselves.

5. Islam and the West are culturally incompatible and should be separated. Both Europe and the U.S. should halt all immigration from Muslim nations. A careful vetting procedure should be set up where only highly educated Muslims with no history of violence and a high probability of assimilation should be admitted. Everyone else should be denied entry. Furthermore any recent Muslim immigrant who is not yet a citizen should have their visas revoked and they should be expelled. Immigration policy should be set up for the good of the country, not the good of the immigrants.

6. This of course will never happen. Every other nationality and ethnicity has the right to exist, but Westerners are not allowed to defend their culture. We must be understanding and accepting of diversity. Japan can be xenophobic and not permit immigration. Muslims can kill or expel all Christians. Jews can establish a Jewish-only state. Mexico can have draconian anti-immigration rules. But Westerners have to let everyone in and watch their institutions and traditions be undermined.

7. All the liberal politically correct do-gooders on this board will tell me that I'm Hitler and continue to vote for the status quo. If we start letting in hundreds of thousands of Muslim "refugees", 20 years from now, we will be where Europe is now. There will be more terrorist attacks from within, greater community strife, more rapes and crime, worse educational institutions, and an eventual collapse of the welfare state. 20 years further down the road, our society will begin to fail. Civil war will be the likely outcome. Liberals will still manage to blame conservatives.

The ideas expressed in this post are repugnant, scary and (thankfully) unrealistic. Man I'm glad you're not in a position of power.

[nuposse04]

There are significant portions of Islam that do condone the behaviors of the extremists. Although the actual violent acts are carried out by maybe several tens of thousands of people, there is some truth that there are A LOT of Islamists in the world who condone the hard line stances of Sharia law. You're talking about 10s of millions of people almost, having to get rid of them (however logical it may sound in your head) would be the largest systematic genocide in human history.

I do agree with the isolationist principles and letting the mid east sort out itself, but discriminating on the basis of religion seems... unconstitutional. You could possibly do thorough checks and try to accept "moderates" but just because someone has a muslim last name shouldn't mean it is a nonstarter in terms of their legal immigration application. This could possibly ease over time if in the VERY off chance, education is promoted in the mid east and the corrupt nature of each muslim nation is dissolved.

Also, if you want to really stop this crap, the Muslim nations all over need to carpet bomb Saudia Arabia to hell and back again and wipe their monarchy clean off the earth. A lot of the crazy fanatics who preach this sort of theological interpretation along with the funds come from there. Nobody talks about their vulgar human rights atrocities as much as they should.

[nuposse04]

It's easy to simplify the administrations position when you don't have to run the country.
We have many Muslim allies including those that practice radical Islam (Saudi Arabia).
We have important relationships with other Muslim countries that are unstable and could be jeopardized (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc)
We have about 6 million Muslims in the US that could potentially be radicalized if rhetoric and policy becomes too anti-Muslim.
We could stop accepting Syrian refugees, but not stop accepting Muslim immigrants. That's illegal.
The problem is too important to politicize. We're at war with ISIS, the Taliban, and al-qaeda and its off-shoots. We should fight these groups and skip the broad labeling of enemies when it accomplishes nothing other than harming our long term interests. We have to live in a world with 1.57 billion Muslims whether we like it or not.

I would add that this country has millions of peace-loving Muslims, many of them American citizens and veterans who are as patriotic as any of us on this board, who could potentially become targets because of the anti-Muslim rhetoric.

The rhetoric only has an effect if they are in an environment that is conducive to them being radicalized. Simple bigotry won't do it I think. Economic despair has a considerable effect on the ones susceptible to this. If a lot of these Muslim nations actually had some semblance of an economy there wouldn't be such a large populous to leech off of. I think most have read how badly off a lot of muslims are in France, so of course their hopelessness will be easy to leech off of (not to say I blame France for their economic woes, I don't know French economics well enough to BLAME anyone). I don't know where muslim americans stand economically compared to everyone else in the US, but I don't think xenophobia alone would cause radicalization unless, like someone physically assaulted you in the name of some judeo-christian 'merica deity.