Ban them all!

An attack by two Italian immigrant anarchist has resulted in more death and mayhem. It's past time we ended this scourge of Anarchist immigration. Even if it does bar whole peoples and nations.

These Italians do not share our religion, nor our values. How many Americans must die, how many of our vaunted traditions must be trampled upon before we get this?

Those who criticized the President's demand for a curtailment of immigration based on beliefs, where are they now? How many more must die?

OH, wait, my bad. That was back in 1918. Let's see, it's 2017, about to be 2018.

Ahh. I'm up to speed now.

An attack by an Uzbekistani immigrant ISIS member has resulted in more death and mayhem. It's past time we ended this scourge of Islamic immigration. Even if it does bar whole people and nations.

These Uzbekistanis do not share our religion, nor our values. How many Americans must die, how many of our vaunted traditions must be trampled upon before we get this?

Those who criticized the President's demand for a curtailment of immigration based on beliefs, where are they now? How many more must die?

*ahem*

Ahh, history. One can almost get bored with it's repetition. What's the old quote? "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to have Santayana quoted at them."?

Always the same old reasons for banning people. And those who believe in the American value of "innocent till proved guilty" want to bar others because they look like or share some beliefs with some few criminals.

Picture an America without Italian immigrants. Picture an America without Catholic immigrants. That is what the KKK fought for in the 1920s.

What of you today? Will you find a group to fight against Islamic immigration and immigration from "those" nations in the 2020s? They aren't as strong as they used to be, but the KKK will still welcome your aid.

Or, like some who still welcomed strangers and treated them kindly as the Bible mandated even back in the 1920s, will you also welcome the strangers who seek refuge on our shores in the coming 2020s?

As for me and my house, we will welcome the tired, the poor and the huddled masses, yearning not to be judged by a few bad apples.

Who do you have to kill to get a statue around here?

Hey, folks, it's Nidal Hasan pictured here, the United States officer who betrayed his oath to the Constitution he had sworn to defend against  all enemies, foreign and domestic, and turning traitor, treasonously killed 13 fellow American soldiers at Ft. Hood!

He's upset with Robert E. Lee, the United States officer who betrayed his oath to the Constitution he had sworn to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and turning traitor, treasonously killed 600,000 fellow American soldiers.

Why is he upset?

Because Lee gets all these statues, and Hasan only gets a prison cell.

"But...but...Amicable Anarchist, Nidal Hasan was fighting for the cause of Islamo-fascism!"

Yeah.  So no statue for him.  Because now all of a sudden you don't mind there being no statues, you figure that history and heritage can get by without monuments when it's an Islamic guy.

But Lee was fighting for the cause of chattel slavery, so how was that better?  And before you cry out "State's rights", yeah, he was fighting for State's rights.

The State's right to legal slavery.

And no, this is not about the "slippery slope" of us getting rid of $20 bills because a slave owner is on them.  Andrew Jackson was known for other things, the "slave owning" was an incidental.  He's on there for being a President, not a slave owner.

Robert E. Lee is LITERALLY in the position of Nidal Hasan.  He is not truly known for anything but his treason against the United States and his facility in killing far more U.S. soldiers than even Hitler managed to.  It's not like he invented corn, but oh yeah, then had some slaves.  Nope.

Nor is Nidal Hasan known for anything but his treason against the United States and his facility in killing 13 soldiers.

Both did so for reasons of "conscience", as if they wrestling with their pwecious-wecious consciences excuses them from their honor and their oath and the law!  Both did so for causes clearly unpopular at the time.  Both did so for causes that were at war with the United States of America.

So why Lee?  Why him and not Hasan?  Is it because Lee killed 599,987 more young men?  Is it because he married into his money and bungled his father-in-law's estate?  Is it for his not freeing his father-in-law's slaves and when some tried to run off, capturing them, jailing them, then selling them to a slave trader that would "have them do their duty" with "firmness" for his financial benefit?

Is it for how prettily he spoke, no doubt with a tear in his manly eye, about how his "honor" compelled him to slaughter so many American teens upon the alter of that supposed "honor"?  An "honor" defined by oath breaking and treason, mayhem and murder?

Ahh, what a darling little martyr Lee was!  How thickly did he lay it on with a war torn nation that would swallow anything for peace!  The slave-owner who opposed slavery, the man of honor who had none, the loyal patriot who betrayed his oath, the lover of his countrymen who killed more of them than any in history!

Does someone wish to pipe up - after a hasty google search - with some over-inflated account of him having participated in our interminable skirmishes and wars with Mexico?  99% of you not knowing of any of those at this moment?  Good luck.  Apologists in vain try to make him of some note before the war, when in truth he was of no such note.

The key difference in the men boils down to two.  Lee killed FAR more men for his "honor" than Nidal Hasan did.  Lee's cause was that of blacks being slaves, Hasan wanted all to be slaves to Allah.

Which then are we giving Lee the statues for?  That he killed more poor American teens, or that owning blacks is moral?

Or are we, after all, going to be told that it was for his great triumph in marching from Veracruz or mapping parts of Florida?

Sharia Law

I've traveled far and wide in my life. Visited many places, seen many sites, spent 10 years in Alaska, flew over to Berlin when the Wall came down and chipped away some of it to sell, seen six countries and two continents.

You come across odd things. I was in a place that had not just regular courts like any place would have, but religious courts.

These were "courts" where you could be falsely accused, have your accuser sit in judgment over you, have no jury, no advocate, no right of cross examination and no real appeals process. Your guilt, instead of being proved beyond a reasonable doubt, was assumed from the start and your only chance at even some mercy was to confess at once.

Why? Because it being a religious court, the presumption was that the judges were all divinely appointed and divinely inspired, such that they'd hardly call anyone before them unless they were already divinely inspired to know of their guilt!

"Confess that ye be a witch, and be saved!"

Such tribunals would mete out punishments ranging from loss of status and privileges and rights to even internal or external exile. And if any disagreed with these courts or their rulings, they were said to have turned against the Prophet, the Faith and the Creator!

Sound like hell? I thought so. Sound like why some of you don't want Sharia Law to have any place in the United States?

Well, surprise, because that place I described was Springfield, Illinois and the "religious court" was not Islamic, but from a Christian church I attended. How did I escape it's theocratic judgment?

By resigning. Because, oh yeah, freedom of religion. Which is what gave that church the right to have it's own courts, and me - and anyone else - the right to accept or deny it's jurisdiction.

That's the good news. That no one in the U.S. is required to submit to Sharia Law, Catholic Law, Methodist Law, or the Hearing I was once threatened with. Each of us is free to accept the justice of any of those courts, or to make our own personal judgment call as to the fairness of any of those courts.

Which is why I don't think Mayors and Town Councils should ban such religious courts the way they did in Irving, Texas. I don't think States should. And I sure don't think the Federal government should. It's an infringement on the 1st amendment rights of any who care to submit to such courts.

People forget - other courts, religious or otherwise - are perfectly legal. As long as they still are submissive to the over-riding authority of the United States. As long as one is not compelled to attend under threat of loss of liberty, limb or life.

You've all done it. If you've ever gone to arbitration over a contract or labor dispute. Or been to a college "Honor Court". Or accepted a write up from your boss. Or appealed to a zoning board or unemployment review. Or ran to your Dad to have him decide whether you or your brother was the biggest idiot in whatever your latest dispute was.

All these things - and dozens of more ways of conflict resolution - are "courts" in a sense. Some more than others, obviously, but all serve the same purpose. To resolve issues between two or more people.

Religious courts are legally unique in one way, because technically, though this is largely ignored nowadays, they are Constitutionally protected. The 1st Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law..." about religion, not "some laws about their means of conflict resolution".

Thus the Catholics are able to have their Ecclesiastical Courts. And the Methodists can judge their members based upon their scarily titled "Book of Discipline". And any church can excommunicate - after a court room trial by U.S. judges and juries? Nope, after their own trial done by any rules they care to have.

The court I was to be tried in, without advocate or jury or even the allowance of truth as a defense, was perfectly legal. And no Mayor or Governor would dare to try to forbid it. Because of it being one of the Christian faiths. It wouldn't even occur to them to try to forbid it.

The Islamic churches should have the same rights. To have their Sharia courts, hearings, and what not. Not to force women into hijabs or burkhas against their will. Not to insist that once a Muslim, you must forever be one.

But to aid in the disputes unique to them, involving property and marital issues in which all concerned are voluntarily accepting the judgment of their religious authorities and any are free to decline to accept such judgments if they do not find them fair.

And yes, it is perfectly acceptable and proper for secular judges to take religious law into account on things like divorce and family issues. One obvious example would be judging the validity of a marriage contract from an Islamic nation when the couple is in the U.S. and seek divorce.

This all has worked good for nearly 250 years, and without anyone being stoned for adultery or having had their hands cut off for theft.

I'm sure it can still work now.

The Danger of Sharia

So now it's not just Donald Trump.  Here is what Newt Gingrich recently said:

“Let me be as blunt and direct as I can be. Western civilization is in a war. We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in Sharia, they should be deported. Sharia is incompatible with Western civilization. Modern Muslims who have given up Sharia, glad to have them as citizens. Perfectly happy to have them next door.”

When asked how we could know if they had given that up, he replied:

“The first step is you have to ask them the questions. The second step is you have to monitor what they’re doing on the Internet. The third step is, let me be very clear, you have to monitor the mosques. I mean, if you’re not prepared to monitor the mosques, this whole thing is a joke. Where do you think the primary source of recruitment is? Where do you think the primary place of indoctrination is? You’ve got to look at the madrassas - if you’re a school which is teaching Sharia, you want to expel it from the country.”

Before debating his goal, let's be clear on what's being called for.

A repeal of the 1st amendment.  Because now religious tests would have to be gave to all citizens, they'd have to describe their deeply personal views to a government examiner, and be quizzed over whether any aspect of their faith was "incompatible" with our "civilization".  Which means a tossing out of the 5th amendment, too.  You know, the person's right against self-incrimination.

Our free speech would have to be monitored and overseen to make sure we were not speaking or writing in a way to suggest that we were holding "wrong" thoughts.  So I guess that's the 4th amendment tossed out, too.

Back to the 1st amendment, though also the 4th, Churches would be places where surveillance, either audio/video recorders, paid agents or both would be there to insure nothing improper was being preached from the pulpit. 

Private religious schools would also have that treatment, to make sure nothing was being taught inappropriately.

Now.  There's the price.  What's the goal?  What do we get for that rather high price?

To apparently keep the minute percent of Islamic citizens from taking over our nation, and re-writing all our cherished laws so that we could not speak or worship in privacy!  To make sure that they didn't set up some system where there was no protection against search and seizures and self-incrimination!  To avoid living in some Islamic hell where we would be required to give up our Constitutional rights!

Hmm.

Apparently then Newt Gingrich is worried about our rights being murdered, so proposes we commit suicide on those rights first!  If we kill ourselves, the Islamic folk can't murder us!  If we give up all our rights now, then a Caliphate can't take them away later!

No, thank you.

I know - some of you may honestly believe that some here are shooting for a Caliphate, and you worry about that. That's fine. But we must all surely agree that however we combat that potential danger, that we do not vote ourselves into a certain danger in the meanwhile!

Our nation of 330,000,000 being taken over such few Muslims are here - around 3.3 million - is highly unlikely. Mormons, who make up 2% of the population, or between 6 and 7 million, once tried a war of virtual secession (The Utah War) and lost. So it's just improbable to the point of impossibility to assume the Muslims can succeed not in simply seceding some where, but in taking over the whole of the nation!

So we are being asked by Newt to 100% give up our freedom - to avoid the infinitesimally small chance of the Muslims taking our freedoms later!

That's a poor bet. And expressed as a bet, it would be like Newt asking you to pay him $1,000 now - to protect you from any small infant who may in the future try to rob you of...$1,000! Or paying an insurance company $100,000 so that if your $100,000 house is hit by a meteorite, they'll give you a $100,000 house!

It's a suckers bet, and the man offering it is not stupid, but only hoping you are. He wants your freedoms - because that means he has more power. He wants you to be scared enough to give up those freedoms, so he can exact his authority over a group he does not like. Men like Newt don't always hold specific office, but they are always in the corridors of power.

It is NOT the case that he simply wishes to save us from tyranny - or he'd not have proposed tyranny as the solution!