Are Muslims and the Quran a threat to our society?

[Isaac]

The late American West humorist and philosopher Will Rogers phrased it this: Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.

That's exactly how I feel about late term abortion. Your freedom to choose your "medical care" is fine, but it ends where ending another person's life begins.

 

[Isaac]

"assimilated" should mean this, in my opinion:

you have freedom to think and do as you wish as long as you don't infringe upon the rights of another

~~~
most ARE inherently considerate of others
megalomaniacs that crave power and control cannot be trusted

most humans are inherently good ... but there is a fraction that isn't, no matter where you were raised.

I think humans are inherently bad, and have to learn to be good for the most part, but I of course politely agree to disagree.
In any kind of behavorial/addiction/recovery scenario, the first thing you have to learn and accept is that we are all inherently selfish, and that selfishness has essentially been running our lives unless we go to significant effort to learn to redirect and find some greater purpose in life.
It applies to all people equally, the difference with people in some kind of recovery is that the way theirs manifests itself is more dangerous, and hence must be solved (rather than being optional, as it is with non-recovery).

 

[Isaac]

"assimilated" should mean this, in my opinion:

you have freedom to think and do as you wish as long as you don't infringe upon the rights of another

I would go further, I think assimilated should be nowhere near that culturally-neutral. It would go much farther and include patriotism toward the United States, a general support of the United States and its republic/constitution/laws, and making an honest effort to speak the main language of the United States, assuming civic duties, and generally not pigeonholing yourself in a miniature [wherever-you-were-from] type of thing.

In fact I'm pretty sure that to become a citizen, you have to prove most of what I just said anyway. Far more than just not being a criminal

 

[The_Doc_Man]

That's exactly how I feel about late term abortion. Your freedom to choose your "medical care" is fine, but it ends where ending another person's life begins.

Technically, a fetus is not a legal person in all jurisdictions. Alabama passed that rule, but not every state protects a fetus to that degree. According to the U.S. constitution, you get your rights either as a naturalized citizen or a natural-born citizen. (Specifically, the word is "born.") My wife and I agreed that if we "caught" we would not abort... but it never happened. Commonplace for older couples, or so I hear. But that was a personal choice. The research says that babies start to show signs of consciousness and memory as soon as 5 months old. That said, there is an argument that a newborn isn't yet a person either. I tend to take a generally liberal stance on personhood, but from a raw science viewpoint, even "rights at birth" is somewhat of a stretch. But from a legal viewpoint, it is an easy-to-define point of transition and I freely accept it.

https://www.science.org/content/article/when-does-your-baby-become-conscious

Just remember, with parental rights and a cultish religion, that newborn's life depends on the whims of the religiously extremist parents. It takes quite a court intervention to override a religious parent withholding medical treatment. Those infants who get into that situation have little or no recourse.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I think humans are inherently bad, and have to learn to be good for the most part, but I of course politely agree to disagree.

I wouldn't say that children start out as bad. They start out as self absorbed. They are the most important person in their lives. The world revolves around them. Their mother is a close second since she feeds them and otherwise takes care of them. It is only as they mature and are socialized to fit in with their family first and community later that they learn to recognize others as life forms who also have needs. Eventually they learn self control and so don't always have to be first and are willing to share.

I think it is children who are not properly socialized who end up bad. They retain their self absorption and never learn to consider others and therefore have no qualms about stealing from or hurting others.

One of the most interesting things about watching my twin granddaughters when they were babies is how they didn't see each other the way they saw the adults and the cat. I remember watching them as they were learning to walk. They would frequently bump into each other but never the cat or even other objects in their path. Either it was passive aggression or they simply didn't recognize the other as a life form.

The cute photos though show the girls facing each other, each with a binky in her mouth. The cuteness though is they each had the others binky because that is the one they could see. They couldn't see their own

Binky Swap

Binky Search

I would go further, I think assimilated should be nowhere near that culturally-neutral. It would go much farther and include patriotism toward the United States, a general support of the United States and its republic/constitution/laws, and making an honest effort to speak the main language of the United States, assuming civic duties, and generally not pigeonholing yourself in a miniature [wherever-you-were-from] type of thing.

In fact I'm pretty sure that to become a citizen, you have to prove most of what I just said anyway. Far more than just not being a criminal

In order to become a citizen the applicant must show some moderate facility with English both spoken and written. They also swear an oath of allegiance to the US. I think they used to have to give up their birth country passport and renounce their citizenship but that may not happen any more. I think it should though. Changing citizenship should not be taken lightly. You shouldn't be doing it if there is any question in your mind. But once we started allowing economic citizenship, we couldn't ask those people to renounce their birth country. And things went downhill from there. Citizenship is now meaningless as evidenced by the desire of the Democrats for non-citizens to vote.

People like Ilhan Omar were rescued from refugee camps. She lied about her family and managed to sneak in as part of a different family. She was cared for and educated by you and me but she hates us. I think we should just drop her off back at that refugee camp. She doesn't deserve what we gave her.

 

[Isaac]

Technically, a fetus is not a legal person in all jurisdictions. Alabama passed that rule, but not every state protects a fetus to that degree. According to the U.S. constitution, you get your rights either as a naturalized citizen or a natural-born citizen. (Specifically, the word is "born.") My wife and I agreed that if we "caught" we would not abort... but it never happened. Commonplace for older couples, or so I hear. But that was a personal choice. The research says that babies start to show signs of consciousness and memory as soon as 5 months old. That said, there is an argument that a newborn isn't yet a person either. I tend to take a generally liberal stance on personhood, but from a raw science viewpoint, even "rights at birth" is somewhat of a stretch. But from a legal viewpoint, it is an easy-to-define point of transition and I freely accept it.

https://www.science.org/content/article/when-does-your-baby-become-conscious

Just remember, with parental rights and a cultish religion, that newborn's life depends on the whims of the religiously extremist parents. It takes quite a court intervention to override a religious parent withholding medical treatment. Those infants who get into that situation have little or no recourse.

A jurisdiction could declare anybody as not being a person, does that really change it? I'm not sure it matters what the jurisdiction says

 

[The_Doc_Man]

A jurisdiction could declare anybody as not being a person, does that really change it? I'm not sure it matters what the jurisdiction says

But it DOES matter what laws that jurisdiction can enforce, including arresting a doctor helping a woman who would die if forced to carry to term, even though some states have drawn a hard barrier there.

Just saying that it DOES matter what the jurisdiction says. Because that is what is enforceable. I've seen recent news stories that suggest the number of abortions in the USA has actually gone UP after SCOTUS threw it to the states to decide individually.

I always come back to this fact: Abortion has been around for over 3000 years of RECORDED history and nobody knows how long before that. It might or might not be bad in some eyes, but people through the years who have requested that particular service have not gone away. It was and will always remain something on which many people disagree.

 

[Isaac]

Yes, it does matter, I was just worried that you were basing your right/wrong on that, which it sounds like you were not doing that, so I stand corrected. I agree that people will never agree on it, and even if people agreed on some over-arching concept, they would not agree on what was protected under that overarching concept - whether it be the first conception, 1 week, 15 weeks, 8.5 mo., etc.

I myself find it hard to come up with what I think ought to be the rule. If I take it to extremes it's easy for me - I think "the morning after" should be totally legal. I think partial birth abortions are abhorrent and murder. So where to land in between? It's a tough one, but I think the USSC giving it back to the states was a reasonable first step, as localities can express their group conscience at least that's something.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

localities can express their group conscience

But it leads to an interesting problem. The problem is the 50 states. (No, not being silly or disingenuous.) I have to explain this by a contrast.

When we talk about the Bill of Rights... let's pick one - Freedom of Speech. That is a constitutionally protected right and the 2nd paragraph of Article 7 makes it crystal clear that a right in one state is a right in all states. The rights enumerated by the bill of rights are the same in every state, including Freedom of Speech.

The right to an abortion, however, leaves us with an irregularity in that women are the same in every state but this particular medical-related right is not. I think it wildly confuses the issue, particularly since before the Dobbs vs. Jackson W.H.O. decision there was a link to the Bill of Rights (indirectly) and that link made it the law of the whole land. Then it WASN'T the law of the land, and women in the states that lost that right felt cheated, slighted, punished - for the simple fact of where they lived. The nuances of "geographic rights" usually don't reach up and bite us on the butt, but this one did.

This might stir up the pot a little, but gun control has the same problem, except that in this case it should not have the problem. The 2nd Amendment's 2nd clause says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and the 2nd paragraph of Article 7 says that has to be honored in EVERY state - but states have been passing various state-level gun control laws. I do not discuss the wisdom or the sentiment behind those laws, but the technicalities of having SOME states pass gun control laws leads to a patchwork quilt for something that cannot be a patchwork quilt. It has to be uniform and thus ALL state gun control laws are illegal. Gun control, if it occurs, MUST be a federal action done in a way that is consistent with the U.S. Constitution. So again, my complaint is not substantive but mechanistic.

Or, stated more plainly: If you're going to do it, do it right.

 

[Jon]

The right to an abortion, however, leaves us with an irregularity in that women are the same in every state but this particular medical-related right is not.

How do we know if women are the same in every state, since half the population cannot even define what a woman is anymore. But for the sake of argument, let us talk about biological sex at birth. All women are not the same, in that some are barren. Then the abortion law doesn't affect them since it is a mute point.

Next, we can argue that the law applies to women more on a continuum than a binary yes/no. Some women will be much more likely to use the abortion laws that others, and so it can affect certain groups of people more than others. Women are taxed more in some states than others.

I'm kinda rambling a bit here but the point I am making is that women might be the same in each state, but many laws apply to women differently in each state, including taxes. And what is a woman?

Edit: I don't know what the Bill of Rights is. Sounds like some kinda Federal level blanket coverage for individuals, like First Amendment etc.

 

[Isaac]

But it leads to an interesting problem. The problem is the 50 states. (No, not being silly or disingenuous.) I have to explain this by a contrast.

When we talk about the Bill of Rights... let's pick one - Freedom of Speech. That is a constitutionally protected right and the 2nd paragraph of Article 7 makes it crystal clear that a right in one state is a right in all states. The rights enumerated by the bill of rights are the same in every state, including Freedom of Speech.

The right to an abortion, however, leaves us with an irregularity in that women are the same in every state but this particular medical-related right is not. I think it wildly confuses the issue, particularly since before the Dobbs vs. Jackson W.H.O. decision there was a link to the Bill of Rights (indirectly) and that link made it the law of the whole land. Then it WASN'T the law of the land, and women in the states that lost that right felt cheated, slighted, punished - for the simple fact of where they lived. The nuances of "geographic rights" usually don't reach up and bite us on the butt, but this one did.

This might stir up the pot a little, but gun control has the same problem, except that in this case it should not have the problem. The 2nd Amendment's 2nd clause says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and the 2nd paragraph of Article 7 says that has to be honored in EVERY state - but states have been passing various state-level gun control laws. I do not discuss the wisdom or the sentiment behind those laws, but the technicalities of having SOME states pass gun control laws leads to a patchwork quilt for something that cannot be a patchwork quilt. It has to be uniform and thus ALL state gun control laws are illegal. Gun control, if it occurs, MUST be a federal action done in a way that is consistent with the U.S. Constitution. So again, my complaint is not substantive but mechanistic.

Or, stated more plainly: If you're going to do it, do it right.

True, but as it's not really a constitutional right, all it does it put the issue in the same place numerous laws are - that they go by state and what's legal in one state (one-party consent telephone recording, for instance) isn't legal in another state, which is common

 

[moke123]

True, but as it's not really a constitutional right, all it does it put the issue in the same place numerous laws are - that they go by state and what's legal in one state (one-party consent telephone recording, for instance) isn't legal in another state, which is common

So what happens when I'm in New York (one party consent) and call someone in Massachusetts (2 party consent) and record the conversation without their consent?

 

[Isaac]

Not sure, but I'm thinking you may have victimized someone according to MA state law

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I don't know what the Bill of Rights is. Sounds like some kinda Federal level blanket coverage for individuals, like First Amendment etc.

The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are collectively known as "The Bill of Rights." My history is maybe a bit weak, but if I recall the details correctly, the First Continental Congress that was laying out the constitution ran into several impasses (translation: nearly coming to fighting) and had to enter several amendments to guarantee that a future federal government wouldn't legally become a dictatorship. The Bill of Rights got the initial states to agree to the federal government's existence. Without the Bill of Rights, it would have all fallen apart.

My concern is that the state abortion laws have led to this kind of problem:

Dozens of pregnant women, some bleeding or in labor, being turned away from ERs despite federal law

Bleeding and in pain, Kyleigh Thurman didn’t know her doomed pregnancy could kill her. Emergency room doctors at Ascension Seton Williamson in Texas handed her a pamphlet on miscarriage and told her to “let nature take its course" before discharging her without treatment for her ectopic...

www.yahoo.com

The Dodd decision left hospitals more afraid of state retaliation than letting women bleed to death. This level of inaction risks TWO lives. I'm sorry, but that inaction is as unacceptable to me as abortion is to others. The paralytic grip of that viewpoint risks the lives of innocent women in any state where the radical version of the anti-abortion laws exist.

 

[Isaac]

I wouldn't say that children start out as bad. They start out as self absorbed. They are the most important person in their lives. The world revolves around them

that's really what I meant by Bad, it was just to maintain the pair of words implied when someone said I think people are basically good.
I meant essentially selfish, we usually have to be taught to share but not to hoard.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Wake-up call from a Muslim!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1823813752988557342

 

[Pat Hartman]

So what happens when I'm in New York (one party consent) and call someone in Massachusetts (2 party consent) and record the conversation without their consent?

If you're gay in Massachusetts, should the Mullahs in Iran get to kill you?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Saw this online, it says a lot about what people are finding out about Muslims.

I don't know if the USA should go to this extreme, but perhaps I can say that I'm not surprised that someone decided enough was enough.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Saw this online, it says a lot about what people are finding out about Muslims.

I asked Grok which is the AI present on Elon Musk's X Platform:-

Grok Answered Thus:-
Based on the information available up to August 16, 2024, the situation described in the YouTube video regarding Germany's actions against the Blue Mosque in Hamburg and the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH) does indeed have a basis in reality, but with some nuances:

Event Confirmation:
The German government did shut down the Blue Mosque and banned the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH) along with its affiliates due to allegations of religious extremism, support for Hezbollah, and acting as a front for Iranian influence. This action was widely reported in July 2024, aligning with the timeline and details in the video.
Details on the Ban:
The ban was part of a broader crackdown on Islamist extremism in Germany, focusing on organizations that were deemed to be against the constitutional order of Germany.
The German Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, emphasized that this action was not against Islam as a religion but against extremist ideologies that undermine democratic principles.
Public and International Reaction:
Iran's reaction, as mentioned in the video, was to summon the German ambassador, indicating diplomatic tension over the issue.
There was indeed a debate about the implications for Germany's relationship with its Muslim communities, balancing security concerns with civil liberties.
Misinformation or Exaggeration:
While the core event of the mosque's closure and the ban on IZH is factual, the video's title and some descriptions might exaggerate or misrepresent the situation by suggesting widespread mosque demolitions or a general crackdown on all Islamic places of worship. The focus was specifically on organizations linked to extremism, not on Islam or mosques in general.
Verification of the Video's Legitimacy:
The video's content, especially the transcript provided, matches known facts about the event, suggesting it's not a spoof but rather a dramatized or sensationalized presentation of real events. However, the claim of "destroying" mosques might be misleading; the action was more about closing and banning activities rather than physical destruction.

Given this:

The core event described in the video did happen, but with a focus on specific organizations linked to extremism rather than a broad attack on Islamic places of worship or the Muslim community at large.
The video might use sensational language or imagery to attract viewers, which could lead to misunderstandings about the scale and nature of the German government's actions.

In summary, while the video's narrative has a factual basis regarding the closure of the Blue Mosque and the ban on IZH, the presentation might exaggerate or misrepresent the broader implications or the German government's approach to its Muslim population. Always, when dealing with such topics, it's crucial to look at multiple sources for a balanced view.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

By the way I thought I should mention, my interest in this particular video was academic in the sense that I wanted to test out the latest version of Elon Musk AI named "GROK"....

I understand that "GROK" has access to all of the data on the Elon Musk X platform, all of the chatter, all of the gossip, all of the misinformation and all of the Verified information... ( I am making some assumptions here)

If this response from "GROK" is as well founded and accurate at as it appears then "GROK" is going to be invaluable for routing out misinformation in the up and coming battle between left and right....

In other words there will be a massive thrust from the Legacy Media to discredit X, Musk and "GROK"