Islamic schools, Christian schools … same difference

If the Muslim fundies want to be just as clueless and insulated as Christian fundies, let them do it on their own dime. The biggest issue I have here is the use of taxpayer money to support this nonsense. If they want to set up a little madrassa for Ahmed and Fatima let them call on the Saudis to get their start up money.

I understand your reservations about graduation ceremonies and extracuricular (and sometimes curicular) activities, but whorshipping Jeebus isn't really built in the the school day every day like it appears that getting their Muhammed on is built into this school's daily life.

Cut out the religion (at all schools) or cut out the public money.

I joined the ACLU while in high school, right after Nixon was elected president. One of the more intelligent things I ever did. And I'd hear family members grumble about the "Anti-Christian Litigation Union." But nope, not adopted.

Not religious now, either.

Didn't you know that the ACLU hates America and everything it stands for? It's not surprise that they're on the case to help those evil Muslims who are out to destroy our Christian nation.

That was sarcasm, if you couldn't tell.

They need to decide *now* if they want cheese on their pasta or not!!!

*That* is the *real* question in life.

I'm outraged that any of these religions exist anywhere!
It will eventually be the norm that we will be so outnumbered by religions of any and all persuasions that any expressed outrage will be useless against the demented hordes. Shall we have gated communities for atheists only as is now so prevalent in many states? "ATHEISTS ONLY! ALL
RELIGIONISTS REPORT TO YOUR HOUSES OF INSANITY AND STAY THERE, OR SO HELP YOUR god!" Dream on!

In my experience, this kind of hypocrisy is usually the cue for that old saw, "[But] this country was founded on Judeo-Christian values...".

You know. In the same way that democracy and "free will" are based on sycophantic subservience to an almighty being.

I've given up on trying to figure out which ghost in the brain finds these notions tenable.

I don't want to sound like one of those wankers who automatically think "terrorism" when they hear the word "Islam", but just one point to make.
Often Islamic communities in the west are immigrant communities that are fairly secluded, giving them there own school can stop integration between communities, which makes it much easier for them to be brought up with an us verses them mentality, which can lead to people being vulnerable to brain washing. I am not saying this is going to be a common thing, I am sure most of the time this wont happen, but there have been cases of Islamic schools in England teaching fundamentalism.

Also this is all the same issue as Northern Ireland, where Catholics and protestants had there own schools and that lead to in-group/out-group thinking, and then violence.

All faith schools are just as nutty, but they are more likely to breed violence if it is a school for only members of a closed community. Of course the best way to settle this is to make all schools secular. But here in the UK we recently had a nut-bag Prime Minister who increased the number of faith schools.

Actually, from Kersten's perspective, there is nothing at all ironic or hypocritical about her views. She's not objecting to having religion in school, she's objecting to having the wrong religion in school.

If she believed in freedom of religion, as well as separation of church and state, then she'd be a hypocrite. I'm confident she doesn't.

#2

"And I'd hear family members grumble about the 'Anti-Christian Litigation Union.' But nope, not adopted."

I feel your pain buddy. My in-laws consist of baptist preachers and their wives. After watching the NOVA doc on the Dover trial, they came to the conclusion that PBS was an anti-christian propaganda machine. The cognitive dissonance was palpable.

Kersten is like a broken record. About two out of three columns she writes are about her outrage over special accommodations being made for Muslims. She's a complete nutjob. I can't believe the paper continues to publish her tripe. These diatribes are barely-veiled racial/cultural attacks. You can bet your ass that she's the kind of fundie asshole who bitches that Christian kids can't pray in the public schools.

She has a blog on Startribune.com called "Think Again." I say we're all still waiting for Katherine to think the first time.

I was discussing school vouchers with my grandfather the other day; he's for them, I'm against. I point out to him, appealing to his anti-Muslim bias, if he'd like his tax dollars going to an Islamic school. He was reluctant to think of it as a possibility, basically saying that "real Americans" wouldn't tolerate Islamic schools indoctrinating their children -- apparently not caring that Christian schools do their fair share of indoctrination.

I really like the ACLU; it's one of the few organizations that stands up and defends our civil liberties, rather than helping to further leverage power to corporate entities. I support them with financial donations when I am able.

However, as one of few (possibly the only) anti-gun-control people who post here, I am astonished that they choose to completely ignore the second amendment. I'm sure someone is going to attempt to flame me over saying that, but we can save the gun discussion for another time. Summary of my view: if the government has guns, I want guns. I will happily destroy every gun I have as soon as I'm assured that all other guns have been destroyed. A simple run-through of the Prisoner's Dilemma will illustrate that point very thoroughly.

The interpretation of the 2nd amendment that they use is the one currently reigning as precedent in our United States: that the amendment is directed towards militias, which are comprised of citizens. I wouldn't have a problem with that interpretation except that, these days, a militia is equated with "tin foil hat guys fighting the New World Order." Expecting these people to provide resistance if the government (further) oversteps its bounds is ridiculous -- almost to the point of lunacy.

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross... it will also be carrying guns -- you won't. The ACLU fights for our rights in court -- so, what happens when all we have are kangaroo courts? What do you fight with then?

What's the difference? One chooses white, the other black?

Hey, how else are we meant to work out who the baddies are?

This is a PUBLIC Islamic School? There should not be any public schools in the United States.

"What will the wingnuts say, I wonder?"

They'll say, "Why aren't the atheists doing anything about this? They just hate Christians, and are in league with the Muslims!"

Isn't annoying when you find yourself agreeing with the enemy?

I always just shut up and wait for them to get back to what they do best.

Pfft. Amateurs.

In the UK, we have the opposite problem; politicians over here are concerned that there aren't *enough* religious state-funded schools. This despite the fact that a third of all UK state-funded schools are religious in nature, and despite the fact that the UK populace is largely non-religious.

Of course, calls from the NSS and other secular organizations to stop state funding of religious schools is met with pretty much the same response.

With all the fundie twits running around, I can completely sympathize with a desire by Muslim parents to send their kids to a segregated school. I am absolutely certain that any visibly Muslim child, or any child with visibly Muslim parents, gets even MORE crap than I got growing up a pagan in a small town. (My classmates eventually resolved that I was Jewish, since I wasn't Xian and that was all they'd heard of. These days, kids have HEARD of Muslims.) In that regard, these parents may have some sort of case: "If you aren't going to make the schools safe for our kids, you have to give us our own school."

The other possible issue is--I'm not sure at what age kids are expected to begin participating in the daily prayers, to be honest, so I may be making an unwarranted assumption. But if these kids are, I don't imagine for a moment that the public schools accommodate students needing to go pray at all gracefully. We had a couple people at my school whose parents opted out of our (thankfully mostly reality-based) sex ed program on religious grounds. Those kids took so much crap it wasn't funny, and that was only from students. I'm sure Muslim kids who need to leave class to pray get crap from teachers, as well.

So, the fundamental question is this. Should the school district spend its time and money funding a separate school for the Muslim kids, or should it spend those same resources teaching tolerance? Given the obvious lack of community interest in the latter, the former should be taken as a second-best alternative.

I would also like to mention that I do (now) realize how idiotic it looks to say, "...we can save the gun discussion for another time," and then immediately launch into a gun discussion. I didn't intend to.

:)

The bible is already being taught as an elective course in "Over 1,350 schools in 37 states," according to the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools.

This is the less-publicized 'back door' to teaching Xtian theology in public schools.

I think getzal's got it on the nose; trouble is, these are the folks who are impervious to logic and reason. Religion is just one aspect of this kind of approach to life - blind belief is easier than thinking; knee-jerk reaction is more comfortable than empathy. Of course, that's not limited to religious people. As for the in-group/out-group problem, that's all true, but that's a pervasive human thing. I'm not sure how to eradicate it, either - no matter how big and inclusive you make the in-group, there's always going to be an out-group. Looks like it's turtles all the way up as well as down. There are arguments either way about public funds, too. Me, I think that at least state funding gives the theoretical option of state influence. Honey and vinegar, too.

Sometimes, I've thought that the best thing to do is let these taxpayer-funded religious schools have their way, then sit back and watch the hysterics when Joe Fundie (usually a Republican who hates paying any taxes) has to pay taxes to educate a Muslim or Jew.

I understand some of the folks in towns that do have school vouchers suddenly don't like the idea so much, for this very reason.

But then I get the last laugh by throwing into the fundies' faces: For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. Hosea 8:7

That one seems to be a lot more appropriate than the version that Paul stole/manipulated for Galatians 6:7.

"Under the U.S. and state constitutions, a public school can accommodate students' religious beliefs but cannot encourage or endorse religion."

The problem is with this "can accomodate". It's so wishy washy. That's what leaves the door open for insiduous religiousily to enter into public schools, even if they're not supposed to encourage or endorse religion.

America wake up, make things clean. It can be done, it has been done in France since 1905, and everytime a politician barely suggests to ammend the Law on Laicity, he provokes an incredible outrage. Zero tolerance for religion in public schools, wether "accomodation", "encouragement", or "endorsement". These are all unnecssary words. Zero. Zilch. It's simple, and easy to implement.

Schools should not have to "accomodate" religious beliefs. Parents have plenty of opportunities to brainwash their children outside of school anyway.

Here here, PZ, thanks for bringing to the discussion the parallel problem with Christianity in schools. I went to such a (PUBLIC) school in Michigan, in an overwhelmingly and pathologically Christian community.

At the moment, Harry Potter is banned from the school's library (witchcraft!). When I was there, outside media tried to pick up on the story that several kids were being suspended for wearing T-shirts with the names of secular rock bands (no bad words, just 'Korn' or in some cases -- to test the waters -- 'Karrot'). But the community collectively stonewalled the media and they eventually gave up. Those families who don't endorse these rules were in such a minority -- and, you might be surprised to hear, consistently in the lower class of the community economically -- had to eventually give up seeking legal representation.

My father has the same view as #9 attributes to Kersten: religion in schools is only bad if it's not Christianity. He feels Christianity is privileged because it was the religion that the country's founders endorsed.

Also this is all the same issue as Northern Ireland, where Catholics and protestants had there own schools and that lead to in-group/out-group thinking, and then violence.

It's actually the other way around: in in-group/out-group thinking and violence predate the schools by a wide margin. Henry II invaded Ireland in 1172 (based on a Papal warrant issued by Pope Adrian, the only English Pope ever, some years earlier). There was already in-group/out-group thinking (natives vs. invaders) by the time Henry VIII split from the Vatican. In Ireland, the natives stuck with the Vatican while the invaders retained their loyalty to the Crown and switched religion.

I am, of course, painting the complex history of hundreds of years with a very broad brush, and secular integrated schools are a much better idea. I do agree that segregated schooling in Northern Ireland exacerbated the problem, but it did not cause it.

My sympathies.

Regarding schooling, here in Sweden the second case of creationism in home schooling has just been rooted out. An evangelical cult of Maranatha has been homeschooling 200 - 300 children since this was allowed in 1977. Now it is going to be stopped since it has been revealed that they break the school law - they hit the children "for discipline", they teach that evolution "is a viewpoint among many", they use unlicensed teachers, and one of the three children currently there is supposed to be home schooled elsewhere.

The responsible cultist is open about their intentions to break the law in continuing, and ironically calls their "education" brainwashing. Presumably he intends to face jail time later, to no avail.

Btw, in more depressing news, Deepak Chopra is visiting Stockholm due to an expo on alternative "medicine". The largest liberal newspaper has an article which has the usual ham handed "no facts" stance.

It notes that new age ideas has replaced christian religious ideas in the "super secularized" Sweden, and that it for many is an interest among others where they keep up on the latest trends. Unfortunately it ends even worse, letting a new age proponent say that "We have left the stone age. We live in the space age, or the IT era. Time has come to realize that our thoughts choose the world we live in."

The irony is massive.

I have to agree with 18. I went to a catholic school, while I was a practicing (then not now) Easter Orthodox (still Christian). I got more crap than anyone else. So I can see why the parents want a separate school. The one danger I see is that the school will be isolated. I don't see any difference between this and the Souther Baptist dominated public school. If you not a Jesus freak (fundy) like them your in trouble, if your gay, Muslim or any other reviled group your probably dead or out before graduation.

The wingnuts will parry your efforts with convoluted praise for the long standing "judeo-christian" identity of your country. You need to understand that the founders of the US were all Christians who just happened to forget to add that little clause to the constitution.

I have trouble seeing how any reference to the identity of modern nation-states can exclude the ideals of the enlightenment. But there you go, gone and discarded in a bright flash of ignorance and replaced with "judeo-christian" ideals.

The point about baccalaureates is a good one, but what about "release time." Do they still do that? We got out of school every Wednesday afternoon of fall quarter during my junior high years to go to our churches for religious education. I'm still fussy about that. Same damn thing as everyone going to the gym to pray.

What will the wingnuts say, I wonder?

As usual, the wingnuts will howl that the ACLU is anti-Christian. "How dare they suggest that the laws that apply to those OTHER religions should apply to us as well?"

But there you go, gone and discarded in a bright flash of ignorance and replaced with "judeo-christian" ideals.

Not to mention the fact that they love to use the term "judeo-christian" because it sounds multicultural and inclusive, but most of them will throw Judaism under the bus the second it actually comes up.

But... but... but Kersten, we desperately need a school like this with its "a rigorous Arabic language program."

These students can go on to serve in Iraq and help us to win our 100 Years War (brought to you in easy-to-swallow six-month segments).

Think of the war effort, Kersten!

The wingnuts will say "Allah Can't Love...U."

Ah well, I tried. Sometimes cleverness is hard.

Slightly said:

Summary of my view: if the government has guns, I want guns.

Do you also want tanks, fighter jets and nuclear submarines?

I will not derail this thread. I will not derail this thread. I will not derail this thread. I will not derail this thread...

qetzal at #9 is right. There's no irony or hypocrisy here. Kersten isn't complaining about religion in a public school. She's complaining about Islam in any kind of school.

I also agree with PZ. Public funds = secular school. Religious promotion is school = no public funding.

Who wants to bet that the next time Xians want to complain that the ACLU only exists to persecute them will ignore/forget this case?

God? Moslems, Christians and Jews pretty much all agree that they worship the same God, but cannot agree on much beyond that. I'm perfectly happy to let them fight, using their own money (and, yes, that means no tax subsidies for them, either). If they want to discuss it in public schools, they better be prepared to have all of their doctrines critiqued. Parochial schools always used to be good enough for the strongly religious, they should be now.

Guns? My prediction is that DC and its gun law will lose 6-3 or 7-2, but that the Supreme Court will hold out hope that there might be a regulatory regime that is acceptable without actually defining what is acceptable. I'm certain that no majority in the Supreme Court ever will agree that anyone has the right to own an fully armed fighter-bomber. The ACLU has been perfectly happy to let the NRA argue that it is the organization that protects the Second Amendment, but that doesn't mean I'll turn my back on the ACLU or join the NRA any time soon.

I'll skip the last talking point of the trinity of intolerance.

Christian fundies rail against separation of Church & State - until it's a religion with which they don't agree.

Then all of a sudden "The Wall" becomes a good idea.

I picked up the story off MPR this morning (sorry I only occasionally listen to their local right-wing leaning "news") and what was interesting was the omission of Kersten's name. All that was said was that Getz brought it to the attention of a local columnist. It took all of 1.1 nanoseconds to come up with Kersten as the columnist. (Hasn't the Getz name popped up in the news before? It's ringing a bell but I can't make a connection.) The report had zero specifics one way or the other (so much for "reporting") and left the listener with the impression that "of course these evil Muslims were doing something wrong." And of course failing the test of balance by omitting the many common illegal and inappropriate influences of the christianists in our publicly-funded schools. (meph)

After attending my son's graduation from a public high school in Alabama a few years back, I remarked to my sister that there was so much preaching & praying going on, for a minute there I thought I had made a wrong turn & ended up in an outdoor Baptist revival service.

I noted particularly the repeated references to "accepting" Jesus as one's "personal savior." Of course, such a prescription for salvation is considered heresy by the Catholic and Orthdox churches (not to mention every other religion), which undercuts claims that these are innocuous nonsectarian expressions of faith. What many may not know, however, is that there are also many Protestants, including fundamentalists, who reject that doctrine. Thus these prayers & statements are even more narrowly sectarian than most people may know.

"What will the wingnuts say, I wonder?"

THE ACLU IS ISLAMOCOMMIEFACISTS!

IOW dumb crap like ususal.

Christians don't seem to want to believe it, but the Separation of Church And State protects thems too.

As other UK commenters have pointed out, we have seen a very disturbing increase in 'faith' schools over here under Blair's leadership - the Vardy Foundation seem to be AiG's bridgehead over here. It gets my goat, to the extent that if it is mentioned even tangentially friends shush the offender lest I go off on one.

But I keep running into the same problem - 'faith' schools are at least subject to inspection and regulation. Without them how many parents would opt for home schooling - and not the good kind?

For years we managed to chip away until most CofE schools were basically ordinary schools with a vicar on the board of governors who would show up at harvest festival and twitter 'We plough the fields and scatter' and sometimes potter around remarking on the displays. Now we have bloody zealots in the mix.

In the US at least you have the church/state separation argument to make (doesn't seem to be working, but you have it.) Over here there is no such clause. Technically, there is a no proselytizing rule, but that requires a measure of alertness (I have made a nuisance of myself on that score more than once).

So, if you withdraw state funding for religious schools, how do you deal with losing a huge number of kids to mind -destroying fundy home schooling? You can't just write these kids off, they didn't make the system.

#34 -

Slightly said:

Summary of my view: if the government has guns, I want guns.

Do you also want tanks, fighter jets and nuclear submarines?

Im not Slightly, but sure. No so much on the tanks, but I think it would be way cool to have fighter jets and nuc subs.

OK - I wont hijack the thread either, which is good, as my opinion on the 2A is such that I get jumped on by both sides of the argument. (Ive managed to carve out a middle ground that nobody likes.)

I do want to say that I think Slightly is wrong to say the ACLU ignores the 2A. I seem to recall looking at their list of cases and noticing a number of 2A cases they were involved in. Unfortunately, my webfilter here at work keeps me from checking.

Now look at Scientology, allowed to deduct the cost of auditing from their federal income taxes:

http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/tax-case-jewish-scientology.htm

"In 2002, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit turned down Mr. Sklar's appeal. The court sharply criticized the IRS for its secrecy and suggested that the deduction for Scientologists was probably unconstitutional. However, the judges said the accountant had not shown that the religious instruction his children receive in school was sufficiently similar to the kinds of training courses that Scientologists are allowed to deduct."

Do you also want tanks, fighter jets and nuclear submarines?

The better question would center around nuclear weapons rather than combat vehicles. And the answer to that question (and yours) would be no, unless I happened to find mutually assured destruction to be a reassuring thought. I do, however, think that a well-armed population (no tanks or jets necessary) can discourage an accumulation of power. Just as it can discourage criminals from breaking into someone's home.

It's been said a thousand times before, but it bears repeating: making it a crime to own a gun does nothing to discourage criminals (i.e. those who commit crimes with no regard for the law) from obtaining guns, but does everything to prevent an honest citizen from practicing self-defense when necessary. Even if you did get rid of guns completely, people would just start stabbing each other or even beating each other with sticks if it came down to it.

The government isn't going to give up its arms, but you expect me to give up mine? I guess some people get it, and others don't. I don't expect the government to give up its arms - I don't believe any reasonable person does. I do, however, expect to be allowed to own guns, as a law-abiding citizen, as guaranteed by the 2nd amendment. I can't help but think of the bumper sticker with the text of the 2nd amendment defaced with a red "VOID WHERE PROHIBITED" stamp.

"After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military." -William S. Burroughs

Thoroughly derailed... damn it! I'll just end on topic, that will make it all better.

Christians can reason with themselves (and no one else) that the separation of church and state should not apply to their religion, because they sincerely believe this country was founded as a Judeo-Christian nation. The Trinity Broadcasting Network has a 30-minute special on the "Christian History of America" that they show regularly to confirm their (other) insane belief.

Um, citing William S. Burroughs on gun control is a bit dubious. Given that his best known connection with guns was shooting his wife in the head.

#42:

You are correct. I'm sure I really meant to say something more along the lines of,

"The ACLU ignores the explicit implications of the 2nd amendment while taking every other amendment at face value, and sometimes maybe even expanding upon the founding fathers' original intentions (but in a good way)."

Their official position is the same as that of every moderate gun-control group, that it only implies that state militias may own guns. Thomas Jefferson would beg to differ, but they don't care for his opinion much when it comes to amendment #2. Perhaps they think his concerns about the acquisition of power and the people's ability to fight it were all a bit loony. Perhaps you think the same thing about me.

:)

Re #12 "Summary of my view: if the government has guns, I want guns."

If the government has thermonuclear missiles...

I think it would be way cool to have fighter jets and nuc subs.

Absolutely -- one has to have transportation to and from one's secret volcano lair, after all.

making it a crime to own a gun does nothing to discourage criminals (i.e. those who commit crimes with no regard for the law) from obtaining guns

Ditto for laws against murder and theft.

. Even if you did get rid of guns completely, people would just start stabbing each other or even beating each other with sticks if it came down to it.

And sticks are of course just as dangerous as guns, as the experience of countries with gun controls show.

Americans have this weird romanticized notios, epitomized in Red Dawn, that guerillas armed with hunting rifles and .45s can defeat an occupying force with tanks, jets, and satellite intel. (For that matter, they seem to romanticize the notion that the US would somehow be occupied, despite that geography makes that nearly impossible.) I grew up in the US, in Texas, and I still don't understand this.

So... if I said something that makes sense, then do something horrible, my quote is no longer valid?

Besides, I would blame that more on alcohol. What if he had stabbed her in the face while playing a drunken game of "Stab Each Other in the Face"?

Re #12, 47 Sorry, didn't read all through and see others had made the same point. But think about this Slightly: I'd bet that across the USA, there's a close correlation between religious fundamentalism and number of guns in private hands. Your "well regulated militia" is likely to turn out to be a Christian lynch-mob.

On "faith schools" in the UK: they are allowed to select on grounds of religious "committment", but many of them seem to practice covert selection on class grounds - middle-class parents are usually better at sucking up to the vicar/priest, even if their Church membership is entirely nominal. There have long been Anglican, Catholic and Jewish schools, but under Bliar, other sects and religions have been getting in on the act, including the poisonous Vardy creationist academies. Because they are weaker than in the US, British Christians (not UK - Northern Ireland is an exception) tend to support calls for Muslim, Sikh and Hindu state-funded schools. (We can't call them "public" schools - that term has long been co-opted for the top private schools, which were indeed once for the sons of the poor, but now charge enormous fees.)

You'd ban the people from having guns, but not the government? What the hell is wrong with some of you people? You may have broken the spell of religion that your family had undoubtedly attempted to cast on you, but few of you have managed to shed the idea that the government is here to manage your lives for you. Like I said, if they have guns, I want guns. When I can trust them to give up theirs, I will happily turn over mine. Until that day, I will be armed. You have no right to take my guns away from me, and neither does the government. You may, however, feel free to try.

"Ditto for laws against murder and theft."
If someone murders someone else, put them in jail to prevent them from doing it again. If someone steals from you, put them in jail, for they have wronged you and deserve punishment. If someone possesses a gun (and hasn't threatened or shot you with it), they have done the most grievous harm to you and should also be penalized; you know, for having a gun. Because everyone knows just the act of holding a gun in your hand equates to theft, if not murder. And how dare I keep -- in my house, locked in a gun safe -- guns and ammunition that have the potential to kill! And in my kitchen drawer -- an "arsenal" of sharp cutting instruments, any of which could render any mortal being lifeless! O, the audacity of my position!

Sorry, didn't read all through and see others had made the same point. But think about this Slightly: I'd bet that across the USA, there's a close correlation between religious fundamentalism and number of guns in private hands. Your "well regulated militia" is likely to turn out to be a Christian lynch-mob.

I'd bet you don't have a speck of evidence to confirm your suspicion. And, to be honest, you come across as slightly more paranoid that I appear to be.

Slightly, you said that criminals pay no attention to laws, and thus gun bans are ineffective. That is all I was responding to, by pointing out that the same can be said for any law -- if double-parking is outlawed, only outlaws will double-park. It's pretty damned close to a tautology.

If you want to instead argue that there is no reason to restrict personal firearms ownership, that's fine, but don't get uppity if you make a silly argument about outlaws and guns that gets refuted.

*watches the gun control debate starts to wind up*

Someone better quash it before it gets out of hand. Not to further derail the topic, but I'd say the current U.S. policy is very reasonable. Guns ought not be outlawed, but they should be regulated.

On-topic: it's funny to see Christians react every time the shoe is on the other foot... but they never seem to get the idea.

@Tulse:

I was merely pointing out the logical fallacy of your argument. The two things you named are crimes, and for good reason, and the third is not a crime but an unreasonable restriction on law-abiding citizens.

If it seemed uppity, I apologize. I'm just a little incensed at the extreme-left views that show their face on this blog quite often. I'm sure that comment will make a few more show their faces, as well.

if they have guns, I want guns.
an' I want an Apache helicopter an' I want an Abrahms tank an' I want a SAM battery an' I want ICBMs with thermonuclear warheads an' I want a contract with Blackwater... where does this end?

In any case, please do not harbor fantasies that any number of personal firearms in the hands of private citizens is going to act as a deterrent to any kind of oppressive action by a sovereign government with nigh unlimited access to advanced military hardware. It's a delusional argument made by those who want to sound noble about their homocidal urges.

Yeah, crazy homicidal bastards like Thomas Jefferson. You're exactly right.

So, basically, you're saying that you have accepted the fact that the government owns you and have no desire to ever fight back against that? Fucking insane.

Yes, the government can crush you. No, your guns can't do anything about it. Yes, that is fucked up.

But what can you do?

There are places in the world where a peaceable and law-abiding man might still find it reasonable to be armed. If you live in one of those lawless places, please accept my sympathy and good luck to you.

Owning weapons when you don't need them is an irresponsible practice with frequent and horrible consequences. The idea that owning them will protect freedoms from the US government is fraught with practical considerations.

"I'm just a little incensed at the extreme-left views that show their face on this blog quite often."

Oh, sure. The US government would have each and every one of us clapped in irons in a second, if it weren't for those brave souls who bought a couple of shotguns and are keeping those menacing phalanxes of Marines with their tanks and assault weapons at bay.

I salute you, friend. If it weren't for you, the Army would have taken over my house and the corner drugstore by now.

Owning weapons when I don't need them?

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that nothing terrible has ever happened in the United States and that people don't ever have to protect themselves from criminals. Crazy me, living in a fantasy world. Hell, in your world, I can just leave my doors unlocked all the time because no one has ever broken into anyone's house to rob, rape or kill them.

When people are responsible in their ownership of weapons, they are perfectly safe. I own several guns, all of which stay in a locked gun safe and have never even been pointed in the direction of a person. The problem isn't guns, it's irresponsible people (and the same point can be made about the vehicles we drive -- I hear no calls to ban cars in order to save lives).

I'm just a little incensed at the extreme-left views that show their face on this blog quite often.

What are "extreme-left views" in the US are common sense in most of the rest of the world's democracies.

the same point can be made about the vehicles we drive -- I hear no calls to ban cars in order to save lives

So you would support the mandatory registration of all firearms, like we generally do for all cars?

Madam Pomfrey:

Don't even go there -- you're trying to paint me as some crazed militant convinced the government is out to get him. That's absolutely incorrect, and your attitude doesn't help to make your point.

Everyone here loves to quote Thomas Jefferson, so go read some of his writings on the topic. As for me, I'm out of here. Good luck, PZ, with the crowd of extreme-left-wing people that hang out here. I'd love nothing more than to see very secular reform in America, and thought the people who hang out here would be the very people who helped instigate it; but their intolerance for different viewpoints makes it clear that it's simple not the case. They should get it through their heads that not everyone who is an atheist agrees with all of the liberal dogma - particularly on an issue like gun control. I'm painted as a tin-foil-hat wacko, isolated in my home, convinced that the government is coming to get me (a la Ruby Ridge) when, in fact, I'm a quite liberal person who has simply been on the wrong end of violence before. I don't want to go into detail but a member of my family was killed in front of me. Until you've had that happen, it's really easy to pretend that guns are the problem.

I wish society were perfect. I wish everyone was compassionate and able to empathize. But they're not. And until that day, I'll keep my guns.

It kind of hurts to see people's reactions to comments about gun control. I'm from a small town in the southern United States, and I'm one of the only people in my town that will admit to being an atheist. I have no one to engage in conversation around me, and was pleased to be able to engage in intelligent conversation on this board. I felt at home, among like-minded individuals. But all it takes is to make one comment that doesn't fit the very narrow-minded idea of "secular progressive" and you're an outcast. It's a shame.

"you're trying to paint me as some crazed militant convinced the government is out to get him. That's absolutely incorrect, and your attitude doesn't help to make your point."

vs.

"So, basically, you're saying that you have accepted the fact that the government owns you and have no desire to ever fight back against that? Fucking insane."

Totally consistent (rolls eyes)

I don't have to paint you as anything; you did that just fine by yourself.

In his defense, Madam Pomfrey, that second quote you're using is not exactly in context. I believe it is a summary of what someone else just stated.

Slightly: Thomas Jefferson's writings on the subject stay as vague as the constitution itself. He alternates between "the individual" and "militias" so often that it's hard to tell what he really means.

I would just like to point out that, as someone who frequents this site but rarely comments, not everyone is against the general gist of what you're trying to say, Slightly. While I do believe guns should be registered, I also believe that they are essential to maintaining our freedoms. The American Revolution wasn't won by a 'sit-in'.

I shall now disappear into the lurking-void.

""[But] this country was founded on Judeo-Christian values..."."

... so was Islam!

I believe it is a summary of what someone else just stated.
Where "straw-man argument" is synonymous with "summary."

Slightly, you seem to have a very thin skin. Part of being a rationalist about the world is being willing to defend one's beliefs with arguments, and not sulk off when people disagree with you.

Slightly,

'Hell, in your world, I can just leave my doors unlocked all the time because no one has ever broken into anyone's house to rob, rape or kill them.'

Oddly enough I feel rather apologetic because that is, in fact, true.

As I said, if you are in that situation then by all means make a judgement call. I am not presuming to decide your threat level. There are situations where I would feel more comfortable armed and preferably surrounded by expensive protection.

My point was the proliferation of fire-arms for ideological reasons, rather than rationally evaluated need, is just putting more guns into the mix.

But if you are in the civilised world (take that as you will) and you need to be armed to be secure in your home, then your polititians need a good slapping.

Fuck it, one more post.

1. I'm not sulking off because people disagree. I got set up as a straw man to be knocked down, and got pissed off at it. The field of beliefs on this board is so damned narrow (among the commenters) that you are physically unable to debate inside this little text box; anything you say will be taken out of context and ran away with before you have a chance to respond -- unless you hang out and refresh non-stop.

2. I summed up what someone else said and got accused of using a straw-man argument, rather than actually being engaged in the point I was making.

3. I do have thin skin on this one topic -- but only because a great deal of emotion is tied into it. For most here, the issue is a philosophical one. But for many, it hits home.

4. I've watched the same thing happen to other people, and it's really sad that the most open-minded people I thought I knew are really not willing to listen to arguments that don't coincide with their committee-approved beliefs.

5. I'm done. Sorry for wasting anyone's time.

# 57 Slightly "Yeah, crazy homicidal bastards like Thomas Jefferson."

I think you mean racist slaveowning rapists like Thomas Jefferson.

Slightly, it's unfortunate you feel the way you do. In my experience here, there can be a great deal of diversity -- all that's expected is that one can defend one's views rationally and honestly. I can understand if this is an emotional issue for you, but that ideally shouldn't preclude you from providing reasoned arguments for your position. If it does, well, that's too bad.

Well, WHEN JESUS COMES BACK IN 10 DAYS, we won't need any guns. But, until then, I'm going to keep packing heat at all times, never know when some crazed atheist who hasn't devoured a baby recently might attack.

Actually it's our friend Slightly who lives in a one-zero world. If you don't buy his reasoning 100%, you're "against" him, and he automatically pegs you as one of those liberal pacifist hippie caricatures. (That will no doubt be amusing to the variety of political opinions held by those who frequent this blog.) Sorry if all that gets you hot under the collar, pal, but only a Sith deals in absolutes.

:-)

Apologies; meant to say "That will no doubt be amusing given the variety of political opinions held by those who frequent this blog."

Do you also want tanks, fighter jets and nuclear submarines?

If I can afford them or build them, I should be allowed to have them. In practical terms, if you can afford them or build them, you can have them, so may as well make it above board.

When governments no longer fear their citizens you get accumulation of power and, fairly quickly, oppressive abuse of that power. It is the nature of people attracted to power that they will abuse it even if "for your own good." The Bush Administration is such an obvious case in point it hardly needs to be mentioned.

Slightly: I agree with you re: gun control. I'm a Green Party liberal, but I feel the same way as you do about guns.

Re #77. Worth pointing out that (a) The Bush administration is markedly pro-gun-ownership, and (b) All the guns in private hands haven't stopped the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay (Oh, yeah, but that's only foreigners, right), increased wiretapping and email surveillance, official approval for torture (sorry, "enhanced interrogation techniques"), people being turned off planes and even arrested for wearing the wrong t-shirt, etc. ad nauseam? No, I thought not.

PZ, thank you for posting your thoughts. Thanks for helping to put KK's column yesterday (which I admit sucked me in -- I temporarily forgot that she's a columnist, rather than a JOURNALIST) in perspective. Much appreciated.

PZ you are absolutely right! Most Xians will pray for your soul and most Muzzie's will saw off your head - exactly analogous! And don't even get me started on the Jews.. at least Santa never hurt anybody. Preach on Brother Myers!

In any case, please do not harbor fantasies that any number of personal firearms in the hands of private citizens is going to act as a deterrent to any kind of oppressive action by a sovereign government with nigh unlimited access to advanced military hardware.

Ask yourself how well the insurgency in Iraq would be doing if those guys had access to high quality scope-sighted sport rifles, and had some training hunting. They're shaping up pretty well, but they're behind the power curve that the VC had after spinning up against the French; you had a really good demonstration of how effective a modern technological army is when Israel attacked Lebanon and accomplished nothing except to get its face covered with high-explosive egg. When I hear someone talking about how "no civilians can stand against modern military technology" I hear the sound of William Westmoreland and the rocket scientists who didn't know what an "irregular warfare" was in the 1970s. You know, the same retards who didn't learn from the lesson that Lord Cornwallis learned at Yorktown.

I'm a gun owner and I am, politically, a leftist. Why don't you think about that for a couple seconds and maybe you'll get a clue.

The earlier poster had it exactly right - many of the readers of this list had to struggle to overcome the birth-milk indoctrination of religion, to become skeptics and free-thinkers. Consider that maybe man does not need to be born into a state of being "governed" any more than he need be "faithful" There are many levels of self-imposed slavery, some more subtle than others.

I think some people here may need to watch the Penn & Teller's Bullshit! episode dealing with gun control.

Back on track: it's always delightful to see how Christians react to Islam when it starts encroaching on the Christians' territory. Hypocrisy gets its chance to truly shine.

Okay, I don't agree with everything slightly said on guns. Wow -- next time, I'll read all the way THROUGH the damn comments before posting a response.

Re #82 "Ask yourself how well the insurgency in Iraq would be doing if those guys had access to high quality scope-sighted sport rifles, and had some training hunting."
Iraq was a heavily-armed society long before the invasion. Didn't prevent Saddam Hussein establishing an extremely brutal dictatorship. Anyway, is it foreign invasion you're worried about (from where??), or a Christo-fascist takeover? If the latter, a lot of those privately owned guns are going to be used on the wrong side.

"the same retards who didn't learn from the lesson that Lord Cornwallis learned at Yorktown."
That if you're fighting to control a coastline, you need naval superiority? Sorry, don't see the relevance.

"There are many levels of self-imposed slavery, some more subtle than others."
Right, and one of them's believing your own national myths.

Yikes. I go away for a couple hours and come back to find a thread about religious schools morph into one about gun control.

Having been born and raised in the socialist utopia that is the Dominion of Canada I have naturally been conditioned to believe quite reflexively that the firearm is the source of all that is evil and unwholesome in this world and that they should be maximally controlled at all times in all situations and for all people.

I question the argument that owning a firearm makes one safer against crime. Balancing against the deterent effect of having a gun would be the continuous risk of an accident involving the gun, particularly if there are children involved, in addition to the potential for escalation of confrontations with criminals who are also armed themselves, who might be more inclined to use their guns on you if you drew a weapon on them, and the possibility that the gun might be taken from you and used against you. It seems to me that balancing all these potential risk scenarios is a tricky gamble and it would be better to invest one's efforts into being politically active in order to assure the existence of a competent and trustworthy police force.

However, with regards the argument put forth by Tulse and others dismissive of the possiblity "that guerillas armed with hunting rifles and .45s can defeat an occupying force with tanks, jets, and satellite intel," I would just like to point out the real life example of Iraq. The side with the superpowerful fancy military hardware isn't exactly having an easy go of it there against a guerilla opposition armed essentially with personal firearms and cheap explosives. And this situation isn't exactly unique in history, either.

So I don't think it is automatically erroneous to argue that an armed populace can't act as a check or deterent to the abuse of government power. On the other hand, I would like to believe that in a democracy there are more effective ways for the people to protect themselves from the potential of government abuse of their freedoms than arming themselves to the teeth. Again, I would naively suggest active participation in the political process as a first step.

I'm a gun owner and I am, politically, a leftist. Why don't you think about that for a couple seconds and maybe you'll get a clue.

Man, the straw is just flying, isn't it?

Hi, Marcus, I'm the one you're currently spewing at regarding your homicidal tendencies and how noble they are. It was our concerned friend Slightly who attempted to polarize the armed populace argument along left-right lines, calling all who disagreed with him leftist extremists. I made no such noises. I have enough of a clue to be aware of a great many homicidal leftists, but pondering their exploits has not been enlightening so far. I guess I'm so benighted on this that I need you to give me a hint: what clue should I have acquired as a result of being privileged enough to experience your tough-guy rant?

Ask yourself how well the insurgency in Iraq would be doing if those guys had access to high quality scope-sighted sport rifles, and had some training hunting.

You mean, instead of access to military weapons looted from the Iraqi Army during the invasion, and military training, given that the entire Iraqi Army was disbanded during deBaathification? Do you know anything about the situation there?

I can guarantee you that the core insurgents have more than sport rifles and hunting experience.

And, to be clear, for all that, for all the firepower and training that they have, and for all the assistance that they may be receiving from other organizations and governments, they have not defeated the US militarily. So let's not go all Red Dawn silly -- at best such insurgencies win political victories, not military ones.

One solution would be to arm the Muslems. Then, arm the Xtians. Patiently wait. Soon the god in schools problem will be solved, permanently. No more Xtian schools spewing their crap...and no more Muslem schools spewing their defaecatus. All we non-believers have to do is deep-six the remaining korans and bibles...problem solved!

@#82 Marcus - dude... some of those Iraqi insurgents have had access to military scoped rifles and have been trained in people hunting by some of the world's psychotically best... and they have been a dangerous hazard to the troops for as long as it takes for someone to whistle up an A10 with a AGM 65 Maverick, or an F16 with a 250lb bomb, or an M1 Abrahms with the new canister shot, or just a whole bunch or well-trained reinforcements.

Those in the know will tell you that the most dangerous thing in the field is a well trained soldier with a radio.

Just saying, is all...

OT: Curious how an "Islamic public school" works, here in Oz its either public (government run) and secular, or private and religous. Whats the definition of 'Public' in the States?

PZ you are absolutely right! Most Xians will pray for your soul and most Muzzie's will saw off your head - exactly analogous!

Phil, it does no credit to your faith to claim that this is a *huge* difference, when the simple reality is that such "modern" thinking about "praying" for you is a new phenomena, almost entirely originating after the fall of kings and empires, and hard fought to be made real by numerous people, up to as recent as 50 years ago, when you might still have found KKK members, whose entire ideals where based on the superiority of both whites and the white Christian nation, more than happy to have done *precisely* the same thing.

What is your point exactly? Because as near as I can tell, your argument isn't much more than that of a 2-3 year old proclaiming him/herself superior to mere "babies", because last week they stopped wearing diapers and wetting the bed. The only fundamental change in Christianity, when compared to Islam, is that there are fewer Christians willing to use such violence today, than in the past, and there has been an, often blindingly slow and painful, drift away from "bloodshed makes right", to, "lies, slander and legislation make right". Its still the same "might makes right" theory of salvation, but its redirected itself into avenues that work in societies where violence and murder are far less successful, and just as likely to get your ass kicked by angry neighbors, as succeed.

The reason the ME is still like it is comes down to a few simple factors. 1. Fear drives policy. 2. Violence never has stopped being used to drive that fear. 3. No one is willing to stand up against it, nor in most cases are the agencies that are supposed to protect against it doing so, so there is *still* profit in using it.

Put simply, in the US and other Western countries, you use intimidation and fear via violence, and the *state* will kick your ass, so the margin of success isn't worth the risk, and its safer to use legerdemain, misinformation and legal actions. In the ME, the state is often *part* of the violence, oppression, and injustice, so such violence has a *far* higher return on investment than merely lying, slandering your opponents, or making laws to undermine them.

And again, this was *still* true for Christians until roughly around when this country was founded, when events, other than just the revolution, where making such methods impractical, costly, or ineffective. It still took us nearly 200 years "after" that to convince 90% of the people in the US, and the rest of the West, that it was a useless tactic. And "some" people in the West **still** think that fear, via violence and murder is a viable solution, even to solving problems they think exist "in" the US. You know, like people that bomb abortion clinics, shoot doctors, start wars without clear goals, vague clues what the result will be, or a single clue how to accomplish anything by doing so... You, know, just to name a *few* things that some "Christians" will use to try to solve problems via violence. The rest... the rest use legal maneuverings, misinformation, outright lies, vocal intimidation and shouting to get what they want. And those things are, as long as you can't prove intent to deceive, or anything liable, are *protected*, unlike beheadings, which, often, *are* protected and legal methods of problem solving in the ME. But then, if you still don't get the point I am making, so was drowning, stoning, burning at the stake, and several other things, in much of the West, and barely 5-6 generations ago.

They will learn history, chastity, submission to Allah, the proper roles of the sexes, and defense of Islam against the Zionists, Hindus, pagans, homosexuals, etc. THE most important lessons anyone can learn.

We need those lessons in EVERY school in America if we are to ever truly benefit from Allah's generousity! But as long as the hedonists and obstructionists stand in the way, this nation will suffer His wrath.

Why is everyone talking about guns? Guns don't kill people, video games do.

/me scurries away to a dark corner and hides

Posted by: Hassam Al Raouf | April 10, 2008 8:26 PM

This faggot's bringing you down, and not in the pleasant way.

MAJeff, I believe "Al Raouf" is a ringer.

Madam Pomfrey (for some reason I want to add an "e" at the end of madam....)

He may be a "ringer" but I'm an old school Liberationist/Queer Nation type homo--I'll bash back.

I've had a number of "modern Muslim" students with whom I've established wonderful relationships and who were like, "Jeff's gay? So what, he's an awesome teacher." Yeah, they rejected parts of the text, but that's what modern Christians do as well. However, I'm also reading Infidel at the moment. I recognize the shit he's saying as reflecting an aspect of anti-modern Islam (and Christianity).

MAJeff, I believe "Al Raouf" is a ringer.

he does indeed sound like the good Rev. Hipple "in disguise".

still, I always enjoy Jeff's particular way of expressing righteous (and valid) indignation.

We all know there are plenty of people out there, xian and muslim alike, who express views exactly like those described by "Al Rouf"; be he a Hipple clone or no.

still, I always enjoy Jeff's particular way of expressing righteous (and valid) indignation.

*blush*

And I'm only gonna get fussier over the next several months. Writing makes me tense--and I'm very tense right now. The claws will be coming out.

Here's an idea:

Keep religious places of worship open, but CLOSE THEIR SCHOOLS, and require every citizen, religious or secular, to get a college education.

Keep religious places of worship open, but CLOSE THEIR SCHOOLS, and require every citizen, religious or secular, to get a college education.

Honestly, I'd settle for making sure that a high school diploma is an attainable goal for all of our citizens. We're failing on that level.

Just a point of history re: Northern Ireland. The situation between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland were further exacerbated when the native Irish Catholics were forced off the land and then Scots Presbyterians were brought in to farm it. This, I think, is more relevant to the current situation. I once read about a conversation with someone born in Ireland. Someone else stated to him that his wife was Scots-Irish. The Irishman replied, "Scots-Irish is no Irish at all."

Kaeghi...impressive missive, too bad it's mostly a non sequitur and rife with irrelevant, illogical tangents. I'm far too slow a typist to address them all.
I'm not necessarily, by engaging in a debate with you, trust in the veracity of any of your statements but, holy (wholly) cow!..Praying for "you" is new?? Even though you have an odd concept of what constitutes "new", so what if it's new, we don't live back in empire times (or even 50 years ago), we live now. Cell phones are new too so what's your point? They aren't any good because only 500 years ago we used birds to carry messages and birds poop and smell bad?
fewer Christians willing to use such violence today - Why do you suppose that is?...how were these societies you mentioned created then with all these violent Xtians and other religions around? Society was constructed only by secularists??? What? Society created in a vacuum? That is so abjectly foolish, it is beyond words. I bet you have masters in woman's studies and work at Mickey D's and bemoan how little money you make...I just can't understand why you'd make so little because truly you have a dizzying intellect.
European states are uber-leftist, just like you, so I am glad you state they rule through fear. Curious, then that sharia is taking over on the 100 year plan because, you know, they're so afraid of the European governments. See Pat Condell for corroboration.
Are you f'ing joking?? The KKK = 500 million Muslims waiting to saw your head off? You think that stat inflated?? Do your own homework and research..I suggest starting with Pew. Since we both know you won't do that, make sure you bring up Phelps in an attempt to validate your argument because 50 people = 500 million.
Dawkins considers himself a cultural Christian, he's said as much...well why not a Muzzie, since there isn't a "huge" difference? He should convert to protest his being oppressed by Xtians.

You have a potty fetish? Your example was so obtuse, I can't believe you wrote it..how 'bout this one instead, let's execute (pretend you believe in capital punishment) the little boy who stole a pack of gum along with the capital murderer because well ya know, they both committed crime - that is the difference between modern day Xtianity, Judaism, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam...You aren't too clever by half...you're just not clever.

My religion is science, and my science leads me to rational conclusions about the dangers of one fairy tale vs. another. You cannot rationally say otherwise, try as you might to spin, equivocate and rationalize. Santa is not a danger, kiddie Mickey mouses praising suicide bombings is! If you can't see that (or wish to be an apologist/equivocator for it) you better hope your philosophy dies off with you because you are imperiling freedom. And freedom isn't yours to give away. God believers in vast "disparate"(bet you like that term) proportions died for it. I know in what country science is safe (your Don Quixote complex not withstanding) and it sure as hell isn't in one "defended" by the likes of you.

Dutch, gay, humanist (you should like that)Oscar van den Boogaard said, when commenting on the Muslim infestation of Europe and saying the gig is up, "I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it." And that in a nutshell is the American leftist as it applies to confronting Islam and/or comparing it to Xtians and Jews. You take the "best" of them and compare it to the "worst" of Xtians and say, "see, see"..The only freedom you care about is your mouth and your vagina..that's it. And those will be some of the 1st to go...good luck with that, you'll need it.
Yes, yes continue with your Don Quixote complex, you most certainly are victimized by Xtians (so much so I don't know how you can live with the fear) the way you would be by Muzzies. We can deal with the ignorance of Xtians later, I'm more concerned with Mohammed and his bombs now.
I object to rank stupidity such as this uttered by PZ (he really should just stick to biology, because he sounds more and more like a creationist when he argues about virtually anything else)in reference to KK, he hates her so much (I'm not fond of her Bible thumping) he can't see past it and goes to a ridiculous equivocation. Yeah compare her bic lighter to the Muzzie blow torch...those God believers protecting us (our hated military) may have to be around to save your worthless ass, that is if you don't disband them for a Dept. of Peace first. Freedom is the highest moral imperative and PZ is too thick to get it. Sure he plays the roll of victim well, and that science is just a "Seig Heil" away from certain doom, but it's not credible, instead of getting an Oscar, he'd get a razzie.

Why don't we look at "fruit", yes a biblical metaphor, so what?...what has the Xtian and Jew created? the Muzzie?. In antiquity? today? And you think you can make a rational, cogent argument about some kinda parity between them and not be laughed out of the hall?..you did too much "LDS at the free speech movement at Berkeley". Too bad if you don't know what movie that's from.

Dr. Myers said "and I suspect there is a lot of religious indoctrination going on behind closed doors -- and I think it's a bad thing that this school is receiving state tax dollars."

Odd, since that is exactly what he is doing.

Well, now that the sacred cows of Christianity and Islam are in the flames, mind if I throw another pogrom? One of the few thing I ever noticed about Kersten( other than that she is a moronic voice from sheol)is that she was the only Minnesota journalist to critique the fact that MCTC( the 2yr college in MNPLS) was not only catering to Muslims in curriculum, but also using resources to give them prayer rooms, and built special foot washing sinks for their prayers...

Aside from the ass-crackery that Christian douchebags in this state are part and parcel of, I wonder if this favoritism--this gross miscalculation on the part of the diversity bandwagon drummers-- has anything to do with the fact that Phil Davis, unelected, appointed President of that college, and a pet of former MNSCU boss Morris Anderson, went to synagogue together?

I mean, after all, we have to look at who it is exactly that is favoring such a blur of church and state from all angles...

I... what?

The last three posts appear to be an incoherent far-right wingnut, someone who doesn't understand the difference between being paid to teach science and being paid to break the First Amendment, and a closet antisemite.

And quite frankly, I'm too disgusted to respond.

I'm too disgusted to respond. What you meant was, "I'm too stupid to respond" or using one of PZ's favorites "I'm too ignorant to respond."

Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home.

Do I win a prize?

Islam is a cultural and imperialistic religion, and if you have a school that specializes in certain parts of the world where Islam is the state religion, they will be teaching about Islamic law and the various practices of the Quran.

Dr. Myers said "and I suspect there is a lot of religious indoctrination going on behind closed doors -- and I think it's a bad thing that this school is receiving state tax dollars." Odd, since that is exactly what he is doing...CJS

lol, good point

lol, good point

You would think so.

News flash: It's not.

No, Phil, what I meant was "these people are idiots. It hurts to try to think down to their level. Do I really want to go through all that just to be ignored and insulted?"

Teh stoopid, it burns!

I wish I could be surprised. But then, this is coming from the same set of people who like preaching about freedom* whilst using "liberal" as a swear word.

*By which they mean the freedom to shut up and do as you're told, of course.

Re #102 phil. "the Muslim infestation of Europe".

"phil" is clearly getting ready to break out the Zyklon B.

OT, but I want this extremely important issue to be resolved, finally.

when abbreviating the word "christian", it was always my understanding that you abbreviate christ with the "cross", which is represented as "x".

so...

xianity

I see a LOT of people, including one blathering idiot above, abbreviating it as:

xtianity

which is the actual, correct, abbreviation?

show your work.

In support of the way I've always used it, we don't fucking say:

Xtmas

we say:

Xmas

Gun control and scaring the government:

People are bringing up Iraq and the insurgency. That is a very poor analogy, for two reasons, one of which has already been discussed; the deBaathification was a stupid idea. However the other fact is more generally relevant.

Say what you like about the current US forces in Iraq. They may not be perfect, but they are NOT a totalitarian regime that is intent on holding on to power at ANY costs.
The sort of scenario that people tend to make about gun ownership stopping a government relies on the idea that the government has gone all Dr Evil. In those cases, the government would not have a problem ordering the Air Force to simply bomb Houston to rubble if it got too much resistance from Texans with guns. If a government went that way, what would save the people of Texas is not a few hundred guns in basement (wooo! Tremors!) but the fact that the Air Force would probably tell the government to fuck off and bomb the whitehouse instead.

In other words, what protects a society is not the guys with guns in the basement, but the goodwill of the guys with the guns in the tanks/planes/warships.

"Nick Gotts", Europe isn't worth saving, it's infested with leftists cowards (you know people such as yourself)too which is why the Muzzies are taking over to begin with...most curious though, you an anti-semite mentioning Zyklon-b...is that the best you got? Ignore the factual point made and impose your own desire on it...classic leftist. Ichthyic and wazaa too...Intellectual giants both! You better ask for refunds from any of the colleges you atttend/attended.

Kseniya, you would get the prize but the statement was for Kaeghi..tough luck.

Donalbain makes a sensible point. I trust in the basic decency and reasonable patriotism of those in the U.S. armed forces, though aware of their (generally) being of a political temperment at odds with my own.
The PRC was able to order its "People's" army to run tanks over the people they had sworn to protect, and the CP certainly still retains that power, though it is likely ebbing rapidly.
I cannot imagine anything vaguely similar happening here unless the Bush pResidency had had the chance to enter its fifth term. Indeed, I cannot imagine even something like MacArthur's destruction of the "Bonus Army" being politically feasible (though I am sorry to say I can imagine a similar picked force obeying such orders.)

(P.s. I only support modest levels of gun control, but all gun-nut, asshole libertarian jerks have my leave to go impotently attempt to themselves. I hope others here will excuse this small outburst of parenthesized anger.)

Hasn't "phil" already earned the banning he's obviously trolling for? I mean, what a tiresome wanker! Just scrolling down this thread I STILL got far too much of his stench.
People like him are the reason this old joke was first told:

Look up "asshole" in the dictionary and there's a nothing but picture of phil there.

Re #115 phil.

What evidence do you have that I'm (a) A coward? (b) An anti-semite? For the record, I deny both charges.

I used the comparison I did because your use of "infested" (and I see you're doing it again) is precisely the way those preparing for genocide talk: referring to their intended victims as if they were non-human vermin.

I "ignore the factual point made"? What factual point was that? I must have missed it in all the ranting. I admit I didn't read every word - too boring.

Donalbain #114- You have evidence that they are not intent on holding power in Iraq at any cost? I'd say building a permanent embassy the size of a small country, permanent mmilitary bases, and trying to get laws passed to benefit their companies is pretty good evidence that the US is intent on holding power in Iraq at any cost, to someone else of course.
Maybe I'm just cynical.

Donalbain #114- You have evidence that they are not intent on holding power in Iraq at any cost? I'd say building a permanent embassy the size of a small country, permanent mmilitary bases, and trying to get laws passed to benefit their companies is pretty good evidence that the US is intent on holding power in Iraq at any cost, to someone else of course.
Maybe I'm just cynical.

Or rather, to be more nuanced, you said ANY cost. Of course, a mad dictator like Hitler went as far as Any cost, including his own life. But power game players such as the USA'ians won't go so far as Hitler and others, so yes, technically they won't stay for ANY cost, but to those in the front line or who have been affected (Somewhere near a million civilians dead, 2 million refugees, over 4,000 USA soldiers dead, a trillion dollars added to the debt) I think the distinction between ANY and nearly any, is rather contrived.

Next time you meet a Muslim believer, you might ask him if he actually believes that an angel talked to a mediocre business man in the desert. Then you might ask if he believes that this same businessman rode a flying horse to visit hell and heaven.

Is that what they teach in these islamic schools? That is part of the dogma.

OT, but I want this extremely important issue to be resolved, finally.

when abbreviating the word "christian", it was always my understanding that you abbreviate christ with the "cross", which is represented as "x".

so...

xianity

I see a LOT of people, including one blathering idiot above, abbreviating it as:

xtianity

which is the actual, correct, abbreviation?

show your work.

In support of the way I've always used it, we don't fucking say:

Xtmas

we say:

Xmas

The reason for the "X" is not to represent the cross (at least, not primarily). It's not actually an "X", it's the Greek letter "Chi," the first letter of "Christos". It dates from the time of Roman persecution, IIRC, a tradition of referring to Christ as "Chi" (X) rather than by name, so as to avoid notice. There is probably some punishness going on with the cross symbolism as well, like with the fish.

You are correct, however: Xian and Xmas are correct.

Gawd, small town public schools. I had a grade school teacher who was terribly offended by the "X", thinking it was some sort of neologism, some sort of "Taking the Christ out of Christmas". So I asked the Unitarians, and went back and explained it to her. She made me skip recess for talking back. The b****.

"Nick Gotts", evidence you're a coward and anti-semite? 1. You're a leftist, 'nuff said for the coward part, but 2. You went for the genocide straw man 3. You didn't happen to notice that that was the sentiment of Dutch, gay, humanist Oscar van den Boogaard, another leftist coward. 4. I'm a Jew and you brought up Zyklon B in support/defense of the very people that put my people into ovens..yes the Muslims/ Arabs collaborated with the Nazi's to do that very thing and you use a Zyklon-b reference?! But I know you're too ignorant to know about their collaboration.
Deny what you want, your writing speaks for itself about who and what you are..a cowardly anti-semite.
Too boring? About a leftists speed - can't read/comprehend unless it's only a paragraph long, which is why you're so ignorant..just like a creationist.

Point made? That Boogard(and he's one of many leftists saying this) said it's over in Europe because of the Muslim "infestation"..that factual point..you're not good with reading comprehension it seems.

winkingbuddha = a leftist who pays lip service to free speech but only lip service; another in the long littany of leftist censors. Hey Dumb ass, the above posts are the 1st time, I've ever posted here, or are you too stupid (well, we know the answer to that)to realize "phil" is a common name? PZ could check that out, you little petty tyrant.

Oh and "Nick", if my writing was too boring for you, perhaps you should have ignored it since it was addressed to Kaeghi and not you...another reading comprehension tick you have. And truthfully, I didn't know it was that long until after I posted it..but Kaeghi was down right obtuse, so many words were required to refute him/her.

I'm an atheist. It is very bad to allow exceptions to the separation of church and state.

Of course Christians are going to point out when Muslims get away with it, and Muslims will complain when Christians get away with it. We live in an adversarial world where the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Nevertheless these volunteer watchdogs do us a service. We've been alerted to a religious group trying to undo our Constitutional separation. We must be consistent in our opposition or we will lose hard won ground to those who want to reimpose religious teachings at the hand of the government.

Tulse this fear of being invaded that you say Americans seem to have probably stems from fearing what you have done to others may be visited on you. You have fought wars against Mexico and Canada (okay Britain but Canadians fought and died). You have films and TV series that show American soldiers storming ashore on some foreign beach so is it any wonder that people worry about Russkies or Chinks crossing the Pacific and doing the same as you did?

Sure they would have to worry about their supply lines, but there was Pearl Harbour etc, etc, etc. I can think of all sorts of scenarios if I really wanted to, but I don't.

Now this is where I parted company with the US in the Cold War since I can see where Russian paranoia came from, just starting with Kiev's golden age being snuffed out by the Mongol Horde. So Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was heavy handed, BUT they had just been invaded twice in a generation by Central Powers so a buffer is not an irrtional response. Furthermore with medium range missiles in allies territory in Western Europe able to hit Moscow it was also perfectly reasonable to wish to use their ally's territory to be able to hit Washington with similar missiles. That has always seemed fair to me, though I can see how finding out how the Russians felt about those missiles in Western Erurope may have unsettled Kennedy et al.

Re #81, 102, 115, 123 phil

Phil, here's something from your first post here:
'Most Xians will pray for your soul and most Muzzie's will saw off your head - exactly analogous! And don't even get me started on the Jews..'
So what will the Jews do, according to you, phil, and why did you warn people not to "get you started" on them. What would you be saying about them if you someone did "get you started"?

Phil, here is your use of "infestation" in 102:
'Dutch, gay, humanist (you should like that)Oscar van den Boogaard said, when commenting on the Muslim infestation of Europe and saying the gig is up, "I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."'
So "infestation" is not part of the quote from van den Boogaard, which means (whether he originally used that word or not) that you are saying there is a "Muslim infestation" of Europe.

Here from #115, where van de Boogaard is not mentioned:
"Europe isn't worth saving, it's infested with leftists cowards"

Again, you implicitly characterise a group you hate as subhuman vermin. While in general I'm wary of Nazi comparisons, I consider it absolutely justified in this case.

You have given no evidence that I am a coward,merely sterotyped all "leftists" as such. Hmm. Here's a list of well-known leftists, some of whom I admire and some I do not, but it takes some gall to describe any of them as cowards, given their life-histories: Marx, Bakunin, Keir Hardie, George Orwell, Petr Kropotkin, Emma Goldmann, Rosa Luxembourg, Karl Leibknecht, Lenin, Trotsky, Nelson Mandela, Chris Huni, Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende, Hugo Chavez.

You have given no evidence I am an anti-semite. Why you should think it relevant you are a Jew (if indeed you are, which I doubt given your #81) I don't know, particularly as this is the first time I've mentioned it. Was I supposed to divine it by some occult power?

So, your pretence at rationality is pretty thin.

Finally, "Nick Gotts" is my real name. What's yours, coward?

Tulse this fear of being invaded that you say Americans seem to have probably stems from fearing what you have done to others may be visited on you.

Um, Peter, I'm Canadian. (That is, I immigrated to Canada from the US over two decades ago, and have citizenship here.) So please don't tar me with the sins of past or current US governments, which I agree are egregious.

Correction to #127: "this is the first time I've mentioned it" should be "this is the first time you've mentioned it".

Well "Nick", you used quotes on my name, so I just returned the favor. Phillip Ratner is my name..now look it up so you can mail/call/e-mail threats to me like other leftists cowards have, but when I offer to meet up with them, they always decline..seems threats are safer in anonymity.
Boogard, if you would have bothered to check, just like a creationist you didn't, that was part of the language he used before the salient quote. ..and me using "infestation" is called creative metaphor, irony and satire (along with the "don't get me started on the Jews") ... Franken being your boy I thought you'd understand satire, guess not.

Your littany of leftist guys/gals who "aren't cowards" is actually a list of some butchers and enemies of freedom...see cowards use the power of the state to impose their will, you know "for the greater good".

and it's pretense, not pretence unless you're British.

The reason for the "X" is not to represent the cross (at least, not primarily). It's not actually an "X", it's the Greek letter "Chi," the first letter of "Christos".

ah, thanks for the clarification.

You are correct, however: Xian and Xmas are correct.

thank you for addressing this all important conundrum.

;)

@Phil:

Your littany of leftist guys/gals who "aren't cowards" is actually a list of some butchers and enemies of freedom...see cowards use the power of the state to impose their will, you know "for the greater good".

funny, I thought you were describing the Bush administration there; but then I saw the word "leftist" and knew of course you couldn't be talking about Bush...

Phil, you're insane.

suggest you seek treatment.

Mr. Ratner,

I did check on van der Boogaard - all I found that referred to Muslims was the very quote you used. What was your source? In any case, if you don't put something in quotation marks, you take responsibility for it.

"and me using "infestation" is called creative metaphor, irony and satire (along with the "don't get me started on the Jews")".

Can you really not do any better than that? You're making this so easy there's hardly any fun in it! Using "infestation" of human beings is hate speech, plain and simple; and since you had signed yourself simply "phil", and had not informed anyone you were Jewish, how on earth can you claim "don't get me started on the Jews" was irony or satire? For those things to work, there has to be some clue to your audience that that is what they are.

"Franken being your boy"
I'm supposed to be an anti-semite and Al Franken, the well-known Jewish comedian, writer and commentator, is "my boy"? Come on, Mr. Ratner, you're not trying!

Every one of the leftists I named put their lives on the line for their beliefs. Now, I understand you loathe those beliefs, but calling someone a "coward" because you disagree with their beliefs is puerile.

"Your littany of leftist guys/gals who "aren't cowards" is actually a list of some butchers and enemies of freedom...see cowards use the power of the state to impose their will"
Three of those I named (see if you can pick them out) were anarchists. You know. Those people who advocate the complete abolition of the state.

And whatever your nationality (as it happens, I am British), it's "litany", not "littany".

Mr. Gotts, you'll be happy to know, since I have a full time job (and 33% of all British males have a felony conviction by age 40, so I assume you are writing from prison) I don't have the time to carry this on as diligently as I'd like. And what with Ithy coming after me too with his redoubtable repartee, you 2 are just too powerful.
Oh, Ithy if I am insane, you are stark raving mad...go kiss up to a Muzzie, show him some love tell him how much you and him are the same = hate Bush. Then when he comes after you because you're not Muzzie, hide behind a Xian {there happy?} soldier protecting your demented ass. Then after the soldier is done protecting you, you can wish in grateful tones "a million Mogadishu's" on him...'bout your speed.
Now Nick, the passage was from The Brussels Journal that I had read online about 2 years ago entitled 'raping Europe' or some such thing; I only kept the quote and remembered the context not realizing I should have kept the whole thing for the ignorant.
Nick, Franken fancies himself a satirist, though he's not a good one, and I was playing that angle since I thought "you" knew..nothing more. For those things to work, there has to be some clue to your audience that that is what they are. Franken doesn't do this, as I said, I thought you'd (and anyone else reading it) be up with it. Nick, since London is becoming Lodonistan, chin up dude, muzzie's aren't tolerant of free thinkers such as you. Your population is stagnant or dying and the Muzzie's are out pacing you, enjoy your freedoms while you can, I hope your kids and grandkids get to as well.
Hence the word "some", I noticed the anarchists, though I'd call them something else. Good on ya mate for being British and thanks for the spelling correction; I was at work and typing fast. I want to comment further, but you'll be mad at me for writing too much.

33% of all British males have a felony conviction by age 40

That's ludicrous -- what's your source?

Tulse..I'm sparring with Nick (and Ithy, unfortunately) do your own goddamn due diligence...google it or something.

Mr. Ratner, your latest post reaches hitherto undreamt of heights of mendacity and incoherence. Congratulations.

"the passage was from The Brussels Journal that I had read online about 2 years ago entitled 'raping Europe' or some such thing; I only kept the quote and remembered the context not realizing I should have kept the whole thing for the ignorant."

In other words, you have no evidence whatever that van der Boogaard ever used the word "infestation", despite your earlier claims.

"Franken fancies himself a satirist, though he's not a good one, and I was playing that angle since I thought "you" knew..nothing more. For those things to work, there has to be some clue to your audience that that is what they are. Franken doesn't do this, as I said, I thought you'd (and anyone else reading it) be up with it."

I can't make sense of this passage. Could we have an English translation, please?

"Hence the word "some", I noticed the anarchists"

Oh no you didn't. What you said was:

"a list of some butchers and enemies of freedom".

If you had meant what you now claim, you would have said something like:

"your list includes some butchers and enemies of freedom", or
"most of your list are butchers and enemies of freedom",
or
"apart from the anarchists, your list consists of butchers and enemies of freedom.

Incidentally, do you consider George Orwell, the well-known non-anarchist and author of "Animal Farm" and "1984", a "butcher" and an "enemy of freedom"? Orwell, who went to Spain to fight Franco's fascists, was shot through the throat on the front line, then had to flee for his life from Stalin's minions?

You're a liar, Mr. Ratner, and a remarkably poor one.

Geez. Ya know, it's not worth it to get pissed and angry at this phil feller. I mean, look at him -- stewing in hate and anger at everyone who's not exactly like him. Such a sad, pathetic way to live, really. Pity's much more the appropriate emotion.

Me, I ain't gonna worry about it. Off this weekend to hang out with some liberal soldier friends and have a good time playing D&D and listening to them occasionally mock "The Decider."

Tulse..I'm sparring with Nick (and Ithy, unfortunately) do your own goddamn due diligence...google it or something.

I've been googling for some evidence to support this eyebrow-raiser, and so far have been unable to do so. I would classify this as an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. Therefore, Mr. Ratner, the burden of proof is on you.

I estimate a 67% chance that you won't provide supporting evidence, therefore it is nearly certain that you will.

OT, but...

Now this is where I parted company with the US in the Cold War since I can see where Russian paranoia came from, just starting with Kiev's golden age being snuffed out by the Mongol Horde. So Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was heavy handed, BUT they had just been invaded twice in a generation by Central Powers so a buffer is not an irrtional response.

Yet presciently they were out invading the 'buffer' zones even before said invasions.

Re #137 G. Barnett.
Yes, you're right. Life is too short to go on "slaying the slain". May I be afflicted with whatever psychopathology he is suffering from, if I respond any further to him on this thread.

Re #138 Kseniya.
He'll have trouble. "Felony" has not been a term of English Law (I'm not sure about Scottish and Northern Irish) since the Criminal Law Act of 1967.

'I'm sparring with Nick'

I seriously doubt that Nick thinks so. You are barely coherent.

"phil"@102:

European states are uber-leftist ...

Rubbish. Here are three counter-examples: Poland. Serbia. The UK.

The KKK = 500 million Muslims waiting to saw your head off? You think that stat inflated??

Inflated and fictional.

... My religion is science ...

"phil" demonstrating she/it has no understanding of either.

... on the Muslim infestation of Europe ...

Up until this point I thought "phil" was just the typical loon. Now I realise I was mistaken. "phil", whoever she/it is, is seriously deluded: She/it appears to have some hatred of Muslims (apparently just because Muslims are Muslims); has no fecking idea how large "Europe" is (e.g., the size of the relevant populations, amongst other simple facts); and appears to have bought into one of the most ludicrous fantasies of the past c.1500 years: That Islam is somehow more threatening than Jew-nailed-to-a-tree-ism. (Never mind that that particular Jew is a prophet in Islam.)

I've lived in Europe for over 20 years now. I have absolutely no fecking idea what this "phil", er sorry, "fool", is going on about. "Muslim infestation". Utter tosh! Not even wrong.

Ok well it seems you have/need help Nick (it is Friday night in the jolly old UK, no date? I see why you're so touchy).
Tulse,I shouldn't have said that to you, but I was being a satirist like Al Franken, try: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0607.html and http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page54.asp.
On Monday Tulse, I will get the paper that I saved on my work computer, just for Nick, where the stat was exactly from. Nick's playing semantic games with the term felony, musta hit close to home, he's awfully upset. Kseniya you can check it out then too, because since you can't find it, it must not exist. I will post it back on this thread on Monday.

I said "some" Nick, meaning some of them are , what don't you understand? If you read it wrong, well ok, I spose I coulda been more clear, seemed clear to me. Nevermind about Franken Nick, it's a Minnesota thing.

And with the title "Raping Europe", using "infestation" is a huge leap..ok Nick. Have fun on your date, well since you don't have one, hit that Brussel's journal again you'll find Boogard's statement. I find it odd you focus on that one word but don't dispute any other of Boogard's contentions.

G. Barnett, you described yourself to a "T". Freud called it projection. Don't worry at all about those people who want to saw your head off or blow you up, they're full of peace and love. And once Bush is gone, it'll be smiley happy people holding hands again. Have fun with your liberal "soldier" friend, ask him about the Muzzie's.

Ok, commence operation chaos: GO!

blf...take a#

blf...take a#

Huh? What should I do with your, or anybody else's, octothorpe?

Kseniya you can check it out then too, because since you can't find it, it must not exist.

No no no, Mr. Ratner, I didn't say that. I:

There is simply no way the controversial practices at this school could pass any of the three prongs of the Lemon test, and as such the practices in question are unconstitutional (assuming, of course, that means something around here; after all, we have a "living" constitution, and if the majority wants this, why should some ancient, irrelevant document stand in the way of this "progress"?)

To pass constitutional muster, the practice must: 1 have a secular legislative purpose; not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion; and not result in an excessive government entanglement with religion.

To me there is little doubt that what this school is doing couldn't possibly pass even one of those prongs, much less all three (which is the standard for constitutionality).

Shut it, and all schools like it, down (Christian, Muslim or otherwise).

try: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/crimeew0607.html

Nope, it has information on crime victims, but not on perpetrators.

and http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page54.asp.

And that site no longer even exists. (I guess you forgot to check your links.)

We like actual data around here. Got any?

What? Phil is still sort of babbling?

I am the only person in my family, other than my mother, than hasn't been a cop, my father was in some special forces unit so obscure that it wasn't until 10 years ago that they declassified it, so he could talk about any of it, and his service record shows him trained on place, disappearing for 3-4 years, then being honorably discharged. I consider myself one of the new warriors of our age, where fear, disinformation and lies are used as often as bullets, but I am just a foot soldier, not fracking Sam Fisher. Liberal, yes, mostly. I think those that call themselves conservatives (or at least stand and declare themselves the "heart" of that ideal) are all raving lunatics. Some conservative concepts I agree with, to a point, some I think are bullshit made into traditions, by people that didn't know 50% of what we do today about why people act the way they do, and maybe, just maybe, could have been (and in some cases where) dead wrong about things. I am **very** conservative about the ideals held by the founding fathers, and they bare *no* resemblance to the bullshit those who whine about defending them 24-7 claim they are.

Yes, there are nuts on both sides. The surest sign that you are dealing with one is when they insist that there are 500 million insane lunatics running around planning to cut people's heads off. If there was, we wouldn't be sitting here typing this, we would be fighting them on our own streets. People that obsessed with religion don't sit around and wait for a few hundred nuts, with a few thousand deluded followers, to plan to blow up a truck next to a US embassy. That many insane radical fanatics would have overrun Europe violently, burned half the cities down, and left everyone in their path dead.

We are dealing with 499 million deluded nitwits that think there is value in believing in basically the same religion as Christians do, just with one more saint/prophet, and use the same stupid excuses to claim that its only some tiny number of crazy people that don't really "belong" to their pure, honest, just and loving religion that are going on world wide TV networks to do hateful shit like calling for the mass murder of non-Muslims, or... oh, say the assassination of world leaders and the mass murder of gays (if they thought they could get by with it as easily). And, you Phil, are one of the insane whiners, who actually thinks anger, ignorance, calls for equal violence against the "vast" conspiracy of enemies against you, before they do it to us, and hatred of anyone that doesn't toe the party line, will make the world better.

If you read stuff I wrote before you would know damn well that I don't always agree with everyone here, and sometimes I might "almost" agree with the side you think you are on. The problem is, I happen to agree 500 times more with the idea held by everyone else here, that people like you are part of the the $%$%@#^ problem.

Shut it, and all schools like it, down (Christian, Muslim or otherwise).

Sounds like communism. Why not let them thrive in the private school concept? After all, there is still freedom of religion in this country...

"phil"s claim there are 500m nutjobs (who happen to be Muslims) is clearly absurd. But how absurd?

The various statistics I found by searching for muslim world population broadly agree there are between c.700m-c.1500m Muslims in the world, or c.20% of the world's population. (Jew-nailed-to-a-treers is apparently the largest cult, with c.30%. The number of Muslims is projected, on current trends, to become the largest by c.2050.)

Which means "phil" seems to think that somewhere between c.30%-c.70% of all Muslims are nutjobs. Excepting the Taliban et al. (who do not have too many members anyway), is there anyplace in the world with that high a concentration of Muslim nutjobs? I'm certainly unaware of any.

That many insane radical fanatics would have overrun Europe violently, burned half the cities down, and left everyone in their path dead. - Kagehi

In late 1979 (note the date), a book was published in the UK entitled "The '80s: A Look Back". Unfortunately I don't have a copy, but one item I remember was about how the Arabs overran Europe "because NATO had no counter-weapon to the scimitar". I think Mark Steyn must have used it as a primary source.

To be serious about issues surrounding European Muslim immigrant communities, yes, there are significant problems of integration. I have heard that the US does not have equivalent problems - this is often attributed by Americans to the long tradition of immigrant groups moving in and Americanising, even while maintaining a sentimental attachment to their "homeland". This may well be part of the explanation; another part is that for historical reasons (colonialism) and geographical ones (the proximity of southern Europe to North Africa and the Levant), there are quite a few cases where most of the Muslim immigrants to a particular country or region come from the same area, over a relatively short period of time. For example, over half of UK Muslims are of Mirpuri origin - Mirpur is a relatively small region in Pakistani Kashmir - the 7/7 terrorists were mostly children of Mirpuri immigrants. But by the same token, there is no cohesive "Muslim community" in Europe - European Muslims vary as much in belief, culture and language as European Christians, Jews or atheists. Of course recent immigrant groups tend to have higher birthrates than the national average - partly for cultural reasons, but mostly because of their age distribution. The latter will change, and modernity is a pretty powerful cultural solvent. Projections of Muslim majorities within decades are absurd (the current proportion of Muslim population in the UK is under 4%), longer-term projections based on birthrates remaining constant are worthless, and in any case we have far more serious long-term problems to worry about, such as climate change. Meanwhile the biggest current problems connected with Muslim immigrants in the UK are that on average Muslim children do not do very well at school, and that fascist groups and the gutter press have been trying to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria. I have Muslim colleagues and neighbours, one of my son's best friends at school is called Muhammed, and I feel my liberties at considerably more at threat from "anti-terrorist" measures than from imaginary global Islamic conspiracies.

Incidentally, for the benefit of the sane contributors to this thread, I should say that in general I have absolutely no problem with people using pseudonyms, or just their first names, online, though I don't choose to do so myself. I only consider it cowardice when people hide behind such anonymity to hurl abuse. I am far from convinced that "Phillip Ratner" is our paranoid chum's real name.

[ In the UK ] fascist groups and the gutter press have been trying to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria.

A recent example of a facist group trying this (from The Grauniad earlier this week): BNP seeks to bury antisemitism and gain Jewish votes in Islamophobic campaign.

Michael,

I meant shut it (the public school) and any schools like it (other public schools doing similar things) down. I don't care if they act privately (unless they're training Jihadists in there, in which case I don't mind if it's shut down).

Why not let them thrive in the private school concept? After all, there is still freedom of religion in this country...

Will wonders never cease! I completely agree with Michael on a school issue! :-D

I think Greg has adequately explained his position, though. There's no disagreement there...

It's not so much agreement as for once making a school private is a good idea, and Michael thinks it's always a good idea

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

For what it's worth, I would much rather share this continent (Europe), and in particular, this island (UK), with the 99% of peaceful, law abiding Muslims, who simply want to live a life similar to that which most Europeans enjoy, while enriching our culture at the same time, than with obnoxious, invidious, bigoted ignoramuses like Phil.

That is all. Thank you for your time.

I am of two minds about private schools. First, yes, they should have their own venues to teach their ignorance and paranoia, but then, they *do* have such already, its called churches. On the other hand, the cycle seems to work like this:

1. Fundies in government are more concerned about moments of silence in school and letting people off attending classes that their parents object to than making sure kids learn anything, never mind learn it in a way that makes it usable (the second issue being the more important, and is actually **undermined** by the current no child left behind testing method).

2. School standards, grades, education levels, etc. drop.

3. The same/similar wackos to the fools in #1 propose that if the public system is so broken, then private schools would be better (and besides, they can concentrate on not teaching their kids certain things, without having to constantly fight about if/how/when their kids will be fed religious indoctrination.

4. Higher institution, and a lot of jobs they try to get, rapidly conclude that the people graduating from those private schools, even if their grades *appear* exemplary, are completely useless, or so badly informed about certain subjects that they either need to be retaught, or rejected.

5. The failure of poor Jimmy to be accepted in higher academia, or get a job doing anything but flipping burgers, leads the wackos to insist that their is a conspiracy against faith, rather than a conspiracy against bad education.

6. The wackos start opening private "colleges" to make up for this, so they can bake their cake, eat it, *and* pretend that it wasn't using an easy bake oven (special education edition).

7. These people *still* do badly, if not worse in the real world, so they loop back to some version of 6, while deciding that part of the problem was that they didn't screw things up worse in steps 1-5, so they need to try harder there too.

None of this is a problem, as long as the religious people *respect* knowledge, teach critical thinking, and understand that the goal of education is to teach facts, not help indoctrinate. The problem is, the very nature of the tests used to make sure such schools fill the same requirements as public ones are either not designed to detect failures to teach anything other than facts, so there is no respect for knowledge or critical thinking at all, or, even worse, its recognized that testing for those things *will* conflict with religious indoctrination, so the tests are specifically designed to avoid any situation where a student may have to take a small set of facts, and derive an reasoned answer, instead of picking multiple choice answers from the list of things they are just as likely to separate into, "lies they enemy want me to believe", and, "as close to the truth, according to the Bible, as this test gets", as they are into, "stuff that is supported by evidence", and, "stuff that isn't". Well, the issue is also that its hard to come up with tests that correctly test for reasoning when you are too busy testing for, "do they know the facts being taught".

When those who are disinterested in fairness, knowledge, thinking or understanding a diversity of ideas, start sabotaging the public system for their own goals, and *they* are the ones also opening the "private schools", it gets kind of hard to justify the idea that society can continue to function by "allowing" those schools as free a reign as they had in the past. And while the system is, so far, self correcting, we have idiots in the US, including our president, who want to take the "private school" idea all they way into businesses and give *those* places the right to discriminate based on whether or not their potential employees have the right type of religious dogma, and in sufficient levels to make the business owner happy. See, apparently its, so far, still bad to discriminate against people for skin color, but now.. religion you can use to excuse everything from not hiring people, to sueing the people that hired you, because they asked you to do their job in a context where their religion conflicts, or at least that is the world they *want* to see:

http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2008/04/refusal-to-photograph-lesbia…

I really don't get this one. They allowed the people on their property, but what.. didn't know what it was going to be about, so decided at the last minute to object to doing the job they normally would have if it was a straight couple? I would be asking if this was an "expected" part of the service, and if it was in writing, thus also a breach of contract, but somehow I think they managed to arrange for a way to side step that possibility.

Actually it's our friend Slightly who lives in a one-zero world. If you don't buy his reasoning 100%, you're "against" him, and he automatically pegs you as one of those liberal pacifist hippie caricatures. (That will no doubt be amusing to the variety of political opinions held by those who frequent this blog.)

No doubt.

I'm as far left as almost anyone I know personally, and nearly all of my friends and immediate family are in the range between liberal Democrats and anarcho-syndicalists.

Everyone, and I mean everyone in this circle believes in the right of the individual to own personal firearms, and many of us own several.

I'm just fucking astounded that anti-gun sentiment is associated with the left in America. Gun haters tend to be relatively wealthy suburban moderates, in my experience, and those sorts of people very often vote Republican for their own selfish economic concerns.

Ol' Slightly sure is a useful idiot to his racist, classist overlords.

Kagehi (#159) - Sing it, brother! :-)

Excellent comments.

As a teacher in a public high school, I feel I've earned the right to say: privatize them all. For those who disagree, go spend some time in the classroom and get back to me when you've done it a while (college professors don't count; spend some time in a classroom where the kids have to--but don't want to--be there).

Ok, Greg: Why?

The system is just fundamentally broken. There's a disincentive to perform well, because budgets tend to go up when schools perform poorly. Without any kind of profit motive, there is no real way to tell whether anything is improving. Our standardized test scores are falling while, at the same time, per pupil spending is skyrocketing.

A tremendous amount of money is wasted at the administrative level, teachers' unions block any kind of reform that might make their jobs more difficult (i.e., making them at all accountable for student performance).

It's impossible to fire a teacher, even though there are enormous numbers of them who are just terrible (see the "ten worst union-protected teachers contest" for a small example: http://www.teachersunionsexposed.com/submissions.cfm).

I can't tell you how much time we waste in stupid meetings, on ridiculous "literacy strategies" that don't work, etc. But since no one is ever accountable, and there's no way to measure whether a teacher is doing a good job (and, even if they aren't, no way to get rid of them), then it's impossible to improve.

Privatizing the schools would end all of these petty fights we have with creationists over what's to be taught. If creationists want that garbage taught to their kids, so be it. My kids could go to a legitimate school. We'd see niche schools pop up to cater to all sorts of different interests (e.g., agriculture, engineering).

Privatized schools free the childless from having to pay for the education of people with kids. And, if parents were actually directly impacted financially with their kids' educations, we might see them more involved.

The bottom line is, as long as there is no incentive to do well, no one in the education system is going to go out of their way to do well. In a private system, teachers and administrators will have to perform, or lose their jobs (you know, like real people).

Plus, there's just no way a private system could be worse than public schools, which are seriously worse than you think they are.

That's just what came off the top of my head. I'm sure if I thought about it for a while, I could write something much more coherent and exhaustive. Instead of that, I'll just point you to Cato's work on the subject, which is pretty close to my view anyway (full disclosure: I used to work at Cato (but not for the CEF)): http://www.cato.org/research/education/index.html

So, instead of *fixing* the system we should replace it with one where the local wacko ideology, flavor of the month teaching methods, or any old interpretation (or made up replacement for) the real facts will reign.. We already have the nimrods working for Hillary and Obama claiming that by some date 90% of all intelligent people are going to be in Asia, and only idiots that can't understand science or engineering at all will live here, you want to what, accelerate the process?

No, the thing that is broken with these things is a) lack of funding, b) lack of accountability (idiot stuff like no child left behind is *false* accountability and doesn't give a frack if your kid learns how to think and stay healthy, or just learns how to eat fat food, sit on the couch, and answer test questions right, while actually believing that all the things they write on the test are wrong and someone's fairy godfather makes it all happen by magic, c) lack of **real** health, sex and physical education, and d) an endless line of morons that actually think that either this will all go away if they get the right to hold prayer sessions before classes, or just think its more important for the nation to have 3 billion Bible thumping morons that can't write their own name, read anything more advanced than "See Spot Run", or for that matter, probably understand what they can read.

The problem isn't something that privatizing schools and thus removing what *little* standards we do have in place and can sort of mandate and control, is going to fix. The only thing that will fix it is to get everyone from congress down to the school boards to stop pushing bullshit, and start correcting problems. All private schools to is remove any expectation that this will happen, and instead allow all the asses who are screwing things up already to create special schools, each one catering to their favorite stupidity, and none of them follow anything "vaguely" like a single curriculum.

Kagehi,

I see where you're coming from here, and it's clear you care about the issue, but I think you're heading in the wrong direction.

First, lack of funding simply can't be a major source of the current problems in education. Not only do we spend more per pupil now than we ever have before, but we also outspend per pupil virtually all other Western countries (as well as the "Asian tigers"), and they're killing us in math and science performance (and standardized test scores).

If I thought the system COULD be fixed, I'd be for it. But every attempt to fix the system only makes it worse (see, for instance, the execrable No Child Left Behind Act).

I don't understand why you equate privatization with removing standards. After all, we have private TV markets, and they seem to be improving. We have private refrigerator markets, and they get better every year. Look at what's happened in the telephone industry since it was opened to competition. Two generations ago you had to have an operator physically connect two people on the phone. Now I have the Internet in my pocket. We have private markets in home recording, and VCR's (which used to belong exclusively to the wealthy) are now a thing of the past, and Blu-Ray is available to millions. We have private automobile markets, and now we have Hybrid cars, SUV's, cars hooked up to emergency services, cars with driving directions built in, cars with DVD players for the kids, etc. We have (mostly) private beauty care markets, and now, in the right places, my wife can get a drink while having her nails done.

In fact, I'd defy you to name a single area that is both subject to open market competition that has gotten worse over the years. Then I'd defy you to name a government-controlled market/product or service that's improved over the same amount of time. Even if there are one or two in either camp, it's beyond evident that the market is far from "standard-free." It's the only thing that promotes strict standards, and punishes those market operators who fail to meet them.

Education is simply another service that could be better provided for by profit-seeking entrepreneurs, who would be forced to provide a high quality service at the lowest possible cost. That's just how markets work.

It's wishful thinking to think that self-interested bureaucrats and union hacks who lack any sort of proper incentive to get things right (and, in fact, have every incentive to keep things as they are, or worse) will ever "fix" the problems that plague public education. If there was a plausible means of "fixing" the absolutely rotten public education system, I'd be game (and, in fact, I'm open to vouchers that would keep funding public but the operation of schools private and subject to competition). But the best possible state of affairs would be the total separation of school and state.

The problem, Greg, is that education is not the manufacturing of a TV, or even a TV program. Education is a whole lot more delicate, and only government can avoid a bias. Speaking as one who spent time in both private and public schools, public schools have less bias in any particular direction. Most of my science teachers in the private schools were creationists. Public schools have protections against that sort of thing. If you make schools private, they get more expensive, too. Are you really saying that we should create a group of uneducated voters, or even worse, disenfranchise the poor?

I'm not sure you're right that private schools are necessarily more expensive. In fact, I'm supremely confident educational entrepreneurs could provide a much better quality education for, say, Washington, D.C. at a cost significantly lower than $10,000 per pupil (the national average is around $6,000 per pupil). Besides, look at the long-term prices of goods and services in other private markets. The trend almost everywhere is improved quality and lower prices. I can't think of any reason why education would be the exception.

It's absurd to think that public schools are bias-free, and even more absurd to think that "only government" can avoid bias. Bias is rampant in public schools. Ever try teaching kids that the cost of voting might outweigh its practical benefits? Or that recycling has costs? Or that second-hand smoke might not be as bad as some say it is? Ever argue that global warming might not be as catastrophic as some doomsayers say? Or that we're not running out of oil? How about trying to give equal time to anti-teachers' union organizations, or alternatives to unions?

Of course, the market will not be immune to niche schools that display bias. But because parents will actually have the choice to put their kids in schools that reflect their values, in a private education market I would never, ever have to worry about whether a small group of creationist school board members will teach my kids the young earth theory. Since I control where she goes to school, my kid is forever beyond the reach of anti-science zealots. Not so in public schools, where we have to constantly stay vigilant against the seemingly non-stop march toward ID in schools (I teach in Florida, after all).

The "protection" against bias, or poor quality education, in a private market, ultimately rests with the parents, who (in this conception) are assumed to be competent and have the best interests of the child at heart. Will all parents display these traits? Of course not. But most will, and it's cruel and vicious to hold every kid hostage to a failing and irrevocably broken school system because a few bad parents might make poor choices. It's also wrong to make childless couples and single people subsidize the education of couples with kids and single parents.

It's funny that you mention creating "a group of uneducated voters" as a defense of public schools. It should be plainly obvious that public schools don't create a "group" of uneducated voters. If anything, they may create a group of educated voters, while the enormous majority of its "graduates" are academically worthless. And the disenfranchised poor? It's the poor who are hurt worst by the public school system, because, unlike the rich, they can't escape. Rich people can afford private school tuition; poor folks can't. And with a "free" public school system competing with private alternatives (which keeps the costs of private schools artificially high, I think), the poor are stuck. As an example of how the poor view educational choice, check out DC's experiment with vouchers. This piece is a good start: http://www2.nysun.com/article/22972.

*irretrievably* broken, I mean.

Greg N., you're suffering from the common American "only what happens in the USA counts" syndrome. If you want to know how well public education can work, look for example at the Finnish system. Money, and competition to get more of it, are not the only effective motivators of good performance. Teachers, usually, are in teaching because they want to teach as well as they can - they have an intrinsic motivation to do so. Of course they want a reasonable salary, both to live on and as a signal their worth is recognised, but if their primary motivator was money, they'd be in some other occupation. Yes, in public systems you can have problems with bureaucratic capture, but in any profit-driven system, the primary goal is, precisely, profit. If giving a good education is profitable in a certain context, you are likely to get it. If skimping on resources, hiring teachers who are cheap, or teachers who fit in with your target customers' prejudices will pay better, you'll get that.

The bias you're so against in public schools sounds like the bias towards the evidence...

I've seen the free market. It gives people what they want. Which is fine for most things. But education isn't about giving people what they want, it's about giving people what they need. And that is why it can never be profit-driven.

Wazza,

If education "can never be profit-driven," then why is some education profit-driven? There are, right now, private, for-profit schools. Isn't the existence of something evidence of its possibility?

Nick, you wrote: "If skimping on resources, hiring teachers who are cheap, or teachers who fit in with your target customers' prejudices will pay better, you'll get that."

You're right about this, and I think this is probably one of the biggest objections to privatization. But this simply isn't what we see in other markets. The outcome of competition is almost universally better quality for less money. If a school is found "skimping on resources, hiring [cheap teachers] ..." then parents will leave, and go to a school that doesn't do those things.

Besides, can it reasonably be argued that public schools aren't guilty of those very things? The only difference is, with this system, parents can't "vote with their dollar" and leave. They're absolutely trapped.

Greg N. "The outcome of competition is almost universally better quality for less money."

Being British, I have a great deal of experience of privatisation, and I can assure you, you are wrong. The railways, dentistry, medical support services such as ward cleaning, and telephone directory enquiries are among the clearest examples. In telecommunications generally, and electricity and domestic gas supply, price comparison is difficult, because in the first case technological change, and in the others price changes due to external factors, are so important, but the companies certainly put a good deal of their effort into trying to poach each others' customers with special fixed-term deals, then rely on inertia to keep them. Contacting most of these companies to complain has become nightmarish - you wait half an hour or so to be answered if you can get through at all by phone, and when you do get through the person you are talking to often has neither authority nor competence to deal with the matter.

I notice you completely ignore my international comparison, rather confirming my jibe about OWHITUSAC syndrome. In this regard, you might also find it enlightening to compare the amount the USA spends on medical care, and the results in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality, with comparable figures for western European countries, Canada, Japan - and for that matter, Cuba.

Yeah. The problem with using market forces to direct better education is two fold 1) you don't have **any** control over what the market *wants* and 2) some people will try to cheat you, if there isn't anything to stop it. The only reason private schools have been better until now is that the people paying for them *wanted* better education, and where willing to pay through the nose for it. Most of the recent schools that have started to open have a different goal, they have unlimited funds via church donation, so can hire anyone they want, but they only hire those with the proper "ideology". I have talked to people here in Arizona who won't put their kids in ***either*** public or private schools, but opted for home schooling, because they know the public system is broken, and the private ones they tried turned out the make 10 times the money, but had worse teachers, lower standards (to elevate their perceived grade averages) and wasted more of the money they did have than *any* public school they had ever seen. But, since home schooling is not an option for most people, and won't be until some future date when data access is nearly 100% ubiquitous and the *best* educators can send out "canned" education to everyone in the country, you have the option between public school, which is broken for all the reasons both of us have said, and won't be fixable without *real* standard for critical thinking, not just memorization of facts, and spending is watched well enough to make sure the money goes where its supposed to. Oh, and we badly need someone setting standards for "how" to teach too, so that if a better method does exist, we can deploy it, and where different students respond better to some things than others, the **right** method is deployed for them. That isn't going to happen in private schools either, and its not going to happen in home schools, where the parents are *even less* qualified to figure out what the best method may be.

So, the point is, even in the US, the idea that private schools are automatically better is bullshit. Not when its a) dead wrong for some of them, to the point where they are worse than the public ones, and b) not where the newest ones are all being opened to push ideology first, and learning only to satisfy government tests, which test the ***wrong*** things in the first place. What you get with the kind of testing that NCLB produces is idiots like my Uncle, who could "probably" manage to pass on of their, "Do they know the facts" tests, with sufficient coaching, which is what many schools, including the private ones, actually do to pass it, but doesn't read, and has a comprehension level, due to having never done shit in school from the first grade, that can be rivaled easily by a fracking six year old. Knowing facts is worthless is all you can do is regurgitate them, but you can't use them, understand what they mean, apply them to the real world, or solve problems with them. And that is what public school has actually moved *away from* as they have tried to push a lot of stupid agendas and strategies for learning what is, today, 10 times as much information as we needed 50 years ago. Newer private schools also won't teach it, because being able to think is poison to the ideology and dogma they want students to learn instead. So, they tell them, "Remember this stuff for the test, but don't you *dare* think about any of it.", literally. And that is the problem. You don't throw water on a fracking grease fire, and these people have been smearing grease all over the education for years, then lighting fires in the hopes it burns down and "they" are the only source of "education" that survives.

If this wasn't true, and I thought there was *any* expectation that private schools "would" strive for the highest standards of education, instead of pandering to different brands of stupidity, like someone picking which soda company to rent a drink machine from, I would be will you 100% percept. As it stands, I think you are dead wrong about it solving the problem, and that leaves us with either fixing what you think is unfixable, or throwing everyone to the wolves and hoping the home schoolers all buy "reputable" study guides, instead of the local Christian books stores copy of, "All the lies you need to know about the world, in 12 easy grades."

Nick, I Gotts it, I Gotts it! [Tulse, you too, and really Tulse I didn't mean that post to you as any more than a smart a$$ remark.} Hope you had a good weekend. I see there have been more comments since I left on Friday, but I haven't read them so if this has been addressed already, sorry. I'll keep this as short as possible in keeping with your preference Nick. The link: http://www.truepatriot.com/england_crime_page.html or if you object to the source, copy in to Google or askjeeves exactly:"More than one in three British men has a criminal record by the age of 40". I suspect you already knew this but feigned ignorance.
Bunch of links there, one even to the Sunday Times of London, surprised you didn't see it. Little bit old, but from the recent data I provided Friday on victims, it's only gotten a little worse in jolly old England.(Funny that in leftist utopia, crime even exists!) The above sentence, admittedly, is a little different from what I said on Friday, but that's kinda moot, since you curiously already knew England doesn't have "felonies", as well as the year they stopped using the term. Sounds like you have intimate knowledge of your criminal justice system, I'm sure you're a barrister. A digression from the crux of my post to be sure, but there you (and others who didn't think I'd produce) have it.
Now onto Boogaard, alas you caught me, I can't find the spot, though I know I read it (and agree with it), maybe in a comments section on Boogard. Since you're obviously stuck on that point, I will take credit, yes credit, for the term infestation, as though it matters. Nick, keep protecting your religion of leftism as the fairy tale believers protect theirs.

Also Nick, in Europe keep your abortions going full speed, as well as accommodating the Muslims, it's what you need to do to ultimately defend freedom.

Nick you can stop here, the rest is for any others, I leave you to your echo chamber(s).

To the guy who thought Muslims aren't taking over Europe because "he" can't see any and he's been there 20 years....well get your head out of your arse.. Paris burning from "youths", exponential increase in rape of Scandinavian "whores" by Muslim immigrants, bombings in Spain, the allowing of Sharia to rule the day in Muslim communities instead of native law is/was actually considered in Germany and the Netherlands to name just two.

Pew did a poll in Muslim countries about the attitudes on suicide bombing, jihad, beheadings, etc and around 1/2 of the respondents said they thought it was acceptable, if not required by Islam!! With there being approximately 1 billion Muslims world-wide...that IS 500 million crackpots. Sleep well and be on guard for those nasty Xians and Jews! There is much more, but most of you are hopeless so I won't bother. "You all have grown tiresome, it is time for me to dance."

70% of people think we should teach creationism in public schools in the US too. One suspects, **strongly** a bias in the way the questions are presented, since other polls show far less, when the question is asked differently. We have right wing idiots and news reporters trying to buy into the paranoia and fear of this whole thing, going over their and doing polls. How, to get the statistics and sensationalism they want, do you *think* they are likely to be wording them? And just to be clear, you might, if you ask similar questions in the west, also crafted appropriately, you might get similar results.

As for England's huge crime mess.. Give me a break. Take any poor neighborhood with drug houses in it in the US and just 4-5 city blocks could manage to make England look pacifist by comparison. So would 90% of the rest of the US city it was happening in, which is why the crime rate for the entire city, per person, would *look* lower. And where the frack do you think they are getting those guns from, other than other countries, including the US, which mass produce them for the consumer market, ***allow*** ownership of them, and don't even have a basic and sane requirement like, how about, "If you buy a gun in a state it is registered to that state and its illegal to transport it between states permanently without license changes (kind of like cars if you are moving) or outside of the US, without special permission **ever**."?

Imagine if that was the rule. Any gun made and sold in a country would have restrictions on its movement, where it couldn't just vanish 2 days after you bought it, and export of it would be illegal, without some clear restrictions. About the only restriction right now is that it has to be unloaded, in luggage, and not on you when you go through the metal detector. There where higher fracking standards for my taking my laptop to Europe, and still are more extreme limits for bloody losing your money to gambling online, than there are to prevent the dispersion of guns from their place of purchase, either inside the country, or to foreign locations. And you can be damn sure other countries are even more lax.

So, the solution is what? Arm everyone, so that you get more accidental death, people that thought about robbing places, or the like, but decided not to at the last minute, because they didn't have guns, etc. all increase even faster? You have got to be kidding me...

Good going, Mr. Ratner. I knew you had it in you.

The cited source (Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas, "A nation of thieves", London Sunday Times, Jan. 11, 1998) isn't readily available online, but that's not unexpected when a piece is over a decade old and was originally printed in a daily (be it the Sunday edition or otherwise). The Times apparently offers an archive of the Literary Supplement, but not of the Features section, where the Ungoed piece was originally published. I have no way of knowing where Ungoed-Thomas got his information, which I suppose would qualify as the primary source. Presumably some Home Offices crime study circa 1997...

Phil, do you think the War on Terror is working?

Pew did a poll in Muslim countries about the attitudes on suicide bombing, jihad, beheadings, etc and around 1/2 of the respondents said they thought it was acceptable, if not required by Islam!!

Yes, they did. More than once. Perhaps you're thinking of the survey conducted in 2002.

Perhaps this more recent poll, conducted in 2007, is more relevant to the point you're attempting to make:

Sharp Decline in Support for Suicide Bombing in Muslim Countries

Of the sixteen Mulsim nations surveyed, only one - Palestine - returned a figure that suggests that more than half of the population believed that suicide bombings against civilians are "often or sometimes" justifiable in the defense of Islam. All the other nations surveyed returned figures of 42% or lower. It appears that your 50% figure is no longer accurate. Though it may have been at one time, even the 2002 survey suggests it was closer to 37% at that time. I think we'll find little resistance to the idea that it's a disturbingly high figure either way.

From the overview:

Among the most striking trends in predominantly Muslim nations is the continuing decline in the number saying that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are justifiable in the defense of Islam. In Lebanon, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia, the proportion of Muslims who view suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians as being often or sometimes justified has declined by half or more over the past five years.

Wide majorities say such attacks are, at most, rarely acceptable. However, this is decidedly not the case in the Palestinian territories. Fully 70% of Palestinians believe that suicide bombings against civilians can be often or sometimes justified, a position starkly at odds with Muslims in other Middle Eastern, Asian, and African nations.

While we're on the subject, allow me to draw your attention to this May, 2007 Pew survey that I spent a bit of time examining when it was published. I believe this report still has some relevance to the issues at hand:

Muslim-Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream.

The cited source (Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas, "A nation of thieves", London Sunday Times, Jan. 11, 1998) isn't readily available online [...] I have no way of knowing where Ungoed-Thomas got his information, which I suppose would qualify as the primary source.

And that's precisely what I'd like to know -- while Phil may be content with a single ten-year-old quote from a journalist that is plastered all over various American pro-gun websites (which Google reveals it to be), I'd like to see the actual original research. If the report is so damning, one would think it would be readily available (if not the actual report, at least a proper citation for it).

If one does a little more Googling, one can get a Parliamentary exchange from Hansard from 1996 in which the Secretary of State for the Home Department is asked "what percentage of the population under the age of 35 years have a criminal record; and what proportion of these are male", and reports the following:

Results from criminal histories of a sample of offenders born in 1953 indicate that 21 per cent. of the population born in that year were convicted of at least one standard list offence before the age of 35. Of these, 82 per cent. were male.

Doing the math, this suggests that a little over 17% of males 34 and under had a criminal record in Britain in at the end of 1996. While the age group is slightly smaller than the "under 40" criterion, the vast majority of crimes are committed by young people, so it is extremely hard to imagine that that 17% figure would climb to 33% if the additional six years were added.

So I continue to be extremely dubious of the value quoted by the journalist and Phil, since it is close to double that of any hard data that I can find.

I'd also like to point out that not only is Phil's 50% figure significantly inflated, a survey of "Muslim countries" does not, as Phil would have us believe, necessarily reflect the attitutes of those "1 billion Muslims world-wide." Surveys of Muslims in non-Muslim countries show attitudes far less radical than the precipitously dropping hate-rate found even in predominantly Muslim countries.

The May, 2007 survey shows that only 5% of American Muslims hold an explicitly favorable view of al-Qaeda. Only 7% say that suicide bombings are "sometimes justified." Only 1% say suicide bombings are "often justified."

What about Europe? Well, Pew reports that approximately 13.5% of Muslims in France, Spain, Germany and the U.K. say that suicide bombings in defense of Islam are "sometimes or often justified." If we we give the American 8% equal weight, we get a rough estimate of 12.4% of American and Western European Mulsims who say "sometimes or often."

The recent Pew study of Muslim countries suggests an overall figure of 23.5% who say "sometimes or often." What about the rest of the world? Well, I don't want to spend all freaking day at this, so let's just say that the Muslims we haven't yet addressed account for half the world Muslims living in non-Muslim countries, and that they're on the fence between the Muslim-Muslims and US-European Muslims on the question of "sometimes or often."

So. We have 1.2 billion Muslims world-wide. Approximately 400 million live outside predominantly Muslim counties.

800 million x 23.5% = 188 million
200 million x 12.4% = 24.8 million
200 million x 17.95% = 35.9 million

That gives us 248.7 million who say "sometimes or often."

However, I don't think every one of those could be counted on to strap the explosives on themselves, let alone break into our bedrooms at night and cut our heads off. Those fanatics would be some subset of those who say "often." In the US, those were 12.5% of the "sometimes or often" group. That's the only figure I have to go on, so let's apply it:

248.7 million x 12.5% = 31 million

That's still quite a few "oftens". What subset of this group is actually willing to do the deed?

Well, let's look at the most fanatical bombers in Muslim world, according to approval rate the tactic receives in the Pew study. That honor apparently belongs to the Palestinians. For the sake of argument, let's go with them.

"Between [April 1993] and March 2004, 139 suicidal-attack incidents attributed to Palestinian operators transpired against Israeli targets." (From: Palestinian Suicide Bombers: A Statistical Analysis.) There are approximately six million Palestinians living on the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and in Jordan. Assuming a nominal suicide-bomber-per-suicide-bombing rate of 1.00, that means that there have been 7.19 Palestinians per million who have gone ahead and blown themselves up for their cause. Of course, that's only 0.65 Palestinians per million per year...

When we apply that rate to our 1,200 million potential Islamic bombers, we arrive at a figure of 780 bombers per year, world-wide - and that's only if we apply the Palestinian rate of blowupfulness, which is 3.5 times times the global rate of blowupfulness. If we apply the global rate, we get around 223 bombers per year. World-wide.

This is a bit lower than Phil's half-a-billion, and casts Phil's hyperbolic claim in a light that suggests that it's not a reasonable assessment of actual risk, but instead, a spittle-flecked cry for help.

This isn't to say that we don't have a still-serious problem between Islam and the West. However, I believe that formulating foreign policy by viewing the world through the kind of filters Phil is using will not produce the best possible outcome.

Tulse:

And that's precisely what I'd like to know -- while Phil may be content with a single ten-year-old quote from a journalist that is plastered all over various American pro-gun websites (which Google reveals it to be), I'd like to see the actual original research.

Bingo. I saw what you saw, but decided not to make an issue of it - I figured somebody else would. I've been following those Pew studies for a while, so that angle caught my interest.

If the report is so damning, one would think it would be readily available (if not the actual report, at least a proper citation for it).

One would think. However, I think it's fair to consider that 10 years is a long time in internet-years. Not everybody archives everything...

Did you happen to notice that although Phil linked to the Faria article on truepatriot.com [hasn't Poe's Law kicked in yet?] it was in fact reprinted from Newsmax? LOL! Phil and Joe Blow should hook up. (For coffee, I mean.) Newsmax and WingNutDaily, yup, reliable, unbiased news sources, both. The most wretchedly slanted and blatantly dishonest "news" item I've ever encountered was on Newsmax. It wasn't even original, it was a rewrite of a piece that had appeared in a New York paper.

Of course, none of that means the "one in three" claim is false. It does, however, buoy my skepticism.

A google of ["nation of thieves" Ungoed-Thomas] returns six (6) hits. Two of them, however, are links to books, and one is to a House of Commons publication. I have no doubt that the article exists and that the "one in three" passage is in the article. (At this point, my primary doubt is that the Times would print such a provocative claim without verification!) However, I can't help but be curious about where Mr. Ungoed-Thomas got his numbers. Perhaps he was mistaken, and the claim was later discredited, but I can't find any evidence of that, either. :-D

I have no doubt that the article exists and that the "one in three" passage is in the article. (At this point, my primary doubt is that the Times would print such a provocative claim without verification!) However, I can't help but be curious about where Mr. Ungoed-Thomas got his numbers.

That's pretty much where I am as well -- I'm sure that the quote is correctly attributed, but the hard data I cited above pretty much contradicts the quoted and unsupported claim.

"...and clearly all the students and families involved are Muslims who want a little bit of cultural isolation..."

Or expats planning to return home who want their children to be able to continue their schooling in Arabic while in the US.

'...making it a crime to own a gun does nothing to discourage criminals (i.e. those who commit crimes with no regard for the law) from obtaining guns..."

Yeah that's why armed criminals are just as common in Europe, Japan Australia and Canada as in the US.

Oh wait, no they aren't.

Hey... what's that noise?

*crickets*

My sympathies.

Regarding schooling, here in Sweden the second case of creationism in home schooling has just been rooted out. An evangelical cult of Maranatha has been homeschooling 200 - 300 children since this was allowed in 1977. Now it is going to be stopped since it has been revealed that they break the school law - they hit the children "for discipline", they teach that evolution "is a viewpoint among many", they use unlicensed teachers, and one of the three children currently there is supposed to be home schooled elsewhere.

The responsible cultist is open about their intentions to break the law in continuing, and ironically calls their "education" brainwashing. Presumably he intends to face jail time later, to no avail.

Btw, in more depressing news, Deepak Chopra is visiting Stockholm due to an expo on alternative "medicine". The largest liberal newspaper has an article which has the usual ham handed "no facts" stance.

It notes that new age ideas has replaced christian religious ideas in the "super secularized" Sweden, and that it for many is an interest among others where they keep up on the latest trends. Unfortunately it ends even worse, letting a new age proponent say that "We have left the stone age. We live in the space age, or the IT era. Time has come to realize that our thoughts choose the world we live in."

The irony is massive.

I presume you saw that the Minnesota Department of Education found all of Kersten's significant allegations to be baseless and told the school to correct some relatively minor problems:
http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4036

... as the Star Tribune's editorial board acknowledged (see second editorial)
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/19222109.html

So isn't it time to hold the Muslim-bashing nonjournalist accountable?

Sign the petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Strib-stop-supporting-Muslim-bashing

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