Those progressive Europeans.
 

Hehehe.

No comments on the Swiss banning minarets? I understand other European countries will be following their example and bring this ban to the ballot.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091129/...nd_minaret_ban

Pete

I heard about that yesterday. That's really sad.

And that's the problem with referenda. Direct democracy produces chaotic results like this and like Prop. 8 in California. We're served best by representative democracy where a legislature can serve to protect citizens from the "tyranny of the majority".

Very sad indeed!

John

Well look at it in light of what the muslim countries do as regards even building a Christian church. If they want to keep their burkas and Sharia then why in hell are they emigrating to western countries? When in Rome do as the Romans do.

If you believe that religious freedom means you can drive a car wearing a f**king tent (she - at least we think it is a she- has a drivers licences here in MD) stay home. Of course at home not only would they not let her drive a car, she can't even leave the house without a male family member in tow.

Sorry but I do believe it is an attempt to turn the whole world into one big caliphate and this cannot happen. I do not fault the Swiss one bit.

We have TABOR here in Colorado so they can't raise taxes. We love our state so much we've tied the hands of our elected officials and want to vote directly on everything. I still don't understand how such things are Constitutional. They pretty clearly laid out how laws are to be passed. I don't recall them saying anything about eveyone voting directly on everything. If that was the intent, why mess about with a Congress?

In the People's Republic of California it takes a 2/3 majority of the Leguislature to pass any budgetary legislation. With a closely divided body, that makes passing anything nigh on to impossible.

Also in the PRC, we get around that one by being able to amend the State Constitution with a simple majority vote of the electorate on a ballot initiative which is placed on the ballot by petition. In the case of a regular initiative, like a transportation bond issue or removing a governor, 433,971 petition signatures are needed. For a Constitutional amendment it's higher at 694,354 signatures. This is in a state with a population of around 40,000,000.

Ed,

Speaking of California and Colorado, when I lived there in the '70s I often saw a bumper sticker which read "Don't Californicate Colorado". Looks like in some ways they did.

John

Nor I, although I an a bit uncomfortable with it, we just don't have the same problems Europe does with Muslims.

Doesn't matter though, Europes' "High Court of We Know Better Than You" will strike it down. Democracy? Or rule by judicial fiat?

Pete

I used to live in San Francisco. California politics is unique. Colorado is moving quickly from a very right leaning state to a more left leaning state. Pockets like Boulder are off the charts- very much like Berkley. Rural areas are dominated by charismatic lead myth-driven belief systems. Hell, Colorado Springs is the home of Focus on the Family.

In a lot of ways, Colorado is representative of the country as a whole. Right wing nut jobs on one side. We have Tom Tancredo, you know. On the other side, well meaning, but often ineffective progressives. And the “X Factor” of recent American immigrants who react negatively to suggestions that we should put them all on a bus and ship them to Mexico. The backlash of that along with the California exodus is moving the state to the left. Though now that the rhetoric has died down a bit I’m not sure they’ll all get to the polls in the numbers they did.

The myth-based bunch is tenacious about getting out the vote. As if their eternal salvation depended on it, which, of course, is exactly what they’ve been lead to believe.

I would need to research that one a bit. I think there was a recent case here where the father murdered his daughter because she 'embarassed' the family's honour. According to their misbegotten Sharia law he felt he was allowed to do this.

Like Bush v. Gore?

John

Muslim 'Honor' killings - it's happened here in Cleveland too.

The Imam of our largest Mosque was accused of helping fund terrorists, and after the Cleveland religious community (of all denominations) held a big demonstration for his innocence he was deported, for helping fund terrorists of course. Doh.

The court is the 'European Court of Human Rights'. They, whoever they are, plan to appeal already.

Pete

Yes, it does happen and it's grotesque and morally reprehensible.

Accused and deported. What happened to tried? Sounds like they had no case.

As they damn well should.

John

I'm confused- what are minarets? I thought they were those towers with the funny looking tops that were used to call the "faithful" to prayer. Are they actually a legal device that is somehow used as a justification for murder? I'm not sure how banning minarets would impact the application of a countries laws. I can build an alter and worship Satan but I'm pretty sure it doesn't make it legal for me to rape virgins.

I guess I find myself in the dissonant opinion that one can favor religious freedom and oppose murder.

Maybe the call to prayer has been outlawed too.

John

No case? Not only does the immigration office require certain things (like a reason), but a GREAT video came out, showed the guy at a fundraiser calling Jews monkeys and pigs. Charming, caring guy that one :p

Ed I can see why whey passed the ban outside of strictly religous reasons, if you picture minarets going up everywhere suddenly it doesn't look like home anymore. Really, more of a zoning or construction issue. Not to say anti-muslim doesn't have anything to do with it but it passed at what, 57%?

Pete

When I was a kid, there were billboards along the roads in rural Ohio. They would advertise Husman's Potato Chips, Skyline Chilli and Burger Beer. On a trip home, oh, several years ago, I took a trek out to the old homestead. Just to look around and see how it had changed. Boy, had it ever. Many (most?) of the billboards along the road to my small home town had been bought by local churches. All kinds of odd, offensive or unintelligable commentary on them. Didn't look much like more anymore. But I'd defend their right to post them.

Recently even in their own countries the "call to prayer" has become a contest to see who can come up with the most powerful PA system. Then they hired imams with the best singing voice to tape the call.

I was born at home in midwinter, right across the street was a Catholic church. Now the CN Railroad had given them an old engine bell for their church. I stll remember my mother saying that she said to the dooctor, "If he does not get here soon (meaning me) they will be ringing that darn bell". So if anyone knows when they ring matins that was the hour of my birth.
Calls to prayer, rining bells, it can all get quickly out of hand. That sort of thing was fine in the agrarian days when few people had clocks or wrist watches, hardly necessary now.

As I understand it, the minarets in question are rarely used as an actual call to prayer. All the same, if you were to outlaw their use for that purpose I would think you'd have to do the same for us Catholics.

There is a small church down the road in Brookeville (where Madison brought the government when my ancestors were burning down the WhiteHouse) and the pastor has quite a turn for words. I always try to slow down and read his latest on the small board out in front.

So why do you need the bells, no clock? :D

Oh I know there is a whole musical thing devoted to bell ringing and carrillons do sound nice, but much of it is simply done for historical reasons.

No, not a nice guy, but no case either. Calling Jews monkeys and pigs is certainly reprehensible but it isn't a crime.

If there were any substance to the terrorism accusations he would have been tried. If found guilty he would have been sentenced and imprisoned. Since none of that happened, it's safe to conclude that there was no case.

He was deported because he was deemed "undesirable". Deportation was second best to imprisonment.

There have been a number of cases where similar accusations have been leveled at Muslims. I can think of two in New York, one in New Jersey and one in Florida.

The two New York and the one New Jersey resulted in speedy trials and convictions, although the evidence in these cases was less than stellar.

The Florida case is really interesting. You should read up on it. The defendant is named Sami al Arian. He got royally screwed and he's still getting screwed.

John

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_Al-Arian

And cows! Don't forget those Swiss cowbells!

John

We, as Americans, may be reading into this a bit. We are a nation of immigrants and take pride in our diversity (to a fault sometimes). European countries (and Asian countries, for that matter) are fairly homogeneous when it comes to ethnic background, religion and culture and (rightly or wrongly) want to preserve their cultural heritage/identity. Culturally, the French want to remain French, the Germans German and the Swiss Swiss. Accordingly, they feel more threatened culturally than we do with the Muslims among them. Conversely, we probably feel more threatened by Muslims as a terrorist threat, not as a cultural threat.

Hell, the Germans are spooked by Scientology. For the most part, we see it as a harmless cult and laugh it off, while at the same time protecting it.

The local Baptist Church started playing patriotic music on their electronic bell system at the start of Gulf War II. Somehow, I don't find playing "The Caissons Go Rolling Along" as an appropriate tune for the House of the Lord.

Chas

Speaking as an immigrant (it's OK I did it all legally) I do not expect to demand that I be allowed to use the Napoleonic Code as civil law because that was the case in Quebec, or British Criminal Code. I agreed to observe and follow the laws of the land. That, to me, is the way it should be otherwise I should have stayed where I was. Now if that is too much to ask of other people who come here then let them stay out.

We had some serious problems locally in NoVa with Saudi sponsored schools and the crap they were teaching in their schools, it still is not certain the the schoolbooks have been totally cleansed of the hatred they were teaching.

I used to love hearing the church bells when I was a kid in Ohio. That and the steam whistle that signalled shift changes at the local steel mill. Sadly, most of the bells, and the whistle (Along with the rest of the mill.) fell silent a couple decades ago.

Dave

Where I grew up there were four villages divided by the Richelieu River and the CN rail tracks. There was a level crossing in the village next to ours so the engines (steam) would give the four note crossing warning. There was a freight that would go through about 5:00 AM, they said it was responsible for more babies than any natural cause - too early to get up, too late to go back to sleep.

Across the river was a lumber yard, the old fashioned kind where a single donkey engine drove everything with overhead belts - OSHA would have had a fit. But most days you could hear that old donkey engine and how its single cylinder would misfire every twenty seconds or so.

Then there was the old Scot who loved to practice his pipes of an evening, they wafted over the fields. In the late evening as it was time to get home my Mother would call - cell phones? we did not need any stinkin cell phones - ah the sounds of my youth.

They already have, in Egypt to build a Christian church you need a security permit and there is no display of the cross or any other symbol allowed. In Saudi Arabia you simply cannot build one. Oddly enough in Saddam's Iraq there were churches and christians.

So to the muslims in Switzerland "Before you see to the speck in thy brother's eye, remove the beam that is in thine.":rolleyes:

Heathen!! :D

I grew up down the street from a church with a large number of (real) bells. To this day I can remember them marking the 1/4, 1/2, and hour with that little tune.

Very pleasant. The day I hear PA speakers squawking out 'uulululululu' is the day I'll...

Do something :). Start a petition drive?

Pete

They're going to play Yoko Ono?

Lmao!

A fate worse than death :)

Pete