The answer is to eliminate land-use regulation in its entirety.

On the other hand…

In this debate it is especially laughable that a country (Saudi Arabia) that confiscates bibles – even personal bibles – and executes “apostates” is calling for boycotting Switzerland over the minaret ban.

Maybe the ire of Muslims worldwide over a relatively innocuous act in Switzerland would be better directed at their homelands, which are backwards, 7th-century dictatorships that are – without doing anything to deserve it – sitting atop piles of 20th century wealth that was discovered and developed by Americans and Brits.

Maybe some self-policing and restraint in Muslim countries would lessen the “fear factor” non-Muslims have when confronted with Muslim immigration. Just as “blowback” follows the American reputation, “blowback” also follows the Muslim reputation.

Hey, how about a trade: the minaret ban for a return of all the churches seized from Christians in Arab nations in the past 100 years?

————-

There’s an Arab grocery store / restaurant near where I live. One day in 2007, while waiting for my order, the owner and his son and I became engaged in conversation over the “repeal the income tax / abolish the IRS” shirt I was wearing, plus the 9 on my hip.

I made the mistake of asking how they felt about what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the next ten minutes I stood there and listened to them piling invective after invective on Jews (exact quote – I kid you not: “Jews have ruined the Middle East, they are scum.”), Israel (“they should be driven into the sea”) and GW Bush. I could have sworn I was talking to that neonazi Ahmadinejad.

GW Bush I could understand.

But the neonazi “drive the Jews into the sea” was just pure BS. For a second, I entertained the notion of whether it would be considered a public service to de-nazify the place. However, I left peacefully — but I certainly won’t patronize that little jihad training/recruitment house again.

On the other hand, maybe I should continue patronizing them, and do some recruiting in the other direction. Libertarianism solves a lot of otherwise intractable conflicts.

Arab problems have little to do with Israel, Jews, or Americans — and a lot to do with the stultifying, religion-dominated, communistic organization of their own societies. If Arab nations would concentrate on developing their economies and otherwise reward the production of wealth, they could safely ignore the Israelis, Jews, and even the occassional American adventurer president.

But that’s too easy. It’s much easier to borrow a page from the 1930s and have a bogeyman (Jews, Americans) to blame than it is to liberalize the economy and get the religiocrats’ fat fingers out of the pie.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is pretty much correct when she says the different approaches to islamic immigration reflect the elite vs. the average working man. The people who don’t live in the protected, well-policed McMansion enclaves of the elite bear direct witness to the massive increases in crime that have come with waves of Muslim immigrants. It doesn’t help that imams openly exort their flock to do violence to non-muslims. Working-class people aren’t stupid. They can see what is coming with their own eyes because they’re living it now.

Again, they’re not stupid. They are generally aware that the Middle East has become extremely homogeneous Islamic. They know enough history to know that the main reason for that homogeneity is because because with predictable regularity, muslims slaughter or forcibly convert religious minorities (Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists, etc). Those purges have continued right into the 20th century; in fact it’s going on now in Albania, Kosovo, Syria, Iraq and many other majority-Muslim nations. They are, right now, today, systematically cleansing their territory of ethnic and religious minorities. Even EU-applicant “secular” Turkey is still actively engaged in wiping away its religious minorities.

Better to take the whole church, and force its congregation to emigrate at the point of a sword, than to only take away a minaret or three.

The European working class sees this coming. Backlash is understandable.

I say let’s repeat the experiment a few thousand times and see what happens.

Oh yeah, and nuke mecca!

Internet rumor

Status: false

Sounds like a dangerous cult which should be outlawed.

HOW TO STOP ISLAMIC TERRORISTS…… it worked once in our History…

Once in U.S. history an episode of Islamic terrorism was very quickly stopped. It happened in the Philippines about 1911, when Gen. John J. Pershing was in command of the garrison. There had been numerous Islamic terrorist attacks, so “Black Jack” told his boys to catch the perps and teach them a lesson.

Forced to dig their own graves, the terrorists were all tied to posts, execution style. The U.S. soldiers then brought in pigs and slaughtered them, rubbing their bullets in the blood and fat. Thus, the terrorists were terrorized; they saw that they would be contaminated with hogs’ blood. This would mean that they could not enter Heaven, even if they died as terrorist martyrs.

All but one was shot, their bodies dumped into the grave, and the hog guts dumped atop the bodies. The lone survivor was allowed to escape back to the terrorist camp and tell his brethren what happened to the others. This brought a stop to terrorism in the Philippines for the next 50 years.

Pointing a gun into the face of Islamic terrorists won’t make them flinch.

They welcome the chance to die for Allah. Like Gen. Pershing, we must show them that they won’t get to Muslim heaven (which they believe has an endless supply of virgins) but instead will die with the hated pigs of the devil.

I suppose it is all fine and good that we are concerned about Swiss discrimination against Muslims, but it sure rings hollow when Americans are neck deep in the blood of Muslims.

How odd that Americans hold the citizens of a foreign country to a higher standard than they do of their own political leaders.

Which Americans do you think hold the Swiss to higher standards than American leaders? The PSL? Me? Both?

That some see the difference between a military action and daily life sounds evolved to me.

After decades of anti-Arab and anti-Islamic propaganda, I understand why some people are fearful of political Islam – this is not an excuse, it is an explanation for prejudice.

I’m not concerned so much about who cares more about Muslims or why they do so, but it reveals the hypocrisy and myopia of the American public to point their finger at the Swiss while America detains, tortures, assassinates, kidnaps, bombs, and spies on Muslims as a matter of policy.

I suppose it is all fine and good that we are concerned about Swiss discrimination against Muslims, but it sure rings hollow when Americans are neck deep in the blood of Muslims.

How odd that Americans hold the citizens of a foreign country to a higher standard than they do of their own political leaders.

That concern is much more justified when those fundamentalists have the political power to enforce their agendas on those who don’t share their religion. When applied to minority religions, it seems to me more like an excuse for prejudice.

Now, let’s consider why so many people in America are concerned with the Swiss banning of an architectural feature of Muslim Mosques while America assassinates Muslims by remote control drones because they are SUSPECTED of being Taliban members or “extremists”.

I don’t see why being concerned with one would make me any less concerned about the other. Islamophobia is an excuse neither for imperialist aggression nor xenophobic repression.

Let us also contemplate how many Mosques, with or without minarets, have not been built at all in America because zoning authorities refused to grant permission. This often happens even with Christian churches.

While the PSL is unlikely to care about that, I do.

Finally, how many American Mosques have been infiltrated by the FBI in order to spy on the congregation – or worse, to act as provocateurs?

That should concern all of us who are outside the mainstream of political or religious opinion. If the regime will do it to them, they’ll do it to us too.

I don’t endorse the opinions of Ayaan Hirsi Ali that I linked to at post #2. I do find her article to be interesting. It illustrates that whether people worship the state or some supernatural being, they often have a difficult time minding their own business. In fact, they often prefer minding the business of others.

This may explain why some in a liberal society are wary of those whom they believe are fundamentalists with political agendas.

Now, let’s consider why so many people in America are concerned with the Swiss banning of an architectural feature of Muslim Mosques while America assassinates Muslims by remote control drones because they are SUSPECTED of being Taliban members or “extremists”.

Let us also contemplate how many Mosques, with or without minarets, have not been built at all in America because zoning authorities refused to grant permission. This often happens even with Christian churches.

Finally, how many American Mosques have been infiltrated by the FBI in order to spy on the congregation – or worse, to act as provocateurs?

What was it the Son-O-God supposedly said about motes and eyes?

Exactly right, Morgan. The same thing goes for the Burqa and for multiple wives. These all precede Islam. The multiple wives thing was actually a LIMITATION on the amount of wives you could have, because the previous culture allowed for unlimited amounts.

Heil Hitler.

Islam is just not a religion that blends neatly into other cultures it comes into contact with, much as the cultural relativist apologists might want it to be. Jared Diamond refers to “bloody borders” around areas dominated by Islam, and he’s not exactly wrong about that. The simple reality is, Islam as given is completely intolerant of non-believers. That’s Islam as given in the Quran and Hadiths.

That doesn’t mean individual non-fundamentalist practitioners cannot adapt their practice of faith to the cultures of their adopted countries — the vast majority of American muslims do exactly that, recognizing freedom of religion which is unheard of under governments dominated by Islam. This, to my mind, is to be encouraged, and we encourage it by example: By allowing freedom of religion as long as that religion — not its individual followers, mind, but the religion as a whole — does not infringe on the rights of others. If we were to outlaw a given religion based on the terrorist acts of a few practitioners, a lot of Christian churches would be out of business here, too.

I do NOT support the Swiss ban on minarets because freedom of religion means freedom of religion. Period. Full stop. Minarets don’t kill people now any more than cathedral towers killed people during the Inquisition. It’s a ridiculous and impotent smack at muslims and just adds to the tensions that lead to violence. It would be one thing if muslims were blowing up buses demanding minarets on public buildings. But they’re not. They just want them on their mosques.

The things people fear about Islam are already illegal. Blowing up buildings, killing people for not sharing their beliefs, religion creeping into the courts… While some areas of Europe are allowing Sharia law as an alternative to European courts, Sharia law cannot take hold in the U.S. partially because of the non-muslim majority and partially because of Constitutional protections against it.

If Switzerland wants to chase out muslims, they should man up, quit playing games and just admit they’ve lost all sense of what freedom means and just do it and pay the price in world opinion for their bigotry.

But banning minarets? That’s as stupid as banning vanilla flavored cigarettes in an effort to get smokers to stop smoking.

Support them all you want; if they ever implement Sharia law; you either Convert or die.

You will have no choice; I know people that have lived in Tehran who have been tortured for not converting to Islam.

If they don’t like it they can go back where they came from. Which they should do anyway. Just like the Mexicans in the US.

How about Europeans in the US? What’s the time horizon? Following this “logic” all the way through, all the people of the world should move to Africa.

The ban of minarets was directed against culture, not religion.

Fail.

“Just try to hand out copies of the Bible or Torah in Cairo or Tehran. Just try to build a church or synagogue in the Moslem world. Check your history folks. Islam has oppressed every group it has ever come into contact with.”

Your point being? Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Exactly.

Turkish Prime Minster Erdogan calling the minarets the bayonets of Islam didn’t help.

Turkey? Are you kidding me? Their government is more anti-Islamic fundamentalist than just about any in the world.

And speaking of religion, aren’t communists supposed to be against religion?

I guess they are even more against ethnocultural prejudice.