I had a fleeting sensation of hope yesterday when a poll of 1,000 Egyptians by the Pew Research Center found that 59% percent said that their preferred form of government is democracy. Then a little below the poll found that 82% feel adulterers should be stoned and 84% believe that apostates from Islam should face the death penalty.
The poll captures a long-standing tension in Muslim countries, which favor differing degree of democracy while applying Sharia law and deny basic rights like free speech and association and privacy in the name of Islam. The Egyptians have long been one of the most educated and modern countries in the Arab world. Yet, 95 percent believe that it is a good thing not to have separation of mosque and to allow Islam to play a large role in politics.
Some 85% say that Islam’s influence on politics is good
While 80% think that suicide bombings are never or rarely justified and 70% are concerned about radical Islam, 54% believe men and women should be segregated in the workplace and 77% believe thieves should be flogged or have their hands cut off.
The lack of separation and secular principles will continue to result in the denial of fundamental human rights in Muslims countries until citizens recognize the relationship between such rights and liberty. Democracy is little protection of rights since, in nations with overwhelming Islamic voting blocks, these laws are always popular. This is the very meaning of what the Framers viewed as majoritarian terror or tyranny. Liberty requires citizens to take a type of leap of faith in giving up their ability to dictate the views, associations, and beliefs of their neighbors. That takes a great deal of education to instill such values of governance in a population. Even in this country, many seek to impose their morals on their neighbors through morality laws.
The corrosive impact of Sharia law is well-documented on this and other legal blogs. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech (as well as freedom of religion) are denied in such systems where people may be punished and even put to death for uttering irreligious and minority views. Democracy becomes a tool for opposition in the absence of guaranteed rights of speech, religion, press, and association. Without such protections, it merely allows ordinary people to participate in the oppression of their neighbors.
Source: Globe and Mail
Annie,
Did you hear how the USAF removed from their Oath, “so help me God” because that statement is a recognition of a singular superior being recognized by Jew, Christians and Muslims alike although to hear them discuss it God wouldn’t be recognizable to any of them. So anyway, Atheists and non Jew/Christian/Muslim believers aren’t forced by cannon/code to recognize anyone particular being just like the Constitution requires of it.
I know it breaks many hearts to no end… but the Constitution set ‘religion’ apart for a specific reason. Least these Dutch Colonists be forced into servitude to the Queen. Party anyone?
Max-1 – usually I am not the grammar Nazi, however it should be canon, not cannon in your sentence above at 2:45pm.
John @ 1, September 23, 2014 at 1:07 am
I’ve appreciated your contributions in the past but your sarcasm and branding in your last post was way over the top and way out of line.
Maxcat06,
I do so very much apologize for reading the writings of the Founders, Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights (Madison’s Bill). I also apologize for observing the truth and fact of the lives that the Framers lived. That says a lot to and aids in the understanding by many students of American governance. I find that one can support and defend those founding documents or one can commit treason, subversion and insurrection regarding them. You should read them sometime and find out if you are an American or a collectivist insurrectionist. You might start with the concept of private property over redistribution of wealth, keeping in mind that there was no welfare, food stamps, social services or affirmative action in America in 1789, making it seem as if freedom through self-reliance was exactly what the Founder said and meant without ‘interpretation” or variation. The interesting question may be whether the “evolving” and “formal” modification of the founding documents has been amendment or insurrection. You seem to be fine with the waxing of collectivist totalitarianism and the waning of American freedom of the individual with sovereignty over the government.
Understanding that, to you communists, the ends justify the means, I fully appreciate that your extremist ideology has not and will not stop its efforts to bring every last free American under the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” even changing the title of your latest indoctrination campaign from “global warming” to “climate change,” which, of course, we all know has never occurred in the last 4 billion years.
It is possible that, in public school, you were never exposed to the documents establishing freedom through self-reliance, private property and the American thesis of the individual citizens being the sovereigns as the government is the subject. That is unfortunate indeed.
Why don’t you take a remedial course in early American history at the time of the revolution against Britain and the rejection of the dictatorship of the monarch, review the writings and documents, with emphasis on Washington, Jefferson, Madison et al., and get back to us with your opinion of whether they wrote the Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights or the Communist Manifesto. Let us also know if there is any difference between the two.
I anxiously await the revelation of your discoveries.
Yeah, well…. what a shame that their religion is so incompatible with their need for ‘Democracy’….. I could almost feel sorry for them!
This might be the ultimate illustration of the folly of “bringing democracy” to the Middle East.
John, I believe, whether conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, we are all Americans. I don’t believe post after post about the “collective” or the “Communist Manifesto” does any service, nor do those posts allow for any difference of beliefs. If you want to denounce a belief system, be certain that you don’t inadvertently follow the same mindset. Rigidity is the very hallmark of collectivism.
Olly, sigh. Nope. Natural rights can mean anything to anyone. It takes consensus after extensive discussion that is INCLUSIVE that defines positive law, IMO. Some Mullah can not just exclaim that Islam is the Natural Law of Allah in our form of positive law government. ‘Naturally’ that concept seems to be ‘foreign’ to you.
“they think that their way of government IS their Natural Right.”
LMAO!
Do you really believe they care a lick about unalienable rights? Ever heard Insha Allah! or Allahu Akbar? Those are not shouts of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
“Natural rights is in the eye of the beholder”
It’s the exact opposite. Legal Positivism would be a government based on the eye of the beholder.
What do they teach in science in these muslim countries? Do they cover discoveries such as Darwin’s evolution and the Big Bang? If so, then it must have occurred to some students (and instructors) that belief in god(s) is nothing more than just a mistake. The big questions: where did we come from?, and where did all of this stuff come from?, have been pretty much asnswered withoiut any need to resort to magical answers.. The idea of so many grown people living in ignorance of what science has found is frightening.
Olly, they think that their way of government IS their Natural Right. Natural rights is in the eye of the beholder, but we’ve gone down that road already in another thread.
*Liberty*
Sorry for the typos, I’m chopping onions for Chicken Paprikash.
*Pursuit*
I didn’t want to embarrass you David. I think our society has already rejected some philosophies that are not conducive to Life, Libery and The Persuit of Happiness. We haven’t yet completely solved the issue of rights that have been alienated for some, but as long as we recognize that we need to continue to amend our laws to be inclusive of all Americans, we are probably on the right track.
Madison completed the amendment process with the Bill of Rights. Who can doubt or correct Madison?
The collectivists have no gene to enable them to understand the sovereignty of the citizens over the subject, the government, and the immutable right to private property, including moveable or personal property, which citizens had the right to before government was even contemplated, all of which conclusively precludes the confiscation of private property, governmental control of industry and all forms of redistribution of wealth.
The immigration procedure has a protocol as does the amendment process, which cannot possibly be obtained from citizens with guns to their heads, experiencing the rawest form of coercion as private property rights, among others, are violated by a usurping, “overreaching,” by definition, dictator. People in a country are either citizens or illegal aliens. Deportation is the law regarding illegal immigrants.
But then, who cares about the Constitution and the law, right?
P.S. The “plan” was to compassionately repatriate the abused freed slaves. That plan would have served the involuntarily expatriated and irrevocably abused Africans maximally in that it would have restored a sense of self, esteem and of nation.
_______________________________________________________________
There is no more rapid form of immigration than that of a mandate through illegal and unconstitutional amendment.
–Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VIII, 1782. ME 2:118
“[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as possible… founded in good policy?… They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass… If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements.”
Annie wrote: “It’s strange that some here profess to honor the Constitution and Bill of Rights and other Amendments, yet they seem to want to deny freedom of thought.”
Annie, I hope you understand that freedom of thought is not the idea that all philosophies and religions are basically equal such that it does not matter what you believe. Freedom of thought means the freedom to work things out in your mind and decide which philosophies are good and which philosophies are bad.
I think everyone in this forum basically agrees that ideas and concepts should not be punished by government, resulting in diverse viewpoints in society. This does not mean all viewpoints are good. Now rational arguments should be made and society should work toward mutual agreement on which philosophies and policies are good and which are bad.
“So, tell me how moral absolutism has been a good thing in Egypt and other ME countries?”
I’ve already answered that, but I appreciate the opportunity to repeat it:
From my 3:31pm post:
“The survey results are indicative of any culture that does not recognize the basic, natural rights of its people. When you remove the limits by which natural rights bind society, then what becomes the legitimate limit of government? Something will replace Natural Rights; what will it be?
In a society that places the limits at the will of God, you get Sharia. In a society that places the limits at the will of the government, you get Dictatorship. In a society that places the limits at the will of the People, you get pure Democracy (mob rule). We have some on this blog that believe ALL rights come from government through the will of the people. And when you advocate for moral relativism as well, then the survival of this republic will surely be on the clock.”
Annie wrote: “Some commenters here have advocated for a Constitutional Amendment recognizing ” God”. What a dangerous slippery slope that would put this contry on. It’s our committment to individual freedoms that may keep us from becoming a theocracy or an oligarchy.”
Some commenters? I think I am the only person in this forum who has advocated for a Constitutional Amendment that acknowledges God and clarifies the First Amendment, which was originally written to affect only the laws of Congress.
The concept of “Individual Freedoms” originated primarily from Jewish and Christian writers. The secularists and atheists for the most part have hijacked it, just like they now hijack the concept of marriage. There is no threat to civil liberties in acknowledging God or showing support for religion in society. The concept of religious liberty was written into the First Amendment on purpose. The idea is that government punishes actions but not thoughts. Religion thereby can focus on changing the heart of men, to make them voluntarily from the heart do what is right. The law is for the lawless, but not for those who do what is right from the heart. Herein is the concept of a wall of separation between church and state… another concept originating from Protestant Christian thought but hijacked by atheists. If society keeps favoring secularism and atheism through its public indoctrination campaign in public education, we will lose the individual freedoms that the framers attempted to preserve for us. A first step in that direction is the foolish rejection of Natural Law Theory.
So, tell me how moral absolutism has been a good thing in Egypt and other ME countries?
“Absolutism is dangerous.”
Moral relativism is soooo much better. Just ask the family of the dead 9 year old in Chicago and the special ed girl in Huntsville or the burned rape victim in Alabama. Yeah, we don’t need any absolutes when the will of the “sovereign citizen” is so much more reliable.
Or does he have problems with all of the Amendments? Is that what the “etc.” meant? Absolutism is dangerous. If we are incapable as a society of amending our mistakes we are doomed.
http://blackhistory.com/content/60916/13th-14th-and-15th-amendments
Interesting that John has problems with these three Amendments.