The first amendment reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
I direct your attention to one part, "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Does this protect the free exercise of Islam in the United States?
What is "free exercise"? I understand that the questioning of these two words might be thought to open the door against biblical Christianity as well. My goal is not to redefine "free exercise," but to understand what the founding fathers meant by it and whether it is compatible with Islam? Not all religion is accepted as "free exercise" of religion. A previous iteration of Mormonism that included polygamy was rejected by the United States. Bob Jones University could not prohibit interracial dating for religious reasons without loss of its tax exempt status. The religious leadership of Roman Catholicism does not have the freedom to practice child molestation. The United States government would not allow the practice of the Branch Davidian cult in the famous Waco siege of its compound. The state of Texas imprisoned Joshua and Caleb Thompson for the physical beating of an eleven year boy attendee of their Sunday School.
What I'm saying is that the United States defines what "free exercise" is. With that in mind, should the United States allow for Islam? If you were a family member of someone murdered in San Bernadino, would you believe that Islam can coexist in the United States? Are there a certain number of murders or attacks that we must absorb before we do something? Would you be willing to have it be you or your loved one?
I see four categories of Muslims. I can't say that I know for sure what the percentages are, but I'm still going to give my opinion. I believe there are three fairly equally sized groups, and then a fourth, which is the smallest. The smallest of the three, I believe, are active terrorists. The second biggest are those who support the terrorists either actively or passively, like those in Turkey, who booed the moment of silence at the soccer match. The biggest group of the three are those who do nothing about the first two. They are silent, but through their silence they accommodate and accept. The fourth and smallest group represents those who oppose the first three in an active way.
What I'm saying is that the United States cannot trust Islam to assimilate into an American way of life. Not every Muslim is an enemy of the United States, but Islam in general is an enemy of the United States. I'm sure there are professing Muslims who can live here peacefully, generations of them, who have been here for a long time. Many of them live here and countries like the United States because they are in the minority. History shows us that when Islam nears something of a large minority of a nation, the Muslims start reeking havoc on a country until they have their way. Once they have their way and all the other religions are subdued and without full freedom, they are a peaceful people. This is how I see it, and I wish I was wrong, but I don't think so. There are not enough Muslims to step up and stop their terrorist category from doing what they do.
I know I can coexist with Muslims, who can practice their religion peacefully. I have never had a Muslim come to me to attempt to persuade me of his religion, but I believe he should be free to use verbal argument to do so. However, I do not believe that Muslims can coexist here. Every mosque, I believe, is a likely location of terrorism against the United States, plotting its overthrow. Islam will not overthrow the United States, but the coexistence of Islam with the United States will not allow Americans to live freely.
What complicates the rise of Islam in the United States even further is the new outlaw of personal firearms. Americans in general cannot carry firearms, so are prey to terrorists. Americans do not know which Muslims are terrorists and by the time they find out, it's too late. The first dozen or thousand must absorb the attack so that others might live. I've told my school class that right now the plan is for me to rush the terrorist without a weapon and yell for the kids to run. What do you think of that plan? This is the suggested plan by Jerry Brown and the state of California, a place of Stanford and Google and tremendous innovation. Americans are now expected to accept round after round of these attacks without guns. The police will tell you that they can't protect you and neither will they allow you to carry a gun. They will not protect you and you cannot protect yourself. This is not freedom. We are no longer a free people, especially with the combination of these two factors: restriction on concealed carry of firearms and the free exercise of Islam.
In this last week, Donald Trump said that President Obama’s refusal to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism” indicates that “there is something going on with him that we don’t know about." That statement is very ambiguous, but still represents the most plain statement made about the mysterious defense of Islam in the United States by our president and his disposition to bring in almost as many Muslims into the country as he can. It is obvious he respects Islam more than he does American citizens who happen to be Republicans. The reason Trump must say it in such a coded way is because free speech is muzzled mostly by the left wing in the government and the media.
Like Trump, I don't know what it is with our president and how he acts toward Islam. I think he is truly irreligious, not a Christian or a Muslim, while claiming to be a Christian for political purposes, but that he has stronger sympathies toward the practice of Islam than he does most Christianity in the United States, and for many reasons that are ingrained in him from his youth. The same mindset is what motivated Malcolm X and Cassius Clay to convert to some form of Islam and why the president was comfortable for years in the religion of the "Reverend Wright" in Chicago, someone who has been very, very close to Louis Farakhan and his Nation of Islam. I believe this is the translation of "something going on with him that we don't know about." We actually do know about it, but the media casts a blind eye because of its leftist ideals.
Do you remember the pizza place owned by Christians in Indiana that would not do pizza for a same-sex marriage reception? They were opposed and picketed and ridiculed and threatened. Shortly thereafter someone videoed someone posing for a same-sex marriage, who went into a Muslim bakery in the Detroit area to ask if it would bake for his same-sex marriage. The Muslim bakery owner said he would not. This video tape went viral, but that bakery did not receive the vitriol and threats and ridicule that the pizza shop in Indiana did. Why? A major reason, the biggest reason, is that people are afraid of this very small minority of Muslims. They are not afraid of the Christians who own the pizza parlor. This tells the story of the intimidation already that Islam brings to freedom in America.
I digress to some degree to an interesting subject that maybe I can address again some time in the future, so let me get back to the original idea behind the post. How can we allow Islam in the United States? I understand the so-called "arguments," to start, that this is freedom of religion. But that's what I'm talking about. We can't allow for Islam because it isn't compatible with the American way of life, the founding documents, a proper interpretation of the Constitution. The other arguments are mainly sentimental, I believe. Like with illegal immigration, there are those who would say that there is no way that you can send away all these people who have been living here peacefully all these years.
Most of you readers know that the Boston bombers had been living here peacefully numbers of years. Soviet spies lived in the United States peacefully for decades. The religion of Islam has proven that it will not assimilate as a whole with the United States and it is impossible to detect which ones are the terrorists and which ones are not. There is too much risk. Polygamist Mormonism wasn't allowed. We've decided this way before now with others.
My thinking isn't fully formed on what the exact solution is. Right now, the thoughts are experimenting with the idea that Islam should be banished from the United States. Moslems should go to Moslem countries and spread American values. Another argument follows. ISIS will use it as a recruiting tool It seems the major way for this administration to combat ISIS is by constraining free speech, which is sometimes called "political correctness." We can't use certain terms for fear of their using it as a recruiting tool. Who is out there to recruit in this "peaceful religion"? The argument continues that if ISIS perceives this as a war against it, then they will fight a war against us.
Guess what? ISIS is already at war against the United States, and this president says ISIS is not winning, but it is winning in that it has changed the way Americans can talk. They cannot express themselves. There is an existential threat in this country and everyone knows it. There is a threat in even writing this article. I think many believe that terrorists are culling the internet to make up an enemies list, which chills free speech. I fully understand this type of threat. It's why the coward left will attack only the Christian pizza parlor and not the Muslim bakery.
We have had gangs of teens use some of our property as a hang out. We tell them to leave at certain times, like during services. In response, two weeks ago, they broke the window to my car door. When a gang of them was using a retaining wall as a place to smoke and fornicate, I would just preach to them. They would disrespect me and then slouch off. However, I knew that I wasn't forbidding them to come, because I knew they might come back to do more damage. Anyone who lives in an urban area of the United States knows what I'm talking about. The police can't and won't protect us, and we cannot protect ourselves. With those conditions, we have to decide about Islam too.
One other argument is that Mohammed would reject much of modern Muslim scholarship. The Muslim scholars say that what we see today is a perversion.. Usually the discussion starts with equality of women, showing more skin, and not wearing burkas. What mainly bothers me about burkas is their ability to conceal bombs and AK-47's. The experts will drone on about how that it is all really good in the Koran and that what you see is a corruption. Yet, if the corruption itself, becomes the rule, then that is what Islam is. I can't sort through for all Muslims the correct interpretation of their book. What I know is what I see. I don't want to hear about the original intent of Mohammed when both my legs are blown off.
Numbers of Muslims live in the United States because the freedom allows for a better way of life than they experienced in their Muslim countries. They like that way of life. The economics are a direct result of the freedom. By allowing more Muslims though, the United States will become more like the Muslim countries. We have already experienced a loss of freedom because of it, but how much more should we be willing to put up with, until it isn't America any more?
I believe we're already there.
