That lovely, peaceful religion of peace...
POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Tuesday, March 3, 2026 16:15
VIEWED: 15565
PAGE 16 of 21
Quote:
Originally posted by CaveTroll:
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/the-sharia-court-of-pennsylva
nia-the-transcript/
Having a point isn't the issue. Having freedom to make that point, free from having a crime committed against you, is. There are lots of ways the muslim could have objected peacefully, but he didn't. Judge Martin seems to be confused about rights and privileges. In fact, he seems to have them transposed.
Here's a link to the youtube audio of the trial. You can listen for yourself.
The video isn't working for me here, but the link at Youtube does. Yeah, definitely, to my ear it sure sounds like he says "Imma Muslim," I can't imagine how the source I quoted thought otherwise or why his office when asked said he wasn't a Muslim.
So where do we go from here then? Do we not allow Muslims to be judges in cases involving Muslims? If a Catholic church is broken into do we have to make sure Catholics are not any part of the proceedings? If a black man attacks a white man, do we need to make sure the judge isn't either?
Here's another thought: if these were 2 white guys, any religion, college rivals, and one was wearing a cardboard sign that said, "You school sucks" and one guy tried to pull the sign off the other guy, would we be talking about it? If the judge decided to give them a break and not add a notch to their record and dismiss it as "boys being boys" would anyone even notice? Would we be screaming about the 1st Amendment? It's only because Muslims are involved that the judges actions are seen as an attack on our Constitution and our Freedoms. I think that's an extreme opinion. I have concerns about Muslim actions, but not this one, this seems pretty harmless in it's context.
I think the judge's comments after his "Imma Muslim" are also worth considering (emphasis mine):
"But you have that right, but you’re way outside your bounds on First Amendment rights.
This is what — as I said, I spent half my years altogether living in other countries. When we go to other countries, it’s not uncommon for people to refer to us as “ugly Americans.” This is why we are referred to as “ugly Americans,” because we’re so concerned about our own rights we don’t care about other people’s rights. As long as we get our say, but we don’t care about the other people’s say.
All that aside I’ve got here basically — I don’t want to say, “He said, she said.” But I’ve got two sides of the story that are in conflict with each other. I understand — I’ve been at a Halloween parade, I understand how noisy it can be, how difficult it can be to get a [unintelligible]. I can’t believe that, if there was this kind of conflict going on in the middle of the street, that somebody didn’t step forward sooner to try and intervene — that the police officer on a bicycle didn’t stop and say, “Hey, let’s break this up.”
The preponderance of, excuse me, the burden of proof is that the defendant — it must be proven that the defendant did with the intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person — The Commonwealth, whether there was conflict or not — and, yes, he shouldn't be putting his hands on you. I don’t know — I have your story he did and his story that he did not.
But another part of the element [of the offense charged] is, as Mr. Thomas [the defense lawyer] said, was — “Was the defendant’s intent to harass, annoy or alarm — or was it his intent to try to have the offensive situation negated?”
If his intent was to harass, annoy or alarm, I think there would have been a little bit more of an altercation. Something more substantial as far as testimony going on that there was a conflict. Because there is not, it is not proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty of harassment. Therefore I am going to dismiss the charge."
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PIZMO, I think you're defending the indefensible. We have two sides, both guys did something, one was in the middle of a street and the other came off the curb to approach. On balance, the guy with the sign was less offensive that the guy who got close. Muslims in this nation need to suck it up and realize that in THIS nation, religion is COMMONLY seen as "fair game". I hate to pull the "If you don't like it go live somewhere else", but the ability to poke fun at government, at religion, and at any and all belief systems is part of the foundation of this nation. If you want to hear someone really rip religion, in much harsher terms that "I am the zombie Mohammed" you should read some of the Founding Fathers.
You can have all of the religious freedom you want, UNLESS it conflicts with our laws and the philosophy behind it, and then you really do have to fall in line. No keeping your wife and daughters jailed in your house, or kidnapping your child-bride, or human sacrifice in the basement; refusing life-saving medical treatment for your child, or keeping someone from expressing a view on religion. That is where "Freedom of religion" ends.
How does that make us different from Iran? Well, it doesn't, since we ALSO apply the death penalty to enforce OUR set of beliefs. But if we were to eliminate the death penalty, we could claim moral superiority.
Now, just to toss something out there related to "sticks and stones... but names will never hurt me", how do you feel about school bullying?
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
PIZMO, I think you're defending the indefensible. We have two sides, both guys did something, one was in the middle of a street and the other came off the curb to approach. On balance, the guy with the sign was less offensive that the guy who got close. Muslims in this nation need to suck it up and realize that in THIS nation, religion is COMMONLY seen as "fair game". I hate to pull the "If you don't like it go live somewhere else", but the ability to poke fun at government, at religion, and at any and all belief systems is part of the foundation of this nation. If you want to hear someone really rip religion, in much harsher terms that "I am the zombie Mohammed" you should read some of the Founding Fathers.
You can have all of the religious freedom you want, UNLESS it conflicts with our laws and the philosophy behind it, and then you really do have to fall in line. No keeping your wife and daughters jailed in your house, or kidnapping your child-bride, or human sacrifice in the basement; refusing life-saving medical treatment for your child, or keeping someone from expressing a view on religion. That is where "Freedom of religion" ends.
How does that make us different from Iran? Well, it doesn't, since we ALSO apply the death penalty to enforce OUR set of beliefs. But if we were to eliminate the death penalty, we could claim moral superiority.
Now, just to toss something out there related to "sticks and stones... but names will never hurt me", how do you feel about school bullying?
I agree with 98% of your comments and I'm glad to hear you state them so emphatically. There are 2 levels I see this case being used to argue: the general, larger one which you are addressing quite well, and the "this specific case." The latter, I don't mind that the judge reached this conclusion in this particular case. If he had stuck to the harassment charge I would have been fine with that too. The former, the Big Issue, I agree - immigrants should show respect for the country they are adopting by learning their laws and language. I would try and do both if I moved to their country - seems most fair. As an American I would hope we can accommodate their needs if we can, seems a central part of our self-image somewhere, "tired, poor..."
My main objections are what I perceive as the rush to judgement, the obvious manipulation of the story (truly a zombie story, brought back from the dead), and the nature of people in the US now to instantly rail and see the extremes in even the most simple conflicts. I don't think a nation with everyone screaming at once without any desire for compromise leads to progress. I'm guessing you have been on committees where progress was made jointly and also project creep occurred. Simple constructive discussion where both sides add to a resolution gets lost in the current sensational environment. Instead we get Congress, no one budging, nothing gets done.
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Tolerance is a two way street. I haven't seen Hamid Karzai apologizing for his people rioting. If we're the only ones tolerating how muslims act, all we're doing is appeasing them. That didn't work so well for Chamberlain.
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Apologizing to the occupying country for people being pissed about being occupied? Your analogy to Chamberlain is fatally flawed, as Germany wasn't occupying England. Here's a better one: If the US was occupied by China, should the president apologize to China for US citizens rioting against Chinese actions in the US?
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I can't see the video in question about the judge, but people calling this Sharia law are going a bit too far, really. This is one guy being let off because there wasn't sufficient evidence due to a bad video recording and what the judge considered a lot of hearsay from all parties. Compare how many times Muslims are guilty before proven innocent.
Here's what another atheist thinks about this.
http://teapotatheism.blogspot.com/2012/02/lets-keep-sense-of-proportio
n-about.html
Not to say that it's the best decision ever, and an example of why there really shouldn't be any exceptions to free speech, but understandable after further investigation.
As for the judge's comments, I've known plenty of atheists, being one myself, who have a complete disrespect for religion, and calling the guy a doofus is probably warranted. The atheist was a disrespectful doofus, and the Muslim was a disrespectful violent thug. It goes both ways.
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Oh, btw, the judge in question is Lutheran.
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I have checked around, and this correction has been made to a number of articles pertaining to the case. Likely the judge was misheard or misunderstood, and merely speaking of his Iraq experience.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/291963/be-or-not-be-muslim-andrew
-c-mccarthy
The judge apparently actually said "IF I'm a Muslim, I'd find it offensive."
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Should we or should we not obey their laws? Which is what we were doing, burning defiled holy books, as their religious law demands.
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