Arab Festival 2009

[sg1987]

Thank you for the reply nmap.

Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!

I remember it well!

You are correct. I, like many I guess, don’t care for the liberal’s agendas…. Not enough however to have taken the time to study them as you suggest. This is a wise suggestion to say the least.

I am under the strong impression that any cultural group other than the historically dominant group(s) are protected, encouraged, and supported by elements in academia, the media, and government. So long as they are encouraged while the mainstream culture is suppressed, they will grow stronger - and other groups will weaken.

There was a presentation of an academic paper that discussed some of the early efforts by Hispanics to change rules and policies in schools at the K-12 level back in the late 1950's...

This, to me, is where we are losing to the left; the proper education of our kids or the lack thereof. This answer to a question put to Stephen Pressfield struck me…

GR: Randy, a Goodreads member and Marine comments, "Pressfield uses the battle of Thermopylae...as a backdrop for studying the psychological makeup of what a soldier should be. This is a great book for anyone who is thinking of, or soon will be joining, military service. Those who are confused as to why a friend or loved one wants to join the military can very likely gain their answers from this book." Gates of Fire is required reading at several military schools around the country. Why do you think this is the case? What is it about your book that appeals to the military-inclined mind? Who else could learn from your books?

SP: Gates of Fire has a theme, and the theme is courage. It's also very much about the camaraderie of fighting men and of the warrior ethos. Believe me, this is still alive and well, despite all P.C. efforts to exile it into the past. Today's Marines and soldiers, however, like the rest of us, are woefully undereducated. No one has studied the past, so we all feel as if we're the first people on the planet to be confronting the issues we're confronting. That's where a book like Gates fills a gap. Marines and Army guys read it and realize that the same stuff they're going through has been gone through by a lot of other warriors before them, and that those warriors and the societies they lived in had highly evolved codes of honor and conduct. It gives our young soldiers and Marines a longer historical perspective and inspires them that they're not alone and they're not the first; in fact, they're part of a long and honorable tradition of the profession of arms. It helps!

Our children are no longer taught what we older folks were taught. I was taught that America has a long and honorable tradition. That all beliefs are NOT equally valid. That God- the Christian God, (yes I said it) has given us our liberty. That our system of Government IS better than others. I don’t mean to rant but I’m sickened by some of the crap I see taking place today in our public schools. Many of the conservative folks I know are either homeschooling or using private schools.

When I attended elementary school in Troup county Georgia we began each day with the principal reading a passage from the Bible, saying the pledge of Allegiance and a prayer. Neither I nor my family was Christian then but I was taught within the school that there was a basis for right and wrong …. that it is a great thing to be an American…. that we are the recipients of a long honorable tradition. This multi-cultural P.C. junk is producing a nation of people that no longer have a “highly evolved code of honor and conduct.” Many in our land don’t know what it means to be an American; don’t know that God is the author of our lives and our liberty. Many don’t know that it is man that will rob another man of his freedom. A continual, hard, non P.C. look at the fruits of Islam, communism, atheism, and totalitarianism would be most beneficial for all American youth.
I know that there are many of the “dominant culture” remaining, but we are shrinking with time. Maybe some form of activism is in order- rather than abandoning the public education ship. I don’t know. I do see that as more of us “religious right” (Christians) folks withdraw from the system there is less of the influence needed within the system.-my .02

[Falshrmjgr]

IN THE PRESENT CASE, CHANGE OCCURS WHEN THE RULERS FAIL TO FOLLOW THE CORRECT PROCEDURES FOR PRODUCING FUTURE GUARDIANS AND RULERS. AS A RESULT, SUBSEQUENT GENERATIONS NEGLECT TRAINING IN THE ARTS FIRST OF ALL, AND THEN PHYSICAL TRAINING ALSO. THE ABILITY TO JUDGE THE NATURES OF MEN DETERIORATES, AND THE CLASS OF RULERS BECOMES NO LONGER HOMOGENEOUS, SO THAT DISSENSION AMONG THEM RESULTS. BY A COMPROMISE BETWEEN THE BETTER AND THE WORSE AMONG THEM, LAND AND HOUSES ARE DISTRIBUTED AS PRIVATE PROPERTY; AND THE RULERS NOW REGARD AS THEIR SLAVES THOSE WHOM THEY PREVIOUSLY GUARDED AND VIEWED AS THEIR FRIENDS AND PROVIDERS.

- Plato, The Republic

It would seem that Plato's belief that the culture of a nation should be homogeneous is most accurate. While our Founding Fathers very rightly provided for the freedom of one's exercise of religion, they never envisioned a world taken to ludicrous extremes where the culture of our nation would diverge from one of Christian CULTURE.

Even an agnostic must recognize that a common core belief system is the grease on the axle of a society, and that competing cultures within a nation can only lead to cultural anarchy.

This cultural anarchy is a temporary condition which is akin to a vacuum in nature, soon to be filled by an emergent culture. The question then becomes, what culture?

If we choose to look at revolutionary models, which propose to tear down extant governments with anarchy, then fill that power vacuum with their own brand of oligarchy, we see a familiar pattern taking place within American culture today.

Of course, recognition of these forces is the first step in battling them, and so far they have successfully couched themselves in cloaks of "civil rights."

I shudder to consider the America my children will inherit.

[Richard]

Hmmmm - just a bunch of innocent bystanders (calling themselves Acts 17 Apologists - no inference there) with cameras (more than one placed around the area) out for a stroll by going to an ethnic fest to challenge the core beliefs of the sponsors and prove them wrong ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_apologists ) - arguing with a continuum of size two hatted 'security' (Ha!) personnel. Notice how the main actor outright lies to the police - "I was only trying to leave" - about what he was doing at the end of the video after accusing everyone else of lying to the security personnel during the various confrontations?

No propaganda in this video - kinda like a Klan march down Peachtree in Atlanta on MLK Day or those good Christian ffolkes from Kansas picketing a military funeral.

This video and the text of the article would be a good piece on the dangers of propaganda and POV to dissect and analyze in a PSYOPs course - not entirely true and not entirely false - but enough of each to be manipulated by any choosing to do so - which the makers of the video and the writer of the article do. Sad - and one of the problems of the WWW - for everyone.

YMMV

Richard's $.02

[SF-TX]

Originally Posted by Richard

No propaganda in this video - kinda like a Klan march down Peachtree in Atlanta on MLK Day or those good Christian ffolkes from Kansas picketing a military funeral.

Did you watch the same video linked to in this thread? By any stretch of the imagination, I don't see how you can equate the actions of the two Christian men in the video with the KKK or the nut jobs from the Westboro Baptist church.

[SF-TX]

Moderator,

I suggest we merge this thread with this one:

http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/...ad.php?t=24003

Good point - yours was posted first - done. Richard

[SF_BHT]

Originally Posted by SF-TX

Did you watch the same video linked to in this thread? By any stretch of the imagination, I don't see how you can equate the actions of the two Christian men in the video with the KKK or the nut jobs from the Westboro Baptist church.

Their actions were done to get an reaction from the event people. Were the security guards right NO but the two asking questions with their T-Shirts and cross were there to invoke a reaction......

Does the religion of peace and tolerance have tolerance NO but this situation is more than just one side.....

Brown Shirts did the same thing, the KKK has done the same and they all were defending their right as they viewed it to get their point out.

[Richard]

Did you watch the same video linked to in this thread? By any stretch of the imagination, I don't see how you can equate the actions of the two Christian men in the video with the KKK or the nut jobs from the Westboro Baptist church.

Yep - did you read my first paragraph? I watched it several times as well as rereading the script - the agendas on both sides of the lens were less than innocent - and the self-proclaimed Apologists reminded me of a German tourist I watched once who climbed down on a beach to prod an Elephant Seal into action because the seal wasn't moving enough for his video camera - the seal moved plenty fast enough when kicked and the tourist lost a leg. Self-fulfilling Darwinianism IMO - but YMMV.

Richard's $.02

[nmap]

The issue of propaganda is a fascinating one. It's important for any group to get its message out, and to craft that message such that it improves support from current and prospective allies - and, if possible, demoralizes opponents.

One heavy-handed example (IMO) is Cramer on MSNBC. (Hopefully, that's a fairly uncontroversial choice) If one tracks his recommendations, he's been rather consistently wrong - but he's quite a showman. He presents his message strongly. A better example is the typical car commercial. The message suggests that anyone with that particular new car is young, vibrant, exciting, and (ahem) a chick magnet. We can also see the same effect in pronouncements that green shoots of economic recovery are developing - in essence, there is an effort to create economic recovery by changing consumer attitudes.

There is, however, another side to this. I think it may be necessary to have a certain critical mass of a population that agrees that a particular viewpoint is "right". The discussion about the methods of the group, the guards, and so forth suggests that there is a lack of consensus. So an activist group is faced with an additional task - which is (I suppose?) to persuade some number of people that they are "right", and that it is necessary that the "wrong" (however defined) must be "made right".

I think the activists, in this instance, face the challenge of showing that the other group is "wrong", and that the world will be a better place if things are changed in some particular way. Since this is very much counter to the mainstream media and official messages, communicating such a notion is at least a challenge.

Since the issue of brownshirts has come up, the matter of environment may apply. Germany had gotten along with its Jewish community for some time prior - but the economic strains of the era made that community a convenient target. I suspect any activist group should consider the overall environment in crafting their message. Where this gets interesting (but not necessarily pleasant) is if the markets (stock, housing, commodity, and so forth) continue down and large numbers of people encounter real distress.

According to my dreadfully limited understanding, the Muslims have a system which combines religious and secular governance into a single entity. Thus, a U.S. Muslim can go to a representative of their belief system and get assistance with money problems, finding a job, and so forth. That's a potentially powerful tool for recruiting, for control, and for maintaining loyalty among those involved. Groups in opposition to them might wish to consider how to offset such a strategy. In addition, they might wish to consider their own recruiting tools.

[Soak60]

Originally Posted by nmap

There is, however, another side to this. I think it may be necessary to have a certain critical mass of a population that agrees that a particular viewpoint is "right".

The 2 guys in the video did this specifically to recruit, and to use the video to raise awareness. They're basically forming a separate country in the U.S. and IMHO, this sort of thing needs to be CLOSELY examined while it happens, to assure that the Constitution is followed more closely than the Quran. This is why...

Ask yourself these 2 questions:
If a Muslim walked into a fundamentalist Christian church (where all members and the pastor STRICTLY follow the teachings of Christ) in the US and began praying loudly during the middle of a service or Mass, what would the response from the pastor and congregation likely be?

Now what if a Christian did the same thing in a fundamentalist mosque in the US? What about in a Muslim country, where Religion is Law?

Are those answers the same? I find it doubtful, even when both institutions are in the U.S.

This video is actually an EXCELLENT view of the difference between a hardcore Christian view of martyrdom and a hardcore Muslim view, taken down about 8 notches.

A true Christian belief in martyrdom is based on professing your faith in the face of enemies who mean to harm and kill you, who would persecute you because of your faith. Was it stupid for them to walk into there? Yeah. Was it preplanned? Yeah. They were looking for it. If they were really, really serious they would have stayed and gotten the sh*t beaten out of them.

Which would have demonstrated exactly the Muslim view on things. The only true saints and martyrs are those who kill the infidels, or die in the attempt.

The weird thing is, Christianity tends to have an excellent track record for getting more members when believers publicly demonstrate willingness to die for their faith. It must be something about how assured they are of the afterlife, to die so willingly.

My 2 pennies anyways.

[Plutarch]

Originally Posted by Richard

No propaganda in this video - kinda like a Klan march down Peachtree in Atlanta on MLK Day or those good Christian ffolkes from Kansas picketing a military funeral.

So people who spread the gospel of Jesus Christ are equivalent to klansmen? I guess I better go poke some eyeholes in my sheets then.

Firstly, these gentlemen run a ministry to reach out to the the muslim community. To do that they need to go to areas where the muslim people are, areas such as this fair.

Secondly, it's not like they were standing outside a mosque with a bullhorn. They went to a booth that had a banner that said "Islam, got questions? Get answers". They were inviting discussion with non-muslims.

More than likely they only became incensed when they realized that one of the men was a former muslim, who could point out the errors in their literature to them in Arabic.

The idea that Christians need to shut up and stay in their church buildings, or risk being labeled bigots, leads me to ask the following question.

"Is this the United States of America?"

I guess the enlightened answer to this is "NO WAY!"

[SF_BHT]

Originally Posted by Plutarch

So people who spread the gospel of Jesus Christ are equivalent to klansmen? I guess I better go poke some eyeholes in my sheets then.

Firstly, these gentlemen run a ministry to reach out to the the muslim community. To do that they need to go to areas where the muslim people are, areas such as this fair.

Secondly, it's not like they were standing outside a mosque with a bullhorn. They went to a booth that had a banner that said "Islam, got questions? Get answers". They were inviting discussion with non-muslims.

More than likely they only became incensed when they realized that one of the men was a former muslim, who could point out the errors in their literature to them in Arabic.

The idea that Christians need to shut up and stay in their church buildings, or risk being labeled bigots, leads me to ask the following question.

"Is this the United States of America?"

I guess the enlightened answer to this is "NO WAY!"

Richard will be here shortly........
You should open your eyes and understand the points that he and the rest of us were making. No one said Christan's were like the KKK. Go back and read all post and try to read them without a chip on your shoulder. Objectively and from all perspectives.
It is late and this little keyboard is hard to type on so I will get back to this in the morning.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Plutarch

So people who spread the gospel of Jesus Christ are equivalent to klansmen? I guess I better go poke some eyeholes in my sheets then.

Are you saying that Christianity hasn't been used to advance the cause of white supremacy? Are you saying that religion has never been subverted in the name of a political agenda?

Firstly, these gentlemen run a ministry to reach out to the the muslim community. To do that they need to go to areas where the muslim people are, areas such as this fair.

They choose to go to these areas, they don't need to go to these areas. There are other means of communicating a message.

Secondly, it's not like they were standing outside a mosque with a bullhorn. They went to a booth that had a banner that said "Islam, got questions? Get answers". They were inviting discussion with non-muslims.

They were inviting discussions but on their terms. The people told them to turn off the cameras if they wanted to talk. If discussion were the primary goal, why not accommodate that request? If the goal is truly Christian outreach to the Muslim community in line with the organization's mission statement, why pick tactics designed to provoke a confrontation, the cameras to 'document' the confrontation, and then the use of the internet to publicize the confrontation?

The idea that Christians need to shut up and stay in their church buildings, or risk being labeled bigots[...]

Where is that suggestion being made?
Where is that comparison being drawn?
Americans do not have the right to voice an opinion with a course of action with which they disagree?
If one's cause is truly righteous, does one really give two hoots and a holler what critics say?

[freelander]

I watched the video and I have been following the comments with interest. If I make a small observation in regards to Islam, Muslims and other faiths.

Muslims have a sub-conscious superiority complex due to their belief that Islam is the final religion. Many attempts at proselytization, especially among well educated Muslim countries, the few that are, have been largely failures because Islam teaches that Muhammad is the last messenger of God until Judgment Day. Therefor, any previous religion, ie Christianity and Judaism (the faiths recognized by Muhammad) are simply old news--despite major theological differences. Having grown up Iranian and American, and having many instances where religion is the topic of discussion among me and my friends, I have observed that many Muslim people in general are not adamant about this superiority and most people are down to earth and just like you and me--they want all the basic things in life, family, a job, kids etc and to be left alone. However, when the issues of Islam and other religions become a heated discussion, many a surrah exist to back up a Muslims claim to this idea, and to them they carry just as much weight as John 3:16 does to a Christian.

These people with the camera must have known that this reaction was coming--that's why they did it and that's why they brought a camera and posted on youtube. If one was seriously interested in having a dialogue with members of other faiths, there are more cultured ways of doing things.

In any case, as a Baha'i I have always viewed religion in a different light. My family was exiled from Iran when the revolution came and they shot my 65 yr old grandmothers dog and threw her in jail for being an Israeli spy. I know first hand the ugliness of political Islam and how it has permeated and petrified the minds of many across the World, some of those whom we are after. Political religion, be it Islam, Christianity or Judaism is as toxic as VX nerve agent. The real effort, instead of pushing an agenda supposedly based on religious values, should be instead enforcing an international standard of human rights and law--based on good ol' American documents.

[sg1987]

Great thread. I love the discussion…

Originally Posted by Sigaba

Are you saying that Christianity hasn't been used to advance the cause of white supremacy? Are you saying that religion has never been subverted in the name of a political agenda?

Christianity has been subverted for political reasons before. The ultimate reason for Islam is Theocracy.

They choose to go to these areas, they don't need to go to these areas. There are other means of communicating a message.
They were inviting discussions but on their terms. The people told them to turn off the cameras if they wanted to talk. If discussion were the primary goal, why not accommodate that request?

They wanted to do more than dialogue. It is apparent to me that they were familiar with the audience. They wanted to document what’s happening within a certain community here in the US that many won’t touch. These “Arabs” don’t want any light shown on what they are doing.

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.- John 3:20

Where is that suggestion being made?

By your Statement...

They choose to go to these areas, they don't need to go to these areas. There are other means of communicating a message.

[sg1987]

Originally Posted by freelander

. The real effort, instead of pushing an agenda supposedly based on religious values, should be instead enforcing an international standard of human rights and law--based on good ol' American documents.

Question:

What was the basis for our good ol' American documents?