[Veritas]

Originally Posted by IbnMardhiyah

Ah. More evidence of your incompetence and lack of comprehension. You're too generous.

Sir, I was born in the West and have lived here my entire life. So don't presume to dictate to me what the West is or isn't about. So, be mature enough to accept that point.

It’s not a matter of maturity as to whether or not you live in the West, as you claim.

Second, Islam already explicitly says that there is no compulsion in religion and that we cannot force religion upon others. And I understand and accept that wholeheartedly. So please be mature enough to accept that as well.

Toodles.

We hear a lot of this flowery language you proffer. However, the reality is far removed from the glossy veneer of no compulsion in religion you claim.

Western values are the same values shared by our free and open societies: equality, individual rights, pluralism, and freedom of conscience. Islam embodies none of these values. Of course, you knows this. To obfuscate this plain reality, though, you conflate a dishonest myth of Islamic tolerance with the Western folly of multiculturalism, and you hope to sell your reason-debilitating admixture to the willing quasi-dhimmis.

Moslem apologists present the sham to Westerners of dhimmis (Christians and Jews living in “muslim lands”) having a good life under the humiliating and often brutal conditions of shari'ah law. This is, of course, absurd. Dhimmitude is simply the assertion of Islam's supremacy through making life for the non-Muslim subject difficult, dehumanizing, and dangerous.

You seem to forget that your either / or (forced conversion or pay the jizya), compulsory proscription of “submit” or suffer the consequences, collapses the flowery image of islam you’re trying to sell us. This intolerance is appalling to us after all we've been through trying to move forward in securing freedom and equality for all members of our societies here in the West. But this is freedom in Islam according to moslems rules. There are no elected leaders. There is the shari'ah law as interpreted by the ulema, imams, and sheikhs. Above them is the Khalifah (Caliph) who is "God's shadow" on Earth, ruling over all Moslems. There is no plurality. There is the unyielding insistence that all mankind accept Islam's supremacy. There isn't even the slightest pretense of that one, true hallmark of political freedom: the ability to vote the leader out of office. This is Islam's greatest weakness. It is what makes it so potent, yet it is also what dooms it to failure. In the end, people want freedom and religion, which is, of course, a good thing. And there's no better place on the planet to find the lawfully protected right to have both of these things than in the West.