JB Globe

Replying to my sarcastic reply with more sarcasm? To clarify, I wasn't denying that there are problems within Islam and Muslims do bad things, what I was countering was wulf's statement that ALL Muslims are basically violent - I wanted to point out that Muslims don't have the monopoly on violence, and that many of the world's worst crimes against humanity and deadliest conflicts did not involve Muslims. I also wanted to demonstrate the fallacy of wulf's faith in the 24-hour news media to give him an objective view of the world. I mentioned Congo specifically because it's the deadliest conflict since WWII but most people know absolutely nothing about it - if the media covered what was important instead of what was important to a self-involved Western audience, we'd be hearing about it on a regular basis.

If you choose not to care that articles you get your views from are inaccurate and/or full of misinformation, than what can I do?

If you were to say "social equality and human rights in the Muslim world is not comparable to that in Western countries" you might have something. But the minute you link that lack of social equality and human rights to the inherent inferiority of Islam, or of Muslim societies, you venture out into territory that can not be proven and an imagined reality in which Muslim societies cannot be reformed and/or evolve, but must be destroyed in order to create something better out of their ruin. The reason you don't want to prove that Muslims and or Islam are inherently "socially backward" is because you can't. That's half the story. If you actually knew something beyond newspaper headlines when it comes to the Muslim world, you might have mentioned the following: - That support for Sharia Law is strongest in countries that have the most oppressive forms of government, whose government courts are a joke because all verdicts are influenced by political corruption. Governments that are most often not well-liked by their population and supported by Western nations. These Countries that have two major authorities: the state and the Mosque, and given the choice, people trust the mosque more than the state, and most would prefer Sharia (however less just it is compared to our legal system) than the legal system of a dictator or monarch. Meaning, it's a pragmatic choice as much as it is an ideological choice. You might learn that if you read a book by a writer who spends his career researching the Muslim world, but you won't hear that in a 2-minute report on CNN. You might also learn that there are several schools of Sharia Law, some are brutal, some are rather just problematic. As usual with your arguments, you're simply trying to present something that is at-worst, a mixed-bag of good and bad, as all bad. Your back must be sore from turning all those molehills into mountains. Again, I don't deny that there's popular support for Sharia in the Muslim world, but I absolutely do not subscribe to your lazy argument that it's because of, and symbolic of "inherent Muslim backwardness" I believe that this is a problem that can be improved upon, and that if we simply stop propping up corrupt regimes (which means biting the bullet and not being able to plunder natural resources and institute unfair trade practices) and allow reformers to get their work done, you'd see improvement. Usually it's expected to repost a poll in a new thread if you mention it. Give me the name of the poll and the company that did it and I'll Google it myself. So you're limiting it to what time period exactly? A few years? Since 9/11? How convenient - You would rather we left out all that recent history in which Western powers and non-Muslim majority nations committed genocide, or committed wars of aggression against other nations, or staged coups or assassinated democratic leaders in order to further strategic interests of Empire. Because of course, acknowledging that non-Muslims have never had a monopoly on crimes against humanity would invalidate your argument. And fyi the 90's aren't ancient history - The Second Congo war is the deadliest conflict since WWII and that only ended in '93, and the Rwandan genocide happened in '94. And if you want to get into the game of recent events, just look at the violent repression of uprisings in Tibet & Burma recent years. It is simply not a radical position to assert that violence and injustice correspond not to if a state is Muslim-majority or not, but rather if a state is poor and/or post-colonial. There is a reason why the deadliest violence seems to occur in the poorest countries. Your insistence on such a short time period also doesn't make any sense in terms of a historical analysis. When you're trying to get a clear idea of trends in a country, or a region, you don't just look at a few years, you evaluate a large time scale. You look at significant past events which may have influenced current affairs, etc. Actually I think I mentioned the lack of social equality and human rights before, but I rooted those in political, historical and economic factors, rather than where you root these in genetic/cultural factors. Really? How so? Because the AK Party is in power? It's as secular as any American political party to be sure, but since Secularism in Turkey is almost like a religion - even small instances that could be twisted around to make it seem like you're influenced like religion are a big deal: ie - Allowing women to chose to wear hijabs in schools or government, or designating a prayer room at schools. Islamic state? Do you know the definition of hyperbole? Or are you just completely unaware of how ridiculous you sound when you take EVERYTHING to the extreme? Bombings - Are condemned by the vast majority of society, including the most popular Imams in Indonesia. Race Riots - According to the only official report (Asian Human Rights Commission) the race riots were orchestrated by the military, which was loyal to former general and then dictator Suharto. They were meant to distract from the riots which began as food-shortage and mass-unemployment riots - the military government wanted to scapegoat someone and avoid the public wrath. Did you know this or did you really think Indonesians just woke up one day and thought: "I hate Chinese people, let's beat some up for no good reason" East Timor - You do realize that the invasion of East Timor utilized donated American military equipment, right? Equipment that was donated even after Suharto liquidated the Indonesian Communist Party (which was a legal political party) killing 500 000 people. You realize that this invasion occurred the day after Ford and Kissinger met with Suharto to okay the invasion and the use of US equipment, right? Remember what I said about the West supporting corrupt and brutal dictators? You might have a short memory, but Indonesians don't - they remember US support of Suharto, and even though most don't blame the American public for it, among the terrorists this remains one of their primary reasons for wanting to go to war with the states. If only we knew that supporting widely-despised dictators would entail bad consequences in the future. One of my good friends lived in Jakarta for a few years and worked in Aceh after of the Tsunami - from her experience, Indonesia is NOT a radical country prone to violence because of Islamic backwardness. It's a post-colonial country with problems - much like the other countries you listed, which I wish I had time to explain why your characterizations of them are wrong, but I'd rather get through this post in entirety, however I think I've demonstrated by my much more detailed analysis of Indonesia & Turkey that you simply don't know what you're talking about. Empire isn't in the public interest. Supporting brutal dictators isn't in the public interest. It IS in the interest of political and corporate elites, however, if these dictators sell out their public and practically give away resources in return for a cut of the spoils. Considering almost every colonial nation was in worse shape post-colonialism than pre, I think this would be only a good deal for the colonists. This violence doesn't correspond to if a country is Islamic or not, it corresponds more to if the West has a large presence in a country and/or a bad history of unfair dealings with that country. That's why there's no attacks in Senegal, but a lot in Saudi Arabia. By the way, if the US had a large presence in Burma, or North Korea, how safe do you think it's people or assets would be? Once again you're ignoring context. Really? How many African Islamic Extremist terrorist groups are there? Al Qaeda bombed those embassies, but those are a few attacks over a 15 year period - a problem no doubt, not exactly the catastrophe you're making it out to be. And although some of the culprits may have been African, Al-Qaeda is not an African organization. And we won't pay attention to those non-Muslim groups that keep seizing oil rigs and fields in Nigeria and holding Western workers hostage, that would ruin your example. I'll repeat myself: whatever you can say about education in Muslim-majority countries you can say about ANY post-colonial nation: that their education systems are not up to the standards of our own, and the primary reason usually is because these countries are poor and lack the tax base to support an education system, which is expensive but necessary. These countries may not have been the richest in the world (although some, like India, definitely were) prior to colonialism, but it doesn't help when your colonial masters have sucked money out of your country and caused your economy to shrink for a few hundred years. Not my words, again: It's wrong, but it's not entirely irrational. If we made more of an effort to be consistent in the application of international justice, and also attempted to make international institutions like the UN or IMF more globally democratic instead of concentrating their power in Western hands, this would make this kind of scenario a lot less likely. ^^^^ See what I did there? I criticized "us" and "them" because it was warranted - You should try sometime. Again - you're either pretending to not have read my response to your accusations of me being a "welfare writer" or you honestly don't remember it. Do you have a learning disability that causes you to forget things or affects your reading comprehension? I can cut you some slack on this, I have an LD, and I know what it's like sometimes. But really, look back a few pages and you'll see that I explained that all of the projects I've worked on were either funded by networks, corporations or organizations and haven't received any government money. Whereas my theory on the sources for your quotes is based on where those quotes are available via google (and anyone is free to test it out) your "theory" of me being a "welfare writer" is based on absolutely nothing. It seems like you just assumed that, because I'm a "liberal" and a filmmaker that I MUST be completely dependent on government. Well what about your "Islam is socially backward/Islam is violent" line of thought? Surely this promotes pre-emptive aggressive military action action Muslim nations and a form of neo-colonialism to suppress them once defeated, correct?

This is a very Euro-centric argument. The whole notion of "race" varies greatly from region to region and country to country. If you tried to pull the white/black/asian thing in Brazil, no one would understand what you were talking about, because race there is something completely different - there are dozens of "races" in addition to ethnic groupings such as German-Brazilians, Japanese-Brazilians, etc. The idea of race that exists in North America and Europe just doesn't go far beyond those regions. Actually, those are all ethnic groups. For those who believe in the genetic superiority of their race based in science, it's very important to let them know that not only is there no superiority, their identity has no scientific basis. It's a social construct - you might as well try to create an identity around people who's favourite colour is blue.

Why? Because the TV told you so? I guess the TV is right. I haven't seen a news story on Fox News on Congo, that must mean it's safe, because if there was violence there, we'd have heard about it right? Violence only exists when news agencies cover it. If someone gets shot and a journalist isn't there to report it, does he really die?

It also means that there are over a billion people that you can work with to reform and/or isolate that tiny percentage. But of course, that would mean no awesome war footage to masturbate to on CNN.

I'm not picky about numbers, but I do believe we need a certain level of immigration to meet our economic needs. At the very least, we need immigration to fill unskilled labour jobs, which just are not attractive to people at their current rate of pay and with their complete lack of benefits. I suppose the alternative is to raise minimum wage and/or institute a national benefit program for all low-wage employees, then you may not have to have current immigration levels. But as it stands right now, not too many Canadian-born folks are too enamored by the idea of working in retail for their whole lives, for example.

This isn't the first time you've said you ignore me, it's also not the first time you've followed that statement with a huge post. So which is it? Are you ignoring me or are you responding to me? Make up your mind please. As for your claim that you don't ignore valid, logical and factual information - you've managed to completely ignore the Topkapi Declaration and Amman Message. I've actually addressed both of the quotes you posted, and you've completely ignored mine. I guess you realize that you really have nothing to counter them, in terms of a consensus statement from hundreds of influential Muslim leaders on various vital issues, and you must be thinking that by simply not addressing them, you're discrediting them. If you had to address them, you'd have to acknowledge their significance. When you Google any sentence from those quotes, all you get is anti-Islamic websites. Even when you google-search mapleleafweb, you don't get anything. When you use this site's in-forum search engine for the names of the two Imams, there are no posts from 2004. The oldest is 2006, and none of them mention where you got the quotes from. All this could be settled with a link to the source material, or even to a link that references the original source. I'll even apologize if it turns out I'm wrong. But from where I stand it looks like my initial claim is correct: that one of your primary sources of information on Islam are anti-Islamic websites. You said this earlier: "Yeah, sure I might google on occasion and come up with a site which can be correctly described as anti-Islamic, but that does not make the facts presented incorrect" Actually, hack-sites like those are most often extremely incorrect. I steer far away from sites that might support my argument but read extremely amateurish (and I'm not talking about the web-design) because I can be sure that some of the articles on there are plagiarized. Some of the articles you've read on those websites which you thought were from newspapers may have actually been anonymous chainmails, and the "facts" they mentioned may be complete fabrications or distortions. In general, it's a terrible idea to use those websites for anything. Actually I addressed the statements already, I acknowledged them, I noted that they're representative of a problem in parts the Muslim world. But what I also said is that they're not representative of most Muslims' opinions, and I backed that up with the two declarations I mentioned earlier. Either you missed that part, or your intentionally claiming I never addressed it as a means of discrediting me. You always claim I deny that there are problems in the Muslim world, but I always acknowledge them, where we disagree is the scale of these problems. You think they are all-encompassing, that every Muslim is the same thing as a terrorist or a extreme-conservative. With that worldview a solution to dealing with the "Muslim problem" can only involve global war, and national policies of discrimination against Muslims, or violence, or both. Of course, you always allude to this sort of neo-Crusade approach, but never articulate it. My view is that these problems are found throughout the Muslim world in small but potentially serious quantities. You want to put the fires out before they spread, and you want to cut off any fuel that may be keeping them going. Some of these problems might have legitimate concerns that fuel them - but they are expressed in illegitimate ways (ie - Palestinian statehood = good, using terrorism to get Palestinian statehood = not good) My approach would involve working with Muslims to put down these problems, which apparently you find a repulsive idea because you have already made up in your mind that they are the enemy. That's pretty much the same thing as "Islam is a backward religion" except you're focusing on the followers (Muslims) and not the religion (Islam). But that's kind of disingenuous, because you've quoted Islamic texts before as a means of discrediting the religion itself, so I suppose you really do think both are awful. Actually, when you make a statement such as "the Muslim world is socially backward" the onus is on you to prove that statement to be true. That's what I was looking for - I was looking to see if your argument has any legs to stand on, and the opinions of two Imams who may have an audience of 1-2% of the total population of the Muslim world do not in any way account for what the other 98% think. As it stands, your opinion of the Muslim world is still just that - your own personal opinion, not a fact. Go ahead and list away. Go ahead and post the Sharia Law poll results. At least then we would have an objective base of facts to debate. That's normally how this stuff works. Generally people try and prove their statements to be true instead of alluding to things that may or may not be true, or trying to get out of doing their own homework and telling people: "if you don't believe me, go and look at all the news stories that prove that Muslims are evil!" Terrorism is a tactic used by groups to exert control over a larger group, nation or institution with whom they could not or choose not to engage with directly in conflict. It's also a crime against humanity, and there are many other crimes against humanity - genocide, forced exodus, state torture, forced labour, etc - all of these are brutal and terrible. I prefer looking at the whole picture when it comes to judging how "backward" a society is. If you were to look at the last 100 years, at all of the deaths and the suffering caused by humanity, would you conclude that most of the crimes against humanity have been committed by Muslims? How about the past 50 years? 25? 10? I'm sorry but I just don't think the history books back up your worldview. It is simply not a radical notion to suggest that Muslims are not inherently more brutal than the rest of us, and that the current situation in some Muslim nations might have more to do with the economic and political realities faced by all post-colonial states, than some inherent barbarism within Islam you keep alluding to. Turkey, Guyana, Senegal, UAE, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey. I think any of these states have made big positive steps from where they were when they gained independence, or in the case of Turkey, from the Ottoman period. And if you look at the curve of progress in terms of economic equality, social services, democratic rights, innovation, equality and stability, they're good examples. But of course, they are post-colonial states for the most part, and as a result have had to deal with problems that the colonial powers never had to, and as a result, I'm sure a cherry-picker such as yourself can find a bone to pick. Now you can go ahead and try and find a news article on an incident in one of these countries to blow out of proportion/take out of context. Looks like I struck a nerve. What was it specifically? The implication that the problems in the developing world aren't just a result of those people's social backwardness? That maybe the several centuries that Europe sucked money out of their countries and oppressed their indigenous development towards modernity might have had something to do with it? That maybe 200-400 years or more of a shrinking economy and repressing domestic reform and evolution at the hands of a European power might take more than a half century to correct? Especially when those powers are still interfering in these nations to this very day? Explaining isn't excusing. And this isn't a far-left argument, this is a viewpoint that most of humanity shares, because most of humanity lives in a nation that was formerly under colonial occupation. And I will stop saying that the situation of the developing world is party the fault of the West the minute Western nations stop supporting leaders in developing countries based on the criteria of if these leaders are going to align themselves with our economic/strategic interests and sell out their people for their own personal gain in the process. Colonialism is a rotten process for the colonized. The Americans had it the best in the colonial world but that still didn't stop them from rising up against Britain and attaining independence. If it was bad enough there to make people want a revolution, imagine how bad it was in countries that weren't majority-populated by Europeans. Do you really think there'd be so much violence directed against Western interests in these countries if we didn't support corrupt and/or dictatorial regimes? I mean, the West has overthrown democratic governments because some countries didn't like the (perfectly legal) policies that government was going to introduce. See, this is the problem with relying on anti-Islamic websites, you think bad things only happen in Muslim countries . . . What are the worst cases of genocide in the last 100 years? How many of them occured in a Muslim-majority country? How democratic is Congo compared with Senegal? North Korea to Turkey? Burma to Malaysia? China to Indonesia? As for educational and scientific achievement - that's lower than European countries (us included) because colonial nations don't have the same tax base to fund them as well as we do, because (as explaned earlier) we were shrinking their economies for a few centuries and funneled all the growth to build our own systems. They're catching up. Frankly I don't think it's any nation's right to decide the internal affairs of another, especially something as oppressive as preventing a population from deciding their own government. It smacks of hypocrisy that a country born out of colonial revolution (US) and forging a new political order would limit the means of a nation to decide their own affairs. And this brief blip in human history where the centre of global power wasn't in the Middle East, India or China appears to be coming to an end. Frankly I don't know how people like yourself are going to handle not being the centre of the universe anymore. Jesus Christ, is this the level of debate here? "I don't actually need to give specific examples" Of course you do, you need to be specific otherwise anyone can make any sort of claim about anything. Case in point (disclaimer, I don't actually believe what I'm about to write): All Western-nations are war-mongerers and their public likes to dress up their wars of Imperialism but in their heart of hearts they know that they are savage conquerors no different than their colonial ancestors. There, both your and my arguments are just as legit, since we don't have to be specific and ARTICULATE what we actually mean, there's no way that either can be disproven. Either they're both right or they're both wrong, take a pick. You're just avoiding being specific because you CAN'T be specific, you don't really know much about the histories of individual Muslim countries, or their current domestic situations. That's why you lump them together as one unit - even though Kyrgyzstan and Guyana have about as much in common as the Philippines and Brazil. here, it's just as airtight Here again, your ignorance leads you to the wrong conclusion. If you had ever read any colonial studies, you'd understand that most post-colonial nations are deeply distrustful of any international institutions that are supported by the West, and for very good reasons most of the time. That includes the ICC which is trying to try the Sudanese Prez. Sometimes this distrust causes people to rationalize away bad things that other African/Muslim/post-colonial national leaders are doing because they also appear to be standing up to Western neo-colonialism. The Prez is exploiting this much in the same way Mugabe did before (and it's not working anymore) and Idi Amin did in the past. It's wrong, but I can't really criticize this as irrational paranoia - when you muck around in countries the way we do, this is what happens. It happens every where on different issues. The Poles for example react much stronger and more fearful to every move Russia makes, even when they're not aggressive sometimes, it's not that they're irrational - but it's because of their history with Russia that makes them view things differently. I never said the Muslim world was any of those things, all I said is that the Muslim world is almost all post-colonial, and the nations within it are no better or worse off than most other post-colonial countries. That statement of mine was in response to your earlier claim of the "social backwardness" of Muslims, for which after all these thousands of words, you haven't provided and substantial information to prove your viewpoint. You could say the same thing about the non-Muslim developing world in general, though - couldn't you? You could also say regions of the world rise in fall in influence and power, and while Europe might be enjoying a historical anomaly now, it wasn't so in the past - when during the Dark Ages in Europe Muslims were enjoying a Golden Age. They did what all great societies do: take in ideas from outside, combine them with your own, and innovate. That's why they translated so many Greek and Roman texts, that's why years later when their Golden Age was done, European scholars came to their libraries to copy the works of the ancients that had disappeared in their countries. You have a very Supremacist view of history (and therefor inaccurate) - sorry to break it to you, but Europe is not the centre of all of humanity for all history. You've got to share that stage with people who aren't white - will you be able to handle it without throwing a hissy fit? I take it as a given because your views are IDENTICAL to the common views of White Nationalism. It's kind of like this: "I am not a communist! You don't know what you're talking about. Just because I hate free-markets and private property, and I advocate full government control of the economy doesn't make me a communist!" Let's summarize: You think all Muslims and all (or most) non-Europeans are culturally backward, you think that most of the major advances in humanity have come from Europeans (either in the last 500 years or even beyond that), you think that all of the problems in the developing world are a result of those people's own incompetence, you believe that might makes right and that we have the right to impose our strategic interests on other nations even if it goes against their self-determination because we are culturally superior to them and our interests matter more than theirs, you believe that all European societies are primarily for people of European and/or Christian background and as such can institute discriminatory policies for non-Europeans, and non-Christians. You also believe that the source of most of the current problems in Western nations are a result of immigration from non-European nations. You also allude to a kind of neo-Crusade against the entire Muslim world that is needed and blur the lines between combatant and civilian, since in your mind all Muslims are terrorist-supporters to some degree. Is any of this off-base? Hope you don't mind me doing this, just returning the favour for that rant about me being a welfare-writer or whatever it was. Which by the way I responded to, because I'm not a coward and I can stand up and state my beliefs clearly and concisely without worrying about what others might call me. You should try it sometime, maybe it will help with that long look in the mirror I talked about earlier. I've read many posts by you, and never seen one iota of a solution to any of the problems you document. In fact that's all your posts are - you post an article, claim that there is a catastrophic and widespread problem (usually involving Islam) and then when pressed as to your solutions, you either don't respond or disappear from the post. And MANY people have asked you to clarify your solution to these issues, not just me. Personally I think you don't respond because you DON'T HAVE A SOLUTION, the only thing you can think of is a global crusade or turning into a racist state and you're not Lictor - you're not under the impression that such an idea has any more support than turning this country into a communist state. Honestly, you just wrote thousands of words in this post, but you won't write a few hundred to clarify your position on two things? I'm sorry but I just don't buy this "I'm too honourable" routine of yours. Wow. Wonderful, you condemn behaviour. Thank you great white man, I'm sure lots of gang members and terrorists will listen to you now. How about you spend less time on things that never work like finger-waving and tsk-tsking and spend more time trying to understand a problem so that you can actually solve it. Or would that involve too much listening to people who aren't white and taking their word for things? Would you be able to stand trying to empathize with someone who has more melanin than you? Maybe if there weren't any more gang-violence or terrorism, you wouldn't know what to do with yourself and who to hate? Well they're always us Jews if you ever get lonely, we've been done a lot worse by a lot better than you Argus and we're still here. Personally I think everyone else will move on up despite the drivel you post here. Have a nice life writing whatever it is you write.

You know there's actually no such thing as race, right?

Was this meant to convince me of anything? Or are you operating in your own echo-chamber?

You're saying that you believe that all Muslims are violent radicals, end of story. You don't even make any allowances for "some" or even "most of" This viewpoint is so extreme and without merit that it simply cannot be taken seriously. It's opinions like this that make me claim that you don't know what you're talking about. Because there is simply no data to support any of it, and even academics who might take a hard line against Islam don't make these kinds of ridiculous statements. Even from your perspective, I can't understand why you make such sweeping and all-encompassing statements - why would you essentially say "all Muslims are this" - ??? Any statement about a group of people that uses "all" is easily disproven - why not even say "most" - ??? It's almost as if you don't understand how to argue a point without burying your own argument.

Where do you go to school? What program? This may be a localized phenomenon. The "less 3rd world immigrants" option is most suspect - after all, there simply is not a big enough pool of "1st world immigrants" for Canada to draw on to meet our economic needs.

You can say this about any immigrant group. Usually intolerance in an immigrant group is a result of that group coming from a monocultural country, or one that is just not as close to the makeup of say, Toronto. They have to learn how to live with difference, and the vast majority of them have the growing pains and fit in, or at least their kids do. And I'd say that it's no more likely a scenario than some kid who grew up in a small rural town and moved to the big city and had to live with difference. A few will never be able to, but most eventually break down their prejudices and learn a thing or two. I agree, but unlike yourself, I'm able to put that fact in its proper context: namely, that incidents of violence and repression related to intolerance of views outside of those prescribed by religion and local cultures is substantially higher in most countries IN GENERAL than they are Canada. And especially developing countries. The incidents you are describing aren't correlated to countries based on if they're Muslim-majority or not, but rather if they're a developing nation or not - essentially if they're rich or poor. The obvious reason being is you're more likely to get into a fight with your neighbour over something if there's not much money or resources to go around. The fact that Burma is Buddhist doesn't stop the Junta from persecuting the Mon, the fact that Rwanda was 90% Christian didn't stop them from slaughtering each other. And the fact that South America is overwhelmingly Catholic doesn't seem to have an affect on how indigenous people are treated there today. All societies are just as capable of persecuting people based on difference.

If anything, if Palestinian kids learned about the Holocaust they would understand better why Israelis act the way they do, and they may come up with better strategies for achieving independence as a result of it. But those strategies would probably not include terrorism, but rather civil disobedience, which would put Hamas out in the cold. Seems like self-preservation here. Also, while I wouldn't put it in the same category, have you seen what Israeli schools teach about Palestinians? I'll answer that for you - you haven't seen it because it doesn't exist - the textbooks don't even acknowledge that "Palestinians" exist. This is widely known in Palestine, and doesn't exactly motivate people to learn about Jewish history when their own is being denied. Once again, we have a tit-for-tat going on. Who's going to be the bigger man? Or are they going to continue acting like school children?

How do you figure?

Most White Nationalists like yourself are on the fringe of the right wing. They're the other side of the coin to full-out communists on the fringe of the left wing. There's not too many of either that sit on the centre, or close to it. I think you're employing wishful thinking by believing that centrist Canadians agree with your White Nationalist views.

Can you say anything without using hyperbole? 3rd world hell? If you stopped using this extreme language to describe everything you might find less people would respond to your posts as if you were joking? That stretch of Hurontario is probably one of the most urban streets in all of 'sauga. It's one of the few places where people actually walk to their destination, and it's partly because of all the great grocerry stores, shops and restaurants along there. Back when there were no Hookah joints where I lived, I used to drive out their with my buddies or girlfriend's cousins to have some double-apple n honey shisha and some great Lebanese food. If it was such a "3rd world hell hole" I don't think 'sauga city council would be studying things like sidewalk widening and landscaping, bike lanes, and a streetcar right-of-way. Those things are being seen more and more as necessary in that area because of it's livability. What about it makes it a 3rd world hell-hole in your eyes? Be specific here? Is it the mere fact that there are a lot of businesses that aren't owned by white people?

Where are these ghettos? Brampton? There are more white folks in Brampton than there are non-white people in Rosedale or Forest Hill - aren't those neighourhoods ghettos of self-segregation? Or is it only an ethnic ghetto when the majority in an area isn't white?

1 - The more multicultural a community is, the more "liberal" it tends to be. Take a look at election results, then take a look at demographic data in terms of which regions are diverse in ethnic makeup, there's a clear correlation there - and it goes beyond ethnic lines - even white folks are much more likely to be "liberal" if they live in a diverse community. So I dispute your belief that the supporters of Multiculturalism for the most part don't live in Multicultural areas, it's just simply not true. 2 - You seem to be saying that people who do not directly experience living in a Multicultural community don't have as much credibility when it comes to discussing the merits of Multiculturalism. I completely agree with you on this, but in my experience the people who don't live in Multicultural communities are often the most opposed to the policy, while people who live in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, etc are mostly for the policy. I've actually said this before: If folks in small rural cities and towns don't like people in Toronto telling them how to run their lives, and claiming to know their day-to-day reality better than they do - than how come they return the favour? Frankly I dismiss out of hand the personal musings of someone who visited Toronto 20 years ago and is basing his opinion on Multiculturalism in this city on the newspaper articles he cherry-picks out of the National Post. 3 - How multicultural is Georgetown? How much of a right do you have to comment on this issue? Just saying - you put it out there.

1 - What data do you have that shows that Muslims will eventually become a majority in Canada? Even in Europe in 2100 the data shows at most 25% - and that's only if present immigration trends continue (which is pretty much unheard of over a 90 year period). 2 - Birth rates tend to decline with subsequent generations that live in Canada - any idea how big the average size Italian-Canadian family was in the 30's - 50's? 3 - What besides anecdotal evidence do you have that Muslim-Canadians are somehow more intolerant than other groups of people? Because if all you have is anecdotal evidence, I have my own to counter yours: I'm Jewish, I count Muslims among my best life-long friends and future in-laws, I've been to mosques before, many of my co-workers have been/are Muslim, and to date the only antisemitism I've experienced directly in real life has been from Anglo-Canadians. I know antisemitism exists in the Muslim community, but from my anecdotal experience it does not seem that Muslims are drastically more intolerant than other groups of people. Until I see some hard data - I'm not buying it.

While it sucks to be the odd guy out in a school, these kinds of stories are true on the other side - ie: being on of the only Muslim/black/Hindu/etc in a school will get you these kinds of results as well. The difference is of course, once school is done, that your son is not going to continue to experience bigotry on a regular basis from Muslims. Whereas a Muslim kid who goes to a school with no other Muslims will still have to endure bigotry once he leaves - because there's simply a lot more hatred towards Muslims in the larger society.

Hey, if the kid who made fun of your pee-pee pants in nursery school happened to be Muslim, than you'd spend the rest of your life hating all Muslims too, wouldn't you?

By Canadian Woman from New Brunswick's letter to the editor, I'm going to assume you mean neo-con blowhard Doug Patton's 08/30/05 entry on American Daily. BTW - Using misrepresented chain emails to validate your worldview is auto-Fail.

Actually, it's a pretty cut and dry case of a man raping a bunch of girls. Funny how you skipped over the blatantly obvious gender factor here and went straight to race. You could have made a bigoted post about how terrible men in general are against women in general . . . but of course you're a man, and then you might be forced by your own logic to deport yourself to save our great Canadian women.

Wow, thanks for this Lictor, I wasn't aware that white men are genetically incapable of being serial rapists or worse. I always knew Bernardo's great-great-great-grandfather was a Rajput.