San Bernardino

Yes Dick. We all know this, and it's been mentioned 1,000,000 times, as proof that First Amendment advocates are not absolutists.

But, why aren't they willing to go further, in light of this national emergency. What rights First Amendment rights that we now enjoy is the Times ready to advocate that we surrender?

Should we surrender some Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights as well?

The Times points to foreign countries and how they're trying. Well, should we try as hard as France, which is under a state of emergency, which allows them to conduct warrantless searches, and close down Mosques and prayer rooms?

 

Good points. And the Muslims who embraces Western values do exist, as we discussed earlier using the examples of guys we know.

People keep comparing Islam to fundamentalist Christianity, but Mormonism seems more apt. There's Mitt Romney and Steve Young. And then there are the loons with 30 teen-age brides living in a Utah compound.

 

The First, Fourth, and Fifth amendments have been litigated for decades. The contours are well-known. The Second is in its constitutional infancy. No reasonable person wants to peel back established Second Amendment rights. They want to influence its further interpretation moving forward. The First is just not a good comparison.

 

You're painting with too broad a brush there. Although, I will note that a good friend of mine -- a former college football player who converted to Islam in his late 20s, early 30s -- would emphasize that Islam was his faith, not his religion.

 

Do the many restrictions on motor vehicle ownership and operation, from mandatory insurance to drunk driving laws, interfere with freedom of movement or private property? Only a crackpot would say yes. Treating firearms the same way would hamper owners only by making it more expensive. No rights would be violated. Firearms cost society a lot, and society should be able to recoup some of the costs from their owner/operators. But the Congress won't even prevent persons the government considers too dangerous to be airline passengers from purchasing firearms AND explosives.
We are as a people not serious about the common good, including the most essential good of all, public safety. Our increasingly poorly suppressed fantasies of violence and death prevent it.

 

I can't find the article now (I think it was in the LA Times), but I read where his friend talked about how he turned to the internet to find a wife because he wanted a woman who would wear a burqa, and how that was hard to find here, and that when he found her, it was the fact that she did/would wear a burqa that most interested him in her.

Well, yeah, it's hard to find a woman in America -- even within the Muslim community here -- who will voluntarily wear a burqa -- because it's inconsistent with Western values.

And, honestly, should we be granting a fiance visa to a couple who have met once, and for whom the the fact that the wife wears a burqa is the main reason they are marrying?

What's in that for us?

 

Like making heroin and crack illegal? What about kiddy porn, a million people have been arrested on that 'crime' ?

 

I'm dismayed that this terrorist attack has devolved into the same-old back-and-forth about guns.

Two radicalized Muslim jihadists dropped their 6-month old child off, knowing they would never see him again, then walked into the same room where that child was celebrated with a baby shower 6 months ago...and deliberately attemped to kill dozens of people who they personally knew. Think about that for a second. Think about the actual process of walking into a room and killing people -- hearing their screams that you are causing, seeing their expressions of fear and pain, witnessing the blood and body parts flying around. Outside of the most highly trained of military commandos, who can force themselves to do that?

Terrorists can. And these people would have found a way to do it without guns, just like Timothy McVeigh did.

 

I'm curious. For the people who see Islam as basically no different than Christianity, or any other religion, do you think the world would be better, worse, or no different if Islam had not been stopped ay Vienna, and/or if it had not been ejected from Spain?

 

As a fan of research, you're in favor of the CDC being allowed to do some on gun violence?

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/jay-dickey-gun-violence-research/

 

Cleared of any involvement.