of a mosque approach the “edge”? The argument as stated by Locke is that the Church’s dictats should have no bearing on others outside its community. That would lead us to reject incidents such as the UK’s acceptance of Sharia law in civil courts and the incident in Dearborn; so far, so good. (It would also likely lead us to reject anti-sodomy laws, blue laws, and other such laws, but I digress.) The building of a mosque, however, involves no such imposition. If anything, it is an imposition on those building the mosque to have them not build it; i.e., to treat them and their claims to property differently than those of other citizens. If they want to sell the property, or if a Christian organization had outbid them in their attempt to buy the property, the Christian organization, likewise, should have been under no legal imposition to build a secular memorial. There is no imposition on the citizenry here at all; no freedoms would be removed from others by allowing that mosque to be built using no taxpayer funds.

Philosophical assent to violence, repugnant as the philosophy or religion assented to is, in and of itself is not an imposition on your liberty, and in many cases is not acted upon, as evidenced by the majority of Muslim-Americans who go throughout their lives without bombing a single kaffir. Thoughtcrime is, rightly, an issue we have treated more circumspectly than other countries, which eagerly ban examples of the same. (France’s ban of any religious paraphernalia on one’s person in public is an example that stretches back to the French Revolution.) Incidences of jihad or dhimmitude should be acted against when action is taken to make legislation to that effect, or when Muslim communities take the law into their own hands (something that is already illegal).

do you support a ban of Islam, and jailing of its adherents? Given that you believe that any adherent of Islam is inexorably drawn to Sharia law or is otherwise different enough to necessitate the stripping of his rights, is there a reason that we should not do this to both citizens and non-citizens?

if it is not directly applied or forced on anyone, any more than I see the need for government to disavow some nattering professor from his Marxist views, which are just as religious and just as likely to support anti-American thought, or a backwoods Southerner from his racist views, despite their un-American nature (not saying that all professors or Southerners are Marxist or racist). I think we will have to agree to disagree on the validity of government to take away the rights of citizens because of views that they hold, and not actions that they take.

That’s good, at least: people like Christopher Hitchens aren’t.

I assume that you favor banning other repellant ideologies, as well (fascism and the like).

I will note that if there’s one behavior covered by the First Amendment, it is political speech. Robert Bork (certainly no libertarian) thinks that the only speech covered by the First is political speech. There I conclude this civil chat.

I knew about some of them (threats of violence encouraging self-censorship, some looking to overthrow the Constitution). Suspected some others (honor killings). Flat out didn’t know about others (US courts using Sharia reasoning, Sharia advisors financing jihad). Honor killing is already a crime, ditto violent overthrow of the government and if financing terrorism isn’t already a crime, mark me down as a vote against financing of terrorists. Unless adhering to Islam is a good proxy for those crimes (my guess is that those who perpetrate such crimes are a minority among Muslims), I don’t see what we can do that isn’t symbolic (which would, IMO, be treating a serious crime unseriously), or draconian (throwing Muslim-Americans in camps might help, but at what cost?). Equality under law is the greatest affront we in America can deliver to those who want Sharia law, and it typically works pretty well.

I lived in Germany before here, and it’s pretty bad over there. There are a number of reasons that I think it will be different in the US, but the biggest three are that we have more options vis a vis immigration restrictions, we’re not an ethnic or geographically-based nation in the sense that the European polities are, and we’re not as far gone and culturally mealy-mouthed as they are, and as such would have more guts and wherewithall to call out anti-American behaviors, engage in boycotts, social ostracizing, and other such behaviors. We also have more tools in our toolbox to deal with the threat than we give ourselves credit for, including immigration restrictions, the Atlantic Ocean (guess I’ll have to give up my libertarian card for that one, eh ), and a fairly solid law enforcement apparatus. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and I’d rather use all of the tools mentioned than engage in broad or arbitrary revoking of citizens’ rights. If it comes to it and there’s an existential threat to the US that cannot be resolved unless such action is taken, I’ll reluctantly consent to such action, but until then, we should endeavor to find ways to

Concerning Islamic threats, most of those who have been silenced are lily livered liberals who don’t have the guts to call out evil for what it is. Even then, a fair amount of blue-collar leftists doesn’t include itself in that group. I don’t particularly care what looks like a move of weakness to the savages or what gets under their craw: moving to a volunteer army under Nixon was seen as such a move by the Soviets at the time, and they had a third of the world and nukes at their disposal. I guess we’ll see what happens.

3) Very hard to identify and deal with those who hold jihadist views in a way that is not broad or arbitrary, as it more or less falls under the pornography standard (“you know it when you see it”), especially since many are wont to disguising their intent behind flowery-sounding prose about the “religion of peace”. Enforcement would essentially be a crapshoot that depends on who we get running the bureaucracy. Whether you find that to be acceptable range, it would be a very broad range and would lead to broad and arbitrary right-takings.

2) See above.

1) We already vigorously assert civil authority over church authority, outliers like the Dearborn case aside. I hope we continue to do so, and will work to maintain that status quo. What we don’t do is criminalize the holding of political and philosophical views, which may hold some validity as an idea, but which isn’t related to Lockean views on civil over church authority under law (though that view is an important one to assert in light of Islamists, as you rightly note in the OP).

Sorry if the sarcasm didn’t go through. Lived in the South and loved it and its people: much more than the Northeast and its abrasiveness, for sure. I even have a Confederate flag that a friend gave me hanging next to my Puerto Rican one on my car’s dashboard window (which makes for an interesting conversation starter, to be sure).

As to the war time powers analogy, I would sympathize with it a lot more (and likely agree with it) if it were a temporary suspension of our liberties to be revoked at the end of war operations. Given that we’re in this for the “long war”, as it were, and that such curtailments of liberty will be the new normal and will likely outlive us both, we cannot afford to make the same sacrifices of liberty for the GWOT that we made for, say, WWII. I refuse to let a generation pass where “wartime measures” prevent the populace from knowing what liberty is, and I thank God that terrorism isn’t the existential threat to us that it is to other countries, like Israel.

the Twin Towers rebuilt, or an edifice built to commemorate the event before someone bought it and did something stupid with the land, like building a strip club or something of the sort. (So glad it was a mosque instead *rolls eyes*) Sure, it would have been tacky, sentimental, and idealistic, but so am I on my best days.

I like a little bit of localism; people don’t have enough state pride, IMO. I don’t think that our country as a whole is particularly racist, but I did get the general impression that the North is less friendly than the South. I saw some pretty bizarre cases in Georgia, but nothing institutional, and it was generally repudiated. My experience was that, if you liked guns and God, you were in. I do, so I loved it there. Hell, the God part was probably negotiable if you were a good enough shot.

but he gets a little carried away with wanting to be part of the jet set. On global warming, assuming it’s happening (for the sake of argument), there isn’t a solution without untenable and impractical amounts of international coercion. We’d probably have to go to war to get India and China to agree to kneecapping their own economies, and that war would probably add tons to the carbon emissions of humans.

Get the architectural version of the A-Team, some private venture capital involvement, and some favorable tax schemes to make investment post-tower completion favorable and profitable. I wonder if it could still be done?

and if we’re going to have the academic dream team, I vote Thomas Sowell/Walter Williams.

that selective enforcement of citizen rights is very good precedent for deprivation of rights for citizens as a whole.

I did not say, “do nothing”. I said, and have consistently said, work within the context of rights for citizens when dealing with citizens. Not doing so all but invites invites draconian measures, and considering our history with Japanese citizens, the statements made by some politicians, and legislation proposed and passed (some of it advocating for Miranda rights to be suspended arbitrarily, thank you Senator Lieberman), I’d say that my proposal is, if anything, disturbingly possible, albeit thankfully improbable.

“By

with the Sauds building a mosque anywhere in the US, regardless of proximity to 9/11.

If the citizen in question can obtain funding after Saud funding is not involved, they should be allowed to build it. If funding can’t be found out outside of current law, too damn bad.

As an aside, “collective rights” and “group rights” are the most farcical and meaningless terms, besides “international community”, invoked by statists in support of their agenda. I defy an invoker of the term to define a single “collective right”, as opposed to a collective power wielded over individuals. Individual rights can be exercised collectively (freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and freedom of association almost by definition are), but there is no such thing as a “collective right”.

Back when California was trying to take away homeschooling rights through the courts, the ACLU gave ‘em a pretty good whatfor. Anyways, I was talking more about non-ACLU organizations in your state dedicated to protecting your rights; there are some pretty good ones in some states.