You may consider Richard Dawkins "good company". An evangelistic, fundamentalist bigot who's made it his life's work to ram his own religion - atheism - down other people's throats, whether they are interested in hearing it or not. The ultimate bore. "There is no reality but my reality." Great company. You're welcome to him.

As for "personal attack in lieu of facts" ... This discussion is not about facts; nor is it about whether burqas are good or bad; nor is it about whether health and social workers need to be more aware of these issues.

This thread is about whether the law is an appropriate instrument to enforce your views on whether others may or may not cover their faces. And in this, it's not facts you come up against, but principle.

My point stands: substitute "Jews" for "Muslims" and see if that helps jog anyone's memory.

As for calling my words a "personal attack," that's the weakest possible defence. Many in this thread have delivered vicious verbal attacks against Muslims in general - sounds personal to me.

I, on the other hand, have made my comment based only on the actual words I see written here, with no knowledge of your backgrounds or identities. And it's a fair comment which remains to be answered: what is the difference between the anti-Muslim sentiment I hear in the mass media these days, and the centuries of anti-Jewish pogroms which seem so barbaric in hindsight?

OK ban me for abuse if it is abuse but reading some of these posts makes mine read like Ba Ba Black Sheep.
And to add to my crime I was deleted for the use of capital letters.
really
Now delete this for the over use of exclamation marks.
Fair suck of the lolly bottle...or is this to be deleted for sexual content...afraid to use question mark

watch it, you guys... youre next

socratease

Dear Pericles.. clearly you live a very sheltered life.

Sad..but true. If you got out a bit more and saw how things are going around the world, you might not think the comparison to the Hitler youth is so strange.
http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2006/07/so-whats-with-fascist-salute.html

OH shock horror.. "Muslims doing Hitler salutes"

Or...

http://sheikyermami.com/2009/01/19/hamas-rally-in-melbourne-and-around-the-world/

There ya go Peri... or..

http://www.michaeltotten.com/2010/05/the-flight-of-the-intellectuals.php

Just keeep on a scrollin..and you will see:

Burqa and "God bless Hitler" together
Mufti of Jerusalem with Adolph negotiating an SS regiment made up of Arabs/Bosnians

and you have the naivity to dish up "That's our Boaz" ?

Remember...those neuron paths Pericles... we need to do some re-configuring mate.

@BANJO P... I think I've analysed the whole thing to death mate :)
I'm aware of those sects, long story short, only the Ahmadiyya's have renounced violent Jihad to my knowledge.

Boaz, you spend far too much time scouring the web for images that titillate your paranoid nerve-endings.

>>OH shock horror.. "Muslims doing Hitler salutes"<<

If you were to line up all the images available on the internet of idiots "doing Hitler salutes", I wonder what percentage would be Muslim, and what percentage Christian?

Ah, here's one.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1264753/Funeral-Eugene-Terreblanche-takes-place-amid-tight-security.html

Terreblanche was, as the phrase goes, a "born again Christian". Much like your friend Peter Hitchens, I suspect.

>>...and you have the naivity to dish up "That's our Boaz" ?<<

Remember the context of that observation?

>>The Burqa, to me..is the moral equivalent... of some bloke walking down the main drag in a Hitler Youth uniform, complete with swastika's and jackboots<<

Now, would that "moral equivalent" just happen to be a white Christian person in uniform, Boaz? Like Joseph Ratzinger, perhaps?

http://arkcode.com/whats_new_24.html

Would it therefore not be entirely reasonable, in your convoluted and bizarre logic framework, to equate the swastika and jackboots with Christianity?

We are talking about items of clothing here, after all.

Very childish, ALGOREISRICH.

Do you think anti-Jewish pogroms were invented in the 20th century? To be sure, one particular fascist movement took pogroms to a whole new level, but that was an outgrowth of a thousand years of outlawing Jews in Europe. By "outlawing" I mean excluding from the protection of the law that others benefit from.

Do you think if a xenophobic campaign is aimed at some group other than Jews, it's not in the same class and somehow more acceptable?

Federalist...interesting question, let's take it a bit further.

If a Xenophobic campaign to stir up ill will and expose the true nature of the ideology was waged against people who were members of the national socialist party.... (let's call this 'political' xenophobia)

in the light of all we now know about the effect of that 'ideology'

how would 'you' answer that question ? :)

I rather enjoy this turn of events in this debate, because it reaches into the absolute kernel of importance.

I eagerly await your response.