"I am gratified that OLO has the courage to publish Melanie Phillips."

Yes, iudex, you are right. You are far-Right. We all know the threats that OLO has received from Islamists across the world. We all know how the poor editors at OLO have had to go into hiding and are now operating underground because they are scared of nasty Islamists knocking on their doors in the middle of the night. Despite all these threats from nasty bearded fanatics, OLO have shown the courage to reproduce word-for-word an article that has already been published in a national newspaper.

That's true courage.

I love it when one doublespeak collides with another.
I especially liked the post about Islam being built on a lie about seeing an angel.

Of course Christianity isn't built on lies, is it? The resurrection. Pure fact. And, for some Christians, transubstantiation. Pure fact. I'll leave aside all the nonsense about miracles. They of course were pure fact too.

This is an attempt (much like Phillips' article) to tie us to the present world order. It might be a rotten life now, but you'll get pie in the sky when you die.

Or in Phillips' case, fear the other, they threaten you now. They don't of course, but it is an attempt to unite all of us with our exploiters.

Phillips' subterfuge is to say: look, you are better than them, even though you are alienated from yourself as a human being and are a mere object (with a price like any other object)in the production of profit. This helps one supposedly to accept the exploitation they are subject to.

Passy
Thanks for your response.
Iraq- the US is not blameless, true. However, is it really the US’s fault if the Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims hate each other, say that the other is not a true Muslim, and kill each other? How many of the deaths are the result of American fire, and how much from internecine violence?
Or that Iraq and Iran are bitter rivals, and that Saddam invaded Iran, during an eight year war, killing up to 1.4 million in the process.
Or that Chemical Ali killed at least 140,000 Kurds.
Is everything bad that happens in the world the fault of the US?
I don’t think it would be reasonable to assert that.
Can’t you admit the US also does a lot of good as well?
Socialism- have you ever thought WHY socialism has never existed?
My thoughts- it is against human nature, and by extension, nature itself. (Charles Darwin- evolution and all that)
People are kind, generous, loving, altruistic, mean, greedy, nasty and murderous, and have many other characteristics besides.
To impose socialism on the human race is to reduce everyone to the status of ants- no individuality permitted, and what is worse, no freedom either.
There will always be some who want more than others- socialism is never going to change that. Time to be realistic, I’m afraid.

Sometimes your shortsightedness is truly dramatic, Boaz.

You kindly provide a link to an Islamic website that makes the following statement on its front page:

"IISNA Core Principles:

1. Support the Muslim community by providing sound Islamic information/education;

2. Support the youth by educating them on core Islamic values and behaviours;

3. Supports policies that promote civil rights, diversity and freedom of religion;

4. Opposes policies that limit civil rights, permit racial, ethnic or religious profiling, infringe on due process, or that prevent Muslims and others from participating fully in Australian civic life;

5. Believes the active practice of Islam strengthens the social and religious fabric of our nation;

6. Condemns all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state;

7. Advocate dialogue between faith communities;

8. Supports equal rights and responsibilities for men and women."

Apart from numbers 7. and 8., I suspect that Boaz would claim exactly the same for Christianity, would you not?

"Boaz Bible Group Core Principles:

1. Support the Christian community by providing sound Christian information/education;

2. Support the youth by educating them on core Christian values and behaviours;

3. Supports policies that promote civil rights, diversity and freedom of religion;

4. Opposes policies that limit civil rights, permit racial, ethnic or religious profiling, infringe on due process, or that prevent Christians and others from participating fully in Australian civic life;

5. Believes the active practice of Christianity strengthens the social and religious fabric of our nation;

6. Condemns all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state;"

The last two would need some amendment

"7. Constantly denigrates other religions;

8. Supports the rights of women to cook and sew."

Uncanny.

TRTL

On which shaky foundation did you rest your conclusions?

“The 1471 comment appears to merely be the number of comments, with the word 'rant' attached. Therefore, this criticism can be directed at anyone simply by going to their profile and pasting the number of comments.”

A stupid assumption. I merely advised on the number of posts due to CJ Morgan’s idiotic expectation that I would now scroll through a total of 1471 posts to locate the quotes I'd quickly selected at random.

Therefore it is appropriate here to quote and request from the "articulate" Morgan: "put up or shut up."

‘The only instance where you rebut this, is where you say "malevolently attack ........"

Wrong! I am waiting to hear why Morgan called the author "a demonstrated Islamophobic hack." On which basis does he arrive at this conclusion and was the inflammatory remark in defence of Ramadan?

“Firstly, you'd have to prove that the comments he criticised are coming from people who have an agenda......"

Wrong! I don’t have to prove anything. It is Morgan who, by his hateful comments, is required to wriggle out of these abusive statements.

“In order to prove that CJ is defending radical Islam, you need to prove his criticism isn't directed at those employing this fallacy.”

Balderdash! He's the perpetrator, not I.

“You've not done that. Instead, judging by the contemptuous language, you're attempting to monopolise some high ground, but seeing as your insults are looking as ugly as the others I've seen here I don't see how you can do that, especially given the lack of backing.”

Ah…yes...now we have a high court beak and a moralist rolled in one!

My insults may be regarded by the more delicate, as "ugly." Please now provide a sensible reason why you omitted to include the following “contemptuous language” in your list of “ugly.”

"Australian cult xenophobia," "blind bigotry," "typically xenophobic rant," "whining racists," "racist trolls" "whack a mozzie," "hate tinted glasses,"

Now don't turn right and don't turn left - you'll get giddier! Just move forward and ponder on your hypocritical and pseudo-intellectual rubbish.

I don't suppose anybody watched "Four Corners" tonight? It was an absorbing account of how Australia might produce its own home-grown terrorists, from the fertile ground of alienation of Muslim Australian young people by a combination of belligerent government policy and bigoted Aussie xenophobia. One thing that was very apparent in the program was how young Australian Muslims have increasingly been demonised and alienated from the society in which they were born and raised in recent years.

An expert on terrorism studies demonstrated graphically that, for an individual to become a terrorist, they must first have become sufficiently alienated from the wider society in order to seek identity within fringe groups of similarly disaffected people. From there, the progression to violence against the wider society is facilitated by shared sociopathic ideologies.

As well as candid interviews with some young Australian Muslims, the program depicted some particularly ugly non-Muslim Australians engaged in both verbal and physical violence against Muslims at the Cronulla riot and at a disgraceful racist and xenophobic rally against a proposed Muslim school at Camden.

Like other fair minded Australians, I'm increasingly concerned at the level of bigotry directed towards our Muslim minority because of both their religion and their ethnicities, largely because the only possible outcome of the open expressions of hatred that we have witnessed on such occasions, and that we see expressed in forums such as this, is communal violence - even terrorism.

I find it quite bizarre that because I make this observation, and argue - robustly at times against the most bigoted - against the promotion of hatred and intolerance against people simply because they follow the Islamic religion, that some try to label me as a supporter of radical Islam.

TRTL - thanks again. I'm not going to waste any more time on dickie. She is clearly being deliberately obtuse to the point of actual dishonesty.

Pericles - hilarious!