Pericles,
Thanks for drawing my attention to Philip Tang's contribution which I'd somehow missed.

Go Philip!
A voice of sanity on OLO is as welcome as a lighthouse to a sailor.
Just a tip though:
Facts are a complete waste of time here.
Epithets and ad hominem attacks are the order of the day.
Anything you say will be turned upside down and inside out in accordance with a bizarre and incomprehensible mentation which is impenetrable to the voice of reason.

But we have to try.

Pericles
<But I guess that's the price you have to pay for believing that your own religion is somehow special, or different.>
It is implicit in your statement that no religion is any better than, or even different to, any other.
How can this be?
Was Jim Jones religion no better and no worse than any other religion even though it led to mass murder/suicide?
Or is your statement really just hollow, meaningless, touchy-feely, "why can't we all just get along" piffle which cannot sustain analysis?
A religion which exhorts its followers to "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them" is no better or worse or different from a religion which commands "Thou shall not kill"?
I guess that would sound logical to me too,
if I were a regressive.

THE DOG THAT DIDN'T BARK

(AND THE DOG THAT ONLY YELPED A BIT)

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

(From "Silver Blaze" by Arthur Conan Doyle.)

Banning minarets by a vote of 58% to 42% is a far more profound slap in the face than a few cartoons in a newspaper. Yet this time around there have, at least thus far, been no riots. Swiss embassies have not been attacked. The Swiss flag has not been burned. To the best of my knowledge there is no boycott of Swiss chocolate. There have been no deaths.

The Muslim dog did not bark.

Even odder, the usual crowd of Lefties who see "racism" everywhere have been strangely muted. They've yelped a bit. But nothing like the full blown assault we would have expected a few short years ago.

At best the Leftie dog yelped.

So why did one dog remain silent while the other contented itself by whining a bit?

Could it be that Muslims see they've overplayed their hand?

Could it be that even Leftie Europeans are fed-up with Islam?

If a recent Pew Global opinion survey is accurate the answer is "yes".

See:

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=262

The survey detects a rise in both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim sentiment. But Muslims are far more unpopular than Jews. Here's the shocker.

42% of people ON THE LEFT have an unfavourable view of Muslims.

In addition 45% of people in the centre and a thumping 56% of people on the right (NOT "far right") have an unfavourable view of Muslims. (For Jews the numbers are 28%, 26% and 34%)

Democratically elected governments cannot ignore such sentiments when it comes to eg immigration policy or appeasement of Islam.

This is getting interesting.

PERICLES,

Perhaps you should reserve you ire for the European publics.

stevenlmeyer: "Banning minarets by a vote of 58% to 42% is a far more profound slap in the face than a few cartoons in a newspaper. Yet this time around there have, at least thus far, been no riots. ... The Muslim dog did not bark."

This looks to me like another highly speculative leap in logic.

The Muslim dog didn't bark for a long while when those cartoons were published. In fact, they were published for 4 months before much noise was made at all. And in this quiet period they were not just published in Denmark, but in Egypt, the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium and France.

I think it would be fair to say most Muslims didn't give a rats about the cartoons. The Muslim radicals that did give a rats needed a fair bit of time to fan the flames into a real bonfire.

No doubt they did it in the same way I seem HermanYutic, Philip Tang faning the flames on the against Muslims here.

I don't have any time for those who spend their time faning hatreds and bigotry, regardless of which side they come from.

Interesting.

I think it's all a bit silly, really, and I'm glad that the same thing is unlikely to happen here. But the reality is that the people have voted, they have told their leaders what they want, and what they want is an end to the construction of minarets. I am sure there is a reason for this, which was carefully omitted from the article. I doubt it's a good reason, but I'm sure there is one.

At the end of the day, it would take Anna Bligh-esque arrogance for the government to turn around and ignore the decision of the people. Democracy is about making decisions collectively and for the greater good. It's not simply about electing people who will treat the general population as idiots and constantly run with the idea that 'we know better'. There are always winners and losers; there are always people who miss out. It's one of the flaws of a good system. In this case, the Swiss people have collectively made the decision to ban minarets. The greater good is served by making the majority happy that they don't have to live in the shadows of these insidious towers (apparently).

Yep, the barking dogs are all here, rstuart.

>>No doubt they did it in the same way I seem HermanYutic, Philip Tang faning the flames on the against Muslims here.<<

That's exactly what fanatics do, I'm afraid. They manipulate others, using fear as their principal weapon.

>>PERICLES, Perhaps you should reserve you ire for the European publics.<<

Appreciate the thought, stevenlmeyer.

But my interventions here have made no reference to the Swiss, or their decision, which is entirely up to them.

Anti-Muslim sloganism by blindly fanatical Christians, on the other hand, invariably gets my goat.

>>Pericles... It is implicit in your statement that no religion is any better than, or even different to, any other. How can this be?
Was Jim Jones religion no better and no worse than any other religion even though it led to mass murder/suicide?<<

Absolutely, HermanYutic. No better, no worse.

The People's Temple was after all just another expression of Christianity.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_jones.htm

"the Peoples Temple... was a Christian destructive, doomsday cult founded and led by James Warren Jones"

Thank you for pointing that out.

>>Go Philip!... Facts are a complete waste of time here.<<

Not at all.

However, you do need to treat facts as facts, and not simply deliver a highly aggressive personal opinion, as Philip Tang did.

>>Islam is a demented and evil ideology bent on destroying non-Islamic culture, religions, secularism, etc.<<

By the same token, if you insist on tarring all Islam with the brush of terrorism, you should also to saddle all Christians with the responsibility for Jonestown, should you not?

That would be completely fair, and utterly reasonable.

Pericles
"By the same token, if you insist on tarring all Islam with the brush of terrorism, you should also to saddle all Christians with the responsibility for Jonestown, should you not?"

No comparison. You could scream rant and be outraged at what happened at Jonestown without being called a bigot, racist or xenophobic. You can rant against the Catholic Church for sexual abuse against Children and not be labelled racist, xenophobic, or bigoted. In Switzerland they have had some raving lunatics going on about stoning people, cutting their hands off and generally supporting Sharia yet the government is scared to address it from fear probably.

When I was down is Sydney though, holy cow, Scary stuff. I am not sure how anyone on planet earth with any amount of decency could excuse that behaviour. Yet anyone speaking out against it was called all manner of names and accused of being horrible people. How would you feel if you daughter was raped due her race and hosed down in between sessions? The be labbleeled racist for speaking out against it? How can anyone stand here and say “oh well” not an ethnic issue, is a human issue? How can anyone say that then wear a friggin white ribbon.

Why wasn’t the same argument directed toward Jonestown, the Catholic Church or even the current nutcase story surrounding Scientology? Where are all these ribbon wearing patronising gits defending the rights of these ferals? How is it necessary to wear a white ribbon where anti-social behaviour is very low but defend those where anti-social behaviour toward women is so high?

Where were the calls that paedophile priests were not real Catholics so the church was not responsible? What sort of moronic argument is that anyways? Is the suggestion that as long as bigotry and hatred is taught behind the facade of religion is ok..or not? Is it ok? It is ok to suggest the problem is with Switzerland , about the most tolerant nation on earth?

Why do people defend the indefensible Tell me why.