NathanJ,

If you want to be a vegetarian I don't think that any here would be trying to prevent you.

Regarding Islam, to date only the Howard federal government has demonstrated it would heed the very, very clear demand from the Australian people that our secular State and Australian law and Australian customs and way of life must be protected.

I have yet to hear any of the apologists for Islam, or claimed moderates state emphatically that Sharia Law is intolerable and must not be introduced, ie., that Australian law and only Australian law will prevail.

Maybe you would state your position on that?

Regarding the peaceable Muslims in our midst, why shouldn't government protect them from imams who would enslave them like this nasty fellow that the UK has been lumbered with through not adequately treating or even properly identifying the risks of immigration from countries with political systems and values alien to those of the host country, the UK?

http://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/2014/08/27/news/politics/london-imam-anjem-choudary-snaps-hannity-exposing-islams-vision/

Dear Onthebeach,

<<If you want to be a vegetarian I don't think that any here would be trying to prevent you.>>

The problem is that as it stands, the state COULD do so if it wanted. Nothing in the Australian constitution prevents this. I view the following with horror: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-27/jehovahs-witness-loses-bid-to-refuse-blood/4985476

So what if Nathan was a minor suffering from a terminal disease whose only remedy is derived from dead animals?

<<only the Howard federal government has demonstrated it would heed the very, very clear demand from the Australian people that our secular State and Australian law and Australian customs and way of life must be protected.>>

Does it mean that if Australians wanted to change their customs then Howard would block them? Howard had every right to protect the Australian PEOPLE, so that they are ABLE to continue with their customs and way of life if that's what they want. He had however no right to protect those inanimate customs and way-of-life in themselves.

<<I have yet to hear any of the apologists for Islam, or claimed moderates state emphatically that Sharia Law is intolerable and must not be introduced, ie., that Australian law and only Australian law will prevail.>>

Sharia Law is intolerable and must not be introduced.
Australian law is relatively less intolerable (unless you happen to be the boy 'X' in the above link), but still immoral.

Neither should prevail.

Yuyutsu,

The Sydney boy was a minor and the Court had to act in his best interests, accepting that he was raised with a religious view that need not have prevailed if he had been provided with contrary opinion. Some might go further to argue that being raised in some authoritarian religions could in itself be child abuse. I wonder if he had anything more to say after becoming an adult in January this year, when he could refuse treatment if he wished?

It would be an interesting case to discuss. However I will leave it alone if that is OK by you, not solely because it could divert the thread but it could be an interesting thread on its own.

Dear OnTheBeach,

Yes, it is OK by me, hopefully Nathan could contribute his own ideas there as well.

Straw man, Nathan - who's attacking ALL Muslims ?

Today another car bomb in Afghanistan, following an attack on a female MP, an incredibly courageous fighter for women's rights there.

Also pictures of Syrian soldiers about to be beheaded.

Also a story about the extermination of anti-terrorist men in a Nigerian city (half a million people - no, it's NOT a 'town'). Hundreds of girls kidnapped earlier this year are still being held by terrorists there.

The vast majority of Muslims are not involved in these atrocities. A minority are. Those we can call 'terrorists' without any equivocation whatsoever.

Can we accept that and move on, Nathan ?

Meanwhile, a vile creature has favourably compared IS killings to those of Mexican drug cartels. What, those Mexicans are beheading captured soldiers by the hundreds ? Kidnapping, raping and enslaving women ? Beheading children ? Setting off car bombs every day or two ? What a despicable man.

Joe

OTB,
Anjem Choudary comes across as the winner of that encounter with Hannity, everyone should watch the video because it's a confrontation between a man who stands for something and a man who stands for nothing, a man who says what he believes and a man who says what he's told to say.
This is why Western neo-Liberalism cannot compete with Islam, it's not hard to understand why young muslims are wiling to give up the privileges of life in Sydney or London and submit themselves to the rigours and danger of Jihad and the horrors of the battlefield.
The Jihadi life is a short term payoff in itself, never mind the promises of the afterlife, these men are heroes in the eyes of their people and unlike Sean Hannity they will be remembered and spoken of for generations.