But assimilation into Western culture could work

I agree, and the reason why it has worked in the USA but not so much Europe is because we take a more disciplined approach, our culture demands more from our immigrants than the Europeans do. (we are also lucky that our neighbors are not part of the Umma)

The uproar over these cartoons may be a good opportunity to passively resist Muslim rage; we don’t really have to do anything except say: “sorry, the media can do what it wants here…if you don’t like it thats tough!” Kind of like the way you deal with a kid throwing a temper-tantrum, and in this case you don’t even need to spank him yet!

Since most raging muslims will not ever live in the west, there’s no way to force them to accept our values over there. Iraq and Afghanistan look promising; perhaps the majority of young people there will remember how terrorists beseiged them, and how noble the American soldiers defended them.

None-the-less, we need to replace terrorist-supporting regimes with terrorist-persecuting ones, and enable the secular muslims (if they exist) to have the political voice that has been denied them by the guys with the guns (i.e. terrorists & tyrants), if there is any hope to win this culture war.

Here is the link: http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,2180-23191-2020182-23191,00.html

This is progress.

I guess if you assert that everything has to do with oil, then it does follow that this has to do with oil. But not everything has MUCH to do with oil, and this is one of those things. If these people were in countries that didn’t have oil, they’d still be pissed. The ones in many countries that don’t have oil are pissed. Hell, the ones in EUROPE are pissed.

“As you probably already know electricity is mostly oil dependent:”

Well this is flatly wrong. Oil isn’t used much for electricity, because of the prohibitive cost. Globally, it makes up only 6.9% (see page 26 of first link). Here in the US, for instance, oil makes up a paltry 2%.

http://www.iea.org/dbtw-wpd/Textbase/nppdf/free/2005/key2005.pdf

http://www.solcomhouse.com/electricity.htm (For US 2% figure)

To be fair, oil makes up 40% of the world’s TOTAL primary energy supply, which includes oil for transportation fuel, and for home heating. (see page 9 of first link). I’d rather be right on the facts than on spelling.

I hardly mean give them flowers. Frankly, I don’t know how to get it done. But I’m pretty sure the way to stop radical Islam is to stop people from becoming radical Muslims. I don’t think appeasement is the answer. Europe has tried that for decades and it didn’t work. But assimilation into Western culture could work. After all, American Muslims are far more moderate than Muslims in just about every other nation. Sure, we have our radicals, but not in the same high percentages.

Assimilation is not appeasement at all. It’s something a lot more forceful. I just don’t really know how to go about it. Any ideas? Other than converting them all to Christianity, which I believe has been tried on several occassions with no great success?

It sounds like I am reading H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, where the Eloi, who in their utopian paradise, plant flowers for the Morlocks, in the hope that if they would only come out of the dark, they would stop eating the Eloi. We know how that story ends.

As for mending relations, I don’t think you can mend relations with people who want to kill you because you ran a cartoon they find offensive. We need something a little more direct than “mending.” We need to change, as they say, hearts and minds so fewer and fewer Muslims turn to radical Islam. I don’t know how we get there. But it’s not through cartoons.

There’s one problem. By the time Bush supposedly gets us mostly independant of Middle Eastern oil in 2025, many of the countries we’d be getting our oil from will have run out of oil completely. Most of the non-Middle Eastern sources of oil are running out much faster than the Middle East is.

So basically, we get screwed over by radical Islam for the next 80 years until the oil runs dry. And we hope to god we keep the nukes out of their hands.

Several MONTHS ago, actually. Back in September.

gary: “Would any of this have any relevancy if it were not for oil?”

Yes it would. The Muslim immigrants in Europe have practically nothing to do with oil. The Isreal mess is only tangentially related to oil. Embassies in Lebanon have little to do with oil.

As for the cartoons, I don’t know if I’m alone here, but something about the entire story seems disjointed, as if there are some crucial elements missing. All I can gather from the news is this: A newspaper in Denmark several weeks ago published some political cartoons depicting Muhammad. Other European papers followed in the following weeks. Some top Islamic clerics(?) travelled around the Middle East showing the “blasphemous” cartoons to the heads of Islamic universities (and perhaps others). Cut to riots and violence. Do I have this right?

Doesn’t it seem strange to anyone else? Surely there is no shortage of incendiary opinions of Islam printed in papers around the world everyday — why now? why this?

We could try to convert them to Christianity.

Let’s begin by more clearly calling radical Islam what it is: an inferior culture whose abuses to women, oppression of freedom and hatred of others is incompatible with the modern world and should not be tolerated.

How are we going to get this message across in a direct and consise way without offending anyone to the point of violent reprisal? It seems most “moderate moslems” refuse to stand up with the west, and instead offer the apoligies to terrorists, and say that America and Isreal are the root causes, and that Mohammad or the Koran have absolutely nothing to do with terror; that the simple association of Islam with terrorism is an affront to their religion.

CAIR (the Council of Angry Islamic Radicals) condemns the president simply for using the term “islamofascism.” Too many liberals will refuse to call a spade a spade, as the mayor Livingstons of the world have shown their readiness to assume dhimmi status.

The rabid dog is breaking into our house, I just think maybe its a good idea to beat him with the stick now until he shuts up, before he gets into your bedroom and eats your children. By that time he will have tasted blood and the only way to stop him would be a shotgun blast to the face.

In all seriousness, I think that’s an excellent point, and it is the question of the century. Our problems in the Middle East are growing and spreading all over the globe. It seems like this religious group (and their clash with pretty much all other religions) is at the heart of these problems: terrorism, Iraq, Iran, Israel, etc. I think it might be useful to start a dialogue about how we deal with this issue (or, how our government should deal with this issue).