“They know what’s going on. They know that [Omar Mateen] was bad,” he said after the Orlando massacre. “They have to cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad. … But you know what? They didn’t turn them in. And you know what? We had death and destruction.”
This is a common idea in the United States. It’s also a lie. First, Muslims like me can’t see into the hearts of other worshipers. (Do you know the hidden depths of everyone in your community?) Second, he’s also wrong that we don’t speak up when we’re able.
I know this firsthand: I was the one who told the FBI about Omar Mateen.
I met Omar for the first time in 2006 at an iftar meal at my brother-in-law’s house. As the women, including his mother and sisters, chatted in the living room, I sat with the men on the patio and got to know him and his father. Omar broke his Ramadan fast with a protein shake. He was quiet — then and always — and let his dad do the talking.
I’d seen them before at the oldest mosque in the area, the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce. We have a lot of immigrants in our community. They grew up in other countries, often with different sensibilities. A few don’t understand American culture, and they struggle to connect with their American-born or American-raised kids.
Soon after Omar married and moved to his own home, he began to come to the mosque more often. Then he went on a religious trip to Saudi Arabia. There was nothing to indicate that he had a dark side, even when he and his first wife divorced.
But as news reports this week have made clear, Omar did have a dark outlook on life. Partly, he was upset at what he saw as racism in the United States – against Muslims and others. When he worked as a security guard at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, he told me visitors often made nasty or bigoted remarks to him about Islam. He overheard people saying ugly things about African Americans, too. Since Sept. 11, I’ve thought the only way to answer Islamophobia was to be polite and kind; the best way to counter all the negativity people were seeing on TV about Islam was by showing them the opposite. I urged Omar to volunteer and help people in need – Muslim or otherwise (charity is a pillar of Islam). He agreed, but was always very worked up about this injustice.
Then, during the summer of 2014, something traumatic happened for our community. A boy from our local mosque, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, was 22 when he became the first American-born suicide bomber, driving a truck full of explosives into a government office in Syria. He’d traveled there and joined a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, the previous year. We had all known Moner; he was jovial and easygoing, the opposite of Omar. According to a posthumous video released that summer, he had clearly self-radicalized – and had also done so by listening to the lectures of Anwar al-Awlaki, the charismatic Yemen-based imam who helped radicalize several Muslims, including the Fort Hood shooter. Everyone in the area was shocked and upset. We hate violence and were horrified that one of our number could have killed so many. (After an earlier training mission to Syria, he’d tried to recruit a few Florida friends to the cause. They told the FBI about him.)
Immediately after Moner’s attack, news reports said that American officials didn’t know anything about him; I read that they were looking for people to give them some background. So I called the FBI and offered to tell investigators a bit about the young man. It wasn’t much – we hadn’t been close – but I’m an American Muslim, and I wanted to do my part. I didn’t want another act like that to happen. I didn’t want more innocent people to die. Agents asked me if there were any other local kids who might resort to violence in the name of Islam. No names sprang to mind.
After my talk with the FBI, I spoke to people in the Islamic community, including Omar, abut Moner’s attack. I wondered how he could have radicalized. Both Omar and I attended the same mosque as Moner, and the imam never taught hate or radicalism. That’s when Omar told me he had been watching videos of Awlaki, too, which immediately raised red flags for me. He told me the videos were very powerful.
After speaking with Omar, I contacted the FBI again to let them know that Omar had been watching Awlaki’s tapes. He hadn’t committed any acts of violence and wasn’t planning any, as far as I knew. And I thought he probably wouldn’t, because he didn’t fit the profile: He already had a second wife and a son. But it was something agents should keep their eyes on. I never heard from them about Omar again, but apparently they did their job: They looked into him and, finding nothing to go on, they closed the file.
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“They grew up in other countries, often with different sensibilities. A few don’t understand American culture, and they struggle to connect with their American-born or American-raised kids.”
Granted not ‘all’ but, enough do…
Why do people blindly (ignorantly ) come here in NOT knowing ‘the American Culture’? And worse, Come here and try to make It just like the cesspool(s) they are trying to
“escape” from?
While I am sure there are some who believe EVERY Muslim is a terrorist, the vast, vast majority do not. Regardless of what the teachings are, the majority of good, dedicated Muslims don’t subscribe to murder.
However, if there was a majority of THESE guys, we wouldn’t have a radical Muslim terror problem.
just wait until there is another attack by a radical muslim terrorists-same lies and cries. wake up America to the fact that transparency is the ultimate form hypocrisy .
More than 50% of Muslims support Sharia, so why sort them? Stop their immigration. Stop letting the Marxists wreck our country and our freedom.
The majority of victims of the radical Islamists are Muslims. Muslim countries are where their strongholds are. In order to defeat them, we will need the Muslims who are their targets to work with us. We did it in Iraq with great success. They don’t want them around anymore than we do.
Whatever “strategy” we are using now obviously isn’t working given the gains they have made and the successes they’ve enjoyed, both here and especially abroad. It will require aggressive leadership and the ability to adapt to the fluid situation. Right now we don’t have that leadership and unfortunately it looks like we won’t have that for at least the next five years. Hillary (or Biden) have been a major part of the failed “strategy” which has allowed the radicals to grow and succeed. Trump has yet to show that he has the discipline and temperament to succeed as well. Given his statements, he has also demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of how the situation in Iraq came to be blaming Saddam’s ouster as opposed to Obama’s cut and run policy and his ignoring the warnings about the grave threat ISIS posed.
On a side note, it is quite ironic that the left acts like they are protectors of the “good” Muslims and yet when we to went to Iraq to eliminate a brutal dictator who was murdering and butchering them by the tens of thousands, they balked and sounded like apologists for the guy who was murdering and butchering them.
when does hilary and bill get a lot of money from??? right arab muslim countries that kill gays and stone women. when was the last time you saw the stoning of a male??????
@another vet: Trump said going into Iraq was wrong and would only destabilize the region—Obama and Trump both agreed that Bush was wrong to invade.
@Richard Wheeler: And both are wrong.
@another vet: Trump is probably the biggest Bush hater out there–won’t get support of Cruz, Rubio, Walker ,Haley, Graham, Fiorina. Ryan “support” tepid at best–it amazes me he’s only 6 points down–only because it’s HRC as his opponent. Trump is so disliked by a cross section of the electorate his only hope is a Clinton indictment.
This story, if true, changes the narrative somewhat dramatically:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/orlando-shooting-man-who-says-he-was-omar-mateen-gay-lover-speaks-out-univision/
Omar’s wife knew.
@Larry Weisenthal: It doesn’t change much. It merely emphasizes the hatred of gays taught by these radical Imams. As I have postulated, he may have committed the crime to, in his mind, redeem himself with Allah for his sin of homosexuality. Or he may have blamed gays, as Muslims do women, for tempting him by their public lewdness to become gay.
Radicalize Islamic thought is still the basis for the attack.
This guy could be lying to try and turn this towards a hate crime targeting gays instead of an example of radical Islamic terror. The fact is, it is probably both. And both can be better addressed by focusing on the terror aspect rather than civil rights or, in supreme stupidity, guns.
@Bill #12:
Absolutely correct.
I can’t give you all five of the gold stars for your answer, though, because “focusing on the terror aspect” is hardly a plan. The solution remains impossibly difficult. We cannot restrict the accessibility of ideas without infringing on the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms all law-abiding Americans enjoy. Mateen was an America-born US citizen, not an immigrant or
an illegal alien.
The war of ideas cannot be stopped. They cross all boundaries freely, and there is no practical way to expunge them from the minds of those who embrace them. The ONLY defense against a dangerous idea is a BETTER idea, and so far, we haven’t provided one that is convincing enough to work 100% of the time.
Like efforts to eradicate homosexuality by imposing harsh and even fatal punishments, efforts to pressure radical Muslim extremist violence into extinction will fail.
Like homosexuality that occurs in populations consistently at around 3% regardless of whether the population is hospitable or hostile to it, radicalism will also continue to regenerate as long as its causes are not eliminated. No matter how violently anti-gay the laws of Uganda, Iran and Russia remain, about 3% of Ugandan, Iranian and Russian men will continue to “service” each other, and no matter what we do to discourage Muslim radicalism, Jihadism is here to stay.
I don’t get five gold stars either. I don’t have the answer, other than that there IS no answer. $hit will continue to happen, and the political parties will continue to make a great deal of noise about it while doing absolutely nothing to correct it.
Thank Darwin.
@Larry Weisenthal: Yeah, Larry.
Now it is totally justified to shoot up 100 people because you did a three-way and might have been with an HIV positive individual. ….. NOT!
Facts on the ground, as they play out, still fit my research into suicide bombers and terrorists.
The Hobson’s choice is:
1. We (your own family) kill you now and you definitely go to hell
OR
2. You try to take out as many infidels as possible while killing yourself and you maybe go to paradise (depending on how allah feels that day.)
Either way, you die, and soon.
Facts include that:
he had a new wife who was in on it cased with him, bought guns with him (and the FBI let her go off-grid).
the family knew he was gay because someone caught him in the act once.
he went to his hajj.
he pledged himself to allah as a holy warrior, even as both a sunni and a shiite (just in case).
@Nanny G #14:
Nanny G!
Chill!
What are you after here? You seem to be looking for every last iota of detail regarding the Pulse tragedy, as if Mateen’s HIV status matters, for example, or as if it matters whether Mateen had blueberries or strawberries on his cereal that morning. It makes no difference. Psychologists will debate, perhaps, on what you are construing, but lawmakers will do nothing, and God doesn’t care.
I think that if God DID care, He’d say TMI to you. HIS judgment will already be at hand, and, since Mateen is dead, WE have nothing else to compel us to ferret out the answers you are looking for. It is sufficient and convenient enough to place blame on Islamic extremism, isn’t it? What additional benefit derives from precisely understanding the details of his anger or the exact sequence of events leading up to that fateful morning? How much more blood can you squeeze from that turnip?
We have bigger fish to fry, more important structural dysfunctions in out government to repair.
Larry’s correct that if Mateen’s motives really matter, then the details he linked to speak to those motives more honestly than Mateen’s cell phone calls to the media. BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER!
Like YOU implied, it is NEVER justifiable to shoot 100 innocent people, no matter what Greg’s links to what various Christian clergy have said to that question.
Instead of wasting so much energy prosecuting the dead, why not propose a few PRACTICAL steps that could be taken to eliminate the problem.
(Hint: There ARE none.)
@George Wells:
Maybe we SHOULDN’T but to say we can’t indicates someone hasn’t been paying attention to many of the initiatives of the left lately. Banning “hate speech”, the “Fairness Doctrine”, misguided and misdirected gun control is all presented as the logical and rational response to numerous events, through they are always aimed at the wrong conditions and/or individuals.
While we can’t go arrest some Imam (or Christian preacher, if applicable) for preaching to his flock to go out and murder ANYONE, inciting violence IS illegal. However, without surveillance of these radical mosques, we can’t know that and that is a major and intentional failure of this administration.
Focusing on terror is indeed a plan because we are NOT doing that now. We are focusing on gun control, something as far removed from the Orlando tragedy as focusing on drunk driving as a possible cause.
Our idea is a free nation where anyone can (legally) migrate and practice any religion they want while enjoying the benefits of capitalism. You don’t mean to imply the the idea of Sharia-imposed laws and oppression is in any way better than that, do you? The idea of freedom is in the WAY of Sharia law and those two ideas are fighting it out here now. We aren’t going to convince these Islamic fanatics that an idea that allows a person to be openly gay if they want to is better than the idea to murder them. We are going to have to prove to them that is is going to be a painful lesson to learn that they will NEVER impose that idea here.
No, it isn’t impossible to solve, but the solution is not going to be painless, like the left prefers, either. The fight is before us now. Reasoning or compromising with fanatics is not an option.
Questions for FA’s leftist posters:
How does Obama’s kind of uncontrolled immigration make our country better?
How does having porous, open borders make the country safer?
How are our immigration policies helping the people who already live here?
We’ve already admitted millions of Muslim immigrants, but if we don’t take in millions more, Democrats tell us the ones we have already admitted will go on killing sprees? Isn’t that extortion?
@Ditto #16:
WHO are FA’s “leftist posters”?
Not that it matters. The truth of a post does not depend on the politics of the person posting it.
Obama’s “kind of uncontrolled immigration” might be Obama’s wish, but it does not exist, much less make our country better. Just today the SCOTUS put to rest Obama’s hope for “uncontrolled immigration.”
Porous, open borders don’t make the country safer, but that point is irrelevant. While not completely “open,” our borders ARE porous, and there is no way to make them otherwise. It is simply impossible to hermetically seal the United States.
Our immigration policies help some of the people who already live here, and hurt others. The same can be said for our tax policies, and just about every other public policy. When did hurting someone ever invalidate a public policy?
Every issue that you raise constitutes a ruse; your questions intended to deceive. The fact that you cannot raise and discuss a contentious issue without intentionally distracting attention from the flaws of your position proves that you haven’t really got a legitimate argument. You didn’t ask a single legitimate question, and you certainly didn’t offer any solutions, as if it is sufficient to construct a political campaign out of nothing more than false accusations and innuendo. Brilliant, just as it is brilliant to attempt to govern an entire country without ever resorting to compromise. Brilliant, if failure is your goal.
@Bill #16:
Ahhh… There you go arguing that two wrongs make a right again. They don’t. PC BS and its popularity with the “left” doesn’t excuse YOUR apparent interest in trampling the Constitution in order to protect us from some of the risks our freedoms expose us to.
On the surface, a reasonable enough deduction. It DOES beg the question, however, of how MUCH surveillance, and once you get that much, how far do you legitimately reach? Into private individuals’ communications? Into people’s MINDS? Do you honestly believe that mosques are the only source inciting violence? Greg linked to some Christian clergy doing the same thing, and I’m guessing that your plan is to prosecute BEFORE a crime is committed, so that the “hate speech” that you seem to want protected would also be the threshold for prosecution. That’s the snake biting its tail. Not to mention how BIG the government would need to grow to accomplish the degree of surveillance that would be needed, never mind the cost.
No it’s not. Saying so doesn’t MAKE it so. Our “focus” is on terror every day. The news is FULL of it. What does that “focus” accomplish other than encouraging copy-cat terrorists? You need a great deal more than “focus” to get anything done. “Focus” is nothing more than saying “OK. Open your eyes and take a deep breath.” If you get that far, you’re alive, that’s all. To get anything DONE, you have to start executing a specific plan of action. What is it? (And don’t just punt back to “Suspend the Constitution” ‘cause that ain’t gonna happen.)
Yes, as far as you took it. I’d add that WE think OUR system is better for US, and THEY think that THEIR way is better for THEM. Not all that much different than the friction between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, or the Jews and the Palestinians, and on and on. Religions just don’t mix together much better than oil and water, primarily because they ALL have a built-in feature of intolerance for every OTHER religion. I want you to understand that I appreciate that this country would be a whole lot more peaceful if the Blacks were all back in Africa, if the Muslims were all back in the Middle- and Far-East, and if the Europeans were all back in Europe. But those ships (including slave ships) have all sailed long ago, and none of that history can be undone. Muslims are here, and stopping more from coming won’t stop the violence. I don’t know that anything WILL. And as soon as it gets out that we’re excluding any more Muslims, those that want to come here, FOR WHATEVER REASON, will simply say that they’re Christian. How ever could we prove otherwise?
@George Wells:
Well, it actually kind of does.
We can make it quite otherwise. We can stop rewarding illegal immigration, we can stop subsidizing illegal immigration and we can build the wall. All this would GREATLY reduce the numbers of illegal immigration and make it easier to spot the would-be terrorists.
@George Wells:
Nope, you miss the point, which is the the left has been trying to do just that, only aimed at THEIR political enemies, not enemies of the citizens or the nation. The left has been trying to take away 1st and 2nd Amendment rights whenever they get the opportunity.
What needs to be done is to focus the surveillance on the likely suspects. This is why it is important to be honest about the cause of the attacks. Where have the terror attacks come from? Who is perpetrating them? Who is supporting the attacks? It only makes common sense to surveil those who are advocating this violence. What is wrong with sitting in on some mosques and listening to sermons? This USED to yield a lot of intelligence. Now, we choose to ignore that and ban guns. Not too bright.
No, it isn’t. The focus of THIS administration is on guns. Their focus is on granting amnesty. Their focus is apologizing for defending ourselves. Their focus is on socialism. Where this not the case, the DOJ would not be redacting the ONLY pertinent information in the terrorists 911 call. If this were not the case, Mateen would have been on watch lists and would NOT have been able to acquire the clearances he got to buy weapons. Were this NOT the case, we would be arguing about something else.
Which are the Christian clergy that have told members to go out and kill? At worst, a few have stated they are happy the deaths occurred… not much different from the liberal reaction to Scalia’s, Reagan’s (Ronald AND Nancy), Breitbart’s or any other prominent conservative’s death. No, I do not advocate preemptive arrests. I am saying THERE’S your probable cause to investigate and track. I would not advocate wasting a lot of energy investigating Baptists… they aren’t murdering people in the name of Jesus.
Only ONE religion advocates wiping out all others. Only ONE uses murder, rape and terror as its sacraments. Up until the advent of radical Islam, all religions got along pretty well in the United States. Only ONE has ended that peace.
@Bill #20:
What, exactly, does that mean, Bill?
Why be intentionally silly?
That doesn’t help at all.
How do you “spot” terrorists, Bill? That twit who shot up a Black church congregation was “Caucasian,” a white boy, a citizen, and all fkd up in spite of being an obvious member of YOUR master race. So was Timothy McVeigh. The Tsarnaev brothers were also “Caucasian,” Russian, one of them was a US citizen, and while they were Muslim, they looked no different from millions of other Americans of Eastern-European descent.
The vast majority of shooters in this country – and plenty of bombers to boot – don’t fit the racial and religious profile you seek to vilify, and considering how many full and legal citizens in this country are dark-complected and dark-haired, and how popular full-face beards have become recently, your effort to profile terrorists will deliver you tens of millions of false-positives. Your enemies are already here, and they’re wearing clothes they bought in Walmart, not turbans. They’re invisible until they start shooting.
And you want the FBI to do a better job? Give them more money, not less; make them BIGGER, not smaller; and amend the Constitution to permit the exploratory invasion of the privacy of American citizens – unwarranted search and seizure. And you might also consider giving a wee bit on gun control, as the “no-fly-no-buy” rationale is pretty darned common sense, isn’t it?
@Bill #21:
I get that you have a BIG problem with Islam.
It appears that you are willing to abridge constitutionally guaranteed freedom-of-religion in order to protect non-Muslims from the followers of Mohammed. Trump has a very common-sense little spiel about how religious profiling makes good, PRACTICAL law-enforcement sense, but unfortunately, expediency doesn’t “trump” civil rights. I want you to understand that I don’t particularly LIKE that fact, but it is there none-the-less, along with a whole host of other protections we have against unrestrained police power over us all. Those limits are where they are because power corrupts, and left unchecked, we’d easily devolve into a brutal police state.
Not really. The focus of this administration is on keeping Democrats in power, and Democrats think that the American public – the voters – want more gun control. Polls DO suggest that. So this administration, and the NEXT Democratic administration, and so on, will pander to their majority constituencies REGARDLESS of what the Second Amendment says.
Do you understand that a terrorism suspect (even if he IS a terrorist) spends a vanishingly small fraction of his time doing things that are traceable to terrorism? Do you understand how LONG it takes and how many people it takes and how much MONEY it takes to investigate and track ONE suspect? And do you have any IDEA how many suspects we have out there, already on US soil, legally or otherwise? Problem is, the US Government cannot win the lottery.
I wasn’t ”prosecuting the dead,” as you put it.
I was pointing to a pattern often seen only after the suicide bombing/shooting has ended.
A transitioning (assimilating) native-born American of Muslim (unassimilated) parents.
The emotional blackmail that leaves the youth with no viable option: he/she will die, and soon, no matter what.
We have also seen honor killings where the parent got so angry at the assimilation of their child that he/she killed them without a chance to become a jihadist, too.
So, I think the issue really is regressive parents of assimilating children in the West.
There have been many experts who have claimed more shelters for such youths could save lives.
PC and its moral equivalency of all cultures has led to a lack of pressure on parents to bother assimilating.
That, too, needs to change.
BUT, if his supposed gayness was a lie, then we are back at square one in understanding why he did it.
The informant mentioned in the original post might have been on the right track to tell authorities about his ties with Alawaki and the suicide bomber.
The FBI could not connect the dots because PC kept them from the truth.
Anyway, we don’t imprison people for mere suspicion, do we.
@Nanny G #24:
No, we don’t.
And I think that it’s wonderful that you want to understand the precise motives for Mateen’s crime. I’m not sure that knowing could actually accomplish anything, though.
Lets say that his motive was strictly limited to a desire to effect Jihad to the glory of Allah and ISIS. I doubt that we could establish anything beyond his WISH to please them, no chain of complicit command, no quid-pro-quo. Nothing like strings attached to the smoking gun, nothing to focus a punitive retaliation at, nothing that simple.
And the path you are taking that seeks specificity of motive (the jilted gay lover slant or the conflicted-gay-Muslim-seeking-redemption-through-death theory) will quickly land you in the laps of liberal apologists who excuse all manner of criminal behavior as rationally justifiable by whatever distorted state of mind the perpetrator happened to have at the time of the crime. ALL criminals are mentally ill, right? And thus not guilty by reason of insanity. BS!
Everyone is frantically spinning the details of this horrific tragedy to gain political advantage for themselves. There is no dividend paid if we discover WHY Mateen did what he did. Look at the slew of mass murders we’ve had over the past ten years. A lot of pissed-off people killed a lot of other people for reasons that no sane person would ever act upon. So what? There are lots of insane people walking around, and we don’t have the resources to find them and lock them up, Muslim or otherwise. They do their $hit thing, and we kill them, and that’s about as good as it gets.
@George Wells:
The question was: “How are our immigration policies helping the people who already live here?” Repeating the question isn’t an answer.
Typical leftist, You evade uncomfortable valid questions by claiming they are not legitimate.
@Ditto #26:
How does this question – or an answer to it – mean anything?
On the face of your question is the assumption that “our immigration policies” SHOULD help the people who already live here, and I certainly have no complaint with that. It would be nice if they did. The problem is that not every consequence of our current immigration policy produces a similarly negative result. There are ALWAYS some constituencies who benefit from whichever immigration policy option is chosen. Even if we simply open our doors as widely as can be opened, so that millions of illegals rush in, there would be SOME people who would benefit. The demand for food would go up, benefiting the farmers and the producers of food products, for example. There would FINALLY be enough low-wage workers to fill the vacancies that those of us “already here” don’t want, and REMEMBER, Republicans don’t WANT to pay everybody a living wage…
No, your question WASN’T valid. It presumed that a simple answer was obvious, but the CORRECT answer ISN’T simple. I did not REPEAT your question, I pointed out that immigration policy, like all other policy, produce some winners and some losers. That’s not the same thing as repeating the question. Is it?
So, this is the 1st time these people will eat?
You’re kidding, right?
Food is fungible.
It crosses borders and feeds everyone.
We used to feed a good deal more of the world when the CA central valley was burgoning, but we still feed the world.
I used to think that was true, but it isn’t.
For one thing, in CA, illegals used to work farms but are unemployed in that area as it is in recession.
So they horned in on roofing, oil changing, tire replacing, car repairing, landscaping, etc.
BUT, here in Utah, where I’ve been 3 years, it is the regular guy who is born here who is doing work in every one of those fields!
Yes, the people born here are perfectly willing to do these jobs,
They don’t need or want to be undercut by illegals.
BTW, as a sign of whether or not muslims want to ”do their part,” and, say, vote as proof of their assimilation?
Muslims did NOT go to the polls in UK.
They only want a caliphate.
They don’t care about British policies one way or the other.
They call non-islamic policies unworthy of their attention.
Assimilate?
Nope.
2nd and 3rd generation = NOT assimilated.
@Nanny G:
I have no doubt that you are honestly reporting your experience in Utah, but I assure you that what happened in Utah doesn’t happen everywhere or all the time.
By the time Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans; I had retired from the chemical industry and was doing contract work inspecting steel storage tanks. A lot of such tanks located in the industrial areas outside of the city had been partially empty and had floated and been blown around during the height of the storm, and they needed to be inspected, repaired and inspected again before being placed back into service, so there I was. What I saw was not the same thing that you see in Utah.
The entire area was devastated, and there was an enormous clean-up job to be done. Thousands of workers were needed, and I personally witnessed huge numbers of them hard at work. What percentage of them do you suppose were US citizens? 5%? 3%? No way was it more than 10%! Nearly all of them were Mexican, and they were virtually all illegal. They lived 15 and 20 to a motel room, and they did a fine job. They were being paid quite well, too, well enough that jobs at McDonalds @$15/hr. went begging. And where were the unemployed New Orleans residents? Out sitting on the curbs watching the Mexicans do all the hard work, content to collect their MUCH lower “support” money for doing nothing. Thousands of them. Problems with our “support” system aside, let me spell it out: THE BLACKS in New Orleans had no interest in doing the work that had to be done. No one else came in the numbers needed, either, no one at all except illegal aliens, and we needed them right then. There was no time to change the “support” system, and we haven’t bothered to do it since then. In spite of having a Republican-controlled House and Senate, no legislation has been offered to fix the problem. We, the United States, BENEFITTED from having these Mexicans break our laws and do our dirty work. That’s why WE don’t really WANT to “reform immigration.” It’s because it’s already working the way we want it to work. Illegals do our dirty work, and we don’t let them vote. We couldn’t afford to pay OUR lazy citizens enough to get them to do the job in New Orleans, and if we DID, they wouldn’t have done as good a job as the Mexicans did.
That might sound racist, but it’s the truth.
By the way, what’s all that nonsense about “assimilation?”
Is there anything in the Constitution about requiring immigrants to “assimilate?” Because I must have missed it…
Same goes for voting. I’ll grant that assimilating and voting, and apple-pie-and-motherhood activities of a similar sort make people BETTER citizens, but there isn’t a law REQUIRING citizens to be good citizens, just LAWFUL.
@George Wells:
You can’t even see the hypocrisy in your diatribe. Do Democrats want a “living wage” for everyone including illegal immigrants? Or do they only want to protect their own pocketbooks by having an illegal alien servant class mowing their lawns, cleaning their houses, and babysitting their kids for peanuts? Without the flood of illegal immigrants, wages would naturally rise. It is illegal immigration that is keeping them low.
You can be assured that Americans would do a good many of those jobs of which you speak, but not at the terrible wages that are supported by cheap illegal immigrant workers. It is the establishment wings of the Republican and Democrat parties (as well as Hillary Clinton,) that supports open borders to keep wages low. That’s only a small portion of globalist Republicans, that the base is finally revolting against.
No, it was your answer that wasn’t valid. it was a pompous evasion to avoid answering an uncomfortable question. You can hide from the fact that open border Democrats have no qualms about importing terrorism in order to appease threats by radical Islamic immigrant extortionists. You can ignore that AG Lynch aids such extremism by saying they “have a right to be radicalized.” You can be blind to the dangers of not properly vetting refugees and leaving the border open making it easy for terrorists to enter this nation, but many of us are not so stupid.
@George Wells:
Intentionally ignorant.
Intentionally ignorant.
@George Wells:
No, you don’t. You, too, are being intentionally ignorant.
@George Wells:
Ah. sometimes it’s important to understand the motive; sometimes it’s just more fun to jump to a politically motivated conclusion, though, isn’t it? Like when a black youth attacks and tries to beat to death a “white-Hispanic” and gets killed, it is racially motivated… by the “white-Hispanic”. Or, when a nut opens fire in a bank parking lot, then ducks into a Planned Parenthood abortion mill, he is killing because of his anti-abortion views.
But, when a Muslim that frequents a radical mosque kills while shouting “Allah akbar” and pledging allegiance to ISIS… well, hold on a minute… let’s think this through.
@Bill #31:
Nice way to shut down what HAD been an interesting conversation.
My questions were sincere, but never mind.
@George Wells: No, that was a conversation going the direction YOU wanted it to go. You were obviously not discussing the point… if you even read it.
The last thing anyone on the left wants to do is discuss an actual topic. When a radical Islamic terrorist shouts “Allah akbar” and declares allegiance to ISIS, the left wants to discuss gun control… which would have had no impact anyway. If a killer is motivated by a radical Imam’s teachings, the left wants to accuse Christianity. Yes, you sincerely wanted to talk about anything but how this administration has failed us and the rest of the world.
Those conversations go NOWHERE but where the left wants to drag them, kicking and screaming. For instance….
180 degrees off. To YOUR mind, when someone points out the obvious threat of radical Islamic terror and how the left ignores it (willfully ignorant), this indicates an aversion to the entire religion. You may find that interesting… if I want to seek out stupidity, I will watch cartoons.
@Bill #33:
Why NOT??? The ENTIRE RELIGION teaches violent intolerance, not just the “radical” fraction that actually acts on the teachings of their faith.
I have an “aversion” to the ENTIRE RELIGION, and the courage to admit it.
Are YOU going soft?
You keep forgetting that I am NOT the “left,” and I’m not a liberal.
Gay rights is not the infallible litmus test of conservatism.
I am MORE anti-immigration than the VAST majority of Republicans.
What I am NOT is stupid enough to think that a wall is the answer.
I’ve given you the solution before, and if you recall, it involves guns, and it would work PERFECTLY. It wouldn’t even cost the government a dime.
Similarly, in spite of my REPEATED affirmation of Second Amendment rights, you continue to throw gun control at me as if it is MY baby. IT ISN’T!
But why do I keep talking to you?
You have this ignorant fantasy that because I ASK QUESTIONS, I’m a liberal.
How fkng stupid ARE you, anyway?
Am I getting nasty now?
Well, YES!
I don’t get why you are provoking ME with all this $hit.
I’M ON YOUR SIDE ! ! !
Mateen was an RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORIST! A MUSLIM EXTREMIST!
I GET THAT ! ! !
I voted for Obama ONLY because the Republicans have led a decades-long war on gays. You see nothing wrong with what the GOP has done, and I do. I DO have the right to vote. And just because I voted for Obama BECAUSE OF REPUBLICAN HOMOPHOBIA (or whatever the Hell else you want to call it), it doesn’t mean that I like ANYTHING else he does. Just because I don’t waste my time whining about EVERY LAST THING the guy does doesn’t mean that I support what he does. I don’t own Obama, and I am no more responsible for the crap he has visited upon America than YOU and the rest of the GOP is for FORCING me to vote Democrat because y’all can’t get over hating fags. You reap what you sow, and I can live with that. Can you?
@George Wells:
Yes. Yes I do. Because there is not much to make me think otherwise. For instance, you confuse a refusal to “invent” rights for a specific group of people with a “war”. You confuse an unwillingness to pander with dislike.
I don’t have an aversion to Islam. I really don’t CARE about Islam. In fact, if they had their own country and did whatever they wanted to to any of their citizens, I would not give a damn, as long as they kept it within their borders. I might not LIKE it but that is their business.
Until, of course, they try to kill me or my countrymen. That’s a bit different. When that happens, I don’t confuse it with Christianity, gun control or homophobia. I regard it as radical Islamic terror.
@Bill:
GW perpetually (and above vehemently,) claims he is not a leftist or a “liberal”. I have yet to have seen in his posts convincing arguments supporting his denials. Methinks GW doth protest too much. His statement in support of Second Amendment rights does not make him a conservative, as in the wake of Orlando a good many of the LGBT have suddenly had a change of heart regarding gun rights and are arming-up. Some of the LGBT are even stating that, as a result of the call by Hillary and Pajama Democrats demand for more gun-control following the Pulse Massacre that they have changed their minds and will be voting for Trump. Does that mean they are now “conservatives”? Of course not. Polls show that far more Democrats are leaving the gun-control faithful as they become targets of violent crime street gangs and since Terrorism has becoming more common place in this nation.
His anti-Islam rant in 34 point’s to him being a bigot (something along with racism of which the Democrats have a long history).
Nor do I. I have a few friends who are peaceful Muslims who detest the religion’s radical fringe, as much as most Christians do the Westboro Baptist church’s radicals.
@Bill and Ditto:
NOW look at who the Muslim apologists are!
You just don’t get it.
A “peaceful” Muslim is a bad Muslim!
A “peaceful” Christian is a good Christian, he just has to ignore all the hateful violence preached in the Old Testament.
Christian apologists like Nanny G make the point that the Old Testament is just a historical account that is included in the Christian Bible as reference material – an enlightened view unfortunately not held by Biblical literalists. Woopie!
When it comes to religion, EVERYBODY gets a free pass. How Convenient!
YOU detest the hateful SOB’s over there at the Westboro Baptist Church?
GOOD! So do I! Common ground! A start!
I want a stop to immigration, too. (We CAN’T ever adequately “vet” people who would come here and do us harm. The job would fall to a big, sloppy, inefficient government bureaucracy that by definition can’t do anything right.) Fine. Common ground again. What else?
If you BOTH believe that resistance to gay rights is the defining principle of the Republican Party, then you’re BOTH nuts. It isn’t. Maybe I’m nuts for making it the issue that guides my vote, but it’s my right to do that. And the GOP doesn’t get my vote so long as it DOESN’T give gays the same protections against discrimination that it gives women, the elderly, the religious and the racially diverse. That’s not “special” rights, it’s EQUAL rights.” It’s that simple.
Check up on George Will’s abandonment of the Republican Party over Trump, and his reason for accepting governmental gridlock as a good thing. I agree with him. I hope I don’t live to see all three – the House, the Senate and the Presidency – in the hands of the same party again, Democrat OR Republican. So yes indeed, I’m a conservative. And I’m praying that there are enough other conservatives who see Trump (who is NOT a conservative) as a bigger threat to America than Clinton. The House won’t fall to the Democrats, and that’s all we need to keep Hillary in check.
But y’all go ahead and love the Muslims who DON’T follow their precious Quran, and love the Christians who shun the Old Testament, too, because BOTH groups of folks have sense enough to recognize the false witness – the horrible errors – that those documents are full of.
Religions are full of fiction. I like fiction, and non-fiction, too. I don’t hate other people who like fiction, either, but I DO despise people who not only can’t tell the difference between fiction and non-fiction, but who presume to force THEIR particular favorite fiction on other people, including me. This applies equally to Muslims and Christians. Maybe it isn’t what the founding Fathers intended “freedom of religion” to mean, but to me, it includes “freedom FROM religion.”
@George Wells:
Where are we apologizing for Muslims? It is neither our place nor our responsibility to apologies for a religion we do not practice. We simply stated that we don’t have a bigoted attitude towards all Muslims. Geeze, take a chill-pill George.
I never said I wanted to put a stop to all immigration. I don’t. I simply want to put a stop to illegal immigration, send home those who have overstayed their visas, and make certain that the immigration process is properly regulated and immigrants are properly vetted before granting them visas..
George Will is not a conservative. He is a whiny progressive Washington establishment wonk. The party can do quite well without his support. Nor is George Will a conservative. If you follow George Will’s brand of politics, you are not a conservative.
That’s not conservative. That has nothing to do with conservatism at all. That simply means that you enjoy gridlock.
What you are talking about is anti-religious bigotry. Atheistic xenophobia against all religions. I don’t care if you worship or don’t that’s your business, but I do not support your offensive bigoted hatred of religions. And no, that isn’t conservative either.
As for claims that ‘Trump is no conservative’ or ‘isn’t a Republican’:
Trump’s Authentic Republicanism
There was a time, through much of this nation’s existence, when conservatives supported protecting American workers. Fabian society utopians (aka “progressives”) and predatory capitalists (aka “robber barons”) not withstanding.
Working-class Trump supporters school the policy wonks.
@George Wells:
I am not apologizing for anything. I simply feel that people that don’t attack, in one way or another, others and leave others alone are free to do, think, like, dislike whatever they want.
Where we differ in that respect is what makes YOU seem like a liberal. You are insistent that people LIKE what you like, BELIEVE what you believe and, as we see, you strongly denounce those that won’t.
Note the word “Christian”. That is important. Being a Christian means (or should) that one believes in the Miracle of Christ and, as such, His sacrifice overrides much of the harshness of the Old Testament. So, if there are things you find repugnant in the Old Testament, you should be praising the birth of Christ and His sacrifice.
You need to take off your Gay Goggles because they are so badly smudged and scratched, you can’t see through them. You are missing a lot. You are totally blinded by your gayness. All you can see is gayness and whatever might impede the rampant spread of gayness.
In fact, and correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall you EVER having the view that ALL Muslims are bad because of the many verses which preach various types of violence. This seems like a new development and, again I may be wrong, it would appear it is derived from the event where a radical Muslim murdered and wounded over a hundred people at a gay bar. In other words, because of the actions of this one guy, you instantly developed the belief that ALL Muslims are homophobic murderers (I won’t call it hatred now).
If I recall, we have had discussions about how you do not condemn the radical Islamists when they were throwing gays off of buildings overseas. Again, if I recall this correctly, you did not see that as a reason to be suspicious of Muslims here that might be becoming radicalized and more accepting of the more radically violent verses of the Koran. Well, you can’t say we didn’t warn you.
As to Christians, I believe I have made the stark differentiation between believing gayness is a SIN and will be punished in the hereafter and believing it is a disgusting practice that justifies the gay person being murdered. Again, you seem to miss (or willfully ignore) that vast difference and, again, paint across all with a broad brush and, again, closely resemble a liberal.
No, you are not nuts for making that the guiding issue for voting, but you cannot detach yourself from that vote or the repercussions. Your affiliation is not what makes you liberal or conservative; it’s your actions. You want immigration laws to be enforced, but you support people who make it a policy to NOT enforce those laws, even to the point of costing citizens’ lives (and oppose those who support the laws). You are an ardent supporter of the 2nd Amendment, yet you vote for people that have an agenda to erase it (and oppose those who support it).
Pardon my doubts.
You seem to prefer fundamentalists. I guess that explains why you are a fundamentalist gay that cannot see anyone else’s point of view.
@Ditto:
Now look at who’s calling who a hateful bigot!
LOL!
The Muslim religion is what it is. It’s advocacy to murderous ends is right there in plain text for YOU and me to see. So I’m calling a spade a spade – that isn’t bigotry. Neither is pointing out that Muslims who DON’T follow what the Quran teaches aren’t good Muslims a sign of bigotry. It’s simple logic and nothing more.
You are right about one thing. I have a low opinion of many religions. Particularly the ones who retain, adhere to and defend the brand of hateful, violence-encouraging rhetoric that the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible) and the Quran exemplify. That stuff’s crap. Christ had a different and better take on faith, but the average Christian can’t tell the difference, and Christian “Sunday schools” waste loads of time indoctrinating children by filling their heads full of Old Testament STORIES that leave them with the mistaken impression that what the Old Testament says is… well… GOSPEL!
I’m not an Atheist. Never was. But after I gave up on one Christian denomination after another because they ALL were full of politics and nonsense that did not jive with what I BELIEVED religion should be all about, I realized that MY faith did not depend on other PEOPLE. I don’t NEED to hold hands and pray with people that I KNOW are jerks. THEY don’t add anything to MY faith… I don’t NEED to be reminded how flawed people are.
You jump to an astonishingly number of premature and ultimately false conclusions.
Congratulations on having mastered click-drag-copy-&-paste.
It sure beats having to think for yourself, doesn’t it?
I accept that your “no-comment” on my indictment of the GOP vis-à-vis it’s institutionalized homophobia means that you acknowledge that BOTH the GOP “Establishment” and the “Tea Party” factions of the Party are equally complicit to that end. So all your rant detailing the “Establishment’s” faults is moot to me.
And I’m… well… not surprised that you’d find loosing George Will to be a good thing for the GOP. You’ve all had a long spell of driving away one constituency after another, as if doing so would somehow improve your electoral prospects. But it doesn’t. You might look to the Democrats for a lesson on what works. They pander and promise what they cannot deliver, and do so repeatedly. Voters are too stupid to remember, and they buy the dream message every election cycle. Women, Latinos, Blacks, gays, socialists, progressives and the like don’t all want the same things, but they are united in NOT wanting what the base of the GOP is selling, and that works for them. When you apply the strictest test of conservatism to would-be Republican allies and insult them by calling them “RINOs” and wishing them good riddance when they fail the test, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You have no “master race.” You have no “winning coalition.” If you don’t change, you will never win again.
@Bill #40:
Where did I EVER demand that people “like what I like”???
You are extrapolating into ether.
Just because I argue a point – even vehemently – doesn’t mean that I DEMAND that other people agree with me. YOU argue YOUR points, right? Do I accuse YOU of demanding anything? NO.
I don’t take that route. I don’t KNOW Christ personally. I LOVE the story. And I LOVE “Christians” who live their lives adhering to what the story teaches. I praise THEM.
The story? It’s too complicated, too internally conflicted (the different “books” are all over the place on the details) and its fundamental premise is highly suspicious. I do not JUDGE the Christ story – I’m agnostic on THAT – but yes, I loathe the archaic world view just as I loathe any other WRONG nonsense that compels people to do bad things. And I don’t think highly of people who do bad things, even if they DO believe that what they are doing is right.
I wouldn’t expect you to recall that, since I DON’T think that all Muslims are bad. I advocate closing the borders because I have no faith that the government will EVER be able to effectively keep out bad people. It’s as simple as that. Keep them ALL out. That way, no bad ones slip in. Right from the start of this wondrously odd series of miscommunications, I SAID that what I had a beef with was the RELIGIONS that advocated hatred and violence. Don’t confuse religions with the people who believe in them. People can BELIEVE whatever they want, but when they ACT BADLY on the ADVICE of their bad religion, that’s a problem. Are you picking up on the difference yet?
Not “overseas,” IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES. There is a difference. I respect the sovereignty of nations, and do not acknowledge a universally correct standard of civil rights. FOR THAT REASON, I do NOT approve of efforts to internationalize courts or efforts to apply EUROPEAN customs and standards to America. If that is beginning to sound familiar, it SHOULD, because it is a common complaint of Republicans that Democrats want to apply Europe’s laws here, and I agree, again, with the Republicans. We are a sovereign nation, and I want to preserve that sovereignty.
The SAME applies to all other countries, INCLUDING those that have laws that apply the death penalty to gays. THAT’S THEIR RIGHT! That’s why we HAVE countries. Not so that the United States of Bullies can impose ITS standards on the rest of the World.
Now, once you start to EXPORT your insanity, that’s another matter. I don’t support, condone or tolerate the exportation of hatred, violence or insanity. Note that there are American “Christian” organizations that are exporting THEIR hate and violence against gays to countries like Uganda, where “WE” encourage “THEM” to legislate the death penalty for homosexuals. Nice, right? I don’t support that $hit any more than I support Muslim extremists exporting their fag-hate. I BELIEVE that the gays that were thrown off roofs and stoned to death were in-country, and thus an internal matter of that country’s sovereignty. Not our business. Similarly, China’s one-baby-per-family policy was THEIR business, not ours.
No, I prefer people who are logically consistent in what they believe and do. There are plenty of “fundamentalists” who are enormously self-contradictory. We’ve talked before about how I find it incredulous that people say that “life is sacred” but then also say that they support the death penalty. No explanation I’ve ever heard makes sense of that contradiction. If you SAY that you’re a “Christian,” but then avail yourself of just about every weakness and flaw available to glutinous, lazy, fornicating, drink-and-drug-abusing, lying, cheating sorry wastes of flesh in the belief that so long as you accept Jesus on your death bed all will be forgiven, well, you don’t earn my respect. People like that are FKD up, and people who are NOT like that aren’t necessarily “fundamentalists.” They’re just NOT fkd up. There’s a difference.
@George Wells:
Hmm… What was that? I missed responding to one of your fanatical gay rants? Clearly it was so lame that I didn’t think it was even worthy of comment. And (truth be told,) I only lightly skimmed-over your latest hate-filled diatribe, which was enough to noticed that it was little more than a steaming pile of bigoted crap. You really have some hate issues that need professional help. There is no point in arguing with a bigoted sociopath like you.
Formerly Democrat Elected Officials Turn Republican for Trump in New Jersey
Huckabee: Where There’s A Will, There’s a Way… a Way Out. Bye, George!
Huckabee is a conservative. George Will, William Krystal & Mitt Romney have never been conservatives. They are progressive establishment RINOs.
@Ditto #43:
I show you EXACTLY where the hate is coming from, and you think it’s a “hate-filled diatribe”?
That’s rich!
Yeah, there’s no point in your arguing… when you HAVE no argument.
But by all means don’t pass up the opportunity to lob a few insults, like calling someone who doesn’t buy your line a “sociopath in need of professional help.” Insulting your opponent IS the Republican rebuttal of choice, isn’t it?
“Little Marco”
“Lyin’ Ted”
“Crooked Hillary”
When it comes to substituting insults for substance, you’re in good company.
And go ahead and insult away the last chance you ever had of cobbling together a coalition of NON-Democrats who might otherwise help the GRAND OLD PARTY actually win a national election. (“George Will, William Krystal & Mitt Romney have never been conservatives. They are progressive establishment RINOs.”)
Yeah, go ahead and BELIEVE that Trump is a “conservative.”
I get that Trump supporters are angry with “The Establishment,” but guess what? Once a candidate gets elected, he BECOMES “the establishment.” Nasty bit of irony there. Ted Cruz, a TRUE conservative, didn’t fail to give constituents what he said he’d try to give them because he didn’t TRY. He failed because his OWN fellow Republicans didn’t agree with him (or even LIKE him) and Obama wasn’t about to sign any of his initiatives anyway. But yes, it makes MORE sense to nominate a clown who thinks it’s fine to trade in your old wife when her beauty reaches its expiration date, who thinks John McCain is a coward, and who wanted National Health Care until an advisor pointed out that Republicans DON’T.
Leopards don’t change their spots. Trump is a Clinton friend from way back. He’s just PLAYING the Republican Party for fools, and he’s having a grand time of it. Considering the character he’s displayed so far in this contest, should he win, the people who support him will get what they deserve, just like the people who support a candidate as flawed as Hillary Clinton deserve to lose. An odd irony, this lose-lose situation.
@Ditto:
Except Westboro are fringe. Calling terrorists and terrorist supporters fringe is like calling all Baptist “fringe” since they are not 50% of Christians. When over 50% of US muslims support Sharia law, terrorism is not a fringe to islam, it is a staple.
@George Wells:
I agree with you on the old vs. new testament. Jesus tried to reform corrupt Jews and they had him killed for it. If we have Jesus saying that these guys are snakes, why would we believe what they have written? Throw the old testament in the trash with the Koran and the Torah. Books of lies from and for corrupt people.
And throw out “Judeo-Christian” as a term, the only Jew that was a significant part of our founding struggle was a money lender… Way to fight the stereotype, guys.
@Smarty:
Why ever would ANYONE think that some of the very OLDEST ideas ever put to pen were actually intelligent or correct? 3500 Years ago there was no science, no logic, no mathematics to speak of. Just a collection of myths and superstitions saved over countless prehistoric ages by people who lived in caves and clubbed to death their next meal. These people who understood precious little beyond the migratory patterns of their food supply are deferred to when it comes to OUR morality? We presume to let THEM guide OUR lives???
One word: ABSURD!
Regarding your gripe with the term “Judeo-Christian,” I think that the term is reasonably relevant to the path that the cultural development of Western Civilization took, as opposed to American. In-so-far as the Christian Bible’s first half – the “Old Testament” – IS principally a Jewish document, and in-so-far as that same Bible – in its entirety – represents the spiritual underpinning of Western Civilization (paying particular attention to Europe’s history over the most recent thousand years), the term “Judeo-Christian” DOES have cultural/contextual relevance. One could argue that Islam has a similar adjective analog – “Judeo-Muslim” – considering that much of the Quran’s mythology comes from the same source that “informed” the “Judeo-Christian” Old Testament. Not that Muslims would be happy about it!