Multiculturalism and Sharia

[ScreamingEagle]

You didn't answer the question. What is uniquely Christian about our system of government?

Why don't you people just admit you want a Christian theocracy? You're only a stone's throw away from it with what you're already willing to admit.

instead of the Christianity being part of the Consitution......you could say the Constitution is part of Christianity.....

Christians are full of tolerance.......but when you try to force acceptance that is another matter entirely....

Then why are two of conservative Christians' most prominent issues those of trying to amend the Constitution to outlaw all abortion, and trying to amend the Constitution to restrict marriage to one man one woman?

Why were Christian conservatives as much as anyone else at the forefront of the campaign against the so-called grouind zero mosque?

Why do Christian conservatives want abstinence ONLY programs taught in school?

In fact, what is so tolerant, as you claim, about Christianity? Perhaps I'm wrong in this regard...

...maybe the conservative Christians of the sort I referenced above are simply perverting the religion in the manner you said the believers in divine right were.

all good questions......but let me first ask....

do you believe all cultures are equal or not....?

 

[Uncensored2008]

We are debating PC's unequivocal claim that the states have complete sovereignty. If you want to contribute to that debate, pick a side and defend it:

No, we are pointing out the fact that you have no grasp of federalism. You don't understand distributed powers.

a. the states have complete sovereignty

b. the states have partial sovereignty, but are limited by the powers held by the Federal Government.

The delegation of powers is explicitly defined in the U.S. Constitution. Those powers not enumerated and thus delegated to the federal government, are reserved to the states, and the people.

 

[Kondor3]

So...

Have we figured-out yet, that Islam is incompatible with The West?

Never mind Sharia Law...

 

[Contumacious]

I do love how the pretend constitutionalists forget the first amendment applies to everyone.... not everyone except muslims.

But nobody is denying First Amendment rights to Muslims. What we wish to deny Muslims is their ability to deny us our First Amendment rights as well as numerous other unalienable rights. The concept of the OP, as I understand it, is that in the militant Muslim world, multiculturalism is used as a weapon to achieved specifically Muslim goals, and that presents a threat to all of us.
.

Osama bin Laden, Videotaped Address, October 7, 2001

§1 Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs, so that its greatest buildings are destroyed. Grace and gratitude to God. America has been filled with horror from north to south and east to west, and thanks be to God. What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted.

§2 Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.

§4 A million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt. We hear no denunciation, we hear no edict from the hereditary rulers. In these days, Israeli tanks rampage across Palestine, in Ramallah, Rafah and Beit Jala and many other parts of the land of Islam [dar al-Islam], and we do not hear anyone raising his voice or reacting. But when the sword fell upon America after 80 years, hypocrisy raised its head up high bemoaning those killers who toyed with the blood, honor and sanctities of Muslims.

 

[Foxfyre]

Let me try this:

The Federalist Papers were written before the Constitution was ratified, therefore, a statement such as the one you quoted, referring to the sovereignty of the individual states,

would be referring to them BEFORE the Constitution affected their sovereignty.

In the next paper, Hamilton said this:

An entire consolidation of the States into one complete National sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them, would be altogether dependent on the general will.

But as the plan of the Convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State Governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.

In short, constitutionally, the States are sovereign except where the Constitution says they're not.

The Federalist (Dawson)/31 - Wikisource, the free online library

Note: the Papers are numbered differently in different sources.

The Constitution clearly intends the federal government to provide the common defense and enact such laws and regulation necessary for the several states to function as one nation as well as secure our unalienable rights, and then it intended for the federal goverment to leave the states strictly alone to form whatever sorts of societies they wished to have. The Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights underscores that intent.

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.

Ratified in 1791, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution embodies the general principles of Federalism in a republican form of government. The Constitution specifies the parameters of authority that may be exercised by the three branches of the federal government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states all powers that are not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, except for those powers that states are constitutionally forbidden from exercising.

For example, nowhere in the federal Constitution is Congress given authority to regulate local matters concerning the health, safety, and morality of state residents. Known as police powers, such authority is reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. Conversely, no state may enter into a treaty with a foreign government because such agreements are prohibited by the plain language of Article I to the Constitution.
Tenth Amendment legal definition of Tenth Amendment. Tenth Amendment synonyms by the Free Online Law Dictionary.

But modern federalist leftism, including a push for Sharia Law, is all intertwined into a multi-culturalism that demands that we all think, live, and believe alike in order to be acceptable, is a direct and frontal assault on the Tenth Amendment and constitutional intent as a whole.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The Constitution clearly intends the federal government to provide the common defense and enact such laws and regulation necessary for the several states to function as one nation as well as secure our unalienable rights, and then it intended for the federal goverment to leave the states strictly alone to form whatever sorts of societies they wished to have. The Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights underscores that intent.



But modern federalist leftism, including a push for Sharia Law, is all intertwined into a multi-culturalism that demands that we all think, live, and believe alike in order to be acceptable, is a direct and frontal assault on the Tenth Amendment and constitutional intent as a whole.

To the extent that Sharia law viollates civil rights it is the federal government that is responsible for protecting those civil rights.

All of you who want to leave more up to the states to decide, and all of you who want religiouis 'freedom' to be able to trump other civil rights,

you are the people most dangerous when it comes to letting Sharia law get a foothold.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

I do love how the pretend constitutionalists forget the first amendment applies to everyone.... not everyone except muslims.

But nobody is denying First Amendment rights to Muslims. What we wish to deny Muslims is their ability to deny us our First Amendment rights as well as numerous other unalienable rights. The concept of the OP, as I understand it, is that in the militant Muslim world, multiculturalism is used as a weapon to achieved specifically Muslim goals, and that presents a threat to all of us.
.

Osama bin Laden, Videotaped Address, October 7, 2001

§1 Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs, so that its greatest buildings are destroyed. Grace and gratitude to God. America has been filled with horror from north to south and east to west, and thanks be to God. What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted.

§2 Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.

§4 A million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt. We hear no denunciation, we hear no edict from the hereditary rulers. In these days, Israeli tanks rampage across Palestine, in Ramallah, Rafah and Beit Jala and many other parts of the land of Islam [dar al-Islam], and we do not hear anyone raising his voice or reacting. But when the sword fell upon America after 80 years, hypocrisy raised its head up high bemoaning those killers who toyed with the blood, honor and sanctities of Muslims.

you poor bleeding heart liberal...with your head in the sand...or are you a muslim...?

even today after we have gone from Iraq Islamists are still killing each other and murdering innocent children....

why is it Islamic nations constantly fight with each other and the rest of the world....?

 

[NYcarbineer]

We are debating PC's unequivocal claim that the states have complete sovereignty. If you want to contribute to that debate, pick a side and defend it:

No, we are pointing out the fact that you have no grasp of federalism. You don't understand distributed powers.

a. the states have complete sovereignty

b. the states have partial sovereignty, but are limited by the powers held by the Federal Government.

The delegation of powers is explicitly defined in the U.S. Constitution. Those powers not enumerated and thus delegated to the federal government, are reserved to the states, and the people.

So I'm right and PoliticalChic is wrong. It's a shame you don't have the courage and character to admit that.

 

[NYcarbineer]

"In short, constitutionally, the States are sovereign except where the Constitution says they're not."


So you agree......only with respect to Article 1, section 8, does the federal government have primacy.

No I disagree with your idiiotic claim that the states are totally sovereign.

 

[Uncensored2008]

So I'm right and PoliticalChic is wrong. It's a shame you don't have the courage and character to admit that.

No, PC is right and you're wrong.

It's a shame you don't recognize this.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Sure.

And marriage laws.

And abortion law.



That's because believe in the primacy of the Constitution.

So you want it to be that states, cities, counties, etc., could legislate complete bans of personal ownership of guns, or laws of that nature,

and the citizens would have to recourse to petition the federal courts, including the Supreme Court,

in order to strike down those laws?

lol, and what does have to do with primacy of the constitution whatever that is supposed to mean?

"So you want it to be that states, cities, counties, etc., could legislate complete bans of personal ownership of guns, or laws of that nature,..."

Dunce.

Gun ownership is covered by the Constitution.

No, you said you wanted gun control left up to the states, along with abortion and marriage.

Leaving issues up to the states takes constitutionality out of the equation. If a state can pass any gun law it wants, as you agreed you wanted,

the 2nd amendment is moot.

 

[PoliticalChic]

instead of the Christianity being part of the Consitution......you could say the Constitution is part of Christianity.....

Christians are full of tolerance.......but when you try to force acceptance that is another matter entirely....

Then why are two of conservative Christians' most prominent issues those of trying to amend the Constitution to outlaw all abortion, and trying to amend the Constitution to restrict marriage to one man one woman?

Why were Christian conservatives as much as anyone else at the forefront of the campaign against the so-called grouind zero mosque?

Why do Christian conservatives want abstinence ONLY programs taught in school?

In fact, what is so tolerant, as you claim, about Christianity? Perhaps I'm wrong in this regard...

...maybe the conservative Christians of the sort I referenced above are simply perverting the religion in the manner you said the believers in divine right were.

all good questions......but let me first ask....

do you believe all cultures are equal or not....?

And, as we are saddled with a postmodern President, your point is an excellent one!

The roots of postmodernism can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.

The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties, ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"



Truth is relative, and all cultures are equal.
So saith our Liberal brethren.

 

[NYcarbineer]

So I'm right and PoliticalChic is wrong. It's a shame you don't have the courage and character to admit that.

No, PC is right and you're wrong.

It's a shame you don't recognize this.

PC said this:

You have never been taught what federalism is.....you've had government schooling, eh?

"The State governments, by their original constitutions, are invested with complete sovereignty." (Federalist #31.)


So she thinks federalism is where the states have complete sovereignty, and the federal government thus has no power at all,

and you agree with her,

and you're trying to tell me I don't know how federalism works.

lol, you may be more ignorant about this than she is.

 

[Foxfyre]

So I'm right and PoliticalChic is wrong. It's a shame you don't have the courage and character to admit that.

No, PC is right and you're wrong.

It's a shame you don't recognize this.

PC said this:

You have never been taught what federalism is.....you've had government schooling, eh?

"The State governments, by their original constitutions, are invested with complete sovereignty." (Federalist #31.)


So she thinks federalism is where the states have complete sovereignty, and the federal government thus has no power at all,

and you agree with her,

and you're trying to tell me I don't know how federalism works.

lol, you may be more ignorant about this than she is.

She did not say the federal government has no power at all. But Federalist #31 made the argument tht the federal government had no authority over the states other than what it was specifically assigned. It was not to keep adding more and more authority to itself; therefore extra clauses to restrict taxes, etc. were unnecessary.

. . . It is, therefore, as necessary that the State governments should be able to command the means of supplying their wants, as that the national government should possess the like faculty in respect to the wants of the Union. But an indefinite power of taxation in the latter might, and probably would in time, deprive the former of the means of providing for their own necessities; and would subject them entirely to the mercy of the national legislature. As the laws of the Union are to become the supreme law of the land, as it is to have power to pass all laws that may be NECESSARY for carrying into execution the authorities with which it is proposed to vest it, the national government might at any time abolish the taxes imposed for State objects upon the pretense of an interference with its own. It might allege a necessity of doing this in order to give efficacy to the national revenues. And thus all the resources of taxation might by degrees become the subjects of federal monopoly, to the entire exclusion and destruction of the State governments.". . . .

. . . .But it is evident that all conjectures of this kind must be extremely vague and fallible: and that it is by far the safest course to lay them altogether aside, and to confine our attention wholly to the nature and extent of the powers as they are delineated in the Constitution. Every thing beyond this must be left to the prudence and firmness of the people; who, as they will hold the scales in their own hands, it is to be hoped, will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the general and the State governments. Upon this ground, which is evidently the true one, it will not be difficult to obviate the objections which have been made to an indefinite power of taxation in the United States.

The Federalist #31

Unfortunately Hamilton could not look ahead 200 years to see a permanent political class take control of Washington and essentially assume whatever power it wanted for its own self serving purposes. Hamilton, as did the other Founders, could not imagine the Constitution being interpreted that badly.

So now we have a federal government strongly pushing concepts of multiculturalism, among other things, because the victimization it produces secures campaign contributions and votes that are very self serving for the same permanent political class.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

instead of the Christianity being part of the Consitution......you could say the Constitution is part of Christianity.....

Christians are full of tolerance.......but when you try to force acceptance that is another matter entirely....

Then why are two of conservative Christians' most prominent issues those of trying to amend the Constitution to outlaw all abortion, and trying to amend the Constitution to restrict marriage to one man one woman?

Why were Christian conservatives as much as anyone else at the forefront of the campaign against the so-called grouind zero mosque?

Why do Christian conservatives want abstinence ONLY programs taught in school?

In fact, what is so tolerant, as you claim, about Christianity? Perhaps I'm wrong in this regard...

...maybe the conservative Christians of the sort I referenced above are simply perverting the religion in the manner you said the believers in divine right were.

all good questions......but let me first ask....

do you believe all cultures are equal or not....?

These are good questions. I know they weren't directed at me, but let me take a stab at one of them for now.

The first question contains an error. Orthodox Christians or, for that matter, anyone who understands and embraces the concerns of the original terms of the social contract of the Republic, before the Court in Roe v. Wade arbitrarily amended the Constitution in violation of the constitutional provisions of emendation, would that the federal government be prohibited from imposing abortion on demand as a means of birth control for the sake of mere convenience against the prerogatives of the several states and the people thereof to uphold the principle of the sanctity of human life.

In many cases, abortion is a legitimate and necessary medical procedure, and as such has always been legal in the United States. Think. No credible person is arguing that all abortions be banned.

See links:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/345437-a-culture-of-intolerance-14.html#post8788655

http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/345437-a-culture-of-intolerance-18.html#post8790959

To understand what actually happened in this case, one must analyze the Court's decision in the light of our nation's system of federalism, as Uncensored2008 aptly points out in the above: "[t]hose powers not enumerated and thus delegated to the federal government, are reserved to the states, and the people."

In Roe v. Wade, the Court created out of whole cloth a previously nonexistent principle of reproductive privacy as a means of usurping power not delegated to it and, thereby, ran roughshod over the interests of the several states and the people thereof to uphold the principle of the sanctity of human life against those who would destroy human life at whim or against any action on the part of the federal government to destroy human life where there exists no criminal provocation or to destroy the same in absence of due process.

If the federal government can arbitrarily grant a right of privacy to kill an unborn human being for no legitimately defensible medical or moral reason because the latter is not a person in terms of constitutional law as divorced from the imperatives of natural law, what would stop the federal government from concocting yet another principle in the name of the collective good to kill an unborn human being against it's mother's will because, after all, it's not a person in terms of constitutional law?

"That could never happen," you say, "as the mother is indisputably a person according to constitutional and case law!"

Well, expanding on that precedent, prominent secular progressives in this country and abroad have proposed a number of legal justifications for allowing that very thing in the name of the collective good. It's just a matter of time and social conditioning. The first targets will be the poor and unfit, i.e., the defenseless, then it will be the ideological undesirables, the nonconformists . . . the haters or domestic terrorists.

You don't think we're headed there? Think again. How did the right of privacy to destroy human life become the federal government's right to compel me to fund abortions of mere convenience in violation of the imperatives of the First Amendment in this country?

So a governmentally enforced civil right dreamt up by the Court now trumps an inalienable right of natural law endowed by the Creator.

Who's actually violating the rights of others, imposing on the prerogatives of others, in this instance? The Christian or the statist progressive?

 

[Contumacious]

But nobody is denying First Amendment rights to Muslims. What we wish to deny Muslims is their ability to deny us our First Amendment rights as well as numerous other unalienable rights. The concept of the OP, as I understand it, is that in the militant Muslim world, multiculturalism is used as a weapon to achieved specifically Muslim goals, and that presents a threat to all of us.
.

Osama bin Laden, Videotaped Address, October 7, 2001

§1 Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs, so that its greatest buildings are destroyed. Grace and gratitude to God. America has been filled with horror from north to south and east to west, and thanks be to God. What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted.

§2 Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.

§4 A million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt. We hear no denunciation, we hear no edict from the hereditary rulers. In these days, Israeli tanks rampage across Palestine, in Ramallah, Rafah and Beit Jala and many other parts of the land of Islam [dar al-Islam], and we do not hear anyone raising his voice or reacting. But when the sword fell upon America after 80 years, hypocrisy raised its head up high bemoaning those killers who toyed with the blood, honor and sanctities of Muslims.

you poor bleeding heart liberal...with your head in the sand...or are you a muslim...?

You poor jingoistic warmonger .....with your head in you ass......or are you a Zionist...?

.

 

[Kondor3]

Osama bin Laden, Videotaped Address, October 7, 2001

§1 Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs, so that its greatest buildings are destroyed. Grace and gratitude to God. America has been filled with horror from north to south and east to west, and thanks be to God. What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted.

§2 Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.

§4 A million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt. We hear no denunciation, we hear no edict from the hereditary rulers. In these days, Israeli tanks rampage across Palestine, in Ramallah, Rafah and Beit Jala and many other parts of the land of Islam [dar al-Islam], and we do not hear anyone raising his voice or reacting. But when the sword fell upon America after 80 years, hypocrisy raised its head up high bemoaning those killers who toyed with the blood, honor and sanctities of Muslims.

you poor bleeding heart liberal...with your head in the sand...or are you a muslim...?

You poor jingoistic warmonger .....with your head in you ass......or are you a Zionist...?

The Muslims knock over two of our buildings... we knock over two of their countries.

The Muslims kill 3,000 of ours... we kill 300,000 of theirs.

We teach a fearful lesson in making war on America.

If it happens again, they can look forward to much worse.

And they know that now.

Fuck 'em...

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Christianity did not have any role in the foundation of the US Constitution.

When did Jesus advocate slavery?

False. You simply don't know the pertinent history of ideas and events that shaped the character of our Republic, and after this, you could only continue to assert this out of willful ignorance.

This nation was founded on the sociopolitical theory extrapolated from the Judeo-Christian ethical system of thought, the classical liberalism of the Anglo-American tradition, a tradition of natural law harking back to Augustine and systematically propounded by Locke in his Two Treatises of Civil Government, in which he extensively cites scripture as the ontological justification for limited government relative to the inalienable rights of mankind in nature and under the terms of a legitimate social contract, including the right of revolt against tyranny.

See link for more information: http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/343647-the-gay-agenda-6.html#post8732955

That's why the peculiar institution of slavery was destined to die out in this country one way or another, and the Framers knew that, hoping all the while that this could be accomplished without civil war.

 

[Foxfyre]

Christianity did not have any role in the foundation of the US Constitution.

When did Jesus advocate slavery?

False. You simply don't know the pertinent history of ideas and events that shaped the character of our Republic, and after this, you could only continue to assert this out of willful ignorance.

This nation was founded on the sociopolitical theory extrapolated from the Judeo-Christian ethical system of thought, the classical liberalism of the Anglo-American tradition harking back to Augustine and formally expounded by Locke in his Two Treatises of Civil Government, in which he extensively cites scripture as the ontological justification for limited government relative to the inalienable rights of mankind in nature and under the terms of a legitimate social contract, including the right of revolt against tyranny.

See link for more information: http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/343647-the-gay-agenda-6.html#post8732955

That's why the peculiar institution of slavery was destined to die out in this country one way or another, and the Framers knew that, hoping all the while that this could be accomplished without civil war.

The vast majority of the Founders professed Christianity as their belief. And pretty much to a man, they all would have abolished slavery in the original Constitution. They did not because they needed all the states to join the union, and with an anti-slavery clause, the slave states would never have ratified the constitution. Nobody got eveything he wanted in the Constitution, but they spent 11 long years in debates, negotiations, compromises, to arrive at a document that was satisfactory to most. Evenso only 28 of the 31 delegates to the constitutional convention signed the original Constitution.

And as it turned out, the people did pretty well, as one by one, old concepts were set aside in favor of more and more liberty. The great experiment was successful beyond anybody's wildest dreams as the USA became the most free, most powerful, most innovative, most productive, most prosperous, most benevolent nation the world had ever seen. Even without the Civil War, it was inevitable that the people themselves would have ended slavery as it had already ended in Canada and Mexico and was disappearing in most places around the world.

But the Founders did not possess omniscient powers to even imagine a culture such as ours. Never before in the history of civilzation had values and a culture changed as rapidly as it has in the last 50 years. Where we had functioned pretty as the Founders had intended with the people governing themselves and forming the societies they wanted, in the last 50 years the federal government has been increasingly taking more and more power from the people and dictating to them what society they will have.

And special interest groups are increasingly pressuring the federal government to dictate a society that they want. And the militant Muslims who want Sharia Law are right in there with them. So far they lack the numbers to be a significant voting bloc but they're working on that too.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Christianity did not have any role in the foundation of the US Constitution.

When did Jesus advocate slavery?

False. You simply don't know the pertinent history of ideas and events that shaped the character of our Republic, and after this, you could only continue to assert this out of willful ignorance.

This nation was founded on the sociopolitical theory extrapolated from the Judeo-Christian ethical system of thought, the classical liberalism of the Anglo-American tradition harking back to Augustine and formally expounded by Locke in his Two Treatises of Civil Government, in which he extensively cites scripture as the ontological justification for limited government relative to the inalienable rights of mankind in nature and under the terms of a legitimate social contract, including the right of revolt against tyranny.

See link for more information: http://www.usmessageboard.com/politics/343647-the-gay-agenda-6.html#post8732955

That's why the peculiar institution of slavery was destined to die out in this country one way or another, and the Framers knew that, hoping all the while that this could be accomplished without civil war.

The vast majority of the Founders professed Christianity as their belief. And pretty much to a man, they all would have abolished slavery in the original Constitution. They did not because they needed all the states to join the union, and with an anti-slavery clause, the slave states would never have ratified the constitution. Nobody got eveything he wanted in the Constitution, but they spent 11 long years in debates, negotiations, compromises, to arrive at a document that was satisfactory to most. Evenso only 28 of the 31 delegates to the constitutional convention signed the original Constitution.

And as it turned out, the people did pretty well, as one by one, old concepts were set aside in favor of more and more liberty. The great experiment was successful beyond anybody's wildest dreams as the USA became the most free, most powerful, most innovative, most productive, most prosperous, most benevolent nation the world had ever seen. Even without the Civil War, it was inevitable that the people themselves would have ended slavery as it had already ended in Canada and Mexico and was disappearing in most places around the world.

But the Founders did not possess omniscient powers to even imagine a culture such as ours. Never before in the history of civilzation had values and a culture changed as rapidly as it has in the last 50 years. Where we had functioned pretty as the Founders had intended with the people governing themselves and forming the societies they wanted, in the last 50 years the federal government has been increasingly taking more and more power from the people and dictating to them what society they will have.

And special interest groups are increasingly pressuring the federal government to dictate a society that they want. And the militant Muslims who want Sharia Law are right in there with them. So far they lack the numbers to be a significant voting bloc but they're working on that too.

Quite right. And what the secular progressives think to erect is in fact a theocracy of sorts . . . no different in nature, really, than that to which the militant Muslims would have us submit: that is to say, all forms of authoritarianism are as drab as any burqa.

And all the while leftists go on about Christians, for example, discriminating against homosexuals who would have the former participate in their rituals or produce expressions celebrating the same.

The ideological discrimination of free association is the essence of liberty! It just flies right over the heads of multiculturalism's sheep.

(Oh. In the above I should have written "the classical liberalism of the Anglo-American tradition, a tradition of natural law harking back to Augustine and systematically propounded by Locke in his Two Treatises of Civil Government. . . .")