A Thread on Race and Multiculturalism for Hera

[Imran Siddiqui]

Love our neighbors as ourselves... I have no problem being forced to pay taxes to help the poor. Ask was your word that I reused.

[Pax]

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself. Are we loving our neighbour if we force him to pony up?

As for income taxes in general, I'd be happy with a federal budget equal to 1946 adjusted for the growth in population. That would mean budget spending of about 1 trillion dollars a year. Current proposed outlays by BO is 3.7 trillion dollars,

I'd like to see taxes slashed by 2.5x and the overall budget quartered.

At certain points on various threads you point out that you are not an american citizen and cannot be accountable then on other threads you make known your desire that american citizens be subjected to specific laws. During this thread you have argued as a canadian, an american and I believe as a pseudo Brit. My main concern is that you use your citizen status as a crutch so you don't have to be held accountable for your views.
I hope that as a teacher, you keep your politics out of the classroom. Just as I hope you understand that by having a christian prayer in school you are indoctrinating kids at a very early age on one specific religion and no other. You are indoctrinating them before they even have a chance to make up their own minds. You are indoctrinating them even without giving their parents a choice. You are putting the non-christian kids under pressure to pray so they can fit in with the christian ones. I hope that as a teacher you can acknowledge the effects of peer pressure on kids.
The Church of England was a revolution in that it took power away from the Catholic church and placed it with the Monarch that was actually closer to the people. The separation of church and state furthered that revolution by separating politics from religion totally. Example -Technically, issues like marriage should be a totally theological question but because of government involvement in the institution and because of religious involvement in government it becomes a political issue. This is not right and it's really not what our forefathers wanted.
In my mind any politician or person that proposes giving any religion any amount of power in government is un-american.
Al, people convert to christianity from other religions all the time. You would have to go to church to meet these people. I imagine that one day Abdul stops coming to the mosque and the next sunday he's in church. Of course, you don't know what happened to Abdul. You just don't see him anymore. Just like when a person leaves a christian church. There's not a big announcement. He just leaves. I'm only talking about mosques/churchs in the U.S. that are in secular communities not enclaves.
Also, the idea that people would only leave the christian faith and not join it is very interesting. I think that you have a lack of understanding of faith in and of itself. For many, it comes as a revelation when they are in the worst moment they find god/allah and etc is the only thing that can get them through. For me, it is the occurrence of small miracles in my life that have kept me afloat in the face of adversity. And in the face of these revelations and miracles a person may come to believe in the Allah, Jesus Christ or whomever, they may also come to believe like you that there is no god because in that cell or on that battlefield there was only them and darkness.

[Az]

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

You can't force someone to love another person. Christ says to love your neighbour as yourself.

In the same damn sentence. FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Pax]

Also Al, A key part of Christianity is converting non-believers. I don't get how you've never heard of this.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Al has never heard of plenty of things.

[notyoueither]

On point.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/europe/swedens-big-immigration-idea-the-canada-model/article2200151/

Sweden’s big immigration idea: the ‘Canada model’
doug saunders
London— Globe and Mail Update
Published Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 2:36PM EDT
Last updated Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011 3:19PM EDT


For decades, Canadians have looked to the Swedes for inspiration. There was Ottawa’s campaign to get lumpy 30-year-old Canadians to be as fit as “the 60-year-old Swede.” There are frequent calls to imitate Stockholm’s environmental policies. And, of course, there’s hockey.
More related to this story

But in recent months, the tables have turned. Policy circles in Stockholm have been dominated with talk of adopting “the Canada model.” That, in fact, is the title of a widely discussed new Swedish book titled Kanadamodellen – “The Canada Model,” which urges Sweden’s governments to start making things look more like their Nordic fellow on the other side of the Atlantic.

“We looked at Canada, and we saw that it worked – even though Canadians don’t always say this, from a Swedish perspective we felt that Canada is a model that should be followed,” said Martin Adahl, one of the book’s editors and a fellow with the Stockholm think tank FORES, as he visited London to discuss his ideas with a bemused group of British and Canadian scholars.

Specifically, the book’s editors are part of a growing group of Swedes that wants its government to adopt Canada’s immigration system – including its high numbers, its points-based recruitment scheme and its ethnic networks of support in major cities that help new immigrants find employment.

Its subtitle is, tellingly, “How immigration leads to work,” which explains the obsession with Canada: In Sweden, immigrants – the largest group of whom are refugees – are typically unemployed, marginalized and far poorer than the native-born population. This has led to alarming political tensions over immigration in this formerly very placid nation.

In Canada, by contrast, the employment rate among the foreign-born (about 70 per cent) is higher than that among native-born Canadians, most immigrants are economic (refugees make up a negligibly small slice of Canadian immigration), and the majority of Canadians say they are satisfied both with the ethnic mix and the levels of immigration.

So from the shores of the Baltic, the Great White North looks like an immigration paradise. Mr. Adahl and his colleague Petter Hojem drew upon leading Canadian academics to produce studies and essays for their book – and here, they ran into difficulties.

“It was hard to convince Canadian academics to write about their own country as a positive example,” Mr. Adahl said. “They’re used to writing critically of it, and thinking of its failings, but I had to persuade them to write about Canada as a positive example – it wasn’t easy.”

Canada, Mr. Adahl says, does a couple things that European countries don’t do. First, it grants immediate access to employment, home and business ownership to new immigrants and refugee claimants. Second, it has a network of charities and non-governmental organizations that help settle and employ new arrivals. And third, it has a relatively open labour market, in which employers can easily hire and fire people, which makes it easier for immigrants to enter the work force.

In much of Europe, including Sweden, many full-time jobs are guaranteed for life, which creates a closed, privileged white-skinned elite and an excluded brown-skinned minority who are stuck in informal jobs and unemployment.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

In much of Europe, including Sweden, many full-time jobs are guaranteed for life

They are?

[C0ckney]

yeah that struck me as strange. maybe they mean certain public sector jobs where it's very difficult (or impossible) to get fired, but even so it seems a bit of a stretch.

[kentonio]

It's really hard to fire even private sector people over there, but I havn't heard anything about 'jobs for life'.

[notyoueither]

Some hyperbole with your fries?

[Kidlicious]

Ask, fine, but that's not how taxes work. Are you willing to make taxes optional? If so, I wholeheartedly agree with the plan. Have the government mail out suggested contributions, and do away with automatic withholding.

You love your neighbor by helping them when you vote, just like the Samaritan.

[Kidlicious]

A muslim convert at my church says she prefers the Holy Spirit.

[C0ckney]

she's probably an alcoholic.

[Elok]

Don't know any ex-Muslims, but my church in MD has a mission with an ex-atheist Reader (a low-ranking deacon). Also C.S. Lewis rather famously went back to Christianity after years as an atheist.

[dannubis]

Before are after his lobotomy ?