Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When do you think France will elect and reelect a president with a middle name like, say, Hussein? Or any European country, for that matter?

come down from you high horse, the US elected his first AA president after AA have been in the US for hundreds of years (immigrants from North Africa and other former colonies have been in France and other European countries for a much shorter time, in some countries just a decade or two), and have never elected a woman (as EU countries have already done), and have never elected a Muslim president, although Muslims have been in the US for a long time.

France has already had a Muslim minister of justice (and a woman!)

Hussein? if Obama was Muslim, he would not have done that far in the election

Rachida Dati grew up in a Muslim family she does not look and behave like a Muslim. I do not believe she is a practicing Muslim. When there is a practicing Muslim hijabi minister in France, then we'll talk.

+1. Dati was a cabinet member under a right-wing government prone to tokenism. Condy Rice was Secretary of State before that, if I recall correctly.

And Collin Powell before that.

Someone like Obama wouldn't have been able to use some water fountains in the early 60s because of the color of his skin. The US has many problems, but it has made significant progress. While France is a great country, it has major difficulties working as a diverse society. A melting pot it is not.

let's just not mix apples with oranges. Condi Rice and Powel are AA Christians, none of them is Muslim. the fact that the US would elect a black person has nothing to do with electing a Muslim. the first poster asked when France would elect a president with a Muslim sounding middle name, as if in the US it was normal to elect Muslims in high office (and just let me point out that the fact that poster consider an accomplishment the election of a Christian man with a middle name that may sound Muslim says a lot) while in France it is not. the US has had a Muslim population for over a century, and how many Muslim presidents? none. women? none. presindents who are not Christians? none. atheists? none. European countries have elected women and atheists as presidents/prime ministers for a long time.

in the US are no Musmlims have ever been elected/nimonated (at least that I know of) in high public office, not even "Muslims who do not look and act like Muslims", whatever that means: no vice president, no speaker of the house, no supreme court justice, I don't think there has ever been a Muslim governor. the first (just one) Muslim in congress in US history was elected in 2008 apparently (in Germany there have been Muslim representatives of Turkish descent since at least 1994). while Obama's middle name is Hussein, he is not a Muslim as we all know. do you really think he would have been elected if he was a practicing Muslim?

funny that you discount Rachida Dati as a Muslim minister of justice "because she does not look or act as a Muslim". she is a Muslim, one of 12 kids of a Muslim impoverished family of the banlieus. there have been other Muslim cabinet members in France, including Rama Yade as Secretary of State for Human Rights Fadéla Amara as Secretary of State for Urban Policies, both nominated in 2007. how many Muslims cabinet members have ever been nominated in the US? zero.

Europe can certainly do better, but it seems to be that it is doing much better already than the US even though the influx of Muslim immigrants is a fairly recent phenomen (less recent in France, more recent in other countries, but even in France was not a relevant phenomenon before the 60's at least).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fire (likely intentional) at mosque in Poitiers -- the last of a series of actions against mosques in the past few days.

I doubt anyone on this board will care. Collective punishment against Muslims is apparently OK.

Who said that? You're being stupid. Was anyone hurt in this incident? If not, that may be why it's not big news. Duh.

Really, burning shops in Ferguson is worthy of a month of posts, yet burning down mosques is not big news.

No reports of personal injuries in recent incidents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fire (likely intentional) at mosque in Poitiers -- the last of a series of actions against mosques in the past few days.

I doubt anyone on this board will care. Collective punishment against Muslims is apparently OK.

Who said that? You're being stupid. Was anyone hurt in this incident? If not, that may be why it's not big news. Duh.

And Jean Marie Le Pen says "I am Charlie Martel." What an idiot. (Those who know about the Battle of Poitiers will understand).

Dieudonne -- a French "comedian" whose repertoire consists mainly of anti-semitic rethoric, including an inverted nazi salute -- just said "I feel like I am Charlie Coulibaly." Repugnant. Those who compare him with CH are out of line.

Anonymous wrote:Fire (likely intentional) at mosque in Poitiers -- the last of a series of actions against mosques in the past few days.

I doubt anyone on this board will care. Collective punishment against Muslims is apparently OK.

Fire (likely intentional) at mosque in Poitiers -- the last of a series of actions against mosques in the past few days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me get that straight: An uncovered woman is against social customs inside the Islamic world, so we must respect that.

Yet a woman who has her face covered is against social customs everywhere outside of the Islamic world yet we cannot possibly respect that?

Logic fail.

You are not supporting a woman's right to be equal. You're supporting a man's need to continue to oppress and brainwash women through the use of religion (and culture).

Women should be free to express who they are. By DENYING them the privilege of wearing a skirt that hits the knee or by showing off her new hairstyle or by wearing pants with a funky pair of boots, you're not supporting her rights. You're simply too stupid to see the root of the issue - and it's patriarchy married to religion.

If I want, I can wear a maxi skirt and a sweater one day and a mini skirt and tights the next. It's my choice to determine what I want to put on my body. No man - no religion - is telling me what I must wear.

know why? b/c I fucking have a brain that hasn't been shaped to believe that Allah will think I'm a whore if I show off my hair or my arms or my legs or my shoulders

It's bad enough when men oppress women, but when other women keep women down, it's even worse.

brainwashing - There's your simple answer, you buffoon.

By DENYING women the privilege of covering their faces, you're also not supporting their rights. Can't you see that it's the same thing? It's the right to choose. I might not agree with a woman covering her face but I defend her right to choose to do so.

Careful - you're about to be told that it's freedom of choice if you choose the way she does, and brainwashing if you don't. Oh, and you'll be called names, too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When do you think France will elect and reelect a president with a middle name like, say, Hussein? Or any European country, for that matter?

come down from you high horse, the US elected his first AA president after AA have been in the US for hundreds of years (immigrants from North Africa and other former colonies have been in France and other European countries for a much shorter time, in some countries just a decade or two), and have never elected a woman (as EU countries have already done), and have never elected a Muslim president, although Muslims have been in the US for a long time.

France has already had a Muslim minister of justice (and a woman!)

Hussein? if Obama was Muslim, he would not have done that far in the election

Rachida Dati grew up in a Muslim family she does not look and behave like a Muslim. I do not believe she is a practicing Muslim. When there is a practicing Muslim hijabi minister in France, then we'll talk.

+1. Dati was a cabinet member under a right-wing government prone to tokenism. Condy Rice was Secretary of State before that, if I recall correctly.

And Collin Powell before that.

Someone like Obama wouldn't have been able to use some water fountains in the early 60s because of the color of his skin. The US has many problems, but it has made significant progress. While France is a great country, it has major difficulties working as a diverse society. A melting pot it is not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me get that straight: An uncovered woman is against social customs inside the Islamic world, so we must respect that.

Yet a woman who has her face covered is against social customs everywhere outside of the Islamic world yet we cannot possibly respect that?

Logic fail.

You are not supporting a woman's right to be equal. You're supporting a man's need to continue to oppress and brainwash women through the use of religion (and culture).

Women should be free to express who they are. By DENYING them the privilege of wearing a skirt that hits the knee or by showing off her new hairstyle or by wearing pants with a funky pair of boots, you're not supporting her rights. You're simply too stupid to see the root of the issue - and it's patriarchy married to religion.

If I want, I can wear a maxi skirt and a sweater one day and a mini skirt and tights the next. It's my choice to determine what I want to put on my body. No man - no religion - is telling me what I must wear.

know why? b/c I fucking have a brain that hasn't been shaped to believe that Allah will think I'm a whore if I show off my hair or my arms or my legs or my shoulders

It's bad enough when men oppress women, but when other women keep women down, it's even worse.

brainwashing - There's your simple answer, you buffoon.

By DENYING women the privilege of covering their faces, you're also not supporting their rights. Can't you see that it's the same thing? It's the right to choose. I might not agree with a woman covering her face but I defend her right to choose to do so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When do you think France will elect and reelect a president with a middle name like, say, Hussein? Or any European country, for that matter?

come down from you high horse, the US elected his first AA president after AA have been in the US for hundreds of years (immigrants from North Africa and other former colonies have been in France and other European countries for a much shorter time, in some countries just a decade or two), and have never elected a woman (as EU countries have already done), and have never elected a Muslim president, although Muslims have been in the US for a long time.

France has already had a Muslim minister of justice (and a woman!)

Hussein? if Obama was Muslim, he would not have done that far in the election

Rachida Dati grew up in a Muslim family she does not look and behave like a Muslim. I do not believe she is a practicing Muslim. When there is a practicing Muslim hijabi minister in France, then we'll talk.

+1. Dati was a cabinet member under a right-wing government prone to tokenism. Condy Rice was Secretary of State before that, if I recall correctly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exposing genitalia is banned universally for self-evidente reasons. Covering one's face can be debated for security reasons -- although suche a ban didn't impede the attacks in Paris, 9/11, and other countless acts of violence -- but that's not the debate France had when the ban was imposed.
P
The government shouldn't determine a dressential code based on "values."

you don't realize that you share the ban on genitalia exposed simply because you share those values, not because this is a supposed ban "universally" shared. there are people in the US who would love to sunbathe in the nude but they cannot go to Virginia beach and do it or they will be arrested. there are areas in (at least in Africa, in islands in the Pacific and Australia ) where women normally expose their breasts. if some of these women move to the US do you think they should be allowed to walk around wearing sandals, a skirt and naked boobs? the reality is that they will not be allowed to do it, the government would tell them to cover their boobs based on local decency laws, which are based on current local values

I think it is obvious to anyone that these kinds of examples, where some societal norms of decency and modesty are involved, are not comparable to a ban on a face covering. I think it's a waste of time to continue to draw a parallel between the two types of examples.

it's a waste of time because it does not support your statement that the government should not determine a dress code based on "values". the government does that when it prohibit the walking around in public boobs exposed. you may not realized that this is based on values because it is based on YOUR values, certainly not supposedly universal values.

Let me try another way. Please name a country where everyone goes naked in public, in the streets, and where exposing genitalia is the norm.

If you can't, then I think we can agree that every country in the world (except perhaps some remote tribe) has restrictions about exposing genitalia in public as the norm. I am using the adjective "universal" as short hand.

But of course you can choose to continue to try to make a parallel between a debate about covering or not covering one's face and a debate between exposing genitalia.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exposing genitalia is banned universally for self-evidente reasons. Covering one's face can be debated for security reasons -- although suche a ban didn't impede the attacks in Paris, 9/11, and other countless acts of violence -- but that's not the debate France had when the ban was imposed.

The government shouldn't determine a dressential code based on "values."

you don't realize that you share the ban on genitalia exposed simply because you share those values, not because this is a supposed ban "universally" shared. there are people in the US who would love to sunbathe in the nude but they cannot go to Virginia beach and do it or they will be arrested. there are areas in (at least in Africa, in islands in the Pacific and Australia ) where women normally expose their breasts. if some of these women move to the US do you think they should be allowed to walk around wearing sandals, a skirt and naked boobs? the reality is that they will not be allowed to do it, the government would tell them to cover their boobs based on local decency laws, which are based on current local values

I think it is obvious to anyone that these kinds of examples, where some societal norms of decency and modesty are involved, are not comparable to a ban on a face covering. I think it's a waste of time to continue to draw a parallel between the two types of examples.

No one is putting a gun to your head to continue this conversation.

Happy to continue talking, but I am sure you agree that comparing genitalia exposure to the topics at hand is not going to bring much. Unless, of course, you know of a country where everyone goes naked as part of normal life in public.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When do you think France will elect and reelect a president with a middle name like, say, Hussein? Or any European country, for that matter?

come down from you high horse, the US elected his first AA president after AA have been in the US for hundreds of years (immigrants from North Africa and other former colonies have been in France and other European countries for a much shorter time, in some countries just a decade or two), and have never elected a woman (as EU countries have already done), and have never elected a Muslim president, although Muslims have been in the US for a long time.

France has already had a Muslim minister of justice (and a woman!)

Hussein? if Obama was Muslim, he would not have done that far in the election

So, when do you think France will elect someone with a Muslim-sounding name?