Intolerance and Indifference

[Guest guest]

It makes me sick to see the attitudes on this board. In the space of

a few hours, some of you have demonstrated an attitude that flies in

the face of what you seek to defend...FREEDOM. It is no coincidence

that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of

America states:

" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of

speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to

assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. "

These thoughts were at the forefront of the minds of our founding

fathers. That is one of the prime reasons that this great nation was

founded!!!

Obviously, asking Yahoo to remove a message that details some of the

beliefs of the Islamic faith does not constitute a violation of the

Constitution. Why? Because Yahoo is not the government. However,

the spirit behind those words in the Bill of Rights should be

practiced by everyone and certainly, by those who yell so loudly

about the attacks on September 11th being an attack on our freedom

and way of life. They were. One of the reasons that the United

States is so hated is because of what we stand for.

What really bugs me is dozens of people will come to the defense of

and others who post lots of messages that have nothing

whatsoever to do with the practice of EMS in Texas and few show him

the disrepect that has been shown today. One person today posted a

message asking about online grocery coupons and nobody has slammed

them.

Why????

Because you are too damned ignorant to spend anytime exploring other

folks' beliefs. The person who posted the message " What is Islam? "

and the subsequent ones was attempting to educate (I presume). What

did they get? " Move along. Nothing to see here. " If you folks

would stop for a moment you would realize that there is very little

fundamental difference between Christianity (I assume the religion of

the folks that were so disrespectful) and Islam. They both believe

in a supreme being, serving that supreme being (by the way both

religions agree on who that being is) in this life, answering for

sins and enjoying a good afterlife as long as you conducted yourself

according to certain principles in this life. For that matter,

Judaism is close to this as well.

I'm not well versed in any of this. I'm no expert. What I am is

tolerant. I certainly show no disrespect to others' religions,

especially if I know nothing about them.

I will leave you with the following quotations about free speech and

hope that you will think about them in the coming times. We have a

long road ahead of us in our fight against terrorism. Let these two

ideas be part of the compass that guides us during our crisis.

" If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise,

we don't believe in it at all. "

-- Noam Chomsky

" I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your

right to say it. "

-- Voltaire

Buckley