Nearly Half in U.S. Want Curb on Muslim-Americans' Rights

Hi,

:(

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The Associated Press
Updated: 9:57 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2004

ITHACA, N.Y. - Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans, according to a nationwide poll.

The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims’ civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious.

'Disturbing news'
Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim-Americans.

“It’s sad news. It’s disturbing news. But it’s not unpredictable,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society. “The nation is at war, even if it’s not a traditional war. We just have to remain vigilant and continue to interface.”

The survey found 44 percent favored at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Forty-eight percent said liberties should not be restricted in any way.

The survey showed that 27 percent of respondents supported requiring all Muslim-Americans to register where they lived with the federal government. Twenty-two percent favored racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats. And 29 percent thought undercover agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising.

Cornell student researchers questioned 715 people in the nationwide telephone poll conducted this fall. The margin of error was 3.6 percentage points.

37 percent believe terrorist attack likely
James Shanahan, an associate professor of communications who helped organize the survey, said the results indicate “the need for continued dialogue about issues of civil liberties” in a time of war.

While researchers said they were not surprised by the overall level of support for curtailing civil liberties, they were startled by the correlation with religion and exposure to television news.

“We need to explore why these two very important channels of discourse may nurture fear rather than understanding,” Shanahan said.

According to the survey, 37 percent believe a terrorist attack in the United States is still likely within the next 12 months. In a similar poll conducted by Cornell in November 2002, that number stood at 90 percent.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source:
FoxNews

MSNBC
USA Today

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I wouldn't pass judgment on Americans based on this article and i agree 715 are not much to get the Actual Voice of the Country .............But a good Poll Planner can plan a good Mix of people to get a Giest of what might be the Actual openion .

and if this is true then it is a disturbing trend that is developing............it's the Freedom we loved so much and even Fighiting for it ..............and the very same poeple want to curb someones else's freedom :(


--Good Luck--

Any details on questions asked? For instance so what if people support registering muslims, DUH. They either have a passport, drivers licernse or Social Security card. Guess what, that registers you. Most Americans believe we will be attacked again. DUH. History repeats itself and 60 years of violence isn't goint to stop because some fanatical finally gets a clue. Duh, the media parades promises of violence by OSAMA himself around the world in Technicolor for all to see, including his own dormant and active terrorist cells. In addition they elevate the violence in Iraq to front page news and stick the kind acts way in the back.

How does a poll conducted by a mere 700 people make national news. lol. Where was it conducted in Salt Lake City? Having said that when is the last time a Muslim organization came pulbic and said, he we don't agree with what this particular group did today, or yesterday or the day before that... That wouldn't be politically feasible.

maybe they should go beyond.
-what about register all musslins based firms? those firms can be used to finance terrorism
- what about register all musslins doctors (or even cancel their medical licenses)? those guys can be used to help injuried terrorist.
- and maybe cancel musslims lawyers licenses too. Every musslim is a terrorist, so why they need a musslin lawyer?

err...
those guys didnt EVEN have new ideas. they've copied from here:

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1938 appears to have been a pivotal year for the Nazi movement and for Jews. The frantic efforts to force Jews out of the Reich set in motion two additional processes. First, Hermann Goering, assumed wide-ranging powers over the German economy and began his process of "Aryanization" of Jewish economic resources. Numerous policies were instituted in an effort to pauperize Germany's Jews and cut them off from the German economy. In April, Jews were required to register with the government all personal property valued at 5,000 marks or more. In June, required registration of all Jewish-owned firms was made law. In July, the medical licenses of Jewish doctors were declared invalid. This was extended to lawyers in September. On November 12, 1938, Goering convened a conference in Berlin to plan the systematic "Aryianization" (Ger. arisierung) of Jewish businesses. These policies extended into 1939: in February Jews were required to surrender all gold and silver to the government. These policies seem to contradict the avowed desire of the government to deport Jews to other countries. Without money for transportation and resettlement, Jews could not afford to emigrate.

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Yet again we see an example of how statistics can be slanted - what a headline, based on the opinions of such a scant sampling. Our media is obviously running out of things to report, so they're digging and sensationalizing...

cacasopo, this was a poll of 700 people, who probably just wanted to get back to dinner or re-runs of "Queer eye for the staight guy" without much thought, like opinion polls are. Besides its kind of friggin obvious who is middle eastern don't you think? That's why this poll and article are just a bunch of poodle fluff.

Asking if muslims should be made to register implies that there is no registering or way of keeping track of them as there is for everyone else. Don’t american muslims have to register for selective service??

http://www.sss.gov/FSwho.htm

everybody else does

Do you think that muslims driving cars in the US should be forced to get a drivers license?

How many organizations are infiltrated by .gov.

Libertarians, Greenpeace, peta, the catholic church and many more are…all the time…religious and non-religious. We’ve got undercover cops going to bingos to make sure they play by the rules. Should Muslims be exempt from that too? (undercover cops not bingos) Profiling would just cause a higher instance of it for muslims.

The only real issue here is profiling. Which is stupid not to do given who the enemy is.

I see this as yet another instance of that left wing org know as the associated press trying to get people to distance themselves from conservative thinking.

Islam is just a front for fascism and antisemitism.
It should be abolished.
:cool:

Islam is just a front for fascism and antisemitism.
It should be abolished.

Nah................that's Roman Catholicism :D

I speak as one............. :)

Er rcgreen..............Merry Christmas :D

Yeah, Merry Christmas... if they haven't outlawed it yet.
:cool:

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Originally posted here by rcgreen
Islam is just a front for fascism and antisemitism.
It should be abolished.
:cool:

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Christianity is just a front for bigotry, hate, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and screwing the church secretary. Talk about something that should be abolished....

the secretary at my church is very pale, ugly and weird...I dunno if anyone would wanna screw that...not even witha paper bag over her head. Anyways to the topic at hand.....I'm with road on thise one....How on earth can 700 people represent the opinion of 250+ Million people? Ask people in new england, and a good majority will say "NO, they are human beings like the rest of us, and get the same rights". Go ask someone from some ranch in south texas who just got home after working in the fields all day...and he'll probably say "Yeah, **** em'. My corn aint growin right cuz of them bastards"....precisely why Opinion polls mean jack ****...and as opinions go...they're like *******s, everyone's got one.

yeah lets just pull a germany or an American World War II and put them all in little camps to where we teach them how to be better christian, right-winged americans so that they will to, one day, vote for the destruction of their own feeble, unimportant culture. Lord knows we need more christian right wingers out there dictating and what not. "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - so long as I'm the dictator." -George W. Bush, Dec. 19, 2000

Hmmmmmmmmm

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Lord knows we need more christian right wingers out there dictating and what not.

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I am terribly sorry, but I am a trifle busy for the next couple of weeks.............could you cover for me?

Hey, serious now, if these guys/gals are AMERICANS then they are AMERICANS...............might I respectfully suggest that your Constitution, and your fine tradition for democracy should apply?

The most strange experience I ever had was these two clerical gentlemen arguing as to whether I was a Sunni Roman Catholic or a Shia Roman Catholic
:eek:

We have fifth and sixth generation Moslems over here...............one or two of them can even play cricket ;)

Terrorism is not religion, neither is religion terrorism............."Thou shalt not kill"????????????

Hi.

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Terrorism is not religion, neither is religion terrorism............."Thou shalt not kill"????????????

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Amen

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........one or two of them can even play cricket ;)

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...........And Captain the English Cricket team (Nassir Hussain ) .............Ronnie Irani is Doing good too with his slow medium pace Dibly-dobly bowling and no mug with the bat too ;)

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back to Topic ............What Amaized me the Most was how this suddenly became National and International News ............Most of the News Sites have this headlines.... "Nearly Half in U.S. Want Curb on Muslim-Americans' Rights"

whout even releasing much facts about the poll and Just telephoning 700 somethign people A.P. declared what half of America wants ? :rolleyes:

Propoganda Media ?

--Good Luck--

Since most people don't have a clue, only partial understanding of perhaps 10 years of history I'll post a question. Since lets say the 17th century: how many right wing Christian dictators have we had on the planet? Anyone? Zero? 1 or 2? Can't think of any? Now ask the opposite question…

I was tough on this article because I am sick of POOR research being elevated to a status of liberal holiness. Their holy grail plastered all over the news. No matter what station I tuned into on the way home, EVERY news break said in bold letters "MORE THAN HALF OF AMERICANS WANT TO TAKE AWAY MUSLIM FREEDOMS" what a bunch of bullshit to feed the worms.

Swordfish.. Yes another example of the true dictators in this country, your friends in the media box fighting to attend one another's parties versus actually asking questions while misdirecting American anger to their favor.

Nihil the constitution is designed to protect Americans. Key words there...."designed to protect Americans"... I will repeat: designed to protect Americans. A Muslim born in the country or just like a million people before them who legally seek a true citizenship is an American. Plain and simple. Those who do not are not Americans and the constitution protects them in a fair and limited fashion based on common sense. I don't see any illogic in that reasoning, but many do and in most cases it's merely political grudgery and a media complex so ingrained in their glass towers they have lost contact with the people they represent.

It’s interesting our constitution was brought up. How many know the elections coming up in Iraq are not really elections in a sense. They are procedures to get a constitutional convention going. They are going to elect their delegates to go to a convention and hash out a constitution by trying to make it fair. Assuming the terrorists, I mean insurgents, who oppose them like Saddam’s old generals and fanatical Clerics (you do know a cleric is a religious man right?) don’t KILL everyone because we aren’t allowed be too aggressive by restraints in the political arena … But that’s another discussion....

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Originally posted here by debwalin
Christianity is just a front for bigotry, hate, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and screwing the church secretary. Talk about something that should be abolished....

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And come the 25th, I bet you will be celebrating this non-secular holy day known as Christmas, well at least one you’ve modified. Nonetheless, one that has deep ties to Christmas. I mean you will come baring gifts right? This is a front for hate. :D

Hi,

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And come the 25th, I bet you will be celebrating this non-secular holy day known as Christmas, well at least one you’ve modified. Nonetheless, one that has deep ties to Christmas. I mean you will come baring gifts right? This is a front for hate. :D

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:D

Emmmmm Muslims too Celebrate Christmas as the Birthday of their Prophet Jeasus Christ ;)

So i guess it's not that non-secular or is it ? :P





--Good Luck--

It is true calling a poll of 715 people a nation wide survey is a bit exagerated. You couldnt even get away with that in Ireland. We would need at least 800 people. :p

A few years ago one of our political parties and their leader stated that if they were elected they would hold national plebisites if petitioned by 3% of the population.

As you can see it didn't turn out to well for Stockwell

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The Alliance party favors their use, and would submit an idea to a national plebiscite if 3% or more of the Canadian population supported it through a petition. This matter prompted Rick Mercer, comedian on the Canadian TV program "This Hour Has 22 minutes" to place his own petition on line. It demands that Stockwell Day, leader of the Alliance party, change his first name to "Doris." When they launched the petition on NOV-13, they were hoping to obtain 350,000 electronic signatures. By NOV-16, they had already received over 400,000 responses -- many more than the 3% criteria that would force a national referendum under an Alliance government. By NOV-22, the response had topped 1 million -- not bad in a country of about 30 million people. However, there is no guarantee that all of the signatures are legitimate. The web site allows the same name and Email address to be entered repeatedly. We suspect that many Canadians are voting early, and voting often. 3 Day's protestors, including Natives with drums, the "Young Lesbian Cheerleaders," and others dressed as Barney the Dinosaur and Fred Flintstone stopped chanting "Racist, Sexist, Anti-Gay; Stockwell Day go away." They replaced it with a simpler serenade "Doris Day, Doris Day."

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http://www.religioustolerance.org/poli_crel.htm

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Originally posted here by debwalin
Christianity is just a front for bigotry, hate, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and screwing the church secretary. Talk about something that should be abolished....

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Amen, sister! ;)

A lot of you seem to be missing the actual point of the poll. Leaving aside for the moment the accuracy of the poll at reflecting the "american view", it wasn't meant to be taken literally AFAIK. People have been writing posts pointing out that just about everyone is already registered in multiple ways, but that isn't the point of this at all.

The poll was designed to find out the attitude of the people of america in a general sense at this moment in time. Since it was a research project conducted by research students, I'm disinclined to be as cynical as some of you fellow ao'ers. That's not to say that I accept the statistics at face value, but more that I doubt the poll was meant to be a piece of "left wing/socialist propaganda".

I'm sure that various media companies have latched onto this to create news, but I don't think that this should necessarily detract from the value of the poll itself. Even if the poll is not accurate, assuming the selection of people asked was not doctored in such a way that would influence the results, the results are slightly worrying. You may dismiss that last point by quoting the scale of the poll, but just look at the posts we've had to this thread, and you'll already see at least one american who is completely anti-islam. I'm not attempting to say that this reflects on the rest of americans, but I would still say it is quite worrying.

ac

If the poll is not accurate as stated, then it has no value. Outside of pure speculation and discussion of posibilities. Alot of Americans are anti-christian as well.

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Emmmmm Muslims too Celebrate Christmas as the Birthday of their Prophet Jeasus Christ

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You are joking right? :)

Hi RoadClosed ,

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Originally posted here by RoadClosed
You are joking right? :)

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No i am not ... :) .

But They Don't celebrate the Way Christians do ...............Muslim Freinds i Know do celebrate Christmas ..............That Day they read The Holy Koran Where he is mentioned and remember him .................and make Cakes To mark his BirthDay ........... :)

--Good Luck--

They have been Americanized! J In the Middle East one will find no evidence of Christmas Celebration, EVEN though Jesus is understood to be the one identified as the Messiah and mentioned repeatedly in the Qur’an. But there is a large rift in what Jesus is to Christianity and what he is to Islam. And that could take a long time to explain. ;)

But basically Jesus was no more than a messenger of god and did not act on his own; but by the hand of god himself and not by Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was not divine and not the Son of God in a sense we understand in the west, but more like the way Adam is a “child” of god even though the Qur’an recognized that Jesus was born of Marry the virgin and had no human father. Neither did Adam, you see? Oh and that leads into the paradox of even Christian beliefs on whether The Christ was god or a man or both, and if Jesus was The Christ, so I’ll stop now.

However I almost forgot; Muslims in a true sense do not celebrate Christmas. The “prophet Jesus” birthday scenario is entirely new and in most cases generated to keep children happy in a western world dominated by our culture. My friends put lights up over here but never over there. And like all matters of religious faith different sects of Islam will treat Christmas and the relationship of the Qu’ran and Jesus the Prophet differently. And even when they participate is western traditions, they do not celebrate “Christmas” merely the birth of a beloved prophet. Most Muslims will explain to their children that Christmas is a holiday for Christian friends (in America) and not a holiday of Muslims. Some are even starting to apply traditions of Christmas to Ramadan (which on a personal note is an awesome holiday).

Hah! RoadClosed,

Just when you thought that you had gotten away with it :D

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Since lets say the 17th century: how many right wing Christian dictators have we had on the planet? Anyone? Zero? 1 or 2? Can't think of any?

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OK, after the 17th Century came the 18th?.............1701-1800

Try the Kings of France, Spain, Portugal, Brandenburg-Prussia, and England, The Tsar (Czar) of Russia,..............

Later................Francisco Franco of Spain (1936~)...........Dr Salazar of Portugal.....................need any more?

:cool:

Ha! I had considered those. To me they were liberal in a moral sense, had very little if no faith in god and used the Church to propagate their tyranny. :D You are telling me the rulers of France were god fearing conservatives? :D The Church had very little power by this time. It is just after the renaissance. I chose my time frame carefully but I am definitely no scholar.

One of the best music cds released in 2004 was Green Day...the "American Idiot".

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Zieg Heil to the president gas, man,
Bombs away is your punishment,
Pulverize the Eiffel towers,
Who criticize your government,
Bang, Bang goes the broken glass, man,
Kill all the fags that don't agree,
Trials by fire setting fire,
Is not a way that's meant for me,
Just cause,
Just cause because we're outlaws, yeah!

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Kinda says it all!!

MLF

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If the poll is not accurate as stated, then it has no value.

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I would agree, but the main reason that ppl have used to argue that the poll was inaccurate was the scale of the poll. I would argue that even a relatively small amount of ppl polled could reflect the "general" view of the people in a country. It depends on how the poll was conducted, and finding out would probably involve reading the report written by the researchers.

ac

Green Day. I was wondering when someone was going to bring up that CD. There are a couple of other modern day punksters stiring the Bush pot as well this year.

/Edit

Not to mention gothic that the poll answers contradicted themselves if you look at the whole poll, not just questions reported. Bottom line is polls are not a great way to try and tally the desires or the consensus of 290 Million people with so much geographic diversity. They are ONLY good at generalizations, speculation and local interest. I don't have a problem with that, what I have issue with is the polls being populated across media outlets as absoolute truth. When they do that, they (to me) are intentionally misleading for a puropose. At any rate they always manage good discussion. ;)

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Christianity is just a front for bigotry, hate, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, and screwing the church secretary.

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Extreme liberalism at its finest...Tolerance for all people...well...except for those on the right. But tolerance for everyone else!

Gee, and I thought christianity was about peace, love, and fullfilment? Perhaps someone misprinted my Bible and I'm out of the loop?

Hate talk sucks.

The only religion that has even come close to fulfilling that philosophy of peace, love, and fulfilment has been Buddhism...in 2604 years they have never had a religious war, an inquisition, or exhibited any other violent action as a religion.

In the words of Marco Polo about his travels to the East " I came in my travels to hear of a man named Buda, so good and pure was this man and his life that had he been Christian I am sure that he would have been a great saint of our Lord Jesus."

I am not a Buddhist but I can honestly say they make better christians than christians!


Epictetus " It is impossible to get a man to even begin to understand that which he thinks he already knows...the first path to true understanding is to get rid of thinking that you know, from there you can learn."

I never saw buddism as a "religion" in the context as Christians or Jew, Hindus and Muslims. It's not like that. In a sense, there is no diety. But once the shift from a diety beleif system is made, the people who follow it consider it a "religion" but in a sense that a common "bond" is made between all humans. Budists are both confusing and exciting.

//EDIT some of Jesus' teachings do echo the wisdom of Budah. There are parralels in the desire to end suffering and ... how do I say "mitigate" lifes dealings that are undesirable.

Hi, RoadClosed !

Alot of people are not aware that there are two buddhist texts...the first which is called southern buddhism printed in ancient Pali ( which is the older of the two and does not contain later additions or dogma) and the northern buddhist text written in ancient Sanskrit ( which has several items not found in the Pali version : like a virgin birth written before the gospels but not found in the Pali). Most of what we get in north america is from the sanskrit ( china, japan, e.g. zen buddhism ) but in the original Pali text Siddhattha Gotama ( Siddhartha Guatuma : northern ) never denied the existence of god, in fact agreed that there was, when he was asked by a pupil...original buddhists are not athiests, they were taught that they must seek enlightenment and aspire towards it on thier own , god does not interfere in man's direction.

And you're absolutely right...the Pali text is incredibly similiar to the Christ's teaching.

And buddhists ( primarily, southern ) don't believe in reincarnation like the hindu's ...the buddha taught re-birth...similiar to Jesus' reference to John being the re-birth of Elijah. Basically it was taught that man was re-born until one of two possible conclusions: he achieved enlightenment ( and would not return )...or...the involution or evolution of the world ( the end and the new begining essentially). :)
Chanting had nothing to do with meditation...it was the method monks used to remember and memorize the texts and hand them down from one generation to the next...they would spend hours every day memorizing their section of the texts, before it was written down in 80BC.
And like Christianity, prior to the Bishop's Council of 300AD, there were no statues of Christ or Buddha. Both traditions began with "footprints". The Bishop's at the Council were the first to commission artists to portray images of Jesus and finalize the modern day bible. Revelation almost didn't make the cut...it was voted against twice...and the book of St. Clement was in until they debated the reference to the Egyptian pheonix. :)

Damn, that is alot of info! Looks like I am familiar with the Pali text then. it makes sense that early followers would believe in God. That was the only way to ascertain their existence based on world knowledge? I would imagine anyway.

It amazed me how these world religions and doctrines are always intertwined with VAST similarities at the acient world.

I agree...every culture seems to modify the original texts and interpretations to suit their own special circumstances...whenever possible the earliest texts available are the ones to read. :)