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Muslim mob stones Christians – in U.S.!

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dream_weaver

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World Net Daily.

Muslim mob stones Christians – in U.S.!

Dearborn, Michigan.

At the 2012 Arab International festival over Father's Day weekend, "tarting at the 9:00 mark and continuing to about the 10:30 mark [22 minute video clip available], the crowd – reminiscent of a rock-throwing “intifada” scene from the Middle East – can be seen hurling a dizzying barrage of objects at the Christians standing passively with their signs, causing some injuries."

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The police officers should have removed those Christians in the first place because they were interfering with those people's festival. Its like walking into daycare and shouting "fuck fuck fuck!". It is innapropriate, offensive, and has no constructiver purpose, and beyond this, violates the property rights of those involved.

I am assuming that the American Arab Chamber of Commerce got access to some government land in order to hold this fair. This is unfortunate, however I do think they have the reasonable expectation that their proceedings on this property won't be ruined by people attempting to turn a cultural-business festival into a hostile debate about religion and politics.

The people there expressed their wishes for those people to leave, even the police officers implied that they should leave. The people there ( a lot of them teenagers) clearly overreacted but honestly the christians had no right to be there if they weren't going to participate in the festival or at least just observe without interfering.

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This event was organized by a local Arab American Chamber of Commerce (not muslim-American, Arab-American), who obtained a festival permit from local authorities.

Considering that this is an ARAB festival and not a Muslim one, and especially if the taxpayers are contributing more than just the expense of police presence, I think the question to ask is: Did the organizers set rules allowing Muslims to distribute literature and promote their faith at this festival, or did they set rules prohibiting the distribution of religious and political literature by anyone?

If this is a publicly-funded event, and especially one that was never intended to be a Muslim festival (after all, there are Christian Arabs), and if the organizers allowed others (i.e. Muslims) to distribute literature there, then I certainly think the Christian activists have a case to make. Otherwise, the police should have promptly arrested these activists after just one warning. (It's clear that the police should have done something right away --either arrest the Christian activists, if they were in the wrong, or if they had a right to be there, promptly order the festival shut down in order to prevent the Muslims from feeling that they can get away with intimidating people of other faiths.)

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... ... if the organizers allowed others (i.e. Muslims) to distribute literature there, then I certainly think the Christian activists have a case to make.
Distributing literature is benign. According to a non-Christian source:
  • The Christians had a pig's head on a stake.
  • They had placards that read: "Islam is a religion of blood and murder" and "Muhammad is a liar, false prophet, murderer, child molesting pervert"
  • Some Christians were shouting to muslim boys: "You're gonna burn in hell"

The Christians were jerks. Of course, legally, one has to hold one's peace when confronted by jerk; but, the jerks are not the innocents like the idiots at WND.com would have people believe. (As a rule, discount 90% of what you read at sites like that.)

Here's the thing: it is three-day festival. The trouble only happened on Friday, when the Christians were there. So, contrary to WND's idiotic comparison to intifada, this is not about Muslims planning to attack non-Muslims. The festival was also held on Saturday. The Christians were not there. It was peaceful without the Christians around.

Here's the kicker (from the Daily Mail article): "The Christian protestors didn't return to the festival on Saturday because they were rallying at a gay pride event in Ohio."

Edited by softwareNerd
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Here's the kicker (from the Daily Mail article): "The Christian protestors didn't return to the festival on Saturday because they were rallying at a gay pride event in Ohio."

Aw, we must have missed them! Oh well, I hear there's a guy who goes every year with a blowhorn and stands adjacent, blowing it continuously in their direction!
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Here's the kicker (from the Daily Mail article): "The Christian protestors didn't return to the festival on Saturday because they were rallying at a gay pride event in Ohio."

Not surprising. These groups tend to troll pretty much any public event they can get to.

I'm curious though, did any of the gay people throw stones at them, over at the gay pride event? In fact, out of all the events they trolled over the years, did anyone else except for the Arab youths throw stones at them? Anyone at all?

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Nicky's point should not be discounted. I don't know how credible the reports are that the christians were saying the things in SoftwareNerd's bullet points, but I can believe it. Regardless of how emotionally inflammatory such speech is, it doesn't seem to rise to the level of a threat. Maybe it was harassment, depending on what else they were doing. Either way, civilized people don't let their children and teenagers throw rocks, bottles, and large plastic crates at people for harasment.

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From what I heard, listening to what was selected to be video taped, the Christians sounded rather civil. I also know that discussions revolving around religious points can stir the emotions. Knowing a little Muslim history, I have to ask how prudent it is to put yourself in the middle of a throng of people that the behavior demonstrated is not entirely historically unprecedented.

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Distributing literature is benign. According to a non-Christian source:

  • The Christians had a pig's head on a stake.
  • They had placards that read: "Islam is a religion of blood and murder" and "Muhammad is a liar, false prophet, murderer, child molesting pervert"
  • Some Christians were shouting to muslim boys: "You're gonna burn in hell"

The Christians were jerks. Of course, legally, one has to hold one's peace when confronted by jerk; but, the jerks are not the innocents like the idiots at WND.com would have people believe. (As a rule, discount 90% of what you read at sites like that.)

Here's the thing: it is three-day festival. The trouble only happened on Friday, when the Christians were there. So, contrary to WND's idiotic comparison to intifada, this is not about Muslims planning to attack non-Muslims. The festival was also held on Saturday. The Christians were not there. It was peaceful without the Christians around.

Here's the kicker (from the Daily Mail article): "The Christian protestors didn't return to the festival on Saturday because they were rallying at a gay pride event in Ohio."

I wouldn't necessarily take this source to be fact.

As Dream Weaver pointed out other sources seem to disprove at least part of these allegations.

If the source you are referencing is true why are there no pictures of these offensive placards?

They have pictures of a bunch of other stuff but why wouldn't they show the thing they're claiming to be true?

The closest they come is showing a pic of a pig head- but funny thing about the pig head... it is shown in extreme close up. One can't establish its context... in fact on close inspection it appears to be a pig head resting on a flat surface. Having done a lot of butchery and cut up a lot of pig heads I can say there doesn't seem to be any way from the way it is resting that that pig head is being held aloft on a spike.

If these claims are true, and there were reporters there... why no pics to prove these claims?

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In pursuit of the facts here I followed more links and sites looking for pics of these alleged horrible signs.

Granted, some of the signs were hard to read, but one would think in reporting these alleged inflammatory signs that they would be able to zoom in on one or two, no?

So here is what I could make out:

Only Christ Can Save You From Sin And Hell

Jesus is Lord

Jesus said Go And Sin No More

Fear God

I love Jesus And I am Muslim

This was from a search of 10 sites containing pics, none of which were Xtian sites.

Also in the pics the Missionaries appear to be standing peacefully. A don't see the kind of activity being claimed.. or screaming or heckling the crowd...

Could it have happened?

Sure.. but this one is really setting my bullshit meter off.

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Sometimes christians come onto campus and start preaching on literal soap boxes. They stand around peacefully and usually don't say anything more inflamatory than "you all commit adultry", which by their definition is probably true for most college students. They then try to hand their materials. No one throws stones at them or even argues with them, no one throws rocks at them. I think this is because the kind of people at my school know that violence in unnacceptable under most circumstances.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/screaming-anti-islam-protesters-taunt-muslims-with-pigs-head-youre-going-to-melt-in-the-fires-of-hell/

The video in this article shows multiple signs that are clearly meant to inflame people. Its obvious that their intention wasn't to spread their religion, but to ruin people's day. One calling their prophet a child molester.

Fact is though, that fair is probably the worse place for Christians to preach/troll/protest . You have large groups of teenagers (in the video it looked like a lot of teenagers) who are probably sexually repressed by their religions (Orthodox Christianity and Islam) and also happen to be part of an unpopular ethnic group (arabs) and religions (weird catholicism and the terrorist religion). If I want commentary on the muslim religion and the cultures that it produces I would look to nations populated by muslims (Indonesia, Saud Arabia etc) not the actions of stupid high school kids looking for a fight.

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It's obvious that these guys didn't expect to convert anyone at the fair. Their main purpose seems to be to draw attention to Muslims in Deerborn and the problems the believe to be associated with those Muslims. Say what you will about their beliefs, but their methods appear to be legitimate. In fact, they are effective as well; know I've got a better idea of what would happen if, say, Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher went to Deerborn.

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Thanks, Hairnet, for TheBlaze link. It had a Youtube video clip shot apparently by an Arab American festival goer; and if you go to the youtube page of that video you can see, on the right, another youtube video, an hour-long one, posted by a 'buddyfisher1', an apparent insider of this Christian group ('Bible Believers'?). The pig's head, the incendiary language, the ranting over the megaphone is all confirmed.

The relevant issue is not, of course, the incendiary language and gestures, but rather whose free speech rights were violated. The internet supporters of these Christian fanatics say that regardless of how incendiary the language and actions (the pig's head, etc.) of these activists, the Muslims had no right to be violent (to throw things and shove them around, etc.). Technically, they are correct. But, what they want people to not notice (or not consider) is the fact that the activists were engaged in an act of disrupting another group's event --that it was THEY who were violating the free speech and assembly rights of the festival organizers.

The arab American Chamber of Commerce had obtained a permit to use this normally public space for a term of three days for their festival. It is my understanding that the organizers even permitted people to rent booths to sell things, and that the booth renters could even distribute religious literature. These Christian activists, who have shown up for several successive years now, are never interested in renting a booth.

So, what is truly shocking to me, now, (or dismaying, anyway), is the fact that the police didn't arrest these goons during or immediately after their "protest" for 'disturbing the peace' or 'dis-orderly conduct' or 'trespassing'. They pussy-footed around.

How are we supposed to assimilate immigrants from the Middle East who are accustomed to mob violence, weak civil states (even if those states have powerful capricious dictators) and tribal loyalties if our own civil authorities failed to uphold laws designed to protect everyones' rights (free speech rights, property rights)? Like many people, I am concerned about assimilating Muslims into American culture and the American way of thinking; but the community of Dearborn set a pretty poor example with their behavior in this incident.

This is another example of how even smart people (...police officials, even...) don't have a firm grasp of free speech rights, because they don't understand how it involves property rights (one party in this dispute clearly had the right to use that area).

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Clearly, the offending group of Christians featured at WND had apparently applied for, and were not awarded a "free speech zone". I recall that from an exchange between one of the police officers and Israel. In that regard, the people coming to attend the festival were paying for (not necessarily with money, but by investing their time in the event) the festival, and not to listen to this group of attention seekers. In regard to upholding laws designed to protect everyones' rights, the officers were shown to be discussing what should be done with a legal adviser. My guess would be a lack of clarity with regard to the principles involved led to the advice of how the situation should be pragmatically diffused.

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Judge says man can't hand out Bibles at Twin Cities Pride fest

While the order seems reasonable and has parallels that could apply to the Dearborn festival, the following lines stood out:

In denying Johnson's motion for a restraining order, Davis noted that "free expression in a public forum is a core liberty that must be guarded with vigilance." But he said it must be balanced with the rights of others and with legitimate government concerns.

Balanced with the rights of others? If all individuals possess the same rights, are they not already balanced?

Secondly, the idea of "legitimate government concerns" comes across as too ambiguous and subject to serving as an umbrella to shield any government action.

Again, if I pay to attend a public presentation by Peter Schwartz, for instance, I am paying to hear what Peter Schwartz has to say, not what a "questioner" afterward may want to turn into a soapbox in the guise of asking a question of clarification about what Peter may have had to say during his talk.

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Judge says man can't hand out Bibles at Twin Cities Pride fest

While the order seems reasonable and has parallels that could apply to the Dearborn festival, the following lines stood out:

In denying Johnson's motion for a restraining order, Davis noted that "free expression in a public forum is a core liberty that must be guarded with vigilance." But he said it must be balanced with the rights of others and with legitimate government concerns.

Balanced with the rights of others? If all individuals possess the same rights, are they not already balanced?

Secondly, the idea of "legitimate government concerns" comes across as too ambiguous and subject to serving as an umbrella to shield any government action.

Again, if I pay to attend a public presentation by Peter Schwartz, for instance, I am paying to hear what Peter Schwartz has to say, not what a "questioner" afterward may want to turn into a soapbox in the guise of asking a question of clarification about what Peter may have had to say during his talk.

This conclusion by the judge is immoral. However, in a free society I don't see how protests would ever be anyone's right. You can say whatever you want, but once you are asked to leave you should leave.

.

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Hairnet, it depends on the nature of the forum. These Christian protesters appeared to be in a public place. But the permitting process obviously gives the organizers some level of rightful control over who says what during the event. I don't know enough about this to say for certain, but after thinking about it for a while I suspect that the Christians probably should have been removed earlier. But you are right about the judge's statement. It was an awful justification for what happened.

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The judge's statement is regarding a man who desired to hand out free Bibles to people attending a Gay Pride festival in Twin Cities, not the rabble rousers that chose to attend the International Arab festival in Dearborn. The solution the Twin Cities verdict offered was to provide a booth that was "contiguous" with the booths that were part of the Gay Pride festival near one of the entrances. The solution seems sound enough, but the reasoning that led up to it is suspect.

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Outrage over mob attack in Michigan

'Officers made choice to allow Muslims to silence Christian speakers'

WND later learned that the Christian crowd had been carrying a pole with a pig’s head attached to the top, further angering the Muslim crowd. At the beginning of the video, Christian street preachers shout, “God is good, and God is not Allah!”

While they acknowledge this detail, the article, by and large, is more Christian apologist, not surprising, considering the source.

Another line that stands out particularly is "Muise said in America, speech serves “its ‘high purposes’ when it stirs people to anger.”"

I don't know about 'high purposes', but it certainly illustrates how well critical thinking skills are valued.

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