My last post on Shariah law brought some good comments and I thank you for them, but that is a rightwing argument just to distract their base from real debate over the jobs situation and how we will grow the economy here in America as opposed to China or India or Mexico. The GOP wants to distract you from the truth of their do-nothing agenda if they should take back some of the power. But the liberals are here to set things straight and I intend to do just that!
President Obama spoke today at Milwaukee's Laborfest. He talked about jobs, the economy and infrastructure. He outlined a $50 billion dollar plan he intends on presenting to Congress for investing in roads, railways and runways. But just as you imagined the GOP has already began an assault on this plan. Their plan?? TO SAY NO!
"Over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads - enough to circle the world six times," Obama told audience of rank-and-file labor union members.
"We're going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways - enough to stretch coast-to-coast. We're going to restore 150 miles of runways and advance a next generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers."
Obama called for the creation of a permanent infrastructure bank "to leverage federal dollars and focus on the smartest investments."
He said the bank will continue the "strategy to build a national high-speed rail network that reduces congestion, travel times, and harmful emissions."
He added that the bank will consolidate more than 100 different programs and "change the way Washington spends your tax dollars."
Earlier, Ray LaHood, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, told the crowd that "high-speed rail is coming to Wisconsin.""Nobody can stop this train," LaHood said of the proposed Milwaukee-to-Madison route, which will be built with $810 million in federal stimulus money.
Former U.S. Rep Mark Neumann and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, the Republican candidates for governor, have vowed to stop the project.
WHY?? Why have these republicans vowed to stop infrastructure jobs? Could it be because they fear America getting back to work, proving Democratic leaders can work for Americas interest? They want things to go downhill before November elections, they don't want to see people going back to work, that would ruin their chances to win back the power. This is their agenda, POWER for themselves, NOT jobs for you!
President Obama said this today... "Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time are not very happy with me. They talk about me like a dog." Wow....I thought he did a great job with the speech today in Wisconsin. He laid out a plan to put people to work. Why the right and some on the left want to fight this is outrageous. Putting people to work is the most important thing right now, once this country is moving again then we can work on the deficit. Democrats know how to pay down debt, don't you worry your pretty little heads about that. We DO have a proven track record. What track record do the republicans have??
You can read the speech here incase you missed it. I thought it was a great speech!
lisa's Shariah law, and the truth about her claims...
This is lisa's interpretation of the Sharia Law she and her rightie friends think is coming to America...
1- Jihad defined as “to war against non-Muslims to establish the religion” is the duty of every Muslim and Muslim head of state (Caliph). Muslim Caliphs who refuse jihad are in violation of Sharia and unfit to rule.
2- A Caliph can hold office through seizure of power meaning through force.
3- A Caliph is exempt from being charged with serious crimes such as murder, adultery, robbery, theft, drinking and in some cases of rape.
4- A percentage of Zakat (alms) must go towards jihad.
5- It is obligatory to obey the commands of the Caliph, even if he is unjust.
6- A caliph must be a Muslim, a non-slave and a male.
7- The Muslim public must remove the Caliph in one case, if he rejects Islam.
8- A Muslim who leaves Islam must be killed immediately.
9- A Muslim will be forgiven for murder of : 1) an apostasy 2) an adulterer 3) a highway robber. Making vigilante street justice and honor killing acceptable.
10- A Muslim will not get the death penalty if he kills a non-Muslim.
11- Sharia never abolished slavery and sexual slavery and highly regulates it. A master will not be punished for killing his slave.
12- Sharia dictates death by stoning, beheading, amputation of limbs, flogging and other forms of cruel and unusual punishments even for crimes of sin such as adultery.
1- Jihad defined as “to war against non-Muslims to establish the religion” is the duty of every Muslim and Muslim head of state (Caliph). Muslim Caliphs who refuse jihad are in violation of Sharia and unfit to rule.
2- A Caliph can hold office through seizure of power meaning through force.
3- A Caliph is exempt from being charged with serious crimes such as murder, adultery, robbery, theft, drinking and in some cases of rape.
4- A percentage of Zakat (alms) must go towards jihad.
5- It is obligatory to obey the commands of the Caliph, even if he is unjust.
6- A caliph must be a Muslim, a non-slave and a male.
7- The Muslim public must remove the Caliph in one case, if he rejects Islam.
8- A Muslim who leaves Islam must be killed immediately.
9- A Muslim will be forgiven for murder of : 1) an apostasy 2) an adulterer 3) a highway robber. Making vigilante street justice and honor killing acceptable.
10- A Muslim will not get the death penalty if he kills a non-Muslim.
11- Sharia never abolished slavery and sexual slavery and highly regulates it. A master will not be punished for killing his slave.
12- Sharia dictates death by stoning, beheading, amputation of limbs, flogging and other forms of cruel and unusual punishments even for crimes of sin such as adultery.
13- Non-Muslims are not equal to Muslims and must comply to Sharia if they are to remain safe. They are forbidden to marry Muslim women, publicly display wine or pork, recite their scriptures or openly celebrate their religious holidays or funerals. They are forbidden from building new churches or building them higher than mosques. They may not enter a mosque without permission. A non-Muslim is no longer protected if he commits adultery with a Muslim woman or if he leads a Muslim away from Islam.
14- It is a crime for a non-Muslim to sell weapons to someone who will use them against Muslims. Non-Muslims cannot curse a Muslim, say anything derogatory about Allah, the Prophet, or Islam, or expose the weak points of Muslims. However, the opposite is not true for Muslims.
15- A non-Muslim cannot inherit from a Muslim.
16- Banks must be Sharia compliant and interest is not allowed.
17- No testimony in court is acceptable from people of low-level jobs, such as street sweepers or a bathhouse attendant. Women in such low level jobs such as professional funeral mourners cannot keep custody of their children in case of divorce.
18- A non-Muslim cannot rule even over a non-Muslims minority.
19- Homosexuality is punishable by death.
20- There is no age limit for marriage of girls under Sharia. The marriage contract can take place anytime after birth and consummated at age 8 or 9.
21- Rebelliousness on the part of the wife nullifies the husband’s obligation to support her, gives him permission to beat her and keep her from leaving the home.
22- Divorce is only in the hands of the husband and is as easy as saying: “I divorce you” and becomes effective even if the husband did not intend it.
23- There is no community property between husband and wife and the husband’s property does not automatically go to the wife after his death.
24- A woman inherits half what a man inherits.
25- A man has the right to have up to 4 wives and she has no right to divorce him even if he is polygamous.
26- The dowry is given in exchange for the woman’s sexual organs.
27- A man is allowed to have sex with slave women and women captured in battle, and if the enslaved woman is married her marriage is annulled.
28- The testimony of a woman in court is half the value of a man.
29- A woman looses custody if she remarries.
30- To prove rape, a woman must have 4 male witnesses.
31- A rapist may only be required to pay the bride-money (dowry) without marrying the rape victim.
32- A Muslim woman must cover every inch of her body which is considered “Awrah,” a sexual organ. Some schools of Sharia allow the face and some don’t.
33- A Muslim man is forgiven if he kills his wife caught in the act of adultery. However, the opposite is not true for women since he “could be married to the woman he was caught with.”
This is one of the comments about lisa's interpretation of Sharia law....
Freddsaid...Lisa's enumeration of sharia is enough to make anybody puke. If this is the word of the Koran, then anyone who advocates sharia should be considered an enemy of our representative republic. Nearly all of sharia is criminal here in the U.S.
Wow, Fredd and lisa really should educate themselves before they start spewing such stupidity. This is the problem in America today. These righties get ass over head, they do not do the research needed to post a comment on a subject, but simply recite the words a hateful rightwing website tells them to.
Here is a portion of a post by Sumbul Ali Karamali, on September 3, 2010, Huffington Post.....
Hasn't the whole notion of shariah in America gotten a bit out of control? No, it hasn't -- it's gotten hugely, obscenely, ignorantly out of control. How many of those anti-Islam protesters holding "NO SHARIA LAW" signs (as if anyone were advocating shariah law in the U.S.) actually know what the word means? I'd say, oh, none. Roughly.
Shariah (also spelled shari'ah or sharia or shari'a) is the Arabic word for "the road to the watering place." In a religious context, it means "the righteous path." Loosely, it can mean simply, "Islam."
There are six principles of shariah. They are derived from the Qur'an, which Muslims believe is the word of God. All Islamic religious rules must be in line with these six principles of shariah.
Aha! The six principles must be about killing infidels, veiling women, stoning people for adultery, honor killings and female genital cutting, right? Nope.
Here they are, the six principles of shariah:
1. The right to the protection of life.
2. The right to the protection of family.
3. The right to the protection of education.
4. The right to the protection of religion.
5. The right to the protection of property (access to resources).
6. The right to the protection of human dignity.
Well, bless me, as a pledge-of-allegiance-reciting, California-raised Muslim girl, these six principles sound a lot like those espoused in my very own Constitution of the United States. Except that these were developed over a thousand years ago.
This is the core of shariah -- these six principles. The term "shariah law" is a misnomer, because shariah is not law, but a set of principles. To Muslims, it's the general term for "the way of God."
you can finish reading here but I want to add her closing words....
Repeating a lie over and over again doesn't make it true; but it certainly results in people believing the lie. That's what the Islam-haters are counting on. That, and the ignorance about Islamic tenets.
So the best thing to do is find out what Islam really is about. Talk to a Muslim in person. Read an introduction to Islam (try a fun one like mine). Read Loonwatch to read about the holes in the anti-Islamic rhetoric. Or take a look at the University of Georgia's informational website on Islam, for some quick answers and further reading. If you read the anti-Islam fear-mongering websites, all you'll learn will be tall tales.
Bigotry may be a human tendency, but America has never stood for bigotry. I believe in an America that stands for pluralism and multicultural understanding. The hysteria and hate toward Muslims - resulting in several acts of violence against Muslims just this week, such as a stabbing and arson - is un-American. We must stop it, and the first step is understanding and education.
Sumbul Ali-Karamali is an attorney with an additional degree in Islamic law, as well as the author of "The Muslim Next Door: the Qur'an, the Media, and that Veil Thing."
Jesus Needs You
When a Government wishes to increase the number of recruits for the Armed Services, the advertising campaign is based on the threat posed to the country or its values. ‘Your Country Needs You!, was the most successful poster campaign of the first world war. Modern day advertising is to recruit people to volunteer by appealing to their sense of adventure and excitement. There is never a footnote on the poster “Soldiering may be dangerous to your health”Jesus was different. When an enthusiastic young man ran up to Jesus and said “I‘ll follow you wherever you go” Jesus stares back and retorts, ‘Foxes and birds have the comfort of hole and nest; I don’t have even that, and neither will you. Go home and think some more about discipleship” This does not sound like a winning formula for church growth.
Discipleship is costly in any era. In the past century i.e. the 1990s more Christians have died for their faith than in all the centuries before put together.
Statues of 20th Century saints and martyrs were erected in St Albans Abbey to mark the millennium. They include Mother Theresa. One of them Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor lived in Germany during the regime of Hitler.
Bonhoeffer was part of the resistance to the Gestapo, and though he lived in America for a short time and could have avoided persecution, he chose to go back to Germany to encourage others in Germany especially in the Church not to crumble before Hitler and his Government. Eventually he was arrested, along with other members of his family and placed in a concentration camp. Bonhoeffer was executed on April 9th 1945 just a few days before the concentration camp was liberated by the Allies.
While in the camp he wrote papers and letters about the theology behind martyrdom - these were smuggled out by guards who liked him. Later they were put in a book called ‘The cost of Discipleship’ Jesus, in our passage of scripture today is talking about the cost of Discipleship.
Bonhoeffer believed we live in a time of ‘cheap grace’ and easy beliefs. He argues that cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the Church. Cheap grace given away at cut prices The Sacraments, forgiveness of sins, the consolations of religion are showered with generous hands without asking questions or fixing limits
Cheap grace is forgiveness proclaimed as a general truth without stressing repentance. God’s love is taught as a general concept of God without stressing that God’s love wants our salvation. True grace is Costly – it is free because the account has been paid in advance by Jesus but not cheap. It is treasure hidden in a field – for the sake of it a person will sell all he has. It is a pearl of great price that a person gives their all to possess It is the kingly rule of Christ for which a person will pluck out an eye if it causes him to stumble. It is the call of Christ for which the disciples left their nets to follow him. It is so magnificently summed up in the Methodist Covenant Prayer:
In am no longer my own but thine. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will: put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.
True grace can be costly. Jesus doesn’t want to con his followers into believing it will be easy - it will be fulfilling - it gives us inner peace, pardon, the power of the Holy Spirit - eternal life but could be difficult. Jesus drives the point home with three Cannot statements
1. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his
wife and children, brothers and sisters- yes even his own life- he cannot be my disciple. This must have been shocking to those who heard it - it is shocking to us. We are to love family. Marriage and family are the good gifts of God. He means we should never love our relatives or ourselves more than Him. This is part of the cost many Christian workers pay is terms of time spent with family, or finance or promotion so fulfilling the call to missionary work.
2. If anyone does not carry his cross and follow me he cannot be my
disciple. This too would be very shocking to the crowds. After all, unlike us, many of them may have witnessed what Jesus here described: a condemned criminal bearing his own cross through the streets of a town to a place of crucifixion. Jesus is saying you may suffer for your faith. Jim Elliot had a passion to take the gospel to the Auca Indians of South American. He flew with a missionary pilot deep into the jungle. They landed their plane near a river. Their reception was violent and the Auca Indians killed them. An investigation showed that there was a gun in the plane that had never been used. They had come in peace. Jim Elliot had written in his journal these words “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose”. Jim’s and the pilot’s death became the seeds of more missionary efforts. Eventually the Tribe of Aucas were won over. Later, Elizabeth Elliot, Jim’s widow would baptise in the river where her husband was killed, the man who fired the fatal arrow.
3 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything. They
cannot be my disciple. This is a long way from what is called prosperity gospelfv - where faith will automatically give you health and wealth. Jesus had just re-enforced the point with two stories “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ The issue was not whether or not he should build the tower, the issue is to be prepared before beginning. The issue is not do with building or not or waging war or not... It’s to do with being aware of the costs from the outset.
Have you assessed the cost of being a disciple? When you, however and whenever you said your yes to Jesus, did you realise that suffering, poverty and losing all relationships were on the cards? It’s not too late to walk away... no strings attached.
Being a disciple is nothing to do with the warm fuzzy feeling, it is nothing to do with being (or being seen to be) good or holy, it is nothing to do with just coming to church. Being a disciple is all about listening to, learning from and living and loving like Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t say that you cannot be my disciple - all are welcome. He just asks us to give him our all. Amen.
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Oh, I am back off hols and that is a version of what I'm preaching tomorrow... :-)
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