A lot of people on this thread are missing a key point... This meeting is sponsored by a muslim group and the speakers are government flunkies. That doesn’t mean that the Tennessee people have gone soft and are accepting of islam. In fact, this is an effort the try and win over the people of Tennessee - most notably the people in Manchester and Coffee county. This article is from a dinosaur media newspaper run by liberals. How else could the story be presented other than to make it sound like the people in Coffee county are seeking to be peace-makers with islam? The story is presented in such a way as to make those that truly understand the evils of islam feel like they are a minority and that they therefore need to question themselves as to whether or not they are correct and need to change their thinking. Typical liberal media tactic...
The reasons for the meeting are also being driven by a fear of what might happen to the mosques that that already exist. It often does’t take more that a few beers and some agitated talk about islam to get a Tennessean to set a match to a mosque, as happened in Columbia, Tennessee a few years ago. Action comes easily enough around here (such as the “Battle of Athens, Tennessee”) for sober Tennesseans. A little liquid courage just serves to speed things up a bit.
Local conservative talk show host Ralph Bristol was organizing (via broadcast) conservatives and Christians to attend this meeting so that the real pointed questions could be asked. He requested that people be civil, but that they don’t back down from what we know to be facts about islam and the way the islamists conduct themselves. The sponsors of this meeting may find that they wish they had never planned this meeting to start with. It might just shine more light on the truths about islam than the muzzies can stand...
Please don’t think for a moment that Tennessee is weakening in its Patriotic resolve... In the past 13 years, Tennesseans have kept Al Gore from becoming president by rejecting him at the polls. They elected a Republican Governor, a Republican State House and a Republican State Senate (yes, some of those R’s are moderates, but it is the first time since the War Between the States that this has happened). They have repeatedly rejected a state income tax. They have passed legislation reaffirming state soveriengty, aka H.B. 1796 or “The 10th Anendment Act.” We are moving further and further away from big government (even though I do wish it were at a quicker pace). I own a gun shop and can tell you first hand from dealing with customers every day: Tennesseans as a group are absolutely strengthening their stance against all things that would go against our Constitution, our state soveriegnty, and pretty much anything else that one might consider un-American. I would say that more of us in Tennessee are more firmly set in our conservative mindsets than ever before.
Bless his heart! I was hoping to hear, in all the rhetoric, an actual attempt to push back on this nonsense! Are you going?
Also, we need to come to the defense of the Freedom of Speech. The idea of a “Hate Crime” to me is an abomination to the very core of the Constitution I swore an oath to numerous times. When a crime is committed, especially a violent crime, what difference should the motivation of the perpetrator be? It is the violent act itself that is criminal, no? One can think whatever one wants to, just keep your hands to yourself.
That a United States District Attorney, of all people, would advocate prosecution of people exercising their RIGHT of Freedom of Speech is abhorrent! We have to legally tolerate the Westboro “Baptist Church” protesting, in the most ugly ways, in person, their right of Freedom of Speech and this petty tyrant wants to use the LAW to go after posters on web sites!!??? We cannot allow these bureaucrats and Leftist legalistic lawyers to erode our Constitution with this kind of nonsense!