What’s the opposite of coexistence? Domination. Suppression. Elimination. Extermination. Are these American values? Do we want them represented in Congress?
Allen West, the Republican Party nominee for Congress in Florida’s 22nd District, has made a speech publicly railing against the idea of coexistence:
As I was driving up here today, I saw that bumper sticker that absolutely incenses me. It’s not the Obama bumper sticker. But it’s the bumper sticker that says, ‘CoExist,’ and it has all the little religious symbols on it. And the reason why I get upset, and every time I see one of those bumper stickers, I look at the person inside that is driving. Because that person represents something that would give away our country. Would give away who we are, our rights and freedoms and liberties because they are afraid to stand up and confront that which is the antithesis, anathema of who we are. The liberties that we want to enjoy.
Watch the video of these remarks and you’ll see that Allen West makes these comments without the slightest sense of irony, which is quite sad. The “rights and freedoms and liberties” that are the foundation of American society are found in the Constitution. The very first freedoms are written in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads:
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.
In other words, Government shall not be used as a cudgel for one group to dominate another, for one belief to suppress another, for one religion to eliminate another. The central idea of the U.S. Constitution, which is the Supreme Law of our Land (Article VI), is CoExistence of different people, of different religions, of different expressions, of different ideas.
The GOP’s new nominee Allen West stands against CoExistence.
Allen West stands against the idea of America.
If you are for the American value of coexistence, be against the election of Allen West this November.
You trivialize what Colonel West was saying. He wasn’t implying that people of different religions and beliefs shouldn’t coexist. He’s speaking of the pacifism that is going on regarding the religion of Islam. He’s speaking of the words that our government and those on the left want to cover up. Words like jihad, fatah and Sharia. He’s speaking of a group of people that seek to change the very definition of western civilization and live by another set of laws. He’s speaking about people like you that bury the many unsettling facts about Islam with a “coexistence” bumper sticker. While you speak of coexistence, there is a growing population of Muslims that have no interest in coexistence at all. He’s acknowledging the uncomfortable fact that we will have to fight the takeover or be fundamentally changed forever by a Muslim majority many years down the road. Personally, I have no desire to see my children and grandchildren live in a Muslim majority in its current state. And I’m not so naive to believe that it will be tolerant and “westernized” by that point.
If you think there’s the remotest chance of a Muslim majority in America any time in the forseeable future, you just don’t have a grip on statistics. Only 3.9% of the U.S. population subscribes to a religion other than protestant or catholic Christianity. Only 0.6% of the population in the U.S. is Muslim.
I listened to Allen West’s entire speech, Lance. He was ridiculing the idea that the United States of America, a government, could coexist with Islam, a religion. His speech was a big, hocking gobspit onto the text of the U.S. Constitution.
You don’t have to like Islam to understand that people in the United States who are of an Islamic religion have the same first amendment rights to assembly, speech and religious expression as the rest of us. And neither you nor Allen West have the right to take away rights from other people in America just because you don’t like what they have to say.
[...] believe me? Read Allen West’s own words from a public speech this year: As I was driving up here today, I saw that bumper sticker that [...]