@nexxo Oh please no, not black leather boots and uniforms...you kinky mod you! NHS is looking up these days eh! @Krikkit Well the next time he calls me a fascist or racist without an iota of evidence other than his prejudice of any questions or opinions that doesn't kow-tow to leftist ideaology (Labour/UAF/SWP etc), Please edit HIS posts accordingly. Until he has met my colleagues/former colleagues and my mates (of many faiths & creed) he has NOTHING to back up his claims.
I disagree that it is just a stereotype. Example: C of E and Roman Catholics are against same sex marriage --not just within their faith, but for anyone in secular society. I remind you again of the firebrand messages spouted in France by Catholic leaders: war, blood etc. They are also outspoken against sex before marriage (and hence safe sex practices and sex education), against vaccination for cervical cancer (because it "encourages promiscuity") and against abortion even when the life of the mother is at risk. Sorry, but with all due respect, they are not open-minded, emancipated and empowering religions. That is, as you'd say, a description of their mechanic, not a criticism. That belief is not exclusive to Islam, but also occurs in Christianity and Judaism (30% of Christian Americans believe in Biblical Literalism). And indeed we see extremism there. Not just the Phelps family, but also terrorism against abortion clinics and its staff, and terrorism in Israel committed by fundamentalist Jews. You don't even have to be religious to be an extremist. Vaccine scientists have received death threats from more fundie elements of the anti-MMR crowd. Yet your approach to dealing with extremists seems to be based on personal conviction of principle, not on what works. Even a psychotic acts rationally within his irrational belief system. That does not mean anything. Holding fundamentalist views is a product of extreme mental inflexibility and existential anxiety, and hence of mental health problems. Earlier you asked me if I thought religious belief was a mental illness. Who is trying to put extremist words in the other's mouth again? I am not implying anything of the sort. I am implying that people with certain mental health issues are attracted to extremist belief systems (religious or otherwise) that give them the certainty, structure, belonging, meaning and purpose to their lives that they crave (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs: need to belong, need for (self-) esteem, need to actualise one's potential). If the extremism du jour happens to be Islamism, then that's where they'll go. Why not? People are posting web pages where they, quite extensively and in pseudo-scientific detail, argue that homosexuals are closet paedophiles. That seems to be OK. Of course such ideas get challenged, as they should. So is holocaust denial and all sorts of other crackpot ideas. And the public sees these beliefs being voiced, it sees them being challenged with sensible logic and reason, and realises that those beliefs are so much BS. That's how this whole freedom of speech thing works in a democracy.
I tell you, since we're getting privatized we are getting some spiffing uniforms. The PVC is a bit hard to get into without lots of talcum power, though. Fair do's. I acknowledge that such an insult may feel particularly hurtful to you given that you actually risk your life for the democratic values of this country. So next time I will.
I'm away for one day and my last comment was 2 pages ago...Really? This is probably why I don't post in serious anymore... I'm just going to bow out. I just checked my be-arsed scale and the reading was low.
