The founders were English citizens and well aware of the way in which religion could stoke political violence. In the late 18th century, Cromwell was not ancient history, neither were the Covenanters or the Gunpowder Plot. While they did not anticipate like the rise of an Islamic insurgency in America, they understood quite well that religion and violence could and would intersect.
-----------------------
Until now the only real acid test for this approach involved the Mormon Church, an ugly history on both sides that has mostly been buried under the weight of time. More recently Scientology flared up as a cult turned church that demanded its own autonomy and did its best to make war on the government and its critics.
And then there is Islam. The first problem with using the First Amendment in defense of Islam-- is that its goal is to violate the First Amendment. Islam's widely stated goal is to become a State Religion, around the world and in America as well.
Sharia has been making steady advances in Africa and parts of Asia. Majorities of Muslims in the UK have said that they want Sharia law, and leading British figures such as the Archbishop of Canterbury have supported the introduction of Islamic law into the British legal system. Domestic advocates for Sharia, such as Noah Feldman, are pushing for the normalization of Sharia law in the United States as well.
This would in effect turn Islam into an Established Religion in the United States, itself a violation of the First Amendment.
Furthermore Islam abridges the remaining portions of the First Amendment, which protect Freedom of Speech and the Press. Islam rejects both of these. To protect Islamic rights therefore means depriving non-Muslims of freedom of religion--- and both Muslims and non-Muslims of freedom of speech and the press.
These are not hypothetical scenarios, the Mohammed cartoon controversy has demonstrated exactly how this will work. So did the persecution of Salman Rushdie. To accept Islam is to reject freedom of speech and religion... in the same way that accepting Communism meant rejecting freedom of speech and religion. Islam and the Constitution of the United States are incompatible in the same way that Communism and the Constitution are incompatible.
-------------------------
In 1785, James Madison, Father of the Constitution, wrote, "We hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth that religion or the duty which we owe our Creator and the manner of discharging it can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence."
Yet Islamic history and recent events in Eurabia demonstrate that Islam does indeed spread by force and violence. Upholding the right of Islam to force its statues and views on Americans, violates Madison's fundamental and undeniable truth.
-----------------------------
There is a key phrase in this statement, which is that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions. This statement was used as a legal principle by the Supreme Court in 1878 in the case of Reynolds vs the United States. Reynolds had been charged with bigamy and claimed that his faith required him to engage in polygamy.
The Court found that while Reynolds had the right to believe that polygamy was his duty, he did not have the right to practice it-- thus upholding Jefferson's distinction between action and belief.
----------------------------
We can begin by pointing out that any number of Islamic practices which violate American law or promote an unhealthy social consequence can be banned, for much the same reason that polygamy was. In Reynolds vs the United States, the Court upheld the right of the Utah legislature to brand the spread of polygamy as a threat to innocent women and children, that had to be arrested through strong measures. The spread of Islam's practices can be seen in the same way.
------------------------
Thus while we cannot charge someone with believing in Islam, we can stamp out many Islamic practices that are dangerous or abusive. The First Amendment does not protect religious practices that are illegal or made illegal, it protects only the beliefs themselves.
And we can go much further at an organizational level, based on the Sedition Act of 1918 and the 1954 Communist Control Act , which give us some guidelines for cracking down on Islam.
-------------------------
Not only can this same argument also apply to Islamic organizations such as CAIR, but Islam can be distinguished from other religions on similar grounds. The following phrase from the original document represents the key point here;
------------------------------
And that is the core of the problem. While we cannot criminalize individual beliefs alone, we can criminalize organizations dedicated to overthrowing the United States and replacing it with a totalitarian system. An organization is not merely "belief", it also represents an attempt to put those beliefs into practice.
The Internal Security Act of 1950, along with the 1954 Communist Control Act provides extensive legal grounds for criminalizing organizations dedicated to the overthrow of the United States, as well as membership in such organizations-- and even provides for the removal of citizenship from members of such organizations.
While succeeding courts have thrown out many portions of these laws, had the United States truly gotten serious about the War on Terror, it could have passed a real Patriot Act that would have clamped down on Islamist organizations in a similar way.
------------------------
Since Islam represents a totalitarian dictatorship, any organization or individual seeking to establish Islamic Law or Sharia within the United States, can be held liable and charged over its violation. This would apply to both Muslims and non-Muslims.
And the Koran or Quran itself represents a volume whose contents implicitly call for the violent overthrow of the United States.
--------------------------
Thus we can ban Islam from the public sphere, ban Muslim organizations as criminal organizations, criminalize Muslim practices and even denaturalize and deport Muslims who are United States citizens. The legal infrastructure is there. Despite the fact that the United States is far more protective of political and religious rights, within a decade every single Muslim organization, from the national to the mosque level, can be shut down... and the majority of professing Muslims can be deported from the United States regardless of whether they are citizens or not.
We can do it. Whether we could or will do it is another matter.
lol:
