Scientists Fear Visa Trouble Will Drive Foreign Students Away

The minimum wage moron (MWM) on the desk said my visa should have another piece of paper attached - he was wrong, but you can't appeal, you can't question, you can't see his superior. Fortunately my institute is famous enough (and my project has Nasa/goverment/military links) that they managed to get a letter from Washington confirming I worked there. Then I just had to arrive at the INS office at 5:00am queue all day to be shouted at by another bunch of MWM because there was nothing wrong with my Visa and I should have had it stamped at the airport.

But it has put me on some sort of list - which means an extra search and bag check now whenever I fly in the US.

I regret that I have but 8 karma points to give.

Islam, like all religious faiths, is predicated on the notion that rational thought is to be subjugated to some holy book or higher power. As such, Islam, and all other faiths (including even every moderate branch of mainstream religions in the U.S.) are susceptible to radicalization and militarization. While abortion clinic bombers are currently a much smaller problem than Muslim suicide bombers on a pure numbers basis, the potential is still there.

That said, Islam has proven itself to be exceedingly prone to militarization. The subordination of the intellect is an explicit tenet of even the name of the religion. The intellects of Muslims are, by definition, enslaved to the Koran and, by common practice throughout the world, enslaved to two-bit Mullahs and the insipid fatwas they issue. Western secular civilization, by definition, has not only the right but the obligation to be paranoid about Islam for as long as it take Islam to prove itself benign.

The only reason the western secular civilization need not immediately take remedial action against other, more moderate, strains of religious belief is that, currently, their capacity for sheer mindless barbaric murderousness has been rendered latent by the secularizing force of modern technology and society. Specifically, for example, there is no danger that printing an image of the Christian god will result in mobs of anti-intellectual zealots rioting in the streets, overturning and burning vehicles while chanting, "Death to America!" There is that danger with Islam.

It is only radical and misguided political correctness to say that Islam is not the enemy of the west, when Islam itself is explicitly opposed to such shining examples of western rationality and moral values as: 1) The seeking of equality of opportunity for women, 2) The seeking of knowledge via the scientific method, even if (and especially if) it leads to the overthrow of current understanding or doctrine, 3) Due process and commensurate punishment for individuals accused and found guilty, respectively, of crimes, 4) The separation of religious entities from the government, and so on.

Any sect that explicitly and in its founding texts is opposed to virtues such as the ones listed above is not only an enemy of the West, but an enemy of the scientific method that has brought so much benefit to mankind and even an enemy of every great thinker since the Enlightenment. I am not ashamed of my hatred for Islam, nor of my dislike for other organized religions. We can thank Islam for shepherding rationalism through the Christian Dark Ages but, currently, its only other gift to mankind is showing us explicitly how severe the latent danger of the religious mind really is.