The long term security of civilisation has been, and is being gravely compromised by a number of western governments. Their ideological and idealistic preoccupation with freedom, seems to have blinded them to the very things that most endanger it, and they have failed to protect our civilisations against those threats. The 'freedom' to incite murder, racial hatred and treason on the streets for instance, far from upholding freedom and human rights, is a gross affront to both. Yet we have seen people doing exactly this, in the name of so-called Islamic Fundamentalism, in the UK this week. And their actions have been tolerated in the name of 'freedom'. But their 'freedom' was the 'freedom' to threaten the freedom of others, including that of law abiding Moslems we should note. What perversity and complacency possesses us to tolerate this?

Ideologies, even relatively inoffensive ones, have the potential to take possession of the state. Human history makes this very obvious. Democracy is but one such ideology, and the one that happens to prevail today in our countries. But what concerns me, is the slim chance that it will prevail tomorrow, if we allow people to continue to preach murder, the downfall of the democratic state, and treason on our streets in the name of freedom?

Religions and other such all encompassing ideologies create large bodies of people who share the same opinions and attitudes. But once the majority of people in any society become sufficiently like-minded in that way, that society becomes extremely unstable, and democracy itself becomes unworkable. Democracy relies on the 'fact' that the majority of people will never agree on the majority of matters. Should that 'fact' not be so, then democracy is a non-starter. What happened in Germany with the rise of Hitler and Nazism, shows us what happens when the people in a society start to agree about the majority of matters. And there are many less notable examples. What you end up with is war, or tyranny, or both. Therefore all major ideologies with a substantial following represent a threat to democracy. This is especially true of religions that encompass so-called divine rules of law that are at odds with the laws of a democratic state. Such threats needs to be taken much more seriously. We delude ourselves if we believe our civilised democracies are invulnerable. The reality is that civilisation and democracy will always be endangered, and will always need to be vigorously defended and guarded with the greatest vigilance and determination.

Much complaint has been made by some people about the various contrary opinions that have been expressed following the recent atrocities in the USA. However, we should rejoice that people in our society have the luxury to disagree, and we should further rejoice that our society is stable enough to nurture such disagreement.

Excuse me for the incompleteness of argument. I have very little time for writing such messages.

Was this in response to the TO THE MUSLUM DEMONSTRATORS IN UK thread

(http://network54.com/Hide/Forum/thread?forumid=153920&messageid=1000937934)

I agree with thw bit about large bodies of people agreeing with the same principles but how can you call democracy an idealistic ideaology?

And aren't you contradicting yourself by saying "we should rejoice that people in our society have the luxury to disagree, and we should further rejoice that our society is stable enough to nurture such disagreement."?