Was founded on. Was founded on it was founded on a deep and profound belief from people that brought a great these areo people all arguable and debatable points today, but in many ways benefited from that tradition. So, i want to talk about citizenship, which is an interesting concept because in the islamic tradition, citizenship, the actual word in is thefor citizenship place you were born. Historically, it is conferred upon people based on birth. You can be naturalized, but it is a birthright if you are born in a place, historically you are a citizen of that place. One of the interesting verses in the koran the koran swears by the city of mecca and it says the prophet was a lawful citizen of the country and had a birthright of being born into that city, he had a right to be there, and he had a right to think freely. And he was being wronged and oppressed. Is a birthright, but it is also related to the idea of suffrage and enfranchisement. The idea we can participate in our government
Representatives made because i do think we have got to reform immigration. I believe we need to reform it on a stepbystep bases. I know that we have disagreements about how we do that but i think you will see that things will start to happen on that with regard to Border Security and we passed a bill in this house last year with i think, 350 votes, that dealt with legal immigration. And we have got we didnt do everything but it did a bunch of things to get it started. And i know the member from utah is going to reintroduce that and expand and do things on that. I appreciate all of the witnesses being here and your points of view. We clearly are a diverse country with diverse views on many things including this issue but i think the bottom line is this is a fight about how we will get to a solution not necessarily rather the people want to get a to longterm solution on these issues. The gentlemen from colorado. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I do have an amendment and would like to be able to
Of questions that feel a little complementary to me. One may even partially answer the other. First one is how do you balance religious freedom against islams desire to take over the world . The second one is, given your description of what islam is and does, how can it be considered a religion . Thats a very good question. Number one, i think we should define in america what a religion should be. And ill tell you what my definition will be. A religion will be given the respect in america to be practiced only if it respects human basic human rights. [ applause ] any religion any religion we have to define religion. So if we define religion as a set of values and morals to live by, if a religion condemns those to leave it to death, its right to be practiced in america will be null and void. [ applause ] and thats the only way we can either reform islam, we have to get rid of that and we can judge islam by the way muslims practiced in america. By the way. We have to judge islam by how it
Jonathan schneer is a professor of modern british history at Georgia Tech School of History Technology and society where he has taught modern european and british history since 1989. Hes the author of several major works including the thames and wind river london 1900 the imperial megalopolis, metropolis and the Balfour Declaration origins of the arabisraeli conflict. The last of which won the 2010 National Jewish book award. Dr. Schneers writings can be seen in journals and periodicals. His extensive editorial experience includes work as a board member of the 20th century british history. Dr. Schneers book ministers at war spotlights minister churchvilles divisive cabinet cabinet. The work illustrates how churchills own team of rivals made up of tories and Labour Party Members proved instrumental in combating nazi germanys dance to the weird british isles. Please join me in welcoming jonathan schneer. [applause] good evening. And thank you everybody for coming on a spring night and th