Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment, which selectively requires the military to identify Islamic religious doctrines, concepts, or schools of thought used by various extremist groups and how they have been incorporated into terrorist messaging. The problem, of course, is that terrorist killers have used religious doctrines and concepts from every major religion on earth, including not just Islam, but Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, Hinduism, Buddhism, for homicidal purposes. Because religion is based on faith and not reason, and because religious texts are not self-explanatory, good people will invoke scripture for good causes and evil people will invoke scripture for evil causes. We don't need a big government study to teach us something so commonsensical, which the Founders taught us a long time ago. If we want to study the exploitation of religion for terrorism, let's study it universally. Focusing on one religion not only vastly understates the problem, but exacerbates the problem by fomenting the myth that religious fanaticism and terrorism are unique to the charlatans and predators of Islam when they are common to the charlatans and predators of nearly every religious faith and identification. Constitutionally, we do not single out particular religions for governmental inspection and suspicion under the First Amendment.”