Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.
A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.
Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular State and its laws were made by parliament.
"If those are not your values, if you want a country that has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you", he said on national television.
"Immigrants, not Australians must adapt. Take it or leave it. I am tired of this Nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.
So, we see, terrorism isn't in the interests of anyone at all, including Muslims. Neither is trying to impose their own ideological dogmas upon a secular nation. Them's the facts!
Being attacked by an identifiable group actually has the effect of stiffening the resolve by the victims to refuse the demands of that identifiable group who commits the acts of murder. It's just as if an individual commits violent acts in society; that individual will therefore be prevented from commiting any further violent acts. Why should violence by a group (in this context, Islamic fundamentalists who take the Koran's dictates of hatred and murder literally) be excused?
Note to leftists: your people often blame Israel and "the Jews" for the problems of others. So don't you dare accuse me of "singling out unfairly" the Islamic fundamentalists, for if you've your eyes open and are using your brain, you will see for yourselves that they are indeed responsible for pretty much all terror attacks these days.
