You might be right, but I think there is a narrative lacking in the discussion of this issue and that is the historical aspect. Minarets for many Europeans is seen through the prism of history in which in Europe there has been a long violent struggle between the aggressive forces of Islam and Christian Europe. This is a part of the discussion and indeed every discussion on Islam that is always neglected and omitted. The Crusades is always referenced as an example of Christian fanaticism but oddly without the violent history of Islam that preceding and indeed precipitated that extreme Christian response. From Islam’s violent sweep from Saudi Arabia to the Holy Land and Turkey, to North Africa and Spain and even the footsteps of France, from Constantinople to the Balkans to the walls of Vienna, Islam has reaped a bloody history in Europe. In America we may look at this in the prism of religious freedom but in Europe, where history is indeed somewhat more alive than in the US, we cannot discuss this issue without taking into account the history Europeans have with Islamic power. For many Europeans the minaret is the new arm of Islamic power. Also we need to keep in mind the mentality of many European muslims is quite different than those here in America. Many European muslims are far more radical, nowhere more than England is this prevalent. And lastly, when muslim countries stop banning Christianity, the Bible and allow the construction of Christian churches then they complain about minarets being banned in Christian Europe by plebiscite.

This is a victory. A victory for we who are tired of our tolerance being abused.
Remember, as you yourself wrote, "A minaret is not to be confused with a mosque. A mosque is a place of worship while the minaret, which is often a prominent feature of a mosque, is a towering structure from where Muslims receive their call to prayer. In some respects, the minaret can be compared to a steeple on a church, which often also serves as a bell tower."
Get back to us when the Swiss bans mosques.
Now go grab a tight hold of your tolerant ways, while you still can.

"when muslim countries stop banning Christianity, the Bible and allow the construction of Christian churches then they complain about minarets being banned in Christian Europe by plebiscite."

How in the world can people criticize any attempt to stop the takeover of Europe by the Muslims?? Have any of you "mineret defenders" ever read any history??

How dumb is this writer? This was not about any religion per se. It was about the Swiss people wanting to keep their culture Swiss and was about as democratic a process – 1 person, 1 vote – as you can get. No wonder the Wilcow majority is such a negative conservative program that I can't listen.

As a Swiss citizen I of course voted FOR the ban and the result of this vote made me very proud of my country !

Sure, it’s an embarrassment for the Swiss government, this is great as it may teaches them and other leftist European authorities a lesson : STOP all immigration from muslim countries and STOP saying that islam is a peaceful religion !

Sure also that all other European governments are scared to death because they know that it’s very likely that this vote would show more or less the same results in all of them (hello fWance…).

Next step : let’s ban burkas and tchadors in public and outlaw the coran “as it is”.

Personal message to all those who are unhappy with this vote : you are free to get the hell out of OUR countries and emigrate to any muslim country, bon voyage !

The Swiss showed the right path, now it’s your turn !

why don't you talk to the saudis about 'tolerance'….see how far that gets you

"The Swiss, by voting in a referendum to amend their constitution to ban minarets, have essentially written the freedom of religion, a cornerstone of classical liberalism, out of their law of the land."

Perhaps, but this presents a vexing issue.

Islam is a religion, political ideology, and economic system. While is springs from the same seed as Judaism and Christianity, it is a distinctly different branch and I think that Europe is dealing with it as best they can. In concrete terms, the minaret ban is superficial, but it is a warning shot of sorts.

The real failure here is the political class of Europe, which is overwhelmingly liberal, and not in the classical sense. It's failure to address Muslim immigration and integration has left it's people with few alternatives.

I'm curious as to what your solution is Nick?

What pompous drivel.

If I were Swiss I would be very proud indeed of the outcome of this vote. I'm a true blue conservative here in the States and I've had it up to my eyeballs with all things islam and muslim. I don't want their mosques, minarets, honor killings, forced marriages to eight year-olds, genital mutilations, burqas, headscarves, etc. Heck, I simply do not want them anywhere in a civilized society because THEY DO NOT BELONG IN ONE. And it is far, far from a religion; it is a cult that loves death more than life and the sooner all civilized societies realize this, the better off they will be…

Good for the Swiss! I am sick and tired of people being so concerned with political correctness in the Western world. The writer may think that this is harmful to classical liberalism, but I think it is a victory for true democracy. The Swiss people voted on this law, Mosques were not banned, and Switzerland is not a traditionally Islamic country. So what is the problem? If Muslims that live in Switzerland are unhappy with Swiss law, they can always move. I just want to say that my post is not meant to be an attack on Muslims. In fact I also have no problem with the Saudis banning the building of Churches or Temples if the majority of residents in the Kingdom do not want them. Laws in Switzerland require referendums to be held in order to change Swiss law; the people have voted and don't want minarets. I would also like to add the fact that laws regarding religion in Europe differ from the laws here in the US. In fact if I recall correctly, in places like Scandinavia and Germany, there are still national churches that are supported by tax payers' money. I don't believe the author is qualified to comment on this topic,and I don't believe an American author should be commenting on European law unless it truly relates to injustice and oppression. Building codes in Switzerland can hardly be seen as causing injustice and oppression.

And one other thing. This article is what's "vomit inducing"…

Yeah, the Swiss rape jihad by Muslims against the women of switzerland sure makes the swiss love the muslims. Why, it's shocking they don't want more muslims, and more minarets everywhere! The muslims brought this on themselves, they make themselves hated. I don't blame the swiss at all.

An absurd editorial. This has nothing to do with "religious expression". Islam is not a "faith", but rather a political ideology, and one at direct conflict with Western civilization. The Swiss are free to ban the display of the swastika. The minaret is no different. But don't take my word for it. Let's hear what the elected Prime Minister of a Muslim nation, Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey sais to make it crystal clear: "Minarets are our bayonets. The domes are our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the believers our army." Get it now? If you don't then get yourself a "Kick Me, I'm a Dhimmi" t-shirt, Mr.Rizzuto.

nick is right on and the point is that why the hell are our conservative pundits reacting to something they don't understand?

i love malkin, hannity and o'reilly and the rest of them but then you get some nut job bloggers who just go off the edge like that atlas shrugged kook, forget it.

and as for a society banning religious symbols…WRONG!

that gellar chick IS vomit inducing!

Also note that Nick Rizzuto, the "writer" of this stupid article, isn't capable of correctly spelling Pamela Geller's (Atlas Shugs) name… He probably belongs to the crazy leftist horde at LGF or DailyKos, not here on a conservative blog !

The fact that people voted for it is immaterial, as one of the foundations of conservatism is an understanding that democracy has its limits. First amongst those limits, at least in the American Constitution, is that the people, no matter by how large of a majority, can not empower the government to enforce laws that single out a specific faith and subject it to special rules and regulations. The Swiss, by voting in a referendum to amend their constitution to ban minarets, have essentially written the freedom of religion, a cornerstone of classical liberalism, out of their law of the land.

Have you been taking logic lessons from the Obama Administration, for this chain of reasoning is similar to what the White House applied to the Honduran's when they constitutionally removed their President for violating the laws of the Constitution. Applying an American flavor of conservatism, a flavor of political thought that arose within the unique cultural and political milieu of America to the society of Switzerland is completely inappropriate. America has a history of being a melting pot of peoples, and because of this history the notion of freedom of religion is one of the founding principles of the US. Switzerland is not a melting pot of people.

glee was palpable, as she declared the vote represented a “Victory!” A victory for whom? Certainly not for the principles of liberty.

I'm not inclined to read her peace but just from your summation it's clear that you come to an unsupportable conclusion, in that liberty and restrictions of religious expression are not mutually exclusive. The liberty of Muslims to push their religion into the public square has indeed been curtailed but the liberty of the public to be free from seeing the political expression of Islam has been saved, and the flip side here, if the ban had not been enacted, would have been to reduce the liberty of Swiss citizens to be free from enduring political Islam in the public space within the cultural and religious foundation that is unique to Switzerland.

Even if prudence does in fact warrant a ban on this religious structure, how could a conservative find satisfaction in the limitation of religious expression?.

You're making a foundational error by equating all religions to be equivalent in how they are expressed. Modeling Islam to be the equivalent of a professional faith, when it's not, leads to statements like the one you've made. Christianity, for instance, in all its various strains, is mostly a personal faith between a person and their god, whereas Islam is a way to organize society, which is why you see Islamic tenets embedded within governing constitutions all throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Methodists and Baptists can express their faith without threatening the foundations of Western Society because their faiths are different in nature than the total world outlook that is at the heart of Islam.

Even if circumstances warrant this action by the Swiss people, its certainly a dark day for the western world where we find it necessary to take such steps, as a nation amongst us has empowered its government begin to travel down a slippery slope.

The circumstances probably do warrant this action but keep in mind that this is a reaction, not something that arose without cause. As numerous studies are now confirming multiculturalism is a cancer that destroys societies. Cultural and religious assimilation are workable ways to bring new people into societies, while creating separate religious and cultural communities within a larger society leads to fragmentation, isolation, loss of common identity and factional conflicts, not to mention a drastic reduction is social interaction and social welfare.

Also keep in mind that these Muslims willingly went to Switzerland, rather than to the US. The US is known for its melting pot of peoples, the Swiss are known for being Swiss – they have their French, German and Italian communities and they've built their cultural and religious identity within those confines. There is no room, and apparently no willingness to make room, for Muslim Swiss, because unlike here, the Swiss don't want to change who they are to make Muslims more comfortable with expressing their religious and cultural identities as being equal to traditional Swiss identities. These Muslims went to Switzerland knowing that it was peopled by Swiss. If they so admired the Swiss that they wanted to become Swiss, then they could have adopted Swiss cultural and religious identities and discarded their Muslim and cultural identities.

get over it jeff. so where do you start and stop banning anything associated with a religion? perhaps we should go back to the crusades and declare races suppressed to their "natural lands" and not anywhere beyond.

luckily we aren't saudi's, we believe in freedom of religion and expression. idiot.

let's just keep muslims in their countries and christians in theirs? screw freedom of religion and expression and let's just put everyone in specific areas.

you all commenting are morons.

johnrich,

Um, let me see here.

Keep muslims in one area of the world and civilized people in others?

In a word; YES!

You dumb-ass Dhimmi…

really? what about democrats and the 50% of americans that vote blue? should we put them in another country too?

no wonder we get attacked by terrorists, b/c idiots like you.

johnrich,

Yes, the USA gets attacked by muslim terrorists because of "idiots" just like me. I'm sure that the muslims that have attacked and terrorized Christian countries in order to kill or convert them to their death cult for the past 1,400 years did it because of "idiots" just like me.

And as far as I'm concerned, Yes. We should put people like you anywhere but here…

oh i'd never vote for a socialist (democrat). voted red my whole life and will til i die. but you're not putting me on any trains out of here you right lemming fascist. it's people like you who worship fox and hannity with no independent thinking of your own that drive this hatred and leave all logic outside.

it's called an education. get one. you'll get to read these cool things called books.

What a sad little man.

It's about time the Swiss swung back. The islamists have been hitting the Swiss with their own fist for decades now. I was getting worried they didn't know how to fight back.

Mr. A’Barge,

If that “witty” little comment was a reference to me then what an ignorant, foolish, stupid, naive, unaware, idiotic, irrational, imprudent, and dense little dhimmi liberal you are…

I hear ya, Mr. A'Barge…

Very well put Mr. Hill. Forgive me for cutting and pasting this sentence twice, but there is NO more important thought in regards to this whole discussion.

Islam is not a "faith", but rather a political ideology, and one at direct conflict with Western civilization.

Islam is not a "faith", but rather a political ideology, and one at direct conflict with Western civilization.

Islam is not a "faith", but rather a political ideology, and one at direct conflict with Western civilization.

My apologies, Paul. I noted your profile after I sent that message. But it does go for johnrich…

We get attacked by terrorists because they are evil. They find joy before their god through the murder of their fellow man. They believe they must make all other cultures submit before theirs.

The biggest reason they attack us is because they are not afraid of us. They know no matter what they do, there will always be a bunch of Westerners sobbing that they're just misunderstood and that we provoke them.

Basically what you're doing.

Fuzzlenutter isn't the problem, joanrich is.

BTW, that's all the troll feeding I'll be doing. I feel dirty already.

In such a case, a spire on a Christian church would be beholden to a similar ban.

Christianity is a religion akin to Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Islam is a totalitarian ideology and movement akin to fascism.

If minarets can rise over European cities why not have Swastikas too? They are pretty much the same totalitarian supremacy symbol thing.

The venerable Brill Encyclopedia of Islam (EOI) entry on minarets makes plain that minarets are a political statement of Islamic supremacism.

The mosques are our barracks, the domes are our helmets, the minarets are our swords, and the faithful are our army

Imagine there’s no Islam
It’s hard but you can try
No suicide hijackers coming down at us
Above us only sky
Imagine all those people
Still alive today…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday all dhimmis will join us
And the non-Islamic world will be as one

Americans do an injustice to this issue by narrowing this down to American classical liberalism, American democracy and western European democracy are not identical, indeed for centuries European democracies (although some less in recent time) have recognized Christian churches as state churches, allowed Christianity in the public square and incorporated Christianity in schools, all things seemed to be at odds with American concepts of freedom of religion and expression. Culturally these European democracies differ than America greatly in both religion and their cultural history.

Take for an example the fact that many European democracies have monarchs as their head of state. Is hereditary monarchy not also anathema to American Conservatism and democracy but who here in America would say the fact that the Netherlands has a queen negates their value as a democracy? Similarly the fact that Spain, Portugal or Italy have crucifixes in public schools, a mortal sin in America, does that make them less democratic? Or would the fact that there are still state churches throughout Europe, would that not also be seen as undemocratic? I think few would say nations like these are not democracies because of these cultural differences.

So why is this different? Is it because in the West we are told when Christians talk about or stand up for their religion and culture they are fanatics and racist, and that Islam is really a religion of peace and to say otherwise would be racist and come with a social stigma (if you need an example, google Fort Hood and Hasan).

So is this discrimnation or a society finally awakening to the fact that they need to protect and preserve their cultural and historical integrety? I think its the latter. Just because in America we have allowed pluralism and political correctness to white wash our Judeo-Christian and indeed Protestant (although I am myself a Catholic) hertige, does not mean our social devolution regarding faith, culture, history and law is the standard for all democracies. In this regard John Winthrop might remark the shining city on the hill has gone quite dim of late.

It’s rather hypocritical of American so-called conservatives who generally pontificate about allowing people and states to live by their own principles and values, to scold Europeans for expressing their own rights, morals and principles.

Any day that advances the cause of actually preserving Western Civilization is a great day for Conservatives.

And this day was a highlight.

Liberty will be crushed in the longrun if Islam is not stopped. You better believe that.

Amen to that…

Amen to Amen..!

In this context creating a livable Arab country makes perfect sense. And that was the idea behind the much hated Iraq war, and that other "war of necessity" in Afghanistan.

wow!–the commenters on this site are clearly aware and involved!—i'm proud of you guys!–the writer of the article?–well not so much!

muslims don't hesitate to defend their culture and society in their native lands,and this guy doesn't like it when europeans do the same thing? the swiss are entitled to their own indigenous land and culture. am i the only one who feels that muslims seem to be under the impression that, because america, being a nation founded by migrants, has a policy of mass third world immigration, those in the third world seem to think that every western nation, including the nations of europe, indigenous to their various european ethnic/cultural groups, with ancient settled histories, should also allow mass third world migration, just because america does? what i'm saying is this, europe IS NOT america. europe is the indigenous land of the european race; they and only they have a right to the european continent. non-europeans who live in europe are guests, and should respect the indigenous population of which ever nation they live in, but they don't because of political correctness, which deems white skinned people, aka, europeans, unworthy of respect, which in turn is pushing europeans ever further to the far-right.

as an ex-muslim I can tell you that this is a great cause for celebration. the author and his self serving puff piece "is particularly vomit inducing"

Another one who hasn't read the koran or studied the hadiths. You have heard of those right? All of this self righteous cr@p about showing tolerance to those-who-want-us-dead is getting really, really old.

I support the Swiss and the ban. It's THEIR COUNTRY (the Swiss). They get to decide the culture of the country. The mooooslim "immigrants" are soldiers, a 5th column, who retain allegiance to the stateless state of Islam.

Islam does NOT belong in Western nations. How do I know this?

I live in Dearbornistan, Michigan – capital of Islam USA. I've lived with mooslims and the pushing of Sharia Law for over forty years. I know of what I speak.

"voted red my whole life and til i die."

No shit! And that is why you DESERVE to be put on a train and taken to a place for your death. Just like all muslims.

Fuck off and die…

I think The Swiss were Right, If we fool ourselfes into beliving that we can live with these people we will louse our country and our culture. I know that I don't spell properly but I can read the writing on the wall.

[...] and I get the desire for retarded folk to feel useful and productive but, seriously, should retarded people be writing op-eds? The Swiss Ban on Minarets Is No Cause For Conservative [...]

Get over what, John ?
Do you or do you not believe in Democracy ? The Swiss have spoken about Switzerland.
If you do not like what they did, do not go there.
Do you speak in such high handed language about the Islamic republics and kingdoms, when they ban all things Christian outright?