""Live free or die"

...absolutely.......

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 10, 2007 8:21 AM

Seems some people are fed up with Islam.

Posted by: Elric66 at December 10, 2007 8:46 AM

You know something is wrong, when American students like Ahmadinejad more than do the students in Iran.

The protest ended peacefully? From an Islamic country, this sounds ominous.

Posted by: Abscedere at December 10, 2007 9:01 AM

"Students carrying placards saying "Live free or die" stone police in Tehran"

Too bad their parents didn't understand the principle "Live free or die"

They traded the Shah -- a dictator for sure, but who left people alone to live ther own lives, so long as they didn't threaten his power -- for a bunch of clerics who consider it a mandate from God to regulate every facest of everyones life.

These students should be confronting their parents for their short-sightedness, and demanding that they help in undoing the tyranny they helped to install in Iran.

It's too bad that these students can't live free, but Iran really has exactly what its people asked for.

Posted by: rational at December 10, 2007 9:01 AM

One way or another, I have known more Persians than I wanted to in the last 37 years. Many in the US and some in Europe.
They were all very Westernized.
When that guy was arguing with Robert about the young people not understanding their past and therefore leaning toward the Western music and dress I wondered how some of them have faired in the land of the Mullahs. Granted some of them are probably not alive, given the short life span of people forced to live in Islamic Sharia states.
I remember one woman, living in Germany in the mid 80's lamenting not being able to wear lipstick if she went home to Tehran.

Believe me, It's live free or die for me and now going to Church packing heat.

Over 24 hours since the shootings in Colorado and no name or other info on "the gunman" as he is still being called. From past experience, we all know the longer they keep the identity quiet the more likely it's SJS. We knew the name of the sad young man in Omaha almost immediately.

Posted by: Aunt Bea at December 10, 2007 9:02 AM

Molly Stark -- or was it her husband? -- would be very proud.

Posted by: Hugh at December 10, 2007 9:02 AM

Elric66 ...

Right you are, unfortunately. The last time the students at Tehran University did this (2003, I think?) ... it ended peacefully.

Then overnight the police seized the 35 leaders of the student rebellion. Over the next few days their bodies were found strewn all over the university: in the streets, in the doorways of dorms, in the main entrance to the science building. They had been beaten to death, stabbed, burned, mutilated and some had even been flayed to death.

The protests stopped. Everywhere. And the revolution was over.

Now the Iranian kids are better at internet sharing of photos, etc., so perhaps there is a better chance. But my guess is that they will face serious odds. Again.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at December 10, 2007 9:06 AM

Our western leaders should all be supporting these students in their quest for freedom from oppression and death.

Instead, our leaders have chosen dialogue and "understanding" with Iran... they've succumbed to the lure and noxious odour of oil.

We need honest politicians who believe in freedom, democracy, and are willing to help those who are struggling against living life in repressive conditions.

Posted by: Jerusalem Posts at December 10, 2007 9:11 AM

What?! People living under Islam who want nothing to do with it? Sacre Bleu!

The less arabized you are the more likely you are to reconize Islam as system that doesn't work.

Posted by: Crusader at December 10, 2007 9:17 AM

OT

With scientists like this, no wonder the west needs immigrants. To replace the children of the brainwashed that have none.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22896334-2,00.html

Posted by: Borg at December 10, 2007 9:29 AM

A WEST Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus "baby levy" at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

[-]

Punishing those who have more than two children. Unbelievable.

So that more immigrants will be needed.

Posted by: Borg at December 10, 2007 9:32 AM

What can "live free or die" possible mean to these Iranian students when even if Ahmedinejad accidentally stepped in front of a bus and was killed tomorrow? These students are all primarily muslim, yes?

I never understand when I read about the great numbers of Iranins who reject Ahdminejad and the mullahcracy yet treasure western values. Why is there is never talk of reforming Islam?

People like Michael Ledeen write quite a bit about Iran and says that military action is not the answer and that there are so many Iranians willing to overthrow the current regime that our efforts should be in support of these dissidents. OK. I think I could support that.

But how does one proclaim to believe in "live free or die" and still remain muslim? It doesn't seem possible. Do they expect to be an entire nation of muslims-for-indentification-purposes-only? No mullahs or Ayatollahs allowed?

I am all for having the Iranian people remove Ahmedinejad and the mullahcracy rather than using military force. But what will remain even after a violent overthrow of the existing regime? Will the replacement leader be just a little less Islamic and so we can become a little less concerned?

I sympathize with these students and am certainly for a regime change without U.S. military action, but I don't see how that will lead to any change that will make the West any safer. I just don't think they really mean "live free or die" in the same way New Hampshireans do.

Posted by: USorThem at December 10, 2007 9:34 AM

OT

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2224758,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

'I was terrified that the guards would come in and teach me a lesson'

[-]
Ms Gibbons speaks about her ordeal in Sudan.

Posted by: Borg at December 10, 2007 9:35 AM

Very encouraging. Instead of fostering the "faux Democracy" in Iraq, we should be strengthening the resolve of these students who seem to have the right idea and who are displaying courage in protesting in the land of the mullahs. There is too much intelligence in Iran to bow down to the so called holy men of Islam.

Posted by: Briars at December 10, 2007 9:37 AM

Very encouraging. Instead of fostering the "faux Democracy" in Iraq, we should be strengthening the resolve of these students who seem to have the right idea and who are displaying courage in protesting in the land of the mullahs. There is too much intelligence in Iran to bow down to the so called holy men of Islam.

Posted by: Briars at December 10, 2007 9:38 AM

" seems some people are fed up with islam"
above posting

The time to become fed up is before they get their noses under the tent. They asked for it and they now have it.

Posted by: pismopal at December 10, 2007 9:42 AM

This is a repudiation of Islam, albeit an indirect one in that they were challenging the Mullahs. But the Mullahs represent Islam, the Holy Prophet, and Allah, a triangle that denounces freedom in all its forms.

You can bet the secret police are reviewing the film of the demonstration as we speak.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at December 10, 2007 9:43 AM

USorThem -

Agreed. How can you live free when you are allah's slave.

Posted by: Borg at December 10, 2007 9:50 AM

I was very heartened seeing the pictures of these brave young people. We don't know exactly what motivates each of them to risk his life, but we can be sure it's not jihadism, since jihadism hates freedom more than anything.
It's sad that these young Iranians are more lucid and courageous regarding the threat to human rights and dignity than Ms. Rice and our CIA.

Posted by: ppeter at December 10, 2007 9:54 AM

"I remember one woman, living in Germany in the mid 80's lamenting not being able to wear lipstick if she went home to Tehran."

Over 24 hours since the shootings in Colorado and no name or other info on "the gunman" as he is still being called. From past experience, we all know the longer they keep the identity quiet the more likely it's SJS.

Posted by: Aunt Bea

No lipstick? Why not? In public, in a burkha and especially in a chador, who could tell? In a chador she could wear all kinds of make-up and no one would know. And at home, I thought the ladies were allowed to be really sexy in order to please their husband-master-owner. I've seen several photos of burkha-clad ladies buying skimpy, sexy lingerie. Maybe Naseem could give some info on this.

In Colorado, was there one gunman or two? The one at the missionary center was described as white, about 20, and maybe with a beard and skullcap, and used a pistol. The one killed at the mega-chruch has not been described, and used a rifle.

Posted by: ebonystone at December 10, 2007 9:57 AM

Morgaan Sinclair,

I wish there was something our government could do to help.

Ebonystone,

That they havent been descriptive of the guman/gunmen makes me suspect SJS. We knew in a few hours who the mall shooter was.

Posted by: Elric66 at December 10, 2007 10:07 AM

Over 24 hours since the shootings in Colorado and no name or other info on "the gunman" as he is still being called.

The FBI and Colo Bureau of Invesigation raided a house in Englewood CO a couple of hrs ago. They are carrying out boxes of what one must presume is potential evidence.

This is looking like some form of conspiracy now, involving more than one perp.

Whether it's Islam or not we'll probably never know. It is shocking, to take a case in point, that given what is known of the Murrah bombing in OK City, that most still think it was a right-wing conspiracy and not a bombing financed, planned, and funded by Saddam Hussein.

Cutaways.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at December 10, 2007 10:26 AM

Professors have joined them in criticising Ahmadinejad for clamping down on dissent on campuses.

Since some of our own universities like to silence opinions on campus they don't agree with, maybe we should send some commandos into Iran, kidnap Ahmedinejad, bring him to the U.S., and offer him the presidency of one of our universities. Perhaps Columbia would be an appropriate choice, since he already has some experience there.

But leave the Iranian professors where they're at. Their desire to allow dissent would not sit well with the "speech code" enforcers here.

Posted by: Bigfoot at December 10, 2007 10:27 AM

With respect to those Iranian students who are putting it on the line;

New Hampshire now goes by ‘Live Free and Don’t Smoke’.

Posted by: pez at December 10, 2007 10:33 AM

Islam is incompatible with "live free".

How did these Muslim students miss that lesson?

The "or die" part is perfectly Islamic, however.

They should find a better belief.

Where mental liberty is possible.

Posted by: profitsbeard at December 10, 2007 11:05 AM

Regarding the numerous remarks about what our government (if it had a backbone, that is) could do to "encourage" the students --

What form do the JW readers think that encouragement should take? A few tens of thousands of AK47s and a few million rounds of ammunition smuggled across the border, into the hands of some student leaders?

Perhaps a few American and/or British special ops types fluent in Farsi, implanted as facilitators?

I don't see the same bunch of Washington weasels now throwing money and arms at the "Palestinians," promptly to be used against Israel, as being willing to do that. If private individuals from the US sent money or materiel to persons in or near Iran who might use it to foster a revolution, they would certainly be prosecuted by our "Justice" Department as individuals attempting to execute foreign policy.

Maybe the best thing for us to do as individuals is to contribute to Voice of the Martyrs, the Christian group that spreads the word of God in Iran, Saudi, and other places where it is lethal to get caught doing so. As a long-term solution, this makes more sense than simply gambling that we are not replacing one set of Islamists with another.

Still, in the short term, it would be nice to know that I bought the bullet that sent a member of the Iranian morality police to meet his REAL maker.

What CAN we do? What SHOULD our government be doing?

RSI

Posted by: RedStateInfidel at December 10, 2007 11:05 AM

RedStateInfidel,

I saw a video from VOM recently interviewing some Iranian Christians. Talk about people of faith and courage!! Contribute to VOM if you feel led that way, but most of all please pray for fellow believers behind the iron curtain of islam.

I, too, would like to see the west more strongly encourage the people of Iran to rise up and depose the ones in charge. People are under such a death grip over there it's really hard to visualize a large number rebelling in a general uprising.

Posted by: livefreeordie! at December 10, 2007 11:46 AM

Aunt Bea,

No, there's not much info about the Colorado church shootings, but at least one of the incidents sounds like it could be SJS from the description of the shooter.
You'e thinking right- please be careful!

Posted by: livefreeordie! at December 10, 2007 11:53 AM

Even though Mussolini was mocked as "il Granitico" because of his jutting-jaw routine during those interminable rabble-rousing speeches about Mare Nostrum from the Palazzo Venezia, that has not damaged the word "granitic" in English. It retains its lapidary beauty.

So, rather than accept "New Hampshirites" (with its now too-noticeable hint of both "shari'a" and "shi'ites" toward the end) I would like to second the nomination of "Granite Staters" or "residents of the Granite State" for those who blissfully live in New Hampshire.

Both Nature, and Man (homo novahantoniensis) are given, by means of that granite, their due. "Granite" means the Old Man of the Mountain. It means walks through the Flume. It means the Presidential Range, seen from afar, or hiked up-close: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Jackson.

And that "Granite" means flinty New Englanders. People less volatile and more granite-like in their demeanor and ways than those from lesser states, and though they may never have read some Massachusetts man (RWE) on Self-Reliance, are as naturally thoreauvian as they come, and live that essay every day.

Granite Staters.

It hath a noble ring.

Posted by: Hugh at December 10, 2007 12:20 PM

But "New Hampshire-er" would be more fun to say.

Posted by: MarisolJW at December 10, 2007 1:21 PM

C'mon Archbishop Desmond Tutu. What have you got to say about this? Obviously nothing. You accuse Britain and the US of operating apartheid policies but have nothing to say about the apartheid policies of Islamic Governments, the state-sponsored persecution of non-Muslim minorities within those said countries. Not a peep has been heard from him as regards the janjaweed atrocities. He remains stonily silent on Mugabe, but flies into a rage over Israel. He is niothing but a sanctimonious apologist for evil and depravity. No wonder attendances are falling at churches, with zombies like Tutu and the Archbishop of Canterbury around.

Posted by: Spirit Of 1683 at December 10, 2007 1:42 PM

C'mon Archbishop Desmond Tutu. What have you got to say about this? Obviously nothing. You accuse Britain and the US of operating apartheid policies but have nothing to say about the apartheid policies of Islamic Governments, the state-sponsored persecution of non-Muslim minorities within those said countries. Not a peep has been heard from him as regards the janjaweed atrocities. He remains stonily silent on Mugabe, but flies into a rage over Israel. He is nothing but a sanctimonious apologist for evil and depravity. No wonder attendances are falling at churches, with zombies like Tutu and the Archbishop of Canterbury around.

Posted by: Spirit Of 1683 at December 10, 2007 1:42 PM

...carried placards saying "Live free or die"

Where did they get a shipment of New Hampshire license plates? Were they ransom for the hostage taking at Hillary's New Hampshire office?

There is another way to interpret NH "live free or die": they don't have any state income tax or sales tax!
--
CT Yank

Posted by: CTYankee at December 10, 2007 1:46 PM

What does SJS mean?

I infer it means "Moslem" but what is the expansion of the abbreviation?

Posted by: Charles Martel at December 10, 2007 2:05 PM

Can't we swap these brave Iranian students with those in the West's universities who think islam is wonderful. Then everyone's a winner.

Hell, we could even chuck in a few israel hating academics for free.

Posted by: Celsius at December 10, 2007 2:16 PM

...I see a wonderful business opportunity here:

...I should have teeshirts and sweatshirts printed up with some nifty Islamic cartoons with the words "I got stoned in Tehran".....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 10, 2007 2:29 PM

...or the words : "Rock U...athletic dept...."

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 10, 2007 2:31 PM

...or "Get Stoned in Iran....whatta country!"

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 10, 2007 2:32 PM

To all -

Actually, our state motto is "Live, Freeze or Die".

Posted by: tanstaafl at December 10, 2007 2:43 PM

Live free or die?!! A Muslim isn’t even supposed to be capable of a thought like this! Blasphemy! Where in the bloody Koran is there anything about living free – just the opposite, as I’m sure any Mullah will tell them with a kick in the ass. Muslims are submitting zombies with faces is in the dirt five times a day, Koran mutated creatures with women as doormats if they choose, but hardly free. They can’t even leave their cult without a sentence of death. Free from Sahria? Free from the ever terrorizing fear of burning hell, which the Koran deliberately mentions 146 times? I would doubt these students know what freedom means. The day a Muslim is free is the day he is no Muslim.

Posted by: FM at December 10, 2007 3:09 PM

"Live, Freeze or Die"
-- revised motto for homo novahantoniensis suggested in a posting above

Not everywhere in wonderful New Hampshire. Not, for example, in and around the ports of Piscataqua.

Posted by: Hugh at December 10, 2007 3:38 PM

Make those "live free or die" students honorary Granite Staters. When the mullacracy falls, that will be a day to celebrate.

Posted by: traeh at December 10, 2007 3:54 PM

FM, maybe you are right, but I've heard there are many apostates now in Iran. We hear occasionally that Islam is the world's fastest growing religion, but from 1990 to 2000, Zoroastrianism, the pre-Islamic Iranian religion, has been growing faster than Islam, in terms of percentage growth rate, according to the 2001 edition of the Oxford University Press World Christian Encyclopedia.

Posted by: traeh at December 10, 2007 4:17 PM

In Islam you are a slave of Allah. Yours not to reason why, yours but to submit to the will of Allah -- or die. You must not ever think that you, as a mere mortal, are entitled to exercise your own powers of reasoning, to question anything, to subject anything to your own criticism, to question or to doubt. You must remain mentally submissive, ideally remain a Slave of Allah.

The most accurate saying the one that captures the essence of the Total Belief-System of Islmam, is the reverse of the novahantonian motto on Granite State license plates:

"I'd Rather Die Than Live Free!"

Posted by: Hugh at December 10, 2007 4:33 PM

"Is this the winter of our discontent?" Perhaps not yet,but this sure is some sort of beginning. Still, one can't help but anticipate something reminiscent of a certain Beijing Square should this go on unchecked.

Posted by: We need G.C. Scott at December 10, 2007 5:00 PM

"'Is this the winter of our discontent?' Perhaps not yet, but this sure is some sort of beginning. '
-- from a posting above

Are you hinting that we are now in the "winter of our discontent" that will be "made glorious summer by this son of (New) York" with that conceivable son being in the conceivable alternative a not impossible she, a daughter rather than that punning-on-sun son, a New York filly but also a filius noveboracensis? That glorious summer, when our stern alarms giving way to merry measures? And our bruised arms are hung up for monuments? Are you further suggesting that when that “glorious summer” arrives, whether that "son of (New) York" who brings its arrival about is named Giuliani or Clinton, scandal-sheet hints suggest, that their forms of recreation might be similar, and either quite capable of following Shakespeare’s script to "caper nimbly in a lady's chamber"?

Please. No subliminal political ads just yet. Not this early in the election cycle. There are other candidates, you know.

Posted by: Hugh at December 10, 2007 5:18 PM

New Hampshire, the state where are a lot of dead people are renting apartments...

Posted by: Mister Ghost at December 10, 2007 5:43 PM

And the cars those ghosts apparently drive, phantoms in their phaetons, locally-registered and locally-insured.

Posted by: Hugh at December 10, 2007 5:51 PM

Charles Martel...SJS means 'Sudden Jihad Syndrome'.

Like when you get the urge to suddenly steer your car into infidel pedestrians, to please Allah.

Posted by: duh_swami at December 10, 2007 6:04 PM

I forgot to ask, how many of those rock throwing students are still alive?

Posted by: duh_swami at December 10, 2007 6:14 PM

Hugh
"Granite" means the Old Man of the Mountain.[

To a certain extent it still does. As a born and bred New Hampsherite, I have the sad task to inform you that the Old Man disappeared on a cloudy rainy Friday night, May 2, 2003 or on Saturday morning, May 3, 2003. We just don't know. Like William Loeb, may the Old Man RIP.

Posted by: patagonianplato at December 10, 2007 6:46 PM

"caper nimbly into a lady's chamber."

-Hugh,nice one,

but why would this current crop of contenders actually care to "caper" around? Some certainly have no problem winking at the jet set lifestyle of the Emirates with all those donors and "worldly wise" tribal chieftains and don't seem to give a damn who knows. Personally my money isn't on New York furnishing the next ruling head of the free-world,in either event,but for dramatically different reasons.

Posted by: We need G.C. Scott at December 10, 2007 6:59 PM

Yes, I know he did. I was quite close to him, practically at his bedside, at the time. But in my posting's evocation of New Hampshire, I wanted to keep up, for myself and others, the illusion that he was still there. The post is carefully phrased to permit that, but also not to state an untruth.

Please. Don't burst my bubble just yet. I know about the proposals to rebuild him. I know he wouldn't be the same. You can't do plastic surgery on granite. Or perhaps you could. But it wouldn't be right.

Posted by: Hugh at December 10, 2007 7:01 PM

Hugh

I agree with you entirely. Just because man is able to recreate a marvel that nature created and then took away doesn’t make it right.

Posted by: patagonianplato at December 10, 2007 7:42 PM

"They wrecked the iron-barred gates and threw stones at police, according to Iranian state radio, which said the protest ended peacefully...."

Ended peacefully? Yeah-Iran has no gays either. I suspect peace came about when students were filled with bullet holes-corpses tend to be peaceful even in the insane world of the ummah.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at December 10, 2007 10:12 PM

· Winston Churchill said:

1“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly;

2 you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival.

3 There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Our students reject the first option , faced with reality the Iranian students have the guts to accept the third.

Let's hope ours see reason in time to take the second.

Posted by: teba at December 11, 2007 5:47 PM