Nothing Goode about it

December 20, 2006

Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) has always been one of those far-right lawmakers who only make headlines for doing dumb things. In 2004, for example, Goode co-sponsored a ridiculous bill that would empower Congress to reverse Supreme Court decisions with which lawmakers disagree. In March 2006, he came to the political world’s attention when Randy “Duke” Cunningham noted that Goode was one of just a handful of lawmakers who helped arrange federal funding for defense contractors who bribed Cunningham.

Now, Virgil Goode is back in the news, this time for putting anti-Muslim bigotry in print.

In a letter sent to district supporters earlier this month, Goode explained his perspective on Rep.-elect Keith Ellison’s (D-Minn.) decision to use a Koran for his ceremonial swearing-in ceremony. Goode told his supporters:

The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.”

That, in and of itself, isn’t particularly offensive. Goode can hang whatever he wants on his wall. If he doesn’t want to feature the Koran, that’s his business.

But Goode went considerably further.

When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

Remember, this isn’t just some nut on right-wing talk radio; this is an elected member of Congress.

Frankly, I found the whole diatribe more confusing than anything else. We need to crack-down on immigration because of Muslims? I thought the right-wing line was that immigration is a problem because of Mexicans, most of whom are probably Catholic?

It’s Clinton’s fault people Middle East get visas to the United States? Remind me, who’s been president the last six years?

Can Goode possibly explain which “traditional” values are threatened by Muslim families?

Goode insists that Americans needs to “wake up.” Given his letter, I’d say we’re not the ones who are asleep.

Post Script: By the way, in case you were wondering how this letter got out if it was only sent to Goode supporters, a local Sierra Club activist accidentally made the mailing list, and was only too happy to help get the word out.

“Remind me, who’s been president the last six years?”

How about who has held the House and Senate for vast majority of the last 12 years…

  • As far as I know Keith Ellison was born in America and converted to Isalm–just like former boxer Muhammad Ali and many other descendents of African slaves. Does Republican Virgil Goode have a problem with a person’s race, in addition to “other” religions?

  • I recognize Congressman Goode’s Constitutional right to exercise his own brand of bigotry, but as an elected official Mr. Goode is an embarrassment. It would seem Mr. Goode and his ilk are a bit challenged when it comes to understanding the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Goode’s real enemy on this matter is his fear of otherness. It’s as if he is running around proclaiming “the Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming.” Maybe Mr. Goode could take the time to read the Koran to better understand what 1 in 7 people on this planet believe. He needs to recognize that a faith in God isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if such faith succumbs to the ambitions of man, it could end in such ignorant hatred for others. -Kevo

  • only sent to Goode supporters”

    Ha. Thinking he could keep it secret in 2006. How cute is that? Dumb mofo.

    Here’s a question. On some level is it a problem to have a large Muslim immigrant population in a western country?

  • Man…If I were OJ…The things I would do to Virgil Goode…if I were OJ…

    That’s my little “OJ-Subjunctive Mood” fun for today.

    But seriously folks. Pigs like Goode and George Allen think they’re covered because they believe their constituents are pigs, too. They are probably largely correct.

    All we can do is teach our kids not to be filthy, bigoted pigs like Goode and Allen, and wait for the likes of these scumbags to die off and take their hateful, bile-soaked philosophies to Hell with them when they go.

  • What Americans of all stripes need to realize is that folks like Virgil Goode hate you as well … he just hasn’t been prompted to come out in public and say it yet.

    I caught the irony that while Goode may have “in God we trust” plastered on his wall, his Duke Cunningham connections and his otherise do-nothingness in Congress show we should have absolutely no trust in him, especially in his just judgement of others.

  • Er, Ellison was born in Detroit. I don’t know how his forebears got to this country, but I’m going to guess that they came here legally — in chains. What the hell is Goode talking about?

  • I believe slip kid no more is correct that Ellison converted to Islam from Catholicism. If Goode were aware of this, would his tirade on stopping immigration turn to a call for deportation of American Muslims?

    But Dale asks an interesting question: “On some level is it a problem to have a large Muslim immigrant population in a western country?” My first thought would be yes — if they were to seek a theocracy based upon their religious beliefs. I would say the same about Christians or any other group seeking a theocracy based upon their beliefs.

  • ***Remind me, who’s been president the last six years?***

    Well call me Rip Van Winkle. You mean we’ve actually HAD a POTUS these six long years? I must’ve been asleep….

  • I’m with beep52 (#9): there simply is no place in this country for those who would impose their religious beliefs on others, those who support theocracy in any way. The western world in general, and our US Constitution in particular, has rejected Christian Crusades and Inquisitions; it has no interest in being the recipient of Mulsim Jihads on each other or, more recently, on the Great Satan of the West. Theocrats are on the losing end of history, and we must never make them welcome here, not even out of a mis-guided sense of fairness.

  • Whenever someone like Goode states in public that his office has sections of the Bible posted AND Muslims should be banished (or killed), I wonder whatever happened to loving enemies and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Hatred masquerading as love is still hatred.

  • This kind of wingnut “the Muslims will swamp us like they are swamping Europe” meme is one I have to suffer from my “to the right of Alan Keyes” wife. She says on repeated occasions that I’d better work hard to keep her out of a burka. When I point out that she’s far more likely to lose her right to dress in shorts and t-shirts to the Theocratic Reactionaries in this country than to some transplanted Muslims, she just scoffs.

    I’m not going to appologize for Goode, he’s not from my district. But I think Haik Bedrosian is right that Goode and the soon to be former Senator George Felix Allen Junior adopt their wink-wink bigotry poses because they believe significant portions of the Commonwealth are festering with prejudice. But Allen lost, didn’t he 😉

    I’d suggest you read Harold Meyerson today and note his comments on the universiality of Theocratic Reactionary wingnuttery, including that of the current and former Popes. You might also not the fact that when the Bushites send delegates to international conferences on women’s rights or religion, the delegates end up caucusing with Saudi Arabia and Sudan rather than with European or Latin American countries.

    Scary…

  • The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office.

    This guy and his bigotry is the perfect example of why we need to ditch the “In God We Trust” thing and bring back the motto, in use since the founding of the Republic, which it replaced – “E Pluribus Unum”. Obviously it’s meaning is lost on the likes of Goode.

  • On some level is it a problem to have a large Muslim immigrant population in a western country?

    Only to the same extent it was a “problem” to have a large Catholic immigrant population in a traditionally Protestant one. That is, people like Goode may have a problem with it but who cares?

    But I almost have to laugh when I hear cretins like Goode bleating about restrictions on legal immigrants. If the indigenous people of the Americas had been a bit more aggressive his arse would still be in Europe.

    tAiO

    p.s. CB, please tell us a copy of this letter is on its way to the Washington Post!

  • I couldn’t vote for Goode’s opponent in 2006 (different district), but I sent the guy money. I tried to help get rid of that redneck. Sorry.

  • “Only to the same extent it was a “problem” to have a large Catholic immigrant population in a traditionally Protestant one. That is, people like Goode may have a problem with it but who cares?”


    “Christian genocide”

    No Muslim land has not forced out or genocided all the non-Muslims, or isn’t doing it now.

  • Old Atlantic,

    No Muslim land has not forced out or genocided all the non-Muslims, or isn’t doing it now.

    Unless I really don’t understand the situation in Darfur, your comment is incorrect unless you want to get pendantic and technical in your parsing (i.e. “Muslim land”).

  • Since Islam frowns on incest I think Tom Cleaver hit the true reason this fucktwit is upset –

    Tom said “Goode is proof of what happens when too many generations of hillbillies procreate with their sisters in one family.”

    Which means the Goode family value that he is worried about is incest. A few Muslim families in his district and maybe he can’t procreate with relatives anymore.

  • “No Muslim land has not forced out or genocided all the non-Muslims, or isn’t doing it now.

    Unless I really don’t understand the situation in Darfur, your comment is incorrect unless you want to get pendantic and technical in your parsing (i.e. “Muslim land”). ” from Edo

    First, a technical response, then a response on Darfur.
    Darfur genocide is described by CS Monitor as Arab Muslims on black Muslims as victims. This is not in conflict with the statement “No Muslim land has not forced out … the non-Muslims”, since Darfur as so-described is not part of the subject matter of this statement.

    Now as for Darfur.

    “Sudan, like most African postcolonial states, is partially a victim of imperial cartography. Thoughtlessly carved out by the British during the 19th-century scramble to claim Africa, Sudan is a forced crucible of Muslim Arabs and black Africans. The blacks in the south either hew to their ancestral traditional African religions or have converted to Christianity. The fact that black Africans in Darfur are exclusively Muslim has not stopped the Arab Janjaweed militias and the government from exterminating them.”


    CS Monitor on Darfur

    Arab Muslims consider blacks, Muslim or not to be not their equals. Arab Muslims for centuries had a slave trade in blacks that involved their not surviving long term.

    Basically, the Arabs for over a 1000 years took blacks as slaves and then didn’t breed them as in the old South in the US but instead prevented that by various means. The result of this history is a permanent state of mind of Arabs towards blacks.

    This comes from the time when Arabs were Muslim and blacks were not. The same treatment is being applied to the blacks by the Arabs today as in the time that blacks were not Muslim.

    Thus the Darfur genocide is inherited from prior genocide by Arab Muslims of blacks for centuries as part of their slave management methods.

    See Susan Stephen on Arab Slave Trade

  • Oh come on. It’s ok to bash hillbillies but not muslims? Horseguy and Cleaver, think before you speak; otherwise you will continue to sound as stupidly biggoted as Goode.

  • The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office — (not so) Goode

    Doubtless, the second is on a greatly enlarged copy of a hundred-dollar bill — a souvenir of his connection with Cunningham. God may speak to such as Virgil, but money talks louder.

    Goode can hang whatever he wants on his wall. — CB

    Oh, I don’t know. Allen’s hanging noose didn’t seem to be a very popular part of office decor 🙂

  • But Dale asks an interesting question: “On some level is it a problem to have a large Muslim immigrant population in a western country?” My first thought would be yes — if they were to seek a theocracy based upon their religious beliefs. I would say the same about Christians or any other group seeking a theocracy based upon their beliefs.
    Comment by beep52

    Good point. I guess it’s impossible to tell someon’s intentions. The 20 9/11 could not have been pegged as capable of doing what they did from their profiles.Associations perhaps, but they weren’t Imams or anything who might be expected to be extremist. People capable of becoming a violent terrorist are a tiny tiny percentage of any group. Would there be a justification fo excluding a group of people from immigrating if they were say, .0000001 liable to being terrorist as opposed to a group who were .000000000001?

  • “Muslims For A Safe America conducted a survey at the Islamic Society of North America’s 43rd Annual Convention in Chicago from September 1, 2006 to September 4, 2006. 307 Muslims who are American citizens participated in the survey at the Muslims For A Safe America booth at ISNA,” the organization reports. Some respones:

    2. Do you consider yourself to be a Muslim first, an American first, or both equally?
    MUSLIM FIRST 214
    AMERICAN FIRST 4
    BOTH EQUALLY 86
    UNDECIDED 3

    3. Is the American government at war with the religion of Islam?
    YES 208
    NO 79
    UNDECIDED 20

    5. Did Muslims hijack planes and fly them into buildings on 9/11?
    YES 117
    NO 139
    UNDECIDED 51

    6. Did the U.S. government have advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, and allow the attacks to occur?
    YES 200
    NO 70
    UNDECIDED 37
    7. Did the U.S. government organize the 9/11 attacks?
    YES 106
    NO 151
    UNDECIDED 50

    8. Are the tapes of Osama Bin Laden, claiming responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and threatening future attacks, real or fake?
    REAL 126
    FAKE 129
    UNDECIDED 52

    9. Did Muslims commit the July 2005 train and bus bombings in London?
    YES 140
    NO 104
    UNDECIDED 63

    21. Should Iran develop nuclear weapons?
    YES 161
    NO 123
    UNDECIDED 23

    25. Was America justified in invading Afghanistan after 9/11?
    YES 51
    NO 248
    UNDECIDED 8

    The organization notes that “this was NOT a scientific survey, because ISNA Convention attendees who visited the Muslims For A Safe America booth are not necessarily representative of the American Muslim community as a whole.” We really hope so.

    Posted by Daniel Freedman at October 26, 2006 11:22 AM


    Source

  • Old Atlantic,

    Thus the Darfur genocide is inherited from prior genocide by Arab Muslims of blacks for centuries as part of their slave management methods.

    If you are relying on historical justifications for current genocide, then your claim that all genocides are Christian is just as false. Slavery and all its negative impacts on society were around long before Judaism or Christianity.

  • Reply to Edo.

    The Arab Muslims in Sudan have for centuries exploited blacks, Muslim or not in Sudan. This includes slavery and other bad treatment. You must have somehow misunderstood my comment.

    “your claim that all genocides are Christian is just as false”

    I think this is the root of your misconception. The issue with Virgil Goode is whether he is right that Muslim immigration is a threat. The proposition that Muslim lands end up genociding non-Muslims goes to that issue. The question is whether have a positive probability to genocide non-Muslims. If so, then allowing their immigration reduces welfare to non-Muslims here. That proves Muslim immigration should not be allowed. That’s the issue.

    Muslims have genocided Christians, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Africans with other beliefs, and others.

    Since the Darfur genocide victims are primarily Muslim and the genociders are Muslim, Judaism and Christianity are not directly relevant. However, the Arab Muslims in Sudan get their tendency to genocide blacks in Sudan, even black Muslims, from their history of genocide of non-Muslim blacks in Africa. That is the meaning of the inheritance, i.e. genocide of black Muslims in Sudan is inherited from genocide of blacks.

    Think of black as the root, and Muslim as a branch. The branch inherits from the root. In this case its a little more complicated since its a relation from Arab Muslims to blacks, but that relation can inherit as well.

    The prior genocide by Arab Muslims of those in the south of Sudan did involve many Christians as victims.

  • Muslims have genocided Christians, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Africans with other beliefs, and others.

    I don’t understand this statement at all. Yes there has been institutional slavery and a slave trade in many lands including muslim lands for millenia – I don’t think that’s the issue. However, my understanding of history is that invading Muslim armies were remarkably tolerant on “infidels” living in their midst. They were considered second-class citizens but were allowed to keep and practice their own religions and indigenous communities survived and even thrived in Muslim-conquered lands. If this widespread genocidal tendency of Muslims is true, would there be Spaniards, Greeks, or Serbs today? How about Indians in India or Zorastrians in Irans? I would like to see citation of proof of this so-called wide-spread Muslim “genocide” – or at least clarification of how the term is being liberally used in this discussion.

    As far as Darfur goes, there is a common misconception of the nature of teh conflict. For many years, the Christian south of Sudan fought a civil war against the Muslim north (which also comprised the ruling class which did discriminate against the Christians in the south). What is going on in Darfur, however, is not part of this Muslim/Christian conflict however (which has largely died down in recent years). The misconception, I think, is fed by the unusal interest of the Christian community in the USA having the mistaken belief that Christians are being persecuted in Darfur. (Hint -there is widespread conflict and abuse of civilians in many parts of Africa – for some reason Darfur is a cause celebre and the only African conflict that the US Christian community sems to be interested in – thousands were tortured, mutilated and massacred in various conflicts in Western Afriica, yet Pat Robertson continued to do his diamond business there, which helped fund the violence, for example, without a likewise Darfur-like outcry from the US Christian community). But the fact is, for purposes of this discussion, Darfur is a Muslim/Muslim conflict.

  • “However, my understanding of history is that invading Muslim armies were remarkably tolerant on “infidels” living in their midst.”

    Sometimes. The problem is if they eventually get around to genocide, or forcing out, then its not so good. Also the second class status is not so good anyhow. Do we want to be second class in our own country? Isn’t that a reason to stop Muslim immigration? Goode says let’s not be second class to Muslims in America and people call him a bigot for that?

    “However, my understanding of history is that invading Muslim armies were remarkably tolerant on “infidels” living in their midst.”

    At times they were. But at other times, not. Once they took over, over time, second class status wore people down. There are no longer many Christians in most Muslim countries. Where did they go? They either converted, left or died out. Genocide doesn’t have to happen fast. Most ones are slow.

    “If this widespread genocidal tendency of Muslims is true, would there be Spaniards, Greeks, or Serbs today?”

    There are few Christians left in Muslim countries today, such as Turkey which had a large Christian population in 1914, see link attached to my name.

    The groups you mention refought and reclaimed their lands with help. In Turkey the Christians were genocided by secular Turks. Bethlehem was 85 percent Christian in 1948 and is 12 percent today. Constantinople was over 50 percent Christian in 1914.

    Also a group can be subjected to genocide and still have people alive today. Jews were genocided in WWII, but there are still Jews.

    ” How about Indians in India?” There has been extensive genocide by Muslims against Hindus and others in India.

    Tamerlane’s attack on Delhi is an example. There are projections or claims of as high as 70 million.

  • DeepDarkDiamond comments “If this widespread genocidal tendency of Muslims is true, would there be Spaniards, Greeks, or Serbs today?”

    Old Atlantic replies:
    There are few Christians left in Muslim countries today, such as Turkey which had a large Christian population in 1914, see link attached to my name.

    But by the same token, Chrisitans have been guilty of far worse genocide since NONE of the countries which have christian majorities now were christian at the time of Christ.
    It is, IMHO, absurd to say that a religion is guilty of genocide just because it converts succeefully.
    Keep in mind that at the time that the previously christian lands were ‘converted’ to islam, christian was in its dark ages and islam was considered much much more progressive as well as liberal. It was not unnatural for people living under islam to very gradually convert given that they generally got to see a fairly bright and just view (FOR THE TIMES!) of islam , unlike for these times (when islam appears to be having its dark ages)

    Dale asks an interesting question: “On some level is it a problem to have a large Muslim immigrant population in a western country?”

    I am fairly sure that had someone polled the western muslims BEFORE 9/11 on whether they wanted sharia in their respective countries, the results would have been very different. In my experience , muslims typically (not the extremists!) have been more than happy with liberal systems in the west . Once integrated they would be excellent defenders of liberal western values. They KNOW first hand the harshness of even “moderate extemism ” It is only because of the rise of GENERAL anti-islam feeling after 9/11 that the muslims have react by giving extreme responses in surveys. In my opinion, people who are accepted, loved, etc by those around , and have money, businesses, jobs, families, rarely become want to rock the boat (en masse). There are, as far as I know, hardly any muslim countries which follow the sharia. Maybe just saudi arabia and iran. Not even the other arab countries, like uae, bahrain . Nor pakistan, malaysia, bangladesh. I find it hard to believe that muslims who have ‘escaped’ to UK, will actually ever want to bring sharia to that country.

  • My previous comment answering above was deleted. Why? It contained links to the Faithfreedom.org/gallery.htm.

    See link at my name, if this stays.

    I had specific answers to the previous post using the gallery links to illustrate it. Why was that post taken off?

    Carpet Bagger can’t handle links to photos of Sharia Law punishment? But Goode is a bigot?

    • Comments are closed.