Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Is Warning Americans About Donald Trump

How important is Kareem in the current political climate? How outrageous are Trump's immigration proposals? Is the editor's note at the end fair?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kareem-abdul-jabbar-trump_us_56b76f0ee4b04f9b57d9f808

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Is Warning Americans About Donald Trump
"Encouraging religious discrimination will definitely not make America great."
02/07/2016 01:42 pm ET
Kim Bellware
Reporter, The Huffington Post

Donald Trump's dominance may have deflated a bit since the Iowa caucus, but the Republican presidential candidate's staying power is still concerning enough for a famously private sports great to speak out.

Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar called Trump's ideas and proposals -- which include banning Muslims from the U.S. and shutting down mosques -- "illegal and immoral" during a pre-taped Sunday appearance on CNN's political affairs program "GPS."

"I thought what he had to say was outrageous. It certainly contradicts our Constitution, something that the president of the United States is obliged to uphold and defend," Abdul-Jabbar told host Fareed Zakaria. "And religious discrimination is not part of what America is supposed to be about."

"Encouraging religious discrimination will definitely not make America great," Abdul-Jabbar added.

Zakaria noted that for years, Abdul-Jabbar had been private about his personal beliefs, including his Muslim faith. The 68-year-old basketball legend was born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr., but changed his name several years after he converted to Islam in college.

Abdul-Jabbar famously sparred with Trump back in September when he penned a Washington Post editorial criticizing Trump's "bullying" tactics with media and general gracelessness.

Trump quickly hit back in a note to Abdul-Jabbar that accused the sports great of not having "a clue about life and what has to be done to make America great again!" ("The bully proves my point," Abdul-Jabbar wrote in a follow-up.)

"I'm not interested in getting into the middle of the political melee going on right now," Abdul-Jabbar said, noting that he has no desire for a protracted feud with Trump.

Abdul-Jabbar also advised Americans to have the patience to seek out real, meaningful solutions rather than what he characterized as Trump's advocacy of simple, sweeping answers to actually complex problems.

"I hope America wakes up and sees how dangerous it can be to indulge in these kinds of thoughts," he said.

Editor's Note: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.

 

Why would banning muslims be unconstitutional?

Jabbar doesn't go in much for details, I guess. A great basketball player from back in the day, but that doesn't mean anything. Let's get some specifics, or he might as well just be quiet. Everybody has opinions, and his appears to be based on nothing.

 

So the spokesman for North Korea's Kim Jong-un opposes Trump?

Sounds like a Trump endorsement to me.

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At least the editor admits he's a yellow dog Democrat groupie.

 

Locke and Jeffereson were specific about religious freedoms including Jews, Muslims and Hindus.

 

Kareem? Wow, like a step up from taking political advice from Rodman, commies, socialists, and liberals in general have absolutely no standards when it comes to who influences their opinions...

 

Yet here he is.

 

He mentioned the constitution, so tell me, what part of the constitution has defined islam as a religion?

It's not about particular religions, but rather keeping religion out of the constitution. Islam is just a word that some people use to define their belief system. That belief system is unconstitutional, so.... let them stay in the desert because they don't belong in a civil society.

Do you see how that works? If we stop thinking of Islam as a religion, then there's nothing unconstitutional about keeping them out. If we think of Islam as a religion, then it is unconstitutional

 

It is a religion.. Look up what Jefferson has to say.

 

Throughout U.S. history, Protestants have denounced Catholics as fake Christians, amoral villains and traitors to the nation. In an argument that anticipated today’s critiques of Islam, inventor Samuel Morse argued in 1835 that the ideal of religious liberty served as a Trojan horse secreting enemies of the nation “into every nook and corner of the land.” This "infallibly intolerant” Roman Catholic tradition, he argued, wasn’t even a religion; it was a nefarious political scheme masquerading as one.

But anti-Catholicism was not the only culture war prosecuted by conservative defenders of faith and flag. Mormons, too, were targeted as slaves of a religious despot whose liberty was incompatible with our own. Before this culture war was over, Mormon leaders would be sued, jailed, beaten, stripped naked, tarred and feathered, and murdered. And rank-and-file Mormons would be chased from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois to the Utah territory.

Today, it is easy to imagine that Barack Obama is the first U.S. president to be accused of being a Muslim. But that honor actually belongs to Thomas Jefferson.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...trump-muslim-islam-president-column/72563196/

 

I thought he was talking about the constitution. Show me where the constitution says that Islam is a religion.

As far as I'm concerned, muslims are just another bunch of nuts. Keeping nutcases out of the country is a good thing.

 

Go shoot a sky hook Kareem........and shut the hell up

 

Kareem gives a good warning about Trump.

 

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I met an older gentleman who said he knew him as Lewis Alcindor....or something like that.

 

He changed his name after he became a muslim.

 

Kareem who?

 

*******mit. Im done with Trump. Im over Trump. I back Cruz now.

But Trump is making all the right enemies. Its hard to not support him when ALL of your enemies oppose him.

 

what i like about trump is that it shows muslims that yes there is a negative reaction if you just mouth condemnation to all of the people claiming to be of your religion instead of helping to get rid of them. Hopefully it will encourage them to be more active in reporting terrorists.

 

It would violate the Amendment saying the State cannot establish a Religion. It would give every religion in the US an advantage over Islam in that only Muslims would have to make foreign relatives deny their religion (all other things being equal) in order to have them allowed to even visit, let alone immigrate here. This amounts to establishing any religion that is not Islam as a religion officially favored by the state and the amendment forbids Congress to "make any law respecting the establishment of religion"

 

I didn't even know he was still alive

 

Yes. He was then a failure as every type of BB coaching and semi-executive position that he tried after his playing days were over, so decided to become a victim-hood writer for Time Magazine,that had an affirmative action position open. He is an intellectual moron.

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Brain dead, so you were close.

 

About one third to one fourth of it is a religion.

 

"I hope America wakes up and sees how dangerous it can be to indulge in these kinds of thoughts," he said.

Typical Muslim intimidation; trying to stifle freedom of speech and thought.

 

He was good in Airplane.

And I haven't given him a single thought since then.

 

Maybe Kareem would have been more useful if he warned us about his moslem buddies before 9/11.

 

I did not know 1.6 billion of them were trying to come to the US.

This type of phony grandstanding is getting old. Everytime there is an Islamic terrorist attack someone feels the need to lecture everyone on muslims.....who gives a crap? The Catholic Church was held responsible for their pedophile priests so it is time to hold Islam accountable for Islamic terrorism. Osama Bin Laden was an Islamic Scholar so he was not inspired by the Amish to do what he did.

What people need to wake up to is the organized effort to inflict death and destruction on the world based on an Islamic ideology. It may not be the ideology followed by all muslims but that goes without saying and it should go without saying. If banning Muslims from coming to the US is a temporary solution it sounds good to me. Look at European countries who took in Syrian refugees and are now kicking them out. Some have to learn the hard way.