[Vision2020] Muslim Man May Be America's First VP Candidate

[Nicholas Gier]

Maryville man could be first Muslim vice presidential candidate

   - Story
   <http://www.thedailytimes.com/news/maryville-man-could-be-first-muslim-vice-presidential-candidate/article_5b4d00ee-29c6-5945-ac4c-ba9157db9249.html?mode=story>
   - Comments
   <http://www.thedailytimes.com/news/maryville-man-could-be-first-muslim-vice-presidential-candidate/article_5b4d00ee-29c6-5945-ac4c-ba9157db9249.html#user-comment-area>

Print Create a hardcopy of this page
<http://www.thedailytimes.com/news/maryville-man-could-be-first-muslim-vice-presidential-candidate/article_5b4d00ee-29c6-5945-ac4c-ba9157db9249.html?mode=print>
Font Size: Default font size
<http://www.thedailytimes.com/content/tncms/live/#> Larger font size
<http://www.thedailytimes.com/content/tncms/live/#>
<http://www.thedailytimes.com/content/tncms/live/#>20
<http://www.thedailytimes.com/content/tncms/live/#>
Previous Next
[image: Will Coley]
<http://www.thedailytimes.com/news/maryville-man-could-be-first-muslim-vice-presidential-candidate/article_5b4d00ee-29c6-5945-ac4c-ba9157db9249.html?mode=image&photo=0>

Mark A. Large | The Daily Times
Will Coley

Will Coley

Posted: Thursday, April 7, 2016 12:00 am

Maryville man could be first Muslim vice presidential candidate
<http://thedailytimes.com/news/maryville-man-could-be-first-muslim-vice-presidential-candidate/article_5b4d00ee-29c6-5945-ac4c-ba9157db9249.html>
By
Joel Davis joeld at thedailytimes.com TheDailyTimes.com | 0 comments
<http://www.thedailytimes.com/news/maryville-man-could-be-first-muslim-vice-presidential-candidate/article_5b4d00ee-29c6-5945-ac4c-ba9157db9249.html#user-comment-area>

   - [image: JoelD] <http://www.thedailytimes.com/users/profile/JoelD>
   -

   Posted on Apr 7, 2016

   by *Joel Davis* <http://www.thedailytimes.com/users/profile/JoelD>

A Maryville man could reportedly become the first Muslim candidate for vice
president in U.S. history.

Will Coley, whose activism has gained him national attention in libertarian
circles, has agreed to be the running mate of Libertarian Party
presidential candidate Darryl W. Perry.
<http://www.thedailytimes.com/content/tncms/live/#> Perry is one of 15
candidates seeking the Libertarian nomination for U.S. president. He and
Coley will be making several campaign appearances in the run-up to the
party’s nominating convention, which will be held May 26-30 in Orlando, Fla.

Coley said he never had any political aspirations nor desire to run for
office until Perry contacted him last week. “What he represented to me was
the ability to put a human face on a lot of the policy positions being
discussed today — immigration, domestic policies toward the Muslim
community, the effects of political rhetoric on minorities as well as the
fact that, in our foreign policy, most of the people we send to deal with
foreign countries overseas are just old white guys,” Coley said. “... They
don’t have any intimate understanding or knowledge of the cultures in play.”

Perry, a libertarian activist and media personality, chose Coley as his
running mate because “he has intimate knowledge and insight both of the
religion, and the cultures of the countries (the U.S. military) has been
actively bombing or occupying,” according to a press release. The campaign
also claims that Coley would be the first Muslim candidate for vice
president.

According to the Perry campaign, Coley “has amassed a considerable
following by preaching a message that simultaneously discourages violence
while encouraging open-mindedness towards Muslims.”

Coley is the national director of Muslims4Liberty, which is described on
its website as “an organization primarily of American Muslims, who are
committed to advancing the cause of liberty from a principled and Islamic
perspective.”

A Lenoir City native, Coley said his involvement in activism started the
day he attended a Smoky Mountains Tea Party Patriots meeting in 2011. The
group had brought in Bill French, a self-taught expert on “political
Islam,” to speak about what he saw as the rise of the Muslim religious
code, called Sharia law, in Tennessee.

“It was seeing a man tell an audience full of people that they should fear
their children being in a classroom next to my children,” Coley said. “A
division like that hasn’t existed in this country since the 1960s. As
Americans, we should do everything in our power to ensure that kind of
division doesn’t come back into our country.”

Coley has gone on to speak at political events around the country such as
the Porcupine Freedom Festival in New Hampshire and the Republican Liberty
Caucus National Convention.

“That was the first day,” he said. “It was all born here in Maryville.
Since then I’ve spoken at some of the biggest conservative and libertarian
events in the county.”

Describing himself as a “blue-collar guy,” Coley lives in Maryville with
his wife and seven children. He said his wife is completing the process to
become a U.S. citizen.

At one point, the Coleys faced a frightening scenario when a sponsor fell
through, and his wife faced deportation. “That is an experience no family
in this country should ever go through,” he said. “Putting a human face on
that is important in the atmosphere where we’re talking about closing the
borders and building walls

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20160408/f08bae5e/attachment-0001.html>