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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (30838)	6/4/2009 5:49:52 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Re: One of the Largest Muslim Countries Jonah Goldberg The Corner Andy — I know I shouldn't be shocked by this, but it's still irksome that the New York Times would report Obama's gaffe about America being one of the largest Muslim countries without providing any debunking or truth-squadding or even statistical perspective of any kind. Can anyone imagine George W. Bush saying something like this and not being instantly corrected and/or mocked for it by the MSM? corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (30838)	6/4/2009 5:57:47 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The Largest Muslim Nation Michael Rubin The Corner Andy, Jonah, aside from the factual issue here about Muslim population count, could I suggest that there is a greater problem reflected in Obama's statement? Obama has embraced cultural relativism, and argued that the United States cannot and should not impose its values on other countries. Whether we should or not is a debate for another time. But even if he chooses not to preach American values, rather than define the United States on religious terms, why not at least stand up for the values which made the United States great when describing the United States? The United States is not "a Muslim country." Nor should it be, in my opinion, a "Christian country," except in as much as Western liberalism and the core values of Christianity or Judaism or any other religion overlap with Western liberalism. Rather, the United States is a country built on the very concepts about which Obama now seems embarrassed: freedom, liberty, respect for property, separation of church and state, constitutionalism, and rule-of-law. Rather than pander to Egyptians as if Egypt is just another constituency on a whistle-stop tour, perhaps Obama should emphasize our freedoms as the core of the American brand name. It reminds me of an example — pointed out several years ago, I believe by Rob Satloff — of a State Department pamphlet about Muslims in America. About 90 percent of the women in its pictures were veiled. The problem is, that perhaps only 10 percent of American Muslims cover themselves. And yet, rather than send the message that Muslims in America could be free to dress however they wanted without fear of getting beaten, stabbed, or have acid thrown in their faces, the State Department chose to pander and implied acceptance of a far more conservative definition of proper Islam. corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (30838)	6/4/2009 6:15:47 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Re: Largest Muslim Nation Andy McCarthy The Corner Michael, in the April 20 edition of NR, I wrote an essay called "Beyond Terrorism." The point was to argue that — as President Obama said in that interview reported on (as Jonah says, without much examination) by the Times — "the United States and other parts of the Western world 'have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.'" The difference is that I mean it and he doesn't. Anyway, the president and Islam's apologists in the West do not speak about the core American values you mention because, if they did, it would become painfully clear that major aspects of sharia (the Islamic legal code) are antithetical to Western democracy. The "Islam" that the president wants to "better educate" about is not the one that actually exists. In the essay, I put it this way <<< The Koran contains many an ode to tolerance, most of which are from Mohammed’s early Meccan period, when he was seeking to recruit converts to the new religion. Many such benign injunctions were abrogated by the contrary, brutalizing verses of the later Medinan period, when the warrior prophet spread Islam principally by the sword. That inconvenient fact is ignored by the “religion of peace” crowd, whose unparalleled favorite scripture is Sura 2:256, the instruction that there shall be “no compulsion in religion.” On the basis of this directive, they argue, à la Jacqui Smith [the British Home Secretary — or at least she was until she got sacked about five minutes ago], that jihadist violence must be anti-Islamic. Au contraire. While militants would surely be delighted if, say, the destruction of the Twin Towers induced everyone to convert, that is not the direct goal of jihadist activity — violent or not. The goal is to induce each targeted jurisdiction to adopt sharia. The Muslim Brotherhood’s chief theoretician, Sayyid Qutb, explained that forcible jihad proceeds whenever Islam is obstructed by “the political system of the state, the socio-economic system based on races and classes, and behind all these, the military power of the government.” This system is then supplanted by Islamic law. At that point, Islam can be “addressed to peoples’ hearts and minds,” purportedly without compulsion, “and they are free to accept or reject it with an open mind.” Jihad is not trying to convert you; it is seeking the imposition of Allah’s law. That law happens to be antithetical to bedrock American principles: It establishes a state religion, rejects the freedom of citizens to govern themselves irrespective of a religious code, proscribes freedom of conscience, proscribes economic freedom, destroys the principle of equality under the law, subjugates non-Muslims in the humiliation of dhimmitude, and calls for the execution of homosexuals and apostates. Nevertheless, its adoption produces what Islamists portray as the non-coercive environment in which people then “freely” embrace Islam. . . . >>> corner.nationalreview.com