Hearings on "Domestic Muslim Terrorism"
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Monday, March 21, 2011 20:42
VIEWED: 9998
PAGE 8 of 11
Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:All terrorism is political and economic and NOT religious.
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
Still I think your examples are political and economic in essence, not religious. 'Course, I suspect AL Qeada is only religious when it suits their agenda anyway.
Anyone who buys ideological terrorism is, imho, naive.
Especially those naive enough to actually get suckered into carrying it out. Ralph Reed loves it when his minions kill people, but he will never, EVER have the conviction to do it himself. In this, he is exactly the same as Osama bin Laden (only bin Laden actually did a better job of it).
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill
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Think.....drink the "koolaid". Religion is for idiots. That is why Beck is a fool.
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Quote:
Originally posted by USBrowncoat:
I agree with 90% of your post. I would be careful to not lump the "right" together. There is a huge difference from a libertarian and a neo-con. Both can be called "the right". Infact anyone "right of you can be called "the right" by you and means nothing. War sucks. War is a drain on the economy. War kills.
In THEORY, there's a huge difference. In practice, though, they're almost exactly the same. Anyone who supported Bush and the invasion of Iraq, it doesn't matter what they call themselves - they're terrorists and murderers to the same degree as those who danced in the streets on 9/11, or those who supported the Taliban.
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill
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Quote:
Originally posted by USBrowncoat:
Think.....drink the "koolaid". Religion is for idiots. That is why Beck is a fool.
Agreed.
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Quote:Only because the authorities you trust are calling one group "apples" and the other group,"oranges."
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
This is kind of apples and oranges.
Look at it objectively.
1. Civilians are being killed violently.
2. What is the religion of the foot soldiers and pawns doing the killing? What is the religion of those who fund that killing? What is the religion of those who morally support that killing? (And don't kid yourself that there is a difference between those who pull the trigger, and those who buy the guns and cheer them on. They are the same religion and the same in culpability.)
If you follow the rough numbers I posted, you will see that Christians and Jews kill more Muslim civilians than Muslims kill Christian and Jewish civilians.
Apples and oranges only come in when you think about intentions. Christian intentions and Jewish intentions are "good," but Muslim intentions are "bad." But intentions are ultimately subjective guesswork, because you know, people lie. The notion that Christian/Jewish killing of civilians is justified, while Muslim killing of civilians is psycho is biased and self-serving. The notion that Christian/Jewish killing of civilians is not "terrorist" because they hire OTHER Christians and Jews to do the actual killing is disingenuous.
There are no actual oranges. There are just Christian rotten apples, Jewish rotten apples, and Muslim rotten apples. They are all terrorists or they are all freedom fighters.
Killing civilians is killing civilians. What they all have in common is that they have demonized the "enemy" so much that everyone in a certain group has become the "enemy." They no longer can distinguish between civilian and soldier, or innocent and guilty.
That is why this hearing is so disturbing. It is one more step in this process of losing perspective between who we are really fighting and all the innocent people who look like them.
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I think Quicko's comment about the right thinking this is a Christian country isn't quite right. Myself and most Christians I know think that this country is not actually a Christian country. Some of our country's values have a Judeo-Christian basis, but most people in America don't really practice Christianity on any day to day level, of course there are those that do, butif you ask most people what their religeon is these days they say a variety of things, from "I don't really have one" to "Atheist" to "Pagan" to everything else, at least in my city. I guess its not like that in other places as much as it is here where I live, but ask people on the street about their religeon/beliefs in my city and you'll get a melting pot of answers, Christianity won't be the most common either. I think it is more often the left who thinks that this is a Christian nation, just because people haven't voted for gay marriage and other such causes. Say what you want of me, this is my opinion/observation.
"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya
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Quote:
Apples and oranges only come in when you think about intentions. Christian intentions and Jewish intentions are "good," but Muslim intentions are "bad." But intentions are ultimately subjective guesswork, because you know, people lie. The notion that Christian/Jewish killing of civilians is justified, while Muslim killing of civilians is psycho is biased and self-serving. The notion that Christian/Jewish killing of civilians is not "terrorist" because they hire OTHER Christians and Jews to do the actual killing is disingenuous.
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I was justifying killing of any sort.
I was under the impression that when civilians were killed by soldiers, it was an unfortunate accident or, in the worst case scenarios, really bad judgment on the soldier's part, like sociopath bad. Terrorist, on the other hand, have a tendency to intentionally target civilians, bomb hospitals, schools, throw acid at girls, things of that nature.
If a rocket hits the wrong house and kills innocents, that's still a terrible thing, but not as bad as an IED used on a school bus.
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Quote:I know YOU don't believe killing is justified, as in moral. That wasn't what I meant. But when you say one group killing civilians is not as bad as another group killing civilians, it is a justification of sorts, in my opinion. You're not saying it is moral, no. But you are saying it is LESS IMMORAL, a leniency that I believe is undeserved. (And incidentally, not you, but many other Christians DO think killing of some sorts is perfectly justified and moral.)
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I was justifying killing of any sort...
If a rocket hits the wrong house and kills innocents, that's still a terrible thing, but not as bad as an IED used on a school bus.
Like I said, the thing about intentions, about believing that the rocket was INTENDED for a different house, is that it is subjective and biased. How do you know they didn't hit exactly the target the wanted to hit, but then made up the excuse it was the wrong house afterwards? Whether you believe that excuse or not depends on whether you WANT to believe them, see?
If you are going to call killing civilians terrorism, it should apply to everyone--"intentions" aside. They didn't have to send rockets into a house or a residential district of any kind at all. "Collateral damage" is just another word for "Terrorism is ok if the govt does it and makes up a bunch of excuses for it." Look at actions, not words. Anyone can lie.
Another example. Did anyone really think that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not result in civilian deaths? The "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to kill any civilians!" excuse doesn't apply, see? The intent was to terrorize the civilian population so much that its govt would feel political pressure to capitulate to demands. It doesn't matter that the demands are made by a govt group or a independent political group. It is state-sponsored terrorism.
Supporting state-sponsored terrorism by not calling it terrorism is basically saying, "If any terrorist group is popular enough in its own land, and comes up with a popularly accepted excuse for murdering civilians, terrorism is at best the right thing to do, and at worst, a necessary evil."
Then "terrorism" becomes a meaningless word, a name kids call each other on the playground, a name that simply designates unpopularity, with no objective definition.
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Quote:America actually has no state religion, thank God. But the majority of its inhabitants ARE Christian by self-designation. It's is all relative. Compared to other countries like India or China or Japan or Egypt, America is a Christian nation, as is England or France or Mexico.
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Myself and most Christians I know think that this country is not actually a Christian country.
You make a good point though. The terrorism engaged by the US govt and supported vocally and financially by some Christian Right groups is not "Christian terrorism," because those who practice it are not really Christian, even if they call themselves Christian.
Allow others to make the same point. The terrorism engaged by Al-Qaeda is not "Muslim terrorism," because those who practice it are not really Muslim, even if they call themselves Muslim.
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Quote:
Riona, while most of us consider America a "secular" country (at least I hope so!), the right has been using the "christian" thing to the best of their ability...about like they have been using "founding fathers" In fact they put the two together a LOT, despite the fact that the founding fathers were pretty leery of religion when they worked at forming a union. While Christianity was certainly more...shall we say "integral" to the colonists than it is now, some people would have us believe it IS a "christian nation", end of story. There's even a term for it: Dominionism
I think Quicko's comment about the right thinking this is a Christian country isn't quite right.Quote:
Wikipedia
In a politico-religious context, dominionism (also called subjectionism) is the tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians, especially in the United States, to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action. The goal is either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law. The use and application of this terminology is a matter of controversy.
The term soft dominionism is applied by critics to various Christian Right social and political movements that claim that "America is a Christian nation". Soft Dominionists also disclaim the existence of the "wall of separation" between church and state. In her book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Michelle Goldberg called this tendency "Christian Nationalism". Berlet and Clarkson have agreed that "[s]oft Dominionists are Christian nationalists."
Unlike "dominionism", the phrase "Christian nation" occurs commonly in the writings of leaders of the Christian Right. Proponents of this idea (such as David Barton and D. James Kennedy) argue that the Founding Fathers of the United States were overwhelmingly Christian, that founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are based on Christian principles, and that a Christian character is fundamental to American culture They cite, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court's comment in 1892 that "this [the United States] is a Christian nation," after citing numerous historical and legal arguments in support of that statement.
Critics regard the claim that the United States is a Christian nation as of questionable historic validity (often pointing out the deist beliefs of some of the founding fathers - Thomas Jefferson's in particular). They see the claim as ethnocentric, and as reducing secularists and members of other religions (such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) to second-class status. Other critics cite the Treaty of Tripoli passed by the United States Senate, which assured the ruler of that Muslim state that the United States government "is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion", and George Washington's letter to Moses Seixas, in which Washington defended religious freedom for Jews ("For happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance").
The term hard dominionism distinguishes forms of dominionism which evidently envision, and work toward, a future (prior to the Second Coming of Christ) in which the principles of the dominionist form of Christianity will govern all the institutions of society. This definition certainly fits Christian Reconstructionists and other adherents to Dominion Theology. Some apply it also to the more strident elements within the mainstream Christian Right
There is no such term for people on the “left” believing this is or should be a Christian nation. There are definitely people out there who want it to be, tho’, and who look down on other beliefs, and it's something that's been pushed and is being pushed by the
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