Posted on 06/25/2009 8:31:24 PM PDT by Graybeard58
The moral bankruptcy of the Left – epitomized by its backing of Islamic dictators and extremists over moderate Muslims – saw it defeated across Europe in recent EU elections. From what I read yesterday, the Huffington Post, and American liberals, might want to take a lesson from that. In one op-ed piece, Frank Schaeffer tells us that “the real lesson of Iran” actually has nothing to do with Iran, and everything to do with American conservatives. Neoconservatives and the religious-Right are – so we’re told – trying their best to establish a Christian, pro-Israel dictatorship, replete with Old Testament law.
According to Schaeffer, Republican “hypocrites” would introduce “capital punishment […] to punish a variety of crimes including being gay.” It would also ban “gay men and women from serving in the military” (when they’re not being executed, of course). And would roll back “civil rights for blacks, women, gays [again], [and] unions […]” And “Gay men and women would be hounded and if they were murdered [rather than being officially executed] there would be leaders saying they had it coming.” And this from a man who says Republicans talk “crazy.”
There are plenty of other colorful accusations here. Republicans would initiate “a neoconservative led and religious right backed holy war against Islam,” though this never happened under the Bush administration, who always made it perfectly clear that the “war on terror” was a war against “Islamofascists,” not moderate Muslims. For example, in 2005, president Bush said this:
Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus – and also against Muslims [my italics] from other traditions, who they regard as heretics.
Nevertheless, Huffington Post’s psychobabble expert RJ Eskow, diagnoses “narcissistic frenzy” and “contradictions” in the “’clash of civilizations’ crowd” (that would be you and me).
“Why, Eskow wonders, “are the people who've been insisting there's a monolithic evil called ‘Islamofascism’ suddenly backing one Iranian faction over another?”
Well, its because not every Iranian is an Islamofascist. And not every government, candidate, or leader is the same – that’s why we, and they, have elections. That’s right. It’s not all relative.
But let’s take a step back.
The Bush administration – and “the coalition of the willing” – invaded Afghanistan after the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, and, later, Iraq, replacing the governments of both countries.
The government of Afghanistan – though very far from perfect – is now more moderate (or less extreme) than the previous Taliban dictatorship. Girls can get an education, instead of being murdered for wanting to achieve. And women can protest, instead of being the mere mute property of their male relatives. But, no, it’s not perfect because, yes, Taliban remnants (or Islamofascists) still exercise some influence, and still attack little girls that want an education and a better life.
And, yes, it’s still a patriarchal and ultra-traditional society. Neither café latte nor cultural relativism are in big demand yet. But then maybe Afghans just aren’t as sophisticated and as smart as America’s “liberals”.
Then there’s Iraq’s government. Like the Afghanistan government, it’s essentially Muslim. And we back it as well. There have been elections since the Iraqi dictatorship was toppled. And given a choice between a government that might help usher in a stable democracy, and a dictator like that of Saddam Hussein, who ordered the torture of civilians (including with a human “meat grinder”), who ordered the poison gas attack on civilians at the city of Halabja, killing thousands, and who used mass rape as a weapon of control, then we should back the former and oppose the latter. Or am I just talking all “crazy”?
Back to Iran. Unlike the US, Mr. Schaeffer, it actually does execute homosexuals – by hanging – for being homosexual. It also sentences people to death by stoning. For example nine illiterate people (eight women and one man) convicted without proper trial in 2008. Or the two sisters convicted of adultery – also stoned to death last year. Then there’s the murder of political prisoners. The imprisonment of foreign reporters, such as Roxana Saberi. And the morality police who routinely arrest women for wearing clothes that backward clerical fascists deem too fashionable, too Western, or too attractive.
And Mr. Eskow, you might really believe that Obama’s robotic yet fluffy statements about the Iranian protests “[…] went as far as they could wisely go,” even if “opportunists and fantasists will both say it wasn't enough.” But, personally, I’m with Joshua Muravchik, who said in Commentary, that Obama’s “Failure to use the bully pulpit to give the Iranian people as much support as possible is morally reprehensible and a strategical blunder for which he will not be forgiven.”
I’m not suggesting that we bomb Iran, or do anything neoconish or “crazy.” But those “opportunists and fantasists,” Mr. Eskow, include the Iranian protestors risking their lives, fighting for the chance of democracy, and for the little things that Westerners take for granted, such as being able to wear what they want to wear without being arrested. And if they can’t count on us to stand up and to articulate why they’re right, and why we support them unequivocally, then shame on us.
ahhh....the 'desensitizing' of America to Islam has begun. Pretend it's under attack, pretend the Republicans are the evil enemy, rally support for Islam in the universities and unions, and voila, a mosque in every city.
According to Schaeffer, Republican “hypocrites” would introduce “capital punishment […] to punish a variety of crimes including being gay.” It would also ban “gay men and women from serving in the military” (when they’re not being executed, of course). And would roll back “civil rights for blacks, women, gays [again], [and] unions […]” And “Gay men and women would be hounded and if they were murdered [rather than being officially executed] there would be leaders saying they had it coming.” And this from a man who says Republicans talk “crazy.”
Another in a long line of those who try to whip up hysteria about the religious right trying to impose a *theocracy* on us, all in a rather transparent attempt to purge any reference or trace of Christianity from our culture, society, or government.
What they don't realize, is that in getting rid of Christianity, they open the floodgates for islam to come in. They're creating a vacuum and something is going to fill it.
They won't get a religion free society. They're just going to trade one for another, with the other far worse option than they think Christianity is.
If they are worried about what's going to happen if Christianity ever got back to the point of what it used to be in this country, they ought to really be concerned about what would happen when islam rises to the top.
They ain't seen nothing yet.
Perhaps Scheiffer can point out one time he has been on the side of people wanting Freedom. Perhaps East Berliners? S Vietnamese? Iraqis? Come on Scheiffer show us a column you have been on the side of the oppressed rather than the tanks.
Pray for America
If he were born a few decades earlier this Chicken Little would no doubt have been one of the people warning whites to lock up their daughters to keep them safe from those animal-like Negroes.
Hateful bigotry throughout history has never lacked targets, or self-righteous goons like Millar eager to incite mobs in persecuting them.
I remember when the Soviet Union fell. Then there were tanks rolling down the street in Moscow as a show of force for the old regime. MSM explained that it was the RIGHT WING trying to reassert itself.
The libs will say anything to push their own agenda. They’ll blame conservatives for the failings of the left and they’ll give the leftists credit for what the conservatives have done. And most of the people don’t know the different.
Calling them "colorful" is far far too kind. I'd lean more towards "useless idiotic drivel" myself.
Republicans would initiate “a neoconservative led and religious right backed holy war against Islam,”
Well, like it or not, we are in a holy war - one instigated by radical Islam. They have been, and will continue to, wage war against the west. Well, against anyone who stands in the way of their vision of an Islamic world - including moderate Muslims. When someone makes war on you, you are in a war, like it or not. We didn't start it, but God willing, we will finish it.
I stand corrected, as on first scan I mistakenly thought the bigotry I quoted were the words of the author, bat rather he was actually citing the bigotry of Frank Schaeffer.
My sincere apologies for confusing you with such garbage as Schaeffer, Mr. Millar.
Thanks alot for posting it.
But there really is a fascist, theocratic police state out there to oppose, a real one, not the one in the perfervid imaginations of the Huffington Post. It's Iran.
I followed the link to the HuffPo article by Frank Schaeffer. Yes, unfortunately the son of the late great Dr Francis A Schaeffer. He has indeed gone over to the dark side.
Frankie is still fighting the ghost of his father. I do hope Frankie grows up and learns to forgive all those childish hurts that little boys sometimes experience with their fathers. Otherwise he will continue to have these strange hallucinations.
The Left is easy to figure out. They’re not complicated. They’ll back whomever is opposed to democracy, capitalism, and for the last 65 years, the USA. It’s really no more difficult than that. They backed Lenin and then they backed Stalin; they backed Hitler and Stalin during their Pact; they backed Mao; they backed Ho; they backed Castro; they backed assorted racist Lefties in Africa during decolonization; they backed the Sandinistas; they backed Noriega; they backed Saddam; they back Chavez and Adminejad. It’s all about hating the US. It’s very unsophisticated and simple minded.
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