Posted on 10/06/2015 10:35:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
You can tell when a Republican candidate is making waves. They become noticeable to the left. Their words get picked apart. The most perfect inverse ratio in the world is how popular a Republican is becoming compared to how stupid liberal outlets portray him to be. The poll numbers and reported IQ create a mathematical harmony not seen since the golden ratio.
Dr. Ben Carson has been polling very well and gaining in both primary popularity and national profile. The world class surgeon must therefore be getting stupider by the second. Enter Salon dot com.
Salon ran an article over the weekend that is a supposed take-down of Dr. Carson’s recent comments about Islam and the Presidency. The article was written with the exactly precise amount of outrage and scorn liberal media requires at this point, and was tweeted with equal “in your FACE” churlishness. In that tweet a claim was made. I warn you, the claim is so monumentally, facially absurd that you will at first simply not believe it is a real tweet.
But it is real. It is really what a real website with a real brand really tweeted with their real Twitter account. I’m just trying to prepare you for the fact that the thing I am about to embed here in this post is an actual thing that was typed by human hands intentionally and then put onto the internet with aforethought. Put down your coffee, spit your chewing gum into your hand, and buckle up. This is going to be rough.
The tweet – and I just want to stress that this is a real thing that was done on purpose – is:
Salon.com
✔ @Salon
"Islam gave women equal rights in 610 that our own United
States haven’t given even in 2015." http://slnm.us/SSQoBYA
10:35 AM - 4 Oct 2015
Breathe. Here, drink some water. Better? You’re going to get through this. We are.
That is their actual tweet. It is the tweet because it is a quoted line from the article. In that article, the above claim is made, and then the basis for the claim is laid out, which I will now place below. If you need to be talked up to this moment, see above about typing and purpose and so on.
For example, far from Dr. Carson’s claim that in Islam women are subservient, Islam gave women equal rights in 610 that our own United States haven’t given even in 2015. To this day America has not passed the Equal Rights Amendment. Meanwhile the Quran 33:36 emphatically declares the equality of men and women:
Surely, men who submit themselves to God and women who submit themselves to Him…God has prepared for all of them forgiveness and a great reward.”
Yeah, so like, the Bible pretty much says the same thing. The writer of this piece seems to not know this, but women have been getting into Christian heaven since, oh about the very first day of Christianity. Plus also before that all the way back to the beginning. Christian heaven has been co-ed longer than just about anything, and I’m including softball.
And how do you arrive at this as some kind of obvious comparison? He’s all ‘you haven’t passed this specific piece of legislation or this particular amendment, even though our Holy Book has a verse about submitting to God!” Um .. does not follow. I would respond with my own question: How can your holy book have a verse about submission when my dog hasn’t even passed that dental floss he ate out of the garbage? Hmm? TELL ME THAT!!
And speaking of passing things through governments, getting forgiveness and great reward in the afterlife has nothing whatsoever to do with the laws of the United States. Like, zero. It’s not even in the IRS code and that thing is a best. It’s just not something we adjudicate here. There’s family court, there’s civil court, there’s criminal court. We have appellate courts and supreme courts and even racquetball courts. We do not, however, have Eternal Reward Court, although Judge Judy is pretty close.
So that’s the end of that dumb point. But don’t worry, there are more.
Carson’s parents divorced when he was 8—a right American women didn’t have until the 19th century. Meanwhile, Islam was the first religion to give women the right to choose to marry or to divorce, the right to own property, to become secular or religious scholars, the right to inherit, or to run a business—all in the 7th century.
Man, for a guy talking about government he sure is basing a lot of this on religious practice. Is that unusual for practitioners of Islam? I can’t remember. Anyway, even though America didn’t exist in the 7th century, let’s address this nonsense point anyway.
Let’s look at divorce. Here’s a Bible verse.
“And he saith unto them: Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.”
So first of all, it is implicit in the idea that there is a sin in divorce that divorce is actually something that can be done. For example, there would be no need for the Bible to tell us it is a sin to make a square circle, for humans to fire lasers from their eyes, or for Margaret Cho to be funny, because these things are impossible to do. It was a sin to divorce, therefore it was an option.
Minor point though. The bigger point here is that the rules were the same for the men and for the women. To say that is somehow a mistreatment of women in particular is silly and easily refuted. Can a Muslim woman eat pork? No? Then Islam discriminates against women. See how dumb that is? Muslim men can’t eat pork either. It’s the same.
And of course, it’s not a point at all because women in America can get divorced. So there is simply no reason to include it among the proofs of the assertion that “Islam gave women equal rights in 610 that our own United States haven’t given even in 2015.” None. Women in 2015 can get divorced.
But even so, he’s still wrong about divorce in America. Even pre-revolution colonial women were able to get divorces. It was rare and the bar was high, but the same is true of men. Men typically had greater means in those days, and were therefore more easily able to get over the bar. But it was basically true for both genders that divorces used to be more difficult to get than they are now. Remember the pork?
There is no specific “right” to divorce in the United States. Nor any prohibition of women from obtaining one. There are merely laws and precedents covering the procedure of divorce. The dissolution of a contract. Some women were able to avail themselves of it prior to suffrage. Some weren’t. It was not “illegal,” and nothing has been overturned, amended, or passed in a legislature specifically allowing women to divorce. So, all around, zero facts are correct in his divorce argument.
So that’s enough of that dumb point.
The divorce argument holds true for the rest of the list: owning property, being educated, inheriting money … these are all things women can do in America. Salon’s argument once again is “yeah but we could do it, like, sooner.” Just to be clear, the United States was not around in the 7th century. I cannot stress enough how very much the United States did not exist in the 7th century. I mean like, at all. Nada. It wasn’t even like there were people going “you know we should really get this United States thing going” and some other guy was like “well OK, but hang on, I have to finish inventing coffee and I’ve got a ton of giving women equal rights to do this afternoon. Let’s reschedule for a thousand years from now.” Nope. Never happened. No United States.
But there is a United States now, and women in it can do all of those things plus even more stuff like drive cars, show their faces in public, and even draw pictures of famous religious leaders from history. I’m not naming any names, but one of them rhymes with “ruhrammad.”
I can’t remember, can Muslim women draw such pictures? No? Discrimination!
Oh hey I forgot, here’s another thing from the article:
Prophet Muhammad repeatedly declared, “It is incumbent upon every Muslim male and every Muslim female to attain education.”
Well I mean, if it was repeatedly then, gosh. You got us there. Although, probably though you should define “education” just for the heck of it. If you mean like, women are educated on how to please their man, that’s not exactly going to get them on a box of Virginia Slims. Maybe it means educated like, took driver’s ed? Oh wait … right.
Well let’s stick a pin in that shall we? And by the way, if you’re a member of the Taliban, understand that was a figure of speech. Please don’t go start sticking pins in women.
Now back to the article. Remember, we’re trying to find out what special rights women are granted in Islam that they still don’t have in the United States in 2015. Here’s his next proof:
ERROR: Proof not found.
What? That was it? Those were his proofs? Oh man. Oh man that is funny. I’m dying here. Oh my aching sides. I’m on the floor laughing at that proof. I’m throwing myself off the roof of a building in hilarity. I am literally crashing a plane into the upper part of my body with laughter. At what temperature does steel guffaw?
Ahhhh, good times. OK I’m better. Now, about that pin. Right. Education in Islam. Let’s see what that horribly conservative rag Time Magazine has to say, shall we?
While it is impossible, given their diversity, to paint one picture of women living under Islam today, it is clear that the religion has been used in most Muslim countries not to liberate but to entrench inequality. The Taliban, with its fanatical subjugation of the female sex, occupies an extreme, but it nevertheless belongs on a continuum that includes, not so far down the line, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan and the relatively moderate states of Egypt and Jordan. Where Muslims have afforded women the greatest degree of equality–in Turkey–they have done so by overthrowing Islamic precepts in favor of secular rule. As Riffat Hassan, professor of religious studies at the University of Louisville, puts it, “The way Islam has been practiced in most Muslim societies for centuries has left millions of Muslim women with battered bodies, minds and souls.”
Errrwwwhhhh hhnmmmmm, that is decidedly less “feminist paradise” and considerably more “Chris Brown is my spirit animal” than Salon has led us to believe.
Still, that’s a look at the laws as they stand today. Our Salon writer was making the point that 7th century Islam gave women more rights than the United States does in 2015. Maybe it’s another classic case of man perverting the will of God. Or Allah. Or Muhammad. Maybe?
No such luck.
Part of the problem dates to Muhammad. Even as he proclaimed new rights for women, he enshrined their inequality in immutable law, passed down as God’s commandments and eventually recorded in scripture. The Koran allots daughters half the inheritance of sons. It decrees that a woman’s testimony in court, at least in financial matters, is worth half that of a man’s. Under Shari’a, or Muslim law, compensation for the murder of a woman is half the going rate for men. In many Muslim countries, these directives are incorporated into contemporary law. For a woman to prove rape in Pakistan, for example, four adult males of “impeccable” character must witness the penetration, in accordance with Shari’a.
Very progressive. This isn’t just a “wage gap” this is a “wages” gap. As in, the wages of feminine. You are half a man. Not in the literal sense like Bernie Sanders, but in the legal sense, like Michael Bloomberg. Half the rate. Half the money. Half the worth. Hear me ro
(that was half a roar.)
So there goes the Tweet, the assertion from the article, and the general view of Islam as a progressive, female friendly work environment.
We could go on to address in detail the other point the author makes in an effort to “refute” Dr. Carson, which is that Islam does not call for the killing of unbelievers, but we don’t really have to. Just turn on the TV. Or go to YouTube. Go find out what the loudest among them say and do. And while there certainly are Muslims who do not kill unbelievers – in fact the vast majority do not – you will see that this is most assuredly, undeniably, and absolutely a major impact of Islam around the world. Terror, violence, and murder. And not just of non-believers.
Yes there is a school of religious and philosophical thought within Islam that interprets the Quran and various Hadiths as not calling for the outright murder of non-Muslims. But this does not prove the author’s point, or President Obama’s most repeated refrain, that this is a “religion of peace.” It just does not.
And there goes that troubling, willfully blind point.
So no, Salon. No, Mr. Rashid. Islam grants women no special privilege they are not granted here in the United States in 2015. That is false. It is a lie. Lying is bad. I read so in some Holy Book.
And as for Islam and death, I can only say I sincerely hope you prove that wrong. I hope every Muslim the world over who isn’t already tolerant of other faiths proves that wrong. Indeed, I hope people of every faith or no faith do the same. It will be the end of global terror. What a good day that would be.
“For example, there would be no need for the Bible to tell us it is a sin...for Margaret Cho to be funny, because these things are impossible to do.”
I like this guy, it’s like Trump’s “only Rosy O’Donnell” line.
Get your facts at Soros-bankrolled lefty rag Salon:
“Islam gave women equal rights in 610 that our own United
States haven’t given even in 2015.” “
bmp
B T T T
Thanks MarvinStinson.
“If you mean like, women are educated on how to please their man, that’s not exactly going to get them on a box of Virginia Slims. Maybe it means educated like, took driver’s ed? Oh wait … right.”
Let’s try...Not getting shot in the face for trying to go to Middle School.
I guess Salon.com forgot about that one.
Based on the Tweet mentioned, I swear sometimes it seems Salon is written like “The Onion” by some genius, covert Conservative!
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