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Progressives’ Moral Equivalence
Townhall.com ^ | September 28, 2014 | Derek Hunter

Posted on 09/28/2014 5:03:14 AM PDT by Kaslin

You’ve seen this a lot in the last decade and a half: progressives asserting a moral equivalence between radial Islam and Christianity. The argument usually goes something like, “Yeah, sure, terrorists are bad, but they’re hardly the only people to kill in the name of their religion!” Then there’s the obligatory reference to the crusades.

OK, sure, Christianity, like most religions, has had some less-than-flattering moments. But it’s history. If you can point me to the mass graves, severed heads or buildings for Christianity in our lifetime… no need to finish that sentence because there aren’t any.

Christianity is an easy target for progressives; it has a violent past and a central boogeyman – the Vatican. Plus, they hate Christianity because it preaches self-reliance and a Supreme Being, not a supreme leader. Christianity has one Savior born 2,000 years ago, progressivism has many on the ballot every election cycle. They’re quite similar, really, when it comes down to the structure of beliefs.

Both are based on faith – one in a creator, the other in legislation. But while you can believe there is no God, you can’t prove it. It’s all speculation.

On the other hand, it can be proven that progressive policies are failures, that they do actual harm. The 20th century is littered with more than 100 million bodies of victims of progressive’s attempts to create various incarnations of heaven on earth. No such equivalent exists for Christians.

Christianity and the Judeo-Christian belief system, upon which the vast majority of the civilized world is based, took some time to get to the point where it sits today. And there were growing pains, the crusades among them. But that was 1,000 years ago.

So why bring up something a millennium ago to deflect barbaric acts now? Are they implying each religion has to go through some sort of dark period before it enters the light? Of course not. They don’t believe Christianity has entered any light. They still see Christians as the root of most, if not all, evil in the world.

That’s how, after reports that a recent convert to Islam beheaded a former co-worker in Oklahoma, you end up with Media Matters For America employees writing things like, “if (sic) you want to believe islam (sic) has a lock on violence, dont (sic) google (sic) the crusades.”

See, a series of invasions to reclaim land lost is the same as terrorism because people died.

Forget the fact that one happened 1,000 years ago and the other is happening now. To progressives, sword fights over control of the Holy Land and suicide bombing a farmers’ market full of school kids are the same thing.

Actually, they’re not. Progressives have a bigger problem with what happened 1,000 years ago than they do with what’s happening now. A sword fight 1,000 years ago between two people whose name history didn’t record is worse, to them, than people currently forcing women into sexual slavery, mutilating their genitals, mass executions and cutting the heads off of people who don’t believe what they believe. They figure the descendants of the people with the swords probably don’t vote the way progressives want them to vote. And that is the only sin in the progressives’ religion of government.

Now, if Christians are forever to be judged by the sins of those who shared similar beliefs millennia ago, shouldn’t the same standard apply to them and people who share their beliefs just a century ago? Should their rules apply only to others and not them? I think not.

Names such as Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Kim, Castro, and on an on, all share similar Utopic views on the role of government in creating “fairness,” “justice” and “equality.” But one need not go to other countries to find atrocities both advocated for and committed by progressives.

American progressives of the 20th century conceived of and oversaw brutal displays of inhumanity to their fellow man in the name of purity and science. They lied to black men with syphilis, telling them they were getting free medical treatment, because they wanted to study the natural progression of the disease as it destroyed their brains. They interred Americans for Asian heritage in prison camps simply because they were Asian.

Progressives were the conceptual forefathers of Hitler’s racial purity madness, advocating for ridding the gene pool of what they deemed inferior races, disabled, criminals and those thought not to have high enough IQs to be worthy of reproducing. Whereas Nazis simply wanted to wipe them out by killing them, American progressives wanted to breed them out through sterilization. Well, for the most part; some did want to kill them too.

Should progressives be judged by their predecessors’ barbaric acts? Perhaps they should, since they haven’t really repudiated their goals, only their methods.

Just as no Christians are invading the Middle East to reclaim lost land just because their ancestors did, not all Kennedys are Nazi appeasers or misogynistic killers of women simply because some were in the past.

Not all Muslims are terrorists; in fact, very few of them are. But when it comes to violence committed in the name of “God,” in the name of a religion, those few currently have the market cornered. To pretend otherwise would be to pretend some people are simply better than others because of their skin color, that some people should be eliminated because they are “unworthy of living,” to think World War II could have been negotiated out of happening, to believe Mary Jo Kopechne died on impact… In other words – progressive.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: christianity; faith; muslims; progressives; progressivism; terrorism; thevatican

1 posted on 09/28/2014 5:03:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
And if you really want to tee a "progressive" off, point out the fact that the crusades were a defensive response to Islamic aggression.

Ask them what happened to the large Christian communities in Syria, Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East at the time of the crusades.

Ask them if they know that the Jewish communities expelled from the countries surrounding Israel was far greater than the Palestinians on "Israel occupied land."

2 posted on 09/28/2014 5:12:57 AM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: Vigilanteman

Amen!


3 posted on 09/28/2014 5:23:01 AM PDT by Lion Den Dan
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To: Kaslin
The 20th century is littered with more than 100 million bodies of victims of progressive’s attempts to create various incarnations of heaven on earth.

I pointed this out to a libtard acquaintance and he actually told me Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Kim, Castro, were dictators, not socialist / progressive...

Sometimes you just can't fix stupid...

4 posted on 09/28/2014 5:25:55 AM PDT by Popman (Jesus Christ Alone: My Cornerstone...)
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To: Vigilanteman

He totally lost me by accepting the premise that the Crusades were a dark moment in Christianity. If it wasn’t for the Crusades we’d be all Muslims today.


5 posted on 09/28/2014 5:38:15 AM PDT by aquila48
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To: Kaslin

It says a lot about a religion if you have to revert 500 or more years to find decent examples of how it was violent or murderous.


6 posted on 09/28/2014 5:38:51 AM PDT by MNDude
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To: Vigilanteman

I has a libtard online try to tell me that both Stalin and Hitler were Christians (Hitler baptised an RC Stalin RUssina Orthodox) and so he could count the deaths by those monsters as done by Christianity. I said to him that if he was going to be consistent then he must also count every, invention, any good deed, any great nation as being done by Christianity if they were done by a person who was bapitsed. **crickets chirping**


7 posted on 09/28/2014 6:00:27 AM PDT by melsec (Once a Jolly Swagman camped by a Billabong.)
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To: aquila48
I agree 100%. The crusades were a defensive reaction to Muslim atrocities and expansion. The crusades were entirely justified, no need to apologize for them.

Not all Muslims are terrorists

I also had a problem with this bit. Every good Muslim, who actually follows the Koran is called upon to perform violent acts against people who do not follow Islam correctly. It is inherent in the belief: all Muslims ARE terrorists.

8 posted on 09/28/2014 6:05:56 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("Now is not the time for fear. That comes later.")
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To: MNDude

I’ve noticed that liberals do this equivalence thing a lot.

But their examples of Christianity being so violent revolve around the Crusades, Inquisitions, Salem witch trials, people burned at the stake during the Middle Ages, etc.

Liberals can’t seem to understand that there is a difference between what happened centuries ago, and violence done in the name of Islam today.


9 posted on 09/28/2014 6:19:21 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego (s)
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To: Kaslin

It always astounds me that no one knows that the Crusades were nothing more than a means of repelling an Islamic hoard that was attempting to conquer all of Europe. It’s not a coincidence that the former Turkish city of Constantinople is known as Istanbul...


10 posted on 09/28/2014 6:39:22 AM PDT by Common Sense 101 (Hey libs... If your theories fly in the face of reality, it's not reality that's wrong.)
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To: Kaslin

Progressives don’t have morals they have agendas.


11 posted on 09/28/2014 6:40:24 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Dilbert San Diego

But the same people are quick to attempt to disown the behavior of their predecessors over the past 150 years: Ku Klux Klan, opposition to the Civil Rights Act, etc.


12 posted on 09/28/2014 6:43:54 AM PDT by Wildcat Stevens
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To: Wildcat Stevens

Good points. These same liberals disown the history of their own Democrat party.

A greater proportion of Republicans than Democrats supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But according to liberal revisionist history, good Democrats were behind that law and Republicans were racist and opposed.

In fact, history tells us that Republican senator Everett Dirksen was a key factor in breaking the Senate filibuster on the Civil Rights Act and getting that bill passed. But when anyone recounts the history of this act, he is never mentioned.

In this summer’s marking of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I never once heard Dirksen’s name mentioned. I only heard about LBJ, who admittedly was a Democrat, as being the president who signed the law.


13 posted on 09/28/2014 6:50:58 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego (s)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

The Progressives go through mental gymnastics to justify Islam. They must have a sense of kinship with Islam because Islam hates the West and believes in a totalitarian utopia. I have heard Progressives say that ISIS is no big deal, they are no different than what, say, the Baptists would do if they could (really?!), and if you want to be upset about bad things happening, you should look to the Crusades and also to the ancient Israelites, who killed people in conquest for some land. The idea seemed to be that Christians and Jews were just as violent and had no right to judge Islam. So Christians and Jews should be judged by things they did 1,000 or 3,000 years ago but Islam shouldn’t be judged for what Islamics are doing today. Amazing.


14 posted on 09/28/2014 7:03:06 AM PDT by Wilhelm Tell (True or False? This is not a tag line.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

“Not all Muslims are terrorists”

I really despise this gratuitous, irrelevant pablum that is so often used to disarm those that want to keep the Muslims out.

This makes as much sense as saying “not all Liberians have Ebola” so let’s let them all in indiscriminantly. You would think that at a minimum they would be thoroughly screened before letting them in, or even stop immigration from there completely.

Why do we need to let them in in the first place? Is there some indispensable benefit that we derive from that?


15 posted on 09/28/2014 8:45:01 AM PDT by aquila48
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To: Kaslin
IMHO one of the salient characteristics of Christianity is the the New Testament is exclusively written by people who were persecuted by the government. Christ was crucified by the government. And most of the Old Testament kings were no bargain, either.

But by what standard? Obviously, the kings and emperors who are cast in a bad light by Christian scriptures were the establishment, and they thought that what they wanted to do was right because they wanted to do it. But the Christian scriptures say,

But God . . .
The Christian religion did not abolish slavery upon the resurrection of Christ, nor even upon the establishment of Christianity by Constantine. But no other religion, and no other philosophy, ever abolished slavery. Christianity finally did - to the extent that indeed it has been abolished.

It is often claimed by the ignorant that the Constitution isn’t Christian. But the people who signed off on it at the convention put their names after the statement,

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.
. . . which is not the statement of an anti-christian person. And that Constitution was ratified by the states, some of which had established churches at the time. Indeed - since the First Amendment when passed was a stricture on the federal government only - the last establishment of religion by a state was not repealed until after the Civil War.

16 posted on 09/28/2014 9:13:13 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: melsec

has a libtard online try to tell me that both Stalin and Hitler were Christians (Hitler baptised an RC Stalin RUssina Orthodox) and so he could count the deaths by those monsters as done by Christianity.


A lib cousin constantly posted on facebook about Hitler and the NAZIs being Christian.

I posted articles detailing Hitler’s rewritten “bible” revising the ten commandments to focus worship onto the state and to condemn the Jews.

I also posted documents revealing how Hitler and Himler intended to build and rule a Pagan Empire.

She backed off of her “Hitler-Christian” claims.


17 posted on 09/28/2014 10:02:03 AM PDT by Rides_A_Red_Horse (Why do you need a fire extinguisher when you can call the fire department?)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

But their examples of Christianity being so violent revolve around the Crusades, Inquisitions, Salem witch trials, people burned at the stake during the Middle Ages, etc.


The Crusades were a response to Islamic agression.

As for the rest, if you really look at what happened it was small groups using religion to justify selfish and monstrous acts. Those who committed those acts seem to be a lot like our modern day liberals.


18 posted on 09/28/2014 10:05:17 AM PDT by Rides_A_Red_Horse (Why do you need a fire extinguisher when you can call the fire department?)
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To: Common Sense 101

It’s not a coincidence that the former Turkish city of Constantinople is known as Istanbul...


But you can’t go back to Constantinople.

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why they changed it I can’t say.


19 posted on 09/28/2014 10:06:47 AM PDT by Rides_A_Red_Horse (Why do you need a fire extinguisher when you can call the fire department?)
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To: melsec

What a freaking moron! Don’t Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholics do baptisms as infants? . . . IOW, the choice of their parents and not the choice of the individuals.


20 posted on 09/28/2014 5:05:49 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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