President Bush and too many in our government have it wrong. Because Rev. Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson are willing to challenge popular misconceptions about what Islam is about, they should not be on the receiving end of verbal brickbats from Secretary of State Colin Powell.Colin Powell knows the leaders of the Islamic world very well, having worked with them in both peacetime and wartime. To take the odd views of Falwell and Robertson over his is just plain ignorant.
Our government is supposed to be religiously neutral. If we have Christmas and Haunakah stamps, then an Eid stamp makes sense as well. No one is forced to use it, and many Muslims who celebrate the holiday are loyal Americans.
This desire among some on the right to renounce known electoral allies is nuts. I believe it's an effort to "Christianize" the right. This would be the best thing ever to happen to the left, we'd be matching their folly.
-Eric
What's so difficult to understand about this?
In other words honoring the events that start wars.
This is the problem wih the "debate" as it is now circumscribed by progressive pieties. So called "right wing" commentators are more likely than the left to cite tolerance and peace in the argument. In many ways the so-called "right" has internalized many of the myths of Leftism more fervently than the so-called left.
No lefty seriously belives in "peace" if their goals and aspirations are being frustrated. Nor do they believe in "tolerance" unless they find themselves in the minority; in which case they demand tolerance so they can shore up their power base in order to attack when they are stronger. That's just common sense.
Now hear this: Healthy civilizations do not believe that "tolerance" and "peace" are the highest human virtues. The degree to which a flacid, corrupt, weary Western christianity has imbibed that particular brand of kool-aid is exactly the degree to which Truth and Beauty has been driven out of society; even the aspiration to Truth and Beauty is savagely suppressed as a manifestation of "authoritarianism", "anti-egalitarianism" and "fascism".
Healthy, happy, and yes even holy, people fight like hell to prevail.
The materialistic, atomistic civilization which the West has embraced since the debacle of the twentieth century cannot survive. It is brittle, shallow and fails to address many human needs and desires. It is neither "peacful" nor "tolerant" in any meaningful way. Its remnant governments heap such twaddle onto the heads of its natives in order to keep them from taking the logical steps that any HEALTHY, living humans would take.
The purpose of the Homeland Security Department will be to protect the bureacratic managers in Washington from those few native-born Americans who wake up and finally realize that they do not have a Homeland.
< /sarcasm>
I did a Google search and came across a site called The Postal Store
In addition to the EID stamp, they have holiday commemorative stamps celebrating Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, secular snowmen, and one that's Christian religiously themed but innocuously named "Holiday Gossaert" (whatever that is.)
Of course not. Those were the pre-political correctness days, when most people still had common sense. They knew what was good, they knew what was bad, and they didn't feel the need to convince themselves and others of their "tolerance" at all costs.
Have they explained this little piece of artwork yet?
