Posted on 02/11/2015 5:34:07 AM PST by SJackson
This week, President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he proceeded to inform an audience of Christians that they ought not judge radical Muslims currently engaged in beheading journalists, defenestrating gays, crucifying children, and engaging in mass rape of women. Why, pray tell, should Christians remain silent? Because, Obama informed them with Ivy League pride, “Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. So it is not unique to one group or one religion.”
At some point in our collective history, our ancestors engaged in tribal warfare and cannibalized their fallen enemies. So shut up about the Nazis, you hypocrites.
Forget Obama’s historical ignorance, if you can, for just a moment. Forget that the Crusades, for all their brutality and horror, were a response to Islamic aggression; forget that the Inquisition was an attempt to systematize legal punishment for anti-Christian activity rather than leaving it to the heated mob; forget that all abolitionist leaders were devout Christians; forget that hundreds of thousands of Christians marched to their deaths during the Civil War singing the words “as He died to make men holy, so we die to make men free”; forget that the chief leaders of the civil rights movement were Christian leaders like Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
Focus instead on the fact that President Obama felt the necessity to defend radical Islam at all. Why defend radical Islam? What is the point?
Obama defends radical Islam because he does not think in terms of ideology, but in terms of power dynamics. If radical Muslims commit terror, it is because they feel helpless and hopeless. If they feel helpless and hopeless, it is because Westerners made them feel that way.
If Westerners made them feel that way, it is because Western ideology must be exploitative and evil.
In other words, Obama cites the Crusades as justification for shutting Christians up because the Crusades caused all of this. If Christians had just kept their pieholes shut several thousand years ago, none of this would have happened. Obama’s ignorant and bigoted gloss on Christian history isn’t a throwaway line: it’s the centerpiece of his philosophy. Radical Islam isn’t the problem because Christianity is. And we know that Christianity is the problem because radical Islam is violent. In this skewed version of reality, modern Christianity’s fantastic record is a direct outgrowth of its disreputable past.
Obama extends this bizarre philosophy to every part of life. Those who murder Jews in Israel aren’t motivated by radical Islam: They were exploited by those evil, non-murdering Jews. Those who riot in Ferguson aren’t motivated by a corrupt ideology of victimhood: They were exploited long ago by those who cower in their stores, trying to prevent the looting. Those who sire children they abandon, drop out of school and refuse to hold down jobs aren’t predictable refuse of a broken philosophy: They are victims of those who get married, stay in school and hold down jobs. Success is the ultimate indicator that your philosophy is evil. Failure is the ultimate indicator that you are a victim, regardless of your ideology.
Obama’s philosophy is the philosophy of failure. No wonder radical Islam holds a cherished place in his heart, while Judeo-Christian religion find itself in his doghouse
You probably ought to. I kept screaming inside my own little brain “THE CRUSADES WERE DEFENSIVE!” But no one on the tele seems to know that.
I hope most here at FR know their history...but there are a few who I am sure would say it was all just a false flag.
“Because Crusades” is a colloquialism whose purpose is to convey contempt for excusing the inexcusable. Its use is fairly frequent.
What information does “In the hospital” convey as opposed to “In hospital”?
I'm sure bammy didn't really want to say he thinks slavery and the crusades and such were ok. You would expect someone versed in law and argument to do better. Maybe bammy should stop letting his ignorant a**-clown sycophants write his speeches for him.
Wow, thanks for the education. I had no idea. Not.
The English have such a strange way with the English language.
It also sounds strange to hear the phrases like "Parliament have" instead of "Parliament has" and "The RAF have flown sorties."
The Crusades were a necessary response to the war Islam thrust upon the World.
It's even more childish than that. It's more like "So? He did it too!" Or "I know you are but what am I?" Or "Takes one to know one."
Seriously, this is the level of "discourse" in which the Chief Executive of the United States indulges. He must have learned his forensic skills at Harvard.
I’ve never heard ISIS, al Qaeda or the Taliban refer to the USA as engaging in a new crusade. Leave it to our President to out propagandize our enemies.
Which is the whole point of the tu quoque "argument." It avoids the criticism of an act by redirecting the argument at the critic rather than his target, thereby absolving himself of any moral accountability.
I'm willing to be that the "Everyone's doing it" argument didn't work for you when you were a child. It's nothing less than an embarrassment that a US president would adopt it to defend barbarism.
Great Post. Thanks. What boggles my mind is how does one develop this kind of mindset? And how the hell did he become President? Man, did we get f#(%ed.
“in the hospital” become “in hospital”
This one is relatively easy. The first usage is American English. The second is how the Brits mangle it ;0
Good points. I guess the apologists could defend islime by saying “Hitler murdered Jews too. What’s so wrong about that?”
Ha haaaa! Yet another Ohola "red line" that has worked like a charm.
“Its use is fairly frequent.”
Where? Have never heard such linguistic construction before.
That is because they are still fighting the OLD fight to have a caliphate
“What information does “In the hospital” convey as opposed to “In hospital”?”
An understanding of the english language. “In hospital”
is slang and incorrect. Laziness.
As has been pointed out, it’s proper British useage.
Was it Mel Brooks who said, in sarcasm,
that we couldn’t criticize Hitler for sending kids to camp,
because Americans send their kids to camp?
How does that answer my question. A little known or read blog piece which doesn’t use the construct that you claim is nearly universal is not proof.
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