Thank you for your light, OWK.
Posted on 10/02/2001 9:14:04 AM PDT by truthandlife
Conservative columnist Ann Coulter, fired from her contributing editor perch at the National Review Online, blames it on free-speech hysteria in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. In a recent online column, Coulter opined that the United States should respond forcefully to the terrorist attacks: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity," she said. The comment provoked an uproar, and the National Review Online subsequently refused to run another Coulter piece in which she referred to "swarthy males." When Coulter complained, she was fired. Tuesday's Washington Post quotes Coulter as saying she doesn't need friends like that. "Every once in awhile they'll throw one of their people to the wolves to get good press in left-wing publications," she told the newspaper. National Review Online Editor Jonah Goldberg told the Post, "We didn't feel we wanted to be associated with the comments expressed in those two columns." Coulter told the Washington Post she's getting great publicity as a result of the flap.
I was promoting the idea that the Judeo-Christian values prevalent in western civilization are the foundation of our freedom and success. And you had to go and attack the Christian part with claims about something that happened centuries ago in Spain. What am I to think?
The "I have many friends who are (fill in the blank)" argument always loses. And just because your parents are Christian, your wife is Christian, and you were raised Christian, doesn't mean that you don't have a strong anti-Christian bias now. Your adulthood denial of Christ and acceptance of Judaism doesn't help your argument at all.
So, please refrain from making meritless, pointless accusations against Christianity.
Which neatly sums up the one mistake Ann apparently did make, which was overestimating the intelligence of many of her critics.
Thank you!! If you point out that you are writing more "tongue-in-cheek" than not, it ceases to be effective. The more intelligent caught that. The less intelligent -- well, they're in a stew of their own making.
Which leads me to addressing Ann's "looking to publicly bash NRO to gain a following." I seriously doubt she sought out such attention, but was sought out for a statement herself. (It's what publications do!) If she "bashed" them as a result of what they did to her -- good for her! Is she supposed to just roll over and play dead? She isn't the type, thank God!
Regarding the many posts about "convert[ing] them all to Christianity" -- Ann knows that being a Christian is a deeply personal decision and cannot be forced upon anyone. She knows that! (She is not an idiot!!) All of this only serves to back up the fact that she was not speaking in a literal sense at all. She knows that would be completely ridiculous. Give her a little credit!!
/rant ;-}
'Cuz God knows that Ann herself could not possibly had made a mistake. It must be all of us misreading her. Yeah, that's the ticket.
First of all I wouldn't call the US and Western Europe "Christian". They are of a majority Christian population but the cultural character of these countries has not been Christian for at least 40 years. In many of these countries it is perfectly legal to question the existence of God but to question feminist and PC multicultural dogma dogma can send you to jail under "hate crimes" laws. How can anyone say that a country that calls abortion a constitutional "right" is a Christian country?
Secondly, look around. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and it is Christian. Very poor countries like Bolivia and Guatemala are also Christian. Many sub-Sahran African countries have substantial Christian populations (typically about 1/3 Christian).
On the other hand countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are very successful economically but not at all Christian.
My dear Angelo, I was responding to the entire tone of your posts and the general meaning that you are trying to get across. You are arguing that Ann meant that particular sentence in an explicitly literal fashion. I am disagreeing. You brought up the word "satire." I did not. Now who's "parsing words?" Hmmmmmmm??
Thank you for your light, OWK.
I said "most Christians". Some (a small minority) apparently still think its a good idea.
Could you and the rest of the people so offended by Coulter's comment please at least have the intellectual integrity to drop the "forcible" BS? Ann never used any words implying forcible conversion. In fact, there is no way that genuine conversion to Christianity could be forcible.
Personally, I thought the comment in Ann's column was a bit over the edge. However, I was able to comprehend her rage at the pond scum who had carried out this egregious act of terrorism and murdered her very good friend. Therefore, I can cut her some slack for a harshly worded statement like this.
The column directed this rage also at people who would dance in the streets celebrating this attack. For those people, Ann said "invade their countries," (if they celebrate and support the attack this is not unreasonable) "kill their leaders," (remove the leadership that promotes terrorist attacks on the U.S. -- again a reasonable proposal) "and convert them to Christianity." (I don't see how you could read this statement and not see this last phrase as anything but a tongue-in-cheek satirical poke at the whole jihad idea of conquering all non-Islam religions, but even if you take this at face value as a serious suggestion -- then teaching people about the love of Jesus even though they hate you is what Jesus commanded his people to do anyway.)
It's that "apparently" which throws the whole equation.
In 878, King Alfred the Great, along with his Anglo-Saxon allies, successfully attacked the viking plunderers (read terrorists) and, after capturing their leaders caused them to be baptized and swear fealty to God. The vanquished kings and their people actually sought and recieved instruction in the faith and lived accordingly. Of course, in previous eras, one took oaths seriously, and followed whatever religion your leader or family head prescribed for you, an idea that is foreign to most today.
You can "follow the religion", but it doesn't, of itself, do you a darn bit of Salvific good.
For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
I'm not saying that there weren't "conversions"; I'm saying that any True Conversions which happened in the course of the above-mentioned affair, did not result from the efficacy of the sword.
You can't "make" a believer out of any man. You can only make him "follow the religion" at gunpoint -- if that. But it amounts to putting a sheepskin on a goat -- strap it on as tight as you like, it's still a goat. God converts whom He wants to convert; our duty is simply to Obey His commandments.
Or, since you brought up Vikings...
Look, call it what you like: joke, hyperbole, lashing out in grief. I'm willing to give Anne Coulter any out you can think of, and I'm sure Jonah Goldberg was, too. But if she wanted an out, she had to take an out, and she didn't. She clearly stands by her statement, literally as written. That disappoints me.
The perfect description, OWK. Besides, fire would seem to be her preferred tool of opportunism after spewing all that "I'd Burn My Neighbor's House Down" claptrap.
Well, there's a small step in the right direction.
LOL! You are very welcome! It is sad that it had to be "spelled out" for them. I pity people like that. Can any of them elaborate on the word, "nit-pick?" Sheeeesh!! Instead of admitting they might be wrong, they dig ever deeper, until they are so deep they completely disappear from the intelligence radar. Unbelievable.
..."Nope"
A closer reading of primary source material such as the letters and journals of said FF's will reveal that they do not usually fall into the deist category they are frequently accused of. As to the "enlightenment" stream of thought, ther is little credible evidence that they wer as deeply into it as modern Americans would find it convenient to believe. Certainly few of them saw any similarities between their own revolution and the 'enlightened' French one.
Amazing, then, that with my familiarity with the English language, with literature and its genres, and with essay writing, I came up with completely different results.
Now, you yourself say that she was not speaking satirically, but rather "symbolically" or "hyperbolically". That she was not intending to be understood literally. This does make more sense than asserting (as others here have done) that she was being satirical. However, the problem remains that she used the words "convert them to Christianity" as part of a compound predicate in the same sentence. Do you believe that she meant the words "invade" and "kill" symbolically? These are strong actions she is advocating. Why is it unreasonable to assume that she means "convert" in the same literal sense as "invade" and "kill"? On what basis do you interpret her otherwise?
Controlling speech is one of the main weapons of the Left. If the words cannot be spoken, then the ideas they express cannot be thought.
I have observed all of the political correct jargon that I can stomach. If someone is offended, so be it. I think Anne's comment about the girlly-boys at National Review says it all.
Pardon me; did you just say, "ALL?!" You need a dictionary, darling, so let me help you! Click here!! Aaaaccckkkkkk!! Sweeping generalizations are tools of the defeated!!
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