Ah, this would not be the SAME Turkey that slaughtered some 1.5 million Armenian Christians and made refugees out of another million more.
History is replete with proof that Islam is a VIOLENT, INTOLERANT religion that wins by the sword and rules with an iron fist. Say what you want about Catholic Spain or France....but the United States has never slaughtered other religions as ruthlessly as has the Muslims. Go ahead and name every isolated account of missionary hucksters to the Hawaiian Islands, name every native American Indian battle ever fought, and I can show you a point in history where Islam has been crueler a hundred times over.
The fact of the matter is this: the overriding reason why the United States has freedom of religion and speech today is because it was founded by persons with a uniquely Christian outlook. Had it been Muslims who founded the colonies I daresay we would NOT be having one--tenth the freedoms we enjoy today. One only need look at ANY Muslim nation today to see this.
But the expulsion of Jews from Spain by Isabella the Catholic, as well as expulsions from England and France, were religion-motivated. We now talk about "expulsion" as if the refugees boarded Amtrak and left. A lot of them drowned in the Mediterranean, many have been raped and brutally murdered by pirates. No country would accept them: with the fall of Moorish Granada, Europe finally became Christian and was not going to let these "infidels" back in. It was, incidentally, the Turkish Sultan who not only allowed them in but invited them to come.
I could also point to more recent events: in the predominantly Christian Germany, millions of Jews and Roma people (Gypsies) have been murdered in concentration camps. You will hasten to tell me that Nazis acted NOT as Christians but as godless socialists. And that is my point exactly: Turkish violence against the Armenians was not an act of Muslims against Christians. This is not a religious act, just like a Mafioso who attends Church on Sunday and kills someone in cold blood on Monday does not act as a Christian.
Say what you want about Catholic Spain or France....but the United States has never slaughtered other religions
Absolutely true. The English-speaking people have always been more tolerant and democratic. It is they who perfected the idea of representation in government and codified it in the Magna Carta (1215) and the first English Parliament (1265).
You may find it interesting that the idea of representation was invented and practiced by the pagan Germanic tribes. Whenever they invaded other lands --- as in the case of Spain invaded by Visigoths, for instance --- they were almost immediately Christianized and thus Romanized to an extent. With that, the democratic notion of representation was forgotten.
In contrast, when the pagan English and Saxons invaded the British Isles, Christianity was wiped out and the realm remained pagan for another 150 years. The idea of representation took hold, grew strong, and survived later, after the Isles where re-Christianized by St. Augustine and his followers.
As you can see, it is tempting but erroneous to attribute some intrinsic tolerance, as it pertains to national, not personal, behavior. One could develop this further by pointing out the grossly authoritarian and otherwise intolerant behavior was not limited to countries with Catholic rulers. Martin Luther revolted against the Papacy, but he also urged his followers to round up Jews and burn them in their synagogues.
But your observation is correct: in comparison, the English speaking peoples were always more tolerant by comparison. And this is so not just with respect to other religions. The autodafe, burning at the stake was introduced to the Isles much later than in Iberia or Gall. The number of victims is also smaller --- by a factor of a hundred or a thousand. Some historians point to the representative government as the brake against religious zealots.
The fact of the matter is this: the overriding reason why the United States has freedom of religion and speech today is because it was founded by persons with a uniquely Christian outlook. I am sorry, but this is factually incorrect. As I mentioned earlier, these freedoms go back to the pagan idea of representation. We owe it to the British that they perfected it after they became Christian.
Had it been Muslims who founded the colonies I daresay we would NOT be having one--tenth the freedoms we enjoy today. Also factually incorrect. Historians often bring Moorish Spain as an example of tolerance: under Islamic rulers, Christians, Jews and pagans lived in peace for centuries. Turkey is the only European country that has never had any repression against its small Jewish population: no restrictive legislature, no slaughter by neighbors. It's been 500 years --- not a brief moment.
One only need look at ANY Muslim nation today to see this. Absolutely! Today, what I call the "Islamic church" is vicious, intolerant, violent, non-accepting of any progress and diversity of opinion. We are at war with them. Although we have not started this war, we must fight it with all our might.
I am as angry as another person is. Maybe more, because for the last 15 years or so I anticipated that terror would come to our shores. Evil does not make exceptions: they started killing women and children in Israel, but I knew they would not limit themselves to that. Just like Hitler has not limited himself to the Jews and expanded his hate to Gypsies, Slavs, the world...
But even in the midst of our anger, we should focus our anger properly --- at the Islamic Church, which is today as brutal as Catholic Church was in the Middle Ages. The church is not religion, and just like Catholic Church has evolved, so "Islamic church" may progress to be peaceful.
We have to fight resolutely but focus our anger properly. This is the English idea, after all. Isn't it?