No, No, No, No, No!

They say that Obama is not a Muslim, not even a closet Muslim.  He sure seems to support it in all ways and bow towards it precepts and leadership.

More proof that this is an election year.

Of course the president has no authority to tell anyone what they can or cannot say about Mohammed. 

He does have the authority to ask those who are free to say anything they want to be a little more responsible, expecially when Americans abroad are in physical danger.

That’s not to say that the rioting and killings are in any way justified.  And plainly these events are being exploited by those who both hate the US and hate the more moderate elements within the new governments.  They want no co-existence between Christian and Moslem and they are being helped along by a tiny Christian minority that feels the same way.  Why it is irresponsible for the president to distance his government from that minority is a mystery to me.

Loose lips sink ships.

This smells like another excuse for Obama to attack freedom of religion.

I suppose it is an opinion piece, rather than a news report, but the Weekly Standard has an article http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/service-blind-sheikh_652250.html  that seems to expose the coordination of the assaults and the role of the video as a mere pretense.  And just in case I haven’t spouted off my opinion of Islam enough:  Islam is not a revelation of the True God, the God of the Scriptures.  Islam is a deception, through and through.  God does not decieve, but Satan does.

RE: “He does have the authority to ask those who are free to say anything they want to be a little more responsible, expecially when Americans abroad are in physical danger.”

No, actually, he doesn’t have any such “authority.”

I suppose he could have a conversation as a normal citizen, as any of us could. But as President of the United States he has zero “authority” to ask any of us to surrender our rights to say stupid, buffoonish things.

It is no accident that these riots (so called demonstrations) are taking place on 9/11 they have probably been planned in advance by Al-Qaeda operatives who are still fighting the war they have declared against the United States.
Unfortunately this enemy is wise enough to take advantage of the credulous mentality of those who consider anarchy, assassinations and riots a sign of a so called “Arab Spring”.

During the recent Chick-fil-A controversy, do you know why so many of us made a point of patronizing a Chick-fil-A?  In my case, the views of Chick-fil-A’s president were a microscopically small reason why I went to a Chick-fil-A for the very first time and had to drive 7 or 8 miles to get there.

I went out of my way to have dinner at a Chick-fil-A because I am an American who strenuously objects to the notion of being ordered to have a certain opinion.  So the idea that I must restrict my speech or activities because they offend you gives you, for all practical purposes, a veto power over what I may say or do or think.

And not to put too fine a point on it but kiss off.

Christians have figured out how to deal with blasphemy against Christ or the cartoonization of Christians.  We simply refuse to participate(see the short runs of TV shows like The Book of Daniel and Good Christian Bitches).  Conversely, anything that exalts Christ or portrays His church as it really is, good and bad, will receive our enthusiastic support.

The password is…civilization.

It’s that simple.

While I agree with the premise that curtailing the right to criticize (and worse) certain religions is absurd and dangerous, I can’t help remembering that when the furor over the original Uganda legislation strengthening the penalties against homosexuality arose, several people at Stand Firm opined that - while they couldn’t envisage such penalties being adopted in the United States - it wasn’t their place (as Americans or Christians) to criticize an internal response to a local cultural context.

Today we are facing a response from the Muslim world that derives from an equally deep-rooted cultural context (albeit a flawed one) and yet we seem to expect conformity with a western standard.

No doubt some would argue the distinction between free speech and constrained action, but there seemed to be enough contrained speech in the first instance to warrant concern. Assuming, as most of us do, that there are some universally applicable principles the enforcement of which can infringe on our own deeply held convictions, shouldn’t we strive for their application in all situations not merely those in which we have a natural sympathy?

RE: “Today we are facing a response from the Muslim world that derives from an equally deep-rooted cultural context (albeit a flawed one) and yet we seem to expect conformity with a western standard.”

???

I’m confused.

It’s a western standard not to murder ambassadors?

Okay. I suppose one could argue that, although it seems very rude to other cultures to say that.

Then yes, we expect conformity with our “western standard.”

Or rather, we expect there will be consequences to murdering ambassadors. After all, it is our “deep-rooted cultural context” to enact consequences to people murdering our ambassadors.

RE: “Assuming, as most of us do, that there are some universally applicable principles the enforcement of which can infringe on our own deeply held convictions, shouldn’t we strive for their application in all situations not merely those in which we have a natural sympathy?”

I don’t grant at all that forcing others not to “denigrate religion” is a “universally applicable principle.”  There are acceptable [read *moral*] responses to people denigrating religion, and then there are unacceptable [read *immoral*] responses to people denigrating religion. One of those is murdering ambassadors.

Blaming the violence on the movie is like Steve Martin concluding that the sniper didn’t like oil in “The Jerk” as he moved away from the oil display rack. This happened on 9/11 that is not a coincidence. The events were planned. Warnings were issued. We don’t have a better relationship with Arabs now than we did with Bush II.

I can’t really comment about the US political aspects, but generally am against censorship in society.

Nevertheless, gratuitously causing offence will in many countries have draconian consequences.  Try burning a Greek flag or insulting the King of Thailand and you will get as irate a response as some volatile Muslims give in their countries although hopefully not as drastic as we have seen in the last few days.

When a Southern pastor burns a Koran or someone in California makes a film or someone in Denmark pens some cartoons the consequences are that our soldiers and diplomats in North Africa are placed at risk, Afghan baracks are bombed and good work is undone, often with those doing their best to progress things being most at risk.

There is no justification for it - it is just the way the world works.  Years ago when it took a sea journey and overland travel to reach these countries, news of what was happening in California would not reach Tripoli for years, if at all.  Nowadays with a tweet it is all over the Arab ‘Street’.  We jump on a plane for a few hours and end up at an airport walk into the sunshine and think it is just like home.  It isn’t - speed of communications have disguised the complete differences of culture, some of it akin to our own countries in medieval times.

This was brought home to me today hearing of someone who came across across a large crowd in a volatile part of Afghanistan who turned to be stoning a 15 year old girl for .... talking to a boy.  It was led by her father!

Do we give up engaging or building schools with these countries, or do we continue to do so with the hope that with education and engagement, the position of girls in these countries will improve and the accepted culture change.  Alternatively we can just say we have every right to be gratuitously offensive, and if so we have to be prepared to live with the consequences and perhaps to fail the young Afghani girls who may be stoned to death because of that failure to engage and seek to change minds through showing a better way, a Christian way.

What movie set off the Armenian Genocide in 1915?

David Katzakian

Sarah (#10),

I suspected as soon I posted that that was how my original comment would be read. No I wasn’t suggesting the murder of anyone (the ambassador or anyone else) was acceptable, and the Libyan government has already indicated that it was not. Some of the reports even suggest that those who fired the fatal shots were mingled with those protesters who first made their presence felt.

What I inferred - and if I misunderstood, my apologies - was not just that murder was unacceptable but that the Muslim response to the perceived or actual slander of their faith should be the same as the western response to the slander of Christianity. It should be, but you and I both know that it won’t be, for reasons which are self-evident.

I happen to think that pressuring the products of the Arab Spring to conform more closely to American standards of civil liberty isn’t a bad idea, but if we do that then we should follow the same logic in countries that are explicitly Christian. The same standards for Uganda as for Eritrea, whose persecution of believers is sadly legendary.

It also seems to me that the notion of American Christians maintaining a low key approach to derogation of Christianity is of relatively recent origin. As the Latter-Day Saints like to point out, they’re the only sect in the United States to have an order for genocide issued against them (by the governor of Missouri, but still) and many Pentecostals can document violence committed against them by believing Christians in the early days, even it didn’t necessarily lead to death. American Christians may now confine their response to peaceful protest and litigation, but it wasn’t always so.

Hi Jeremy—I think we’re coming at this from very different places.

RE: “What I inferred - and if I misunderstood, my apologies - was not just that murder was unacceptable but that the Muslim response to the perceived or actual slander of their faith should be the same as the western response to the slander of Christianity.”

I do not expect any such thing at all. They have a particular religion that demands a different response, if true to it.

All I’m focused on is 1) our country’s response to the response and 2) our country’s citizens and leaders attempting to excuse the Islamic jihadist behavior.  Of course the Islamic jihadist is going to say whatever, and I simply don’t care.  What I’m concerned about is the response of our citizens and our leaders.

RE: “I happen to think that pressuring the products of the Arab Spring to conform more closely to American standards of civil liberty isn’t a bad idea, but if we do that then we should follow the same logic in countries that are explicitly Christian.”

I don’t think there is any such thing as an “Arab Spring” as it has been defined. What we are seeing is an Arab Winter, and I’m concerned that we respond appropriately to it.

I, again, don’t understand why you are dragging in other countries to the issue. Naturally each and every country does things I disapprove of, with other Christians and with other non-Christians. But each and every country does not have masses of Islamic jihadists in it that threaten and kill American citizens.

The two things are different.

And yes, I understand that America has also done bad things to its own citizens, but again, that is a distracting red herring. 

I’m concerned about the murder of our citizens by Islamic Jihadists. End of story. I’m more than happy to comment elsewhere about the evils of our country towards native Americans, for instance.  Or internment of Japanese citizens.  Or any number of hosts of other acts—like stealing money from citizens using state-coercion in order to redistribute it to others that the State deems more worthy or needy. Or like Obamacare, which is also evil and unConstitutional.

But I don’t wish to be drawn into those topics however attractive they may be.  There are plenty of occasions when we can talk about the wickednesses of our government.  I do so all the time. 

But again, this is about Islamic jihadists killing American citizens, including a country’s diplomat. And then American leaders and citizens pointing wildly at and investigating and attempting to quell the free speech of a video maker who happens to have produced a tawdry bit of film.  I’m never pleased with tastelessness, of course, and am always eager for high art to be produced.  I didn’t like Seinfeld, or any number of other tv shows that are vacuous and senseless and tasteless.  But having our country’s leaders and certain of its citizens, including Christians, obsess over a tasteless film, while Islamic jihadists murder American citizens is simply stunningly, awfully, horrendously dangerous and demonstrative of their priorities, which again, is terrifying.

Chattering about the film it keeps people from asking questions about Islam and why the response we have seen is not an anomaly but deeply rooted in that faith.

It seems to me that Al-Qaeda and their allies are demonstrating that they can coordinate rioting in most Muslim countries by simply passing on a pretext for an action which they had already planned to occur on 9/11.
I would guess that the most difficult part of this operation, for Al-Qaeda, was delaying the rioting until the selected date of 9/11.

I think Al Qaeda was just “testing the waters”, to see what the US would do about these riots.  I think they have big plans and wanted to test the US response.  If so, the Obama administration gets an EPIC FAIL for their pitiful and cowardly response, and our country is in danger…