DebateGate

What point?

The point that we are in no way treating them anything remotely close to what the Tee's of the world keep claiming we do.  If anything, just the opposite

I don't particularly agree with coddling them, either, no more than I agree with coddling convicted murderers, rapists, thugs or other assorted nasties. Oh, wait, they haven't been convicted of anything yet, or even gone to trial. Sorry, my bad.

Yea, it is your bad.  They're not your damn petty criminals H.  They didn't just try to hold up a 7/11 with a squirt gun.  They didn't just rough up some grandma and snatch her purse.  This isn't some crime investigation.  These are enemies taken during wartime acts.  Were you decrying the U.S. for daring to hold thousands upon thousands of Germans during WWII without "having been convicted yet"??     

If he is all that bad , why should the US be so lonely in opposeing him?  Is all the rest of the world depending on us to point out things like these or they will be un noticed?

I'm speculating it's because we're the "big boys on the block".  We're (the U.S) is the boogeyman to all these other regimes.  If they can get the rest of the world to focus on that and not eye their own miserable state of affairs, the easier they can maintain their power base.  I think it's analogus to the Dem's party platform of whatever Bush is for, they're against, and vice versa, instead of campaigning on what specifically they'd do, or in dealing with their specific shortcomings.  That'd be my guess

Islam’s Special Standard

by L. Brent Bozell III
September 20, 2006    

There are moments where it becomes painfully apparent that the media elites think that the only thing redeeming about Western culture is its ability to regret its existence. Their dream president is a lip-biting man from Arkansas, traveling the globe apologizing for every historic fault, real or imagined, America has ever committed.

This was exactly their mentality with Pope Benedict XVI over his remarks at the University of Regensburg. One wonders if any of his critics had bothered to read his address, the theme of which was the inseparability of faith and reason. He quoted a Byzantine emperor – who argued that God could never countenance the coercive violence of radical Islam, and therefore a radical Islam invoking God is irrational. Lost on the outraged was the other argument posed by Benedict: A religion that embraces reason but not faith is also bankrupt. That message was directed at radical Catholics. His call was for a serious and urgent “genuine dialogue of cultures and religions” based on faith and reason.

You would think that this call for a religion based on love and peace, not force, would ring well in peace-loving liberal news rooms. But this lecture was ignored by the secular press until Muslim riots and threats broke out. Then, predictably and incredibly, the media demanded apologies -- but only from the Pope. They treated him like a bumbling candidate for political office, a man too unschooled in the art of public relations, which they know so well. They called him “heavy-handed” and “clumsy.” They auditioned on TV and radio shows to explain how the pontiff could be less “tone deaf.”

They did not ponder how Muslim violence, from assassinating a nun in Somalia to blowing up Canadian solders in Afghanistan as they hand out candy to children, might be, to say the very least, “tone deaf.”

This mind-numbing double standard was set perfectly (and ridiculously) by the New York Times editorial page on a sleepy Saturday, which lamented the Pope’s desire for a “uniform Catholic identity,” which is “not exactly the best jumping-off point for tolerance or interfaith dialogue.” These people seem to have no clue that the Holy Father’s first duty is to maintain a Catholic Church that is united and true to its historical roots. His first duty is to defend an ancient deposit of faith and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. This, to the sages of the New York Times editorial board, is an inherently offensive mission – exclusive, intolerant, conservative.

But the next paragraph was worse, demanding that Benedict confess his offense to the secular and Islamic worlds: "The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal."

This is rich from the New York Times, whose editor, Bill Keller, has deliberately and carelessly handed out the “pain” to reverent Roman Catholics in a 2002 column by comparing John Paul the Great to a communist despot. Deep apologies did not follow. Hypocrite, heal thyself.

But the networks followed that incompetent example, setting up the debate as Victimized Muslims vs. The Pope Who Needs to Apologize -- immediately and abjectly. On NBC, Brian Williams said “The Pope says he’s sorry, but is his apology enough?” On CBS, reporter Mark Phillips said among Muslims, “Even moderates...say the Pope’s words make their job much harder.” ABC brought on professor Fawaz Gerges to predict “I think it's gonna take years for the damage done to Christian-Muslim relations to be repaired.”

I wonder what Professor Gerges said about those “tone deaf” radical Muslims in the days after 9/11.

From their secular standpoint, the media’s view of the highest point of religion is not the grasp of a true God, but the maintenance of an interfaith dialogue. Conflicts over serious issues, such as whether one religion is true and another false, or whether one religion is compatible with liberal democratic cultures and another is not, are annoying, unnecessary squabbles.

Pope Benedict has long noted that majority-Christian countries tolerate the free exercise of Islam, but Muslim-dominated countries often do not tolerate the free exercise of anything but Islam. The reaction to his address reveals that Western journalists don’t care about this. They have elevated Islam to a special standard, an unofficial Victim Religion, which is only the victimized, and never the victimizer. Even the forced Islamic conversion of American journalists taken hostage does not stir their ardor.

As I file this piece, I’ve read that a Palestinian cleric in Gaza, Dr. Imad Hamto, has declared “Aslim Taslam” on Pope Benedict XVI. It is a phrase taken from the letters of the prophet Mohammed to rival tribal chiefs – urging them to convert to Islam to spare their lives.



http://www.mrc.org/BozellColumns/newscolumn/2006/col20060920.asp

Pardon my bluntness, but don't be a d*ck.  If the abuses hadn't been uncovered and made public, do you think we would be going out of our way now to treat them correctly?

Try practicing what you preach.  Now, subtracting the effort at distracting from the point being made, you're assuming such abuses were rampant, and such current "niceties" are only now being implimented by the supposed rampant abuse?  A) no facts to back up that assumption  B) the abuses are being dealt with, and C) the point of the article remains unrefuted, and this is in no way "treating them correctly".

I had it set up that way since the first day, not just so I could have the arrow on Ami's sign point to you. Maybe next time you shouldn't jump off the deep end so damned quick

So much for no qualifiers.  Perhaps next time ..."I have mine set up to show the latest post at the top, so the arrow on the sign points to Sirs..." don't put my name in as the specific location of your arrow, and such assumptions won't be made.  Have a good trip

At least you're consistent     

Can't be having history and facts impair that finely tuned made-up-mind of how racist Republicans and the south are

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Black support for Bush drops to two percent

So much for the Republican "outreach" to black voters, with only 2 percent of blacks "approving" of the president's performance.

If only blacks knew of the true history of the Democratic Party.

"Black History Month" has been observed for 29 years, yet many blacks know little to nothing about the parties' respective roles in advancing or hindering the civil rights of blacks. How many blacks know that following the Civil War, 23 blacks — 13 of them ex-slaves — were elected to Congress, all as Republicans? The first black Democrat was not elected to Congress until 1935, from the state of Illinois. The first black congressional Democrat from a Southern state was not elected until 1973.

Democrats, in 1854, passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This overturned the Missouri Compromise and allowed for the importation of slaves into the territories. Disgusted with the passage of this Act, free-soilers and anti-slavery members of the Whig and Democratic parties founded the Republican Party — not just to stop the spread of slavery, but to eventually abolish it.

How many blacks know that blacks founded the Texas Republican Party? On July 4, 1867, in Houston, Texas, 150 blacks and 20 whites formed the party. No, not the Black Texas Republican Party, they founded the Texas Republican Party. Blacks across Southern states also founded the Republican parties in their states.

Fugitive slave laws? In 1850, Democrats passed the Fugitive Slave Law. If merely accused of being a slave, even if the person enjoyed freedom all of his or her life (as approximately 11 percent of blacks did just before the Civil War), the person lost the right to representation by an attorney, the right to trial by jury, and the right to habeas corpus.
 
Emancipation? Republican President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War. In 1865, the 13th Amendment emancipating the slaves was passed with 100 percent of Republicans (88 of 88 in the House, 30 of 30 in the Senate) voting for it. Only 23 percent of Democrats (16 of 66 in the House, 3 of 8 in the Senate) voted for it.
 
Civil rights laws? In 1868, the 14th Amendment was passed giving the newly emancipated blacks full civil rights and federal guarantee of those rights, superseding any state laws. Every single voting Republican (128 of 134 — with 6 not voting — in the House, and 30 of 32 — with 2 not voting — in the Senate) voted for the 14th Amendment. Not a single Democrat (zero of 36 in the House, zero of 6 in the Senate) voted for it.
 
Right to vote? When Southern states balked at implementing the 14th Amendment, Congress came back and passed the 15th Amendment in 1870, guaranteeing blacks the right to vote. Every single Republican voted for it, with every Democrat voting against it.
 
Ku Klux Klan? In 1872 congressional investigations, Democrats admitted beginning the Klan as an effort to stop the spread of the Republican Party and to re-establish Democratic control in Southern states. As PBS' "American Experience" notes, "In outright defiance of the Republican-led federal government, Southern Democrats formed organizations that violently intimidated blacks and Republicans who tried to win political power. The most prominent of these, the Ku Klux Klan, was formed in Pulaski, Tenn., in 1865." Blacks, who were all Republican at that time, became the primary targets of violence.
 
Jim Crow laws? Between 1870 and 1875, the Republican Congress passed many pro-black civil rights laws. But in 1876, Democrats took control of the House, and no further race-based civil rights laws passed until 1957. In 1892, Democrats gained control of the House, the Senate and the White House, and repealed all the Republican-passed civil rights laws. That enabled the Southern Democrats to pass the Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, literacy tests, and so on, in their individual states.

Civil rights in the '60s? Only 64 percent of Democrats in Congress voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act (153 for, 91 against in the House; and 46 for, 21 against in the Senate). But 80 percent of Republicans (136 for, 35 against in the House; and 27 for, 6 against in the Senate) voted for the 1964 Act.

What about the reviled, allegedly anti-black, Republican "Southern strategy"? Pat Buchanan, writing for Richard Nixon (who became the Republican Party candidate two years later) coined the term "Southern strategy." They expected the "strategy" to ultimately result in the complete marginalization of racist Southern Democrats. "We would build our Republican Party on a foundation of states' rights, human rights, small government, and a strong national defense," said Buchanan, "and leave it to the 'party of [Democratic Georgia Gov. Lester] Maddox, [1966 Democratic challenger against Spiro Agnew for Maryland governor George] Mahoney, and [Democratic Alabama Gov. George] Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.'" And President Richard Nixon, Republican, implemented the first federal affirmative action (race-based preference) laws with goals and timetables.

So next "Black History Month," pass some of this stuff along.


http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/elder111705.asp