Conservatives lost no time getting their crazy on in 2015. Apparently, they did not want to even for a moment appear well-adjusted. Well, they’ve succeeded, putting them right where they left off in 2014 and leaving us shaking our heads in wonder, torn between laughter and throwing up.
Enter white, fair-haired Fox News anchor Shannon Bream and her remarks last Wednesday:
That’s my question about these guys because if we know they were speaking unaccented French and they had, you know, ski masks on, do we even know what color they were. What the tone of their skin was. I mean what if they didn’t look like typical bad guys?
You’ve seen the lineup at Fox News. You’ve seen 20 of 21 committee chairs go to white men in the Republican-controlled House, and 19 of 21 go to white men in the Republican-controlled senate. Don’t tell me this surprises you.
The GOP is the party of ethnic nationalism: If you ain’t white, you ain’t American.
Which leads to Tom Tancredo, who is selling his anti-Islamic hate at World Net Daily, which seems to attract people like him. Here, Tancredo is pushing the idea that yes, Islam IS to blame for the violence done in its name, writing that, “It is IDIOTIC to keep pushing this canard of the left that ‘Islam is not to blame.'”
The enemy is not “terror,” it is not shoe bombs or hijacked airplanes or suicide bombers. The enemy is radical Islam, which has declared war on all non-Muslim societies, faiths and religions.
Tancredo has exerted all his available brain-power and come up with a solution to Islamic terrorism: collective guilt. And since all Muslims are guilty, all Muslims must be punished:
First, we must stop all immigration of Muslims into the United States – yes, ALL Muslims – and then deport those already here who adhere to Shariah law. I know the “not all Muslims are terrorists” retort would be screamed from the roof tops, and indeed, I know many who are good citizens. The problem is that once large communities of Muslims spring up in the West, they provide breeding grounds for “homegrown terrorists” and safe havens for the same.
The second thing that must be done immediately is to seal our borders against all illegal entry. Does anyone doubt that Islamist jihadists will use our open borders to infiltrate our communities?
I see a two-fer! Tancredo gets to keep out not only Muslims, but the Latinos he has already hated so much. See what he did there? Even people as obviously unsuited to public office as Tom Tancredo have a certain low cunning.
Tancredo goes on to tell us that,
“Shariah can be practiced in Muslim countries, but it is incompatible with the rule of law in any Western democracy.”
But here is what Tancredo hasn’t thought about enough: Sharia and Mosaic Law are virtually identical the only real difference being that one law code is Islamic and that the other is Jewish, and kinda-sorta, appropriated and mostly ignored by Christianity (except for the bits they really care about).
The conclusion here is inescapable: If Sharia Law is incompatible with rule of law in Western democracy, then so Is Mosaic Law.
And here Tancredo unwittingly finds himself in agreement with scholar Gerd Lüdemann, who has argued that at its very essence, Christianity is incompatible with modern liberal democracy. In Intolerance and the Gospel: Selected Texts from the New Testament (2007), Lüdemann makes the case that “intolerance seems to [be] an inherent, even necessary ingredient of the Christian religion.”
Why?
It begins with the First Commandment’s intolerance: “I am Yahweh, your God, and you shall have no other gods besides me,” and continues with the belief that,
Jesus Christ himself will return to carry out God’s will, and by force, empowered by the authority of his resurrection, will establish his father’s kingdom of peace on Earth. On the basis of this promise, believers in Jesus Christ have at all times claimed access to that power and used it with a good conscience against those they perceive to be enemies of the Gospel.
“In reality,” writes Lüdemann, “neither Christian theology nor the church can champion freedom of religion without betraying a considerable degree of hypocrisy. For tolerance requires an unconditional acknowledgement of the freedom and dignity of human beings without recourse to God. Yet the jealous Yahweh of the Bible who demands unconditional obedience can never approve of such liberal affirmations.”
One thing Tancredo has down, and that’s intolerance. He’s basically accusing Islam of being identical with Christianity.
Tancredo and Bill O’Reilly can claim anything they want (not thanks to the Bible but thanks to the First Amendment):
But both religions demand the death of unbelievers:
In the Qur’aan:
And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah [disbelief] is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. (Qur’an 2:191)
And in the Bible:
If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant,
And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;
And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel:
Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. (Deuteronomy 17:2-7)
Tancredo concludes, “Let’s start there. Those two steps are only a beginning, but they will serve to define the problem and point us in the right direction.”
I hate to think what comes next, perhaps ex-Marine Nick Powers’ idea, explained to Fox News’ Elizabeth Hasselbeck on Saturday that, “you have to exterminate this scum that is plaguing the entire planet.”
Keep it up. If you really want to meet your Prophet Muhammad, go for it. You know, there’s plenty of us out there that are willing make that meeting available to you.
That’s the spirit you redneck lunatic! Now the question: where does one draw the line between Nick Powers and ISIL? Or even Tom Tancredo and ISIL?
Thank whatever and whoever you want, America, that Republican crazy has a filter, an unwanted filter certainly, but a filter not only we, but the world – thanks to Republican control of both House and Senate – will be thankful for throughout the coming year: President Barack H. Obama.
Because without Obama, the world’s only remaining super power and its nuclear arsenal would be controlled by petulant seven-year-olds.
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