GROW UP

PART 1 - ISLAM

Remember that kid in grade school who would throw a fierce tantrum when he didn’t get his way? Or the one with the ball, who would leave with it if you didn’t choose to play the game he wanted to play? More and more, those who adhere to the Islamic faith are reminding me of that kid.

First, it was a cartoon that they didn’t like--a drawing of their prophet, likenesses of whom are strictly forbidden. Muslims packed the streets and made it so the Danish artist who drew it has to look over his shoulder when he goes anywhere for the rest of his life. Several thousand guys named Mohammed have vowed to kill him if they ever find him.

Now, Pope Benedict XVI quotes somebody who was interpreting something the prophet actually said and they are back in the streets calling for The Pope’s head. These inflamed Muslim fundamentalists have exhibited their maturity further by burning a few churches down. Nice. Some of the churches were not even Catholic churches. They also want the Pope dead. He has since beefed up security in order to avoid the predicament, in which his predecessor found himself after he was shot by __ __________ __________. (Three Guesses.) Answer: An angry Muslim.

As a result of this I am going to break with America’s lawmakers and journalistic establishment and stop being P.C. about it. “Religion of peace" my arse.

I pride myself on being able to break with those I support when the rhetoric ceases to mirror reality. And what I have seen of Islam since 9/11 is not the peaceful religion that President Bush so often describes it as.

As practiced by hotheads in streets around the world, it is an intolerant, violent religion whose disciples become furious at the slightest jab at their faith, yet is almost silent when it comes to the violence propagated in the name of that faith.

Where are the moderate Muslim leaders condemning Jihad and fatwa? Where are the Muslims who actually believe that Israel has a right to exist and that the Jews are better than monkeys and apes? Where are the intellectual followers of Islam who should be countering the conventional Muslim world prattle that the West has declared war on Islam rather than terrorism?

Guess what? They don’t exist. And if they do, they have been eerily silent over the past five years.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword
the faith he preached"

That was the text quoted by the Pope, which has caused the uproar. Ironically, the uproar has done little more than to confirm the truth contained in the quote itself.

Because of Muslims' apparent adherence (or at least their laissez-faire attitude towards) spreading the faith by “the sword,” we have witnessed some of the most inhumane acts in the history of the world. Buildings collapsing, children getting blown up by suicide bombers, women stoned to death for speaking their minds. If adherents to other religions committed these atrocities with the frequency of their occurrences in Islamic world, words such as “barbaric” and “genocidal” would be tossed around without a second thought. But we keep hearing that Islam is a “religion of peace.”

Many scoff at the President when he claims that the terrorists hate us because of our freedoms, but in reality he’s dead on. The two big ones, which radical Muslims have a problem with, are the freedom of religion--they have stated they will kill every single infidel in order to eliminate it--and the freedom of speech. Cartoons and Papal speeches fall into that category.

Now despite my harsh words, the ignorance of Islam cannot be laid entirely on the Islamic people. Governments in the Middle East and elsewhere have successfully used Islam to keep their people fearful, submissive and radicalized. It’s the perfect religion with which to do so, due to its tendency to tolerate and even encourage violence. Don't go along with it and, boom, you're dead.

Because of this, the religion can only be torn down and rebuilt internally. Removing or destroying the governments who misuse it to their advantage and allowing people freedom to figure the religion out for themselves is key.

Despite what you learned in the shallow halls of academia, Americans are an incredibly tolerant people. When Islamists knocked down the World Trade Center and that crazy lady danced around in the streets with that insane shrieking sound emanating from her mouth, Americans bent over backwards to make it clear that we were not angry at Muslims but rather at a certain interpretation of their religion. Recently, it has been difficult for Americans to maintain such a charitable interpretation. More and more of us are reaching the conclusion that Islam cannot peacefully coexist with the rest of the world in its present form.

How can truly peace-loving people live in a world in which an entire religion full of people flip out over a freakin’ cartoon?

If you really want peace you’re going to have to learn to be tolerant when someone is critical of your faith. For example, do you see Christians burning Madonna in effigy when she comes onto the stage at one of her concerts attached to a crucifix?

Historically, the Pope is a dictator’s best friend. Modern Popes never support military action, even when the stated goal is to get rid of a murderous monster. Iran’s mullahs should be quelling their people’s anger, because if we choose to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, they’re going to need the moral authority of the
Pontiff in order to turn the world against our actions.
Americans want to accept Islam. I know I do. We can live together, but only if the Muslim population learns how to behave. Leaders of Islamic republics and nations in which Islam is the dominant religion bear the lion's share of responsibility to make this happen.

We are not at war with Islam right now. We are at war with a group of extremists who subscribe to a culture of death and have an incredibly warped sense of reality. However, if we begin to see that the majority of Muslims subscribe to these beliefs, then we will be at war with Islam. Since the West is living in the 21st century and much of Islam appears to be living in the 5th, it will not be a war that we are likely to lose.

You can’t have it both ways. If you choose to kill and maim as a tenant of your religion, then you should expect critics to tell you that you are evil and inhumane. If you can’t handle that, then stop committing the evil and inhumane acts. If the mobs in the streets going ballistic over the Pope and a Danish cartoon are not the same as suicide bombers and hijackers then those mobs need to condemn those members of your faith who are. If you don’t then we have every right to lump you together and you become the definition of that faith

So my advice to Islam is: Grow up. Prove me wrong. Prove to me that you truly are a “religion of peace” and that the majority of you do not want to spread your faith by means of “the sword.” Fight the extremists in your religion and let us see you do it. Otherwise, we’ll just get our own ball and you’ll be all alone on the playground with no one to play with. And you should try to do it before we no longer require all of that oil you’re sitting on.

PART 2 - ROSIE

What? You didn’t think I was going to leave you out of this Ms. O’Donnell did you?

When you say something as mind-bogglingly ignorant as “radical Christianity is just as great a threat to our nation as radical Islam” most of us who watch the news and can read beyond a 5th grade level,laugh a bit and use your ignorance as further evidence that most celebrities are out to lunch and say things based on what their emotions tell them rather than the facts.

But here’s the scary part, at least half of the studio audience attending the taping of “The View” that day applauded Rosie’s insane comments.

What does this tell us?

First, let’s address the false nature of the statement itself.

There is no movement within what some in this country consider “radical” Christianity, which calls for the deaths of anyone based on their religious beliefs.
As we all know, Rosie is a lesbian and a gay activist. Like many gays, her hatred of the GOP and President Bush stems from one big issue. This, of course, is the GOP’s opposition to the legalization of gay marriage, an issue of little consequence, which both sides use as a political weapon against their adversaries.

Now, radical Islamists want to kill you whether you’re gay, straight, black or white. In “radical” Christianity, there is no movement that advocates killing homosexuals. Some folks just don’t want you to get married. Rosie O’Donnell has much more chance of being physically harmed by an adherent of radical Islam than by a Christian who doesn’t want her to get married.

Next, of course, is abortion, an issue that is certainly important to some people, but probably overwhelmingly important to the mostly young, female audience of “The View”.

This issue has long been the most divisive issue between Evangelicals and so-called “soccer moms.” Folks like Rosie truly believe that if the religious right gets its way on this issue, it is tantamount to taking the vote away from women. This is utter nonsense. Even if Roe v. Wade is overturned abortion becomes a matter for the states. There is no doubt that abortion will still be available in this country. You may just have to travel across state lines to get one.

So again, let’s compare and contrast. In Islamic nations, abortion is so forbidden that a woman can be punished by death for having one (probably by stoning or some other horrible medieval method).

Last time I checked, the religious right did not want the punishment for abortion to be execution. So if Rosie wanted an abortion in Pakistan, she would be dead. If Roe v.Wade was overturned and she wanted an abortion she could go to New York. Nothing would happen to her at all.

The Jihadists are willing to kill Rosie here in America, in order to stop her from having the freedom to get an abortion. According to them, if Rosie is going to continue to support things like abortion, she needs to die.

To be fair, in the past there have been a few nuts on the far right, who did bomb abortion clinics, but they were condemned and ostracized by the vast majority of Evangelicals and other very religious individuals in this nation.

It is typical for those who are extremists, on both side of the political spectrum, to have unjustified and overblown fears of those who disagree with their extreme views, even if those individuals are relative moderates.

Rosie is one of these extremists, and therefore has unjustified fears, which she uses to create a moral equivalency between the peaceful, yet politically powerful religious right and the murderous Islamo-facists.

Because she is so far to the left, she truly believes that President Bush is a religious extremist who wants to turn America into some kind of theocracy.

Yes, the President is a Christian. Yes, he is far more involved in his faith than I would ever care to be. Yes, he comes to many decisions based on his understanding of right versus wrong. Some of his moral views were likely formed by his understanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ. But we all do that to a certain extent. Where do you think the Golden Rule came from? Much of how the majority of decent Americans, even non-religious ones, live their lives comes from Judaeo-Christian teachings and we don’t even realize it.

As for the enthusiastic applause from the audience of "The View" for O’Donnell’s boneheaded comments, it’s due to one of three things.

The first possibility is that these folks admire Rosie so much that they are willing to clap and agree with anything Ms. O’Donnell says. That’s just scary.

Another possibility is that roughly half of the largely female audience of “The View” shares Rosie’s extreme view and votes accordingly. This is a bit closer to what I believe to be the truth, but I think that even this is a bit too simplistic an explanation.

In reality, I think that much of “The View’s” audience is simply uniformed. Not only about current events and history, but about the threat posed by Islamo-facism in general.

Don’t get me wrong: far too many Americans are uninformed, but “The View’s” audience seems to be especially uninformed and I have no idea why.

For those who don’t remember, this is not the first time that one of “The View’s” female hosts has said something colossally stupid and was rewarded with applause. Who can forget this gem, which came from the rarely closed mouth of former co-host Star Jones:

In her warped view, the War on Terror was all about Bush and Bin Laden fighting over penis size.

"You know what? At some point, one of these men has to put it back in his pants and zip up the zipper." . . . .

She even suggested that Bush hold some kind of talk with the man behind 9/11:

"I won't trust him, but anything that gives me the opportunity to seek peace, I would at least check it out. . . . People make deals with the devil all the time. We make deals with people we don't like."

What conclusion are we supposed to reach based on “The View's” co-hosts obvious idiocy, and its audience’s positive reaction to these comments?

If there are typical viewers of the show, demographically speaking, and they are getting their news and shaping their opinions based on what people like Rosie and Star Jones say, then we have good reason to worry.

My message to those individuals: grow up, get informed, turn off “The View” and turn on the news.

Rosie is fortunate that those who consistently battle against the far left's moral equivalency have a far more accurate moral compass than their opponents.

We believe that Rosie O’Donnell and her ilk are misguided and have no clue as to how to fight the War on Terror. But they themselves are not nearly as dangerous as suicide bombers and the other extremists who dance in the street and shout death threats at the Pope.

They will kill lesbians and Evangelicals alike without blinking an eye. Those who are clear thinkers know that you’re not dangerous Rosie, you’re just really, really dumb.

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