The GOP takes harsher stance towards Islam/Muslims

rhadamanthus · Aug 19, 2010

America: bastion of gullible idiots.

mc mark · Aug 19, 2010

rhadamanthus said:

America: bastion of gullible idiots.
Click to expand...

Does that poll also show a correlation of those who dislike Obama the most being the most gullible idiots who believe he is Muslim?

rimrocker · Aug 19, 2010

I think this pretty much sums it up for me...

...

But the bottom line was that for many, reports that whites will be a minority of Americans by the year 2050 carried the shill ring of an alarm bell. But this concern about the submersion of a dominant white culture in America spiked prematurely in 2008 with the political rise of Obama. In researching the book, I spoke with many conservative voters who talked of their "discomfort" the first time they watched Obama speak on television, who said that in particular they were alarmed at the future president's use of the specific word "transformation." These voters were egged on by political "leaders" like vice presidential candidate Palin, who didn't just voice traditional policies differences with the Democrat but accused him of "palling around with terrorists."

It is no surprise that by mid-2009 I was hearing from the leader of the anti-Obama group the Delaware 9-12 Patriots that the 44th president of the United States "is absolutely not American" while his neighbors were screaming at town hall meetings: "I don't want this flag to change. I want my country back!" These rank-and-file citizens were often echoing what they heard in a 24/7 right-wing media bubble of ratings-driven irresponsibility -- outlandish neo-McCarthyite allegations that Obama had Commies and Maoists working in the West Wing, Glenn Beck's notorious claim that the president has "a deep-seated hatred of white people" and, perhaps more tellingly, of "white culture," and most recently radio's Rush Limbaugh's bizarre charge that Obama is probably the "best anti-American president the country's ever had."

In this paranoid environment, the president looked as much "the Other" as the day laborer Roberto Valdez in the Wal-Mart parking lot. High-employment and the destruction of the working class in America is increasingly demanding a scapegoat, and the right-wing media and an increasingly erratic GOP establishment is more than happy to direct people's palapable anger down the economic ladder. The result is something like the most un-American piece of garbage legislation that most of us have seen in our lifetime -- Arizona's racial profiling law SB 1070, whose sponsors admit they were seeking to drive Mexican immigrants out of the Grand Canyon State in droves, which is exactly what is happening.

But the modern-day American Diaspora is only the beginning. Once the Pandora's box of emotion and rage against "the Other" has been opened so wide, it is almost impossible to close. Now the backers of Arizona's hideous law want to rip apart the 14th Amendment -- the one that ended slavery, once a high point of American history, especially for the extinct brand of Republican that drafted it -- in order to prevent children of Mexican immigrants from becoming American citizens. The xenophobia has reached the point where a U.S. congressman took to the House floor -- with zero supporting evidence -- to charge that terrorists had a scheme to breed future U.S.-citizen bombers in maternity wards here.

Which brings us to the present crisis: Mosques in America. It should tell you something that the backlash against Muslims practicing their faith in America is far greater in 2010 than it was in the months immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. That's because the political firestorm with its epicenter in lower Manhattan really has nothing to do with 9/11 or its aftermath, and everything to do with "the Other" the awful forces and fears that have been unleashed in the last couple of years -- fears that craven politicians like Gingrich, Palin and the formerly rational Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota are eager to surf into the White House in 2013. If the Manhattan mosque controversy were really about our 9/11 sensibilities, how does one explain the opposition to other Islamic houses of worship from Tennessee to California to Staten Island?

America, we are in for the bumpy political ride of a lifetime. It will take enormous courage for defenders of two centuries of religious freedom and tolerance toward both religious and economic refugees to stand firm in the face of the kind of raw public anger and emotion that have caused backbone-impaired politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or supposed progressive stalwart Howard Dean to wither in mere days. Our determined minority may be barely clinging to our cherished traditions -- as best expressed by President George Washington in 1790 when he wrote "the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens" -- in the face of this onslaught for the next few years.

Let's face it: This country has long had its Know-Nothings and its Birchers and its McCarthyites, but it never had gizmos like Fox News or Sarah Palin's Twitter feed to fuel toxic ideas so far so fast. It's time we admit these seemingly disconnected battles over "anchor babies, mosques, and a black man in the Oval Office are all part of the same war against "the Other," and that we are in the fight of a lifetime.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/The_Other_and_the_ripping_apart_of_America_2010.html
Click to expand...

Not coincidentally, a new poll out today shows the number of people who believe Obama is a Muslim has doubled...

Not surprisingly, there was a strong linkage between those who wrongly believe Obama is a Muslim and those who disapprove of the job he is doing as president. Of the 41 percent who disapprove of the job he is doing, fully two-thirds identify say the President is a Muslim.

In terms of political affiliation, the sharpest rise in those who say Obama is a Muslim is among Republicans (up 14 points) since 2009. But, the religion question is also not purely partisan; among independents the number of those describing Obama as a Muslim is up eight points since last March and the number of Democrats identifying him correctly as a Christian is down from 55 percent to 46 percent.

"The overall picture here is of growing confusion or uncertainty about the President's own faith," said Alan Cooperman, associate director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The poll suggests that the persistent untruths that dogged Obama's presidential campaign regarding his associations with Islam remain -- and are even growing -- as Obama finishes up his second year as the nation's commander-in-chief.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/-1-2-3-1.html?hpid=topnews
Click to expand...

mc mark · Aug 19, 2010

America, we are in for the bumpy political ride of a lifetime. It will take enormous courage for defenders of two centuries of religious freedom and tolerance toward both religious and economic refugees to stand firm in the face of the kind of raw public anger and emotion that have caused backbone-impaired politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or supposed progressive stalwart Howard Dean to wither in mere days. Our determined minority may be barely clinging to our cherished traditions -- as best expressed by President George Washington in 1790 when he wrote "the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens" -- in the face of this onslaught for the next few years.

Let's face it: This country has long had its Know-Nothings and its Birchers and its McCarthyites, but it never had gizmos like Fox News or Sarah Palin's Twitter feed to fuel toxic ideas so far so fast. It's time we admit these seemingly disconnected battles over "anchor babies, mosques, and a black man in the Oval Office are all part of the same war against "the Other," and that we are in the fight of a lifetime.
Click to expand...

yep!!

rimrocker · Aug 19, 2010

I think the founder of the Republican party would not be too welcomed today...

But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new.

...

Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.

Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor.

...

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

This, plainly stated, is your language.

...

And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live" - the men who made the Constitution - decided this same Constitutional question in our favor, long ago - decided it without division among themselves, when making the decision; without division among themselves about the meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me - my money - was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though the southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.

...

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do let them alone - have never disturbed them - so that, after all, it is what we say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying.

I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions. Yet those Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.

Nor can we justifiably withhold this, on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality - its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension - its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm
Click to expand...

Same people, different labels.

basso · Aug 19, 2010

tl;ts;tm;dr

Pharaoh King · Aug 19, 2010

Like I said, it is not just Muslims by any means although that seems to be the popular red meat issue that may be enough to rally Christian Conservatives to the polling stations, since any Muslim or anything deemed Islamic is radioactive these days. But if you examine this, along with the strong and growing anti-Hispanic sentiments, you will quickly realize that the same people are pushing for both, and some of the same sentiments are being expressed in code speak. Example: "we want back our country" or "we need to protect our way of life". Read: "we want to protect our White majority and maintain White domination of our culture at all costs." They have a right to believe that way, but it just irritates me that they do not come out and say it. It is quite apparent i think.

rimrocker · Aug 19, 2010

basso said:

tl;ts;tm;dr
Click to expand...

I didn't expect you to.

FranchiseBlade · Aug 19, 2010

rimrocker said:

I didn't expect you to.
Click to expand...

He either wouldn't have understood it had he read it, or at least pretended not to understand it if he had read it.

AroundTheWorld · Aug 19, 2010

Mathloom said:

Doesn't matter. Muslims are just going to keep reproducing, keep immigrating, and keep voting for the democrats.

It seems the best solution is to just drown the Muslim-haters out.
Click to expand...

Interesting "strategy". Outgrow others in population size so you can force your beliefs on them and push those aside who do not agree with you.

Qball · Aug 20, 2010

AroundTheWorld said:

Interesting "strategy". Outgrow others in population size so you can force your beliefs on them and push those aside who do not agree with you.
Click to expand...

ohnoes! ATW knows of our "strategery"!!!

Steve_Francis_rules · Aug 20, 2010

AroundTheWorld said:

Interesting "strategy". Outgrow others in population size so you can force your beliefs on them and push those aside who do not agree with you.
Click to expand...

It's a much less aggressive strategy than the ones Christians used to spread their religion across the Americas.

Ari · Aug 20, 2010

AroundTheWorld said:

Interesting "strategy". Outgrow others in population size so you can force your beliefs on them and push those aside who do not agree with you.
Click to expand...

I am going to take a wild guess here and say Mathloom is yanking your chain.

Invisible Fan · Aug 20, 2010

rimrocker said:

I think the founder of the Republican party would not be too welcomed today...
Click to expand...

30% of Americans and growing thinks Lincoln is teh gay.

Mathloom · Aug 21, 2010

Qball said:

ohnoes! ATW knows of our "strategery"!!!
Click to expand...

SHHHHH! Keep it quiet. They're onto us now.

Forums

The GOP takes harsher stance towards Islam/Muslims

rhadamanthus Member

mc mark Member

rimrocker Member

mc mark Member

rimrocker Member

basso Member
Supporting Member

Pharaoh King Member

rimrocker Member

FranchiseBlade Member
Supporting Member

AroundTheWorld Member

Qball Member

Steve_Francis_rules Member

Ari Member

Invisible Fan Member

Mathloom Shameless Optimist

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!

The GOP takes harsher stance towards Islam/Muslims

rhadamanthus Member

mc mark Member

rimrocker Member

mc mark Member

rimrocker Member

basso Member Supporting Member

Pharaoh King Member

rimrocker Member

FranchiseBlade Member Supporting Member

AroundTheWorld Member

Qball Member

Steve_Francis_rules Member

Ari Member

Invisible Fan Member

Mathloom Shameless Optimist

Share This Page

basso Member
Supporting Member

FranchiseBlade Member
Supporting Member