The Lonely Goatherd Blog And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats - Matthew 25:32
Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
Hostile bearers of unproven and mostly unlikely evil conspiracies tend to come across to me as hateful seekers after cheap self-aggrandizement for the sake of their supposed arcane knowledge rather than actual seekers after truth or the better benefit of the country. Conspiracy mongering doesn't get me hard.
Links
To explicitly state the obvious, these external links go to interesting and provocative websites, but they speak for themselves. I don't necessarily agree with anything they say - especially that no-goodnik Richard Marcus.
************
All original content on MoreThings.com copyright 2008 Albert Barger or the respective authors
November 15, 2002
Truth trumps immediate political benefit Colin Powell is speaking out against negative descriptions of Islam by the American religious right, apparently as part of a concerted effort by the administration to garner support for action against Iraq. As The Guardian puts it, "As the likelihood grows of a war in Iraq there are strategic benefits for the White House in convincing Muslims that it would not be a war against their religion."
The religious right- at least in this case- have the defense of speaking truthfully. Colin Powell is on the wrong end of it here:
Days after the televangelist Pat Robertson said on his Christian Broadcasting Network that "what the Muslims want to do to the Jews is worse" than the Holocaust, Mr Powell told a gathering in Washington: "This kind of hatred must be rejected."
Wait, Mr. Powell means that what Robertson is saying is hate that must be rejected? No, now, what Robertson is saying does not incite hatred; he's NOT saying "Muslims are swine, and they should be exterminated." He made more a statement of fact: He made an analysis of the stated and demonstrated intentions of Muslims.
The question then is not Robertson's supposed "hatred." The proper question is the truth value of Robertson's claim. In light of many, many published articles and broadcasts of the speeches of Muslim clerics and practitioners, in light of the words of the Koran, and most important, in light of the actual actions of many followers of Allah- clerics, soldiers, politicians and civillians alike- Pat Robertson has substantial factual basis for his claims.
Yeah, you can come back with "not all Muslims." However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Islam should be leaving a very bad taste in the mouths of all decent, peaceable people by this time. A pretty good swath of Muslims in fact support such charges as Robertson makes in word and deed, and relatively few fellow Muslims speak forcefully against them. You might reasonably accuse the reverend of overgeneralizing- but not by much.
It does not ultimately behoove us to fake reality, mouthing the words "Islam is a religion of peace," when that does not correspond to the facts on the ground. We could go into a long dissertation on Ayn Rand [A is A, and all that], but truth is not served by grasping onto convenient lies. Dealing on the basis of recognizing true reality is the only way of getting results in reality.
The real truth begins with recognizing that the Koran is false. This is not necessarily to say it is evil- that would be another point. Simply, things didn't all happen like in the book. In the words of one of my preferred prophets, "castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually."
Now it might work out that you could moderate the teachings and practices of Islam to blend in with the modern world. This brings to mind the recorded studio chatter of Sam Phillips talking to a recalcitrant Jerry Lee Lewis, "Now, religious conviction does not mean anything resembling extremism." The problem is that, well, yes it DOES.
The not-true beliefs of Christianity have been moderated, diluted, watered down to such an extent as to now be mostly pretty compatible with civillization. Arguably, however, the basic holy documents of Christianity are not as violent and intolerant as the Koran to start with. In any case, it took many long centuries for Christianity to get house trained for civillization. And still it causes problems.
No, better that we confront directly the basic non-truth of their religion, and the unacceptable nature of some of the common tenets. We need to be very tactful and respectful in the confrontation, but it badly needs to be done. We're doing them and ourselves a much better favor in the long run.
This isn't the job of George Bush. That's a job for philosophers and preachers and teachers. The basic job of politics is not to correct everyone's false beliefs, but negotiate the practical parameters of acceptable behavior: You have a right to believe anything you want, but if you start becoming violent, it's all over now, Baby Blue.
While de-Islamizing the world isn't in his job description, it does not serve our true long term interests for him and his minions to run interference against our truth squads. It might make it a little easier to cobble together a partnership to deal with Hussein in the next few weeks, but it will ultimately work against our efforts to deal with the root causes of terror, because make no mistake about it, the lion's share of terrorism is coming from fanatical Muslims.
Just the facts, ma'am. The Christian right is doing us a good service.
Still, couldn't they find somebody besides Jimmy Swaggart -of all people- to point out that Mohammed was a "sex deviant."
