Well done, AQA. You came up with a reasonable, documented factual answer to the OP’s question of “why this, now? Any specific incident?”.
aq aq
Have you studied European history? Religious persecution has a long and sordid history. We don’t want it back.
It is interesting that Gingrich is resorting to the exact irrational fears that propelled the anti-communism movement*, as noted earlier in this thread, as well as employing a misleading meaning to jihad. We continue to have more to fear from those who would pretend to “defend” us than we do from our actual opponents.
- The U.S.S.R. was a legitimate threat to U.S interests from 1946 onward, but the linkage of the Soviet threat to an unrealistic fear of “world wide communism” encouraged the U.S. to engage in the suppression of civil rights and the oppression of individuals in the U.S. while engaging in all manner of brutal activity outside the U.S. for nearly 50 years. In the fear of Sharia and “jihad” Gingrich and like-minded bigots are promoting the same sort of baseless fears and irrational hatreds for their own personal political gain.
It wasn’t unrealistic at all. See: North Korea & the attack on South Korea, Central America, Africa (especially Namibia & Angola), Vietnam, China, Western Europe (especially Italy and U.K.), Eastern Europe (thoroughly under Moscow’s thumb), Afghanistan, Nepal…
[Bender]
Oh, wait, you were serious? Let me laugh even harder!
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While I appreciate AQA’s post, it does not really answer the question of why this is politically actionable. Al Qaeda claims they want to overthrow our government with a caliphate.
This is like my 4 year old kid saying he wants to move to England. I don’t need to do anything about it, like lock up his passport. I say “that’s nice” and move on.
These laws restricting Sharia are useless nonsense. Even if you think that a caliphate is coming, some Oklahoma law is going to be the bulwark that prevents our doom? I suppose they could say “Well, we WERE going to overthrow your government and install our own theocracy, but you guys have outlawed it already, so I guess we’ll do Canada instead.”
Rather a far cry from the entire world going commie and just the poor US holding out, though. Anyway, it’s not as though there was ever a real chance of the UK becoming a communist state.
Central America was in large part a reaction to US policies. Sort of like stretching a rubber band too far…
For those who are interested in codifying faith in law, it suddenly becomes necessary to specify which particular faith.
Call it a “dodge” if you wish but it takes an extra extra extra stupid right-winger to think that your state legislature might soon legislate Sharia law.
To think that one person with a robe might judge based on it… not so much.
Muslim judges are rare in this country, and no other conceivably would be influenced by Sharia except at all parties’ request.
It came quite close.
Except, of course that US policies were in response to Soviet aggression and subversion.
Its interesting to me how the word “jihad” so closely resembles “struggle”. It can mean, and does when used in the context, the sort of forced conversion by conquest that popular ignorance has fixed upon. But not necessarily.
“Struggle” is a word near and dear to hearts of old-timey Marxist lefties, when they wore a collective onion on their proletariat belt, as in “The struggle of class against class is a political struggle.” It was also commonly used in more direct and personal ways, as in “argument”. A group of Marxists arguing an arcane point of Marxist theory were often (self-described) as engaging in a “struggle”. Typically, it was used by one side of the argument or the other as an inference about the opposing view, that one was engaged in a “struggle” with bourgeois elements seeking to dampen the solidarity of the revolutionary cadres blah blah blah. It was also used, though less frequently, as a personal reference, an internal “struggle” to reach to correct political line.
Same with"jihad". It can mean, and does mean, the sort of theocratic force it is usually defined as. But it also means an internal “struggle” to find the true path to Allah. One is engaged in “jihad” as one contemplates one’s failings as a Muslim, as one “struggles” to overcome doubt and complacency.
This is fairly interesting, which is why I dragged you along on this diversion. The worry about judges ruling by Sharia law in American courts, by comparison, isn’t interesting. Unless “silly” means the same thing as “interesting”. And sometimes it does! Just not this time.
Nitpick: Actually, “struggle” was always a sexual euphemism and Marxism was always a Libertine cult. I dunno how those horny Marxists ever got a reputation for being political or some shit. As for “jihad,” I think it has something to do with pretty-boys, you know the Arabs.
On the contrary. The United States supported every right-wing tyrant in Latin America from the moment of those countries’ independence(s), with economic and political consequences we still see today. Revolts against US imperialism during the Cold War were not that different in origin from those that happened before or after the Cold War. The same is true around the world, and it isn’t necessarily even a right-left issue, as the fear in Washington has always been a fear of independent national and political development.
Besides, even if all of your red-baiting examples were valid (and they are not), the best way to fight the cold war would be to not fight it at all. Imperial expansion hurts one’s economy and leads to collapse. It’s a fools’ game, as the British economist Hobson discovered and wrote in his book, Empire, in 1900. Incidentally, who won the Cold War? In 1989, who was better off: Central American (or Haitian, etc.) killing fields run by mass-murderous US-trained death squads, or police states in Eastern Europe under the Soviet boot? Communism was a disaster, but neoliberal capitalism was/is even worse.
Are you saying the real fear driving all this is a muslim judge letting his religious leanings affect his work? Isn’t there a mechanism in place to deal with nutty judges?
I see Communist revisionists are still hard at work. I think you should try talking to people who lived under Soviet oppression.
Jackboots are jackboots, no matter who wears them, but the Western democracies were far better off than the so-called ‘Democratic Republics’ of Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
The democracies were, yes. If you are willing to define Pinochet’s Chile or Nicaragua under Somoza to be “democracies”, thinks get a bit murkier. How do you say “jackboot” in Spanish? “Gringo”.
Which is of course a central part of the criticism of American Cold War behavior. Being imprisoned, raped, tortured and murdered in the name of God and Capitalism by an American puppet dictator was just as bad as suffering the same fate in the name of Communism under a Soviet puppet dictator. And we actively encouraged that sort of tyranny and abuse. Outside of their borders there was little moral difference between the behavior of America and the Soviet Union; both were monstrously evil.
Thank you.