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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
At the point my husband and I introduced a friend of ours to Snopes.com because she was spreading such malicious, untrue emails, she said something to the effect that she "stood corrected." Then, we were no longer included on her mailing list for that sort of stuff. But we would bet our lifetime salaries that she's continuing to forward lies and prejudice to many others. And so are members of my family, whom I love, and that's very disturbing to me.
Smears are never attractive, but it's hard to work up much sympathy for the Obamas, given their recent thorough trashing of the Clintons accomplished through innuendo, memo, falsehood, omission, and sneer. As they say - what goes around, comes around. Guess it's Mr. & Mrs. O's turn now, huh?
I run across this crap all the time. Ignorant people that get an email saying a file is really a Trojan waiting to erase everything on your hard drive. So they delete the file and boom they’re hosed. That’s just an example of how people think the internet and e-mail speak only the truth.
I continually point people to snopes and they continually send me crap about how life is terribly unsafe and I better watch out for the needles stuck to my car door handle. Ya, and I’m still waiting for Bill to send me my check for e-mailing.
I suppose I shouldn’t be so amazed that that the educational system has failed to teach people how to critically analyze what they read, but I am.
It has gotten so bad that I don’t even read the e-mails, I just delete them. Then when you blast them for sending you crap they accuse you of being a radical democrat. Sigh.
Do people ever separate their emotions from critical thinking these days? Does critical thinking ever happen by the people or are their positions based on emotion triggered by key words?
I’m about ready to give up on this country. The country that is now on the list of ones that torture……
It's like decrying racism and by way of example publish some racist jokes.
Bet those jokes get passed around and repeated.
You really are not a Professor, are you?
It's like saying I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him
You didn't take English classes either.
You can pretend to say one thing, while you are really saying the exact opposite.
That requires activation of the fourth neural circuit.
Debunking a scurrilous email should not include errors, else the debunking loses credibility.
"The basic question the e-mail poses, "Can a good Muslim be a good American?" is blatantly racist . . ."
Islam is not a race, it is an ideology. If it were a race, which would it be? White, like Balkan Muslims? Black, like African Muslims? Arab, like Saudi Muslims? Southeast Asian, like Indian, Malaysian and Indonesian Muslims? Pacific Islander, like Filipino Muslims? This knee-jerk accusation of "racism" simply shows ignorance.
"And mainstream Islam considers Christians and Jews to be fellow "People of the Book." Their religions are acceptable, being monotheistic . . . "
It depends on which part of the Koran you read, the Meccan Koran (created by Mohammed when he did not have power) or the Medinan (created by Mohammed when he later became a warlord, raiding, looting and taking slaves from the surrounding tribes of Jews and Christians). The Medinan Koran contains the famous "Verse of the Sword," which is regarded by many Islamic scholars, under the doctrine of naskh (al-Nasikh wal-Mansoukh) to abrogate all earlier Koranic verses urging peace with non-Muslims.
This verse declares: "When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful." Many other verses in the Medinan Koran urge aggressive violence against unbelievers so that "religion is only for Allah."
Finally, non-Jews and non-Christians might be a little nonplussed to find that their beliefs are not "acceptable" to Islam, and that under Sharia they are to convert or be killed.
"There are lines in the Quran warning Muslims not to be allies with Christians or Jews, but others also say Muslims should treat non-Muslims equitably and kindly, as long as they aren't actively fighting against Islam."
There sure are lines like that. There are also a lot more "lines" (I imagine the writer is referring to verses) that call unbelievers (including our "protected" Jews and Christians) the "vilest of creatures," hated by Allah, condemned to hellfire, the "sons of apes and pigs." And what "actively fighting against" Islam actually encompasses is never clearly stated by Muslim apologists. Many scholars regard any resistance to Sharia law, including gender apartheid, as "actively fighting against Islam."
"There are some lines elsewhere that appear to suggest beating wives if they don't obey their husbands, but there are also lines in the Bible that mandate animal sacrifice and the murder of adulterous women.)"
This is probably the funniest of the writer's active misrepresentations of Islam. The verse in question is 4:34, which reads: "Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is high, supreme." (Dawood's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)"
That doesn't "appear to suggest" that men beat their wives. That's a mandate. A simple Google of "Islam + wife-beating" (try YouTube too, if you like video) will give you hundreds of scholarly interpretations explaining how to Islamically beat your wife. A recent Pakistani report showed that over 70% of Pakistani wives have been Islamically beaten, over things like an unsatisfactory meal. And it's hard not to point out that the only people stoning women for adultery anymore are -- gulp -- Muslims.
"Islam does allow freedom of religion (if you're monotheistic)"
Does this writer read the paper? People all over the world are being arrested, imprisoned, tried, and even killed for converting away from Islam. (Once again, the non-monotheists are out of luck on that one. Conversion or death for you, bud.) Further, whatever "freedom" non-Muslims have under Muslim rule is strictly limited by the rules of dhimmitude, which declare that non-Muslims are to pay jizya (an extortion tax) and "know themselves subdued." Restrictions on religious rituals and church building, as well as such items as non-Muslims' clothing, are part and parcel of Muslim dhimmitude regulations (see, e.g., Egypt.)
All this is because an authentic hadith (a scholar-approved tradition of Mohammed) reports that Mohammed said, "Whomever leaves his religion (i.e., Islam), kill him." The unrelenting hatred against nonbelievers in the Medinan Koran and the hadith also can't help but create a hostile atmosphere as well.
The emails against Obama are crap, that I'll give you. But it doesn't do any good to replace misrepresentations with more misrepresentations.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
