I have a great time in lively debates with my conservative friends. Yes I have conservative friends. Not only that but my wifes family is full of neocons. John Birch society members. So I get all kinds of emails. I guess I'm on their list of people to convert.
Good luck with that one....
Most emails are fairly benign. They just strike up the usual debate on various hot button issues. But there was one that rubbed me the wrong way.
More after the fold...
I received the following email and was genuinely repulsed by what it was suggesting.
Here it is...
Peaceful Majority
I used to know a man whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II. They owned a number of large industries and estates. I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.
"Very few people were true Nazis," he said," but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."
We are told again and again by "experts" and "talking heads" that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.
It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard qualifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" is the "silent majority" and it is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia comprised Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War 2 was not a war mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold; we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, I wish to add: At the risk of offending someone, I sincerely think that anyone who rejects this as just another political rant, or doubts the seriousness of this issue or just deletes it without sending it on, is part of the problem.
Let's quit laughing at and ridiculing our leaders in this war against terror. They are trying to protect the interests and well being of the US and its citizens. Best we support them.
I felt this emails intention was to lump ALL MUSLIMS into one category. I immediatly thought, "they have moved into the next level". Don't JUST condemn the terrorists but rather start condemning ALL Muslims.
Because how do you define a Muslim that "doesn't speak out".
I certainly thought that was their plan, but I had never seen it in such a way. So obvious, yet subtle.
Peace-Loving muslims have been made irrevelant by thie silence.
I'm not sure what they mean by silence. But every Muslim I know was not exactly celebrating after 9/11. This seems to imply if every Muslim is not on TV, like a money grubbing evangelist, screaming to denounce terrorists; they themselves are as bad as those terrorists.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
There are many reasons terrorists are made; "not speaking up" is not one of them. Poverty, Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu-Graibe, just to name a few. These are the things that drive all foreigners to stand against us. Not just Muslims.
After 9/11 we had 85% (if not more) of the world on our side. As much as I disliked this president at the time, I was marginalized by his support around the world.
Make no mistake, it was this administrations hatred of other cultures that got us here today. Their pre-emtive hatred of people they don't know nor do they wish to know and understand. They failed to understand or read the most important lesson taught in that great book they so freely throw around.
Conservatives from all around should understand that the very book they quote to admonish the homosexual community and TWIST to justify this Iraq conflict choose not to listen to it's most valuable teachings on the subjects of forgiveness, common good, and loving our enemies.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." (Matthew 5:9)
"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow." (Matthew: 38-42)
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5: 43-48)
"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16)
I was teaching a bible class after 9/11 and asked the question. Would Jesus have retaliated or forgiven?
Although at the time there was no option but to retaliate, and I would expect no administration to just forgive.
But at some point don't you have to.
Is now that time?