Simple, according to Newsweek's Christopher Dickey: for starters, Westerners should stop exercising their right to free speech, and should stop welcoming Muslims who want to convert to Christianity. It appears to Dickey, Muslims are children who cannot be expected to behave like adults when confronted with something non-violent that they find offensive or challenging.
What's next: Dickey telling women that if they want to avoid sexual assault, they should quit tempting men by dressing so provocatively, because hey, men can't be expected to control themselves?
It does not require one to endorse the Danish cartoons, the threatened provocations of Geert Wilders, or the conversion of Magdi Allam to Catholicism ("self-hating," Dickey calls him) to recognize that hotheaded Muslims ought to be told to grow up. As Rep. Peter Hoekstra wrote in yesterday's WSJ:
I do not defend the right of Geert Wilders to air his film because I agree with it. I expect I will not. (I have not yet seen the film). I defend the right of Mr. Wilders and the media to air this film because free speech is a fundamental right that is the foundation of modern society. Western governments and media outlets cannot allow themselves to be bullied into giving up this precious right due to threats of violence. We must not fool ourselves into believing that we can appease the radical jihadist movement by allowing them to set up parallel societies and separate legal systems, or by granting them special protection from criticism.
Irenaeus fisks the Dickey column here.
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No one asked you to put forward a liberal opinion.
The question was, if you're going to be conservative, wouldn't it be honest to at least mention the OTHER elements in the story, that don't exactly match your narrative? You could still have the conservative opinion that those mattered less, or were in some way disingenuous, or what have you.
You could have argued as to why the public baptism WASN'T triumphalism in disguise. Or how the moderate positions stated were a minority, and no reflective of the bulk of global Muslim populations. That would all have been in line with your thinking.
But by only mentioning the points that support you, and ignoring the points that don't, you're not being conservative.
You're being blatantly dishonest. It is a clear sin of omission.
And, of course, when those details are left out, the whole story is more inflammatory, more likely to anger fellow conservative, and hence generate the venom needed to make the thread active, and keep those hits coming.
And my shock and disgust come not from the conservative position. You can find Erin Manning, Max Schadenfreude and I having a perfectly civil conversation in your newer "Chief of Sinners" thread, even with our differences in opinion. My shock and disgust come from the blatant manipulation of the truth, manipulation of your audience, and the use of language specifically designed to inflame anger and divisiveness by a man who claims that all of his decisions are centered in his Christian faith.
And reminding us all of it by playing back your "Greatest Hits of Unchristian Name-Calling" only makes it more true.
Why no acknowledgment of the fact that baptizing this man in such a public way seems odd, given Tony Blair's quiet, private baptism service. Can we really say there was no hint of triumphalism in that act?
First of all, the most likely reason Mr. Blair's baptism was quiet and private is that he preferred it that way.
Second, there is nothing "triumphalist" about the Pope including a prominent Muslim among the dozen or so non-Christians he baptized at Easter. Neither the Pope nor the Church are motivated by anti-Muslim animus. But by the same token, there's nothing specially-privileged about Islam.
Downplaying, hiding or discouraging converts from Islam implies that Christianity doesn't really consider itself a universal faith -- that we implicitly accept the Muslim view that Islam is God's final revelation, so that, while it's okay for anyone else to accept Christianity, Muslims should not. It's bad enough that that attitude is imposed by law on pain of death virtually everywhere in the Muslim world. It cannot be tolerated elsewhere.
Oh, I feel it was fine he was baptized the way he was. It's his right, and no one should be able to oppose that simply because he possessed some prominence, and it might upset the members of his old religion.
But it will seems odd. It's not like getting the Pope to baptize you is a fairly simple thing. Obviously, he's the Pope, and doesn't dash about baptizing anyone who'd like him to, or that's all he'd do. So some special circumstance must occur.
And given that the move was certain to piss off the less open-minded members of the Muslim community, doesn't it fall under the old "meat sacrificed to idols" rule? Doing it in private would have been just as effective and soul-saving, and helped prevent his brother from falling into the sin of rage or bitterness?
There's just something about it that reads like a subtle political statement being made from the occasion of the blessed event.
There's a difference between what you have a right to do, and what's right for you to do.
Anyway, thanks for addressing it. I felt the original article presented a far more nuanced position than Rod's reading of it presented here. Again, for the record, I feel that he had every right to convert, and to do so publicly. I just doubt the complete integrity of the manner in which it was accomplished, and think Benedict was using it to make a point as well that could have perhaps been made better in some other venue.
Is everyone here reading the same article as me?
Suggesting 'It might be a good idea if you don't say that right now.' is not saying 'you should not exercise your right to free speech'.
Saying 'Please stop taunting the Muslims so they have time to modernize' is good advice. If someone attacks someone else, and you stop the fight, it is entirely sane to tell the second person not to taunt to their attacker until they cool down. It's not because you think their attacker was in the moral right, it's because you're trying to stop either party from taking another swing.
Moreover if you attack a group from the outside, it will regroup and close ranks, which is exactly the opposite of what Islam needs to do.
Neither he, nor anyone else, are suggesting that we are or should be 'restricted' from speaking in certain ways. He's suggesting that we choose to stop doing certain things deliberately designed to inflame Muslims, as that will make us out to be their enemy instead of their actual enemy, the few fanatics whispering in their ear.
In other words, we should behave politely towards Muslims, because there is something we want from 95% of them: For them to rebuke and disown their fanatics.
They are unlikely to do that if we run around mocking and insulting them. That's not to say they'll all become fanatics, or even supporters of fanatics, but they wouldn't become anti-supporters either.
Now, there are a lot of Christian conservatives who think this is massively hypocritical, because they like to imagine that they've been repeatedly attacked by the same people who are saying 'back off, please' right now.
Well, no, they really haven't, or, rather, there's much much more stuff defending and praising Christianity than attacking it. Go look at the few books talking about how 'God Isn't Great' and stuff like that in your bookstore, but then wander over and look at the 'Spirituality' section. Go find a single op-ed written about how organized religion isn't that great in your newspaper, and then flip to the 'Faith and Values' section that my newspaper runs every week.
And the really offensive stuff has no exposure at all. 'Piss Christ'? I mean, come on. A single work of art on display? Riiight. Meanwhile, this film also had no exposure...but only after protests. (Which, of course, somewhat backfired, but that's not really relevant here.)
geert Wilders film just showed Muslims murdering people...nothing more!
In what way has he been "offensive" to Muslims..in what way has he been "Islamophobic"..... the truth is this man has an opinion, and expressed it by showing us what these murdering people do to humans.
Islam is evil and needs to be dragged screaming out of our countries communities or one day we will all be dead.
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