A SEASON FOR HATING THOSE WHO AREN'T US

[rocam]

Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News, 7/20/05

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...ists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_3939335,00.html

We clearly are in the mean season now, our fears having taken firm hold, a time when even the horrific is justifiable if there is even the slightest chance of saving our American skins.

Of course I am talking about U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, and the nuclear-strike-on-Mecca silliness he spouted over the weekend. Someone really needs to toss a net over the man and get it over with.

When I say mean season, I am talking, too, of the absurdities being played out in the streets of Denver, Boulder and elsewhere locally the past few days - those perpetrated by the Operation Save America loonies. They're lambasting Muslims and gays, while making just about everyone vomit with their bloody abortion photos - all in the name of Jesus Christ.

It is enough to make the sane pull the covers up and remain in bed. But that would eliminate all the fun of encountering and talking to these freaks.

I know them, or at least their kind.

The woman from Fullerton Road in Southern California is here this week. At least I am almost certain it is her.

I used to pass her every morning on my way to work, a woman who stood on a street corner outside an abortion clinic virtually in the shadows of Disneyland holding high these same pictures of aborted fetuses.

She stood there with her large glossies every day. I finally stopped.

"Jesus loves you," she told me when I approached and asked about her dedication to the street corner and her message. She repeated this with every question I would pose.

Finally, though, she'd had enough. It was, maybe, after the eighth question I asked that she softly intoned that she would "kill" me if I didn't get away from her.

When I wrote of her then, of her threat, in my column, she hounded me for two years with similar threats.

I know that was her on the 16th Street Mall. A decade of living changes facial features, but I am certain it was her. She spoke the same Jesus-loving lines.

And she stared at me with the same thinly veiled malice. It was her.

I believe the last thing Jesus ever spoke about was killing. Yet here were these self-proclaimed "Jesus-loving" fruits going about their Jesus-loving business, spouting malice for everything and everyone who was not one of them.

They picketed, of all places, the mosque on South Parker Road a couple of days ago. "Abortion, Islam and Homosexuality. What do these three have in common?" read a sign outside the mosque.

I couldn't even hazard a guess.

Yet I get it. I had to work hard, but I got it. Those who are not us are to be held at arm's length and reviled.

Examining our own actions and what those actions might provoke, well, that's never part of the equation.

It is why we have Tom Tancredo contemplating on the radio the bombing of the holiest of Muslim sites - holding that out as a potential preventative to a terrorist group setting off a nuke in the good ol' USA.

The congressman is never shy when it comes to his opinions. And this is a good thing, as long as what he says includes a modicum of sense. And let's just say he will not be indicted this time for using good sense.

He is a man, too, who needs to speak with just one of the military men and women the government has dispatched to Iraq to seek out and destroy the radical Islamists who hate us so.

"I can't believe he said that," more than one soldier serving in Iraq wrote to me.

"He might as well have gone on the radio and told every American to buy a Quran and flush it down the (toilet)," a lifelong friend now serving in Iraq e-mailed.

Is Tom Tancredo at all sorry for what he said?

Oh, please.

He is parsing what he said down to the very nub.

"I have nothing to apologize for," he has continued to maintain, in the face of withering criticism.

This is a man with ideas of becoming president dancing in his mind. Given the tenor of what sells in this country at present, I'd say his chances of seizing the Oval Office are no worse than some others.

Truth, honesty and compassion increasingly are not traits the majority of us require of our representatives these days. They are no match for the fear-mongering we abide.

"Get away from me," the dead-fetus-photograph-carrying woman told me the other day, when I attempted to interview her. "Or I'm going to hurt you."

[Theja]

Oh the privilege of living in a free country, that someone could provoke people, and then write about their shortcomings.

One does come across people with different opinions, but if they do not reflect the teachings of the Bible accurately, they alone are responsible. They neither represent the Bible nor Christianity.

Imagine someone in Muslim society writing against the atrocities of Muslims against non-Muslims: such a person would be in jail by now, or be killed by a fanatic, and the police will look the other way.

[Ma_Li_Ka]

Instead of finding excuses to justify behaviour of your fellow believers, you should stand up and say that this kind of hatred is not to be tolerated!!!

If people should make up their own decisions, let them in peace and let them be homosexuals, or let them have abortions. It is their choice.

And respect other faiths. As long as you don't give respect to other kind of believers, you won't get any respect back. That's sort of the rule of thumb in life, you know.

With arrogance and pedantry you won't achieve anything either, other than it is the first stept to hatred.

[Theja]

I did say shortcomings, but that is not strong enough for you. Okay: it should not be tolerated.

Under provocation, they said something but did not carry through. Still, as you pointed out, I agree it is unacceptable. So there it is.

Yes, let them decide what they wish, homosexuals and all. Force should never be applied to promote morality. God will one day judge them on their own merit or shortcoming.

That is why in my signature below, I have stated the responsibility to share the truth, but the individual is responsible for the decision he/she alone makes. Not me.

[Hattushil]

Originally posted by Theja


One does come across people with different opinions, but if they do not reflect the teachings of the Bible accurately, they alone are responsible. They neither represent the Bible nor Christianity.

Can it be, by chance, possible for Islam too?

Imagine someone in Muslim society writing against the atrocities of Muslims against non-Muslims: such a person would be in jail by now, or be killed by a fanatic, and the police will look the other way.

Beyond imagination, i can give you many examples of the persons writing against the atrocities of Muslims against non-Muslims in a Muslim country with 98 % Muslim population...Want it?

[rocam]

Originally posted by Theja
Oh the privilege of living in a free country

It must be one of the reasons why you decided to immigrate here right?

Christianity is certainly not the reason behind this freedom. I would like to add that the Muslim societies you mention are not ruled by honorable Muslim leaders therefore Islam is not to blame.

Stay away from such comments, only the academically challenged tend to draw these kinds of conclusions.

[Theja]

Yes, its fair to say not all fanatics represent Islam. But if I point to the activities of Muhammad and what he encouraged or tolerated, it is also fair to say that they represent Islam.