DONALD TRUMP - FINAL COMMENTS (I HOPE)

I only write this because the news media does not seem to understand what Donald Trump is doing (Mark Halperin is an exception).  Don't the commentators hear the applause when Trump says these outrageous things?  Make no mistake, everything Trump says is giving voice to a big percentage of the Republican party, it seems like at least 25% and could be much larger.  ALL his comments are carefully crafted to appeal to this large group of people who believe Obama was born outside the U.S., that he is a secret Muslim, that all Hispanic illegals should be deported, that we should build a wall on our southern border, that Muslims should not be allowed to enter America (I suspect many would find the idea appealing that all Muslims should be deported or placed in detention camps.), etc., etc.  It isn't pretty folks but there it is.  You aren't going to solve this hate by getting rid of Trump.  It will still be out there, as Trump is following these people, not leading them..

And don't believe that all these Trump supporters are only high school graduates or dropouts.  I know one person who owned his own business and by his life style it looks like he was very successful, another was a retired Captain in the Army, and a third was a successful real estate investor.  E-mails I got from retired military officers were so bad that when 9/11 occurred, I prayed it was not some retired Air Force officers who did it until I heard otherwise.

I say at least 25% above because most followers of Ted Cruz also believe these things.  In fact Ted Cruz is said to hope that Trump supporters will follow him (Cruz) if Trump departs the race.  I don't know why anyone wants Cruz for president, but the fact that he actually did shut down the government, rather than just talk about it, is probably an attraction.

Well, it is nice that various Republicans have expressed outrage over Trump's latest comments of barring Muslims from entering the country, including American citizens who happen to be abroad and also returning members of our armed forces.  But a number of the other candidates have expressed somewhat similar anti-Muslim views, but in more guarded ways (e.g. Only let Christians from Syria emigrate here).*  Trump gives these views to you raw.  I have called adherents to these ideas as red meat Republicans.

So how, some have asked, do you identify a Muslim?  Well the ancient Japanese showed the way.  In the battle of a Christian stronghold in Japan called the Great White Castle of Shimabara, the Shogun hired the Dutch fleet to come in and bombard the castle to help break it.  Thus the Japanese were able to break the stronghold.  Then they had the Christians step on a picture of the Cross (replicas of this can be purchased in the trinket shop).  If they refused, off with their heads.  If they stepped on the Cross, the Shogun figured they weren't good enough Christians to worry about.**  So Mr. Trump, you can have everyone who wants to enter the U.S,. to stomp on a copy of the Koran.  If they won't do it, no entry.  If they do it, they aren't good enough Muslims to worry about.  Now I suppose that many Christians, Jews and others will refuse to stomp on the Koran too, but I guess they can't enter and are just collateral damage

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeb-bush-syrian-refugees-christian-muslim_5648b98de4b045bf3def84df
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-tea-cup-seismograph-biographical.html
http://japanschristianheritage.com/2010/04/shimabara-rebellion/

ON BLASPHEMY

With regard to the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, one notable Muslim states that it is possible to be against violence but still outraged by blasphemy  (The act of showing contempt or lack of reverence for God, to religious or holy persons or things or toward something considered sacred or inviolable.*)  At first that sounded reasonable.  But then I started thinking.

It seems to me today that in America the word blasphemy is no longer in our vocabulary because it has come to be protected by the first amendment.  Oh, some people know the word, but do they ever use it?  I suspect that, if you took a poll, a large majority of Americans would no longer have any idea of what the word means.  Yes, many of us will object showing Christ with excrement to be at least in bad taste or disgusting rather than art, but the perpetrators are not prosecuted for blasphemy.  This is interesting because America is largely a Christian country and blasphemy is spoken of as unforgivable in the Bible (e.g. Mark3:29).

I think that when I was a child I recall swearing was called called blasphemy and perhaps those who do it would "burn in Hell."  I recall my mother saying heelio-copters rather than hell-i-copters to avoid saying the dreaded word.  She had some other spoken affectations as well.  Blasphemy was not always protected by the First Amendment in the U.S.  It is understood that free speech is not license.  the example usually given is that you can not cry "Fire!" in a crowded theater.  At one time blasphemy was treated the same way in a number of states.*  the New York anti-blasphemy law wasn't repealed until 1952.  The law was still on the books in Maryland as recently as 2003.*

I recall a young Muslim scientist from Saudi Arabia who came to work with us for awhile who went to a museum and was shocked at paintings of Christ on the cross, Mary with child, and Peter hanging upside down on the cross.  He couldn't believe such blasphemy would be permitted.  In fact, many Muslims feel that  paintings of any human beings is idolatry.**

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_States
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_art

WIRING OF THE BRAIN

Particularly since my wife died, I have been reading quite a bit about how the brain works and how you can change it.  But even in the case of Noah who has had one side of his brain removed, who is a good example of this, in which actions and thought usually done by the right brain are now done by the left (or is it vice versa, no matter).  In my wife's case, I think she could have recovered from her first stroke except something happened to destroy her will to fight her condition which makes it very hard when all the initiative had to come from someone else.  She really had to want to get better, but couldn't manage it.

But it occurs to me that one reason we don't understand Muslims, especially conservative Muslims, is that their brains are wired differently from ours and some may even believe in martyrs getting 72"virgins" ( apparently wives actually in heaven).*  Do female martyrs get 72 virginal men (husbands)?

And it is the same in the U.S. where the religious right is able to maintain all sorts of screwy ideas like raped women don't get pregnant and are obsessed with controlling women's bodies almost as much as Muslims.  And conservative Republicans really believe that all poor people are lazy, the government is coming to get their guns, and reducing taxes and getting rid of regulations will always improve the economy.    No showing of the facts will dissuade them as their brains are wired to believe this sort of thing. (Though personal income taxes were greatly reduced as were regulations under George W. Bush, we had economic disaster..  Both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton raised taxes a lot and we had the best economic climate of my long lifetime.)

We are also witnessing in this country a significant part of the government that is quite willing to go against the will of the people, even their own constituencies, on issue after issue: on background checks for gun purchases, on the minimum wage, and on a track to citizenship for long-term illegal immigrants, just to name a few,

It is even true on a national basis.   For some reason as a nation, our brains are wired to root for the mob (presumably the underdog).  We have done this with Egypt, with Libya (even giving air cover to the mob), with the Ukraine.  We actually also did this with the Taliban against the Russians.  When we don't like the mob, we will enter into nation building as we did with Iraq and are doing with Afghanistan.  And we have learned, or I hope we have, that the road to democracy is extremely difficult for people who have no history of democracy or suffered under a long-time dictatorship.  I wonder how you could have a real democracy in Iraq when 80% of the people are of one religion (Shiite) and 20% of another (Sunni) who hate each other.  Even in the U.S., a lot of people believe that a Muslim, say, cannot be president though there is nothing in the constitution that says that presidents must be Christians.

As I have said in a recent post to my blog, I think eventually we will look on Guantanamo Bay as a dark period in American history: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/06/guantonimo-

and-franz-kafka.html.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houri

IN GOD WE TRUST AND UNDER GOD

On November 17th, I received again an e-mail this time dealing with an NBC poll and ending with: "Therefore, I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a mess about having 'In God We Trust' on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance."  The poll mentioned in the current e-mail apparently harks back to 2006.*

Amazing!  I've been seeing this sort of e-mail for years.  It doesn't bother me at all having "In God We Trust" on our money and having God in the Pledge, but it was only added to paper money beginning in 1956 and replaced E pluribus unum.  It has been on our coins longer, since the end of the Civil War  I do not get a warm fuzzy feeling, however, knowing God is on our money and in the pledge, and it wouldn't bother me to have God taken out.  So far as I know, there is no strong movement to remove it, but apparently there are people who love to worry about it.  I've sure got bigger worries than that.  The question should be, "Does God trust us?"

Incidentally, the pledge has had "under God" in it only since 1942 so it is pretty new also.  I don't recall saying the pledge for years, maybe decades, but any rate, it also doesn't bother me.

Muslims use a little different phrase.  In the Quran it is "Trust In Your Lord" which predates "In God We Trust" by several centuries so modern Muslims actually love the phrase "In God We Trust" which I suspect probably would bother those who fear God will be taken off our money if they only knew that Muslims like it.

President Teddy Roosevelt thought to put the word "God" on money was sacrilegious. For Christians, Roosevelt had a point and having God on our money is questionable at best.  Remember Jesus and the money changers and the phrases from Matthew (6:24 and 6:21 ) and Luke (16:13 and 12:34): "You cannot serve both God and Money." and "For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be." The Supreme Court has ruled a couple of times that to use the phrase on money does not constitute establishment of any religion so it is all right and it is a closed issue.

* http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/godpoll.asp

POTPOURRI: MEDICAL EXPENSES, BENGHAZI, & INSULTING ISLAM

I wonder how many people who want to control medical costs have supported compulsory ultrasound before abortion.  I'm not sure just how many states have compulsory ultrasounds before abortion, but I have seen 8 referred to and 22 have some sort of ultrasound regulation with 11 more states having them on the docket (http://bangordailynews.com/2012/02/27/news/nation/more-states-moving-to-require-ultrasound-before-abortion/).  Usually the woman has to take two trips to the physician, one for the ultrasound and another for the abortion itself.  All this raises the costs of care, of course.

Now it seems to be coming clear that the opposition to Susan Rice becoming Secretary of State by John McCain is that she had some harsh things to say about him in the 2008 presidential battle.  Lindsay Graham's opposition seems to be related to the Democrats opposition to John R. Bolton's nomination as Ambassador to the United Nations by George W. Bush in 1980 (but he was appointed as a recess appointment).  So it seems the opposition to Susan Rice really has little to do with her statements that the Benghazi, Libya, disaster  in which a U.S. Ambassador was killed was a spontaneous demonstration that escalated.  The usual question being asked is why wasn't more protection provided to the Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.  Of course protection to Embassys is supposed to be provided by the home country, which proved inadequate in this case.  But since so much effort is placed on Benghazi (Libya's second largest city), there are a couple of questions that seem relevant.  Why wasn't the Consulate closed?  After all there had been a previous attack on the Consulate with a hole blown through the protection wall, and the Brits had closed their operation there because of all the unrest in the area.  The second question of interest is why did our ambassador go there in the first place?  Don't know that we will ever hear the answer to these questions.

We seem to think it is important that the Benghazi incident had nothing to do with the insulting movie trailer that was critical of Muhammad.  The attack on the consulate may have been planned as a 9/11 al Qaeda commemorative event, but the movie trailer probably added something to it as demonstrations were done throughout the Muslim world (Egypt,Iran, Israel, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen, and Palestinian) particularly after the Friday prayers.  If we think, however, that when we do or say things that are insulting to the Islamic religion, it does not incite a hot head group to physical violence, then there is no hope of our reconciliation with Muslims.  In addition it also increases the anti-American attitude among a large group of Muslims who are more peaceful.  Now it is known that an Egyptian court has put a death sentence, in absentia, on seven Egyptians thought to be involved with the movie trailer should they return to Egypt (http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/28/world/meast/egypt-anti-islam-film/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_world+(RSS%3A+World)).  Of course there have been many other incidents in the past such as our burning of Qur'ans in Afghanistan in which four of our soldiers were killed.

YOU CAN RATIONALIZE ANYTHING

I sit in amazement at all the comments I am hearing from American news people that the anti-Muhammad trailer (The Innocence of Muslims) release has nothing to do with the riots in the Muslim world.  Few in this country except for some American Muslims understand the global Muslim mind.  There are comments about everyone knows about our free speech in the trailer about millions of people who have never had free speech.  Others comment that everyone knows that the anti-Muhammad trailer is not a U.S. government statement.  No, they don't because nothing was ever published in their country that wasn't the official government.

It well may be that there was an attack planned on the Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 because of the armaments in the attackers' hands, but surely the anti-Muhammad trailer added intensity to it.  Of course, the anti-Muhammad movie trailer was slow to spread and got its big boost by the Imams who fanned the flames in the Friday Muslim prayers (September 14th).  After that, the demonstrations spread quickly throughout the Muslim world and were peaceful by and large.  I feel that peaceful demonstrations were quite in order.  After all, what would we do in this country if there was an equivalent movie trailer denigrating Christ?  In this case, I can easily picture some Americans seeking out American Muslims to attack.

Has everyone forgotten Salman Rushdie who received fatwa (death sentence) from Ayatollah Khomeini for publication of his 1988 book Satanic Verses because of irreverent depictions of Muhammad?  At the time there were book burnings of his book.  I have heard that the bounty on his head has recently even been increased. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie)

Has everyone forgot the furor over the burning of Korans in Afghanistan by our military last February in which four Americans lost their lives in addition to about 40 others?(http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afghans-protest-improper-disposal-of-koran-at-us-base/2012/02/21/gIQAjhBqQR_story.html; http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/asia/video-said-to-show-marines-urinating-on-taliban-corpses.html)

It is interesting to note that American Muslims have not demonstrated against insults to Islam by the movie trailer, so far as I know.  I suspect they are living in fear of reprisals as it is.  For one tape of Islamophobia, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NutFkykjmbM

Note added September 18, 2012: A very good discussion of the effect of insults to Islam is given by Stanley Fish (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/libya-violence-and-free-speech/?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20120918).  A brief excerpt:
And since for them religion is not an internal, privatized matter safe from the world’s surfaces, but an overriding imperative that the world’s surfaces should reflect, a verbal or pictorial assault on their religion will not be received as an external and ephemeral annoyance, as a “mere” representation; it will be received as a wounding to the heart, as a blow, and as a blow that is properly met by blows in return. No “sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me” for them.

Note added September 25, 2012:  Libyans reacted to armed militia's on September 21st over their attack on the U.S. Consulate and demand their dissolution: http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Libyans-protest-defiant-militias-3884916.php.  We should remember that the hot-heads are usually a small minority of a country even if they number in the thousands.