About 10x, eh? Can you give us a standard deviation on that?
Maybe it’s just a semantic issue, but I got the sense they were both saying people shouldn’t object when Obama is incorrectly called or portrayed as a Muslim.
People should object on the grounds that it’s incorrect. I think it’s unfortunate that the background is one in which it’s commonly accepted that, were Obama in fact a Muslim, that would reduce his chances of being elected. As an atheist, I have long been aware of the religious bigotry in our political life, but I am no happier about it now than I ever was.
Sorry, I was apparently conflating your posts with wildpokerman’s.
and not all religions are created equal.
All of the Abrahamic religions seem equally crazy to me, and equally capable of having adherents who are intelligent, nice, law-abiding, and so forth. I suppose it’s possible that there’s something institutional in Islam which tends toward nastiness, but I wonder how much of that is valid versus a product of the heated discourse of our age. I know there are things in Islam that are warlike and misogynistic and so forth, but I can find similar things in Judaism and Christianity. There was a period when the Muslim world was arguably more scientific, less ascetic, and more progressive than Christendom, so these things all seem to shift around against a backdrop of unchanging – but endlessly reinterpreted – Good Books.
Anyway, the term “bigotry” may in fact be a bit strong when discussing the peculiar state of affairs whereby Christians can be president in the U.S. and everyone else can go pound sand. But I still dislike it, and I can’t get interested in which version of the Sky God Obama purports to worship. It’s all pretty much the same to me. If his being a Muslim would in fact make him less electable (which I don’t for a second doubt it would), so much the worse for our broad-mindedness as a culture. And that I deplore.
No, you are wrong. Totally wrong.
I’ve never met a Muslim who was not at least about 10x more committed to the religion than that.
You’ve never met a Muslim who was raised in America, you mean.
Its not very good satire when one has to offer explanations on what it means, especially just as soon as the issue hits the newstands. Given that its the New Yorker, seems like its more a publicity stunt to sell magazines.
That’s not true. Retards never understand satire; this just happens to have struck a chord with a wider audience than usual.
The point that brought it home for me is this; there is nothing about this image that makes it unusable by the opposition.
heh
Are you fucking serious? You would vote for someone who doesn’t believe in birth control and instead pushes abstinence because their invisible spaceman said no?
To be fair, Kennedy had to make that speech because, at the time, there were a lot of Americans who were really afraid of Kennedy’s Catholicism. The rumor/slime being spread was that JFK would do whatever the Pope said he should do, because that’s what Catholics do. If anything, it was worse than what Obama faces because he WAS a devout Catholic.
And he just barely won, and many feel he only won due to his Dad’s influence and some very shady Chicago politics (some things never change. ;) )
The former, yes. Every US President ever has been a member of a religion that thinks I deserve to be tortured for all eternity just for not being in the club; not all of them were bad Presidents as a result. I don’t care what wacky stuff a politician believes in, as long as they’re willing to extend me the same courtesy by keeping their religious beliefs out of their government.
No, you are wrong. Totally wrong.
Well he would say that wouldn’t he?
Do I need the wink smiley yet?
[edit] and Jeff neatly explained the point I was getting at.
Well, one of the awesome things about JFK being past is that we can look back and see that JFK actually didn’t give money to religious education:
Our more recent candidates haven’t even asserted that their religion wouldn’t come into their politics. Romney asserted the opposite, that his religion is the same as the evangelicals that he was speaking to, and that it would enter into his politics. I don’t know that this really has anything to do with Obama, actually. The issues of total lies and suspicions that stems from fact are pretty different, and I think the difference in how they handled these issues shows that.
Disclaimer: I realize that JFK is kind of on a pedestal, and it might be that there is opposing evidence I don’t know about as a result of the superficiality of my searches. However, everything I have seen suggests a very different attitude towards religion in the politicians and voters of 40 years ago.
I was making broad strokes about what people would probably fear if they were afraid of voting for a muslim for president. What about those assumptions is ghastly? Isn’t there already a ‘take care of their’ own mentality going? Check out the US government response to Katrina and then to the Iowa floods. New Orleans is still a hell hole while Iowa Farmers are watching the second sowing of corn grow and hoping for a late frost.
What beliefs could a person have that wouldn’t affect their office if they’re running for president of the US? Presidents sign off on bills and direct the military and law enforcement agancies to act in cases that impact every facet of the lives of American citizens.
With the bills they sign off on and the presidential powers they exercise they direct how long it takes me to fly somewhere to do business, who I can do business with and send money to overseas, whether or not my calls or Internet usage are monitored, who I can marry, what rights I have as far as making a backup copy of my software, how much I pay for food (subsidies and tarrifs), how much of my income is discressionary and how much is government controlled, how much money is allotted for education, who is allowed to come into the US and visit me, what kind of sexual education my kids get, what kind of medicine do I have access to if I get sick or want to prevent myself from getting sick and pretty much everything I do every day is ruled by a decision that has either been made or signed off on by the president of the US.
What kind of belief are you foolish enough to believe the president could have that could not possibly impact someone’s life? Remember even the Internet that I’m calling you an idiot on was a US government funded project.
Wait, holdup… I’ve got a better one…
Where is the outrage coming from?
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People who really think it is an attack on the Obamas
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People who realize it is satire, but are afraid it will be used/perceived as an attack on the Obamas.
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People who are afraid it makes their attacks on the Obamas look ridiculous.
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People who think any use of the contained symbology is racist and offensive.
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People who are in the outrage industry, and are feigning outrage because they think enough people are in groups 1-4.
- People who understand it is satire, but think that it is painfully un-funny.
So a magazine cover not being funny enough for you is enough to inspire outrage?
Well, if you happen to be in that group, whatever you do don’t look here or you might flip your keyboard in anger.
After the supposed parity image you posted I’m afraid you don’t get to make this kind of statement. You clearly don’t get it, but I’ll try to explain.
The main problem is that the image showed the caricatures leveled at the candidate by the opposition but didn’t doing anything more than that. It failed because it failed to contain any irony.