Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Obama's Mythology of Islam

More on Obama ignorance and mythologizing.

He maintains that Islam has always been a tolerant religion. But this is ambiguous: religious freedom is not only a question of tolerance. Tolerance means allowing others to exist, it does not mean freedom of speech, freedom to preach or convert. Then he falls into the trap of myths when he uses the Caliphate of Andalusia and Cordoba a san example of this tolerance, placing it in direct contrast to the Inquisition. This is completely exaggerated myth. First of all the Inquisition was historically after the caliphate, but the affirmation is also wrong in its contents. There was a lot of persecution under the Andalusia Caliphate, of Christians, Jews and even Muslims: Averroè was forced to flee from Cordoba; the same fate for the Hebrew Philosopher Maimonide. He then points to Indonesia where he lived during his childhood. And here there is little to argue about. However the Indonesia of today is less tolerant than it was in the past....

This is no different from his mythology that "healthcare reform" will remedy the recession. Nice to hear, even nicer to believe--but completely devoid of foundation in fact or experience.

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