You Never Can Win With A Bigot

A few years ago, Mad Magazine had a section called "You Can Never Win With a Bigot". The first scene of each cartoon showed a common, stereotypical, bigoted rant, and when confronted with a contradictory behavior, the bigot would shrug it off with another ignorant comment.


The cartoon above is one example. Another example: A waiter tells another waiter that a table of "lousy, penny-pinching" Jews will stiff him on the tip. But when the Jews leave a very generous tip, the first complains, "Why shouldn't they? They got all the money in the world!"

I was reminded of these Mad Magazine cartoons while reading this NewsBusters article about Chris Matthews. For days, Matthews has been complaining that Republicans have been too quiet on the Quran burning issue.

But after Sarah Palin does speak out against the Quran burning yet defending the Church's Constitutional Right to do so, Matthews complained:

I think it`s incredible that she would be so soft -- taking such a soft line on this guy burning the Koran, because you never attack to the right when you`re on the right. That's what I think is going on here.

He later accuses Palin of aiding in the Quran burning by linking it to the Ground Zero Mosque.

As Mad Magazine noted more than 30 years ago, you can never win with a bigot.

For the record, this is what Sarah Palin had to say about the Quran burning:

Book burning is antithetical to American ideals. People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation - much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.

I would hope that Pastor Terry Jones and his supporters will consider the ramifications of their planned book-burning event. It will feed the fire of caustic rhetoric and appear as nothing more than mean-spirited religious intolerance. Don't feed that fire. If your ultimate point is to prove that the Christian teachings of mercy, justice, freedom, and equality provide the foundation on which our country stands, then your tactic to prove this point is totally counter-productive.

Our nation was founded in part by those fleeing religious persecution. Freedom of religion is integral to our charters of liberty. We don't need to agree with each other on theological matters, but tolerating each other without unnecessarily provoking strife is how we ensure a civil society. In this as in all things, we should remember the Golden Rule. Isn't that what the Ground Zero mosque debate has been about?

Sickness Of The Left

This post is almost too vile to publish.

Jack Cafferty of CNN.com posted an editorial about a 13-year-old Saudi girl sentenced to 90 lashes for carrying a cell phone to school. The punishment is harsher than many Saudi thieves receive. She could very well die during the lashing.

The editorial goes on to point out how women are often treated as second-class citizens, with few rights.

Cafferty asks readers to respond to this question: What does it say when America’s ally Saudi Arabia sentences a 13-year-old girl to 90 lashes after bringing a cell phone to school?

The story is disturbing enough. But even more so, are the responses of CNN readers, most who live in America - the one country that rightfully condemns human rights abuses - more than any other.

Some response examples:

"We should respect the cultures of other countries as well as the rules of the school Both of which come above all else." - Mehra

"they know how to run a school. we should take note." - paul

"We need to hire Saudi teachers for our inner city schools. A few decapitations and all our problems would be solved." Mike, Syracuse, NY

"Because they enforce their laws, they do not have the crime issues we do so you can draw your own conclusions from that." - Doug, Dallas, Tx

"Good for Saudi Arabia. Go to school to learn, not talk on the phone or play games, what a novel idea." - Larry from Georgetown, TX

"It says we should 'MIND OUR OWN BUSINESS". Other countries have their own laws and customs and not every country conforms to our beliefs." - Sandy

"Their country and their laws, like it or not. I am sure we have laws that are offensive to people in other countries, including to our allies." - Mike from Denver

"It's none of our business how anybody raise their kids cause what works for one household may not work for the other so sometimes we have to be a little bit stricter but it all should be done in love and not of appearance to the public eyes" - Frandy

"Do you REALLY believe that the Saudis are going to lash this girl so bad that she is going to die or be really hurt? Come On!!! They just want to teach her a lesson. They have laws just like we do. There are broken and you pay the price. I was spanked in Elementary school with a big wooden board. It hurt! It was suppose too!" - Gayle G.

The last just shows how utterly clueless the left is about Islam... Gayle G. simply doesn't understand what an Islamic lashing is. This idiot seems to think a lashing is no worse than a paddling. That ignorance may explain the apathy displayed by many commenters in this thread. Gayle G. comments again:

"Like some people have said on here, the Muslims don't want their women running around without clothes on like in the U.S. and they don't want millons of people locked up in prisons. You do the crime and you pay a price, a big price." -Gayle G.

Yet another shining example of ignorance. Apparently Gayle G. has no problem with the ownership of women - slavery. She seems to support muslims controlling "their women" to suit the desires of their male owners. She also has no clue about the Islamic "justice" system, which often finds innocent people guilty of crimes based solely on sworn testimonies by vindictive, nefarious individuals.

It is people like Gayle G. who blindly continue to embrace the politically correct idea that religious extremism is shared equally among all faiths, and that Islam is peaceful, despite the behaviors and words of millions of muslims around the world and despite being disproportionately represented in acts of terrorism.

Liberal leaning CNN's audience is mostly democratic - the party of compassion (so it claims). Reading though these comments, however, one can see there is very little compassion or understanding for those helpless individuals living outside the limited, narcissistic world of the liberal mind.

(Cross-posted at SnappedShot.com and Avid Editor's Insights)