Living in America, it’s very easy to forget that just a plane ride away, people are persecuted on the basis of their religious beliefs. I say “persecuted” like that covers the atrocities that occur on a daily basis, but it really doesn’t; feminists, gay rights activists, and race hustlers all claim “persecution,” but if that’s the word we’re going to use to describe what happens to people like the Coptic Christians of Egypt, we may want to stop throwing it around when arguing about the wage gap.
Recently, the world sat dumbfounded as news surfaced that a group of Muslims threw a dozen Christians overboard a migrant ship traveling from Libya to Italy. Outrage bubbled as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi insisted during a joint press conference with the President that “the problem [was] not a problem of (a) clash of religions,” and boiled over as Obama stood by and said nothing.
Would he have spoken up if the victims had been Muslim? Kirsten Powers thinks so. In an op-ed for USA Today, Powers lashed out at Obama, and pointed out that his silence about the mass murder at sea isn’t a one-off problem.
Western leaders — including Obama — will be remembered for their near silence as this human rights tragedy unfolded. The president’s mumblings about the atrocities visited upon Christians (usually extracted after public outcry over his silence) are few and far between. And it will be hard to forget his lecturing of Christians at the National Prayer Breakfast about the centuries-old Crusades while Middle Eastern Christians were at that moment being harassed, driven from their homes, tortured and murdered for their faith.
A week and a half after Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast speech, 21 Coptic Christians were beheaded for being “people of the cross.” Seven of the victims were former students of my friend and hero “Mama” Maggie Gobran, known as the “Mother Theresa of Cairo” for her work with the poorest of the poor. She told me these dear men grew up in rural Upper Egypt and had gone to Libya seeking work to support their families. They died with dignity as they called out to their God, while the cowardly murderers masked their faces.
Rather than hectoring Christians about their ancestors’ misdeeds, Obama should honor these men and the countless Middle Eastern Christians persecuted before them.
Negative reaction from the left came swiftly, and Twitter exploded with the kind of backlash we’ve come to expect when someone stands up and launches actual criticism at Obama’s disastrous policies. Powers appeared on The O’Reilly Factor and defended her positions—and the dignity of Christians being slaughtered overseas.
Watch:
She’s right. Obama hasn’t acknowledged what’s happening in the Middle East, and his denial stretches far beyond the most recent human rights atrocities. This is the man who thinks he can strike a deal with Iran; who left Generals and troops alike wondering what the renewed American mission in the Middle East should look like; and who emphasizes time and again the values of “tolerance” as applied to a region bathed in blood.
The attempt to force Obama to appropriately recognize massacres like these may be an impossible task, but we still have a responsibility to shine a light every time he shames this country by refusing to speak up as the world tears itself apart.
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obama, soon: “Oh, get off your high horse. You Christians just sat around, and some of you secretly cheered, when you knew what the Nazis were doing to the Jews.”
Rick, the so-called Christian you speak of are probably neo Nazis or some organization as such and that have no Christianity in them, true Christian would not be rooting for the Jews to be killed.
“Living in America, it’s very easy to forget that just a plane ride away, people are persecuted on the basis of their religious beliefs. I say “persecuted” like that covers the atrocities that occur on a daily basis, but it really doesn’t; feminists, gay rights activists, and race hustlers all claim “persecution,” but if that’s the word we’re going to use to describe what happens to people like the Coptic Christians of Egypt, we may want to stop throwing it around when arguing about the wage gap.”
Amy, try Googling “Christians persecuted in US.” There are plenty of right-wing sites that claim folks are being “persecuted” here at home. You are being intentionally deceptive when you insinuate that it is only groups on the left claiming “persecution”.
Here is an example of Christians agonizing over supposed “persecution” in America:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/persecution-of-christians-on-rise-in-u-s/
You are a tiresome little troll.
Do you agree with me that it is not just “feminists, gay rights activists, and race hustlers” who believe they are “persecuted” in this country? Do you see the link I provided to the complaint by several Christian groups that they have been “persecuted” by the ACLU and others in America?
Do you see the facts I have presented, or did you just suffer a knee-jerk reaction?
“Do you agree with me…”. No, not one damn thing. Why would anyone want to take the time to respond to you? It would be an exercise in futility.
Without bothering to humor his link, I am well aware, purely from my own past experiences on the Internet and in life in general, that there are indeed Christians who claim to be persecuted in the United States. Unfortunately, recent events are entirely justifying this belief.
However, that does not mean that I lack a memory or a sense of history. Christians have long used the crevices of the rule of law to enforce religious values under the banner of community standards. Such standards tend to vary state by state according to the vagaries of the prevailing religions. That’s not to take great issue with it – if I did, I would be insulting democracy. It’s to say that until practically yesterday, Christians had little genuine grounds for claiming *state* persecution in the US. Times are changing, and without doubt they’re being hunted and killed in foreign countries now that mullahs and sheikhs have raised the bag limits. That’s not cool, not at all.
But even trolls can make a valid point once in a while.
You have earned my respect for saying those things. I don’t even mind that you called me a “troll”.
This is the sort of thing you get when you impose too much “border control”
The United States goes out of its way to limit the number of Cubans drowning.
Italy used to have a search and rescue mission, but they cut it back because it was coosting a lot of money and they were concerned it wsasd encouraging illegal immigration.
If she really cared then she would resign as a dem mouth piece. Until then, she’s just spouting empty words.
“If she really cared then she would resign as a dem mouth piece. Until then, she’s just spouting empty words.”
Shoot the messenger, why don’t you. An honest person will appreciate honesty.
Ships are being bought to be destroyed, and abandoned by their crew near rescue points.
The vast majoroty of deaths on these ships have nothing to do with religious differences between the passengers.
It’s hard to ignore that ISIS types in Libya specifically threatened to flood Europe with illegal immigrants to further the destruction of European civilization, though. Perhaps it is pure coincidence, perhaps it is not, but the thought has been bouncing around on both sides of the divide.
I think ISIS wants to trap people in Libya, or possibly whip-saw Europe.
If regugees escaping them, or the chaos were to be abe table to go to Europe, Europe would be more motivated to intervene, so they want Europe to reject them.
This is not how a terrorist organization sends people. They would lose control over them, for one thing.
The vast majority??? How many is too many?? Pretty casual and dismissive of human life.
Outrage bubbled as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi insisted during a joint press conference with the President that “the problem [was] not a problem of (a) clash of religions,” and boiled over as Obama stood by and said nothing.
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What this is about is the “magic thinking” of the Collective. It INSISTS on the lie that there’s “nothing religious to see here…move along”.
Any RATIONAL human being KNOWS that this is religiously based, and that ISLAMISM is the actor here. It CANNOT abide in a civilized world. But our “leaders” won’t recognize that reality, much less deal with it effectively.
Are Christians persecuted EVERYWHERE by the combined forces of the Collective and the Islamists? Yep.
Are Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. persecuted by the Islamists? Of course.
Anybody who tells you otherwise is a lying SOS.
Henry ponders the term “lying SOS” and finds no correlate. POS!?
“Lying sack of shit”. See assoNY. See also d’Oderant.
Ah, there’s the correlate. Clarify: is the sack made of shit or the contents?
“Are Christians persecuted EVERYWHERE by the combined forces of the Collective and the Islamists? Yep.”
If you believe that Christians are persecuted in America, then you must also agree that gays and Muslims are persecuted here as well. However, I suspect that the word “persecution” has really just lost all meaning…
No. You are a liar. I don’t agree with anything you’ve said. If you COULD read, you’d see that nobody here agrees with you.
And, for post-modernist morons, ALL words have lost their meanings.
See Marriage. See also Tolerance.
Ya moron.
So, in your mind, only Christians are persecuted here in America?
Look at the screen shot of those men about to be murdered.
What happened to #BlackLivesMatter?
Or do black lives not matter when those lives are being ended by Muslims?
Black lives DON’T matter when it comes to Muslims killing them.
Black lives DON’T matter when it comes to abortionists killing them in the womb.
Black lives DON’T matter when it comes to black-on-black crime.
Black lives DON’T matter when it comes to enacting policies that keep them on the Democrat plantation.
Black lives matter ONLY if when they can be used as a cudgel to beat up whitey ~
Not whitey.
The police.
The mayor, and just about every official in Baltimore is black.
And Al Sharpton wanted to go after the black policeman in the South Carolina case.
“The attempt to force Obama to appropriately recognize massacres like these may be an impossible task, but we still have a responsibility to shine a light every time he shames this country by refusing to speak up as the world tears itself apart.”
If the President were to make a speech about each and every massacre that happens in the entire world, we would have to put up with having him on television 24/7 bemoaning these deaths!
This is a bastardized fallacy combining Reductio ad absurdum with a straw man.
From a lying SOS.
Standard trollspeak then.
I like Kirsten. Of course, the blonde gorgiosity has something to do with it…But, she’s very bright, uses her noggin’ far more than on-air liberals tend to and I’m guessing the day is coming when the girl will come on over to the critical thinking of us Evil Neocons.