{"id":280,"date":"2012-09-28T23:38:13","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T23:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skepticblogs.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/?p=280"},"modified":"2012-09-28T23:38:13","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T23:38:13","slug":"america-is-right-muslim-nations-are-wrong-it-is-that-simple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/2012\/09\/28\/america-is-right-muslim-nations-are-wrong-it-is-that-simple\/","title":{"rendered":"America is right, Muslim nations are wrong: It is that simple"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_283\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-283\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/files\/2012\/09\/obama.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-283\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/files\/2012\/09\/obama-300x165.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"165\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/files\/2012\/09\/obama-300x165.jpg 300w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/files\/2012\/09\/obama.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-283\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: nytimes.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>President&#8217;s Obama&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/09\/26\/world\/obamas-address-to-united-nations.html?_r=1&amp;ref=world\">speech at the UN headquarters<\/a> in defense of freedom of expression was one for the history books. He couldn&#8217;t be clearer when he said that he would protect speech the he, personally, disagreed with.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cAs president of our country, and commander in chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day,\u201d Mr. Obama said. \u201cAnd I will defend their right to do so.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>After all, uncontroversial speech does not need protection. Freedom of expression is needed, specifically, to defend speech that some may find unpleasant.<br \/>\nUnsurprisingly, Muslim heads of states were not convinced. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bendbulletin.com\/article\/20120927\/NEWS0107\/209270404\/\">They claim<\/a> that &#8220;there should be limits for the freedom of expression, especially if such freedom blasphemes the beliefs of nations and defames their figures.&#8221; In doing so they put their own hostility toward fundamental rights of humans on display.<br \/>\nWhat is bizarre on their part is insistence that &#8220;cultural limits on rights like freedom of speech had to be respected&#8221;. If the differences are cultural, then why are they demanding that these rules apply to those who do not share that &#8220;culture&#8221;? This is a rather grotesque smokescreen: not content with setting up theocracies in their own nations, they want the rest of us not to be sheltered from the onerous requirements of their religion, either. <strong>It is not about culture; it is about control. <\/strong>For those who keep complaining about &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221;, here you have it: Islam, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skepticblogs.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/2012\/09\/17\/from-islamic-lands-with-love\/\">even in its most &#8220;moderate&#8221; from<\/a>, is culturally incompatible with freedom of expression. I could not have said it better myself.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Even more grotesque are the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skepticblogs.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/2012\/09\/26\/truth-dig-trashes-bill-maher-praises-murderous-mobs\/\">histrionics of the apologists<\/a>, crying &#8220;imperialism&#8221; and &#8220;colonialism&#8221; anytime someone criticizes the Muslim thugs. What is paradoxical here is that we are not trying to change them (not withstanding the acts of violence), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skepticblogs.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/2012\/09\/25\/islam-is-a-threat-to-out-rights-and-freedoms-sadly-no-exaggeration\/\">they are trying to change us<\/a>. If there is an imperialist in the room, it is them, not us.<\/p>\n<p>What is sad here is that even the rest of the &#8220;western&#8221; nations are not standing by the US, either: the joint statement of European and Islamic nations demanding &#8220;respect for all religions and prophets&#8221; pretty much sends the message that we are on our own.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to the title of this post. I hate to sound nationalistic, because I know that it can be a slippery slope. But I am not ashamed to say that I am proud of Jefferson and Madison, even though I understand that they, too, had their flaws, and everyone has the right to point that out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President&#8217;s Obama&#8217;s speech at the UN headquarters in defense of freedom of expression was one for the history books. He&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}