Both the Bible and the Koran contain passages that can and have been used to justify a great number of crimes against humanity over the past 1,500 years. The key difference is that Christians and Jews tend to skip over the most indefensible sections of their holy books whereas Muslims are relatively unapologetic about their own most murderous passages. In our age, the Christian sects rarely fight each other as they did throughout history, whereas Sunnis and Shia are, again, relatively more likely to have a go at each other when given the chance. One may of course find some pockets of Christianity in which the Christians are acting like Christians sometimes used to act - in India, for instance, and parts of West Africa, the massacres continue. This is because such places are very traditionalist, untouched by modernist thinking and secular humanism and cable news segments in which some vapid person asks questions of Richard Dawkins. Such places have been kept safe from the Enlightenment, and those who dwell in such places take their religion seriously.
Over the weekend, a small group of Christian militia men were arrested for allegedly having planned to kill a police officer and then massacre attendees of the consequent funeral. I did not even have to click on the subsequent posts by our nation's "jihad watchers" to know who would be declaimed Monday morning and why, but I did so anyway because the words and concepts are of course put together in varying ways by the bloggers in question, who are very much akin to those intelligent sharks from Deep Blue Sea insomuch as that they are capable of learning and recognizing the function of objects within their environment. Fucking Deep Blue Sea. My dad forces me to watch such nonsense whenever I visit and I always leave the theater ashamed because I enjoy it.
Jihad Watch is one of the most prominent of those blogs which concern themselves with the doings of Muslims and not the doings of Hindus, Jews, Hinjews, ninjas, and most especially not Christians, and most especially not when Christians are suspected of having done some thing which the folks at Jihad Watch pretend to be outraged over when such a thing is done by Muslims. You know what's more difficult to spot than a ninja? The word "allegedly" in anything written by Jihad Watch in reference to something which a Muslim is suspected to have done or incompetently attempted to have done. You know what's easier to spot than overzealous use of Caps Lock in a post by the average religious fundamentalist writing anything at all? The word "allegedly" in anything written by Jihad Watch in reference to something which a Christian is suspected to have done. Hey, look; right there in the headline.
Let us examine what Mr. Watch has to say about the arrest of several members of a terror cell Christian militia this weekend. Let us take note of what is emphasized in this post entitled "Christian militia group arrested, allegedly threatened Muslims, Hamas-linked CAIR plays victim card":
These raids and the alleged Christian character
Whoaaah! That's two uses of the term allegedly thus far and we're still at the trail head of the lead sentence! Of course, the first use of the term was wholly appropriate; it is simply hypocritical insomuch as that the blog is not quite in the habit of using the same term when any Muslim is arrested for similarly unfriendly-looking activities. The second use of the term is equally hypocritical insomuch as that a Muslim arrested on terrorism charges is never considered to be of allegedly Islamic character. Which reminds me of a hilarious incident in which I found myself in the harem of a certain lesbian Saudi princess who was in the rather erotic habit of - oh, but then I have left Mr. Watch in mid-sentence! Let us return to him this very instant.
These raids and the alleged Christian character of the militia, as well as its targeting Muslims, is a mainstream media dream come true -- a few years back the BBC featured an inversion-of-reality drama about Christians beheading Muslims, and now, lo and behold, it seems to have come to life.
A few notes:
1. It will probably not persuade anyone for me to point out that the mainstream media is not made up of people who hate Christians and are just waiting to pin something on one of them, so I will not bother to make that case.
2. The BBC story regarding Christians massacring Muslims did not need to come to life insomuch as that such things have clearly happened in recent memory in, again, India and West Africa, and have happened quite often throughout history, as have incidents of Christians torturing Jews, women, other Christians suspected of witchcraft, the original inhabitants of South America, and all manner of other folks deemed guilty of either not being Christian or not being the correct sort of Christian. Mysteriously, these practices went into decline with the onset of The Enlightenment, whereas they still continue in those regions untouched by The Enlightenment. No one can explain this.
3. I'm tired of typing but will return soon with more analysis, as the piece is rather telling. I will note that the website itself has a very clean design, very minimalist and all that.
Update 6:18 PM EST
The popular conservative Christian blogger Confederate Yankee seems to have also rediscovered the term "allegedly." Congratulations, Confederate Yankee! Incidentally, he also seems to have rediscovered the term "cult," which he uses here in an effort to distance these Christians from Christianity, which was itself widely regarded as a cult variant on Judaism until such time as Constantine adopted the cult and turned it into a religion by virtue of making it popular and politically useful.
Back in the present day (we traveled through time just now), Mr. Yankee makes the following objection to an FBI agent's assertion that there are other groups of this nature operating within the United States:
There are groups like these throughout society? Really?
If that is the case, we would have already had attacks such as those the Hutaree envisioned, or at least similar arrests. As we have neither, it strongly suggests that Andrew Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge in Detroit, is full of crap.
Mr. Yankee may not remember the Oklahoma City bombing; on the other hand, that terrorist attack was indeed of a different order of magnitude than the one being planned by this particular militia. Because, you know, it was bigger.
Update 6:42 PM EST
The people at Free Republic have gone out of their way to be all telling and indicative, which is greatly appreciated:
These are b.s. charges.
Clearly!
Innocent until proven guilty.
And then some!
its [sic] starting...
I HAVE LOGGED YOUR IP ADDRESS AND SENT IT TO THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR CONSERVATIVE REGISTRATION!
Why arrest them? Congress is committing treason but the FBI is after these folks.
Because Congress could barricade themselves inside long enough to pass legislation abolishing the FBI and thus end the standoff, assuming a carrier pigeon is able to bring the document to the White House to be signed without being shot by special ATF shotgun brigades. That is why. That is the answer!
Notice the underlying assumption that it is wrong to "resist the authority" of the US Gov't?
Voting the wrong way would be "resisting the authority of the US Gov't".
Okay, I think we're done here.