Obama's response in his own words

Submitted by Rick (United States), Mar 19, 2008 at 13:13

There is an anger in this country, and it is our problem and has nothing to do with Islam, and it is intellectual laziness to compare a preacher with Muslim, black radicals without looking at the the reality from which things come, rational or not, as we really emotional creatures who justify emotion with rational constructs.

Here is Obama's own words about this. You have to watch this before you make up your mind. This is by far the most honest and insightful a politician has ever spoken about race in the U.S.

I'm an anthropology grad. student, and he has an insight that is rare among Ph.D's of social science.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-t_n_92077.html

I'm a fan of Dr. Pipes, but he jumped the gun on this one, and needs to revisit it. Within every culture there are routes to justify war. In the Muslim world, it is Jihad. This makes the cognitive dissonance weaker and the justification much easier, which makes the concept dangerous. However, justification will be made if the need arises.

Regardless of what Jesus did or said, Christians have found it easy enough to justify mass slaughter. It was just also easier to justify a peaceful co-existence. Dr. Pipes' thesis is based on the idea that while Islam is clear about the use of violence on others, people are able to justify any course of action if it is made available to them. So Muslims can be peaceful, regardless of what a book says, just like Tibetans can riot, even though they are Buddhists.

So to ignore the underlying issues that lead to justification, is to ignore the issue entirely. In Darfur, the problem started with water. While it is easy to justify the killing of non-Muslims in Jihad, the underlying issue leading to the justification is water. To deal with one and not the other is ridiculous and bound to fail.

To condemn the comments of a preacher, without dealing with the underlying anger in this country, is equally stupid.

There are a lot of problems in this country, and it is our right to voice our anger and to protest and to take to the streets if we wish. That is our right. A firery diatribe is the least of our concern.

rick

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".