Freedom does not come from religious intolerance

As unrest remains and grows in nation states such as Egypt and Tunisia, and nation states such as Yemen brew with such possible unrest, a great misconception is out there.  That misconception is that those in the streets, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, are for freedom.  Frankly, they are not for the brand of freedom that Western ideals understand.

While it is true that for far too many years the governments in places like Tunisia and Egypt have enforced police powers against freedom of political expression, what stands in line to replace them is not in the name of freedom.  If you look at the goals of the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, they want a religious state, ran by Islamic law.  They want to run nation states that are intolerant of Christians and other religious sects, and downright hate Jews.

That is not freedom.  Not for one moment should the government of the United States pretend that it is.  While people inside a nation state are to be free to choose their own style of government, the United States should not give once penny in aid or trade towards any government that oppresses women,  children and minority religions.

We in America take our idea of freedom for granted.  We think when we see protests for free speech, it means our idea of such.  Well, it does not.  There are people in this world who will use our ideas of freedom of speech and assembly against us to create despotic regimes that are filled with hate.

If you doubt that, just look at the agenda of some of the groups who claim they are for freedom.  They would destroy rights for women and oppress religious minorities.  Indeed, they think that our ideals of voting for our leaders and letting people be free are downright evil.  They see it as an evil to fight a war against.  That is what inspired the attacks of 2001 and inspire all of those who try to find a way to kill any American near them.

It might be easy to be lost in the recession we face.  God knows I an my own business suffer.  But, we are up against something bigger than that.  Islamic fundamentalists and their dedication to violence to promote nonsense doctrine are a great threat the ideals of freedom we hold dear.  Think about it, draw a picture of Muhammad and death squads start to search you down.  But in America, a jerk puts a portrait of Jesus Christ in a jar of urine, and we fight for his right to do so. Muslim countries will not even let our fighting men and women have a bud in the hot desert while they are fighting to defend them.  We bend over backwards to tolerate things like veils for drivers licenses.   That is the big difference.  The so called fighters for freedom in Tunisia and Egypt want to kill us for our face book, our blue jeans, our blogs, our women who go to school and work and make a difference.  They are not freedom fighters.  And, we should not treat them as such.