creation of an Islamic government. Nothing new here.

like those nasty Iberian Islamic governments that developed Cordoba into one of the great so-called cultural centers of the world, allowing Jews and Christians so-called religious freedom. The freedom and liberty espoused by the Spanish Inquisition set all that right again.

The Christian kingdoms of Europe were so free that you could be fried alive for things like translating Bibles into English and claim that the earth actually revolved around the sun.

Oh - and the modern 'Jewish Democracy' - e.g., democracy for you if you're Jewish and... well, certainly no repression for you if you're not (just don't have many babies or the 'Jewishness' of the country will be lost!), of Israel - well, they're so non-repressive over there that they'll disqualify a citizen from running for Parliament if they are an Arab and not especially in favor of the non-repression taking place in Gaza and the West Bank.

Yep, those Islamic governments are crazy repressive all right.

Or could it be that every government is repressive to some extent by simply existing, as though repression is an inherent necessity in the maintenance of some semblance of social order?

Naah, that's crazy talk.

Try to keep up. Thanks!

... additionally, look closely enough and one can find bad/good/bad/good etc with any religion, nation, culture and peoples. It's about what's happening now, or the very near past if you will.

people with dark skin can now ride the same buses, use the same bathrooms, and eat at the same restaurants as those with paler skin in our country. No more lynchings, poll taxes, KKK blockades of polling places, etc. That's REPRESSION, and we enlightened Americans managed to stop it in our early formative years...

Or perhaps that was just 40 to 50 years ago.

Right around the time when people were being asked if they 'were or ever had been a member of the communist party' at the House Un-American Activities Committee...

I'm not trying to 'justify' any repression - I'm just pointing out what should be obvious: casual statements such as 'Islamic governments always result in repression' are simply racist or religious bigotry. Repression happens anywhere and everywhere, and it doesn't always take the most obvious form of governments locking up people they don't like. We have managed to invent repression by 2-party ownership of virtually all levels of politics and repression by drowning out the voices of dissent in a torrent of corporate-owned media garbage (an especially effective 21st century form of repression).

does not justify what Egypt does now.

Oddly enough, Arabs have more freedom under Israel and most Christian countries now than they do in Islamic countries. Go figure. I don't have a problem with Muslims. I just want them to be able to live.

They understand anger and fear. Those are their strong suits, and they know how to respond in kind.

They can twist facts, because they know their idiot followers will swallow everything they say.

They can't handle humor, because they are not emotionally equipped to handle people laughing at them.
That goes for all religious extremists, whether they carry a cross or a crescent.

a free society tolerates and even encourages the skewering of the powerful

They'll be much, much worse...

Is the state department crazy?

Why do our tax dollars go to this religious radical?

Though I disagree with it.

We supported Mubarak even though he was a brutal dictator. (Reagan, Bush Sr. Clinton Jr. and Obama until the street protests)

If we condemn Morsi for acting thuggish we look like hypocrites because we never had an objection to the same behavior from Mubarak.

What I think we should do is quietly support the secular cvil society groups from the sidelines.

That way it will be Egyptians demanding change and it will have more credibility with the people.

We provide aid to Egypt for our own ends, not Egypt's.

We agreed to provide aid to Egypt which these days is about 1.3 billion per year.

Doesn't matter who the government is.

And for their occasional rhetoric, it also maintains the treaty of submission to US/Israeli regional interests. These other subjects such as press freedom or opposition assembly are quite irrelevant to the US govt by comparison.

They persecute anybody who isn't Muslim.

You know they're persecuting homosexuals and women. We shouldn't have a dime of our money going toward that garbage and yet Obama is allowing it.

I've wanted Egypt defunded for years, but no President will ever do it.

The Muslim Brotherhood called themselves the "Freedom and Justice Party" and the Liberal vote was split 50 ways.

When it got down to the wire it was between Morsi and a continuation of the Mubarak Regime.

The young people behind the revolution know they need to rally together behind a single person next time.

Remember that the United States used to be just like this in the 1700s and 1800s where we had wholesale religious persecution by local and state governments. It wasn't just hatred between religious groups, but towns that would ban people of certain religious factions. They have to go through a period where the more conservative, religious elements are held back by the majority of the people who want greater freedoms. It may take one or two generations for this to happen. It's a process.

not still fighting intolerance in this Country though? People in this country used religion to justify slavery also and some did not. Can you name one religion that does not preach intolerance? There are some in this Country now, believe Christianity should be part of the U.S. Constitution.

Most new modern Muslim-majority countries were under Ottoman or European colonial rule until the early or mid twentieth century. When the colonial powers left or got the boot, the tools and history of repression were left behind. Regional tough-guys simply slipped into the roles, and now some populations have developed aspirations for some form of democracy.

The Muslim Brotherhood isn't exactly fanatical - it was simply the only modestly effective opposition to military rule in Egypt, and Morsi was elected as a result of a rather messy birth of representational democracy. This is how these things go - our own 'democracy' is in decline primarily because so many Americans take the 'rightness' of the system as a given and take the liberties for granted while eschewing the necessary responsibilities of citizenship.

It seems awfully silly to be criticizing the messy early stages of representative government development simply on the basis of the majority religion of the nation when we are undergoing some of the messy early stages of decline of representative government as a result of the political power of extreme wealth, regardless of religion...

that argues for democracy in its fundamentally 'holy' documents? 'Cuz Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism very definitely don't. They are all generally anti-gay, anti-female rights and anti-democracy.

I did not realize the extent of anti-Islam sentiment on DU until coming across some of the stuff that's been said in this thread. Just freaking wonderful. I'm a liberal atheist, but part of being a liberal is understanding that people operate under substantially different belief structures on even local scales, much less global ones.

Any response needs to know what you mean by "Democracy", For example, when Bush invaded Iraq, he wanted a Government of known leaders of Iraq (handpicked by the occupational forces) instead of an elected parliament. Such a "grand council" meant Bush's definition of Democracy, but not the Shiite's and they protested so much that elections had to be held.

Bush also used the term "Democracy" to mean the right of people to BUY land (and oil) even if the majority of Iraqis did NOT want to sell the right to pump oil (and the land the oil was underneath).

Now, my definition is the classic definition, majority rules, even if you dislike the results. That was done is several cases in early Christian and Moslem history, In the case of the various Church Councils, people selected representatives (prior to the problems of the 900s, even the Pope was elected by a vote of the Majority of the people of Rome, thus these tended to be ELECTED by the people). Then what was decided in the Councils were subject to Majority vote. The Bible did not SAY this is HOW the Church should decide things, but it was done that way from the first meeting of the Apostle after Pentecost and even St Paul submitted to the position of other Christian when he lost a vote in the council he attended.

The same for Islam, when Mohammad died, his followers gather together and elected an successor in the traditional Arab method of selecting leaders (Yes, they held an ELECTION). The first four Caliphs were elected this way. With the death of the Fourth Caliph, Islam split into two large groups, those that supported Ali's son selection as Caliph (These became the Shiites), and those that opposed that selection (The Sunnis).

Notice, during both these time periods, election was considered the normal way to select a leader. Given this was all done pre-linen paper (thus any election had to be done by a show of hands, which required people to be present when the election occurred). Such elections were always subject to disputes (people arrived to late, elections held to early so people could NOT arrive who supported someone else, election made AFTER people left when the people left thought it had been decided NOT to elected anyone at that time, etc).

As to the Jews themselves, the Bible clearly points out that at the Death of Moses, the Jewish people selected Josiah as they leader. They would elect such Judges off and on in times of need till rough times called for a King. The Bible actually said God PREFER Israel to by lead by such Judges (one of which was Deborah, thus Judges could be Female). As to King Saul and King David, while both were anointed by the Prophet (and Judge) Samuel, both also seems to have been elected (In the case of David after a Civil War with his brother in law, a surviving son of Saul).

Thus an argument can be made, that while the Bible and the Koran do NOT mention democracy, they also do not mention breathing and maybe for the same reason, i.e. the writers assumed it to be so widely know, why mention it at all?

An example of this if from the American Revolution. After Benedict Arnold had defected to the British, an attempt to kidnap him and return him to America Forces for trial for treason. The original report of the attempted kidnapping said the attempt would be made in the Garden, where Arnold went every night. The writer of the report AND George Washington who received the report KNEW why Arnold went to the Garden every night, for they went to gardens for the same purpose, for that is where the toilet was. This fact was understood by readers of the report in 1780 and thus did NOT have to be mentioned. When this attempted kidnapping is reported today, the fact that Gardens and Toilets were connected had to be explain to 20th century readers who do NOT go to their gardens to use a toilet.

I bring this up to show that just because something is NOT mentioned, does not mean it was not understood. When the present Collage of Cardinals were formed to elect a new Pope (to replace the direct election by the people of Rome) it was done more to make the election more honest, the various nobility of Rome of the 900s had made sure the election of the Pope would go to someone they favored and rigged the election to make sure that happened. The Cardinals are technically Priests and Deacons of various congregations within Rome. While they are selected by their Bishop (in the case of Rome, that selection is done by the Bishop of Rome, which is the Pope). Thus even in the Dark ages and Middle ages, some sort of popular election was viewed as the best way to select the Pope. Over times various Churches of Rome were tied in with various foreign nations and cities, thus increasing the input from people outside of Rome in the selection of the Pope (through these two would come into conflict in the "Great Schism". The Great Schism started about 80 years before the Great Schism, when French Troops took Rome and forced the Pope to go back to France with them and stay at Avignon France. 80 years later when a Pope traveled back to Rome to re-establish Rome as the seat of the Papacy, he died and the people of Rome Rioted until a new Pope was elected who would keep the papacy in Rome. The Collage of Cardinal submitted to the people, and then left town. Once in France some of the Cardinal declared that election invalid an elected a different Pope. Thus you had two popes. Both Elected. Who supported which Pope depended on the politics of the time period (England and France supported opposite sides for the Hundred year war was still raging).

As the Renaissance kicked in (and the Great Schism was resolved), elections became less and less popular as a method to select leaders throughout Europe. Inheritance and the divine rights of King replaced election. Those elected position that survived slowly lost power (The Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Poland, both elected position and slowly weakened by the Nobility and their claim to inherited powers).

The Pope remained an elected position throughout this time period, but elected by his "Nobles" the Collage of Cardinals. Thus by 1700, most formerly elected position were gone, some retained an facial system of elections, but became increasingly inheritory (the position of House of Orange in the Netherlands is a good example, stayed an elected position till the French Revolution, but also stayed in the same household, only after the French Revolution became "King" of the Netherlands).

At the same time, elections of lesser position survived. The English Parliament was an elected body (Through its members often had different numbers of voters to court, for example several Parliament seats were held by long abandoned boroughs which by the 1700s consisted of one voter, the owner of the site of the former borough, on the other hand, Birmingham, the booming industrial city of the 1700s had NO one in Parliament in the 1700s). And if a country rejected divine rights of Kings, it returned to elections as the way to select a leader (For example Napoleon had himself elected Emperor by popular vote).

Elections became more and more the norm in the 1800s, returning to what elections had been in the Middle ages (except in the 1800s, paper ballots became the norm on how to vote for people, instead of a show of hands as had been done in the middle ages). This switch from hands to paper is more the reflection of the growing use of Linen and later pulp paper (invented 1801, became popular after about 1830) and the desire to permit as many people to vote as possible (With paper ballots, voters did NOT have to stand around all day till everyone arrived to vote, which was a requirement of earlier hand voting).

I go into the history of Voting, for while inheritance and the concept of divine right have always competed with elections when it comes to how to select a leader, the preferred way to select a leader has, in most of history, done by elections (Even the Pharaoh of Egypt tended to be elected from the sons of the previous Pharaoh, not directly to his eldest son). All three concepts have also worked together, for the simple reason often the person who best knew what the previous ruler had been planning was his eldest son, thus to continue the same policy the eldest son tended to have the inside track in any election.

All three of the major Western Religions (as while as Buddhism) tended to try to work around all three systems (I use the term three, for I have to separate Divine rights of Kings from inheritance for the later permitted more flexibility in selecting the next ruler then did the Concept of Divine Right which said the eldest son had an absolute right to the throne). In many ways, each Religions has counted on votes of people as a way to determine God's will. At the same time, rarely mentions such voting for they did it all the time and thus the writers of these text and the readers who the writers assume would read them, all understood that such elections were the norm.

Thus I can make the comment that since NONE of the religious books mentions Divine Rights of King, the Right of Inheritance or any other method of selecting political or religious leaders, the reason for that was simple, how such leaders are selected was well known and accepted and that was by election. Now such elections were by a show of hands in a meeting, but it was still an election. In larger societies, when such societies became to big for such elections, such elections were held to pick people to attend a central meeting and vote as those voters representative. Thus all religions support Democracy when it comes to selection of leaders.

is somewhat in between. Although there is a line of kings and priests descended from "on high", the religion has advocated a kind of republic going back to at least 100BC or so, and it is found it in the Talmud which is a foundational document of Judaism. Judaism advocates a republic form of government similar to the Greek and Roman forms. By the time of Christ, the King was subservient to the "legislature" made up of Rabbi's who were chosen by various communities. The priesthood was almost entirely ceremonial.

All governments need to evolve. Do we need to fund them in the meanwhile? Our funding them shows we're no better than they are.

Actually, I'd be all for arming the revolutionaries who want a more secular government. Don't go to war ourselves, but arm those who want real freedom.

you calling for arming the 'revolutionaries who want a more secular government' and calling that 'real freedom' is just nuts. What you're arguing for is actually vigorous repression of those who espouse religious views in their political viewpoints. You'd just replace one form of repression for another that you would find preferable. Great way to achieve stable democracy, that.

I'm covering bets against.

First topic Stewart covered Monday night.

shocked I tell you... sigh...

Really enjoyed it. I love Jon Stewart and this is extremely entertaining.

There appear to be two Egypts in ways far far worse than the problem of Red and Blue America---one that can laugh at the idiot screaming "Why is she wearing makeup in front of the president! Bring me a man!" and the other that agrees a woman interviewing the president is an insult and contains, my guess, people who are right now plotting to kill Bassem Youssef over that bathroom joke.