That's dumb. According to that logic, you can't compare the presidencies of Bush and Roosevelt because Roosevelt wore glasses. You can't compare the baseball abilities of Bonds and Ruth because Bonds has a moustache. You can't compare coke to pepsi because coke comes in a red can. It makes no sense.

Murderers can only be compared to murderers in regards to ANYTHING?! Do you realize how foolish and ridiculous you are sounding?

If little Billy starts torturing animals, we can't say that is a mark of a future serial killer... because it's deeply offensive to st. cronin! Or is it just for 'political purposes'. What if Billy was President Bush's son? Would that be political?

First of all, Robertson and Falwell are extremely marginal political voices. Secondly, even at the heights of their power, I don't recall anybody comparing them to murderers - there were ways to counteract their influence using reason and debate. It is not at all necessary to bring bin Laden into this - for one thing, it distorts your real argument (makes it appear as though you're sympathetic to bin Laden).

How incredibly silly. How is outlandish to compare Hitler and Ma Theresa for both being humans? They are, aren't they? If someone says "Humans are capable of anything. Look at Hitler and Ma Theresa, both are humans"; that would be outlandish?!

And like I said, Clinton has been compared to Hitler by plenty of conservatives. Where was the outrage?

That's not what I'm saying at all. In those examples, there was a compelling thread to rationally compare the two to -- Bush and Roosevelt were Presidents, Bonds and Ruth are baseball players, ect.

By using a Hitler/Chaplin comparison is like comparing Napoleon and a Elmer Fudd because they both had round heads. It's not a rational comparison, unlike the examples you mentioned above. Same with Hitler and Chaplin. Just because they both had moustaches proves nothing at all, and comparing them doesn't serve a single purpose except by putting the two names together and inferring a further connection. That's what the quiz is doing -- you're inferring a further connection, that somehow Falwell is as evil as Bin Laden, or rather that Bin Laden isn't as evil as we thought.

There IS no connection between the two. One is a mass murderer. The other is a televangelist. Dispite what you may think, there is indeed a world of difference. An altered-quote quiz doesn't prove differently.

On an aside, I do apologize for the personal attacks, Mr. Bigglesworth. I disagree with you pretty much on everything, it seems, but it doesn't give me the right to attack you. Won't happen again.

Stated the way you said, no. That quiz isn't comparing the differences between Falwell and Bin Laden, it is attempting in some small way of saying they're similar creatures in their viewpoints on the world. It would be like altering quotes from Mother Theresa and then putting a quiz with lines from Hitler and commenting on how similar they sound. Not valid.


Aside from the nutball website you posted, which I agree is INSANE (he seems to hate the idea of the Presidency, and just using Clinton as the example), gimme other conservatives that has compared Clinton to Hitler.

Robertson's 700 Club is watched by over 800,000 people a day (CNN's primetime news program is watched by 750,000). He is a former presidential candidate. He frequently talks to the President of the United States (remember how Bush told him there would be no casualties in Iraq?). I'm not sure that can be called 'marginal'. Then add in Falwell, Dobson, et al.

My argument is that people hate bin Laden for his philosophy but don't realize the same philosophy is in our own country. Osama is a major part of that argument.

I agree that as a political strategy comparing anyone to Osama Bin Laden or Hitler or etc. is tasteless and absurd. I only have taken part in this discussion because I genuinely felt there was a strange parallel in their rhetoric and/or level of fanaticism that was worth considering. I don't know how much I think it means, but I don't think it is a completely invalid observation.

In other words: to me it wasn't a cheap way to score points or anything. At the same time, I should point out that I don't think it is of massive significance or any kind of smoking gun that shows how evil Pat Robertson is or whatever. I merely felt it was legitimate to show the similarities in their rhetoric.

Here is what you are not getting, like Bonds and Ruth are baseball players, bin Laden and Robertson are both religious fascists. THAT is where the basis of comparison lies, not in how many terrorist acts they have funded. Just like you can compare the ideologies of Stalin and Castro, even though Stalin was responsible for a lot more deaths.

We can agree that we disagree. I'll keep it civil too. I didn't mean it about your penis, I'm sure it's got quite the girth.

I don't agree that Falwell is a religious facist, but even if I give you that point, the quiz infers a closer connection between the two. The quiz, while it may not intend it, infers that the two groups would do similar things if the roles were reversed, and I find that sickening.


Heh. :)

I think that two people with similar outlooks on life were put into the same positions, they would behave in much the same way. But that is just my opinion, I could see how someone could think otherwise.

They are similar creatures in their rhetoric. I don't see anyone saying that this says that Falwell and Robertson are terrorists. And I don't think you could find quotes from Mother Theresa that would sound anything close to Hitler's rhetoric. And in the 'altered' quotes hubbub, you are ignoring (deliberately, I think) that the alterations was in their referring to themselves or the other side. The point was that the rhetoric is the same.

Santorum comparing Dems to Hitler:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05144/509292.stm

Reformed Theology:

http://reformed-theology.org/html/is...ristianity.htm

Michael Savage saying that Clinton's new book should be called "Mein Kampf"

http://mediamatters.org/items/200406230008

Arizona Congressman John Shadegg:

http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/000630/latz.shtml

Quote:

"I would draw a parallel to Hitler," said Shadegg. "He eroded the will of the German people to resist evil." Shadegg was talking about Clinton's use of the president's executive power to create national monuments.

OBL's raison d'etre is the creation of a fundamentalist Muslim state. This involves the conversion of other Muslims to his way of thinking, or their elimination. That's certainly evangelism.

Let's not forget, that evangelism is defined as:

1. Zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel, as through missionary work.
2. Militant zeal for a cause.


Fascism is largely a political theory, not an economic one. The underlying concept is "the nation above all else". Fascism has as a tenet the nationalization of all industries, but that's more of a means to an end than anything else.

That second one is in no way the one I was using when I used the word. There is no option for the "or" of elimination in true evangelism. My comment still stands.

Yes, but not wholly. My comment still stands.

You are confusing fascism with religious fascism. Whether the term is correct or not, religious fascism does not concern itself with economics.

"Religious fascism" is just a bastardization of the term "Fascism" as far as I'm concerned. I don't think you can have fascism without the important economic component. It is essential to directly connect the leader with the individual. You must alienate the individual and have his only access be the state and the leader.

Oh, and I don't believe Fascism has as a tenant to nationalize industries. Germany and Italy in the 30s had plenty of private business, but the state has a lot of say. You may call that nationalization, but I don't (more of a middle way).

I think I may have figured out where we diverge. People do not hate bin Laden for his philosophy. People, including myself, don't care what his philosophy is. Heck, most people don't understand his "philosophy."