Originally posted by Greadius
So you're advocating that Fox news ought to censor opinions that might be considered 'stupid' or 'offensive'.
I'll kindly direct you to the first amendment. Not the one about freedom of speech, but also freedom of the press. They have a constitutional right to have stupid, offensive opinions just as everyone here does and uses liberally.
I think the idea of screening comments that SOME people think are stupid and offensive would be more detrimental to our information consumption than leaving them out there to be condemned. I imagine if Pat Robertson's stupid and offensive commments were screened, people might still take him seriously. How scary would that be?
Where the hell did I say that? I never said we should censor Fox news. I merely said they should be a little more sensetive. He attacked the prophet Muhammed himself, and not only did FOX continue the discussion as if it was a valid point, it denied that the show was anti-muslim at all. I don't understand how you're making religion bashing out to be some sort of golden example of freedom of speech. Saying that the Iraqi war was great and completely justified is free speech. Saying that the Iraqi war was a cover-up for an oil-hungry administration is free speech. Having a guest completely denounce a religion and disrespectuflly insult it's prophet and it's beliefs is stupid and unnecessary. Couldn't the reverend had made the same points he was brought in to make without taking so many cheap shots on a religion and offending so many people? Would it have been so hard for Hannity and Colmes to slowly drift the conversation into a professional non-offensive way?
To say that the Muslim Expansions were all done through war and slavery is not true. Much of it was done through warfare, true. And yes sometimes slaves were taken because the wealthy upper class that had previously fought Muhamed so bitterly, was still there (And in large part because the newly converted clans that were under the empires fold had bitter feuds with the clans opposing the empire, and were more than eager to have a little revenge on their enemies). But other methods united the Arabian peninsula. Many Clan leaders converted to Islam themselves, and one or two important clans united with the new empire through marriage.
When it was all said and done, the newly conquered territories really weren't the goal of the Caliph's. They were much more interested in the farmlands of the fertile crescent, an area which looked very favorable compared to the desert that they lived in (Only Yemen recieved substantial rainfall thanks to the Monsoons). An area whihch you couldn't reach unless you had the Arabian Peninsula under control.
So the Arabian peninsula was conquered by the newly converted clans and upper-class generals of the empire. The new laws were favorable to Muslims, just like they were in the rest of the empire, but newly conquered territories weren't forced to convert to Islam. In fact, Under Islam, many Jewish communities reached great heights in science and culture because the Muslims weren't persecuting them.
I don't agree with the comment about the Harem. I do not deny that women from foreign lands were sold into slavery, that much is well known. But it's not as if it was rampant, nor did it to my knowledge occur during the initial conquests of the Arabian peninsula. It occured later on when the empire acquired more distant territories. As a result, women from far off places were sometimes brought into big centres of trade where they were sold to those few that were wealthy enough to afford them. You also forget to mention how, many of the women that were sold were often provided with an education and a craft.
Islam certainly wasn't completely pure during those early conquests. But it really wasn't as horrible as you've made it out to be.
Also, I have some big things to take care of in RL the next few days and I don't know if I'll have the time to post on these message boards. I really don't feel like starting up huge arguements. All I'm saying is that FOX news should have been a little more sensetive to Muslims, no censoring, just more sensetive (Is that so much to ask?), and that the muslim conquests weren't exactly the drunkarabsgotonhorseskilledpeopletookslavesandsoldoffwomen type that some people are saying. They were different, although they were still conquests in the end.
Fine, let's just sum it up in one sentence. I don't think such simple generalizations about the early Muslim conquests are fair.
