Pat Robertson compares opposing Muslims to fighting Nazis

(May 31)  Who says TV isn't your best entertainment? And if you know where to look on it, you can find unusual news in the oddest places too. Over the years I've learned that I can always count on Christian media mogul Pat Robertson to liven up an otherwise slow news day. Pat came through again today on his signature program, The 700 Club, when he compared opposing Muslims to opposing Nazis. Here's a partial transcript of the conversation between Robertson and co-host Terry Meeuwsen (you can click on the video itself in the left column):

 

Pat Robertson: "...You know, if you oppose Muslims, well, you're a bigot, right?

 

Terry Meeuwsen: "Exactly."

 

Pat Robertson: "Terrible bigotry. I wonder what were people who opposed the Nazis? Were they bigots?

 

Terry Meeuwsen: "Well in that day I think they were looked down upon and frowned upon."

 

Pat Robertson: "Why can't we speak out against an institution that is intent on dominating us and imposing Sharia Law and making us all part of the universal caliphate? That's the goal of some of these people. Why is that bigoted? Why is it bigoted to resist Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and to say we don’t want to live under Nazi Germany?”

 

 

Hmm... what's wrong with this analogy? Aside from the overstated generalizations about all Muslims based on "the goal of some of these people," and the historical misrepresentation of people that opposed Nazis being called bigots, the one that almost caused me to choke on my coffee was Pat Robertson's implied identification of fundamentalist Christians like himself with opponents of Hitlerian ideology. It works in a way... but probably not the way Robertson intended.

 

Just for fun, let's try a little word substitution in Pat's speech above and see if it doesn't work out as well. Where you see the word "Muslims," replace it with "fundamentalist Christians." Replace the word "Sharia" with "biblical" and the phrase "universal caliphate" with "the kingdom of God." I've put the words to be replaced in bold type to make it easier.

 

It works pretty well this way too and it highlights a more accurate interpretation to Robertson's analogy as well. Fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam have too much in common for Pat Robertson's implied comparison of his side to freedom fighters. They want to dominate the world with a divine autocracy too. The analogy works far better if you think of one side as Hitler's Germany and the other as Stalin's Russia.

 

 

(Thanks and a tip of the Hatlo Hat to Right Wing Watch for the links)