It was 1095 A.D. Christians and Muslims had issues. Hmmm. A veritable holy Hatfields and McCoys furiously played out in Europe and what is now the Middle East. Good old Pope Urban II leveraged his papal celeb to drive a campaign to retake the Holy Land. He made a convincing argument and even offered speech that inspired folks to action. Here is an excerpt:

“The West must march to the defense of the East. All should go, rich and poor alike. The Franks must stop their internal wars and squabbles. Let them go instead against the infidel and fight a righteous war.” Familiar sounding words? Yep, these were words from a Christian icon of God’s will.

I saw a couple of posts the other night on facebook…one with a photo, apparently of a group of Muslim radicals hoisting a banner downing democracy and cheering Islam. The facebook author wrote: “For any Obama supporters, this is what we are facing here in America. This is NOT the middle east, it is right here on our soil. Please vote for Mitt.” The caption to the photo read: “It won’t happen here, you say? Welcome to Dearbornistan, Michigan.”

The second was a post with two questions. The poster (or poser) was asking if readers were (1) going to church on Sunday, and (2) planning to vote for Mitt Romney. It went on to read: “The fact is if you answered YES to my 1st question & NO to my 2nd then you need to either CHANGE your Church or just stay home & do some hard praying before you vote.”

Now, I love our democracy and our freedoms. That doesn’t change the fact that I wanted to puke after reading this disgusting plea for racism and nationalism through the lens of misguided piety. I’m not sure if this amateur pundit is just a pissed off extremist in his own right or a 21st century Pharisee.

What I do know is that what threatens this great country the most is not a band of radicals in a great city that embraces diversity. The threat to our democracy and our values is by the facebook Crusaders and them like ‘em who use whatever medium they can to generate hate and cloak it in their own made up value set and Constitutional bending. Return to our “core values” you say?. Reality is, our core values are now, more than ever, in play. That is Constitutional Irony if there ever was.

I finally had enough and wrote an Op-Ed to the newspaper in northwest Florida asking that they consider what appears to be a seeming high share of racism and religious intolerance in the local community. I asked how local Muslims might feel about citizens in their midst who are calling for their demise…or, their “conversion.” I have to call these bigots out and ask for a public declaration of their plan. What is it? An all out ethnic cleansing? I am so surprised…I haven’t heard from them (sarcasm thick as sorghum).

You speak of a sinking value system and couch the current President as a champion of everything you perceive to run counter to your quasi-Arian ideals. I love my country. I will stack my love of capitalism AND my social conscience up against any conservative talking head or proverbial tree-hugger. Asking questions, having a conscience, considering greater good or a planet in peril does not make one a good or bad person. But, when you spit hate, mostly out of ignorance (as this facebook crusader often does in the form of “facts”), then you are, in fact, a tragic human being. And please, don’t confuse this rant as a hypocritical perspective and counter-hate. I don’t hate this brother and his cronies. I am frustrated, yes, angry at the kind of crap and cultural intolerance that flow from this fiction writer.

My hope is that our democracy be protected from the likes of them; those that feel being an American is somehow defined by their own twisted Constitutional Apartheid. Your suggestion that God is somehow on the side of a candidate and that my faith is somehow in question based on my Presidential choice (either way) is so revealing of just how uninformed you are as a citizen and as a person of faith in your own right.

This country is great because of its diversity. My blog post, today, is less of a call for dialogue and more an admonition. Uncharacteristically, I care nothing about a conversation about this. I am saddened and disgusted by the facebook crusaders…those few who post hate and and bullshit and add a graphic in the hopes that “like” buttons will be followed by a sheep herd path to the polls.

This applies to both Red and Blue! Careful what you “Like,” unless you share in the hate and the probable B.S. behind it. The barbarism of the crusades is just as likely today by the select few who chose to exercise their extremism through harm to others. Weapons of mass destruction are not limited to those of nuclear or biological variety; they also come in the form of rhetoric. I doubt God was on the side of the crusaders of 1095 and He surely detests the contemporary crusaders who use these pages to wage their own selfish wars.

Just sayin’