Smokin Joe, there is a lot to like in your post. Without repeating what I just replied to Mesaclone, let me add a few rebuttals.
The point about the Holocaust is just as you stated about the nazi salute. People should be able to express and present arguments about it in any way they please. If I had a dime every time I saw a Jew on television questioning/insulting Christianity and other religions, I could open a lending bank.
As far as the media, you and I probably have different ideas about what they should be presenting, but there is doubtlessly a huge Jewish contingent in the media. Are they organized? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Do you think the people you see in the media, stumping for the exploitation of minorities and others, advocating for homosexuality (recall what happened in the Old Testament to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah), advocating for the slaughter of babies in the womb, are faithful followers of the Jewish Religion?
They may go through the motions, but their real God is evident, not in YHWH, but the self-serving doctrine they preach and the money they make from it.
Of course, there are soi-disant Christian factions which are tolerant of homosexuality, for instance, to the point where they 'marry' same-sex couples, too, and I would equally argue that these are false doctrines which do not lead people along the path The Almighty would have us choose, but into the depredations and miseries of evil living, and the eternal repercussions associated with the practice of abomination in the eyes of The Almighty.
Frankly, I understand that there is a huge contingent in the media who may pay lip service to a religion, but by their fruits (and many are their fruits) shall ye know them, regardless which religious group they lay claim to.
You have seen through their claims, and for that the individuals character should be noted, but the few hundreds of people who really control what ends up on your television should hardly be the metric by which you (or anyone else) judges groups consisting of millions of people who practice what those false prophets only lay claim to.
As far as Israel being surrounded by enemies, part of that is their own fault because they ripped the land away from their enemies to create their state. Yes, Assad is self-serving and does not have a geniune love of Christians in his heart. You are inserting much into what I said, and then correcting the fallacies that you yourself inserted. What I want to know is if you disagree with what I actually said, which is "They recently tried to overthrow Assad, which would have resulted in the Christians in Syria being massacred when the Sunnis or Islamic extremists took over. They have openly threatened to kill him.".
As for 'ripping away land', shall we discuss "Manifest Destiny"?
At least the Israeli people have an historical claim to the land they conquered long ago, after having been themselves conquered and dispersed by others. Conquest and displacement are a fact of history, and a sea of Christian and Muslim blood was shed over the same soil as well as Hebrew blood. Doubtless a host of Pagans of various belief contributed to that sanguinary baptism of that well contended plot, including the Phillistines, the Romans, and others who were killed off in the original Hebrew conquest of the region.
. Aside from the connection to religiously important locations, I fail to see what attraction that particular patch of real estate has, but I have never been there. There are certainly areas with far more mineral wealth, even better farmland, and better ports.
So I am left to conclude it is the same religious attraction for an area which contains significant sites in the history of the Hebrews which is the factor, just as it was for the Christian Crusaders or the Muslims who fought over the same turf.
By all means, if you want to comment on the placement of Israel, or the migration of people there who feel more safe and that they have better prospects for prosperity there than they did where they were living (not so unlike the migration of immigrants from Northern Europe to the US as it grew, just the locals here didn't have bomb vests and artillery), then you would have to comment on the migration of any people to a specific area on the planet, because everyone, literally, has done it--and this nation is a shining example.
I would suggest the group for which you should reserve your enmity is not delineated along any racial or religious lines, but along philosophical ones. Those in the media are united by their own catechism, that of Marxist Libertines, and they are proselytizing at the top of their lungs form the highest vantage points they can reach, but for those of us who see through the patently evil, historically destructive, and commonly patently immoral nonsense they spew, they are indeed creatures worthy of our pity and utmost contempt. They lead generations into lifetimes of abject misery and even actions leading to their death, glorifying that which is unwholesome by any metric.
You see, the funny thing, is that if you were to ignore the spiritual ramifications of the Bible (both Testaments), you would still come up with a great manual for the human being to live a long, productive, and happy life, especially if everyone followed those guidelines. What loving Creator would create a species and not give them an operator's manual, after all? Now, just like the owner's manual for your car, your snow thrower, your lawnmower, you are free to ignore the advice contained within, at, of course, your peril. As anyone who has reached under the deck of a running lawnmower could attest, the good reasons can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Back, however to the Media, and I apologize for my rambling, but for now they are groups of people who likely know one another through whatever social mechanisms they frequent, who have a shared, if flawed ideology, and they are pushing that ideology for fun and profit. They may share other aspects of their lives, but the seminal thing they share is their espousement of deeply flawed ideologies and behaviours, often in direct conflict with the very things they claim, in faux altruism, to be or seek.
I would postulate that what you, and I, and any red-blooded American loathes about these people has nothing to do with anything but the crap they spew among masses who have been undereducated only to lap up that swill, believe the fables, and chant in the streets thinking it to be meaningful speech rather than the mindless ranting of people who have been convinced they are somehow disaffected in a country with the world's fattest poor people who have housing, electric lights, television, cell phones, and automobiles or other mechanized transport as a matter of course.
I would hold the vast majority of the talking heads, newsreaders, and those behind the scenes in contempt, regardless of their claimed religion, race, sexual preferences, lineage, eating habits and relationships with their family pets. I am an equal opportunity despiser of that which is wrong.
But we can no more silence them in the name of free speech, than allow them to silence us in their claims of 'freedom', and all we can do is to subvert their hideous doctrines of child murder, of sexual perversion, of lurid violence in the name of 'peace'. Small wonder they and the Islamists are so similar, in that for each, the vision of 'peace' involves an absence of dissent.
It is up to us to provide that dissent, to counter that flawed ideology, to point out the self-destructive nature of the behaviours they espouse, to point out the lies at every turn, and that hate, no matter who it is directed against always rebounds onto the user who wields it as a weapon. It is fair and just to hate the mechanisms, even the beliefs which the purveyors of "progressivism" broadcast, but to hate any group of people only peripherally associated with the purveyors, no matter how many of the purveyors of that dreck claim to be members, is only destructive to the goal of sane, rational, and constructive discourse.
If nothing else, it only hands the opposition a brickbat with which to bludgeon those who dissent, to deflect from the real issues, and to discredit the real messages and lessons that need to be taught to a multitude largely ignorant.
As to Assad, perhaps they have tried to have him removed, by whatever means. Any country with a neighbor who is openly hostile (as in bombs, tanks, artillery, and troops hostile) will do what they can to promote a regime change. What would ensue from that? Well, another nasty bastard would take over, of course. That they would likely do what the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups did in Egypt and Libya and other places is a given, provided they were of that same bent. Would those associated with other sects of Islam, and non-Islamic peoples be persecuted? Certainly, provided the new Chief SOB was from an Islamic sect bent that way.
If you want to point a finger, go back to the Balfour agreement, and the partition of the region which ignored every sane division made upon tribal boundaries and imposed arbitrary political subdivisions which only insured the internal and even international conflict which has ensued. (oddly enough, you will find geographic disparities in most of these United States, which ever divide even the citizenry here at that level, albeit more civil in its usual disagreement).
What better revenge for the Ottoman Empire than to divide those tribes and countries as to render them generally ineffective as a political coalition? Regardless of your feelings about Obama, he and his handlers apparently were either seeking or permitting that general single-banner reunification of the Caliphate, Ottoman II, whatever you want to call it, taking in North Africa and even the sub-Saharan regions as well, in the Dream of his Father to oust the white invaders, once and for all.
I do not think The actions of the US Dept of State can be ignored in this mess, either, in the past nor present.
