If Obama Could Be Any Kinda Muslim...

[angus]

What kind would he be?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze

Druze?!  I always thought of Druze as a separate religion from Islam.

To the original question, I'd say he's the sort that is comfortable cutting off the hands of thieves in public, or veiling women from head to toe, but in private bashes all religion and everything it stands for.

[angus]

Interesting comments, all. 

I've always thought of the Tihuantinsuyu as the perfect example of an imperialist socialist society.  Maybe the only example.  North Korea is not truly socialist and hardly imperialist.  Also, the Inca was really good at moving grain from regions of plenty to drought- and famine-affected areas.  Even without the wheel and without horses!  North Koreans can barely move a pencil across a piece of paper.  Sure, they're both collectivist societies, but I think that's where the similarity ends.

The Aztecs, or the Triple Alliance, were sort of like the US Congress.  They are Ted Kennedy and Ted Cruz all rolled into one.  They were good at turning other folks against each other and exploiting natural divisions.  Fearmongers of the first class, cultivating natural bigotries and paranoia in a rather successful effort to secure their own hegemony.

I certainly fell for Obama's rap once as well.  I totally bought into the "change the tone in Washington" gimmick.  Post-partisan, post-identity America.  I voted for him enthusiastically in 2008.  You can bet I didn't vote for him in 2012.  I don't know whether he'll fade away, and I don't really care.  He's not quite as offensive as some of his predecessors, to be sure, but President Obama and Candidate Obama are Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde.  I don't think Obama is a terrible, horrible individual, but I do think he is like all politicians and I'm a little ashamed to have fallen for his outside-the-system, or better-than-the-system, schtick he was pushing in the summer of '08.

[angus]

And the Inca was glorified for this.

Well of course they were!

Anyway, I'm quite familiar with the "microclimates."  I've hiked the Inca Trail, 45 km from Sacsayhuaman to Machu Picchu.  Four days of elevation changes from 200 m above mean sea level to 4500 m.  Dress in layers.  Get ready to eat sh**t.  Fish heads, chicha, or whatever you can scrounge up along the way.  70-pound Jansport backpack with tent and sleeping bag and lots of cocaine (which rather helps with the hike.)  I've also spent several weeks in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador visiting the local museums and, although I'm no expert on pre-columbian American history, I have read Hiram Bingham and some more modern texts on the subject.  I reckon myself fairly well versed on the Inca legal system.  Adultery?  execution.  Insubordination?  execution.  And the preferred method was rather interesting too.  

Still, I hardly think it reminiscent of the North Koreans.  Maybe just because I'm fairly ignorant of Korea and its recent history.  Outside of the terms I've learned from my son's Tae Kwon Do class--from that I can count from one to ten and say several phrases, but otherwise--I know no Korean.  Nevertheless, I can read.  The Koreans are insular and paranoid.  They are not imperialist expansionist, like the Inca, and they are not very good at socialism, like the Inca.  They only have two things in common:  collectivism and the rule of a despotic leader.  But you could probably say that about a whole bunch of societies.

And what does any of this have to do with Obama and Islam?