And moderate American Muslims who wish to build a combined cultural center/mosque in downtown Manhattan - were you using your fucking head when you decided that they posed some sort of dire threat to Mom, apple pie and the American way?
You are still comparing small Red Delicious apples grown in New England last year with the set of all oranges everywhere, and you’re don’t even seem to be aware you’re doing it. Sure, you haven’t specifically said that Muslims should all be grabbed and locked up - but you’ve been awfully busy trying to convince us that they’re all a threat. And as much fun as it is to dismiss my arguments as being “PC”, there’s nothing PC about objecting to your inciting hatred against a group, the vast majority of which have done nothing wrong.
You could say the same thing about the Iraq War. The government of the time wanted it. Are you worried that the Muslims are going to become a large enough bloc to overthrow the Constitution, growing even faster than the heavily Catholic Hispanic population?
Did you know that Hitler came to power in a large part by scapegoating an unpopular ethnic minority? Misleading analogies are fun.
Please do try to keep up. We’ve been over this again and again.
I’m saying that they’re using their hatred of “Islam” and “Muslims” *as a mask for *their racism. Because in their head, Muslims, especially dangerous extremists, are Brown People from Over There who Aren’t Like Us. Which is why *they *deserve to be freaked out about (without any mention of how we’re supposed to identify them) as opposed to, say, all Catholic priests.
I told you how to identify them. You restrict them to certain areas and make them wear distinctive clothing. People have done that to religious or other non-distinquishable minorities they wanted to discriminate against for quite a while.
And, even if arguendo, the reason they hate Muslims is because Muslims are “Brown People From Over There who Aren’t Like Us”, that’s not necessarily racism either, unless you can show that the reason they don’t like them is because they’re Brown, rather than just being People From Over There who Aren’t Like Us. If it’s the latter, than the people are just xenophobes.
I can’t dig into their slimy little minds to *prove *anything–I can only offer conjecture. And the main difference seems to be that these aren’t (to them) Europeans.
More than that. In 1983, we paticipated in the Multinational Force in Lebanon, which was against certain Muslim groups, but on the side of others. There was Operation Desert Storm, which was against an Arab Muslim country (Iraq), but to defend another Arab Muslim country (Saudi Arabia), and liberate yet another (Kuwait). We sent troops into Somalia, which is a black Muslim country, and while we fought against warlord militias, we had humanitarian goals in mind.
We bombed targets in Bosnia to help the Bosniaks, who are white Muslims, and Serbia, to help the Kosovars, who are also white Muslims. In 2001, we invaded Afghanistan, fighting against one group of non white Muslims (the Taliban), on behalf of another (the Northern Alliance). And in 2003, we invaded Iraq, which is an Arab Muslim country.
So, I don’t know if it is as simple as you make it out to be.
And Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, and Operation Provide Comfort/Northern Watch (to protect the Kurds in Northern Iraq), and even though the primary goal has been to get Al Qaeda and disrupt terrorist groups, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Earnest Will (protecting Kuwaiti tankers during the Iran-Iraq War), and Operation Unified Assistance (to provide aid to tsunami victims.)
Nope. Im having a hard time seeing where the confusion comes from. I’ve been arguing that it would be wise for us to wary of Muslims, in general. as a first pass, where the only thing we know about them is their Muslimness. As we learn more, we can move some into the “likely not a threat category” and others into the “let’s learn more about him” category.
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Look, we can create euphemisms to ratchet down any bad act. And there are no doubt instances where it is helpful to do so. But there are other times to ca the thing what it is. What interest is served in ratcheting down the emotive elements of the description of those who strap bombs on themselves and blow up five-year-old kids. None. In fact, we should ratchet UP the language as much as we can to send the signal that that behavior is unacceptable, regardless of the motivation. Same with that idiot who was arguing on these boards why we should not be so critical of him for wanting to have sex with kids about toddler age. Similarly, we should describe the sick barbarism of some of the Sharia laws for what they are. Trying to excuse the behavior is unhelpful in the extreme. People try to take the ugly sting out of calling it what it is by pointing to the bible, particularly the old testament, as if we have Christians arguing to do some of the things described. To whatever degree one may be able to draw equivalence by comparing passages, when you look to the application in the here and now, there is zero. What, Christian sects would like to do something as barbaric as bury a woman up to her neck and stone her to death? Or, and this is my favorite, adjudicate that the family of a teenage girl who was dishonored by her walking home from school with a boy who was not her relative shall be able to re-instill their honor by having the girl’s father, brothers, and uncles rape…the boy she was walking with’s sister!!! We need to call these people on behavior so sick that it gives “barbarism” a bad name.
Rev, you’re killing me here. All this dancing around you want to do as to simply not look at their Muslimness. You will need to do that. Even if you look at radicalism first, you then need to see where in the Venn diagram the world of radicals overlaps with the world of Muslims. The fact is that terrorism comes from Muslims.
But you’re assuming that one looks to skin color. How about, for instance, if we just started with a list of those attending mosques?
I also said earlier in the thread that I think we should be more wary of Americans (all colors) who convert to Islam in the past 5 years or so than those who were born into it. So, white Pennsylvanian who converted to Islam in 2007 should be viewed, at first blush, as being more of a potential threat than a brown-skinned life-long Muslim who grew up in the same town.
No. It’s only racism if you craft it to be about raciism.
Who is this “we” you keep mentioning? Do you think you’re likely to get recruits for your little Crusade here? Valteron is on your side, but he’s Up North Somewhere. And Perciful has apparently wandered off & gotten lost.
And then what? We’ve got a little list (he’s got a little list) - what do we do with it that isn’t going to fall afoul of the First Amendment at some point?
The “we” is referring to Americans who think that it is more important to prevent barbarians from killing more of us than it is to adhere to some fantastical, self-defeating, Kumbaya political correctness.