Anonymous wrote:I think it is due to Isis and its increasingly barbaric and archaic violence against innocents that keeps escalating. The series of beheadings followed by throwing those poor gay men off buildings and posting on youtube tipped the balance for me and many others. That and the islamic world's horrific attitude towards the human rights of women and religious minorities.

Unfortunately that mentality is front and center and there is no strong public example coming from that part of the world that their values are compatible to religious liberty, human rights and freedom of thought and lifestyle.

Perhaps it is a PR issue from the muslim world? Maybe if there was more horror at the idea of sharia law, oppression of women, persecution of gays, Christians, religious minorities, etc coming from public leaders in that part of the world there wouldn't be as much fear of Islam.

Also, whenever US muslims go on TV to speak up, their approach is always "this is not Islam". However Isis and radical imans say over and over that they ARE Islam. I think those muslims would be better off acknowledging this in some way, perhaps labeling them as an animalistic cult of Islam instead of just saying they have nothing to do with Islam. When there are pew polls coming out of that part of the world saying that muslims support things like stoning women and suicide bombings by vast numbers, it is hard to separate the two for many people.

It is worth reading certain Islamist newspapers to see their reactions to the attacks in Paris. The West is cast as a land of “infidels.” The attacks were the result of the onslaught against Islam. Muslims and Arabs have become the enemies of the secular and the Jews. The Palestinian question is invoked along with the rape of Iraq and the memory of colonial trauma, and packaged into a messianic discourse meant to seduce the masses. Such talk spreads in the social spaces below, while up above, political leaders send their condolences to France and denounce a crime against humanity. This totally schizophrenic situation parallels the West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia.

All of which leaves one skeptical of Western democracies’ thunderous declarations regarding the necessity of fighting terrorism. Their war can only be myopic, for it targets the effect rather than the cause. Since ISIS is first and foremost a culture, not a militia, how do you prevent future generations from turning to jihadism when the influence of Fatwa Valley and its clerics and its culture and its immense editorial industry remains intact?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/saudi-arabia-an-isis-that-has-made-it.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Anonymous wrote:She didn't say nothing she learned years ago would justify the attacks. She actually said she had never been TAUGHT the violent doctrines. She did NOT say that those violent doctrines, which she was never taught, were not a legitimate part of Islamic religious doctrine.

But then why would a small female child have been taught the violent part of radical Islamic doctrine, since presumably she wasn't being indoctrinated to be a warrior?

She simply said that as a small child she wasn't taught the doctrines that the male adult warriors are using to justify their violence now. She didn't renounce those doctrines in any way, shape, or form.

I concede that she didn't denounce the doctrines that she doesn't know about. She doesn't have to. Nobody has to. The fact that you are a prejudiced person who has un-American expectations for her is not something with which she has to concern herself. This is your problem. You need to deal with your prejudice.

She didn't say nothing she learned years ago would justify the attacks. She actually said she had never been TAUGHT the violent doctrines. She did NOT say that those violent doctrines, which she was never taught, were not a legitimate part of Islamic religious doctrine.

But then why would a small female child have been taught the violent part of radical Islamic doctrine, since presumably she wasn't being indoctrinated to be a warrior?

She simply said that as a small child she wasn't taught the doctrines that the male adult warriors are using to justify their violence now. She didn't renounce those doctrines in any way, shape, or form.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol this poster is unhinged..."Guilty until proven innocent" is not a principle we follow in America. Maybe the PP should relocate to Russia where his/her type of thinking would be more welcome.

I agree, so no one is "guilty" of "backlash" or "discrimination" against Muslims until proven innocent. Maybe OP should relocate to Iran.

Unless you agree that all Christians (not only catholics) must denounce the pedophilia of the Catholic church (just one example, we can come up with many for any given group of people), than you really have no argument here. By your logic, most christians support pedophilia.

No.

If a Christian came here and posted a thread claiming they were afraid of anti-Christian "backlash" due to peophilia by the Catholic priests, I would treat that complaint as just as suspect as I do OP's. I would certainly want such a poster to explain why they believe they would be a victim of such alleged "backlash" if they didn't participate or support, or at least fail to conclusively renounce, the pedophilia activity of those priests.

You completely miss the point that the OP posted with an agenda. No one is required to accept at face value that kind of an agenda.

If some Christian posted implying that all the Catholic pedophile bashing was unfair and they were afraid of being included in it, I would most certainly want them to explain themselves, in detail.

The bolded text above is why you are incapable of understanding why some people are the victims of backlash regardless of what they advocate themselves. Are you of the opinion that sikhs's, who have no relation to islam at all, are also responsible for running around denouncing "radical islam" to avoid backlash? Because history has shown that are often the victims of anti-muslim sentiments. You can't be so dense to think that someone that hates muslims is NOT going to target a muslim just because they advocate that they do not support terrorism. Even if the OP did outrightly declare that she denounces radical islam on here, to you, it would not change a single thing in regards to the backlash she faces in the real world. If I went out on the street and starting calling every christian a pedophile because they did not tell me they were against the actions of the Catholic church, I would be swiftly stopped and I doubt even you would stand for it. Somehow, because she is muslim, you take the complete opposite approach. If it looks like a bigot, and it smells like a bigot, chance are it IS a bigot. Sorry, but I'm not buying what you're selling. Come back after you learn some American values.

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Based on your risk analysis of radial Islamic violence, I'm surprised you can sleep at night considering the significantly greater threat of drowning in your bathtub.

Is your prejudice against Muslims responsible for your radically exaggerated fear of Islamic violence? If so, maybe with a bit of reflection you can kill two birds with one stone?

So it's very clear you ARE an apologist for radical Islamic terrorism. Just as I stated. We should ignore what's just been happening in other countries because that could never happen in the U.S.--it's not a realistic threat?

Are you getting paid jsteele, to proclaim the viewpoint that the U.S. has nothing to fear from radical Islamic terrorism? At this point it really sounds like you are astroturfing your own forums.

Again, nothing but straw men, distortions, and baseless ad hominem attacks. It's understandable because you don't have fact available to make a substantive argument.

Face it. You can't escape the fact that your entire argument is based on prejudice. You just can't get past that. You are left calling me an apologist and accusing me of getting paid.

Deal with your prejudice. The world will be a better place.

" OP here, of course I denounce the attacks in Paris. I denounce all violence. And no I do not know the Muslim teachings they are using. That is not what I was taught when I went to Sunday School at a mosque in Boston when I was a kid."

She denounced the attacks. Not enough for you. You want her to denounce the ideology behind the attacks. When she says she does not know the Muslim teachings they are using, she is saying there is nothing she learned years ago at Sunday school that would justify such attacks.

No, she at first seemed to denounce the attacks, but then undercut that via moral equivalence to "denounce all violence." And the claim that she doesn't know enough about what's happening in the world to understand that the recent violence is based on Islamic religious doctrine--just because it wasn't the version SHE claims to have learned, decades ago, as a child--is utter bullshit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Radical Islamic Violence" is not very realistic threat to the average American, unless they spend a lot of time abroad in those areas. If you think it is an imminent threat that affects "most Americans" here on U.S soil, a doctor can prescribe medication for your paranoid/schizo personality disorder. I'm fairly certain that any given American has a higher chance of hitting the jackpot for mega-millions than being involved in a terrorist attack. I didn't crunch the numbers but the odds are pretty astronomically low.

And that's the "never going to happen here" bloated American mentality they are banking on.

We are America, we are exempt from all the tragic events that happen in other parts of the world because we are Americans.

It's not surprising though. America is a very young country. Thus the teenage "superman" complex is still very much pervasive as a young country.

That plus the appalling lack of World History and geography taught to students, especially to those that are now running this country when they were in school.

jsteele is actually either astroturfing his own forum--he's getting paid by someone to advocate his obviously false proposition that America faces no significant risk from radical Islamic terror--or he's expressing what amounts to racism: He just doesn't believe those brown men from the Middle East have the ability to kill his fat white ass sitting comfy in Washington D.C.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Radical Islamic Violence" is not very realistic threat to the average American, unless they spend a lot of time abroad in those areas. If you think it is an imminent threat that affects "most Americans" here on U.S soil, a doctor can prescribe medication for your paranoid/schizo personality disorder. I'm fairly certain that any given American has a higher chance of hitting the jackpot for mega-millions than being involved in a terrorist attack. I didn't crunch the numbers but the odds are pretty astronomically low.

And that's the "never going to happen here" bloated American mentality they are banking on.

We are America, we are exempt from all the tragic events that happen in other parts of the world because we are Americans.

It's not surprising though. America is a very young country. Thus the teenage "superman" complex is still very much pervasive as a young country.

That plus the appalling lack of World History and geography taught to students, especially to those that are now running this country when they were in school.

Please describe the scope of the threat that you believe we face? Do you think we face the loss of 40 million or so as Russia did under Stalin? Lower, maybe 12 million like the Nazis killed? A few hundred thousand? Given that -- unlike you believe us to be -- you are educated in World History and geography, what is the threat you believe we face?

For the unhinged poster, this is what OP said:

" OP here, of course I denounce the attacks in Paris. I denounce all violence. And no I do not know the Muslim teachings they are using. That is not what I was taught when I went to Sunday School at a mosque in Boston when I was a kid."

She denounced the attacks. Not enough for you. You want her to denounce the ideology behind the attacks. When she says she does not know the Muslim teachings they are using, she is saying there is nothing she learned years ago at Sunday school that would justify such attacks.

She is clearly someone who hasn't kept up with the radicalization of Islamic teachings that has occurred in the intervening years. But she had no obligation to do so and probably hasn't practiced Islam at all during that period. Stop shrilly insisting she had such an obligation and further an obligation to denounce it. How can one denounce something one knows nothing about?

Personally, I have an interest in Islam and have attacked interpretations I have seen here on DCUM coming from Muslims I would consider moderate but misguided. There was a theological battle in Islam around the end of the first millennium centering around whether the Quran was eternal or not and the views of the winning side (eternal) have had negative repercussions ever since. It is the foundation on which all radical Islam is built and if I were a Muslim this is where I would start with reform.

Do I denounce the ISIS ideology? Hard one--denouncing would seem to give it too much credibility. It is utter idiocy.

jsteele wrote:

Based on your risk analysis of radial Islamic violence, I'm surprised you can sleep at night considering the significantly greater threat of drowning in your bathtub.

Is your prejudice against Muslims responsible for your radically exaggerated fear of Islamic violence? If so, maybe with a bit of reflection you can kill two birds with one stone?

So it's very clear you ARE an apologist for radical Islamic terrorism. Just as I stated. We should ignore what's just been happening in other countries because that could never happen in the U.S.--it's not a realistic threat?

Are you getting paid jsteele, to proclaim the viewpoint that the U.S. has nothing to fear from radical Islamic terrorism? At this point it really sounds like you are astroturfing your own forums.

Anonymous wrote:
That's right. She doesn't "have to" denounce it (so now you just flipped flopped back to being her apologist).

On the other hand, I don't have to accept anything she says at face value, either. She has no "right" to expect me, or anyone else, to buy what she is trying to sell here.

I am not "prejudiced against Muslims." Please stop playing that card, it's getting tiresome. I am very skeptical of the motives of a person who complains about fear of being discriminated against due to being Muslim, but who refuses to conclusively denounce the recent Islamic acts of terror.

I don't have to accept anything she says at face value, particularly if she fails to denounce Islamic terror. As far as I am concerned, OP is a shill or propagandist who is trying to deflect attention from the recent acts of violent Islamic terror. That's not "prejudice," that's a direct result of her failure to renounce it.

Nobody is demanding you to accept what she says at face value. If you don't think her fear is real, there is really no reason for you to post in this thread.

I understand that it may be difficult for you to accept that you are a prejudiced person. Nobody wants to face that in themselves. You clearly believe that all Muslims support violence unless they convince you otherwise. That is clearly a prejudiced belief. You have an expectation for Muslims that you don't have for members of other religions. That is a prejudiced expectation.

You have no right to put conditions on anyone's right to be treated equally and free from religious prejudice.

Anonymous wrote:"Radical Islamic Violence" is not very realistic threat to the average American, unless they spend a lot of time abroad in those areas. If you think it is an imminent threat that affects "most Americans" here on U.S soil, a doctor can prescribe medication for your paranoid/schizo personality disorder. I'm fairly certain that any given American has a higher chance of hitting the jackpot for mega-millions than being involved in a terrorist attack. I didn't crunch the numbers but the odds are pretty astronomically low.

And that's the "never going to happen here" bloated American mentality they are banking on.

We are America, we are exempt from all the tragic events that happen in other parts of the world because we are Americans.

It's not surprising though. America is a very young country. Thus the teenage "superman" complex is still very much pervasive as a young country.

That plus the appalling lack of World History and geography taught to students, especially to those that are now running this country when they were in school.

jsteele wrote:
What do you expect "it" to be? Of course we might face a terrorist attack. But, the risk to us as individuals is very small. We face a much greater threat from car accidents, accidental shootings, or even bee stings.

I'll bet we face an even much less threat of death or serious physical injury from climate change, then we do from Islamic terrorism, as long as we are pulling random "statistics" out of our asses jsteele.

So I guess you'd agree we need do nothing about climate change.

Right, Mr. Statistics?

"NO THAT"S DIFFERENT BLAH BLAH BLAH"

jsteele wrote:

She does not have to denounce it. You have no right to expect her to. Your prejudice against Muslims is exactly the sort of thing she is worried about. You are demonstrating that her fear is real.