artie_fufkin wrote:

Even Hannity thinks this guy is out there. And Hannity is nuts.

Of course he is.  And worst of all, he IS endangering American lives, as we all do when we spout off Muslim-o-phobic crap that sounds like we've spent our entire lives living in one small county of rural Georgia.  We have extremist radicals in our country who hurt the interests of the majority with their bigotry. That's a fact.

But then again, the Constitution protects his right to burn a Quran, or pretty much anything else.  If we let Neo-Nazi's have a parade through Jewish Skokie, then we can let this jerk burn Qurans.  But it would be very helpful if there was a huge counter-demonstration with meaningful and symbolic acts that demonstrate, while we value freedom of speech above most everything else, we also value compassion and understanding, and the average American is working to rein in the radicals amongst us.

By now I am aware that a vast swath of middle America is comfortable with allowing, more or less, all Muslims to be held responsible for the violence that is done in the name of their religion.  In this particular case, however, the rights of Muslims are not in question.  It's the right of the preacher to burn the Quran, and he has that right.  The issue is what's in our own best interests, and whether it is a good idea give the terrorists more ammunition in their drive to recruit new terrorists.  General Petreaus says it is a bad idea to give them that ammunition, at least in this case.  And this particular instance seems to be such a bad idea that even right wing ideologues like Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin are backing up General Petreaus. 

But that is the thing about Americans, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, Americans often put their ideals above their own self-interest, and in this case, my hunch is that a part of middle America is willing to put their ideal--hold all Muslims responsible for 9/11 and other violence--even if it is against their self-interest (or at least the interests of the Americans who are actually overseas wearing uniforms, implementing American policy).

I can see where you are coming from, literally, having spent a lot of time in Lawrence County, which is pretty near you, I think.  And it would be easy to hate pretty much all Muslims, or at least not care a bean if we wound up having to nuke 'em all just to stop the terrorists, if your only exposure to them is through the news and the rhetoric of some of our conservative leaders.  But having spent 10 years or more living within a society where Muslims are the people all around me, that's not the way I see them.

Where ever any of us happen to find ourselves, the people around us belong to a great variety of religions: Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Mormons, Jews, etc.  Whenever I saw a hot chick, I never thought: "that Presbyterian is one hot chick".  Or if I knew a real ass hole, I never thought: "damn that Catholic is an ass hole".  Because of the stereotypes in the neighborhood I was brought up in (overwhelmingly white, Protestant and Catholics), I did grow thinking of non-whites, and non-Christian/Catholics in that way: "Wow, that chick from the Philippines is smokin'!".    And when it came to blacks and Jews, there were, of course, many negative stereotypes, unfortunately.  That's common; that's human.

Muslims were a non-issue for me, when growing up.  There were none, there were no stereotypes.  But having lived among them for so long, lots and lots (as in, hundreds) of my friends and family happen to be Muslim, and I don't give their religion a second thought, except, of course, for things like holidays, and which ones do or don't eat pork or drink beer, etc.

None of them support terrorism, of course.

Last edited by Max (9/09/2010 3:05 pm)

I never meant to imply that I thought you were stupid.  And pretty much I don't think most anybody I've ever met is stupid.  But we all have different histories, different ways we've spent our hours under this sun, and this leads us to very different levels of knowledge about different issues.  If you and I ever have the time and money, I'll introduce you to some Muslims that will get you thinkin' about strapping something onto your nuts:

http://nich3.net/blog//2005/03/blok-m.html (grin)

artie_fufkin wrote:

This is why we ought not to discuss politics.

Why?   Because it invariably leads to me posting links to insanely hot Muslim chicks that would make you stuff bacon down your mother-in-laws jaws just for a chance to see 'em naked?

For example, here's a facebook status from one of my friends:

"Eid Mubarak to my fellow Muslims & Shana Tova to my fellow Jewish friends in Singapore & overseas! May you find peace in your hearts, your families and others around you :D"