The extent of my prejudice against Muslims:
I assume when I meet a muslim from the United States... that they are likely sympathetic to the "plight" of the Palestinians, and they are not sympathetic to the "plight" of the Israelis... <snip>
And so it goes without saying that you find it equally troubling, of course, if a jew from the United states is only sympathetic to the "plight" of the Israelis and not to the "plight" of the Palestinians... right?
Well no... I am a Jew from the United States who is sympathetic to the "plight" of the Israelis, and not as much the "plight" of the Palestinians... My point is though, that my political leanings and Muslim political leanings are in conflict.
Of course it is wrong to judge an individual by prejudiced assumptions... and I don't... I wait for a person to show what they believe before I draw my conclusions.
Uh huh...
Yes... because until my prejudices are proven correct, I must operate as if they are incorrect.
Prejudice is a natural human phenomenon... EVERYONE does it... it must be overridden by our conscious mind. Which is exactly what I do.
But only a fool can't see that there is an OBVIOUS cultural/political/religious rift between the Muslim and Western world... split very clearly on the line between Muslim and non-Muslim. We can play the PC game as long as we want... pretent that this rift doesnt exist... pretend that by looking at Muslims on a plane as different than non-muslims is somehow discriminatory, or racist... but the reality is, that their "muslim" identity, and our "non-muslim" identity is the crux of the rift, and SHOULD be dealt with suspiciously.
Well thank goodness you don't judge any individuals by "prejudiced assumptions."
Being suspicious != judging... note I didn't advocate dragging the 6 muslims in this story off to jail... I said their situation warranted a little extra examination.
It is not enough to say well only a small number of Muslims partake in terrorism... this is true there's probably no more than 10-20 million Muslims actively involved in terrorism on some level... thats a mere 1% of the Muslim population... but how many muslims support this 1% financially?... more than you'd think... how many muslims support these terrorists emotionally the same way we support our troops? more than you'd think.
So based on your statistics, 20 million muslims are terrorists and a good chunk of the other 1.2 billion are terrorist sympathizers. Gotcha.
Do you consider Tim Mcveigh a "christian terrorist?" How about Baruch Goldstein? Was he a "jewish terrorist?" Or were they just nutjobs who happened to be of those faiths? How about the fact that former prime ministers of Israel, Yitzhak Shamir and Menachim Begin, had previously been leaders of terrorist organizations and that Ariel Sharon had been found guilty of war crimes by an Israeli court? Is it safe to assume that you find those as troubling as, say, Hamas and Hezbollah being elected to represent Palestinians and Lebanese? Are those also evidence of "more [people] than you'd think" supporting "jewish terrorism?"
How about the facts that David Duke was elected to the Louisiana State Senate and got 44% of the vote when he ran for Senate in 1990? Does that not demonstrate a hotbed of terrorist sympathizers in Louisiana?
The likes of Mcveigh is certainly an issue... David Duke is certainly an issue... but as for Goldstein and Sharon... I think most people are hardly afraid of radical Israelis blowing up american aircraft in order to kill as many innocent americans as possible....
Don't believe me?... go pick up a muslim newspaper from your local community, and get yourself a translator... you can see pretty quickly where the allegiances fall.
A "muslim newspaper?" I'm curious... what do you consider a "muslim newspaper?" Would its analogue be, say, the Christian Science Monitor or the New York Times for "christian newspapers?" Haaretz and Jerusalem Times for "jewish newspapers? and so on? More importantly, if I find a story in any US newspaper or any christian or jewish newspaper that puts anything else above loyalty to the US, do I get to declare all adherents of the faith to be universally in line with that ideology?
The issue as it pertains to your clearly unbiased and unprejudiced assessments, Doboji, is not your dislike of people who are muslim and who are terrorists; it's your inability to separate the one from the other. If a muslim does something you dislike, it says something about islam, whereas if a jew or christian or buddhist or whatever does something you dislike, I'll wager, you're better able to separate the religion from the deed. And you have a right to be prejudiced, by the way. But quit kidding yourself that your assessments are in any way unbiased and free of "prejudiced assumptions" because they're not... and neither are many other people's.
What I mean by a "Muslim Newspaper" is a locally produced weekly, or monthly written by members of the local community... go to your local Mosque... you will find it there. not on the scale of the CSM or Washington Post...
You will find in it articles about the "gaza massacre" charities helping Palestinians, you will also likely find community actions to stop the war in Iraq, and possibly afghanistan... you will find lots of anti-Bush articles... you won't find any articles condemning the actions of terrorists in Iraq... or Palestinian terrorists... or praising American actions of any kind in Iraq.
Then go beyond americas borders... read Muslim newspapers from elsewhere in the world... and don't be surprised when you still find op-eds accusing Israel or Bush of conducting 9/11...
First of all I believe I began my post: "The extent of my prejudice against Muslims: "
So I never professed to have an unbiased view of Muslims...
Second of all, I do not dislike Muslims, or Islam for that matter. I am however, politically, at odds with the overwhelming majority of Muslims. So are most non-muslim Americans, whether you realize it or not.
-Max