Letters to the Editor
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Paul and Prunes
Paul,
I fail to see how you can accuse of me obscuring the difference between "refusing to condemn" and "supports" when I have used both phrases. Far from hiding the truth, I've put them both together and said (upthread) "take your pick". Or do you think there is some fact I got wrong? Let's go back through the poll again. I would imagine someone would have challenged the 25% number if it were wrong by now.
Prunes, Glenn et al are trying to say that Muslims should not condemned for supporting violence against civilians because Christians are on record as doing the same. No? All of it is largely irrelevant anyway because the impact of the poll is to inform people of the huge numbers of Muslims in America that support or refuse to condemn al Qaeda. "You too! You too!" shout Glenn and company. And literally translated into French, that's..........
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Latin
Of course, the French translation doesn't make my point quite as well as the Latin one ;).
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Refuse to condemn...
used when reporting a response listed as DK/Refused (don't know or refused to answer) is pure McCarthyism. It's down there with pronouncing anyone who takes the fifth guilty.
I highly recommend you watch the Star Trek episode Drumhead.
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Excellent observations Hume's Ghost
Something like the holocaust or internment camps don't start out laid out in detail. First, the targets have to be thoroughly seen as "turkeys". OK to shhoot.
Count de Gobineau never said anything about the Final Solution, or advocated killing the jews. All he did was study human history, made some observations about different races and cultures, and wrote a book called "The Inequality of the Races", which he then presented to the German Kaiser at the turn of 20th century. That's all he did.
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Today's Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201463.html
Survey: U.S. Muslims Assimilated, Opposed to Extremism
By Alan CoopermanWednesday, May 23, 2007; Page A03
Unlike Muslim minorities in many European countries, U.S. Muslims are highly assimilated, close to parity with other Americans in income and overwhelmingly opposed to Islamic extremism, according to the first major, nationwide random survey of Muslims.
The survey by the Pew Research Center found that 78 percent of U.S. Muslims said the use of suicide bombings against civilian targets to defend Islam is never justified. But 5 percent said it is justified "rarely," 7 percent said "sometimes," and 1 percent said "often"; the remaining 9 percent said they did not know or declined to answer.
By comparison, Muslims in France, Spain and Britain were almost twice as likely to say suicide bombing is sometimes or often justified . . .
This would seem to indicate that there are some things that the U.S.A. is doing right and/or that France, Spain and Britain are doing wrong.
The poll shows the U.S. Muslims largely resent and disapprove of the current administration's foreign policy and domestic policy, and see those policies as discriminatory and disrespectful, so I think it's reasonable to conclude that whatever, if anything, the U.S.A. is doing right is something else, and perhaps something more fundamental - - something about the U.S.A. that makes Muslims here feel less resented and less disrespected than they feel in France, Spain and Britain.
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Oh for heaven's sake
Zahed is unconcerned that so many of his co-religionists refuse to condemn an organization that publicly seeks the death of millions of Americans. I think this poll is now focusing attention on what Muslims in America really think.
Perhaps you didn't notice the website we run (www.altmuslim.com). Have a look around particularly at the following and prove how we're unconcerned about extremism:
http://www.altmuslim.com/perm.php?id=1783_0_25_0_C
http://www.altmuslim.com/perm.php?id=1882_0_25_0_C
http://www.altmuslim.com/perm.php?id=1862_0_25_0_C
http://www.altmuslim.com/perm.php?id=1920_0_25_0_C
And before you accuse us of representing a fringe opinion, we run one of the largest networks of Muslim websites in the world (and definitely in the US), know most US Muslim personalities on a first name basis, and are invited regularly to advise on Muslim issues at high levels in the US government.
Scared yet?
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@Golden Boy
Prunes, Glenn et al are trying to say that Muslims should not condemned for supporting violence against civilians because Christians are on record as doing the same. No?
No. You are reading something that Glenn did not write.
All of it is largely irrelevant anyway because the impact of the poll is to inform people of the huge numbers of Muslims in America that support or refuse to condemn al Qaeda. "You too! You too!" shout Glenn and company. And literally translated into French, that's..........
I am guessing (and this is a big guess, because you are apparently having a hard time phrasing your argument) that you think the "correct" expected number of al Qaeda supporters is 0%.
If al Qaeda were simply a comic-book villain like Dr. Doom, we could reasonably expect this. As things are in the real world, there are a non-trivial number of Muslims who think al Qaeda's actions may benefit them and they are (incorrectly, imo) willing to overlook some amount of violence to further their goals.
The point is that a good number of people EVERYWHERE are willing to overlook civilian violence if it furthers their personal goals. If anything, the poll results show Muslims are less likely to do so than the general American populace. This may have something to do with their faith, their personal history, or their familial culture, I'd hate to guess.
I think the number of al Qaeda supporters should be 0, too, but by exclusively focusing on Muslim approval of violence, you implicitly present a false dichotomy. Why even bring up the distinction of religion, if we are not comparing Muslims and non-Muslims in this matter?
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Interesting site Zahed
Let me ask you something I was curious about after Glenn's post yesterday:
We assume all the people who came here from any muslim country are practicing muslims. Does anybody know what percentage of them are non-practicing, secular, or even anti-islamists?
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recommended reading
http://www.amazon.com/Age-Anxiety-McCarthyism-Terrorism/dp/0151010625/ref=ed_oe_h/105-5474947-8469261?ie=UTF8&qid=1179944117&sr=8-1
The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Pulitzer-winning journalist Johnson (The Best of Times) offers an engrossing account of the career of red-baiting demagogue Joseph McCarthy and a chilling description of his legacy for today. The focus is on the disturbing questions raised by McCarthyism: how could a little-known freshman senator, driven by Cold War paranoia, quickly amass the power to intimidate senior colleagues, bully the media, terrorize innocent citizens and even threaten two respected presidents? Why did fellow Republicans not reject his sleazy, dishonest tactics when they were personally revolted by them? Most urgently, are we seeing the birth of a new "age of anxiety," in which terrorism replaces communism as the bogeyman? Johnson's answer is clearly yes. He traces the current climate in Washington directly to the 1950s: "McCarthyism was a major factor in the rise of the radical Right and the polarization that plagues American life, pitting group against group and region against region, sowing cynicism and distrust, and manipulating public opinion through fear and smear." He reviews recent events, including the use of the Patriot Act to stifle dissent, the abuse and detention of thousands of American Muslims guilty of no crime, and politicians' readiness to impugn the patriotism of opponents without evidence. Johnson's own critique is not ideological; rather, his most important argument may be that ideological polarization continues to prevent us from rationally assessing and dealing with real threats.