They hate us for our freedoms

by folkbum

Ergo, the Schlafly group believes, we should eliminate those freedoms, starting with the First Amendment.

Is it 2012 yet?

451° Stupid

by folkbum

The latest So There! argument from my commenters (a So There! argument is a point so stupid that a reasonable response is impossible to craft because of the enormity of the stupid; see, for example, this video, taken by those on the right as a So There! on global warming but by those on the left as proof that some Congressmen are too stupid for their own good)--

By now you've lost the thread. I get it. Take two:

The latest So There! argument from my commenters is that because radical Islamists will use Quran-burning among Americans as a recruitment tool and potentially ratchet up the violence against American troops or other targets, therefore Islam as a whole is not a peaceful religion. So There!

See what I mean? It's hard to know where to start. But I suppose I will start with a question, as simple one, and if the commenters can honestly answer the question, maybe we can move on from there.

Why do you want to burn the Quran in the first place?

I mean, I think I know the answer. I think it's clear that a certain segment of the American right wants to provoke the exact reaction described above. Their worldview begins and ends with "teh mooslems is scary!" and they need occasional validation of this. That's why a peaceful Sufi congregation in Manhattan seeking to fix up its existing overflow prayer location has been transformed into a hive of radical jihadists bent on building a "victory mosque" at Ground Zero. And it's why the haters--Fred Phelps has been doing this for years, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks Phelps is anything other than a giant douchebag--that's why the haters want to burn Qurans. That's why, in a fit of utter imbecility, the burners have argued that "moderate Muslims" should want to burn the Quran, too: If you aren't willing to burn your own holy book, it just proves that you're a terrorist too, and that I'm right to hate all of you, even the moderates.

Otherwise, why do it? What's the point? What do you prove by burning a book, any book, ever?

The best defense against radical Islam

by folkbum

. . . is moderate Islam:

A two-year study by a group of academics on American Muslims and terrorism concluded that contemporary mosques are actually a deterrent to the spread of militant Islam and terrorism. The study was conducted by professors with Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the University of North Carolina. It disclosed that many mosque leaders had put significant effort into countering extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring antiviolence forums and scrutinizing teachers and texts.

Radicalization of alienated Muslim youths is a real threat, [Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky] said. “But the youth we worry about,” he said, “are not the youth that come to the mosque.”

Remember that Osama bin Laden wants the Cordoba Initiative to fail just as much as Sarah Palin does.