Holy shit, someone else actually gets it.

Alternately, Western leftists could continue to do what they've been doing: pushing back again morally repugnant aspects of Islam that are actually being promoted by Muslims living here. Just like we tend to push back against morally repugnant aspects of Christianity and Judaism that are actually being promoted.

Yes, let's keep doing that, actually. That sounds like a much better plan.

Anaxagoras you're ridiculously naive and your name reeks of pretension.

I don't want anyone living here. Enough of the talk of walls. We need to send everyone that comes here out into the Alaskan wilderness and whoever makes it out by wrestling and/or eating bears and worms will be able to get a free Quran, regardless of whether or not they are a Muslim.

Then, everyone will be happy.

I don't understand this, unlike Europe there ins't really much radical Islam here. Islam in the states is rather benign. I fear shit like this only promotes radical Islam. Its like, "Hey lets tell these already feared and marginalized people that we hate them." Yeah, that won't breed violent radicals.
Fuck this bigoted bullshit. Stop trying to act like its merely "sensible criticism".

My critiques of this is really hammered in by the American flags these assholes carry. What they're really trying to say is "Islam is not American." You're buying in to this right wing prejudiced bullshit.

The reason why we push back against right wing Christianity and not Islam is because right wing Christians pose a far greater threat to our freedoms. Think about it, who's more likely to take your freedom? Who has the political power to do it? Not Muslims. These freaks are just spreading more fear about terrorism, while the true threat to our freedom is held by those in public office.
So many self replies, I'm not Evilhomer.

I know it's hip to hate on liberals for being totally naive and fuzzy-wuzzy and stuff, but it's not exactly a secret that the Islamic world is largely made up of non-representative governments and that Islamic societies tend to relegate women and minorities to second-class-citizen status. And I say this as a guy who spent five whole months in Qatar. I think most liberals understand that you won't have much luck changing people's minds by yelling at them. Why don't we TAKE A STAND and MARCH IN THE STREETS? Mostly because it won't do any good. Sometimes the best we can do is make sure that our own democracy functions, that the most hateful voices among us aren't amplified, and that Muslims find a way to integrate into the fabric of American life. Many, after all, already have. I'm not sure what that will look like or if it'll be successful, but I do think that shit like this doesn't help.

Cena I just want to point out you have really evolved to be an extremely reasonable guy and I really respect that.

Also I want to point out that the "slack jawed yokel" tag is ripe for linkage.

"Western leftists needs to start pushing back against Islam."

If you are arguing there is no such thing as a good Muslim, or at least that Islam is a corrosive influence that eats away at the decency in a person, then your recommendation follows.

As for myself, I am opposed to THOSE MUSLIMS WITH BAD SOCIAL IDEAS, same as I am opposed Christians with bad social ideas, and Wallachians with bad social ideas, and so forth. It's not a difficult distinction to make ... but I feel it's a necessary one.

I completely agree with Cena Mark.

after all this debate, my 5 still goes to Void

In western Europe where this is a greater problem, and can all be blamed on economics. Traditionally immigrants move into large low income communities. By cramming them in isolated neighborhoods, they've hindered hopes of assimilation.
So again I point out, these protests are stupid and will only create more division. If these European governments better planned for assimilation better this wouldn't have happened.
Just look at the USA. We're still full of black communities and white communities caused by decades of banks systematically rejecting home loans for blacks wanting to move into white neighborhoods. There are few forces more powerful than white folks protecting their property values. I assume the assimilation of Muslims into Europe was hindered by similar forces.

holy shit dude, two totally different issues there

No its not. This whole silly thing stems from fear. This is fear of the unknown. Segregation only creates more fear. Sure some of you believe this is a protest against Islam, but its really a protest against scary brown people they don't want around them.

Ehh, you push too hard and people become defensive and cloistered. You be welcoming and polite to them and slowly indoctrinate their kids into the same godless, entertainment filled secularism we all know and love and the next generation of western muslims will be as devout as your average Christmas/Easter catholic.

Back on PoE-News, nethead used to talk about his experiences in Iran, since he'd married an Iranian woman and would sometimes visit their family. Seems the country sided with the fundamentalists in the late 1970s in their desire to cast off Western tyranny (the Shah was no prize), and have been suffering from buyer's remorse ever since. The younger generations were doing a fine job of warming to Western culture, in fact, until a certain idiot started making noises about how Iran was part of an Axis of Evil.

I'm not sure where things are these days, though I suspect they're a lot better. A good nuclear treaty with Iran certainly doesn't hurt. And Obama summed a lot up in his instructions to the negotiating team:

---

... part of the psychology of Iran is rooted in past experiences, the sense that their country was undermined, that the United States or the West meddled in first their democracy and then in supporting the Shah and then in supporting Iraq and Saddam during that extremely brutal war. So part of what I’ve told my team is we have to distinguish between the ideologically driven, offensive Iran and the defensive Iran that feels vulnerable and sometimes may be reacting because they perceive that as the only way that they can avoid repeats of the past.

I'm definitely sickened by the GOP efforts to sabotage the deal with Iran. Of course we got Iran paranoid and riled up, we invaded countries on their eastern and western borders. "Same as in Iraq, and Afghanistan And Ahmadinejad say they coming for Iran."

Thank you Wikipedia, I thought Anaxagoras was the name of a video game character...

Cena: I get your point pragmatically, and I would never condone the wholesale discrimination of all Muslims (or being dumb enough to conflate Islam with racial/political identity), but the thing is....the Koran kinda sucks. Like, just from a literary or historical standpoint, defending it is like saying Godfather III is the high point of the trilogy. It's like comparing Dark Knight Rises to Dark Knight: Sure, it has its moments, but no one is gonna say Mohammed trapping every virgin in Gotham in that cave is a better plan than Jesus threatening to blow up the boat that didn't turn the key.

Side note for further discussion: Was the real trap that the detonator Jesus provided was for their OWN boat, rather than the other? That seems like the sort of prank the Lamb of God would pull.

Honor killings and genital mutilation are already p. illegal here. What does "pushing back" look like, in practice, to y'all? Should it be walking up to a guy who looks like he might be a Muslim and striking up a conversation while he's trying to read his newspaper? Is it in these weird dog whistle laws that make honor killings DOUBLE ILLEGAL? Is it more ISIS fearmongering?

Remember when religious fanatics colonized North America? Remember how they burned women because they were to lippy I mean were witches?

I ain't met a Muslim yet who was worse than the worst Catholic I've met, and I've known and know some pretty great Muslims and pretty shitty Catholics. But now Muslims are getting singled out, like what's going on in some other country has any bearing on the people who wanted to get the fuck out of that country, or who never lived there to begin with. The Left doesn't need to do anything of the sort. Maybe the Left shouldn't be talking like there ain't Western left-wing Muslims aplenty, ya bozo, or like Islam is some force that needs to be pushed back against and not the religious belief of a bunch of human beings.

But why single out the Koran when most religious writings suck?

Yeah, cena_mark said it.

Muslims are a minority, a tiny one at that. They are weird to us, so obviously they're going to be targeted by pseudo-Christian hypocrites.

But white conservative Christians have controlled half the country (or more) for a very long time. They've adversely affected the country and the world for generations. That's why it will be open season on them until a few Muslim presidents are elected, which will never happen.

Muslims treat their elders well and their women like shit. We treat our elders like shit and women dubiously. If you've ever been to a nursing home you'll see what I mean. We are barbarians, as the Romans were.

If I thought old people should die with dignity and that was a part of being a civilized society, I'd rank America at the bottom. Who cares what the Bible or the Koran says. At the bottom of the cultural iceberg we all defy common decency.

Just make sure you leave town before sunset/the banjos start playing

@Solro: Banjos (I'm guessing you're making a Deliverance reference) are more Appalachian than Midwest. Hillbillies are the group of mostly Scots Irish that inhabit the Appalachian region. These, like many Muslims that emigrate from the Middle East, are a mostly misunderstood group of people.

For example:

Hillbillies = inbred ignorant rural folk.

Muslims = regressive religious fanatics.

I'm starting to fear that's you're some awfully ignorant foreigner, SolRo. Your attempts at sarcastic humor pain me. I do not laugh heartily at your insulting attempts to make a point about some profound cultural issue. I am tired.

I grew up in Michigan too, it really is a beautiful state. bombislam.com

Baron, you're clueless.

No, the good Baron is correct. You're extremely biased, SolRo, and the worst part of it is, the people who've constructed your world view have done so in such a way that you cannot see your own racism! You have this vision in your head that the entire world is full of ignorant, hateful outsiders, and the irony of it is, the behavior which you theorize your enemies engage in is the very behavior you yourself are most guilty of.

I've said this before, but I really think it would help you if you made a conscious effort to expand your horizons a bit. Maybe you could spend a summer volunteering with AmeriCorps, helping rural communities in West Virgina, getting to know those people instead of shitting on them all the time?

Jesus Christ SolRo, you're getting like 50 cliches mixed up. That's like saying "Well, if you go to Africa, just be sure to head home before they bang a gong with their chopsticks, because once they put those parkas on, boy howdy are they gonna chow down on some chitlins and collard greens at TGI Fridays! Heil Stalin!"

Here, watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbvJiEQzUPU

Honestly, I think a lot of them would still be full of hate and bile. A decent economic status and a bunch of social connections don't always safeguard against nonsense like this. There are plenty of rich Republicans, after all, who spend a lot of time thinking about how poor Mexicans and homosexuals are ruining everything. Some people just do not like people who are not like them, and that's the end of it. Basically tribal, they need some Other to push against, even if it's not immediately necessary to their own survival.

So Trump hates muslims and because poor people are poor they're stupid and fearful so they march to The Apprentice theme and want to lynch all brown people who the rich brought in.
I bet a lot of people privately laugh at you, Binro.

The unifying, underlining belief shared by all conservatives is the overwhelming need to have other people beneath you. Life is a raft and if you're not floating on top of a sea of your lessers, then you're sinking.

It doesn't matter how rich you get. You always need people beneath you.

We all have that instinct, Nominal. My point is, it's usually easier to overcome that instinct when you feel safe and comfortable.

It's hard to be mad at people who succumb to their darker sides when they're being manipulated by assholes with tons of resources and experts at their disposal.

It's a global rally for some humanity.

That's an interesting theory, but I'd challenge it based on the fact that this day of protest did not just occur in Dearborn. At least 20 protests were planned against Muslims across the country.

This is on the backs of organized, institutionalized hatred of Muslims far outside of Dearborn.

Maybe what you're saying contributes to this particular protest. Maybe there's a Tulsa race riot or Zoot Suit riot aspect to it: Angry white rednecks pissed off that minorities are showing flash. It doesn't describe the epidemic on a national level though.