The eternal flame of Muslim outrage

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The unreasoning hatred and derision of muslims which plays out on here on a daily basis?

[twowls 217]

Well, they're either factual, or not. There is no real middle ground here.

In a one-dimensional way, sure. But language and context matter, and things can be both "factual" and "outrageously biased, mean-spirited, and designed to demonize." Think about opinion polls. Gauging opinion of allowing gay people to openly serve in the military, Option 1: "Would you support allowing all willing and qualified people, no matter their sexual orientation, to serve their country? Option 2: "Would you support forcing our heroic soldiers to shower and bunk with declared homosexuals?"

Language is incredibly powerful. We do not swim in a neutral sea of facts/not facts.

But MM doesn't win by default. What I'm trying to encourage is reasoned argument. Discounting the entirety of what someone wrote because you disagree with who wrote it doesn't count as reasoned argument. It's just lazy. Because when the admission is made that the facts quoted were just that, facts, it diminishes the credibility of the person who initially dismissed the article. The worst part is that just because the instances quoted by MM are factual doesn't prove her premise, it just means she did the research to get her facts right.

I guess so. If the desire is just to mark off a checklist--fact, fact, needs more support, fact--well okay. But I don't think that qualifies as a reasoned argument either. Reasoned arguments, in my opinion, are more dynamic, inclusive, discerning, and rigorous. They involve layers of meaning.

Then the option is there not to enter a discussion. If an overwhelming bias and intolerance for a commentator's viewpoint is pre-existing, I'd suggest the best policy is to remain silent. However, there are some in this community, who appear congenitally incapable of passing up the chance for a bunfight.

I am indeed intolerant of Michelle Malkin and others that are so far to the end of the spectrum they have become mindless caricatures. I believe that Michelle Malkin is so warped, so hateful and poisonous, that she does not deserve serious debate. And as for just covering my ears and walking on by when someone slips her into the conversation as a reliable source, well, I think that's irresponsible. I will stand up to someone holding a hateful sign on the street or inciting wide scale intolerance in any way. I don't think my intolerance of Michelle Malkin is some kind of handicap to reasoned discussion. I think intolerance of Michelle Malkin and all hate-spewing ideologues is the beginning of reasoned discussion.

I thought the idea of the Politics and Religion forum was just that, to entertain serious discussion. Which is why the decent alcohol thread is buried somewhere in the UK forum.

Where is this fabled alcohol thread? Intolerance is thirsty work.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

There is no reasoned argument put forward by these hack columnists. Those guys are all of a muchness IMO, if someone is really interested in the subject they could find better, more scholarly than these tabloid hacks - but the folks on here who post this stuff and defend it can't,won't or are ignorant of how to find information outside of tabloid sources.

The MM's and Ann Coulter's have a very specific MO in writing this kind of article - they cook up a premise based on their preconceptions and prejudices (and those of their audience) and then go out and find facts to support them. Stringing together disparate facts in an article filled with loaded language and vitriolic rhetoric isn't "reasoned argument", nor does it reflect reality - but rather the reality that they want to believe.

Edited September 13, 2010 by Its a MADHOUSE

[Peikko 1,575]

Trying to persuade those who love this kind of thing that what you say is true is pointless - the reason they read it and lap it up is the reason why they will not go to more authoritative source material in order to form more educated opinions.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Trying to persuade those who love this kind of thing that what you say is true is pointless - the reason they read it and lap it up is the reason why they will not go to more authoritative source material in order to form more educated opinions.

Incidentally, the fact that these people conspicuously use sensationalist tabloid writers (as distinct to tabloid journalist) goes some way to proving that they are prejudiced, bigoted individuals and makes their protestations to the contrary rather unconvincing.

[SMR 368]

Wow, Madhouse and MC, that was an impressive string of back and forth ego mutual-masturbation. I hope the two of you feel justified now.

Yes, Michelle Malkin has an opinion and she doesn't try to hide it. But that fact alone doesn't discredit her. Did she search for facts that support her opinion? Absolutely. But the reality is that those facts do support her opinion. Unless you can either demonstrate that her facts are incorrect or else at least provide evidence that disputes her point of view, you don't have any basis to dispute her conclusion.

The two of you spend a lot of time criticizing the research and intelligence of others but don't provide much research or evidence yourselves and don't even provide reasoned arguments for debate. Instead you go back and forth complimenting each other on your levels of enlightenment and horroring in the supposed ignorance of others. That's not an argument.

[Peikko 1,575]

Wow, Madhouse and MC, that was an impressive string of back and forth ego mutual-masturbation. I hope the two of you feel justified now.

Yes, Michelle Malkin has an opinion and she doesn't try to hide it. But that fact alone doesn't discredit her. Did she search for facts that support her opinion? Absolutely. But the reality is that those facts do support her opinion. Unless you can either demonstrate that her facts are incorrect or else at least provide evidence that disputes her point of view, you don't have any basis to dispute her conclusion.

The two of you spend a lot of time criticizing the research and intelligence of others but don't provide much research or evidence yourselves and don't even provide reasoned arguments for debate. Instead you go back and forth complimenting each other on your levels of enlightenment and horroring in the supposed ignorance of others. That's not an argument.

That you can't see anything wrong with Ms Malkin tells me all I need to know. Thanks.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Wow, Madhouse and MC, that was an impressive string of back and forth ego mutual-masturbation. I hope the two of you feel justified now.

Yes, Michelle Malkin has an opinion and she doesn't try to hide it. But that fact alone doesn't discredit her. Did she search for facts that support her opinion? Absolutely. But the reality is that those facts do support her opinion. Unless you can either demonstrate that her facts are incorrect or else at least provide evidence that disputes her point of view, you don't have any basis to dispute her conclusion.

The two of you spend a lot of time criticizing the research and intelligence of others but don't provide much research or evidence yourselves and don't even provide reasoned arguments for debate. Instead you go back and forth complimenting each other on your levels of enlightenment and horroring in the supposed ignorance of others. That's not an argument.

Of course the facts support Malkin's opinion - because Malkin cherrypicked them to support her sensationalist, tabloid agenda.

There is no "research" behind that opinion - to call it that is fanciful at best. Malkin's opinion is merely a collection of disparate news headlines cobbled together with loaded language and sensationalist rhetoric.

She tries to make a case about the entire "muslim world" on the basis of those headlines when the reality is that the issues are a lot bigger and lot more complex.

As I say, if individuals are really interested this subject they can find more scholarly opinions than that of tabloid hacks. The fact that they don't speaks to their prejudice, IMO.

[Craneman 2]

WHO CARES ??

The unreasoning hatred and derision of muslims which plays out on here on a daily basis?

GET A LIFE

Incidentally, the fact that these people conspicuously use sensationalist tabloid writers (as distinct to tabloid journalist) goes some way to proving that they are prejudiced, bigoted individuals and makes their protestations to the contrary rather unconvincing.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The eternal flame of Muslim outrage[/size]

by Michelle Malkin

Shhhhhhh, we’re told. Don’t protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don’t burn a Koran. It’ll imperil the troops. It’ll inflame tensions. The “Muslim world” will “explode” if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national security-threatening impudence, but when is the “Muslim world” not ready to “explode”?

This takes an adversarial stance right off the bat, no attempt at discussion is being attempted here - she writes in the first person plural almost as a direct appeal to an audience that feels the same way as her, and who are approaching the subject based on a divisive, preconceived agenda of hatred towards muslims.

For anyone who needs hand-holding - I have indicated the loaded language in red.

At the risk of provoking the ever-volatile Religion of Perpetual Outrage, let us count the little-noticed and forgotten ways.

Just a few months ago in Kashmir, faithful Muslims rioted over what they thought was a mosque depicted on underwear sold by street vendors. The mob shut down businesses and clashed with police over the blasphemous skivvies. But it turned out there was no need for Allah’s avengers to get their holy knickers in a bunch. The alleged mosque was actually a building resembling London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. A Kashmiri law enforcement official later concluded the protests were “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

More emotive, loaded language. The bolded is actually something I've been saying for awhile - but she doesn't bother exploring that angle (it's too difficult for her).

Indeed, art and graphics have an uncanny way of vitiating the Muslim world’s atmosphere. In 1994, Muslims threatened German supermodel Claudia Schiffer with death after she wore a Karl Lagerfeld-designed dress printed with a saying from the Koran.

In 1997, outraged Muslims forced Nike to recall 800,000 shoes because they claimed the company’s “Air” logo looked like the Arabic script for “Allah.”[/b] In 1998, another conflagration spread over Unilever’s ice cream logo — which Muslims claimed looked like “Allah” if read upside-down and backward (can’t recall what they said it resembled if you viewed it with 3D glasses).

Even more explosively, in 2002, an al-Qaida-linked jihadist cell plotted to blow up Bologna, Italy’s Church of San Petronio because it displayed a 15th century fresco depicting Mohammed being tormented in the ninth circle of Hell. For years, Muslims had demanded that the art come down. Counterterrorism officials in Europe caught the would-be bombers on tape scouting out the church and exclaiming, “May Allah bring it all down. It will all come down.”

That same year, Nigerian Muslims stabbed, bludgeoned or burned to death 200 people in protest of the Miss World beauty pageant — which they considered an affront to Allah. They shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” And “Down with beauty!” And “Miss World is sin!” Contest organizers fled out of fear of inflaming further destruction.

So we jump back to 1994 to 1998 to 2002 - and these facts are not cherrypicked? She doesn't even mention what country these incidents took place in (well except for the Italian Church) and vague references to Nigerian muslims (presumably this happened in Nigeria I assume?)

This is done deliberately to suggest that there is no difference in muslim attitudes or behaviour - and that these incidents are somehow endorsed by all (or most) muslims.

Of the purple part - of course they do. All of them. Every one

When Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel joked that Mohammed would have approved of the pageant and that “in all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them,” her newspaper rushed to print three retractions and apologies in a row. It didn’t stop Muslim vigilantes from torching the newspaper’s offices. A fatwa was issued on Daniel’s life by a Nigerian official in the sharia-ruled state of Zamfara, who declared that “the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed. It is abiding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty.” Daniel fled to Norway.

In 2005, British Muslims got all hot and bothered over a Burger King ice cream cone container whose swirly-texted label resembled, you guessed it, the Arabic script for “Allah.” The restaurant chain yanked the product in a panic and prostrated itself before the Muslim world. But the fast-food dessert had already become a handy radical Islamic recruiting tool. Rashad Akhtar, a young British Muslim, told Harper’s Magazine how the ice cream caper had inspired him: “Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad. I’m not going to rest until I find the person who is responsible. I’m going to bring this country down.”

In 2007, Muslims combusted again in Sudan after an infidel elementary school teacher innocently named a classroom teddy bear “Mohammed.” Protesters chanted, “Kill her, kill her by firing squad!” and “No tolerance — execution!” She was arrested, jailed and faced 40 lashes for blasphemy before being freed after eight days. Not wanting to cause further inflammation, the teacher rushed to apologize: “I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress.”

And who could forget the global Danish cartoon riots of 2006 (instigated by imams who toured Egypt stoking hysteria with faked anti-Islam comic strips)? From Afghanistan to Egypt to Lebanon to Libya, Pakistan, Turkey and in between, hundreds died under the pretext of protecting Mohammed from Western slight, and brave journalists who stood up to the madness were threatened with beheading. It wasn’t really about the cartoons at all, of course. Little-remembered is the fact that Muslim bullies were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. The chairmanship of the council was passing to Denmark at the time. Yes, it was just another in a long line of manufactured Muslim explosions that were, to borrow a useful phrase, “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

When everything from sneakers to stuffed animals to comics to frescos to beauty queens to fast-food packaging to undies serves as dry tinder for Allah’s avengers, it’s a grand farce to feign concern about the recruitment effect of a few burnt Korans in the hands of a two-bit attention-seeker in Florida. The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.

More of the same - apparently muslims around the world (even in developed countries) are all of a muchness.

Seriously SMR - do you really want to give credence to this kind of BS as the basis of a discussion about... what is this discussion about exactly...

WHO CARES ??

GET A LIFE

If you don't care, why do you care to post here to say "WHO CARES?"

Makes you look like a bit of a fool, does it not?

Edited September 13, 2010 by Its a MADHOUSE

[SMR 368]

I didn't say that Malkin wasn't being adversarial. In fact, I said that she clearly has her own opinion from the beginning. I also didn't contend that she didn't pick facts that would specifically support her claims. So now that you've spent 3 or so screens of text and quotes arguing something that I already said I agreed with, can you provide a reason that Malkin's facts are flawed or any facts that would refute her position? If she really is just cherry-picking her facts, there aught to be a lot of other facts that disprove her position (or at least call it into question).

Edited September 13, 2010 by SMR

[Bibi and Beebti 4]

Uhmmm...pardon my interference in this discussion, but there are 1.3-1.5 BILLION Muslims accross the world (that's 25% of the planet) we are told 80% of which live in Asia alone. So all the way from the USA to CHINA my friend.

Why are we focusing on some Afghan guerilla mobs to 'showcase the violence of Muslims' EVERYWHERE? does that really make sense to you? are you serious ?

here's a population map of Muslims from across the world:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Islam_map.gif

And Islam is growing fast among African American and Latino communities across the Americas. it's worth looking into why this is still a growing trend (as opposed to emphasizing Afghanistan as the epitome of Islamic statehood-which is ridiculous of course)

I also noticed some inaccuracies in some of the posts here. Christians actually live in the Muslim world, side by side, in peace with fellow Muslims. I have visited many Muslim countries and regions and observed this personally. People are not violated because they are Christian, that's absurd, and maybe you haven't travelled enough around the world to see for yourself. American Media has gotten the best of you.

I'm a convert from Christianity by the way (to Islam) and no where in the Quraan does it incite any violence against 'Christians' as you say, and Muslims would never actually burn the Bible. Reason being .. ? here's a passage from the Qur'an that may explain this a little better than I would ..

" When the angels said, 'O Mary, God gives thee glad tidings of a son through a word from HIM; his name shall be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, honoured in this world and in the next, and of those who are granted nearness to God;

And he shall speak to the people in the cradle, and when of middle age, and he shall be of righteousness.

She said, 'My Lord, how shall I have a son, when no man has been close to me? He said, 'Such is the way of God. HE creates what HE wills. When HE decrees a thing HE says to it 'Be,' and it is;"—Qur'an, Surah 3:38-48 "

Of Mary:

"God hath chosen thee and purified thee and chosen thee above women of all nations " Surah 3:42-44

Of the prophets of all monothiestic religions:

"Say ye: We believe in God (Allah), and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Ismael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes and that given to Moses and Jesus and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between one and another of them. And we submit to the will of our Lord." Surah, 2:136)

Anyway, in case you havent actually read the Quraan yourself (which I'm assuming you haven't based on your perceptions here), there are also complete chapters dedicated to Mary titled 'Mary', and dedicated to Jesus, Son of Mary, titled 'Jesus, Son of Mary'

To be Muslim it is REQUIRED that you have love for Mary, Jesus, Moses, Abraham and many other prophets, we simply don't believe God had any children, and that Jesus was equally a messenger to the 'sons of Israel' (you know, the same Jews who actually crucified him at the time).

Like the sad pastor who believed burning another's holy book would erase their memory, and the Muslims that reacted so strongly to it, your comments also support a trend of ignorance (or should I say lack of knowledge to be respectful) and intolerance. OH...BY THE WAY did you know that 'burning' (in Islam and some other religions, including Judaism) is actually the respectful way of discarding that which has the name of God written on it. as opposed to throwing in your backyard's trash.

No, I didn't think you did, neither did the pastor...neither did the Afghani that chanted 'death to Christians' because the sad pastor was burning his holy book.

I really hope true tolerance, based on true knowledge starts to prevail...because it's only ignorance that really breeds hatred between people, not what religion they belong to.

peace out, assalam aleikum (that means peace be unto you).

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I didn't say that Malkin wasn't being adversarial. In fact, I said that she clearly has her own opinion from the beginning. I also didn't contend that she didn't pick facts that would specifically support her claims. So now that you've spent 3 or so screens of text and quotes arguing something that I already said I agreed with, can you provide a reason that Malkin's facts are flawed or any facts that would refute her position? If she really is just cherry-picking her facts, there aught to be a lot of other facts that disprove her position (or at least call it into question).

I gave her article more than the attention it deserves. The facts in themselves aren't suspect (if you take her word at face value - although both her and Ann Coulter have been criticised in the past for getting their facts demonstrably wrong), what is suspect is the arrangement and the composition of those facts and the narrative that accompanies them that supports unsupportable conclusions.

Quite simply, there are more "facts" out there than Malkin has presented. She wants to write off all muslims as being extremists or supporters of terrorism. That doesn't leave any room for dialogue, and indeed Malkin and the people who lap up her brand of #######-juice aren't looking to have one.

Edited September 13, 2010 by Its a MADHOUSE

[DEDixon 39]

Wow, Madhouse and MC, that was an impressive string of back and forth ego mutual-masturbation. I hope the two of you feel justified now.

Yes, Michelle Malkin has an opinion and she doesn't try to hide it. But that fact alone doesn't discredit her. Did she search for facts that support her opinion? Absolutely. But the reality is that those facts do support her opinion. Unless you can either demonstrate that her facts are incorrect or else at least provide evidence that disputes her point of view, you don't have any basis to dispute her conclusion.

The two of you spend a lot of time criticizing the research and intelligence of others but don't provide much research or evidence yourselves and don't even provide reasoned arguments for debate. Instead you go back and forth complimenting each other on your levels of enlightenment and horroring in the supposed ignorance of others. That's not an argument.

neither knows anything about either religion and all comments from these two have been elementary at best. no idea why they participate in threads which surely are beyond their intellect. lame elementary rebuttals because they are greatly lacking in subject matter expertise.

[DEDixon 39]

I could go farther back in history and we could talk about the crusades, or the spanish inquisition or even the protestant witch trials. This stuff is happening around the world and in our own backyards

the difference is that with islam/muslims, we don't need to "go farther back in history."