Dale, this speaks a lot more about the majority of American Muslim leaders than it does about Mr. Miftah. Can you imagine a Catholic being expelled from a parish and excommunicated because he dared to criticize molesting priests and enabling bishops when the clerical sex-abuse crisis broke in Boston in 2002?
(OTOH, there are all-too-many Catholic bloggers who would do just that; just look at how some of them treated Rod Dreher).
Then there's the spectre of imams acting like terrorists on board a domestic flight. Can you imagine priests behaving in such a way?
Then there's the spectre of a judge publicly supporting Hezbollah winning a seat on a district court in your own state, Dale. Can you imagine a Catholic judge publicaly supporting the IRA?
Let's be honest, Dale. The number of truly moderate Muslims compared to the jihadists is a tiny minority, not the other way around. The evidence is everywhere, in case anybody wants to look.
Just nuke em all, huh, Joe?
This does say something about the majority of Mohammedans in Tulsa though.
Franklin, your desire for cheap humor (very cheap, as is bargain-basement-from-Hong-Kong cheap) at my expense shows how little you really understand about Islam.
For a crash course, go to Robert Spencer's Web site (www.jihadwatch.org) or read anything by Walid Shoebat, a former Palestinian terrorist who converted to Christianity.
Nah, Joe, my esteem for your extraordinarily outlandish position is even lower.
I'm familiar with Spencer, not so much shoebat, and I doubt I'd disagree with their, or your, assessment of the evils of Mohammedism. But as Chesterton observed, even though we both agree in diagnose, we differ in our proposed treatments., since I don't see how radiation is warranted.
"agree in diagnosIS" I mean
OK, let me step in here.
(1) Joe has never made any such comments here. If he had, the ban button would have been activated. I, too, find Tancredoist suggestions along those lines to be morally repugnant.
(2) I have some understanding that he has repudiated the radiological comments, as he has other similarly unacceptable over-the-top statements.
(3) Joe has retracted and promised not to engage in cheap shots here, and he's been good about it. Let's not jab with sticks, all right?
And to reply to part of your comment, Joe:
I think that the number of publically moderate Muslims is miniscule and vastly outweighed by the radicals, who tend to cow the others into silence. I think the burden is on you to show that the silence of the majority is consent and not fear of reprisal. Remember, not one Muslim immigrant to America has come from a free society. There are ingrained habits to break on that point as well.
Of course, that's disturbing enough.
But remember that most cells that have been broken in America have in part occurred because of tips from the community.
Remember, not one Muslim immigrant to America has come from a free society. There are ingrained habits to break on that point as well.
Sorry to be persnickety (and repetitive), but the value of freedom is much more qualified in social relations in general than it is in political life. My grandmother did not grow up in a free society, but in a late Victorian one. I think it fairer to day that liberal-democratic practices do not have a long pedigree in Muslim countries. However, there are ongoing experiments in constitutional government in about a dozen predominanatly Muslim countries. In the case of Senegal, this has been ongoing for thirty years now. A number of Muslim immigrants come from (provisionally) free polities, as well as from states which are not free but which are not severely governed and have measures of pluralism (e.g. Malaysia and Morocco).
But remember that most cells that have been broken in America have in part occurred because of tips from the community.
Do you have hard evidence of this, Dale? If so, then I'd like to see it.
If your statement is true, then did those tips come from Muslim laity or imams? That *is* an important difference.
How many of those cells have been discovered through tips and how many remain? That's also an important question.
Even if your assertions are true, Dale, that still doesn't deny the fact that, right now, Islam is a religion that seeks to subjugate non-Muslims through violence and intimidation. Heck, you've got Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq trying to do the same thing to each other; where are the "peaceful" imams, sheikhs and theologians willing to stop this behavior?
I rest my case.
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