I'm going to piss all of you off now.
Why is it there's only two sides in this debate that get shown? There are the idiots who support Trump's actions, and there's the idiots who defend Islam. Both are utterly indefensible by any means, whether practical or moral. Both are utterly despicable, nonsensical emotional reactions that don't help america and don't represent reality at all.
Micheal is right:
Quote:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
America used to stand for things that were almost unheard of in centuries past: Freedom. Welcoming, open arms, to show the world a better way. Oh, there were other countries that agreed, but America lead the way. Religion, creed, race -- these things should be irrelevant. Any truly patriotic American should be the first one to shout these things from the rooftops. Any human who values liberty should get tears in their eyes when they read the words of Emma Lazarus. Anyone who dares to think America needs to change its policies in response to those who despise freedom are no better than those who want to bring America down, since the end result is the same.
But notice a line in Emma's sonnet:
Quote:
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...
Don't get me wrong. I know many Muslims who cherish the freedoms we have in the west. They may worship Allah, but they are assimilated and westernized. They respect women, homosexuals. They have no calls for action against blasphemy, they do not try to implement Sharia law here, they would never want it.
Unfortunately, this does not represent all the Muslim people that want to come to the west. Thousands do not "yearn to breathe free." They want to prevent everyone else from "breathing free." Even among immigrants who choose to move to a free country, there are a more than significant number who come here and then try to remake their tyrannical sandbox shitholes. Refugees are more precarious -- it is undoubtedly sad that they need to flee such horrible conditions, and I'm all for humanitarian aid for them. However, they did not choose to come here because they wanted to live free. They were not fleeing Sharia law, they were fleeing war and violence. (Admittedly, Sharia law itself is pretty violent, but there is a difference.) Before we ever admit refugees, we must do what we can to ensure that
they want to live in a way compatible with secular western society. Islam is
not a "religion of peace," even insofar as it's possible for any religion to be. (Really, I'd only call Jainism a "religion of peace." Not that it's a good idea.) Islam is a violent, intolerant, wicked ideology that, if followed too closely, results in exactly the Jihadist violence we are seeing from the Islamic world. Sure, one can correctly argue that the bible is just as violent and disgusting, but the worst examples of Christians we see today in America are the Westboro Baptists, and even they aren't killing anyone. Islam needs to be called out for what it is doing. No matter what idiots like Noam Chomsky say, the west is not responsible for this violence. Islam, exclusively, must bear that responsibility. You cannot make progress toward peace until you accept this fact, and until we work toward reforming the faith into something else. This is possible. Christendom has changed from a murderous, tyrrany-inducing, war-mongering force of evil, to the impotent collection of meaningless platitudes it is today through precisely such a change. Stop hiding your heads in the sands and wake up. The threat from this religion is real. The overreaction of Trump supporters to it is preferable to pretending it does not exist.