Wednesday, July 27, 2011

On Islamophobia and Right Wing Extremism

By Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D., The Jawa Report

Rather than use quotes, I'll just give my impressions.

Dr. Shackleford seeks to distance himself from so called extremists and so called Islamophobes.  He correctly points out that those who use those terms are using them for political reasons.

These terms are not particularly useful, as he points out.  He does acknowledge their existence, however. [note: excuse the poor proofreading, I left out the word "not", which I put in italics here for emphasis]

I don't agree that Islam is as harmless as he seems to believe.  To be a Muslim means something, therefore, it should not be taken lightly.  To claim allegiance to their book, the Koran, means something.  We need to understand what it means to be one of these people and decide if that is a good thing for our society to have them around.  To be a Muslim doesn't mean that they are just like everybody else.  Something about them makes them different, and they don't seem to mix well with any society on this planet.  Failure to acknowledge that doesn't win many brownie points with yours truly.

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