Islam's "Grey Zone"

[84HuskerLaw]

 

Is not using the term "Islamic Extremist/Extremism" a Democrat thing or an Obama thing? I thought it was just an Obama thing.

 

Obama has explained why he uses the verbiage he uses:

 

Obama has explained his verbal strategy as an effort to isolate the group. Earlier this year, Obama said its members are "desperate for legitimacy."

 

"They try to portray themselves as religious leaders — holy warriors in defense of Islam," Obama said at the close of a summit on violent extremism Feb. 22. "That’s why ISIL presumes to declare itself the ‘Islamic State.’ And they propagate the notion that America — and the West, generally — is at war with Islam."

 

Obama went on to say "we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam."

 

This wording isn’t all that different from former President George W. Bush’s language following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and at the onset of the war in Afghanistan.

 

"This great nation of many religions understands, our war is not against Islam, or against faith practiced by the Muslim people. Our war is a war against evil," Bush said in January 2002.

 

 

LINK

 

 

I've gotta think guys like Ameer Abdullah probably appreciate the distinction Obama is making there.

 

Obama being Muslim himself probably has a better understanding of the difference better than most.

 

These ISIS thugs as some would would call them, are not following the true rule of the Quran, just as not all of those who say they are Christians follow the true rule of the Bible.

 

LOL This goes directly to some of the problem many reality based people have with all this political correctness (nothing correct about it of course). Obama claims he is a Christian but after the amount of time we have all now had to listen and watch him perform as President, it is pretty obvious to most who will have the open mind to consider it, that Obama is in fact a Muslim. All of these efforts to conceal and downplay and basically hide from public discourse the dangerous and hateful nature of the Muslim belief system (I use that term instead of 'religion' because Islam is much more than or different from religion in the common understanding of most Americans in my view) as obvious. The left, for some inexplicable reasons, seems obsessed with the idea of defending and protecting Muslims from the criticism they love to dish out on Christians. The best guess for this would be that Muslims are the next and latest big social group targeted by the Democrats as necessary to capture and be a devoted part of their voter base. Democrats sell their political souls for the undying commitment of various voter groups/blocks. It would be funny if it were not so seriously threatening to the future survival of our democratic society and governmental form.

[zoogs]

Oh ... my ... god.

[knapplc]

There's no place for that kind of hate here. Really.

[BigRedBuster]

 

And paragraphs are a form of terrorism too.

 

I'm in favor of using the term "Radical Paragraphist".

[TAKODA]

Oops, sorry for that!

 

I mean, it was a simple statement, to stir up additional commentary, thus raising our Alexa rankings, due to additional clicks.

[NM11046]

Oh my - after saying "what?" Outloud as I read through the last few parts of this thread I am laughing my head off.

[Danny Bateman]

I had a bunch of Middle Eastern roommates in college. Most of them were Muslims. My school had a very good foreign exchange program.

 

Not once did any of them lay into me for being Christian. Or try to kill me. They seemed to rather liked it here.

 

There was one who refused to take a slice of pizza I offered him once. It was because it had ham on it. What a hate-filled ass, amirite?

[TAKODA]

 

 

Is not using the term "Islamic Extremist/Extremism" a Democrat thing or an Obama thing? I thought it was just an Obama thing.

 

Obama has explained why he uses the verbiage he uses:

 

Obama has explained his verbal strategy as an effort to isolate the group. Earlier this year, Obama said its members are "desperate for legitimacy."

 

"They try to portray themselves as religious leaders — holy warriors in defense of Islam," Obama said at the close of a summit on violent extremism Feb. 22. "That’s why ISIL presumes to declare itself the ‘Islamic State.’ And they propagate the notion that America — and the West, generally — is at war with Islam."

 

Obama went on to say "we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam."

 

This wording isn’t all that different from former President George W. Bush’s language following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and at the onset of the war in Afghanistan.

 

"This great nation of many religions understands, our war is not against Islam, or against faith practiced by the Muslim people. Our war is a war against evil," Bush said in January 2002.

 

 

LINK

 

 

I've gotta think guys like Ameer Abdullah probably appreciate the distinction Obama is making there.

 

Obama being Muslim himself probably has a better understanding of the difference better than most.

 

These ISIS thugs as some would would call them, are not following the true rule of the Quran, just as not all of those who say they are Christians follow the true rule of the Bible.

 

LOL This goes directly to some of the problem many reality based people have with all this political correctness (nothing correct about it of course). Obama claims he is a Christian but after the amount of time we have all now had to listen and watch him perform as President, it is pretty obvious to most who will have the open mind to consider it, that Obama is in fact a Muslim. All of these efforts to conceal and downplay and basically hide from public discourse the dangerous and hateful nature of the Muslim belief system (I use that term instead of 'religion' because Islam is much more than or different from religion in the common understanding of most Americans in my view) as obvious. The left, for some inexplicable reasons, seems obsessed with the idea of defending and protecting Muslims from the criticism they love to dish out on Christians. The best guess for this would be that Muslims are the next and latest big social group targeted by the Democrats as necessary to capture and be a devoted part of their voter base. Democrats sell their political souls for the undying commitment of various voter groups/blocks. It would be funny if it were not so seriously threatening to the future survival of our democratic society and governmental form.

 

 

84HuskerLaw, I will not speak to the stricken portion of your post but I will give you a link to ponder regarding the part of your post, that is left.

 

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050

 

 

If current trends continue, by 2050 …

• The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.

[Danny Bateman]

 

If this is just an "Obama thing" then I stand corrected. It sure seems like a bigger group of people pushing for this than just one person. Again, I don't give a rip if someone so chooses to just us "terrorists" and leave out any terms related to Islam. But, I also don't have a problem if someone includes them either.

Until Obama's jack-booted thugs kick in your door and haul you away.

No, Knapp, you got your wires crossed.

 

The jack-booted thugs are coming for your GUNS, not the people!

 

Once he successfully confiscates all of those, he's free to implement martial law and rule over this country for many more decades.

[The Dude]

There's something about this interview that I find rather interesting.

 

Soooo....here we have the Democrats being the main group that is chirping the thought that we should not be using the "islamic extremist" label.

 

However, here is their main TV media (bought and paid for) outlet doing a wonderful interview with a guy who self proclaims to be an ex-Islamic extremist and during the entire 20 minute interview, they have a caption at the bottom saying this guy is a "reformed Islamic Extremist". During the interview, he constantly talks about being an Islamist and radicalized Muslim.

 

Why do I find this somewhat hypocritical? I thought we weren't supposed to use all those terms and phrases.

What's more is if the regressive left had their way, we couldn't even have the kinds of honest discussions about Islam that allowed that young man to turn his life around because, you know, that's gross, and racist.

 

[Danny Bateman]

The fear is - and it's a reasonable fear - that if we associate terrorists with all of Islam, innocent Muslims like Ameer Abdullah will be persecuted.

 

Who wants to read a story about Ameer getting shot in a mosque during prayer, or any of his family?

This already happens. Not Muslims getting outright shot, of course, but mosques are vandalized and hatred is disseminated outwards toward Muslims, even here in my own city. It's incredibly disappointing and hearkens me back to what I've only seen in media directed at African Americans during the Civil Rights era.

 

Landlord's "being frank is fine" post was tremendous. No one is saying that any of us can't say "radical Islamic terrorism." It's silly to suggest that anyone is trying to bar anyone else from uttering that. It's equally silly to suggest that drawing that specific distinction is somehow the key to dealing with the situation. It's a pitifully shallow talking point used against Obama.

 

The two things we do know about the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism": It CAN possibly make it easier for these terrorist groups to legitimize their worldview and recruit for their cause, and it DOES open the floodgates for bigots with agenda in hand and hate in their heart to go around spewing more hate.

[The Dude]

 

What a wonderful, important human being. This is an interview absolutely everyone should see. While I do understand many on the left have their hearts in the right place. It's absolutely imperative that people understand these are the types that are being undermined when pushing this erroneous belief that Islamism and jihadism have nothing to do with Islam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkerd1Cgl1M

I obviously can only speak for myself, but I'm guessing I cover a few folks when I say, nobody is arguing that Jihadism has nothing to do with Islam, but that NOT EVERY Muslim (Islamic??) is radical and dangerous. In fact the majority of Islamists are peaceful people.

The bold is a problem in confusion over terminology. I'll try to clarify that a little to the best of my knowledge.

 

Muslims - These are the "good guys" who believe in our secular ideas of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. These are the Maajid Nawaz and the Malala Yousafzais of the world. The optimist in me says they make up somewhere between 75-80% of the Muslim population.

 

Islamists (Islamism) - These are radicals by any reasonable definition. They don't believe in freedom of speech or freedom of religion. They believe Sharia Law should be the law of the land and push for it in political, non-violent ways. They believe things like people who leave Islam should be killed. Not necessarily bad people, they just have really bad ideas. Let's say this is about 20% of the Muslim population. For instance, you can look at poll result after poll result and easily conclude 1/3 of British Muslims are Islamists. When you look at poll results in the Muslim world my confidence in the 20% estimate becomes shaky. For instance, 86% of people in Egypt and 82% of people in Jordan think apostates should be killed, according to Pew polls. This is to say nothing of the eye-opening numbers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, ect. 20% is a fair but conservative estimate.

 

It's important to note these are still Muslims. They're not perverting the religion in any way, they're simply more devout in their belief of the religion. They take it more literally. Saying they're perverting the religion is not helpful to the discussion.

 

This is sort of the key group of the discussion. I hate to use this term, but this is the group that's not politically correct to talk about. Because if we criticize their bad ideas in any way that makes us bigots somehow. Liberals by and large will tolerate Islamists' illiberal principles because "they have their own culture don't you know". We're supposed to hold them to a lower standard for some bizzare reason. Ironically this is simply the bigotry of low expectations.

 

This is a huge problem. Particularly in Great Britain right now, it's a huge problem. Islamists are rapidly gaining influence.

 

 

Jihadists - Everyone can agree these are the "bad guys". They believe all the same things as Islamists but express it through actual violence. Again, saying they're perverting the religion is not helpful to the discussion. Although I understand President Obama's reasoning behind wanting to do that. It's just extremely short-sighted and actively harmful to the cause of Muslims trying to push back against Islamists.

 

I would say they most definitely make up less than 5% of the Muslim population but probably more than the 1% people seem to pull out of thin air. 1-2% of 1.6 billion is still a staggering number.

[NM11046]

 

 

What a wonderful, important human being. This is an interview absolutely everyone should see. While I do understand many on the left have their hearts in the right place. It's absolutely imperative that people understand these are the types that are being undermined when pushing this erroneous belief that Islamism and jihadism have nothing to do with Islam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkerd1Cgl1M

I obviously can only speak for myself, but I'm guessing I cover a few folks when I say, nobody is arguing that Jihadism has nothing to do with Islam, but that NOT EVERY Muslim (Islamic??) is radical and dangerous. In fact the majority of Islamists are peaceful people.

The bold is a problem in confusion over terminology. I'll try to clarify that a little to the best of my knowledge.Muslims - These are the "good guys" who believe in our secular ideas of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. These are the Maajid Nawaz and the Malala Yousafzais of the world. The optimist in me says they make up somewhere between 75-80% of the Muslim population.Islamists (Islamism) - These are radicals by any reasonable definition. They don't believe in freedom of speech or freedom of religion. They believe Sharia Law should be the law of the land and push for it in political, non-violent ways. They believe things like people who leave Islam should be killed. Not necessarily bad people, they just have really bad ideas. Let's say this is about 20% of the Muslim population. For instance, you can look at poll result after poll result and easily conclude 1/3 of British Muslims are Islamists. When you look at poll results in the Muslim world my confidence in the 20% estimate becomes shaky. For instance, 86% of people in Egypt and 82% of people in Jordan think apostates should be killed, according to Pew polls. This is to say nothing of the eye-opening numbers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, ect. 20% is a fair but conservative estimate.

It's important to note these are still Muslims. They're not perverting the religion in any way, they're simply more devout in their belief of the religion. They take it more literally. Saying they're perverting the religion is not helpful to the discussion.

This is sort of the key group of the discussion. I hate to use this term, but this is the group that's not politically correct to talk about. Because if we criticize their bad ideas in any way that makes us bigots somehow. Liberals by and large will tolerate Islamists' illiberal principles because "they have their own culture don't you know". We're supposed to hold them to a lower standard for some bizzare reason. Ironically this is simply the bigotry of low expectations.

This is a huge problem. Particularly in Great Britain right now, it's a huge problem. Islamists are rapidly gaining influence.Jihadists - Everyone can agree these are the "bad guys". They believe all the same things as Islamists but express it with actual violence. Again, saying they're perverting the religion is not helpful to the discussion. Although I understand President Obama's reasoning behind wanting to do that. It's just extremely short-sighted and harmful.

I would say they most definitely make up less than 5% of the Muslim population but probably more than the 1% people seem to pull out of thin air. 1-2% of 1.6 billion is still a staggering number.

Deleted by me.

[zoogs]

 

 

It's important to note these are still Muslims. They're not perverting the religion in any way, they're simply more devout in their belief of the religion. They take it more literally. Saying they're perverting the religion is not helpful to the discussion.

 

I think Muslisms would disagree.

[Landlord]

 

It's important to note these are still Muslims. They're not perverting the religion in any way, they're simply more devout in their belief of the religion. They take it more literally. Saying they're perverting the religion is not helpful to the discussion.

 

I think Muslisms would disagree.

 

 

 

What gives Muslims and not Islamists the authority to make that claim? Just the fact that they're the ones that we seem to get along with the most?