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Originally Posted by Tully Mars
Did I ask if the nation wasn't outraged? Did I ask if the nation did not morn? Did I state there was support for this act or the ideologies behind it? Though to be honest there was some support among the militia groups in this country. But that was never my point.
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I attempted to illustrate the difference between what I consider passive approval of an act and the opposite.
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I asked, basically, why weren't "people freaked out at every thin white guy they saw." I mean if you're going to go around supporting profiling why wasn't that profile profiled?
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There are some circumstance where I would be on guard but I generally don't get "freaked out". After the bombing we did profile, we identified people who fit the profile and they where investigated, monitored and watched.
---------- Post added at 03:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:38 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by mixedmedia
It seems impossible to pin you down to a single opinion on this matter, ace.
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My opinion is that an open and honest dialog will help eliminate irrational fears, including irrational fears of Muslims.
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To me you say that irrational fears need to be expressed so that they can be dispelled. Now you seem to be rationalizing them.
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I am saying I have fears. My fears may be irrational. The nature of personal fears is that the individual who has them often does not know.
I can see when another has an irrational fear when it involves something I have intimate experience with, however I do not have intimate experience with the Muslim culture. If I am not allowed to explore the Muslim culture in the context of my fears, I will never know.
I admit my fears, I share my fears and by doing show I open the door for others to help resolve them. Again, using the Iraq war, I remember many exchanges where I would clearly state that I felt Saddam was a threat, before, during and after the war. You can read what the responses were by doing a search. At the end of the day, Bush shared my fears and many others did also. Saddam rather than acting in a manner to minimize those fears he acted in a provocative manner. I see that an opportunity for a peaceful resolution was missed. Was my response to the perceived threat irrational? Was "machismo" the cause of poor decision making? I see these as serious questions, perhaps beyond the scope of a forum like this. But ultimately we can not pretend away the fact that millions in this country have similar fears to the fears expressed by Williams.
---------- Post added at 04:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by filtherton
So your answer to my question is "If only I could tell those muslims to stop letting me think all these tingly things about muslims then I wouldn't have to think all these tingly things about these muslims." Yep, I'm sure all these moderate muslims are just waiting for some random dude from the internet to tell them that he personally doesn't think they've taken a public enough stand against extremism for him to not feel uncomfortable when he sees them dressed all muslim-ey. You should rent one of those planes that spell out messages with smoke. You could have the plane spell out something like "Hey muslims, are we cool?"
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If they don't care, if you don't care - so be it. You've said it in so many words, perhaps they should rent a plane and spell out that they don't care what I think with smoke. Once that is resolved we can move on to the next step - how is that for a plan?
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As I implied before, your inability to correctly suss out the give and take between cause and effect has nothing to do with muslims. Why should they have to answer for your ignorance of them?
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They are under no obligation.
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Why do you think you understand how muslims feel about islamic extremism?
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I don't.
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How could you possibly be ignorant of the multitude of muslims who've come out against extremism?
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I get mixed messages from them, I see some speaking out against the use of terror, I see many being passive, and I see some celebrate the violence or anti-western sentiment.
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Who gets the focus of your outrage couldn't be less relevant here. It doesn't matter in the context of this discussion. The fact that you think it does means you've misread me. The fact that you think the situation could be simplified if only you could just sit down and have a dialogue with muslims means you have a fundamental misunderstanding about reality. Really, that doesn't even make sense.
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you don't know shit about the situation in Yemen, nor the competence of Yemeni officials or their propensity to arrest someone because they want to appear to be doing something. When one doesn't know shit about a situation, the most advisable course of action is to refrain from comment, lest people assume that you're the type to drone on about things you don't understand.
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Yes, your answer is to silence people like me, ridicule people like me, pretend that you are above anything that can be an irrational fear - I got that.
We disagree on the way problems get solved.