It’s Sunday morning, partly cloudy and threatening to rain. I’m blown because my “wretched body of death” missed church, but I said, ‘Hey, I’ll pray and read my Bible from home.” And then I was thinking, “O, I’ll blog today about the conversation I had with some friends on whether ‘Arab Money’ by Busta Rhymes is offensive or not.” And then, in my haplessly-wandering internet mode, I came across #4 on WordPress’s “Fastest Growing WordPress.com Blogs” – Jaded Heaven. Dope name, right? But that first post had me thinking “WTF are you on?” Here’s a snippet:
I find myself increasingly repulsed by Muslim practices and beliefs. Middle Eastern, African, Asian, American, the country of origin makes no difference. Women and children treated as chattel, genital mutilation, child brides, honor killings, culturally accepted pedophilia, the black drapes and head coverings, no rights, no votes, little to non-existent educational opportunities, no voice, no choices, no recourse. Persecution of homosexuals. Imprisonment, stoning and whipping for morality crimes. Lack of free speech. The foul treatment of non-Muslims in Islamic countries. The demented hatred of Jews. Sharia Law. Wahhabism. Madrasas. Blind obedience to Mullahs. Praying towards Mecca – a place on the map few will ever see. Individuality is shut down, originality and freedom of the mind discouraged. Islam pisses on human talents that fall outside the dark walls of its faith. Hell, I even dislike their dislike of dogs.
Honestly, this could be the most ignorant shit I’ve read all year – and I’ve been reading Scalia and Thomas opinions for a lot of that time. Who authorized this? Like, the blog author amalgamated all the worst aspects of practices found in Islamic countries (mind you, that includes a lot of countries), distorted them, exagerrated them, and then spewed it out as reasoned justification for her disgust with Islam. It’s fine to disagree with the religion, but damn, you sound ignorant. Like, you put no thought at all into your writing. I’m sure we can point to more than enough examples of offensive things in Western tradition. I mean, how long ago did women get the right to vote in America? When was it cool to be homosexual in the Western world? How are Muslims treated in non-Islamic nations? And we don’t even need to touch upon the anti-Semitism that has been rampant not only throughout US history, but throughout Western history. Like, pound-for-pound, point-for-point, the blogger’s argument sucks simply because it can be countered by examples in the United States, in Western tradition, and in the nebulous notion of Judeo-Christianity.
But no, it gets better, let’s get to the point about Moderate Muslims.
Sure, I know most Muslims aren’t carrying out jihad, many don’t financially support those activities, millions don’t dance in the streets and rejoice death. Answer me this though, of all of those billions who don’t participate, how many are actively fighting the Islamists? How many are working to moderate and depoliticize the Book, men, rulers and countries who support terrorism? I have yet to see the Middle East street riot to overthrow the mullahs, dethrone the Saudis, crush the morality police or stone the acid throwing scumbags who attack school girls. Where are the millions of women demonstrating for their natural human rights to keep their labias, show their arms and hair, go to school, drive a damn car? Where are the protesters when a filmmaker, writer or cartoonist is killed for expressing their thoughts on Islam? Show me the Muslim groups vocally trying to protect children or homosexuals. There is absolutely no movement among their theologians to modernize, secularize or temper the Koran. I haven’t even touched on Southeast Asia, a predominately Muslim region full of Islamic terrorism that our media regularly ignores. The vast majority of supposed moderates wallow in the same foul cesspool that breeds extremism. They don’t give a shit. Insha Allah.
No seriously, this really was posted up on the internet. Lol, hold up, hold up, hold up!! So you’re telling me that Moderate Muslims now have a duty placed on them to right the wrongs that other people have done just because they share the same religion? Even in US criminal doctrine, there is no duty to save or help others if you have not done anything to put them in that position. So why are you raging against the “Moderate Muslims [that] don’t exist” again? O, “they” collectively have a duty to conform to your standards of what is right and wrong. O right, I forgot about that word I learned in high school – ethnocentrism. Sigh.
But let’s take this a step further (partly because someone obviously needs to address this racist crap and partly because I haven’t had this much fun smashing an argument in a long time). So because you don’t see any organizations trying to address some of the issues that you point to, that serves as grounds to say that “Moderate Muslims don’t exist.” WTF? So because you don’t see something, it doesn’t exist? Once again – who authorized this argument? I mean, damn, when was the last time you turned on the TV and saw some Native American organizations fighting hard to address the problems that blight many of our nation’s reservations? …right. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. That doesn’t mean that they’re not out there doing the unpopular work. That just means that you haven’t seen them. And do you really expect Fox News to do a story about moderate Muslims?
But you know what the author may be thinking? “I’ve been hearing about these issues for a long time and because they’ve been around for a long time and no progress has been made on them, that must mean nobody is working on dealing with them.” I feel like I’ve wasted enough blog space, so I won’t address this point. Hopefully, whoever reads this will be able to smash this without my help.
Okay, last nail in the coffin regarding the author’s conception of moderate Muslims. Google.
Google search #1: moderate muslims
Google search #2: moderate muslim site:npr.org
Google search #3: moderate muslim site:cnn.com
Google search #4: moderate muslim site:foxnews.com
Google search #5: moderate muslim site:english.aljazeera.net/
Ah, yes – you’re fired.
So I check the comments to see what type of response this post is getting… and people were like, “Amen” and shit! I cannot believe how ignorant people can be sometimes. See, that’s the thing about the internet, it truly is a double edged sword. When I was younger, people were heralding the internet as being the “information highway,” “online classroom,” “endless library,” “passport to the world,” etc. etc. The internet does serve many of those purposes. Yet, at the same time, that anonymity that allows me to blog whatever I want to blog, applies to the next person too. That Web 2.0 function that engenders a somewhat intelligent discourse on certain topics, allows for the fomenting of ignorance and hatred. But you know, this is what comes with free speech.
To many, the immediate consequence of this freedom may often appear to be only verbal tumult, discord, and even offensive utterance. These are, however, within established limits, in truth necessary side effects of the broader enduring values which the process of open debate permits us to achieve. That the air may at times seem filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense, not a sign of weakness but of strength.
Cohen v. California
This is also in line with Justice Holmes’ first articulation of the free marketplace of ideas. See generally Holmes’ Dissent in Abrams v. United States. Where you’ve got an open debate with relatively few restraints on discussion, you’re going to have a lot of ignorant and some very ignorant expression. Hopefully, the currency that the ignorant ideas have will be washed away in favor of ideas that are actually rational and we’ll get to the “truth.” But, who knows?
In the end, this boils down to some pretty ignorant, well-written, horribly-reasoned sentences stringed together in the guise of an argument. It’s not an argument but a racist, bigoted, one-sided, ignorant, emotional diatribe against Islam. See kiddies, this is what happens when you don’t critically think about things. When you watch TV, read the newspaper, or browse the worldwide web, make sure you ask youself one thing: “Really?”
