Updated:The Islamo-fascist Debate

Update: Bryan responded in email:

There's nothing to debate, Dan.  You got sloppy and called me a bigot, and now you're spending hundreds of words to slip out of it.  I'm going on vacation. 

My reply:

Bryan - Given that, all I can conclude is that you're A) Ignorant, B a Christian bigot and C) a punk

Were it not in email, I wouldn't have been so nice. Individuals like Preston give conservatism a bad name.

Bryan at Hot Air asks - and I'll respond in what I hope will be a rational, productive, honest and for the Right, necessary debate:

So, Dan, are you calling me a bigot? I just want to get that straight--that you're calling me a bigot for that post.

No, Bryan. I am not calling you a bigot. What I said was, if the Right denounces all of Islam because public officials wear the hajib while attending the Islamic Center of Washington, but do not object when they ceremoniously wear the religious garb of another religion, then:

"you are only playing right into the hands of those genuinely soft on terror who seek to paint the right as bigoted."

I am not an Islamist apologist. I fully understand that certain tenets of Islam are being exploited to fuel terrorism around the world. And I don't believe groups such as CAIR are here to help, as it were. However, I strongly believe some attempts to place the full weight of responsibility for radical Islam on Islam itself are misguided and ultimately counter-productive, as well as ignorant of history and socio-economic realities.

Anyone who honestly believes we'd be seeing radicalized Muslims on the scale we do today had the West installed capitalistic, representative democracies in the Middle-East after World War II, instead of king and sheik-doms, is kidding themselves. True, there most likely would have been radical groups that emerged. But they would have been dealt with effectively by the peoples of those lands, as they would have had something more to protect than the vast wealth of a few select families.

That does not mean that I excuse the radicalism we see today, or that I don't believe it needs to be confronted with extreme force and destroyed. It simply means that I am capable of understanding that a hijacked Islam presents a wonderful mechanism for engendering hatred among a populace that has never truly enjoyed the freedoms we in the West take for granted. This all goes to the very reason why I support the war in Iraq.

The West needs to show the Middle-east a better way, certainly better than the one we allowed certain dictators to exploit for their own benefit over the last fifty or so years. Had the Middle-east thrived economically and democratically, as it would have with the right approach back then, we would see neither the emigration, nor the militancy we now have to deal with today.

Deal with it, I say. In fact, destroy it. But if we do not at the same time understand the issue in its full complexity and take steps to ameliorate the underlying political and economic realities that have primed such a large Muslim population for exploitation by Muslim extremists, then we will either lose, or forever be fighting the same fight. And because I believe in our secular democracy, while realizing it hinges upon Judeo-Christian values, I abide by our Constitution, respecting all religions, preferring to not single one out simply because it is the one most exploited by evil people today.

I do not for one minute believe anything other than that, if we take away the underlying political and economic injustice we, at least in part, helped foster within the Middle-east, Islam will revert to another benign world religion - it's extremist elements kept in check by the concept of civilized secular democratic rule. And just so you know where I stand, in the mean time, I support eradicating every last radical Islamist that we can, as well as fighting against dubious entities like CAIR.

I don't know if you are a bigot, Bryan - we've never met. And I don't even really care. What I do know is that those on the Right intent on targeting primarily Islam as the root cause of terror, as opposed to seeing it as simply the mechanism of exploitation it is, (not unheard of for a religion btw) are wrong. And ultimately they will do more harm to our efforts against radical Islam, than they will do good. And, finally, they come perilously close to abandoning the concept of freedom of religion - the very concept which led to the founding of this great nation we call America. As an American and a conservative, I am always compelled to speak out when I see that.

Comments

[Kelly]

"What I find sad is how many of my friends on the Right appear to have no awareness of the hundreds of millions of Muslims who don't go to mosque, wear the hijab, follow fundamentalist dictates, or do anything different than anyone else in a secular society."

If they, the Muslims you're referring to, don't even wear the hijab, something that has become even more than a symbol of oppression recently considering the videos of beatings that have come out of Iran, then why should our own leaders be wearing it?

(For the record, I do know a Muslim woman who doesn't, in public anyway, wear the hijab.)

I don't expect to get a response, but if you're bored, maybe you could explain your own feelings on the hijab. Do you really feel that it is the same as the yarmulke?

Because I'm searching through everything I've ever learned in my life, and I cannot recall a single story, especially not one since Bush's term as president, where a person has been beaten for not wearing it, or worse, for wearing it improperly.

Seriously, the only plus about that picture is that at least they weren't wearing burkas, but at least if they'd covered their faces we wouldn't have known our own officials were donning such a symbol of misogyny while aligning themselves with CAIR.

For me, this isn't about Muslims or Islam but about the last bastion of true misogyny left in this world being given an elevated platform by our own government. Speaking as a woman, the only difference I see between the hijab and a noose is the texture of the fabric.

[Dan Riehl]

"maybe you could explain your own feelings on the hijab."

While understanding your concerns, because it is a religious garment, to wear or not wear it is a personal decision, in my opinion. That said, anyone who beats someone for not wearing it should go to prison for a very long time. And the fascist governments that support the type of radicalism that advocates beating women in this regard need to be brought down.

[Aziz Poonawalla]

Thank you, Dan, for a reasonable post and for taking a principled stand. For what it's worth, I fully agree with everything you said about wanting success in the middle east and about not being sanguine about te threat posed to our civilization and values by people who, among other things, are indeed as muslim as I am. That's factual reality; no denial is possible. They are muslim, too. That's something that drives a very large part of my own blogging, my own jihad of sorts. It's nice to know that there are people like you out there on the right side of the aisle working towards the same goal as me, even though we come at it fro opposite directions.

With respect,

Aziz

[Randy]

"Randy, I see that you ignored the link to the whole email trail...hmmm Stanley Tool indeed......."

I read your link, and it added nothing to the discussion... literally nothing new at all. I read it top to bottom and nothing changes, other than revealing further that Bryan simply tried to get Dan to think about the bigot remark and perhaps take it back... other than that we already knew Dan was being dishonest when insisting he didn't call Bryan one, while calling him one again, etc. etc. You know what, I'm going to stop right there.. you're trying to divert the issue by pointing to some stupid link that adds nothing to the discussion... just repeats what we already knew, at length. You'd rather talk about it so that you can divert. That's how you people roll.

Now I'm going to speak slowly for you, because you clearly must be either the most dishonest person alive... or completely retarded.

When I talked about "foot soldiers" I was doing it to mock you genius!!! Don't you get it? Wow, you are truly pathetic. You think you "caught" me slipping or something, when I was only talking about not getting "marching orders" as you imply we get, and then because of that I mockingly (mocking you) referred to us Hot Air readers as "foot soldiers". What are you 8 years old that you couldn't pick up on that? Lol.

As for the Mike Stark incident you speak of... I'm not familiar... but the only Mike Stark I know, I think, is someone who went to work for that honorable and honest enterprise Air America?

[twolaneflash]

Bigot. Same category as Nazi: use the word in debate, you lose. You lost it, Dan, and you are projecting, sir. Try to make islam all creamy and sweetened as you want, reality changes not. Islam is lame; that's a discrimination, not a prejudice.

[Gekkobear]

Ok, so you weren't calling him a bigot... really?

I can't see any real point for "I'm not going to shy away from calling out unproductive bigotry when I see it on the Right, either." unless you're just trying to blow your own horn here; while not actually doing the action you're claiming you're not going to shy away from. It was just clarification, as an odd aside not really related to the previous several paragraphs?

Well, I don't shy away from calling a retarded monkey a freaking moron straight to him on his own blog.

Note, I haven't stated who I might be referring to, or when this occasion might take place... I certainly (as defended by Dan above) haven't called Dan any names, or even made any statements of his intelligence.

I'm just taking this place, at this time, to clarify that... should I run across a retarded monkey posting illogical stupid claptrap... that I'll comment on his blog to that effect.

Which in no way is a comment about Dan's previous statements, or this post, or any related information immediately before my statement that some might otherwise misread.

Right Dan?

[Randy]

"That's why your response to 9/11 and AQ is just to nuke all the muslims."

Posted by: LOL | Sunday, July 08, 2007 at 02:32 PM

I forgot to bust you last night... I never said any of those things. The fact that you have to lie, because you have absolutely no point, reveals exactly what you're all about.

[Linlithgow]

Dan-
I can't believe that you equate a yarmulke with a hajib with a straight face. You're grasping at straws. When has a yarmulke ever been used as a tool of oppression? When has someone ever been stoned to death for not wearing a yarmulke?

The fact that ANY administration official would go to a CAIR re-dedication ceremony after the co-conspirator crap and all that is bad enough - they should never have gone - but then for representatives of the administration to don clothing that is used as a lever, a weapon against women in many Middle Eastern countries angers me to no end. That you would defend it, and then inimate that Bryan is being egregious in his pronouncements when you've just made a fallacious comparison and insulted him is really beyond the pale.