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They Will Hire Bigots to Lead Them
If you haven't taken the time to listen to the audio (or read the transcript) on my previous post, Islamic Extremism and Paris: Faith Isn't A Fucking Virtue, please take a few minutes to do that now. It's very important and informs the rest of this post.
People are scared and they are looking to their leaders for answers. If their leaders are standing further from the truth than the bigots then they're going to hire bigots to lead them. If one guy is saying "No, this isn't Islamic and Islamism has nothing to do with it. The real problem is just that we aren't being nice enough to the Middle Eastern countries..." and the other guy is saying, "Yes, the Islamic State is Islamic and we're going to deal with it by closing down all the mosques and only allowing in Christian refugees...", where does the average person fall?
If no one is being honest with them are they gonna go with the guy who has the solution wrong or the guy who has the problem wrong? -- @Noah_Lugeons
Democrats are trying very hard to avoid saying that ISIS is Islamic. I understand why they do it though, because some of the people who are helping us fight ISIS are also Islamic and we don't want to alienate the people who are helping us. There is a verse in the Qur'an that people like to use to prove that Islam is a "religion of peace" which says "whoever kills a soul... it is as if he had slain mankind entirely." The thing they don't tell you is what is said in place of those elipses and what is said directly after which is part of the foundation of the actions taken by ISIS (emphasis mine):
Qur'an 5:32 We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors. 33 Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,
These verses are discussed in depth in the Hadith, which include additional quotes from Mohammad and discussions of them, and a large section of the Islamic community interprets this to mean "killing another follower of Allah is similar to killing all humankind." There are several nations in the Middle East who are fighting ISIS with us, and the citizens of those nations are mostly Islamic and accept the above prohibition about killing another Muslims. If our leaders were to keep saying "ISIS is Islamic" then it becomes very difficult for the leaders of those nations to convice their devout Muslim citizens to go to war against ISIS. After all if ISIS really is Islamic then it would be a great sin for them to kill members of ISIS. So, I understand the geopolitical and diplomatic reasons that the Democrats are trying to avoid saying that ISIS is Islamic.
But that's Part One of the problem: ISIS is Islamic.
The most disturbing shit they do: enslaving women and children, crucifying people in the streets, destroying irreplaceable antiquities, the truly barbaric shit they're doing comes directly from their religious doctrine.
ISIS is not representative of Muslims as a whole, because the vast, overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world ignore those parts of their holy scriptures... but ISIS is still Islamic. Just like the vast, overwhelming majority of Christians do not kill LGBT people even though Romans 1:31-32 says they are worthy of death... but the WBC is still Christian when they're holding up their "God Hates Fags" signs. And I'm glad the vast majority ignore them! Indeed, when it comes to religions, Abrahamic religions in particular, a person's moral behavior gets better and better the less and less closely they follow their religion.
So, Democrats have got the wrong problem. Let's talk about Part Two: Republicans have the wrong solution.
Donald Trump, Asshat-in-Chief
Over the last few months, many of my liberal friends have been really worried that Donald Trump was going to be the Republican choice to run for President and they were sincerely worried that he might get elected. I have tried to allay their fears by pointing out the historical trend that the loudest candidate leading the polls during the summer months usually gets crushed in the Fall or during the first Primary election. As predicted, when we started coming to the end of the summer months, Trump's poll numbers started to slip and Ben Carson overtook him. (and wow, Ben Carson. *sigh* That's another 3 articles right there.)
But then Paris was attacked by ISIS.
After recoiling from the horror of the event, the obvious happened: The Republican Party as a whole ramped up all of their rhetoric. Ben Carson is dropping rapidly in the polls and Trump is surging again because people are afraid and looking for someone to make them feel secure. Ben Carson's understated insanity doesn't make them feel as safe as Trump's loud, obnoxious bravado. Many Republicans are saying only Christians should be allowed in the country. Trump is saying that he thinks all Muslims should have to register in a database so the government can track them. He's saying that he would consider closing down all mosques because "some of the hatred--the absolute hatred--is coming from these areas."
Where does the average person fall?
We all understand that most Democrats will vote for the Democrat because the Democrat always lines up the best with their ideals and most Republicans will vote for the Republican. Most elections come down to that middle 6% of voters. When the average American voter looks at ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, they will see that it is Islamic. Then when they look at who to elect to run the country, they will see one side denying the obvious truth that ISIS is Islamic and the other side saying that ISIS is obviously Islamic.
Our nation has experienced this kind of xenophobic rhetoric too many times before and it never ends well, but when the people are driven by fear and insecurity, do you think they're going to choose the person who has the problem wrong or the person who has the solution wrong?