Restating The Obvious

Sadly, this needs to be said again, and again, and again.

Are there evil men in Islam? Of course, but only a bigot pretends that Islam is ipso facto evil because of it. I can say this, and I have, because the numbers simply do not bear out the charge. 1.4 Billion practicing Muslims, and only about 13,000 acts of terrorism since 9/11. Yes, that’s only one dimension, but it’s a fact that almost no one is willing to admit to, and it’s salient.

I could tell you real-life stories of Hindus just as evil, including a family which killed their daughter for marrying the man she loved instead of the arranged groom. I could tell you about a group of Buddhist businessmen I knew about, who murdered a colleague in order to obtain his fortune. Evil is individual in most cases, and in Islam it is the Jihadists, not the Muslims as a whole, who are the enemy.

Now some continue to demand that all the Muslims around the world act as they demand. But in fact, the places which get the attention about what the Muslims do are in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. I am not going to write a dissertation in detail here, but just as a comparison, have you noticed all the jack-asses protesting against Immigration Reform? Look how much press they get, and the image being sent around the world is that the American people don’t want this reform, when the fact is the exact opposite. Now, I am not going to argue endlessly about this with people, but I continue to contend this is something where blaming the whole for the sins of the few does nothing to solve the problem, to win over the doubters, or to prove a moral foundation on our part.

I know good Muslims, I know bad Muslims. I know some Muslims here in Houston, and a few in the Middle East. From my experience, they’re no better or worse as a whole than Americans or Christians or anyone else. They’re people - imagine that.