August 19, 2006

What to do with Muslims?

The last few days have been very depressing. Part of this depression is the result of an inner conflict I am having.

Every single Muslim I know is a great person. Every. Single. One.

Yet, nearly every single Muslim organization or group I know of can be counted on to support tyranny. Not all, but nearly.

Shirer quotes Goethe in the opening pages of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as saying:

I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people, which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality.
So, what do we do with a group of people who, as individuals, are wonderful? People who I would gladly accept as my neighbors. People who I would gladly call my friend.

What do you do when individuals are wonderful, but groups of those same individuals, dangerous?

What to do? What to do?

I really don't know.

In the past, I have argued that religious worker visas ought to be contingent upon reciprocation. The recent UK terror plot drives home the need for such action. Native born Muslims, both here and in Europe, often find religion in mosques which are led by foreign clerics. Countries, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which forbid proseletyzing are exporters of an Islam that is antithetical to Western liberalism.

But beyond this, what should we do? What can we do? We need real policies that aknowledge the threat, yet ones which are in line with our notions of religious freedoms.

I have no clue what we should do. A good start would be to aknowledge the problem. But from there......I'm open to suggestions. Ones that are both practical and moral.

By Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at 04:46 PM | |