basils,
You too have me all wrong. I don't feel bad to be an American. I feel quite blessed. And as far as "defending" Islam...can you see one thing that I have said that is untrue ..or that you can discount from any authoritative source? ..or is it pure conjecture and blind dogma (as in myth)?
I have no great love for Muslims or Islam. I'm as Christain as any human (mortal paternaty) can be. I merely "reflect" the blind bigotry that others spew. I give the mirror image.
I mean if you had said "Darn Jews rule the world!!!" ...I would try and communicate my POV on how I think your assumptions or assertions were wrong. That is what I'm hearing here. Blind ...blank check bigotry. It has most of its substance in myth and conjecture ..and the rest is just plain made up.
Many of what people here term "Islamic" has actually been "Arab life as usual". Before OBL ..you never heard the term "Islamic terrorists" ...you heard "Arab terrorist and..Arab extremist" .
No doubt about it ...crazy Arabs have been crazy Arabs for a long time in our known history. When the Iran Islamic revolt occured ...we still viewed them as crazy Arabs. We never heard of Islam or "Muslims" ...we only knew them as crazy camel jockeys.
That hasn't changed ONE BIT. They're still the smackeda$$, cracked brained, lame, crazy camel jockeys who can't figure their way out of a simple maze without grabbing an AK-47 or an RPG and blowing something up. This jerks/thugs/fools have NOTHING TO DO WITH ISLAMIC FAITH and have everything to do with being desparate people who don't have any legit method for problem resolution.
All your airplane hijackings and other acts of terrorism were (typically) conducted as a protest by the PLO and other organizations (of smackeda$$ Arabs) in protest of Israel.
No, my friends. If you research it ..the term "Islamic extremism" linked with terrorsim didn't come on the scene until after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. We, via Saudi Arabia, funded the establishment of madrasas on the Pakistani/Afghan border. These Islamic religous schools were prime recruiting and training sites for the ranks of OBL. The ample amount of refugees there were prime breeding grounds for Islamic extremism. Many of them formed the Taliban ..others found new conflicts to fight. Yes, folks ..our own CIA put OBL on the map and when the Russians called it quits ....these "rebels without a cause" ...went and found a new one.
Now very few of you will believe this ..but none of you can discount it as myth. Yes, folks, one of our own chickens has come home to roost. A doomsday machine that has decided to bite the hand that once fed it and gave it life.
quote:
And while I'm at it, your remark that I must be "very young" to have the opinion that I do, is very insulting.
I'm sorry if you feel that way? If you are unaware of the women's sufferage and equal rights movement ...you would have to be under 30 years of age and a somewhat lacking in your knowledge of our history. Women were second class citizens in this nation for most of its history. Your not believing it doesn't make it not so. This doesn't mean that women were "abused" as a social norm. Just that they were pigeon holed in to certain roles that were somewhat confining. Teaching and being a librarian were about the only two outlets for women of intelligence when I was growing up. Right now ..we're enduring a "backlash" effect where our society attempts to "make up" for what it perceives as past injustices. One such myth is the "glass ceiling" that makes CEO's mostly male. The truth in the matter is that men made up the massive majority of business graduates and post graduates for decades (maybe a century even) and women made up a very small (fractional) percentage. Hence to "earn" any CEO position upon "rank" ..they would have to statistically fall into the .000001% upper classperson in intelligence/performance to EVER get the BIG SEAT. This "earned" position is not enough to reflect population norms ...hence the myth of discrimination is materialized.
So ..if you see a Muslim society that doesn't quite fit your idea of how women are to be treated ..I wouldn't cry foul all that quickly.
In all matters, before you critique someone elses (dirty) laundry, you should be rather sure that your own is not soiled. Not everyone adopts our ideas of social equality as we do. We don't simply follow whatever social revelation that the French puke out every few years, do we? Do we feel that it's o'kay to fornicate in the streets and parade around as we please (a rhetorical statement)??
The really odd thing that I realize here and on the other message boards that I frequent (who happen to have "Muslim" members)that "they" are just like many here. Their "truth" is just as cast in stone. Their assumptions are just as flawed. Their media just as bias in their favor. They are just as intolerant of alternative points of view. They too have their Pat Robersons who convince them that we are the great Satan.
This is the message that I'm trying to depict here ..that is, "How do you think you would sound if you were on the "other side". Most of us have no idea of how we are perceived. I give you that opportunity from my experience with being perceived by those "others". This is what I hear, and what I've got to argue with, when I confront "them". These are their answers to MY challenges. Your frustration is mine ...or rather was mine.
That is, I'm merely giving you a view that you may have not been aware of ..or have never considered. If that makes me something "bad" ..well then so be it. I'm not here to change anyone ..but I'm not hear to promote myth and bigotry either.
That would be unAmerican