Well, what do you expect, guy? After all, any opinion not sanctioned by the tolerance police is ipso facto “hate speech.” And hate speech, we all know, is the most pernicious form of speech one could stoop to utter in mixed company.
Well, with the exception of political speech, as understood by McCain-Feingold, of course…
(h/t Ardolino)
Exactly, Jeff. It’s the same reason why hate crimes are the most horrible crimes anyone can commit. Murder is bad and all, but it’s simply inexcusable when hate is involved!
That we’ve reached the point that we are now firing people for offending terrorist supporters like CAIR is proof positive that we are in need of a linguistic revolution in the US. Before it’s too late.
I’d comment, but I’ve had way too much pseudoephedrine.
So – if you murder someone with love in your heart, it’s not as bad? Is that the deal?
Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.
I know it’s close to a Godwin violation, and may be deemed offensive by Holocaust survivors, but I think of CAIR as the Muslim-American Bund.
You can look up the German-American version to see what I mean.
…okay, after reading the linked article a little more closely, maybe the parallels are a little iffy.
But I’m still gonna think of ‘em as a more circumspect latter-day Muslim version of the WW2-era Bund.
McGhee, the main way that the parallel to the American Bund breaks down is that the German-American Bund was more patriotic and less anti-semitic than CAIR.
As Patrick Henry might’ve said, “Give me hate speech, or give me a No. 2 with a diet coke. Say again? Yeah, sure, why not.”
The guy made some good points in his article and CAIR deserves all the criticism they get, but you’ve got to admit, Jeff, that “Islam is a terror organization” is more than a little over the line. He could have made his points without resorting to religious bigotry and it’s hard for me to read that as anything else.
If some Air America yahoo were to bring up statistics from the old south and say it was proof that every single white, southern protestant over the age of 40 supports the lynching of blacks conservatives would be howling for their head. I don’t think that would be any more unfair than tarring every Muslim as a terror supporter though.
Why this Graham guy should get some kind of pass for shitting on an entire religion is beyond me. I guess in his mind the Muslims fighting in our armed forces and the ones working their asses off to translate our enormous intel backlog are terrorists too.
Sean, have you bothered to read Graham’s comment in context? The very next sentence says the moderate Muslims could put an end to that impression. He no more shat upon an entire religion than someone who criticizes the Catholic hierarchy for not doing enough to stop pervert priests from abusing children.
Yes, I read it in context, Robert. I just don’t think that context lessens the harshness of the statement one bit. The original article is here. In it he makes the statement that “Islam is a terror organization” and the next several sentences say that he once gave Muslims the benefit of the doubt but no longer does. In the article he not only doesn’t qualify or lessen the impact of the plain statement that “Islam is a terror organization” he later states “The question isn’t how dare I call Islam a terrorist organization, but rather why more people do not” without qualification. The entire point of the article is to say that if a sizable minority of Muslims support terror and all other Muslims aren’t denouncing terror to Graham’s satisfaction then all of Islam is a terror organization. There’s no context in that article that alters the meaning of the “Islam is a terror organization” statement in any way. He is saying in that article plainly that he believes Islam is a terror organization and he makes no apologies, qualifications, or exceptions.
The words we use matter and have consequences. Graham is a professional communicator and knows that. He called Islam a terror organization and meant exactly that. When he says that there are two other statements that he is logically implying. First is that because they are Muslim, every Muslim belongs to a terror organization called Islam. Second is that as members of a terror organization called Islam every Muslim shares responsibility for terror attacks. In or society one thing that we rightly do not tolerate is racial or religious prejudice from public figures. I can’t see how devoting an entire column to calling a religion and providing poorly reasoned support for that slander is anything but religious bigotry. His article is an insult to the hundreds of millions of regular Muslims just trying to get through life and it is bigoted, hurtful, and just plain incorrect. It’s strategically foolish besides. Anything he writes or says can now be dismissed by people because they can fairly point to his article and label him an Islamophobic bigot. The next dozen or more conservatives with legitimate criticisms of CAIR or Islamic society now have to waste time showing that they aren’t criticizing every single Muslim.
He did shit on an entire religion. What he said wasn’t akin to criticizing the Catholic hierarchy. It was as bigoted as pointing to the IRA and saying that every Catholic belongs to a terror organization.