The West's phobia of Islamophobia

[Silent3]

30. Please do point to the place in the OP article where it says...

"that it is not so bad" for us to, as you put it, focus paranoia on a group.

The fact that you're still talking about "commit violent acts" tells me that the only thing you can imagine people having a problem with when they criticize Islam is fear of being a victim of a violent act.

Plenty of personally non-violent Muslims who would never be a risk to anyone on an airplane are still, nevertheless, extremely homophobic. Many non-violent Muslims expect women to wear veils and won't let them drive a car. Plenty of non-violent Muslims don't support secular government, but would rather impose religious law via government power. Many (sizable majorities in Epypt and Afghanistan, for example) support the death penalty for any Muslim trying to leave the Islamic faith.

Are there a few liberal Muslims out there who are great supporters of equality and democracy? Sure, of course there are. And I'll never support discriminatory policies that don't allow for evaluation of all people as individuals, based on their personal merits, rather than blanket treatment based on some group label like race or religion.

The overall influence of Islam and current Islamic culture, however, is antithetical to liberal democratic values, and should be called out as such, without every such criticism being responded to by a knee-jerk reaction that someone is instead telling you to be afraid of every Muslim on an airplane.