How the liberal left loses the argument. Ceding criticism of Islam to the Right.

[jeff47]

146. Actually, I did. You just don't like the implications of your post.

First, you start from utterly accepting the right-wing framing that "the left" is insisting that there be no criticism of Islam at all.

Then you attack attempts to differentiate between different Muslims by attacking "not real Muslims" as a terrible argument. The implication of this is that we aren't allowed to differentiate between Muslim sects - those sects are the ones saying "not real Muslims". If we do that, the result is conflating the attackers with all Islam, and making it "Islam's problem". As if we have had no effect.

Then you rail against accepting the right-wing framing that all Islam is to blame....contradicting yourself.

You also spend the entire post railing against complexity and nuance, because the media doesn't do well with complexity and nuance. That we should limit our arguments to what Politico would write.

Your argument is an miss-mash of "must accept right framing" and "must reject right framing", "must reject nuance" while "must reject simplistic". The fact that it sounded good in your head does not mean it's a coherent argument.

Finally, your argument is based entirely on limiting the discussion to the shooters themselves. Their leaders that sent them? Must be ignored. The Saudis using Wahhabi Islam to tamp down unrest? Must be ignored. The US invading Iraq and Afghanistan, creating a massive flood of jihadists? Must be ignored. The guys pulling the trigger claimed to be Muslim, and that's all we need to look at.

You'll also find plenty of support on DU, because there's lots of people who want to make it only about the guys pulling the trigger. It's a lot easier than looking at the bigger picture. It's comfortable. It excuses uncomfortable parts of the past by ignoring them.

Or to put it another way, if we were talking about Scott Roeder, the same argument you demand we reject would be championed by Fox and similar. That he was not a real Christian. And I suspect you wouldn't have a problem with it.