Many Liberals Defend Islam the Way Conservatives Defend Guns

[Scootaloo]

42. The premise is utter bullshit.

You will find very few progressives who give a damn about Islam. It's just a religion, an broad collection of ideas of varying merit and veracity.

But progressives gave a damn about Muslims. You know, the people? The people who get thrown in front of trains. The people whose homes and places of worship are set on fire. The people who even our politicians advocate bombing "back into the stone age"? Or - my favorite - "Turn the whole place into a sheet of glass!" Ever heard the phrase "kill 'em all and let allah sort them out"?

You think those bombs are killing Islam? No, they're killing people.. How about that train, did it splatter Islam? No, it splattered a person. Would nuking the middle eat until it glows defeat "Islam"? Probably not, as the majority of the world's Muslims actually live at the other end of Asia. But lots and lots and lots of people would die. is setting fire to Mr. Rasheem's house striking a blow gainst Islam? No, it's putting a man and his family's life at risk and ruining their livlihood.

The author tries to figleaf himself:

Let me start off by saying, I am in no way anti-Muslim.

But he is. That's what this whole piece is. It's the same "hate the sin" dehumanizing claptrap we often see directed towards the people he does mention - because he never mentions Muslims. Muslims don't exist, Islam is this faceless, monolithic, uniform force. And to take the piece as-written, then well Islam must be the worst, most awfulest evil thing ever. Now if course, all this writer could possibly know about Muslims is that they are connected to this religion that he sees as the epitome of all evil.

So a faceless, meaningless horde of non-people defined exclusiely by all these evil things and hatreds, 1.8 billion strong. But he doesn't hate Muslims. Sure he doesn't.

Your author takes what he sees as a problem - that progressives care about Muslims, who are very often the targets of violence and hatred - and simply removes the "people" portion of "Muslim."