Muslims often say: "Stop calling all of us terrorists and stop saying Islam encourages terrorism because you are missing the real underlying issues. We want everyone to be happy just like you do, but we think your understanding of terrorism is flawed."

Can you recognize the parallel between your statement and the one I've paraphrased above?

But the punch line to my statement was:

"Then we win the election because you missed the point."

As in, ignore the message at your own peril, we don't have to care because we are content now.

But in the Muslim's case, the implications for us ignoring their message are more profiling, xenophobia, etc. Which is why I would argue they need to look internally to resolve the issues inside their communities.

Except that the Trump administration is who will be doing that additional profiling and exhibiting xenophobia.

That makes Trump's administration racist and makes the people who voted for Trump seem to appear racist. Though, as we've agreed, most of them aren't.

> Our 2011 survey of Muslim Americans found that roughly half of U.S. Muslims (48%) say their own religious leaders have not done enough to speak out against Islamic extremists.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/22/muslims-and-...

I don't think that's a good comparison. The vast majority of Muslims don't support terrorist organisations. That's why guilt by association, as pushed by people like Trump, is so harmful here.

We agree that the vast majority over Muslims are not terrorists.

But the guilt by association is my point.

In this election, people who voted for Trump considered his Muslim ban policy acceptable enough that they didn't make him change it before they elected him. And guilt by association can cause that support to be interpreted as racist.

Chris, yes his ban is racist. And, if you feel it isn't racist then let's just agree it is unconstitutional. The Constitution makes it very clear that people can't be singled out because of religion. So, at best, he's eroding the foundations of our democracy with the Muslim ban.

Edit: Islam isn't a race, so there's probably a better word than racist in this case. But the point remains.

And if you are gay, and half of all Muslim's believe homosexuality should be illegal, what then?

Thats a tough pill to swallow.

Gays for Trump is the most rationale position to take. Re: Milo Yiannopolous.

> that they didn't make him change it before they elected him

He changed it: http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-back-pedals-on-bann...

But its not as simple as "Banning all Muslims because they might be Terrorists". This is the headline the media liked to repeat again and again.

http://www.advocate.com/election/2016/8/15/donald-trump-want...

If you are gay, it is rationale to support a full ban on Muslims. Muslim countries have some terrible laws. I personally don't want anyone involved in an honour killing to set foot in the country. This is a real danger.

It is the height of irony that the liberals who protect Muslims so much, do not care what their views are on gays, or women. I don't get it and I would love someone to explain it to me.

> people who voted for Trump considered his Muslim ban policy acceptable enough that they didn't make him change it before they elected him. And guilt by association can cause that support to be interpreted as racist

Is Trumps Muslim ban policy racist?

> stop saying Islam encourages terrorism

Any time I've seen a Muslim actually talk about the issue, and explain how Islam doesn't encourage terrorism, they are evasive, or outright deceptive. Show me a legitimate attempt to explain the "real underlying issues" that is neither of these things (and not just representative of a fringe group e.g heavily westernized Muslims).

So you conclude that Islam encourages terrorism because, when you accuse someone of being a terrorist, they don't respond openly and enthusiastically? You've decided that a religion is guilty and want individuals to show proof of innocence?

The post I replied to made the comparison:

> Muslims often say: "Stop calling all of us terrorists and stop saying Islam encourages terrorism because you are missing the real underlying issues. We want everyone to be happy just like you do, but we think your understanding of terrorism is flawed."

So this is the context I am responding to, the hypothetical situation of a Muslim claiming the above.

> because, when you accuse someone of being a terrorist

No, I'm responding specifically to the "stop saying Islam encourages terrorism" part. When I say "Any time I've seen a Muslim actually talk about the issue, and explain how Islam doesn't encourage terrorism", I don't mean in the context of responding to an accusation of being a terrorist.

> You've decided that a religion is guilty and want individuals to show proof of innocence?

What have I decided about the religion? I implied that if it's true that Muslims are saying "you are missing the real underlying issues", then I've yet to see one attempt to explain.

Also, If I had decided that a religion is guilty, who else but individuals could demonstrate otherwise? Religion has no life of it's own, it exists only in the medium of the individuals who decide to carry it.

I didn't think that you personally were accusing people. I hope I didn't give that impression. I probably could have written "we" instead of "you."

Someone trying to explain how Islam doesn't encourage terrorism is on the defensive. The accusation has already been made. But the accusation doesn't make sense if the religion has no life of its own and exists only in the medium of individuals.

It's tough to defend against an accusation that doesn't make sense. If we can't point out what is bad, what is there to defend? The whole thing has a guilty-until-proven-innocent feeling to it. If the prosecutor can't make a sound case, there should be no need for a defense in the first place.

Anecdotally, the people I know who claim that Islam encourages terrorism don't know much about it. What they do know is shallow and cherry-picked, and any decent explanation immediately goes into the "it's different, so it's bad" bucket. It must be very difficult to demonstrate anything to these people.

> But the accusation doesn't make sense

I disagree. Having no "life" doesn't mean this.

First, inanimate objects can still be influential. Comics books, for instance, where one claimed to encourage violence, anti-social behaviour.

Second, The religion lives in those other individuals, much like any thought, meme, or ideology. Even the inanimate influences are often created by such individuals.

In the case of Islam, there are some fairly authoritative objects and people.

Are you suggesting there is no such thing as religion? Islam seems to be pretty serious about standardisation.

> The whole thing has a guilty-until-proven-innocent feeling to it

Not to me.

> Anecdotally..

In context, I can't really see these anecdotes as in good faith...

Okay. Done with those edits. This is a tricky thing to try to express, so I hope I pulled it off.

Can you?