Call Me Crazy

or even pollyanna, but I think that rather than gut the Constitution and cut down every law in America to get after the devil, there are more sane ways of dealing with Islamic radicalism than telling every Muslim citizen to leave and adopting an insane policy of “Freedom of religion for everybody except Muslims”. Part of my reason for this is here:

A DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH BY AMERICAN AND CANADIAN MUSLIMS

We, the undersigned, unconditionally condemn any intimidation or threats of violence directed against any individual or group exercising the rights of freedom of religion and speech; even when that speech may be perceived as hurtful or reprehensible.

We are concerned and saddened by the recent wave of vitriolic anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiment that is being expressed across our nation.

We are even more concerned and saddened by threats that have been made against individual writers, cartoonists, and others by a minority of Muslims. We see these as a greater offense against Islam than any cartoon, Qur’an burning, or other speech could ever be deemed.

We affirm the right of free speech for Molly Norris, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, and all others including ourselves.

Telling such people “You’re just feeding me a line of taqiyya, you filthy Muslim liars! Get out of America! Here, let me burn your Quran.” seems to me to be, well, barking nuts as well as a radical failure of charity and common sense. I would much prefer to keep such normal healthy citizens on our soil, not least because I think they would be very helpful in spotting and helping to eliminate the nutjobs in their own communities, as well as persuading budding young nutjobs that there is another way to observe Islam than by being a nutjob. Telling them to leave their country (we are, after all, talking about citizens, many of them native born) even when they support sentiments like those above is, well, crazy. Rather than panic-stricken calls to banish all Muslims from US soil, I think working with and encouraging Muslims like these guys is the sane approach. As Dale Price notes, “I am extremely sensitive to any proposals that could boomerang back on me as a Catholic.” Suggestions like “Offer Muslim families $100K to return to the Muslim country of their choice, halt the building of mosques, and halt the printing and distribution of the Koran” have “what could it possibly hurt?” written all over them. Today, the Mosque, tomorrow the Catholic Church and then the Bible. Why, the thing is *riddled* with hate speech according to some. Give Caesar the power to ban the Quran and you give him power to ban the Bible and command the reading of The Audacity of Hope. Indeed, most of the canon of Western literature is ripe for banning.

I would rather be neighbors with Muslims who advocate free speech protection than with Catholics (or PC zealots) who have some scheme for burning incorrect books.