You know...some irony

[Xantar]

Originally Posted by Professor S

The commonality is that Islam reacts to problems with the sword instead of the pen. That is all the comparison I need. The cause of the violence is not my worry, it is the constant falling back to it that worries me and should worry everyone.

So I suppose you think that black people looted New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina because black culture is criminal in nature with no respect for the law? It couldn't just be because New Orleans is a majority black city and you probably would have seen the same thing if it had been populated by a bunch of poor white people?

This is the hole in your thinking you seem to be missing here, and your post betrays a vast ignorance of the situation in France to say nothing of lazy thinking. Have you even talked to any French people or any people belonging to the minority ethnic groups there, or are you so arrogant that you think you understand the reasons for the rioting better than the rioters?

If the rioters had all been Asians (let's say), your position would have no standing. And what I'm saying is that in France, it happened to have a bunch of Muslims but it could have been any group. If you take any minority segment of the population and marginalize it (or cause it to feel marginalized), it will erupt into violence at the slightest "provocation." It doesn't have to be a Muslim population. Just take a look at what happened after the Rodney King verdict.

If violence is such an integral part of the culture of Muslims in France, then why did Jews, second generation Portuguese, Albanians and non-Muslim Africans join in rather than stand to the side to demonstrate that "we aren't like them"? You can discount their presence and say that the majority of the rioters were Muslim, but what the variety of ethnicities suggests to me is that violence was not the response of the Islamic community but of the poor. Aren't you the one who thought that we are divided along economic and not racial lines?

If you want to show me that Islam runs on fear and is intolerant and uncompromising, by all means cite the reign of any number of regimes in the Middle East from Palestine to Afghanistan. Tell me about Islamic terrorists in the Philippines or in India. I'm probably not going to argue with you, and I'm open to seeing a pattern of behavior. I fully agree with you that the leadership is corrupt and needs to be reformed one way or another. All I'm saying is that this instance is not an example in support of what you're saying, and it's not because I feel the need to be politically correct. And trying to force it to fit through a tenuous connection helps nothing.