Comment

ADL Condemns Remarks by Geert Wilders

25
Kosh's Shadow4/30/2009 2:39:55 pm PDT

It is perfectly acceptable to ban calls for violence, whether wrapped in religion (jihad) or not.
But banning Islam itself plays into the hands of the jihadis - “Look, the West is at war with us! They are banning our religion. We must fight back and blow them up!”

There is a reason the US has fewer radical Muslims than many other countries; we let them be part of our society. We do have some jihadis, yes, but far fewer than France, as a proportion of the Muslim population.

I can understand calls to monitor which imams call for violent jihad and which for peaceful inner struggle, but that is different from banning all of them.

All religions have violent wackos; Islam has a much higher proportion, true, but the same argument could be used against others.
Let’s not go down that slope. Ban the specific messages, not the whole religion.