I found myself typing a long reply to one of MajorDork74's komen-komen on his link. If you're too lazy to click on the link, the image is a bumper sticker which says "If it's OK to call belukar, bush Hitler, then I say it's OK to call Obama Muslim."

And the general response was, "Call him whatever anda want, but this statement doesn't make sense... how is being a Muslim as bad an insult as being called Hitler? I'm sure anda can think of worse and lebih accurate things to call Obama."

The Major returned with, and I quote: "Obama does a lot of things that people do not know about. How do anda know he does not practice? The Christian church he supposedly attends...........well, that could very well be a cover-up. Who knows what terrorist ties he has.
True that true Muslims aren't terrorists but because of the ones that took it even further than Christians centuries ago, they're probably the most dangerous people in the world now."

Which prompted my response. I'm not going to quote it here, simply expound upon it.

I've noticed what's going on in our society. Particularly with link like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity spouting anti-liberal rage rhetoric into the radio stream. It's the classic way of uniting a nation-- give them an enemy. Whether it's liberals, atau Muslims, so long as the American people is convinced that they are a threat to our way of life, then they are our enemy of the moment. Think about it. In the cold war, it was Communists. Communism was so demonized that it is still a heavy insult to call someone a communist today. In World War II, it was the Japanese. And we all know what that made us do, right? I'm talking about the link we sent people to simply because of their heritage. I'm talking about how these people tried to hide, denounce, atau lose their culture all together because being of Japanese decent in that time was, quite literally, a crime.

And this war, this "War on Terror" is no different. Our common enemy are Muslims, specifically Arab Muslims. If they are an Indonesian Muslim (88% of Indonesia is Muslim) atau a Muslim from Djibouti (up to 99% of Djibouti is Muslim), then we aren't as afraid of them as if they are an Arab Muslim.

Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has become our new "flavor of the week." So are we going to round up all the Arab-American Muslims and put them in camps like we did with the Japanese? Are we going to deny all Arab immigrants atau tourists? I mean, if we did that, then America sure would be a safer place. We wouldn't have to worry about Islamic extremist factions trying to penetrate our great nation and destroy it from the inside out.

Actually... No. We wouldn't be any safer. Because the US still has a barrel full of enemies to pull from, and they aren't just Arab Muslims. Focusing on Muslims is the easy way for our government to "unite" us (when in my opinion it really divides us) and get us to support the ongoing actions in Iraq.

People forget about the Columbian drug lords and South American terrorist groups that launch attacks on our soil. People conveniently ignore the amount of Christian terrorism that we allow to happen in our nation. Are anda surprised I put the words "Christian" and "terrorism" together? Do anda think that doesn't exist?

Let's have a moment to look at Christian terrorism, which is not just historical (I'm not even going to touch the Spanish Inquisition with a ten foot pole), but present still today.

There are so-called Christians who have committed acts of terror in the name of their religion. Christians who beat gays, and commit other hate crimes. Christians who link. Christians who bomb abortion clinics like "link" atau "link." And let's not forget the link.

No, anda don't have to read all of those links. Just know that they are real organizations, atau real events, that use violence in order to get their point across. Identity Kristian is a belief that "disease, addiction, cancer, and sexual venereal disease (herpes and AIDS) are spread sejak human 'rodents' via contact with 'unclean' persons, such as through 'race-mixing'." (link). It promotes hate-filled papar towards non-Caucasian Christians. It breeds intolerance and anger towards these groups, which is the seeds of violence. It is not what the real, true Christian believes, and is as far from the majority of Christians as Islamic extremism is from the majority of Muslims.

If anda think these people don't cause fear, atau have power, atau influence over the American people, anda are wrong. Every religion has it's violent factions, and the lebih I hear about the violence inspired and encouraged sejak link, the lebih I know that the idea of terrorism is a cross-regional one.

Now, I have talked a lot about this sort of attitude in America, but in my research I found a lot of anti-Muslim stories crop up in the UK. anda may have noticed that a lot of imej in this artikel are related to Britain, what with the BNP campaign ad and the foto of the link. This "common enemy" idea extends to America's allies as well.

The problem with the "common enemy" philosophy is that it lasts. Even after we're out of Iraq, I have a feeling that the word "Muslim" will still be considered an insult among some Americans. My request of anda people Membaca this is that anda try and keep this from happening. The idea of the common enemy has gone too far. I highly recommend anda watch that video I linked twice (and now a third time) about link, and consider the messages these people are sending, and the amount of people who are listening and ask yourself: Is this what I want my country to stand for? Are liberals really as dangerous as Michael Savage tells me they are? Are Muslims really that different from me atau my religion?

The other problem with the common enemy idea is that it neglects all other threats to the nation. Terrorism was not invented sejak Islamic extremists, nor do they have a monopoly on it. Think about other oppressive regimes who use their power to scare their people. The numerous human rights violations of the state of Israel. The Scandal over Guantanamo bay for the American government. The unfair treatment of the Burmese people sejak Than Shwe. Just because a government has better PR and spin doctors and can keep their acts of terrorism out of the news doesn't mean that their actions are any cleaner than any other small terrorist faction. Think about that for a moment, too.

So please, don't fall prey to propaganda. Think for yourself and come to your own conclusions about people and societies.