Thirty-nine percent of Americans are off their rockers
Last week, a public radio show host pulled a Borat. Host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band:
This went on for about an hour when Klein revealed that it was all a hoax, a social experiment of sorts. He needn't have bothered, because polling already reveals that 39 percent of Americans are in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.
You know what that sounds like to the other 61 percent of Americans. It sounds an awful lot like the beginnings of the Holocaust — arm bands and tattoos, which Klein noted after the station's jammed phone lines calmed down:
The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be 'off his rocker.' The second congratulated him and added: 'Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us.'Another caller asked, "What good is identifying them? You have to set up encampments like during World War II with the Japanese and Germans."
This went on for about an hour when Klein revealed that it was all a hoax, a social experiment of sorts. He needn't have bothered, because polling already reveals that 39 percent of Americans are in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.
You know what that sounds like to the other 61 percent of Americans. It sounds an awful lot like the beginnings of the Holocaust — arm bands and tattoos, which Klein noted after the station's jammed phone lines calmed down:
"... Basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."I'm glad that at least a majority of us probably agree that those 39 percent are the dangerous ones. Thirty-nine percent, you are an outrage.
Several commenters in the last discussion we had on this issue made the point that moderate Muslims need to be louder and clearer in denouncing the views of extremist Muslims.
I agree. But does that mean conservatives need to loudly and clearly repudiate the kind of views described in J.B.'s post above? How much responsibility do we have for the craziest people in our religious, social and ethnic groups?