Labeling Muslims

In the West, especially within America’s borders, Muslims and their enablers rant, rail, and whine that Muslims are labeled by Americans and that those labels are universally negative.

Muslim Labeled
Got A Problem, Tifl Al-Khanzeer? Prove Us Wrong!

Beyond the sad fact this is nothing more than their attempt to legitimize their agenda, there are two fundamental and incontrovertible flaws in their incessant and ever more strident rants.

Societal Requirement for Labels

Labels are a necessity for societies, a necessity that grows proportionately to the size, density, and complexity of a society, along with its amount and perceived necessity of interaction with other, disparate societies.

Partly this is the natural and needed quest for normalcy whereby a societal identity is forged based upon a median approach to what constitutes an integrated and contributing member of that society. Partly, this is based on threat analysis whereby citizens use initial cues to determine the possible danger presented by individuals before that danger can be actualized.

Burden of Proof

In functioning societies such as those of the Civilized World – America especially – labels applied to subgroups are not fixed; they are mutable by both perceptual shifts of society at large and by individual actors changing what labels society applies to them. In the latter case, however, the burden of proving that the existent label is not applicable and that new one should be applied is upon the individual seeking the change.

This is indefeasible; the minority grouping, by their nature non-normative, always bears the onus of changing the opinion of- and labeling applied by the larger society as a whole.

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It’s truly, at this point, up to the Muslims in America to either prove that they’ve been mislabeled or accept the consequences failing to do so.

Ranting, raving, and whining about being assigned labels they don’t like will just exacerbate the situation, especially when they use groups such as CAIR to try to impose changes by fiat through the subornation of courts system in a form of paper jihad that Americans tend to find even more reprehensible than direct and overt violence.

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9 Responses to “Labeling Muslims”

  1. Justin Says:

    What would you accept as proof that Muslims have been mislabeled?

  2. Justin Says:

    Secondly, would your position change if the labeling “majority of society as a whole” (and let’s go ahead and own up to it, WASPs) became the minority. This seems inevitable anyhow, in Europe and the US.

    And do minorities in other populations (whites in the middle east, for example) bear the onus of proving that they have been mislabeled by the majorities of THOSE societies?

  3. Charles Sifers Says:

    So for people like Justin, “it’s a racial thing”, even though “race'” is just another one of their tools.

    Sorry Justin, your straw man doesn’t fly.

    Any intelligent human being on the planet is aware that Muslims pose a threat. The same threat that they have posed for 1500 years.

    Now before you throw up the tired old, “Not every Muslim is a terrorists” argument, let me stop you.

    Islam is, has, and always will be a threat to civilized, free people, and their “moderate” members have always been the vanguard to the invasion.

    Until the so called “good Muslims” stand up and openly denounce their terrorist brothers and the evil heart of Islam, then they cannot be trusted. But then, it wouldn’t be Islam, would it?

  4. ichabod Says:

    Hi jonolan;

    Until the so called “good Muslims” stand up and openly denounce their terrorist brothers and the evil heart of Islam, then they cannot be trusted. But then, it wouldn’t be Islam, would it?

    I agree. I think any “religion” given control of a society will insure the destruction of the culture and modern secular reforms within.

    Secular reforms such as education, unemployment insurance, welfare (some people cannot make it on their own for a number of reasons), a justice system that is based on the premise of proving guilt and fair and timely trials as a few.

    I have yet to see one nation which is controlled or heavily influenced by “God’s chosen” which is as humane as a secular nation with the freedom to achieve one’s potential.

  5. jonolan Says:

    Justin (cadet, or did you get your commission?),

    Firstly, I’m honest enough to say that I’m not sure what it would take for them to prove such to me personally. At a minimum, wholesale and overt adoption of Charles suggestion would be needed.

    Secondly, as Charles commented, your race-baiting straw man is pathetic. While “WASPs” are the dominant racial-cultural-religious grouping in America, they (as you’ve proven) are labeled as well; therefore, the labeling is done by multiple (all of them actually) groups.

    Thirdly, I’ve been the minority in many of the countries I’ve lived in worked in and have been labeled in those cases. I mostly chose not to break out of the labels but, when I did, I knew I was one that had to prove that they didn’t fit me.

    The same is true of the minority groups indigenous or quasi-indigenous to those nations.

    Charles,

    Overall I agree with you – but the means by which you make your point avoids a simple truth proven by history – Christianity was an equal threat the the Civilized World for almost a 1000 years.

    Christianity, however, got over it. I believe this is largely to do with the fact that the dangers they posed (pretty much the same as Islam’s at a fundamental level) weren’t backed up by both their holy books and their consensus interpretation (itjihad and fikh) of those text. Islam is a different case.

    ichabod,

    As with Charle’s comment, overall I agree with you – but I think you wrong religion somewhat. Education was part of Protestant reform and unemployment insurance and welfare are more examples of what was “needed” to be done secularly as the American people became less religious; before, such things were less needed because the churches and their congregations handled such things.

    Also, you say:

    I have yet to see one nation which is controlled or heavily influenced by “God’s chosen” which is as humane as a secular nation with the freedom to achieve one’s potential.

    Ummm….America? Canada? Most of Europe? All of those are generally considered humane and all are heavily influenced by “God’s chosen”

  6. Justin Says:

    Jonolan,

    It’s just Justin, thanks for asking. I prefer to dissociate my personal opinions and positions from those of my employer.

    Thank you for your honesty. I see you didn’t miss my point about what would constitute proof for breaking racial labels (in your case, nothing could really destroy the generalization you perceive that all Muslims are a threat – only to narrow it down, I don’t wish to put words in your mouth).

    I do appreciate your point that all segments of society receive labels from outside of their segment, and it is not just a majority. I can also admit that it is a narrow view that whites are the only “label-makers,” for lack of a better word. I apologize for that narrow perspective.

    What I think this implies is that labels are placed on any segment of society by the aggregate of outsiders, making EVERY segment a minority, consequentially.

    What bums me out is a suspicion that this labeling is socially determined. And although a “concensus view” or label can be informed by facts and history, I believe it can be tampered with by instigators, or lack of information. I also think it’s fair that more lack of information exists than hard factual information.

    In fact, these labels are easiest to believe by others who have no experience or encounters with somebody from outside their segment. Or worse, the ONLY experience they have is a tragic event such as 9/11 to inform their entire exposure to an outside group.

    So you’re right, about the onus being on a racial segment to disprove the label. No one else can or even will try to do so, I would think, without some sort of strong benefit.

    A worry of mine is that there is no onus upon a slanderer to actully prove anything at all about a generalization or label. They seem to be off the hook, and have high authority with the inexperienced.

    I’ve gotten long…I’d genuinely appreciate your thoughts, but I’ve got little stomach for much loaded language I’m afraid. I really do mean to think about the issue instead of staying on my own side sabre-rattling.

  7. jonolan Says:

    Justin,

    There are threats and there are threats, Justin. A Muslim shouldn’t find it that to convince me that he’s not one of the greater and/or immediate sort. Simply overtly siding with me against those that are would suffice, I think – it would take a bit before I believed his sincerity.

    In the broader sense is where I’m at a loss. I find no value in the religion, its cultural antecedents, and its behavioral norms. I doubt that any Muslim could be someone I would approve of and still be a Muslim.

    You also, in your reply, seem to work under the default condition that the labels are false and the people propagating them are liars. I see little or basis for this.

    It’s not really necessary to to lie about Islam and its adherents. You can tell the truth and get the same result, though that leaves the affected Muslims in the unenviable position of having to proclaim their lack of faith in their religion.

  8. RealityCheck Says:

    I feel the same way about Christians; I’m inclined to defer to proof, providing on their own behalves of course, that they are not all closeted homosexual evangelicals, child-molesting priests and polygamists before I reconsider my “labels” of them.

  9. jonolan Says:

    If you were hoping for outrage on my part, you’re doomed to disappointment, RealityCheck. I’m not Christian; I’m Pagan. I’m also openly Polygamous (obviously not under the law, which “frowns” upon such things)

    Truth be told, I do essentially demand that Christians show me some overt and consistent evidence that they are against some of the things their “extremists” favor if they want me to assign them different labels.

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