Were You Suprised By Sniper?
I'm sure Nate & Tomas aren't going to like this one: Muslim ties are no surprise. Mark Steyn had a bet with both his wife and his assistant that the sniper would turn out to be an Islamic Terrorist. While I didn't have a bet, there was a bit of 'I told you so' going on in my house and office the day after he was caught.
What Steyn follows that with is very fitting given the discussion on this site over the past week or so: "He's Islamic, and he's terrorizing people. That's good enough for me." My wife, on the other hand, insists it doesn't count unless he's got an official membership card in al-Qaida. That's not the way these fellows work, which, to give them the barest fig leaf of an excuse, may be why all those legions of TV experts clung to the approved "angry white male loner" cliches right up to the moment of arrest. But there's a difference between a reluctance to leap to conclusions and a bizarre determination to leap away from the facts.
The killer didn't kill blondes, he didn't kill fetching young men he picked up in bars, he didn't kill lonely spinsters from the personal ads. He killed Americans--male and female, young and old, black and white.
Now whose profile does that fit?
He then touches on what I talked about in the 'How Patient Are You' post below that Nate called bigoted. Not all Muslims are snipers, hostage-takers, nightclub bombers, suicide bombers, shoe bombers and folks who like their Fourth of July to go with more of a bang than you get from firecrackers. But a huge percentage of snipers, nightclub bombers, etc., turn out to be Muslim--and, if they're all acting independently, that's even more worrying.
I still say that the sentiment expressed there is correct - bigoted or not. If its not possible to step back and differentiate between the Muslims who are trying to kill you and the Muslims who just want to live their lives like normal civilized folk - well, thats just a recipe for problems.
UPDATE: ABC News has a poll out that shows that Americans are more negative about Islam right now than they were after 9/11.
What Steyn follows that with is very fitting given the discussion on this site over the past week or so: "He's Islamic, and he's terrorizing people. That's good enough for me." My wife, on the other hand, insists it doesn't count unless he's got an official membership card in al-Qaida. That's not the way these fellows work, which, to give them the barest fig leaf of an excuse, may be why all those legions of TV experts clung to the approved "angry white male loner" cliches right up to the moment of arrest. But there's a difference between a reluctance to leap to conclusions and a bizarre determination to leap away from the facts.
The killer didn't kill blondes, he didn't kill fetching young men he picked up in bars, he didn't kill lonely spinsters from the personal ads. He killed Americans--male and female, young and old, black and white.
Now whose profile does that fit?
He then touches on what I talked about in the 'How Patient Are You' post below that Nate called bigoted. Not all Muslims are snipers, hostage-takers, nightclub bombers, suicide bombers, shoe bombers and folks who like their Fourth of July to go with more of a bang than you get from firecrackers. But a huge percentage of snipers, nightclub bombers, etc., turn out to be Muslim--and, if they're all acting independently, that's even more worrying.
I still say that the sentiment expressed there is correct - bigoted or not. If its not possible to step back and differentiate between the Muslims who are trying to kill you and the Muslims who just want to live their lives like normal civilized folk - well, thats just a recipe for problems.
UPDATE: ABC News has a poll out that shows that Americans are more negative about Islam right now than they were after 9/11.
# | October 28, 2002