I’m seeing a video posted by that “horrible”, “evil”, “fake news” standard of journalism The New York Times. The article appeared in print on Feb. 27th of this year and it talks about two maligned groups — Muslims, whom our government apparently doesn’t want here, and Jews — the scourge of Nazis and neo-Nazis everywhere, and the perennial victims of a special kind of racism — anti-Semitism.
To read all the propaganda out there, these people are bad people — horrible, horrible people…sad. Beside that, if you look at Israel and Palestine, they’re mortal enemies! So violent, very, very violent people, the two of them.
But for those of us with eyes, and facts, and brains, there’s science. Let’s do a little social science experiment. Hypothesis: Muslims and Jews are, by-and-large, dangerous war-mangers. Data: Pew Census Data 2010: “As of 2010, Christianity was by far the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31 percent) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth,” the Pew report says. “Islam was second, with 1.6 billion adherents…“, (per virtual Jewish Library) Number of Jews, 13.9 million.
According to a Berkeley researcher: “Predominantly, Muslim countries average 2.4 murders per annum per 100,000 people, compared to 7.5 in non-Muslim countries. The percentage of the society that is made up of Muslims is an extraordinarily good predictor of a country’s murder rate. More authoritarianism in Muslim countries does not account for the difference. I have found that controlling for political regime in statistical analysis does not change the findings. More Muslims, less homicide”
And Jews? According to the National Criminal Justice Research Service: LOW CRIME RATE. IT IS LOWER THAN THAT OF NON-JEWS TAKEN AS A WHOLE, LOWER THAN THAT OF OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS, AND LOWER THAN A RATE BASED SIMPLY ON THE JEWISH PROPORTION OF THE POPULATION (THE EXPECTED RATE (sorry about the caps, the quote is from an abstract written in all caps)
Ok. So they’re not, by-and-large, bad people. In fact, they are better than others. Huh. I wonder how that happened. Why would we want to keep out good people based on their religion? That doesn’t make sense.
Maybe statics lie or are being manipulated: let’s use experience: from the Times: Two attacks on Jewish cemeteries in the last week have resulted in an outpouring of more than $136,000 in donations from thousands of Muslims and others, who have also pledged to financially support Jewish institutions if there are further attacks.
Jewish organizations have reported a sharp increase in harassment. The JCC Association of North America, which represents Jewish community centers, said 21 Jewish institutions, including eight day schools, had received bomb threats on Monday. … Two Muslim activists, Linda Sarsour and Tarek El-Messidi, asked Muslims to donate $20,000 in a crowdfunding effort to repair hundreds of Jewish headstones that were toppled near St. Louis last week. That goal was reached in three hours.
Also, recently, in Victoria, Texas, (per CNN, another one of those fact-based press organizations) “Jewish people in a small Texas city handed Muslim worshippers the keys to their synagogue after the town’s only mosque was destroyed in a fire. The Victoria Islamic Centre burned down on Saturday and had previously been burgled—the cause is being investigated by federal officials. But the town’s Muslim population will not be without a place to worship while their building is reconstructed, thanks to their Jewish neighbours. … Robert Loeb, the president of Temple Bnai Israel, told Forward: “Everyone knows everybody, I know several members of the mosque, and we felt for them. When a calamity like this happens, we have to stand together. “We have probably 25 to 30 Jewish people in Victoria, and they probably have 100 Muslims. We got a lot of building for a small amount of Jews.” One of the mosque’s founders, Shahid Hashmi, said: “Jewish community members walked into my home and gave me a key to the synagogue…. Donations and an online fundraising campaign have raised more than $900,000 (£717,000) for reconstruction”.
Clearly, at least here in America, they’re not mortal enemies. Heck, they’re not even bad for the economy! Look at the money these people spend caring for each other!
So, if they’re not violent in general, and not violent to each here, they are good to each other and they spend money here in our economy, can someone please explain to me why we would want to keep Muslims out? Or if Jews aren’t bad people, why are their cemeteries being destroyed and their community centers threatened?
I know it’s confusing for some people to have facts instead of opinions, but facts are those things that live in reality. I don’t know that many Muslims or Jews. I don’t really “have a dog in this fight”. But, as near as I can figure, we should be welcoming these people, who seem to be good citizens, here rather than a) keeping them out or b) making them want to leave.
Still, I’m one of those liberals who believe in things like science and facts. You know what I say: “Reality… love it or leave it!”
Resisting in peace,
John
Because It Matters 
“Can someone please explain why we want to keep Muslims out?”
Sure, I will.
By and large, you are correct. I’ve had many Muslims as customers and coworkers over the years. I’ve traveled to several Muslim countries, and met many wonderful Muslims. I work with some wonderful Muslims on a daily basis. I think….
Here’s the problem. A minority of Muslims (statistics vary between 5% to 13%) want to KILL US. They believe that their religion calls them to kill any human being (or actually to them, sub-humans) who will not convert to their one true religion. That is a FACT.
And here is the problem – we have no idea which ones they are. Their strategy to kill the American sub-humans is to infiltrate the country, and appear “normal”, and to acquire positions of power and authority. Once they have sufficiently infiltrated, they will begin to execute us until all non-Muslims have either converted or died.
And they won’t admit who they are. They believe that lying, if done for the honor of Allah, is completely justified. They will be truthful in anything – to a standard that I wish we were all truthful- except when required for the honoring of Allah.
So whether you have 19 in 20 Muslims who are *truly* nice, or it’s 18 in 20, or whatever, the problem that the other 1 or 2 WANT TO KILL US unless we convert to their religion, and are willing to lie until they obtain sufficient infiltration about their true purpose.
I wish I was wrong, but I’m not. I wish I could still wholeheartedly still support freedom of religion – but now I want to add an exception “unless you want to use your religion as a justification to kill”. THAT religious view, in my opinion, should be an exception to our constitutional right.
And here’s the problem with your murder statistics – you have to define murder. If you believe that you are killing a sub-human, then that doesn’t count as a murder… does it?
I was IN Saudi Arabia when the requirement was removed that any woman who wanted to report a rape needed to present four male witnesses to testify on their behalf. Oh, and the consequences of accusing a man of rape when it wasn’t true (because you didn’t have four witnesses)? You don’t want to know. And, by the way, Muslims view Muslim women as human. But non-Muslims are not even that…
That’s why many people don’t want Muslims to come in this country – because fear for our women and our lives.
I wish I was wrong.
-Bob C.
Bob:
Very reasonable response, but I have one problem with it — and not an answer to my problem. Assuming that what you say is true, and I don’t have any reason to do do that, my problem is that the three religions I know about all have some “WAY off the deep” part. Christians, Muslims and Jews all have extremist, violent, and hateful groups. Some are already here. What do we do with them?
Peace,
John
No doubt, What’s even worse is that the “way off the deep end” Christians and Jews tend to get all of the press, and make us “normals” look like we’re part of the kooky fringes. And there is one other word that makes me feel ashamed – “Crusades”.
The primary difference, though, is that the percentage of Muslims is much higher. If we agree that only 5% of Muslims are “fringe kooks”, that’s 80,000,000 of people on Earth who want to kill us. As far as I know, the “fringe kook” Christians are significantly smaller in number.
Again, that’s why I would be happier with Freedom of Religion “unless you want to use your religion as a justification to kill people”.
And there is another key difference- the “fringe kooks” amongst the Christians and Jews tend to be very vocal about their views and goals, so they are easier to track down in case they create a problem. Not that I’m justifying any “kooky” actions by them, but it’s easier to know who they are.
-Bob