If you are liberal, DON'T turn a blind eye to the societal ravages and iniquities of the Islamic world and its horrific outlook on human rights. It's nothing short of evil that gays are murdered for their sexual orientation in many places in the Middle East. It's nothing short of evil that it's the year 2017, and women in Saudi Arabia still cannot drive a car, nor even venture outside without an escort if they live in deepest purdah. To turn a blind eye to this -- or worse, accommodate the maintenance of these social injustices by dismissing them as a "difference culture" -- is regressive leftism at its worst.
If you are conservative, don't promote the idea that Muslims ought to be isolated on foreign continents, or worse, forced to live under the thumbs of dictators in order to "keep them in line." This is the same kind of misguided evil that allowed Americans in the 19th century to justify genocide against the Native Americans, it is no different. When the Indians went from homestead to homestead scalping women, children, and even newborn babes, it was evil thinking like this that led the United States to revile them as "savages" with a "barbaric, violent religion" and therefore slaughter them. The same historic mistake is playing out in modern times, only now you are content to let foreign dictators do the slaughtering. You have not learned a single thing from history, you are no better.
The Muslim world has no equivalent of the Catholic Church, pining for some kind equivalent to the Christian Reformation is foolish, it can never happen.
If you understand this, you will understand the problem:
1. The gatekeepers of Islam are the monarchies and dictatorships of the Middle East.
2. Terrorism is the last refuge of people who feel powerless.
3. The people of the Middle East feel powerless because they live under monarchies and dictatorships, in countries where they have no rights, where their lives, and the lives of their sons and daughters, do not get any better.
4. The dictators and monarchs CHANNEL the anger borne of that powerlessness, directing it against their ethnic and regional adversaries: Iran against Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia against Iran and Hezbollah, Turkey against Syria, Hamas against Israel. This is the fuel for violence.
5. Whenever the Arab people grow restive, the dictators cite the imperialism of America and Europe to provide a new outlet for their anger -- redirecting it away from the dictators themselves, who are the true cause, allowing the dictators to stay in control.
6. Islam is not the root cause of the terrorism, oppression, and violence. It is the tool these regimes exploit to animate the people to serve their own ends.
The awful truth is, when terrorism affects us in the West, we are collateral damage. The biggest victims of Islamist violence are the Muslims themselves, we must never lose sight of that. Therefore, the best way to end terrorism is this:
Promote democracy, diversity, and tolerance. Welcome Muslims into our society, and open our doors to refugees in need. Don't be afraid to criticize the aspects of Islam that are immoral and wrong, but don't be hateful, and don't lay all the Islamic world's sins at the feet of all Muslims. Above all else, stand up against dictatorship and oppression. This is the key to bringing peace to the Middle East, and to fomenting a better world.
Stand up against oppression in dictatorship.
None of that addresses the extremists ones in the west. You know, the ones that get the good educations and everything and still believe all the same exact stuff all the others believe. ---
