Depending on your sources, you have an estimated 5-10% of Muslims worldwide who have declared war on the "infidels" and "non believers".
Scores of Christians are being killed DAILY throughout Africa, Indonesia, The Sub Continent and the Middle East. These Christians are being killed because they are Christian and refuse to accept Islam.
Many of us here at Freerepublic have noticed an extremely disturbing trend. And that is the refusal of the so-called Moderate Muslims and their leaders worldwide to condemn these acts. Not only do they NOT condemn these acts of violence and killings being commited in the name of Islam, but in many case actually call for it and encourage it, they celebrate the deaths of Christians and Jews.
Perhaps you forgot the cheering on the streets of Gaza, Egypt and other Muslim countries on 9/11.
We are not condemning Muslims worldwide, they are condemning themselves with their deafening silence.
What you are seeing here at Freerepublic is not knee-jerk reactions, but a grassroots movement of individuals coming to the realization the that we are facing a collective threat to our very existance. People are coming to the realization that this "religion" or "idealogy" is threat to us all collectively.
Your philosophical arguement concering conservatism and individualism is correct but you don't seem to see the forest through the trees. The "forest" is that we are all in the same boat facing a menace that wants to sink our boat and kill us collectively.
I wonder how many FReepers know American Muslims. I've known three, having met them here in Los Angeles well before 9/11. Two were Persian, one was Burmese. All were secular, modern in dress and manners. Two were law students, and passed the California bar.
Also here in Los Angeles, many Persian/Muslim shops/gas stations, etc. flew American flags after 9/11.
I also recall reading an internet story (maybe on Ananova) about Egyptian/Muslim actor Omar Sharif talking about throwing a big bar mitzvah for his Jewish grandchild.
Modern, westernized Muslims are out there.
And even if Muslims decided to try to use the media to stand up and say "violence is wrong", "terrorism is wrong", etc, do you really think the media will either broadcast them, or report exactly what they said without manipulation?
From what we can see out here, the US media is almost entirely biased - your average Joe Shmuck out in the suburbs (or trailer park) has No Idea of what's really going on in the world because the media is totally one-sided.
DO you honestly think that if Muslims got up to say anything that the media _wouldn't_ twist their words?
The media are bent and twisted - criminally so, in my not at all humble opinion - no wonder Muslims want nothing to do with it.
Kim...
And of course, all people who call themselves "Christian" are perfect and no Christian _ever_ killed anyone, did they?
When Christianity was around 1400 years old, what were Christians doing? Oh yeah - crusades, inquisitions, etc.
Killing Muslims and other Christians alike. Because the masses were uneducated and the leaders were idiots.
Islam is currently about 1400 years old. And what do they have? Uneducated masses (in much LARGER populations than the Christian Middle Ages), Loony leaders (with much more money and power and weapons than in the Christian Middle Ages) AND an enemy that appears to have all the money, all the power, all the influence and all the ignorance of culture and history that's probably necessary to have in order to at least be a fair and generous Single World Superpower.
So really, I don't think it's any surprise the world is where it is today.
Kim...