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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

No, I think you are saying that the reason for the murders is rooted in what people are taught about what it means to own a black car (for example, all those laws in countries that allow killing people for blaspheming black-car-ownership), and not in what people are taught about what it means to be a good muslim.

Then you're not very smart. I wasn't talking about what prompted those people to start shooting at all. I was talking about which "community" gets singled out as having to step up and denounce them. Since it was too subtle for you, let me spin it out some. The brothers were Islamists of Algerian descent who had been foster children and drove a black car. If you're going to decide that their "community" has some special responsibility to stand up and denounce what they did, implicit in that is a judgment about what community they belonged to. My point was that it was just as rational -- which is to say, not at all -- to assume that the west African Muslim dad who watches youth soccer with the FT correspondent I quoted earlier supported the killers because they're both Muslim as it does to assume that another former foster child did because they're both foster children. Or etc. with a black car. Or, in short, I don't think any Muslim should need to rebut a presumption that he or she supported the attacks just because he or she shares some set of religious beliefs or traditions with the attackers. (That doesn't mean I think it doesn't help to have Muslims -- or anyone else -- speak out against the violence, as RT said. That's a different question.)

If I thought that you really meant what you are saying, I'd think you're not very smart. Instead, I thing you're not very honest.

Get bent. I mean that honestly. Lots of people here have been having a worthwhile discussion while disagreeing at least a bit with each other, but you're the only one who has called someone else dishonest. We've been talking about intolerance all day, but you're the only one who has truly found a way to embody it.