With Merkel's Foes in Disarray, Germany Defies the Trump Trend

[Dill]

(05-03-2017, 01:55 PM)masterpanthera_t Wrote: I think my previous paragraph clarifies a lot of this.  Contextualizing is the key word here, and clearly agendas will play a role in the objective and unbiased execution of the contextualizing.  Now I'm not sure who would fit the bill here, but possibly some well vetted panel of academics?  

Agreed.  This would be part of the clarification of our "values".  My interest in something less than pluralism is more from the point of view of certain core values not being compromised, for example all of our values on "freedom", not necessarily "culture" insofar as "culture" of immigrants does not conflict with our core values.

A  vetted panel of academics sound good, but we are living in the time of Trump (what do "experts" know about anything) and the Islamophobes will have their "experts" too. Not great scholars, perhaps (one thinks of Fox commentators like Sebastian Gorka), but that will become a fight over criteria of expertise.

I am not sure that a group of experts working out of sight will do much to calm anxieties about Islam and Sharia. You are aware that as of 2012, some 21 states were considering a ban on Sharia. Oklahoma did pass a law supposedly banning Sharia.  https://ballotpedia.org/Oklahoma_International_and_Sharia_Law,_State_Question_755_(2010)#Sharia_Law

Even though this one has been ruled unconstitutional (https://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/08/16/oklahoma-ban-on-sharia-law-unconstitutional-us-judge-rules/), it gives some indication of the fear of monolithic Islam even in places where there are

The Oklahoma lawmaker in the link below selects lines from the Qu' ran and the Sunna and then forms them into a questionnaire for Muslims students, asking if, for example, they beat their wives. 
http://kfor.com/2017/03/05/oklahoma-lawmaker-receiving-backlash-after-asking-muslim-students-to-fill-out-hateful-questionnaire-before-meeting-with-them/

More recently, a Texas lawmaker did something similar, sending a "poll" to Texas mosques, demanding, among other things, that they declare they will not harm apostates. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-legislature/2017/01/19/state-lawmaker-sends-sharia-law-poll-texas-mosques

Fortunately, Faith Impact, a group of religious leaders, made a public statement condemning the tactic and urging Muslims in Texas to disregard it.

These crazy polls are the sort of practice I fear most--people who know nothing about Islam or history reading "facts" from books they think they understand ("See, it says STONING right there!"). 

You would condemn fear mongering, of course. But I think it is fear mongering that has raised people's concerns about American core values being compromised. I say they are compromised when we pass anti-sharia laws, and they are upheld when courts reject anti-Sharia laws as unconstitutional. 

So what I am saying is that I don't see where a few Muslims scattered in pockets around the US pose any threat at all to American core values. The issue for me is still Islamophobia, not Islam, Islamophobes, not Muslims, being the greater threat to our "core values."


 I think that people coming into the US have to obey US laws. But they don't necessarily have to become Americans or adopt American values. What sort of "freedom" are we offering when we say "our way or the highway"?