Number 356 Rory Stewart redux

This was a podcast I was looking forward to, because I'm not sure how much credibility I give to Sam's bigotry against Islam. I know he tries to say he's not a bigot, but it seems to me that negative feelings about a whole religion are the exact definition of bigotry. Here's the Oxford website: "Bigotry: obstinate ... attachment to a belief..., in particular prejudice against ... people on the basis of their membership of a particular group."

So, yeah. Face it, Sam. You're textbook bigot.

Next question: Is the bigotry warranted?

Well, don't look to Rory if you want to see a logical hole poked into Sam's arguments. Every point Rory made fizzled out pretty quickly. Like when he suggested it’s impossible to despise an idea without despising the person that holds it. And then a half hour later tells Sam about friends of his who hold reprehensible views. He tries to walk that back, but he's already screwed that pooch. And anyway, what the hell point was he even making? That we can't despise bad ideas anymore, because that diminishes our humanity? It's just stupid.

Whatever. Let's move on. Really, Rory's main defense against Sam's criticisms of Islam goes something like this: "There are many Islams, and that the fact that some Muslims who lived in adverse environments want to murder sinners doesn’t mean that all Muslims are murderous. In any population, there are 15 to 30% who are batshit crazy, so it’s not fair to blame Islam if it has such a proportionate rate of murderousness."

But Sam lands several rather deadly blows against this point, on multiple fronts.
1. Many Palestinians would perpetuate genocide on Isrealis, if only they could.
2. The whole of ISIS is apocalyptically nutso.
3. Politicians and cartoonists and writers across the world are getting murdered by Jihadists.
4. It's in their holy book much less ambiguously than in any other religion's holy writings.
5. We have to be able to say that none of this is okay, and to condemn any system of religion that condones it.

To Rory, a few death threats and a few mass rapings by Muslims do not threaten England, and if forty percent of British Muslims want Sharia Law, or still support Hamas, that doesn't prove anything about their faith. None of this islamophobia is justified, and we should all find something else to worry about. Like Putin. Or climate change.

But here's some scary evidence that something fundamental and critical is being threatened in England, even as we speak: google this question "How many Muslims in England support Hamas?" If you do, you will not get a single British news agency to give you the answer you are looking for. Instead, you'll get a bunch of articles about islamophobia in Britain. Which, to me, means they are already losing a fundamental battle of ideas.