The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Bigotry

More Than A Quarter of Republicans Would Close All Mosques

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With the news that GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is in favor of establishing a national database of Muslims in America drawing comparisons to Hitler, a new poll released by Public Policy Polling shows that Republicans are right in step with him.

Donald Trump floated the idea this week of shutting down all the mosques in the United States. 27% of Republican primary voters support that concept with 38% opposed, and 35% unsure on the issue. Among the top GOP hopefuls supporters of both Cruz (41/27) and Trump (37/27) support shutting down the mosques while backers of Carson (17/43), Rubio (25/37), and Bush (12/45) oppose doing so.

The latest poll confirms broad support in the GOP nationally for extreme views noted in a poll of Iowa two months ago.

Only 49% of Republicans think the religion of Islam should even be legal in the United States with 30% saying it shouldn’t be and 21% not sure. Among Trump voters there is almost even division with 38% thinking Islam should be allowed and 36% that it should not.

Decent Americans must stand up now, while there is still a Constitution to defend.

Conflating Bigotry and Blasphemy

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In an email interview to Vidya Venkat of The Hindu, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, author of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, explained the difference between critiquing a religion and ridiculing it, and why it is one thing to oppose censorship and quite another thing to reprint Charlie Hebdo cartoons in solidarity.

“The problem with the ongoing discussion of Charlie Hebdo is that it tends to confuse bigotry with blasphemy. I am personally more favorable to blasphemy, but have no time for bigots or bigotry.”

Read the interview: ‘Charlie Hebdo cartoons are bigoted’ – The Hindu.