These Sorts Of Conversatons Are Fine Until Someone Disagrees With You

Over on the blog where a fellow has decided I'm the worst person in the world, my condemner has been flirting with a discussion of Islam and ISIS because one of the cartoonists who frequents that site indicated on his Facebook page (sorry, no link, I don't do Facebook), that Islam is not a religion of peace.

Political discussions are against the site's rules, but my accuser apparently really wants to have the discussion. He says: "Listen, as Laura said, if it even qualifies as political (which I don’t think it does, since we are not talking about political policy here but rather one person’s perception of other people for reasons which I, personally, think are stupid–and calling comic strip creators stupid for stuff they’ve said on the internet is absolutely not against the rules here, considering we do it to guys like Batiuk and McEldowney all the time) it’s still far, far from the most politically-charged issue that’s been discussed here. It isn’t even the first time ISIS has been brought up. World events do not necessarily equal politics."

I think we can all infer, based on my accuser's past statements, that if I did participate and mount a formidable defense of the cartoonist's statement, which would be easy, it would immediately, in his opinion, cease to be a worthwhile conversation.

In any case, the violent nature of Islam has to be one of the top five most loaded political topics on the planet right now, so I'm going to do all the other readers a favor and not participate there.

My accuser is the kind of person who can watch the literal daily reports of Muslim atrocities over decades; see that every Muslim-dominated nation on earth is one that denies basic rights and freedoms -- even the best of them (Malaysia) are incredibly restrictive of religious freedom, but most are violent, misogynist hellholes; read Islam's scriptural exhortations to military domination, subjugation and murder of non-believers; see its blessings on violence against women and children by mainstream Islamic clerics and governments, and still say "Islam is a religion of peace, and, oh, Crusades, and some crazy Christians bombed abortion clinics back in the day, so Christianity is just as bad." It's like comparing a lone gnat on your apple to a plague of locusts.

But, religion of peace aside, what really annoys me is that I know the guy would just go nuts if I said what I think on the site, and I, the horrible, bad person, am the one who has to be the adult and not take his bait, for the sake of the innocent readers of the site.