Open letter to Islamic moderates: Get. Your. House. in. Order.

To the moderate Muslim community at-large:

I know you're out there. I have friends in your community. I have tried to study your history and your religion to understand what it means to be a Muslim. I, and many others like me, have spent the last four and a half years attempting to be the voice of reason in the debate over foreign policy in the US. And frankly, you're making us look bad.

I'm sure you're aware that in parts of the world Americans are hated with a passion usually reserved for pederasts and tax collectors. What you may not be aware of is that in other parts of the world, its the Muslim community that is regarded with such a vitrolic hate. Neither of us is fully deserving of our reputation; George Bush may dictate American policy, but he certainly doesn't speak, act, or think for me. Nor does Osama bin Ladin speak, act, or think for the entire Muslim world. Those of us attempting to observe some degree of rationality not only acknowledge this, but we've spent a lot of time pointing it out, in the hopes that by doing so, we'd remind those around us that the vast majority of the Muslim world wasn't made of the same intolerant fundamentalist stock as al'Qaeda and Hamas.

I haven't tried to stick up for you because I respect your religion. To be perfectly honest, I think your religion is as stupid as I think every other religion is--Christianity included. I do, however, respect and will fight for your right to practice it. Even though I think its stupid. You're probably wondering why I'd do so. The answer is: because its a basic human right to be stupid. Its a basic human right to believe something, and to profess that belief. I believe dearly in that freedom.

I think that freedom also applies to many other things. Speech, for instance. I think everyone has the right to say pretty much whatever they want. In fact, I love this freedom so much I'm exercising it right now. Somebody else recently did the same. A Danish newspaper dared to print an editorial cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammed (and yes, I intentionally left the capital P off) as a terrorist. Its the response from the Muslim world I'm writing to you about now.

From London to Jakarta, some of your brothers and sisters are calling for blood, while others swear by Allah to shed it. The exercising of the basic human right to free expression--tasteless though this particular incarnation might be--is as fundamental to a functional democracy as voting. To have these fanatics--especially those associated with groups that have already displayed a propensity for indiscriminate violence against civilians and innocent parties--do their dead-level best to intimidate and silence any whom do not share their fundamentalist views should be an affront to all Muslims who truly see Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance.

Its not like this is the first time. Ask Salman Rushdie. You've had plenty of opportunity to lead your brothers and sisters in Islam into the 21st century. Its ironic to me that as many Muslims as live in the West, the ONLY voice I've read condemning the intolerance displayed by these mobs is from the leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai: "As much as we condemn this, we must have, as Muslims, the courage to
forgive and to not make an issue of dispute between religions or
cultures."

I and the rest of my cohorts that make up the Liberal Agenda have done our best to keep in mind that you, the moderates of the Islamic world, are not the enemy. Let me be perfectly clear: we are the ones sticking up for you when you're not around to do it yourselves. We are the ones that take shit on your behalf from every uneducated hick redneck within a hundred mile radius every time a car bomb goes off in Gaza. We're the ones pointing out that the Palestineans have a side to their story that should be heard. Were Joesph McCarthy still around, we'd be the ones getting hauled up in front of the Committee for unAmerican Activities. And you know what else?

We're getting fucking tired of it.

Get. Your. House. In. Order. These fanatics that infest your countries? They're not your friends. If they didn't have us to rail against, who do you think they'd be decapitating? Whose women would they be abusing and subjugating? Here's a hint: go look in a mirror.

You have an opportunity now, an opportunity to stand up and define Islam for the rest of the world. Take a stand--take a look around your communities and denounce those who would seek to impose their interpretation of a religion on the rest of the world, by any means necessary. Teach your children about Allah, but do not let them become infected with the hatred and intolerance Allah so clearly abhors. And failing that, learn to police your own, to keep your problems at home.

Because those of us on the other side of the Dark Ages are getting damn tired of doing it for you.