"But somehow using the extreme aspects of Islam as an excuse to cast aspersions on innocent potential refugees is bullshit."

That is nearly a dictionary definition of being a bigot, or in more honest company, a fucking bigoted piece of shit. You know what a defining characteristic of refugees is? They're trying to ESCAPE violence.

There are some people I could give a pass on their bigotry, a little bit, in that sometimes it comes from people who simply have never given a matter much thought so they started out stupid but are potentially open to change. In Maher's case, though, he knows where the bigotry in his arguments lies, and he tries very very hard to merely imply the parts that would get him in hot water if stated directly. So fuck him and fuck his smug dishonest face, nearly the Platonic ideal of Backpfeifengesicht.

Honor killings are illegal in lots of places, because they don't distinguish the difference between that and murder. Because there isn't one.

Still didn't stop that little girl from being run over by her dad in arizona not very long ago.

"I have low expectations for this ever happening given the immediate reactions of progressives when things like the Paris/Mali/Beruit/etc. killings happen which is immediately white knighting Islam for being this glowing religion of wonderful awesomeness that never, ever informs the violence but hey lets go back to making fun of the Christofascists running for office, right?"

As for me, I compare apples to apples: I am about as opposed to Christian terrorists as to Muslim terrorists, and as opposed to imposing Christian law as to imposing Muslim law. But Christians who just want to practice their faith aren't a problem in my mind, again like Muslims who just want to practice their faith.

"Muslims integrating into Enlightenment cultures need to be supported in their want to reform and improve Islam, whatever you think of the religion, and we need to stand up for the human rights of Muslims within their own religion and give them support when the minority crazies want them dominated by nonsense instead of the condescending bullshit the West has been doing for ages now."

That's exactly what Canada does.

We don't need to be a bunch of Islamaphobic (no, any criticism of Islam is not Islamaphobia) assholes to do so.

In fact, being a bunch of Islamaphobic assholes is generally what CAUSES radicalization in the first place, as these young people feel no connection to the wider society of the nation within which they live, they feel rejected as a person by the secular society that should be welcoming them, which makes them easy pickings for the sort of people looking for just that sort of person, whether it be to get them to join a gang or to go overseas for jihad.

Just what are these "higher expectations" that should be demanded of muslim communities, by the way? I mean, there's nothing wrong with that phrase in theory, but it's often used as code for some highly unsavory xenophobic crap, particularly when used along with the liberal peppering of phrases like "white knighting", in my experience.

It is true that conservatives often have huge problems adapting to more liberal, Democratic societies and then create their own pockets of culture that often regress into Christian barbarism and superstition (and then wanting special legal rights to behave however they want because it's their beliefs), but the guilt for this lies less on the conservative communities, which often become dominated by a minority of extremists, and more on regressive Republicans who refuse to criticize or confront the real problems of conservatism or demand higher expectations of conservative communities apart from "Well, not all conservatives are crazed killers."

If you have a suggestion, I'm listening, because it could solve more than the problems you happen to think we have as a nation.

Stars for Bobonne.

I'd say it was more 'being an asshole who also happens to be an atheist', myself.

Being the latter (and arguably the former).