Religion of Peace

OK, I'm not getting many comments lately, so I'm going to post on something topical and controversial just to stir things up.

Late last week, a perfectly nice, normal guy from South Charlotte, who recently graduated from UNC, decided to go berzerk and try to kill a bunch of kids at random with his SUV. He drove into the Pit, which is a gathering place on campus at UNC, and swerved and managed to hit 9 people. Luckily, he didn't manage to run anyone over or cause serious injuries. He got back on the road, and pulled over and called police to come and get him.

Oh, did I forget to mention he's a Muslim and claims he did this to get revenge on the US Government?

What makes people do things like this?

It's easy to say that it's Islam as a religion, since most of the violence that concerns us in the USA lately is at the hands of Middle Eastern Muslim terrorists. But I've visited Malaysia, which is an Islamic state, and this crap doesn't happen over there. Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians seem to actually get along there.

I'd like to say that it's the combo of Islam and oppressive governments, but this kid was raised in the USA all his life, though he was born in Iran.

I'd like to blame this on the brainwashing and programming by radical Islamic clerics, but this kid apparently studied the Koran on his own. Maybe future investigation will prove this assumption wrong, but the available evidence indicates that he worked alone.

Therefore, none of the conventional wisdom and rhetoric seem to apply to this case. This kid has been meek, quiet, and respectful during his time in court, although he is unapologetic for his actions. He has not displayed a load of anger and hatred in his demeanor at all.

For those of my friends and family in Malaysia, I'd like to try to explain how I think most Americans feel about Muslims at the moment. We know that our American culture is under attack by a lot of people who hate us, for no reason other than their religious leaders say that they should. These attackers have little or no regard for human life, which is something we can't comprehend in our society, as we have been taught that there is nothing more precious. These attackers claim they are Muslims and call for all Muslims to join their jihad. This makes us look on other Muslims with a slightly suspicious eye. After all, we were attacked and hurt by people that came to the US posing as students, taking advantage of our education system, under the guise of friendship, and betrayed our trust in the goodness of human nature. I think it's understandable that we are a little more wary since then.

I'd like to apologize to the millions of peaceful Muslims in America and the rest of the world for this behavior. However, I hope you are reasonable enough to understand that those of us who don't share your religion might not be as easy to get along with as we once were. You could help the situation yourselves quite a bit, you know, if you would speak up about how the actions of Al-Qaida, Hamas, etc are in conflict with Islam and show a little outrage towards them sometimes. Excommunicating them or something would go a long way, really it would. We'd certainly feel a bit more trusting if you were to do that. And by the way, your reaction to the cartoon thing? Not really helpful. Jesus taught his followers to "turn the other cheek", and most of the time, it remains good advice. Just shake it off - it was in bad taste, yes, but it was a tiny little newspaper from a country that doesn't have much in the way of entertainment. (Incidentally, the USA had nothing to do with it. Please address your complaints to Europe.)

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough about this subject. Hopefully, I've explained my perspective and we can have a nice discussion in the comments.