"they want to kill us all"
This is a rather simplistic assessment of the situation between Muslims and the Western world. Perhaps now they do want to kill us all. I sometimes ask the person arguing that line if they know why the Muslims may want to kill us all.
"Yes," is the usual comeback, "they hate us because they are religious fundamentalists and they are taught to hate us."
BZZzzzzzzzzzzzT Thanks for playing but No.
because my demons are pretty much this simplistic and don't understand eloquent arguments so much and because whenever this "but they want to kill us!" justification for killing them is brought up I think of this:
yeah. there are religious fanatics--and not just religious fanatics but those who have fallen for the moral rhetoric without subscribing to the belief--in middle america (that fabled place that is everywhere and nowhere) who would like to kill me simply for who I am, and who, really, hate the place I live for its freedom. am I entitled to find them, go to their houses, and kill them first if they haven't actually threatened me in any tangible way? and if they have threatened me but not actively attacked me, am I then allowed to kill them? why or why not? is it ok if I kill their neighbors too because after all they must all be of the same cloth?
see I'd like to know so I can decide whether to muster troops and mount an invasion of some small town (because these people are hard to find but surely a small town aids and abets them more than, say, a big city) before any of them come here and bomb a bar, or go into a homicidal "panic" when someone with the wrong anatomy makes a pass at them. it has happened before and will again and we must protect our people at any cost.