Ali Velshi took a moment at the end of his MSNBC Live broadcast on Monday to parrot one of the Left’s favorite bumper stickers on the nature of Islamism. He gently turned to the camera and offered to impart a much-needed lesson upon the recalcitrant masses. These jihadists, aside from the mass body count, broken families, and permanently disfigured survivors left in their wake caused a scourge almost worse: intolerance:
The London attackers have not just perverted Islam, and attempted to impose that perverted interpretation of the faith on others. They've not just harmed those whom they physically attack, or whom they terrorize, they cast shadows of suspicion, and shame, and sometimes blame on Muslims everywhere.
We’re told that the untold victims of terrorism who require air time are not the surviving families of Christians, Jews and Muslims left to bury the tarred remnants of their slaughtered loved ones, but the amorphous constituency of “moderate Muslims” who feel the almost gravitational consternation of their fellow citizens.
This view is remarkably demeaning; to start, its insinuation is clear: the intemperate, low-brow masses are incapable of operating with the level-headed sobriety of the demigods of tolerance that comprise high positions in media, politics, and academia. These rants are a direct implication on you- when the unelected ambassadors of righteous indignation wax poetic on the beauty of Islam, they’re telling you that what you see with your own two eyes, namely a faith whose doctrinal foundations allow a fairly simple theological bridge to radicalism, is beyond the pale. It’s you who they presume will go out and commit a hate crime if they don’t, in their superior wisdom, extend the olive branch of coexistence to the insatiable bigotry of the brutish populous.
“Most Muslims,” Velshi told us, “are moderate.” While there is a huge plurality of the international population of Muslims who hold truly radical views, Velshi is certainly right: there are plenty of good, wholesome Muslims who are virtuous citizens and hard working Americans. And it’s not appropriate or humane to implicate all in the actions and beliefs of even a relatively sizable plurality.
But what was infuriating was the moral equivalence and fundamental cultural relativism that can only come from the mouth of someone who believes no religions are legitimate: “Most Muslims are moderate and practice a faith that in its very basic tenets looks very much like Christianity or Judaism.”
The theology and, by extension, the faiths of Christianity and Judaism differ significantly in appearance and substance from Islam. The views of God and the virtue of His chosen vessels are radically different. The underlying exegesis on the roles of women plus the civil and legal implications of each faith are fundamentally irreconcilable conceptions of God and nature. The above rant from Velshi was indistinguishable from your garden-variety college professor who will vouch for anything in the numerical minority. It’s disappointing that he feels so convinced of the bigotry you and I supposedly hold that he felt the need to lecture us about it.
Read the full June 5th transcript below:
3:58 PM ET
ALI VELSHI: The London attackers have not just perverted Islam, and attempted to impose that perverted interpretation of the faith on others. They've not just harmed those whom they physically attack, or whom they terrorize, they cast shadows of suspicion and shame and sometimes blame on Muslims everywhere. When something like this happens, Muslims confront the same shock, horror and outrage as the rest of society. It's in this climate that so many call upon so-called moderate Muslims to speak out. Most Muslims are moderate and practice a faith that in its very basic tenets looks very much like Christianity or Judaism. I volunteered to come into work on Saturday night to cover the atrocity committed by strangers who killed others in the name of Islam. And as many times as I have had to do this, it never feels normal. As I was anchoring a Breitbart reporter tweeted "There would be no deadly terror attacks in the UK if Muslims didn't live there. That reporter was subsequently fired but said her work told the truth about Islam and Muslim immigration. The savagery we saw in London and seen all too regularly is hard for anyone to comprehend, but it's uniquely difficult for Muslims who are proud and active participants in civil society.
