One-Way Function
Every day, things get better and better.
Because it's a one-way function.
Every day, more and more people suddenly realize that in the Middle East, one side is right and the other is wrong.
And that the problem is indeed islam.
It surely isn't working the other way around, except for perhaps a handful of the already useless and insane.
It feels like a tipping point was reached recently, over the last few months.
Look at this Pew Research polling information from September, 2004.
It showed views of islam remained remarkably and stubbornly stable for several years after 9/11, with the same poll taken in 2002, 2003, and 2004.
It had been roughly balanced, with views on islam being an average of 39% Unfavorable and 35% Favorable.
The only sub-group that expressed a majority favorable view of islam was "liberal democrats", at 56%! That is all the more remarkable given the relatively poorer "favorability" ratings of Catholicism vs islam, for example -- surely liberal democrats aren't carrying water for the Papists! That means the liberal democrats must have been wildly more favorable in their opinion of islam than of just about any other religion -- even after 9/11!
If that doesn't prove their fundamental lack of seriousness on the issue, I don't know what does. They are clearly striking a pose of excessive, ostentatious "tolerance" to appear enlightened and gain a cheap sense of smug self-satisfaction.
It was an example of the stifling conformity of hyper political correctness, holding on dissonantly to a patently false fantasy in spite of all the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
But things have changed.
The worm has turned.
As of last Spring, the Favorability rating of islam plummeted to 19% -- we can take that number as representing the hard core of left-wingers who for the sake of their position on Iraq and Bush will do anything to gum up the GWOT.
And the Unfavorable rating has jumped to 45%.
I can understand it's a little harder for those giving up their ridiculous idea that islam is to be viewed favorably to suddenly admitting an unequivocal unfavorable view.
In other words, those who are "officially undecided" has increased to 36%.
We can be relatively sure that in their hearts, many of those undecideds probably have a negative view they just won't admit.
That's the one-way function.
The Undecideds aren't going to switch to Favorable!
One step at a time...
And even better, on a less sweeping but perhaps more telling question, the numbers who believe islam encourages violence went from 25% in 2002 to 46% in 2004 to a whopping 60% last Spring!
Numbers vary somewhat from pollster to pollster, but this ABC poll confirms the findings with 58% saying islam has more violent extremists than other religions.
That's about half of those "undecideds" letting their true feelings be known!
They're even finding one in four Americans admitting to prejudicial feelings against arabs and muslims in general. Admitting to such a thing in today's milieu of hate-speech laws and multiculturalism is astonishing -- the true number is probably higher.
The poll reporting attributes these numbers to people lacking an "understanding" of islam. Ha! Certainly something has changed suddenly in perceptions, and people surely haven't somehow come to know less about islam since 9/11!
In fact, even though the reported figures oddly don't seem to support an increase in self-reported knowledge of islam (although perhaps people who actually "understand" islam all too well would answer that they don't "understand" it, in a rational sense), surely the number of people who now use words such as dhimmi, hudna, taqqiya, Qutb, and "abrogation" has increased by several orders of magnitude.
Every little pebble, every little nugget of information carried by the blogosphere, seemed to perhaps do little for 4 and a half long years, against the relentless disinformation and enemy propaganda of the MSM.
But that mountain was built, and criticality was finally reached.
Whether the progress will be jerky or steady from this point is a lesser issue than the fact that the break has already happened.
One can see the mohammed cartoon controversy as perhaps one of the key flashpoints, but it required setting the groundwork beforehand. The Dubai Ports deal reaction was another clue.
And the fruit of this change is being seen in support of Israel against Hezbollah, in which the Western politicians jaw-jaw and wink-wink speaking of imminent ceasefires, encouraging Hez to stand and fight a battle it shouldn't, and yet no deadline appears in sight.
And for every American whose mind gets made up on this matter is just another 1/300 millionth of a finger on The Button.
More and more every day.
A One-Way Function!
Because it's a one-way function.
Every day, more and more people suddenly realize that in the Middle East, one side is right and the other is wrong.
And that the problem is indeed islam.
It surely isn't working the other way around, except for perhaps a handful of the already useless and insane.
It feels like a tipping point was reached recently, over the last few months.
Look at this Pew Research polling information from September, 2004.
It showed views of islam remained remarkably and stubbornly stable for several years after 9/11, with the same poll taken in 2002, 2003, and 2004.
It had been roughly balanced, with views on islam being an average of 39% Unfavorable and 35% Favorable.
The only sub-group that expressed a majority favorable view of islam was "liberal democrats", at 56%! That is all the more remarkable given the relatively poorer "favorability" ratings of Catholicism vs islam, for example -- surely liberal democrats aren't carrying water for the Papists! That means the liberal democrats must have been wildly more favorable in their opinion of islam than of just about any other religion -- even after 9/11!
If that doesn't prove their fundamental lack of seriousness on the issue, I don't know what does. They are clearly striking a pose of excessive, ostentatious "tolerance" to appear enlightened and gain a cheap sense of smug self-satisfaction.
It was an example of the stifling conformity of hyper political correctness, holding on dissonantly to a patently false fantasy in spite of all the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
But things have changed.
The worm has turned.
As of last Spring, the Favorability rating of islam plummeted to 19% -- we can take that number as representing the hard core of left-wingers who for the sake of their position on Iraq and Bush will do anything to gum up the GWOT.
And the Unfavorable rating has jumped to 45%.
I can understand it's a little harder for those giving up their ridiculous idea that islam is to be viewed favorably to suddenly admitting an unequivocal unfavorable view.
In other words, those who are "officially undecided" has increased to 36%.
We can be relatively sure that in their hearts, many of those undecideds probably have a negative view they just won't admit.
That's the one-way function.
The Undecideds aren't going to switch to Favorable!
One step at a time...
And even better, on a less sweeping but perhaps more telling question, the numbers who believe islam encourages violence went from 25% in 2002 to 46% in 2004 to a whopping 60% last Spring!
Numbers vary somewhat from pollster to pollster, but this ABC poll confirms the findings with 58% saying islam has more violent extremists than other religions.
That's about half of those "undecideds" letting their true feelings be known!
They're even finding one in four Americans admitting to prejudicial feelings against arabs and muslims in general. Admitting to such a thing in today's milieu of hate-speech laws and multiculturalism is astonishing -- the true number is probably higher.
The poll reporting attributes these numbers to people lacking an "understanding" of islam. Ha! Certainly something has changed suddenly in perceptions, and people surely haven't somehow come to know less about islam since 9/11!
In fact, even though the reported figures oddly don't seem to support an increase in self-reported knowledge of islam (although perhaps people who actually "understand" islam all too well would answer that they don't "understand" it, in a rational sense), surely the number of people who now use words such as dhimmi, hudna, taqqiya, Qutb, and "abrogation" has increased by several orders of magnitude.
Every little pebble, every little nugget of information carried by the blogosphere, seemed to perhaps do little for 4 and a half long years, against the relentless disinformation and enemy propaganda of the MSM.
But that mountain was built, and criticality was finally reached.
Whether the progress will be jerky or steady from this point is a lesser issue than the fact that the break has already happened.
One can see the mohammed cartoon controversy as perhaps one of the key flashpoints, but it required setting the groundwork beforehand. The Dubai Ports deal reaction was another clue.
And the fruit of this change is being seen in support of Israel against Hezbollah, in which the Western politicians jaw-jaw and wink-wink speaking of imminent ceasefires, encouraging Hez to stand and fight a battle it shouldn't, and yet no deadline appears in sight.
And for every American whose mind gets made up on this matter is just another 1/300 millionth of a finger on The Button.
More and more every day.
A One-Way Function!
posted by RDS at 11:34 PM
1 Comments:
I think the number of infidels who dislike Muslims is much higher. Among my friends, it is universal. But my friends call a spade a spade. I just don't see myself hanging around people defending Islam. Too stupid.
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