In a column from the Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldberg discusses the purported wave of anti-Muslim bigotry that has supposedly swept America since 9-11. The column is an eye-opener. Goldberg reports that according to the FBI statistics, hate crimes against Muslims have declined from a high of 481 in 2001, the year of the 9-11 attacks to the area of 150 per year in each year since then. For comparison, there were about six times as many hate crimes in each of the years from 2002-2009 against Jews compared to Muslims. These statistics show that there is no wave of anti-Muslim hysteria or bigotry that has swept the USA. Indeed, there seems to be just a few crackpots out there who fit the description of anti-Muslim bigot. but that has not stopped either the press or the left (I guess that is the same thing) from describing the enormous outpouring of anti-Muslim bigotry which is supposedly represented by the raising of voices to oppose the ground zero mosque.
It would be nice if the left and the media could just for once give credit to the two thirds of the country who have expressed opposition to the mosque as being rational and unbiased. Since they have no answer to the complaints of the vast majority, however, they fall back on their usual poly of claiming bigotry. They take racialism to a new height.
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