Ornery American

SF writer Orson Scott Card has an interesting article online about modern Islam- here is a good excerpt-

"What the rioters haven't learned is that blowing up with rage accomplishes nothing except to make themselves look like big babies throwing tantrums. It doesn't make anybody in the world respect Islam more -- it makes us respect Islam less. After all, when babies are prone to throwing tantrums, we may tiptoe around the house to avoid waking them up, but we don't give them the car keys. It's not respect you're giving them. You can't take them seriously as equals. You only avoid provoking them. They're a nuisance. I can hear people already complaining that my rhetoric is "excessive" and I have indulged in "name-calling." I have not. What I have indulged in here is correct labeling. Rioters have surrendered to their passions precisely as babies do, instead of controlling their emotions and acting sensibly, the way grownups are expected to. Nobody respects people who riot over such offenses, period. But we're so used to lying about things like that and pretending to take this sort of thing seriously that the truth has become unspeakable in polite company. Yet this is precisely the truth that most needs to be spoken. The fact that Muslims riot over such an offense does not make anybody in the world admire Islam more, or take the words of the Prophet Muhammed more seriously. It just makes us shake our heads and think, Are these people supposed to be ready for self-government?
The fact is that most Muslims in Muslim countries did not riot. Most of them were appalled and frightened when so many of their fellowcitizens went crazy in the streets.
But those aren't the people who shape the image of Islam. It's the rioters who make the news and get the airtime. The rioters and the terrorists. For what is Osama's "movement" if not a tantrum that has been cynically focused and organized in order to get the maximum attention.
Not real damage, mind you. They're big babies, kicking mommy's shins and screaming "I hate you I hate you." We have to stop them. To that extent we take them seriously. But not as equals. And yet that is the thing that hurts them most. The thing they crave. To be treated with respect. Oh, they can say "We don't care if you respect us," but their actions prove that to be utterly false. All they care about is gaining the respect of the world. And yet they behave in ways that guarantee they'll never have it."