I am developing a new discipline. “Language psychology”. Since far too often people use words with bent and stretched meanings to fit their personal beliefs and settle their cognitive dissonance, it is time to quell the practice. If we cannot agree on the meanings of words, then we can’t continue to communicate effectively.
Today’s words that
are often confused in the US version of the English language is “people” and “Things”. Included will also be the use of “adjectives
as a noun”.
So regularly
streaming across my Facebook, G+, and Twitter feed as well as in the comment
sections of nearly all related news articles is a statement along the lines of,
“We are told not to judge all Muslims by the actions of just one, but we are
expected to judge all gun owners by the actions of just 1.” (Aside from the mathematically unsound comparison
since there are 96,000 incidents of gun owners with incidents of violating
other citizen’s rights compared to less than 10 by the loose definition of “Muslim”
being used to assess the logic of treating a “threat”.) I would like to explore the linguistic fallacy
of that statement.
So here is the
first concept to understand is that “Muslim” is first an adjective. Muslim describes a set of values that make up
a philosophy that is partly written down and claimed by nearly 2 billion
people. Within that group there are various
denominations of Muslims that believe different things and tolerate others at different
levels. What is known as “Muslim Extremist”
make up less than 1/100th of 1% of all who claim to be Muslims. But a “Muslim” is always a person. Logically, “not al people are Muslims, but
all Muslims are people”. The one thing
they all have in common is not even tangible and differ from one Muslim to the
next. A person can believe that they have a complete
grasp on the philosophy of “Being Muslim” and talk with another person who also
believes they have a complete grasp on the “Muslim Philosophy” and they both
could vehemently disagree with who is “the real Muslim” the “True believer”. The fact remains that there is a constant;
there is outlineable behaviors associated with the teachings and philosophy of
Mohamed, the founder of the Muslim philosophy/ religion. It is most common that two people who believe
they understand a religion completely both have elements that are wrong.
For me, it would be
easier to put this in terms of “Christian” which is a term exactly like “Muslim”,
only a different book and a different set of people. There are people who CLAIM to be “Christian”. However, that would mean that they follow the
beliefs and philosophy of its founder Jesus Christ. This would mean that they believe that there
is absolutely no reason to kill and if somebody comes to kill them, they are to
accept that there is a god and an afterlife where they will be greeted by
family members and loved ones and enjoy the light upon death. They believe that using a weapon to protect
their lives will only lead to more death.
They don’t believe in stealing through physical or fraudulent
means. If the government wants to
increase taxes Jesus taught in his beliefs that you give them what they
ask. “Christians” are taught that public
prayer is considered a sign of vanity.
Divorce would be adultery since man cannot separate what god had
joined. They are to report to church
every Sabbath. They are instructed to
love their enemy as themselves.
Patriotism in the form of worshiping a flag is a sin as it would be
putting a false “idol” before their god.
However many of the people who proclaim themselves “Christians” join military
and yield their will to a government that sends them to kill. These Christians want an impossible duel
role. To be seen as “Christians” when they are not doing any of the above, and
to be seen as “Patriotic” when they are killing in the name of their government
in complete rejection of their god. But then want buried in a “Christian”
fashion. The moment a person takes a life and believes
it to be righteous, that moment they story being, have varied away from being
Christian. There are protocols to
rejoining the ranks of Christianity after someone “sins”. However it cannot be told by looking at them
if they have done it.
So as you can see, “philosophy”
may be well defined and stagnant, how one perceives it is fluid. As a word, be it used as an adjective or a
noun, it is an intangible concept that
translates into “one who owns the philosophy of Mohamed”. What that means is that you cannot “Muslim”
somebody to death. If you walk into a
room and pull out your Muslim, nobody will even take note of you.
Nobody will fear for their lives.
Your kids can not get caught playing with you Muslim. Nobody can break into your house and steal
your Muslim. It is not a tangible
thing.
What It Means To Be A Gun Owner
Now compare that
concept to a “gun owner”. First to address
is the “gun”. A gun is a very tangible
thing. It is a tool of violence. It is a
tool designed to solve a problem by either killing or injuring another living
being. While there are a few people who
use them for the sport of target practice, none of them would consider leaving
them locked in a secure building where they play their target game. They desire to have the gun on hand should
then need to violently solve a problem using it. (This is despite many of them claiming to be
Christians. Oh the hypocrisy.)
A “gun owner” is one
who is in current possession (legally or illegally) of a gun. A person can be asked, “are you a “gun owner”,
and that person can say “yes “ or “no”.
But more than that, that person can prove it. They can display a gun proving that they do
own one. They can be searched for a gun
proving that they do not “own” one at that moment. (This is different than “Muslim”. While you
can kneel down and pray like a Muslim, it doesn’t mean, and there is now way to
see in one’s head to know if they are, actually believing or just acting the
actions they are displaying.) Policy can be made to regulate and restrict guns.
In many, in fact most societies they do it.
There is actually a verb associated with launching a destructive
projectile form a gun called “shooting”. Guns shoot. But this is only accomplished with the aid of
a “gun owner”. If there were no “gun
owners” there would be no guns shot. Again
in comparison to the notion that even if there were no believers, the behaviors
associated with being Muslim would still exist and still be harmless without
the aid of tools of violence.
The Colonists AND The Founders Treated The Two Differently
One last thing to be noted.
The people who jumped on ships from Europe came across the vast dangers
of the sea to get away from religious persecution. It was a well-established
philosophy that even made it into the founding
documents that established the USA. The
notion that anybody should be able to practice their religion and believe what
they wanted to believe without fear or threat from the government. Later we would establish that no biological
trait is grounds for being singled out.
Being Muslim is a religious philosophy and to deny, persecute, or
otherwise hamper people based solely upon their religion goes not only against
the founders of the nation, but of the colonists that laid the ground work. It
was stated in many different ways throughout our history that “everybody has a
right to believe whatever philosophy they want to believe. To this there is no
exception.” They made it very clear that
there is to be no bias in the laws, not even positively respecting one
religion. However, who should be a “gun owner” was also addressed.
It was done so very specifically. The
founding document writers could have said, “Everybody has a right to be a gun
owner. “ They did not say that. They said, “If there is a militia that has
strict guidelines and regulations that are followed to the extent of being
called ‘well’, then those members when acting as a unit have the right to be ‘gun
owners’ while performing those duties.”
As demonstrated here
in this text, the differentiation in treatment and value of “Muslims” in
contrast to a “gun owner” has always been part of our society and as such even
suffer different regulations. So, yes
the very “philosophy” that established the USA demanded that we do not treat
all those who claim to be Muslims with government regulations, however, that we
do treat those who wish to own guns (“gun owners”) with the restriction of
government regulation.
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