I'm Muslim. Born in the US. I've seen politicians and right wing public figures call my entire faith anti-American. One of them just had a nice memorial for their one-year since their death.
The term may have had an agreed upon meaning at some point, but not anymore.
Edit: it seems like most right-wing people conflate "non-Christian" with "anti-American". i don't know what's worse; the fact that these people say and think it, or the fact that their constituents don't know the difference.
It doesn’t have to have an agreed upon meaning. My point is its not inherently bad to think something is anti-American.
In fact, treating the very idea of judging something as “anti-American” as inherently illegitimate is quite literally anti-American. Its saying Americans shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions about what their country stands for.
Fundamentally I agree. But my point is that while it isnt inherently bad to think of something as anti-American, it is bad when politicians use that terminology to create divides and further their agendas. My statement about Islam being anti-American is just one example.
Honestly I think because there is no agreed upon meaning, the term "anti-American" is meaningless and means whatever the speaker/listener wants it to mean, and is just used to score political points.
"Enemy of the people" is also not inherently illegitimate - I mean, the people can surely have enemies, right?
But words and phrases like that have a history of actual use and the resulting connotations.
I’m as atheist as they come and I see the tenets of Islam — as widely practiced throughout the world, and self-reported in a litany of surveys — to be clearly anti-woman, anti-freedom, anti-free speech, pro blasphemy-law, et al … and as a result, anti-American.
Charlie Hebdo was not that long ago. Anti-women practices are the predominant norm. The list of regressive and oppressive political norms is practically endless.
Nothing here absolves Christianity or any other religion of its crimes either, but (1) the sexism is on another scale entirely, and (2) we’ve been far more successful as a global society of separating those religions from their political aspirations.
> the sexism is on another scale entirely
Several nations that are predominantly Muslim have had female heads of state before the US has. If your perception of Islam is based on how Middle Eastern countries practice it then you are only looking at the countries that choose a theocratic way of ruling. Islam mandates that women (and men!) cover certain parts of your body but the most populous Muslim country (Indonesia) you'll see women in hijabs wearing short sleeves or low cut shirts.
Additionally, Christians are the predominant voice on many female-regressive laws in the US, such as the overturning of Roe. Women have been arrested for having miscarriages. If that isn't "anti-woman" i dont know what is.
> we’ve been far more successful as a global society of separating those religions from their political aspirations.
Have we though? Just a few years ago right-wing politicians were complaining that the woke left wanted to cancel Christmas. As mentioned above, Christians won the lobby on overturning Roe. Christians won the lobby on banning same sex marriage.
A religion taking over a country isnt every citizen bowing down to that religions faith. Its everyone in the country being subject to that religion's laws and beliefs regardless of your faith.
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> your faith is also a political institution
This is half-right. Islam does have its own political system, but the faith is largely divorced from that system.
I'm fairly active in my mosque and ive met a lot of community members running for various levels of public office. None of them are calling for Islamic jurisprudence, and none of the policies they promote are obviously "anti-American," unless you consider a higher standard of living for the lower and middle class or higher accountability for the ruling class anti-American. I suppose historically speaking those concepts are anti-American but whether that's a good or bad thing can be left as an exercise to the reader.
Nowadays there's a lot of Muslims practicing their faith very differently from what most do. They might drink or smoke, and live a more "flexible" version, their own version of their own faith.
Even if, in fine, you are right despite the downvotes. Islam is also a political and legal system that cannot cohabit with another system (no system can cohabit with another one, you can't have a democracy and a dictature at the same place)
> Islam is also a political and legal system that cannot cohabit with another system (no system can cohabit with another one, you can't have a democracy and a dictature at the same place)
How much of an aversion to objective reality is required to believe this, as you’ve worded it?
As I mentioned in the other comment, Islam the faith and Islam the political system are largely different. Most Muslims (myself included) know a lot about the faith but know nothing about the jurisprudence. So I agree that Islamic jurisprudence is unlikely able to cohabit with American democracy, its pointless to talk about because no Muslim running for public office is trying to introduce such concepts into American politics.
If they're not trying, it's because it would fail due to lack of "faithist" Muslims to support them. Islamist politicians do push for that when they have popular support, and they do have popular support in Muslim majority countries, as well as local areas in other countries. The average Pakistani might not know much about that jurisprudence thing, but the law still prohibits him from having gay sex or insulting Mohammed.
Where are all the secular Muslim countries? Turkey? Why are they so few and so weakly secular?