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Iowa caucus: 53% of Republicans, 81% of Democrats think Islam is peaceful

Feb 4, 2015 10:30 pm By Robert Spencer

Islam will dominate2This shows the effectiveness of the constant barrage of media propaganda, the never-ending avalanche of articles and learned talking heads assuring us that when we see Muslims brandishing Qur’ans and screaming “Allahu akbar” as they kill Infidels, it doesn’t really have anything to do with Islam: “Fifty-three percent of likely Republican caucus participants and 81 percent of likely Democratic caucus participants said they believe Islam is inherently peaceful. Only 13 percent of likely Democratic caucus participants said they view Islam as inherently violent, compared with 39 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers.”

In other words, 53% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats have been brainwashed to deny what is painfully obvious, and the pollster is thrilled that “the majority do not damn the whole religion for the actions of a few.” But this, too, is just an Islamic supremacist talking point, one of many that was cooked up by Hamas-linked CAIR and its allies, and which by constant repetition has now entered the mainstream. In reality, the question of whether or not Islam is violent can only be answered by examining Islamic teachings, not the actions of a few or even many or most Muslims. This is because people when they act are motivated by all sorts of different things. The fact that a Muslim does something doesn’t make it Islamic.

If Islam has a doctrine of warfare against and subjugation of unbelievers, then it is great that many, or most, Muslims disregard or ignore that doctrine, but that doesn’t mean the doctrine itself doesn’t exist. And unfortunately, it does exist.

“Poll: Nearly 40% of Likely Republican Caucus-Goers Consider Islam Inherently Violent,” by Margaret Talev, Bloomberg, February 4, 2015 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

Two out of five Republicans likely to participate in Iowa’s presidential caucuses say they are inclined to view Islam as an inherently violent religion that inspires brutality by its followers, according to a new Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll.

Twice as many Democrats—along with a majority of Republicans—say they view the world’s second largest religion as inherently peaceful, the poll found.

The divisions, coming after the Charlie Hebdo killings in France and and the Islamic State’s beheadings of several Western prisoners, may shape the way White House hopefuls from both parties address Islamic militancy, both in terms of fighting threats abroad and balancing freedom of religion and expression with security concerns.

In the poll, conducted Jan. 26-29, 402 likely Republican caucus-goers and 401 likely Democratic caucus-goers were asked: “When it comes to the Islamic faith, which of the following is closer to your view?” They were given two choices: “Islam is an inherently violent religion, which leads its followers to violent acts” and “Islam is an inherently peaceful religion, but there are some who twist its teachings to justify violence.”

Fifty-three percent of likely Republican caucus participants and 81 percent of likely Democratic caucus participants said they believe Islam is inherently peaceful. Only 13 percent of likely Democratic caucus participants said they view Islam as inherently violent, compared with 39 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Religion, age, and location were important factors in shaping respondents’ views. “There are four demographic groups in which the dominant opinion is that Islam is inherently violent: those who describe themselves as very conservative (62 percent), seniors (53 percent), those who live in rural areas (52 percent), and born-again Christians (51 percent),” said J. Ann Selzer, president of West Des Moines-based Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll. “Those are the constituencies that drive up the overall percentage among likely Republican caucus-goers.”

In either party, Selzer said, “the majority do not damn the whole religion for the actions of a few.” Still, among Republicans, “you have more than one in three that considers it a violent religion.”…

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Filed Under: Featured, Jihad doctrine, United States, Useful idiots Tagged With: Iowa


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Comments

  1. Salah says

    Feb 4, 2015 at 10:58 pm

    OT

    After Jordanian Pilot Burned Alive, Jordan Launches Airstrikes Against ISIS, Kills 55 In Iraq Including Top Commander ‘Prince Of Nineveh’

    http://www.ibtimes.com/after-jordanian-pilot-burned-alive-jordan-launches-airstrikes-against-isis-kills-55-1805814

  2. Timothius says

    Feb 4, 2015 at 11:03 pm

    We Americans have been fed so much BS over the last 50 years, that the truth is unattainable anymore. Both party’s have hung it’s citizens out to dry. How we can keep allowing the same jerks year after year is a complete mystery. So I guess if you tell the same lie often enough, it really does become the truth!

    I feel sorry for my country and for the world. To allow a people to commit genocide, and horrendous acts of terror is itself a crime. To all who allow this to happen! and think that if it quacks it ain’t a duck. Your collective consciousness is murdering innocent people. Please understand. You will be accountable for your actions.

    • Spot On says

      Feb 5, 2015 at 9:17 am

      47%R and 19%D apparently think for themselves and they are the brightest bulbs of both parties. Politicians have always loaded us up with as much BS as we can take. TV, radio, and internet has provided them with gigantic surround sound 24/7 BS. I would bet that over 1/2 of the 53% still believe GWB’s religion of peace crap. Our population is screwed.

      • Shane says

        Feb 5, 2015 at 9:27 am

        Most of our public schools teach that Islam is a religion of peace and that jihad means internal struggle. We must teach our children the truth about the Warlord Muhammad and the religion of war that he created. Encourage all Americans to read Robert Spencer’s “The Truth About Muhammad.”

    • M S case says

      Feb 5, 2015 at 2:10 pm

      Until the so-called peaceful muslims wipe out the ones they believe have hijacked islam there is no way islam can be called peaceful by the west… They can go killing each other in their countries till they have wiped themselves out and I don’t care but I will not call them peaceful until they stop trying to kill everyone in the western world and try to convert us to islam. until then they are all radical islamist as far as I can tell.
      PEACEFUL MODERATE ISLAM:??? I WHERE IS IT???

    • Robert Rice says

      Feb 5, 2015 at 7:25 pm

      The world’s populace prior to WW2 looked at Hitler as benign. So it is today with the American populace on the left who are too busy, too ignorant, too selfish, too uninvolved. They are easily led by the small leftist numbers that currently control our government. Those on the left, who propagate the PC fiction that Islam is a benign and peaceful religion, are just fine so long as the Islamic bestialities do not hit home…say like 9/11 or the killing or beheadings of their sons and daughters. Cowardice can only continue its existence as part of the elitist view that it can never happen here or to them because they are “right minded!” Obama knows their cowardice, takes full advantage of it and laughs at them from his prayer rug while bowing to Mecca!

      • M S case says

        Feb 5, 2015 at 10:51 pm

        It will take a great catastrophe maybe a nuke hit in the middle of Manhattan to wake America up
        to the fact that islam wants to rule the world as did Hitler and his Nazi party except islam is fighting because of what they call their religion, which is actually a murderous cult but nobody seems to get that.

        • paul says

          Feb 7, 2015 at 6:01 pm

          i see

  3. PRCS says

    Feb 4, 2015 at 11:13 pm

    “And unfortunately, it does exist.”

    As people get so much of their info from television programs, until politicians, pundits, and so-called ‘journalists’ stop bombarding the public with straight faced assurances that the issue before us is ‘radical Islam’, ‘a tiny minority of extremists’, and really idiotic definitions like Joseph Lieberman’s ‘radical Islamist jihadism’, they’re not going to learn the truth.

    In my opinion, one way to put a stop to that is for more informed guests to tell their hosts that there is NO such thing as ‘radical Islam’ and to challenge them with a Qur’an passage or two that make the stupidity of the ROP meme clearly obvious.

    What constitutes ‘Islamic extremism’ they might ask.

    Is there a ‘lite’ version of Qur’an for moderate Muslims?

    Until those hosts are embarrassed into telling the truth, they likely won’t.

    How would Hannity respond to learning that SOA means Slave of Allah?
    http://www.amazon.com/Slave-Allah-Zacarias-Moussaoui-Anthropology/dp/0745326196

    I could go on.

    • kikorikid says

      Feb 5, 2015 at 5:21 pm

      The “Jihadi” is a peaceful-moderate Muslim who went to Mosque
      last Friday and decided to answer the Imam’s call to “Holy War, Jihad”.
      This is Islam. Every Muslim carries the potential to terrorist Jihad. The silence
      of the majority of Muslims is predicated on this. All Muslims are teethed
      on the same blueprint, the Quran.

    • M S case says

      Feb 5, 2015 at 11:11 pm

      PEACEFUL MODERATE ISLAM….NO SUCH THING They may say they are peaceful but they are not
      and as long as there is a Koran, imam, cleric or whatever,, left in the world, for them to hear or read then there will always be radicl islam What is the difference between a radical muslim, a moderate muslim and a Islamic jihadist and radical islam.?? If you can distinguish between them please let me know. It is a cult established by a mad man. yes he was mad.. read the Koran you will find it in there.

  4. s says

    Feb 4, 2015 at 11:25 pm

    http://ulstermanbooks.com/d-c-whispers-valerie-jarrett-leads-invasion-take-texas/

  5. Don McKellar says

    Feb 4, 2015 at 11:31 pm

    What this really shows is that Democrat politicians are heavily indoctinated to be politically correct to such an extent that they can’t even begin to be intellectually honest with themselves. The Republican politicians are a little better off, but they, too, have been conditioned to tow the line on most things “politically correct”.

    • Shane says

      Feb 5, 2015 at 9:32 am

      Allen West understands about Islam and jihad and would make a fine President, VP, or Secretary of Defense for the GOP.

  6. somehistory says

    Feb 4, 2015 at 11:57 pm

    There have been experiments using a group who know something is *wrong* and one person who also knows, but is not in on the experiment. So as an example, a group in a room is asked a question by someone such as a *teacher* and several persons give the *wrong* answer as the one person looks around the room, confused. This lone person knows the answer given is wrong, but everyone else is saying the answer given is correct. Eventually, this lone individual will agree and say the wrong answer is correct. It has even been shown he/she will stay sitting in a room he/she believes to be on fire because no one else is shouting fire, trying to put it out or leaving the room.

    It is also true in this time, that people do not want to be labeled as a *bigot* or *racist* and this makes them go along to get along and not be labeled. Perhaps they think they will lose a job (they may) or friends or have some other unwanted experience. So, group think and fear of others are two reasons people refuse to acknowledge what is clear.

    If all of the burnings and be-headings of Christians and other non-muslims, all of the destruction of homes and religious structures, all of the rapes of young women and little girls were laid out on the front pages of news, if the muslims in various cities of GB were exposed…not as *Asians* but for what they truly are,…if each time the governments of SA, Pakistan, Iran, etc. burned, hanged, be-headed, someone for *insulting the (so-called) prophet* …it would be easier for people to see that islam is evil and that the greater emphasis a person puts on his islamic beliefs, the greater the likely-hood he will commit atrocities.

    If other governments made a point….in the news….the reason they were not giving money (first, they would have to withhold the money) to muslim controlled governments was due to the many atrocities, ,,,the legal **marriage** of little children….from the cradle even….to dirty old men being one thing….it would be easier for people to recognize just what a beast islam is.

    And it is a wild beast that will one day, not exist.

  7. somehistory says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 12:00 am

    Ok, not Salah here….wondering just how this keeps happening to various and many of us.

  8. dlbrand says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 2:20 am

    “53% of Republicans, 81% of Democrats,” 21st century Ansars [Helpers] of Islam.

  9. Bartender says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 3:02 am

    If blowing themselves up while yelling Alu Ackbar doesn’t convince people, I don’t know what will. But at least a percentage know the truth thanks to people like Robert.

  10. AJ Liberphile says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 3:45 am

    Is Rand Paul our only hope for a sane US presidential candidate?

  11. Nat says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 3:58 am

    And 17% of Americans believe Barack Hussein Obama is MUSLIM:

    http://www.conservapedia.com/Obama%27s_Religion

  12. duh_swami says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 4:39 am

    It’s amazing to me that so many people who have never cracked a book, look down their noses at those who have…By claiming Islam is a religion of peace, they are calling everyone who knows better than that a liar…It’s interesting how the ignorant kuffar know more about Islam than Mahoundians themselves, or infidels who have actually studied the subject. If you can’t do any better than that politicians, you do not deserve my vote and your not going to get it. I have no trust or confidence in you…

  13. TomTB says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 5:05 am

    I worked at the World Trade Center for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
    There was never a single time when I was questioned about my beliefs, or lack of them.
    My work place was attacked twice in a eight year period by people of the Islamic faith, and there NEVER was ANY provocation on our part.
    Any houses that need cleaning are not OURS!

  14. duh_swami says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 5:37 am

    ‘There are none so blind as those who refuse to see…That’s bad news when the blind are leading us.

  15. Angemon says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 6:48 am

    In either party, Selzer said, “the majority do not damn the whole religion for the actions of a few.”

    This is correct – you shouldn’t judge an ideology for the acts of some but for what its tenets are. And, as Bill Warner says, the quran must be the most famous book that is not read or understood. It’s quite simple: it goes from “you have your religion and I have mine” to “fight non-muslims until they convert, pay the jizyia or are killed”, and the last part abrogates the first.

  16. Jack Gordon says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 7:13 am

    This is bad news about both officially-permitted political parties, but it does help us see one thing clearly: the Democrat Party continues to be more stupid than its counterpart in American politics. Of course, one look at the likes of Obama, Kerry, Biden, Clinton, etc., already revealed a great deal on that score.

  17. Peter says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 8:38 am

    If Islam was actually a peaceful religion (other than in its self-conception), then there would be no need for (non-Muslims) “balancing freedom of religion and expression with security concerns,” would there?

  18. Bill says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    “Iowa caucus: 53% of Republicans, 81% of Democrats think Islam is peaceful…” This and a few other facts are why the U.S. and Europe will certainly be Islamized.

  19. voegelinian says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 1:07 pm

    “In other words, 53% of Republicans and 81% of Democrats have been brainwashed to deny what is painfully obvious…”

    That implies a rather dim & cynical view of millions of Americans, that they could be so easily brainwashed about such an important matter. I realize it’s been fashionable for quite some time to play fast and loose with such a dim and cynical glibness about our society (if not more broadly about human nature), but one must not allow oneself to succumb to that; one must shake it off, sit up straight, and think more reasonably and carefully about a matter of such weight and moment.

    First of all, one reasonably factors in the relative greatness and richness — for all its faults & foibles — of one’s own West (particularly when anti-Americanism has become so deeply ingrained in the modern West’s own reckless & irresponsible politically correct habit of self-hatred); and one embarks on one’s speculation with the reasonable premise that such depressing statistics as are featured in this latest study reported here by Spencer cannot lead us by the nose to the most ungenerous conclusion that all those millions of relatively decent and intelligent Americans are such brainless sheep as to allow themselves to be “brainwashed” about such an important matter. One pauses to consider other possible, plausible explanations, surely, without reaching with such breathtaking alacrity to such a bleakly black imputation about one’s own fellow man (particularly one’s fellow Western, and American, man). It seems far more reasonable (and generous – for, the greatness of our society deserves the minimal respect we would grant it to accord it such generosity, for Christ’s sake, I say, without taking the Lord’s name in vain) to assume that such a depression statistic reflects a broad sociological — even sociocultural — phenomenon that has, moreover, been going on for quite some time – years, yea decades. Beyond the naked assumption, if we would be, or would try to be, well read, in literature and history, we would have noticed by now that such habits of an amorphous civilizational & cultural self-criticism in the West, oftentimes lurching into excessive expression almost irrational if not morbidly so, are a prominent feature of the modern West, and longstanding. I know that Spencer is well read in a variety of levels of Western culture and history; so it strikes me as odd that he reaches for such a specious & facile manner of expressing the, apparently, only explanation for such a deeply depressing & dismaying statistic.

    • Angemon says

      Feb 6, 2015 at 3:01 pm

      voegelinian posted:

      “…it strikes me as odd that he reaches for such a specious & facile manner of expressing the, apparently, only explanation for…”

      Says the guy who sees “asymptotics” in every nook and cranny.

  20. Arthur says

    Feb 5, 2015 at 10:47 pm

    As someone who identifies as an Iowan, I can’t say I’m surprised by the result. The “conservative rural” Iowan is someone who attends church and Sunday school. In Sunday school classes, Islam and the Koran are often a topic for a study series. This is a segment of the population that cares enough about religion to read about it, and they’ve read the entire Christian Bible to know that the Koran is not “just another” Bible.

    People want to believe the world is a safe place full of good people, and that they are good people who do not hate other groups of people in a prejudicial manner. Most have better things to do than read the obfuscated and contradictory Koran. With the current level of distrust for politicians and media and political action groups, they naturally will choose to believe the story that fits their instincts.

    Maybe the best way to educate this group of people is to create multiple choice questions to quiz their knowledge of facts. For some proportion of them, discovering that they are wrong in their understanding of the Koran may be the first step to enlightenment. But the test will have to be neutrally worded, give a sense of a balanced point of view, factually correct by consensus of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and properly referenced.

    For example,
    “The Hadith is a collection of the actions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed. The collections of hadith (plural, ahadith) authored by Bukhari and Muslim are considered authentic by practically all Muslims. According to Muslim 8:3309, how old were Mohammed and his wife Aisha when Mohammed consummated his marriage with her?
    a. Mohammed: 16, Aisha: 14
    b. Mohammed: 26, Aisha: 18
    c. Mohammed: 45, Aisha: 12
    d. Mohammed: 54, Aisha: 9
    e. None of the above. Mohammed was celibate.
    Answer: d.

    They can ask their Muslim friends and search the internet to confirm the veracity of the test. Generally, I would expect surprise to give way to disgust as they learn more about the Mohammed that every Muslim knows. Because people want to choose the happy-world answer, they can see where their morals and those of Mohammed diverge and this will hopefully get them thinking.

  21. jay says

    Feb 6, 2015 at 1:50 am

    When we have 9/11 #2 and Europe has it’s next Holocaust, I’m sure those numbers will change. And unfortunately, that’s what it will take against our pop culture/”BuzzFeed, The Daily Show and Huff Po is my news source” educated society.

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