People are funny

In a conversation at work this morning, someone uttered the truism that "People are funny," then added:

They're even funnier than we are!

We all laughed, I appreciated the reminder that we, too, are "funny."
    In various ways and to one degree or another, we, too, are "pliable"; my wife, for example, can readily twist me around her proverbial little finger. So what about Muslims, whom I referred to on Saturday? Why single them out for their allegedly greater pliability?
    The self-questioning is prompted by a friend whose intellectual acuity I admire (and ignore to my loss of gain). He commented on Saturday's post that "The...relative pliability of Muslims [is something] we could discuss further, but probably without benefit," by which I took him to mean that I might be merely stating my prejudice and have no data (especially scientific) to prove my statement.
    I admit that he's right. If there are any data to support the contention, I haven't seen them. My observation derived entirely from news and articles and books about the world scene over the past few years, especially after September 11, 2001.
    Note that I added two other groups to keep the Muslims company. Even though my friend ignored the fundamentalist Christians and the devotees of Fox News [sic], I'd like to give a couple of reasons for singling these three groups out, not, of course, that every individual in them is equally pliable. These reasons aren't data in any numerical sense, but maybe they can raise the level of discussion a little higher than just my personal prejudice.
    All three groups are heavily invested in their "scriptures." We know what those are for the Muslims and the Christians. For the Fox devotees it's the words that are spewed out of the mouths of people like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. For their devoted followers, whatever these rousers say is "fair and balanced" in the same way that the Qu'ran and the Bible are the "word of God"—because they say they are.
    The status of these scriptures with the respective group members makes the members particularly vulnerable to being manipulated. The Muslim activists had but to quote the pertinent passages from the Qur'an about what to do to blasphemers to get the masses to sharpen their beheading tools and take to the street looking for infidels¹.
    The preacher cites Leviticus 18:22² in urging his parishioners to oppose gays and gay marriage (or even civil union). They show up at the polls like a phalanx to vote that one issue, everything else be damned.
    Sean and Glenn say to get out to the town meetings and protest those wicked socialist ideas about health care and, voilà, out come the tea-baggers, some of them even wearing handguns.
    Another armament for manipulating members of these groups is the subtle, even subliminal power of Islam, literal-Bible Christianity, and fair-and-balanced Fox propaganda to induce trance states. I believe that the aura these cast over adherents derives from their focused exclusivity.
    Followers of Islam tend to over-invest in its teachings, which doesn't surprise us, given that its text demands adherents' complete subservience; nothing else matters.
    Similarly for Bible-believing Christians. Christ taught followers to forsake the world entirely; gain the world, lose your soul.
    People who get all of their "news" from Fox tend to discount everything else. To be that oblivious to objective information, you have to be in a hypnotic state.
    Engage the appropriate lever and you have near-complete control over the entranced Muslim, fundamentalist Christian, or Fox devotee.

My acute friend also challenged my statement that "the cartoons did no such thing as 'set off violent protests'; they'd have gone unnoticed but for some Muslim activists' picking them up and rubbing then in the faces of their impressionable brethren."
    He wrote:

My recollection is that the cartoons did indeed set off violent protests.

    I've spent some time googling to try to find the article that I read (or think that I read) a year or two ago that described events after the original publication of the Danish cartoons, how the "activist Muslims" I referred to had even added a couple of additional cartoons to the mix before proceeding to rouse the rabble. Alas, I so far haven't found such an article. Which of course makes me feel a bit uneasy. So, if you can find it, please do let me know.

My friend also questioned whether the story about Muslim nations seeking a blasphemy ban "has any legs":

At this point, I'm more interested in the reporting than the story itself. The reporting seems to have originated with the Associated Press. Few other news sources have picked it up. It's not on the NY Times site, the CBS site, or the CNN site. I'm wondering if interest in the ban is only in Algeria and Pakistan, thereby minimally supporting the claim that Muslim nations (plural) are behind it. And within those nations, are we talking about government leaders or leaders of large groups? Best to wait and see if this story has any legs.

See what I mean by my friend's acuity? It didn't occur to me to see who else might be reporting "the ban." But I subsequently googled on it and indeed every one of the six or eight sites I found had either picked up the Associated Press piece wholesale or worked excerpts verbatim into their own report. Even The New York Times just ran the AP piece as-is (on November 19).
    Indeed, the story doesn't seem to have any legs yet. It may never have any. The AP reporter (Frank Jordans) may have been doing about the same thing I was, using Pakistan and Algeria's latest anti-blasphemy action as yet another occasion of many to show Muslims in a bad light. I'm now wondering what other sorts of things he has written about Muslims or Islam. Just the way my friend might.
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1. Sura 10—Yunus (MAKKA): Verse 70

   A little enjoyment in this world! and then to Us will be their return. Then shall We make them taste the severest Penalty for their blasphemies.

   Sura 9—Al-Tawba (MADINA): Verse 74

   They swear by Allah that they said nothing (evil), but indeed they uttered blasphemy...Allah will punish them with a grievous penalty in this life and in the Hereafter: they shall have none on earth to protect or help them.

2. "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."