SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.
Gentries, 48, said he had absolutely no interest in exposing himself to further knowledge of Islamic civilization or putting his sweeping opinions into a broader context of any kind, and confirmed he was “perfectly happy” to make a handful of emotionally charged words the basis of his mistrust toward all members of the world’s second-largest religion.
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“I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11,” Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam’s approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. “What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?”
“All Muslims are at war with America, and I will resist any attempt to challenge that assertion with potentially illuminating facts,” said Gentries, who threatened to leave the room if presented with the number of Muslims who live peacefully in the United States, serve in the country’s armed forces, or were victims themselves of the 9/11 attacks. “Period.”
Over the past decade, Gentries said he has taken pains to avoid personal interactions or media that might have the potential to compromise his point of view. He told reporters that the closest he had come to confronting a contrary standpoint was tuning in to the first few seconds of an interview with a moderate Muslim cleric before hastily turning off the television.
“I almost gave in and listened to that guy defend Islam with words I didn’t want to hear,” Gentries said. “But then I remembered how much easier it is to live in a world of black-and-white in which I can assign the label of ‘other’ to someone and use him as a vessel for all my fears and insecurities.”
The rest of the article on The Onion
also, in a side note:
Texas Vows To Reclaim Title Of Most Regressive State From Arizona
AUSTIN, TX—Following a series of embarrassingly backward laws recently enacted in Arizona, Texas governor Rick Perry pledged Wednesday to do everything in his power to reestablish his state as the most regressive in the nation. “I commend Arizona for its commitment to exceedingly draconian social policies, but [Arizona Governor] Jan Brewer should know that we still have some real doozies up our sleeve,” said Perry, referring to Arizona’s passage of the strictest immigration law in recent U.S. history, as well as its measures allowing concealed weapons to be carried without a permit and banning ethnic studies programs in public schools. “Don’t forget, we just put an ultraconservative stamp on our educational curriculum that’s going to affect the textbooks the whole country uses, and I’m still the only governor nutso enough to float secession. Mark my words, we’ll be back and more fucked up than ever!” Sources close to Perry said that Texas may soon start storing undocumented migrant workers in dog cages while courts decide their immigration status, though Arizona plans to counter with a giant cannon that will be used to shoot anyone with a skin tone darker than ochre who crosses the border from Mexico.
