Substitute Jews for Muslims to show your bigotry
It happens all the time. I'll write, "Muslims are a threat to civilization," or "We should deport all Muslims," and some intellectual giant will comment, "Just substitute Jews in place of Muslims and you'll see how your remarks are no different than those of anti-Semites."
I suppose when I swap the words I am expected to admit that the sentiments expressed are no different than Hitler's.
However, there is a difference. A big difference. Hitler knew Jews were not dangerous when he said that Jews were a threat and so all Jews should be deported. His purpose in making those allegations was to create a bogeyman in order to establish, consolidate, and increase his political power in Germany. If the number of Chinese in Germany were as large as the number of Jews he would have said exactly the same thing about the Chinese. He was no more anti-Semitic than I am.
Jews did not attack German citizens, did not plot to create a world Rabbinate, and could not care less if anyone converted to Judaism. In fact if you go to a Rabbi today and say you want to be a Jew, most likely you'll get talked out of it: "Are you meshugah, you wanna be a Jew, vat for? You know vat kind of trouble your asking for? Such a headache being a Jew! Ehhh! Better you should go be a Baptist."
You will never see Jews capturing Journalists and promising to let them go if only they become Jews. It is to laugh. But OK, let me take the challenge: here is what I have written hundreds of times: "Muslims want to convert the whole World to Islam at the point of a sword." There are hundreds of millions of non-Muslims who believe that. But let's see how it sounds with the swap: "Jews want to convert the whole World to Judaism at the point of a sword." It's not only patently untrue, there is not a single, sane person who would believe it - not even Muslims.
So, sorry, substituting 'Jew' for 'Muslim' does not make the idea any more equivalent than replacing 'Muslim' with 'Shoebox.' It just doesn't make sense.
But let's take this idea a step further. Suppose I said that 'African killer bees' are a threat to mankind, and that we should not let them into the country and if there are any here, we should get rid of them. Does substituting 'Jew' for 'African killer bees' expose me as prejudiced? Obviously not. Replacing Muslim with Jew does not make the threat of Islam any less or make me a bigot or racist. Saying that Nazis were a threat to civilization does not mean I am a mean-spirited, ignorant hateful person, no matter how many Jews you throw into the sentence.
It is not intolerance to say the truth. In actual fact, it is intolerance to yell 'bigot' or 'racist' when you disagree with someone because you have no logical argument to offer in response. First you should refute my statements with appeals to reason and logic and then conclude with whatever epithets are appropriate. But simply commenting, 'nyaah, nyaah bigot," without some convincing argument in rebuttal is not only childish but moronic, if you don't mind me saying.
