Peter King's Muslim hearings: extremism and fear are our common enemies

Representative Peter King's (R-N.Y.) congressional hearings on the extent of radicalization in the American Muslim community are not designed to uncover facts and resolve conflicts. Like the McCarthy hearings of a bygone era, and indeed like the very extremism they claim to fight, the hearings are designed to fuel emotions - not noble emotions like patriotism, solidarity, and love of humankind but base emotions like fear, suspicion, and hatred. No matter how much we wish to argue against emotions with facts, emotions will always be more powerful than raw data. This makes emotions the source of our greatest weakness as well as our greatest strength. Facts do not support the narrative of increasing Muslim-American radicalization. According to the Triangle... [via Washingtonpost]