After recent comments by Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson stating that a Muslim should never be president of the United States, I feel that I myself—an American–born Muslim–should consider running.
In his comments, he felt that Muslims practice Sharia and so could never be loyal to the United States. With all due respect to Dr. Ben Carson—who I know is very brilliant, and probably the best pediatric neurosurgeon in history—but I feel that in studying only medicine, it seems that you do not understand the simple concept that getting a government job, including for the office of the President of the United States, does not need a religious litmus test to hold a government office.
So please let me break this down so that you can understand this concept. An American citizen does not need to follow a certain religion or any religion to hold a public office, as there is no official state religion of the United States.
I understand where you are coming from, in pandering to the far-right and extreme Christian right-wing voter base who wants to keep both religious and political monopolies in the United States and abroad. You are fearful of what you do not understand and do not truly want to understand.
If you truly wanted to understand, you would ask a knowledgeable Muslim and not get your info about Islam from all the Islamo-phobes peddling hysteria—such as believing that our own president, Barack Obama is one—in order to help demonize Muslims so that the continued conquest and takeover of Arab land for oil can continue.
Personally, I am both shocked—and embarrassed—that you held this position, but on second thought, I understand. In trying to prove who is the most right-wing and conservative, the vast constituents of the right have taken a nationalist-like fervor and frenzy in how they control the Republican Party.
If they do not agree on abortion, and how to control the Muslims, then they will be chastised and forced out.
The Republicans have made it loud and clear that Muslims are not accepted by you in this country. No matter what they do to contribute to American society, it is never good enough for you and you still hold those who praise Allah under suspicion while making us a scapegoat to keep the people in fear while you present yourselves as the proverbial white-knight saviors in a soft, hyper-sensitive, knee-jerk reactionary and entitled millennial society of today.
The rise of Islamophobia is so bad that many Muslims that I know living in America are fearful of violent attacks against them. After seeing the direction that individuals such as you wish to take America, I believe it is better to meet halfway and agree on a middle ground. Would your Koch masters allow such a thing? I wonder.
Just like you, I am concerned with the lack of jobs and with the direction this country is going. Not only with the current social climate, but with the lack of high-paying jobs. The reason that most higher-paying industrial jobs left the U.S. is because American students are not graduating with the skills needed to perform manufacturing jobs.
That is due to the advanced computers that Americans unfortunately do not have the skills to run.
I believe that we should focus on creating programs to have our youth in programs that will give them the skills needed to bring back manufacturing jobs. By creating manufacturing jobs that are higher paying, there will be an influx of money in the economy, and instead of it being a “trickle down” economy like the Republican’s believe in, or from the bottom up, like how the Democrats believe in, this will be a horizontal spread of money.
Dr. Carson, you said that Muslims will not follow the Constitution because we follow Sharia? What if I was to tell you that Sharia is about self-control, similar to the Mormon Church’s Words of Wisdom? What if I was to tell you that in the Ottoman Empire, Andalusia, and the Abbasids all had the Jews and Christians use their own books; that Islāmic Sharia did not apply to them.
While we are on the subject of Sharia, as Muslims we should be against oppression, even against non-Muslims. Just recently, the Republican Party voted to defund Planned Parenthood based on videos that might be a hoax. They say it is because they do not want to fund abortions but none of the funding for abortions are federal. Instead, they are stopping services for women that are really needed like cancer screening, passing out birth control, and HIV screening.
Another group facing oppression is Latinos, another minority group—that you yourself are part of—that your own political party is trying to oppress. Absolutely, I believe that people should have the correct documents to be here. However, if they have been here their whole lives, then we should allow them to gain citizenship. What is the problem with that? They are already paying taxes but they are not eligible to get taxes paid in back.
The Republican Party is using the same strategies as the fascist ones in pre-World War II Germany, where they demonized different groups so that the majority does not care what happens to them. They have created the same type of political climate that led to the rise of Hitler.
Sadly, with yourself being a minority, you are ironically helping the majority subjugate others the same way Jews were.
You said that if a Muslim were to become president that he would try to force Sharia? Do you think that if Mike Huckabee became president that he would not force his right-wing ultra-conservative and religious version of Christian ideals into the White House? I believe that it is a Christian and not a Muslim that refuses to marry gay couples in Kentucky.
Dr. Carson, America is my country too. This is the land that my ancestors have been in since the early 1600’s. I have just as much right as anyone on that stage, and perhaps even more than the Canadian-born Tea Party zealot Ted Cruz, to run for president.
With that being said, please tell me why is it that you can run for president, but I cannot?