Quote Originally Posted by boaz
thats, true. maybe bigoted would be a better description. or just prejudiced. :twocents:
Jihadi, Islam-o-fascist, haji, rag head - These are racist terms but I'll settle for jingoistic. They are used to evoke a visceral, gut response from an audience that has little understanding of the issues beyond the Fox News / CNN / NYT perspective. They are applied to groups of people, lumping together those that they seek to smear with the truly reprehensible. See Islandboy's post about the Taliban hanging a 7 year old for a good example of a variation on this theme: Taliban = Hamas. You are defending Palestinian rights, therefore you support Hamas and therefore you support the Taliban and therefore you have this 7 year old's blood on your hands.

These tactics are old, transparent, and simplistic; they are indicative of deep seated hatred and fear. I call it for what it is. It has nothing to do with being PC. People who use these terms in this generalized fashion are racists. But I don't expect them to be able to see that.