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I think it is important that we remember those with the guns unfortunately become the visible representation of the people.
One person with a loud voice can influence 20 people, one person with a machine gun can generally control 100.
This is seen through the minority of extremist/violent muslims which we tend to stereotype as the whole. This is seen through a President in George Bush or other visible/powerful republicans like Pat Robertson (I only say republicans because they currently lead all three branches of gour overnment, this is not to promote either democrats or republicans). Through Republican abuses and hypocritical uses of power, they ensure that the world as a whole stereoptypes America and American Christianity for what the present administration represents instead of what its constituency (the vast majority) truly represents. I wonder if as a result of this pressure from our leaders (those with the "guns") and the world, many American's are increasingly changing their perspectives to become what the world thinks we are. Its the same with much of America who sees the gang violence in Ghetto's and stereotypes all people who live in Ghettos to be the same uneducated and grossly violent people simply because of how they speak or dress being influenced, again, by those they fear just like everyone else (the ones with the guns).
Then don't even mention the press and how they reinforce these stereotypes. How often do you seek an African American on TV being applauded instead of denagrated. The Black Muslim community does a lot of good work for this country, yet all we hear about them through the media are how they are militant and anti-semetic. 100 out of 100 times the media will report the bad over the good, to the extent it looks for the bad in the smallest shadows and steps right over the good in the brightest light of day. Unfortunately, it is a psychological truth that when you are told you are something enough, you not only believe you are that thing, but you become it and act like it.
Lastly, I am not saying there is justification or extremists are in the right, but I think anyone who feels that they are in a corner will choose an extremist point of view. It is always much easier to choose black or white then the grey. In every culture group there are fanatics, moderates, and apathetics. There are some who all they have ever know is fanaticsm. There are some who were moderates and became extremists because they got tired of not seeing results, didn't want to become apathetics and just take it, and needed some way to make their voices heard. Then there are apathetics who becomes extremists because of experiencing great trauma (such as losing a loved one or seeing war first hand, a common occurence in the middle east these days). I am not saying there is an excuse for becoming an extremist, because I believe there is always another way. However, at least you can see how it might happen, particularly when all you see around you is black and white, and grey is heracy (as it is in the Koran and in American politics).
The problem right now is there is the "we hit you, so you hit us back and vice-versa" mentality in the world right now. So the world is in a merry-go-round constantly pushing each other in a corner forcing the other to choose the opposing side of black or white. The more we fight, the more engrained in those corners we become and the more adamant we believe that our corner (or our choice of black or white) is the correct one. I don't believe I have ever seen this country more polarized except when we were fanatical about communism (resulting in the attrocity of the McCarthy hearings) and the Muslim world has never been this fanaticized (because they didn't have the common enemy, didn't have martars, and didn't have leadership prior to Western politics).
That's my (long) take anyways.
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