"Violence is the Last Refuge of the Incompetent"

Excerpts from an interview with Hamza Yusuf Hanson on PBS:

"Listen, hurricanes are a much greater threat to us right now. Katrina did much more damage than anything the terrorists could ever put together."

"Yeah, there's nuclear weapons are out there and that certainly is a concern. That's the job of these intelligence people to stop that, right? But stop making us all live in fear and telling us about orange and red levels. All that nonsense just simply has to stop. We need to calm down and think at a deeper level. People can't think when their minds are clouded with fear."

"A democracy is predicated on an educated citizenry. You cannot have a democracy with people that are more interested in what Nicole Kidman is doing or whoever the latest fashion model is. If that's your interest, democracy can't survive. You also have corporate interests here."

"How do you racially profile terrorists when 90percent of the world falls into that? Mexicans look like Arabs, for God's sake, and anybody can change their name. I mean Abdullah can change his name to Eduardo. It's not going to be difficult, if they're clever. So how do you profile people?"

"So we have real concerns. You have to go to a deeper level. Henry David Thoreau said for every thousand people hacking away at the branches of evil, there's only one person hacking away at the roots of evil. I really think we need to go to a deeper level and look at what the root of this situation is. There are a lot of people prevaricating out there, who just don't want to deal with the "why" question."

"People have to be exposed to Muslims, just experience Muslims; talk to them. Reach out, read about Islam, try to find out about it. There are 20,000 Muslim physicians in the United States, Americans putting their lives in the hands of Muslims every day. You're going under and the anesthesiologist is a Muslim, right? He's looking out for you. He doesn't want you to die in that operation because you're an infidel. He's doing his job. As is your pediatrician who's trying to heal your child. And the mechanic who's fixing your car?"

Click here for the complete interivew.