This Muslim ex-Marine's response to Donald Trump is quite good

Several politicians have truly stepped in it this week in their response to the Syrian refugee crisis. While it’s hard to pin down who has made the most boneheaded comment (Roanoke mayor David Bower praising Japanese-American internment during World War II probably leads the pack), the scariest comments may have been made by Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

In separate interviews with Yahoo and NBC News yesterday, Trump said that he would be in favor of both issuing special identification cards to Muslim-Americans as well as compiling a national database of Muslims living in America. Via NBC:

“I would certainly implement that. Absolutely,” Trump said in Newton, Iowa, in between campaign town halls.

“There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases,” he added. “We should have a lot of systems.”

When asked whether Muslims would be legally obligated to sign into the database, Trump responded, “They have to be — they have to be.”

The response on Twitter has been fairly unified in disgust. However, one tweet has risen above all others: this one from a Muslim ex-Marine.

Tayyib Rashid served in the Marine Corps from 1997 to 2002.

Rashid is an outspoken Muslim-American and veteran who also penned an op-ed in the wake of this summer’s shooting in Chattanooga ,where an American Muslim attacker killed four marines and a Navy sailor at a Reserve Center.

Speaking with Al Jazeera at the time, Rashid said the shooter was not a true Muslim.

We’ve heard it over and over again. The word Islam means peace. As Muslims we have been commanded to live in peace and respect our neighbors. Islam teaches that the killing of one innocent person is the killing of all mankind.

Rashid has received a little blowback, mostly from accounts whose avatars are eggs, but the response on Twitter has been overwhelmingly positive and he’s mostly been taking a victory lap over his excellent tweet.

David Matthews operates the Wayback Machine on Fusion.net—hop on. Got a tip? Email him: [email protected]