As I already explained, that quote was a direct response to Bobo's attack on me, and not at all part of any argument I made. Although I don't think you were stupid enough to think it was, you're just trying to ignore anything negative about Muslim countries, because Islamophobia!

But sure, if that is what you want to hear, liberty is not at all important in the US, whee!

Now can we discuss the article I linked? How about for a day or so?
Then tomorrow, if you have a news article about incarceration in the US, we can discuss that. There is no link between the two,and I didn't claim there was.

You made a clear positive statement, if its in reply to another post does not stop it being part of your argument or an opinion you hold.

That is just a weird and freakish way to look at interlocution.

Really, a clear positive statement?

The sentence in which I mentioned the US ended with a QUESTION MARK. It was a direct question to one other person.

Even my OP made no statements.
I posted an article link and asked for opinions on it. I didn't even give my own opinion!

I still don't believe stupid enough to have actually misunderstood all this, but I'm getting closer to that belief.

That is a strange take imo because I see A LOT of critics around the world ( and rightly so) towards the US ?

Cupee made a great point about it (#2255).
I don’t see the equation of blaming/critiquing a foreign country automatically resulting in absolving the wrongs of another one ?

God knows (no pun intended) that in America they have some « Christian’s talibans » as well …
And they getting stronger even in their Supreme Court .

Seems a fact from my pov shrug

Most of Europe is clearly freer and more egalitarian and democratic than the US. Even Italy.

If you take Qatar and then collectivise it with other Muslim countries and then use that method to make conclusions about all Muslim individuals, do you think that is a valid approach?

If I take USA and its highly draconian legal system that puts more people in prison than any other country, collectivise it with other "Christian" countries and then use that to make conclusions about all Christian/western individuals does that seem valid?

The point is its of course necessary to call out and criticise Qatar, its not fine to use the system of government in Qatar and its actions to make universal judgements about Muslims, which is chili robs whole stichk.

I 100% agree, and don't think any of my previous posts implied otherwise.

WTF???

Here's our entire exchange:

That's the entirety of what you responded to, so where you're getting "attacked me with his false criticisms that I did not support them in the US." from, I have zero idea. There is no attack on you, and I've said and implied absolutely nothing about the US in those posts. That's why I followed up on your last post there with confusion, which you never responded to. Our posts had nothing to do with the US.

That said, I clearly was tying your generalization of Muslim countries in the first post to your previously espoused bigoty towards Muslims, so I suppose you could see that as attacking that position, but where you've come up with me suggesting that you don't support civil liberties in the US, I have no idea.

In the interest of being complete with this, I'll include the last post in this exchange, which wasn't responded to:

Fair enough but I didn’t had the feeling he said every Muslim were like Qatar either shrug .
And from my pov , it certainly not a minority either .

Why do you think chillrob says "So what do you sports lovers think of all the luxurious freedoms enjoyed in Muslim countries?" rather than "So what do you sports lovers think of all the luxurious freedoms enjoyed in Qatar?" When you add in previous exchanges with chillrob in other threads where he has made no bones about his bigotry against Muslims, the implication isn't difficult to see.

Fair.
I didn’t see his other post in other threads .
But when the majority of Muslim countries are in favour of charia law for example I don’t see this as a stretch ?
To me clearly any enforcement of a state religion
( I don’t care if it’s Islam , Christianity, etc since to me they all are discriminatory to begin with )
do not rhyme well with liberty and freedom as we define them .

Fwiw not only Islamist are guilty of this .
Hell Christianity had its dark ages as well for a longtime too and still try too in some part of the world .
But Islamist certainly exist and have a definitive impact on the Muslim world at a big scale , that all .

It's always a stretch to paint an entire demographic with a broad brush, and then choose policies based on that. Of course there are times when generalities can be helpful for discussion, but other times they are harmful, like a ban on any Muslims coming into one's country. The latter isn't something that's been discussed in this thread (at least not recently), but it's come up elsewhere in discussions with chillrob. When he brought his "in Muslim countries" take to this thread rather than "in Qatar", it's an obvious attempt to support his "Muslims bad" position.

Agree 100% tho for chillrob I don’t know his posting history so I’ll trust you on that

Not tough to figure out. You obviously meant to criticize me with your point 2, as you admit above.

And I believe that you, among several others, have suggested that I don't support civil rights in the US because I support not allowing Muslims into the country, and my ideal country would have no one who wants to practice any religion.

However, there have been so many people piling on that criticism of me that there is a possibility that I remembered incorrectly. If you really haven't done that, I apologize, but I think it's understandable that I would jump to that conclusion given your point 2.

Your earlier WTF was because you didn't address any of the problems with Qatar actually highlighted in the article I posted. Later you started that they were included in the "etc". I still think that is pretty lame as those problems have up be more important than your point 2.

I think my use of Qatar as representative of Muslim countries overall, as explained by Montreal above. Of course not all majority Muslim countries are as oppressive as Qatar, but I think it's fair to say that kind of government is supported by the majority of Muslims in the world, again as noted by the research given by Montreal.

Now, could we all leave aside the ad hominem attacks and the whatabout the US and maybe discuss the article I posted?

I truly did want to know what others think about the situation, and particularly of soccer / football fans as I am not one of them. You personally did answer briefly in your point 1, but no one else has really addressed any of that.

Not for "western", but it would be perfectly valid to lump oppressive policies in the US related to fundamentalist Christian policies in with other "Christian" counties.

However, there are very few other countries whose governments have as much insidious Christian influence as does the US. The historically Christian western European countries are not really Christian any longer. A small minority participate in the church, and to my understanding it is rare that religion affects their policies.

I'm trying to think of any other western first world countries whose governments still have a strong Christian influence, and all I can come up with is Ireland. Maybe Poland if you want to consider them as mostly westernized. Plus Mexico and some South American countries if you want to include those in the club. I think it would be fine to lump the US in with them as far as generalizions about negative things happening in Christian countries.

You lost me on this one fwiw...

That's a reaction I often have to nutella's posts.

in terms of suffering wrought, Qatar pales in comparison to well, just about every first world country.

I think he was agreeing with you but I dunno. I agree with you.

You have a lot of work to do to show that the massive prison population in USA is to do with Christian cultural legacy.

However you are still missing the point.

Take an average American, how much does the fact that the USA has a massive prison population inform me about that average American?

Not much imo,

Penny dropping?

I wasn't trying to show prison population had anything to do with Christian cultural legacy. You're the one who brought up both those issues, not me.

Maybe your point wasn't relevant to my original post.

I agree, it doesn't tell you much about that, except maybe that a high prison population doesn't bother them terribly.

No idea what penny dropping means and don't care to bother to try a search.


I was never trying to make any point about restrictive policies in Qatar informing you about the average Muslim. I just wanted to see some discussion of the article I posted and how it reflects on the situation in Qatar and similar countries with fundamentalist Muslim governments.

It was not coming from the perspective of "USA #1, we are the land of the free". I think that line is bullshit, and I especially hate the restrictions and policies of the US which are based on religion.

Maybe in total, since they have a very small population, but in suffering per person, no way. A full 50% of the adult population has very little control of their own lives and IMO might as well be slaves. While they still are not treated completely equally to men, no first world country treats women like property.

Yes, I was criticizing your take on Muslims (which was very relevant given your "in Muslim countries" wording choice), and made no secret of that.

Nope. And thus my confusion at your "Or do you think the US is the only place where personal liberty is important?" statement shouldn't be surprising, and in fact should have tipped you off to the fact that it wasn't me that "attacked me with his false criticisms that I did not support them in the US". Also, none of that came up in this thread that I'm aware of, until you brought it up.

Thanks.

LOL.

Please correct me if I've missed anything as I try to sum up the article. The first third to half of the article was about alcohol restrictions. Then there were sections on religious restrictions, public speech limitations, discrimination against the LGBTQ community, and clothing requirements. Here's what I said about it:

I think "Human rights issues" and "discrimination" encompass the most important points of the article (other religions, public speech, LGBTQ) - the "more" covers the much less important alcohol issue.

I don't know what more you're expecting from me or others, both in that comment above, or in this one:

Are you expecting there are going to be a lot of people here who say "yeah, this is cool, gotta let the Muslims do what they want because otherwise it would be bigotry"? Of course not.

A more interesting discussion might be whether people should be boycotting, if Qatar should have been allowed to host, and whether the World Cup selection process still needs a lot more clean up (especially given Infantino's recent comment that he'd be open to North Korea hosting). But your choice of "in Muslim countries" rather than "in Qatar" quite naturally took the conversation in a very different direction.

USA 5 times the population of the UK

I assume he meant the US incarceration rate is 5 times the UK. I believe in simply total numbers, it's something like 2 million versus 90 K.

If any comparison you see shows the US incarceration rate is the same as any other country, you can be assured there has been some kind of error, because the US rate is tops, and waaaay out in front of the rest of the "western world".