Because I gotta say, contra the screeching denials earlier in the thread, it does kinda look like the "ask" from Team AR-15 Outside the Mosque here is for you guys to be able to sit around swapping Sam Harris youtubes and hot takes about how backwards the Mussulmen are* without fear of anyone disagreeing or calling you names.


*Except for that part about requiring multiple eyewitnesses for rape, that's a good idea, we need sharia law on campus to stop Obama's Title IX war on men.

Your standpoint is weird. He was clearly saying that if you insist on taking a reductionist approach to the problem of terrorism, then a much better would be hyperanxious masculinity, or however he phrased it, than Islam. That doesn't mean he think's one is more to blame than the other(depending upon what you mean by "more to blame"). Islam could be the most important motivating factor in many individuals who commit terrorism in the middle east, none of us know. We do know that reducing the causitive factor to "Islam" is really bad because it leaves out whole swaths of known terrorist profiles while casting a net of suspicion around way too many innocents.

But also, your post is ironic, in that the one I responded to you were lecturing Dvaut about making gotcha posts. All the while that whole offshoot came from a post in which you were concern trolling Dvaut over his "tactics."

No it is clear that the objections are that there is a false narrative being promoted by a lot of pols regarding Islam to promote political agendas.

Maybe you have missed this, but tons of American politicians and aspiring American politicians have proposed sweeping policy changes that directly affect Americans, including proposing the admission of strictly Christian refugees to documenting all Muslims in America, including citizens, in a database, to stalking random Muslims with semiautomatic rifles. If your whole point is that there are some Muslims in the world who believe some terrible things but that we should do absolutely nothing about this, then you are in 100% harmonious agreement with the vast majority of liberals in the forum, and we're not really sure why you need to keep reminding us about some of the terrible things we largely already know about, especially when you aren't suggesting we change our lives or thinking in response to rehearing these things.
You are glossing over several centuries where Muslim conflict was largely carried out by standing armies instead of terrorist cells, but if there is one thing we have learned from this thread it's that deaths from terrorists are the only ones that really count. Deaths caused by armies are just part of the plan.

Its not simply criticising it though, its Islam ergo terrorism.

As has been repeated ad infinitum no one has a problem with criticism of/the religion.

The problem is a reductionionism that does very little to help us understand terrorism because of the obvious fact if we go Islam ergo terrrorism then we are excluding all the other obvious X ergo terrorism.

It also does nothing to inform us from a policy POV.

So in short the criticism being made is that Islam ergo terrorism is just not a useful thing to say.

Its so not that hard.

lol walk it back

This is quite an interesting take on racism, antisemitism, terrorism, and nationalism - what he calls 'Europe's perfect storm'. Particularly how racism changed from what he calls inferiorising to differentiating.

Of course it's important to understand why people are motivated to murder. When terrorists kill cartoonists for drawing pictures of Muhammad, it probably has less to do with foreign policy, and more to do with it being an ultimate crime under Islam to insult the prophet. France shouldn't consider changing their foreign policy in response and neither should we, nor should they prohibit insulting the prophet.

Also, the public should not buy the reflexive PC response that we should respect their culture and not offend. No, we should encouraging cartoonists to continue offending Muslims who take their religion too seriously and thereby keep the spotlight shining brightly on the sheer ridiculous and toxic principles they follow. Only when they learn to take exception like normal people should we consider the PC line.

yo foldn, i'm waiting for you/tien/chrisv/vhawk/etc to answer my question, what do we as westerners get out of a wholesale condemnation of islam, that would be in our best interests?

When we stand up for liberal principles: free speech over punishing blasphemy, religious tolerance over punishing apostasy, representative government over sharia law, we are taking the right side in a war of ideals. Not to stand up for those principles is to sit on the side line. Opposing them is to fight for the wrong side.

The argument is that a wholesale condemnation is not warranted because only a fraction of Muslims want to punish blasphemy, interpret Sharia law in such way as to subjigate women to being chattel, kill people for practicing a gay lifestyle, hate jews, etc, Bad argument?

The condemnation is for the set of beliefs and those who support them. Those who don't support those beliefs should not be condemned. I realize it's easy to make broad statements like the one you're responding to, and that there are many people who condemn Muslims who do not support those backward beliefs. You are right to object to those people, just make sure you're not guilty of the same sort of generalization your fighting against.

Yep, fair enough, I agree.

Every time I call for condemnation of Wahabi Islamism, or conservative Islam, Sharia Law included, the only argument you have is that I condemn all Muslims. Did I even say Westerners should wholesale condemn Islam? Where the hell did I ever say that?

Yall done shifting goal posts?

Well as mentioned its a little bit of a goalpost shift since, apart from maybe me, I dont think anyone has been this broad about "Islam" and even from my perspective I just mean "the bad parts" (I just think the foundations are bad, so the good parts are mostly lipstick on a pig).

But to be generous and answer the spirit of your question, the same that we as westerners get out of a wholesale condemnation of misogyny, of racism, of disrespect towards the poor, of fascism, of greed and hatred and small-mindedness.

Or is this a general question you post in every thread in this forum? I looked through the race-themed threads, the US-bombing-other-countries-themed threads, the rape threads, etc and I couldn't find this question asked by you. That must mean you have it clearly answered in your mind what we get out of those positions?


Also I gotta say there is an ugly little strand of utilitarianism underlying your question I think. If we didnt, as a western society, benefit from condemning racism or sexism or discrimination, would that mean we shouldnt do so? Not a particularly liberal attitude, IMO.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_the_Conqueror

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayreddin_Barbarossa

I've already linked to Suleiman the Magnificent. But again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman_the_Magnificent

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Pasha

The first genocide of the 20th century was perpretated by Muslim Turks against Christian Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. This is the 100th anniversary.

The all cultures are alike mantra is nonsense and people saying it are more likely to be guilty of bigotry of low expectations rather than being honest.

We are not comparing cuisines or pottery here.

Culture that values individual freedom and rights is superior to cultures based on dogma, anywhere, in any point in history.

I have watched that show yesterday and they had pretty much the same discussion there that we had ITT.

Miss_lonely_hearts,

What's troubling me is the nature of your game.

Apparently there is no evidence this letter was ever written by Pike, and may very well have been created after WWII. That would make perfect sense to me as more freemason conspiracy mumbo jumbo.

Quality microbet

lol