Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

As to telling other people what to say and when to say it, well, good luck with that. You've been trying to get Hank to have a non-trolling conversation here for years, and if you can't do that, I'm not sure how you're going to get the NYPD or the larger Muslim world to start singing from your hymnal. But keep trying, I'm sure some day you'll find someone somewhere in Islam who can just order it all to stop and tell the religious terrorists to get in line, and, of course, they'll listen, as they always do.

I have no illusions about being able to get people to say what I want them to. Nor that there is any grand figure in Islam who can direct everyone to behave in any particular way.

I don't think it's a coincidence that so many people find justification in Islam for violent action -- whereas, any commonality in the color of car they drive is a coincidence (honestly I never considered that anyone could say that the color of car was as important a factor, but Ty did, and I'll leave it at that). While I recognize that there is enormous variation in what people say and believe within Islam -- 2 billion people, after all -- there is still enough of a discourse that a significant number of people, from very different places and backgrounds, are hearing a message that their religion justifies killing.

I think that Muslims, particularly Muslim leaders, are the ones who are going to change that discourse. I don't think I'm alone in that view, and over the weekend saw a number of things such as a letter from various Muslim leaders in the NYTimes that echoed this. Over time, those developments will change the discourse.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Boy am I glad I no longer litigate.

You're just trying to score debating points instead of actually having a conversation. If I got that wrong, or if something I said somehow sent you down the path of being a jackass, I apologize, but I'm not seeing it right now.

Here's where the path started.

I responded to a link, and said that I liked the statement (from Dr. Khaled Hanafy), of "I call on Muslims to stage demonstrations that denounce this aggression. I urge Muslim Imams and leaders to take all the necessary actions to denounce the incident, to reassure the Europe community, to actively participate in protecting Europe media institutions against any threat and to denounce extremism and terror."


You responded that I might as well call on people who drive black cars, etc.

At some point, because I said that I liked the statement quoted above, you started comparing me to the killers at the Salem witch trials, and a few other choice ideas. As if, by quoting a somewhat-prominent Muslim who said "I call on Muslims...", I personally was trying to create a legal obligation or requirement that people speak a certain way (as GGG put it, that I was telling people to sing from a hymnal).


At some point, I said that you were dishonest -- by which I did not mean that you are a liar, but that you were being intellectually dishonest to suggest that an appropriate response to the above quote was "why not call on drivers of black cars?"

If you considered that to be "having a conversation," and if you considered that to be anything other than being a jackass yourself, I am truly mystified. But it seems that this all unwound after I quoted a statement, by a Muslim who was calling on other Muslims to denounce a terrible act, and who was urging Muslim Imams and leaders to act in a particular way.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I have no illusions about being able to get people to say what I want them to. Nor that there is any grand figure in Islam who can direct everyone to behave in any particular way.

I don't think it's a coincidence that so many people find justification in Islam for violent action -- whereas, any commonality in the color of car they drive is a coincidence (honestly I never considered that anyone could say that the color of car was as important a factor, but Ty did, and I'll leave it at that). While I recognize that there is enormous variation in what people say and believe within Islam -- 2 billion people, after all -- there is still enough of a discourse that a significant number of people, from very different places and backgrounds, are hearing a message that their religion justifies killing.

I think that Muslims, particularly Muslim leaders, are the ones who are going to change that discourse. I don't think I'm alone in that view, and over the weekend saw a number of things such as a letter from various Muslim leaders in the NYTimes that echoed this. Over time, those developments will change the discourse.

The key here is that the West doesn't listen to any of the Muslim leaders who speak; the only time you hear what Sisi or Erdogan or Abbas say, or what any Muslim religious leader says, is when the news finds something they say outrageous. Did you see reports of Sisi going to Church on Christmas - a huge story in the Middle East?

It goes deeper than just the news, too. Translations from major Arabic works are entirely lacking in English, and we still rely on translations done during the Renaissance for many Arabic classics. People's knowledge of Arabic in the US seems to come mainly from the jihadists - it's like we deputized Westboro Baptist to explain Christianity to Muslims.

They can talk all they want. The West is only going to hear what it wants.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

As to telling other people what to say and when to say it, well, good luck with that.

Please show me where I told other people what to say.

I don't think you can (even with respect to Hank -- mostly I tell him not to say shit.)

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

The key here is that the West doesn't listen to any of the Muslim leaders who speak; the only time you hear what Sisi or Erdogan or Abbas say, or what any Muslim religious leader says, is when the news finds something they say outrageous. Did you see reports of Sisi going to Church on Christmas - a huge story in the Middle East?

It goes deeper than just the news, too. Translations from major Arabic works are entirely lacking in English, and we still rely on translations done during the Renaissance for many Arabic classics.

They can talk all they want. The West is only going to hear what it wants.

This is all too true and I don't dispute it.

But I'm actually talking about what Muslims, particularly Muslim youth, are hearing.

OTOH, the news did carry what the leader of Hezbollah said about the Paris attacks. The NYTimes did carry the open letter I referred to (paid to do so, of course). We did see the various statements in the link where this discussion started the other day -- y'know, the one with the statement of "I call on..." that got me in so much trouble because I liked it. So, yeah -- we need to listen more too.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

The key here is that the West doesn't listen to any of the Muslim leaders who speak; the only time you hear what Sisi or Erdogan or Abbas say, or what any Muslim religious leader says, is when the news finds something they say outrageous. Did you see reports of Sisi going to Church on Christmas - a huge story in the Middle East?

It goes deeper than just the news, too. Translations from major Arabic works are entirely lacking in English, and we still rely on translations done during the Renaissance for many Arabic classics. People's knowledge of Arabic in the US seems to come mainly from the jihadists - it's like we deputized Westboro Baptist to explain Christianity to Muslims.

They can talk all they want. The West is only going to hear what it wants.

Best thing you've posted all week.

Whenever I'm overseas I find it absolutely amazing how in tune the entire world is to what is going on elsewhere in the world. Here, you have to go out of your way to learn anything about world news and you have to go even further if you want information on global news that doesn't directly affect the U.S. It is amazing.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

The point is to compare the idea that talking to the police should be punished harshly to the idea that anyone depicting the prophet without absolute reverence should be punished harshly.

Speaking only of Muslims in Western countries, do you really think this is a particular problem? I get what you are saying about majority-Muslim countries elsewhere in the world, but I don't think many Muslims in the US or Western Europe think this.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

I don't quite get the idea of Islam as superior to the state - it sounds like it explains something, but on closer look, I think it is way off. Likewise, the idea of reforming Islam through a vatican counsel process is kind of strange.

To the extent the laws of the state conflict with it, Shariah trumps. Historically, predominantly fundamentalist Muslim states would include language in treaties and trade arrangements noting their superior divine position above non-Muslim infidel states. Iran is still doing something similar, stating on one hand a desire to work with the West, but also as official policy noting that, based on Islam, it remains forever at war with the West, as well as any other infidel culture. Additionally, the edict that all non-Muslims must be converted or subjugated it is not a bastardization of fundamentalist Muslim teaching.

Of course, sensible Muslims reject these absurd postures. Just as sensible Jews are not observing all the prohibitions on food, and sensible Catholics ignore the prohibition on birth control. Nevertheless, in the same way Catholicism has mired so many in poverty and disease under the abhorrent directive its adherents breed like rabbits, Islam has been a magnet for those seeking a basis to remain in permanent conflict with modern society.

The core policies of Islam on conversion and Shariah primacy need to be publicly disavowed. I understand Islam has no central controlling hierarchy, but the supreme leader of Iran, and the most influential Sunnis, could declare these facets of the faith to be invalid. This could be done, and it would have considerable influence. Why have they not yet done so? Where is the conclusive unified statement that Islam does not seek to convert, and rejects Shariah as anything but a barbaric relic incompatible with modern secular laws?

If you look at the Middle East, there are three major states where religion has official standing in the government: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel. None of these are Sunni. The big Sunni states, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq, are all engaged in a war on radical Islam that includes the sort of repression, torture and abridgment of rights of speech that few Americans other than Dick Cheney would support. I don't think the leaders of any of these three states would suggest Islam has any special role in the state - Sisi made a point of going to a Coptic Church on Christmas to emphasize that the state and Christianity are compatible.

Wahhabism is Sunni. The 800 lb. gorilla here is our dear friends, the Saudis. And they are very clear about religion's role in the state. They have religious police, and treat women like fourth class citizens. The fount of all the true rot infecting Islam is right there, in that gold plated turd of a nation. And of course, by extension, the rot in Islam is largely our fault, as we indirectly support this Wahhabism.

As to other religions, you are too optimistic on their separation from the state.

I'm not. They'd all attempt to infect the state if we let them. But here's where Islam is different. No Jews were picking up guns and attacking the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists for the paper's numerous anti-Semitic cartoons. Nor were Catholics seeking to murder its staff for depictions of the Pope engaged in anal sex.

When you tell two of the Big Three's fundamentalists they cannot control the govt, they slink back to their lairs and attempt to create power bases within the govt. Or they bring lawsuits arguing silly things like the right to be intolerant as a matter of "religious liberty." Only with Islam today do we see the fundamentalists skipping all other technically peaceful avenues and picking up guns. And they find the justification for this in their texts, in exactly the same fashion as Christian Crusaders of hundreds of years ago.

Something is wrong with the religion itself when this continues happening, over and over, for decades. Is the US to blame for interfering in the Middle East? Yes. Are we to blame for propping up bad regimes like the Shah, or the Saudis? Yes. But if we don't prop these up, what appears in the vacuum? Things like the Taliban. For reasons we'll never understand, Lack of Economic Opportunity + Islam = 8th Century Barbarism. And no, I'm sorry -- it's not the same with the other two of the Big Three.

You may want to look at what is happening with the Hindutva and Modi in India. It's a world of book-banning, religiously imposed school curricula, and violence against non-Hindus; India is a place where religious violence is more likely to be targeted against Muslims than by Muslims, and it is a state with almost 200 million Muslims.

The Muslim/Hindu friction of the present is not comparable to fundamentalist Islam's current crimes. It is appalling what Hindus did and often still do to Muslims there, but so far as I've seen, no Hindus are attacking foreign nations or taking territory under a doctrine that Hinduism must convert and eventually dominate all.

What of France's ban on head scarfs in schools and law against women shielding their face in public - isn't that intertwining of Church and state?

It is. I understand the secularist urge to compel people to behave like they live in the 21st Century, the need to drag sexist cultures forward, and I even get that France sees itself as more enlightened than most in its cultural rejection of religion - and it probably is - but that law is indefensible.

And Catholicism still plays an often unhappy role with the state in places like Poland, Ireland, and many countries in Latin America. Then, of course, there are places like Utah and Oklahoma ...

Again, however, and this distinction cannot be overemphasized, none of the fundamentalists of these religions are picking up guns and murdering people who offend them. And if there was ever a gun crazy place filled with exactly the sort of nuts who'd do so, it'd be the US. No, they're doing it almost exclusively in areas where you find a lot of Muslims, in the name of Islam.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Whenever I'm overseas I find it absolutely amazing how in tune the entire world is to what is going on elsewhere in the world. Here, you have to go out of your way to learn anything about world news and you have to go even further if you want information on global news that doesn't directly affect the U.S. It is amazing.

2

I wish I could subscribe to the International New York Times at home -- I read it when I travel, and feel much better wired in. That and BBC or the French equivalent in my hotel room, and it's like living in a different world.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Again, however, and this distinction cannot be overemphasized, none of the fundamentalists of these religions are picking up guns and murdering people who offend them.

Paging Dr. Tiller.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Here's where the path started.

I responded to a link, and said that I liked the statement (from Dr. Khaled Hanafy), of "I call on Muslims to stage demonstrations that denounce this aggression. I urge Muslim Imams and leaders to take all the necessary actions to denounce the incident, to reassure the Europe community, to actively participate in protecting Europe media institutions against any threat and to denounce extremism and terror."


You responded that I might as well call on people who drive black cars, etc.

At some point, because I said that I liked the statement quoted above, you started comparing me to the killers at the Salem witch trials, and a few other choice ideas.

That's not what I said. I said there was a history of forcing public denunciations in the colonies in the 1600s. And when you brought up Salem, I told you that I was talking about how Anne Hutchinson and others were treated by the Puritans in Massachusetts -- they were often forced to appear and publicly support official doctrine.

Since I've already said this once, I'm not sure why you'd say again that I'm comparing you to a killer at the Salem witch trials, except that you seem bent on putting absurd words in my mouth instead of responding to what I'm actually saying as if it might be reasonable.

As if, by quoting a somewhat-prominent Muslim who said "I call on Muslims...", I personally was trying to create a legal obligation or requirement that people speak a certain way (as GGG put it, that I was telling people to sing from a hymnal).

No one said a "legal" obligation or requirement, but someone -- I thought it was you -- talked about moderate Muslims having a "responsibility" to speak out now. That's the idea that I (and others here) find so objectionable.

At some point, I said that you were dishonest -- by which I did not mean that you are a liar, but that you were being intellectually dishonest to suggest that an appropriate response to the above quote was "why not call on drivers of black cars?"

I didn't say it was appropriate, I said it was just as appropriate as calling on all Muslims -- which is to say, not appropriate. Likewise, I wasn't calling you stupid, I was pointing that you had misconstrued what I said.

If you considered that to be "having a conversation," and if you considered that to be anything other than being a jackass yourself, I am truly mystified. But it seems that this all unwound after I quoted a statement, by a Muslim who was calling on other Muslims to denounce a terrible act, and who was urging Muslim Imams and leaders to act in a particular way.

The banner on CNN as I walked passed a TV just now was, "SHOULD MODERATE MUSLIMS SPEAK OUT AGAINST VIOLENCE." It's not just what you posted -- it started here with what Icky (and Sebby?) posted and it's all over the media. No one disagrees that the acts are terrible. No one thinks it's bad when Muslims condemn violence. Some of us just find it pretty objectionable that moderate Muslims are implicitly and explicitly told that they have some special obligation to speak up now, a tactic suggestion that they have some peculiar responsibility for what happened.

As I read the conversation, the point when it went off the rails is when, having misunderstood the "black cars" thing, you didn't wonder if maybe I wasn't saying something so ridiculous but maybe had another idea that made more sense. Instead you told me I had my head up my ass. If you didn't like the way I responded to that, I was only trying to follow your lead.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Best thing you've posted all week.

Whenever I'm overseas I find it absolutely amazing how in tune the entire world is to what is going on elsewhere in the world. Here, you have to go out of your way to learn anything about world news and you have to go even further if you want information on global news that doesn't directly affect the U.S. It is amazing.

TM

Leave the city some time and hang out in the burbs for a few months. There's an antagonism toward anyone offering views differing from those of our media. And scarier than that, there's a strong suspicion of anyone discussing things beyond the immediate. The focus seems to be on what's going on in the locality, then, if necessary, what's going on in the closest large city, and then nationally, and rarely if ever, what's going on abroad.

It's not mere complacency and lack of curiosity. It's deliberate. They talk kids, sports, entertainment, and perhaps a little politics in election season, and that's it. As far as travel abroad, that's discussed only in terms of what museums were seen, or resorts visited.

The majority of Americans in flyover land don't want to know more than what's comfortable to hear. They're just smart enough to understand its doubtful it will ever directly impact their little world, and clever and cynical enough to realize that if everyone sticks their heads in the sand together, it creates a pleasant self-reinforcing reality in which nothing bad is ever focused on for more than a minute or two. "Oh, those French cartoonists were killed... How awful. Oh, well-- got to back to turning all the lights on in the great room. I have to show this house to three more couples this afternoon!"

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Paging Dr. Tiller.

You're amazing. I considered actually including that as a footnote. Then I thought, "No douche would use an outlier thing like that... unnecessary."

Can you stop being annoying?

ETA: Here, let's get them all out there: Eric Rudolph, David Koresh. Any others I missed?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Leave the city some time and hang out in the burbs for a few months. There's an antagonism toward anyone offering views differing from those of our media. And scarier than that, there's a strong suspicion of anyone discussing things beyond the immediate. The focus seems to be on what's going on in the locality, then, if necessary, what's going on in the closest large city, and then nationally, and rarely if ever, what's going on abroad.

It's not mere complacency and lack of curiosity. It's deliberate. They talk kids, sports, entertainment, and perhaps a little politics in election season, and that's it. As far as travel abroad, that's discussed only in terms of what museums were seen, or resorts visited.

The majority of Americans in flyover land don't want to know more than what's comfortable to hear. They're just smart enough to understand its doubtful it will ever directly impact their little world, and clever and cynical enough to realize that if everyone sticks their heads in the sand together, it creates a pleasant self-reinforcing reality in which nothing bad is ever focused on for more than a minute or two. "Oh, those French cartoonists were killed... How awful. Oh, well-- got to back to turning all the lights on in the great room. I have to show this house to three more couples this afternoon!"

When I lived in Rhode Island I saw this in spades. I swear, if a nuclear bomb were set off in Cairo, the headline in the Providence Journal would be "Three Rhode Islanders Killed in Egypt," followed by the subtitle of "500,000 others also die in nuclear incident."

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Some of us just find it pretty objectionable that moderate Muslims are implicitly and explicitly told that they have some special obligation to speak up now, a tactic suggestion that they have some peculiar responsibility for what happened.

I don't think that saying that moderate Muslims should look at what is being said and taught as part of their religion, because that religion is so frequently being used to justify killing, as a suggestion that they are personally responsible for any killing. Apparently we disagree on that, and I'm content to disagree on that.

I also believe that, for example, white Americans have a particular responsibility to think carefully about what they say about race, about what messages they convey both explicitly and implicitly, because ultimately that is critical to evolving past our history of racism. Do my own actions, words, perceptions, things I teach, things that are taught where I send my kids to school, things said in my community.... do those things further the notion that black people matter less than white people? That black people are "other"? That stereotypes or prejudices are valid? If so, I need to change that -- because, while violent racist attacks are very, very far away from anything I can point to in myself or my community or my family, they are still on the same continuum. The same sentiments that led me, as a kid, to think that racist jokes were okay, led my uncle to think that talking about "niggers" was okay, and led people in my school think that beating up a black kid in response to something that other black kids had done was okay.

Believing that white Americans have that responsibility doesn't mean that I blame any particular white American for any particular incident or act in which they did not participate. It means that I believe that white Americans who are decent people need to always and ever further isolate those who are not -- not because that will necessarily change the thinking or behavior of those who have already crossed that line, but because it will make that line harder to cross in the future.