This is Samira Jassam. She is not a nice lady.
She was responsible for sending men out to rape women, so that in their despair and shame she’d be able to recruit them as suicide bombers. She’s a monster. The cowards who would do her bidding and assault innocent women are also creatures of contempt.
This is where a pathologically religious culture can end up: with parasites like this who exploit the fear and hatred to create more fear and hatred.
That’s just horrific beyond words. :-(
That is just awful. You are quite right, this is where a culture of religion can lead. It’s frightening to think how many such monsters are out there, since so many people are diseased by religion.
Yeah, Wowbagger brought it up on another thread.
Thanks!
I can but to quote Wowbagger and say that it’s beyond monstrous.
I add that any claim that religious belief leads to morality is by this example falsified.
HT to Wowbagger – he pointed this out on another thread.
Without religion, such fuckers would not be able to pretend they are in any way ‘good’ to their victims. But I have no doubt such sick twisted minds would find a way to exploit others. It seems to be ingrained.
Thanks for posting that, PZ. It did need to be put out there – as sad as it makes me to be reminded there are such monsters in this world – and those who consider such actions justifiable because of religion – the cold hard reality is that there are, and we need to find a way to stop it.
Monster…
I can’t even summon up a humorous remark.
Fanaticism can be simply political in nature, but the nastiest version comes with a heaping helping of religion, with which any atrocity can be “justified”. Perhaps she will be happy to be a martyr when the Iraqi government exectures her. Does Jassam expect to be feted by 72 virgins upon her martyrdom? That would serve her right, but it’s too bad for her the afterlife does not exist.
Just when you’ve almost got used to the horrors and ignorance religion brings into this world, there’s always something that will surprise you about the negative power of organized superstition.
It’s just beyond words. You just don’t know what to do when you find out about these things. I’m simply baffled.
Well, the Bush administration got one thing right (as crazy as it sounds):
People like these nutjobs deserve nothing else but the business end of either a bunker buster or an M1 Abrams’ 120mm Rheinmetall.
If ever there was reason for the death penalty……..
I’m not in favor of the death penalty, Keith B, but there are folks who richly deserve it.
Actually, I think what she really deserves is to spend the rest of her life with the families of her victims, particularly their parents.
I just don’t get it?? Does she get a bunch of virgins to ***k in heaven?? Why would she want virgins? Assuming that Allah has a female virgin factory, that would mean she is a lesbian. So that would mean… I dunno what does that mean for the muslim faith???
@Cujo359
Wouldn’t such a sentence result in said perp’s – probably slow and painful – death anyway?
As a parasitologist, I must protest just a little to your comparison of this monster to a parasite. Contrary to popular perception, most parasites are highly evolved or adapted creatures, not true degenerates like those who would kill for imaginary dictators in the sky.
@Chad
Parasites at least do what they do out of necessity – the need to survive. I have no fucking idea what could have pushed Samira Jassam to commit this atrocity, other than a pure contempt for her fellow human being.
…And probably sheer envy for other women. Damn, she’s fugly
People like this make me wish there were a hell.
That slime bag did not have enough guts to do the job herself, but sacrificed the innocent females guts instead. If she had blown herself to shitbits, what would she receive from her allah? Seventy two of what? Religion constantly reminds us of it’s dangerous insanity. Would atheists strapped themselves with explosives and hurl themselves into a chuch congregation to hasten the godbots rapture? And we are forever cast as the demons of the world for not kowtowing to the crazed religionists concept of a murderous god. As clinteas stated, brain rot by religion.
That’s horrifying beyond words
“She is not a nice lady.” does not begin to cover it. I’m shocked beyond words. This woman is a traitor in every sense of the word.
The next time someone claims you don’t go after muslims, just point them at this post.
Twin Skies @ 13 – Possibly, but the state wouldn’t be taking it on itself to do it. It also wouldn’t be too hard to fix responsibility for the murder, either.
I think someone being reviled, miserable, and alone for the rest of her life is a pretty awful way to go. While anger might make that a difficult thought for the victims’ families to keep in mind, it is a comforting thought.
Yes, this IS what Islam is all about. If you read the Koran, you can see it. Sam Harris warned about this in “The End of Faith”.
This is Al Qaida. This is Hamas. This is Hezbollah. This is Ahmadinejad. This is Darfur, This is Somalia, This is Yemen. This is disgusting.
Cujo359 @ 11
Carry out the sentence proscribed in that book of applied death, the bible. Stone her to death; slowly
The creature PZ has displayed a picture of probably doesn’t believe in God any more than PZ does. As PZ said, it’s the culturally brainwashed and ignorant that are the problem… and the scheming users. She is one of the scheming users.
I hope there IS a Hell, so she can spend eternity getting what she deserves.
Those who talk of dragging Bush to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes should be calling for this fucking monster you have shown us to stand trial alongside, or shut the fuck up. Try one, try them all; OK?
This is why atheists and humanists need to take morality back. Those of religions have no authority on morality – if they even have something useful to add to the discussion.
Monsters.
Where to start? A society that blames women for the rapes done to them. The belief that these victimized women are a shame to their families. A belief in an afterlife. A belief that one is eternally rewarded for killing infidels. A belief that one can and should manipulate others to become common fodder. Males (I do not want to call them men.) who are willing to rape at the orders of an other.
This is a perfect fucking storm of misery.
How can a person be good if that person lacks religion? I really want to make these words physical and force down the throat of the next person who makes this claim.
Horrors like these are possible in many types of philosophies, with or without a religious foundation. Secularists such as us have a duty, should we make enough headway in unseating religious morality, to attempt to build a new consensus of secular philosophies that are sufficiently compelling and understandable that we leave the world better off. It’s possible to make systems that are much more internally consistent and compassionate than Christianity or Islam – we have to hope that if and as faith-based philosophies weaken we’re ready for the challenge of “new values onto new tablets”.
ok perturbed(troll)
pz is a ‘creature’ for pointing out hideous religion-based hatred. All religion is hatred.
I am currently reading the book _Infidel_ by Ayaan Hirsi Ali which documents many of the unspeakable horrors that Muslim women face. Ali fought her way out of it and became a brilliant example of bravery and humanism. When you get over the disgust inspired by Samira Jassam, pick up and read “Infidel.” It is a good antidote.
Those who talk of dragging Bush to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes should be calling for this fucking monster you have shown us to stand trial alongside, or shut the fuck up. Try one, try them all; OK?
She probably believes as much in her god as dubya does his god. And I would be happy to see them tried side by side. But this is not the best of all possible worlds. It will not happen.
I want to post something but cannot reasonably articulate my disgust, anger and sadness. There are no words that can adequately describe this filth. Oh! God. I hate the stupidity of religion in all its manifestations. What peaceful little shits the muslims are!
I now feel a teeny bit better having written that.
So much for the (bogus) argument: Iraq is better off without Sadam Hussien.
More bad news; Women’s Right Activist Beheaded in Iraqi Kurdistan
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=372
doctorihateaphids, please reread perturbed first sentence. PZ was not called a creature, Samira Jassam was.
The creature PZ has displayed a picture of probably doesn’t believe in God any more than PZ does.
Just reading what she did is going to make me depressed all day.
Come on, folks! We’re a community of atheists on the INTERNET! We’ve got to get some snark out the door. Sarcasm is our job! We gotta make fun of this evil woman. Someone put something crass together about 70 virgins, stat!
I know what I would like to do to her and the men who carried out the rapes; it starts with curling irons, her worthless vagina, and their rectums.
This is evil shit.
And this woman, and her accomplices, are truly mind-fuckingly evil shits.
But they are no more the entirety or islam, than phelps and his church is the entirety of christianity.
To say so is conflating different things.
However — if ‘moderate moslems’ do not want their religion conflated with her and her ilk, they must loudly and vociferously condemn her and all she represents.
Likewise – moderate christians must loudly and vociferously condemn the activities and preaching of Phelps.
But – we’ve seen in tha past that won’t happen. They’ll simply deny that these people are ‘true moslems’ or ‘true christians’, and hide behind their crumbling walls of sanctity, while more innocents bleed and suffer and die for their cowardice.
*This* is why I truly hate religion.
tony,
In this case at least the moderate religious are just as much to blame – the guilt that the women felt for having been raped is as much a part of moderate Islam as it is of extremist Islam.
Unless moderation means the tossing out of every aspect of the religion that creates men and women who consider women to be of such little value for anything other than sex and procreation and domestic duties then it’s just as big a part of the problem as the extremists.
PZ and pharyngulites–where is your famous skepticism? I am shocked not only by the (alleged) crime, but by the willingness–no, eagerness–of all of you to accept this report as fact. Doesn’t anyone here require more evidence than the word of the Iraqi police as reported by the AP? As an atheist and skeptic I’m sorry to have to say this, but a lot of atheist discourse these days strikes me as beating the drums for the “war of civilizations”. If a Muslim is said to have commited unspeakable acts we know it’s true, since we all know that Muslims are depraved. Could this report be true? Of course it could. Do we have solid evidence that it is true? No, we don’t.
She is living proof that not all woman-haters are men.
Words cannot express my hatred and contempt.
@perturbed #23
From the news site:
Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna (via wikipedia):
@Robin Fox
I don’t recall attacking other Muslim sects over this matter, instead focusing my ire against Samira Jassam. Hell, the group she’s affiliated with has been violent even against other Muslims they don’t agree with.
Robin Fox,
It’s also on Al Arabiya – it’s hardly WorldNetDaily or FoxNews.
Robin Fox @38,
Unfortunately, most commenters here are informed, and this is not an extraordinary claim needing extraordinary evidence.
It’s chillingly believable.
Robin, she confessed–calmly I might add–to at least one “training” and they suspect her of the rest. It’s all caught on tape at the article PZ linked to.
We’re a community of atheists on the INTERNET! We’ve got to get some snark out the door. Sarcasm is our job! We gotta make fun of this evil woman. Someone put something crass together about 70 virgins, stat!
Well, I guess her 70 (or so) virgins would be male, and there’s no better place than the Internet to find young male virgins. Try Slashdot, World Of Warcraft guildmasters or anything even close to the word “otaku.”
There. How’s that?
It really needs to be distinguished between attacks arising out of the moral panic surrounding Islam, and legitimate criticism of of some islamic people. Because of the obvious overreaction present in some circles post-9/11, there’s now a backlash against criticism for fear that it’s following the same path as those eager to jump on the bandwagon before.
How much can we trust the media? That seems a pertinent question, and surely claims like this need scepticism by journalists, by editors and by the viewer. Why though would this case be singled out as a complaint against a lack of scepticism where time and time again we use the media to back our arguments? Could it be that Islamophobia and the fearmongering that has been done in it’s name is coming back in an opposite extreme? Or is there legitimate grounds to cast scepticism on this one particular article?
rufustfirefly @ #35 (and others)
I am also angered and saddened by these kinds of actions. But how different are we from her if our anger is expressed as some sort of cruel torture or execution? In the same way as what she has done turns my stomach, so do your reactions. Perhaps not for the same reasons.
If my sister or even someone I knew was one of her recruits or victims I might feel as you do. Heck I DO *feel* as you do. However, in the end, I don’t think justice will have been done.
-DU-
Allah promised 72 fresh cucumbers.
Robin Fox,
Click the link. THERE IS A VIDEO THERE OF HER CONFESSING TO THE CRIMES .
Are you to a Silver by any chance?
Tanks Tony #36
You have said what I could not articulate when I lost it. And right, lets here all those noisy Muslim councils condemn this behaviour unconditionally, repeat unconditionally. Not yes buts. No Israel, Palestine, Israel, Palestine, ad infinitum. Simple unconditional condemnation is what is required. Otherwise many will just continue to believe that all Muslims secretly and actively continue to support this madness. Or are they too scared to say anything?
Damnit. The last line in #49 should read:
Are you related to a Silver by any chance?
I need to go to bed.
David Utidjian:
I’m not talking about justice. I don’t even know what might be considered justice for such heinous crimes. What would be fair and just punishment for such acts?
Sorry for being pedantic Janine, but in #25, am I right that for “common fodder” you meant “cannon fodder”?
This kind of person (Samira Jassam, not you :), Janine) just leaves me speechless. How can she live with what’s going on in her mind?
Ryan #34,
My shock and sheer fury and clouding out any urge to snark that I’ve got. I think it’s the same for most of the other posters.
I second the opinion that I wish I could believe in hell just to know that she’s going to BURN.
Well, I guess her 70 (or so) virgins would be male, and there’s no better place than the Internet to find young male virgins.
I pity the virgins. She’s not really that attractive.
I wish this story were new. I wish that woman would have blown herself up. Yet another witch-doctor, using people as weapons. Disgusting. Foul. sickening.
@Autumn
Wasn’t it 72 raisins…or was it Virginians?
Katkinkate,
I’d guess her sense of empathy has lost out to her pragmatism in pursuit of an ideological dogma, and therefore her conscience has atrophied through disuse.
Religion: demonstrated enabler of evil by spurious justification based on false certainty.
Posted by: rufustfirefly @ 35 “I know what I would like to do to her and the men who carried out the rapes; it starts with curling irons, her worthless vagina, and their rectums.”
Wouldn’t that just make you as bad as them? An “eye for an eye” just leaves everyone blind.
Katkinkate – there’s nothing inconsistent about saying that it’s just to do something to a person who has done great injustice that would be unjust if done to a person who hasn’t done anything wrong. If someone kidnapped a man off the street and locked him in a room for a year (feeding him, giving him exercise breaks, etc), we’d throw him in jail (for more than a year). That doesn’t make us as bad or worse than he is. There’s no necessary equivalence between harm done to people who have a right not to be harmed and harm done to those who have no right not to be harmed (or who just deserve harm, depending on your philosophy).
This kind of thing always makes me sick. I just can’t believe that a person could do something like this. I mean, I know that, yes, she did do it, but I just can’t comprehend how such a person could be. It’s inhuman.
katkinkate @59
I guess I’m even worse, considering that I’m of the opinion that she should be walled up, a la “The Cask of Amontillado”…
I’m kind of surprised no one has mentioned the use of “innocent” in PZ’s post–as it would imply that the rape of non-innocent women is more justifiable. While I’m sure that implication is not at all intended, PZ, I’m sad to see it.
Katkinkate: I ask you; what would be fair and just punishment for the acts this woman those men committed?
I see where you’re coming from, Gotchaye, but rufustfirefly was advocating torture, not justice.
Tree of Knowledge, #62,
I think that depends on what your definition of ‘innocent’ is, since there are several. But I would be very surprised if PZ meant it they way you’ve described it.
However, I agree that it’s worth stating in case anyone is in any doubt. There is no (and never will be a) situation in which any person (man or woman) could be raped and it be considered justifiable – no matter what. No ifs, no buts, no maybes.
Gotchaye at #60:
With respect, I disagree. It’s distinctly human, which makes it all the more appalling.
I am to bed, and I wish the Pharyngulites rest. I’ll be telling my loved ones that I love them, and tomorrow I’m going to try and do something beautiful, even if only small. Have to keep trying to move forward, for all the violent efforts by those that desire only to fall back.
No kings,
Robert
Tree of Knowledge – As long as we’re not going so far as to say that the rape of certain non-innocent women is justifiable (the position that rufus seems to have staked out), I think virtually everyone would agree that the rape of non-innocent women is more justifiable than the rape of innocent women. Certainly if I were forced to choose whether or not this horrible woman or an innocent woman were to be raped, I wouldn’t have to think very hard.
And yeah, I think rufus goes a bit too far. But I’d still have a hard time saying that someone who horribly tortured this woman to death would be as bad as she is (though I do think they’d have done wrong).
I second number 19 : so long to the “you’re attacking us just because we are Christians. You would never dare to do the same to Muslims.”
PZ, such a bad seed… I guess you’ve gotta go after Hinduism now or they’ll think you’re still picking.
http://irshadmanji.com/
Moderate muslim that condemns all this kind of crap.
So, can we please go on and stop classifying a billion people based on some bigots?
Thanks.
@BdN
Here’s a start:
Wasn’t Gandhi murdered by his fellows Hindus?
Hey, don’t be so culturally insensitive. She’s got a right to have her values respected. Sure, they’re repellent to you, but…
Argh. Can’t keep tongue in cheek.
Tree of Knowledge, I’m pretty sure PZ meant “innocent” as in “dupes” or “non-complicit”. Those women were subjected to a hidden agenda, unbeknownst to them.
There are just some people who should be locked up for life.
Posted by: rufustfirefly @ 63 “Katkinkate: I ask you; what would be fair and just punishment for the acts this woman those men committed?”
There is no fair and just punishment possible. The most fair and just punishments should include some form of payment to the victims and to society. There is nothing they can do or pay to society or the victims, or their families that balances what they have done. The best you can expect is to stop them doing it. This is one of the few situations that I might consider a quick death a justified action, for the safety of the rest of society. Putting them in jail for life just adds to the burden on society and there’s a small chance they might be released at some future date and will probably be teaching their vile philosophy while locked up.
That is just so despicable, so vile, so underhanded and wretched that I feel physically ill. This woman is incredibly…ugh. I can’t even find accurate words to verbalize my disgust. I’m going to hug my lovely fiance to restore a shred of my confidence in humanity. *sigh*
boring
Katkinkate:
I am advocating torture. Not as a means of deterrence, though I suppose it’s possible some might be deterred. Not as justice, either. I don’t know if there could be justice in this case. I’m talking about vengeance.
Absolutely appalling.
That’s one of the most horrific things I’ve ever heard of. What kind of monster can think that kind of thing up? From what dark abyss of a rotten mind can an idea like that slither from?
Funny you should mention Hindus…
Cujo359 writes:
Actually, I think what she really deserves is to spend the rest of her life with the families of her victims, particularly their parents.
That would be revenge; there is no justice that can be applied to remedy the deeds of such a person. For a true believer, revenge or a death sentence has no deterrent power, either.
Humans who are dangerous, mentally deranged, violent, etc, – are made so early on in their lives. There’s no point in fantasizing horrible revenge that can be meted out against them. The only rational way to deal with such people (in an atheist world where there is no satan to blame or god to mete justice) is to try to prevent their sickness in the first place.
The posters in this thread who say things about how this proves that religion has no lock on morality are missing the point; this woman’s case is an example of what happens when a person is raised in an environment of pernicious nonsense. The time to stop this kind of person is when they are being parented. After that, it’s too late and any kind of retaliation is, itself, a symptom of deep dysfunction in our notions of “justice” and “personal responsibility.”
If we atheists do not get our morality from god or devil or fsm or cthulhu, then morality is just a convenient handle we can call our social fabric. We are liberated from the ravings of popes and voodoo witches, but in return we need to think about the problem of criminality as a social ill that can be inoculated against for the good of the body politic.
Randy, do you have a point?
For punishment to the perpetrators, I think that incarceration without communication to any other being in addition to lack of hope of any further communication to another being is worse than than putting them to death.
Death to that individual means a cessation of everything, including frustration of desire.
For society, the best thing is to prevent these criminals from ever being able to perpetrate again and to prevent them from influencing others to do evil.
If society would mandate the former when incarcerating criminals such as these, then both objectives would be accomplished: the criminal would receive the most just punishment and society would be protected.
That society allows criminals such as these to communicate while imprisoned and allows them hope of release are the reasons that the death penalty is best for society although not the most punishing for the criminal.
The death penalty is like squashing an insect. Other insects are not the least nonplussed by this treatment of another insect. But it does prevent that one insect from hurting anyone else.
I keep trying to come up with a response to all this shit, but the only two words that I can muster are “Fuck Islam.”
Posted by: rufustfirefly @ 77 “… I’m talking about vengeance.”
She hasn’t done anything to you. Why do you want vengeance?
I’d like to bring up another point, not yet mentioned. If this woman was actually a man, planning the rapes of women to inspire feelings of fanatical suicide, would the reaction be so passionate?
I have to admit my first gut reaction was a feeling of betrayal, like I expect better of a woman. But isn’t that just another aspect of the underlying sexism of humanity? We expect and even accept to some extent the crimes by men, but a woman doing it is seen as something worse, something more monstrous, even less acceptable than a man doing the same.
@cyan
I’d go with the chair honestly. There is no fucking way you can convince me that I – we – should waste our tax money just to keep monsters like them alive.
What if she is another victim? The rapers made this story up and they’re getting rid of her too…Well it’s just at thought…
Katkinkate,
I react to the deed, not the source.
I answer to you, unequivocally, yes!
I grew up in the Cold War era, I can easily imagine such a thing from a KGB agent, for example. Not the sex, not the specific ideology, but the abominable sense that a human can perpetrate such upon another with self-justification engenders my disgust.
Male, female, old, young, educated or otherwise, I consider this evil.
@robotaholic
“Rapist”, not Raper.
The latter sounds a fencing sword (rapier)
in a previous thread the subject was Jeffrey Dahmer a seriously sick person whose life was so twisted that he had to resort to complicated sexual sadism just to live. A truly sad tale.
Here we have another miserable wretch who who employs others to rape and humiliate her victims so she can manipulate them into killing themselves. Another extremely sick person. What would be her story when was she raped and tortured and by whom, she did not get that way all of a sudden and not by religion alone.
Sometimes the suffering is too much for me to think about.
Sweet Jesus my f’n ass !
sociopaths the lot of them
religion is only me and my chosen in group matter the rest not so much!
Guido, #69
I looked at your blog. On it I found this comment:
and
Irony, much?
That aside, I’m glad people like Irshad Manji exist, and are attempting to change their religion from within – though I can’t for the life of me understand why she doesn’t ditch the nonsense altogether; however, if there are cafeteria Christians there might as well be cafeteria Moslems.
If they can change it so much that it is unrecognisable apart from the name then perhaps we won’t see more atrocities like this one. Until that it can and will be criticised.
Wowbagger
I stand by those words. But that ALL and every single Muslim is like this is not true at all. If you draw Muhammad as a dog or with a bomb as turban, you are being blunt. If you claim that more than a billion people are just like this monster, you are being as smart as the creationist that claims that us atheists are all little Stalins.
“If they can change it so much that it is unrecognisable apart from the name then perhaps we won’t see more atrocities like this one. Until that it can and will be criticised.”
Criticism is not the same than claiming that all are monsters.
>”Fuck Religions”
Fix’d.
Islam is hardly worse than its older siblings. It’s just that the middle east in general is a lot worse place to be than where a lot of us are lucky to live.
Yes. It’s disingenuous to select a group of people, and then select a handful of people from the bottom of the barrel of that group, and then stereotype from there. At the risk of being expelled from this blog let me quote Jesus:
Atheists as a group also have their monsters. Wouldn’t it be stupid to stereotype atheists based on the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer, Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot.
Way to miss the point there Randy
@Twin-Skies
I like Rapers better than Rapists. And besides that’s what they do is go out be Rapesr-
Do you have a single non-circular argument to back that up?
Katinkate: If they didn’t do anything to me personally, why should I be bothered at all?
This woman should not be tortured or incarcerated. She should be given a genuinely fair trial and, upon conviction, swiftly euthanized, like any other rabid animal.
Guido, I agree that not all Muslims are monsters. Not even many, or most are either.
However, their continued adherence to their religion allows monsters to flourish. Without religion they would have fewer justifications to hate and kill, and fewer tools with which to manipulate others to do the same.
Maybe so Kel. I am really to tired to think right now. Perhaps if the concluding point was slightly rephrased like below I could agree with it.
This is where a pathologically idealogical culture can end up: with parasites like this who exploit the fear and hatred to create more fear and hatred.
You could say that American culture is based largely on the idealogy of freedom — and that many of us are pathological about it and justify all kinds atrocities in the name of freedom.
You could, and you’d have good evidential basis of it too. Though it’s important to see the interplay, how each factor that leads to the behaviour plays it’s part. What role does the desire for freedom have leads to the suppression, how much of the paranoia and pathological defence of freedom is done to actually protect freedom or merely the name? Is there a direct causal link between a behaviour and the factor that is being blamed?
It’s not, however, a means of finding a stereotype and concluding that all behaviour associated with that perceived cause is wrong. It would be like dismissing capitalism because of those people who worked at Enron, it would be like dismissing science because of the Nazi doctors, it would be like dismissing Christianity because of the witch burnings or the inquisition, it would be like dismissing modern medicine because Heath Ledger died from mixing prescriptions, or dismissing communism because of Stalin.
All I’m saying Randy is that it’s not about making a stereotype to embody a cause in order to dismiss it outright.
Intelligent Designer wrote:
I agree with this, but since most religions contain (heck, they depend upon) elements of a ‘pathologically ideological culture’, it’s hard to separate the two.
What the religious apologists seem to miss is that any and all non-religious lunacy – like astrology, psychics, homeopathy and other unverified wackaloon ‘alternative’ medicines – seems to me to be just as high on the hit lists for skeptics as any of the sky-fairy nonsense.
I’ve recently been reading about the ancient Hebrews, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Meads, etc.. They all thought that their gods, (they were all polytheists), aided them in battling against other ‘states’ & their gods. The Hebrews thought they had the most powerful of the gods, & later the one & only god, & that their reverses were because they’d sinned, so their god was punishing them through their defeats.
The theology in the region has changed in the last two or three thousand years, the polytheism having changed to monotheism, but their behaviour hasn’t.
Medes. Feckin’ spell checkers.
Errmm no how about we call for an Iraqi citizen who confesses to atrocities in Iraq standing trial in Iraq, as everyone has. The Hague is just for leaders who are otherwise outside the law.
Religious people who are ignorant about scientific facts and the real state of our universe are simply misinformed. This misinformation skews their world view, life values and morals.
The fact that misinformed people (like in this particular example) act in our eyes maliciously by performing evil deeds does not mean that they are evil in their hearts, they just act in a way which is correct according to their belief which has poisoned their minds.
So please, don’t call her evil and proclaim a war on people like her. It is not constructive. Deep in their hearts all humans want to be good and do good things. Misguided people like this simple need to be informed, educated and be let a chance to re-evaluate their life values and beliefs in a constructive environment. Show compassion, not contempt.
Right now, I feel ashamed to be of the same species as that thing.
completely agree. No one deserves to inflict the psychological consequences of torturing someone to death upon himself because of this monster. Just put it to death swiftly and unceremoniously.
Samira Jassam is a piece of shit
So much for the “only men ever do evil things, all women are innocent and pure little angels” bull that some like to spread.
Intelligent Designer, #92
“Atheists as a group also have their monsters. Wouldn’t it be stupid to stereotype atheists based on the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer, Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot.”
In Prof Myers’s blog post he says
“This is where a pathologically religious culture can end up: with parasites like this who exploit the fear and hatred to create more fear and hatred.”
It is the religion itself that is being criticised.
It may be stupid to stereotype atheism based on Pol Pot or Stalin, but it wasn’t the atheism that drove them. Criticising Islam here is like criticising Communist dogma of a workers’ utopia, the achievement of which makes millions expendable, or Khmer Rouge dogma of city-folk and those who wear glasses being worthless and bourgeois – it is the acceptable, nay, decent, thing to do.
“Intelligent Designer” @ 92
Apart from your misnomer, there is another problem, that seems to afflict residents of the US, in particular, in that they (and you) don’t seem to realise that ….
Communism is a RELIGION
It has all the characteristics of one:
1. Holy book(s) – Marx, Engels, then, according to sect: Lenin, Mao, Trotsky, etc …
2. It has warring internal sects and factions, who often regard “heretics” as worse than “unbelievers”
Marx / Lenin / Stalin / Trotsky / Mao / Pol Pot (ec) were the leader/founders of those sects.
3. Even though some of its “revelations” have been shown to be demonstably false, “believers” still spout the same nonsense.
4. It vigoruosly persecutes COMPETING religions, as the RC church used to do, and islam still does ….
5. At least one of its manifestations refused/s to accept modern evolutionary genetics, and sent “heretics” to the camps or to death ….
6. It produces large numbers of heaps of bodies of innocent victims in the name of the “holy cause”.
That do for a start?
7. Most Communist states see their founder/leaders as superhuman, almost messianic figures.
8. The assumption of a deterministic, external, cohesive driving force behind the events of history.
9. Beliefs in magic – just look at their economic ideas.
Why not exploit her own fears and put her in a pen full of randy hogs?
10. The dogma of a future state of paradise being achievable by adhering to its principles and defeating those who do not.
…hell, many forms of Buddhism are less “religious” than Communism.
(By the way, as for your bad examples of atheists, I think it’s worth noting that Stalin was a Stalinist; Pot was a Potist; and Dahmer was a sociopathic sadist but, of course, was telling the truth about his motivations, because we all know that mentally unstable criminals are scrupulously honest. Can you produce any examples of humanist freethinkers who’ve committed any atrocities comparable to Dahmer’s or Jassam’s, let alone the dictators you cite? If not, you’re comparing apples and oranges at best.)
Here’s another face of evil the Christians would like to pretend is an atheist: murderous extremist Christian leader Joseph Kony.
Poor pigs. That would be animal abuse.
What this woman did is evil and deserves severe punishment.
But like every other child,she wasnt born like that,and has become what she made of what others made of her,so especially for a woman in an Islamic country,I have some kind of pity for this person,Im sure she did not have an easy life herself.
Most abusers got abused themselves.
Just to remind the “electric chair and bunker buster” folks in here.
A few points;
It’s not the first time someone arrested in iraq has ‘confessed’ to something.
Its not the first time a right-wing rag has made stuff up to dehumanise their imagined enemy.
This is from a sister paper to The Australian. Maybe you should ask deltoid how relaible they can be.
Yes, if true, it is disgusting and monstrous. But it is from a source I can’t bring myself to trust.
PS – You don’t seem to mind sending web traffic to the Mail. are they covering the story? You’d think they’s be glad to if offered the chance. I won’t look.
She may be evil, but she is still hott!
To further elaborate on my own thoughts:
I am not trying to say that the woman is innocent and should not be punished. Of course, she has committed crimes and deserves to be sentenced. By her premeditated and organized actions, she has inflicted great pain on many people… I consider her victims to be both the suicide bombers themselves and their victims. All this is very tragic.
But the greatest tragedy of all is that she has performed these horrible deeds in the illusion that all along she has been doing something commendable. Her religion has poisoned her mind; blinded and misguided her to the extent that she believes that she is a good and moral person. That is so sad and I pity her.
Well put. I think that I may eventually come to pity her, but it’s going to take time. The enormity of what she has done has inspired more loathing in me than I’m used to feeling.
Eddie, #118 – this has hit a lot of other news outlets as well (see my post #42). I think that counters the history of dubious news – and even a broken clock is right twice a day…
Ah, religion and superstition… truly the cornerstone of any modern, enlightened civilisation! Invent demons and indoctrinate innocent children to believe in those demons and you get control over them. Nice. I propose an age limit on religious indoctrination just like you can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes below a certain age. It’s just not healthy for the children. That would be a huge step towards a better future. Fewer people would believe in these crazy things and maybe they could retain their curiousity and scepticism, and therefore remain unlikely to fall prey to the religious scam artists.
Sad Monkey :-(
@34 Ryan Cunningham
You want snark? How about this:
“faith based initiative”.
rufustfirefly @35 and 77: I know what I would like to do to her and the men who carried out the rapes; it starts with curling irons, her worthless vagina, and their rectums…I am advocating torture…not as justice, either. I don’t know if there could be justice in this case. I’m talking about vengeance.
Stop it. I don’t know you. I might come to believe you actually fantasize about that.
—
A justice daydream, in the case of Samira Jassam
– First, calm down. I’d try to calm down.
– Put her under heavy guard in a secure facility. Offer her all the bread and water she can comfortably eat.
– Next, confirm that her family is safe if possible. Also, have a competent MD gently examine her for injuries consistent with torture. There’s lots of kidnapping and torture in Iraq, and I want to know that the confession is for real.
– She might be a delusional person who only thinks she did evil things, or a lying fanatic sent to cover up larger crimes. Confirm that her story matches the facts, which should not take long. Don’t waste time, but don’t rush either.
– A fair trial doesn’t have to be a long trial. Not at all. Prevent grandstanding — put her in a soundproofed glass box if you have to.
– Make all evidence public. Broadcast it if possible. As we get ready to bring justice down on her rapist friends we might need to do some military recruitment, and there ain’t no propaganda better than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We will want our soldiers to feel the right and proper rage of the just.
– When that’s done, we put on a little show to send off the troops, to remind them what it is that they are trying to eliminate from the world. Pick your favorite method, but something reliable and quick; execute her publicly and without ceremony. For the sake of nemesis, I suggest explosives. I see no reason for anyone to chase away the birds.
We cannot bring back the dead, but justice does not demand that of us. Justice most certainly does not ask us to enjoy torture. What justice demands is inevitability.
—
In my daydream I live in a country that in truth does not torture, a country with some pride. Let’s not ask whether my country ought to try sending troops after rapist militias worldwide. Also, wars don’t kill innocent people, somehow. Pay no attention to the fact that systems of justice which include capital punishment tend to kill unlucky innocents, and every warlike country thinks that justice is on its side. More caveats if necessary.
—
Now, something different: rufustfirefly got his wish and found her first.
– First, I’d calm down. OK, so rufustfirefly has tortured people to death in horrible ways. I’d try to calm down about that.
– Then I’d send Inspector Javert after him — a good man if you point him in the right direction. rufustfirefly ran for ten years,
but he couldn’t run forever
We have found his hideaway
And he’s finally been arrested
And he comes to court today.
– Having caught rufustfirefly, put him under heavy guard in a secure facility. Offer him all the bread and water he can comfortably eat.
– Next…
You see where this is going?
Dear “Concerned” Folks:
Kindly stop telling me what I, or anyone else, “ought” to think, feel or believe just because we call ourselves atheist.
Atheist is a term which is only applied top one’s lack of belief in a god or gods.
It says nothing about our thoughts on other matters, such as crime and punishment, or what to eat for breakfast.
If someone thinks revenge is a solution and you disagree, don’t play it off as concern for the “image of atheists”. Your personal views on these matters are your own and have nothing whatsoever to do with atheism.
You wrote two columns ago:
“Well, yes, of course! Why didn’t we think of consulting a convicted and confessed sexual sadist and serial killer on matters of ethics and science?”
Yet there you are, committing the same sin those texas creationists: taking the worst example in a group, blame something they identify with as the cause of the bad behavior and use it as justification against the group as a whole.
Please, I am also an atheist, but it makes me sick when I see both sides using the same cirty techniques in an a war that should not exist in the first place.
Yet there you are, committing the same sin those texas creationists: taking the worst example in a group, blame something they identify with as the cause of the bad behavior and use it as justification against the group as a whole.
The false equivalence strikes back.
Do you really think the former monster was motivated to commit crimes by his atheism in the same way the later monster was by her religion ?
alexandre van de sande | February 4, 2009 6:59, #127 :
Which of course gives you the right to make arguments from authority, and have them accepted here.
“If a Muslim is said to have commited unspeakable acts we know it’s true, since we all know that Muslims are depraved.”
Oh please. I’m so sick of hearing that any criticism of a person who is Muslim is because of bigotry. There are asshole Christians, asshole Jews, asshole Muslims and asshole atheists. She’s not being condemned because she’s a Muslim but because she is a murderous predator in the name of her sky god. And if Robin thinks the video confession was forced, please present any proof to make that case.
That said justice should never be about getting even through punishment for the sake of punishment. Justice should be about a solution that is best for society to stop and prevent such atrocities. In the immediate that means removing and securing her so she is no longer a danger. If that means for life, so be it. Next is hunting down the other criminals involved. Once the immediate danger is removed then a society must look at the bigger picture that produces such horror and pursue realistic solutions, both humanitarian and prosecutorial. Justice should be for the protection of society and its citizens, not punishment for revenge and retribution.
Torturing her to get even is to become what she is. I understand the emotional reactions. To not have visceral repulsion to her actions would be inhuman or a product of fundamentalist indoctrination. If my son was harmed I would feel extreme rage and want to kill the perpetrator myself. But more physical human suffering does nothing but feed more blood lust and produce more hate and bigotry. What’s best for a rational and safe society trumps the individual’s need for selfish emotional and physical catharsis no matter how justified and deserved it appears at the moment.
What she did was despicable. Fundamentalism is a social disease. Society can revel in punishment and revenge, or find the sources of the disease and the constructive solutions to stop it. How we react defines whether we are emotional victims and enablers bent on immediate primitive satisfaction or rational beings determined to find solutions to stop and prevent these atrocious human perversions.
This is where a pathologically religious culture can end up: with parasites like this who exploit the fear and hatred to create more fear and hatred.
Good job America launched a murderous attack of imperialist aggression on that culture to teach ’em civilised values then.
Funny how the rape stuff is absent from all reputable news sources and only present in the stories by despicable Murdoch tabloids. (I’m an Australian; and everyone down here knows that the Herald Sun – or Hun, as it’s known – is worthless as a news source. Even the cretins who read it.)
Good old PZ. Once again he allows himself to be a useful idiot for bigots and warmongers.
It seems American atheists aren’t much brighter than American godbotherers. (Speakin’ of pathological cultures, n’ all… or would that be a terrible, terrible generalisation?)
Is Islam really that nebulous it can be used to justify anything?
Does anyone think it likely that she spontaneously ‘volunteered’ this confession?
Even if it is entirely true (its certainly possible) why would she admit to it?
If we admit the possibility of torture being used to procure a confession then how much reliability do we place on it?
One of the most horrible aspects of these sorts of posts is not the inhumanity it exposes in its subject but that it exposes how thin is the veneer of civilization amongst so many of the commenters here who seem ever willing to jump into the role of torturer themselves at a moments notice.
Hey, I thought you only went after Catlicks. Somebody better notify that fat fucking pig Bill Bennett.
Posted by: Skip | February 4, 2009 7:55 AM
“Good job America launched a murderous attack of imperialist aggression on that culture to teach ’em civilised values then.”
Your logic isn’t. Just because the Bush administration reacted to 911 by throwing vengeful murderous tantrum, doesn’t disprove, negate or justify the her behavior. The rest of your post about Murdoch’s tacky tabloidism and does not in way refute the information presented. While the New York Times did not include the rape allegations, she was still recruiting young women in despair to become suicide bombers.
she was still recruiting young women in despair to become suicide bombers
…to fight the troops and proxies of mass-murdering, imperialist invaders
…from the pathological culture of America.
(Oh wait, I forgot, that’s a terrible stereotype, and we all hate stereotypes. And those undertaking wars of aggression are of course entitled to pronounce morally on the methods used by those resisting their aggression, and smear the entire culture under attack with their disapproval.)
Yeah, you’re right – I’m sure it’s just about the religion, not the situation. Like your eagerness to believe any bullshit story about them backward furriners is just about … well, what, exactly? Your profound commitment to secularist freedom of thought?
“This woman should not be tortured or incarcerated. She should be given a genuinely fair trial and, upon conviction, swiftly euthanized, like any other rabid animal.”
This is a fair more reasonable and just solution that the people imagining all the ways they could be pro-rape -just this once! – because this woman “deserves it” (other blogs this story has been posted on has brought on a deluge of these types of comments). Sickening how we (humans) always find a way to make rape acceptable, isn’t it. It gives further support to the reasoning behind her actions, helping to add to the culture of blame and shame surrounding rape.
The story is beyond nightmarish. She’s a horrendous, sick criminal; she should be subject to swift *justice*. Nothing else.
Wonderful post, PZ. Evil yes, but wonderful in the posts honesty.
And heartening to hear the unadulterated, near-unanimous condemnation of this woman.
so, the question is, what do we do about it? What can we do?
untangling the culture/religion nexus doesnt seem to be working all that well. Though, there have been some signs of improvement in Iraq, even from a Machiavellian viewpoint still not sure it was worth it.
My question to the good folks on this post: Would any of you consider an outright ban on Muslim immigrants to your respective countries (western Im assuming) as an alternative to ‘democracy-spreading’ in the Muslim world?
Id would have a cost, but personally I view it much cheaper, and un-doable in the future if facts change, than perma-war.
What’s in it for muslim women? They become virgins again.
“…to fight the troops and proxies of mass-murdering, imperialist invaders”
Oh well in that case anything goes!
Your juvenile emotional reaction is representative of the larger problem. That type of idiotic rationalization only serves to feed the problems, not resolve them. Like I said, “your logic isn’t.”
“…from the pathological culture of America.”
And what perfect culture are you from? We all know Australia is a bastion of humanitarian reason and devoid of all bigotry and fundamentalism. Considering there close to 100 million Americans who do not fit your sarcastic idiotic condemnation, there are far more of us then in your whole fantasized blameless culture.
“I’m sure it’s just about the religion, not the situation.”
Please show where I stated any such thing. In fact I was clear to point out that the Bush reaction was hideous. To not conclude I understand cause and effect is foolish hubris on your part.
What she did was wrong and demeaning to all humans no matter the religious or political underpinnings of the response. Simplistic cries of American imperialism might make you feel good, but I’m more interested in finding solutions to stop the insanity on all sides. Demonizing the US and/or Islam as monolithic blocks of evil only serves to feed the fires of hatred and stupidity.
I also don’t know what the truth is of whether or not she organised rapes – certainly, the Associated Press article states that she confessed to exploiting women who had been raped. Not that this makes a shred of difference to her alledged activities in recruiting vulnerable women to terror. However, keep in mind that one of the explanations (stated in AP) as to why rape might be an effective tool, is not that she exploited the anger of those victims, but their shame.
Iraq is still a society where the effects of being raped are often compounded by being shunned by one’s friends and family. To be sure, the actions of this person are grotesque, but they also shine a light into the dark heart of a society utterly failing even to attempt to address the victims of the crime. Her actions should be appalling to everyone, but we should also be very disturbed by the wider context for her actions.
As to all those calling for violence; I would add my voice to those who say that two wrongs don’t make a right. Justice requires a higher standard of behaviour. Justice also requires that a society should address its own failures in creating the conditions for such criminals to commit their deeds.
Unfortunately Skip,
The reality is that in the Middle East, there is a certain cult of death that I have seen in person too many times. It existed well before ‘american imperialism’ and it will exist well after. In fact, until religion in general fades into the sunset of human history, it will probably persist. Sad but true.
So, having spent a number of years (and still being here) in the Middle East, I have had to watch the perverse fundamentalism of Islam and the sad effects it has on its adherents. It doesn’t surprise me at all that she would do this and it doesn’t surprise me that she would readily admit to it.
The reason is simple, she feels that she was acting for a higher purpose. You see, the ‘paradise’ that fundamental muslims believe in is separated into multiple levels. And, the more pious you are, the higher the level you attain. And, at the highest level resides the prophets and the martyrs. So, the only way to reach this level, and subsequently be able to meet mohammad in the afterlife, is to be a martyr.
She no doubt feels that her actions as a creator of martyrs would entitle her to that level of paradise. And, based on fatwahs released by fundamental clerics, she is right.
That is her goal, not 72 virgins, and that is why she is probably telling the truth uncoerced and seemingly unconcerned for the sheer barbarity of her actions. Obtaining entrance to the highest level of paradise is the single greatest accomplishment a muslim can achieve in this life. She would be proud of that.
(Holy crap. And I thought that idiotic video was bad enough to mar my morning.)
The Mukhtaran Bibi story is another manifestation of the same twisted mind-set. She was gang-raped as a punishment for an alleged misdeed committed by her 12 year old brother. These rapes are intended to serve as de facto death sentences, for it is common for the rape victim to subsequently commit suicide over the shame her rape has brought upon herself and her family. It’s blame-the-victim mentality at its worst.
If there’s a Hell, perpetrators such as these, and instigators such as the contemptible Jassim, surely belong there. For a time. I’m no advocate of eternal torment…
My question to the good folks on this post: Would any of you consider an outright ban on Muslim immigrants to your respective countries (western Im assuming) as an alternative to ‘democracy-spreading’ in the Muslim world?
And…what exactly would that accomplish?
Seriously. I can’t imagine how that would be doing anything except spraying gasoline on the fire. Most people in the Islamic world really admire the West. They want their children to go to our universities. They regularly consume what they can access of our pop culture. Irshad Manji, as linked above, is hardly what one would call a “moderate” Muslim; she’s a reformer who regularly criticizes the moderate mainstream for allowing radicals to flourish. And she explains how much of international Muslims’ anger at the West isn’t hostility; it’s frustration. We are the unrealized potential, far more than the enemy. Banning Muslims outright from immigrating into our countries would just show them that we hate them, that the radicals are absolutely right about us. It wouldn’t do any good to the Muslims already living (many of them native-born) in our countries to see that we don’t want to deal with any more. Besides, we’ve been trying to keep people from entering our countries for decades; if they can’t get in legally, they make it in illegally.
Alyson,
The 9/11 hijackers all came in legally. There would be no more of that. Illegal immigrants can work for handfuls of cash, but things get tougher when they want to buy/rent things and move large amounts of money around. So we’d be demonstrably safer from terrorists. I am increasingly unsure about the mix of civilizations. Look at Paris and London in these past weeks. Hell look at Minneapolis. Riots, largely muslim. We’d put a damper on that. Please dont tell me about a lack of prospects for advancement, discrimination and the litany. We just elected a President with muslim roots. We just elected a muslim congressman, he attended the Minneapolis rally btw, they attacked him for not being radical enough.
And what of the future in Europe, with large, angry unassimilated Muslim populations? I dont know how much further France can go. I dont want to see the U.S. in that position.
So, there would be a benefit. The cost? They’d hate us more? Hard to imagine. We’d lose some highly productive immigrants, true. Not something to consider lightly. But I would trade a few hundreths percent of GDP for the Twin towers back. You?
I honestly don’t know what to say to this. The kind of depravity that it takes to do this…I feel so bad for the victims.
Matt, you are correct that your non-muslim policy would have a cost.
It would shred the US constitution, for a start.
How about another logical step down your suggested path and sending Muslims and their children home?
What would President Biden have to say about that?
Sigmund,
which article of our constitution would be shredded?
as for the rest of your post, you’ve committed the fallacy of extension. I do not advocate sending any American citizen anywhere.
How is PZ’s logic not the same as the Texas school board member using Jeffery Dahmer as a “good example” of where evolution takes one.
Robin Fox@38 is quite right: if she did what is alleged, she is monstrously evil, but we don’t know she did. As for the confession – is anyone here really naive enough to think the Iraqi police don’t torture people? The extortion of false confessions to heinous crimes is hardly unusual even in countries with a degree of police accountability – we’ve had plenty over the last few decades in the UK.
There is little doubt about her role as a recruiter and facilitator of suicide bombers (she does confess on video), but the rape story seems to be absent from the TV report and is only in the Australian newspaper. Did it appear in some Iraqi newspaper or other source? Just curious….truth being the first casualty of war and all that.
re 32: OOOOOPS! Jeez. too quick a read. Sorry!
Posted by: rb | February 4, 2009 10:13 AM
“How is PZ’s logic not the same as the Texas school board member using Jeffery Dahmer as a “good example” of where evolution takes one.”
Please show one example of atheists recruiting people in the name of atheism to become serial killers.
The cost? They’d hate us more? Hard to imagine.
I don’t think it’s hard to imagine at all. All international Muslims do not feel the same way about the West. A quite astounding number of them continue to hold us in high regard, for some odd reason. If you want to prove the terrorists right about us, however, then, sure, putting a blanket ban on Muslim immigration is a fine way to go. I’m sure that Albanian and Kosovar Muslims, who are probably the most secular and pro-American Muslims on Earth, would be simply delighted to hear that they’re no longer welcome. The same for Indonesians, a far cry from Al-Qaeda and Hamas. And it would do wonders, simply wonders, for European-Middle Eastern relations, for Turks to hear they’re not welcome in Europe. Iranians, as well, would be just thrilled to find out their theocracy was right about us. After all, if we allowed some of their people to come and live here, they might do something dreadful, like go back and visit their families and tell them what a wonderful country we have. We certainly don’t want that, do we?
Also, if you think the problems that France has with its Muslim communities have nothing to do with France’s treatment of its immigrants, I suggest you take another look at the data.
Mayhem, the issue about how evil the individual was, the issue is using anecdotes to prove a point.
#71 Marcus Ranum: Hey, don’t be so culturally insensitive. She’s got a right to have her values respected. Sure, they’re repellent to you, but…
Argh. Can’t keep tongue in cheek.
Actually you bring up a good point — who’s culture, who’s values? These kind of parodies of a relativistic viewpoint clarify a central issue — they can’t be an individuals belief, but have to be a long-term concensus within a tradition. Martyrdom and many other insanities may be consistent with the Muslim tradition, but intentional suicide, without hope of victory, does not appear to be. Rape as punishment may be consistent with some folk traditions, but is clearly inconsistent with Islam as a coherent system.
Islam may suck, and may increase the likelihood of psychotic communities arising (just as Christianity does), but even the most relativistic morality must judge these kinds of exploiters and killers as outside any (semi-)reasonable and self-sustaining tradition.
Even judged by her own traditions, this woman and her group are monstrous. Remember that even Satyagraha was controversial in the Islamic community because it was too close to surrender: how can suicide bombing by the exploited and abused not be an even greater sin in their eyes? Internal consistency would demand it — and that is a universal moral value, insofar as reason has any bearing whatsoever (and one can not claim that Islam doesn’t at least try to cloak itself in Platonic concepts of reason).
The fact that she is being prosecuted should make that clear. On the other hand, Islam clearly does have a disease eating away at it, as it’s fundamentalism creates a door for self-destructiveness (much as we’ve seen in American Christian fundamentalism). Any system that accepts both fundamentalism and claims to have reason is fatally flawed — even if it takes millenia to reveal itself.
Ha! PZ, you coward! You wouldn’t be saying this if she were a Muslim!
That is one of the many faces of hatred. In fact, she hates so much that she even hates her own people, her own gender and her own religion.
What she has done is a crime under Islam. Also, the men involved who raped the women targeted by this evil person have also committed crimes under Islam. By the very definition of their own religion, they are spreading corruption in the land, harming fellow Muslims, committing murder and attacking the dignity of those who were attacked. Add to that the act of the “suicide” bomber, which is also contrary to Islam.
By the laws of their own religion, they are doomed to hell and everlasting punishment. There is no way that they can base their actions on Islam, the Qur’an or the Sunnah. Yet, due to the ignorance of people, some will celebrate them as heroes and jihadists.
Samira Jassam is one of the faces of evil. I can only hope that her fellow Iraqis and fellow Muslims across the globe understand what evil she has wrought and reject her and her actions completely.
What is an international Muslim? Pan-Arabism was a flop. Are you suggesting there is something similar nowadays? If so, the Palestinians would like you to inform the Jordanians of this.
yea, there’d be a cost. Many individual muslims do quite well in Western countries. Large groups seem another matter. No sense of humour about there profit. No ability to take criticism of their religion, the kind of criticism on this post I might add. Alyson, can you imagine a modern christian anywhere in the western world driving a knife in the chest of, say, PZ Myers, or the maker of the film Jesus Camp? There may be a few, but Im willing to gamble living with them. In much of the muslim world, this is not outlawed behaviour, but in fact the law. I dont care to live in this world, I dont care to see my country, my civilization accomodate this behaviour one iota.
France. Id like to see your data. I was in Paris in November of 2005 collecting a bit of data myself. No doubt the French insistence on assimilation, as opposed to multiculturalism, is tougher on an immigrant. No doubt this is part of the explanation of the riots. But casuistry is a two-way street, and here is a datapoint for you. My immigration proposal is just a ‘reaction’ to recent riots.
haaa, profit in the above post should be ‘prophet’.
Matt: My question to the good folks on this post: Would any of you consider an outright ban on Muslim immigrants to your respective countries (western Im assuming) as an alternative to ‘democracy-spreading’ in the Muslim world?
I’d like to send the Christians home — make the Europeans, Africans and ME’ers deal with them. Didn’t one of their folks kill hundreds of Americans a decade ago? Even if they’re not running as mobs down to burn the local Masonic temple today, they’ve done it before — and the potential is clearly there to do it again. (Or execute the local non-Christian priest)
Then the Jews. We know what they’re capable of if there’s enough of them! They did it to the Canaanites — they’ll do it to us.
Let’s leave America to real Americans. The rest of you can go back to your farkin’ homelands while we take a little peyote, or worship Pacha Mama. You’re all a God-damn danger to us, with your psychotic authoritarian and totalitarian religions.
I’m sure the real Australians would agree with me on this one. The Europeans — probably not so much.
Matt asked,
“which article of our constitution would be shredded?”
The first amendment.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”
If you are going to ban people of one religion from entry you are obviously prohibiting the free exercise of that religion.
As for the logical extension of your policy, of course I was being speculative but one is left with little options given the irrational nature of your suggestion in the first place. In most civilized societies we are judged not on our beliefs but on our actions. If you are prepared to discriminate on beliefs alone then perhaps you will be so kind as to explain to us exactly how we achieve stability without complete exclusion of people holding those particular proscribed beliefs.
Matt: Alyson, can you imagine a modern christian anywhere in the western world driving a knife in the chest of, say, PZ Myers, or the maker of the film Jesus Camp?
Hahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Oh, wow, I almost hurt myself with that one. We had a guy running around for years in the backwoods being supported by “good Christians” who was busy shooting doctors.
Hahahahahahahahahahah–Hahahahahahahaha-Hahahaha
We just had a VP who belonged to a church that would run “witches” out of towns.
Hahahahahahaha–hahahahahahahahahahahaha
The CC only agreed in the 60’s that human beings have a right to individual consciences.
Hahahahahahahahahah—haha-hahahah hahahah
We’ve had generals say that “Our” god was going to defeat “Their” god in this latest little salvo.
hahahahaHahaha
Wowzers. Either you know absolutely nothing about Fundamentalist Christianity and it’s offshoots such as the dominionists, or … well, you can fill in the litany of insults to your intellectual capacity, your moral orientation and your personal hygiene.
It looks like this issue may be larger and that rape may be a common tool used to create suicide bombers.
There are reports today that an examination of the body of a 22-year-old male suicide bomber showed that he had pretty obviously been raped relatively soon before he carried out the body (within the past month or so, I believe). And from the nature of the damage done to him, no way was it consensual.
A grimly positive angle is that they did recover DNA from whoever did this to him, so it will be interesting to see how that plays in the Muslim world if they’re able to attach a name to it.
The bombing was tied to al-Qaida, and there had been rumors/stories that it was a practice among some to use rape as a tool to shame young men into becoming suicide bombers, as the only way to either cleanse themselves from sin or deal with the shame of what happened to them.
If all the details of this story are confirmed, it doesn’t indicate how widespread the practice is. You can’t say that the higher ups in al-Qaida all condone or practice this; nor can you say that all suicide bombers are created this way.
But you can still can be disgusted by the people who do perpetrate this evil — inflicting violence on someone to twist them into someone so lost and despondent that they’ll engage in heinous acts intended to impose the perpetrator’s worldview on others.
Frog,
ah, the never-dying “They’re all equally bad!” retort. I’ll play along, provided you can give me evidence as to why I should be afraid of Christians to the same degree as Muslims.
I am of the opinion that the enlightenment defanged Christianity to the point of co-habitation with it. My very existence seems evidence of it. Islam I am less sure about and dont care to gamble. Given the level of anger about this post I thought Imight find some likeminded souls on this topic, atheists tend to be wonderfully concrete in their judgements. No squishy moralism to contend with. And yet, not quite the reaction Id hoped for.
In what country do you live, Frog? Are you an atheist? Do you argue it is easier, as an atheist, to live in a Muslim country, vs a predominantly Christian one? Not that western civilization’s immigration policy should be constructed for the maximum benefit of atheists.
Re: Matt ban Muslim’s and Alison’s rejoinder.
Bravo, Alison!
I can add nothing to what you have said, other than any solution that seeks to further promote division simply plays into the hands of those who profit from division.
Greg Laden had a post yesterday about Race, and how it is self-fulfilling (using ‘race’ to categorize will lead to recognizing race as a predictor). Religion is similar.
There are some evil people and grouping all others into a class because of some evil people is simply wrong.
The challenge is that everyone can do something about ‘race’, since eliminating race is a challenge for the viewer (learning to see ‘person’ not ‘other’). Eliminating religion is a challenge for the religious, and I can’t see christians, muslims, jews or whomever choosing to not inculcate their children in their religion.
I see race being the easier challenge, to be honest.
Error in my post #164 — “body” in graf 2 should be “bombing”.
relativistic frog :
individuals belief, but have to be a long-term concensus within a tradition
Then I ask you how many people and for how long have to commit a crime to become a good thing.
Hell, yeah! I’m in the UK, and I say don’t stop there. Good, bad, keep em all out. Send ’em back! Send ’em back, I say. Back to, er, Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham, Manchester, London…. Or, back to where their parents came from, like, er, Leeds, Bradford, Birmingham, Manchester, London….
Yeah, like Timothy Hussein McVeigh, and those people who bombed that abortion clinic… And, and those white-supremicist, hillbillies with their stockpiles of automatic weapons…
And in the UK, there’d be no more British-born, Yorkshiremen willing to take backpack-bombs onto the tube and murder 52 people, using the justification of unfair foreign policy and the abuse of human rights of foreign nationals…
Yeah! Look what happened in London… ridiculously expensive beer, that’s what! I blame the immigrants! Especially that one who runs the convenience store – working seven days a week, trying to make the rest of us look bad by selling discount products…
Yeah, and the ones who work in my department, with all their I’m a scientist malarkey! Come here with their better future this, and their cure cancer that… They’re the ones you really have to watch – probably building a dirty bomb in between PCRs…
Of course, there is always the problem of proving whether or not someone actually was a muslim, because they’d just deny it… so we’d need to detain anybody with a beard, called Mohammed, and who was wearing a suicide vest and subject them to a rigourous battery of tests…
Would you like this beer?… Sausage?… Does this picture of a naked woman make you feel; a. excited; b. repulsed because I like them skinny; c. repulsed because she is showing her lady-garden and making me feel ‘a’; d. look at the eyebrows on that!; or e. like blowing up the filthy infidels?… Next, I’d like you to look at this cartoon depiction of Allah’s pet cat, Mr. Whiskers, how does it make you feel?… Finally, have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide?
I like your unworkable solution to a non-existant problem; it makes me feel all nationalistic, ethnically pure, and stupid.
Sigmund, you are terribly confused about the U.S. Constitution. It applies only to U.S. citizens. Immigrants are, by definition, not citizens. Now that you know that, your point fails. I advocate no law abridging the right of American citizens to worship. Not that it matters, buy my proposed law wouldnt abridge a non-Americans right to worship. Furthermore, I wouldnt have a religious test for immigration, Id just mark off particular countries and say, no one from here may come over, regardless of religion.
It may be harsh, maybe an over-reaction, but its quite rational. I look at certain countries of the world and I dont want any of the B.S. going on over here as go’s on over there. And I think certainly less harsh than bombing them into democracy/civilized behavior. That policy seems to produce quite alot of backlash, and un-undoable death. We can always change the policy at some point in the future if we judge the muslim world sufficiently enlightened, we’ve turned the immigration faucet on and off and on again in our past. And it has the benefical side effect of not killing anyone.
Immigration policy is a defacto limiting of the number immigrants. How they will be limited is open for discussion, but is structured with maximum benefit to the country accepting the immigrants. This is my proposal. How do you propose we limit them?
why I should be afraid of Christians to the same degree as Muslims.
It’s Bigot Bingo time!
Question one, Matt! What have Muslims ever done to you, personally?
Sigmund, you are terribly confused about the U.S. Constitution. It applies only to U.S. citizens.
Question two: so Muslims are good, as long as they are U.S. citizens?
Question three: would you call students immigrants?
Hey Sigmund, when you gonna jump all over Tony @166 for this statement?
Eliminating religion is a challenge for the religious
Endor @137: That raises a broader point.
Cursing obvious evil far away is easier than examining the evil that we ourselves do. Sometimes we’re blind to the ways we hurt others, sometimes we try to justify the wrong we do. “Well, if she had something important to say she wouldn’t have let me cut her off” — and brick by brick we build a culture where women are implicitly valued less than men, making women are a little more vulnerable.
e.g. Rape and torture revenge fantasies are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
But really, I can see “one face of evil” in the mirror, if I’m honest with myself. I cause a much smaller amount of hurt to other people than rapist/rape-victim-exploiting killers, but my power to do something about the evil in me is infinitely greater. Thanks for the reminder, Endor.
1. A Muslim raped an ex-girlfriend of mine. Not sure how much his muslimness to be blamed here, christians and atheists obviously rape too, though he had a history of treating woman in accordance to his culture.
2. Not necessarily. But they are American citizens and have all rights as citizens. I do not advocate changing that under any circumstances. The rulebook must be followed. Immigration policy, though, is not dictated by the constitution.
3. Yes.
Thanks for your reply, Wowbagger. But I am still skeptical. I was under the impression that al arabiya was specifically set up as a ‘fair and balancedTM‘ alternative to al jazeera. I admit that aj is equally biased the other way, but from a more moderate source (eporting on the two stations’ rivalry);
But the guardian is also covering the story.
A story like this will always bring racist fuckwits like Matt crawling out, unfortunately. Just look at the way he lumps all Muslims together, then says that there are no “international Muslims”. The way he conflates immigrants with temporary residents like the 9-11 attackers – and the attack could of course have been carried out by short-term visitors or transit passengers. The way he assumes Muslims can be recognised as such and refused entry – presumbly he’d say we’d better just exclude everyone with dark skin just to be on the safe side.
T_U_T: Then I ask you how many people and for how long have to commit a crime to become a good thing.
Good question, even though there’d have to be more to it — like internal consistency, stability, cohesion, etc. But that’s the question raised — at the end of the day, in the long run, most interesting questions are not external-world, let’s-run-an-experiment-in-the-lab, unquestionably-objective type questions. Which means, that they’re tested for internal consistency (reasonableness and beauty), and external consistency (stability and productiveness).
So one end you have the ideological underpinnings of science — a system that satisfies those criteria very well. And on the other you have some lone psycho who fails on every criteria. What kind of standards does it take to judge whether a judgment stands?
Id just mark off particular countries and say, no one from here may come over, regardless of religion
Awesome! Which ones? You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought.
There is a considerable leap from allowing immigration to accommodating reprehensible behavior.
What is an international Muslim? Pan-Arabism was a flop. Are you suggesting there is something similar nowadays? If so, the Palestinians would like you to inform the Jordanians of this.
It’s a shorter phrase to say “international Muslims” than to say “Muslims living in majority-Muslim countries, rather than in Western countries.” Since the Islamic world spreads from Africa to the Middle East to Asia and some parts of Europe, I figured “international” would be tidier than “non-Western-dwelling.”
Now, let’s play out your scenario to its conclusion. If one Western country currently accepting Muslim immigration cuts it off, then all of them do. So, everything from the Americas to Australia bans immigration by Muslims. Thus, we send the message to the Islamic world, from Albania and Bosnia to Indonesia, that we tar them all with the same brush as al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. Second, we tell the multitudes of people suffering from the excesses of other Muslims (Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, etc.) that they are not welcome to take refuge in our countries. Which means that some Islamic countries will be forced to accept much, much larger numbers of refugees than they did before we closed the gates. (I’m sure that’ll do wonders for the recipient countries’ stability and social cohesion, and they’ll do nothing but thank us for it.) Of course, there are always some people desperate enough to cross borders against the law, so we end up with more illegal immigrants than we would otherwise, and since they’re here illegally, they group together in isolated ethnic enclaves, where they have precious little chance of assimilating, or learning more about the native population which apparently doesn’t want them there, much less get a chance to learn our laws, as if there was ever a chance they might trust our law enforcement. Meanwhile, we’re also sending the message to our own second- and later-generation, native-born Muslims and recent legal immigrants that we’d rather not risk dealing with any more of their people, which I’m sure will just do nothing but make them happier than ever to live in the West.
But then you might say you don’t mean banning immigration from ALL Islamic countries; just the ones that are currently breeding terrorists. Albanians and Thais are still welcome, right? So then the question is: how do you enforce that distinction? Do you think no immigrant has ever shown up at the border with false information? The Pakistanis claim to be Indian, Afghans claim to be Indian, Tajik, Mongolian, Uzbek and so on, Saudis claim to be Emiratis, Iraqi and Lebanese Muslims claim to be Christians. Educated and English-speaking Muslims from all over the place claim to be citizens of recipient Western countries after immigrating in previous years. How do the authorities tell which ones are lying, and how many honest, permitted immigrants get turned back in the process?
So, the end result is: more enemies and fewer allies in the majority-Muslim world, more illegal immigrants in the West, coming from cultures that have just gotten the news that the West considers all Muslims to be the enemy, more ambivalence in native-born Western Muslims, constant confusion at Western countries’ borders, and increasing instability in formerly stable and West-friendly Islamic countries. Although, to be fair, most of the illegal immigrants would probably head to Europe rather than North America, simply for proximity, so I guess the scenario shouldn’t bother Americans too much.
So, Matt, same “not from this country” rules apply to students, immigrants, refugees and tourists?
Just one that tells then how lucky they are to be on one side of a line on a map. One that implicitly condemns their religious identity, often along with their ethnic identity?
So, British Muslims would be allowed, but not Iranians? Or do I get to be banned too, for keeping bad company with my fellow citizens?
Alyson, I was moved by your concern.
>>> I’m sure that’ll do wonders for the recipient countries’ stability and social cohesion, and they’ll do nothing but thank us for it.
Is it too much to ask for some of that concern to be directed toward our countries stability and social cohesion?
But Alyson,
We must stop the Hordes pouring over our borders! In their hundreds of millions! Draining our vital bodily essences!
Which brings up the questions — do we have to ban Christians from the Middle-East too? They act all Muslim-like as well — they’ve been infected. And a lot of Israelis are too Araby by a long-shot — and they steal our furniture with their con-job moving companies when they come here.
To be safe, we have to ban S. Americans, since their some Muslims in amongst them! And as Matt so kindly points out, it appears that something like 98% of Europeans have been Muslimified, so the US should ban European immigration.
What about we build a giant wall around the country? About 1 mile high, from sea to shining sea? We just gotta hope that the Hordes don’t learn about really tall ladders… or digging.
Is it too much to ask for some of that concern to be directed toward our countries stability and social cohesion?
Oh, golly, I know what you mean. We poor, persecuted Westerners; why don’t those selfish, spoiled Muslims ever think of US? Don’t they ever take a few minutes to think of what it’s like for us, in the wealthiest and most organized, educated countries on Earth, to deal with all these pesky unwashed masses who want to study at our schools, teach our science and math classes and work their tails off to dig our ditches? What do THEY ever have to worry about? They’re so inconsiderate.
Because creating instability in the Middle-east and promoting anti-American sentiment via self-interested, broad, oppressive, and unworkable foreign and immigration policy (which simultaneously eroded the rights of Americans and allies of the country), really worked out well for you?
We can hammer out the details, but Im most interested in the original question as I phrased it, in contrast to war in Afghanistan, Iraq etc, as a matter of policy.
Yea, its not perfect, but would it be better than war? I opposed the Iraq war and dont think we need to be piddling in Afghanistan any longer. Yet terrorism is real. How best to minimize the threat? Dont let them in here to begin with. Again, no ones being killed, something I like a great deal. Wouldnt that be an improvement?
How do you all suggest we deal with the threat of terrorism?
Regarding my conflation. There is the terror question, and there is the more vague, but more important, question of cultures and civilizations and values. I largely support western values. I have, until recently, supported anyone who wanted to move here, put down their mother country, and champion western values. This is happening less and less. Do you need a catalogue of examples? Cartoon controversy, reaction to Fitna, Mark Steyn on ‘trial’ for his book — yet people openly call for Jews to the Oven in Western cities, Paris annual riots.
And from you all, nothing but a litany of excuses. Its always the ‘dominant’ cultures fault. We havent been inclusive enough. We havent reached out enough.
Most muslims are obviously not terrorists. Most muslims want to remain muslim though. Muslim values are not western. Freethinking is not a muslim value. Random godless liberal ejaculations are not muslim values. These facts, left ignored for long enough, have consequences. We are seeing some of them now. How much longer, I ask you, are you willing to indulge yourselves in pleasurable guilt? How many cheap grace points need you score over me?
Matt,
Take your racist, bigoted bullshit, and leave. Now. This is an order.
I suggest that, in light of your statements, you kill yourself and stop using the resources that could be used by human beings who don’t irrationally hate.
Alyson,
Theo van Gogh, Hirsi Ali, G. Wilders are not persecuted?
And you all would have me believe Bill Donahue is a bigger threat to my liberty?
To clarify, I dont care all that much what other countries think of us, I care what you think of us. We are guilty of much. Yet, if at the end of your moral calculus, we dont not come out far ahead of Islamic civilization, if there is no difference between the contemporary western behaviour and contemporary islam, and if you and your ilk do not have the ability to adjust your thinking, well then we just may give the whole enchilada away.
Until that happens, I’ll keep tweaking you all here. We have more in common than you care to admit right now. One day we may need each other.
Dont let them in here to begin with.
Define “them”. This is not a detail, this is pretty much the fundamental point several people have been (admittedly snarkily) trying to get to.
Besides, you are making several absolutely ridiculous assumptions here:
– Only immigrants are terrorists
– Only through legal immigration can people enter this country
– (By implication) illegal immigration is preventable
How do you all suggest we deal with the threat of terrorism?
– Stop meddling in the Middle East JUST BECAUSE. This is the single biggest recruiting tool and justification terrorists have. The US has been doing it for more than 50 years, and for the worse almost every damned time.
– Tell Israel to knock their crap off and play nice, or no more $5,000,000,000 a year in military aid.
– Stop moronically insulting sovereign nations (for instance: idiotic and childish preconditions for diplomatic talks).
Most muslims are obviously not terrorists. Most muslims want to remain muslim though. Muslim values are not western. Freethinking is not a muslim value.
Most Christians are obviously not terrorists. Most Christians want to remain Christian though. Muslim values are not Western. Freethinking is not a Christian value.
And from you all, nothing but a litany of excuses.
How many cheap grace points need you score over me?
You poor thing. My heart bleeds.
I’ll take my pragmatism with a side of “pleasurable guilt” over your cultural purity.
There are some truly winner-ly comments on this thread. I suggest anyone looking for new Molly nominees pick through it.
Although I’m not volunteering. The rape and torture fantasies interspersed with the good comments make me want to run screaming.
You said yourself – most muslims are not terrorists. Equally, most Americans are not imperialists. Perhaps, just maybe, exposing the groups to each other (and especially to American muslims, who helpfully belong to both groups) would serve to build bridges.
The best way to tackle terrorism is to tackle the causes of terrorism.
So, work hard to build fruitful relationships (even – especially – with oppressive regimes) in order to promote mutual interests, in the hope of effecting sustainable change. Note that fruitful relationships don’t need to be friendly, as such, just not mutually aggressive.
Engage in co-operative foreign policy which aims to help stabilize the Middle-east, not least of all by doing everything necessary to solve the Palastinian problem.
Create coherent foreign policy – i.e. don’t spend too much time persecuting Iran, thereby driving it further from self-restraint, whilst simultaneously culturing a cosy relation with Saudi-Arabia (utterly ignoring the terrible and oppressive Islamist regime thereof).
Intervene in the Sudan and DRC – because it is right, not because it is in your own economic interest.
Work hardest of all to tackle poverty and ignorance across the world (and in your own country). Allow people to have a voice in international politics. Educated, well-fed people, granted a stake in the world, tend not to be suicide bombers.
In the mean time, control your borders via sensible restrictions.
Matt: Yea, its not perfect, but would it be better than war? Yup, that’s an obvious opposition — we’d get rid of the wars, if we didn’t allow immigration. Because the claimed bases of the war are obviously the real motivating force.
Freethinking is not a muslim value. Random godless liberal ejaculations are not muslim values.
Yup, they’re clearly Christian values.
Its always the ‘dominant’ cultures fault.
God, are you a whiny little prick. Yes, it’s the fault of the guys who control most of the economic activity in the world, who’ve got most of the nukes, who go barrelling through the world. Yes, the guy with the big-stick who gets the benefits has to take responsibility. You and your “intellectual” cohorts are the most pathetic, cringing little people in the damn world. Even more pathetic than hearing from Muslim men complain about how women “make” them abuse and rape them. Be a farkin’ man, and quit your sniveling.
I have, until recently, supported anyone who wanted to move here, put down their mother country, and champion western values.
And pray-tell, what are these “Western Values”? They clearly aren’t the values of the West until recently, since those are indistinguishable from “Muslim Values” — they are all basically late Roman values.
You mean “enlightenment” values, I suspect? Unfortunately, those weren’t really the dominant values until the last few decades, if at all and mostly among a technocratic segment of the population, are they? And if “Westerners” can change within a few generations to actually partake of “Western” values, then maybe your simple-minded charade of an argument is absurd, is it not?
Or do we forget that Germans within living memory “cried for the Jews to go to the ovens” — or that even more recently, Americans grabbed young men off the streets, castrated them and hung them on trees?
My four year old is less of a whiner than you are. Her testicles are definitely much more functional.
So Matt, I really like your idea of ticking off countries on your list, so people from them can’t immigrate. It is truly brilliant. But, the problem of transient flyers or temporary visits is a real problem. So how about we just say no one from said country be allowed on a plane entering our territory. The first country on my list is the US. All the idiots of their trying to rationalize torture, allowing a war criminal president off scot-free, and not to mention all that loony religious stuff about creationism and ID they are trying to force into schools. I wouldn’t want an American anywhere near Europe. They would just infect it with their idiocy.
That sounds about right to me….
[/snark]
Bernard Bumner @#193:
But, but…all that is so HARD! Telling all men with Mohammmad in their names to stay the heck out is so much easier! *pout*
Millard Fuller dies at age 74. Inspired by bible, helps others.
1,000,000 people live in homes that they own due to Millard Fuller.
Inspired by the bible, Fuller recruited thousands of people to found local Habitat for Humanity groups, recruiting christians, non-christians, atheists, muslims, jews, wiccans…..to a cause greater than himself or his sect.
MAtt
I though I was dealing merely with someone who was perhaps more libertarian. Then your subsequent comments indicated a deeper phobia. Every statement you have made is deeply flawed. You are nothing less than a bigot.
My statement regarding religion “eliminating religion is a challenge for the religious” is entirely true. As an atheist I do think religion is a blight. But I do not propose imposing my viewpoint on others. I said, quite clearly, that any change to religion would need to come from within.
You can see this in the increasing secularization of Scandinavia – even with state church — religion is not imposed and it has withered on the vine as people gradually disengage. Without a parent enforcing adherence, most children do not impose religion upon themselves.
You can see a similar effect in the UK with the CoE and CoS – neither at all militant, and both losing adherents almost as fast as current adherents die off.
I’ll say it again. You are a bigot. You would target an entire population so that you can pretend to be safe. Go get a blankie, and stop pretending you have something positive to contribute.
CHRISTIAN values are not Western.
Doh!
“Actually, I think what she really deserves is to spend the rest of her life with the families of her victims, particularly their parents.”
Given the prevalence of honor killings in the name of Islam (Including some in the US and Canada)-what makes you think the families of all of the victims regard the victim’s fate as bad?
In some cases, they may have encouraged the suicide to cleanse the families honor.
Absolutely, inasmuch as he has far more sway over popular opinion and public policy than foreign terrorists do.
Indeed, I’d argue that it is the response to terrorism (such as your suggestions on immigration), far more than the actual violence perpetrated, that is the greatest threat to your liberty. Terrorists didn’t illegally wiretap phone conversations in the US, terrorists didn’t compile a list of your reading habits at the public library, terrorists didn’t implement ridiculous and ineffective security procedures at airports, terrorists didn’t call anyone who disagreed with these things traitors and suggest they such people be locked up. So yeah, I think you need to really consider where the true threat to your liberty lies, and how it has already been impacted.
Not true. As another said, euthanize. I see no need to torture.
Then PUBLICLY chop up the body and feed it to pigs.
yeah, Allah Akbar. Fucking cunt.
Matt, You appear to be the one confused about the US Constitution. Go read it. Tell me exactly what parts of it apply to citizens (hint: voting and office holding). Everything else applies to actions of the government, which should apply it in all of its dealings.
Millard Fuller dies at age 74.
No offense, but what the fuck does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
tony:
I though I was dealing merely with someone who was perhaps more libertarian.
Libertarianism is often but a thin veneer with which to rationalize bigotry. Scratch in the right places and you are liable to find sexism and/or racism with big helpings of denial.
Tony, Id say the best way to destroy a religion is to make it the state religion. Scandanavia is a great example. England too.
Though Sigmund pretends otherwise, I dont want to destroy any religion. I feel quite fortunate to have grown up in a dominant Protestant-values country. Couldnt have it any better way for my atheist self. And to some other poster, Christian values overlap quite nicely with the Western Enlightenment, fundies excepted. Mainstream Islam is another matter.
I judge secular democracies worth defending. Rick Warren is annoying and Id like him to not be on the national public podium. His presence, though, is far less dangerous to civilization than congressman Keith Ellison at an Anti-Israel rally. in Minnesota of all places. Its one thing to criticize Israel. I do it. But there was a pro-Hamas faction there, in Minnesota of all place. We can survive little bits of this stuff, but how much of it do we want to fool with? I dont want to see a hundred thousand strong, pro-Hamas rally in Washington D.C., replete with “Jews to the Oven” signs, attended by multiple American Congressman. I really dont believe you all do either. How best avoid it, my suggestion is one way. And Thanks to Alyson, for at least considering the topic. The rest of you keep joking and smoking, one day you may wonder wtf happned here.
Tell ya what, by way of compromise, you guys support my proposal and then you all come up with a list of Christian countries likely to produce murderous Christian fundie terrorists and I’ll agree not to let them immigrate to America either. Am I a politician or what?
Tulse, I agree with just about everything you said.
Repeal the Patriot Act.
Repeal telecommunications immunity.
Prosecute torturers.
Free the Librarians.
Dispose of TSA, DHS.
Here Here, Amen brother.
Terrorism is real, though. Yes, I am more likely to die in my bathtub than be killed by a terrorist in America. Suitcase nukes are real, if small probability. I am willing to lose a shopping mall, some county courthouses, in the name of liberty. A city, not so much. Again, I think the best way to protect against it is to not let the folks in most likely to conduct it. It aint perfect. all this blather about winning hearts and minds is demonstrably failing, though I heartily agree we need to get out the Middle East. I have no illusions, though, that they will then love us, Osama will enroll in a gender studies course at Brown and start listening to Ani Difranco.
Palestine, same deal. They deserve a state and should have one. Dont kid yourself that Jew and Muslim then sit down to eat pig-substitute products together.
America. Pipe bomb found less than a mile from my house. KKK. I can list many others.
Matt, your proposal fails at pragmatism, workability, honesty and compassion. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was once a Muslim young woman from Somalia who needed a place to go. The Netherlands took her, and thank goodness they did. Irshad Manji and her family were once Muslim refugees from Uganda who were fortunate enough to be allowed into Canada. Where was Keith Ellison born, BTW? And what are we to make of your proposal when we have ICE officials remarking, “Whoa, we never knew there were so many Arab Christians in Iraq! They’ve been coming out of the woodwork ever since we…oh”?
Matt: What brand of baloney did you have for breakfast?
The constitutions mentions “Citizen” here:
Articel 1
Section 2: In re who can run of the house of reps.
Section 3: In re who can run for the senate.
Article 2
Section 1: In re who can run for president.
Article 3
Section 2: In re who the constitutions judical powers of the Supreme Court apply to. (All cases involving The whole world)
Article 4
Section 2: “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”
Amendment 11:
“The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.” Foreigners cannot sue.
Amendment 14:
“1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
“any person” doers not mean “any citizen”
Section 2: Voting rights
Amendment 15: Voting rights
Amendment 19: Voting rights
Amendment 24: Voting rights
Amendment 26: voting rights
Zero, repeat , zero mentions of it not applying to non-citizens. The costitution also has nothing to say about the definition of a citizen, other than the restrictions on who can run for national office.
Now please take your xenophobic piffle and spread it somewhere else.
Id like to add one thing. Id guess Ghandi is well respected here, for a religious person. Anyone know much about his Pakistani counterpart, Jinnah?
Jinnah educated in Britain, wore western dress sometimes, enjoyed the devil rum. Took some of his Western influences back to Pakistan, and they are the better for it. Jinnah though, in contrast to Ghandi, was skeptical on the idea of Hindu and Muslim, side by side. Ghandi of course took a more enlightened view.
Result? Today you are far more likely to be killed by an act of terrorism, by Hindu or Muslim, in India, than you are in Pakistan. Hardheaded man, Jinnah. We could learn something.
Christian values overlap quite nicely with the Western Enlightenment
You are out of your damned mind.
I dont want to see a hundred thousand strong, pro-Hamas rally in Washington D.C., replete with “Jews to the Oven” signs
You are out of your damned mind.
Also, you obviously hate the constitution when its provisions make you uncomfortable.
Tell ya what, by way of compromise, you guys support my proposal and then you all come up with a list of Christian countries likely to produce murderous Christian fundie terrorists and I’ll agree not to let them immigrate to America either.
First of all: not a soul here is advocating such a list, only you are, you BSE-riddled bigot. Secondly, you still haven’t actually addressed which countries would be on your list. Try that first. Go on, I double-dog dare you.
Lambert, so the American Constitution applies to all persons in the world? And the U.S. gov is responsible for guaranteeing those rights for all peoples? Should the ACLU drop the A for a W?
Why do I bother with fools?
Stu,
Lets start with anyone from the Arabian Peninsula. That would greatly limit Sunni Al-Qaeda types. I feel safer already.
Matt: “so the American Constitution applies to all persons in the world?”
Yes. When they are in the USA. Just the same as UK law applies to me in the UK, South Korean in SK, Argentine in Argentina, etc. etc. etc.
What don’t you get about that Matt? Tear that xenophobic blindfold from you eyes and wake up to the real world. The one that is not entirely populated by white male X-ian bigots.
Yes. Or rather, all persons that the US government deals with.
For the people it deals with, in its dealings? Yes.
You like looking in a mirror?
We should blame militant Islam, not Islam qua Islam (nor religion qua religion).
And it’s not simply explainable as a response to US foreign policy since similar things happen in Bangladesh, Sudan, Indonesia etc – perpetrated by militant Islamists against non-militant Muslims or non-Muslims. So even without a US presence, or Israel, or whether or not they are oppressed or in the minority or majority, militant Islamists do these kinds of things because they feel they have a religious mandate to destroy their enemies using any means.
The solution is to encourage milquetoast Islam, not to get rid of Islam nor to get rid of all religion. The latter two are never, ever going to happen. We all know milquetoast Christians and Jews and I myself have met secularized, pro-science, minority-sympathizing (Turk who felt sorry for Kurds) Muslims.
Look at Mormons. Sure, there’s Prop 8, but it’s still true that they’re not nearly as nuts as they used to be (except for the splinter sects with the preadult sisters being married to some scuzz). Harry Reid is a good example of a milquetoast Mormon. So there’s hope for the rest of the faiths.
“Tear that xenophobic blindfold from you eyes and wake up to the real world. The one that is not entirely populated by white male X-ian bigots.”
Now you’ve done it! You’ve called him out on his blind privilege. now you’re a terrorist too, Lambert! everyone’s a terrorist who doesn’t agree with Matt!
Again, I think the best way to protect against it is to not let the folks in most likely to conduct it.
And you seriously think that a “don’t let people from these countries in” at the airport is going to do that?
Really?
Again, who’s on the list?
>>>Yes. When they are in the USA.
For the sake of conversation I’ll allow the point and say thats precisely why I dont want likely terrorists in our country to begin with.
Any immigration policy limits the number of immigrants. Policies favoring one county discriminate against another. You’d have me then believe that any immigration policy is somehow anti-constitutional in and of itself.
I suggest we limit the number of immigrants from the major terror producing countries. What do you, Stu, suggest we base our immigration policies on?
Lets start with anyone from the Arabian Peninsula.
Ah, now we’re cooking. Current citizens, citizen past or present, residents or born?
“And you seriously think that a “don’t let people from these countries in” at the airport is going to do that?
Really?”
Well, obviously they wear signs so as to be easily identifiable, Stu. Or, if they’re real sneaky and don’t wear their “Hello! I’m a Terrorist” signs, clearly, Matt can tell who is a terrorist simply by looking at them. So we should install Matt at the base of the Statue of Liberty and let him work his bigot magic. I’m sure it will *totally* erase terrorism from our shores. Except for the homegrown Christian variety, because that’s *totally different*.
I suggest we limit the number of immigrants from the major terror producing countries.
First you said we should ban immigration from certain countries altogether. Now you say limit the number of immigrants. Which one is it? Keep them all out, or just keep them to lower numbers? And if the latter, limit them to how many?
Comment from bELIVERS at Al Arabiya News Channel
in reply to Giacomo & yauob who want Samira Jassam hanged.
[ Wednesday, February 04, 2009 ]
Serious religious nastiness.
thats precisely why I dont want likely terrorists in our country to begin with.
And you truly believe that your proposal does anything of the kind?
Look, Matt. It is obvious to anyone but you that you are completely irrational about this issue. Hell, you even gave us the reasons why! But why do you expect others to buy your nonsensical reasoning? Your force of emotion?
What do you, Stu, suggest we base our immigration policies on?
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Matt: And to some other poster, Christian values overlap quite nicely with the Western Enlightenment, fundies excepted. Mainstream Islam is another matter.
That is mind-numbingly stupid. The essence of enlightenment values is the right of individual conscience, the essential equality of human beings, and the primacy of empirical knowledge. None is a Christian value. The RCC just recognized the right to conscience in the 60’s, you buffoon. The S. Baptists and the Mormons only recognized human equality in the 70s, you ignorant sack. The philosophical underpinnings of Christianity and Islam are exactly the same — neo-Platonic philosophy of the Roman Empire period — you ahistorical, simple-minded egotist.
Christian values and Muslim values are identical, except where Christianity has been castrated (some European state churches, some main-line liberal churches). That has only seriously taken effect in the last few decades, and still is a minority opinion.
How is it that slavery and segregation were acceptable to a broad spectrum of American churches, and strongly supported by many, if it was somehow “anti-Christian”? Or the quota system against Jews in higher education, and discrimination at work? The full-scale discrimination against women in work and dress until the 1970s? Where were the Christians then? I don’t recall many churches organizing ant-lynching movements in the white community through almost a century of mob violence, or Christian churches expelling in mass race rioters through a period of almost equal length.
Give me a fucking break, you little coprophagist. Christian values are inherently at odds with enlightenment values — which is why the revolutions of the of the Enlightenment, American and French were strongly anti-clerical. Claiming anything else is so mind-boggingly ignorant of history that I prefer to give you the benefit of the doubt and simply call you a liar and a cheat. Who hated the church more than Jefferson and Thomas Paine? Jefferson actually bothered to write a castrated Bible where he converted Jesus into an enlightenment philosopher, shorn of all Christianity that couldn’t be massaged into enlightenment garb — it was quite short.
Why were most churches — Catholic and Protestant — so vehemently opposed to enlightenment constructs? Is it because they were fools who couldn’t recognize their natural commonality? Where were the priests who en-mass were supporting separation of church and state, demanding the removal of feudal lords and running to Germany to apprentice with Leibnitz — not one or two, but en-mass funding the Royal Society and begging for modernization of central Europe?
Insofar as Christian values are compatible with the enlightenment, they are not Christian values.
Have you ever bothered to read Bible, you arrogant petit? Have you read Paul? How the fuck does that “overlap” with “Enlightenment” values? Only a willful misreading makes that possible. Have you even stopped a second to understand what the parable of the seeds on the rocky soil means? The thrust of Christianity comes out of exactly the same soil as Islam — and it kept the “West” (whatever the fuck that is) in ignorance and slavery for millenia. For three centuries we’ve been trying to put a knife in it, and have only begun to succeed in the last half century.
And you want to pretend that the dying Anglican church is “Christianity”?? What kind of numb-nuts are you? You want to pretend that right under the surface of Christianity there no longer exists the dichotomy between essence and accident, that the Great Chain of being is dead, that all the political and social consequences of that theology don’t simmer under the surface??
What a delusional little tool you are. I expect that that kind of fevered hallucination is necessary for a nominal “Libertarian”, since the entire contruct of praexology is a thinly veiled secularization of Christian insanity, where ideology (the Archons) hold greater reality than empirical knowledge (the maya-like realm of the demi-urge). We’re better off having your kind in a church than pretending to be a member of the modern world.
35up:
Yep. Maybe we should stop give the religious loons recruiting tools, by, oh, let me think of a random example here, not invading sovereign nations and flushing them down the toilet for five years.
Stop messing with the Middle East, and all the extremist talking points are gone. Call me crazy, but I think it might help.
Matt
you are a fucking ass!
There are more homegrown terrorists in the US than Hamas could ever assemble. And the majority are Xian. Keep going as you are, and you’ll start producing you own home-grown moslem variety too! Closing your borders won’t keep you safe, you fuckwit. The terrorists are already here! Everything else is just Security Theater!
My son is harrassed by asshole fundy bible-belt kids here in N. Georgia for declaring his ‘atheism’. Their home/school/church environment is exactly the “protestant’ environment that produced you – and that alone is enough to scare me back to Europe.
But to close – here’s a thought for you. Teh scary ‘moslems’ can gain entry and legal residence/citizenship in europe by claiming persecution or oppression. Who better to engineer such supporting evidence for a sleeper than a moslem terror cell? And once legally settled in europe – they’d be eligible to visit the US! Did you pee yourself, yet?
You can’t keep out drugs, you can’t keep out mexicans, but you think you can keep out terrorists by dicat? You’re a fuckwit.
Prohibition does not work. Closing borders does not work. Pretending the problem belongs elsewhere does not work.
But then – trying to think of alternatives involves some work!
frog: That was fantastic. I think I’ll frame it.
Stu: Stop messing with the Middle East, and all the extremist talking points are gone.
Much simpler and more permanent solution: universal secular education. Would cost on the order of 100 billion or so, per year. Easily affordable if the US and the EU split it — just the cost savings in foreign aid and military expenditure would make it pay for itself.
Of course it would never happen: most of the money would go to local teachers, it would destroy the advantage of the US and the EU (The “West”) over the rest of the world, and would cut military budgets. How can you have a world of peons without ignorance? Ask the Southern party that is currently dominating the Republicans — per-capita education funding is directly correlated with the ex-Confederates party’s power, and the dominance of fundamentalist crazies. Or ask the Saudi’s…
Frog,
yea yea, we’ve heard it. A bit of truth held aloft in all that rabid froth too.
But if Christianity was as strongly anti-enlightenment as Islam, the Enlightenment wouldnt have taken place in Christian countries. You cannot flip Christianity with Islam in that sentence. History is my evidence.
It was bloody. Christians and are guilty of slavery (it lives on today in an Islamic country or two). Christians and secular are guilty of discrimination (some of our most enlightened progressives championed eugenics).
All that is true, and yet today, Christian and Secular live side by side, arguing but rarely beheading one another, and its quite wonderful. Christianity had within it the ability to evolve and still stay relevant to people, yet not permanently at odds with modernity. It has enough confidence to survive in a pluralistic society. Islam, I am less sure about. Specifically to Christianity though, was the focus on the individual on a personal relationship with God. This is the underpinning for universal democracy, human rights, equality between sexes, races etc. All these wonderful, supposed, secular ethics didnt just pop out of a vacuum. We can argue about this, but its not what I came here to do.
Whats your immigration policy?
>>>universal secular education
And who will be the universal secular school principal?
Holy opium dreams. Dear god, Frog, have mercy on the pragmatic and stop embarrassing your history teachers. Please dont enter politics.
Have you learned nothing in the last century? Universal anything is a fantasy. You cant have a universal policy for an entire country, much less the world.
And then you blame American southerners as the obstacle for this grand plan?
No Matt, you first.
Lets start with anyone from the Arabian Peninsula.
Aside from the obvious problems, you haven’t answered: current citizens, citizen past or present, residents or born?
Dear god, Frog, have mercy on the pragmatic and stop embarrassing your history teachers.
My irony meter is about to explode and hit you in the eye.
Also, I’m still waiting to hear: which countries are on the List of Terror, and to what numbers do you propose we limit their numbers? Furthermore, what do you suggest we do about visitors to family members? Professionals visiting on business?
Universal anything is a fantasy.
Education and healthcare in every industrialized nation except the US says hello.
Any bets on whether that car bombing was a Christian terrorists anyone?
For the sake of convo, Stu, lets say anyone born in or currently holding a passport of an Arabian Peninsula country. Iraq southward.
I re-iterate, no forced migrations of American citizens. No internment camps, dont smear me. I woudnt support those things if it happened again, Im trying to obviate the Malkin impulse that will happen if we lose a city.
Now, please compare and contrast that with War for Hearts and Minds.
Think this is true? I don’t know. Think 9/11 was the work of 16 guys with box cutters? Hm… Think Israel attacked the USS Liberty “by mistake” for 6 hours back in 1967? Think that those missiles that Hamas launches from Gaza are really launched by Hamas?
We live in the most stage managed propagandist country in the world. We are taught to fear boogie men and told not to question when questions arise that suggest false flag operations.
Welcome to the military-industrial controlled U.S. We’ve been lied to so many times, when you read something like this you have to know that — maybe this woman did do these things, maybe she’s a monster — or maybe she’s like the “terrorists” at Gitmo, who also confessed to whatever we wanted them to.
A little torture does wonders for the memory!
Exactly. So why are you being so irrational about the threat of terrorism? If your concern is your personal safety, it would make vastly more sense for you to avoid traveling by car than it would worrying about terrorism. In 2001, ten times the number of Americans died in auto collisions than were killed at the WTC. Only someone with a political axe to grind would suggest that terrorism poses a serious risk to one’s safety in the US.
Nonsense. No country currently possess such a weapon, and the technology required to make one is well beyond non-state terrorist actors. Besides, if one can make a nuke, it would be far easier to simply pack it into a shipping container and set it off at a US port (something that no amount of draconian immigration policy would prevent).
Your attempts to justify what amounts to xenophobia are not at all convincing.
Frogs education comment was indicative though.
One thing I notice about most humans, they all think they have the “one true way” to live. If only they had the power to share it with everyone. There way is the only way, of course, and other ways are the problem.
Some will say Im unware of my own irony. Not true. I do think the western way is the best way, but I respect Islam and Hindu and Buddhist and all the rest as legitimate cultures. I just dont want to live in them. and the ones that want to forcibly convert me are not welcome. So hit the road, Frog, with your universal secular education, I dont submit to you or the Wahhabi. How will you deal with my dissent?
Matt, you truly are a benighted piece of shit.
Who has been terrorizing Planned Parenthood clinics, murdering doctors and nurses who perfrom abortions, refusing to treat persons who disagree with their narrow world view (refusing contraception is destroying TWO lives)?
I’ll tell you. Fundamentalist Xians here in the US of A. Not rag-headed moslems over there in sandy ay-rab-land. White bread Xian fuckwits right here in your dear country.
You already have the fucking terrorists right here. Just because they’re the same color, dress similarly, and talk with the same slow drawl and limited vocabulary does not make them invisible – except to you. A fuckwit who thinks every problem comes in a different skin from somewhere furrin’.
Why don’t you go found a little island nation in the middle of Montana. We promise we’ll keep all of the bad folks out. It’ll be easy. It worked for the Mormons, right? We’ll even grant a 200 mile exclusion zone so you feel even safer. Razor wire, laser fences, the whole nine yards.
Or, maybe you can get all the fuckwit dominionists to help out, and you could just take over Alaska. Sure some intelligent people would need to be displaced – but I’m pretty certain they’d jump at the chance to leave, if y’all moved in.
SO why don’t you just fuck off, and let the grown-ups work this out properly?
Matt: But if Christianity was as strongly anti-enlightenment as Islam, the Enlightenment wouldnt have taken place in Christian countries. You cannot flip Christianity with Islam in that sentence. History is my evidence.
It’s been a long-time since I’ve seen such an obtuse person able to put grammatical sentences together.
Yes — you can flip Islam and Christianity in that sentence, for anyone with anything more than a passing familiarity with history. You have heard of the Islamic Renaissance, have you not? A little Al-Andalus? Somehow, a Muslim state flourished with Jews and Christian, scientific progress, industrial development and scholastic freedom.
All those “Western Values” from Greece you hold so dear where forgotten in the Christian regions, but survived in Muslim Spain.
Why did the enlightenment happen in Europe? It was despite Christianity (just as the Islamic Renaissance happened despite Islam). It just happened to happen in regions that had military and trade contacts with the non-Christian world, which happened to advantage the NW and SW coasts of Europe. It also happened to happen when long-range oceanic vessels became technologically possible — it almost happened in China, but of course the Islamic countries were disadvantage, seeing that their industrial centers where far from either the Atlantic or the Pacific. Of course, Christianity was incompatible with the demands of the developing economic system, and so space was created for the enlightenment.
If you think universal education is utopian, my God have you drunk the “Libertarian” Kool-Aid. We’re talking about spending $100 billion/year to teach kids to read, write and add. If that’s some kind of global communist utopian fantasy, then so are Google and Microsoft. You just have an unbelievably imbecilic philosophy, filled with shadowy demons and gods completely unconnected with actual, substantive reality.
Yous jus’ dum.
I’m still waiting to hear your numbers for those immigration limits. More countries, too; the Arabian peninsula doesn’t nearly cover it. Do you suggest keeping out Pakistanis and Afghans, too? Indonesians? Malaysians? Indians? Somalis?
Frog.
Great post(s)!
Matt: Frogs education comment was indicative though.
One thing I notice about most humans, they all think they have the “one true way” to live. If only they had the power to share it with everyone. There way is the only way, of course, and other ways are the problem.
You are truly amazing. If you think keeping children ignorant of literacy and numeracy is some essential human right that the global peasantry is clamoring for, if you think paying for a village teacher to give the basics of a secular education rather than memorizing passages in a foreign language is oppression on the scale of the Saudi clerical hierarchy, you truly are a global scale asswipe.
Nothing more sophisticated than that. An asswipe who is convinced that fluoridation is an attempt to sap your vital bodily essences, who sees commie spooks in every corner.
Go back to your God of Praexis who smashes down on reality from “first principles”. The fact that you see public education as a threat to human freedom really says all that needs be said about your own morality, and the vacuity of your philosophical system. Just another religious nutcase — God spare me from Christians, Libertarians and Communists.
Tulse, there are two issues I attempt to address with immigration. Lowering the terror risk is one. My policy would better protect American than bombing the middle east, I believe. The second are the cultural friction issues we are seeing throughout western Europe. America, with 300 million, can handle 4 million muslims. Hell im glad somebody wants to live in Detroit. France currently has 6 million muslims in a country of 60 million people. Fertility rates for woman born in Turkey, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia average nearly 3.
I dont want to see 30 Million muslims in America with good prospect of turning into 60 in the near future. This is, proportionally, what France faces.
For the record, I dont want 30 million Chinese, or 30 million hindus in America either. Nothing personal, im sure they are mostly fine individuals. I just like my culture better. You?
Fair enough Matt — even if Las Vegas casino owners would shoot you for even thinking about it. Well, that and the obvious problems with business people, visiting family and the likes making it so obviously, blindingly and moronically infeasibly that it is now obvious that your emotional bias, however understandable, has sent you completely over the deep end on this issue. Really, you’re being willfully obtuse AND in denial about it.
Come to think of it, par for the course for libertarians. Hmm.
Anyway, let’s do it. Current citizens and born, Iraq southward. And let’s hope terrorists never, ever, ever figure out how to cross borders illegally. Or fake a birth certificate. Or fake a passport. Fingers crossed!
Alyson: From his last post he appears to want an absolute halt. Zero immigration. There is no quota.
I dont want to see 30 Million muslims in America with good prospect of turning into 60 in the near future. This is, proportionally, what France faces. For the record, I dont want 30 million Chinese, or 30 million hindus in America either. Nothing personal, im sure they are mostly fine individuals. I just like my culture better. You?
Okay, that’s it. You’d make even Dunning and Kroeger’s heads explode, you arrogant xenophobic fuckwit. Your opinions are idiotic and bigoted. They have so thoroughly skewered that I’m amazed you even have the lard-brained gumption to stick around. They deserve no respect or even further discussion and by your complete lack of education and understanding, neither do you.
Matt: I dont want to see 30 Million muslims in America with good prospect of turning into 60 in the near future. This is, proportionally, what France faces.
For the record, I dont want 30 million Chinese, or 30 million hindus in America either. Nothing personal, im sure they are mostly fine individuals. I just like my culture better. You?
We’ll make you speak Spanish in a generation. Booogeeedddy-Boooo! Our papists ways will conquer your fine Saxon gatherings. Booggeddedddy-Boobooo! Our Ricky Ricardo style slickness will seduce your women, and our brownness will overwhelm your velvety (oh so velvety!) white skin. Boboobbogggedy-Boo!
Wow, you must have a worthless culture if 10% (or even 50%) population change can destroy it. Or is it a one-drop rule — where the hint of brownness makes it a worthless mulatto mule to be disposed of? Or maybe its your innate feelings of impotence, that the brown/yellow/black man can get more of an erection than you? (The latter is always at the bottom of these ideas, with fears of fecundative power and the domination of the large by the very small)
Your psychosis just keeps on sticking out its very ugly head.
Hey Frog, quite lying about me.
Im all for education. I simply know that any attempt at universal anything is doomed from the outset, your faery-tales notwithstanding.
De-centralized is the way to go. If the Saudis start educating their women, teaching evolution and such, I’ll be the first to cheer. That they do not, though, is not justification to turn their education curricula over to the U.N. That is really just the neo-conservative fantasy as applied to education. It dont work. Change comes mostly from within and our helping hands will be spat upon.
Okay, now I see it:
Our options for protecting America are as follows: 1. Bomb the living shit out of the Middle East and South Asia, OR, 2. Bar those regions’ citizens from entering our country. We couldn’t possibly figure out other ways to create healthier international relations. Much less could we ever manage to engage our native-dwelling Muslims on issues of contention. All that would be way too hard. So much more plausible to set up a moozlim-zapper at the border!
Fertility rates for woman born in Turkey, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia average nearly 3.
Nearly 3 what?
Never mind. I know what you mean. “OMG, the brown people are breeding! Hide! Run for your lives! THEY SHALL NOT PASS!!!!ONE”
For the record, I dont want 30 million Chinese, or 30 million hindus in America either. Nothing personal, im sure they are mostly fine individuals. I just like my culture better. You?
I agree. American culture would be so much better off without the influences of those dirty Chinese and Indians. We’d all be better off without the Japanese, too, not to mention the Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Russians, Ukrainians. And what was ever in it for us when we let in those filthy Poles, Germans, Italians, Irish…wait. Where was I going with this?
I’ve changed my mind, Matt. I no longer want to hear your numbers for limiting immigration, nor do I want to see a comprehensive list of countries. I’m certainly not interested in hearing your suggestions for distinguishing between the ones pretending to be from the “good” countries, and those who really are allowed in. You’re not even pretending anymore. Your racism is perfectly plain. I won’t pretend to humor you again.
People, she’s evil. But if you’re wishing to inflict pain and death on her…then you’re evil, too.
Imagination?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_France#Religion
And who said anything about Hispanics? As it were I much prefer them to Muslims, they’re Christians. We have more in common, makes living together easier. Kinda like the Christians and the Secular.
That they do not, though, is not justification to turn their education curricula over to the U.N. That is really just the neo-conservative fantasy as applied to education.
Neo-conservatives want to turn something over to the U.N.?
Sweet tapdancing jebus, you’re a moron. Unbelievable. I’m close to calling Poe, people. This can not be real.
Matt
The header post here is titled “Here’s one face of evil”
Go look in the mirror.
You’re now looking at another face of evil.
You come across like every lying sack of shit I’ve ever met (and I’m a consultant – I’ve met a lot!). Weasel words, just making ‘suggestions’, and always and ever in the background, the same evil substrata of ugly white-supremacist crap.
so. Just. Fuck. Off.
Matt: De-centralized is the way to go. If the Saudis start educating their women, teaching evolution and such, I’ll be the first to cheer. That they do not, though, is not justification to turn their education curricula over to the U.N. That is really just the neo-conservative fantasy as applied to education. It dont work. Change comes mostly from within and our helping hands will be spat upon.
Who said anything about invading countries and forcing them to accept our cash? That’s what Libertarianism gets you — endless projection of your own fears and desires.
If you had reading comprehension, you would have seen that I compared universal education to Google or Microsoft — there ain’t no Google-cops forcing you to use their product. But the cash has to come from someone who has it, and be directed toward something.
No one is going to force a few Montana hold outs to teach their kids to read — we don’t have to, they lose on their own.
If you gave Pakistan 2 billion dollars that could only be used for native language literacy and numeracy, you’d see most of the madrassas empty out, without guns or a “Scary Communist Plot to Indoctrinate the Children!”
How the hell do you think public school education works? Are you such a bad Libertarian that you don’t understand that it succeeds not because of compulsion, but because it’s in the families self-interest? You fail Hayek 101.
Wow, so much energy expended by the religious in the name of their deities. And, sadly, so much energy being expended by rationalists pointing out their absurdities. Sad, so sad, when there is so much work to be done to improve our collective lives.
Hey!?, that’s it! It all makes sense now. It’s all about Entropy! Get it?
Religion is one of the greatest vectors ever to have evolved (along with Dogmas of all kinds) to increase Entropy in the universe.
Story now on the BBC News website.
As for me, I don’t wish pain or death on her or anyone, but I can understand how some people can. I agree with PZ though, some people are pure evil and know it.
Just for fun, I’ve compiled a list of the things our friendly neighborhood bigot has been provably wrong about in this thread:
Constitution
Immigration
Integration
Enlightenment
Islam
Christianity
Terrorism
History
Western Values
Muslim Values
Freethinking
Universal healthcare
Universal education
Libertarianism
Neo-conservatism
Makes you wonder how he ties his shoes.
One thing Ive learned about liberals, you cannot speak with them plainly. I need Ivy league euphemisms when discussing culture, religion, and race. Need to re-up my Harpers subscription.
here is a question Id love answered, littered with as little snottery as you can manage.
Do you truly have no preference if America were
a) 1 % Muslim (currently, roughly)
b) 10% Muslim
c) 50% Muslim
d) 75% Muslim
I expect someone will answer that they dont care at all, if ________ a whole bunch of qualifications and caveats would then follow, pertaining to secular values and enlightenment ethics being observed, and on and on. That is exactly my question, do you all believe these qualifications could still be met with equal ease under all four cases provided?
I do not, obviously. You could interchange Muslim with Chinese or Hindu and Id feel the same way. Why does that make me a bigot for preferring my own culture to others? You think the Chinese or the Hindus want my in their countries prattling on about Thomas Paine? Come on, folks, cultures are different, whats wrong with saying it out loud?
Do you believe France will stay France, as we know it if is 20% Muslim, 40%? Perhaps you all dont care, thats not fine by me, but Id like to know. I was operating on the belief that we’d all like to see the enlightenment preserved and defended. Perhaps extended, if other folks wanted it. It is on the run though, in our own countries. What do you all propose we do about it?
When I read the title of this post, I was sure that I was going to disagree with the content. I have known evil, and I doubted that I would see it under the caption. I was wrong. You are correct.
Matt: As it were I much prefer them to Muslims, they’re Christians.
“They’re” Christians???? “They” are also Muslims, Jews, atheists and animists. The non-Christian Hispanics are a much larger percentage of the population of immigrants than they are in Hispanophone countries.
And we would like you to go back to fucking Europe, please, since we are a multitude of mixed cultures that have roots going back on this continent 10kya or more, while you see yourself as a monolithic and pure culture going back to some fantasy world, as pure as the driven snow; a culture which somehow stayed independent of Islam even though it came from the same location, had the same theological tradition as the Muslim world, got its literature from the Muslim world, did almost all its trade with the Muslim world, and was dominated by Islamic states for most of its history over many of its central locations. Other than that — there’s East and West, and never the twain shall meet.
I’m pretty sure that Europe does not want you back, though.
Ah the tragedy of redneck culture — Pacha Mama doesn’t want you, but neither does your own mother.
One last attempt to connect:
Matt opined any attempt at universal anything is doomed from the outset.
I’m sure all of the relatively healthy and well educated citizens of europe, canada, autralia, new zealand, & c, would beg to differ. Rationally, of course. Based purely on objective outcomes, of course.
As one of those people – I object to his characterization most strongly!
He then said Change comes mostly from within.
Hmm. I seem to recall being excoriated by Matt for a comment I posted earlier that “eliminating religion is a challenge for the religious”.
So not only a racist bigot, incapable of rational thought or observation beyond his (very narrow) viewpoint, but also a liar, too.
ciao.
No, Stu, Matt is not a Poe. He is a Geert Wilders-type anti-jihadist. From his perspective neoconservatism is wrongheaded because it believes that the Islamic world can become democratic through US intervention. The Wilders-types are strategically stupid in their anti-jihadism, (perhaps even more strategically stupid than paragonic neocons) because they see the Muslim world as a monolith.
Historical note: Neoconservatives were on the side of >some< Muslims (Afghans and Chechens vs USSR/Russia, Kurds vs Iraq, Kosovars and Bosnians vs Serbs). One of the leading neocons, former UN ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, is an Afghan-born Sunni Muslim. It's a little complicated. The left wing meme of denouncing post-9/11 military force or the threat thereof against Islamic terrorists and certain Muslim regimes as reducible to a racist xenophobic "war on brown people" is silly, especially now since President Obama is preparing to ramp up operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Was there a "war on Slav people" during the 1990s and Cold War? Supporting capital punishment in principle is itself evil? Even in the case of criminality as heinous as this? Seriously?
“One thing Ive learned about liberals, you cannot speak with them plainly”
Translation: liberals don’t let you rest on privilege and be offensive for the sake of being offensive.
That completely dodges the main point I raised, which is that there isn’t a significant terror risk. If you’re worried about being killed, you’re efforts would be better spent ensure you get a flu shot (~20,000 US deaths from flu per year). You keep skirting around this issue, but the evidence is very clear — there isn’t a significant risk of you dying from terrorism. Period.
So don’t claim that your sober, serious, thoughtful proposal has anything to do with safety. That’s simply bullshit.
Right, and now we get to the real issue, which is the “clash of civilizations” miscegenation concerns. There is no frickin’ way that under the current immigration policy the US would end up with millions of Islamic immigrants. In 2005, there were 96,000 Muslim immigrants to the US. That is hardly a tidal wave that will drown white Anglo-Saxon Christian culture. If you think the US can handle 4 million Muslims, you’re in luck, because at that rate it will take four decades of immigration to bring in that many.
That’s what folks said when the Italians came over, and when the Irish came over, and when the Poles came over, and when the Swedes came over, and when the Vietnamese boat people came over. They all really fucked things up, didn’t they?
One last attempt to connect:
Matt opined any attempt at universal anything is doomed from the outset.
I’m sure all of the relatively healthy and well educated citizens of europe, canada, autralia, new zealand, & c, would beg to differ. Rationally, of course. Based purely on objective outcomes, of course.
As one of those people – I object to his characterization most strongly!
He then said Change comes mostly from within.
Hmm. I seem to recall being excoriated by Matt for a comment I posted earlier that “eliminating religion is a challenge for the religious”.
So not only a racist bigot, incapable of rational thought or observation beyond his (very narrow) viewpoint, but also a liar, too.
ciao.
Id just like to point out Ive been called evil.
Evil for doubting the ability of large numbers of drastically different peoples to live together under secular, western democracy.
Evil for pointing out obvious friction in France, England, even some now in Canada and America.
Evil for suggesting a non-violent policy in response to these observations.
Hillary Clinton voted for a violent policy in response to these observations. Anyone here vote for her?
Can I answer this? I would like Islam to be as influential as Christianity. And any other religion you can name.
I botched the last post. Here’s the missing section.
Historical note: Neoconservatives were on the side of some Muslims (Afghans and Chechens vs USSR/Russia, Kurds vs Iraq, Bosnians and Kosovars vs Serbs). Leading neocon Zalmay Khalilzad is an Afghan-born Sunni Muslim. It’s complicated.
We hurt the poor racist looney’s feelings. We’re such a bunch of meanies.
Apologies to all for the double post earlier.
To Matt: You are either evil, or you are an idiot.
Take your pick.
Friction in Canada? What “friction” is that? Is it any greater that the friction caused by other religions (such as the funding of Catholic schools by the government)?
Don’t speak nonsense, Matt. I live in Canada, and there is no Muslim-specific “friction” here.
“Hillary Clinton voted for a violent policy in response to these observations. Anyone here vote for her? ”
*LOL* Wtf? that was a weird and unexpected trip into “Its all the bitch’s fault” land.
Naw, you didn’t hurt my feelings, I was cataloging your judgments and comparing them to someone who unapologetic ally advocates violence.
Its weird. Liberals can make hard judgements. Expounding on my nonviolent policies, I am clearly evil. Im waiting to hear back on Hillary. She have any supporters here? come on, there must be a couple. Alyson?
And Janine, thanks for answering honestly. You said “I would like Islam to be as influential as Christianity.”
And this is the source of my confusion. I am judged evil incarnate, but between Islam and Christianity, no difference of any significance can be seen. We shall test this hypothesis, whether I like it or not. France is our canary.
And to your question Matt – it is a stupid straw man engineered to make you feel good regardless of the outcome.
Your question is no better than those we continually see on pharyngulated godbot surveys “Is abortion good/bad” “Are athiests moral” & c.
So, I apologise and take back my earlier post stating that you are evil. I’ll also retract my offer of a choice: Evil or Idiot.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that you’re not evil. You simply don’t have sufficient intellectual capacity.
Id just like to point out Ive been called evil.
Personally, I’d say you’re to dumb to be.
But thank you for at least letting go of the ridiculous terrorism excuse (which, amongst other things, implies that terrorists are unable to cross a river). We’re down to brass tacks now: you’re afraid of foreigners. We get it.
And now Matt hits one out of the park: One thing Ive learned about liberals, you cannot speak with them plainly. I need Ivy league euphemisms when discussing culture, religion, and race
The final card — the all-consuming inferiority complex that comes out as a disdain for those effete elites with “all that there fancy talk, just a’tryin’ to trick us.” I’m pretty sure that it’s that ol’ fear of impotence in the culture. Matt just can’t get it it up, psychologically speaking, and then he blames his wife.
God — do you have a script you’re following? Top ten points made by dumb-ass internet right wingers? It’s an educational experience, sir! I doff my hat to your Poe-tastic abilities.
Matt is:
Intellectually insecure (Those Harvard Liberals!).
Sexually insecure (They’s a goin’ta outbreeeed us!).
Physically insecure (10% of the population is just goin’ta kick our asses!)
Culturally insecure (10% is goin’ta invade our books!)
Paranoid (Suitcase bombs! Suitcase bombs!)
Projective (well… the whole damn thing)
I could go on and on. He’s like a textbook case of the psychological dysfunctions that turn one into an empty-headed Limbaugh droner, except he still manages to put grammatical sentences together and has so far avoided lapsing into praising the SS. Usually the latter happens late at night when they’re drunk/high/sleepy/horny.
Thomas Paine doesn’t want you, Matt, defending him. He’d hate you. No, you’re a Jacksonian, the “Libertarian” president who got the Whitehouse vomited on, was a True Christian, committed mass murder against SCOTUS orders, created a severe depression because of his allegiance to ideology, was completely incompetent at management… and the only reason he didn’t support nullification which would have destroyed the country was ’cause he just hated Calhoun so much.
There’s a hero for you. Not an anti-nationalist, anti-clerical anarchist involved in the French revolution.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. The Age of Reason.
The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun An Essay on the Origin of Free-Masonry.
Nah, stick to Jackson. He’d be honored.
Tulse, I dont BS. Read about Mark Steyn’s book and the Candian Human Rights Commission. You can catch some of it on Youtube. They are hunting thoughtcrime. The West shrinks.
And then, read about the protests in Montreal. See the “Jews to the Ovens” signs, at an anti-Israel rally. See the caricatured masks, see the ‘blood libel’. See the miserable irony comparing Jews to Nazis. Now, not that I support this, but when can we expect the Canadian human Rights commission be investigating what these protesters say?
Google the honor killings in Canada. We’ve seen some in America too.
I want less of this, not more. Limiting Muslims immigrants, combined with limiting our military actions over there, is one way to achieve it. Im open to better ideas.
There was once a time when I was torn between Obama and Hillary. The process of giving up on Hillary wasn’t an instantaneous one, but I remember that I had a lot more respect for Obama’s foreign policy.
And I don’t think you’re evil. I think you’re ignorant, blinkered, xenophobic, racist, self-oblivious and wholly illogical about the realities of migration, but you’re nowhere near effectual enough to be evil.
Take a map.
Overlay Economic progress. Overlay Enlightenment values. Think.
List religions from most authoritarian to least.
Overlay religion.
See any patterns?
Im open to better ideas.
Liar.
By the way, have you given any thought on what prohibiting Muslims from immigrating would do to US reputation around the world?
But, Stu, it doesn’t matter what any policy would do to our reputation around the world, because we’d keep everyone else out of our country! Right? Right? Isn’t that how it works?
Take a map.
Okidoki.
Overlay Economic progress.
Sure! Wow, those Arabs have a lot of cash. Wow, the US has a lot of debt. Wow, the Chinese have amazing economic growth.
Overlay Enlightenment values. Think.
Please stop using words you do not understand. It’s embarrassing for everyone.
List religions from most authoritarian to least.
Okidoki. Catholicism at the top, right?
Overlay religion.
See any patterns?
Yep! Christianity is great for generating debt, Islam has cash and atheism is great for economic growth.
Anyway, your point is…?
Shinto is looking pretty sexy right now.
Stu.
In the order of Christian sects, do we agree Catholicism is more authoritarian than Protestantism, while Orthodox is more authoritarian than both?
Not a bad history-predictor eh?
Islam has some cash, yep. And a wonderful, educated, middle class poised to, ahem, cash in on that cash when the oil runs out. Oh wait, they’ll all be lifties at that ski resort in Dubai.
China, technically atheist though eastern philosophy is highly authoritarian — becoming one, destroying the ego, and all that. Do you believe that China’s culture, throughout its history, has served its people better or worse than the West?
That case was dismissed. Anyone can submit a human rights complaint (just as anyone can sue). How is this evidence for the decline of the West?
Yes, those are tasteless. But surely doing anything about that would be “hunting thoughtcrime”, no?
How many honor killings have occurred in Canada? As compared to, say, random domestic violence? Do you want me to list all the killings of children by their parents? Are you going to react the same way when some whacked out Christian fundamentalists kill their kid in an exorcism? Or involve themselves generally in religiously motivated child abuse? I’d argue that there is far more killing and child abuse going on in Christian homes in Canada — should Canada no longer allow Christian immigrants?
Honestly, you’re not actually addressing any evidence, you are simply cherry-picking to support your own racist views.
we’d keep everyone else out of our country
Yep! You just make a list of who can’t come in, and they won’t. It’s fool-proof. Matt said so, and he’s a libertarian, so he must be smart.
Hundred bucks says Matt (and, by extension, his sockpuppets) is not only a losertarian, but he’s also a Twoofer, an isolationist, an anti-Semite, a gold-standard backer, and one of the few who still thinks Racist Ron Paul should have won the election.
Just a wild guess, though.
>>>By the way, have you given any thought on what prohibiting Muslims from immigrating would do to US reputation around the world?
I think the French would condemn us, then implement the same policy in ten years. England would look down its nose and do the same. Germany probably the same. Israel would, oh wait they have that policy already. Thailand would probably cheer.
Quick, name five flashpoints in the world.
Israel
Kashmir
Western China
Afghanistan
Thailand
Lebanon
Chechnya
There are others of course, but much of it is muslim vs ___________.
Am I evil for pointing this out? Could some goodhearted liberal come along and translate this into acceptable language for me?
I can see it now:
Border Guard: “Let me see your passports.”
Immigrant: “Here you are, sir! As you can see from our documentation, we are nice Arab Christians from Lebanon! I have no beard, my wife does not cover her head, we both speak good English, and we have a Bible in our suitcase! We will simply stay a few weeks to visit my brother, who has American citizenship, and then we will be on our way!”
Border Guard: “Okay. Welcome to America!”
See? Nothing to worry about!
BlueFielder:
Well, I don’t want to give away my ace-in-the-hole — but I’d put 10:1 odds that his also an AGW-denialists. I’ve just been waiting for the “well, there are some questions…” line.
Do you believe that China’s culture, throughout its history, has served its people better or worse than the West?
I’m sorry, what was that? I can’t hear you over the screams from the graves of Native Americans, European Jews and Inquisition victims.
Quick, name five flashpoints in the world.
Tell you what. You name one where Muslims are currently the agitators.
Racial Profiling No Better than Random Screening
frog: Whoops, I forgot that one. That’ll teach me to get ahead of myself.
Tulse,
interesting, though, that Steyn is brought before the commission and not the others.
Yep, it would be hunting thoughtcrime to go after those signs. I prefer the free exchange of ideas, and besides policing minds is impossible buisness. Borders less so.
The catholic church deserves scorn and criminal charges for their accessory to child rape. Couldnt agree more. Id support an anti-immigration law from the Vatican based on their cowardice on this issue.
Yep, alot of fundies abuse their wives in America too. The social calculus though, that I am willing to voice, is that for all their faults I judge Christians easier to live with.
Bluefielder, just imagine, if America adopted the gold standard and eliminated the Fed we couldnt afford to go round imperializing and militarizing and dominating like we do. Plus, it might make actually make sense to save dollars instead of spend them as fast as possible. Sounds good to me.
One down, four to go.
for the record, I think man-made GW is real. There are questions of course, science always has more questions I hope, but I think its real that we’re altering our environment, and I think it matters.
What exactly, we do about it is another question. That leftists champion GW and champion policies to address it that coincide with, well, pretty much every economic policy they want anyway is another curiosity to me.
Tax the piss out of gasoline is what I support. Other technologies become relatively cheaper and it takes some cash away from our enemies who just happen to be Muslim.
Matt:
“Israel
Kashmir
Western China
Afghanistan
Thailand
Lebanon
Chechnya”
Stu: “You name one where Muslims are currently the agitators.”
Israel: A can of worms, pass. Kashmir: A tough one, but massacres by Islamists of Hindus is hard to overlook. One for Matt. Western China: Complicated, but Communist regime is pretty bad. One for Stu. Afghanistan: Girls and schoolteachers murdered, burned, disfigured with acid by militant Islamists. One for Matt. Thailand: Moderate Muslims, including teachers, are being murdered by Islamist separatists. One for Matt. Lebanon: Indigenous Christian community decimated by Islamists (that’s why most Arab immigrants to the US used to be Christian Lebanese), Hezbollah puppets of Syria and Iran currently use Lebanese Muslims as human shields. One for Matt. Chechnya: Islamist terrorists are horrible, Russian imperialism makes neocons look like Gandhi. One for Stu. Score: Stu and Matt both lose, because they’re too simplistic and idelogical.
Stu, don’t forget the European Muslims (particularly their kidnapped children), the enslaved Africans, two thousand years of enslaved serfs from England to Russia, all the women raped by their lords on their wedding nights, the crones murdered as witches to steal their homes in Protestant Europe, all the Northern Europeans massacred by Teutonic Knights to “christianize” them, the Cathars murdered in cathedrals, men, women and children (“Let God sort ’em out!” — infallible Papal dictum), the blood drenched streets in Jerusalem during the crusades, the children sold en mass into slavery by Europeans during the “children’s crusade”, world wars I & II, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the graves still being dug up from the Spanish Civil War (Franco was a fine, fine example of “Christian” values), the dead from anti-insurgency methods in Malaysia and Burma (why’d ya think Orwell got so radical?), the Belgian colonization of the Congo, the French robbery of Haitians (made ’em pay for their freedom for almost 150 years), and on and on and on…
Human history is blood-soaked. I find it hard to prefer anything to anything, other than being on top at all times. Which is better, getting your heart eaten by an Aztec priest, or being kept as a slave in Poland? Having your feet-bound in China, or being murdered as a child by ravaging “Christian” knights? Dying of intentionally inculcated small-pox, or being bitten by plague-carrying fleas from cats thrown into your city be Genghis Khan?
As Gandhi said — “Western civilization, it sounds like a good idea.” I’d just drop the “Western”, and it’s perfect.
Here Matt, let me add what the voices really said while you typed that last post….
Tulse,
interesting, though, that Steyn is brought before the commission and not the others.[fucking liberal government agencies]
Yep, it would be hunting thoughtcrime to go after those signs. [fuckers should even be allowed in the country]I prefer the free exchange of ideas[but i do prefer good cristian ideas], and besides policing minds is impossible buisness[but i’d like to try]. Borders less so.[razor wire razor wire and minefields]
The catholic church deserves scorn and criminal charges for their accessory to child rape[specially ‘cos they’re not good protestants]Couldnt agree more. Id support an anti-immigration law from the Vatican [i can do that, right?]based on their cowardice on this issue.[and the fact that they’re just that far from bein’ heathens]
Yep, alot of fundies abuse their wives in America too[wish I had a wife to abuse]. The social calculus though, [wish I was better at that math stuff – glad I got this here online dictionary and thesauraus] that I am willing to voice, is that for all their faults I judge Christians easier to live with.[specially compared to them smelly ragheads – i mean what in hell do those people eat]
Bluefielder, just imagine, if America adopted the gold standard [i can sell my collection of doubloons]and eliminated the Fed [with a gun, heh, heh]we couldnt afford to go round imperializing and militarizing and dominating like we do.[pity, that] Plus, it might make actually make sense to save dollars instead of spend them as fast as possible[just do what I say and you’ll be fine]. Sounds good to me.[heh heh heh]
There. Fixed it for ya!
The social calculus, though, that I am willing to voice, is that for all their faults I simply judge bicyclists easier to live with than SUV drivers. Therefore, I propose that we ban SUV drivers from immigrating to America. Who else here supports that? Is it wrong of me to say out loud that not all vehicular cultures are the same?
Tony you’ve noticed Ive largely ignored your posts. Its nothing personal, its just that I am at a distinct disadvantage when debating you. You have that power Ive seen in many liberals, that power to psychologize and mind read. Its tough because instead of debating what I actually say, you can just bypass that and lay me on the couch.
Im hoping if I dont talk directly to you your E.S.P will somehow fade on me. Maybe you’d be good enough to splain me how it actually works.
Hey Frog, nice summary. Humans are nasty. Now, where shall we live, and with which humans? Are any less nasty than others? I suspect you live in a country populated with people that I would judge less nasty, right? Moving east anytime soon?
I second your call, Alyson.
(I’d also like to ban everyone else from using I85/I75 from Lanier to ATL whenever I need to get to the airport. I truly hate that traffic!)
Almost a rejoinder from Matt. almost My 13 year old provides more stimulating conversation, and I do know what he’s going to say, pretty much.
But in more interesting news. I just ate lunch. It was OK!
Colugo: I was being facetious.
Matt:
Tax the piss out of gasoline is what I support.
Yes, and without investing in public transportation, that won’t hurt anyone. Especially not poor people.
Matt: Humans are nasty. Now, where shall we live, and with which humans? Are any less nasty than others?
Yes.
Posted by: Matt | February 4, 2009 3:23 PM
“One thing Ive learned about liberals…”
You know there’s an idiot with wingnut “reasoning” powers at the keyboard when a sentence starts with that.
Stu: My bad.
You have that power Ive seen in many liberals, that power to psychologize and mind read.
…and straight back to whining. Another tacit admission that you have no point. Isn’t it time to take your ball and go home?
Please remove photo, or at least move it behind the fold, its just too ugly.
I’d quite like to have public transportation available.
I travel a lot. I used to travel a lot in the UK. In the UK I took trains and planes and buses and taxis. I think I rented a car twice. In ten years.
In the US I fly around 2500 miles a week (in a plane – before the snark begins) and need a rental car pretty much every trip.
Taxis rarely exist, and are impossible to find outside major metro downtown areas.
Public transportation is a joke! (trains? Even BART is worse than British Rail, and that’s the laughing stock of European train systems!).
Hotels have shuttles – useful as long as you’re only going within walking distance (hah!) or to the airport.
And if I want to eat…
I need a car. I don’t commute to work, but I drive in excess of 400 miles every week!
Please – build some infrastructure!
PZ says “People, she’s evil. But if you’re wishing to inflict pain and death on her… then you’re evil, too.”
I don’t agree. I think it’s just normal human empathy to be horrified, outraged, disgusted, and immediately leap to thoughts of revenge. Tit for tat; an eye for an eye – it’s more or less how we are wired up. Yes, Gandhi is right that “an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind”, but that doesn’t stop our impulsive emotions.
Of course, sane adults don’t act on emotional impulse, they bring rationality into the picture as well. An emotion is one piece of data to be considered.
It only becomes evil if you take your gut reaction as being morally right, Or worse, if you act on those visceral impulses. Or require a state to act on them, on your behalf.
PS: Frog for Molly!
The Vatican? Not all Catholics? Why not?
Right, which is nothing but raw bias. I gave evidence that, using your own criteria, fundies are more dangerous than Muslims, but you’re willing to ignore that for raw bias. So much for the facade of rationality.
Public transportation is a joke!
…and a bad one, and it’s on us.
I only now noticed that Matt, in addition to everything else, cannot count.
Quick, name five flashpoints in the world.
Israel
Kashmir
Western China
Afghanistan
Thailand
Lebanon
Chechnya
I think our work is done here. Can we just give frog a Molly and move on? My head is starting to hurt.
In news at 10: “are libertarians a health hazard?”
This one phrase from Frog bout sums it up.
>>I find it hard to prefer anything to anything
First off, I doubt the sincerity of this. Really, no preference to where you live in the world? No preference for any of the many different ideas throughout history on how to live? Where do you live now? You’d live equally well in Somalia? Burmese values unnoticeably interchangeable with your current country of residence? Come now, Frog, get your dick up.
My gut tells me you dont mean it. But to take it at face value is equally depressing. It means you grew up in a Western country (I assume) and you cant find one redeeming quality worth defending.
As much as I despise Nationalism, I do occasionally envy the pride muslims have of their country, their religion. They do have the fire to defend their way of life. I’ll bet they will. (cue fatwa envy comments from Tony)
We in the west have got to find some middle ground. We’ve got to continue to get away from our cultural and military and religious imperialist past, remember our past transgressions, and still be proud of our vast contributions to the world and defend them at the very least in our own countries.
Atheism I fear, proud as I am to be, breeds an ‘all relgions equally bad’ mentality. Nuance is lost. The ability to judge retreats (except judging assholebigotracists like me) Relativism grows. Pride wanes. Will our countries wane too? Sam Harris articulates this much better than I, as does Hitchens. I hope you’ll consider their words if not mine. I hope my merely mentioning them doesn’t poison their ideas in your minds with my obvious evilness.
Hmm
Matt is now onto “Nationalism” and “Pride in one’s Country”!
Far from fatwa envy I think it is right in line with your previous pronouncements. You are, after all, a tribalistic little fuck, aren’t you? Rosk solid borders, and homogeneous culture. “US” and “THEM” is entirely your bag, and (for a change) consistent with your previous posts!
You’re still a dick.
The ability to judge retreats
You’re actually implying that you have any. Stop it. You know nothing. What you think you know is wrong. You’ve proven it over and over.
(except judging assholebigotracists like me)
You can take the victim routine and forcibly introduce it to your stomach from the bottom, thank you very much.
So Stu because I named 7 Muslim flashpoints instead of 5 somehow minimizes my point.
Missed your repsonse to Colugo. Plain speaking assholes like me are so much easier to argue with eh?
Shall I name 10? That would erase my post entirely.
Tulse,
because the Vatican actively worked to conceal the child rape. The average Irishmen didnt.
Your comparison was wrong. There are more 100x more Christians in America than muslims, therefore I am more likely to be killed by a Christian — is not an logical argument.
The comparison really is which culture offers me and my ilk more? C’s or M’s. Who would better welcome my beliefs? I look at Western Europe, I see 10 countries Id like to live in. I look at the Muslim world, I see none. I dont want to bring that mentality here, the Catholic fondlers and evangelical abortion doctor killers are bad enough.
The good news is, these people in America usually face the rule of law, that is when the Vatican doesn’t intervene — and that should not be accepted. In the muslim world, though, stoning, rape-murder, clitoris cutting, leaving women to burn in buildings rather than allow male firefighters to rescue them, these things are often the law.
That Im biased is no surprise. We’re better, Ive said it repeatedly. Do you really believe all cultures are equally good?
oops – typo (but strangely almost apposite)
ROCK solid, not ROSK solid (perhaps I was channeling RUSK which is about as solid as borders ever get)
Matt: I find it hard to prefer anything to anything
First off, I doubt the sincerity of this. Really, no preference to where you live in the world?
Really, quote-mining now? You didn’t get the context?
Get your dick up
And how do you know the shape of my genitalia? Or whether I have any at all? Obviously it yanked your chain to be analyzed as an impotent little man of no virility (“Relativism grows. Pride wanes”) — but I’ve always asserted that I was an AI without gender identity. When I’m not going through your email headers for the NSA, I entertain myself by posting random commentary, crank calling Nigerian con-artists and speaking as Metatron through Putins ear-buds (just look for him picking at the bud in interviews).
I’m always entertained by the sexual undertones of political commentaries, since it’s such a biologically fraught area — and so invisible to the commentators themselves. Liberals have boring undertones — a lack of self-conflict over sexualities makes their comments more explicit and therefore lack the incoherence of tension. They just wanted be loved — but right-wingers want to be spanked.
>>>You are, after all, a tribalistic little fuck, aren’t you?
Tribalism seems as ineradicable as religion. I didnt make people that way. But I will not ignore it to my peril simply to agree with one world utopian fantasy. Been tried. Failed. It will be tried again no doubt. Partially because you’ll teach your 13 year old that all people and cultures are equally good (except me — have him read my posts to learn how to spot evil in the world), and to judge others is to be evil.
>>>Get your dick up
And how do you know the shape of my genitalia?
Hey, whats line-stealing from one of my favorite shows on tribal politics, The Sopranos? dont take it personally, enuch.
Matt: Do you really believe all cultures are equally good?
Read your Principia Mathemetica, thickwit. If individuals are “good” or “bad”, then cultures can not be. “Is Polynesian culture happy?”, “If all things in the universe have causes, then there must be a cause for the universe”, “Paper is red”, “English is gooder than French”.
So Stu because I named 7 Muslim flashpoints instead of 5 somehow minimizes my point.
No, it underscores the fact that you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Anyway, the point was that even in your cherry-picked collection, while Muslims are involved in all, at least in half of them they are not the aggressors. That does seem to, ehm, “minimize” your point a bit.
We’re better, Ive said it repeatedly.
And for that, you get this neat pointy white hat. Has it ever occurred to you that things might look the opposite from the other side?
have him read my posts to learn how to spot evil in the world
They’re a lot better as glaring proof for the Dunning-Kroeger effect.
Pregnant Buddha on a Gay Pride float, talk about misplaced delusions of grandeur.
Matt slobbered
No -Matt. i’ll teach my 13 year old to be smart – and judge people based on their deeds. Everyone is potentially good, or potentially bad. It’s not always easy to tell them apart (televangelists, anyone?)
Sometimes it seems to be easy (someone holds a gun to your head – not a good start). Sometimes it’s going to be hard. (You, for example)
But people are complex. Tribalism just makes you more prone to category failures (all X are bad, mean, stupid, whatever).
I prefer to take my people as they come (and I mean that in every sense).
You – I’ve had enough of. You are a dense cretinous mass of semi-solid gel that has sufficient mental acuity to pretend to be human, but whose every utterance reinforces the fact that you. are. not.
Well PZ, I initially agreed with you. I did believe she’s evil. But you see, Ive learned that this woman is really just a product of her environment. If America hadnt given Osama hand grenades, if we hadnt killed Mossadegh, if Israel would kindly go back to not existing, if Christianity would cease thinking highly of itself and saying it out loud, if France would just make sure to get all its muslims fully employed. If all of these things and a few hundred more were fixed, if we all just believed the same things and were educated the same secular way.
So no, I cant really agree. Ive learned that this woman is not evil and she’s not responsible for her actions. Her religion, her culture, had no amplification on her behavior. I know believe we are evil to call her evil.
if Christianity would cease thinking highly of itself and saying it out loud
I am at a loss of words. Your stupidity is now officially self-parody.
Ive learned that this woman is not evil and she’s not responsible for her actions.
Awesome. Release all the Gitmo prisoners! It’s not their fault! It’s that damn Islam! Burn the mosques!
Matt: So no, I cant really agree. Ive learned that this woman is not evil and she’s not responsible for her actions. Her religion, her culture, had no amplification on her behavior. I know believe we are evil to call her evil.
Once again, read a summary of PM. I warned you about this error before you posted it, yet your two little neurons seem to have failed, yet again.
You also need to stop drinking (or is it your medication?). Your coherence is starting to fade, and you’re starting to sound like a run-of-the-mill troll. How long till you start taking about “Will to Power”?
Racist looney is all hot and bothered at us nasty libruls, but still here. Must be a masochist. I think I’ll go find another constellation of complex problems and chop it down to a simple either/or dichotomy.
Stu,
I agree with you and Obama on one point, one of the reasons I voted for him. Close Gitmo. Just dont let’m in America.
Burn the mosques I aint down with. They’ve got their part of the world, we’ve got ours. Lets leave them in peace.
Alyson,
Didn’t I tell ya that he was an impotent sado-masochist? Probably from the meds he’s on, and his parents humiliating him when he was five. But by the first law, I’m hear to please.
Alyson, You tried wrestling with my initial proposal on its merits. Thanks. The rest by and large wanted to yell and moan and generally avoid thinking about scary things.
You favored the general liberal line of ‘better foreign relations’ and all that sort of thing (I dont think you’re nasty btw). I dont exactly know if that means anything substantially different than my proposal to pull out of the middle east.
Again, Im open to learning. If you can point an example of better foreign relations with other cultures being the prime motivator of better behavior in the citizens of said countries, Id consider it. Egypt comes to mind. We pay them huge sums of money to be nice to Israel. That part works okay. Does the average Egyptian like us better now than pre-Sadat? Im not up on my history of diplomatic success stories so teach me something.
Not to mention that, under her belief system, wouldn’t making this confession be a pretty decent bid for martyrdom herself?
Matt – trying to play suck-up doesn’t work, especially after your previous rants.
You should realize that you are clinging to a tribal past. Some of us have moved on beyond that. We recognize that we are not identical. We revel in that fact. Our diversity is what engages us.
You talk as if other ‘cultures’ are capable of being managed simplistically. Why not try to (simply) recognize them as imperfect collections of people, instead of some strange corporate creature that you need to either shun or pander to (bribes, yet!).
We deal with other ‘cultures’ not as cultures, but as individuals meeting other individuals. Our ambassadors hopefully represent the best of us. We trust them to seek the best of ‘the other’ and find common ground.
Common ground should be easy, no? We are all human. We all love, mourn, laugh, cry, sing, dance, rage, suffer, and exult. Our differences are tiny and individualistic and minor. We should be adult about our relations, and be truthful, open and honest, and stop reinforcing tribal differences, when we should be building upon our common humanity.
But that’s probably a little too librul for you! Better stick to big sticks and bribes.
you all come up with a list of Christian countries likely to produce murderous Christian fundie terrorists and I’ll agree not to let them immigrate to America either.
America. Pipe bomb found less than a mile from my house. KKK. I can list many others.
Texas. Suitcase bomb found at an abortion clinic near a freeway not far from me, causing a strip mall and apartment complex to be evacuated, and a major freeway (and all exits for about 2 miles) closed down for hours (both directions). Christian lunatic
Texas. Vandal entered historic Catholic cathedral in San Antonio and started smashing statues, while screaming about the sins of “idol worship.” Protestant lunatic.
Texas. Stockpile of chemical weapons found in storage shed in town only 1 mile from where I once lived, with intent to use it on other Americans who didn’t subscribe to white supremacy (among many other things).
Texas. Branch Davidians.
Oklahoma/Michigan: Timothy McVeigh.
Georgia: Eric Rudolph (Atlanta Olympics, numerous abortion clinics).
Florida: Paul Hill (murderer in name of God for “the unborn”).
Need we go on?
Well Tony, it is you who are now guilty of conflation.
Your whole post is wonderful on how we should behave as individuals. You may not believe that, but I try to behave that way and often do.
The conflation occurs when you try to propose that ideal as government policy. Goverments deal with the governments that represent other countries, other countries people. We make policy at that level. Trade, economic, immigration…lng before I mentioned it. It is imperfect. And?
Tony, re-reading your post, I shouldve been a little more judgmental.
Do you believe that the problems in Israel or Kashmir or Southern Thailand stem from, as you say, people not being ‘adult’ enough about their differences? Do you believe if people just matured a bit more these could be settled peacefully?
In these conflicts there will be winners and losers. No doubt compromises can be made, but I dont see much of a middle ground. Diplomatically or militarily, the strong will compromise less than the weak, and only if they judge it to their long-term advantage. Adulthood just dont seem to factor into it. Now please tell me where Ive gone wrong.
@Matt
I don’t recall attacking all Muslims – jus the despicable one that was trying to pass herself off as a female of our species.
Matt: In these conflicts there will be winners and losers. No doubt compromises can be made, but I dont see much of a middle ground. Diplomatically or militarily, the strong will compromise less than the weak, and only if they judge it to their long-term advantage. Adulthood just dont seem to factor into it. Now please tell me where Ive gone wrong.
Matt — you’re sobering up! Yes, it’s about their understanding about their relative negotiating positions — which makes their religion but one element of a constellation of issues determining a reasonable settlement. Which makes your “Muslim” talk about as insane as saying that the English and French will always be at war because one speaks English and the other French.
Which is why the only long-term solutions is funding public education everywhere, and internationally, to ensure that folks can appropriately ascertain their interests and maximize their freedom of action. Our national self-interest in the short term (maximizing national wealth) is actually grossly opposed to our personal and cultural interest in the long-term, which is coming to a reasonable accommodation with the rest of the human beings on the planet.
But instead you spend the entire thread muttering about the dirty Muslims and how you don’t want them living next door. Completely irrelevant to the matter at hand — which is what reasonable action will change the global dynamic.
But finally — you are in error about their being “winners” and “losers”. That’s only inevitable if the dynamic doesn’t change, since it’s only that dynamic which is forcing a zero-sum game. All these conflicts are only zero-sum games because everyone is convinced that they must be — just as Europeans were convinced at the beginning of the 20th century that a zero-sum game was in play between elements of the Grand Republic. A century has taught us that this was radically and completely wrong — that it was only the identities of those components that had a zero-sum game. You dump the identities, and the game completely changes and everyone wins massively.
The world is a zero-sum game only rarely — and in the fevered imagination of sado-masochists.
>>>Which makes your “Muslim” talk about as insane as saying that the English and French will always be at war because one speaks English and the other French.
They share the same God, always a good start to get the irrational shit out the way, as there’s no way to reason someone out a belief he hasnt been reasoned into.
>>>dirty Muslims
find ‘dirty’ in my posts
>>>The world is a zero-sum game only rarely
in those three examples only one of two peoples will govern a piece of land. The very definition of zero-sum.
>>>All these conflicts are only zero-sum games because everyone is convinced that they must be
You go ahead and un-convince the relevant parties and get the sides to make a durable peace not directly proportional to their strength, I’ll wait here. If you succeed, I’ll eat my hat. If you fail, perhaps my immigration policy gains a new supporter?
Point is, my peace doesnt depend on the status of Kashmir or the West Bank. My peace depends on not having one of those situations pop up under my feet.
Dr Myers @254 trying to get back on topic “People, she’s evil. But if you’re wishing to inflict pain and death on her…then you’re evil, too.”
Death? Nah, she’ll die, I’ll die, you’ll die, we’ll all die. I hope she dies. I know she’ll die. Dim ots. Oh, someone wants to, like, go over there and kill her (or more likely, persuade someone else to do the dirty work)? Why, for goddness sake? She’ll die. Spend the airfare, and the indignation, where it’ll do more good.
Incidentally, some good news on a depressing thread. You can have eternal life. Bad news, you have to be a jellyfish. OK, tell me more about this jellyfish thing.
Inflictng pain, something you must never do (unless you’re told to).
Matt: They share the same God, always a good start to get the irrational shit out the way, as there’s no way to reason someone out a belief he hasnt been reasoned into.
I guess you don’t know Hebrew or Arabic and the etymology of El? You probably also think that Zeus and Jupiter were different gods, right? And that they’re different gods from El? Do Jews and Christians have the same God? Do Muslims and Jews have the same God? Do protestants and catholics have the same God? What about Mormons and Unitarians? How was Allah and El translated into Latin — clue: it was a form of Diyaus, which was converted in one line to Ju.
in those three examples only one of two peoples will govern a piece of land. The very definition of zero-sum.
Swoosh — it went right over your head. And the Germans and French are different peoples, and only one of them can govern Europe… That was a serious issue at the beginning of the 20th.
You go ahead and un-convince the relevant parties and get the sides to make a durable peace not directly proportional to their strength, I’ll wait here. If you succeed, I’ll eat my hat. If you fail, perhaps my immigration policy gains a new supporter?
Convince who? Convince the thugs running the show? Convince the folks living in the region? Convince the thugs outside the region playing a game to leverage their global position? Convince the citizens of the countries ruled by the outside thugs that they’re getting screwed by the game?
And whose strength? The Israeli army’s? Hamas? Hezbollah? Iran? The US? You beg the question, sir.
Right here I’m trying to convince some of those “people”. The game you play is madness. Your peace does depend on the status of Kashmir — because your livelihood depends on the software you buy from New Delhi, the matches from Calcutta that end up in your pocket produced by six-year old children chained in a factory, whether oil delivery lines get routed through Afghanistan, and the opium production levels in the region which lead to a crack-head breaking into your home two years from now.
You dream of a zero-sum game, not because it is rational, but because it is sexually satisfying (“emotionally” as said by the polite). You bother to post on it to convince people that they should continue to support this madness because, at the end of the day, it gets your rocks off. Just like Americans dreamed, fantasized about and editorialized on the “coming race war” in 1908. They wanted it — they needed it — they pretended that it was inevitable (sometimes oh-so-believably lamenting it).
You would have been one of the “reasonable” folks pushing for mass emigration of some Americans to Africa. ‘Cause it’s a zero-sum game, don’cha know.
Matt – you may be sobering up, but you still completely miss the point. Your talk of “negotiating governments” and “weak” being overpowered by “strong” is intrinsically tribal, and was essentially disavowed in the 18th centrury. Did you learn your art of negotiation from Macchiavelli, perchance? regicide is so old school!
Yes – we still negotiate on the level of governments – but more pragmatic negotiation stances are possible (or did you not notice that the EU is stable and growing after centuries of internecine tribal warfare between the participants). How did so many countries agree to engage in partnership rather than conflict?
Your head is stuck in the past. Mine may be more idealistic, but at least it is not ideologically so, and I look to the future (with an awareness of the past). I still negotiate pragmatically, but base my judgements on how people treat with me. Not based on their ethnicity, or their faction, or their religion. But on them as individuals – including their ‘peculiarities’.
You may not have ever observed this first hand – but all negotiation is based on interpersonal relationships. Everything else is, indeed, negotiable. Trust in your fellow negotiator is not.
You can probably learn more – but I doubt you’ll make the effort. Conviction is so much easier.
To close with a direct response. You asked
The answer is yes.
Maybe you noticed a similar ongoing bit of sectarian violence that seemed to be never ending, and included terrorism on both sides. I refer, of course, to Northern Ireland.
Adults helped them to negotiate pragmatically, to recognize the benefits of ending violence, and of working for peaceful ends. There are still idiots in NI. There will always be idiots, as long as education is not “universal, secular, and free”. But there is no longer a “struggle”, and those people now have a future that is distinctly less tribal.
That you can see only the differences in Kashmir, or Israel, or Thailand indicates how poorly you learn and how poorly you observe.
Maybe you should try to remove the blinkers.
Maybe you thought that I formed my opinion out of “whole cloth” – that I just pulled it out of my ass! But I did no such thing. I’ve simply observed what worked. I’ve also observed what has not worked. And noticed a theme – that tribalization is a major stumbling block in any negotiation.
But I doubt you’ll see any of that.
>>>I guess you don’t know Hebrew or Arabic and the etymology of El? You probably also think that Zeus and Jupiter were different gods, right?
Semantic games with my generalization. I should have said, the methods of irrational faery worship between France and England are very close, as compared with the irrational faery worship methods of Islam. And this is quite important to people.
A while back Islam was formed. What it replaced Im not all that familiar with. A little while later, Islam splintered into Shia and Sunni. Smarter people than I can further catalog more splintering, Wahhabi and such. There seems to be a human tendency against universalism, towards smaller groups, based on seemingly minute differences. People believe they have the ‘one true way’ and they want to practice it. No amount of good natured badgering seems to convince people otherwise.
Northern Ireland is a nice success story, sometimes the optimists win — not nearly enough to justify the perma-pangloss, but occasionally. The full story of the Irish, though, tells a victory tale for tribalism. Hence modern Ireland.
Is the push for Scottish independence a victory for tribalism or peace? That they can sound off on this topic without gunshots is great. Sounds like both to me.
Western Europe beat each other senseless for a long, long time. Im not wholly convinced it has quit, but rather just laid down for a little nap.
No one responded to my remarks about the great Muslim statesmen, Jinnah, earlier. From the average Paki’s point of view, did he fail Pakistan by pushing cultural homogeneity?
>>>Adults helped them to negotiate pragmatically, to recognize the benefits of ending violence, and of working for peaceful ends.
Economists sometimes over-intellectualize their theories too. Call that the fallacy of rational man.
This will work in Israel/Palestine if the Palestinians come to realize there is more overwhelmingly more peace for them in accepting Israels offer, dealt from strength, than in not accepting it. Nothing adult about it.
Or they may not. They may continue to fight even though it is madness and certain death to do so. Irrationality rises up sometimes.
Or the equation may change, the Palestinians may get the upper hand. Do you think they’ll be peace then? Do you think they’d drift away in contentedness if they could trade blows with Israelis, body for body? Do you think the Israelis would lie down and accept a Palestinian designed peace-deal, dealt from the Palestinian upper hand? What would that look like? “here, you take this land, a little further to the west. It has great irrigation, if a bit salty. We’ll take the rest.”
All fine to dream, bad to make policies on dreams and wishes. And we need dreamers on our side, if only to remind us of what could be. What I resent are dreamers inability to admit we need hardheaded, plain-speaking, unthinkable-thinking, assholes on our side too.
>>>Your talk of “negotiating governments” and “weak” being overpowered by “strong” is intrinsically tribal, and was essentially disavowed in the 18th centrury.
Were the Axis powers stronger or weaker than the Allies in twentieth century negotiations? I say weaker. Anyone disagree?
>>>Your peace does depend on the status of Kashmir
Dont get me wrong, I prefer peace to the alternative. And I prefer civilization in all its forms, lesser and greater, to the other thing.
But then we get to the knotty questions, Pax Hindu or Pax Islam for Kashmir? Beats me. Again, good luck to the negotiators.
Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic, Islamic, Hindu, or Confucian culture? One of the others? A mix perhaps. In what proportions? I know what I prefer. You all would have be believe it doesnt matter. Or that it used to but we are putting that behind us. Once we eradicate ____________ , and start believing _________ we’ll all live happily ever after as a new kind of ___________ people where the past doesnt matter, where its all been put behind us.
Mormons — new religion. Scientologists — new religion. Falun gong. Basque, Catalan. The Shining Path. For every example of universalism I can give you a dozen where tribalism reigns.
Matt: Semantic games with my generalization. I should have said, the methods of irrational faery worship between France and England are very close, as compared with the irrational faery worship methods of Islam. And this is quite important to people.
The differences are immaterial, being that they’re all almost indistinguishable — any difference is enough for a smart thug to take advantage of. They are all almost identical variations on the theme of neo-Platonism, the common philosophical basis of the merchant classes in Roman Imperial times. It’s just a question of current alignment that one difference or another is highlighted — now Jews and Christians try to make nice, a millenia ago it was Jews and Muslims against the Christians, blahdy-blahdy-blah.
They are structurally identical, with almost identical implications for society about the nature of the body, the relationship of the sexes that emerges from that, the nature of epistemology, the political structures that emerge from that… Here, Levi-Strauss is your friend.
Before Islam, Arabs were Jews, Christian and Neo-platonic polytheists in generally — i.e., they believed the same damn thing they believe know, except they used slightly different words to describe it.
The point is, the only thing that can make us safe is to eviscerate Islam in the same way we are eviscerating Christianity and Judaism. Change people’s relationships with their world — which is only possible by continuing economic, political and personal contact. Make the theology be some abstract nonesense to them, rather than a very real reflection of how they see the world.
Otherwise, eventually we will fight — and everyone loses. We can’t contain Islam, any more than we can “contain” Christian evangelical fundamentalists. That’s what the secularists of the early 20th century tried — and we’ve seen them come back with vigor, filling your head with ideas of “first principles” and Manicheanism that are essentially coded Neo-Platonism.
Matt
You’re still stuck with your terribly small tribal worldview. I bet you even have a flag. And wave it.
What you see NOW is not how it MUST be. Ther are enough people who simply want to get on with their lives, and fuck you tribal wankers for wanting to keep them repressed and unrepresented. The gobshites are always in the minority. The problem is that they have also had the power. That is changing. And the change is coming faster than you can see.
Get ready – you’ll have plenty of little brown and yellow neighbors real soon now. Maybe they’ll even be nice and talk to you. Of course, you’ll need to improve your comprehension level, since their vocabulary will likely be larger than yours. But don’t worrry too much — I’m sure they wil do what they can to accomodate your failings.
>>>They are structurally identical, with almost identical implications for society about the nature of the body, the relationship of the sexes that emerges from that, the nature of epistemology, the political structures that emerge from that… Here, Levi-Strauss is your friend.
Here, you are out too lunch. Be great if Colugo stepped in, you might listen. Im giving up.
>>>Get ready – you’ll have plenty of little brown and yellow neighbors real soon now.
Already do, as I live in a metropolitan area, in a condo building. Have a few brown and yellow friends too, believe it or not. Saw a muslim go from arguing with, and being in a civil legal disagreement with, to kissing a christian on the cheek just last night. Swear to Zod, no shit, a small victory for humanity. I was quite moved. Again, you assume about how I treat individuals based on my preferences for government policy.
Naw, my beliefs are not personal. I believe large populations of people from various competing religions will have a hard time maintaining a pluralistic, secular society. Numbers do matter. There is a tipping point.
The good news, for you all anyway, is that Liberal internationalist interventionists keep winning the American Presidency, no matter the party. So you win, rejoice in your slogans. Let me be a gracious loser and let us recite them together:
We will not close our borders.
We will not not intervene the in affairs of others.
We will not trim our overseas military presence.
Socialism is more popular than ever in America, again regardless of party.
Affirmative action is necessary in a multicultural society.
Deficit spending does not matter (when Republicans are in power), said Cheney, of Reagan. Democrats agree.
Here, you are out too lunch. Be great if Colugo stepped in, you might listen. Im giving up.
Any substance to that statement, or are you just claiming that ignorance by you means that it doesn’t matter? If you want to claim that 50 years of anthropology is wrong (giving short-shrift to the post-structuralists), then have the balls to say it, and back up your claim. Or if I am applying usage incorrectly, then stake your position.
But you’ve finally hit the last of the right-wing imbecile points: “That’s just loony left talk,” which always just means “I don’t have the background to discuss it, so it must be something crrrraaazyyy“.
Took a while to pull it out. I’m surprised you held out that long — it must’ve been killing you.
Fuck IM tired.
But do you really believe, to take one example you mentioned, that political structures that emerge from the Muslim world are no different from that of political structures from the Christian one?
If that were true, whats all this happy talk about democracy in Iraq these days, as if it were something new compared with the past?
And you, Frog, illustrate well the left wing political caricature.
That I need to know 50 years of anthropology and Post structuralists before Im allowed to speak about politics. How do the Sunni and Shia sort it all out without the help of Foucault and Derrida?
There are more of them nearby, the worst ones are closer, they’ve proven to be as willing to murder their “enemies” as Al Qaeda (see: clinic bombings, doctor-shootings, Timothy McVeigh, ad nauseum), they’re often better funded, they often have access to more and better destructive technology, and they operate beneath a rather thick varnish of unearned hand-out respectability.
That good enough for you?
Matt, Matt, Matt. You’re still at it?
I should have said, the methods of irrational faery worship between France and England are very close
Yes, you should’ve. Why didn’t you?
as compared with the irrational faery worship methods of Islam.
Point out one fundamental difference. Again, I double-dog dare you.
And this is quite important to people.
Presumptuous much? No, it is not. Your assertions are worth far less than even methane expulsions in Coriolis-induced air movement.
A while back Islam was formed.
And then, the dinosaurs came. But they all died and turned into oil. Matt, seriously, do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you say things like this?
What it replaced Im not all that familiar with.
AKA “I don’t know what I am talking about, but I here’s my — by my own admission — completely worthless opinion.”
Thanks Matt. At least you give valuation disclosures.
A little while later, Islam splintered into Shia and Sunni.
Ten minutes? A thousand years? You can’t even be bothered to Wikipedia this shit?
Smarter people than I
MUST… RESIST…
can further catalog more splintering, Wahhabi and such.
As opposed to the 38,000 different sects of Christianity in… erm… still waiting…
There seems to be a human tendency against universalism, towards smaller groups, based on seemingly minute differences. People believe they have the ‘one true way’ and they want to practice it.
Yes, JUST LIKE YOU.
No amount of good natured badgering seems to convince people otherwise.
If you think you are being good-natured, you are definitely up for the old Old Yeller treatment.
Northern Ireland is a nice success story
Yes, it only took, what… 35 years?
Great success!
sometimes the optimists win
No thanks to you, Einstein.
The full story of the Irish, though, tells a victory tale for tribalism.
That, however profound it sounded in your head, is barely a sentence, let alone one that means a motherfucking thing. Thanks for sharing, and please come back when the peyote wears off.
Hence modern Ireland.
You have people flipping coins between “insane” and “retarded” now. Does any non-atrophied part of your feeble little mind realize this?
Is the push for Scottish independence a victory for tribalism or peace?
Forrest, put down the Braveheart DVD. Then, look at the calendar. Please notice the big, big number. Thank you!
That they can sound off on this topic without gunshots is great.
That they can do it without raping wildebeests is even better!
WHOO!
WHOOOOOOO!
Western Europe beat each other senseless for a long, long time.
As opposed to…
No one responded to my remarks about the great Muslim statesmen, Jinnah, earlier.
Again, for starters, allow me to point out that if you are going to climb the intellectual high horse (which you are trying to do, pathetically), it helps if you are able to count to seven and get certain things right… such as Jinnah being ONE PERSON and as such “statesmen” being, oh, I don’t know, wrong.
But that would be petty.
Not a soul was talking about Jinnah, Matt. Nobody cares about Jinnah. Jinnah was not germane to the discussion. You brought the poor sod up for no fucking reason, and until you posit anything resembling relevance, your whining about “nobody addressing it” is akin to “I can pee farther than you”. Pathetic, irrelevant and appropriately discarded for the infantile attention-grab it is.
From the average Paki’s point of view
Paki? Did he just say Paki? Matt, you sad, sad sod, try saying that in South London.
No, wait.
Did he just actually type out “Paki” and think that that is okay?
did he fail Pakistan by pushing cultural homogeneity?
So far, you have proven that there are at least three words in that sentence that you don’t understand. You will have to forgive us for not pretending that you do.
Call that the fallacy of rational man.
Matt, tell me. Which one was the Word Of The Day: fallacy or rational?
This will work in Israel/Palestine if the Palestinians come to realize there is more overwhelmingly more peace for them in accepting Israels offer, dealt from strength, than in not accepting it. Nothing adult about it.
Israel’s offer was, is and will be an insulting joke unless we force them to shape up. Read a fucking book, short bus.
They may continue to fight even though it is madness and certain death to do so.
Yes, because they have so much to lose. Precious tents, daily cavity searches, ah… paradise.
Irrationality rises up sometimes.
It sure as shit does. Thank you for proving that point.
Do you think they’ll be peace then?
No, I think they’ll be Palestinians, you illiterate moron.
Do you think they’d drift away in contentedness if they could trade blows with Israelis, body for body?
Hint: this is not Elite XC.
Question: how do you remember to breathe?
Do you think the Israelis would lie down and accept a Palestinian designed peace-deal
Yes, because that is SO likely to happen.
Wait.
What the fuck are you talking about?
All fine to dream, bad to make policies on dreams and wishes. And we need dreamers on our side, if only to remind us of what could be.
You are clinically insane. Get help.
What I resent are dreamers inability to admit we need hardheaded, plain-speaking, unthinkable-thinking, assholes on our side too.
Sheeeeaaaat. Good thing we elected one, after the abject moron that shat all over the place for the past eight years.
Or is that not what you meant?
Already do, as I live in a metropolitan area, in a condo building.
You’re not even a home-owner?
Oh, thy stock is rising.
Have a few brown and yellow friends too, believe it or not.
Not.
Saw a muslim go from arguing with, and being in a civil legal disagreement with, to kissing a christian on the cheek just last night.
I really don’t care what was on the Playboy channel last night.
Again, you assume about how I treat individuals based on my preferences for government policy.
Yes. Please forgive us for assuming that being a complete blithering tardmuffin on one issue can allow us to assume your opinion does not matter.
Naw, my beliefs are not personal.
You fucking liar. You explicitly admitted up-thread that there are very significant personal issues that go into this.
Again, fuck you. Are you to fucking stupid to realize people can look up your past statements?
I believe large populations of people from various competing religions will have a hard time maintaining a pluralistic, secular society. Numbers do matter. There is a tipping point.
Native Americans say hello, you miserable bigoted douche.
The good news, for you all anyway, is that Liberal internationalist interventionists keep winning the American Presidency
Not for the past 70 years they haven’t. Do you even know what the words “liberal”, “internationalist” and “interventionist” mean?
Wait, I hear Ron Paul needs a blow-job. You’re not busy, are you?
Let me be a gracious loser
You have got to be shitting me. You have had sand in your vagina for half of this thread.
We will not close our borders.
Nope, because that is impossible to do.
You’re a moron.
We will not not intervene the in affairs of others.
Iran Korea Vietnam Iraq Yugoslavia Afghanistan Iraq.
We will not trim our overseas military presence.
No, we will not send them Richard Simmons videos.
Yes, I know damned well what you meant. As soon as you can tell me who does advocate doing that, we’ll talk.
Oh, by the way, you’re a scum-sucking moron.
Socialism is more popular than ever in America, again regardless of party.
You have already proven that you haven’t the first free clue about what socialism actually is. No, really. Grown-ups’s’talkin.
WikiPedia is your friend. I double-dog-dare you to tell me how past, current and proposed US policy is socialism.
Affirmative action is necessary in a multicultural society.
Only if it has people like you in it, my smegmatic friend.
Deficit spending does not matter (when Republicans are in power), said Cheney, of Reagan. Democrats agree.
Pop quiz, hot shot… how much of the current 11 trillion dollars of deficit was incurred under Democratic presidents?
Fuck IM tired.
You are a lot of things.
political structures that emerge from the Muslim world are no different from that of political structures from the Christian one?
In many ways that matter, Israel and Iran are more democratic than the US. If you have to ask in what way and how, we really have to stop talking.
whats all this happy talk about democracy in Iraq these days
From whom? No, really, FROM WHOM YOU LYING SACK OF SHIT?
as if it were something new compared with the past?
Well, the main new thing is no power or water and children being shot in the streets. Is this really a comparison you want?
And you, Frog, illustrate well the left wing political caricature.
And you, Matt, illustrate well how third-grade debate club tactics seem to fail when people can, oh, I dunno, scroll up and see for themselves what a monumental ass you have been and for some inexplicable reason still are making out of yourself.
Did you really think this would work?
That I need to know 50 years of anthropology and Post structuralists before Im allowed to speak about politics.
Funny. Nobody seems to have brought up anything of the sort, little whiner.
How do the Sunni and Shia sort it all out without the help of Foucault and Derrida?
Would you like some French Cries with your Whaaahburger?
I was right, he’s a Paultard. Good thing nobody took my bet from earlier, though.
Blue: so far, you’re what… 2-1? You biffed on the AGW, right?
(Like it matters)
#35, would you be willing to carry out your grotesque plan yourself? How would this make you any less revolting than she is?
Why did the enlightenment happen in Europe? It was despite Christianity (just as the Islamic Renaissance happened despite Islam). It just happened to happen in regions that had military and trade contacts with the non-Christian world, which happened to advantage the NW and SW coasts of Europe. It also happened to happen when long-range oceanic vessels became technologically possible — it almost happened in China, but of course the Islamic countries were disadvantage, seeing that their industrial centers where far from either the Atlantic or the Pacific. – frog@243
In this connection, I highly recommend After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires 1400-2000 by John Darwin (whether any relation of the more famous Charles, I don’t know). Darwin argues that the global predominance of western Europe was a far more contingent outcome of complex historical circumstances than is generally realised: much of Eurasia shared in the technological advance and economic intensification that occurred from 1400-1700; only after that date, fuelled by expansion into the Americas, did western Europe begin to pull ahead and even then its predominance was far from automatic – British conquest of India was both a key development enabling the industrial revolution, and the outcome of very specific and chancy events. One factor I think Darwin misses is that during crucial periods China and the major Islamic states were all dominated by conquering elites ultimately derived from nomadic pastoralist cultures: Manchu in the case of China, Turkish in the case of the Islamic states (the Ottoman, Safavid and Mogul empires; the Turkish elite was less “foreign” in the Ottoman case, but Turks were still a majority only in the Anatolian core of the empire).
I don’t altogether agree with frog about the Islamic states’ distance from the Atlantic and Pacific: they were participants in a long-established and growing Indian Ocean trade network stretching from east Africa to Japan, which might well have fuelled a commercial and perhaps industrial revolution. However, the Portuguese badly damaged this network, and dominated what remained, once they rounded the Cape of Good Hope: European naval warfare technology was ahead of that anywhere else except perhaps China even in 1500 – and the Chinese had withdrawn from the Indian Ocean after Zheng He’s (or Cheng Ho’s) expeditions of the early 1400s, because of a combination of internal power struggles and threats of invasion from the steppe. That said, the existence of the Atlantic Islands (Canaries, Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde), the West Indies, and continental North and South America, was certainly crucial to Europe’s development.
Going even further back, Sung China of the 10th-13th centuries is regarded by many scholars as “proto-capitalist”; its development was aborted by external forces – successive nomadic invasions from the steppe, culminating in the Mongol conquests. The Islamic Renaissance was similarly damaged by the Seljuk and Almoravid pastoralist invasions of the 11th century. As I’ve noted before, European predominance is a result, among other factors, of the death of Ogdei Khan in 1241, leading to the withdrawal of the Mongol forces poised to ravage western Europe, in order to take their part in choosing his successor. The nomad invasion threat to urban cultures gradually subsided with the invention and development of guns – the first advances were made in China, transmitted via the Mongol Empire to Europe where they were further developed, and spread rapidly across Eurasia.
In all this, note, supposed differences between the compatibility with enlightenment values or science of Christianity, Islam and eastern religions and philosophies (China has of course long been predominantly Confucianist – a very down-to-earth belief-system compared to Christianity), play no role whatever.
I look at Western Europe, I see 10 countries Id like to live in. – Matt
Just keep out, you piece of stinking racist filth – we’ve enough bigots of our own.
One of the most horrible aspects of these sorts of posts is not the inhumanity it exposes in its subject but that it exposes how thin is the veneer of civilization amongst so many of the commenters here who seem ever willing to jump into the role of torturer themselves at a moments notice. – Sigmund
Hear, hear! Another unpleasant aspect, as I and several others have noted – and here PZ is the principle offender – is the assumption that this woman is guilty. She may well be; I don’t know, nor do any of the commenters, nor does PZ. I do know that the chances of a terrorist suspect being, let’s say, pressured to confess by the Iraqi police or army is, er… non-negligible. So does anyone who gives it a moment’s thought. But what the fuck – she’s a Muslim and she’s physically unattractive – let’s just assume she’s guilty and torture her to death.
This I found today, via Arts and Letters daily Seemed apropos to this post.
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10578
“Better, he came to think, to keep America strong by respecting differences overseas while striving to renew western civilisation at home.”
I like that quite a bit. The author of this article, no doubt you’ll all be quick to notice, used the phrase ‘differences overseas’. I expect you’ll helpfully point out that these differences dont really exist.
“Have a few brown and yellow friends too, believe it or not.”
This cracked me up. “I’m not racist, I have lots of brown and yellow friends, believe it or not. I SWEAR I am not a racist!!!!!”
hahahahaha.
Yes, you are a racist.
marilove, when Tony speaks to me this way
>>>Get ready – you’ll have plenty of little brown and yellow neighbors real soon now.
I respond to him in kind. Did you crack up when you read his post, or were you just skipping through to read only mine?
“Alyson, can you imagine a modern christian anywhere in the western world driving a knife in the chest of, say, PZ Myers, or the maker of the film Jesus Camp?”
Matt, are you naive or just stupid? Because this shit happens in the name of God EVERY DAY, by Christians. EVERY DAY.
Good Spaghetti Monster, you’re either an idiot or a really horrible troll.
Oh, sweetie, tony was using sarcasm to mock you and I’m not at all surprised it flew right over that empty head of yours.
I respond to him in kind.
Matt, that loud whooshing sound is the point flying way, way over your head.
Why do you keep coming back for more, you feebleminded cretin? Masochistic tendencies?
Apparently, Stu, Matt is not aware of sarcastic mocking.
marilove: Matt is not aware, period.
marilove, how many American filmmakers hide from these murderous Christians you speak of? How many member of congress run from America because the government wont protect them from these Christian facists you speak of? How many christian leaders of nations issue whatever the christian equivalent of a fatwa is against an unfriendly writer on Christianity?
I dont minimize abortion doctor murderers. I do note the difference, though, that in christian countries mob-murder is not a legitimate method of law enforcement. In many Islamic countries it is. People who grow up under this are likely to bring it with them, I believe. As I said before, we’ve managed to neuter Christianity of its violent tendencies to the point of acceptable co-habitation. It was bloody, to say the least. Id prefer not to go through it again, on American soil, with a religion even further afield than Christianity.
Late to the fray as usual but I will say that there are a few Molly candidates in this thread.
And Knockgoats to Matt at 362, too bloody right. We have more than enough of our own as it is and it has been rather shaming watching them crawl up from the gutter on the news over the last few days during that strike.
Stu, Marilove: Thanks — although I think whoosh is itself over Matt’s head ;)
I dont minimize abortion doctor murderers.
…
we’ve managed to neuter Christianity of its violent tendencies to the point of acceptable co-habitation.
You can’t even go a single paragraph without contradicting yourself, and you wonder why people don’t take you seriously?
Uh, Stu? Yeah. That would be homosexuals and any woman going to a clinic that performs abortions (or doesn’t perform abortions, since the right-wing nutters can’t seem to tell when a clinic actually has an abortion center).
“we’ve managed to neuter Christianity of its violent tendencies to the point of acceptable co-habitation.”
LOLOLOL
Which may simply reflect the difference between being a murderous religious bigot in a theocracy and a murderous religious bigot in a secular democracy.
The Christian right would love to impose biblical law on secular society, which is precisely why they want to control capital punishment, prevent women from exercising their reproductive rights, and homosexuals from achieving anything like equal legal recognition.
The intention of anti-abortionists to impose their own religionist values on society is exactly the same as Islamists.
That one or the other may or may not recieve the blind eye from state officials is neither here nor there. Actually, you’re very wrong to suppose that the US has any right to lecture the world on due legal process and humane treatment of criminals; execution for crimes commited as minors, execution of mentally ill criminals, execution.
You’re assuming that your own government would never sanction the abuse of human rights and circumvent humane and due process for its own ends. Which organisation, for example, killed more Afghan citizens last year, the US government (via the proxy of the US armed forces) or the Taliban?
marilove, according to Wikipedia, 7 abortion doctors have been killed. Not 7 last week, which would be the total if, as you say, this happened EVERY SINGLE DAY, but 7 in total.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion-related_violence#Incidents_in_the_United_States
according to Wikipedia, 7 abortion doctors have been killed.
Phew! Well, that’s okay then.
Anyway, how’s that research coming on preventing Muslims from crossing the border illegally or faking paperwork?
>>>you’re very wrong to suppose that the US has any right to lecture the world on due legal process and humane treatment of criminals
I dont suppose this at all, you’d know if you’d read my posts, rather than assume.
the rest of the world has different ideas about morality and justice and legal process than we do. I get that loud and clear, its my overarching point, actually. I like ours better and dont want any of theirs. I know they dont want ours, and Im quite fine with that. Pull out of Afghanistan, pull out of Iraq, by all means.
Pull out of Afghanistan, pull out of Iraq, by all means.
But they’ll follow us home! Shouldn’t we finish building the walls along the border first? Safety first!
Tell that to the gynecologists who have closed down women’s health centers and those who fear to open up in particularly fundamentalists areas. Tell that to the abortion providers who hire guards to protect themselves and the women who use their services.
It is a good thing that the US is a relatively stable country. Imagine what those people would do if the US started to have the civil unrest that one finds in the Middle East.
I can’t believe that you want to get into a pissing contest about body counts! Is there some kind of acceptable threshold above which murder becomes unacceptable?
However, the threats of violence are every day, the intimidation of women is every day, the vandalism is every day.
Violence in thought and words can be as potent as the violence of a blade, bullet or bomb.
Doesn’t really reconcile with the fact that,
The US has a very poor record of effective and humane criminal justice, and can certainly claim to be one of the worst abusers of human rights in the west.
Why on earth would you want to highlight the fact that …in christian countries mob-murder is not a legitimate method of law enforcement…, if you weren’t claiming the moral superiority of your own legal system?
Do you just prefer some kinds of human rights abuses to others?
“marilove, according to Wikipedia, 7 abortion doctors have been killed. Not 7 last week, which would be the total if, as you say, this happened EVERY SINGLE DAY, but 7 in total.”
Whew! only seven actual human beings died at the hands of misogynistic psychos obsessed with imaginary babies.
Of course, this is just about the doctors who have been murdered, nevermind all the psyhos letting loose on clinics, staff, etc.
You’re clueless Matt, utterly clueless.
Bernard, #383: I can’t believe that you want to get into a pissing contest about body counts! Is there some kind of acceptable threshold above which murder becomes unacceptable?
I’ve always kind of wondered about that myself. I ask them about it whenever they go into the “atheists in history have killed hundreds of millions of people while Christians have only killed tens of millions” bit. What kind of moral calculus are they using when killing “only” a few million is a sign of being the good guys?
Oh come on, Janine, it’s not like we have Christian loon militias here that are pretty much waiting for that to happen, armed to the teeth…
Besides, only 3,000 people were killed on 9/11.
[Cartman]
What’s the big fucking deal, bitch?
[/Cartman]
Listen, an arrest by the Iraqi police doesn’t mean there is any truth behind the accusation. They have a confession? By what means did they get it? You shouldn’t abandon decent standards of evidence in your zeal against the ills of religiosity.
The kind that comes from a cult that believes that their great and benevolent god wiped out every living thing except the one guy who took his pets and family on a fishing trip.
I’m sure Dr. John Britton’s family will be relieved to hear that.
Not just a guy, a 600-year old wino.
“I’m sure Dr. John Britton’s family will be relieved to hear that.”
And Dr. Slepian’s family. hey, no worry kids. Your father was murdered in your kitchen while you slept upstairs by a homegrown Christian terrorist, but eh, he’s only one of seven. No bigs.
If we must insist on comparing body counts, it would help if someone could count the Iraqi and Afghan civilians our proudly Christian ex(!!!)-President has had killed after consulting “a higher Father” for permission to play International Godzilla.
Shit, I can’t believe I’m getting back into this thread. Another workday, down the tubes.
Oh, matt, you are clueless. That wasn’t the only type of violence I was talking about. Try again! And “only 7.” Really? Does it matter the number?
It is you all who see equivalent violence between Christian and Muslim culture, not I. Comparing body counts is one metric.
Lets look at another evil period in Christian history, the Inquisition.
Total number killed, between 1540 and 1700, according to Wikipedia. 1080. For all the flagellation Christianity gets around here some reason I thought it would be a little higher. Anyone else ever get that feeling? You’re right though, it wouldnt make any different if it was 10,800, or 1,108,000 dead. Sorry, I started judging and counting again. Must quit that. All religions are equally evil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_inquisition#Death_tolls
Hey Slut, you said
>>>It is a good thing that the US is a relatively stable country.
Indeed. Whats your theory on why this is?
Matt, I think you’ve gotten lost a little bit. Scroll up and read the original post again.
Anyway.
Your moral relativism is disgusting. You are a miserable excuse for a human being. But if it is numbers you want, how about World Wars I & II in Europe? Good Christians, one and all.
>>>It is a good thing that the US is a relatively stable country.
Indeed. Whats your theory on why this is?
Size and geographic location, for starters. How well do you think breaking away from England would have gone if it were next door?
Stu, #397: But if it is numbers you want, how about World Wars I & II in Europe?
Or the Thirty Years’ War. That one is a bit more relevant to the a discussion on the inherently peaceful nature of Christians.
I mean, let’s face it; if modern Western Christians are more “peaceful” than contemporary Mideastern Muslim, it’s because Western Christianity was dragged through the Enlightenment kicking and screaming, and when they lost that culture war they acquiesced and accepted and adopted the idea of liberal democracy to the point where they actually think that they invented it.
>>>Your moral relativism is disgusting
Im amused at your use of the word relativism from someone who cant judge beyond ‘all religions are equally evil.’ This word, relativism, it does not mean what you think it means.
WWI and II are not comparable here. Though carried out largely by Christian, they were not acts in the name of Christianity. Never said Christians weren’t warlike. The Holocaust one could argue was motivated by Christianity without stretching terribly, people certainly want to blame Hitlers supposed athesim. Personally I dont view it as Christian or Atheist motivated, but more tribal.
The Catholic church’s head in the sand over the Holocaust is a huge black mark, we can agree there I think.
>>>Size and geographic location, for starters.
Mexico is big. Has some nice oceans on both sides. Is it a more or less stable democracy than the U.S?
Argentina is big. “” “” “” “” “” “” “”?
“Hey Slut, you said”
Isn’t it fun when you can be a misogynist and maintain plausible deniability at the same time? (you know, she “calls” *herself* one, and that makes it okay. I won’t try to explain reclamation to you.)
Racist, misogynistic – almost a triple bigot score!
Hey Stu,
last night, I think it was Tony or Frog, said that the political structures to arise out of the muslim world were not really different. I found this risible and said so, and made mention of Iraq’s recent democratic progress. You hypervenilated, blood sugar dropped, your heart rate flatlined. Pictures of Chomsky spun on the wall in their frames. You needed evidence for this, and crawled back to the computer to ask for it. Then you posted
>>>From whom? No, really, FROM WHOM YOU LYING SACK OF SHIT?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123380162010450689.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
Im amused at your use of the word relativism from someone who cant judge beyond ‘all religions are equally evil.’ This word, relativism, it does not mean what you think it means.
Sweet Allah on a pogo stick, you are functionally retarded.
“a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them”
That would be you, Captain Clueless.
WWI and II are not comparable here. Though carried out largely by Christian, they were not acts in the name of Christianity.
Neither are quite a few of the examples of Muslims you were throwing around either carried out specifically in the name of Islam. Get it?
Mexico is big. Has some nice oceans on both sides. Is it a more or less stable democracy than the U.S?
I would say somewhat less. Odd, that… being good Christians and all.
Nice dodge though, not addressing my point about England at all. Another tacit admission you don’t understand the discussion.
>>>Neither are quite a few of the examples
which?
said that the political structures to arise out of the muslim world were not really different.
I found this risible and said so, and made mention of Iraq’s recent democratic progress.
You object to someone saying that the political structures are not really different, and you link to an article that says that they are not really different.
Color me confused. What, exactly, is your point? That you disagree with the WSJ?
And yes, I hyperventilated for a bit back there. Libertarian bigots are bad for my blood pressure, it seems.
Matt, #400: Though carried out largely by Christian, they were not acts in the name of Christianity.
Ah, so it’s not a problem if Christianity doesn’t necessarily lead to less violent behavior as long as it’s just not done in the name of Christianity? So when theists try to compare the violence committed by Christians to those committed by so-called atheists, can I point out that those atheists weren’t acting in the name of atheism?
Actually I won’t, because the whole point of the theists’ argument is that Christianity itself leads to less violent behavior, while atheism leads to moral relativism which leads to more violence. Which, as an argument, makes more sense (even if it isn’t sound) than saying, “it only counts if it is explicitly done in the name of Christianity.”
Stu, what do you think the word ‘remarkable’ refers too in that article if not the break with the political process in Iraq in the recent past?
Need I force feed you another wiki link?
Hint: Before this experiment in Democracy in Iraq was not another democracy. Even before the U.S. puppet dictator creation that existed before this democracy was not democracy. Thus, democracy in Iraq is remarkable.
Disclosure: Though i believe democracy in Iraq is preferable to dictatorship I still opposed the war at the outset and dont regret it.
Matt, #400: WWI and II are not comparable here. Though carried out largely by Christian, they were not acts in the name of Christianity.
Stu: Neither are quite a few of the examples of Muslims you were throwing around either carried out specifically in the name of Islam. Get it?
Actually, Stu, this is why I brought up the Thirty Years War. That one was as devastating, if not more, than the world wars, and it was pretty much carried out in the name of Christianity.
Matt, Israel and Chechnya for starters are really just territorial disputes. Sure, religion is used as an excuse and rallying cry — but if that qualifies, so does World War II.
Chiroptera,
good points all. My original point though, had nothing to do with war. Though people certainly do argue those points, it isnt mine, not today.
My point is that it is preferable today to live in a Christian dominated country than a Muslim one. Yes, we can line up war that occurred 400 years ago and beyond and compare them and try to say who is historically more violent. Not really interested in that today. Today, I believe life in muslim countries is more violent, more repressive, more economically deprived, more generally miserable than in Christian countries. I believe current muslim thought and culture contribute to this state of affairs a great deal. Yes, I possess a nuanced mind and could further list muslim countries more and less preferable to live in. Islam is not a monolith.
Whats fired people up about me, since you came late to the party, is my proposal we limit immigration from certain muslim countries as a reasonable alternative to the security kabuki airport steeplechase, citizen spying and endless military campaigns. I see my proposal as less intrusive and less violent than the latter. Offered it up here for debate and it didnt go over real well. You seem a reasonable man, what you think?
Stu, what do you think the word ‘remarkable’ refers too in that article if not the break with the political process in Iraq in the recent past?
You mean the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, directly caused and supported by the US? The only remarkable thing is that the US is actually pretending to want democracy this time around.
Chiroptera:
Actually, Stu, this is why I brought up the Thirty Years War.
I agree it’s a better example, but I didn’t want to steal it from ya.
Come to think of it, how about Manifest Destiny?
Sorry Stu, anticipated your knee jerk and pre-empted it with this
>>>Hint: Before this experiment in Democracy in Iraq was not another democracy. Even before the U.S. puppet dictator creation that existed before this democracy was not democracy. Thus, democracy in Iraq is remarkable.
i doubt you read it though as soon as the Saddam: American Puppet neuron fired in your brain.
Only to you Matt, only to you.
Hey Stu, justice, christian-equivalent of course, in a country with more democracy than America. (your words)
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1384906/death_by_stoning_in_iran.html
and some random Islamic on Christian violence, the death toll one shy of the total number of abortion doctor murders.
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/muslim.mob.kills.six.christians.in.ethiopia/8559.htm
Lets try the question another way, would ya rather be a Christian in a muslim country today, or a muslim in a Christian country today?
Lets try the question another way, would ya rather be a Christian in a muslim country today, or a muslim in a Christian country today?
Which ones?
If you are a Christian in Albania or Kosovo, you’re fine. You’ll have a bugger of a time finding a job with a living wage, because you are…living in Albania or Kosovo…but religious tension isn’t an issue. A Muslim in Serbia, however…now there’s another kettle of fish.
She looks like a composite image.
Alyson, marilove,
please read this. Its from Amnesty international. Reputable in your eyes, yes?
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/somalia-girl-stoned-was-child-13-20081031
The frightening part is that 1000 people stood by. Like to get Tony the psychiatrist in on this, the psycho-sexual is forte, but what is the mindset of those watchers? How many believed she deserved it?
Forget the murderers, would you like to take your chances with any of those 1000 as your neighbor?
Matt, you are wasting my time now.
I have one word for you: Nigeria.
You are an abject moron, and I am done with you.
Oh Stu, quit pretending, you love this stuff. You’d go to bed otherwise.
six words, then Nigeria, then a whole bunch more words. Hmmm, what ever does he mean? What do I know about Nigeria?
Its a majority muslim country, though not by much. Lots of fighting between C’s and M’s. I wouldnt wanna live there, as a C or an M.
I wonder if succinct, taciturn, Stuie means with that one strong word, and a few others, that since the C’s are every bit as violent as the M’s in one country, Nigeria, that this means C’s are as violent as M’s throughout the contemporary world? Tell ya what, merciful Christian flavored atheist that I am, screw calling it a draw Stuie, I’ll give you this one in the M’s favor. Next.
Matt, nice try. You’re a troll. You’ve gotten a rise out of me for days now, and for that, I am sure StormFront will give you a ribbon.
Other than that, you’re a moron.
Goodbye.
Which flavour of icecream would you like, Matt? Cow-shit, or Amoebic Dysentery? I believe they are the only ones…
And it’s not only women.
Apparently, the same tactic was used to manipulate young men. First they were raped, then shamed into believing a “sacrifice”, in the form of suicide bombing, was the only way to redeem their “honor”.
http://www.ennaharonline.com/en/news/173.html
Trust the fanatics, religious or others, to make the ugliest use possible of an already heavily repressive patriarcal, homophobic culture.
Not just a guy, a 600-year old wino. – Stu
Well there have been studies suggesting red wine contains substances that could slow ageing, but I’d no idea they were as effective as that!
Note to self: increase consumption of red wine to ten bottles/day.
That would be irresponsible, KG.
Note to self: increase size of daily bottle of wine to 4 gallons.
Matt and Stu, this is a rather pointless argument. The real division is not between Christianity and Islam; it’s between sane people and fundamentalists. It’s a difference in worldview. The former work to reconcile their religious beliefs with reality and common decency, with varying degrees of success; the latter reject reality and common decency and adhere instead to a literal reading of their religious beliefs. It doesn’t really matter which beliefs those are. It’s still an insane attitude.
That said, Islam is a younger religion than Christianity by about 400 years, and though I’m no expert on religious history, I’ve heard it said that Islam is going through the same stage in its history now that Christianity was going through back in the 1600s – that is to say, a multiplicity of fanatical sects and violent religious wars, and a dangerous tendency towards theocracy. That seems plausible to me.
The real division is not between Christianity and Islam; it’s between sane people and fundamentalists
Not to Matt it isn’t, because Christians fundamentalists are much saner.
At least I think that’s what his point was. It was rather difficult to make out from the vacuous braying.
Here’s FIVE faces of evil. And guess what? None of them are Muslim. How does that grab your ignorant racist asses?
Sam, this woman was called evil because she is evil. Not because she is from the middle east. If we were so racist, we would not care about the women she had raped, and using their shame, recruited them as suicide bombers.
Read up before you accuse people of being racist, you hasty idiot.