The first commenter is correct. It is impossible to have an intelligent discussion about this due to political correctness and multi-culturalism.
60 thoughts on “Thoughts On Islamism”
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The first commenter is correct. It is impossible to have an intelligent discussion about this due to political correctness and multi-culturalism.
Comments are closed.
It is a good comment. Until we are allowed to voice a grievance with Islam, and it be accepted as valid (rather then dismissed as racist); then we will get no where in negotiating with words.
I thought Salim (the author of the letter) was specifically contrasting Islam, a religion, with Islamism (a movement like communism). Leland, I think you’re ignoring this distinction. And while the first commenter doesn’t ignore the distinction, he or she seems to think it is just too hard to figure out who’s who, so the answer is to contain all Muslims. Wrong! The answer is to listen to what people have to say.
Compare the first commenter’s argument to this argument: Russian dissidents looked just like Russian communists, so the answer to Russian communism is contain all Russians. And by doing so, we would have deprived ourselves of people like Solzhenitsyn and ignored people like Sakharov (or for that matter, Boris Yeltsin).
My wife called and asked me to add the following for her: “It is too hard for her to tell the difference between a balding man who keeps his hair very short and a skinhead Nazi, so she wants them all contained!”
Shorter Bob-1: Shut up!
Shorter Bob-1 wife: High Speed Boxcars!
Is it political correctness gone mad to bother to distinguish between [white/black/muslim/christian/etc] supremacists and people who just look like the supremacists?
Also, in the first comment, notice the defense of police officers arresting young men for “driving while black”. Do you really want to praise that?
Uh Bobby….it’s likely that we can gather that Russian dissidents are in fact dissidents based upon their outspoken opinion and actions to thwart the spread of Russian communism. Not based upon how they are dressed or their haircut *eyeroll. Yet, oddly enough when it comes to the majority of Muslims their silence on violent Islamists and radical Islamism is deafening. And for every one Muslim dissident you do find there are a battalion of apologists and moral equivocators waiting in the wings.
Josh, well, the other part of the issue is this: there is no such thing as a thought crime. Screen for bombs, not for thoughts.
Before we can say what is Bad, we have to be able to say what is Good. We’ll have to have standards for judging Good and Bad. We’ll have to be able to discuss things like whether single-motherhood is a good idea, when diversity is a virtue and when it’s a vice, what role Christianity has in producing a nation worth living in, and the like. And then we’ll also have to discuss who is empowered to act on that knowledge, and what they can do.
You know, basically everything the Left has been working against for the last 100 years.
We don’t have an Islamism problem. We have a severe Gramiscian damage problem. Fix the latter and the Islamists will get sorted out pretty quick by the threat of unbridled Western power.
Like the TSA? How’s that working out?
There are such things as enemies.
Let’s Godwin ourselves. Pretend it’s 1940 some find German-American youth has a record of stating he likes Hitler, has posters of Hitler on his wall, hands out copies of Mein Kampf to anyone who looks even remotely interested, and has suggested in some forums he would be willing to volunteer for any “missions” in the US homeland. Do you wait until he actually has a bomb to lock him up?
No, you don’t. You identify the enemy and you take him out. You don’t wait until he has you in his sights just to be sure. That is madness.
Bob-1: Sure. And the next thing you are going to tell me is that the likelihood of a car driven by a white granny from the suburbs, and a car with a stereo system that can be heard three hundred yards away and driven by a young black man dripping in jewellery and wearing pants with the crutch somewhere around his knees, containing illegal drugs or guns is the same. Sure. Believe that? Then I have a nice bridge I’d like to sell you.
Similarly, the likelihood of a retired US General with the Medal of Honour and a young Middle Eastern Muslim in traditional dress, with a beard that ends somewhere around the middle of his chest, being a terrorist is about the same. If so – well, I’m glad you’re not in charge of the security anywhere that I go.
Not all Muslims are terrorists. However, some huge fraction of terrorists are Muslims. Not all criminals are black. However, a grossly disproportionate number are. In the USA, anyway, from what I hear.
“You can’t hate all of them. No matter what they think. That’s racism!”
THANK God our parents and / or grandparents didn’t follow that rule from, September 1st, 1939 to August 6th, 1945. And I’m PROUD to say that those of us who were Cold Warriors didn’t follow such idiocy afterward either!
Brock, the question equivalent to what the first commenter suggested is not whether a German-American who says he wants to volunteer for missions in the USA should be left alone. The equivalent question is whether all German-Americans should be left alone. In real life, generally they were, but Japanese-Americans were not, and that was an injustice.
Fletcher: Regardless of whether your statistics are correct or not, justice does not rest on statistics. In particular, I want young black American men to be able to dress however they want without interference from the police, and I want them to be able to travel freely without having to hear “stop and show me your papers” on all public streets, because I want this for all Americans. As for loud stereos, equal rights includes enforcement of local noise ordinances.
I obviously don’t know much about this, but I guess there were German-American internment camps too, and it looks like they also deprived patriotic Americans of their freedom: http://www.traces.org/germaninternees.html
Well I’m an individualist, I’ve always had difficultly in understanding all those on the left who’re for stereotyping so they can treat people collectively, Oh wait…
Leland, I think you’re ignoring this distinction.
I think you ignored anything I wrote, and just put out a strawman argument and beat the hell out of it. Nice work attacking the straw. Since you didn’t discuss anything I wrote, then I’ll do the same with your comments.
Heh, now that I look at it again, Rand’s original post works well for this comment thread.
Leland your entire comment was “It is a good comment. Until we are allowed to voice a grievance with Islam, and it be accepted as valid (rather then dismissed as racist); then we will get no where in negotiating with words.”
Salim made a distinction between Islamists and Muslims. Salim has a grievance with Islamists. The first commenter apparently understood the difference, but then made a series of blatantly racist comments about African Americans along the way to concluding that it was just too hard to tell the difference between an Islamist and a Muslim. You replied by saying that this was a good comment, and that we need to be able to make valid grievances about Islam. Not grievances about Islamists, just about Islam, lest we be considered racist.
Look, I suppose you *could* have some sort of religious grievance with Islam (eg “why oh why won’t they realize that Jesus is the Son of God, and not a Messenger of God”) but you gave no indication whatsoever that this was the sort of thing that you meant.
For a time German-Americans could not even speak German in church.
***
It is rather ironic that the people who are worried about Islamophobia seem to have no problem with the rampant Christianophobia on the left.
And how about the scorn directed at Catholic priests for child abuse while ignoring epidemic levels of abuse in public schools?
“It is a good comment. Until we are allowed to voice a grievance with Islam, and it be accepted as valid (rather then dismissed as racist); then we will get no where in negotiating with words.”
The reason why you’re often dismissed is in your own sentence. Which is your assumption that you’re grievance must be valid, has it ever occurred to you that what you think is just an opinion? Your assumption of the righteousness of your view mirrors the Islamists, who also think their opinions are God given facts.
“The first commenter is correct. It is impossible to have an intelligent discussion about this due to political correctness and multi-culturalism.”
That is sort of like, “impossible to play chess because in three moves that guy [those guys] checkmates me”
Nothing really prevents intelligent discussion other then the lack of intelligence.
I do agree that political correctness and it’s spawn, multicultralism, can be appear to be a hindrance in any significant political discourse. But one could also wonder if these were to be lacking whether or not some other idiocy would “fill the vacuum”.
But instead let’s assume they was “intelligent discussion”, would this actually have any good effect. No doubt it would be more comforting and entertaining. But the simple fact is you have idiots doing some very evil [unholy] acts in the name of a religion. These creatures can’t be affected by any form of sound reasoning. Nor does it seem that the larger number of people who enabling and supportive- or simply not stopping this evil- are going any more receptive or engaged in any kind of intelligent discussion.
No doubt that if “arab society” was more intelligent, they wouldn’t have as much of problem with “breeding terrorists”. But having a more intelligent society has many other good things other than a shortage of manics. We haven’t needed the threat of terrorists to know that this is something desirable.
We should look at “arab society” as possible direction that “western civilization” is headed. Or have already heading towards.
The idea that the future could only get better, is mostly wishful “progressive” thinking.
Or slightly different way to say this, “arab society” is “normal” and we are at the moment, abnormal.
The major factor of “western civilization” is technology- and technology can summed up as a better way to do things cheaper.
And as is clearly evident, politicians are quite capable squandering wealth.
And not only can politicians squander vast amounts of wealth per second, they also seem of late, to doing better at preventing technology from being developed.
Good people can have racist views because that’s how the brain works, with abstraction and generalization because no brain is big enough to deal with every detail. Not all of any group of people will fit the categories our brain puts them in, but the reason our brain puts them into categories in the first place is because it mostly works (and leads to spectacular cases where it doesn’t.)
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team had to deal with racism. The reality was that these were good loyal Americans that had families in American internment camps.
How did they respond? The 442nd was a self-sufficient fighting force, and fought with uncommon distinction in Italy, southern France, and Germany. The unit became the most highly decorated regiment in the history of the United States armed forces, including 21 Medal of Honor recipients. The motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was “Go for broke.”
Again, we are at war. Except this war has been going on since before the very founding of this country. Where is the muslim 442?
Since Islam is not America’s enemy
Where is the evidence? Because the evidence that Islam is the enemy of everybody can be shown from it’s founding to multiple examples in every recent year. In particular it can be shown from our founding which makes Obama taqiyya regarding our early presidents association with muslims particularly evil. The marines know it going as far back as from the shores of Tripoli.
Nobody has any control of their birth. There hearts can be inclined to good or evil regardless of their parents or country. Call me a racist and I’ll call you an idiot because my life and actions and even my words show that I’m am not. But then, my religious beliefs do not include taqiyya. Proven examples of taqiyya exist in this country and probably occurs with such frequency that our small brains can’t grasp the reality of it. Proven users of taqiyya are in our government telling our military how to fight the islamic threat. Taxpayers are forced to pay terrorist organizations during a time when spending is out of control (and come to think of it, there is no better example of out of control spending.)
This isn’t a hot war or a cold war. This is a snake slowly eating what’s left of America. America [n multiculturalism replacing the melting pot] is helping.
Ken said: “Good people can have racist views because…”
We instinctively categorize everything we are aware of, that means everything that we know about through our five senses, that’s not a human instinct, it’s an instinct as old as life. This instinct is one of our most crucial defence mechanisms, a gazelle that doesn’t assume all lions prey on gazelle won’t live long. Smart Humans understand though that in the human world things can be a little more complicated than that, that your senses are limited in their ability to read minds, or tell if there is malice in a persons heart.
“Where is the muslim 442?”
I think those that control such things in America may have decided that having military units selected on the basis of race or religion is out of fashion, if you’re asking why does America have no Muslim allies, you’re nuts.
“my religious beliefs do not include taqiyya.”
I don’t see that taqivva (the acceptance by Islam that it’s OK for a Muslim to conceal his faith if revealing it would put him in danger) is an issue, I wouldn’t have a problem with Jews in WW2 Germans pretending they weren’t Jews, I don’t have a problem with Gay people pretending they’re straight if that’s necessary for their safety, I don’t even mind that Galileo pretended to accept the Churches interpretation of how the planets and sun moved about Earth when the Church threatened him for advocating the Copernican model of the solar system. Sorry, what was your point again?
Presumably Ken, you’re unaware that in the vast majority of countries there are both Christian and Muslims living together peacefully? Even in Libya and the USA.
The reason why you’re often dismissed is in your own sentence.
Who the hell are you? I never seen you comment here before and you are saying I’m often dismissed? Talk about your thoughts being your opinion. Doctor, heal yourself!
“Who the hell are you? I never seen you comment here before and you are saying I’m often dismissed?”
Maybe Bob-1 got all his relatives to comment here.
Leland,
Contrary to Andrea’s comic speculations, I don’t know who Andrew is, but I think I can answer your question about his comment. You said “Until we are allowed to voice a grievance with Islam, and it be accepted as valid (rather then dismissed as racist)”, and Andrew explained why you’re often dismissed (as racist). Get it now? You yourself said you were dismissed.
“Get it now? You yourself said you were dismissed.
Exactly.
“Doctor, heal yourself!”
Given your memory problems…
The comments seen in this response thread are proof that the premise is correct.
One society cannot have two cultures. One will eventually come to dominate. We threw away our Christian culture in the West and replaced it with Cartesian materialism. This has failed (proof: sub-replacement birth rates = cultural failure). This spiritual vacuum has sucked in Islam. Islam will come to dominate in the West, since compared to Cartestian materialism it is a success (proof: replacement-level birthrates = cultural success).
The only way to save the West is to reject Cartesian materialism (and all it implies, from “the Rights of Man” to democracy) and restore Christian culture and the social order it created in the West (Christendom).
But we won’t. Because to do so means we have to admit that we are not self-perfectible, autonomous entities with the right to define good and evil in our own terms. It means we would have to bow down before the Almighty again and throw ourselves upon His mercy.
And that is one thing our pride will never, never, never permit.
And that’s why we’re boned. Sic transit gloria mundi.
To Leland, Andrew W says:
“The reason why you’re often dismissed is in your own sentence. Which is your assumption that you’re grievance must be valid, has it ever occurred to you that what you think is just an opinion?”
That women in Islamic countries are treated as non-persons under the law, that they are sexually mutilated, humiliatingly segregated during worship, forced to wear clothing that blots out identity, allowed to leave their homes only in the company of male relatives, prohibited from working or driving, forced into arranged marriages, stoned to death or murdered in honor killings (yes, even here in the U.S.) for fictitious moral lapses which are applauded if actually committed by muslim males?
These are a few of the grievances of women. The men here could address a multitude of more serious, non-gender-specific grievances if they chose. But do tell us the color of the rock you live beneath, if you honestly think the practices I’ve listed are simply a matter of someone’s opinion.
Andrew, that wikipedia definition of taqiyya is ironically a good example. I reply on my blog.
danae, If Leland is a Muslim woman who has found herself subjected to what you describe and is aggrieved by that, I certainly do have empathy for her and can’t deny her suffering.
If however she’s a Christian American middle aged man, she has probably not been subjected to what you describe and so cannot have a grievance for being subjected to such things.
Now, I’ve a pretty low opinion of religions, why people subject themselves to the exploitation they suffer under Christianity or Islam I guess can only be attributed to the need to fit in, or just the usual sheeple part of human nature, or for fear of being burnt as heretics. Obviously much of Islamic society has not seen the “progressive” changes that Christianity has seen over recent decades, even centuries, but if you believe that most Muslim women live in constant fear of their menfolk, that any minute they could be hauled out and stoned to death, you’ve got no idea what you’re on about. The cultural variations across the Islamic world are enormous, and to most Muslim women your suggestion that they are slaves to their husbands would be insulting.
Regarding FGM, this practice predates Islam and isn’t mentioned in the Quran, It’s more a cultural practice to do with the chastity of young females, an attempt to reduce their libedo, historically Christian cultures have also battled with the issue of female premarital sex and the dishonour it brought to the family, pregnancies bring kept secret with the baby adopted out hopefully without the community discovering this shameful secret, both are practices I don’t condone, both have or will decline with changing social morals and customs.
If you want to believe Islam is somehow evil, fine, but remember that Christians were also accepting of many of these evil practices in their own houses not so long ago.
Andrew W Says:
“Presumably Ken, you’re unaware that in the vast majority of countries there are both Christian and Muslims living together peacefully? Even in Libya and the USA.”
Most countries with a muslim majority have an oppressed christian minority if they even let christians live there at all. Any country where the two religions live side by side in peace is not likely to be a muslim majority country.
“Now, I’ve a pretty low opinion of religions”
Should we dismiss your comments now? Is anyone else allowed to have an opinion?
“If you want to believe Islam is somehow evil, fine, but remember that Christians were also accepting of many of these evil practices in their own houses not so long ago.”
It is interesting that you could not defend islam without bashing christians but you don’t want to allow people to say anything negative about islam. You want to point out all of the bad things christians have done throughout history but seem unwilling to recognize the bad things muslims are doing in the present.
I’ve pointed the following out here many many times, so I’ll keep it very brief; not all Muslim countries are alike, and not all regions within Muslim countries are alike.
I’m not an expert on Islam but my understanding is that Islam is all-too-often used as an excuse for misogny, but misogny isn’t a requirement of Islam. Contrast the status of women in Saudi Arabia with such places as Senegal, Indonesia, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Morroco, and, oddly, even the West Bank.
See also: http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-307/i.html to hear what proponents of Feminist Islam have to say.
This will appeal to all sides, I think:
http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-307/_nr-19/_p-1/i.html
Oh Bob you are SO full of crap I’m surprised you can see the keyboard. YOU are EXACTLY what the 1st commenter was talking about. Everyone with a dissenting (from you) point of view is a racist, homophobe, misogynist, etcetera… Now you are welcome to your point of view. It is important though, that you never get to be in charge.
That’s a rather depressing thought: totalitarian theocracy is the only way to survive. Ironically, even if I believed that to be true, it would be necessary to convince myself otherwise just to make it from day to day. (Perhaps genocide against those who lack the authoritarian gene would be best for the culture, that way they won’t poison the gene pool with their reason and independence: a final solution?)
@Andrew W:
To quote Bones, in The Voyage Home, “You mean I have to DIE to discuss your insights on DEATH?”
I am not a canine, so I can’t have a grievance with people who raise and train dogs specifically for dog fighting? I’ve never been murdered, so I can’t have a grievance with serial killers?
To tie it back to a subject from earlier in the discussion, using your logic, because my family is not of Japanese descent, they would not have been allowed to protest internment camps and the poor treatment of Japanese people in the U.S. during and after World War II?
Pastor Niemoller must roll in his grave every time someone reads and agrees with your sentiment…
Bob-1: I’d like people to be able to dress the way they like, too. However, that is completely irrelevant to what I said. The likelihood of a white middle-class granny carrying illegal drugs or guns, while not zero, is a hell of a lot lower than that of a young black man as I described doing the same. Police forces have limited resources; so one might think they ought to be concentrated on people most likely to be criminals.
The undoubted fact that hip-hop dressers who aren’t gangsters are more likely to be stopped by police than are the aforementioned granny is not the fault of the police; it’s the fault of the young black men dressed like that who are gangsters.
Bill Maron, did you even read the first comment on Rand’s link? That’s what I’m calling racist — the idea that the police stopping someone for driving while black is ok. Do you think it is ok? Did you even read Danae’s comment? Danae is overgeneralizing to all Muslims, but of course the activities Danae describes are mysogynistic. Do you think they aren’t?
B Lewis, if I pretend all of your assumptions and beliefs are true , I think you are still putting too much emphasis on birth rates. What about a culture that is so attractive, it creates converts? Converts can either immigrate to you, or can stay at home and be a helpful influence. Either way, given that we know prosperity lowers birth rates, I think cultural conversion rates should be an important measure of success (given your worldview).
Islam is somehow evil
Muslims are not evil, just people like everybody else. Islam is evil, the somehow is the intent of the ideology. To ignore that is a perversion of truth.
I don’t confuse muslim with islam as some do.
Bob-1 will never, ever give up his moral-equivalency-colored glasses. His entire worldview has obviously bound up so long in that belief that giving it up now would probably be a personality death from which he could not recover. He has successfully destroyed every survival instinct that would warn him his rosy We Are The World notions are only safe to hold as long as he never leaves the comfort of his community. Too many people like this roam the earth, always falling in its many holes and traps and expecting to be rescued by the forces of reality that they hate. Once rescued they forget their benefactors (because they feel entitled to protection the way babies feel entitled to the breast) and toddle off once again spouting their nonsense, usually right into another hornet’s next whose stings they refused to see.
Uh no, it is perfectly acceptable for one culture to judge another culture from a morally neutral position. There are any number of sound practical reasons that one can judge Muslims and their treatment of women.
Muslims are supposed to do what is plainly spelled out for them to do in the Koran. Any similar grievous acts committed by Christians stem from interpretations of The Bible by men. A number of great reformations have taken place in the Christian religion and we have long ago shed many barbaric acts from our faith that only serve to strip people of their dignity and humanity. However, if a Muslim tries to apply his own interpretation of the Koran then he labeled a hypocrite of which the punishment is instant damnation to hell (and I’d wager that an Iman would order a hypocrite be sent to hell post haste). Islam is only in so much a religion of peace in that peace will reign when Islam controls all. Once every appropriately labeled group of people are properly pigeon hold into their respective place in society then a balance will be achieved. This reign of harmony under Allah needs no interpretation; there is no picking and choosing which parts of the Koran you want to follow. It is all clearly laid out and one is just supposed to read it, understand it, and follow it. Furthermore, Islam is one thing that Christianity most certainly is not: a political doctrine. Islam is about political and social control first and foremost. The salvation of the individual’s soul is of secondary concern.
@Titus Quinn re totalitarian theocracy is the only way to survive
With respect, your knowledge of history is suspect. Christendom was never a totalitarian theocracy, nor anything resembling one. It was an integrated, functional society based upon the Christian religion, Greek philosophy, and Roman statute and custom. It was flawed and dysfunctional in many ways, but it produced the greatest minds and the most general state of contentment that humankind has ever known. Christendom lasted for a thousand years against all comers, and it may yet live again.
The City of Man which we have constructed since Bacon and Descartes is, by contrast, collapsing on every front, from metaphysics to aesthetics.
Christendom is the only social structure ever known that has proved capable of resisting and turning back the Islamic jihad. By contrast, our current society is a moral and philosophical vacuum that is drawing the jihad like a pump drawing water from a well. The West will survive as a Christian culture, or not at all.
Wow, so arresting men of science doesn’t even resemble totalitarianism? Pray, tell, what does it resemble? It cannot be a “flaw”, for a flaw is when something does not work as intented — this, the preservation of memetic purity — is your objective. Feature, not a bug. You should be proud.
Or are you trying to have it both ways? You want a society where there’s no thought control; people just happen to choose to think as you do? And if not…well, we don’t think about that too hard because it never happens! /pixiedust
By your own admission, pure evangelism is a failure. Proof is the world around us.
I’m saying decadent Hollywood and awesome google/facebook wins more converts than Islam or Christianity. Much as I might like Chicago to be the center of the universe via the blessed Obama, I have to admit that California’s culture rules the world!
@Titus Quinn: Wow, so arresting men of science doesn’t even resemble totalitarianism? Pray, tell, what does it resemble?
Order.
With respect, your knowledge of what constitutes totalitarianism is weak. Every social order, our own included, has a power structure, and every power structure, our own included, acts to curtail those beliefs, thoughts and activities that might tend to disrupt the social order. No curtailment = decrease in order -> the eventual collapse the society.
As our current chaotic social situation so clearly attests.
I respectfully suggest you review the basic historical facts of Western society prior to the so-called enlightenment, contrasting these with the definition and history of the total state — which is entirely the creation of the modern, post-Christian, post-“enlightenment” West. You will find that the average “oppressed” peasant farmer in the Bad Old Days was far more free than is the most “liberated” man today, and that the rulers of our modern-day republics (including those who run the good old U.S. of A) have far more power to intrude into the personal, quotidian lives of “free” men than the most iron-fisted Christian prince of the Medieval era could have dreamed.
My point remains: Christendom is the only social order that can be historically demonstrated to be capable of stopping and reversing Jihad.
Mr. Lewis, I admire your honesty.
Mr. Quinn: Thank you. I admire your sense of humor and your dedication to the search for the truth, no matter how unpalatable the truth may turn out to be.
Despite our disagreements on various issues, I always enjoy reading what you write here. Thank you for your comments.
From Andrew W, regarding “FGM”
“Christian cultures have also battled with the issue of female premarital sex and the dishonour it brought to the family, pregnancies bring kept secret with the baby adopted out hopefully without the community discovering this shameful secret…”
If you equate female genital mutilation with the gestation, birth, and subsequent adoption of babies taking place out of view of the community, you possess scant understanding of what it means to be humane.
“Get it now? You yourself said you were dismissed.
Except I didn’t say that and certainly didn’t say it in the general sense. If Andrew is trying to claim I’m often dismissed by the parameters defined, then Bob and Andrew are arguing that I’m always racist. Instead, Andrew claimed that I always assume more points are valid, which I never said.
The irony here is Bob did exactly what the first commenter at the link said. He dismissed my comment on multicultural grounds. Bob claimed I didn’t consider the nuance of Islam. And so, we’ve spent the entire discussion not having an intelligent discussion about Islam, but rather a strawman burning party. In other words, another comment thread in which Bob participated.