Saturday, August 12, 2017

Racists and cars

The news from Charlottesville that a racist had plowed his car into a crowd of peaceful protesters reminded me of how far we have not come.

Witnesses said a crowd of counterdemonstrators, jubilant because the white nationalists had left, was moving up Fourth Street, near the mall, when a gray sports car came down the road and accelerated, mowing down several people and hurling at least two in the air.
Not quite 50 years ago, Tricia and I drove out to the hospital in Raleigh, N.C., to get syphilis tests in order to get a marriage license. We were to be married in10 days.

It was the day after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Tennessee. Driving back through downtown, in a light rain, we encountered a march coming up the 4-lane road the other way, preceded by a couple of motorcycle cops and trailed by a squad car. The silent crowd, maybe a thousand or so, was, as far as I could see, all black, probably students from St. Augustine and Shaw universities, the two black colleges in town. On the front rank, the marchers carried a banner on a horizontal pole. I do not recall what it said.

 I had marched with Shaw and St. Aug students, for integration, before, but I was not aware of a march that day. I wouldn't have joined anyway since I was preoccupied with marriage.

The cars and trucks going my way came to a halt, probably at police direction, though I couldn't see that far ahead. We'd been halted for five minutes or so, and the head of the march had just passed my Saab 96 when a lifted Chevelle with big rear tires came roaring up from behind the marchers, pulled over in front of the crowd, then reversed with tires screeching into the crowd.

The marchers scattered. Unlike in Charlottesville, no one was hit (as far as I could tell) and I did not see how the police reacted. I was distracted.

As the marchers ran in all directions, many came past the line of stopped cars. One, who had a furled umbrella, smashed the windshield of the pickup truck stopped just in front of me. Another leaned in my open window and spat in my face.

As I was wiping my face I saw the two men in the pickup get out of the cab and pull a shotgun from behind the seat. They got back in the truck and the stopped cars began moving away from the commotion.

As soon as I reached a cross street, I pulled over and found a pay phone. I called the police to report two angry men with a shotgun and gave the plate number.

And then we drove home.

The Charlottesville driver wouldn't know that story, but I don't think he was imitating the Muslim assailants who have driven cars and trucks into crowds in France, England and elsewhere. I'd guess he was letting his redneck juices flow naturally.

Today would have been a good day for Whiny Baby Donald to have put some distance between himself and nazis. He didn't. His kind of people.

UPDATE SUNDAY

Saturday I heard part of an interview  with the deputy mayor of Charlottsville in which he noted that despite the presence of Mr. Jefferson's university, the city has had a long history of aniblack racism and violence. It took part in Massive Resistance to the Supreme Court's order to desegregate public  schools, for example.

He did not go back further than that. His remarks reminded me of an incident related to me by the professor in my college senior seminar, who was a graduate student at UVA when its grad school was integrated in, as I recall, 1951. (The first cracks in southern antiblack hatred came in the grad schools of public universities in several states.)

The grandfathers of the same nazis who came to Charlottesville this week came then, too, and tried to burn down the school.

The state police were called out in force and stayed on the campus for quite a while, though I don't believe they were able to identify the arsonists.

Today the New York Times has a story alleging, with entire credibility, that Trump was urged to condemn nazism and refused. The reason, clearly, is that he doesn't see anything wrong with antiblack racism (or antisemitism, either, for that matter). The proof, like the dog that did not bark in the night, is not what WBD said or failed to say but in what he failed to do.

Recall how many times he has offered/threatened to send federal help to Chicago to help deal wth its violence.

No such offer was made to Charlottesville.

60 comments:

  1. If the crowd had been right wing, and the driver left wing, you'd be jumping on the mental illness bandwagon like flies on merde.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Leave. I quit Good Guys because of your and erp's racism and fascism. I didn't say anything, and I debated whether to ask you to leave RtO. I did not/do not want to disinvite anyone here.

    Whether they contribute or not, whether they endorse my opinions or not.

    But I've had it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, I just commented on Bret's last post at GG a minute ago. His post was not at all related to this Charlottesville matter, but my answer took it in account.

    Racist crazies always existed and did their things. The Charlottesville driver had, as reported on news, problems of mental illness. I am not the least surprised.

    What calls my attention are the reactions. As exemplified by Skipper and you above, Harry, the 'normal people' out there are also getting a bit ill by all they are watching and being part of.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have read the Times and Post profiles of the driver; neither suggested any mental illness. Perhaps some other sources have more information.

    At least, I suppose, the fact that the marchers were carrying Confederate flags, swastikas and Trump badges should end any debate whether Trump himself is a neo-nazi.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have just read your comment and Bret's reply (but not Bret's original post). Indeed, societies do suffer mass nervous breakdowns; the dancing manias of the Middle Ages supply examples.

    I think America is in the midst of one now. But unevenly distributed. There is no leftwing correlate for Alex Jones, who has the attention of the president; nor, when Obama was president, was there one then.

    Even the supposedly less off-their-rockers rightwingers are (or say they are) in the grips of delusions, such as that Christians are being discriminated against. (They are, but only by other Christians; I will have more to say about that in a future post.)

    I cannot think of a like delusion on the left; for example the craze for safe zones in classrooms is immature but not delusional.

    I think Gustave Le Bon is relevant here. Interestingly, there was a period when he was regarded by some on the let as a fascist.

    ReplyDelete
  6. [Harry:] I quit Good Guys because of your and erp's racism and fascism.

    Liar.

    Unless, of course, you can directly quote either of us saying such things. In which case I will profusely apologize.

    Except I know you can't, so I feel quite safe, and justified, in calling you a liar.

    I have read the Times and Post profiles of the driver; neither suggested any mental illness. Perhaps some other sources have more information.

    Suspect in Charlottesville Attack Had Displayed Troubling Behavior

    [Hey Skipper:] If the crowd had been right wing, and the driver left wing, you'd be jumping on the mental illness bandwagon like flies on merde.

    The point of my comment, which should have been clear enough, is that the broad projection of an isolated incident upon a much broader group of people and beliefs serves as a cudgel to first demonize, then ostracize, those with different opinions.

    Recently, James Hodgkinson, a left-wing activist shot a Republican baseball practice. It would have been utterly dishonest to blame by association that shooting upon progressives in general; the guy had been standing for along time right at the edge of sanity, and then took that last step.

    Just so here. You deplore the term alt-right, because the "correct term" is neoNazis. Yet the term is in wide use by the MSM to define a great many people who clearly are no more neoNazi than you are, as a means to demonize by invented association people who really are neoNazis, with not very much neo about them.

    Which makes "I'd guess he was letting his redneck juices flow naturally." particularly odious, and as nearly as good an example of racist think as that emanating from the Nazi wannabes in Charlottesville. (Indeed, I will have to remember this next time you call someone a racist.)

    Distinctions are important. A mentally ill virulent racist is not emblematic of the alt-Right in the contemporary sense of the term, or the southern working class, any more than Hodgkinson was of leftism. And the neoNazis are no more emblematic of conservatives than the Antifa are of progressives.

    I cannot think of a like delusion on the left; for example the craze for safe zones in classrooms is immature but not delusional.

    Black Lives Matter.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Harry,

    I don't remember where I've seen it, but Skipper's link is incomplete - it does not mention the driver used to take psychiatric medication (one of the reasons, apparently, for him being unable to stay in the Army), or that he assaulted his paraplegic mother multiple times. I guess he was that borderline kind that would slip through the cracks in any place.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Skipper, you are not welcome here any more. I said leave and I meant leave.

    Clovis, that Times profile has been revised a little since I read it. I still don't see anything about psychiatric medication, which in the US can mean Xanax. Most of the people I interact with every day are on mind-altering medication. (A subject, perhaps, for another day.)

    Fields seems to have been socially awkward but that is not commonly held to justify violence.So far as I have seen, he never was violent before, unless the business about assaulting his mother is accurate.

    His interest in a movement that glorifies violence is the thing. There has to be a first time.

    Skipper's characterization of Hodgkinson as a leftist is typical. I examined the reporting carefully, and suspected left political intent, since he attacked Republicans, But as far as I have read, his political interest was antitax, hardly left in itself.



    ReplyDelete
  9. I wish to say that I regret 86'ing Skipper.I have known him as long as anyone I know on the Internet, and in the earlier years he was an interesting and decent person. Something strange has happened to him; Christianity by the looks of it.

    If readers here wish to argue that naziism was worse than communism, or vice versa, fine, have at it. But I do not write RtO as a place to excuse nazism.

    My father set out to fight fascism before Pearl Harbor. Once, when my sister said to him that the choice was simple,he said, no it wasn't. Too many Americans in the '30s were confused.

    At the time, we may say, such confusion was not only explicable but almost justifiable. We know a lot more now.

    ReplyDelete
  10. OK I see a new Post story based on the preliminary hearing that Fields attacked his mother. Threatened to use a knife.

    Nothing about psychiatric problems, though.

    He sounds like an impulsive.

    ReplyDelete
  11. [Harry:] Skipper, you are not welcome here any more. I said leave and I meant leave.

    Harry, when I made a simple request of you, to stop inventing what I said, but rather quote me directly — the same courtesy I unfailingly extend to you — did you? No.

    When I asked that you stop with your baseless denunciations, did you? No.

    When I asked that source your endless pronunciamentos, did you? No.

    So I am not inclined to acquiesce to your request.

    Of course, you can just delete this. But when I mistakenly thought that was the way to go in the face of your grotesque inventions, Bret thought otherwise. He was right. Far better to leave things out in the open, so everyone knows what is going on.

    [Harry:] I quit Good Guys because of your and erp's racism and fascism.

    Prove it. By all means, quote me or erp directly to demonstrate our racism and fascism. Since you haven't — and I knew you couldn't — that makes you a liar.

    You should be asking yourself to leave.

    ReplyDelete
  12. OK I see a new Post story based on the preliminary hearing that Fields attacked his mother. Threatened to use a knife.

    Nothing about psychiatric problems, though.

    He sounds like an impulsive.


    That was worth a spit take.

    But as far as I have read, [Hodgkins] political interest was antitax, hardly left in itself.

    Again without any sources. Let me help:

    So anti-tax that he is pictured holding a sign saying "Tax the Rich". He cited the Rachel Maddow show as one of his favorite programs. He was a supporter of Bernie Sanders. An acquaintance who campaigned with Hodgkinson said "He was more on the really progressive side of things.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I like to think that at my age I am beyond being surprised, but that isn't so. I am surprised.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Skipper,

    From your own last link:

    "Jennings, meanwhile, was a member of the Chester County Republican Committee, though it is not thought their beliefs were directly responsible for the shooting."

    ReplyDelete
  15. Harry,

    Well, it is your blog, as Skipper's entries in GG are his, and you guys are completely free to kick each other out if you so wish.

    But I think you both could do better than that. Get back to civil discourse, and try to remember everyone is wrong sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Will Rogers said, we are all ignorant, only on different subjects.

    I'd add, on some subjects, you have to work very hard to stay ignorant.

    ReplyDelete
  17. [Clovis:] But I think you both could do better than that. Get back to civil discourse, and try to remember everyone is wrong sometimes.

    Let's be clear what's going on here:

    [Harry:] I quit Good Guys because of your and erp's racism and fascism.

    I take it everyone can agree that you are completely wrong on this — that there is absolutely no evidence, nothing that I or erp have said or done, that gets anywhere close to that disgusting slur.

    Now, back to the point.

    As a factual matter, the thoroughly loathsome white supremacists were just as much to blame for the violence as antifa. White supremacists came hoping for a fight, and antifa gave it to them.

    Also, as a factual matter, antifa violence is grossly under reported.

    While we are on factual matters, this whole left-right distinction is just a hat rack for lazy journalists. It is a distinction that means nothing, but which lazy journalists (I know, I'm repeating myself again again) use to tar one group of people, conservatives, with the sins of another group, white supremacists, despite having nothing in common.

    Yes, I know, this is where Harry trots out that tired old nag that conservatism is just racism redux.

    That is lazy nonsense. No group, other than blacks, gets to escape the all pervading sin of racism. Smug liberals were perfectly happy with housing covenants and redlining. Progressive President Wilson was all in on racism and eugenics. Pretending that people of today are guilty of their predecessors crimes is disgusting.

    Contemporary conservatives are indistinguishable from classic liberals: individualism, equality before the law, small government, balanced budgets.

    What is very difficult to distinguish is the gap between white supremacists and antifa. Both are collectivist and totalitarian. And it is very much an open question as to which would be the most horrible to live under.

    However, what isn't in question is that communist organizations provided much of antifa's manpower.

    I am astonished they get a pass.

    Finally, also as a factual matter is this: the Nazi spectre is so awful that no matter how thoroughly awful antifa is, or how much some people may take non-racist pride in their heritage, it just doesn't matter.

    Especially if you are the president.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Skipper,

    You underestimate the limitations imposed by our communication channels here.

    I don't think Erp is racist, but only because I met her in person. My interactions online with her in past, many times, gave me the impression of someone with racial prejudices on the other side.


    I don't remember having similar impression about you in terms of race, but you are demonstrably prejudiced against Muslims.
    And no, I don't need to show you a link for that one, you just go back and read anything you ever wrote on the topic.


    As for Harry, he is demonstrably prejudiced against Christians, as thie very comment's thread shows.

    So what? I think you are both very interesting persons, and I take pleasure at discussing with you guys. In the end of the day, I learn a bit here and there too.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Skipper,

    ---
    As a factual matter, the thoroughly loathsome white supremacists were just as much to blame for the violence as antifa. White supremacists came hoping for a fight, and antifa gave it to them.
    ---

    You say it like it is a bad thing.

    I hope you are not falling for the false 'free speech defense' here.

    Free speech means the government doesn't get to dictate what you can express, and what you can not.

    It does not mean that your fellow citizens need to sit over their hands while you tell whatever you wish on their face.

    If far too many people thought the Nazi speech and behavior was unacceptable and offensive, and they felt threatened, have they the right of self-defense?


    It has been argued the blame should be placed on the police, that allowed the two groups to interact, and that may well be right. But to argue both sides were equivalent, like you and Mr. Trump look to believe (quote: "What is very difficult to distinguish is the gap between white supremacists and antifa.") is a fool's errand.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I have not seen anyone else mention it, Clovis, but Trump justified his delay in denouncing neonazis because he needed to get all the facts, but he did not delay in judging that many fine people were among the nazis.

    How did he know that?

    Ockham says he's a nazi.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Harry,

    Even in Nazi Germany it was not so easy to differentiate between a true Nazi and an opportunist.

    Yet my take is that Trump is a true opportunist.

    ReplyDelete
  22. [Clovis:] I don't remember having similar impression about you in terms of race, but you are demonstrably prejudiced against Muslims.

    I swear I have said this before, but perhaps you missed it. I explicitly distinguish between Islam and Muslims. For me to be demonstrably prejudiced against Muslims means I would have had to clearly attributed characteristics of Islamists (those with a very literal belief in Islam) to Muslims as a whole.

    I have never done any such thing.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Clovis, here's why it is important to quote people directly. For argument's sake, assume I said this:

    Arabs are incapable of democracy.

    If I had said such a thing, it is hard to imagine a context where that doesn't fit the dictionary definition of racism.

    But there are plenty of things I might have said that had nothing to do with race, and factual claims about religion, or about a religion's believers, can't possibly -- the the extent they are factual -- be prejudiced.

    The difference is important.

    Without specifics, I can't possibly know if I was blatantly racist, wrote badly, or made a valid conclusion that you read badly.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Clovis, this makes my point perfectly.

    A "civil rights" organization has made itself the arbiter over who is hateful, and who is nice. And in their infinite stupidity (although it is impossible to rule out cupidity), they have labeled Ms. Ali as an anti-muslim extremist.

    Despite (and I have read many things she has written, including Infidel Ms. Ali having made herself perfectly clear on the distinction between Islam and muslims.

    Read the comments, and marvel at the people who are willing to label her an extremist, all the while demonstrating they can't tell chalk from cheese.

    It is important to quote people directly. That makes it necessary to defend your position, rather than inventing something someone else has to defend.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Skipper,

    Pray tell me, were you in favor of that Trump's ban on countries of Muslim majorities?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Clovis, google [pew surveys muslim middle east attitudes].

    Then explain to me why, when we excluded avowed communists, we should be obligated to allow pious Muslims, considering that Islam is an inherently violent, supremacist religion, with much of that emanating from the Quran.

    Also, from above:

    Clovis, here's why it is important to quote people directly. For argument's sake, assume I said this:

    Arabs are incapable of democracy.

    If I had said such a thing, it is hard to imagine a context where that doesn't fit the dictionary definition of racism.


    As it happens, I got the words wrong, but managed the gist of it well enough:

    I've said all along that I do not believe that Muslims in general and Arab Muslims in particular are capable of popular self-government.

    Meet Harry Eagar, racist.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Skipper,

    ----
    Then explain to me why, when we excluded avowed communists, we should be obligated to allow pious Muslims, considering that Islam is an inherently violent, supremacist religion, with much of that emanating from the Quran.
    ----

    As I said, you are demonstrably prejudiced against Muslims. Thanks for providing the demonstration, in your own choice of words (notice you did not say 'Islam', but 'Muslims').

    You may fool yourself otherwise, but I prefer to be not fooled.

    ReplyDelete
  28. You may fool yourself otherwise, but I prefer to be not fooled.

    Your lack of comprehension has fooled you.

    Islam is in inherently violent, supremacist religion, with much of that emanating from the Quran. Do you have any problem with that?

    Pious Muslims, by definition, believe in the Quran's supremacist elements.

    Do you have any problem with that?

    So here is the step you are missing: for me to be anti-Muslim, I would have to tar all Muslims with the brush of violent, supremacist, Islam.

    I didn't.

    It would be foolish practically beyond measure to insist that the Islam has no expression in the real world, yet that is what you are intrinsically saying.

    If not for Muslims, how do Islamic beliefs exist?

    So, unless you have taken leave of your senses, you must admit that some Muslims aim to impose Islamic beliefs by whatever means necessary.

    Islam is inconsistent with Enlightenment derived societies. Muslims are the carriers of Islamic beliefs. Some Muslims take those beliefs very seriously.

    So the question before you, which you have shamelessly dodged, is why the West should allow in people, some of whom are inherently hostile to Western values?

    Did you look at those Pew polls?

    Time for you to stop asking questions, and start answering them.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Skipper,

    ---
    You could start by explaining this.
    ---

    Yes, I will explain that, as I see it.

    In my view, you asked me why the US should allow 'pious Muslism' to enter - answering to a question about a ban that forbids just about everyone, pious or not, from six countries, to enter.

    So while claimimg to have no prejudices against generic Muslims, only the pious kind, you look to favor a policy that makes no such distinction.

    Afterwards, you send me a link with high praises for the warnings of two 'good' Muslims, Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The article even states:

    "Outrageously, Ibn Warraq and Hirsi Ali have found no sanctuary in America’s centers of higher learning, where they regularly find themselves denounced as “Islamophobes.”"

    I would say that, even more outrageously, the people who cite Mrs. Hirsi Ali as an illuminated example, do not realize she should not be in the USA now, were Trump's ban on her native Somalia to be in effect before.

    Nor do that same people, our dear Skipper included, look to realize that the countries she accuses of using 'Dawa' to subversive ends are not only *not included* in Trump's ban, but the main culprit - Saudi Arabia - even get to set the tone for Trump's dancing, literally.

    One wonders if said people are not being played by their prejudices, supporting failed and prejudiced policies in order to fill in their "bread an circus" needs, while the powerful dance away commemorating their stupidity.

    How does that go as an explanation, Mr. Skipper?

    ReplyDelete
  30. How does that go as an explanation, Mr. Skipper?

    Poorly.

    Because you fail to connect the dots. Until recently, a lot of people were dying in Mosul. We could have ended that by allowing all of them to immigrate to the US.

    Therefore we should have done so, right?

    If not, and I'm betting not, then you agree with me that at least some Muslims should be kept out of the US. This reminds me of a joke: A man sees a beautiful woman sitting at a bar, and asks her if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. "Why, yes" she says. He then asks if she'd sleep with him for 50 bucks.
    Indignant, she says "What do you think I am, some kind of whore?"

    His reply: I know what you are, I'm just trying to settle on a price.

    Same here. You certainly wouldn't admit some Muslims into Brazil. So where do you draw the line? How do you know?

    I take it you didn't read the Pew surveys I pointed you towards.

    Let me help. Muslim attitudes towards apostasy:

    the alarmingly high share of Muslims in some Middle Eastern and South Asian countries who say they support the death penalty for any Muslim who leaves the faith or converts to another. In fact, according to the 2013 Pew Research Center report, 88 percent of Muslims in Egypt and 62 percent of Muslims in Pakistan favor the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion. This is also the majority view among Muslims in Malaysia, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

    The Islamic strictures against apostasy are completely antagonistic towards Western ideals of freedom of conscience and religion. And that's just a start.

    The question remains before you: if the US (and the West in general) were justified in excluding communists — adherents of a totalitarian ideology — then why should the US (and the West in general) allow Muslims who are adherents of a totalitarian ideology?

    I am quite certain that if a vote were to be held today in any European country as to whether more immigration should be allowed from Islamic countries, the vote would be overwhelmingly No. Do you suppose that sentiment is due to a dislike of Muslims, or the beliefs that too many bring with them?

    ReplyDelete
  31. Finally, your citing of Warraq and Ali is extremely inconvenient for your argument.

    First, both are apostates.

    Second, they both have been the objects of repeated death threats. Not from Lutherans. Not from Buddhists, or Mormons, or even Scientologist. Guess who — in Western countries espousing freedom of religion — is making those threats? Muslims.

    Third, Ali's colleague in making the film "Submission", which had to do with the treatment of women in Islam, was murdered by — wait for it — a muslim. In a country espousing freedom of speech.

    Fourth, Ali is in the US and not the Netherlands because the Dutch drove her from the country because they knuckled under to pressure from — there's a pattern developing here — muslims.

    And both she and Warraq (and Salmon Rushdie) have to live with continuous armed security because of muslims.

    Remember the Allah cartoon schlamozzle? Muslims, in their tens of thousands demand that non-muslims bow down to Islamic dictates. Yale Press published a scholarly book on the controversy, but refused to allow the cartoons to be printed in the book because of muslim backlash.

    Given that there is a distinction to be made, the near impossibility of making that distinction, the pervasiveness of attitudes antagonistic towards Western values, and the already significant impact of those attitudes on Western societies, why should we allow the immigration of any more people who are adherents of Islam?

    (Bonus question: why should pious muslims be accorded any more respect than that given to neo-Nazis?)

    ReplyDelete
  32. Skipper,

    I will group both question below together, because they are one and the same:

    -------
    Because you fail to connect the dots. Until recently, a lot of people were dying in Mosul. We could have ended that by allowing all of them to immigrate to the US.

    Therefore we should have done so, right?

    [...]

    Given that there is a distinction to be made, the near impossibility of making that distinction, the pervasiveness of attitudes antagonistic towards Western values, and the already significant impact of those attitudes on Western societies, why should we allow the immigration of any more people who are adherents of Islam?
    -------

    Quite sincerely, Skipper - and I do not say so out of malice - it is disappointing I even need to answer it. You often look to be smarter than that.

    What sort of analogy is that with Communism? Pray tell me, were people from the Iron Curtain forbidden to cross to western countries, the US included?

    Oh my, they were not. Actually, sometimes their defecting was very well publicized for propaganda purposes, weren't them?


    And what sort of false dichotomy is that, where we must choose between an absolute measure (banning whole countries) over bringing all of Mosul to America? Really?

    Unless you want to rise to adult level, dear Skipper, I see not point in further answering such nonsense.

    ReplyDelete
  33. [Clovis:] Unless you want to rise to adult level, dear Skipper, I see not point in further answering such nonsense.

    You were the one, who in reading an article about apostates from Islam failed to take on board that the people in the article aren't Muslims.

    Which goes directly to this: What sort of analogy is that with Communism? Pray tell me, were people from the Iron Curtain forbidden to cross to western countries, the US included?

    The analogy is perfect because we weren't allowing communists into the country, but rather apostates from communism.

    That is two epic conceptual errors in two comments, so perhaps you should restrain yourself when it comes to insults.

    And what sort of false dichotomy is that, where we must choose between an absolute measure (banning whole countries) over bringing all of Mosul to America? Really?

    I thought it clear enough that it doesn't need repeating.

    You apparently would exclude ISIS adherents from Brazil. Right? Just ISIS adherents, or maybe other muslims, too? Where, in your infinite wisdom, do you draw the line?

    And presuming you actually looked at those Pew polls, why would you think it a good idea to allow into Brazil people, of whom a great many hold beliefs utterly antagonistic to Brazil's precepts about freedom of conscience?

    So far, and this is becoming a pattern, you are merely trolling the thread. Nothing you have said so far has advanced the discussion one iota.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Skipper,

    ---
    You were the one, who in reading an article about apostates from Islam failed to take on board that the people in the article aren't Muslims.
    ---
    Wrong, they are Muslims by the general defition yourself gave us. If you separated Muslims (population/culture/geography) from the majority religion those regions follow (Islam), you can't possibly blame me for following your own definition.

    And you are the one who failed to realize that, under your preferred ban, those apostates would have no haven in the USA.

    ---
    The analogy is perfect because we weren't allowing communists into the country, but rather apostates from communism.
    ---
    Indeed. Hence you had no ban installed against whole communist countries, i.e. their populations who would easily give you all sort of wrong answers in Pew polls. Amazing how your former generations were able to still select who could come in, or not, without fretting over those Pew polls.

    ---
    That is two epic conceptual errors in two comments, so perhaps you should restrain yourself when it comes to insults.
    ---
    As showed above, there were not conceptual errors on my part.


    ---
    You apparently would exclude ISIS adherents from Brazil. Right? Just ISIS adherents, or maybe other muslims, too? Where, in your infinite wisdom, do you draw the line?
    ---
    The standard visa application most countries follow, mine and yours included, naturally gives the consulates vast material to try and make that guess.

    Will it be perfect and filter out 100% of malevolent applicants? Hell, no. But I guess it is not too far from that either.

    But speaking of drawing the line, a rational and factual analysis of the people accepted in the US so far, from the 6 countries banned by Trump, who turned out to be terrorists, compared with the list of countries Trump did not ban (and instead danced in their laps), should give you some food for thought.


    ---
    And presuming you actually looked at those Pew polls, why would you think it a good idea to allow into Brazil people, of whom a great many hold beliefs utterly antagonistic to Brazil's precepts about freedom of conscience?
    ---

    Because, unlike you, I don't have a blinding prejudice that makes me to attribute to an individual the properties of the collective.

    ---
    So far, and this is becoming a pattern, you are merely trolling the thread. Nothing you have said so far has advanced the discussion one iota.
    ---
    For the record, the feeling is reciprocal.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Wrong, they are Muslims by the general defition yourself gave us.

    What general definition?

    For the love of God, use quotes. There is nothing I have said anywhere that would "generally define" anyone as Muslim who is an apostate from Islam.

    And you are the one who failed to realize that, under your preferred ban, those apostates would have no haven in the USA. 

    Nonsense. The explicit reason for Trump's ban (you might look into its genesis under the Obama administration) was because conditions in the listed countries is so chaotic that it isn't possible to adequately vet potential immigrants. It isn't a blanket ban, and it isn't permanent.

    Moreover, you completely ignore the longstanding policy of allowing refugees into the US, regardless of where they come from. Ayaan Hirsi Ali may well have been allowed into the US as a refugee.

    IOW, your assertion that apostates wouldn't be allowed into the US is just flat wrong.

    So that makes three conceptual errors.

    But speaking of drawing the line, a rational and factual analysis of the people accepted in the US so far, from the 6 countries banned by Trump, who turned out to be terrorists, compared with the list of countries Trump did not ban (and instead danced in their laps), should give you some food for thought. 

    Please see above for why those countries are on the list. Further, while you are touting a rational and factual analysis, what are the numbers involved?

    How many people from Saudi Arabia are trying to get to the US? How many from Syria, Iraq and Libya?

    Because, unlike you, I don't have a blinding prejudice that makes me to attribute to an individual the properties of the collective. 

    Oh for pete's sake. Islam is a supremacist totalitarian ideology. It is viciously anti-Semitic. There are some people who believe it hook, line, and sinker. There are many in the middle east who espouse attitudes utterly repellant to western societies.

    Unless, of course you are denying a rational, factual analysis of stated beliefs.

    Apparently you believe the West should admit large numbers of from parts of the world where some of their beliefs would fit very nicely with neo-Nazis.

    Islam and communism are both hostile to western/enlightenment societies. The west never allowed any mass communist immigration, and actively refused entry to known communists. The west did allow refugees and defectors from communist countries.

    I can't think of any reason why the west should allow mass immigration of muslims from a part of the world where many of them hold ideas that almost everyone in the west (aside from the odd infatuation western progressives have for Islamism.) finds repellant.

    You certainly haven't given any. Perhaps you should start.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Skipper,

    ---
    What general definition?
    ---
    You said up above:

    "I swear I have said this before, but perhaps you missed it. I explicitly distinguish between Islam and Muslims. For me to be demonstrably prejudiced against Muslims means I would have had to clearly attributed characteristics of Islamists (those with a very literal belief in Islam) to Muslims as a whole."

    I understand you are setting the word Muslim for cultural traits, as opposed to religious ones (since, otherwise, Muslim = Islamist and I see no point in your para above).


    ---
    Nonsense. The explicit reason for Trump's ban (you might look into its genesis under the Obama administration) was because conditions in the listed countries is so chaotic that it isn't possible to adequately vet potential immigrants. It isn't a blanket ban, and it isn't permanent.
    ---
    That's the explicit reason after the former explicit reason - banning Muslims - was failing him on courts.

    Further on, you could have said so from the begin that you only supported such action for operational reasons. Instead, you've chosen to bash Muslims (or Islam, or Islamists, or whatever word you want to use now, before you bash me for using it too).


    ---
    Moreover, you completely ignore the longstanding policy of allowing refugees into the US, regardless of where they come from. Ayaan Hirsi Ali may well have been allowed into the US as a refugee.

    [...]

    I can't think of any reason why the west should allow mass immigration of muslims
    ---
    You are either being disingenuous, or worse.

    You just used refugee status as a way to soften any Muslim ban, but of course the will to bar refugees is one of the main reasons Trump even wants a ban.

    It is the great scare of mass of refugees on Europe that set the tone for this matter before his election.

    The very same mass immigration you are arguing against (and wrongly thinking I am arguing for, which I will come back later).

    So, which is which? The ban is only partial and allows for refugees, or is it a true ban? If it allows for refugees, how are you protected from that great mass of unwashed islamists you so much fear?

    ---
    I can't think of any reason why the west should allow mass immigration of muslims from a part of the world where many of them hold ideas that almost everyone in the west [...]

    You certainly haven't given any. Perhaps you should start.
    ---

    Why? Where did you read me defending the right of mass immigrations of Muslims to America?

    Binary reasoning. Another trait of the ideologically blind.

    ReplyDelete
  37. [Hey Skipper:] I swear I have said this before, but perhaps you missed it. I explicitly distinguish between Islam and Muslims. For me to be demonstrably prejudiced against Muslims means I would have had to clearly attributed characteristics of Islamists (those with a very literal belief in Islam) to Muslims as a whole.

    Islam is a supremacist, totalitarian ideology. Of course, not all Muslims take it particularly seriously. But many do, particularly in the Middle East. The Pew polls show this.

    So the question remaining before you is this: why should the West allow more immigration from a part of the world, and a religion, where a significant number are antagonistic towards western civilization?

    For example:

    Narrow majorities of Jordanian (57%) and Indonesian (52%) Muslims also give Christians a favorable rating, while in Egypt – which has recently experienced violence between elements of its Muslim and Christian communities – views are divided (48% favorable; 47% unfavorable).

    Meanwhile, very few Muslims in Pakistan (16%) or Turkey (6%) have a positive opinion of Christians.

    Ratings for Jews are uniformly low in the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed – in all seven of these nations, less than 10% have a positive opinion of Jews. Indeed, outside of Indonesia, less than 5% offer a positive opinion.


    We rightly rain disgust upon neo-Nazis, who hate Jews. Do you want any more of them? Yet somehow we need to want more Muslims that hate Jews as much as neo-Nazis? Our predominant civil value is freedom of speech.

    The point you are missing is Islam. It has no existence outside human minds; no impact whatsoever except through believers. And that impact has been horrible. Of those with far more experience than you of Muslim immigration — Europeans, where most countries are at or above 10% of the population (compared with Brazil, with less than 1%) — none want more.

    There have been serious problems associated with Muslim immigration in Europe.

    So, why should we reinvent that wheel?

    Why? Where did you read me defending the right of mass immigrations of Muslims to America?

    You asked me what I thought of Trump's ban on immigration from seven or so Muslim countries.

    I expanded that further: why only seven? Why not permanent?

    ReplyDelete
  38. (strike "Our predominant ... of speech.")

    ReplyDelete
  39. Skipper,

    ---
    Islam is a supremacist, totalitarian ideology. Of course, not all Muslims take it particularly seriously. But many do, particularly in the Middle East. The Pew polls show this.
    ---

    You offer your opinion so freely, I may well give mine. No, Islam is not a supremacist, totalitarian ideology. For there is not only one "Islam", but many ones, as followed by many sects, and shades within sects.

    So, yes, there are self-declared followers of Islam who are supremacist, totalitarian bigots. And there are very many other self-declared followers of Islam who aren't neither.

    I don't think I am entitled to judge any one of those groups - like the bigots - as the ones following Islam seriously, as opposed to the others. And I don't feel inclined to see your judgment, in this matter, as any better than mine.


    ---
    So the question remaining before you is this: why should the West allow more immigration from a part of the world, and a religion, where a significant number are antagonistic towards western civilization?
    ---
    First, there is your misleading "more immigration". I am not advocating a higher rate of Muslim immigration to anywhere, for the record.

    Clearing that up, I'd not support any idea of banning immigration from a country solely based on their race or religion. If migration from a country presents potential for danger, you set up barriers to deal with that at individual applicant's level - to the extent that's possible.

    To do otherwise, IMHO, is to fail those same Enlightenment values you profess to want to protect.


    ---
    I expanded that further: why only seven? Why not permanent?
    ---
    Actually, I gave you back that same question, when pointing out the hypocrisy of the seven chosen, compared with other countries who would clearly deserve it more.


    And, though the ban was operational and temporary, it is pretty clear it was rashly implemented by Trump for political purposes - to appease people like, well, you, with no intent of ever delivering real solutions to the main source of the problem (Wahabism). In your place, having voted for Trump, I would feel offended. Instead of calling him out, you are here in this blog shooting the messenger.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Clovis:

    Up above you asserted I had said anti-Muslim things. That should have been the starting point to an ethical discussion around what constitutes "anti-Muslim" beliefs; whether such beliefs are ever justified; and under what circumstances anti-Muslim beliefs might be justified.

    And that could be extended to just about any group you care to think of. Remember Google firing that Damore guy? He got the axe for allegedly anti-woman attitudes. Were they really?

    Requiring me to pass judgment on Trump's Muslim ban is an irrelevant distraction. To put an end to that, here's my answer: In principle, to do so is a power that both the Constitution and Congress have explicitly provided the President. In practice, the first attempt was over broad, because it swept up people who had clear standing to claim Constitutional protection. The second attempt fixed that defect, despite the insane bleating of a couple judges, which is why the Supreme Court granted cert (i.e., added the case to the SCOTUS docket) and granted an injunction to the President. SCOTUS did so because by a very significant margin the judges believe the President will prevail.

    As far as it goes, I think it completely justifiable. Security services in Europe are soiling themselves over the certainty that some (where "some" could be in the low thousands) Muslims coming into Europe will be returning ISIS adherents. Thanks to oceans, and a relatively small number of Muslims in the US to start with, the US doesn't face nearly the problem Europe does with ISIS adherents returning from Syria.

    Another reason is due to the source of American identity being about principles, and not at all about ethnicity, religion, or nationality. Consequently, Muslims in the US are far better integrated into US society than anywhere in Europe. (see page 5, Household Income and Employment).

    But just because the US has far less of a problem than Europe doesn't mean we should make it worse, nor should be ignore the irony surrounding increased Muslim immigration.

    I asserted Islam is a supremacist, totalitarian ideology. You are free to disagree, but doing so requires actively ignoring Islamic precepts and the Quran, never mind significant parts of the Hadith and Shura, as well as writing off much of what Muslims say on the subject, and great swaths of history.

    So yes, there are Muslims who aren't supremacist, but they are that way despite Islam, not because of it, and are detested as heretics by mainstream Islamic sects.

    It's easy enough to google.

    First, there is your misleading "more immigration". I am not advocating a higher rate of Muslim immigration to anywhere, for the record.

    To reiterate, what you were asserting is that I made anti-Muslim statements. Somehow that morphed to my defending, or not, Trumps immigration ban.

    And, though the ban was operational and temporary, it is pretty clear it was rashly implemented by Trump for political purposes - to appease people like, well, you, with no intent of ever delivering real solutions to the main source of the problem (Wahabism).

    Wahabism is indeed part of the problem. Although the problem is so widespread, and so confined to one religion, that seeing Wahabism as the cause, rather than merely another symptom, requires ignoring a great deal.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Oh, and I think it so perfectly ironic that it needs repeating: Harry, who surpasses a wildly incontinent goose for spewing stench across the landscape, is the one who made a glaringly obvious racist comment.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Skipper,

    Harry looks to accept (at least he did not deny) he is demonstrably prejudiced against Christianity (and probably every other religion).

    You, OTOH, set yourself the task to show me you were not prejudiced against Muslims, and quite frankly, did an excellent job at proving my point.

    But I guess you can see the light of truth in the end, since yourself pointed out that:

    ---
    Another reason is due to the source of American identity being about principles, and not at all about ethnicity, religion, or nationality. Consequently, Muslims in the US are far better integrated into US society than anywhere in Europe. (see page 5, Household Income and Employment).
    ---

    To keep upholding those principles may well lead to even better integration. To give up to fear may well lead to the opposite outcome.




    As for this one:
    ---
    I asserted Islam is a supremacist, totalitarian ideology. You are free to disagree, but doing so requires actively ignoring Islamic precepts and the Quran, never mind significant parts of the Hadith and Shura, as well as writing off much of what Muslims say on the subject, and great swaths of history.
    ---
    See, I am extending to Muslims the pass we gave before to a few other religions. It is not a free pass though, it asks for change in behavior from the most fanatic sects, and excluding them from the mainstream.

    If the end result may look contradictory with what their book states, they will be only joining the club.

    Otherwise, by you standard of selecting what is a religion by the amount of conformity to their own holy writings, you'd say there aren't too many Christians around either, to stay with one obvious example.

    ReplyDelete
  43. [Clovis:] You, OTOH, set yourself the task to show me you were not prejudiced against Muslims, and quite frankly, did an excellent job at proving my point.

    In that sentence you could not have possibly more clearly demonstrated the problem with words like "prejudiced", "racist", "Islamophope", et al.

    Since you have concluded I am prejudiced against Muslims, then you must be able to describe in what manner I manifest that prejudice, and how it is unwarranted.

    I'm standing by.

    Keep in mind, we have already agreed that under some circumstances, prejudice is justified.

    My employer could get an application from a US citizen who is Muslim and wants to be an airline pilot. Is my employer justified in giving that application more intense scrutiny? The US Army did not give Maj Hassan any extra scrutiny. Does that mean the Army wasn't prejudiced, or was foolishly unprejudiced?

    If I see a Muslim couple, and she is in a head to toe burka, what may I conclude about their beliefs about western civilization? Anything? Nothing?

    To keep upholding those principles may well lead to even better integration. To give up to fear may well lead to the opposite outcome. 

    Better integration requires that Muslims understand that a great many Islamic diktats are unacceptable. That, and it is foolish of anyone to hope otherwise, means honest Muslims must either effectively reject Islam, or not move to the West.

    If you have another alternative, I'd love to hear it.

    [Hey Skipper:] I asserted Islam is a supremacist, totalitarian ideology.

    [Clovis:] See, I am extending to Muslims the pass we gave before to a few other religions. I


    You are missing a very critical distinction. Muslims are believers, Islam is the religion.

    There is no avoiding the fact that Islam is a supremacist, totalitarian ideology.

    Depending on where the question is asked, a significant number of Muslims believe in the ideology.

    And here is how far you are missing the distinction: Otherwise, by you standard of selecting what is a religion by the amount of conformity to their own holy writings, you'd say there aren't too many Christians around either, to stay with one obvious example.

    Christianity is the religion, christians are the believers. Please do what Harry has relentlessly failed to do: provide the religious diktats in Christianity that are explicitly hostile to non-Christians. (NB: confine yourself to the New Testament.) There is no doubt Christians have done many horrible things; the questions are to what degree Christianity is to blame and how resilient Christianity is to new knowledge. There lies the answers to why Islam is the source of so much contemporary misery, and Christianity — and pretty much all the rest of the world's religions other than Islam — contributes almost nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Clovis, I am antagonistic to all religions, and more to those I know better; but I do not accept that I am prejudiced.

    I have never blamed them, or any of their adherents, for anything they did not do.

    Prejudice means you come to your conclusion in advance of evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Skipper,

    Since you bash Harry so much, how do you feel being on the same side as him?

    For Harry gave a shorter version of your own answer: it is not projudice, it is postjudice.

    ---
    If I see a Muslim couple, and she is in a head to toe burka, what may I conclude about their beliefs about western civilization? Anything? Nothing?
    ---
    I guess the better question is, why the heck should you care about their beliefs?

    Western civilization, to the extent you invoke their Enlightenment values, is much more about freedom of conscience and choices, than it is about 'Do you have the right beliefs to be in a Western society?'

    That couple's business is none of yours, and vice versa. Otherwise, you are a bit of a Taleban in reverse.


    ---
    Better integration requires that Muslims understand that a great many Islamic diktats are unacceptable. That, and it is foolish of anyone to hope otherwise, means honest Muslims must either effectively reject Islam, or not move to the West.
    If you have another alternative, I'd love to hear it.
    ---
    If you want to sincerely find an alternative, stop by a few Muslim communities in the US and ask them how they are dealing - sometimes for generations - with living with their faith in a secular society.

    It is often the case that prejudiced people have very little contact with the people they are prejudiced against. Hence their difficulty at seeing them for what they are: humans, often very much like you.

    ---
    My employer could get an application from a US citizen who is Muslim and wants to be an airline pilot. Is my employer justified in giving that application more intense scrutiny? The US Army did not give Maj Hassan any extra scrutiny. Does that mean the Army wasn't prejudiced, or was foolishly unprejudiced?
    ---
    I won't comment about a case I know little and may well be complex (Hassan), but to answer your first question: yes, your employer is justified in applying greater scrutiny to whatever application they get. They would be prejudiced (in the negative meaning of the word) if they discarded it beforehand, without applying any scrutiny at all.



    ---
    Please do what Harry has relentlessly failed to do: provide the religious diktats in Christianity that are explicitly hostile to non-Christians. (NB: confine yourself to the New Testament.)
    ---
    A couple of prior questions apply.

    First, would it be a completely honest comparison if we restrict ourselves to the New Testament?

    Second, are you aware my point was about "conformity to their own holy writings", and not about which text has more incitation to violence?


    To answer your question, I don't think the Bible, taken on its hole, incites forced conversion (notwhistanding the practice of Christians in centuries past) or is comparable to the Quran on its violent commandments. And that was never my point.

    My point was that, if you say Muslims must reject Islamism (hence not being Muslims) if they reinterpret in another light (or downright ignore) their jihadist passages, you must as well think that very few Christians exist, for there are quite many things ordained in the Bible which are no longer observed, old and new testament included.

    So, are you really setting yourself the judge of every Muslim, Christian, and whatever other religions exist, as to whether they are Infidels (to their own faith) or not? Good luck with that.

    ReplyDelete
  46. [Hey Skipper:] If I see a Muslim couple, and she is in a head to toe burka, what may I conclude about their beliefs about western civilization? Anything? Nothing?

    ——

    [Clovis:] I guess the better question is, why the heck should you care about their beliefs?

    Western civilization, to the extent you invoke their Enlightenment values, is much more about freedom of conscience and choices, than it is about 'Do you have the right beliefs to be in a Western society?'

    That couple's business is none of yours, and vice versa. Otherwise, you are a bit of a Taliban in reverse. 


    There is a great deal to unpack here.

    As you know, I'm generally opposed to argument by analogy. But sometimes it is exactly the right tool for the job.

    Let's say you see some people marching by wearing Nazi regalia and proudly engaging in the Nazi salute. Not at all far fetched, as people in Charlottesville will tell you.

    According to you, those people's business is none of mine. And there is absolutely no reason for me to wonder if their beliefs are consistent with Western society.

    Right? After all, what is good enough for pious Muslims should be just as good for neo-Nazis. What either of them think is absolutely no business of mine.

    I'm perfectly happy to not have to defend that.

    Here is what you are insisting upon: a core tenet of Western civilization is freedom of conscience; and because of that, I have no business wondering about someone whose religion runs exactly counter to the core tenets of Western civilization.

    Really?

    If you want to sincerely find an alternative, stop by a few Muslim communities in the US and ask them how they are dealing - sometimes for generations - with living with their faith in a secular society. 

    Having worked for a couple years in Dearborn, Michigan (the largest Muslim community in the US) and having had Muslim co-workers, I'm not entirely ignorant on the subject. A great many US muslims aren't particularly observant, and would probably be viewed as apostates in any Muslim country.

    First, would it be a completely honest comparison if we restrict ourselves to the New Testament?

    Of course it would. Christianity is based primarily on the New Testament. But even if you were to bring the OT in, what you should immediately note is that virtually all the bloody bits are historically bound.

    My point was that, if you say Muslims must reject Islamism (hence not being Muslims) if they reinterpret in another light (or downright ignore) their jihadist passages, you must as well think that very few Christians exist, for there are quite many things ordained in the Bible which are no longer observed, old and new testament included.

    Bad comparison.

    Review the precepts of Islam and the Quran. In particular, the Quran is word-for-word from Allah through the archangel Gabriel to Mohammed's ears. It is complete, and inerrant.

    That's according to Islam, not me.

    Compare to the Bible which has many authors, none receiving dictation from God.

    So, are you really setting yourself the judge of every Muslim, Christian, and whatever other religions exist, as to whether they are Infidels (to their own faith) or not? Good luck with that.

    No. Islam sets the standards for Muslims.









    ReplyDelete
  47. [Harry:] I have never blamed them, or any of their adherents, for anything they did not do.

    Prejudice means you come to your conclusion in advance of evidence. 


    Or in the complete absence of evidence.

    You have often vented your hatred of Christianity. But when pressed to explain what in Christianity (as opposed to Christians themselves) is so awful, you have given nothing but crickets.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Skipper,

    ---
    As you know, I'm generally opposed to argument by analogy. But sometimes it is exactly the right tool for the job.
    ---
    I guess you should have followed your rule, for the analogy failed greatly.

    A lone couple walking the streets - with whatever garment they see fit, nazi or not - is none of my business.

    A demonstration by dozens of raving Muslims shouting and asking for the good old times of Caliphate ruling everyone - which would be the right analogy to Charlotesville - is, I may agree, something of our business.

    ---
    Here is what you are insisting upon: a core tenet of Western civilization is freedom of conscience; and because of that, I have no business wondering about someone whose religion runs exactly counter to the core tenets of Western civilization.
    ---
    To the extent that someone is not able to take your freedoms out, that's indeed what I am insisting upon.

    It is a well known self-imposed paradox that a system allowing for freedom may end up allowing for the dismissal of freedom. And it happened before, Germany 1932 as an example, since you mentioned Nazis.

    And it is also a well known fact that such paradox has no direct 'solution', only meta-solutions, like an observant society that recognizes when a group is hijacking everyone else's freedom.

    In that sense, your reservations about Islam are justified, to the extent they are reservations kept in check against reality. That is the maximum of agreement you'll get from me on your positions on this matter.


    ---
    Compare to the Bible which has many authors, none receiving dictation from God.
    ---
    Outside theological circles, it is a distinction without difference, since most Christian denominations take the Bible as God's word quite literally too.

    If I well remember, you once told me you used to be a Presbyterian when a kid. I am inclined to think you remember very little back then of your bible classes.

    ReplyDelete
  49. [Clovis:] I guess you should have followed your rule, for the analogy failed greatly.

    Oh, for pete's sake. You see a person dressed in Nazi regalia.

    And you aren't going to draw conclusions?

    To the extent that someone is not able to take your freedoms out, that's indeed what I am insisting upon.

    Then you aren't making any sense. Freedom of conscience, and speech, and association, includes my own. So not only do I have the personal right to wonder, I also have the right to voice my misgivings.

    Outside theological circles, it is a distinction without difference, since most Christian denominations take the Bible as God's word quite literally too.

    No, they don't.

    A very few do, to the extent that they believe that the Gospels contain inerrant truth. But their very nature means they aren't word-for-word God's word.

    I was raised Episcopalian.

    I remember a great deal of it, and none of the Bible studies treated the Bible as God's word, but rather God's revelations through imperfect, and limited, people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Skipper,

      ---
      Oh, for pete's sake. You see a person dressed in Nazi regalia.
      And you aren't going to draw conclusions?
      ---
      I would conclude that person has serious problems. But I would like him/her to still be free to express him/herself, be it by words or choice of clothes.

      But I live in a country where that person would be imprisoned for that simple act, pay a fine and answer in justice for it afterwards.

      Which country is thus following those Enlightned values closer, the US or Brazil, and which one would you prefer to be?

      ---
      To the extent that someone is not able to take your freedoms out, that's indeed what I am insisting upon.

      Then you aren't making any sense. Freedom of conscience, and speech, and association, includes my own. So not only do I have the personal right to wonder, I also have the right to voice my misgivings.
      ---
      Oh, you sure do. At which point you saw me denying those rights to you?

      ---
      No, they don't.
      ---
      Oh yeah, mosf of them do.

      ---
      I remember a great deal of it, and none of the Bible studies treated the Bible as God's word, but rather God's revelations through imperfect, and limited, people.
      ---
      Yet the revelations themselves, though delivered by imperfect beings, is seen as the will of God Himself. To all practical purposes, a distinction without a difference in the end for most Christians you see around, to the extent of their formal beliefs.

      And I am not even touching the inerrancy of Popes for Catholics, or the high authority conferred upon hierarchies of many traditional Protestant churches that end up having a similar effect.

      And contrary to you, I have the experience of almost every Sunday *nowadays* to draw upon, as opposed to your 40+ years old memories.

      Delete
  50. 'And I am not even touching the inerrancy of Popes for Catholics'

    A novelty, invented in 1870-71 at the Vatican Council and since invoked only once (the Immaculate Conception).

    ReplyDelete
  51. Clovis:

    Way up above you accused me of having made anti-Muslim statements. My point since then has been to try and nail down just what such statements might be, and whether they might both be correct and justified.

    You would have no problem making anti-Nazism statements. Yet Islam has within it assertions that are every bit as awful as anything coming from Mein Kampf (and which have no parallel in the Bible). Are anti-Islam statements somehow out of bounds?

    As for Nazis themselves, it is difficult to say enough bad things. Now what about Muslims? Okay, a great many see Islam in communitarian terms and nothing more; towards them we should bear no malice. But what about the rest? Do we get to regard them with suspicion, to the point of concluding their beliefs do not belong in the West, or because they have a god-gloss on them, what would be unacceptable in a Nazi is OK in a Muslim?

    And I am not even touching the inerrancy of Popes for Catholics …

    I think you mean papal infallibility.

    And, at first glance, it doesn't mean what either you or Harry think it means.

    Yet the revelations themselves, though delivered by imperfect beings, is seen as the will of God Himself.

    Fine. Which of those revelations direct violence against non-believers? (Excluding the time bound verses; there are no more Malakites.)

    But beyond that, the fact no one believes the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, Christianity has been far more flexible than Islam to changes in our understanding of nature.

    In contrast, Islam is extremely brittle. That might have something to do with the fact that all majority-Muslim countries are riven with conflict, and many are downright dysfunctional. And it also might be involved with Islamic countries having made no intellectual advances for the last 900 years.

    Beliefs matter.

    ReplyDelete
  52. https://www.scribd.com/document/357531494/The-Nashville-Statement

    ReplyDelete
  53. Harry, what about the Nashville Statement is so troublesome?

    ReplyDelete
  54. Skipper,

    ---
    I think you mean papal infallibility.
    And, at first glance, it doesn't mean what either you or Harry think it means.
    ---
    Yep, I've meant it (in translation from Portuguese, my previous term would be right).

    And it means what I knew it meant. I guess you are not very familiar with Catholicism, but I am.

    I selected also a particular piece of your link, to show you also what a great deal of Christian think about the Bible:

    "Fundamentalists must also acknowledge that Peter did have some kind of infallibility—they cannot deny that he wrote two infallible epistles of the New Testament while under protection against writing error. "

    You should start reading more of your own links, dear Skipper.


    ---
    You would have no problem making anti-Nazism statements. Yet Islam has within it assertions that are every bit as awful as anything coming from Mein Kampf (and which have no parallel in the Bible). Are anti-Islam statements somehow out of bounds?
    ---
    Can you produce a quote where I argue so? When I pointed out you are prejudiced with respect to Muslims, I am not saying your statements are out of bounds. You are free to keep stating them all.

    As per Harry, you believe to have no prejudice, but postjudice. After all, those bloody passages of the Quran do exist, and those bloody Islamic terrorists are out there doing what terrorists do, believing to be following their Books.

    Not accounted for, in your postjudices, is the fact that almost every Muslim you've met (per your own account) weren't like that, or took those Quran passages as literal (as witnessed in their behavior), and the conclusion you draw? Oh, they are not Muslims, just like those 1.6 billion other non-terrorist ones. Thanks God (or Allah) they are dumb enough to not have read and understood their own Book!

    Yeah, Mr Postjudice, looks quite a well thought view.


    ---
    Fine. Which of those revelations direct violence against non-believers?
    ---
    There again, the point was not about violence, but self-consistency.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Finally back.

    [Clovis:] Can you produce a quote where I argue so? When I pointed out you are prejudiced with respect to Muslims, I am not saying your statements are out of bounds.

    What I am pointing out is that your use of the term "prejudiced", is either baseless, or meaningless.

    Just to keep the point in mind, you said I don't think Erp is racist, but only because I met her in person. My interactions online with her in past, many times, gave me the impression of someone with racial prejudices on the other side.


    I don't remember having similar impression about you in terms of race, but you are demonstrably prejudiced against Muslims.


    You equate what I have said with racism (never mind that you are distressingly wide of the mark with respect to erp). That means, according to you, my attitude towards muslims is invidious.

    Great word, that one.

    Now, please take what I have written here, using exact quotes where appropriate, just how anything I have said about muslims, or Islam, is invidious.

    Only then can we decide in how your use of the word "prejudiced" makes any sense.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Thanks, Skipper, I've learned a new word.

    I read that invidious means: "(of an action or situation) likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger in others".

    So, trying to imagine myself on a Muslim's shoes, I think the whole quote below - to stay with one example in this thread - would sound invidious to me:

    ---
    I asserted Islam is a supremacist, totalitarian ideology. You are free to disagree, but doing so requires actively ignoring Islamic precepts and the Quran, never mind significant parts of the Hadith and Shura, as well as writing off much of what Muslims say on the subject, and great swaths of history.

    So yes, there are Muslims who aren't supremacist, but they are that way despite Islam, not because of it, and are detested as heretics by mainstream Islamic sects.
    ---

    Maybe that's just me, or maybe I can't really put myself into the position of a Muslim, having met so few of them in life, but I am just honestly answering your question.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Don't know what happened to my response.

    [Clovis:] I read that invidious means: "(of an action or situation) likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger in others".

    You missed the relevant part of the definition: (of a comparison or distinction) unfairly discriminating; unjust . After all, the part you cited was effect, which completely misses cause; moreover, the cause is what is in play here.

    Which is where you are missing the point. Above, I mistakenly invoked argument by analogy, which you dismissed out of hand. Actually, that was argument by corollary. If it is invidious to make assumptions that the way pious Muslims are dressed and their beliefs, then it is also invidious to make assumptions about people dressed in Nazi regalia and marching by torchlight.

    This is why your missing the distinction between cause and effect is important. Telling pious Muslims that they, as a group, are antagonistic to freedom of conscience because they think apostates should be severely punished, or killed, is a well duh moment. Of course; suggesting they do so will not arouse resentment in them anymore than their telling me that as a adherent of Enlightenment philosophy such a thing is detestable.

    So you are not answering the question, because you don't understand what it entails.

    ReplyDelete