I am not telling the Duutch what to do, only that this is interesting. Is he the opposition enemy to the party in power, hence the prosecution?
Geert Wilders Faces Possible Year in Prison for Calling Quran a 'Fascist Book'
Dutch politician on trial on hate speech charges.
Monday, October 04, 2010
By Toby Sterling, Associated Press
File photo: Dutch politician Geert Wilders following a court appearance in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on Jan. 13, 2010. Wilders went on trial Monday, Oct. 3, 2010 on charges he incited hatred against Islam. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Amsterdam (AP) - Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders went on trial Monday for alleged hate speech, even as his popularity and influence in the Netherlands are near all time highs.
Prosecutors say Wilders incited hatred against Muslims with remarks comparing Islam to Naziism and by calling for a ban on the Quran. Wilders argues he has a right to freedom of speech and his remarks were within the bounds of the law.
If convicted, he faces up to a year in prison. He could keep his seat in parliament.
On his Twitter account, Wilders said the start of his trial was a "terrible day."
"The freedom of expression of at least 1.5 million people is standing trial together with me," he wrote, referring to the voters that made his Freedom Party the third-largest in national elections in June.
But his lawyer, Bram Moszkowicz, told presiding judge Jan Moors at the start of the trial that Wilders would not answer questions during the trial.
"My client will, at my advice, exercise his right to silence today, tomorrow and the other days," Moszkowicz said. Moors then adjourned the case to consider a request from Wilders to explain his decision not to speak.
He swept into the Amsterdam District Court complex in a police convoy and waved to supporters as he walked into the courtroom at the start of a trial scheduled to last seven days.
The case has generated huge interest in the Netherlands and the opening was broadcast live on television.
Wilders' party has agreed to support a new all-conservative government forming this month. In return, his political allies have promised to carry out much of his anti-immigration agenda.
Immigration-related issues have dominated politics in the Netherlands and much of Europe over the past decade. Wilders has drawn comparisons with populists such as Jorg Haider in Austria and Jean-Marie Le Pen in France as he cashed in on the growing unease and tested the limits of free speech.
Among more than 100 remarks his opponents see as offensive, an editorial in newspaper De Volkskrant stands out.
"I've had enough of Islam in the Netherlands; let not one more Muslim immigrate," he wrote in the paper. "I've had enough of the Quran in the Netherlands: Forbid that fascist book."
The flamboyant bleach-blond politician has also called for taxing clothing commonly worn by Muslims, such as headscarves — or "head rags," as he called them — because they "pollute" the Dutch landscape. He may be best known for the 2008 short film "Fitna," which offended Muslims around the world by juxtaposing Quranic verses with images of terrorism by Islamic radicals.
However, his stances resound deeply with Dutch voters, who have reconsidered their famous tolerance amid fears their own culture is being eroded by immigrants who don't share their values.
The Wilders-supported government expected to take power as early as this week intends new measures to reduce acceptance of asylum-seekers and cut immigration from non-Western countries in half, notably by making it difficult for foreign spouses and children to join their Dutch citizen spouses.
It also plans to force immigrants to pay for their own mandatory citizenship classes.
A handful of anti-Wilders protesters gathered outside the court behind a banner reading "fascism rules," with a Dutch pun on Wilders' name.
Convictions for discriminatory remarks are frequent in the Netherlands, but penalties are rarely greater than a small fine.
Prosecutors were initially reluctant to bring Wilders' case to court, saying his remarks appeared directed toward Islam as an ideology rather than intended to insult Muslims as a group.
But they were eventually ordered to do so by a judge.
Prosecutors won't rule out dropping charges or asking for no penalty at all when the trial comes to the sentencing phase. A verdict is expected Nov. 4.
Mohamed Rabbae, chairman of the moderate National Moroccan Council, said outside the court that he hoped judges would force Wilders to issue an apology for his past remarks.
"We are not for getting Mr. Wilders in prison. We are for correcting him," he said.
Prosecutors were initially reluctant to bring Wilders' case to court, saying his remarks appeared directed toward Islam as an ideology rather than intended to insult Muslims as a group.
Of course, because the definitive characteristic of a group has absolutely nothing to do with that group.
Also, the great shame is that Islamism actually is bound pretty tightly to fascism. Had the dude just added those last three letters the whole thing would have been pretty insignificant.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:He's simply a pillock who doesn't understand Islam and/or Nazism?
is that illegal? I'm not getting this as I thought Western European countries generally had freedom of speech (outside of Germany and the Nazi thing). Hence my Q about maybe this is shenanigans going on to deal with the opposition. So, er, whats the deal?
England has hate speech laws? Thats not a lot of freedom of speech. Did that change? I thought you could stand in Trafalgar and say any daft thing you wanted to?
Frazzled wrote:England has hate speech laws? Thats not a lot of freedom of speech. Did that change? I thought you could stand in Trafalgar and say any daft thing you wanted to?
You can say whatever you want anywhere. You are free to be ignorant of the consequences of whatever you do. Freedom is an absolute concept.
Fascism is a concept too - the Nazis did it in a special kind of way that doesn't really fit in with Islam as a 'method'... which it isn't.
Frazzled wrote:England has hate speech laws? Thats not a lot of freedom of speech. Did that change? I thought you could stand in Trafalgar and say any daft thing you wanted to?
You can say whatever you want anywhere. You are free to be ignorant of the consequences of whatever you do. Freedom is an absolute concept.
Fascism is a concept too - the Nazis did it in a special kind of way that doesn't really fit in with Islam as a 'method'... which it isn't.
translation: you don't actually have freedom of speech there? I am very confused now. Did this change?
Tired, old example: You are free to yell 'FIRE!' in a cinema. There will be consequences. If there is no fire, they may be legal consequences. It also could have been the flame from a match, and relatively harmless... so there was a 'fire', but not a 'FIRE!'
Look at Oskar Schindler, "The Good Nazi". By definition he was a Nazi. He worked in military intelligence - but he broke a lot of laws, too. Was he good or bad? Was he enough of a Nazi to be compared to Islam? Was he Islamic enough to be compared to a Nazi? As pure concepts, those questions are just absurd.
Postulating that 'Islam' is like 'Naziism' should invoke consequences if your intention is to inspire a fear of Islam. This has been claimed but not proved. Wilders is on trial - he isn't guilty of anything yet. Either way his claims are absurd.
"We are not for getting Mr. Wilders in prison. We are for correcting him"
Frazzled Wrote: translation: you don't actually have freedom of speech there? I am very confused now. Did this change?
No we don't. Many people claim that we do but our laws about freedom of speech are aweful. Many americans complain about how bad it is for people to be able to say whatever they want but it's so much better than what we've got. It's getting worse aswell. People are so terrified to offend groups, they can't criticize anyone. There are too many people over here who call anyone who disagree with them racism (or alternative term) and then get support people in authority. Society has become so obsessed with political correctness it's insane.
It wouldn't be so much of a problem except the laws are very biased. Many favour religion over non religious groups, and it's very easy for a group to get support just by playing the racism card.
It is illegal to glorify terrorism, or incite racial hatred. I don't know about religious hatred.
You can actually be arrested and charged now for insulting someone if it has anything to do with: Colour, size, age, gender.
Each of the catagories ive mentioned will get you arrested if you use them as an insult to the specific group.
Ie: I call someone a spanker, im being insulting, i call them a fat spanker and the gak hits the fan big time, and i will get arrested for it.
I wont derail the thread though with my mad rants
Freedom of speech = bs. No such thing, yet the FoS act was never taken down.
Not as bad as Dakka, I can call someone a spanker here and wind up banned for it (the equivalant of a year in "internet" jail?)....I dont even have to insert the "fat" part.
Not as bad as Dakka, I can call someone a spanker here and wind up banned for it (the equivalant of a year in "internet" jail?)....I dont even have to insert the "fat" part.
On topic though, as much as it pains me to speak on the side if 'islam' (I almost find myself wanting to give a "high five" to this government official), isnt what he's doing sort of the beginnings of what Nazism did for the Jews?
I'm not really an authority in Germany's political history, but, it all had to begin somewhere.
Essentially, isnt it innappropriate for anyone seated in a Gov't position to speak out against a religious body? I dunno if its worth a year in jail but it may deserve SOME sort of punishment, like losing one's job or whatever.
I'm not coming to the aid of Islam here, because myself I think the religion is full of a bunch of fat spankers. Too much violent "smoke" involved in that religion for it to be entirely benign in my opinion.
Course, from what I've seen...pretty much all religions get pretty hateful. Christianity is safe right now only because its so huge...they GOT the power and dont need to be beligerant. Make Christianity a 'niche' religion in the States like Islam is and you've got plenty of Christian "hate" flowing.
Religion gets so (or should I say "starts out") slowed.
As I said in my last post religions rarely get in any serious trouble. Caling racism can let you off a lot of things. Even people working for the law are worried about the group accusing them of racism.
Your lucky that in America that religious views aren't seen as more important than everyone else's view. Overhere thats the way it's going. I've met a lot of people who think that having an unreasonable view is ok if it's based in a religion. IMO there are too many double standards.
I didnt realize "inciting hatred" is a crime in the netherlands. Seems like a strait forward case of the courts trying to squash democratic government to me.
Well that's not exactly what I mean. The impression we get over here (may not be true) is that it's possible to criticize a religion and be listened to.
When you criticize a religion over here you are deemed racist (whatever you say). Religions can target who ever they like and can agrue with aethists but if the aethists argue back they could get accused of racism.
Religions can make stupid demands but when people reply the religions can say "but its my religion" and there is nothing we can do about it.
Well, you can't be arrested for it if that's what you mean.
You will probably be labeled something nasty if you criticize Christianity, and not necessarily underservedly. And you'll definitely be labeled something nasty if you criticize Islam, though not necessarily by Muslims, and not necessarily undeservedly.
And, if you criticize Judaism you will be burnt at the stake as an antisemitic cur.
In the Netherlands there are laws against discrimination (inc. racism, sexism etc) and slander. There was some talk about a ban on blasphemy and lese majesty (we are a monarchy after all) but I'm not sure those are in effect. By the laws on discrimination (article 1 of our constitution) and slander Wilders stands trial, because some people feel he is out-scapegoating Hitler.
I'd like to put some perspective on it. -warning
A few years ago, Geert Wilders was a long time member of the Dutch Liberal Conservative Party VVD (liberal concerning personal freedoms, free trade etc. conservative in the justice department) and a member of parliament (2e kamer). At some point in his career, about 2003 or 2004, he said something akin to "These fundamentalist Islamist hate-speech-imams are slowed for writing a book about tossing homosexuals head-first from office towers". As a result he got death-threats and hate-mail by muslim teenagers who interpreted this as insulting... while it was not at all a generalisation. Wilders got protection by bodyguards 24/7 and has been living in safe-houses ever since. At that time, Wilders said: 'I have no problems with Islam, only with the chaff of Islam (i.e. fundamentalists hate-speechers)"
However, the 24/7 wilders-saftey project got to his mind and his opinion began to slide, slide towards an obsession with the perceived evil of Islam and he retconned his erstwhile specification on terrorists and hate-imams to encompass all of Islam (a religion as varied as Christianity) This got him kicked out of the Liberal Party, after which he remained an independent MP and started his Freedom party, which can be likened to USA's Tea Party.
Geert Wilders is a smart man. It is well know on Dakka that a large group of Western European citizens are worried about islamization and immigration. Wilders exploits these sentiments to gain political power. He speaks to the citizens who voted for the murdered populist politician Fortuyn and xenophobics as well as people who are dissatisfied with the "regents" (we're back in the 1700's here) which means the seasoned politicians, and the Leftist-church: the left-wing parties like the PvdA (liberal socialists), D66 (liberal democrats) and Groen Links (progressive liberals). Because the majority of Geert Wilders' supporters are completely oblivious to how the government actually works, which parties can be held accountable for the problems the country faces and ignorant about the historical facts, he can tell them practically any fiction he wants and pass it off as truth. Off course, many people with a higher education, and the targets of these slanders themselves know better.
In fact, Wilders has not read the Quran he tells us so much about and I am quite certain he did not read mein kampf either... or did he?
All this "left-wing tries to destroy our country and is in league with islam terrorists" and "The Islam is invading and taking over till all your base are belong to Allah" is rather reminiscent of a certain well known German Politician who wrote a book that started a genocide and a world war. His whole strategy is eerily similar to Adolf's in the 30's. Blame a minority religion and a political ideology for your country's plight and discontent, seize power.
And the stupidest of stupidity here is that he will attempt use the trial to PROOF that the things he said about Islam and the Quran are true "because if it's true, it can't be tried as crime in a democracy with free speech and freedom press"
Here it goes:
Wilders Fairy Tale: "There is only one Islam, and that is the violent and oppressive Islam that oppresses women and demands all unbelievers are killed or taxed"
Truth: Islam is as diverse as Christendom, the Taliban-Islam is only one of many different kinds of Islam (check wikipedia on that) and that kind of islam truly sucks... Being mad at the Turkish Grocery Store guy for some hate-speech of the Ayatollah of Iran is like chastising a Mormon for something the Pope said about condoms for africa.
But it's what Wilders tries to do. He states that Islam in all its forms and shapes is inherrently evil and bent on our destruction like Adolf Hitler was bent on the destruction of the jews and communists. He deftly steers away people's concerns about state-dept, economical recession and heavy social issues like the AOW (old-age support plan) and redirects them to being concerned about Muslim immigration... because "they're gonna take over one day!"
Well, be that as it may, the trend is that Dutch Muslims are not islamising the Netherlands, the Netherlands are Dutchificating the Muslims. 2nd/3d generation ftw if it comes to adapting to the country they were born in. It's the parents we failed to be proper hosts to, the children will end up quite better and the bad apples of the bunch are really a slight minority.
Wilders Fairy Tale: "Morrocan teenage gangsters are gangers because the quran says they must opress non-muslims"
Truth: Morrocan teenage gangsters are gangsters because they have nothing better to do, are not stimulated to do other things by parents nor school teachers and generally have no interest in their religion at all, except when they can use it as excuse to pick a fight and make a nuisance of themselves. Actually, these kids try to exploit what they perceive as the freedoms of the Western world without knowing what these freedoms are... they are almost like Wilders, but violent. They'll beat somebody up and say they're allowed to because "it's a free country" or worse: "you're a racist for calling the cops on us because we beat up this old dude, you don't respect our religion!"
Wilders Fairy Tale: "The Quran is as evil as mine Kampf"
Truth: True, some jewish tribes get slaughtered in the Quran, but it also says that jews and christians should, for some extra tax, be treated with respect and have the much of same rights as muslims. Check out Al-Andalus and the medieval Middle East (the Seljuks are an exeption rather than the rule, those guys were bad news for tolerance).
Wilders Fairy Tale: "If you tear out all violent chapters of the Quran, you will be left with a volume the size of Donald Duck magazine (equal size to a single issue of a mainstream American superhero comic)"
he basically says that the Quran is full of warfare, rape and genocide... and that leaving out those paragraphs leaves you with barely a book to speak of. He does not know that, he hasn't read it. The bible has battles and genocides to... The quran has the battles of the bible and those of mohammed, so yeah, that's more war, but still... Without the violence it's just the size of the latest issue of Spiderman? It's hard to believe... Though putting it to the test would probably end up as a whole new charge or trial...
But I guess it's what implied that is insulting: because it has violent chapters about slaying the infidels, the religion is bellicose towards infidels, always has been, still is today, there is no other explanation to what is written, the muslims themselves say that the Quran is the word of god.
Last Wilders Fairy Tale unrelated to the trial but nice for perspective: "The Left-Wing parties have invited all these immigrant workers and Muslims to our country, want them to stay, and want all us Dutch People to adapt to the immigrants."
Truth: Dutch workers successfully won their rights to proper payment for their jobs in the 60-70's, the Conservative Confessionals and Conservative Liberals obliged the employers union to hire foreigners who could do the jobs cheaper and the employers did so- there they came, the Greeks, Turks, Moroccans and Italians. The left-wing parties (i.e. pro-employees-rights) were adamantly opposed but did not have a parliament majority at the time. Conclusion: conservative Right is to blame for immigration. However even if powerless to stop the immigration, the left-wing parties are humane and said "if they come, let's be good hosts" which was also kind of neglected.
To get to the problems faces nowadays, it can almost entirely be attributed to the Confessional-Conservatives (CDA) and the Conservative Liberals. the liberal-socialists and the liberal democrats certainly had their roles thereafter in subsequent governments, but the first stone was cast by those who now blame the liberals and socialists, of which half the parties did either not exist at the time, or have never been in a government coalition. Nowadays, the liberal and socialist parties are not opposed to a normal amount of immigration but are opposed of scapegoating and discriminating ethnic minorities. Wilders blows this out of proportion by saying liberals and socialists actually PLAN to have a lot of immigrants. This is a fiction, because even to these parties, there are limits. Especially since they are also (in varying degrees) environmentalist: too many people is bad for nature.
Basically Geert Wilders is scapegoating with reckless abandon and will only make things worse for this country.
He could probably sue me (and lose) for a few things I wrote here.
I stopped when you implied that Mormons were Christian.
And if you bothered to ever read or study the Koran you would know that it is even more violent and oppressive of woman than the Old Testament. According to the Koran the oh so glorious Mohammed wed a six year old and deflowered her at the age of nine.
The moderate and peaceful Islamic sects deviate considerably from Medieval Islam.
Amaya wrote:I stopped when you implied that Mormons were Christian.
How do you define a Christian?
And if you bothered to ever read or study the Koran you would know that it is even more violent and oppressive of woman than the Old Testament.
Have you read both? Because the Old Testament has more than a few horror stories that are justified in the writing.
According to the Koran the oh so glorious Mohammed wed a six year old and deflowered her at the age of nine.
The moderate and peaceful Islamic sects deviate considerably from Medieval Islam.
You could say exactly the same about Christianity, and I would be worried if you didn't.
You don't know much about Mormons or Christians do you?
The Catholics, you know the ones who went around slaughtering people wholesale? They're not Christian. I don't know what the hell they are. They're more of a bizarre mash up of random pagan religions with a slight Christian than anything else. Orthodox does some pretty damn weird stuff also.
The Old Testament isn't really relevant to Christianity, but I think the concept of God making a new pact with humanity via Jesus escapes the people who choose to ignore the fact their saviour supped with untouchables in favour of mudering blacks and queers.
Amaya wrote:I stopped when you implied that Mormons were Christian.
But that's exactly my point!
The Turk's Islam could as well be a totally different religion compared to the Ayatollah's.
Amaya wrote:
And if you bothered to ever read or study the Koran you would know that it is even more violent and oppressive of woman than the Old Testament. According to the Koran the oh so glorious Mohammed wed a six year old and deflowered her at the age of nine.
Yes, I know that story, bad PR for mohammed in the Modern Western World... not quite uncommon in that region at the time (but still bad), or actually, in the whole wide world at that time!
Amaya wrote:
The moderate and peaceful Islamic sects deviate considerably from Medieval Islam.
You could read a good history book about that of course, the Al-Andalus civilzation was a beacon of tolerance compared to the Spanish Christians, who genocided the jews and muslims they "liberated" from the Saracen joke. And the middle east wasn't a bad place for Christians and Jews either until the Seljuks took over. Up till that point, muslim, jew and christian happily coexisted in the Holy land... And when Saladin (muslim) kicked out the Crusaders (genociding b-tards) and Seljuks (intolerant slave raiders) he reintroduced religious tolerance. This even last for a while when the Ottomans took over in the end. In fact, most sub-sects of Islam where founded in the Dark Ages and medieval times, the world of Islam was, up until the European renaissance, the most advanced civilization in the Eurasian region and can't possibly compared to the ideologies of the Taliban or Saudi-Arabia.
Qu'ran also says: "the Jews and Christians are the people of the Book, and if a Muslim kills or abuses one of them, he is to be prosecuted as if he has killed a Muslim"
And, do you mean the "moderate and Peaceful Islamic sects of today" or "moderate and Peaceful Islamic sects of medieval times" or "muslims of this age in general" or "Moderate and Peaceful muslims are restricted to a few small sub-sects of Islam"?
Amaya wrote:The Catholics, you know the ones who went around slaughtering people wholesale? They're not Christian. I don't know what the hell they are. They're more of a bizarre mash up of random pagan religions with a slight Christian than anything else.
Amaya wrote:Funny, I don't remember Jesus bedding 9 year olds or even condoning such an action.
I didn't say that. Besides, Jesus lived about 300 years before Mohammed, in a different region with different customs. In addition, the Bible has been compiled by the Late Roman Empire, which had quite a good Editorial office. That means that things like "Jesus was married and had kids with Mary Magdalene" and "Jezus had three brothers and five sisters" got left out (these are examples of things the Roman Episcopals could have editted out if they find these things in the various text available at the time and found inappropriate).
I meant to say: "it was probably perfectly normal for Dark Ages Arabians to marry quite young". Yes, it is sick (didn't I say that?), but it's not unheard of in history for kids being pledged to a marriage at an age as young as six for politcal or economic reasons. Consuming it three years later is indeed freakish (and useless, and perverted).
Anyhoo, this does mean that Wilders is not slandering if he says that Mohammed married a six year old and had sex with her 3 years later, which makes him a Pedophile. It's the inconvenient, uncomfortable truth... So that's a point for him. A lot of other things he says are utter groxgak.
Amaya wrote:Funny, I don't remember Jesus bedding 9 year olds or even condoning such an action.
I didn't say that. Besides, Jesus lived about 300 years before Mohammed, in a different region with different customs. In addition, the Bible has been compiled by the Late Roman Empire, which had quite a good Editorial office. That means that things like "Jesus was married and had kids with Mary Magdalene" and "Jezus had three brothers and five sisters" got left out (these are examples of things the Roman Episcopals could have editted out if they find these things in the various text available at the time and found inappropriate).
I meant to say: "it was probably perfectly normal for Dark Ages Arabians to marry quite young". Yes, it is sick (didn't I say that?), but it's not unheard of in history for kids being pledged to a marriage at an age as young as six for politcal or economic reasons. Consuming it three years later is indeed freakish (and useless, and perverted).
Anyhoo, this does mean that Wilders is not slandering if he says that Mohammed married a six year old and had sex with her 3 years later, which makes him a Pedophile. It's the inconvenient, uncomfortable truth... So that's a point for him. A lot of other things he says are utter groxgak.
I really doubt that Jesus had any sexual relations.
Don't get me wrong, I do respect Muslims (even the terrorists to an extent, at least they believe), and both the Bible and the Koran have positive messages once you get passed the mysogony and kill! kill! kill! the heretic.
I just think it's silly to pretend that there isn't messed up crap in any of those 'holy' books. Personally, the only parts I give a crap about in the Bible are the things Jesus is actually attributed to have said.
Didn't we lynch little girls for being witches here in America. Were women burned as witches for knowing math. That's at least as bad as getting married to one. Don't sects here in America still get in trouble for giving 4 or 5 little girls to one man in those crazy compunds they keep out west?
Don't get me wrong, I do respect Muslims (even the terrorists to an extent, at least they believe), and both the Bible and the Koran have positive messages once you get passed the mysogony and kill! kill! kill! the heretic.
Is it okay if I'm wierded out by this?
I just think it's silly to pretend that there isn't messed up crap in any of those 'holy' books. Personally, the only parts I give a crap about in the Bible are the things Jesus is actually attributed to have said.
And yet you don't think Mormons and/or Catholics are Christian?
Spoiler:
Ohhh, you're one of them newfangled Pentacostal/Hillsong sorts then?
Don't get me wrong, I do respect Muslims (even the terrorists to an extent, at least they believe), and both the Bible and the Koran have positive messages once you get passed the mysogony and kill! kill! kill! the heretic.
Is it okay if I'm wierded out by this?
I just think it's silly to pretend that there isn't messed up crap in any of those 'holy' books. Personally, the only parts I give a crap about in the Bible are the things Jesus is actually attributed to have said.
And yet you don't think Mormons and/or Catholics are Christian?
Spoiler:
Ohhh, you're one of them newfangled Pentacostal/Hillsong sorts then?
No. I don't even go to church. The whole thing is a crock.
Mormons are most definetly not Christian and neither are Catholics. Since when do Christians play to little idols of Saints?
Wilders talks a whole lot of racist bile, but I’m not sure he should be facing court time for it. It’s a tough issue, where speech ends and where incitement to violence begins but personally I think there should be a real and pressing push towards violence for it to count as a incitement. “People with blue eyes are evil” needs to be protected, whereas “people with blue eyes are evil and we need to go to that guys house and set it on fire right now” doesn’t.
filbert wrote:You can say what you want but that doesn't make you exempt from the consequences as Arctik_Firangi points out.
No, that’s not what free speech means. Free speech is quite simply the freedom to speak without facing government sanction.
Deadshane1 wrote:I'm not coming to the aid of Islam here, because myself I think the religion is full of a bunch of fat spankers. Too much violent "smoke" involved in that religion for it to be entirely benign in my opinion.
There’s a billion people in the faith. It’s 1/6 of the world’s population. If even a small minority had violent intent towards the rest of the world we’d be seeing a whole lot more than a handful of bombs a year.
Course, from what I've seen...pretty much all religions get pretty hateful. Christianity is safe right now only because its so huge...they GOT the power and dont need to be beligerant. Make Christianity a 'niche' religion in the States like Islam is and you've got plenty of Christian "hate" flowing.
That’s not just religions. Any group gets more violent when it lacks power, and more placid when it has power. But that’s always on the fringes, 99% of us, whether in a powerful group or not, just want to work a job that pays enough, get hitched and raise kids.
Amaya wrote:You don't know much about Mormons or Christians do you?
The Catholics, you know the ones who went around slaughtering people wholesale? They're not Christian. I don't know what the hell they are. They're more of a bizarre mash up of random pagan religions with a slight Christian than anything else. Orthodox does some pretty damn weird stuff also.
No. Christianity isn’t defined by who you personally like. You follow Jesus, you’re a Christian.
Meanwhile, are you thinking no Protestants ever engaged in slaughter of their own? Seriously?
Shadowbrand wrote:Nazis were anti-religious. That's my only real problem with the Dutch fella's argument.
No, they weren’t. And no, it’s not even close to what’s wrong with his argument. You should try reading.
Amaya....ohhhhh Amaya.... Rarely do I see so much right and wrong in the same post.
@Sebster...one of the things that Amaya was right about, was that most protestants do not believe that Mormons are Christians and that they are indeed a cult. Your secular view that anyone that claims Jesus is all of a sudden a Christian is entirely false and shows your secularist slant.
generalgrog wrote:Amaya....ohhhhh Amaya.... Rarely do I see so much right and wrong in the same post.
@Sebster...one of the things that Amaya was right about, was that most protestants do not believe that Mormons are Christians and that they are indeed a cult. Your secular view that anyone that claims Jesus is all of a sudden a Christian is entirely false and shows your secularist slant.
GG
I know lots of Christians do believe they’re a cult. They’re not a cult (because that word has a real and specific meaning) but it’s certainly fair to say they’re very different from other Christian groups.
Thing is, the point at which you start defining Christianity as something other than people who see Jesus as their Lord and Saviour is the point where you start getting into long and very pointless arguments that achieve nothing. Instead, call them all Christians and start talking about what each really is, not whether they fit the definition of some guy like amaya.
FFS, the founders of Mormonism explicitly stated that they are not Christian and that Christians are wrong. The whole Mormons are Christians crap got started in order to make Mormonism more mainstream.
sebster wrote:
Thing is, the point at which you start defining Christianity as something other than people who see Jesus as their Lord and Saviour is the point where you start getting into long and very pointless arguments that achieve nothing. Instead, call them all Christians and start talking about what each really is, not whether they fit the definition of some guy like amaya.
If you would like to continue this in PM I'm willing to do that, because I don't want to derail this thread with a lesson on cults, and how they are damaging to people, and how helping people get out of cults is hardly pointless.
Amaya wrote:
And if you bothered to ever read or study the Koran you would know that it is even more violent and oppressive of woman than the Old Testament. According to the Koran the oh so glorious Mohammed wed a six year old and deflowered her at the age of nine.
The text you're referring to is the Hadith, not the Koran. Moreover, there is quite a bit of controversy surrounding Ayesha's age; notably regarding the incentive to misreport her age in order to solidify her as Muhammad's only virgin wife; something very important given the critical role of Abu Bakr in Muslim history.
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Amaya wrote:
Mormons are most definetly not Christian and neither are Catholics.
I'll give you Mormons, but not Catholics. To state that Catholics aren't Christian is controversial enough that you should expect people to balk by default.
Amaya wrote:
Since when do Christians play to little idols of Saints?
Since about 1600 years ago. Its important to distinguish between worship in the sense of honor, and worship in the sense kneeling before the divine. The former applies to saints, the latter to God.
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Amaya wrote:FFS, the founders of Mormonism explicitly stated that they are not Christian and that Christians are wrong. The whole Mormons are Christians crap got started in order to make Mormonism more mainstream.
No, the founders of Mormonism explicitly stated that they are not members of the Christian Church. This is not the same thing as not being Christian. They saw themselves as a restoration of primitive Christianity.
Amaya wrote:
If you don't know crap about it, just shut up.
Amaya wrote:
And if you bothered to ever read or study the Koran you would know that it is even more violent and oppressive of woman than the Old Testament. According to the Koran the oh so glorious Mohammed wed a six year old and deflowered her at the age of nine.
The text you're referring to is the Hadith, not the Koran. Moreover, there is quite a bit of controversy surrounding Ayesha's age; notably regarding the incentive to misreport her age in order to solidify her as Muhammad's only virgin wife; something very important given the critical role of Abu Bakr in Muslim history.
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Amaya wrote:
Mormons are most definetly not Christian and neither are Catholics.
I'll give you Mormons, but not Catholics. To state that Catholics aren't Christian is controversial enough that you should expect people to balk by default.
Amaya wrote:
Since when do Christians play to little idols of Saints?
Since about 1600 years ago. Its important to distinguish between worship in the sense of honor, and worship in the sense kneeling before the divine. The former applies to saints, the latter to God.
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Amaya wrote:FFS, the founders of Mormonism explicitly stated that they are not Christian and that Christians are wrong. The whole Mormons are Christians crap got started in order to make Mormonism more mainstream.
No, the founders of Mormonism explicitly stated that they are not members of the Christian Church. This is not the same thing as not being Christian. They saw themselves as a restoration of primitive Christianity.
Amaya wrote:
If you don't know crap about it, just shut up.
Indeed.
Wasn't she originally thought to be about 15-16 when she bedded Mohammed
generalgrog wrote:
@Sebster...one of the things that Amaya was right about, was that most protestants do not believe that Mormons are Christians and that they are indeed a cult. Your secular view that anyone that claims Jesus is all of a sudden a Christian is entirely false and shows your secularist slant.
Its not really false, so much as unconcerned with the specific beliefs of any faith that claims to worship Jesus. Its a sort of categorical view, not one related to what any particular person believes to be true.
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youbedead wrote:
Wasn't she originally thought to be about 15-16 when she bedded Mohammed
Nine is the original number, but it wasn't written down until after Muhammad's death. At which point Abu Bakr, being in line to inherit the Caliphate, would have extensive reason to bolster his claim by 'enhancing' the case for his daughter's virginity being taken by Muhammad.
Now, its certainly possible that Ayesha really was 9 when Muhammad consummated their marriage, but its far from being a certainty; especially given that the Hadith is not usually thought to be inerrant.
Shadowbrand wrote:Nazis were anti-religious. That's my only real problem with the Dutch fella's argument.
Fuhrer, mein Fuhrer, von Gott mir gegeben, beschutz und erhalte noch lange mein Leben Du hast Deutschland errettet aus tiefster Not, Dir verdank ich mein tagliches Brot Fuhrer, mein Fuhrer, mein Glaube, mein Licht Fuhrer mein Fuhrer, verlasse mich nicht
Amaya wrote:Mormons are most definetly not Christian
That depends on your definition of christian. If by christian you mean people who believe in jesus christ as their savior, then mormons are christian. If by christian you mean people who believe in the trinity, then mormons are not christian.
generalgrog wrote:If you would like to continue this in PM I'm willing to do that, because I don't want to derail this thread with a lesson on cults,
It's called off topic - let's go off topic
I always forget to respond to PMs, anyway, in fact this just reminded I forgot to reply to one from before the weekend.
and how they are damaging to people, and how helping people get out of cults is hardly pointless.
GG
I'm not going to argue there aren't seriously unhealthy elements within Mormonism, and that some of these elements are cults. I'm just arguing that the things that make something a cult (direct control over the lives of members, removal from greater society, the requirement to completely accept the worldview of the leaders) doesn't apply to Mormonism as a whole.
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Amaya wrote:FFS, the founders of Mormonism explicitly stated that they are not Christian and that Christians are wrong. The whole Mormons are Christians crap got started in order to make Mormonism more mainstream.
They moved away from Christianity out of a belief that it had fallen into spiritual decay. Like more or less every other Christian splinter group. By your logic the protestants wouldn't be Christian either.
filbert wrote:You can say what you want but that doesn't make you exempt from the consequences as Arctik_Firangi points out.
No, that’s not what free speech means. Free speech is quite simply the freedom to speak without facing government sanction.
I wasn't referring to the concept of free speech, as you have quite correctly defined here, more the reality of free speech as is enshrined in law here in the UK and what Frazzled was asking about. We here in the UK like to think we have free speech and freedom from prosecution but we do not (at least for certain things).
Prosecutors were initially reluctant to bring Wilders' case to court, saying his remarks appeared directed toward Islam as an ideology rather than intended to insult Muslims as a group.
Of course, because the definitive characteristic of a group has absolutely nothing to do with that group.
Also, the great shame is that Islamism actually is bound pretty tightly to fascism. Had the dude just added those last three letters the whole thing would have been pretty insignificant.
How do you define "Islamism" though? That's like comparing the Republicans in the US with Conservatives in Europe under the umbrella term "conservative".
And if you bothered to ever read or study the Koran you would know that it is even more violent and oppressive of woman than the Old Testament. According to the Koran the oh so glorious Mohammed wed a six year old and deflowered her at the age of nine.
Except that the Quran said no such thing. Try again.
Anyhoo, this does mean that Wilders is not slandering if he says that Mohammed married a six year old and had sex with her 3 years later, which makes him a Pedophile. It's the inconvenient, uncomfortable truth... So that's a point for him. A lot of other things he says are utter groxgak.
While it may seem strange and reprehensible to our modern eyes, marrying at those ages was normal across the whole world at the time. People only lived to be around 40 years old in those days so by the time you're 18 or 20 you're already middle aged.
Bible and the Koran have positive messages once you get passed the mysogony and kill! kill! kill! the heretic.
I really don't recall any passages in the Quran where I was specifically asked to kill heretics for no reason at all.
While it may seem strange and reprehensible to our modern eyes, marrying at those ages was normal across the whole world at the time. People only lived to be around 40 years old in those days so by the time you're 18 or 20 you're already middle aged.
Actually, I'd say that it was acceptable (generally) for this to occur at 12 or a little earlier. I would assume that at nine even then people would think that was pushing it...maybe? I know they were married at a young age a lot, such as a certain Byzantine Emperor being married to new born princess babe of Hungary (I think), but consumation waited a while.
burning_phoneix wrote:
How do you define "Islamism" though? That's like comparing the Republicans in the US with Conservatives in Europe under the umbrella term "conservative".
In the US parlance 'Islamism' almost always denotes the fusion of Muslim theology with fascist political principles (especially corporatism, and in-group superiority); usually the Muslim Brotherhood is considered to be the prototypical Islamist organization.
There are some other, more liberal definitions that basically amount to "Islam as expressed in an organized political ideology" but I think you would be hard pressed to find examples of organizations that are not consistent with the first definition. As such,while you can argue that its possible for a group to be Islamist without being associated with fascism, it wouldn't be incorrect to state that there is a strog historical connection between the two.
Herohammernostalgia wrote:That means that things like "Jesus was married and had kids with Mary Magdalene" and "Jezus had three brothers and five sisters" got left out (these are examples of things the Roman Episcopals could have editted out if they find these things in the various text available at the time and found inappropriate).
Gentlemen, I give you... Craig Christ! (Frazzled note this is one of my favorite comics) (mod note language NSFW)
Criticism / denouncing Islam in the way that Wilders does is often labelled "racist". I've always found this one a little strange as Islam is a religion / ideology / culture, not a race - there are white muslims for instance, and by comparison criticising Christianity is rarely seen as racist, so what's the difference here? (unlike antisemitism, as there is an element of genetic as well as cultural heritage to being Jewish). Am I being a bit naive here?
Doggles wrote:Criticism / denouncing Islam in the way that Wilders does is often labelled "racist". I've always found this one a little strange as Islam is a religion / ideology / culture, not a race - there are white muslims for instance, and by comparison criticising Christianity is rarely seen as racist, so what's the difference here? (unlike antisemitism, as there is an element of genetic as well as cultural heritage to being Jewish). Am I being a bit naive here?
Not really, the term 'racist' is just a catch-all and convenient label for the sort of anti-islamic rhetoric that gets spouted rather than an exact definition. Plus, I think there is an element to do with the fact that racism and being racist (quite rightly) has very negative connotations associated with it and so chucking the racist label at someone is a quick and easy way to smear them.
Herohammernostalgia wrote:
If it weren't for the Roman Catholics, there wouldn't even be a Bible!
The Eastern Orthodox would like to have a word with you...
Well, If I remember what I read about it, up until the 10th century schism, the only European Christian church was named Catholic. This was after much debate and sectarian strife, that "killed" the arianist and monophysite sects who had their own idea's about the religion, but were not supported by the Imperial authorities. Charlemagne became Catholic too and played quite a part in Christianizing Pagan Europe. Around 1000 CE there was a row between the Western European Catholics and the Eastern European Catholics about the day we should celebrate Christmas and about the relation between the Pope and the Roman Emperor (of the Byzantine Empire). The issue could not be resolved, hence a split into a Catholic church of Rome and the Orthodox church of Constantinople occurred.
Ahtman wrote:If he had said just Catholic I would agree, but he specified Roman Catholic. We shouldn't deny the non-Roman, pre-Schism contributions.
Technically, there weren't any non-Roman contributions, as pretty much the entire Christian world at that point was under the rule of the Roman Empire.
Indeed, was it not the Schism that led to the formation of separate churches?
The western one was based in Rome, the capital of the Western Empire, where the head prelate (I forget his official title of the time) managed to manoeuvre his way into being pope.
Ahtman wrote:If he had said just Catholic I would agree, but he specified Roman Catholic. We shouldn't deny the non-Roman, pre-Schism contributions.
Technically, there weren't any non-Roman contributions, as pretty much the entire Christian world at that point was under the rule of the Roman Empire.
Well, I suppose if you want a a numbed down and simplistic approach to history you can go ahead with that, but doesn't really work for me.
Herohammernostalgia wrote:
If it weren't for the Roman Catholics, there wouldn't even be a Bible!
The Eastern Orthodox would like to have a word with you...
Actually he is kind of right. In that the earliest canon was assembled in the 4th century(way before the great schism and eastern othodox Church).
GG
also before the catholic church as a seperate institution based on the supremacy of the bishop of rome.
AF
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Laughing Man wrote:
Ahtman wrote:If he had said just Catholic I would agree, but he specified Roman Catholic. We shouldn't deny the non-Roman, pre-Schism contributions.
Technically, there weren't any non-Roman contributions, as pretty much the entire Christian world at that point was under the rule of the Roman Empire.
mmmmm...... the eastern and roman empires kind of went their own way in the 4th century. by the end of the 5th the western empire no longer exists in any substantive form. saying that it was all about the catholics misses the point that there was a larger christian world at the time that the canon was established, and that the roman catholics are 1 of several inheritors of that tradition. the orthodox and the coptic churches come to mind as two others that have as ancient and as valid a claim on that tradition as the roman catholics. AF
So, alright, there could have possibly been a bible without the Roman Catholics, but the bible being available today is to be attributed to the Catholic church for a major part.
Especially since the Roman Catholic church aced the monastic system and was very, extremely missionary with their ideology.
Kilkrazy wrote:Indeed, was it not the Schism that led to the formation of separate churches?
The western one was based in Rome, the capital of the Western Empire, where the head prelate (I forget his official title of the time) managed to manoeuvre his way into being pope.
he was just the bishop of rome.
yeah the whole conversation has zero relevance to dutch politics.
Herohammernostalgia wrote:So, alright, there could have possibly been a bible without the Roman Catholics, but the bible being available today is to be attributed to the Catholic church for a major part.
Not really, the printed bible, written in local language, not Latin, is almost entirely a protestant concept.
Monday Geert Wilders used his right to remain silent.
The Judge said: "It has come to my attention that mr Wilders often avoids debate about his statements*, it appears he does it again now". It is customary for a judge to make a request for the defendant to speak
Wilder's lawyer objected and accused the judge to be partial to the offenders claims and wanted a new judge. This accusation was then, tuesday, reviewed by a commission and the commission said: "The remark of the judge, while a clumsy choice of words, does not point at partiality. The judge thus remains in function, Wilders and his lawyer are unhappy about it, trial continues on the 5th of November
* Geert Wilders has been invited by several organisations (including muslims) and political parties to have debates about his statements. He has always refused any invitations to have a debate about his statements, he just says something and then refuses to further discuss the matter.
burning_phoneix wrote:
How do you define "Islamism" though? That's like comparing the Republicans in the US with Conservatives in Europe under the umbrella term "conservative".
In the US parlance 'Islamism' almost always denotes the fusion of Muslim theology with fascist political principles (especially corporatism, and in-group superiority); usually the Muslim Brotherhood is considered to be the prototypical Islamist organization.
There are some other, more liberal definitions that basically amount to "Islam as expressed in an organized political ideology" but I think you would be hard pressed to find examples of organizations that are not consistent with the first definition. As such,while you can argue that its possible for a group to be Islamist without being associated with fascism, it wouldn't be incorrect to state that there is a strog historical connection between the two.
Except that Islam as a political ideology is still in a very nascent stage. Even the Muslim Brotherhood is ironically amongst the most democratic organizations in the middle east today.
All in all, political Islam has usually been swept aside and repressed under fascist arab-nationalist regimes or autocratic monarchies so it's difficult to gauge their political principles.
burning_phoneix wrote:
Except that Islam as a political ideology is still in a very nascent stage.
I don't think so. Political Islam has been around for a little over 80 years. You can't call something nascent after 80% of a century.
burning_phoneix wrote:
Even the Muslim Brotherhood is ironically amongst the most democratic organizations in the middle east today.
I wouldn't say that the Muslim Brotherhood is democratic. Democracy implies a sort of formalized process of representation through voting. The Muslim Brotherhood has the GOC, but the Shura Council makes most of its decisions autonomously, without electoral approval.
burning_phoneix wrote:
All in all, political Islam has usually been swept aside and repressed under fascist arab-nationalist regimes or autocratic monarchies so it's difficult to gauge their political principles.
Well, it isn't that difficult. The Muslim Brotherhood, just as one example, is pretty clear about what it wants politically; governance according to the Koran and the Sunna, and a reconstructed Caliphate.
Also, while its easy to claim that political Islam has been artificially suppressed, I think the real issue is that it varies an incredible amount from region to region, and state to state. You can really see this in places like Uzbekistan where, despite being almost entirely Muslim, the population oobserves an interpretation of Sharia that bears little resemblance to the sort of thing that exists in Saudi Arabia.
Wilders is a very brave man, and i salute him for his efforts.
I agree with much of what he says, sure some of it is far too extreme as i dont think we should villify all the Muslims in Europe, but Islam is a very savage and aggressive Religion, and people need to open their eyes to what is happening.
I just hope they dont kill him in the street like they did poor Theo Van Gogh.
Which was an absolute tragedy by the way. But still the goddamn hippies have everyone in Europe convinced that Islam is all about "peace" despite the fact that they keep on blowing people up and knifing people they disagree with.
mattyrm wrote:Wilders is a very brave man, and i salute him for his efforts.
I agree with much of what he says, sure some of it is far too extreme as i dont think we should villify all the Muslims in Europe, but Islam is a very savage and aggressive Religion, and people need to open their eyes to what is happening.
I just hope they dont kill him in the street like they did poor Theo Van Gogh.
Which was an absolute tragedy by the way. But still the goddamn hippies have everyone in Europe convinced that Islam is all about "peace" despite the fact that they keep on blowing people up and knifing people they disagree with.
But does it really do any good to generalise and pigeon-hole everyone like this? I no more believe that all Muslims wish to blow me up any more than I believe that all Catholics want to kill me. I mean the IRA spent a good few decades attacking targets of interest in the UK, both civilian and military, but that doesn't mean that people classify Catholicism as a hateful religion.
Sure we need to have the debate but it needs to be informed debate not just jingoistic, flag waving nonsense.
You missed the interesting This Week townhall with several prominent Brit types talking about global sharia being a requirement of their faith.
If its informed it really needs to be open and not bound by PC nonesense either. Clearly if Wilders being prosecuted such a debate cannot occur in that country.
Frazzled wrote:You missed the interesting This Week townhall with several prominent Brit types talking about global sharia being a requirement of their faith.
If its informed it really needs to be open and not bound by PC nonesense either. Clearly if Wilders being prosecuted such a debate cannot occur in that country.
And that's really the key problem we have, at least here in the UK, that it is very difficult to engage in any kind of debate about these issues without the race card and ignorance from both sides of the coin.
For example, immigration was seen as one of the key issues of the recent election by all the major pollsters yet the issue seems to have been forgotten about, aside from the proposal to cap non-EU immigration. It is too often seen as a hot potato and shoved under the carpet but all that does is foster tension and breed more ignorance.
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mattyrm wrote:What's jingoistic about it? Not all or even most want to blow us up, but they think we should all be Muslims, and we aren't equal to them.
This is true, there is no nonsense here.
And Christians (at least the semi-devout ones) don't? A key tenet of Christianity is to spread the faith - have you never been door stepped by them before? How different is that? The means of expression may be different but the goal is the same.
Yeah mate, and I strongly dislike devout Christians because of that attitude.
The fact is, the only Muslims I have time for ain't Muslims, they are the fake wishy washy ones they send in to convince us that all is well, and it isn't.
I dislike all devout religious people for the simple fact that they want to be able to decide how everyone else should live their lives.
It's not on. And yes some Christians do it as well, bit that ain't the topic here, the topic is Islam, and Islam IS an aggressive dogma that is doing all it can to spread, and anyone who actually cares about freedom should be very worried about it.
egor71 wrote:And you think he should debate in court with a judge
Read it a little more carefully. The judge wasn't inviting a statement for the judge to debate, he was looking for him to make a statement on his own behalf, which the prosecution might counter. That's how courts work. When a defendant declines to offer substantiation for his claims, it's odd.
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mattyrm wrote:i dont think we should villify all the Muslims in Europe, but Islam is a very savage and aggressive Religion
Uh huh.
Which was an absolute tragedy by the way. But still the goddamn hippies have everyone in Europe convinced that Islam is all about "peace" despite the fact that they keep on blowing people up and knifing people they disagree with.
There's a billion muslims. If any more than the tiniest minority wanted to commit violence, we'd have a whole lot more troubles than the odd bomb going off.
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mattyrm wrote:What's jingoistic about it? Not all or even most want to blow us up, but they think we should all be Muslims, and we aren't equal to them.
No, not really. There's pretty standard xenophobia you see in all groups like Christians and even your beloved atheists, assuming their way is the best way and everything would be better if everyone was like them.
But that's a million miles from actually wanting to do anything about it, and million miles again from acting.
There are problems with extreme fringes of Islam, no doubt. The solution to this is isolate that fringe from the majority of the faith, carrying on like its representative of the majority of Muslims will only make the problem worse.
But I've explained all of that to you before, and I expect I will again. As long as you don't want to get it, you won't get it.
egor71 wrote:And you think he should debate in court with a judge
Read it a little more carefully. The judge wasn't inviting a statement for the judge to debate, he was looking for him to make a statement on his own behalf, which the prosecution might counter. That's how courts work. When a defendant declines to offer substantiation for his claims, it's odd.
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mattyrm wrote:i dont think we should villify all the Muslims in Europe, but Islam is a very savage and aggressive Religion
Uh huh.
Which was an absolute tragedy by the way. But still the goddamn hippies have everyone in Europe convinced that Islam is all about "peace" despite the fact that they keep on blowing people up and knifing people they disagree with.
There's a billion muslims. If any more than the tiniest minority wanted to commit violence, we'd have a whole lot more troubles than the odd bomb going off.
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mattyrm wrote:What's jingoistic about it? Not all or even most want to blow us up, but they think we should all be Muslims, and we aren't equal to them.
No, not really. There's pretty standard xenophobia you see in all groups like Christians and even your beloved atheists, assuming their way is the best way and everything would be better if everyone was like them.
But that's a million miles from actually wanting to do anything about it, and million miles again from acting.
There are problems with extreme fringes of Islam, no doubt. The solution to this is isolate that fringe from the majority of the faith, carrying on like its representative of the majority of Muslims will only make the problem worse.
But I've explained all of that to you before, and I expect I will again. As long as you don't want to get it, you won't get it.
Sorry what was that? I thought i had already explained to you via PM that i dont actually read anything exceptionally boring, self important people had to say?
(edited to be clearer )
Read it a little more carefully. The judge wasn't inviting a statement for the judge to debate, he was looking for him to make a statement on his own behalf, which the prosecution might counter. That's how courts work. When a defendant declines to offer substantiation for his claims, it's odd.
***You not seen many criminal cases then. Its "odd" for a defendant to say anything in a criminal case if he doesn't have to.
There are problems with extreme fringes of Islam, no doubt. The solution to this is isolate that fringe from the majority of the faith, carrying on like its representative of the majority of Muslims will only make the problem worse.
***Only the moderates of that faith can do that, just like any other faith. WE can't do that. If they don't, then you're left with the terrorists and guerrilla wars and you have to act on that basis.
There are problems with extreme fringes of Islam, no doubt. The solution to this is isolate that fringe from the majority of the faith, carrying on like its representative of the majority of Muslims will only make the problem worse.
***Only the moderates of that faith can do that, just like any other faith. WE can't do that. If they don't, then you're left with the terrorists and guerrilla wars and you have to act on that basis.
This is absolutely true.
What we can do, of course, is help or hinder the moderates by our behaviour, laws and so on towards them.
Well each nation can do a lot, depending on its own cuture. Some can be accomodating, some can treat all the faiths the same and strictly at arm's length (France), some could go the Saudi way and ban a faith completely.
mattyrm wrote:Sorry what was that? I thought i had already explained to you via PM that i dont actually read anything exceptionally boring, self important people had to say?
Yeah, I know, you’ve got your opinion and it makes you happy so you don’t like people pointing out that it doesn’t make much sense. I get that. Thing is, I’m an optimist, and I think that sooner or later everyone can be brought around to sensible opinions. So I’m gonna keep pointing out where you’re wrong.
From the look of it, you’ll keep crying about that. But what else can I do… a man’s gotta try.
Frazzled wrote:***You not seen many criminal cases then. Its "odd" for a defendant to say anything in a criminal case if he doesn't have to.
Looking at it that way relies on ignoring the political nature of the trial. If he was on trial for murder, and the issues in dispute were matters of fact, then it’d make sense. But much of this trial is based on the legitimacy of what he’s saying, and the only way that legitimacy can be established is by him talking about his statements.
***Only the moderates of that faith can do that, just like any other faith. WE can't do that. If they don't, then you're left with the terrorists and guerrilla wars and you have to act on that basis.
The first part of that is fair, the moderates themselves have to play a role in rejecting the extremists. It’s the nature of things that moderates will be fairly passive through the process though, that’s what being moderate means.
I’m not sure about the second part… of course we have to act to stop the extremists, and capture or kill them as necessary to prevent them doing any harm. But that goal isn’t aided by confusing the terrorists with the greater population. I’m really not sure what you mean by ‘act on that basis’.
Frazzled wrote:You missed the interesting This Week townhall with several prominent Brit types talking about global sharia being a requirement of their faith.
If its informed it really needs to be open and not bound by PC nonesense either. Clearly if Wilders being prosecuted such a debate cannot occur in that country.
Why? Advocating global Sharia law isn't hate speech by any stretch of the imagination.
The judge did want the debate, he tried to provoke it.
But to get this info you would have to live in this gak hole.
You have no idea how messed up my country is.
The problem is that a lot of people are provoked by Wilders. Each statement he makes is big news "looky here what Wilders says now!"
He's been called out to defend his opinion lots of times, but he refuses to do so. A Wilders reply to criticism of his statement is always another statement about the evils of the leftist-church and islam.
Frazzled wrote:You missed the interesting This Week townhall with several prominent Brit types talking about global sharia being a requirement of their faith.
If its informed it really needs to be open and not bound by PC nonesense either. Clearly if Wilders being prosecuted such a debate cannot occur in that country.
Why? Advocating global Sharia law isn't hate speech by any stretch of the imagination.
Geert Wilders opinions are uncomfortable, and thus they are challenged.
Truth is no matter what the politically correct nincompoops say a sizable minority of Moslems want their own way at any cost, refuse to integrate and most damningly the majority of Islam is not doing enough to reign them in. If the majority do nothing the minority hold power, so in a very real way the extremists are those who speak for Islam regardless of their actual demographic proportion of the whole.
I remebmer the BBC interviewing mosdelm community leaders the day after the 7/7 bombings and asking them if they condemn them. I remeber the stony silence as they refused to do so.
Wilders commentaries remeain necessary however uncomfortable so long as the supposed westernised moderate Islamic minority continues to refuse to utterly refute the claims of Islamic extermists.
Are relgious killers holy? Y/N
If your place of worship answers yes then that place of worship should be shut down until the answer is no
This is fairer than it first appears because it can be applied accross the board despite the imblance on which relgions actually go out and cause killings. I would liike to see the same logic apply to other extreme militant groups, there arent many but they do exist and simply also placing a no tolerance on Jewish exteremism aka' the only solution to Palestinain is a Final Solution.' will be enough to apply balance. Finding extremists will be more difficult, not because they dont exist but because Jewish extremism is far better concealed.
Christian extremism is the problem to find, there is no Christian holy land war going on there is no point at which you can see the militancy.
Most Christian extremism is on points of opinion rather than action, such as Westboro Baptists. Its also relatively rare especially when you see just how vast the church actually is.
Still its already lobsidedly legislated against, especially in the UK. Best example here is that critique of homosexuality (not persecution, just being willing to openly say you think it wrong) is not to be tolerated by law, but the reverse is acceptable. You can call relgions wrong as often as you like and as fervently as yiou like. Furthermore the critique of homosexuality by the Moslems is oddly completely ignored and is far more extreme than anything in the churches.
Hardline Christian Priest: 'Homoesexuality is a sin, we dont want it in our church.'
PC Idiot: 'You vile bigots,we demand the government fine your church.'
Hardline Moslem Priest: 'Homosexuals should be eradicated.'
PC Idiot: 'We welcome the diversity of your cultural opinion.'
Ever wondered why Peter Tatchel et al don't bother attacking Mosques for what they beleive about gays.
Holland is gearing towards similar lobsided tolerances towards different religions that we are experiencing. The deciding factor is comfort levels. The PC lobby and the unthinking majority are ok to see a church get some, but when you critique a relgion that is a genuine threat and cannot be controlled and is now established inside your borders people get edgy. Its appeasement pure and simple.
mattyrm wrote:Sorry what was that? I thought i had already explained to you via PM that i dont actually read anything exceptionally boring, self important people had to say?
Yeah, I know, you’ve got your opinion and it makes you happy so you don’t like people pointing out that it doesn’t make much sense. I get that. Thing is, I’m an optimist, and I think that sooner or later everyone can be brought around to sensible opinions. So I’m gonna keep pointing out where you’re wrong.
Sensible opinions?! haha! And thus we see the problem. This is why i skim over pretty much everything you write.
Im hardly a "right wing nut" am i? I am just more right of centre than you, and yes again, you reply to anything i type with "you're wrong" when we arent arguing about a mathematical problem or the location of a capital city, were talking about opinions here, and i am of the opinion that we need to use less carrot and more stick with regards to Islam as i feel we have appeased it plenty already to no avail. But to you, its just "right" and "wrong" with regards to peoples thoughts, and anybody who disagrees with you is "wrong" and you have to "bring me around to sensible opinions"
What a joke. Many educated people hold similar (sometimes more aggressive views) than me, i enjoy reading, and many of the authors i enjoy are of the same mind as me, is Christopher Hitchens "wrong" and he doesnt have "sensible opinions" because he doesnt hold to the exact same world view as you do?
And here's the thing though, i have disagreements with lots of people, but i actually LIKE talking to them. I can get pretty much your opinion from any one of the numerous left leaning moderates on this site without having to read the self important, boring, ridiculously pompus things you write.
Shuma keeps me right, and he actually manages to be funny when he is being sharp with me, you just.. exist.
Now please stop making me reply to you, im good enough to merely ignore you, cant you give me the same courtesy?
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Orlanth wrote:
I remebmer the BBC interviewing moslem community leaders the day after the 7/7 bombings and asking them if they condemn them. I remeber the stony silence as they refused to do so.
QFT.
Islam already gets too damn much respect.
Its time to ditch that carrot and use the stick on these two-faced sneaks who are trying to import their own archaic values into Western Europe.
Orlanth wrote:I remebmer the BBC interviewing mosdelm community leaders the day after the 7/7 bombings and asking them if they condemn them. I remeber the stony silence as they refused to do so.
Rather like the stony silence when Gerry Adams would be asked about IRA attacks or when Dakka's Christians respond to 'young earthers' deciding school curriculums.
What is it all these people have in common? (semi-rhetorical)
I didnt get that at all from what he said Frazz, what he meant was
"People dont like to answer when they know people wont like the answer"
ie. Gerry Adams was blatantly a supporter of IRA bombings, many Muslims are blatantly supporters of AQ and Christians are well aware that most people think that Creationism is so laughable you really shouldnt admit it if you are one.
Frazzled wrote:Are you comparing Dakka's Christians to IRA members? Choose your words carefully, the account you save from banning may be your own.
Does this mean you're not willing to condemn young earthers? Mattyrm has it, they're all people uncomfortable with condeming people they consider themselves closer to than the audience they are asked to condem them to. Condeming your 'own' to strangers is hard. You were supposed to pass over the trick conclusion, that they're all religious, as false.
You've managed to amaze, please, amuse and dissapoint me in the space of two sentences.
Frazzled wrote:Are you comparing Dakka's Christians to IRA members? Choose your words carefully, the account you save from banning may be your own.
got your goat did he?
Not good to get a Mod's goat for violating Rule #1 on such an epic scale. Inpugning other Dakka members ist verbotten (except Leichtensteinians of course). Just a piece of advice.
George Spiggott wrote:
What is it all these people have in common? (semi-rhetorical)
And you've got it there. Religion had it's time, and now we should be moving past it. Instead of arguing who should build what temple/mosque/church where, how about we don't build any.. It's like dealing with my kids: You guys can't share the damn toys, guess what? Now nobody gets to play.
We keep trying to accomodate different religous creeds, and laws, but we fail to see how ridiculous those beliefs truly are. True, culture has a part to play, and religion can be a big part of your culture, but that only proves that religion cannot be taken at it's word, and that it's only ever been a loose amalgamation of tribal loyalty, and rules for when it's time to "go" against the guy on the other side of the river.
I'm not promoting a Marxist state run agenda against religion. The death of god can only come about when the people finally make that choice for themselves. I do advocate however, that the state recognize no religion in any way shape or form. There are simply too many different sects and beliefs to make any one party happy, and that doesn't even count the zealots who can't wait to die, and want to take a few innocents with them. Remove your "personal relationship" with god, and all of a sudden we have alot less to fight about.... Just saying...
you know its a pity you atheists arent more effective evangelizers. if you were you might actually get into a position to enforce all of these enlightened policies.
George Spiggott wrote:
What is it all these people have in common? (semi-rhetorical)
And you've got it there. Religion had it's time, and now we should be moving past it. Instead of arguing who should build what temple/mosque/church where, how about we don't build any.. It's like dealing with my kids: You guys can't share the damn toys, guess what? Now nobody gets to play.
We keep trying to accomodate different religous creeds, and laws, but we fail to see how ridiculous those beliefs truly are. True, culture has a part to play, and religion can be a big part of your culture, but that only proves that religion cannot be taken at it's word, and that it's only ever been a loose amalgamation of tribal loyalty, and rules for when it's time to "go" against the guy on the other side of the river.
I'm not promoting a Marxist state run agenda against religion. The death of god can only come about when the people finally make that choice for themselves. I do advocate however, that the state recognize no religion in any way shape or form. There are simply too many different sects and beliefs to make any one party happy, and that doesn't even count the zealots who can't wait to die, and want to take a few innocents with them. Remove your "personal relationship" with god, and all of a sudden we have alot less to fight about.... Just saying...
the First Amendment protects me from you. The Second Amendment protects the First. Remember in 2012. A vote for Il Duce -er Frazzled yea Frazzled- is a vote for Freedom!
The twentyfirst ammendment protects my right to go on forums and pick fights with cranky old men
Really though, would we be that much worse off if instead of protecting freedom of religion it was changed to freedom from religion? Humanity has moved to a point where we don't require nymphs, satyrs, djinns, ghosts, spirits, or whatever to explain the strange and wonderfull things that occur in this life. Now instead of offering comfort to the masses, it's become a point of contention and conflict, because religion sees the sand running out as science encroaches more and more on it's territory, thereby forcing more and more nut-jobs out into the open.
Frazzled wrote:Are you comparing Dakka's Christians to IRA members? Choose your words carefully, the account you save from banning may be your own.
got your goat did he?
Not good to get a Mod's goat for violating Rule #1 on such an epic scale. Inpugning other Dakka members ist verbotten (except Leichtensteinians of course). Just a piece of advice.
You do know that I didn't break rule #1, you just thought I did. Would it help if I posted something that could be replied to with a Weiner dog picture?
Frazzled wrote:Are you comparing Dakka's Christians to IRA members? Choose your words carefully, the account you save from banning may be your own.
got your goat did he?
Not good to get a Mod's goat for violating Rule #1 on such an epic scale. Inpugning other Dakka members ist verbotten (except Leichtensteinians of course). Just a piece of advice.
You do know that I didn't break rule #1, you just thought I did. Would it help if I posted something that could be replied to with a Weiner dog picture?
Keep up the good work.
You stated Dakka's Christians. Thats a potential violation. Don't push this.
How dare you post things that make sense and get in the way of my OT forum enjoyment. I want more extremism and shenanigans, not less due to people realizing what they are sayin!
Frazzled wrote:
It is if you're at the other end of the sword.
So its hate speech when people talk about exporting democracy?
Frazzled wrote:
Hate speech is just speech you disagree with.
Really? So all those non-determinist philosophers that I've argued against have been subject to hate speech? And all of your statement that I disagree with are hate speech directed against me?
Come on Frazz, I know you like simple arguments, but you know that you're wrong here.
Frazzled wrote:
It is if you're at the other end of the sword.
So its hate speech when people talk about exporting democracy?
Frazzled wrote:
Hate speech is just speech you disagree with.
Really? So all those non-determinist philosophers that I've argued against have been subject to hate speech? And all of your statement that I disagree with are hate speech directed against me?
Come on Frazz, I know you like simple arguments, but you know that you're wrong here.
You really are snappy with Dakka's Worst Mod Evah aren't you.
Philosophical arguments are not illumninative. Show me what the various laws using hate speech say. My only familiarity is PC codes on campus, and am not familiar with international laws in this area. PC college campus codes have been used to stifle a variety of different free speech advocates (of several positions).
Check that, Sanfrancisco has some anti obesity laws on the books now. So yea, its pretty much whatever the party in power disagrees with.
EDIT: Further, we're talking about Wilders and various Europa laws no? If there is no Constitution level protection, there's isn't anything keeping current legislation, whatever it is from changing to suit the majority in power.
George Spiggott wrote:Rather like the stony silence when Gerry Adams would be asked about IRA attacks or when Dakka's Christians respond to 'young earthers' deciding school curriculums.
What is it all these people have in common? (semi-rhetorical)
Wow the ignorance in this post is quite astonishing.
Comparing "DAKKA's Christians" and "young earthers" to IRA terrorists?
George Spiggott wrote:Rather like the stony silence when Gerry Adams would be asked about IRA attacks or when Dakka's Christians respond to 'young earthers' deciding school curriculums.
What is it all these people have in common? (semi-rhetorical)
Wow the ignorance in this post is quite astonishing.
Comparing "DAKKA's Christians" and "young earthers" to IRA terrorists?
GG
Incorrect GG. We're going with the interpretation that he did not mean Dakka members.
Frazzled wrote:
Philosophical arguments are not illumninative. Show me what the various laws using hate speech say.
Well, for starters, I'm not aware of any hate speech law that states that hate speech is equivalent to speech you do not agree with.
Frazzled wrote:
My only familiarity is PC codes on campus, and am not familiar with international laws in this area. PC college campus codes have been used to stifle a variety of different free speech advocates (of several positions).
Check that, Sanfrancisco has some anti obesity laws on the books now. So yea, its pretty much whatever the party in power disagrees with.
Yeah, that's usually how legislation works. You try to ban things that you don't like. I mean, even people that advocate free speech try to ban non-free speech.
Yeah, that's usually how legislation works. You try to ban things that you don't like. I mean, even people that advocate free speech try to ban non-free speech.
generalgrog wrote:
Wow the ignorance in this post is quite astonishing.
Comparing "DAKKA's Christians" and "young earthers" to IRA terrorists?
GG
No, that's not what was done. He compared the lack of response with respect to Dakka Christians in the context of young earth conversations to the lack of response with respect to Gerry Adams in the context of IRA terrorism.
The presence of two words in the same sentence is not sufficient to conclude that they were being compared.
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Frazzled wrote:
So you just agreed with me. Excellent....
Not considering what you wrote. Maybe I'm not clear on your meaning.
European Hate Speech Laws
Since the end of World War II, many European countries have witnessed a proliferation of hate speech legislation designed to curb incitement to racial and religious hatred. Though originally intended to guard against the kind of xenophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda that gave rise to the Holocaust, today, national hate speech laws have increasingly been invoked to criminalize speech that is merely deemed insulting to one's race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality. Under the guise of tolerance and co-existence, Islamists have often manipulated such laws in a bid to monopolize debate and define what is beyond the pale of permissible public discussion.
In large part, the movement to circumscribe the bounds of free expression has its roots in three instruments of international law—the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Religious Discrimination (CERD), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 10 of the ECHR, for example, grants the freedom of expression to all, but the exercise of this right is conditioned on conformity with the restrictions necessary, inter alia, "for the protection of the reputation and rights of others." The CERD and ICCPR, which also purport to recognize the freedom of expression, go a step further. Article 4(a) of the CERD obligates signatories to make "all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred" a punishable offense, while Article 20 of the ICCPR requires outlawing "any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence."
Given the nebulous standards on which much of Europe's hate speech laws are based—indeed, there is not even a universally agreed upon definition for what constitutes hate speech—it is little wonder that such legislation has ensnared speech it was likely never meant to punish. Delineating the line between speech that is considered rude and that which is considered insulting for the purposes of criminal prosecution is an utterly subjective undertaking, and a distinction that governments are ill-suited to determine. Compounding the problem of these laws' arbitrariness is their selective application: while European authorities have at times appeared reluctant to go after Islamist firebrands spouting hatred, those engaging in legitimate debate about Islamism are frequently targeted for prosecution. Examples abound:
Denmark: Article 266(b) of the Danish Criminal Code criminalizes "expressing and spreading racial hatred", making it an offense to use threatening, vilifying, or insulting language intended for the general public or a wide circle of persons. In 2001, several Danish politicians were convicted under this provision for allegedly making "anti-Islamic" statements. More recently, in June 2010, the Danish crown prosecutor sought to lift MP Jesper Langballe's parliamentary immunity so that he could face charges under Article 266(b) for publishing an article about the creeping "Islamisation of Europe" and the subjugated status of Muslim women.
France: France's principle piece of hate speech legislation is the Press Law of 1881, in which Section 24 criminalizes incitement to racial discrimination, hatred, or violence on the basis of one's origin or membership (or non-membership) in an ethic, national, racial, or religious group. A criminal code provision likewise makes it an offense to engage in similar conduct via private communication.
Such laws have been deployed against individuals across a broad swath of society. In 2002, four Muslim organizations filed a complaint against author Michel Houellebecq for stating that Islam was "stupid" and "dangerous" in an interview. Although the court acquitted Houellebecq, it refrained from doing so on free speech grounds. In 2005, politician Jean Marie Le Pen, runner-up in the 2002 presidential election, was convicted of inciting racial hatred for comments made to Le Monde in 2003 about the consequences of Muslim immigration in France. And in 2008, actress Brigitte Bardot was haled into court and convicted on charges of inciting racial hatred for her criticism concerning the ritual slaughter of sheep during a Muslim feast. Bardot was ordered to pay €15,000, the fifth time she was fined for inciting racial hatred against Muslims since 1997.
The Netherlands: Long considered a bastion for the freedom of thought and expression, Holland has today joined in the European retreat on free speech. Together, Articles 137(c) and 137(d) of the Dutch Criminal Code operate to prohibit making public intentional insults, as well as engaging in verbal, written, or illustrated incitement to hatred, on account of one's race, religion, sexual orientation, or personal convictions. The most prominent hate speech case to date is that of politician Geert Wilders, who was indicted by the public prosecutor in 2009 for his public comments about Muslims and Islam, and his release of a short film documenting inflammatory passages in the Qur'an.
United Kingdom: Sec. 18(1) of the Public Order Act of 1986 (POA) states that "a person who uses threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive, or insulting, is guilty of an offence if: a) he intends to thereby stir up racial hatred, or; b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby." Among the panoply of other British hate speech laws is Section 5 of the POA, which makes it a crime to use or display threatening, abusive, or insulting words "within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress thereby." Indeed, it was under this incredibly low threshold that Christian hoteliers Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang, accused by a Muslim patron of calling Muhammad a "warlord", were charged, but ultimately acquitted, in 2009. Conversely, Harry Taylor, an atheist who placed drawings satirizing Christianity and Islam in an airport prayer room, was convicted in April 2010 under Section 5 and given a six-month prison sentence.
The Legal Project has tracked the challenges posed by Europe's national hate speech laws to free speech, educating policymakers and the general public about the danger through op-ed articles, speeches, and blog commentary. The Legal Project has also worked to inform the legal community about the problem through its new Continuing Legal Education course, Suing the Messenger: The Misuse of Law to Suppress Free Speech Regarding Terrorism, Radical Islam and Related Topics.
To head straight for the topic here I am yet to find ANY Dakka Christians who have posted a belief in hardline literalist Creationism. The idea that such people openly exist here is just part of someones unhealthy magination, if anyone thinks that Dakkas Christians are hardline creationist literalists, they do so unsupported by what we have actually said here. Likely the blind assumption that even some Dakka Christians are hardline creationsirts is just a catchall label designed to put words into others mouths in order to leap to their condemnation. On that note cheers to Frazzie for reestablishing the distinction between hardline creationists and terrorists, that one didn't help matters either.
There is a lot of Christian bashing over Creationism. For a start as seen above many people simply blindly assume or prefer to assume all Christians beleive in literalist creationist stories, or are unaware of what Creationism doesnt have a single meaning mutually exclusive with Evolution. In fact while I am a very fervent Chrisitian with a LOT of church connections, in various denominations and personally know some big names ministers; I must admit I have seen enough true hardline Creationist literalists to count on one hand. However despite the low odds that any random Christian you meet is actually by ultra dogmatic the bashers dont care, they just found beatstick and wanna beat.
I can tell you straight up its a beatstick because literal Creationism comes from the book of Genesis. Genesis is the first book of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible and is thus holy to Christians and suprise suprise Jews and Moslems too. Do they get bashed the same way?
Now many hotheads are happy to bawl and yell and use the beatstick on Christians, the same are usually a lot quieter or reluctant to about mock Judiasm or Islam. Mock Judaism and you risk getting labelled an anti-Semite and a very well oiled propoganda machine comes into play at that point which can tarnish everything you say and do. We all know what happens when you mock Islam.
It's a lack of moral fibre usually, going for acid comments on easy targets that are not culturally enabled or just plain vindictive enough to hit back.
Let look at a case study example: the comedy program South Park loves to lampoon religions. South Park tries to be fair by heaping scorn on just about anyone, but even that is grossly unevenly applied in practice due to widely differenng tolerances of critique. Jesus is frequently lampooned, but thats risk free and in fact when some Christians get upset the only effect it has is to boost ratings. The program makers run a risk by lampooning Scientology or Islam, and were far more reluctant to do so, and in the case of Islam quickly self sensored out of fear. South Park is yet to have a go at Judaism in anything like the same way, its is depicted but more respectfully. Mocking Judaism is a line most program makers in the US dare not cross, even South Park. Even the very tame lampooning of Moses in the 'Jewbilee' episode caused deep controversy even though it did not mock the tenets of Judaism.
So observe next time you see people want to bash Christians for things that all the Abrahamic relgions beleive similar things in, and let as be very clear here: all the controversial things in Christianity other than the Resurrection and divinity of Jesus are shared with both other Abrahamic faiths. Observe and ask yourself, or better yet the critics why the critics are not labelling Jews of Moslems in addition to Christians, and usully they wont be.
In the UK Christian bashers have an unfortunately valid though morally piss poor excuse, due to the dogmas imposed on us by the Blair regime. You can be arrested for a 'hate crime' offense for openly saying things about some religions including (perhaps especially) Islam which are very similar to comments also stated openly and frontally against Christianity without reproach.
Kilkrazy wrote:I think Europe is particularly sensitive to this issue because of events last century.
There is an argument, though, that hate speech must be allowed to happen if it is to be countered by non-hate speech.
I agree with this. they appear to be alot less confident of democratic principles than the united states is. understandable, given their history. still I think they're going the wrong way here. if you cant trust people to talk without government oversight, then how do you trust them to vote?
Orlanth wrote:On the Christians and young earthers issue.
To head straight for the topic here I am yet to find ANY Dakka Christians who have posted a belief in hardline literalist Creationism.
Grog is pretty much what you're describing, at least as I understand.
I remember General Grog posting on a number of religion threads and I do not think he is a literalist, he is not a theologian, but knows his basics and is unconfused regarding the tenets of his faith. I will leave it to him to say more.
The only major church group that has literalist crerationism as an 'enforced' doctrine for a very long time are the Seventh Day Adventists, which isn't really suprising. I only met one Seventh Day Adventist, they have a 'major' headquarters in our town, which is nonetheless a very quiet place, so its no suprise to hear they are a rarity nowadays. Those people who I know who know any have never known any problems with them, they are not an extremist group by any stretch. They are quite harmless, and are good sober caring Christians by all accounts, so I will happily defend them from any accusations of 'whackjob' or 'idiot'.
If someone is a literalist, but is nontheless a decent carting brother who as far as his humanity allows abhors hypocritical living I can see no reason to show anything but respect for his faith. This is where I stand with Seventh day Adventists, in another way its how I stand with all non-violent, and seriously honest religious people, even those who follow other Gods. I have far more respect for an honest peaceful Moslem than a hypocritical Christian, and i have met a number of both.
Thanks for the complement Orlanth, however I do consider myself a "literalist" when it comes to the creation account as it is portrayed in Genesis chapter 1. I also believe there was a literal world wide flood, a literal parting of the Red Sea, water turned into wine, etc.etc.
I am a Bible believer.
I won't castigate Christians that don't believe the way I do, but I do most certainly believe they are in error.
Frazzled wrote:EDIT: Further, we're talking about Wilders and various Europa laws no? If there is no Constitution level protection, there's isn't anything keeping current legislation, whatever it is from changing to suit the majority in power.
I'm not sure what the laws of Jupiter's moon that we have only reached with probes have to do with Wilders .
On topic: Um, I don't really know what to think of this. I abhor Wilders (even though he's from the same hometown as I am) and his fearmongering, but I'm not sure suing him in this way is the way to go.
I think that to resolve this whole Islam/extremist/political powergrabbing through fear issue we should genetically engineer and release intelligent, green martians so we can have the first interplanetary Earth-Mars war to unite all of humanity. Who's with me?
Bran Dawri wrote:
On topic: Um, I don't really know what to think of this. I abhor Wilders (even though he's from the same hometown as I am) and his fearmongering, but I'm not sure suing him in this way is the way to go.
So its just scaremongering when cartoonists get killed is it, the danger is real mate.
People are pussy footing around beacause they dont know what to do, its the elephant in the room. Islam however is not here to share, it wants its way, all day and is willing to kill to get it.
Only a fool would bnlame this on a 'minority' because the easiest way for the relgious attacks to stop would be if thev supposed peace loving Islamic majority forced them to stop. UIslam is not being supressed or repressed in the Netherlands, or elsewhere in Europe. therer is no actual reason beyond religious dogma for the killings. However nothing is being donte to stamp out the relgious violence. You need to come to a point where those parts of a relgion that do not speak out against a problem are part of the problem. Questions need to be asked of the religions.
Do you utterly condemn the killing or violence against an offender of your faith and leave all punishment to either the lawful court of the country you are in. Do you agree that severe punishment of religious offenders outside the courts should be left to the afterlife by a just God, and not pursued now by fallible mortals.
Places of worship of any denomination that fail to give satisfactory answers should be closed.
Bran Dawri wrote:
Why can't we all just... get along?
If militant Islam agreed with that, I doubt you would have heard a peep from Wilders.
Has Wilders killed cartoonists for drawing pictures he dosnt like? No, and I am sure by now there are plenty of negative political cartoons in the media about him.
Has Wilders committed any 'honour killings' of young women who go with the wrong guy? Not, that I am aware of, and from what I hear there are plenty of girls in holland who like to move around a bit.
Has Wilders called for the elimination of a section of the population? Be honest now, he hasnt, he doesnt like Islam; but since when has he called for their deaths.
Arent you pointing the finger at the wrong guy. All Wilders is doing is pointing out that something is wrong, that Hollands hospitality and openness is being taken forgranted by people who have no intention of integrating.
Frazzled wrote:EDIT: Further, we're talking about Wilders and various Europa laws no? If there is no Constitution level protection, there's isn't anything keeping current legislation, whatever it is from changing to suit the majority in power.
I'm not sure what the laws of Jupiter's moon that we have only reached with probes have to do with Wilders .
On topic: Um, I don't really know what to think of this. I abhor Wilders (even though he's from the same hometown as I am) and his fearmongering, but I'm not sure suing him in this way is the way to go.
I think that to resolve this whole Islam/extremist/political powergrabbing through fear issue we should genetically engineer and release intelligent, green martians so we can have the first interplanetary Earth-Mars war to unite all of humanity. Who's with me?
Why can't we all just... get along?
Because moeslims want your head on a stick, chamberlain!
I guess your the kind that is friendly when someone want to beat you up
generalgrog wrote:Thanks for the complement Orlanth, however I do consider myself a "literalist" when it comes to the creation account as it is portrayed in Genesis chapter 1. I also believe there was a literal world wide flood, a literal parting of the Red Sea, water turned into wine, etc.etc.
I am a Bible believer.
I won't castigate Christians that don't believe the way I do, but I do most certainly believe they are in error.
GG
Very well Grog. I am a Bible beleiver too.
Remember the bit about Jesus being hailed the messiah. What did the Jews want? Most of them wanted a 'conquering son of David' someone who would liberate the people from the Romans. But literalism was wrong. The verses actually mean liberating people from sin, Jesus conquered sin and death, not the Romans occupiers.
Jesus broke the commandments as seen by literalists, but he did not break the commandments by Gods interpretation, has literalism been Gods interpretation then Jesus' many violations of the Law would have been sin and he would be unworthy to go to the cross for us.
All through the Gospels Jesus was condemned by literalists for breaking Gods literal Law, yet the law was never broken and Jesus remained the perfect sacrifice even though he 'worked' on the sabbath and dined with sinners.
So you have a dilemma, the Bible, which we see has true, has clear and direct repeat warnings that Bible literalism can be erroneous, and so when applying the Bible as Truth then only some things should be taken absolutely literally. The big point is which bits, the text itself tells us it cannot mean all of them, as some have already proven to require indirect interpretation to see the Truth in the Word. Thus someone can be non literalist and still adhere to the faith. Like you I beleive all the Bible to be Gods Word, true and reliable, but I am ready to discard the face meaning of passages and look sideways to see how that is so.
Orlanth wrote:Islam is not being supressed or repressed in the Netherlands, or elsewhere in Europe.
It is illegal to build a minaret in Switzerland. No other religion builds minarets.
It is illegal to wear a burkha in France. No other full face head coverings, such as the motorcycle helmet or the komuso hat, have been made illegal.
Consequently it is clear that these are specifically anti-Muslim laws.
It can be argued that the burkha is a cultural, not a religious phenomenon, however looked at from the other side of the religious divide, it should be obvious how it might affect Muslim feelings.
Orlanth wrote:Islam is not being supressed or repressed in the Netherlands, or elsewhere in Europe.
It is illegal to build a minaret in Switzerland. No other religion builds minarets.
- Not repression, thats town planning. Switzerland decided that minarets change the image of their towns and decided that they collectively didnt want them. Islam can still be practiced openly and mosques built.
It is illegal to wear a burkha in France. No other full face head coverings, such as the motorcycle helmet or the komuso hat, have been made illegal.
- Full burkha is seen as an opression of women, hijab is not banned anywhere. its also a security issue, you diont know who you are dealing with. Passport photos with burkhas are not permitted, the immigration and security teams have reaoanble right to see a persons face. For the same reason motorcycle helmets are also restricted. This is why security helmets were redesigned with full transparent visors and people in bike helmets are not allowed though bank doors.
Consequently it is clear that these are specifically anti-Muslim laws.
- Nope, for the reasons listed above. Swirtzerland has good reason to say no to minarets and headware restrictions are more common than just burkhas.
It can be argued that the burkha is a cultural, not a religious phenomenon, however looked at from the other side of the religious divide, it should be obvious how it might affect Muslim feelings.
- How would you know? Moslem women aren't ususually entitled to express themselves and have no choice on whether to wear the burkha, usage is almost entirely down to the clan preference of the Islamic subculture their husbands or fathers belong to. The burkhas is a form of oppression, there is no cultural group that of its own volition secludes itself in this way, it mentally unhealthy for a start. The burkha is sexist, sexism is unwelcome, in the balance of 'intolerances' France chose correctly of the two. People are inherently male or female, relgion is a choice matter, burkhas however are not. The hijab allows Islamic law to be protected and has far fewer negative social, gender equality or security connotations.
Orlanth wrote:Islam is not being supressed or repressed in the Netherlands, or elsewhere in Europe.
It is illegal to build a minaret in Switzerland. No other religion builds minarets.
It is illegal to wear a burkha in France. No other full face head coverings, such as the motorcycle helmet or the komuso hat, have been made illegal.
Consequently it is clear that these are specifically anti-Muslim laws.
It can be argued that the burkha is a cultural, not a religious phenomenon, however looked at from the other side of the religious divide, it should be obvious how it might affect Muslim feelings.
Oh dear god, the poor muslims, and they are so tolerant to other religions.
It's so simple, we don't want their crap, if they are in the majority you will live under sharia law.
Better stop shaving your beard and start wearing a dress
a Moderator wrote:I will remind members that religious bigotry is offensive to members and will attract appropriate sanctions under the user posting guidelines.
Further backing up what Orlanth said, i saw an interview on youtube with PZ Myers, and he said that a kid made a video in which he pulled out pages of the Quaran and the Bible and smoked them.... I dont agree with that really, i mean, first of all cos its not funny, and secondly, its just needlessly rude, but anyway.
The Christians didnt kick up much of a fuss at all, but the Muslim comminity got extremely offended by it, and said video has since been pulled.
Ask yourself another question, if a bloke announced he was going to burn 200 bibles at his local community centre because he felt like it, would Christians kick up half the fuss that the muslims did with our wacky pastor? Would the president get involved?!
We all know the answer to that question.
I have a distaste for anybody that allows their own religious convicitions dictate their actions, but my reasons for disliking Islam more than the other monotheisms are glaringly obvious.
The more offended you act, the less likely you are to draw attention to your actions for fear of reprisals, the Muslims dont take things half as gracefully as the Christians do for the very reason that they want to be immune from criticism. Is this the relationship they want with the rest of the world?
Why did CNN blur out the images of Mohammed? Was it because they didnt want to appear insulting or because they feared remifications?
We are being bent over by the followers of Islam, and people need to open their eyes and see what is occuring, Europe would be worse off without people like Wilders, who is literally putting his life on the line for the greater good.
I salute his bravery, we are dealing with people that actally will kill you, Theo Van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie and countless others are proof of this, and no matter how much the left leaning apologists pander to the Muslim minority and try to make 2+2=5 in order to advance their belief system, people can clearly see what is going on.
We are being misled and large well funded orginisations are at work in Europe to try and assist Islamonazis in their efforts.
Kilkrazy wrote:Why would town planning demand the banning of minarets but not other tall structures?
I know that many Muslims see these examples as repressions of their religion because they say so.
If I, a white, middle-class CofE member can see these laws as repressive, what do you think the effect on the people affected is likely to be?
Why would town planning demand the banning of minarets but not other tall structures?
The Swiss generally dont want tall buldings, as do many cities, the taller a building the more it is to be set in with the environment around it. The Swiss decided that minarets are not part of their civic culture, get over it. You will find that they block skyscrapers too. As skyscrapers are not part of any relgion noone whines that they are being repressed.
Massed planning decisions are not uncommon. For example In London if you live in a period Georgian house whether as a house hotel business or whatever there is only a very select shortlist of colours you can paint that bulding. The colours permitted are white, grey (I think there are two acceptible grey shades) or light pink, the traditional colours. This is not petty, its preserving the architectural culture of a region.
I know that many Muslims see these examples as repressions of their religion because they say so.
Moslems say a lot of things, they ask for Islamic law in European countries. they asked for Islamic law in Bradford since the 1980's, the tactic is less stupid than it sounds, yes they werre lkaughed away, but they continue to ask. Two years ago Gordon 'spineless' Brown gave them what they wanted and Islamic civic courts are now available. If you think the moslems are happy to stop there you are deluded.
Moslems ask for veterans martches to be cancelled because they represent 'oppression'.
I have heard of Moslem shoppers making complaint if the till staff wear Help for Heroes wristbands.
I have heard of Moslems complaining to the police about people preaching the gospel on the steps of a cathedral. The preachers were put on trial, thnakfully the judge threw out the case.
Meanwhile they can preach calls for jihad on the streets of our towns.
There is a sort of pattern here that means if Moslems complain because Swiss think minarets dont belong in their culture I am willing to ignore that. Its pretty clear that if they had their way in time they would be complaining that the churches in Switzerland were not yet closed. That is what happens in Islamic countries, and try not to be deluded, that is what they want here. Many dont even attempt to hide it.
One thing I dont hear them ask is 'how best can we integrate'.
If I, a white, middle-class CofE member can see these laws as repressive, what do you think the effect on the people affected is likely to be?
Sorry, I dont think you 'see' anything. White middle class CoE, that fits the profile for New Labour PC brainwashing straight up. I had one of those idiot New Labour priests tell me face up that it was not possible to be a Christian unless one was also a socialist, honest truth. You are aware that the previous government would not promote bishiops unless they adhered to PC dogma, and ahem 'closeness to the Labour party was a quiet requirement for promotion. Whether a propsective bishop they beleived in Christianity wasnt important, if they beleived in Blair, that was relevant.
The laws from Swizterland and France are not oppressive, but forward thinking. They have the courage to make small steps early rather than sit behind a wall of dogma claim rights and freedom and wait until a much harder respeonce is required later. The Uk is a country where westernised doctors, you know the poeple that do operations and swerar oaths of non violence and peaceful healing because suicide bombers trying to blow up Glasgow airport.
Please remember the PC blinkers, radical Islam most be STOPPEd and that is best done by saying regardless of PC claims you cannot cross certain lines.
Even New Labour stopped Islam in some respects, female circumcision was brutal enough that even the most blinkered PC idiot saw it for the evil it was, it was admittedly rare anyway but was the dfate of a number of Uk citizens allowed to travel abroad to countries where womens rights are completely inevident. However while paedophilia is our one remaining true taboo the authorities look the other way over underage arranged marriages concerning UK born citizens. Sorry I dont care if they are following 'their culture', a 14 year old Anglo-Pakistani girl should not be married off abroad, and if the fethers return the husband should be treated the same as Glitter.
Burkhas, female circumcision, underage arranged marriages, the 'three obediences'. All these add up to a brutal system of female oppression. Some might want to prevent offending the sensibilities of brutal medivalists, but is it not also 'equal opportunities friendly' to oppose them vehemently. I am hasppy to offend as many PC idiots and Islamic fanatics as I need to to prevent statutory rape of Europeanised girls, or worse having their bits removed so that they become supposedly more submissive to their husbands, nor should we permit medievalised oppressors from forcing women to wear clothing similar to that normally worn in clinical or hazardous conditions.
Other than protective wear no clothing resembles the burkha, no fashion emulates it, no culture wants it except to oppress and constrict its female population. perhaps if I want this oppressive garment banned I am more freedom loving and ironically more defacto 'politically correct' than the appeasing dogmatists who want it preserved to keep Islamic hardliners happy in the name of equality and diversity. Me, politically correct, I need a bath.
Kilkrazy wrote:
How many abortion clinic staff have been attacked or killed by Christians in the USA?
I dont know, quite a few. The big difference is that
1. A lot of the abortion attackers are labelled 'Christian', they are often just pro-lifers, which is not necessarily the same. I personally beleive that Christians, if you can call them such, are actually a minority amongst pro-life terrorists. Pro-life terrorism follows the same cultural profile as animal rights terrorism. Saving unborn babies and saving tortured animals - by acts of terror, appeals to the same sort of person, who need not be a nominal Christian, its just easier for church bashers to assume they are.
2. Christians abhor these attacks, and church leaders and congregations unite condemn them quickly, openly and publically.
3. Christians do however often lobby and protest outside abortion clinics. This is possibly how bigots like to get the idea that the terrorists are therefore also predominantly Christian. Protest is lawful and as abortion is a tricky issue: a child is being killed. The bits that come out of a late abortion are very clearly identifiably a human child, it is simply a hot topic whether the child should be considered a human being with rights, abortuion limits are arbitrary based on cultural convenience not any actual scientific transition delimiter between group of cells to human. Whether one is pro or anti abortion is personal, there is a fair logic behind both arguments, essentially it boils down to whose human rights matter more. Therefore so long as one group is unhappy with the law as it stands peaceful proterst is an acceptible method of raising objection in a democratic society.
4. Christianity in the southern states of the USA is different if not all from most other cultural regions. The sort of crap so called Christians get up to there would not be tolerated at all elsewhere.
On the other hand echoing comments
1. The attacks targeted by Islamic militancy is very clearly actions of Islamic militancy. Non Christian pro-life groups hit abortion clinuics, you dont see non Islamic fanatics killing cartoonists.
2. The most important point. Moslems even moderate ones very rarely do or say anything to condemn Islamic fundamentalist violence. Abortion clinic bombings when linked to extremist 'Christians' are very quickly and vocally condemned by all Christian ministers except for the nutjobs themselves, who are a tiny minority. I put 'Christian' in brackets because the churches disown these people, only the bashers not the churches consider these people our brothers.
Meanwhile you have to ask a lot to get a moderate Moslem community leaderr or preist to condemn a suicide bombing honour killing or blasphemy killing. The most the BBC could get out of the community leaderx after 7/7 was something on the lines of 'we are against all violence'. Specific condemnation was never forthcoming, beyond the words of one or two very liberal Moslems priests, and they not the fundamentalists appear to be more on the outside.
3. Yes Moslems protest thier issues too. we in the west are normally happy to allow Moslems to protest outside a US or Israeli embassy, we might even join them. Some issues like abortion also affect Moslem activisits too.
4. Fundamentalist Islam is not restricted to a whacky subgroup of Moslems in isolation from all others. You get strong fundamentalist Islamic elemnents (I cant call them minorities everywhere) globally. You get governments who make the laws these fundamentalists want, and woe betide anyone of a foreign faith who as much as disagrees.
Kilkrazy wrote:
That doesn't excuse Islamic extremism, but it does show that extremism isn't exclusive to Islam.
Extremism isnt exclusive to Islam. I agree, but dumb appeasement wasnt exclusive to Chamberlain.
Accounts of Christian or Buddhit terrorism are very rare; dumb appeasers of Islam who hope that if they make the west PC enough Moslem citizens will play by our rules, they are a real problem.
Kilkrazy wrote:You seem to be blaming religion for terrorism.
All terrorists aren't motivated by religious causes.
I am asking if you think religiously uninspired terrorism is better than religiously inspired terrorism.
You still dont make sense.
No form of terrorism is referable as none is acceptable.
I never blamed religion for terrorism, why would I. This is the sort of argument of dumber atheists: religion = terrorism and hatred => ban them all.
Orlanth wrote:Islam however is not here to share, it wants its way, all day and is willing to kill to get it.
How does that work with this?
You still dont make sense.
No form of terrorism is referable as none is acceptable.
I never blamed religion for terrorism, why would I. This is the sort of argument of dumber atheists: religion = terrorism and hatred => ban them all.
That is a very strange line you are drawing, but whatever. In my opinion you rather disingenuously changed your objective. Muslims are violent and willing to kill (what images does that bring to mind? Hmm...), BUT somehow Islam is not the cause of that. Why would one bring religion into this at all when discussing terrorism unless your goals are to tie the two concepts together?
You have made your opinion clear in saying that you consider all of this PC nonsense. You're a bit hard to understand, but I think that is mainly for the fact that you don't actually want to be clear. A lot of information in your posts has taken the form of very distinct talking points that come from specific news outlets. Geert Wilders is a politician. Dude ain't a freaking saint; that is for fething sure.
Geert Wilders from what I have read, is a pretty smart guy. He was not always this extreme, and as the guy IS a politician there are few reasons why he would make that decision. Even with all of that I feel that he should not be on trial right now even if I very strongly disagree with what I consider blatant nonsense on his part.
To the point of the Burkha banning; why ban that garment specifically when other more generalized bans could be put in place. I was under the impression that previous regulation was already enforced. It doesn't make sense that the ban would really be for anything besides sending a message that has an awful lot to do with immigration.
Hmm...
There is a sort of pattern here that means if Moslems complain because Swiss think minarets dont belong in their culture I am willing to ignore that. Its pretty clear that if they had their way in time they would be complaining that the churches in Switzerland were not yet closed. That is what happens in Islamic countries, and try not to be deluded, that is what they want here. Many dont even attempt to hide it.
How can you say this? What fething logic or statistics are you using to arrive at that conclusion. In my fething opinion you're not using either. You're using stupid headlines that feed your base desires. Your preconceptions are likely playing a large part in this, and I am not saying that to suggest you are racist, because that is also stupid in this context. Islam is not a race and it sure as hell doesn't fit into the tiny little box that you are trying to stuff it into. That box is your preferred television, newspapers, and internet sources.
The Italians want all spaghetti sauce to be made with the correct ingredients. Except they don't. At all. Some do, but not all and not even a significant portion.
The Chinese want to eat your cat.
The Russians just want vodka.
None of those apply.
The Christians want A.
The Muslims want B.
The Buddhists want C.
Except that is wrong. Those are massive groups of people. Hundreds of millions of people and all you can see is the extremists from one section. Point at them some more and see how much it helps your argument.
Who in the hell says that most large-scale news outlets give half a damn what moderate Muslims think?
Guess what, they don't fething care. Hence, large-scale outlets don't really listen, and in turn do not allow.
Orlanth wrote:I never blamed religion for terrorism, why would I. This is the sort of argument of dumber atheists: religion = terrorism and hatred => ban them all.
You're right. We should probably just ban Islam. Fair is fair. WE HAVE PICTURES OF LIKE TEN GUYS PROTESTING STUFF ON THE STREETS OF ENGLAND.
MAINTAIN THE FEAR.
This whole conversation is skewed in the west's favor when discussed in the west. Nothing surprising about that at all. Carry on.
Oh, this too. Don't let me ruin your line of attack though. Wouldn't want anyone to do objective research or anything...
Orlanth wrote:Islam however is not here to share, it wants its way, all day and is willing to kill to get it.
How does that work with this?
You still dont make sense.
No form of terrorism is referable as none is acceptable.
I never blamed religion for terrorism, why would I. This is the sort of argument of dumber atheists: religion = terrorism and hatred => ban them all.
Why does it need to. Two completely seperate comments.
Wrexasaur wrote:
That is a very strange line you are drawing, but whatever. In my opinion you rather disingenuously changed your objective. Muslims are violent and willing to kill (what images does that bring to mind? Hmm...), BUT somehow Islam is not the cause of that. Why would one bring religion into this at all when discussing terrorism unless your goals are to tie the two concepts together?
Where did I say or imply anything to give you that conclusion. Not changed my objective, which is the open critique of militant Islam and the defence of some laws to halt the spread of Islamisation in France and Switzerland. Not to mention a broad agreement that Wilders has a point, and is in the courts because some people hope that point will go away if everyone remains PC and sticks their head in the ground.
Wrexasaur wrote:
You have made your opinion clear in saying that you consider all of this PC nonsense. You're a bit hard to understand, but I think that is mainly for the fact that you don't actually want to be clear. A lot of information in your posts has taken the form of very distinct talking points that come from specific news outlets. Geert Wilders is a politician. Dude ain't a freaking saint; that is for fething sure.
I have been prefectly clear:
Militant Islam is a threat - the only ones trying to muddy that truth are the PC apolgoists who constantly ask for more proof. In Glasgow we had doctors radicalised to be suicide bombers. as doctors are educated and part of a profession that has expectations of the highest moral code, do no harm etc. To convert people like that ijnto suicide bombers even once means there is something insidiuous going on. This is a fact, and can only be unclear to someone who is either a complete idiot, or just doesnt want to see the truth, and the politically correct are very often a subset of both.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Geert Wilders from what I have read, is a pretty smart guy. He was not always this extreme, and as the guy IS a politician there are few reasons why he would make that decision. Even with all of that I feel that he should not be on trial right now even if I very strongly disagree with what I consider blatant nonsense on his part.
Wrexasaur wrote:
To the point of the Burkha banning; why ban that garment specifically when other more generalized bans could be put in place. I was under the impression that previous regulation was already enforced. It doesn't make sense that the ban would really be for anything besides sending a message that has an awful lot to do with immigration.
How do you draw that conclusion. If it wass an attempt to curb immigration it wouldnt work. Plenty come over in hijabs, or the males come over, settle and get permits to immigrate the family.
If, (and it isnt) banning burkhas was just a rile against immigration, it wouldnt work.
What I wrote made sense, its your atempt to re-interpret it that makes no sense.
The problem is you are trying to put forward the idea that the anti-immigration lobby are kneejerking, while in actuality its the PC appeasers. PC appeasers can wail as much as they like, their dogmas can no longer cover up the hard fact that cartoonists are getting killed for depicting Mohammed, women are getting killed in honour killings, wester raised Islamic passpoert holders are becoming suicide bombers even from professions such as medicine. Meanwhile Islamists are often vocally complaining about our culture and society demanding we stop doing what they dont like. Such actions as honouring our dead soldiers, not approving Islamic law, and allowing people to walk their dogs on the same stereet where someone converted their home into a mosque. etc etc....
Hmm...
Wrexasaur wrote:
How can you say this? What fething logic or statistics are you using to arrive at that conclusion. In my fething opinion you're not using either. You're using stupid headlines that feed your base desires. Your preconceptions are likely playing a large part in this, and I am not saying that to suggest you are racist, because that is also stupid in this context. Islam is not a race and it sure as hell doesn't fit into the tiny little box that you are trying to stuff it into. That box is your preferred television, newspapers, and internet sources.
I am better informed than you think. The Minaret ban is logical because planning issues like that are commonoplace.
I gave a good example. The fact that you can only paint houses of a certain architectural style a certain colour in Central London. This is a flat rule, it might seem pety, why cant I paint my house blue if I want? Because we collectively say you cannot.
The reasons for a Minaret ban were openly stated, minarets change the architectural context of a town. A swiss town with minarets has not longer a traditional image of a swiss town. The Swiss decided to preserve their heritasge by saying Swirss towns will look as they used to. However you can have a mosque, so long as it looks like 'a building that belongs in Switzerland'.
The logic I am using is called TOWN PLANNING. Look it up, its not a 'myth' town planning departments occur in most towns and cities in the western world, and keeping a architectural or cultureal heritage uis a very often a policy of town planning. Switzerland went a step further and stopped rthe building of minarets anywhere as the imagery was un-Swiss. This is not an unusual move for Switzerland, thwe Swiss are very architecturally conservative, they like their towns the way they are. Why should you say they cannot? There is comfort in knowing that the town you grew up in looks more or less the same as when your grandfather lived there. Someone wants to build a minaret, that would change all that. The Swiss say no. You can have your mosque, you can keep your own faith, but you wont change our town.
Is that so hard to understand, is that 'wrong'.
If it is go to the many places where you cannot build a church at all, no matter what it looks like, and remember the cold hard fact a large number of Moslems openly claim the want the rest of the world to eventually be like that and are working towards that here and now.
Wrexasaur wrote:
.<garbled>......Except that is wrong.......
It might be wrong, who cares, its not what I was claiming so it says absolutely nothing about my arguments.
Wrexasaur wrote:
You're right. We should probably just ban Islam. Fair is fair. WE HAVE PICTURES OF LIKE TEN GUYS PROTESTING STUFF ON THE STREETS OF ENGLAND.
Thankyou I am right, but not about what your on about.
Ban Islam? never said or implied that. Pictures of ten guys protesting. Not mentioned that either. Protesting is usually fine, in any numbers. Its whe they start blowing up busses becase we arent yet moslems. That bit I dont like, and its a feth of a lot more than ten of em.
Wrexasaur wrote:
MAINTAIN THE FEAR. Oh, this too. Don't let me ruin your line of attack though. Wouldn't want anyone to do objective research or anything...
Lets lump these two bits of nonsense together.
How much research do you need me to do? 7/7 bombings - fact. Glasgow bombing - fact. Radical Islam movements have held press conferences calling for Sharia Law in the UK - fact. Radical Islam movements have held press conferences calling for population bombing (Islamic women must have more children to create an Islamic majority) - fact. The list goes on. I have copies of fliers handed out in the streets of my town calling for mandatory Islamic dress and jihad against Israel and jihad against the USA.
Just because we wont give in to these outrageous demands and just because the plans may not be workable (breeding an hardline Islamic demographic majority) doesnt mean we shouldnt openly consider them threats.
Radical Islam is bad for your health, and your freedom. This isnt a scare story, it isnt a myth, it isnt an exagerration, its the fething truth.
The real fear mongering comes from:
1. Terrorism. -- What else are bombings there to do.
2. PC dogmatists. -- If you dont adhere to PC dogma and stop seeing Islam as a potential problem we will hysterically label you a bigot/racist/whatever-phobe and ruin your career if you are in media or government service. also it doesnt matter how many bombings occur, it's all 'hearsay' gottit.
So what happens if we all get PC and nice and stay out of it all.
Madrid train bombing 191 people dead. Spain had already declared a troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Theo Van Gogh. Murdered for daring to criticise Islam in Holland where free speech is traditionally respected.
Salman Rushdie, intellectual and author under sentence of death since the 1980's by an extra judicial Islamic court for criticising Islam.
Glasgow airport bombing 2007. A failed attack by two doctors. The incendiary device partly detonated prematurely spilling one burning terrorist onto the street, he was kicked to the ground by a local and arrested. The other one didnt get out the car in time.
Bilal Abdulla the surviving Glasgow airport bomber. Abdullah was born in the UK, (no IDF boot on his face) his father was also a doctor practicing in the UK. (No oppressed deprived poverty stricken childhood then) Abdullah trained as a doctor in the UK and in Baghdad (not a born yesterday illiterate then, also the doctors oath thing is normally taken seriosuly)
This last one is a clincher. No matter how much the PC lobby whine, browbeat people for being 'insufficiently diversity aware' or try to force the blinkers on, it shouldnt be enough to stop the fair and logical realisation that any dogma capable of turning a western raised doctor into a sucide bomber is the moral equavalent of the T-virus.
I dont think ive ever agreed with anything you ever wrote before more Orlanth.
There most certainly is something insidious going on, well financed groups are leaning on the government and applying societal pressures to further their own means under our very noses, but people dont want to mention it for fear of offending our attackers.
Yo Orlanth, as long as you are online right now could you just clarify a few things for me?
It is possible that I am used to arguments against terrorism being turned into an attack on massive amounts of people. I do not mean to ignore that terrorism does exist and does pose a threat.
I posted several clips simply saying that there is conversation going on from both sides. That includes what I consider to be a very small group of extremists on both sides. In my opinion some of the rhetoric surrounding this issue is intentionally volatile from both sides. I apologize if I reacted to your posts without asking more questions about your position.
Orlanth wrote:Radical Islam is bad for your health, and your freedom. This isnt a scare story, it isnt a myth, it isnt an exagerration, its the fething truth.
This is your main point. Right?
The real fear mongering comes from:
1. Terrorism. -- What else are bombings there to do.
Insert clip of repetitive messaging by Bush in support of the war.
2. PC dogmatists. -- If you dont adhere to PC dogma and stop seeing Islam as a potential problem we will hysterically label you a bigot/racist/whatever-phobe and ruin your career if you are in media or government service. also it doesnt matter how many bombings occur, it's all 'hearsay' gottit.
Can you just give me a link to a list of the terrorist actions that have occurred?
There is a very fair point to be made about the proportion of terrorist actions from extremists as compared to our reaction as international powers. I'll ignore the point about being called a PC moron. I would actually like to hear your points made without interference from my side. I don't actually believe this issue is split into two opinions, but that I'll ignore as well.
I would just like to see a list of the terrorist acts committed by extremists, as compared to actions taken by similar groups. I am trying to seperate your statements from those that I have already heard in this thread. Statements about beards and dresses and such.
Orlanth wrote:Radical Islam is bad for your health, and your freedom. This isnt a scare story, it isnt a myth, it isnt an exagerration, its the fething truth.
This is your main point. Right?
I said more, but yes I suppose that is a fairly good summary.
Wrexasaur wrote:
The real fear mongering comes from:
1. Terrorism. -- What else are bombings there to do.
Insert clip of repetitive messaging by Bush in support of the war.
I dont really include what Bush said and did. He used the presence of an Islamic extremist threat for his own ends, they werent exactly responsses to terror more opportunities from terror.
Wrexasaur wrote:
2. PC dogmatists. -- If you dont adhere to PC dogma and stop seeing Islam as a potential problem we will hysterically label you a bigot/racist/whatever-phobe and ruin your career if you are in media or government service. also it doesnt matter how many bombings occur, it's all 'hearsay' gottit.
Can you just give me a link to a list of the terrorist actions that have occurred?
No. I dont tally them. I remember some and commented on them.
Big ones recently are 9/11, 7/7, Madrid and Bali. However these are known because lots of westerners died. Militant Islam sometimes doesnt really care who it kills to make its point, including other Moslems, in large numbers. I dont include Lockerbie as that is not part of the current 'wave', the causes of Lockerbie have been (mostly) addressed.
One of the reaon I dont tally them is because its a tip of the iceberg, also the public dont know what is going on. MI5, FBI and other agencies are working overtime on this, and due to the high level of competence of these agencies I suspect that most bombing campaigns are stillborn. Occassionally we hear reports in the press of arrests or bombs and chemicals found, it is not unlikely that the security services dont let on even a fraction of the figures. Though of course I have nothing to base this on except the is logic to suggest that sometimes it might be best to deal with issues like this quietly.
Even this month word reached the press of a plot to hit France Germany and the UK, the reports to the press were sketchy at best for all sorts of reasons which should be obvious. I dont even think the varuious agencies involved would agree to say even that much unless there was an advantage in doing so.
To cut back to basics. we can see enough evidence of Islamic extremist threat to European countries from previous attacks, statements of intent from exteremist groups and warnings from security agencies. I havent talied it, but its a 'lot'. There has to be a lot more behind that which we dont see so any figurwe or lists I can compile from p[ublic data is largely useless anyway except to say 'its worse than this:'.
Wrexasaur wrote:
There is a very fair point to be made about the proportion of terrorist actions from extremists as compared to our reaction as international powers.
Fair enough. terrosrm can be useful as it changes policy, this doesnt mean those who take advantage of it are culpable of it. To take a Case study example: There were two clear 'winners' from 9/11. Israel and the UK.
Israel got a lot of fresh support which had been dwindling due to poor treatment of the Palestinains.
The UK profited because for the first time people in the US understood what terrorism was actually about, realised it wasnt 'heroic struggle' and very quickly stopped putting money into IRA coffers and stopped tolerating terrorist leaders when they came to New York and Boston. Until 9/11 the IRA only paid lip service to the 1997 ceasefire, mainly because still maintained a veneer of ligitimacy by openly garnered poltical support from the US Irish community, who for the most part are woefully ignorant of the nature of the Troubles. 9;/11 was a huge wake up call, and Financial and politcal support was pretty cut to practically nothing very quickly after.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I'll ignore the point about being called a PC moron. I would actually like to hear your points made without interference from my side. I don't actually believe this issue is split into two opinions, but that I'll ignore as well.
While I responded to you, my concdemnation of PC dogma is more universal, its a grenade labelled to whome it may concern. Political correcrtness is devisive and grossly hypocritical, PC enables some and disables others mainly in order to change a demographic. PC means many rights become wrong and many wrong become inalienable rights., PC means you can get hundreds of thousands of pounds or dollars for being made upset if you are a member of an inferred political minority. Yet companies can treat members of the supposed political majority very badly and get away with it. I have seen first hand people forced into constructive dismissal or treated unfairly at work knowing full well at if the person was female or of a different colour or sexuality they could call 'discrimination' and get a swift settlement and a public lawyer, but get neither because they are not.
Beyond the hypocritical lobsided application of rights that defines current political correctness is the even more insidious evil of labelling. If you do or say what the PC lobby dont like you are a '-----ist' or a '------ophobe'. The merits of your arguement, whether or not there are any, become irrelevant, you are a blasnkly labelled a bigot to be challenged, and with true PC hypocrasy society is enabled to be bigotted towards you and have no obligation to listen to anything you have to say before condemning you. Its Orwellian in its insidiousness. It stiffles debate, and replaces reason and understanding with accusation and derision, all in ther blatantly hypocritical name of equality and fairness.
Rarely is PC more evil than when the minority it seeks to empower on its own behalf uses the politcal structure of PC to undermine our society. Islamic militants are very happy to play the equalities card, and PC dogmatised societies like the Uik are often quick to leap to proove their openmindedness to multi culturalism by stomping on the suspected offender. Post Blair this is declining, the ConLib alliance doesnt want to play by these rules anymore, and some militants got a rude shock when trying out demands that used to get the police at their beck and call.
Not long ago, if you vocally or visually backed the Armed Forces you risked being censured for 'causing offence' by the police on behalf of the Moslems. In recent cases when this was tried the complainers were told to be more tolerant. Slowly but surely PC is on the way out but its death thoes will be long, and all too many high officials are still contasminated by PC dogma, after all New Labour wouldnt promote you if you didnt swallow and spout the dogmas they liked irregardless of the supposed party political impartiality the Civil Service is supposed to have.
I have been saying this for years here on Dakka. Back two or three years ago comments like this got a huge barrage by PC idiots who had swallowed the dogmas, called any challenge 'hearsay' and made flat demands for proof while requiring of themselves little or no burden of proof to apply the PC shotgun defence of a blanket accusation of bigotry. The proof is found by opening your eyes and seeing our society. Slowly society is seeing what I saw, and comments like this are no longer challenged but cheered. But there are still some who beleive in PC, and why not: By its intentuions PC is there to bring equality and fairness, but looks are deceiving, the actual application of PC is anything but fair or equal. This is why I vehemently oppose it, and challenge those who are still blinded by the supposed intention of PC to see that it actually does the opposite to the benefits it is supposed to bring.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I am trying to seperate your statements from those that I have already heard in this thread. Statements about beards and dresses and such.
Getting at Moslems because they look different to us would be unfair and bigoted. Beard no berard I dont care, its up to them, not me. Burkha or no burkha I do care about because the Burkha is designed to oppress women and raises security concerns over publically identifying people. Bomb or no bomb, thats very relevant.
Kilkrazy wrote:"I saw a video on YouTube where some guy said something about something" isn't exactly a rigorous, convincing analysis of the spirit of the age.
How many abortion clinic staff have been attacked or killed by Christians in the USA?
That doesn't excuse Islamic extremism, but it does show that extremism isn't exclusive to Islam.
Last time I checked, Christians were outraged by those bombings. Unlike the so called moderate Muslims who have expressed very little sympathy towards the victims of Islamic terrorists.
Thank you for your response Orlanth. It appears we just disagree on a few things.
Last time I checked, Christians were outraged by those bombings. Unlike the so called moderate Muslims who have expressed very little sympathy towards the victims of Islamic terrorists.
Last time I checked Muslims were killed on 9/11 and moderate Muslims are often the targets of extremist terrorism.
The so called moderate Muslims are being ignored by the some of the farthest reaching news outlets our tiny little planet has to offer. If you take a bit of time to look into this you'll find that there is plenty of condemnation from the Muslim community. It isn't a matter of existence; this is a matter of listening to multiple viewpoints. Often that means that you should probably do a bit more research of your own.
From what I have found there is more than enough reaction from the Muslim community to merit at least a second look into the situation. It is much simpler to pretend that moderates don't exist. Agreed.
Take a look at the sides presented on nearly every large issue that the large-scale media covers. Guess what, they make money off of the loudest most controversial voices. They have a financial incentive to ignore what I consider likely to be the largest voice on many issues. They just want the most controversial.
Money talks, bs walks. Now, by bs I do mean reasonable opinions that when taken into the spotlight are demeaned as delusional and unrepresentative.
We demand reasonable discourse in mainstream journalism! LOL. I'd rather get my news from more reliable outlets in the first place.
egor71 wrote:
New laws are passed to restrict military might as we speak, I guess EU news is rather slow in the US.
No, Erdogan, among others (including secularists, that whole EU bid has significantly affected the balance of power), have been discussing such measures; nothing has been passed.
What concerns me reagrding your comment is:
1) Turkey is not a member of the EU.
2) You seem to be using your emotion as means of carrying an inference regarding what is going to happen. This marks you as a poor observer in my mind.
egor71 wrote:
Scared infidels defend the islam, I'm just vigilant!
Vigilance involves fabricating evidence for your position?
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Amaya wrote:
Last time I checked, Christians were outraged by those bombings. Unlike the so called moderate Muslims who have expressed very little sympathy towards the victims of Islamic terrorists.
I assume by 'Christians' you mean 'some Christians' as, were you to mean all Christians, your comment would either be necessarily false, or a case of No True Scotsman; given that the bombers were almost always Christians.
As far as Islam and sympathy are concerned, one would think that the various reaction to 9/11 would dispute your point. Unless you're focusing more on the commendatory responses than the critical ones due to an emotional temperament?
dogma wrote:
I assume by 'Christians' you mean 'some Christians' as, were you to mean all Christians, your comment would either be necessarily false, or a case of No True Scotsman;
I dont think we need to go into mathematical subsets when dealing with human people groups, which are inhernetly flexible.
dogma wrote:
given that the bombers were almost always Christians.
That is not a given. Most if not almost all aborion clinic bomber was kicked out of or not attending any minstream church.
Of the two billion plus Christinas on the planet only as tiny sliver of a minority conduct abert or support these actuions, and almost all of them are in fringe groups that the majority do not consider Christian at all. In the odd exception case the church the terrorist attends is usualkly unaware of the attendees actions, and in any case is usually very swift to condemn therm.
Christians get tarred with this brush because Christians do protest at abortion clinincs, and of course because it makes good copy to assume such evil practice is inherent to the some churches.
Up to a point the same is said of Islam, but the percentages involved are far more evenly spread between the militanrts and the nonm militant majority.
dogma wrote:
As far as Islam and sympathy are concerned, one would think that the various reaction to 9/11 would dispute your point. Unless you're focusing more on the commendatory responses than the critical ones due to an emotional temperament?
This is true, but again the balance between supporters and critics of Ilslamic fundamentalism is far less marked. Not only do many more support terrorism as opposed to a very slender minority of non Moslems supporting terrorism carried out be people in the name of their Gods, those who speak against it often do so with extreme reluctance, or try to offset condemnation by linking Islamic violence with other violence or simplt condemn terrorism tactically rather than for any goodwill *cough* Arafat *cough*.
Orlanth wrote:Up to a point the same is said of Islam, but the percentages involved are far more evenly spread between the militanrts and the nonm militant majority.
Based on what statistics?
I am genuinely curious, and would appreciate if you could share that. Nearly all of the information I have looked into on this is very murky. It isn't as clear as you suggest.
I don't honestly think it is up to a certain point. I think it is practically the same thing. Nothing surprising about that at all.
Orlanth wrote:
I dont think we need to go into mathematical subsets when dealing with human people groups, which are inhernetly flexible.
I disagree entirely. If you aren't prepared to provide either statistical, or definitional information, then any statement regarding the whole of a broad category should be held in reservation.
Orlanth wrote:
That is not a given. Most if not almost all aborion clinic bomber was kicked out of or not attending any minstream church.
That has nothing to do with whether or not they were Christian. We can play games regarding what we want people to be, but at the end of the day that just leaves us in a dance around a posteriori fallacies.
Orlanth wrote:
Of the two billion plus Christinas on the planet only as tiny sliver of a minority conduct abert or support these actuions, and almost all of them are in fringe groups that the majority do not consider Christian at all. In the odd exception case the church the terrorist attends is usualkly unaware of the attendees actions, and in any case is usually very swift to condemn therm.
That's nice, but I never said that all Christians were bad people because some Christians did bad things. In fact, my point was very clearly directed against someone who made the opposite point with respect to Islam.
Orlanth wrote:
This is true, but again the balance between supporters and critics of Ilslamic fundamentalism is far less marked. Not only do many more support terrorism as opposed to a very slender minority of non Moslems supporting terrorism carried out be people in the name of their Gods, those who speak against it often do so with extreme reluctance, or try to offset condemnation by linking Islamic violence with other violence or simplt condemn terrorism tactically rather than for any goodwill *cough* Arafat *cough*.
First, numbers or I'm not interested. I don't care to discuss these things in a qualitative sense, it is all to easy for demagogues to come to he fore, even by accident.
Otherwise, it doesn't help that the majority of these people are subject to military oppression, or lacking militaries altogether.
Its fun to play category games when you have supremacy, but it doesn't really get at what goes on in the world.
mattyrm wrote:Sensible opinions?! haha! And thus we see the problem. This is why i skim over pretty much everything you write.
Im hardly a "right wing nut" am i? I am just more right of centre than you, and yes again, you reply to anything i type with "you're wrong" when we arent arguing about a mathematical problem or the location of a capital city, were talking about opinions here, and i am of the opinion that we need to use less carrot and more stick with regards to Islam as i feel we have appeased it plenty already to no avail.
You're not a nut in general, just on this issue. Well, and religion.
But to you, its just "right" and "wrong" with regards to peoples thoughts, and anybody who disagrees with you is "wrong" and you have to "bring me around to sensible opinions"
No, there isn't just right and wrong. There's all kinds of scope and space for points of view and differing forms of reasoning, but accepting that and wanting to hear all kinds of different opinions doesn't mean that some really are just plain wrong.
There used to be a time when it was only the far fringes of the left wing that embraced the idea there was no truth and only points of view. Unfortunately that kind of fuzzy non-thought has spread out and it seems to up everytime someone finds themselves unable to defend their argument.
Some things really are incorrect, wrong, foolish, mistaken and/or stupid. This can happen to you, it can happen to all of us. Plenty of times I've found out my opinion was stupid, a big part of getting smarter is accepting that, accepting the challenge to our opinions and replacing them with something more considered. It can suck at times when we have to take a hit to our egos, but that's life.
What a joke. Many educated people hold similar (sometimes more aggressive views) than me, i enjoy reading, and many of the authors i enjoy are of the same mind as me, is Christopher Hitchens "wrong" and he doesnt have "sensible opinions" because he doesnt hold to the exact same world view as you do?
Christopher Hitchens has a pretty long record of having believed in some incredibly stupid things. He's an interesting guy to hear and read, but by no means should an idea be considered more legitimate because he's argues for it.
Now please stop making me reply to you, im good enough to merely ignore you, cant you give me the same courtesy?
It's an interesting argument to had, how much we should let people give foolish opinions, to stop from disturbing a social group or because the person posting them happens to be a friend. But that doesn't really apply here, this isn't a social group and you're not my friend.
That was civil and enjoyable to read so I shall cease my cranky attitude... well, until the next time.
I agreed with almost all of it as well, of course I wasn't attempting to say that hitchens is always "right" in my opinion, I mean, the bloke was a raving Marxist who fell out with his brother over some wacky red army statement! I disagree with him politically on many many points, but I was merely trying to say that he is clearly intelligent and therefore will have valid opinions I.e follow a logical path of thought.
And when your taking politics and ideology, there is rarely right and wrong, I mean, can you say someone is wrong for picking labour over conservative? (Yes!)
All I was trying to get across was that I think we should not show Islam the undeserved respect that we do, and your free to disagree, I'm not stupid enough to disagree entirely as I can see both sides of the argument, I just don't think its right to get more aggressive with the people that agree with wilders thinking.
Orlanth wrote:Up to a point the same is said of Islam, but the percentages involved are far more evenly spread between the militanrts and the nonm militant majority.
Based on what statistics?
I am genuinely curious, and would appreciate if you could share that. Nearly all of the information I have looked into on this is very murky. It isn't as clear as you suggest.
I don't honestly think it is up to a certain point. I think it is practically the same thing. Nothing surprising about that at all.
I was trying to avoid the word 'percentage' in that post because of the lack of hard data.
The loose demographics to look for are:
1. Estimated No of Christians/Moslems
2. Estimated No of Militant Churches/Mosques
3. Estimated Number of Militant Christians/Moslems
We only have very rough figures for only #1: 2 billion christians, 1.5 billion Moslems worldwide. Both are near top end estimates, low estimates take 30% off each, real top end adds another 10-15%. This is hard to quantify as there is a no social demarker between a nominally relgious person and a devout person. 'Number of church goers' only really works for churches as in some cultures attendance at a place of worship is mandatory even if one claims only nominal membership of the religion.
#2 and #3 only exist as statistics in various government security organisations that count them. All a layman can tell is: There are approx 4 Christians for every 3 Moslems worldwide, far more in the Western world, about 3 to 1 in the west.
How many militant churches are there in comparison to militant Mosques, To keep a parity of evil to evil there would need to be roughly 4:3 (preferably 3:1) assuming similar congregation size. Are there? Not a chance. There are considerably fewer militant churches around. Militant churches all but dont exist, even scum like Westboro Baptists do not endorse or call for terrorism, they just hate people. If only the same could be said of jihadist Mosques. There are public demographics out there for Islam vs radical Islam but you can find them as easy as I can and guestimates/figures vary. Real figures being properlty of the various nations security services and police.
If you really want to try and work out the balance somewhere pick a large western city, count the mosques and churches via google maps and do a google search on radical mosques cross referenced with the name of the city. You might get press reports of mosques the police feel the need to watch, you might not. Try again for churches.
#3 is even harder to calculate without bugging the radical churches or mosques and associated meeting halls. I get the feeling this is done, but we are not provy to the findings. I cannot give numbers but it is very safe again to say from common observation that the percentage of radicalised Christians to Christians is considerably less than radicalised Moslems to Moslems, particularly in the west. Here the 'safe' use of the word percentage without actual statistics.
I took your question openly. It should be simple enough to come to the same conclusion I did just by watching a broadsection of the press for a year or two. Also there are a lot of radical Imams in the press who are quite open about endorsing jihad through terrorism. Some becoming regulars in the tabloids. I cannot provide figures. However while the PC idiot at this point will likely turn around and say "no statistical proof, so its all hearsay, Moslems are no more radical than Christians", I am not accusing you of being that blinkered.
Local vicar?
Just saw this in next post:
dogma wrote:
I disagree entirely. If you aren't prepared to provide either statistical, or definitional information, then any statement regarding the whole of a broad category should be held in reservation.
For some issues the statistics are confidential or even classified information. You and I have to go wirth common observation. You reserve ther right to take what we say loosely, but anyone who is not deliberately blinkered can see there is a marked distinction between radicalised Islam to Islamic demographic compared to other religions. Unless the CIA at al springs a leak we wont get figures, and even those figures could be planted. Sometimes you just have to see there is a problem by opening ones eyes and seeing it.
I wonder what percentage of Al-Quaeda are Christians? Just because we don't have the answer, doesnt mean we cannot make an educated guess with enough safety to have some level of authority.
mattyrm wrote:That was civil and enjoyable to read so I shall cease my cranky attitude... well, until the next time.
Cool
All I was trying to get across was that I think we should not show Islam the undeserved respect that we do, and your free to disagree, I'm not stupid enough to disagree entirely as I can see both sides of the argument, I just don't think its right to get more aggressive with the people that agree with wilders thinking.
Thing is, I agree that there are issues within Islam. While the terrorists may be in the minority, there are other issues that a much more significant portion of the population are pretty up about; the burqua represents a wholly unhealthy fetishisation of women, a worrying number of arabs believed 9/11 was a jewish conspiracy and so on.
But when Wilders talks about the Koran as a fascist book, he's just wrong. People who agree with him on that are wrong.
mattyrm wrote:That was civil and enjoyable to read so I shall cease my cranky attitude... well, until the next time.
Cool
All I was trying to get across was that I think we should not show Islam the undeserved respect that we do, and your free to disagree, I'm not stupid enough to disagree entirely as I can see both sides of the argument, I just don't think its right to get more aggressive with the people that agree with wilders thinking.
Thing is, I agree that there are issues within Islam. While the terrorists may be in the minority, there are other issues that a much more significant portion of the population are pretty up about; the burqua represents a wholly unhealthy fetishisation of women, a worrying number of arabs believed 9/11 was a jewish conspiracy and so on.
But when Wilders talks about the Koran as a fascist book, he's just wrong. People who agree with him on that are wrong.
Orlanth wrote:I took your question openly. It should be simple enough to come to the same conclusion I did just by watching a broadsection of the press for a year or two. Also there are a lot of radical Imams in the press who are quite open about endorsing jihad through terrorism. Some becoming regulars in the tabloids. I cannot provide figures. However while the PC idiot at this point will likely turn around and say "no statistical proof, so its all hearsay, Moslems are no more radical than Christians", I am not accusing you of being that blinkered.
From what I have seen it is usually the a small group of extremists that are focused on, and in doing so some news outlets give people the idea that this is a much larger problem than it actually is. If there is a protest involving thousands of people, any protest, news outlets will find the craziest of the bunch because it sells. It makes for lucrative journalism.
The fact that you cannot provide figures makes me doubt your argument at it's core. Your pretty much saying this stuff then pointing at news outlets that are habitually in favor of making money off of outrage. It is a business plan, and it isn't part of a plan to brainwash people. It's business in the world of news.
You've set up a strange argument where I am supposed to agree with you or I jump on your 'to whom it may concern' grenade. How about we just step ten feet this direction so neither of us is within blast range. Your saying it is because it is. That is not a substantive argument. I have no intention of dragging this into another argument.
We can disagree and I would still like real evidence to back up your statements. This isn't a preposterous request. It's really quite reasonable to ask for sources for such grand suggestions.
I understand you don't have that data, but since I am actually quite interested in this subject I will go ahead and see if I can find anything more over the next few days. If I find anything convincing over the next few days I'll go ahead and drop it in this thread. Most often there isn't convincing information either way. It doesn't matter that the news outlets you choose to watch point their cameras in a certain direction. Cameras work in 3-d. You can pan out and turn around in circles until you get dizzy. One consistent factor in all of this is that moderate protests usually don't exist. Angry people are usually the ones to protest - not the reasonable ones.
Wrexasaur wrote:
From what I have seen it is usually the a small group of extremists that are focused on, and in doing so some news outlets give people the idea that this is a much larger problem than it actually is. If there is a protest involving thousands of people, any protest, news outlets will find the craziest of the bunch because it sells. It makes for lucrative journalism.
That would hold water if we just had words, but we also have the result of actions, bombings, killings etc.
Wrexasaur wrote:
The fact that you cannot provide figures makes me doubt your argument at it's core. Your pretty much saying this stuff then pointing at news outlets that are habitually in favor of making money off of outrage. It is a business plan, and it isn't part of a plan to brainwash people. It's business in the world of news.
I dont know the exact mass of the Sun, but I know its there. You ask for too high a burden of proof. This sort of statistical information is not available, but the effects on society are. visible
Wrexasaur wrote:
We can disagree and I would still like real evidence to back up your statements. This isn't a preposterous request. It's really quite reasonable to ask for sources for such grand suggestions.
No real evidence to back up statements, isnt that an insult to the victims?
9/11, 7/7, Bali, Madrid. How much more evidence do you need?
Wrexasaur wrote:
From what I have seen it is usually the a small group of extremists that are focused on, and in doing so some news outlets give people the idea that this is a much larger problem than it actually is. If there is a protest involving thousands of people, any protest, news outlets will find the craziest of the bunch because it sells. It makes for lucrative journalism.
That would hold water if we just had words, but we also have the result of actions, bombings, killings etc.
It sounds like you are saying this is a much larger problem when it concerns one religion over another. I happen to disagree strongly.
Please clarify your point if I am misinterpreting your statements on this subject.
I have asked you to list these occurrences because it would help your argument to do so. There are plenty of references out there and you simply will not bring them into this conversation. You don't need data on this point. You need to show that there is a significantly larger number of terrorist acts from one extremist group over another. You outright said that it is pointless to do so, because you believe that this is an obvious problem. Sure, if it is so obvious and a handful of very large news outlets are not responsible for the branding of this concept it will not be difficult for you to show that.
If it is in fact as obvious as you suggest, you shouldn't have this hard of a time convincing me you are correct. I don't even consider this explicitly a matter of opinion, as suggestions that something is obvious bring up some serious questions in general.
I dont know the exact mass of the Sun, but I know its there. You ask for too high a burden of proof. This sort of statistical information is not available, but the effects on society are. visible
You are saying the sun is so large that we are at risk of being burnt up by it. It is necessary to your argument to illustrate why you think that is. If you continue to refuse such clarification I refuse to take your statements as they stand. References supporting your argument are necessary to prove your point. I can say a lot of things without substantiating them. So far your argument has been that the problem is incredibly obvious. It definitely isn't.
The question at hand is how much of a threat the sun really is. That is what we are talking about here. That general concept is what we are discussing. Threats and reactions.
Wrexasaur wrote:We can disagree and I would still like real evidence to back up your statements. This isn't a preposterous request. It's really quite reasonable to ask for sources for such grand suggestions.
No real evidence to back up statements, isnt that an insult to the victims?
9/11, 7/7, Bali, Madrid. How much more evidence do you need?
Do I really have to bring up acts of extremist terrorism to rebut this? I do not want to shift the conversation into whether or not Christians are 'more peaceful' than Muslims so I refuse to bring up the clear similarities in the issues you bring up.
Muslims died on 9/11. Muslims have been attacked by extremists. Is what you're saying not insulting to those individuals?
I need serious statistics to agree with you here. Data that supports your argument, because we are in fact talking about a very complicated issue with numerous aspects involved.
You're shifting the goal posts and working on the lines of emotions where objective views are very necessary to your arguments. Again, I'll take a bit of time to look around for some good statistics and analysis of this subject. From what I have gone through in the past it is a very gray area that has contrasting and valid views on nearly every point.
This is not a two-sided issue, and saying 9/11 a few more times ain't gunna change that.
Are you glad to be wrong in your understanding of Islam, or in your understanding of Fascism?
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Orlanth wrote:No real evidence to back up statements, isnt that an insult to the victims?
9/11, 7/7, Bali, Madrid. How much more evidence do you need?
There are more than a billion muslims. If 10% wished violence on the rest of us, there’d be 100 million people plotting to plant bombs. If it was 1% there’d be 10 million. If it was 0.1% there’d be a million. Don’t you think a million people manage more than a few attacks over a decade?
Are you glad to be wrong in your understanding of Islam, or in your understanding of Fascism?
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Orlanth wrote:No real evidence to back up statements, isnt that an insult to the victims?
9/11, 7/7, Bali, Madrid. How much more evidence do you need?
There are more than a billion muslims. If 10% wished violence on the rest of us, there’d be 100 million people plotting to plant bombs. If it was 1% there’d be 10 million. If it was 0.1% there’d be a million. Don’t you think a million people manage more than a few attacks over a decade?
I do understand the islam (since it's imagination it tried to invade europe for a thousand years and onley marginally succeeded at some points, and it will lose in open conflict again, mass imigration with the help of leftwing politics is the way to go), do you? It's in their history!
You calling me a fascist, racist, nut job or whatever want shut me up (a permanent ban will )
And 90% of a billion moeslims support the jihad, I don't see them doing anything to stop the violence.
egor71 wrote:I do understand the islam (since it's imagination it tried to invade europe for a thousand years and onley marginally succeeded at some points, and it will lose in open conflict again, mass imigration with the help of leftwing politics is the way to go), do you? It's in their history!
Which various Christian groups also attempted. And as it would be stupid to claim that there was some historic drive to take the Holy Lands among the general Christian populations, it's just as stupid to claim the same of any Islamic group.
You calling me a fascist, racist, nut job or whatever want shut me up (a permanent ban will )
Misreading things to contrive a personal attack is lame. Don't be lame.
I mentioned Wilders' claim that the Koran is a fascist book, and said this claim was plainly wrong. You declared that you are glad to be wrong, implying you believe the same as Wilders. I wasn't sure if you were wrong in your belief that the Koran is a fascist book because you don't understand Islam, or because you don't understand fascism.
Given you accept you are wrong, do you think this is because you don't understand fascism or because you don't understand Islam?
And 90% of a billion moeslims support the jihad, I don't see them doing anything to stop the violence.
That's nonsense. Do 90% of Catholics support paedophilia because they themselves have done nothing to stop it? Most people, regardless of nation, ethnicity or religion, won't do much of anything politically in their lives. Arguing that the individual must personally act to stop something is nonsense.
Pakistan has probably the strongest element of extremism of any country, maybe bested by Yemen. When elections have been held including religious parties they've won about 5% of the vote. And they aren't even extremist violent parties, just religiously oriented parties.
Claiming that any more than a tiny minority of Muslims want to overwhelm the Western world is just nonsense.
Are you glad to be wrong in your understanding of Islam, or in your understanding of Fascism?
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Orlanth wrote:No real evidence to back up statements, isnt that an insult to the victims?
9/11, 7/7, Bali, Madrid. How much more evidence do you need?
There are more than a billion muslims. If 10% wished violence on the rest of us, there’d be 100 million people plotting to plant bombs. If it was 1% there’d be 10 million. If it was 0.1% there’d be a million. Don’t you think a million people manage more than a few attacks over a decade?
I do understand the islam (since it's imagination it tried to invade europe for a thousand years and onley marginally succeeded at some points, and it will lose in open conflict again, mass imigration with the help of leftwing politics is the way to go), do you? It's in their history!
You calling me a fascist, racist, nut job or whatever want shut me up (a permanent ban will )
And 90% of a billion moeslims support the jihad, I don't see them doing anything to stop the violence.
And if you understood anything about history you would realize that the muslim conquerors were godsends. The byzantine empire was an oppressive state that stifled scientific thought, and was incredibly intolerant of other religion. Whereas until the seljuk turks the muslims were known for the open mindedness, and tolerence towards other religions, they were literally welcomed with open arms
This new brand of militant islam didn't exist until the mid 20th century
sebster wrote:Claiming that any more than a tiny minority of Muslims want to overwhelm the Western world is just nonsense.
The most important part of this is discussing what level of reaction is appropriate to that relatively insignificant portion.
There are serious threats involved, but overreacting could and already is costing us dearly. There are so many people involved in this issue it becomes overwhelming to consider all sides. Focusing on the largest and most powerful parts seems pretty damn sensible. In general those parts are represented by very significant countries that carry a lot of clout. Huge amounts of money have been spent fighting this issue, and in some ways it could be said that we have already lost the war.
We should be focusing on damage control not all out war.
egor71 wrote:
Facepalm indeed. Whatever mate, you made your opinion clear earlier.
Wrexasaur wrote:The most important part of this is discussing what level of reaction is appropriate to that relatively insignificant portion.
There are serious threats involved, but overreacting could and already is costing us dearly. There are so many people involved in this issue it becomes overwhelming to consider all sides. Focusing on the largest and most powerful parts seems pretty damn sensible. In general those parts are represented by very significant countries that carry a lot of clout. Huge amounts of money have been spent fighting this issue, and in some ways it could be said that we have already lost the war.
We should be focusing on damage control not all out war.
Yeah, that’s a fair point.
Also complicating the issue is that there are parts of Islam that are plainly ugly while not actually being a part of any terrorist scheme. Things such as sexism and the forming of ghettos are real issues in Western countries accepting Muslims that need solutions. Relations with Islam are more than just terrorism, but unfortunately the conversations just on terrorism tend to get drowned by people dreaming of some grand clash of civilisations, trying to have a broader conversation on the lines between cultural tolerance and the rights of individual citizens is near impossible.
Modquisition on. Private warnings have been issued for this thread. This is a reminder, RUle #1: Be Polite still applies to the OT is being enforced with more vigor. personal attacks or slants on other Dakka members will not be tolerated.
Well obviously we can all agree with what seb/wrex said, but if you take that fence sitting position there isnt anything to talk about is there?!
Of course not all muslims are bad, not even most, and of course, if you try to brutalise people they dig their heals in even more, human beings are stubborn, we cant start "carpet bombing" anyone because its a road to ruin and a guaranteed defeat in any conflict unless you are prepared to commit genocide, and nobody is. Well.. on our side anyway!
I dont think we should be hyper aggressive with Islam, hearts and minds is the only way to win our current conflicts, and we must work with the local populous if we hope to win, but all im saying is that i think we are taking too much of a softly softly approach to Muslims on our own soil..
I dont know exactly what im arguing for here, i just know i dont like the current situation!
egor71 wrote:And 90% of a billion moeslims support the jihad, I don't see them doing anything to stop the violence.
Ok, first. Support. Please show where it's been proven that 90% of all muslims support violent jihad and terrorism.
Second, how? How is an individual supposed to stop terrorism. Do you honestly expect every Muslim on the planet to pack up their bags, head to Afghanistan and Pakistan and start combing the mountains looking for Bin Laden and Al Queda? Seriously? If we're going to hold people to that standard then please explain to me what I could have done to stop Timothy McVeigh or the Backstreet Boys from unleashing their terror attacks.
mattyrm wrote:I dont know exactly what im arguing for here, i just know i dont like the current situation!
mattyrm wrote:Well obviously we can all agree with what seb/wrex said, but if you take that fence sitting position there isnt anything to talk about is there?!
True
Of course not all muslims are bad, not even most, and of course, if you try to brutalise people they dig their heals in even more, human beings are stubborn, we cant start "carpet bombing" anyone because its a road to ruin and a guaranteed defeat in any conflict unless you are prepared to commit genocide, and nobody is. Well.. on our side anyway!
I dont think we should be hyper aggressive with Islam, hearts and minds is the only way to win our current conflicts, and we must work with the local populous if we hope to win, but all im saying is that i think we are taking too much of a softly softly approach to Muslims on our own soil..
I dont know exactly what im arguing for here, i just know i dont like the current situation!
Hmmm, thing is, I agree with you largely... and reading that wasn't fun. Let's get back to yelling at each other.
Yesterday the court decided that Wilders will not be prosecuted for insulting muslims as he insulted the islam as a religion and not muslims as a group.
The damage claims called for by muslim groups was refused as it could not be proven that they sufferd any damages.
Friday the court continious on the subject of hate speech and discrimination.
mattyrm wrote:That was civil and enjoyable to read so I shall cease my cranky attitude... well, until the next time.
Cool
All I was trying to get across was that I think we should not show Islam the undeserved respect that we do, and your free to disagree, I'm not stupid enough to disagree entirely as I can see both sides of the argument, I just don't think its right to get more aggressive with the people that agree with wilders thinking.
Thing is, I agree that there are issues within Islam. While the terrorists may be in the minority, there are other issues that a much more significant portion of the population are pretty up about; the burqua represents a wholly unhealthy fetishisation of women, a worrying number of arabs believed 9/11 was a jewish conspiracy and so on.
But when Wilders talks about the Koran as a fascist book, he's just wrong. People who agree with him on that are wrong.
Then I'm glad to be wrong.
Oh, and he's part of our new goverment
Oh yeah, we should be glad, really glad. "Henk and Ingrid" are going to pay for Floris-Herbert's Grachtengordel mansion (rents increase to support mortgage-support), nice heel-face turn for Wilders here.
Not a single important issue will be adressed by this new coalition. They're only going to bully house-renters, artists, the younger generations and school teachers.
Wrexasaur wrote:
From what I have seen it is usually the a small group of extremists that are focused on, and in doing so some news outlets give people the idea that this is a much larger problem than it actually is. If there is a protest involving thousands of people, any protest, news outlets will find the craziest of the bunch because it sells. It makes for lucrative journalism.
That would hold water if we just had words, but we also have the result of actions, bombings, killings etc.
It sounds like you are saying this is a much larger problem when it concerns one religion over another. I happen to disagree strongly.
Please clarify your point if I am misinterpreting your statements on this subject.
Easy: Political correct dogma leading to a bend over backwards mentaility towards militant Islam. militant Islamics, and many manistream Islamics are taking advantage of this to our detriment.
There is more to it than that, but the evidence was clearly stated in above posts by myself and others. I wonder if you dont understand or simply wont understand.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I have asked you to list these occurrences because it would help your argument to do so.
Done several long posts on that, what more need I say. If you dont see the answers re-read properly.
Wrexasaur wrote:
There are plenty of references out there and you simply will not bring them into this conversation. You don't need data on this point. You need to show that there is a significantly larger number of terrorist acts from one extremist group over another.
Done that. Try reading the thread, what I didnt cover others did.
Wrexasaur wrote:
You outright said that it is pointless to do so, because you believe that this is an obvious problem.
Not done, said or implied that. The problem is obvious, but that doesnt make any comprisons invalid. I did quite a long comparison between Islamic militancy and abortion clinic murders.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Sure, if it is so obvious and a handful of very large news outlets are not responsible for the branding of this concept it will not be difficult for you to show that. If it is in fact as obvious as you suggest, you shouldn't have this hard of a time convincing me you are correct. I don't even consider this explicitly a matter of opinion, as suggestions that something is obvious bring up some serious questions in general.
Why dont you look instead. I have shown you the evidence, you can rad from a pres source that suits you. I will not be drawn into the trap of picking one paper or another, because they all have a slantr. But if you look at the egidence say Madrid bombings or Glasgow airport bombings to note two of many examples you can see what the press say on your own, and see just howe much covedrage there is. More than I can just cram down on a barrage of links.
Besides links dont help, those who are in denial for one reason or other, beicause they are PC dogmatised, bercause they hope the truth will go away or are genuinely deceived; they I cannot help.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I dont know the exact mass of the Sun, but I know its there. You ask for too high a burden of proof. This sort of statistical information is not available, but the effects on society are. visible
You are saying the sun is so large that we are at risk of being burnt up by it.
I requoted just to show how far from the mark you are going. Please re-read the thread.
Wrexasaur wrote:
So far your argument has been that the problem is incredibly obvious. It definitely isn't......
We can disagree and I would still like real evidence to back up your statements. This isn't a preposterous request. It's really quite reasonable to ask for sources for such grand suggestions.....
Do I really have to bring up acts of extremist terrorism to rebut this? I do not want to shift the conversation into whether or not Christians are 'more peaceful' than Muslims so I refuse to bring up the clear similarities in the issues you bring up.
The point still stands the attacks occured, by Moslems for reasons connected to their Islamic beliefs.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Muslims died on 9/11. Muslims have been attacked by extremists. Is what you're saying not insulting to those individuals?
That says nothing more than that militant Islam is a threat to Moselms too. RThis is evident by the nature of the bombings in Iraq that take far more local civilian lives than invaders. To ther gak militia this is acceptable.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I need serious statistics to agree with you here. Data that supports your argument, because we are in fact talking about a very complicated issue with numerous aspects involved.
What use would statistics do, statistics can be doctored. how about calls ofr Jihad, calls for Sharia, calls supporting the terrorism. I also mentioned rthat due to the nature of the subject clear data is hard to find, often classified. We dont know how many Islamic fundamentalists there are. Try asking the CIA, good luck getting a reliable answer. If you dont get one its doesnt mean the data is flawed or there is no case to answer for. Stop treating geopolitics like its hard science with long lists of methematical proofs or equations, it isnt.
Wrexasaur wrote:
You're shifting the goal posts and working on the lines of emotions where objective views are very necessary to your arguments. Again, I'll take a bit of time to look around for some good statistics and analysis of this subject. From what I have gone through in the past it is a very gray area that has contrasting and valid views on nearly every point.
This is not a two-sided issue, and saying 9/11 a few more times ain't gunna change that.
No, but if we keep on saying '9/11' enough you might realise that the focus is the same and the 'goal posts' haven't shifted.
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sebster wrote:
Wrexasaur wrote:The most important part of this is discussing what level of reaction is appropriate to that relatively insignificant portion.
There are serious threats involved, but overreacting could and already is costing us dearly. There are so many people involved in this issue it becomes overwhelming to consider all sides. Focusing on the largest and most powerful parts seems pretty damn sensible. In general those parts are represented by very significant countries that carry a lot of clout. Huge amounts of money have been spent fighting this issue, and in some ways it could be said that we have already lost the war.
We should be focusing on damage control not all out war.
Yeah, that’s a fair point.
Also complicating the issue is that there are parts of Islam that are plainly ugly while not actually being a part of any terrorist scheme. Things such as sexism and the forming of ghettos are real issues in Western countries accepting Muslims that need solutions. Relations with Islam are more than just terrorism, but unfortunately the conversations just on terrorism tend to get drowned by people dreaming of some grand clash of civilisations, trying to have a broader conversation on the lines between cultural tolerance and the rights of individual citizens is near impossible.
Sebster, the point would be fair if it were not commonplace. How many people from faction x supported atrocity y? Take that question and apply it just about anywhere, you will see that all the big bad evils in the world had a handful of leaders and a lot of people who pro-actively failed to say no. Tyrants rely on only a hardful of true supporters, a larger number of semi-loyal supporters balanced by their own rivalries and the lack of high level opponents willing to stand up and say no. The same is true of dema-gogues. the Spanish crown didnt want the Inquisition but were too scared to oppose them, how much more so the people. We are seeing stirrings in Iran against fundameltailism, but conversely many millions will follow the mullahs out of crowd instinct.
To make matters worse even without an Islamic powerbase there has been a very strong and openly seen reluctance for the peaceful Islamic majority to even critique let alone curb the militants. Uk Moslems should certainly be able to speak their own minds, yet few use that freedom to condemn suicide bombings, they may well be a minority to the apologists, maybe not. We cannot tell, and I know better than to ask MI5 for statistics, and better yet than to find publically released data on the demographics of fundamentalism in the New Labour era. New Labour release data on naughty things some ethnic minorities do, give your head a break, that is likely covered under the 30 year rule as with too many things that could have embarassed Blair.
DA won't prosecute Wilders ( on the points of insulting, hate speech and discrimination) because he was in his right to say what he said.
In November the judge wil present his verdict.
Orlanth wrote:I wonder if you dont understand or simply wont understand.
I understand that you have a very strong opinion on this subject. You are telling me to re-read the thread because you supposedly proved your point so clearly that I am supposed to regard your statements as fact. I disagree with you, and you take offense to that so much that you feel forced to insult me in one way or another.
Stop telling me to re-read the thread. I am not necessarily trying to stop you from having your opinion, but it should be pretty clear to someone such as yourself that while you may feel strongly about this issue, others do as well. I'll get back to you when I can reference serious studies on this subject.
I do not agree with you. You seem to ignore that, and go on to insult my character.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I understand that you have a very strong opinion on this subject. You are telling me to re-read the thread because you supposedly proved your point so clearly that I am supposed to regard your statements as fact. I disagree with you, and you take offense to that so much that you feel forced to insult me in one way or another.
Disagree would be one thing, but you claimed I had supporteed my case with no evidence, which could only mean you hadnt read the thread. Disagree with the evidence is one thing, saying I posted none is somehing else.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I do not agree with you. You seem to ignore that, and go on to insult my character.
Have a nice day, Orlanth.
I didnt insult you I insulted politically corect dogmatists who get very upset if we dont appease the Islamic minority and will tolerate their antics in the name of diversity when diversity is precisely what they dont want. I will happily oppose the poltically correct because their appeasement is more dangerous than the Islamic fundameltalist threat. Islamic fundameltalists while obnoxious and dangerous in equal measure are a small minority, PC appeasers are or at least very recently were part of a political majority who enforced their grossly hypocritical will on others.
Other than the terrorists themselves all my critique on this thread has been directed at the politically correct appeasers, not at any individuals here. Reading the thread clearly will show you this. Whether you think you fit into that category or not is your own concern.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I understand that you have a very strong opinion on this subject. You are telling me to re-read the thread because you supposedly proved your point so clearly that I am supposed to regard your statements as fact. I disagree with you, and you take offense to that so much that you feel forced to insult me in one way or another.
Disagree would be one thing, but you claimed I had supporteed my case with no evidence, which could only mean you hadnt read the thread. Disagree with the evidence is one thing, saying I posted none is somehing else.
Of 150 mosques or prayer rooms in Switzerland, only 4 have minarets, and only 2 more minarets are planned. None conduct the call to prayer. There are about 400,000 Muslims in a population of some 7.5 million people. Close to 90 percent of Muslims in Switzerland are from Kosovo and Turkey, and most do not adhere to the codes of dress and conduct associated with conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, said Manon Schick, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International in Switzerland.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I understand that you have a very strong opinion on this subject. You are telling me to re-read the thread because you supposedly proved your point so clearly that I am supposed to regard your statements as fact. I disagree with you, and you take offense to that so much that you feel forced to insult me in one way or another.
Disagree would be one thing, but you claimed I had supporteed my case with no evidence, which could only mean you hadnt read the thread. Disagree with the evidence is one thing, saying I posted none is somehing else.
How many minarets are there in Switzerland?
How many in Japan?
I know many areas that have historical or building restrictions. They don't care about religion, just keeping the area homogeneous in aesthetic. You couldn't have minarets or a steeple there either, but you could still have a church or mosque.
A ban on tall buildings in general would address that issue. As Switzerland banned minarets specifically this can be regarded as an issue of aesthetics, but I consider the ordinances involved to be a much larger political statement. That is why it made such a splash when the story got picked up by the larger media.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I understand that you have a very strong opinion on this subject. You are telling me to re-read the thread because you supposedly proved your point so clearly that I am supposed to regard your statements as fact. I disagree with you, and you take offense to that so much that you feel forced to insult me in one way or another.
Disagree would be one thing, but you claimed I had supporteed my case with no evidence, which could only mean you hadnt read the thread. Disagree with the evidence is one thing, saying I posted none is somehing else.
How many minarets are there in Switzerland?
How many in Japan?
I know many areas that have historical or building restrictions. They don't care about religion, just keeping the area homogeneous in aesthetic. You couldn't have minarets or a steeple there either, but you could still have a church or mosque.
That's the point. The Swiss didn't ban the building of tall buildings, they banned the building of minarets. It wasn't to do with keeping a homogenous aesthetic, it was to do with stopping the building of minarets.
57, but it's irrelevant, as Japan hasn't banned the building of minarets.
Kilkrazy wrote:It wasn't to do with keeping a homogenous aesthetic, it was to do with stopping the building of minarets.
One can easily fall back on the concept of cultural aesthetics, but it doesn't make for a very compelling reason to take such action as Switzerland did.
I am not saying that they had no right to do so, and I consider action on Switzerland's part to be a pretty bad thing in the long term. There are likely people in power that looked upon this issue as a way to exert their opinion internationally. We are having this discussion because of it. From what I have read in the past it seems relatively obvious that specific groups of people took it upon themselves to bring minarets into the national spotlight. I doubt they were actually working towards an international story, but they sure as hell got one.
It really isn't an opaque message. There was purposeful intention that went far beyond the preferred skylines. Perhaps it started as a few people not liking the look of those new buildings, but it would be a lie for me to say that I believe this isn't a politically charged issue.
That doesn't stop it being a petty, mean, un-neighbourly attack on another religion, motivated by fear, ignorance and xenophobia.
Agreed. I'm not going to defend Switzerland unless it involves protecting the greatness of Swiss Chocolate...
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Kilkrazy wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
Wrexasaur wrote:
I understand that you have a very strong opinion on this subject. You are telling me to re-read the thread because you supposedly proved your point so clearly that I am supposed to regard your statements as fact. I disagree with you, and you take offense to that so much that you feel forced to insult me in one way or another.
Disagree would be one thing, but you claimed I had supporteed my case with no evidence, which could only mean you hadnt read the thread. Disagree with the evidence is one thing, saying I posted none is somehing else.
How many minarets are there in Switzerland?
How many in Japan?
I know many areas that have historical or building restrictions. They don't care about religion, just keeping the area homogeneous in aesthetic. You couldn't have minarets or a steeple there either, but you could still have a church or mosque.
That's the point. The Swiss didn't ban the building of tall buildings, they banned the building of minarets. It wasn't to do with keeping a homogenous aesthetic, it was to do with stopping the building of minarets.
57, but it's irrelevant, as Japan hasn't banned the building of minarets.
More importantly, have they banned the epic song "Rock the Casba!"
To be honest, I find myself asking the question 'what if Switzerland had banned the building of church steeples'. Personally, I wouldn't give a toss because I am not in the least religious but surely even the most swivel eyed fanatic would think such a ban were about discrimination and discrimination alone?
Wrexasaur wrote:
I understand that you have a very strong opinion on this subject. You are telling me to re-read the thread because you supposedly proved your point so clearly that I am supposed to regard your statements as fact. I disagree with you, and you take offense to that so much that you feel forced to insult me in one way or another.
Disagree would be one thing, but you claimed I had supporteed my case with no evidence, which could only mean you hadnt read the thread. Disagree with the evidence is one thing, saying I posted none is somehing else.
How many minarets are there in Switzerland?
How many in Japan?
I know many areas that have historical or building restrictions. They don't care about religion, just keeping the area homogeneous in aesthetic. You couldn't have minarets or a steeple there either, but you could still have a church or mosque.
Thankyou Frazzie, this is the very point. Though there is a lot of anti-Islamic feeling in Switzerland (understandable as its the nearest thing they have had to a genuine threat since the 15th century), however the minaret ban was not motivated by racism.
I didnt know there were as few as four minarets in Switzxerland, but then the statistics arent actually necessary or relevant to the value of the arguments. To those living nearby who remember their town before a minaret one minaret is too many. The only guaranteed way to securing their heritage in this manner is a minaret ban. Thus moslems must seek and exception to the ban rather in a situatiion if and where the local population welcomes a minaret, rather than have the 'right' to be build a minaret as the default.
Orlanth wrote:... but anyone who is not deliberately blinkered can see there is a marked distinction between radicalised Islam to Islamic demographic compared to other religions.
I like how you preemptively classified anyone who might disagree as 'blinkered'. Nice touch.
Orlanth wrote:
Unless the CIA at al springs a leak we wont get figures, and even those figures could be planted.
If that's the case, then there really isn't a point in having the conversation. If you don't believe observation can be regarded as valid, then you're really just engaging in idle speculation.
Orlanth wrote:
Sometimes you just have to see there is a problem by opening ones eyes and seeing it.
What are you seeing? You just noted that any figures that we might possess could be the result of distorted information, what makes your informal observation any different? After all, any set of figures can be checked, regardless of its source.
Unless you're postulating that your opinion is not the result of observation, in which case I'm left wondering what it is based on.
Orlanth wrote:
I wonder what percentage of Al-Quaeda are Christians? Just because we don't have the answer, doesnt mean we cannot make an educated guess with enough safety to have some level of authority.
Yes, that's exactly what it means. If you cannot test your hypothesis, then your hypothesis is irrelevant outside those circumstances in which it is forced to be. Given that you probably don't work for the MoD, I can't see how your hypothesis is being forced into relevance.
Now, if you had stated that there is support for terrorism in the Muslim world, I wouldn't have a problem with your statement. But when you want to suppose, on a purely qualitative basis, that there is more in the Muslim world than anywhere else, then I call foul. Stronger claims require stronger cases, and your aesthetic analysis isn't a strong case.
That doesn't stop it being a petty, mean, un-neighbourly attack on another religion, motivated by fear, ignorance and xenophobia.
It doesnt necesasry make it petty, mean, or un-neighbourly either. Switzerland exists BECAUSE of its status quo. This kept the bankers and the money in, but kept Napoleon and Hitler out. they dont have much of an economy other than banking, neutrality and chocolate. They don't have much of a military either, but noone attacks them.
For a nation that owes its own existence to political neutrality, this means that the banking code is kept and the nartion remains the same. Continuity is stability, stability makes Switzerland the safest place for ther real wealth of the world to be stored. This safety is so strong that even dictators do not violate it, even Hitler could be releidupon not to violate Switzerland, Islamic fundamndalists, they are not so sure about.The Swiss want to open their doors to an potentially intolerant and beligerent religion like Islam like they want a dose of the plague.
Orlanth wrote:... but anyone who is not deliberately blinkered can see there is a marked distinction between radicalised Islam to Islamic demographic compared to other religions.
I like how you preemptively classified anyone who might disagree as 'blinkered'. Nice touch.
Why not? Its takes very big blinkers to deny the threat of fundamentalist Islam. Dubya went too far the other way.
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
Unless the CIA at al springs a leak we wont get figures, and even those figures could be planted.
If that's the case, then there really isn't a point in having the conversation. If you don't believe observation can be regarded as valid, then you're really just engaging in idle speculation.
Your conclusion on what you think I think is illogical. Several posts have been along the point that we observe what is happening. I even showed pictures, observation is valid. You see the evidence before you, 9/11 7/7, Madrid, Bali etc etc etc.
Like Wrexasaur you are trying to misrepresent me by saying I am saying things that I am not, let us assume this is not deliberate
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
Sometimes you just have to see there is a problem by opening ones eyes and seeing it.
What are you seeing? You just noted that any figures that we might possess could be the result of distorted information, what makes your informal observation any different? After all, any set of figures can be checked, regardless of its source.
You are being illogical again. I dont need statistics to validify my commentaries. the evidence is there for all to see. Repeat again for the hard of thinking 9/11 7/7, Madrid, Bali etc etc etc. I dont need to go into the minuitae of what is going on. I dont need to know the exact stength of Al Quaeda etc, the threat can be called real without that detail. It is enough to know that those admittedly important questions are being asked, by the security services of western nations.
Your questions would be very valid if we were all spooks. This sort of data is needed, to people like them, and they arent sharing it with us unless it is to their advantage. I feel no need to ask or know. Seeing the planes fly into the twin towers on TV is enough for any rational person to know that something unpleasant is up, if we were not aware of that before from other examples.
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
I wonder what percentage of Al-Quaeda are Christians? Just because we don't have the answer, doesnt mean we cannot make an educated guess with enough safety to have some level of authority.
Yes, that's exactly what it means. If you cannot test your hypothesis, then your hypothesis is irrelevant outside those circumstances in which it is forced to be. Given that you probably don't work for the MoD, I can't see how your hypothesis is being forced into relevance.
If we were discussing physics theory then the type of 'test for the hypothesis' would stand out, but we arent we are discussing politics. All political data is subjective, and possibly erroneous or biased. you have to take a reasonable look, this is not based on statistics, statistics only value in politics is propoganda. You should be more sceptical of piolitical theories is percentages are added not less.
Now the Islamic fundamentalist threat is sufficiently real that anyone baring a complete moron, a diehard Islamic apologist or someone with zero access to the international media can see it. Denying that would be like denying that American tanks can reach Baghdad, you need a lot of charisma to pull it off and even then it shouldnt really convinces anyone.
However back to your half baked attemopt at a rebutal. I do not know how many Christian are in al quaeda, I have no statistics for it. However if we know something about Al Quaeda, such as the philosiophy it follows we can reasonably assume there are none or next to none. In fact any Christian (or Jew) in Al Quaeda will likely be a very well disguised infiltrator, you would also say they are thus not real Al Quaeda.
there we are logical, but without a single percentage to back it up. All we need to know to reach this logical cojnclusuon is that Al Quaeda is Islamic Fundamentalist (check) and Islamic fundamentalism doesnt accept members of other religions without conversion (check).
This is how you do political analysis. Elave equations to science and statistics to propoganda.
dogma wrote:
Now, if you had stated that there is support for terrorism in the Muslim world, I wouldn't have a problem with your statement. But when you want to suppose, on a purely qualitative basis, that there is more in the Muslim world than anywhere else, then I call foul. Stronger claims require stronger cases, and your aesthetic analysis isn't a strong case.
You call foul. Ok. Which other religion does all that we have described here and now?
Where are they, Basques and the Troubles dont count that is actually more 'tribal' than relgious. I am certain you will find a few, but compared to the storm of crap Islamic fundamentalists are throwing out its a light rain.
Statistical analysis is an extremely important part of political analysis. Quantitative arguments require quantitative data.
I'll quickly add that there is a reason that someone would be regarded as a political scientist, and not a political speculator. Science is the process of discerning fact from fiction.
Orlanth wrote:
Why not? Its takes very big blinkers to deny the threat of fundamentalist Islam. Dubya went too far the other way.
In what sense is it a threat? It isn't as though terrorism is going to topple any Western nation anytime soon.
Moreover, you didn't claim that fundamentalist Islam was a threat. You claimed that there was broader support for terrorism in the Muslim world than in any other religiously demarcated portion of the world.
Orlanth wrote:
Your conclusion on what you think I think is illogical. Several posts have been along the point that we observe what is happening. I even showed pictures, observation is valid. You see the evidence before you, 9/11 7/7, Madrid, Bali etc etc etc.
Like Wrexasaur you are trying to misrepresent me by saying I am saying things that I am not, let us assume this is not deliberate
Then why are you denying the ability of people to obtain statistical evidence? I mean, you already took the first step by creating a list of terrorist incidents that might be analyzed through statistical means.
Orlanth wrote:
You are being illogical again. I dont need statistics to validify my commentaries. the evidence is there for all to see. Repeat again for the hard of thinking 9/11 7/7, Madrid, Bali etc etc etc. I dont need to go into the minuitae of what is going on. I dont need to know the exact stength of Al Quaeda etc, the threat can be called real without that detail.
I disagree. Again, threat to whom?
Orlanth wrote:
It is enough to know that those admittedly important questions are being asked, by the security services of western nations.
Didn't you just suggest that those same security services might plant information in order to produce a desired effect?
Orlanth wrote:
Your questions would be very valid if we were all spooks. This sort of data is needed, to people like them, and they arent sharing it with us unless it is to their advantage. I feel no need to ask or know. Seeing the planes fly into the twin towers on TV is enough for any rational person to know that something unpleasant is up, if we were not aware of that before from other examples.
Something unpleasant is always up, so that realization doesn't get us anywhere. I mean, take your example of the plane. First you have to see the plane hit the building. Then you need to ask who flew the plane. The ask if they flew it into the building on purpose. Then ask why they flew it into the building on purpose if they did so, and so on. You have to get quite a bit further from seeing a plane hit a building in order to conclude that there is a terrorist threat from a large chunk of the world.
Orlanth wrote:
If we were discussing physics theory then the type of 'test for the hypothesis' would stand out, but we arent we are discussing politics. All political data is subjective, and possibly erroneous or biased. you have to take a reasonable look, this is not based on statistics, statistics only value in politics is propoganda. You should be more sceptical of piolitical theories is percentages are added not less.
I disagree entirely, and so do the vast majority of political scientists. The discipline is based on statistical analysis and mathematical techniques couched within logic-based data associations. Taking a 'reasonable look' is what people do in their spare time.
Orlanth wrote:
However back to your half baked attemopt at a rebutal. I do not know how many Christian are in al quaeda, I have no statistics for it. However if we know something about Al Quaeda, such as the philosiophy it follows we can reasonably assume there are none or next to none. In fact any Christian (or Jew) in Al Quaeda will likely be a very well disguised infiltrator, you would also say they are thus not real Al Quaeda.
there we are logical, but without a single percentage to back it up. All we need to know to reach this logical cojnclusuon is that Al Quaeda is Islamic Fundamentalist (check) and Islamic fundamentalism doesnt accept members of other religions without conversion (check).
The thing about reason is that its fundamentally blind. Anyone with half a brain can concoct a logically valid argument for any possible conclusion given nearly any possible set of premises. You can sit around in your house and tell us all you want about what Al-Qaeda should do ggiven what you think you know about them, but until you actually take the time to observe their make-up and behavior, then you're incapable of knowing.
You're making a prediction, not claiming a truth regarding reality; ie. we shouldn't see many Christians in Al-Qaeda, given what we know about their ideology. At least that's what you should be doing.
Orlanth wrote:
This is how you do political analysis. Elave equations to science and statistics to propoganda.
Again, that's not how the discipline works these days. Political analysis hasn't been meaningfully qualitative for about 40 years. Just pick up a copy of the American Political Science Review if you don't believe me.
Orlanth wrote:
You call foul. Ok. Which other religion does all that we have described here and now?
Where are they, Basques and the Troubles dont count that is actually more 'tribal' than relgious. I am certain you will find a few, but compared to the storm of crap Islamic fundamentalists are throwing out its a light rain.
Hinduism. Look into the Tamils, and the Hindutva movement.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wrexasaur wrote:
I'll quickly add that there is a reason that someone would be regarded as a political scientist, and not a political speculator. Science is the process of discerning fact from fiction.
Exactly.
I think a lot of the hostility to quantitative looks at political behavior arises from a nominal lack of understanding when it comes to statistical analysis. Admittedly, that is understandable, some of the statistics present in journal articles are fairly complicated.
The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.
Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.
They said comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban on democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination 'as laid down in law'.
On the comparison of the Koran with Mein Kampf, the prosecutors said the comparison was 'crude but that did not make it punishable'.
Dealing earlier on Friday with incitement to hatred, Van Roessel and Velleman said some comments could incite hatred against Muslims if taken out of context, but if the complete text is considered, it can be seen that Wilders is against the growing influence of Islam and not against Muslims per sé.
On Tuesday, the prosecutors said the MP should not be found guilty of group insult.
The public prosecution department was forced to take the case by the high court after anti-racism campaigners protested at its refusal to prosecute Wilders.
The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.
Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.
They said comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban on democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination 'as laid down in law'.
On the comparison of the Koran with Mein Kampf, the prosecutors said the comparison was 'crude but that did not make it punishable'.
Dealing earlier on Friday with incitement to hatred, Van Roessel and Velleman said some comments could incite hatred against Muslims if taken out of context, but if the complete text is considered, it can be seen that Wilders is against the growing influence of Islam and not against Muslims per sé.
On Tuesday, the prosecutors said the MP should not be found guilty of group insult.
The public prosecution department was forced to take the case by the high court after anti-racism campaigners protested at its refusal to prosecute Wilders.
He's not of the hook yet, the judge will decide that in November.
That doesn't stop it being a petty, mean, un-neighbourly attack on another religion, motivated by fear, ignorance and xenophobia.
It doesnt necesasry make it petty, mean, or un-neighbourly either. Switzerland exists BECAUSE of its status quo. This kept the bankers and the money in, but kept Napoleon and Hitler out. they dont have much of an economy other than banking, neutrality and chocolate. They don't have much of a military either, but noone attacks them.
For a nation that owes its own existence to political neutrality, this means that the banking code is kept and the nartion remains the same. Continuity is stability, stability makes Switzerland the safest place for ther real wealth of the world to be stored. This safety is so strong that even dictators do not violate it, even Hitler could be releidupon not to violate Switzerland, Islamic fundamndalists, they are not so sure about.The Swiss want to open their doors to an potentially intolerant and beligerent religion like Islam like they want a dose of the plague.
So is it about religion? Are the minarets being banned as a protection against Islam?
The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.
Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.
They said comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban on democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination 'as laid down in law'.
On the comparison of the Koran with Mein Kampf, the prosecutors said the comparison was 'crude but that did not make it punishable'.
Dealing earlier on Friday with incitement to hatred, Van Roessel and Velleman said some comments could incite hatred against Muslims if taken out of context, but if the complete text is considered, it can be seen that Wilders is against the growing influence of Islam and not against Muslims per sé.
On Tuesday, the prosecutors said the MP should not be found guilty of group insult.
The public prosecution department was forced to take the case by the high court after anti-racism campaigners protested at its refusal to prosecute Wilders.
Good, a victory for reason and freedom of speech.
I am not suprised, the decision to prosecute was a PC kneejerk, and those are getting questioned more of late.
Kilkrazy wrote:
So is it about religion? Are the minarets being banned as a protection against Islam?
I am still confused about this issue.
No they are banned because they change the Swiss architectural culture, its a large scale planning decision.
Orlanth wrote:
Why not? Its takes very big blinkers to deny the threat of fundamentalist Islam. Dubya went too far the other way.
In what sense is it a threat? It isn't as though terrorism is going to topple any Western nation anytime soon.
Moreover, you didn't claim that fundamentalist Islam was a threat. You claimed that there was broader support for terrorism in the Muslim world than in any other religiously demarcated portion of the world.
Wrong on both counts.
The word 'Threat' doesnt necessarily mean 'something able to topple a whole society'.
Fundamentalist Islam is a threat because it threatens lives and freedoms. They may well intend to topple our society, and the goal uis unrealistic, but what they do while trying to achieve the goal is still more than enough to be a threat.
I did call fundamentalist Islam a threat quite frequently in fact. I also said there was a broader support for fundamentalist Islam in the western world that prevents it from being isolated as a small minority.
dogma wrote:
Then why are you denying the ability of people to obtain statistical evidence? I mean, you already took the first step by creating a list of terrorist incidents that might be analyzed through statistical means.
True but the statistics Wrex was looking for are nort commonly avalaible, they are intelligence data. Our inability to find them does not mean we have no evidence. You could count the known bombings as a rough 'statistic', but that is too crude. Better to look at what the extremist mullahs are saying, the pamphlets they give out (also now largely suppressed) and what the victims were killed or issued fatwahs for.
dogma wrote:
I disagree. Again, threat to whom?
Why should I need to quantify that. If you were on a bus on 7/7 in the word trade center or on a Spanish train when the attacks occured the person attacked could have been you. Islamic terriorsism does go for some profile targets such as the Pentagon, Worldx Trae Centre too, but often a bombing is to catch any infidel who happens to be in the blast radius. The 7/7 bombers didnt know who would be on the buses they blew up, likelwise I very much doubt they took a look at who worked in the World Trade Centre.
I will leave out kidnappings here because while there is good evidence to suggest any westerner in Iraq or Afghanistan is liable to be kidnapped there is an intention to target those connected to nations supporting the invasions or War on terror or working for an organisation linked to either. However indivisdual culpability is irrelevant, so aid workers who may well be true pacifists (many are) are targets on account ofv their passports or their not being Islamic.
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
It is enough to know that those admittedly important questions are being asked, by the security services of western nations.
Didn't you just suggest that those same security services might plant information in order to produce a desired effect?
Yes. Not just the security services but any political body. The more you work with statistics the closer you come to propoganda. Very little statistical data is reliable, only thwe braodest cover data like censuses haver any validity, and even thern as raw information. Once data is processed unhelpful precentages might not be given the same profile as helpful percentages. Also stats often openly lie, you can massage statistics so easily by tailoring catchment of the data, and changing creiterai for an answer.
You could for instance find an Afghan village where no shooting had occured for three months, and research data on the last three months only, compare it to the crime rate in New York and thus claim that Afghamnistan is a safe place to live compared with the USA. It would technically be true in a very round about way, but still complete bollocks.
Best way to look at this is the percentages used in advertising. Remeber advertss where a product on tests is x% more effective than its rivals, and you wondered, what were the exact test conditions. Normally due to advertising standards the percentage is accurate, but wont tell you the whole story. Only very specific positively comperable features would be included.
dogma wrote:
Something unpleasant is always up, so that realization doesn't get us anywhere. I mean, take your example of the plane. First you have to see the plane hit the building. Then you need to ask who flew the plane. The ask if they flew it into the building on purpose. Then ask why they flew it into the building on purpose if they did so, and so on. You have to get quite a bit further from seeing a plane hit a building in order to conclude that there is a terrorist threat from a large chunk of the world.
Yes you can ask all these questions. But then you get people doing so and coming to the conclusion that its all a big Jewish conspiracy. From our own desks we cannot prove it isnt, but that doesnt mean we have to give these crackpots credence.
Remebmer how law courts work. to prove a case it most be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Dogma what you are doing its putting in what ifs that are not exactly reasonable. No we were not on the planes at the time, but it is wldely believed that Mohammed Atta and co were. Can I prove that with 100% certainrty, no. Is it physically possible that the planes werre taken over by Al Quadea but at the last moment they chan ged their minds but two rabbis and a catholic priest flew a plane into a building. Yes that is physically possible. Is that a valid reasonable doubt, no it isnt.
Again you are coming back to the old bugbear odf demanding levels of absolute proof in opposing arguments which would be very valid if we were discussing a new physics theorem. In hard science something is either proven absolutely or not at all. Politics, even the type of politcs call politcal science doesnt work that way. Its human data, we have to look at likelihoods and accept that there are margins of error in everything.
dogma wrote:
I disagree entirely, and so do the vast majority of political scientists.
Do you haver this audience you claim to speak for you to do so.
Prety much the first rule of poltical science is regarding the fallibility of humna data. Everything is an educated guess, some guesses are more educated than others. Statistics only really help if they are large scale and thorough, these sorts of statistics are nort commonly available. Market datas is confidential to the company which reeasrched the data, intelligence data is common to the services.
dogma wrote:
The discipline is based on statistical analysis and mathematical techniques couched within logic-based data associations. Taking a 'reasonable look' is what people do in their spare time.
A very poor philosophy, particularly with data stemming from poltical or intelligence sources. The US used this technique to base their intel on. HumInt is far superior to statistical intelligence. It is because of poor philosophies like that that Al Quaeda caught the US with their pants down. Al Quadea had none of the % to be a threat in the USA, insifficient % orf radicalised US passport holders, insufficient % of funds, etc so 'it cannot happen here'. Thed flights werev taken over by a handful of fanatics with craft knives. The only part that cost were the flying lessons.
You haver to think outside the box to keep up with people like that.
The reasonable look is the first and best line of defence. Collect data by all means, but statistics lost Vietnam, body count didnt matter, envelopment did. There was no statistic for envelopment, you could get a body count, so if the body count was good Westmoreland thought he was winning. Didnt work out that way though. Statistics are supporting evidence at best and at worst horrid misdirection. Purposeful misdirection through propoganda is the best use of statistics.
dogma wrote:
The thing about reason is that its fundamentally blind.
Again you are looking at scientific reason not poltical reason. Political reason is subjective and malleable because you are trying to unsderstand people groups.
What you are hoping for is psycho-history, which is still science fiction I am afraid.
dogma wrote:
You're making a prediction, not claiming a truth regarding reality; ie. we shouldn't see many Christians in Al-Qaeda, given what we know about their ideology. At least that's what you should be doing.
Prediction & likely truth are the same thing here. Political analysis is a very human artform, I dont think it should be considered a sceince really.
Lets take a step back and try to work on something less controversail and thus more open, but very similar to what you want.
Stock control.
In stock contro,l there is a lot of statistical data, this datas can be relied upon because it is sales data from the tills, its accurate, its volumous, its consitently recieved over time and its easy to analyse. Thus for any existing retail outlet or distributor can see how much a product sells. Even so the amount of milk a supermarket orders in should be manually assessed by a good stock controller who knows his trade. To account for such things as a slow or fast day, time of year, holiday season and spillage. Now a supermarket stock controller working with short shelf life refrigerated goods needs to be more on the ball than a colleague working on ambient goods who can afford to overorder the tins of beans.
This bit is easy because the job is routeine repetetive and the data reliable.
Let us muddy the waters a bit.
Market research.
So we move to another set of statistical data, that raised from a study of 2000 people over two succecutive weekday afternoone in a town centre regarding a product. The data here might be accurate if you assume everyone is telling the whole truth. however some arent, they might say they like a brand more than another or smoke when they do not in order to be eligible for the survey and the 45 voucher given away at the end. Also the afternoons crowd will not be truly cross representative, large number of people shop elsewhere, or are working at that time. You will mainly be cancvassing those who happen to be on the streets at a particular time, housewives, homeless, kids bunking off etc. This may or may not represent your true customer base.
Even from the start we have problems, unlike the highly reliable sales data you have subjective data. Then it comes to the questions themselves. Do you prefer product A or B, you pick A but a third of the time you like to buy B. The questions are too simple to properly cut in. This is wghy shops like loyalty cards, they provide not only very accurate sales data but also reasonably accurate sales grouping data, which is only partly accurate only because some dont carry loyalty cards, leve them behind or give thier 'points' to the next person in the queue.
In any event the less reliable the data becomes the more it becomes only a starting pouint for reaonable guesses and assumptions.
Now let us move to political data. We will start with internal poltical data. Best example is a census, people lie on census forms, normally if they have somethng to hide. Sometimes the lie can save their lives: such as the several hundred cautious Polish Jews who lied on their census forms and were thus spared targeted persecution when the Germans and Russians invaded.
Censuses are normally fairly accurate and very important, the big lies over census occur afterwards, when the government hides or sometimes even flat out lies about census data for its own ends. In any event censuses are mandatory by law, are fairly carefully carried out and provide good data, if accurately and honestly disseminated and distributed. Which sadly is a big if. Compound the if with large gaps in the data, most nortable of all time gaps. Supermarkets get their sales feed data constantly, census data is accumulated every ten years or so in most western countries. Electoral role and tax return data is better, but it assumes people are paying their taxes properly, and even then that sdata might be annual in many cases, and late to feed into the system. It wont necessarily tell you what you need to know either.
When we are talking about hostile political data things change. Its one thing to have fairly good statistics froman enquiry or a census, the data you get from ihostile sources, that is going be be very patchy. All you really have is what you bug and what you capture/iinterrogate, and you have to hope you arent being fed BS from the other side while doing so. Any attempt to take a stats first outlook here is fraught with danger. You need to think more about the opponents nature and less about the numbers you find.
You diont need to be a spook or general to notice this. You will have experienced this the first time you play a double blind game, on or off the computer. Anyone can get a small taste of how it works yourself at some level if they play a game of multiplayer Starcraft with the fog of war on.
dogma wrote:
Again, that's not how the discipline works these days. Political analysis hasn't been meaningfully qualitative for about 40 years. Just pick up a copy of the American Political Science Review if you don't believe me.
Ahh propoganda.
dogma wrote:
Hinduism. Look into the Tamils, and the Hindutva movement.
True, I said you will find a few. However is the problem of Sri Lanka truly religious, it isnt exported, and it focuses on different people groups who happen to be more easily defined by their religions.
dogma wrote:
Wrexasaur wrote:
I'll quickly add that there is a reason that someone would be regarded as a political scientist, and not a political speculator. Science is the process of discerning fact from fiction.
Exactly.
I think a lot of the hostility to quantitative looks at political behavior arises from a nominal lack of understanding when it comes to statistical analysis. Admittedly, that is understandable, some of the statistics present in journal articles are fairly complicated.
Exactly wrong. Political science is more art than science, big numbers dont necessarily lead to big success in business or in politics, they odften lead to big failures. Over concentration on the statistical ruins military campaigns, it also damages busineses and whole economies. The statistics forst culture is what is behind tartget based management and target based management has fethed over a lot of businesses. Barings Bank was brought down by target based thinking, Leeson would not have got away with what he did if the safeguards were not removed because their removal offered an immeidate term benefit of cost reduction. A manager who is making targets might statstically appear to be doing good, but in reality 'target based' means 'short term thinking'. The long term true approach must be person managed first, this applies to government as well as business, and twice in warfare. Political science is best served by reasonable deductive approaches not by statistical anaysis. This is ultimately what is falsely read as a 'feel for the data'. Those who have this gift are not actually reading the data in isolation, they are adding their own cognitive analysis, often the data just clouds matters, and the further away you get from the cashpont till and the neareryou get to the mess of datas gained from hostile interrogations the worse it gets.
Orlanth wrote:
You call foul. Ok. Which other religion does all that we have described here and now?
Where are they, Basques and the Troubles dont count that is actually more 'tribal' than relgious. I am certain you will find a few, but compared to the storm of crap Islamic fundamentalists are throwing out its a light rain.
As the troubles are the most recent part of an overall continuity of Catholic violence against England from the creation of Anglican church in the 16th century I'm not sure it's as easy to separate the two as you've just tried to do.
The actions have ranged from
Assassination attempts (Elizabeth survived multiple attempts on her life from Catholic assassins)
Wars
terrorism (Remember the fifth of November)
And I'm sure there's more then enough other examples that other people could pull from other areas, including India.
Both counts? How can I be wrong in asking a question?
Orlanth wrote:
The word 'Threat' doesnt necessarily mean 'something able to topple a whole society'.
Nor did I say that it did.
Orlanth wrote:
Fundamentalist Islam is a threat because it threatens lives and freedoms. They may well intend to topple our society, and the goal uis unrealistic, but what they do while trying to achieve the goal is still more than enough to be a threat.
By that standard we live among many threats, including those presented by people driving cars, by the nature of our society, Why is fundamentalist Islam special?
Orlanth wrote:
I did call fundamentalist Islam a threat quite frequently in fact. I also said there was a broader support for fundamentalist Islam in the western world that prevents it from being isolated as a small minority.
Alright, but the thing you said that I responded to is not what you're saying here, or what you may have said elsewhere. If you want to admit that you spoke in err, which is perfectly fine (we all do it), then please do so. If not, then this conversation isn't worth my time.
Orlanth wrote:
True but the statistics Wrex was looking for are nort commonly avalaible, they are intelligence data. Our inability to find them does not mean we have no evidence. You could count the known bombings as a rough 'statistic', but that is too crude.
No, its actually what statistics are based on; counting and relationships. You seem to have a very odd understanding of what constitutes statistical evidence.
Orlanth wrote:
Better to look at what the extremist mullahs are saying, the pamphlets they give out (also now largely suppressed) and what the victims were killed or issued fatwahs for.
People lie all the time, particularly in order to motivate others, why should we then attribute more to what leaders say than what they actually do?
Orlanth wrote:
Why should I need to quantify that. If you were on a bus on 7/7 in the word trade center or on a Spanish train when the attacks occured the person attacked could have been you.
Sure, but it wasn't. What places me at risk given that others were attacked? At least more risk than I incur by being alive? That's why you need to quantify your position. It isn't enough to say that a threat exists, because a threat always exists. You must show why one particular threat is more important than other existential threats. That requires quantitative data.
Orlanth wrote:
Islamic terriorsism does go for some profile targets such as the Pentagon, Worldx Trae Centre too, but often a bombing is to catch any infidel who happens to be in the blast radius. The 7/7 bombers didnt know who would be on the buses they blew up, likelwise I very much doubt they took a look at who worked in the World Trade Centre.
So? Drunk drivers don't think about who they might kill either, but they kill more people each year than Islamic terrorists. Why are Islamic terrorists special enough to deserve more resources than those allocated to the prevention of drunk driving?
Orlanth wrote:
Yes. Not just the security services but any political body. The more you work with statistics the closer you come to propoganda. Very little statistical data is reliable, only thwe braodest cover data like censuses haver any validity, and even thern as raw information.
I'm guessing you've never actually worked with statistics, because that is false on its face. Look into the concepts of confidence and standard error.
Orlanth wrote:
Once data is processed unhelpful precentages might not be given the same profile as helpful percentages. Also stats often openly lie, you can massage statistics so easily by tailoring catchment of the data, and changing creiterai for an answer.
It would be far easier to simply lie without doing the statistical analysis, which is what changing the criteria for an answer involves. Good statistics don't do that, and its relatively easy to tell what constitutes a good statistics given that you understand statistics at even a basic level.
Orlanth wrote:
You could for instance find an Afghan village where no shooting had occured for three months, and research data on the last three months only, compare it to the crime rate in New York and thus claim that Afghamnistan is a safe place to live compared with the USA. It would technically be true in a very round about way, but still complete bollocks.
No, it wouldn't be true. It would be true that a particular Afghan village was safer over the last three months than New York over the same period. It would not be true that Afghanistan was safer as a whole, because the sample did not deal with all of Afghanistan.
This is the sort of thing I'm talking about when I note that you don't appear to understand statistics.
Orlanth wrote:
Yes you can ask all these questions. But then you get people doing so and coming to the conclusion that its all a big Jewish conspiracy. From our own desks we cannot prove it isnt, but that doesnt mean we have to give these crackpots credence.
How does asking questions lend credence to crackpots?
Orlanth wrote:
Remebmer how law courts work. to prove a case it most be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Dogma what you are doing its putting in what ifs that are not exactly reasonable. No we were not on the planes at the time, but it is wldely believed that Mohammed Atta and co were. Can I prove that with 100% certainrty, no. Is it physically possible that the planes werre taken over by Al Quadea but at the last moment they chan ged their minds but two rabbis and a catholic priest flew a plane into a building. Yes that is physically possible. Is that a valid reasonable doubt, no it isnt.
No, what I'm doing is explaining the logical progression that must be satisfied in order for any particular conclusion to be reached. I'm doing this in order to show how it isn't a simple matter of going by your gut.
I don't actually believe that there is a reasonable doubt in regards to the nature of the perpetrators of 9/11.
Orlanth wrote:
Again you are coming back to the old bugbear odf demanding levels of absolute proof in opposing arguments which would be very valid if we were discussing a new physics theorem.
No, that's not what I'm doing. Please re-read my post.
Orlanth wrote:
In hard science something is either proven absolutely or not at all. Politics, even the type of politcs call politcal science doesnt work that way. Its human data, we have to look at likelihoods and accept that there are margins of error in everything.
W have to accept margins of error in hard science as well. I'm pointing out that your margins of error are far too large. Please don't try and make this an argument from category, not only is it boring, but also trite.
Orlanth wrote:
Prety much the first rule of poltical science is regarding the fallibility of humna data. Everything is an educated guess, some guesses are more educated than others. Statistics only really help if they are large scale and thorough, these sorts of statistics are nort commonly available. Market datas is confidential to the company which reeasrched the data, intelligence data is common to the services.
I'm not going to argue this point with you. I'm just going to direct you to the American Political Science Review, and let you decide for yourself.
I'm not claiming that there is no margin for error, I'm claiming that theory must have a quantified basis in reality in order for it to have notable weight.
Orlanth wrote:
A very poor philosophy, particularly with data stemming from poltical or intelligence sources. The US used this technique to base their intel on. HumInt is far superior to statistical intelligence. It is because of poor philosophies like that that Al Quaeda caught the US with their pants down. Al Quadea had none of the % to be a threat in the USA, insifficient % orf radicalised US passport holders, insufficient % of funds, etc so 'it cannot happen here'. Thed flights werev taken over by a handful of fanatics with craft knives. The only part that cost were the flying lessons.
Actually, Al-Qaeda stood out as a significant threat due to it extensive funding network. This was pointed out in the assessment of quantitative data in the 9/11 report. To say that 9/11 happened because there was too great an emphasis on statistics is absolutely false, 9/11 happened because no one thought that any terrorist network could carry out a significant attack on the US; regardless of the data available.
Orlanth wrote:
You haver to think outside the box to keep up with people like that.
Statistics aren't a box.
Orlanth wrote:
The reasonable look is the first and best line of defence. Collect data by all means, but statistics lost Vietnam, body count didnt matter, envelopment did. There was no statistic for envelopment, you could get a body count, so if the body count was good Westmoreland thought he was winning. Didnt work out that way though. Statistics are supporting evidence at best and at worst horrid misdirection. Purposeful misdirection through propoganda is the best use of statistics.
Actually, what lost Vietnam was the lapse in domestic political support, for which there is statistical evidence.
There are also statistics for envelopment, by the way.
Orlanth wrote:
Again you are looking at scientific reason not poltical reason. Political reason is subjective and malleable because you are trying to unsderstand people groups.
What you are hoping for is psycho-history, which is still science fiction I am afraid.
No, I'm looking at reason in general. Reason is blind for exactly the reasons you're discussing above. Thank you for illustrating my point.
Also, no, I'm not after psycho-history. Please don't distort my argument. I'm merely pointing out that without any kind of quantitative basis your reasoned argument is irrelevant because you cannot show that it applies to reality.
Orlanth wrote:
Prediction & likely truth are the same thing here.
No, they're really not. Predictions deal with what you might find, likely truth deals with what you believe to be present.
Orlanth wrote:
In stock contro,l there is a lot of statistical data, this datas can be relied upon because it is sales data from the tills, its accurate, its volumous, its consitently recieved over time and its easy to analyse. Thus for any existing retail outlet or distributor can see how much a product sells. Even so the amount of milk a supermarket orders in should be manually assessed by a good stock controller who knows his trade. To account for such things as a slow or fast day, time of year, holiday season and spillage. Now a supermarket stock controller working with short shelf life refrigerated goods needs to be more on the ball than a colleague working on ambient goods who can afford to overorder the tins of beans.
This bit is easy because the job is routeine repetetive and the data reliable.
Let us muddy the waters a bit.
Variable rates of change (holidays, fast and slow days, etc.) can be built into statistical metrics. The easiest way is integration by substitution.
Orlanth wrote:
So we move to another set of statistical data, that raised from a study of 2000 people over two succecutive weekday afternoone in a town centre regarding a product. The data here might be accurate if you assume everyone is telling the whole truth. however some arent, they might say they like a brand more than another or smoke when they do not in order to be eligible for the survey and the 45 voucher given away at the end. Also the afternoons crowd will not be truly cross representative, large number of people shop elsewhere, or are working at that time. You will mainly be cancvassing those who happen to be on the streets at a particular time, housewives, homeless, kids bunking off etc. This may or may not represent your true customer base.
Even from the start we have problems, unlike the highly reliable sales data you have subjective data. Then it comes to the questions themselves. Do you prefer product A or B, you pick A but a third of the time you like to buy B. The questions are too simple to properly cut in. This is wghy shops like loyalty cards, they provide not only very accurate sales data but also reasonably accurate sales grouping data, which is only partly accurate only because some dont carry loyalty cards, leve them behind or give thier 'points' to the next person in the queue.
In any event the less reliable the data becomes the more it becomes only a starting pouint for reaonable guesses and assumptions.
Obviously, but you aren't talking about including data at all. You only did that after I pushed you to do so. What you've been talking about is excluding data in order to include feeling, which is nonsense.
Orlanth wrote:
Now let us move to political data. We will start with internal poltical data. Best example is a census, people lie on census forms, normally if they have somethng to hide. Sometimes the lie can save their lives: such as the several hundred cautious Polish Jews who lied on their census forms and were thus spared targeted persecution when the Germans and Russians invaded.
Censuses are normally fairly accurate and very important, the big lies over census occur afterwards, when the government hides or sometimes even flat out lies about census data for its own ends. In any event censuses are mandatory by law, are fairly carefully carried out and provide good data, if accurately and honestly disseminated and distributed. Which sadly is a big if. Compound the if with large gaps in the data, most nortable of all time gaps. Supermarkets get their sales feed data constantly, census data is accumulated every ten years or so in most western countries. Electoral role and tax return data is better, but it assumes people are paying their taxes properly, and even then that sdata might be annual in many cases, and late to feed into the system. It wont necessarily tell you what you need to know either.
When we are talking about hostile political data things change. Its one thing to have fairly good statistics froman enquiry or a census, the data you get from ihostile sources, that is going be be very patchy. All you really have is what you bug and what you capture/iinterrogate, and you have to hope you arent being fed BS from the other side while doing so. Any attempt to take a stats first outlook here is fraught with danger. You need to think more about the opponents nature and less about the numbers you find.
The numbers are indicative of the nature, even if they are intended to be deceitful. Again, this is not grounds to dismiss statistics.
Moreover, all things taken as given, people tend to lie in predictable patterns when subjected to random questioning. Ultimately this follows from the absence of a clear 'opponent' in the data set.
Again, you don't seem to understand statistics.
Orlanth wrote:
Ahh propoganda.
Ah, propaganda.
Any statement intended to convince is inherently propagandic. All argumentative statements are propagandic. Simply saying that something is propaganda is not really a forceful criticism.
Orlanth wrote:
True, I said you will find a few. However is the problem of Sri Lanka truly religious, it isnt exported, and it focuses on different people groups who happen to be more easily defined by their religions.
The Hindutva movement ships a lot of money to Sri Lanka, and the Tamils send a lot of operative to the Hindutva movement.
Orlanth wrote:
Exactly wrong. Political science is more art than science, big numbers dont necessarily lead to big success in business or in politics, they odften lead to big failures. Over concentration on the statistical ruins military campaigns, it also damages busineses and whole economies.
That's how science works. Most of the scientific method involves spectacular failure. You seem to have an odd understanding of science in general.
Orlanth wrote:
The statistics forst culture is what is behind tartget based management and target based management has fethed over a lot of businesses. Barings Bank was brought down by target based thinking, Leeson would not have got away with what he did if the safeguards were not removed because their removal offered an immeidate term benefit of cost reduction.
That's not a matter of statistics first, that's a matter of placing the wrong statistics first.
Orlanth wrote:
Political science is best served by reasonable deductive approaches not by statistical anaysis.
In order to deduce something you must first establish a general truth, in order to do that without simply making something up, you need statistical evidence. We don't need any more copies of Ken Waltz.
Orlanth wrote:
This is ultimately what is falsely read as a 'feel for the data'. Those who have this gift are not actually reading the data in isolation, they are adding their own cognitive analysis, often the data just clouds matters, and the further away you get from the cashpont till and the neareryou get to the mess of datas gained from hostile interrogations the worse it gets.
It clouds matters if you don't understand how to read the data.
efarrer wrote:
As the troubles are the most recent part of an overall continuity of Catholic violence against England from the creation of Anglican church in the 16th century I'm not sure it's as easy to separate the two as you've just tried to do.
The actions have ranged from
Assassination attempts (Elizabeth survived multiple attempts on her life from Catholic assassins)
Wars
terrorism (Remember the fifth of November)
And I'm sure there's more then enough other examples that other people could pull from other areas, including India.
Ye olde examples dont count for anything. Or we would still be at war with the French.
efarrer wrote:
As the troubles are the most recent part of an overall continuity of Catholic violence against England from the creation of Anglican church in the 16th century I'm not sure it's as easy to separate the two as you've just tried to do.
The actions have ranged from
Assassination attempts (Elizabeth survived multiple attempts on her life from Catholic assassins)
Wars
terrorism (Remember the fifth of November)
And I'm sure there's more then enough other examples that other people could pull from other areas, including India.
Ye olde examples dont count for anything. Or we would still be at war with the French.
So because something happened in the past it no longer matters.
efarrer wrote:
As the troubles are the most recent part of an overall continuity of Catholic violence against England from the creation of Anglican church in the 16th century I'm not sure it's as easy to separate the two as you've just tried to do.
The actions have ranged from
Assassination attempts (Elizabeth survived multiple attempts on her life from Catholic assassins)
Wars
terrorism (Remember the fifth of November)
And I'm sure there's more then enough other examples that other people could pull from other areas, including India.
Ye olde examples dont count for anything. Or we would still be at war with the French.
You tried to discount the factor of religion in the conflict. It is a major factor and has been part of an ongoing campaign of religious violence that has spanned literally hundreds of years. The troubles are part XVII of the same religious conflict that has been playing out on those islands for hundreds of years in a large number of formats including both open war and terrorism. To dismiss the religious elements as tribal is simply put ridiculous.
Indeed it strikes me you discount any non Muslim violence as being tribal in nature to allow you to continue to attack the Muslims. The fact of the matter is Europe has a long history of religious terrorism against other faiths particularly the Jews. Now you can choose to ignore these actions or define them as something other then terrorism, but the pogroms against the Jews continued well into the 20th century. And the acts by Christians against other Christians in the Yugoslavian conflict put the lie any thought that Muslims are the only one violent about their religion.
dogma wrote:
Both counts? How can I be wrong in asking a question?
You were wrong on both:
a) In what sense is it a threat? It isn't as though terrorism is going to topple any Western nation anytime soon.
You strongly imply that only by being able to do major damage like toppling a Western nation does Islam become a threat. As it cannot (at least in the short/medium term do so) it is not a threat. This can only mean something else if you very badly wroded your post
b) Moreover, you didn't claim that fundamentalist Islam was a threat.
When I most certainly claimed it was.
On this note.
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
The word 'Threat' doesnt necessarily mean 'something able to topple a whole society'.
Nor did I say that it did..
I will give you fair opportunity to clarify your sttement then.
However
dogma wrote:
Alright, but the thing you said that I responded to is not what you're saying here, or what you may have said elsewhere. If you want to admit that you spoke in err, which is perfectly fine (we all do it), then please do so. If not, then this conversation isn't worth my time.
I said it quite frequently in the above posts, so frequently it would be a waste of time to copy paste more than a fraction of the occassions. Here are hopefully enough to set this straight:
1. I have been prefectly clear:
Militant Islam is a threat - the only ones trying to muddy that truth are the PC apolgoists who constantly ask for more proof.
2. People are pussy footing around beacause they dont know what to do, its the elephant in the room. Islam however is not here to share, it wants its way, all day and is willing to kill to get it.
3. The burkhas is a form of oppression, there is no cultural group that of its own volition secludes itself in this way, it mentally unhealthy for a start.
There is a recurring pattern with your posts dogma. You post denials with little logic behind them, and misread what your opponents say very heavily claiming they said something completely different (and illogical) in order to give yourself a thin vweneer of an excuse to critique. I doubt anyone else could read this thread and come to the conclusions you have on my opinion. At this point you might as well 'figure me out' to be a New Labour supporter.
Let move on now shall we.
dogma wrote:
By that standard we live among many threats, including those presented by people driving cars, by the nature of our society, Why is fundamentalist Islam special?
If I have to describe the moral difference between bad or unlucky driving and acts of terror that there is no hope for you.
dogma wrote:
No, its actually what statistics are based on; counting and relationships. You seem to have a very odd understanding of what constitutes statistical evidence.
I am more concerned witn the integrity of statistical data. You can count whatever you like, if you count lies you will get an erroneuos finding.
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
Better to look at what the extremist mullahs are saying, the pamphlets they give out (also now largely suppressed) and what the victims were killed or issued fatwahs for.
People lie all the time, particularly in order to motivate others, why should we then attribute more to what leaders say than what they actually do?
When organisations like Al Mouhajiroun (sp) call for jihad I take that at face value. So should or would the law.
If someone calls rape/murder/theif etc sees someone arrested then says 'only joking' the poolice take that seriously. People are respknsible for what they say as well as what they do. Its called instigating, and instigating mass vioollence or terorism is part of terrorism.
Besides you are really clutching at straws if you raise a defence that the militant preachers dont mean what they are saying. Some of them preached the same hate message rather a lot. In fact there was a move to extradite on Islamic preacher called Abu Hamza though that was blocked by the EU courts. Not only does he preachh hate but this guy went to Bosnia to practice what he preached and became an irregular fighter in a country where he had no connection other than a shared religion.
dogma wrote:
Sure, but it wasn't. What places me at risk given that others were attacked? At least more risk than I incur by being alive? That's why you need to quantify your position. It isn't enough to say that a threat exists, because a threat always exists. You must show why one particular threat is more important than other existential threats. That requires quantitative data.
It does not require quantitative data because:
1. Quantative data is not forthcoming, so stop asking me and ask the CIA or equivalent.
2. Attacks are stopped by the aforementioned agencies so the threat which they take seriously is defacto lessened by proactive engagement of the threat.
3. The number of attacks is no indication of their scale and vice versa.
So very few people in the US and UK have died as a result of terrorism. we have enough examples for any reaonable person to see there is a threat, but many more attacks are likely stopped by vigilence of those who protect us. we knows this happens because every now and then people go on trial on account of foiled attacks. The press only gets to see what is likely to be but a tiny bit of what the spooks are doing to protect our countries.
dogma wrote:
So? Drunk drivers don't think about who they might kill either, but they kill more people each year than Islamic terrorists. Why are Islamic terrorists special enough to deserve more resources than those allocated to the prevention of drunk driving?
I shoudnt bother answering this.
But for the benefit of any following this threat who might be hoodwinked into thinking you have a point:
- Its not an either or. Stopping terrorism doesnt mean that people have to go hungry (over here anyway), or traffic lights cannot be aforded or drunk drivers get let off by the police.
- Drunk drivers go to prison if convicted. So do terrorists.
- Anyone can be stupid enough to get drunk and drive in a car. This isnt a deliberate threat, its a danger yes, there is danger enough in crossing the road even with sober drivers. However the roads are not a threat. Threats are hostile. You cant threaten someone with an accident, not literally anyway.
dogma wrote:
I'm guessing you've never actually worked with statistics, because that is false on its face. Look into the concepts of confidence and standard error.
Sorry you dont understand what you are talking about. Statistics is only of use at a very broad sense in the majority of cases. Accurate data as good as supermarkets get for stock control is vvery rare. Concepts like standard error are just attampts to deal with the problem I mentioned, a patch if you will to keep statisticians employed. Most statisticans will admit that standard error itself is only an estimate. An estimate of an estimate of an error. The further you get from a complete set of data the worse it gets. Statistics can be useful to politicians mainly for hoodwinking the people or broad policy decisions, with the emphasis on broad. Most of the work and analysis has to be logical not statistical and based on informed opinion.
Taking it back to the root analysis of terror operations must be just bout the direct opposite to analysis of supermarket till data. The datas is very fragmented often late, patchy in its arrival (you dont know when you will get an intelligence scoop) possibly full of deliberate misinformation or maskirovka, inflated, reordered, mistranslated, latcherd upon by politicians or civil servants and doctored etc etc etc. Somehow you expect to find a magick wand and turn Al-Quadea studies into a neat pie chart. Sorry, not going to happen. Terror cells are small, traditionally optimised in groups of three, decisions are often made at a local level, organisations are nebulous, form and disband quickly flow into different categories and other confusions. If three people decided to turn Moslem and then turn terrorist they may well be called an Al-Quaeda cell. Al-Quadea isnt really an organisation anymore, its more a verb because it defines action. Membership is not based on who you know but what you do, any terrorist claiming to fight for jihad can effectively claim to be Al-Quaeda. This is why they are everywhere.
You want statistics to cover all that, dream on.
dogma wrote:
It would be far easier to simply lie without doing the statistical analysis, which is what changing the criteria for an answer involves. Good statistics don't do that, and its relatively easy to tell what constitutes a good statistics given that you understand statistics at even a basic level.
A mistruth is not technically a lie, it becomes a lie by manipulation. A half truth or mistruth has a measure of deniability in it if found out that a flat lie does not have. So its safer because those who expose a mistruth need to find additional evidence to expose the falsehood as deliberate. Also as it adds as measure of security becausde a lie that is closer to the truth is often harder to find out. There is propoganda value in the opposite Big Lie, but that is psychological not statistical in root.
Good statistics do what a good statistician tells it to do. We cannot define good statistics because we cannot define goosd statisticians. For a supemarket till receipt based stock controll set up there might not ven be a good statistician. Going back to the old example if the data is good enough stock control is automated, the only reason stock controllers are involved at all is to double check and manually add based on personal managers discretion. It helps that stock controllers are cheap to employ. Professional government statisticians are looking for the stats their masters want, that includes those working in intelligence.
Statistics even nealry caused a nuclear war. During the mishandled Able Archer exercises in 1982 and following Reagans belligerent rhetoric the Soviet Union was expecting nuclear attack and sent agents to look for statistical signs of war plans. One such idea was to count military command offices at night. The reasoning being: office lights on > means military staff working late > which means invasion plans. The lights were on where expected, but only because cleaners and janitors were working at night.
Moscow got very close to launching based on data like that. It was stopped because their top spies at the time reported that no war plans were taking place. HumInt won through StatInt failed, possibly averting a nuclear holocaust.
dogma wrote:
No, it wouldn't be true. It would be true that a particular Afghan village was safer over the last three months than New York over the same period. It would not be true that Afghanistan was safer as a whole, because the sample did not deal with all of Afghanistan.
That is correct but you missed the point, the exact conditions of the test need not be conferred with the results. Most statistical results are published without the conditions of the test. Quick erpcentages are easy to read data, test parameteres arev harder to describe without a lot of prose. Thus it is tempting to omit even if you are being honest.
In ther example given ff course they would be defacto testing one picked village against New York, but the statistic could be made to read Afghhanistan vs New York or Afghanistan vs America.
Such an example is crude any shouldnt convince anyone, but stats like this are very common in some dodgy countries.
dogma wrote:
No, what I'm doing is explaining the logical progression that must be satisfied in order for any particular conclusion to be reached. I'm doing this in order to show how it isn't a simple matter of going by your gut.
I don't actually believe that there is a reasonable doubt in regards to the nature of the perpetrators of 9/11.
There are unanwered questions certainly, but I dont think culpability has been mis-established. Al Quaeda claimed responsibility, the passenger lists were scrutinised etc. There are unanswered question over the controlled demolition of some buildings thast were not structurally effected and many including myself beleive that United Airlines 93 may haver been shot down because it was approaching D.C. even though it was likely the passengers had succeeded in retaking control of the plane.
We can discuss this another time. though if you are raising the point that Islamic extermism is inflated that wouiold be a valid opne if there was anything to back it up. Assuming 9/11 was not the fault of who it was blamed on (and thats a big if) we still have a lot of ancilliary attacks and other major attacks prior to 9/11.
W have to accept margins of error in hard science as well. I'm pointing out that your margins of error are far too large. Please don't try and make this an argument from category, not only is it boring, but also trite.
Orlanth wrote:
Prety much the first rule of poltical science is regarding the fallibility of humna data. Everything is an educated guess, some guesses are more educated than others. Statistics only really help if they are large scale and thorough, these sorts of statistics are nort commonly available. Market datas is confidential to the company which reeasrched the data, intelligence data is common to the services.
I'm not going to argue this point with you. I'm just going to direct you to the American Political Science Review, and let you decide for yourself.
I'm not claiming that there is no margin for error, I'm claiming that theory must have a quantified basis in reality in order for it to have notable weight.
dogma wrote:
Actually, Al-Qaeda stood out as a significant threat due to it extensive funding network. This was pointed out in the assessment of quantitative data in the 9/11 report. To say that 9/11 happened because there was too great an emphasis on statistics is absolutely false, 9/11 happened because no one thought that any terrorist network could carry out a significant attack on the US; regardless of the data available.
Actually Mi6 and Mossad warned the USA of impending attack. The it cannot happen here possibly came about because Al Quaeda didnt compute under stat analysis, the warnings came from humInt basesd sources rather than looking at bank records.
Statistics aren't a box.
dogma wrote:
Actually, what lost Vietnam was the lapse in domestic political support, for which there is statistical evidence.
What lost Vietnam was the inability to deal with the NVA strategy which was to outlast the US based coalition. This was achieved by using non statistical vitory conditions which were highly fluid. The US could have beated the NVA prior to the breakdown of civil support had the strategy been based on a non-statistical model.
dogma wrote:
I'm merely pointing out that without any kind of quantitative basis your reasoned argument is irrelevant because you cannot show that it applies to reality.
This is clutching at straws. a reasonwed argument is valid because you can reason based not on statistical data but empirical data. Which I have repeatedly done. I am happy to leave the limited value of stats to the intelligence agencies. Knocing the Madrid bombings et al exists is enough of a reference to draw a healthy conclusion.
dogma wrote:
No, they're really not. Predictions deal with what you might find, likely truth deals with what you believe to be present.
And the pracitcal difference between the two is?
Let us take this topical please not raw theory. In theory you might be given one option for your preduction, the one with the highest probability, a practical reality looks at several options. What is the difference betwen what you might find and what you believe present in a mountain cave you are going to send special forces to investigate? You might find goats or terrorists, you believe that goatherds use the caves, you beleive that terrorrists use the caves.
For the record yes this is simplistic example still, and not necssarily indicative of real operations or real goatherds.
dogma wrote:
Obviously, but you aren't talking about including data at all. You only did that after I pushed you to do so. What you've been talking about is excluding data in order to include feeling, which is nonsense.
....The numbers are indicative of the nature, even if they are intended to be deceitful. Again, this is not grounds to dismiss statistics.
All, you are saying is only of flat value if the datas is reliable, usually it is less reliable than you might wish, this makes it dangerous.
I never claimed politcal statistics were not useful to the correct body, they are incredibly useful, but almost always to support what you want to find. Statistics are very easy to massage which makes them a very good propoganda rtool for use against the unwary. Deliberately bad statistics allowed Blair to join in the War on Iraq.
dogma wrote:
Again, you don't seem to understand statistics.
I understand it enough not to trust it for honest use in geo-politics.
It isnt a magick wand to find out what is happening except in very controlled circumstances, like stock control and similar functions with very good data sets.
If we take business a lot of money is poured into statistical analysis of the stock market, yet it doesnt do people much good. Real market reading works best in other ways, so much so that some other ways like insider trading were banned.
dogma wrote:
That's how science works. Most of the scientific method involves spectacular failure. You seem to have an odd understanding of science in general.
this is not how science works. Science works by deliberate method, bad science doesnt and that leads to failures. A theorem that is proven wrong by deliberate methodical sicence is not a failure, as something new is learned.
Politics doesnt deal with the same absolutes, human laws are not natural laws, they are subjective unfair, uneven and not evenly enforced. Societies are the same and individual people are even more random and unpredixctable, especially the radicalised.
dogma wrote:
That's not a matter of statistics first, that's a matter of placing the wrong statistics first.
You can t uput long term statistics first because they require a long l,oad in time. short term planning on short term statstics comes first and is thus applied first. Trying to find the right statistics is likely to be fraught with the same difficulties. Successful business keep to business principles first, targets second, tyhe former is not statistically based. Do the job right, determined empritically rather than statistically, and the business profile looks after itself. Hunt targets and the business profile may be abandoned.
dogma wrote:
In order to deduce something you must first establish a general truth, in order to do that without simply making something up, you need statistical evidence.
Patently untrue, empirical evidence works fine.
dogma wrote:
It clouds matters if you don't understand how to read the data.
Its not a matter of failure to understand reading data, at least not from this end, data is easy to read, but is it honest? that question the data itself will not tell you unless the percentages dont add to 100. To analyse you have to go further thasn just assimilating data, not all information is data, and not all data is statistical.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
youbedead wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
efarrer wrote:
As the troubles are the most recent part of an overall continuity of Catholic violence against England from the creation of Anglican church in the 16th century I'm not sure it's as easy to separate the two as you've just tried to do.
The actions have ranged from
Assassination attempts (Elizabeth survived multiple attempts on her life from Catholic assassins)
Wars
terrorism (Remember the fifth of November)
And I'm sure there's more then enough other examples that other people could pull from other areas, including India.
Ye olde examples dont count for anything. Or we would still be at war with the French.
So because something happened in the past it no longer matters.
Still got a Confederate problem, no? So its not relevant.
Likwise when fanatics blame the Troubles on what one side did to another centuries ago its just an excuse. The real reasons were in the here and now.
I am not saying ignore history, or ignore heritage, but do set a large gap between current problems and memories of ancient problems. The vast majority of the time those who dig up the past have a current problem and want to fuel hatred to deepen factional divide based on the current problem by reminding people of past issues. If the current issues is dealt with the past issues fade away.
This isc why Drogeda and Wexford are remembered but the massacre at Daventry is not, although the latter was far bloodier.
Wiki wrote:Accurate analysis of data using standardized statistical methods in scientific studies is critical to determining the validity of empirical research. Statistical formulas such as regression, uncertainty coefficient, t-test, chi square, and various types of ANOVA (analyses of variance) are fundamental to forming logical, valid conclusions. If empirical data reach significance under the appropriate statistical formula, the research hypothesis is supported. If not, the null hypothesis is supported (or, more correctly, not rejected), meaning no effect of the independent variable(s) was observed on the dependent variable(s).
It is important to understand that the outcome of empirical research using statistical hypothesis testing is never proof. It can only support a hypothesis, reject it, or do neither. These methods yield only probabilities.
Among scientific researchers, empirical evidence (as distinct from empirical research) refers to objective evidence that appears the same regardless of the observer. For example, a thermometer will not display different temperatures for each individual who observes it. Temperature, as measured by an accurate, well calibrated thermometer, is empirical evidence. By contrast, non-empirical evidence is subjective, depending on the observer. Following the previous example, observer A might truthfully report that a room is warm, while observer B might truthfully report that the same room is cool, though both observe the same reading on the thermometer. The use of empirical evidence negates this effect of personal (i.e., subjective) experience.
Ideally, empirical research yields empirical evidence, which can then be analyzed for statistical significance or reported in its raw form.
dogma wrote:
Both counts? How can I be wrong in asking a question?
You were wrong on both:
a) In what sense is it a threat? It isn't as though terrorism is going to topple any Western nation anytime soon.
You strongly imply that only by being able to do major damage like toppling a Western nation does Islam become a threat. As it cannot (at least in the short/medium term do so) it is not a threat. This can only mean something else if you very badly wroded your post
You cannot strongly imply something. Either something is implied, or it isn't. In this case I did not imply what you suggest that I did. Implication requires that a certain thing follow from what I said, and I deliberately took measures to insure that wasn't the case.
Try again.
Orlanth wrote:
b) Moreover, you didn't claim that fundamentalist Islam was a threat.
When I most certainly claimed it was.
Perhaps I was wrong to state this, but in the posts that I quoted you claimed nothing of the sort, I have no interest in reading the rest of your posts.
Orlanth wrote:
I will give you fair opportunity to clarify your sttement then.
What statement? I asked you a question, I made no statement.
Orlanth wrote:
I said it quite frequently in the above posts, so frequently it would be a waste of time to copy paste more than a fraction of the occassions. Here are hopefully enough to set this straight:
Again, I have no interest in reading the majority of your posts. That would imply respect.
Orlanth wrote:
There is a recurring pattern with your posts dogma. You post denials with little logic behind them,...
Why should I bother with logic when confronted with the deliberately illogical?
Orlanth wrote:
If I have to describe the moral difference between bad or unlucky driving and acts of terror that there is no hope for you.
Even so, please explain.
Orlanth wrote:
I am more concerned witn the integrity of statistical data. You can count whatever you like, if you count lies you will get an erroneuos finding.
And if you don't count lies, but believe them on their face you will still be left with nothing. Come now, you know better.
Orlanth wrote:
When organisations like Al Mouhajiroun (sp) call for jihad I take that at face value.
That was an organization? That wasn't a person who the intelligence services said was a member of an organization?
Orlanth wrote:
Besides you are really clutching at straws if you raise a defence that the militant preachers dont mean what they are saying.
I am? They're making political statements. You already said that political actors are bound to lie. Why wouldn't political preachers lie?
Orlanth wrote:
1. Quantative data is not forthcoming, so stop asking me and ask the CIA or equivalent.
Go to your local library. Read some political science journals.
Orlanth wrote:
2. Attacks are stopped by the aforementioned agencies so the threat which they take seriously is defacto lessened by proactive engagement of the threat.
Is it? Please, prove that relationship.
Orlanth wrote:
3. The number of attacks is no indication of their scale and vice versa.
Nor did I say so.
Orlanth wrote:
I shoudnt bother answering this.
But for the benefit of any following this threat who might be hoodwinked into thinking you have a point:
- Its not an either or. Stopping terrorism doesnt mean that people have to go hungry (over here anyway), or traffic lights cannot be aforded or drunk drivers get let off by the police.
I didn't suggest it was an either-or.
Orlanth wrote:
- Drunk drivers go to prison if convicted. So do terrorists.
Don't care, I care about relative resource distribution.
Orlanth wrote:
- Anyone can be stupid enough to get drunk and drive in a car. This isnt a deliberate threat, its a danger yes, there is danger enough in crossing the road even with sober drivers. However the roads are not a threat. Threats are hostile. You cant threaten someone with an accident, not literally anyway.
Orlanth wrote:
Sorry you dont understand what you are talking about. Statistics is only of use at a very broad sense in the majority of cases. Accurate data as good as supermarkets get for stock control is vvery rare. Concepts like standard error are just attampts to deal with the problem I mentioned, a patch if you will to keep statisticians employed. Most statisticans will admit that standard error itself is only an estimate. An estimate of an estimate of an error.
Standard error is simply an estimate of errror given a certain sample. It isn't an estimate of an estimate of anything. Please do your homework.
Orlanth wrote:
The further you get from a complete set of data the worse it gets. Statistics can be useful to politicians mainly for hoodwinking the people or broad policy decisions, with the emphasis on broad. Most of the work and analysis has to be logical not statistical and based on informed opinion.
You want to get into logic? Alright, prove your argument using symbolic formalism.
Orlanth wrote:
You want statistics to cover all that, dream on.
I'd rather be good at math than dream.
Orlanth wrote:
A mistruth is not technically a lie, it becomes a lie by manipulation.
You didn't mention lies in regards to your speculation. You referenced truth. The statement that you made would not be true given the stats you provided. That doesn't indicate that it would be a lie.
Orlanth wrote:
Good statistics do what a good statistician tells it to do.
No, not at all. Sorry. Stats don't work that way. You can always check my regression analyses if you don't believe me.
Orlanth wrote:
Statistics even nealry caused a nuclear war.
And qualitative governance caused the US to drop a nuclear bomb on Japan. Please, let us refrain from appeals to emotion.
Orlanth wrote:
That is correct but you missed the point, the exact conditions of the test need not be conferred with the results.
No conditions of any test need be connected to any results. For example, I can lie and say that Orlanth is an Atheist without ever making reference to your behavior. The fact that something can be manipulated is not sufficient to reject it.
Orlanth wrote:
Most statistical results are published without the conditions of the test.
No, that's false. Seriously, I cannot even disprove that statement because any example I proffer is going to be rejected as an exception. Suffice it to say that almost all stats are published with method analysis.
Orlanth wrote:
There are unanwered questions certainly, but I dont think culpability has been mis-established. Al Quaeda claimed responsibility, the passenger lists were scrutinised
Good god. I'm positing a thought exercise. That's all. I'm literally illustrating the questions you would have to answer in order to conclude that Al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Or any other set of attacks.
Orlanth wrote:
Actually Mi6 and Mossad warned the USA of impending attack. The it cannot happen here possibly came about because Al Quaeda didnt compute under stat analysis, the warnings came from humInt basesd sources rather than looking at bank records.
So you're no reduced to possibility? Not certainty?
Orlanth wrote:
What lost Vietnam was the inability to deal with the NVA strategy which was to outlast the US based coalition. This was achieved by using non statistical vitory conditions which were highly fluid. The US could have beated the NVA prior to the breakdown of civil support had the strategy been based on a non-statistical model.
Really? You already acknowledged that the NVA based its strategy on insensitivity to loss, so how would the US have won given an enemy that did not care for its casualties?
Orlanth wrote:
This is clutching at straws. a reasonwed argument is valid because you can reason based not on statistical data but empirical data. Which I have repeatedly done.
Statistical data is empirical data, so I don't know what you're trying to say.
Orlanth wrote:
And the pracitcal difference between the two is?
Predictions don't involve action on an implicit level.
Orlanth wrote:
Statistics are very easy to massage...
"Reasonable" looks aren't?
Orlanth wrote:
I understand it enough not to trust it for honest use in geo-politics.
It isnt a magick wand to find out what is happening except in very controlled circumstances, like stock control and similar functions with very good data sets.
When did I say that it is? I'm only suggesting that you are ridiculous in you skepticism.
Orlanth wrote:
this is not how science works. Science works by deliberate method, bad science doesnt and that leads to failures. A theorem that is proven wrong by deliberate methodical sicence is not a failure, as something new is learned.
No. Read Kuhn and Popper.
You speak like someone who has never set foot in a laboratory.
Orlanth wrote:
Politics doesnt deal with the same absolutes, human laws are not natural laws, they are subjective unfair, uneven and not evenly enforced. Societies are the same and individual people are even more random and unpredixctable, especially the radicalised.
That's nice, but they're still fundamentally human. Despite what we might pretend.
Orlanth wrote:
You can t uput long term statistics first because they require a long l,oad in time. short term planning on short term statstics comes first and is thus applied first.
Yes, if you emphasize the short term then the short term will come first. That's what I said.
Orlanth wrote:
Patently untrue, empirical evidence works fine.
Statistical evidence is empirical evidence.
Orlanth wrote:
Its not a matter of failure to understand reading data, at least not from this end, data is easy to read, but is it honest? that question the data itself will not tell you unless the percentages dont add to 100. To analyse you have to go further thasn just assimilating data, not all information is data, and not all data is statistical.
If you're differentiating between statistical data and non-statistical data then yes, all information is data.
Regardless, you seem to be assuming that people who do and read stats don't pay attention to method. That is a pathetic and insulting assumption.
dogma wrote:
Both counts? How can I be wrong in asking a question?
You were wrong on both:
a) In what sense is it a threat? It isn't as though terrorism is going to topple any Western nation anytime soon.
You strongly imply that only by being able to do major damage like toppling a Western nation does Islam become a threat. As it cannot (at least in the short/medium term do so) it is not a threat. This can only mean something else if you very badly wroded your post
You cannot strongly imply something. Either something is implied, or it isn't. In this case I did not imply what you suggest that I did. Implication requires that a certain thing follow from what I said, and I deliberately took measures to insure that wasn't the case.
Try again.
Dogma, I have had enough with your pedantry. You nit pick over a single word, grossly misrepresent whole passages of what I say inn a vain attempt to find fault, and deny face value whqat you yourself write and above all ignore the questions raised and answered to go to your next picky 'point'.
dogma wrote:
Perhaps I was wrong to state this, but in the posts that I quoted you claimed nothing of the sort, I have no interest in reading the rest of your posts.
Again, I have no interest in reading the majority of your posts. That would imply respect.
You have no interest in reading the posts, but you make false comment on what I say to give yourself a veneer of an argument. You did this before on other threads. Responding to you is just pointless. Ok, bye.
Fine. My point is that the empirical data is sufficent without further refining. statistical study is a subset of empirical study.
Statistical study is not required at this level, and reliable statistics are difficult to come by on this subject (terrorism).
Others might have ghem (security services) but that is their affair not ours.
Let us get all the mumbo jombo out of the way, looking for statistics is a smokescreen, demanding them is a trap.
Your comment and questioning is at least honest so, a very short summary to get back on track:
1. I cannot find reliable statistics for Islamic terror.
2. I don't think I need to find any figures to conclude there is a threat.
3. Common observation of what I have seen is enough.
4. Vile acts like 9/11, Madrid and 7/7 do not need repeating to highlight their veracity through a statistical pattern, once was bad enough.
5. We cannot adequately seperate the percentage of actual Islamic fanatics from the whole (that would be good data) because people do not fit clear cut definitions. Also an inderterminate number of people refuse to or fail to critique the bombings. Why is hard to distinguish because it is hard to measure human silence.
6. Also most worryingly people can get radicalised very quickly, or converted and radicalised at the same time. Some of the bombers caught were recent converts to Islam.
Orlanth wrote:
Dogma, I have had enough with your pedantry. You nit pick over a single word, grossly misrepresent whole passages of what I say inn a vain attempt to find fault, and deny face value whqat you yourself write and above all ignore the questions raised and answered to go to your next picky 'point'.
What pedantry? I didn't imply anything, you inferred something. There are very different ideas, and keeping them consistent is important to honest debate.
I asked you a question, and you drew an inference which allowed you to process that question as a statement. This may have been unintentional, or it may have been an attempt at avoiding the question. In either case, I'm still waiting for an answer.
Oh, incidentally, I haven't been making a positive argument for anything, except as regards the relevance of statistics. I've been pointing out why your argument is not convincing. These are different things.
Fine. My point is that the empirical data is sufficent without further refining. statistical study is a subset of empirical study.
Statistical study is not required at this level, and reliable statistics are difficult to come by on this subject (terrorism).
Others might have ghem (security services) but that is their affair not ours.
Let us get all the mumbo jombo out of the way, looking for statistics is a smokescreen, demanding them is a trap.
I do not agree that statistics are a smokescreen. They are no less than the analysis of empirical evidence.
I go into one restaurant and count five people, including myself, then go on to hypothesize that five customers is the average for every restaurant within 5 miles. One can easily disagree with my hypothesis and look for further evidence in the form of statistical analysis on the subject. Finding those studies is easier than going out and conducting the studies yourself.
1. I cannot find reliable statistics for Islamic terror.
I understand that it may seem impossible, but I can assure you that there is some decent data on this subject.
2. I don't think I need to find any figures to conclude there is a threat.
You already have quantitative evidence, and you refuse to identify it as such. Perhaps you aren't outright refusing to identify it as such, but you're certainly pushing against further study. Your statements regarding statistical analysis do not line up with my personal opinions on that subject. I'm not a scientist yet I still feel that looking further than you have to be a good idea in general. Question your conclusions. Do not accept them at face value. I do not say that to try to force you to do so, merely to suggest that your evidence fails to convince me that your conclusion is in fact correct.
3. Common observation of what I have seen is enough.
We are not looking at a clock. This subject merits in-depth study and if you really want to form a reasoned opinion I would encourage you to look much further than you have.
I am going to be writing a paper on the portrayal of Islam in the media, and I will bring information regarding that subject into the thread as I find it. If I thought there was a good opportunity for a career in journalism I would focus on this kind of study. We know that media outlets have opinions. What I am interested in is how those opinions are conveyed to the general public. It is possible that the main opinion is one that goes no further than creating stories that make the outlet money. It is in their best interest to stay in business come hell or high water.
I am most interested in finding reliable summaries of the headlines that newspapers print. Headlines are hooks. They grab you and they make you want to read an article. They are in large part what sells a story. There is more to it than that, but when people discuss articles they are largely discussing the headlines presented by those articles.
Headlines have a noticeable impact on national discussions. It would appear that they also have a noticeable impact on international discussions, as we see here.
4. Vile acts like 9/11, Madrid and 7/7 do not need repeating to highlight their veracity through a statistical pattern, once was bad enough.
The question here is: Bad enough to merit what action, and according to whom?
5. We cannot adequately seperate the percentage of actual Islamic fanatics from the whole (that would be good data) because people do not fit clear cut definitions. Also an inderterminate number of people refuse to or fail to critique the bombings. Why is hard to distinguish because it is hard to measure human silence.
Given that you feel that way how is one to come to any conclusion on this subject? You leave the discussion open to wild interpretation.
You don't need to measure human silence. You do, in my opinion, need to measure the threat presented at any given time. What is the best way to deal with that threat when you have identified how large of a threat it is? If you feel that your references cover enough ground to arrive at a reasonable answer, I just have to disagree with you.
6. Also most worryingly people can get radicalised very quickly, or converted and radicalised at the same time. Some of the bombers caught were recent converts to Islam.
What worries the most is how vitriolic public discourse has become on this issue. This is a complicated subject that is washed over with grossed generalizations from the loudest opinions. From where I stand I just want to see serious study put into this so I can read those studies and have a better idea of what is going on. I am in the process of finding those studies, and I assume it will take a while because I am going to have to familiarize myself with the background on all of this. The main part to recognize is that we are talking about a very young industry that doesn't have that much history. How long has cable TV offered quickly digested news? How long has the common citizen had access to such a wide array of opinion?
I do consider this to be an issue of immigration at this point in time. There is more than enough rhetoric being thrown around Europe to reinforce my opinion on this subject. I do not arrive at any conclusions regarding the citizenry of Europe, but I can definitely see a whole lot going on within the political sphere.
There is little reason for me to continue this discussion if you have no interest in looking farther than you have.
I WANT TO LOOK FURTHER. I want to have a more reasoned opinion backed up by MORE information.
Orlanth wrote:
5. We cannot adequately seperate the percentage of actual Islamic fanatics from the whole (that would be good data) because people do not fit clear cut definitions. Also an inderterminate number of people refuse to or fail to critique the bombings. Why is hard to distinguish because it is hard to measure human silence.
Given that you feel that way how is one to come to any conclusion on this subject? You leave the discussion open to wild interpretation.
You don't need to measure human silence. You do, in my opinion, need to measure the threat presented at any given time. What is the best way to deal with that threat when you have identified how large of a threat it is? If you feel that your references cover enough ground to arrive at a reasonable answer, I just have to disagree with you.
Moreover, its actually very easy to measure human silence. If you ask 5000 people a question, and 2000 don't answer, then you know that 2000 people chose to remain silent.
Orlanth yet again strikes me as someone who has no meaningful understanding of statistics. And it seems as though that lack of understanding is what is leading him to conclude that statistics are a smoke screen.
I do not agree that statistics are a smokescreen. They are no less than the analysis of empirical evidence.
Indeed, if they can be relied on. I gave clear example ofg the sliding scale of the reliability of statistics from ther very reliable superkaret daa to less reliable politcal data.
My beef is with statistics in relation tio military intelligence that is available to us layfolk.
If i said that all statistics is a smokescreen rather than the statistics you are looking for I would not have gone to lengths to give examples uch as supermarket stock control.
You can see the extraordinary, also because its extrasordinary it might be rare enough to not be worth tallying. Major terror attacks come to mind here, even one major attack like 9/11 tells us enough to know that there is a case to answer for regarding militant Islam without going into further statistics.
Wrexasaur wrote:
1. I cannot find reliable statistics for Islamic terror.
I understand that it may seem impossible, but I can assure you that there is some decent data on this subject.
But can we get reliable data, and more importantly can we prove its authoirty. If we assume yes to the first we still cannot confirm yes to the second easily. Islamic terror statistics are often inflated or downplayed, downplayed by the PC dogmatists who want to beleive everything is fine in a multicultural society, or inflated by those who weant action taken. The 'dodgy dossier' provided statistical evidence of the likelihood of Saddam Hussein having a WMD program, this dossier was the excuse Blair needed to join with Bush for invasion. The figures and claims werre apparently inflated to give a flase puicture by those who wanted Iraq 'liberated'.
Tell me if an intelligence agnecy released documents of statistics how are we to be able to confim their authenticity. We cant, do intelligence agencies lie when they need to, hell yes.
Wrexasaur wrote:
There is little reason for me to continue this discussion if you have no interest in looking farther than you have.
I WANT TO LOOK FURTHER. I want to have a more reasoned opinion backed up by MORE information.
I genuinely wish you luck, and am interested in looking further. I just know better than to try.
I consider your position to be at least mildly apathetic.
You appear to choose not to look for reasons that are not found in your expectations, but your assumptions about the world around you. It works that way because it works that way.
Where intelligence agencies can't be trusted in one case they can somehow be trusted to protect all of us 24/7. I don't follow what you are saying here. They are lying but we should trust them with our lives and the future of our countries?
Anyway, if you take a few hours a week to find varied sources of information on this subject I am quite sure you will be surprised with what you find. If you're happy with the information you have already found it wouldn't surprise me if you would fight against finding new information.
Take some time and look around. You will find contrasting opinions and reasonable discourse on many points within this subject. Do it.
Mainly, I would recommend that you do so, and I cannot stop you from not doing so.
This and other reports available at the same site show the number of Muslims, and other religions, in the UK.
Thoughts
The most obvious thing is that all the Islamic terrorist attacks and attempts in the UK have occurred in the past five years, since our attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. This does not reflect a historical pattern of Islamic immigration stretching back over 100 years.
The second obvious thing is that the number of arrests for suspected terrorist activity is quite large and the number of successful prosecutions is quite small. This is because a lot of arrests are for dubious suspicions, for instance, we have had photographers arrested on suspicion of terrorism for photographing drain gratings.
This policy is now seen as counter-productive and the police are trying to cut back the number of unnecessary arrests.
Let’s assume that the number of prosecutions reflects the number of plots that are uncovered, plus some innocent, foolish and unlucky people who do something that brings serious suspicion on themselves.
In 2009 there were eight successful prosecutions out of a total of 23 charges brought. It is important to note that these are not all for people actually making bombs, they include things like possession of information that could be useful for terrorism. This is all terrorism, not specifically Islamic extremist terrorism.
Of course we cannot know how many very destructive plots are brewing at the moment, which may or may not be under investigation by the security services.
This tells you a whole lot less than you think, terror data is a lot different from say marketing data or even broadly similar data like demographics or regular crime figures. Th reasons for this are severalfold:
1. Terror suspects are monitored by intelligence agencies long before any movement is made.
For example many arrests are made in groups, this tells us by logic that terrorists are often watched long before any moves are made on individuals. Consequently the number of terrorists being arrested is not equal to the number of suspects cases are made against. Some terror trials hint of months or years of surveillance. So your arrest data will not tally with intelligence data on threats in the same way regular crime data will.
Yes police might stakeout some crime, but not anythng like to the same extent. Burglars and terrorists are not handled the same.
2. Due to the nature of Islamic terror people who have no previous convictions can be radicalised and turned into terrorists.
Many are never found, the 7/7 bombers Glasgow bomberss were all 'fresh', part of the reason they got to carry out attacks. There are no statistics for them oter than tallying 'successful' terrorists, and we dont have the data to make an educated guess as to their number. Intelligence services may well do, thats their data not ours.
3. Just because figures are official doesnt make then accurate. Especially figures released under New Labour.
New Labour was known for heavily tweaking statistics before release, they were caught out on official immigration figures which were wildely inaccurate.
Ask yourself would the Blair/Brown government have any advantage in making Islamic terror appear more or less of an issue. Might they lie as they had a track record of doing with other official statistics. The difference is with this data we have no means to detect the lie. It was hard for the govenemnt official figures to 'mislay' the details of large number of immigrants due to other sources, though they still tried and it worked for a while. With this there are no other sources, they could for example arrest and try terrorists in large number in camera if they really wanted to and we need not know about it. I really don't think they are doing that, but that is only an example of how much information control there is. So massaging a set of figures for release, or just out and out lying convincingly is not in any hard to do here.
One of the first things any good analyst concerns himself with is double sourcing. The released terror stats are single source information, and are thus suspect. If you want double sourcinng you will need to ask the you-know-whos. Like I said earlier, you won't get an answer.
4. Bodies providing statistics normally supply support or analysis with them. With this you get just what you get.
Any further analysis is strictly in house here. With say market research you will get feedback from those assimilating the data, who know best what they could test how when and what misssing. This is why good documents on released statistics come with a lot of prose as well as the spreadsheet.
Sorry Wrexasaur, the problems I thought you would get are problems you are getting, you want to know more and are asking questions and making comments for honest reasons, not to troll. I would help your search if I thought I could. I knew there were government figures published for what that was worth, but I dont know any other figures. One source, one set of info (all the press eports are from the same source over time), no verification, no independent backup, a source with a track record of gross misinformation. If this were business marketing data at the same level of authority it would be counted next to useless.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dogma wrote:
No, that can't be, they don't exist!
They do exist,I never said they didnt. What I said was that reliablility would be suspect.
You are celebrating over nothing.
Orlanth wrote:Sorry Wrexasaur, the problems I thought you would get are problems you are getting, you want to know more and are asking questions and making comments for honest reasons, not to troll. I would help your search if I thought I could. I knew there were government figures published for what that was worth, but I dont know any other figures. One source, one set of info (all the press eports are from the same source over time), no verification, no independent backup, a source with a track record of gross misinformation. If this were business marketing data at the same level of authority it would be counted next to useless.
What problems? I have made entirely clear that this is a very complicated issue that takes time to understand. You don't pick up a paper and 'just get it'. You reference multiple sources of information. This can get messy, but it is a whole lot more accurate than what you are relying on. You have arrived at a conclusion that I am not even sure I understand.
I assume that you believe that Islam is in part responsible for many of the extremist attacks that we have seen. I disagree because I think your premise makes no sense. Islam isn't responsible, but it is because you consider it to be so (?). I don't need to understand all of the history behind all of this to understand that extremist fundamentalists do not represent the largest part of Islam. With your logic I can easily blame any religion for any actions any of their members would take. I won't do that because it is nonsensical.
Extremist fundamentalism is a threat no matter where it comes from, and it certainly doesn't matter that the larger media is choosing to focus on Islamism when it comes to that subject.
I do not believe that anyone has been trolling you in this thread, and in my opinion Dogma has been relatively clear about where he disagrees with you. Your answer so far is to suggest that no amount of statistics is good enough, but if you double source things become more reliable (?). What about open source? Is that more or less reliable? How is it that quantitative data showing what I consider to be a flooded justice system invalid? Those are hard numbers, and they illustrate what is quite possibly the implementation of ineffective tools to deal with terrorism. People that have no business being charged with terrorism are charged because officers feel that 'better safe than sorry' applies to every situation one can imagine. When you flood a justice system with nonsense it will get clogged with that nonsense.
At this point I am not sure if you are saying that statistics are useless, or that statistics need to be carefully understood in order to see their full value. You won't see the world through a crystal ball, but I can guarantee that with a basic understanding of what statistics are, and how they work, you can arrive at reasonable conclusions. You cross reference different sources and it takes fething time. You need to invest that elbow grease to get anything out of it. It would be nice if data was better formatted, but if you looked around you might even find sources that amalgamate data from different agencies. You could be the person that combines that information, and if you wanted you could probably work out a way to automatically combine that information. It wouldn't be easy, and you would need to know what you are doing, but yes, it is possible to get a clearer picture of the world than you are offering, through the use of statistics.
Avoid sources that have a bad reputation, or take that into account when you look at their information. We are looking at an issue that covers the entire globe and involves more than half of it's population if not more. One side did this and the other did that is not a complete view into what is going on here. It is complicated and this subject DESERVES serious study.
Orlanth wrote:
They do exist,I never said they didnt. What I said was that reliablility would be suspect.
You are celebrating over nothing.
No, I'm being pithy.
I'm also questioning the degree to which anything can be considered reliable. Why, for instance, is you 'reasoned look' more reliable than statistics that I might produce in order to inform a conclusion that I were to draw? Wouldn't it be far easier for you to simply than it would be for me to lie with regression analysis?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wrexasaur wrote: Your answer so far is to suggest that no amount of statistics is good enough, but if you double source things become more reliable (?).
Interestingly, if double-sourcing is good, then isn't triple-sourcing better? What about quadruple sourcing? What about twenty-sourcing? What about rendering those sources into data points, and then using statistical analysis to determine what they are saying, and how many sources are saying what?
At this point it simply looks as if Orlanth doesn't like the word 'statistics' because he has already taken a step down that road.
Im not taking Orlanths side here as I fear he is arguing against Islam mainly because he is a devout Christian and as you know I have no time for those guys either! I also agree with much of what Dogma and Wrex say, but i must say that surely Islamic faith IS responsible for Muslim terrorism because of one irrefutable reason.
Their last words are almost always "Allah Akbar"
The fact they might have beards or brown skin or speak Farsi or whatever is purely incidental yes, but that they happen to be Muslims is NOT incidental in their motivation and the end result.
They believe in their desert fables 100% and are willing to kill themselves during the attack as a direct result of their faith.
It is Religion that motivates them all the way, Religion that gives them the courage to do it, Religion that can make a good person do an evil deed because he percieves he is given permission by "God"
How isnt that proof?
There is a logical pathway leading from their belief to their attacks, sure you are right that there are countless other factors, and apologists love to say that "Islam is twisted" or any other number of "No true Scotsman" arguments, but ultimately they do what they do BECAUSE of their Religion surely?
People that don't believe in God still use the lord's name as an invective. Religious terminology often has cultural meaning to people that don't necessarily believe.
Now, that doesn't mean that certain terrorists don't act in the name of what they believe God to be, but it also doesn't follow that invoking a deity makes one religious.
KK ive been here ages, you KNOW what im saying and its not even remotely unreasonable, clearly most Muslims arent terrorists. 99.99% of them arent, but what im saying is that there is a clear, obvious and logical pathway leading from devout Religious belief that can lead to someone carrying out terrorist attacks. Im not even singling out Muslims.
The fact that someone is a terrorist and also happens to be a Muslim is not incidental, as it can give them a clear and obvious motive, plus the courage to carry it out, and the permission from what they percieve to be a higher authority. Its a very obvious one with regards to suicide attacks as well.
Ask yourself this, has any Muslim ever blown himself up and secretly been agnostic?
Why should muslims be singled out as a suicide bomb threat because of their religion?
Why is being a muslim a motive to commit terrorism?
The IRA aren't muslim.
Jews aren't muslim.
Both of them have done terrorism.
What is it specifically that makes muslims, because of their religion, peculiarly inclined to commit terrorism by the means of suicide bombs? Is it a widespread factor?
Wrexasaur wrote:
What problems? I have made entirely clear that this is a very complicated issue that takes time to understand. You don't pick up a paper and 'just get it'. You reference multiple sources of information. This can get messy, but it is a whole lot more accurate than what you are relying on. You have arrived at a conclusion that I am not even sure I understand.
You should have started trying to understand it long ago, then you might have realised more by now. I didnt puck up a paper and 'just get it' either.
I also references multiple sources, multiple attacks, multiple cases of what various Islamic militant sources have said openly. What I haven't given you are percentages, I don't think we can reliably find any.
Take the datas pasted above.
Does it tell you how many Islamic militants there are in the UK? No.
Does it tell you what percentage of Moselms are redicalised? No.
These were the very questions you were asking me for data on. If and I mean if, the data is reliable it only shows arrests and convictions, that tells you very little really. Arrests can include a number of innocent people, convictions only provide some detail on those for whome connexions were proven, and that will only be a fraction of whats out there. How big a fraction is also unknown.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I assume that you believe that Islam is in part responsible for many of the extremist attacks that we have seen. I disagree because I think your premise makes no sense. Islam isn't responsible, but it is because you consider it to be so (?).
Ok. What part of [inset name here] bombings caused by Islamic militants makes no sense to you?
What extras proof do you require before its ok to say 9/11 was caused my Islamic fundamentalists.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I don't need to understand all of the history behind all of this to understand that extremist fundamentalists do not represent the largest part of Islam. With your logic I can easily blame any religion for any actions any of their members would take. I won't do that because it is nonsensical.
I haven't done either, you have a comprehension failure here, and not due to any lack of clarity on my part.
If you read above I used words like 'Islamic militant' and 'Islamic fundamentalist'. I have been very careful to point this out and highlight this carefully on pretty much every time I have used the word Islamic or Moslem in relation to terror, I also called fundamentalists a minority as and when needed.
My logic is reasonable. You dont agree with it because you constantly misrepresent it, I think you are confused.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Extremist fundamentalism is a threat no matter where it comes from, and it certainly doesn't matter that the larger media is choosing to focus on Islamism when it comes to that subject.
Agreed here. The focus is usually on Islam because Islamic fundamentalists are commiting most of the atrocities.
I also on other threads took a dim view on other extremist violence, in particular the violent racism perpetrated by the Israelis against the Palestinians. the fact that Palestinians are predominantly Moslem has not prevented me from critiquing heavily actions against them.
Wrexasaur wrote:
I do not believe that anyone has been trolling you in this thread, and in my opinion Dogma has been relatively clear about where he disagrees with you.
Its been clear that he disagrees, but he ignored my commentary and picks on a single word or phrase, misrepresented it very heavily to imply I said something I did not, which you have also done a lot here. Thus basing his critique on something other than what I said.
It didnt help when I was able to prove he had misrepresented my posts that he admitted he hadnt read them, and saw no reason to do so out of petty hatred. To go out of the way to make argument while refusing to read what he critiques let alone mis-read is just childish. Posting replies at that point is futile.
Anyone who says 'he said this and I disagree', this being something clearly illogical but not what I wrote, only give themselves an illusion of validity. Ilusions can be powerful though possibly this is why you are confused too. It is also possibly why Matty says he agrees with him, and with you. Anyway enough about dogma, from his behaviour he plainly isnt here to actually help the discussion.
On this note I find it odd what Matty wrote saying he agreed with your points of view when your principle principle points of view has been that there is inadequate proof of a danger of Islamic fundamentalism. Correct me if I got this wrong, but I can quote enough of your posts that will make it fairly clear this is what you have been saying. In any case this is categorically different to what Matty has been saying quite consitently. Perhaps he just doesnt want to be seen agreeing with a Christian too often, he alone can tell us.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Your answer so far is to suggest that no amount of statistics is good enough, but if you double source things become more reliable (?).
You can only come to that conclusion if you wont read the thread properly.
how can I possibly be taken to have said 'no amount of statistics is good enough'. Really I gave lengthy examples of the opposidte. I see the value of statistics which why, to reiterate, I gave examples of how useful statistics are. You might recall I mentioned stock control above. I was intending to mention it just once, but the point has not been grasped: Stock control data is controled and this reliable, so much that the results can be applied automatically though a program generating stock orders. By comparing this with the other examples given you see that as one gets further away from a full data set, statistical data becomes less and less reliable.
The data you and I can collect on Islamic fundamentalism is very limited indeed, and we cannot double source it.
Double sourcing is little to do with collecting more data, and a lot to do with corroborating existing data. While what is happening to combat current terror campaigns is classified the conceopts of hw to run an intelligence agency are in the puiblic domain, there are lots of books on the subject.
The big problem you are facing is that terrorists, even if they are not suicuide bombers are often one use items. Partly this is because of statistical methods. Terrorists can generate a pattern that can be detected by their actions, so if a terrorist only does suspicious things once no pattern is created, its the same as an innocent stumbling aroundf doing the same thing, whatever it is. So if the terrorists themselves are trying to avouid actions that will cause a statistical pattern, either by using fresh terrorists or going into deep hiding, and the data the intelligence services do have is precious and very highly classified it becomes very difficult for even the agencies involved to detect patterns, and all but impossible for those on the outside.
In the million to one chance (sic) you did come across genuine intelligence data that piqued your thirst for reliable statistics of what is going on, expect some people to come and ask where you got it.
Anyway back to double sourcing. I mentioned how most staistics are invidiual counts, the counts often have as single source, so even what data you have you dont know if its true. Double sourcing is usually not a seperate count but a seperate witness to the same count. So double sourcing is still one count of information, but its a better count of information.
Doouble sourcing enters the pres from time to time, the lack of double sourcing was the problem behind the 'dodgy dossier'.
Just to muddy the waters further, what if double sourcing is not forthcoming? Terror groups being very fertive may not generate double sourced data for you, only single sources and thus unreliable data. Correlating data that is almost entirely made up of isolated 'maybes' is rather different than your street marketing data, you dont get many or possibly even any clear data points. You can use statistical analysis to determine how many people would like a product from a survey, because x people like one product and y another. An efficient opponent will not provide enough coherent data to make an analytical model from.
Terrorists are evil but not necessarily stupid, if they were Bin Laden would have been found long ago.
Wrexasaur wrote:
What about open source? Is that more or less reliable? How is it that quantitative data showing what I consider to be a flooded justice system invalid? Those are hard numbers, and they illustrate what is quite possibly the implementation of ineffective tools to deal with terrorism. People that have no business being charged with terrorism are charged because officers feel that 'better safe than sorry' applies to every situation one can imagine. When you flood a justice system with nonsense it will get clogged with that nonsense.
Not with you on this one. To avoid hypocrasy, rather than assume I understand you I will ask you to clarify what you are saying.
Wrexasaur wrote:
At this point I am not sure if you are saying that statistics are useless, or that statistics need to be carefully understood in order to see their full value.
The latter is closer, but not quite what I am saying.
Wrexasaur wrote:
You won't see the world through a crystal ball, but I can guarantee that with a basic understanding of what statistics are, and how they work, you can arrive at reasonable conclusions.
Indeed. However even with the most reliable data sets there are still issues.
Wrexasaur wrote:
You cross reference different sources and it takes fething time. You need to invest that elbow grease to get anything out of it.
Also very true. Returning to the stock control example, this near perfect statistical model accounts for sales to generate stock in orders. It does not account for theft or breakage. So even fully automated stock order systems allow for a manual input. As the datas set becaome less and less reliable more and more human input is needed. eventually statistical datas becomes so thin it becaomes little more than as rough guide to an educated guess, or worse something to discard and be replaced by personal expereince. Much of the crime and military intel is handled this way.
Let us talk about crime here as its easier, far easier to get a handle on. Idf a crime is comitted the first thing police do is check ther intelligence data, statistically. Previous convictions/arrests can often lead police straight to a repeat offender. If the offender has a previous unrrlated record they can be shortlisted for questioing, but then more policework is rwequired to fit the suspect to the crime, if that is exhausted and the perpetrator is known to be fresh then your statistics have failed you. Its time to hunt the perpetrator down by hand. Because of the repeat habits of criminals statistics is very useful and shortens the work.
However a competent terror organisation like the IRA wouldnt give you that much information. The Provos towards the end of the Troubles were using terrorists on a strict one use only basis. This meant they were very difficult to spot or catch.
Now you arent looking to catch terrorists, just count them, but the same problem still occurs, a lack of a coherent dataset means that statistical data is very vague, even amongst those who are supposed to have it. Outsiders, not a prayer.
Wrexasaur wrote:
It would be nice if data was better formatted, but if you looked around you might even find sources that amalgamate data from different agencies. You could be the person that combines that information, and if you wanted you could probably work out a way to automatically combine that information. It wouldn't be easy, and you would need to know what you are doing, but yes, it is possible to get a clearer picture of the world than you are offering, through the use of statistics.
While the sinsides of intelligence agencies are closed to us, there are plenty of clues to show this is happening. Many press reports talk of arrests made because of warnings from one foreign government or another. intelligence agencies do share data. How much, how timely and to whome and in return for what are all deeply political questions.
Wrexasaur wrote:
Avoid sources that have a bad reputation, or take that into account when you look at their information. We are looking at an issue that covers the entire globe and involves more than half of it's population if not more. One side did this and the other did that is not a complete view into what is going on here. It is complicated and this subject DESERVES serious study.
Very much so. It does deserve and demands serious study, but by intelligence agencies. Perhaps this is a career path for you, perhaps not.
Not specifically Muslims, Religious believers in general, and you argued for my point there considering nearly everyone you named had religious belief as a one of their motives. Its divisive in general. I specifically said i wasnt just targetting Muslims.
In short peoples faith can make them believe they are doing a righteous thing, they believe they will be rewarded for it, they believe that God wants them to do it, there are many many reasons.
The point is that it is not incidental, religious belief can give you a motive that you might not otherwise have had.
mattyrm wrote:Im not taking Orlanths side here as I fear he is arguing against Islam mainly because he is a devout Christian and as you know I have no time for those guys either!
This is a most unfair comment. The fact that I am a Christian doesnt affect my distain for terrorism, in fact I follow a different path from many Christians.
I have agreed with you over the threat of Islamic terror, I have also disagreed with you over Israeli military policy and treatment of Palestinians. I am anti-oppression not specifically anti-Moslem. Islamic terror has its roots in the desire to oppress us by enforcing Islam upon us, whether or not this goal is workable doesnt mean it is not a general goal of Islamic terrorism in the west.
I have seen a broad range of political opinions from Christians, some very peacenik, some 'equality and diversity' PC dogmatised *cough* CoE *cough*, others have an alarming Zionist tendency: hating all Arabs and supporting Israel blindly.
I dont fit into any of those patterns, my opinions on these issues are largely divorced from my faith. I try to keep my politics secular, I think it is healthier. Many Christians also think the same, they might draw different conclusions but their politicas and faith are not mixed. The only time my religion and politics meet is when the church gets bashed, however this does happen a lot of late. New Labour had it in for the churches and passed a lot of unfair laws that were enforced tightly against Christians but very loosely with other faiths.
mattyrm wrote:Not specifically Muslims, Religious believers in general, and you argued for my point there considering nearly everyone you named had religious belief as a one of their motives. Its divisive in general. I specifically said i wasnt just targetting Muslims.
Well, the Tamils are the most prolific suicide terrorists in the world, and they are primarily motivated by nationalism.
mattyrm wrote:
In short peoples faith can make them believe they are doing a righteous thing, they believe they will be rewarded for it, they believe that God wants them to do it, there are many many reasons.
The point is that it is not incidental, religious belief can give you a motive that you might not otherwise have had.
So can any belief. It isn't as though you are intrinsically British, for example. Yet that Britishness gives you certain motives that you wouldn't have without that nationality.
Kilkrazy wrote:The Tamil Tigers aren't muslim.
The Japanese aren't muslim.
Both of them have done suicide attacks.
Why should muslims be singled out as a suicide bomb threat because of their religion?
Not so much singled out as where our focus is. The Tamils arent after us. WEere we living in Sri Lanka the balance of focus would be the opposite.
Kilkrazy wrote:
Why is being a muslim a motive to commit terrorism?
The IRA aren't muslim.
Jews aren't muslim.
Both of them have done terrorism.
What is it specifically that makes muslims, because of their religion, peculiarly inclined to commit terrorism by the means of suicide bombs? Is it a widespread factor?
Ther IRA were not motivated to perform suicide attacks, they were highly competent but not inclined to kill themselves. Someone who doesnt care if he dies, or worse prefers it is very difficult to stop. We are lucky in that the average nut who commits a suicide bombing is either isolated or badly trained. The masterminds of Islamic terror are not wasted that way.
Jewish terrorism can be very viscious due to Jewish fundamentalism. The passages used to support terror acts, mostly in the boom of Deuteronomy dehumanise non Jews and instil a call to cleanse the holy land with violence. Fortunately this also means Jewish terrorism has a narrow focus. It exists today in the form of extremist settlers, some of which shoot at Palestinians over borders. To their credit the IDF try to crack down on this, but with marked different intensity to responses to shots fired the other way. Some Israelis I know consider extremist settlers a real problem, and due to the inability to employ usuasl methods of dealing with threats one of the trickier threats to handle. These extremists will also target Jews if they are enouygh of a threat to their goals. The assassination of Rabin is a case in point.
Islamic terrorism has the same problems with the fervour of Jewish terrorism, but without any real cut off. if you are not a threat to the greater Israel Jewish terrorists arent interested in you. Howeeverr an Islamic terrorist can considerr just about anyone a target.
The reason is because of the particularly unpleasant teachings that can be interpreted from Islams holy works. Jihad is a real part of Islam, and many Moslems interpret that to mean literal earthly conflict. the rewards for martyrs are also in the Koran, including the promise of 72 virgins. More importantly for us is the promise that those Infidel killed by a matryr in his martyrdom become the servants of the matryr in paradise. This means two things, taker as many people as you can with you, to get a better reward in heaven, also killing Infidel this way is a blessing because at least the Infidel get into heaven. Better to enter heaven as a servant than to enter hell. This is a conscience salve teaching. I dont think concern for victims souls is likely not a serious concern of suicide bombers, in fact one of the 9/11 bombers warned people he was friendly with at flight school not to fly on the day of the attack, so getting people into heaven as servants is not a priority.
There is also a consciencve salve teaching regarding Moslems killeed during attacks. i dont know the teaching for sure but IIRC Moslems who die asa result of somone elses martyrdom get a share of the rewards. this might not be a Koranic teaching as much as a dogma taught to help motivate bombers. In any event many suicide bombers show little problemwith attacking even if more Moslems die than infidel. The marketplace bombings in Iraq are a good example, they would kill many local Iraqis for every western soldier.
It may possibly be the case that the religion is no longer important, just the fighting. With a lower and lower standard set for human life of any creed. This should not be suprising as all the above doctrines are an appalling travesty to many Moslems.
Orlanth wrote:Thankyou Frazzie, this is the very point. Though there is a lot of anti-Islamic feeling in Switzerland (understandable as its the nearest thing they have had to a genuine threat since the 15th century), however the minaret ban was not motivated by racism.
I didnt know there were as few as four minarets in Switzxerland, but then the statistics arent actually necessary or relevant to the value of the arguments. To those living nearby who remember their town before a minaret one minaret is too many. The only guaranteed way to securing their heritage in this manner is a minaret ban. Thus moslems must seek and exception to the ban rather in a situatiion if and where the local population welcomes a minaret, rather than have the 'right' to be build a minaret as the default.
You're right that the ban wasn't motivated by racism. It's more xenopophobia, fear of the alien culture. Putting a ban on minarets is a way of placing a control on that thing, alleviating that fear.
It isn't driven by any desire to keep the towns of Switzerland within a certain aesthetic - despite the postcards Switzerland is a fugly place - outside of the tourist spots the place is just concrete blocks. Nor are the presence of a four minarets any kind of threat to heritage - what does that even mean? How do I have less heritage because there's a minaret over the road?
No, when a party that is dedicated to getting minorities to leave the country submits a referendum targetting a religious minority, in a country famed for it's xenophobia, and that referendum passes, it is fairly silly to pretend that is passed because people thought four minarets were a threat to the aesthetics of a whole country.
'Foreign people GET OUT' sign on mosque as car torched in parking lot
Thursday 21st October, 04:20 PM JST
FUKUI —
A car parked in front of a mosque in Fukui City was torched early Wednesday in what police believe is an arson case, and a sign saying, ‘‘Foreign people GET OUT’’ was posted at the two-story building, police said Thursday.
Police also said that a flag at an Indian restaurant about 1.5 kilometers from the building was set on fire and a similar sign posted in September, they said.
The car, a Malaysian student’s station wagon, was set on fire at around 1:15 a.m. in the mosque’s parking lot, but no one was injured, according to police.
The mosque in the capital of Fukui Prefecture can accommodate up to 80 people to attend services, according to its website.
Mein Kampf has been a very popular book in the middle east for years and their are Nazi themed restaurants here and there. It isn't complicated to understand why an ideology that has bigotry toward Jews built in might be empathized with by people who constantly say that they must drive Israel into the sea. I wouldn't call them Nazi's, but there is a popularity and affinity for elements of Nazi party that is fairly well documented.
Christian churches and Buddhist temples have also been attacked on occasion, no doubt by different groups.
Most Japanese people aren't much concerned about religion, perhaps this was a racially motivated attack.
Not exactly suprising. I know people who have lived in Japan for long periods of time, several of them in different roles in different regions. They ALL say the sme thing. The Japanese can be polite but once they know you are there to stay can be very hostile. The hostility is veiled but vey much present. Thee attacks would embarass Japan, because its not how they protest as a rule, but the sentiment for deep hatred is there. 'foreign' rather that 'religious' is the issue. Japan has always been multi-faith (Buddhism and Shinto) and the Japanese Christian community hase been hanging out in ther mountains for four hundred years, though the latter has always had a rough time.
egor71 wrote:
They may not shout it but they have the same arm spasm
Those are not 'Hitler salutes' but much older salutes that Hitler adopted. Big difference. That salute goes back as far as ancient Rome, and perhaps a lot further.
-warning
