Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Rage and fear.

Anti-EU support is correlated with low educational attainment.

Say what you really mean. If you don't support the EU you're a thicko right?

There is the assumption amongst the Guardian set that anyone voting to leave was a knuckle dragger or far right or both.
Its easier than facing the arguments.

Kilkrazy wrote:No, of course not, you only need to look at Boris Johnson to see that some very clever people are anti-EU.

That said, it is true that the average educational attainment of anti-EU people is lower than that of pro-EU people.

To the extent that educational attainment reflects intelligence, this would indicate that considered as a generality, the anti-EU block has somewhat less capability to research and analyse information using objective data such as immigration flows, employment statistics, and the like.

I would argue that this means such people are more prone to being misled into blaming immigrants for economic problems rather than the after-effects for the global economic crisis.

Anti-EU people in the UK and France agree that one reason for leaving the EU is that uncontrolled immigration from EU countries damages the employment prospects of natives, thus, we must regain control of our borders.

When we look into immigration statistics for the UK and France, we find that the UK has experienced proportionately more immigration than France, and both countries have about the same proportion of EU immigration compared with non-EU (namely, that less than half the immigrants are uncontrolled EU citizens.) Despite this, the UK now has a lower unemployment rate.

It is difficult to square these facts with the view that uncontrolled EU immigration is a major driver of unemployment.

Is it true that le Pen said something to the effect of 'France will ruled by a women, and it'll either be me or Merkal?'

Very clever.

 sebster wrote:
The issue is one of scale, how many people are negatively impacted by the issue. A minute percentage of Muslims commit to killing apostates, compared to a much more widely accepted treatment of women*

But the consequences of Muslim willing to kill apostates, or other, less extreme acts in the same vein, does impact a LOT more people than just open apostates, or even closed apostates, in how it frames the whole public debate around matters of religion and society.

 sebster wrote:
Did her plagiarism come up?

No, I don't remember anything about it. His main attack was that she had no real project to speak of, and no idea how to do things beside making empty promises.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 sebster wrote:
The issue is one of scale, how many people are negatively impacted by the issue. A minute percentage of Muslims commit to killing apostates, compared to a much more widely accepted treatment of women*

But the consequences of Muslim willing to kill apostates, or other, less extreme acts in the same vein, does impact a LOT more people than just open apostates, or even closed apostates, in how it frames the whole public debate around matters of religion and society.

...

You are helping to frame the debate.

I don't understand what you mean, Killkrazy.

There has been some initiative for people who hate Macron but hate Le Pen even more, to all vote only after 5PM, because abstention is measured at 5PM and then at the closure of the polls. I don't care about it, but my brother, who charge me to vote on his behalf because he won't be in France on Sunday, wants me to do it ^^.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I don't understand what you mean, Killkrazy.

There has been some initiative for people who hate Macron but hate Le Pen even more, to all vote only after 5PM, because abstention is measured at 5PM and then at the closure of the polls. I don't care about it, but my brother, who charge me to vote on his behalf because he won't be in France on Sunday, wants me to do it ^^.

Huh? What's this 'head fake' abstention thingy?

The more I look at this the more I realise that Marine Le Pen can win this election.
I might even speculate she is supposed to.

I continue to be puzzled at this idea that Le Pen has a chance because the polls showing her 20 points down don't matter. The argument seems to be that the pollsters got Brexit and the US presidential elections 'wrong', therefore we should ignore the polls. Except the polling error in Brexit was about 4%, in the US it was somewhere between 0 and 1% (the issue there was false confidence among some analysts, who failed to consider that a lot of the marginal states might move to Trump in a correlated fashion).

So the argument ends up being 'the pollsters were wrong by a couple of points in a couple of elections, therefore they might be wrong by 20 points in this one'. Which is a pretty silly argument, to be frank. Polls frequently miss the final result by 1, 2 or even 3 points. Any election within 3 points really can go either way. But outside of that results start getting exceedingly rare, the number of results were polling aggregates were wrong by 10 points is extremely rare, the number that were wrong by 20 points is much more rare. And when such extreme outliers happen, they are typically in smaller elections, where the smaller number of voters and smaller number of polls makes estimating even harder. Seeing such a result on a national stage would be amazing.

So while it might happen, it would be a once in a lifetime kind of thing. The idea that people are saying it is reasonably probable, or even that Le Pen is favoured, seems very foolish to me.

 whembly wrote:
Naw man... I responded after Galas stating I was wrong, but the mod said it wasn't French politics so I edited it out.

Cool.

---as my contribution to French elections...

Le Pen did say to Macron something like ”Don’t play the student – teacher game with me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not my thing.”.

It is an interesting political puzzle, what to do when your political opponent is saying stuff that makes no sense, once you know the most basic parts of the issue? If you stop to explain the things they don't know, then you likely end up sounding like you're patronising the candidate, which in turn makes you sound elitist and antagonises your opponent's base. The Remain team in the UK struggled with this. Al Gore famously struggled with this. Funnily enough I'd say it's the one thing that Clinton did well in her campaign, in the debates she really hammered Trump on that nonsense. Of course, Trump was a much easier target because his nonsense was much more lazily constructed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
But the consequences of Muslim willing to kill apostates, or other, less extreme acts in the same vein, does impact a LOT more people than just open apostates, or even closed apostates, in how it frames the whole public debate around matters of religion and society.

Having a geo-political debate reframed by single acts of highly public violence is bad, but it is nothing at all like women being unable to leave the house unattended, or afraid to speak out about being raped out of fear they'll get the blame.

No, I don't remember anything about it. His main attack was that she had no real project to speak of, and no idea how to do things beside making empty promises.

Interesting. Thanks.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I don't understand what you mean, Killkrazy.

There has been some initiative for people who hate Macron but hate Le Pen even more, to all vote only after 5PM, because abstention is measured at 5PM and then at the closure of the polls. I don't care about it, but my brother, who charge me to vote on his behalf because he won't be in France on Sunday, wants me to do it ^^.

What I mean is that Islamic murders of apostates is a minor issue even in hardcore Muslim countries such as Pakistan, compared with the general run of murders for other reasons. Therefore, to pick it out as a special feature of Islam that should be of particular concern to French people is framing the debate.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I don't understand what you mean, Killkrazy.

There has been some initiative for people who hate Macron but hate Le Pen even more, to all vote only after 5PM, because abstention is measured at 5PM and then at the closure of the polls. I don't care about it, but my brother, who charge me to vote on his behalf because he won't be in France on Sunday, wants me to do it ^^.

What I mean is that Islamic murders of apostates is a minor issue even in hardcore Muslim countries such as Pakistan, compared with the general run of murders for other reasons. Therefore, to pick it out as a special feature of Islam that should be of particular concern to French people is framing the debate.

The victims of mass slaughter in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan and the states plagued by Al Shabob would like to have a word with you.

The victims of mass slaughter in Europe, the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc etc ad nauseum, would like to have a word with you.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The victims of mass slaughter in Europe, the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc etc ad nauseum, would like to have a word with you.

False equivalence. You typed "in those countries." Who do you think ISIL, the Taliban, and Al Shabob are?

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The victims of mass slaughter in Europe, the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc etc ad nauseum, would like to have a word with you.

False equivalence. You typed "in those countries." Who do you think ISIL, the Taliban, and Al Shabob are?

Brutal groups but not respective of the whole of Islam any more than the groups who carried out the Rwandan genocide are of Africans.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The victims of mass slaughter in Europe, the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc etc ad nauseum, would like to have a word with you.

False equivalence. You typed "in those countries." Who do you think ISIL, the Taliban, and Al Shabob are?

Brutal groups but not respective of the whole of Islam any more than the groups who carried out the Rwandan genocide are of Africans.

I never said they were, but the whole point of their murder is to put a more enlightened regeme in place by killing or converting everyone they view as a postates - aka everyone who doesn't believe exactly as they do.

Apostate killing is not limited to religion. Communist states and Nazis had no problem killing millions who did get with the program. Pol Pot wacke d1/4 of the population to get them in line with the new vision.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The victims of mass slaughter in Europe, the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc etc ad nauseum, would like to have a word with you.

False equivalence. You typed "in those countries." Who do you think ISIL, the Taliban, and Al Shabob are?

It is not a false equivalence. The framing of the debate is that Islam is uniquely nasty because Muslims like to go about murdering people for "apostasy".

My list of the vile crimes of humanity shows that all sort of races and religions have enthusiastically murdered large numbers of people for all sorts of reasons.

Murdering people is wrong for any reason.

I don't believe anyone has framed "the debate" in that matter except you actually. The French may be saying its more of an issue for them, because Rwanda, Bosnia etc don't mean gak to them,but weekly islamofascist attacks IN FRANCE are.

EDIT: Its the same reason Mexican cartels are a big deal to me, while Islamic terrorism isn't nearly as much. Someone from France would think I am out of my mind (and they would be right...)

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The victims of mass slaughter in Europe, the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc etc ad nauseum, would like to have a word with you.

False equivalence. You typed "in those countries." Who do you think ISIL, the Taliban, and Al Shabob are?

It is not a false equivalence. The framing of the debate is that Islam is uniquely nasty because Muslims like to go about murdering people for "apostasy".

My list of the vile crimes of humanity shows that all sort of races and religions have enthusiastically murdered large numbers of people for all sorts of reasons.

Murdering people is wrong for any reason.

Rwanda was based on ethnicity.
Cambodia based on drug cartels and corruption.
Balkans based on different religious bases (ie Christian vs Islam, not Christian vs ex-Christians).

So yes, you've demonstrated that killing on a widespread scale occurs across the whole world, unfortunately. However, that is not the point being raised by the persecution of apostates. No other religious group (aside from a few select minor cults I imagine) engages in such virulent persecution of those that denounce their own religion.

Christianity has historically been ambivalent on the matter, most notably dating back to how to handle apostates as a result of Roman persecution. For the most part then they were welcomed back to the fold or not actively hunted down. Hinduism is no more aggressive in this area (the faith lacking any widespread consensus on the particulars like that, even the sacredness of cows is not agreed upon in Hindu sects). I couldn't begin to tell you about Buddhism but I assume it is much the same. I'm not saying persecution of apostates didn't occur for these other faiths, it most certainly did, but it is not practised to any noticeable degree in the modern age. Islam remains to date the only major religion where the execution of apostates is not only a clear-cut tenet of the faith, it is one that is acted upon all too frequently.

The scale of these killings may be minor, as sebster points out, the harm is less immediately apparent than the widespread oppression women on the religion face. However, the harm goes deeper than that. The threat of death, not excommunication or being socially shunned, compels even the most half-hearted follower to continue to follow and (where they cannot get away with it) adhere to the tenets of this inherently aggressive faith. For the most part, people are generally free to leave such relics of the past if they feel that it conflicts with their own good nature or liberal values. Not so with Islam.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
I don't believe anyone has framed "the debate" in that matter except you actually. The French may be saying its more of an issue for them, because Rwanda, Bosnia etc don't mean gak to them,but weekly islamofascist attacks IN FRANCE are.

EDIT: Its the same reason Mexican cartels are a big deal to me, while Islamic terrorism isn't nearly as much. Someone from France would think I am out of my mind (and they would be right...)

Rwanda might be an exception actually. Didn't the French and Belgium kind of the duck on that one?
I have no idea whether that's still a concern of the populace though, I imagine it's largely forgotten by the average Frenchie.

The scale of these killings may be minor, as sebster points out, the harm is less immediately apparent than the widespread oppression women on the religion face. However, the harm goes deeper than that. The threat of death, not excommunication or being socially shunned, compels even the most half-hearted follower to continue to follow and (where they cannot get away with it) adhere to the tenets of this inherently aggressive faith. For the most part, people are generally free to leave such relics of the past if they feel that it conflicts with their own good nature or liberal values. Not so with Islam.

I would argue the ISIL/AlQaeda/Al Shabob wars are actually apostate wars, one group seeking to enforce its vision of its faith on everyone else.

Much like the Coke/New Coke wars in the US.

I thought Rwanda was Belgium but I could be wrong.

 Frazzled wrote:

The scale of these killings may be minor, as sebster points out, the harm is less immediately apparent than the widespread oppression women on the religion face. However, the harm goes deeper than that. The threat of death, not excommunication or being socially shunned, compels even the most half-hearted follower to continue to follow and (where they cannot get away with it) adhere to the tenets of this inherently aggressive faith. For the most part, people are generally free to leave such relics of the past if they feel that it conflicts with their own good nature or liberal values. Not so with Islam.

I would argue the ISIL/AlQaeda/Al Shabob wars are actually apostate wars, one group seeking to enforce its vision of its faith on everyone else.

Much like the Coke/New Coke wars in the US.

I thought Rwanda was Belgium but I could be wrong.

what about those of us that buy generic Kroger/Safeway brands?

@Frazzled: Apostate refers to a Muslim that has stopped being a Muslim, not just anyone who is not a Muslim. For example, if I'm not wrong, a Hindu that has practiced Hinduism his whole life would be an infidel, but not an apostate. Whereas a Muslim that announced he was an atheist would be both an infidel and an apostate.

I thought Pepsi led a peaceful protest and the war ended in sunshine and rainbows?

I just double-checked and France actively supported the Hutu regime, being implicated in supply weapons and material in the days leading up to the massacre. They even established a 'safe-zone' for Hutus (both civilians and genocidiares) to seek refuge from the Tutsi retaliation.

 Humble Guardsman wrote:
@Frazzled: Apostate refers to a Muslim that has stopped being a Muslim, not just anyone who is not a Muslim.

I believe that ISIL believes that Msulsims who don't follow their way have stopped being true Muslims.

 Humble Guardsman wrote:
@Frazzled: Apostate refers to a Muslim that has stopped being a Muslim, not just anyone who is not a Muslim. For example, if I'm not wrong, a Hindu that has practiced Hinduism his whole life would be an infidel, but not an apostate. Whereas a Muslim that announced he was an atheist would be both an infidel and an apostate.

Yes and no. An apostate is indeed someone who quits his/her religion but it is not limited to just muslims. A christian who stops being a christian is also an apostate.

 Frazzled wrote:


Apostate killing is not limited to religion. Communist states and Nazis had no problem killing millions who did get with the program. Pol Pot wacke d1/4 of the population to get them in line with the new vision.

Indeed, our respective countries were founded on the back of the genocide of the First Nations.

Humble Guardsman wrote:[
So yes, you've demonstrated that killing on a widespread scale occurs across the whole world, unfortunately. However, that is not the point being raised by the persecution of apostates. No other religious group (aside from a few select minor cults I imagine) engages in such virulent persecution of those that denounce their own religion.

Christianity has historically been ambivalent on the matter, most notably dating back to how to handle apostates as a result of Roman persecution.

Historically, Christians have murdered the everloving feth out of each other over who was really Jeebus's number one fan.

If you thought Islamic terrorism is about Islam, you'd be wrong. If it was about Islam, we'd all be dead as the billion or so Muslims everywhere drowned the world in an orgy of Koran-dictated violence.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What I mean is that Islamic murders of apostates is a minor issue even in hardcore Muslim countries such as Pakistan, compared with the general run of murders for other reasons.

It is part of a dynamic that is a HUGE issue.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Therefore, to pick it out as a special feature of Islam that should be of particular concern to French people is framing the debate.

What French people? While I think everyone should care about it, it doesn't have any specific link with France.
Beside, there is no candidate that has any policy on the subject anyway. Marine Le Pen is firmly in the “I don't give a damn what happens in other countries”, and none of the others ever raised that subject, so…

 Frazzled wrote:

 Humble Guardsman wrote:
@Frazzled: Apostate refers to a Muslim that has stopped being a Muslim, not just anyone who is not a Muslim.

I believe that ISIL believes that Msulsims who don't follow their way have stopped being true Muslims.

No, they believe that those muslims have never been true muslims in the first place. They are not apostates but infidels (kuffar) as far as ISIS is concerned. ISIS, being the Islamic State, views itself as having the authority to decide which muslims are true believers and which ones aren't through the process called takfir (excommunication).

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Humble Guardsman wrote:
@Frazzled: Apostate refers to a Muslim that has stopped being a Muslim, not just anyone who is not a Muslim.

I believe that ISIL believes that Msulsims who don't follow their way have stopped being true Muslims.

No, they believe that those muslims have never been true muslims in the first place. They are not apostates but infidels (kuffar) as far as ISIS is concerned. ISIS, being the Islamic State, views itself as having the authority to decide which muslims are true believers and which ones aren't through the process called takfir (excommunication).

Thanks that is helpful.

 Humble Guardsman wrote:
Balkans based on different religious bases (ie Christian vs Islam, not Christian vs ex-Christians).

While the battle lines eventually broke down in to religious/ethnic lines (and even then not so cleanly), the primary cause of the Balkans war was the exploitation of nationalist tensions to bolster failing political regimes If Milosevic hadn't swung to the hard right to stabilise his government in the post-communist era, it's hard to see how much of the violence would have still happened.

So yes, you've demonstrated that killing on a widespread scale occurs across the whole world, unfortunately. However, that is not the point being raised by the persecution of apostates. No other religious group (aside from a few select minor cults I imagine) engages in such virulent persecution of those that denounce their own religion.

I'm not saying persecution of apostates didn't occur for these other faiths, it most certainly did, but it is not practised to any noticeable degree in the modern age.

There it is again, 'modern age'. It just fething staggers me that people can't see the real relationship. People know that all religions were brutal through history. They know that brutality declined as the host nations transformed in to modern, liberal democracies. And they can see that the countries in which Islam is still frequently brutal are countries that do not have modern, liberal democracies. They see all that and then conclude 'well it's clearly Islam is just more violent'.

It's kind of amazing, really.

That said, I do think you make a good point that the threat of apostate killing has a chilling effect where it occurs, much like the example I gave of women. I still don't think it is on the same scale, but you make a good point all the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
I would argue the ISIL/AlQaeda/Al Shabob wars are actually apostate wars, one group seeking to enforce its vision of its faith on everyone else.

That doesn't make any sense. None of the muslim crazies you mention are fighting for the specific reason of punishing people who used to believe but don't any more, and only for that reason. As they capture areas that is certainly one of the atrocities they are committing, but they're also committing a whole lot more, and fighting the war for a whole bunch of other reasons as well. It's like saying 'I would argue that freeways are for 1994 Toyota Landcruisers'... I mean yeah, that's a thing the freeway is for, but it's also for a whole bunch of other stuff too.

We have a perfectly good term for what ISIS etc have attempted, it's a word we've used so much it's kind of a cliche now, jihad.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The victims of mass slaughter in Europe, the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc etc ad nauseum, would like to have a word with you.

False equivalence. You typed "in those countries." Who do you think ISIL, the Taliban, and Al Shabob are?

Brutal groups but not respective of the whole of Islam any more than the groups who carried out the Rwandan genocide are of Africans.

False analogy. Comparing Islamic terrorism to Islam is fairer than to compare the Rwandan genocide to africans. That would be like saying that ISIS is a problem within 'religion' in general.
There is a case to answer for, Islam has a duty as a religion to disavow the theology of ISIS, a formal excommunication or equivalent is due.
As for the Rwandan genocide there is a corporate responsibility from the Hutu people, there was too much complicity and rabble inflamed killing that a blanket accusation hold some logic, but not all Africans are Hutus.
Notice the difference.

As for the relevance to the French election, there is an argument that the Islamic community doesn't do enough to proactively root out extremism. They need to be very clear that ISIS doesnt act for them and doesnt act for Allah in their theological opinion, any Moslem who doesn't agree with that is part of the problem.
I find it difficult to argue against that logic.

 Orlanth wrote:
There is a case to answer for, Islam has a duty as a religion to disavow the theology of ISIS, a formal excommunication or equivalent is due.

That makes no damn sense.
Like, do you expect the Muslim Pope (there is no such a thing) to bring together all the Muslim Cardinals (there is no such a thing) for a Muslim Conclave (there is no such a thing) before deciding that formal excommunication?

 Orlanth wrote:
As for the relevance to the French election, there is an argument that the Islamic community doesn't do enough to proactively root out extremism.

That makes no damn sense either. If you are talking about terrorism, then it's the counter-intelligence agencies job to work on this problem, not the average french muslim. If you are talking about extremism, well, I have a friend who comes from a pretty extremist Christian family, I never saw any christians trying to root out that extremism, or anyone saying they should.

 Orlanth wrote:
They need to be very clear that ISIS doesnt act for them

So you mean that they should insist that ISIS doesn't kill act for them when they kill them? Maybe they should wear, under their normal clothes, a tshirt that says “I do not approve of ISIS killing me”, and in case they are hit by an ISIS terrorist attack, they just remove/tear out their clothes to show their tshirt as they die?
Who would that be important for? For ISIS? So that ISIS know that the people they kill don't approve of being killed? Yeah that seems important. For people that are completely thick on the issue? Maybe those people should stop being so dense instead.

 Orlanth wrote:
and doesnt act for Allah in their theological opinion

Who the feth cares about theology? spankers I guess.

 Orlanth wrote:
I find it difficult to argue against that logic.

I don't even find any logic here so yeah it's hard to argue.

Yeah, the "Muslims should condemm ISIS every time they do a terrorist attack" isn't really an logical argument to me.

How many people of the left ideologies you see excusing or just shruging away from people like Pol Pot, Stalin, Castro, etc... or the same in the right with their respectives extremist?
Obviously they shoudln't let that extremism root in their communities, but people that expect to see all muslim people whiping their backs like martyrs, praying for the forgiveness of their religion, every time a muslim extremist commits a terrorist attack seems very unreasonable to me, and they apply a double standard that don't apply to other ideologies.

And I say this as a anti religious and anti-Islam guy, but things are fighted with reasonable arguments, not with fallacies.