As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …In this view, it's good to frame the debate in terms of tolerance, but don't wimp out halfway through. Keep going, and insist on tolerance all around. I think that's a better position than meeting intolerance with intolerance. It's more enlightened, it puts us on the path to liberty, and it requires quite a bit more courage.
As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.
August 24, 2010
"But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism."
Writes Christopher Hitchens, noting the naivete of the talk of religious tolerance in defense of the mosque near Ground Zero:
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 218 of 218garage mahal said...
That your Prince has humongous buisness interests with Rupert Murdouch and News Corp? Or that your Prince has given money to the mastermind of the Cordoba Ground Zero Mosque?
GasRage, I've debunked that Jon Stewart/John Cook collaboration 3 times already. Are you really that fucking slow-witted that you'd link to it again?
I cut and paste the same debunking, again:
Here's the New York Post article being referenced:
" Deep-pocketed benefactors who have supported the groups in the past include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal's Kingdom Foundation, the government of Qatar and the World Economic Forum. But some of the foundations have already backed away from the mosque, which is to be called Cordoba House.
The driving forces behind the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf -- a usually media-savvy imam -- and his wife, Daisy Khan, have been tight-lipped on financing. They have said in brief statements that fund-raising has not started, donors have not been identified and that the Kingdom Foundation has no involvement."
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garage mahal said...
That Alwaleed held telethons for suicide bombers?
You pasted paragraph after paragraph from the NY Daily News, GasRage, so it's odd that you didn't include the following line from the linked article:
The Saudi Embassy in Washington said money raised through the telethon would not go to the families of suicide bombers.
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I'm still here laughing at your impotence and incompetence, GasRage.
I guess by now you're used to it.
Oh, and you can crawl back under your rock now.
GasRage, I've debunked that Jon Stewart/John Cook collaboration 3 times already. Are you really that fucking slow-witted that you'd link to it again?
Actually you didn't. All you've cited is that Alwaleed hasn't directly contributed to the Ground Zero Mosque. Or hasn't yet. I never claimed he did. Only that he contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to others projects to the mastermind of the Ground Zero Mosque.
Huge fail. But nice to see your true colors shining through defending, yet again, telethons for suicide bombers. What a loser.
Ritmo wrote:
You can try to "civilize" them, but it won't be on your terms alone. It's their religious culture that needs to confront itself, after all. Not yours.
As for asking them not to exercise their constitutional rights when it offends us, that might sound like a small price to pay for you. Maybe it is.
Merely because they have the right to do something doesn't mean that people wont' have objections to it, or that the right should be excercised in all cases. We have a right to wave flags, yet if we waved a confederate flag in front of a black church, it might be considered offensive. In the interest of building bridges and sparking commonality do you think that such an action would be a good idea? What if the person waving the flag said he wasn't suggesting that he was for putting black people back into slavery, but was merely highlighting his southern pride. Would you even agree that the southern gentleman had a right to wave the flag? But if you did, would you find it an offensive gesture or an example of an outreached hand?
Also, while Muslims are taking their time figuring out what they're all about, like Hamlet trying to figure out how to deal with his murdered dad (To Be or Not to Be) and vacillating back and forth, some muslims are taking it upon themselves to define what it means and attacking us on our soil. So when it starts impacting OUR lives, then perhaps it becomes our business. Islam isn't making up its mind in a vaccuum. The rest of the world has to deal with Islam and it's murderous rage.
Dude, oppose it all you want. Raise objection. Doing it quietly might have been effective. But doing it loudly by having FOX reporting on every brainfart emanating from Palin's Twitter feed so you could rally the troops?
All they wanted was to politicize this.
Construction will still proceed. If there was a way to prevent it I'm sure it could have been done quietly. But this is an election year and Newt Gingrich and his Alaskan teenage beauty queen candidate need ISSUES, dammit and the economy is just way too boring compared to this stuff! It's like election gold! Or oil! Or whatever. You hit the jackpot. You found your groove. Muslims should realize who's in charge here! Wonderful. It should be worth at least a 4% bounce in the polls to the party out of power. Ok.
Now let's let the rest of us get back to running the country. Sarah Palin can remember terms like "mosque" and "ground zero" much easier and without having to write them on her hand than the complicated terminology related to economics and government. I get that. But come on. Enough already.
Ritmo wrote:
Dude, oppose it all you want. Raise objection. Doing it quietly might have been effective. But doing it loudly by having FOX reporting on every brainfart emanating from Palin's Twitter feed so you could rally the troops?
All they wanted was to politicize this.
Construction will still proceed. If there was a way to prevent it I'm sure it could have been done quietly. But this is an election year and Newt Gingrich and his Alaskan teenage beauty queen candidate need ISSUES, dammit and the economy is just way too boring compared to this stuff! It's like election gold! Or oil! Or whatever. You hit the jackpot. You found your groove. Muslims should realize who's in charge here! Wonderful. It should be worth at least a 4% bounce in the polls to the party out of power. Ok.
Aww, it's so sad that this issue became a political one. That's what happens when someone proposes something that is completely unpopular and one side seizes on it because the other side is so adamant about supporting something most people don't want. It's not a political issue because Sarah Palin blogged about it. Sarah Palin blogged about it because it's a political issue. And its not simply Sarah Palin who has problems with this So does Harry Reid, so does Howard Dean. So does David Patterson. And frankly it was YOU and your ilk that is trying to play this politically. How many times have you or Alpha suggested that those against building this mosque want to silence religious freedom of speech? THAT'S not politicizing this? And this could have been handled quietly? Didn't David Paterson propose something to defuse this, which was roundly rejected?
Sorry if you are on the losing side of the argument popularity wise. If that means a bounce so be it. However, it should be noted that your side COULD have defused this by offering rational reasons why this mosque should be built instead of painting all opponents as racists. So, you played your hand and lost. The mosque still may get built but its not going to engender a lot of popularity for you guys.
As to the economy, we can walk and chew gum at the same time, and be assured Newt and Palin can criticize the administration for that too. Because their summer of growth has been one of stagnation and record job losses. Worst economy since Herbert Hoover as John Kerry might say when playing politics with the economy and blaming Bush.
Ritmo belched forth: "And yet, you have no argument for why you think I'm wrong, GMay.
Why is that?"
Because you made a post that contained precisely jack squat. Here, let me quote your nothingness that I referenced:
"God save us all from your ignorant attempts to turn this into another Europe. I mean, I know I should be really glad that Newt and Sarah found a way to intensify their fortunes by abandoning the tolerance that kept American Muslims from becoming as radicalized as they have become in the nationalist states of Europe, but, aww what the hell: Go piss off."
See that? That's a couple hundred words of nothing. Your usual strawmen and projection. If you were capable of composing something worth reading, I guaran-fucking-tee you I'll read every word and respond in kind and in depth.
In skimming the rest of your carpet bombing, I see more of the same - empty screeds devoid of anything remotely resembling a legitimate argument or argumentative technique. In other words, you're a verbose troll.
But you do get style points for coming in on the dead half of a thread and pretending like you told off all those crazy rednecked conservative rethuglikkkans.
Good job dude.
Ritmo said That dialogue between Muslims is the only thing that will have the effect of reining in the extremists - ideologically speaking. Harsh words from the West or any other outsider will be treated in a predictable way. With violence.
Thanks Ritmo for making the case that there aren't moderate Muslims, just Muslims a hairbreath away from becoming violent jihadists because someone from the West used harsh language.
Seems your idea of 'dialouge' is they talk we listen and shut up. Criticism (harsh language) is not acceptable and when they go into violent frenzies it will be our fault.
Ritmo: I know this will disappoint, but they don't have the money for the mosque. They don't even know how much they will need to build it because they don't even have enough money to front the plans and specifications from which construction cost estimates can be derived. Sorry. No dough.
Ritmo wrote:
I know I should be really glad that Newt and Sarah found a way to intensify their fortunes by abandoning the tolerance that kept American Muslims from becoming as radicalized as they have become in the nationalist states of Europe, but, aww what the hell: Go piss off."
Ah, so it's OUR TOLERANCE that keeps American muslims from becoming radicalized. You apparently have a low opinion of both America AND muslims.
But for our tolerance American Muslims would have become radicalized. They are just a hop skip and jump from strapping bombs to themselves and blowing themselves up. Because we're not nice to them. And how are Newt and Sarah not nice to them? They are not supporting a single building project because of where the building project is, BUT wouldn't oppose the building project if it were somewhere other than where they want to build it.
Again, with the lefty view of foreign policy. THEY respond to our policies. THEY can't be motivated by their own beliefs. Was OBL turned into an extremist because we were mean to him (i.e. we stole his lunch money) or did his beliefs cause him to become an extremist?
For all your talk of how we have to respect muslims, you seem to have an awfully low opinion of them, considering you think they are THIS close to going off and killing people at the most perceived slight. Damn, if opposing a mosque causes moderates to become radicals imagine what our opposition to Muslims desire to eradicate the Jews will do. Those muslims are going to go crazy! And it's all our fault.
Further, which side is promoting the idea of multiculturalism? The old idea of the immigration was the melting pot, whereby people coming here become American (they learn the language, they adopt american values etc.) Which is far different than multiculturalism which views such assimilation as bigoted. America is imposing it's culture on people, and forcing them to adopt to it's values. So, if you are against what's happening in Brittain, why would you and the left support multiculturalism? If you don't FORCE musilms to assimilate then they will maintain their own culture, stay amongst their own kind. And as we see, apparently a lot of Muslim culture is simply incompatible with Western values. Who do you propose should bend? You call Europe nationalist, but isn't the problem that Europe was too tolerant and thought that imposing it's culture on it's immigrants meant they were say imperialists?
So, if your side preaches multiculturalism you get Europe. Congratulations liberals. Now, what were you saying about us CAUSING them to become radicals?
AlphaLiberal:
Puberty passes in due time.
How would you know?
Seems your idea of 'dialouge' is they talk we listen and shut up. Criticism (harsh language) is not acceptable and when they go into violent frenzies it will be our fault.
You can put words in my mouth but that doesn't mean I will eat them. Instead I think I might just as easily vomit them out.
Read what I wrote. I have no problem with criticism. The problem is that none of you offer any as intelligent as Hitchens does, though. And that's the point. And that's why I predict what you say will be as ineffective as anything other than an exercise in chest-beating.
How many Muslims read what you write here? How many times did you even bother to ask yourself if you care to ask that question?
Criticism is not just harsh language. If it were, maybe you guys would listen less defensively to everything I post here.
I have no reason to expect Muslims to be less easily offended or turned off than every one of you on this blog. I do, however, expect that the majority of them will listen to reason.
See that? That's a couple hundred words of nothing.
Actually, it was 64. Count them yourself if you don't believe me.
In skimming the rest of your carpet bombing, I see more of the same - empty screeds devoid of anything remotely resembling a legitimate argument or argumentative technique.
GMay, some advice: Try learning how to count, or how to come up with a simple, legitimate observation, before lecturing others on how to argue.
Thanks Ritmo for making the case that there aren't moderate Muslims,
This is not what I said. Not even in the passage you quoted does this come remotely close to what I said.
Perhaps you'd feel more confident in your stance if you didn't have to lie and misrepresent mine in order to take issue with it.
Heh, you got me Champ, I'm a total failure because I didn't count how many words you typed. Your ability to focus on the inconsequential is without peer.
Perhaps when I can construct totally awesome strawmen and project as well as you, I'll be legit in your eyes.
I dunno, GMay. I don't see how the copious number of strawmen that your friends have erected in my honor on this very thread legitimates what they have to say.
Do you?
Oh how quaint, resorting to the "I know you are but what am I?" level of argumentation. It's really more your speed anyway and nowhere near as much as your usual amount of crap to scroll past.
You got the last word here Tiger, I won't be back (that way you can pretend you ran me off.)
Perhaps you'd feel more confident in your stance if you didn't have to lie and misrepresent mine in order to take issue with it.
No lying necessary Ritmo. You said;
Harsh words from the West or any other outsider will be treated in a predictable way. With violence.
If violence is the result from someone using 'harsh words' that doesn't describe a moderate in my boom. Then again, you're a leftist so having low expectations of others is standard.
Nice trying to wiggle out of that one though. Fool.
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