Turkey


Richard Wiig

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The lie is the scapegoating of Islam as if it were a philosophical fundamental.

I'm no fan of Islam, but the root of all evil is not Islam, the oversimplification. Some of the ideas in that religion are bad and some are not.

Anyway, I just had a problem with anti-Semitic bigotry trying to be disguised as rationality and I'm not going to replace it with anti-Islamic bigotry disguised as rationality.

The level of this kind of blindness irritates me and distracts me from my projects. My emotional reaction is probably because I grew up around racism.

The bigotry of this poster (he has a history, which is why he is moderated) and the anti-black racism I witnessed as a child are identical in their cybernetic programming. No matter how far off course the bigot gets from the bigotry, his inner system eventually puts him back on course to keep preaching that the source of all ills is the respective scapegoat.

It is true that Turkey progressed to some extent into modernity. It is not true that Islam waned in Turkey and was suppressed. There was no massive closing of mosques and persecution of Imams. I could go on, but there is no reasoning with this kind of mind.

I repeat, you cannot fight one lie with another and expect it to turn out well.

Michael

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I reflected a bit and I think I know what bothers me about bigotry. I used to think it was collectivism like Rand stated, but I think it goes deeper into a fundamental view of life.

Some people see the world in terms of power over others. One has to be on top of others and that is the anchor of all their morality.

Notice the term above from this poster about Islam: "Turkey did make progress into modernity as Islam waned, or rather, was suppressed."

As I mentioned, "suppressed" is inaccurate. But my view is to identify something correctly FIRST, so I can judge it later. A person with a bigoted outlook seeks to judge FIRST, then look for anything that might support that judgement while ignoring and distorting everything that does not do that.

To him, the world works only in gaining power over people, suppressing other folks, fighting and destroying the enemy.

It's true you sometimes have to do those things, but that is not the fundamental purpose of all human life and morality. But it is for him, even has he protests the contrary. This is borne out by his actions. Especially the constant cybernetic course-correction of his arguments toward scapegoating.

Whenever I see someone say one thing and consistently do another, I go with what they do as the more correct indication of their thinking and intentions.

What happened in Turkey was that political power was removed from religious leaders. If that had not happened, no amout of preaching this or that, or stamping out this or that, or suppressing this or that, would have worked for modernizing social progress. When political power is removed, Islam is a cultural lifestyle more than anything else. Just like any other religion.

So a distinction is important to recognize: Islam the political ideology (Islamism) and Islam the religion (plain old Islam). Islamic societies show these distinctions rather clearly. The influence of both come and go. The political ideology (Islamism) is bad like Communism or Nazism or any other conquer the world political ideology. The religion (Islam) is a set of stories, traditions and moral teachings. The correct thing to do is to stand up to the political ideology (Islamism) by force when it goes too far and to encourage people to reject it, but then let them believe whatever they want to believe (Islam). Maybe argue some with the latter, but in a spirit of peace.

That is the way someone like me sees it.

A bigot sees no distinction between Islam and Islamism. Islam to him is a core evil that will always oppress others. It needs to be stamped out by force, persuasion, bullying, persecution, even genocide if necessary. It doesn't matter. You have to break some eggs to make an omelet. Just so long as the core evil is stamped out by the exercise of power.

Power is fundamental to him in human existence, not freedom and cognition.

He says he fights bullies for freedom, but he really fights to gain power and be the bully himself.

That's what bothers me about bigots.

Michael

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As long as I'm on a roll, let me add something. I heard an Evangelical Christian say recently that he believes the Prophet Mohammed is a false prophet and agent of Satan. This is taught in his religion and he believes it. What's more, he demands the right to say that in public without someone trying to lop his head off.

This is absolutely correct. Here in the USA, this right is set above any particular religion.

When you target a group and you think like I do, it's because the group has organized and waged violent actions (or the credible threat of them) to assault that right (or other freedoms). You should fight any group who does that until the viable imminent threat against that right is defeated. This goes for fundamentalists of all stripes and not just religious folks. This goes for the left, the right, and all in between. It even goes for the press and the government. (Especially the government...)

After you protect that right against attack, you let people go about their business. It doesn't matter if you find their views abhorrent. People have the inalienable right to cuss at each other.

This is a different attitude than trying to stamp out a scapegoat or banish certain kinds of thinking from the minds of others, i.e., mind control.

The moral bar is higher for people like me. But the virtue is higher, too.

Tribalist bigots have it easy in mental work. There's us. There's them. We good. They evil. We kill them before they kill us. Power power power... Control control control... Uga uga...

I hold an anti-Islamic bigot is the same low-level philosophical animal as the Islamist jihadist who cuts a stranger's head off for denigrating his religious icons. They are identical to each other in fundamentals, especially in their corrupt perverted epistemology, and only differ in surface details.

Michael

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Sure, Muslims were free to go to the mosque, but that doesn't mean that Islam wasn't suppressed. Islam is much more than simply going through the motions of gathering at mosques. It is ultimately about domination and submission. The military was the bulwark that held Islam in check in Turkey. That bulwark is now gone. We shall see where things go from here. The protests look massive, so hopefully the opposition is too strong.

Anyway, as for my supposed bigotry. It's like saying that someone is a bigot for opposing Nazism or Socialism, or any other belief system.

Even if you separate Islam and "Islamism", false dichotomy that it is (the jihadists claim they are practicing Islam, not Islamism, and they refer to Islamic texts to back their actions) I would oppose both. I oppose religion full stop, so that necessarily means Islam.

If that is bigotry in your eyes, then I have no problems with being a bigot in your eyes.

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Even if you separate Islam and "Islamism", false dichotomy that it is (the jihadists claim they are practicing Islam, not Islamism, and they refer to Islamic texts to back their actions) I would oppose both. I oppose religion full stop, so that necessarily means Islam.

If that is bigotry in your eyes, then I have no problems with being a bigot in your eyes.

Blah blah blah.

A real paragon of rationality you are.

The way you do it is bigotry in my eyes. So go ahead and get your jollies.

I'm not going to keep this particular discussion going. Go preach your garbage where you don't have to deal with me.

Michael

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Here is a very good exposition of the issue, and I can't believe Bill Maher was the one who did it (sorry, the video does not embed):

Maher To Defender Of Islam: Equating Christianity And Islam "Liberal Bullshit"

Real Clear Politics Video

Maher is absolutely correct that we are not back in history, where he agrees that Christianity would have been the bigger problem, but living now in the present, where Islam is.

His approach, it is true, is to condemn all religions and look down his nose at anyone of faith. But he has the virtue of wanting to make obvious distinctions.

In other words, he does not equate Islam in a contexless manner as the source of mankind's main evil forever and ever amen, but instead, he views Islam as it is currently practiced as dangerous to the rest of society in its approval of violence. And even then, there are only specific things he finds dangerous. I've heard him speak of this before, so I know one of the things he thinks needs to be changed in Islam is the passivity of Muslims to accept atrocities carried out in the name of Islam without condemning it or speaking out.

I agree with all this.

I don't agree with bigotry.

There's a huge difference between identifying problems in order to implement solutions for bad things, and scapegoating a broad target so you can try to lather people up to destroy it sight unseen.

One is the exercise of reason. The other is blind hatred.

Bill Maher may be many things I find repugnant, but he is not a bigot.

Michael

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Maher has pointed out The Problem. Main stream Christianity (which does NOT include abominations such as the WBC) and Judaism have largely detoxified themselves. By that I mean, they have found a mode of operation that does not put them in mortal opposition to the secular order in society. The Mainstream Churches and the Jewish Congregations manage to operate very nicely without foisting their religions peculiarities on the rest of society.

In places outside the United States the above is NOT true of Islam. In many of the Islamic nations when Jihadis or other ultra-Islamic parties come to power they immediate impose their wills on the non-Islamic members of society and even on Islamic parties which are not of the sect of the Muslims that have come to power. Islam has existed since 622 c.e. (nearly 1400 years) and they have yet to detoxify themselves. Even in the United States which has a hands off relation to religion and churches the moderate Muslims are outwardly law abiding (that is good) but there is a hidden layer of sleeper cells allied to Jihadi Muslims who plot to do violent and illegal things to the U.S. both here and abroad. Think back to the first attack on the WTC in 1983. That was cooked up in Newark N.J. by a sleeper cell of Mujihadin.

It is absolutely necessary for the so-called moderate Muslims to take strong, visible and public steps to detoxifying their practice of Islam. In particular they should reveal any sleeper cell activity, even if it involve their own relatives. If they do so, we need no longer fear that they are fifth column in the United States. It would have helped a great deal if immediately after the outrage of 9/11 if Moderate American Muslims had organizing a Million Moderate Muslim demonstration in public clearly condemning the outrageous act. But no such demonstration was forthcoming.

If a Jew, acting on behalf of Israel or any violent Jewish group (I do not know of any, but they might exist) conspired to commit or committed an illegal act against U.S.A. I would expect his family to reveal the matter forthwith. I would expect public condemnation of the act by other Jews. There was a doctrine developed among the Ashkenazim during the Middle Ages concerning how Jews in the dispersion should act. The doctrine is dinat malachutah, din. The law of the domain is the Law. Jews are religiously obliged to obey all proper laws made in the domains in which they dwell in dispersion. The only exception are laws compelling sexual immorality or laws requiring a Jew to commit murder. Other than that, Jews are hayov -- religiously obligated to be law abiding citizens of the domain in which they dwell.

I wish the Muslims in America would formulate a din- a judgement like that. Then we could all get along better and sleep more peacefully.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Bob,

I agree with you on the big picture, but disagree on some details. No biggie.

I believe Islam is going through a detoxification process right here in the USA. Right here is where it is starting.

It takes a long time for the the adults and elders in a religious culture that sanctions violence against outsiders and sinners to abandon the feeling of power this brings since they learned this was a moral good. Suddenly it's bad. Why? They get confused and insecurity makes them feel threatened. They'll keep their power rather than trust strangers, thank you.

Also, this process is fraught with lots of internal bickering and strife, upheavals, coups, and so on. We are seeing it right now.

You are correct that a demonstration of outrage from the Muslim community at the 9/11 attacks would have helped, but I believe USA Muslims are getting to a point where they will do that as an honest expression of their beliefs should something similar occur in the future. The cultural detoxification is just taking it's own sweet cross-generational time.

I hold that this will spread to other countries once it becomes the mainstream Muslim attitude here in the USA. It's hard for Islamists to keep selling the idea to their people that the USA is the Great Satan when some of them notice that there is a healthy Islamic culture within its borders at the same time.

In fact, the detoxification process is much more fermenting and complicated than bigots would have you believe. (btw - You, to me, are not a bigot.) See here for some interesting recent statistics.

Notice that people who simply point the finger never talk about the religious elements of change. But those are some of the fundamentals that need to change for the process to unfold. For instance, in those statistics I linked to, here in the USA 56% of Muslims believe people of other faiths can go to Heaven. I seriously doubt this was the case not too long ago.

I believe that kind of idea (and other similar ones) has to take root before the violence that is now sanctioned in that culture will be seen as evil by the Imams and taught as such.

The good news is that idea will spread to other countries. It can't help not to spread as the older people die off and the younger ones become adults. So change is slow and often tempestuous, but the detoxification process is moving in the right direction.

This, however, will never be true for those committed to instant gratification, especially cowards and bigots.

And, of course, we in the West should not be stupid about the actual danger a religion that sanctions violence is right now. We need to meet violence with overwhelming responses of force. And cunning with overwhelming vigilance. Like Reagan said, "We win. You lose." That has to be our attitude. I fully agree with that. And I hold it's possible to be that way without becoming a bigot.

In short, the situation is a mess and we are smack dab in the middle of the change, but detoxification is happening to Islam.

Michael

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Inshallah, maybe you right. We shall see.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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