Sign of the Times Middle East Style


Michael Stuart Kelly

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Mike,

Spencer is very clever in how he couches his terms so as to push the hostility buttons of Muslims. But it's a game.

Imagine someone telling a fundy Objectivist that Ayn Rand would be acceptable to him if only the Objectivist admitted that she was dishonest in her personal accusations, a slut and a manipulator, and she was an sappy clueless idiot for using a brutal murderer as a role model for a hero when she was young. A case could be made for all of these positions on a factual level, but saying it that way is asking for a fight.

Now notice that the person saying it can claim that all he wants is to be objective.

Would you expect anyone in the Objectivist world, much less any fundy, to go along with him?

(btw - I don't believe this about Rand with the load these words convey. But I do not deny the facts they are based on.)

Spencer does something very similar in how he talks about Islamic culture. He essentially tells Muslims to renounce the foundations of their culture rather than telling them to assimilate new ideas. In my experience, reasonable Muslims are open to the second. But they find the idea of an outsider telling them which parts of Islam they must renounce extremely offensive. Logically, both can lead to the same place, but one will work and the other won't.

This is a long topic, but that is one of the blatant rhetorical devices Spencer uses. He also oversimplifies Islamic ideas almost to distortion when he does this, just to twist the knife.

He is intelligent, so I believe he knows what he is doing and does it on purpose. He's just playing a game to cover hatred and make it not look like hatred.

About Alan Dershowitz, I read the book and saw the documentary of The Case for Israel. That's the kind of approach I adhere to. Facts, goodwill and common sense. I have never really looked for him online for much else, though. If you Google his name, there are lots of videos. If you do a Google video search, choose the "Long (20+ min.)" filter and you will get the best ones from what I just saw.

I had something else I was going to suggest for you, but it slipped my mind. If I remember it, I will post it.

btw - One of the most serious intellectual problems I see with Islamists is that the Qur'an is written in the present tense. If you ever mess with hypnosis, you will come across many practitioners who hold that the subconscious responds the strongest to the present tense--to a vast desgre over other tenses. Some hypnotists demonstrate this to prove it.

So if this is true (and I believe it is), if an Islamist mentor has, say, a young person he deems to be potential suicide bomber, he will be able to use parts of the Qur'an to brainwash the victim by making the victim recite certain passages over and over in a trance-like state. Then the mentor "explains" the meaning to him.

I mention this to show you just one of the isolated intellectual problems that needs study and exposure, but gets tragically lost in the "Islam is evil" shouting. I have no doubt sincere moderate Muslims of goodwill would feel repugnance at the Qur'ran being used that way if it were brought to their attention in an objective, but friendly fashion.

Michael

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Mike. The Imam from Auckland's largest mosque is a sufi from Pakistan, and he's recently been chased out of New Zealand for posting clips on Youtube that amounted to promoting jihad against non-muslims. Michael is shooting the messenger here as opposed to the message. All he needs to do is address the message and show where Mr Spencer is wrong, but he doesn't do that. I find that strange for someone who is supposedly an objectivist.

P.S. It's especially weird that Objectivists put engergy into making apologies for Islam rather than actually fighting the evil bilge. Mr Scherk knocks Pamela Geller as a paranoid loon, but she has more energy in the cause for freedom than I've ever seen from William Scherk.

Mike,

Be careful with agenda-driven people like Robert Spencer

Edited by Infidel
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I realize Robert Spencer comes across as anti-Muslim and agenda-driven

If you actually take the time to get to know Mr Spencer, you'll realise he is not anti-muslim whatsoever. I challenge you to produce just instance of him being anti-muslim. Also, as to his agenda, which many here seem to know about, just what is this agenda you are talking about?

Edited by Infidel
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It's especially weird that Objectivists put engergy into making apologies for Islam rather than actually fighting the evil bilge. Mr Scherk knocks Pamela Geller as a paranoid loon, but she has more energy in the cause for freedom than I've ever seen from William Scherk.

You are so sloppy in your thinking, Ayatollah. Here's what I wrote about you and your reliance on third hand and biased sources:

-- Richard's reliance on Pamela "Obama is a Muslim" Geller is thrilling.

-- In the story she rants about a 'jihadi revolution taking place in Tunisia,' and excerpts another paranoid retread from the folks at Jihad Watch

-- Rely on the loon Geller, offer no links, declare "I didn't check its validity" and "I don't know a hell of a lot about Tunisia."

You are a shoddy reporter, a retailer of third-hand conspiracy-mongering. You also are lazy, lazy beyond belief, never ever give a link to a story you cite -- even when prodded -- and most always get the underlying story wrong in the all-important details.

Now, let's check your brief report for its accuracy, shall we?

The Imam from Auckland's largest mosque is a sufi from Pakistan, and he's recently been chased out of New Zealand for posting clips on Youtube that amounted to promoting jihad against non-muslims.

Well, no link, no dates, no names, no nothing. Standard Wiigish MO.

Yes, Mufti Siddiquei has left Auckland, after a raucous meeting of his congregation, having lost the confidence of his congregation and having had his immigration sponsorship revoked by his congregation. A story that is interesting and concerning and worthy of study and followup, but not the story you told. You appear to accept only the most lurid allegations, strip away all context or anything that adds contrast to your hysteria, hide the origins of the originating story and then make shit up (as with your 32% canard).

Thanks for turning what could have been an good discussion (the dangers of hardcore Islamism in the context of Arab democratic uprisings) into an stark illustration of your own religious mania.

You had a chance to be reasonable . . . to be an honest and forthright reporter, to counter the impression you were a strictly one-issue crackpot on outreach from SOLO, to add value to discussion. And you blew it. Objectivists respect reason over hysteria, thoughtful analysis over hatemongering, and sustained argument over sloppy regurgitations of religious dicta. Your mania may play well in the demented confines of SOLO, but you will get a bollocking for your bullshit here.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Some here, like me, will have noted that Richard acts out exactly the same lines as those he opposes. He is a perfect mirror image of that which he claims he fears and detests. He has become his own enemy, a little Ayatollah, a fretful and deranged advocate of religious intolerance.

Here, for example, are a few of his public pronouncements on another forum. Read them and weep for his loss of reason, for his poor shuttered mind, for his enclosure within delusion.

Islam is a culture of death with world subjugation on its mind.

The Jihadists with their bombs are visible for what they are, but the ongoing encroachment of Islam through peaceful means is not. The majority of muslims in the west might be peaceful (for now - if you ignore the rioting . . .), but they are working towards exactly the same ends that the violent Jihadists are working towards only by different means.

Islam is contained in the Koran, Hadiths and Sunna, and that has NO commitment to individual rights. They are immutable for all time. Any individual Palestinians, or Syrians, or Iraqi's, or anyotheree's who are pushing for individual rights, are NOT part of Islam. They are apostates for which their punishment is death.

Osama Bin Laden, et al, are not separate from Islam. They are practicing Islam as Islam has always been practiced, and is meant to be practiced.

Do you know that there is no separation between politics and religion in Islam? Islam is all encompassing upon every aspect of life.

The fact that some muslims don’t follow their teaching to the zenith, either because they don’t understand it, or because they are too lazy, or because they want to pretend that’s not really what Islam means, doesn’t alter the menace of what Islam is.

Do you know that it is a central obligation upon each and every muslim to spread Islam until religion is all for Allah? Do you know that? Simply because many muslims do not strap bombs to their waists and blow themselves up, means little.

If you look at Islam – the Qur’an, Hadith and Sira – you will see that it is their duty to subjugate you, the infidel, under Islam. That is a simple undeniable fact. It is all there for you to look at and discover in the Islamic texts.

Islam cannot be reformed, because the Qur’an is the “perfect word of God”. Any tinkering with the perfect word of God is to make it imperfect.

++++++++++++++++++

Anyhow, Ayatollah, carry on. I can't read your bullshit any more. You go on ignore with the other cranks of OL.

Edited by william.scherk
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One of the most important media outlets reporting from Egypt has been restricted by Egyptian authorities. It looks like Mubarak is determined to stay on and repress a little bit more . . . each day brings more death and more chaos and more determination of its people that he give up the throne.

For a backgrounder on the extent of Egypt's security state and the sheer weight of its efforts to control all free expression, see this detailed country report from Freedom House, an international watchdog.** Imagine living under that level of control and then imagine how you might act were you an Egyptian these days.

Egypt shuts down Al Jazeera bureau

Network's licences cancelled and accreditation of staff in Cairo withdrawn by order of information minister.

The Egyptian authorities are revoking the Al Jazeera Network's licence to broadcast from the country, and will be shutting down its bureau office in Cairo, state television has said.

"The information minister [Anas al-Fikki] ordered ... suspension of operations of Al Jazeera, cancelling of its licences and withdrawing accreditation to all its staff as of today," a statement on the official Mena news agency said on Sunday.

In a statement, Al Jazeera said it strongly denounces and condemns the closure of its bureau in Cairo by the Egyptian government. The network received notification from the Egyptian authorities on Sunday morning.

"Al Jazeera has received widespread global acclaim for their coverage on the ground across the length and breadth of Egypt," the statement said.

_______________

** Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world. Freedom House supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights. We support nonviolent civic initiatives in societies where freedom is denied or under threat and we stand in opposition to ideas and forces that challenge the right of all people to be free. Freedom House functions as a catalyst for freedom, democracy and the rule of law through its analysis, advocacy and action.

From Freedom House's FAQ

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The Washington Post published a cogent opinion piece by Elliot Abrams, In the streets of Cairo, proof Bush was right. I hope this gets on Obama's desk today.

For decades, the Arab states have seemed exceptions to the laws of politics and human nature. While liberty expanded in many parts of the globe, these nations were left behind, their "freedom deficit" signaling the political underdevelopment that accompanied many other economic and social maladies. In November 2003, President George W. Bush asked these questions:

"Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?"

[ . . . ]

The regimes of Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak proffered the same line to Washington: It's us or the Islamists. For Tunisia, a largely secular nation with a literacy rate of 75 percent and per capita GDP of $9,500, this claim was never defensible. In fact, Ben Ali jailed moderates, human rights advocates, editors - anyone who represented what might be called "hope and change."

Mubarak took the same tack for three decades. Ruling under an endless emergency law, he has crushed the moderate opposition while the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood has thrived underground and in the mosques. Mubarak in effect created a two-party system - his ruling National Democratic Party and the Brotherhood - and then defended the lack of democracy by saying a free election would bring the Islamists to power.

[ . . . ]

All these developments seem to come as a surprise to the Obama administration, which dismissed Bush's "freedom agenda" as overly ideological and meant essentially to defend the invasion of Iraq. But as Bush's support for the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and for a democratic Palestinian state showed, he was defending self-government, not the use of force. Consider what Bush said in that 2003 speech, which marked the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, an institution established by President Ronald Reagan precisely to support the expansion of freedom.

"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe - because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty," Bush said. "As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export."

This spirit did not always animate U.S. diplomacy in the Bush administration; plenty of officials found it unrealistic and had to be prodded or overruled to follow the president's lead. But the revolt in Tunisia, the gigantic wave of demonstrations in Egypt and the more recent marches in Yemen all make clear that Bush had it right - and that the Obama administration's abandonment of this mind-set is nothing short of a tragedy.

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It was widely reported in the news exactly as I just said it, William. The concgegation was divided, but he was sent packing to Pakistan, and the spokesman for those who sent him packing said it was for his jihadist views. I don't care to, nor have the time to, research every damn thing I read for accuracy, much less trawl large amounts of data looking for links. If someone wants to find it they can google and do their own searching. Just because I didn't do it doens't mean I'm trying to hide anything. If Mike wants to look into the incident further, he will. If it turns out to have been reported inaccurately, then he can come back and tell me civilly and I'd accept that. That's how civil conversations go. Anyway, the essence of my post was Michael's attacking the messenger as opposed to the message. It seems that kind of thing is fine with you so long as it's biased to your worldview.

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Ayatollahs' dictate to people and oppress freedom. I dictate nothing and support liberty. If I was anally retentive I'd say that you were being less than objective. I'm not anally retentive, so I'll just say that you're an arsehole.

Anyhow, Ayatollah, carry on. I can't read your bullshit any more. You go on ignore with the other cranks of OL

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Folks:

Buckle up!

Apparently, Elbaradei is on his way to Tahrir Square, with his father and family members, to demand Mubarak's resignation. The Muslim Brotherhood has agreed to work with Elbaradei to dissolve Parliament.

US administration still clueless as to what to do.

Adam

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Michael is shooting the messenger here as opposed to the message.

Actually I am not shooting anything but the smokescreen.

I'm merely uncovering the message content hidden in the rhetoric and showing how it is conveyed. I believe when hidden messages can be so clearly and consistently detected by showing the rhetorical devices, they are the actual messages the messenger is interested in conveying.

And I find it insulting to the intelligence of the public to say explicitly, "I'm not a bigot," and convey the message of bigotry through everything else. It's a conceptual oxymoron.

The reason so many non-fanatical people think Spencer is a bigot is that they perceive what I do, even if many haven't found the words to express what they perceive.

It's especially weird that Objectivists put engergy into making apologies for Islam rather than actually fighting the evil bilge.

The evil bilge I fight before I get to any body of thought is incorrect identification used as a tool to spread hatred.

It's an epistemological thing at root.

Michael

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Egypt is ruled by the military. After Mubarak goes someone acceptable to the demonstrators will take his place (or they'll keep at it until they get that), then the military will reassert itself behind the scenes. IranII isn't going to happen in Egypt.

--Brant

place your bets here

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Egypt is ruled by the military. After Mubarak goes someone acceptable to the demonstrators will take his place (or they'll keep at it until they get that), then the military will reassert itself behind the scenes. IranII isn't going to happen in Egypt.

--Brant

place your bets here

Brant:

Yes that would be the smart money wager.

However, that depends on whether the Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated the military to any degree. I cannot get any read on that. I doubt they have which will make your scenario the most probable.

I still believe that this is erupting because of the economic impact of the price of the staple of bread which has skyrocketed up to a 37% percent increase which devastated the mass of Egyptian families which were living on the margin as is.

This is from a 2008 article:and November 2010:

"Egypt struggles to fight inflation, bread shortage and here food inflation:

Egyptians are living through the worst food crisis in a generation, caught in a storm of stagnant wages, rising global food prices, rampant corruption, and a quickly advancing inflation rate that hit 16.4 per cent in May."

Adam

getting ready for the bread and circuses in Egypt

Post Script:

SNL had a funny skit on Mubarak last night making a satirical reference to how thick headed Egyptians are to reading signs! Yep, think Moses!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ3aYCANTK8

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Michael is shooting the messenger here as opposed to the message.

Actually I am not shooting anything but the smokescreen.

I'm merely uncovering the message content hidden in the rhetoric and showing how it is conveyed. I believe when hidden messages can be so clearly and consistently detected by showing the rhetorical devices, they are the actual messages the messenger is interested in conveying.

But you haven't done that. To take just one example of how off the mark you actually are:

Mike,

Be careful with agenda-driven people like Robert Spencer. I don't think it would be a good idea to go to, say, one of Ahmadinejad's advisers for information on the Jewish faith or the history of Israel. So why go to an Islam hater for information on Islam? Spencer is a walking-talking agenda seeking corroboration and proudly so, not a person seeking "let the facts fall where they may" kind of understanding.

Mr Spencer doesn't merely give his own opinion on events, he goes to the actual Islamic sources themselves. He's merely repeating what Islamic Scholars say. You could actually deal with that material, but you don't. You attack Mr Spencer's character. A clear case of attack the messenger.

And I find it insulting to the intelligence of the public to say explicitly, "I'm not a bigot," and convey the message of bigotry through everything else. It's a conceptual oxymoron.

If people see bigotry in my comments then it's because they're seeing those comments through a distorting PC lens. I don't prejudge muslims - other than to know that they are to some unknown degree religious - I take them as individuals to be judged on their own individual merit.

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Here's something that blew up in the face of an actual PC dude (instead of this la-la-land stuff of the Anti-Islamic Brigade)--a CNN reporter who was trying to put a spin on things.

He was right in the middle of Muslim Brotherhood country and spinning the story that the Egyptians wanted Mubarak out because they think he's a traitor and that they wanted President Obama to support the Egyptian people more.

What he got was an interview with a few Egyptians (amidst all the shouting) saying nobody wants Egyptians to have freedom because if they get freedom, they will go to Israel and destroy it.

:)

Man, did that dude look nonplussed by the end of the report.

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The Muslim Brotherhood has a strong component of pure Nazi leftover antisemitism qua antisemitism. But you won't hear many people in the media say that.

All you have to do is ask the Muslim Brotherhood folks. They're not hiding it. They'll scream it in the face of reporters, just like they just did. Ask them more and they'll recommend The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, make homages to Hitler and the whole shebang. I've seen it and all anyone has to do is look it up. It's a shame this reporter didn't go into this stuff. I have no doubt he would have looked even more nonplussed with the answers.

CNN will probably slink back into the murk of the party-line Obama wants broadcast and forget all about Egyptian freedom meaning hatred and destruction of Israel to the friendly folks in Alexandria..

Michael

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Michael,

It's a bit of be careful what you wish for... These are not people who understand democracy, or freedom, for that matter - and for a good reason: they haven't had it, ever.

As has happened in many African countries, 'freedom' and democracy have been abused and misused for at least the first generation.

The guy shouting off about the USA supporting Mubarak for his support of Israel, is not necessarily Muslim Brotherhood by any means.

Please don't think that this sentiment only comes from some marginalised fundamentalist groups.

It's common, as a knee-jerk rationalization from many Muslims I've met, that Israel somehow stands in their way. It is their whipping-boy for any wrong, real or imagined.

This looks like the end of an era, and with Mubarak going, it's worrying for Israel.

Another pragmatic alliance with the devil meets a sticky end - not that that's the first time in recent history, as you know.

Tony

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Tony,

Unlike some others in this debate, I believe your views have come from what you have seen with your own eyes. That, to me, is a whole other ball game. And I believe if you saw other things with your own eyes, you would not deny what you saw.

However, what I have seen with my own eyes (along my life and among people I have known) does not correspond to the wholesale judgments you make. I have seen some of the stuff you talk about, but I have also seen other stuff--Muslims who do understand freedom and long for it.

For an obvious example, just by watching TV and listening to Egyptian commentators, I don't believe that reporter's result would have been the same in Cairo--unless he fell into a pocket of Muslim Brotherhood folks protesting.

Incidentally, I don't attribute the violent form of antisemitism in the Islamic world to the Muslim Brotherhood, although they practice it. I attribute it to leftover Nazi influence. Where you find that influence you will find rabid antisemitism. In other places, I have seen a live and let live attitude among Muslims toward Jews.

I do agree that where there is a strong penetration of antisemitic media, the average Muslim will have feelings against Israel. But I also believe that in many of those places if you remove the ringleaders, this sentiment will wither.

So I submit that the Arab world is far more diverse than people traditionally present it in these discussions.

Michael

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If he had a psychological drive to commit violence against others, then he found a sanctioning of it in Islam. If Christianity offered it to him then he wouldn't need to convert would he. I don't know why you even entertain the idea, given the overwhelmingly obvious difference between the two. Whether he was made by Islam, or psychologically prone to violence prior to Islam, is irrelevant. Islam sanctions the violence either way. Islam is the perfect creed for every would be murderer and thug. That is the reality of it.

This is correct.

I thought about Bob K's remark on detoxification and it's an interesting thought. But I don't agree.

Why is it that the Michaels and Sherks aren't defending the "good" Nazis. Surely not every German with a swastika on their uniform was a bad person? Why is it that denouncing a body of thought centered around a warlord mass-murderer is OK in one instance, but bigotry in another?

Don't insult Nazism, the skinheads might get upset? Garbage. Poisonous thought is poisonous thought. The ONLY meaningful difference between the two at this point is simply that the extremist Nazis had opportunity to kill millions of Jews and the extremist Islamists haven't had the opportunity yet. Rest assured they will take it if they get it, without hesitation.

I am quite surprised that more people don't get this. Well, let's see what happens after Tel Aviv gets nuked.

Bob

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Is someone a "bad person" if they come from a muslim country? No, but you can't be a devout muslim and be a good person. You simply can't. No more than you can be a devout communist and be a good person. "Good" people from the middle east are "good" to the extent they reject Islam.

This is a perfect example of normative before cognitive reasoning.

And that's the root of bigotry.

Michael

Michael:

Not to mention flat out ignorant and repulsive.

Adam

Then you must concede that mostly all Nazis were good people. My position on this is that at the very least, the hard-core Nazis were indeed scumbags.

Your position is untenable. Were the hardcore inner-circle Nazis scumbags or not?

If so, you agree with me. If not, well...

Bob

Edited by Bob_Mac
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Is someone a "bad person" if they come from a muslim country? No, but you can't be a devout muslim and be a good person. You simply can't. No more than you can be a devout communist and be a good person. "Good" people from the middle east are "good" to the extent they reject Islam.

This is a perfect example of normative before cognitive reasoning.

And that's the root of bigotry.

Michael

Michael:

Not to mention flat out ignorant and repulsive.

Adam

Then you must concede that mostly all Nazis were good people. [No, I do not have to concede that mostly all Nazis were good people] My position on this is that at the very least, the hard-core Nazis were indeed scumbags.

Your position is untenable. Were the hardcore inner-circle Nazis scumbags or not? [I do not accept your prophylactic argumentative box]

If so, you agree with me. If not, well...[I kind of see you more as a diaphragm over the cervix of rational argument]

Bob

Bob:

Would you care to make an argument now?

Adam

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Iraq was ruled by a brutal thug, but a basically secular guy. The U.S. went in and kicked him out. The U.S. is manufacturing its own enemies--a victim of bear-baiting, which is what 9/11 was really all about. This aspect of this country's self-destruction didn't have to happen, but it and other aspects are happening. Collectively it's an open question whether the country has to go splat. The primary threat of Islam is to Europe and it's demographic. Israel's primary foreign threat is Iran, not any religion. The more you overtly fight Islam the more powerful it becomes for you are pulling it into this fighting context. Its warriors feast on the fighting and Islam's sanction. The U.S. has done so much damage in this regard, it cannot be vitiated for several generations.

--Brant

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Adam,

Nazism existed for a short time and did not survive. Islam has existed for centuries spanning oodles of civilizations. And Islamic culture has provided benefits and wars to mankind, just like every other human culture that has lasted centuries.

What you do about that if you are a hater?

Blank-out.

The hater says Islam and Nazism are practically the same thing as he blanks out massive chunks of history.

btw - Do you see what happens when you try to isolate the problems in a situation like this and say something that the haters could agree with? They come out and consider it a sign of weakness or something because they demand bigotry or nothing--and dare you to call it bigotry. Just like any Islamist group. I wonder if a hater is even reachable with reason... Hardcore Nazis weren't and virulent antisemitic haters sure aren't. Discussing with them is the same as with these people who deduce reality from a book while refusing to look at reality. I haven't tried discussing with Nazis, but I have with antisemitic people. It's the same scapegoating crap. Just the side changes.

Michael

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Michael:

I am, unfortunately, less and less surprised by the attempts to draw a person into the semantic of their tiny argumentative box. The lack of argumentative skill is no longer a surprise to me.

I have never "understood" prejudice. I have experienced it. I have seen it in action with all its negative results, bur I have never accepted understanding how or why anyone would want to be a bigot.

As you probably are aware, sometimes I will bait someone with a statement and the knee jerk ad hominem response is, frankly hysterical.

Unfortunately, in the real world, kids get killed or seriously damaged by bigotry and prejudice,

I no longer want to give it a free ride. I have enjoyed your crystallization of the "bullying personality" because I was at a point where I was willing to tolerate it, but you convinced me that it has to be opposed where ever it rears it ugly nasty face.

Adam

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