Berkely students petition to stop Bill Maher from delivering commencement addres

[Queequeg]

The religious differences between the Saudi monarchy and its followers on the one-hand, and ISIS jihadists on the other hand, are pretty minor.  But they are mortal foes in the political realm.

Saudi clergy are a different matter.  ISIS's ties with Wahhabism are extremely close, far closer than Al Qaeda ever was.

I'm sure the leaders do believe much of what they say, but the existence and success of radical Sunni jihadism as a political phenomenon is not because it represents a logical and compelling working out of religious commandments; it is because it is a useful and effective rallying point for frustrated and angry young men to find political efficacy and to have an outlet for violence.

I'm not convinced these are mutually exclusive. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Yeah the angry violent young men could just as easily have rallied around liberal democracy.

Valmy - time to get into the thread . . .

[Eddie Teach]

Democracy with the guillotine isn't very liberal.

[The Minsky Moment]

Is there something uniquely liberal about drug cocktails?

[crazy canuck]

Is there something uniquely liberal about drug cocktails?

Other than some posters seem to take them liberally?

[Eddie Teach]

Is there something uniquely liberal about drug cocktails?

Capital punishment for economic or political offenses is illiberal.

[crazy canuck]

Is there something uniquely liberal about drug cocktails?

Capital punishment for economic or political offenses is illiberal.

Assuming a country has capital punishment where would you stand on the issue of treason?

[Eddie Teach]

It's generally a bullshit charge.

In cases where it's not, I think stripping the person's citizenship is the harshest appropriate response, unless they have broken other laws.

[crazy canuck]

It's generally a bullshit charge.

In cases where it's not, I think stripping the person's citizenship is the harshest appropriate response, unless they have broken other laws.

I am curious, what "bullshit charges" have there been?  It seems to me to be a very seldom used charge.

[Eddie Teach]

Admiral Byng?

I dunno, it's just bandied about a lot. There's people who consider Jane Fonda a traitor, for instance. /shrug

[crazy canuck]

Admiral Byng?

I dunno, it's just bandied about a lot. There's people who consider Jane Fonda a traitor, for instance. /shrug

There is a signficant difference between political rhetoric of branding an adversary a "traitor" and the criminal offence of treason.

[Razgovory]

Odd that you classify sub-Sahran Africa as having a lot of Islamic influence but not Europe.  I'm not clear what you wish to show here.  That the Arab states are improving at a faster rate then Europe does and at the same speed as East Asia?  That doesn't seem to be reinforce arguments that the Islam is uniquely bad.

Because, y'know, hundreds of millions of muslims as opposed to about 10 million; dozens of muslim majority countries as opposed to 2 in europe.

Odd you ignore the argument being made, but then again your position has no merit.

You said "influence", not "how many millions of Muslims".  It was my understanding that Europe was a lot Muslim influence (as well as four times as many Muslims as you claim).  Still I don't understand what you think this graph means:  From what I can tell the Arab world (which has lots of Muslims), is developing as about the same speed as Latin America (which has few Muslims).  So perhaps you can tell the class exactly what you are trying to express with this graph here.

[Viking]

Islam is an immature religion.  Still needs a few more centuries to settle down.

Thats a bullshit position. They were much more mature and responisible in the past.

[Viking]

Is there so much Islamic violence because Islam is a violent religion, or is there so much Islamic violence because Islam is the religion that happens to be followed by parts of the world that are completely fucked up?

To paraphrase Martinus, the empirical evidence would strongly suggest the latter.  Because the same kind of violence was going on in the same parts of the world in the recent past, only under the rubric of socialist liberationism, or Arab Nationalism.  Instead of medieval-style beheadings, they would hijack airplanes and execute people, or through them off cruise ships, or machine-gun people at the Olympic Games.  Islam is the flavor now because all politically-based ideologies have been discredited, and "Islam" can fill whatever meaning one wants to propogate.

The religious differences between the Saudi monarchy and its followers on the one-hand, and ISIS jihadists on the other hand, are pretty minor.  But they are mortal foes in the political realm.  That is a big hint that religious doctrine is not really at the heart of what is going with these movements.  I'm sure the leaders do believe much of what they say, but the existence and success of radical Sunni jihadism as a political phenomenon is not because it represents a logical and compelling working out of religious commandments; it is because it is a useful and effective rallying point for frustrated and angry young men to find political efficacy and to have an outlet for violence.

How about you leave open the option that the reason they give is relevant to what they do and why?

The various groups of islamists do hate each other because the revolution eats it's children. But the case you are making here is analogous to saying that communist revolutions weren't about communist ideology because people have always been fighting. I don't accept that. Ideas and values do matter. When your self proclaimed ideology instructs you to fight, kill and oppress other regligious groups and you do just that then Ideology matters.

[CountDeMoney]

Islam is an immature religion.  Still needs a few more centuries to settle down.

Thats a bullshit position. They were much more mature and responisible in the past.

Meh, debatable.  They didn't make it all the way to Spain by selling copies of Grit magazine.