Anders Breivic, Three Years On

[Razgovory]

Going after ideas that people hold is ok, going after what people are isn't.

Oh, see I thought Muslim was part of their identity.

[Legbiter]

This is the same mechanism as the recent furore from some feminists over that guy's shirt - essentially, the rhetoric from certain parts of the left has become hateful and toxic, and this is hurting the left as a whole.  This is something I regret because the left is very weak these days in most Western countries.

Might be on to something.



Manlet's maybe the male equivalent of the fatty feminist complaining about slim Barbie dolls in the Guardian. 

[Sheilbh]

Noone is making a point that people are prosecuted for criticising islam. I think the point is that people who hold moderately leftist / centrist views (unlike Farage and his supporters) but are sceptical about religious, including Islamic, fundamentalism do actually care if they are called racist by the fringe leftists and there isn't enough repudation of such name calling from the left in general. So such people end up abandoning the left - which hurts legitimate leftist causes.

I don't get this thing about people repudiating beliefs they don't hold. I don't really think most Muslims have a duty to loudly proclaim they're opposed to terrorism, or that critics of Islam should have to repudiate Breivik and the British bomber. I don't think the left in general has any responsibility to repudiate campus lefties. Especially when, for example, in this country the overwhelming majority of reforms to encourage integration and to stop the sort of state use of extreme Islamists happened under centre-left government.

And the point I'm making isn't about prosecution. Racist books and websites exist in their own little world. What we're talking about here is the bravery of best-selling authors, established politicians and highly-paid columnists for speaking the unspeakable. Which I think is nonsense.

The area I do worry about the left is foreign policy. I think there's some very strange and rather scary views that seem to be going mainstream.

The left is essentially making the same mistake as the right did when they vilified gays and other minorities - thus pushing then into the waiting arms of the left even though they may, on balance choose to vote right on some or most issues. The left is now mirroring the same attitude by vilifying people who are sceptical about Islam (such as recently Bill Maher) and this is why right wing parties in Europe are growing in popularity.

See I think it's like immigration. There is a strand of criticism that will never be satisfied and will always be represented by UKIP and that sort of party.

My view is that the mistake many people have made is that they're getting into an arms race over these topics with people that will always be able to go further - while some who totally disagree just shout that everyone's being racist. You're not going to win back UKIP voters who want to end immigration by a speech on ending certain benefits rights. Similarly you're not going to convince people who want to institute French style laicite for the first time in British history by saying there's valid concerns over integration.

My view is the best approach in both cases is to realise you'll never feed that beast and actually to make a defence of liberalism against the often illiberal policies that are apparently necessary to save it.

[Martinus]

This is the same mechanism as the recent furore from some feminists over that guy's shirt - essentially, the rhetoric from certain parts of the left has become hateful and toxic, and this is hurting the left as a whole.  This is something I regret because the left is very weak these days in most Western countries.

Might be on to something.



Manlet's maybe the male equivalent of the fatty feminist complaining about slim Barbie dolls in the Guardian. 

Is "manlet" a slur or his actual name? 

[Admiral Yi]

I don't get this thing about people repudiating beliefs they don't hold.

The point of repudiating a position you don't subscribe to is to maintain your own legitimacy and credibility.

[Sheilbh]

The point of repudiating a position you don't subscribe to is to maintain your own legitimacy and credibility.

Sure. But I don't like the implication that we should assume the worst of people which they then have to rebut to maintain their legitimacy and credibility.

[Martinus]

I think one should repudiate those who, in the absence of such repudiation, are assumed to be on the same side.

It's the only way to do away with tribalism, which is the primary fault of politics these days. "You are a friend of mine, Plato, but truth is a greater friend of mine" should be the first principle of any credible politician, as far as I am concerned.

[Admiral Yi]

Sure. But I don't like the implication that we should assume the worst of people which they then have to rebut to maintain their legitimacy and credibility.

We don't assume the worst.  We assume that members of an identifiable group that have agreed on issues in the past continue to do so unless we are told otherwise.

[Norgy]

So I can continue to think all self-identified Christians love to murder children on Labour's summer camp and bomb abortion clinics for fun, then.

[Admiral Yi]

So I can continue to think all self-identified Christians love to murder children on Labour's summer camp and bomb abortion clinics for fun, then.

You can think anything you want, but I'm pretty sure at least one Christian has repudiated those actions.

[Razgovory]

Because Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins etc. etc. don't get rountinely accused of racism when they do to islam what they usually do to christianity?

Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens: New Atheists flirt with Islamophobia

I did not see the word "racism" once there.  Are they, bigots? Yeah sure.  I've made that point numerous times and not just for attacking Islam.

[Viking]

I don't get this thing about people repudiating beliefs they don't hold. I don't really think most Muslims have a duty to loudly proclaim they're opposed to terrorism, or that critics of Islam should have to repudiate Breivik and the British bomber.

I believe very precisely in the opposite of this. When/If somebody murders claiming that he/she does this evil deed on behalf of the Icelanders I do have a duty to loudly proclaim my opposition to it - if only for my own sake and for the sake of my own identity. Al-Qaeda and ISIS are murdering BECAUSE they are muslims and ON BEHALF of muslims everywhere; in their own words.

In effect the modern Nazi who likes the corporatist economic structure, good road infrastructure, snazzy colour coded uniforms and vacations paid for by the government has problems. If he's gonna keep calling himself a NAZI he really does need to either dissociate himself from the people who did the holocaust.

By claiming to act on behalf of islam and acting under instruction from their religious teachings the terrorists are claiming to speak for all muslims and usurping the religion itself.

[Sheilbh]

This is the same mechanism as the recent furore from some feminists over that guy's shirt - essentially, the rhetoric from certain parts of the left has become hateful and toxic, and this is hurting the left as a whole.  This is something I regret because the left is very weak these days in most Western countries.

I've been thinking about this and I kind of agree, though I don't think it's a left-wing thing alone.

I don't know if it's just that British politics is in a strange place now but everyone seems to be enjoying their grievances a bit much. We're heading into culture wars which is awful. People are wallowing in self-pity about how the LibLabConspiracy stops people from talking about what's wrong with Muslims (in the comments section under Rod Liddle's seven hundredth article on that subject), then they're outraged at someone saying something, possibly awful, that they disagree with.

It's like the whole Mozilla CEO thing, it's moving to wanting people fired and punished for what they're saying. Nick Cohen highlighted a couple of ridiculous recent cases. Jack Monroe a British leftie and food writer made a dreadful comment about Cameron's dead son (more or less accused him of using him as a prop for NHS policies). Which was wrong and I think she should apologise for it. But the right-wing reaction was lots of unpleasant comments about the fact that she's a lesbian and a campaign for Sainsbury's to fire her. Myleene Klass a d-list celebrity had a go at Ed Miliband on TV last week and suddenly there was a campaign to get Littlewoods to fire her as a model.

A shadow cabinet minister got fired for a tweet last week. This week a junior minister in the naval reserves revealed she used a speech in a debate on poultry safety standards to pay a 'fine' from a dinner with her reservist colleagues by using innuendos like 'cock' as many times as she could. Now the Mail's campaigning that she's fired for not treating the House sufficiently seriously.

Meanwhile the Oxford University pro-life group tries to host a debate between two men (one pro-choice, one pro-life) and they can't get a venue because of pro-choice activism, this gets praised by the President of the Cambridge Union (so a future cabinet minister currently chairing a debating society):
http://cambridge.tab.co.uk/2014/11/20/freedom-speech-doesnt-mean-get-whatever-platform-want/

I don't think it's possibly but I wish we could just take a step back from the denunciations and demands for repudiations and criticism for insufficiently heartfelt repudiation and all the rest of it. Everyone's so priggish and put-upon and sensitive. It's exhausting. I feel, in the UK, like the whole country just needs to go to the pub, but I think it'd probably lead to a fight

[Legbiter]

Everyone's so priggish and put-upon and sensitive. It's exhausting. I feel, in the UK, like the whole country just needs to go to the pub, but I think it'd probably lead to a fight

I think it's my generation (Gen X) which started the idea that being offended was a social problem and not a personal one. 

[Martinus]

It is probably easier to preach than actually do, but I think we should work to refocus our efforts from teaching people not to be offensive, to teaching people not to get offended so easily. The phenomenon of "white knighting" or getting offended on someone else's behalf is especially at fault here, because often the actual "victims" are less offended by some joke or turn of phrase than people who stand up in their defense.