The Paris Attack Debate Thread

[derspiess]

Toss in a post-colonial realignment that's been postponed for far too long, and then things get real spicy-like.

Leave me out of this

[dps]

some of those people were terrorists by the time we got around to killing them.

Well, I'm pretty sure none of them turned to terrorism after we killed them.

[KRonn]

Egyptian President Al-Sissi delivered a great speech earlier this year. He talked about Muslims banding together to halt the push of radical Islam, how it was so wrong, that sort of thing. A real important speech coming from a major Muslim national leader. But it seems as if that speech was made in a vacuum and not much really done by others to follow up. Maybe US and European leaders should have picked up on that speech and expanded on it, emphasized it, and supported/encouraged other Muslim leaders in the Mid East to take the same attitude. That kind of thing and keeping it up would seem to help galvanize nations and people, at least as powerful talking points.

[DGuller]

some of those people were terrorists by the time we got around to killing them.

Well, I'm pretty sure none of them turned to terrorism after we killed them.

  Depends on how honest you are about collateral damage.

[Camerus]

The most likely response is that there will be some heightened security measures for some time. But I don't expect to see a sea change in immigration / assimilation  policies in Western Europe.  Whether it be out of common human decency, naivety, demographics realities,  oikophobia, human rights concerns, recognition that most Muslims are decent people,  simple inertia, or some combination of these things, I doubt this attack will change too much in the long run.

[Drakken]

A few hundred years ago Christianity was pretty brutal too. What with their inquisitions and tortures and burning people alive and all that. Christians moved past that. What was the vehicle of that change? What can help Muslims progress from where they are to where they need to be to be an acceptable part of modern society?

A) Christians moved passed that because most intellectuals, deist or Christian, accepted the Enlightenment and the idea that came with it that religion ought to be emasculated, a tool for keeping social order and not a contender for divided loyalty between the state and their personal faith. Hence why, in France, priests were made to swear (by force if necessary) to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and why Napoleon had the Concordate consentend to and signed by the Pope. The same should be done with Imams (and really any and all priests of recognized religions) : They accept a "civil" constitution that preach respect and obedience to the rule of law, plus toleration of the land's law and customs and other people's belief, in exchange for being personally paid and receiving financial support from the state, or they have no permit to preact, their property on their cult is forfeit, and non-citizen "priests" are deported. Even that is more lenient than the fate that was reserved to non-swearing priests (read a date with the Lousiette).

B) It took bloody civil wars (even during the revolution with the Vendée) and Christians killing each other in droves for centuries before Christians, as a whole, finally accepted that tolerating other people's beliefs might be better than constant and brutal chaos all the time. Even the Dechristianization in France during the Revolution was rather brutal. Carrier, Hébert and Fouché really didn't fuck around with abstract liberal concepts of "respecting the liberty of Christians" and "sacrificing liberty for security leads to the loss of both" when their society was in mortal danger.

[Drakken]

Actually Muslim writers have been warning for a long time now that the Muslim world is now going through the equivalent of a Reformation struggle and that is essentially what we are witnessing.

Would Wahhabism and Salafism be the Muslim version of Anabaptists? 

[Tonitrus]

A few hundred years ago Christianity was pretty brutal too. What with their inquisitions and tortures and burning people alive and all that. Christians moved past that. What was the vehicle of that change? What can help Muslims progress from where they are to where they need to be to be an acceptable part of modern society?

A) Christians moved passed that because most intellectuals, deist or Christian, accepted the Enlightenment and the idea that came with it that religion ought to be emasculated, a tool for keeping social order and not a contender for divided loyalty between the state and their personal faith. Hence why, in France, priests were made to swear (by force if necessary) to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and why Napoleon had the Concordate consentend to and signed by the Pope. The same should be done with Imams (and really any and all priests of recognized religions) : They accept a "civil" constitution that preach respect and obedience to the rule of law, plus toleration of the land's law and customs and other people's belief, in exchange for being personally paid and receiving financial support from the state, or they have no permit to preact, their property on their cult is forfeit, and non-citizen "priests" are deported. Even that is more lenient than the fate that was reserved to non-swearing priests (read a date with the Lousiette).

B) It took bloody civil wars (even during the revolution with the Vendée) and Christians killing each other in droves for centuries before Christians, as a whole, finally accepted that tolerating other people's beliefs might be better than constant and brutal chaos all the time. Even the Dechristianization in France during the Revolution was rather brutal. Carrier, Hébert and Fouché really didn't fuck around with abstract liberal concepts of "respecting the liberty of Christians" and "sacrificing liberty for security leads to the loss of both" when their society was in mortal danger.

Can't wait until the Islamic world catches up to the WWI/II part.

[Eddie Teach]

Can't wait until the Islamic world catches up to the WWI/II part.

You'll probably be dead.

[Syt]

So this Paris attack and others such as slaughtering a Jordanian pilot on video, killing Egyptian Copts on video, plus the downing of the Russian airliner, would seem to charge up opposition and you'd think ISIS wouldn't want to keep making so many enemies and bring down so much resistance on their heads. But that's looking at it from another point of view and not theirs. So what is ISIS looking to gain by goading various nations, western and Islamic, into being a lot more active in striking back?

ISIS feeds itself through conflict. It's what drives expansion and attacks like the ones you mentioned make them look strong and tough, and likely attracts (or at least creates sympathy) from weak willed Muslims who think they've been dealt a shitty card, or lack a sense of belonging.

Secondly, I do believe that they do it to stoke the flames, to provoke a backlash against Muslims that will drive more of them into their arms.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

ISIS feeds itself through conflict. It's what drives expansion and attacks like the ones you mentioned make them look strong and tough, and likely attracts (or at least creates sympathy) from weak willed Muslims who think they've been dealt a shitty card, or lack a sense of belonging.

they have been dealt a shitty card. The card's name is Islam.

[Admiral Yi]

A) Christians moved passed that because most intellectuals, deist or Christian, accepted the Enlightenment and the idea that came with it that religion ought to be emasculated, a tool for keeping social order and not a contender for divided loyalty between the state and their personal faith. Hence why, in France, priests were made to swear (by force if necessary) to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and why Napoleon had the Concordate consentend to and signed by the Pope. The same should be done with Imams (and really any and all priests of recognized religions) : They accept a "civil" constitution that preach respect and obedience to the rule of law, plus toleration of the land's law and customs and other people's belief, in exchange for being personally paid and receiving financial support from the state, or they have no permit to preact, their property on their cult is forfeit, and non-citizen "priests" are deported. Even that is more lenient than the fate that was reserved to non-swearing priests (read a date with the Lousiette).

B) It took bloody civil wars (even during the revolution with the Vendée) and Christians killing each other in droves for centuries before Christians, as a whole, finally accepted that tolerating other people's beliefs might be better than constant and brutal chaos all the time. Even the Dechristianization in France during the Revolution was rather brutal. Carrier, Hébert and Fouché really didn't fuck around with abstract liberal concepts of "respecting the liberty of Christians" and "sacrificing liberty for security leads to the loss of both" when their society was in mortal danger.

You may be right, but I think you're overlooking one significant difference: the basic text of Christians was anti-violence, so anyone arguing in favor of anti-violence from a Christian perspective had unimpeachable credibility.

[LaCroix]

You may be right, but I think you're overlooking one significant difference: the basic text of Christians was anti-violence, so anyone arguing in favor of anti-violence from a Christian perspective had unimpeachable credibility.

[Martinus]

The enlightenment was largely what moved the West from being this prone to religious violence. The Muslim world has gone through reformations and it's resulted in movements like Wahhabism.

I think the mistake is somehow conflating reformation and the enlightenment in the West - reformation did not bring peace or tolerance - it brought often an even greater persecution and violence.

And enlightenment declared war on religion - any religion - with a zeal that makes look Richard Dawkins tame. This is what happened - religion, at least on the European continent, was declawed and castrated by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era.

So that's your answer, Jaron.

[Admiral Yi]

I guess you showed me.