The Paris Attack Debate Thread

[derspiess]

I was reading up on Operation Wetback a few weeks ago and was struck by the irony that it was largely done due to pressure from the Mexican government.  Mexican farm owners had crops rotting in the fields because so much of the labor force had migrated northward.

[Berkut]

I personally think that Trump's popularity tells us quite a bit about American attitudes towards illegal immigration and Islamic terrorism, just as the popularity of the Saudi cleric tells us quite a bit about Saudi attitudes towards religiously motivated violence.

I would put it a bit differently.
I would say his popularity despite his enthusiasm for the Eisenhower-era "operation wetback" is suggestive of severe moral decadence, a willingness to embrace the use of violence, sometimes deadly violence, against an unpopular minority, which is exactly what happened at that time.
I would say his popularity despite his support for mosque closure demonstrates an attitude of blithe disregard towards the most fundamental rights of human beings and the very foundation of the US constitution. 
The term "fascistic" doesn't seem too lightly used in this context (and knowing your own views on the Donald I suspect you don't entirely disagree).
I would also say that the Saudi cleric's popularity illustrates the severely retrograde nature of Saudi society and a willingness embrace violently xenophobic sentiments that echo the ones Trump is pushing here.

IF your point is that these are not equivalent, morally or otherwise, I would of course agree.  The Saudi cleric is much worse.  Saudi Arabia is a horrible place, where political discourse has been utterly twisted by a system that suppresses all forms of political expression other than support for the monarchy, with the exception of Wahhabist-dominated mosques. Wahhabism itself is a deviant sect that openly places itself in opposition to over 1000 years of Islamic tradition.  To use that as the example of the inherent ills of Islam doesn't make sense, any more than holding up Fred Phelps as the exemplar of Christianity. 

OK, this is starting to piss me off.

I AM NOT HOLDING IT UP AS REPRESENTATIVE OF ISLAM.

I am saying that there are a shitload of Islamic people who think that the use of violence is awesome. That killing gay people is the will of god. That executing women for adultery is a religious duty. That the death penalty for apostasy is in fact moral and just.

There are many who do not think any of those things, and those people are not a problem, and in fact we need to figure out how to make those peoples voices win out.

That the idea that the people who think this are some tiny minority of Muslims, akin to Fred Phelps, is completely bullshit. Phelps does not have millions of people listening to his every word, and taking action on his teachings - rather he is seen as a kook by 99.9% of Christians.

Most Muslims are not a problem. But plenty of them ARE a problem, and this insistence, this apologism, this refusal to see what is happening is going to make it a lot harder to win this war of ideas that they represent one side of, since we cannot even accept that there is a real war happening, and instead we pretend like the radical jihadists are some sliver of the Islamic population akin to Fred Phelps.

It simply is not true.

[frunk]

Most Muslims are not a problem. But plenty of them ARE a problem, and this insistence, this apologism, this refusal to see what is happening is going to make it a lot harder to win this war of ideas that they represent one side of, since we cannot even accept that there is a real war happening, and instead we pretend like the radical jihadists are some sliver of the Islamic population akin to Fred Phelps.

It simply is not true.

I guess the question is, how does this change things?  Is the difference between very few and some enough to by default treat Muslims differently?  Should we, as some Republicans have said, use religion as a filter for Syrian refugees?  Shouldn't it be possible to be more selective than that?

[Berkut]

Most Muslims are not a problem. But plenty of them ARE a problem, and this insistence, this apologism, this refusal to see what is happening is going to make it a lot harder to win this war of ideas that they represent one side of, since we cannot even accept that there is a real war happening, and instead we pretend like the radical jihadists are some sliver of the Islamic population akin to Fred Phelps.

It simply is not true.

I guess the question is, how does this change things?  Is the difference between very few and some enough to by default treat Muslims differently?  Should we, as some Republicans have said, use religion as a filter for Syrian refugees?  Shouldn't it be possible to be more selective than that?

No, I do not think we should treat Muslims differently at all.

I do think we should treat jihadists, and those who espouse jihadists ideas differently though.

I don't think it changes how we treat refugees on bit. We should, of course, take reasonable precautions to do our best to make sure we are not letting radicals in along with them, but we should do that regardless.

The difference, as I see it, is that we need to recognize that islamic fundamentalism is not some splinter of Islam - rather it is a significant factor in the Islamic world, and we need to recognize that this war of ideas is happening RIGHT NOW, and we need to understand how to win it - but we are going to fail (or rather, not succeed as quickly as we should) if we villify anyone who recognizes that this is a poison that must be excised.

The Jakes and Minsky's work incredibly hard to cast this as a trivial issue - some tiny percentage, like judaic extremists, or Christian fundamentalists.

But there are many Islamic countries where the penalty for apostasy is death. And there is widespread support for such beliefs:

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 found relatively widespread popular support for the death penalty as a punishment for apostasy in Egypt (84% of respondents in favor of death penalty), Jordan (86% in favor), Indonesia (30%), Pakistan (76%), Nigeria (51%)

This idea that the radical view of Islam are held by a tiny minority is simply not true.

[Admiral Yi]

I guess the question is, how does this change things?  Is the difference between very few and some enough to by default treat Muslims differently?  Should we, as some Republicans have said, use religion as a filter for Syrian refugees?  Shouldn't it be possible to be more selective than that?

Do you have anything specific in mind?

[Razgovory]

I guess the question is, how does this change things?  Is the difference between very few and some enough to by default treat Muslims differently?  Should we, as some Republicans have said, use religion as a filter for Syrian refugees?  Shouldn't it be possible to be more selective than that?

Do you have anything specific in mind?

Pick engineers and doctors.

[LaCroix]

No, I do not think we should treat Muslims differently at all.

I do think we should treat jihadists, and those who espouse jihadists ideas differently though.

I don't think it changes how we treat refugees on bit. We should, of course, take reasonable precautions to do our best to make sure we are not letting radicals in along with them, but we should do that regardless.

The difference, as I see it, is that we need to recognize that islamic fundamentalism is not some splinter of Islam - rather it is a significant factor in the Islamic world, and we need to recognize that this war of ideas is happening RIGHT NOW, and we need to understand how to win it - but we are going to fail (or rather, not succeed as quickly as we should) if we villify anyone who recognizes that this is a poison that must be excised.

The Jakes and Minsky's work incredibly hard to cast this as a trivial issue - some tiny percentage, like judaic extremists, or Christian fundamentalists.

But there are many Islamic countries where the penalty for apostasy is death. And there is widespread support for such beliefs:

This idea that the radical view of Islam are held by a tiny minority is simply not true.

what are you suggesting, then? you say "I AM NOT HOLDING [islamic fundamentalism] UP AS REPRESENTATIVE OF ISLAM," then you say "islamic fundamentalism is not some splinter of Islam - rather it is a significant factor in the Islamic world." i get you don't think islam = islamic fundamentalism, but what exactly are you saying? that we should distrust islam? persecute against islam? work to "fight" islam? whatever it is, how do you fight "islamic fundamentalism as a significant factor of islam" without, in reality, fighting islam?

[The Minsky Moment]

Fred Phelps got over 30% of the vote in a Kansas senate primary.  50,000 votes.

[LaCroix]

also, berkut, you know that study also revealed only 6% in lebanon and 5% in turkey? how does that play into your argument that islam, rather than the country's level of civilization/or whatever other factor, is at fault?

[grumbler]

what are you suggesting, then? you say "I AM NOT HOLDING [islamic fundamentalism] UP AS REPRESENTATIVE OF ISLAM," then you say "islamic fundamentalism is not some splinter of Islam - rather it is a significant factor in the Islamic world." i get you don't think islam = islamic fundamentalism, but what exactly are you saying? that we should distrust islam? persecute against islam? work to "fight" islam? whatever it is, how do you fight "islamic fundamentalism as a significant factor of islam" without, in reality, fighting islam?

I think he is suggesting that policies and opinions that assume that Islamic fundamentalism is a tiny splinter fraction of Islam should be reconsidered.  That seemed pretty clear to me.  What part of that did you not understand?

[grumbler]

also, berkut, you know that study also revealed only 6% in lebanon and 5% in turkey? how does that play into your argument that islam, rather than the country's level of civilization/or whatever other factor, is at fault?

Is that the choice?  Either assume all Islamic countries, or all sub-"level of civilization/or whatever other factor" (whatever that means) is responsible?  No chance whatever that Islam plus some outside factors combine to create Islamic fundamentalist violence?

[Jacob]

Most Muslims are not a problem. But plenty of them ARE a problem, and this insistence, this apologism, this refusal to see what is happening is going to make it a lot harder to win this war of ideas that they represent one side of, since we cannot even accept that there is a real war happening, and instead we pretend like the radical jihadists are some sliver of the Islamic population akin to Fred Phelps.

I don't think that's the counter-argument to the proposition you're making.

I agree, there are whole bunch of radical and violent Muslims who think violence is just great, and they're a problem. No argument there from me. These people self-evidently exist, and just as obviously they do horrendous things.

The proposition I have a problem with is the one that claims that the radical violence of the radical violent Muslims is clearly something that is inherent in Islam and that we thus need to approach Islam - and Muslims - with a special kind of suspicion due to some sort of enhanced innate predisposition towards radical violence.

Instead, when looking at radical violent Muslims I see plenty of commonalities with other violent radicals who have drawn their justification for their radical violence from other non-Muslim systems of belief - some of them religious, some of them secular. While each flavour of radical violence of course takes on some characteristic of the ideology it uses to justify the radical violence, I think there are other much more significant factors - primarily economical and political - that can be used to explain the phenomena more accurately.

So yeah, while there may be large proportion of radical violent Muslims about right now compared to other perpetrators of violence (and I think that to some extent is a matter of definition and reporting than some pure objective fact), I don't think they differ significantly enough from perpetrators of other flavours of radical violence in other places and at other times to make "it's a feature of Islam" even remotely convincing.

[LaCroix]

I think he is suggesting that policies and opinions that assume that Islamic fundamentalism is a tiny splinter fraction of Islam should be reconsidered.  That seemed pretty clear to me.  What part of that did you not understand?

reconsidered in what way though? that's what i mean. what happens if this reconsideration occurred?

No chance whatever that Islam plus some outside factors combine to create Islamic fundamentalist violence?

well, i concede that you need islam to have islamic fundamentalism. but you don't need islam to have fundamentalism and barbaric views.

[Jacob]

No chance whatever that Islam plus some outside factors combine to create Islamic fundamentalist violence?

There's a pretty high chance, but I think it's eminently reasonable to posit that the key part of that creation process is what you call "some outside factors" rather than Islam; at least if it's the violence you're concerned about rather than the Islamic part.

And when we're in a time where a major news outlet uses scurrying rats to portray Muslim refugees, and where national stage politicians suggest that five year old orphans should be turned away because of fears of Islamic fundamentalist violence, I personally would consider pursuing the "Islam is inherently violent" argument with less vehemence.

[Martinus]

No chance whatever that Islam plus some outside factors combine to create Islamic fundamentalist violence?

And when we're in a time where a major news outlet uses scurrying rats to portray Muslim refugees, and where national stage politicians suggest that five year old orphans should be turned away because of fears of Islamic fundamentalist violence, I personally would consider pursuing the "Islam is inherently violent" argument with less vehemence.

I find this argument to be bullshit. You can just as well turn it around and say that when people are being slaughtered by Muslims in cultural and leisure venues in one of the world's greatest centres of culture, I personally would consider pursuing the "Islam is inherently violent" argument with more vehemence.

The argument from your portion of liberal left is in fact not very different from that of the NRA, in the wake of every school shooting in America.

It's combined of two elements:
1. Islam doesn't kill people. People kill people; and
2. This is not the right time to talk about it.

I would have thought intelligent people are capable to have their minds hold two thoughts at the same time. So I am not sure why we can't believe we need to help the refugees and at the same time think how to make sure they integrate into the society and accept our values. Especially as our indifference is actually hurting moderate muslims in the poorer communities - because they find themselves between a rock and a hard place when we are willing to tolerate muslim barbaric customs within their own ranks.