Mr. Keller is an Israeli peace activist. As you may recall, he said that he is the person who wrote the Hebrew text of the middle protest sign in the above photo. He is new to our blog, and may not be aware of our free-speech policies. We encourage a free exchange of opinions and debate on all topics, but within the limits of decorum and civility, as described in the four rules that are clearly posted at the top of the comment window. His incivility, by departing from those rules, derailed a comment thread that might otherwise have been productive.
Basic civility is an absolute prerequisite for any meaningful exchange of ideas. No one’s mind is changed by being called names or having his intelligence or moral character questioned.
Mr. Keller just sent us an email. Since it is more reasonably worded than his comment, I’m posting it below along with a brief response
I invite our readers to add their own views — in a civil manner:
It is now morning in Israel and I woke up to see the many reactions to my post which accumulated during the night. Since you closed the thread, I am unable to respond to the direct challenge made to me, and I would like to ask you to post the following:
I and my friends in the Israeli peace movement are certainly opposed to racism in whatever form and from whatever origin it comes. Racism is a phenomenon which certainly exists within any human society and must be opposed. We strongly object to assertion that Islam as such is racist, that all Muslims are by definition racists, and that one should oppose Islam as such and engage in a head-on confrontation with all Muslims as if they were a single homogeneous mass. This attitude is in our view itself racist and highly dangerous, and is all too uncomfortably reminiscent of the attitude to Jews which was prevalent in Europe during the 1930’s and which directly led to the worst genocide in human history.
I am married to a Dutch woman, Beate Zilvesrmidt, who was one of the main organizers and initiators of yesterday’s demonstration against Wilders. I know Holland which we often visit, and the people we know there detest Wilders and feel ashamed he has a key role in their country’s new government. We also happen to know some Dutch Muslims who are enlightened people, well integrated in Dutch society and with not the slightest intention of imposing anything on anybody. The same is true here in Israel, where we know many Arab Muslims — citizens of Israel and West Bank Palestinians — and are proud to count some of them among our personal friends.
The anti-Muslim diatribes of Wilders are highly dangerous to Dutch society, of which a Muslim minority is now an established part. He seeks to reverse and destroy the tolerant traditions which were Holland’s justified pride for hundreds of years, manifested for example in this country giving refuge in the 16th and 17th Centuries to Jews driven by savage persecution out of Spain and Portugal.
For Israel, a country which not only has twenty percent Muslims among its own citizens but is located in the very heart of the Muslim World, all its neighbors being countries with a predominantly Muslim population, adopting Wilders’ rabid and indiscriminate hatred of all Muslims and of the Islamic religion as such would be nothing short of suicidal. If we are to survive in this region where the founders of Zionism saw fit to locate the Jewish State, we must find a way to achieve a lasting peace with our neighbors — first and foremost with the Palestinians, our direct neighbors in this land who must be freed from the oppressive occupation which our country imposed on them for the past 43 years and given their natural right to form their own state at the side of Israel. Wilders’ ridiculous suggestion that “Jordan is Palestine” has long since been totally discredited in Israeli politics. The Palestinians are not going to go to Jordan and nobody can force them to go there. They will remain here as we will remain here, and in this land both of us must build our peaceful future.
Upon hearing that Wilders is about to come here, my wife and other Israelis of Dutch origin immediately started mobilizing people of good will to come and protest and show Wilders that he is not welcome. On the night before the action, the two of us sat down in the living room of our apartment and prepared signs, on material bought with our own money — she making the ones in English and Dutch, me the ones in Hebrew. We are very pleased with the response of peace-seeking Israelis, and Wilders will encounter the same if he shows his face in this country again.
Adam Keller
Spokesperson of Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc
A few thoughts about Mr. Keller’s arguments:
Racism is a phenomenon which certainly exists within any human society and must be opposed.
This might be an interesting point to debate. However, “racism” was never an issue in this case, since our stance is against a supremacist political ideology known as Islam, and not any particular race. Some of our most dangerous enemies are Islamic zealots who happen to be Caucasians.
We strongly object to assertion that Islam as such is racist…
I have never asserted any such thing. Arabs are notoriously and documentably racist, but not Islam itself.
We also happen to know some Dutch Muslims who are enlightened people…
This is the anecdotal fallacy. Finding a few specific counter-examples to a proposition is not enough to invalidate it. One must demonstrate the statistical accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the stated assertion.
I, too, know some enlightened Muslims. This has nothing to do with our argument, and does not address the core issue. If 99% of the Muslims in the world were enlightened and not murderous terrorists, that would still leave 15 million deadly enemies who want to kill, enslave, or convert anyone who is not a Muslim.
That’s a distressingly large army of implacable foes.
The anti-Muslim diatribes of Wilders are highly dangerous to Dutch society…
The presence of hundreds of thousands of inassimilable Muslim immigrants is highly dangerous to Dutch society.
Israel, a country which not only has twenty percent Muslims among its own citizens but is located in the very heart of the Muslim World…
The vast majority of Muslims in those neighboring countries — and possibly those within Israel itself — desire to see Israel destroyed as a Jewish state. They wish to create a state in which any surviving Jews form a minority with less than full rights as citizens.
Surely you are not unaware of the fate of historical Jewish minorities in all countries in the Muslim Middle East…?
Catering to the anti-Semitic political aspirations of Muslims in or surrounding the state of Israel is a recipe for national suicide.
…we must find a way to achieve a lasting peace with our neighbors
Indeed you must. Unfortunately, peace is never achieved through displays of supplication and appeasement, especially when confronting an Islamic enemy. Islam sees appeasement as a sign of weakness, and will press forward with ever greater demands until full conquest is achieved. This assertion is amply demonstrated by the history of Islamic expansion during the first thousand years after Mohammed’s death.
Wilders’… suggestion that “Jordan is Palestine” has long since been totally discredited in Israeli politics.
This is certainly true, but it is hardly proof that the idea is wrong or inaccurate. Useful and viable ideas are routinely discredited in the political arena, but this does not demonstrate that they are untrue. Mr. Wilders’ assertions are historically valid, and enjoy ample documentation which is available to anyone who chooses to do the reading.
There’s more that can be said, but this will suffice for the moment. Readers are invited to add their own (CIVIL!) comments below.
191 comments:
I must applaude the manner in which you responded with this post. Brilliantly done! Many conservative/right wing sites allow all sorts of ad hominem attacks on people that have opposing views. It's just utterly childish and achieves absolutely nothing. The facts are on our side. We don't need further ad hominem attacks.
Well done.
Some questions to mr. Keller:
Do you object that one should oppose nazism as such and engage in a head-on confrontation with all nazis as if they were a single homogeneous mass?
Is such an attitude in your view itself racist and highly dangerous?
Not that I am likening islam to nazism particularly, but there must be some general principle at work here.
I agree with your comment that “racism” was never an issue in this case.
However, I do believe that when this whole issue has been played out in history, provided that western culture prevails, it will change the way we view racism.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference has sponsored a draft resolution at the United Nations that would condemn the "defamation of religion" and create a global "anti-blasphemy law." However, experts say "defamation" can only be liable to legal sanction when it involves persons and not concepts or feelings. If the above principle applies to religion, what else does it apply to? Race is a concept.
And another thing. Whenever there is a discussion about two groups of people where one group is less developed than another group, the Holocaust is recalled as a warning to what could happen when there is inequality between groups. Without fail, that's the example used of how badly things could go wrong. I don't fault the example at all. But it amazes me that the people that recall the example of the Holocaust never have the slightest clue about how the Holocaust came about! They have no idea what drove the Germans to do the things they did, or they would never have used that example. The Germans ENVIED the Jews.
Arabs are NOT THE MORE PRIVILAGED GROUP between the Europeans and the Arabs in Europe. Europeans do not envy Arabs.
So for people that get it so wrong, one can only conclude that they have absolutely no true interest in the welfare of others.
An ideology that mandates the treatment of non-adherents as inferior human beings - racist or non-racist?
It is non-racist by the conventional (genetic) definition of racism, but certainly racist by the modern expanded definition.
and certaininly racist if muslims are made to adhere to the same standards as infidels
Is Opposition to Islam a Sign of Racism?
++++++++++
No, it's a sign of common sense.
Any ideology whose core texts demand the physical subjugation of non-believers, to the point of death if necessary, can NOT be reformed if the practitioners of that ideology believe, as Muslims do, that these texts come directly from their moon god, and for that reason can not be amended or altered.
There is no solution to such thinking except one of containment to minimize damage to the rest of us.
whether Islam is regarded as a religion, a political ideology, or both, opposition to it cannot be construed as "racist."
Geet Wilder's speech on Israel was extraordinarily interesting, because it offers a bold reinterpretation of a situation which has remained in stalemate for decades.
that fifth generation Palestinian refugees are no longer genuine refugees, but instead political points of anti-Semitic Muslim politicians is convincing.
the Jordan is Palestine argument is also convincing.
appeasing the Muslim world has gained us nothing so far, and the bold solution to securing Israel as a sovereign nation with secure borders would redeem a debt owed to the Jews by Europe for a long time now.
get a map of the Muslim world: it is inconceivably vast, and stretches from southern Africa to East Asia.
now look at a map of the Jewish homeland: a tiny little dot in a sea of Islam.
most of the arguments for "trading land for peace" disintegrate when we consider the systematic expulsion of the Jews from Muslim countries over the past century.
I hope that Jews and non-Jews will be studying his speech and discussing it for months to come.
The enlightened muslims that I know often say they're ashamed to be muslims, eat pork, drink alcohol and always blame the nazistinians for stuff which the UN and the so-called "international community" blame Israel for, such as Operation Cast Lead.
Dear Mr. Keller (and Mrs. Zilversmidt),
Let me start with a quote that could be considered a sick joke, if only you weren't so dead serious about it:
"The anti-Muslim diatribes of Wilders are highly dangerous to Dutch society"
Ok, so you happen to know a few Dutch people that are as misguided as yourselves about the totalitarian nature of Islamic doctrine. And you happen to have stumbled across some "enlightened" Muslims over here.
I write "here" because I am a Dutch aboriginal living in Amsterdam (you probably know the type, an average 2m tall, blonde, and of course a greasy "Islamophobe" by nature, must be the clay or something). Let me tell you that my wife and I know quite a lot of Jews, still here in Amsterdam (no special need to call them "enlightened", now why would that be) for whom Dutch society is getting more and more dangerous by the day. Not because of the person pointing out the danger but because of the growing presence of ehm.. certain "misunderstanders" of the "Religion of Peace".
Amsterdam is also the city, by the way, where filmmaker Theo van Gogh was butchered on the street in broad daylight as you and your wife may well remember (or try to forget), just a few blocks away from my home. This was not done by supporters of the one you claim to be a danger to my city, but by.. lo behold, yet another self appointed footsoldier of a certain peaceful ideology.
It is because of his fully justified stance against this ideology (never anti-Muslim which you people know full well if you know anything about Wilders' views), that Dutch society has been and still is a highly dangerous place for Geert Wilders.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
A test of Racism,Bigotry,Tolerance,Hate etc etc - buy a round the world ticket an visit every non islamic country you can for 2 years , dress an do just about whatever it is you normally do while traveling . Come back an tell us your adventures ! - After a bit of rest try the same thing in islamic ruled countries . GOOD LUCK .
"The anti-Muslim diatribes of Wilders are highly dangerous to Dutch society…"
Wilders' diatribes are anti-Islam, not anti-Muslim. He opposes the political ideology, not the people as such. In fact, he has promised to help Muslims already in Holland to integrate if they are willing (and it's a BIG "if").
Mr Keller displays a remarkable lack of understanding of Wilders and the PVV and I'm guessing he gets most of his information from the MSM.
He is also heartbreakingly naive about his own nation's history (and that of the whole region).
I pray that the scales fall from your eyes, Adam Keller, before it is too late.
God bless you and the land of Israel.
Thanks for the civil discussion. I have seen the "criticism of Islam=racism" argument on many blogs and heard it in discussions. Whenever I point out the obvious: that Islam is a religion, not a race--that usually ends the argument. So if people already know that Islam is a religion and not a race, why do they make the statement?
Felix, islam is a totalitarian and intolerant political ideology masquerading as a religion, not a religion proper. What separates it from nazism and communism is that Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao and the rest of those dirtbags never laid any claims to "prophethood", unlike the alleged inventor of mohammedanism.
@felix,
Q:
"So if people already know that Islam is a religion and not a race, why do they make the statement?"
My 2 eurocents (devaluating by the minute):
A:
Because they do the bidding - willingly or inadvertently - of the OIC that through international "law" and UN-tribunals on "human rights", seeks to criminalize opposition against the doctrines of Islam, i.e. islamorealism, as "hate speech".
They can perfectly live with a rosy selfcongratulatory image of civil rights guardians, while denying others, like chosen MP Geert Wilders, their right to freedom of expression and while supporting ideologies that would immediately end all expression that is not in lockstep with the doctrine.
Vlad Lenin had a useful expression to tag those people with, but civil discourse demands that I only hint at it ;)
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Logical fallacies abound in the arguments posted by Mr. Keller. But even more important than his arguments is the absolutist tendencies he supports.
There is not now nor has there ever been a non-racist culture. This concept is a utopian idea that is disinterred with each new idealist group. But reality is another matter: Mammals (at the very least) prefer their own kind -- obviously 'kind' is cognate with 'kin'.
This preference for familiarity (as in family) is one of several hard-wired mechanisms which evolved for the sake of survival. Watch a baby react to a stranger and you can observe first-hand what is a normal response in all human groups.
As for Dutch culture, Mr.Keller's group of acquaintances appears to be limited only to those people who think as he does. To what motive do they attribute the fleeing of so many young Dutch families from their native country? Is it their fellow Dutchmen or is it the unassimilable and often hostile immigrants who degrade public life in the Netherlands?
For that matter, what made immigrant Ayaan Hirsi Ali flee to the US from the country in which she'd sough asylum?
The murders of van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn may be but foretellings of Wilders' death. After all, Mophammed Bouyeri (van Gogh's killer) was a Dutch citizen, supposedly "fully integrated"...except that his hate letter to Hirsi Ali demonstrates his refusal to tolerate Western values.
The OIC has made it plain that Muslims are to be accomodated globally. Assimilation is not the goal for Islam; in fact it runs counter to Islam's tenets. Parallel social and judicial structures are to be established so that Muslims need never mingle with the natives.
Wilders has made the point that Dutch jails overflow with immigrants and welfare payments are a terrific burden to the state. The prisons of most countries who have permitted large numbers of unassimilated non-natives into their borders are filled with similar problems. These folks are scofflaws and they make no bones about what they see as the inferiority of the host culture on which they feed.
As Chancellor Merkel has said: "mulitculturalism has failed utterly". To which I would add, it's not only a big FAIL, but it actually damages the integrity of the cultural fabric, leaving it in tatters.
MC was never more than a pipe-dream smoked up by those who would tell us how we should live, while they dwell as far from the unassimilated as possible. Notice that it is imposed from the top down; it's not a grassroots idea, unless you count the groups of affluent young people who have the time to harangue the rest of us.
For those who haven't read Arthur Legger, a Dutch historian, here's an essay with some context re the much-touted "tolerance" of the Netherlands:
Why Spinoza Was Not Murdered
gspencer said "their moon god". I am unfamiliar with this element of islamic ideology. Can you expand on that?
Dutch society is threatened by Islam, an imperialist supremacist violent ideology that seeks dominion over all others, the subjugation as second class citizens of all others, is not tolerant of any others.
Not by those who oppose this ideology, voiciferously.
" So if people already know that Islam is a religion and not a race, why do they make the statement?"
Because whitey can not ever fairly judge the dusky folks: he is obviously motivated by racism. Ergo, it doesn't matter how much damage Islam and immigration does to his society, at least honour killings, FGM, and religious fanaticism aren't racism, like the kind that riddles Japanese society.. etc.
Mr. Keller writes some... interesting things.
"I know Holland which we often visit, and the people we know there detest Wilders and feel ashamed he has a key role in their country’s new government."
I read this with a sense of deja vu, as in the quote attributed to Pauline Kael after the 1972 re-election of Richard Nixon: "I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." Perhaps if you spent as much time getting to know Dutch who are plagued by crime committed by Moroccans as you do your Palestinian activists, you might understand where they're coming from. Or perhaps you should just move to Sderot.
"We strongly object to assertion that Islam as such is racist"
It appears that you oppose this despite it being true; the Koran exalts Arabs above all people because they were the ones to whom it was "revealed". There are several words for people who deny plain facts, and the ones I'm thinking of both start with "D".
"that all Muslims are by definition racists"
That's a non-sequitur and a strawman. As ESW has stated time and time again, most Muslims have not read the Koran (because they don't speak or read Arabic) and have no idea of much of what's in it or how the contradictions are resolved (naqsh). The problem is that the literalists CAN and DO use such verses as a trump card against sensible, civilized Muslims when there's a conflict. The literalists back up their superior knowledge with the threat of death (for apostasy) against any Muslims who stand up for equality of the sexes, secular government, and other civilized standards of conduct.
"and that one should oppose Islam as such and engage in a head-on confrontation with all Muslims as if they were a single homogeneous mass"
It's probably asking too much to believe that some people want to save Muslims from Islam, but I'm going to tell you that this is the case. We should indeed oppose Islam as such, because it does prescribe jihad and taqiyaa and supremacism and these are poisonous both for the world at large and for Muslims. One look at the state of the Islamic parts of the world should be enough to convince you that they have taken a very bad turn—ironically, exactly what the Koran accuses Christians and Jews of doing.
@17, to Melvin Muskrat,
The importance of the moon to Islam can be seen in two visible manifestations. (1) At the top of every mosque is to be found an image of a crescent moon. (2) Ramadan is not celebrated by Muslims at the same calendar date/s year to year. Our calendar is based on the Earth's rotation around the Sun, but Islam bases its rituals on the lunar year, explaining the seemingly erratic scheduling of Ramadan.
When he invented Islam, and Islam is very much a made-up religion, Mohammed exploited one of the more than 300 existing gods of pre-islamic Arabia. He chose Allah.
For more, see,
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/skm30804.htm
Look to Lebanon as that is Europe's future. The Liberal Elite have decided this for the indigenous Europeans (who were never asked) aided and abetted by the likes of Mr Keller and his fellow ideologues. They are blissfully unaware of the approaching danger caused by their social experiment or in complete denial. You can always sit around the camp-fire with Mr Keller and his "enlightened friends" singing Kumbaya and hope that I am wrong.
I strongly sympathize with Mike's position and would like to add just one more point to my answer @felix, and that is to keep in mind that people who start discussions about Geert Wilders calling this elected member of our Dutch parliament a "racist bastard", are in it for the propaganda, and not for exchanging different points of view and perhaps learning from the experience.
The way Mr. Keller has described himself is very informative. Indeed, he and his wife seem to have created an unchallenging côterie around themselves consisting of people all sharing matching politically correct viewpoints about Islam and Geert Wilders' opposition to it, framing it as "racism".
The most polite thing one could say about such people is that they are hopefully nothing more than just dupes. That's bad enough as it is.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Outlaw Mike --
I sympathize with you, believe me. However, I committed myself to maintaining civility in this thread.
I've preserved as much as humanly possible of your original comment:
------
Michael said...
I WILL keep it very polite.
[and then Outlaw Mike immediately broke his resolution, tsk-tsk]
Sorry Baron, but we can not longer waste our time with niceties. The time to ACT is fast approaching. This sucker is once again trying to elevate himself on a higher moral elevation, but just today, Frits Bolkestein, a respected center-right Dutch politician, publicly advized orthodox jews to emigrate from The Netherlands since in the very near future the Dutch state will no longer be able to protect them from muslim violence.
That does it Baron. That DOES it for me. Politeness towards such plain [persons of lesser cerebral capacity] as Mr Keller and his Dutch wife, who probably turned whatever screws he still had even more loose, is a sign of weakness.
I've had enough. ENOUGH.
Outlaw Mike/ BELGIUM
Sheik, I had to adjust yours just a bit, too.
------
sheik yer'mami said...
Mr Keller is a [person of less than complete connection with reality] who will not learn, who will not read Koran, sira & hadith and will not listen to the thousands of genocidal Muslim hate-preachers on youtube who call for the destruction of Israel.
Instead, those who tell the truth must be smeared, discredited, denounced.
Wilders bad, Koranimals good. Lets sing kumbaya, lets do a little interfaith BS, lets cry ourselves to sleep because we are nice people and all those evil racist hatemongering Islamophobes who don't agree with us should go away, who needs reality when we can dream?
Mr Keller reminds me a bit of the fool that feeds the crocodile in the hope it will eat him last.
If Wilders is such a danger to the Netherlands, why is it jewish people are hiding ? You say your wife is dutch, so here's some dutch reading.
http://brabosh.com/2010/09/30/marokkaans-straattuig-drijft-joodse-families-nederland-uit/
http://www.joodseomroep.nl/:programma/de+5ws/de+keppel+de+bedreiging+en+de+verborgen+camera.html
Haha LOL, @Baron that's quite inventive and even kinda fun trying to emulate.
Assignment:
- Describe the invective m**nb*t in more palatable terms.
First try:
"Moon afflicted Fledermaus circling villa Orlovsky since time immemorial" (they will probably understand and it sounds, ehmm.. "sophisticated", they'd like that).
Second attempt:
"A nocturnal mammal of the umbrella-winged variety, flying under crescent lunar guidance, snapping at imaginary bugs."
That's better ;)
For Mike, my suggestion would be:
"Mr. Keller, I'd like to invite you to a place in Belgium where they offer the finest nose corrections almost for free!"
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Keller wrote:
For Israel, a country which not only has twenty percent Muslims among its own citizens but is located in the very heart of the Muslim World, all its neighbors being countries with a predominantly Muslim population, adopting Wilders’ rabid and indiscriminate hatred of all Muslims and of the Islamic religion as such would be nothing short of suicidal.
My response:
1) As Anne-Kit noted somewhere above, Wilders has never expressed any hatred for Muslims, much less a "rabid and indiscriminate" hatred. Keller's characterization could easily be disproved by copious quotes from the various writings and speeches of Wilders -- and I defy him to produce any quotes to the contrary. Keller's disregard for facts in this instance is likely indicative of his disregard for facts in other matters that cumulatively serve to support his worldview -- a worldview which, were he to attend to the data more scrupulously and flexanimously, would collapse.
2) Interestingly, Keller is admitting that a population of 20% Muslims would become homicidal (the obverse of "suicidal") for Wilders merely because of his speech. There are few other peoples in the world who would make it "suicidal" for any individual merely because of his speech, no matter how "rabid and indiscriminate" his rhetoric happened to be. Muslims seem to be the most trigger-happy in this regard.
P.S.: I notice among the commenters above a couple of names familiar to me from Jihad Watch. Alas, I have been banned from there -- unfairly, in my estimation:
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2010/09/banned-again-from-jihad-watch-comments.html
@Hesperado,
Sorry to hear that you've been banned at JW. I'm an infrequent visitor there as well as here at the Gates. We've exchanged some different perspectives on a few matters of interest and I've always valued your informed opinion, whether I agreed with it or not. Good to see you here.
Take care (will check your blog before signing off),
Sag.
Thanks Sagunto, I appreciate it.
Dear Baron, you are to congratulated for engineering and moderating this exchange. It is a perfect example of what sets Gates of Vienna apart from so many other "echo chamber" web sites.
As I noted in the original thread:
Dissenting comments can provide a lot of useful perspective, especially when they are carefully deconstructed.
For reasons known only to himself, Adam Keller is conspicuously absent from this discussion. That is a bit odd in light of what a concerted effort he made to reply regarding the original thread.
The deafening silence coming from his quarter speaks volumes about Mr. Keller's intellectual integrity. From all appearances, it seems as though the positions he expressed are not the result of carefully considered facts and information. Furthermore, his behavior appears to bear out my own observation that he, instead, may:
… prefer to casually toss about such verbal hand grenades and hope that no one will notice your own abject [deficiency in IQ] while you attempt to stir up resentment with blatantly fraudulent smear tactics…
It would seem that this is exactly what has transpired and that Mr. Keller's email reply had no other goal than to artificially bolster what have now been show as clearly inadequate powers of reason.
All too often, the arguments he has on offer seem more in line with typical Islamic or Liberal talking points and, in fact, employ many common and fallacious reasoning motifs employed by both of those parties that others here have already brought to everyone's attention.
If truth and honesty were genuine objectives of Mr. Keller, one could reasonably expect that long ago he would have provided cogent counterarguments along with something more substantial than anecdotal evidence for the claims he has made.
No such thing has happened and it reveals Mr. Keller as a disingenuous participant in this discussion, again, much in the same manner of so many Muslim contributors at this forum.
Why is this coincidence so unsurprising?
Racism a problem in society mister Keller? Why?
What people feel, think or say is never a problem, unless they call for violence or murder. The problem lies in what people do. If what any private person says, feels or thinks is wrong you just tell them why it is wrong, or disgusting. In western countries people should be protected by the law
The 'struggle against racism'- meaning the witch hunt against opinion - is a silly pass time for quixotic fools who are fighting harmless windmills while ignoring the wolves yapping at their horse's soft underbelly
Mr Keller and his ilk are what I call "Dignified Dhimmis". They use the language of reason to degrade it. Facts are nothing to people like this. Its impossible to have any sort of debate with them because they impose thier "higher morality" and deformed reasoning upon any subject. They have a mental illness which subjectivises everything and makes sense of nonsense. This mentality pervades most of the the discourse on Islam in the media and further afield. A complete refusal to look facts in the face is obligatory as an act of supplication and a self demeaning posture of reasonableness. This person and those like him are the archytipical Dhimmis.
Your commentary Baron was, as usual, excellent and an inspiration to all of us who visit this site.
Thankyou.
As ESW has stated time and time again, most Muslims have not read the Koran (because they don't speak or read Arabic) and have no idea of much of what's in it or how the contradictions are resolved (naqsh).
It is worse than this - many recite it by rote, from memory, as if on automatic. As a Christian could pray the Our Father and a Catholic the Hail Mary from heart without even realising what they're actually saying, so too many Muslims read the Quran and recite it in exactly the same way.
The comments by Mr Keller, however, seem indicative of his ilk. He truly is uncomfortable around those of different opinions, and so he chooses his friends based on their agreement with himself. It's a poor way to choose friends. I'd rather someone who grates on my nerves and would smash my jaw in if I were to be stupid rather than a vast echo chamber. That's the kind of friendship that keeps someone alive and aware, and frees us from our self-inflicted blindness.
The wilful, obstinate blindness of the left (I think I'm safe in assuming Mr Keller is "of the Left") never ceases to amaze me.
I know this has been said before, and I also know that Mr Keller will almost certainly not read this, and definitely will not understand:
ISLAM IS NOT A RACE
There, you've made me shout.
I object to Islam - not Muslims. I oppose it. I oppose Islam whether practised by brown-skinned Arabs or pasty-skinned Anglo-Saxons like me. I oppose its whole ideology, its world-view. I DO NOT oppose it because of the skin colour of its adherents.
In hoc signo vinces
Meanwhile in the real world there are evil men scheming for Israel to be wiped off the map the warheads maybe unadultarated evil but the primer and booster is the theopolitics we know as islam.
It is my sincere hope that ANYBODY who takes an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and especially those who espouse a pro-Palestinian view, read Sir Martin Gilbert’s unbiased and meticulously researched work In Ishmael’s House.
Sir Gilbert is at pains, sometimes frustratingly so, to find every scrap of goodness or good intention directed toward the Jews in Ishmael’s House (i.e. Muslim controlled lands), as well as to elaborate upon the horrifying suppression and subjugation that pretty much destroyed every culture and religion that preceded it, bar one exception, Judaism, and the Jews.
As the name implies, Sir Gilbert does not question the proprietorship of those lands conquered and subjugated by Islam, but rather records the relationship that existed within them between the conquerers and the Jews living there (often for many centuries before the Arabs and Islam ever arrived).
To understand the condition of Apartheid that Jews have endured for 1400 years under Muslim rule (based upon Mohammed's doctrine) will do much to re-frame your view of Israel and the vociferousness with which they defend their right to exist, as well as the deep mistrust they hold for Muslims and Islam in particular. This book is by no means blind to the persecution of Jews in 'Christian' lands (perhaps content for another book!), but it provides solemn and sobering proof that despite honest attempts by Muslim countries to be a progressive and civilizing force in the world, the teachings and example of Mohammed keep them mired in barbarity and mediocrity.
I was a supporter of the Palestinian cause and a denouncer of the State of Israel before reading this book, and it is with great shame that I admit it. The second book you should read is the Koran. For every verse of peace and tolerance there are 10 more providing puzzling and concerning contradictions of the most grizzly and perverse kind.
Ayad Jamal Al-Din, an ex-Iraqi MP said it best: "The union of the secularism of Ataturk and the Sufism of Jalal Al-Din Rumi is the only hope for the survival of the Muslims as a nation, for the survival of Islam as a religion, and for the survival of the human within the Muslim."
I must say I feel flattered to have generated such an enormous wave of responses. I am not very familiar with this blog (I did not know of its existence until it paid attention to me and my froends this week) I donlt suppose you get an opposing view here very open, glad to have once at leaset opened a window to let in some fresh air.
I can't hope to tackle all this and answer one by one. I can only make a few points in response.
First – to dispose of Wildres' brilliant idea that "Jordan is Palestine" and recapitulate why is it a completely discredited idea in Israel.
Simply put - the Palestinians have not the slightest intention to ever accept it. They would absolutely NOT go to Jordan or in any way regard it as being their Palestine. The only way to make them go to Jordan is for Israel to stage a massive ethnic cleansing of several million people, dwarfing the acts for which Slobodan Milosevic ended his life at the UN prison at the Hague. And the government of Jordan already announced that any attempt by Israel to implement any such plan would be considered an act of war and be treated accordingly. Jordan is one of the only to Arab countries which have a peace treaty with Israel, a peace treaty which is unanimously considered a major strategic asset for Israel. In short – while Israeli politicians are capable of doing a lot of crazy and nasty things, it is truly inconceivable for an Israeli government to adopt what Wilders suggested.
The options for Israel are quite clear-cut:
* To annex the Occupied Territories and give civil rights to their inhabitants and have instantly 45% Arab citizens with a reasonable prospect of their being 55% in ten years (most of them are Muslims, some are Christians and some are Druze – which might count either as a kind of Muslims or as a separate religion).
* To keep the territories without giving civil rights to their inhabitants – which would mean that Israel gives up definitely any prtense at being a democratic state, and which would be a highly unstable situation anyway since these Arabs would be there, even if not voting in elections, and would be clearly displeased with the situation and trying all they can to change it.
Or
* Let go of these territories and let the Palestinians create their own state in their own way.
I think that Israeli politics in increasingly tending towards the third possibility and it is this possibility which would eventually get implemented, in the not too far future.
The basic conflict in this country is in essence not a religious one but a national one: We came to a country where our ancestors lived 2000 years ago in order to create in it Jewish state, the people who lived in the country did not like the idea and made their displeasure very clear, and so a war started which is already going on for a hundred years (long before there was a state of Israel). It did not happen because they were Mslims - in fact, a significant part of them were and are Christians, who are often among the most determined Palestinian nationalists. Fir exmale, George Habash, the founder of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who was considered in Israle to be a dangerous arch-terrorist, was a Christian, as evident from his name ("George" is a nme found solely among Christian Arabs, not used by Muslims). Essentially the same conflict would have happened in whatever country we came to in order to create there a Jewish State, whatever the religion of its inhabitants. Had we come to create a Jewish state in Norway, there would have been a long and bloody Israeli-Norwegian conflict..
It is in Israel's interest to keep the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict as a local national conflict which could and should be solved as such. It is directly contrary to our interest to subsume it into a worldwide conflict between Muslims and anti-Muslim neo-Crusaders. It is a big disservice which Wilders is trying to do in his stupid intervention.
To Mr.(?) Hesperado, who insisted on misintepreting what I worte, I would like to note that I did not say that Muslims in Israle would tune homicidal against Mr. Wilders. I doubt if Muslims in Israel even noticed he was here, they are used to hearing every day terrible abuse from our own home-grown racists, and they don’t turn homicidal over it even if the things are very infuriating indeed. What I said is that it would be suicidal for Israel to take Wilders' advice and regard 20% of its own citizens as well as all its neighbors as a single solid mass of enemies.
The basic conflict in this country is in essence not a religious one but a national one: We came to a country where our ancestors lived 2000 years ago in order to create in it Jewish state, the people who lived in the country did not like the idea and made their displeasure very clear, and so a war started which is already going on for a hundred years (long before there was a state of Israel). It did not happen because they were Mslims - in fact, a significant part of them were and are Christians, who are often among the most determined Palestinian nationalists. Fir exmale, George Habash, the founder of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who was considered in Israle to be a dangerous arch-terrorist, was a Christian, as evident from his name ("George" is a nme found solely among Christian Arabs, not used by Muslims). Essentially the same conflict would have happened in whatever country we came to in order to create there a Jewish State, whatever the religion of its inhabitants. Had we come to create a Jewish state in Norway, there would have been a long and bloody Israeli-Norwegian conflict..
It is in Israel's interest to keep the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict as a local national conflict which could and should be solved as such. It is directly contrary to our interest to subsume it into a worldwide conflict between Muslims and anti-Muslim neo-Crusaders. It is a big disservice which Wilders is trying to do in his stupid intervention.
To Mr.(?) Hesperado, who insisted on misintepreting what I worte, I would like to note that I did not say that Muslims in Israle would tune homicidal against Mr. Wilders. I doubt if Muslims in Israel even noticed he was here, they are used to hearing every day terrible abuse from our own home-grown racists, and they don’t turn homicidal over it even if the things are very infuriating indeed. What I said is that it would be suicidal for Israel to take Wilders' advice and regard 20% of its own citizens as well as all its neighbors as a single solid mass of enemies.
About anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim racism: I don’t accept that "racism" can only happen when members of one "race" have a prejudice against another "race" (if it were, there would be no way of talking about Jewish racism against Arabs or vice versa, since both are classed as "Semites" by those who make such classifications). Anyway, I don't really accept the existence of such things as "races". I have been in Vietnam and Japan and did not see any yellow people around, the people had the same skin color as myself with some slight facial difference in facial features, and I was in Scandinavia and found that people with blond hair and blue eyes were a distinct minority and most people I saw in Olso looked like the people I see on the streets of Tel Aviv. There is, to be sure a difference in skin colour between the people originating from central and southern Africa and those originating from the shores of the Mediteranean and regions to its north Europe; to be strict, it should have been called "Pink Skinned" versus "Brown Skinned" rather than "White" and Black" – but this difference is literally skin-deep, very trivial in everything which matters. Essentially, there is only one race – the Human Race.
Anyway, this definition of "racism" has long been superseded. A group of people setting up some collection of physical criteria to define their own "race" which they glorify and some other collection of physical criteria to define the other "race" which they hate and persecute are just one type of racist. Other forms of manifesting prejudice and stereotyping of a sub-group of our one Human Race are equally racist, regardless of whether or not the people being stereotyped have a specific kind of skin colour or facial features. It is the stereotyping which defines it as being racism, not the fact of victims of the stereotype being a "race". By the way, Jews are NOT a "race", just walk around in Israel and see how many physical types you encounter. This never bothered anti-Semites, and it certainly does not mean that "anti-Semitism is not racism".
Stereotyping, to be effective, must have some factual basis. Undoubtedly, some Jews in some places were involved with finances, and some of these were involved in crooked deals. And there were some Jews in various historical periods who were in truth the power behind various thrones. The stereotyping comes in when you attribute the actions of some people in the group to the whole group and make this entire group responsible for them and assert than the entire group is involved in a monstrous conspiracy to take over your town, or your entire country, or the whole world. So it was (and still is, though less virulent in today's world) with the stereotyping of the Jews. So it is (very virulent in today's world) with the stereotyping of the Muslims. When you take the behaviour of some specific Muslims and assert that it typical of all Muslims, and that this is the way Muslims inevitably behave because they are Muslims, and that it is all part of monstrous Muslim plot to take over the world – then, sorry, that makes you a racist. .
Adam Keller, fine, if Islam isn't racist, I request all the provisions of Sharia to be implemented against Muslims in reverse. You won't object to that, since it's not racist, right?
I'd like to point out that if races don't exist, I can't be racist. And I suggest you pick a class in genetics.
Oh, and I suggest we should stop banning pit bulls since that's just stereotyping of dogs. There are no different dog breeds.
And since we're at it, let's give human rights to other animals. I mean, we're all carbon based lifeforms, why should we discriminate? Let's all be inclusive and all that. :)
By the way, one of those who wrote here asserted that anti-Semitism arose from people "envying the Jews". Certainly, there were some Jews who lived in a style to be envied. There were a lot more Jews living in style NOT to be envied, very poor Jewish refugees from East Europe living in horrible slum conditions in the main cities of Germany. I should know since my own father was one of them, born in Berlin in 1929, and growing up in terrible conditions even before the Nazis came to power. There was nothing for ordinary Germans to envy in how my father's family and tens of thousands of others with them lived in Berlin; rather, they were poor, overcrowded "foreigners" wearing strange clothes and speaking an incomprehensible tongue and ready to work at the dirty jobs which nobody else wanted what – and becoming the target of the cruel prejudice of which such people often are in human society, also in today's Europe. Only, today it is no longer against Jews. .
Of course, there is the well-known argument "I am not against Muslims, I am only against Islam". I hate to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that also this is not quite original, either. I have, however, to remind that there were some people in the latter part of the 19th century who dug deep into the Talmud and other basic texts of the Jewish religion and duly found there some very ugly things which were produced in evidence of the assertion that the Jewish religion was a nasty supremacist religion (which in many ways it is) whose adherents plot to take over the world. The distinction between Judaism as a religion and Jews as people did not long survive – it cannot, when you start spreading hatred. Hatred is by definition irrational and cannot be easily contained. It was true about Jews then, and equally true about Muslims now.
As people dug into the Talmud a hundred years ago, searching for ugly and nasty things and finding them, so do people dig into the sacred writing of Islam now.
Certainly, there are ugly elements in the Islamic religion. There are also ugly elements in the Jewish religion and in the Christian religion. The Bible – the holy book which we contributed to world culture – includes the Book of Joshua, which is a very thorough hymn of glory to genocide. The genocide of the Canaanites by Joshua, Son of Nun, I described in sickening detail, city after city being "put to the sword" and all its inhabitants killed, men and woman, young and old, sometimes even the domestic animals – for which Joshua is greatly praised as a righteous man who did precisely what God told him to do. This Book is part of the required curriculum in all Israeli schools. I remember learning it in my elementary school in Tel Aviv and thinking at the time that this Joshua was a jolly good fellow. That is certainly what I and my fellow pupils were expected to think.
The Book of Joshua was taken over by Christianity as part of the Old Testament was taken over by Christianity, which took care to have it translated to quite literally all the languagues in the world. Everywhere in the world in the past two thousand years where a Christian missionary came to introduce the Word of God to a new people who had not known it before, the package included a whole book devoted single-mindedly to telling people that genocide, a complete and total eradication of a people to the very last babe in arms so as to "inherit" their land is a most righteous act, an act highly pleasing to God. Christian missionaries still in the world of toady are still busy seeking out people who are not yet familiar with this nice text, to make them familiar with it. And it is quite useful to anyone wanting to justify conquering and settling somebody else's land and killing of driving away or subjugating the original population. All you need is a clergyman who would make the comparison and proclaim loftily that "We are the new Hebrews under the new Joshua, and they (the Indians in North America, or the Blacks in South Africa, or the Palestinians in today's West Bank) are the new Canaanites. God is with us!)
Conversly, though Islam took up many parts of the Bible and bestowed on various Biblical figures the status of Islamic prophets, Joshua son of Nun did not get this dignity – which I hold as a distinct advantage of Islam over Judaism and Christianity.
I can also remark that the idea of conquering other people and forcing them by the sword to convert to your religion is an originally Jewish idea, which is part of my people's contributions to world culture. It was the Jewish Hashmonean Kings in the Second Century B.C. who first came up with this brilliant idea, conquering and forcibly converting the Edumeans to their south and the Gallileans (including the ancestors of Jesus) to their north. Nobody thought of it before, as far as I know, and it was from us Jews that both Christians and Muslims learned this nice idea. Afterwards we were quite often the target of it, There were many centuries when Jews were in no position to oppress others, but in the last few decades we certainly made up for lost time.
I can also mention that Christianity has a very black record. A vast amount indeed of worldwide conquest, oppression, enslavement, mass killing and outright genocide were carried out over the past five hundred years by Christians – directly commanded and promoted, or at the least clearly condoned and approved by the various Churches (first the Catholic Church, then joined by various Protestant denominations). For most of its history Christianity was – and to some considerable degree still is – a supremacist religion with a proclaimed aim of ruling the whole world. In reference to the name of this blog it should be mentioned that while the Ottoman Muslims got to the gates of Vienna and were thrown back, the armies of Christiandom in their later march went on to conquer and carve up the Ottoman Empire and to conquer the entire Muslim World even to its most far away hidden corners, that Christiand ruled over all of the Muslims with considerable arrogance and on occasion quite a bit of cruelty; and that a country such as Algeria had to suffer terrible bloodshed before it could finally get itself free of Christian rule (a million dead Algerians by some accounts, "only" several hundred thousands by other accounts), (Also in reference to the name of this blog, I would like to mention in passing that when Jews were most cruelly persecuted by Christians in Spain and Portugal, they found a safe refuge in the Ottoman Empire – and that, unlike other places where Jews were initially welcome but after some time found themselves cruelly persecuted – e.g. Poland – in the Ottoman Empire they never wore out their initial welcome).
In recent decades, Christianity has entered a process of increasingly becoming a civilized religion, for which it is to be commended – though there are still considerable numbers of quite barbaric and dangerous Christians around, such as the US "evangelists" who dream of a nuclear "Armageddon" and "War of Gog Umagog" as a necessary prelude to the Second Coming, and with that in mind they support the most dangerous nationalist provocateurs in the Israeli society. "Friends of Israel" they call themselves.
Does all the above excuse the nasty behavior of quite a few Muslim groups, leaders and clergy in today's world? Certainly not. It just means that one should not play into such groups' hands by endorsing their claim that they represent the One and Only Islam and that there is not and can never be any kind of Islam. If major portions of Christianity could bring themselves to something approximating civilized behavior, so could major portions of Islam.
One more point before stop taking up your valuable time to my unsympathetic mutterings, I would like to ask how many of you are aware that in the State of Israel Sharia Law is part of the law of the land? Yes, it is quite true. If you go to Haifa. Or to Nazareth, or anywhere else where Muslim citizens of Israel live, you are apt to see buildings .with the sign over the door bearing the Coat of Arms of the State of Israel and under it emblazoned the words in Hebrew and Arabic "State of Israel – Sharia Court". These courts are part of the civil service of the State of Israel, their judges are paid out of the Israeli taxpayer's money, and if necessary they can call upon the Israeli police to enforce their rulings. Muslim citizens of Israel are bound by the law of the state to have recourse to these courts in all matters of marriage, divorce and any other issue of personal status. They have no choice in the matter – Israel has no civil marriage. Nor would it help for them to declare that they don’t believe in the Muslim religion – non belief does not exclude you from the religious community into which you were born, in which the government inscribed you at birth, and to whose religious courts you are subject – like it or not. (Some Muslim friends of mine in the Galilee greatly dislike it).
You can follow some of the links here to read more about it.
http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2008/02/sharia-state-of-israel.html
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/int19.htm
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a910732831&fulltext=713240928
http://www.ipcri.org/files/qadi.html
Of course, this does not only apply to the Muslim citizens of Israel – it applies to all citizens of Israel, especially to the majority Jews. We, too, are subject to the authority of the Rabbincal courts which make their rulings on the basis of millennia-old religious texts and which are not always very palatable to a modern person. To mention a few tidbits, the judges are by definition exclusively male and they don’t seem to have heard of women being equal to man (in Hebrew the same word, ba'al, means both "husband" and "owner"). And there are all kinds of strange rules such as that if you are a man with the family name "Cohen", you are not allowed to marry a divorced woman. This is because "Cohen" means "Priest", so you are supposed to be on standby to resume your job at the Temple of Jerusalem as soon as the Messiah comes (which could be, according to the rabbis, at any moment.) Now a priest must be pure and marry only a virgin, and a divorced woman is by definition not a virgin. The rabbis don't insist on a physical check of any woman wanting to marry a Cohen, to find the state of her virginity – however, shoud they get it into their minds to insist on such checks, the provisions for it certainly exist in the Jewish religion.
I could also mention that the same apply also to Christian citizens of Israel. They can only marry or divorce according to the rules of their religious community. For example, Catholics in Israel can only get a Catholic divorce – i.e., they can't divorce, period.
Now, where do I and my leftist friends stand on all this? Of course, we are strongly against all this, we want to have in Israel a separation of religion from the state, to have civil marriage, to let anyone – Jew, Muslim, Christian, Atheist – marry whoever they want with whatever rites they want or without any rites at all. And what is the position of Knesset Member Arieh Eldad – the Israeli bosom friend of Geert Wilders, who invited him to Israel to deliver this memorable speech about "Jordan is Palestine"? Would it come as a great surprise to you to hear that he is fully committed to preserving the status quo in religious matters – which of course includes the Sharia courts for Muslim Israelis? Yes, when your friend Brian of London went into the hall to phtograph the speech of Wilders from A to Z, and heard the cheering and clapping, he was in the very midst of staunch upholders of Sharia Law and Saria courts in Israel. Isn't life funny?
Woah, agitprop-tsunami!
Reminds me of how the Niagara falls were described by Oscar Wilde:
".. a vast, unnecessary amount of water going the wrong way, and then falling over unnecessary rocks."
Dear Mr. Keller, your fanaticism is worthy of a better cause.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Adam Keller, you didn't answer me. My question was simple. If Muslims aren't racist by the virtue of believing in Allah and thinking the Qu'ran is a holy book combined with the slave trading, rapist, paedophile and warlord of the middle ages being the perfect man, then you'd have NO problem whatsoever with Sharia being implemented in reverse against them.
The question was simple and it was about Islam. Stay on topic. And Jews weren't hated because they were rich, they were hated because they undermined the societies in which they moved. In Romania the Germans were richer too and we didn't mind getting a German king.
If you want to see why the Jews are hated, just check the Paideia organization in Sweden.
Quote:
It was true about Jews then, and equally true about Muslims now.
end quote.
I really have to differ with this.
Muslims are moving aggressively into countries and cultures which are not their own.
Jews, in the 1930s, were being oppressed to a lethal degree in Europe-- in places where they had lived for centuries and proved to be no more criminal and violent than any other aggregate of the societies in which they lived.
One cannot say the same of the Muslim immigrant and generation 1s and 2s in Europe.
Jews of the 30s were not engaged in terror.
No Jew ever blew up a train or airline in the name of God.
While Muslims in the here and now routinely plan and carry out terrorist acts in the name of Allah.
I cry false equivalency.
What is wrong with saying "I hate Muslims and Islam"? They hate me and so I hate them back. I say send all the Muslims back to their home country. They don't have a right to live here. They will never be citizens and are only guests. I have a right to my homeland and heritage...it will not be stolen by invaders.
Muslims are agents of Islam (and the only agents of Islam), and therefore, are a big problem.
Not only was I anti Communism, but I was also anti Communist.
Let me give you some choice quotations from the Holiest Book of Judaism which became also the Holiest Book of Christianity.
Book of Joshua, sixth book of the Hebrew Bible a.k.a. The Old Testament
Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, 1:2 Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.
1:3 Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.
1:4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.
Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, 1:11 Pass through the host, and command the people, saying, Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the LORD your God giveth you to possess it.
6:20 (...) Tthe wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city [Jericho], every man straight before him, and they took the city.
6:21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
8:21(...) And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai.
8:22 And the other issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape.
8:23 And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.
8:24 And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.
8:25 And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.
8:26 For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
8:27 Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua.
8:28 And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.
Some more from the Holiest Book of Judaism and Christianity
10:11 (...) And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.
10:12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
10:14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.
10:15 And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal.
10:16 But these five kings fled, and hid themselves in a cave at Makkedah.
10:17 And it was told Joshua, saying, The five kings are found hid in a cave at Makkedah.
10:18 And Joshua said, Roll great stones upon the mouth of the cave, and set men by it for to keep them: 10:19 And stay ye not, but pursue after your enemies, and smite the hindmost of them; suffer them not to enter into their cities: for the LORD your God hath delivered them into your hand.
10:20 And it came to pass, when Joshua and the children of Israel had made an end of slaying them with a very great slaughter, till they were consumed, that the rest which remained of them entered into fenced cities.
10:21 And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace: none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel.
10:22 Then said Joshua, Open the mouth of the cave, and bring out those five kings unto me out of the cave.
10:23 And they did so, and brought forth those five kings unto him out of the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon.
10:24 And it came to pass, when they brought out those kings unto Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said unto the captains of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon the necks of them.
10:26 And afterward Joshua smote them, and slew them, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging upon the trees until the evening.
I could have given you considerably more quotations of this kind - I know this book, I had to study it very thoroughly at school in Tel Aviv. The teacher who taught me all the above and considerably more did not feel that there was anything wrong about what Joshua and his merry men did - after all, it was the explicit command of God, wasn't it?
And there are quite a few people in Israel today - people with considerable influence in the Israeli political system, too, whole political parties which are represented in the Government of Israel - who also don't think that there was anything wrong about what Joshua and his merry men did - after all, it was the explicit command of God, wasn't it?
In fact, they think that this is a good example for Israel to emulate in its present dealings with the Palestinians and the Arab world. (Of course, they don't propose to use swords - there are a bit more powerful weapons available nowadays).
And there are quite a few Christians - for example all kinds of "Evangelical" groups with considerable influence in the Republican Party in the US - who also take this book as a literal and practical guide for action.
So, do I think that Islam is a nice and pretty religion? No. Do I think that all Muslims are pure saints? Absolutely not.
But do I think that Islam deserves to be singled out as the one and only Evil Religion in the world? Also, absolutely not.
As a confirmed non-believer, I sometimes think that the world would have been a better place without religion and that all places of worship should be pulled down and all Holy Books piled in a huge bonfire.
But it is not a practical proposition, and anyway not all religious believers are nasty. Not all Jewish believers, not all Christian believers, and also not all Muslim believers.
Religion has been there in human society for a long time and will remain so - Judaism, and Christianity, and Buddhism - and also Islam.
Quote:
JOSHUA:
10:26 And afterward Joshua smote them, and slew them, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging upon the trees until the evening.
end quote.
Quote:
Yusuf Ali, 9:5
5. But when the forbidden months
Are past, then fight and slay
The Pagans wherever ye find them,
And seize them, beleaguer them,
And lie in wait for them
In every stratagem (of war);
But if they repent,
And establish regular prayers
And practise regular charity,
Then open the way for them:
For God is Oft-forgiving,
Most Merciful.
end quote.
Do you understand the difference in wording between the two passages.
One is about a historically specific event.
The other is a specific imperative to be carried out in the here and now.
goethechosemercy:
"One is about a historically specific event.
The other is a specific imperative to be carried out in the here and now."
I'd go further: the Koranic sword verses are imperatives to carry out always -- back then, throughout the intervening centuries, in the here and now, and for all time in the future until history ends eschatologically.
I really get fouled up by the false equivalence of people like Mr Keller.
First of all, Islam is not Christianity. Keep on the topic of Islam - Christianity doesn't enter into the bloody equation in any way, shape or form. If you have issues with Christianity, fine. Deal with them elsewhere.
Here, we have issue with Islam, and for good reason. Whereas Joshua is historical and inspired by God, the Quran's sword verses aren't just inspired - they are God's words, precise and absolute. It is these we take issue with, because they are unchangeable and not exactly open to interpretation (especially considering dissenters might be labelled apostates and thus be made vulnerable to execution... or lynching. Either is justified).
Thus, I cry false equivalency, and a straw man argument. You say Christians are as bad as Muslims? Well, statistically speaking, Christians ought to be the greatest perpertrators of terrorist acts were they so truly equivalent (what with ~2 billion Christians through the world). Islam would come second (with ~1.5 billion). However, Islam beats out everyone in this way, and in such a way that leaves the religiously motivated terrorist incidences of other religions in statistical insignificance.
So, by numbers, by facts and by argument, you have failed utterly. Now, perhaps you might be kind enough to stop going on tangents and answer some of the quite legitimate questions others have asked of you.
Or do you not answer them because you might expose your own hypocrisy? At the very least, I expect you to venerate truthfulness and consistency. Or am I asking too much?
Homophobic Horse writes:
Because whitey can not ever fairly judge the dusky folks: he is obviously motivated by racism. Ergo, it doesn't matter how much damage Islam and immigration does to his society
Bingo. And the roots trace right back to the emancipation of Keller's ethnic group in Europe. What a catastrophe that has turned out to be for Europeans.
Keller is flat out lying about human differences being skin deep. The differences are much more profound. Keller knows this. He brags about jews having different skin colors. Yet he has no problem identifying jews as a group. From his arguments here it is also clear he sympathizes with them as a group, that he is motivated by his concern for the well-being of that particular group.
Keller fashions universal morals for everybody else based on what he thinks is best for the group he identifies with. He tries to impose these morals on people he doesn't identify with, and whose best interests are obviously NOT served by his morals.
Keller tries to guilt-trip us about "racism". "Racism" is the poisonous idea that it is immoral for Whites and Whites alone to have anything of our own. It's the idea that muslims can have their countries, and jews can have theirs, but White countries are for everybody!
As the consequences of imbibing this poison become ever clearer, so does the malicious intent of its salesmen.
Adam, I'd really appreciate if you'd answer me. Since you said Islam isn't racist, why should it be racist if we implemented reverse Sharia for Muslims? It would be the exact same thing. If us doing that is racist, then Islam by default is racist.
And since any form of discrimination and whatnot is evil, why shouldn't we extend rights beyond our species? It's evil specieism to do so. By the way, I'm not joking, I'd really like you to explain these things to me. I'm really curious because I like understanding people.
TANSTAAFL, I think you should give Adam credit for actually preaching what he tells us to do to Israelis too, which is different than what a lot of Jews do. He gets some points in the honesty department from me due to this. But yes, in the end, he supports these things because in his view, his people are best off in this environment.
I don't even understand the whole focus on this Trotkyite concept - racism. I suppose this just shows how Marxism triumphed over the West. I hardly care about this concept - the way I see it, people who don't do the best for their own are traitors and in the sane times, they were seen as such. So in the end, this is what you choose: be a racist or a traitor. :)
I did not say that Islam is not racist. I said that all religions have racist elements in them, in Islam certainly but also in Judaism and also in Christianity. Certainly any racist who wants to foment hatred against some group which he does not like can open the holy books of his religion and find there a lit of material to justify the hatred and show that it the command of God. Certainly there are many Muslims like that, and I am not very friendly to them, but there are also quite a few Jews like that (most of my time and energy is spent in fighting against them here in Israel) and also quite a few Christians like that and also Hindoos like that and Buddhists like that (also in Buddhism - ask the Tamils in Sri Lanka). But in every religion there are also quite a few decent people, who want to live and let live, who collect money for charities and try to do good things and make the world better - and there are Muslims like that (I know some personally) like there are Jews like that and Christians like that. So, I am not in favor of Islam - I am just against pointing at Islam and saying that this is one religion which is nasty and evil while all the others are swell guys.
As I said, Christianity is a supremacist religion which in principle wants to take over the whole world and "save the soul" of every single human being, and for about 1500 years it tried very hard to "save the souls" of everybody whether or not they wanted to be "saved". You could accuse Islam of wanting to conquer the world, but about Christianity it is not a matter of accusing or suspecting, it is an unquestioned historical fact that - strating in 1492 when Columbus set out to "discover" and conquer America with the blessing of the Pope and the Queen of Spain - Christians did conquer the whole world and ruled it for five hundred years, and in the process killed millions of people, enslaved millions of people, made the lives of millions of peoples into the most terrible Hell for hundreds of years, and all this with the blessing of the Church (catholic and Protestant alike). So why pick on Islam, especially? And I don't exempt my own people, either. Our ancestors in ancient times were very often the most monstrous murderous bastards imaginable, and they were proud of their murders and wrote them down in great detail in "Holy Books". Then there were 2000 years when we were opressed and downtrodden and in no position to opress others, but since getting a state of our own again we quickly make up for lost time in being nasty to others.
Yiou wrote: "In the the end, this is what you choose: to be a racist or a traitor". For me, no problem and no dilemma - I choose to be a traitor, and am very proud to be one. There is hardly a night when my phone here in Tel Aviv does not ring with an angry voice shouting "Stinking traitor, we are going to get you!". I does not intimidate me in the least.
So, to answer your original question: No, I don't want Sharia laws to be applied, directly or in reverse, to anyone. In fact, as I wrote in an earlier post which apprently you did not read, Sharia law is applied at present to Muslim citizens of Israel (like Rabbinical law is applied to Jewish citizens of Israel) and I want everybody in Israel to have the right for a non-religious Civil Marriage. Strange as it seems, it is the group which invited Geert Wilders to Israle which is strongly supportive of keeping Sharia Law as part of the law of the land in Israel and of having Sharia Courts financed by the Israeli tax payers and enpowered to ask the help of the police in enforcing their rulings.
In gneral, I want a world in which a;; eople are equal and where every single human being will have their inalienable rights respected - and yes, I am also for the rights of other creatures than humans, I am myself a vegan and consume no food produced at the price of killing or exploiting any other living being, and I would like to have a world in which there will be not a single slughterhouse on land and not a single fishing boats at sea - and I think it will indeed happen sooner or later, though probably not in my own lifetime.
Mr. Keller, a huge number of your statements are either so totally out of context or just blatantly wrong that it is not worth taking the HOURS required to address all of the category errors and untruths they contain.
Your comments are so perfectly aligned with traditional Liberal talking points that it is very easy to imagine you cutting and pasting them from an ultra-Liberal web site like Daily Koz.
The delusions and misinformation you disseminate are not just rank errors but especially dangerous with regard to the deluded manner they encourage others to adopt.
Your entire output reeks of "Social Justice" which is just another name for Communism and its totalitarian tradition of oppression and mass-murder. I do not envy you the moment of truth that awaits you later in life when you finally (if ever) manage to realize just how removed from reality your perceptions are.
A hallmark of this is the length at which you go on without directly addressing those who have sought to confront you regarding issues in dispute.
Those who listen to and actually believe you put their very lives at risk in doing so. I can only speculate as to how many peoples' lives have already been ruined by you. Like a particular type of bad driver, you never get into accidents but manage to cause countless wrecks. Such is the nature of your personal philosophy which is as irrational as it is inconsistent.
I feel a bit insulted by your latest message.
What makes you so sure that I am so am so incompetent as to need to resort to cutting and pasting my talking points from somebody else's ultra-Liberal web site? Did it not occur to you that I might be thinking up all these talking points all by my own self, writing them up in detail, putting them up myself in about three dozen ultra-Liberal web sites in English and Hebrew, for others to cut and paste them? As well as regularly getting them translated and published on ultra-Liberal web sites in French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Russian, Serb. Afrikkans, Vietnamese and various other languges, for the speakers of all these tongues to cut and paste?
Can it be that you have not yet realized that you are in direct contact with the evil spider at the very center of the international Ultra Liberal-Social Justice - Socialist - Communist -
Marxist - Free Mason - Atheist - Muslim - Jewish - Anarchist - Troskyte - Nihilist - Martian - Surealist conspiracy to subvert and take over the world?
Brrrr...
Quote:
You could accuse Islam of wanting to conquer the world, but about Christianity it is not a matter of accusing or suspecting, it is an unquestioned historical fact that - strating in 1492 when Columbus
end quote.
I could?
No. Mr. Keller.
I will.
You seem to have forgotten the early medieval conquests of North Africa, Iberia, Battle of Tours, slave raiding in France, Italy, and the Black Sea Region.
All of this was imperialism done in the name of Islam.
The difference between you and us is that we view the conduct of Muslims today through the glass of history-- and we see it as being continuous with the conquests of the medieval and Early Modern Era.
It is a coherent view.
Not racist.
Quite rational.
We are not giving Muslims and Islam any more than is their due.
I haven't seen any attempts on the part of Christians to colonize any place, to overwhelm by way of immigration or "love jihad".
Even in the 19th century, Europe colonized in the name of its interests, profit and racism.
But not for the sake of God.
You think the conduct of 15th-century Christians excuses the conduct of present-day Muslims.
It does not.
Again, false equivalency.
"In principle . . . "
What a laugh.
As I said already, I am not a Muslim nor very forn of Muslims. Islam did launch a wave of conquests in its earlier period, then Christianity launched a far more more massive wave of conquests. Islam never conquered the whole world = Christianity did, its conquests sometimes carried out directy and outrightly in the name of God, sometimes in the name of business and of King and Empire with the missionary and the bishop walking step by step with the soldier and the settler. When the West Was Won by the pioneers of the USA and the original inhabitants of the West decimated to all but total extinction, God was very conspicuouly present.
Muslims did a lot of bloody things in various parts of history. Muslims never were, nor are they now, a bunch of saints and angels. Still, I challenge you to point to two whole continents in which Muslim conquest was as ruthless and devastating for the original inhabitants as Christian conquest was in the Americas and Australia.
"Muslim World Conquest". You are nothing but a hypocrite.
Still, I challenge you to point to two whole continents in which Muslim conquest was as ruthless and devastating for the original inhabitants as Christian conquest was in the Americas and Australia.
Don't patronise me Mr Keller. I am Australian, and to be compared to the way Muslims treated the infidels and unbelievers is sickening.
You want to know where Islam was as nasty to the natives as Christians supposedly were (more, I might add, by theft and accident than by divinely sanctioned murder)? Here you go - the Buddhists of Afghanistan. They don't exist because the Muslims butchered them. We also have the Persian Zoroastrians, reduced to a paltry half a million adherents from over a millenium of jihad and oppression.
And what of the Coptic Christians in Egypt? Brutally oppressed, denied even the right to build a house of worship, they have endured nearly fourteen hundred years of ceaseless Islamic rule.
They may not be entire continents, but you can find many more examples (might I suggest the Armenian genocide to start with) without too much hassle.
You also claim that the Church was part and parcel in the oppression of the native Americans. On the contrary, it was the missionaries who were often their advocates to the governors and bishops.
But again, we're splitting hairs here. As I have said, the issue we deal with here is the issue of expansionist Islam. You have still failed to answer the central thesis that Islam is an expansionist religion, with its expansion mandated to be by whatever means necessary. You can call out Christians all you like, but we're not the ones who are going around and blowing ourselves up.
Once again, I am going to ask you to refrain from false equivalency. Let us deal with Islam as Islam, Muslims and Muslims. Islam is not Christianity, and Muslims don't think like Christians. And yes, I can demonstrate this.
Christians conquered the whole world?
In the name of Christ?
I don't believe it.
And neither did Muslims.
The idea that any community could "conquer the whole world" was last entertained by someone named Adolf Hitler.
You are trying to deal with your false equivalency by bringing up the extent of conquest.
Here we are concerned with culture and oppression and the future of the West.
You have not addressed the fundamental conflict between Islam and the West.
We have done so by way of history; and our argument is such that you have decided to pigeon-hole it into geographical terms. I'm not going to get into a discussion of the vicissitudes of medieval versus early modern warfare with you.
I also refuse to believe your claim that Christianity conquered.
If Christianity conquered the Americas, then their leader would have been the Pope, not the Council of the Indies or the Portuguese crown.
"Christianity" doesn't conquer anything because there is no imperative in the religion to do so.
Islam does have the imperative to conquer, and its scriptures even specify how conquered people are to be treated.
No such set of imperatives exists in Christian scripture.
Mr. Australian, please read the history of your own country, a country which came into being by the brutal conquest and mass murder and near total extermination of the original inhabitants and more than a hundred years of brutal opression of those lucky enough to survive. Who are you to point your finger at Muslims?
There were no Muslims in Tasmania to extereminate its original population and hunt them down and leave not a single one of them - not a single one of them - alive. It was all done white quote unquote God-fearing English members of the Anglican Church. There was no mosque there and nobody called for Jihad from a minaret. The neatly dressed English governor wrote to London in correct English and reported that the deed was done and the Aborigins all dead to the very last one and the land was empty and ready to receive good, Christian, God fearing settlers.
And read the history of the United States of Anerica, another country which came into being by an act of genocide. the brutal conquest and near extermination of the original inhabitants. This was done by Christians, not by Muslims.
I never said that Muslims are all saints. I did not say that Muslims have never committed crimes or massacres. I never said that Muslims never conquered somebody else's land. I never said that Muslims always behave fairy to other people. It would be ridiculous to assert anything like that.
I just say that it is sheer hypocricy for people who have done the same or much worse to point an accusing finger at the Muslims.
It looks like my comment didn’t make it through. I’m posting it again.
@ “Still, I challenge you to point to two whole continents in which Muslim conquest was as ruthless and devastating for the original inhabitants as Christian conquest was in the Americas and Australia.”
According to Will Durant, Islam’s conquest of India was the bloodiest of all history. As to what the Europeans did in Mexico and Peru, the Black Legend promulgated by liberals has distorted everything, as explained in my book The Return of Quetzalcoatl (see esp. the chapter that gave the book its title, here).
As to native Australians, they were abominable. Tribe people killed, and sometimes even ate, their own children. See the fully referenced article I wrote for Citizendium, especially the section on Australian infanticide (here). Yes, in that article you can see why the Tasmanians were exterminated: they deserved it...
In other words, your whole point Mr. Keller is based on propaganda. It is an example of historical manipulation and culture demonization. A full statement demonstrating it appears in The Return of Quetzalcoatl.
Chechar, thank you so much for bearing the standard of truth in this discussion.
I have read all of your "The Return of Quetzalcoatl" series and find little to dispute in it.
More importantly, even if there were, your points remain cogent and demand honest consideration in ways that Adam Keller seems incapable of delivering.
Keller wants to talk about Australia, but there is a more recent, larger scale democide his own ethnic group bears responsibility for: Stalin's Willing Executioners.
Indeed, Mr Keller, I'll have you not patronise me. I actually went through and had a look at this sort of stuff at school (and I am a keen student of history, I assure you).
The last of the Tasmanian Aboriginals were, in point of fact, deported, after their numbers had been ravaged by disease and local white settlers who came into conflict with them.
And make no mistake, there was never a systematic campaign of slaughter. When conflict came, the state never sanctioned any of it (even punishing settlers and providing justice to the Aboriginals, unlike Muslims and their Shariah courts). The worst you'll get is that deportation like in the Tasmanian case.
And again, you make issue of Christian atrocities, when we speak here of the Muslim ones. We're not here to say "We're better - we have not sinned". None of us have said that. What we say is "These people wish to conquer us, and frankly, that doesn't sound like a good idea." Now will you perhaps tell me why you keep on bringing up Christian atrocities done in the past when our focus is, instead, on the future. The future of the West, and the world, and if there will even be a future past the end of this century for mankind.
So? Yes, there were mass murders committed by Stalin, a Georgian, with the help of Jews (and others). Did I ever say that Jews were the purest and nicest of people? If you look a bit back you will see that I myself with my own initiative posted here some very bloody murders committed by murderous bastards who were my own ancestors. So, you are just proving my point. My point is not that Muslims are nice people. just that they are not the only ones who did and do nasty things.
As to the assertion that the native Tasmanians DESERVED to be exterminated, I am strongly tempted to say that the person who wrote this (whom I did not meet before and have no special wish to meet again) DESERVEs to be exterminated. But no, I will not say that - NOBODY deserves to be exterminated, there are NO circumstances where genocide is justified, No such circunstances. I can just say that here is one more abominable person who certainly has no right to point an accusing finger at Muslim. None whatsoever,
So, while answering the character who asserted that the native Tasmanians deserved to be exterminated, there comes another character saying that they were not exterminated at all, just deported to a place where they were ravaged by disease and none of them survived. Such a pity. The two of you should have some discussion with each other.
Expenses related to running the Gates of Vienna web site: Untold thousands of dollars per year.
Cost in terms of personal time devoted by nameless individuals to deconstructing pervasive Liberal lunacy that permeates the World Wide Web: Countless millions of dollars per year.
Effort required to debunk detritus like:
Can it be that you have not yet realized that you are in direct contact with the evil spider at the very center of the international Ultra Liberal-Social Justice - Socialist - Communist - Marxist - Free Mason - Atheist - Muslim - Jewish - Anarchist - Troskyte - Nihilist - Martian - Surealist conspiracy to subvert and take over the world?:
PRICELESS.
LAW Wells: Now will you perhaps tell me why you keep on bringing up Christian atrocities done in the past when our focus is, instead, on the future. The future of the West, and the world, and if there will even be a future past the end of this century for mankind.
Author! AUTHOR! Spot effing on!
"Now will you perhaps tell me why you keep on bringing up Christian atrocities done in the past when our focus is, instead, on the future. ocus is, instead, on the future. The future of the West, and the world, and if there will even be a future past the end of this century for mankind".
A good question which certainly deserves a good answer. Indeed, I am very much concerned for the future of theWest (and equally – of the East) , and the whole world, and if there will even be a future past the end of this century for mankind.
The best answer which I can give is to quote Amal Elsana Alh’jooj – a Beduin woman lawyer from the Negev Desert in southern Israel, a Muslim woman who has no use for Sharia Law, who spoke just two hours ago at the rally marking the International Human Rights Day in central Tel Aviv:
"We do want to live together, we want a future together… this country is for both of us, Arabs and Jews, and also for the foreign workers here with us today. This march is important for what's going on at the Knesset [Israeli Parliament]… We respond immediately to anyone who thinks racism is the right thing."
You should have seen it, thousands of people marching this very morning through the main streets and throughfares of Tel Aviv, Jews and Muslims and some Christians together, Israelis and Palestinians and also many of the migrant workers and asylum seekers from Eritrea and Somalia living in south Tel Aviv, all walking together and holding their banners aloft and chanting together: "Human Rights for All!", "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies!" "Jews and Muslims – stand together against racism!" and "Stop the occupation!" and "Solidarity against Fascism!".
A pity you were not there, all of you, you might have learned something, and proud I am indeed to have taken part in organizing this march and rally.
You can follow the link if you want to know more of it:
http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3997185,00.html
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3997175,00.html
So, where were we? Yes, about the future of the West and of all humanity. Manifestly, the worst danger facing the West and the whole world today is racism and hatred, against which no society is immune, which can always destroy the foundations of any society ad lead it to destruction.
It is important to remember the atrocities of the past, committed by each and every kind of people – by Muslims and by Christians and by Jews and by godless Atheists.
Only by remembering how many and how terrible were all these atrocities can we hope to avoid repeating them. Only by standing together, all of us, in human solidarity - as Jews and Muslims and Christians and quite a few godless Atheists such as myself stood today in Tel Aviv - can we hope to overcome hatred and racism, and remember always that we all belong to one Race – the Human Race.
That is our one and only hope of building a safe and happy future for all of us, in the West and the East and in the whole world, and have some hope that there will indeed be a future for mankind past the end of this century (and also for very many centuries and millenia to follow). Amen.
@ “As to the assertion that the native Tasmanians DESERVED to be exterminated, I am strongly tempted to say that the person who wrote this (whom I did not meet before and have no special wish to meet again) DESERVEs to be exterminated. But no...” - Keller
Obviously, you didn’t even skip through the Citizendium article.
Quote:
Australia
According to Bronislaw Malinowski, who wrote a book on indigenous Australians in the early 1960s, “infanticide is practiced among all Australian natives.”[53] The practice has been reported in Tasmania, Western Australia, Central Australia, South Australia, in the Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Anthropologist Géza Róheim wrote: "When the Yumu, Pindupi, Ngali, or Nambutji were hungry, they ate small children with neither ceremonial nor animistic motives. Among the southern tribes, the Matuntara, Mularatara, or Pitjentara, every second child was eaten in the belief that the strength of the first child would be doubled by such a procedure" [54].
Family units usually consisted of three children. Brough Smyth, a 19th century researcher, estimated that in Victoria about 30% of the births resulted in infanticide.[55] Mildred Dickeman concurs that that figure is accurate in other Australia tribes as a result of a surplus of the birthrate.[56] Cannibalism was observed in Victoria at the beginning of the 20th century. The Wotjo tribe, as well as the tribes of the lower Murray River, sometimes killed a newborn to feed an older sibling.[57]
Thomas Robert Malthus wrote that, in the New South Wales region, when the mother died sucking infants were buried alive with her.[58] In the Darling River region, infanticide was practiced “by a blow on the back of the head, by strangling with a rope, or chocking with sand.”[59] In Queensland a tribal woman could have children after the age of thirty. Otherwise babies would be killed.[60] The Australian Aranda tribes in the Northern Territory used the method of choking the newborn with coal, sand or kill her with a stick.[61] According to James George Frazer, in the Beltana tribes in South Australia it was customary to kill the first-born.[62] Twins were always killed by the Arrernte in central Australia.[63] In the Luritcha tribe occasional cannibalism of young children occurred.[64] Aram Yengoyan calculated that, in Western Australia, the Pitjandjara people killed 19% of their newborns.[65] In the 19th century the native Tasmanians were exterminated by the colonists, who regarded them as a degenerate race. Richard H. Davies (fl. 1830s - 1887), a brother of Archdeacon Davies, wrote that Tasmanian “females have been known to desert their infants for the sake of suckling the puppies,” which were later used for hunting.[66] Like other tribal Australians, when the mother died the child was buried as well.[67]
/end quote
Similar passages have been published here at Gates of Vienna. Search the phrase “the tribes of New Guinea and Australia” in this Preface to The Return of Quetzalcoatl.
(pause)
Already read it?
Well: these people deserved what they got from the hands of the Europeans. If westerners behaved as they behaved as recently when my grandmother was born, we’d not be witnessing the present multicultural, multiracial, ultraliberal mess and the Islamization of the West.
Mr Keller, since you are fond of talking about “extermination”, give us your opinion about the Talmudic admonition that “the best of the non-Jews must be destroyed”.
That means that your people aim at exterminating us, right?
So, since people were killing some of their own children, you are justified in murdering ALL of them, chilren and adults, and taking their land to yourself.
Whatever faults you can find with Islam, as far as I know there is nothing remotely as horrible and immoral in any of their teachings. Therefore, on the basis of your having written down here this doctrine and committed yourself to it, I hereby pronounce you to be morally far inferior to Ossama Bin Laden. Far, far, below him on the scale of moral depravity.
As for the person who wrote that “the best of the non-Jews must be destroyed” - he also counts as morally far inferior to Ossama Bin Laden.
If you had bothered to read my earlier postings, you would have noticed I had no hesitation in asserting that Jews could be as nasty and racist as anyone else and had, at various times in their history, committed some very terrible murders and massacres and even boasted of them.
So, yes - the Talmudic admonition that “the best of the non-Jews must be destroyed” was written down by an ancient Jewish soul mate of yours, a murderous racist quite as bad as you.
P.S.: Are you aware that the Classical Greeks practiced infanticide, on quite a large scale? They were less merciful than the Australian Aborigins, not killing a baby with one blow but just letting him or her (it was especially unwanted baby girls) cry and cry until it died of hunger and death.
So, according to you ancient Athens certainly deserved to be wiped off the face of the Earth and all its inhabitants, adults and babies, massacred.
A nice idea, isn't it? They and their children deserved to be exterminated in order to teach them not to kill their babies?
And you must be aware that pro-life activists regard abortion as infanticide. I don't know where you stand on that. If you are pro-life, you perhaps should consider exterminating all the inhabitants of The US, Europe and Australia and replacing them with better people, that would teach them not to practice abortion. Another swell idea.
@ “So, since people were killing some of their own children, you are justified in murdering ALL of them, chilren [sic] and adults, and taking their land to yourself... I hereby pronounce you to be morally far inferior to Ossama [sic] Bin Laden.”
LOL! :) But of course, you have not read The Return of Quetzalcoatl, where these moral issues are fully discussed and understood under the light of a new discipline, psychohistory. Obviously, the sane Europeans (sane if compared to today’s liberals like you) who conquered Oceania cannot be remotely compared with bin Laden. They were doing the right thing.
@ “P.S.: Are you aware that the Classical Greeks practiced infanticide, on quite a large scale? They were less merciful than the Australian Aborigins [sic]”
False. And in The Return of Quetzalcoatl I do mention infanticide in the Classical World.
Your statement is false because, like the Jews after the Abraham legend, post-Homeric Greeks gave up their human sacrifice practices. The exposure practiced by the Greeks and the Romans is considered a lesser form of barbarity by psychohistorians (see the Wikipedia sections on this very issue here and here). It goes without saying that to expose a baby to a certain death is less barbaric than what I mentioned in the Preface of my book, linked above, about baby-eating in Australia:
Fritz Poole wrote:
“Having witnessed their parents’ mortuary anthropophagy, many of these children suddenly avoided their parents, shrieked in their presence, or expressed unusual fear of them. After such experiences, several children recounted dreams or constructed fantasies about animal-man beings with the faces or other features of particular parents who were smeared with blood and organs.”
Wolfgang Lederer wrote when observing the tribes, that other primitives threw their newborns to the swine, who devoured them swiftly. Lederer also recounts that he saw one of these mothers burying her child alive: “The baby’s movements may be seen in the hole as it is suffocating and panting for breath; schoolchildren saw the movements of such a dying baby and wanted to take it out to save it. However, the mother stamped it deep in the ground and kept her foot on it…”
/end quote
Yes: that culture deserved extermination: just what the Romans did in Carthage and what the Spaniards did here in Mexico, and I am proud of my Roman and Spanish heritage. It’s you the one who has no morals or empathy for the sacrificed children or the traumatized surviving siblings.
@ “And you must be aware that pro-life activists regard abortion as infanticide. I don't know where you stand on that. If you are pro-life, you perhaps should consider exterminating all the inhabitants of The US...”
Another gross and misleading extrapolation of barbarity. Abortion is even less abusive than Greek and Roman exposure. Take a close look at the graphs of the above-linked Wikipedia articles on psychohistory, which describe that child abuse was far worse in the past than in the present, and even worse in non-western cultures.
Well, no, I can't say I have up to today heard of "The Return of Quetzalcoatl". I suppose I should get and read it, like I did make the effort to read Hitler's Mein Kampf. There are some books which one must make the effort to read, even if it makes one feel like swimming in a sewer - if only to know the deparities which the human mind is capable of.
Of course, judging from the sample which I see here in your writing and how that book influenced you, it is clearly one one of the most disgusting pieces of racist garbage ever written. I hope it will remain in its deserved obscurity.
Certainly, anyone who believes in what you wrote here is by definition utterly unqualified to say anything whatsoever about Muslims.
What I love about your “responses” Keller, like I being “morally far inferior to Ossama” [sic], is that it’s just smears without argument. Obviously you cannot respond to Psychohistory’s main finding: that the abuse of women and children—a good marker for civilization is how they are treated in a given culture—is far worse in non-western cultures and even worse in the historical past. Thanks for exposing yourself as running out of arguments and thereby resorting to smears.
Consider yourself morally and intellectually checkmated in this thread.
Bye right now.
________________
To regular GoV-ers:
I just wrote: “A good marker for civilization is how they are treated in a given culture...” I admire Josiah (c. 649–609 BC) for firmly rejecting the infanticidal psychoclass of their own people, which means killing quite a few of those bastards.
The book of Josiah’s scribes even promotes to conquer other peoples that, like the ancient Hebrews, carried out such practices. “The nations whom you go in to dispossess,” says the Deuteronomy, “they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.” (12: 29-31). “When you come into the land that the Lord is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering.” (18: 9-10).
Read it all
"Just smears without argument". I could say the same to you. The problem is that in order to have a meaningful debate you need to have a common basis - which I don’t have, and certainly DON’T WANT TO HAVE, with the likes of you.
Certainly, one should oppose the abuse of women and children. You should do it in your own society, and try to influence other societies if you can. When you use this as an excuse to conquer somebody else and kill them (including their women and children for whom you are so concerned, hahaha) and take their land, than you are far worse than them. Then you are a disgusting mass murderer. So, here is another "smear without argument". I will repeat it " disgusting mass murderer". (I don't know if you ever yourself murdered anybody – certainly I hope you never get a chance to practice what you preach.
Bye right now.
PS: About your two Biblical examples, which you seem to consider as of one piece – they are not. They are two opposites. Josiah tried to change his own society and end infanticide, which was what a decent man of conscience should do. The writer of Deuteronomy was not interested in infanticide but in war propaganda.
@ “When you use this as an excuse to conquer somebody else and kill them (including their women and children for whom you are so concerned, hahaha) and take their land, than you are far worse than them.”
The scribes and the terminator warriors of the Deuteronomy worse than the tribes who burned their children alive? You must be nuts!
Scipio Africanus (235–183 BC) worse than those Carthaginians who, like your ancestors, also burned their little children alive? That’s nuts, perverse and immoral.
The Spanish who conquered Tenochitlan worse than the ancient Mexicans who ritually sacrificed their own children according to the festivities of the Aztec Calendar? You are projecting your own moral inversion onto us. Every adjective and nasty smear you have used against me in this thread—you better apply them against yourself!
Incidentally, the Spanish didn’t ritually kill women and children in Mexico. Never, ever. Yes, during the 1519-1521 war against the Indian male adults there was occasional collateral damage among the civil population. But once the land was pacified the Spaniards never killed women and children for the specific purpose of killing them. Unlike the Aztecs. Unlike the Peruvians. Unlike all those noble savages whose crimes you will never, ever see.
You are either ignorant of history, a liar or both.
Go to preach your Big Guilt and your ultra-liberal antiracism to Israel. Israelis are the ones who need suicidal doses of mass immigration. You don’t welcome Geert Wilders to Israel? Let me tell you something little guy. Your kind is not welcomed to preach your rubbish propaganda here. No wonder why Kevin MacDonald writes a lot about the Jews whose hobby seems to be inflicting Big Guilt into the Gentile mind while at the same time they are not really serious about the crimes their folk inflict upon non-Jews.
Quote:
"Just smears without argument". I could say the same to you. The problem is that in order to have a meaningful debate you need to have a common basis - which I don’t have, and certainly DON’T WANT TO HAVE, with the likes of you.
end quote.
You're not right.
What you are, is self-righteous. And self-righteousness is a powerfully addictive drug. It is this that negates any claim you have to reason in your thinking or positions.
OK Mr Keller, I'm going to ask you to listen to me. Read this comment out loud, and listen.
You condemn everyone for the sins of the past. But in doing so, and in stating that because we have sinned and therefore cannot judge (let he who has not sinned cast the first stone), you in fact are giving license for greater sins to be committed.
I will never claim to uphold the standards I aspire to. Only the Lord Jesus has. But I'm trying. And if others are prepared to try, then I will help them to the best of my ability.
But your disqualification of anyone here judging others leaves us in an impass - if we cannot judge others, then how is justice to be done?
The answer is to judge on matters of fact - by word and by deed (especially by deed).
Islam, in word and deed, is a creed of conquest and violence. Unlike Christianity, the other great missionary religion which expanded through peaceful transmission and conversion for the first five centuries of its existence, Islam expanded by the sword. Mohammed was a warlord, uniting Arabia, and then his followers conquered the cradle of Christianity and civilisation itself.
By their words and their deeds we can judge them. We have our standards that we try to uphold (some more successfully than others, I will admit). And by that standard, we judge their words and deeds to be sinful and requiring our opposition (as Christians, we are expected to stand against sin, and speak out, and if necessary fight against it).
So I ask you - why do you come here, judging us to be racist and fascist, when all we do is judge another to be racist and fascist, sinful and evil? If it is wrong for us to judge someone by their word and deed, then surely it is wrong for you to do the same, no?
You judge us as we judge Islam - by word and deed compared to our standard. We will accept that we are not pure, but we must choose the path of less sin, rather than the path of more sin. For Christians, in the choice between being lawful or good (is in lawful good, neutral good, chaotic neutral, etc), we believe it is better to be good than lawful.
And you yourself have acknowledged that Islam is racist. Stand with us. You would surely perish were the Muslims to rule over you. We have common cause here, and with Geert Wilders. If I might take your words on racism destroying a society, I ask you to look at the Islamic world. See the racism against the Christians, Zoroastrians, Bahai, and the Hindus. Strike against the worst offenders first, and get your priorities straight.
The problem is that in order to have a meaningful debate you need to have a common basis - which I don’t have, and certainly DON’T WANT TO HAVE, with the likes of you.
LOL! Keller doesn't want to have anything to do with those who reject his compulsory togetherness and phoney baloney solidarity project.
No doubt he really doesn't want to debate. Commissar Keller is ready to start dictating and filling up gulags with the "haters" he hates.
This is the answer to LAW wells. My comment to the Mexican Anti-semite will follow separately.
I see you have not read my posting of a few hours ago, about Jews and Muslims this morning marching together through the streets of Tel Aviv, in amity, in building together a common future and refusing to be enemies. This is where I am proud to stand.
You wrote that Christianity expanded through peaceful transmission and conversion for the first centuries of its existence. You were right to qualify this statement by time.
After the first few centuries of its existence Christianity seized power in the Roman Empire and swiftly suppressed all other religions but itself (except for obdurate Jews) and also quite a few versions of itself which were judged "heretical".
Thereafter, Christianity very often spread by the sword. It was not by peaceful transmission and conversion that Charlemagne introduced the Saxons to the blessings of Christianity.
Certainly, it was by the sword and by the sword only that Christinaity arrived in South America, and in North America, and in Australia, and in New Zealand, and in South Africa, and in quite a few other places. Whise is a creed of conquest and violence?
You could go to the original inhabitants of all these lands, those who survived, and ask their opinion of the gentleness of Christianity.
Then go to the Christians, Zoroastrians, Bahai, and Hindus who suffered from Islam, collect their own testimonies and indictments.
Make a thorough comparative study, and you might after years form some idea about who the worst offender is – though I think you will find it hard work.
Meanwhile, I and my friends – my Jewish friends, and my Muslim friends, and my Christian friends, and my Atheist friends, and some Buddhist and Hindu friends, too – will continue on the task which needs to be done: building a world where no one will suffer persecution or discrimination and everybody will enjoy their human rights to the full.
Chechar --
I haven't deleted any of your comments.
Some of them have been caught in Blogger's stupid spam filter, which I have no control over. As soon as I find them there, I release them.
You should now be able to see every comment you posted.
Adam, then if Islam is racist, any devout Muslim is racist. Your argument would be the same in saying that not all people who liked every element of the Nazi ideology hated Jews. It's stupid and illogical. But again, so are your comparisons to Christianity and I say this as an atheist. Not that I really care to begin with.
By the way, can you answer the other part of what I said:
"And since any form of discrimination and whatnot is evil, why shouldn't we extend rights beyond our species? It's evil specieism to do so. By the way, I'm not joking, I'd really like you to explain these things to me. I'm really curious because I like understanding people."
If you did it I apologize, but it would be nice if you'd address your comments, since I'm too lazy to read everything. The way I see it, if we are to take your beliefs to their logical end, taking antibiotics is evil because it kills other life forms or eating anything is evil because they are life forms too. And this is real inclusiveness, not the 'look at how big their eyes are, so let's be nice to them' inclusiveness.
Zenster aptly noted:
"Mr. Keller, a huge number of your statements are either so totally out of context or just blatantly wrong that it is not worth taking the HOURS required to address all of the category errors and untruths they contain."
I have noticed this tendency among both Lefists and Muslims: one is hard pressed to determine whether they shoot off these fireworks displays of rhetoric bristling with a wonderful diversity of logical fallacies and distracting factoids out of 1) a disordered state of mind gripped with incoherent emotional mush and mumbo-jumbo mangled indiscriminately therein with sincere beliefs in Miss Universe Kumbaya ideals, or 2) out of a clever attempt at obfuscation.
Either way, they are not engaging in a discussion in good faith.
Law Wells,
Your response to Keller was apt, but didn't go far enough. In fact, Muslims did subjugate whole continents: Asia, south Europe, and half of Africa.
And Islamic subjugation was much crueler than Western colonialism, for all the faults of the latter.
The nail in the coffin to Keller's Equivalencism, however, goes beyond the massively documentable historical points listed above: Muslims are still, in the 21st century, engaged in horribly cruel expansionism from the Philippines, to Thailand, to northern India, to central Asia, to SE Europe, to major parts of Africa, even into the West with the only tactic they can wield due to their current weakness -- terror attacks combined with ideological propaganda (the latter of which the Kellers of the world aid and abet either out of stupidity or malevolence).
And this Islamic expansionism is, as it always has in the past, proceeding with all its attendant crimes -- massacres, oppression, torture, slavery both outright and virtual (such as, to take one egregious example, the outrageous treatment of foreign workers in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia). Indeed, Muslims around the globe are positively increasing such activity, and only getting started in reviving their prior sordid past, because they never really gave up that sordid past and its ideals of supremacist expansionism: they only slowed down in the last couple of centuries because of internal weakness + the astounding global superiority of the West. Muslims did not relinquish their past mistakes out of a process of Progress -- the way the West has changed. They only abated because they were incapable of continuing. But various factors have coalesced in the last half century (only further stimulated by 911 and subsequent events) to give Muslims a sense that they really have a chance in reviving their perennial Jihad against all who do not submit to Allah and Mohammed. But Keller would rather fixate on the past sins of the West in order to exculpate Muslims, rather than attend to the massive data out there showing that Muslims are in fact the worst offenders on the world stage today. What does one say about someone like that? He is either colossally stupid in his twisted-out-of-joint sentimentalism, thus criminally negligent against his own liberal values; or he is positively on the wrong side of history, just as benighted liberals in the 1930s continued to support Stalin even though the facts showed he was a monster.
There is no third explanation to save the Kellers of the world.
Rebelliousvanilla, it is not polite to ask questions and not wait to see the answer which people gave you. Here it is again:
In general, I want a world in which all people are equal and where every single human being will have their inalienable rights respected - and yes, I am also for the rights of other creatures than humans, I am myself a vegan and consume no food produced at the price of killing or exploiting any other living being, and I would like to have a world in which there will be not a single slaughterhouse on land and not a single fishing boats at sea - and I think it will indeed come about sooner or later, though probably not in my own lifetime.
And I did NOT say that "Islam was racist". I said that there were elements in Islam, as well as in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism and other religions as well as in a huge lot of secular ideologies, which could give a basis to racism if somebody was searching for a basis. Plus many racists are not particular holders of any particular ideology or creed. Racism is a very omnivorous animal. It can feed on virtually anything.
One little addition to my last post:
I wrote:
"...the only tactic they [Muslims] can wield due to their current weakness -- terror attacks combined with ideological propaganda (the latter of which the Kellers of the world aid and abet either out of stupidity or malevolence)."
To terror and propaganda we can also add massive immigration amounting to millions -- and still going strong. Never before in Western history have Muslims immigrated in such large numbers. While this immigration is a policy the West has pursued on its own, in its sentimentalist Wilsonian stupidity, Muslims are exploiting it with all the assiduous cleverness of ants or termites admitted by a home owner into the foundations of his house.
Law Wells wrote:
"in stating that because we have sinned and therefore cannot judge (let he who has not sinned cast the first stone), you in fact are giving license for greater sins to be committed."
Actually, Leftists like Keller don't really believe in "not judging" -- just as they don't really believe in "equality of all cultures".
They believe that white Western culture is worse than other cultures, and other cultures are better. That throws the whole "equality" thing out the window.
Thus, they do in fact judge -- they judge the West the worst ethical monster in history, and they judge all the poor 3rd World victims of the evil West to be poor, precious victims whose wonderful tapestry of ethnic cultures need to be saved from the Big Bad White Western Wolf.
The supreme irony, of course, is that the Kellers of the world are themselves white Westerners.
This mentality and paradigm of self-loathing is not only odd on its own terms: it is historically unique: No other culture in the history of the world has ever developed such a massive ideology -- one could even call it an industry with a full panoply of a pop cultural apparatus involving movies, television, books, high and low art, and public conversation -- that extends the virtue of self-criticism into the grotesque proportions of handwringing self-loathing with an eye on a spurious and puerile idealism.
And that idealism is being tested powerfully when it comes up against the brute data of the outrageously anti-liberal ideas, opinions and behaviors of Muslims around the world.
Unfortunately, most of the Kellers of the world do not reassess their paradigm as their idealism about ethnic cultures confronts the regressively anti-liberal practices and beliefs of one particular non-Western culture, Islam: instead, they just dig in their heels, man their bastions, and plug up all the leaks whereby the water of reality might seep in and undermine their fortress of Denial.
"Muslims did subjugate whole continents: Asia, south Europe, and half of Africa. And Islamic subjugation was much crueler than Western colonialism, for all the faults of the latter."
Was it?
I have some criteria for cruelty of subjugation.
The long term situation for the territory's original population is (from less bad to worst)
1) They are still there and still speak the same language and practice the same religion they had before
) They are still there and speak the same language as before but practice the conqueror's religion 2
3) They are still there but speak the conqueror's language and practice the conqueror's religion
4) They are badly decimated and most people in the territory are settlers brought in by the conqueror
5) They are not there at all, the conqueror just terminated their existence
Now, for Muslim conquest of countries, I know of none where 4 or 5 apply, of many where 3 applies, of at least a conspicuous one where 2 applies (Iran) and a conspicuous one where 1 applies (India).
For the Christian conquest of countries, in Asia and Africa it is mostly a not too bad 1 or 2, but in South and Central America it is between 3 and 4, and in the Carribean, North America and Australia it is between 4 and 5.
I rest my case.
As for the present day, you just take every conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims and place it on the list of "Islamic expansionism" regardless of the facts of the case. In South-Eastern Europe you see "Islamic expansionism" where I remember seeing Muslim minorities being attacked by much stronger Christian neighbors and surviving mainly by Christians from Western Europe and America intervening to save them from predatory local Christians.
Keller sez:
"In general, I want a world in which all people are equal and where every single human being will have their inalienable rights respected ..."
Tell me, Keller: where is the mythical place in Africa or in the ME or in Asia where such a wonderful system exists?
Nowhere. We have to work hard to create it.
Baron,
Sorry: I didn’t know it was a blogger problem.
@ “...but in South and Central America it is between 3 and 4, and in the Carribean, North America and Australia it is between 4 and 5. I rest my case.”
Yes, and thanks to the Conquest, the South and Central America, including the Caribbean region, is now free from the horrors that GoV-ers have already read in another thread (exactly the same can be said of Oceania, including Australia, as pointed out by Fritz Poole and others way above). Here’s just a single example taken from that chapter of The Return of Quetzalcoatl:
quote:
In the third month of the calendar children were, again, sacrificed. The French ethnologist Christian Duverger wrote something that disturbed me. In his book La Fleur Létale (The Lethal Flower) this passage can be read: “The torments. In the context of the violent pre-sacrificial stimulations, I believe it is convenient to give a place to the torture, and precisely because it is only performed by the Aztecs before the human sacrifice. The torture is not necessarily integrated to the sacrificial prelude, but it may occur. The tearing off the nails of the children that had to be sacrificed to the god of the rain is a good example of ritual torture. The nails belonged to Tláloc. Through the sacrifices of the month atlcahualo the Mexicans paid homage to the tláloques [Tláloc servants] and called for the rain. In order for the ritual to be effective, it was convenient that the children cried profusely in the moment of the sacrifice.”
Then a face pack of hot rubber was applied to them and they were thrown over a pit that hardened the rubber and prevented them from breathing.
Tláloc, the rain god, was one of the most honored gods of the Mexicas. Along with the temple of Huitzilopochtli, Tláloc’s sky-blue temple existed in the highest spot of Tenochtitlan.
Mr Keller, you seem to have a gripe against Christianity. Fair enough. You're a fool for not actually asking much about what happened in the past (your dismissive comments of the possibility of peaceful Christian expansion clearly demonstrates this), but that's a subject for another time.
Today, in this forum, this thread, we speak of Islam.
You have yet to answer the central tenet of this blog - that Islam is a racist-supremacist ideology, designed to expand 7th Century Arabian cultural influence over the whole world. You make soothing noises about there being "violent and racist elements in Islam" (before immediately giving the caveat that all religions have them), but you have yet to allay my fears.
Am I a bigot for saying "I do not wish to live under Sharia"? Am I a racist for saying "There is one law, and it must apply equally to all, especially the lawmakers"?
Am I an evil person for saying "These Muslims are commanded to expand their religion and their law, which is fundamentally unfair and unjust"?
If I am, then they are epithets I wear with pride, for I see that black is white, up is down, and 2+2=5 for you.
And so I challenge you - my last challenge. In your next post, speak only of Islam. No caveats about other religions. No mention of the "evils" of Christianity. Just talk about Islam and Sharia, and those who wish to impose Sharia on the whole world.
Go on. Surprise me.
Quote:
compulsory togetherness and phoney baloney solidarity project.
end quote.
That's good.
Multiculturalism and the left: compulsory togetherness and phoney baloney solidarity project.
I see a button there.
Adam, thanks for your response. You have to realize that reading all your messages in order to find that tiny bit is quite a request, especially since most of what you said is off-topic and even what's on topic wasn't a reply to anything I said.
Anyway, why do you eat plants? I mean, they're carbon based life forms too. Or you're prejudiced against everything that doesn't have big eyes and looks cute?
I'd also like to point out that bacteria is also a life form. Do you take drugs when you get sick? Because you're committing genocide right there and then - unless of course, you see their lives as worth less than yours just because you're a human. Isn't this what the Nazis were doing?
In a non-discriminatory world, the life of bacteria should be as important as the life of a human. Especially as people who believe in evolution, we shouldn't consider ourselves different than the life from which we evolved, right? :)
So if we take a non-discriminatory, truely inclusive way, where all life has worth, not just humans or animals that we like, but all life, then how are you any different for killing plants and taking advantage of the whole eco-systems that live under the soil and so on than the evil white people who colonized the world and took advantage of poor brown people?
Mr. Keller --
I failed to see the epithet in Chechar's response. Thanks for pointing it out. I've deleted it, plus all the responses referring to it.
That was exactly what I didn't want this thread to degenerate into.
Chechar: be warned. Control yourself. If you pull one of those again, I'll start deleting your comments as soon as I see them.
I've allowed this thread quite a bit more latitude than I usually do -- on all sides of the argument -- because the discussion was one that people really wanted to have. But I'll close it if commenters can't manage to observe the rules.
OK, I’ve now removed the epithet. Here we go again without it & without the paragraphs which resulted from the misunderstanding that you had deleted *another* of my comments:
The counter-jihadi movement is emerging as a largely Jewish endeavor to lead a column of deracinated, misguided whites in defense of “the West”... which in practice means defending Jews and Israel first and foremost. I cannot speak for Tanstaafl, but my own aim here is to make this plain to the misguided ones; give you things to think about. I don’t expect that my humble comments will turn GoV-ers into white nationalists, but with trolls like Keller (remember the Solkhar troll?) I hope you all—Jihad Watch, BJ, included—may get disgusted with the idea of serving Jewish interests.
Want to know why the Jews like Keller oppose Wilders in spite of the fact that Wilders loves Israel and Judaism, supports the prohibition of books like Mein Kampf in Holland, and has stated “My allies are not Le Pen or Haider”? Want to know why on earth are Jews overrepresented among the enemies of Wilders?
Because unlike other politicians Wilders is a real western patriot, and what we are witnessing is a clash between two ethnic groups (let’s imagine plate tectonics): the Jewish plate is subducting the Gentile plate down into the magma. See e.g., The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine, Princeton University Press, 2004. Liberals like Fortuyn and Wilders can destroy liberalism just by pointing out to the doublethink inherent in non-discrimination. That’s why the Left murdered Fortuyn. That’s why they dragged Wilders into a Kangaroo court trial. Genuine Western Nationalism is something that the Jews will never afford.
Well, all of you Muslim-bahsers, here I am back from the West Bank and a nice dinner with my Palestinian friends at their home. Also a minor confrontation with soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces quote unquote at a roadblock, who were a bit nasty to my friend's son. The presence of myself, a member of the dominant ethnic group, might have served to intimidate the soldiers and prevent a more serious confrontation developing. That's it, goethechosemercy, nothing phoney about the solidarity, it is very real. Sometimes it is nearly a matter of life or death. When we confront the army and police, all of us together, Israelis and Palestinians, and the tear gas canisters start exploding all around. These canisters are like bullets, in fact, if one of them hits you in the wrong spot it can be very messy. A year ago a good frined of mine from Tel Aviv got hit in the left eye and lost that eye on the spot, he was screaming and it was two Palestinian guys from the village who carried him on their shoulders and one of them took him into a car and straight to the emergency ward. That's solidarity for you.
Now to LAW Wells – just for the record, I have no gripe against Christianity, I work very closely with Christian peace activists and various European Churches, they do excellent work for peace in the Middle East. And I highly respect some historical Christian figures, for example Francis of Assisi. As you might know, at the time when most Christians thought the best thing to do about Islam was to don your armour and take your sword in your right hand and charge, Francis had the idea that better results might be achieved by walking alone and unarmed and having a talk face to face with the King of Egypt.
Anyway, you demanded very firmly that I talk of Islam, not of Christianity.
Esepecially, you want to know how I stand about Sharia Law. I think I should re-post here an item I posted already, only it seems you did not notice it:
I would like to ask how many of you are aware that in the State of Israel Sharia Law is part of the law of the land? Yes, it is quite true. If you go to Haifa. Or to Nazareth, or anywhere else where Muslim citizens of Israel live, you are apt to see buildings .with the sign over the door bearing the Coat of Arms of the State of Israel and under it emblazoned the words in Hebrew and Arabic "State of Israel – Sharia Court". These courts are part of the civil service of the State of Israel, their judges are paid out of the Israeli taxpayer's money, and if necessary they can call upon the Israeli police to enforce their rulings. Muslim citizens of Israel are bound by the law of the state to have recourse to these courts in all matters of marriage, divorce and any other issue of personal status. They have no choice in the matter – Israel has no civil marriage. Nor would it help for them to declare that they don’t believe in the Muslim religion – non belief does not exclude you from the religious community into which you were born, in which the government inscribed you at birth, and to whose religious courts you are subject – like it or not. (Some Muslim friends of mine in the Galilee greatly dislike it).
You can follow some of the links here to read more about it.
http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com/2008/02/sharia-state-of-israel.html
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/int19.htm
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a910732831&fulltext=713240928
http://www.ipcri.org/files/qadi.html
Of course, this does not only apply to the Muslim citizens of Israel – it applies to all citizens of Israel, especially to the majority Jews. We, too, are subject to the authority of the Rabbincal courts which make their rulings on the basis of millennia-old religious texts and which are not always very palatable to a modern person. To mention a few tidbits, the judges are by definition exclusively male and they don’t seem to have heard of women being equal to man (in Hebrew the same word, ba'al, means both "husband" and "owner"). And there are all kinds of strange rules such as that if you are a man with the family name "Cohen", you are not allowed to marry a divorced woman. This is because "Cohen" means "Priest", so you are supposed to be on standby to resume your job at the Temple of Jerusalem as soon as the Messiah comes (which could be, according to the rabbis, at any moment.) Now a priest must be pure and marry only a virgin, and a divorced woman is by definition not a virgin. The rabbis don't insist on a physical check of any woman wanting to marry a Cohen, to find the state of her virginity – however, shoud they get it into their minds to insist on such checks, the provisions for it certainly exist in the Jewish religion.
I could also mention that the same apply also to Christian citizens of Israel. They can only marry or divorce according to the rules of their religious community. For example, Catholics in Israel can only get a Catholic divorce – i.e., they can't divorce, period.
Now, where do I and my leftist friends stand on all this? Of course, we are strongly against all this, we want to have in Israel a separation of religion from the state, to have civil marriage, to let anyone – Jew, Muslim, Christian, Atheist – marry whoever they want with whatever rites they want or without any rites at all. And what is the position of Knesset Member Arieh Eldad – the Israeli bosom friend of Geert Wilders, who invited him to Israel to deliver this memorable speech about "Jordan is Palestine"? Would it come as a great surprise to you to hear that he is fully committed to preserving the status quo in religious matters – which of course includes the Sharia courts for Muslim Israelis? Yes, Geert Wilders made his speech in Tel Aviv on "Jordan is Palestine" and got cheering and clapping from staunch upholders of Sharia Law and Sharia courts in Israel. Isn't life funny?
So anyway: are you a bigot for saying "I do not wish to live under Sharia"? Well neither do I, and I don't think of myself as a bigot. Nor do my Muslim friends, and they certainly don’t want to live under Sharia, either.
As to the central tenet of this blog – i.e. that Islam as such is a racist-supremacist ideology which actively seeks to impose Sharia on the whole world - of course I deny it and regard it a total nonsense. For sure there are some Muslim racist idiots who speak this way, and they could point to some verses in the Koran which would support the view that such is Allah's command to his believers.
A religion's Holy Scriptures is like a supermarket – you need justification and legitimacy for something, so you go in and find the right shelf and pick up what you want. But it is absolutely not true that these particular verses are what most Muslims prefer to pick up when they go into the Koran supermarket to pick up guidance for their daily life. Most Muslims have no wish to take over the world.
And by the way, the Muslim groups who want to take over the world – how are they supposed to do it? So Bin Laden sent four hijacked airplanes and killed several thousands of people in New York. Very shocking. And then? Did Muslim legions march into New York the next day, or did American soldiers march into Kabul and throw out Bin Laden's Taliban friends?
These clowns who want to impose the Sharia on the whole world so far did not succeed to impose it in most of the Muslim World, either. Bin Laden and his friends have so far serious power bases in Afgalistan, Yemen and Somalia – all of which have one thing in common: they are very marginal and rather a laughing stock for most other Muslims. Would you take seriously a group which is set to take over the world out of its strongholds and bastions in Albania and Paraguay?
In short: not wanting to live under Sharia Law does not in itself make you a bigot, but very seriously worrying about it is a bit silly. I can draw you up a list of about a thousand unpleasant things which are far more likely to happen.
This is not like the time of the Cold War, when at any single moment a Soviet ICBM could be shot to incinerate you. As a matter of fact, the ICBMs are still there, and a nuclear bomb can kill you just as dead, also when shot by a Russian Nationalist rather than a Russian Communist. I don't think this is a very real possibility, but if you absolutely must have a deadly threat hanging overhead to keep you awake at night, you might as well try this one for size.
Now to rebelliousvanilla and the questions about my vegan opinions and way of life, I hope you do read this one. Well, I am not so concerned with whole eco-systems (the damage I can do them as a single individual is, I hope, rather marginal unless I were the CEO of a very big, environment-destroying corporation). In my personal life I am rather trying to give attention to individuals, individual humans and also individual other creatures. I try to keep a simple rule: when somebody is afraid of death and wants to go on living, I don't want to kill him or her (even when it is not a human being, I prefer to use the cumbersome "him or her" rather than "it"). When somebody is capable of feeling pain, I don’t want to cause him of her pain.
So, I don't want to take a cow or a chicken who plainly wants to go on living his or her cow or chicken life and enjoy his or her cow or chicken pleasures, and slit his or her throat and cut up his or her body and cook and eat some of the pieces. Neither do I want to have a division of labor where somebody else does it for me (often at a low salary and under bad working conditions, but that's another story) and let me buy a piece of the cow or chicken's corpse neatly wrapped up in my neighborhood supermarket.
Am I prejudiced against everything that doesn't have big eyes and looks cute? Not precisely. I don’t feel that cockroaches look especially cute, but when one is escaping me and wanting to find a hidden corner in which to continue his or her cockroach life, I would not crush him or her, nor would I use nerve gas to kill him or her in considerable pain (nerve gas is what comes out when you use one of these home-use insecticides, you know). And when I see a fly battering hopelessly against the window pane - because, well adapted to fly in the free air found in nature, he or she is not capable of comprehending this human invention called "transparent glass" – when I see this, I take the moment to open the window and let the fly go out into the free air, because his or her life is very short anyway and it is not fair to let it become shorter because we humans invented glass.
Now, about plants. Are they self-aware? Do they feel pain in ways which we can't perceive? Do they want to go on living and feel a fear of death, even though we don't notice it? Perhaps. I hope not, I would certainly also not destroy a plant needlessly, but I feel less of a total prohibition on doing it for food than over somebody who plainly wants to live and can show that to me. Anyway, for much of the plant-derived foods you don’t need to kill the plant. A tree's fruit are especially intended for animals to eat them and spread the seed elsewhere through their excrement, and the sugar is there to make the animals more motivated to do it. Even if an apple tree were proven to be self-aware, picking apples would certainly not hurt it.
And about bacteria – if I had a reason to believe that inside me there is a multitude of miniature articulate self aware creatures who are capable of enjoying life in their fashion and wanting it to continue and who would scream in fear and die in pain when I take an antibiotic drug, it would be certainly a very good reason for me to avoid taking that drug, Fortunately, from all that I know of bacteria I don’t see a reason to think that they are that self-aware and articulate. .
Mr. Cesar Tort a.k.a. Chechar has posted here several quite detailed and horrifying descriptions of the alleged abuse of children by Australian Aborigines and Aztecs.
A look through the same person's blog would show a very detailed description of the writer's having undergone a " thunderbolt" which made his realize that Adolf Hitler was right in hating the Jews, and that Hitler was a figure well-deserving of being admired and emulated. .
http://caesartort.blogspot.com/2010/05/hitlers-lightning.html
Considering that Hitler, in his twelve years of rule over Germany and occupation of most of Europe, was responsible for the murder of at least a million children, Mr. Tort's preoccupation with the abuse of children in older cultures – and his assertion that cultures guilty of such abuse deserve to be conquered by others, or even totally exterminated – seems a but strange. In fact, writing of child abuse by Aztecs and Aborigines while also admiring Hitler could be considered an act of gross chutzpah – to use a term derived from the language and culture of an ethnic group of which Mr. Tort clearly does not like.
Well, Mr Keller, perhaps you might lurk around here for a while if you are so opposed to Sharia. We see it coming to the West, and we don't like it. Those Sharia courts you don't like? They're operating the UK and much of the EU now as well. Respect for a common law is nigh non-existent among the Islamic immigrant populations in these regions. These same immigrants are overrepresented in prisons, especially for higher-order crimes (eg rape, murder) in virtually every Western country.
[And as a quick aside - Catholics can divorce. It's called an annulment. Perhaps you should read up on the English Reformation - the matter of annulments was central to its happening]
In spite of this exceedingly criminal element in their culture, you would have me sit down at a table and talk with them? About what? The weather? A Catholic bishop remarked that, in interfaith dialogue between Catholics and Muslims, the Catholics say what a great religion Islam is, and the Muslims say what a great religion Islam is. There is no reciprocity in this relationship, and I am therefore uninclined to continue it in its present form. It's a waste of time, and one I'm shall not indulge in.
Also, your ignorance of Islamic scripture is evident in your analogy to a supermarket. It is definitely untrue of Islam. Have you heard of the term abrogation? In Islamic jurisprudence, it is the doctrine that the later suras (composed in Medina, which command and condone violence and conquest) override the earlier suras (composed in Mecca, which generally where much nicer, if somewhat derivative). We also have the example of Mohammed to contend with. When your ideal man is a warlord (and a morally questionable one at that), then surely in trying to emulate it, conquest must occur.
And I haven't even started on Sharia.
The conquest of the West is not an overnight phenomenon. It needn't be done in a massive invasion of armies. It happens right now - a demographic invasion of immigrants, displacing the native population of Europe, and those who made the West the most advanced civilisation on the planet, in a sickening realisation of Berthold Brecht's quip that a government should abolish the people and elect a new one in its place. Mass immigration and cultural cringe are the primary driving factors behind this destruction of the West.
Don't patronise me regarding the defence of my home and my civilisation. By the time the armies start rolling down our streets, it will be too late, and I sure as hell won't be seeing that happen. Not without a fight.
Well, I don't suppose we are ever going to agree. The difference between how you oppose Sharia courts and how I and my friends oppose is that we do it together – Jews and Muslims shoulder to shoulder, in one common struggle, building together a society where no one would be discriminated and everybody would be equal. Which among other things includes that all of us say we don’t want Sharia courts for Muslims (as we don’t want Rabbinical courts for Jews). We don't do it be standing outside like you, telling all the Muslims how much you hate all of them and how much you regard them all as your enemies and coming up with the Sharia courts as your excuse to hate them (if there were no Sharia courts, you would just come up with something else).
The Koran (like the Bible and for that matter like the writings of Marx and Lenin) IS a supermarket. You want war, you go in and find the justification for war. You don't want it, you go to another shelf. It is a fact that there were and are many Muslims, many Muslim societies, which did not feel a special need to go to war, and they found the way to do it and feel themselves perfectly good Muslims.
It is not only Bin Laden who uses the Koran as a supermarket and comes up with the militant and hate-filled verses. You also come into the same supermarket and pick up the same verses from the same shelf. They fit your purpose as they fit Bin Laden's purpose. The purpose is hatred and war. Most Muslims – like most non-Muslims – don't want to be part of this war. But if you insist on considering all Muslims as one single mass, all of them your enemies, and treating them as such, you might in the end make it into reality.
Bin Laden can be happy to have you as his partner, he can address the Muslims and point to you and to Wilders and to all the other hate-mongers and say: "You see how the Westerners hate you? You must join me to fight them". Fortunately, you don't speak for everybody in the West. There are people like me and my friends to give Bin Laden the lie.
By the way: Is the presence of Muslims in Europe not connected just a little bit with Europeans not wanting to do dirty and difficult jobs at low pay and bad working conditions? Are Europeans not very eager to import all kinds of people from outside Europe (Muslims and others) to do these jobs it for them? Would you care to take one of these jobs yourself?
Not that I really have a great huoe of convincing you, but if you want to know how Muslims speak at interfaith meetings with Jews and Christiansm you could try following this link
http://interfaithencounter.wordpress.com/about/our-history/
Keller is trying to foster the impression that only a few nuts among Muslims want sharia.
In fact, all 52 Muslim-majority nations (plus the other 5 nations not quite Muslim-majority) which collectively belong to the O.I.C. (Organization of Islamic Conference) support the integration of sharia law in politics and have actively opposed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- instead proposing their alternative in 1990, the Cairo Declaration, which specifically countermands every stipulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights where it seems to undermine the power or influence of sharia law.
The O.I.C. is not only represented by political leaders of each of the 57 countries involved: also representing it are numerous dignitaries, members of media, and most importantly, the Ulemas of each nation. The Ulema is the official body of clerics who rule on matters of Islam for each region or nation they belong to. Thus 57 different Ulemas, each representing the Muslim populations of 57 different countries, all want sharia law. Does Keller think he, or his handful of anecdotal Muslim "friends" knows more about Islam than these learned Ulemas from every Muslim nation on the globe...!?
See my essay on this for further information (particularly scroll down or search for "Universal Declaration of Human Rights").
I did not assert that only a few nuts among Muslims want sharia. I did assert that only a few nuts among Muslims want to impose Sharia on the whole world and force non-Muslim people in the West to live under Sharia Law. To assert otherwise is to create a fictional threat, a scarecrow intended to foster and foment hatred against Muslim immigrants in the West.
As to the Muslim countries themselves – no, I certainly would not assert that only a few nuts are interested in Sharia. It is a major social and political issue – in some countries, THE main controversial issue in the country's political life. In very few countries is Sharia Law as such the law of the land. In many of them, parliaments which are themselves composed of politicians not having any special religious status, do agree to introduce some elements of Sharia into the legal system. What elements of Sharia, and how they are to be interpreted, is debated, sometimes VERY hotly debated. In many countries, Sharia Law is accepted in the realm of personal status, so that people wanting to get married or divorced have to go to a religious court and cannot get a Civil Marriage. Attempts to introduce Sharia Law in other fields of criminal or civil law usually meet very strong resistance in the countries concerned.
The degree of religious influence on the public life of the society is also a very contentious and controversial area. As is well-known, Islam strictly forbids the drinking of alcoholic drinks, and as is equally well-known, in most Muslim countries still you can get thoroughly drunk if you want (not that I think getting drunk is a very good idea in itself…). Of course there are Muslim groups who very much dislike this situation and try to stop the sale of alcoholic drinks, usually with only a very partial success.
As I said, there is a similar situation also here in Israel, even though we are not members of the O.I.C. Our democratically-elected parliament, the Knesset, decided by majority vote soon forcing Muslims to get married or divorced in Sharia Courts which rule according to very outdated laws derived from a manifestly patriarchal society, and forcing Jews to get married or divorced in Rabbinical Courts which also rule according to very outdated laws also derived from a manifestly patriarchal society. A situation which as I said I don't like and my "anecdotal" Muslim friends (who by the way have quite a bit of political power in their own community) don’t like either.
As I said, I am not a Muslim, nor am I particularly fond of Islam. In various Muslim countries there are things which deserve to be criticized and opposed (and which are often criticized and opposed by people in these countries themselves). But I strongly object to presenting all Muslims as a single, homogenous mass and hating all of them indiscriminately.
Most especially I dislike the fomenting of hate against immigrant communities. Hatred against Muslims in the West today is by no means the first such case. There was hatred against the Jews who came to Germany from Eastern Europe in the 1920's (among them my own grandparents), and the hate-mongers cited selectively from the Jewish religion, to make Jews seem like monsters; and there was hatred against Chinese migrant workers on the US West Coast, and the hate-mongers cited selectively from Chinese traditional culture to make Chinese seem like monsters; and there was hatred against Irish immigrants in the Eastern US in the early 19th Century, and the hate-mongers cited selectively from the Catholic religion, to make Irish seem like monsters; and you could go further and further into the past and find the same ugliness again and again.
As I said at the very start of this thread, when Geert Wilders came to Tel Aviv we demonstrated and told him to go home because we have far too many home-grown hate-mongers here in Israel and need no imports from Holland.
@ “There was hatred against the Jews who came to Germany from Eastern Europe in the 1920's (among them my own grandparents)...”
In the best book written as to date by a Jew recounting the basic etiology of anti-Semitism, Albert Lindemann explains how such apparent hatred originated in the 19th century and was not as irrational as the current Zeitgeist wants us to believe.
As to what you said that I said about Hitler and the murder of millions of children, you misrepresented my article. I’ll leave others to read the link you added above and check by themselves what I wrote there.
And why not quote a bit of what the Jew Lindemann wrote in his monograph published by Cambridge: “Some writers go so far as to condemn the distinctions as morally dubious, thus making any irritation with Jews or criticism of them ‘anti-Semitic,’ a conclusion that takes on extraordinary dimensions when linked to such assertions as ‘all anti-Semitism is as dangerous as a little bit of cancer.’
I cannot accept such reasoning, which seems to me facile, especially insofar as it implies that Jews, unlike other human groups, cannot provoke legitimate irritation.”
See the rest of the excerpts of Lindemann’s monumental work here:
http://caesartort.blogspot.com/2010/07/comments-problem.html
Quote:
Well, Mr Keller, perhaps you might lurk around here for a while if you are so opposed to Sharia. We see it coming to the West, and we don't like it.
end quote.
And this little statement, Mr. Keller, is the very heart and soul of the counter-jihad.
The imposition of Sharia in every community where there are Muslims is not a fanatical, but an institutional imperative of the religion.
It has 1,400+ years of historical precedent to back it up.
To this tiresomely made point:
Most especially I dislike the fomenting of hate against immigrant communities. Hatred against Muslims in the West today is by no means the first such case. There was hatred against the Jews who came to Germany from Eastern Europe in the 1920's (among them my own grandparents), and the hate-mongers cited selectively from the Jewish religion, to make Jews seem like monsters; and there was hatred against Chinese migrant workers on the US West Coast, and the hate-mongers cited selectively from Chinese traditional culture to make Chinese seem like monsters; and there was hatred against Irish immigrants in the Eastern US in the early 19th Century, and the hate-mongers cited selectively from the Catholic religion, to make Irish seem like monsters; and you could go further and further into the past and find the same ugliness again and again.
end quote.
None of the groups you name in your ramblinb paragraph had the imperative of conquest, imposition of a separate system of laws and society and culture.
None of them blew up buildings, took hostages, encouraged war or lied routinely to constructed authority.
I call false equivalence again.
Only a small fraction of your case is rational. Most of what you say, I find to be "tolerance romantic."
Among many other flaws and fallacies one can note in Keller's various posts articulating his position, there is the Straw Man fallacy -- to wit:
"I strongly object to presenting all Muslims as a single, homogenous mass and hating all of them indiscriminately."
Were this sentiment I quoted merely a vague principle, it would be unremarkably unobjectionable. But it's clear that Keller considers a whole and diverse swath of anti-Islam analysis to fall under the rubric defined by his sentiment -- and thus, once so defined, he can in good conscience reject that whole swath prejudicially. Indeed, it is not merely a straw man fallacy, it is hypocritical of him, for he is doing exactly what he criticizes us of doing: painting a diverse world-wide movement with a broad brush as one homogenous bloc.
In fact, concern about Islam runs a gamut of various forms. On one end of the spectrum, we have a tiny minority who would fit Keller's definition. On the other end, we have the infamous Bush Doctrine of the TMOEWAHI -- the "Tiny Minority of Extremists Who Are Hijacking Islam", which forever erects a dogmatic paradigm apodictically setting in stone a supposed Fact that the problems we see pullulating out of the Muslim world (and increasingly in the non-Muslim world)
1) have nothing to do with Islam per se
2) forever only reflect the ideas and activities of a tiny minority amongst Muslims world-wide.
Between these two irrationally extreme poles, there is a wide diversity where the possibility of a serious pandemic problem is rationally conceivable as a reasonable response, without it being demonized as "hatred" on a par with Hitler -- thus dogmatically shutting down questions about it (and dialogue with its proponents) in a prejudicial fashion.
I.e., the problems of Islam, and the problems of Muslims following Islam, can be considered to be serious and global, without that consideration necessarily fitting the demonization under Keller's straw man definition.
What Keller's straw man does is interdict any concerns for Islam that rise above a hypersensitively set high threshhold.
Once we have non-dogmatic approaches to the problem, we can have pragmatic discussions with people both in the amorphous orbit of the "anti-Islam movement" and those who position themselves outside it -- discussions in good faith about what to do about it, and the side who is more concerned and alarmed will be able to trust the other side who cautions us to put on the brakes.
But when we see people like Keller repeatedly indulge in the signs and symptoms of irrationally closing off debate through various logical fallacies (such as the straw man) as well as tendentious inaccuracies -- as I noted in my first post way above, his flagrantly false and easily refutable characterization of Geert Wilders (not to mention his penchant for flooding the discussion with a fireworks explosion of tangents and subtopics and red herrings which move the reasonable reader to suspect obfuscation rather than elucidation) -- we simply cannot trust that an honest and fruitful dialogue will ensue.
I am perfectly willing to consider the possibility that the "anti-Islam movement" is not homogenous. Indeed, here in this specific debate on this specific blog I could already see considerable differences between one participant who strongly maintained that opposition to Islam does not imply hatred of Muslims, while another stated unambiguously that he hates the Muslims and this was all right as he was "just reciprocating their hatred of him". And I also encountered one (only one, I am glad to note) who hates Jews at least as much as he hates Muslims and bemoans the fact that other participants here are not willing to follow suit. I really don't feel any great urge to further debate with a person who outspokenly declares his admiration for Hitler – but I would like to keep talking with the rest of you.
Let me recapitulate how we got into this debate. Until a week ago I was not aware of the existence of a blog called "Gates of Vienna". I have my hands more than full of political work inside Israel, including various debates with political foes here on Hebrew blogs and websites. But Mr. Geert Wilders .came over from Holland to intervene in our politics, my wife who is Dutch and other Israelis of Dutch origin organized a protest, in which I joined - as did other activists who are not Dutch. We stood there telling Wilders that he is not wanted here and that we have all too many home-grown Israeli hate-mongers and no need to import ones from Holland. "Gates of Vienna" published a photo of our demo with quite disparaging captions, I responded – and here we are.
So, I did not set out to confront the entire "anti-Islam movement", with all different currents and tendencies it may contain. I set out to confront a specific Dutch politician named Geert Wilders, and I got into a heated debate with people on this blog who strongly defended and endorsed Wilders.
What is my objection to Wilders? First, of course, that he has blundered in to interfere in the politics of my country, that he is outspokenly opposed to Israel terminating its 43-years old occupation of the Palestinians – an act which in my view is indispensable for Israel to survive - and proposes instead a ridiculous plan called "Jordan is Palestine".
(Why is it ridiculous? Because not a single Palestinian is willing to accept Jordan as being "Palestine", because the government of Jordan already declared that any Israeli attempt to implement such a plan would be considered an act of war, and because – crazy as many of our politicians are - I don't see any Israeli government crazy enough to try imposing this kind of idea by force on the Palestinians and Jordanians.)
More relevant for this discussion in this blog, I strongly object to Wilders' activities in Holland and consider him a hate-monger who declared himself a total enemy of all Muslims.
How do I deduce that he is such? One action of his quite suffices – the first action, three years ago, which catapulted him to public attention in Holland and abroad: his call to ban the Koran. Anyone who calls for banning the Koran has thereby declared himself the staunch enemy of all Muslims, just as anyone calling for a ban of the Hebrew Bible or the Talmud is by definition the enemy of all Jews, and anyone calling for a ban on the New Testament is by definition the enemy of all Christians.
Geert Wilders has declared himself an outspoken enemy of all Muslims - however moderate, however enlightened, however liberal. And he is intelligent enough to have known exactly what he was doing.
So, I throw the ball back to you: Do all of you in this specific blog discussion and in the wider "anti-Islam movement" endorse Geert Wilders' call to ban the Koran? If all of you do, then I am afraid I can't see a very real significance to any other difference between you.
In that case, you should all be seen as seeking a total, head-on clash with every single Muslim in the world.
On the other hand, if at least on this extremely provocative point, at least some of you don’t endorse Wilders, then it might be a different ball game.
Our endorsement of Mr Wilders comes from the fact that he is not actually advocating a new law to ban the Quran. What he has said is that the Quran contains verses that might have come straight out of Mein Kampf, which is already banned. He says that it encourages hatred against Jews and Christians and anyone who doesn't follow their religion, and therefore, were the law consistently applied, the Quran would be called "Mein Kampf with a god", and ergo banned.
If this makes him an enemy of Muslims in your book, then so be it. Frankly, I don't think Wilders could care less what you think of him. You know where he stands, and he won't move to a more fashionable position. He's drawing attention to an important analogy, and one which people see every day (recall that I mentioned that Muslims are overrepresented among Western prison populations, and are well-known for their propensity to riot at the slightest pretence), and for that, the Dutch have made him a parliamentary king-maker. It isn't just populism - this is what people are seeing. They are seeing disrespect for the laws of their land, a scorning of their tolerance, and many have said "Enough!" and are working within the system to permit Wilders the influence he presently has.
Calling Wilders a racist and hate-monger means, by implication, that all PVV voters feel the same. So now I ask - where are the riots by said PVV voters? The answer - they don't exist. The Muslims are the ones rioting.
In a final word on this thread, it seems to me, however, that you're a little bit like Tom Lehrer - I know there are people who do not love their fellow human beings... and I hate people like that! ^_^
Adieu.
Wildres did make a very clear call to ban the Koran when he started his anti-Islam campaign three years ago with the nasty and hate-filled article "Enough is Enough: Ban the Koran". Everything he said there was a very clear expression of hate towards all Muslims, indiscriminately
http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3094
He was not such a successful politician until then. He got the dream of any unscruplous and ruthless politician – to arouse hatred and focus it on his person and gain power. But now that he became "The King Maker of Dutch Politics" he must be careful. He would not get a majority for banning the Koran, and trying it might lose him this "King Maker" position. Anyway, he is in a delicate position the government which he helped bring into power does not have an anti-Islamic agenda but a very economic conservative agenda of cutting social services, which is going to hurt very many of the people who voted for him, and quite possibly some of them will realize by the next elections that they made a mistake and vote for a left wing party which would represent their interests better. Cutting social services would hurt everybody with a low income in Holland, whether they are from a family which lived a thousand years in Holland or from a family which came from Morocco twenty years ago.
So, Wilders must be very careful, and certainly at this moment he has no interest to in fomenting riots by his supporters. He tried to gain "respectability" by coming here to Israel to show that he is "not anti-Jewish, only anti-Muslim". The fact that there was a demonstration against him in Tel Aviv was widely reported in the Dutch media, so we sabotaged his effort a bit. By the way, we would have done the same for any foreign politician coming here who built a career in this way, regardless of which ethnic or religious minority he had incited against. Such people should be opposed whenever and wherever you find them.
By the way, it is quite true that Muslims are overrepresented among Western prison populations, as are immigrants of other religious affiliations, Blacks and various other disadvantaged groups (here in Israel Jews who came from Arab countries are the ones overrepresented among prison populations). In every society the most disadvantaged people, who live in slums and have rather hopeless lives, are the most likely to become criminals and get arrested and end up in prison. It has nothing to do with their religion. In fact, a slum boy of Moroccan origin in Holland or Pakistani origin in England who becomes a devout Muslim and takes his religion at all seriously should stop being a thief. As you must know, knowing the Koran as well as you do, that book takes a quite stern view about theft.
One last word: many thanks for comparing me to Tom Lehrer, this is a great compliment which I hope I deserve. I really love to look at him on youtube, I sometimes do it for hours, and everything he said fifty years ago is all too true and relevant today.
Two things:
1 - The comparison to Tom Lehrer is actually ironic. Read that statement again. Carefully. Funny, and hypocritical. The latter is you (for Lehrer, it was intentional. You, I'm not so sure).
2 - The economics argument doesn't hold water. What about the East Asians, or the Indians? They are generally poorer, but are not overrepresented in prison populations as Muslims and blacks (it's a culture thing. Parasitic cultures that seek to live of what others have earned (your "left wing = poor interest" equation. Not so great when your pocket's getting picked) will generally be more criminal than the cultures that are more productive, such as the East Asian nations, and yes, the core of the West is this one too).
And you really can't read between the lines can you? Wilders has pointed out that Muslims are commanded to dominate the society they live in. Whether the majority do or not is irrelevant. That there is canonical proscriptions for it, and a minority ready to act on them, is enough.
It's just like in the World Wars. Germans, Italians and Japanese were all interned because their alleigance could not be 100% confirmed. It is exactly the same with Muslims. Even if they harbour no such ambition of conquest, it is still part of what they identify with, and so they are suspect. Not guilty, just suspect.
This is my last post here. The floor is yours, and then it's goodnight to this thread.
It is interesting that you come up with the interning during the World War as a precedent,
In the Second World War, Japanese Americans were interned en masse, m=which was not the case with German Americans and Italian Americans. It had to do with the the fact that in California there was a very strong racism against Asians. If there had been an excuse to intern the Chinese Americans too, they would have been happy to seize it. But there was no such strong racist feeling against Germans and Italians. There it was the people from the East Asian countries who were the main targets. "Yellow Peril", the yellow peoples setting out to take over the world, and all that.
Jack London, who was a nasty racist though he wrote some good pieces, wrote a nasty piece of trash called "The Unparalleled Imvasion"
http://www.jacklondons.net/writings/StrengthStrong/invasion.html
The Chinese try to take over the world, and world conducts biological warfare and exterminates them to the last one.
About the Chinese and Asians in general there was also the assertion that they have a cultural imperative to dominate everybody else. No website blogs then, but racists made do with the media available.
Racism does not change its essence, the hatred, the stereotypes - though its targets may change. For you the East Asians are fine fellows. After all they are not Muslims. Ha.
So "Muslims are commanded to dominate the society they live in" (and that's why many young Muslims commit stupid petty crimes and end in prison? A curious way to dominate a society). Anyway, there used to a lot of people thinking that Jews are commanded to dominate the society they live in, and selective quotations from the Talmud were offered in proof. And some people still believe it, there is one on this thread itself.
About poor people being "parasites", I would not like to start a whole new subject at this stage of this thread. Just let me say that many of the people who voted for Wilders are this kind of "parasites", and they did not sign with him any pledge of lifelong loyalty. Wilders will not deliver to them any spectacular feat of Muslim-bashing (Holland is still a democracy, thank God) but he will have helped into power a right-wing government which is already making their daily life more difficult, They have minds, don't they?
Dutch extreme-right parties don't last very long. Usually they come out of nothing and get back to the same garbage after a not very long sojourn in the world of politics. Holland is in general a nice sensible country. (Of course, I am a bit prejudiced, my wife is from there).
Anyway, if this thread is to end here, let me say that, while it was not precisely pleasant, it was quite interesting and instructive.
Adieu, so long and farewell!
Quote:
Racism does not change its essence, the hatred, the stereotypes - though its targets may change. For you the East Asians are fine fellows. After all they are not Muslims. Ha.
end quote.
Islam is not a race.
In response to my characterization of Keller's assessment of Muslims and Sharia --
Keller is trying to foster the impression that only a few nuts among Muslims want sharia.
-- Keller responded:
I did not assert that only a few nuts among Muslims want sharia. I did assert that only a few nuts among Muslims want to impose Sharia on the whole world and force non-Muslim people in the West to live under Sharia Law.
Keller seems to remain myopic about certain facts:
1) All four schools of Islamic law interpret Islamic law in terms of
a) a fusion of religion and state
b) affecting non-Muslims who are under Islamic rule.
2) According to many polls taken at various times, the majority of Muslims desire sharia law. For example, according to a recent survey:
...majorities in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria would favor changing current laws to allow stoning as a punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft and death for those who convert from Islam to another religion. About 85% of Pakistani Muslims said they would support a law segregating men and women in the workplace.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/06/world/la-fg-1206-muslim-poll-20101206
Keller just isn't thinking this through with an open mind. If a Muslim desires such Islamic laws as stoning, amputation, and death for leaving Islam (as well as for blasphemy), then it is reasonable to suppose that such a Muslim desires full-blown Sharia, which means political religion and one which dominates non-Muslims under its rule.
And then, it is similiarly reasonable to assume that such a Muslim who is obviously extremist, favors expansive jihad in order to bring under Islamic domination lands currently ruled by blasphemous and Godless laws
And when we see majorities of Muslims desiring these barbaric regressive fanatical codes, then it would be foolish of us to look upon Muslims with the sentimental fondness Keller does.
It is evident that the nice Muslims Keller happens to know personally and in whose houses he has nice sociable dinners are the minority. And it is evident that Keller has an innate impulse to let his wishful thinking, that these nice Muslims he happens to be acquainted with are the majority, affect his reason.
As I said already, I don't recognize such a thing as "race" except for the one Human Race. For me, "racism" means stereotyping another group and spreading hatred against that group, regardless of its having or not having specific physical characteristics.
For example, if there were two groups of people who were both blond-haired and blue-eyed, completely indistinguishable physically from each other, and still there was a reason (cultural, linguistic, religious, or whatever) why they were quite distinct from each other; and if people in one of these groups had a strong prejudice against the other group and were cultivating all kinds of stereotypes against the other one and spreading outright and indiscriminate hatred against members of the other group – then these hate-mongers would certainly be defined as racists, by the definition now commonly used worldwide.
The same if there were a group which is composed of very many physical types; and if this group had a distinguishing feature which made it a single group (cultural, linguistic, religious, or whatever); and if some people were to cultivate a strong prejudice against this group and all kinds of stereotypes about it and spread outright and indiscriminate hatred against its members – then those doing it would certainly be racists.
By the way, this is not a theoretical exercise. It very much fits a specific ethnic group – the one to which I happen to belong. If you walk the streets of Tel Aviv you will notice very many physical types, hair colors, skin colors, eye colors, shapes of noses. Yes, anti-semites often say that Jews are a "race". Anti-semites say many nonsense things. Jews are not "a race" but Anti-semites certainly are racists for spreading hate and prejudice against them. So are those who spread hate and prejudice against Muslims.
Adam Keller: I did assert that only a few nuts among Muslims want to impose Sharia on the whole world and force non-Muslim people in the West to live under Sharia Law.
This is one of the most frequently made and incredibly dangerous assertions put forth by people who have a very limited knowledge of Islam yet feel compelled to flog about their abject ignorance as supposed expertise.
Even if there were "only a few nuts among Muslims want to impose Sharia on the whole world", and those "few" amounted to a meager 01.00% that would equal some FIFTEEN MILLION VIOLENT JIHADISTS WORLDWIDE.
The fact is that recent surveys among young Muslims in Britain have shown up to some TWENTY PERCENT feel violence is justified to advance Islamic causes.
Suddenly, the potential number jumps to some THREE HUNDRED MILLION jihadists.
EVEN ONE MILLION IS FAR TOO MANY.
Piddling one's pants over the possibility that Geert Wilders might be racist represents counting deck chairs on the Titanic compared to rallying the West in a call to arms against Islam.
Not fundamentalist Islam. Not extremist Islam. Not radical Islam. Not salafist Islam. Not Wahhabist Islam. Not jihadist Islam. But ISLAM.
It is Qur'anic doctrine in its most direct, universally accepted and time-honored translation that drives Islamic jihad and the terrorist atrocities spawned in its name.
Squirming in discomfort that some of Islam's intended victims might be less than fair about matters is stupidity on such a grand scale as to eclipse reason and sanity.
In its purest form, Islam threatens a planet-wide form of cultural and ethnic genocide that simply cannot be tolerated by a free and civilized world.
Whatever "moderate" Muslims there are had best take it upon themselves to begin KILLING their jihadist brethern before those same terrorist scum provide the Western world with ample reason to enact the Muslim holocaust.
All current behavior from both Islam and Western Politically Correct Multiculturalist government and military leadership indicates that the Muslim holocaust will occur.
It is the sole obligation of Muslims to ensure that this does not happen. Since they do not have the military means to avoid such an outcome, theirs is the responsibility to pacify Islamic doctrine and eradicate all violent participants who would otherwise lead Islam to its doom.
Failing that, the only alternative is the Muslim holocaust. From another of my comments today:
Even the most cursory examination reveals how Afghanistan and Iraq have cost thousands of military casualties and well over one trillion dollars. Those two countries represent a tiny fraction of the nearly fifty odd Muslim nations that all must be brought to heel.
NO NATION ON EARTH possesses the military might or financial wealth to mount invasions or combat operations in all of these different locations. The sole cost-effective measure for dealing with such a widely distributed number of substantial targets is nuclear weapons. No other method can deliver the results needed in the timespan required.
It would do Islam and its Muslims very well to keep this in mind. It will be DECADES before Islam could possibly fabricate even a minute fraction of the nuclear weapons currently held by Western powers.
In those same decades it is literally guaranteed that Islamic fanatics, unfettered by a largely silent and inert Muslim population, will perpetrate atrocities via WMDs that will assure nuclear retaliation.
The is the Muslim holocaust writ large and people like fahad had best set about making his fellow Muslims well aware of just how bleak the outcome remains for jihadist Islam.
It is a spiritual, genetic and existential box canyon of previously unknown proportions and Muslims are being led willy nilly into this suicidal cul de sac by their deluded clerics and scholars. Worst of all:
ISLAM WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY.
First, I would like to point out that my Muslim friends are not just some fringe grouo in their own community but supporters of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality which in all parliamentary elections wins more Muslim votes than any other political party.
Secondly, I would like to point out that the results of opinion polls don’t necessarily affect actual policy. For example, there were opinion polls which showed that a considerable number percentage of United States citizens would support abrogating or limiting many key clauses of the US Constitution, such as the First Amendment. Fortunately, such opinion polls have not caused the US Constitution to be abrogated and its guarantees abolished. Similarly, there is no likelihood of Sharia being imposed in practice even in countries where opinion polls show strong support for it in theory.
Much less, no likelihood whatever of its being imposed in the West.
It is a fact after 1400 years of Muslim history, in nearly none of the Muslim countries is Sharia Law the law of the land – rather, law in nearly all of them is made by parliaments composed of politicians who are not selected by religious criteria (to be sure, sometimes the parliaments are dominated by a dictator – but most of the dictators are not religious figures, either).
You have something in common with Bin Laden – you insist of an idealized picture of Islam – a monolithic Islam, united in extreme hatred against all non-Muslims and waging Jihad and seeking to impose itself on the whole world. The only difference is that Bin Laden thinks that this is good and wonderful while you think it is bad and monstrous. Bin Laden thinks that there is not and cannot be any other kind of Islam, by ignoring the complex reality of Muslim societies. So do you. It helps Bin Laden in fomenting hate against the entire West, it helps you in fomenting hate against the entire Muslim World. You are both wrong, and wrong in remarkably similar ways.
Adam, I'd like to point out that the same arguments that are made about races not existing, are made about species. You share 70% of your DNA with yeast, 99% with an African person and 98% with a chimpansee. Why shouldn't chimps have equal rights with you? If you really want to be inclusive, you need to include all carbon based life forms and give them equal rights, including plants. You do eat plants, right?
"So if we take a non-discriminatory, truely inclusive way, where all life has worth, not just humans or animals that we like, but all life, then how are you any different for killing plants and taking advantage of the whole eco-systems that live under the soil and so on than the evil white people who colonized the world and took advantage of poor brown people?"
This was meant as a question related to why do you eat plants since they're pretty much the same as you - they have over 70% of the same DNA as you do.
You dodged the point in what I said. And by the way, cows aren't articulate nor do they have the capacity for rational thought, so meh. Another point, do you see genocide as ok if the killers give pain killers to the people they kill first? They wouldn't feel pain either, just like plants don't.
"Do they want to go on living and feel a fear of death, even though we don't notice it? "
Also, since you make this assumption about animals even though they can't express it, I assume that you don't extend it to plants out of outright bigotry and narrow thinking, since logically, all life forms want to survive.
So from your moral code, I conclude that if I sedated you, I could kill you and sleep well at night since you didn't feel pain nor you were articulate enough to tell me not to. Nice moral code you have there.
And by the way, since we are at prejudice. Why does it matter that Palestinians wouldn't see themselves as Jordanian? Wouldn't it be the same as Swedes seeing themselves as different than their immigrants?
I'd also like to know if you'd support the legalization of publishing and sale of Mein Kempf, since it has similar features to the Qu'ran.
And related to prejudice and the Japanese internment. Do you think that Jews focusing on the Holocaust and writing about it and making movies about it is prejudicial? Since I don't see any of them giving a damn about what the Japanese did, which was fairly atrocious too, yet we see a constant vilification of Germans.
Related to polls, they also showed that neither Europeans nor Americans wanted more immigration. I suppose you lament about the fact that those didn't become constitutional amendments too, right?
And you are racist. You are against the Carbon race and you make stupid classifications in terms of who is in your superior group who deserves rights and who isn't based on your socially constructed prejudices.
Adam Keller: It is a fact after 1400 years of Muslim history, in nearly none of the Muslim countries is Sharia Law the law of the land – rather, law in nearly all of them is made by parliaments composed of politicians who are not selected by religious criteria (to be sure, sometimes the parliaments are dominated by a dictator – but most of the dictators are not religious figures, either).
If these "Muslim countries" are so democratically run (which they most clearly are not), how is it that Christians and, especially, Jews seem to have such a difficult time living in such places?
Would you care to examine the constitutions of these various "Muslim countries" and then report back to Gates of Vienna with the exact number of them that DO NOT mention shari'a law somewhere in their foundational documents?
You are obliged to back up such incredible statements with facts. If you are fortunate, someone else here might perform that homework for you but, please be assured, the outcome will most definitely not reflect your position.
The above quote of yours in one specific reason why I have limited my participation in this thread. I am grateful that others, like Hesperado, have stepped up to the plate and pinch hit for me in my absence.
I have had to debunk so many other dangerously misinformed individuals like yourself that there is no longer any thrill to correcting or deconstructing such totally delusional behavior.
I did not say that these countries were model democracies, I said specifically many of them were dictatorships - but dictatorship is not necessarily theocracy. There is very often some vague and ambiguous reference to Sharia - which does NOT mean that Sharia is the law. It means that some pieces of Sharia as selected by non-religious legislators could be inserted into an essentially secular set of laws - often, laws of European origin, British or French or Dutch according to who was the colonial power there. And which parts of Sharia is politically debated and very hotly debated.
The situation of Jews and Christians varies in various countries and at various times. I recall for example that at the time when Egypt made peace with Israel the Foreign Minister of Egypt was a Christian. I don't recall any Western country having a Muslim Foreign Minister.
It is a fact that the creation of my own country, Israel, had very negative effect on the situation of Jews in the Arab countries. Partly it was because Zionism claimed to represent all the Jews in the world, including Jews who themselves wanted nothing to do with Zionism - and since Israel was at war with the Arab world, this made all the Jews in the Arab countries suspected of being "enemy agents".
Moreover, the government of Israel in the 1950's actively encouraged the expulsion of Jews from the Arab countries because it wanted them to come to the newly-founded Israel and increase its population. A special case in point are the Iraqi Jews. In 1950 the government of Israel under david Ben Gurion made a kind of deal with the government of Iraq that the Iraqi Jews would be deprived of their citizenship and placed on planes to Israel, and their properties confiscated.
The bastards in the two governments - Iraqi and Israeli - benefited from this crooked deal, the Israeli government got hundreds of thousands of new citizens while the government of Iraq got a lot of property.
The Iraqi Jews themselves were far from happy but nobody asked them.I know quite a bit about this, not only from reading but also because my first girlfriend when I was 16 year old in Tel Aviv was from an Iraqi Jewish family, Her parents were VERY bitter about what Ben Gurion had done to them since they had never been Zionists and never wanted to leave their home in Baghdad.
Anyway, I never said that Muslim countries are utopias inhabited by saints and angels - just that they are very complicated societies which should not be presented as a single nasty "mass of enemies". I will say again that this is just the mirror image of how Bin Laden views the West, and just as completely false.
Mr. Keller --
There is very often some vague and ambiguous reference to Sharia - which does NOT mean that Sharia is the law.
Actually, you are mistaken here. The facts don’t support your statement; they refute it.
You have evidently failed to research your case before making this assertion.
I’ll give you some major examples of the “law of the land” from various Muslim countries:
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Article 3 [Islam] Section 2 of the Syrian Constitution
Islamic jurisprudence is a main source of legislation.
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Chapter 1 Articles 2 and 106 of the Jordanian Constitution:
Islam is the religion of the State and Arabic is its official language.
The Shari’a Courts shall in the exercise of their jurisdiction apply the provisions of the Shari’a law.
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Chapter 1, Article 7 of the Saudi Constitution
Government in Saudi Arabia derives power from the Holy Koran and the Prophet’s tradition.
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Part 1, Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution
Islamic jurisprudence is the principal source of legislation.
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From the Constitution of Iraq (written by the United States):
Section One, Article 2:
First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a basic source of legislation:
(a) No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.
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From the Constitution of Afghanistan (written by the United States):
Article 2 [Religions]:
(1) The religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam.
Article 3 [Law and Religion]:
In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.
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What is “vague and ambiguous” about the above examples?
As you can see, sharia is codified as the law of the land in these countries. And, in case you think that “Islamic jurisprudence” or “the undisputed rules of Islam” do not refer to sharia, think again: Islam does not recognize any “jurisprudence” or “undisputed rules” besides sharia; those are in fact the precise definition of sharia.
I don’t have the constitutions of other Islamic countries to hand — and does Yemen even have a constitution? — but I have no reason to suspect they are much different from the examples given above, with the obvious exception of Turkey.
What kind of law do you think is the law of the land in Iran?
You’re out on a limb here. Do you want to saw it off, or shall I?
I am quite aware of these statements in these various constitutions. They are little more than lip-service. "Main source of legislation" means in practice "When the legislators make law, please take also the Sharia Law into consideration, along with the British Common Law which was left to us by the British who made half of our laws".
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt would have been very happy to hear from you that Sharia is the law of land in Egypt and that the struggle which they are waging for decades had been won - but if you tell them you mean this article in the Constitution, they will say (they do say, all the time) "Oh, that? Empty lip-service, it means nothing". The same with the Islamists in Syria, who were massacred mercilessly when they tried to take Sharia out of the empty statement in the Constitution and into reality.
Iran is a different case, there was an Islamic revolution in 1979 which quite seriously meant to create a state based on Sharia, (By the way, not that I am fond of the Iranian regime, but to refer to an opinion poll cited some time ago, they don't amputate the hands of thieves, though this is the punishment prescribed in theory...). And Saudi Arabia really takes the Sharia Law seriously as the Law of the Land, as does Sudan (a highlky unpleasnt regime, I do hope the South Sudnanese win the referendum and break away next month). The late unlamented Taliban regime in Afganistan, That's about it, as far as I know, for regimes which seriously want or wanted to have Sharia law as THE law.
All the rest of them inserted this into their Constitutions and still do not practice Sharia Law as such. Bits and pieces of it, here and there. Not more.
As a matter of fact, Israel, which does not have a Constitution, did pass a law which says that Jewish Rabbinical Law law is "a Main source of Legislation", Fortunately, this is mostly lip service, also in Israel, otherwise we might have had stoning of adulterous women in downtown Tel-Aviv (this is also prescribed in Rabbinical Law, which has many similarities to Sharia Law, both being derived from the practices of a patriarchal society in the Middle East thousands of years ago). Rabbinical Law IS inserted into Israeli Law in various nasty ways (no civil marriage, no public transportation on the Shabbat, prohibition on selling leavened bread on Passover and some other nasty things - but it is fortunately not the law of the land as such, which our religious politicians daily decry (let them go to hell).
Your not distinguishing between the very different regimes and very different societies in the Muslim World is exactly the point I am trying to make, the stereotyping and forcing everything into one single pattern which is a very faulty guide for action.
There you have it, folks.
For some people there is no possibility of recognition, much less actual understanding, of how discriminatory Islamic law is to all who do not bow and scrape to Allah.
A step (in seven league boots), beyond are those like Adam Keller who are utterly immune and entirely uncontaminated by the least hint of logic or reason.
Heed him at your own peril. Many do already and, one day, historians will label his type with nomenclature taken straight from the handbook of hardcore felons.
PS: Baron, thank you for providing the bit of "homework" I referred to. It is telling in the extreme that Mr. Keller was entirely unable to absorb its meaning, as is the case with so many of his ilk.
There is no adequate measure of mercy that can be justifiably wished upon those who remain so wilfully blind.
Rebelliousvanilla still had not gotten an answer to various questions put some hours ago. I hope you don't neglect to look at it.
I think that I made my views quite clear. I am less interested in DNA and the carbon base of life and big eco-systems. I think in terms of the individual, an individual human or an individual cow or an individual cockroach. The main point is what an individual is capable of thinking and feeling and wanting. If there was made robot such as appear in various Science Fiction works but nothing closely approaching it was made in reality – i.e., having a personality, capable of rational thought and with its own personality and wishes and aspirations, then this robot would be a person, my equal and deserving of every right which I have, and destroying such a robot would be murder. And it need not be a robot with hands and feet – a computer with its own personality and self-awareness would also count for me as a person and destroying it as murder. Does not matter that the robot or computer does not have DNA at all and is not based on carbon and is made of metal or plastic. "Carbon race" – what a stupid concept! These are superficial differences, what counts is the personality, what the being is capable of.
If a Chimpanzee could be taught to know what humans know and act as humans act, then he or she should be counted as an equal to humans – not because of having 98% of the same DNA, that is not what really counts. Any being which is capable of understanding what a government and a parliament are should be given the vote in elections in the territory where he, she or it lives. Any being which is capable of understanding philosophy should have access to study in the Philosophy Departments of the Universities, and the chance- if excelling in these studies - to become a professor. If there were a Chimpanzee who understands philosophy well enough, there would be nothing wrong with a Chimpanzee Professor of Philosophy.
A cow, clearly, is not able to understand politics or philosophy, so it would be meaningless to demand for cows the right to vote or study philosophy. It is not meaningless to demand for cows what cows consider a good cow life, i.e, a nice meadow where one could graze to one's content and a life which does not end with the horror of a slaughterhouse, and for a female cow motherhood which is not interrupted by a traumatic separation from her child because humans want to drink the milk, and for a bull the right to have sex with females and fight with other bulls for this privilege.
And of course, genocide would not be OK under any circumstances whatever, because people want to go on living and it is unacceptable that you kill them, with ot without pain killers. (Actually, some Nazis considered that using gas to kill Jews was "merciful", an opinion which I don’t share).
And animals can very clearly show that they are afraid of death and want to go on living. Only people who want to be insensitive in order to go on eating meat. All animals are articulate, also all insects. Articulate is not the same as being capable of rational thought; articulate is being capable of the thought "I want to live". All animals and birds and fish and insects are capable of this thought. You just need to keep your eyes open. If you happen to open the tap when there are ants in the sink, you will see them desperately struggling and swimming and making an effort to survive, precisely what you would do if you were suddenly thrown into raging flood waters. That makes the ant my sister, regardless of what percentage of DNA we share. It would still be true even if it was an alien ant from another planet sharing no single DNA with me.
More answers to the inquisitice Vanilla
Given the above, obviously the various kinds of human beings all share the same basic capacities, with the variations being more among individuals than among groups, obviously calling humans with a slightly different pigmentation different "races". The differences between groups of humans are cultural, not biological. Take a new-born baby born to pink-skinned European parents ("Pink" is the right term; except for albinos there is no such thing as white-skinned humans) and let this baby be raised by Nigerian parents in Nigeria, he or she would grow up being part of the culture of the foster parents.
Why does it matter that Palestinians wouldn't see themselves as Jordanian? First, because people should have the right to define themselves as they see fit. Secondly, the idea that "Jordan is Palestine" involves that Palestinians abandon their homeland and let themselves be expelled to another country, and they have a rather strong objection to any such idea.
I think that there is no doubt whatsoever that the "original" Swedes see themselves as something different than their immigrants, and vice versa. The question is what they should do about it – should they hate each other and use violence against each other, or should they make contact and try to learn from each other and build together a richer culture.
Quite true: Constitutional rights refer only to people already living in the country. They must have equal rights, you can't discriminate against them. A country could decide if it wanted to accept no more immigrants, not a single one, that would be perfectly legal and legitimate. Only then, who is going to work in Europe and do all the nasty and dirty and dangerous and badly underpaid jobs which Europeans absolutely don’t want to do for themselves?
Final installment of these answers
As I said, I don't accept the comparison of the Qu'ran with Mein Kempf, which equates Islam with Nazism. The right comparison is of the Qu'ran with the Bible, the Holy Book venerated by a large part of my own ethnic group (a veneration which I don't share) as well as by Christians. The Bible contains a very detailed and horrying description of a genocide supposedly carried out with the complete approval (indeed, at the explicit command) of God. True, it is a specific historical event which is given as a general command and guide to behavior. Still, anything written in a religion's Holy Book can serve as inspiration and legitimacy for the practicioners of that religion – you only need a clergyman who points out that "this example applies to us in the here and now". In practice the description of bloody conquest and genocide in the Bible's Book of Joshua were so used by Christian clergy in North America and South Africa, when needing to justify a bloody conquest and taking away somebody else's land, and is so used – I am sorry to say – by some Rabbis in present-day Israel.
That's not to say that such is the only way Judaism or Christianity can be interpreted. As I said before, Holy Scripture is a supermarket, you go in and find the shelf you need and take the appropriate verse to justify what you want to do anyway.
What else? Yes, about the Holocaust. Well, the Imperial Japanese regime of WWII did atrocious things in plenty, but as far as I know they did not declare that a specific ethnic group was to be murdered in its entirety and that being born into that group was a crime deserving capital punishment. The Nazis did, and since the Jews were one of the two groups so targeted (Gypsies being the other) I think Jews have a reason to fill especially exited about it. Not, by the way, that all films about the Holocaust were made by Jews – nor should they, every single human being should care about it. And by the way, these flms (at least the good ones) don't "vilify the Germans". They vilify the Nazis, one particular group of Germans who thoroughly deserve to be vilified. Other Germans, who deserve to be praised, are often praised in the same films. For example, Oskar Schindler, the German who is the hero of "Schindler's List" and who fully deserves to be recognized as a hero.
Baron Bodissey: Mr. Keller … You have evidently failed to research your case before making this assertion.
As has been shown time and again throughout Mr. Keller's posts in this thread.
It is nearly impossible to assign such stupendous error to honest mistake and, therefore, it becomes necessary to consider the possibility of his gist being that of malign intent cloaked in the guise of pathetically uninformed naïveté.
There are few other conjectures that can be drawn from such a vast body of ill informed and dangerously misconstrued conclusions.
Sorry for having posted so much which is in fact of-topic here, but I was asked many questions in a very insistent way. However, your "homework", Baron Bodissey, creates a quite gloomy outlook for yourself and your cause. You declare yourself to have been "waging a Counter-Jihad since 9-11-2001".
The main thing which the West as a whole had done in the way of a Counter-Jihad since then had been to conquer Afghanistan and Iraq and change the regimes there. By your reckoning, looking at the text of the constitutions which these countries now have and saying that any country with an Islamic reference in its constitution is automatically one of the Bad Guys, the Counter-Jihad had failed utterly and dismally.
What would you suggest, supposing that Western governments were inclined to wage a Counter-Jihad (say, Sarah Palin is elected President and she appoints you her as her Special Adviser on Counter-Jihad).
What would you advice? Conquering the entire Muslim World and garrisoning it without time limit, evacuating the US troops only if and when all these countries agree to adopt completely non-Muslim constitutions, and with the stern warning that if they dare to so much as whisper the words "Islam" or "Sharia" Uncle Sam will come rushing right back with his full armed might?
PS: Whatever out political differences, we seem to share a fondness for Jack Vance's Science Fiction.
Adam Keller: Sorry for having posted so much which is in fact of-topic here, but I was asked many questions in a very insistent way.
Speaking for myself, you shold not apologize for commenting at length. From my own understanding of the rules here at Gates of Vienna, that is the privilege of all who participate in good faith.
Whether you actually do participate in such a manner is another matter entirely and any decision regarding that must be left up to the individual reader.
However, your "homework", Baron Bodissey, creates a quite gloomy outlook for yourself and your cause.
This is where your ignorance becomes unbearable.
The Baron's "homework" is not what "creates a quite gloomy outlook". That "homework" is simple fact-finding about what happens to be one of he most maleficent and vicious ideologies ever to exist on the fasce of this earth.
Recognizing it as such "creates" no gloom. Islam does that all by itself and it is upon those of us who refuse to endure such mass decrepitude to make suitable protest, your own misbegotten projections notwithstanding.
By refusing to countenance such barbarism as that which Islam thrusts in the face of civilization, all of us who participate in that rejection take an active part in thwarting that "gloomy outlook" which you, yourself, make such an effort to impose upon those who are less informed.
I wonder if you will have the nerve to defy my own prediction that further contributions upon your part in other discussions here will not be forthcoming. I find it difficult to imagine that you will have either the courage or intellectual stamina to participate in good faith.
The sketchy composition of your own stance is of such a dubious nature that any further appearances upon your part seem unlikely at best.
Again, this is not to discourage you so much as predict the typical lack of determination that is so often shown by those of your ilk when confronted with fact-based dispute.
Dear Mr Kellerman,
before speaking about South Africa, I would suggest that you do proper research and not just vomit up the MSM distorted view of the Dutch people later to become the Afrikaner people you speak of who:
"
In practice the description of bloody conquest and genocide in the Bible's Book of Joshua were so used by Christian clergy in North America and South Africa, when needing to justify a bloody conquest and taking away somebody else's land, and is so used – I am sorry to say – by some Rabbis in present-day Israel."
A a matter of fact, if you decided just to briefly investigate South African history you would not have made this idiotic remark.
The zulus and xhosas , "the people that had their land stolen through bloody conquest" are from northern africa.And approximately150 years prior to the dutch landing in south africa, wiped out the native south african tribes, called khoi-san, or the bushmen.
In stark contrast , when the dutch , a trading nation as oppose to a warring nation, arrived, they traded for land in south africa.The land given to the dutch were via treaties. However the Dutch/Afrikaners had to defend themselves when the local tribes renegaded on these treaties and slaughtered dutch/afrikaner families.The idea of stolen land and bloody conquest and genocide is absolutely true,but the God fearing Afrikaners were not the perpetrators.It was the local tribes my dear mr Keller.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Retief
I notice very much rhetoric about the barbarism of Islam but no answer to the concrete question of how you would conduct "counter-Jihad" if the powers that be ask your advice. Or would you advice just "Nuke them all and have done?"
Meanwhile, a bit of "homework" of my own.
Egyptian Civil Code
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Civil_Code
The Egyptian Civil Code is the primary source of civil law for Egypt.
The first version of Egyptian Civil Code was written in 1949 containing 1149 articles. The prime author of the 1949 code was Abdel-Razzak Al-Sanhuri,a jurist who received assistance from Dean Edouard Lambert of the University of Lille. Perhaps due to Lambert's influence, the 1949 code followed the French civil law model. The code focus on the regulation of business and commerce, and does not include any provisions regarding family law which is usually handled through Shari’a. Sanhuri purposely left out family law and succession to set it apart from the Turkish civil code.
The code also provides for Islamic law (shari’a) to have a role in its enforcement and interpretation. Article 1 of the code provides that, “in the absence of any applicable legislation, the judge shall decide according to the custom and failing the custom, according to the principles of Islamic Law. In the absence of these principles, the judge shall have recourse to natural law and the rules of equity.” Despite this invocation of Islamic law, one commentator has argued that 1949 code reflected a "hodgepodge of socialist doctrine and sociological jurisprudence."
The Egyptian Civil Code has been the source of law and inspiration for numerous other Middle Eastern jurisdictions, including pre-dictatorship kingdoms of Libya, Jordan and Iraq (all three drafted by Al-Sanhuri himself and a team of native jurists under his guidance), Bahrain (2001), as well as Qatar (1971) (these last two merely inspired by his notions), and the commercial code of Kuwait (drafted by El-Sanhuri). When Sudan drafted its own civil code in 1970, it was in large part copied from the Egyptian Civil Code with slight modifications. Today all Arab nations that have modern civil codes with the exception of Saudi Arabia and Oman, are based fully or partly on the Egyptian Civil Code
It is very clear: Secular law, modeled largely on French Law, is supreme. If the secular legislators decide something in a clear and unambiguous way, contrary to Sharia, then they word is final. If they left something unclear, the judge should turn to custom, and if custom has no answer either, then he could look into Sharia. Let me assure you that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is far from happy with this situation.
As for South Africa – of course it is absolutely true that there was also a very big and bloody invasion and conquest of black tribes against other black tribes. Black people are human beings and quite capable of all the nastiness which is part of human nature and may appear in all human societies. Still, Transavaal and The Orange Free State were not founded by peaceful traders, they were founded by militant people with guns, people who found the abolition of slavery intolerable and who wanted to conquer land and keep it by their iron fist, and comparing themselves with Hebrews conquering the Canaanites was very handy propaganda for thoroughly Christian people. .
Quote:
As I said, I don't accept the comparison of the Qu'ran with Mein Kempf, which equates Islam with Nazism.
end quote.
We're not "equating" a thing.
Muslim units fought in the SS.
I'm sure they loved the work they did.
The chief model for Arab nationalist governments and for the Ba'athists in particular was none other than Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Regime.
Equivalent? No.
Role model and followers? Yes.
Yes, there were Muslim units ub the SS, as were French Units, Flemish Units, Dutch Units, Italian Units, and of numerous other nationalities.
And there were people and political movementsm in numrous countries around the globe who took Hitler as their role model. In fact, here on this blog in this specific thread there is one paricipant - Cesar Tort a.k.a. Chechar - who has a quite positive opinion of Hitler.
Anyway, I thought we were debating about the Koran; the Ba'athists are not paricularly an Islamist movement. Just ask the Islamists of Syria (those who survived the treatment which they got from the Syrian Ba'athist regime).
[posted earlier, wrong topic, sorry @Baron, you might want to delete it over there "Law of the Land"]
Dear Adam "I didn't say that" Keller,
So Geert Wilders has [quote] "blundered in to interfere in the politics of my country", you say?
Few sentences further down the drain, you immediately commit the very same sin of blundering, you accuse GW of:
[quote] "More relevant for this discussion in this blog, I strongly object to Wilders' activities in Holland".
I mean, I wouldn't mind taking you serious for the sake of argument, but you're not exactly helping here, are you?
There is probably no way to describe the choking feeling that the dense emptiness of your rethoric causes me. Might be akin to getting caught by and buried underneath an avelange. Luckily I saw this one coming and chose to step aside. I think that, as a learning experience - you, the archetypal pangaeic humanist, engaged in a honourable fight with that substantial part of humanity that still "doesn't get it" - this socalled exchange has been a mere exercise in futility.
In quite an unexpected way though, this thread has been very useful for me as a showcase of that typical progressivist mindset at work. I was a bit rash in my judgement, condemning as "propaganda tsunami" the quasi argumentative waves you caused, that had so many strawmen, begged bottled questions, red herrings, empty words and just plain old lies, washed up on these shores here at GoV.
Now I realize that my critique was unwarranted. After having read most of this thread, I no longer think you're just a mere agitpropper for some kind of global socialism. You really are a true believer, and a fanatic at that.
I applaud the ones who - unlike me - had the stamina to politely deconstruct your beliefsystem and who kindly responded as if you actually would value intelligent discussion, LAW Wells, Hesperado, Zenster, goethechosemercy, Anne Kit, Dymphna and of course the Baron himself.
You probably will keep spreading dangerous and hateful libels against chosen MP's who put their lives at stake, just for speaking out against Islamic supremacist doctrine. And I guess you will persist in playing the guilt by association game, by putting most if not all counterjihadists squarely in the camp of those neo-"conservative" (that is big gov, neo-Progressive/Wilsonian, Islam = peace elitist) foes you love to hate so dearly.
In spite of all that, you and your wife are still welcome in Amsterdam, as Geert Wilders should have been welcomed by your uncivil and misguided friends waving those plates before their heads in Tel Aviv.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Keller wrote, using an Equivalencist analogy:
"For example, there were opinion polls which showed that a considerable number percentage of United States citizens would support abrogating or limiting many key clauses of the US Constitution, such as the First Amendment. Fortunately, such opinion polls have not caused the US Constitution to be abrogated and its guarantees abolished."
It's not just "fortunate" (if Keller's information is correct): what keeps those people's opinions harmless is the fact that the government prevents them from actualizing their opinions into enforced law.
And that's the supreme irony of Muslim societies, to which the Kellers of the world are as blind as Helen Keller: it is the tyrannical despots of the Muslim world -- particularly the former Shah of Iran, the Kemalist Military power of Turkey (keeping alive the intent of modern Turkey's founder, Ataturk), King Muhammad V of Morocco, and Bourguiba in Tunisia -- who in fact prevent the fanatical MAJORITY of Muslims from taking power and instituting Talibanesque "purity" in one state after another.
The only feasible choice with the Muslim demos is
1) a corrupt autocracy beholden to Western financial interests, or
2) a puritanically fanatical theocracy wannabe that more often than not ends up, among other things, massacring people and killing people for owning CDs and DVDs and rounding up men and women for dancing in public -- all things I'm sure Keller would recoil from only when white Christians were to do it.
By the way, we are done here with Keller. Comments past the #50 mark have been post-mortem forensic analyses, not discussions with some living rational human being who might be named "Adam Keller".
To Sagunto
Well, I did not arrange to address a public meeting in Amsterdam to denounce Wildreds. I leave that to the quite capable Dutch people opposing him (and anyway, I have my hands all too full confronting his Israeli soul-mates). Me and my wife usually come to Holland on family visits where we feel ourselves most welcome, thank you. (At most, we would take part in a demo or two organized by local people).
As I noted earlier on this thread, Dutch extreme-right parties usually don’t last very long, they come out of nothing and after a not too long sojourn in the political arena they go back to the same. I have a good hope the PVV will also join this dishonorable roster, when the people who voted for it last time realize it gave them nothing. I have much faith in the essential good sense of the Dutch people.
Many thanks for recognizing my sincerity, and though of course I don’t consider myself a fanatic (but then, who would?) and of course I fully intend to continue doing what I am doing to the best of my ability (as, no doubt, do you).
Just one final note: My objection to counterjihadists is not necessarily because of their supposed links to "neo-conservatives". My basic objection to counterjihadists is that they are counterjihadists, just like my basic objection to jihadists is that they are jihadists. My contention is that jihadists and counterjihadists are the mirror image of each other, that in many ways they share the same perception of the world – both believe that "Jihadist Islam is the only possible kind of Islam" and that the West and the Muslim World are bound to come to an inevitable total clash, a clash of Light against Darkness, Good against Bad. Their only disagreement is which one is the "Light" and which one the "Darkness".
To quote Shakespeare: "A plague on both your houses!"
To Hesperado
About the Kemalist Military power of Turkey, you are far outdated. It was like indeed that until about ten years ago, the Turkish Army regarded itself as the Guardian of Secularism and entitled to carry out a military coup in the event of an Islamist party winning the majority of votes in the elections. This role of the Army was in fact enshrined in the Turkish Constitution. It is no longer so. In case you have been sleeping for some years, you should realize that an Islamic party has been in power in Turkey for the past eight years. You can say a lot about the present government of Turkey (here in Israel quite a lot of people are especially not fond of it) but it has not instituted Talibanesque "purity" nor does it have any intention of so doing.
By the way, you seem not to realize how much the Taliban are ridiculed in most of the Muslim and Arab World as "stupid yokels" – also by other Islamists, for example in Iran – and how unlikely anyone else would be to emulate them.
About the dictatorial regimes – yes, of course it is in many cases absolutely true. Last week in Egypt President Mubarak used intimidation and vote-rigging in order to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of the Egyptian Parliament. Still, the bottom line is precisely what you wrote about Americans who would like to get rid of the Bill of Rights: "What keeps those people's opinions harmless is the fact that the government prevents them from actualizing their opinions into enforced law". The government of Egypt certainly keeps people who want Sharia Law from actualizing their opinions into enforced law.
It would of course be preferable if there was no need of undemocratic means of doing it. What you seem to ignore – or not to know or care about – is that this present situation of secular dictators holding Islamic masses is by no means a permanent and inevitable state of things. There was a time when Secular Arab Nationalism was far stronger and far more popular among the masses than was Islamism. And the ideological basis of Arab Nationalism was that everybody who speaks Arabic is an Arab and should have an equal share in the Arab Homeland. Everybody who speaks Arabic – be they Muslims, Christians, Jewish or whatever. (Quite a lot of Christians were involved in founding Arab Nationalism, and quite a few Jews, too).
In recent decades, the popularity of Arab Nationalism declined due to its being more and more manifested in very corrupt and nasty regimes, which are also beholden to Western financial interests, and which people at the grassroots have every reason to despise. Everywhere in the world, people who don't like the government tend to turn to the strongest and most credible alternative movement – and at this moment this often happens to be the Islamists who proclaim that "Islam is the solution".
There is, however, at least one very conspicuous exception – Iran, where the Islamists have been in power long enough to seem quite nasty and corrupt to the masses at the grassroots. "Islam is the solution" is far from an attractive slogan to young people in Teheran.
So, what is the upshot? That the Muslim and Arab World is a wonderful paradise? That there are no nasty racists and bigots among Muslims? Absolutely not. It would be very stupid to assert anything like that. I only said and continue to say that it is a very complex place, with very many societies which are very different from each other, very many political and social forces, with some of whom one can get along better than with others. And that since my country is located in the very midst of this region it is Israel's most vital interest to find a peaceful accommodation with her neighbors – which is why I and my friends especially resented Mr. Wilders coming from Holland to preach to us stupid and dangerous "solutions".
Adam, as much as I'd like for this thread to be over, I can't help it, I have to ask: do you think there should be a Jewish state? Should it be under the control of Jews, or should everyone live there and have equal political rights?
Now you are touching on the main controversial subject of Israeli politics. Israel defines itself by law as "A Jewish and Democratic State" but exactly what this means is open to very many different conflicting interpretations. Obviously in a democratic state, everybody must have equal political rights, whatever their ethnic or religious affiliation. That is the very definition of a democracy. Obviously, if Israel keeps the occupied Territories without giving civil rights to their inhabitants, Israel is no longer a democracy. And obviously, if Israel keeps these territories and does give equal rights to their inhabitants, then there will be nearly as many Arab citizens in Israle as Jewish citizens, and they might soon become the majority because they have a higher birth rate.
So, if Israel wants to go on being a democracy, and also to have a Jewish majority among its citizens, and also to have any chance of peace with the Palestinians and the wider Arab World, it must get out of the Occupied Territories and let the Palestinians have their own state – which I hope will also be a democracy, but that is up to the Palestinians.
All this should have been obvious to everybody, unfortunately we are still struggling with this problem for forty-three years, ever since Israel conquered these territories in 1967. There are some people who want to keep the Occupied Territories without giving civil rights to the Palestinians and to take land from the Palestinians and build Jewish settlements on it. I think these people are very wrong, very immoral, and also a big danger to our future. Some of these people are those who invited Wilders to Israel.
But Israel has tried and tried to dump the territories, and every time, the Arabs use it against them. Isn't Gaza Judenfrei at the moment, and hasn't it become a staging area for international terrorism? This is beyond "democracy." If people use democracy as a pretext to make war on their neighbors, who have given land for peace repeatedly, with nothing to show but more terror attacks, is it ever time to give up?
I used to support a Palestinian state...until their own behavior changed my mind.
To me, a Jewish or any other state can be "democratic" if the people who belong to it, in this case, Jews, have equal rights. If other people happen to be there, they can have human rights, but they don't need political rights. The Arabs on the West Bank never had equal rights when that territory belonged to Jordan. Now, just because it's Israeli territory, the Arabs who live there should have more political rights than they ever have had in the entire recent history of that area? Why? Because Jews have to give more to open enemies than anyone else? Why?
It seems to me that Israel is being held to higher standards than other countries, due to anti-semitism, and people like you are going along with it, because you don't know or care about the real cause of those expectations.
Let me recapitulate the basic principles of democracy. Sorry if I sound a bit like a lecturer to first-year students I n Political Science.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. And so on, you can read the full text in every history book on the American War of Independence.
In a democracy governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. This means that the government's power to rule over you, and take taxes from you, and make laws and expect you keep them and send the police if you don't keep them, is dependant on your giving your consent to this government, by participating in free elections from in which the new government (Parliament, Prime Minister, President) is chosen, and to if you dislike the government you have the right to disapprove of it, to freely express this disapproval until the next elections and try to get a better government in the next elections. If you don't ask for the consent of the people under your rule, then you lost the right to rule them and they have the right to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to you and to assume among the powers of the earth a separate and equal station, which in this case means a sovereign state called Palestine, just as a bit more than two hundred years ago it meant a sovereign state called the United States of North America, founded by a notorious rebel and terrorist called George Washington. (Well, the term "terrorist" did not yet exist then; but if things had gone otherwise, Washington would have likely been hanged).
Anyway, in a democracy there is no such as distinction as "people who belong to it" and "other people who happen to be there". If you live in the country and the government rules over you and takes taxes from your income and sends the police to enforce on you its laws, then the government must have your consent in the form of your participating in the elections from which this government draws its power. Otherwise it is just not a democracy.
By the way, for Israel this could be a very dangerous principle, because there is a very good case for the Palestinians to say that they are the people who belong to the land because they have lived on it for at least 1300 years (which is nearly as long as the English live in England and the French live in France) and the Zionist Jews are the newcomers and immigrants. But anyway, I am opposed to this idea, whether it applies to Israelis or to Palestinians. It is not democracy, and I want my country to be democractic.
Israel is not "held to higher standards than other countries" because of anti-Semitism. Israel is held to its own standards. Israel claims very proudly to be "the only democracy in the Middle East". Israeli leaders every day reiterate that we are part of the West, that we are part of the community of democratic nations, that in fact we are part of Europe which just happens to be a bit outside Europe by geographical accident. And we get quite a bit of international support – economic, political, military, diplomatic – on the basis of our being a democracy.
So, we are held to the standards which we claim. If we are a democracy, we are asked to behave according to democratic standards. If we are part of the West, we are asked to conform to the standards of the West. If we want to be no more than just another nasty Middle Eastern dictatorship, then we should accept to have no more support or sympathy then any other nasty Middle Eastern dictatorship. That's not what I want for my country, but if we continue the way we are now that's what is going to happen.
One more remark: "Judenfrei" is a Nazi word, which means that the Nazis conquered a city or country, took all the Jews who lived there and had every right to live there (and certainly had a right to live, in general), and murdered them in cold blood so that that the place could be declared "free of Jews". In the Gaza Strip Israel confiscated one third of the land – in one of the poorest and overcrowded parts of the world – and gave it to several thousand Israeli settlers, who were living in armed enclaves from which the local population was excluded. And then Israel which placed these settlers there removed them, in the hope that then it could keep the West Bank. This was a mistaken hope. That is not making a land "Judenfrei" – that is making a stupid mistake and then correcting it only very partly.
Israel never tried to "dump" the Occupied Territories, and the Arabs never refused such an offer. Israel tried several times to give up little bits and pieces of them and keep the rest and continue building settlements in the rest. This was not enough. The West Bank and Gaza Strip in their entirety are not such a very big terriroy (not more than 22% of pre-1948 Palestine). A Palestinian state, to be viable, needs and deserves to have all of it. We in Israel can live very well in the borders which we had between 1948 and 1967. There are quite a few people who feel that those were Israel's finest years.
Israel offered the West Bank to Jordan, but Jordan didn't want it back. Did you forget that? So, even though Israel won that territory in a war of defense, and Jordan wouldn't take it back, because they sensibly didn't want any more Palestinian trouble-makers, you think democracy requires Israel to give equal rights to non-citizens that no one wants? This is sophistry, a mere word game.
There have been many democracies that haven't extended political rights to certain people. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, there were many groups living in America that didn't have political rights. In other words, there is no one size fits all democracy. Every democracy can define who gets democracy and who doesn't. At that time the out group was slaves, women, Indians, maybe others. In our time, it would be illegal aliens, foreign residents, and in the case of Israel, people who live in certain areas that haven't been sorted out yet. In fact, in America, we even have territories like Puerto Rico, Samoa, Guam, etc. where the residents don't have full political rights. The horror! Someone tell the UN!
Dear Mr. Adam - didn't say or do that - Keller,
Since you brought a distinguished writer to the parade, I think I should leave you with a fitting thought of another, G. K. Chesterton:
"I could not express myself more exactly than by saying that he [G.B. Shaw, the socialist] has a heroically large and generous heart; but not a heart in the right place."
[..]
"And this is so of the typical society of our time.
The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful..."
[G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy: "The Suicide of Thought", 1908]
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
On this rarely (for GOV) gargantuan comments thread, I have found myself doing what I have done on other large comments threads at other sites (example, Jihad Watch) when one particular commenter -- either a Leftist or a Muslim -- becomes the center of the discussion and maintains remarkable stamina in responding to several antagonists (sort of analogous to one swordsman fending off ten swordsmen all around him).
Of course, Keller didn't hijack this thread: this is "his" thread, kindly granted to him by Baron Bodissey.
Nevertheless, Keller is performing the same function, and indulging the same discursive and rhetorical behaviors, as those Leftists or Muslims who hijack discussion threads: He doesn't really cogently and fairly fend off all antagonists: he generates a complex multifarious fireworks display of a thousand logical fallacies and dozens of tactics of obfuscation.
Anyway, what I have found myself doing in this thread I recommend to all newcomers: Don't even bother reading the comments written by Keller: simply read all the people who are addressing him and responding to him.
You'll thank me if you do.
To latté island
You happen to be a bit behind the times. In 1775 the US, the first modern democracy, could a democracy get away with slaves, women, Indians and others not having political rights. There have happened a thing or two since then, Did you ever hear of Abraham Lincoln? Does that name ring a bell? And did you ever hear of a person called Martin Luther King? In the world of today, the US of 1775 would just not be counted as a democracy at all.
There was, in fact – and not so long ago - a country which said very much what you say:. There is no one size fits all democracy, every democracy can define who gets democracy and who doesn't and so on. South Africa had a fine a democracy, free, multi party elections, stormy debates in at the Parliament in Pretoria and so on. It just wanted a different size democracy than the rest of the world, a democracy which does not include that Black rabble in Soweto. Did they get away with it? Sure they did. Last time I looked, Nelson Mandela is still languishing in his cell on Robben Island and the world had long forgotten him.
Israel never offered the West Bank to Jordan, it offered bits and pieces of it to Jordan. Jordan said it belongs to the Palestinians.
Israel does not have to offer the Palestinians civil rights in Israel. It can offer them civil rights in sovereign Palestine. But it must be either one or the other, and rejecting one of these options automatically puts the other on the top of the agenda.
As you chose to represent yourself by the photo of Golda Meir, I just wanted to say that she was one of worst, nastiest, stupidest leaders which any country could be unfortunate enough to have. She could have accepted the offer which President Saddat of Egypt made to her in early 1973, and made the very same peace which Begin made five years later and won the Nobel which Begin got. She preferred to reject it and precipitate a war without making proper preparations and squander the lives of nearly 3000 soldiers and get a "dishonorable discharge" from Israeli politics. I was 18 then, I remember the night after Golda Meir finally resigned when me and my friends held a party at the top of an old building in downtown Tel Aviv and the night air seemed purer for having at long last gotten rid of her.
Sagunto: I applaud the ones who - unlike me - had the stamina to politely deconstruct your beliefsystem and who kindly responded as if you actually would value intelligent discussion, LAW Wells, Hesperado, Zenster, goethechosemercy, Anne Kit, Dymphna and of course the Baron himself.
Thank you, Sagunto. However agonizing this thread has been, I felt (and, evidently, the Baron agreed with me), that it would be instructive and useful to give Adam Keller his own opportunity for airing views not normally gone into at length here at Gates of Vienna.
Thank you also for the superb excerpt from G.K. Chesterton, the dimensions of whose writings assume ever greater pertinence with each passing day.
Sadly, Hesperado has nailed it in noting how:
… Keller is performing the same function, and indulging the same discursive and rhetorical behaviors, as those Leftists or Muslims who hijack discussion threads: He doesn't really cogently and fairly fend off all antagonists: he generates a complex multifarious fireworks display of a thousand logical fallacies and dozens of tactics of obfuscation.
And so it is the typical, "Look over there! A rhinocerous!", sort of misdirection that any third-rate magician summons up amid his conjuring and prestidigitation.
Any hopes for some straightforward categorical point-by-point replies were dashed after Adam Keller's third or fourth comment. The torrent of inchoate and irrelevant wanderings were as impenetrable as they were eye-glazing.
As Hesperado also points out, merely reading the replies and interrogatories offered up by other commenters will provide an adequate encapsulation of this discission without wandering for forty years in the wilderness of Adam Keller's bizarre and incongruous mental rock garden.
For rocks they are that will gut the hulls of other mentalities that run aground upon the anti-life and anti-reason shoals of Adam Keller's incoherent philosophy.
Beware.
I must say that I find Hesperado's and Zenster's criticism a bit unfair, when I made such a considerable effort to read every item and give specific answers to each, for example to answer each and every question put by rebelliousvanilla even when some of them seemed, frankly, quite silly.
More seriously, when accused of "not doing my homework" I made an effort to do so, and came up with concrete information on the French origins of the Egyptian Civil Law.
In general, I tried to the best of my ability to give direct and relevant answers to all and sundry, sorry it was not appreciated as such.
By the way, you should note that this "swordsman" had this week other things on his plate than the "Gates of Vienna", including a no less fierce debate carried on at the very same time on an Israeli Hebrew website.
It is pleasant to thank Sagunto for his nice effort to end this thread on a "no hard feelings" basis. Chesterton is an old friend of mine, the Father Brown stories were my constant companion back in 1988, when I spent three months in an IDF military prison on charges of having refused reserve military service in the Occupied Territories and having written grafitti on tanks.
"A heroically large and generous heart; but not a heart in the right place." It is not often that I get to hear something this generous from a political opponent, and I also highly appreciate being compared to G.B. Shaw – a compliment indeed which I am not sure I deserve. Thank you! .
In a final note I would like to quite what Jewish tradition prescribes at the end of a collective reading of a Book of the Bible:
"Tam ve'Nishlam, shevach la'el bore olam" (It is finished and completed, praised be God who created the world), I don't know if Islamic tradition has something similar.
Adam Keller: More seriously, when accused of "not doing my homework" I made an effort to do so, and came up with concrete information on the French origins of the Egyptian Civil Law.
Please be so kind as to abandon any attempt at playing the aggrieved party.
You made a completely unfounded and blatantly incorrect statement:
It is a fact after 1400 years of Muslim history, in nearly none of the Muslim countries is Sharia Law the law of the land – rather, law in nearly all of them is made by parliaments composed of politicians who are not selected by religious criteria (to be sure, sometimes the parliaments are dominated by a dictator – but most of the dictators are not religious figures, either).
Then, when presented with conclusive evidence by this forum's owner, you attempted to cite a trivial exception to the norm as disproof.
What's more, even a slight awareness regarding how Egypt mistreats its Coptic population would show that a huge portion of shari'a law is actively practiced in that country and done so by its governmental body with full awareness and explicit intent.
You have attempted to compare me with someone so odious as Osama bin Laden without the least regard for how my writings are specifically intended to AVOID the Muslim holocaust that Islam is so busy precipitating.
Furthermore, in your febrile attempts to dismiss the notion that Muslims are monolithic in at least some respects, you patently ignore how the Qur'an is immutable and must be adhered to by all Muslims around the entire world at the risk of being punished as an apostate or for blasphemy, both of which crimes typically carry a DEATH PENALTY.
Finally, your constant effort to draw equivalency between Christianity and Islam is as intolerable as it is malicious.
I AM NOT EVEN A CHRISTIAN AND YET I STILL FIND YOUR COMPARISONS AN EGREGIOUS INSULT TO MY INTELLIGENCE AND TO ALL CHRISTIANS AT LARGE.
That you attempt to feign innocence while making such overwhelmingly offensive assertions brands you (like others here have), as the most dangerous sort of "true believer".
Try to keep in mind that cheerleaders like yourself who continue to vigorously whitewash the barbaric and supremacist nature of Islam will be among the very first who shall be led to the chopping block. Your squalling protests about not being "racist" (a serious charge that you lazily hurl about) will, literally, be cut short as your malfunctioning mind is severed from your neck by Islam's sword.
The only sad part is how many others will be in line behind you to meet the same fate because they were delusional enough to have believed the incontrovertible rubbish that you put forth as well-reasoned fact.
Sorry, I had the impression that the idea was to wind up this thread in a bit less of an agressive mood - since obviouly this debate will not end in one side convincing the other, however long we continue. But it seems the swords must be kept drawn and flashing, to the very last second. A pity.
Well, I can only re-post the item about the Egyptian Civil Code and let it speak for itself.
Egyptian Civil Code
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Civil_Code
The Egyptian Civil Code is the primary source of civil law for Egypt.
The first version of Egyptian Civil Code was written in 1949 containing 1149 articles. The prime author of the 1949 code was Abdel-Razzak Al-Sanhuri,a jurist who received assistance from Dean Edouard Lambert of the University of Lille. Perhaps due to Lambert's influence, the 1949 code followed the French civil law model. The code focus on the regulation of business and commerce, and does not include any provisions regarding family law which is usually handled through Shari’a. Sanhuri purposely left out family law and succession to set it apart from the Turkish civil code.
The code also provides for Islamic law (shari’a) to have a role in its enforcement and interpretation. Article 1 of the code provides that, “in the absence of any applicable legislation, the judge shall decide according to the custom and failing the custom, according to the principles of Islamic Law. In the absence of these principles, the judge shall have recourse to natural law and the rules of equity.” Despite this invocation of Islamic law, one commentator has argued that 1949 code reflected a "hodgepodge of socialist doctrine and sociological jurisprudence."
The Egyptian Civil Code has been the source of law and inspiration for numerous other Middle Eastern jurisdictions, including pre-dictatorship kingdoms of Libya, Jordan and Iraq (all three drafted by Al-Sanhuri himself and a team of native jurists under his guidance), Bahrain (2001), as well as Qatar (1971) (these last two merely inspired by his notions), and the commercial code of Kuwait (drafted by El-Sanhuri). When Sudan drafted its own civil code in 1970, it was in large part copied from the Egyptian Civil Code with slight modifications. Today all Arab nations that have modern civil codes with the exception of Saudi Arabia and Oman, are based fully or partly on the Egyptian Civil Code
So far, what I got on Wikipedia. My comment:
Egyptian Secular law, modeled largely on French Law, is supreme. If the secular legislators decide something in a clear and unambiguous way, contrary to Sharia, then their word is final. If they left something unclear, the judge should turn to custom, and if custom has no answer either, then he could look into "The Principles of Sharia". Let me assure you that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is far from happy with this situation.
I did not look systematically into the legal codes of all the Arab amd Muslim countries. I leave it to you to do that, make the comaprisons and see for yourself how typical or exceptional the Egyptian one is.
Sorry, I had the impression that the idea was to wind up this thread in a bit less of an agressive mood - since obviouly this debate will not end in one side convincing the other, however long we continue. But it seems the swords must be kept drawn and flashing, to the very last second. A pity.
Well, I can only re-post the item about the Egyptian Civil Code and let it speak for itself.
Egyptian Civil Code
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Civil_Code
The Egyptian Civil Code is the primary source of civil law for Egypt.
The first version of Egyptian Civil Code was written in 1949 containing 1149 articles. The prime author of the 1949 code was Abdel-Razzak Al-Sanhuri,a jurist who received assistance from Dean Edouard Lambert of the University of Lille. Perhaps due to Lambert's influence, the 1949 code followed the French civil law model. The code focus on the regulation of business and commerce, and does not include any provisions regarding family law which is usually handled through Shari’a. Sanhuri purposely left out family law and succession to set it apart from the Turkish civil code.
The code also provides for Islamic law (shari’a) to have a role in its enforcement and interpretation. Article 1 of the code provides that, “in the absence of any applicable legislation, the judge shall decide according to the custom and failing the custom, according to the principles of Islamic Law. In the absence of these principles, the judge shall have recourse to natural law and the rules of equity.” Despite this invocation of Islamic law, one commentator has argued that 1949 code reflected a "hodgepodge of socialist doctrine and sociological jurisprudence."
The Egyptian Civil Code has been the source of law and inspiration for numerous other Middle Eastern jurisdictions, including pre-dictatorship kingdoms of Libya, Jordan and Iraq (all three drafted by Al-Sanhuri himself and a team of native jurists under his guidance), Bahrain (2001), as well as Qatar (1971) (these last two merely inspired by his notions), and the commercial code of Kuwait (drafted by El-Sanhuri). When Sudan drafted its own civil code in 1970, it was in large part copied from the Egyptian Civil Code with slight modifications. Today all Arab nations that have modern civil codes with the exception of Saudi Arabia and Oman, are based fully or partly on the Egyptian Civil Code
So far, what I got on Wikipedia. My comment:
Egyptian Secular law, modeled largely on French Law, is supreme. If the secular legislators decide something in a clear and unambiguous way, contrary to Sharia, then their word is final. If they left something unclear, the judge should turn to custom, and if custom has no answer either, then he could look into "The Principles of Sharia". Let me assure you that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is far from happy with this situation.
I did not look systematically into the legal codes of all the Arab amd Muslim countries. I leave it to you to do that, make the comparisons and see for yourself how typical or exceptional the Egyptian one is.
Sorry, I had the impression that the idea was to wind up this thread in a bit less of an agressive mood - since obviouly this debate will not end in one side convincing the other, however long we continue. But it seems the swords must be kept drawn and flashing, to the very last second. A pity.
Well, I can only re-post the item about the Egyptian Civil Code and let it speak for itself.
Egyptian Civil Code
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Civil_Code
The Egyptian Civil Code is the primary source of civil law for Egypt.
The first version of Egyptian Civil Code was written in 1949 containing 1149 articles. The prime author of the 1949 code was Abdel-Razzak Al-Sanhuri,a jurist who received assistance from Dean Edouard Lambert of the University of Lille. Perhaps due to Lambert's influence, the 1949 code followed the French civil law model. The code focus on the regulation of business and commerce, and does not include any provisions regarding family law which is usually handled through Shari’a. Sanhuri purposely left out family law and succession to set it apart from the Turkish civil code.
The code also provides for Islamic law (shari’a) to have a role in its enforcement and interpretation. Article 1 of the code provides that, “in the absence of any applicable legislation, the judge shall decide according to the custom and failing the custom, according to the principles of Islamic Law. In the absence of these principles, the judge shall have recourse to natural law and the rules of equity.” Despite this invocation of Islamic law, one commentator has argued that 1949 code reflected a "hodgepodge of socialist doctrine and sociological jurisprudence."
The Egyptian Civil Code has been the source of law and inspiration for numerous other Middle Eastern jurisdictions, including pre-dictatorship kingdoms of Libya, Jordan and Iraq (all three drafted by Al-Sanhuri himself and a team of native jurists under his guidance), Bahrain (2001), as well as Qatar (1971) (these last two merely inspired by his notions), and the commercial code of Kuwait (drafted by El-Sanhuri). When Sudan drafted its own civil code in 1970, it was in large part copied from the Egyptian Civil Code with slight modifications. Today all Arab nations that have modern civil codes with the exception of Saudi Arabia and Oman, are based fully or partly on the Egyptian Civil Code
So far, what I got on Wikipedia. My comment:
Egyptian Secular law, modeled largely on French Law, is supreme. If the secular legislators decide something in a clear and unambiguous way, contrary to Sharia, then their word is final. If they left something unclear, the judge should turn to custom, and if custom has no answer either, then he could look into "The Principles of Sharia". Let me assure you that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is far from happy with this situation.
I did not look systematically into the legal codes of all the Arab and Muslim countries. I leave it to you to do that, make the comparisons and see for yourself how typical or exceptional the Egyptian one is.
Adam Keller: Sorry, I had the impression that the idea was to wind up this thread in a bit less of an agressive mood - since obviouly this debate will not end in one side convincing the other, however long we continue. But it seems the swords must be kept drawn and flashing, to the very last second. A pity.
Even as you ignore my recommendation to examine how Egyptian Copts are mistreated in ways which utterly demolishes your assertion that Egyptian legal code does not so closely follow shari'a law.
Is it not clear how this sort of dissembling or insincere engagement contributes to an overall perception that you consistently ignore factual evidence and persist in answering with what must politely be termed as disinformation?
I can only imagine how many genuine Christians at this site regard you as doing nothing more or less than the Devil's own handiwork. The proverbial "road to Hell" being paved with your sort of "good intentions" has already come up.
Evidently, such philosophical warning klaxons are beyond your range of hearing. It is as if you are some nocturnal chiropteric creature whose echo-location can only discern like-minded rhetoric.
Please keep in mind that, in the original thread, it was I alone − with the Baron's generous participation − who stood up for your right to express whatever convictions you had.
How do you reconcile that invitation with your current accusation that, "the swords must be kept drawn and flashing"?
Your willful ignorance of facts in evidence stands as proof that you favor keeping the swords "drawn and flashing". Elsewise, you might have had the courtesy, or simple manhood, to admit how the Baron's point about shari'a law's predominance in the Islamic world was well made.
You did not and that fairly well damns − by your own hand, mind you − everything else you have contributed in this thread.
"About anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim racism: I don’t accept that "racism" can only happen when members of one "race" have a prejudice against another "race" (if it were, there would be no way of talking about Jewish racism against Arabs or vice versa, since both are classed as "Semites" by those who make such classifications). Anyway, I don't really accept the existence of such things as "races". I have been in Vietnam and Japan and did not see any yellow people around, the people had the same skin color as myself with some slight facial difference in facial features, and I was in Scandinavia and found that people with blond hair and blue eyes were a distinct minority and most people I saw in Olso looked like the people I see on the streets of Tel Aviv. There is, to be sure a difference in skin colour between the people originating from central and southern Africa and those originating from the shores of the Mediteranean and regions to its north Europe; to be strict, it should have been called "Pink Skinned" versus "Brown Skinned" rather than "White" and Black" – but this difference is literally skin-deep, very trivial in everything which matters. Essentially, there is only one race – the Human Race."
Looks like Adam Keller espouses the basic tenets of Lysenko Creationism. In other words, his words appear to deny the Theory of Evolution. Anyhow, this off topic.
Back to the topic at hand. Adam Keller should read up on the Koran and how Islamic scholars *today* interpret Islamic ideology.
"In gneral, I want a world in which a;; eople are equal and where every single human being will have their inalienable rights respected - and yes, I am also for the rights of other creatures than humans, I am myself a vegan and consume no food produced at the price of killing or exploiting any other living being, and I would like to have a world in which there will be not a single slughterhouse on land and not a single fishing boats at sea - and I think it will indeed happen sooner or later, though probably not in my own lifetime."
Seems to me that my suspicions of Adam Keller as a Lysenko Creationist who denies science such as genetics and evolution, has been confirmed. It's too bad that such hostility to science is all too common on both sides of the political spectrum.
Zenster
Many thanks for having stood up for my right to express whatever convictions I had, and I am sorry that when I did use that right the convictions which I.do have and which I did express made you so furious. I really can't help that.
You wrote:
Even as you ignore my recommendation to examine how Egyptian Copts are mistreated in ways which utterly demolishes your assertion that Egyptian legal code does not so closely follow shari'a law.
It is quite true that Copts are mistreated in many ways in Egypt, though I would argue that they are not quite as badly mistreated as the Muslim Chechens are treated by the Christian Russians and the Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka are treated by the Buddhist Sinhalese. (There are many ways to compare mistreatment; I would say that the number of persons of the minority killed by the majority's armed forces is a fairy objective criteria, and the number of Copts killed by their country's armed forces is far less than that of Chechens or Tamils. Mistreatment of a minority, a very nasty thing, is not in itself a proof that the government concerned is motivated by shari'a law; there are such things as nationalism, and chauvinism, and racism, which unfortunately make their appearance in all human societies.
Anyway, the specific debate here was not about whether Egypt is a model state which treats all its citizens fairly. It is not and I did not assert that it was. There was a very specific debate, which I would like to recapitulate.
I had written:
It is a fact after 1400 years of Muslim history, in nearly none of the Muslim countries is Sharia Law the law of the land – rather, law in nearly all of them is made by parliaments composed of politicians who are not selected by religious criteria (to be sure, sometimes the parliaments are dominated by a dictator – but most of the dictators are not religious figures, either).
The Baron had done a research, showing that most of the countries concerned had a clause in their constitutions pledging allegiance to Islam, which seemed to prove me wrong and leave me "out on a limb", Fair enough.
I then came up with the page showing that, despite the Islamic preamble to the Egyptian Consitution, the actual legal situation is as exactly as I described: Egypt has a secular legal code which does not follow Sharia, and which is largely modeled on French law and thus owes more to the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte than to the Prophet Muhammad, and with some bits and pieces of Sharia thrown in "hodge-podge". That in itself does not prove that Egypt has an enlightened government acting very nice to all Egyptian citizens (by the way, there are quite a few people in France who feel that the French legal code is far from ideal). It does, in my humble opinion, present specific evidence on the specific point debated – i.e. that law in Egypt is indeed am essentially secular creation made by a parliament composed of politicians who are not selected by religious criteria.
As I said, I did not look up in detail all the legal codes of all the Arab and Muslim countries. You can still do that, and if you find that Egypt is a very exceptional case you can still place back "out on a limb". Try.
.
To Robert
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898 – 1976), whose theories were strongly sponsored by Stalin in the Soviet Union, asserted that inheritance of acquired characteristics is possible, i.e. that there exists a mechanism of heredity by which changes in physiology acquired over the life of an organism (such as the enlargement of a muscle through repeated use) may be transmitted to offspring. He was conclusively proven wrong, and I had in no way tried to revive his theories (why the hell should I?)
The only thing which I asserted is that the differences in skin pigmentation and facial features between various kinds of human being are trivial, that all human beings constitute one single biological species (as evident in the complete ease with which they can all interbreed with each other) and that political and social doctrines which emphasize the supposed division of human beings into "races" are pernicious and harmful and should be consigned to the same garbage heap where Lysenko's theories lie.
"The only thing which I asserted is that the differences in skin pigmentation and facial features between various kinds of human being are trivial, that all human beings constitute one single biological species (as evident in the complete ease with which they can all interbreed with each other) and that political and social doctrines which emphasize the supposed division of human beings into "races" are pernicious and harmful and should be consigned to the same garbage heap where Lysenko's theories lie."
I considered you to be a Lysenko Creationist because it appeared that you denied human evolution and denied human genetics. Your statements appeared to be anti-science.
So do you believe that different dog breeds (who are of the same species) differ only by "trivial superficial features"?
Dog breeds differ from each other incomparably more than do human "races". It would be physically quite impossible for a Great Dane male to impregnate a Hairless Chihuahua female or the other was around (and I doubt they would find each other sexually attractive anyway). Of course it might be possible for human beings to make the effort and expanse to try it artificially. I don't know that it was ever done – it is certainly the exact opposite of dog breeders' normal practice.
There is, by the way, some doubt about if all dog breeds are, to start with, descended from the same wild ancestor.
For sure, a very ruthless regime, lasting over thousands of years and engaging for all that time in a very intensive program of selective breeding of human beings, using the same methods which dog breeders use, might eventually succeed in splitting the human species into several clearly different species. Nothing biologically impossible about that. And modern genetic engineering might be able to do it much quicker. But it was never done, and at least as long as the present basic concepts of morality endure, will fortunately never be done. For the duration we are stuck, for better or worse, with only one race – the Human Race.
Adam Keller: It is quite true that Copts are mistreated in many ways in Egypt, though I would argue that they are not quite as badly mistreated as the Muslim Chechens are treated by the Christian Russians …
I do not seem to recall the Egyptian Copts raping and then murdering some 330 people including 156 children, many of whom were SHOT IN THE BACK even as those young victims fled the place of their captivity and sexual abuse. Your precious Chechen Muslims participated in the Beslan atrocity just as Muslims around the entire world continue to perpetrate a majority of ongoing conflicts and genocides.
Once again, even as you seek a concilatory tone there is sneaked in a backhanded slap of equivalency drawn by yourself between Christianity and Islam which is as inappropriate as it is offensive.
Also permit me to clarify another misperception upon your own part. Your using your right to express your own convictions does not make me "furious" and neither do your convictions themselves.
THE FEELING I GET IS ONE OF REVULSION.
The moral and cultural equivalency that you continue to display is a modern day source of misplaced enoblement for some of the most ghastly and barbaric behavior seen since Hitler's Final Solution. It is no small coincidence that many Muslims both admire Hitler and advocate completing his genocide against the Jews.
My mother survived the Nazi occupation of Denmark even as her relatives were murdered and executed for their part in the resistance efforts of that brave little nation.
You continue to offer up excuse after excuse for what is rapidly becoming a threat that eclipses the dangers of Nazism and Communism combined.
I challenge you to name any redeeming features of Islam.
I challenge you to name even one culture that, in an unprompted and voluntarily manner, adopted the worship of Allah without any coercion or threat of violence.
Your answers to these two simple questions will speak volumes (no doubt).
Let me refer you to the Wikipedia page on the spread of Islam in Indonesia, one of the main Muslim countries in the world today. If you find there a mention of an Islamic conquest by force, let me know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_spread_of_Islam_in_Indonesia
About achievements of Islam, offhand and without special effort of research I note the preserving of much of the works of Classical Greek philosophy as well as considerably adding to them and laying the foundations for much of modern science.
In the history of my own ethnic group, I can note that Jews had to flee very cruel persecution in Christian Spain by an organization called the Inquisition (perhaps you heard of them) which was very Christian and whose members felt that it was their right and duty to torture people in order to save their souls and to burn at the stake those who persisted in refusing to let their souls be saved, and that these Jews fleeing from Spain found a refuge in the Muslim Ottoman Empire and greatly prospered there. With not too much effort I can find a few more examples of positive influence of Islam amd Muslims, but these will do for a start.
About the Chechens and the Copts – quite true, Copts are not known to have perpetrated such horrible acts as Chechens did at Beslan. On the other hand Egyptian security forces are not known to have destroyed a Copt city or town as thoroughly as Russian forces destroyed Grozny.
I notice you failed to refer to my Sri Lanka example. Is the Buddhist-dominated government of Sri Lanka also inspired by Sharia in its dealings with the Tamils?
Adam Keller: Let me refer you to the Wikipedia page on the spread of Islam in Indonesia, one of the main Muslim countries in the world today. If you find there a mention of an Islamic conquest by force, let me know.
If, by chance, you saw that ellipsis which ended my cite:
Adam Keller: It is quite true that Copts are mistreated in many ways in Egypt, though I would argue that they are not quite as badly mistreated as the Muslim Chechens are treated by the Christian Russians …
It's there specifically to indicate material of yours purposefully excluded from discussion. I have not "failed" to refer to your Sri Lanka example, so please don't infer what is not present as you are wont to do.
As to Indonesia:
Islam was introduced to Indonesia in the 14th century by Gujerati merchants from India. In 1478 a coalition of Muslim princes attack the remains of the Hinduism Empire expunging Hindu from the Indonesian empire. [emphasis added]
The article then notes:
Indonesia was one of the few countries where Islam did not take over purely by an invading military force.
So, even this article admits how military force played a role in Islam's domination of Indonesia. Also duly noted is how, despite an admixture of simple proselytizing instead of pure military coercion, "Indonesia was one of the few countries", where this pertained.
Please note that my inquiry did not deal with the introduction of Islam but its overall adoption by a given nation. Consequently, you'll have to do better than that. Plus, I'm concerned that you use Wikipedia as a reference. It consistently exhibits a pro-liberal and pro-Islamic slant. Consequently, it is not widely regarded as a reliable source, especially for politics and history.
Once again, by your own admission, you have cited a slight exception − and one which proves the rule − in an attempt to argue what is patently obvious. Islam has always been spread by the sword.
On a final note: How many of this world's genocides, wars and conflicts would come to an abrupt halt if Islam suddenly ceased to exist? LITERALLY ALL OF THEM.
I refer you to The Bloody Borders Project. At one point in recent years, of some 120 global conflicts, Islam drove more than 100 of them.
Will you try to tell us that Islamophobia and persecution of Muslims is driving this constant bloodshed? Or is it simply that Islam is such a benighted and intolerant creed that it has rendered itself entirely incompatible with modern civilization?
I'm sure that you will return with another raft of utterly irrelevant argument, so be it. You should be immensely grateful for genuinely concerned conservative free thinkers like the Baron who give anyone a fair shot so long as they express themselves in a courteous and sincere manner. Literally no such thing exists at a huge majority of Liberal web sites where opposing commentary is excised with almost unvarying alacrity.
In the end, that is probably what so many here at Gates of Vienna have found so disturbing about you Adam Keller, that you are, indeed, sincere even as you spew the very worst sort of cultural, religious and moral equivalency and relativism.
Those are the handmaidens of Multiculturalism and Politically Correct thought and they attend, like a flock of evil fairies, over the rebirth of Islam in its most pure and barbaric form, every bit true to the Quar'an, Hadith and Sunnah.
For one last time I will remind you that, if ever Islam attains ascendancy, your ilk will be among the very first to be sped to the chopping block and it is you who will have facilitated your fate at every step of the way. Be not surprised if there are some who will show no mercy for your holding such a blithe regard for something so vicious, barbarous and vile.
Congratulations! You did at last come up with something, after searching for more than twenty-four hours. In order to find it, you had to wade through a whole long historical text which was not written by a fellow counter-jihadist. Actually, a text tainted with the suspicion that it had been written by a pro-liberal and/or pro-Islamic person (horror of horrors!). It must have been a real torture for you, but you endured it heroically and stoically. All in a good cause!
You wrote:
On a final note: How many of this world's genocides, wars and conflicts would come to an abrupt halt if Islam suddenly ceased to exist?
Well, I can cite offhand one conflict which would certainly NOT come to an abrupt halt (or a not abrupt halt) even if Islam suddenly ceased to exist - the conflict which I am very throughly familiar from a lifetime of of personal experience. i.e. the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not essentially a religious conflict. It is a conflict between one people (my own) which claim the land on the basis that its ancestors lived there 2000 years ago and that it was badly persecuted in Europe, and another people (the Palestinians) who claim
the land on the basis of the fact they had lived there for the past 1300 years ago. A conflict would have inevitably burst out under these circumstances whatever the religion of the two peoples involved. In fact, Palestinian Christians take a very active part in the Palestinian national movement. For example Dr. George Habash, founder and long-time leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - a great hero for Palestinians, a despicable terrorist in the eyes of Israel's government - was a Christian, as evident from his name (only Christian Arabs are called "George", the name does not appear among Muslims.
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict would have certainly broken out also had Islam there never existed and had the Zionist Movement created a Jewish state in a Christian country, or in a Hindu country, or in a Buddhist country, or in an Atheist country. No people, whatever their religion, would have accepted without a struggle somebody else coming into their country and building there his own state. Had Islam ceased to exist, we would still have had a situation of holding millions of Palestinians under military occupation and would still need to let go of that occupation and let them create their own state in a part of the country which we contest, Whatever their religion, the Palestinians would continue to make our lives into hell until we do that.
I cannot claim the same amount of personal expertise about the other conflicts enumerated in your Bloody Borders Project. They need to be looked at on a case by case basis,
Certainly it would be completely unreasonable to accept the assumption that the involvement of Muslims in a given conflict is in itself proof positive that the Muslims are in the wrong in this particular conflict, or that Islam is "driving" that conflict. Though it is of course reasonable to assume that such is the case in at least some of them.
As I said repeatedly, I certainly don't claim that all Muslims are nice people or that they are always in the right on every single conflict. That would be every bit as stupid as asserting that all of them are nasty and that whatever the facts of the case, the Muslims must always be in the wrong.
WARNING TO ALL COMMENTERS:
I will cut this thread off at 200 comments, if it continues that far. So start working on your final wrap-ups; you've got 15 comments left.
Or, you can take your jaw-jaw to the follow-up post, "The Law of the Land". That one only has a few comments so far.
Thank you, Baron. My previous response was intended to be one last detailed contribution to the body of this discussion.
Adam Keller: Congratulations! You did at last come up with something, after searching for more than twenty-four hours. In order to find it, you had to wade through a whole long historical text which was not written by a fellow counter-jihadist.
Complete and total rubbish. As is so often the case, you assume facts not in evidence. It is a symptom of your Magical Thinking™. I found that link within a few minutes of reading your reply yesterday. Quite simply, there were far more important things to do than continuing a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
You make completely erroneous assumptions in order to bolster your argument. That speaks volumes about the weight of your own information.
While you are a definite danger to others, especially those gullible enough to follow you, you remain the greatest danger to yourself. I have already explained why and need not repeat the reasons for it.
The Baron has been quite clear, and he is the ultimate boss here, so I suppose it is better to really wind up this poor overburdened thread and move to where the action is,
Adam, you are clueless about biology. You should research the debates among scientists related to what exactly species are. And if you begin to argue genetic similarity, you're on a slippery slope that discredits your own argument. We share 70% of our DNA with yeast and 98% with chimps, while 99% among each other. Where do you draw the line? Thought so. So yes, if you draw an arbitrary line, it is based solely on your own prejudice.
So no, Robert is right on that one. You should read more science and less relativistic nonsense if you are to opine on these issues. And by the way, genetics pretty much proves that about 80% of intelligence is heritable. And since we're at dogs. Do you think that pitbulls are more aggressive due to their social conditioning? Because the same theory that you apply to humans should be applied to them. If you think that they're like that due to heritability, the same argument holds for humans too. So in the end, you can't have both. Not that there's something new for your ilk to have a foot in both boats.
And my questions were silly because they are about your beliefs - who are silly in and on themselves. They're simply based on stupid prejudices and magic thinking.
Also, a democracy can get away with anything if the majority of voters wants it to be like that.
And since you mentioned opinion polls. Most Americans didn't support the integration of schools, they supported the IR marriage bans and so on. I suppose you want those things back too, right?
Also, if you mind Wilders interfering with the politics of your country, how about you and your ilk should stay out of the politics of Europe? You're not European, so mind your own business.
Related to your reply to me. Since some people are retarded, shouldn't they have rights? Because they don't share the same capacities as us. And by the way, those studies related to foster parents were done and nonwhite children still underperform in terms of IQ. Tough luck there and bad analogy. Since what you said isn't true, should we give less rights to nonwhites? Because you believe that we should have equal rights because we're the same with different skin tones. If this is the reason why you have a prejudice against other species, because you consider them inferior, then it works in between human groups too.
Considering that we are inherently unequal as humans and the inequality in between species is the reason why you don't support the extension of our rights to them, why should humans have equal rights? Your logic is non-existent. Do you people get taught formal logic and sylogisms in Israel?
Dear Madam (we seem to be on a first-name basis, but I don't know yours)
You seem to persist in not reading the answers which I very patiently write to your questions (some of which ARE pretty silly, such as the assertion that there is "A Carbon Race" and whether or not I am loyal to that race). That is not very nice.
I already wrote at length that heredity and genetics mean very little to me, and that I would recognize a self-aware robot as my equal though it was made of metal and plastic and had no DNA whatsoever, and consider it worthy of every right which a human being has. I support the extension of the right to vote to anyone who is able to make use of it. If there was a cow able to understand what voting is about, government structures, also to that cow. Even if the cow had less intelligence than humans, just enough to understand what the process of voting was all about.
To cows who really can't understand anything about voting I want to extend just the right to live their lives quietly in a meadow and never see the inside of a slaughterhouse.
True, biology is not my main field. Still, I know enough about it to know there is no debate among scientists on the fact that all human beings belong to one single species, which is all that is relevant here.
About dog breeds – well, when you don't bother to read my answers to your own messages, you can hardly be expected to read carefully what I answer others, because I answered this one already. There is a big difference between dogs and human beings because dogs – at least dogs who belong to any specific breed – are not free to choose their own mates. They are chosen for them by their owners, with the specific declared aim of increasing various specific traits, and puppies which do not fit the criteria set by the breeder are killed out of hand. This is very disgusting for me, which is why I vastly prefer to keep mongrel dogs which belong to no recognizable breed.
As I wrote already, given a regime which would throw human rights and basic decency into the garbage and would treat human beings over many generations as dogs are treated, humanity might indeed be divided into several species with clearly different heredities, such as pitbulls had a hereditary tendency for aggression bred into them. Fortunately, doing that to humans is no more than the stuff of nightmares.
About opinion polls – yes, most Americans didn't support the integration of schools, they supported the IR marriage bans and so on. I mentioned that in relation to opinion polls conducted in various Muslim countries showing that people there wanted Sharia Laws (which they DON'T have in these countries and the governments thereof are NOT willing to enact). Needless to say, I do want integration of schools and the freedom of everyone to marry (or just have sex) with whoever they choose, and I don't like religious laws whether derived from Islam, Christianity or Judaism (religious laws derived from Jewish Rabbinical Law are a serious long-standing political issue here in Israel). So, I am glad that opinion polls are not automatically translated into legislation.
About my not wanting Wilders interfering in Israeli politics – I answered that, also. I did not arrange to address a meeting in Amsterdam to denounce Wilders, I leave that to the very capable Dutch people who oppose him, and myself concentrate on denouncing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Wilders' Israeli soul mates.
Anything else you want to know about my relativistic nonsense, stupid prejudices and magic thinking? Go ahead.
Adam, pick up a logic book and learn what special pleading is.
You did it related to opinion polls, for example. And humans are fundamentally different by ethnic group. Let's pick a certain trait, like intelligence.
Since we are unequal and you want equal rights because you think we are equal, considering that your equality premise is flawed, you will need to come up with a tiered meritocratic bill of rights that fits people based on their ability.
"a self-aware robot as my equal though it was made of metal and plastic and had no DNA whatsoever, and consider it worthy of every right which a human being has"
What about humans who aren't self-aware and has low intelligence levels like retards? Should they have less rights or none at all?
Related to voting your criteria is even funnier because most people are clueless about how governments work, about what their constitutions say and so on. So I suppose you support people who can't pass quizzes on these to have their voting rights stripped, right?
Related to carbon life forms, this is what we are, just like plants and animals. There is no such thing as a human race either. And yes, I quite figured that you don't care about genetics, science or reality because your views are about the ones that a 5 years old would have. Let's ignore reality and want something really bad and hope it will become reality. And if someone shatters our little silly dreams, let's have neurotic fits and call them names. Oh, and to sum it up, I don't care about being racist or being called as such. Only fools do in my books. I also hardly care about what outsiders, which you are, think of me.
Since you don't care about genetics, btw, I suppose you wouldn't mind your wife having your neighbour's child and cuckolding you. :) If you do, you're a hypocrite.
Of course, that had been the basic opposition to democracy ever since there was any such thing as democracy, back in ancient Athens - that it gives a share in the decision-making process to stupid people who are not qualified to make such decisions, and they sometimes make very bad decisions,
However, other systems of government also quite often give power to people who make very stupid and very bad decisions, and it seems from history that even quite intelligent people can make very stupid and disastrously bad decisions. On the whole, the system where everybody has the vote works tolerably well and has some obvious advantages over other systems.
About genetics as applied to my personal life: as a matter of fact, long ago when I was young and a bit romantic, there was a young woman I knew who had been made pregnant by a heartless man who then just disappeared and was never seen again, and I offered to marry her and raise the child, and would have been at the time overwhelmingly happy had she taken me up, and I am quite sure I would have happily given the child all that a father can give, She preferred to have an abortion and married somebody else some years later.
My wife is long past the child-bearing age, she has three grown up children and seven grandchildren, of whom I am very fond and who treat me as their grandfather though I am not biologically related to them.
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