June 7th, 2005
Filed under: Around the World, Britain, Christianiy, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Fundamentalist Muslims, Islam, Israel, Judaism, Multiculturalism, Muslim Fundamentalists, Muslims, Religion, Religion Islam, Terrorism, Terrorists — Chaim on July 7, 2008 @ 4:44 pm CEST
Three years ago on this day, in London and within 50 seconds of each other, there were bombings at three subway stations and an hour later, at 9:47am, there was a fourth one on a bus in Tavistock Square. Fifty two innocent people died that day while 700 were injured. Has Britain learned any lessons?
Last year there was a failed terrorist plot by Muslim doctors, also in Britain, has their government learned any lessons? Rather than putting restrictions on the preachings of extremist Imams, rather than kick them out of the country, they are allowed to freely continue preaching their hatred… all in the spirit of free speech and… multiculturalism. Freedom of Speech is one of the cardinal principles of a free society, it is in fact what keeps that society free. However, another - and at least - as important a principle also says that the right to move one’s fist stops where the other’s cheek starts. What does that mean? It means that when freedom of speech is abused by preaching violence against any other segment of society it must proscribed!
Read the rest of this post at: Freedom’s Cost
1 utsu
July 7, 2008 @ 5:42 pm CESTI’m not so sure it’s intended to be the in the name of "multiculturalism" (Satan almighty is that word going to be to the right what "Bush" is to the left or something? I mean it’s becoming hilarious!) but I agree that you can’t really stand for a degree of tolerance that ruins tolerance, free speech that corrupts equally important tenets of society or the sort of multiculturalism that is idle when people of a different culture try to install a hegemony of their own culture.
So I guess the EU is going to make a move on Saudi Arabia, seeing that it is funding most of the Islamic separatism in Eur - oh wait.
2 Chaim
July 7, 2008 @ 5:51 pm CESTI’m not in the least suggesting "making a move" on Saudi Arabia or any other country! I am simply saying that if these vermin who have no compunctions about being supported by hard working western taxpayers can not bring themselves to integrate with the rest of society, if they are so uncomfortable with local rule of law, perhaps we should send them back to the hellholes they originated from.
3 utsu
July 7, 2008 @ 8:18 pm CEST"I am simply saying that if these vermin"
Eliminationist rhetoric. We’re talking about humans here. Let’s take a bunch of people from hard-Christian regions (regions that have been messed with by colonialism for heck knows how long) and put them in a country where they are discriminated or coddled to the same degree that people from the middle east are mistreated in Western Europe today. They wouldn’t fare well and would integrate poorly.
It’s partly the fault of cultural pride and isolationism that has permeated parts of Islam, but let’s not forget that people of dark complexions or people from the middle east have been hamstringed for a while, mostly due to the German-French-American-British mistreatement of their countries in the past. If the US was treated like Iran has been, hard-line christianity, parochialism, machismo and self-isolation would be the order of the day.
We don’t owe these people undue lenience, but we can’t ask of Middle-eastern immingrants to Sweden that they integrate as well as people from Finland et al.
"have no compunctions about being supported by hard working western taxpayers"
Have you read all their minds? Muslim families are often incapable of instilling pride and a willingness to integrate because the xenophobia prohibits employment. The children see the more calm side of Islam their parents represent as an invitation to get trod on, and dabble in big-shot Islamic separatism and supremacism the way American college engineers dabble in Ayn Rand.
However, some are educated and have jobs and still turn to Islamic separatism and anti-secularism. Worrying. We need to keep Saudi Arabia from influencing people among us.
"if they are so uncomfortable with local rule of law, perhaps we should send them back to the hellholes they originated from."
True, shari’a and male-oriented values (as well as some manipulation from western capitalists and power-mongers) destroyed their countries, forcing them to move here. To ask for shari’a in that situation shows that we need to stop treating immigrants with negative or positive discrimination and just give them jobs, language classes, no special schools or consideration of any cultural traditions that go against "our" own laws. I am for multi-culturalism but not for multi-moralism.
4 Chaim
July 7, 2008 @ 8:54 pm CESTWe’re talking about humans here
If humans are incapable of behaving like humans they forfeit their right to be referred to as humans. Jack the Ripper was physically a human like you and I, but his behavior made him a beast!
manipulation from western capitalists and power-mongers
I suppose it is all the fault of the cursed western capitalist, never the fault of the tyrants who run these countries keeping the population poor and ignorant while using religion as a chain over their people so as keep their power. Yeah… I guess you are right!
5 utsu
July 8, 2008 @ 12:24 am CEST"If humans are incapable of behaving like humans they forfeit their right to be referred to as humans."
And what purpose does the referring to people as "vermin" serve? You are not allowed to treat them as vermin (because then a decent society would jail you) just because they do something very bad.
A person who kills another in cold blood has breached the Kantian golden rule, has in essence approved of himself getting killed and has not acted with the reason expected by a human. Do we put him down on the spot? Or do you not approve of this conclusion - in that case, why use "vermin" - why imply a lack of humanity in people if not to get others to treat them as subhuman?
Israelis use their own shit to contaminate water for Palestinians - do I get to treat them as vermin or shit-flinging monkeys?
"Jack the Ripper was physically a human like you and I, but his behavior made him a beast!"
If you have a psychological profile on the man do inform a historian. I don’t know whether he completely lacked reason or emotions to the degree that he was less than me in essence - although there is no doubt he was a much worse person.
"I suppose it is all the fault of the cursed western capitalist, never the fault of the tyrants who run these countries keeping the population poor and ignorant while using religion as a chain over their people"
Nations like the UK destabilized many of these countries to the point that they never recovered and still suffer from paranoia and a turn towards the values of a society fighting for survival or seeking revenge for previous injustices. We have enjoyed economical hegemony due to the suffering of others, and we never bothered to make up for it and play by equal rules. Sure there is some aspect of Islam that hampers healing and peaceful action, but there is no doubt that we are asking too much if we are asking them to forsake their current system - we have put them in a cognitive state that prohibits a return to less extremist, more liberal societies. We screwed them up, and if it happened to us we would regress to. Just look at how people in the US cast away honor, scepticism and the constitution because 9/11 rattled them so, or look at the turn towards right-wing nutjobs and maniacs like the BNP.
It’s partly Islam that allows scum like the Ayatollah and Ahmadinedingdong to prosper. But how long ago was it that the US sanctioned Hussein while he was using gas - did Israel, the champion of all that is good and holy - protest that officially? What did the US and UK do to a decent Iranian leader like Mossadegh when he refused to allow western capitalist scum to siphon Iranian oil? What are we doing today in Somalia - we are giving free rein to christian leaders who use fascism tactics. Again, treat people like subhumans, and they are less likely to act morally. The US, UK, France, Germany et al. have harmed untold muslims in the name of capitalist/government interests in the west and the US is destroying Iraq in order to get oil and contracts for more western capitalist creeps that are no better than Khomeini or Chavez.
Again, we have long operated with the mindset that the arabs/muslims play by one set of rules while we get to do whatever provided we don’t hang gays. I agree with you that we need to change our domestic policies to further integration and be harsh like Churchill (who wanted to gas arabs a lot, but who cares really?) in some respects, but when it comes to the foreign perspective I think you are a liability to world peace, human rights and general goodness. Our entire world rests on hipocrisy and a refusal to act according to the golden rule - what are we going to do with the Bangladeshis we are killing as we speak?
I’m going to sleep now. Actually *prepare* your next post, please.
6 Kevin H
July 8, 2008 @ 12:32 am CESTI think any such attempt at curtailing speech is hopelessly doomed to unintended consequences. For example, you might say that we should stop any speech that advocates violence. But then what about any speech that advocates going to war with Iran or any other country? That also advocates violence.
There is no shinning line between the types rhetoric that doesn’t involve a judgment about who is right and who is wrong. That is exactly the type of governmental judgment that freedom of speech is supposed to prevent.
7 Chaim
July 8, 2008 @ 3:16 am CESTKevin,
As abhorrent as you may find the talk of war, the moral relativism shown here bespeaks of a lack of real understanding of the issues.
These cretins come to Western shores to better their lives at the expense of the majority (they already mostly live on the dole!) and then they have the unmitigated gall of exacting more and more from the West in exchange for which they preach harm upon the same West who supports them. A democracy, any democracy, can continue as a democracy only if these conditions are met:
a) no incitement to violently overthrow the government can be tolerated
b) no incitement to do violence to another segment of the population (religious, ethnic or race) can be tolerated
Either of those two types of speech falls outside of the protected free speech parameters, anything else, no matter how uncomfortable one may feel about it is within the free speech parameters. A democracy demands responsibility inasmuch as that responsibility is one the ramparts protecting that democracy. It it were a free for all, it would soon cease to be anything you or I would want to live in.
8 Connor
July 8, 2008 @ 4:37 am CESTMuch as I dislike terrorists, I gotta disagree with you Chaim. They’re still human, and still have an inherent right to life. Thinking that there are people who aren’t fully human leads to everything from genocide to abortion.
9 James Biga
July 8, 2008 @ 4:58 am CESTYes these terrorists are human beings. However, they do not think like us. They are tribal people. They have no problem in dying for their tribe. We are facing a religious tribe. They fight for their version of allah. Even here there are numerous tribes, Sunni, Shia, etc. and they will fight and die amongst themselves. They need to be approached in the only way they understand and will accept, overwhelming force. Negotiation and diplomacy has been a proven failure when dealing with these people. Until people in the west are willing to face the fact that we are at war with an enemy who will kill and die at the whim of their tribal leader, we are destined for failure.
As I started with, they are human beings. They follow the "law of the jungle" while we in the west try to be rational. Thus we explain everything they do, away. Worse yet, we provide excuses and practice denial. We are unwilling to face the truth. They do not see liberty and freedom in the same way we do. As a rational being it is un-rational to try to place our personnas on these "followers of the law of the jungle".
10 Barbara
July 8, 2008 @ 9:41 am CESTYes these terrorists are human beings. However, they do not think like us. They are tribal people. They have no problem in dying for their tribe. We are facing a religious tribe. They fight for their version of allah
I agree with James. But also, Chaim has every right to call them vermin, if that is his opinion. And group that preaches violence against other members of society, that inserts itself somewhere and doesn’t even attempt to assimilate but HAMMERS its tenets into those around them ‘come hell or high water’ — these are people with serious problems.
They don’t recognize the rights of others as we do - yet they COUNT on us recognizing their rights; while they abuse ours. I am all for peace, but you can not paramoralize the actions of militants Islamists who murder, rape & torture. You can’t put your peaceful intentions on people who count on you "laying down" for it."
I will say that I would not want these ‘people’ to live next door to me. They treat everyone who is not them badly — and even treat their own like dirt. Call them what they are. Realize they don’t think like us and never will.
The playing field is not level. We try to be rational but they are NOT rational people. James is right on! We excuse their "reactions." They are practicing murder under the guise of terrorism. Until we recognize that and deal with these terrorist accordingly - we will continue to lose valuable human life to sensesless Jihad.
Psychopathic terrorists & ponerized people may be walking around in a body. But their soul is dark. Until we stop sticking our heads in the sand that we aren’t all ‘equal’ — we are going to continue to be in serious trouble protecting & preserving our freedoms.
11 Barbara
July 8, 2008 @ 9:42 am CESTYes these terrorists are human beings. However, they do not think like us. They are tribal people. They have no problem in dying for their tribe. We are facing a religious tribe. They fight for their version of allah
I agree with James. But also, Chaim has every right to call them vermin, if that is his opinion. And group that preaches violence against other members of society, that inserts itself somewhere and doesn’t even attempt to assimilate but HAMMERS its tenets into those around them ‘come hell or high water’ — these are people with serious problems.
They don’t recognize the rights of others as we do - yet they COUNT on us recognizing their rights; while they abuse ours. I am all for peace, but you can not paramoralize the actions of militants Islamists who murder, rape & torture. You can’t put your peaceful intentions on people who count on you "laying down" for it."
I will say that I would not want these ‘people’ to live next door to me. They treat everyone who is not them badly — and even treat their own like dirt. Call them what they are. Realize they don’t think like us and never will.
The playing field is not level. We try to be rational but they are NOT rational people. James is right on! We excuse their "reactions." They are practicing murder under the guise of terrorism. Until we recognize that and deal with these terrorist accordingly - we will continue to lose valuable human life to sensesless Jihad.
Psychopathic terrorists & ponerized people may be walking around in a body. But their soul is dark. Until we stop sticking our heads in the sand that we aren’t all ‘equal’ — we are going to continue to be in serious trouble protecting & preserving our freedoms.
12 utsu
July 8, 2008 @ 6:11 pm CEST"They need to be approached in the only way they understand and will accept, overwhelming force."
Last time I checked that either creates blowback later or an economy-sapping quagmire. But yeah, you go by the LGF approach and harm the US more.
" Thus we explain everything they do, away. Worse yet, we provide excuses and practice denial."
No, I am just refusing to accept that they created the problems for themselves in their entirety. They didn’t. To explain things allow for a better solution and approach. Learning that the "manly", right-wing approach has its flaws and proven failures allows one to change the Middle East for the better. In short, overwhelimg force is a bad ideea and you should feel bad.
"Thinking that there are people who aren’t fully human leads to everything from genocide to abortion."
Fail. Abortions have nothing to do with refusing the lives of humans.
"a) no incitement to violently overthrow the government can be tolerated"
This assumes the government is impeccable, and there are no impeccable governments.
"I am all for peace, but you can not paramoralize the actions of militants Islamists who murder, rape & torture."
As long as they are murdering in self-defense against those that have attacked them they can murder all they want. The rest goes without saying - wrong.
"Call them what they are."
Bad humans. And who are "they" - The taliban or muslim supremacists/separatists? Eastern European christian fascists who subjugate women and attack homosexuals? They kinda fit in the description.
"We try to be rational but they are NOT rational people"
Because nations like the US is partially responsible for creating societies where rationality cannot take hold. Muslims in the Middle East have been terrorized since before WWI. Recognizing this explains much of the ire and radicalism in the middle east. Immigrants to the west are a different matter - they need to integrate once they’re here, and if racist employers won’t give them jobs we need to meet them halway as long as they don’t turn to vandalism, crime and passivity.
13 Chaim
July 8, 2008 @ 6:20 pm CESTThat’s right utsu, everything ultimately boils down to the US and its disgusting capitalism, being the ones to blame for every problem in the world. Ohhh. and don’t forget the Zionist Entity!
14 Kevin H
July 8, 2008 @ 9:09 pm CESTno, I’m all for war in theory, not always in practice. As much as people decry moral relativism there is a reason it exists.
Try to draw up an objective criteria for separating ‘good’ speech from ‘bad’ speech and you will find it an impossible task. Think of the French law against doubting the Armenian Genocide. Even if you could satisfy yourself, I’m sure posting it here would have someone come up with a situation that twisted your rules into something you wouldn’t like, just like I managed to do with your decree against advocating violence.
Your current rules are as much flawed as the original.
The first nullifies the reason for the 2nd amendment, since it is not violent opposition to foreign powers, but from domestic powers which drives it.
Your second rules outlaws the death penalty.
15 Kevin H
July 8, 2008 @ 9:18 pm CESTAnd I managed to circumvent those laws in just about 30 seconds, imagine what could be done by someone who dedicated their lives to twisting whatever laws you were to come up with into a form of oppression.
Ah, and now we need to define violence. It seems any harsh interrogation techniques are also now not allowed to be advocated.
When it is so easy to distort your intent, you should take a step back and reflect on it.
16 Chaim
July 8, 2008 @ 11:28 pm CESTIf using your kind of sophistry it took you all of about 30 seconds then you are very slow, kid!. Now let me explain it in terms that even you will (maybe) understand.
The fact remains that IN ANY DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY under the sun (and there aren’t that many, I agree) you can’t go out on the street, or get on the public airwaves and scream that we need to kill the head of government and his immediate retinue in any way possible. You can not advocate publicly or even privately (if it’ll come to ears of the police) that we need to go out on the streets and overthrow the government by whatever means necessary. Try it in any country of your choice and see what happens, if you do not believe me.
You can, however, speak out against the government (in a democracy), you can even curse the government as long as you do not advocate murder or incite to cause bodily harm. If your anti governmental rhetoric is convincing enough and there are better alternatives you will succeed in throwing the bums out. That is how a democracy functions.
The same goes for inciting to kill any other segment of the population because you dislike their ethnic group, their religion or their skin color. Try it if you don’t believe it!
You’d be breaking existing laws in both cases of incitement!
You can say you hate Jews or blacks, for example, and except for making me uncomfortable I can do nothing about it other than either expose your bigotry or shut up. The same goes for any religion, even Islam. You can not, however, burn down a church, a mosque or a synagogue because you do not like the religion and so on.
Now as for what is violence, ever use a dictionary? Here…
Main Entry: vi·o·lence Pronunciation: \ˈvī-lən(t)s, ˈvī-ə-\
Function: noun
Date: 14th century 1 a: exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse (as in warfare effecting illegal entry into a house) b: an instance of violent treatment or procedure
That is the working definition of violence for our purposes here.
17 James Biga
July 9, 2008 @ 12:34 am CESTFirst off, the Arabs oppresssed and were oppressed for thousands of years before the "evil" United States and other western nations existed. Then when mohammed took over the situation got better for muslim Arabs and got worse for non-Muslim Arabs as well as any non-muslim anywhere in the region.
The problem with the wars fought in the last century is they were never finished. From WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc. There was always a major contingent "rabble rousers" left behind. The present war is no exception. Iraq was invaded and the enemy ran away to hide. They were allowed to hide and were ignored as if by doing so, a peace would ensue.
A tribal mindset will never accept a rational argument because it conflicts with what they believe. The Tribal mindset as been reinforced over years and the tribal morality has been etched into the very being of the person. Anything that conflicts with this belief is bad and therefore conseidered the enemy and must be destroyed.
I do not feel bad about requireing overwhelming force because if we don’t do it first, we will wake up with dirty bombs and tactical nuclear weapons going off in our own back yard. This will be done to the glory of allah. While us rational westerners act surprised that it came to this.
Overwhelming force must be used and it must be used to it’s fullest extent. Anything short of this will only provide the blowback you mention.