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Wikipedia editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

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Re: Wikipedia editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

#111
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam brought the concept of "inalienable rights" to the West. The West still doesn't get it because in their system, emergency powers override every "inalienable right" the Westerners think they are entitled to.

>Islam brought the concept of "inalienable rights" to the West. Could you please elaborate on this? In my understanding, inalienable, or natural rights are of ancient Greek origin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_right...

Who brought these ancient Greek ideas to Western Europe?

Islam still grants inalienable rights to people that are almost lost in the West. For example: the inalienable right to privacy. Spying on people in their homes is strictly forbidden in Shari'ah, regardless of whether it's the government doing it or anyone. This concept was unheard of in Western Europe until Islam came.

Also, the idea of war crimes. Western Europeans believed that war justifies any and all cruelty to the enemy. The West still believes that, actually, even if they have signed treaties, you can see it in their actions (Libya Iraq, etc.). They learned the idea of wartime ethics through contact with the Muslims during the Crusades.

Belief in equality of opportunity is also Islamic in nature. The Greeks didn't even believe that. Aristotle and other Greek philosophers held that certain races of people were just born for slavery. This is what inspired the Christians to start the triangular slave trade and establish the race-based caste system in the Americas.

When I study European history, it makes me realize that the Dark Age was not a pause in European history like we thought, but a reset. That's because the population of Europe had been almost completely replaced. And there were many other resets before and after that one. Europe was constantly being overrun and devastated over the centuries. So those new people (Goths, Huns, Norse, etc.) who came in were not literate people, but just going off of their own traditions and whatever they learned by way of contact with their nearest neighbor civilization, who in the Age of Exploration, happened to be Muslim.

One of the cornerstones of Scythian and German civilization was this idea of dual rule, where you have one rule for war and one rule for peace. I believe this transformed into the idea of emergency powers in Western civilization. So all the freedoms you think you have are just conditional on whether or not the rulers deem it necessary to override them.

An Islamic government is severely restricted from doing most of the oppressive acts we take for granted our states will do in the West (like levying high taxes, restricting commerce, etc.), in both war and peace. If a ruler came with an idea like eminent domain, he was challenged and stopped by the scholars of Shari'ah (talking about pre-colonial times). In the West, no one challenges eminent domain.

I was looking at the sibling subthread and can tell it's a morass, but I'll just say this. Emergency powers override all freedoms. And under majority rule, minorities often do not have any way to ensure their rights will be respected by the majority.

Re: Wikipedia editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear, at least to me, what's your actual point. You try to argue that other countries besides the US also support free speech; and your argument is that... it's actually good that they don't support free speech. I am a bit confused.

My main argument is that America is not exceptionally free , at least among western powers. Since one of the things you specifically pointed out was an anti-fascism law, I have to at least get over that rhetorical hurdle. On paper , a law saying you can't be a particular political ideology sounds like you just tore the beating heart straight out of free speech's chest. When you realize, "oh wait it's just the Nazis",…

Well, it wasn't me who pointed that out, but I agree with that. Whether it is bad, less bad or good is quite irrelevant to whether it is true. America had government censorship regimes for centuries, I fully agree with that. It has an awful government plagued by similar kinds of bureaucratic diseases that we can notice elsewhere. What is more, it is a quite atrocious government with regards to human rights of its non-citizens and sometimes even with regards to its own citizens. That said, it still provides far more speech protections than any other country in the world.

Re: Wikipedia editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I autopsy a dead body, am I going to find any evidence of those things in there? Sure, they're a few centimeters to the right of the evidence of consciousness, just below the evidence of the Pythagorean theorem. This sounds glib but isn't. What counts as 'evidence' and how much of it is needed for 'proof' are themselves hotly debated. Empiricism is no more a given than morality.

> Empiricism is no more a given than morality. And now you’re in woo land. Once you leave the land of empiricism you might as well be arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

In woo land with my homies Poincaré, Gödel, etc. It's almost like the bedrock of knowledge is a deep philosophical question that every discipline strikes sooner or later, once they start digging. There really should be a word for it.

Re: Wikipedia editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Islam brought the concept of "inalienable rights" to the West. Could you please elaborate on this? In my understanding, inalienable, or natural rights are of ancient Greek origin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_right...

Who brought these ancient Greek ideas to Western Europe? Islam still grants inalienable rights to people that are almost lost in the West. For example: the inalienable right to privacy. Spying on people in their homes is strictly forbidden in Shari'ah, regardless of whether it's the government doing it or anyone. This concept was unheard of in Western Europe until Islam came. Also, the idea of war crimes. Western Eur…

Very interesting take on history, thank you for typing it out. I can't argue its contents, because of lack of knowledge on my part, but I appreciate the information.

Regarding the protections, it's also interesting to hear about, because usually when the topic is islam in the news, it's tied to the abuses of power in those systems, like regarding the rights of women. Makes one think just how one-sided the information is.

Regarding the emergency powers, they worry me too. Hungary, my home country, resembled a democracy somewhat before 2020, but since then, it's rule by decree - or as the running joke goes, Hungary's form of government is emergency. The EU even branded it as an "electoral autocracy" for this reason.

Re: Wikipedia editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who brought these ancient Greek ideas to Western Europe? Islam still grants inalienable rights to people that are almost lost in the West. For example: the inalienable right to privacy. Spying on people in their homes is strictly forbidden in Shari'ah, regardless of whether it's the government doing it or anyone. This concept was unheard of in Western Europe until Islam came. Also, the idea of war crimes. Western Eur…

Very interesting take on history, thank you for typing it out. I can't argue its contents, because of lack of knowledge on my part, but I appreciate the information. Regarding the protections, it's also interesting to hear about, because usually when the topic is islam in the news, it's tied to the abuses of power in those systems, like regarding the rights of women. Makes one think just how one-sided the information…

You're welcome.
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