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Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

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Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#61

Post by jlgreco »

milfot wrote: post #52
coolestuk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost the whole world that is islamic became muslim through military occupation, the mass slaughter of the males who fought or would not convert, the looting of property and the selling off into slavery of their women and children. This was all based on emulating the behaviour of Mohammed (known as sunnah in islamic practice); Mohammed took 20% of the spoils from his army of warriors. (Some describe him as the profi…

"Almost the whole world that is islamic became muslim through military occupation." This is just plain bullshit! The introduction of islam to much of the world was through trade, just the same as the christians. And if you take slavery, trade and military occupations to be evidence that "The real lesson is that some religions are actually militant political movements wrapped up in religion." then I am afraid you will…

I think it is fair to say that both Islam and Christianity were spread with more or less the same mix of techniques. The two religions have a great deal in common.

However that should not be interpreted as praise of Islam. In fact, I think that comparison is extraordinary damming.

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#62

Post by coolestuk »

milfot wrote: post #52
coolestuk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost the whole world that is islamic became muslim through military occupation, the mass slaughter of the males who fought or would not convert, the looting of property and the selling off into slavery of their women and children. This was all based on emulating the behaviour of Mohammed (known as sunnah in islamic practice); Mohammed took 20% of the spoils from his army of warriors. (Some describe him as the profi…

"Almost the whole world that is islamic became muslim through military occupation." This is just plain bullshit! The introduction of islam to much of the world was through trade, just the same as the christians. And if you take slavery, trade and military occupations to be evidence that "The real lesson is that some religions are actually militant political movements wrapped up in religion." then I am afraid you will…

"The introduction of islam to much of the world was through trade, just the same as the christians. "

Would you care to provide evidence for that assertion about trade rather than jihad? There is evidence that for areas like Indonesia & Malaysia, trade was the route. For almost everywhere else, it was by war. Next you'll be telling me that the hundreds of years in which islam used violence to dominate Spain was a Golden Age of tolerance and multi-culturalism.

Ibn Ishaq's book "The Life of Mohammed" was known by muslims for hundreds of years as "The Book of Battles". Muslims must emulate Mohammed. In the 13 years he was in Mecca, he attained 150 followers. In Medina he embraced war, assassination, slave-taking and robbery. By the time he died, all of Arabia was muslim.

Essentially, Islam was spread by the sword.

Attacking that video as "dumb paranoid aryan propaganda" is an ad hominem fallacy. Deal with the facts.

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#63

Post by mcantelon »

w1ntermute wrote: post #55
mcantelon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The second thing to do is to invest as much money as possible into developing domestic energy sources, as well as alternatives to crude oil Folks in the West with stakes in maintaining the monopoly on oil as an energy source have a lot of power. They won't give up without a fight. The same Neocons that make a big show of decrying Islam to their base also chum around with Saudi Arabia, sucking up the royals. >Arabs w…

> Folks in the West with stakes in maintaining the monopoly on oil as an energy source have a lot of power. There are certainly people at home who have just as much of a vested interest in preserving the status quo, which is precisely why things haven't changed much at all despite the rise of militant Islam. It's upstarts like Elon Musk that are going to force the hand of Big Oil on this matter. But it will be a long…

>There are certainly people at home who have just as much of a vested interest in preserving the status quo, which is precisely why things haven't changed much at all despite the rise of militant Islam. It's upstarts like Elon Musk that are going to force the hand of Big Oil on this matter. But it will be a long & hard battle, one that may not be won for quite a while.

I'm guessing/hoping that Big Oil will be killed by grassroots innovation, open hardware designs that don't have companies behind them that can be bought out and their patented tech buried. If it's simply a matter of spending money or killing a few people to keep the gravy train going, they'll do it.

>I don't see how mathematical contributions hundreds of years ago have any relevance to the modern world. We're talking about a time when the US as a country didn't even exist.

True.

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#64

Post by olalonde »

w1ntermute wrote: post #54
justsee wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace 'Western' and 'Arabs' with Superpower X and Subjugated peoples Y and it's immediately clear how defective your root cause analysis is. It's an intentionally defective 'root cause analysis' from the perspective of Superpower X, where all wars waged by X on Y have no part in discussion of cause and effect. The rules seem to be: 1. Y is always irrational, savage, subhuman. 2. X is always civilised, noble, well-m…

I'm not looking at this from an impartial point of view, I'm looking at this as an American citizen who greatly enjoys the benefits of having been born in a developed nation with global hegemony. I have no illusions about the various immoral and unethical acts committed by the US government over the last 50-75 (and probably more) years in various 3rd world countries in the name of American interests, nor do I think t…

I would use some more empathy and adopt a bit more diplomatic attitude if I were you. There will be suicide bombers well after Arabs go back to being desert nomads. It's not all that expensive to blow yourself up.

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#65

Post by mcantelon »

snambi wrote: post #58
mcantelon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The second thing to do is to invest as much money as possible into developing domestic energy sources, as well as alternatives to crude oil Folks in the West with stakes in maintaining the monopoly on oil as an energy source have a lot of power. They won't give up without a fight. The same Neocons that make a big show of decrying Islam to their base also chum around with Saudi Arabia, sucking up the royals. >Arabs w…

while talking about mathematics, please include this as well. Islamic conquest of India bloodiest in the history http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/32812 History may paint a different picture, but essentially its terrorism in its true form.

Does Muslim violence negate arab achievement in mathematics? If so, does the US killing of native Americans negate US scientific achievement?

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#66

Post by potatolicious »

w1ntermute wrote: post #14
javajosh wrote: post #9

Why can't the article just come out and say what it means? Militant Islam scares the crap out of the West, and we're willing to pass laws and endure a certain level of self-censorship to avoid provoking violence out of these people. The simple lesson here is that if you want to stop non-believers from doing blasphemy, violent reprisals work . And really, self-censorship is a practical stance, if not a principled one.…

> Militant Islam scares the crap out of the West, and we're willing to pass laws and endure a certain level of self-censorship to avoid provoking violence out of these people. This is such a stupid strategy. The right thing to do is to look at the root cause of all this. After all, there are lots of angry people all across the world that hate the Western world and want to hurt it, but most can't. What sets the Arabs…

> "If you want to fight militant Islam, the first thing to do is to limit immigration from those countries and spread the immigrants out to force assimilation."

It would work, but is not very different from banning all white people in order to shut down the KKK.

The proportion of Arabs to radical Islamic fundamentalists is so small that it really, really wouldn't make sense. That's a lot of baby for very little bath water.

I'm not sure if your comment is meant to be hand-waving theorizing-out-loud or if you're actually serious - if you're serious, I'd hold your post up as one of the reasons why people despise America so much. You paint with a broad brush, advocate irrational fear-based decision making not supported by your own numbers, and demonstrate a tremendous amount of racial and cultural ignorance (desert nomads? seriously?)

[edit] I've noticed that all of the posts here pointing out the racism in w1ntermute's post are getting downvoted. Normally I don't point out downvotes, but this in particular seems especially cowardly. Would the responsible party please get out from under that rock and explain why you feel the need to, without justification, silence everyone who has expressed this?

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#67

Post by smutticus »

justsee wrote: post #47
w1ntermute wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Militant Islam scares the crap out of the West, and we're willing to pass laws and endure a certain level of self-censorship to avoid provoking violence out of these people. This is such a stupid strategy. The right thing to do is to look at the root cause of all this. After all, there are lots of angry people all across the world that hate the Western world and want to hurt it, but most can't. What sets the Arabs…

Replace 'Western' and 'Arabs' with Superpower X and Subjugated peoples Y and it's immediately clear how defective your root cause analysis is. It's an intentionally defective 'root cause analysis' from the perspective of Superpower X, where all wars waged by X on Y have no part in discussion of cause and effect. The rules seem to be: 1. Y is always irrational, savage, subhuman. 2. X is always civilised, noble, well-m…

I don't know why you were downvoted. I found your explanation very rational.

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#68

Post by tsotha »

linuxhansl wrote: post #59
tsotha wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Blasphemy" is one of those things I do not get. Religious criticism seems to unearth the general insecurity that people have about their religion (whatever is might be). You don't get it because you're not a devout Muslim of one of the more violent sects, and this is a pretty common problem with people in the West. There's no point in trying to divine motivations in this particular area without understanding the We…

The violence is there for other reasons. Religion is an outlet. I agree it's not a simple matter. Neither is just saying they are violent, and that is the end of the story. That is a bit simple, don't you think? Should I assume that you're "a devout Muslim of one of the more violent sects"?

>The violence is there for other reasons. Religion is an outlet.

That's what I'm talking about. Why do you assume this? Why do you assume people who have been beheading each other for blasphemy going on 1500 years have suddenly decided God can take care of himself and it's all really an excuse?

>Should I assume that you're "a devout Muslim of one of the more violent sects"?

Why would you assume that too? What difference does it make?

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#69

Post by tsotha »

rglovejoy wrote: post #44
tsotha wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Blasphemy" is one of those things I do not get. Religious criticism seems to unearth the general insecurity that people have about their religion (whatever is might be). You don't get it because you're not a devout Muslim of one of the more violent sects, and this is a pretty common problem with people in the West. There's no point in trying to divine motivations in this particular area without understanding the We…

It still doesn't make any sense. If God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the Universe, can't He take care of Himself? After all, back in the Bible days, God was taking out His vengeance on people who got on His bad side all the time.

>It still doesn't make any sense. If God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the Universe, can't He take care of Himself?

If you really believe your religious text is the word of God, why would you question His motives? It's not your place. The word "Islam" literally means "submission" in Arabic. The context for your thinking is the European Enlightenment. There was no such thing in Islam.

Re: Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

#70

Post by strictfp »

The problem is not rooted in governments. It is rooted in the Fatwa culture, which streches across national borders. Many goverments try to protect targeted people, with limited success and high consequences for the target individual. I find it offending that we let ourselves be supressed like this. But it is a sort of terrorist scare tactic which we sadly seem to be very vulnerable to.
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