Just where do we go from here?

[DVV]

If we were living in a rational world (which I am beginning to doubt) it might be worth asking why so many of you seem to be so absolutely terrified of Muslims.

Speaking of being "terrified", let me tell you, in case you did not notice it (or don't care, which would be worse), that religious minorities live in daily "terror" in Muslim countries.
What happens to Christians in NIgeria ? in Gaza ? in Egypt ? etc

Oh, of course, the problem will be solved soon : in Gaza, for example, Christians flee. Same in Irak. The few Nestorians who remain there are those who can't afford a visa or a plane ticket.

[The Good Michael]

Errata, I have met many who seem to be pretty far gone. I guess they've never been violent to me because I do whatever I can not to be killed. I'm talking about in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgystan where I've been. In the US, never met any.

Mike

[Errata]

It's interesting that Errata brought up the Westboro Baptist thing. In my opinion they are mainstream though very conservative and literally accept things in the Bible that they have cherrypicked of course, but they are still very true to the early Christian church concept of salvation. They are about the most extreme group in Christianity that we see on a regular basis. They are despicable to many if us because they seem to spew hatred while still clinging to archaic Christian tenets. Yet, for all that, they haven't murdered anyone. Why is that? Because the Christian message is still one of peace, as distorted as this particular group makes it. I am no Christian, finding all religions exclusive of others. I wish they all were just a bit of nostalgic nonsense that was practiced in moments of whimsy rather than actually followed, and actually allowing so many people to make money from such fantasy. Yet, if no one is killing me or mine, or thee and thine, order is maintained. Someone explain to me how Islam really fits into the modern world in a peaceful, Amish way.

Mike

Two Points:

Firstly, Westboro Baptist Chuch has never killed because their mission is two fold. The first is to educated the public on how gay people start wars (whatever). The second is to file lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit in order to stay in the media eye. These guys are creepy careful. They never say the wrong words, never put a toe out of line, and anyone who does in response to their protest gets hit with a multi million dollar lawsuit, as well as any municipality who refuses them a permit. These guys aren't angry. They're calculating.

Secondly, while I don't know about an "Amish" way, I've never met a violent Muslim. Have you? Who here has? I've seen them on TV, and Farrakhan can really only be described as a violent angry Muslim and I saw him give a speech once which is an hour of my life I'll never get back, but I've never had face time with one. I mean, do we think Omar Sharif is going to strap on a bomb and walk into a West End theater? Or that hot guy from Lost? Or Mos Def? I mean, is Ford Prefect going to drive a bus through my synagogue?

[Errata]

Hi Errata. I've read your posts with interest, but I have to disagree with you there.

So you believe it's perfectly fine if someone is obsessed with the idea that they want to kidnap, torture, rape and murder little children- as long as they hold off on actually doing it? Should we wait til after they act on that fantasy to intervene?

Legally? Yes. And here's why. If you ask someone if they are planning on raping a child, they will say no. Then what? You can't prove they are lying until they break the law. If this is someone you know, you can try an intervention, getting them to see a therapist, do the right thing. But we an't throw them in jail or castrate them based on the fact they give off a really creepy vibe.

Ideas come before actions. Child abusers and serial killers often fantasize, peep, stalk, and masturbate to their fantasies for years before they actually act. Is that "perfectly fine"?

Is it OK for someone to hoard thousands of images of child porn and child sexual abuse on their computer if it's solely for their "their own use", and they swear up and down that they "would never actually hurt a child"?
I say No, it's not OK. They're sick, and they're dangerous, and I hope they all get thrown in jail for a very long time!

No. Fantasizing is not fine, but it's inactionable, as is masturbation. But the rest of it is a crime. Stalking is a crime. Peeping is a crime. Being in control of child pornography is a crime. They are sick, and they are dangerous. But we can't ever prove that someone is eventually going to commit a crime because of impressions that they've given us. Put a toe out of line and remove their genitalia by all means. But until they do we can't prove they will. It just degenerates into a playground argument. "You're going to hurt a child." "Will not" "Will too" "Will not" "Will too". Some people really are accidentally creepy. My Dad is one of those people. Poor boundries, but would never dream of touching a child. I wouldn't want him to get locked up because his mother was abusive and consequently he doesn't understand conventional ideas of personal space. Do I wish like hell people turned green when they are actually planning on harming a kid? Yeah. But they don't. Until they get caught actually hurting a child or planning to, there's nothing we can do.

If you plot to commit a terrorist act you can be found guilty of Attempted Murder, Terrorism, etc, even if you have not yet acted to place the bomb, pulled the trigger, etc. if someone is caught and says, "Oh, it was just a fantasy, sort of a hobby- I wasn't actually going to enter an elementary school and massacre little kids", should we say, "Oh, OK. No problem" and let them walk?

If you accidentally hit someone with your car it's not the same thing as deliberately running them down and killing them with intention and malice aforethought. "Intention" and "Malice" are both obviously both mental components.

Plotting to commit a crime is not considered an attempt. It's considered "Conspiracy to commit". Technically conspiracy requires another person, but the requirements on that are vague, so it tends to be an easy charge. If a kid is collecting articles on school shootings, buys a gun, he needs to be hospitalized. He doesn't need to be charged with attempt, because there was still a chance he was going to chicken out and do the right thing. Kids do stupid things when they are profoundly unhappy. If he shows up at the school and doesn't get through the metal detectors, that's an attempt. He has at that point committed a crime. I have everything I need to construct a pretty wicked bomb here in my house. Not on purpose, but because of some odd paraphernalia from a few different careers. I'm not going to build it. I have no desire to bomb anything. Never even blew up things with firecrackers when I was a kid. But I have the components. I don't want to get shipped to GITMO for having a string of peculiar jobs. Or for being something of a packrat. The way I know that my perfectly innocent stash of things doesn't land me an extraordinary rendition is to know that nobodies stash of suspicious stuff gets them shipped to Syria.

People plan things all the time. Ally mentioned planning murder. I've planned assault. I've been in an elevator with some random guy and though that if I just killed random guys in elevators, I would never get caught. Is that okay? It doesn't make my fiance sleep better at night, but I'm not going to do it. But I'm the only person who knows what I'm thinking, and I'm the only person who knows if I'm actually going to try it. If someone is worried about it, they should absolutely confront me about it. Try to get me committed. Stop being my friend. Whatever. But the law cannot get involved. The law requires a preponderance of evidence. Without proof even if a person gets charged they won't be convicted.

Thoughts matter. Ideas matter. Thoughts and ideas can have "moral or immoral", "guilty or innocent", "good or bad", or "public danger" qualities attached to them.

Yes they can. But we cannot and do not legislate morality. We used to, and it didn't end well. And we still have some laws that date back to that era. Prostitution isn't illegal because it's harmful to women, it's illegal to protect men. But it is harmful to women, so the fact it remains illegal isn't a problem to me. We're talking about the law here. We are talking about National policies. We want our legal system to function on proof, not feelings. Adultery is immoral. It is not illegal. Profiting at the expense of others is immoral. Clearly that's not illegal. Forcing a man to fight to the death for a cause he does not believe in is immoral. Guys still have to register for the draft. We can't do it. Because I'll tell you what else is immoral in the eyes of that majority. Being gay, being in a polyamorous relationship, teaching our children anything about the origins of our world other than Creationism, men with long hair, protesting the government, burning a flag. And who am I to say whether those things are immoral or not, but if that gets enshrined in law they can all go to hell.

That's precisely why we have the judicial doctrine of Mens Rea- our legal system seeks to establish the mental component of a act before charging someone with a crime, and then as the case goes through the judicial process that mental component is established again by a jury before finding someone guilty of an act like 1st Degree Murder and sentencing them to punishment.

The ideas that precede actions and their mental components matter very much indeed.

Best regards,
Archaic

Mens Rea is in place to judge the severity of an act, not to determine if an act is likely to occur. I mean, if you kill a man, it matters whether you meant to do it or if it was an accident in terms of sentencing. The dead guy doesn't care a whole lot because he's dead, and charging you with a greater crime doesn't make him less dead. If you plan it and do it, that's bad. If you plan it and don't do it, given the alternative I think the potential victim would be more relieved that you didn't do it than be disturbed that you thought about it. And a guy can think about knocking off his wife for years and still end up killing her in the heat of the moment. We decided that a person should be punished more harshly for killing someone in cold blood than in a fit of passion or by accident. And in fact if you solicit a hitman to kill your husband, if you don't give him money they don't arrest you. Legally you have backed out of committing the crime. They call you and your husband in and scare the hell out of you, but they don't arrest you. The law recognizes that people change their mind.

We are talking about people who haven't done anything wrong. Even if a guy hates Americans with a fiery passion, that's not doing anything wrong. There are days when I could rival any terrorist in my absolute disgust for this country. And I went through this my whole life growing up Bipolar. Everyone thought I was going to kill someone, or kill myself. I never did. I never would. They assumed because I was mentally ill. To this day people take a step backward when I tell them I'm Bipolar. They get a frozen smile on their face and back away like I'm a rabid dog. And you know what? I started leaping at them making crazy Muppet noises, because when people do nothing but expect you to act crazy, you might as well act crazy. And it makes me really angry. Angry enough to think that it would serve them right if I just decked them and blamed it on the Bipolar. I don't do it. Our expectations of someone may turn out to be completely justified. Certainly the more you treat someone like a criminal the more they are likely to just give in and act like one. But expectations are confounded every day. Are we going to enshrine into law our belief that a certain group of people cannot behave before they have proven that they cannot behave? Because we have. Jim Crow Laws. Do you think there were no black criminals who people pointed to as justification for Jim Crow? There were black criminals. They did terrible things. But there is no excuse to hold it against the entire race. No excuse to enshrine that in law. Islam is an idea. To many it is a fact. Some Muslims are extremists and terrorists. They justify their actions through Islam. They could just as easily justify their actions through history, but history never convinced some poor schmuck to strap on a bomb. But not all. Not even most. We're supposed to be a country that gives every person a chance. Not a country who lets a few *******s ruin it for everyone else. Or else why did we repeal Jim Crow?

[The Good Michael]

It's interesting that Errata brought up the Westboro Baptist thing. In my opinion they are mainstream though very conservative and literally accept things in the Bible that they have cherrypicked of course, but they are still very true to the early Christian church concept of salvation. They are about the most extreme group in Christianity that we see on a regular basis. They are despicable to many if us because they seem to spew hatred while still clinging to archaic Christian tenets. Yet, for all that, they haven't murdered anyone. Why is that? Because the Christian message is still one of peace, as distorted as this particular group makes it. I am no Christian, finding all religions exclusive of others. I wish they all were just a bit of nostalgic nonsense that was practiced in moments of whimsy rather than actually followed, and actually allowing so many people to make money from such fantasy. Yet, if no one is killing me or mine, or thee and thine, order is maintained. Someone explain to me how Islam really fits into the modern world in a peaceful, Amish way.

Mike

[Cogidubnus]

No I didn't make it up Chris...I was told it by a foreign student on exchange who stayed across the road from me...we were discussing, (among many other things), religion and out this came...

Dave

[Chris]

Because Chris, if you ask an honest muslim, "what is the ultimate object of Islam?" he/she will give you an honest answer "the world domination of Islam"...end of...

Can you give any evidence for that assertion? Or did you just make it up?

[Cogidubnus]

Because Chris, if you ask an honest muslim, "what is the ultimate object of Islam?" he/she will give you an honest answer "the world domination of Islam"...end of...

Dave

[Chris]

If we were living in a rational world (which I am beginning to doubt) it might be worth asking why so many of you seem to be so absolutely terrified of Muslims.

[Errata]

Hi Errata
Thanks for your considered and thoughtful post #161 but I must profoundly disagree with you on two points you make.
1) Islam is not the enemy is because Islam is a book and a story. It's no more an enemy of anybody you've ever met than Sith Lords.
To me the comparison is flawed as everyone knows that the Sith Lords - and the whole Star Wars world - is fictional and fantasy. Many people would describe the Koran in the same term but unfortunately to many millions of people the Koran is the revealed word of their deity and treated as such. Star Wars fans do not bomb, mutilate and maim people in the name of the Sith Lords - but the Koran, its teachings and the effect of those teachings exist in the real world and continue to have their baleful effect.
2) Ideas don't hurt people. People hurt people.
Ideas are infinitely more dangerous than people - or rather how people act on the inspiration of those ideas. This argument is along the lines of the dictum that "guns don't kill, people do," and in my opinion is just as specious. Texts like the Koran are in my opinion the most dangerous of all as they are believed to be divinely inspired and thus any attempt to question them is tantamount to blasphemy. This becomes a self fulfilling argument - the Koran is true so it cannot be questioned, and it cannot be questioned because it is true.
I care not one jot what anyone chooses to believe - I have neither the right nor the desire to tell people what they can think. But I care very much indeed when the results of any belief system leads to brutal murder and indiscriminate killing on the streets of the country I live in.
In the aftermath of atrocities such as the appalling events in Woolwich we always hear two arguments, both of which in my opinion do not stand up to analysis:-
1) The perpetrators of such acts are not "real" Muslims, as though their acts have nothing whatever to do with Islam and the Koran when they are blatantly inspired by that faith and that text. There is no "real" Islam for, as posters on this thread have said, Islam does not and cannot speak with one voice. It is a highly fragmented faith with many streams of thought and practice. But to pretend that those that support violent islamism are not Muslims is untrue and ingenuous. Ironically, those who carry out these violent acts almost see themselves as better Muslims and truer to their violent interpretation of their faith than those who settle peacefully into non Muslim countries.
2) The number of those who follow and support movements within Islam which advocate the use of violent means to achieve their ends are a vanishingly small minority and a completely non representative percentage of followers of Islam.
This makes it sound as though radical followers of Islam who are prepared to use violence and murder are insignificant little cells meeting in dark backrooms, radicalised, misguided young men who misinterpret the Koran. This ignores the fact that there are major movements within Islam that fall into this very category. If you add up the followrs of Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, Al Shobab, the Taliban and many other groups worldwide, and add in the number of those who support these aims without being practising foot soldiers of these movements, do you really believe this total number would be insignificant or vanishingly small? I think not.

In another post I suggested the introduction of a new term - Muslimophobe, for those who dislike or fear people who are Muslims. I would reserve the term Islamophobe for those who fear, distrust or dislike Islam as a faith. In those terms I am an Islamophobe in that I believe that Islam as a faith system is dangerous and cannot be exonerated from the vile acts done in its names.
To dislike or abuse anyone for what they believe is absurd and illogical. As I said I have no desire whatever to dictate what anyone else thinks, however far fetched and baseless I personally think those beliefs may be. Intellectually I cannot understand how anyone could believe in Islam but I could say exactly the same about any organised religion. I am not in that context putting Islam into any special category.
What I am saying is judge people by what they do, not what they believe. But I repeat that to pay lip service immediately on the commission of an atrocity to the mantra that such acts are not committed by "real" Muslims and have nothing to do with Islam is simply not true and seeks to avoid an unpleasant truth. In this context to call someone not a "real" Muslim simply means someone whose interpretation of the Koran you do not agree with, but that does not exonerate the faith that inspired the act from further involvement.

And thank you for such an involved reply.

I will try to sum up, since expanding on this might put us into record breaking post lengths.

1: There is a guy who murdered his sister because he thought he was a Sith Lord. And you might say "well clearly he was emotionally unstable". You would be right. He took a belief system that nobody actually believes in and went and believed in it. And still he would have been merely very odd until he acted on it.

As it happens, I am Jew. While I was never taught that god wrote the Torah, I do believe that god set forth a series of laws we are supposed to obey if we want an afterlife. I believe in those laws. I don't follow most of them. I don't keep Kosher, which is a big one. Do I think god wants me to keep Kosher and keep the Sabbath? I do. And I still don't do it. So if I can ignore a harmless set of laws I believe in because it suits me to do so, I have faith that others could as well. There is a reason I do and others don't. But it has nothing to do with the strength of belief. It has to do with a more attractive secular alternative. So why don't these people have a more attractive secular alternative? Because generally they live in desperate poverty and strife until someone in a training camp gives them a sandwich and a gun. The 9/11 bombers were quite the exception, but that's what happens when you can't trust an amateur to a skilled task.

Islam is a book and a story. Even if it is a book and a story revealed by an almighty deity. The Jedi religion is really quite lovely, mostly because it takes most of it's philosophies from Buddhism and the Hippie movement. The ideas of Star Wars are real ideas. They're just called something else.

2: An idea released into the world has no power unless humans give it power. Ideas can be provocative. But they can't be dangerous. It's a series of electrical impulses in the brain. It happens a billion times a day. "Gee I should kill Westerners" as an idea is the exact same biologically as "Gee I should saw off my own leg". If you don't act on the idea, nothing can happen. Every religion has resulted in the slaughter of millions of people. We see Muslims as more violent, but really they aren't. They just got into the Crusade game later than Christians and Jews. Even Buddhists are killing Muslims in India now. Buddhists. And it's not just religions. Ethnocentrism and patriotism have killed just as many people. Communism led to the world's largest genocide. 80 million Chinese citizens have been executed as Enemies of the State. More than any other genocide combined. Karl Marx was a economist, a philosopher. He wasn't a nation maker. His ideas were benign, and in fact true. The interpretation of his ideas by Chinese and Russians was not benign. The actions of the Chinese And Russians are abhorrent. But the problem lies not in the idea.
And as it happens, guns don't kill people. People in fact kill people. But we can't outlaw people, so I'll settle for the guns.

As for the rest, it is in fact incredibly inaccurate to say that terrorists aren't "real Muslims". They are. They are simply concentrating on different parts of the text. Westboro Baptist Church members are real Christians, and real *******s. They concentrate on a different part of the text. Messianic Jews are in fact not Jews at all. They are Christian. The name fools you, but they are real Christians. I'm trying to think of some socially unacceptable group of Jews, but I'm blanking. There are sects of Judaism I find baffling, but they aren't terrible people. Just odd.

It is accurate to say that radicalized Muslims are a minority, but they are a curiously well funded minority. And lest someone leap on that to suggest that their funding comes from other Muslims, that is only slightly true. Their funding does come from other Muslims, but not because they are Muslims. It's because they are governments who have issues with the West. So that Saudi Arabia funds these guys is less religious and more political. They fund Christian radicals as well. Basically anyone willing to set off a bomb in Times Square, who cares why. But when it comes right down to it, Terrorism is a lot like Communism. It's almost impossible to recruit people to be on the bottom rung of that ladder. No one wants to be the proletariat, no one wants to be the guy who straps on the bomb. That's why suicide bombers get paid quite a of of money. It's now a way to feed your family rather than some idealistic notion.

[Robert]

Here, Hitler's book is available online and in the shops....not very Christmassy though :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/23/mein-kampf-perfect-present-waterstones

[Cogidubnus]

Hi David

So clearly it isn't forbidden in the UK or USA...

However, that doesn't make those entities in any way better than your own nation...whose stand on the burqua I respect and admire...

Currently in the UK we've had people prosecuted because they've driven in neck-braces, on the grounds they've not been able to properly move their heads and observe in the mirrors what's going on around them - "driving without due care and attention" is the formal charge...

Yet what of the ultra-conservative muslim women who every day drive their kids to school wearing a burqua, with vision restricted to just a narrow slit? Is that somehow not dangerous?

We appear to have a dangerous "hands-off" stance here - Instead of ducking the issue, I think our elected members ought to address it...bet they don't though...

All the best

Dave

[DVV]

[QUOTE=Ally;262211]

All

Mein Kampf isn't forbidden where I live. In general, the places you will find it banned are the places you will find a lot of thought and free speech of all sorts banned. For whatever reason.



I always love the word "promoting" that comes into play when you are talking about the "other person's/not my own normal" pornography. When it's what you like it's just "normal". When it's what the other guy's into, it's "promoting". Promoting, as if, when it came to any specific sexual practice the only thing stopping them from DOING it was they just hadn't heard of it yet. Why Billy Bob you can't allow them to publish a magazine about some guys really like having sex while dressed like clowns because if you do guys will see it and then they're all going to go out and start wanting the sex while dressed like clowns! And the floppy shoemakers will go on strike from overwork. Etc. No one's going to suddenly start wanting to do something just because they read about it if they weren't disposed in that direction anyway. /digression

Don't get me twisted. I meant : nowadays no publisher that I know would accept a book with paedophiliac scenes, except, for example, in detective novels or thrillers in which those scenes would be considered the description of a crime.
Is that an Orwellian nightmare ?

And yes, it's forbidden to publish and sell Mein Kampf in France and, I believe, some other countries.

Whereas it has recently been a best-seller in the Middle East.

Guess why.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Ally

Got the subtext...very very clever indeed

Every good wish

Dave

[Cogidubnus]

Hi David

Yes, if one really had to choose between the two extremes, sink or swim, your choice is the better...I suspect it's the way we'll go...god help us!

All the best

Dave