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KevinTheOmnivore KevinTheOmnivore is offline
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Old Sep 18th, 2006, 10:53 PM        Head-in-the-Sand Liberals


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail

Head-in-the-Sand Liberals
Western civilization really is at risk from Muslim extremists.
By Sam Harris

September 18, 2006

TWO YEARS AGO I published a book highly critical of religion, "The End of Faith." In it, I argued that the world's major religions are genuinely incompatible, inevitably cause conflict and now prevent the emergence of a viable, global civilization. In response, I have received many thousands of letters and e-mails from priests, journalists, scientists, politicians, soldiers, rabbis, actors, aid workers, students — from people young and old who occupy every point on the spectrum of belief and nonbelief.

This has offered me a special opportunity to see how people of all creeds and political persuasions react when religion is criticized. I am here to report that liberals and conservatives respond very differently to the notion that religion can be a direct cause of human conflict.

This difference does not bode well for the future of liberalism.

Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I'd like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years — especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that "liberals are soft on terrorism." It is, and they are.

A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a "war on terror." We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise.

This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy.

Unfortunately, such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope. Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities.

Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb — and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise. And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.

At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.

Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria, and they offer an unusually clear view of the debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism: Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities.

I don't know how many more engineers and architects need to blow themselves up, fly planes into buildings or saw the heads off of journalists before this fantasy will dissipate. The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world's Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals.

Given the mendacity and shocking incompetence of the Bush administration — especially its mishandling of the war in Iraq — liberals can find much to lament in the conservative approach to fighting the war on terror. Unfortunately, liberals hate the current administration with such fury that they regularly fail to acknowledge just how dangerous and depraved our enemies in the Muslim world are.

Recent condemnations of the Bush administration's use of the phrase "Islamic fascism" are a case in point. There is no question that the phrase is imprecise — Islamists are not technically fascists, and the term ignores a variety of schisms that exist even among Islamists — but it is by no means an example of wartime propaganda, as has been repeatedly alleged by liberals.

In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.

Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. And yet liberals in the United States and Europe often speak as though the truth were otherwise.

We are entering an age of unchecked nuclear proliferation and, it seems likely, nuclear terrorism. There is, therefore, no future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors for us. Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies.

Increasingly, Americans will come to believe that the only people hard-headed enough to fight the religious lunatics of the Muslim world are the religious lunatics of the West. Indeed, it is telling that the people who speak with the greatest moral clarity about the current wars in the Middle East are members of the Christian right, whose infatuation with biblical prophecy is nearly as troubling as the ideology of our enemies. Religious dogmatism is now playing both sides of the board in a very dangerous game.

While liberals should be the ones pointing the way beyond this Iron Age madness, they are rendering themselves increasingly irrelevant. Being generally reasonable and tolerant of diversity, liberals should be especially sensitive to the dangers of religious literalism. But they aren't.

The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.

To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.

SAM HARRIS is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason." His next book, "Letter to a Christian Nation," will be published this week by Knopf. samharris.org.
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Old Sep 18th, 2006, 11:00 PM       
Quote:
In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.
It's amazing how ineffective I find that argument to be when I pose it to my more extremely liberal friends.

Nice find on the article. I just hope that this doesn't turn into another shriek-fest.
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Old Sep 18th, 2006, 11:06 PM       
Wow they really have gone this far in covering up 9/11..
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Old Sep 18th, 2006, 11:12 PM       
I like this guy's "we should be panicking right about now" attitude.

On a totally unrelated note, I launched a new e-business today. And we take all major credit cards. www.cyanidepills.com
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Old Sep 18th, 2006, 11:33 PM       
Pretty damn sobering.
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 02:39 AM       


I know this guy isn't a Muslim, and Ramadan isn't an Islamic holiday but...

"Next Attack Imminent:
Muslims ordered to leave the United States"
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/...iams091606.htm
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 08:56 AM       
Kev; I haven't read this yet, but I will. I may even read Alphaboys link if I'm feeling hillarious. Just a query, not needling at all since I sometimes do this myself.

Why no comment on what YOU think of this article?

In the future, I shall endeavor to always post at least something of my own commentary when posting an article, especially an opinion piece.
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 09:09 AM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by Abcdxxxx


I know this guy isn't a Muslim, and Ramadan isn't an Islamic holiday but...

"Next Attack Imminent:
Muslims ordered to leave the United States"
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/...iams091606.htm
Hey the more reason to implement police state! Are you stupid or just fear-strucked?
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 10:15 AM       
Max, I am just pressed for time. Also, the author sort of hits on points that I agree with, so I'd rather not just echo what he says. Also, If I commented on the article (which i often do, just not this time), some people might respond directly to that, sidestepping the article completely. THat sort of defeats the point of posting it to begin with.
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 01:35 PM       
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Originally Posted by Geggy
Hey the more reason to implement police state! Are you stupid or just fear-strucked?
It's the Canada Free Press reporting, not Fox News.
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 02:42 PM       
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Hamid Mir, the author of the interview, is a top Pakistani reporter, head of the Geo TV Bureau in Islamabad. He has won a world-wide acclaim for his interviews with Osama bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, before and following 9/11. His new book about OBL is due to appear in Britain, later this year.
Long time investigative journalist, Paul L. Williams is the author of such best-selling books as The Dunces of Doomsday, The Al Qaeda Connection , Osama's Revenge: The Next 9/11. He has been the subject of a PBS documentary and the subject of programs on the Discovery and History channels. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR.
(International journalist David M. Dastych writes for Poland's acclaimed weekly,Wprost. His columns appear regularly in the Edmonton-based Polish Panorama.) He can be reached at: David.dastych@aster.pl


The more frightful people are, the more susceptible they become to propaganda

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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 03:04 PM       
Well if it's propaganda, it's Al-Qaeda propaganda. Oh right, you think Bush is Al-qaeda. The US Government hasn't issued an orange alert on this stuff - this is just a marginalized fringe report. Fringe! You love fringe!

Here's the problem kiddo....terrorism is real. Those Jihad videos, and beheading videos all over the message boards are for reals Geggy...but your lunacy frightens me more then the Bush administration ever could. Do me a favor though will ya...when they recruit you to blow up a synagogue, will you name check my screen name in the Jihadist video?
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 10:27 PM        Re: Head-in-the-Sand Liberals
I agree with alot of the stuff in this article, save for this one paragraph

Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore
The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world's Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam. This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior.
Now this is exactly what happens on these boards too much where an issue becomes figureheaded, and rational opinions are lopped together. Anytime the word Islam and Muslim comes up the automatic reflex is to post pictures of Muslims burning pinatas with the unmentioned subtext "this is Islam".

Just because I was offended by muslim cartoons, doesn't mean I was rioting with molotov cocktail hurling lunatic. Nor was anyone in my community. If hypothetically cared that the pope made comments about Islam, it doesn't necessarily mean that I was all for murdering nuns. Just because I don't support abortions I don't go around throwing rocks at clinics.

As a muslim who exists in the world, I think that that paragraph is implying that muslims fall passionately into the clutches of radicalism. Now I know people like ABC, will try to convince me that that's excatly whats happening. But the thing is that I refuse to be bought by handfuls of pictures of and select internet articles/blogs. If you wanna believe that that's how that will communicate the hearts and minds of Muslims go ahead, that's your choice. But don't expect to learn anything but a picture that's painted for you.

That's about as far as I go sticking my head in the sand, about terrorism. I'm not going to go into any discussion about how the war on terror should be fought because that's not what this is about.
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 10:39 PM       
Scru - can you tell me why the largest Muslim organizations (and for that matter, the majority of the smaller sized ones) are sympathetic or outright supportive to these people? Why haven't these Muslims been marginalized within the Islamic community itself?
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 10:44 PM        Re: Head-in-the-Sand Liberals
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScruU2wice
Just because I was offended by muslim cartoons, doesn't mean I was rioting with molotov cocktail hurling lunatic. Nor was anyone in my community. If hypothetically cared that the pope made comments about Islam, it doesn't necessarily mean that I was all for murdering nuns.
And you can be offended, that's fine. But to come here and try to argue that the MINORITY of muslims who do act out violently and irrationally isn't a problem of greater Islam is ridiculous. I'm glad you brought up the abortion scenario-- 99.9% of Christians will NEVER damage an abortion clinic or intimidate women trying to have an abortion. But Christians as a whole, especially here in America, are often held accountable for their "elements." If someone says they are an Evangelical Christian, depending on the audience, it might paint a pretty negative picture. Images of Pat Robertson probably come to mind.

So why can't we ask that muslims bear the same burden? It seems that even the couple of muslims here on this board go to great lengths to distance themselves from what they consider to be a small minority, yet do very little to denounce them.

I don't think the problem is that a majority of muslims are Wahabbists, or whatever. I think the problem is that the majority of muslims are silent when they need to be more vocal. Where is the outrage over the nun slaying? What about Hezbollah? Why is Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda, more popular than ever with muslims (and not just in the Middle East)? This isn't a minority Scru, these are big numbrs.


Quote:
As a muslim who exists in the world, I think that that paragraph is implying that muslims fall passionately into the clutches of radicalism. Now I know people like ABC, will try to convince me that that's excatly whats happening. But the thing is that I refuse to be bought by handfuls of pictures of and select internet articles/blogs. If you wanna believe that that's how that will communicate the hearts and minds of Muslims go ahead, that's your choice. But don't expect to learn anything but a picture that's painted for you.
Is the Pakistani government a post on a blog? What about the president of Iran? Was Morocco withdrawing their friggin ambassador from the Vatican just a pic on the internet? How about Somalia's top cleric calling for the Pope's head? All just internet slander? Come on. You want an honest conversation, and then you give us this.

I don't think the majority of muslims are anything. But I do think there is a vocal, visible, and powerful minority that is grabbing power and popularity. You don't ned 1.5 billion muslims to destroy Israel. All it takes is one fringe lunatic in Iran with a bomb.
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Old Sep 19th, 2006, 11:02 PM        Re: Head-in-the-Sand Liberals
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore
So why can't we ask that muslims bear the same burden? It seems that even the couple of muslims here on this board go to great lengths to distance themselves from what they consider to be a small minority, yet do very little to denounce them.
I think it's natural for that stygma to form with associations, but I really don't think it should be for any faith. If I find out a guy is mormon, evagalical, or baptist, I don't think anything different of them. It's idealism.

And when we were discussing the muslim cartoons, I went out of my way to say that the response of muslims was far more disgraceful then the cartoons, to which I pretty much got the response "saying so isn't enough".

Quote:
Is the Pakistani government a post on a blog? What about the president of Iran? Was Morocco withdrawing their friggin ambassador from the Vatican just a pic on the internet? How about Somalia's top cleric calling for the Pope's head? All just internet slander? Come on. You want an honest conversation, and then you give us this.
Pakistani government doesn't always represent the pakistani people. Niether do all these examples. which is exactly the point that you are trying to make,

but my real reference was to articles and comments saying "this is what muslims really think and feel". I don't think that it's anymore valid than CNN news saying "polls say American people are sick of bush". It just kinda makes it seem like a slick step into punditry.
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Old Sep 20th, 2006, 09:06 AM       
I could go on forever about my views on the wars in the middle east, probably a lot of things you wouldn't want to hear but time is precious for me. The relationship between isi and cia I believe is still ongoing. It's only have gotten more secretive and more sophicated today with the technology we have. The "blowback" theory is complete total spin. Al qaeda is real and a threat, because cia, m16 and isi have been pumping in money, resources and weapons into the network. The US propaganda machine has gotten more sophicated now that would make hitler, mussolini, and stalin green with envy. Al qaeda is an illusion, a fake enemy for reason of us invading the mideast to fight "terrorism" which is bs. Would you support the invasion in mideast for reason of the us govt's self interest, to remove undesired govt, and install puppet regime who'd comply the us's orders? Probably not. War on terror is all a show. Bush needs osama to stay free to keep war on terror going.

It's probably a coincidence that numerous terror plots have been disrupted for the first time this summer since 9/11, terror threats by al qaeda have exploded in recent months, saddam hussein's final verdict will be announced in this coming october. Or it all could be a PR spin for the upcoming election.
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Old Sep 20th, 2006, 09:38 AM       
THREAD LOCKED, CASE CLOSED.
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