Why Does the Left Defend Actions by Muslims that Would Horrify Them in Any Other Context?
In the late 1970's, I guess it was OK to mock Islam because Gary Trudeau sure did it a lot in his Doonebury comic. I remember one panel where the Iranian Chief Justice was in the states for his college reunion, telling his old school mates he stayed in such great shape by "flogging" rather than jogging.
Today, though, the Left seems to feel that Islam is off-limits and even needs their protection. It's OK to mock Indiana for not forcing every photographer to work gay weddings but God forbid anyone mock countries that kill gays just for being gay. In Trudeau we have an icon of the 1960's radicals advocating for limits on free speech and for blasphemy laws. Too bizarre for words. Eugene Volokh has a good commentary on Trudeau's remarks.
Look, sometimes commentators like myself adopt a sort of feaux confusion on the actions of folks we disagree with. But I am being honest here -- I really, really don't understand this.
I will say that I think this position tends to support a pet theory of mine. Remember that I start with a belief that American Republicans and Democrats are not internally consistent on their politics, and not even consistent over time (e.g. Republicans opposed wars of choices in Kosovo under Clinton, supported them under Bush in Iraq, and then opposed them again under Obama in Libya).
So here is my theory to explain many party political positions: Consider an issue where one party is really passionate about something. The other party might tend to initially agree. But over time there is going to be pressure for the other party to take the opposite stand, whether it is consistent with some sort of party ideological framework or not. After 9/11, the Republicans staked out a position that they thought that Islam as practiced in several countries was evil and dangerous and in some cases needed to be subdued by force of arms. In my framework, this pushed Democrats into becoming defenders of modern Islam, even at the same time that domestic politics was pushing them to be critical of Christian religion as it affected social policy (i.e. abortion and later gay marriage). Apparently, the more obvious position of "yeah, we agree much of the Islamic world is illiberal and violent, but we don't think we can or should fix it by arms" is too subtle a position to win elections. I fear we have gotten to a point where if either party is for something, they have to be in favor of mandating it, and if they are against something, they have to be in favor of using the full force of government to purge it from this Earth. And the other party will default to the opposite position.
The counter-veiling argument to this is two words: "drug war". This seems to be a bipartisan disaster that is generally supported by both parties. So my framework needs some work.
}}} it says that gay men don't get executed
Actually, it says that homosexuals, precisely because they lead people away from God, are doomed to place themselves in Hell (Note: GOD does not send them to Hell. They reject God, and that act leads them to place themselves there).
Occasionally, God himself has acted to kill them. This IS, pretty much BY DEFINITION, something you don't get to argue with.
The Bible itself rarely says anything that indicates humans should execute homosexuals, and usually that's a matter of how someone interprets a biblical passage, not an indisputable exhortation.
And by all means, show us how that's happening in Christian nations today by societal act, rather than the actions of occasional misguided individuals clearly acting outside the auspices of Christian direction.
It is, however, happening with regularity in Islamofascist domains.
}}} 1. numerous "defense of marriage" acts. these seek to define marriage as a man and a woman. this goes beyond being left alone. this seeks to take rights from others. i fully support the freedom of any minister/priest/shamen/whatever to preside over only those ceremonies that suit their conscience, but to seek to ban others from doing the same is a different matter.
Don't be an ASS. These acts are precisely in response to attempts by homosexuals to ram their "civil rights" to be gay -- in a public and societal way -- down everyone else' throats. That they have gone after a bakery and the owner of a bed-and-breakfast over their right to refuse service to a specifically gay couple, for
1) producing artifacts clearly to be tied to a gay ceremony
2) opening their home to cohabitation by a gay couple
"this goes beyond being left alone. this seeks to take rights from others." ???
The only ones attempting to TAKE RIGHTS FROM OTHERS are the ones RAMMING THEIR BEHAVIOR down the throats of Christians.
You want to have a civil union which is in all legal sense, a "marriage", excepting that it doesn't force recognition onto others who may object for religious purposes, by all means, do it. And arrange for the ceremony in an Episcopal church. THEY don't see any problems with it. Just stop telling Catholics and Baptists they have to allow a gay marriage in their churches. Stop attempting to FORCE a Christian bakery to make a cake honoring a gay marriage ceremony. Stop attempting to force a B&B owner, using her OWN HOME for the purpose, to allow two unmarried people (or two married gays) to sleep in the same room together.
I repeat: There's only ONE group attempting to force behavior -- ACTION CONTRARY TO PERSONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEF -- down anyone's throats.
Hint: It ain't the Christians.
}}} 2. seeking to ban the teaching of evolution in school. yes, this still really goes on. the basis for it is religion and pseudoscience. it smacks of the church trying to silence Copernicus.
Yes, this is somewhat retarded, but it's basically an over-reaction to the attempts to utterly reject Christianity in the school to an extreme, even as it gives absurdist level preferences to any other religious beliefs. A child is not allowed to read their own bible during "free study" period, but if a devout Muslim wants time to pray to Mecca three times a day during classes, well, "hey, do you need us to provide a prayer rug and a compass?". "No, you cannot have your "after school play" on school grounds, with its nativity scene." "What, you want to have a 'Lessons from the Koran' after school study group? No problem!! Can we provide Halal milk and cookies?"
Let's focus on zero religion, and not religious persecution, and then you can complain about their over-reactions.
}}} 3. in many, many states, you cannot sell alcohol on sunday. what is that if not law driven by religion (keep the sabbath holy)?
In many states, you can't sell alcohol after 12:30am, 2am, or 5am.... is this religious, too? Or just a historical remnant of intemperance laws, which are only nominally religious in nature? I recall a township near where I lived as I grew up, made itself a mint on Sunday morning by allowing people to buy alcohol. The state only controlled unincorporated areas, much as a county does. If you didn't like this, you were free to change it in your area, if enough others agreed... regardless of religion. It wasn't state mandate -- though it may be today. That's more about Big Gummint than it is about religion.
When two different civil rights come into direct conflict, the majority wins when there's no overwhelming difference in terms of who is "more violated".
If we were talking about something that was a mere inconvenience to one group, and an undue burden on the other, then the greater burden would win.
Yeah, this is a reasonable notion. Sorry to disabuse your Political Correctness.
}}} The issue should be one of a private business issue - the right to refuse to deal with others - not a religious one.
WHY?
Religion is the issue, here. It's the rights of one's religious beliefs that are being violated. WHY the FUCK should that be excluded?
OH.... except THAT way you can argue only ONE set of civil rights is being violated. Cute. Attempting to change the argument so your side wins automatically, by re-defining the issue.
Sorry, NO, fuck off. This is a RIGHT-vs-RIGHT issue, not a "RIGHTS violation" issue. Someone's RIGHTS are going to lose out, so BOTH rights are relevant to the problem, not your precious "victim group" that's attempting to go around and VICTIMIZE anyone who doesn't toe the line... and, of course, isn't more likely to BLOW UP your wedding than to kowtow to your demands.
Because we BOTH know you aren't ABOUT to push for Muslim-owned bakeries to make your gay cakes.
.
Then EXPLAIN IT BETTER -- *ASSHOLE*
"Oooohh!! Ooooooohhhh!! You used bad names!!" is NOT a defense of your ignorant, ILL-EXPLAINED blatherings.
I have explained myself TWICE now. YOU on the other hands, have been a whiny little bitch because I treated you like the ASSHOLE you've so far shown yourself to be.
Show yourself able to actually defend your
claimsblathering and then maybe you'll get the respect you're whining for.Though it is interesting, the Muslim countries, in the Middle Easr, we have talked about also have a war on drugs, and for the most part seem to have licked the problem.
It is probably another case, of we as a country have become so soft we can't do anything any more. As in these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - we have so much power we could have destroyed both ten times over, yet we have such draconian rules of engagement, that in am not even sure if the vast majority of Iraquis and Afghans know they were invaded.
"Though it is interesting, the Muslim countries, in the Middle Easr, we
have talked about also have a war on drugs, and for the most part seem
to have licked the problem."
The key word in that sentence is seem. The actual reality is likely very different, after all, a large percentage of the world's supply of Opium and it's derivatives such as heroin comes from that part of the world. Afghanistan in particular is a major Opium producer.
That would just mean the case gets irreversibly dismissed before the video sees the light of day. Cops use every opportunity to protect their own, no matter what.
Is there ANY doubt, whatsoever, that if there was not a video, this would be a HUGE left vs right battle?
Hell yes. If there were no video, the cop would have succeeded so well in his cover-up that the public would never hear about this case. The victim's friends would know, but with no evidence, not even the lefty blogs would listen to them.
@obloodyhell: Stop giving other people, including the blog owner, orders about what to say. Flagged.
I was being very careful with my comments Afghanistan and Pakistan are not part of the middle east. Getting caught with drugs in Dubai, results in be headings, Saudi Arabia, the same.
More leniency begets more of the activity. I could make one of those Venn diagrams about logical inconsistency - those who believe creating a negative stimulus of raising taxes causes use of products to go go down. Those who think other negative stimulus has no effect. Those who are comfortable with logical inconsistency.
The drug thing is interesting as well, because depending on attempts leniency has been great (Portugul) or such a disaster it had to be reversed (Zurich, Switzerland) it isn't as easy as saying look, a handful of people are still using illegal drugs -total failure.
Coyote, your thinking is usually much better that what is displayed in this post. There are considerable differences between the wars under Clinton & Obama and Bush. Let's start with the constitutionality. Clinton did not seek nor received Congressional approval for his extended war overseas. Likewise, Obama neither sought nor received for his wars overseas. On the other hand, Bush requested and received Congressional approval. Second, you grossly misrepresent who was in favor and who was against the wars. On a minor point, Republican McCain was the chief supporter of Obama's war in Libya. And on a major point, Democrats were enthusiastic in their support of starting the war in Iraq. (One of my major grievances against Democrats is how they turned against the war when it was politically expedient to do so -- somehow effectively erasing from people's memory their endorsement of the war. And lest they claim they were mislead, they saw the same intelligence that the Administration saw, and the WMD were #3 of 3 reasons that they listed in their Congressional approval of the war. It is hard to fight a war when there are political opportunists are undermining efforts in hindsight.) Third, the Obama and Clinton wars were fought where we did not need to be involved. In fact, Obama and Clinton undermined / destroyed those who were acting in American interests. On the other hand, there was no denying that we were involved in Iraq, we could help those who were willing to advance our interests, and the no-fly zone and the Food for Peace programs were deteriorating and could not be continued. Fourth, we could go on. Reasonable people could disagree on many points. (For example, I was not at all excited about the Iraq War because Americans would quickly tire if battle lasted longer than a thirty-minute sitcom time frame, whereas the opposition in that area consider there struggle in century terms. However, I could not think of a feasible alternative.) However, there can be no reasonable disagreement that Bush followed the constitutional framework while Clinton and Obama did not.
Large swaths of the New Left see Mohammedans as allies. Simple as that.
anything that gets majority support in both parties will be very very bad for "we the people".
The drug war illustrates Kim duToit's definition of bipartisanship: When the stupid party and the evil party get together and produce something stupid and evil.
Although I agree with your analysis that parties tend to migrate towards opposite stances, I disagree with how you applied it here. personally, I think the biggest motivation for the outrage, or lack of outrage, towards Indiana and the muslim states you mention is the Left's obsession with 'offense'.
People get offended by a number of things. And the left seems to have taken a stance that 'anything offensive' is a crime against humanity or something similar. If you come into my bakery and want me to cater your wedding you might be offended, and that offense should never be permitted. It's this focus on 'offense' that drives so much of the misguided policies in the social topics. (if a someone overhears a conversation between two other people about a topic that offends them, that can be harassment, racism, bigotry, etc).
Many people on the left that I know seem to think that Muslims are so angry because we have offended them. Since we are the offenders, we need to forgive their anger at us, and do what we can to reconcile that anger. There seems to be an assumption that if the islamic radicals just 'understood us better' and if we 'behaved better in the world' we wouldn't be having these wars.
The right has it's own issues, and also falls into similar traps. The difference is only in semantics.
To me this thinking is the height of hubris. I don't care how nice you are, or even how RIGHT you are in your arguments... some people just will not like you and/or your ideas. Get used to it. And stop measuring yourself against how many people like and approve of you. No matter what you do in life, you will have people that like you and people that don't. And there is nothing you can do about it. You could heal humanity of all illness and hunger and people would hate you for increasing populations and destroying the environment. You could solve the worlds energy and pollution problems, and people would hate you for not putting that effort into healing humanity of all illness and hunger.
Both of you are likely to be offended. But only the Lefty's offense grants him victim status. Yours (in their estimation) just makes you a bad person / bigot.
Not even! The difference is that Islam is one of only two political groups in the modern world that has actually redefined the word "peace" to make clear that they are at perpetual war with the rest of the world until they rule the entire world. (The other being Soviet Communism, which probably plagiarized the idea from the Koran.)
Western leaders who insisted on waging the Cold War until Communism fell were quite right in seeing the need, because it is exactly that determination to rule the world that made Communism an enemy that could never be compromised with. But they fail to see that Islam has that determination too.
(And yes, I acknowledge that Christianity, for most of its centuries in existence, was a convert-by-force faith as well, with "witch" burnings and heresy trials as well as Crusades. But Christianity reformed all those practices away after the French Revolution and has not resumed them anywhere since. Islam has yet to make any similar reformation. If and when they do, I will be happy to accept coexistence with them.)
I don't fully disagree. But...
Many of the left have now defined 'peace' as an absence of conflict. Which is impossible. So they just avoid conflict and call it peace.
As a Christian, I view the crusades as an aggression by European christian and political powers (hard to differentiate politics and church then I agree). But I also recognize those lands were Muslim because of previous military Muslim invasions. ;)
Most of what that is about is what I would term the "think locally, act globally" phenomenon which I most closely associate with the sort of people who would have the "think globally, act locally" bumper stickers. That's probably because the people with those bumper stickers tend to be the most extreme/polarized individuals.
The least he could do is be entertaining or clever about it, but no ... http://cli.ps/pykZi
People like that only do it because they fear the weakness of their position and want to bully their way through.
They conflate discourse in such a manner with "strength" (as in "might" makes "right") and with "weakness" when their target does not respond, or not respond in kind.
They hide behind their anonymity with false bravado, gratuitously flinging this stuff that they'd dare not say to someone face to face.
It gives them a jolt of adrenal paleolithic superiority inside their fictive juvenile universe, but that is about all it accomplishes, as any possible value in their argument gets lost in the belligerence.