Lifting the Veil of “Islamophobia”

[Jokodo]

Our values are constitutional protections. If Islam doesn't value them, which it hasn't proven that it does, why should it get any value FROM them?<snip>

Islam is not capable of valuing constitutional protections, nor of benefitting from them - Muslims are. Some individuals who identify as Muslims would be happy to overturn the constitution - as would some individuals identifying as leftists or libertarians, or, in the context of the US, many, many individuals identifying as evangelical Christians. If that justifies stripping Muslims of their protections as a group, where does that leave leftists, libertarians, and Christians?

 

[steve_bnk]

Apparently you don't understand how free societies work.

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Except when you google Islam and democracy, you get 100 papers discussing whether they are compatible or not, and no consensus. If Islam in general is having issues with democracy and the idea of constitutional rights that don't come from Sharia, or are in some cases contradictory to Sharia, then why should it get the benefit of democracy and constitutional rights?

The best example of a working Islamic Democracy is Iran. And that is because it's a theocracy with Religion based on Islam overseeing the layer of democracy and constitutional rights. That is completely opposite what the West has, which is religion UNDER the Law, not over it. Islam has more evolving to do before I trust it.

See above.
Thank you. Well put.

In Iran the final authority is the cleric entitled Supreme Leader.

A rather comical law was instituted defining acceptable men's hair styles as a relatively benign example.

In some ways Ahmadinejad was amoderate. He was over ruled by the clerics on a number of sioialissues.

See above.

HUH?


'....The best example of a working Islamic Democracy is Iran. And that is because it's a theocracy with Religion based on Islam overseeing the layer of democracy and constitutional rights. That is completely opposite what the West has, which is religion UNDER the Law, not over it. Islam has more evolving to do before I trust it...'

Pretty much sums it up. Iranian democracy is not supporting our western values of rights and personal self determination.

 

[PyramidHead]

Apparently you don't understand how free societies work.

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Except when you google Islam and democracy, you get 100 papers discussing whether they are compatible or not, and no consensus. If Islam in general is having issues with democracy and the idea of constitutional rights that don't come from Sharia, or are in some cases contradictory to Sharia, then why should it get the benefit of democracy and constitutional rights?

The best example of a working Islamic Democracy is Iran. And that is because it's a theocracy with Religion based on Islam overseeing the layer of democracy and constitutional rights. That is completely opposite what the West has, which is religion UNDER the Law, not over it. Islam has more evolving to do before I trust it.

See above.
Thank you. Well put.

In Iran the final authority is the cleric entitled Supreme Leader.

A rather comical law was instituted defining acceptable men's hair styles as a relatively benign example.

In some ways Ahmadinejad was amoderate. He was over ruled by the clerics on a number of sioialissues.

See above.

HUH?


'....The best example of a working Islamic Democracy is Iran. And that is because it's a theocracy with Religion based on Islam overseeing the layer of democracy and constitutional rights. That is completely opposite what the West has, which is religion UNDER the Law, not over it. Islam has more evolving to do before I trust it...'

Pretty much sums it up. Iranian democracy is not supporting our western values of rights and personal self determination.

I think Warpoet's point was that in a free society, people should not be punished merely for having different values. They have to act on them in a way that violates the law, and even then, only the people who violated the law are punished.

 

[Jokodo]

Apparently you don't understand how free societies work.

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Except when you google Islam and democracy, you get 100 papers discussing whether they are compatible or not, and no consensus. If Islam in general is having issues with democracy and the idea of constitutional rights that don't come from Sharia, or are in some cases contradictory to Sharia, then why should it get the benefit of democracy and constitutional rights?

The best example of a working Islamic Democracy is Iran. And that is because it's a theocracy with Religion based on Islam overseeing the layer of democracy and constitutional rights. That is completely opposite what the West has, which is religion UNDER the Law, not over it. Islam has more evolving to do before I trust it.

See above.
Thank you. Well put.

In Iran the final authority is the cleric entitled Supreme Leader.

A rather comical law was instituted defining acceptable men's hair styles as a relatively benign example.

In some ways Ahmadinejad was amoderate. He was over ruled by the clerics on a number of sioialissues.

See above.

HUH?


'....The best example of a working Islamic Democracy is Iran. And that is because it's a theocracy with Religion based on Islam overseeing the layer of democracy and constitutional rights. That is completely opposite what the West has, which is religion UNDER the Law, not over it. Islam has more evolving to do before I trust it...'

Pretty much sums it up. Iranian democracy is not supporting our western values of rights and personal self determination.

And this is relevant to how we should treat Muslims in Western countries how? When the question is what rights an individual be afforded as citizens of Western countries, the answers are to be found in our constitutions, not in the constitutions of countries to which the inidividual in question has some vague cultural ties.

Or do you also argue that European countries that have long abolished the death penalty should nonetheless hang American offenders?

 

[Sabine Grant]

The notion that citizens of any Western nation should be stripped of their Constitutional Identity and subsequent Rights and Privileges afforded to ALL citizens based on their beliefs (in this case Muslims) heavily clashes with democratic principles. To my knowledge "We, the People" does not intend to exclude from "The People" ,citizens, based on their religious identity. What is disturbing to Warpoet is any suggestion implying that a designated (targeted would be more appropriate as a term) group of Constitutionally protected persons are to be treated as personae non gratae.

Have you Americans already forgotten how you mistreated Japanese Americans? There too, it was all about a "threat"....I find too many Americans to be really quick to succumb to paranoia while promoting discriminatory measures and that in the name of protecting your democratic republic, which I must remind everyone is supposed to be a pluralistic democratic republic.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's not a phobia when the threat is real.

Yes, all Muslims living in the West pose a threat, and therefore, all of them should be stripped of their constitutional protections and made to accept "our" values.

The only ones that are a threat are the radicals. The only problem with the moderates is that when forced to choose sides they're prone to siding with the radicals rather than non-Muslims. A violent Christian has to be careful of who he talks to because the average one is liable to call the cops. A violent Muslim is unlikely to be reported.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The best example of a working Islamic Democracy is Iran. And that is because it's a theocracy with Religion based on Islam overseeing the layer of democracy and constitutional rights. That is completely opposite what the West has, which is religion UNDER the Law, not over it. Islam has more evolving to do before I trust it.

Working democracy?!?!?!

You realize that Iran goes with pre-screened candidates? The elections are little more than a sham. The state has already found you acceptable before you get in the ballot at all, no change of importance can happen.

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The notion that citizens of any Western nation should be stripped of their Constitutional Identity and subsequent Rights and Privileges afforded to ALL citizens based on their beliefs (in this case Muslims) heavily clashes with democratic principles. To my knowledge "We, the People" does not intend to exclude from "The People" ,citizens, based on their religious identity. What is disturbing to Warpoet is any suggestion implying that a designated (targeted would be more appropriate as a term) group of Constitutionally protected persons are to be treated as personae non gratae.

I don't see anyone being stripped of their rights and privileges.

What I see is some people who do not feel that enemy recruitment should be protected speech.

 

[Sabine Grant]

It's not a phobia when the threat is real.

Yes, all Muslims living in the West pose a threat, and therefore, all of them should be stripped of their constitutional protections and made to accept "our" values.

The only ones that are a threat are the radicals. The only problem with the moderates is that when forced to choose sides they're prone to siding with the radicals rather than non-Muslims. A violent Christian has to be careful of who he talks to because the average one is liable to call the cops. A violent Muslim is unlikely to be reported.

Has the position of the Moroccan government been to side with violent radical Islamist groups infesting Mali?Has the position of the same Government been to remain passive towards groups like AQIM(Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) and MUJAO ( Tawhid and Jihad) attempting to recruit young Moroccans? Has not the same Government conducted arrests of members of Ansar al-Sharia , a radical Islamist group defined as the "ideological face" of the armed Al-Qaeda, known to operate in Lybia, Yemen and Tunisia?

Which side do you think the Moroccan Government chose despite of Morocco being an Islamic nation? Do you think that Mohammed VIth as a moderate and progressist Muslim "sides" with radicals?

And please, spare me from any hand waving or asinine one liners as a response to the above.

 

[Sabine Grant]

Working democracy?!?!?!

You realize that Iran goes with pre-screened candidates? The elections are little more than a sham. The state has already found you acceptable before you get in the ballot at all, no change of importance can happen.

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The notion that citizens of any Western nation should be stripped of their Constitutional Identity and subsequent Rights and Privileges afforded to ALL citizens based on their beliefs (in this case Muslims) heavily clashes with democratic principles. To my knowledge "We, the People" does not intend to exclude from "The People" ,citizens, based on their religious identity. What is disturbing to Warpoet is any suggestion implying that a designated (targeted would be more appropriate as a term) group of Constitutionally protected persons are to be treated as personae non gratae.

I don't see anyone being stripped of their rights and privileges.

What I see is some people who do not feel that enemy recruitment should be protected speech.

Did you pay any attention to the comments from Hirsi Ali Warpoet documented by quoting them? Tell you what...next post I will just quote his post so you can take the time to read it.

 

[Sabine Grant]

No, you dragged in a bunch of horseshit about FGM yada yada that clearly had nothing to do with what I posted.

What makes her a bigot?

I already said she wants to strip Muslims of their constitutional rights. That's not good enough for you?

I posted the rest of this shit years back when another Islamophobe was singing her praises, but here it is again:

http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2011/01/21/ayaan-hirsi-ali-should-not-tes/

Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?

Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.

Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?

Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

Reason: Militarily?

Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.

But wait, there's more:

Reason: In Holland, you wanted to introduce a special permit system for Islamic schools, correct?

Hirsi Ali: I wanted to get rid of them. …

Reason: Well, your proposal went against Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution, which guarantees that religious movements may teach children in religious schools and says the government must pay for this if minimum standards are met. So it couldn’t be done. Would you in fact advocate that again?

Hirsi Ali: Oh, yeah.

Reason: Here in the United States, you’d advocate the abolition of—

Hirsi Ali: All Muslim schools. Close them down. Yeah, that sounds absolutist. I think 10 years ago things were different, but now the jihadi genie is out of the bottle. I’ve been saying this in Australia and in the U.K. and so on, and I get exactly the same arguments: The Constitution doesn’t allow it. But we need to ask where these constitutions came from to start with—what’s the history of Article 23 in the Netherlands, for instance? There were no Muslim schools when the constitution was written. There were no jihadists. They had no idea.

Reason: Do you believe that the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights—documents from more than 200 ago – ought to change?

Hirsi Ali: They’re not infallible. These Western constitutions are products of the Enlightenment. They’re products of reason, and reason dictates that you can only progress when you can analyze the circumstances and act accordingly. So now that we live under different conditions, the threat is different. Constitutions can be adapted, and they are, sometimes. The American Constitution has been amended a number of times. With the Dutch Constitution, I think the latest adaptation was in 1989. Constitutions are not like the Koran—nonnegotiable, never-changing.

And another choice quote:

"Britain is sleepwalking into a society that could be ruled by sharia law within decades unless Islamic schools are shut down and young Muslims are made instead to integrate and accept Western liberal values.”

Once again: reprehensible ideas and rhetoric that "liberals" would never tolerate were it directed at anyone other than Muslims.

But now queue up the steady stream of apologists arguing that it's OK because FGM is bad, or because Ali was mistreated by her Muslim family and thus it's OK for her to spew abhorrent ideas like these.

Yes, I do remember a similar discussion on FRDB. But I mostly quoted your post in its entirety so Loren can somehow connect my comments to Ali's quoted statements.

 

[Blahface]

No, you dragged in a bunch of horseshit about FGM yada yada that clearly had nothing to do with what I posted.

What makes her a bigot?

I already said she wants to strip Muslims of their constitutional rights. That's not good enough for you?

I posted the rest of this shit years back when another Islamophobe was singing her praises, but here it is again:

http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2011/01/21/ayaan-hirsi-ali-should-not-tes/

Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?

Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.

Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?

Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

Reason: Militarily?

Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.

But wait, there's more:

Reason: In Holland, you wanted to introduce a special permit system for Islamic schools, correct?

Hirsi Ali: I wanted to get rid of them. …

Reason: Well, your proposal went against Article 23 of the Dutch Constitution, which guarantees that religious movements may teach children in religious schools and says the government must pay for this if minimum standards are met. So it couldn’t be done. Would you in fact advocate that again?

Hirsi Ali: Oh, yeah.

Reason: Here in the United States, you’d advocate the abolition of—

Hirsi Ali: All Muslim schools. Close them down. Yeah, that sounds absolutist. I think 10 years ago things were different, but now the jihadi genie is out of the bottle. I’ve been saying this in Australia and in the U.K. and so on, and I get exactly the same arguments: The Constitution doesn’t allow it. But we need to ask where these constitutions came from to start with—what’s the history of Article 23 in the Netherlands, for instance? There were no Muslim schools when the constitution was written. There were no jihadists. They had no idea.

Reason: Do you believe that the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights—documents from more than 200 ago – ought to change?

Hirsi Ali: They’re not infallible. These Western constitutions are products of the Enlightenment. They’re products of reason, and reason dictates that you can only progress when you can analyze the circumstances and act accordingly. So now that we live under different conditions, the threat is different. Constitutions can be adapted, and they are, sometimes. The American Constitution has been amended a number of times. With the Dutch Constitution, I think the latest adaptation was in 1989. Constitutions are not like the Koran—nonnegotiable, never-changing.

And another choice quote:

"Britain is sleepwalking into a society that could be ruled by sharia law within decades unless Islamic schools are shut down and young Muslims are made instead to integrate and accept Western liberal values.”

Once again: reprehensible ideas and rhetoric that "liberals" would never tolerate were it directed at anyone other than Muslims.

But now queue up the steady stream of apologists arguing that it's OK because FGM is bad, or because Ali was mistreated by her Muslim family and thus it's OK for her to spew abhorrent ideas like these.

Muslim schools should be shut down, but so should all religious and non-public schools. They should not be home schooled either. Parents should not have the opportunity to keep their children in a bubble.

Instead of targeting Islam or even religion in general, we should be teaching critical thinking at every level in schools.

 

[Jokodo]

It's not a phobia when the threat is real.

Yes, all Muslims living in the West pose a threat, and therefore, all of them should be stripped of their constitutional protections and made to accept "our" values.

The only ones that are a threat are the radicals. The only problem with the moderates is that when forced to choose sides they're prone to siding with the radicals rather than non-Muslims.

Any evidence for that claim?
Also, logically, knowing what we do about human nature, do you think treating them as if they were the radicals regardless of their actual actions will make them more or less trustful of the authorities, and thus more or less likely to report?

A violent Christian has to be careful of who he talks to because the average one is liable to call the cops. A violent Muslim is unlikely to be reported.

Any evidence for that?

 

[Clivedurdle]

My uncles told my mother: 'You are a non-Muslim, you became a Christian, because your girls are studying abroad.'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/muslim-girls-react-nigeria-kidnapping

I had not realised that some Muslims consider educating girls as a christian behaviour and therefore blasphemous.

 

[dystopian]

I'm really not a fan of hers. While it of course isn't right for someone to receive death threats for any reason, she certainly knew how to milk them for all their worth at the time. lying about her history in order to expedite naturalization didn't help. The whole thing with her moving to the US to go work for a neoconservetive think-tank, getting the Dutch government to pay for her security while there and then returning to the Netherlands on the exact same date as the checks for that out-of-country security would stop coming *certainly* didn't help. Then of course there's the unsavory taste the tone of her rhetoric leaves in my mouth.

Islam on the face of it does nottolerate me. I do not want it, I do not want to be around it.

How is that different from Christianity? It, on the face of it, does not tolerate you either. Presumably however, as an open atheist you can still live among christians without any problem. Similarly, I can live just fine among the many muslims in my neighborhood. I refuse to judge them based on the intolerance of a few, or indeed the intolerance of a book that they may pay lip-service to but don't take literally.

Whatis the point of tolerating a group and making allowances when thereis no reciprocation?

No reciprocation? If muslims as a group didn't tolerate and make allowances for us, we'd be faced with world war 3 at worst, and just outright civil war across much of the west at best. Since that is not actually the case, you don't get to claim that they're not reciprocating as a group.

 

[Nexus]

If muslims as a group didn't tolerate and make allowances for us, we'd be faced with world war 3 at worst, and just outright civil war across much of the west at best.

Your assertions don't line up with the reality of their percentages in a society. A less than 10% minority as they are in most western states aren't going to wage a very successful civil war. Once they start reaching pluralities and majorities then their true culture starts manifesting in a society. In the US we have less than 1% and of course they aren't a problem. As you get around the 10% mark like France then they start rioting and demanding sharia courts etc. It only gets worse as their percentages grow.

 

[Jokodo]

If muslims as a group didn't tolerate and make allowances for us, we'd be faced with world war 3 at worst, and just outright civil war across much of the west at best.

Your assertions don't line up with the reality of their percentages in a society. A less than 10% minority as they are in most western states aren't going to wage a very successful civil war. Once they start reaching pluralities and majorities then their true culture starts manifesting in a society. In the US we have less than 1% and of course they aren't a problem. As you get around the 10% mark like France then they start rioting and demanding sharia courts etc. It only gets worse as their percentages grow.

It's your assertions that don't line up with reality. The riots in France 2005 were fuelled by an underclass of young people with nothing to loose; the fact that there's a sizeable overlap between that underclass and the country's Muslim community tells us a lot about the success or lack thereof of the country's integration policies, and next to nothing about Islam. Nor were the riots much different from the  2011 England riots. And even if that weren't so - if the French riots had been religious in nature - you'd still have to look at other countries with around 10% Muslims before making a general statement of the type "[a]s you get around the 10% mark [...] they start rioting and demanding sharia courts". Try: Montenegro (19%) or Bulgaria (12% in 2001, probably declining although in the most recent census many didn't declare their religion).

 

[dystopian]

Your assertions don't line up with the reality of their percentages in a society. A less than 10% minority as they are in most western states aren't going to wage a very successful civil war.

Who said anything about a SUCCESSFUL civil war? If, however, they were actually the kind of troublemakers people like you insist on painting them as (and if they're constantly being painted as such, I wouldn't blame them for living up to it sooner or later); we'd have way worse problems than we actually have.

Once they start reaching pluralities and majorities then their true culture starts manifesting in a society. In the US we have less than 1% and of course they aren't a problem. As you get around the 10% mark like France then they start rioting and demanding sharia courts etc.

Except that's not actually what's happened, is it? The riots in France you're probably thinking about had absolutely NOTHING to do with islam; and have been oversimplified in the non-French press; religion played just about zero role in them, and they were primarily the result of high unemployment among minority groups. Numerous investigations into them have turned up no religious influence. And let's not overblow 'demands for sharia courts'; that's a typical right-wing talking point based on an irrational fear and distortion of what's actually being talked about. These western-style Sharia courts do not actually conflict with the law of the land (you don't get the cutting of off hands and so on that the knee-jerk response-type people think about), and are entered into voluntarily by the relevant parties. While I don't support the government acknowledgeing *any* religious based system of dispute resolvement, it's hardly the big deal you're making it out to be.

Oh, and France does *not* have a muslim population of 10%. Even the most generous estimates put it at no more than 7%.

 

[Nexus]

Nor were the riots much different from the 2011 England riots. And even if that weren't so - if the French riots had been religious in nature - you'd still have to look at other countries with around 10% Muslims before making a general statement of the type "[a]s you get around the 10% mark [...] they start rioting and demanding sharia courts". Try: Montenegro (19%) or Bulgaria (12% in 2001, probably declining although in the most recent census many didn't declare their religion).

England is as bad as France when it comes to Muslims causing problems. Montenegro was born out of all the religious turmoil there over a decade ago. Face it the more Muslims a country has the worse it gets.

 

[Jokodo]

<snip>Oh, and France does *not* have a muslim population of 10%. Even the most generous estimates put it at no more than 7%.

You could probably get close to 10% if you count as Muslim everybody with at least one Muslim grandparent, irrespective of their own religious affiliation or lack thereof.

But for people who are trying to hide their own racism behind "only criticising the religious ideology", that really doesn't work: If you're using "Muslim" as a codeword for people of North African genetic origin irrespective of their lifestyle and beliefs, you are no longer criticising a religion by any stretch.

 

[Jokodo]

Nor were the riots much different from the 2011 England riots. And even if that weren't so - if the French riots had been religious in nature - you'd still have to look at other countries with around 10% Muslims before making a general statement of the type "[a]s you get around the 10% mark [...] they start rioting and demanding sharia courts". Try: Montenegro (19%) or Bulgaria (12% in 2001, probably declining although in the most recent census many didn't declare their religion).

England is as bad as France when it comes to Muslims causing problems. Montenegro was born out of all the religious turmoil there over a decade ago. Face it the more Muslims a country has the worse it gets.

The 2011 England riots had nothing to do with Islam, and you have just demonstrated that don't know a thing about the recent history of Montenegro. Montenegro was actually one of the successors of Yugoslavia that transited pretty much without any turmoil. It probably got most tense around a decade ago over the question of whether it could split from rump-Yugoslavia, which the other constituent republic, Serbia, for some time strictly opposed. Both Serbia and Montenegro are majority Christian Orthodox, though.

Even to this day, there are pro-Serbian and anti-Serbian currents within the (Orthodox, just like the Serbs) majority population of Montenegro, and the question how to position the country relative to the big neighbour remains a major faultline.

Religious turmoil, though? Hardly.