There is no such thing as a Muslim “no go zone”. That’s Fox News propaganda.
There is no such thing as a Muslim “no go zone”. That’s Fox News propaganda.[/quote]
Yeah, I have a friend who lives in one of the no-go zones in London. A single, white girl who likes to party. She’s still not sure exactly which part of her neighborhood the no-go zone is supposed to be.
Don’t we all? Advances against homophobia have been welcome, and very, very recent. I grew up in rather liberal west-coast Canada, and homophobia was still very common when I was in university in the early 90s.
thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/04/2 … hristians/.
Of course, I’d like to see higher support from all religious groups in that survey, but Islam isn’t the one that stands out for being especially opposed to marriage equality. It wasn’t that long ago that a presidential candidate was using “marriage protection laws”, or whatever Orwellian term they had, to turn out the right-wing vote. If homophobia is a reason for banning a religious group from entering a country, or for suggesting that citizens of that religious group are somehow a fifth column threatening the nation, there are other groups that should also be of concern.
This was an extraordinarily messed up individual who seems to have had a dangerous cocktail of thoughts in his head, including but not limited to homophobia (both inward and outward). Ancestry presumably directed him towards one of the religious traditions (but not the only one) that can be used to justify anti-gay actions (I’m curious, but don’t know, what the background/rhetorical trail of the guy arrested in California was). And then easy access to military weapons - designed, not coincidentally, for the purpose of easily killing mass numbers of people - made it possible for one man to kill a horrific number of people.
As for the myth of Muslim no-go zones, well:
[quote]Have you heard about the areas of Europe, or perhaps even of the United States, that are run by jihadists and which non-Muslims can’t even enter?
Don’t get too worried if you haven’t: They don’t exist. Or maybe you have, if you watch Fox News or read snippets of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s speech about Islamic extremism. While politics is rife with falsehoods, myths, and baseless rumors, it’s often tough to see exactly where a claim comes from, and how it reaches a wider audience—including, for example, a Republican governor with apparent presidential aspirations and a reputation as a sober policy wonk. Here, however, it’s possible to follow forensic traces and see how some small elements of truth metastasized into an outlandish claim. …[/quote]
Snopes also goes into this.[/quote]
What is your point? Muslim homophobia is just as bad as Christian homophobia. All should be derided. 10 Muslim states have the punishment for homosexuality set to death. LGBT people in the Islamic World live in fear and personal hell. This is serious。
Listen to what Majjid Nawaaz is saying, treat Muslims like you would treat white people. Its a subtle bigotry that you are not aware of. Muslims will never reform while liberals have their heard in the sand.
This is true. Both sides are being played off against each other. It looks like every aspect of society needs reform: Islam, Christianity, the military, banking, immigration etc. It’s more healthy that reform comes from within. i.e. Muslims/Christians taking a look at their own culture, instead of fingerpointing.[/quote]
No, the very opposite is needed. We should hold Muslims to the same standard as we hold anyone. All homophobia is unacceptable. This is what Maajid Nawaaz, Muslim reformer is saying. This is why he keeps saying that its ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’. You are holding Muslims to a lower standard than the rest of society. Dont
I understand that people are worried about moderate Muslims receiving prejudice because of the actions of the few. This is very noble and I share similar concerns. This does not change the reality that a lot of mainstream Muslim beliefs and practices are completely incongruous with those of modern liberal society. Moreover, Islamic terrorist attacks dont occur in a vacuum, they are the result of literal readings of Islamic texts and a totalitarian belief that these texts are the direct world of God and Islam will be the last religion, mainstream Muslim beliefs.
There are reformers like Maajid who need the support of liberals. Things can change, but not if people choose to ignore them
[quote=“OrangeOrganics”]What is your point? Muslim homophobia is just as bad as Christian homophobia. All should be derided. 10 Muslim states have the punishment for homosexuality set to death. LGBT people in the Islamic World live in fear and personal hell. This is serious。
Listen to what Majjid Nawaaz is saying, treat Muslims like you would treat white people. Its a subtle bigotry that you are not aware of. Muslims will never reform while liberals have their heard in the sand.[/quote]
In threads like these there is often a tendency to assume that Islam is especially incompatible with liberal values. It isn’t. Radicalism, yes, that’s incompatible. My point is that Islam is not in itself inherently at odds with the worldview largely accepted in modern liberal democracies today, any more than Christianity is.
Inquiry: who are these liberals that are denying radical Islamism can be a problem? I don’t see them in this thread. I don’t see them anywhere online. Nawaz’s article doesn’t cite any. I see disagreement about how best to deal with the problem of Islamist extremists, but so far as solutions, well, here’s what Nawaz says:
I don’t see anything particularly new there. I’ve never seen anyone denying that radical awful theology exists. This isn’t some reverse-Candyman, where saying “Radical Islam!” in the mirror three times will make it disappear. I suppose one of the most useful things would be moving away from oil so Saudi Arabia no longer has the money to spread Wahabbism around the world, but that genie is probably out of the bottle. The relatively open societies of the United States and (I think?) Canada are also a way forward, as opposed to the ghettoization seen in Europe, but this will be a long, slow fight.
[quote=“nonredneck”]Canada has less shootings that the USA right now. However, with the rate the new Canadian prime minister is importing Muslim immigrants, there will be an increase in the coming years. Canada will lose areas to Muslim no go zones. It happens everywhere Muslim immigration is allowed. Just look at Sweden, UK, Germany, USA.
[/quote]
:roflmao:
Have you been to Sweden, UK, or Germany? 
Two links:
First, from Vox, on how successfully American Muslims have assimilated (in contrast to in Europe).
Second, from The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, a nuanced critique from … well, from the right of Obama, I guess, but in a way that’s much more interesting and worthwhile than Trump’s insinuations that Obama is somehow working with America’s enemies. (I used to consider Goldberg somewhat right of center, or at least hawkish, but at this point in history that still leaves him far to the left of the Republican party.) This essay is useful for those (like me!) that are usually inclined to agree with Obama and wonder what on earth the right wing is going on about.
A few quotes from a much longer article:
[quote]Obama, in my reading, does not—contra his right-leaning critics—suffer illusions about the pathologies afflicting the broader Muslim world. If anything, his pessimism on matters related to the dysfunctions of Muslim states, and to the inability of the umma—the worldwide community of Muslims—to contain and ultimately neutralize the extremist elements in its midst, has, at times, an almost-paralyzing effect on him. The president has come to the conclusion … that the underlying problems afflicting Islam are too deep, and too resistant to American intervention, to warrant implementation of the sort of policies that his critics, including his critics in foreign-policy think tanks, demand.
…
It is not only Obama’s seven-year war against jihadist organizations that calls into question Trump’s claim that he is working to advance the interests of ISIS (or, to put it another way, if Obama is indeed an ISIS agent, he’s doing a very bad job of it). It is also his publicly and frequently articulated demand, made of all Muslims, to fight harder against those who refract their faith through the prism of arid and merciless textual literalism. “There is … the need for Islam as a whole to challenge that interpretation of Islam, to isolate it, and to undergo a vigorous discussion within their community about how Islam works as part of a peaceful, modern society,” Obama told me.
He immediately pivoted from this statement, though, by addressing Donald Trump—not by name, but his target was obvious. “I do not persuade peaceful, tolerant Muslims to engage in that debate,” he said, “if I’m not sensitive to their concern that they are being tagged with a broad brush.”
…
Does Obama go too far in avoiding the terms “radical Islam” or “violent Islam”? This question represents a not-unreasonable basis for an interesting debate. However, given the realities of the battlefield—that most of the fighting against ISIS is done by Muslim-majority states, and Muslim organizations, and that the leaders of these entities would rather not see the U.S. overgeneralize its description of the fight—then it seems to me, at least, that Obama’s semantic prudence is justifiable.
…
None of this is meant to be an argument that Obama does enough, or does enough of the right things, in the struggle against ISIS. I could (and will!) write a critique of the administration’s tactical approach, particularly as it relates to Syria…
[/quote]
The problem here is that the GOP and NRA won’t propose any solutions to gun violence or even admit that there is a gun violence problem. They actually go as far as banning gun violence studies by the CDC.
If you don’t like the proposed gun control measures then start suggesting solutions that will be effective. Just saying ‘these things happen’ is not okay.
The problem here is that Ozymandias and the professional left won’t propose any solutions to Islamist violence or even admit that there is an Islamist problem. They shout down anyone trying to discuss the issue as a bigot and then try to switch the subject to guns.
…try to, because it doesn’t seem to be working.
There is no such thing as a Muslim “no go zone”. That’s Fox News propaganda.[/quote]
Well then, just go there in a police uniform and see what happens. `Bye.
And now the Truther version:
zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-1 … o-shooting
[quote]Readers have noticed that the visual evidence does not match the verbal reports. Readers report that Fox “News” and MSNBC repeatedly show the same footage described above of bystanders carrying supposedly injured victims whose facial expressions are completely unstressed and show no pain, fear, or blood.
So has anyone seen any dead bodies? Any body bags? Any wounded taken to hospitals in ambulances? Any of the hospital wounded interviewed by TV reporters? Has any reporter checked with the morgue?
Allegedly, people inside the massacre location made cell phone calls and texted. But no one took photos or videos? Are there no security cameras? No doormen to notice a heavily armed person enter?
With 50 people killed and 50 or more wounded and reports of oceans of blood, there should be plenty of evidence Have any of you seen any of it?[/quote]
[quote=“rowland”]The problem here is that Ozymandias and the professional left won’t propose any solutions to Islamist violence or even admit that there is an Islamist problem. They shout down anyone trying to discuss the issue as a bigot and then try to switch the subject to guns.
…try to, because it doesn’t seem to be working.[/quote]
Very predictable. You try to change the subject to something else and ignore the problem. Or do you have any data that shows that most of the gun violence in the USA is carried out by Muslims?
[quote=“rowland”]And now the Truther version:
zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-1 … o-shooting
[quote]Readers have noticed that the visual evidence does not match the verbal reports. Readers report that Fox “News” and MSNBC repeatedly show the same footage described above of bystanders carrying supposedly injured victims whose facial expressions are completely unstressed and show no pain, fear, or blood.
So has anyone seen any dead bodies? Any body bags? Any wounded taken to hospitals in ambulances? Any of the hospital wounded interviewed by TV reporters? Has any reporter checked with the morgue?
Allegedly, people inside the massacre location made cell phone calls and texted. But no one took photos or videos? Are there no security cameras? No doormen to notice a heavily armed person enter?
With 50 people killed and 50 or more wounded and reports of oceans of blood, there should be plenty of evidence Have any of you seen any of it?[/quote][/quote]
Talk about denying that there is a problem. Wow…
[quote=“Abacus”]
Very predictable. You try to change the subject to something else and ignore the problem. Or do you have any data that shows that most of the gun violence in the USA is carried out by Muslims?[/quote]
Already posted that. Try to pay attention.
Not to be outdone by the gun grabbers, the race baiters have jumped in:
[quote]At the event outside the Boone County Courthouse in Columbia, Mizzou graduate and activist Tiffany Melecio chastised the crowd for putting the interests of the LGBTQ community above those of “people of color.”
“I wish this many people came out to our racial demonstrations and our Black Lives Matter movement,” Melecio told the crowd, which The Columbia Missourian estimated at more than 800.[/quote]
Everybody wants to be the center of attention, and gays are finding out just how low in the pecking order they are. Time to ask: what’s political correctness done for us lately?
[quote=“rowland”][quote=“Abacus”]
Very predictable. You try to change the subject to something else and ignore the problem. Or do you have any data that shows that most of the gun violence in the USA is carried out by Muslims?[/quote]
Already posted that. Try to pay attention.[/quote]
No, that is not the same as the link you posted on page 23. 1/2 of radical jihadist attacks being carried out by immigrant children is not the same as Muslims participating in most of the gun violence in the US.
You also haven’t posted any solutions or even conceded that their is a gun violence problem in the US.
[quote=“Abacus”]
You also haven’t posted any solutions or even conceded that their is a gun violence problem in the US.[/quote]
Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?
[quote=“rowland”]
Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?[/quote]
So you don’t think there’s a gun violence problem in the U.S.?
[quote=“rowland”][quote=“Abacus”]
You also haven’t posted any solutions or even conceded that their is a gun violence problem in the US.[/quote]
Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?[/quote]
Paducah, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Orlando… no, we are not wrong: there IS a problem with gun violence in the US. Killers are getting their hands on deadly weapons; weapons that have no business being available to the general public.