posted
Also: drone strikes and 'collateral damage' aren't related to this discussion, and of course your hypothetical was more awful. Of course they certainly feed a lot of anger (justifiably!) into the situation, but it seems to me that responring to that anger by getting wobbly on one of our most important, fundamental civic values is a strange course of action for redress.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm kind of disturbed that you chose a woman and a low cut outfit walking down the Champs Élysées where people can pretty much wear whatever the heck they want and people from all countries are coming to look at the shops. How would she know that she was provoking these people deliberately, when standards for modesty vary so vastly over cultures. Like in India it's okay to show your navel but you should have your shoulders covered. And in some cultures everything short of a Burka is going to be immodest. Where does it end? And also how do you know that someone was wearing a low-cut top to provoke a random stranger in a crowd? Maybe she was wearing it because she likes that shirt.
I think I'm more apt analogy is someone walking down the street was wearing an "all lives matter" shirt in Ferguson, Missouri.
quote:See, this is where you're mistaken. I actually never made things about Christianity versus Islam. (That was NobleHunter) I said something about Christian "pray the gay away" camps versus Christian church services.
I know you didn't make it about that. But you responded to it. That's all I was referring to.
quote:Absolutely. I don't deny that, either. But once again, you completely miss the point. I'm not in favor of outlawing Islam, nor am I in favor of outlawing Islamic mosques, or Imams, or anything of that nature. If I had, say, proposed making attending services at a mosque illegal, you might have a point here.
I *am* in favor of outlawing the wearing of the burqa, which is dangerous, and which is *caused* by Islamic brainwashing. Just like I'm in favor of outlawing "pray the gay away" Christian camps. Which are dangerous, and *caused* by Christian brainwashing.
Then I guess I just don't understand you. You want to outlaw the things people are coerced into doing (a dangerous precedent), but not the coercive brainwashing that leads to it? Or both? Please elaborate.
quote:lol. Which of the two of us do you think has lived in a country where Islam is normative and Christianity is other? I'm sorry Lyrhawn, but I highly doubt you have near the personal experience with living in a Muslim culture, or working alongside of Muslims and observing first hand what a Muslim a Islamic worldview looks as I do. Even if you do (which I doubt, due to misconceptions and ignorance you've revealed in this thread), it doesn't matter, because this isn't an argument I would ever use against you.
I was speaking generally. But okay!
[quote}Yes, it's illegal to force someone to convert to your religion....
It's very illegal to force someone to drink.[/quote]
Well, the first part isn't totally true. We can force children to convert to our religions. It's only illegal to make people convert after you've turned 18.
But again, I'm confused on what it is you want to make illegal. Here you seem to not want to make the thing illegal, and you don't want to make the brainwashing that might occur that leads a person to want to do something he otherwise might not want to.
Please clarify.
quote:Please, please tell me you don't actually believe this statement.
I guess I'm not sure what's controversial about that. You don't believe that one person might do something of their own free will but another person might have to be coerced into it if they did it at all? Or do you think that everything someone is coerced into doing is an act that someone would HAVE to be coerced into doing for it to happen?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
Regarding the hijab, alright, I got confused on that. I saw a quick line in an article that referred to all three as being covered under the same ban and then during our conversation I figured we all were on the same page when no one corrected me (not that it's anyone's job to, just explaining my thought process). Also, when I asked you if you felt the three were the same, you initially said yes. You saw no substantive difference between them. You later changed your stance on that somewhat to indicate you DO see a substantive difference.
Anyway, I misunderstood. Apologies.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Also: drone strikes and 'collateral damage' aren't related to this discussion, and of course your hypothetical was more awful. Of course they certainly feed a lot of anger (justifiably!) into the situation, but it seems to me that responring to that anger by getting wobbly on one of our most important, fundamental civic values is a strange course of action for redress.
The drone strike part was relatively irrelevent. I wasn't trying to draw drone strikes into the larger discussion, it was just for the purposes of the analogy.
The point of which was to emphasize the mixed message inherent with saying something that sounds nice while displaying something that's pretty rude. Which makes me think the whole thing is a sarcastic slap in the face. And for the sake of the terrorists, good. It was actually a fairly measured, subtle response in that case.
For everyone else, not so good.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:In Mucus's example, the 'douchebag' behavior he was supporting was offending some men who believe the female body is particularly sinful. Certainly more sinful than a man's with equal skin showing.
Which is, perhaps, why it's a bad analogy. Being offended by a drawing of a bearded guy in a turban isn't itself offensive. I mean, if I told you I'm offended by depictions of six-legged octopi (which let's face it, should be called hexopi at that point), is that particularly offensive to you? And would it make you feel good to publish a picture that I might or might not see, in the hopes it would in some way hurt me? That, to me, is a more accurate analogy. Because the guy being offended by the woman in the leggy skirt holds a belief that we find offensive. I don't see what's offensive about not wanting to see drawings of a guy.
quote:The controversy here is in the question 'at what point does someone's offense not matter as much?' If someone is going to be offended and ask you to stop, certainly, we can have dialogue. Dialogue as opposed to demands. If they're so bitterly offended they cannot bear to hear more, also fine-go your way in peace and we're still sibling hairless apes. When that offense, however, takes the form of being so angry that the offender must be silenced, whether through violence (Charlie Hebdo), threats (Rushdie), economic intimidation (Denmark, which got its share of the first two as well)...
That's the point I stop caring if you're offended. It's not enough that the one offended supposedly has the Creator of the Universe on their side, with all of the certainty of post mortem judgment that carries? It's not enough that in the normal courses of things they don't have to see the magazine at all, and in fact need to go out of their way to see it? No, the very fact that someone somewhere is openly blaspheming against their Prophet is offensive?
I'm confused as to why it seems like some of the responses I'm getting feel the need to explain to me that terrorists are bad people. I'm not trying to protect the feelings of terrorists. Do I then need to explain, in response, that not all Muslims are terrorists?
And also, is hate speech directed at you that you don't personally read then NOT hate speech because the person being attacked never received it?
quote:No. Hell with that. They don't get to control my speech with force-goodness knows they would like to, perversely thanks in part to us-and I'm not just going to roll over and allow it with cheap emotional blackmail either.
Don't know who "they" is in this instance. Terrorists? Of course, more power to you, I don't think they get to control your speech either.
quote:If Unitarians or something had an image that offended them to see portrayed, and a magazine out of nowhere decided to print that and their stated reason was 'we just wanted to make them angry' you might have a case. It's not and you don't, particularly for the impending cover.
So again, everyday Muslims are deserving of hate?
quote:We mustn't hurt their feelings. We must treat them as though they were as fragile and self-righteous and dangerous as the most awful spokespeople among them insist they are, unable to hear unwelcome thoughts without anger and hard to restrain from violence when they do. We ought not offend them.
Got it: Everyday Muslims are deserving of hate.
quote:Fanatics just murdered some of their colleagues, and it's not easy to find a statement where someone didn't say that of course they deplore it etc etc but gosh it was really offensive too, a sign of what's wrong with Western society today. Ordinarily one might say 'they're hurting, if they lash out it's understandable.' Here, though? Heavens! What about all of those Muslims who might be offended?!
It's understandable. I certainly never said it wasn't. I just don't think it's helpful. But then, "helpful" has never really been a word to describe them, unless the person describing them is an Islamophobe. Though I forgot we established earlier in the thread that spewing offensive material isn't objectionable so long as you've always done it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
Regarding the hijab, alright, I got confused on that. I saw a quick line in an article that referred to all three as being covered under the same ban and then during our conversation I figured we all were on the same page when no one corrected me (not that it's anyone's job to, just explaining my thought process). Also, when I asked you if you felt the three were the same, you initially said yes.
No I didn't.
quote:You saw no substantive difference between them.
Also untrue.
quote:You later changed your stance on that somewhat to indicate you DO see a substantive difference.
This is also untrue. I never stated a stance on it in the first place. Seriously, and I ask again, where the heck are you getting this?
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Which is, perhaps, why it's a bad analogy. Being offended by a drawing of a bearded guy in a turban isn't itself offensive. I mean, if I told you I'm offended by depictions of six-legged octopi (which let's face it, should be called hexopi at that point), is that particularly offensive to you? And would it make you feel good to publish a picture that I might or might not see, in the hopes it would in some way hurt me? That, to me, is a more accurate analogy. Because the guy being offended by the woman in the leggy skirt holds a belief that we find offensive. I don't see what's offensive about not wanting to see drawings of a guy.
My problem is not with the person who feels offended at the sight of a six-limbed cephalopod. I think it's silly, but then plenty of stuff I do and think are considered silly or even stupid by other people as well. Part of the human condition, I expect. My problem is with the person who is offended at the sight of a six-limbed cephalopod, and then believes that those portraying them ought to be stopped from doing so. Not dissuaded-that's fair game. Stopped.
And that, for all of your rhetoric trying to pivot this towards hatred for all Muslims, is in fact more than just a tiny fraction of Muslims who are violent terrorists. It's more than a fraction of people out of just about every institution and belief system on the planet, in fact, and it's silly to pretend otherwise. To speak as though there isn't a significant fraction of Muslims across the world who simply don't value free speech the way it is valued in the West. Strangely, this often seems to change when they are no longer under the heel of the societies which preach that-societies which are as I have said historically not uncommonly propped up by us.
You can point to the part where I said that my problem was simply with people who disapprove of a given message. It's possible I may have been unclear. But I think that overall on Hatrack and elsewhere, and in this discussion, my stance that disagreement is not only acceptable but even desirable is clear. My beef is when someone wants to arbitrarily stop it.
quote:I'm confused as to why it seems like some of the responses I'm getting feel the need to explain to me that terrorists are bad people. I'm not trying to protect the feelings of terrorists. Do I then need to explain, in response, that not all Muslims are terrorists?
And also, is hate speech directed at you that you don't personally read then NOT hate speech because the person being attacked never received it?
It's peculiar you would feel this way, since I am the one-and others-who have had to qualify our remarks multiple times, else we will face (and later in this very post, I do in fact) charges that we hate all Muslims.
As for hate speech, sure it is. But I consider hate speech that is done within a society on the other side of the world from me, that doesn't share my values and social norms, to be less problematic than that which knocks on my door and insists I listen to it. The latter I will eventually grow angry about. The former? I am much more likely to remember, you know, that perhaps other people are allowed to have opinions odious to me, think they're jerks, and go about my day rather than insist these strangers-whom by the way I malign regularly myself, in this example-pander to my offense.
quote:Don't know who "they" is in this instance. Terrorists? Of course, more power to you, I don't think they get to control your speech either.
In this case, the 'they' is generally anyone who wishes to curb my freedom of expression because it offends of the holy. You see it here in the States as well, by the way-either openly or creeping in, such as the Catholic League statements linked earlier in this thread. Specifically, since this discussion was prompted by the mass murder of citizens over a question of freedom of speech and sacrilege, yes, I'm talking specifically about Muslims worldwide insofar as such a broad group can be lumped together. But-and Lyrhawn, I know you know this just as well as I do, which is why your stance on this is baffling and frustrating-respect for freedom of expression is not, in fact a highly regarded value in places where Muslims are the political power, anywhere on Earth really. In spite of my anger on this subject, however, that's not an especially harsh condemnation coming from me. Even here, in a nation and culture where freedom of expression is supposed to be revered, it's a struggle to keep it and we only arrived at this place through a lot of complicated history often not shared by societies that don't revere it themselves.
quote:Got it: Everyday Muslims are deserving of hate
You've been attacked more than once in this thread, so I'm not going to be as angry about that as I initially wanted to. No. Everyday Muslims are not deserving of hatred. Any Muslim who does not wish to see speech offensive to them stopped by means other than persuasion, I have no quarrel with at all. As for my remark about Unitarians, you're treating this as though the 'problem with Western society' was that some people are just assholes for its own sake. This would carry more weight if they picked a group or belief system that held no interactions with them, and slammed them just for funsies. That's not what happened.
You're letting the most violent and easily-offended Muslims, the terrorists and those who would see government crackdowns on sacrilege, be those who speak for the entire community. You're not treating them with respect, as strange as it may seem, when you insist that they be treated with kid gloves you would consider absurd if you had to use them for someone else. When for example you talk politics here in the States, and you dispute something Obama or Romney did or said, did you have to spend two paragraphs at the start of every discussion expressing your respect for the group as a whole, and assurances that you meant no special offense?
Why is lampooning the idea that there are sacred images that ought not to be disrespected something that is 'hate speech', exactly? Yes, many Muslims will interpret it that way, but frankly many Muslims also will express a belief that Sharia law would be a good thing for societies the world over to strive for. (In practice, of course, this gets quite a lot murkier.)
quote:It's understandable. I certainly never said it wasn't. I just don't think it's helpful. But then, "helpful" has never really been a word to describe them, unless the person describing them is an Islamophobe. Though I forgot we established earlier in the thread that spewing offensive material isn't objectionable so long as you've always done it.
I wonder if you realize just how closely you're parroting the line of religious fanatics, in their take on Charlie Hebdo. Since, you know (given that we're talking about what was introduced earlier and all that), you've introduced the idea that if Fox News endorses something, right-thinking people ought to shy away from it.
I guess I forgot that there might be some social and political value in having a protection for serial rebels and naysayers, and those whom the establishment dislikes. I didn't realize they were 'part of what was wrong with Western society'. Strangely-and this is hurtful of me to the poor, wounded feelings of people everywhere with their own particular breeds of sacred cows-I thought that was one of its greatest strengths.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
Regarding the hijab, alright, I got confused on that. I saw a quick line in an article that referred to all three as being covered under the same ban and then during our conversation I figured we all were on the same page when no one corrected me (not that it's anyone's job to, just explaining my thought process). Also, when I asked you if you felt the three were the same, you initially said yes.
No I didn't.
quote:You saw no substantive difference between them.
Also untrue.
quote:You later changed your stance on that somewhat to indicate you DO see a substantive difference.
This is also untrue. I never stated a stance on it in the first place. Seriously, and I ask again, where the heck are you getting this?
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Out of curiosity, Dogbreath, do you think there is no substantive difference between the hijab, niqab and burka?
For the purposes of this discussion.
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: No, not at all.
Edit: I see the niqab as a less restrictive but still harmful burqa. I think the hijab is fairly harmless (physically, I mean) and comparable to other head coverings in other religions. Also, plenty of Muslim women wear the hijab willingly and aren't really subjected to the same conditions that women who wear burqas almost universally are.
I read that as "no, I do not see substantive differences."
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Are you serious? How could you possibly read it that way? Especially since you earlier said this:
quote:Also, when I asked you if you felt the three were the same, you initially said yes.
"No" is about as far away from "yes" as you can get.
You said "do you think there is no substantive difference difference between the hijab, niqab and burka?" and *emphatically* replied I did not, and then gave you a *detailed* explanation of why I thought they were different.
At this point, you've been called out several times for your dishonesty in this discussion. And I'm not sure if I should continue giving you the benefit of the doubt, or just call it quits. It's extremely annoying.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I guess I was reading into your answer, in part, what I was already expecting you to say. That's my fault and I'm sorry. I thought the edit was you re-thinking your answer after the fact. I was genuinely confused.
We still disagree on a lot of this.
But a good chunk of that was my fault for misreading you and I apologize for the confusion and frustration that caused.
I'd quibble, though, at the word "dishonesty." I never intentionally misrepresented you. I didn't understand you. Might seem like a minor point, but let's be clear that I'm stupid, not an intentional asshole.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I guess I was reading into your answer, in part, what I was already expecting you to say. That's my fault and I'm sorry. I thought the edit was you re-thinking your answer after the fact. I was genuinely confused.
We still disagree on a lot of this.
But a good chunk of that was my fault for misreading you and I apologize for the confusion and frustration that caused.
I'd quibble, though, at the word "dishonesty." I never intentionally misrepresented you. I didn't understand you. Might seem like a minor point, but let's be clear that I'm stupid, not an intentional asshole.
It's fine, then.
You have to understand there are people out there who will gladly and deliberately misrepresent you or infer things you don't actually believe just to try and win an argument. And I think you might want to be careful with your "all Muslims deserve hate?" comments to Rakeesh, as you're definitely straying into that teritory. If you want to be understood (and I think he does understand you), it's best to avoid extropolating his arguments into obviously rediculous extremes. (I think extremes is what's causing the problem here, and I'll get into that later)
But yeah, the reason I didn't dismiss what you said out of hand is because I suspected you had misread what I said, or even imagined I said things I didn't. I was sort of hoping that would inspire you to reread everything I had written so far to try and figure out your mistake without me having to be so blunt. Oh well.
If you want a summary of what I think you believe:
You think things like France's ban on wearing burqas in public spaces set a dangerous precedent. You obviously don't support the ideals that force women into burqas, but you think the state declaring which religious practices you can and can't follow is a bad idea.
You also think the editor of Charlie Hebdo published the current cover simply to piss off Muslims everywhere. You don't think it's meant in a positive way, and I don't think you've even considered that it might be a message of solidarity and forgiveness to moderate and liberal Muslims. (consider the number of Islamic newspapers that reprinted it, or the overwhelming amount of support CH got from all the Muslims who *don't* think a cartoon of the prophet could possibly be considered idolatry)
I think your big problem here is one of extremes - you're unwilling to consider the nuances and complexities of real life scenarios.
I.e, you believe that freedom of religious/personal expression is paramount, and should always be respected. This is an ideal, and a good one too.
You fail when it comes to realizing that laws aren't passed in a vacuum, but instead are there to protect society and individuals as adequetely as possible while staying true to ideals.
You also choose to ignore the circumstances that surround the burqa, and why someone would wear it: the fact that they're almost universally worn by women who are coerced into wearing it via violence, intimidation, abuse of authority, and religious brainwashing.
You are also, I think, ignorant of the actual law that bans burqas in France. It's a waivable 150 euro fine for the woman wearing it, and a 30,000 euro fine + one year in jail for a man who coerces a woman into wearing it. (double if it's a minor) And the reason these laws exist is that they help actualize change in the abusive situations that exist in extremist Muslim homes in the least intrusive way possible. To ignore it is wrong, to start doing targetted home invasions on Muslim families and to separate these families is also very wrong, but laws like these create positive results while also infringing on the rights of citizens as little as possible.
But the idealistic vacuum your arguments are formed in scorns this sort of nuance. You're very black and white, very extreme. Thus your rediculous question of whether I would support banning alcohol because some people are forced to drink it. The answer is that if 99.9% of people who drank dangerous amounts of alcohol were either coerced into doing so, or were brainwashed into believing it was God's will, then of course I would want to ban it.
But that's a logical fallacy. You can't take every real world scenario and play it out to it's logical extreme, because *everything* becomes absurd at that point. The free society we live in is entirely dependent upon the balance of ideals and reality, and to blithely, even distainfully ignore reality while relying on your own ideological superiority to win the argument is both annoying and extremely naive.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think one potential gray area is how a government is supposed to distinguish between "religious brainwashing" and any other religious teaching in how it forms policy. Part of your argument, Dogbreath, is that women who might say they willingly wear the burqa were brainwashed into it. I'd probably be against a law that was justified on the grounds that it combats religious brainwashing. I think that's why the law in France was justified mostly on public safety grounds (although there's an interesting and valuable statement in the size of the penalty for forcing someone else to wear a face covering).
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think brainwashing isn't enough justification, obviously, just another part of the culture of abuse, physical, mental and verbal violence, and oppression. But the key element is that it's dangerous and severely limits one's ability to live a normal life. I think there are other precedents for that justification - banning handling of snakes in churches, banning camps that "fix" gay people, forcing children of religious people who don't believe in medicine to take it anyway, that sort of thing.
The main reason we have laws that make exceptions for children is because of the lack of agency they posess, and I would like to repeat my argument that for women in oppressive situations given the "choice" to wear a burqa, they don't really posess agency in any meaningful sense.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
You're right that I didn't understand the law as thoroughly as I should have before I got into this discussion. I read a relatively brief article and went from that, which in hindsight was pretty stupid, and not even close to the normal information gathering I employ before I begin a discussion like this.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Meh. I was in Paris for a week last year (I travel a lot) and stayed at a hotel about a 15 minute walk from the Charlie Hebdo office, so I've had at least basic experience with the culture and political atmosphere in the area. Which is why I was so confused by your hijab question, since I saw them everywhere. Don't worry about it, though. Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
