Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

http://www.pewresearch.org/files/201...Distribute.png

Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...u-might-think/

That's a fuck ton of people who are being asked to "speak out" about something that they, their religious leader, their friends, their families had nothing to do with, and a lot of cases may not even know about. About a fourth of the world's population should be speaking out??? This makes no sense at all.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Then what should happen? We move slowly towards a world wide war? This strikes me as a problem of manipulation of disaffected young men. the extremists know that and go after them. Why can't normal non-crazy muslims do the same to pull them back?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

This is a bullshit response.

People are expecting muslims in and around areas where extremists live and are active to (not just) speak out, but try to effectuate some change. If there are a million muslims in a given community and a thousand extremists looking to do or who are supporting harm in the name of Islam, I think it would be great if that community tried to get a handle on it. Mind you, that doesn't mean it's not dangerous. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't also be doing our part by not bombing the fuck out of innocent people.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I think your initial statement is wrong for all of the reasons you provide in your second paragraph. There's no reason at all to think that Islamists give a shit what moderate Muslims think, except that they obviously don't buy it.

People who call on moderate Muslims to denounce the Islamists are saying that -- unlike normal people -- moderate Muslims can be presumed to be sympathetic with the Islamists and need to rebut this presumption. No one says it like that, because when you say it that way, it sounds loopy.

Re: So, New Yorkers
 

There has been a nationwide drop in crime rates over many years. No one knows why -- some people say it's about lead paint -- so you are definitely correct when you say that the "broken windows" approach has not been proven not to work. Since NYC is TCOTU, New Yorkers understandably see this is as a story about the particular strategies adopted by particular mayors and police commissioners -- taking account of the national trends would require acknowledging the world beyond the Five Boroughs.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

So in Boston, where one of the kids had tons of friends and at least one relative who were shocked to shit at what ended up happening, what could have been done? How could he have been swayed down a different path by some iman in a mosque he doesn't go to? What sort of change could the non-Chechen muslims in the greater Boston area effected to get a handle on him?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

they could have been more involved in what two young men in the sweet spot of doing shit, were up to.

edit- you see a 20 year old man who has never been too religious and suddenly he starts breaking for prayers maybe trying to get to know him, and if he is heading towards the crazy steer him back. I also presume a bunch of the converts are from net based recruitment. Can't others start counter-recruiting web efforts?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I don't think there is a muslim community, any more than I think there is a black community, and I think the propensity to find public figures and to turn them into spokesmen for their race or religion is a problem. It makes a little more sense with a religion like Catholicism, where you have a very strong institutional structure, but you certainly wouldn't ask Mormons to denounce a notional act of terrorism by Russian Orthodox adherents, because the two obviously don't have anything to do with each other. Islam is hardly monolithic -- it's a decentralized religious tradition that different people take in different directions. The notion that most French Muslims share important beliefs with Islamists comes from people who don't understand either very well and choose to conflate the two.

Asking French Muslims -- who are 10% of the population -- to denounce the lunatic actions of a few psychopathic Islamists is not a way to dry up support for future Islamists. It's about stigmatizing all Muslims, for those who can't be bothered to tell the difference, and it's about reassuring the non-Muslim majority that the dark-skinned among them aren't all out to get them.

From what I've heard about the brother and their friend, it's not like they had or needed much support. They used Kalashnikovs and stolen cars. They hung out with another dude and shot a crossbow. The friend has a long rap sheet and converted to Islam recently, in prison.

In a way, what's really scary about these attacks is that they don't seem to have been the product of a well-organized terrorist organization or a radicalized mosque. They seem to have been a few disaffected losers who found their way to the death cult that is Islamism and eventually started shooting.

How do you stop that? Not by pressure from moderate Moslems. That's part of who these guys were reacting to.

eta: I obviously think it would be great if people close to these extremists could have diverted them somehow. I just don't see that Muslims have any particular ability or responsibility to do that. The kosher-deli shooter was radicalized in prison. That sounds like a failure of the penal system more than a failure on the part of French Muslims.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

You make a good point, but I don't think it's right to conflate state-sponsored religion in a authoritarian regime like Egypt with moderate Muslims in Western countries. The government in Egypt (and other Arab countries) has wrapped itself in Islam for legitimacy, and so it is driven to punish atheism essentially as an attack on the state.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

There isn't anything particularly remarkable about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, though. He scares me a shit ton more than his brother. There's NOTHING particularly about his past up until the marathon that could raise flags to say "hey, this guy looks like he's headed down a wrong path" other than being related to a psychopath.

I didn't realize his trial started this week.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

There are about four or five significant mosques in the Boston area - a couple in the predominantly black neighborhoods of the City, one in a more mixed ethnic area, and a couple in the suburbs. There are also Islamic groups associated with the various universities. It is an active and engaged community, with no shortage of outreach for younger folks. I'm going to bet that just about anyone someone here names someone is already trying to do.

But there is significantly less openness from other communities to the Islamic community. Our Church will do an interfaith passover seder with the local synagogue, but it has done nothing with any of the mosques in the area, and that is true of almost all the denominations, with the notable exception of the synagogue right near the mosque in the mixed ethnic area - they do interact.

Maybe some of the problem isn't speaking, but listening.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Either you are ignoring my other posts or you are being intentionally obtuse.

It's not about finding an entire religion (or any specific community) at fault and it's not about keeping any one person from doing something insane. It's about changing the atmosphere in which any criticism of Islam is looked upon by muslims ranging from extremists to moderates as a severely punishable offense. It's about changing an atmosphere where moderates think, "Well, these extremists are more like me than them," and "I don't agree with these extremists, but I see where they're coming from," which ends up providing comfort to these lunatics.

I can draw as many analogies as you want. But I sure as hell don't understand why, when it comes to religion, there is instantly a different standard.

If you want to talk about the ghetto and the "Stop snitching" bullshit that goes on, let's do it. I think the idea that giving any help to police at all when it comes to criminal activity (even when the information is coming from the person who has been harmed by such activity) amounts to snitching--which is punishable by death in some neighborhoods--is fucking insane. Is any one person who refuses to talk to the police at fault? No. Should the community do something to eliminate the atmosphere in which cooperating with police is worse than committing a fucking crime? Absolutely. Criminals have fostered a culture (with the help of police who have a firm "us v. them" attitude) in which something that harms just the criminals has become anathema to the community those very same criminals are destroying. That is completely ridiculous.

Mind you, I can still criticize the fucking police for (i) enforcing that us v. them attitude that contributes to the problem and (ii) having the same stupid no-snitching code (hell, theirs is probably just as strong). It's not an either/or-blame proposition. I can have conversation upon conversation about how we need to stop criminals from being criminals. I can rail on and on about how cops shouldn't treat whole communities as the enemy. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't also expect those communities to do something about changing the no-snitching culture.

And I can agree with you, and Ty, and Greedy that (i) the main problem is the group of criminals and (ii) those critics who seem to only focus on what the community should be doing to get rid of no-snitching culture are shallow morons, in each case, at the exact same time.

In my mind, it's the same standard when it comes to religious extremism. Or it should be. Tell me why I'm wrong.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Crazy brother is a reason to be concerned.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I find it interesting that at a time when supposedly everyone is rallying around free speech, much of the discussion is about proscribing what some people ought to say.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

See my response to RT above. No-snitching culture crosses race lines from latino to black to white in ghetto communities. It's not a movement that has a leader who speaks out about snitching. It's a backwards idea that has gained the support of people who would never even think of committing a serious crime. It's the same principle.

You are so focused on stopping any one act. I am thinking about this in a different way. Reduce the tolerance for extremism amongst those who are not extremists to change the atmosphere in which people are being converted to extremists. Again, I'm not saying this is the only solution. It would be great if we weren't bombing people and constantly creating newly disaffected people. But you seem to only want to approach the problem from one angle and refuse to acknowledge that there are moderate muslims that tolerate the radical thoughts and ideas that breed extremists. I don't get it.

I'm not going to respond to this because I think it's intentionally ridiculous.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I am doing no such thing. If extremist thoughts weren't tolerated by any muslim communities, would it be as safe to recruit in those communities? Do you think that the idea that any criticism of Islam or the prophet exists only in those places where it's literally against the law? Are you saying that other muslim communities with ties back to those places don't adopt those attitudes?

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I guess I don't see this as a Muslim thing. The guy you quoted above was talking about condemnation of an atheist in Egypt, which seems to me to be a very different thing than purported tolerance for Islamism on the part of moderate Muslims in the West.

I don't see the evidence that moderate Muslims tolerate the extremists. The extremists who commit crimes often seem to be disaffected younger men with a raft of other problems -- criminal history, lack of prospects, etc. -- who often were not raised as Muslims but turned to radical Islam after many other troubles. They often don't even seem to be that religious.

And to be clear, I have been specifically reacting to the notion that moderate Muslims should denounce the Islamists. Not sure you're suggested that, either.[/QUOTE]

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I'm not sure I'm following you. In your prior post, you said (in part):

My problem is in your jump from the first paragraph to second. The Sheikh is talking about how the Egyptian state (the judiciary) reacts to atheism ("his heresy"). You then say, "[i]f moderate muslims believe that people who criticize muslims should be punished...." (emphasis mine) But I don't think moderate muslims believe that people who criticize muslims should be punished. At least not moderate muslims in the West; at least not the ones I know.

What you are describing, it seems to me, doesn't have to do with the religious beliefs of moderate Muslims. It has to do with relatively illegitimate governments in the Arab world that have turned to Islam for legitimacy, and how they handle their weakness. If the Egyptian government were legitimately elected and accepted by the Egyptian people, it wouldn't have these issues. But it isn't, and Islam has a lot more legitimacy there than the government does.

You say, "if extremist thoughts weren't tolerated by any muslim communities," but I'm not sure what that means. Anyone can start a mosque, and a wingnut with a beard can find disaffected young men and become their religious leader. This happens because other muslim communities aren't interested in that kind of extremism. Was Tim McVeigh tolerated by his white, Christian communities? Did they even know what he was thinking?

Like RT, I see these attacks much more as expressions of troubled individuals who express their anger in Islamist terms, rather than indications of some sort of more widespread pathology in those with Muslim beliefs.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

By the way, if you go back into Boston's terrorist past, to include things like the weatherman incidents, for example, the common thread in all of them is some connection to area colleges or universities, not religion. Maybe some of the onus here falls on places like Brandeis or Harvard, that have spawned terrorists like the weathermen and unabomber.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Cambridge Rindge & Latin? UMass-Dartmouth?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Well, if we're identifying communities they're a part of, yes.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

If I had any money to gamble, I'd bet big I could find at least 10 examples of terrorist acts by white Christian terrorists, even if I limit myself to just one Klan lynching.

Deeper.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

now we are going in circles. a majority white christian country empowered the FBI to try to stop the Klan. so now it's your turn.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

"Terrorism" is what we call violence aimed at political ends by non-state actors. Western governments use violence all the time, but it's not "terrorism." Are you looking for a historical explanation of why it is that Christians exercise political power in Western governments?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Egypt: majority Islamic country whose government has outlawed political Islamic organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and is engaged in widespread crackdowns on them.

Russia: majority Christian country whose government is sponsoring terrorists in the Ukraine. Downed a plane recently, you might have heard about that.

What are we trying to show here, anyways? That both Christians and Muslims engage in terrorism, and that governments of both countries will repress terrorist organizations? Really? You need that demonstrated?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I have no idea what you are trying to say, so I'll just not respond. This is now the same discussion we had the last time there was some horrible Islamic terrorist attack. What has been missing from all the blogs you posted and all the posts you/RT/Wonk/GGG have posted is a complete lack of what to do- lots of what we shouldn't do, and what we can't expect to happen from moderate Muslims, but nothing as an alternative. Maybe if one of tried to answer that at least we won't be snapping at our tails.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Frankly, I think I'm done with this conversation. Your tendency to overlook the central theme behind my argument in favor of an approach that completely compartmentalizes a section of a conversation into something so narrow that you can say, "I don't think that that's right," makes it so that I don't really want to bother.

I've given you an example of something I thought was pretty similar. Instead of talking about it, you decided to seize on one part of one post in our discussion to try to focus your argument on how that single example (Egypt) couldn't relate to anything else. Whatever.

If you want to argue that there is no moderate muslim support for the idea that muslims (or anyone else) should be punished for blasphemy and that that support isn't the basis for (i) laws in many places (from Afghanistan to Egypt to Pakistan to Indonesia to wherever) criminalizing it (whether you base your argument on what the "muslims you know" think or not) and (ii) the attitude that it is okay to go out and murder someone who commits it in other places--even if carried out by crazies, then I'm done with the conversation. Pointing out that this idea is common in muslim communities the world over isn't even controversial.

Hell, maybe we just have a different idea of what a moderate muslim is.

I have conceded that there are many problems that have led to extremist thought. I have not once said that you or anyone else is wrong about the many problems that create extremists. I find it highly annoying that you refuse to acknowledge the possibility of something other than your own limited opinion, even when I have posted articles (today and the last time we discussed this) in which actual muslims say the very same things I am saying. I'd post more, but what's the fucking point?

So let's be done with this.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Russians shot the plane down to advance Christianity, or perceived Russian interest?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

This is a very serious issue, I think. For most Westerners, a moderate Muslim is simple a Muslim who (a) is westernized or (b) may not be westernized but is aligned with the West (e.g., the Saudi state). Some people mean (a), some (b), some both (a) or (b). But if I point, for example, to an Islamic woman who wears a veil and is happy to defend the practice, she may not be viewed as moderate regardless of her other beliefs. Likewise, someone who supports any Islamic elements in state law, even if limited to, for example, marital law as applied to Muslims, will be viewed as immoderate, even while someone supporting a Jewish state in the same sense will not be viewed as immoderate.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I think this sums it up right here:

The problem is islam in the same sense that the problem facing Palestinians is the jews, or the problem facing publishers in Texas is the capital "C" christians
who sit in their living rooms, read manuscripts and count the number of times someone refers to Charles Darwin.

It all comes down to people who are alienated. They have no way they can see of getting out of an untenable situation. What do we do when we are faced with the untenable? We turn to whatever purports to answer the unanswerable.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I think I've been pretty clear in saying that I'm not sure what can be done. The French seem to have done a good job of identifying the two brothers as potential actors.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I think of a moderate Muslim as a Muslim who isn't an extremist, who may want to live under some kind of religious law, but who doesn't necessarily want to execute people for violations. I also think that moderates of all stripes tend to lean heavily one way or another depending on what is going on, so that when they have friends and family who have been killed by the West and feel like their religion is being attacked, they may end up tolerating those with extremist thoughts based on a shared anger (even though they don't necessarily agree with an extremist approach).

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

You did it again.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

It doesn't sound loopy. It sounds anti-islamic. Largely because it is.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Engage Islam in a two-way dialogue. Don't isolate people who are Muslim or countries who are Muslim. Spend some time listening and reading about Islam, not lecturing Muslim's you've never met.

You're in Detroit. Hang out at some good Halal restaurants and actually talk to people about shit.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Well, Boston, DC sniper, Canada, they all have been handled as crimes by individuals (I suppose it is possible Paris will yet find threads to others, in France or elsewhere). None of those resulted in bombs falling. But you feel we just basically wait for the next thing- the NRA Columbine response plan?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

And again, through ignorance you say something offensive.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

i mean someone who might want to live a very strict religious life, but recognizes and accepts many others of many different stripes do not.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Yeah, because there have been so many, many, many attacks by people who drive black cars in the past few weeks, months, and years.

And because these attacks were so clearly rooted in the teachings at, um, car dealerships about how to respond to, um, blasphemy against drivers of black cars. Y'know, because so many black-car drivers have been heard excusing black-car violence on the ground that, well, um, if a lot of people who drive black cars are poor, or if the bas stuff said about black cars is like, well, really insulting, then even if you don't support the murder done worldwide by black-car drivers you really can't condemn it but must look to broader factors.

How is the weather on the inside of your ass these days?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Apparently, Ty would ask you what cars the Mormons were driving these days.