LawTalkers
Page 87 of 334 « First 37778586 87 888997137187 Last »
Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

LawTalkers (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/index.php)
-   Politics (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=16)
-   -   Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss. (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=875)

ThurgreedMarshall 01-09-2015 05:44 PM
Switching back to MY bone.
 
This article is fantastic.

http://professorshih.blogspot.com/20...is-racist.html

TM

taxwonk 01-09-2015 05:53 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 492881)
You are completely, entirely, absolutely missing my point. And I'm not going to repeat it or distill it for you because it's right there in my posts.

I can't help you if you refuse to acknowledge anything other than the one point you have determined to be valuable, even if I have conceded time and time again that that point is valuable. So, fuck it.

TM
I guess what I'm not sure about is who, exactly is the muslim community? Do you speak for, or can you speak to, the black community?

The obligation of a muslim here or anywhere else is the same as anybody else, to speak out against any sort of indiscriminate killing, anywhere, for what ever reason. And the amount of responsibility islam should bear as a religion is exactly the same as christianity should bear for the murdered doctors at abortion clinics or the rapes at Warren Jeff's compound.

Just answer one question for me and I will back off permanently with you and everyone else and never speak on the issue again. How is what you are arguing assigning blame or at least culpability in some form against someone based purely on a characteristic that is shared by far many more people who do not commit heinous acts than by people who do commit such acts, or different than assigning some sort of particularly onerous share of the anger at someone whose only commonality with the bad actor is purely superficial.

Are you christian in exactly the same way as Atticus? Are you black in the same way as Mrs. Thurgreed? In other words, why should the fact that one person is muslim make them more responsible for the acts of some islamist half the world away than the person living next door to them?

ThurgreedMarshall 01-09-2015 06:00 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 492911)
Then you're not very smart. I wasn't talking about what prompted those people to start shooting at all. I was talking about which "community" gets singled out as having to step up and denounce them. Since it was too subtle for you, let me spin it out some. The brothers were Islamists of Algerian descent who had been foster children and drove a black car. If you're going to decide that their "community" has some special responsibility to stand up and denounce what they did, implicit in that is a judgment about what community they belonged to. My point was that it was just as rational -- which is to say, not at all -- to assume that the west African Muslim dad who watches youth soccer with the FT correspondent I quoted earlier supported the killers because they're both Muslim as it does to assume that another former foster child did because they're both foster children. Or etc. with a black car. Or, in short, I don't think any Muslim should need to rebut a presumption that he or she supported the attacks just because he or she shares some set of religious beliefs or traditions with the attackers. (That doesn't mean I think it doesn't help to have Muslims -- or anyone else -- speak out against the violence, as RT said. That's a different question.)
I hear your point about "community," but I think you're thinking about it way too narrowly.

Let's oversimplify. If there are 100 Muslim communities and 20 of them have determined that insulting the prophet in any form is punishable by something very severe, you have to place the importance of those 20 communities in our now global context. If there is no one who speaks out in favor of tolerance of other viewpoints within that community, the attitude of what some would consider extreme intolerance is ingrained in that community. The more people in that community, the more connections to people in other communities who are looking to where they believe the "truest" form of the religion resides. Here's where you'll say that any one individual who would kill someone over perceived blasphemy is off his rocker and will find some way to justify his insane notiongs wherever it's easiest to find. And that's where we differ. I'm not really talking about that specific guy. I'm talking about the creation of an atmosphere in which the "Death to blasphemers!" is not too far from the baseline harsh punishment to blasphemers.

I think if you have whole communities who believe that blasphemy should be punished harshly as a baseline, you increase the probability of people (inside and outside of that community) taking it a step further and going out and killing people for that transgression. If the belief in those communities or, rather, the leaders and moderates in those communities preached tolerance for those who disagreed and who insisted that violence is the wrong answer, there would be fewer people who would take action when they perceived an act of blasphemy.

TM

Hank Chinaski 01-09-2015 06:00 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sidd Finch (Post 492900)

If I thought that you really meant what you are saying, I'd think you're not very smart. Instead, I thing you're not very honest.
smh. it's amazing how quick the rest of you guys get to where I end up when you argue with him.

taxwonk 01-09-2015 06:01 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 492892)
I wonder if the point of all your posts is that that condemnation is a useless exercise that should never be taken or asked for.

TM
The point of all my posts is that bundling people by things like religion, gender, race, economic status, etc. is bad. Yes, moderate muslims are responsible for thinking of and promoting the cause of peace and tolerance. So am I.

I have read that such classifications are seldom borne out by history as a good idea. I think that applies here as well.

Hank Chinaski 01-09-2015 06:03 PM
Re: So, New Yorkers
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sidd Finch (Post 492887)
Apparently you missed this sentence in my post:

"(This is without getting into things that go well beyond that focus -- like stop-and-frisk, or like the racist way in which policies that are not inherently were implemented)."


I was talking about what was the core of the "broken windows" approach -- aggressive enforcement of laws against low-level, non-violent crimes. Stop-and-frisk really has nothing to do with that -- those who claim it does are either (1) lying as a way to justify using stop-and-frisk or (2) have been misled, by the people who fit into (1).
I was jumping off. I didn't miss anything you said. It's why i only quoted 3 words.

Replaced_Texan 01-09-2015 06:05 PM
Re: Switching back to MY bone.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 492915)
That was a really great way of putting it into perspective. BTW, this is my rule of thumb for approaching discussions about racism. It's dated from 2008, but it still applies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc

taxwonk 01-09-2015 06:08 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 492895)
Query whether alienated people in the West used to turn to Communism, which diverted them from mass murder into other ways of subverting the dominant paradigm. With the collapse of Communism, Radical Islam has filled the void (filling the voids of the alienated), but in a more deadly way.
At one point, yes, but long before that, alienated people in Hungary and the Balkans turned to their Roman overlords and decided that the ancient ones would protect them if they rose to throw off their overlords, jewish and roman merchants conspired to scapegoat a rabble-rouser, the catholic church decided that the jews the arabs had welcomed in Spain were not so welcome anymore.

Communism was popular as a lighting rod in the past. So was christianity, judiasm, and islam. That quote fro the NYT piece said it all for me. Whatever fork they have, that's the tool they will call on.

Hank Chinaski 01-09-2015 06:09 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 492906)

Dude, sometimes you are fairly full of shit.

TM
:cool::cool:

taxwonk 01-09-2015 06:13 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 492903)
I'm reluctant to respond to this, mostly because now I owe wonk a nickel. I take and agree with the implicit point that some people are inclined to find this duty to denounce only on the part of people they don't sympathize with. And the political angle of violence can be played up or down depending on your politics, e.g., the way that FOX News doesn't work to cover stories where disaffected white men in red states try to blow up courthouses or the NAACP.

That said, I find the notion abhorrent that you have a responsibility to denounce someone with whom other people might think you sympathize. It sounds like something from a tinpot Communist or totalitarian regime. If you have said things in the past that would reasonably lead people to believe that you actually support something you don't, I can see why you would want to correct the record, but the idea that you are someone presumptively suspect until you make a public denunciation of someone else -- ick.

I would say that it's not consistent with the sort of freedom of speech and belief that our country is founded on, except that there was an awful lot of this sort of thing in Massachusetts in the 1600s.

So thank you for clarifying where we disagree, and I mean that sincerely. I do think that Helen Chenoweth and others were responsible for creating an environment in which militias found more support than they would have otherwise. I do not believe she ever advocated mass murder or blowing up federal buildings, and I don't think she had any responsibility to denounce McVeigh. I assume that she found his actions just as wrong as the rest of us did.
I'll expect my nickel.

Sidd Finch 01-09-2015 06:16 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 492911)
Then you're not very smart. I wasn't talking about what prompted those people to start shooting at all. I was talking about which "community" gets singled out as having to step up and denounce them. Since it was too subtle for you, let me spin it out some. The brothers were Islamists of Algerian descent who had been foster children and drove a black car. If you're going to decide that their "community" has some special responsibility to stand up and denounce what they did, implicit in that is a judgment about what community they belonged to. My point was that it was just as rational -- which is to say, not at all -- to assume that the west African Muslim dad who watches youth soccer with the FT correspondent I quoted earlier supported the killers because they're both Muslim as it does to assume that another former foster child did because they're both foster children. Or etc. with a black car.
This is a legitimate approach if you ignore that the entire purpose behind the attack was to address an affront to Islam, and that many Muslims are taught that affronts to Islam are terrible crimes.


Quote:
Or, in short, I don't think any Muslim should need to rebut a presumption that he or she supported the attacks just because he or she shares some set of religious beliefs or traditions with the attackers. (That doesn't mean I think it doesn't help to have Muslims -- or anyone else -- speak out against the violence, as RT said. That's a different question.)
I have not said that any Muslim needs to rebut a presumption. I believe that it does help to have Muslims -- MORE than anyone else -- speak out against this violence, and to look at how things that they can influence contribute to it. Just like I believe that having white Americans speak out against racism in the US is more important than having just "anyone else", like Buddhists in Japan, speak out about it.

Not only do I think that it does help, I think that it is very important to provide that help for the benefit of Muslims, as well as of non-Muslims. Because of that, I say that Muslims "should" speak out more, and I posit that as a "responsibility." If you took that as meaning a "legal obligation" (hence your comments about free speech), then that was incorrect.



I will leave the personal diatribe out, I'm a little tired of the name-calling.

Sidd Finch 01-09-2015 06:18 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 492917)
I hear your point about "community," but I think you're thinking about it way too narrowly.

Let's oversimplify. If there are 100 Muslim communities and 20 of them have determined that insulting the prophet in any form is punishable by something very severe, you have to place the importance of those 20 communities in our now global context. If there is no one who speaks out in favor of tolerance of other viewpoints within that community, the attitude of what some would consider extreme intolerance is ingrained in that community. The more people in that community, the more connections to people in other communities who are looking to where they believe the "truest" form of the religion resides. Here's where you'll say that any one individual who would kill someone over perceived blasphemy is off his rocker and will find some way to justify his insane notiongs wherever it's easiest to find. And that's where we differ. I'm not really talking about that specific guy. I'm talking about the creation of an atmosphere in which the "Death to blasphemers!" is not too far from the baseline harsh punishment to blasphemers.

I think if you have whole communities who believe that blasphemy should be punished harshly as a baseline, you increase the probability of people (inside and outside of that community) taking it a step further and going out and killing people for that transgression. If the belief in those communities or, rather, the leaders and moderates in those communities preached tolerance for those who disagreed and who insisted that violence is the wrong answer, there would be fewer people who would take action when they perceived an act of blasphemy.

TM

Yes, yes, yes.

Tyrone Slothrop 01-09-2015 06:20 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 492917)
I hear your point about "community," but I think you're thinking about it way too narrowly.

Let's oversimplify. If there are 100 Muslim communities and 20 of them have determined that insulting the prophet in any form is punishable by something very severe, you have to place the importance of those 20 communities in our now global context. If there is no one who speaks out in favor of tolerance of other viewpoints within that community, the attitude of what some would consider extreme intolerance is ingrained in that community. The more people in that community, the more connections to people in other communities who are looking to where they believe the "truest" form of the religion resides. Here's where you'll say that any one individual who would kill someone over perceived blasphemy is off his rocker and will find some way to justify his insane notiongs wherever it's easiest to find. And that's where we differ. I'm not really talking about that specific guy. I'm talking about the creation of an atmosphere in which the "Death to blasphemers!" is not too far from the baseline harsh punishment to blasphemers.

I think if you have whole communities who believe that blasphemy should be punished harshly as a baseline, you increase the probability of people (inside and outside of that community) taking it a step further and going out and killing people for that transgression. If the belief in those communities or, rather, the leaders and moderates in those communities preached tolerance for those who disagreed and who insisted that violence is the wrong answer, there would be fewer people who would take action when they perceived an act of blasphemy.

TM
At this level, I don't think I disagree with any of this.

Tyrone Slothrop 01-09-2015 06:21 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 492918)
smh. it's amazing how quick the rest of you guys get to where I end up when you argue with him.
You can get bent too, then. I have a very low tolerance for accusations of dishonesty from people whom I have treated with respect. It's not something I would say lightly, but I guess it means less to some of you.

ThurgreedMarshall 01-09-2015 06:23 PM
Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 492916)
I guess what I'm not sure about is who, exactly is the muslim community? Do you speak for, or can you speak to, the black community?
Yes and yes. I often talk to people in the black community about issues that relate to us. And yeah, I am most assuredly considered a moderate in their eyes (although few here would describe me as a moderate, I'm sure). I've had conversations about ridiculous ideas about jewish people. I've had conversations about how to interact with the police. I've had conversations about all sorts of shit relating to tolerance that I believe should be exhibited.

I'm not calling myself a leader, but there are issues that relate to us that definitely have to do with us and how many of us act and what we believe (and that includes topics relevant to black NYC communities and the broader black American community). Hell, it even includes issues that are perceived by white people to be black issues that we really shouldn't be addressing. But because of the reality of where we sit in this country and the fact that ignoring those issues could result in personal fucking danger, they must be addressed.

For others, like homophobia that seems to be so prevalent in black communities, I feel like it is absolutely something that should be addressed whenever I see it. And if I ignored it or enflamed it, I would feel responsible when someone did something stupid because I haven't done my part to do away with an atmosphere where that was even close to acceptable. Here's where we differ. I wouldn't feel directly responsible for any one asshole's actions, but if I let it go, I wouldn't have done what I could. And black people are more likely to listen to me than to you, so I accept it as my responsibility.

Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 492916)
The obligation of a muslim here or anywhere else is the same as anybody else, to speak out against any sort of indiscriminate killing, anywhere, for what ever reason. And the amount of responsibility islam should bear as a religion is exactly the same as christianity should bear for the murdered doctors at abortion clinics or the rapes at Warren Jeff's compound.
Well, I would argue that if there were 100s of instances of doctors being murdered based on the Christian belief that abortion doctors should be punished harshly, then Christian leaders and Christian moderates should absolutely speak out about it when someone takes it a step too far. Again, it's not the only solution.

Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 492916)
Just answer one question for me and I will back off permanently with you and everyone else and never speak on the issue again. How is what you are arguing assigning blame or at least culpability in some form against someone based purely on a characteristic that is shared by far many more people who do not commit heinous acts than by people who do commit such acts, or different than assigning some sort of particularly onerous share of the anger at someone whose only commonality with the bad actor is purely superficial.
I don't think that's true. I keep using the same example. If it is widely believed by Muslims that blasphemy should be punished severely, and people go out and punish people who blaspheme with death, shouldn't I, as a Muslim try my best in my community to keep that from happening?

Quote:
Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 492916)
Are you christian in exactly the same way as Atticus? Are you black in the same way as Mrs. Thurgreed? In other words, why should the fact that one person is muslim make them more responsible for the acts of some islamist half the world away than the person living next door to them?
Because that's what community is. I won't go so far as to say you're responsible for an act committed on the other side of the world, but you are responsible for shaping and influencing those in your community to do the right thing. And if more people thought that way, there would be fewer people finding justification to commit violence.

TM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:11 PM.
Page 87 of 334 « First 37778586 87 888997137187 Last »
Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page

Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
Hosted By: URLJet.com