151. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239856 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 1:02 pm

Again
A birth rate like this if it continues during 5 generations eg 85 years then it would cause a decline of 45% of the population.

Nairb, could you fill this out for me? You may remember that I was glad when you provided me with the raw data, but I did ask about local variations. Now, if 2.1 is the replacement rate, 1.1 is almost half that, then why doesn't the population halve each generation?

152. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239847 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Bonzai, again, I don't disagree. The raw power for any revolutionary force is always young men - because they are the ones who are most likely to fight.

This is where the parallel with the Nazis is so crucial. If you look at Germany, it started with maraudering gangs of youths, who later formed the basis of the Sturmabteilung, who were then replaced by the ultra-fanatical SS.

So, it's easy to look at the tatooed gangs in France chanting 'Allahu Ackbar' and think that they're islamic identity is just residual, yet history teaches us how that curve goes.

Also, the intellectual munition-makers can be of any age. If you were a young, Shariah-supremacist gangster when you were 20, it isn't a jump to think you might be a jihadi Imam at 40. And even if you're not, what are the chances that you'll stand up against the Jihad?

That is why I say that the genius of evil has always been to get good men to do nothing.

153. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239835 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 12:18 pm

He is arguing for a moral system which is not the same as yours and your responses are little more than an accusation that if someone doesn't embrace your absolute objective morality then they have no morals at all.

J Mac, I'm sorry, but I don't see it that way. When you say that there are no moral absolutes you aren't arguing for a different moral system, you are arguing that no moral system is valid.

I have no problems arguing about different versions of morality. It's healthy, the same way that arguing about different scientific theories is healthy. But when you say there are no moral absolutes, you're denying the very possibility of an argument. Either killing is always right, always wrong, or right and wrong depending on circumstances. Either one of those is an absolute. Refining that, either it is moral to take an innocent life - or its not. That's another absolute, either way.

Here's a parallel: there were a number of different theories of evolution - Darwinian, Lamarckian and whatnot. Now there's still an argument between the punctuationists and the gradualists. That's great. But noone thinks that because some questions are undecided, that there isn't any evolution, or even no scientific truth. That would be insane. I approach moral questions the same way. Abortion is a good example. Let's say you think that second trimester abortions are acceptable and I don't. Great, let's have that argument. But neither of us would say that all views are equal, that there's no possibility of finding a definite answer. That would be just plain nuts.

154. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239831 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 12:07 pm

I didn't say that. That is a distortion of Robertsonian proportions.

Okay, I'll bite: Who the heck is this 'Robertson' to whom you keep referring?

I didn't say that. That is a distortion of Robertsonian proportions. I too would be concerned about the effects of a 20%, 30% or 40% Muslim fundamentalist Britain. My point was that, that is so unlikely (and you haven't given any evidence for it happening, nor have you adequately defended your proposed draconian measures to stop it happening) that sitting about worrying about it happening was as sensible and rational as sitting about worrying in case Italy becomes 20%, 30% or 40% Chinese.

Okay, sorry, I misread that. My apologies. Here's my line of reasoning:

1) Muslim populations in the West have skyrocketed thanks to large scale immigration and also demographic shifts (that's pretty uncontroversial).

2) Native Western populations are declining. The exact amount can be debated, but it seems pretty dire in some cases. Spain's birth rate is 1.1 per couple, which means that the population will halve every generation.

3) There is no attenuation of Muslim fanaticism as the generations pass. In fact, second and third generation Muslims are more fanatical than the first-generation. (This is really uncontroversial). This is fed by the expanding numbers, as it makes self-ghettozation easier, and that helps maintain what you could call Islamic ideological purity.

4) I also suggest that there will be no end to the Muslim immigration of its own accord as long as Western nations are less of a basketcase than muslim nations.

Ergo, and this was my point about stopping Muslim immigration, unless immigration is stopped, we face serious trouble down the road. Really serious trouble.

155. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239818 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 11:26 am

Take south Africa, for example, There is real vested interest in keeping the wealth and privilege in the hands of a small number of whites instead of spreading it about to a much bigger population. So then of course you have all the racist bullshit which crops up to justify the status quote, which one side happens to have very good, rational reason to buy into it

Oh, of course Bonzai. There's no such thing as an honest revolt against reason. It's always to cover up a motive that reason won't let you get away with.

But therein lies the deadly trap. The point of such deception is to decieve the self - and that deception needs to go on and on. This is why you get these waves of fear and hysteria about minor points of theological doctrine - the terror is that they'd be forced to confront the truth they try to hide from themselves.

156. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239812 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 11:20 am

hawt4dawk, I'm really sorry, I wasn't trying to be condescending about anything. It's just my impression from what I've seen that neoconservatives are more concerned about geopolitics, while it is the paleocons who root themselves in a worship of tradition and faith - and then argue that it is Western decadence that inflames Islamic fury (again, Dinesh D'Souza is the example that springs to mind).

Yet you yourself are only attacking liberals who are concerned with civil liberties and portraying them as being weak (comparing them even to the passivity that allowed to Nazi atrocity). You don't attack the neocons

With respect, that's not true. It's only true that my ire has been focused on the weaknesses of what you might call 'modern liberalism' (as opposed to classic liberalism) here, because that is what is principally discussed here. You haven't seen the blistering exchanges I've had with neo- and paleocons elsewhere - rows even nastier than the ones here. I've been fiercely critical of the Wilsonian project in Iraq, just as one example. And I think that the standard paleocon appeal to Christian fundamentalism and uniracialism is the worst sort of quakery at best (I've been booted out of a few sites for making that argument).

Several of your interlocutors have told you several times they agree with you about the threat, with many of your other ideas, and disagree with you particularly ON THE ONE POINT. If you are truly concerned with this threat, why not strengthen and refine those ideas for time?

Again, with respect, I try to. When this row first started, I said: "Okay, setting this point aside for a minute, what about my other propositions?" Noone would agreed. Again, in a recent thread, thewhitepearl were kicking around a whole number of ideas, before the thread was derailed by the same thing. If you look at the start of this thread, you'll see that I specifically tried to avoid another blow-by-blow account of this tired argument, but again, Steve, and then others, were having none of it.

I would be less iritated if some of those engaged in lacerating me would come up with some constructive suggestions of their own. But I don't see them doing that.

I know my tone is very harsh by the standards of these boards, but I have seen no less than three countries I've lived in go completely to the dogs. I remember very well how inconceivable it seemed that catastrophe could strike - right up to the point that it did. I am terrified of seeing that happen again. So can you understand my reaction when I am told that being worried about the consequence if our societies become 20%, 30%, 40% Muslim, is no better than worrying about Chinese immigration.

157. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239762 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 10:09 am

I said you need to demonstrate that these are objective and absolute. Not in any way did I say there was no moral difference. And I made that absolutely clear.

Oh? You did? So there's a moral difference is there? Then how can you find that moral difference - without moral absolutes? How can you spend all your time arguing against moral absolutes , and then suddenly invoke them? Well? How is that possible?

This is why I call moral relativists like you the welfare queens of morality. You preach one doctrine, but you live by the works of another.

158. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239752 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 9:54 am

Bonzai, could you explain what it is you mean by 'metaphysical' in this case? (I know the formal definition; I was wondering whether you were using that one).

He is a philosopher afterall. :)

Then I weep to see what philosophers have become.

159. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239747 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 9:46 am

And there it is. What I expected, but didn't hope for:

You first have to prove why suffering and death are obejctively, absolutely bad and that which is beneficial to human life absolutely, objectively good.

An open admission that, from MPhil's moral perspective, there is no difference between suffering and happiness, no difference between the academy and the concentration camp, no difference between freedom and slavery, no difference between life and death. It has always been my conviction that people who simper stuff like this should discover the difference on their own hide - as they may yet.

The entire basis of a rational code of morality, proper to human life is one single choice: to live. If you choose to live, then Life is the good, then happiness is the good, then freedom is the good, then ability is the good, and that which destroys, corrupts and annihilates those are the Evil. If you choose not to live, well, remember: Mr. Razor goes down the road, not across the street. Might as well do something right for once in your life.

---------------

Bonzai, exactly right. I choose to live and my entire moral philosophy is based on that point. I am unashamedly proud of that choice. Those who don't choose to live, but are too afraid to die - they are the ones who have always been responsible for every horror in human history.

160. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239733 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 9:13 am

Ayup, Bonzai, I'm not a Platonist. Of course it's going to be hard to define the courses of action in this or that case - that's why we talk of moral problems and dilemmas - but that isn't the same thing as saying there's nothing to be discussed. Which is what the welfare queens do.

In that rather hefty extract I posted earlier, I made the following comparison:

There's a broader point here though, and this is where there is some truth to discussions of how things have changed. An absolute standard of morality - that is, the modes of action and thought that are best suited towards human life - has always existed, but only in the same way that the way to build an aeroplane has always existed. It is foolish and ridiculous to expect, say, ancient Babylonia to have uncovered the moral truths we have in the same way that it would be nuts to expect them to have planes.

161. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239726 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 8:59 am

I would like to hear what you two have to say about this. Is it an all or nothing situation, that there is either absolute morality, or complete relativism?

I'm afraid so, Bonzai. Either there is an absolute morality, or there isn't. What is sometimes confusing are those states where we simply don't have enough data to be able to properly judge. But that doesn't imply the nonexistence of morality.

Here's a good parallel. We don't know whether or not there is primitive life in the oceans of Europa. But noone throws their hands up and says that the whole science of Biology and Astronomy needs to be abandoned because of it.

162. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239714 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 8:36 am

Just reposting my comments from the other thread, to spare you the trouble of having to click:

Okay, what exactly is a moral code? It's a series of dos and don'ts. That is, it's a code of action. Action - to what purpose? Well, the religious would say, action to the purpose of fulfilling God's will (though He, presumably, could fulfill it whenever he wished).

Now, sans God, can we define a moral code that has a rational standard, that is, purpose? Well, yes. When we take a look at that hideous gallery of events we call 'evil', what is their common factor? A hatred, a destruction of life: misery, murdered, destruction, degradation. And when we look at the spread of those actions we call 'good', what do we see? Life-afirming action: happiness, success, exaltation.

Okay, so the Evil is anti-life and the Good is pro-life. Now, can we define a concept of virtue that is pro-life? That first requires asking the question: what do we mean by 'virtue'? Well, a type or mode of action. And since human action proceeds from the mind, we can define those ideas that motivate an action as either good or evil. Are there those virtues that are universally pro-life?

The answer, clearely, is yes. Take Justice, for example, which may be briefly defined as recognising people for what they are and ascribing honour to their virtues and condemnation to their vice. This is absolutely essential to human existence; I defy you to think of a truly unjust person who isn't a miserable wretch.

That's one example in the realm of personal ethics. Switching to politics - social ethics - we can use a similar line of investigation. Are there thoe political systems that alow human life and happiness to flourish? Again, clearely yes. Liberal democracy and capitalism are far, far superior in this regard compared with the Shariah

....

In morality, like in any science, you induce abstract rules from concrete observation, and then verify those rules by further observation. Returning to Justice for example, there is a corollary: any default on Justice invariably leads to evil. If you sacrifice Justice to mercy, it is the innocent who suffer.

A point that I have been - as usual - howled down for is arguing that Jihadists should be tried for treason and put to death if convicted. The alternative is what we have now: a situation where, in the prisons, they can now recruit a small army of Jihadis some of whom will - this is certain - take up Jihad and take the lives on innocents. Thus mercy towards the guilty is going to get innocents killed.

Abortion - to take your example J Mac - is considered a classic 'grey area', for the simple reason that the evidence isn't in. The moral principle is clear: you may not sacrifice an innocent human life to another, but what isn't in is at what stage the foetus qualifies as a human being. There are some very interesting - and worrying - advances in neuroscience about this. However, there are a few things we can already say: first of all, what is euphemistically called 'late term abortion', or 'partial birth abortion', is, in fact, infanticide. And the reason I say this is that in ~25% of the cases, the infant is capable of life outside the womb when it is 'aborted', yet it is still left to die.

The first trimester, however, is all that can be rationally discussed.

There's a broader point here though, and this is where there is some truth to discussions of how things have changed. An absolute standard of morality - that is, the modes of action and thought that are best suited towards human life - has always existed, but only in the same way that the way to build an aeroplane has always existed. It is foolish and ridiculous to expect, say, ancient Babylonia to have uncovered the moral truths we have in the same way that it would be nuts to expect them to have planes.

Human moral development has been slow, but it is there. From Greece and Rome, to those important parts of Christianity, to the Enlightenment, the abolition of slavery, the fight against racism, etc. etc.

....

What I think we have here is a confusion of terms. In my original post I was showing how you derive an abstract (Evil) from a series of concretes, in terms of human behaviour, in the same way that you derive an abstract (Gravity) from a series of observed concretes (things falling down, the planets moving in elipses etc.).

When I refer to an idea as Evil, what I mean is that, if put into practice, it will cause unbelievable human suffering (hence it is anti-life; we feel pain when we're damaged in some way, it's our biological warning system). So, when I refer to Islam as evil, I am saying that it provably and demonstrably will lead to massive suffering and death. And when I refer to an individuals behaviour or ideas as evil, I mean the same thing, only scaled down to the individual level.

That's what I mean by being able to approach this question scientifically. We can look at the great horrors in our history and look for common denominators. Actually, that is what was being done on this thread when it was said that moral absolutes always cause - hah - evil. Now I disagree with the conclusion, but I applaud the method.

It used to be thought that electricity and magnetism were two completely separate phenomena. Now we know that they're connected. Same way that, contra the religious posturings, their are essential similarities between Communism and various types of theocracy. They all have the same root.

...

*nods* You're absolutely right. But what they [slave owners] thought is irrellevant; they, demonstrably and provably, caused huge amounts of human suffering. Period.

That's why I talked about moral advance in the same way that science advances. Gravity has always existed, but it took a long time for some very intelligent humans to figure it out.

There's a more interesting and related point. We don't just understand that slavery is evil, we feel it viscerally. Why? Well, the answer is that we've been brought up that way. In an earlier thread I referred to the civilizing process that has to start when you're a child to it to be successfull. Our memetic legacy, in a very real way, codes how we react to alot of things.

Of course - and here you are right - all over the world, not to mention throughout history, human beings have operated according to very different memetic legacies. One of the truly magnificent things about the one we have now is that, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, it allows us to compare and contrast these ones and ask the question: Which of these provably and demonstrably leads to more human happiness, both individual and social? What values should we pursue, and what should we honour, and what should we pass on to our children?

Ther'es more on the thread. Read. You may learn something.

163. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239712 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 8:31 am

Hey, MPhil, answer the question. Why do you even care what the response is, if all values are relative?

Anyway, I have addressed all those points elsewhere. You can find a very long response to all of those points on the following thread:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2992,Religion-out-of-medicine-a-new-message-for-Ontario-doctors,National-Post,page4#comments

Still, why do you object - to anything really? No absolutes, after all. On what basis can you complain?

164. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239704 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 8:15 am

Also, of course, the Nazis, the Islamists, the Christian fundamentalists etc do depend ideologically on notions of absolute morality.

Sure - but what do you care, MPhil? Some believe this, others that... who cares? It's all relative, isn't it? By what right to you talk as though they're wrong? Well?

As I said: the welfare queens of philosopy.

165. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239698 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 8:07 am

MPhil, you have demonstrated nothing. You have claimed that it was embracing moral absolutism that caused the Holocaust. Not only is that false, but from your stance, even if it were true, that wouldn't be an objection. If there's no objective values, on what grounds do you object to the Holocaust? Some people say it was bad, some people say it's good - all relative, all equal, by your lights.

Moral relativists are the wellfare queens of philosophy. They preach one doctrine, but live off those who practice another. They cash in on the work of those who understand that morality is an absolute not to be cheated, while indulging their mental and moral laziness.

Steve, when I say 'individual responsibility' I mean that we prosecute the person who has committed that crime. That's not a universal. In Pakistan, if a member of one tribe offends another, the repayment can be that an uninvolved person of the second tribe faces the punishment. Such as being gang-raped. In the Caliphate, if a jew who was under the dhimmitude of one gang was killed by a Muslim of another gang, they'd respond by killing a jew of the first gang. That's what I was talking about.

And my point was that peace was arguing that democratic government is the be-all and end-all of rules. Well, if so, then what's the problem if enough people agree with me? I'm pointing out the screaming contradiction.

You can't pass laws against those who want to replace our way of life with a different one. You could wake up one day and find that the definition of "way of life" has been changed, and if you want to change that, you get kicked out

With respect, that's just theory. In Germany, as I said, neo-nazism and fascism are illegal. It hasn't caused a total degeneration. And I really am tired of repeating that.

If this policy was enacted alongside increased immigration from those fleeing the persecutions of Islam, as well as a broad, international alliance against the Jihad, I think we'd be safe enough.

-------------------------------

Bonzai, there is a difference between saying that Physics is a man's discipline, and saying that a woman shouldn't drive, shouldn't go out, should be totally subserviant to the man etc. etc. When I talk of equality I mean moral and legal equality.

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Comment #239672 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 7:08 am

Peace you go from saying that you don't need 'another's values' to saying that your values are those of your country. Would you please explain that one? And then you go from asking 'who decides' to saying it's all in the hands of the democratically elected government. Fine. So if we take a democratic decision to say that those who want to replace our way of life with Shariah should leave, no problem, yes?

The values I am referring to are the adherence to individual liberty and responsibility, equality of the sexes and so on that have taken a very long time to achieve.

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Comment #239656 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 6:26 am

Steve, mind if I take this in reverse order?

What we have to do is fight ideas with ideas. We have to convincingly win the battle for reason. Your extreme solutions don't even allow for the fight - all they actually say is "shut up and go away".

This is the reason why I keep harping on the fact that the exile of loudmouthed, firebreathing Imams is just one of a large number of policies I've advocated. One of those was to launch an intensive program of cultural imperialism against Islam. On it's own, simply getting rid of those Imams wouldn't be nearely enough; but it would give us more time, and a greater position of strength. It would give us a way of diffusion the homegrown problems we already have.

Now, my point about exile, was that we should simply declare that citizenship carries a price with it, and that price is subscribing to the values and morals of the nation in question. Those that don't agree with them, should leave. Period.

For one thing, exiling of citizens is a form of martyrdom.

I'm aware of that. That was the problem with the Weimar laws on free speech. But there is a crucial difference between the rise of the Nazis and the Islamic troubles we are having in the West. The Nazis were homegrown - they tapped into widespread pathologies in Germany at the time. Islam is an alien creed - its Imams will, no doubt, even in exile manage to reach the Muslims here, but how will their message fare amongst the Infidel population? Even amongst the Muslims, they can't be more effective than when they preach with impunity right in the centre of our major cities. That is seen as a sign of weakness, and that is not an impression we should give.

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Comment #239642 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 5:42 am

Bonzai, thank you. I appreciate that. It's nice to have someone decent to speak with. What I find so insufferable is not the language used, but the endless inability to confront points I made - they're just skipped over, time and time and time again. I've listed some. Another point I made a while back was that an increase in Muslim population brings with it an increase in both homophobic violence and gang rape (yes, I have the statistics on that), and the source of that is these fire-breathing imams. Not a word about that has been even addressed. It is so intensely wearying.

Borovoi was talking about the HRC commissars and the lawsuit against Mark Stey and Ezra Levant. I wasn't citing him as someone who completely agreed with me. I was pointing out that it's insane to think, as Steve does that the current hate speech laws are fine and sufficient and will keep the Islamic tide at bay for all time.

Viz a vis executions, that depends on whether or not you are a supporter of the death penalty. I am, for a number of reasons (whole other debate). But if you are, I fail to see any case that would more clerely merit it than being complicit in a conspiracy to commit mass murder of innocents.

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Comment #239624 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 4:15 am

Lazarus I give you my word that if in twenty years time the kind of 'compromises' being kicked around here are even vaguely viable, I'll hapilly sign any apology you care to dictate, post it wherever you want. The reason behind my excessively gloomy outlook is that I am convinced that in twenty years time, the kind of proposals that I am making now will be considered wishy-washy, half-hearted, and nowhere near harsh enough.

EDIT: since so many seem to be tired of the Holocaust, or consider it irrelevant, I'll use another example: South Africa. Now during the Apartheid years, the british population could have snapped the snipe of the government like a dry twig whenever they wanted to (they had a huge popopulation, major control of industry, and twenty million blacks and asians who would have backed them up). They didn't, for the same reason that motivates MPHil. Then again, when Apartheid at last fell, there were those who said that the only path to improvement for the people was hard work, and that to expect the government to just provide handouts was insane. They also cautioned against the collapse of the law and order system, and spoke out about Mugabe. Once again, the same clamour of voices howled them down. You can see the results.

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Comment #239619 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 4:01 am

As Steve Z and others have wrote, there are existing laws (laws that were not in existence at the time of Nazism) that can be used. The problem is that they are not being used as much as is required. To mobilize the application of these existing laws is the way to go and not creating laws that target one group.

Au contraire, Logicel. Alan Borovoy writes:

"Remarkably, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the Canadian anti-hate law. Moreover, those laws were enforced with some vigour. During the 15 years before Hitler came to power, there were more than 200 prosecutions based on anti-Semitic speech. And, in the opinion of the leading Jewish organization of that era, no more than 10 per cent of the cases were mishandled by the authorities. As subsequent history so painfully testifies, this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it."

In 1925, the state of Bavaria issued an order banning Adolf Hitler from making any public speeches. Fat lot of good those laws did. And history does repeat itself, and it repeats itself because human nature doesn't change that much. This is why we can read Thucydides and learn about our present time.

The reason I sound 'like a broken record' is that very few try to take me up on my points. I point out that fifty years before the fact the Holocaust was forseen. No answer. I point out how it is that the kind of endless compromising approach and disdain for the idea of good and evil as espoused by MPhil allowed the Nazis free reign. No answer. I pointed out, innumerable times, why harsh measures in a time of war don't necessarily cause total moral collapse. No answer. I drew the parallel with Locke's views on Protestants vs. Catholics. No answer. I pointed out that there are always those willing to use fanaticism for evil ends, which necessitates there being those willing to use them for good ends. No answer.

171. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239617 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 3:51 am

Lazarus, I'll make you an offer: list those points that you think I haven't satisfactorily addressed, and I'll respond point by point. Nairb once did that, and I answered piecemeal.

Yes, you were saying that Fanusi's thinking did make such atrocities possible. I see the distinction,

With respect, that's a distinction without a difference. I am my thinking, nothing else. I could very easily just rephrase my point that its MPhil's thinking that let the Nazis rise. I'm not sure why you say I didn't explain that thoroughly: fifty years before the fact, there were those who saw very clearely where that trends were going. They were howled down - in much the same manner as I'm howled down now, as all those who speak about the Jihad tend to find themselves marginalized and ignored.

I'd also like an answer to the following question, Lazarus: why the devil should I apologise?

I'm sure you're right in that Churchill would have done (did do) some nasty shit, but that point would just play in to Fanusi's hands. He'd say that's the point - in a war you have to do some terrible things to defend the wives and children at home. My point is that we are not yet at war

I actually did say that. This is my principle disagreement. We are at war, and it isn't a new war. This is the same Jihad that's been going on for fourteen centuries.

---------------------------------

hawt4dawk, I don't think it's the neoconservatives who blame Islamic Jihad on liberalism, but the paleoconservatives. There's a particularly awful book by Dinish D'Souza called 'The Enemy at Home' that makes that case, which has been thoroughly dismembered by every sensible anti-Jihadist out there. The neocon line is that it's the failed states of the Middle East that produces the Jihad, hence the Wilsonian project in Iraq.

As regards liberalism, I'm not sure what the term refers to. It seems to have a number of different meanings. It's also not true that what the American definition of liberal is, is invariably apologetic toward the Jihad - witness Pim Fortuyn. Anyway, Sam Harris has written well on this phenomenon:

The End of Liberalism
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-end-of-liberalism/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSJAsrp77ok

172. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239612 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 3:27 am

The only record that I can think of as remotely relevant, Steve, is your insufferable inability to confront any post made by me that runs counter to your assertions, and your equally irritating tendency to hide behind floating abstractions. Take the following:

"far-right". Exile has been an accepted punishment with all different types of government, good and evil, throughout history. Even if the term was applicable to me, and it is not, that should just leave you in a worse spot. When the mullahs take over, I can grow my beard out, get a few wives, and keep my head down. You, on the other hand, will have it a bit rougher.

Or haven't you noticed the skyrocketing rates of homophobic violence in places like Holland?

Your fundamentalism is clear. You turn up at discussions with fixed ideas (people should be prosecuted for beliefs, and expulsion of natives is acceptable), and just will not budge, even thought it is repeatedly explained how deeply wrong they are.

Do you really believe that merely saying something makes it so? While you've been whining and bellyaching about one of my proposals, I have listed a rather large number of other proposals, which include extending refugee status to the persecuted religious minorities in the Dar al-Islam (e.g. the Christians of Iraq, the Hindus & Sikhs in Pakistan etc.), ending the slave trade, supporting non-Arab Muslims against the Arab supremacism of Islam etc. etc. You haven't even tried to address those, nor will you now.

you will be countered passionately and vigorously.

Oh, of that I have no doubt. You will continue to be passionatly and vigorously whining against me - as you will equally be a passive doormat to Islam as things get worse.


"Descent into barbarism" - ah, yes, the descent that involves securing Western civilization, helping to end the practice of slavery, offering refuge to persecuted minorities, building an international coalition against the Jihad. Very barbaric.

As I said, the Nazis are exitinct, but those who let them rise are immortal.

173. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239604 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 2:26 am

Oh, I really shouldn't but this is too good to resist:

1. Those who agree with me see the truth. They are wise and intelligent. Those who don't are intellectually flawed.

You mean the way you react to those who insist that those who reject every one of the central values of the West are not citizens?

2. The Reset Button. I coined this term regarding the religious last year. It describes someone who is presented with evidence, but then, later, forgets that this evidence has been presented.

You mean the way you continually skip over any point I make you can't answer? The way I have repeated the point about why the expulsion of certain individuals doesn't mean collapse into facism eleven times now, and you've never once responded?

Fanusi has been presented with evidence that, in France, muslims do moderate their views and fit in with society, but then he claims that France is the first place to be doomed by the Islamic threat.

Which evidence? That low-level intifada seems to argue against it. Please, respond with some evidence for once.

3. Apologetics. I have a belief, I will select evidence to fit that belief, and select more evidence to back that belief if previous evidence is shown to be wrong.

As opposed to you continually - well, I repeat myself.

I do beleive that this is what's called 'projection'. Heal thyself!

174. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239602 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 30, 2008 at 2:17 am

Oh dear, still whining from the usual suspects. MPhil the reason you don't respond is the same reason Steve never will answer my points - because you can't. You know it's true. As I observed, the Nazis may be extinct, but those who allowed them to rise are immortal.

I have learned to trust Al-Rawandi's views, and I respect him, as he responds to evidence and respects evidence. Al is not a fundamentalist.

Oh dear, this has to be a joke. You have consistantly dodged facts, never answer any point that goes against you, and you seek to claim the mantle of reason? 'Tis to laugh.

On to more interesting posters
------------------------------------------

What's are these Fanusi comments about reason not being enough and a "suicide pill"? Does that come from Lee Harris' book [i]The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West.[/i] I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's review of the book on American Enterprise Institute (neocon thinktank) website. They are promoting it, I believe.

hawt4dawk, correct. I disagree with him about the specific limitations, but what I do agree with is that, while reason as a means for investigating and controlling the Universe is unlimited, it is severely limited as a means for understanding and dealing with people. As is amply illustrated by this thread. He made an astute, but very depressing point:

There is something touching about those who routinely invoke natural rights. These things exist, in the way in the way that platonic solids exist, but you can hardly use them to settle differences between friends and family. your enemy could care less.

And that's the point demonstrated by this thread. If the likes of Steve can't even convince me, how the hell will they manage with those born and raised in a madrassah?

A point inadvertantly made by NMC:

Please look past the 'cuddly bulldog' Churchill of 'official' British history and view the real man and his actions.

This is the man who was instrumental in setting up concentration camps in South Africa. The same man who wrote in the Daily Mail:

"If Great Britain was ever defeated in a war, I hope that we should find a Hitler to lead us to our rightful place amongst the nations"

Oh, I knew that, and I don't see why this is some sort of a point against me. The fact is that it was Churchill who ended up recognising what Hitler was and stopping him, while the Chamberlain government got the world into war. Again, how is this a point against me? This is what I have been saying that fanaticism is ethically neutral.

Incidentally, Sciros, this is why Steve uses the term 'fundamentalist' and all the rest of it, while never explaining the whys and wherefores. It's a way of hiding facts away from himself.

Another good example are these comparisons with the BNP. Now, I have said often that if this problem isn't dealt with now by reasonable people, it will be dealt with by much less reasonable people. All over Europe the neo-fascist parties are on the rise because of the utter gutlessness and weakness of the main political parties. In Britain it's gotten to the point where even Hindu and Sikh immigrants sometimes form common cause with the BNP. In America, the return of Christian fundamentalism is explicable in exactly the same manner. How are you going to stop that, I wonder? Though I don't really expect and answer from the usual suspects.

Then Fanusi came up with his list of proposals at 431. Comment #236911 by Fanusi Khiyal on that thread. I sighed and went to work. It became crystal clear that even though he pays lip service to the Constitution and Western values that he was advocating the exact opposite and that his position is set in stone.

Titania, I honestly expected better of you. Could you please define your terms here? And try to back that statement up?

I revise my views when presented with actual evidence, not wild assertions and continual inability to respond to points.

We have no such chance if we use your proposed methods

Would you please back that statement up?
----------------------------------

Rachel Holmes,

Personally, I think that deporting these people would allow them to reach a far larger audience than keeping them incarcerated.

I really don't see how. In places like Pakistan the jihadi Imams are already stacked three deep. What difference will a few more make? Also, simple geographical distance keeps the amount of damage they can do limited.

The more general point though is this: if you want to incarcerate them, you'll need to do so indefinetly, and keep them away from the normal criminal population. Now that's a proposition worth considering; it's just that I consider exile more humane.

I have had one or two discussions with Fanusi. After a while I concluded he wasn't prepared to listen to other points of view where they might mean him having to give up some key feature of his his own position.

Mark Smith in a sense, you're right. I don't give a tinker's damn about 'other points of view' - unless they are supported with facts and evidence and reason. I really don't care about blind assertions, floating abstractions, and wild rhetorical sloppiness. Take the post that got this whole thing started in the first place. Noone has brought an argument against my point that it is exactly the kind of moral cowardice as demonstrated by MPhil's post was what allowed the Nazis the Communists and every major evil in human history to rise. Noone even tried. There was just a long, long whine that I'd been rude to MPhil. Well, so what? Noone whines when people are rude to me, as they routinely are - nor do I expect them to. Certain people just seem to get all hurt that I don't consider their baseless accusations and arrogant demands worth anything.

------------------------------------------

JMac,

That one was really odd. I forget where you are coming from, are you a theist? If so that explains this statement, but if you are an atheist I really can't understand what is meant by the anthropomorphization of 'Evil.'

Theists have the devil to blame... but there is no incarnation of evil for an atheist. Please explain that statement.

Oh, that's simple. You know the term 'emergent phenomenon'? It's what you get in swarms and suchlike; when broad, general trends emerge from apparently unpredictable individual interactions. If you look at the great evils throughout human history, you notice that they've always had the intellectual groundwork laid well in advance - and that the effect of that groundwork isn't to get everyone to completely accept it, but to just mildly absorb it. So that when the real thing comes, they've lost the moral courage and strength to stand against it. That's the way things work.

And that is why those who try to speak up are always labled 'extremist' - because the problem needs to be confronted at the root, at the source. It can't be compromised with.

Just for the record, the wise man to whom I alluded also said the following, fifty years before the Holocaust happened:

it might be useful and fair to expel the anti-Semitic ranters from the country

Expulsion, hey? Of all the anti-semitic ranters? I have no doubt - in fact I know - that at the time there were chappies like Steve who threw their hands up in disgust. Well, we know where that left us.

Sorry, when historical lessons are painted this clearely, I tend to listen.

175. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239404 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 2:21 pm

al, I thought I had outlined what I thought was the right course of action to take. If there's something specific I've been unclear on, please specifiy it and I'll respond - but tomorrow. I'm tired now.

You may have noticed that Steve, as usual, has managed to skate clean over everything that didn't fit with his picutre of the world. Go figure.

Rachel, yes, I know that; you're not the first to point that out. But broad, especially if 'abroad' means somewhere like Saudi Arabia they can't do much damage to us. Or at least alot less than they'd do over here.

176. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239373 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 1:57 pm

Rachel, yes, I am referring to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm also referring to the two hundred thousand of my countrymen who were burnt alive by phosphorus when Dresden was firebombed, or the Red Cross relief ships sunk, or the nightmarish fight to take the Burbons off their throne, or...

I could go on and on. It's very easy for us to argue about this or that measure. Different thing when you're stuck in a place where the law of the jungle predominates.

I think that we have a chance of getting through this nightmare with minimal casualties and minimal regression to barbarism. But that chance keeps getting smaller. That is why I am so insistent on this.

177. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239365 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 1:52 pm

Fanusi, I wouldn't call Abu Hamza semi-anything. If, as you are now saying, you are talking about punishing people who commit crimes (whether somthing like incitement, or rape of an underage girl), then yes, let's punish them, not deport them. I have had the impression that you wanted to round up and deport anyone who "supported Sharia", which seemed to be a definition that could include the semi-observant.

*groans* Sorry, Rachel, but I have explained this so often, and it's always twisted.

I support a law stating that support for the Shariah means loss of citizenship. Now how would that work? We can hardly get everyone who supports the Shariah. What we could and should do is get the fire-breathing Imams, the gangsters and goons like Abu Hamza.

The reason anything short of deportation won't work is as follows: fines? They're bankrolled by Saudi Arabia. Imprisonment? They'll preach to violent, rough men and recruit a small army of jihadis inside. No. Unless you are willing to a) deport them, b) confine them to a special prison for the rest of their natural life, or c) kill them, this problem isn't going away. Option a) seems the best of them.

178. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239349 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Last post

al just for starters, why everyone keeps saying I should apologise to MPhil, but not he to me.

I am not sure I totally understand this whole thing,

What I am pointing out is the limitations of reason. Oh, to be sure, reason as a tool for understanding the Universe is unlimited. Reason as a tool for handling everything between humans - that is limited. How are you going to stop the fanatics from whatever corner when it comes to that?

Your reference to percentages makes about as much sense as worrying about what's likely to happen should Italy become 20%, 30% or 40% Chinese.

I'll make this simple: Chinese. is. a. race. Islam. is. an. ideology. big, big difference. Or what would you care if, say, 80% of Britain saw things the way I do? Or even 40%?

Rachel, I don't know what you've been reading, but Abu Hamza is not 'semi-observant'.

Preserving liberalism has always required some very illiberal measures. Do I like that? No. But what I like doesn't come into it.

I was pretty sure (as sure as I can be in this maelstrom of recrimination) that Fanusi was advocating punishment of those actively speaking out in favour of violent jihad.

Pretty much; also things like raping 9 year old girls, murdering Jews and Hindus, etc. That is what I have been talking about Sargeist

179. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239336 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 1:19 pm

al, just one final question: even if I was being completely hypocritical with my comments about fanaticism and its power - what difference would that make to you? Even if I wouldn't use that tool myself - and I would - do you doubt that there are those, far nastier and harsher than myself, who will? What are you going to do about that?

180. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239329 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Lazarus, I'll enjoy an argument when facts and reason are brought to the table. My response to Rachel is the same answer I have given time and time again. Locke - at least, I'm fairly certain it was Locke - when arguing for tolerance, meant tolerance between the different protestant sects, but not for Catholics. this was because he understood that the Catholics were so powerful that if they set up shop, they'd crush all opposition. It goes without saying that he'd have been against the tolerance of Islam.

Now, in repayment, al, answer me this: why is it that you complain when I don't answer a question, but never complain when one of mine isn't answered?

181. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239319 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 1:03 pm

*laughs* This just keeps getting better and better - the same Steve who keeps skipping over arguments he can't answer and knows it, wants me to answer all his questions? The same Steve who once praised me heavily, now fears and hates me - and says I'm inconsistant for attacking MPhil? Oh, this is too rich.

If you want an answer, answer my points first. Start with where I praised MPhil highly.


EDIT

-------------------------------

al,

1) You're entirely right. I'm not in the army. There are reasons for that, and no, I won't say what they are. Of course, I have no right to ask you to take me on faith that this isn't inconsistant with my writing. So, it's in your hands.

2) I have no idea where I said that things should be extrajudicial, nor have I spoken about transferring populations - only specific individuals.

3) I have said, time and time again, why this wouldn't destroy Western democracy, with reference to Locke and the Second World War as my main examples. If I've missed an argument against those cases, please point out where.

182. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239315 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Steve, how dare I? You continually make the most opprobrius accusations and insults to my integrity, and then turn around and whine when the boot's on the other foot? Or is it because you recoginise what I say within yourself?

You're very loud speaking against me. Against the Jihadis? Not so much.

----------------------

Lazarus, thanks. Nice to see someone debating as between adults & equals. Where I differ from you is this:

However, this is where I show which side I come down on. Fanusi mentions the great and the good and "their certainty of righteousness". It does sound good in a speech, but it is exactly this "certainty of righteousnous" that I expect religious people to speak.

Oh, I don't disagree. I know why my views ruffle so many feathers. I know why people are frightened of passion like this and the unwillingness to back down and compromise. Trust me, I understand that.

But the problem is that without this, evil would be unstoppable. If you read, say, Nelson Mandela's autobiography, you find absolute, unflinching integrity, a willingness to fight and die for what he believes in. As I said, fanaticism. Or read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, still one of the greatest inditements of injustice. You'll see the same thing.

That's why I say fanaticism is ethically neutral. It can be for good or for evil. But there will always be those who'll use it for evil, and that means you'll always need those willing to use it for good.

183. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239303 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 12:29 pm

I don't believe you

I don't expect you do. You don't know what it means to love something so much that it's worth fighting for, worth dying for.

But it doesn't matter. Those of us that do will always defeat you because of this.

Btw, nice to keep fulfilling my predictions like that.

184. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239298 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Okay, first thigns first:

Corylus, Steve & everyone else who keeps thinking that they have some right to ask me to apologise - I'm pointing this out for the third and last time: It was MPhil who first said that it was my beliefs that lead to the holocaust. I've also been called all sorts of things and subjected to the most guttersnipe kind of abuse. I've never asked for an apology & I don't expect one.

But all of a sudden people want to start lecturing me? Well, sorry, but I don't compromise my principles just because they're unpopular.

I meant what I said because it's true. The Nazis are extinct; they're not coming back. But the kind of vermin that let them rise are immortal. The cheap, petty, slovenly cowardice that tries to hide itself in the aura of righteousness is the exact reason that these monsters have triumphed throughout history. I notice that noone has even tried to argue against that.

I suppose that's why noone complains about his statements, but everyone complains about mine. Becuase mine are true.

------------------------------------------
Steve if you could find this post where I'm supposedly praising MPhil, that would be helpful. After all it wouldn't be the first time that I've been too generous in my assesment of someone's character.

Oh, btw, great hoppity-skippty-jump over the arguments you couldn't answer. Nice of you to prove me right.

------------------------------------------

Corylus, I know that essay. Why do you think that I wreck any hope of popularity with my writings?

--------------------------

Rachel Holmes, okay, how about the following: In Germany membership in a fascist party is illegal - and Germany seems to maintain it's democracy just fine.

-------------------------------------

I really am surprised that people can't seem the screaming contradictions in their arguments. Steve says that our rights are hard won, but doesn't understand the risk they face at the hands of Islam. And then there is this:

Er.... could I tentatively suggest by way of an answer to your question: A set of laws (preferably enshrined in a written Constitution or Bill of Rights,

I've never understood this 'no discrimination based on religion' nonsense. Religion invokes some very nasty things. It's wrong to discriminate based on race because there is no rational grounds to think humans differ according to race - but religion? different question.

That's a secondary point. If this 'no discrimination according to religion' business is accepted, on what grounds can we end all Muslim immigration? And if we don't - how long will your Bill of Rights stand when the population is 20% Muslim? 30%? 40%?

Beliefs held by the citizens of a nation that fly against the societal structure of that nation should be controlled/fought through education.

This entire argument proves what's wrong with that statement. Come on, you guys can't even convince me, and I'm a Westerner who loves this civilization. What the hell chance do you have with fully-fledged Wahabi nutjobs? Well? How're you going to convince them?

*suddenly weary* But in the end it seems that this'll all be academic. I think I can see how this is going to go: people like me will keep trying to point out the truth, and people like Steve will keep styming our efforts - until disaster strikes. At that point those far nastier than me - and yes, there are alot of those - will be the ones who'll settle things. By that point, of course, it won't be the measured and careful response I've been advocating until now. That'll be something far more atavistic.

185. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239239 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 9:46 am

*chuckles*

If you say it is OK for the school bully to beat up someone you don't like, you can't complain if the bully beats you up.

For school bully, read "government" (I suspect you will like the analogy). For "someone you don't like" read "Shariah supporters".

Hmmmm.... Okay, so what about the following? For 'someone you don't like' read 'gangsters' and for 'bully' read 'the police'...

And talking about bullies, how about showing you have at least some integrity, and apologising for your vicious attack on MPhil?

What? It's integrity by your lights to abandon your principles on the say-so of some guy on the internet? Please. Also, here's what you keep missing: a quick read of the posts shows that it was MPhil who first said that it was my ideas that lead to the Holocaust. You don't seem to have any problems about that. In fact, you haven't even mentioned it. And you think to lecture me on integrity?

186. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239234 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 9:29 am

Steve, it's little news items like the following that get me worried:

MUSLIM COUNCIL CHIEFS BAN 'TEA AND SANDWICHES' IN MEETINGS FOR RAMADAN
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23546190-details/Muslim council chiefs ban ALL members from 'tea and sandwiches' in meetings which take place during Ramadan/article.do

And so on. Believe me, there's alot more where that came from.

You are still trying to prosecute based on beliefs. As we have been trying to tell you, that is unacceptable. It is undemocratic.

Explain to me why it's 'unacceptable' and why it's undemocratic, and I'll answer that.

187. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239230 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 9:23 am

Steve for the umpteenth time, I am referring to those that advocate replacing the constitution with Shariah. That is the beginning and the end of it.

188. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239229 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 9:21 am

Those words were by the German Pastor Martin Niemoller who, far from being 'a wise man' and having seen the holocaust coming fifty years in advance, he was an early supporter of Hitler and the Nazis and, initially, a borderline anti-semite himself.

*laughs* Okay, granted, what I wrote was misleading. Sorry, NMC, when I referred to a 'wise man', I wasn't referring to him. I was referring to the man who wrote the following:

also do not like these latest speculators in idealism, the anti-Semites, who today roll their eyes in a Christian-Aryan-bourgeois manner and exhaust one's patience by trying to rouse up all the horned-beast elements in the people by a brazen abuse of the cheapest of all agitator's tricks, moral attitudinizing (that no kind of swindle fails to succeed in Germany today is connected with the undeniable and palpable stagnation of the German spirit; and the cause of that I seek in a too exclusive diet of newspapers, politics, beer, and Wagnerian music, together with the presuppositions of such a diet: first, national constriction and vanity; the strong but narrow principle "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles," [nationalism] and then the paralysis agitans of "modern ideas" {socialism]).

...
Incidentally, the whole problem of the Jews exists only within national states, inasmuch as their energy and higher intelligence, their capital of spirit and will, which accumulated from generation to generation in the long school of their suffering, must predominate to a degree that awakens envy and hatred; and so, in the literature of nearly all present-day nations (and, in fact, in proportion to their renewed nationalistic behavior), there is an increase in the literary misconduct that leads the Jews to the slaughterhouse, as scapegoats for every possible public and private misfortune.
[to Jews, humanity] owe the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world. Furthermore, in the darkest medieval times, when the Asiatic cloud had settled heavily over Europe, it was the Jewish freethinkers, scholars, and doctors, who, under the harshest personal pressure, held fast to the banner of enlightenment and intellectual independence, and defended Europe against Asia; we owe to their efforts not least, that a more natural, rational, and in any event unmythical explanation of the world could finally triumph again, and that the ring of culture which now links us to the enlightenment of Greco-Roman antiquity, remained unbroken. If Christianity did everything possible to orientalize the Occident, then Judaism helped substantially to occidentalize it again and again, which, in a certain sense, is to say that it made Europe's history and task into a continuation of the Greek.

Fifty fucking years before the fact! What does it take for people to learn?

So, sorry, I didn't mean to mislead you. I wasn't referring to Niemoller (actually, I didn't know who'd written those lines until now - thanks, I appreciate every new bit of info. Seriously.).

189. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239209 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 8:44 am

Your refusal to apologise is expected, but sad. As far as I am concerned, you have lost all credibility, and clearly demonstrated that loss to others. Your hypocritical praise for someone one day, followed by the most vicious attack reveals your lack of integrity. You should be ashamed.

Steve, you'd best understand one thing: my moral standing is not, and will never be, dependent on your views.

If we are going to talk about who switches when - well, we can look back at all the praise I received when I tore apart Joe, and the sudden reversal the next day. Remember that, hmmm? Who's being hypocritical now?

Lying as usual. Rights are about individuals. If you change the law to expel even only one native citizen for their beliefs, you have corrupted democracy.

In order - one baseless assertion: that I lied, with no explanation of how, given that that is the way you wrote, one non-sequitur (individual rights are about individuals - and so is individual responsibility), and one completely baseless assertion that I have, time and time again, refuted.

190. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239204 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 8:34 am

The reason I ask these questions is that there is a danger that we will say: "Well, they are only allowing themselves to be treated that way because they are unable to fight back." And then, if we give them the means to fight back, but they continue to live like that we would say "They have been brainwashed into accepting it."

Much as I do feel that Saudi Arabia is run like a mad-house, I cannot but help thinking that I would be, effectively, saying: "You cannot be making an informed choice, because you are not making my preferred choice." And, my comments about fundamental decency notwithstanding, I cannot see how to get around what I see as a logical problem there

Sargeeist, Saudi Arabia is something of an insoluble because society there is so suffused with barbarism that it is very unlikely to ever be reformed. Military action is also out, given that it's the Land of the Two Mosques. This is one situation where it's best to just confine it.


----------

hungarian,

Relevant or not, they are hardly conclusive. Suppose someone had murdered Hitler early on. What then? Would that have addressed the sense of injustice in Germany at the Versailles settlement? Would it have solved the economic problems? Would the ethnic Germans outside Germany have hunkered down and said nothing for the next 70 years? Would the underlying culture of militarism have been broken?

I really do not think that you would have had anything to that extent. Probably a conventional right-wing government, probably a conventional fascist one. But it was Hitler who concocted what Lee Harris calls the 'transformational fantasy ideology' that ripped the continent apart.

In the early stages, the Hitler government was incredibly weak. It could have been stopped militarily; it wasn't, because people refused to see evil.

191. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239196 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 8:29 am

Fanusi, I have only just read that and I am not impressed at all - you have every right to express your opinion but don't you think that was probably the nastiest thing you could have said about somebody?

My dear Phillip, you underestimate me. The nastiest thing I could have said? Please.

No, I won't apologize because I meant it. I've been reading about the Holocaust, and not just the watered-down version that gets taught, but the real thing, the source data. I've read Victor Klemperer's diaries and numerous eyewitness accounts, and I read what I just cited: The White Rose's manifestos. Time and time again, people could have stopped those monsters, but they preferred the cheap, small, petty treacheries that pave the way for every horror.

Yes, I'll admit: my words are harsh and not exactly forgiving. The reason for that is I can see all too clearly where that damn road goes, and where it has went. As the poem says 'first they came for the Jews, and I said nothing because I was not a Jew..." A very wise man, fifty years before the fact knew that the Holocaust was coming, and, of course, people preferred not to listen to him.

It's the stuff of nightmares; to see what's coming, to see people continually warned, and see them prefer to shut their eyes and consciences, rather than take action. That is what needs to be fought, that petty, miserable treachery of selling your soul for pennies. I have some experience of dealing that stuff myself.

One final point about that: When I made my original point about understanding the difference between good and evil, MPhil said that it was my views that lead to the Holocaust - and I don't see anyone complaining about that. Though I think I can guess why: what I say is true

My sad impression is that you don't seem to trust or like people very much. Their intellectual worth seems to be related to whether or not they challenge your feelings about the potential end of the world.

Steve, I judge only by what is written here. What I judge by isn't whether someone agrees with me, but by their loyalty to truth and to morality. I can deal with people who have different conclusions, but understand that a conclusion is worth reaching. I can't deal with those who think it's all a waste of time.

And, yes, that is precisely what this fatuous claim that there is no good and evil is, in the form just enunciated.

There are two sides to every question, one is right the other wrong, but the middle is always evil. the man who is wrong retains some honor, if only by his respect for the necessity of choice. But the man in the middle is the one willing to blank out any absolute, sit out any battle, who compromises by demanding the robber and the robbed, the murderer and the victim meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, death can be the only result. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit, and good that loose. In that transaction that drains the good to feed the wicked, it is the compromiser who is the transmitting rubber tube.

As regards the discussion on expulsion of selected individuals - and you insist on trying to make it sound as though I were speaking of an entire population - take it to the thread where we're discussing that. I'm not rising to that here, and it is not the subject under debate.

You also seem terrified of thoughts, not just people. People need to be sent away from the country because of their ideas - their mere thoughts will spread like bird flu and wipe out millions.

What, me? Scared of the likes of Abu Hamza?

Yes. Oh, yes, they scare me. Just as though the parallel couldn't get any clearer, there was a recent 'demonstration' if you can call in that in Brussels with chants of "Hamas, Hamas! Send the Jews/To the Gas!"

You however, seem scared of people writing on a chatboard, scared to the point of being unable to accurately portray what someone has written, but need to hide in abstraction.

192. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239111 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 4:39 am

*chuckles*

You're pushing at an open door there, Fanusi.

You are suggesting, or at least appear to be suggesting, that I support the Chamberlain alternative. I don't.

Sorry. I'm in a vile temper today. I'll respond to your post later on, but for the moment, sorry about that.

193. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239106 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 4:10 am

Hungarianelephant,

1) How am I erecting a straw man? We know what the alternative was, because we had lived through it.

2) I fail to see how the numerous times when it would have been easy to stop Hitler, are irrelevant to the discussion.

3) How can we not apply that historical precedent to the Jihad? Two examples. One, in the matter of the Sudan, the US decided to listen to international howling, and go the UN route, and send inspectors etc. etc. As a result of which, everyone has been killed. So much for 'Never Again'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAhwgQ2HoF0

Also, we seem to be willing to let Iran's lunatic theocracy develop nuclear weapons. Welcome to the end of the world.

194. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239094 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 3:36 am

Sargeist, with respect, we know how it would have gone, for the simple reason that we have the actual goddamn documents from the Kreislau and from the OWK and from the cowardly Chambelain government, and we know that Hitler himself wrote that if he'd been stopped at the Rheinland, that would have been it.

195. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239089 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 3:30 am

hungarianelephant do you prefer the alternative? Yes, there'd have been a war - a brief, decisive war and that would have been that. And you are missing the other cases that I mentioned, including the fact that the OWK wanted to settle Hitler's hash many times, but was let down by the cowardice and moral failure of the Chamberlain government.

196. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239081 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 3:07 am

MPhil those that sneer at greatness only reveal their own smallness, as is illustrated amply by this nonsense:

I completely agree - but my opposition to such metaphysical, absolutist bullshit like "pure evil" and "good and evil" stands. It is this thinking that makes fanaticism of any kind even possible - religious or political. This thinking that made the atrocities of Nazi-Germany, of Mao and Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, the Taliban

I don't even know where to start. Everyone and his brother knows that if Hitler had been stopped at Munich, that would have been the end of it. But there's more: when Hitler moved his troops into the Rheinland, the Oberwehrmachtkommando was so appalled that if there had been two platoons who stood in the way, they'd have deposed Hitler then and there. They also, along with members of the Kreislaugruppe, flew to London - and can you imagine what kind of a risk that they took? - and said: "We can decapitate the regime, take out Hitler, stop this madness right here and right now, but you have to guarantee that an attack on Czechoslovakia means war. They were told 'Forget it. We can do business with Hitler'.

And still more: time and time again, the Germans could have stopped the coming horror, but that would have required moral clarity and the courage that gives. The White Rose, three students who alone stood against the Nazis, wrote the following:

If everyone waits until the other man makes a start, the messengers of avenging Nemesis will come steadily closer; then even the last victim will have been cast senselessly into the maw of the insatiable demon. Therefore every individual, conscious of his responsibility as a member of Christian and Western civilization, must defend himself as best he can at this late hour, he must work against the scourges of mankind, against fascism and any similar system of totalitarianism. Offer passive resistance - resistance - wherever you may be, forestall the spread of this atheistic war machine before it is too late, before the last cities, like Cologne, have been reduced to rubble, and before the nation's last young man has given his blood on some battlefield for the hubris of a sub-human. Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure!

Edmund Burke wrote "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." And the genius of Evil, in all times and places, has been to get good men to the point where they will do nothing, by undercutting and destroying their moral sense, their certainty of righteousness. That is what needs to be combated.

Want to really know what caused those nightmares, MPhil? It's you, bucko. It's your fatuous, simpering assertions that there's no such thing as good and evil, that such a view is 'simplistic', that to take right action in a moral course is immoral. It's you and your kind that let the Nazis rise, that stood by in silence as the Khmer Rouge massacred its population, that howled down every warning as nation after nation fell to the darkness of Communism, and is now doing the same with regards to the spread of Islam.

Evil men will always exist; there will always be someone who is willing to pick up the weapon of fanaticism and enlist it in the service of Evil - of the enslavement, degradation and destruction of mankind. And if that is true, then it will always be necessary for there to be men who will do the opposite: who will embrace fanaticism, but on the side of what is right.

'Fanaticism' is ethically neutral. A fanatic is one who places a cause or a value above even their own life. The suicide bomber is a fanatic. So's the marine who throws himself on a grenade to save his troop. When Nelson Mandela said he'd die to see South Africa free, he was acting as a fanatic - and he was right to do so. He was given his courage by the clarity of his moral insight.

So, better learn the following lesson: As long as there are those who are willing to kill to enslave mankind, there will need to be those who are willing to die to set them free.

197. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239073 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 2:44 am

Can we include Saudi Arabia in there, too, please? Though I am not sure if they are evil or just galactically stupid.

You're pushing at an open door with me Sargeeist, I was just referring to what we might call 'the canonical three'.

I think we do agree, also the need for action but with such a blunt approach, I do fear for our future sometimes

Chris, I'd characterize it as less 'blunt' as 'muddle-head and wildly inconsistent'. You can't go around saying "Islam is a religion of peace" and then wage a war on those who practice Islam's central tenets.

Incidentally, and I realize that this is controversial, but I think that the dumbest comment coming from the Bush administration wasn't actually said by Bush, but by Condi, who, in reference to the Sunni-Shia fight, said "The just need to go over it".

The thing that really makes the whole mess so unworkable is that, by and large, political opposition to the Bush administration seems to come in two flavors: gutless and mendacious. As regards 'gutless', I'll refer you to Bill Maher's comments on the democratic politicos. As regards mendacious, consider the horrible Moore-Chomsky-Galloway triarchy, respectively a crude propagandist, a subtle propagandist, and an outright pimp and whore to fascism. The central message of this horrible crowd is completely disconnected with morality and reality.

On the other hand, no-one was willing, once it was clear that war with Iraq was inevitable, to ask the following questions: "The British, in a very similar manner that you are proposing to do, tried to pull Iraq into the modern age. They failed; what are you going to do differently? Why do you think that the millennial conflict between the Sunni and the Shia be resolved? And do we really want it to be resolved? After all it drains away the Jihadist resources from the conflicts elsewhere. I understand supporting the Kurds, but given the cult of Arab supremacism, how are you going to prevent the Arabs from slaughtering them again? And what are you going to do for the religious minorities? Is this Wilsonian business the best way to spend our resources, especially at the time when we need to plan for a long war? Wouldn't it be better and cheaper to restrict ourselves to removing Saddam and freeing Kurdistan, and then redirecting our resources to the Sudan, where we could gain some real allies?"

And so on. If the opposition had made that case, I'd have applauded them, and they'd have sliced-and-diced the Bush team. We didn't hear that; we got Moore's minutemen, Chomsky's piffle, Galloway's praise for Assad, 'no blood for oil' and the rest of this masturbatory nonsense.

198. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239038 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 12:07 am

It would be nice to think that Obama might be elected because of his merits rather than as a token gesture to 'greater inclusiveness'.

Oh, absolutely! His merits, such as... er...

Help me out here?


Anyway, more broadly, I remember that Christopher Hitchens pointed out that the intellectual muscle of the Left was principally religious (Martin Luther King & so on), while the muscle on the right was principally atheist (Ayn Rand being example number one).

Well infact Atheists are just that bit more intelligent. We can see the shades in between without resorting to comic book notions of captain good and doctor evil....tsk. Or more accurately god and satan lol. For example, labelling the middle east as an "axis of evil" I mean come on! your one step away from labelling it "THE LAND OF MORDOR" in a scary voice........

*sighs* and this is why religion has returned with a vengeance - because of this perception that atheists are a collection of amoral, unprincipled types, so suffused with relativism that they are unable to see good and evil. The fact is, and regardless of whether or not you agree with the whole axis of evil thing (I have my own reservations), the governments of Ba'athist Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are pure evil. There's no other way to describe them.

Oh, that doesn't mean that there was not a much better way to handle the current situation. There were many arguments against, say, this Wilsonian adventure in Iraq (the basic incompatibility of Islam and democracy, the millenial Shia-Sunni conflict, etc.). But they weren't made; instead fatuous 'anti-War' types decided to snigger over such gauche terms as good and evil, and removed themselves from the discussion.

You can't end up with something like the Bush administration without a little help from the opposition.

199. B.C. health official says mumps outbreak began with unimmunized religious group

Comment #238321 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 28, 2008 at 1:46 am

I should like to know which particular 'religious group' was behind this particular insanity - though I think I can guess.

It sounds suspiciously like the way that polio is once more spreading throughout Pakistan ever since certain Imams declared vaccination haram.

200. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237899 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 27, 2008 at 11:43 am

Nairb, two quick points before I need to return to my astronomy.

1) Could you drop this term 'fascist' unless you can explain the hows and wherefores? Yes, fascists practiced deporation. So did the Czech's when they threw out the Sudetendeutsch. In fact, virtually every civilization in history has kept exile as a potential punishment.
Unless you can explain exactly why deportation of selected individuals - mark my words carefully, selected individuals, not an entire people - is an essential of fascism, kindly drop this nonsense. The fascists also built good motorways, something I'm also in favour of, but noone thinks that morally controversial.
In fact, you can read all fourteen characteristic of Umberto Eco's discussion of Ur-Fascism, and you will not find the use of exile as a punishment as a defining characteristic.

2) I have defined the crime very clearely indeed. It is as follows - public advocacy of the institution of Shariah, period. Punishment: permanent loss of citizenship and exile to a country of their choice.

Sorry if my tone is short, but I am tired and tired of repeating myself.