I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

Was I Morgoth? Or is putting up straw-men the only way you can have a discussion? I’d say that your neo-con buddies, who you are cheerleading were closer to Saddam Hussain than I have ever been.

But this is what I mean by a stupid debate. People like you, simpletons, can only have a discussion by putting up straw-men.

Anyway, enough of the trolls on this thread. This is not a blog for jousting thanks.

Amis is a in-bred idiot who can’t tell his arse from his elbow. And it’s funny to see so-called libertarians and ‘rationalists’ and people apparently in favour of the enlightenment cheer-leading for mass internment. Which is perhaps why I stopped paying attention to Morgoth, DK etc a while back.

Are you a mind reader now?

Sadly the only examples I can think of recently are Muslim preachers who I do not think should be allowed to preach genocide. There is also the traditional parameter of free speech in that some-one may directly cause physical harm by shouting ‘fire’ in a theatre , or the laws of libel which have some place as they protect the innocent from malicious untruths . This common law principle treats reputation as a form of property and we can see that unfettered free speech would be akin to unfettered free access to property. A horrifying thought .

I think Martin Amis was , in common with Kieth Jarret , President of the National Black police Association supporting the use of profiling ,. There is uninteresting commentary on this by Shaun Bailey in the Standard tonight …in a different context of course . He makes the point that blacks are the ones who suffer from crime chiefly and they have to support the Police using their resources as best as they can . If we ar stopping and searching only so many then allowing the authorities to use their experience as to where they might best employ their resources is a necessity and if some people get a bit shirty about it then they have to grow up . Remember there were Muslims as well as everyone else on the tube and bus and there will be more the next time. No doubt there are sensitivities but they are frankly far down the list of immediate concerns. I find it hard to believe there are no Muslims who are capable of understanding this .

Here is a good example then . The aggressive deployment of victims status may directly lead to murder. Should such attacks on life and limb be tolerated . Only up to a point .

Reading back over DK`s points it does seem to me that he us making only a very modest point and not one as potentially hostile to the wider Islamic world as my view that not all speech can be tolerated just as not all actions can be . I `nm slightly confused by this

“Atheists tend (with a few exceptions) to be rather liberal people. Atheism is a pretty strong position and tends to be informed not only by a lack of believe in god but also by a deep and abiding loathing for forced collectivism; need I point out to you that forced collectivism was precisely what the Nazis and Communists desired”

The Communists , obviously , but to some extent the Nazis , in their ideology at least , were against religion and tended to atheism, perhaps these are the few exceptions but to me they seem surprisingly numerous. I am somewhat loathe to ascribe moral goods to atheism which may clearly imply philosophical beliefs in which to kill a man is as moral as not to.

(English atheism has been assisted with Libertarian thinking I suppose)

Sure I can. You’re simply working through your list of rigid, preconceived ideas opinions you hold of other people. It’s called an Amisism.

Simply put – not I’m not. Don’t put words in my mouth, there’s a good devil.

I’m suggesting that if Amis can be contextualised by you for holding the views such as repatriating Muslims, strip searching them, denying their rights etc and you “can see both sides of the argument” because he’s “expressing an opinion” then you can AND SHOULD do the same for Muslims who want to see apostates mudered because that too is an opinion.

Do you think you can do that? All in the name of free speech, of course. Of are you going to turn all selective on us?

Do you understand the difference between understanding why someone would hold an opinion, without actually holding that opinion yourself?

You know, that old “I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it” thing. I may not agree with Amis, but I will fight to allow him to say it.

You, quite obviously, do not agree. Which makes you an unpleasant little authoritarian. Do ya see how I worked that?

DK

… DK’s contextualisation of Amis on how people can hold vicious, repugnant views and are justified to do so because its simply “expressing an opinion”…

Sid, do you not believe in free speech then? You know, I just want to know because there are a goodly number of governments throughout history that have been less than keen on free speech — Nazi Germany springs to mind, as do Communist Russia, China and Cuba, and Islamist Iran.

I do like to know if I am dealing with nasty little authoritarians, you see…

DK

I don’t know you or read your blog (nor do I intend to) so wouldn’t know what views you propagate.

Yes, you do: I stated them on here. I am an atheist libertarian.

To write this sentence:

“The seeming reluctance of Muslim “community leaders” to condemn the assorted bombings and honour-killings, and the praise that some have had for “matyrs” in Israel, has led people to believe, not entirely unreasonably, that there is some sort of Islamic conspiracy by the whole Muslim community.”

and then suggest that they are not your wholly your views but views of others’ you’re willing to contextualise without passing judgement is a clever technique, but not as opaque as you like to think it is.

What a pity, because I thought that they were the views of others. I read some hundred blogs a day and this was indeed the view of very many commenters at the time, and probably still is (some of my interests have shifted and some of the blogs have died).

And there was a reluctance on the part of, for instance, the MCB to condemn the bombings; I thought that this was a bit off.

However, as I said above, I understand that the MCB does not speak for all Muslims. The subsequent demonstrations against the Danish Mohammed cartoons and Israel’s retaliation to Hezbollah were far more worrying to me: they showed large numbers of people willing to carry placards saying such things as “we will bring the real 9/11″ and “we are all Hezbollah” and “behead the infidels”.

I would never carry such placards: would you?

DK

This is because I do not believe that the Muslim Council of Britain and other such organisations really speak for all Muslims; at the same time, I will not condemn all Muslims for the MCB’s lack of action because I do not believe that that MCB speak for all Muslims. Do you see?

Were I a C of E Christian, I would feel absolutely nothing — beyond a vague irritation — that a Catholic spokesman condemned, because I would not be Catholic. Do you get that?

In the same way, I do not endorse or condemn Amis particularly because he doesn’t speak for me and, right now, there are bigger fish to fry.

There are nutters all around; that doesn’t mean that I have to take them seriously.

DK

Sorry, a little late, but by “your people”, I meant people of european christian religio-ethnic stock and not, necessarily, “hostile, arrogant egotists bloated on their own self-worth” and certainly not atheists. I don’t know you or read your blog (nor do I intend to) so wouldn’t know what views you propagate.

I’m not putting words in your mouth. I have much better things to do than argue the toss with a clever desseminator.

To write this sentence:
“The seeming reluctance of Muslim “community leaders” to condemn the assorted bombings and honour-killings, and the praise that some have had for “matyrs” in Israel, has led people to believe, not entirely unreasonably, that there is some sort of Islamic conspiracy by the whole Muslim community.”

and then suggest that they are not your wholly your views but views of others’ you’re willing to contextualise without passing judgement is a clever technique, but not as opaque as you like to think it is.

No amount of tu-quoquery will stand you in good stead.

With whom exactly, and why should I care?

And by the way, all that faux-scandalised “How very dare you!!” in #117 for suggesting you should be made culpable for the crimes of Nazis, which is what EXACTLY you’re suggesting is applicable for Muslims because of Jihadism, is making you look a look just a little creepy and weird, (3rd party accounts of which remain unconfirmed, so far). So stop the wriggling and the stupidity.

There are, in fact, substantial differences between these two.

First, there is the time factor: the Nazis were defeated and their leader killed some 62 years ago. You might as well ask me if I would apologise for slavery: no, I would not.

Second, I was not advocating that all Muslims be held culpable for the Islamofascists. I was saying that it was a point of view held by some people and I conceded that both intellectual laziness and written carelessness had led me to (falsely) equate the two in the past.

Third, there is not the same connecting thread between the Nazis and atheists as there is between “normal” Muslims and Jihadis. The latter pair share a religion and work off the same text, The Koran, although their interpretations differ substantially.

The only thing that atheists share is a lack of belief in any gods: they may have a multiplicity of other beliefs.

Fourth, what is worrying is a lack of condemnation of terrorist attacks. Now, bearing in mind the usual caveats about polls, let us remind ourselves of a 2006 Populus Poll.

The Populus survey for The Times and ITV News has found that more than one in ten thinks that the men who carried out the London bombings of 7/7 should be regarded as “martyrs”. Sixteen per cent of British Muslims, equivalent to more than 150,000 adults, believe that while the attacks were wrong, the cause was right.

These are sightly worrying statistics, wouldn’t you say? And I would say that they are backed up by some of the disgusting demonstrations that we have seen by Muslims — or were they all Jihadis? If they weren’t why were they associating with Jihadis and not condemning them? — in London over the last couple of years.

I doubt that you would find a similar number of British people who think, for instance, that the Nazis were “martyrs” (apart from the Jihadis who would, I imagine, applaud the Holocaust as a jolly good start), or that the Nazis’ cause was just even if the methods were wrong.

I’m still trying to understand, although in the grand scheme of things its probably unimportant, why Muslims should be made culpable collectively for the guilt of Islamic Extremists and why, as you’ve insinuated in #110, that that justifies Amis’ repugnant views about jailing people for looking like Pakistanis and Arabs or deporting muslims because they, as you’ve suggested, have not apologised for Islamic extremism.

Well, hello Mr Strawman: I thought that we’d be seeing you!

I have never said that Muslims in general should be made collectively culpable. Nor have I backed Amis’s views beyind saying that I can see why some people would think that it is justified; this does not mean that I do, do you see? It’s called “seeing all sides of the argument”.

You asked me to contextualise his writing, so I made a cursory effort to do so despite the fact that you failed to provide a link to the full article. Or did you just want me to condemn it, rather than contextualise it? In which case, I suggest that you say what you mean.

I will repeat, I am a libertarian: I do not believe in the detention or discrimination against those who have not committed a crime. Further, I regard our state as being at least as dangerous, repugnant and a threat to liberty as some of the Islamist loonies out there.

Stop putting words in my mouth, Sid. I know that you think you are being very clever but, really, you are just making yourself look like a bit of a tit.

DK

In September 2007 The Telegraph newspaper reported that Hitwise, the online competitive intelligence service, said that:

“website run by the far right British National Party is the most visited website of any UK political party, with more hits than all other parties put together, a survey has found.”

yeah, well you know BNP extremists could include your granny j0nz. does she look Pakistani?

Like 31% saying death is the correct punishment for leaving your religion. I wish it was The Sun making it up the whole time…