Leaderboard

Aleph, I suggest you let the Muslims hash that argument out. Islam cannot be divorced from how it is practiced. So if someone within Islam is trying to reform how it is practiced, to make it benign and non-political, you'd do well to get out of his way if you can't help him.

The justification for a particular state does not come from its democratic nature. Plenty of democratically elected governments have done things which put them firmly in the illegitimate category. It is a fiction that democratic means free. What makes a government legitimate is whether or not it actually respects fundamental rights. If you have a government that does so, there is no right to 'compete' with it, in the sense of carrying out one's own retaliatory force which is not subject to objective procedure. Such action presents a valid risk to the rights of the citizens of such a government, and it is justified in shutting down said operations.

I wonder how firmly your friend believes that nothing is concrete and that A can be both A and Non-A at the same time. To test his committment, you should suggest a little experiment. Get a baseball bat and tell him you're going to swing it at his head. If the bat turns into a wet noodle between the time you start your swing and the time it splits his head open, he wins the argument. If not, he loses both the argument and consciousness. A is A. Believe it.