Mosque on the Twin Towers ruins

[CapitalistSwine]

I think you misunderstand what I mean by something to gain. The CT experts certainly have something to gain. I think this will be more clear when I post those things about Sultan. So in other words, both groups have something to gain.

You need a better argument than that to dismiss Wafa Sultan.

As I said before, I have things I want to post about her, but don't have time until later (I am currently at work).

"someone who has lived through it, experienced that culture, denounced it and discovered the truth or a group that has been brainwashed by an academia and culture philosophically opposed to the very ideas that have made this country great"

This is misleading and a false dichotomy. Most of the people I at least listen to have lived through it. They have lived in the Middle East for years, maybe even a decade or two, they have been in first hand meetings with the Muslim Brotherhood, they have first hand been undercover to Wahhabist meetings, they have had friends and family killed by the IRA, etc. To suggest that all of these people have been brainwashed by the liberal academia is disingenuous. (If I am misunderstanding you here please correct me.) There are a good number that understand the ideological part of this, which is one reason why I went out of my way to note that the one articles author wrote a book about the European Jihad (though maybe not as lucidly as Objectivists due to philosophical approach). At the same time, one who is traumatized by localized experiences in that fashion can also kind of have a..."knee-jerk" reaction (notice some of these people have become hardcore Christians), I am not saying that is all of them but some are likely to "exaggerate" and that Bridgette woman certainly does do just that.

While there are certainly many of those individuals, there are also many conservative ones, and the like. I try my best to find the ones with the most experience in the field, with the best contacts, and the like. I have a good deal of CT sources so usually if something is off I will eventually find out via inconsistencies with the others. I do understand what you are saying however, and I agree to a degree. I think this will be put into better perspective when I post some things on Sultan.

I appreciate your comments however Mark, as well as the polite and considerate manner in which they were presented. This can sometimes be a heated subject and I am glad this has toned down a bit (I realize my comments before were a bit hard-nosed and contributed to it).

Edited September 9, 2010 by CapitalistSwine

[Grames]

Who is the enemy? (briefly) - Those who do harm to the West; those who support harm to the West; those who wish harm to the West; those who ideologically don't like the West; or, those who just happen to share the same religion as all the above?

The enemy is everyone supporting Al Qaeda directly or indirectly, including everyone that rushed into the street to cheer upon learning the buildings came down. Those are the enemies in the war of ideas, not necessarily the same enemies being pursued in the military war on Al Qaeda.

Who is "us"?- Objectivists; freedom-loving Westerners; or, members of various competitive religions, Statists...etc. I believe "we" should be more careful about fighting others' battles for them.

Americans and our supporters around the world, including everyone who was saddened when the buildings came down. This is my battle as much as others'.

"Embolden": strengthening one's confidence and courage. What do you think is more confidence-building to an enemy - for the US to quietly, and without fanfare, absorb one more religion, and one more mosque, into its vast milieu (business as usual) - OR, to panic, make mistakes, restrict liberties, and surrender its reason and principles to fear and hatred?

I utterly reject this characterization. Pushing that mosque a few blocks away is not mistake or a surrender of reason or an infringement of anyone's liberty. Building the mosque is the infringement of liberty because of the way in which the property was acquired, and because of the continual offense it will cause after it is built.

"Demoralize"; who would be demoralized but those whose morale and morality was lacking, anyway? Those who can only think collectively, who can't see the forest for the trees, and who can't or won't see that it is Individualism that makes the USA great - that Justice demands that every context,( and every Muslim ), has to be viewed as a separate entity.

Is it your understanding that only immoral people can be demoralized? That is wrong. Furthermore, not I or anyone else is advocating a blanket ban on Islam. It is the specific context of that new mosque on that location which is outrageous. It is a specific and contextual judgement. (And what is with that nonstandard capitalization? Are you converting or backsliding into being a deontologist or Platonist?)

For those of us elsewhere who believe that your nation is still the only hope for any liberty in the world, the reaction to the mosque has been saddening.

There is probably a better way to respond to this, but what comes to my mind is a rhetorical stunt roughly equivalent to the framing of your statement: Who better knows what liberty requires and how to defend it?

[Grames]

Ryan, the mosque is a victory symbol and a shrine to the martyrs that brought down the towers. Everyone knows it, and thats how it is seen in the Muslim worldview.

It does not even matter what the muslim view is. Everyone who objects to it sees it that way, with justification.

[Grames]

You really are trying to grasp any straw you can aren't you? This is laughable that you are putting this in the same situation as these things. This is a different matter than pornography or clothing, they are different kinds of situations. ... Until then, the people involved with that building have the right to free speech and may use it as they wish.

All those contending that in principle the mosque cannot be blocked have been appealing to property rights. That podcast addresses one of the limits of property rights. It is the same issue. Displacing the construction project a few blocks does not create a free speech issue.

So just as I expected I got the default answer to this question, and the actual question is left unanswered.

You asked "I always ask how do you exactly expect Shariah law to gain hold here? I am talking here, in America, no where else." I answered the question you wrote. So far as I can tell you think "it can't happen here because the Constitution will protect us". The Constitution is no protection at all the moment enough judges decide to disregard it.

Have you read any studies as to why this effect is so effective in Europe and in other countries? Have you seen studies that show progression of Muslim integration into American society compared to Europe and other locations? Have you seen anything of these natures? My guess is you haven't. No I am not saying that because it hasn't happened yet in America that it proves it won't ever happen. I am saying, given what we know (via studies, experts, etc.) about what causes and allows the spread of such things, and allows to them to take hold in various locations that have been having this problem, that such a thing is very unlikely and will at most get only localized footholds and for temporary periods of time.

For someone so well informed, you certainly screwed up making the right call on the "Collateral Murder" controversy stirred up by wikileaks. Specify your sources if you dare, and I'll judge for myself.

Your suggestion that what is certain of one center, in Boston, that has many different characteristics from this situation (I looked into it since the last post) does not hold any water. In fact there is a study that suggests people exactly like the Sufi Imam in charge of this new site have been shown to decrease radicalism in their communities (let me know if you want the studies, I have to find them again which is why I didn't post them right away).

Yes I would like to see those, because according to http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/islam-sufi.htmboth Al Qaeda and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood trace back to Sufi movement. The muslims of Chechenya and India are Sufi, as are the Kurds, and others known to participate in war. Peaceful Sufi-ism is a myth.

There is one posting on there about the Ground Zero Mosque. I suggest you read the article:

http://counterterrorismblog.org/fastsearch?query=cordoba

You might like this snippet:

In fact the guy Counter-Terrorism expert that wrote the book "Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network." wrote that very article. So he is hardly unaware of the realities of the threat.

And before you say that this is innacurate, for whatever reason, Al Qaeda has gone out of its way to show their utter distaste for this very website:

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2008/04/al_qaeda_officially_hates_the.php

I don't care what Al Qaeda thinks, ultimately. What happened at the Shanksville memorial (the whole damn thing is a crescent aimed at Mecca, i.e. a memorial to the terrorists) should not be permitted to happen in NYC.

sensationalist right-wing nonsense

Exerpts from Evan F. Kohlmann's guest appearance in the WaPo's "On Faith" column:

The way that renowned Christian preacher Franklin Graham portrayed Muslims on a nationally-televised news broadcast last week, ... Graham instead represents the larger, ugly face of American xenophobia and prejudice--

This is sensationalistic left-wing nonsense.

Even daring to link to this article implies that it addresses my arguments, and equates me with Franklin Graham and lumps me with the "ugly face of American xenophobia and prejudice." The whole article is an anti-intellectual smear job painting ALL opposition to this mosque as poisonous muslim-baiting from hate and prejudice.

I have not done that, and most of America is not doing that. I've come to the end of my tolerance for this prating moralistic bullshit. You are the mirror image of Franklin Graham, you take your own sense of righteousness by posing in opposition to him, second-handedly.

as Allen Barton, Bill Whittle, etc.

I don't subscribe to PJTV or watch their videos unless an ARI person is on. You think that is who are arguing against. Wrong. I don't know what arguments are made on PJTV, but my arguments are that property devalued by the terrorist action should not available to be purchased by people desiring to further the terrorists goals, and that the people who already live there are objectively justified in linking Islam to 9/11 and hence objecting to the Ground Zero Mosque on the basis of their own prior property rights as an application of the "coming to the nuisance" doctrine in property law.

If I had seen this earlier, since I somehow missed this post (which is why I am addressing it now) I would have just stopped responding to you.

In the future, don't bother. I'm sick of your insults, misrepresentations and dishonesty.

This is not only completely wrong, but the thought process that leads to it is collectivist in nature. A is A you cannot attribute the actions of a minority group to over a billion people, and anyone that suggests you can I am not going to take very seriously. This is as insensible with any other group as it is with Muslims. They don't have some special case. It is improper and illogical and for the same reasons as always.

The objection is to the building and by extension the ideology it represents. In function the building will be a reification of Islam; let it be reified somewhere else. There is no inference to individuals here. What does exist here is your continued refusal to use Islam as a concept.

[CapitalistSwine]

If I had seen this earlier, since I somehow missed this post (which is why I am addressing it now) I would have just stopped responding to you. This is not only completely wrong, but the thought process that leads to it is collectivist in nature. A is A you cannot attribute the actions of a minority group to over a billion people, and anyone that suggests you can I am not going to take very seriously. This is as insensible with any other group as it is with Muslims. They don't have some special case. It is improper and illogical and for the same reasons as always.

RE: Collateral Damage it was an information error (one that needed to be fixed by information that was not easy to find I might add), and guess what, the vast majority of people made the same information error. I found out I was wrong and admitted it and corrected myself. So I don't care for the way you put that comment regarding that instance.

Edited September 10, 2010 by CapitalistSwine

[whYNOT]

There is no inference to individuals here. What does exist here is your continued refusal to use Islam as a concept.

Here is precisely where I differ as well.

To my understanding 'Religion' is a concept, as is e.g. 'Capitalism'.

Is Coca-Cola - or Hinduism - a concept, also?

[Grames]

Here is precisely where I differ as well.

To my understanding 'Religion' is a concept, as is e.g. 'Capitalism'.

Is Coca-Cola - or Hinduism - a concept, also?

Absolutely. Genus, differentia, essential as fundamental, it is all there waiting to be used.

[whYNOT]

Absolutely. Genus, differentia, essential as fundamental, it is all there waiting to be used.

Oh, okay. Wasn't sure about that.

But then if you take 'Islam' as genus, the differentiae are many more than is given credit for, generally.

I'm sure this has been done to death in this thread, but there is far more disagreement between sect, sub-sect, and sub sub-sect, than we know.

According to a friend of mine - a restaurant owner, who is an atheist Israeli Muslim (!) - it can come down to what one's local imam's interpretation of the Q'ran, is.

And the Q'ran is contradictory.

This is why - holding in mind the many Muslims I've met - I can't paint Islam with a collective brush.

The enemy of you and I, are a tiny core - these should be targeted, not the ones dancing in the streets and burning flags. They are simple sheep.

Many, the vast majority, are just wanting to get on and live well and feel virtuous by attending mosque.

Any difference you see with all religions, there?

[Grames]

Oh, okay. Wasn't sure about that.

But then if you take 'Islam' as genus,

What the hell? If Islam is to be the concept defined, it cannot be its own genus.

Genus - Religion

Differentia - Allah named as the diety, Mohammed as the central prophet, Koran as the central holy text, observation of the 5(or 7) "pillars of Islam" are distinctive to muslims.

Essential - The Koran is the literal word of Allah through Mohammed as his instrument so must be obeyed unquestioningly, it is not itself an interpretation of Allah to be second guessed.

By Christ, that was easy.

[Jake_Ellison]

What the hell? If Islam is to be the concept defined, it cannot be its own genus.

Genus - Religion

Differentia - Allah named as the diety, Mohammed as the central prophet, Koran as the central holy text, observation of the 5(or 7) "pillars of Islam" are distinctive to muslims.

Essential - The Koran is the literal word of Allah through Mohammed as his instrument so must be obeyed unquestioningly, it is not itself an interpretation of Allah to be second guessed.

I disagree. All you have to do is look at the millions of Muslims who do not obey the Koran literally and unquestioningly, to realize that you're wrong. That is not the essence of Islam, in fact it is only the characteristic of a minority of Muslims: the fundamentalists.

[brian0918]

Since this thread has devolved into personal attacks (which have been removed), I will now close it.

Note: If someone would like to start a new discussion about this topic, feel free to create a new thread. But please do not simply revive an old dispute from this thread.

Edited September 10, 2010 by brian0918