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Tequila
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15 Oct 2013, 11:13 am

GGPViper wrote:
And the global influence of Islam is likely to decrease as the oil reserves of the Middle East deplete and/or are becoming irrelevant due to alternative power sources.


Hopefully, when the oil dries up or becomes irrelevant, Western society will then take it upon itself to help destroy the stranglehold that Wahhabism/Deobandism/Iranian religious fundamentalism has on Western Muslims, and helps to usher in a more secularised, integrated and happier community for all of us.



Tequila
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15 Oct 2013, 11:17 am

I do believe that Islamism is the new Communism for the far-left. It's an empty, childish, pathetic way for them to, I suppose, feel like an alliance in victimhood. Islamism (not Muslims in general, but Islamism), like Communism and Nazism is an ideology that shares an immense hatred of the West and the freedoms that we all enjoy.

In fact, that's about all Islamist-loving elements of the left share with Islamism: hatred for the West. They share very little else, and some must baulk at clips like this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ISzDU3WKs[/youtube]



sonofghandi
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15 Oct 2013, 11:40 am

Tequila wrote:
sonofghandi wrote:
Don't forget that homophobia is not exclesive to any religion (or lack thereof).


So, should gays in Britain be more concerned living in a white middle-class retirement area and perhaps very occasionally overhearing doddery old right-wing Christians who mutter under their breath about there being no gays in their day or living near the Luton Islamic Centre, who has a man running it who specifically believes that they should be executed and legions of young Muslims who go to this (and similar) centres who have the same beliefs?


I merely was putting out there that you cannot present things as if Muslims were the only people in the world who believe that homosexuals are inferior. You tend to have some valid criticisms of Islam, but you tend to present them as if they are true of all Muslims or present them in a light that makes it appear that the issue is only with Islam.

And in your posted vid he said an "ideal world" not "we should go out and kill them." I have heard plenty of Christians and atheists say the exact same thing. I actually have a grandfather who thinks that a true "Christian soldier" should be allowed to execute (without consequence) all homosexuals, Jews, Muslims, atheists, Catholics, drug users, people who perform or have undergone abortions, communists, socialists, and anyone who tries to separate the government from (his personal version of) Christian ideals. Does that mean if he makes a YouTube video I can use it as evidence of how Christianity advocates murder? He is an ordained minister.

I also also having trouble with the phrase you used, "that's about all Islamist-loving elements of the left share with Islamism: hatred for the West." This sentence is ridiculously flawed in all aspects. Just a few things about it:
Just because someone is against the overly harsh and overly simplified judgments of the religion does not mean that they love it.
Just because someone is politically "left" does not mean that they love Islam, and vice versa.
Just because someone is an Islamist does not mean they hate the west.
Just because someone is left leaning does not mean they hate the west.

I also take issue with your assumptions about Iran. Yes, the leadership was truly horrible (until recently) in regards to its representation of Islam. But the majority of the actual people in the country are very pro-American and pro-west.


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Tequila
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15 Oct 2013, 12:19 pm

Just a few observations I'd like to make:

Good on the Muslim MPs that voted for the gay marriage bill. I have some issues with the Bill, but they have nothing to do with them. Can't have been easy on them standing for that Bill. Fair play.

Fair play also to the Turkish mufti who said that Muslims should be free to apostatise.

Fair play to Usama Hasan. A bearded Muslim scientist that believes in evolution. In a traditional Islamic society he'd suffer a takfiri campaign. He seems like a very clever fella.

More to say but dinner is literally in front of me.



Tequila
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15 Oct 2013, 12:32 pm

My barb wasn't aimed at the general Iranian public, who I have a lot of sympathy for. I am on about the theocratic thugs that run the place and that are such a nuisance.



sonofghandi
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15 Oct 2013, 12:39 pm

Tequila wrote:
My barb wasn't aimed at the general Iranian public, who I have a lot of sympathy for. I am on about the theocratic thugs that run the place and that are such a nuisance.


I agree that it is the leadership that is the issue. At least the people elected the most moderate and progressive candidate. That makes me quite optimistic for that nation's future.


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Tequila
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15 Oct 2013, 12:42 pm

The Iranian people did try to take out the trash in 2009 but weren't successful.



Tequila
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15 Oct 2013, 12:49 pm

Other point is that Islamism doesn't equal Islam i have criticisms of both, particularly when brought into play by Islamists.

I'm obviously a zillon times less horrified by, say, a Turkish liberal secular Muslim's version
of Islam than, say, Qaradawi's anal shavings.



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15 Oct 2013, 2:15 pm

GGPViper wrote:
The most recent estimate of the death toll due to The Great Leap Forward lists it as the single largest genocide in the history of mankind, responsible for 42 million deaths. The most conservative estimate is as "low" as 23 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap ... ine_deaths

Of course, it isn't an official genocide, since it wasn't intentional.

Which means that a single Communist policy likely killed more people due to incompetence than Nazi Germany killed people due to intent.

And I'm not even including the Khmer Rouge, the Holodomor or the Gulag.

Islam is a significant threat to just about any human right imaginable (and the very concept of human rights, as per the Cairo Declaration from 1990), but it is a minor threat compared to the destructive force of Communism. And the global influence of Islam is likely to decrease as the oil reserves of the Middle East deplete and/or are becoming irrelevant due to alternative power sources.


Hang on though, if we're talking about unintentional deaths then nothing, and I mean nothing, not even Stalinism or national socialism can hold a candle to capitalism. Economic policies of the banking institutions and neo-liberal countries that bleed the third world dry are directly and indirectly accountable for the deaths of 19 thousand children every day due to other wise preventable causes like malnutrition. Thats not biased or partisan data either, it comes from the world health organisation. This isn't from the 1940s or 1950's, its going on right now, under our noses.


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15 Oct 2013, 4:52 pm

thomas81 wrote:
Hang on though, if we're talking about unintentional deaths then nothing, and I mean nothing, not even Stalinism or national socialism can hold a candle to capitalism. Economic policies of the banking institutions and neo-liberal countries that bleed the third world dry are directly and indirectly accountable for the deaths of 19 thousand children every day due to other wise preventable causes like malnutrition. Thats not biased or partisan data either, it comes from the world health organisation. This isn't from the 1940s or 1950's, its going on right now, under our noses.

Would you provide some examples of how our economic policies are causing these deaths?



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15 Oct 2013, 5:11 pm

adb wrote:
thomas81 wrote:
Hang on though, if we're talking about unintentional deaths then nothing, and I mean nothing, not even Stalinism or national socialism can hold a candle to capitalism. Economic policies of the banking institutions and neo-liberal countries that bleed the third world dry are directly and indirectly accountable for the deaths of 19 thousand children every day due to other wise preventable causes like malnutrition. Thats not biased or partisan data either, it comes from the world health organisation. This isn't from the 1940s or 1950's, its going on right now, under our noses.

Would you provide some examples of how our economic policies are causing these deaths?


I don't think capitalism has caused it so much as it has done little to curb it (and in some geographical regions has exacerbated the situation).
After that, it is more into philosophical wrangling about ability vs duty and whether inaction is as bad as causing.

Almost every political school, social ideology, religion, government, regional tradition, and national culture has positives to offer humanity. They also all possess aspects that can cause great harm. There is no one size fits all cure for humanity's woes, no matter how it is packaged.


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15 Oct 2013, 5:47 pm

Islam is a religion.

But IslamISM is a political ideology, and thus is comparable to other political ideologies like fascism, and communism, et al.

Islamism is a recent phenom that appeared with the Iranian Revolution of the Seventies, and the Afgan resistence to the Soviets in the Eighties. And it is now comparable to what communism had been during the cold war.

Before the late seventies Arab nationalism (even the violent militant kind) was basically secular. One fourth of the members of the PLO were Christian. But now the PLO has to compete with the Islamist Hamas.



sonofghandi
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15 Oct 2013, 5:51 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Islam is a religion.

But IslamISM is a political ideology


I get so used to people not realizing there is a difference that I often forget to look for the context in which it is used to determine what someone means and instead let my pesky brain make some assumptions when I'm not looking.


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15 Oct 2013, 5:55 pm

adb wrote:
thomas81 wrote:
Hang on though, if we're talking about unintentional deaths then nothing, and I mean nothing, not even Stalinism or national socialism can hold a candle to capitalism. Economic policies of the banking institutions and neo-liberal countries that bleed the third world dry are directly and indirectly accountable for the deaths of 19 thousand children every day due to other wise preventable causes like malnutrition. Thats not biased or partisan data either, it comes from the world health organisation. This isn't from the 1940s or 1950's, its going on right now, under our noses.

Would you provide some examples of how our economic policies are causing these deaths?


not just a governmental level, some if not most of the perpetrators are private sector institutions like the world bank and USAID that enforce crippling debt interest rates that these nations have no hope of paying back. The end game is illiteracy, unemployment, child labour, disease, homelessness and massive food deficits in afflicted countries.

If you want to read more about how the american government works in cahoots with malignant private companies to cheat and destroy third world populations through larceny and usury, i would recommend buying a book called 'confessions of an economic hitman'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confession ... ic_Hit_Man


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thomas81
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15 Oct 2013, 6:08 pm

sonofghandi wrote:

I don't think capitalism has caused it so much as it has done little to curb it (and in some geographical regions has exacerbated the situation).
After that, it is more into philosophical wrangling about ability vs duty and whether inaction is as bad as causing.
.


You could argue the same in favour of Stalin during the holodomor. The Ukrainian famine was less a deliberate act of genocide by Stalin and more a consequence of his refusal to provide food in retaliation for Ukrainian nationalist demands for secession from the Soviet Union. I'm not a supporter of either Stalinism or anti-revisionist communism, but its an excercise in partisan hysterical demagoguery to compare the holodomor or cultural revolution to the nazi holocaust, which was a deliberate, organised act of mechanised cruelty and genocidal mass murder.

I don't understand why its such a far cry to extrapolate that to the case of for example, pharmaceutical companies that push the price of anti viral drugs so high that destitute people in Africa suffering from HIV/AIDS cant possibly access them. Therein is the brutal coldness of the capitalist holocaust. It may be piecemeal but it is happening, surely and relentlessly. The only reason its not widely documented or publicised is the identities of the complicit.


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sonofghandi
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15 Oct 2013, 7:06 pm

thomas81 wrote:
I don't understand why its such a far cry to extrapolate that to the case of for example, pharmaceutical companies that push the price of anti viral drugs so high that destitute people in Africa suffering from HIV/AIDS cant possibly access them. Therein is the brutal coldness of the capitalist holocaust. It may be piecemeal but it is happening, surely and relentlessly. The only reason its not widely documented or publicised is the identities of the complicit.


Plenty of people talk about. Plenty of people know about it. Nobody does anything about it.

If it weren't for capitalism, the pharmaceutical companies would not have bothered with the expense of developing those drugs. Although I would definitely agree that there are some morally bankrupt people running those companies.


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