Islam, ISIS, and You: Where are all these so-called "moderate" Muslims?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Islam, ISIS, and You: Where are all these so-called "moderate" Muslims?

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I don't think Islam has anything much to do with terrorism, though I suppose some aspects of the religion's teachings might hinder or support certain forms of actions.

The IRA was doing most of this poo poo well before ISIS did, and if you had more occupied/colonized Christian nations you'd probably have more groups of this sort with a Christian flavoring.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2015 23:09

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:33

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khwarezm posted:

We can say a lot of bad things about the IRA but I don't really think they compare to ISIS, in terms of pure numbers killed its not even in the same ballpark.

Personally I find myself seeing more parallels with groups like the Carlists in Spain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlism

Sure, though you could probably make some pointed comparisons to the Protestant Ascendancy and Cromwell. :v:

But the IRA is certainly a terrorist group (or was at various points) and was serving political ends. I'm willing to bet the IRA was described in terms rather like the ones used to describe various 'terrorist' groups nowadays, and I further imagine that if there was ongoing nastiness as we saw in the modern Mideast, in a highly Catholic area, we'd have the possibility of an ultra-Catholic group comparable to ISIS.

Now an ultra-Catholic group would not behave exactly like ISIS, and you could perhaps make a case that there are elements in Islam that ISIS cites as inspiration for its particularly horrid actions.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 00:29

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Jarmak posted:

The left is quite adept at identifying regressive Christian crap in our public institutions and (correctly) calling out Christianity for its support of horrible social policy, yet will turn around and defend institutions ten times worse in Islamic countries as being good or not-problematic just because they actually let little girls learn how to read before selling them into marriage or because you actually get a trial before being stoned for adultery.

Can you actually give an example of this? "We should not bomb or invade them" is not the same as "we wholeheartedly support their local institutions."

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 20:57

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Abner Cadaver II posted:

Citizens in the USA that weren't adult white males had no rights to speak of less than two centuries ago. I guess we better sweep away this trash culture with fire and sword.

Let's be real: The American constitutional system is obviously, structurally designed in a manner which promotes and defends the interests of planter lords, whose only real difference from an aristocracy is that they retained some pretense of meritocracy, largely because of the vast quantity of terrain available to be claimed. Since essentially all of the good agricultural land, and most of the mineral-rich land, have been claimed, recent initatives on the part of these "constitutional" radicals are removing the pretenses entirely, as they serve no further need.

This system manifests itself in the fascination with arbitrary territorial units which aren't marked by any significance more distinct than settlement patterns of culturally near-identical people several centuries ago. The only distinctive region, the former center of human slaveholding, still retains a disproportionate impact compared to the marginally more civilized territories. These arbitrary "states" are given specific representation grossly out of proportion with their population, economic importance, and so on, and use that representation to further the interests of extractive industries - and this is considered a strength of the system by the deluded maniacs! Indeed, a major health law, which was threatening to vault the "United" States into accord with 19th century German health insurance, nearly derailed because of a minor confusion in a legal draft using the very term, "state". Yet, rather than using a clear term, such as provinces, prefectures, etc. they cling to this vestige.

The entire political culture is a reaction against emergent trends in parliamentary democracy justified with an appeal to some kind of "monarch." The country cannot be saved, and its people should be managed by their betters, with their extracted resources used to construct schools and infrastructure in the underdeveloped territories, compensate the occupying peacekeeping forces, and so on. But the real enemy is of course "American exceptionalism," a pernicious ideology which must be destroyed and opposed wherever it threatens to emerge.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 23:03

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Liberal_L33t posted:

And as for the second charge - I wasn't claiming any kind of conspiracy. I was using reaction to the Chapel Hill shootings as an example of how many muslims have a defensive attitude and are as quick to sling around the label of Islamophobia as they are slow to criticize anything about their own systems.

What are your feelings, on a semi-related topic, about Japanese internment during WWII?

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 02:08

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Jarmak posted:

I'm speaking more about the push-back against criticism of Islamic institutions rather then explicit endorsement of those institutions, though I'm hesitant to mention it because I don't want to derail the thread, the reaction to the Charlie Hedbo incident is the best example of this I can think of.

I imagine a lot of people leaning left perceive a high risk of a literal god-drat pogrom (aimed at Muslims) breaking out whenever poo poo like this happens, so that is their first rhetorical reflex: "Simmer down; those guys were maniacs, the local Islamic Center does not need to be burned down or shot up."

This thus takes a greater priority than arguing over the fine details of the complex dynamics of a reaction between an ancient mandate and the modern world in a subsection of society they don't belong to. (Even here, I don't think we have many American/European Muslims. al-Saqr I believe lives in the ME, as opposed to an American or European Islamic community.)

Other than this it just seems like people getting offended (probably mendaciously) that OTHER people aren't making the exact same reactions they are, to the general end of implying (in my opinion) that those other people really are The Other, as opposed to Us Good Folk, who had the proper form of outrage emissions.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 18:59

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Liberal_L33t posted:

Alright enough with the sarcastic bullcrap: the point I was trying to make is that the democratic rights of white southerners were temporarily (and briefly, unfortunately) compromised during military reconstruction. The Confederacy was organized around the right to hold slaves. Nazi Germany was organized around ethnic cleansing. Groups like ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood are organized around causes which are (or should be) equally unacceptable to the global community in the 21st century. Modern democracies are not obliged to offer power or legitimacy to organizations whose entire purpose of existence is violating the individual human rights of others. Weren't you fuckers the first to jump on the "don't tolerate intolerance" bandwagon after the Charleston shooting? The same principle applies here.

Okay, so what's the solution? Do you try to encourage incremental reforms which primarily originate from within the society, helping where you can and perhaps acknowledging that their system may not perfectly resemble American/European liberal democracy even in a good situation? Or do you bomb and embargo every state that has an ideology we consider unacceptable? If the latter, where does all the necessary money and manpower come from? Also, what would you do if your efforts to destroy the Bad Thing ends up helping the Bad Thing, because of all the casualties caused by your efforts and/or because you are really obviously trying to put a government you, a not-from-here group, want in power?

How many Muslims/residents of Muslim nations do you kill, and how grateful are the survivors expected to be?

Like in my view, the 'leftist' perspective, leaving aside the love affair with Palestinian groups, is basically "Help where we can, but we can't force change, and when we try we often hurt them and our own interests at the same time."

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 22:13

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Abner Cadaver II posted:

Except for how a solid third of the country refuses to believe we're secular and define themselves entirely by their particular form of Christianity.

But yeah, spent force, no impact, nothing to see here. Definitely not a factor in Manifest Destiny in the least.

Manifest Destiny nothing, they were leading Secretary of Defense reports with Bible quotes in the Iraq war. Not even like, "one or two" either.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 23:55

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So basically we keep murdering them with airstrikes until they produce a form of government similar to our own? How close must the mimicry be before the air assault stops? What measures will be taken to keep the Forever War going if some treacherous, weak-livered future generation considers peace, if only to avoid the expenditure on drone strikes?

Also, does this policy extend globally? Will some alternate method be considered to (for instance) remove the threat of the Russian nuclear strike capacity, so that they can receive the loving embrace of our tutoring air power?

# ¿ Jul 7, 2015 05:18

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How about we compromise. We support nobody and bomb everybody until they become Americans.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2015 09:52

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Liberal_L33t posted:

All the meandering, hypothetical, dystopian bullshit in the world isn't going to convince me that bombing Daesh isn't justified and necessary.

If you just want to bomb ISIS forces like we've been doing, I feel this is a different story than an open-ended bombing campaign until Middle Eastern governments reach a standard determined by we, people on the other side of the planet. Are the Daesh evil? Yes. Do I feel a great deal of enthusiasm for an open letter of unlimited intent to bomb? No, and that is in no way the same thing as "provide air support to local forces interested in getting rid of ISIS."

The way you're talking, we'd begin bombing those local forces if they didn't institute a robust constitutional democracy immediately (possibly we would give them a break in the bombardment to attempt to hold an election - but God help them if the Islamic Democratic Party wins 32%!!)

You may call it dystopian bullshit, but "We're going to bomb all other countries that don't share our system of government until they do" is spectacularly dystopian in its own right. The Iraq War, which was the longest war we've been involved with ever as a nation, took what - eleven years? Twelve? This bombing campaign would be indefinite.

Nessus fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Jul 7, 2015

# ¿ Jul 7, 2015 16:32

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You know, I bet a lot of the appeal of Sharia law is that it's like, OK, this is in the book, and maybe there's some elaborations, but this poo poo is relatively fixed -- as opposed to "whatever, lol, I've got the army and so you can get hosed." In a sense it's kind of a constitutionalism, maybe.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2015 07:25

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rudatron posted:

I wouldn't call supporting sharia 'rational' (that implies too much), but understandable given context makes sense. Though that 'defying god' bit is interesting, because it would demonstrate a lack of secularization as the main stumbling block here. If you're a politician in the west, you cannot appeal to any particular religious law, you have to justify your policy on the basis of some kind of secular morality (utilitarianism, liberal-rights-talk, etc). The fact that an appeal-to-god works in these countries is the problem, because it grants religious authorities political power.

Actually, tons of politicians appeal to religious morality here in the West, indeed it happens on both left and right (though usually on the right, here in America). Even if it is in a general sense, they cite that instead of appealing to abstract political theory.

Clearly this means we must drone strike the West into rationality. :v:

More seriously the impression I get here is that it's more, "You can't just say left is right now; the holy book keeps you honest, and if you breach it you're obviously immoral, thus illegitimate." There may be some preference for the local imam because local political figures have shown such a cataclysmic level of immorality, corruption, and so forth - at least the holy guy mostly walks his talk. I don't think the solution in this situation is to undermine religion.

Rigged Death Trap posted:

Well its not unchanging fixed, in a way: Sharia, or to be more accurate Islamic law consists of Sharia and Fiqh, Islamic Jurisprudence.
The latter, being 'man made' can change.

But its obvious one would be more receptive to ideas originating from their prescribed holy text.

This can presumably be checked by other religious scholars who can go "that's bullshit," and is perhaps preferable to the law of "I have the army, so gently caress you." It is obviously not a perfect system but it seems like secular authorities are perhaps seen as materially worse?

# ¿ Jul 8, 2015 07:46

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:33

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GreyjoyBastard posted:

Iceland?

Didn't Iceland develop out of the old Norse systems, which, while obviously brutal in many ways, were surprisingly progressive?

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 05:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Islam, ISIS, and You: Where are all these so-called "moderate" Muslims?