Sam Harris

And “lethal social justice” isn’t the same as “social justice”.

 

C) If my combat efforts would likely succeed and wouldn’t create the expected backlash in response thereby doing more harm than good, absolutely. I’d have no problem with that at all, personally (that’s part of why I signed up with the Army way back when). I wouldn’t particularly enjoy it, but I’d have no problem with it either. The problem is that you seem to be ignoring the nature of religious fanatics in your zeal to fix ‘em good. That’s just being complicit in the root problem with those people. Such situations aren’t isolated to the event itself, there’s a lot more to consider (which is why when I re-upped with the Guard ten years later I was only okay with being a medic).

The above quotations are not quite consistent:
In the latter, you DO recognize the right to implement, at times, “lethal justice”, in the first, you muddle-headedly deny the existence of such.

As for this fear of yours concerning the “backlash effect”, I assume you think it was wrong of the Allied Powers to declare war upon Germany in 1940, since that had the backlash of the counter-declaration from Germany, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Brits and others whose lives would otherwise have been spared?
Nor were the chances particularly good then, for the future defeat of Germany..

You’re presuming success, which is precisely the crux of the issue I’m pointing out that you need to consider rather than presume. Reality is a lot more messy than fundamentalist ideology (which has a lot to do with why those so inclined invest so deeply in black and white ideology).

Byron

Not quite.
I just happen to have a different criterion for success than you do:
To implement the execution of an individual who decides to stone to death a raped 13-year old (or join the stoners’ cheer gang) IS a resounding success.

If that success rouses the ire of more Islamic bullies, then it is their turn next.

arildno - 13 November 2008 04:46 PM

The above quotations are not quite consistent:
In the latter, you DO recognize the right to implement, at times, “lethal justice”, in the first, you muddle-headedly deny the existence of such.

You really do need to learn to read more critically, to read what’s actually there on the page or screen rather than regularly interjecting your own arbitrary presumptions. If it’s just a comprehension problem you can probably find instruction to help you. In any case I seriously doubt you’re as thick as you let on here.

Byron

Dee - 03 November 2008 07:41 AM

Are there any Muslims here ?  Actually this article is for anybody although having an Islamic Muslim read it might be more interesting. We should be entertained at his/her attempt to talk his way out of this one.., and others like it ...tell us all about it , and start with saying “It’s a beautiful religion “

A thirteen year old who said that she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Islamic militants are fundamentalists?!  NO WAI!  How long have you been sitting on this information Dee?! 

Seriously though, you are, as usual, trying to indict all muslims for the actions of crazed fundamentalist muslims who are a vastly tiny minority in the muslim world.  Shocking.  Would you care to give us an estimate, since you are such a scholar on Islam and all, about what percentage of the 1.2 billion muslims in the world actively engage in stoning rape victims today?  I seriously doubt any Islamic militants frequent this forum, but trying to pin these actions on ANY muslim in general is beyond pathetic, even by your own standards.

You are so desperate to narrow your criticisms onto only Islam because you seem to think criticizing Christianity is somehow anti-American…and, being the ignorant ultra-nationalist you are, you’d rather be dead than criticize anything American.  None of these monotheistic (or any other really) religions are worthy of being deemed beautiful in my opinion.  Nor peaceful.  None of them are.  But Islam is no worse than Judaism or Christianity in that area.  Mainstream muslims don’t approve of stoning rape victims these days.

Dee.

But I don’t think of “Muslim” as a nation, but a type .What shall we call those people who are from places like Pakistan, Palestine, Eygpt , Iran , Iraq and Saudia Arabia ? Would “Arabs” be correct ? Somehow that seems wrong , but if they are a race, that has to be Arabian doesn’t it ?

You call them Pakistanis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Iranians, Iraqis, and Saudis, lol.  And no, they aren’t all Arabs.  The Saudi, Egyptian and Palestinian populaces are generally Arabs.  The Pakistani, Iranian, and Iraqi populace are generally Persians.  The difference between being a Persian and an Arab has aboslutely nothing to do with any religious views or ideological framework.  It’s based on where they are from.  Persians are areom Persia, the old heart of the Persian Empire.  Arabs are generally from the areas on or surrounding the Arabian Penninsula. 

This breakdown changes quite a bit though based on immigration patterns between these various countries.  Today for example, thanks to Bush’s war, there are a lot more Saudis from the Arabian Penninsula (aka Arabs) fighting turf wars in southern Iraq than there normally are.  And millions of native Iraqis hve had to flee the country to escape the violence.  So the demographics there today are not close to how they normally are.  Demographics in places like Palestine’s territories shift a lot depending on how much progress Israel has made in stealing their land lately. 

Arab isn’t a race or religion.  It’s just the term used to describe where someone came from like American, or British, or French, or Spanish etc.

arildno,

You seem to forget, for example, that once a religious fanatic is dead, he cannot backlash in any dangerous way..

You and Dee get dumber by the minute!  Killing religious fanatics indiscriminantly and without honest reflection only causes MORE religious fanatics to spring up out of the sand.  You jingoists are fucking retarded these days, lol. 

You want to be more effective in eliminating the major threats to America?  Wage a war on their ideology via the mainstream moderate muslim communities who grossly outnumber the militants.  By running in guns blazing as we have thus far in the ‘war on terror’ all we’ve done is make al Qaeda more appealing to mainstream moderate muslims who number over 1.2 bil around the globe. 

Killing many thousands of civillians in hopes at getting an ‘evil doer’ or two is not just dumb, it’s fucking dumb!  If you are lucky enough to kill the ‘evil doers’, you now have a whole community of moderate muslims on the brink of radicalization as they bury their loved ones.  Suddenly the militant ideologies about the evils of imperial America are being proven true to the populace in dire fashion, with the blood of their familes and friends driving them to radicalize.  You want to kill off the terrorists?  Well you can’t do it in a way that increases their global influence and only causes ten more to spring up every time you kill one.  You do it by first undermining the ideological messages that the militans are trying to pass off as Islamic tenants. 

Fortunately, as is the case with al Qaeda, those faux tenants involve killing other muslims thanks to Zawahiri and each time other muslims are killed it makes Zawahiri’s message that much more difficult to sell to the muslim world surrounding his gang of nutjobs.  You have to erode support by eroding the ideological influence Zawahiri has by showing the muslim world that the US isn’t as imperialistic and careless with its jingoism as much of the world knows we are.  We have to change those things and prove to the muslim world that Zawahiri is wrong.  Every time we make strides in this effect, it diminishes the status and the threat of groups like al Qaeda. 

Luckily, history has helped us out a great deal with the election of Barack Obama.  His life story is such, and his policies do much to help this perception as well, that moderate muslims are being forced to re-evaluate what Zawahiri tells them.  His points are likely to become old news.  The electiction of Obama based even just on who he is and the fact he was smeared as being a muslim and has the name Hussein is is a remarkably effective counterpoint. 

Zawahiri has been telling stories, usually true stories, about how horrible American imperialism has been historically in the muslim world.  And he was dominating that argument.  But the populace there is now hopeful towards an Obama administration and his election has proven Zawahiri wrong on many fronts, like his caricature of America being purely retarded and incapable of ever improving its stature among muslims.  He would have you believe every president in our history was like Reagan and the Bushes with their war mongering jingosim and anti-intellectual positions on polciy in the middle east. 

In short, stop being a moron.  You have to stop the upswell of radicaliztion BEFORE you can hope to target the big dogs.  You can’t just wish this problem away nor can you blow it off any map.  It’s like a Chinese finger trap.  The harder you pull, the tighter it gets.  The more we run around bombing ppl indiscriminantly, the more inflamed the problem becames.  It’s time to be learn from the past mistakes and try a smarter approach.