patrick.net

YesYNot says

Characterizing Islam as the terrorists do is generally not done by Westerners. That is probably because (1) many Islamic scholars feel that is not correct. (2) many Mulsims feel it is incorrect. (3) our strategy is to convince most Muslims to reject the terrorist interpretation on Islam.

I never said Islam should be characterized as terrorist. I said specific ideas should be denounced as evil. Do you see a difference?

Heraclitusstudent says

Though obviously this could be labeled hate speech and harassment.

Hate speech is protected. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

Traditionally, however, if the speech did not fall within one of the above categorical exceptions, it was protected speech. In 1969, the Supreme Court protected a Ku Klux Klan member’s racist speech and created the "imminent danger" test to permit hate speech. The court ruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio that; "The constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a state to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force, or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."[82]
This test has been modified very little from its inception in 1969 and the formulation is still good law in the United States. Only speech that poses an imminent danger of unlawful action, where the speaker has the intention to incite such action and there is the likelihood that this will be the consequence of his or her speech, may be restricted and punished by that law.
In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, (1992), the issue of freedom to express hatred arose again when a gang of white people burned a cross in the front yard of a black family. The local ordinance in St. Paul, Minnesota, criminalized such racist and hate-filled expressions and the teenager was charged thereunder. Associate justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the Supreme Court, held that the prohibition against hate speech was unconstitutional as it contravened the First Amendment. The Supreme Court struck down the ordinance. Scalia explicated the fighting words exception as follows: “The reason why fighting words are categorically excluded from the protection of the First Amendment is not that their content communicates any particular idea, but that their content embodies a particularly intolerable (and socially unnecessary) mode of expressing whatever idea the speaker wishes to convey”.[83] Because the hate speech ordinance was not concerned with the mode of expression, but with the content of expression, it was a violation of the freedom of speech. Thus, the Supreme Court embraced the idea that hate speech is permissible unless it will lead to imminent hate violence.[84] The opinion noted "This conduct, if proved, might well have violated various Minnesota laws against arson, criminal damage to property", among a number of others, none of which was charged, including threats to any person, not to only protected classes.
In 2011, the Supreme Court issued their ruling on Snyder v. Phelps, which concerned the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to protest with signs found offensive by many Americans. The issue presented was whether the 1st Amendment protected the expressions written on the signs. In an 8-1 decision the court sided with Phelps, the head of Westboro Baptist Church, thereby confirming their historically strong protection of hate speech, so long as it doesn't promote imminent violence. The Court explained, "speech deals with matters of public concern when it can 'be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community' or when it 'is a subject of general interest and of value and concern to the public." [85]

Heraclitusstudent says

I never said Islam should be characterized as terrorist. I said specific ideas should be denounced as evil. Do you see a difference?

Yes. And I'm saying the only one that is generally not done is to disparage Islam in general.

Heraclitusstudent says

YesYNot says

Terrorist ideas are most certainly shamed more so than anything I can think of.

No it isn't. I almost never hear media talking about this,

When you watch the news, are terrorists praised, or are they roundly rejected? People celebrate killing terrorists. Trumpies even celebrate the idea of killing their families as well.

YesYNot says

Muslim governments use religion to demonize the West in order to galvanize support for themselves. That's a classic strategy of corrupt or paranoid leaders.

That's a total misunderstanding of politics. In politics you always demonize the other side.
The only difference here is that they use religion.

As far as Trump is concerned: it should be understood that you can't have a people regularly bombed and slaughtered and expect them to just take it and harbor no resentment. And simple people will NOT make nuances such as this guy is moderate, this one is not . The west is not superior in that regard. If nothing is done, this issue WILL end up as a direct religious war. Trump is just a symptom of more of that to come.

YesYNot says

Hate speech is protected.

Sure fine. Still in the current context, registering extremists is appropriate.

Heraclitusstudent says

That's a total misunderstanding of politics. In politics you always demonize the other side.

The only difference here is that they use religion.

No, Trump is doing this. Obama is not. Trumpies say this is because Obama is a pussy Muslim traitor.

Heraclitusstudent says

As far as Trump is concerned: it should be understood that you can't have a people regularly bombed and slaughtered and expect them to just take it and harbor no resentment.

I'm not sure if you are arguing that Muslims are not going to sit there and take it with no resentment when we do it to them, or we will not take it with no resentment when they occasionally strike back. Either way, there is always resentment. The more that politicians vilify the other side in order to win elections or prevent uprisings, the more likely the populace will be out with pitchforks when there is an attack.

Heraclitusstudent says

Sure fine. Still in the current context, registering extremists is appropriate.

I don't know. I'm sure that our defense agencies are keeping tabs of major hate groups to the extent that they make statements in public or on web sites. Putting them on a publicly available national registry is probably not legal, but I'm not a lawyer, so who knows. Generally, the supremacists leaders are publicly known anyways. Followers and people who comment on web sites are probably not tracked as closely.

YesYNot says

When you watch the news, are terrorists praised, or are they roundly rejected?

Terrorists are rejected. Not ideas.
The media never establishes a link between their beliefs and their actions. They will just say "they were radicalized".
Such link belief-to-action is almost always minimized and dismissed as you do yourself: poverty is the real cause, or maybe US interventions in the middle-east (Dan), or maybe zionism (bgmall), etc, etc...

I simply never heard a single media attack on a belief such as "polytheists or apostates must be killed". Such attack would make a lot of Muslims feel uncomfortable because these are rules written in holy texts. But these are very extreme beliefs.

YesYNot says

I'm not sure if you are arguing that Muslims are not going to sit there and take it with no resentment when we do it to them, or we will not take it with no resentment when they occasionally strike back. Either way, there is always resentment. The more that politicians vilify the other side in order to win elections or prevent uprisings, the more likely the populace will be out with pitchforks when there is an attack.

I'm referring to the western public and Europeans in particular.

YesYNot says

No, Trump is doing this. Obama is not.

Obama is not doing it for Muslims. He is doing it for ISIS. He is doing it for republicans. etc, etc...
Conflict is everywhere and strife is justice.

Politicians will always follow the crowd.

Heraclitusstudent says

Obama is not doing it for Muslims. He is doing it for ISIS. He is doing it for republicans. etc, etc...

That's because his strategy is to win over the more moderate Muslims, so that they reject the nastier parts of the Koran and turn against ISIS. He is only vilifying the subset that wants to kill us. It's a much more restrained approach. It is difficult, because he has to convince Americans that it is OK to be Muslim and we should not discriminate against all Muslims. Hillary takes the same approach. Many Americans are unhappy with that approach, and want to make the sand glow (over there) and shut our doors to prevent any Muslims from entering regardless of their personal situation.

YesYNot says

That's because his strategy is to win over the more moderate Muslims, so that they reject the nastier parts of the Koran and turn against ISIS.

So this is not a "classic strategy of corrupt or paranoid leaders".

Heraclitusstudent says

poverty is the real cause

This presumes that there is only one cause to a situation, which is a ridiculous notion. Preventing terrorist events from happening requires removing any item in the chain of events that typically leads to terrorist acts. You don't have to identify the biggest cause and somehow attack that directly. You certainly don't have to focus on the biggest cause without attacking the other issues as well. That would be stupid.

YesYNot says

He is only vilifying the subset that wants to kill us. It's a much more restrained approach. It is difficult, because he has to convince Americans that it is OK to be Muslim and we should not discriminate against all Muslims.

He is going only after people who act. Actions are the last step in a long chain that start with beliefs.
For every person that acts there are a thousands that believe and do nothing.
It totally misses the point that if these people were never attacking us now, they could still take over Europe and impose the Shariah there just by perpetuating and spreading their beliefs.
This is NOT a question of terrorism. This is a fight against ideas.

Heraclitusstudent says

So this is not a "classic strategy of corrupt or paranoid leaders".

Everybody has enemies. Creating enemies out of thin air or overstating the perceived threat is what corrupt or paranoid leaders do.

Heraclitusstudent, I think we agree as to observable facts, and our opinions may even be complementary in some circumstances. The major differences I see are these:
1) I think religious people tend to revert to their religions when under stress, because I have seen that many times: for example, a cancer diagnosis or any brush with mortality can cause people to revert to the religion of their childhood; it may be part of the bargaining stage, because they seem to offer to be more devout if allowed to live.
2) I don't assume we can always sustain expensive long term projects, e.g. registration and surveillance, regardless of economic conditions.
For these reasons, I return to my suggestion that we should offer everyone a free one-way ticket to Mecca, on condition they never return. We could also, on a going forward basis, consider a law saying anyone who chooses to go to a specific list of foreign places that advocate the violent overthrow of our Constitutional government, is thereby choosing to renounce whatever right they may have had to return. After that, there are likely more opportunities to support declarations, registration, surveillance, and deprogramming, particularly among our allies with large Muslim populations if they want to avoid getting killed by Muslim fundamentalists.

The issue domestically comes down to numbers and political will. So long as the % of Muslims remains very small, imposing an amended pledge of allegiance on everyone seems possibly overbroad. On the other hand, singling out one religion for special requirements might raise First Amendment issues. That is why I return to offering everyone a free one-way ticket: it is neither discriminatory, nor persecution, and it might get the believers to leave. It could also be combined with other measures, provided that they are also legal.

YesYNot says

If you tell someone to kill someone, and

offer an incentive or reward, YOU go to jail for hiring someone to commit murder. Advocating murder or the violent overthrow of the government is NOT protected by the First Amendment. This is what Muslim preachers do all the time. They get a pass because they are a religion, but that should stop. Religions are allowed to engage in fraud (pay now for imaginary real estate in the sky), but they should not be allowed to advocate murder.

The "moderate" Muslim who doesn't personally kill anyone is in a position similar to the guy who drives the getaway car for the bank robbers. He's part of the same conspiracy motivated by a share of the same reward.

Islam commands homicide everywhere. That differs from the other two Abrahamic faiths: Judaism applies only to the "Holy Land," and Christianity renounces violence. Islam combines Old Testament violence with a New Testament global mission.

As for the preachers who specifically advocate the beliefs of ISIL/Daesh, even the death penalty might not deter them because they would imagine they get their reward by dying for Islam. So, within the bounds of the 8th Amendment, we might consider that turnabout is fair play.

bgamall4 says

Here is McCain saying "we" wanted to arm ISIS:

That's some crazy shit man!!! I'm not really sure what it means though, sounds like they wanted to arm ISIS, but ended up not arming them instead?

YesYNot says

Creating enemies out of thin air or overstating the perceived threat is what corrupt or paranoid leaders do.

Or maybe you can stop denying reality in your desperate attempts to reduce Islam to a "religion of peace" and willingness to cling to moderate Muslims as our allies.

- PM Erdogan of Turkey (an 'ally' of the US and Europe) often praised for being a 'moderate': "The Term “Moderate Islam” Is Ugly And Offensive; There Is No Moderate Islam; Islam Is Islam"
http://www.thememriblog.org/turkey/blog_personal/en/2595.htm
The jihadists who carry out terrorist attacks in the service of ISIS are merely following the commands in Quran 9:5, "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them..." and Quran 8:39, "So fight them until there is no more fitna [strife] and all submit to the religion of Allah."

- Yusuf al-Qaradawi is an extremely influential Islamic cleric and jurist. He is the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, president of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, and the host of a popular Al-Jazeera TV program about sharia. Qaradawi has stated that,

"the shariah cannot be amended to conform to changing human values and standards. Rather it is the absolute norm to which all human values and conduct must conform."

- Teun Voeten: http://www.politico.eu/article/molenbeek-broke-my-heart-radicalization-suburb-brussels-gentrification/
"the most important factor is Belgium’s culture of denial. The country’s political debate has been dominated by a complacent progressive elite that firmly believes society can be designed and planned. Observers who point to unpleasant truths such as the high incidence of crime among Moroccan youth and violent tendencies in radical Islam are accused of being propagandists of the extreme-right, and are subsequently ignored and ostracized."
"If there is to be any hope of fighting the terror threats against the West, and actually bringing public life back to a semblance of normality, at an absolute minimum the politics of willful ignorance, political correctness, and denial will have to go."

curious2 says

I return to my suggestion that we should offer everyone a free one-way ticket to Mecca

I think in the case of Europe, the case is more serious.
I would make people (everyone) sign an extensive declaration that they believe in European values (respect of others, respect of human life, separation of church and state, equality of men and women, and with a special clause for Muslims that they renounce violence and beliefs such a stoning or otherwise killing others).

If they refuse, I would not offer a one way ticket to Mecca. I would strip them of citizenship and deport them on the spot to closest African shore.

But right now we are so stuck in denial that the battle is against ourselves.

Heraclitusstudent says

- PM Erdogan of Turkey (an 'ally' of the US and Europe) often praised for being a 'moderate': "The Term “Moderate Islam” Is Ugly And Offensive; There Is No Moderate Islam; Islam Is Islam"

He is right, there is no moderate Islam. There are moderate Muslims, those who don't practice the crap in Islam.

Heraclitusstudent says

I think in the case of Europe, the case is more serious.

Yes, definitely, especially in the countries that are nearly 10% Muslim (e.g. Belgium and France). They are approaching the tipping point, and could go the way of Lebanon.

Heraclitusstudent says

But right now we are so stuck in denial that the battle is against ourselves.

You have a point there, but our solutions have to be consistent with our own laws. Islam says to go Mecca. It doesn't say go to the closest shore of Africa. Being nice can be more effective than being mean: you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar; as a Christian would say, you must love your enemy.

Offering a free ticket is nice. Be generous even with who those say they want to kill you: smile as you offer them a free ticket to go away; then, if you must fight them, do it at a safe distance. In any conflict, the battleground suffers most. If you want to protect your own country, or Europe, then that task becomes much easier if your adversary leaves voluntarily.

Your declaration might have some effect, but as long as the believers remain, even those who sign your declaration, the effect would likely be weak and temporary. Even if they read your declaration aloud every day and sign it every day, it won't match the power of a cancer diagnosis or the death of a spouse or the loss of a job. Even the San Bernardino terrorists could have signed your papers: one had just cleared her background checks to immigrate, and the other had a steady government job, but they planned their attacks and checked out when their child was born. (The new father was reportedly "triggered" and ejected prematurely after somebody allegedly made fun of his beard.) With paradise waiting just around the corner, your meager pieces of earthly paper won't mean as much.

curious2 says

but our solutions have to be consistent with our own laws.

Laws can be changed. Even constitutions can be changed.
We should not make laws a barrier to reacting to people who would use our constitutional rights and then, once in power, would turn around and burn that constitution.

curious2 says

the effect would likely be weak and temporary.

The declaration is just one part as I explained. Other parts include education, media, foreign policy, surveillance, immigration, etc...
But the declaration serves several important purposes: First it separates moderate people from extremists (so it draws a line in the sand where it should be), it may weakly influence people and separate them from seeing texts as absolute truths, and moreover it eliminates the denialist argument that we should not bother the Muslim community at all because most of them are moderates. Such a declaration doesn't target moderates and shouldn't bother them.

Heraclitusstudent, as I read your comments, I can't help noticing that you don't acknowledge the areas where we seem to agree, and you seem to resort only to negative remedies with regard to addressing the problem. Why resort first to changing laws and even the Constitution, without even offering a free ticket? Amending the Constitution takes years and costs a lot of money; the founders made the process difficult precisely to prevent over-reaction to the concerns of the moment. Please don't let anger cloud your judgment. We do have a problem, but anger about the source of the problem should not distract from finding the cheapest and simplest legal solution.

curious2 says

Why resort first to changing laws and even the Constitution, without even offering a free ticket?

Because as I said I don't believe many people would take a free ticket if it meant to never come back.

Heraclitusstudent says

curious2 says

Why resort first to changing laws and even the Constitution, without even offering a free ticket?

Because as I said I don't believe many people would take a free ticket if it meant to never come back.

The believers believe that they must go. The free ticket offers them the opportunity. If you're considering going full snackbar because Islam says so, then you'd better not skip your free trip to Mecca first, because that would make you an unbeliever and ineligible for paradise. If they stay, even when offered a free ticket, then they are effectively declaring that they are unbelievers, infidels. You can repeat the offer every day, everywhere. The refusal of a free ticket is a daily declaration, with actions speaking louder than words. Every day a "Muslim" doesn't sign up for his free ticket, every waking hour he attends to other things instead of signing up, he is effectively saying he doesn't believe that he needs to go to Mecca, which means he doesn't really believe Islam, and he isn't going to do what it tells him to do. Even if he prays 5x/day, he knows the whole time that Islam says he has to go, and he has failed to go, even though he could have gone. What if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow, how will he explain his failure to go when he had the chance? The inconvenience of not being allowed back? That is but a mere earthly matter, which would not trouble him if he were a true believer and trusted that all things are the will of Allah.

curious2 says

If they stay, even when offered a free ticket, then they are effectively declaring that they are unbelievers, infidels.

Well but tickets to Mecca aren't THAT expensive.
Most people wouldn't take a free ticket at the price of never coming back. It's much easier to go buy your own ticket, go there and come back.

So yes we can do that but I don't think it would have much effect.

Also this is a worldwide problem. You can't ignore the rest of the world. You need to go for the root of the problem. You need to fight the ideas.

Heraclitusstudent says

You need to fight the ideas.

I agree about that, and I've lamented previously that two presidents in a row (R+D) have insisted on publicly expressing "respect" for Islam.

Heraclitusstudent says

It's much easier to go buy your own ticket, go there and come back.

I had already suggested the possibility of legislation saying people who choose to go to a specific list of countries that, for example, advocate the violent overthrow of our Constitutional government are thereby choosing to renounce whatever right to return they may have had. The offer of a free ticket would in itself require legislation if it is to be publicly funded. The two suggestions could be easily combined in one statute. I think such a prudent defensive measure would be more patriotic than the so-called Patriot Act using the presence of potential terrorists as an excuse to spy on everyone.

"BRUSSELS — Ilyass Boughalab may be dead, but his brief stint working in Belgium's nuclear industry is still very much alive in the minds of this country's nuclear security officials worried about the Islamic State.

Boughalab's family said he was radicalized after he had security clearances, but in 2014 someone else committed an act of sabotage at the plant by opening a valve, draining lubricant from a turbine and causing it to burn out. The plant was never in danger but had to shut down for four months, and the damage cost between $100 million and $200 million."

Donald Trump Finds New City to Insult: Brussels

Note the Date of article -January 28th, 2016.

LONDON — He incensed Paris and London by saying that some of their neighborhoods were so overrun with radicals that the police were too scared to enter.

He raised Scottish tempers by threatening to pull the plug on his investments there, including his luxury golf courses, if British politicians barred him from entering Britain.

Now Donald J. Trump has upset the already beleaguered people of Belgium, calling its capital, Brussels, “a hellhole.”

Asked by the Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo about the feasibility of his proposal to bar foreign Muslims from entering the United States, Mr. Trump argued that Belgium and France had been blighted by the failure of Muslims in these countries to integrate.

“There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on.”