Sunni Islam and Shia Islam Together Again…And Against Us!

[—Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

Autumn wrote: Stop. Using. Us. As. A. Shield. For. YOUR. Bigotry. The west does not give a flying fuck about making life better for trans and gay Palestinians. That’s not why Israel gets backing. That’s not why the death tolls in Gaza are so high. Just fucking stop it, especially coming from a fucking American. Who or what is Us? United States? us as in a group?

LGBT people. We’re not a prop for your case against Palestine nor people from western democracies arguing for the human treatment of and freedom for Palestinians as if there is some embedded hypocrisy. It’s an irrelevant factor. This conflict does not move the needle on the issue of LGBT rights anywhere. As queer people, we constantly end up having to defend the rights of people who won’t defend ours because that’s a) the cost of having fucking morals, and b) a sad reality we live with. It gets so tedious to see this brought up nearly every fucking time the issue of human rights and Islam intersect. Just fucking stop it. It’s bullshit.

What bigotry?

Your bigotry against Palestinians. You say you don’t dehumanize them, yet you can only ever conceive of them as cultists with an incurable Jew hatred—a line which you use to excuse nearly any level of atrocity against their population in Gaza. It’s such a naïve, sophomoric position I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And I am aware that is not the exact nature of your views. I’m being sardonic, but the sentiment remains the same. You’ve reduced people to a caricature while you continually rationalize atrocities against them. Israel has been using the same play book for far too long and it’s not working. At some point we have to stop making excuses for failed policy especially when innocents are being wiped off the face of the planet. Neither as pragmatists nor idealists can it be excused.

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Maybe the Wokester Progressive types would be less sympathetic to Hamas…

I’m sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. Hamas, at least, has found a way for the Palestinians to vent their frustration and outrage, to get the world to take a closer look at the injustices inflicted on the Palestinian people. Condemning Hamas, thus, is equivalent to telling the Palestinians to just go back to suffering in silence and accept an unacceptable status quo.

What makes you so dismissive of the humanity, dignity, and freedom of the Palestinians?

[jakelafortParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

LGBT people. We’re not a prop for your case against Palestine nor people from western democracies arguing for the human treatment of and freedom for Palestinians as if there is some embedded hypocrisy. It’s an irrelevant factor. This conflict does not move the needle on the issue of LGBT rights anywhere. As queer people, we constantly end up having to defend the rights of people who won’t defend ours because that’s a) the cost of having fucking morals, and b) a sad reality we live with. It gets so tedious to see this brought up nearly every fucking time the issue of human rights and Islam intersect. Just fucking stop it. It’s bullshit.

LGBT persecution and discrimination in Islamic nations is only one aspect of the horror caused. It is far broader than that. And i am not using it as a prop. You may have seen others who do or a narrative that does. But it is not my schtick. Ask for human treatment on both sides. Israeli and Palestinian. And if you fail to raise your voice about Palestinians in places other than Israel, West Bank or Gaza but you are vociferous about these Palestinians you are a hypocrite. Yeah i would have cognitive dissonance also if i had to defend people who would slit my throat sooner than look at me. Why not attack the root cause of that hatred against LGBT? I don’t understand your apologizing for Islam. For the victims of Islam who are born into a rotten world and have their minds poisoned and no real opportunity to lead lives of self actualization? Yeah that makes sense.

Autumn wrote:

Your bigotry against Palestinians. You say you don’t dehumanize them, yet you can only ever conceive of them as cultists with an incurable Jew hatred—a line which you use to excuse nearly any level of atrocity against their population in Gaza. It’s such a naïve, sophomoric position I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And I am aware that is not the exact nature of your views. I’m being sardonic, but the sentiment remains the same. You’ve reduced people to a caricature while you continually rationalize atrocities against them. Israel has been using the same play book for far too long and it’s not working. At some point we have to stop making excuses for failed policy especially when innocents are being wiped off the face of the planet. Neither as pragmatists nor idealists can it be excused.

Wow have you mischaracterized my positions. Remember what i wrote? Throw a Jewish baby in a Palestinian home and they grow up to have identical sentiments. Therefore it is not something innate about Palestinians. It is simply human. And of course i can conceive of Palestinians in a different way. Again humans are so incredibly amenable to the propaganda ministers of the world. Eliminate the source (Islam) and the message is transformed. And i am not excusing either side for their brutality. I understand it. I don’t condone it.

[_Robert_Participant]

We all know about Raif Badawi who wrote “1000 Lashes: Because I Say What I Think”. I also recall Asia Bibi, a non-muslim woman who attempted to drink water from the same utensil from which muslims drink. Beaten, jailed for 10 years for blasphemy and sentenced to death. Governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer was assassinated for defending her right to live. In an interview with Meher Bukhari on Samaa TV, Taseer commented on his view about the country’s blasphemy law and on filing a mercy petition for Asia Bibi, who was sentenced to death by a court under the law. On 4 January 2011, one of Taseer’s own bodyguards, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, shot him 27 times with an AK-47 assault rifle. What kind of mentality can bring thousands out on the street, demanding to hang a woman for having her own thoughts? The same extremist mentality that Palestinians exhibit.

[—Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

Wow have you mischaracterized my positions. Remember what i wrote? Throw a Jewish baby in a Palestinian home and they grow up to have identical sentiments.

I do remember what you wrote which is why I make the statement. It’s such a simplistic, bullshit narrative that explains away complex reactions to oppression as blind ideology. It’s categorically fucked up.

jakelafort wrote:

LGBT persecution and discrimination in Islamic nations is only one aspect of the horror caused. It is far broader than that. And i am not using it as a prop. You may have seen others who do or a narrative that does.

You are using as a prop. Stop kidding yourself. Every Abrahamic faith calls for my death in its scripture. Nearly every nation on Earth codified discrimination against me and people like me at the time of my birth and those Judeo-Christian values were a factor (and still are today). But on balance, societies do move forward. What you are promoting is not a means of moving forward.

Why not attack the root cause of that hatred against LGBT? I don’t understand your apologizing for Islam.

I am not apologizing for Islam. I am refusing to become what I hate just because others hate me. If that weren’t the case, had I the means I’d wipe half your nation of the fucking planet. And all the little kids in Florida who bite the dust along with DeSantis? Well, fuck ’em because those are the values we live with now, right? Whatever it takes no matter how much it erodes us? Even if it’s ineffective? Even it it just deepens the divide?

The reason I won’t defend Hamas is the same reason I won’t defend the IDF and Israeli government. An ‘anything goes’ decent into dysfunction gets people where? It doesn’t liberate anyone from anything.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Davis,

Nope. Nice try Enco. Another one of your standard strawmen. No one here is sympathetic to Hamas. No one condones what they have done (though one member does try to explain context a little too much on the Hamas side).
You can simultaneously disagree with everything Hamas does and stand for and be absolutely horrified by the excessive murderous Israeli rampage in response. They are not incompatible. I think it utterly absurd to (rightly) complain about dehumanising bigotry, while at the very same time participating in dehumanising bigotry.

My Frogg Togg™ weather gear is moisture-proofed and ready. Pee away, but don’t expect me to believe it’s raining.
☔

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

I’m sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. Hamas, at least, has found a way for the Palestinians to vent their frustration and outrage, to get the world to take a closer look at the injustices inflicted on the Palestinian people. Condemning Hamas, thus, is equivalent to telling the Palestinians to just go back to suffering in silence and accept an unacceptable status quo.

What makes you so dismissive of the humanity, dignity, and freedom of the Palestinians?

Now I gotta double down on the Kiwi Camp Dry™ Spray for the Frogg Toggs™ and get goloshes.🙄

By the bye, if that is true about Netanyahu supporting Hamas, then line him up against the wall side-by-side with the founders of Hamas. Netanyahu was already cynical and shitty enough for not condemning Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and not defending Russian Jews who opposed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, all because Putin supported Assad against Islamist factions in the Syrian Civil War.

Sorry, Bibi. The enemy of an enemy is usually just another enemy to you. Set ’em against each other, yes, but don’t give either of them anything that could be used against you. That’s how you do it, Son.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendum

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

We all know about Raif Badawi who wrote “1000 Lashes: Because I Say What I Think”. I also recall Asia Bibi, a non-muslim woman who attempted to drink water from the same utensil from which muslims drink. Beaten, jailed for 10 years for blasphemy (blah, blah, blah)…

Nobody here is for this sort of hate. Nobody here is for hate but you. Your hate seems to go beyond a hatred for just the religion and into hatred for the people who are enthralled by a false religion. The people themselves.

Autumn, Davis, and I don’t hate Jews. I think I speak for them as well when I say we have an extreme distaste for the dehumanization of the Palestinians by the Israeli government and for the animus behind it in the Israeli citizenry that voted Netanyahu into office as well as by the many knee-jerk supporters of everything Israel does in the Western world.

Now, speaking for just myself again…

You are the hateful one here.

I can’t justify Hamas’s attack on Israel, but I can’t condemn it, either, for it is a desperate lashing out by an oppressed at an oppressor. Hamas certainly doesn’t speak for every single Palestinian. What it does do is speak to a problem every single Palestinian has, whch is Israel. Not even Israel the Jewish country so much as Israel the Zionist country.

[UnseenParticipant]

@ Jake

Antisemitism isn’t “timeless.” What a crock. It is ancient and probably began with the notion that “the Jews killed Christ.”

What is probably timeless is bigotry against the other, the “they’re not like us,” the strange/different looking ones, the ones we don’t or can’t understand.

In this regard, there’s no difference between antisemitism and any other form of race-based bigotry. There’s nothing particularly special about antisemitism. It’s the same as the hatred many who support Israel’s response have long expressed against the Palestinians (“sand niggers” in sentiment if not terminology).

How does the second-class citizenship of the Palestinians in Israel and Gaza differ from the U.S.’s historical treatment of blacks? Is it deserved somehow? I’d like to know.

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen,

I’m sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. Hamas, at least, has found a way for the Palestinians to vent their frustration and outrage, to get the world to take a closer look at the injustices inflicted on the Palestinian people. Condemning Hamas, thus, is equivalent to telling the Palestinians to just go back to suffering in silence and accept an unacceptable status quo. What makes you so dismissive of the humanity, dignity, and freedom of the Palestinians?

Now I gotta double down on the Kiwi Camp Dry™ Spray for the Frogg Toggs™ and get goloshes.🙄

No refutation forthcoming? That’s telling.

By the bye, if that is true about Netanyahu supporting Hamas, then line him up against the wall side-by-side with the founders of Hamas.

No doubt, Netanyahu is a big part of the problem. He’s used bigotry and hate to keep himself in power and poses a threat to whatever is democratic in Israel, starting with cutting off their Supreme Court at the knees. The similarities to Trump are hard to ignore. And his subtle support of Hamas as a way of damaging the PLO isn’t an idea I invented. It’s fairly well accepted by now.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Unseen, if i want you i will rattle your cage.

Your thinking is so ridiculous i will do with it what Hume said should be done with Catholicism. Leave it out there and let it die of its idiocy. He was wrong about that but wtf.

You’ve lost all credibility with me.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

I do remember what you wrote which is why I make the statement. It’s such a simplistic, bullshit narrative that explains away complex reactions to oppression as blind ideology. It’s categorically fucked up.

No argument from you just a denial. Ok well lets see. Overwhelming majority of Germans in a cult of personality to Hitler. Won over by what exactly? Nearly half of Americans supporting Trump although it would be obvious to a silverback that he is without any qualities or characteristics that would make him worthy of being even a dog catcher. And what percentage of Muslims in hard core Islamic nations become apostates? Middle ages Christian Europe an abyss of ignorance and superstition everywhere you looked. Could it be that people are more imprinted by mind viruses than brave warriors of free intellectual discourse and thought?

In the case of the Palestinians at issue it is a self imposed oppression at least in the ordinary sense of myth of free will or agency. They could have done as the Jews did and accepted a compromise. But at every turn they want it all. They don’t act in their best interest. Gaza? Here are the keys. What did they do with those keys. Who are their leaders? It is the same fucking from the river to the sea mindset. Death cult controls their wishes. Unerring intransigence generated and caused by their cult.

Autumn wrote:

You are using as a prop. Stop kidding yourself. Every Abrahamic faith calls for my death in its scripture. Nearly every nation on Earth codified discrimination against me and people like me at the time of my birth and those Judeo-Christian values were a factor (and still are today). But on balance, societies do move forward. What you are promoting is not a means of moving forward.

Holy cow i have come out over and over as an anti theist. Of course Judaism and Christianity also are super anti female and anti gay. I despise all religion. I have also ascribed part of the issue in the west bank and in Israeli Politics for turning right to the Hassidim. Societies move forward? I feel like you have a gun to your head. Islamic societies move ahead? You want progress? You want rights for all? I certainly do. That is why religion is anathema to the progress of civilization.

Autumn wrote:

am not apologizing for Islam. I am refusing to become what I hate just because others hate me. If that weren’t the case, had I the means I’d wipe half your nation of the fucking planet. And all the little kids in Florida who bite the dust along with DeSantis? Well, fuck ’em because those are the values we live with now, right? Whatever it takes no matter how much it erodes us? Even if it’s ineffective? Even it it just deepens the divide?

I feel you. There is so much hatred. Promoting decent values means attacking the source of bad. Religion makes people so so much worse than they might be in its absence and replaced by decent human secular values.

[—Participant]

jakelafort wrote:

No argument from you just a denial. Ok well lets see. Overwhelming majority of Germans in a cult of personality to Hitler. Won over by what exactly?

Hitler came to power with minority support. Support and opposition were based on numerous factors. Anti-semitism was one, but if you’re under the impression that German society was one of people aimlessly puttering around muttering about the damn Jews you’re off your nut. Once the backslide into totalitarianism was complete, consequences for dissent became quite severe.

One of the major lessons from this time frame was that plunging nations into economic despair was only going to cement the ongoing cycle of hostilities. One of the major factors fuelling German anti-semitism and nationalistic sentiment was misplaced blame over financial crisis. Post WWII, West Germany was afforded the chance to regain political and economic stability. This is despite a very long history of warfare with surrounding states including the Great War—the “War that will end all war”—and what became knowns as WWII. If you were alive in the 1940s, you couldn’t be blamed for believing that European nations, Germany included, were capable of nothing more than imperialistic conquest and endless war.

But as it turns out, conditions where the losers of wars can recover and regain stability does create inroads for peace. Ultimately, the nations that once warred so fiercely became allies if not out of any love for one another, then because they were tied together in commerce and trade.

While Germany’s relationship with the rest of Europe is not analogous to the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis, if you’re going to try to make analogies, at least think of the actual history involved. Bombing German civilians is not what led to lasting change. Understanding that the general population weren’t dyed-in-the-wool Nazi fanatics but rather mostly people who wanted to get by in life and have a shot at prosperity and security was what carried the distance.

jakelafort wrote:

Holy cow i have come out over and over as an anti theist.

So? The point isn’t about your views on Christianity. It’s that ideology isn’t permanent. Faiths with the same vile tenets manage to move on and progress. I live side-by-side with Muslims, Christians, and Jews peacefully despite the old books. The difference between here and there is that coexistence is easier when you have stability. Now that we face even the slightest bit of economic turmoil, however, we’re seeing a rise in populist politics gain a lot of ground again. People are unsteady and uncertain, it makes them angry, they blame who’s convenient rather than who’s responsible.

While I am not claiming that economic and political stability are some panacea to a kumbaya existence, the idea that thrusting a population into prolonged poverty and insecurity while periodically bombing the shit out of it is going to effect positive change is the dipshittiest dipshittery and dipshit has ever shit out.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Unseen, if i want you i will rattle your cage. Your thinking is so ridiculous i will do with it what Hume said should be done with Catholicism. Leave it out there and let it die of its idiocy. He was wrong about that but wtf. You’ve lost all credibility with me.

What is your problem with my views? You never present real refutations.

You’re defending a country defined by a “race.” It has to forever be a majority Jewish country. And that means, democracy be damned, making sure it always has a Jewish majority. I’m aware of no other country in the world that’s self-defined by its race (using the term “race” in the broad way it’s used nowadays). In order to accomplish this—since the Palestinians tend to have a highly positive birth rate (as poor people often do) while the Israelis are birthing at below replacement level—something has had to be done about the problem. Deprive them of full citizenship, force them out of Israel proper, and sadly sometimes kill them.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Autumn, that was a nice analysis most of which i agree as it pertains to Nazi Germany. However it was not responsive to the argument i am making. I was not making an analogy.

But since you have taken the time to write your thoughts i will say i disagree with the following. “One of the major factors fuelling German anti-semitism and nationalistic sentiment was misplaced blame over financial crisis.” Fueling antisemitism were the mind viruses of the middle ages and enlightenment. But the severe inflation and butt hurt over WW1 and punitive treaty of Versailles gave Germans the outlet to express their antisemitism and nationalistic racist sentiments. (Israel is the outlet and excuse for the far left to express its antisemitism.)

Consequences for dissent are always quite severe in dictatorships. So too in Islam and all theocracies. BTW the far left and far right also have consequences albeit far less severe for dissent.

How prevalent the belief in the 40s that the future was a morass of imperialist conquest and endless war? I am not sure. Interesting issue. It is not however like the issue as i see it in the middle east. The examples i mentioned were for the purpose of demonstrating how easily led humans are. Germans going from the Weimar Republic to Nazism and with such overwhelming support was quite the transformation. Everybody knew what was going on in the camps. Trump’s appeal to so many Americans i brought up because it is quite remarkable how such an imbecile with such character flaws could have attained such popularity and not just popularity in reality a cult figure. Again easily led. I don’t recall the other examples i gave of how amenable to propaganda and resistant to reason humans are. And i should add that i quite agree with your points on stability and economics. “Understanding that the general population weren’t dyed-in-the-wool Nazi fanatics but rather mostly people who wanted to get by in life and have a shot at prosperity and security was what carried the distance.” AGREED. Among Germans and other Europeans life itself is the thing. If shit goes wrong you can always kick the Jews in the proverbial nuts. Having restored stability and a good economy Germans could go about their lives. And i appreciate their stance on speech as it pertains to denial of the Holocaust. BTW they still have Nazi and Neo Nazi demonstrations on a weekly basis but also anti Nazi demonstrators. But their lives are not centered around a maniacal intention to end all Jewry.

Unfortunately Islam is a death cult. BTW i have seen Muslims proudly displaying cartoons where they ridicule atheists by showing how life starts at death. Instead of accepting that Israel is a state and we should get on with our lives they have the religious purpose of taking back the holy land and ending Israel and killing Jews. They have tried and tried. It is an ongoing maniacal objective. It is paramount. Legitimate life goals are subordinated to the Islamic goals. Were the power the other way it would have been another holocaust at least without the intercession of USA or some ally. They need a Sadat or some reformer to say this shit is fucked up. Lets work on bettering our lives and forget about the Israelis.

What you have said about the various religious/ethnic groups in Canada coexisting and why it is so is perfectly sensible. There is zero question in my mind the Palestinians are on a path of self destruction. But implying that it is a unilateral or one way street is ridiculous. I don’t know how anyone who is trying to look at this with objectivity (now there is a joke cuz who is capable of that) can fail to contemplate what it is like to deal with people who are trying to ruin you and they value your ruination over their well being. The West Bank issue, the Gaza issue would not even exist were it not for Arabs attacking Israel. Survivors of the holocaust finally have a state and it is same shit different day…day after day… I seriously doubt a nation like the USA would tolerate it.

To me it is asinine to depict Islam as anything other than what it is. Its role in the conflict is central and the sine qua non of the ongoing conflict. And sure it can become moderate like Christianity has mostly become. But how many centuries will it take?

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