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Four liberal defenses of Islam debunked

Started by GSOgymrat, December 10, 2018, 06:15:54 PM

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Baruch

Quote from: Hydra009 on December 13, 2018, 03:35:10 PM
And that worries me because we're a secular state, not a Christian one.  If our objection to Islamism is merely that it's the wrong religion, we have already lost.

Yes, we are the USSA ... and we need to be burned down.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.


Hydra009

#32
Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 13, 2018, 10:33:41 PMhttps://youtu.be/cuOfs7IRh5Q
I mostly agree, but I'd like to play devil's advocate and come at this from a polar opposite position and see which claim is stronger.  So forgive anything that seems excessively harsh.

"we are the first mass-scale, religiously diverse democracy"

Were we really that religiously diverse?  There weren't official censuses on that until relatively recently, but I'm pretty confident that in the 1700s, the US was almost entirely Christian (and specifically Protestant) with a small Catholic population and an even smaller Jewish population and a light dusting of everything else.  If you cut hairs enough and get down to the nitty-gritty of Anabaptists and Baptists and Presbyterians and Seventh Day Adventists, then yeah, it was a "diverse" landscape, but not really diverse.

And yeah, the US was IIRC first to the party with a "diverse" democracy/republic, but lots of other countries followed suit (Canada, Australia, UK, France, India, etc) so that's no longer our selling point.  That's like bragging about doing something before it was cool.  No one cares about that!

"low levels of prejudice"

Ehhh...there was that whole thing about state religions and witch trials and making laws against atheists holding office.  And that's just religious prejudice.  If you want to expand it out to racial prejudice, we would be here all night.

"respect for different identity communities"

Ehhh...Also, I'm pretty sure the native Americans wouldn't agree with that.  Or Catholics.  Or Jews.

I don't really disagree with his spiel about the Founders.  If anything, that just highlights how progressive they were in comparison to other people of the time.

"I think about it as a potluck nation [preferring the cultural mosaic idea over the melting pot idea]"

I mean, that's partially true, but Americanization strikes fast and hard.  Shiranu can back me up on this.  It's like 3-4 generations from 100% non-assimilated to 100% assimilated.  (Amerika ist wunderbar!)  I mean, just listen to guy on the video.  He has that generic American reporter accent.  Tell me that's what his great-grandfather sounded like.  Sure, some cultural practices stick around for a long time, but there's a huge cultural shift in not a very long time at all.

To go totally off-track, the real thing that binds Americans together is capitalism.  Black, white, Jewish, Protestant, Wiccans, whatever - we all hit up the local Walmart, order some burgers at McDonalds, chug some Coke, watch the latest Game of Thrones episode, crank up Bohemian Rhapsody, etc.  We have strong cultural ties, mostly through crass commercialism and mass entertainment.  And that works to pave over a lot of differences between us.  Mostly.

That video is mostly correct but only gives part of the picture - it glosses over a LOT of really horrible stuff from our past to push this liberal "we love diversity!" narrative.  Yeah, that's true now (sort of).  But it's definitely not nearly as universal or as strong a sentiment as he's leading us to believe.

Shiranu

Quote from: Hydra009 on December 13, 2018, 11:35:55 PM
I mostly agree, but I'd like to play devil's advocate and come at this from a polar opposite position and see which claim is stronger.  So forgive anything that seems excessively harsh.

"we are the first mass-scale, religiously diverse democracy"

Were we really that religiously diverse?  There weren't official censuses on that until relatively recently, but I'm pretty confident that in the 1700s, the US was almost entirely Christian (and specifically Protestant) with a small Catholic population and an even smaller Jewish population and a light dusting of everything else.  If you cut hairs enough and get down to the nitty-gritty of Anabaptists and Baptists and Presbyterians and Seventh Day Adventists, then yeah, it was a "diverse" landscape, but not really diverse.

And yeah, the US was IIRC first to the party with a "diverse" democracy/republic, but lots of other countries followed suit (Canada, Australia, UK, France, India, etc) so that's no longer our selling point.  That's like bragging about doing something before it was cool.  No one cares about that!

"low levels of prejudice"

Ehhh...there was that whole thing about state religions and witch trials and making laws against atheists holding office.  And that's just religious prejudice.  If you want to expand it out to racial prejudice, we would be here all night.

"respect for different identity communities"

Ehhh...Also, I'm pretty sure the native Americans wouldn't agree with that.  Or Catholics.  Or Jews.

I don't really disagree with his spiel about the Founders.  If anything, that just highlights how progressive they were in comparison to other people of the time.

"I think about it as a potluck nation [preferring the cultural mosaic idea over the melting pot idea]"

I mean, that's partially true, but Americanization strikes fast and hard.  Shiranu can back me up on this.  It's like 3-4 generations from 100% non-assimilated to 100% assimilated.  (Amerika ist wunderbar!)  I mean, just listen to guy on the video.  He has that generic American reporter accent.  Tell me that's what his great-grandfather sounded like.  Sure, some cultural practices stick around for a long time, but there's a huge cultural shift in not a very long time at all.

To go totally off-track, the real thing that binds Americans together is capitalism.  Black, white, Jewish, Protestant, Wiccans, whatever - we all hit up the local Walmart, order some burgers at McDonalds, chug some Coke, watch the latest Game of Thrones episode, crank up Bohemian Rhapsody, etc.  We have strong cultural ties, mostly through crass commercialism and mass entertainment.  And that works to pave over a lot of differences between us.  Mostly.

That video is mostly correct but only gives part of the picture - it glosses over a LOT of really horrible stuff from our past to push this liberal "we love diversity!" narrative.  Yeah, that's true now (sort of).  But it's definitely not nearly as universal or as strong a sentiment as he's leading us to believe.

I will admit, I did find it refreshing to see someone so unabashedly parading how great we are... but yeah, by the end of it you are just annoyed that by skimming history he almost, if not did, outright lied about it.

It's gotta be a balance; you cant just view anything as perfect, or anything as horrible. You have to focus on fixing flaws in the system but not get fixated on all that is negative, but you also cant look at it as wonderful and ignore any flaws just because they don't effect you.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Baruch

The US is not a democracy, it is a republic.  There are no democracies (aside from ancient Athens).  You are brain washed puppets of the Elite.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

America aspires to an ideal, but has never achieved it.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 14, 2018, 01:57:14 PM
America aspires to an ideal, but has never achieved it.

May all ideals die in the gulag.  Get real or become a virtuous victim ... the more you are victimized, the higher your ranking in the D-party.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 14, 2018, 01:57:14 PM
America aspires to an ideal, but has never achieved it.

But has never quite failed it either...  As long as we can skip along dodging the alligators in the water and the tigers on the land, we can keep trying.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Unbeliever

Well, let's just hope we can continue dodging those damned alligators, and you're right, we might make it. But the 'gators keep coming up from the sewers...
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 18, 2018, 01:36:30 PM
Well, let's just hope we can continue dodging those damned alligators, and you're right, we might make it. But the 'gators keep coming up from the sewers...

This is where civilizations go to die ...

e.g. Romans ... yeah, that doesn't work, lets deal with it next Emperor ... eventually you have a long list of "does not work" that stops the heart cold.  The German barbarians were able to come in, because the Empire was already in Intensive Care.  In the mid-4th century, Emperors could still kill scads of illegal immigrants without much fuss.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 18, 2018, 01:36:30 PM
Well, let's just hope we can continue dodging those damned alligators, and you're right, we might make it. But the 'gators keep coming up from the sewers...

If we can dodge the alligators each day, that is sufficient to the day.  And as Franklin said “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

I try and that is all any of us can do. 

Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Unbeliever

Quote from: Cavebear on December 21, 2018, 09:38:33 AM
I try and that is all any of us can do.

Don't let Yoda hear you say that!


LOL 



God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Cavebear

Quote from: Unbeliever on December 21, 2018, 02:31:24 PM
Don't let Yoda hear you say that!


LOL

OK. OK.  "The try all is what can do I"...

Hey speaking of which, how do the Star Wars characters relate to us?
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on December 21, 2018, 02:34:30 PM
OK. OK.  "The try all is what can do I"...

Hey speaking of which, how do the Star Wars characters relate to us?

You are the bureaucratic Death Star officer that Darth Vader was psychically strangling?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Cavebear on December 21, 2018, 02:34:30 PM
OK. OK.  "The try all is what can do I"...

Hey speaking of which, how do the Star Wars characters relate to us?
Baruch is our Jar Jar Binks...
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman