The Christmas Day Bomber and fallout

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That's ridiculous. I am a faithful follower of Christianity, and have many friends from different sects. We all merge quite nicely into modern society. We may have views that differ from others in the society, but in a democratic society many differing viewpoints can exist without violence and suicide bombing.

I also wanted to comment on the Islamic terrorism thing. When a person blows himself up or shoots a lot of people screaming Allahu Akbar, and his handlers release videos saying that he did it in the name of Islamic jihad, it's kind of hard for the rest of us not to see an Islamic component to what's going on. However, It is not the only component. IMHO, Marxist though it sounds, a lot of it comes from what people perceive as unfair resource distribution. If you feel you are being screwed out of what should be yours, or you feel that people you care about are being so screwed, you will find whatever excuse or tool you can to strike against those you feel are taking more than their fair share.

 

Joacqin, I understood what you were trying to say with your previous post, but Carad did have a point in that your post was heavily flavored with anti-religious dogma. This new one is as well.

 

OK, but you don't have to look at slavery in the US. There was racial inequality well into the 20th century, and not just in the US. Democracy co-existing with racial equality is actually a rather recent phenomenon. For someone who states to have a love of history, I find it most unusual that you do not think it is possible. Historically, it's the norm.

No, I don't think all Muslims believe that violence is the solution. But I don't know any other religioius group that believes a viable solution to their problems is blowing up a bus, school, embassy, plane, and often themselves in the process.

 

And yet you dismiss massacres committed by Christians in the name of their beliefs to being the actions of the insane or due to a criminal element (I believe an excellent comparison was the different terrorist organizations in Ireland which had fundamental religious beginnings). It is a common tactic for a terrorist organization to try and instill an "us versus them" mentality in the populace -- it appears to have worked.

 

Actually, I do not dismiss those acts committed by Christian terrorist groups. Those whackjobs in Northern Ireland are a good example. They used Chjristianity as an excuse for their violent crimes just as the jihadists use Islam as an excuse for theirs. Both are morally reprehensible, and it is bad reasoning to either ignore or overblow the religious component of their acts.

 

T2,
a qualification: The us-vs-them mentality is what's driving people to consider terrorism in the first place. Only that perspective allows them to see politics as a zero-sum game where they lose when they compromise, so violence remains the only solution. Terrorists don't one day wake up with a blood thirst, and start looking for a cause that allows them to quench that thirst.

Of course terrorism does go hand in hand with propagandists and politicians making use of inflammatory politics of polarisation.

In that sense the anti-abortion nutter who murdered Dr. Tiller and the plane bomber or the guy who went after the cartoonist follow the same trajectory.

They perceive subjectively their faith being under attack and they want to 'fight back'.

PS: Before anyone semi-intentionally misunderstands this, that's meant explanatory, not exculpatory.

 

You did not read my entire sentence LDK. You solidly proved my point -- in classifing their actions as those of 'whackjobs' you have intentionally dismissed the religious "component to what's going on."

Ragusa, often a perceived injustice is only seen by very few. The majority of the populace is either acceptant or ambivilant to the issues which fuel the terrorist. In order to rally support (and recruits) the terrorist must convince a larger portion of the populace of the perceived injustice and the need for violent intervention. In this case they choose to pour salt in old wounds and it works.

 

I only posted my comment about the US because of your previous post that I've already quoted:

I didn't single out the US, you did. For the record I don't believe that France or England were any better. Slavery was officially abolished by the British Empire in 1833 (iirc) and a few years later in France. Of course they could afford to abolish it because their economy didn't depend on slave labour.

That's beside the point but there is still racial inequality in the world today, it would be very naive to think otherwise. Outright slavery is banned however (although we could argue about labour conditions in many countries).

On another note I don't believe that you can consider that a country has a "fully functional democracy" when it condones slavery and refuses women the right to vote.

Once again I'm sorry if I imply that there is some sort of generalization in your post but first you deny that all Muslims advocate violence and then you state that no other religious group believes in terrorism as a "viable solution".

So either you are being ironic or you contradict yourself because the second part clearly indicates that you do indeed believe that as a religious group Muslims consider terrorism to be a valid answer.

Saying that Islamist terrorists represent Islam is like saying that KKK members represent Christianity.

That's a very insightful remark and sadly I believe you are right.

 

Cara - are you being intentionally argumentative?

Let me try to be a bit more clear on some of my points. I'll start with racial equality and democracy issue. My point wasn't specifically about the US, although I don't care if you wish to use that as an example. My larger point, irrespective of example, is that racial equality and democracy do not go hand-in-hand. In fact, they usually don't. If you actually believe that racial equality is necessary for a democracy to exist, then it is quite possible that no democracies currently exist or have ever existed. While I think there is a lot more racial equality today than there ever has been in the past, there are still inequities.

Perhaps you were arguing a hypothetical? I'm really not sure where you're going with that. Hypothetically, a democracy should treat all people regardless of race, sex, creed, etc equally, but there are numerous cases where that has not been true of democracies in the past, and not true of democracies today. Heck, even the first people to use a democratic system - the ancient Greeks - did not have equity in the system. Were you speaking hypothetically?

Regarding my comments concerning Muslims, I hardly think that it merits a response. Just because I think that SOME Muslims are extremists and advocate violence as a solution to their problems does not mean that I think ALL Muslims fit that category. However, it is not a contradiction to state that there appear to be a lot more Muslims who are extremists and resort to violence than any other current religious group today. There have been dozens of cases of suicide bombers in recent years, and without exception they seem to be Muslim. The last terrorist attack carried out by a non-Muslim that I can recall is Timothy McVeigh.

That does not mean I believe Muslims as a group support such tactics, but that the percentage of Muslims who do (and I concede that number is still quite small), appears to be considerably greater than that seen in any other religion.

 

LKD I do not consider you to fully follow your religion, you pick and choose what parts of the bible to believe in and follow and thus you create your own brand of Christianity one I would label LKDiniasm and so do pretty much everyone except Ned Flanders and some really fringe fundamentalists. To not do so would pretty much place you in the same camp as Bin Laden and the ayatollahs.

 

@Aldeth: I probably have too much time on my hands. I didn't mean to be aggressive, sorry if it came across that way. I think your last post was much clearer though.

Anyway, back on topic. On principle you can argue convincingly that racial equality has nothing to do with democracy but if you define democracy as an ideal that is not based on exclusion or segregation then you have to take it into account.

The way the ancient Greek democracy worked wasn't that democratic in the sense that you had to be a citizen to cast your vote. You were a citizen if you were a free man, slaves and women were excluded. Interestingly enough Plato in the Republic dismissed the Athenian model considering that only those lead by reason and wisdom should rule.

Anyway, that's hardly comparable to the systems we have nowadays (even if they're not perfect). Or to quote Churchill (and civ4!): "Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried."

So, yes I'm considering the term democracy as symbolizing an ideal.

 

The suicide bombings do have a religious element certainly with the whole reward in paradise thing (probably cultural as well) as opposed to Christianity considering suicide a sin. But it can also be viewed practically. The IRA had (by terrorist standards) excellent funding, equipment and skills but wouldn't have had a large massive pool of recruits. Muslim groups tend to be the opposite so militarily suicide attacks by people they consider expendable make a lot more sense.

The other comparison I meant to make to Northern Ireland is that the term Islamic terrorists is being applied to a whole variety of different groups with little in common. The likes of Hamas are comparable to the mainstream IRA in that it's easy to see legitimate grievances that they have and are at the root of the violence. Working to solve these should allow the violence to be brought to an end (obviously I'm glossing over how difficult this is). On the other hand there are some terrorists like Al Qaeda who are, well, nutjobs who use the cause to justify the actions they take. It's doubtful these people can be reasoned with.

I'm not sure Islam is the problem so much as the culture of those areas we most associate with Islam. It'd be difficult to apply most of what's been said to the largest Muslim country, Indonesia.

As a side story, the Christmas bombing prompted Slovakia to do a test of its airport security. I don't think they got top marks.

 

I tend to agree with that, but only to a point. It depends greatly on perspective. Stephen M. Walt has written just recently two interesting articles that address your point:

Why They Hate Us (I): On Military Occupation

Why They Hate Us (II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?

My point is that even if their grievance was totally imaginary, it is still their grievance and what motivates them. That means one ignores such grievances, real or imagined, at ones own peril.

 

Suicide is a sin according to Islam as well.

 

You do realize that the first sentence is incredibly insulting, don't you?

I don't follow Christianity as you define it. That doesn't mean i do not follow my religion. As for "picking and choosing", biblical interpretation seems to be a concept you don't even try to engage with, finding comfort in a simple "it's all a load of crap" mindset rather than actually trying to understand something outside your experience.

In any event, I certainly didn't create my religious system, so there goes the LKDiniasm theory.

T2, the people who commit atrocities are whackjobs, plain and simple. To admit that doesn't dismiss the religious component of what they are doing. The IRA had a Catholic component to what they did. The Hamas and Al Quaeda people had an Islamic component to what they did. Heck, if you really want to go there, the Israeli military certainly has a Jewish component to their unsavory actions, and there are those who would say that the actions of some US military personel are influenced by a Christian component. My point is that those components exist, but they do not do so in a vacuum. That component should be addressed, acknowledged and discussed, but the discussion must not end there.

Put simply, I believe that those actions are done by the unstable, yes, but that doesn't mean I dismiss or excuse criminal acts committed by anyone. I DO distance myself from them, however, because they do not represent my opinions even if they share a religious beliefs or two with me.

 

... Except, that's not Democracy. Democracy is where the people who are ruled also do the ruling (directly or indirectly). Now, there are various ways to define "people who are ruled", but most deal with taxation, mandatory duty in government (jury duty, draft, etc), and/or punishment under the law. That may or may not include slaves, women, children, and minorities.

And here we go. I'm sure you probably have a similar list for me. Just remember one thing: when you read the Bible, you interpret it (probably an interpretation of someone else's interpretation of their own or someone else's translation that may or may not be directly from the original language). Someone else can read the same passage and interpret it a different way. That doesn't mean they aren't following the religion, simply that they aren't following your interpretation of the religion. A rational look at a religion would be open to understanding multiple interpretations of the same text. It would seek to understand everything the religion can be, and everything people have made it, not simply what you see it as right now.

Lastly, I think it's very dangerous to say that these terrorists are simply wackjobs, or insane. It's far too easy to dismiss them that way without trying to understand them. There is certainly a twisted logic to their actions, but it is that logic we have to deal with if we wish to really disarm them. Part of that means understanding what drives a poor farmer in Afghanastan or a wealthy Egyptian boy to join Al Qaeda. Part of that means understanding why Osama Bin Laden hates the US. Both of those mean understanding the history and society that this happens in.

I think it was easier to understand what happened in Ireland, because the history is better documented, better taught, and the culture it occured in is more-or-less our own.

 

There is no single valid definition for what democracy is. There are about as many definitions as there are political scientists, no clear consensus on what democracy is really exists.

 

It is a broad term but it can be narrowed by qualifying it a bit more sharply: representative democracy versus direct democracy, just as an example of what I think NOG was commenting on. NOG is right that here in the US we have a combination of both.

 

Direct democracy is rare in the US. Most laws aren't actually put to a popular vote among the populace, but rather are passed by our elected representatives. Still, it does happen.

 

Yes, local propsitions are good examples of direct democracy (gay marriage laws in some states, for instance).