Death to Free Speech in the Netherlands

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Ok, I think you may have misunderstood some things. For one, I'm not blaming poverty for everything. I said at best it is nothing more than a contributing factor. Primarily I blame the society's inability to accept change, to grow. In any society where you see this, you find severe dysfunctions, with the severity growing as the difference between them and their neighbors grows. What kind of dysfunction depends on other factors. Japan, when they did this, didn't go the same way the Middle East has, they did their own thing, because they had their own factors.

As for dysfunction, it is important to realize the truth: all societies have dysfunctions. The simple fact is, to date, there has not been a perfect human society in all human history. Any diversion from the perfect accomplishment of the goal of society (there are whole philosophies based on trying to define that) is by definition a dysfunction, a failure to fulfill the function, of society. Each society has their own dysfunctions, and different magnitudes. As you look deeper into a large society, you see sub-societies where the different dysfunctions of the suber-society are distilled, meaning that some have dysfunction X to an extreme, while others have dysfunction Y to an extreme. Few if any are a perfect mirror of the super-society.

So, inability to change creates a dysfunction (hardly the only one, but the one we're looking at atm), poverty magnifies it for the poor (which influences the rest), probably a dozen other factors magnify it as well, probably even the richness of the rich, and religion gives it direction. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying religion preys on dysfunction, merely that religion gives direction, it gives direction to everything, including dysfunction. Dysfunction given direction, though, is still dysfunction.

I'm probably only scratching the surface of all the factors at play and their influence, but that's the basic principle of my precept.

 

That female lion bit is awesome -- nice turn of phrase, there, Count.

Was there really an incident where a Muslim sodomized someone with a pool stick?

I also want to point out to any critics that Count said "blame the perpetrator". He didn't say "blame every single Muslim, even those who live 50 miles away from the incident." If we spent more time actually making individuals pay for their crimes as Count suggests, we'd see more progress. Instead we refuse to do that because it might be seen as 'intolerant' to hold people accountable for their criminal actions.

 

I don't think that's accurate. The progressive movement has been critical of Isalmic countries for years, regarding its lack of progress on the issue of reform. For years, progressives were ignored by conservatives, who didn't really give a crap about what was going on in Isalmic countries until 9/11.

Now there is this big "nation building" project going on by the neocons and its stirring up fundamentalism even worse in these countries. It's a failed project. We really don't control the destiny of the region, but we can be still critical of its lack of progress on human rights and basic civil liberties.

The question at home is still difficult, because it's two-edged: No one wants to see Muslims discriminated against because of their religion. Yet, no one wants to see a religion that discriminates and is oppressive by its nature. You just can't keep freedom away from people in the end, regardless of who they are and where they come from.

I worked with another Muslim guy who tried to keep his wife locked-up at home; she had to cover herself all in black, and she never spoke whenever he brought her into the store; he would not allow her to drive and he limited her contact with people who were NOT muslims. One day, after living here for a few years, she threw off her black robes, bought a Mustang and took off on him. The last time I saw her, and its been years, she was still driving her Mustang, had on a short, lovely dress, she had her beautiful dark hair down and she looked just radiant. Of course her husband blamed the "West" for his misfortunes. But he was probably right in that regard.

 

And yet quite often this lack of progress is blamed at least partially on 'the West', not on the inherently radical nature of Islam. Progressives rarely hold those particular Muslims and their belief system accountable, but instead try to shift the focus to socioeconomic factors that were 'created' by the West, which they claim have inflamed radicalism.

That's not true. Neo-conservatives have been meddling in the Middle-East for decades, providing implicit support to secular puppet dictators in an attempt to minimise the Islamic threat. Witness Saddem Hussein.

Anyway, I wasn't actually referring to the progressives' attitude towards foreign Muslim countries, but to the stance they take to Muslims in the their own countries. There is a blatantly obvious attempt by these progressives to minimise the violence and hate speech perpetrated against Caucasians by Muslims. In many cases, European media outlets will go to great effort to neglect mentioning that the perpetrators are Muslim (they are just 'youths'). Compare this with media outlets in the United States, who despite suffering from their fair share of politically correctness still go to great efforts to mention a perpetrators race, gender and religion.

And this is what baffles me. Why do particular European nations such as the Netherlands, Sweden and England fail to even acknowledge the threat dwelling in their household? Why do they censor those who speak up, threatening them with fines and imprisonment?

They might as well try teaching a dog how to build a termite mound.

 

That could be true. I had always thought of that "meddling" as protecting our assets in the region (mostly oil) and not as nation building by the neocon establishment. I have always felt that we had a right to protect our investment in the region, since we paid for most of it. What I never have liked is our support for some of the despotic regimes in the region (Saddam was certainly one of those despots at one point). I have believed that our assets in oil were protected at the expense of human rights in the region, at least regarding our own policies.

 

That's because they define themselves as muslims (or arabs or turks), as they have no other common denominator.

Take the Somalis in your example: Somalia is a failed and fractured state, in which it is more important to which tribe you belong. Somali refugees come to Europe, and notice underlying vibes that they are not wanted here, even if they become citizens. So they seek other Somalis to mingle with. But these may belong to another tribe. So they seek the next best thing that they have in common, which can be religion.

That they use it as an excuse for crimes is more to the benefit of their consciences (since Islam does not allow rape) than a reason for the deed.

In the case of Somali refugees you also have to account for their origin in a perpetual war zone, where morals and ethics are completely deteriorated.

That's a pretty rough explanation, and certainly not universally valid. But it can be translated to most immigrants groups in varying degrees.

What other threads are you referring to?

 

Get a load of this sweetheart. I know that not all Muslims are like this. But when I hear a moderate Muslim start in with the old "they are not Muslims! What they do has nothing to do with Islam!" routine, I nearly lose my cool. They may not represent Islam as a whole, but they certainly self identify with the Islamic religion and thus anyone who does not fully repudiate them or does defend their actions is suspect in my eyes.

Here's the link.

 

Fabius, i think one of the biggest problems we(americans) have with the hate speech laws that are prevalant in europe is that so few things(of that kind) are against the law here.
You can go to the public library or any bookstore & get Mein Kampf whenever you want.
You can buy all types of nazi paraphernalia, communist stuff & books, etc.
we just don't seem as strict as some(a lot? a few?) european countries are about language & literature.

 

that's funny, you can do the same in Denmark, but when I bought "a Clock work Orange", the title said it included chapter 7. now why did the title say that? because in several place is USA that chapter had to be cut, because of censure. the same apply to the book and later film "Lolita".
Also swearing in comic books has always been censured in the USA.
from my countries point of view, the censur is much harder in the USA.

Since state law on this subject varies in the USA, just like it varies from country to country in Europe, one should not generalize like that.

that said, I find Britains actions against Wilders more scary, that they don't allow him into their country because they think he is a security risk http://kleinverzet.blogspot.com/2009/02/breaking-wilders-not-allowed-into-uk.html so basically Islamist can threaten anybody and then they can't travel freelly?

 

Tal as far as i can find they(harry potter books) are/were banned in just a few libraries & most of these were overturned in court.
I wasn't trying to imply that the usa was the be-all & end-all of personal freedom just that we(the usa & europe) have different standards & definitions of it.

 

Very very true.
The part i was getting at was, from my reading of several of y'alls posts(europeans, mainly german) is that a book like mein kampf is banned country wide.
Is that correct?
Because i can't think of any book that is banned country wide here(not to say that i just don't know about it).

 

China?? That's just . . . bizarre. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong but there's not many Jews in China, and Hitler's ideas don't seem to me like ones that would gain much traction with the Chinese populace, but maybe I'm wrong. That's just freaking surreal, man.

 

Well, Hitler didn't exactly have a love of communists either.

 

It turns out that Wilders is coming here to the US. It seems the UK would not allow him entry. I guess there is more freedom of speech and thought here in the US than in some places in Europe:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/185216

I'm sure they have "free speech" in the UK as well - as long as you agree with the government postition.

 

You can keep him - I hope he stays, like that Ayaan Hirsi Ali character.
He's shown himself to be sufficiently lacking conscience (in more ways than one), so I'm sure conservatives can put him to good use.
Good riddance!