She has accused Harris of bigoted attitudes- this is a very serious claim. Her complete inability to defend this claim cannot be wished away by appeal to her different presentational style.

– There’s hardly anything there I’d disagree with.
– You’re for the most part not arguing with anything I said. I never mentioned refugees, how many we should accept, or anything like that.
– The one point that is relevant to what I’ve been saying, is the one about what is the major driving force behind Islamism. I agree with you, the doctrines themselves are an important factor.

But, what I’m trying to convey is that we’ll get absolutely nowhere if the extent of our engagement in this is limited to echo chambers like this, where we moan about the ills of that religion. We can talk all we want about the need for reform within Islam, but it has no effect on anything, other than serving as a backslap to ourselves for how splendidly enlightened we are.

I’m also of the strong opinion that the one thing we can do, which will have impact, is to not have policies that actively function as recruitment tools for Islamists. You talk about wanting to be somewhat isolationist in this. Fine – but you should recognize that we are really far from being just that. As of now, we are actively helping Islamist recruitment, through selling arms, propping up corrupt regimes, putting our own economic interest first, etc.

Yes there are a spectrum of Muslims and muslims are people. My point is Islam has features that are unusually resistant to change and it is more aggressive than other religions. Other religions have undergone change or don’t have an evangelical and law bound character. islam hasn’t and does. Also its history is different. The more moderate muslims tend to be dragged along by the community structures around them to be silent – the community is still dominated by overall traditional Islam its pretty plain.
Ive said earlier where I disagree with Sam on many issues, my position is more a defensive one of maintaining our culture but not being intrusive abroad.
What Im saying is we have a right to control our borders and there are reasons why we have to be careful about overall percentage of Muslims in the populations so long as the religion remains unreformed.
If you think the main problem in Muslim countries and problems with Islam in the West is something other than the nature of Islam and its need for modernisation then sorry I just don’t agree with you
As I said earlier we have a duty to take some refugees but we need to balance this against how we are going to provide for them and how well they will integrate and to what degree this impacts the overall population, and my argument is immigrants we pick are more likely to fit in and not become a resentful underclass – although we still have of course a duty to take some refugees. The point is we must have borders and we must be able to control them in the interests of the population as a whole. Otherwise we will create rival populations and impoverish everyone. Not politically correct but just the truth.

Sorry I just can’t agree with you – I’ve covered all this in earlier posts on this thread under name “Rose” (the earlier icon is different) Im not going to belt on about this any more

I also don’t understand why you feel the need to repeat that regressivism must to be fought? I haven’t said anything that implies I disagree, nor that I am of that creed myself. I’ve highlighted a few factors that seems to get lost in the not so thorough analysis of how to tackle the problems with Islam in general, and Islamism in particular, adjunct to the Namazi-interview. This is what I’m of the opinion of when it comes to SH. He’s right, but he only describes part of the problem. I’m happy that he himself has said his views were somewhat shifted towards Maajid Nawas’ views. I think he still has a way to go. You do that yourself here IMO, in your description of the religion. You fail to recognize that there are nominal muslims, muslims who only use that handle as a cultural mark, etc. Sure, nominal muslims will be cherry picking scripture just as much as nominal christians. But your description of what needs to be fought there (Islam is bent on conquest), does not apply to all muslims. Would you use the same description if we talked about nominal christians? That religion is also quite focused on expansion, luckily mostly in the form of relatively “harmless” proselytizing. Your medicine applies to many patients, doctor Rose, but in no way to all of them.

I do notice though, that even the blog owner thinks it borders on regressivism to point out the bleeding obvious in facts like Pegidas affiliation with nazism, fascism, racism etc. To point this out, in the context of TR, has got nothing to do with unjust branding and smearing. It’s a fact that TR has chosen to represent a branch of an unsavory organization. As an extreme example; If I start the local branch of the NSDAP, it doesn’t matter much if I’m a decent feller who speak thoughtfully about taxation of bankers. The views on bankers, held by my fellow party members, does play into how you should approach what I stand for. If TR had started an organization from scratch, and then advocated views adjunct to Pegida or something like that, now that would have been guilt by association. In his case, there is more than just association. There’s membership.

In that, there’s some of the same things to be found here, that most of the commenters in this thread has criticized Namazi for. Anyone who disagrees, must be regressive? Pot meet kettle.

I’m going to round of with a thought: Most factors in this kind of discussions, are IMO best viewed on a spectrum. So, to keep on topic, Namazi has been rightfully criticized on form. But is she as culpable on content? I’m not so sure. On the guilt by association bit, that was very present in her talk with Sam, a feller named Mark Steyn came up. Just like TR, where on the spectrum do we find Steyn? Steyn is affiliated with The Heartland Institute (where he puts on his faux-expertise in a scientific field where’s he’s in no way equipped to have an informed opinion – in that capacity, he witnessed in a congressional hearing, whipped together by Ted Cruz, in an attempt to discredit a NASA scientist). Heartland is an alleged think tank that pushes whatever agenda that originates out of David and Charles Koch, among them advocating for creationism in public schools. Steyn is eloquent and describes parts of the issues surrounding Islamism and regressivism quite well. However, his affiliation with an organization that pushes the agenda of two evangelical knobheads, is troubling. The same force is advocating a neo-conservative view on the ME. I’m not by default antagonistic to everything associated with neo-conservatism. I think military intervention is an option that should not be dismissed by default. But, I still believe that it’s essential that we know where good arguments come from. In Steyns case, I’m uncomfortable with him as a bedfellow in the fight against Islamism, because of his other views and because of his affiliations. Guilt by association? You can say that. You can also say it’s important to try to understand where people are coming from, what their motivations are, etc. Not to be dismissive, but to factor that into the equation. There’s a difference when Harris says X, and when someone like TR says exactly the same. In the same way that there’s a difference when Medicins sans Frontiers says X, and Cage UK says the same.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was what Namazi tried so badly to convey, and I’m pretty sure she has more knowledge into this than the twitterati that is currently having it’s field day in 140 characters at a time (plenty petty shit being dished out, righteous and petty at the same time, kind of like the same way the dreadful SJWs are operating, ain’t it?). Namazi is not doing herself any favors either, but that’s no news to this blogs readers.

The way we fight this war is Not getting involved in these countries AND confronting regressive left views and ideal ideology and any other reflexive righteous thinking generally.

Islamists in the west use the Left to justify and hide from majority plain view what they do. And current Islam overall simply is hostile to the West in a way that no other religion is …. I mean why do Hindus fit in and (usually) liberalise so well and have no animus towards us despite the fact that they have fare more reason to do so … milliions were starved to death in the 19C and 20C by the British Raj after all. Islam is not only evangelical but has a legal underpinning that existed well over 1,000 years, and the religion moreover doesnt just encourage extended families and arranged marriage (most cultures do) it encourages and sustains actual tribal networks and allegiances with law structures and ideology that (unlike say Hinduism) transcends local boundaries or dependence on a local caste structure.
Again I can’t explain in a thread response, you could read Patricia Crone, God’s Rule, or Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence
We need to attack abstract ideologies of all kinds – whether its

The universities many decades ago had a mainly imperialist agenda. From the 60s on this changed to ever more left. Last 20 years completely dominated by POMO critical theory which is so idealistic and so dismissive of concrete reality its actual agenda is to completely destroy the west and the humanist values it thinks it upholds. Islam though is frankly based on conquest and subordination. In the West the Realists recognised the aggressive intentions of other great powers but quite often exacerbated these and actually wanted western domination as an eternal norm failing to recognise both the selfishness and the ahistoricity of this, and the tendency to fuel cycles of resentment. Realists pretended its assumptions were a science – (like Marxism in a different way) and that states are simply power seeking political entities in which zero sum is somehow “rational” and desirable. I adumbrated in earlier posts on this thread/topic my alternative to this … we need to move beyond the philosophy we’ve inherited, which remains semi religious and metaphysical in many respects, to something more practical and context driven. Im currently writing something about this but its inappropriate to push that here.

Like I said earlier I think Maajid Nawaz is a good model of the way forward for the great bulk of what Ive said. People will retain religion in most parts of the world but in the west at least, we need to not only keep religion sane but reform our humanities/philosophical tradition or we’re doomed.

The fact is the religion does need to modernise.

History is not your strongest suit. Nasser and his socialist tendencies was considered a threat by Eisenhower back then. As a result, the US propped up King Saud as a counterweight.

If you want to go back through history to explain why we see so much radical Islamism in the ME and in Arab countries, then I think you should recognize that the main source of Wahabiism does not come from the likes of Nasser. It originates, is funded and is spread, mainly from KSA. Nassers ideology was not an islamic one, it was a socialist and pan-arab ideology. Thus the reason he was feared by us in “the west”, cold war going on and all that.

While we’re using our way-back-machine: Todays theocratic Iran (the other of the 2 main sources for todays islamism) would probably not exist, if the UK and US had not help eliminate the democratically elected and secular Mohammed Mossadegh, to pave the way for a more dictatorial Shah. That’s me playing your silly game.

However, the history is not particularly important, unless we try to learn from it. What should be blatantly obvious, is that fighting Islamist extremism, is an impossibility as long as we don’t fight it’s main instigators.

I’m fully aware of the detrimental effect Islam has in the region. What I’m arguing is:

When we prop up theocratic regimes with our weapons, defensive support and other trade, we come across as hypocrites, we feed the Islamist narrative and we are participating in creating the environment where more sectarianism flourish.

I also really wonder what you and Faisal here think will have any effect? Sitting here on the net and vent your disapproval of Islam, moan about how much stone age thinking we find in the ME? That’ll do? Any suggestions on how to encourage more secular values, tradition, laws,etc? Do you think we should keep arming the likes of KSA?

Recently, Pakistan vowed to “only intervene” in Saudi affairs “if the Holy Mosques become under attack”. No Muslim-majority country on Earth dares to question, let alone defy, the Saudi master without paying some hefty price (usually in the form of direct military action; proxy wars or incessant sectarian incitement)

The Saudis can spin any opposition to them in Islamic terms (e.g. These Western kuffar or those Shia rafidhas are attacking the birthplace of the Prophet and the Land of the Two Holy Mosques, etc) and then Muslims around the world (for the obvious religious reasons) will probably fall for it, and go apeshit one way or another. There we go, back to religion all over again.

As long as Muslims around the world are committed to certain Islamic delusions and taboos (e.g. they must make pilgrimage to Mecca at least once if they’re able-bodied. Muslims are one body; hurt one part; and the rest will suffer, aka the Ummah, etc) Saudi Arabia will continue being the de facto head of the Islamic snake.

Do you know why Muslims are so fanatical right now? Because there was a time when the Ottomans were in charge, and Muslims back then generally resembled Turks/Ottomans. Then there was a time when European colonists were in charge (mainly the French and Britons) and Muslims back then generally resembled the French and Britons.

What happened after Muslim-majority countries gained independence? They became free to govern themselves. And what happened? Islamic revivalism is what happened (and Arabic revivalism in Arab countries)

For instance, the Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel-Nasser (who wasn’t propped up by the West, and who is usually viewed by Arab standards as “secular” and promoted as such by regressive leftists) sent Arabic teachers and al-Azhar sheikhs to the newly-independent Algeria to help “Arabize” the largely Francophone country, and “reconnect it with its Islamic roots”. Few decades later; Algeria descended into a largely religious civil war. I guess ditching the French colonial influence and replacing it with the “authentic and quaint” Islamic and Arab culture worked out very well for them.