The News Thread

[Einherjar86]

There's actually credibility to some degree in continuing to push the Trump/Russia theory, whereas only a total brainlet die-hard IdPol-tard still thinks Smollett dindu nuffin. On that basis alone I have to reject your claim that believing one summary over the other makes you a hypocrite, or whatever weird narrative you're trying to push here.

That's because your judgment is interfering with your judgment.

a hate crime you referenced in the past

No, I actually never did. I saw this when you mentioned it the first time, and I didn't say anything. Now you're repeating it, and I'm calling it out. I never posted about this when it first happened.

Let's be honest here

Sounds good.

I have no investment in defending Jussie Smollett.

 

[Einherjar86]

One was a summary of a massive two-year investigation that recommended no charges for collusion on a basis of lack of evidence. The other was a single act of prosecutory discretion dropping a case that had already resulted in sixteen charges on a basis of substantial evidence.

Barr's summary suggested no charges. Important distinction.

Testimony is not always available. If Bob murders Joe and there are no witnesses and the only evidence is a knife Bob purchased soaked in Joe's blood, and Bob refuses to admit to the slaying, then there is no testimony beyond the cops that discovered the knife. The cops provide testimony to the knife not being planted, but it's the knife itself that carries the information of blood and location. You need expert opinion to translate the explanation of the knife, e.g. forensic experts running PCR on the blood to match it to Joe, or bank records showing the purchase of the knife by Bob, but the knife itself is its own evidence.

Still not self-explanatory. You're making narrative connections between events that aren't given by the events themselves.

I admire your confidence, but I'm not convinced by it.

The reason we don't even need to focus as much on the objects is because two people already confessed IN ADDITION TO the plethora of physical evidence which supports their claims. We believe Smollett to be guilty because $130k was spent in investigating the various leads and pieces of evidence, including investigation by many experts and independent sources, all of which point to the whole thing being a hoax.

This is true. But the lack of confessions in Trump's case isn't reason to claim "total exoneration."

 

[CiG]

No, I actually never did. I saw this when you mentioned it the first time, and I didn't say anything. Now you're repeating it, and I'm calling it out. I never posted about this when it first happened.

I don't know why I thought you did, for some reason I just remember you referencing it but I guess I was wrong, my bad.

That's because your judgment is interfering with your judgment.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't know why I thought you did, for some reason I just remember you referencing it but I guess I was wrong, my bad.

Thanks. I've been making a conscious effort not to get sensational about things like this, at least for the last few months or so.

View attachment 19496

The prejudgments we make condition our future judgments.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Barr's summary suggested no charges. Important distinction.

Still not self-explanatory. You're making narrative connections between events that aren't given by the events themselves.

I admire your confidence, but I'm not convinced by it.

This is true. But the lack of confessions in Trump's case isn't reason to claim "total exoneration."

Mueller's report was quoted suggesting no charges for collusion. Virtually all Chicago officials except for Foxx not only suggested but also pressed charges. Not remotely comparable.

Do you now recognize the difference between testimony and explanation?

"Total exoneration" is largely the claim of Trump and his fanboys/Republicans capitalizing on the good news. A bit of giddy hyperbole doesn't compare to what Foxx did.

 

[Einherjar86]

Mueller's report was quoted suggesting no charges for collusion. Virtually all Chicago officials except for Foxx not only suggested but also pressed charges. Not remotely comparable.

Do you now recognize the difference between testimony and explanation?

I always have recognized it. As I said originally, I never conflated them.

Both of those are examples of testimony. They explain the evidence. Mueller's report explicitly does NOT exonerate Trump, and yet--as I originally posted--we have people claiming "Total exoneration!"

So I don't really understand what your complaint about my original post is.

"Total exoneration" is largely the claim of Trump and his fanboys/Republicans capitalizing on the good news. A bit of giddy hyperbole doesn't compare to what Foxx did.

We aren't comparing Foxx with Trump et al, we're comparing her with Barr.

 

[CiG]

I think (hope) I can respond to this and it gives a sense of what I'd say to the rest of this post.

"what I don't get is why you would believe that while simultaneously believing that Islam is compatible."

In short, I don't perceive what's incompatible to actually be Islam. It's true that these countries practice Islamic law and policies of religious persecution; but I see that less as being Islam tout court (i.e. Islam at its core, pure Islam, essential Islam, etc.) and more as a result of Western foreign policy and intervention in the region. I don't lay the blame at Islam's feet, is what I'm saying.

I don't think the history of Western intervention in the Middle East and other Islamic regions somehow extracts the purest form of Islam, or some such. I think it fuels political rivalry and disparity, and that the ensuing unrest gives rise to religiously motivated violence. I separate that from any concept of Islam "as such."

Also, building on that point, I don't believe Islam "as such" or tout court actually exists, same as I don't believe Christianity tout court exists. There is no original version of any religious system.

Regarding your thought experiment, again I don't think it's religion that's to blame for the lack of Westerners emigrating to Islamic countries. It has far more to do with economic opportunity as a result of cultural development beyond religion than it has to do with the inability of Christians and Muslims to coexist.

The problem of pragmatic policy vs. deterministic imposition. I understand.

To address your last point first, my thought experiment isn't about why westerners aren't moving to Islamic countries, that would be an absurd question to ask as we all know why that doesn't happen outside of westerners radicalized by Islamists who then leave to fight for a foreign terrorist group. My thought experiment was whether a lesbian feminist was compatible with Islam as it exists currently.

I think we all know the answer to that question.

To the rest; I'm not particularly interested in trying to define what real Islam is, not because I don't think that's important, but rather because it's meaningless when talking about the practicality of forming immigration policy. It's realpolitik vs theology and while it sounds nice to not allow IRL actors related to Islam to poison the entire religion and define it negatively, that's not something we can really consider when deciding whether we should let thousands of Muslim immigrants to move into our nations at rates that cannot allow for integration.

For a start we can all stop meddling in the affairs of these countries, but neo-cons and neo-libs who tend to be anti-Islam in rhetoric and policy at the same time want to continue meddling while also advocating for mass immigration and immigration at anti-integration rates. First we have to stop the foreign policy which is a self-fulfilling prophecy of Islamism and war, then we can start seriously considering immigration from majority-Muslim areas.

I agree, immigration policies that end at "let them in" are shortsighted and problematic. If societies don't make room for those they admit, except in isolated areas, then you won't have integration.

Integration cannot happen entirely peacefully, but it can happen. It does happen. But it's not an easy process.

Integration in the 21st century is typically an easier process than you imply I think. The only integration issues you really ever hear about is related to Muslim communities. Buddhists and Christians from non-western countries tend to pose few issues for the native populations.

To return to my first point, I don't see this as meaning that Islam is incompatible. By this logic, no Abrahamic religion is compatible with modern values; it's all just individuals who have adapted and integrated. The West is predominantly Judeo-Christian in form, but the practices and values of these religions had to adapt to other cultural developments. If Islam is incompatible with modernity, then so are the other Abrahamic religions; they've just had the benefit of evolving gradually away from their more archaic practices.

Islam evolved perfectly fine with Western values in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It wasn't until political destabilization sent Muslim countries spiraling into disarray. Again, I don't see Islam as responsible for this.

I return to Indonesia, which has many of the same issues with Islamic bigotry as middle-eastern countries we helped to destabilize, yet it doesn't really have the same kind of history as them.

But I agree, if Judaism and Christianity were still as regressive as Islam is they would be incompatible with modern western values, but as it stands they coexist with little issue. I refer back to the polling data on British Muslims which demonstrates the chasm between the general population's views on things and Muslims' views on things.

If we were allowing thousands and thousands of regressive witch-burning Christians into our modern nations and not allowing them to integrate, learn to speak our languages and shoving them all into specific locations that then become nation with a nation, we would be saying the same thing. The point isn't that Islam, Christianity or Judaism are or aren't compatible with modern western values as they existed at their most violent periods in history, the point is that Islam right now isn't compatible with modern western values and doing open the floodgates style immigration policy is allowing Muslims to enter and avoid changing with the times.

Child brides and FGM are a reality in most places where Muslim immigration is allowed flippantly rather than intelligently. There's also the issue of the children of integrated immigrant families becoming radicalized which is something we aren't equipped to work out or really even deal with.

The rule we're arguing over isn't whether Islamic countries and legal systems in the twenty-first century are incompatible with modern Western values--they certainly are incompatible in many ways. The rule we're discussing is whether Islam as such, in itself, is incompatible; and that means not just Islam as it appears today, but as it's existed in the past and as it might exist in the future. So in my perspective, contemporary examples from regions with highly charged political histories, whose governmental structures and organizations directly result from Western occupation and intervention, aren't exemplary of Islam as such--i.e. that Islam is incompatible with Western values. They're exemplary that modern Islamic law and governance is largely incompatible with Western ethics and values.

But if we're discussing a rule that Islam as such is incompatible with Western ethics and values--a claim to Islamic universality--then I point to the exceptions as proof that this rule isn't actually a rule.

I basically addressed this but due to the decentralized nature of Islam there can never be an Islam in itself, so we have to deal with it as it exists rather than how we want it to be or think it should or could be. In all Muslim-majority countries feminists, atheists, activists, LGBTQ+ individuals and groups as well as religious minorities are oppressed, often killed and universally suppressed. There is also polling data that shows the Muslims in those places support these actions against those forces of modern liberal ethics.

Those views don't melt away because Muhammad and his family moved from Khorramshahr to Cardiff, and it especially won't help if he and his family move there along with 100 other families who hold the same views.

 

[CiG]

The prejudgments we make condition our future judgments.

I remember when you said that Trump promising Russia good coverage if they found Clinton's emails (or some shit like that) was possibly evidence of interference with the election, how does that judgement condition your current views on this collusion investigation?

 

[Einherjar86]

I remember when you said that Trump promising Russia good coverage if they found Clinton's emails (or some shit like that) was possibly evidence of interference with the election, how does that judgement condition your current views on this collusion investigation?

It 100% conditions it. I admit it.

Can’t read you response to our older conversation right now. Too much beer and whiskey.

 

[CiG]

Can’t read you response to our older conversation right now. Too much beer and whiskey.

lmfao.

It 100% conditions it. I admit it.

And what prejudgements am I laboring under? I just said that there's some credibility to still thinking Trump colluded with Russia because nothing has been proven and politics in general are pretty shady, and I believed the Smollett story at first too, albeit very briefly but still.

 

[Dak]

Wasn't even hard to find Clinton emails. "Extremely Careless." - Comey. A direct and accurate quote, unlike the misquotes regarding Trump supposedly calling neo-nazi's "fine people."

 

[RadicalThrasher]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...eis-paroled-after-37-years-prison/3308889002/


Can't believe they let this scumbag out. I was just a little kid, but remember this was all over the news .

 

[CiG]

Benito Mussolini's granddaughter is in a Twitter beef with Jim Carrey.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...eis-paroled-after-37-years-prison/3308889002/


Can't believe they let this scumbag out. I was just a little kid, but remember this was all over the news .

wow. "kidnapped, raped, mutilated and murdered" people but gets his sentence cut in half for good behavior? Wtf

 

[CiG]

Students at Hofstra University are demanding the school remove a Thomas Jefferson statue.
The group included other demands as well, including "mandated, comprehensive, cultural competency training.”

 

[CiG]

El Chapo Found Guilty on All Counts; Faces Life in Prison.
After decades evading the police, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican crime lord known as El Chapo, was convicted in a drug conspiracy trial. He faces a life sentence.

 

[Einherjar86]

I basically addressed this but due to the decentralized nature of Islam there can never be an Islam in itself, so we have to deal with it as it exists rather than how we want it to be or think it should or could be.

I'm not sure where this point got lost, but I agree--there is no Islam in itself, just like there's no Christianity in itself or Buddhism in itself. These are institutions subject to the pressures of history and culture.

This being the case, religions transform and evolve as their regional environments transform and evolve. The relative compatibility, as we can observe it, of Western Christianity with modern twentieth-century values has less to do with Christianity as a more tolerant/malleable religion than Islam than it does with its gradual exposure to Enlightenment values over the course of centuries. If you look at European history, we see Christianity grow less violent and more tolerant as advancements are made in science, philosophy, culture, etc.

For what it's worth, you also see Islam grow less violent; but then in the twentieth century you have America and other Western nations actively involved in Middle-Eastern politics, and in some cases even overthrowing established democracies, subsequently throwing whole regions into religious turmoil. The violence that ensued doesn't signify Islam's general incompatibility with post-Enlightenment values. When regions are politically destabilized, religious zealotry often takes over. The same would happen with Christian nations.

But I agree, if Judaism and Christianity were still as regressive as Islam is they would be incompatible with modern western values, but as it stands they coexist with little issue.

I mean, not in a place like Zambia, where homosexuality is illegal and the government regularly overlooks violence against women. Again, it's less about religion and more about geopolitical history/context.

I refer back to the polling data on British Muslims which demonstrates the chasm between the general population's views on things and Muslims' views on things.

What about this polling data? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

Like any religious group, the religious beliefs and practices of Muslims vary depending on many factors, including where in the world they live. But Muslims around the world are almost universally united by a belief in one God and the Prophet Muhammad, and the practice of certain religious rituals, such as fasting during Ramadan, is widespread.

In other areas, however, there is less unity. For instance, a Pew Research Center survey of Muslims in 39 countries asked Muslims whether they want sharia law, a legal code based on the Quran and other Islamic scripture, to be the official law of the land in their country. Responses on this question vary widely. Nearly all Muslims in Afghanistan (99%) and most in Iraq (91%) and Pakistan (84%) support sharia law as official law. But in some other countries, especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia – including Turkey (12%), Kazakhstan (10%) and Azerbaijan (8%) – relatively few favor the implementation of sharia law.

How do Muslims feel about groups like ISIS?
Recent surveys show that most people in several countries with significant Muslim populations have an unfavorable view of ISIS, including virtually all respondents in Lebanon and 94% in Jordan. Relatively small shares say they see ISIS favorably. In some countries, considerable portions of the population do not offer an opinion about ISIS, including a majority (62%) of Pakistanis.

Favorable views of ISIS are somewhat higher in Nigeria (14%) than most other nations. Among Nigerian Muslims, 20% say they see ISIS favorably (compared with 7% of Nigerian Christians). The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, which has been conducting a terrorist campaign in the country for years, has sworn allegiance to ISIS.

More generally, Muslims mostly say that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified, including 92% in Indonesia and 91% in Iraq. In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say such tactics are rarely or never justified. An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified.

Dak actually linked this data, although I'm not sure why exactly.

 

[Dak]

You effectively ignored the part where Muslim majority nations heavily support Sharia law.

It's a shit rhetorical maneuver to say there's no X in itself because we can fuzzify the boundaries. Your theoretical exercise has no contact with the ground. Sharia law preferences and implementation is a concrete exercise that extends across time and from the text. That Muslim minorities in Western countries show less support for Sharia law than those in Muslim majority countries is both an artifact of being in the minority and demonstrates that being western is in fact incompatible with the majority of Muslim's perspective on a key aspect of Islam.

Imagine being a homosexual or a Christian in Muslim countries where that is a death sentence, and arguing with your killers that there's "no Islam in itself." It isn't going to stop the blade.

 

[Einherjar86]

You effectively ignored the part where Muslim majority nations heavily support Sharia law.

I think you're the one effectively ignoring parts.

It's a shit rhetorical maneuver to say there's no X in itself because we can fuzzify the boundaries. Your theoretical exercise has no contact with the ground. Sharia law preferences and implementation is a concrete exercise that extends across time and from the text.

Actually, Sharia law has been interpreted in various ways by different Muslim empires and caliphates.

And the Quran doesn't contain a strict legal code. It identifies some criminal offenses, but doesn't specify how to deal comprehensively with offenses. Tribal customs tended to be practiced until organized Islamic societies could decide on punishments. And those decisions depended on factors beyond "the text."

Imagine being a homosexual or a Christian in Muslim countries where that is a death sentence, and arguing with your killers that there's "no Islam in itself." It isn't going to stop the blade.

So because radical fundamentalists reject the argument, you do too?

 

[Dak]

I think you're the one effectively ignoring parts.

Actually, Sharia law has been interpreted in various ways by different Muslim empires and caliphates.

And the Quran doesn't contain a strict legal code. It identifies some criminal offenses, but doesn't specify how to deal comprehensively with offenses. Tribal customs tended to be practiced until organized Islamic societies could decide on punishments. And those decisions depended on factors beyond "the text."

So because radical fundamentalists reject the argument, you do too?

You keep making the same rhetorical move but at different scales. Easy to do with no skin in the game. If there's no "Islam in itself" how is there any "organized Islam in itself" or "radical fundamentalist Islam in itself." Your analysis is bankrupt in itself.