dutchroll

Get a grip Bex. Edit: To expand on the above curt statement, let's respond to a couple of things here. 1) That you feel the need to imply I would ever condone or excuse female genital mutilation is bizarre. I'm not even going to dignify that with any further comment on it. 2) Citing David Horowitz's website "Frontpage Magazine"? Seriously? This is a guy assessed as a "radical anti-muslim extremist" by the hate-group watching organisation of the Southern Poverty Law Centre. Are they the type of people you want to associate yourself with? Maybe they are...... I'm not actually in the business of randomly asking people to condemn the actions of extremists who happen to be of the same religion or demographic group. I haven't gone up to a catholic and demanded they condemn the actions of their church for decades of child sexual abuse and systemic coverups. It's likely they feel embarrassed enough about it as it is. They don't need me to act like a complete self-righteous tosser and shove it in their faces. A Gallup Poll in the USA in 2011 found that 89% of American Muslims rejected violent individual attacks on civilians. Of course you're going to point out that 11% not rejecting such violent attacks shows they have a serious problem. Be careful before you open your mouth. The same poll found that only 71% of Christians and 75% of Jews rejected violent individual attacks on civilians. Confronting a Muslim and demanding they condemn Islamic extremism doesn't make you a big tough guy. There have been numerous statements from Muslim representative groups condemning Islamic extremism. In Ontario Canada last year, 25,000 Muslims met and issued statements condemning Islamic extremism. Way back in 2001, 50 major Islamic leaders met and condemned the 2001 terror attacks. Even Fatwas have been issued by clerics against Islamic extremism. Social media campaigns have been started (eg "Not In My Name" and numerous others) by Muslims. But you know, it gets to the point where they condemn it and it just goes straight over many people's heads because people like yourself are not the slightest bit interested in acknowledging that condemnation. When you're on your deathbed I'd be interested in asking you what you think you ever achieved with all your hatred and vitriol.

Ah the "do your own research" chestnut. I love it when that gets trotted out, but it's most commonly used by anti-vaxers. The 97% refers to scientists actively involved and qualified in climate research and the associated earth sciences. That was very openly stated by the authors of the research which originally quoted that figure. Apparently it is now taken to mean 97% of computational social scientists, synthetic biologists, and metallurgical chemists. And probably plumbers and tilers too. Then when someone finds a group of Western Sydney plumbers and tilers who reckon it's all a con they say "See? Told ya the 97% was BS!" I've met Boeing pilots who reckon Airbus aircraft are unsafe to fly, despite never having actually flown one. Well having flown both I can say those Boeing pilots are talking out of their backsides. It's the difference between having actual real expertise in a topic, and thinking you do.

You think that's slightly melodramatic Phil? No-one goes out in Sweden anymore, because they're all too frightened? So....if I went to Sweden tomorrow and walked down the streets of Stockholm in the evening, they would be deserted? Reproduced from the Government Offices of Sweden (note: does not apply if you think it's all a Swedish Government conspiracy) Claim: Sweden had its first islamic terrorist attack not so long ago" Facts: The only known attempt at such an attack was in 2010. No one was killed but the attacker. Claim: "There has been a major increase in the number of rapes in Sweden." Facts: The number of reported rapes in Sweden has risen. But the definition of rape has broadened over time, which makes it difficult to compare the figures. It is also misleading to compare the figures with other countries, as many acts that are considered rape under Swedish law are not considered rape in many other countries. For example: If a woman in Sweden reports that she has been raped by her husband every night for a year, that is counted as 365 separate offences; in most other countries this would be registered as a single offence, or would not be registered as an offence at all. Claim: "Refugees are behind the increase in crime, but the authorities are covering it up." Facts: According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention's Swedish Crime Survey, some 13 per cent of the population were the victim of an offence against them personally in 2015. This is an increase on preceding years, although it is roughly the same level as in 2005. The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention has conducted two studies into the representation of people from foreign backgrounds among crime suspects, the most recent in 2005. The studies show that the majority of those suspected of crimes were born in Sweden to two Swedish-born parents. The studies also show that the vast majority of people from foreign backgrounds are not suspected of any crimes. According to the most recent study, people from foreign backgrounds are 2.5 times more likely to be suspected of crimes than people born in Sweden to Swedish-born parents. In a later study, researchers at Stockholm University showed that the main difference in terms of criminal activity between immigrants and others in the population was due to differences in the socioeconomic conditions in which they grew up in Sweden. Claim: "The high level of immigration means that the system in Sweden is on the verge of collapse." Facts: No. The Swedish economy is strong. Despite the high costs of immigration, Sweden recorded a public finance surplus in 2015, and the forecasts indicate that the surplus is set to grow until 2020. Claim: "Muslims will soon be in the majority in Sweden." Facts: No. The Muslim faith communities have approximately 140 000 members. This is about 1.5 per cent of Sweden's population. It's a bit like Pauline Hanson claiming Australia is in danger of being swamped by Muslims, when the fact is that they represent just over 2% of the population. When someone thinks that 2% is "being swamped", it's time for them to have a lie down and pop a valium.

Because the free speech which allows someone to comment on Muslim bashing threads doesn't grant them automatic immunity from criticism for hypocrisy, inconsistency, or illogical arguments.

There are a number of cases in modern times across various countries which demonstrate this is not necessarily true. Also Christians certainly used to fairly routinely kill non-Christians as little as a few hundred years ago, and the Bible does advocate it at various times. Thankfully the majority of Christians have moved on from those days but those views still do exist. The muslims I've met have no interest in killing you for disagreeing or being of a different faith. Otherwise I'd be dead quite a number of times over. However the extremists being bred at the moment certainly have regressed to the "kill them if they disagree" viewpoint.

Well when Obama was elected, US conservatives embarked on an intensive and unrelenting 8 year campaign to attempt to prove that Obama was an illegitimate President because he wasn't a US citizen. So....you know.....complain about the "left" not accepting political results all you like! Conservatives set an extremely high bar for "refusing to accept a democratic result" in 2008 - so high that I'll genuinely be surprised if the Left ever manage to exceed it. Of course it didn't help at all that he was black. But to be both black and liberal? Well......that demanded severe action! That the planet is warming actually is 100% factual. That the only currently plausible explanation, until someone discovers hitherto unknown physics, is rising levels of greenhouse gas is 100% factual (literally there are no other plausible explanations which haven't been considered already, out of a number of possibilities). That there will be inevitable consequences many of which will be detrimental is also 100%, actually let's just call it 98%, factual. The amazing ability of people to compartmentalise this and basically say "well until I personally see the consequences right in my very back yard, I won't believe any consequences are possible" is a little bizarre. It's like smoking. "The scientific evidence shows smoking causes lung cancer." "Well I haven't actually seen that evidence, I smoke, and I don't have lung cancer." Fast forward some years..... "Oh crap I have lung cancer. I'm screwed. I provide for my family and now they're screwed. Wow this is really bad." "Really? Golly whoever would've thought?" Prediction: Trump will trot out the very small handful of well-known scientific dissenters (there's literally about 4 of them who actually have any directly relevant qualifications) who have been saying the exact same stuff for years, and whose dissenting arguments have already been thoroughly examined by numerous other scientists and been found to be false, misleading, or otherwise not credible. Then Trump in his inevitable style will say "these are the greatest scientists, the best, they do wonderful work, and they've shown global warming is a myth but their opinions are being suppressed by the corrupt media and fake news" and Trump supporters will simply believe the greatest and most evil scientific conspiracy of all time - because that's what they do. The names Trump will trot out to show "evidence" that climate change is all fake news are: Richard Lindzen. Roy Spencer. John Christie. Judith Curry.

Woah.....back up the bus there. I doubt there's anyone here who doesn't believe "democracy spoke" and I've not met anyone including my Democrat leaning relatives in the USA who has challenged it. Many people are amazed, or confused, or flabbergasted by it and we can argue all day as to why that might be, but no-one I know of has tried to say it's undemocratic. I think he's the most fundamentally obnoxious, arrogant and narcissistic bully to make it to the head of state of a western country for a long time, but he is the President. I don't know that some people necessarily wanted that, but they wanted the alternative much less. Others clearly felt that he would champion the cause of the working class. Why they think that I have no idea. He's 70 and he's spent every minute of his working life looking after only himself and his immediate family and profiting at the expense of others. Why some people believe he will suddenly change - I just don't have a clue. It is way beyond my intelligence level to understand that. What is this "questionable morality" you speak of? What is this "bigoted logic"? Something is either logical or it's not logical. Example: "I will impose a border import tax on Mexican goods which will force Mexico to pay for the wall." That is not logical because that's simply not the way it works. Alternative: "I will impose a border import tax on Mexican goods, in order to fund the wall." That is logical. Fine, the funding will come from the domestic purchasers of the imported goods. Like it or don't like it - doesn't matter. It's still "logical". At no point have scientists or highly qualified people ever pretended that they are always correct. In fact the eminent physicist Professor Lawrence Krauss once stated in an interview I watched that he loved being proven wrong because he found it exciting when someone came up with new and better explanations in physics. However a scientist with a prominent record and specialist expertise in their respective scientific field is far more likely to offer correct or accurate information on that topic than you or I. Then when you get a bunch of them all agreeing even allowing for a very small handful who disagree, you can have reasonable (though not 100%) certainty that the larger group is correct. Unfortunately in the information age, people have trouble accepting that because they believe an hour of Googling is roughly equivalent to 30 years full time research in any given topic at all. Of course some people say a bunch of scientists agreeing on something is just evidence of "group-think" (climate change springs to mind as having this accusation levelled at it regularly). All this shows is that they have no idea what group-think actually is. Group-think occurs when alternative viewpoints are dismissed without being critically evaluated. If they have been evaluated and found to be wanting, or unlikely, or not supported by the evidence, then it isn't group-think. It's just that the dissenters are wrong. It's that simple. This is the case with the majority of sceptical views on the underlying principles of climate change, although there is genuine debate among scientists on the finer details.

Well it is demonstrably true that Trump pays scant regard to scientific facts on a number of fronts. Whether that be climate, or vaccinations, or several other topics. The increasing "anti-science" stance in certain segments of the population puzzles me. A lot.

But Margaret Thatcher did not stop terrorism in the UK during her days as PM. Terrorists incidents including major bombings killing many people continued in the UK throughout her entire period as PM, and afterwards. Most of them were at the hands of the IRA - nice white Christian folk who'd go to church on Sunday.

Yes I agree only in the sense that "only a small proportion" are radicals does not mean the issue shouldn't be addressed. But she is stating the obvious. A small group shoots dozens of people in a nightclub and you go out and hunt down that group and all of their associates, and associates of their associates, and so on. This is what already happens. There is no debate to be had there but she's acting as if there is. Have another listen to what the girl in the audience is saying and asking right at the beginning. Brigitte Gabriel does not address it. The girl in the audience is asking why all of them have to be tarred with the same brush and why all Muslims have to be portrayed as bad (which in fact in other forums is exactly what Brigitte Gabriel does), and also how you can fight this war against radicals only with weapons and not ideologically address it. Gabriel never, ever at any point answers the question. She goes on this rant with questionable figures which are meaningless unless they are reliably sourced, and also are meaningless if they are highly demographically variable (which they are). Gabriel never addresses the original point or answers the girl's question in any way shape or form, but the audience claps and cheers at her response. What does that tell you? It tells me that no-one in that audience is actually looking for answers. They don't actually care. I used to get extremely agitated at meetings when I was in the RAAF when I'd ask a question and someone would ramble on for 5 minutes without answering it. I always used to wait until they'd finished then say: "So the question, which I'll repeat for you now, is .....................". Yeah that used to fluster them and didn't make me friends in the opposing group, but it got the point across. Stop with the political garbage, and just answer the question I asked!

The woman who goes on the rant is Brigitte Gabriel. I'd be a little cautious about who you perceive to be talking truthfully, sensibly and sincerely here. Her "percentages" and alleged numbers of radicals are also plucked straight out of her backside with no supporting evidence at all but not a single person questions them because her excellent speaking style does not allow it. Rule #1 of winning an argument - reel out your points so fast that no-one has time to respond or ask you where you sourced your numbers. It's called a "Gish Gallop" in debating tactics, and she is a master of it. She is an apologist for and supporter of Lebanon's Kateab Party, a far right Christian fascist party which was prominently involved in Lebanon's destructive civil war and whose fighters were responsible for the massacre of several thousand arab civilians in two refugee camps in 1982. Presumably she doesn't have any qualms about this. Her quoted definition of a "radical muslim" is "any muslim who prays 5 times a day" which basically means she considers every practicing Muslim a radical, even though in this video she doesn't say that (she contradicts herself a lot). On other occasions she has scoffed at the notion that a Muslim can be moderate. Her crowning achievement is being listed on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which tracks right wing extremist groups and their actions in the USA. In fact all major hate-group tracking organisation feature her group "ACT for America" in their files. Brigitte Gabriel on Muslims (from her 2006 book): "our enemies are the neighbours next door, the doctors practising in our hospitals, and the workers sharing our lunch break." Brigitte Gabriel, 2007 at the Christians United for Israel conference: "The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It's the difference between good and evil". But she is a good public speaker as shown in the video, and can whip a crowd into a frenzy very quickly, though her personal anecdotes of her experiences in Lebanon have been described as "overdone" and "a con act". She is invited to speak on Fox News after almost every terror attack and repeats the same talking points - basically that no Muslim can be trusted, ever. Unless you are an avid fan of Breitbart News or the United Patriots Front, I'd be distancing myself from anything and everything Brigitte Gabriel says. ACT for America "Gish Gallop": Named for the debate tactic created by creationist shill Duane Gish, a Gish Gallop involves spewing so much b....... in such a short span on that your opponent can’t address let alone counter all of it. To make matters worse a Gish Gallop will often have one or more 'talking points' that has a tiny core of truth to it, making the person rebutting it spend even more time debunking it in order to explain that, yes, it's not totally false but the Galloper is distorting/misusing/misstating the actual situation.

If Islam is built like a very successful virus, what is Christianity? Christian preachers are imploring people all day every day of the week to "see the light" and turn to god. Have you taken a look at Hillsong recently? The only difference is that it's not as deadly in the modern age. I actually think most liberal democracies are well aware of the problem posed by radical Islam. However you can't go around simply banning it. It's a very plain fact that most followers of Islam are not actually radical and couldn't give a crap whether you're a Christian or a Buddhist or whatever, so long as you leave them be to go to the mosque and chant out-of-tune prayers at 5am or whatever. In most cases they're more concerned with figuring out where their next meal is coming from than fanciful ideas of engineering the downfall of western society. Behind the scenes there is a lot of effort from security and intelligence forces in liberal democracies to identify and neuter extremist Islamic threats. Yes of course it does exist but I don't think political correctness is as huge a problem as you believe it is. Regrettably in recent years I've noticed quite a few people hiding behind an "anti-political correctness" theme and simply using it as an excuse to be a complete and total abusive ass towards others whose religious or cultural views they don't share. Eg, telling someone they're being an abusive intolerant tosser towards people of a certain religion when that's what they're actually doing, is not political correctness. It's just stating a fact.

Well, I still go there regularly. I was there over Christmas last year and we stay in a hotel in the middle of the city of Jakarta. There were some threats of protest rallies in Jakarta (there have been a number of anti-blasphemy protests there recently) but I didn't notice anything major and when I asked the hotel staff about the radical Muslim protests they expressed that most people were very unhappy about them. In fact they were quite apologetic. And the hotel's Christmas lunch buffet was booked out well before we got there on the 24th. Radical Islam certainly exists there and there have been a small number of terror attacks over the years but as I said, it's mostly out in the poor and largely uneducated rural/provincial areas which are far more susceptible to populist idealism.

Karl Marx. No, I'm not actually a fan of his political theories (Gnu would have my guts for garters for even being able to identify a Marx quote) but that doesn't mean he never wrote stuff which isn't pretty close to the truth.

Indonesia is the largest muslim country by a significant margin and during my many travels there I've actually found them very pleasant and very tolerant. Going out to a restaurant and having a beer or wine is absolutely no problem. Walking around in a shopping centre there is everything from conservatively dressed Muslim women to non-Muslim teenagers in shorts and t-shirts and no-one bats an eyelid. Hijab-clad shop assistants are exceedingly polite and friendly. The troubles which sometimes occur are almost exclusively started by "out-of-towners" from more conservative areas of the countryside, who are poor, of low education, tend to have more extreme beliefs, are more easily riled up by the odd cleric, and travel into Jakarta mostly to stir the pot. That chart is kind of worthless without knowing how it was compiled and based on what data. Also, what exactly are "survival values" and what exactly are "self-expression values" and how are they measured? I mean - Jordan. Right down the bottom there in the low income group. However 14% of the population in Jordan live below the poverty line, compared to 15% in the USA, and 16% in the UK! (source: CIA world fact book, and you can cross refer these stats with other sources too). So what does it all mean?