[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

His anti-Muslim bigotry, as Corsi corrected for clarity, is not found in the accuracy of his statement about Islam itself but in his suggested treatment of Muslims

Such as?

and his over-demonization of Islam above all else, regardless of any evidence.
Is Islam the most dangerous active religion based on dogma and sheer size? I think so, absolutely.

Okay... so you guys agree. Where is the "over-demonization of Islam above all else", outside of noticing that it's the primary source of religious violence at this particular moment in history? As far as Harris is concerned, the Old Testament is a much worse moral guide than the Qur'an - he's said so on a number of occasions - but right now, no one is killing Amalekites or burning witches or stoning people for working on the sabbath.

Does that mean there is no limit to what one can say without being guilty of bigotry? Of course not. Does talking about something dangerous in a way that surpasses reason and logic absolve one of criticism? Of course not.

Indeed. It's a good thing no one has or would ever suggest this. Not sure who you think you're rebutting here.

I disagree with Corsi on the point of Harris' greatest strength being his clarity. He is prolifically unclear and poorly thought-out. His constant need to clarify his own statements is evidence of this.

Only for people who are incapable of thinking in thought experiments. His statements are clear to people who have the ability to think in the manner required by philosophy - hypotheticals, corner cases, thought experiments, and very narrow bands of applicability of particular principles. If you remove the conclusion from the specific premises that underlie it, as people are often wont to do, the conclusion suggests, to someone who's barely paying attention, something different from what it actually was.

The problem is that much of the public is only capable of thinking in 240p.

I actually think the guy is held to a much higher standard in this area because of his emphasis on accurate language. By way of example, on this specific issue, he criticized Hillary for failing to talk about what he described as the "root cause" of the problem, being Islamic extremism, in favour of laying everything at the feet of gun control. Many of his supporters then ripped him for using the term "root cause", because it's inaccurate in this context: there's never a "root cause" for an event like this, there are always multiple contributing causes.

Even though his supporters can sometimes be cult-ish, and frankly need almost as much guidance on intellectual honesty as the people who take him out of context deliberately in order to smear him half the time, there are a lot of them who are totally willing to nitpick everything he says for perfect accuracy. Partly because it's a given that if he misspeaks, he's going to get lit up by the usual suspects, as happened when he somewhat ham-handedly suggested that Ben Carson made more sense on foreign policy than Noam Chomsky. That was a statement made for dramatic effect in the course of a 2 hour long podcast, but it was blown up by detractors for a week afterwards. The guy can't have a single slip up in how he speaks or it'll inevitably be given the least charitable interpretation and used against him ad nauseum.

Originally Posted by calgaryblood

Sam Harris literally said "Obama gave a speech without ever mentioning Islamism, Jihadism, Islamic terrorism, radicalism".

I've watched and read the entire Obama speech and he mentions those things several times and even says he will destroy the terrorist groups they are fighting.

How can anyone listen to him with blatant lies right off the bat?

I just posted the text of the speech in question. Go ahead and search for the terms "Islamism" or "Jihadism" (which I'm not sure the President has ever used), or the phrases "Islamic terrorism" or "Islamic radicalism". See them? No, you don't, because he systematically tries to diminish the specific religious motivations of religious terrorists. He'll frequently say that ISIL isn't Islamic, or that it is "perverting a great religion", or some version thereof.

The reason Obama chooses to speak this way is set out quite nicely in the Atlantic article above. It's up to you whether you agree with that rationale. Obviously, Harris doesn't.

Originally Posted by crapshoot

Well, he's also doing "interviews", or rather "talks" where he answers his own questions and delves into arguments with himself while his guest just sits by waiting in silence.

He's addressed this, when he started doing podcasts. He's not doing interviews, he's inviting people on to have a conversation with him on what he thinks are important topics. He's said that he assumes if you're listening to his podcast, you want to hear what he thinks on any particular issue in addition to his guest, not just ask questions and wait for their answer.