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Originally Posted by rubecube
The other big elephant in the room that no one really wants to get into is the whole liberal concept of freedom of religion. If you've been raised to believe that freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. are paramount to a free society then you're going to see attacks and calls for bans on certain faiths as antithetical to that.
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Um yes. Yes you are. Where's the problem with this? There's absolutely no tension between freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
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And there's the logistical element to deal with. How do you actually defeat an ideology like this? Clearly bombing the crap out of them isn't working and appears to have made the situation worse. Rational discourse likely isn't the solution unless you honestly believe that the true believers haven't been exposed to the dialogue and arguments against radical Islam. What you have is an ideology that is completely incompatible with modernity when practiced in taught in its most literal form, but how do you quash it without compromising the liberal values that you claim are essential to your society?
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Really difficult question, but the only likely answer is a reformation of the faith by Muslims, led by people like Maajid Nawaz. The moderates basically have to win, but they can't do it without confronting the problems with non-moderate, extreme views (be they holy war, death to apostates, death to gays, oppression of women or otherwise right down the line) and engaging with the people who hold those views, and not pretending that they're pulling their crazy views out of thin air or that they have nothing to do with the texts. That's the only way to fix it. Can't be done from the outside.
The unfortunately completely fair response from many such moderate Muslims is, "I'm not an Islamist; I'm practicing my religion in a totally benign way that's completely consistent with modern secular society. Why is it up to me to police Islamists?" It's not. But if that internal reformation doesn't happen, things are not going to get better. Probably will get worse.