Quote:
Originally Posted by Agamemnon
You seem to be in combat mode. I'm a liberal, but I struggle with liberalisms extremely broad range of tolerance, especially towards certain religiously motivated violence.
I stand by my point... the purpose of this thread did not seem to be blaming liberals, it seemed to be taking up Sam Harris' point of asking why liberals give violent religion a free pass. It's a liberal vs liberal debate in my mind, not conservative vs liberal.
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As I've said, "liberals give violent religion a free pass" is a completely bonkers claim that barely deserves discussion. It just does not hold water when faced with reality.
It's liberals who have for decades fought against female circumcision in Islam, and they have not stopped just because it's now more of in issue also in the West. It's liberals who opposed the western policy of supporting Islamists against socialists and democratic forces, and
especially the leftist liberals are still active in opposing that. Liberals have for a very long time demanded that the west put pressure on Islamist regimes such as Saudi Arabia to further the human rights situation in those countries, and they're still fighting that fight.
Right now in the west, liberals are trying to get funding for classes to teach womens rights to immigrants, creating research based policies to fight violent extremism etc. etc. In short, western liberals are at the forefront of resisting the violent elements in Islam and trying to defuse religions tensions and fight discrimination (which as research shows is a contributing factor to terrorism and radicalism).
Is every single liberal 100% correct and in the right about Islam? Of course not, but who cares? Why is this even in the sphere of relevant discussion? There is just nothing of worth to be achieved in that direction.
At the same time western governments are selling weapons and financially backing a government in Turkey that is decisively moving the country towards a theocratic dictatorship. (With the supposed purpose of keeping Turkey in the western camp, and right now failing miserably.) Western governments are still indirectly selling arms to Al-Qaida. It's liberal news medias like the Guardian that are most vocally questioning these policies, yet people claim that somehow the Guardian is the problem here?