You should definitely look deeper into this debate. There are a lot of people who excuse medieval outlooks as a result of "respecting their culture". They might not outright support the view, but they're way too willing to look past that those are the views in order to appear tolerant. It's one thing to ignore disagreements on the fringes, but when you're doing it to core principles of modern liberal, secular society, you're being dishonest.
I'm interested. Could you give me an example?
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Well, two liberals can legitimately disagree on how best to reconcile competing values like freedom of speech and freedom of religion in a particular circumstance (often a very complex issue). But, in such a situation, labelling the opposing view "the regressive left" doesn't really say anything. I mean, accepting nik's sefinition, how many people in the debate have "abandoned basic liberal principles". I can't really think of any.
There are lots, The young turks, Glen Greenwald, plenty in the UK which dismiss and bash Islamic reformers and former Muslims speaking out against how the west in handling political Islam.
Just recently a number of the people that run the Global Secular Movement FB page, mostly former Muslims were banned from facebook yet again, we see Youtube removing any profit from Gad Saad's youtube videos because he critizes Islamism and the lack of a real response from the liberals in the west, leaving only the usually rather bigoted right as the main voices in this clash of civilizations.
I mean reformers within Islam go to speaking engagements in the UK, and sometimes get banned, and if they are allowed to speak groups like the Feminists and Islamic groups band together (irony) to try to interrupt them.
There is a real problem within Liberals today who are going out of their way when it comes to Islam because I think for them it boils down to seeing how harsh and ugly the right is when dealing with Islam, so they want nothing to do with it.
Most people don't see all this because its hard for these voices to get out there, there are a few like Maajid Nawaz who get media attention, but the former Muslims who are speaking out about whats happening to their former home countries get called bigots, Islamaphobes, etc..
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This one was very striking, here's Maryam who is freakin awesome, gets banned, and the video below was the one I was referring to in which she got to speak, but the student feminist group and Islam group showed up to try to stop it and cause chaos.
Milo that annoying right guy from Brietbart regularly gets protested and they try to stop him from speaking, this is NOT Liberalism.
You should definitely look deeper into this debate. There are a lot of people who excuse medieval outlooks as a result of "respecting their culture".
Like who? I think most people recognize this is a problem in the Muslim world but just don't want to see all Muslims painted with the same brush. If the people you're speaking of are guilty of anything it's classic "no true Scotsman" arguments.
Well, two liberals can legitimately disagree on how best to reconcile competing values like freedom of speech and freedom of religion in a particular circumstance (often a very complex issue). But, in such a situation, labelling the opposing view "the regressive left" doesn't really say anything. I mean, accepting nik's sefinition, how many people in the debate have "abandoned basic liberal principles". I can't really think of any.
The fact that you consider "freedom of speech" as an element of a "debate" says all that needs to be said.
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I suppose my thinking always goes: what has contributed (and continues to contribute) more to the spread and entrenchment of Islamic terrorism/jihadism?
1. The "Regressive Left"
2. Insatiable Western appetites for Saudi oil.
3. The Gulf wars and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yeah. I honestly think that the worst two guys for this are Cenk from TYT and Reza Azlan. Those two go to the racist/bigot card so often that you can barely read the face anymore.
If you have the time, watch the 3 hour interview between Cenk and Sam Harris. It's probably one of the most embarrassing displays by someone who considers themselves a public figure I've ever seen. Cenk makes so many ridiculous leaps to try and discredit, that you'd think he was training for the triple jump.
Here at the latter half of this clip, Reza basically dismisses Harris' opinion on Islam because he's not muslim and travelling the muslim world and therefore doesn't have the expertise to criticize the culture.
I'm not gonna post too much more on this here in this thread, because it will start turning into "that thread". However, basically, no one likes to be called a racist. These guys just do the same kind of thing Nage Waza does in any thread involving Israel. Any criticism of policies ... boom, anti-semite. It's a crap way to try and shut down a debate.
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Well, two liberals can legitimately disagree on how best to reconcile competing values like freedom of speech and freedom of religion in a particular circumstance (often a very complex issue). But, in such a situation, labelling the opposing view "the regressive left" doesn't really say anything. I mean, accepting nik's sefinition, how many people in the debate have "abandoned basic liberal principles". I can't really think of any.
The term 'liberal' has evolved, and come to mean something quite different, especially in the U.S., than it meant 50 years ago. The hallmarks of liberalism used to be freedom of expression, genuine tolerance of dissent, personal autonomy, and a belief that progress is best achieved by inviting diverse and competing arguments to the table and employing reason and empiricism to sift good ideas from bad.
That's why I prefer to distinguish between liberalism and the modern left. The modern left has strong authoritarian, intolerant, and conformist impulses, and has turned its back on principles like playing the ball and not the man. Like their counterparts on the right, they believe all decent-minded people know right from wrong, and we can achieve consensus if only we hammer away at the wrong-thinkers relentlessly enough. Genuine liberals recognize that consensus is not possible, or even desireable, and are willing to sacrifice comfort and security to live in a society where all ideas, good and bad, can be openly championed.
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I suppose my thinking always goes: what has contributed (and continues to contribute) more to the spread and entrenchment of Islamic terrorism/jihadism?
1. The "Regressive Left"
2. Insatiable Western appetites for Saudi oil.
3. The Gulf wars and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I am just not bothered by the "Regressive Left".
You're probably going to be labelled as part of the the regressive left because you left out Islam itself.
I suppose my thinking always goes: what has contributed (and continues to contribute) more to the spread and entrenchment of Islamic terrorism/jihadism?
1. The "Regressive Left"
2. Insatiable Western appetites for Saudi oil.
3. The Gulf wars and Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I am just not bothered by the "Regressive Left".
The answer is that none of them are particularly significant causes, compared to he plain old belief in a magic man in the sky.
Although you can argue that #1 and #2 are contributing to our inability to create policy to address the situation.
Wahabism and Saudi Arabia do more to move political Islam along than anyone else, they fund Mosques all over the world, send them tons of free literature which promotes their ideals, I mean often people don't realize that what ISIS is, is pretty much Wahabism in its purest form. But yeah they hold all that oil and let the US use bases there, so they get a pass while we in the west are kind of left shaking our heads.
A cool guy in Iceland, he was the leader of the Islam group in Iceland, they've been trying to build a mosque here and he outright refused money from Saudi Arabia, because he knows exactly what that means, he wants nothing to do with Wahabism and that's exactly the kind of guy we need to support, because there are so many Sharia family courts now all over the UK because they go under the guise of "counselling" but lots of investigative reports have shown them doing much much more, often pushing wives who have been abused to go back to their husbands, tellings parents to disown children who are gay, etc..
The goals of political Islam are terrible for the west, just look at Turkey, Erdogan is a textbook example of how a once proudly secular nation can be turned in to what its becoming.
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You either believe in free speech....or you don't.
I think what you're talking about is the belief in freedom of speech that is consequence free. That you can say whatever you'd like without any blowback. Society would kinda suck if I could just threaten to kill every single person I wanted and simply hide behind "free speech".
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The term 'liberal' has evolved, and come to mean something quite different, especially in the U.S., than it meant 50 years ago. The hallmarks of liberalism used to be freedom of expression, genuine tolerance of dissent, personal autonomy, and a belief that progress is best achieved by inviting diverse and competing arguments to the table and employing reason and empiricism to sift good ideas from bad.
Unless you were poor, had a vagina, or weren't white. If we're going to speak genuinely about classical liberals then let's speak genuinely about them, and it's the modern left that deserves credit for actually forcing classical liberalism to live up to it's lofty ideals. You can argue that modern left has gone too far, but let's not act like the fathers of liberalism were beacons of open discourse and dissent.
I think what you're talking about is the belief in freedom of speech that is consequence free. That you can say whatever you'd like without any blowback. Society would kinda suck if I could just threaten to kill every single person I wanted and simply hide behind "free speech".
No, I never said anything about consequences. Free speech should absolutely not be free of consequences (except for government consequences).