About 50 people killed at gay nightclub in Florida

[nik-]

From what I read it was Al Baghdadi and ISIS that was being removed.

For what reason, I have no idea, it's stupid to censor that.

[FlamesAddiction]

I think ISIS is what they removed.

[RougeUnderoos]

Huh, well if it was ISIS they were removing, then that is terrible.

Nothing to see here.

[AltaGuy]

I don't really get the insinuation that this is a PC thing, or "don't upset the Muslims" thing (Corsi's pet project). Rather, I think it's a stupid attempt to limit the "glory" to be claimed by ISIS from this tragedy, and perhaps slightly to also limit the irrational fears of the US public that Muslim extremists are hiding behind every bush.

Stupid, but I don't agree that this is nefarious double-standards time at the White House.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by AltaGuy

I don't really get the insinuation that this is a PC thing, or "don't upset the Muslims" thing (Corsi's pet project). Rather, I think it's a stupid attempt to limit the "glory" to be claimed by ISIS from this tragedy, and perhaps slightly to also limit the irrational fears of the US public that Muslim extremists are hiding behind every bush.

Stupid, but I don't agree that this is nefarious double-standards time at the White House.

Yet the narrative for the Charleston shooting was all about white pride, racism and the confederate flag? Everything seemed pretty open for discussion then.

[AltaGuy]

I don't think the White House feels like it's in a propaganda battle with the white pride folks.

Then again, I suppose that might change.

Also, not really sure that the redacted portions should be an indication of the "narrative" being pushed domestically:

a. I don't think the WH thinks the American public is quite that dumb.
b. The narrative has been about Islamic extremists (but the homegrown kind), especially buddy's psycho dad.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

I think they are censoring "allah"

No, they just changed "Allah" to "God". They censored all references to ISIS. Yes, this is clearly a politically correct campaign and it's been going on for years, which is in itself part of why they seem to think they can't reverse course on it now.

Obama, yet again after Orlando, denied that ISIL (totally unsure why he prefers that acronym to ISIS) is islamic, and actually said that they are not religious people. This is patent nonsense designed to avoid provoking the sensitivities of adherents to one particular religion. You can understand why it might be politically expedient to do this, internationally - the Saudis no doubt appreciate it - but it comes across as transparently dishonest and is just handing an easy talking point to Trump. Every time Obama or Hillary does this, it's just a spectacular, horrifying own goal. If you don't think his supporters buy into this completely, just watch his twitter feed, see what sort of stuff gets the most attention.

The right response is simple. Speak candidly and plainly about the problem here. You can do it without demonizing all Muslims. It's not that hard. The problem is a strict, literalist interpretation of Islamic doctrines that is being advanced as a basis for medieval acts. It's not the case that most Muslims believe in what ISIS is doing and should be banned from the country. It's also not the case that ISIS's actions have nothing to do with Islam. Both of these are idiotic positions. Why make these the two world view choices available to the American public? Talk sense for once.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Obama, yet again after Orlando, denied that ISIL (totally unsure why he prefers that acronym to ISIS).

http://www.ibtimes.com/isil-isis-isl...erence-2187131

You're so dramatic about political correctness and your subjective view of "sense."

[Looch City]

Naw man, of all things this tragedy brought up, it's the PC-crowd that we must fight.

I'm glad they censored the ISIS stuff, why leave it in and give them anymore things to gloat about. They never planned this, the guy just starting saying random #### to gather attention.

Did we not conclude that this had nothing to do with ISIS?

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Yet the narrative for the Charleston shooting was all about white pride, racism and the confederate flag? Everything seemed pretty open for discussion then.

It isn't terribly likely that people are going to randomly start attacking white people on the street because of the Charleston shooting. White people are very rarely the victims of hate crime, at least where it regards race. (It happens, surely, but I would imagine those are very limited incidents)

Meanwhile, innocent brown people all over the US are being attacked, harassed, Muslim places of worship are being vandalized, etc, in greater and greater numbers since 9/11. There are huge amounts of innocent Muslims (as well as other people of Middle Eastern descent who aren't even Muslim, i.e. Sikhs) who are regularly being treated horribly because of the Radical Islam boogeyman due to a relatively small number of nutjobs who are twisting the words of their particular faith to support their own terroristic acts.

ISIS wants to make this a Western Nations vs. Islam battle. This is not a Western Nations vs. Islam battle. This is humanity vs. ISIS. So you treat ISIS as the fringe element it is, and rather embrace the millions of innocent Muslims who likely are as disgusted by these events as the rest of us.

By demonizing Islam, you just push more and more people toward the radical element.

[peter12]

But we are still allowed to actually say it was a Muslim extremist when it actually was a Muslim extremist... right?

[corporatejay]

Yeah, I don't like it either Corsi but ISIS wants muslims to be marginalized since it fits their "Us v. them" narrative. Obama needs moderate muslims to still feel apart of western society in order to eventually defeat the radicals.

Not great but he's playing the long game, it hurts him locally but it's the right thing to do.

[Buster]

The polling data on Muslim intolerance of LGBT communities is overwhelming in Islamic countries. Among Muslims in western countries, it is closer to 50/50.

This is a completely unacceptable situation.

So, I would hesitate to blame this crime on "extremism" as the environment of intolerance for gays in Muslim communities is mainstream, not extreme. This action would perhaps not be conducted by all Muslims, but the the community as a whole is certainly culpable on account of the environment of intolerance.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

http://www.ibtimes.com/isil-isis-isl...erence-2187131
You're so dramatic about political correctness and your subjective view of "sense."

I know what the terms mean, I'm just not sure why Obama prefers ISIL as terminology. I'm just curious as to why. I don't have a particular preference, really, but most people seem to use ISIS, and if I had to choose, ISIS seems more accurate, doesn't it? Might as well have everyone using the same lexicon.

But anyway, if you don't think it's common sense that these are religious people acting for what they see as their religious mandate, then I don't know what to tell you, you've abandoned reality completely.

Originally Posted by Iggy City

Naw man, of all things this tragedy brought up, it's the PC-crowd that we must fight.

Did we not conclude that this had nothing to do with ISIS?

No, it's the religous maniacs who use their religious views to oppress people the world over who we need to fight. The gay people in Saudi Arabia, the women's rights campaigners in Pakistan, the secular writers in Bangladesh. And by refusing to admit there's even a problem that needs to be talked about, rather than defending those vulnerable groups of people who most need it, we abandon them to being thrown from rooftops, disfigured by acid or hacked to death, in all too many cases. So yeah, thinking clearly and talking clearly about this problem is in fact consequential.

Originally Posted by wittynickname

Meanwhile, innocent brown people all over the US are being attacked, harassed, Muslim places of worship are being vandalized, etc, in greater and greater numbers since 9/11. There are huge amounts of innocent Muslims (as well as other people of Middle Eastern descent who aren't even Muslim, i.e. Sikhs) who are regularly being treated horribly because of the Radical Islam boogeyman due to a relatively small number of nutjobs who are twisting the words of their particular faith to support their own terroristic acts.

Hate crimes against Muslims have increased significantly in the USA in just the past three years. It's impossible to tell by how much, because the stats are generally taken from groups like CAIR, which opportunistically treats any crime where the victim is a Muslim as a hate crime, but there's no doubt they've gone up. Which places them... still well behind hate crimes against Jews, for example. This is a problem, but it's not a large-scale one. It's like republicans' fixation on voter ID fraud.

ISIS wants to make this a Western Nations vs. Islam battle. This is not a Western Nations vs. Islam battle. This is humanity vs. ISIS. So you treat ISIS as the fringe element it is, and rather embrace the millions of innocent Muslims who likely are as disgusted by these events as the rest of us.

It's not this simple, though. Muslim majority countries are generally anti-ISIS, but also in many cases support many or all of the things that we generally object to about ISIS. The religious justification of killing gays and apostates is not a fringe phenomenon. Treatment of women as chattels, or at minimum as second-class citizens, is not a fringe phenomenon. The numbers of people who believe firmly in some pretty awful things on religious grounds is depressing, and Islam is one major source of that sort of belief.

There was a poll a couple of years back of British Muslims - we're not talking about Saudi Arabia here - asking a number of questions, one of which was whether homosexuality is morally acceptable. 0% agreed. It's almost impossible to craft a political poll question so stark as to get a 0% concurrence rate. Is it surprising, then, that you get poll results that say a majority of Muslims in Pakistan think honour killings are justified in some circumstances? The rates go up for stoning adulterers and killing people for leaving the faith. You don't have to support ISIS to support some pretty awful stuff.

All of that being said, you're still certainly right that there's no war on Islam, and shouldn't be. But you should recognize that you've just quoted Trump, who in between his usually nonsense and demonstration of complete lack of qualification on this issue as on every other one, called for uniting the civilized world to defeat Islamic terrorism. Neither Hillary nor Obama were willing to say any such thing. They really need to start.

By demonizing Islam, you just push more and more people toward the radical element.

This is a meme that comes up a lot. Just think about what you're saying here. The proposition is that by speaking plainly and directly about the problem - that this is in fact an extremist element that is motivated by religious dogmatism - this will somehow drive other Muslims who otherwise wouldn't be in any way a threat to join up with the ranks of the jihadists.

First, I think that's a highly unrealistic view. That's a hugely uncharitable thing to think about even conservative Muslims. The vast majority of the religious are opposed to violence. They're not going to suddenly become sympathetic to ISIS if everyone frankly acknowledges that ISIS is motivated by their own ideas about what Islam requires of its adherents.

But imagine it was true? That rhetoric was all that was standing between some significant group of religious Muslims and outright radical extremism? That their hold on their peaceful engagement with the world was so tenuous that using impolitic language would be enough to send them all off the deep end? If that were true, it would be terrifying and we should be talking about nothing else.

[calgaryblood]

Originally Posted by Buster

The polling data on Muslim intolerance of LGBT communities is overwhelming in Islamic countries. Among Muslims in western countries, it is closer to 50/50.

This is a completely unacceptable situation.

So, I would hesitate to blame this crime on "extremism" as the environment of intolerance for gays in Muslim communities is mainstream, not extreme. This action would perhaps not be conducted by all Muslims, but the the community as a whole is certainly culpable on account of the environment of intolerance.

Is it really a surprise that third world countries would not be as moral as us? When it wasn't that long ago gays weren't even allowed to marry each other here in Canada and in the United States?

[calgaryblood]

A 2015 poll of the United States showed 40% oppose gay marriage. So it's no surprise when a country with no education system and strong religious beliefs would oppose gay marriage when a democracy has that much disdain for homosexuality.

In Canada the number is about 35% opposition. Even higher in conservatives.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Three things.

First, are places like Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt really third world countries? They're not Canada, sure, but they're not Afghanistan, either.

Second, no, it's not the case that people in non-Western countries should be held to a different and lesser moral standard. That is a bigotry of low expectations.

Third... seriously, man? You're quoting stats on gay marriage? We're talking about huge proportions of people who don't just think gays shouldn't marry, but think they should be thrown from rooftops, or bludgeoned with stones until they die, and an even bigger proportion who would say "no, don't kill them, but who they are is still disgusting and immoral and an offense unto God".

There's a pretty big gap in what we're looking for as a moral commitment here. It would be a huge step in the right direction to just have everyone get on the same page that gay people are allowed to live; we can worry about the marriage thing down the road, I think.

[peter12]

As I have said before, opposition to gay marriage does not equal homophobia. Gay rights got its start in the USA, and it is still the country with probably the strongest overall gay community.

Furthermore, if you attack a gay person, threaten them, or harm them, the full power of the state will be used to bring you to justice. If you attack a nightclub, and kill dozens of gay people, armed state agents will put themselves in harm's way just to put a bullet in your head.

There is no moral equivalence between Muslim quasi-theocratic regimes and the United States of America.

[calgaryblood]

Wow opposing gay marriage doesn't equal homophobia? That's a joke.

[peter12]

Sorry, I meant to write explicit hatred towards Muslims. I should have clarified.