The specific gutless wankers I refer to in the title of this post are the ones I referred to in a previous post. They made a post on their blog insulting all Muslims calling them apes because of the existence of extremists and murderers. I posted a calm, reasoned comment to see if they could give an intelligent response. Apparently the answer is no. I'm not linking to them because they're not worth it (although I can give the link if anyone's really interested.) When they received a pretty stupid rebuff they ripped into the commenter (as I would) but there's been silence in response to me. At least they didn't delete my comment but they certainly seem to be pretending it isn't there. Here's my comment:
"Hmmmm, so what is your point? What is the resolution you see? The elimination of Islam? No, you didn't say that, you didn't even suggest it I'’m just asking what the end point is for you. My personal view: the vast majority of what you posted is objectively true. The bits I don'’t agree with (for what it's worth):
That it's unreasonable to point out barbarity done in the name of Christianity, Judaism and/or Western values. The fact that in the modern age bad things done in the name of Jesus happen less often and less severely (broadly) than bad things done in the name of Allah doesn't mean they don't happen at all.
That it isn'’t possible for a devout muslim to oppose extremisim done in the name of Islam. I just think is straight out wrong - I don'’t know that it's possible to argue this point objectively. It seems no matter how many muslims I might put forward to state this view you would say they are lying.
Your assessment of the situation in Iraq. Again, I don'’t believe this is possible to resolve objectively - you are stating a point of view as an irrefutable truth. For starters I think your assertions of the views of '“the vast majority'” of Iraqis are at best simplistic.
You rightly point out that a recurring flaw of the left is to support causes simply because they are opposed by the right. But don't you think you have erred a little far in the opposite direction by asserting there can't possibly be anything good about Islam or even individual muslims? That's how your view came across to me, correct me if I'’m wrong."
Should I assume because they didn't respond that's an acknowledgement that I'm right? That's how I choose to take it anyway :)
I'm going to close with a few quotes from Scott Adams' Dilbert Blog. He seems to dedicate most of his posts to saying fairly inflammatory or at least leading things then watching the fun as people respond with comments. I suspect Scott spent a lot of time as a boy poking ant's nests with a stick. I am sometimes tempted to comment on his blog but the signal-to-noise ratio is so poor (hundreds of comments to every post - most of them complete crap) that it hardly seems worth it.
Recently, Scott posed the ultimate taboo question: Why does the US give so much aid to Israel? He asked it as a "please explain the cost/benefit payoff" question rather than a political or moral question but of course all the justifications given were political and/or moral (which doesn't make them wrong by definition - at least in my opinion). He's had a couple of follow ups but yesterday I thought he was showing signs of starting to get pissed off with people. Most of his posts consist of having little digs at humanity in general, like this one:
"I reiterate my belief that all humans can be persuaded to do just about any damned thing. The existence of suicide bombers is good evidence of that, not to mention the plethora of religions that can't all be true at the same time. Most of the world is brainwashed most of the time."
But then he said the following:
"By definition, you'’re a racist if you believe that ordinary Muslims are incapable of acting rationally, unless you believe exactly the same thing about yourself and everyone else. In that case you just have a low opinion of people in general, and that's socially acceptable."
A typical joke at the end but I really got the feeling he wants the racists to shut the fuck up or at least admit they're racist. I will be interested to see if he cracks again or goes back to taunting people until he provokes a response. Nice call on the racism though.
1 comment:
Hey, I got a reply from the dude on my wordpress blog. For those who are interested, it said:
"I’m happy to respond! Especially because you either deliberately or unknowingly misrepresented what I said.
Nowhere did I write that all Muslims are ‘apes.’ In fact, I wrote that only the extremists or their apologist/defenders are ‘apes.’
I am on record as being a big defender of Islamic moderates and reformers. I have written numerous posts to that effect.\
Whether you misrepresented what I said deliberately or unknowingly, clearly renders your opinions irrelevant. It clear you could not be bothered to red my post.
You are on the record for something else entirely- and far less credible.
In any event, I shall understand if you need to delete this post. In fact, I’d expect nothing less. "
My response was:
Thanks for responding. When you didn’t respond on your blog I thought you were ignoring me. It’s easy to see I’m a sensitive soul and easily upset.
Point one, I asked if my interpretation of what you were saying was accurate rather than stating outright I was right and you were wrong. Also, you did notice I started by saying most of what you said was objectively true, right? And to state what you have obviously guessed, no I haven’t read all your posts, just some recent ones. I’ll take you at your word that you defend moderates but the posts in question sure didn’t come across like that.
Point two: have you edited your post at all? If not, you actually got me on not reading it properly. I re-read it before responding to this comment and I didn’t remember the second paragraph reading the way it does now - a more moderate statement than I remember reading. Either way, the bit that pissed me off most was near the end:
“It is true many Mulsims will say they hate the Arab and Muslim regimes. They are loyal to their religion only, they say- as if somehow, those preposterous statements should be taken at face value."
I’ll refrain from saying maybe it’s just badly written (except I did say it - I’m a bitch) but I find it difficult to interpret that in any way other than muslims can’t possibly oppose extremist regimes.
Also, I don’t think you have addressed any of my three points. And as what I’m on the record for… I think I’m on the record for raving like a lunatic but maybe you didn’t read many of my posts either :)
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