Random Politics & Religion #00

That quote does nothing for your false narrative nausi. Keep flailing, you aren't changing the definition, and you aren't changing the Tzarnaev family's official status, no matter how hard you try.

Whatever you say bud.

ref·u·gee
a person who has been left their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

a·sy·lum
the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee.

The Webster dictionary also does not change the POLITICAL distinction between the two. You really are dense, but this has always been known.

And their family entered this country as people seeking asylum, a completely different, and far easier, process than entering as refugees. As I said, they were asylees, not refugees. You are using the word incorrectly, and we have come back full circle to the fact that the Tzarnaev's were not here as refugees. This is not going to change.

You understand that the legal definition of refugee status is entirely relevant to what you're bitching about, right?

You want to keep refugees out, which means they need to be officially designated refugees.

But you then turn around and cite people who weren't officially designated as such as a reason to keep out people who are.

There's a problem with that equation and it isn't just semantics.

You are splitting hairs over a political & legal definition. The Syrian people fleeing Syria are refugees because they are fleeing conflict. They would still be refugees even if they made it to the US without getting a refugee status.

This isn't about a government "status" but if you can only split hairs of a legal definition then well that's all you've got. I'm not surprised, typical vic contribution to P&R.

Not really, these refugees, after going through a stringent vetting process, will be welcomed with open arms across the US. We have already admitted over 2,000, which as you say, is a very small number. They are refugees, not immigrants, so its difficult for them to get here.

Is this a concession? It looks like one. The people fleeing Syria are not getting into the US without first obtaining refugee status, and even then their entry is not guaranteed, due to the stringent screening process. Huh, it seems like I have already posted this. Oh yeah, right here!

This is definitely a sensitive type topic, please be civil and discuss with each other without any hostility or backlash against others opinions or person. Thank you.

Its not an issue, we are only letting in a very small number, the conservatives are just stirring up the fearmongering (ebola anyone?) based on Paris, which doesn't appear to have been orchestrated by refugees at all

This whole refugee argument/debate wouldn't even be an issue if the economy were in half way decent shape.

If there were plenty of jobs, a balanced budget, or even extra money to hire additional staff to take the time to perform extensive background checks or at least provide the illusion of such (or similar safety measures) this wouldn't even be an issue.

The whole terrorist, religion, even the tax the rich more (to hire more people to perform background checks for example), etc. are just scapegoating issues to divert the public's attention. The real issue is the economy.

Anyway hopefully somebody is trying to make some kind of point here as back reading is rather boring. Arguments over semantics gets old fast.

which doesn't appear to have been orchestrated by refugees at all

Apparently the passport(s) found were fake.

I don't remember the details offhand, but the gist of things is to make western countries afraid of refugees so they won't let them stay.

It makes sense from the perspective of IS/IS/IL (douche) as even the most brutal regimes still need people to rule over. Demonize the refugees so they get sent back.

Although it's always a possibility to sneak in terrorists from the group with a wave of refugees. However, from the evidence about their operation, the majority of people operating outside of the middle east are European (nationality wise, not race). So as far as trying to infiltrate other countries, the evidence points to recruiting westerners to do their dirty work outside of the middle east.

Also if it wasn't for a Syrian migrant's son, there would be no iPhone.

Two mods? I'm guessing P&R wasn't safe space enough for a few people today?

Two mods? I'm guessing P&R wasn't safe space enough for a few people today?

Like I said, fearmongering.

Now, broadly speaking, I don’t think religions in general are particularly good ideas. In my mind they originate from a combination of false presuppositions (that there are higher beings of a supernatural kind) and a power grab by individuals (i.e., religious leaders) who sometimes unconsciously (and sometimes not) end up exploiting the fears and hopes of the people that they are supposed to lead. Even so, I recognize that the religious instinct is pretty much universal among human beings, and not likely to go away any time soon, if ever. I also recognize that religions have done lots of good in the world throughout history, and that it isn’t at all clear whether a world without them would indeed be a better one, as a number of overconfident atheists keeps claiming [8].

What I’m saying is that I don’t believe that religion, any religion (including Islam) is a particularly good idea, but at the same time I also don’t believe that any religion (again, including Islam) is “the motherlode of bad ideas” [9].

But of course we are not talking about religions in general, we are talking post-9/11 Islam. What are we to make of it? While the statistics on international terrorism are complex and can be read in a number of ways [10], there is little doubt even in the mind of sympathetic commentators like CNN’s Fared Zakaria that contemporary Islam does have a problem with violence and oppression (especially of women and gays).

Zakaria (a frequent guest on the Daily Show), however, puts things in the right context when he reminds us that all we need to do is to look at the relatively recent comparative history of Islam and other Abrahamic religions to be convinced that there isn’t anything especially pernicious, in the long run, with the former when compared to the latter [11]. The (Muslim) Ottoman Empire, for instance, was one of the most tolerant places bordering with Europe for centuries, while many (Christian) European countries themselves were busy suppressing or violently expelling religious minorities, including different flavors of Christianity. This, Zakaria rightly concludes, ought to dispel any simplistic idea about one of the Abrahamic faiths being intrinsically worse than the others, selective quotations of the Quran by some modern commentators (on both sides) notwithstanding. (As is well known, the quotation game can easily be played by more than one side, as Jewish and Christian scriptures are full of severely objectionable passages, by modern moral standards.)

It would seem, then, that Maher & co. simply haven’t bothered to study history, and that it is a combination of social, economic and political factors that is creating a special problem for Islam in the contemporary world — just like different circumstances did not lead to the same problem during the Ottoman Empire, and did lead to them in Christian controlled countries for many centuries.

Well, not so fast (and here comes the hopefully more nuanced approach that might save us from simplistic dichotomies). It is also simply unconvincing to argue, as Stewart and a number of his guests have done — that Islam qua religion and idea has nothing at all to do with the above mentioned culture of violence and oppression. If one asks recruits of Al Qaeda or ISIS why they are doing what they are doing they reply with a combination of political motives (get American military bases off their sacred land, for instance) and their own interpretation of what Islam is about and the Quran mandates.

Sure, one can argue that such interpretations are simply mistaken (though it’s hard to adjudicate theological debates, since we can’t ask the alleged divine source), but even so those ideas clearly play an enabling and highly motivating role in the ensuing violence and repression. To deny this is simply not to pay attention to what is plainly in front of our eyes and ears.

The above should clearly imply that the dichotomy presented to us by the “it’s the mother lode of bad ideas” vs the “it has nothing to do with Islam” crowds is simply mistaken. And it is mistaken for reasons that, again, ought to be familiar to anyone even superficially acquainted with history. We have plenty of examples of how certain combinations of external and internal social circumstances have become fertile ground for extremist ideas, religious or not, and of when bad, or badly interpreted, ideas feed right back into people’s behaviors, giving them a way to rationalize and magnify their thinking and actions.

Take, for instance, the rise of “communist” countries during the 20th century, particularly Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China. Unlike, say, nazism and fascism — which I think truly are irredeemably bad ideas — communism as developed by Marx and Engels [12] is not even close to being in the same ballpark. It may be unworkable, and even undesirable, but it isn’t intrinsically evil. Yet the communist ideal was easily twisted by unscrupulous and power hungry “leaders” like Stalin and Mao (and a number of others), resulting in many decades of entirely non-religious violence and oppression that killed many times more people than contemporary Islam has managed so far. Why? Because millions bought into the ideas that were being presented to them and used them as a justification for what they were doing, even though they were doing it at the least in part because of external social, political and economic circumstances (just remember in what context both the Russian and Chinese revolutions took place [13]).

So, while some people may very well be “Islamophobes” (i.e., they may genuinely harbor an irrational prejudice against Islam), simply pointing out that Islamic ideas play a role in contemporary terrorism and repression does not make one a Islamophobe, and using the label blindly is simply an undemocratic, and unreflective, way of cutting off critical discourse. Then again, those who focus on Islam as uniquely problematic may themselves benefit from dusting off a couple of history books and learn a thing or two about the complex interplay of ideas and socio-political situations in human affairs, before making themselves Paladins of simplistic and highly misleading non-truths.