Hillary Clinton: 'Muslims Have Nothing to Do With Terrorism'

He is Risen 72 said:

Always with the ancient history!! HA!

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Not ancient. Medieval and early modern.

There are Muslims killing people right now! Today! This week! This month!

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And we are killing Muslims too.

You know, recent history and the best the Islamic defenders can come up are The Crusades, The Inquisition and The Genocide of Native Americans. 1000-500 years ago and all conducted and condoned by the Pope and the Catholic Church.

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Uh, no. Protestants were even more responsible for the genocide of Native Americas than Catholics were. Latin America still has a sizable population of indigenous people. We do not.

And did I forget to mention Western Imperialism in general, much of which was justified in the name of spreading Christianity? The Scramble for Africa was not ancient history. And I dare say that were it not for Western Imperialism the Middle East would not be in the mess it is today.

miniverchivi said:

Agreeing with a bad law still doesn't give a person a pass though...

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My point is that it doesn't prove they are inadequately acculturated to western values. They are just acculturated to British values rather than American ones which is what one would expect given the fact they are British Muslims.

There are plenty of bad laws in the US that I'm sure we both disagree with.

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But I wouldn't say someone is not 'westernized' because they may like those laws.

I touched on it a bit in my previous post...you need at least a substantial number in order to carry out what it is they're doing. If it really just were 1%, and the other 99% despised what they were doing...those 99% would take out that 1% in short order.

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Not if the 1% has the guns.

smaneck said:

Not so much. Enlightenment thinkers admired a great deal in Chinese and Indian civilizations. Plus they had the notion of the "Noble Savage." Their racism, if you want to call it that, was based more on the weather than it was skin color. In other words, they thought the weather in tropical cultures made people lethargic. Of course, if that had been true we never would have enslaved them.

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The "noble savage" is a racist notion... It has lead to culturally imperialistic appropriation of customs and ideas, for example yoga.

I've done a bit of research into Enlightenment racism so I'll give you a list of quotes from some of the key thinkers:
"I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to whites." (Hume, quoted in Gates 1985:10).
"Americans (i.e. Indians) and Blacks are lower in their mental capacities than all other races" (Kant quotes in Gilman 1982:32).
"I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to whites both in body and mind" (Thomas Jefferson quoted in Fredrickson 1987:1).
Every idea thrown into the mind of the Negro is caught up and realized with the whole energy of his will; but this realization involves a wholesale destruction . . . it is manifest that want of self-control distinguishes the character of the Negoes. This condition is capable of no development or Culture, and as we see them at this day, such as they have always been. The only essential connection between the Negroes and the Europeans is slavery . . . We may conclude slavery to have been the occasion of the increase in human feeling among the Negroes. (Hegel quoted in Gilroy 1993:41).

I happen to think that racism and racialised politics is the blind-spot of the Enlightenment.

ChristsSoldier115 said:

I think they sort of did the reverse.. they were quite liberal in their golden days when they were creating all that poetry and science and stuff. I don't know what happened, but it is like they regressed or something sometime.

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They took much of the existing pre Moslem culture in Persia and claimed it as their own .They were simply nomads in warring tribes who conquered higher cultures .

Aelred of Rievaulx said:

The "noble savage" is a racist notion... It has lead to culturally imperialistic appropriation of customs and ideas, for example yoga.

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I suppose we might consider the notion of the 'noble savage' racist today because it was clearly a stereotype. But there is nothing imperialistic about appropriating customs and ideas from other cultures. Does drinking Coke make someone from the developing world imperialistic? I think not. My point is that the notion of the 'noble savage' did not imply inferiority in any way. On the contrary, it was intended as a critique of Western Civilization. Ditto the Enlightenment's depictions of aspects of China, India and the Ottoman Empire.

I've done a bit of research into Enlightenment racism so I'll give you a list of quotes from some of the key thinkers:

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They three Enlightenment thinkers you name, Hume, Jefferson and Kant lived at the very end of the Enlightenment. The closer we get to the 19th century the more overtly racist the thinking becomes. But the during the early Enlightenment Europeans were not only not so sure of their superiority, many recognized the superiority of other cultures, especially Asian ones. As for Hegel, he really belongs to Romanticism, not the Enlightenment. And as I've already indicated the 19th century is hopelessly racist.

I happen to think that racism and racialised politics is the blind-spot of the Enlightenment.

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It is not the Enlightenment that is the blame for this. By the time we get to the end of the eighteenth century, European technology has evolved to the point where they can subdue virtually any other culture at will. As we move into the 19th century and Industrial Revolution no one can even hope to catch up given the rapidity of the changes. This is where European arrogance reaches its height.

dogs4thewin said:

You mean like judging all Muslims by the terror some have caused? Am I understanding the connection?

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No ,your assuming people are judging all moslems by the terror some have caused .
But most are not ,it is based on evidence .

fat wee robin said:

They took much of the existing pre Moslem culture in Persia and claimed it as their own .They were simply nomads in warring tribes who conquered higher cultures .

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The Bible seems to like nomads and doesn't have that high opinion of civilizations.

smaneck said:

The Bible seems to like nomads and doesn't have that high opinion of civilizations.

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Heeeeeeeh? Being nomadic was a form of punishment for the Hebrews.

Black Dog said:

And their press is far superior, and has much more freedom. Oh, and they don't lead the world in locking people up. Now there is a true measure of freedom.

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What are you talking about ? They have people locked up in jail without trial ,always have had .The English are the masters of hypocrisy ,and at hiding what they don't want the public to know .They have hidden for years about child abuse on an industrial scale commited by the creme de la creme etc.,and people on their famous network .Do you get out at all ,or are you living on the moon ?

AionPhanes said:

I disagree. The Reformation opened the flood gate for the development of new understandings of religion, personal interpretation of scriptures, the right of the individual to follow his conscious in choice of doctrine, ability to question tradition, etc..

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Those who argue that Luther was somehow the first 'modern man' because he put individual conscience before authority misunderstand what he thought he was doing. When he says to Charles V "Here I stand" he does not say he is doing it in the name of freedom of conscience. On the contrary, he says, "My conscience is captive to the Word of God." The Protestant Reformers did not believe that the individual had the right to choose their religion. They sought the assistance of rulers and city fathers to impose the Reformation ideas on the population. The principle they sought to enforce was Cuius regio, eius religio, whose realm, his religion. The religious tolerance we enjoy today is outcome of the bloody Wars of Religion which resulted from the Reformation. It is no accident that the Enlightenment begins around the same time as the Treaty of Westaphalia. It is as though the Enlightenment was basically saying "a curse on both your houses" Protestant and Catholic.

Certainly there were those among the reformers who tried to put the breaks on the pace of change, even some theocrats, but once the box was open there was no turning back.

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It is not the pace of change they were trying to put the breaks on. Reformers like Luther were persuaded they had it right. Anyone who didn't accept their interpretation was in league with the Devil. That's why Luther refused to recognize Zwingli as a Christian brother and why Calvin had Michael Servetus executed for denying the Trinity.

KarateCowboy said:

Heeeeeeeh? Being nomadic was a form of punishment for the Hebrews.

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Really? That's not the way Abraham saw it.

Black Dog said:

And their press is far superior, and has much more freedom. Oh, and they don't lead the world in locking people up. Now there is a true measure of freedom.

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You live on the moon ,you must .

smaneck said:

Really? That's not the way Abraham saw it.

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Abraham was long gone by the time the Hebrews were a people. Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Jacob, Jacob had Joseph, who had twelve offspring, who began the twelve tribes of Israel.

smaneck said:

I suppose we might consider the notion of the 'noble savage' racist today because it was clearly a stereotype. But there is nothing imperialistic about appropriating customs and ideas from other cultures. Does drinking Coke make someone from the developing world imperialistic? I think not. My point is that the notion of the 'noble savage' did not imply inferiority in any way. On the contrary, it was intended as a critique of Western Civilization. Ditto the Enlightenment's depictions of aspects of China, India and the Ottoman Empire.

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Come on, when white hippies appropriate some watered down version of Buddhism-lite or rather "Buddhism without the hard work" I would call it what it is, neo-Colonial appropriation.

smaneck said:

They three Enlightenment thinkers you name, Hume, Jefferson and Kant lived at the very end of the Enlightenment. The closer we get to the 19th century the more overtly racist the thinking becomes. But the during the early Enlightenment Europeans were not only not so sure of their superiority, many recognized the superiority of other cultures, especially Asian ones. As for Hegel, he really belongs to Romanticism, not the Enlightenment. And as I've already indicated the 19th century is hopelessly racist.

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It's not that they were approaching the evil nineteenth century - the nineteenth century intellectual currents came out of the eighteenth century.

smaneck said:

It is not the Enlightenment that is the blame for this. By the time we get to the end of the eighteenth century, European technology has evolved to the point where they can subdue virtually any other culture at will. As we move into the 19th century and Industrial Revolution no one can even hope to catch up given the rapidity of the changes. This is where European arrogance reaches its height.

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I'm not saying that the Enlightenment project should be abandoned, I'm just trying to look it at critically, with the same tools of critical thinking which it developed. The more mindful we are of how racialised discourses have infected things the more we can weed out racism.

KarateCowboy said:

Abraham was long gone by the time the Hebrews were a people.

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The term Hebri was an Egyptian word for nomad, so they were considered nomads long before their forty year trek in the desert. But if you'll recall my original comment I said the Bible favored nomads. That is clear from the story of Cain and Abel. It is clear from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I could go on and on.

fat wee robin said:

They took much of the existing pre Moslem culture in Persia and claimed it as their own .They were simply nomads in warring tribes who conquered higher cultures .

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Why do some people spell it "moslem"? Can someone answer me that? My grammar nazi OCD always kicks in when I see it. Is this some old timey english spelling or something?

ChristsSoldier115 said:

Why do some people spell it "moslem"? Can someone answer me that? My grammar nazi OCD always kicks in when I see it. Is this some old timey english spelling or something?

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Just like with Koran, Quran, Qur'an, Arabic doesn't necessitate specific vowels or consonants when transliterated.

Aelred of Rievaulx said:

Come on, when white hippies appropriate some watered down version of Buddhism-lite or rather "Buddhism without the hard work" I would call it what it is, neo-Colonial appropriation.

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You can call it whatever you want. Civilizations exchange not just goods, but ideas as well, in the process of which they modify them. There is nothing new about it nor is there any harm done to the country from which such ideas are appropriated. If all we took Asia was a watered-down version of their religion they would have been perfectly happy. In fact, they would have been persuaded of their own superiority.

It's not that they were approaching the evil nineteenth century - the nineteenth century intellectual currents came out of the eighteenth century.

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Romanticism is a very different intellectual movement than the Enlightenment. Yes, it appropriated some of its ideas. It rejected even more.

I'm not saying that the Enlightenment project should be abandoned, I'm just trying to look it at critically, with the same tools of critical thinking which it developed. The more mindful we are of how racialised discourses have infected things the more we can weed out racism.

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I'm no big fan of the Enlightement. I find their thinking rather superficial myself. But only towards the very end of the Enlightement when slavery has become the major source of European and Euro-American wealth, they were they particularly racist. Not like people were during the Romantic period.

Aelred of Rievaulx said:

Just like with Koran, Quran, Qur'an, Arabic doesn't necessitate specific vowels or consonants when transliterated.

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Ah ok, wasn't sure if it was some sort of subtle jab of vocabulary or what.

ChristsSoldier115 said:

Why do some people spell it "moslem"? Can someone answer me that? My grammar nazi OCD always kicks in when I see it. Is this some old timey english spelling or something?

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It merely represents an older form of transliteration. You can spell it either way and it is not offensive. You see the same thing with the Qur'an which can be spelt Koran. Just don't call them Muhammadans. And if you can keep in mind that the religion is Islam and the people are Muslims you are doing well. I hate to hear people talk about the "Muslim religion" or "Islamic people."