An example of "tolerance"

[Archaeopteryx]

Now there is a typical leftist attitude if there ever was one: the only way anyone could possibly disagree with such ideological brilliance is to be a bigot. At least you all think alike and draw the same predictably absurd conclusions. I suppose my shark bigotry makes me a bit of a speciescist or a sharkophobe too. But of course there is a difference between a shark and a muslim. A shark has fins. Truth be told, I sometimes fear a muslim might swim up and bite me while splashing about in the lake, so I try to stay near to shore.

Now here is a typical strawman if there ever was one. I did not say that to disagree with me or my 'ideological brilliance' is to be a bigot. I said that if one wants to maintain the analogy, one would have to draw equivalences between sharks and Muslims (a comparison that you seem to have no qualms making - if I've interpreted the above text correctly), and to make such a comparison has strong undertones of bigotry.

If my fear reaction is instinctual, then it is not blameworthy. So if my primitive instinctual reaction to muslim males boarding my flight is instinctual, then you have to give me a pass. Especially since you would then feel exactly the same emotion as I.

That is true. You can't be blamed for a primitive instinctual reaction of that type. You can, however, fight it rationally. Unless you wish to argue that you are completely a slave to your 'gut feelings'. As I pointed out earlier, people can be primed to show signs of implicit racism. They can, however, fight this primitive reaction post hoc with justifications against such responses.

But I would first have to know that the shark is a danger to me. I dont have an instinctual knowledge that a shark is a danger to me, but one based upon knowledge. Add to that the knowledge that a given area is rife with such creatures and that attacks upon humans have occurred is what makes the fear of going into that particular stretch of beach rational. I dont need to have actually been bitten to be wary.

Many people don't have any real knowledge about or experience with spiders (i.e. which types are dangerous and so on), yet they still fear them on the basis of instinct. What you are doing here in the case of the shark is a post hoc rationalisation of a rather primitive response. As you yourself said, you 'don't need to have actually been bitten to be wary.' What makes you wary when approached by a shark? Your instincts.
The human brain is a remarkable tool for reason. However, rational deliberation takes time, and in nature time can be the difference between life and death. If you are to survive, you need to respond to tangible threats rapidly. Deliberation is too slow. By the time you rationally think about that 'moving shadow in the water', and rule out all other possibilities, it would already be upon you. By the time you assess whether it is a threat or not, by measuring the size of its teeth, its jaw-line, and observing its attack moves... well, you get the picture. That's why your 'gut feeling' as soon as you see that dark shadow approach is 'Danger, Will Robertson'.

Of course it applies, I am a bigot dont you know. I just so happens I see muslims all the time, yet I dont fear them. Why do you think that is? Yet if I saw a couple of muslim males board my plane, I would feel uneasy. Why do you think that is? Am I only a bigot on airplanes? Is there something about high altitudes that inspires racism? Or is it just maybe the fact that radical muslims have had a fascination with hijackings that goes back decades and are now into blowing them out of the sky or using them as guided missiles to slam into buildings filled with civilians? As I said earlier, if only the bad muslims would wear signs, we wouldnt have anything to worry about.

This doesn't justify why you don't feel 'uneasy' around anyone else in the same sense. The claim 'if only the bad people would wear signs' doesn't just apply to Muslims, lordbt... it applies to everyone! Serial killers have been known to blend into the fabric of normal society. Does that mean you are uneasy around everyone because... afterall... they don't wear signs either. Singling out Muslims and saying 'I feel uneasy because the bad ones aren't tagged' is no more helpful than saying 'I feel uneasy because bad people (in general) don't wear signs.'

Because muslims are the only ones attempting to blow planes out of the sky.

Really now? The only ones... Fascinating.

If that was something that 80 year old white women started doing, I might worry if one sat down in the seat next to me.

Yes, you might get a primitive fear reaction. I don't deny this.

If vending machines start boarding planes and blowing themselves up, I'll start worrying about them too. As for the quite man on the corner being a potential threat, well, he is. Which is why we teach our children not to talk to strangers. We do this not because all strangers are bad, but because some of them are, and there is no way to tell the difference. Kinda like muslims.

Then you concede the irrelevancy of your position. The fact that you can't tell 'friendly' from 'unfriendly' Muslims apart is also true for... everyone else! It seems futile then to use it as an argument for fearing Muslims when it is, at once, an argument for fearing anyone. If non-Muslims started wearing tags that said 'good' and 'bad' or 'threat' and 'non-threat', and Muslims were the only group left untagged, then you'd have an argument for saying 'These Muslims... I can't tell the good ones from the bad ones!' But as it stands... that is true of all persons in general. What is happening here is that you are the one assigning tags, and you have automatically given Muslims on planes the 'threat' tag and given everyone else a free pass even though the argument you are using doesn't support that conclusion.

 

[Ringo84]

Straw men are often a substitute for thinking critically.
Ringo

 

[lordbt]

Straw men are often a substitute for thinking critically.
Ringo

How right you are, Ringo, and let me congratulate you for calling out one of your own for it. As you know by reading through the thread, I never compared muslims to sharks and it is good of you to chastise Art for attacking a position I never held.

 

[JustOneWay]

I never compared muslims to sharks

You used a "rational mind" analogy to compare sharks and Muslims. . According to you sharks, like Muslims, will make you a victim.

Ringo is right again....

In your opinion. But I would be interested to know, in your opinion, how many more planes need to be hijacked by muslim radicals and slammed into buildings before the fear of such a thing becomes rational?

Right, and just because there have only been 4 shark attacks off a given coast in the past couple of years and the sharks responsible are still out there and still hungry is no reason to fear taking a dip. Shark attacks only happen to other people. Lots of people swim there and dont get eaten so there is nothing to worry about. Those sorts of primitive fears only belong to well, primitive minds. Rational minds laugh at such imaginary danger and swim boldly into the surf. Until, of course, they become victim #5.

 

[Conservativation]

Why fear sharks?

 

[Bubbahotep]

I said that if one wants to maintain the analogy, one would have to draw equivalences between sharks and Muslims (a comparison that you seem to have no qualms making - if I've interpreted the above text correctly), and to make such a comparison has strong undertones of bigotry.

Ever hear of an analogy?

This doesn't justify why you don't feel 'uneasy' around anyone else in the same sense. The claim 'if only the bad people would wear signs' doesn't just apply to Muslims, lordbt... it applies to everyone! Serial killers have been known to blend into the fabric of normal society. Does that mean you are uneasy around everyone because... afterall... they don't wear signs either. Singling out Muslims and saying 'I feel uneasy because the bad ones aren't tagged' is no more helpful than saying 'I feel uneasy because bad people (in general) don't wear signs.'

Except that radical Islam has made a concerted effort to kill westerners, having declared war on us, and having a thing for attacking planes.

I'll admit that it's an initial gut reaction. But the suspicion is also rationally justified given the facts and history.

You used a "rational mind" analogy to compare sharks and Muslims. . According to you sharks, like Muslims, will make you a victim.

Ringo is right again....

I don't think I've ever come across so many people in a debate forum who don't even understand what an analogy is.

 

[JustOneWay]

Why fear sharks?

Why fear Muslims?

 

[JustOneWay]

I don't think I've ever come across so many people in a debate forum who don't even understand what an analogy is.

Then go ahead and educate us. What is an analogy?

 

[Bubbahotep]

Then go ahead and educate us. What is an analogy?

A comparison drawing on similarities to illustrate a point. It's not equivocation, as you and Art seem to think it is.

 

[AirPo]

I don't think I've ever come across so many people in a debate forum who don't even understand what an analogy is.

I don't think I've ever come across so many people in a debate forum who don't understand that bad analogies make for bad arguments.

 

[brindisi]

Why fear Muslims?

1400 years of war, punctuated by a few decades of relative calm while Islam was subdued.

The 1,400 year-war

"The Magyars resisted Islam’s advance for nearly a century, but eventually they succumbed at Mohács Field in 1526."

"I am offering this potted history of the region because my reader is likely to be the product of what I have called “the 60-year gap.” Assuming that he or she was born after 1918 (the year General Allenby rode through the gates of Damascus) but before 1979 (when the Ayatollah Khomeini deposed the Shah of Iran and the mujahedeen began resisting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan), my reader belongs to the only about three generations in 1,400 years during which the struggle between the Islamic and non-Islamic world was on standby. This 60-year gap between the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the resurgence of militant Islam was one of the few periods in which people, as long as they lived in certain sheltered parts of the world, such as Western Europe and North America, could be blissfully unaware that theirs was at war with another."

"The illusion of a gap in the ancient struggle lasted three generations and had certain consequences. One was that when the smouldering fire of Islam’s jihad erupted again in 1979, it caught many, if not most, Westerners by surprise. The 14-century-old conflagration was burning brightly, with American hostages being paraded in Tehran, but many people took another 22 years to notice the flames. Millions did, finally, on a picture-perfect September morning in 2001, though others denied seeing the fire even then."

"Some still deny it."

"Having grown up in the land of the bloodied stork, I saw 9/11 from a different perspective. A “Turkish lad” slashing a bird’s foot was not totally unfamiliar to me. Though I had no sympathy for wanton rage, coming from the East I could understand how it might arise more easily than Westerners."

"Irrationality was as irritating to me as to any other creature of a Cartesian culture, but as a native of the Danube basin, I found it less puzzling. I could also entertain the politically incorrect notion that we might be at war, not just with “terrorism” in general, but with the specific terrorism of Islam. "

 

[Bubbahotep]

I don't think I've ever come across so many people in a debate forum who don't understand that bad analogies make for bad arguments.

If you want to argue it as a bad analogy, go right ahead. But don't make absolutely retarded claim that you're equivocating sharks and muslims because you used a shark analogy, and use that basic misunderstanding of what an analogy is to race-bait and ruin the whole topic.

 

[JustOneWay]

1400 years of war, punctuated by a few decades of relative calm while Islam was subdued.

The 1,400 year-war

You have the right to be afraid. I don't hold that against you. Me, on the other hand, I do not fear Muslims because I do not fear death. I do not fear anything. You wont find me cowering in the corner....

 

[Bubbahotep]

You have the right to be afraid. I don't hold that against you. Me, on the other hand, I do not fear Muslims because I do not fear death. I do not fear anything. You wont find me cowering in the corner....

Who said anything about cowering in a corner?

 

[brindisi]

You have the right to be afraid. I don't hold that against you. Me, on the other hand, I do not fear Muslims because I do not fear death. I do not fear anything. You wont find me cowering in the corner....

Cowering? Not at all. Just educated, aware of history, and not willing to go through life with blinders on.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Ever hear of an analogy?

In this case, a bad analogy.

Except that radical Islam has made a concerted effort to kill westerners, having declared war on us, and having a thing for attacking planes.

I'll admit that it's an initial gut reaction. But the suspicion is also rationally justified given the facts and history.

Define 'rationally justified'. How? Does it conform to the causal power law?

I don't think I've ever come across so many people in a debate forum who don't even understand what an analogy is.

It is because we understand what an analogy is that we can identify a bad one.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

1400 years of war, punctuated by a few decades of relative calm while Islam was subdued.

The 1,400 year-war

"The Magyars resisted Islam’s advance for nearly a century, but eventually they succumbed at Mohács Field in 1526."

"I am offering this potted history of the region because my reader is likely to be the product of what I have called “the 60-year gap.” Assuming that he or she was born after 1918 (the year General Allenby rode through the gates of Damascus) but before 1979 (when the Ayatollah Khomeini deposed the Shah of Iran and the mujahedeen began resisting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan), my reader belongs to the only about three generations in 1,400 years during which the struggle between the Islamic and non-Islamic world was on standby. This 60-year gap between the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the resurgence of militant Islam was one of the few periods in which people, as long as they lived in certain sheltered parts of the world, such as Western Europe and North America, could be blissfully unaware that theirs was at war with another."

"The illusion of a gap in the ancient struggle lasted three generations and had certain consequences. One was that when the smouldering fire of Islam’s jihad erupted again in 1979, it caught many, if not most, Westerners by surprise. The 14-century-old conflagration was burning brightly, with American hostages being paraded in Tehran, but many people took another 22 years to notice the flames. Millions did, finally, on a picture-perfect September morning in 2001, though others denied seeing the fire even then."

"Some still deny it."

"Having grown up in the land of the bloodied stork, I saw 9/11 from a different perspective. A “Turkish lad” slashing a bird’s foot was not totally unfamiliar to me. Though I had no sympathy for wanton rage, coming from the East I could understand how it might arise more easily than Westerners."

"Irrationality was as irritating to me as to any other creature of a Cartesian culture, but as a native of the Danube basin, I found it less puzzling. I could also entertain the politically incorrect notion that we might be at war, not just with “terrorism” in general, but with the specific terrorism of Islam. "

Protestants and Catholics have been embroiled in decades, if not centuries, of violent conflict in Europe. Should we fear them also?

 

[brindisi]

Protestants and Catholics have been embroiled in decades, if not centuries, of violent conflict in Europe. Should we fear them also?

Fear, or don't fear, whomever you want. The world goes on without you.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Fear, or don't fear, whomever you want. The world goes on without you.

You'll be attending the March to Keep Fear Alive I suppose?

 

[brindisi]

You'll be attending the March to Keep Fear Alive I suppose?

No, I enjoy spending my time with family instead.