Unthreaded
Sorry, Pcar. I read the article in the offline version (newspaper). I don't know how to get round the paywall, but the comments are available to view for free.
Harry Passfield
@Harry,
Paywalled.
Please copy & paste to pastebin and post url
Pcar
Just to get back to the AGW scam - which the Bish built this blog to attack - I urge readers here to take a look at Charles Moore's article in Saturday's DT. The comments (pro-CC) are pure gold.
Harry Passfield
Supertroll
agreed
I simply get exasperated by the serial refusal in the west to deal robustly with the extremists - angry even - I knew something truly malign was brewing in the 1990s when Abu Hamza was out 'n about with his chums and was utterly gobsmacked that their antics were not curtailed by the folk we employ to maintain public order - I think that's when I first heard the phrase "Political Correctness is fascism masquerading as manners".
The Moslems I guess I personally know the best are Nigerian and of the elite ... They don't appear to be fanatical at all and I have to say that I prefer them over the loud "Give Your Dollars to Jesus!" crew.
Islamists have exploited political correctness in the west to the point where it's past farcical - I feel that until relatively recently using the racism / Islamophobia card was a successful strategy for evading being held to account for wrongdoing and much bad behavior has been exacerbated by the perps knowledge that they won't be challenged.
In these abuse cases I have not seen a single expression of remorse from the perps - indeed many of them appear to have their prejudices reinforced and resort to the sort of crude stereotyping that I'm all too familiar with from dealing with some Saudi Arabian individuals of notionally Wahabist persuasion.
By not applying our laws evenhandedly we have created an intractable situation - and I blame Theresa May, the judiciary and senior polcemen for adding injury to insult - more's the pity it still has a way to go ... I rather hope that a few in the establishment get to experience the consequences of their folly directly from those they've cultivated.
tomo
Tomo both of us are well experienced and probably are not telling each other much that we don't know already. We have even heard each other's arguments before. If we truly differ, it's a matter of nuanced information selection and emphasis. Both of us would avoid the same situations and for the same reasons. Yet I choose to remember the many muslim colleagues, friends, students and other acquaintances I have known and who have given me help and the pleasures of their company. I do not class them with those that spread hate and terror ostensibly on behalf of their religion; yet I must because they do all follow the Koran. Thus I reason it is not their religion that separates them, it must be something other. Other religions have been, or are, equally shocking in their extremes.
Supertroll
Tommy has succeeded brilliantly in highlighting the issue. With petitions and mass protests in this country and widespread attention in America, Canada and Australia, and probably elsewhere. Not bad for an "idiot".
mike fowle
Supertroll
It's the other way around - all religions are comprised of cults....
As far as Islam in the west goes at the moment western progressive "liberals" are portraying it as a monolithic creed with admirable tenets about life to be followed - most of the anti-islamophobes simply haven't got a clue and are utterly unaware of the irony of supporting a form of "Islam" where many of them would end up being whipped to a pulp or hung from cranes.... so consumed are they by challenging prejudice.
Humans are explicable in that stupidity and willful ignorance both feature front and centre in everyday life. (btw - I don't count myself as innoculated against ignorance and stupidity - but there are orders of magnitude at play in this matter)
re your update - try explaining that to Yazidis or indeed any of the other persecuted religions in the ME. Your interpretation of the Koran would likely be not accepted by most of the jihadist nutters gallivanting around the place.
I repeat :
Aberrant sects throwing their weight around need to be countered - not indulged.
tomo
In reading your post again, especially this part. - "there isn't as far as I'm aware - another religion about at the moment , *some* of whose adherents indulge in offering passers by a binary choice - convert or die" - I do find I disagree with you. Islam does not demand this choice. As far as I recall, it offers infidels a choice of being treated differently from converts. The religion doesn't offer life or death choices but followers of the religion who don't adhere to all the Koran may give you this option. In Northern Ireland 25 years ago, if you were asked your religion would you think they asked in order that they could offer suitable directions to the nearest appropriate kirk?
Supertroll
Tomo. Canna disagree w'yah. But cults don't comprise a whole religion.
Egypt was the only country safe enough to hold a multi-nation conference on the geology of the Red Sea in the 1990s and I'm not talking about the safety of Western geologists. Even in Egypt, other country's geologists would stir each other up and would have to be pacified, usually by us Westerners.
Different factions in the Middle East are at each other's throats without the complication of Israel. Conflict is a pandemic, it uses religion as a focus, as an excuse.
Racial differences are at least partially punderstandable as causes of conflict, we look different even at a distance. To me East African males appear intimidating, yet I can attest that the few that I really know are gentle souls. In contrast, religious differences may be near invisible (and could even be your sibling). Proselytizing cannot be the source of friction because Judaism, probably the most persecuted of religions, does not recruit.
Humans are inexplicable.
Supertroll
Pcar
You can find it at Paul Homewood's site:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/charles-moore-on-paris-agreement/