Libel expert Ezra Levant’s Faith Goldy has been asking questions that need to be asked about the Muslim. She should try to get hired on by Fox – she’d do well there. (Just youtube for “What They Won’t Tell Us About Quebec Mosque Attack”. I’m not posting the link.)
Well, I am.
i) Canadians really do say “abooot”
ii) Its 8:42 minutes of nonsense. But, should be debated on its its merits or lack thereof.
Ezra Levant is respected by no one.
The double standards can be piled to the ceiling, and it’s not just, say, right-wingers. As Shaun King pointed out, if a Muslim had shot a bunch of white people in Quebec City, half the people on Facebook would have Canadian flags as their profile pictures. But they don’t now. Wonder why that is.
The phrase “alternative facts” is an accusation of lying.
Do not direct that phrase at other posters in Great Debates or Elections.
[ /Moderating ]
Where did this “Alternative Facts” thing come from?
You’ve been living in the cave for the last 10 days? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSrEEDQgFc8 (The most relevant part starts at 1:36.)
From Kellyanne Conway, formerly Donald Trump’s campaign manager and now Counsellor to the President. When quizzed by journalist Chuck Todd about claims made by Sean Spicer (White House Press Secretary and Communications Director) regarding the size of the crowd at Donald Trump’s inauguration, she explained that he was presenting “alternative facts”. Todd’s immediate response was to say “Alternative facts aren’t facts, they are falsehoods.”
No doubt Conway had intended to suggest that Spicer was merely drawing particular attention to certain facts which reflected more favourably on the President that the facts which the press had hitherto chosen to emphasise, but Todd’s interpretation of the phrase won immediate popular acceptance, and “alternative facts” is widely used, and understood, as an ironic euphemism for falsehoods.
Thanks, UDS.
By the way the question in my last post really needed an emoji like 
I meant it more in a jestful way than the snarky way in which I see it could be read.
Just playing Devil’s advocate here, but I think you mistake why this is ever asked of ‘moderate’ muslims. It’s not to get them to disown extremists, but to confirm, by their silence, that they tacitly agree with the extremists actions.
There isn’t a standard conservative playbook that we all reference and can point to when it comes to determining what is a conservative, liberal, or someone of any other political spectrum. This is unlike religion where those playbooks exist. So, it should be a lot easier to say that someone isn’t following their religion than to say someone isn’t being a conservative.
It could be that the people who post things like flags on facebook don’t consider Muslims to be ‘real’ Canadians worthy of getting a flag. No reason to wonder at all.
I believe that conservatives are folks who want to keep their money rather than paying taxes to help people, and folks who have been duped into voting Conservative for gun ownership and their religious beliefs.
:dubious: So is the collective shrug from “moderate” right-wingers about the Quebec mosque shooting, the Charleston church shooting, etc., to be taken as meaning that they tacitly agree with those extremists’ actions?
Mind you, I personally think it’s ridiculous to say that peaceful law-abiding people are responsible for “fixing” violent extremist people just because they happen to belong to the same broad group. But I’m getting awfully tired of conservatives’ double standard in this regard.
We’re sliding into a situation in which Islamist-extremist terrorism is the only kind of terrorism the Administration cares about, while the hardline white-supremacist right feels vindicated and emboldened by Trump’s election. If conservatives really think that moderates are responsible for shutting down their violent extremist factions on pain of being considered sympathetic to the extremists, then I think it’s high time they started work on shutting down their own violent extremist faction.
[QUOTE=Uzi]
There isn’t a standard conservative playbook that we all reference and can point to when it comes to determining what is a conservative, liberal, or someone of any other political spectrum. This is unlike religion where those playbooks exist.
[/quote]
Except that every sect and even individual in a religion uses a different playbook. So I don’t buy the notion that religions in general are more homogeneous than political affiliations. (Also, I question the claim that there doesn’t exist any kind of conservative playbook. Party platforms, for instance, may not have the force of sacred scriptures, but they definitely play a role in drawing lines between categories on the political spectrum.)
[QUOTE=Uzi]
It could be that the people who post things like flags on facebook don’t consider Muslims to be ‘real’ Canadians worthy of getting a flag. No reason to wonder at all.
[/QUOTE]
IAN RickJay and cannot speak for him, but I suspect that he had already thought of that and wasn’t actually wondering.
I’m sure the vast majority of conservatives find the attack repugnant. I certainly do. Of course you’ll always get the extremists but I don’t see the crazies as conservatives anyway. The only thing they want to conserve is some idiotic version of the past that never existed anyway.
Thank you for that principled disavowal. No snark, I mean it.
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
Of course you’ll always get the extremists but I don’t see the crazies as conservatives anyway.
[/QUOTE]
I would be more inclined to go along with that if we didn’t always get so many conservatives losing their shit when nonviolent Muslims declare that radical-Islamist terrorism isn’t true Islam.
The air grows thick with conservative spittle as they froth about “No True Scotsman” and cherrypick literal translations of Qur’an passages to “prove” that being a “real” Muslim requires you to be a violent hater and that’s why Islam is intrinsically inferior, yadda yadda yadda.
If Muslims don’t get to reject and disavow Islamist-extremist violence as being “not truly Muslim”, then I don’t see why right-wingers should get to reject and disavow hard-right extremist violence as being “not truly conservative”. That double standard needs to go.
And yet you lump crazy Muslims in with all Muslims and crazy lefties with all lefties.
Not necessarily that they agree, as in that they don’t so much disagree.
Stewie quote, “And it’s not so much that I want to kill her, it’s just, I want her not to be alive anymore”
The Quran and Bible are essentially the same (barring different translations) for whoever reads it. It is the interpretations of same that is the issue. If you don’t want things mis-interpreted, then update or remove them. Very different from political platforms with can be changed as needed.
I think it is pretty hard to find an interpretation of ‘smite your enemies’ in most party platforms. Especially so in Canada.
Conservative party platform from the last election. I guess the section on combating global terrorism and ISIS could be interpreted to shoot up a mosque.
I figured as much.
For anyone who cares…
I blew it. I got this as wrong as I possibly could have. I did exactly what I accused Justin Trudeau of doing (seizing on early, unconfirmed reports in support of my preferred position). But at least he turned out to be right.
The people at that mosque were as innocent as anyone could have been, and they were murdered by precisely the kind of bigoted white militant I’m generally inclined to dismiss.
Nothing else to add. Piling on is warranted and encouraged.
Good for you for admitting it. Please try and learn from your mistake. It really is reasonable, at least in North America, to treat potential extreme-right/white supremacist terrorism as seriously as terrorism related to Muslim extremists.
Good form. Glad to see you dropped back in.