Can you nominate an exception and we’ll work from there?
Would that be a no?
It is a question that is best answered with economy.
You need only cite the much smaller set to disprove my proposition. By contrast your question is overlarge in scope.
Or you could back up the assertion that you made. It’s up to you.
If your interest is resolving the issue, then it is plain the much smaller burden falls to you.
Perhaps if you asked me to confine my comments to a few select armies we could discuss those.
Otherwise you have me looking at the Assyrians and Sumerians from c.4000bc up to Sri Lanka/Tamils 2006 and beyond and who has that attention span?
Ah, I get it now. I took the assertion as referring to most current armies. I neglected to consider armies throughout history. I can readily believe that in the distant past, the folks in charge of most, if not all, armies made it that far “the hard way” (assassination, etc.) and offered out “incentives” (rape, pillage, and the like) to get volunteers for certain missions.
I’d say that’s a cute attempt to put words in my mouth, but it’s too transparent, really.
The Third Geneva Convention is part of the definition of the rules of war in international law. Rules that terrorists do not follow; in fact, rules terrorists exploit for their own means. I’d say I have a beef with terrorists intentionally targeting civilians, in clear violation of the rules of combat that are laid out.
Before you bring it up, almost across the board US troops in Iraq (who have no political say, by the way) have consistently put their own lives in great peril to protect civilian life at all costs and have conducted themselves in an honorable fashion in what has become a total quagmire, and shouldn’t be blamed personally for being there.
I know you won’t agree with anything less than me saying that they’re a bunch of bloodthirsty Huns lusting for the systematic genocide of the Muslim world, so I won’t even bother trying for any consensus.
On reflection the orginal comment was about the present tense, i.e. current armies. It remains a sound and solid comment. Again, you may have a few exceptions you wish to discuss.
I love it when someone like beergeek279 stops by to tearfully that flag as the boys march by. So Norman Rockwell in this warm weather, don’t you think?
If it’s about current armies, then it’s your assertion, and thus it’s on you to back it up.
Not that it matters, but it appears in the situation in Seattle, the gunman’s actions were more a product of mental illness than religious ferver. He had never been a particularly observant Muslim, and his family does not practice fundamentalist Islam, but he does have a long history of mental problems.
Feel free to apply transfer your sweeping generalized corrolations of violent behavior from the subject of religion to the subject of mental illness.
Not that it matters, but it appears in the situation in Seattle, the gunman’s actions were more a product of mental illness than religious ferver. He had never been a particularly observant Muslim, and his family does not practice fundamentalist Islam, but he does have a long history of mental problems.
Feel free to transfer your sweeping generalized corrolations of violent behavior from the subject of religion to the subject of mental illness.
I really have no problem with the peacible practice of religion so long as they leave me out of it. Freedom of religion (including freedom FROM religion) is one of the most sacred principles we have, so I don’t want to start the slippery slope going. Hell, to be honest, even things like “In God We Trust” and city hall creches don’t bother me…not nearly a big deal enough to get steamed over.
I know that most Christians and Muslims aren’t blowing up abortion clinics or flying airplanes into buildings, and in fact are quite peaceful, so I have no problem with their religion and defend their right to practice it. It’s the fundamentalist nutcases in any religion that ruin the whole thing; it’s not enough for them to believe what they do, they expect ME to do so as well, and that’s where I draw the line.
I don’t consider terrorism to be an Islamic problem; I consider terrorism to be a fundamentalism problem; it’s just that the Muslims already have their theocracies, while Christians are still waiting on theirs.
Not that it matters? It’s the only thing that matters. But God forbid that everyone here refrain from jumping on the Muslim-bashing bandwagon. So let’s see, we have between 2 million and 7 million Muslims in this country, depending on who’s counting, and a single, mentally-ill member of that community kills one person, and oh, my God! The rage, the fundamentalism, the terrorism, when will it all end?
I have the same feeling about Hinduism. I mean, 200 hundred suicide bombings in the '80s alone, attacking civilians, butchering women & children, ethnic cleansing, and still conducting suicide bombings at this time! There is a long list of terrible violence by Hindu people. Hell, Hindus invented the jacket bomb used in the Middle East today.
Hmmm…I just had a thought. Maybe instead of a specific prejudice that you won’t defend, maybe you could think about your prejudices and consider that maybe — just maybe — the images and stories being given to you by our media & culture aren’t quite balanced. You don’t hear much about the Christian childrens’ camp director who admires the way Islamists inculcate their children. Nor do you hear much about the Jewish kids being taken by their parents to sightsee artillery shells before they’re fired and write messages — including religious ones — on them.
There is a term for your error: the availability hueristic. Your feelings about Islam are colored by ease of recall of events, because that’s the way the human mind works. You don’t hear all the incidents around the world, or even in heavily covered areas, like Israelis shelling crowds of civilians, poisoning farmland, or conducting airstrikes on children picking strawberries, but you do hear about all sorts of stuff Muslims do. Hell, the article in the OP even tried to link the shooting with white supremacy.
Now, I know your not fool enough to think that this is “the standard tu quoque used by apologists in these threads.” You’d have to be pretty dumb to think that, since your comment was comparative, in which case a tu quoque isn’t a fallacy. It’s important to remember that hating Semites is just as bad as being anti-Semitic. (And anybody who has to ask just might be prejudiced, just like the little boy with Billy, his Jewish friend.) Restating more accurately, I strongly suspect that your feelings about Islam are colored by an error in human thinking, which is well documented and more-or-less universal, and that you should temper your feeling until you’ve conducted a more systematic study of the effect religion has on people.
Thanks for considering my input on this. 
I meant, SAL, not that it matters to those for whom every incident that occurs is an excuse to be critical of some religion in particular, or religion in general.
Although I have to say that I’m not much more impressed to see you talk about him killing “one person”, the implication being he killed "only one person. While technically accurate, he also wounded six others, four of whom he shot in the abdomen or the chest. The fact that only one person died says more about the medical abilities of the doctors than the intent of the shooter.
Haq apparently also said during the incident that Muslims are very upset at the U.S. over Israel and Iraq and that Muslims were tired of people not listening to them, so he was making a statement (by the shooting). So while I agree with you point that not every effing thing done by a Muslim or Christian or Jew should be laid at the feet of their entire religion, probably a multiple shooting of Jews by a Muslim who himself claims to be doing for the faith, is not the best incident for you to display righteous indignation over Muslim-bashing.
To my mind, the fact that some lunatic kills some people certainly does not implicate the religion, ethnicity, family, etc. that the lunatic came from.
However, you would have to be as blind, deaf and dumb as the three monkeys of legend to deny that there is a bit of a problem here and elsewhere with Islamic extremism. Certainly, there are extremists of all religions and cultures - yet acceptance of extremism as “normal” or even “laudable” varies from population to population.
It seems to me that it is a fully valid position, and not one which is of necessity fueled by bigotry and/or logical error, to wonder if acceptance of extremism is higher in the Muslim population than in others.
Ignoring world events, and just concentrating on the local news: I’m from Toronto. As you may know, a bunch of Muslim extremists were arrested here and charged with conspiring to commit acts of terrorism in my city. Among other potential targets were the downtown financial core where I happen to work. I’m quite willing to accept that they are unrepresentative.
But then I see this article in today’s paper: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060803.FATAH03/TPStory/Front
I begin to wonder whether there is a growing issue or problem with extremists not being an “unrepresentative minority” here, but rather a power. Certainly, I haven’t heard recently of Jewish, Hindu or Christian terrorists being arrested for attempting to blow me, personally, up; nor do I read of “liberal” Jews, Hindus or Christians being hounded out of public life by death threats.
Please convince me that this isn’t an issue. I’d like to believe that it isn’t, but I’m having a hard time dismissing the objective seeming evidence that points the other way.
Nor have I heard of Muslims beating peace activists and film crews, and stealing their equipment. Yet, from a link above:
The fact that you’re not aware of things does not justify prejudice against whole peoples. Nor does the fact that they may not be trying to hurt you personally.
What do you mean? Why should I care as much about what some guys do half a world away that has nothing whatever to do with me, as what people are doing in my very own city?
Is it “prejudice” to even consider that a religious or ethnic community may have a problem with increasing levels of extremism within the community, particularly when those extremists apparently want to kill “liberals” within their own community and may, well, want to kill me?
Ah, now I get you.
Good point.
Well, the salient point here is not that he was Muslim, but that he was mentally ill. Because, after all, the however-many-million American Muslims are also presumably “very upset at the U.S. over Israel” and yet are not shooting at anybody.
The fact is, this guy Haq is being pitted for an action that’s the product of mental illness, and yet half the posters in this thread saw fit to use the occasion to go on their usual rants against Islam.
This indicates mostly that you cannot name a few exceptions. Like I say, any armies you care to discuss?