Double standard
I posted some admittedly wrong-headed statements unfavorable towards Islam. For this, you have accused me of ignorance, bigotry, lying, and hypocrisy, among other things.
Yet, you make derogatory statements about Christians, and it’s a rhetorical device?
Whatever.
You still don’t get it?
I made derogatory about some numb-skulls distorting Xtianity. Not Xtianity itself.
In any case, the whole issue has been about over-generalization. It’s an easy mistake to make. I apologize for busting on you so hard.
That is simply not true. Although in the minority, many people opposed genocide against the Native-Americans and this led to the formation of groups such as the * Indian Rights Association*. Others such as the Quakers actively lobbied for better treatment. Helen Hunt Jackson’s wrote * A Centuty of Dishonor* in which she challenged the the Indian policies of the times.
Try applying your criticisms of generalizations and inaccuracies by others to your own posts.
And while there were people who condemned the murder of indians, you will still be hard pressed to find many (which is what I said). The focus of The Indian Rights Association and H. H. Jackson’s works (Century of Dishonor, the novel Ramona, and several briefs that she wrote as a government appointee to study the problems of the management of indian relations) were all focused on the ongoing travail of broken treaties and the mismanagement of reservations. While I am sure that these (relatively small groups) did look on various incidents as murderous, their point of view was very much a minority and they did not, themselves, focus on that issue.
For example, after Sand Creek, there were, indeed, claims that Chivington had simply murdered the people he attacked. However, the people who voiced that opinion were few and far between–and even among the larger group of people who ultimately condemned the massacre as unjust, few ever got around to identifying the actions of Chivington and the Colorado Scouts as “murder.” Horrifying, repulsive, but not necessarily murder.
If you want to assert that I overstated the case by implying that no one considered such actions murder, perhaps I spoke too boldly. However, my specific claim was that the society did not deem it murder and that it would be difficult to find many people who had judged it murder. I see no reason to retract that observation.
No. Infidel does not identify Christians and Jews in the Koran. Infidel identifies those who do not believe in Allah. As the Koran clearly points out, Jews and Christians are considered, by the Koran no less, to be worshippers of Allah; therefore, it is those who do not worship Allah who are infidels. Just because one is not a Muslim does not mean one does not worship God.
Note: this explanation does not endorse that position but merely reports it. Also, I’m posting this during a break in classes so I’m not at home where my electronic copy of the Koran is. I’ll try to remember to post some verses to show the point of this post.
No Tom, it’s not hard at all to find people who condemned the massacre as murder. General U.S.Grant used the actual word “murder” and the ranking jurist in the Army at the time called it “a cowardly and cold-blooded slaughter, sufficient to cover its perpetrators with indelible infamy and the face of every American with shame and indignation.”
And also the U.S. Congress condemned it as a ‘massacre’, which is defined as a cruel or wanton murder. These are pretty high profile sources, hardly obscure groups or persons.
Thank you for the quotation from Grant. I had never seen that before. (Do you have a citation that I could store?)
As to the other references, the outrage of General Holt, the Army jurist, follows the trend of revulsion at the acts, calling the massacre cowardly and shameful, (or, in my earlier words, “Horrifying, repulsive, but not necessarily murder”) but he does not go so far as to call them murder–and the Army allowed Chivington to resign his commission without ever bringing him to a court martial, nor did they court martial any of his subordinates or any of the troopers who brought home and displayed their grisly souvenirs.
Similarly, the reference to “massacre” in the Congressional report does not seem to include the word murder. While the word massacre has had associations of murder at various times, it is generally used as a description of wholesale slaughter, regardless of the motives of the participants, and has been used to describe actions as disparate as the Sand Creek Massacre and the destruction Fetterman’s command in open battle.
Many people were horrified by the actions of the Colorado Volunteers, particularly with the reports of women and children having been sexually mutilated and the severed body parts displayed as trophies. The massacre was generally condemned throughout the country. Can you point to a single call for a trial for murder?
If you can come up with a rather longer list than General Grant, Captain Soule, and J.W. Wright, I will acknowledge that more people saw Sand Creek as murder than I had been aware. However, as to generalizing about the attitudes of whites in the U.S., the reactions to Sand Creek still do not translate to a general condemnation of the 1852 Bridge Gulch Massacre, the 1863 attack on the Shoshone, the 1868 attacks along the Washita, or the “Battle” of Wounded Knee. Even the Camp Grant Massacre probably went to trial as much or more because the majority of the attackers were, themselves, indians (and all those charged were found not guilty).
Such massacres were often seen as wrong, because “we civilized people should not do that sort of thing,” but they were not generally looked upon as the unlawful taking of life.
Jesus, Tom, I can’t wait to read another sanctimonous post from you accusing someone else of “word games.” Just what * does * it take for you to admit that you are wrong? (“A longer list”? Give me a break!) This is getting awfully tiring.
Monty: That’s an interesting line of argument and not one I entirely dismiss 
. But most sources, including Muslim ones, disagree. Infidel in arabic is kafir ( plural kuffar ). Just as an example, below is a chapter from site that discusses ritual impurity in Islam from a Shi’a perspective. Scroll down to section 8 and it discusses Kafir and what the various types of Kafir are ( in this person’s view - it goes without saying that this perspective is not necessarily the definitive view of all Muslims ):
http://www.islamic-paths.org/Home/English/Discover/Character/Book/Ritual_Purity/Chapter_01b.htm
Shi’a site? Ah, that explains it. Most of my Muslim acquaintances and teachers are Sunni.
Sorry Tom, Talk about word games!! How can you dis-associate the word massacre from murder? Isn’t a massacre a form of mass-murder? I can’t see how that can be argued. But for clarity here is the definition:
Main Entry: mas·sa·cre
Pronunciation: 'ma-si-k&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French
Date: circa 1578
1 : the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty
2 : a cruel or wanton murder
3 : a wholesale slaughter of animals
4 : an act of complete destruction <the author’s massacre of traditional federalist presuppositions – R. G. McCloskey>
Regarding the Congressional hearings, the word murder does appear in the transcripts of the testimony.
Here’s the cite. http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/four/sandcrk.htm#smith
As far as prosecution goes, the Army was interested in trying Chivington but there were a multitude of obstacles at the time that would have made a conviction impossible.
Similar in some respects to the problems faced in prosecuting Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
You’re generalization of the 19th Century USA is not that much different than the one made accusing all followers of Islam as being of one like-mind.
It can be argued easily when one recognizes that murder appears in only one of the four separate definitions of the word, when one recognizes that the word has been used to identify one-sided victories in open battle, and when one recognizes that the implication of murder only occurs some uses of the word, not all. Custer and Fetterman both died in massacres (that wiped out their troops), yet no one ever tried to charge any of the indians who fought them of murder.
Nevertheless, I will concede that I was not aware of the extent to which the Sand Creek event was perceived as murder throughout the U.S. It obviously received much more attention than I had been aware. (It was also defended throughout the same time period by many people, but that does not change the fact that it was perceived as murder by many others).
However, Sand Creek had the advantage that two of the officers who were present rufused to participate and then wrote letters detailing the slaughter and the mutilations when they were charged with cowardice by Chivington. An Indian agent and translator was also nearby the camp when the attack occurred and his testimony corroborated that of the officers. Where is the equal outrage for the other massacres that I named (or the many killings that I did not name)?
Sure, like a general prevailing attitude that one did not charge people with murder simply for killing indians. After the Washita, Custer faced a court martial, too, not for his actions against the indian villages, but for leaving his troops in the field after the “battles”.
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*Originally posted by tomndebb *
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I suppose most people, if forced, “can argue” lots of things, but tomndeb, evidently, can argue ANYTHING, and he can, without the slightest regard for the correctness of his position, always do so “easily.”
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by tomndebb *
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It’s difficult to know what sort of point an intelligent person hopes to make with this kind of gibberish, but seeing it propounded by someone who professes to dislike “word games” is a little hard to take. It now plainly appears that tomndeb wants–perhaps he even needs–to have the last word. I propose that we give it to him.
This is likely just a dopey semantic quibble, but I look at it from the opposite perspective – things like poverty are indeed reasons in the big picture, but they are not excuses. There is no excuse for violence absent some form of self-defense or defense of others. Sadly, this concept can be stretched pretty far by those predisposed to the violence they engage in.
Big Iron,
Nowhere did I say that there was a valid excuse for the violence. Rather, my point was that the people who were being violent were using poverty to excuse their own misbehaviour.
Oh, I know that, brother. I was just, as earlier noted, disputing the semantics.
WARNING! LONG RANT. S
I live and work in Saudi and have done so for nearly 20 years. FWIW, I’ve listed some of my experiences of the Kingdom below.
As many of you know, Saudi is the home of the Wahabi sect of Islam and indeed, it has little tolerance for other religions. The argument of Christians and Jews being “people of the book” is only grudgingly accepted and anyone applying for a visa during normal times and writing “Jewish” on the application would experience serious difficulties. Other religions, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. are even less tolerated. Starting a Christian church or attempting to convert Moslems to Christianity is a serious crime and has resulted in the death penalty. While not official, other sects of Islam such as the Shia, are also persecuted, denied career advancement, places in the government, and the right to celebrate certain Shia holidays.
Women are required to wear what is known as an “abaya” (phonetic spelling) and this rule is enforced by religious police. Physical intimidation by such police is routine but is in no sense a “beating.” When my wife travels alone inside the Kingdom I must prepare an official permission letter stamped by the local chamber of commerce. While most people know of the restrictions on women driving and working, there are many others that are less well known but are equally restrictive. The rights of women are (in general) limited to those explicitly spelled out in the Koran and there are a host of restrictions that are not spelled out but rigorously applied nonetheless.
Having gotten that off my chest I must also say that Muslims from ANY other country that I know personally, without exception, considers the Wahabi interpretation of Islam to be backward, intolerant, and bigoted. The neighboring states, Bahrain and the Emirates, loathe Saudi and would avoid it like the plague if the holy sites weren’t located there. So yes, if we are talking about the Wahabi sect and it’s bastard child the Talib, then Islam is extremely intolerant and worthy of comparison with Fred Phelps and the like. Otherwise, as in outside of this country, I have found it to be a particularly caring, generous, and kind religion.
Regards.
Testy.
As an Oh-by-the-way, is there a cite on the Saudis putting “none” on visa applications that had “Jewish” in the religion box? I would think that “none” would equate to “athiest” and that is considered much worse than Jewish by the Saudis.
I believe the claim was that the “none” was entered by the U.S. on the military passports of Jewish service persons in order to avoid the issue that Jews are either not permitted or extremely restricted in Suadi Arabia. It is a valid criticism of the Saudis, but, as you have noted, not a valid criticism of Islam or Muslims worldwide.
[list=1][li]For the United States of America, there is no such thing as a “military passport.” The US issues Fee Passports (aka "Tourist Passports), No-Fee Passports, Official Passports, and Diplomatic Passports. Feel free to check with the State Department, or even the nifty staff report penned by yours truly.[/li][li]Passports issued by the United States of America do not list the bearer’s religious preference or lack thereof.[/li]The information that is collected can be viewed on the spiffy passport application form available at http://www.state.gov
This form does not request, nor even provide a place to enter, the applicant’s religion.
The information that makes it onto the identity page of the passport (identical for all types of US passports, btw) is:
[list=A][li]Type (of passport)[]passport number[]surname[]given name(s)[]date of birth (in the format: day number, English 3-letter month abbreviation, slant (aka slash), French 3-letter month abbreviation, last two numbers of the year)[]sex of bearer[]place of birth of bearer[]issue date of passport (in same format as birth date of bearer)[]expiration date of passport (in same format birth date of bearer)place of issue of passport[/list=A][/li][li]Visa applications for entry to the Kindgom of Saudi Arabia (available at http://www.saudiembassy.net) require the applicant to indicate both the religion and sect which applicant follows. It also has the following statement which the applicant signs:[/li]
[/list=1]
Thanks for the info. What was the issue in the plane hijacking a few years ago when a seaman was selected for harrassment or murder because he had a passport that was recognizable as belonging to the U.S. military?