If you would like to know more about the concept of death penalties applied to Muslims who renounce Islam, here is some information.
Since nobody has done a poll of all one billion Muslims to see exactly what they think about the death penalty for apostates, I suppose I am guilty of switching from “most” to “many”. Let’s just devide the difference and admit that “death to apostates” is a very widespread concept in the MUslim world. How widespread?
You can read the following
"Countries Where Apostasy is Punishable By Death
Apostasy is still punishable by death in many countries. Because Islam and the state are so closely related, leaving the Islamic faith can still be thought of by some as an act of political betrayal, especially in today’s climate of polarization between Muslim and (Judaeo-Christian) Western societies. Charges of apostasy are also often used against political enemies and intellectuals who make controversial claims about Islam or challenges conventional social standards.
Currently, the following countries have laws sanctioning the death penalty as a punishment for apostasy: Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.
Even in countries where the death penalty is not legally enforceable, there may be other punishments for apostasy, such as the dissolution of marriages in cases where an apostate spouse is married to a Muslim, as well as imprisonment, disinheritance, or corporal punishment. "
So, we have laws sanctioning, (not necessarily enforcing or demanding) the death penalty for apostasy within eight countries in the region that is most associated with the most extreme branches of Islam. And these nations, comprising roughly one third of potential Muslims in the world (355,417,589 according to the CIA World Factbook), are (with the exception of Sudan) nearly 100% Muslim themselves, imposing ancient Islamic law while the other two thirds of the Muslims in the world, (including those in well over twenty other nations that are predominantly Muslim), have no such law and you infer from that that Islam is a monolithic entity that demands death for apostasy rather than seeing a situation in which different cultures and different nations have responded in diverse ways to the ancient laws.
If you want a taxi license you have to provide service to the community as outlined by the Hack Commission rules. The Hack Commission is charged with ensuring good public service. If you do not lie the rules, find another line of work.
Which was exactly the decision made by the Minneapolis Airport Commission and not really challenged by anyone on this thread, yet Valteron has to come in and start a whole thread decrying the situation even when “his side” won.
Sad, actually.
What is sad is your inability to correctly read my OP. What I said was that I had been asked in other threads exactly what I proposed we do about the clash of Islam with our values within our western civilzation, brought about by the spread of this religion in the west, mainly through Muslim immigration. The decision by the MAC is an excelllent example of the kind of firmness we in the west must exhibit.
Frankly, as far as I am concerned, Muslims in Islamic countries can stone and mutilate one another in fits of holy fascism as much as they want. I feel sorry for the victims of these regimes, but it is the defence of our western democratic traditions here at home that concerns me. I utterly oppose, for example, the fact that my country, Canada, has troops fighting in Afghanistan.
When I point out barbaric laws and practices in place in Islamic countries, or the barbarism and cruelty mandated by the Koran and the Hadiths, it is to make people stop and think about what the spread of Islam can mean to our western democracies. I am NOT encouraging mistreatment or persecution of Muslim immigrants, and I am frankly sick an tired of implications (even sarcastic ones) that I am.
I realize that the Muslims among us are CERTAINLY ARE NOT A 100% MONOLITHIC GROUP WITH ONE SINGLE IDEA..Neither were Nazis or Communists. (Do I have to write that it 20-foot letters over Tomndebb’s house?)
On the other hand, these immigrants do NOT ALL come here somehow magically purged of 1600 years of the conquering, barbaric, sexist, puritanical, sexually repressive, violent and anti-democratic philosophy that is Islam.
Even as Muslim immigrants enjoy the prosperity and freedom of the west, their religion and culture teaches them contempt for western values and our way of life. They do not come here suddenly free of their traditional idea that all MUslims must strive through jihad until the whole world is Muslim. In their view:
Freedom of religion and religious expression is toleration of blasphemy.
Equality and freedom of women and the way women dress in our society is an invitation to immorality.
Wives who do not obey their husbands are acting against the will of God.
Gay rights and equality is toleration of perversion and immorality.
Freedom of the press is toleration of blasphemy and immorality.
The legality of alcoholic beverages is toleration of sin.
And when Islamic values attack our values HERE IN THE WEST, we must be ready to defend our values, not crumble and surrender in a heap of knee-jerk political correctness.
So now, let’s once again have the worn-out old argument that what I have said above does not apply to 100% of Muslim immigrants. So what? If you are a Muslim cabbie who has never objected to booze in your cab, FINE.
You do realize that there are many Christian groups that would ascribe to many if not all of the points above. And there are plenty of Muslim groups that oppose many if not all of them.
Once again you fail (or refuse to) to see the forest for the trees, Tom. Once again you hide behind the weird argument that a concept or idea must apply in 100% of the Muslim world to call it really Islamic.
So a mere eight Muslim countries (containing a mere ONE THIRD of Muslims or 355 million people :eek: ) have laws that sanction the murder of a human being for deciding to leave a religion. This fact can be swatted away as unimportant?
Imagine if I were to tell you that a mere eight western countries with say, a mere 350 million potential Christians still have laws that sanction burning heretics at the stake!
Furthermore, vicious persecution of apostates exists in many more than those eight countries.
You have conveniently ignored the fact, as I posted earlier, that in addition to the countries providing for the death of apostates: "Even in countries where the death penalty is not legally enforceable, there may be other punishments for apostasy, such as the dissolution of marriages in cases where an apostate spouse is married to a Muslim, as well as imprisonment, disinheritance, or corporal punishment. "
Dissolution of marriage can include having your children takn away from you. I will admit that such a practice existed in at least one western country. French Protestants could have their children seized. But that was in the freakin’ 16th century, NOT the 21st!
Now, I realize that I originally mentioned only the DEATH penalty for apostasy. So if you care to nitpick, I will now “squirm” and “backpedal” out of my original position and point out that the sources I consulted also show that other Muslim countries provide severe penalties without actually providing for execution. Flogging and imprisonment may be slightly better than death, I suppose. I guess we can just sweep those facts off the table on the grounds that Valteron is up to his usual backpedaling.
But your reply, Tom, implies that inhuman and gross persecution of those who reject Islam is some sort of odd historical artifact that does not really apply much in contemporary Islam. If you cling to the fact that a mere one-third of Muslims live in countries that actually sanction death for apostates (still an enormous minority) I suppose you can pretend that. But the following facts, taken from the Wikipedia article, beg to differ.
Note that Egypt, not one of the eight originally mentioned, can get pretty brutal with apostates. As can mob violence, often with the state looking the other way, in the **Palestinian territories, Turkey, Nigeria, Indonesia, Somalia, and Kenya. ** What is your total when you add all those up, Tom?
Note especially that the last item refers to **GERMANY ** for goodness’ sake. And I have personally been told by a friend here in Canada, an ex-Muslim who has been here since the 1970s, that he no longer defines himself as an ex-Muslim, because the growth of Islam in Canada makes him afraid to say so.
Now read these facts:
"Since the 1990s, the Islamic Republic of Iran has used death squads against converts, including major Protestant leaders, and under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, engaged in a systematic campaign to track down and reconvert or kill those who have changed their religion from Islam.
"In 2003, Egyptian security forces arrested 22 converts and people who had helped them. Some were tortured, and one, Isam Abdul Fathr, died in custody. Last year, Gaseer Mohamed Mahmoud was whipped and had his toenails pulled out by police, and was told he would be imprisoned until he gave up Christianity.
"It appears that actual state-ordered executions **are rarer ** (emphasis mine) than killings by vigilantes, mobs, and family members, sometimes with state acquiescence. In the last two years in Afghanistan, Islamist militants have murdered at least five Christians who had converted from Islam.
“Vigilantes have killed, beaten, and threatened converts in Pakistan, the Palestinian territories, Turkey, Nigeria, Indonesia, Somalia, and Kenya. In November, Iranian convert Ghorban Tourani was stabbed to death by a group of fanatical Muslims. In December, Nigerian pastor Zacheous Habu Bu Ngwenche was attacked for allegedly hiding a convert. In January, in Turkey, Kamil Kiroglu was beaten unconscious and threatened with death if he refused to deny his Christian faith and return to Islam.”
On March 21 2006, the Algerian parliament approved a new law requiring imprisonment for two to five years and a fine between five and ten thousand euros for anyone “trying to call on a Muslim to embrace another religion.” The same penalty applies to anyone who “stores or circulates publications or audio-visual or other means aiming at destabilizing attachment to Islam.”
Converts and Baha’is are not the only ones subject to such violence. Ahmadis, whom many Muslims regard as heretics, suffer a similar fate throughout the Muslim world. The victims also include many Muslims who question restrictive interpretations of Islam. In traditionally moderate Indonesia, Yusman Roy is now serving two years in prison for leading prayers in Indonesian and Arabic instead of only in Arabic.
In April 2006 after a court case in Egypt recognized the Bahá’í Faith, members of the clergy convinced the government to appeal the court decision. One member of parliament, Gamal Akl of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, said the Bahá’ís were infidels who should be killed on the grounds that they had changed their religion.[25]
On January 21 2007, the Central Council of Ex-Muslims was founded in Germany, an association lead by exil-iranian Mina Ahadi and turkish-german immigrant Arzu Toker. The association stands up for former muslims who chose to apostate from Islam. Shortly after going public on February 28 2007, the group received death threats by radical islamists."
Now my point is not that Muslims in Toronto or Dearborn, Michigan are 100% in favour of killing and torturing apostates, and it is specious and pointless of you to constantly point that out. You are very close to creating a straw man with that argument.
The point is that in dealing with Islam, as Sam Harris says in “The End of Faith” it is as if a portal in time had opned up and our wold is being flooded by people from the 14th century.
The arrogant attitude by which a state or a mob allows itslf to kill or torture those who do not agree with their “truth” and the attitude that believes you can have a taxi licence at an American aiport and yet impose your religious “truth” on alcohol on innocent passengers who just want to get home may seem different, but they spring from the same source.
There are in fact Christian groups that believe that freedom of the press and freedom of religion is an excuse for blasphemy, female equality is against God, etc.
There are even Christians, such as the KKK, who have called for execution of gays in keeping wih the rules in Leviticus. I am sure there are some Christians who would want people who reject Christianity to be put to death.
For that matter, Orthodox Jews in Israel rioted against a gay rights march not that long ago.
But all of this is nothing but the old “moral relativist” ploy so beloved by the politically correct. It is also akin to the “tu quoque” fallacy in logic.
“What right have we to criticize a religion where they bury an unwed mother in a hole and pitch rocks at her head until she is dead, when we, wicked wicked we, in the west have never elected a female President of the US? Oh what horrid hypocrites we are!” :dubious:
Like all moral relativism arguments, it conveniently ignores the important differences here. Differences of proportion.
The extreme Christian fundamentalists you describe are a small minority in all western democracies. There is no large movement of fundamentalist Christians arriving as immmigrants in our western democracies from twenty or more countries where extreme conservative/fundamentalist and anti-democratic ideas are either enacted into law or supported by large, well-organized and violent factions within the country.
Now read the statistics and reports in the posts above on the treatment of apostates in Islam. Only (only???) eight Muslim states have laws that sanction the death penalty for Muslim apostates. But as the Wikipedia article makes clear, state-permitted mob violence against ex-Muslims is common in many Islamic states, and is even manifesting itself in non-Muslim states like Germany.
Here is another “only” statistic that may surprise you. Read pages 124-127 of Sam Harris’ book “The End of Faith” and you will see the results of a survey that leads us to conclude that perhaps 200 million Muslims (one in five) agrees with the use of suicide terrorism against civilian targets.
Say, you don’t suppose just a few of those 200 million might be here in the west, actively spreading their ideas in Mosques and the growing Muslim communities? NAAAAAHHHH :dubious:
Actually, the Nazis were, pretty much a monolithic group.
On the other hand, your refusal to recognize the many serious errors we committed during the Cold War (that extended that conflict at the cost of many lives and continued conflicts, today), by following the same sort of flawed logic you display, here, is exactly why I (fruitlessly) attempt to point out your errors.
There are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of different groups of Muslims who, either in response to other societal pressures or through flaws in their own philosophies present a potential danger to their own societies or threaten harm to ours. It is your insistence that “Islam = Bad” (with your repeated quotations from the Qur’an to “prove” your point that it is Islam and not fractured groups with a coincidental common thread) that pushes all those disparate groups together because you have lumped them into a monolithic mass.
Consider your other bogeyman, the communists. Ho Chi Minh was never an ardent communist; he was a resolute proponent of an independent Viet Nam. When he could not talk the Ferench into leaving and could get no help fromthe U.S., Britain, or any other Eurpoean power, he turned to the Soviets for help. Had we not decided to fight the “communism” bogeyman in 1954, encouraging the breaking of an international agreement and imposing our own only barely controlled puppet, we might have been able to go to Ho and say, “Look. We could not support you against our allies, the French, but now that you have your independence, as long as you guarantee basic human rights within your country, we’ll help you out–including supporting you in any conflicts with the Chinese, and we have a lot more capacity to help than Russia, does.” Certainly there is no guarantee, and there is always the possibility that his Soviet trained mid-level bureacracy would have corrupted the process, but we just might have staved off an additional 20 years of warfare with millions of deaths while gaining an ally.
When Iran looked to become an independent nation, we decided to impose the Shah against “the communists.” That worked out well for us. By our toleration of his extremely brutal suppression of his people (while “fighting communism”) with his emphasis on suppressing Muslim devotion, we allowed radical Islam to become the most capable organized force against him, so that when the Iranian people rose up to overthrow him, it was the radical Muslim wing that got the most support–to the regret of those Iranians who were blindsided by how radical Khomeini and his cohorts actually were.
When the Guatemalans wanted to divide their country into private holdings for their people to farm, it frightened the United Fruit Company who needed to keep grabbing more land for their land-destroying banana crop, so they cried “Communism” and the U.S. imposed another brutal dictatorship that lasted another 35+ years (with the additional “benefit” of sending unemployable Guatemalans to “invade” the U.S. looking for work).
After over 80 years of direct U.S. interference in Nicaragua, the people were finally able to overthrow their dictator, Somoza. Since the group that replaced him had had Soviet backing, (even though they were not nearly as socialist or anti-Western as the Soviets wanted them to be), we cried “Communists” and sent the Somozan national guard back into their country to terrorize them for another decade, or so.
Allende actually was a Marxist, but instead of letting him run his own country into the ground and then pointing at it as a case example of Socialism failing, we cried “Communist” and ran into to destroy the Chilean economy, ourselves, then promoted a bunch of thugs to murder and oppress their own people for a couple of decades while adding one more example for the people of the third world (such as most Muslim nations today) to view us as rapacious and treacherous intruders.
(This is not a claim that in each case the people we harmed would have been clear benefits to humanity, but in each case (and many others) we prolonged strife and created new enemies for ourselves, by waving the red flag of “communism” instead of looking at the reality on the ground and supporting the appropriate people.
Your “It is Islam” approach simply repeats the same mistakes. When a bunch of Somali cabbies bring their local customs over here and you make it an issue of “Islam,” then other Muslims in this country are more likely to side with them over the airport commission. Whereas, if you pointed out that it was an ethnic custom that was not common to Islam, you defuse that complaint. When a bunch of second generation North African immigrants to France run wild–kids who do not follow Islam in any way–and instead of being labeled "slum kids’ or “wild youth,” they are labeled “Muslim youth” (despite their lack of participation in the religion of their parents), you put up the backs of any other Muslim who (correctly) feels that you are attacking the religion. When you cherry pick incidents all over the world with very different causes and cultural relations and artifically tie them together with the string of “Islam,” you actually make it easier for bin Laden and his cronies to point to your claims and say “See, the West is against Islam. We must defend it.” thus recruiting more youth to their cause.
Just as there were real live Marxists whom we needed to oppose, e.g., Castro and Mao, there are real live Islamist zealots such as bin Laden whom we need to oppose. By lumping together anyone in the world whom you oppose and claiming they are all the same because of Islam, you compel them to join forces for self defense, making them a more fearsome opponent and endangering your own position.
I read your OP quite closely. You had two paragraphs and one link talking about the MAC using the appropriate response and ten paragraphs wringing your hands over the perfidy of Islam. If you had wanted to discuss the appropriateness on the MAC response, you did not need to clutter up your post with the rest of your rant that (probably correctly) indicated that you were more interested in bashing Islam than in discussing appropriate responses. Note, for example, that you did not bring up even one other pending issue in the U.S. or Canada to discuss how it should be handled in the light of the MAC decsison, you simply went off on your tirade against Islam.
Clearly, these aren’t Islamic values, they are values that you (and for the most part I) disagree with. You’re attempting to equate a particular religion with things that show up in all societies at all times in history, to one degree or another.
No one surrendered. You seem to believe that the lack of an instant smackdown of the Somali cab drivers somehow indicates that we were knuckling under. Instead, people studied the issue, weighed the important issues of private rights versus public responsibilites, and ruled accordingly. I’m pretty sure that’s one of those Western Values that you’re going on about.
This is a hijack, but in what world wasn’t Ho Chi Minh an ardent Communist? He became a Communist in the 1920s, and was one of the founders of the French Communist Party. He got training in Moscow, and then after WWII, purged the old Indochinese anti-Japanese resistance of non-Communist and non-Stalinist elements.
And extremist Muslims are also a tiny minorty in Western democracies. Because remember, that’s where your OP started—not with the issue of extremist Muslims in Islamic countries, but with the issue of extremist Muslims in countries like the United States.
And the number of fundamentalist Muslims arriving in countries like the US is also extremely small. What’s your point?
Really? Mob violence against ex-Muslims is receiving state permission in Germany? I’m going to need some evidence of that, i’m afraid.
Who is “us”? What is “perhaps”? Did you do the study with Harris? What are his conclusions? How many of those Muslims have even the resources, let alone the opportunity and the permission to move to places like the United States?
Also, since you seem so fond of Wikipedia, i should note that 200 million Muslims would be about 1 in 7.5 Muslims, not 1 in 5 as you suggest.
Even if we accept the premise that some of these extremists are making it into Western societies (something that, despite your ridiculously all-knowing tone, you have failed to demonstrate), the question then becomes: how does your plan for dealing with Muslims in the west, as exemplified by the MAC decision regarding Muslim taxi drivers, help the situation with regard to these extremists.
For example, say that one of the Muslims driving a taxi affected by this ruling is a violent extremist who has a long-term plan to conduct a suicide bombing of a Minnesota shopping mall. Exactly what does forcing him to carry passengers who have alcohol on their person achieve? Do you think he’s likely to suddenly gain a new respect and admiration for American values and freedoms? Is he going to turn around and dismantle his weapons?
I happen to agree with the MAC decision, for reasons that many others have already articulated in this thread. But that decision, and decisions like it, will have absolutely zero effect on the attitudes and intentions of Muslims extremists. The problem with arguments like your is that they display a curious naivete, perhaps even wilfull ignorance and inconsistency. On the one hand, you invest a great deal of time and effort in convincing us that extremist Muslims are irrational and fanatical and obsessed; on the other, you seem to assume that they are rational and logical folks who will respond to the imposition of rulings like the MAC decision.
Also, you arguing against a position that no-one has taken. You are arguing as if people have been denying the existence and the extent of radical extremist Islam. No-one has been doing that.
And, if you believe that Muslims who refuse to carry alcohol in their taxis are an indicator of a broader threat to secular Western society posed by Islam, i’m still wondering if you think the refusal of some Christian pharmacists to fill prescriptions for birth control and abortion pills indicates a broader threat to secular Western society posed by Christianity.
Rather than ardent, Ho Chi Minh was an opportunistic communist. He went to the only people who would help him in his fight for independence. I am sure that (as with huge numbers of people, particularly in Europe, in the middle of the 20th century) he probably was more oriented to socialism than capitalism, but his arguments, his fights, and his efforts were all directed toward the independence of Viet Nam, not to the exapnsion of Marxism throughout the world.
He was as complex a figure as produced by the 20th century, although relatively unknown in the U.S. I’m sure that he was a participant in the Viet Minh purges of other parties near the end of WWII in a grab for power, yet publicly apologized for injusticers carried out during later land reforms. He also made direct appeals to France and the U.S. for Vietnamese independence on several occasions. Interestingly, at one point he actually agreed to a dissolution of the Vietnamese Communist Party although French efforts to reclaim their colony brought that party back to resist them.
Amazing! Tomndebb not only knows everything about History, he also knows exactly how history would have turned out IF this and IF that. . . . . .
Have you ever thought of offering your services to the State Department, Tom, to tell them all they are doing wrong and have done wrong in the past, “IF only. . . ?”
Don’t miss Tomndebb’s next book, “If my Aunt had Balls She’d be my Uncle!”
Since when am I the one who made it a religious issue? The cabbies themselves are identifying it as an Islamic issue, you are going to have other Muslims throughout the world and throughout the US siding with them, even if you say it is cultural. For that matter, Muslims themselves admit there is not a word in the Koran that demands the wearing of the hijab or the veil, but that does not stop them from making a religious issue of it, refusing to take them off to wear safety helmets in sporting events, etc.
Of course, anyone who thinks that we could have avoided the Viet Nam war over a friendly drink with Ho Chi Minh is likely to believe that all we have to say is “it’s cultural” to defuse the issue.
I think we need a list of “cultural” beliefs and behaviors:
Confession - Not all Roman Catholics I know take confession.
Yarlmukas - Not all Jews wear them on Shabbat.
Kosher - Not all Jews keep kosher.
The Resurrection - 4% of Christians don’t believe in the Resurrection of Christ.
As far as I can tell there are no religious beliefs, I guess we don’t need Freedom of Religion after all.
What is less amazing–in fact, it has come to be a matter of course–is for you to pretend I have said something I have not, even when quoting me in a way that demonstrates that I have not said what you falsely claimed.
At no point in the passage you quoted did I claim that “IF” anything “THEN” something better would have happened. I posted a list of events that occurred during the Cold War that were badly done in the name of “fighting communism” that had little to do with actually opposing any real threat to the U.S., the West, or the world from any world conquering communist bogeyman along with the actual consequences of that stupid behavior.
It is entirely possible that Iran, Vietnam, Guatemala, Nicaragua,and a dozen more places might have turned out as badly or worse without the idiotic attacks by the U.S. in the name of fighting communism, but we do not know what those events might have been, because we behaved in the same stupid fashion, then, that those who rail against the bogeyman of “Islam” are behaving now.
And your distortions continue. I did not deny that it is a religious issue. I denied that it is an issue of “Islam” as seen as the great world gobbling bogeyman you need for it to be to feed your fears. If it was an issue of “Islam” in the manner you claim, then all the Muslim cabbies in the U.S. (and Canada and the U.K. and France and Gemenay, etc.) should have been carrying out the same practices for the last thirty years or, at minimum, should have immediately rallied in solidarity with the Somali immigrants as soon as the situation made national news. Neither of those conditions apply, so you are simply using bad logic (and a touch of disingenuousness) to make your false claim.
You then continue in the same paragraph to demonstrate the same failure of logic or honesty. The issue of the hijab is not universally madated by all Muslims (or even all Muslim dominated governments) throughout the world. They, at least, recognize what you choose to ignore, that there are cultural issues involved in such customs, and that there is no one-size-fits-all rule to support your imagined world-wide conspiracy. (And do not whine that you have not (yet) used the word conspiracy: that is what you are proclaiming regardless whether or not you carefully tiptoe around the word so that you are not (correctly) accused of engaging in conspiracy fears.)