# The Fallen Blogger and the Spectre of Secularism **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 28, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827 "2015-02-28T03:21:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 57
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1121 "2015-05-29T01:25:56Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > including, again, your free speech hero Pamela Geller I wanted to comment on the logic here. “IF a person believes that a subject has the right to exercise free speech without being murdered, THEN the person must agree with everything the subject believes.” Contrapositive: “IF a person DOES NOT agree with everything a subject believes, then that person DOES NOT believe that the subject has the right to exercise free speech without being murdered.” Several people in this thread have vociferously asserted that they DO NOT agree with what Charlie Hebdo believed. It cannot be the case that I support Pamela Geller unless you also support denying the right to life & free speech to Charlie Hebdo. Unless, of course, your assertion that “IF a person believes that a subject has the right to exercise free speech without being murdered, THEN the person must agree with everything the subject believes” is total horseshit. Which one is it? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1122 "2015-05-29T01:32:46Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > > [@A'isha](#): > > > > including, again, your free speech hero Pamela Geller > > I wanted to comment on the logic here. Which is kind of like a goldfish wanting to comment on the covariant theory of gravitation, but sure, go ahead. > [@Haberdash](#): > > “IF a person believes that a subject has the right to exercise free speech without being murdered, THEN I must agree with everything the subject believes.” Nowhere has **A’isha** claimed that you “must agree with everything” that Geller believes. So your attempt to “comment on the logic” fails right from the get-go. Frankly, the goldfish would have done a better job. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1123 "2015-05-29T01:37:02Z")
I’ve been accused of blanketly “supporting” Pamela Geller and even viewing her as my “hero” multiple times. Despite dignifying these smears by going out of my way to repudiate Geller’s views on the use of military force and discriminatory immigration policy, the “thinking” around here, if you can call it that, has remained firmly in line with progressive dogma, which is that anything “bad” must be made illegal and anything that we tolerate must be endorsed. If the Muslims and the Muslim apologists in this thread find the fact that someone who believes as many odious things as Pamela Geller has become a free speech martyr to be inconvenient, then maybe they should do something about the Muslims who keep trying to kill her and the clueless governments who keep trying to censor her. Ball’s in your court, really. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1124 "2015-05-29T01:49:41Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > I’ve been accused of blanketly “supporting” Pamela Geller and even viewing her as my “hero” multiple times. “Blanketly”? What an interesting word. What does it mean? And if you persist in using **Haberdash** SneakyObliqueSpeak in preference to standard English semantic structures, naturally you’re going to have a hard time understanding other posters’ statements. Sarcastically calling Geller your “hero” is not the same thing as seriously asserting that you literally must agree with everything she believes. Once you’ve got these and similar fundamentals of ordinary language use down, it will be time enough for you to start learning how to use logic to construct and analyze rational arguments. No sense trying to run before you can walk, and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1125 "2015-05-29T01:57:27Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > you’re not convincing anyone > [@Monty](#): > > Why has he not been warned, or even banned, for trolling? > [@Miller](#): > > Mostly, because the bar for trolling in the Pit is exceptionally high > [@El Kabong](#): > > **Haberdash** made any particular points he had hundreds of posts ago, has been repeating pretty much the same lines over and over again, and has amply demonstrated to anyone with a reasonable command of English that he is fundamentally incapable of formulating an argument without making hilariously clumsy and absurd misrepresentations of replies to his unending firehose of bullshit. Yeah, I don’t think _I’m_ the one who ought to be worried about “not convincing anyone” in this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1126 "2015-05-29T02:35:37Z")
I like how, of all the bigoted, deranged, hateful opinions that Pamela Geller holds, like denying the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia, supporting the genocide of Muslims in Burma, allying with neo-Nazis, and (my own personal favorite) [believing that Butterball is waging “stealth _jihad_” through their Thanksgiving turkeys](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wajahat-ali/post_2659_b_1111612.html), the ones that **Haberdash** wants to make _sure_ that we know he disagrees with are her feelings about immigration policy and the use of the US military! ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1127 "2015-05-29T02:43:32Z")
I don’t have any obligation to give my opinion on anything she believes in order to say that she should be able to draw Mohammad or buy an ad on a bus. Still having trouble with this, I see. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1128 "2015-05-29T02:44:59Z")
By the way, ask some of your left-wing supporters in this thread about Bosnia. You may not like what you hear. Chomsky is still a Milosevic supporter. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1129 "2015-05-29T03:41:19Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > I don’t have any obligation to give my opinion on anything she believes in order to say that she should be able to draw Mohammad or buy an ad on a bus. And nobody here ever claimed that you **do** have any such obligation. As usual, you are so far away from understanding how to logic that you barely even know how to language. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1130 "2015-05-29T03:45:01Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > By the way, ask some of your left-wing supporters in this thread about Bosnia. You may not like what you hear. Chomsky is still a Milosevic supporter. Holy fuck, Chomsky is a Doper? Why hasn’t anyone told me? What’s his handle, and where’s his Pit thread? ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1131 "2015-05-29T04:21:12Z")
Chomsky is also a Cambodian genocide denier. Fuck Noam Chomsky. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1132 "2015-05-29T04:41:42Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Holy fuck, Chomsky is a Doper? Why hasn’t anyone told me? What’s his handle, and where’s his Pit thread? I want to state for the record that I am not, in fact, Noam Chomsky. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1133 "2015-05-29T04:41:58Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Holy fuck, Chomsky is a Doper? Why hasn’t anyone told me? What’s his handle, and where’s his Pit thread? I want to state for the record that I am not, in fact, Noam Chomsky. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1134 "2015-05-29T04:45:16Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Chomsky is also a Cambodian genocide denier. Actually, I’m [still looking for a cite for that claim](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17596160&postcount=31). So far, all I’ve seen are criticisms of a book review written by Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in 1977 (at a time when reliable English-language news sources in Cambodia were few and far between) in which they expressed some doubt about some early reports of the Cambodian genocide. AFAICT, Chomsky for at least the past several decades has been completely in agreement with the general consensus on the facts of the Cambodian genocide, and in a 1993 film he described it as an “atrocity” that ranked as “the great act of genocide in the modern period”. So I’m really not understanding where the continuing denunciation of Chomsky as a “Cambodian genocide denier” is coming from. I mean, lots of people in the early 1940s were skeptical about (what turned out to be entirely accurate) contemporary reports of activities in the Nazi death camps, but we don’t call them “Holocaust deniers” unless they **persisted** in refusing to believe evidence after it was solidly established beyond a reasonable doubt. Sorry for the hijack, but I’m always rather cautious about claims that Chomsky supports various outrageously counterfactual or historically indefensible positions. I am definitely aware that Chomsky can be quite wrong about things, but there’s so much outright extreme misinformation about his views floating around on the internet that it’s sometimes hard to avoid stepping in it. ETA: Curiously, [Gareth Porter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Porter#Cambodia), the author of one of the pro-Khmer-Rouge books that Chomsky and Herman relied on when expressing doubt in 1977 on contemporary reports of the Cambodian genocide, doesn’t get called a “Cambodian genocide denier”. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1135 "2015-05-29T04:53:13Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Mostly, because the bar for trolling in the Pit is exceptionally high, and he doesn’t (from what I’ve seen) pull this kind of shit in other forums. High? Orbital, evidently. That stunt with the “Don’t shoot” comment prefacing his remarks to Muslim posters was pretty deep into jerk territory. It was so deep it was like walking halfway into a forest. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1136 "2015-05-29T05:13:12Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > :rolleyes: Look, sweetcheeks, **nobody at all is trying to deny that there is a serious and very destructive struggle going on within global political Islam between liberal/secularist thinking and various strains of oppressive Islamic fundamentalism**. So the secular voices in these societies are facing the cold steel of Islam’s machete. My majestic wordsmithery, couched in truth, renders me an Islamophobe, though it reflects this exact sentiment you claim is widely accepted. OK. > [@Kimstu](#): > > **But we’re not putting up with your sloppy/ignorant/stupid/bigoted inability to use accurate terminology for what you’re talking about.** And when you continue to insist on such sloppiness and inaccuracy, we’re going to continue calling you out on your bullshit. What is bullshit is when 500,000 people march to cheers of “death to the bloggers” and it is defused as a pocket of “radical-extremism.” Clearly, half a million people in an otherwise civilized society had nothing better to do than suddenly succumb to what is a minor, unimportant strain of violent Islamist extremism. Talk about sloppy. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1137 "2015-05-29T05:21:17Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Actually, I’m [still looking for a cite for that claim](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17596160&postcount=31). So far, all I’ve seen are criticisms of a book review written by Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in 1977 (at a time when reliable English-language news sources in Cambodia were few and far between) in which they expressed some doubt about some early reports of the Cambodian genocide. > > AFAICT, Chomsky for at least the past several decades has been completely in agreement with the general consensus on the facts of the Cambodian genocide, and in a 1993 film he described it as an “atrocity” that ranked as “the great act of genocide in the modern period”. > > So I’m really not understanding where the continuing denunciation of Chomsky as a “Cambodian genocide denier” is coming from. I mean, lots of people in the early 1940s were skeptical about (what turned out to be entirely accurate) contemporary reports of activities in the Nazi death camps, but we don’t call them “Holocaust deniers” unless they **persisted** in refusing to believe evidence after it was solidly established beyond a reasonable doubt. > > Sorry for the hijack, but I’m always rather cautious about claims that Chomsky supports various outrageously counterfactual or historically indefensible positions. I am definitely aware that Chomsky can be quite wrong about things, but there’s so much outright extreme misinformation about his views floating around on the internet that it’s sometimes hard to avoid stepping in it. > > ETA: Curiously, [Gareth Porter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Porter#Cambodia), the author of one of the pro-Khmer-Rouge books that Chomsky and Herman relied on when expressing doubt in 1977 on contemporary reports of the Cambodian genocide, doesn’t get called a “Cambodian genocide denier”. I’ll agree that if one agrees with people like Howard Zinn that David Irving should be treated as a legitimate scholar and it’s disgusting to accuse him of being a Holocaust Denier even though he insists Holocaust Survivors have fabricated their claims then yes Noam Chomsky shouldn’t be called a genocide denier since he has copied David Irving. Beyond that, I’d merely say that Chomsky has been luck in that the Holocaust he denied(and now pretends he never denied) was against dirty little gooks instead of educated white folks or “people like us”. Granted, after what he’s said about the white Muslims of Bosnia and the Kurds, perhaps I’m being too harsh. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1138 "2015-05-29T05:25:54Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > So the secular voices in these societies are facing the cold steel of Islam’s machete. My majestic wordsmithery, couched in truth, renders me an Islamophobe, though it reflects this exact sentiment you claim is widely accepted. OK. > > What is bullshit is when 500,000 people march to cheers of “death to the bloggers” and it is defused as a pocket of “radical-extremism.” Clearly, half a million people in an otherwise civilized society had nothing better to do than suddenly succumb to what is a minor, unimportant strain of violent Islamist extremism. > > Talk about sloppy. So anyway, are you going to answer my questions? In case you’ve forgotten. > [@](#): > > Thank you for admitting to being a bigot. > > What caused you to become one? > > Was it an attempt to compensate for any personal, economic, educational, social, or sexual failings? > > Something else? Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1139 "2015-05-29T13:01:00Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Actually, I’m [still looking for a cite for that claim](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17596160&postcount=31). So far, all I’ve seen are criticisms of a book review written by Chomsky and Edward S. Herman in 1977 (at a time when reliable English-language news sources in Cambodia were few and far between) in which they expressed some doubt about some early reports of the Cambodian genocide. > > AFAICT, Chomsky for at least the past several decades has been completely in agreement with the general consensus on the facts of the Cambodian genocide, and in a 1993 film he described it as an “atrocity” that ranked as “the great act of genocide in the modern period”. > > So I’m really not understanding where the continuing denunciation of Chomsky as a “Cambodian genocide denier” is coming from. I mean, lots of people in the early 1940s were skeptical about (what turned out to be entirely accurate) contemporary reports of activities in the Nazi death camps, but we don’t call them “Holocaust deniers” unless they **persisted** in refusing to believe evidence after it was solidly established beyond a reasonable doubt. > > Sorry for the hijack, but I’m always rather cautious about claims that Chomsky supports various outrageously counterfactual or historically indefensible positions. I am definitely aware that Chomsky can be quite wrong about things, but there’s so much outright extreme misinformation about his views floating around on the internet that it’s sometimes hard to avoid stepping in it. [This](http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm) is an exhaustive a dissection of Chomksy’s denialism and support for the Khmer Rouge as you’re likely to find (it even includes links to other examinations/discussions of it elsewhere). It goes beyond merely that 1977 article…even long after the fall of Pol Pot, Chomsky went to some lengths to minimize the crimes of the regime (and to try and rewrite the history of his own comments). ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1140 "2015-05-29T13:13:04Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > So the secular voices in these societies are facing the cold steel of Islam’s machete. My majestic wordsmithery, couched in truth, renders me an Islamophobe, though it reflects this exact sentiment you claim is widely accepted. OK. Broad-brushing bullshit like “the cold steel of Islam’s machete” doesn’t at all reflect the exact sentiment Kimstu describes, and in fact is the very thing that renders you an Islamophobe. > [@](#): > > What is bullshit is when 500,000 people march to cheers of “death to the bloggers” and it is defused as a pocket of “radical-extremism.” Clearly, half a million people in an otherwise civilized society had nothing better to do than suddenly succumb to what is a minor, unimportant strain of violent Islamist extremism. Why am I not surprised that you uncritically accept the claims of the Islamists? Again, it seems that the Islamic extremists and the self-professed Islam haters are on the same side of things. Oh, and _your own article_ says that there’s a lot more to the “protest” than your bigoted distillation of “Muslims want to murder secular bloggers” - " the secularists claim the main goal of the march is to halt the war crime trials of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders". You know, just like I told you [three fucking weeks ago!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18360876&postcount=818) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=56) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=58)