# 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:** 58
**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, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1141 "2015-05-29T17:19:51Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > > [@Kimstu](#): > > > > […] 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. No, the secular voices in these societies are “facing the cold steel” of _ **radical-extremist theocratic political Islam’s** _ “machete”. This is a fucking textbook example of what I rightly described earlier as _“your sloppy/ignorant/stupid/bigoted inability to use accurate terminology for what you’re talking about.”_ There is no rational reason that any sensible person would be unwilling to use accurate descriptors instead of inaccurate generalizations, unless they were trying to exploit the inaccurate generalizations for their bigoted subtext. As I noted earlier: > [@Kimstu](#): > > If, after all this time and discussion, you can’t figure out how to complain about oppressive radical-extremist Islamist fundamentalism without just calling it “Islam”, then you are either too dumb to be in a conversation with rational grownups or else you’ve got an agenda of your own. [QUOTE=Stringbean] My majestic wordsmithery, couched in truth, renders me an Islamophobe, though it reflects this exact sentiment you claim is widely accepted. [/quote] No, what you modestly describe as your “majestic wordsmithery” (which mostly seems to consist of a fondness for repeating the phrase “cold steel of Islam’s machete”) is couched in **deliberate malicious inaccuracy**. _That’s_ what renders you an Islamophobe. > [@Stringbean](#): > > 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. Nobody is suggesting that a strain of violent Islamist extremism in Bangladesh or anywhere else is in any way “minor” or “unimportant”. What we are trying to help you understand, despite your persistent and deliberate obtuseness, is merely the simple and (I would have thought) self-evident fact that _ **strains of violent Islamist extremism are NOT the same thing as “Islam” per se or Muslims as a whole** _. > [@Stringbean](#): > > Talk about sloppy. Why yes, as long as you keep being so inexcusably and maliciously sloppy in your choice of language, I’m going to keep talking about 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, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1142 "2015-05-29T17:22:29Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > [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). Thanks **A’isha**! ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1143 "2015-05-29T17:41:28Z")
I think there’s a certain personality type that finds great delight in being the harbinger of dangers that are being ignored. The same type of guy–and in some cases the same guy–who said there were Soviets inside every labor union is now saying there are terrorists inside every mosque. Forty thousand years ago he was probably saying there was a snake inside every rocky outcropping. You see it in Pamela Gellar very acutely. She has a distinctly paranoid style that bleeds over into everything. You could easily imagine her chairing the HUAC hearings. ---
**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, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1144 "2015-05-29T18:03:59Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I think there’s a certain personality type that finds great delight in being the harbinger of dangers that are being ignored. The same type of guy–and in some cases the same guy–who said there were Soviets inside every labor union is now saying there are terrorists inside every mosque. Forty thousand years ago he was probably saying there was a snake inside every rocky outcropping. > > You see it in Pamela Gellar very acutely. She has a distinctly paranoid style that bleeds over into everything. You could easily imagine her chairing the HUAC hearings. What a strange analogy for you to choose. For the whole Cold War, the left insisted that Communism was both no big deal and a ginned-up threat. The idea that the U.S. had gone on a “witch hunt” against imaginary enemies became dogma. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the release of their records showed that they had indeed riddled American institutions with spies from top to bottom, who were taking orders from Moscow with the singular goal of overthrowing American democracy and replacing it with a Moscow-controlled totalitarian state. The horrors of Communism in Europe were well-documented by defectors and the new records. It turned out that the leftists were wrong about both the horrors of the ideology and the presence of hundreds of thousands of infiltrators. _This_ is what you choose to compare the current leftist support of Islam to? ---
**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, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1145 "2015-05-29T18:11:34Z")
The Geller vs. WMATA fight has ended with Metro deciding to stop taking any political advertising to avoid the slam-dunk free speech suit. > **[‘\[W\]e know what happens when you criticize Muhammad, we know how some people...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/29/we-know-what-happens-when-you-criticize-muhammad-we-know-how-some-people-react-to-that/)** > > The Washington transit system stops accepting all issue ads, just to avoid taking an ad containing a picture of Muhammad. The people quoted in the article openly admit that this is a policy of cowing to murder threats. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1146 "2015-05-29T18:12:53Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > What a strange analogy for you to choose. > > For the whole Cold War, the left insisted that Communism was both no big deal and a ginned-up threat. The idea that the U.S. had gone on a “witch hunt” against imaginary enemies became dogma. > > After the fall of the Soviet Union, the release of their records showed that they had indeed riddled American institutions with spies from top to bottom, who were taking orders from Moscow with the singular goal of overthrowing American democracy and replacing it with a Moscow-controlled totalitarian state. The horrors of Communism in Europe were well-documented by defectors and the new records. It turned out that the leftists were wrong about both the horrors of the ideology and the presence of hundreds of thousands of infiltrators. > > _This_ is what you choose to compare the current leftist support of Islam to? You tell such great stories. ---
**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, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1147 "2015-05-29T18:16:58Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I think there’s a certain personality type that finds great delight in being the harbinger of dangers that are being ignored. The same type of guy–and in some cases the same guy–who said there were Soviets inside every labor union is now saying there are terrorists inside every mosque. This is something beyond common-or-garden paranoia, though. That could at least be addressed rationally. After all, there **are** a significant number of evil-intentioned people active in Muslim religious and political cultures worldwide, and it’s indisputable that many of them are seeking to destroy and/or take control of anyone who disagrees with them. (Just as there actually **were** some Communist agitators and spies in the US in the early/mid-20th century, although not nearly as many as the anticommies claimed.) [ETA: See **Haberdash** ’s post above.] So it is at least theoretically possible that there **could** be at least **some** terrorists inside every mosque. It’s highly unlikely, but a rational discussion could be had about specific evidence for and against that hypothesis, how one might quantify a “terrorism probability” level, how to identify specific threats or threat indicators, etc. Paranoia of that sort, however divorced from reality it may be, at least is about making empirical claims that can be empirically analyzed and tested. But **Stringbean** ’s and **Haberdash** ’s sick little schtick goes way beyond that. The claim they’re peddling is that _ **EVERYBODY inside a mosque must be either a terrorist or not “really” a “true” Muslim** _. They’re not interested in identifying or denouncing actual, specific problems and dangers. What they want is to wallow in the gratification of hating an entire religion as something **intrinsically** and **essentially** evil, and thus inevitably poisoning everything it touches. That’s not just paranoia. That’s the old rhetoric of Chrysostom’s _“Jews are dwellers in the realm of the demonic, hated of the Lord”_ remodeled and repurposed for the modern “civilized” world of secular bigotry. ---
**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, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1148 "2015-05-29T18:17:25Z")
Tell me more about how great Communism is. It’ll really help disprove the assumption that the left instinctively sides with anyone who wants to destroy the U.S. at a given moment. ---
**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, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1149 "2015-05-29T18:28:15Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Tell me more about how great Communism is. Who here is saying anything at all about Communism being “great”? Honestly, **Haberdash** , it often seems like you just can’t read at an adult-proficiency level. You manage to pick out a word here or there in somebody’s post, and you try to guess from that what they might actually be saying. ---
**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, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1150 "2015-05-29T18:44:03Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I want to state for the record that I am not, in fact, Noam Chomsky. You know I can’t trust a word you say now, you Islam-appeasing son of a bitch. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1151 "2015-05-29T19:03:08Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > What a strange analogy for you to choose. > > For the whole Cold War, the left insisted that Communism was both no big deal and a ginned-up threat. The idea that the U.S. had gone on a “witch hunt” against imaginary enemies became dogma. > > After the fall of the Soviet Union, the release of their records showed that they had indeed riddled American institutions with spies from top to bottom, who were taking orders from Moscow with the singular goal of overthrowing American democracy and replacing it with a Moscow-controlled totalitarian state. The horrors of Communism in Europe were well-documented by defectors and the new records. It turned out that the leftists were wrong about both the horrors of the ideology and the presence of hundreds of thousands of infiltrators. > > _This_ is what you choose to compare the current leftist support of Islam to? I am well aware of what was revealed in the Soviet documents, and that many Conservatives of the Ann Coulter persuasion believe that Joseph McCarthy is an American Hero. You probably read her book, but haven’t bothered to read the actual historians who worked on this issue in the early 90s. If you had, you’d know that they did not find that there were “hundreds of thousands of infiltrators” or that the tens of thousands of lives that McCarthy ruined had any overlap with the actual infiltrators. > [@Kimstu](#): > > This is something beyond common-or-garden paranoia, though. That could at least be addressed rationally. After all, there **are** a significant number of evil-intentioned people active in Muslim religious and political cultures worldwide, and it’s indisputable that many of them are seeking to destroy and/or take control of anyone who disagrees with them. (Just as there actually **were** some Communist agitators and spies in the US in the early/mid-20th century, although not nearly as many as the anticommies claimed.) [ETA: See **Haberdash** ’s post above.] Right. Just as there really are dangerous snakes in some rocky outcroppings. It is the scale of the exaggeration and overreaction that distinguishes the paranoids from the normals, IMO. They probably believe that every member of CPUSA was a soviet spy. You’re right that they go beyond this in their view of Islam as inherently evil. Just noting a parallel in personality types that 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, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1152 "2015-05-29T19:15:31Z")
Keep in mind that Geller was targeted by an assassination squad that had to be killed by police to be stopped, _less than a month ago_. She has many character flaws, but paranoia isn’t one of them. The comparison to Communism is indeed apt – a large group of people that want to destroy freedom and modernity are being cheered on by the American left, who insists that anyone who pushes back is “paranoid.” ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1153 "2015-05-29T19:15:39Z")
I’m really kind of impressed that “hundreds of thousands” of infiltrators were supposely working tirelessly for decades to overthrow the US government and yet seem to have accomplished…absolutely nothing. I mean, I assume most of these infiltrators must have been Americans, and I’ve always been told that Americans can do anything they set their minds to. I can only hope **Haberdash** comes back to enlighten us on how all this was supposed to work. Yeah, it’s a hijack, so feel free to start a new thread if need be. ---
**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, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1154 "2015-05-29T19:17:02Z")
I’m not going to debate whether the left got Communism wrong for decades and was proven to be utterly bamboozled (if not actively conspiring with a malevolent foreign power) when the truth came out. Facts aren’t subject to debate. If you would like to distance yourself from all the implications of “the left’s love affair with Islam in 2015 is just like its embrace of Communism in 1955” feel free to do so. ---
**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, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1155 "2015-05-29T19:23:04Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > a large group of people that want to destroy freedom and modernity are being cheered on by the American left Except that nobody on the American left is in any way “cheering on” radical-Islamist terrorism and oppression. Looks like your reading-comprehension problems extend well beyond the posts in this 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, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1156 "2015-05-29T19:43:24Z")
> [@Haberdash](#): > > Keep in mind that Geller was targeted by an assassination squad that had to be killed by police to be stopped, _less than a month ago_. It wasn’t an “assassination squad”, it was two jackasses (one of them already being watched by authorities) who had to travel two states to carry out their attack because the half-million local Muslims in Texas didn’t give a fuck about her and her contest. > [@](#): > > She has many character flaws, but paranoia isn’t one of them. No, when you think that fucking _Butterball_ is carrying out a “stealth jihad” in America via Thanksgiving turkeys, you most definitely have a severe paranoid flaw. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1157 "2015-05-29T19:53:55Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > No, when you think that fucking _Butterball_ is carrying out a “stealth jihad” in America via Thanksgiving turkeys, you most definitely have a severe paranoid flaw. Well has anybody, and I mean anybody seen a Butterball pig’s head ? And has anyone consumed a Butterball pig’s head for Thanksgiving ? That says _volumes_. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1158 "2015-05-29T19:55:22Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Who here is saying anything at all about Communism being “great”? > > Honestly, **Haberdash** , it often seems like you just can’t read at an adult-proficiency level. You manage to pick out a word here or there in somebody’s post, and you try to guess from that what they might actually be saying. He’s either really, really stupid; or a teenager. Hopefully the latter, in which case there’s a chance of him looking back on this thread in a decade and cringing in shame at the nonsense he peddled. ---
**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, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1159 "2015-05-29T20:01:23Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Well has anybody, and I mean anybody seen a Butterball pig’s head ? And has anyone consumed a Butterball pig’s head for Thanksgiving ? > > That says _volumes_. > > 😛 You can in fact get [pork products from a Butterball-owned company](http://gustopack.com/products/). Not sure if they do heads, though. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/1160 "2015-05-29T20:33:45Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Well has anybody, and I mean anybody seen a Butterball pig’s head ? And has anyone consumed a Butterball pig’s head for Thanksgiving ? > > That says _volumes_. > > 😛 Well, people don’t exactly eat turkey heads either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=57) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=59)