Why do liberals give positive discrimination to muslims?

Great Debates
#1

Liberalism is about liberty. Liberals should be advocating secularism and athiesim. I want to support a party that bans creationism, separates the church from politics, and doesn’t enforce school prayers.

Muslims have no place in liberalism. The religion is regressive and far-right conservative. It goes against so many liberal values that liberalism should treat Muslims like they were on the wrong side of the Republicans!

The liberal establishment should be more vocally critical of Muslims and even shun them. At the very least, liberals should do no more than tolerate Muslims.

#2

Liberalism in no way requires atheism, or even secularism. Neither does liberty. Your OP fall apart in its second sentence, and that’s before we even get to your blather about Muslims.

#3

Another central tenet of liberalism is equality. Most liberals feel that a person’s religious beliefs (including a lack of religious beliefs) shouldn’t be held against them. So it’s not positive discrimination in favor of Muslims; it’s opposition to discrimination against Muslims.

#4

Most liberals are Atheists. Few liberals are Christian, because they don’t believe in Christ’s message of values. Some of them are apologists to Islam and have been since 9/11. That’s just my opinion.

#5

It’s not so much support for Muslims as it is easily identifying examples of Republican extremism and xenophobia.

#6

And it is wrong, of course.

Two points:

The notion that most liberals are atheists is just dumb. There are millions of liberal Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and even Muslims.

The purpose of this forum is debate. If all you are going to do is post nonsense opinion without any evidence to support it, you should not be posting, here.

#7

And now I see that you are not.

#8

His posts meant exactly what he wanted them to mean. That’s glory (days) for you!

Anyway, I applaud the OP for his chosen degree of difficulty - vapid generalizations about Muslims and liberals. Bravo.
I’m personally a liberal (by American standards) who’s not fond of any religion, Islam being just one of them.

#9

Oh please. Are you saying liberalism shouldn’t separate religion from state, ban creationism, ban Christian lawzones, etc? It certainly isn’t something that the conservatives would achieve!

#10

It is not as simple.

Generally speaking no liberal does support the Muslims that are regressive and far-right conservative.

Now the recent issues though show IMHO why you may think Muslims get “positive discrimination” lets look at the Syrian Refugees and Iraqis and Afghans that helped Americans waiting for permission to come to the USA; I noticed a typical case that recently had a family from Syria move to Arizona, they came to the USA because they actually did accept democracy and wanted to make Syria more secular so they did protest against Asad in Syria during the Arab Spring.

Their home was destroyed in the bombings ordered by Asad, they did stay in a Syrian Refugee camp in Jordan for years, until they were given the chance to come to the USA.

They were lucky to come before the xenophobia was turned up to 11 by the conservatives. The point here is that there are Muslims that risked their lives for ideals that are precisely in the mold that you are demanding for, but they are being blocked by irrational fears, fueled by xenophobia too.

I think that guys like Trump and most Republicans are doing a really dangerous move that does affect our troops overseas by making very ignorant statements about not vetting properly the few refugees that the USA does accept.

Because IMHO many Iraqis and Afghans that risked their lives by giving support or even intelligence to the American troops are having their lives endangered thanks to delays that prevent them to come into the USA, thanks to the absolutism shown by the conservatives.

I do think that people of many nations that have sympathies for the USA and their ideals will think more than twice than to offer any help to Americans, or to oppose dangerous dictators, when they see how many that did risk their lives for democratic ideals are denied lifelines.

#11

Liberalism does separate government from religion, in the US by fundamental constitutional principle. But this was arguably established as much to protect religions from government interference as to preserve government independence from religious discrimination.

Apropos of which, hell no, liberalism has no business “banning creationism”. We should avoid all government endorsement of creationism, as we should for any other religious belief, and we should not allow it to be taught as science in schools for whose curricula we are in any way responsible. But if private individuals choose to espouse and teach creationist beliefs in their private lives, liberals should defend their right to do so. (Doesn’t mean we have to agree with them.)

What even is a “Christian lawzone”, anyway? As noted above, the US has constitutional separation of church and state, so we’re not allowed to have legislation promoting any specifically sectarian belief system. There are no (officially sanctioned) “Christian lawzones” or “Shari`a courts” or “Jewish courts”, etc., in the US. There are various faith communities which socially rely on their religious institutions to resolve conflicts, standardize customs, and so forth; but such decisions have no standing whatever in secular civil law.

#12

Freedom - you’re doing it wrong!

#13

If we are supposed to judge all Muslims by the actions of radical Islamists, by the same reasoning, shouldn’t we be judging all Christians by the actions of the Ku Klux Klan?

#14

But why would a religious person agree to any of those things? Why would the majority of Muslims agree with banning religion in schools/politics/etc? What party is going to support athiesim?

I’m generalizing because there’s only one liberal party, and because most liberal media outlets are at least sympathizing with Islam.

Liberalism, as a political party, should have secularism at it’s core, and even lean towards athiesim.

#15

The “liberal establishment” is in fact vehemently critical and pro-shunning towards Muslims who commit crimes and/or advocate violence and oppression. Muslims who are not like that, i.e., most Muslims, are to be not only tolerated but welcomed.

Which reminds me that I must go confirm with my (extremely nice) hijab-wearing Iranian Muslim co-worker the arrangements for my taking one of her shifts next week. Maybe I’ll bring her some of the cookies I baked, just to enjoy the contemplation of how much it will piss off Civilrighte that I’m treating a Muslim with more than mere “tolerance”. (And also because she likes my cookies, as who does not, if I say so myself. :))

#16

There is no need for any party to support atheism, beyond defending the fundamental freedom of any citizens of a secular state to be atheist if they so choose, just as they are free to embrace any other religious belief if they so choose.

Throughout the history of the US, most of the people supporting government secularism and the separation of church and state have been religious in one way or another, rather than atheists. It may surprise you to learn that most thoughtful religious people in a free society don’t want government to be run on religious principles, not even their own religious principles. Because they know very well that if a group with different religious principles achieved a majority at some point, they and their co-religionists could be in for some serious oppression.

Better for all concerned if we all defend one another’s right to believe whatever we want in private life and agree to keep government separate from religion in the public sphere.

#17

Do you have a cite that most Muslims do not advocate violence and oppression?

#18

Well, not a liberal party, obviously; the very idea is anathema to liberalism.

I think you want an atheist party.

Depends on what you mean by “secularism”, I think. If you mean it in the narrower sense of state secularism, the notion that the government should conduct its affairs without regard to questions of god, gods, the afterlife, supernatural realities, etc, then, yes. Liberals (and not just liberals) would generally advocate that.

But if you mean it in the broader sense that individuals, communities, etc should conduct their affairs without reference to questions of god etc then, no. A pretty core principle of liberalism is that individuals and communities get to decide for themselves how to conduct their affairs; telling them to do it this way or that way is absolutely not a proper function of government.

So, liberals generally think that the government should be secular, but that it has no business encouraging secularism (and still less atheism) in society generally.

#19

I think what you’re preaching is libertarianism. The idea that government should be small and stay out of private businesses.

Government should take an active role in social affairs, including things like feminism, LGBT rights, science, etc… And in most cases, this means going against religion. Liberal parties should not be able to pander to religious groups simply because most liberal thought cannot follow religious teachings.

Even if Islam is being shat on, that doesn’t mean liberals should intervene, because most Islamaphobia is a genuine fear of ultra-conservatives. In the same way most people dislike Christianity.

#20

I agree with the principle that some varieties of liberalism give a free pass to certain islamic practises which they shouldn’t. They equate saying that we should enforce western morality on islamic cultures as neocolonialism or imperialism.

I don’t agree with this, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed by many islamic countries and developing countries, we should hold all countries to it regardless of religion. The Islamic worlds attempt to create their own alternative morality, The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam is a bad joke. It legitimises inequality of women and brutal punishments for adultery or apostasy. IMO, western liberals should not accept any double standard of morality and the UNDHR should be the standard for all.