US embassies attacked

[StefanAKASeTeK]

Irving is a charlatan. His research is only 'interesting' as an example of how those with no integrity but with a political axe to grind can try to rewrite history.

Having tried to deny the Holocaust for so long leaves him with as much credabilty as a historian as Katie Price. On second thoughts, far less.

 

[Irmak]

A charleton seems a bit heavy, even his opponent's recongnised his skill as a historian.

I have not read all his material nor watched all his lectures so I cannot comment on him in entirety.
His arguments - in terms of the Holocaust- have been that Hitler was not in the know about Aushwitz, rather as he challenged Deborah Lippstrad to do,

show a genuine document linking Adolf Hitler to Auschwitz-Birkenau (and yes I have been there before a smart alex comes along, and I dont mean Johno )

No one has yet taken his challenge. (From what I know, im more than willing to be corrected here)

His other main focus was that the gas chamber which you go into as a tourist - if that word can be used in this context- was constructed after WW2.

Raz
P.S For absolute clarity I am not defending David's Irving's views and I do not agree with some of the stuff he says, I find some of his research containing interesting points which people find difficult to argue about without going into character assignations.

P.S.S Im also a member of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

Raz

 

[slyder]

When I say what the Islamics do, I mean when you insult their religion you tend to get a very violent reaction.in other words they don't believe in the freedom of speech.....I do, so I don't agree with their reaction. However, I do think that if we cannot say anything that we want to say ( libel and slander are different because they are lies either written about someone or said about someone, and they are not criminal offences they are civil Torts )

So we are saying that we support some sort of suppression of free speech and will enforce it with criminal law.how is that different from Islamic thought?
( and you'll pardon me when I say this, I mean the type of Muslims who attack embassies etc, these are not particularly represntative of true Muslims)

 

[james_007_400101]

sigh ..

If I can ask you to refrain from using "True Muslims" its such an open ended phrase.

Even Proff Ramadan, acknowledges there is a big authority crisis in the Islamic world, its not the same set up as it is in the likes of Catholisim (I am not using this as a good example, more an example of a religion with a working hierarchy)

So yea, please dont say true Muslims, or you will have to go ahead and define what that is.

 

[loveegrace36]

The problem with free speech as you describe it is that it cuts both ways. It means the guy who wants to go on a tirade about something you care passionately about, can. From religion to abortion, the road has to open both ways and we all know many out there can't take that. So we put limits on things for the sake of public safety. Can you imagine for a moment how bloody society would be if people walked around saying whatever they wanted, when and where ever they wanted? There'd be rows in the streets!

There can be no such thing as total and absolute freedom for the simple fact that we can't handle it. Total and absolute freedom leads to anarchy simply because we cant be trusted to police ourselves.

It's unfortunate and yet very necessary.

 

[EdielS]

Well if Irving is a charlatan wouldn't it be better to defeat him in open debate?? rather than lock him up in a prison. Blair and bush were both wrong about weapons of mass destruction yet nobody put them in a prison.


One thing that I have never understood is if people are so sure that they are telling the truth why don't they just answer things in open debate, if they did that we wouldn't have all the conspiracey theories that we have today. No 9/11, no Dr.David Kelly etc.but by not answering these questions they seem to imply some dishonesty.

With the holocaust I never doubted until I saw this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8625543.stm

my immediate thought was why does a priest say this? what can he possibly gain from it?

The point that I am making is let us have a level playing field, if you can say things against Islam that muslims find offensive, why can't you say something offensive against Jews? i.e. deny the holocaust

 

[frankgreyy]

No I disagree the basis of our civilisation is freedom of speech,thought and movement I think we should still have that. We used to have it in my country.....and as to true Muslims....what I meant to say was Muslims who are representative of the general populace. There are many sects ans schisms in every religion be it christianity or even Buddhism

 

[von]

USED to. There's a reason societies move away from things. There are many things we SHOULD have, but it just takes a few idiots to make that impossible for the rest. We USED to have a lot of things until the weak minded and irresponsible forced that to change.

 

[JaneMarple]

Agreed, but I thought (apparently incorrectly) that we were speaking in a specific context. You know, Egypt and the USA. A group of Egyptians are messing with the US Embassy in Egypt because an American put the "wrong" video about Islam on the internet. And I added the Sudan by name, because self-proclaimed Moslems in those specific countries frequently kill and otherwise harm Christians. Going the other way, someone in the thread named a specific self-professed Christian pastor in the USA who likes to burn the Koran and otherwise preach against Islam.

That was my context. Over there is Egypt and the Sudan. Over here is Florida and the other States.



I totally believe you. In the same breath, however, it is they, not I and the rest of us armchair quarterbacks discussing it, who puts the label "Moslem/Islam" on their behavior, and it's they, not we, who make it a religious conflict. I completely agree that religion is not the root matter, but we can't ignore the packaging that they put around the issue.

 

[PamelaA]

Actually I think that's exactly what we need to do if we are going to do anything about it. We spend all of our time focusing on the packaging and very little on the root causes. This kind of violence occurs because of a massive number of factors and the religion of the aggressors is only one of them, yet that's where we focus the bulk of our attention.

 

[TorridM]

presumably that is why you have the patriot act and the national defence authorisation act

 

[sivart7555]

Out of the 1 billion or so Muslims, how many react violently? I am surprised that you just lumped the entire Muslim population into extremism.

 

[TinaVashniche]

He has been proven wrong time and time again - and the only place he was locked up for it was teh place where it illegal. And he knew that before he went there

So in other words your example fails at even the most cursory level



Because morons believe what they want to believe in spite of the evidence. If 99% is provable but 1% isn;t, then guess what the morons focus on?



Really? THAT cause you to question it? Clearly you have given this some REALLY serious thought then



You can - and you will be called on it; the difference is you won't be killed by over zealous tosspots or even dumber apologists

More to teh point someone COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO YOU won't be killed on your behalf

Seriously, just give up now because you are making yourself look pretty silly

 

[BennyBoy]

Out of all religions, which "generally","overall" "in most cases" , tends to take to the streets in protest, burning of effigies. Hunting down, stoning etc etc of individuals.

Again I am not saying all Muslim's are violent extremists, but go take the last 10 incidents of religious violent extremism which made the news and I will bet my bottom dollar the majority of them that made any news agency's headlines, are Muslim.

Edit: I mean come on, its not the Christians that are blowing up the Mosque's in Iraq,and Afghanistan acting on religious doctrine they hold to be true is it? No its alternate Muslim groups.

Raz

 

[Phenom93]

Those have nothing to do with freedom of speech as we've been discussing it, but we can topic hop if you want to.

A nation protecting itself is as old as the sling and stone my friend. These are just a few of its latest manifestations.

 

[russs]

It's what Southpaw said:



Middle East hasn't been stable for decades, except for some of the gulf countries, and you never see any violence there. The only case being Bahrain but that's because they're being severally oppressed at the moment. Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Jordan, Sudan, and a few more have been under extreme oppression for decades and only recently made progress towards democratic change.

 

[ANSHU]

The majority of those incidents took place in very poor countries. That they are muslim countries is a secondary factor.

They are poor, oppressed people with guns. They have no voice, so they act out violently. If they were Christian countries, it would be the same story with different packaging.

 

[jstar]

Ok Im home now ^_^


Clearly we have different scales of religious people and how commited they are to the literal translations, and in the center we have people who are really, really, down to their toes, committed to religious principles, you know like the Jews who were all the items suggested in the Torah,
these religious principles actually are different as you move from religion to religion. I mean, no matter how fanatical someone becomes as a Jain,
the core principle of which is peace they’re not going to fly an airplane into a building over their humiliation or grievances, because it would be repudiation of everything that they’ve organized their life around. Its against their fundemental beleifs.


And so it matters that at the core of Islam there are principles like martyrdom and Jihad. It really matters that Islam views itself as a religion that will be victorious in this world, politically and materially, there will be a true Islamification of the planet. That people will either convert or die, or
Christians and Jews will live as, it’s called Dhimi, (I think?) as some kind of apartheid situation where they bpay a protection tax, this is the view of moral order that you get from Islam. I it really is, it’s not
the crazy Al-Qaeda, “I just went to a training camp in Afghanistan Islam”, it is mainstream Islam.Another one of the problems I find and others have noted also, is that for a lot of understandable reasons and some for
really deplorable reasons, many Muslims, are playing hide the ball with the articles of faith, and are eager to have the conversations of the sort you have had from a very cynical and manipulative perspective.
We’re just going to keep having big families, and eventually it’s going to be Eurabia, and the war will be won.
There are people who really think in those terms, and they’re not necessarily just the people
in the center of the bull’s-eye of Islamic infatuation. I am not saying this is the true Islam as I have mentioned before its really hard to say who a true Muslim is.

They can be several cantos out, just the kind of people who would never blow themselves up, but who think it’s a good thing that some people will,and they don’t really care if they blow up non-combatants. They view Danish cartoonists drawing images of the prophet as a moral offense equivalent to dropping bombs on people or flying planes into buildings.

 

[dgkboy510]

Would it be fair to say, that Islam tends to thrive in areas like this then? And if this is the case, those who are preaching and tainting the easy influenced, are they teaching the "wrong Islam" ?



Raz

 

[BallSac]

I think the very nature of 'oppression' is something that a LOT of us have trouble understanding. We look at our governments and criticize the job they do but the truth is we have it pretty friggin sweet. Freedom of speech has been brought up. We have far more free speech in our countries than many other places can dream of. So I think, given that, its hard to understand the tension and hostility that can be bred in places and circumstances we cant imagine.