bsnyder said:
No, Drum attempted to mislead (and that's being charitable). According to the poll, 16% of Americans believe the U.S. Government orchestrated the attacks. But 36%, well over a third, believe they either orchestrated them, or they didn't stop them so they could go to war in the Middle East. Either one is still a conspiracy theory, with a suprising number of people subscribing to it, and one that points damningly to the Left.
How convenient for you - too bad you didn't address it to begin with. Perhaps when your meeting is over someone will have written something you can quote that actual addresses Harris's concerns. Kevin Drum certainly didn't. I'll be busy the rest of the day, but I look forward to seeing what your internet searches come up with.
Wow, I cant believe you are still denying the obvious. Are you really that dense? Lets map it out, as its perfectly clear. Drum attacks Harris for some sloppy reasoning, including harris claim that:
And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.
Harris provides not even passing support for this assertion, and there is none. As Drum argues, no one on the Left is making that argument. In fact, to the extent that anyone is arguing root causes/frustration, thats from the Right, as part of the polemical pretextual Transformation Agenda. Parenthetically, thats an internal tension in the Right does Islamism, for lack of a better word, arise from lack of democracy or inherent dogmatic deficiencies in Islam?
But as Drum notes, Harris gives away a bit of where he gets his window into te kliberal soul in te next paragraph, arguing:
At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode
So there you have it according to the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University, 16% of respondents believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode One immediate observation how does he know that those 16% are political liberals. The Right is far more into conspiracy theories, not the least of which is the VP, who still sees nefarious connections between otherwise unrelated actors. Myrjolie is all yours, and never has a loonier more unbalanced person held more sway with real power, in this case the VP.
More significantly, Drum notes that polling 16% of the public in a particular belief is hardly noteworthy. As he notes, the same poll also found that a far
higher percentage believe that the government is withholding evidence of the existence of intelligent life from other planets.
You claim that Drum is lying because, and I quote
According to the poll, 16% of Americans believe the U.S. Government orchestrated the attacks. But 36%, well over a third, believe they either orchestrated them, or they didn't stop them so they could go to war in the Middle East.
First, youre switching polls theres three questions at issue. But even that doesnt save you, because 38% believe that evidence of intelligent life is being withheld. Its all there you cant keep lying
But you lied about it twice. If anything, Drum understated his point. 16% of respondents believe it is at least somewhat likely that government agents planted explosives in the Twin Towers, while 77% deem it unlikely. In the case of the poll Harris relies upon, 16% believe it very likely that evidence of intelligent life is being withheld, and another 22% believe it somewhat likely. Its worse than I first posted. Sam Harris sees the fact that a combine 16% of the respondents believe the towers were blown as evidence of some deep liberal animus towards Bush but
over double that amount believe evidence of intelligent life is being withheld. Over double! And you lied about it TWICE, pretending Drum was wrong when you plainly are. Its right there you cant keep lying about it. (although Cheney can)
Now lets look at Harris supposedly unassailable treatise
TWO YEARS AGO I published a book highly critical of religion, "The End of Faith." In it, I argued that the world's major religions are genuinely incompatible, inevitably cause conflict and now prevent the emergence of a viable, global civilization. In response, I have received many thousands of letters and e-mails from priests, journalists, scientists, politicians, soldiers, rabbis, actors, aid workers, students from people young and old who occupy every point on the spectrum of belief and nonbelief.
This has offered me a special opportunity to see how people of all creeds and political persuasions react when religion is criticized. I am here to report that liberals and conservatives respond very differently to the notion that religion can be a direct cause of human conflict.
First you have to love this data point in support of his main conclusion letters in response to his general condemnation of all faiths. First, its unverifiable. Second, even if it were, it has no empirical significance, and thats presuming he read all of them and can accurately detect the political leaning of the author. Really, a truly stupid argument to start liberals respond differently - I know because of letters in response to my book. Youre right about one thing no way to refute that. I concede now that I am wholly incapable of refuting the content of letters sent to Mr. Harris. But I can counter it with evidence of equal probative significance. Last time I ate alphabet soup, the letters mysteriously formed Conservatives are wrong in my soup bowl. Disprove that!!! I too can be an LA Times Columnist and construct arguments that trollers find persuasive
Sam then again references the highly probative value of his letters and reveals that they reveal that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with. . .what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.
So now he is also comparing what devout Muslims believe they must write him too, since he seems wholly confident of what that is.
He then responds in truisms, stating, as a primary thesis we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy.
Well fair enough, but what exactly does that mean? Where do we bomb where do we invade? What do we do?
He then lapses into a nonsequiter, stating
Unfortunately, such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope. Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities.
The second sentence does not support the first. He says they are not fringe. OK. How many, what percentage? And on what do you base your conclusion? What, its based on numerous studies we know they are not a fringe because those on the fringe are educated. This is logic? Using his words, the most radicalized are educated. So what? That tells you nothing about how much of a threat they are, what their number is. Again, no thinking person finds this persuasive
His next point is Given the degree to which religious ideas are still sheltered from criticism in every society, it is actually possible for a person to have the economic and intellectual resources to build a nuclear bomb and to believe that he will get 72 virgins in paradise.
I think he is arguing that one can both be technically intelligent and deranged. True enough. But individuals dont construct nuclear bombs whole national programs do. And they tend not to govern on the 72 virgin principle.
And theres the straw man Drum took exception to - And yet, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, liberals continue to imagine that Muslim terrorism springs from economic despair, lack of education and American militarism.
He certainly slew that straw man with impunity. He then makes his same claim based upon the Scripps poll, which still makes no sense in light of his point that it says anything about political movements as opposed to the fact that about 15% of the population believes in conspiracy theories, whether her or in the Middle East.
Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization. There are books, films and conferences organized around this phantasmagoria, and they offer an unusually clear view of the debilitating dogma that lurks at the heart of liberalism: Western power is utterly malevolent, while the powerless people of the Earth can be counted on to embrace reason and tolerance, if only given sufficient economic opportunities.
Actually, the only political movement making this argument is the Right, albeit substituting political freedom for economic aid. Change the word economic to democratic and you have right wing agitprop.
I don't know how many more engineers and architects need to blow themselves up, fly planes into buildings or saw the heads off of journalists before this fantasy will dissipate.
Well, since Sam has never identified any liberal that harbors this fantasy that sufficient economic opportunities will solve the Islamic threat, not sure what value this has. As noted, it is only the Right these days that espouses that we need to solve the root causes, a point with some merit, but no t one that anyone that believes that Sam Harris makes sense can argue
The truth is that there is every reason to believe that a terrifying number of the world's Muslims now view all political and moral questions in terms of their affiliation with Islam.
Well if there is every reason, care to show a few? Certainly Islam seems to portent a more comprehensive political worldview that Christianity does as presently practiced (although that happy development is not due to Christian theology but to secular enlightenment in governance). But Sam has never shared the basis of his special insight in to the Muslim mind. He has with American liberals he knows what they think because of letters he receives. But unless he is the busiest pen pal around, hard to say what the basis is of his special knowledge. I know Amy Wellborn posted many links showing that Muslim fur might not be as widespread as we are happily believing
But here is his thesis
This leads them to rally to the cause of other Muslims no matter how sociopathic their behavior. This benighted religious solidarity may be the greatest problem facing civilization and yet it is regularly misconstrued, ignored or obfuscated by liberals.
Those Muslims theyre just into such solidarity. Even if the fringes are fringe, everyone supports them.
Sure, we see that. Look at the unity in Iraq between Shia and Sunni, the unified support for Iran from Saudi Arabia. Its there everyone can see it
Recent condemnations of the Bush administration's use of the phrase "Islamic fascism" are a case in point. There is no question that the phrase is imprecise Islamists are not technically fascists, and the term ignores a variety of schisms that exist even among Islamists but it is by no means an example of wartime propaganda, as has been repeatedly alleged by liberals.
Well Spencer Ackerman shows why the term is damaging at
http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=32929
The people it infuriates aren't primitive. They're the moderate, pro-American, well-integrated Muslims who form one of the greatest bulwarks against Al Qaeda that the U.S. possesses, and they see the term as draining their Americanness away.
Yep, thats right the same domestic Muslims who have not been radicalized find it offensive, and I would too if I were Muslim
In their analyses of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, liberals can be relied on to overlook the most basic moral distinctions. For instance, they ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder noncombatants, while we and the Israelis (as a rule) seek to avoid doing so. Muslims routinely use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause; the political discourse throughout much of the Muslim world, especially with respect to Jews, is explicitly and unabashedly genocidal.
He actually flips the argument here. I dont know any significant amount of liberals who claim pure equivalency with the worst of those we fight. But the Right flips that, especially in the torture debate and the use of force debate against civilians, to the argument that anything that is not as bad as the worse of our enemies is OK. So we torture indiscriminately Sadaam was worse. A speaking of the most basic more distinctions torture and due discrimination against killing civilians are about the highest, and no Administration in recent memory to erode this nations moral authorities, built over decades. Ask Colin Powell.
Given these distinctions, there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground in their conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. And yet liberals in the United States and Europe often speak as though the truth were otherwise.
Ill concede he has a small point here many liberals are viscerally anti-Israel in ways I dont understand. But in the last dustup I found myself unable to fully support Israel due to some of their seemingly cavalier treatment of noncombatants
We are entering an age of unchecked nuclear proliferation and, it seems likely, nuclear terrorism. There is, therefore, no future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors for us. Unless liberals realize that there are tens of millions of people in the Muslim world who are far scarier than Dick Cheney, they will be unable to protect civilization from its genuine enemies.
So now he has a number tens of millions he is a busy pen pal! But again, what exactly does that mean do we preemptively attack all Muslims to make sure we get the tens of millions? I agree that nuclear proliferation is upon us, and I wish it were not so, but Im not certain its avoidable. And that is a key difference Bush-types seem to believe that any undesirable development in the world can be avoided with sufficient resolve. It is a matter of will, and force, and we will have no rivals, no enemies, to quote the hold working paper - take them out now. Louis/Kendra/Angie/Andy loves to claim the mantle of history, but it is those that make the ridiculous claim that the world is ours to mold via destructive shaping. That was silly claim before, but is preposterous now. Hasnt the debacle that is Iraq shown that we cannot remake the world to our liking?
And talk about the most basic moral distinctions, whatever happened to the presumption against war, that it should be a last report. During the debate in the runup to Iraq, Krauthammer or someone like him actually argued that the Democrats had not come up with any good reason NOT to go to war!! Thats perverse, and evil. War should be a last resort, and should only be undertaken if we truly believe it will make things better, understanding that conflict always releases unforeseen forces. Iraq is the paradigmatic example.
But even if we determine it necessary to go to war against Iran or Islam in general, or whatever yall actually need to release the need, the simple fact remains that we have demonstrably incompetent leadership in place. So war must be unavoidable to be justified, because we know that this crew will screw it up. I know, I know, thats Bush hatred, which is kind of like arguing that criticism of the Bucs start this season is irrational Simms hated. Bush has been the Chris Simms of CinCs so far, except he has the talent edge. Simms has throw 6 interceptions in two games in which we have scored three points, but hey, anyone who thinks him ineffective must be filled with Simms hatred. And its even worse. While Chris may have confidence problems, George is the opposite- he is the quarterback who is 0-2 with 6 interceptions but thinks he is doing great and should change nothing
Increasingly, Americans will come to believe that the only people hard-headed enough to fight the religious lunatics of the Muslim world are the religious lunatics of the West.
Yes, and we were the only people hard headed enough to believe Iraq had to be invaded. And we knew the world would follow. There is no doubt we see threats that others do not. And 16% of people believe the towers were blown.
Thats enough on Sam. His points were stupid, which is obviously why they appeal to the stupid
ready for that!
