I need help with possible racism in the Headscarves thread

[iron81]

Headscarves thread

I need your guy's help with this thread. This thread was initially about the customs of Muslims and one cleric's statement that women who don't cover their faces are asking to be raped. I was a little queasy about a later allegation by BluffTHIS that there was currently a spree of rapes being committed by Muslims in Europe without very much support. I was willing to give Bluff the benefit of the doubt because he is a respected strat and Politics poster. But now there is an allegation that a blog linked by Bluff is a neo-Nazi blog.

It obviously sickens me that something like this could happen on my watch and I couldn't catch it sooner. Bottom line, I need your help. I am inclined to give Bluff a nice long temp ban for linking that website and generally making posts designed to inspire hatred by making baseless allegations about Muslims going on a raping spree. This is exactly the kind of thing that pissed Mason off and led to the Politics forum shutdown. Search Mason's posts in ATF and Politics for more on this.

I'm asking basically for two things:

1. Read the thread, particularly Bluff's posts to see whether any of them were designed to forment hatred. Keep in mind that it is a common tactic among racists to make wild allegations among those of an ethnic minority to put them in a bad light. A pretty good case for this was laid out by Mickey Brauch.

2. Whether the linked blog was in fact a neo-nazi blog. It looked to me like it made the same kind of wild allegation, but I haven't studied it thoroughly yet. Mickey was the one who identified this blog as a neo-Nazi blog and he was likely one of the few who read it. I haven't gotten very far into it but it looks like the charge has merit.

Thoughts?

[MEbenhoe]

This definitely is not ban-worthy.

I didn't see anything in the blog that made me immediately assume it was a Neo-Nazi blog, and even if it is, I don't see how there is a problem with him posting a link to an article on it for discussion given that he posted the disclaimers "I don't usually post blogs as sources since they are mostly unreliable and can't be verified" and "It is clearly anti-Islam".

Finally, are you really going to try to ban a poster because he started a thread with an agenda against muslim extremists? Almost every thread in the politics is started with an agenda behind it, whether they're designed to be against muslim extremists, catholic extremists, democrats, or republicans.

Here's a couple examples for you:

Link1
Link2
Link3

If you wanna regulate against this type of stuff eventually you're just going to end up banning everyone who posts in the politics forum........hmmm thats actually not a bad idea, go crazy.

[iron81]

No, I'm not going to start banning people who make OP's with an agenda, especially because one of the OPs you linked was mine. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] I thought that Bluff's OP was fine. My concern was his posts later on.

I agree that the disclaimer should weigh on the decision, but I don't think that can excuse it. Bluff has posted before that people should be banned for taking extreme positions and quickly backing away from them, calling it "intellectual dishonesty". (a phrase you should become familiar with if you care about Politics forum modding) I PMed Mickey to ask why he thought the blog was a neo-Nazi blog. If he knows something about the history of that blog that should weigh here as well.

Also, I want to address your dig at the Politics forum. We really do have an interesting environment over there. Its a lot cleaner than many other forums here and we run a tight ship with a lot of good, thoughtful contributors. If I weren't proud of it, I would probably change my avatar.

[*TT*]

The blog is bigoted using ultra-right wing politics as a cover, but I don't think its a neo-nazi blog. Sadly the anti-Muslim movement is quite old now in Europe, Americans are just catching on to a wave of hate that has been occurring in parts of Europe for the past decade. In some ways the hatred for Americans in some Muslim communities stems from their personal experience with Europe, we have inherited their cultural war where Muslims have become the Jews on the 1940's - a scapegoat.

However i would classify some blogs that have covered Fjordman's writings as borderline neo-nazi. For example http://viking-observer.blogspot.com/ really shocked me with it's neo-right wing coverage.

Its sad that BluffTHIS doesn't see the relationship, but I don't think this is banworthy. I do however see this as a place where truth must prevail, let 2+2'ers know that the source he is quoting is an ultra-right wing blogger whose opinions should not be perceived as fact.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
let 2+2'ers know that the source he is quoting is an ultra-right wing blogger whose opinions should not be perceived as fact.


[/ QUOTE ]

Agree. You could let it back in, but give that link a clear context.


Leaving it here is also reasonable.

[iron81]

Anyone like moving it back with the links deleted and my own long diatribe about racism and the accuracy of Bluff's claims?

In response to *TT*, I don't think the issue is whether the blog is a neo-Nazi blog, but rather whether it is designed to forment hatred.

[*TT*]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone like moving it back with the links deleted and my own long diatribe about racism and the accuracy of Bluff's claims?

In response to *TT*, I don't think the issue is whether the blog is a neo-Nazi blog, but rather whether it is designed to forment hatred.

[/ QUOTE ]

Leave the links. Education is the best offense against ignorance. I read that guys blog this morning, I have to give him credit... he is very convincing but I don't buy it. He reminds me on my cousin, an ultra right wing Jewish doctor who has been living in Israel part time funding an underground war against the Palestinians using propaganda to encourage Israelis to uprise - start militias and overthrow Hammas. He lives in a world of distorted truth, its very sad.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[citanul]

quick comment,

bluffthis as a respected strategy poster = lol. at least 75% of his posts hardly rise above trolling these days at least.

c

[iron81]

It sounds like you guys are ok with the thread, so let's move it back to Politics unless someone else disagrees. I'll post my thoughts on the links once it is unlocked. Thanks everyone.

Also, Bluff this just PMed me this explanation for his posts:
_________

OK, then post the following in the mod forum:

That blog is not one I regularly read, and I only found it awhile back when researching this thing. I labeled it "anti-Islam" because it does seem to cover them a lot and obviously not positively, but from the little I read there it didn't seem overly hateful. The only reason I even linked to that blog was because of its links to primary news sources, but which being in Scandinavian languages which I don't read, didn't seem right to link to same directly when I can't even say for sure what they say. The only way to get a synopsis of those stories was through that blog. And as far as it being "neo-Nazi", it contained a link to one of those Danish newspaper stories that made a negative reference regarding a Danish neo-Nazi leader whom it compared to the Islamic cleric in question, hardly what a neo-Nazi blog would do, and which shows that it was Mickey/Cyrus who once again is using intellectually dishonest arguments.

Also in that same last post in that thread, I did give excerpts from a Danish newspaper, including one favorable to some Moslems in that they both recognize the immigrant rape/crime problem, and also try to teach Islam doesn't really teach that is OK.

However it seems indisputably clear that many Moslem clerics do teach that women without headscarves deserve to be raped, and it is there own words that comdemn them.

As to my intent in making that thread, it is to point out what I have often said before regarding Islamic extremism. And that is first that such attitudes are much more prevalent than moderate Moslems and their liberal western apologists assert, and in the Mid-east at least are the majority view, and secondly that even if those views aren't a majority view, the abject failure of so-called moderate Moslems to speak up and fight those extremist views in their own religion effectively make the extremist views the de facto majority one that non-Moslems have to deal with.

While Mickey/Cyrus who previously was banned, and maybe you and some others don't like these things and what they say about Islam, including the Koran's own such extremist passages, then that doesn't change the fact that such are true. It might not be "politically correct" to label a religion extremist and expose their views on rape, but the truth is the truth, and Cyrus did not debunk it. I am sorry if you are unable now as in the past, to see through his rhetorical BS, although Mason has.

And as far as the rape spree thing, note the difference between a group of criminals who might be from a minority group that is overrepresented in crime statistics but who don't claim a right or religious justification to commit such crimes, and one that does. The second is far more dangerous and deserves to be exposed.

This situation is very different from the controversy over the links to Jews painting messages on bombs, as I gave multiple sources showing more than one Islamic cleric making assertions that womean "ask for it", and then Scandinavian press stories showing that there is a statistical proof of lots of Moslem immigrant rapists who then fall back on that religious justification, whether honestly or just as an excuse.

Finally, if it is thought that the blog in question shouldn't be linked to, then fine delete that link from my last post. But the rest of it was news sources. And if some don't like the inferences others draw from outrageous statements and actions by Islamic extremists, then they should condemn them totally instead of trying to excuse them by saying other religions (like hundreds of years ago compared to now with Islam) did the same thing, or that such people are just a minority in Islam when they can't prove same.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
It sounds like you guys are ok with the thread, so let's move it back to Politics. I'll post my thoughts on the links once it is unlocked. Thanks everyone.

[/ QUOTE ]


just keep it brief and businesslike, I'd suggest. And don't get into an argument over it subsequently, just say what you gotta and leave it, unless you definitely, absolutely, positively MUST follow up.