Pat Condell

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

Redux - if you think Sharia Law only applies in civil matters, then you haven't spent much time in Southwest Asia. I guess the court ordered public gang rapes will be a big hit in the UK.

As barbaric as I think some components of Sharia law may be, what I said was that in western countries, Sharia law has no legal authority if it crosses the line to criminal acts. Sharia law would not be accepted as a defense of gang rape in a court of law in the UK.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I was slightly irritated by his asertions that we've had Muslims refusing to do various bits of their jobs because of their 'precious faith'. We have also had Christians refusing to do various things because of their faith; and also insisting on doing inappropriate things because of their faith.

Pat's no fan of Christians either.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

A Sikh can hide a weapon in a turban. Orthodox Jews...probably not so much under a yarmulke, but a small vial of a deadly chemical?

It is very easy - the law is based upon hiding ones face - period. That has been done repeatedly. Not anymore - Good for them.

This is akin to wearing a mask while going into a bank - what reaction does that person get?

Originally Posted by classicman

It is very easy - the law is based upon hiding ones face - period. That has been done repeatedly. Not anymore - Good for them.

This is akin to wearing a mask while going into a bank - what reaction does that person get?

Why is covering one's face more dangerous than the capacity to hide something under a turban?

In fact, it is probably easier for a man to hide a weapon under a turban than a woman to hide a weapon under a veil.

The first amendment to the Constitution- Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof... - is there to ensure that it is not easy. And there is a reason why it is the first amendment

[Undertoad]

On another note, the whole English with English subtitles thing is amateurish. It reminds me that I could be reading this rant, as opposed to waiting for him to read it on video.

[xoxoxoBruce]

They say things like: we're second class citizens in our own country (we aren't). Moslems get what they want because they make a fuss (they don't, no more than any other group). We can't even have Christmas decorations up in Bradford anymore because it might 'offend' the moslems (bollocks. I know this to be untrue. They still have the decorations every Christmas). If you're asian you can just walk into the benefits office and they'll sort you out straight away, but if you're white they ignore you (complete crap). Asians get given massive houses for their extended families, that they bring over (nonsense; they're just as likely to be housed in inappriately small houses as anyone else). And a bunch of other stuff about how we bend over backwards to accomodate moslems (we fucking well don't).

I didn't hear him say any of those things. You're not reading between the lines, you're inserting whole paragraphs between the lines... paragraphs he didn't say.

I think you're missing his point, Dana. What I get from it, is that the radical Islamics, with the money and power, are pushing into Europe, especially Britain, to make sure the everyday Muslims don't escape their grasp.
The radicals are afraid the everyday Muslims might assimilate, become infected with the British/European concepts of women's rights, and the rights of Christians/Jews/Atheists to do their own thing, rather than submitting to the Clerics edicts.
This is not an attack of your friends, who are just trying to make a living and get by day to day. It's an objection to the radicals with the big bucks, making demands that the Clerics must control society, in every country.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

Redux - if you think Sharia Law only applies in civil matters, then you haven't spent much time in Southwest Asia. I guess the court ordered public gang rapes will be a big hit in the UK.

As I think I have already said: Sharia law is misogynistic and founded on a deeply troubling interpretation of an outdated religious text. When it is given the force of law, it has the power to be lethal. Thast's not what is being discussed for the UK, nor is it the whole of Sharia that is vile.

In some moslem countries, where Sharia courts provide a similar function to that which is proposed here, but where theyhave no legal right to impose punishments (in other words where they are simply used to arbitrate in civil and domestic matters) they are also the ones, for example, insisting that an absent father properly provide for his abandoned wife and children. What happens in the rural communities of a theocracy is somewhat distinct from what happens in a metropolitan city in a democracy. It is no more appropriate to use a wide brush with Islam as it is with Christianity. How Sharia manifests itself wiothin different societies is as much to do with the cultural distinctions between said societies as it is anything else.

The idea that this is some slippery slope by which we in the UK will somehow begin to allow rape and flogging as appropriate punishments within any community is, frankly, ridiculous. I understand you've seen some appalling things, Sarge, but your experience of 'the moslem world' is in fact an experience of particular cultures. Not all Islamic cultures are the same. Not all interpretations of Sharia are the same. And no religion or sect is ever going to be able to place their own laws above the laws of the land in Britain. There is no parity.

What there is, is an acceptance, by some, that it is innapropriate for a secular/Christian culture to arbitrate in matters which are for many moslems deeply faith-based. It is also a recognition, by some, that there is cuirrently a great disparity between the religious freedoms and levels of acceptance shown to some faiths and those of other faiths.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I didn't hear him say any of those things. You're not reading between the lines, you're inserting whole paragraphs between the lines... paragraphs he didn't say.

I think you're missing his point, Dana. What I get from it, is that the radical Islamics, with the money and power, are pushing into Europe, especially Britain, to make sure the everyday Muslims don't escape their grasp.
The radicals are afraid the everyday Muslims might assimilate, become infected with the British/European concepts of women's rights, and the rights of Christians/Jews/Atheists to do their own thing, rather than submitting to the Clerics edicts.
This is not an attack of your friends, who are just trying to make a living and get by day to day. It's an objection to the radicals with the big bucks, making demands that the Clerics must control society, in every country.

The key phrase, Bruce, is when he calls Ken Livingston the 'Mad Mullah of multiculturalism'. In other words, multiculturalism is a failed experiment. It is a common enough argument and these are common enough tropes within the British polity at the moment, that i recognise the code words. You may not.

[xoxoxoBruce]

No, what you're doing is taking that "key phrase", and promptly throwing out his entire 6 minute dissertation, then making up your own scenario about what he's saying and why. Yeah, yeah, I know... I don't see the big picture because i don't live there. Well, that's right, I'm working with what he says, without preconceived notions, as to his purpose and agenda.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I didn't hear him say any of those things. You're not reading between the lines, you're inserting whole paragraphs between the lines... paragraphs he didn't say.

I think you're missing his point, Dana. What I get from it, is that the radical Islamics, with the money and power, are pushing into Europe, especially Britain, to make sure the everyday Muslims don't escape their grasp.
The radicals are afraid the everyday Muslims might assimilate, become infected with the British/European concepts of women's rights, and the rights of Christians/Jews/Atheists to do their own thing, rather than submitting to the Clerics edicts.
This is not an attack of your friends, who are just trying to make a living and get by day to day. It's an objection to the radicals with the big bucks, making demands that the Clerics must control society, in every country.

Originally Posted by DanaC

The key phrase, Bruce, is when he calls Ken Livingston the 'Mad Mullah of multiculturalism'. In other words, multiculturalism is a failed experiment. It is a common enough argument and these are common enough tropes within the British polity at the moment, that i recognise the code words. You may not.

I guess you could say so and keep the political machinations of radical Islams in your peripheral vision. Some realities are just too horrible to look square in the face. I get that even if I don't get British code either.

[DanaC]

I understand he has a problem with religion as a whole. So do I. But...to stand against 'multiculturalism' is to stand with the right in Britain. It is the Big Issue. There is a huge amount of scaremongering around Islam, and this just feeds straight into it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

But but but, what he's saying in the video...

[Undertoad]

Peaceful adherents requesting the respect of their adopted land:



Scaremongering rightist rabble rouser:



We get it. The cardigan is a dead giveaway.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I understand he has a problem with religion as a whole. So do I. But...to stand against 'multiculturalism' is to stand with the right in Britain. It is the Big Issue. There is a huge amount of scaremongering around Islam, and this just feeds straight into it.

The 'British Humanist Association' is the second link on Pat Condell's web page. I am not sure why it would be there if he was against multiculturalism.

The statement by a human rights advocate reads;
"Rights, equality and respect are for people not religions or beliefs." by Maryam Namazie

I guess this is the official position?


[edit- UT you're post made mine moot I think- What a starkly visual photo essay!]

[DanaC]

What I object to isn;t what he says about radical Islam. I totally agree with what he says about islam. What i disagree with, and what i think is scaremongering, is the suggestion that we in Europe have been 'pushed around' and made to change the way we do things to accomodate them. That just isn't true. It's this idea that we have somehow been led, by our tolerance, to bend over backwards to accomodate them, and in doing so have endangered ourselves. That isn't true. We haven't. What we have done, is accomodate, within the existing legal frameworks, ordinary moslems' right to practice their religion.

If anything we've been slowly going in the other direction, with more and more attacks on mosques and Islamic communities. From a legislative standpoint, we've increased our ability to protect women and girls against forced marriages and changed the law a number of times regarding foreign spouses.

We have not been pushed into doing things differently at all. And Ken Livingston was a mayor who promoted cross cultural engagement, not the 'mad mulla of Multiculturalism'. There is nothing wrong with multiculturalism. It does not protect anybody's right to break our laws, bomb our buses or abuse their wives.


[eta] there are several Islamist groups in the UK which have been banned. One of them changed its name and was planning a protect march through Wootton Basset; which is where the bodies of fallen service men are brought. The march was banned, though the organisers changed their minds and pulled their plans anyway. The name of that organisation has been added to the list of proscribed organisations. The penalty for being found to be a member of any of these groups carries a ten year prison sentence. So, yes, we have changed our ways in Europe. In britain we've changed our ways since 2000; by making it an imprisonable offence to be a member of certain radical Islamist groups. A legal measure which was brought in 7 years before this video claiming we've bent over backwards to accomodate radical islam was posted. A year before that video was posted an additional piece of legislation was brought in making it possible to automaticaly ban any organisation parented by those on the proscribed list; so it requires only an order, not a fresh law each time. Two years after that video was posted the Swiss were voting on whether or not to ban minarets, and currently the French are discussing the possible banning of the veil.

He's right about radical Islam. He's wrong about Europe's response to it.