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Propublica: Despite Disavowals, Leading Tech Companies Help Extremist Sites Monetize Hate
Most tech companies have policies against working with hate websites. Yet a ProPublica survey found that PayPal, Stripe, Newsmax and others help keep more than half of the most-visited extremist sites in business.
Because of its "extreme hostility toward Muslims," the website Jihadwatch.org is considered an active hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. The views of the site's director, Robert Spencer, on Islam led the British Home Office to ban him from entering the country in 2013.
But either not their job, or they just didn't know:
Traditionally, tech companies have justified such relationships by contending that it's not their role to censor the Internet or to discourage legitimate political expression. Also, their management wasn't necessarily aware that they were doing business with hate sites because tech services tend to be automated and based on algorithms tied to demographics.
ProPublica goes on to say:
The sites that we identified from the ADL and SPLC lists vehemently denied that they are hate sites.
"It is not hateful, racist or extremist to oppose jihad terror," said Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch. He added that the true extremism was displayed by groups that seek to censor the Internet and that by asking questions about the tech platforms on his site, we were "aiding and abetting a quintessentially fascist enterprise."
Business is business. IG Farben said much the same when it had exclusive contracts with the (then current) German government.
See also: After Backing Alt-Right in Charlottesville, A.C.L.U. Wrestles With Its Role
Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has weighed in on the recent controversy surrounding Charlottesville and the effective removal of certain sites from the internet for expressing vile views. This entire incident and our response has an enormous implication on the future of internet freedoms as we know them.
In the wake of Charlottesville, both GoDaddy and Google have refused to manage the domain registration for the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website that, in the words of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is "dedicated to spreading anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and white nationalism." Subsequently Cloudflare, whose service was used to protect the site from denial-of-service attacks, has also dropped them as a customer, with a telling quote from Cloudflare's CEO: "Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees. Even for free speech advocates, this situation is deeply fraught with emotional, logistical, and legal twists and turns. All fair-minded people must stand against the hateful violence and aggression that seems to be growing across our country. But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with. Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group. In the Civil Rights Era cases that formed the basis of today's protections of freedom of speech, the NAACP's voice was the one attacked.
Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn't.
It's notable that in GoDaddy and Google's eagerness to swiftly distance themselves from American neo-Nazis, no process was followed. Policies give guidance as to what we might expect, and an opportunity to see justice is done. We should think carefully before throwing them away.
It might seem unlikely now that Internet companies would turn against sites supporting racial justice or other controversial issues. But if there is a single reason why so many individuals and companies are acting together now to unite against neo-Nazis, it is because a future that seemed unlikely a few years ago—where white nationalists and Nazis have significant power and influence in our society—now seems possible. We would be making a mistake if we assumed that these sorts of censorship decisions would never turn against causes we love.
Part of the work for all of us now is to push back against such dangerous decisions with our own voices and actions. Another part of our work must be to seek to shore up the weakest parts of the Internet's infrastructure so it cannot be easily toppled if matters take a turn for the (even) worse. These actions are not in opposition; they are to the same ends.
We can—and we must—do both.
We're at a very fortunate point in history where most of society is still reasonably just, but people forget how rapidly change can come. Rosa Parks chose to not yield her seat in the United States just 62 years ago. Legally enforced racial segregation ended only 53 years ago. Living at a time with overt segregation feels like a time centuries past. However, many living today were still alive when it was the status quo. And things going in the opposite direction just as rapidly is entirely possible as well. Actions and policies should not be guided by the here and now, but by the justness of said policy. In other words policy should be decided based not on who it effects, but on the justness of the said policy. Is it more just to live in a world where people have the right to say things that others may find distasteful, or where people can be effectively removed from society by the [transitory] powers that be? We should answer these questions in a period of just times, not when we desperately need them resolved to restore justness.
As the EFF's statement reminds us, if certain groups are successful organizations such as Black Lives Matter may end up being characterized as a hate group. Radical left organizations such as Antifa have already been declared a domestic terrorism group by at least one state. And this is just on a government level. Nestle, Bayer, BMW, General Electric, Coca Cola (rebranded just for Nazi Germany as Fanta), Standard Oil (now Exxon/Chevron/BP ), IBM, Random House Publishing, and many more are some companies that cooperated and collaborated with the Nazis. To think that the supercompanies of today somehow would never possibly consider going down the wrong path is simply naive. And in a world where just a handful of companies now have a practical monopoly on information access - that's something that I think should give people pause before jumping to silence even the most vile of speech.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @01:36AM (83 children)
The article presumes that the SPLC is unbiased.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @01:47AM (4 children)
That presumption would be incorrect.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @02:41AM (3 children)
-1, Troll and with no responses? Sounds like the morality censorship crew was on the job!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @03:23AM
You bet your ass the moral minority is on the job! We'll silence the immoral majority if it's the last thing we'll ever do!! You hillbillies need to crawl back into the caves you crawled out of!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @06:44AM
That which is asserted without argument is dismissed without argument
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Monday August 21 2017, @12:51PM
Well duh, you are not supposed to talk with the trolls, you don't want to encourage them to come back here.
(not implying GP troll mod was correct, I'm just making a statement of principle)
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @01:53AM (41 children)
Well, yeah. The SPLC is "biased" in the same way that most people are "biased" against pedophiles. The pedos will scream and whine on and on about how unjust it all is, and about how their "freedoms" are being abridged, but that doesn't make them right.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @02:43AM (39 children)
Does Islam (as per the Koran, Sura, and Hadiths) treat women unequally to men? Does Islam (as per the Koran, Sura, and Hadiths) support war (both covert and overt) to further the cause of Islam?
Because if you say 'no', you're in disagreement with Islam's primary written documents; but if you say 'yes', then the Southern Poverty Law Center contains a pack of liars.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @06:32AM (37 children)
Of course those sources have some nice juicy quotes, but where did they come from? Do you not realize how derivative those sources are?
Islam didn't appear suddenly, full blown, out of nothing - even if a few of the more naïve believers might be shocked to find it out.
Mohammed couldn't read the books but he could certainly have them read to him. At first he was most impressed with the Jews, and attempted to convince them he was their Messiah. But they laughed and scorned him, because of course an illiterate Arab bastard would never be a Messiah. After that he paid more attention to the Christians. Islam is clearly and deeply inspired by what he learned of those two groups.
As to women:
Genesis 3:16 (Man shall rule woman.)
Genesis 19:8 (Two strangers come to Lot's house. The men of the town gather in a gang outside, and demand the men. Lot offers to let them gang rape his two virgin daughters instead to get them to go away. Notice that this does not alter his status as a 'righteous man.')
I mean that's just a couple of the clearest parts of the first book, I could certainly go on at length, but I know the christians will then run in and point out that this all OT.
So let's skip ahead a bit.
1 Corinthians 11:3 ("But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." This chapter goes on and among other things refers to the requirement for head covering you still find among muslims quite clearly as well. Some christian groups still wear the scarves and if you go back a few years it was fairly common in christian countries generally.)
Ephesians 5:22-24 ("Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord...")
1 Timothy 2:11-15 ("Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.")
Oh boy, does that sentiment sound familiar for some reason?
Again, I could go on and on, there's a lot of this in there.
But again I can hear the High Church crowd muttering their objections. They don't actually think the Bible is binding, more like it's a puzzle book that only the priests can really understand anyway, so what's important is what their theologians say not what the Bible says.
Hmmm.
"Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the Devil's gateway: You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree: You are the first deserter of the divine law: You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert even the Son of God had to die." - St. Tertullian (~155 to 225 CE)
Well, surely he was an oddball, some early heretic or something, right? (Even though he got sainted, hey, things were crazy in the second century.)
"What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman......I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children." - St. Augustine of Hippo (~354-430CE)
A couple of flukes? That's still pretty early on, it was chaos, people didn't know what they were saying.
"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence." - St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274 CE, )
At that the Catholics in the room fall silent, undone. And I notice yet another group, muttering their objections in a swiftly rising tone.
He was a papist! You'd never find a good Lutheran saying something so awful as that!
"If they [women] become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there." Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)
Despite all that, most Jews and most Christians that I run into aren't actually raging misogynistic assholes.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @06:44AM (2 children)
Now point me at the "Christian hate site" that the ADL and SPLC are trying to get silenced by going after said sites' access to banking services, ala jihadwatch.org. (Note that I am neither affirming nor denying other content in your post.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @06:50AM (1 child)
Jihadiwatch are dead wrong about something that is absolutely core and critical to their whole message. They are dead wrong on it. They need to be exposed. They need to be debated. They need to be shown.
None of that can happen if they are silenced.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @01:46PM
We may disagree on the details, but we agree on the principle. Likewise, I am not encouraging censorship of the SPLC (I am less personally familiar with the ADL), merely that their own verifiably false and misleading information and accusations be used to shred any remaining credibility they have.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @08:42AM
See Christian headcovering [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @09:48AM (14 children)
Because they're cherry-picking morons. Better than raging misogynistic assholes, though. And yes, this cherry-picking is of course possible with Islam as well, though the number of people who choose to follow the more unpleasant aspects of their fairy tale book is higher even though it's still a small amount.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @09:58AM (13 children)
That's a very un-charitable way of looking at it, and quit unnecessarily so.
You're expressing a viewpoint that is so ultimately hostile to religion in any form that it might well be called militant atheism. If they try to apply their book in a crude way, you call them barbarians, if they do it in a more sophisticated way, you call them cherry-picking morons.
Maybe they just have a better understanding of the core of their religion? Wasn't there some stuff about peace and love in there that has to be harmonized with the more shocking parts, hmm?
"And yes, this cherry-picking is of course possible with Islam as well, though the number of people who choose to follow the more unpleasant aspects of their fairy tale book is higher even though it's still a small amount."
The reason for that is quite simple. The UK was horrified by the incipient Arab enlightenment some years back, and they headed it off quite effectively, by choosing the most backward and literal morons in the entire Muslim world and handing them control of Mecca and Medina, along with a shitload of oil. They've been killing the moderates, both literally and figuratively, ever since.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 21 2017, @11:03AM (11 children)
Not OP, but what's wrong in being hostile to something which you consider to be at best useless and outdated and at worst positively dangerous? Isn't the lesson from your above paragraph the simple conclusion that they should throw their scriptures in their current form in the bin, where they belong? If they were prepared to throw out everything which was clearly false, fabricated, or evil, and adopt that as their new gospel, then many atheists would have less of a problem with them.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @11:26AM
I dunno, many seemingly intelligent people seem to still like BIOS compared to UEFI.
And only a few use coreboot despite its lack of legacy nastiness and cruft.
Booting up humanity certainly was messy but there were a fair number of successful boots.
See also: http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats-not-what-bible-says-294018.html [newsweek.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @11:56AM (5 children)
What's wrong is that this is something your neighbors, your fellow citizens, in many cases find sublime and inspiring and at best positively liberating, so if you insist on being hostile to it you are creating hostility within the body politic.
And completely unnecessarily. Look, I'd never ask you to pretend you believe, or to pretend you find it believable.
But you should show the same respect to your fellow citizens that you would want them to show to you. They find your belief, or lack thereof, equally absurd and indefensible.
Discuss the difference rationally, debate it openly, respect the difference of opinion and understand that you might both be half right. That's how a free society works, how it functions, how it improves.
It's expected that the process may sometimes get heated but open 'hostility' is a definite sign you've gone too far.
"If they were prepared to throw out everything which was clearly false, fabricated, or evil, and adopt that as their new gospel, then many atheists would have less of a problem with them."
There's really no need to 'throw out' anything. None of it is false or evil, in proper context. Fabricated? Aren't people that are good at that in other contexts, oh say impressionist art, in that context you'd say they were "inspired" wouldn't you?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @12:58PM (2 children)
Or just agree to disagree and do something useful for both: like patch that pothole in the road that the fucking local council does nothing for years on end.
(then, jointly, send the council a bill for forcing you doing it and deduct the amount from the next council taxes. I'm only half joking here - if the governance let you down, you should be able to bill it for solving the problems yourself - seems to me as a right as important as freedom of speech)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @01:52PM (1 child)
I take it you're not in the USA. That said, if you've ever had a chance to listen to some "talk radio" broadcasts from there, you will likely notice a high percentage of ads stating something akin to "Do you owe the IRS money? Call us and we'll get you and the IRS sorted out!".
It didn't become apparent to me until quite some time after I started hearing those, but if many private companies are spending money to advertise, that must mean there's a market consisting of people not doing what the IRS wants them to do. Depending on the motivation, some might call it "voting with the wallet".
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @02:15PM
Indeed I'm not.
Personal opinion: I consider the immediate relocation to another state as the only sane reaction to $3B subsidies to Foxconn [soylentnews.org] - if they want it, let them have it with the full consequences.
If IRS is equally absurd, then Ubi bene, ibi patria [wikipedia.org] is the way to go. I've done it (not starting from US) - it's pretty much having a cold reboot of your entire life, but it's worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 21 2017, @07:50PM (1 child)
So you're telling me to not be hostile but also telling me to be hostile.
Did you write the bible?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @04:39AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @12:48PM (3 children)
Because, everybody knows, the atheists are the undeniable standard the entire world must adopt.
(I can't believe that I'm saying this, but... gosh, I really hate people that pretend their view of the world is The Truth)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 21 2017, @07:53PM
the group of people whose views were, quite unambiguously by name, being put under the microscope upthread.
> the undeniable standard the entire world must adopt.
Nobody said that. Apart from you just now. Google "straw man".
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:35AM (1 child)
So I suppose you think the Time Cube guy just sees things differently from you and isn't a nut job? Or do you only apply this to religion for some reason?
At any rate, I don't see how believing in things without good evidence that they are true will make it more likely that you will find the truth. It's less of a matter of always being right and more about actually trying to find out what is true and what is not; religious thinking is an obstacle to that.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:51PM
I know as true that Vegemite and jazz are good and "Alien:Convenant" and most wanna-be-John-Coltrane-saxophonists are really crap. If you want to find scientific evidence for or against, feel free to waste your time.
My point: there are heaps of things in this world one can hold true without evidence. You should try some of them from time to time.
There are also some things that aren't simply demonstrable - because you can't afford to experiment with them. Until evidence to the contrary emerge, the most one can do is to advance hypotheses, build models, construct theories and hold the belief - granted, an educated one, based on how many things they are explaning - that all of those are true. If you need an example, take the today's "social sciences" or "economy".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:32AM
Yeah, though I'd say both are being highly dishonest. It's easy to say that this nasty part of your religious book is just metaphorical, but most of the time there is no evidence of that and it's just an excuse to dismiss the horrible aspects of one's religion. They may as well claim the KKK is just being metaphorical and isn't really racist. Why not just create an entirely new religion from scratch at that point?
Or maybe their fairy tale books were written by foolish barbarians long ago who barely cared about consistency or truth at all. I find it amazing that anyone can truly claim to understand this gibberish as if there is some grand hidden truth behind it all.
If they're only going to pay attention to the 'good' stuff, maybe they should drop their silly religions and act however they feel is best.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @10:35AM (15 children)
You make a fair argument but your comparison is crafted to give you the result you want, so that's to be expected. Ancient texts and teachings are not what needs compared. What is currently being done with them is what matters.
No, there is one major religion in all the world that so diametrically opposes modern western values. Only one.
Side note: I need to fix the css styling on ordered and unordered lists.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @11:38AM (14 children)
Show me any nation of Muslims doing the same?
No, that's not a jesting reply. While there are a number of nations where the treatment of women is far, far from what I would advocate, very few would I suspect of consciously abusing women.
Do you think our great-grandfathers abused our great-grandmothers? I know some people think that, all of history prior to 1970 was one huge rape fest, then all of sudden we got women's lib and had to stop right? That's nonsense. People behaved differently, and for the most part that was because that was how people wanted to behave. Society was rough on rebels, but that hasn't changed, don't be fooled just because the establishment markets itself as 'rebel' in our more advanced, jaded part of the world.
Where wahabbism is deeply rooted, yes, not only women but men, all human life, is abused. But they're an aberration, a throwback not to the prophet as they want you to believe, but to the Khawarij, a group that appeared in opposition to Ali, cousin of Mohammed, husband of Fatima, the fourth Caliph according to Sunni Islam and the first Imam of the Shi'a. They were destroyed and their doctrines roundly rejected by the Islamic world for centuries. Their current legitimacy is entirely courtesy of the U.K., British Petroleum, and American successors in interest. This is a monster of our own making. And by ignorantly attributing to them this status of somehow being genuine Islam (despite your utter lack of qualifications to decide what is and is not real Islam) you only give them power.
"Point me to any nation that thinks it's hunky dory to execute people in spectacularly barbaric ways for the crime of being gay besides Islamic nations."
South Sudan is a really easy hit. I'm not even sure the status of gays improved marginally with the secession from Islamic Sudan. While you could be executed as a repeat, habitual offender under their interpretation of Sharia, the more typical punishment was a bondage and discipline session with your local sheikh, who would no doubt send you away with some pointers on avoiding Mrs. Grundy's attention in the future. In Christian South Sudan, there's no longer so much discretion - or any at all, apparently. The punishment for being gay is 10 years in prison, fixed term.
Christian Ghana won't execute you spectacularly, but they'll give you 3 years in a prison system where your chances of either dying or contracting a fatal disease are very high. Liberia (English speaking, predominantly Protestant) will similarly give you "only" 1 year in a prison system so brutal few truly survive (and fine you on top of that!.) Cameroon (40% Catholic, 30% Protestant) will give you at least 6 months, no more than 5 years, plus a stiff fine. Kenya, one of the brighter spots in sub-saharan Africa by most measures, is one of the worst here. Up to 14 years in prison. At least their prisons aren't quite as lethal. In Malawi statutory penalties include whippings, and can reach up to 14 years in prison, although in this case the government is reported to have quit enforcing the law and started moving to repeal it - only 5 years ago. Still hasn't been repealed as far as I can see though.
Yes, those are some of the poorer Christian countries, but Muslim nations include some of the poorer nations in the world as well. The Arab states are rich from oil money? True, sort of. That money gets funneled into the state and into the official church aka the wahabbis. They are impoverished nations with wealthy upper crusts, and the wealth that flows out to that crust buys loyalty. You want to blame Islam for that? Fine, undo the last century of heavy-handed meddling by European powers that were deliberately trying to prevent the Muslim world from becoming a threat by sending them back to the dark ages first, then give them a century. That would be a fair test. What you're looking at now is as rigged as any stage-magicians trick.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @11:50AM (13 children)
When it's a direct result of what's preached in their mosques? Yes. Yes, I do. I don't excuse Europe or Islam for all the violence around the Crusades. I don't excuse the US for slavery or the near genocide of the American Indians. And I will not excuse Islam for how its people are acting right now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @12:17PM (3 children)
In wahabbi mosques, sure.
Will you destroy all Christians because one sect decides to emulate the crusades?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @01:06PM (2 children)
Did I say anything about destroying anyone? The only ones who need destroyed are the ones actively looking to perpetrate violence upon the west. Keeping the rest the hell out of western civilization would be plenty otherwise. When they're ready to act civilized and join us in the 21st century, welcome aboard.
No, it's not just the wahabbis. Not by a long shot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @03:36PM (1 child)
If you care only about west, I wonder what do you know about the east?
I mean, look [wikipedia.org], Iran was a democracy before the Brits and CiA (in the name of the precious West) decided to intervene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @11:38PM
As much as I need to. The primary thing I know about the east is this: it is not my problem. There are plenty of massive national powers over there quite as capable anyone in the west of dealing their region of the world as they see fit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @12:58PM (8 children)
Arik is making some very good points. I remind you of Operation Ajax. Iran was a modern democracy, until the CIA staged it's coup, and put a spineless puppet in charge of things. Without Western support, the House of Saud wouldn't be running things in Mecca, either.
Without the Wahabbis inciting hatred throughout Islam, Islam would be much more palatable than it currently is.
The destruction of the old Ottoman Empire wasn't all that great a thing, after all. The Ottoman kept their sects under control, and the tribes mostly in check. Note, however, that the Ottoman remained silent during Turkey's genocide of Assyrians. The Ottoman wasn't all peaches and cream, but it was at least somewhat better than we have today.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @01:07PM (7 children)
I expected better of you than conflating what was with what is. You don't let a rabid dog in your house just because it used to be a cute puppy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @01:14PM
Of course you don't let the rabid dog in. But the concentration of rabid dogs is greatest in the vicinity of Mecca, where EVERYONE is oppressed by a corrupt and ruthless "government". The disease spreads from there. I don't find any part of Islam "attractive", but the poison spreads from Saudi Arabia.
If the House of Saud were to be overthrown (by almost anyone other than the Wahabbis) the poison wouldn't be so virulent.
And, the House of Saud stands because the west funds them. That is certainly not the first or only instance of the western world backing the wrong damned dictators.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @12:35AM (5 children)
But regardless, you have a population that's mostly fine, decent folks and then you have a smaller population that are just evil to the core.
Then you have an outside power come into the mix which takes those with rabies and sets them up in the highest spot in their world. It hands them Mecca and Medina, without concern for the people that are placed under them. It hands them oil, money, advanced weapons. It protects them and nurtures them. And they prosper. They spread their word, they convert, they start murdering and taking control of more and more of that world.
Who is at fault here? The outside power? The 'rabid' people they prop up in power? Or the common decent folk that are being killed by them?
Your answer seems to be the last of the three, which is quite puzzling, as that's the one I would NOT blame, personally.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:21AM (4 children)
No, you do not. You have a population that are five centuries behind the west in terms of civilization. You have a population that the majority of which condone if not actively support the actions of the violent radicals. They may be fine, decent folks by middle-eastern standards but they are nothing of the sort by western standards.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:43AM (3 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:58AM (2 children)
I am not currently and never in the future will be biased against anyone for something they were born as and cannot change. Religion cannot be counted among those traits though. Even if it were, I am not and never will be ashamed of thinking less of people who follow a religion that so widely preaches violence against me and mine. All human beings should be biased in favor of their own survival. Those who are not deserve to be removed from the gene pool for uncommon stupidity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @04:35AM (1 child)
Not in our western liberal tradition, no, but in most of the world, it is exactly that. In our advanced tradition, religion is about belief, about faith, about ethics and theology. We look at a religion and ask first can we believe it, can it be true? But this is a new way of looking at things, far from universal even in the west, and unheard of in many Muslim areas. The older conception really doesn't place much weight on theology. Instead it's a form of communitarianism, with religions simply being the way that the different communities define themselves as distinct from each other.
In this view religion is not so much about belief and much more about belonging. People are assigned a religion at birth, the religion of their family, this is their identity and they are pretty well stuck with it. Any options to change come with massive drawbacks (without even considering the possibility of violent reprisal!)
If you're born in a village in Pakistan in a Muslim family you're quite stuck being Muslim. You might be a very good Muslim or a very bad Muslim, you might be very pious or a notorious sinner, but you're still a Muslim in the eyes of everyone around you and you can probably count on that never changing. And this identity isn't some minor thing you can take or leave, it's a key to your place in life and your ability to do virtually anything. Who can you eat with, who can you go to when you need help, who can you marry? The answer is Muslims, those are 'your people' and you can share food freely (obviously dining with non-Muslims is to be avoided, due to the suspicion the food would not be halal.) Sharing food is the foundation of so much of our social interaction, it may seem a small thing but think about it. People eat with you because you are a Muslim. You somehow become not a Muslim. Now forget about the apostasy issue entirely, just think about the food alone. Now these people, the community you were born into, the people who made your life possible, the people you could rely on for help - they don't want to eat with you. They're certainly no longer willing to entertain, or send, marriage proposals either. Everything social in your life just went away. And you're not alone. A lone individual in a country made up of large communities that look out for each other, you have no one to look out for you. It's not sustainable.
A person born and raised in that environment is not even likely to be a Muslim in the sense that we think of it, as someone that heard the message of this preacher or that preacher and become convinced of the rightness and truth of that message and therefore embraces it and joins. A great many that I have known personally are only 'Muslim' in the same sense that an atheist Jew is still considered a Jew, even if he keeps none of the mitzvot, even if he never goes to synagogue, scoffs at religion openly, insults the rabbis etc etc it doesn't matter - they'll still call him a Jew to his dying day - *and so will the anti-semites*.
Being Jewish, in that sense, is indeed something one is born with and can't take off, and for many people, being Muslim is the same.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @10:43AM
My ass. Religion is personal. What others think you are is immaterial. What you think you are is all that matters.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by linkdude64 on Monday August 21 2017, @05:28PM (1 child)
Mohammed himself was a warlord, as was his child bride. These are not "spins" on quotes, but indisputable historical facts intrinsic to the very history of Islam. I will say it again:
Mohammed was a warlord.
Mohammed's child bride became a warlord herself.
Objective reality is important at some level, and with your massive wall of text, you have done everything to get around it.
Mohammed was a warlord and died by assassination. Jesus never killed anyone and died for the sake of other people. The cultures we have today are the descendants of those two ideologies, on average.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:30AM
That's a bit one-dimensional but not a total miss.
"Mohammed's child bride became a warlord herself."
What? Participating in one battle, and rather inadvertently at that, doesn't exactly qualify a 'warlord' in my use of the term.
"Objective reality is important at some level, and with your massive wall of text, you have done everything to get around it."
It is quite important, but you misunderstand what I have done. I do not seek to evade reality, I seek to dissolve illusions so that you may see reality more clearly.
"Mohammed was a warlord and died by assassination. "
I'll give you the warlord part but he lived to an advanced age for the time and as far as anyone knows he died of natural causes. He was buried in Medina, and the tomb is still there, although when the Saud's took over it was almost completely destroyed.
"Jesus never killed anyone and died for the sake of other people."
Jesus is a fictional character, a composite figure that only ever existed in the Book. Come on. The story screams allegory from the very first act. His mother is a virgin! What? Why? Why does this odd bit of pagan mythology show up in the very first act? In fact it's the result of an incredible misreading of Isaiah - one that only makes sense if the person who *invented* this story had only read the story in Greek. And of course, like any good fictional character, he raises after death to give closure to his followers, and make sure they remember his message. Unlike Mohammed, he left no body behind to be entombed - and also unlike Mohammed, no one thought he was important enough to mention in writing for until nearly a century later.
Anyway, fun fact. Mohammed was buried where he died, and the house became a shrine. Over time other companions were buried there, and within a few decades of his death the nearby mosque had been expanded to include this. They left one empty tomb, and expected that Jesus would one day come back and rule for 40 years as the last Caliph, then die and be buried in that last spot.
The site was carefully maintained and periodically expanded from the day he died - 8 June 632 - until 1805. The first time the Sauds took the city. They said venerating tombs was sinful, stole all the gold, silver, gems, etc. and then started taking sledgehammers to the place.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @02:49PM
SPLC condemns the Nation of Islam. [splcenter.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @09:16AM
Your pedophile example is actually perfect, because it shows how irrational lynch mobs are and how dangerous it is to other people. A pedophile is someone who is sexually attracted to prepubescent children; they are not necessarily rapists, and child molesters are not even necessarily pedophiles. You have chosen to shut your brain down in favor of feel-good moral outrage.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @01:56AM (14 children)
In a world in which bias/non-bias are hard to assess (even the Supreme Courts show bias), please explain how SPLC biased position is relevant to the matter at hand.
(isn't the "influence power" - be it appropriate or not - more relevant to this discussion?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @03:29AM (7 children)
The SPLC attracts extremists. Those extremists are the obverse side of the coin from the white supremacists.
Further, the SPLC is driven by money. Outside interests fund them, of course. And, those outside interests are generally composed of more extremists.
All of these extremists have created an echo chamber, reinforcing each other's beliefs, just as that obverse side has done. So, we have two diametrically opposed points of view clamoring for attention. And, neither side is right. Face it - they are all full of excrement.
Why is it that most of the world can just "get along", and pay no mind to color, but in the US, it's all about color?
Maybe it's PROFITABLE to incite racial tensions? Let's ask both the KKK and the SPLC!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday August 21 2017, @04:04AM (2 children)
Now, that's a platform for discussion that's much better than the amplified echo chambers some may have interest in maintaining in existence.
"Cui bono" is a valid question. As also a valid question is: "Are the KKK and the SPLC really the parties that profit or are they just useful idiots, to be supported by throwing a pittance at them?"
A better question: "What can I/we do to stop acting like the puppeteers pulling the strings want us to act?"
The question is still valid even if there would be no puppeteers behind. One just need to modify the question into: "what should I/we do to stop wasting us in tribal infighting?".
(because, looking at the US economy, it's clear you have more important problems than this infighting. Deflect your attention from it would be a valid interest of some assumed puppeteers)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @10:47AM (1 child)
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
I jest but they really are one of the biggest problems in the nation currently. They occupy the vast majority of political positions and last I checked trial lawyers were either the number one or number two ranked political lobby in the nation.
If you can't understand the laws, you can't follow the laws.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @01:58PM
Don't forget the case of Gilmore vs Gonzales [papersplease.org]: If you can't know the law...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @01:07PM (3 children)
You might not agree with many things that the SPLC does, but they are not functionally equivalent in the magnitude of their "wrongness" as typical white supremacist groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center#Notable_cases [wikipedia.org]
You are committing the same error as those that draw false equivalencies of Islamic extremists and Christian extremists. Don't be hypocritical and lower your level of argument to that.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @01:08PM (1 child)
Saying they are both wrong does not imply similar levels of wrongness. Take your strawman elsewhere.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @01:47PM
Re-read Runaway's post.
You could steelman it and say that they are not equally full of shit, that the "coin" is not a fair or unbiased coin (equal odds), or argue the semantics of "diametrically opposed". It is much more likely that Runaway simply was using false equivalence to make a point.
"Those extremists are the obverse side of the coin from the white supremacists."
"just as that obverse side has done."
"two diametrically opposed points of view"
"they are all full of excrement"
"Let's ask both the KKK and the SPLC!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @05:43PM
Fuck the SPLC. Someone needs to burn that one stupid fuck on the TV "documentaries" alive. I'm sick of looking at that whinging weasel.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @03:42AM (5 children)
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/charles-murray [splcenter.org]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @05:08AM (4 children)
Charles Murray's output is simply bigotry pretending to be Science.
It's like the crap that VLM posted the other day about how a country in west Africa was given an "IQ test" and the population was found to be anencephalic. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @05:14AM
anencephalic. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @05:41AM (1 child)
That's bullshit, and frankly it's not an argument someone who's read the book could make honestly.
Is it a flawed work? Of course. Is his thesis flawed? Obviously.
But simply bigotry? Please. It's a book about facts and theory. Investigating the facts and advancing logical theories to explain them. Facts are subject to verification and refutation, and if the facts are wrong the theory based on them goes with them. Theories can also be invalidated by showing they are logically flawed. This is what you should be doing.
Not name-calling. Stooping to that tactic signals intellectual bankruptcy.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @07:45AM
In your racist dreams. Fake facts and racist theory might make a book, but not a book anyone has any business reading. What is wrong with you? Are you a racist? Or just not too fucking bright, like Runaway1929 in his pants?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @01:28PM
It isn't really.
Read some of his works or listen to some full context interviews. His positions have been misused/misrepresented by racists and he has been unfairly held responsible and declared guilty despite even a lack of association with them.
If he is guilty of something, it would probably be a sort of "reckless endangerment" for unintentionally empowering racists. He probably should've known that the general public would take a small section out of context and run crazy with it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @02:00AM (1 child)
Is that it isn't time to end centralized control of addresses and namespaces by throwing the clearnet under the bus and moving to systems like Tor, I2P, Zeronet, cjdns, and others to eliminate the capability of any party from censoring any other party short of finding an exploit on their site and pwning it. Backtracking who hacked who will become even harder than it is today, but given the current level of accusations and falsification of evidence for hacking attempts and the hackers identities that may not overall be a bad thing.
Secure the internet against censorship through these means and short of it being proven there are backdoors in our operating systems or hardware, nobody running software without sufficient 0 day exploits to either identify their computer by serial numbers, or ping onto clearnet will be liable, identifiable or arrestable for any crime taking place on the internet. This won't really help with google, facebook, etc long term since all the same cookies and XSS tricks can be done between darknet sites, and some of those could even help narrow down which node you are likely connected from, but overall whole classes of censorship as currently implemented could be removed from the realm of technical capability of both corporations and governments (at least until such networks are ruled illegal in the 'lands of the free', meaning most Western countries, as the trend is inclining towards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @02:36PM
The info at youbroketheinternet.org [youbroketheinternet.org] outlines the critical problems and outlines the work being done to implement a technical solution.
The current surface web is completely broken, TOR is breakable, i2p has Java aka serious issues, etc. Some bits (i2p, TOR, etc.) can be used now, of course, but the needed long term solutions are still unfinished.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @02:16AM (17 children)
For those that don't know, the SPLC is not a court, nor a government agency, it's actually a "progressive" lobbying organization that's rather fond of tarring their political opponents with the 'hate' label - broadcasting that label - then having their allies in the media pick it up and rebroadcast it as if it were somehow official and authoritative.
It's not.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @02:26AM (16 children)
> it's actually a "progressive" lobbying organization that's rather fond of tarring their political opponents with the 'hate' label
Lately it has been operating to advance CAIR's islamist agenda inside the US. SPLC has become a jihadist organizaton because of CAIR's manipulation. That threatens to undo a lot of the good work that SPLC did on real issues in the distant past.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @02:51AM
To be fair, if you were in charge of CAIR, and those useful idiots were willing to carry your banner, wouldn't you use them?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @02:57AM (14 children)
Straight to the point, I'm no less skeptical of that narrative than I am of the SPLC.
From what I've seen (and I haven't done any in-depth investigation, I'll admit) CAIR seems to be an organization deserving of significantly more credibility than either the SPLC or jihadiwatch.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @07:49AM (1 child)
I see that Arik and Runway have both been added to the list of hate groups, which is quite an accomplishment for mere individuals. The SPLC has been a stalwart defender of the human rights of Americans since its establishment, and anyone who has the temerity to suggest otherwise casts their lot with the Neo-Nazis, and will be executed just like Gobbels, Heimlich, and Hesse. Fucking Nazis!
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 21 2017, @01:04PM
Remember my earlier use of the obverse sides of coins? You want to execute people - so you're just another fucking Nazi. Grape flavored Kool-Aid drinker, instead of orange flavored, maybe, but still another Nazi. You and the KKK would get along just fine, Nazi.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @11:06AM (11 children)
Meh, CAIR is so obviously nothing but the specifically designed political front for jihadists.
If Hollywood can understand the gambit, anyone should be able to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @12:01PM (10 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @01:12PM (9 children)
Paranoid? Because I expect that political organizations have more going on than their publicly stated purpose? Are you insane?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday August 21 2017, @11:27PM (8 children)
No, as far as it goes, that's fine, and we agree on that. But what you're suggesting is way crazier than that. CAIR's a thoroughly western organization with a base of fairly moderate muslims. Moderate muslims are the number one victims of the jihadis, by far. The people CAIR appears to represent are exactly the people that have the most to fear from the jihadis. Why would they consciously help them?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 21 2017, @11:42PM (7 children)
Because most moderate Muslims support some goodly portion of Sharia at the very least and supporting violence against the west is not at all out of the question for them either.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:34AM (6 children)
This is a good example of a horribly successful propaganda meme, one of the best really. First off, it has the advantage of being technically correct - and easily proven. Secondly, in order to see how it's being used to deceive you, you'd have to understand what the word 'sharia' means, in a serious way, rather than simply as a scary word you've heard on tv and associate with beheading and the like.
Sharia is simply the Arabic word for religious law - for keeping the religiously ordained code of conduct. Of course Muslims are mostly in favor of sharia, just as Catholics are in mostly favor of Canon law and Jews are usually down with Halakha. If you are against Canon law why are you still a Catholic? Sharia is way less specific than canon law though, because canon law is promulgated by the church, from a central authority, while sharia works more like anglo-american common law (and halakha) in relying a lot on precedent and tradition.
But of course they're in favor of sharia, just not the same sharia the jihadis favor. For a single, obvious example, the jihadis reflexively call everyone outside of their own sect "kafir" or infidel. This is in keeping with *their* sharia, but it's actually a major violation, a major sin, in more traditional sharia. Most schools either prohibit 'takfir' (the act of labelling another kafir) entirely, as the prerogative of G_d and Mohammed alone which no man should usurp, or else have a procedure that is nearly impossible to follow and strongly prohibit the act outside of that procedure. (To make that more clear, an example I remember required 3 witnesses swear an oath before a religious court that the person in question had actually proclaimed himself kafir in their hearing, at which point the court is to investigate and may, at their discretion, decide to apply the label. If anyone aside from the court were to proclaim it, or if the court were to do so without the witnesses, that would be a great sin.)
The point being, three very very different rules in regards to a simple question, two of them are consistent with liberal democracy and no worse than what we are used to from Christians, etc. Only the Wahhabi version, which is diametrically opposed to the others, is a problem. All are called sharia. This is how a mundane and unremarkable truth can be used to stir up unfounded fear, which is then exploited as you surely realize.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @01:52AM (5 children)
Try again. Shi'a as practiced in Iran is no better. Regardless, allowing any religion's laws to supersede national laws is fundamentally incompatible with western civilization.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday August 22 2017, @03:12AM (4 children)
"Regardless, allowing any religion's laws to supersede national laws is fundamentally incompatible with western civilization."
Of course, and they don't. The only case where sharia law comes up in e.g. the US Court system is in family law. If it's a Muslim divorce they can (and should) take account of what the parties actually understood and agreed to in the marriage. That means sharia - the particular tradition of sharia under which their marriage was performed. There are usually fairly elaborate provisions that have been set ahead of time, there will be a set amount of money that was set aside ahead of time for her etc. and there is no problem with a court honoring the provisions the parties agreed to. Just the same way that they can apply canon law in a Catholic divorce, they can apply halakha in a Jewish divorce, and they can consider sharia in a Muslim divorce.
Yet this perfectly normal and unremarkable happening gets presented as if it means beheadings are going on at the county courthouse. Getting people all worked up over nothing, it's effective though, it keeps people too agitated and too distracted to focus on the real problems.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @10:52AM (3 children)
No... I named the major Islamic sect of Iran in comparison with the major Islamic sect of Saudi Arabia.
Oh, so you mean the honor killings and such that have already taken place on US soil are irrelevant? Yeah, no. We do not go for that kind of shit over here. You do not get to practice your religion as if you were five hundred years in the past. Christians, Jews, and every other religion of any size already know and have adapted to this. Islamists can adapt too or they can stay the fuck out of the west.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:33AM (2 children)
Irrelevant to this discussion? Absolutely. Murder and other crimes are illegal. There's no religious exemption to that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:38PM (1 child)
Legality is irrelevant. We're speaking of morality. Entire different -ality.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday August 23 2017, @07:12PM
I'm sorry, I'm trying to communicate, and I believe you are too, but I'm either not understanding you or you're making remarkably little sense here.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 21 2017, @09:40AM
And Propublica with a founder who sits on the Council of Foreign Relations isn't pushing an agenda at all!