[Pants-of-dog]

@SolarCross

I did not see Oxymandias call you an Islamophobe.

If he says you are a bigot, simply inform the mods. That is a rule violation.

If he says that your arguments are Islamophobic, then he is perfectly within the rules and I cannot say that I would disagree. For example, you started a whole thread about how to ethnically cleanse Europe of Muslims.

[SolarCross]

I did not see Oxymandias call you an Islamophobe.

If he says you are a bigot, simply inform the mods. That is a rule violation.

If he says that your arguments are Islamophobic, then he is perfectly within the rules and I cannot say that I would disagree. For example, you started a whole thread about how to ethnically cleanse Europe of Muslims.

I don't care about the insults or the rule 2 violations that is beside the point. The point is the hilarious hypocrisy of claiming that his argument is right independent of his identity (whatever that is) while claiming I am wrong because of an identity he (and you) have foisted on me.

[Pants-of-dog]

@SolarCross

You are not wrong because you are supposedly a bigot. You may be one or you may not. I do not know, care, or think about it.

You are wrong because many of your arguments are Islamophobic, and thus based on generalisations, stereotypes, fallacies, and moral posturing.

[SolarCross]

@SolarCross

You are not wrong because you are supposedly a bigot. You may be one or you may not. I do not know, care, or think about it.

You are wrong because many of your arguments are Islamophobic, and thus based on generalisations, stereotypes, fallacies, and moral posturing.

[Pants-of-dog]

Feel free to show how my claim about your arguments is laughable.

[SolarCross]

Feel free to show how my claim about your arguments is laughable.

You have just shifted the identity from me to my arguments, that's all, so it is the same stinky tactic.

First iteration: You are wrong because you are a poopy head!
Reflection: whoops rule 2 violation, let me fix that.
Second iteration: You are wrong because you make poopy head arguments!
Reflection: technically not a rule 2 violation but just as fallacious an argument.

[Pants-of-dog]

@SolarCross

No, it is not as fallacious.

As @Oxymandias said, the identity of the person arguing the claim is irrelevant.

That is why saying you are wrong because you are supposedly a bigot is fallacious.

On the other hand, saying your arguments are wrong because they are based on the incorrect assumption that all muslims are evil rapist imperialist terrorists is not fallacious.

[SolarCross]

As @Oxymandias said, the identity of the person arguing the claim is irrelevant.

That is why saying you are wrong because you are supposedly a bigot is fallacious.

On the other hand, saying your arguments are wrong because they are based on the incorrect assumption that all muslims are evil rapist imperialist terrorists is not fallacious.

Third iteration: Your poopy arguments are poopy because they are made of some poopiness I just squirted out of my own bottom.
Reflection: Strawman.

[Pants-of-dog]

Third iteration: Your poopy arguments are poopy because they are made of some poopiness I just squirted out of my own bottom.
Reflection: Strawman.

I completely concede the point that you make arguments that are not based on this assumption and therefore are possibly correct but could be wrong for other reasons.

As I am sure that you will concede that any argument based on this incorrect premise (i.e. all Muslims are evil) is incorrect.

[Oxymandias]

@SolarCross

I do not consider you an Islamophobe. Human beings are too complex to be categorized or given a title. You can use titles and categories for the sake of expressing a concept that is un-expressible using natural language, but using them as insults is a flawed method of debate. Furthermore, I don't consider everything you say to be false I have, several times, encouraged you and have agreed with your lines of thought. The only issue is that we disagree on many instances. You are much more open-minded compared to the other conservatives or anti-Islam types here on PoFo and you have put a great deal of effort into at least tolerating religion and attempt to try to understand it. Often conservatives don't wish to understand Islam outside of whatever they see on the news since that is seen as essentially defecting to the enemy basically. You however, at least tried to understand it and have read articles that would've probably be seen in disgust by many modern conservatives even though you're a European ex-Christian conservative. With a background like that you wouldn't expect a person to attempt to understand Islam, a religion that is both foreign and dangerous to them and, in their eyes, European culture.

And what I see here is that you're angry that you weren't given the credit that you deserve. You view me in contempt because, even though you put effort into finding out more about Islam, you are still told to find out more about it as if you have the information necessary to find out more about it. And if I did give you information, you would be skeptical of it and decide that it would be biased (which would be right since I'm biased towards the Quranist side of Islam for political reasons and the information I would give you would be ever so slightly pro-Shia because I think Shias get a bad wrap). And so you think that you deserve some form of recognition from liberals as to your newly founded open-mindedness instead of being labeled as Islamophobic.

And the reason why you feel this way is because you aren't a conservative SolarCross. You're actually a liberal, a classic liberal as you would call yourself. You simply feel that liberalism has lost it's way and you want to reform it. You simply side with conservatism despite it's flaws and despite you're contempt to it. You want to reform the left and make it into your vision as rational and coherent. You dislike Islam partly because of your background and partly because of it's effect on the left. From your perspective, while the left was dying at this point, Islam was the thing that killed it. What attracted you to the left or liberalism in the first place was it's rationalism and secularism and when you saw how the left reacted to Islam that was the moment when the left became so utterly alien to you that you disassociated yourself with it.

At first you started out arguing against Islam because of it's reaction to the left. You started out talking about how the left excluded Islam from all criticism and even began to pander to it. Then this slowly and gradually evolved into hatred for not just the religion, but, to an extent, the people themselves. But that changed, didn't it? Eventually you went back to Christianity and decided to reexamine it and with that you obviously reexamined Islam as well. Afterward you realized that, not only is Christianity not what you thought it was but that Islam wasn't what you thought it was as well. You began to realize that Islam had aspects that were tolerable, even beneficial to humans and that it wasn't as horrific as you thought it was. Yes, you still hate Islam with a burning passion, but your hatred has decreased significantly. And that's not all, you began to reexamine modern liberalism and actually began to like it to an extent.

You feel as if you have changed yourself and have become a more open-minded and better individual. You feel as if you can competently debate with others about Islam and Christianity. And what is the reward you get for such an accomplishment? You get called Islamophobic. This angers you and for good reason, it simply shows that after all this work and research, you still aren't rewarded at all for your efforts.

So step forth SolarCross and let's do this European-style. I shall draw my blade and pronounce you as Sir Knight SolarCross for your honorable display of fighting for liberty and rationalism despite all the odds being against you. You have been called a traitor numerous times and yet you stood your ground and fought until the very end. I praise you for your commitment to your work and as a reward I shall give you a like.

[Politiks]

^This is the dumbest and most ignorant post in the history of PoFO. Congrats, you've out matched Rich.

From what I read around here any of your posts can't be match in stupidity. It's hard to chose which of your posts is the worst, you tend to top your own stupidity quite often.

[anasawad]

[foxdemon]

@Oxymandias that is an interesting post you wrote for @SolarCross .

You take a dim view of those you describe as conservative. What is Western conservative about, in your view?

You also mention a misguided Western left. However, you seem to approve of classical liberalism. Do you think that is left wing?

I see the contemporary Western consensus, it is central right by tries to pass itself as left, as a twisted appropriation of Western ideology. It is anologous to Salafism in that it is radical, extreme, aimed at ideological hegemony, intolerant and ruthless. It claims to be the one true form of Western political thought. Other streams of Western political thought are today being characterised as anti-Western.

But what should concern you is that this ideology which is currently dominant in the West is trying to reform Islam into a politically correct parody. An Islam that would be compatible with Western values, they claim. Which Westerner and which values are they trying to make their parody comparable with? That is not as cut and dry as the contemporary consensus would have you believe. The West is not as homogeneous as they would have you believe.

Are you sure it is the conservatives that you should be worried about?

[Oxymandias]

@foxdemon

I never approved or disapproved of anything. It doesn't honestly matter to me. I simply wrote from SolarCross's perspective (which seems to be right given that he hasn't corrected me) and his own ideas. SolarCross certainly considers himself to be a classical liberal and he expresses many views that fit under that broad category (he's an Austrian for christ sake). That post is an attempt at understanding SolarCross and his actions when he is unable to express them himself. This may seem jackass-ish of me, but it is what it is.

Those are some very interesting thoughts and ones I haven't come across before. However I am not that informed on current Western political thought outside of some ideologies I take some ideas from so I cannot know the validity of your statements. Unfortunately, this means I'll take your ideas as opinions or interpretations rather than an accurate representation of the current Western political landscape. It's a shame too, I would love to believe in your ideas.

I don't honestly care. What matters to me is not the re-fragmentation of Western politics but which interests in the West directly effects Iran and almost none of these are political parties which hold very little influence over the governments of the West. Yes, they do hold a large amount of influence over western society but that's the key word here, "western society" not "Iranian or Middle Eastern society". Therefore it simply isn't relevant to me.

However you are right about one thing, that the West is certainly not homogeneous. It was probably one of the most largest culture shocks I had when coming to America for the first time (outside of it being nothing like it was portrayed in the movies).

I don't care about if it's the conservatives or the liberals. The only people I care about is the military and American aggression in the ME. That's all. It just so happens that many people who defend American aggression in the ME are conservative. That's all.

[foxdemon]

@Oxymandias my ideas might well be described as opinion or interpretation. It is a process in understanding. I’m not sure I have completely achieved an understanding of Western politics quite yet. But I don’t seem to be able to give up on this thinking.

Given your primary concern is your own nation’s fate (which is fine. I think the same way), this is mainly of acedemic interest to you. To me, I am concerned about Western ideologies as those ideologies do impact everyday life for many people around the world and directly effects the balance of political power within my own country. And, as a result, I feel it necessary to contest those ideas.


Having established intention, there will be a noticeable degree of bias in my views consistent with challenging status quo thinking.

If we look closely at the people who want to attack Iran, we find that there are among them people who present themselves as progressive rather than conservative. Hillary Clinton, for example. She well represents what I mean by the supposed left actually being centre right. She claims to represent the liberal humanist ideal of emancipation for women, yet she has followed an aggressive foreign policy involving some serious strategic blunders such as the attack on Libya. She is really a neocon. But it does show that those who hold power in the West are both liberal progressive and aggressive hegemonists.

On a different tac, let’s look at the idea many on this forum seem to support of a Westernised Islam. They want to see women as Imams, acceptance of gays, etc. in short an Islam that is an expression of those liberal progressive values espoused by people such as Clinton. Now I don’t see anything wrong with the idea of female Imams, after all there have been historically and are today female scholars. On the face of it, this seems OK. But in practice, since it is Western liberal progressivism we are talking about here, the result will be the same as with other applications of this belief system. The social structure will be inverted and males will suffer. The idea being to isolate and marginalise any potential resistance to the doctrine.

For all their talk of fairness and equality, the result is always a jump from one extreme to the other. The reason, in my opinion, is that they are motivated by a desire for power rather than justice. This is unavoidable for them as the belief system is hegemonic. It is, after all, the moral legitimation of contemporary Western power which this belief system is structured. Which is why you will find plenty of American generals and strategy experts espousing these beliefs. It’s also why supposed conservatives get upset with Trump, as he threatens to destroy their favourite soft power instrument.

And I make the outrageous claim that this progressive liberal ideology is analogous to Salafism. Well, both are hegemonic belief systems aimed to replace all other beliefs systems, and thus unable to accept alternatives. They are both totalitarian, involving penetration of every day life and reorganising relations between people. Both ideologies are about total control for those who preside over those belief systems.

So I suggest caution when it comes to dealing with those on this forum who like the idea of a Westernised Islam, Westenised as in a progressive liberal sense. Just because they sound supportive of Muslims doesn’t mean they are better than those who are critical of Islam. Really, what they want would just be an exercise in appropriating Islamic form as another means of advancing a hegemonic liberal agenda. Rejecting Salafism in favour of progressive liberalism is “jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire”.

[SolarCross]

I completely concede the point that you make arguments that are not based on this assumption and therefore are possibly correct but could be wrong for other reasons.

As I am sure that you will concede that any argument based on this incorrect premise (i.e. all Muslims are evil) is incorrect.

Well good, it is unexpectedly reasonable of you, but well good.

[Pants-of-dog]

It is only unexpected if you incorrectly believe that I thought you were an Islamophobe and that I thought this was relevant.

You may or may not be, but rest assured, I always thought it was irrelevant.

For example, your argument that there is only one type if Islam (the one where Muslims kill kill kill for the Caliphate) is not wrong because you are (possibly) Islamophobic, but because it is an insulting generalisation about all Muslims being violent and evil.

[SolarCross]

It is only unexpected if you incorrectly believe that I thought you were an Islamophobe and that I thought this was relevant.

You may or may not be, but rest assured, I always thought it was irrelevant.

For example, your argument that there is only one type if Islam (the one where Muslims kill kill kill for the Caliphate) is not wrong because you are (possibly) Islamophobic, but because it is an insulting generalisation about all Muslims being violent and evil.

So you have misunderstood my arguments on many levels, well fine we are all here to learn and so you are forgiven.

[Pants-of-dog]

If you want to explain how my criticism is incorrect, feel free.

[SolarCross]

If you want to explain how my criticism is incorrect, feel free.

I don't recognise it as a criticism of myself. It looks and smells like you shit your pants and then blamed me for it. Notice in whose post the "criticism" is in? Is it in any of mine or is it in yours? That's right the shit is in your pants not mine. Occam's razor then suggests the poopy was produced by you and not me, I don't even have mod powers so how could I edit your posts?