GandalfTheGrey wrote:Again, I put it to you that your subsequent arguments about "oh what I'm really saying is that the BBC is irresponsible by not protecting islam from bigots" is a complete backflip from your original position.
And again, I put it to you that your compulsion to defend Islam from any and all detractors has affected your ability to comprehend what you are reading. Yes, my opening post was brief. Yes, my choice of article was a provocative one. Yes, I had posted it to generate discussion. This
is a political discussion board, is it not? Did my choice of articles get the discussion off to a roaring start or didn't it?
But, Gandalf, when I implored you to actually read what I wrote, I didn't mean read what I wrote in the first post and then stop. I meant read what I wrote in the thread so far. As early as halfway through the first page I had already pointed out the obvious -
"Perhaps some were carried out by non-Muslims, but the BBC is content to let Muslims get the blame for every single incident." The deeper into the thread we get, the more plain I make it that my beef isn't with Muslims, it's with the BBC's concealment of important information. You are even misreading my clarifications, despite my efforts to make them as clear and unambiguous as possible. I am not claiming that the BBC is irresponsible for not protecting Muslims from bigots - I don't want Muslims protected, I want the public informed. That should be, after all, the prime mission of a news organization, especially one funded by tax dollars. It is not the job of the BBC to shield Muslims from the disapproval of the public. And I know that's not their job. Do you?
I merely point out that the BBC
does seem to believe its job is to shield Muslims (and other darlings of the multi-culti politically correct herd) from public disapproval, but its attempts to do so are so clumsy that it's backfiring on them: Muslims end up looking like the sole culprits by the end of this article, when they actually aren't. If the BBC had played it straight and included a brief paragraph similar to the one I suggested, public disapproval would not have been aimed exclusively at Muslims. It would have been aimed at "all faith groups", though probably not at every faith group equally. I doubt the public would be too concerned about, say, Zoroastrans.
Oh we're back to this now? Showing your true colours I see - the only problem here is that you are tripping over yourself. It absolutely IS a baseless claim to say that the source of honour killings is islam and muslims - and *ONLY* islam and muslims - which may not be what you are thinking...
The
sole source of honor-based violence? That
isn't what I am thinking, which is why I suggested you would look less like a pre-programmed fanatic if you were to
read what I actually write. The opening post was a
jumping off point for discussion about the BBC's uselessness as a news source, Gandalf. The article I block-quoted happened to be about Muslims, so you were unable to prevent yourself from responding but it could as easily have been one where the BBC clumsily tried to hide the identity of those joining gangs in the inner city slums. I have said repeatedly I would have made the same complaint regardless of
which favored group the BBC feels it must protect. You refuse to believe me. That's insulting. I don't lie in my posts, Gandalf. Unlike so many of my opponents here at PoFo, I debate honestly. I don't need to lie to prove my points.
...is absolutely what your OP article was arguing (by inference - by singling out islam and not mentioning any other religious/cultural group).
Again, you'd look less fanatical if you'd drop your obsession with that author's words. The block-quoted article was a jumping off point for discussion, nothing more. Everyone else has noticed we moved far past that pages ago. Why can't you?
But I bet you've already forgotton that a few posts back you were busilly citing wikipedia and the Association of Police Chiefs to illustrate that honour killings were cultural, not religious, and that they cut across all faiths - and thats what the BBC should have been saying. Now you seem to be back to endorsing the message of the OP article - that muslims should be singled out as the sole culprit of these crimes. But we all knew that was your position from the beginning anyway.
Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. Your monomaniacal insistence on blindly defending Muslims from the truth exceeds even the BBC's. Honor-based violence
is a deep-seated, ancient, and ongoing problem in the Muslim community, Gandalf, and to point out this obvious fact is not an act of bigotry. Denying this obvious fact is, however, an act of deliberate self-deception. My noting this does not mean I am saying that it is a deep-seated and ongoing problem in
only the Muslim community. Nor does it mean I think it.
Irrelevant. The only relevant point here is that you chose to post this article while you attacked the BBC for leaving out key information. This article slams the BBC for not singling out muslims and islam as the main cause of honour killings. Therefore there is only one conclusion that can be arrived at regarding what you meant by this "key information".
Only if you stop reading after a post or two. If you read the thread all the way through, it's quite clear your conclusion is the product of a febrile imagination rather than of the words I actually wrote.
yeah - only you decided to make no mention of this whatsoever in the OP and instead focused *SOLELY* on what the article said. Strange indeed that the centrepiece of this thread actually has nothing to do with what you are arguing.
Again, this thread does not consist solely of the opening post, and your bizarre insistence on ranting on and on as if it does is unsettling. I'm starting to get concerned for you, Gandalf. And a little bit for myself, too: I'm glad you don't know where I live. The opening post isn't the centerpiece of the thread, Gandalf, it's the beginning. The start. The jumping off point. The introduction. The trigger for a back and forth
discussion.
his problem is that islam and muslims are not singled out - he expects the BBC to make claims about the prevalence of islamic honour killings that are completely baseless.
Well, Gandalf, here's your chance. There is no shortage of information on honor-based violence out there. Why don't you provide some numbers from credible sources showing that the group perpetrating more of these incidents worldwide in a year than any other group is someone other than Muslims? Hindus, maybe. Sikhs, perhaps. Buddhists, possibly. Jehovah's witnesses, Zoroastrans, Jains, Scientologists, Mormons, Roman Catholics... whoever. Give it your best shot.
The author says the "vast majority" of these crimes are committed by Muslims. Contributors to the thread who responded to it before you did believe Muslims are responsible for the majority (though not necessarily the "vast" majority) of these offences, too. You seem to be the only one bucking the conventional wisdom, here. What data have you seen that these others have not? Here's your chance to correct a widely held misimpression, if it is in fact a misimpression. Go for it.
Isn't that the very thing you were arguing against a minute ago?
Reading comprehension, dude, reading comprehension. I didn't say the charge that the majority (though perhaps not the
vast majority) of these crimes were perpetrated by Muslims is a baseless charge, I said that not
all of these crimes can necessarily be laid at the feet of the Muslim community. Hindus (at the very least) have a statistical likelihood of being responsible for at least a few of the 2,823. It isn't impossible that every single one of them in a single year was committed by Muslims, but it is statistically unlikely.
As I said previously, the sort of disclaimer about it being a cross-cultural/non religious specific thing is exactly the sort of thing the author of your article is dead set against.
Actually, he isn't, or he wouldn't have used the qualifying word "majority". But that's beside the point. Since when does posting an entire block-quoted article count as proof the poster is an perfect accord with every single sentiment expressed in the entire piece? Especially when subsequent examination reveals unequivocally that the poster is not in fact in 100% agreement with every word? Give it up, Gandalf, it's tedious and it makes you look obsessed.
So why use a source that is so contradictory to your argument?
it's not contradictory to my argument, though. His point is that by concealing the identities of victims and perps, the BBC is doing a disservice to the reading public. I point out the same. The fact that we examine different aspects of that concealment is beside the point - what matters isn't
who the BBC believes it is protecting from public disapproval - Muslims
qua Muslims or immigrants from the Indian subcontinent - what matters is the BBC's insistence on providing that protection in the first place.
but again, you posted an article as the centrepiece of this thread, and gave us absolutely nothing to suggest that this wasn't your line. We are not mind readers - if you've got a point to make, make it.
The reason I keep bringing up your lack of reading comprehension is that the lack is so evident. Long before you had entered the thread I had done just that - repeatedly. You don't need to be a mind reader to get my point, you just have to get past the opening post. This thread is now three pages long. Why you seem unable to get past its jumping off point is puzzling in the extreme. If you're not going to read what I've already written - I mean actually
read rather than just pass your eyes over the marks on the screen to amuse yourself before making your next repetitive and baseless claim about what you have convinced yourself is actually going on in my head - why should I bother responding to you at all? You constantly misrepresent my position. You're a veritable pyromaniac in a field of straw men.
No "backflip" was ever done. My point from the beginning has been the uselessness of the BBC. Their concealment of information not just useless, it's counterproductive to their intended goal.
my reading comprehension is fine.
LOL.
Phred