Trump bows to political correctness and flip-flops on Muslim ban

[agent00f]

True but that isn't what happened in Islam. While they were still on a par with the West THEY UNILATERALLY made the move while the West moved towards secularism/science. They NEVER made a move back towards secularism/science. They have not had their Reformation. That is THEIR fault, not ours. The fact that they are NOW so weak and powerless that they can be easily victimized by the West is an indictment of theocracy. It demonstrates that theocracy is an inferior model/world view than the Wests. There is no flood of people to these shitholes, there are only floods of people to Western secular nations. There is a reason for this.

Looking at the major powers in the region, both iraq/iran were secular & modernizing in the past before foreign interventions. It's unclear how many countries in the world can withstand victimization by the US/Soviets (eg. iraq used to have one of the largest militaries), and frankly it's only a coincidence both superpowers are secular, for different reasons.

While it's true strict theocracy is generally a shitty governing model, religion per se isn't an adequate impediment to successful development anyway. Merica is fairly religious, and more powerful than anyone more secular. More christianity or even islam in the US wouldn't have stopped industrial production for the world wars or carried enemies more readily to our shores.

 

[bshole]

Looking at the major powers in the region, both iraq/iran were secular & modernizing in the past before foreign interventions. It's unclear how many countries in the world can withstand victimization by the US/Soviets (eg. iraq used to have one of the largest militaries), and frankly it's only a coincidence both superpowers are secular, for different reasons.

Not true. There has been a single Nobel prize in physics that was Muslim. That number again.... one. He was Pakistani. If your country is committed to secularism and science, the measure of that will be in contributions to civilization. That is measured by patents and Nobels. Islamic society has never generated either of these two entities.

I despise America for intervening in the Middle East but to blame the failure of the Middle East on us is not completing the picture. What we have done to the Middle East is MILD compared to what we did to Germany and Japan. Both Germany and Japan recovered just fine and went on to become extremely successful. The reason for this is obvious. Their people were western and secular. No the Middle East is broken because of the devotion of its inhabitants to a tribal religion above all else. Their acceptance of dogma is primarily to blame for their broken societies just as America's acceptance of Western Secularism is the primary reason for it's success.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physics

 

[agent00f]

Not true. There has been a single Nobel prize in physics that was Muslim. That number again.... one. He was Pakistani. If your country is committed to secularism and science, the measure of that will be in contributions to civilization. That is measured by patents and Nobels. Islamic society has never generated either of these two entities.

That's a pretty odd metric, that you can similarly use against africans or a few other ethnicities FWIW.

Nobel winners mostly come from relatively few institutions on the map, and likelihood of getting one is predicated on working there.

As to patents, I'm pretty sure muslim engineers fill them all the same; you can search the relevant db's for Mohammed.

I despise America for intervening in the Middle East but to blame the failure of the Middle East on us is not completing the picture. What we have done to the Middle East is MILD compared to what we did to Germany and Japan. Both Germany and Japan recovered just fine and went on to become extremely successful. The reason for this is obvious. Their people were western and secular. No the Middle East is broken because of the devotion of its inhabitants to a tribal religion above all else. Their acceptance of dogma is primarily to blame for their broken societies just as America's acceptance of Western Secularism is the primary reason for it's success.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physics

Asia in general suffered from the same prejudice until rather recently, so what would you say to the you of 100 years ago? And interesting enough asians among themselves carry these prejudices against each other (like japanese against chinese, and now chinese sort of again se asian), so you can see how that works.

What actually holds the middle east back is more their local ingrained politics.

What you're missing is the fact history is long and our lives are short, so our view tends to be very myopic. Consider how little of history is actually secular. Within that history often small events lead to major results, so generalizing from this coincidence is largely futile. The current secularization of the west came in large part due to the wars, which I'm sure nobody fought to be more technically advanced.

 

[agent00f]

I thought about this a bit, and in hindsight it would be easier to recommend reading less hitchens/harris, because they're basically religious fanatics who happen to worship the state.

 

[Darwin333]

Your candidate voted for the Iraq war. Do you realize that 25% of foreign Muslims publicly profess that suicide bombing is sometimes justified? That is 1 out of 4 in case you couldn't do the math.

I'd love to take a look at the poll. I've got serious questions on how you get an accurate representation of a group of people over a billion strong spread across a metric fuckload of countries with half a metric fuckload living very poor or in conditions not really conducive to polling. That's not to mention that the question could easily be seen as fairly offensive to at least a portion of those being polled. Then we have the entire thing of exactly how the question is phrased which affects the data in an absurd way.

 

[buckshot24]

I'd love to take a look at the poll. I've got serious questions on how you get an accurate representation of a group of people over a billion strong spread across a metric fuckload of countries with half a metric fuckload living very poor or in conditions not really conducive to polling. That's not to mention that the question could easily be seen as fairly offensive to at least a portion of those being polled. Then we have the entire thing of exactly how the question is phrased which affects the data in an absurd way.

I think two of the polls have been posted in this thread. Both done by PPP.

 

[HomerJS]

What do you understand by ""Change"" means? and yes he promised ending this lunatic intrusion in middle east,and yes he removed some solders from Iraq,but what was the result? all he did was to give more power to the terrorists Isis,great decision, all he did was to put in jeopardy the remaining solders and the Democratic regime that these F**** USA politicians say they achieved,democratic Irak my ass again,lies ,lies.,when you and intelligent Americans open their eyes and see clear what's going on,Bush/Clinton's /Obama and majority of the American Senate don't give a F**** to these Middle east people's rights but to get as much oil they can out of these Middle East countries for cheap,use this god dam democratic crap to blind the eyes of Americans and the rest of the world opinions.

He leaves them in there broken promise, you gripe.
He pulls out and you gripe.

BTW - There was this thing called SOFA that required a pullout by 2011 signed by Bush administration

 

[bshole]

That's a pretty odd metric, that you can similarly use against africans or a few other ethnicities FWIW.

Nobel winners mostly come from relatively few institutions on the map, and likelihood of getting one is predicated on working there.

As to patents, I'm pretty sure muslim engineers fill them all the same; you can search the relevant db's for Mohammed.



Asia in general suffered from the same prejudice until rather recently, so what would you say to the you of 100 years ago? And interesting enough asians among themselves carry these prejudices against each other (like japanese against chinese, and now chinese sort of again se asian), so you can see how that works.

What actually holds the middle east back is more their local ingrained politics.

What you're missing is the fact history is long and our lives are short, so our view tends to be very myopic. Consider how little of history is actually secular. Within that history often small events lead to major results, so generalizing from this coincidence is largely futile. The current secularization of the west came in large part due to the wars, which I'm sure nobody fought to be more technically advanced.

Good analysis and I agree partially with what you stated. Here is another analysis that seems pretty spot on to me.

That brings us to the sometimes sensitive question of European/western ascendancy. There are dozens of ideas why and hundreds of books on the subject. Most concentrate on one area or another but fall flat over all. It is not one fact or another that made the difference. Some of the more modern attempts at explanation make some compelling arguments. Such a Guns, Germs and steel, by Jerrod Diamond but then fall flat once further enquiry fails to produce answers. After reading many publications on the subject. There is one book that nailed the answers to the question perfectly. This is by far the best researched and answer to the sensitive question. Civilization, The West and the Rest, by Niall Furguson. In this publications six major reasons are given for the very rapid ascendancy of Western Europe over the rest including the expanding Islam empire of the Ottomans.
These are:
1: Competition: decentralization, nation states and capitals. Military competition between small states ( a forced evolution )
2: Science: a way of understanding and Changing the natural world ( giving a military advantage as well)
3: Property Rights: Rule of law protecting individual wealth, creating secularism, resolving issues without conflict.
4: Medicine: improved life expectancy, reduction of superstition, spread to colonies.
5: Consumer Society: purchasing of products, create complex economics, develop institutions and sustain industrial revolution.
6: Work ethic & human rights: a secular moral framework. The glue that holds points 1 to 5 together.

 

[agent00f]

A lot of those factors are fundamentally economic stemming from what can be considered a capitalist revolution. That includes competition & private property, and the material-worship of which secularism is a side effect. As long as muslims aren't excluded from human greed, the invisible hand will bide its time.