wrote:
SNIP

So I conclude that you do NOT read any newpapers
or watch any television stations or listen
to any radio from predominantly Muslim nations.
I do not, therefor I do not know if what you say is
true or not.

But it is becoming clearer that you do not know if
it is true or not.
Let's deconstruct your logic above to expose it for the foolishness
it is. From your comments above it follows that:

1) Anything other than the native tongue is not "representative"
of the worldview of the speaker in question.

Non Sequitor.

That does not follow from my conclusion that it is
prudent to suppose that English-Language webpages
are written specifically to cater to the putative
'world view' of native speakers of English.

2) We cannot reliably know things translated from and by the people
of a given region who *intended* for us to read/hear/see these
things in *our* native tongue.

Non-Sequitor

That does not follow from my conclusion that we
(meaning you or I) do not know that the webages
are translations of anything that was published
in any other languages, or representative thereof.


Baloney - you are tap dancing to avoid the (obvious) conclusion
that there is a dearth of condemnation worldwide from Islamic
leadership and clergy as regards to Islamic extremism. Your
argument comes down to "You don't read Arabic (or the other
native languages in question) so you can't know what's going on."
It's absurdity after absurdity to prop up an worldview predicated
on absurdity.


3) In fact, this problem is so bad, that even when reading a
breadth of perspectives translated into English - perspectives
ranging from hardcore Islamist to hardcore Zionist to something
in between - we *still* can't know anything ... because they're
not being read in their native tongues. (P.S and big hint, MEMRI,
in particular was specifically created to make speeches and writings
in Arabic available in English by means of high-quality translations.)


Non-Sequitor

That does not follow from my conclusion that we
(meaning you or I) do not know that the webages
are translations of anything that was published
in any other language.

That isn't remotely what you said originally, but this
paragraph, at least, is true as written. But it's a
tautology. You can never know exactly what you haven't
read or don't know... this is self-evident. But when
we listen carefully to key opinion leaders in the
Islamic world: The clerics in Mecca & Medinah, the leadership
of key nations like Iran and Syria - what do we hear?
Anti-Israeli hatred, Anti-Western hatred, calls for jihad,
and absolute silence on the actions of the radicals.
Oh, I forgot, they actually *are* condemning them in Arabic,
but keeping it a secret from the English speaking world.

A broad spectrum of writing published for native speakers
of English and catering to their 'world-view' is STILL
writtne for native speakers fo English and STILL caters
to their 'world-view

Therefo

4) You are hereby prohibited from expressing any opinion about France,
Italy, Norway, Russia, China, et al unless you are a native speaker
reader of their respective languages. So, unless you have mastery
of many languages as a minimum cost of entry, you have no place
ever discussing geopolitics again.


As is usual with your type you have decided, _a priori_
on your conclusions and then go out to look for evidence
to support it. Upon finding little or no such evidence
you than take non-evidence and falsely claim that it
suports your conclusion.


Then you assert a (God-given, one supposes) right to
direct others to cease and desist from challenging you.

No, I derived my conclusions from *your* predicates. The fact
that the conclusions are stupid are a direct consequence of
similarly stupid predicates. You've got a degenerate
worldview and it leads to degenerate conclusions - that's all
I was demonstrating. I don't actually *think* you should not
comment on geopolitics. I merely was demonstrating that this
is the natural conclusion of following *your* assumptions.

.
5) (And here's the real genius of your argument): I argued that there
was a "deafening silence" when reading the arguments of the Arab
world to the English speaking world. Your conclusion is that the
English translations are not "reliable" and that we "don't know"
whether there is widespread pressure by Islamic "moderates" upon their
radical brethren. So, (using your impeccable logic), we're left
with two possibilities:

Oh, here is another tactic popular with your type.
Realizing that your argument is being exposed
as the crap it is, you are now changing it to
another argument, substantively different from
what you earlier asserted. Now you are restricting
that 'deafening silence' to "FROM the Arab world
TO the English speaking world" (emphacis mine).

Sorry Sparky, you changed the context of the debate, not
me. I assert and reaffirm that there is largely silence
around the Islamic world from its leaders and clerics
as regards to radical activities within its community.
*You* are the one who wandered into the "but we don't
read Arabic so we cannot know this" desert. I believe
that a breadth of reportage' - in English - from the
regions in question can give us a pretty meaningful
perspective on what is going on there. You are clinging
to the last hope you have of propping up your silly
worldview by retreating to a ridiculous linguistic
argument.

Previously you referred to "the deafening silence
heard through the overwhelming part of the Islamic
world"

*I* have heard heard Muslims condemning senseless
violence, specifically in response to the rioting that
followed the Danish cartoons. Maybe that is because
I listen to PRI, NPR, and C-Span.

E.g. one Pakistani, when asked if he found the cartoons
offensive replied, "Yes, I am offended by the cartoons.
But I am more offended by the violent reaction to the
cartoons. Burning a church does not restore my
dignity. Killing a Christian does not restore my dignity."
and so on.


It took me all of thirty seconds to find these examples
of that deafening silence using just one of your
references:

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD133206

SNIP

It would seem that either you don't read the sources you cite,
or you don't allow what you read there to change your conclusions.

I do not hold, nor have I ever said, that there is *no* counterpoint in
the Islamic world. For example, there was a recent convocation of about
250 Islamic Sharia scholars who spoke pretty firmly against radical
jihjad. But we are talking about 1.5 Billion people here (more or less),
and a few hundred voices speaking against what's gone on, if not
"silence", is at best a "whisper". I'll believe that there is mainstream
opposition against the radical within Islam when I hear it preached from
the clerics in Mecca. So, yes, there are a few brave souls here and
there that are making the case against the radicals, but, no, they're
not remotely the mainstream of Islam, at least as expressed thus far.



i) The "moderate" Islamists are *not* putting pressure on their
radical brethern in any large way.

ii) The "moderate" Islamists *are* putting pressure on their
radical brethren but they are also purposely keeping
it a secret from their English speaking readership by
intentionally not letting us know about it.

Your argument is absurd on its face.

That's not my argument. It is your own maliciously
constructed straw man that you falsely attribute to
me. Yet another tactic popular with your ilk.

It's not your argument per se. It is the natural consequence
and outcome of starting with your argument. You can run,
but you cannot hide.


*My* argument was that we (you and I as individuals)
had insuficient information with which to reach your
conclusion. The idea that one should accept the
uncertainty of a proposition unless and until properly
researching it so as to arrive upon a probable truth is,
evidently, alien to you. In the alternative, you DID
realize that was my argument but went on to
deliberately mistrepresent it.

Then why are you not consistent? Why do you not remain
still on the subject? If you don't know and cannot, your
position on any related matter is irrelevant and you
should have the good manners to be silent therefore.
Of course, you don't actually *believe* any of this.
You are using the "we can't know" argument as a
rhetorical device because you're on the losing side
of a debate, nothing more. You *do* believe you know
something about these matters, else you wouldn't have
resurrected a thread that's been dead for days.


I generally fault our education system which has long
taught students to do 'research' in precisely your manner.

I'm not doing research. I'm combating a ridiculous worldview
held by silly and naive' pedants. I don't have to have
all the answers to be able to illuminate the fact that your
perspective is ridiculous on its face.

SNIP


Oh, now you move from your false conclusion to 'speculation'
as to _my_ motivation for that false conclusion. How high will
you stack your house of cards?

You built the foundation - I just showed you where your endpoints
lay. If you don't like it, pick better starting propositions.


The truth is that you and your ilk
never found a Western Democracy perfect enough to support with any real
enthusiasm, but you jump right in with sympathy and big lefty tears for
every tin pot dictator, despot, murderer, and lunatic that spews forth
from the various sewers around the world. After all we need to
"understand" their reasons for doing as they do, since clearly "Good"
and "Evil" are anachronisms you threw out at the same time you were busy
denying the importance and role of religious faith. Your ilk (and
probably you as well) were busy being very quiet when Hussein was
savaging his own people and his sons busily pushing people into
industrial shredders just to be able to hear them scream a bit longer.
On these kinds of horrors our fine Left has not much to say, but when it
comes to Bush and Blair ... oh wait, let's have you speak for yourself:

Thank you for such a clear example of your intellectually
dishonest approach to debate. After misrepresenting my
present opinions, and having no knowledge of my past

I didn't misrepresent a thing - I just took you to the logical
outcomes of your starting points. You then squeal an squirm
because you like your predicates, but you don't like their
consquences. Too bad. Lousy starting points yield lousy
conclusions.

opinions, you present a false proposition about those past
opinions, conclude, without evidence, that it is true, and
then build your straw man upon that foundation. The usual
responce when this is pointed out, would be to accuse
me of lying to hide a secret agenda. The "he's lying"
argument is ever the fallback position of the intellectually
bankrupt as it eliminates reliance on reason, and rests
on faith in the speaker instead.

1) Your agenda is clearly not "secret". It is trumpeted
regularly by the various factions of democracy haters,
appeasement monkeys, apologists for evil and all of the
rest of the effluvium that make up the middenheap we know
as the intellectual "Left".

2) I don't think you're lying. I think you have fantasies
about reality upon which you predicate you beliefs. When
confronted with the conclusions of these fantastic predicates
you get your tender feeling hurt. Too bad - you picked the
bad starting points, not me.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/