JayB

Apparently, they're so obvious that it's not even necessary to speak of them, much less apply a similar historical analysis to contemporary Islam and its modern political and economic contexts. What a joke. Interesting - I hope you'll spell this out in more detail. I think you attempted this before, but the patronizing, post-colonial relativisopologia for every species of backwardness and barbarism ran aground on the whole death-penalty for apostates thing, if I recall correctly. Have another crack at it, though.

Amazing, it's as though you were speaking directly to Sam Harris... "...honest reasoning declares that there is much that is objectionable—and, frankly, terrifying—about the religion of Islam and about the state of discourse among Muslims living in the West, and it is decidedly inconvenient that discussing these facts publicly is considered a sign of “intolerance” by well-intentioned liberals, in part because such criticism resonates with the actual bigotry of not-so-well-intentioned conservatives. I can see no remedy for this, however, apart from simply ramming the crucial points home, again and again. The first thing that all honest students of Islam must admit is that it is not absolutely clear where members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, al-Shabab, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hamas, and other Muslim terrorist groups have misconstrued their religious obligations. If they are “extremists” who have deformed an ancient faith into a death cult, they haven’t deformed it by much. When one reads the Koran and the hadith, and consults the opinions of Muslim jurists over the centuries, one discovers that killing apostates, treating women like livestock, and waging jihad—not merely as an inner, spiritual struggle but as holy war against infidels—are practices that are central to the faith. Granted, one path out of this madness might be for mainstream Muslims to simply pretend that this isn’t so—and by this pretense persuade the next generation that the “true” Islam is peaceful, tolerant of difference, egalitarian, and fully compatible with a global civil society. But the holy books remain forever to be consulted, and no one will dare to edit them. Consequently, the most barbarous and divisive passages in these texts will remain forever open to being given their most plausible interpretations. Thus, when Allah commands his followers to slay infidels wherever they find them, until Islam reigns supreme (2:191-193; 4:76; 8:39; 9:123; 47:4; 66:9)—only to emphasize that such violent conquest is obligatory, as unpleasant as that might seem (2:216), and that death in jihad is actually the best thing that can happen to a person, given the rewards that martyrs receive in Paradise (3:140-171; 4:74; 47:5-6)—He means just that. And, being the creator of the universe, his words were meant to guide Muslims for all time. Yes, it is true that the Old Testament contains even greater barbarism—but there are obvious historical and theological reasons why it inspires far less Jewish and Christian violence today. Anyone who elides these distinctions, or who acknowledges the problem of jihad and Muslim terrorism only to swiftly mention the Crusades, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the Tamil Tigers, and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma, is simply not thinking honestly about the problem of Islam." http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-13/ground-zero-mosque/

This from another noted redneck: "Silence is not moderation In a recent Wall Street Journal article, terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann said that anti-Muslim rhetoric in America is bad news for anti-terrorism efforts: "We are handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup, an absolute propaganda coup." By many accounts, the man who could blunt the power of that coup is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the religious leader behind the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero. The imam has been surprisingly mum on the issue while he travels in the Middle East. What message of faith could he offer to Muslims and non-Muslims alike that could turn this moment of division into a time of healing? As many have pointed out, the controversy over the "ground zero mosque" is a false one. The project is legal to build, and it should remain legal. That does not mean, however, that any concern about building a mosque so close to ground zero is synonymous with bigotry. The true scandal here is that Muslim moderates have been so abysmally lacking in candor about the nature of their faith and so slow to disavow its genuine (and growing) pathologies--leading perfectly sane and tolerant people to worry whether Muslim moderation even exists. Despite his past equivocations on this issue, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf could dispel these fears in a single paragraph: "Like all decent people, I am horrified by much that goes on in the name of 'Islam,' and I consider it a duty of all moderate Muslims to recognize that many of the doctrines espoused in the Qur'an and hadith present some unique liabilities at this moment in history. Our traditional ideas about martyrdom, jihad, blasphemy, apostasy, and the status of women must be abandoned, as they are proving disastrous in the 21st century. Many of Islam's critics have fully justified concerns about the state of discourse in parts of the Muslim world--where it is a tissue of conspiracy theories, genocidal ravings regarding the Jews, and the most abject, triumphalist fantasies about conquering the world for the glory of Allah. While the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity also contain terrible passages, it has been many centuries since they truly informed the mainstream faith. Hence, we do not tend to see vast numbers of Jews and Christians calling for the murder of apostates today. This is not true of Islam, and there is simply no honest way of denying this shocking disparity. We are members of a faith community that appears more concerned about harmless cartoons than about the daily atrocities committed in its name--and no one suffers from this stupidity and barbarism more than our fellow Muslims. Islam must grow up. And Muslim moderates like ourselves must be the first to defend the rights of novelists, cartoonists, and public intellectuals to criticize all religious faiths, including our own." These are the sorts of sentiments that should be the litmus test for Muslim moderation. Find an imam who will speak this way, and gather followers who think this way, and I'll volunteer to cut the ribbon on his mosque in lower Manhattan. Sam Harris" Amen.

Glad to see you're on board. Given the real context of the conversation (there's that reality-stuff again), it would seem that now would be a good time to emphasize the tolerance part and leave your "repulsion" and "they're coming for white clits!" talk for later on. Unless your intention really is to come off like a bigot that really doesn't want the mosque built and is willing to stoke general fear and hatred for specific activities while championing the moral high ground. A hollow "tolerance" that's actually devoid of any difference. Tolerance = recognizing their legal right to build a mosque wherever it's legal to do so. That's it. Uncritical indifference toward whatever absurd medieval barbarisms and the system of laws they gave rise to, much less the behaviors they give rise to isn't part of "tolerance." Amazingly enough, there are a few people on the political left who risk being disinvited from untold numbers of hemp-only quilting circles and backyard-egg collectives by voicing similar sentiments in public: "I am an atheist with an affinity for non-fundamentalist religious believers whose faith has made room for secular knowledge. I am also a political liberal. I am not, however, a multiculturalist who believes that all cultures and religions are equally worthy of respect. And I find myself in a lonely place in relation to many liberals, political and religious, because I cannot accept a multiculturalism that tends to excuse, under the rubric of “tolerance,” religious and cultural practices that violate universal human rights." http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/susan-jacoby/multiculturalism-and-its-discontents

Yes - the author is my favorite Redneck. What does *she* know about Islam, anyway? BTW - here's the deal. You can build any church you want, anywhere it's legal to do so. That's your right under the constitution. The same set of rules that gives you the right to do so gives me the the right to explain precisely why I find the set of beliefs encompassed in your religion - which you have chosen to adopt and abide by - repulsive. Ditto for the legal-framework which incorporates them, ditto for the full set of cultural traditions that it shelters from scrutiny, criticism, or reform.

Someone post a photo of the racist who posted this screed, pronto: "Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls’ genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs and stones them for falling in love. . . . The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better."

I have to agree. The fellow sounds a tad imbalanced, but unless the guy has demonstrated a level of criminality that renders him a threat to the students that he teaches or his colleagues, or has proven himself incapable of performing his duties in the classroom - I can't support his removal. I can think of at least a dozen topics that are controversial enough in some communities - evolution, drug legalization, etc, etc, etc, - that are likely to render a teacher suspect in the said communities - and I'd hate to see any of them used as grounds for dismissal. FWIW from what I could tell my AP bio teacher in high-school was at least somewhat partial to a soft version of creationism, and my physics teacher seemed like an enthusiastic advocate of the creed. The only time I can recall the bio-teacher touching on creationism somewhat obliquely was by asking for volunteers to argue one side or the other, and staging a debate in his class. The physics teacher was actually quite good, despite being a bit kooky - and I think I actually sharpened my knowledge of evolution and critical thinking skills quite a bit more in the occasional off-topic debates we had about evolution-vs-creationism in his classroom than I would have otherwise. I'd be quite happy if there were no creationists of any kind teaching anything, much less high school science, but these two cases are examples where it's possible for skilled and passionate teachers to stay professional and do a good job teaching their subjects despite ideological baggage that - at first glance - would seem to make that impossible.

Oregon is apparently another dramatic outlier relative to the graph, since"...$3 of every $4 state government spends [is]going to salaries and benefits..." http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/08/can_oregon_downsize_state_gove.html

What's your preferred sedative for family gatherings, cocktail parties, and general social interactions, BTW? Envisioning old Uncle Ron venturing forth with a mild political joke, hearing "REGRESSIVE!" in his one good ear, and instinctively ducking just in time to dodge a flying drumstick....

When I read the original entry, I thought to myself, who is least likely to be able to identify anyone on the opposite side of the political spectrum that has any redeeming qualities.....

"The next time you're engaged in a political discussion with someone who has very strong views different from your own, ask them if they can name two famous thinkers or politicians whose politics are opposed to theirs who they also think are very smart and genuinely concerned with making the world a better place. If they can't, it's not clear they are able to grant the good faith such discussions should have." Robert Reich, Barney Frank

I am not a fan of the system of ideas that's encompassed by Islam, Sharia, etc - so I'd be happy if no more mosques were ever built anywhere - but as long as they're bound by the same laws that pertain to other churches they have the right to build their mosque there. If nothing else, it may serve as a concrete illustration of the shift in cultural, economic, and demographic power that's been underway ever since the the 1930s. You may not be interested in Islam, but Islam is interested in you.

This would be a good time to re-post that Century 21 ad of yours. Or was it Wells Fargo? Not sure if this is the one that you're thinking of, but it's my personal favorite: [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubsd-tWYmZw "Suzanne researched this" is actually superior to all of the arguments I've ever heard that attempt to construct an intellectual or moral defense of this country's 70 odd years of using public money to subsidize private home ownership.

Woah! "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be abolished, Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Tuesday when asked whether the mortgage giants should play a role in housing market reforms. "I think they should be abolished," Frank told Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto in an evening interview." But wait - there's more... "There are people in this society who for economic and frankly social reasons can't and shouldn't be homeowners," he said. "I do want some government help to build affordable rental housing. Working in a bipartisan way the house and the senate just passed legislation to strengthen the FHA's ability to say no to people who shouldn't be getting mortgages and to say yes to people who should."

But yes - get Marijuana legalization on the ballot and the 0.4% of the Washington state voters that have libertarian leanings will storm the ballot booths.

You're on dangerous ground here. It's a slippery slope from marijuana legalization to allowing adults to consume trans-fats. Pretty soon the guys at the Elks club will be able to host a bingo-night without filing for a permit and then we're two steps away from armageddon.

I'm just a bit surprised that you haven't seen through Soros' charade and exposed him as a double agent for the oligarchy. Kudos for ferreting out the real policy goals that Cato, the AEI, etc are intent on advancing after they cleverly concealed them on their "about" pages. Ladies and gentlemen, The Oligarchy has met its match.

Gosh - Washington must be quite an anomaly, since pay and benefits constitute 60% of the state's budget. "State's biggest expense is the hardest one to cut Wages and benefits for teachers and state workers make up 60 percent of the budget." http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011003705_stateworkers07m.html Also interesting that Kulongoski, like Villaraigosa in LA - cleverly disguised himself as a labor advocate for a couple of decades and, in Kulongoski's case - two terms as governor - before peeling off the mask and revealing himself as a member of the regressive oligarchy! "Kulongoski, who won election with strong support from public employee unions, also took aim at public sector wages and benefits. “My message to state and school employees is this: If you don’t want a decade of deficits to turn into a decade of layoffs and wage freezes—work with us to manage the cost of your benefits and keep your pay in line with your counterparts in the private sector,” the governor said. Kulongoski proposed several ways in which to dial back compensation: getting employees to pay the 6 percent pension contribution many public sector entities pay on their behalf; engaging in statewide collective bargaining rather than the current fragmented process; and getting employees to pay more of their healthcare costs — or in some cases, any portion of that expense." http://blogs.wweek.com/news/2010/06/25/kulongoski-throws-bombs-in-final-city-club-address/

Bonus points for being a consistent champion of the supremacy of the state over the individual.

Now we're getting somewhere. Please share your definition of the oligarchy, give us the names of the leading members, and perhaps your best guess as to where they hold their secret meetings. Do they also have a special code name that rhymes with "Zilderburg?"

1. "the state should only pay public sector employees what is necessary to staff positions with people who are qualified to do their jobs..." I guess so, if you think that merely filling chairs should be the goal of any public sector hiring. Personally, I think that in many positions we don't just want people who are "qualified," but actually we want people who are good at their jobs. Maybe you agree with this and have simply assumed a different definition of the word "qualified." If so, I agree with you. When it comes to gardener or bus driver, it may well be the case that government employment pays better than private. When it comes to "professionals," certainly not even close - even accounting for these disgustingly lavish benefits you complain of. I think the idea that we pay these people more than they are worth is just plain wrong, but I'm not an economic or vocational analyst. 2. "some functions of government are more essential than others, and deserve a higher priority when it's clear that the economy isn't generating enough resources to sustain all functions of the government at their current level." OK, here too I may just agree with you. I'm not at all convinced that the State government needs to be running liquor stores or the ferry system. Health insurance, though, should absolutely NOT be run by private business. That is an abomination and any argument that the private sector is more efficient here is completely whacked. We KNOW that medicare is more efficient than Prudential and in this example you righties argue that medicare is less humane or driving the doctors out of business or .... but not that it the government run system is less efficient. Since we're going by the numbers here: 1. From what I've seen, the data supports your claim that doctors, lawyers, and other folks at the top of the professional ladder make less working for the government than they would in the private sector, even after adjusting for pay and benefits. I still claim that in my regressive fantasy where the highest priories of government - those things that only the government can do - get the highest funding, there'd be more resources available to dedicate to things like paying for judges, public defenders, etc. I still wouldn't pay more than necessary to staff the position with qualified personnel - and I think my definition is the same as yours - but even in that scenario there'd be money to pay for more of them. Ditto for MD's that want to work in public health, etc, etc, etc, etc. 2. The health insurance issue has been beaten to death, we disagree on that point, and there's a gajillion threads where where I've hashed things out with either you or folks that agree with you here. 3. One easy way to save a ton of money at every level of government would be to stop prosecuting and incarcerating sane adults for things that they do to themselves or that consenting adults to one another. Start by decriminalizing marijuana, move on to other drugs, and eventually get to full legalization of drugs, prostitution, etc. Prosecuting people, incarcerating them, seizing their property, and depriving them of their livelihood for things that they do to themselves or with other consenting adults isn't a legitimate function of government in the first place, and in the spirit of grand bargains I'd be more than happy to shift every dollar saved by ceasing all of the above to...funding the pensions and benefits of public sector workers.

making claims is easy. Actually substantiating your claims is an entirely different matter, and cherry picking data is never going to get you there. The above is an argument, not a claim. Here's the same argument if a different form. If you can find a qualified person to wave cars onto a state ferry for X dollars per hour, and the state pays X + N dollars per hour - then the state is wasting N dollars every hour that the said person is working. If you wish to make an argument to the contrary, have at it. If you want to discuss specific claims, how about starting with the percentage of health insurance costs that are borne by King County Employees: "Metropolitan King County council members -- especially those running for county executive -- have a political problem. As the council looks at a 2010 budget shortfall of up to $50 million, more people are asking why county employees don't pay a monthly premimum for health-care coverage as most other Washington workers do. It's a particularly tricky issue for county exec candidates Dow Constantine and Larry Phillips, Democrats who have had cordial ties with organized labor but who are facing candidates who say the county should cut labor costs before asking taxpayers to pony up more money.... Constantine is trying to get his arms around the problem by proposing that non-union-represented employees pay 2 percent of any earnings above about $60,000 for health coverage." My claim is that the private sector average is greater than zero, and that private sector workers in King County shoulder a greater share of their health-insurance costs than persons employed by King County do. Happy to carry on from here if you wish.

are you telling us that once again right wing think tanks full of charlatans produce studies that support regressive propaganda? in other words, lots of vague arm waving but no real argument that counters the Baker piece. There's a recent study generated with data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey that tries to account for some of the factors that I mentioned. It's findings are not consistent with the Baker piece. Here's a descriptive summary: "Conducted for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CPS is a long-running survey that couples earnings and employment information with detailed demographic characteristics of the survey population. At first glance, the CPS data show that the average hourly wage for a federal worker is about 48% higher than a private worker's. Yet because federal employees tend to be more educated and experienced than their private counterparts, as Mr. Orszag noted, one has to control for these skill differences. This reduces the public-private salary gap—but it does not eliminate it. The federal wage premium for workers who have the same education and experience stands at 24%, still a windfall for public employees. Even using all the standard controls—including race and gender, full- or part-time work, firm size, marital status, region, residence in a city or suburb, and more—the federal wage premium does not disappear. It stubbornly hovers around 12%, meaning private employees must work 13½ months to earn what comparable federal workers make in 12. Most academic studies dating back to the 1970s have found similar pay differences. In addition to the wage premium, federal workers enjoy more generous fringe benefits than do private workers. For instance, federal workers receive a defined benefit pension with benefit levels comparable to those from private 401(k) plans, except that federal workers contribute only 0.8% of pay and are not subject to any market risk. They also receive employer matches to the defined contribution Thrift Savings Plan that significantly exceed the typical private employer match. More If the overall generosity of federal benefits matches that of federal salaries (which seems quite likely), total compensation for federal workers may easily exceed $14,000 per year more than an otherwise similar private employee. The pay premium is probably the main reason federal workers quit their jobs at a far lower rate than do private employees. At the beginning of 2010, federal workers were only about one-third as likely to leave their jobs (a ratio not much different than in 2006, before the recession), implying that no private employer could offer them better compensation. Federal employment also carries significant nonfinancial benefits—in particular that layoffs and firings are much rarer. If you think these aspects of federal employment lack value, ask any private employee who is now looking for work. A federal pay premium is unfair both to private workers, who receive less than their government peers, and to taxpayers who must cover the difference. Given our 2.7 million-strong federal work force, the government effectively overbills Americans by almost $40 billion every year just on labor costs." IMO you can easily determine whether or not a given position is "underpaid" by whether or not it remains vacant. If the government can't fill a given job with a qualified person at the compensation that it's offering, then they're attempting, and failing, to "underpay."

Actually - different studies come to different conclusions based on their methods and whether or not they accurately account for the value of both pay and benefits. I'm sure that studies which aggregate all bachelor's degrees into a single cohort and that pretend that a degree in Women's Studies and Electrical Engineering are equally valuable in the private labor market would support the above claims. So would the fiction that the average number of hours worked are equivalent in both sectors, by failing to accurately account for the future value of pension benefits, health benefits etc, etc, etc, etc.

I'll just keep repeating as necessary. I'm for using tax revenues as efficiently as possible to provide the highest output of services in those domains where only the public sector can deliver them. That includes law enforcement, which includes environmental laws, zoning laws, workplace safety laws. etc. Tending the flowers next to the capitol building, not so much. Under my "fantasy." there'd be more money to pay for them, and more people doing them, since the state would offer only the compensation necessary to insure that the positions were staffed with qualified individuals, and those that proved themselves incapable of doing so would be fired immediately. I'm also for "using tax revenues as efficiently as possible to provide the highest output of services..." but the fetishization for "efficiency" should balanced against the need for living wages, decent benefits, and some semblance of security in old age for public and private sector workers. There's no shortage of low-hanging fruit in the form of giant corporate subsidies, tax loopholes and holidays, military largesse, etc. that never make it into this "non-debatable" topic. What there's also no shortage of are, you know, real-life examples, from water privatization to military contracting, that prove that "private sector efficiencies" are often nothing more than opportunities for windfall profits though the kind of labor abuses Mattp is experiencing and gouging citizens turned "customers". Trotting out familiar tropes to free-market magic, "maximizing efficient output through private sector initiatives", and levelling down through outsourcing or union-busting isn't going to cut it in an environment where we've seen enough data already that suggests the outcomes of these endeavors are mixed at best. They've certainly not lived up to the breathless hype manufactured at business-friendly think-tanks. I don't typically deal with Jay's airless, zero-sum parlour games, not because there's no answer or because he's always right, but because I'm unwilling to accept the absurd assumptions and abstractions on which his games are based. Nor am I much interested in validating rhetorical flourishes (capitol flower tending fat-cats) passed off as meaningful analysis. His "questions" are as rigged as State Fair Skeeball and we've already seen enough of the patent medicine he's peddling to know his cures are worse than the disease. There are two separate propositions I've made here. The first is quite concrete and specific. The first is that the state should only pay public sector employees what is necessary to staff positions with people who are qualified to do their jobs. My claim is that by not doing so, the state is actually acting counter to the public interest and wasting resources that could be used to fund more urgent public priorities. If you oppose paying public employees only what is necessary to attract and retain enough qualified people to get the government's work done, then you are by definition, not ""using tax revenues as efficiently as possible to provide the highest output of services..." You are in favor of using public funds to generate a private windfall for public sector employees. That also, by definition, means that you place the private interests of the said employees above whatever alternate purposes those tax revenues could be used for. The second claim is that some functions of government are more essential than others, and deserve a higher priority when it's clear that the economy isn't generating enough resources to sustain all functions of the government at their current level. If you do not believe this is true, then it makes sense to insist that,say, printing documents is an essential function of government that only the public sector can provide, and there are no more critical uses for the funds required to pay for its operations. If you don't believe this, then it makes sense to have a discussion about what should be privatized and what should remain public. It's clear where you stand on both. Thanks.