JayB

The tradition I was referring to was the Western intellectual tradition, which obviously includes, but is not confined to Christianity. At this stage in the game, you're desperately clinging to a weak semantic dodge involving a single word in an effort to deny the plain fact in today's world you can publicly desecrate holy Christian symbols without risking your life, but exercising the same liberties with Muslim holy symbols equals almost certain death in majority Muslim countries, and having to live in fear of being murdered anywhere else.

So in one tradition the combined effect of the renaissance, enlightenment, etc has resulted a constellation of forces that has compelled the faithful to progressively abandon the most backwards and barbaric injunctions in their holy texts by this point in history, and in another you literally take your life in your hands if do so too loudly.

Agree on both counts. I'm not a consumer of boutique produce, but I don't think that they should have to compete against folks that have the labor market rigged in their favor via special exemptions for agricultural workers. No other industry that I'm aware of, no matter how labor intensive, gets this special treatment farmers aren't any more entitled to special protections for their livelihoods than factory workers or anyone else IMO. I also think there'd be a substantial social and economic upside relative for Mexico if the folks working the harvests didn't have to leave their country to do so.

This is indeed a very unwise, unsound law. Legalizing drugs would have a dramatic impact on the murder, mayhem, and corruption plaguing the Mexican border zone, and we'd waste a hell of a lot less money punishing consenting adults for things that they do to themselves. Even if we did legalize drugs, I'm pretty sure that Mexico will be a fucked-to-death political and economic basket case that people are willing to risk their lives to escape from, so I don't see it having a major impact on the numbers of people that want to cross the border. I'd put more stock on ending agricultural subsidies and wage-loopholes for farmers and shifting the production of non-machine harvestable crops to where the labor force is. Seems like that'd work better than creating incentives for US farmers to import a labor force that they can pay below market wages to.

The central claim I'm disputing is that violent extremism and retrograde barbarity in the Muslim world has is simply a reaction to Western misdeeds. I'm quite relieved to hear that no one actually believes that, despite hundreds of people chiming in here to make that case on this forum for the past 10 years. Thankfully the historical record makes it quite easy to undermine these non-assertions that no one makes when they're not arguing that point here, so I look forward to doing so. "....one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”

Yes - clearly I've been engaged in a dialogue with professional historians of the highest rank in this thread. That's precisely who I was directing my comment towards. Next time we're talking about the beliefs that actuate Jed Guthrie's Christianity I hope you'll take the time to chime in and remind everyone that there are *no* academic episcopalian theologians that have found *any* textual support for The Rapture in the Bible...

Control as in those in control of the formal institutions that house state power, I'd say Saudi Arabia is the only state that I can think of off the top of my head. Post '79 we've got Iran and a brief interlude where the Taliban officially ran the show in Afghanistan. Or are you talking about de-facto control? I'd put anywhere where adulteress's were routinely stoned to death, forced clitorectomies were commonplace, familial honor killings, etc prevailed which encompasses quite a bit of turf outside of either Saudi Arabia or Iran. What's funny is that you seem to be arguing that Islamic Fundamentalism is something that the CIA conjured up out of thin air in a basement lab somewhere in '78, and that it has no essential connection to any religious, cultural, or political currents in the region that predate the instatement of the Shah. What's interesting here is that there's literally no more regressive cultural force at work in the world right now than political Islam - yet you seem to have bought the line that every bit of barbarity and repression is a legitimate response to 50 year old colonial grievances. "Hey - normally be *opposed* to stoning adulteresses, hanging gays, and suicide bombing at least a tenth as much as I object to religious fanatics that murder abortion providers but..."

No western involvement in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Iraq over the last 100 years? simply laughable. btw, Hussein is said to have been a cia asset at some point. There's been extensive Western involvement in the middle east for Eons. Familiar Alexander of Macedon, the spice-trade, etc, etc, etc? Your specific claim is that without the CIA pulling the strings the regimes that Nasser, Qadaffi, Assad, Hussein displaced would have persisted in definitely. Go ahead and flesh out that argument a bit, and explain the specific agency that the CIA had in each case.

How familiar are you with what's transpired amongst the faithful and their neighbors since 632AD? How about a quick synopsis - e.g. History of Islam, from Muhammad to the end of the Ottoman Empire sans internal or external violence. Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia endured violent repression and political domination orders of magnitude worse than anything that the Middle East had to contend with, and Africans are still vastly more impoverished than their Middle Eastern brethren - yet they seem pretty uninterested in detonating themselves amongst train or planeloads full of Western civilians. On the whole they also seem far less prone to alienation and radicalization once they've immigrated. How do you account for the differences?

Nasser, Quadafi, Assad, Hussein, etc. Plenty of larger forces in the region that lead to the same outcome without any US involvement. Strange how the squishy multi-culti types can't fathom a set of internal dynamics in the non-western world that shape and drive their history other than US meddling. Skipped the history courses and went straight for the pomo-word games, eh? Given that the nation-states led by the politicians you mentioned didn't even exist as such prior to their births, much less the post-colonial pressures and conflicts that came to bear on them, your argument for a hermetically sealed Middle East floating relatively freely of the world-system is absurd on its face. The key question for you here is whether or not your conception of the "World System" allows for factors other than an omnipotent CIA pulling the strings from afar to have any impact on history. I'm sure the folks at Langley would be flattered, but it's still odd for a chap like you to continually assert that the folks that you imagine yourself as some kind of paterno-ideological benefactor for don't have any traditions, cultural imperatives, etc of their own that shape their history.

Mohammed Mossadegh is not available for comment. Nasser, Quadafi, Assad, Hussein, etc. Plenty of larger forces in the region that lead to the same outcome without any US involvement. Strange how the squishy multi-culti types can't fathom a set of internal dynamics in the non-western world that shape and drive their history other than US meddling. Skipped the history courses and went straight for the pomo-word games, eh?

So...muslim extremism was a phenomenon unknown to the wider world before the Afghan war? Might be news to Sadat, let alone the folks who traveled there from all points in the Middle East to participate in the jihad, like...Bin Laden. This notion of yours that anything that happens in the Muslim world is simply a reaction to Western provocation of some sort of another, and hasn't been driven by any endogenous factors within their culture is a surprisingly provincial and neo-colonial framework for a committed post-modern, relativist, multi-culti posterboy like yourself to view the world through. Tisk tisk. Ditto for your notion that none of the dynamics at play in the Middle East could have roots that extend back in history to any point before there was any meaningful American involvement in the region.

The more pertinent question is what happened between 1959 and 1978, IMO. The concentration of political and economic power via the "Pan Arab Nationalism" model and socialist central-planning gave birth to a repressive kleptocracy that routed secular rivals and either: left militant Islam as the only outlet for dissent, or dispensed patronage to Islamists in an effort to cultivate popular legitimacy. Sooner or later that Frankenstein monster will destroy its creators and the Islamists will make even more effective use of the repressive apparatus than the nominally secular elites that they've displaced. Iran writ large. Don't think the populations ruled in this manner'll enjoy the experience any more than the Iranians have, but they'll surely have ample time to reflect on it.

Yes, the photos above would provide an exciting game of pin-the-tail-on-Egypt's-secular-Left. Gets harder as the years go by. The Iran edition is fun too! Anwar Sadat is not available for comment.

By the looks of things in Cairo and everywhere else in the Muslim world, ground zero for "blowback" seems to be in the Middle East itself. Hopefully the knowledge that traces of it are visited on effect on Westerners who exercise their rights and liberties in a manner that the violent Muslim fringe don't care for is consolation enough for them to endure the steady encroachment of sharia law on the freedoms that their grandmothers could largely take for granted.

Might be interesting to ask him to comment on this series of photos of the graduating class at the university of Cairo. 1959 1978 1995 2004

Having social institutions with the real power stand their ground - in this case it would be South Park > Comedy Central > MTV > Viacom. Artists have their place, but then the likes of Rushdie, Westergaard, Van Gogh have either essentially or or actually forfeited their lives. I don't see you prepared to do the same and I don't suppose that was Molly's intention either. I wouldn't necessarily confuse and conflate this issue with that of the karmic payback of reverse colonization. Are there shared themes? Sure, but their's is entirely self-induced. Bummer, but definitely a case of reaping what you sow writ large across centuries. Care to explain how social institutions can take an effective stand if the society that they operate in condemns their refusal to abide by religious taboos as foolhardy "insensitivity" that warrants violent retribution? You really think that some kind of tactical collective appeasement that'll end at some indefinite point in the future is going to undermine their capacity to intimidate rather than entrench it? You still seem to be of the opinion that westerners are still the party with the capacity to call the shots in this game. All people in the West have to do is strive to learn what Muslims find offensive, then stop doing it, and all will be well. It's been clear ever since the Rushdie affair that this isn't actually the case. They'll decide what offends them and when, and folks in the west will abase themselves apologizing, condemn the people who exercised their rights and liberties in whichever way the violent Muslim fringe found objectionable, and quietly pray that if they do so consistently enough, they'll be left alone. Each psuedo-grievance that has been trumped up since the Rushie affair is simply an extension of this logic. A test to see how much political power they can exert under the pretext of protecting their religious scruples. This isn't about religion. It's about power. The Chinese president could defile the Koran six-different ways from Sunday, broadcast it live, stream it on youtube, and carpet-bomb the Middle East with CD copies and there'd be zero "blowback" because Al Queda and their fellow travelers understand that trying to get their way by threatening them would be ineffective, and quite counterproductive. To put it mildly. Speaking of "blowback," your reference to the karmic payback for colonization is especially amusing in this case. From the late 7th century to the mid-14th century, the Muslims were the world's foremost military and cultural imperialists. The only thing that prevented them from continuing in that role was a series of sustained military defeats beginning with the Mongols, and centuries of commercial decline brought on by the European discovery and exploitation of a sea-route to the far-east. Per your logic, the European colonization and domination of the Middle East was the rulers of the Caliphate "reaping what they'd sown for centuries" in Europe.

So lay out your "more effective" solution to the problem presented by violent fanatics who use murder impose their religious taboos on others. How's the accommodation routine worked in places like England?

You're confusing courtesy and cravenness. Big difference between accommodating a request and capitulating to a threat.

Internal dialogue? Broader question about the: -decadent fin de siecle nihilist routine that kicks in at every ridiculous pretext for outrage. "Stop making trouble with your cartoons." -Craven self-censorship masquerading as courtesy that characterizes a good chunk of the Western response to the same?

Every evasion wrapped in a cryptic allusion to sport-climbing in the place of a clear statement of principle is, actually, a perfectly clear answer. Good to know where you stand on this one.

You seem to be suggesting that it's the person that's deciding when there'll be trouble in this scenario. That is, what constitutes "swinging the stick." As this and virtually every other scenario like it demonstrates, it's clearly the "hornets" that decide what constitutes a provocation that invites violent retribution, and what doesn't. How consistently are you willing to apply this framework to religious fanatics? Is every doctor that performs abortions heedlessly inflaming the sensibilities of Christian fundamentalists in such a way that we should all just yawn and drop the "hornet-stick" metaphor when one or two of them get murdered?

As long as everyone exercises their first-amendment rights in a sharia-compliant manner, everything will be just fine. "An extremist issues the death sentence, a moderate explains why you deserve it."

Seems like every 2-3 years there's a thread that reminds me of the prize winner from my personal history. Really was the best anchor possible under the circumstances, and followed the most impressive lead by anyone that I've ever roped up with.