The Classical Freedom loving Left vs the Regressive Leftists

[MilitantSecular]

Hi guys I'm a gamer, I've lived and worked in the USA for a bit, been across Asia and Europe. Really like civi style games and like rpgs and puzzle games. I have lurked here for a while and seen your politics thread

Thought I might dig up a past topic

A split has happened, I saw you guys post on the subject. So I thought I might explain it as I feel it is, explain the split as I see it. There is a generation of Left, the people who read MLK years, people who lived the JFK years, people who like the classic liberalism of the Truman years....people of the left in the United States of America, in Europe who stood for free speech, equality, freedom, the fought against religious loons, stood up against communism...
A big split is coming, maybe funnily they see the current generation as 'hipster' leftists, a see them as a new regressive left who parrot party lines, who don't care so much for freedom but instead care about political correctness...its like the new regressive left have become ANTI anti-communists
Also I suppose nothing was ever perfect and yes people back then were flawed but people like JFK didn't come from broken families ....the new left is taken over with regressive weirdism
jokes aside, the left is diverse and it may split

Nowhere is it better illustarated than treatments of agnostics, ex-muslims, apostates of islam, secularists, alternative religions and atheists. Some brave people who run from the brutality and death penalties of the middle east as punishment for their apostacy...to arrive in the West only to be called tommy apes and called traitors and called racists by people on the Left!!
Sarah Haider, Sam Harris, Dawkins or Ayaan Hirsi Ali - all liberal-minded freedom loving people who have had too much of the regressive madness and insanity and are all fighting back.
When a Somalian woman Ayaan Hirsi Ali fled middle east and N.African religious nuts, when see flees and came to the Western world. People saw her writing and seen her talk.....did the Left appreciate her insight into the islamic culture
No rather than supporting this woman, they responded with an almost programmed reaction, an almost brainwashed knee-jerk auto reaction calling this woman a 'hater' calling her a 'racist' and so on trying to censor and silence her

The point is you don't have to be a US Republican voter or a Trump supporter to think unchecked islamic immigration is a bad idea. Of course we should try to help genuine refugees but is it not possible that maybe some criminals, rapists or terrorists might arrive in these refugee groups? A person of Asian heritage, a Latino, a White, a person of African heritage might all at one time wonder if the new Left is Driven by the Identity movement wonder if the Regressives tend to be driven by identity politics, white privilage, white-guilt, multi-culturalism, they want to help these other people who are that way or this way and because they want to belong to a certain group this pre-defined political path, this path can a form of brainwashing, racism, collective conformity or bigotry in itself. the point is you don't need to be a Southern Christian Gun Lovin' Conservative to call out the left and you don't have to be rightwing to see European new media may have a massive problem trying to cover up all these muslim robberies, riots, rapes in Germany, France, Sweden and other countries

The term regressive left has just taken light, it will fire up the radio shows, fire up the internet, the tv and is here to stay.

There is also a form of Western-guilt complex in operation....that is to blame all of the faults of the Middle East and such places, blame all the faults, wars, blame it all on the whiteman or Obama or whichever person is in power
A political arena where the real 'Left' moves back to centre or even slightly right and the hipster left movement becomes a far-far-left of Michael Moore's, Edward Said, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Chomsky....those weird sadist that love to blame America and the West for everything

So why are Lefts calling the other's Regressives?
is there film on it?
and what’s left of real liberals?


Link to video.


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Link to video.
some vids to consider if you still don't know why the left may have its own civil war, some videos to watch if you still don't 'get it'

 

[Aea]

A troll in his natural habitat.

 

[MilitantSecular]

what if drawing mohammed is not forbidden in islam?
what would happen if you discovered the news medias of the world lied and forgot to mention muslims have been drawing and depicting muhammed in islamic culture for hundreds of years
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/islamic_mo_full/
On this page are many examples of full-faced Mohammed portraits produced by Muslim artists across the centuries.



Link to video.


http://www.ora.tv/rubinreport/article/2016/1/7/3-regressive-reactions-to-the-cologne-attacks

These are just a few examples of the profoundly misguided and dangerously pandering voices of the Regressive Left.

and another

https://www.the-newshub.com/politics/the-real-face-of-the-regressive-left

Harris, in particular, has been forthright in identifying Noam Chomsky as a kind of figurehead of the "Regressive Left"

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpres...akes-down-the-intellectual-cesspool-of-salon/

Sam Harris drains the intellectual cesspool of Salon

There are also online wars and debates inside the left, internet personalities, the youtube Atheists, the twitter profiles. There is a war going on in the left against the social justice warriors
Sargon of Akkad Armoured Skepti Sir Skeptalot and other wannabes and other people who have set up his/her channel to criticize SJWs, under the belief that they're being too politically correct

A troll in his natural habitat.

I don't understand
Are you here to illustrate the regressive leftist personality
Is this the role you are playing in this online stageshow?

 

[Aea]

This is my safe space. You are making me feel unsafe.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Welcome to CFC!

 

[Hygro]

Not buying it. A bunch of not-progressives are telling us we have a split coming so we better fight our own now. Seriously? This "fight" has been going on for 50 years, the only reason it's so loud is because everything else is so quiet.

 

[Princeps]

The Sam Harris reactionaries want atheists to debate faith issues as if there is an objective value systems working within religion. The reality, which they don't get, is that religion is an entirely subjective and personal matter. Islam is not a political ideology: if a man comes to you and says he is a muslim, you cannot determine with any degree of certainty what his political views are from that information alone. This makes his faith irrelevant. But if a man comes to you and says he is a communist, you can make certain reasonable conclusions about his political views. This is because unlike religions, political ideologies have an actual framework of political ideals and aspirations. Islam doesn't.

A muslim can be anything from the most progressive person in the world to the most reactionary person in the world. His religious identity rules out very little from the potential political philosophies he could support. You can only confidently say that a muslim has some type of belief in god, which can mean virtually anything.

People like Sam Harris are doing ISIS's work for them when they dismiss moderate Muslims as fake. Religion is a subjective matter, and even the most fanatical religious people have to cherry pick the holy texts in order to function from day to day. Who is Sam Harris to say that ISIS' interpretation of Islam is somehow more true than the interpretations of peaceful muslims?

The reactionary beliefs predominant in the middle east are not the product of ugly theology. Christianity has plenty of ugly theology, which you can find in the bible and in traditional Christian interpretations.

Middle East developed differently from Europe. The despotic Ottoman/safavid political tradition, which monopolized much of the Middle east, combined with a largely rural population lends to a highly traditional and reactionary culture. The Middle East is sort of like the American red states, except much worse: people tend to live in small villages where cultural life is dominated by reactionary institutions (i.e. mosques), while the only large city is usually a towering capital where cultural life is dominated by an despotic state. The Ottoman ruling tradition was continued by the secular Arab states: they suppressed most civil society, from unions to free media, while only leaving the mosque as the only viable dissenting organization, because they didn't dare to persecute it too hard.

Unlike The Middle east, Europe was fragmented with hundreds of autonomous principalities and various local governments. Europe wasn't consolidated by Nomadic conquests and the hundreds of thousands of fortifications spread out across Europe ensured the independence of smaller states. In contrast, the Middle East was regularly conquered by large despotic empires.

This European fragmentation resulted in smaller, more responsive governments. They could ensure proper public goods, respond to petitions and hold their officials accountable. They could actually fix the problem behind discontent rather than just kill the discontented. This lead to improved capital accumulation, long enduring private companies, local governments etc. Europe developed a civil society that eventually competed with the Church over people's attention.

In Europe, the church lost its captive audience. People no longer had to listen to reactionary preachers, when they could instead attend labor union dances, read free newspapers, participate in civil rights organizations or feminist groups. This enriched public knowledge of alternative and dissenting viewpoints. In the Middle East, the public knowledge was impoverished and narrowed by the reactionary institutions and the state, because they could shut down dissenters more effectively.

So in effect, Sam Harris is a useless, destructive idiot. His simplistic notions about Islam are deeply harmful to us all. We should be trying to introduce secularism to Muslims -- make them aware of its advantages -- rather than assaulting the foundational religion of their cultural identity, which would only make them feel under attack or threatened. Open atheism, after all, only became possible in the West very recently, after a hundreds of years of secularization.

Dawkins likes to say that no one is born into a religion no more than they're born into a political party. But this is obviously false: our formative years are vital to the shaping of our identity and character, our brains and potential. It's absurd to say that people aren't born Muslim or Christian; they are and the Athiests need to accept that people's religious upbringing shape their cultural identities.

But the most worrying development is bigots and obvious neonazis using ideological criticism of a religion (which, again, is stupid since religions are not ideologies) to justify their hatred of brown people. These types of louts have been entering new atheism in droves recently.

 

[Tahuti]

I don't think it's particularly controversial to state that in the West, both the Left and Right is splitting in rationalist vs. irrationalist lines. In this case, irrationalism isn't meant as a pejorative, it simply denotes a line of thinking that emphasises culture and social interaction over economics and scientific progress. Pournelle was on to something.

While the OP's observation is somewhat true, the same can said about the Right: The rationalist right (or New Right) are Libertarians of the CATO society variety who place economic growth and scientific progress over tradition and national cohesion (i.e. Milton Friedman). The traditionalist Right (Old Right) values family values and national cohesion and is philosophically represented by figures such as Roger Scruton.

Likewise, the Left has already split between the rationalist crowd emphasising Secularism and Keynesianism vs. the postmodern crowd which supports (Cultural) Marxism and Multiculturalism. Actually, this already happened in the 1960s, with the latter labelling themselves and being labelled as the New Left.

Over time, the differences between rationalism and irrationalism could grow stronger than the differences between Left and Right. It isn't unconceivable that the New Left may well join forces with the Old Right against the New Right and Secularists, who may be galvinised in a likewise manner. The Status Quo seems to be brought about by an alliance between the New Left and New Right, which may collapse.

 

[Funky]

@Princeps:

Wow. I don't think I have ever read a post in this forum which contains so many falsehoods, misunderstandings and distortions. And that really means something here. There is no way I can cover all of them, so I'll just go into the most glaring ones.

Islam is not a political ideology: if a man comes to you and says he is a muslim, you cannot determine with any degree of certainty what his political views are from that information alone. This makes his faith irrelevant.

That we cannot deduce a person's views from his religious beliefs with "certainty" doesn't mean that the information is irrelevant. Nobody has ever argued about being "certain" of anything, and by implying that i.e. Sam Harris has done that is a dishonest misrepresentation. What we can do is look at general attitudes we find in Muslim populations and conclude that certain portions of these populations tend to hold specific beliefs. Apart from a belief in Allah, which is pretty much mandatory, research shows that ~85% of Muslims worldwide have problematic views regarding the treatment of women. About two thirds are in favour of some aspects of sharia. Close to half support the death penalty for adultery and over a third for leaving Islam.
Of course every individual must be judged on his own beliefs and actions, whether he is Muslim or not, that is obvious. But to pretend that belief in Islam is a purely personal matter and that it plays no role in the attitudes we see throughout the Muslim world is completely ludicrous.

People like Sam Harris are doing ISIS's work for them when they dismiss moderate Muslims as fake. (...) Who is Sam Harris to say that ISIS' interpretation of Islam is somehow more true than the interpretations of peaceful muslims?

Needless to say, he has never done either, which you would know yourself if you actually paid attention to what he says. Harris is a supporter of moderate Muslims - he even wrote a book with one recently. He has criticised religious moderation in general (most of this criticism has been directed at Christianity), but he has never refered to moderates as "fake". And likewise he has never said that one Islamic interpretation is "more true" than another, just that the IS has a very plausible interpretation, which is just true. Hint: read the Koran.

The despotic Ottoman/safavid political tradition, which monopolized much of the Middle east, combined with a largely rural population lends to a highly traditional and reactionary culture.

The Ottoman Empire in many areas brought moral progress and societal development to former backward areas of the Islamic world. In no way can it be considered "despotic". Regarding religious tolerance, for example, the Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire, while having to live as dhimmis, had more rights than in other Islamic regions.

So in effect, Sam Harris is a useless, destructive idiot. His simplistic notions about Islam are deeply harmful to us all. We should be trying to introduce secularism to Muslims -- make them aware of its advantages -- rather than assaulting the foundational religion of their cultural identity, which would only make them feel under attack or threatened.

I don't think I have ever seen Sam Harris being accused of being an idiot by someone who hasn't completely misrepresented him and, frankly, doesn't comprehend what the man is even saying. I love how you display in your post how clueless you are about Islam, yet accuse a man who has studied the religion for years of having a simplistic approach. The main point of Harris' writing is to advocate secularism over religious dogmatism. One problem is that advocating secularism in the Muslim world is indeed, in the perception of vast numbers of Muslims, an assault on the foundation of their religion.

But the most worrying development is bigots and obvious neonazis using ideological criticism of a religion (which, again, is stupid since religions are not ideologies) to justify their hatred of brown people.

And, surprise, surprise, your post ends on a note of racism. Critics of Islam are just neonazis who hate all brown people. I won't even comment on how utterly nonsensical and pointless that is.

You are what the thread starter meant by regressive. Not the average ill-informed regressive who just started college and is searching for his own identity. No, you are a regressive of the malicious kind, the kind that uses smear tactics and misrepresentations to make their points. The kind that when those groups which they regard as "underprivileged" get criticised in just the slightest way will resort to lies and insults.
I'll tell you what you can do if you want to actually have a meaningful discussion. Since you mentioned Sam Harris so often, watch a few of his videos and listen to what he actually says. Read his newest book. Judge him by the words he uses himself, not by the words you put in his mouth. Don't trust what other people say about him, especially not when they are hardcore regressives themselves, like Cenk Uygur, Abby Martin, Chris Hedges or whatever they are all called. Obviously you should apply this standard to everyone, not just Sam Harris.

 

[SLAAKMAN]

Oh my is she gorgeous!

Link to video.

 

[Leoreth]

@Princeps:

Wow. I don't think I have ever read a post in this forum which contains so many falsehoods, misunderstandings and distortions. And that really means something here. There is no way I can cover all of them, so I'll just go into the most glaring ones.

I initially skipped over his post for its length, thanks for making me get back and read it. CFC posts can hardly receive a more favorable recommendation than this.

So thanks for writing that up Princeps, it's rare to see good essay posts around here these days. As an atheist I find myself deeply perturbed by how willingly prominent atheist figures pick up their arms to fight in the clash of cultures. The more I experience this, the more I begin to agree with many aspects of Christian criticism of how atheism as a social movement presents itself.

 

[Funky]

☺
I am certainly not surprised that you agree with him!

 

[MilitantSecular]

Multiculturalism

Moral-Relativism?


If the Regressive Left exists, or Regressive Leftists exist I think some of it might be a 'hang-over' so to speak from days 'white colonialism'
or messy political guilt for the 'whiteman imperialism' for want of better terms
the days of big British ships and French Empires in Africa, German's holocausting Jews, the USA bombing in Asia and the Middle East of course these were all terrible things done by Western cultures, they were all terrible, terrible crimes and the world should be taught these histories and know of these crimes
but in our modern times it later maybe it leads to Chomsky-ism so to speak
....the white man never did no good all he ever done was enslave Blacks and holocaust the Jews...Chomsky-ism is now born and you get left people constantly self-hitting and wanting a multi-cultural society so bad it kind of drives the whole left movement crazy...a kind of White-Guilt culture or hangover culture....its this kind of Anarchistic pragmatism, or self-harm or maybe political self flagellation

If you think America and other Western cultures might have done also good things for humanity, if you see good in the United States not just the bad you might see where the argument is coming from. If you see Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky and see some others as far-far-left you might understand this whole 'regressive left' criticism

Some other guys like tnn raw deliver much more fun commentray than me and are far more amusing on this subject


Link to video.


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Link to video.


Link to video.

some debates from other sites

http://www.city-data.com/forum/poli...2513967-even-joe-rogan-goes-walking-dead.html
'The Left are eating themselves from within'
http://www.crunchyroll.com/forumtopic-934011/how-many-extreme-liberals-do-you-think-there-are?pg=0
Do you think these [ leftist] "extremist" are few in numbers?

People like Sam Harris are doing ISIS's work for them when they dismiss moderate Muslims as fake.

You know I think what might be a good idea is for some people who auto-react to some debates, what might be a good idea for these guys is to read up more on the religion. Get more informed, read up more on the culture and religion before commenting, I think that is way the left may have its crazy civil war...but in a good political way and not in the bad way
then people can have better informed opinions
These guys rather than looking at Hillary Clinton and Tony Blair and repeating the narrative 'Islam is a Religion of Peace' they can turn off the tv for a second, they can think for themselves. They can meet people from the region, maybe hang out with the Arab Christians, the Arab Atheists....ex-muslims, apostates
The books the Korans or quran sunnah haddis hadith bukhari...they can also be downloaded as English translations for free, they can read up on mohammed the man muslims believe to be a prophet
Maybe by not assuming, meeting apostates or muslims or ex-muslims and reading up more, they can better understand culture which supports female genital mutilation, honor killings, child marraiges and stoning women to death...
People might find Muslims when not engaging in bombing attacks or violent jihad, they may find many Muslims must spread Islam politically for example through deception such as Al-Taqiyya and Kitman. If any of these Muslims if they can not engage in violence they are all expected to lie to the Infidel/NonBeliever in order to spread the muslim faith

They might find you can not criticize or analyse the religion and any criticism of Islam or the Quran can lead to blasphemy charages, fatwas and death penalty

What if I told you factual statistics numbers from surveys, government stats, opinion polls, and other research?

...I won't quote but let's imagine I go to a government group or middle east news media or research institute and found


70% of Muslims support attacks on Rushdie and Cartoonists
60% all Approve of Attack on 'Americans'
40% of Muslims want Sharia Law in France, the UK, the United States (these are so called assimilated muslims living in the West)
30% of Muslims support suicide bomber attack
75% of Muslims support the harsh and burtal penalty for Apostacy and 75% think ex-Muslims should be jailed, executed or stoned to death

The Status Quo seems to be brought about by an alliance between the New Left and New Right, which may collapse.

Good post, I like it and interesting thoughts at the end

I might throw this guy into the mix,
first take him with a pinch of salt. His name is Paul Joseph Watson
I don't know him too much about this guy but know he's a bit conspiracy and tinfoily at times he seems to hang around too much with all those 'Trans TPP NAFTA Illuminati' the '911 Truther' and 'JFK Conspiracy' and 'Alex Jones' OMG its the ' evil banker freemasons' bunch....so take him with a pinch of salt

What is interesting is he was one of the first to expose how bad it was going to be and predict the whole refugee thing and predict the bombing of Paris and the rapes of Germany

Someone told me he was 'left' voter? I suppose the whole thing attracts those 'radical free thinkers'



Link to video.

A bunch of not-progressives are telling us we have a split coming so we better fight our own now.

what makes them 'not progressive'? Because they are fans of oldies like MLK, JFK?
Because they say radical Islam may be violent?
Because they are against illegal immigration?
is it because they are generally older people and not young?

here is one interesting guy to watch
http://www.politicalislam.com/
Dr. Bill Warner
Dr. Warner’s training in scientific theory and mathematics shaped how he analyzed Islamic doctrine. The first step was realizing that the Islamic texts had been made deliberately difficult to read and comprehend. A program, the Trilogy Project (see below), was created to strip away the confusion in the texts. It became clear that Islam is not constructed on the same civilizational principles as the rest of the world. Simple statistical methods revealed that dualism and submission were the foundational principles of Islamic doctrine.

Statistical methods applied to the Islamic texts showed that:

Islam is far more of a political system than a religion.
There is no unmitigated good in Islam for the Kafir (non-Muslim).
Islam’s ethical system is dualistic and is not based on the Golden Rule.
Islamic doctrine cannot be reconciled with our concepts of human rights and our Constitution.
The great majority, 96%, of all Islamic doctrine about women subjugates them.
The Sunna (what Mohammed did and said) is more important than the Koran in a Muslim’s daily life.

Dr. Warner coined the term, Foundational School of Islamic studies, which holds that Islam is found in the Trilogy of Koran, Sira and Hadith. All evaluation of Islamic history and current activity is caused by the doctrine found in this Trilogy. Therefore, it is impossible to understand any Muslim or Islamic action without knowing the doctrine that is its cause.

Dr. Warner postulates that there are three independent views of Islam that are not reconcilable. The three views are believer-centric, apologist-centric and Kafir-centric. The believer-centric view is the view of a Muslim. Apologist-centric is based upon the apologetic view of non-Muslims. Kafir-centric is the view of the non-Muslim. A comprehensive knowledge of Islam must include all three. These views cannot be resolved, but each must stand-alone.

Dr. Warner founded the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI) and is its director. He has produced a dozen books, including a Koran, a biography of Mohammed and a summary of the political traditions of Mohammed. He also developed the first self-study course on Political Islam. He has given talks nationally and internationally about Islamic political doctrine.

Welcome to CFC!

Thank you

 

[warpus]

By regressive left do you just mean a bunch of stupid college kids?

 

[classical_hero]

Islam is not a political ideology:

I'm just curious as to why then many Muslim countries implement Sharia law as their only legal system? Isn't that a political thing to do?

 

[Nexlev]

It's not just college kids, nor should regressives be shrugged off as if it's just a phase. There is a problem in that
a) college kids should not be this stupid [sic]
b) colleges should have intellectual diversity and should be bastions of free speech.

However, I do agree with Hygro. This is an issue for the left to grapple with, mostly. They are the most likely targets of regressives and their causes are hurt by association with those who threaten authoritarian actions.

At the moment, the regressive left is mostly powerless outside of a few myopic institutions. They only have as much power as the rest of us give them.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm just curious as to why then many Muslim countries implement Sharia law as their only legal system? Isn't that a political thing to do?

Sharia law can be liberal or conservative. It depends on the ideology which interprets and enforces it. It is neither by itself.

 

[warpus]

College, a bastion of free speech? College is just a place where kids go to get worthless degrees, it's not some special place where intellectuals sit down and have high-brow discussions about human civilization.

Colleges are also a business, first and foremost, and right now they are really focusing hard on getting more funding and more $$$. To assume that colleges are some sort of a sacred place where free speech reigns supreme is just weird. They have other priorities.

There are also so many entitled brats being enrolled and so many helicopter parents, that it's all really a big joke.

 

[Ryika]

The more I experience this, the more I begin to agree with many aspects of Christian criticism of how atheism as a social movement presents itself.

"Atheism as a social movement"? What does that even mean? There are no direct conclusions to be drawn from the realization that there are probably no gods, the conclusions are drawn from the personal experience and knowledge of the individual.

The only type of Atheism that could legitimately be called a "social movement" was Atheism+, but that's only because people tried to mix Atheism with social and political positions - and anyone who actually had interest in the "Atheist community" online knows what kind of a pathetic disaster that was... precisely because Atheists come from all fields of the political and social spectrum.

 

[Princeps]

What we can do is look at general attitudes we find in Muslim populations and conclude that certain portions of these populations tend to hold specific beliefs. Apart from a belief in Allah, which is pretty much mandatory, research shows that ~85% of Muslims worldwide have problematic views regarding the treatment of women.

I already explained this. The reactionary beliefs that dominate cultural life in the middle east are not specific to Muslims nor caused by Islamic theology. The reasons for why the Middle East is different from Europe is found in long running historical trends, not in holy texts. Muslims who move to the West usually embrace more liberal belief systems; e.g. http://www.west-info.eu/most-german-muslims-support-gay-marriage/

My experience with Muslim immigrants is that they tend to support center-left parties or greens, even as their domestic lives remain a fair bit more conservative.

About two thirds are in favour of some aspects of sharia.

Of course. Sharia is an essential concept of their faith, but it's also a subjective concept in the end, as are all religious matters. Even the radicals can't live by literal interpretations of sharia.

We have to let liberals in the muslim community imaginatively interpret sharia. It might not be an intellectually satisfying interpretation for you, but it could very well be a spiritually satisfying interpretation to practicing Muslims who wish to reconcile their religious identities and the demands of liberal society.

Sharia can be practiced in a civil society similar to how Jewish family law is practiced; on a voluntary basis through private religious arbitrators. Of course, even this provokes hysterical paranoia.

Close to half support the death penalty for adultery and over a third for leaving Islam.

Again. Most muslim countries are poor, rural and mired by a political culture of corruption and despotism. This leads to a tendency called preference falsification:

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

There is a lack of public knowledge of the advantages or the meaning of liberalism and secularism in these countries. The corrupt agency culture also makes improvements slow and difficult (i.e. it's difficult to convince people of the benefit of liberal public goods when the law enforcement expected to provide them is only out for its own interests).

None of this is the result of Islamic theology, but the outcome of complicated historical events that have shaped the middle east.

Nonetheless, most polls say that Muslims prefer democracy, which is hopeful.

Of course every individual must be judged on his own beliefs and actions, whether he is Muslim or not, that is obvious. But to pretend that belief in Islam is a purely personal matter and that it plays no role in the attitudes we see throughout the Muslim world is completely ludicrous.

Islam is just a cultural-spiritual identity: it has no political aspirations or political values beyond the individual or the community's preferences. The same cannot be said (not the same extent at least) of communism or liberalism, which actually constitute political ideologies, which have some semblance of objective tenets.

Needless to say, he has never done either, which you would know yourself if you actually paid attention to what he says.
Harris is a supporter of moderate Muslims - he even wrote a book with one recently. He has criticised religious moderation in general (most of this criticism has been directed at Christianity), but he has never refered to moderates as "fake".

None of this matters. Sam Harris constantly says "islam" is not a race, but an idea.

Islam is a race in the traditional sense of the word: a race being a nation or an ethnic group. Harris' argument ignore the reality that people's cultural identities are deeply shaped in their formative years, which is their practical birth as persons. In that sense, Islam is an ethnic identity, similar to any nationality, and likewise doesn't really determine one's political aspirations.

And likewise he has never said that one Islamic interpretation is "more true" than another, just that the IS has a very plausible interpretation, which is just true. Hint: read the Koran.

Ok, but why bring it up then? Why even give ISIS the credibility? Any subjective belief system can be used to justify virtually any political platform or agenda. Take for example communism; a political ideology far more objective than any Islamism, with actual humanist and democratic political aspirations. Communism was easily employed to justify the exact opposite; the type of genocidal oriental despotism that Marx would doubtless have found deeply abhorrent.

Reactionaries and end of the world cults (which ISIS is both) will find their justification: it scarcely matters what the holy books actually say.
I doubt that most ISIS fighters have in-depth familiarity with the texts in any case. They are not drawn into the movement by readings of the Quran, but by tried and tested cult indoctrination methods.

Sam Harris constantly argues that ordinary Muslims provide cover for ISIS, but actually I can see how people like Harris provide legitimacy to ISIS. Simple, uneducated people in the Middle East have access to Youtube and are part of this debate: if radical islamist views are confirmed by seemingly respectable white people in the mighty West, it strengthens the radicals, it doesn't weaken Islam.

The Ottoman Empire in many areas brought moral progress and societal development to former backward areas of the Islamic world. In no way can it be considered "despotic". Regarding religious tolerance, for example, the Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire, while having to live as dhimmis, had more rights than in other Islamic regions.

Nonsense. The systems of dhimmi protections and the role of Jewish minorities in the Muslim world long preceded any Ottoman political influence.

The problem with the Ottomans and other Middle Eastern empires was their sheer size. The Ottoman Empire was basically larger than the whole of Western Europe. When a pre-industrial government reaches such a size, it's fundamental nature changes. A larger preindustrial monarchy has no advantage over smaller kingdoms when it comes to the business of providing public goods. Communication still happens at the speed of the horse and the boat.

Thus as the empire sprawls, communication and monitoring costs also rise. This meant larger Empires like the Ottomans, Mughals and the Qing suffered from a persistent problem of agency costs. These regimes could not ensure their public officials behaved with the best interests of the monarch and his subjects in mind.

This problem lead to tax farmers extracting far higher rents than the official quotas allowed, while they kept the additional revenues to themselves, in effect stealing from the peasants. The Empire could have formally low taxes, but the tax men would still burden the peasantry. This was a universal problem in all the major Asian empires, and they responded to it differently: the Ottomans basically just gave up on even trying to have just taxation. The Sultanate had a formal practice of "grab whatever you can" when it came to taxation, more or less, while people desperately assigned their wealth into waqifs (islamic trusts) to protect it and leave something for their kids. The same problem existed with the bureaucracy (governing, among other things, waqifs); the qadis and other powerful officials would abuse their offices to insert themselves into every level of business to extract bribes, which they could demand and receive with impunity. Any business decision of any significance would require bribery. This lead to a culture of corruption where bribery is believed to be the only way to get things done and a deep cynicism about the law and its servants sets in.

Needless to say, The Ottoman empire never developed into an industrial economy. Businesses simply had no incentive or ability to accumulate such capital. They remained small and ephemeral. The same problem also impacted China, Iran and India.

In addition to ruining any prospects for industrialization, this problem also defeated the nascent civil society. Without private capital to fund dissenting organizations, the state was always too strong and too despotic to allow free press (the printing press was effectively banned for ages), labor organizations, municipal government and joint stock companies to emerge. Without this civil society, the mosque never had to compete for people's time and attention and thus never had to moderate its message.

I don't think I have ever seen Sam Harris being accused of being an idiot by someone who hasn't completely misrepresented him and, frankly, doesn't comprehend what the man is even saying.

Sam Harris is a joke. His only way of maintaining credibility is to accuse his critics of strawmanning him, no matter what their criticisms actually are.

I love how you display in your post how clueless you are about Islam, yet accuse a man who has studied the religion for years of having a simplistic approach.

Yes. He is an idiot because studying religion is a waste of time. Religious beliefs have almost nothing to teach us, not even in the academic sense. They do not shape societies in the way geography and political developments do.

an assault on the foundation of their religion.

In the case of Sam Harris, they're not really wrong, are they?

And that's the point. Let's leave the religion alone. the benefits of secularism and liberalism are good enough. It will make take time for the middle east to change.

And, surprise, surprise, your post ends on a note of racism. Critics of Islam are just neonazis who hate all brown people. I won't even comment on how utterly nonsensical and pointless that is.

Well, they are. The whole regressive left stuff is pretty much the product of the seedier parts of the internet (a certain image board that can't be mentioned here), and KiA, and Sargon of Akkad. All of them spout neonazi-derived rhetoric about cultural marxism, extreme immigrant paranoia, paint absurd caricatures of feminism, and demand the left to basically not be the left anymore.

They're concern trolls.