Student Protests Against Israel Are Wonderful

[ImmortalFlame]

Are you their lawyer?

Yes. Totally.

 

[Ignatius A]

Why do you keep lying about me and avoiding my questions?

What point do you think you're making? Again, do you believe that - because Israel is more tolerant than Hamas - that therefore Israel have a right to commit war crimes? That a state that is tolerant has a right to commit crimes against a state that is less tolerant?

I didnt say "because" anything. I merely pointed Hamas hates Jews and wants to rid the world of Jews. It's not the same with Jews as they have 2 million Palestinians living in israel. As long as hamas hates Jews and wants them eradicated its clear they bear a larger portion of the responsibility. That's not saying Jews are free to do what they are dealing with an entity that.wants them eradicated.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I didnt say "because" anything.

So you admit that's irrelevant.

I merely pointed Hamas hates Jews and wants to rid the world of Jews. It's not the same with Jews as they have 2 million Palestinians living in israel. As long as hamas hates Jews and wants them eradicated its clear they bear a larger portion of the responsibility. That's not saying Jews are free to do what they are dealing with an entity that.wants them eradicated.

So you're just bringing up stuff to imply that Israel can do no wrong and Gazans deserve to have war crimes inflicted on them.

Gotcha.

 

[icehorse]

The claim that a third of all Muslims are "Islamists" is unevidenced, not to mention that one would first need to define what an "Islamist" was to make such a claim.

In the last few days I provided links to several polls supporting my claim. I have also defined "Islamist" earlier in this thread, but I will do it again here:

An Islamist is a Muslim who wants to spread theocracy and/or Sharia to secular countries.

You can find Pew polls and polls of Muslims living in the UK, and many other similar polls.

Why would a Western country want to allow anti-LGBT, anti-reproductive rights, and anti-secularist politicians to run for government posts? Should it implement some sort of punishment for voters who support such platforms? If freedom of religion applies to them and the only requirement to live peacefully in a country is to respect the rule of law, I don't see any realistic or fair way to treat people from other countries differently if they also respect the law and coexist peacefully with others in society.

Yes, there are a lot of people with anti-secular views who already live in western society.

But I'm talking about immigration which is - again - a privilege, not a right.

Long standing immigration laws state that on an individual basis, people who support totalitarian ideologies can be barred from immigration. Anyone who wants a theocracy or Sharia is supporting a totalitarian ideology.

Not sure why you're including me in the above question with the "you guys," but I don't see why Muslims should have to jump through hoops that other religious groups don't have to jump through in order for them not to be lumped in with extremists.

I'm talking about the 2/3 of Muslims who are not Islamists. Those Muslims should make a clean separation from Islamists if they want to immigrate to the west. And it's because Islamism is not merely "another religion", it is a totalitarian ideology.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I think socioeconomic and geopolitical problems have been the primary empowering factors for Islamism for several decades. I don't see socioeconomic problems and Islamism as mutually exclusive; I think poverty, desperation, oppression, and other poor living conditions are usually a fertile ground for radicalization. There are historical examples of this outside the Middle East, too, and they involve various religions and ideologies.

This makes sense. Europe is less religious than America, but many Europeans are less desperate than many Americans. It's not so desperate it's radicalizing people (though that is very much arguable), but there's still a lot of fear and uncertainty unlike Europe where we see more cradle to grave protections and assistance.
Make things very desperate and we end up with groups like ISIS, Hamas and individuals like Guy Fawkes and Boudicca.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Are you and American?

No.

If as you claim a country "...should be able to ensure immigration is reasonably controlled." then it's quite alright for any country to decide who they let.in.and who they don't. Correct?

What do you mean by "quite alright"? What criteria would the country use to let people in or refuse them entry, and would the criteria be aligned with that country's own laws? Would people be turned away for, say, their skin color or religious label? The question is too broad.

Here's a relevant example where an order that would have facilitated expelling asylum seekers from the US was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday formally ended a Republican-led bid to keep in place a Trump-era immigration policy that made it easy to expel asylum-seekers at the border following the official end of the Covid emergency declaration that was used to justify it.

The move was expected after President Joe Biden ended the public health emergency on May 11. In an order the justices ordered a lower court to dismiss the case as moot.

Supreme Court ends dispute over Trump-era asylum-seeker policy

Republican attorneys general last year filed a request to prevent the unwinding of Title 42, a policy tied to the Covid emergency that allowed asylum-seekers to be expelled quickly.

www.nbcnews.com

Personally, I think denying an immigrant entry into a country solely on the basis of assumptions about an immigrant's beliefs, culture, etc., is unjustifiable and unreasonable, but selecting immigrants based on qualifications and potential contributions to the host country's economy seems to me reasonable and necessary. I believe that the selection process shouldn't preclude consideration of asylum applications and other humanitarian cases, though.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I'm talking about the 2/3 of Muslims who are not Islamists. Those Muslims should make a clean separation from Islamists if they want to immigrate to the west. And it's because Islamism is not merely "another religion", it is a totalitarian ideology.

Or how about we don't expect people to jump through your loops? If they aren't with groups like Isis or the Taliban, if they didn't leave America to join them, if they're like the bulk majority of humans just trying to get through life and happen to also ve Muslim you have no right to make such demands of a majority regarding a minority of them.

 

[Ignatius A]

So you admit that's irrelevant.


So you're just bringing up stuff to imply that Israel can do no wrong and Gazans deserve to have war crimes inflicted on them.

Gotcha.

Here is your situation, you're a defense attorney for a guy who says he hates Jews and who put out a manifesto on social media saying not only does he hates Jews he wants to kill every one of them. Now you want us to feel bad for him because a jew smacked him in the mouth.

You can dismiss things if you like but it makes you look weak.

 

[Ignatius A]

No.



What do you mean by "quite alright"? What criteria would the country use to let people in or refuse them entry, and would the criteria be aligned with that country's own laws? Would people be turned away for, say, their skin color or religious label? The question is too broad.

Here's a relevant example where an order that would have facilitated expelling asylum seekers from the US was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court:

Supreme Court ends dispute over Trump-era asylum-seeker policy

Republican attorneys general last year filed a request to prevent the unwinding of Title 42, a policy tied to the Covid emergency that allowed asylum-seekers to be expelled quickly.

www.nbcnews.com

Personally, I think denying an immigrant entry into a country solely on the basis of assumptions about an immigrant's beliefs, culture, etc., is unjustifiable and unreasonable, but selecting immigrants based on qualifications and potential contributions to the host country's economy seems to me reasonable and necessary. I believe that the selection process shouldn't preclude consideration of asylum applications and other humanitarian cases, though.

I didn't think you were.

If a country is within it's rights to decide who enters and who doesn't what difference does it make what the criteria is?

 

[Debater Slayer]

In the last few days I provided links to several polls supporting my claim. I have also defined "Islamist" earlier in this thread, but I will do it again here:

Pew polls, especially in dictatorships and Muslim-majority countries, are sometimes neither representative nor reliable. Even if they were in this case, their results would be quite outdated by now.

An Islamist is a Muslim who wants to spread theocracy and/or Sharia to secular countries.

Shari'a is Islamic doctrine and law, so, like most other aspects of Islam (or any other religion, for that matter), it varies based on interpretation and sect.

Is preaching a given religion banned in secular countries? If yes, preaching Islam should be no exception. If no, preaching Islam should still be no exception. It certainly doesn't seem that preaching Christian nationalism or even neo-Nazism is illegal in the US.

You can find Pew polls and polls of Muslims living in the UK, and many other similar polls.

See above.

Yes, there are a lot of people with anti-secular views who already live in western society.

But I'm talking about immigration which is - again - a privilege, not a right.

Actually, if a country is as interventionist and exploitative as the US, France, China, the UK, and various others have been, the question arises of whether they really have an unqualified right to deny nationals from other countries entry while implementing destructive and destabilizing policies in or toward those other countries. The French government, for example, would be extremely hypocritical to ride a high horse and claim that it had the right to turn away refugees from Africa while maintaining various remnants of colonial-era policies in Africa. If it wanted to ban asylum applications from Africa altogether, it stands to reason that it should pull itself out of there and halt the exploitation.

A country can't have its cake and eat it too. If the US wants to ban Mexican migrants, for another example, it should stop being a major contributor to the illicit drug trade in Mexico:

The US is the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs. It makes up just 5% of the global population, yet according to most estimates accounts for over 25% of global demand for illicit drugs. At the same time, Mexico is the US’s largest supplier, and an increasingly significant supplier of drugs to many European countries. Moreover, in recent years Mexico has been hit by an unprecedented epidemic of violence stemming from organised crime that is leading to ominous comparisons with Colombia.

Rethinking the ‘war on drugs’: Insights from the US and Mexico

Illegal drugs are one of the planet’s most pressing problems. They shatter hundreds of millions of lives and wreak untold social, economic and political damage in both consuming and producing nations. In this column - originally published 22 May 2012 -- the ex-President of Mexico, Ernesto...

cepr.org

I don't get to trash a residential building and then cite my right to deny its residents entry into my own building when some of them inevitably seek to move into it. Rights come with responsibilities, such as respecting other countries' sovereignty and not destabilizing and exploiting them.

Long standing immigration laws state that on an individual basis, people who support totalitarian ideologies can be barred from immigration.

Are you talking about these leftover laws from the Cold War era and its concomitant attitudes toward people associated with communism (whether the association was accurate or inaccurate)?

Chapter 3 - Immigrant Membership in Totalitarian Party

A. Purpose and Background1. PurposeThe inadmissibility ground for immigrant membership in or affiliation with

www.uscis.gov

Those laws talk about members of parties and organizations. Filtering people out based on beliefs would be fundamentally different from filtering them out based on actual activities, such as joining an organization or political party.

Anyone who wants a theocracy or Sharia is supporting a totalitarian ideology.

See my previous point about Shari'a. Any Muslim who prays is practicing a major part of Shari'a. Since it comprises all Islamic law and doctrine, it is not reducible to stoning, beheading, or the other talking points that some segments of the media tend to focus on.

Also, I think what you said above equally applies to anyone who supports Christian nationalism, MAGA-style government, or white nationalism. Should the US start denying visas for supporters of, say, Victor Orbán? Or even non-American supporters of MAGA?

I'm talking about the 2/3 of Muslims who are not Islamists. Those Muslims should make a clean separation from Islamists if they want to immigrate to the west. And it's because Islamism is not merely "another religion", it is a totalitarian ideology.

Which other religious group in the world do you think should have to jump through such a hoop in order to qualify for immigration? Going back to my above examples, should immigrants to the US from other Western countries also be denied entry if they don't distance themselves from Christian nationalism, white nationalism, or other totalitarian ideologies? How would such distancing even be measured on a government document, anyway?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Here is your situation, you're a defense attorney for a guy who says he hates Jews and who put out a manifesto on social media saying not only does he hates Jews he wants to kill every one of them. Now you want us to feel bad for him because a jew smacked him in the mouth.

**mod edit** I have been very explicit here. My sympathy does not lie with Hamas. It lies with Gazan civilians.

Do you believe Gazan civilians deserve no sympathy because of Hamas' actions? Do you believe in collective punishment?

You can dismiss things if you like but it makes you look weak.

Like how you dismiss war crimes against civilians?

 

[icehorse]

Or how about we don't expect people to jump through your loops? If they aren't with groups like Isis or the Taliban, if they didn't leave America to join them, if they're like the bulk majority of humans just trying to get through life and happen to also ve Muslim you have no right to make such demands of a majority regarding a minority of them.

I'm just stating long standing immigration policy.

And even if that wasn't the case, I disagree with people who want to overturn secularism. Our system isn't perfect, but it's way, way better than theocracy, and I don't want to allow more theocrats into western societies. I think theocracy is a horrible idea.

And for what it's worth, people who want to immigrate have ALWAYS had to jump through hoops. Every last one of them.

 

[icehorse]

Pew polls, especially in dictatorships and Muslim-majority countries, are sometimes neither representative nor reliable. Even if they were in this case, their results would be quite outdated by now.

How about recent polls taken throughout Europe?

And really? You think that a 10 year old, 40 country poll is seriously outdated? You think hundreds of millions of Muslims have changed their minds substantially in the last 10 years? Really?

Actually, if a country is as interventionist and exploitative as the US, France, China, the UK, and various others have been, the question arises of whether they really have the right to deny nationals from other countries entry while implementing destructive and destabilizing policies in those other countries. The French government, for example, would be extremely hypocritical to ride a high horse and claim that it had the right to turn away refugees from Africa while maintaining various remnants of colonial-era policies in Africa. If it wanted to ban asylum applications from Africa altogether, it stands to reason that it should pull itself out of there and halt the exploitation.

A country can't have its cake and eat it too. If the US wants to ban Mexican migrants, for another example, it should stop being a major contributor to the illicit drug trade in Mexico:

The conversation just got a LOT broader No worries, but that seems like fodder for a separate thread.

Also, I think what you said above equally applies to anyone who supports Christian nationalism, MAGA-style government, or white nationalism. Should the US start denying visas for supporters of, say, Victor Orbán? Or even non-American supporters of MAGA?

I think immigration standards should be high across the board. If a Christian nationalist wants to promote theocracy, h should be denied entry.

Which other religious group in the world do you think should have to jump through such a hoop in order to qualify for immigration? Going back to my above examples, should immigrants to the US from other Western countries also be denied entry if they don't distance themselves from Christian nationalism, white nationalism, or other totalitarian ideologies? How would such distancing even be measured on a government document, anyway?

I'm a secularist. I don't want ANY religion in charge of my legal system.

Applicants for immigration have to make and sign statements. If later they are found to have been lying on their application, they can be deported.

Again, this is about defending secularism. It just so happens that there are a lot more Muslim theocrats than theocrats of other religions.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I didn't think you were.

If a country is within it's rights to decide who enters and who doesn't what difference does it make what the criteria is?

The difference it makes is that the criteria could either be humane and reasonable or arbitrary, racist, sexist, etc.

If a country banned all white, black, or Jewish immigrants solely based on ethnicity, what would you think of its immigration criteria? Should one criticize that hypothetical country's immigration policies, or should one cite its right to control who entered its borders and stop there?

 

[Debater Slayer]

How about recent polls taken throughout Europe?

That would mainly depend on their respective methodologies and where they were conducted.

And really? You think that a 10 year old, 40 country poll is seriously outdated? You think hundreds of millions of Muslims have changed their minds substantially in the last 10 years? Really?

In the age of the internet, a decade is generally a substantially long time in the context of sociocultural attitudes. I don't know about hundreds of millions (and, as I said, I doubt that figure was accurate in the first place when it comes to numbers of supposed Islamists), but I have no doubt that many people from different religions and countries have changed their minds on at least some consequential issues in the last decade.

More anecdotally (just emphasizing the anecdotal part as a disclaimer), I don't know a single person who hasn't significantly changed their mind on at least one or two consequential issues in the last 10 years, myself included.

I think immigration standards should be high across the board. If a Christian nationalist wants to promote theocracy, h should be denied entry.

But immigrants still have First Amendment rights as long as they're inside the US, which, as I understand it, includes the right to promote one's beliefs absent incitement to violence. How would a Christian nationalist or Islamist be denied entry on the basis of the government's not wanting him to practice First Amendment rights?

I'm a secularist. I don't want ANY religion in charge of my legal system.

Same.

Applicants for immigration have to make and sign statements. If later they are found to have been lying on their application, they can be deported.

I don't know how that would be enforced in practice given that it sounds like it would essentially extend to legislating about people's thoughts. Unless someone engages in an illegal activity, their beliefs can't be reliably tracked or measured, nor do I see doing so as something any democratic, secular government should encourage.

Again, this is about defending secularism. It just so happens that there are a lot more Muslim theocrats than theocrats of other religions.

I think there are more effective and more realistic ways to defend secularism without basically monitoring or attempting to micromanage immigrants' religious beliefs.

This will be my last post on this topic in this thread for now, though, since it's tangential to the OP. I don't mind discussing the topic, but it's best left for another thread.

 

[libre]

Maybe I have it wrong, but it seems you don't want to defend it? Like you want to do a hit and run?

It is very strange to be accused of this by someone that has been wiggling out of questions for some 20 pages.

'All land is stolen land' is simply a non-starter. Good day

 

[icehorse]

It is very strange to be accused of this by someone that has been wiggling out of questions for some 20 pages.

'All land is stolen land' is simply a non-starter. Good day

I have provided very clear answers to honest questions. I have in good faith attempted to come to agreements on how to rephrase poorly conceived questions.

The idea that the world can be reduced to colonial oppressors vs. the oppressed is a non-starter.

 

[Ignatius A]

**mod edit** I have been very explicit here. My sympathy does not lie with Hamas. It lies with Gazan civilians.

Do you believe Gazan civilians deserve no sympathy because of Hamas' actions? Do you believe in collective punishment?


Like how you dismiss war crimes against civilians?

It doesnt matter where your "sympathy" lies. The reality is hamas not only wants to eliminate all Jews they'll kill their own people to do it. You're on the wrong side of the moral aisle friend.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And for what it's worth, people who want to immigrate have ALWAYS had to jump through hoops. Every last one of them.

I said specifically your loop of forcing a majority to renounce a minority that consists of buckets of scum.
Those like Malala Yousafzi already took a bullet from the scum. Why should they have to do what you want when they're here because remaining where they were was a death sentence?

 

[Ignatius A]

The difference it makes is that the criteria could either be humane and reasonable or arbitrary, racist, sexist, etc.

If a country banned all white, black, or Jewish immigrants solely based on ethnicity, what would you think of its immigration criteria? Should one criticize that hypothetical country's immigration policies, or should one cite its right to control who entered its borders and stop there?

I wouldn't like its criteria but if that country is working within it's rights I dont see how I have any legitimate reason to complain about it or to criticize them for it.