so i have been watching this argument over the "ban" all over my facebook.people really like their little "memes" that offer no real criticism,nor any context,they simply display that persons particular bias.the discussion over this "ban" was not my issue.my issue was with the utter lack of depth of understanding.the evident laziness of those who got up on their little soapbox and sanctimoniously,and self-righteously moralized over a situation that they maybe..maaaybe..spent a total of five minutes on.

until finally my head exploded,and i went into hulk-mode.this was my rant,that i now share with you all:

jesus fucking christ...am i reading these comments correctly?

ok,lets put a little clarity into the mix,shall we?

first of all its not actually a "ban" but an extension to vette refugees further.

sounds reasonable right?

but what is NOT mentioned is that the majority of these refugees have already BEEN vetted,and the process has taken up to two years already.

so stop wetting your pants over brown people who happen to be muslim.

secondly,
let us take a look at the countries whose refugees are being "banned".

notice anything?

each and every one of those countries the american military is deployed in.the CIA has been fighting a proxy war in syria for five fucking YEARS.obama expanded operations into:sudan,somolia,yemen,syria and jordan (another proxy war executed by our radical saudi arabia buddies,who just happen to hate america and promote the most radical of muslim interpretations:wahhabism.they spend BILLIONS of their oil money to open madrasas across the region to light the match of radical islam)

so we,along with russia,turkey and other nations,are bombing the SHIT out of these countries,therefore creating the refugee crisis in the first place,and then we turn around an slap a "ban" on them.

oh,i'm sorry,not really a ban,just an extension to vette them further,because god knows we need more than two years to find out if someone is radicalized.

hypocrisy much america?

thirdly,
and this should make us all VERY nervous,but corporate media has YET to address this little turd nugget.a federal court slapped an injunction on this "ban",because it was not done through the proper channels,but rather through executive order.

and DHS ignored the injunction.
IGNORED it,because who needs "checks and balances" right?
who needs an institution,which was put in place to uphold the law and to restrict a sitting president from over-stepping his authority?
right?

and the fact that the DHS,which is under the DoD,outright ignored a direct order from a federal judge to cease and desist,because trump had overstepped his authority by attempting to use executive orders to circumvent the law.,and this was just an injunction,which really just means "stop!until we further review"...the DHS ignored the injunction.

lets ignore the fact that trump gutted the very agency that would have been the first to challenge his executive order "banning" these refugees.trump literally gutted all the high ranking officials at the state dept.

his press secretary said,and this is fucking laughable..they resigned..ALL of them?
all of them just stood up and resigned?

so it came down to a judge to hold trump accountable,which he did by injunction and an entire dept ignored that federal judges ruling.

now let us look at the countries left off that list.

notice anything?

well well well...would you look at that.
not only do they all purchase large amounts of weapons and military apparatus from us.not only do have they have large reserves of oil that our american companies make a shit ton of money from,but lookie here..trump has business in every singly one of those countries.

coincidence?

oh,and lets not overlook the fact that by executive order trump opened the door to have steve bannon on the national security council!
an unqualified,and with zero experience white nationalist is now on the national security council.

this is unprecedented!

but who cares right?
who needs those protocols,or checks and balances right?

trump is slowly creating his own tiny cabal of extreme loyalists and you people are wetting your pants over some brown people who lost everything,and have spent TWO FUCKING YEARS to find refuge?

this isnt the behavior of a president.
this is the behavior of a king.

yes,other presidents have implemented bans.
this is not a new thing.
what IS new,and some of you nimrods are either willingly,or unwittingly ignoring,is that THOSE bans were in direct response to the US being threatened by a particular group,and THOSE bans had the approval of congress..not a fucking piece of paper that king trump signed.

does america need to reform it's immigration policies?
yes,most certainly.

do we need to have an system in place to help assimilate refugees from syria beyond vetting?

of course,all we have to do is look at germany and see what happens when you allow refugees into your country without proper preparation and a system in place to see just how horrible it can get.

does this mean that every muslim refugee is somehow a terrorist?

well,just look at dearborn michigan.the largest muslim community in america and tell me how many terrorist came from that city? how many muslims were radicalized in dearborn?

is radicalized islam a problem?
yes,of course,who would deny this?

but the causes of radicalization are well understood,and have been well documented,and it is NOT only muslims who engage in terrorism.

really folks,before you start making declarations of certitude without having even the most basic knowledge how our government functions,you need to shut the fuck up.

and for FUCK sakes pick up a book once in awhile,and stop being a gaggle of fucking bed wetters.
jesus...you little fags piss yourselves every time a muslim is even mentioned in conversation.

oh,and before one of you tough guys even think about talking shit to me.
1.i am ex military.so go fuck yourself.
2.my JOB is to debunk bullshit stories and research politics and offer analysis.

so you better think twice before you go off half cocked,because my comment hurt your wittle feewings.your comments are ignorant and they are so lacking in the basic understanding of how this government operates that the only feeling you should having right now is:SHAME.

*edit:this is not directed towards anyone in particular here,but this single focus on trumps ill-thought "ban",and how he did so in such a broad,and general wave of a pen stroke that affected even those HAD gone through the process to get their green cards,visas etc etc is simply buying into the corporate narrative.

and then NOT consider the implications of a gutted state department,the loss of the attorney general and the defiant,disobedience of the DHS in regards to a federal judges injunction.

is unforgivable in it's ignorance.

the implications ALONE should make us all worried.
very very worried.
because it appears trump is reshaping our government into his own little fiefdom of loyalists,willing to defy the everyday governmental operations of checks and balances.

trump is consolidating and concentrating his power by creating his own little cabal of loyalists.that motherfucker has ALREADY put his candidacy on the ballot for 2020.now accepting donations to the highest bidder! feel free to purchase your own piece of the american presidency!

on sale NOW! so act fast! positions are limited!
*prices may vary according to your status and where you reside on the class scale.poor people can simply fuck off.

i realize this speculation on my part,
and i could be wrong.
god..please let me be wrong.

Coming at this from the perspective of academic philosophy I think the truth of the matter is ultimately very simple (however the details can be almost infinitely complex and diverse in how we apply them).

Simply put it appears impossible to demonstrate any kind of ultimate ethical authority or perfect ethical principles objectively.

One can certainly assert them, but they would always be subject to the problem of underdetermination (no facts, only interpretations) and as such subjective.

Even strictly humanist systems of ethics like concequentialism and deontology are at their core based on some arbitrary assumption or rule e.g. minimising harm, maximising pleasure, setting a universal principle, putting the concequences before the intention etc. etc.

As such I think the only honest and objective absolute moral principle is "Nothing is true and everything is permitted" (the law of the strong). All else can only truly be supported by preference and necessity. We do not "Know" moral truth, we only appear to interpret and create it.

This being the case it is the opinion of myself and a great many post modern philosophers that ethics is essentially a specialised branch of aesthetics. An important one still, but none the less it is still a study of preference and beauty rather than one of epistemological truth.

By this logic one could certainly argue that the organic "Humanist" approach to ethics and morality as outlined in this video seems infinitely preferable to any sort of static absolute moral authority.

If morality is at its core just a measure of the degree of thought and extrapolation one applies to maximising preferable outcomes then the "humanist" seems like they would have an inherent advantage in their potential capacity to discover and refine ever more preferable principles and outcomes. A static system by its very nature seems less able to maximise it's own moral preferences when presented by ever changing circumstances.


However I'm about to kind of undermine that very point by suggesting that ultimately what we are calling "humanism" here is universal. i.e. that even the most static and dictatorial ethical system (e.g. Wahhabism or Christian fundamentalism) is still ultimately an expression of aesthetic preference and choice.

It is aesthetically preferable to a fundamentalist to assert the absolute moral authority and command of God and while arguably less developed and adaptable (and thus less preferable by most Humanist standards), it is still at it's core the exercise of a preference and as such covered by humanism in general.

i.e. if you want to be a "humanist" then you should probably be wary of placing ultimate blame for atrocities on specific doctrines, as the core of your own position is that morality is a human condition not a divine one. i.e. religion did not make people condone slavery or start wars, human behaviour did.

We can certainly argue for the empirical superiority of "humanism" vs natural authority by looking at history and the different behaviours of various groups & societies. But really what we are arguing there is simply that a more considered and tolerant approach appears to make most people seem happier and results in less unpleasant things happing.

i.e. a preference supported by consensus & unfortunately that doesn't give us any more moral authority than a fanatic or predator beyond our ability to enforce it and persuade others to conform.

"Nothing is true and everything is permitted", "right" and "wrong" can only be derived from subjective principles ergo "right" and "wrong" should probably instead be replaced with "desirable" and "undesirable" as this seems closer to what one is actually expressing with a moral preference.

I completely agree with the sentiment in the video, more freedom of thought seems to mean more capacity to extrapolate and empathise. The wider your understanding and experience of people and the world the more one appears to recognise and appreciate the shared condition of being human.

But I must never forget that this apparent superiority is ultimately based on an interpretation and preference of my own and not some absolute principle. The only absolute principle I can observe in nature seems to be that chaos & conflict tend towards increasing order and complexity, but by this standard it is only really the conflict itself which is moral or "good/right" and not the various beliefs of the combatants specifically.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'islam, koran, women, media' to 'islam, koran, women, media, Saudi Arabia, wahhabism' - edited by Farhad2000

There is much I agree with Ayaan and much I don't.

Her statment about finding justification for Bin Laden's attacks in the Qu'ran, Islamic military law, does not for example justify the killing of innocents, stealth attacks, or attacks on other faiths. Before you assume that the existence of military law within the religion means its somehow primed for conflict understand that the Prophet was a statesman and a military leader as well as a holy man, forming the relgion during turbelent times of inter-tribal conflict.

Her view of Islam is deeply rooted in the Wahhabism traditions of Saudi Arabia where she has spent most of her formative years, which spread to Somalia. PBS Frontline's House of Saud can provide background for how that came into being and what effect it has had for the development of extremism.

Its a strict interpertation of Islam that is firmly based in Sharia law and does not reflect the rest of the Islamic society across the world, as such her views have been misused by neo-conservatives to justify the clash of civilisation between democratic society and Islam as a whole. Her own stance is at occasions nearly insulting to other members of her faith.

It is just impossible to expect a religion to reform itself overnight, her stance to me at times reads like an expectation that Islam should be thrust into the 21st century schools of thought. That is impossible to do, it would more prudent to allow change to occur within the religion through reform that seeks to return to ethical and pluralistic intentions of the scripture.

There is much also to say about Saudi Arabia that stipulates submission to relgion because within that context it means submission to the rule of the Saudi royal family and their continual grip over oil resources, its not so much a issue of religion then but an issue of keeping power and control.

But I understand that her views may have be skewed more because of the horrible repression she has faced. Anyways upvote.

I agree with you joedirt, it ain't perfect and it misses-out/oversimplifies the modern period.

It also misses out the formation of states like Saudi Arabia. The country now known as Saudi Arabia originally consisted of a number of essentially autonomous regions which were captured and forced to submit to the control of the Al-Sauds - politically, and the Wahhabs - theologically. The Saudi-Wahhabi 'unification' of Arabia was essentially imperialism. Also it doesn't include the expansion of Israeli settlements onto Palestinian land.

But I still think it's pretty interesting.

QM - "Displays of weakness are unacceptable. This enemy respects only brute force. " - what kind of bullshit philosophy is that to live by?

Firstly, peaceful negotiations are not a sign of weakness. Working with the UN is not a sign of weakness. Talking to Iran and Syria is not a sign of weakness. Talking to Muqtada al-Sadr is not a sign of weakness. America should never have gone into Iraq the way they did - illegally, unprepared, ill-informed, and without a mandate from the international community. Britain shouldn't have followed - blame Blair, he is a complete idiot and the most hated PM in British history. Unfortunately, British support meant that Bush and his neocon army began to believe their own lies.

Secondly, how the hell did we end up in a world where people think that the only way to achieve anything is by threatening or killing people? No one respects brute force. It may temporarily coerce people into submission. But it fosters hate, resentment, and revolt in the long-term - just look at Palestine. Ghandi and Mandela achieved an awful lot without heavy artillery and torture!!!

Thirdly, you are assuming that you can easily define who the enemy is - you can't!!! if America had done some research before they invaded, had consulted anyone who knew anything about Iraq, they would have realised just how complex the political, religious and ethnic division in iraq are. Before the illegal invasion of Iraq, there had been increasing hostility between Shi'a and Sunni - due in a large part to the extreme form of unitarian Hanbali Islam (known in the West as Wahhabism or Salafism) spread by Saudi with the help of petrodollars. Wahhabis are particularly vocal in their condemnation of the Shi'a - branding all Shi'a as heretics. Couple this with the appalling treatment of the Shi'a under Saddam and the regional power aspirations of Iran and Syria and you have a potent recipe for disaster. The last thing anyone should have done was ignite a sectarian conflict - which is now effectively a civil war - in the most religiously divided country in the Middle East.

Furthermore, the unquestioning support of the US and Britain for Israel's illegal invasion of Lebanon, has inadvertently increased the power of Hezbollah - a Shi'a party. Hezbollah were widely heralded as the defenders of Lebanon against the unjustified brute force used by Israel to collectively punish the Lebanese people. The inability of the Lebanese government to respond to Israeli aggression - which was directed not just at Hezbollah but at all the peoples of Lebanon - has given Hezbollah a chance to seize power. The Sunni, Christian and Druze of Lebanon do not want to be ruled by a conservative Shi'a party so there is an increasing likelihood of a second sectarian civil war in Lebanon.

So where has brute force got us?

Thousands dead in Palestine and Israel. Thousands dead in Lebanon. Thousands dead in Iraq.

As the prospect of a wider sectarian conflict consuming the whole of the Middle East becomes ever more likely, I think it's time that we stopped advocating brute force, stopped saying you're either with us or against us, and started advocating dialogue.