Debate : Freedom of speech

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

No question that this happens (it's frankly a national disgrace that we let places like Saudi Arabia get away with as much as they do on the human rights front while demonizing others), but as I've said elsewhere the religion itself is not the direct cause of the government's crackdowns

I agree but what I'm saying is, we shouldn't be judging them based on their religion anyway. We should be judging them based on their actions. And some of those actions are cause for concern.

I and others of a similar mindset were accused by one of my nation's own leaders, not too terribly long ago, of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" by disagreeing with his administration's policies

The thing that bothers me about this is not so much that he said it, but that the corporate media reports on these soundbites as if they were anything more than transparent bullshit.

Ultimately we have a few choices

1) Eradicate the whole muslim population
2) Try and find a neutral ground between us that dilutes our so called freedoms
3) Keep pissing them off until the weak ones show their real selves and hope the collateral damage is low.

None of those are reasonable choices. Here is what I would propose
step 1: don't freak out and lose our shit over incidents like this.
step 2: cease bombing/occupying/shipping weapons to/funding "rebels" in/otherwise fucking up other countries
step 2b: regain the moral authority by making western officials who perpetrated war crimes stand trial (like this will ever happen
step 3: win via a culture war of attrition. In other words, blast them with cheap consumer goods and western media until they become fat and lazy like us, and forget all about religion.

To counter this ridiculous batshit crazy stuff ED-057 is quoting I will say all americans should have a black bag put on their heads, shoved in a van, stripped naked and kicked out in a field in the Canadian prairies.

[Wenchang]

And that's the kind of shallow narrative that you would get from not actually living in Syria, prior to the rise of Islamic extermism in 1976-1982 and 2000-today thanks to the UK-founded Muslim Brotherhood. But you wouldn't know that because you didn't know that prior to the current "iron-fisted dictator" Syria was equally "progressive" compared to other mediterranian nations, instilling women's suffrage a year after independence.

A country can have women's suffrage and still have ethnic violence or instability. A country can also be relatively progressive and still be ruled by an iron-fisted dictator. You're currently arguing with yourself here. I never made a statement about how progressive Syria was relative to other Mediterranean nations. I claimed it was stable because it had an iron fisted dictator to enforce that stability. Are you arguing that Syria "prior to the rise of Islamic extremism in 1976-1982" was not ruled by an iron-fisted dictator? Or for that matter are you going to seriously suggest there weren't clashes between Islamists and the government before 1976?

Oh god that's hilarious, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to Syria. Alawites did not "rule" Syria during OR after the French occupation. I know this because my family was part of the oligarchy in power, having connections with the allies during WWII and taking part in undermining the Vichy French government. If we go by the first few presidents of Syria, they include 2 Syrian Kurdish Syrian-nationalists. Even the ba'ath coup wasn't quite an "Alawi" government. The current crisis is due to the defection of one major oligarch: Firas Tlas, but never mind, this is probably the wrong place to expand upon this matter with any degree of nuance.

I think you know full well what I'm talking about here. Alawites were politically powerless until the French mandate. They had been oppressed for centuries and were a marginal group of mountain peasants until the French mandate. Then, under the French, the Alawites gained more rights, like the ability to testify in court for example. Then the French started recruiting and organizing some members into the army. The Assad family had connections to these happenings. Then there was a short-lived Alawite state. Alawite power in the region which never existed before this time, was a result of these events, all of which date back to the French mandate.

It's perfectly true to say that the Ba'ath Party was not a true Alawite ethnic party(it's also true to say that Syria today isn't an "Alawite state" or something, but that's not the point is it? The fact remains the ruling class is heavily predominated by Alawites). But it remains so that Alawites continually became the dominant force in that party and government. Within some decades the political movers were virtually all Alawites. The political struggle between Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid was between two Alawis for example. None of this could have happened before the French presence, because it's simply a fact that before the French rule the Alawites were insignificant in politics. If you know the history of the region as well as you are claiming then I think you know this and the point should not need to be expanded as I have done.

You may not consider Syria as perfect an example of the point as the countries of the Gulf, but I think you're nitpicking and trying not to see the obvious point staring you in the face.

The data says it all and it's actually you that is simplify reality to "oh those damn middle easterners just can't get along until us superior westerners come and intervene".

Data doesn't "say" anything, it has to be interpreted. But let's dispense with the philosophy. You are attributing to me an argument I did not make(after mentioning "nuance" before lol). I never claimed Westerners were superior, that I supported any interventions in Syria or anywhere else, or even that Western interventions have done good in the region. Incidentally I credited the stability in Syria to its iron-fisted dictator, not to Westerners. So stop with the strawmen.

I merely disputed your oversimplified picture which presents a land of milk and honey where everyone gets along until those Westerners came along and somehow(the details of how Western countries somehow make ethnic groups start hating each other are never elaborated because doing so would reveal the inadequacy of the picture being painted) forced different groups to start factionalizing and start attacking each other.

Unlike you, I do not need to romanticize about the areas Westerners intervened in. It's perfectly true to say for example that Western intervention in Syria has been a disaster for Syria. It's also perfectly true to say that ethnic animosity in the area we now call Syria did not originate with Western intervention. That places like Syria were stable largely as a result of having dictators that crushed all dissent is frankly obvious. That many areas of the Middle East which are most stable are ruled by families/classes/ethnic groups whose power was a result of the Western presence is an example of the kind of complexity and nuance you can come across when you look beyond the surface.

Unless one has a completely black and white view of things though(you may have such a view, but it's inappropriate to attribute that same view to others), that last sentence, does not indicate support for Western intervention or even a point of view that indicates those places were better off as a result of Western intervention. So it's perfectly consistent to be skeptical about Western interventions(both in terms of intentions and results) and also be skeptical about the relative peacefulness towards each other of groups of people in Syria at a particular time period.

We can use other examples too. It's perfectly true to say the massive increase in oppression against and now genocidal acts carried out against Yazidis in Iraq and Syria is a result of a rise in violence and a decline in stability which has been engendered by Western interventions. That is true. It's also true to say that discrimination and violence against Yazidis has occurred off and on in the region for centuries and did not originate with Western intervention. And we can go on with examples like this. Recognizing that what the United States for example does in the region is wrong does not mean accepting that it is the source of all problems. Nor does this view indicate some kind of idea that Westerners are "superior." Quite the contrary, Europe for example, had the same type of experiences during its nation building phases.

Your view is the one lacking nuance. You describe a place that was "fine" until Western intervention, a place filled with people who have no political ambitions(or at least no violent or non-meritorious ones, I'll allow that you might be even more romantic than I am crediting) until those dastardly Westerners came in and somehow bestowed upon the peaceful robots the will to act, and then started all the troubles.

It's easy to pontificate when you want to bend facts to match your narrative, but you'll find the facts will bend back to smack you in the face if you take it too far, as you have in your post. Your government (I assume you live in a NATO aligned nation) ruined Iraq, Libya and Syria. Own it.

I'm not interested in nationalistic engagements("your" government). I haven't claimed NATO actions have done good in Iraq, Libya, Syria, or anywhere else so I have nothing to own up to. I just think your interpretation that "Syria was just fine until the blood thirsty leaders of the west" came in to be stupid and childish. Syria was stable because it had a totalitarian government which was powerful enough to keep the country stable until outside intervention destabilized the country, leading to the rise in factionalism, sectarianism, etc. which was always there but was previously understated precisely because of the power of that dictator.