I am a fairly frequent commenter on one of the larger blogs in the blogosphere, “Dean’s World.” Dean was the first and is still the largest blog who put me on their blogroll, so I owe him a debt of gratitude. Dean’s World still sends me about 8% of my traffic on a daily basis.
There are frequent threads on Dean’s World debating the War on Terror. Dean is generally supportive of the war, but he has frequently complained that many conservatives are closet (or overt) Islamophobes, a term he throws about fairly loosely in my opinion. Because of this his own commenters (including me) have given him a lot of grief over his willingness to attack people who disagree with him on the subject. In fact some of these threads have spilled over into larger blog-wars as other blogs get pulled in.
Well, Dean has apparently had enough. His latest post has defined a set of criteria that you must agree to if you want to post or comment on Dean’s World. Here they are:
1) Islam does not represent the forces of Satan or the Anti-Christ bent on destruction of the Christian world.
2) There is no 1,400 year old “war with the West/Christianity” being waged by Muslims or anyone else.
3) Islam as a religion is no more inherently incompatible with modernity, minority rights, women’s rights, or democratic pluralism than most religions.
4) Medieval, anachronistic, obscure terms like “dhimmitude” or “taqiyya” are suitable for polite intellectual discussion. They are not and never will be appropriate to slap in the face of everyday Muslims or their friends.
5) Muslims have no more need to prove that they can be good Americans, loyal citizens, decent people, or enemies of terrorism than anyone else does.
I objected in principle to #3 particularly, my comments are on the thread if you want to read them. I also objected to the wording of #2 because it doesn’t allow for the existence of significant elements in Islam who are acknowledged to be at war with the West (like, say, Al Qada for instance).
Go check it out and see what you think.
I’m waiting to see if Dean throws me off.
5 users commented in " Dean’s World draws the line. "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI would certainly take issue with #3. And I’m not sure I’m in agreement with #5 either. When a group has a history of acting as beligerant international citizens, then it will fall to [other] members of that group to demonstrate that the negative elements are non-representative. Whether they have the ‘need’ to prove it depends on whether they care what the rest of us think, I guess.
It’s like saying, “Dirtbikers have no more need to prove that they can be responsible public land users and as environmentally sensitive as hikers and any other trail users.” On the contrary; as a dirtbiker I make a particular effort to prove that we can be responsible because the consequences of not contradicting the stereotype will likely be a compromise of my ability to enjoy these trails in the future.
Muslims should care to demonstrate that their religion is peaceful if they wish not to be marginalized in international politics.
I gotta say I agree with #3.
#2 however … there isn’t a war but a culture clash. Not a 1400 year long plot, it’s just what people do.
Brian:
You are free to “agree with number three” if you like. I stand by my comments on Dean’s World that such a statement is not provable. To know with enough certainty to pledge such a thing requires more knowledge about all religions in the world, more knowledge about what “modernity” means and more data about the relative behaviors of the adherents of different religions than any human being could possibly possess.
The statement is dogma, pure and simple, and I don’t pledge to dogma. It may be dogma you agree with, but I try to avoid dogma whenever I recognize it.
My karma ran over my dogma.
(Sorry)
Dean seems to have clarified #3. He is now saying that what he intended to say was this:
I am fine with this statement. I’m not sure if that gets me back into his good graces or not after I was probably the single most adamant person on his site arguing that his original wording was dogma, pure and simple.
For the record I do not think Muslims are inherently the enemies of democracy, pluralism, or human rights.
If you do think that, I won’t kick you off my site for thinking that. I would kick you off my site if you were rude and offensive about it. Otherwise I’d want to debate it and hopefully change your mind.
By the way, I’d even be OK with it if Dean worded it this way:
Now, I do believe that Al Qada is inherently an enemy of democracy, pluralism and human rights. I also believe that to be true of the Taliban and some other Islamist sects in Islam.
But I do not believe that Islam itself is. I know too many good, decent Muslims.
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