Reply to Re: Let's talk power
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Redefining words? Come on dude, you're better than that.
Let's be more clear about the definitions:
Power is the ability to change the world around you to be what you want it to be. Privilege is that world around you is in your favor. Privilege does not imply power; the Estonian donkey wranglers we were talking about have little power, but a lot of privilege. Which means they don't need power to be happy.
For those who don't have privilege, the ability to make the world slightly less horrible is not power. Being able to make your life as good as that of someone without power is not power. Power is that you can make changes that make your life better than that of the average person.
Those are my definitions, I hope you agree to use them as well. If not, please explain what definitions you would use instead.
Irrelevant strawman. We're discussing power and who ultimately has power and the forms in which it takes.
If a group of people is underrepresented in almost every group of leaders (politicians, media figures, CEOs), they do not have much power. They can beg the people in power for changes, and hope that they listen. That is not power.
Note that I'm not saying that every non-minority person has power. But the minorities are systematically kept out of positions of power. And not only that, some people in power are actively fighting against them. Politicians make laws against them. The media regularly say that all of them are criminals. CEOs don't hire them or don't give them a promotion. The only leaders that sometimes speak up (and also the only group that has those minorities among its leaders, coincidence?) are artists. And note that when the leaders in art, such as Beyoncé and Springsteen, use their power to help the minorities, they are heavily criticized by leaders from other fields.
as are a lot of G ay-specific charities that receive funding.
Indeed, as was mentioned before, the LGB community is winning this battle. But most rich g ays didn't tell anyone about their sexual orientation until they already were in power, so that doesn't count (who knows if they would have become powerful if everyone had known about it). And some probably made it despite the discrimination. In some cases a progressive group may actually have helped them because of it, but that's rare AFAIK.
Transgenders are similar, but worse; there are zero people in the world, who got in positions of power while openly trans, AFAIK. And they don't seem to be winning their battle either. Hopefully it helps them that LGBT is considered one category and the LGB situation is getting better.
Someone who is imbued with power doesn't necessarily have the ability to do whatever they want with it without consequences.
Sure. But someone who isn't imbued with power definitely doesn't have the ability to do what they want. So if you see that almost no leader in society comes from a certain group (and that group is a significant part of society), the conclusion must be that that group is mistreated.
Therefore simply because a group doesn't have a G ay Black Jew, for example, as their CEO doesn't mean they are incapable of representing the G ay Black Jews and enacting their demands.
In one individual case, that is correct. But if you can find almost no CEO who is either g ay or black (I think Jews aren't treated so badly in the US at least, but I may be wrong about that), that is a different story.
Unfortunately Muslims tend to defend their beliefs by blowing themselves up rather than talking about it nicely like we're doing right now.
Some of them do. There are more than 2 billion Muslims though, and almost all of them do not. Your suggestion that they are all the same and violent is offensive and unfair to most of them. As I wrote before, some Christians do the same thing. But I don't hear you accuse all Christians of being violent. Why are they different?
I think you're exaggerating my claim as to how much power they have.
You suggest that they have power at all (according to my definition above). I say they don't. They are very much disadvantaged. All the "power" you talk about is not enough to compensate that. It would have been worse without the support, but that doesn't mean it's good now.
Incidentally I had a look, and quite a lot of the significant shootings have been committed by people who aren't white.
Sure, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that you should blame any of the groups I named (perhaps excluding gun owners, they are dangerous). I'm saying that you also shouldn't blame all Muslims for the radicals that also call themselves Muslims. They are not comparable. They are not the same group. On the other hand, if many people in the rest of the world keep insisting that all Muslims are the enemy and keep them away from power, the ones that weren't radical originally are pushed to "join the group" and become radicals as well. That's what I mean when I say that blaming all of them is counterproductive. It creates terrorists.
Also note that I could flip that question around and ask you why you refuse to have Muslims take responsibility for their actions.
Thank you for asking. I am entirely consistent. I thought that was clear, but apparently it isn't, so I'm happy to explain.
Yes, I do think radical Muslims (members and sympathizers of Isis specifically) are terrorists and should be punished (I don't have any confidence in them "taking responsibility"). But I do not think Muslims who want nothing to do with them should be apologizing for them all the time.
In the same way, I do not think that all white people, or all Christians, or you name which group that a shooter happens to belong to (and in some cases, including some of the ones from those groups, explicitly claim that that was the reason they did it), should apologize for a terrorist who identifies as part of the same community they are in. It may seem like I'm saying that that would be a good thing. That's not what I mean. I'm asking for consistency from you: if you blame all Muslims for actions from people from and like Isis (which I don't think is right), you should also blame all Christians for the Planned Parenthood shooter, and all white people for Dylann Roof (which I also don't think is right). I'm not saying that you should be blaming the other groups; I'm saying that it is inconsistent to do it to Muslims but not to the other groups. I would disagree with you if you did it to both, but that would be consistent. I would agree with you if you do it to neither, and that would also be consistent.
Violence is a major facet of Islam
Just like it is a major facet of Christianity. There are numerous passages in the bible that advocate killing people, torturing people, causing abortions, you name it. I prefer to focus on the more peaceful parts of the book, but that doesn't mean the other parts don't exist. The Koran also contains very peaceful parts and many Muslims take their inspiration from those parts to live lives that I agree with.
I never advocated for any sort of surveillance anywhere and never mentioned the KKK.
So you're saying that all Muslims are violent, but we shouldn't do some surveillance on them? I don't agree that they are, but if they would be, it would be irresponsible not to do surveillance.
I mentioned the KKK to compare how Muslims are treated to how Christians are/were treated. The KKK was in some ways similar to Isis. They were terrorists with a religious motive, and they were fairly localized (in the US; Isis in the middle east). Punishing Muslims in the US for what Isis is doing is very similar to punishing Christians in Europe (at the time) for what the KKK was doing. The latter is ridiculous; of course peaceful Christians in Europe don't have to answer for terrorism by a small group of people in the name of their God in a different continent. Then why isn't it equally ridiculous when it's about peaceful Muslims? The percentage that Isis is to all Muslims is smaller than what the KKK was to all Christians.
That's not an option in Islam.
And you blame me for using a "no true Scottsman" argument?
Power takes a variety of forms and doesn't necessarily present itself as dollars and cents.
Name one poor person who have power. The only ones I can come up with are very exceptional, such as the Dalai Lama. Almost everyone who gets in power uses that at least to get a comfortable amount of money. A group of people with an average wealth of 10% that of the rest of the population (that's the blacks in the US, if I'm not mistaken) does not have significant power.
Power to do what exactly? Who determines who deserves power and who doesn't?
Power to make your life pleasant. Or to use the words of the founding fathers, to pursue happiness. Everyone deserves that power. As much of it as possible without interfering with other people's power to do the same (on the interface, we need rules). Nobody should have (or more accurately, be allowed to use) the power to make the life of a person or group of persons miserable just because they feel like it.
Let's be more clear about the definitions:
Power is the ability to change the world around you to be what you want it to be. Privilege is that world around you is in your favor. Privilege does not imply power; the Estonian donkey wranglers we were talking about have little power, but a lot of privilege. Which means they don't need power to be happy.
For those who don't have privilege, the ability to make the world slightly less horrible is not power. Being able to make your life as good as that of someone without power is not power. Power is that you can make changes that make your life better than that of the average person.
Those are my definitions, I hope you agree to use them as well. If not, please explain what definitions you would use instead.
Irrelevant strawman. We're discussing power and who ultimately has power and the forms in which it takes.
If a group of people is underrepresented in almost every group of leaders (politicians, media figures, CEOs), they do not have much power. They can beg the people in power for changes, and hope that they listen. That is not power.
Note that I'm not saying that every non-minority person has power. But the minorities are systematically kept out of positions of power. And not only that, some people in power are actively fighting against them. Politicians make laws against them. The media regularly say that all of them are criminals. CEOs don't hire them or don't give them a promotion. The only leaders that sometimes speak up (and also the only group that has those minorities among its leaders, coincidence?) are artists. And note that when the leaders in art, such as Beyoncé and Springsteen, use their power to help the minorities, they are heavily criticized by leaders from other fields.
as are a lot of G ay-specific charities that receive funding.
Indeed, as was mentioned before, the LGB community is winning this battle. But most rich g ays didn't tell anyone about their sexual orientation until they already were in power, so that doesn't count (who knows if they would have become powerful if everyone had known about it). And some probably made it despite the discrimination. In some cases a progressive group may actually have helped them because of it, but that's rare AFAIK.
Transgenders are similar, but worse; there are zero people in the world, who got in positions of power while openly trans, AFAIK. And they don't seem to be winning their battle either. Hopefully it helps them that LGBT is considered one category and the LGB situation is getting better.
Someone who is imbued with power doesn't necessarily have the ability to do whatever they want with it without consequences.
Sure. But someone who isn't imbued with power definitely doesn't have the ability to do what they want. So if you see that almost no leader in society comes from a certain group (and that group is a significant part of society), the conclusion must be that that group is mistreated.
Therefore simply because a group doesn't have a G ay Black Jew, for example, as their CEO doesn't mean they are incapable of representing the G ay Black Jews and enacting their demands.
In one individual case, that is correct. But if you can find almost no CEO who is either g ay or black (I think Jews aren't treated so badly in the US at least, but I may be wrong about that), that is a different story.
Unfortunately Muslims tend to defend their beliefs by blowing themselves up rather than talking about it nicely like we're doing right now.
Some of them do. There are more than 2 billion Muslims though, and almost all of them do not. Your suggestion that they are all the same and violent is offensive and unfair to most of them. As I wrote before, some Christians do the same thing. But I don't hear you accuse all Christians of being violent. Why are they different?
I think you're exaggerating my claim as to how much power they have.
You suggest that they have power at all (according to my definition above). I say they don't. They are very much disadvantaged. All the "power" you talk about is not enough to compensate that. It would have been worse without the support, but that doesn't mean it's good now.
Incidentally I had a look, and quite a lot of the significant shootings have been committed by people who aren't white.
Sure, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that you should blame any of the groups I named (perhaps excluding gun owners, they are dangerous). I'm saying that you also shouldn't blame all Muslims for the radicals that also call themselves Muslims. They are not comparable. They are not the same group. On the other hand, if many people in the rest of the world keep insisting that all Muslims are the enemy and keep them away from power, the ones that weren't radical originally are pushed to "join the group" and become radicals as well. That's what I mean when I say that blaming all of them is counterproductive. It creates terrorists.
Also note that I could flip that question around and ask you why you refuse to have Muslims take responsibility for their actions.
Thank you for asking. I am entirely consistent. I thought that was clear, but apparently it isn't, so I'm happy to explain.
Yes, I do think radical Muslims (members and sympathizers of Isis specifically) are terrorists and should be punished (I don't have any confidence in them "taking responsibility"). But I do not think Muslims who want nothing to do with them should be apologizing for them all the time.
In the same way, I do not think that all white people, or all Christians, or you name which group that a shooter happens to belong to (and in some cases, including some of the ones from those groups, explicitly claim that that was the reason they did it), should apologize for a terrorist who identifies as part of the same community they are in. It may seem like I'm saying that that would be a good thing. That's not what I mean. I'm asking for consistency from you: if you blame all Muslims for actions from people from and like Isis (which I don't think is right), you should also blame all Christians for the Planned Parenthood shooter, and all white people for Dylann Roof (which I also don't think is right). I'm not saying that you should be blaming the other groups; I'm saying that it is inconsistent to do it to Muslims but not to the other groups. I would disagree with you if you did it to both, but that would be consistent. I would agree with you if you do it to neither, and that would also be consistent.
Violence is a major facet of Islam
Just like it is a major facet of Christianity. There are numerous passages in the bible that advocate killing people, torturing people, causing abortions, you name it. I prefer to focus on the more peaceful parts of the book, but that doesn't mean the other parts don't exist. The Koran also contains very peaceful parts and many Muslims take their inspiration from those parts to live lives that I agree with.
I never advocated for any sort of surveillance anywhere and never mentioned the KKK.
So you're saying that all Muslims are violent, but we shouldn't do some surveillance on them? I don't agree that they are, but if they would be, it would be irresponsible not to do surveillance.
I mentioned the KKK to compare how Muslims are treated to how Christians are/were treated. The KKK was in some ways similar to Isis. They were terrorists with a religious motive, and they were fairly localized (in the US; Isis in the middle east). Punishing Muslims in the US for what Isis is doing is very similar to punishing Christians in Europe (at the time) for what the KKK was doing. The latter is ridiculous; of course peaceful Christians in Europe don't have to answer for terrorism by a small group of people in the name of their God in a different continent. Then why isn't it equally ridiculous when it's about peaceful Muslims? The percentage that Isis is to all Muslims is smaller than what the KKK was to all Christians.
That's not an option in Islam.
And you blame me for using a "no true Scottsman" argument?
Power takes a variety of forms and doesn't necessarily present itself as dollars and cents.
Name one poor person who have power. The only ones I can come up with are very exceptional, such as the Dalai Lama. Almost everyone who gets in power uses that at least to get a comfortable amount of money. A group of people with an average wealth of 10% that of the rest of the population (that's the blacks in the US, if I'm not mistaken) does not have significant power.
Power to do what exactly? Who determines who deserves power and who doesn't?
Power to make your life pleasant. Or to use the words of the founding fathers, to pursue happiness. Everyone deserves that power. As much of it as possible without interfering with other people's power to do the same (on the interface, we need rules). Nobody should have (or more accurately, be allowed to use) the power to make the life of a person or group of persons miserable just because they feel like it.
