Kirbmarc wrote:Scented Nectar wrote:James Caruthers wrote:Your argument against Muslims is quite literally a white supremacist argument against black people.
I'm staying out of this mostly, but religion is not the same thing as race.
Being against detrimental cultural practices, such as religion-ordered violence, has nothing to do with physical features and is not racism.
Being against certain physical features (no matter what the culture or behaviours) IS racism.
I'm seeing the two things conflated a lot. I don't think there is anything wrong with having strong opinions against harmful cultural practices. I even think it's essential in order to improve the quality of life for everyone.
There is something wrong with being against certain physical attributes though. It's a very different thing.
You are right in that religion isn't a race, and mocking Islam, for example, or criticizing it, can never be argued to be "racist" even if the mockery is crude (like a crudely drawn cow-pig who represents Mohammed as a pedophile, for example).
But James' argument isn't that hatred of Islam is equivalent to hatred of black people. James (and I, incidentally) are arguing not against criticism and mockery of Islam, but against the illiberal principle of "collective guilt".
James rightfully points out that Steersman's argument for a "population transfer" is exactly the same argument used by anyone who ascribes the guilt of specific crimes committed by specific people to an entire group which happens to share a trait with the perpetrators.
The argument of "collective guilt" is always wrong, no matter who uses it against whomever: white supremacists use it against black people, Steersman uses it against Muslims, radfems use it against men.
We should prosecute and severely punish Muslim who commit crimes (any crimes, including stalking and
actually harassing- not "Twitter harassing" people in the street), and do not excuse those crimes because of their religion or as payback against the "Evil West". We should also feel free to criticize that ideology with any means without caring about the fainting couch brigade ready to cry racism at the first argument which criticizes Islam.
What is morally wrong for us to do is to lump together all people, guilty or innocent of any crime, and expel them from a country or treat them as second-class citizens just because they share a trait with some criminals. It doesn't matter whether that trait is race, religion, gender, or even ideology.
Only people who have actually committed crimes should be treated as criminals. Even people who support or agree with criminals shouldn't be treated as criminals unless they actually took part in some criminal activity. Lumping together people for their beliefs regardless of what they've actually done is highly illiberal: it's engaging in "thoughtcrime prevention", just like the SJWs want to do.
Ideas can be bad, horrible, stupid, bigoted and such. They aren't crimes. Criticize Islam, mock it, point out how certain branches are better than others, call out Muslim people on hypocrisy. But if you criminalize Islam itself like Steersman, and not just the crimes committed in the name of Islam, you're behaving exactly like the authoritarian dictators that the SJWs wish to be.