Citizen Dictators: How The Intolerant Minority Rules
Nassim Taleb has a piece up at Medium, and this is a bit from it:
Popper's ParadoxI was at a large multi-table dinner party, the kind of situation where you have to choose between the vegetarian risotto and the non-vegetarian option when I noticed that my neighbor had his food catered (including silverware) on a tray reminiscent of airplane fare. The dishes were sealed with aluminum foil. He was evidently ultra-Kosher. It did not bother him to be seated with prosciutto eaters who, in addition, mix butter and meat in the same dishes. He just wanted to be left alone to follow his own preferences.
For Jews and Muslim minorities such as Shiites, Sufis, and associated religions such as Druze and Alawis, the aim is for people to leave them alone so they can satisfy their own dietary preferences - largely, with historical exceptions here and there. But had my neighbor been a Sunni Salafi, he would have required the entire room to be eating Halal. Perhaps the entire building. Perhaps the entire town. Hopefully the entire country. Hopefully the entire planet. Indeed, given the total lack of separation between church and state, and between the holy and the profane (Chapter x), to him Haram (the opposite of Halal) means literally illegal. The entire room was committing a legal violation.
...Yes, an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy. Actually, as we saw, it will eventually destroy our world.
So, we need to be more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities. It is not permissible to use "American values" or "Western principles" in treating intolerant Salafism (which denies other peoples' right to have their own religion). The West is currently in the process of committing suicide.
From "A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in France: June 2017" at Gatestone Institute. Just one of the items (from June 8):
"I am in fundamental disagreement with these left-wing people who do everything to dissociate fundamentalism from Islam. Islam has been radicalized for fifty years. On the Shiite side, there was Imam Khomeini and his Islamic revolution. In the Sunni world, there was Saudi Arabia, which used its immense resources to finance the spread of this fanaticism of Wahhabism. But this historical evolution took place within Islam and not outside. When the people of the Islamic State attack, they do it by saying 'Allahu Akbar.' So how can we then say that this has nothing to do with Islam? It must be stopped." -- Sir Salman Rushdie, author of the novel The Satanic Verses, who has been hunted to be killed by Muslim extremists for nearly 30 years.
Yet, as Europe is busy committing suicide -- transforming from a place where you might get your pocket picked on a train to a place where you might get your head blown off while out to dinner -- it seems a few boys (and maybe a girl or two) are looking to come home.
Yes, it's the ISIS fighters, as Nadette de Visser writes at The Daily Beast:
AMSTERDAM--Now that the self-proclaimed caliphate of the so-called Islamic State is falling apart in Syria and Iraq, many European jihadists are looking for ways to come home--and some of the Dutch ones have been reaching out to the media, hoping it will save their lives.Just last week two fighters contacted TV shows in the Netherlands to announce their return to Dutch soil, a third contacted the police.
The grim irony of such a ploy is obvious. Many would-be holy warriors from European backgrounds have been associated with organizations that took journalists hostage, ransomed some, tortured and beheaded others. When they thought their groups were on a roll, jihadists bragged to their Western enemies "we love death as you love life."
...With the jihadists' stories trickling in, the Dutch security services try to gauge the security risk involved if they return. Even if the men are found not guilty of participation in war crimes and/or membership of a terrorist organization, which is unlikely, they are still suffering from PTSD. Letting them loose on the society they rejected would be risky business, and not just for the Netherlands.
"We have a responsibility toward other countries, too," says Daan Weggemans, a terrorism expert attached to Leiden University who also serves as an expert witness in terrorism court cases. "Our focus tends to be on Dutch returning jihadists, but security is all about the broader picture. The idea that Dutch jihadists would only return to the Netherlands is not right."
Jihadists are rarely stopped by borders, and certainly not by the open frontiers on the European continent, where they can take advantage of lax security in one place to stage attacks in another.
...But the challenge of the moment is what to do with those who identify themselves and ask to be treated with mercy in a liberal society after the failure of the fanatical caliphate they longed to establish.
Would this be the captured ISIS fighters pictured yesterday in the Daily Mail? The ones kneeling, waiting to be executed by the Iraqi Army?
I can offer no better suggestion. I respect everyone's rights as much as they respect mine.
MarkD at July 25, 2017 4:36 AM
What to do with them? Execute them. Why is that even a question? This is as ludicrous as if Germany was dithering around, wondering "what to do" with nazis that were tired of hiding and wanted to return home.
Momof4 at July 25, 2017 4:40 AM
I'm with M4 on this one. Most of those guys are illegal combatants under the Geneva Convention, and they have committed numerous war crimes. A given nation may have constitutional obligations to try them if they are citizens. But if not, treat them as foreign saboteurs. I wouldn't mind seeing a Nuremberg-style war crimes proceeding to dig into what they actually did and expose the atrocities, but I'm guessing that few of them feel any remorse, and so they are unlikely to talk.
If they are Americans, they still have a right to due process. Since they have been involved in foreign military activities, is it possible to try them via military tribunal? I don't know the answer to that. Maybe not, since they were never officially subject to the UCMJ.
Cousin Dave at July 25, 2017 6:05 AM
Our forefathers sought to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. 200 years later and we're left to wonder who will protect the majority from the tyranny of the minority as the minority has discovered how to use those laws intended to protect them to dictate terms.
Your group is 0.03% of the population and you don't feel like using an inconvenient locker room, shower, or bathroom? Cry discrimination and demand society completely discombobulate itself to accommodate you and your particulars.
Your group is 12% of the population but commit 90% of violent crimes? No worries, just cry discrimination in sentencing and law enforcement. You can even force the police to ignore your crimes or ease enforcement against you as they try to avoid being charged with racism.
You didn't get the job? The apartment? The scholarship? Racism. Sexism. Ageism. Homophobia. You name it and use it to get your way. Society will trip over itself to avoid you and yours assigning them a label.
Conan the Grammarian at July 25, 2017 7:33 AM
I'm not sure if ISIS qualifies as illegal combatants or not. They operated under a pretty specific flag, and they may have had a distinctive emblem on their clothing. You can read about the US law defining such here:
http://usiraq.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000934
If they're captured in Iraq, and happen to be Americans, let the Iraqis deal with them as they see fit. Just the same if they're Syrians, Libyans, Chechens, British, or the other non-Iraqis.
When you give no quarter, you should not expect to receive quarter.
I R A Darth Aggie at July 25, 2017 7:54 AM
Like the kid who killed his parents and then begged for mercy as an orphan?
cc at July 25, 2017 10:42 AM
The only place American citizens have American rights in in American juridictions.
I don't know Dutch law, but America has no duty to bring any citizen back here.
Can't stop them from returning under thier own power.
But as ISIS technically declared war against the entire world and did act as a government, any US citizens who aided them or fought for them should be tried for treason and summarily executed
lujlp at July 25, 2017 1:39 PM
Devout Muslim TV personality chugging beer sans hijab.
Because the wind blew it off, she says, and as far as the alcohol, um ... look over there!
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at July 25, 2017 5:42 PM
This is why Islamic people go on holiday to places like Switzerland.
Why do you think the Arab states tolerate Bahrain? It's place in which Arabs who might revolt against oppressive governments can blow off steam while still under the watchful eye of Islam.
Even Muslims don't want to live under Islam full-time. Yassir Arafat's wife and daughter lived in the South of France. Many ruling and rich Muslims vacation, and even live, outside of the religious and social strictures they impose upon the lesser citizenry.
Arab and Islamic fundamentalism has no relief valve, no way to blow off steam. Like other fundamentalist theologies, it barely acknowledges the need for people to blow off steam.
Even as closed-in a society as the Amish wisely acknowledge this and allow their children to venture into the outside world and make a conscious decision to live under the strict rules of their religion. Of course, turning a wide-eyed naif loose in the world with little-to-no money and no clue how to drive or function in a mechanized world is pretty much going to guarantee they get lost and come running home with fantastic tales about how strange and frightening that world is.
Conan the Grammarian at July 26, 2017 5:26 AM
Leave a comment