Should Canada and the U.S. tolerate an intolerant Islam?

Sharia is not a political system. It is a religious moral system - and what counts as Sharia varies from Muslim to Muslim. It is not incompatible with democracy any more than Christian religious moral systems. Christians can sort out their problems amongst themselves as long as it falls within the law of the land, and some Christians do submit themselves to their version of Sharia law in some cases, and their decisions can be binding - again within the law of the land. The law of the land is determined by electing legislators who draft and vote on new laws. Totally compatible with democracy.You've confused 'sharia lovers' with Islamists. Islamists want Islam to infuse all levels of human interaction - and this is as undemocratic as when the West was ruled by Christianists. What garbage? A handful of idiots blowing stuff up and shooting at people? They'll be doing that elsewhere, why not do it here? At least we have sacrificed our freedoms for government surveillance which is totally stopping lots of potential attacks and that this therefore gives us a better chance at stopping them than if they stay in the Middle East.Its the moral thing to do, invite them in so we can catch them - or have them kill themselves if they must. It's not really going to affect us to any particular degree. There were probably a 1,000 babies born in France the day of the Paris attack for instance. ISIS simply isn't doing anything to actually harm us right now - they are may be more expensive to pursue on their home turf than they are to just take on the chin, .Perhaps, at some point, we'll have some real garbage to deal with - and of course people dying is bad and I'd prefer that people I know don't suffer death etc., but people are going to die, its a given. It's just a question of how many and to what effect? Turkey has taken millions upon millions of refugees. The entirety of Europe is facing a low six figure amount distributed across the western part of its continent per year. Less than the number of extra mouths they'd feed from people being born. Less than the mouths that no longer need to be fed throughout Europe.If we are worried about destabilising host countries, we should be taking more asylum seekers, not less. With ISIS around we don't want to destabilize Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey do we? I don't know how excluding them from enjoying the same rights as their hosts can help integrate them. How does denying rights help? Besides which - the intent of asylum is not necessarily to grant permanent residence. That can happen, of course, but if a person intends to return to their homeland - there is no need to fully integrate into the host society. We spent 30billion in the UK on blowing up Afghanistan and Iraq. Much more was spent by the US. If we were to take in 30,000 refugees and give them all 50,000 to setup in the UK, it would only cost us 1.5billion. Seems like a bargain in comparison. Are we capable of spending 10s of billions to kill and maim, but we balk at spending a few billion to treat the least of them with dignity and love?I'd say spending all of our money destabilising the region in the first place was probably shooting ourselves in the foot. Accepting refugees when warlords appear amidst the anarchy, is just taking responsibility. They are running from them because they detest them and don't want to live under them as they fear they run afoul of them because they disagree with them. Screw it. People were quite militant against going to war in Iraq but we did it anyway right? Unless you are suggesting that we give in to possible threats of violent retribution from some host citizens? Because terrorism works?I say we focus on educating people how trivial a problem accepting them is compared to the problems that accepting them resolves and to shame people for being so selfish as to worry about the fact that our taxes might go up a fraction to cover the costs or we might have to tolerate an increase in crime rate. Oh boo hoo, poor affluent nations might see an increase in burglary, shoplifting and assault. To avoid this travesty we absolutely must let these people drown - otherwise some of us might get our petticoats ruffled! Besides, can we really trust the Jews? I mean, the Muslims? Even if every single one of the immigrants turns out to be a militant jihadi, and if they are all coordinating with one another for one massive attack. We'd likely still win, and they'd mostly be dead or captured. So why are we worried?I mean most morons can only rack up pretty pathetic kill to death/capture ratios. The Boston morons scored 5:2. September 11th morons scored about 160:1. If we had 100,000 morons with as good a plan as September 11th Europe would lose maybe 10-20 million people?At that point, of course, expect total war. But even so, I think the wound to the Islamists would be greater from the exertion than the wound they inflicted upon us. Such is our size. Our numbers from births alone will still jump by greater than their recruitment efforts. Exactly. We must be civilized. Which means offering a helping hand to the needy. We shouldn't devolve into xenophobia and closing our borders - that would be what North Korea would do. ISIS are doing worse, and essentially killing people and chasing them out. We should not do likewise.There is a story - I have no idea of its origins, but am pretty confident it is not a true story - about Vlad III Tepes - the Impaler aka Dracula (Vlad II was Dracul - the dragon, Vlad II was 'son of Dracul' - this is related to chivalry (The Order of the Dragon) which is kind of involved in the tale). One day a criminal, escaping from a pursuing watchman, found himself in the residence of Vlad Tepes. Vlad merely gave the man a polite nod in greeting. The man fled. A few moments later, the watchman followed the criminal and found himself also standing in front of The Impaler. Vlad gave no nod of greeting, nor indication as to the exit route of the pursued man. Instead, Vlad stabbed his sword into the watchman's belly. To his questioning eyes, Dracula answered, "The man you pursued was uncivilised and, like a child, knew no better. You however, are a protector of moral decency and law and you knew that you should not have entered my house without invitation - but did so anyway." Erm...Bush, 2001?
No, Thatcher 1982!
Hrm
Hitler 1936?Here's the thing. We were tough over the last few years. People were drowning. Their bodies were washing up on our beaches. It was kind of a bummer.

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To conclude to the topic: Yes, the US and Canada should tolerate intolerant Muslims. Suck it up. There were people warning about refugee crises, instability caused by power vacuums since Iraq was put on the table....so suck it up. If someone breaks the law, punish them accordingly. It should be taken into account that they didn't strictly volunteer to leave their home so their options were find a nation with slots available and try their luck, or live in a Tent City and play dodge the plagues, thieves, rapists and murderers.If they behave a way that would be acceptable at home but are not here, throwing the book at them would not seem appropriate. If they were applying for permanent residence, then maybe an argument could be made. Otherwise they are needy people taking shelter in your country. Sometime needy people try to fulfil those needs the way they know how - and maybe that's illegal here or there or wherever.It's something that needs to be tackled responsibly and fairly with mercy. Obviously egregious crimes should not be overlooked. The notion of curtailing rights however, is an overreaction. Their crimes will not topple the social order.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

That's nice, oh arbiter of the vile.But denying criminals their rights is no less evil. Obviously false. Otherwise tourists would have no rights as well as people on temporary visas. But they do. Deny who? What's your criteria? Can it be administered fairly? Every citizen in the world has a right to apply for Asylum in the USA. In order to apply for Asylum you have to be on US soil. I see them as equal to the lives of Eastern citizens. The impact to us is still three or four magnitudes better than the impact to them if we decline Asylum. Humanity and decency. Even if they were all homophobic and misogynous - the numbers are so ridiculously small that it won't much difference when we add it to the homophobia and misogyny of the host citizens already here. Please tell me what conclusions you reached after reading the words of a near single issue Anti-immigrant homophobic crpyto-fascist MEP got published in a Russian propaganda outlet.Cos I thought you were against listening to the poison of homophobes?Anyway Marcus Pretzel hates Germany. He thinks collapse is imminent, and yet poorer countries with smaller host populations have taken on more refugees.Apparently Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran and Kenya are just more competent economically than Germany!Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I was telling you my reasons for accepting people fleeing warzones. It is still human and decent to help out those who have different creeds, worldviews, religions or cultures than us. Even if we find some of those views abhorent. Sorting out the wheat from the chaff is called 'the asylum process'. How will this moratorium work? Do we just watch their bodies wash up onto our shores while we do...what exactly? And as I told you before: We did that already. We refused entry. Remember?There was a change of heart when this happened.We decided that we didn't like kids dying all that much. Fuck off. But that's what we're doing at the moment to those that seek asylum. Plenty will have their application refused, in fact in the UK this year (up to June) we had refused 59% of Asylum applications as a first decision. There is an appeals process, but this still tends to leave us denying more than 50% of applicants. You won't change Islam by letting the victims of Islamism who do not want to support or live under such extreme Islamism - drown.We know this because we've done it. Has Islamic culture shifted to your liking when thousands were drowning or camping out in train stations and being passed around Europe?

Making sweeping and vague comments is not looking at the big picture. It's ignoring it. See? That's about as vague you can get. What am I supposed to do with this in a debate?What are you specifically trying to get done and do you know it is more efficient?I'm looking at the small picture apparently. I'm trying to consider a strategy to effect long term cultural change. One which empowers the peace-loving Muslims, that shows them alternate ways to live that might improve their own culture. One which brings our enemies to us where they'll be easier to monitor, detain and hopefully, deradicalize.The Muslims that hate and fear ISIS? Who disagree with their insane worldview? I want to keep them alive and the opposite for ISIS. You just seem focussed on throwing women and children under the bus today to teach Islam to be nice to women and children tomorrow. There are many more dead refugees than westerners killed by terrorism in the last decade. Just a guestimate, but thousands have died travelling to Europe - and many more are dying in the Tent Cities.Here's the thing, Islam isn't the root. The root is dogma, but it doesn't have to be Islam - that's just the predominant one in the region we have been destabilising. I'm pretty sure we can find a nice unstable Christian African country where Christian militias are killing Muslims. Oh hi Central African Republic - nice of you to volunteer as an example.And even if we accept that it is - surely you can accept that you can't get rid of Islam, so why not focus on pruning until we get a bonsai religion? You cry. I'm more focussed at the moment on how to minimize deaths over the next 20 years than crying. I was done weeping somewhere just after Coalition Provisional Authority Order 2 - which in hindsight may well have been a key factor in the formation of ISIS. Since then I've been trying to direct my votes towards people who are talking long term strategy not short term tactics, and persuade others to do likewise. If only those poor women were able to escape from Syria and go somewhere safer. Oh wait - aren't you arguing against giving people the opportunity to try and avoid this fate? That they don't deserve it because they'll bring their accursed culture with them?I'm not sure you can hold up a Shia cleric as being a spokesman for the majority of Islam.

Yes. They had the opportunity to live under the extreme Islamism of ISIS and they opted to risk the lives of themselves and their family to not live under the extreme Islamism of ISIS. This is how I know that, on the whole, they don't want to live under the extreme Islamism of ISIS. Not sure what difference it makes, to be honest. Yes. You tried to find reasons to paint Muslims as intrinsically bad and you resisted any efforts to discuss the reasons why we're in the current climate and what we can do to have the best possible future. British citizens are free to want whatever they want. As they are entitled to. Does it matter? At what age does someone stop eliciting sympathetic feelings from you? We we don't know what they'll become.Tell me - would you rather they were educated in Syria by ISIS or in Sweden by the State school system? Which outcome is more likely to fulfil your prophecy of these kids growing up into a life of extemism? You can blame who you like. You can disclaim any responsibility if you want. You can argue that the refugee crisis is nothing to do with the fact that we made a load of trained men with guns unemployed during our invasion of their lands. That our efforts to train and arm people to fight AQ-Iraq simply helped AQ-Iraq's ideological enemies who coalesced into ISIS was in no way contributory to the current crisis.That doesn't change the notion that we should be nice people who try and help civilians fleeing a warzone.

You forgot to include your argument. First of all the refugees are Christians and other religions, not just Muslim.There are tens of thousands of Muslims who are or have been fighting for a more moderate Islam in Syria. But not everyone can fight. Not everyone wants to fight. You can't force them to stay. So what's your plan? Cut off the retreat of civilians for their own good?When the trained fighters defending your city are overwhelmed by ISIS do you wait around for your wives and daughters to get serially raped for the next few years while you lie in a shallow unmarked grave? Yes. And I'm sure having Muslims exposed to living in a free and tolerant society until they can return to their homelands can only help foster moderation too. Yes, the Western governments are becoming more belligerent and some citizens are being quite barbaric. Wanting people to drown, get raped and murdered, assuming they are generally all terrible people so its ok to kill them or let them die etc etc. So what you are saying is that the 20th Century worked out so well we should do it again?How do you force them to stay home and fight for their rights? Should we strafe refugee marches? Bomb Tent Cities? And that's how we made al-Qaeda. And in Iraq we even handed them an army of unemployed soldiers and the weapons along with it!From here

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A year into the Syrian rebellion, the US and its allies weren’t only supporting and arming an opposition they knew to be dominated by extreme sectarian groups; they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of Islamic state — despite the grave danger to Iraq’s unity — as a Sunni buffer to weaken Syria.

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But this is what I am saying. You don't reform a culture by exposing innocents to lunatics with guns.You don't reform it by affirming things the lunatics are saying. We should stop talking and acting like Islam is intrinsically violent. That just reinforces the jihadist's message.Unfortunately, the number of people who are prepared to take this minor step is vanishingly small. There must a reason why, yes?You've agreed it isn't Islam just now.So why are they blowing up planes and concert halls in the West? Why are they killing one another? Why has the region entered a civil war?Once we know the reasons, we can combat them. I've gone blue in the face discussing possible reasons that we have influence over at this forum. What reasons do you think exist and how can we remove them? What???What!!???There were hundreds of thousands fleeing Franco, more fleeing Hitler. Civilians flee wars. You can't stop it by wishing it were otherwise, and if you could you'd be a monster. Sometimes they return as losers, sometimes as winners. Well no. They weren't going to fight anyway. They were just going to get raped and murdered. The ones that do intend to fight? They join an organized militia. The rest flee.You say it strengthens the enemy, but it does not. ISIS are enslaving people. ISIS need workers to run their State, the farms, the refineries. The less people in the region - the less productive the region is and the poorer ISIS is for it. The fewer children, the fewer kids getting brainwashed. The fewer men, the fewer people having to 'join ISIS or die', the fewer women, the less baby making.Even if you forget about the humanitarian reasons, cutting off their supply of labour and labour reinforcement seems like a supremely smart move.

By definition. They are however, perfectly entitled be deplore homosexuality - just as some Christians do in the West, and that is all I was saying. I'm perfectly happy if people want to volunteer for their divorce hearings to held in a religious court. I'm all for freedom of choice in arbitration proceedings.As for legislating Sharia at a criminal law and political level? Well that would be for the process of democracy to decide, wouldn't it? I expect that many countries would require extensive constitutional change to make it happen, but it isn't impossible.

I don't see evidence that it has failed, sorry. What a disgusting lie. One that undermines your own argument. One that anybody who has been keeping an eye on the emerging Syria crisis for years rather than months can see is transparently stupid and/or evil. You aren't persuading me that you are doing better. Yes, some people are pissed off. So? No it hasn't, and there is nothing wrong with that even if it were true. If you are talking about the terrorist attacks - that is not the carnage you should be concerned with.The refugees dying in their thousands is more carnage than terrorists have managed to inflict on us in decades of earnest attempts. If they break the law, those Canadians and Americans should be punished for their actions. We can't blame the victims of this lashing out, obviously!Also, they are not being forced. They have already agreed to it. That's democracy. As I keep repeating - we already tried that. The situation got worse for everyone in the short term, and looked to be growing in intensity - meaning the long term was also looking bad.Nice try, but you are not learning from experience.

Malm. A city that has improved its economic situation enormously over the last three decades. What would you like to say about it?

Tell me - are these 'other versions' of Islamism the same extremism as ISIS' brand? It's just that they disagree on something? Can you show me? ISIS doesn't rule the middle east.
I've been personal friends with Iraqis, Jordanians and one Syrian. They have some interesting stories, they work hard and are loyal and generous friends each of them - their families are likewise. They are not unique. I want those kinds of people to stay alive. I want the frequency of these people within the population to increase in comparison with the militant nutters.Am I being controversial in this? I know the topic. What difference does the fact that some of them might be 'perpetrators' themselves when we are deciding whether to let refugees drown? So because of this thread we should let them drown? This kind of disgusting evil is why I am persuaded your position should not be accepted by any reasonably decent human. Why? I'm all ears. Speak quick though, while our hypothetical borders are closed to refugees there are people starving and drowning a few hundred miles offshore.

Folks dismissive of Islam's intolerance regularly fail to see that those most affected by it are Muslims.Which is why it is so surprising that folks are so concerned about themselves they will happily let children and elderly freeze and drown rather than trying to help the real victims.

I guess its not. People are groupish bastards after all. No.I think we should help victims when and wherever we can. Enabling what? People to stay alive? Deal.