Philosophical Vegan Forum

I think it's reasonable to suggest it would offend them to insinuate ISIS accurately interprets their religion.
And that wouldn't be an issue, except we need them on our side to fight ISIS.

Maybe, but what evidence do we have to suggest that? There is also the cost of lying (Obama) to consider, which tends to be high

Like you said, Europe doesn't assimilate Muslims as well as the United States.

The difference is relatively small though. The US Muslims are around 1.25 times better assimilated

Why should Muslim immigration be halted in general, as opposed to immigration with uneducated people etc.?

Because Muslims do much worse than non-Muslims immigrants even when you control for socio-economic status. Overall they're a burden on society and result in a net negative of billions of taxpayer money every year. You probably want to still let in the Muslim engineers and doctors because that doesn't tend to be the case for those groups.

Perhaps it's because they are seen as 'the other' and don't feel welcomed into western society.
It's our job to welcome them.

I highly doubt it, since western society is the most tolerant society in all of human history. What I think is more likely is that the cultural divide is just too big. They come from Islamic tribal/honor cultures that doesn't mesh very well with liberal democracy, and the cultural divide persists across multiple generations. That suggests education does little to counteract the bad attitudes

I would argue it should be legal because of freedom of choice.
The security threat is real, though, so I would still say it should be illegal.

If we can prove that banning the burqa would reduce Islamic misogyny, then that might be reason enough. That's probably hard to prove though. But yeah, the security question is enough in itself. It shouldn't be allowed in public for the same reason wearing ski masks into banks shouldn't be allowed

I'm pretty sure it's not trying to use government power to discriminate against Muslims.

Why not? Not discriminating seems to me a moral absurdity. If group A causes 50 times as many problems as group B, we should not be equally worried about them

Dronestrikes and handguns kill lots more innocent people than Islamic extremists, but I don't think we'll be banning defense department employees and NRA members from entering the country anytime soon.

knot wrote:Maybe, but what evidence do we have to suggest that? There is also the cost of lying (Obama) to consider, which tends to be high

The evidence is that the Muslim world denies ISIS is Islamic. Obviously they don't want to be associated with it.
What is the cost of Obama lying about it?

knot wrote:The difference is relatively small though. The US Muslims are around 1.25 times better assimilated

I don't think so.

"Muslim Americans mirror the optimism of many American communities: Nearly three-quarters surveyed believe that most people can get ahead if they work hard, according to a comprehensive Pew Research study on Muslim American demographics and attitudes. And they are as likely as the general American population to report household incomes of $100,000 or more (14 percent of Muslims, compared with 16 percent of all adults). They are generally satisfied with their economic lot in life: 46 percent said they were in excellent or good shape financially, compared with 38 percent of the general public who said the same. And they’re almost as likely as the general public to have graduated from college (26 percent of Muslims vs. 28 percent of the general public.)

Contrast that with the economic situation of France’s Muslims, who suffer from a lack of education and employment opportunities. While data based on religious identity can be hard to come by in France because of the country’s prohibition on collecting data on its citizens’ race or religion, France’s national statistical agency found that in 2013, the unemployment rate for all immigrants was at 17.3 percent, almost double the nonimmigrant rate of 9.7 percent. A Stanford study concluded that a Christian citizen in France is two-and-a-half times more likely than a Muslim citizen with the same qualifications to get called for a job interview."
http://www.ibtimes.com/why-do-american- ... ts-2189449

knot wrote:Because Muslims do much worse than non-Muslims immigrants even when you control for socio-economic status. Overall they're a burden on society and result in a net negative of billions of taxpayer money every year. You probably want to still let in the Muslim engineers and doctors because that doesn't tend to be the case for those groups.

Maybe they do, but that they are Muslim is not the problem there; the problems are the lack of education etc.. That may be a result of Islamic governments, but that's not relevant. The other issues are what're really important by your own admission.

Again though, you shouldn't discriminate based on lack of education. If you want a better life and you are willing to make an effort to achieve one, you should be allowed to immigrate.

knot wrote:I highly doubt it, since western society is the most tolerant society in all of human history. What I think is more likely is that the cultural divide is just too big. They come from Islamic tribal/honor cultures that doesn't mesh very well with liberal democracy, and the cultural divide persists across multiple generations. That suggests education does little to counteract the bad attitudes

Then why do we have many assimilated Muslims who are happy to be in western societies?

The culture divide is an issue, which is why we should welcome immigrants and not isolate them further.

knot wrote:If we can prove that banning the burqa would reduce Islamic misogyny, then that might be reason enough. That's probably hard to prove though. But yeah, the security question is enough in itself. It shouldn't be allowed in public for the same reason wearing ski masks into banks shouldn't be allowed

Not necessarily, because you have to consider the unintended consequences. You'd have to prove that the good it does by reducing misogyny outweighs the harm done from more hostility towards Muslims.

If you ban the burqa in public, it's only consistent to ban ski masks in public too (except in certain places- burqas should be allowed in mosques and ski masks during skiing).

knot wrote: Why not? Not discriminating seems to me a moral absurdity. If group A causes 50 times as many problems as group B, we should not be equally worried about them

There's a difference between legitimate concerns and systematic government discrimination towards a religious group.
Government discrimination further isolates Muslims as 'the other' in their minds and in the minds of the general public.

What is the cost of Obama lying about it?

The biggest problem is that he's trying to relieve Muslims of any responsibility when in fact they do need to take responsibility: they need to either clean up their faith or abandon it. How much we can expect each individual Muslim to do depends on how much danger they'd get in.

"Muslim Americans mirror the optimism of many American communities: Nearly three-quarters surveyed believe that most people can get ahead if they work hard, according to a comprehensive Pew Research study on Muslim American demographics and attitudes. And they are as likely as the general American population to report household incomes of $100,000 or more (14 percent of Muslims, compared with 16 percent of all adults). They are generally satisfied with their economic lot in life: 46 percent said they were in excellent or good shape financially, compared with 38 percent of the general public who said the same. And they’re almost as likely as the general public to have graduated from college (26 percent of Muslims vs. 28 percent of the general public.)

Contrast that with the economic situation of France’s Muslims, who suffer from a lack of education and employment opportunities. While data based on religious identity can be hard to come by in France because of the country’s prohibition on collecting data on its citizens’ race or religion, France’s national statistical agency found that in 2013, the unemployment rate for all immigrants was at 17.3 percent, almost double the nonimmigrant rate of 9.7 percent. A Stanford study concluded that a Christian citizen in France is two-and-a-half times more likely than a Muslim citizen with the same qualifications to get called for a job interview."

It's funny that they call them Muslim Americans and not American Muslims. I've never seen any other example like that. Atheist American? Christian American? I think it's telling that the Muslim part is placed first, because they also identify as Muslim first and Americans second

Anyway it's not their outlook on economic opportunity that's very interesting to me. It's more their attitudes towards terrorism, atheists, gays, women and liberal democracy. Polls on those questions always produce awful results, even for the American Muslims

Again though, you shouldn't discriminate based on lack of education. If you want a better life and you are willing to make an effort to achieve one, you should be allowed to immigrate.

I only used education as a metric because it tends to correlate with not being a future suicide bomber, but it's not a great indication because we've also seen well educated terrorists. There needs to be a very accurate vetting system in place to reliably weed out the 20% of Muslims who are Islamists. If we can't do that, I think it's completely irresonspible to let in any Muslim immigrants

Then why do we have many assimilated Muslims who are happy to be in western societies?

That depends on what your standard for being assimilated is. I think a reasonable standard would be to expect them to understand the values of the enlightenment and their role in paving the way for scientific and moral progress in the west. The majority of western Muslims would not meet this standard, as they favor theocracy over liberal democracy and blasphemy laws over free speech.

Not necessarily, because you have to consider the unintended consequences. You'd have to prove that the good it does by reducing misogyny outweighs the harm done from more hostility towards Muslims.

Let's run the experimetn!

There's a difference between legitimate concerns and systematic government discrimination towards a religious group.
Government discrimination further isolates Muslims as 'the other' in their minds and in the minds of the general public.

The government already discriminates against Muslims, and for good reason. I'm pretty confident the FBI spends much more time investigating Muslims instead of Buddhists in relation to potential terrorism. Because being equally worried about Buddhists and Muslims would be insane. Discrimination is only bad when it's done on the basis of bad evidence, which has been the case historically in relation to e.g. race or sexuality.

knot wrote:I've never seen any other example like that. Atheist American? Christian American?

There are many examples including African American, Irish American, and even Gay American.
Or were you talking about religious demographics only?

Cirion Spellbinder wrote:

knot wrote:I've never seen any other example like that. Atheist American? Christian American?

There are many examples including African American, Irish American, and even Gay American.
Or were you talking about religious demographics only?

Uhm, nevermind then :d. I thought I had found some profound irregularity

Mother! Trump, orangutan. i like it!

knot wrote:The biggest problem is that he's trying to relieve Muslims of any responsibility when in fact they do need to take responsibility: they need to either clean up their faith or abandon it. How much we can expect each individual Muslim to do depends on how much danger they'd get in.

They should clean up their faith, but we shouldn't isolate Muslims by blaming them for terrorism. That leads to more terrorism.

knot wrote: Anyway it's not their outlook on economic opportunity that's very interesting to me. It's more their attitudes towards terrorism, atheists, gays, women and liberal democracy. Polls on those questions always produce awful results, even for the American Muslims

In what poll won't you find very bad attitudes towards atheists and gays?

Can you give me some polls that demonstrate what you're saying?

knot wrote:I only used education as a metric because it tends to correlate with not being a future suicide bomber, but it's not a great indication because we've also seen well educated terrorists. There needs to be a very accurate vetting system in place to reliably weed out the 20% of Muslims who are Islamists. If we can't do that, I think it's completely irresonspible to let in any Muslim immigrants

Where did you get 20%? And 20% for what? What countries etc.?

Think of the unintended consequences of further hostility towards innocent Muslims in western countries if you ban Muslim immigration.

I'm definitely pro a comprehensive vetting system.

knot wrote:That depends on what your standard for being assimilated is. I think a reasonable standard would be to expect them to understand the values of the enlightenment and their role in paving the way for scientific and moral progress in the west. The majority of western Muslims would not meet this standard, as they favor theocracy over liberal democracy and blasphemy laws over free speech.

Evidence?

knot wrote:Let's run the experimetn!

Well, I'm pro-banning the burqa because of security risks.

But based on the symbolism, I don't think we should just 'run the experiment' when there's a good chance it will make things a lot worse.

knot wrote:I'm pretty confident the FBI spends much more time investigating Muslims instead of Buddhists in relation to potential terrorism. Because being equally worried about Buddhists and Muslims would be insane. Discrimination is only bad when it's done on the basis of bad evidence, which has been the case historically in relation to e.g. race or sexuality.

This is a baseless assertion, and remember what I said about domestic terrorism being more of a right-wing thing in America.
However, they probably do investigate Muslims more, unreasonably (unless they're going to investigate right-wingers more than Muslims).

But that would be very different from blatant systematic persecution (AKA the education system being anti-Islam, which is blatant, unreasonable, and counterproductive discrimination).

I legitimately thought this discussion was about an actual orangutan.

Most of the data you can find in the Pew polls. The national polls for Europe tend to be published in random newspapers online, like the one with 70%+ of UK Muslims wanting cartoonists jailed

Other than that, I don't think we're gonna get anywhere, because we seem to represent two opposing views of human nature: the tragic (me) and the utopian (you)