Muslims are starting to become annoying here

[Angrboda]

Let me explain pluralism to your weak mind:

Pluralism is not just various different peoples with various different beliefs and opinions living together in a sociaty.

Pluralism is various different peoples with various different beliefs and opinions living together in a sociaty in which all of them have equal rights!

I think you're extending the definition in the direction you want it to go, but only because it serves your specific interests.

By that definition, the United States is not a pluralistic society, and the bulk of its people are anti-pluralistic, as the question of equal rights for women has been put to the vote several times and defeated each time.


However, I will say a couple things before I bow out of this discussion. Certainly, I acknowledge that I am ignorant about the world, political philosophy, and history, so I grant that I may be amiss in relevant concerns. However, to me, this argument is twofold. First, what is pluralism, and more generally, what is the nature of politics in a world which is de facto pluralistic if not de jure pluralistic. Clausewitz said that war is the conduct of politics through non-political means. If we abandon the means of political discourse, the remaining tool in our arsenal is war. This is what resulted in the death of nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. One side or the other abandoned proper social and political discourse to resolve their differences and resorted to the politics of war. The question of integrating Muslims is not just an immigration question, it's a global one. What are you suggesting for the pluralism of our world society? That we deport all Muslims to another planet? Or perhaps we should simply make the middle east a plain of glass, because they threaten our worldview. I say no. I realize it's not as efficient as bombing them or deporting them, but you as a German should know intimately that the efficiency of disposing with a problem population is not in and of itself a virtue.

My second question has to be, how are you going to implement an immigration policy aimed at reducing the inflow of anti-pluralistic Muslims into your country? What are you going to use as a litmus test for whom to admit and whom to reject? "Are you a Muslim?" "Assuredly not! Insha'Allah!" Are you going to deny immigration from certain countries on the basis of the politics of the majority there? In addition to seeming to run quickly to racial profiling, many times an immigrant from those nations is immigrating to escape from that. Your attitude to that is what? Sucks to be them? Indeed, since Muslim regimes are some of the most oppressive, you may very well see a strong correlation between Muslim hegemony and immigration because of that reason. And what about those who are refugees, say in Darfur, who are fleeing not because of Muslim oppression, but because of other oppression? Do we turn our backs on the people of Darfur because they come from a predominately Muslim nation? Or do we differentiate between the countries composed "mostly of good Muslims" and "mostly of bad Muslims" ? Exactly whom are you targeting here, Germans, and how do we identify them?

Exactly how is this "send them back to where they came from" policy going to work? Are we going to deport people for being fanatical Muslims? Simply Muslim? For speaking out in favor of Sharia law? What exactly is the list of thought crimes going to include? If they break laws, send them to jail, or worse. But I get the impression you want to attack a much larger group of people, and we don't need additional laws to punish actual law breakers, and if we do, that's a separate matter. And it raises the very real question of why we would want to punish Muslim lawbreakers differently from non-Muslim lawbreakers. And I'm gonna add another Godwin for this one, but it's hardly surprising that this comes from the citizen of a country that has made it a crime to disagree with the majority view of the history of the holocaust and speak one's mind about it. Maybe when Germany becomes truly pluralistic you might have some grounds to bitch.

Anyway, I'm done with this conversation, for personal reasons. I'll leave you to your debate.

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ETA: I want to throw this in just because it's from what I'm currently reading. Foucault in the book Discipline and Punsih makes the point that punishment over the past 500 years has transformed from punishing the act of wrong doing, to punishing the actor of the wrong doing. Punishment has ceased to be about metering out punishment because one has committed a specific act so much as it is meted out because the act identifies you as a specific type of actor. Thus the obsession with matters of intent, mental competence, and so on. We no longer seek to punish because someone has done wrong but rather punish people for being doers of wrong; we punish people for having the inclination to do wrong, as much, if not more so, than for having done wrong. The emphasis has shifted from the ethics of the act to the ethics of the actor. This is quite relevant here because, without ascribing this position to anyone, this conversation seems to trend in the direction of making being a Muslim — or simply holding political or religious beliefs or views the majority finds threatening — and simply being a person who is that "type" of actor itself a crime. And if anyone holds that view, I'd say they've abandoned pluralism.