No Robots

Islam is essentially a Christian reform movement. One historian actually calls Islam "the Southern Reformation".

The problem is that both the Islamic Reformation and the Protestant Reformation have stalled, slipping back into the superstitious thinking that they originally opposed.

peejay

Talking from a position of self-interest, a problem is only a problem if it affects us (by which I mean “The West�?). I’d suggest there are three ways in which Islam could prove to be a problem (repeating what others have said):
1) Our reliance on their oil.
2) The prospect of a fundamentalist government/terrorist acquiring WMD.
3) Muslims living here acquiring sufficient political clout to implement things like Sharia law, essentially using liberal democracy to bring liberal democracy to an end.

The answer to the first one is easy, or at least easiest, and happily what we need to do coincides with what we need to do anyway to tackle global warming. We need to reduce/eliminate our need for oil. For example research into sustainable energy, hydrogen cars, energy conservation, increase taxes on fuel (I think fuel taxes should increase in my country, and I live in the UK with among the highest fuel taxes in the world).

If we removed our need for (importing) oil, then in theory, if oil reliance were the only problem, we could completely disengage from the Muslim world. Call it a new Cold War. The problem is that the theory of nuclear deterrence requires a modicum of rationality on behalf of the people with their fingers on the button. You might not have agreed with Khruschev, but I think you could credit him with some sanity. I am not at all confident about the current leadership of Iran, or Al Qua’eda.

I guess that means we need to go on with current non-proliferation policies. Bring to bear international pressure on Iran. Sanctions, monitoring… air strikes if necessary. I’m not an expert, but I think it’s possible to stop a nuclear weapons programme with these blunt measures. I think you need pretty big facilities to enrich uranium, for example. Easy to spot and bomb!

For chemical and biological weapons, I’m much less confident. I suspect our best way of coping with this threat would be research into treatments and inoculations. And bracing ourselves for the occasional big-hit biological strike against us. Tragic though this would be, it wouldn’t bring down civilisation.

The third one - and my reason for resurrecting this thread - was prompted by a poll published here in the UK the other day.

Here: http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/reviews...ms%20feb06.asp

13% of UK Muslims said it was right to exercise violence against those who are deemed by religious leaders to have insulted them. 12% said it was right for Muslim demonstrators to carry placards calling for the killing of those who insult Islam. 40% supported there being areas of Britain which are pre-dominantly Muslim and in which Sharia Law is introduced, with only 41% opposing. 7% said Western society is decadent and immoral and Muslims should seek to bring it to an end, if necessary by violent means.

Bloody hell.

Surely there has to be a basic contract between people and the country in which they live? That the people endorse a minimum set of principles, such as free speech and equality of treatment for all? Is this what the USA has in its constitution and - dare I say it - pledge of allegiance?

What should happen when people don’t sign up to these basic principles? Should a state have a right to deport them, even if they are citizens of that country? Where would those people go?

I’m beginning to wonder whether a state should have that right, although it would potentially have far reaching consequences.

PS Worth adding - I try not to hate people, but I sure as hell hate some of the things people believe.

josephpalazzo

From another post, which I think is relevant here:

In Preemption, A Knife That Cuts Both Ways by Alan Dershowitz, he writes:"The shift from responding to past events to preventing future harms is part of one of the most significant but unnoticed trends in the world today. It challenges our traditional reliance on a model of human behavior that presupposes a rational person capable of being deterred by the threat of punishment. The classic theory of deterrence postulates a calculating evildoer who can evaluate the cost-benefits of proposed actions and will act — and forbear from acting — on the basis of these calculations. It also presupposes society's ability (and willingness) to withstand the blows we seek to deter and to use the visible punishment of those blows as threats capable of deterring future harms. These assumptions are now being widely questioned as the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of suicide terrorists becomes more realistic and as our ability to deter such harms by classic rational cost-benefit threats and promises becomes less realistic."

He argues further on that: " ...before the next disaster, this new jurisprudence — the rules by which we will take these necessary actions." We need new standards for a new age. The threat of the radical extremists would entail a new morality to deal with it.