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Comment by cup | Hacker News Reader

As one of the resident HN muslim users I think I should mention that within the muslim community nearly everyone assumes they're under some kind of surveilance whether it be targeted or indiscriminate. I mean the fact that Faisal Gill was nominated for special consideration is the icing on the cake.

I think over time more and more Americans are going to start to wake up and appreciate that the freedom loving utopia that America is percieved to be has slowly become a creeping monolithic police state. I don't say that to be controversial or alarmist but just to state what is in my view a fact.

What I'm interested in is whether Americans:

1. Care.

2. Care enough to change it.

3. Actually can change it.

My personal belief is that all three are no.

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"What I'm interested in is whether Americans:

1. Care.

2. Care enough to change it.

3. Actually can change it.

My personal belief is that all three are no."

I'm not Muslim but those questions scare me. What if we fail?

For what it's worth, many civil rights movements faced the same obstacles and persevered. Consider how black leaders felt, how LGBT leaders felt: They were advocating for minorities whom it was politically and socially acceptable to openly despise.

Here's Martin Luther King writing from jail:

"First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Somehow it turned around; I don't know how it happens. Look at the tidal wave for gay rights recently.

Further to this. I'm interested if this is a "limited hangout"...

What if Snowden really is a limited hangout and the Arab Spring was just the rehearsal. What if the powers that be wanted to see how far they could poke the stick at the American people to see (like in a controlled burn) how they would respond.

Even after ripping up The Constitution, spying domestically, and approving drone strikes to kill US citizens abroad, the general populace are asleep. No mass protests. No impeachment.

What if this all was a charade to prove that complete control is within grasp without consequence.

What if the powers that be are mostly not coordinated and basically grabbing whatever they can, while they can? Meanwhile, bureaucracies like every three-letter agency ever, mostly exist because they provide hierarchies for people to climb? What if the conditions for success in those organizations are what they are, because of decades of decisions which are long-term really terrible, but short-term tolerable and even advantageous (to a few people, that is)?

The state America finds itself in might me due to malevolent actors, but it might also be that:

* American culture doesn't value liberty, and there is no path to get there.

* American government is paralyzed, and while everyone knows it, no one has the power to do anything about it.

This does eventually lead to tyranny, but there doesn't have to be some secretive cabal leading everyone in that direction. It could just be that the society is just sort of wandering there due to a handful of unfortunate factors.

From where I sit, I can't really tell the difference. Nor do I think it really matters. But, generally I'm of the opinion that tyrants are creatures of opportunity, and lack the patience required to gradually shape a nation into a police state over a span of decades.

It would be of the huge benefit of all societies that the religions also disavow the inhumane ideas and practices appearing in their holy texts. See the examples with the exact references in my other comment here.

The problems exist and are real even if it's hard to talk about them.

I think the problem is ignorance and the level of effort required:

1) Technology is "magical" to most people and they don't really understand the dangers.

2) Normal people can't actually vote against this on party lines which makes it hard for "normal people" to fight it. They'd have to think and learn about who they need to remove which is something they've rarely done. [e.g. Feinstein (D) needs to go but so does McCain (R)] The majority of Democrats & Republic politicians [at the federal level] support it. It is why attempts to remove it have failed.

3) Those of us that vote against such people in every election don't really get anywhere because of #1 & #2. I vote against my House Rep & Feinstein in every election for all the good it does me.

First they came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak out because I was not a Muslim...

To be frank, reasonable people are nervous because muslim ideology, as published, matches the modus operandi of things like ISIS, the states of Pakistan and generally middle eastern countries to some extent.

And frankly what also makes me horribly nervous is that when talking to muslims that are clearly well integrated, at work, or when going out. I can't get them to condemn terrorist behaviour. Not even when we're talking obviously immoral behaviour, like the 1972 olympic attack (just to avoid 9/11), or today ISIS' modus operandi. When it comes to the obvious religious extermination policies that exist in places like Pakistan or Bangladesh, or all over the middle east, again, it does not seem to be possible, in my experience, to hear condemnations of that behaviour. And frankly, when going over the behaviour that muslim history claims "the prophet" had, like exterminating Khaybar, men, women and children over a trivial conflict, again you can't get muslims to condemn that behavior. He, by the way, did not just kill them, but tortured them first, forced kids to watch family members' executions and worse.

They just deny it exists, how it's all a massive conspiracy against islam, muslims, those countries or some other such claim that they can't defend at all. Regularly muslims suggest that the whole of the quran, hadith and other sources has been falsified just for the purpose of that very discussion.

Knowing that these are well-integrated muslims, not "normal" ones is worrying, very, very worrying. To be honest, if someone were to try something like ISIS is doing in Iraq[1] in America, I am absolutely convinced there would not be serious opposition to that from the American muslim community.

I don't get how we can ever really live together with this religion. There simply is no interest in doing that on the muslim side. Yes there is a period of calm that has started with the WWI extermination of the Caliphate by the Turks. I feat that period is ending, and things will get much, much worse in the medium term.

I know I'll get downvoted for this, but I feel this is a legitimate concern.

[1] http://rt.com/news/166436-isis-execution-video-iraq/

> what also makes me horribly nervous is that when talking to muslims that are clearly well integrated, at work, or when going out. I can't get them to condemn terrorist behaviour.

This sounds like a broad generalization; certainly I've heard people who are Muslim condemn this behavior. In fact the Sunni locals condemned and turned against these very people during the U.S. occupation.

Consider also how many Catholics openly condemn the Catholic Church's child abuse, how many Jews condemn Israel's excesses, or how many Americans condemn an act of war based on a lie that killed over 100,000 Iraqis, or torture or indefinite incarceration without trial (or any war crime; the people who exposed the My Lai Massacre were widely condemned in the United States), or the unrestrained invasion of privacy of any person outside the United States? Not many people will openly condemn their own group, not wanting to air dirty laundry or appear disloyal.

This is religious flamewar concern trolling. Please do not attack entire classes of people on Hacker News and please do not post anything like this again.

Thanks for this comment. I actually upvoted the parent out of emotion when I read it, for I personally would agree with almost everything it said.

However, when I read your comment, I realized that I don't know that many muslims personally (maybe 1-2) and I have never bothered to raise these topics with them to see how they would respond. So, it is not right for me to assume that they wouldn't criticize these events, especially given that there is a plethora of atheist ex-muslims online, which makes it credible(and to an extent obvious) that there are many more closeted atheists or otherwise liberals within the community, all of whom would prove the parent flat out wrong

The problems still exist. The religious leaders of all Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are still not doing enough, see my other comments here. Muslims alone can't be expected to change anything if others aren't willing.

> I can't get them to condemn terrorist behaviour.

Wait what? You really need to hang out with different Muslims.

>When it comes to the obvious religious extermination policies that exist in places like Pakistan or Bangladesh, or all over the middle east, again, it does not seem to be possible, in my experience, to hear condemnations of that behaviour.

I am from Pakistan. Americans experience major bombings by terrorist groups once or twice a DECADE. We experience bombings year round. Do you honestly think we wouldn't condemn such behaviour? I don't know what twisted ideologies your local Muslims have, but we as an entire nation of muslims condemn terrorist behaviour. Not just the bombings in our own state, but anywhere in the world! Our religion has strict rules against this even in a state of war! And thanks to "muslims" like these, we have people saying "It would benefit society if people just disavow inhumane practices preached in their relegious text" !! And that is quite absurd as our religious texts actually preach soldiers in war not to hurt civilians or even civilian buildings!

Thanks for mentioning Khaybar. Anybody looking for context can start here:

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/muhammad/myths-mu-home.htm

"Understand that it is the Hadith (traditions), Sira (biography of Muhammad) and the Qur'an together that provide the true Islamic counterpart to the Christian Bible and Jewish Torah."

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/muhammad/myths-mu-rape.htm

"It is against Islam to rape Muslim women, but Muhammad actually encouraged the rape of others captured in battle. This hadith provides the context for the Qur’anic verse (4:24):

The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives in the presence of their husbands who were unbelievers. So Allah, the Exalted, sent down the Qur’anic verse: (Sura 4:24) "And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess." (Abu Dawud 2150, also Muslim 3433)

Actually, as the hadith indicates, it wasn't Muhammad, but "Allah the Exalted" who told the men to rape the women in front of their husbands - which is all the more reason not to think of Islam as being the same as other religions."

"There are several other episodes in which Muhammad is offered the clear opportunity to disavow raping women - yet he instead offers advice on how to proceed. In one case, his men were reluctant to devalue their new slaves for later resale by getting them pregnant. Muhammad was asked about coitus interruptus in particular:

"O Allah's Apostle! We get female captives as our share of booty, and we are interested in their prices, what is your opinion about coitus interruptus?" The Prophet said, "Do you really do that? It is better for you not to do it. No soul that which Allah has destined to exist, but will surely come into existence.” (Bukhari 34:432) As indicated, the prophet of Islam did not mind his men raping the women, provided they ejaculated within the bodies of their victims."

The references are to the actual "holy texts" of Islam and can be easily checked online. (Instead of downvoting, please point to anything that isn't true.)

(And just that it doesn't appear that I'm cherry picking only Hadith, Sira and Quran, for the list of the killings of the God as written in the Bible, refer to:

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.co.at/2010/04/drunk-with...

Also with the exact references. Do check the original texts yourself!)

Please don't. Religious flamewars are not ok on Hacker News.

And I'm not promoting any religion. I'm pointing the real problems in the actual religious texts, and I'm not limiting myself to one religion.

The problems exist and have huge consequences to the humanity. Approach it as a human not as the member of this or that religion. They aren't going away unless we are able to confront them.

> And I'm not promoting any religion

But you're attacking one. That's the definition of a religious flamewar. Please stop.

Not one, and not "attacking." More pointing to reforms needed to at least all Abrahamic religions (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions) which all have the same problems, and the leaders of them all should finally come together, issue common statement, officially disavow the bad parts (with the explanations!) and preserve the humane ones. Until then, the religious excuses for wars and violence will remain.

I'm also against attacking one.

"The largest Abrahamic religions in chronological order of founding are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

As of the early twenty-first century, it was estimated that 54% of the world's population (3.8 billion people) considered themselves adherents of the Abrahamic religions, about 30% of other religions, and 16% of no organized religion.[6][7]"

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