Fresh off a great interview, it’s time for some Tommenting! Lots of people asked if I was going to talk about Sam Harris and Omer Aziz, and while I’m definitely not doing a full review like I did with Maryam Namazie, I want to at least talk about some broad themes. So I do that, as well as revisit the crimes and potential motivations of Craig Hicks a year on from that horrible atrocity. And finally, do we not call out terrorism enough when it’s committed by white people? All this and a couple listener comments!
Omer’s original critique of Sam’s book: http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/sam_harriss_detestable_crusade_how_his_latest_anti_islam_tract_reveals_the_bankruptcy_of_his_ideas/
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Given your description of the conversation, I think I would prefer that you do podcast after podcast analyzing it to save me from having to listen to it.
Rather than re-writing this, I will reproduce the comment I made on WEIT, on the topic “Is the left becoming more anti-semitic”.
“Not only are Jews disproportionately the targets (of hate crime) compared with Muslims, according to FBI statistics, but I don’t think they are as easy to identify (in most cases) as Muslims. Jews aren’t brown skinned, and except in small enclaves they don’t wear clothing, or have facial hair that would make them obviously Jewish. That makes the hate crime discrepancy even more striking, given they aren’t as easilly identifiable as targets.”
My point being even if Muslims were equally hated you would expect far more hate crime targeting them because they are so easilly identifiable. So I think it’s clear there is significantly more anti-semitism than Islamophobia, but you never hear the left complaining about that. In fact they add to it in ways very similar to the way they complain that critics of Islam feed Islamophobia when they criticize Israel.
“you never hear the left complaining about that.”
Re-reading my prior comment I can see how that could be misunderstood. Many on the left do complain. What I mean is you don’t hear those on the left who complain about criticism of Islam because of the anti-Muslim sentiment it might enflame, complaining about it.
If Hicks was a terrorist his point was to terrorize people who steal parking spaces.
The podcast with Omer and Sam was awful, but on the bright side, the review’s attacks on Sam reminded me a lot of Eli’s impression of Carly Fiorina ranting about Planned Parenthood (kicking, and screaming!). It was worth a few giggles, in between facepalms.