Q-Man: Please could you point me to names and sources to show the extent at which citizens in the US/UK/any other nation shows the authorities going after innocent people. I know of about 5 serious cases, 2 of which in the UK.
IA: Okay, because you asked kindly. Btw I notice in another thread I wrote AI instead of IA, sorry, I don't think you are artificial intelligence or anything!
you do realize there are still people in this country who want to criminalize homosexuality, deport non-Whites, enforce miscegenation laws....etc? Absolutely. Populations are full of normal distributions on height, weight and mental judgements.
do you think such people believe in "The Rights"? I agree to this point. I really do. Some indeed won't believe in the right to be gay or right to have immigrants in this country.
Who decides who believes in these rights? Which is the entire crux of the reason it wouldn't be implementable. As I wrote, "home grown extremists I have trouble with accepting the feasibility of the argument being implemented in practice. " By homegrown, I do indeed refer to such bigots you've described (well, a subset depending on their level of extremism). It is difficult to know how or what people think. The courts usually decide this, or other higher powers for normal criminal activity where evidence can be weighed up. But to do something like on people's opinions/thougts only would be very authoritarian and since there is a normal distribution/bell curve of opinions, who knows where one should draw the line. Where would the threshold be determined is a very tough one.
The abstract argument I wanted to make is precisely this: people who try to blow others up in a terrorist manner, who's minds are so far past
the threshold, over the 95th percentile, so deluded, etc ... should such people be given rights compared to other people who:
- aren't so extreme
- are not at all extreme
- who would not be given the same rights if the situation was opposite (e.g. for even being gay, clerics like Abu Hamza would not give a person such rights).
It's because of the normal distribution, unidentifiable thresholds and general likelihood of administration failure the argument presented would not be implementable in practice.
If I still haven't answered the question, we should chat over skype.
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Just one more article to present that caught my eye. Interesting read. Writes of double standards. But the important part is this:
Majid Nawaz was in prison for being part of a hardcore Islamist plot to try to topple the governments of Egypt and Pakistan and seize its nukes – but when Amnesty International campaigned to protect him from torture, he realised the "Infidel" were rescuing him, because we have strong moral principles of our own. However when looking up
some other evidence we read this:
ES: Did you do propaganda for Hizb ut-Tahrir in Egypt?
MN: I was there to study, but of course I made no secret of my plans to establish a Caliphate. One day, my apartment was stormed; they blindfolded me and dragged me out of the living room while my wife and little one watched, and they took me and several others to be interrogated by the National Security in Alexandria. Their first tactic was taking me to the outside stairwell on the roof where they threatened to throw me down if I didn’t cooperate. Then the interrogation began. We were a large group huddled in a small room, arms tied behind our backs with blindfolds. They systematically tortured us with electrodes – we went through everything. We got numbers, I was 42. When they started with me, the first question was: “Where do you come from?” When I said I was English they went crazy. “No, no where do you actually come from, your father? Aha, Pakistan. So you are Pakistani.”
ES: Did you know what exactly was expected of you? How did you mentally prepare yourself to cope with this extreme situation?
MN: They wanted information from me about Egyptian members of Hizb ut-Tahrir. They tortured one man in front of me. It was unbearable. If I talked, they would catch my friends on the outside; but in the mean time they drove my companion crazy right before my eyes with an electric cable.
ES: How was it possible to keep you there without a lawyer?
MN: After 9/11, the world went berserk, everything was possible. I finally was given a trial and was imprisoned for five years for propagating an organisation that was forbidden in the country.
ES: How did you cope with your time in jail? Did you prepare yourself, make a plan?
MN: That was where my intellectual journey began. After two years of solitary confinement I was transferred to the Mazra Tora prison where I had the opportunity to speak with political prisoners, survivors of the attacks in Sadat and many that turned away from radical Islam. I got books form the Azhar University, but most importantly I spoke with ex-jihadists. I met members of Gama al-Islamiyah, the largest militant group in Egypt, who had decided to distance themselves from terror.
ES: It must be a difficult process to take the journey back, to leave the ideologies and indoctrinations of the Islamist group behind you. What happened in your mind?
MN: Before someone can change his ideas, he has to open his heart. I was filled with hate and anger. But during my trial, something decisive happened: Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and it was an unbelievable feeling to know that there is someone fighting for you on the outside. Amnesty’s “soft” approach made me seriously consider alternatives to revenge.
So, to my understanding, Nawaz wanted to establish a Caliphate, let's say he's a 90th percentile extremist, not enough to kill people outright but enough to really want to overthrow a government. During prison he changes and eventually does a 180 and these days debates the issue of the threat of political Islam to the West. Just as any other criminals, some can change. But others out there, so deluded and try to delude others, and I draw the line here with them.
Topic: 'Al-Qaeda ringleader' wins appeal against deportation