Richard 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Ruslan Sokolovsky Gets 3 And A Half Years Suspended Sentence And A Conviction For Playing Pokemon In A Church

    Richard ( profile ), 12 May, 2017 @ 02:31am

    Re:

    Well Turkey is purging anyone who Erdogan doesn't like (which can mean just about anyone).
    Turkey blatantly invaded Cyprus 43 years ago and is still there.
    Erdogan has made noises about claiming other Greek islands.
    He is also using Syrain migrants as a weapon against europe.

    and Turkey remains a member of NATO...

  • On the post: Ruslan Sokolovsky Gets 3 And A Half Years Suspended Sentence And A Conviction For Playing Pokemon In A Church

    Richard ( profile ), 12 May, 2017 @ 02:22am

    Re:

    Aside from getting a new flag, and rebranding themselves as the Russian Federation, nothing much freedom and human rights related has changed there since the old Soviet days. Huh - you really haven't been paying attention - even to the story. In Soviet days is was positively government policy to poke fun at the church - and much worse. There has been a huge reversal of this - and the Russian government is trying to recompense the church for all the damage it did in soviet days. Bear in mind that the church in question was built as a memorial to the murdered Tsar and his family - which makes it somewhat equivalent to a holocaust memorial in Germany. The Germans are rightly touchy about the holocaust and have some laws curtailing speech which can land you with a prison sentence for what might be regarded as innocent acts. The Russian now have a similar mindset about the past persecution of the church and the deaths of many Bishops, priests and ordinary believers. These people are typically symbolised by the murdered royal family - so this case has overtones that westerners probably mostly don't get.

  • On the post: Ridiculous Lawsuit Looks To Hold Social Media Companies Responsible For The San Bernandino Shooting

    Richard ( profile ), 11 May, 2017 @ 04:33am

    Re: Re: Argusably where social media ARE at fault

    Yiu are right of course - and the groups in question do have other means - but still my point was that encouraging the service providers to censor things is likely to backfire because the means of triggering that censorship are equally available to the bad guys.

  • On the post: Ridiculous Lawsuit Looks To Hold Social Media Companies Responsible For The San Bernandino Shooting

    Richard ( profile ), 10 May, 2017 @ 02:52pm

    Argusably where social media ARE at fault

    Is the way that they take down content too easily.

    I'm much less worried by the way they allow islamic extremists to post stuff than by the way they shut down islam's opponents.

    https://heatst.com/culture-wars/exclusive-facebook-has-been-regularly-shutting-down-atheist-and-ex-muslim-groups/

  • On the post: Trump Fires FBI Director Comey

    Richard ( profile ), 10 May, 2017 @ 03:33am

    Apprentice

    Looks like Trump is trying to run the administration like the Apprentice TV show. At regular intervals someone has to be fired - only difference is that in the TV show he usually managed to come up with a plausible reason.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Continue To Tell Courts To Reject Trump Travel Exec Order

    Richard ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2017 @ 05:55am

    Unedifying Gesture Politics

    This is unedifying gesture politics - on both sides -

    Trump made a knee-jerk statement about muslims following the San Bernardino attack. This played rather well in th polls - not surprising since the vast majority of US politicians - esp Obama - still espouse (at least publicly) the fantasy version of Islam which denies its history and attempts to disengage it from all responsibility for violent incidents.
    Those who know better supported him (even if they disagreed with him on almost every issue) because for them he was the only show in town.

    Now a couple of points about the proposal

    1. Even Trump's original idea would have been ineffective as a practical measure, because the number of Muslims immigrating to the US is tiny compared to those already there.

    2. The version actually proposed was clearly designed to be a sop to those who had backed them over the issue - whilst the use of the list of countries already identified by Obama was intended to get it through the legal process. Of course this proposal would have been even more ineffective because the list omits Saudi Arabia (source of the 9/11 attack) and Pakistan (source of the San Bernardino attack). Whilst most of the listed countries have never been the source of a terrorist (unless you include Steve Jobs!).

    So Trump's ban was never ore than a gesture.

    Similarly the legal challenges to it are pure gesture politics. Lots of people in prominent political/business positions don't like Trump and will do anything to slap him down. To my eyes the judgements against the ban look partisan and not an honest reading of the law. Similarly the Amicus briefs look like nothing more than virtue signalling.

    True a few people have been unfairly treated because of the ban - but this is mostly the effect of the crass way in which US petty authority operates.

    Of course now the same bunch of politicians who opposed the ban and tried to blame Russia for Trump's victory have provoked him into attacking a Syrian airbase - which turned out to be militarily ineffctive and just added to the toll of human misery in the country.

    https://digitalempire.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/the-missing-tomahawk-missiles-hit-a-nearby-village-and-killed-innocent-civilains/

  • On the post: The US Charging Assange For Publishing Documents Would Be An Unprecedented Attempt To Chill A Free Press

    Richard ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2017 @ 07:02am

    Re: Re: bullshit

    Assange certainly believed that once he was in custody in Sweden the US administration would charge him.

    Look - this is not about Trump, Hilary, Obama or Bush. It is like in the Hitch Hikers guide. They are Zaphod Beeblebrox. They are just a distraction from where power really lies.

    How long did it take for Trump to go back on the promises that got him elected?

    Who made him do it?

    How easy was it for them?

    The same thing (more or less) happened to Obama.

    Personally I doubt that any president since FDR has had the kind of power that people think that the president has.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2017 @ 09:04am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    The colonial history, where much of the problems have been caused by Westerners splitting up regions and countries in ways that encourage conflict, Addendum: now it is true that we've badly messed up a lot of countries where we had colonies - but you need to examine exactly why we got involved in those countries in the first place. Oil was not an issue in the 19th century when our involveent began. The reality is that the legacy of Islam in those countries had already created a mess that was causing danger to the west in the form of the Barbary pirates.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2017 @ 08:41am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Oh, very nice get out. Even the people not being violent secretly approve of it, so their inaction mean they're also responsible. Same with the people who are directly opposing the violence too, I assume, as it's just some sort of misdirection? Once again you put words into my mouth. The people in question are also victims of the ideology. So, same with any major religion, then. No it isn't. The first five "rightly guided Caliphs" (immediately after Mohammed) were all murdered by each other or their followers. There is no record of violence between the apostles. You've said you wish to convert entire countries to the religion. How are you going to achieve that without force? Same way the apostles did it to the Roman Empire. Same way that the Orthodox church revived in Russia. The colonial history, where much of the problems have been caused by Westerners splitting up regions and countries in ways that encourage conflict, That is all very recent and a comparatively short period of time. I'm talking about an earlier and longer term history. I defend a lot of people whose group I'm not part of. I suggest you have a go at defending Middle Eastern Christian then - they need it!

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2017 @ 08:28am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Yes, those are the only ones that directly affect me in any way whatsoever. Actually the only ones that affect you are the ones that kill or injure you or someone you know. Anyway that seems a rather selfish atttitude. Same with numerous other countries, Easy to say - if you don't provide any evidence. However the evidence for the Islamic attacks is here: https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ and in case you think this information is in some way fake, be advised that the BBC checked their statistics for one month a couple of years back and found it to be an underestimate. the victims of many of these violent actions are also Muslims. and that makes it better, how? It all depends on who's cherry picking Some trees have a lot more cherries in than others. The cherries here are visible in red or purple http://www.koran-at-a-glance.com/ and the Koran is only the start - then you have the Sira and the Hadith to go through. The reason why all major religions have so many offshoots and sects is that they disagree on fundamental issues like that. Actually you are wrong- they generally agree on almost everything. EG most Christian Churches will agree on the Nicene Creed (give or take one obscure phrase). The reason for the offshoots is usually nationalism - as in Henry VIII. But, I only ever see one being attacked for being a monolithic hive mind. You should consider the possibility that it actually is. After all when you have considered and dismissed all the palatable alternatives the unpalatable but **obvious might need to be given a chance.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2017 @ 07:29am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    _"The agenda of Islam is conquest of the entire world - by force if necessary" Yet, the majority of the 1+ billion Muslims of the world are trying to do no such thing. _ They don't have to be trying to do it. All they have to be doing is following their rules, and the rules are designed to do exactly that. (I say "designed" but actually they arose accidentally out of the needs of Mohammed's situation - however the effect is the same). If they all adhere to the same aim so strongly, why are there so many different sects that violently disagree with one another? They each think that the other lot aren't really proper Muslims. This has been going on since the day Mohammed died. Really, you're wishing to destroy a religion and forcefully convert people to other religions Stop putting words into my mouth. I've said repeatedly that I don't favour any kind of force. Neither did America. Neither did the current populations of a great many countries, I used the Clough quote for a reason. He was not saying that Leeds were the only club that ever committed a foul - of course everyone did it - but only one club did it to the level where their success became a consequence of foul play. When you attempt to kill an argument by tu quoque - which seems to be your main strategy - then you effectively promote the worst at the expense of the best because you make them equal. I assume that youare not actually a muslim - nor would you like to live in a muslim majority country - but look at the history of the middle east and east asia and you will see that along the road you are going your descendants will have no choice. Aung San Suu Kyi has been a talisman of freedom, a kind of second Nelson Mandela in many people's eyes -but she understands the danger I am talking about - and has been vilified by people like you for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2017 @ 07:09am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Interesting how you keep paraphrasing, rather than supply the actual quotes you have a problem with When so many paople said more or less the same thing in such a prominent place so many times I rather thought that you would have seen those words yourself so it was unnecessary. However Cameron said this exactly: " It cannot be said clearly enough: this extremist ideology is not true Islam. I have said it myself many, many times, and it’s absolutely right to do so. And I’ll say it again today." You can find it here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-extremism-speech-read-the-transcript-in-full-10401948.html However that analysis fails - as this guy found out: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/islam-facts-or-dreams/ Here is an excerpt: I was not foolish enough to believe I could win an argument over Muslim theology with a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence. But I did think that if what we were saying as a government was true—that he was perverting Islam—then there must be two or three places where I could nail him by saying, “You told your followers X, but the doctrine clearly says Y.” So my colleagues and I pored over the Blind Sheikh’s many writings. And what we found was alarming: whenever he quoted the Koran or other sources of Islamic scripture, he quoted them accurately. Now, you might be able to argue that he took scripture out of context or gave an incomplete account of it. In my subsequent years of studying Islam, I’ve learned that this is not a particularly persuasive argument. But even if one concedes for the purposes of discussion that it’s a colorable claim, the inconvenient fact remains: Abdel Rahman was not lying about Islam.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2017 @ 05:47am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    To a lot of other things as well. It's just that when someone other than a Muslim commits a terrorist act, some people tie themselves in knots to try and explain why that person doesn't represent America/Christianity/Republicans/whatever while every lone Muslim who does something is representative of the entire religion in every country. It's pretty transparent, and as someone who has lived and worked most of my life in countries that were regularly attacked by "Christian" terrorists, the hypocritical scapegoating is pretty disgusting. Go on believing that, in contradiction to the obvious evidence, if you wish. The problem is that you only seem to be looking at terrorist attackes in the west. In the west there are comparatively few Muslims, and they are more affected by the surrounding culture and so more likely to be moderate in their opinions. However in Islamic majority countries there is much violence directed at minorities and the perpetrators often become heroes. Only the biggest of these incidents make the news but worldwide they are a constant flood. For example attacks on the Copts in just one small province of Egypt are running at one a month in recent years. Theocracies - no matter which faith is in charge - are always very bad for minorities. Only one faith has "being a theocracy over everyone" written into its agenda.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2017 @ 05:31am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Maybe it's true that Christianity in its entirety has developed past the point of doing things like that, and maybe it's also true that Islam (in whole or in part) has not - but there was a time when Christianity hadn't either, That is a misreading of history. Christianity was originally nonviolent. Some Christians may have been members of the Roman army - but that is no different from the US or UK military today. Later, when rulers adopted Christianity, they had a problem. No state in the history of the world has been able to maintain order without using violence. So the theologians were forced to invent reasons why it could be OK (the "just war" theory springs to mind). Most of the history of "Christian" violence is actually the history of normal nation to nation violence where Christianity has been co-opted (often on both sides) to support the state. There have always been conscientious objectors - although before the 20th century conscription was rare and so they don't show up in the record.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2017 @ 04:37am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    What did they say? "Islam has nothing to do with it", as you claim, They all said words to the effect "the true faith of Islam has nothing to do with it". The problem with that is that the true faith of Islam is centred on Mohammed and his behaviour correlates very well with that of the people you call "extremists". "Leave innocent people out of this" is a valuable message in my mind. Fair enough - but they specifially exonerated the ideology. One could say something to exonerate the people without exonerating the ideology. The IRA was defeated by working with them for a peaceful solution, True - but the analogy fails. The IRA had the ambition of a united ireland and was prepared to settle for a compromise that gave the nationalist community (that had been excluded unfairly before) a say in the politics. The agenda of Islam is conquest of the entire world - by force if necessary http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=8&verse=39

    • how do you compromise with that?
    So, you admit that Islam itself as a whole is not the fundamental problem? Well most Orthodox Sunni Muslims regard the Ahmadis as non-muslim (in fact to enter Pakistan as a muslim you have to affirm that fact). The existence of a small, persecuted, peaceful sect doesn't change the overall picture. That's not going to happen, and it won't be something you can do without killing more innocent people Stranger things have happened, the fall of communism for example - and when that happens - if the West keeps its boots out of the way - people do revert .Look at the growth of the Orthodox church in Russia. I don't know why you assume that anything in my agenda is violent, it isn't, all I'm in favour of is honest speech. Nor are there indigenously Christian countries, or indigenous countries of most religions The difference is this. Christianity was spread for its first 300 or so years by purely peaceful persuasion. The authorities saw the way the wind was blowing and adopted it (cynically you might say they did it to retain their authority). Later various countries joined because their leadership converted and took the people with them. None of this involved significant use of military power. Islam on the other hand was spread by conquest from the very beginning. Initially most of the conquered peoples retained their Christian/Zoroastrian/Jewish faith (Hindus wern't so lucky). However they were humiliated and forced to pay high taxes so over the years many of them converted. see here for an explanation of how this worked: https://medium.com/@najwa.najib/donald-trump-is-good-for-middle-eastern-christians-350f049bed62 (Although I think her faith in Trump nay be misplaced) Consequently, to paraphrase Brian Clough, Islam hasn't achieved its status in those countries fairly.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2017 @ 02:19pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Who else would you blame for the Crusades? The Muslim Seljuk Turks who provoked them of course. So much talk about the crusades - so little about the 400 years of Jihad that preceded them. This included attacks on Rome and Constantinople- the capture of most of Spain and an incursion into France that was only stopped at the battle of Tours. Without that victory Europe might well have succumbed to Islam. In a wider context the crusades were just one relatively small episode in a long war that was started unilaterally by Mohammed in the 7th century. Isolating the crusades as a "thing" on their own is misleading.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2017 @ 12:36pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Hitler was a person who was on a path to dominate Europe. Muslim refers to a group of related religions, just like Christian does. You are wrong on both counts here. Muhammad was a person who was on a path to dominate Arabia - as the timeline I linked shows clearly. Both religions have a set of orthodox beliefs that almost everyone subscribes to. Your phrase "a group of related religions" makes little sense. The Westboro Baptist church is an outlier - just as the Ahmadiyya Islamic sect is an outlier. Just by the content of the written tradition and the conduct of the founder and the first 300 years or so of followers.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2017 @ 10:40am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Do you realize that your opinions are as extreme as those you attribute to all Muslims, and more extreme than those held by most Muslims. Churchill held extreme opinions about Hitler - - by the standards of the time. What most muslims believe doesn't matter. It is what they can be persuaded to go along with that matters. Otherwise Pakistan, Iran and a host of other Islamic countries would be very different places and would not be so dangerous for Christians or other minorities. In any case only one muslim's opinion really matters - that is Mohammed himself. Study his life and you will understand. http://wikiislam.net/wiki/The_Timeline_of_Muhammad

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2017 @ 10:27am

    Re: Re: Re:

    I don't think anyone says that Islam has nothing to do with it Theresa May's recent speech came pretty close to it and we have seen similar from David Cameron, the Pope, Barack Obama and George W Bush. trying to pretend that all of the 1+ billion Muslims in the world are trying to kill you also achieves nothing. Of course they aren't - that is your straw man and that was never my point. The point is this, when western leaders, whose knowledge of Islam is minimal, say things like that it adds no value to the conversation. For those westerners who know nothing of Islam it is the blind attempting to lead the blind and of course muslims will largely ignore it. If someone is going to say that then it should be an Islamic leader who has some evidence to back it up. When the communists invaded Afghanistan or Czechoslovakia did anyone important stand up and say "This is not real communism it is a perversion of a great political ideal"? (Even though that statement is plausibly true) 2 - examples - well we could start with CAIR. "religious minorities" in certain regions would include some sects of Islam. Yes -and we should certainly listen to - for example the Ahmadyya and any of the other minor sects that have a reliable theology of non-violence. .and here's the problem. You dislike the way those countries operate, so you won't be happy until you've destroyed their culture and reshaped it to your own values. Absolutely NOT. Stop making assumptions. My agenda would be to restore their pre-islamic culture. For example Coptic Christianity in Egypt, Buddhism in Afghanistan or Zoroastrianism in Iran. I'm certainly not in favour of exporting secular materialism, US evangelicalism or Roman Catholicism. Look at the history of Persia before the Islamic conquests of the 7th century. The thing is that there are no indigenously Islamic countries. They are all colonies won by violent conquest followed by a ratchet process of coercive conversion on an initially non-muslim population. The myth that islam was somehow spread peacefully by Arab traders is not supported by the historical evidence.

  • On the post: Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

    Richard ( profile ), 11 Apr, 2017 @ 07:49am

    Re:

    However the are a few different "somethings" that could be done without compromising our security.

    1) Every time there is an attack don't stand up and say "this is nothing to do with Islam, which is a great and peaceful religion". You don't know anything about it.

    2) Stop listening to the wrong advisers, many of whom are in fact Islamic apologists whose ultimate agenda is the same as that of the terrorists.

    3) Start listening instead to ex-muslims and religious minorities (including atheists) from muslim regions. They know more about it than you do.

    4) Stop taking money from wealthy oil states like Saudi Arabia and do something to limit their Islamic propaganda in the west.

    5) Put real pressure on those countries that are supposedly our allies to allow genuine freedom of (and from) religion. This would mean Saudi Arabia allowing churches to be built, Pakistan repealing its blasphemy laws (and while we're at it, Turkey handing back the Hagia Sophia to its rightful owners). It would also mean that those countries would stop punishing atheist bloggers and/or shielding the people that murder them.

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