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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   28019 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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If you view AfD as a bulwark against Islamic immigration and Islamic immigrants as a major threat to gay people, then this is quite rational. This is also the reasoning behind Dawkinite atheists who, now that fundamentalist Christianity has receded as a threat to all but the most paranoid atheist, have turned their attentions to fundamentalist Islam.

The Dutch alt-right is pretty explicit about this. Pim Fortuyn was openly gay, and both Fortuyn and Geert Wilders have made "Muslim immigrants are violently homophobic, which is un-Dutch" key points in their campaign rhetoric.

A handful of German party-goers privately wanting Germany for the Germans and no foreigners

-> inacceptable, punish severely.

Thousands of islamists publicly demanding the transformation of Germany into an islamic caliphate

-> that's freedom of opinion, we are a democracy.

I think it's safe to say that by revealed preferences, German society doesn't give a shit about the gays and our priorities are elsewhere. Probably somewhere in the broad region of the moral apex imperative of "be good people, good people punish nazis and tolerate foreigners".

then this is quite rational.

Sure, but it's still a new and surprising development. Dawkinites turning their attention to Islam was a thing 10 years ago. In response feminists, LGTBQ+'s, and anti-racists decided to form Atheism+ and drive out the Dawkinsians. If what you're describing is happening again, then that is indeed a sign that the vibes have shifted, though a restart of New Atheism might be hard to pull off, given how much damage their core thesis of "Imagine no religion", or Science Trusting, took.

It depends: Douglas Murray was a neo-con back in the Noughties. I would need to see stats before I took a view on whether e.g. gay men are more anti-Islam or anti-immigration than they were back at that time.

Dawkinites turning their attention to Islam was a thing 10 years ago. In response feminists, LGTBQ+'s, and anti-racists decided to form Atheism+ and drive out the Dawkinsians.

How much of this was ever a thing in Germany though?

One of our local Germans will have to go into the details on that, all I can tell you is that their PMC is extremely woke, from my experience. Then again, so is the rest of Europe these days.

It is and it is. Individuals may deviate, but they can do so only in very private, and any public dissdence is punished by deplatforming, fines, job loss and being forever smeared by all media, social and otherwise, as being either a neonazi or a useful idiot for whatever nebulous forces of evil are currently blamed for the existence of non-leftist thought (nowadays it's usually Putin). The exact level of enforcement varies wildly, but one is never safe to make any public statements that could be construed as "völkisch".

Would this forum be of dubious legality in Germany?

Legality, no, I don't think so. I am certainly not a lawyer, but for all the stories of this or that platform being banned, I don't think the Motte fits the pattern.

But you certainly could end up in hot water in every sense other than legal if your name showed up next to some Motte quotes taken out of context.

That wouldn't surprise me. What would surprise me is learning that the New Atheism - Atheism+ split also happened in Germany.

Well, it didn't. There was no split. The militant atheists appeared, most disappeared, and the ones that remained seamlessly converted to postmodern progressivism.

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