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In reply to the discussion: Many Liberals Defend Islam the Way Conservatives Defend Guns [View all]cpwm17
(3,829 posts)98. Muslims are not uniquely violent:
The 25 highest percentages of national populations killed during periods of mass brutality:
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm
If you look carefully at the chart with the intention of determining which race, religion or ideology has been the most brutal, you'll see a pattern emerge. It's quite a startling pattern, so I'd rather you find it by yourself. Go back and take a second look. I'll meet you at the next paragraph after I explain that, honestly, I did not manipulate the data. I simply took the most likely death toll (military and civilian) among the natives of each country (such as all the South Vietnamese -- ARVN soldiers, civilians and Viet Cong -- who were killed in the Vietnam War), and divided it by the population of that country (prewar). I didn't take, say, only the military dead, or only the victims of genocide. I didn't arbitrarily decide to split one horror into two in order to make each seem smaller (the only borderline case is that I calculated the Russians dead from WW2 and Stalin separately. A judgement call.), or eliminate countries of a certain size. No, I had no predetermined point to prove. I did the math and let the chips fall where they would. (Here are the raw numbers if you want to check behind me.)
That's why I was so startled to discover that there is absolutely no pattern to the chart. If I had simply picked 25 countries out of a hat, I could not have gotten a more diverse spread than we've got here. We've got rich countries and poor countries; industrial and agrarian; big and small. We've got people of all colors -- white, black, yellow and brown -- widely represented among both the slaughterers and the slaughterees. We've got Christians, Moslems, Buddhists and Atheists all butchering one another in the name of their various gods or lack thereof. Among the perpetrators, we've got political leanings of the left, right and middle; some are monarchies; some are dictatorships and some are even democracies. We've got innocent victims invaded by big, bad neighbors, and we've got plenty of countries who brought it on themselves, sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Go on -- take a third look. Find any type of country that is not represented among the agents of a major blooding, and probably the only reason for that is that there aren't that many countries in that category to begin with (There are no Hindu or Jewish countries on the chart, but then, there's only one of each on the whole planet, and they're both waiting in the wings among the next 25.).
In a way, it's rather disheartening to realize that we can't smugly blame the brutality of the century on the Communists, or the imperialists, or the Moslem fundamentalists, or the godless. Every major category of human has done it's share to boost the body count, so replacing, say, Moslem rulers with Christian rulers, or white rulers with black rulers, is not going to change it at all.
That's why I was so startled to discover that there is absolutely no pattern to the chart. If I had simply picked 25 countries out of a hat, I could not have gotten a more diverse spread than we've got here. We've got rich countries and poor countries; industrial and agrarian; big and small. We've got people of all colors -- white, black, yellow and brown -- widely represented among both the slaughterers and the slaughterees. We've got Christians, Moslems, Buddhists and Atheists all butchering one another in the name of their various gods or lack thereof. Among the perpetrators, we've got political leanings of the left, right and middle; some are monarchies; some are dictatorships and some are even democracies. We've got innocent victims invaded by big, bad neighbors, and we've got plenty of countries who brought it on themselves, sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Go on -- take a third look. Find any type of country that is not represented among the agents of a major blooding, and probably the only reason for that is that there aren't that many countries in that category to begin with (There are no Hindu or Jewish countries on the chart, but then, there's only one of each on the whole planet, and they're both waiting in the wings among the next 25.).
In a way, it's rather disheartening to realize that we can't smugly blame the brutality of the century on the Communists, or the imperialists, or the Moslem fundamentalists, or the godless. Every major category of human has done it's share to boost the body count, so replacing, say, Moslem rulers with Christian rulers, or white rulers with black rulers, is not going to change it at all.
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I know christians who are a hell of a lot more progressive than some of the people on DU.
CBGLuthier
Nov 2015
#4
They were promoting Communism, a secular dogma which happened to be anti-theist
Yorktown
Nov 2015
#153
The discussion centers about Islam?? Xian fundies are regularly pilloried here
Yorktown
Nov 2015
#142
Because every single Muslim is a saud. They all are the same. Yeah, bullshit.
CBGLuthier
Nov 2015
#2
You can't argue with the fact that a LOT of Xtian sects are super misogynistic and repressive.
Arugula Latte
Nov 2015
#134
I suspect part of it is due to innocent people in the US being subjects of hate crimes.
herding cats
Nov 2015
#18
I agree-- we progreessives have become accustomed to defend groups that are discriminated against...
TreasonousBastard
Nov 2015
#32
Congratulations on missing the point. I can see it was a herculean effort on your point.
Scootaloo
Nov 2015
#46
I agree to defend people, Muslim or not, unjustly attacked for whatever reason
Yorktown
Nov 2015
#53
How many examples do you want of this supposedly nonerxistent criticism of non-Xians?
whatthehey
Nov 2015
#120
enough is enough. Your point was made the first time. There is no rule that says someone has to
still_one
Nov 2015
#167
Ten days after bragging about all those "examples" you had and you have NOTHING, LOL?
whathehell
Nov 2015
#172
Did it ever occur to you that's because the religious people doing most of the damage in
Arugula Latte
Nov 2015
#136
The culture of any conservative strain of religion is incompatible with progressivism.
Arkana
Nov 2015
#91
Nope. But it gets the most attention here because it does the most damage here.
Arugula Latte
Nov 2015
#132