In keeping with this new tradition, a friend of mine recently sent me one of the first emails I’ve gotten from him that doesn’t mention the nascent socialist takeover of the United States at all. No, this one was all Islam, all the time. Actually it was just a link to a YouTube video. Have a watch, and then read my lengthy response below the jump.

Have you watched it? Good. Here’s the email:

Below you will find my response to the video link that you sent me. It’s long, but I think it’s worth reading. A few notes, though, before I begin:

a) Islam is not monolithic any more than Christianity is monolithic. Not all Muslims ascribe to Wahhabism just as not all Christians subscribe to the Christian Identity[1] movement. Videos like this one attempt to paint the entire Muslim world as Wahhabi, when that’s not true at all. Wahhabism is a movement within Sunni Islam that has a very rich sponsor in Saudi Arabia and had a nice base of operations in Afghanistan. It is not, however, particularly common in the Muslim world.

Here’s a map of the major legal and belief systems in the Muslim world.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Madhhab_Map2.png

To which is the video referring? They’re way too diverse and divergent for it to be referring to all three.

b) It’s easy to believe the malarkey in this video at face value if you don’t actually know or interact with Muslims on a daily basis. Dehumanization of any group of people is easier if you keep your distance. I haven’t had that option. Not at college, not at work, and not in my social life. And I’m very glad I don’t. I’d be more likely to believe the lies in this video if I did.

OK. Onto the analysis:

I did not think our country, the Western World, or the World (for that matter) was at war with Islam, so I watched this video and learned.

The first thing I learned is that whoever made this video had plenty of money for a very high-value production (even if it is just text). I watched it all the way through. And then I did 30 minutes of research. It’s what I do with any article or video that makes claims but contains no evidence to back up its claims.

The second thing I learned is that it’s astoundingly false. Not just one or two of the three points it makes, but all three are AMAZINGLY misleading.

The intro talks about how people surround themselves that agree with their preconceived notions. Ironically, that’s what this video relies on. And it seems to have worked. This video managed to make it to me with absolutely no comments about the content of the video other than a paragraph of glittering generalities about the West vs. Islam.[2]

I guess I’ll issue point by point refutations of the video.

1) Abrogation.

To say that the concept of abrogation is universally accepted in the Muslim faith is incorrect. It is widely accepted, but far from universal.

To say that every peaceful phrase in the Qur’an has been abrogated by the Verse of the Sword is very, very wrong. The Verse of the Sword was temporally constrained to a battle that took place against certain Pagan tribes that had broken a treaty with Muslims and had previously slain them on a pilgrimage.

There is no universality among those who ascribe to the doctrine of abrogation as to which verses have been abrogated. In fact, in the Middle Ages, the general consensus was that somewhere in the vicinity of 200 verses had been abrogated. Nowadays, most scholars claim only a handful of abrogations. The majority of Muslims do not accept abrogation of the “peaceful” phrases by the Verse of the Sword.[3] Abrogation is meant to resolve differences in laws, not differences in the laws of war vs. the laws of peacetime.

2) Sharia.

This one is even more false than the first one. Qur’anic verse states that “dhimmi” (“people of the contract”, or certain non-Muslims living in Muslim-governed land) need not abide by and are not tried under Sharia law. In much of the Muslim world, “dhimmi” is seen to refer to any non-Muslim living under Muslim rule.

Additionally, many Muslim countries (Turkey, Indonesia, Mali, Kazakhstan) are secular. These are countries ruled by Muslims and ruling over Muslims that do not have Sharia law. In its place are a constitution and a legislature.

The video tries to scare people by saying that EVEN IN THE U.K., Muslims are trying to establish and enforce Sharia law. It’s true. If both parties agree to have their claims arbitrated by a Sharia court rather than try the case in civil court, they can do so. It’s kind of equivalent to going on Judge Judy or The People’s Court. It’s an alternate forum that can be used if both parties agree to it. The U.K. has been doing the same thing with Jewish Beth Din courts for 100 years. Where have the videos been on that issue?

3) Taqiyya

If the filmmakers wanted me not to immediately do research to figure out how full of it their claims were, they should have left this one off the list. The problem is that I already knew about taqiyya. I came across it when studying the Druze religion, which is an 11th century offshoot of Islam. It’s a fascinating religion. It’s completely closed to outsiders, proselytization is strictly forbidden, and they keep their beliefs very private.

Here’s what taqiyya is all about: if you are living under a government that persecutes your religion, you’re allowed to hide your religion from those who would persecute or kill you. Taqiyya was used by Sunnis living under Shi’a rule and even more commonly by Shi’a living under Sunni rule. These are the limits of Qur’anic taqiyya. Any claim that this doctrine is designed for political doubletalk knows nothing of Taqiyya, and those who say its intended use is to deceive non-Muslims ignore history.

So there you have it. Some facts behind the slick production values. Thinking for yourself is good; researching what people tell you is even better. It’s the best expression of skepticism there is.

You told me to remain skeptical, and I do. I hope you continue to send these email forwards you get. I enjoy learning from and researching them.

In closing,

| If you never watch another “youtube” video, you should watch this one!

The only way I would never watch another YouTube video after this one is if someone reliably told me that all YouTube videos were this spurious. If that were so, I would swear off YouTube videos at a moment’s notice.

Andrew.

PS: I hope you had a good time in DC when you were up here for the rally. I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet up.

Footnotes:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity

[2] The paragraph reminds me greatly of Oswald Spengler’s book, The Decline of the West (1918, revised 1922), about how the West is doomed to fall to the “Magian” Semitic societies of the Jews and the Arabs, while the “Faustian” West withers away. The book prompted a very eloquent refutation in The Rise of the West by William McNeill, excoriating Spengler’s flawed “clash of civilizations” analysis of world history.

[3] http://www.nicheoftruth.org/pages/the_quran_and_the_theory_of_abrogation.htm

The first two articles address the estimate of frequency of guns being used in self-defense; the third addresses churchgoing numbers.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use/index.html

http://www.stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/103.myth0.pdf

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2006/07/counting_church.html

* The first article strengthens my position on this. I generally find the defense against home-invasion case uncompelling, or self-defense while strolling around the city. I do find it a more compelling argument for women, especially for women who frequently travel alone or live alone.  Women do, unfortunately, still face situations that men do not. Please note that I do not advocate blanket bans on firearms, or excessive restriction, but I am in favor of reasonable levels of regulation. I do not think that the self-defense argument forces a higher bar for justification of regulation.

So now’s as good a time as to relink to that original post of mine and have you folks read it again. Because apparently you didn’t get it the first time.

Here’s what USAA wrote:

Dear Mr. Heckel:

Rarely in our 87-year history have we turned to USAA members to weigh in with elected representatives on an issue of great importance. But, we are now.

The U.S. Senate currently is considering legislation (S.3217) that would impose new rules on the nation’s financial services industry, including USAA.

As the leading provider of financial services to America’s military community, USAA supports financial services reform.

However, the current Senate bill would disproportionally impact USAA because we are a unique and fully integrated association. USAA is not like the banks and other companies that helped bring down our economy, and we never took a penny of TARP funds. We do not engage in the harmful practices this legislation seeks to resolve.

If unchanged, the bill would:

• Prevent USAA from managing the association’s portfolio as we have for the past 87 years.
• Jeopardize our ability to continue offering many of our competitive products.
• Limit our ability to return money to our members. Last year, USAA returned $1.2 billion to our members in the form of distributions, dividends, and bank rebates and rewards.*

So, we are asking all USAA members and employees to urge their U.S. senators to amend a portion of the bill, known as the “Volcker Rule,” to eliminate its effect on a company like USAA. Please know that this legislation does not impact individual member’s investments.

Regardless of the outcome of the legislation, USAA will remain a unique and enduring association that’s all about you — the military and their families.

Please take action on this matter by immediately contacting your U.S. senator. You may click here to access a special website that will enable you to quickly send an e-mail message to your senator.
Thank you for your help and support,
Joe Robles Signature
Josue (Joe) Robles Jr.
Major General, USA (Ret.)
President and CEO

Unfortunately, the detail mostly stopped there. I spent a good bit of time last night trying to understand what is going on with this, and, well, it wasn’t entirely clear. Still, in the end, I chose to go ahead and send a message on USAA’s behalf. Why?

First, what is USAA? The United Services Automobile Association started as an auto insurance company in 1922 by Army Officers who were having difficulty obtaining insurance. Not long thereafter, it opened membership to all services in the armed forces. It eventually branched out into other types of insurance, banking, and investments. Business was conducted entirely through mail for many years, and eventually moved to telephone service, then internet. USAA does not have any traditional bank branches or its own ATM machines; unlike your bank, however, this isn’t a problem. It doesn’t charge ATM fees to members, and it refunds fees charged by other banks. It received no TARP bailout money. USAA insurance premiums are quite low, and their investment returns are pretty good. When the new credit card rules went into place, USAA went a step further and– while late payment fees still exist– stopped increasing late payment interest rates. Profits from the insurance side of the business are returned to members quarterly. It is consistently rated as having the best customer service of any company in the United States. Seriously.

In short, USAA generally does everything right for their customers, and they’re certainly not doing anything shady with FDIC-insured deposits.

USAA is unique in the US, though (or nearly so– State Farm also would run afoul of the Volcker Rule). Because they provide a full array of financial services, this also means they can run into unique problems.  Specifically, the Volcker Rule would affect them because insurance premiums are invested into higher risk (but still not actively shady)/higher yield investments. So their insurance premiums would necessarily increase due to the fact that USAA has both banking and insurance arms.

Now, unfortunately, the email that USAA sent out was a bit light on the details. As such, they’re taking some flack for it: USAA’s anti-finreg campaign. This is not entirely undeserved– except for calling USAA anti-financial regulation– because while USAA did provide more information ( see http://tinyurl.com/32ny6r2 ), it’s still not quite enough. And honestly, when you search for information about the Volcker Rule, it’s hard to find a clear explanation of what’s going on with it.  So here’s my attempt to explain what the fuss is about:

The Volcker Rule aims to prevent FDIC-insured banks from risky investments, and the subtext seems to be that this would bring the investment arms of these banks into line– or encourage the banks to completely close up the investment shops attached to them. While the idea is perhaps good on its face, it seems way underspecified so that it hits places like USAA, and perhaps overly restricting in that it cuts off a lot of reasonable investment activity which, while riskier than government bonds, are still not shady financial products. And other things I’ve been reading have suggested that it wouldn’t actually do a whole lot of good, given that it wouldn’t apply to some of the major offenders, since they’re not depository banks. (The other things I’ve been reading: The Volcker rule ).

In addition, my friend Branen Salmon adds:

The impression I get is that this is a response to some depository banks investing FDIC-backed deposits in an attempt to make mad dollaz, thus hitting the FDIC hard when their risky investments hit the skids. It’s true that a lot of the major offenders of the recent mess were not depository banks (though a few were). Also, to the best of my understanding, USAA’s proprietary investments are performed solely with its insurance capital, not with its deposits, and I believe that several states exert tight regulation on insurance capital investments.

So that, as near as I can tell, is what the Volcker Rule does, and how it affects USAA. Based on all of this, as well as USAA’s strong customer service record and general competence, are the reason that I decided to support USAA’s campaign to have the Volcker Rule modified to prevent it from negatively impacting their business.

If I’ve gotten anything wrong here, please let me know. While I’m confident that this information is basically correct, I realize it is unlikely to be perfect– though at least it should be a more clear explanation of what’s going on with this issue.

I should note that while my knowledge of economics is, well, lacking, I found this pretty fantastic. Discovered through winged and finned.

These posts are a two part response to a Jonah Goldberg piece. Goldberg is a clown; he pointed to Swarthmore as a hotbed of liberal fascism a couple years ago, which, well… Sort of isn’t worth responding to. Anyway, Goldberg is, surprise, complaining that those taxes the liberals inflict are just awful and fascist and so forth. So the first post breaks down tax burden by GDP, and also by the different types of tax:

Jonah Goldberg, Quarter Slave (Conceptually)

The second article is more interesting, in my opinion. It looks at the GINI coefficient, which represents income distribution, and compares the US to other developed nations, both before and after taxes:

Jonah Goldberg, Anti-Maldistributionist

I found these articles pretty fascinating, and it provides something to think about as the tax deadline approaches.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/12/texas-education-board-cuts-thomas-jefferson-out-of-its-textbooks/

http://tfninsider.org/2010/03/13/the-list-of-shame-in-texas/

I want to come back to this, but I’ll have to pick just a few items to deal with, given the scale of the politically-motivated wrongness of all of these decisions. The changes covered include a whole range of massive historical revisions from the merely stupid to the utterly absurd. If you read through these and want any in particular covered, leave a comment, and I’ll pick a few to research in depth.

Given the last post, I feel I should note that the Andrew & Evan Gregory are both Swatties; Andrew hosted me for the invite-back weekend way back in 2001 when I confirmed that I had absolutely made the right choice in applying to Swarthmore Early Decision.

Okay, done? Good.

It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him.

The author of this article is despairing over the failure of elite educational institutions to create the Ideal Citizen, instead creating the Self-Absorbed Entitled Citizen. In brief, the article itself is as out of touch as the behaviors it’s complaining about.

The opening complaint he tries to limit to his upper-class educational elite, as though it’s a specific problem to them. But just as the Ivy League graduate is unable to talk to the plumber, the plumber is unable to talk to the Ivy League graduate– it goes both ways. As likely as the Ivy Leaguer is to think of the plumber as being kinda dumb and not worth talking to, frequently the plumber thinks the Ivy Leaguer is just an ass and not worth talking to, and is just as convinced that he’s better because he’s not an intellectual elitist. There’s an inability to appreciate someone else’s values, or look beyond one’s own values, and it happens at every level. It happens at the public university I currently attend. It happens with guys in the IT world who don’t have a college degree.

The failure of character (credit to my sister for clarifying my ideas) isn’t a unique problem among his elite upper class folks, and thinking so is pretty masturbatory and out of touch in the first place. The author is trying to frame a problem as unique to the ivy league set (and, though he wants to exclude us for some reason, the Swarthmore/Amherst/Williams set*). I also get the sense that he’s nostalgic for a time that never existed, in which the elite colleges created a unique breed of graduates who were all as talented as Emerson, Woolf, Einstein, Jefferson, etc.

And the inertia of going for that high-paying business job or whatever hardly seems like a unique thing in itself– again, there’s a certain amount of inertia everywhere. Was it “easy” for me to go from college to graduate school? It was easy to make the decision to do so. It would’ve been a lot harder if I had been raised the son of a local HVAC sales & repairman who expected me to help him out and join the family business. Or the child of a family living close to the poverty line whose family expected short-term financial assistance. Or if I had been feeling pressure from my sisters and my mother to go to law school. College can help show the available options, but, in the end, there’s a lot of pressure to do what’s expected from many different sources.

Maybe some of this does look worse right now, because of some definite increased political polarization. Certainly I think there’s a problem in that people fail to assign basic respect and dignity to others outside their preferred identity and value system, but it’s not a problem that can be unilaterally solved by Yale teaching its students how to have a friendly conversation with the cleaning staff. If the student hasn’t figured that out by the time he’s reached college, there’s a deeper failure in society and education.

*Note that I do believe liberal arts colleges do deserve some additional credit, and I am a firm believer in the value of a liberal arts education. Colleges like my alma mater do provide that added value; while I don’t think that the art of critical thinking is something that should be taught only starting at the college level (here I would like to extol the educational genius of one of my high school teachers, Mr. John Reimers, a man who terrorizes all the students of Woodberry Forest, yet has shaped the minds of so many of its alumni), I do think that Swarthmore does a good job to provide continuing education in it. I don’t even believe this is necessarily rare, except insofar as excellent instructors who teach students how to learn on their own are rare.

Edit: It occurs to me I have plenty more to say about some items in this article. One in particular is the issue of grade inflation– the top schools are finally acknowledging the problem, at least, but it is a problem. It’s a problem that particularly bothers me, because my experience recently has been that frequently universities won’t just allow grade inflation, but practically require it as they attempt to build enrollment. Courses get watered down, and the quality of graduates drop. This is the Wrong Way to build a school and its reputation. I will admit, though, that it’s a different problem than at the upper tier schools, where the issue is retention numbers and (I have to assume) alumni contributions which could be affected if young Legacy Jr. fails out or has a rough time at school.

I’ve been wondering for a long time how to go about fixing the educational system generally, and as I think about it more, I’m more certain it’s not that the real problems are hard to identify. The difficulty is that the real problems are one that nobody, not parents, not teachers, not administrators, have any strong will to fix.

Occasionally Jon Stewart has made the comment that it’s sad that the major media outlets are getting things wrong, and it takes a comedian to call bullshit. I’m actually not convinced by that; political humor has often been a check on politicians, and it’s not unreasonable that it should also be a check on media. Comedy is good at that.

(Hat tip to Nick for sending this along to me)