Pakistani Liberals: Anarchists Of Our Age?

[Armstrong]

Remarkable; people have missed the woods for the trees !

Not a single person has been able to grasp what the author was talking about; he wasn't, gauging by the response of most members here, dishing dirt at Liberals or Liberalism ! He was simply highlighting that Liberals in Pakistan are a far cry from their counterparts in the West - rhetoric but No substance, selective amnesia but no principled condemnation and above all a pervasive self-righteousness that is almost nauseating !

 

[IrbiS]

That's the problem we got, either someone is too insecure to come out of the veil of religion to learn and accept about science, arts and the world which itself is against our religion, or someone gets too lost in the unnecessary things of world such as so called liberals would even say that sharab is halal that negates what ALLAH asks us. We've been torn apart between these two extremes and should keep balance or Miyana-Rawi between the two

 

[Pakistani E]

Remarkable; people have missed the woods for the trees !

Not a single person has been able to grasp what the author was talking about; he wasn't, gauging by the response of most members here, dishing dirt at Liberals or Liberalism ! He was simply highlighting that Liberals in Pakistan are a far cry from their counterparts in the West - rhetoric but No substance, selective amnesia but no principled condemnation and above all a pervasive self-righteousness that is almost nauseating !

So basically Liberals are hypocrites because they don't protest drone strikes or a select few topics that the author wants to highlight? Okay.

 

[Armstrong]

So basically Liberals are hypocrites because they don't protest drone strikes or a select few topics that the author wants to highlight? Okay.

Hes not making it a One vs the Other comparison; just so you know !

 

[livingdead]

Remarkable; people have missed the woods for the trees !

Not a single person has been able to grasp what the author was talking about; he wasn't, gauging by the response of most members here, dishing dirt at Liberals or Liberalism ! He was simply highlighting that Liberals in Pakistan are a far cry from their counterparts in the West - rhetoric but No substance, selective amnesia but no principled condemnation and above all a pervasive self-righteousness that is almost nauseating !

which is greater threat to pakistan currently? conservative right wing extremism or liberal anarchism.
you will of course say in typical 'on-one-hand-on-other-hand' manner...both need to be countered..right?

 

[Armstrong]

which is greater threat to pakistan currently? conservative right wing extremism or liberal anarchism.
you will of course say in typical 'on-one-hand-on-other-hand' manner...both need to be countered..right?

Perhaps because if there is anything that I've learned it is the immaturity and utter irrationality of talking in such absolutes !

My own view points on the topic are in post # 13 !

 

[Pakistani E]

Hes not making it a One vs the Other comparison; just so you know !

To be honest, I do not even understand the point of the article. Liberals in Pakistan do not even constitute 0.01% of the public. Our opinions are irrelevant, and if some poor liberal does gain some limelight, he/she is hounded from the country or killed. What is the point of writing huge articles apparently exposing the hypocrisy of liberals when you do not have the moral courage to do the same for the religious people who are busy providing excuses for the so called Sharia of the taliban or the sectarian killers enjoying lives of luxury in prisons or roaming around with private militas and gloating over committing centuries of killing people?

People have definitely missed the woods for the trees, as no one wants to confront the elephant in the room that is the case of religious fascism.

which is greater threat to pakistan currently? conservative right wing extremism or liberal anarchism.
you will of course say in typical 'on-one-hand-on-other-hand' manner...both need to be countered..right?

It's laughable that in the eyes of some I as a liberal am a threat to Pakistan in the same bracket as the case of kalashinkov wielding, people beheading, children shooting religious fascists. What logic permeates the minds of these people to draw such an obtuse analogy??

@haviZsultan bhai, I would really like your views on this.

 

[Armstrong]

To be honest, I do not even understand the point of the article. Liberals in Pakistan do not even constitute 0.01% of the public. Our opinions are irrelevant, and if some poor liberal does gain some limelight, he/she is hounded from the country or killed. What is the point of writing huge articles apparently exposing the hypocrisy of liberals when you do not have the moral courage to do the same for the religious people who are busy providing excuses for the so called Sharia of the taliban or the sectarian killers enjoying lives of luxury in prisons or roaming around with private militas and gloating over committing centuries of killing people?

People have definitely missed the woods for the trees, as no one wants to confront the elephant in the room that is the case of religious fascism.

I have neither the empirical data to know how many Pakistanis are liberals nor am I remotely concerned about that for that is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. So far as confronting 'the elephant' in the room is concerned it has been confronted by the author numerous times or I must have been in a state of suspended animation when I watched his shows.

At any rate this utterly ludicrous implied argument that one may only talk about an issue if one has already talked about every other issue confronting Pakistan under the sun is completely without substance - They are mutually exclusive of each other. Furthermore this chronically impudent habit of thinking that criticizing A must by default mean that you are rationalizing B should stop for it reeks of petulance and little more.

Exactly what the author has been alluding to.

 

[Pakistani E]

I have neither the empirical data to know how many Pakistanis are liberals nor am I remotely concerned about that for that is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. So far as confronting 'the elephant' in the room is concerned it has been confronted by the author numerous times or I must have been in a state of suspended animation when I watched his shows.

At any rate this utterly ludicrous implied argument that one may only talk about an issue if one has already talked about every other issue confronting Pakistan under the sun is completely without substance - They are mutually exclusive of each other. Furthermore this chronically impudent habit of thinking that criticizing A must by default mean that you are rationalizing B should stop for it reeks of petulance and little more.

Exactly what the author has been alluding to.

So how should we sort out these anarchist liberals, perhaps a military operation?

 

[Armstrong]

So how should we sort out these anarchist liberals, perhaps a military operation?

There you go again with these knee-jerk reactions. You still don't get what the author is talking about.

As I understand him to be: He is saying that the so-called Liberals in Pakistan are a mirror image of the Conservatives (not the Radicals) in many ways. Both are absolutely sure of the righteousness of their cause and the utter wrongness of that of others, neither have acquired their ideas organically through careful introspection and the contextualization of various principles that man has come up with to our society and conditions, both suffer from selective amnesia on one hand and the innate desire to rationalize away their inconvenient facts of choice and both are, ironically enough for liberals, extreme, utterly inflexible and hardly accommodating of dissent !

 

[Djinn]

There you go again with these knee-jerk reactions. You still don't get what the author is talking about.

As I understand him to be: He is saying that the so-called Liberals in Pakistan are a mirror image of the Conservatives (not the Radicals) in many ways. Both are absolutely sure of the righteousness of their cause and the utter wrongness of that of others, neither have acquired their ideas organically through careful introspection and the contextualization of various principles that man has come up with to our society and conditions, both suffer from selective amnesia on one hand and the innate desire to rationalize away their inconvenient facts of choice and both are, ironically enough for liberals, extreme, utterly inflexible and hardly accommodating of dissent !

Buddy you stand better chance of successfully convincing a cow to hit the ramp, then talk sense into some one who thinks that liberal fascists like Salman Taseer can unilaterally dictate the laws of the country, because that's the "LIBERAL" thing to do. Secondly, you can find the so-called "logical" analogies to be quite amusing, where as on one hand religious extremists kill people , the liberal fascists want murderers and rapists to be set free and commit those crimes again, because that's soooo comports with the WESTERN STANDARDS OF JUSTICE ( remember Anders Behring?). So lastly the capital question, are both of these extremes doing any favors to the society? NOPE!

 

[babbar]

The mukto mona blogger who was slaughtered in bangladesh hit all the right notes

He spoke against extremism in hindus too
He criticized Indias record in Kashmir

Yet in front of his wife he was hacked to death.

People certainly are missing the woods for the trees. It is NOT about the views people have. Infact a liberal totally defends the rights of others to hold their views.

IT IS ABOUT THE MEANS.

There are no good or bad views set in stone. The problem is about forcing others to follow your views by coercion. Those like the author who criticize liberals for their "selective" views do not understand the ABC of liberalism and rationalism.

 

[waleed3601]

liberal fascists

I stopped reading your post after this. I urge you, please google the meaning of that phrase and come again.

 

[Mutakalim]

There comes the liberals to rescue their brothers.
Extremism in any case is wrong. they are also extremist just like taliban. Obviously in ideas.

 

[Armstrong]

Buddy you stand better chance of successfully convincing a cow to hit the ramp, then talk sense into some one who thinks that liberal fascists like Salman Taseer can unilaterally dictate the laws of the country, because that's the "LIBERAL" thing to do. Secondly, you can find the so-called "logical" analogies to be quite amusing, where as on one hand religious extremists kill people , the liberal fascists want murderers and rapists to be set free and commit those crimes again, because that's soooo comports with the WESTERN STANDARDS OF JUSTICE ( remember Anders Behring?). So lastly the capital question, are both of these extremes doing any favors to the society? NOPE!

I don't quite know what a liberal fascist is; at any rate I don't think that my views and your views are in complete consonance with each other !