freediver wrote on Jan 9^th, 2014 at 12:05pm:


Apparently you do. You can firstly explain to me why these "supporters" end up voting overwhelmingly for anti-hudud parties. The point I've been trying to impress upon you from the very beginning is that responding "yes" or "no" in a random, consequence-free survey is not the same thing as actually voting for that belief to become a reality. Do you think that just maybe its possible that when a PEW interviewer asks a muslim about their opinion on a particular islamic law, they are more interested in appearing "islamic" as opposed to expressing their heart-felt belief? This could explain why these same muslims, when actually presented the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is by ticking the 'PAS' box at election day, they overwhelmingly do not.

freediver wrote on Jan 9^th, 2014 at 12:05pm:


You are not referring to the functioning of democracy at all. You have singularly failed to 1. demonstrate that a majority of the entire population is blocking the implementation of these hudud laws and 2. demonstrate that the majority of muslims who responded "yes" in a survey are even trying to get these laws through. And you especially haven't explained the clear disconnect between responses in a survey and actual voting patterns in real elections.

Those are the things you would address if you were referring to the functioning of democracy.

freediver wrote on Jan 9^th, 2014 at 7:51pm:


100% grasping at straws. It is bad enough that you don't have a shred of evidence to support your claim that 2/3rds of the entire population "oppose" the laws, now you have to perform all sorts of contortions to explain away all the evidence that strongly suggests the opposite.

Firstly - muslims not voting for pro-hudud party because they think they are "lunatics" = completely baseless. Secondly, I already posted some statistics that showed a significant number of non-muslims who vote for PAS. So that "significant" muslim-pro-hudud vote could be even less. Thus you have not a leg to stand on to claim that 14% of votes represents a "not insignificant" vote for pro-hudud because a) you have no clue as to how many "pro-stoning/executing apostates" people voted for PAS and b) you don't even have any idea whether the "pro-stoning/executing apostates" (according to the PEW survey) even voted for PAS because of their pro-stoning/executing apostates.

freediver wrote on Jan 9^th, 2014 at 7:51pm:


But thats completely different to "arrogantly assuming" that the vast majority of non-muslims oppose muslims enacting hudud apostasy and adultery laws on themselves - as opposed to thinking that they just maybe might consider it an issue for muslims to sort out themselves. 

freediver wrote on Jan 10^th, 2014 at 8:24am:


It absolutely is contortions and grasping at straws to explain away the clear lack of muslim voter support for hudud as "Probably because the pro-hudud candidates are lunatics" - based on no evidence whatsoever. It is also contortions, by the way, to claim that when respondents say that hudud provides justice for all, they must not actually be talking about hudud, but only bits and pieces of it - based on no evidence whatsoever.

Do you like how your arguments work FD? Each time you are forced to back up a baseless claim, you just "support" it with another baseless claim. Your entire case is just baseless claim heaped on baseless claim. Were you ever involved in amway  by any chance?

freediver wrote on Jan 10^th, 2014 at 8:24am:


Hello FD? Anybody there??

Nothing seems to be sinking through. This is *YOUR* claim we are talking about. I'm perfectly happy to acknowledge that I have no clue about voting patterns, just as I have no clue as to what 2/3rds of the entire population feel about passing a particular piece of legislation. You on the other hand *DO* claim to have a clue about what 2/3rds of the population think about this piece of legislation, and that is that they want to oppose it. My job is not to have "a clue" about this, but merely to point out that you have no evidence whatsoever for this claim, and therefore no leg to stand on.

freediver wrote on Jan 10^th, 2014 at 8:24am:


Thats right FD - we have a survey showing support from around 1/3 of the entire population, and slightly less oppose it. That leaves another 1/3 or so which we don't have a damn clue about. Yet that doesn't stop you ridiculing any suggestion that the vast majority of this remaining 1/3 would do anything other than "passionately" oppose it - and the mere suggestion is "having a messed up view of human rights".

freediver wrote on Jan 10^th, 2014 at 8:24am:


Something "Very simple" that relies entirely on making a completely baseless assumption about the attitudes of 1/3 of the population towards these laws.

freediver wrote on Jan 10^th, 2014 at 8:24am:


As opposed to trying to turn it into something that is blatantly dishonest and entirely misleading.

It is not absurdly convoluted and unlikely that the non-muslims might be ambivalent on muslims introducing hudud apostasy and adultery laws that apply only to muslims.

freediver wrote on Jan 10^th, 2014 at 8:24am:


Um no. As I've pointed out a thousand times already, the majority of Malays (57% at last election) vote for BN, who has taken a staunchly anti-hudud position. Of the rest of the Malays, they either vote for the anti-hudud people's justice party, or the pro-hudud PAS (presuming none of them vote for the pro-Chinese DAP - which is being extremely generous). We know that PAS got 14% of the total vote last election, and we know from the evidence I have already posted that a sizeable proportion of that 14% comes from Chinese voters. That leaves a very small minority of Malays indeed that actually voted for the pro-hudud PAS. Yet according to PEW, a majority of Malays support hudud.

How the hell can you say that voting patterns are "entirely consistent" with the survey results??

Pete if that post was made in the 'Gandalf's version of democracy' thread (which its currently in), then that thread was moved to the EE forum by freediver, not me.

There is another thread that I did move to EE forum called "Gandalf's version of human rights, which I merged with the above mentioned thread because it was relevant to that thread. Freediver then went and split that from the democracy thread.

Long story short, it seems that particular post was either moved to EE by freediver or you posted it in the EE forum in the first place.

And by the way, you can thank freediver for all the confusion for insisting on having a billion threads on the same topic that I am forced to merge and move.

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There is no clear lack of voter support. There is you pretending that an election is a referendum on a single issue. There is a party with 14% of the vote that supports these punishments.

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It is based on the opinions expressed and questions asked obviously having nothing at all to do with executing apostates.

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My argument is built on a survey that shows what Muslims actually think. Yours is based on pretending that an election is a referendum on a single issue and reading whatever you feel like into the outcome. You introduced by the election outcomes and the argument about the level of motivation among the Muslims who support these punishments. Both of these arguments are completely baseless. The only reason I am even talking about election outcomes on levels of motivation is to explain, so far with no success, that the evidence does not support you interpretation and is entirely consistent with mine. You are the one arguing that Muslims do not think what they say they think. You are the one rejecting the direct, explicit evidence of their views and replacing it with your own alternate reality.

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You are the one who introduced the voting patterns to somehow show that Muslims do not think what they say they think.

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Again Gandalf, you can easily quote what I actually said. Remember, you are the one who introduced the argument about motivation in an attempt to detract what what Muslims say they think.

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There you go again. An election is not a referendum on a single issue, remember?

Where do you get the racial breakdown of voting patterns from?

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I have already explained how many times. There is simply no contradiction. As you just finished explaining to me, an election is not a referendum on a single issue. Were the Australian public, or any other democracy, to have a similar breakdown of views on a contentious issue, I would expect similar party positions and voting patterns. Like I said, you argument is built on hypocrisy. You insist that you can read whatever you want into an election outcome, but when anyone else tries to do this, you point out that an election is not a referendum on a single issue. I have had to explain this in nearly every single post Gandalf. If you weren't so blinded in your views it would have sunk in by now. Instead you seem oblivious to it. You keep asking me to explain the same simple point over and over again, even after you have just finished explaining the exact same thing to me.

Gandalf where do you get the racial breakdown of voting patterns from?

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We do get a very clear account of what Muslims think from the Pew survey.

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There is something very wrong with that survey and you are naive to read as much into it as you do.

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It is perfectly reasonable to assume non-Muslims oppose Muslims killing people in the name of Islam, which is exactly what this is about, and why there is something wrong with your survey for never mentioning this detail.

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So you have abandoned your claim that the Muslims who support these laws don't really support them and that the absence of these laws in Malaysia can be attributed to some kind of lack of will on their part?

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Are you asserting that they are contradictory? What are they contradicting?

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I did not say it is irrelevant. I said it is consistent. I have explained why, many times. You either dismiss these explanations off-hand, or completely ignore them.

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So what was your claim?

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Yes I have. Over and over again.

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Pew says that just over 50% of Muslims support the law. If the election were actually a referendum on this particular issue, you would expect just over 50% of them to vote in favour. As an election is in fact not a referendum on a single issue, it is not in any way surprising that 59% vote for the ruling coalition.

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Only if you keep forgetting that an election is not a referendum on a single issue, and if you keep ignoring the nature of representative democracy.

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You are the only one making an argument about the level of motivation.

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This is an example of your argument about motivation.

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This is an example of you not understanding representative democracy. It is to be expected that  the ruling coalition adopt this policy.

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It is entirely consistent. It is exactly what you would expect.

freediver wrote on Jan 13^th, 2014 at 10:41am:


No. Recall your sentence immediately above this statement:

freediver wrote on Jan 13^th, 2014 at 10:41am:


"expecting" them to vote on this issue signifies political motivation wouldn't you say? Thats what I disagree with. Saying they agree with a hypothetical concept in a meaningless, consequence-free survey is a long way from actually deciding to vote in favour of it becoming a reality if ever given the chance.

freediver wrote on Jan 13^th, 2014 at 10:59am:


motivation and interest in what though? You can't even make an educated guess as to what "issues" Malaysians had in mind when they voted for PAS. So merely saying this "indicates a high level of motivation and interest" is completely meaningless and worse than useless.

freediver wrote on Jan 13^th, 2014 at 10:59am:


I agree. The point is though, an election in which the leading muslim candidates are tripping over themselves to promote their anti-hudud credentials, and even the one pro-hudud party has to quietly pretend that the issue is not really there - is not exactly the sort of election environment you would expect if muslims really do want these laws enacted. Irrespective of all the intricacies of the Malaysian system, you would still expect there to be political capital on this issue for the parties that primarily stand for muslims - and that these parties would attempt to exploit this capital. About the last thing you would expect is for them to sell themselves as these overtly anti-hudud candidates. 

Personally, I prefer to exercise caution when judging an entire group of people to be "little Hitler's" and demonize them based solely on one survey in which they are asked to answer "yes" or "no" to a hypothetical. I think its fair to judge them on their actual behaviour - and quite frankly it is not the behaviour of "little Hitler's" to live in harmony with their non-muslim neighbours, nor to overwhelmingly reject the extremist policies you accuse them of wanting, election after election.