I would say “Islam sucks” is not an argument; it’s a slogan. You are right. It doesn’t make sense to respond to that.

As I wrote, I was only responding to comments on this particular post. I did not see the other comments you referred to, and they were not made here.

“coo coo head” is just silly. “Racist?” Why? I don’t see evidence of it in his comments here.

Go through all his comments on this site.

“KKK leaders…” where the f*** did that come from? And why is it relevant?

I have the urge to insult your logic. He assumes that his comments are not racist because he has an Iranian girlfriend. I made a valid point by saying that KKK guys had black women whom they fucked. Would that make the KKK guys any less racist? Just because you are sleeping with someone doesn’t make you any less racist. It seem like racism is something you have to experience to understand in your case.

If I were Jordan’s girlfriend I would be hopping mad. What a put-down.

If I were her I would be mad at him for HIS racist remarks toward her own ethnicity/nationality/religion(assuming she’s Muslim)…

Why are we chasing away people who want to engage in discussion?

He is not debating, he is insulting and abusive. Unless you have a different meaning for the term debate…

I see it so often. There is an assumption that people who disagree with us are yelling at us, when I think they are just challenging us.

Challenge is when a person offers an intellectual argument and gives us the chance to debate it intellectually. He says something like Iranians sucks, Islam suck… kinda hard to argue against that crap except with many words that start with f.

I don’t think we should be chasing people away who are engaging in real argument (rather than sloganeering). We should be addressing their points logically.

Islam sucks… ok Esra’a and few other tried to debate logically but he kept on saying Islam sucks… Iranians sucks… I am not a racist because I have an Iranian girlfriend. Is this the first time you encountered a person like this? I’ll tell you something, I encounter people like him on an almost daily bases and only word they understand is the f word.

I told you! I am a very conservative person, I guess.

Conservative according to the other part of the world.

Malcom X said “We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.” That’s the logic I use. If you are insulting I will also be insulting. Very simple, no?

I just don’t think it’s fair to claim that we’re chasing people off without knowing the background behind Jordan’s immaturity and unwillingness to work with us.

Clarity sometimes comes with length.

He is also very discouraging. “Your mission will never work,” etc, and claims that Muslims don’t have the logic required to argue properly.

If that’s not insulting or offensive to you, it is to me. He basically calls Muslims (and pretty much everyone from the Eastern hemisphere) “stupid” and then claims to be “joking” because his girlfriend is Iranian.

He was hardly joking in his posts, anyways. They’re full of baseless assumptions and insults. If he wants to cry and be dramatic about it, he can go do it elsewhere. It’s not what this place is for.

And Esther, Jina’s terminology is sometimes meant to be playful. Sure that was way out of line and uncalled for, but Jordan implies similar things by sugar-coating his statements.

In any case he is no longer with us, he says he has better blogs to post in, and I guess that means blogs that allow him to act like a dramatic child.

Why are we chasing away people who want to engage in discussion? I see it so often.

Please tell me where else this happened? The amount of returning visitors we get is more than the amount of unique visitors. We have a lot of loyal commenters with different opinions and different cultural backgrounds, we have NO problem discussing controversial things with them.

Jordan wasn’t here to debate. He was here to enforce his opinions, insult ours, and then claim that we’re too “blind” to see the “truth.” Really, am I not supposed to articulate a reaction for this? Moreover, where did anybody but Jina here insult him? He considers everything an “attack.” Criticism is not an attack on character – it’s being baffled and insulted by someone’s opinion. And yes, of course he has the right to have and maintain such an opinion, but when I attack it, he should not be insulted. But he gets insulted, and he changes the topic of discussion to where it revolves around him and his personality. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s his low self-esteem. He’s obviously not confident with his positions if he keeps talking about how “hurt” he is over our reactions rather than engaging in actual discussion.

We have over 1,000 comments here, about 500 of which were from returning visitors, many of which still come back and argue with us about things we’re passionate about (and things they’re very critical of, Islam is just one of them.) The reason why they come back is because they did engage in discussions with us and they did enjoy it, otherwise why would people, even the most sensitive writers of the blogosphere, constantly link to this place as a healthy and interesting place for discussions? Because we treat everyone the way Jordan claimed to be treated? No.

Don’t take Jordan as an example to what usually goes on here. It is not. Jordan just likes the attention all of this stirs up, and I have no idea why we’re even talking about this still. Every argument ends up being about him. Even AFTER apologies, he whines. It’s irritating. I’m not going to baby sit and appease his feelings if he’s not up for a heated yet healthy discussion.

That said, yes Jina’s comment was way out of line. But it was written after like, 20 comments of Jordan just kicking and screaming in other posts. When it happens again, I’ll clean it up. I just don’t want that atmosphere here at all.

I am not sure about Jordan’s comments on other posts, but I have never found him offensive. (Of course, I do not take offense easily. I also come from a sarcastic family: sarcsm *can* get you in trouble.) But I am surprised that no one seems able to explain to Jina what was offensive in this comment:

Jordan, you are a very typical right wing racist coo coo head. Please don’t bring in your Iranian girlfriend bullshit because even KKK leaders had black women whom they fucked.

“coo coo head” is just silly. “Racist?” Why? I don’t see evidence of it in his comments here. “KKK leaders…” where the f*** did that come from? And why is it relevant? If I were Jordan’s girlfriend I would be hopping mad. What a put-down.

Why are we chasing away people who want to engage in discussion? I see it so often. There is an assumption that people who disagree with us are yelling at us, when I think they are just challenging us. I don’t think we should be chasing people away who are engaging in real argument (rather than sloganeering). We should be addressing their points logically.

However, your last comment about KKK people was really offensive.

Can you tell me how that was offensive so maybe I won’t repeat it again.

Let’s take this incident as a lesson for the future, and I hope more people here understand the significance of respect even in times of disagreeance. This website will have no meaning if we resort to insults as opposed to intelligent debates. We’re here to make friends, not enemies.

True I express opinions that are not popular on this left-leaning blog, but where have I been disrespectful?

Don’t label this blog please. See how quickly you jump to conclusions? You just called an entire group blog “left-leaning” based on the opinion of 1 or 2 people. That’s exactly how you’ve been arguing since you got here. There have been people here who expressed similar opinions but maintained respect for others. Please re-visit your comments in my post about “Muslims” and criticism and you’ll find my definition of disrespectful. All comments have always been welcome – but you confuse criticism with hostility and then blame it on us being unfair to you. You then frame yourself as being “attacked” when I specifically apologized even though I didn’t consider my comments to be harsh in any way.

Agreeing with you, Jina’s posts were harsh because it resorted to name-calling, but even before this post you have been accusing him of mistreating you and I think this is why others choose to attack you personally as an option. You insist that you’re being attacked when your posts are merely being criticized.

You’re always welcome here Jordan, like anyone else is, but I’m not very fond of your attitude and exaggerations. That is my opinion, meaning it is not the collective opinion of everyone posting here, which you so claim. I’m more than happy to debate things with you but not if you take offence to absolutely everything, even when the post has nothing to do with your personal self and everything to do with your opinions and how you arrive to conclusions.

Furthermore you act as if you’re disliked on this blog – even when we praised you for giving us a great idea for a name of an entire campaign (and shirt.) What more do you want?

You got an apology more than once from me, even though I maintain my stance that I did nothing to offend you, at least not intentionally. But you took offence to mere criticism – which is not very normal. It’s not the attitude you should hold in debates.

I truly believe people can disagree without being disagreeable.

Jina, I happen to like Persians very much!

Esther,
I can spot a racist by their comments. Personally, not interweb wise, everyone who made similar comments as Jordan been a racist asshole.

Jordan is not insulting the Muslim extremist or even the mullahs, he’s insulting Muslims. That is racist. He’s insulting Persians, that is racist. Esther, move to a Western country and understand it for yourself if you don’t know what I am talking about.

but I do try to be polite and respectful.

You don’t try hard enough. Many of what you said in the other threads was downright insulting, and while it still doesn’t deserve some of the bad reactions it gets, you make no effort to present your arguments properly and with more respect.

If you want people to be as civil as you expect them to be with you, stop generalizing or employing your “holier than thou” attitude. That’s just my suggestion.

Orwell had the best quotes!

My favorite is “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle”.

And by the way wasn’t it Orwell who said something like (paraphrasing…) “some ideas are so idiotic that only intellectuals fall for them…”

Jina, may I ask if you believe that everybody on the center-right is a “racists” and by that I mean judging someone based on genetic/skin color rather than a persons actions and ideas?

Because I must say, personally I believe racism has become more profound in extreme-left wing ideologies. I do believe that while my views are not popular with right-wingers (athiesm, pro-gay-rights, etc..), I am rarely greeted with hostility because of my liberal ideas. Where on the left, I find no matter how polite someone tries to be, if you sway too far from the accepted ideology, the conversation turns personal very quickly.