GameBanshee Forums

Originally posted by fable
That might furnish meat for another topic, if you care to start one. I merely pointed out above, in reference to your remarks

I already stated in my previous post that I dont want to do that.

he actually wrote an entire book on it: Against the Islamicization of Our Culture.

As I said before. You don not know what aspect of the Islam he meant. So please cut it out about the books.

No, I'm not short-sighted--I'm stupid, remember?

You have referred to the word stupid several times. I dont know where you get that from. I said: It would be stupid to judge a book by its title.
That means the action would be stupid and not the whole person.

I'm saying if he's not a racist, he comes across IMO as a demagogue, someone who attempts to sway people by appealing to and controlling negative emotions like anger, frustration, etc.

Yep, you are right about that.

BTW: You have to make your points more clear, because there are several ways of interpreting them. So dont blame me for doing that. You say something and when I attack it, you say: "No no, that's not what I mean". So either you search for an escape or you make your point not clear enough. Each time you come up with another point of view on your argument and when I read the original I can' make that point up from that, sorry.

He (fable) seemed relatively clear to me. And I agree (about the books). Ones intent can easily be made clear by the title of the book (a good example and one of my favorite books was "Rush Limbaugh is a big fat liar") In fact, it often is. That title seems pretty blatant about its purpose in the title, especially when you consider the nature of the author, which it seems Fable has.

Now, lets consider the name of the book briefly
"Against the Islamicisation of Our Culture"


Now, JUST GUESSING here, but I bet, this book is against the islamicisation of hollands culture. I know this maybe a wild guess, but I feel safe infering that from the book title. That said, combined with his character, we can infer 2 more things.

1) He views Islam primarly AS A WHOLE (though he may like certain elements) negatively/as a negative influence/in a negative light.
2) He feels that it is beginning to cast that negative influence on Holland

That said, he qualifies as a bigot. Whether he truly believes his views or not isnt as important as the prejudice he is spreading.

Further, it should be noted, for him, it is NOT just about population density. If that were true his suggestions about restricting immigration would NOT be restricted but would be applied broadly. He doesnt want to ban American and western European immigrants, just those of Muslim faith/values.

Once again, this is bigotry.

Further, you simply CANNOT judge Muslims based on the Middle East. the US maintains a very large Muslim population, and with few problems. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Islam has been a positive influence in some aspects on America, in particular in the African-American communities which have taken the most strongly to Islam. As Fortuyn said "Islam places an emphasis on collective responsibility and the family." That sounds like a positive thing to me, especially considering the general lack of family structure which is beginning to manifest itself in America.

(Note - Fortuyn actually meant that in a negatively light, the context of the quote being "Modern society places an emphasis on individual responsibility, whereas Islam places an emphasis on collective responsibility and the family". Im all for individual responsibility, but there is nothing wrong with expecting ones family to take responsibility for its own members and take a more active role in their lives. I suppose he wants the government to baby-sit the kids =/

Anyways, regardless of what he is or isnt, his message is one of ignorance and bigotry, and as far as public figures go, the message they send is the most important part of them.

As for the books. I simply refuse to discuss that any further. We could all post like 200 times more and still we would be saying the same things.

As for the rest.......huh???? You seem to want to make a point about Islamicization. You should therefor start a new thread. This is about Fortuyn. About he being killed. The discussions tends to go off topic. And I didn't start the thread for such a discussion.

Ok...

Im sorry he was killed

I think we're all regretful that he was killed. I think of the Nederlands as one of the few nations where democracy actually works; which is to say where the parliament reflects with a degree of precision the diversity of opinion on many issues among the electorate. This kind of thing does democracy no good.

As for Fortuyn's opinions, we'll refrain from discussing them here, @Rudar, since you started this topic and have just stated that it was for the expression of sympathy and shock. However, opinions about Fortuyn's proposals were made as early as the second post in this thread, and were never objected to. From now on, though, all such opinions will be removed, pending a new topic devoted to these questions.

EDIT: Btw, I just checked. Fortuyn's "Tegen de islamisering van onze cultuur : Nederlandse identiteit als fundament" is currently out-of-print, but an editor *has* closed a deal on its English translation. No idea when that will appear, but given the speed with which such matters are pressed by events of the moment, I expect it will be relatively soon.

My compliments to fable. He is a very good moderator for the SYM forum. I have read various threads and i noticed something: whatever fable's opinion is, he is always objective and fair when it comes to judgement.

Good work fable!

That's true,
he's also one of the top-posters who has a very low spam-avarage.

You two do realise you are spamming this thread, do you?

Originally posted by Rob-hin
You two do realise you are spamming this thread, do you?

Are they really, Rob-hin? Really?

BTW, for a fine example of Fable-spam check out the "Halflings vs elves" thread in the BG2 forum.

Originally posted by Ode to a Grasshopper
Are they really, Rob-hin? Really?

BTW, for a fine example of Fable-spam check out the "Halflings vs elves" thread in the BG2 forum.

Okok, he dous spam, but only 6000 of his posts are spam,
that's a very low avarage compared to other poster

I think Fable spams exceptionally well. In fact, I think his spamming talents are far underappreciated, he is the starter of the now-infamous Dwarven thrower thread, after all.

And he's one of the more acrive non-spamming members as well. Let's have a big hand for Fable!

EDIT-on a note more relevant to the original intentions of this thread, I just saw this article in The Australian. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, considering the standard of journalism over here.

a little late, but i've been on holiday.
My 0.02:

I think now Pim Fortuyn has been shot by a left-extremist, parties like "SP" and "Groenlinks", the left-wing parties of The Netherlands will get a lot less votes, and a lote of people will vote LPF (Lijst Pim Fortuyn, Pim's Party) just out of spite.
Since he has been shot because of what he thinks, i'm finding this IS an assault on democracy. This is something no-one expexts from a country like the Netherlands more something for a "bananenrepubliek"(don't know a translation, maybe someone else does)

Also, now he has been shot for his views, he may become a martyr, like Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.

P.S: All this may already have been said, but i haven't read the entire post yet.

Originally posted by Mr.Waesel

Also, now he has been shot for his views, he may become a martyr, like Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.

You could say that, but I disagree.
When he was shot by a forreigner, then all hell was broken lose!

Originally posted by Mr.Waesel
Also, now he has been shot for his views, he may become a martyr, like Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.

It's not quite the same thing since Martin Luther King was actually promoting a minority rather than what Fortyun was doing which would by all accounts be considered the opposite.

JFK was also deemed by the US public to be charasmatic and he was loved by many, again the same can not be said of Fortuyn.

However saying that i agree with your point about him being a Martyr, there is definately a greater emphasis on his words now. I personally had only ever heard of him in passing, now i am much more aware of his former stance.

JFK was also deemed by the US public to be charasmatic and he was loved by many, again the same can not be said of Fortuyn.

And Fortuyn's killer (or so it appears, at the moment) was not concerned with his controversial views about immigrants, but rather his comments about animal rights--not exactly a rallying cry for martyrdom.

Originally posted by fable
And Fortuyn's killer (or so it appears, at the moment) was not concerned with his controversial views about immigrants, but rather his comments about animal rights--not exactly a rallying cry for martyrdom.

It strikes me that it is very similar to HLD's points about the recent video game debate in the US. Politicians make lots of comments during their campaigns to promote themselves to certain members of the populace knowing that it will gain them votes, whether this is the ideal held by the polotician or not.

This situation will surely only lead to more violence against poloticians from the more militant members of society, if poloticians are going to claim they are for one thing and against another they have to be willing to accept the consequences and the weight that their words carry.

I do not for a second endorse what was done but it is interesting to see what reaction there is to this death, whether other parties will alter their views for their own safety.

@Fable: I heard that the guy who killed Fortyun wasn't even at odds with his view, so, just like the pipe bomber- here are two naturalists who did something violent that has no direct effect on their cause. Something fishy is going on.

Originally posted by Mr Sleep
JFK was also deemed by the US public to be charasmatic and he was loved by many, again the same can not be said of Fortuyn.

I disagree. Pim Fortuyn was also very charismatic.

Originally posted by Morlock
Something fishy is going on.

Hmmm...Have you read that book by Dan Simmons where the main characters can control other people with their minds, and make 'em do random violent things? This reminds me of that.

Then why are they saying the guy killed Fortuyn, at this point?

Well, mainly because he shot him, I imagine. The question of why he did it is still very much unanswered. And right now there's a lot of debate about whether he did it alone or not. Conspiracy theory fans, rejoice!