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Can someone give me an analysis on who Abdul El-Sayed actually is as a person? He gave a weird interview where he said trans is a made up issue because your daughter has an I-Phone in her pocket so she will see dicks all the time anyway.
The first impression is he’s some sort of Muslim Brotherhood type. My second impression is pegging him as similar to brown friends I know whose parents do something science (medicine/engineering), are fairly wealthy, follow zero Muslim codes, hate white girls but probably slept with a few dozen in their twenties. All of these types are/can be fully assimilated into America. Half seem like they really do assimilate. The other half to me seem like they have a chip remaining on their shoulder that their people couldn’t build America.
My guess is he’s that type that still has a big chip on his shoulder to fully white people. So thinking things like sexualizing normies is perfectly fine for him in the same way a westerner might go to Thailand for a holiday and not view Thai’s as his people.
I'm sympathetic to Jonah Goldberg's argument in this podcast, that is, that El-Sayed wants the Democrats to be a straightforward anti-Israel party.
I don't think El-Sayed supports the full Muslim Brotherhood agenda. The social democrat positions that he holds are honest. He is not, I think, secretly an MB supporter in the sense of everything they stand for. But he is, I think, basically a middle-class western Muslim who attributes a disproportionate level of importance of Israel, and it has become organising for his thoughts in a way that it is not for other people.
His father in law is cair. His (albeit estranged) mother was MB. His father is on an organization that has questionable ties. He himself wrote a letter supporting MB.
There is a massive amount of smoke surrounding him. Don’t know why it’s crazy to think he just might be the real McCoy.
One of his staffers is facing federal charges for hate crime vandalism and death threats against Jews. Another just had a viral moment where she chimped out on a Jewish journalist, assaulted her, assaulted the cops, was drug off screaming death threats.
Released within a day, no charges pending, obvs.
She vandalized a military production facility during a period where 85% of children were going hungry due to a food blockade against civilians:
7% of children had moderate or severe malnutrition:
The baseline rate for this in Gaza is 1-1.5%, though this is probably because of the blockades etc they suffered from before the war. In the US the baseline rate is 0.1%.
I'm sorry you believe anything coming out of Gaza.
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Are devout Muslims allowed to lie to non-Muslims to advance Islamic interests? A devout Christian could not for example sell a non-Christian on the benefits of trans in schools. It’s a sin to lead others to sin.
A reminder that when an Evangelical bombs a Muslim country they have to wrap the bombs in “for Democracy” and “women’s school”. Bush had to bomb Muslims for human rights and not because they were Muslims.
My understanding is that Taqiyya is basically the doctrine that Muslims are allowed to lie to avoid persecution. Not a feature of Christianity- Christians are expected to accept martyrdom- but also not a load-bearing pillar of some long term conspiracy.
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Taqiyya is real* and probably allowed** by Islam but is a very poor model for how people rationalize and think.
AES is almost certainly not lying smiling while twirling his mustache with his fingers crossed behind his back. (This kind of thinking actually turns off a lot of liberals from seeing what conservatives are seeing.)
AES is probably just rationalizing. Which is to say, he's a Muslim, and has a lot of sympathy for Muslims, and Muslim organizations, and extends them a lot of charity in his own mind. And he's an American, which means of course he condemns terrorism and extremism. If those identities come into conflict at all it is totally rationalized away because they can't possibly come into conflict, definitionally, a priori. His family network contains Islamic ties because Islam is normal and good, but also of course he condemns extremism because he's a loyal American, not that MB contains anything to condemn, but if they did it's unrelated to AES or his family, because it has to be. It's very simple, you must understand. You don't get it? Your reasoning must be motivated somehow, you're probably racist or bigoted, that would explain why you can't see how very simple it is.
Orwell is a cliche now but I think he was spot-on with his model of "doublethink". You simply have to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time. Although in this case the two ideas don't even have to be total opposites because it's very possible to imagine someone who is both a Muslim and both an American patriot. It only becomes doublethink at the points of intersection where "faithful Muslim"*** and "loyal American" seem to conflict. ("Seem" because we know deep down that they must not.)
* Exists in official doctrine somewhere that faithful laity never read,
** And isn't necessary anyways because most Muslims and Islamic cultures are quite open about their passions and antipathies.
*** AES is probably not a faithful Muslim, he's probably the classic half-atheist half-progressive standard model.
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I mean there’s a difference between “not supposed to lie, but do it anyway” and “lying is fine actually.” There is no Christian doctrine that says I can lie to advance Christianity. It doesn’t exist. If you lie as a Christian, it’s a sin, no matter what causes its advancing. If a Muslim lies for the sake of Islam, my understanding is that it’s not a sin.
Christian views on lying are complicated. As far as I am aware, only Quakers categorically forbid both making false statements and selectively making true statements with intent to induce false beliefs. The Biblical passages normally cited as unequivocal condemnations of lying appear in contexts where it is clear that they refer to defamation (thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour) or commercial fraud.
It is an edge case of "Christian", but Mormons explicitly encourage deception-by-selective-truth-telling as a seeker-sensitive way of introducing LDS doctrine to potential converts. The traditional term is "milk before meat".
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There are times when lying is permissible. Based on this article, I don't think this is one of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya
Although maybe you can tie yourself in knots and get there "to save lives in Gaza" or whatever.
I can’t tell how stretchy that is in practice but here is one line I found in that article, “ Safeguarding of a Muslim's life is a mandatory obligation that should be observed; and that lying is permissible when the shedding of a Muslim's blood is at stake.”
I feel Israel is indirect but this would seem in a very stretchy way he could advocate for trans rights if he thinks more Democrats means less Israel funding and therefore less dead Muslims. Which opens the door for him being full Muslim Brotherhood.
It's okay to break the rules to save lives or if you have the chance to bang a blonde girl (although it sounds like El Sayed may have struck out in that department before he was famous).
I think the simplest assumption is that he's probably serious about Muslim supremacy but also not super strict about following all the rules.
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