It was? I thought this was his defence:

“We have entered the era of a new civil war between the forces of freedom and the powers of Islamo-fascist and communist darkness, and once again the left is clearly determined to take its stand on the other side.”

After Scott says ““Islamofascism” is the preferred term of those who don’t see any distinction between Al Qaeda, the Iranian mullahs, and the Baathists. ” He goes on , in the very next next section , to say:
The more serious consequence, over the long term, is that of offering deliberate insult to those Muslims who would be put to the sword under the reign of Jihadi fundamentalists.”

What has this consequence of deliberately insulting Muslims ? Natural reading here ( and remember this is precisely the view defended here too, by many posters viz. that if you use the tern ‘islamofascist’ you are a bigot and they take theselves to be taking broadly Scott’s position ) is that using the term ‘islamofascist’ leads to insulting moderate Muslims.

I would also add as a point against your interpretation of Scott that if you interpret Scott as saying that one can use the term ‘Islamofascism’ without opening oneself to the charge that one is a bigot ( just by virtue of using the term ), then David Horowitz is off the hook, since this is precisely his defence. And moreover you are conceding the argument to me and brownie because that is what we have been maintaining against the received view here.

Here is what Roger actually wrote: “discussing whether something is Coca Cola or like Coca Cola, shouldn’t the opinion of the Coca Cola company count?” Of course it should and saying so does not commit me to any fallacy. Suppose that a witness who is authorised to speak on behalf of the Coca Cola Company says: “this can contains Coca Cola.” In an appropriate context that statement could certainly be helpful to a defendant accused of distributing poison in Coca Cola cans. Of course it need not be decisive. The witness may be mistaken or a party to the conspiracy. But the statement of the witness is certainly germane.

Similarly, the fact that Italian fascists endorse Islamophobofascism should count when we are discussing whether that term is appropriate. (I take it that Roger is correct in saying they do; I don’t follow their proceedings closely.) It’s evidence of a sort – rather weak evidence I would say, since (to highlight just one problem) fascists of all types are untrustworthy. But Roger’s reasoning on this point is sound as far as it goes. Your fallacy-detection system has registered yet another false positive. You should get it seen to.

Your reading of Scott’s article is hopeless. He says that “Islamofascism” is a noxious and counterproductive term and the preferred term of those who don’t see any distinction between Al Qaeda, the Iranian mullahs, and the Baathists. You have him saying that all those who use the term are Islamophobofascists. He says nothing like that; indeed he would reserve the term for “a handful of troublemakers [who] thrive among [Islamophobes], parasitically. They spew out hatred through Web sites. They seek to silence their critics, and to recruit impressionable young people.” You attribute to him the view that “anyone who uses words like ‘Islamofascist’ is deliberately offending all Muslims”. He doesn’t say that. Nothing in his article rules out the possibility that the word may be used by people who are not even Islamophobes. (I have seen it used by Muslims, albeit very rarely.)

To say you are attacking a straw man would be too kind. Your target doesn’t have even that much substance.

Yes, so what is the argument and how good is it ? Roughly he wants to show that anyone who calls Muslims Islamofascists, is herself , because of bigotry this involves, a special kind of fascist viz. ‘Islamophobofascist’.

What is the argument for this ? Roughly the argument goes like this :

1) If one uses language which is imprecise and which deliberately offends moderate Muslims, one shows special kind of Islamophobia ,i.e one shows oneself to be a fascist. That is one shows oneself to be “Islamophobofascist”.
2) But anyone who uses words like ‘Islamofascist’ is deliberately offending all Muslims because such terms are imprecise and involve bigotry and intend to offend.

Therefore : people who use language with words such as ‘islamofascist’ , like David Horowitz and Martin Amis do, are Islamophobofascists.

How good is this ? Obviously the weakness is the premiss number 2 because it is plainly false that if I say ” Osama is an Islamofascist ” I must be offending Islam . Consider this from *’speaker’s meaning ‘* point of view first : if I use a locution with the term ‘Islamofascist’in it, I may deliberately aim at not offending and aim at distancing myself from sweeping generalizations ; this is why I choose to use the term.
From the *’sentence meaning ‘* point of view similar considerations hold : the term denotes those and only those organizations and their members who are totalitarian, militaristic, anti-democratic and so on. It does not, from sentence meaning point of view, refer to Islam or all Muslims.

But this point, btw, also undermines the attempt to show that Horowitz and Amis must be fascists. Maybe they are fascists, but Scott has not shown this to be so, because his argument is unsound.

If you do not like my example involving the property ‘being a mass murderer’ then here is a better one involving the property ‘being an open society’, and ‘being a constitutional democracy’:

(i)South African government approves of Iranian regime ( defends it at UN ,trades with it etc ). But since South Africa is an open society, Iran must be too. ( by using roger’s principle ). But this is false. So again the principle implies a falsehood and hence is false.

(ii) South Africa does not approve of Irsael. But since SA is a constitutional democracy this shows that Israel is not a constitutional democracy , but this is false ( again applying the principle in question ).( Once again if P implies Q, but -Q is the case then -P is the case )

So the principle in question ( kind of ‘birds of a feather flock together ’ for determining whether something has a property * ) is crap.

I didn’t miss that point, not that it’s of any relevance to the validity of a point whether I miss it or not – you can see that surely? (If you can’t, just dream up something like the guff you wrote upthread about Charles Darwin and the Church of England.) Scott’s argument should be addressed on its merits and by (falsely) claiming that I have failed to understand it you are (as usual) dancing around the issue. You have failed to make the case that “Islamophobofascism” is more stupid than “Islamofascism”; you haven’t even proposed a test of that inequality. (Brownie has at least proposed a crude utilitarian test, by asking how many people has the word “Islamofascism” killed; they can hardly be fewer that those killed by “Islamophobofascism”, but maybe he has in mind a time-weighted calculation and sees lethal potential in Scott’s invention.) So you would be contributing nothing of relevance even if the point you mention were Scott’s main concern, which clearly it is not. If his target is “Islamofascism”, why does he bring up the ravings of Martin Amis? Amis doesn’t use the term in the outburst Scott quotes. There is more at stake here than whether a particular word is enlightening or stultifying. Scott is concerned with the movement itself, not the word used to describe it.

But in any case this is Henry’s thread, not Scott’s, and the point which Henry has chosen to emphasise is that the Islamophobofascists truly are “sleeper cells of malice and stupidity”. So when I say that “the thread is about Islamophobofascism” and therefore “our host might reasonably ask those who wish to discuss other topics to do so on other sites”, it will be clear to any moderately careful reader that the thread I am referring to is this thread and the host I am referring to is Henry.

Calm down Roger, the ‘decents’ have a subtler view than that : if I say ‘Marko is an Italian fascist’ I am not committed to saying ’ all Italians are fascists’ or ‘I disapprove of all Italians ‘.

Similarly , the whole point of using the locution like ‘S is an islamofascist’ is to distance myself from anti-Islamic sentiments and the false claim that Islam as such is fascistic ; the term makes this possible and it should be welcomed for that reason.

But I am sure you know this so why make such a basic faux pas ? Mitchell Cohen in the fall issue of Dissent provides something of an answer : The fact must be faced that there are parts of the academic left that apologize for Islamic extremism in ways reminiscent of how an earlier leftist generation apologized for Stalinism, and who believe that Islamic extremists are part of a “liberating” multitude because they are against imperialism, etc.

What we see here is yet another reinvention of tiers-mondisme, a failed left-wing doctrine that provided numerous grotesque illusions to intellectuals for 30 years but was not much help for the difficult, painful problems of the real third world.

I still like the way you defend Horowitz’s campaign without reference to any facts.

Really ? But then this has to be correct too : since Hitler approves of his mother and Hitler is a mass murderer , his mother is a mass murderer.

What has gone wrong ? Hint : if you can derive a falsehood from P then P must be false.

You write nicely roger but your reasoning sucks.

As for the BNP - it does not exactly have the import, the centrality of the Italian fascists. The Italians are not only the real thing, the lines of their descent are purer, but they actually had real power at the time, given that the disgusting Fini was foreign minister, and swung it behind Bush. And you know what? Havel was president of the Czech republic then, and he knew that his compatriot was Berlusconi, and it didn’t bother him a bit. The Decent Left and Italian fascists have found a common vocabulary of anti-Islamic racism, but the Decents continue to pretend that they are somehow re-enacting the Spanish civil war, except this time on Franco’s side. It is a union of loons, and Horowitz is a perfect master of ceremonies for it – he has adjusted well from being in the extreme left to the extreme right, since both satisfy his pathological desire for violence.

I don’t know where you’re posting from, but in the UK the largest and best-known fascist party is called the BNP and guess what? They opposed the war in Iraq.

Which just goes to show you….absolutely nothing.

Rather like the fact that my Auntie Mabel (who is a bitch) opposed the war, but my Uncle Mac (who’s a diamond) supported it.

Have you mentioned to Vaclav Havel that he is unwittingly in league with Italian Fascists? I think he should be told.

That’s a joke, right? Take a look at the paragraph zdenek quotes. Are you seriously suggesting that a discussion on the merits of “Islamofascism” is off-limits on this thread? That in the context of Scott’s post it represents “other topics”? If you are going to define the “topic” in terms as narrow as these on every thread, then you are going to busy with your warnings.

Not to mention the fact that it’s not as if a separate dicussion was being “derailed” or we’ve been “clogging up” anything. Have a look up top; the conversation was going nowhere until I popped up.

You should be thanking me for stimulating discussion, not warning me.

I knew a raging racist who great lengths to use the term “ethnics” when he really meant “niggers” or “spics”. Anybody listening could hear what he really meant, but it gave just enough cover.

Sorry, but it eiter gave him cover or everybody knew what he meant. Given I can’t conceive of a sitaution where use of “ethnics” could be indicative of anything other than racism or at least bigotry, this is a really poor analogy.

Now, when discussing whether something is Coca Cola or like Coca Cola, shouldn’t the opinion of the Coca Cola company count?

So, my guess is: the fascist seal of approval goes to those, decent lefties (hey, Mussolini was once a socialist) and righties, who have decided to launch a campaign against Islam. Islamophobic fascism is about right. Look at statements made by Francesco Speroni, head of the Northern League Party, about closing Europe to Moslems, or look at the intellectual roots of Anti-islamic movements in Europe, which touch on Milosovic’s rhetoric on the one side and the Nouvelle Droit writers like Alain de Benoist on the other. The images and tropes are recirculated by people like Horowitz, or the ranters on Harry’s site. They have their origin in a very predictable fascist mindset.