[Tzunamitom]

Dear Sir,

I would love to debate with you. If I did I would point out studies that show the historical necessities of state intervention into laissez-faire capitalism to prevent abuse of asymmetrical relationships, I would point to monopolistic behaviour, and the tendency of an unrestrained capitalistic system to undermine the workings of its own free market. I would draw upon my own experiences of living in the Gulf, visiting labour camps, talking to migrant workers (mostly themselves also Muslim), and perhaps gently suggest that your armchair judgment of over 1.5 billion people (25% of the world's population) based on a couple of hastily googled sites from a fringe cleric and a single reported court case is not necessarily accurate or fair. I might ask you to compare the number of Muslims in the Gulf with the number of Muslims in India and Indonesia, and then tell you happy anecdotes of my many visits to these countries and the wonderful people I met. I might explain the difference between doctrinal theory and practical exigencies, and faulty interpretations based on fear and greed spread by power hungry clerics (I'd pause of course to muse at the irony drawn from the parallels with capitalism), and then discuss similar dichotomies evident in the practice of Christianity in the West. I'd conclude with the realisation that the problems inherent in the treatment of migrant workers are myriad and complex, and cannot be distiller into a simple judgment against any belief system.

I'd love to do all these things, but sadly I am a longtime believer in the maxim that "If you argue with a fool, then there are two fools arguing", so sadly I must decline.

[lake99]

You seem to enjoy making the effort to write all this rhetorical crap! With bits like "historical necessities of state intervention into laissez-faire capitalism to prevent abuse of asymmetrical relationships", I hope you don't claim credit for independent thinking.