Yeah, I regret clicking on the link you posted, and I encourage others not to give someone like him any more views. If you want to learn about Ayaan, there are other means of acquiring information. We're living in the modern world, we don't need to resort to people giving airtime to actual bigots.
The battle of ideas and debate across the world isn't won by youtube views. You do you, but I know many people can listen to interviews and take them for what they are. Dave largely follows in the steps of Larry King who could interview anyone, no matter how much scandal it would cause. There are many people who have been on interview shows I seriously dislike, it doesn't mean I personally cannot listen to some of it and ignore other parts.
What you're saying doesn't even always correlate into fact either. You routinely see people on this very board who say they'll never watch a Maher interview again watching the following weeks Maher show. I'm not actually being critical there, it's human nature to consume, listen and want to hear what can be opposing views. Although I know some probably give themselves 50 lashes that night if they end up watching Maher. It's daft, if you want to listen or watch something, do it. You can control your own destiny and part of that destiny may be challenging yourself or listening to viewpoints you seriously dislike. Without it meaning the second your ears hear something terrible you transform into a goblin. People are way too fundamental around their own ability to consume media at times, and no that does not mean
forcing yourself to watch or listen to things you do not want to, it means not having such a dogmatic view of the world. Then again, if you just label everyone you want an extremist it does mean you can just hide from EVERY opposing viewpoint even if it's coming from a genuine source (again, Ayaan is NOT Tommy fucking Robinson or even in his league).
I expect the follow up to this is still going to be around "you're normalizing problematic views". The best short answer I have is since humanity has walked the earth we've had lots of ideas/beliefs all put out across the table and people pick and choose what they want. It's often our duty to try and engage and convince people to pickup ideas based around facts, truth, evidence, humility and compassion. This isn't always possible though, and trying to use force to push people doesn't always work. Neither does trying to use force to eradicate bad ideas. I'm glad the UK has hate speech laws more robust than the USA, but these are largely in place to allow the State to go after those who genuinely incite violence, or direct hate. It's veering back to 90's Christian fundementalism again if simply critiquing the religion, whether via genuine open thought, or down to satire (jokes/drawings/etc) is continually pressured to be viewed as "hate speech". I seriously do not like this continuing trend from some that I will push back against. All of that including satire has been needed to get most of our Western socieities to where they are with separation of Church and state and being able to challenge the dogmatic views of Christianity/Catholocism to let ideas such as gay marriage be debated and become legal. Islam now has to be included in this as it's been a growing religion in many of our countries since the likes of the 90s, and many of the global issues going on in other countries continue to be observed thanks to the internet/MSM. I'm more so talking views on women, homosexuality, child-marriage, penalities for heretics, FGM and so on. The dogmatic issues with political Islam that someone like Ayaan talks out about because of what happend to her. If you do not do any of these things or believe in them the criticism isn't aimed at you, like it wasn't aimed at Christians who supported LGBT rights. Unfortunately whether you like it or not many do practice attrocities in the names of Religion, and as I mentioned earlier others get caught in the cross-hairs of criticism not for doing it themselves but for being apathetic or hand-waving, often because they don't want anyone to be offended. A battle of any group of ideas is always going to cause offence because when people get their core beliefs challenged it's human nature to process that as being/feeling offended. It's just not productive when offence steps in the way of societal progress, because no one is trying to take your personal religious views away (as long as they do not harm/oppress/do anything illegal). I and many others even as athiests will fight tooth and nail for freedom of religion forever and always.
Yet these are reasonable well rounded people/organisation from within and outside the religion saying hysterical rhetoric isn't valid criticism and isn't doing anyone any good, only harming innocent people. Sorry these arnt fundamentalist.
You do not have to agree with every single thing Ayaan or Maajid say. Heck, Christians who came around to gay marriage after years of debate and challenges would still disagree with the majority of what someone like Hitchens said. Precisely because they still hold a faith. Nothing wrong with that, no one sane is asking for people to 1:1 agree with anyone, let alone asking for religious people to all become atheists. That's nonsense and not something that will ever happen. Freedom of religion allows people to BE religious, but to do so without the state enforcing a religious system or political system that favours one religion over another. Largely it's being asked serious debating points, whether theological, political or philosophical at least get allowed to be aired, without people running straight to ad hominem and attempts to silence (either by labelling extremists or worse, threats). Disagreement isn't an attempt to silence, so long as it doesn't take an extremist form itself.
