# Yet another Islamic attack in London...



## Insomnia

It's happened again, guys. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-40147014

This is going to keep on happening to us. 

We need to:
-Reform Islam.
-Heighten surveillance.
-Take a less interventionist policy in the ME.
-Continue heavy vetting of migrants.

These are the only ways we can stop this ideology and these attacks without taking the far-right approach of banning Islam and such, which would make things worse.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

jesus, that's terrible.


----------



## narad

I don't see how we can jot down "reform Islam" on a to-do list.


----------



## StevenC

My main problem with a muslim ban is that it doesn't go far enough. Let's kick out all the religious types and have a nice safe secular society.


----------



## PunkBillCarson

Careful calling it an Islamic attack. You might trigger someone here.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> My main problem with a muslim ban is that it doesn't go far enough. Let's kick out all the religious types and have a nice safe secular society.



Let's make churches low-cost housing for scientists ;-)


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Muslims make up almost 5% of the population of the UK. If that was the problem, which it frankly isn't, things would be far worse. 

Going further, with almost 1.7 billion globally, if almost a fifth of the world was a problem, which once again all real data says otherwise, we would have far more issues. 

Blaming a general faith for the actions of a few is ignorant. 

inb4: anecdotes


----------



## 7 Strings of Hate

MaxOfMetal said:


> Blaming a general faith for the actions of a few is ignorant.


I don't blame a general faith. I blame faith in general. I wish people just had the courage to say they dont know what the fuck happens to you when you die, but realize there isn't a magical man in the sky watching us or make assumptions that magical man needs blood to be happy.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

7 Strings of Hate said:


> I don't blame a general faith. I blame faith in general. I wish people just had the courage to say they dont know what the fuck happens to you when you die, but realize there isn't a magical man in the sky watching us or make assumptions that magical man needs blood to be happy.



As an atheist, I agree.


----------



## downburst82

7 Strings of Hate said:


> I don't blame a general faith. I blame faith in general. I wish people just had the courage to say they dont know what the fuck happens to you when you die, but realize there isn't a magical man in the sky watching us or make assumptions that magical man needs blood to be happy.


People will be evil with or without gods to believe in (or not believe in).


----------



## narad

downburst82 said:


> People will be evil with or without gods to believe in (or not believe in).



I don't believe these guys were just sitting around, born with evil in their hearts, waiting for some opportunity to let it out. These are faith-based attacks, and if you don't want to blame Islam specifically in light of the millions of practitioners who have no ill-will for the west, I think you still must concede that without Islam and without ISIS, these particular attackers were not going to be stabbing people / blowing stuff up. ISIS is a beacon which gives these people purpose, and drives them to action.


----------



## Insomnia

narad said:


> I don't see how we can jot down "reform Islam" on a to-do list.


Why not?


----------



## Insomnia

MaxOfMetal said:


> Muslims make up almost 5% of the population of the UK. If that was the problem, which it frankly isn't, things would be far worse.
> 
> Going further, with almost 1.7 billion globally, if almost a fifth of the world was a problem, which once again all real data says otherwise, we would have far more issues.
> 
> Blaming a general faith for the actions of a few is ignorant.
> 
> inb4: anecdotes


It's not ignorant. Just because the majority don't practice terrorism, it doesn't mean that: a) terrorists are the only fundamentalists/terrorists and b) that those who practice this fundamentalism/terrorism aren't Muslim.

Islamic terrorism as I see it stems from two places: The Qu'ran, Hadiths, and fundamentalist Islamic preaching, but also western interventionism. You can't blame it entirely on one or the other. 

52% of British Muslims said they thought homosexuality should be illegal. 46% said that those who depict the Prophet Muhammad should have violence called upon them. 

Even if those numbers aren't exactly a majority, they are still shocking. It's about 1 in 2 that holds those sorts of views.


----------



## blacai

It is just naïv and against all human history trying to defend religion and islam in particular is not involved in all these attacks.
Since the beginning religions were use for brainwashing with political and economic purpouses.


----------



## Insomnia

blacai said:


> It is just naïv and against all human history trying to defend religion and islam in particular is not involved in all these attacks.
> Since the beginning religions were use for brainwashing with political and economic purpouses.


Islam is involved in almost all of these attacks though...?


----------



## blacai

Insomnia said:


> Islam is involved in almost all of these attacks though...?


In Germany there were some attacks against refugee shelters. In these cases, islam is being the target.Islam was involved, but on the other side.


----------



## Insomnia

blacai said:


> In Germany there were some attacks against refugee shelters. In these cases, islam is being the target.Islam was involved, but on the other side.


Oh, you mean there's more terrorism than Islamic terrorism?

Yes, you're right...only it's astronomically smaller.


----------



## blacai

Insomnia said:


> Oh, you mean there's more terrorism than Islamic terrorism?
> 
> Yes, you're right...only it's astronomically smaller.


Don't get me wrong, I am a totally convinced atheist. Actually I managed to get the apostasy in Spain, where I was born, where the country is totally under the control of catholic church.
I wanted to say that it has happened from the beginning religion is involved in terrorism. Time ago crusades, when Islamic world was imho a more evolved culture. Now it is islam, that's why I said "in all of these", because just before I was talking about a general historical context.


----------



## downburst82

narad said:


> I don't believe these guys were just sitting around, born with evil in their hearts, waiting for some opportunity to let it out. These are faith-based attacks, and if you don't want to blame Islam specifically in light of the millions of practitioners who have no ill-will for the west, I think you still must concede that without Islam and without ISIS, these particular attackers were not going to be stabbing people / blowing stuff up. ISIS is a beacon which gives these people purpose, and drives them to action.



I dont totally disagree but I would say the types of people attracted to Isis are "those born with evil in their heart waiting for an opportunity to let it out". Its not the religious ideals that the people joining Isis are attracted to and then wooops they get tricked into beheading people, Its the violence they are attracted to. I will conceed that some people need that illusuion of gods will to push them over the edge but I would argue thats the fault of mans nature and the desire to justify atrocities, not the fault of a faith system that majority of other believers follow non violently.


----------



## Insomnia

downburst82 said:


> I dont totally disagree but I would say the types of people attracted to Isis are "those born with evil in their heart waiting for an opportunity to let it out". Its not the religious ideals that the people joining Isis are attracted to and then wooops they get tricked into beheading people, Its the violence they are attracted to. I will conceed that some people need that illusuion of gods will to push them over the edge but I would argue thats the fault of mans nature and the desire to justify atrocities, not the fault of a faith system that majority of other believers follow non violently.


I think that is insanely unlikely though. There are not that many people born with mental illnesses who have the mental capacity to gang together and find a religion that, under an interpretation of it, supports their terrorism and hatred. Their evilness is caused by their religious conviction...


----------



## downburst82

Insomnia said:


> I think that is insanely unlikely though. There are not that many people born with mental illnesses who have the mental capacity to gang together and find a religion that, under an interpretation of it, supports their terrorism and hatred. Their evilness is caused by their religious conviction...


Isis is an Evil religion...so yes the followers of that extreme sect of Islam join for the evil and have it nurtured. Like Christians that support the westboro baptist church (or other religious organizations with similar ideals). 

I have been to church most of my life and ive never heard a sermon on how gay people are going to hell...but If I wanted to hear that message there are churches that will be sure to tell me that..in fact they make it there main message.

I would imagine most Muslims have never had it preached to them to go enforce muslim beleifs with extreme violence...but if they are looking for it there are violent sects of islam that have made that their main focus.


----------



## asfeir

Insomnia said:


> We need to:
> -Reform Islam.



Who is the "we" that needs to reform Islam? If you mean the West needs to reform Islam than we're in for a long ride. If reforms don't come from within they will never happen.

So like a lot of you pointed out, Isis are a very radical sect of Islam, and I think they are only able to attract the very poor, barely educated people, and they can give them a target and justify it with interpretations of their book. 

I'm (/was born) catholic and come from a country where it's basically 50-50 Christians/ Muslims and while I wouldn't say that we live in *perfect *harmony today, attacks between Christians and Muslims stopped happening for at least 30 years.
I recently moved to Dubai where there is the sharia law, but yet it's less strict every year, and locals are more and more open to people with different beliefs.


----------



## Insomnia

asfeir said:


> Who is the "we" that needs to reform Islam? If you mean the West needs to reform Islam than we're in for a long ride. If reforms don't come from within they will never happen.
> 
> So like a lot of you pointed out, Isis are a very radical sect of Islam, and I think they are only able to attract the very poor, barely educated people, and they can give them a target and justify it with interpretations of their book.
> 
> I'm (/was born) catholic and come from a country where it's basically 50-50 Christians/ Muslims and while I wouldn't say that we live in *perfect *harmony today, attacks between Christians and Muslims stopped happening for at least 30 years.
> I recently moved to Dubai where there is the sharia law, but yet it's less strict every year, and locals are more and more open to people with different beliefs.


That is demonstrably untrue. Educated and sometimes quite rich people leave the West (or rich areas on the ME) to join ISIS, and other Islamic terror groups.


----------



## narad

But it's not the yacht club either. I think it's safe to say there are a number of factors, and in addition to poverty / lack of education, some degree of misfitted-ness or marginalization (socially or from being a muslim in a largely non-muslim community) has also been cited in previous attacks.

I think it gives their lives meaning, not wholly through religious devotion, but from having a network of internet buddies and knowing that any act you carry out will receive global recognition and praise amongst thousands of other ISIS guys all over the world. And there's a lot of people who just aren't finding significant meaning in their lives -- that's hard to fight against!


----------



## StevenC

As a person from Northern Ireland, I think it's awfully cute to think Islam is special with its role in terrorism. The only people I know here who disagree are former terrorists.


----------



## Insomnia

StevenC said:


> As a person from Northern Ireland, I think it's awfully cute to think Islam is special with its role in terrorism. The only people I know here who disagree are former terrorists.


The IRA were different though. They were a political independence movement. They were generally confined to a geographical area. Islam, however, breeds terrorism throughout the world.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Insomnia said:


> Islamic terrorism as I see it stems from two places: The Qu'ran, Hadiths, and fundamentalist Islamic preaching, but also western interventionism. You can't blame it entirely on one or the other.



You couldn't be more wrong about the Qu'ran.

https://www.thoughtco.com/top-myths-about-islam-2004189

Hadiths are difficult. A lot of mainstream Islamic scholars identify most of them as being fabricated by by tribal chiefs to control thier tribes. For instance Shite and Sunni follow a different set of Hadiths. Most are benign, so I wouldn't put that at the top of the list.

The fundamentalist teachings, when taught by a group such as ISIS is a big problem and it's mainly a problem because of the last part: western intervention.

It's a harsh pill to swallow, but our meddling in the Middle East has caused all of this. If you had subjected any sub-developed people to what we have you'd wind up with these problems.



> 52% of British Muslims said they thought homosexuality should be illegal. 46% said that those who depict the Prophet Muhammad should have violence called upon them.



A company sponsored by a television agency promoting a biased, inflammatory show asked ~1000 devout muslims at a meeting of devout muslims what they think.

Do you really think it would be any different if they asked 1000 very "devout" Catholics?



> Even if those numbers aren't exactly a majority, they are still shocking. It's about 1 in 2 that holds those sorts of views.



You mean 50% of .05%.


----------



## Insomnia

MaxOfMetal said:


> You couldn't be more wrong about the Qu'ran.
> 
> https://www.thoughtco.com/top-myths-about-islam-2004189
> 
> Hadiths are difficult. A lot of mainstream Islamic scholars identify most of them as being fabricated by by tribal chiefs to control thier tribes. For instance Shite and Sunni follow a different set of Hadiths. Most are benign, so I wouldn't put that at the top of the list.
> 
> The fundamentalist teachings, when taught by a group such as ISIS is a big problem and it's mainly a problem because of the last part: western intervention.
> 
> It's a harsh pill to swallow, but our meddling in the Middle East has caused all of this. If you had subjected any sub-developed people to what we have you'd wind up with these problems.
> 
> 
> 
> A company sponsored by a television agency promoting a biased, inflammatory show asked ~1000 devout muslims at a meeting of devout muslims what they think.
> 
> Do you really think it would be any different if they asked 1000 very "devout" Catholics?
> 
> 
> 
> You mean 50% of .05%.


That website you linked as an apparent rebuttal to my claim just shows peaceful verses. There are many peaceful verses, there are many violent verses. It totally depends on how your interpret the Qu'ran, and neither interpretation is more valid than the other, because they both disregard vast swathes of the Qu'ran.

The 52% poll comes from ICM. How exactly are they biased? How are they promoting an inflammatory show?

They asked Muslims across the country, they didn't specifically ask devout and fundamentalist Muslims. ICM aren't biased, they are a goverment-registered, non-partisan member of the British Polling Council.

Also, polls for Christians actually show the majority of Christians in Britain support the legalisation of gay marriage, let alone asking them if they want homosexuality itself to be illegal. So no, it's different.

Your excuse of 'ooh, it's Western Interventionism!' is demonstrably wrong. Muslims in Egypt attacked a bus full of Christians a few weeks ago. They only spared Muslims, they killed everyone who was non-Muslim. Look at the 13 Islamic nations who still, in the modern day, execute homosexuals. And that bus attack really isn't a one-off case. I can find hundreds of examples of terror attacks against specifically non-Muslim people across the world.

How is that because of Western interventionism? How is that NOT because of Islam?

I really don't want to get banned for all this, but I really do want to hear your opinion.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Insomnia said:


> That website you linked as an apparent rebuttal to my claim just shows peaceful verses. There are many peaceful verses, there are many violent verses. It totally depends on how your interpret the Qu'ran, and neither interpretation is more valid than the other, because they both disregard vast swathes of the Qu'ran.



Sounds a lot like every holy text.



> The 52% poll comes from ICM. How exactly are they biased? How are they promoting an inflammatory show?
> 
> They asked Muslims across the country, they didn't specifically ask devout and fundamentalist Muslims. ICM aren't biased, they are a goverment-registered, non-partisan member of the British Polling Council.



They went into areas of poor, predominantly uneducated muslims. It was not a random sampling from the general muslin population. And the sample size itself was hilariously small to draw such wide reaching conclusions.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...hat-do-muslims-think-skewed-poll-wont-tell-us



> Also, polls for Christians actually show the majority of Christians in Britain support the legalisation of gay marriage, let alone asking them if they want homosexuality itself to be illegal. So no, it's different.



Depends on your flavor of Christianity. Some go more liberal some more conservative.



> Your excuse of 'ooh, it's Western Interventionism!' is demonstrably wrong. Muslims in Egypt attacked a bus full of Christians a few weeks ago. They only spared Muslims, they killed everyone who was non-Muslim. Look at the 13 Islamic nations who still, in the modern day, execute homosexuals.
> 
> How is that because of Western interventionism? How is that NOT because of Islam?



Do you legitimately not know the history of the Middle East? Not being a jerk, I'm asking honestly. You brought up intervention from the west first, what were you referring to?

Here's a basic primer:

http://www.globalissues.org/article/119/the-middle-east-conflict-a-brief-background
http://www.globalissues.org/issue/103/middle-east

Basically, a couple hundred years of exploitation through violence and colonialism turned a bunch of small, poor tribes and kingdoms into global issues. Where do you think these groups got thier money, weapons and training?

We created the warlords who indoctrinate the poor and uneducated into becoming terrorists. Why are those people poor and uneducated? Because we used thier homes as a sandbox of war and resource plundering for generations.

The instability we've fostered in the region has lead to disenfranchised youth who are easy to mold into what is now ISIS and was Taliban and was the various incarnations previously.


----------



## 7 Strings of Hate

We all love a little violence. We are humans. But I watch UFC or NFL or something. If religion wasn't there telling people to do fucking horrible things, they would still want some violence, but you can still satisfy that part of the species in other ways than murder. And of course there are always going to be people that do bad shit. Theres no avoiding that. But again, theres no avoiding that.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

7 Strings of Hate said:


> We all love a little violence. We are humans. But I watch UFC or NFL or something. If religion wasn't there telling people to do fucking horrible things, they would still want some violence, but you can still satisfy that part of the species in other ways than murder. And of course there are always going to be people that do bad shit. Theres no avoiding that. But again, theres no avoiding that.



Religion is but a tool to control the poor, uneducated and disenfranchised in this case.


----------



## vansinn

I see a lot of comment about ISIL/IC/Daesh being a radical mechanism off Islam.
Fact is that it grew out of Al-qaeda, which in turn was created from the West we live in.
Daesh basically formed in an Iraki prison camp (forgot the name of it), where a few "prisoners" had free access to roam around and were even permitted to leave camp - so they could meet handlers outside of camp.

The terrorist attacks seen all over Europe are created by design; they're part of the Neocon's International Tour d'Terror, with the purpose of destabalisation and terrorizing the minds of the peoples.
This is essentially a variant of one of the most used doctrines of population control throughout history: Problem-Response-Solution.
Present the problem and repeat it; get the people's response, and then present the solution.
Do it enough, and the people will demand action taken, and be ready to accept more military and police in armor with semi-automatics.

As such, it's also a derivative of the Total War Doctrine:
Total War added the population as a full target, no one were to be left feeling even reasonably secure. The more [minds] that could be terrorized, the more damage could be imposed onto a country.

But... this isn't how Western corporate main stream media spells it out; rather, they report as commanded, to support the agenda towards world disorder and more war, like, oh gosh, wouldn't it be sexy with a real religious war?
So it's no wonder so many thinks it's all about Islamic terrorists doing the deeds.

Try a re-check of the Charlie Hebdo event: The killers were dark-skinned Islamic terrorists, were they not? Only, one the videos revealed clothes slipping up on an arm, revealing.. tada.. light skin. They exit the building, taking time to change mags, needs to turn the get-away car around 'couse they parked in the wrong direction. A single police car approaches, AK47 out the window, ratatatata, but not a single hole of crushed glass in the police car. And so on...

These arranged terrorist attacks are so see-through.
Which does not at all make the deeds any less terrible; however, the most severe of this is that fact that so many eats MSM reports all too easy.

And about the Quaran talking about killing infidels.. well, the bible pretty much says the same, including doing nasty things to gays (not speaking on their behalf, just referring).

Peace, stringin' bro's


----------



## narad

Yup. Livin' in the cosmos.


----------



## Insomnia

MaxOfMetal said:


> Sounds a lot like every holy text.
> 
> 
> 
> They went into areas of poor, predominantly uneducated muslims. It was not a random sampling from the general muslin population. And the sample size itself was hilariously small to draw such wide reaching conclusions.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...hat-do-muslims-think-skewed-poll-wont-tell-us
> 
> 
> Do you legitimately not know the history of the Middle East? Not being a jerk, I'm asking honestly. You brought up intervention from the west first, what were you referring to?
> 
> Here's a basic primer:
> 
> http://www.globalissues.org/article/119/the-middle-east-conflict-a-brief-background
> http://www.globalissues.org/issue/103/middle-east
> 
> Basically, a couple hundred years of exploitation through violence and colonialism turned a bunch of small, poor tribes and kingdoms into global issues. Where do you think these groups got thier money, weapons and training?
> 
> We created the warlords who indoctrinate the poor and uneducated into becoming terrorists. Why are those people poor and uneducated? Because we used thier homes as a sandbox of war and resource plundering for generations.
> 
> The instability we've fostered in the region has lead to disenfranchised youth who are easy to mold into what is now ISIS and was Taliban and was the various incarnations previously.




Fair point, didn't realise that they were such poor areas. But I do have a question (which I couldn't find an answer to) which is: how many Muslims live in these 20% Muslim+ areas?

Also, again, I don't see how Western Interventionism (even if they did cause instability and funded these armed groups) would cause these groups to execute homosexuals, to want to kill Arab Christians, to want to oppress women's rights, and then to justify it with their holy book? Why would colonialism cause them to hate gays? It's their book that tells them that gays are evil and despicable and deserve to burn in the hell fire for eternity. 

I know why Western interventionism causes them to hate the West, sure, but not the groups I've mentioned.

I know the origins of ISIS. I know that under the Obama administration, it was allowed to grow and spawn. I believe that one of the key, founding members was a man released from Guantanamo under the Obama administration.


----------



## StevenC

Insomnia said:


> The IRA were different though. They were a political independence movement. They were generally confined to a geographical area. Islam, however, breeds terrorism throughout the world.



Yeah, but Islam started about 5-600 years after Christianity. You'll never guess what Christianity was doing 5-600 years ago.

Up until 9/11 the IRA would go to America to raise funds from "Irish" Americans who didn't understand the situation. That ended because they then understood what terrorism was. But you could also mention the UDA, UVF and the INLA. And there politics was as sophisticated as that of Islam: they're different; blow them up.

And don't forget that one side was doing it in the name of the Pope and the other in the name of the Queen. Who, as well as political leaders, are the heads of religious bodies.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Insomnia said:


> Fair point, didn't realise that they were such poor areas. But I do have a question (which I couldn't find an answer to) which is: how many Muslims live in these 20% Muslim+ areas?
> 
> Also, again, I don't see how Western Interventionism (even if they did cause instability and funded these armed groups) would cause these groups to execute homosexuals, to want to kill Arab Christians, to want to oppress women's rights, and then to justify it with their holy book? Why would colonialism cause them to hate gays? It's their book that tells them that gays are evil and despicable and deserve to burn in the hell fire for eternity.
> 
> I know why Western interventionism causes them to hate the West, sure, but not the groups I've mentioned.
> 
> I know the origins of ISIS. I know that under the Obama administration, it was allowed to grow and spawn. I believe that one of the key, founding members was a man released from Guantanamo under the Obama administration.



I'm not sure why you're latching onto Islam specifically. Religious folks in general are not very accepting of the LGBT community.

But all those groups you mentioned are soft targets. They're marginalized groups within the given region and thus are easy for militants of any denomination to attack. 

Terrorism is built in fear and the more bloodshed the better. Easier targets are easier to destroy in purposefully shocking ways.

Also, before we get all high and mighty it wasn't until relatively recently that the British government stopped chemically castrating gay men which lead to countless early deaths and suicides. 

The LGBT community has it rough, it's just a little messier in less developed parts of the world.


----------



## Insomnia

MaxOfMetal said:


> I'm not sure why you're latching onto Islam specifically. Religious folks in general are not very accepting of the LGBT community.
> 
> But all those groups you mentioned are soft targets. They're marginalized groups within the given region and thus are easy for militants of any denomination to attack.
> 
> Terrorism is built in fear and the more bloodshed the better. Easier targets are easier to destroy in purposefully shocking ways.
> 
> Also, before we get all high and mighty it wasn't until relatively recently that the British government stopped chemically castrating gay men which lead to countless early deaths and suicides.
> 
> The LGBT community has it rough, it's just a little messier in less developed parts of the world.


I'm harking on Islam because they're still the ones doing it, they're using teachings from their holy book to justify the killings and oppression, just like Christianity has. I blame both religions for their extremely harmful faults.

Gays getting killed by Muslims is the fault of Islam. Gays getting killed by Christians is the fault of Christianity. That is pure and simple. They have been oppressed and hated because of the ingrained hatred of gays throughout most religions.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Insomnia said:


> Oh, you mean there's more terrorism than Islamic terrorism?
> 
> Yes, you're right...only it's astronomically smaller.



You're ignoring all of South America and most of Asia then.

Look up LTTE, FARC, Shining Path and the NPA. 

But they don't fit the narrative, so they're ignored even though until the more recent rise of ISIS they killed tens of thousands.


----------



## Adam Of Angels

Max, look up inbreeding in Middle Eastern, predominantly Muslim countries, and you might find another piece of the puzzle. I don't think I ever heard about it until very recently, but it surprised me. I don't know exactly how prevalent it is, I'm not an expert and won't pretend to be, but my guess is that it might be easier to radicalize an inbred believer than one with an above average IQ.


----------



## mongey

it is truly terrible

decades of western interference and violence in the middle east created the violence of isis 

I don't think is a problem the west can solve. we'll bomb them and the children of the dead will grow up hating more . at this point I don't know WtF we do .once people are getting into cars and mowing people down , you have lost all control


----------



## EdgeC

mongey said:


> it is truly terrible
> 
> decades of western interference and violence in the middle east created the violence of isis
> 
> I don't think is a problem the west can solve. we'll bomb them and the children of the dead will grow up hating more . at this point I don't know WtF we do .once people are getting into cars and mowing people down , you have lost all control



Attempting to fight them doesn't work as you've rightly pointed out. It just sets the stage for the next generation and wastes millions of dollars. Terrorists win.

Obviously, what terrorists want is for people to be afraid. They want people to live in fear and they want to erode the freedoms and liberties we take for granted. Government crackdowns, surveillance etc will only erode our civil rights. Terrorists win.

So, we carry on as normal as possible while using appropriate means to attempt to prevent terrorism that don't impinge on our civil rights. And, most importantly, we try and reform the ways in which the media covers these events. Yes, we want to know what is going on but the rampant sensationalism give terrorists their platform and helps disseminate the fear they are trying to spread.

And just remember, you'll never stop someone deciding one day to jump in a car and mow people down, or grab a kitchen knife and go on a rampage, regardless of their motivation. But what resorting to these 'low tech' methods does suggest is that the techniques used to prevent mass casualty events could be having an effect.


----------



## chopeth

I haven't read the 3 pages of this thead, just the first post.

Better than "reform islam"  ... have you tried not financing and giving weapons to the countries from where this terrorism ideologically stems?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Adam Of Angels said:


> Max, look up inbreeding in Middle Eastern, predominantly Muslim countries, and you might find another piece of the puzzle. I don't think I ever heard about it until very recently, but it surprised me. I don't know exactly how prevalent it is, I'm not an expert and won't pretend to be, but my guess is that it might be easier to radicalize an inbred believer than one with an above average IQ.



Apparently this is only done by very small rural tribes, and only in certain regions. It's also not just muslim peoples either. 

I guess this happens in all different areas and denominations with similar small populations in a given area. 

I don't think genetically derived low IQ is to blame. Not going to school because the school was blown up, or the fear of such is what's keeping many in the Middle East uneducated, especially those too poor or resource derived to even have schools.


----------



## narad

chopeth said:


> I haven't read the 3 pages of this thead, just the first post.
> 
> Better than "reform islam"  ... have you tried not financing and giving weapons to the countries from where this terrorism ideologically stems?



Damn Obama! Giving these guys the trucks, bombs, and kitchen knives they then use against us! We must stop arming these lunatics!


----------



## vansinn

narad said:


> Yup. Livin' in the cosmos.



I don't know why you keep commenting me like this, but will try..
What is it you want from a discussion forum?
To me, a discussion forum is like virtually meeting at the Greek Agora, where scholars and common people meet to discuss life, politics, finance, arts and what now..

If I write something against the majority, I could either be right or wrong.
If I'm right, in a discussion like the one taking place now, I'm being provocative simply by being in opposition, and as such, I'm adding something to a discussion which can be argued pro or against, like any other post; if I'm wrong, then so be it, and other posts may be in the right.

However, if someone, like you, time again tries to ridicule me, all that may happen is that I'll bail out of such discussions, and as such, my comments, which could potentially carry value, potentially rendering an otherwise multi-facetted discussion with fewer facets.
And I sometimes do get PM's from someone saying they feel I'm in the right; unfortunately they don't seem to take part in such discussions themselves, maybe for the exact reason that they know the same will happen to them: Attempted ridicule.

Regarding the funny Cosmos thing; Cosmos is everywhere, it isn't outer space, which seems to be what you're trying to make it [me] look like.
If you can't tolerate my comments which clearly differs a lot from yours, I might say that, by attempting to ridicule me, you might be said to live in your own inner-space of MSM-domination.
This is of course quite provocative in it's own right.
Now, I'm not at all against you, Narad, and I do read your contributions.
I just wish you'd simply skip my comments when you dislike them.
Peace man


----------



## narad

vansinn said:


> I don't know why you keep commenting me like this, but will try..
> What is it you want from a discussion forum?
> To me, a discussion forum is like virtually meeting at the Greek Agora, where scholars and common people meet to discuss life, politics, finance, arts and what now..
> 
> If I write something against the majority, I could either be right or wrong.
> If I'm right, in a discussion like the one taking place now, I'm being provocative simply by being in opposition, and as such, I'm adding something to a discussion which can be argued pro or against, like any other post; if I'm wrong, then so be it, and other posts may be in the right.
> 
> However, if someone, like you, time again tries to ridicule me, all that may happen is that I'll bail out of such discussions, and as such, my comments, which could potentially carry value, potentially rendering an otherwise multi-facetted discussion with fewer facets.
> And I sometimes do get PM's from someone saying they feel I'm in the right; unfortunately they don't seem to take part in such discussions themselves, maybe for the exact reason that they know the same will happen to them: Attempted ridicule.
> 
> Regarding the funny Cosmos thing; Cosmos is everywhere, it isn't outer space, which seems to be what you're trying to make it [me] look like.
> If you can't tolerate my comments which clearly differs a lot from yours, I might say that, by attempting to ridicule me, you might be said to live in your own inner-space of MSM-domination.
> This is of course quite provocative in it's own right.
> Now, I'm not at all against you, Narad, and I do read your contributions.
> I just wish you'd simply skip my comments when you dislike them.
> Peace man



Fair enough man - I don't mean any comment on here to be personally insulting -- I did find it funny to read a sort of conspiracy theory post, think "who wrote that?", scroll up, "oh! Cosmos guy!"

As far as not replying to such comments, sure, request accepted. But I think in a thread on an attack that hits close to home for many of us, from a cause many of us have no doubts regarding, a radical/conspiracy post seems a bit insensitive. I'm sure families of 9/11 casualties are probably not so fond of discussing jet fuel / steel beams -- not that this attack hits *that* close to home for me.

I mean you're saying the hebdo hit was committed by a white man, to frame isis, and further empower governments with support for more militarization? Surely I don't have to point out that Islam is a religion and not a race, which seems to undercut that example?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Damn Obama! Giving these guys the trucks, bombs, and kitchen knives they then use against us! We must stop arming these lunatics!



Come on Narad, you know what he meant.

If these groups weren't using American and Soviet equipment they wouldn't have 1/1000th the following they have. 

The strength and capabilities of organized ISIS fighters in the Middle East fuels thier ability to influence lone wolf and shoestring insurgency in the West.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> Come on Narad, you know what he meant.
> 
> If these groups weren't using American and Soviet equipment they wouldn't have 1/1000th the following they have.
> 
> The strength and capabilities of organized ISIS fighters in the Middle East fuels thier ability to influence lone wolf and shoestring insurgency in the West.



It's possible or even plausible, but if we could go back in time and destabilize without leaving weapons behind, I'm not convinced it would really have any bearing on the isolated incidents of terrorism. I imagine that's just speculation on either side. 

Now if they didn't have their own versions of SSO with new-beheading-day posts, I think that would stem some of these attacks.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Do you think any of the serious groups would still be around if they didn't have millions of dollars in military hardware, stolen and otherwise?


----------



## narad

I'm just not going to believe I have any clue as to what portion of isis armaments comes from us / Russia / other, leftovers, what is purchased, etc. But I know these were not the types of weapons used in any of the London or Paris attacks so when it comes to preventing these things, I don't find it relevant.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

I didnt think that was going to be such a tough question, so I'll simplify it. 

Do you think ISIS would still be around as a fighting force if they didn't have conventional military weapons?

A second question:

Do you think these more recent attacks, where more primitive and improvised weapons are used, would occur if ISIS didn't exist?


----------



## narad

That's not the chain of thought in this thread though: the tense is wrong. OP starts but asking what we can do to stop more attacks, other guy suggests not arming them, and now you're talking about whether it was important that they had the weapons in the first place.

Unless there's some subtext about preventing further weapons from falling into their hands that I'm missing?? In which case, sure, but they seem sufficiently armed already.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

We're not talking about the OP still, we've moved on. 

We're talking about what all got us in this predicament to begin with. The thread being is it Islam's fault or the West's fault for kicking the Middle East around for over a century and then arming them.

Though, I suppose I'm also asking whether the end of ISIS will bring an end to these attacks.


----------



## asfeir

The hatred against the "west" has been around for a long time, but It didn't really materialized into attacks until recently. From that point on, I think it will be hard for the small isolated attacks to stop.
Also, is there an "end of ISIS"? the idea of an Islamic state will probably stay even if the current fighters are defeated.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

asfeir said:


> The hatred against the "west" has been around for a long time, but It didn't really materialized into attacks until recently. From that point on, I think it will be hard for the small isolated attacks to stop.
> Also, is there an "end of ISIS"? the idea of an Islamic state will probably stay even if the current fighters are defeated.



Is there some context I'm missing? There have been attacks by Middle Eastern terrorists on Western non-military targets for decades.


----------



## asfeir

Sure but I was thinking about the increase in the number of "small" attacks where a guy stabs a couple of people or when someone runs over a crow with his vehicle in the name of islam.


----------



## bostjan

So sorry to read about this.



For those of you comparing the IRA and ISIS - the PIRA (the branch of the IRA responsible for violence in the 1970's stemming from Northern Ireland) started off from a pro-Catholic public demonstration that escalated quickly between Catholic partisans and police. The huge difference, though, is that the PIRA wanted political change in Northern Ireland, and ISIS wants only the apocalypse. There is no political change that will placate ISIS, short of world destruction.

How can an organization set such an unreasonable goal? The answer is not Islam, although it is a tool corrupted by these people in order to grasp control of the weak willed. What these folks use as their not-so-secret ingredient in polarizing their own people to the point where they are willing to kill not just themselves, but everyone and everything they've ever known is pure hatred. It's a double-edged weapon: the more they hate us, the stronger they are, and the more we hate them, the more they are enabled.

When the USA invades a place like Syria, it supercharges these bastards. If the USA bombs someone's hometown and blows up everything that person ever knew, a free radical is created, harboring a hatred beyond what can be contained by political change. And through millennia of crusades and warfare in the middle east, the west has not just created a bunch of radicalized individuals, but an entire culture of hatred. 

God and religion are ideological inventions. As such, you cannot motivate a rational person to do irrational things merely because of religion or God. Therefore, hatred, in the name of religion, the name of God, is still just hatred.


----------



## JohnIce

asfeir said:


> Sure but I was thinking about the increase in the number of "small" attacks where a guy stabs a couple of people or when someone runs over a crow with his vehicle in the name of islam.



There's a proportionate increase in "small" attacks on muslims and refugees too though. Far-right parties are growing in practically every european country, and the US, well let's not even talk about it. In Sweden, something like 90 buildings meant for housing refugees burned last year. Such crimes are rarely solved while refugees and immigrants are kicked out of european countries in increasing numbers. A guy drove a truck into a crowd in Stockholm recently, he had just found out he was getting kicked out of Sweden. To me there's no doubt in my mind that the increasing hatred and hostility towards muslims in Europe and the US is fanning the flames and creating more terrorism. You can't let a guy like Trump become president and expect everyone he's villainizing to just sit quiet and take it.


----------



## Insomnia

MaxOfMetal said:


> Come on Narad, you know what he meant.
> 
> If these groups weren't using American and Soviet equipment they wouldn't have 1/1000th the following they have.
> 
> The strength and capabilities of organized ISIS fighters in the Middle East fuels thier ability to influence lone wolf and shoestring insurgency in the West.


There's another thing I find a bit strange about your overall argument. Yes, we've intervened in the ME, we've really ****ed up in most cases. But we've also armed them, we've trained them, we've worked with them and their communities in some cases too.

I'm not saying the damage to them = the help we've given them. But from an ideological perspective, arming them is surely not likely to increase the amount of radicals and the radical philosophy, just reduce their overall arms storage?


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> There's a proportionate increase in "small" attacks on muslims and refugees too though. Far-right parties are growing in practically every european country, and the US, well let's not even talk about it. In Sweden, something like 90 buildings meant for housing refugees burned last year. Such crimes are rarely solved while refugees and immigrants are kicked out of european countries in increasing numbers. A guy drove a truck into a crowd in Stockholm recently, he had just found out he was getting kicked out of Sweden. To me there's no doubt in my mind that the increasing hatred and hostility towards muslims in Europe and the US is fanning the flames and creating more terrorism. You can't let a guy like Trump become president and expect everyone he's villainizing to just sit quiet and take it.


You think it's fair to say 'we can't kick Muslims or migrants out (and they kicked him out because he was an IS sympathiser, not because he was Muslim) because if we try to, they end up killing dozens of people'?

Does that not show that there's a huge problem with the amount and kinds of migration entering Europe?

And the attacks on the migrant housing are disgusting. Really, really disgusting. And I hope you don't take this to sound like I'm justifying it, but those attacks are reactionary. They're reactionary to the rape crisis going on in Sweden, they're reactionary to the dozens of terror attacks.

We need to stop the far-right, but also stop the things that create the reactionary movement and push them into the extreme.


----------



## vilk

So, this is something my boss constantly says when the topic immigrants to America comes up, especially H1B visas and refugees, and it's something like:

_If we help everyone to run away from the problems in their respective nations, it acts to empower the extremists who are left without any real resistance. 
_
You guys are all smarter than me, and especially him, so what do you think about that? Are we making militant Islamism more centralized, powerful, ostensibly "worse" by brain draining the Middle East? or should I say, letting the Middle East brain drain itself. Though I mostly disagree with the guy, the logic does make sense... but then again, isn't that also the exact reason why Americans are mostly ethnic Europeans? So it'd be hypocritical to say so. But it seems outwardly like a logically correct statement. I know that it happens on a smaller scale between states of the USA.


----------



## Insomnia

bostjan said:


> So sorry to read about this.
> 
> 
> 
> For those of you comparing the IRA and ISIS - the PIRA (the branch of the IRA responsible for violence in the 1970's stemming from Northern Ireland) started off from a pro-Catholic public demonstration that escalated quickly between Catholic partisans and police. The huge difference, though, is that the PIRA wanted political change in Northern Ireland, and ISIS wants only the apocalypse. There is no political change that will placate ISIS, short of world destruction.
> 
> How can an organization set such an unreasonable goal? The answer is not Islam, although it is a tool corrupted by these people in order to grasp control of the weak willed. What these folks use as their not-so-secret ingredient in polarizing their own people to the point where they are willing to kill not just themselves, but everyone and everything they've ever known is pure hatred. It's a double-edged weapon: the more they hate us, the stronger they are, and the more we hate them, the more they are enabled.
> 
> When the USA invades a place like Syria, it supercharges these bastards. If the USA bombs someone's hometown and blows up everything that person ever knew, a free radical is created, harboring a hatred beyond what can be contained by political change. And through millennia of crusades and warfare in the middle east, the west has not just created a bunch of radicalized individuals, but an entire culture of hatred.
> 
> God and religion are ideological inventions. As such, you cannot motivate a rational person to do irrational things merely because of religion or God. Therefore, hatred, in the name of religion, the name of God, is still just hatred.



I have to wholeheartedly disagree with that. There are countless numbers of incredibly clever people who believe irrational things like the fables of the Bible and the Qu'ran. All the other parts of their academic lives are filled with logic and reason, but when it comes to religion, they chuck it right out the window. The religious conviction that is felt in religion is absolutely enough to push rational people into doing irrational things.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> You think it's fair to say 'we can't kick Muslims out (and they kicked him out because he was an IS sympathiser, not because he was Muslim) they end up killing dozens of people'?
> 
> Does that not show that there's a huge problem with the amount of kinds of migration entering Europe?



He was not kicked out for being an IS sympathizer, nor for being muslim. Don't assume things. In fact it's debatable whether he was either of those things, besides being pissed and violent. He was kicked out because he went through the same process as any immigrant, and after years building a life in Sweden he was told he couldn't stay.

So back to the point, what I'm saying is we can't treat muslims as second class citizens and expect 100% of them to stay nice and obedient while they're spat at by the government, the job market and the media. Just a few days ago, a bus of 20-year old kids were sent out of Sweden to Kabul. Same day, a bomb kills 20 people and injures nearly 100 in Kabul. How on earth do you expect immigrants to feel safe and trust the authorities when they know that can happen to them at any time?


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> He was not kicked out for being an IS sympathizer, nor for being muslim. Don't assume things. In fact it's debatable whether he was either of those things, besides being pissed and violent. He was kicked out because he went through the same process as any immigrant, and after years building a life in Sweden he was told he couldn't stay.
> 
> So back to the point, what I'm saying is we can't treat muslims as second class citizens and expect 100% of them to stay nice and obedient while they're spat at by the government, the job market and the media. Just a few days ago, a bus of 20-year old kids were sent out of Sweden to Kabul. Same day, a bomb kills 20 people and injures nearly 100 in Kabul. How on earth do you expect immigrants to feel safe and trust the authorities when they know that can happen to them at any time?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Stockholm_attack 

I highly doubt the Uzbek and Swedish intelligence services are going to make up a lie about a random guy who's been living there for years and years just because he's a Muslim, when they've let in thousands upon thousands of them with little to no (effective) background checks.

And I'm not saying we need to treat Muslims like second-class citizens, I'm saying we need to understand a problem that, in fact, regardless of what you think are the causes of it (interventionism or religion), is increasingly prevalent within the worldwide Muslim community, and we need to do things about it.

Sending people back to their country of origin does not constitute them killing people. There is literally no logic in wanting to stay in a country by killing citizens of it.


----------



## JohnIce

vilk said:


> So, this is something my boss constantly says when the topic immigrants to America comes up, especially H1B visas and refugees, and it's something like:
> 
> _If we help everyone to run away from the problems in their respective nations, it acts to empower the extremists who are left without any real resistance.
> _
> You guys are all smarter than me, and especially him, so what do you think about that? Are we making militant Islamism more centralized, powerful, ostensibly "worse" by brain draining the Middle East? or should I say, letting the Middle East brain drain itself. Though I mostly disagree with the guy, the logic does make sense... but then again, isn't that also the exact reason why Americans are mostly ethnic Europeans? So it'd be hypocritical to say so. But it seems outwardly like a logically correct statement. I know that it happens on a smaller scale between states of the USA.



The problem I see with that line of thinking, is that IS' mission statement is to cause a rift between muslims and everyone else, by a) making muslims hate the west, and b) making the west hate muslims. For the west to shut out the refugees is exactly what they want. If during this process they can start some civil wars and left vs. right chaos in the US and Europe then all the better. Basically everything they want is happening.


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> The problem I see with that line of thinking, is that IS' mission statement is to cause a rift between muslims and everyone else, by a) making muslims hate the west, and b) making the west hate muslims. For the west to shut out the refugees is exactly what they want. If during this process they can start some civil wars and left vs. right chaos in the US and Europe then all the better. Basically everything they want is happening.


But we simply can't let in all refugees without security checks. That's silly. Sweden and Germany and France have seen the effects of what is essentially uncontrolled immigration to their countries. 

It may be what ISIS wants, but at the same time, I reckon it'd be more harmful for our country to let everyone in than to block people we simply can't vet, and make some of them resent us. 

Also, if they are legitimately fleeing ISIS from persecution, it's very unlikely them getting turned away from the West VS them getting their houses bombed and family members killed by ISIS will make them turn to ISIS...


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Stockholm_attack
> 
> I highly doubt the Uzbek and Swedish intelligence services are going to make up a lie about a random guy who's been living there for years and years just because he's a Muslim, when they've let in thousands upon thousands of them with little to no (effective) background checks.
> 
> And I'm not saying we need to treat Muslims like second-class citizens, I'm saying we need to understand a problem that, in fact, regardless of what you think are the causes of it (interventionism or religion), is increasingly prevalent within the worldwide Muslim community, and we need to do things about it.
> 
> Sending people back to their country of origin does not constitute them killing people. There is literally no logic in wanting to stay in a country by killing citizens of it.



This is why he was deported, according to the very link you provided: "Akilov arrived in Sweden on 10 October 2014. He claimed asylum,[58] saying he needed refuge from "the Uzbek security services which he claims tortured him and accused him of terrorism and treason". *However, Sweden's Migration Board ruled that there was no evidence of this*, and in late 2016, Akilov was ordered to leave Sweden within four weeks.[59] When he failed to do so voluntarily and did not appear at the Swedish Migration Agency when called, the case was referred to the police;[60] however, he went into hiding and could not be found for deportation.[61]"

Who said anything about intelligence services making up lies about him being a muslim? You said he was deported for being an IS supporter, I simply said you were wrong. And according to your link, you were. Moving on.

No, sending someone back to their home country doesn't mean they're gonna start killing people. We agree there. But forcing large groups of people seeking asylum to go back to where they're fleeing from, is bound to trigger a fight-for-your-life reaction in *some* people that can be very irrational, vengeful and desperate. In other words, migration is not something you can be heavy handed with because if you don't treat people as real people with fears and emotions and psyches, then you're increasing the risk of terrorism. Note: Increasing the risk, not getting full responsibility. I just want to be clear on that.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> But we simply can't let in all refugees without security checks. That's silly. Sweden and Germany and France have seen the effects of what is essentially uncontrolled immigration to their countries.



Sweden, Germany and France have seen the effects of terrorism. You can blame that on immigration generosity if you will, I don't. I blame terrorists for terrorism, immigrants are something else. There are white, far right terrorists making bombs, burning down houses and attacking people with knives in Sweden too.

- edit - It seems you added something about the "rape crisis" in Sweden earlier on, and I can clarify that too because it's fallible. Sweden is a very, very feminist country. Our rape laws are very broad and encompassing a lot of things that might fall under assault or sexual harassment in other countries. We also count every instance of rape between the same two people, most countries don't. We also work very hard to fight the stigma around rape to get victims to actually press charges and feel supported by the community. That's why our rape statistics are very high, and we're proud of that. It means we're taking rape seriously, and more countries could learn from us. Lastly, the vast majority of rape in Sweden is by native swedish men, so there's that.


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> This is why he was deported, according to the very link you provided: "Akilov arrived in Sweden on 10 October 2014. He claimed asylum,[58] saying he needed refuge from "the Uzbek security services which he claims tortured him and accused him of terrorism and treason". *However, Sweden's Migration Board ruled that there was no evidence of this*, and in late 2016, Akilov was ordered to leave Sweden within four weeks.[59] When he failed to do so voluntarily and did not appear at the Swedish Migration Agency when called, the case was referred to the police;[60] however, he went into hiding and could not be found for deportation.[61]"
> 
> Who said anything about intelligence services making up lies about him being a muslim? You said he was deported for being an IS supporter, I simply said you were wrong. And according to your link, you were. Moving on.
> 
> No, sending someone back to their home country doesn't mean they're gonna start killing people. We agree there. But forcing large groups of people seeking asylum to go back to where they're fleeing from, is bound to trigger a fight-for-your-life reaction in *some* people that can be very irrational, vengeful and desperate. In other words, migration is not something you can be heavy handed with because if you don't treat people as real people with fears and emotions and psyches, then you're increasing the risk of terrorism. Note: Increasing the risk, not getting full responsibility. I just want to be clear on that.


Read that again, because quite frankly, you're wrong. The Swedish Immigration Board said that there was no evidence the Uzbek government were going to torture him, not that there was no evidence he was a supporter of IS.

The Swedish Police (sorry, not the intelligence services, but they are incredibly closely linked, so I wasn't really that wrong...) said he had links to IS, as did the Uzbek government.

And also, that means we're in a lose-lose situation. By taking in unvetted migrants, we increase our security risk immensely. By shutting the unvetted ones out (a totally reasonable demand), we also increase the terror risk because they resent us for not letting them in?

Then what on earth are we supposed to do?


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> Read that again, because quite frankly, you're wrong. The Swedish Immigration Board said that there was no evidence the Uzbek government were going to torture him, not that there was no evidence he was a supporter of IS.
> 
> The Swedish Police (sorry, not the intelligence services, but they are incredibly closely linked, so I wasn't really that wrong...) said he had links to IS, as did the Uzbek government.
> 
> And also, that means we're in a lose-lose situation. By taking in unvetted migrants, we increase our security risk immensely. By shutting the unvetted ones out (a totally reasonable demand), we also increase the terror risk because they resent us for not letting them in?
> 
> Then what on earth are we supposed to do?



How am I wrong? You said he was deported for being an IS supporter. Your link says he was deported for not having a valid enough reason to be granted asylum. Those are two entirely different reasons. How is this unclear?

As for your question on what on earth we're supposed to do, I agree we're in a lose-lose situation. However, to perform a terrorist attack you don't need to be a citizen. You can do that as a tourist. Hence, if someone goes through all the trouble of trying to get asylum in a country there's valid reason to believe they need it, at least in their own opinion. That's why I think avoiding terrorist attacks by means of heavier vetting of immigrants isn't necessarily a solution to anything.


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> The wikipedia article says: "The (Uzbek) Foreign Minister said that intelligence on Akilov had been "passed to one of our Western partners, so that the Swedish side could be informed". The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs said it had not received such information". This is what I remember reading in the papers also.
> 
> As for your question on what on earth we're supposed to do, I agree we're in a lose-lose situation. However, to perform a terrorist attack you don't need to be a citizen. You can do that as a tourist. Hence, if someone goes through all the trouble of trying to get asylum in a country there's valid reason to believe they need it, at least in their own opinion. That's why I think avoiding terrorist attacks by means of heavier vetting of immigrants isn't necessarily a solution to anything.


Okay, but the Swedish Police themselves still found evidence.

Also, you're wrong, it's so much easier to launch a large-scale terror attack as a citizen. They can gather arms, they can make long-term connections, have a base for their operations, do recon etc.

We know there are thousands upon thousands of ISIS members and supporters across Europe, coming into Europe from outside (as well as some born here). So again, we really can shut out terror attacks.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> Okay, but the Swedish Police themselves still found evidence.



While investigating the attack, after it happened. He was sentenced to be deported months earlier. Once again, he was not deported for being an IS supporter, why have we not moved past this yet?

On the rest, I've made my point and you've made yours, clearly we disagree.


----------



## tedtan

Insomnia said:


> We need to:
> -Reform Islam.



Care to elaborate on how you propose "we" accomplish this?


----------



## tedtan

MaxOfMetal said:


> Religion is but a tool to control the poor, uneducated and disenfranchised in this case.



Quite fucking true.




JohnIce said:


> You can't let a guy like Trump become president and expect everyone he's villainizing to just sit quiet and take it.



Also quite fucking true.


----------



## tedtan

chopeth said:


> have you tried not financing and giving weapons to the countries from where this terrorism ideologically stems?



We could try that, but it would involve the western world embargoing all Middle Eastern countries, including allies such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait,and we would all pay A LOT more for gas/petrol, diesel, heating fuel, etc. Then, after five or ten or twenty years, we may have made a point or we may have merely added fuel to the already burning fire. Given the tensions in the area, I tend to lean towards the latter.


----------



## tedtan

narad said:


> I'm just not going to believe I have any clue as to what portion of isis armaments comes from us / Russia / other, leftovers, what is purchased, etc. But I know these were not the types of weapons used in any of the London or Paris attacks so when it comes to preventing these things, I don't find it relevant.





Insomnia said:


> I'm not saying the damage to them = the help we've given them. But from an ideological perspective, arming them is surely not likely to increase the amount of radicals and the radical philosophy, just reduce their overall arms storage?



ISIS is able to make military accomplishments in the Middle East because of the equipment they have, and the more accomplishments they make, the more powerful they become to their followers and potential followers. So the military equipment is one of the pillars supporting their power in the ME, and the more power they have, the more followers they can recruit, not just in the ME, but in western countries, too.

As narad pointed out earlier in the thread, ISIS is already armed, so this point is more a discussion of how things got to where they are than one of an easy fix, but if we are able to prevent further military vehicles and weapons from falling into ISIS's hands while destroying what they currently poses, we can remove one of ISIS's pillars of power and hopefully ending the conflict sooner than would otherwise be possible.


----------



## bostjan

Insomnia said:


> I have to wholeheartedly disagree with that. There are countless numbers of incredibly clever people who believe irrational things like the fables of the Bible and the Qu'ran. All the other parts of their academic lives are filled with logic and reason, but when it comes to religion, they chuck it right out the window. The religious conviction that is felt in religion is absolutely enough to push rational people into doing irrational things.



With which thing I said are you disagreeing? That I'm sorry to read the news? That the PIRA started as a Catholic demonstration? That the PIRA is from Northern Ireland? That ISIS is a terrorist group hellbent on world destruction? That hatred is the real problem? What?

Also, what are you getting at? What irrational things do those rational people do?

I must be misunderstanding you because you were a little vague.



> reform Islam



I'm with the general consensus here, that there is no place to start with that. Jesus tried to reform Judaism and instead broke off into a new sect. Martin Luther tried to reform Catholicism and instead broke off into a new sect. Several folks have tried to reform Islam in the past, and each time, were either killed or broke off into a new sect.

There is no such thing as reforming a religion. You form it, then after that there is only schism.

Trying to reform anything from the outside is also impossible.


----------



## Insomnia

bostjan said:


> With which thing I said are you disagreeing? That I'm sorry to read the news? That the PIRA started as a Catholic demonstration? That the PIRA is from Northern Ireland? That ISIS is a terrorist group hellbent on world destruction? That hatred is the real problem? What?
> 
> Also, what are you getting at? What irrational things do those rational people do?
> 
> I must be misunderstanding you because you were a little vague.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm with the general consensus here, that there is no place to start with that. Jesus tried to reform Judaism and instead broke off into a new sect. Martin Luther tried to reform Catholicism and instead broke off into a new sect. Several folks have tried to reform Islam in the past, and each time, were either killed or broke off into a new sect.
> 
> There is no such thing as reforming a religion. You form it, then after that there is only schism.
> 
> Trying to reform anything from the outside is also impossible.


I already explained how rational people (established scientists) can be persuaded into the irrational (Biblical fables of unproven magic which they see as the absolute truth). 

Christianity obviously has had a huge reform (yes there are breakaway sects, but I'm talking about the fact that the Christians now take preference to the NT than to the OT, whereas they used to take preference to the OT than the NT), and I think Islam can too. 

That's why I support people such as Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation, and the Ahmadiyaah community. They actively promote the need for a re-think of Islamic theology and promote peace and love and kindness. 

I don't think a Western Government itself can reform a religion, but I think that we can encourage those inside the community to help reform it. The issue is that the Ahmadiyaah happen to be at ideological odds (it's complicated, I think it's along the lines of they believe that there were more true Prophets than Muhammad that spoke directly to God), and as such, are persecuted across the Islamic world. That means the most peaceful sect of Islam is getting shunned and attacked and members are getting killed by Muslims who see them as unislamic, even though the reason they are getting killed is not directly because they promote peace.

When it comes to Maajid Nawaz and Quilliam, they receive heavy criticism from fairly high-profile figures both in the British Islamic community, and the wider Islamic community. They also receive quite a lot of death threats too. That's the issue, they're faced with threats of violence by calling for peace.


----------



## Insomnia

tedtan said:


> Care to elaborate on how you propose "we" accomplish this?


See above.


----------



## bostjan

Insomnia said:


> I already explained how rational people (established scientists) can be persuaded into the irrational (Biblical fables of unproven magic which they see as the absolute truth).
> 
> Christianity obviously has had a huge reform (yes there are breakaway sects, but I'm talking about the fact that the Christians now take preference to the NT than to the OT, whereas they used to take preference to the OT than the NT), and I think Islam can too.
> 
> That's why I support people such as Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation, and the Ahmadiyaah community. They actively promote the need for a re-think of Islamic theology and promote peace and love and kindness.
> 
> I don't think a Western Government itself can reform a religion, but I think that we can encourage those inside the community to help reform it. The issue is that the Ahmadiyaah happen to be at ideological odds (it's complicated, I think it's along the lines of they believe that there were more true Prophets than Muhammad that spoke directly to God), and as such, are persecuted across the Islamic world. That means the most peaceful sect of Islam is getting shunned and attacked and members are getting killed by Muslims who see them as unislamic, even though the reason they are getting killed is not directly because they promote peace.
> 
> When it comes to Maajid Nawaz and Quilliam, they receive heavy criticism from fairly high-profile figures both in the British Islamic community, and the wider Islamic community. They also receive quite a lot of death threats too. That's the issue, they're faced with threats of violence by calling for peace.



I'm looking through this thread and I don't see any specific examples. Was it in another thread?


----------



## Insomnia

bostjan said:


> I'm looking through this thread and I don't see any specific examples. Was it in another thread?



I didn't specify scientists, I did specify academics/incredibly clever people though. Similar argument, really. 

'I have to wholeheartedly disagree with that. There are countless numbers of incredibly clever people who believe irrational things like the fables of the Bible and the Qu'ran. All the other parts of their academic lives are filled with logic and reason, but when it comes to religion, they chuck it right out the window. The religious conviction that is felt in religion is absolutely enough to push rational people into doing irrational things.'


----------



## tedtan

OK, if the reform of Islam is to come from within, it might work, whereas if it were something the western governments attempted to imposed from the outside, it would only add further friction and lead to more conflict.

But I still don't think it would work for the reasons bostjan mentioned above. What would most likely happen is that Islam would split into yet another faction/denomination and we'd end up with equivalent or even more fighting.

In order to get the terrorist groups to stop employing terrorism against the west, we need to get them to stop hating us. If they merely hated us because we have different beliefs, then they would simply let us answer for our sins when we die as their beliefs indicate. The problem is that much of the reason they hate us is our our behaviors, past and present, such as

- Israel: both the creation of and our continued support for;
- US meddling in the ME to protect/control oil supplies;
- Active military action in the ME with civilian casualties;
- Etc.​
aren't things that the west will ever stop, at least not until we've used up all the oil the ME countries are willing to sell us cheaply.

So there is the conundrum: how do we get people in the ME to stop hating us if we are unwilling to stop shitting in their back yard? I don't have this one solved, so I'm all ears if anyone has any ideas.


----------



## bostjan

So here is our exchange 



bostjan said:


> God and religion are ideological inventions. As such, you cannot motivate a rational person to do irrational things merely because of religion or God. Therefore, hatred, in the name of religion, the name of God, is still just hatred.





Insomnia said:


> I have to wholeheartedly disagree with that. There are countless numbers of incredibly clever people who believe irrational things like the fables of the Bible and the Qu'ran. All the other parts of their academic lives are filled with logic and reason, but when it comes to religion, they chuck it right out the window. The religious conviction that is felt in religion is absolutely enough to push rational people into doing irrational things.





bostjan said:


> Also, what are you getting at? What irrational things do those rational people do?
> 
> I must be misunderstanding you because you were a little vague.





Insomnia said:


> I already explained how rational people (established scientists) can be persuaded into the irrational (Biblical fables of unproven magic which they see as the absolute truth).





bostjan said:


> I'm looking through this thread and I don't see any specific examples. Was it in another thread?





Insomnia said:


> I didn't specify scientists, I did specify academics/incredibly clever people though. Similar argument, really.



So...it sounds like you are saying that rational people are motivated to do Biblical fables by religion. I guess I don't quite follow your point.

I suppose I was too vague as well. My point was that hatred motivates people to violence and that they use religion to justify it, not that religion motivates people toward hatred and violence. Perhaps I am splitting hairs, though, since if the people motivated by hatred are the same ones who use religion to justify it...except that there are plenty of religious people who are non-violent, as well. But I'm not really certain why I should have to backtrack and clarify that anyway. 

I may not agree with religion, but I'm not about to blame Islam as the primary motivator in the violence stemming from the Middle East. The Quran is violent, but honestly, no more violent than the Pentateuch, the Bible, the Vedas, etc. Atheists can be violent, too. What sets these really violent people apart from non-violent people, 10 times out of 10, is hatred.


----------



## tedtan

I don't want to put words in Insomnia's mouth, but I think he is saying that otherwise intelligent, educated, and rational people can do stupid, irrational things when motivated by deep seated religious convictions.

And I can see his point, especially at the level of the poor and uneducated that terrorist groups primarily prey upon, though I agree that religion is mostly used as a means of control and/or justification rather than the root cause of these types of incidents.


----------



## partialdeafness

Rational critique of islam can appear like bigotry if you want to believe that all religion is equal. The worst way of thinking is simply to hate the "other." A little bit better way of thinking is that any religion can be bad, and it's bad to be a bigot, so don't single any religion out. Although this feels good to think, it does not match reality very well-it is too post-modern "everything is relative," "there is no truth", etc. 
The truth is that there is a link between belief and action. Most of the 9/11 hijackers where actually very well educated, apparently intelligent people. What could make a normal, moral person behave in suck a way? Where they all sadistic sociopaths who wanted to cause pain? 
Only a twisted system of belief could make an otherwise rational person act so badly, because in their twisted frame of reference, they are doing something good. Not just ok, but highly honorable. They believe that any muslims they kill in the process will go to paradise, and that even those deaths are a positive thing.




JohnIce said:


> There's a proportionate increase in "small" attacks on muslims and refugees too though. Far-right parties are growing in practically every european country, and the US, well let's not even talk about it. In Sweden, something like 90 buildings meant for housing refugees burned last year. Such crimes are rarely solved while refugees and immigrants are kicked out of european countries in increasing numbers. A guy drove a truck into a crowd in Stockholm recently, he had just found out he was getting kicked out of Sweden. To me there's no doubt in my mind that the increasing hatred and hostility towards muslims in Europe and the US is fanning the flames and creating more terrorism. You can't let a guy like Trump become president and expect everyone he's villainizing to just sit quiet and take it.



This is one particular argument that to me highlights the problem we are dealing with. Islam is peaceful, but if you insult it, you are subject to violence because you insulted it? Seems to prove the opposite.

It's not that when the west makes it's plans, it shouldn't include blowback in the calculus. Quite the opposite. I think a good place to start would be to not support the saudi regime, since they are very similar to isis. They murder gays, but the u.s. government is just fine selling them F-16's. Absolutely infuriating. 
Of course, if we stopped supporting them, they would probably just move towards russian influence which would not be any better. And if we removed them by force, we could have another iraq(or worse.)
...

My point is not that we should hate muslims, but that if you look at polls for what muslims believe, you will find shocking percentages support death for leaving islam, persecuting homosexuals, and forcing women to live in subjugation, and so on. Reform is the only good way forward.


----------



## vilk

I've never understood the frequent Islam-apologist comment: _500 years ago Christianity was doing the same thing_. What is that an appeal to? Why is it relevant? What does relative "age" of a religion have to do with a proclivity for violence?


I think we need to promote the idea that Islam =/= Muslim. Islam is a religious philosophy--that is particularly violent and socially backwards. Muslims aren't. Usually. Like, how many people you know that believe in Jesus but wouldn't be caught dead at a prayer group? How many Christians do you know that actually waited till marriage for sex? If I believed that all Muslims were by the book, well I would actually be a little worried about them. If I believed that all Jews were by the book, I might be just as worried. But they aren't, just like almost no one is. Religion =/= Human.

Wanna know how to neuter some radical Islam? Expose them to other sh/t. These people are from homogeneous societies. My forecast is that the future of Islam in countries outside the ME (as in, Europe or USA) is that it will look quite a lot like that line graph of Christianity, going down, down, down.

If you ask me outright: Yeah, I'm anti-Islam. The tenets of that religion in every variety I'm aware of are totally heinous. But am I anti-Muslim? Of course not. That would mean being anti-human.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> The IRA were different though. They were a political independence movement. They were generally confined to a geographical area. Islam, however, breeds terrorism throughout the world.



Not to nit-pick (though, then again, I'm not sure this IS nit-picking, since it kind of cuts to the crux of this), but considering the stated goal of ISIS is after all to set up an Islamic _State_, I'd say that ISIS IS a political independence movement, too. They've just decided that it's a politically expedient strategy to launch terrorist attacks overseas to fan anti-Islamic sentiment abroad, so that they can better paint the conflict as an "Islam against godless heathens who hate us" conflict and shore up domestic support for what is an insanely fundamentalist, radical interpretation of Islam, as well as better justify their methods. 

If the IRA thought domestic belief in a global war on Catholicism would have gotten them a free Northern Ireland, we'd absolutely have seen suicide bombers at the door of the All Saint's Church in Wittenberg.


----------



## AngstRiddenDreams

Abolishing religious ties to governments would be a good first step.


----------



## Insomnia

tedtan said:


> OK, if the reform of Islam is to come from within, it might work, whereas if it were something the western governments attempted to imposed from the outside, it would only add further friction and lead to more conflict.
> 
> But I still don't think it would work for the reasons bostjan mentioned above. What would most likely happen is that Islam would split into yet another faction/denomination and we'd end up with equivalent or even more fighting.
> 
> In order to get the terrorist groups to stop employing terrorism against the west, we need to get them to stop hating us. If they merely hated us because we have different beliefs, then they would simply let us answer for our sins when we die as their beliefs indicate. The problem is that much of the reason they hate us is our our behaviors, past and present, such as
> 
> - Israel: both the creation of and our continued support for;
> - US meddling in the ME to protect/control oil supplies;
> - Active military action in the ME with civilian casualties;
> - Etc.​
> aren't things that the west will ever stop, at least not until we've used up all the oil the ME countries are willing to sell us cheaply.
> 
> So there is the conundrum: how do we get people in the ME to stop hating us if we are unwilling to stop shitting in their back yard? I don't have this one solved, so I'm all ears if anyone has any ideas.


I've asked this point already, I didn't receive an answer. Let's forget Islam entirely for the moment, because despite the fact I think it is the primary factor for the hatred I am about to describe, it is not a necessary argument in this debate.

Muslim extremists (whether you think they are guided by Islam or not) are killing Christians. They are killing gays. They are killing non-Muslims. Why on Earth would our stopping any meddling in the ME solve those problems, exactly? Genuinely, how would use taking a non-interventionist policy stop their bigotry which is clearly not motivated by the West, but by _some other factor. 

_


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> Not to nit-pick (though, then again, I'm not sure this IS nit-picking, since it kind of cuts to the crux of this), but considering the stated goal of ISIS is after all to set up an Islamic _State_, I'd say that ISIS IS a political independence movement, too. They've just decided that it's a politically expedient strategy to launch terrorist attacks overseas to fan anti-Islamic sentiment abroad, so that they can better paint the conflict as an "Islam against godless heathens who hate us" conflict and shore up domestic support for what is an insanely fundamentalist, radical interpretation of Islam, as well as better justify their methods.
> 
> If the IRA thought domestic belief in a global war on Catholicism would have gotten them a free Northern Ireland, we'd absolutely have seen suicide bombers at the door of the All Saint's Church in Wittenberg.


I'm talking about all Islamic terrorism, though.


----------



## Insomnia

tedtan said:


> I don't want to put words in Insomnia's mouth, but I think he is saying that otherwise intelligent, educated, and rational people can do stupid, irrational things when motivated by deep seated religious convictions.
> 
> And I can see his point, especially at the level of the poor and uneducated that terrorist groups primarily prey upon, though I agree that religion is mostly used as a means of control and/or justification rather than the root cause of these types of incidents.


I am saying that, yes, I am. Not just do stupid, irrational things, but also believe stupid, irrational things.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> I've asked this point already, I didn't receive an answer. Let's forget Islam entirely for the moment, because despite the fact I think it is the primary factor for the hatred I am about to describe, it is not a necessary argument in this debate.
> 
> Muslim extremists (whether you think they are guided by Islam or not) are killing Christians. They are killing gays. They are killing non-Muslims. Why on Earth would our stopping any meddling in the ME solve those problems, exactly? Genuinely, how would use taking a non-interventionist policy stop their bigotry which is clearly not motivated by the West, but by _some other factor.
> _



If those christians, gays and non-muslims could unite with the peaceful muslims, we'd be a few billion strong having each others' backs and the extremists would be reduced and contained like any other sect or political group of nuts. And that's the best we've ever had or ever will have, because extremism has never in the history of the world not been a threat. I mean, Breivik killed a hundred children at a socialist youth camp in Norway a few years back, how can we ever be safe from a nut with an automatic rifle? We won't. But we can stop confusing terrorists with muslims and treat innocent people with decency.


----------



## Insomnia

I should clarify my belief.

I maintain that terrorism (and hatred and intolerance) in the Islamic world stems from two places: interventionism and Islam.

I also think that the organisation called ISIS isn’t actually fundamentally Islamic. They worship Baghdadi like a demigod, consistently rape women, they kill their fellow Muslims, they often are found taking drugs and drinking alcohol. There are numerous other Islamic terror groups and fundamentalist groups that I do in fact see as fundamentally Islamic, however, ISIS is most certainly not one of them.

I believe that ISIS are recruiting these young men through two ways: obviously, like a gang, they have power and influence, and these generally poor and uneducated disaffected young men are drawn into it. 

However, that’s where the second problem lies: they cherry-pick fundamentalist Islamic teachings to draw religious conviction on these young men. It is still the fault of Islam that it allows for such an interpretation to be put upon these young men.

Islam can be interpreted as incredibly peaceful, it can be interpreted as horrifically violent. I don’t think one interpretation makes more sense than the other, considering the numerous verses each side just brushes off as ‘incorrect’ or ‘irrelevant’.

However, in terms of governments like Saudi Arabia and UAE, and in terms of the countless Islamic hate preachers across the Western World (and the mainstream Islamic world), I believe those people are legitimate Muslims who are preaching these things as they read them in the Qu’ran. 

I also think it’s silly to say ‘religion is only ever a factor of control, not of original influence in attacks, Western Interventionism is’. 

Western interventionism (like I’ve said) doesn’t explain theocratic governments. It doesn’t explain attacks on non-interventionist countries (like we are seeing across Asia, and in countries like Sweden). It doesn’t explain the hatred of non-Muslims in the ME, it doesn't explain the mass-oppression of women, it doesn’t explain the calls to violence from people like Charlie Hebdo or Salman Rushdie, it doesn’t explain how these people’s root influence of such extremism came about.


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> If those christians, gays and non-muslims could unite with the peaceful muslims, we'd be a few billion strong having each others' backs and the extremists would be reduced and contained like any other sect or political group of nuts. And that's the best we've ever had or ever will have, because extremism has never in the history of the world not been a threat. I mean, Breivik killed a hundred children at a socialist youth camp in Norway a few years back, how can we ever be safe from a nut with an automatic rifle? We won't. But we can stop confusing terrorists with muslims and treat innocent people with decency.


We should not conflate liberal Muslims with fundamentalist Muslims, no, you're absolutely correct. Well said.


----------



## Explorer

I agree that some embrace whatever justification they can to do violence to those they perceive as "other."

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/31...ght-terrorists-pose-a-clear-danger-to-us-all/

Despite Trump deciding to ignore homegrown terrorists, for whatever unspoken reason, right-wing terrorists kill more people than Islamic terrorists in the US since 9/11.

Specifically in the UK, I was there during the years of IRA and National Front violence.

In fact, the horrible practice of "cracking," practiced by National Front terrorists, could reaonably be considered one of the factors leading citizens of the Empire to perceive that Empire as their enemy. It doesn't even require explanations implicating Islam or western interventionism, just horrible racism against people with dark skin.

Wasn't a NHS doctor, after spending 48 hours helping victims of a recent terrorist attack, the subject of a racist tirade in Manchester because of his dark skin? *Yelling at a doctor and citizen that he's a "Paki bas***d" doesn't seem like anything but horrible racism, and definitely points out a more local reason for the alienation which might lead to radicalization.
*
Remember, it'a not like that racist insult just emerged from the recent attacks. This is a systemic racism which has been part of the Empire for longer than our lifetimes.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> I'm talking about all Islamic terrorism, though.



I'm perfectly aware. And I'm saying that it _absolutely_ has a political independence objective to it, considering that IS is, after all, trying to found a state in the Middle East. Let's not pretend that they don't have pragmatic goals and the extremism isn't a means to an end.


----------



## EdgeC

Interesting graph of terrorist related attacks in the UK in the past ~50 years. Supports the point I made earlier about media sensationalism. It also suggests the bulk of terrorist related activity in the UK happened before 'Islam' became synonymous with terrorism. 

It's not Islam, it's people with an agenda. Any agenda, religious or otherwise. And as Drew rightly pointed out, if the IRA thought they'd gain an independent Northern Ireland by shooting up a concert hall in France, I dare say they would have.


----------



## Dredg

It is impossible to "reform" Islam without gutting the bedrock of its belief system and dismantling entire sects, cultures, and governments.

What most people don't understand, is the importance of the hadith (the prophet Muhammad's sayings) in relation to the Qur'an. Some sects place it second to the Qur'an, yet many more view it as equal in importance and message (as well as some who place it above the Qur'an). One of the most apparent examples lies in the grooming and dress habits of men; trimming the mustache while keeping the beard, not allowing clothing to fall below the ankle or above the knee, eschewing silk garments and golden finery... all this (and more!) in order to differentiate oneself from the non-believers. This is further expounded with moronic knee-jerk advice, such as dying one's hair because the Jews and Christians do not (tons of references to do the exact opposite of what non-believers do... take your pick).

While the above example is rather tame, it is the philosophy of standing apart from non-muslims that will continue to alienate the Muslim world from the secular world. Countries that demand cultural assimilation (such as the Euro and Nordic shelter countries) are experiencing pushback because Islam quite simply forbids it. A simple reading of even the most well-known collection of hadith, Sahih Bukhari, will also show plenty of anti-semitism and archaic commands that reflect 6th and 7th century beliefs. Ludicrous statements such as flies carrying disease on one wing and the cure for that disease on the other wing, or that looking at your partner's genitals/talking excessively during intercourse will result in birth defects. Again, a plethora of silliness to choose from.

And yes, this is where it clearly states that apostates should be put to death. Devout, by-the-books Muslims will never accept cultural assimilation unless you assimilate into their culture. After you say your shahadah (affirmation of faith), there is a MASSIVE push for westerners to change their name, learn arabic, dress differently, and to adopt "Islamic" mannerisms, such as sitting like the prophet did, eating with two fingers and a thumb like the prophet did, sleeping on one side like the prophet did, ritual washing like the like the prophet did, praying like the prophet did... you get the picture.

The divide begins within Islam itself.

Fun fact: different sects revere different collections of hadith.


----------



## Insomnia

bostjan said:


> So here is our exchange
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So...it sounds like you are saying that rational people are motivated to do Biblical fables by religion. I guess I don't quite follow your point.
> 
> I suppose I was too vague as well. My point was that hatred motivates people to violence and that they use religion to justify it, not that religion motivates people toward hatred and violence. Perhaps I am splitting hairs, though, since if the people motivated by hatred are the same ones who use religion to justify it...except that there are plenty of religious people who are non-violent, as well. But I'm not really certain why I should have to backtrack and clarify that anyway.
> 
> I may not agree with religion, but I'm not about to blame Islam as the primary motivator in the violence stemming from the Middle East. The Quran is violent, but honestly, no more violent than the Pentateuch, the Bible, the Vedas, etc. Atheists can be violent, too. What sets these really violent people apart from non-violent people, 10 times out of 10, is hatred.


And where does that hatred stem from? In terms of Islamic fundamentalists, surprise surprise, it stems from Islamic texts and preachers!


----------



## chopeth

tedtan said:


> We could try that, but it would involve the western world embargoing all Middle Eastern countries, including allies such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait,and we would all pay A LOT more for gas/petrol, diesel, heating fuel, etc. Then, after five or ten or twenty years, we may have made a point or we may have merely added fuel to the already burning fire. Given the tensions in the area, I tend to lean towards the latter.



We shouldn't be interested in those allies if they don't respect human rights, let alone if they ideologically support the movements that threaten our countries with trucks and weapons. We can't have all. Developing new and clean energy sources (and stopping oligopolies) to avoid fossile fuels is a must, not only for anti-terrorist fight, but for the sake of our planet which isn't something important for Trump and the like as it seems.

But we need a lot more of work. F.e., we need more education and integration of the 2nd or 3rd generation of inmmigrants in our countries to prevent this new form of terrorism, the solution should be an effort in a lot of parts involved. We must understand why these generations of new citicens in our countries are loosing touch and obviously "reforming Q'ran" or whatever the simplistic stupid solution is out of question here.


----------



## bostjan

Insomnia said:


> And where does that hatred stem from? In terms of Islamic fundamentalists, surprise surprise, it stems from Islamic texts and preachers!



But that thinking is circular. What is the deal with these terrorists? They hate us. Where does that hate come from? Islam. Howcome? Because the terrorists put it there.

I firmly believe that the root cause in this is not simply internal, but a mixture of external prompting and internal backwards-ness. My argument is that if these folks were not Muslim, but Zoroastrians, or Dagonites, or worshipers of Cthulhu, it wouldn't make any difference. The culture in which these people are steeped is not congruent with the practices of Islam anyway. They are taught from an early age to hate everything they don't understand, to hate anything from outside of their culture, and to deal with that hatred by outward violence. This is from tribal laws and rites that have nothing to do with Islam. But the manipulators from within their communities paint the face of Islam on all of these little rules and over this entire culture of hatred.

Do you follow me?

Blaming Islam for these acts of violence is silly. Islam is a set of beliefs. Actions and decisions are made by people, not beliefs. A belief is something held by a person. If some idiot tries to run me down with his car, I don't blame Chrysler, I blame the driver, even if the driver calls himself "The Chrysler State."


----------



## vilk

What if he cries out "Chrysler is great!" while he's crunching over your spine?

---------------


So like, if reforming Islam is so "impossible", then how did the Jews do it? That religion is even older, arguably as weird and socially backwards with it's beliefs (especially with regards to women), arguably as violent, yet Reform Judaism has totally taken off. I'm curious to know what percent of all [religious] Jews are Reform.

I think it's just a matter of popularizing and proselytizing. If we can hook some more of these old fashioned Muslims on the Reform train, I think it would really take off, act as sort of a stepping stone. They wouldn't have to abandon their faith, but they also wouldn't have to do all the disagreeable stuff they probably don't _really_ want to do in the first place. In the context of Christianity, church used to be _fucking serious_. But these days almost half the ones people go to are just rock'n'roll singalongs.

They actually already have this "Reform Islam", but I just forgot the name of it. But unfortunately I'd assume practitioners would be immediately jailed or killed in many Islamic nations.


----------



## Dredg

bostjan said:


> But that thinking is circular. What is the deal with these terrorists? They hate us. Where does that hate come from? Islam. Howcome? Because the terrorists put it there.
> 
> I firmly believe that the root cause in this is not simply internal, but a mixture of external prompting and internal backwards-ness. My argument is that if these folks were not Muslim, but Zoroastrians, or Dagonites, or worshipers of Cthulhu, it wouldn't make any difference. The culture in which these people are steeped is not congruent with the practices of Islam anyway. They are taught from an early age to hate everything they don't understand, to hate anything from outside of their culture, and to deal with that hatred by outward violence. This is from tribal laws and rites that have nothing to do with Islam. But the manipulators from within their communities paint the face of Islam on all of these little rules and over this entire culture of hatred.
> 
> Do you follow me?
> 
> Blaming Islam for these acts of violence is silly. Islam is a set of beliefs. Actions and decisions are made by people, not beliefs. A belief is something held by a person. If some idiot tries to run me down with his car, I don't blame Chrysler, I blame the driver, even if the driver calls himself "The Chrysler State."




And yet you don't see Coptic Christians, Zoroastrians, Bahai, Al-Illahists, Yazidis, the Druze, or any other religions linked to Arab customs and culture bombing ice cream shops or driving lorrys into crowds. Mostly because they're also being persecuted as well. One of the biggest problems within the Arab world is Islamic sectarian violence. Sunnis and Shias have been at each other's throats ever since Abu Bakr became Islam's first caliph after Muhammad's death. Violence is completely justified both in contexts of Jihad and in daily life as prescribed in both Qur'an and hadith especially towards non-muslims.


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> What if he cries out "Chrysler is great!" while he's crunching over your spine?



This made me laugh out loud. I'm not certain I can accurately describe why.



vilk said:


> So like, if reforming Islam is so "impossible", then how did the Jews do it? That religion is even older, arguably as weird and socially backwards with it's beliefs (especially with regards to women), arguably as violent despite, yet Reform Judaism has totally taken off. I'm curious to know what percent of all [religious] Jews are Reform.
> 
> I think it's just a matter of popularizing and proselytizing. If we can hook some more of these old fashioned Muslims on the Reform train, I think it would really take off, act as sort of a stepping stone. They wouldn't have to abandon their faith, but they also wouldn't have to do all the disagreeable stuff they probably don't _really_ want to do in the first place. In the context of Christianity, church used to be _fucking serious_. But these days almost half the ones people go to are just rock'n'roll singalongs.
> 
> They actually already have this "Reform Islam", but I just forgot the name of it. But unfortunately I'd assume practitioners would be immediately jailed or killed in many Islamic nations.



You mean Salafism? That's been the predominant reform movement in Islam, although it is pressuring for a stricter, more conservative, and sometimes more violent Islam.



Dredg said:


> And yet you don't see Coptic Christians, Zoroastrians, Bahai, Al-Illahists, Yazidis, the Druze, or any other religions linked to Arab customs and culture bombing ice cream shops or driving lorrys into crowds. Mostly because they're also being persecuted as well. One of the biggest problems within the Arab world is Islamic sectarian violence. Sunnis and Shias have been at each other's throats ever since Abu Bakr became Islam's first caliph after Muhammad's death. Violence is completely justified both in contexts of Jihad and in daily life as prescribed in both Qur'an and hadith especially towards non-muslims.



Well, not anymore, but when those religions were widespread, they were also used to promote violence, just like I was saying. Whatever the attackers hold for a banner is not important, really, as they are all interchangeable.


----------



## vilk

bostjan said:


> You mean Salafism? That's been the predominant reform movement in Islam, although it is pressuring for a stricter, more conservative, and sometimes more violent Islam.



Well fuck it


----------



## Dredg

bostjan said:


> Well, not anymore, but when those religions were widespread, they were also used to promote violence, just like I was saying. Whatever the attackers hold for a banner is not important, really, as they are all interchangeable.



Precisely. Pre-Islamic Arabia solved this problem with the establishment of sacred months, where violence was forbidden and pilgrimage to religious sites (Meccan shrines) were encouraged. These traditions were indeed adopted by Islam, as the religion boasts not only 4 holy months, but a mandatory pilgrimage to those who are capable. 

When atrocities are performed in the name of a religion, it is imperative that the secular world understands why - and delving into the mandates of prescribed belief is exactly the first step. When you hear of an ex-muslim being killed by an angry street mob at the behest of a local Imam, there's a religious justification for it. When you hear of Christian parents letting a child die of curable illness because they believe in the power of faith healing, there's a religious justification for it. When you hear of a rabbi transmitting herpes to a baby during a bris, there is a religious justification for that. It's time we stop looking at these people like they're mentally ill when their claims are absolutely justified within the confines of their worldview - as laid out in black and white in their holy books.


----------



## tedtan

chopeth said:


> We shouldn't be interested in those allies if they don't respect human rights, let alone if they ideologically support the movements that threaten our countries with trucks and weapons. We can't have all. Developing new and clean energy sources (and stopping oligopolies) to avoid fossile fuels is a must, not only for anti-terrorist fight, but for the sake of our planet which isn't something important for Trump and the like as it seems.



I don't disagree, but I think you are overlooking how much political and financial power the big oil companies possess in western governments and economies.




partialdeafness said:


> Most of the 9/11 hijackers where actually very well educated, apparently intelligent people. What could make a normal, moral person behave in suck a way? Where they all sadistic sociopaths who wanted to cause pain?
> Only a twisted system of belief could make an otherwise rational person act so badly, because in their twisted frame of reference, they are doing something good.



There are definitely examples of educated intelligent people joining Al Queda/ISIS/etc., but the number of intelligent, educated people who are disaffected enough to join those types of extremist movements is greatly overshadowed by the number of poor, uneducated people manipulated into joining those same movements.




partialdeafness said:


> I think a good place to start would be to not support the saudi regime, since they are very similar to isis. They murder gays, but the u.s. government is just fine selling them F-16's. Absolutely infuriating



Gotta keep them placated enough that they keep sending us their oil. 




partialdeafness said:


> Of course, if we stopped supporting them, they would probably just move towards russian influence which would not be any better. And if we removed them by force, we could have another iraq(or worse.)



True.


----------



## tedtan

Insomnia said:


> I've asked this point already, I didn't receive an answer. Let's forget Islam entirely for the moment, because despite the fact I think it is the primary factor for the hatred I am about to describe, it is not a necessary argument in this debate.
> 
> Muslim extremists (whether you think they are guided by Islam or not) are killing Christians. They are killing gays. They are killing non-Muslims. Why on Earth would our stopping any meddling in the ME solve those problems, exactly? Genuinely, how would use taking a non-interventionist policy stop their bigotry which is clearly not motivated by the West, but by _some other factor._



There are a couple of different parts to this. First, as bostjan mentioned previously, much of the violence stems from the tribal laws and rules, not from Islam. The tribal leaders merely use Islam to justify the violence.

Second, western (primarily US) interventionism caused a lot of hatred towards the west and one of those people who decided to take action was Osama Bin Laden who went on to found Al Queda. ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is an offshoot of Al Queda, so from a foundational perspective, without US interventionism, there would be no Al Queda or ISIS, at least not as we know them.

If the US and other western countries were to pull out of the ME, it would not be a quick fix for the hatred that already exists. In fact, it would destabilize the region even further, most likely leading to even more hatred against the US/west, at least initially. And while I know this won't happen (at least not before ME oil runs out), I do think it is a necessary component of restoring a positive relationship with the people of the ME.




Insomnia said:


> I should clarify my belief.
> 
> I maintain that terrorism (and hatred and intolerance) in the Islamic world stems from two places: interventionism and Islam.



I don't disagree with this, though I do disagree with the emphasis you place on Islam itself. Look to those with an agenda (western countries, western businesses, ME governments, ME tribal leaders, ME businesses, Al Queda, ISIS looking to form an extremist Islamic State, etc.) and you'll find where the blame should be placed.




Insomnia said:


> I also think that the organisation called ISIS isn’t actually fundamentally Islamic. They worship Baghdadi like a demigod, consistently rape women, they kill their fellow Muslims, they often are found taking drugs and drinking alcohol. There are numerous other Islamic terror groups and fundamentalist groups that I do in fact see as fundamentally Islamic, however, ISIS is most certainly not one of them.



Yet you still blame Islam for their actions? Those two positions are diametrically opposed to one another.




Insomnia said:


> However, that’s where the second problem lies: they cherry-pick fundamentalist Islamic teachings to draw religious conviction on these young men. It is still the fault of Islam that it allows for such an interpretation to be put upon these young men.



Sounds like just about every other cult or reform movement in the history of mankind.




Insomnia said:


> Islam can be interpreted as incredibly peaceful, it can be interpreted as horrifically violent. I don’t think one interpretation makes more sense than the other, considering the numerous verses each side just brushes off as ‘incorrect’ or ‘irrelevant’.



No religious text that I am familiar with actually makes sense when taken as a whole because they contradict themselves at every opportunity, leaving them open to interpretation, which is exactly why so many rulers use them to support their agenda - they can interpret the religious text in a manner that supports their agenda and these texts hold power over their followers.




Insomnia said:


> However, in terms of governments like Saudi Arabia and UAE, and in terms of the countless Islamic hate preachers across the Western World (and the mainstream Islamic world), I believe those people are legitimate Muslims who are preaching these things as they read them in the Qu’ran.



Take a look at how the royal families of these countries behave when vacationing in Las Vegas or Monaco and you'll see just how devout they truly are. 




Insomnia said:


> I also think it’s silly to say ‘religion is only ever a factor of control, not of original influence in attacks, Western Interventionism is’.



Just to clarify, that's not what I said earlier as there are some who take these actions based on their religious beliefs. But most of these people are being manipulated to take that action by someone in a position of power with an agenda. For the record, this is what I said earlier.



tedtan said:


> religion is mostly used as a means of control and/or justification rather than the root cause of these types of incidents.






Insomnia said:


> Western interventionism (like I’ve said) doesn’t explain theocratic governments. It doesn’t explain attacks on non-interventionist countries (like we are seeing across Asia, and in countries like Sweden). It doesn’t explain the hatred of non-Muslims in the ME, it doesn't explain the mass-oppression of women, it doesn’t explain the calls to violence from people like Charlie Hebdo or Salman Rushdie, it doesn’t explain how these people’s root influence of such extremism came about.



Theocratic governments use religion to control their subjects. 

The rest of that is mostly tribal laws and rules wrapped in a cloak of (selectively interpreted) Islam in order to make it acceptable to those subject to that particular tribal leader. 

As for the root cause of that extremism, look to tribal laws and western interventionism to explain a large portion of it. But the ME has been in turmoil and conflict since long before any of the current religions popular in the area came to be, so much of this is cultural as well. And cultural change in the ME is another component necessary in order for the ME to achieve a good relationship with the rest of world. Fortunately, this is much quicker and easier than changing the religion itself (just look where the US was 100 years ago, culturally, and where we are now (now meaning before Trump moves us 100 years back in time before leaving office)).


----------



## Insomnia

tedtan said:


> There are a couple of different parts to this. First, as bostjan mentioned previously, much of the violence stems from the tribal laws and rules, not from Islam. The tribal leaders merely use Islam to justify the violence.
> 
> Second, western (primarily US) interventionism caused a lot of hatred towards the west and one of those people who decided to take action was Osama Bin Laden who went on to found Al Queda. ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is an offshoot of Al Queda, so from a foundational perspective, without US interventionism, there would be no Al Queda or ISIS, at least not as we know them.
> 
> If the US and other western countries were to pull out of the ME, it would not be a quick fix for the hatred that already exists. In fact, it would destabilize the region even further, most likely leading to even more hatred against the US/west, at least initially. And while I know this won't happen (at least not before ME oil runs out), I do think it is a necessary component of restoring a positive relationship with the people of the ME.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't disagree with this, though I do disagree with the emphasis you place on Islam itself. Look to those with an agenda (western countries, western businesses, ME governments, ME tribal leaders, ME businesses, Al Queda, ISIS looking to form an extremist Islamic State, etc.) and you'll find where the blame should be placed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yet you still blame Islam for their actions? Those two positions are diametrically opposed to one another.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sounds like just about every other cult or reform movement in the history of mankind.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No religious text that I am familiar with actually makes sense when taken as a whole because they contradict themselves at every opportunity, leaving them open to interpretation, which is exactly why so many rulers use them to support their agenda - they can interpret the religious text in a manner that supports their agenda and these texts hold power over their followers.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Take a look at how the royal families of these countries behave when vacationing in Las Vegas or Monaco and you'll see just how devout they truly are.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just to clarify, that's not what I said earlier as there are some who take these actions based on their religious beliefs. But most of these people are being manipulated to take that action by someone in a position of power with an agenda. For the record, this is what I said earlier.
> 
> ​
> 
> 
> 
> Theocratic governments use religion to control their subjects.
> 
> The rest of that is mostly tribal laws and rules wrapped in a cloak of (selectively interpreted) Islam in order to make it acceptable to those subject to that particular tribal leader.
> 
> As for the root cause of that extremism, look to tribal laws and western interventionism to explain a large portion of it. But the ME has been in turmoil and conflict since long before any of the current religions popular in the area came to be, so much of this is cultural as well. And cultural change in the ME is another component necessary in order for the ME to achieve a good relationship with the rest of world. Fortunately, this is much quicker and easier than changing the religion itself (just look where the US was 100 years ago, culturally, and where we are now (now meaning before Trump moves us 100 years back in time before leaving office)).


I don't really understand what you mean by tribal law though? Hasn't the ME been majority Islamic for hundreds upon hundreds of years? Wouldn't they draw their laws from the religions they believed in? 

And also, I think it depends which ISIS-affiliated terrorists you are talking about. Some of those who are affiliated with ISIS are strict Conservative Muslims who personally would never drink alcohol or take drugs or rape women. 

But the reason why I don't necessarily call ISIS an inherently Islamic organisation is simply because of the fairly large parts of its members who do not seem to be following fundamentally accepted teachings of the Qu'ran (like the rules on alcohol, for example, I've never seen any Muslim debate the theological meaning behind the prohibition of alcohol, unlike violence vs. peace). 

This sort of 'well, Christianity promotes violence too' and 'Christianity is contradictory too' is not a rebuttal to the legitimate criticism that Islam can be used to justify and inspire violence, it's just saying that a lot of other religions can. Christianity can be similarly interpreted as violent and hateful and bigoted, and is to this day by many, particularly in the US and Africa.


----------



## tedtan

Insomnia said:


> I don't really understand what you mean by tribal law though? Hasn't the ME been majority Islamic for hundreds upon hundreds of years? Wouldn't they draw their laws from the religions they believed in



Islam has only been around for roughly 1,300 years, whereas Middle Eastern tribes have been around (and often in conflict with one another) for tens of thousands of years. And some of the laws and rules of these various tribes that existed long before Islam came to be are still enforced today, they're just passed off as being Islamic laws rather than tribal laws so that they are accepted by the people of the tribe as they are Muslims these days.




Insomnia said:


> This sort of 'well, Christianity promotes violence too' and 'Christianity is contradictory too' is not a rebuttal to the legitimate criticism that Islam can be used to justify and inspire violence, it's just saying that a lot of other religions can. Christianity can be similarly interpreted as violent and hateful and bigoted, and is to this day by many, particularly in the US and Africa.



I didn't mention Christianity, but it, too, has been used to justify some petty terrible things.

I think the take away here is that people with an agenda can selectively interpret and use any religion their subjects happen to follow as a means of manipulating and controlling the behavior of those subjects, not just Islam (or Christianity). And this goes beyond religion, it could be any other deep seated belief or emotion like nationalism or fear - we see this around us every day and have only to look at the history books to see where this has lead us in the past (but who actually pays attention to the teachings of history?).


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> I don't really understand what you mean by tribal law though? Hasn't the ME been majority Islamic for hundreds upon hundreds of years? Wouldn't they draw their laws from the religions they believed in?
> 
> And also, I think it depends which ISIS-affiliated terrorists you are talking about. Some of those who are affiliated with ISIS are strict Conservative Muslims who personally would never drink alcohol or take drugs or rape women.
> 
> But the reason why I don't necessarily call ISIS an inherently Islamic organisation is simply because of the fairly large parts of its members who do not seem to be following fundamentally accepted teachings of the Qu'ran (like the rules on alcohol, for example, I've never seen any Muslim debate the theological meaning behind the prohibition of alcohol, unlike violence vs. peace).
> 
> This sort of 'well, Christianity promotes violence too' and 'Christianity is contradictory too' is not a rebuttal to the legitimate criticism that Islam can be used to justify and inspire violence, it's just saying that a lot of other religions can. Christianity can be similarly interpreted as violent and hateful and bigoted, and is to this day by many, particularly in the US and Africa.



Couple points.

1). re: tribal law being drawn from Islam, since the Middle East has been an Islamic majority region for millennia. The US was founded by Protestants, however our laws dictate the SEPARATION of church and state. As an American, maybe this just makes me more predisposed to assume at least the possibility for a secular basis for law, but, well, it's hardly unprecedented.

2). re: ISIS not following Islam strictly - no shit. Again, they're a group with territorial ambitions, who have realized fueling an Islam vs. the West war is in their best interests for political unification. "We are at war with the West, we have always been at war with the West." Now, all that said, if IS aren't even devout Muslims, how exactly are we arguing that Islam is an inherently violent religion that needs to be reformed? The literally billions of devout Muslims in the world aren't crashing buses into shopping plazas, you know?

3) "Christianity promotes violence too" is not a rebuttal of the criticism that Islam CAN be used to justify violence. It is, however, a rebuttal to the criticism that Islam is somehow UNIQUE in the risk it poses from the way it can be used to promote violence. It's not. _Religion _isn't even unique in the way it can be used to promote violence. Singling Islam out as somehow more of a threat than Christianity or white supremacy (last I checked, Trump hadn't proposed an alt-right travel ban) or any of a number of other reasons that drive people to kill is totally disingenuous. IS is a thread. Islam itself is not.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> 3) "Christianity promotes violence too" is not a rebuttal of the criticism that Islam CAN be used to justify violence. It is, however, a rebuttal to the criticism that Islam is somehow UNIQUE in the risk it poses from the way it can be used to promote violence. It's not. _Religion _isn't even unique in the way it can be used to promote violence. Singling Islam out as somehow more of a threat than Christianity or white supremacy (last I checked, Trump hadn't proposed an alt-right travel ban) or any of a number of other reasons that drive people to kill is totally disingenuous. IS is a thread. Islam itself is not.



Islam is not unique, I never said that. It's just that it's still happening today, and we must address that issue and critique it.

It has more potential than Christianity to cause violence simply because of the theological nature in which peace is taught in the Bible (Jesus brought peace as new revelation over 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth', for example) over how peace is taught in Islam (where it flip-flops on the issue rather than an older section of the Qu'ran being violent and a later section being peaceful, like the Bible), but that's not really an argument I think is that important to make.

For whatever reason you believe it to be, there are vastly more Islamic terrorists than Christian and far-right terrorists across the world today. They pose a much larger threat to global stability and global relations than the far-right do, but that's not to say the far-right don't pose a threat, and it's not to say we should ignore them.

And just a small point, Trump's proposed travel ban didn't ban people on the basis of being Muslim, it banned people entering from high-risk countries (whether the people trying to enter the US were Muslim or not was not a factor), and it comes from a list written by the Obama administration. He didn't ban the majority of Islamic countries, nothing like it, so it was obviously not a ban on Muslims.

And religion is unique because it has the unique concept of a higher-power. An otherworldly being who will decide your fate, and by using this conviction that will supposedly determine your eternity, it is MUCH more powerful than non-religious far-left extremism or non-religious far-right extremism.

(If you were referring to his reactionary position of 'a total shutdown of Muslim immigration to the United States' which, AFAIK was a reactionary policy and an emotional response to the San Bernadino attack, then yes, it was utterly stupid, but luckily, like so many of his policies, he's backtracked).


----------



## bostjan

The biggest problem with this whole "Islam is evil" argument that I have is that it is one small step away from blatant racism. I know religion and race are two totally different things, but most of the idiots out there ambushing "a-rabs" on the street for whatever psychotic idea of "revenge" they've cooked up don't make any discretion. I'm a white guy, but I grew up in a neighbourhood that was very diverse between different cultures. A big part of that melting pot was people from Iraq and Syria, who moved away to escape the persecution of Hussein and Assad, most of whom were Catholic. After 9/11, a lot of those folks faced persecution in the USA, because they spoke arabic and looked arabic. There was violence in the streets of Detroit, which is no surprise, I suppose, but people were being singled out for their skin colour. A lot of convenience stores operated by Assyrians were robbed and vandalized in my neighbourhood...

Does anybody remember Slobodan Milosevic, or have we forgotten him? He wanted to round up all of the Muslim people (among others) in Yugoslavia and slaughter them. Do you want to think like that guy?!

Look, no one is going to disagree that ISIS is a subset of Islam. But if you are going to blame Islam as a whole for these terrorist attacks, you might as well blame Christianity as a whole for World War II. Hell, the Bolsheviks embraced Atheism as their official religion, and persecuted people who wished to remain religious in the Soviet Union. Should we then blame Atheism for all of the massacres at the command of Stalin? Following that logic leaves you no legs on which to stand. Can't be religious because religions are used to command violent attacks. Can't be irreligious, because irrelegion is used to command violent attacks.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> Islam is not unique, I never said that. It's just that it's still happening today, and we must address that issue and critique it.
> 
> It has more potential than Christianity to cause violence simply because of the theological nature in which peace is taught in the Bible (Jesus brought peace as new revelation over 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth', for example) over how peace is taught in Islam (where it flip-flops on the issue rather than an older section of the Qu'ran being violent and a later section being peaceful, like the Bible), but that's not really an argument I think is that important to make.
> 
> For whatever reason you believe it to be, there are vastly more Islamic terrorists than Christian and far-right terrorists across the world today. They pose a much larger threat to global stability and global relations than the far-right do, but that's not to say the far-right don't pose a threat, and it's not to say we should ignore them.
> 
> And just a small point, Trump's proposed travel ban didn't ban people on the basis of being Muslim, it banned people entering from high-risk countries (whether the people trying to enter the US were Muslim or not was not a factor), and it comes from a list written by the Obama administration. He didn't ban the majority of Islamic countries, nothing like it, so it was obviously not a ban on Muslims.
> 
> And religion is unique because it has the unique concept of a higher-power. An otherworldly being who will decide your fate, and by using this conviction that will supposedly determine your eternity, it is MUCH more powerful than non-religious far-left extremism or non-religious far-right extremism.
> 
> (If you were referring to his reactionary position of 'a total shutdown of Muslim immigration to the United States' which, AFAIK was a reactionary policy and an emotional response to the San Bernadino attack, then yes, it was utterly stupid, but luckily, like so many of his policies, he's backtracked).



"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34. Total peacenik stuff, for sure. 

Since you're evidently not an American I'll let this slide, but while the Trump administration claimed it wasn't a "Muslim Ban" but a ban on travel from high risk countries, Trump's own tweets on the subject have been pretty explicit that it was, and was designed to get a Muslim ban through the courts. Even recent tweets on the matter: 

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/arti...-tweets-tank-travel-ban-case-at-supreme-court


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34. Total peacenik stuff, for sure.
> 
> Since you're evidently not an American I'll let this slide, but while the Trump administration claimed it wasn't a "Muslim Ban" but a ban on travel from high risk countries, Trump's own tweets on the subject have been pretty explicit that it was, and was designed to get a Muslim ban through the courts. Even recent tweets on the matter:
> 
> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/arti...-tweets-tank-travel-ban-case-at-supreme-court


I don't really see how the tweets shown in the article signify it as a ban against Muslims, I'm afraid...


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> For whatever reason you believe it to be, there are vastly more Islamic terrorists than Christian and far-right terrorists across the world today.



What are your sources for this? I doubt this is actually the case. It's a big claim that would require a lot of statistics to back up. Granted not all countries label crimes the same way, what might be a hate crime in one country might be called a murder in another country and terrorism in the next country. I'm pretty sure that in Europe and the US, the far right does more damage to the local population by quite a wide margin. I know for a fact that's the case in Scandinavia. If you expand upon the "christian" side of things to include hate-crime against homosexuals in for example eastern europe, shit starts piling up. Then again terrorism, hate crime and politically motivated violence are three labels that may or may not be the same thing depending on your own viewpoint. But all in all, if you're gonna say there are "vastly more" islamic terrorists I'd like to see some sources before I believe you. Respectfully, because I honestly don't know myself.


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> What are your sources for this? I doubt this is actually the case. It's a big claim that would require a lot of statistics to back up. Granted not all countries label crimes the same way, what might be a hate crime in one country might be called a murder in another country and terrorism in the next country. I'm pretty sure that in Europe and the US, the far right does more damage to the local population by quite a wide margin. I know for a fact that's the case in Scandinavia. If you expand upon the "christian" side of things to include hate-crime against homosexuals in for example eastern europe, shit starts piling up. Then again terrorism, hate crime and politically motivated violence are three labels that may or may not be the same thing depending on your own viewpoint. But all in all, if you're gonna say there are "vastly more" islamic terrorists I'd like to see some sources before I believe you. Respectfully, because I honestly don't know myself.


In the US, domestic far-right terrorism is objectively more of a threat than domestic Islamic terrorism, I know that and do not dispute that. But I'm talking about across the world. There are not hundreds of thousands of armed far-right terrorists in the world, we can see that.

https://www.statista.com/topics/2267/terrorism/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism (the numerous sources it cites are very useful, if you don't trust Wikipedia itself as a source)

I'd say that this shows how Islamic terrorist groups are by far the biggest thread on a global scale.

And I really hate this next line of argument, because I know it's not even really logically coherent, but I would've thought it's quite obviously true that in this day and age, considering the amount of Islamic terrorist groups across the world and political instability in many Islamic-majority countries, you could see that (and even if you don't think this is actually caused by the religion, it's just groups 'twisting' the teachings of the Qu'ran) terror groups and terror attacks have destabilised so much of the world, that if you compare it to far-right terror attacks, Islamic terrorism is obviously more numerous and more organised.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> In the US, domestic far-right terrorism is objectively more of a threat than domestic Islamic terrorism, I know that and do not dispute that. But I'm talking about across the world. There are not hundreds of thousands of armed far-right terrorists in the world, we can see that.
> 
> https://www.statista.com/topics/2267/terrorism/
> 
> I'd say that this shows how Islamic terrorist groups are by far the biggest thread on a global scale.
> 
> I really hate this next line of argument, because I know it's not even logically coherent, but I would've thought it's demonstrably true that in this day and age, considering the amount of Islamic terrorist groups across the world and political instability in many Islamic-majority countries, you could see that (and even if you don't think this is actually caused by the religion, it's just groups 'twisting' the teachings of the Qu'ran) terror groups and terror attacks have destabilised so much of the world, that if you compare it to far-right terror attacks, Islamic terrorism is obviously more numerous and more organised.



All the statistics I want to see in that link requires a $49 subscription. It doesn't really tell me anything. I do get the info that ISIL is responsible for the most terrorist attacks, but they only reach 12% on their own. What about the other 88%? I also see that the war zones in the middle east and North Africa suffer the most numerous attacks, but that's a given, they are war zones.

And like I said, the difference between terrorism, hate crime, political violence and "homicidal maniac" varies from country to country. Even with statistics like the ones I can't see above, they're inconclusive. I'm sorry to be an ass about this but I just want to make sure you know what you're saying is true and not just based on guesses.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

I'd argue that the South American Cartels are doing far more damage globally than Islamic Extremists. At least directly.

You don't hear as much in the way of large scale attacks, but they murder tens of thousands and often make gruesome examples of innocent people. All over the world. 

Not to mention the associated violence of the drug trade and our failed War On Drugs that has lead to more domestic issues than Islamic Terroists could ever hope. 

I mean we lock up and destroy the lives of millions of our own people over this stuff. 

Several of these groups are supposedly Christian and use the Bible to bring in new members and keep their existing members in line. Much like ISIS.


----------



## tedtan

Insomnia said:


> if you compare it to far-right terror attacks, Islamic terrorism is obviously more numerous and more organised.



I understand the usage of the terms, but just as a tangential comment, since Islamic terrorists push for more fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and are about as conservative as it gets within their region(s), wouldn't Islamic terrorism technically be a subset of far right terrorism?


----------



## bostjan

Insomnia said:


> I don't really see how the tweets shown in the article signify it as a ban against Muslims, I'm afraid...





Donald J. Trump said:


> Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on


Also:


Donald J. Trump said:


> Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.


----------



## JohnIce

MaxOfMetal said:


> I'd argue that the South American Cartels are doing far more damage globally than Islamic Extremists. At least directly.



Good point. South american/caribbean countries do top the statistics on homicide and kidnapping. So terrorism or not is semantics really, and comparing crime statistics between countries at war and countries that are not, is always going to be inconclusive because in a war, "crime" is relative.



tedtan said:


> I understand the usage of the terms, but just as a tangential comment, since Islamic terrorists push for more fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and are about as conservative as it gets within their region(s), wouldn't Islamic terrorism technically be a subset of far right terrorism?



Another very good point. Religious fundamentalism is by definition conservative and more often than not far-right by extension. Hadn't thought of that, it's a great point.


----------



## Explorer

Explorer said:


> Specifically in the UK, I was there during the years of IRA and National Front violence.
> 
> In fact, the horrible practice of "cracking," practiced by National Front terrorists, could reaonably be considered one of the factors leading citizens of the Empire to perceive that Empire as their enemy. It doesn't even require explanations implicating Islam or western interventionism, just horrible racism against people with dark skin.
> 
> Wasn't a NHS doctor, after spending 48 hours helping victims of a recent terrorist attack, the subject of a racist tirade in Manchester because of his dark skin? Yelling at a doctor and citizen that he's a "Paki bas***d" doesn't seem like anything but horrible racism, and definitely points out a more local reason for the alienation which might lead to radicalization.
> 
> Remember, it'a not like that racist insult just emerged from the recent attacks. This is a systemic racism which has been part of the Empire for longer than our lifetimes.





Insomnia said:


> Islam is not unique, I never said that. It's just that it's still happening today, and we must address that issue and critique it.


Why should we only address the Islamic motivations for terror, and ignore not only other terrorists, but also the racism which could result in a person being more open to radicalization?

I understand the appeal of ignoring the roots of radicalization, and instead shifting to whatever text a particular group of terrorists embrace, whether it be a religious text or Mein Kampf.

Isn't that like arguing that 9/11 conspiracists are fundamentally different from flat earth conspiracists, instead of examining why certain people get focused on conspiracist thinking in the first place?

You keep insisting it's about one particular type of theory or text, instead of wanting to look at what makes each appealing to a certain type of person in the first place. 

Again, using the example of the NHS doctor being attacked by the white bloke due to the color of the doctor's skin, what can be done to cut down on the hatred and antagonism shown by members of the white majority? That's the same kind of behavior which led to first world governments deposing elected leaders and installing authoritarian leaders for the purpose of oil and resource exploitation... which led to revolutions which installed the extremists now opposed to the West.

If you wish to argue that it was Islamic texts which led the British Empire to engage in such actions, and the white bloke to be racist to the NHS doctor, I'd like to hear your reasoning. If not... you seem really invested in blaming Islam for marginalizing so many people, against all evidence of how people arrive at the state which makes extremism appealing. 


Insomnia said:


> And just a small point, Trump's proposed travel ban didn't ban people on the basis of being Muslim, it banned people entering from high-risk countries (whether the people trying to enter the US were Muslim or not was not a factor).... (i)t was obviously not a ban on Muslims.


It clearly is not as obvious as you claim, because otherwise the numerous courts would agree with you based on the evidence. 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/05/politics/trump-travel-ban-lawyer/

And, with pages of submitted quotes from Trump himself about his goals of banning Muslims, Trump himself says you're lying about his ban. In fact, he says the original ban shouldn't have been cleaned up for the second attempt, and that the second ban resulted from having to be "politically correct" and not saying what you really mean. 

You really should read the news before commenting on it and getting it wrong. Or, are you intentionally stating untruths to deceive? Because lying to make a case might work in the short run, but it ultimately means you don't have a case.


Insomnia said:


> (If you were referring to his reactionary position of 'a total shutdown of Muslim immigration to the United States' which, AFAIK was a reactionary policy and an emotional response to the San Bernadino attack, then yes, it was utterly stupid, but luckily, like so many of his policies, he's backtracked).


No, Trump hasn't backtracked. Again, read the news. He recently clarified that the second ban was a transparent attempt to make the ban "politically correct." He also felt it was a mistake to get rid of his true intention just to make it more palatable. 

----

C'mon, man. The P&CE section only works when people use actual facts in supporting their reasoning. Your continuous denial of facts, even when the person you defend (like Trump) says you're wrong, undermines honest discourse.

I understand not wanting to admit that the facts don't support one's arguments, but that's where one has a chance to correct one's mistakes, instead of flailing and hoping something lands. The risk, of course, is that if one can no longer rely on factual support, one will find one's position evaporating....


----------



## Dredg

bostjan said:


> The biggest problem with this whole "Islam is evil" argument that I have is that it is one small step away from blatant racism. I know religion and race are two totally different things, but most of the idiots out there ambushing "a-rabs" on the street for whatever psychotic idea of "revenge" they've cooked up don't make any discretion. I'm a white guy, but I grew up in a neighbourhood that was very diverse between different cultures. A big part of that melting pot was people from Iraq and Syria, who moved away to escape the persecution of Hussein and Assad, most of whom were Catholic. After 9/11, a lot of those folks faced persecution in the USA, because they spoke arabic and looked arabic. There was violence in the streets of Detroit, which is no surprise, I suppose, but people were being singled out for their skin colour. A lot of convenience stores operated by Assyrians were robbed and vandalized in my neighbourhood...
> 
> Does anybody remember Slobodan Milosevic, or have we forgotten him? He wanted to round up all of the Muslim people (among others) in Yugoslavia and slaughter them. Do you want to think like that guy?!
> 
> Look, no one is going to disagree that ISIS is a subset of Islam. But if you are going to blame Islam as a whole for these terrorist attacks, you might as well blame Christianity as a whole for World War II. Hell, the Bolsheviks embraced Atheism as their official religion, and persecuted people who wished to remain religious in the Soviet Union. Should we then blame Atheism for all of the massacres at the command of Stalin? Following that logic leaves you no legs on which to stand. Can't be religious because religions are used to command violent attacks. Can't be irreligious, because irrelegion is used to command violent attacks.




Any accusations of racism completely ignore the hundreds of millions of Muslims that are black and Indo-Asian. The irony in the strawman of clyde "a-rabs" jackson assaulting brown people on the streets is that those idiots are attacking out of fear caused by both misinformation and a void of information. They wouldn't be able to tell you anything about their enemy other than they're brown, they speak "durka durka" and they pray to "all-ah" among other warped and garbled non-researched answers. The difference is that the Muslim attackers know the exact religious justifications, as many recite them before or during their atrocities. There are contextual Suras and hadith that spell out their celestial justification, pardon, and reward for their deeds.

Comparing critics of Islam to a genocidal lunatic is a stretch I hope even you are willing to concede as nonsensical. Nobody is advocating for the slaughter of peacable Muslims.

I will blame Islam for Islamically justified terrorist attacks, and I will blame the religion because of its own reluctance to come clean about just how violent it can be. Progressive Muslims will become instantly uncomfortable if you start asking them to explain the hard truths of their scriptures. The closer you get towards the extremist philosophy, the easier the truth comes out, and with more pride as well. I will also blame Christianity, namely the Catholic Church, for its silence during Hitler's FS, and their historic and continued demonization of whom they've billed as Christ's Murderers. Jews were corralled into slums and marked with yellow dots in the early 1200's by decree of the Church - sound familiar?


----------



## Insomnia

bostjan said:


> But that thinking is circular. What is the deal with these terrorists? They hate us. Where does that hate come from? Islam. Howcome? Because the terrorists put it there.
> 
> I firmly believe that the root cause in this is not simply internal, but a mixture of external prompting and internal backwards-ness. My argument is that if these folks were not Muslim, but Zoroastrians, or Dagonites, or worshipers of Cthulhu, it wouldn't make any difference. The culture in which these people are steeped is not congruent with the practices of Islam anyway. They are taught from an early age to hate everything they don't understand, to hate anything from outside of their culture, and to deal with that hatred by outward violence. This is from tribal laws and rites that have nothing to do with Islam. But the manipulators from within their communities paint the face of Islam on all of these little rules and over this entire culture of hatred.
> 
> Do you follow me?
> 
> Blaming Islam for these acts of violence is silly. Islam is a set of beliefs. Actions and decisions are made by people, not beliefs. A belief is something held by a person. If some idiot tries to run me down with his car, I don't blame Chrysler, I blame the driver, even if the driver calls himself "The Chrysler State."


I don't follow you, and I also think it's silly thinking, because by your logic, Anders Breiveik's actions can't be blamed on the tenants of white supremacy and neo-Nazism because 'they're just beliefs'. Also, there is nothing to do with Chrysler that would support the killing of gays and non-Chrysler users. That is a complete strawman argument.


----------



## Insomnia

Also, you're saying tribal laws dictate this, right?
This is a bit silly, and I'll try and explain why.

What many of you have been saying throughout this thread is 'You can't blame a set of beliefs for this, it doesn't make rational people do irrational things', or something along those lines.

Yet here you are, blaming ancient beliefs for modern terrorism, but you say 'Islam is used to justify it, not cause it'. How do you know that? How on Earth are you saying the ancient laws that demonised homosexuality are what cause some Muslims to hate the gays, but say that the Qu'ran doesn't inspire them, it merely acts as an 'excuse' for their hatred, which stems from these laws?? 

And even then. Even then at a fundamental level, that is why I oppose the fundamentals of Islam. Because it can be used to justify these attacks.


----------



## Insomnia

Explorer said:


> Why should we only address the Islamic motivations for terror, and ignore not only other terrorists, but also the racism which could result in a person being more open to radicalization?
> 
> I understand the appeal of ignoring the roots of radicalization, and instead shifting to whatever text a particular group of terrorists embrace, whether it be a religious text or Mein Kampf.
> 
> Isn't that like arguing that 9/11 conspiracists are fundamentally different from flat earth conspiracists, instead of examining why certain people get focused on conspiracist thinking in the first place?
> 
> You keep insisting it's about one particular type of theory or text, instead of wanting to look at what makes each appealing to a certain type of person in the first place.
> 
> Again, using the example of the NHS doctor being attacked by the white bloke due to the color of the doctor's skin, what can be done to cut down on the hatred and antagonism shown by members of the white majority? That's the same kind of behavior which led to first world governments deposing elected leaders and installing authoritarian leaders for the purpose of oil and resource exploitation... which led to revolutions which installed the extremists now opposed to the West.
> 
> If you wish to argue that it was Islamic texts which led the British Empire to engage in such actions, and the white bloke to be racist to the NHS doctor, I'd like to hear your reasoning. If not... you seem really invested in blaming Islam for marginalizing so many people, against all evidence of how people arrive at the state which makes extremism appealing.



I never said we should only address the Islamic motivations of terror. I have never, ever, ever said that. Consistently through this thread, I have said we must address the far-right, (and if you mean the motivations for terror in the name of Islam, I've also said we need to massively rethink our interventionist policy, as well as increase foreign aid into countries we've ruined).

If what you mean by your second point/'paragraph' is that there is a deeper cause to this hatred, I would argue that Mein Kampf is younger than the Bible or Qu'ran, and therefore, is much more heavily influenced by the culture of antisemitism in Europe at the time. But Mein Kampf isn't supposedly the word of God like the Qu'ran is to Muslims, therefore, according to Muslims, it wouldn't have tribal cultural influence.

9/11 conspiracies and flat-earth conspiracies are fundamentally different in numerous ways, and the reasons people buy into them are also different, and so are the types of people that buy into them. 

I keep insisting that it's due to interventionism and Islamic texts, yes, you're correct.

In the case of the doctor getting attacked by the racist thug, I suggest that we should be less complacent about the far-right, and cut down on the vehemently racist rhetoric from groups like the EDL, BNP, and Britain First. But I don't see how that correlates into the government invading a country for oil...?

I don't entirely understand your last point, but I will try to answer it.


----------



## chopeth

tedtan said:


> I don't disagree, but I think you are overlooking how much political and financial power the big oil companies possess in western governments and economies.



I'm not overlooking it, just focusing on the need to stop the oil supremacy, not only because of muslim influence or terrorism, but for the sake of our planet and the irreversible global warming consequences we are leaving to our descendency. I know it's almost utopia, especially with the people choosing such terrible rulers as those in your country or mine.


----------



## vilk

I feel practically offended at the suggestion that people who don't think we got the whole truth about 9/11 are categorically the same as people who deny science outright.

------

Separately, I fundamentally disagree with this idea of appealing to ignorance and anti-intellectualism. I can't agree with the ethics of specifically avoiding criticizing a religious philosophy for fear that ignorant rednecks will attack anyone that has brown skin and speaks a non-English language. Any and all religious philosophies deserve criticism, in my own opinion, and to exempt Islam because we wouldn't want some fucking dumbasses to not understand that criticism of a religious philosophy does not justify actions made towards individual humans is kinda like... you know... purposely lowering the bar, if that makes sense?


----------



## tedtan

Dredg said:


> Comparing critics of Islam to a genocidal lunatic is a stretch I hope even you are willing to concede as nonsensical. Nobody is advocating for the slaughter of peacable Muslims.



Well, ISIS has been known to kill Muslims who are not fundamental/radical enough for their taste, so someone is going after them.

But you're missing the point. The point is that leaders at all levels have used religion, nationalism, fear, racial supremacy and other ideologies to manipulate the behavior of their followers to suit those leaders' political goals, not that a suicide bomber equals Hitler or Stalin.




chopeth said:


> I'm not overlooking it, just focusing on the need to stop the oil supremacy, not only because of muslim influence or terrorism, but for the sake of our planet and the irreversible global warming consequences we are leaving to our descendency. I know it's almost utopia, especially with the people choosing such terrible rulers as those in your country or mine.



I'm with you. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening in the short term.


----------



## tedtan

Insomnia said:


> What many of you have been saying throughout this thread is 'You can't blame a set of beliefs for this, it doesn't make rational people do irrational things', or something along those lines.



No, we're saying that your explanation is too simple and removed from context. The idea that someone read the Quran and then all of a sudden decided to go and kill a himself along with a bunch of other people in a suicide bombing (as merely one example) doesn't make sense; it's too simplified.

What makes more sense if that someone has been (or perceives that they have been) wronged, oppressed or otherwise marginalized and develops a distaste for the group that has wronged him. He then reads/hears someone talk about some of the more fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and identifies with it. As such, he seeks out more such interpretations and ends up talking to a tribal leader, imam or other person with an agenda. That leader then fuels the hatred in the young man's heart with further talk of violence, revenge and the rewards that await him in heaven as a believer if he goes and kills some of those infidels (that the leader wants dead for political reasons, but doesn't reveal this to the young man). After months or years of such brainwashing, the young man then goes on to commit some terrorist attack.




Insomnia said:


> Yet here you are, blaming ancient beliefs for modern terrorism, but you say 'Islam is used to justify it, not cause it'. How do you know that? How on Earth are you saying the ancient laws that demonised homosexuality are what cause some Muslims to hate the gays, but say that the Qu'ran doesn't inspire them, it merely acts as an 'excuse' for their hatred, which stems from these laws??



You do realize that the sayings and teaching of Mohammad (hadiths) are chosen by the tribal leaders, right? So the fact that each tribe chooses which hadiths to follow and which to ignore indicates that they pick and choose in order to make the hadiths they follow align with their preexisting rules and laws rather than add to them.




Insomnia said:


> And even then. Even then at a fundamental level, that is why I oppose the fundamentals of Islam. Because it can be used to justify these attacks.



So can many other texts and belief systems; why do you continue to single out Islam?




Insomnia said:


> If what you mean by your second point/'paragraph' is that there is a deeper cause to this hatred, I would argue that Mein Kampf is younger than the Bible or Qu'ran, and therefore, is much more heavily influenced by the culture of antisemitism in Europe at the time. But Mein Kampf isn't supposedly the word of God like the Qu'ran is to Muslims, therefore, according to Muslims, it wouldn't have tribal cultural influence.



He's not suggesting that Mein Kampf is relevant to the Islamic terrorists, he's using it as an example of another text that has been used to further a leader's political agenda at the expense of many lives.


----------



## vilk

tedtan said:


> So can many other texts and belief systems; why do you continue to single out Islam?



I assumed it was the thread title and subject of these past 7 pages...? That's why I keep singling it out, at least.


----------



## JohnIce

vilk said:


> I assumed it was the thread title and subject of these past 7 pages...? That's why I keep singling it out, at least.



Coming back to your earlier post about appealing to ignorance and anti-intellectualism by not criticizing specific religions, this thread is a great example of why the opposite is ineffective: we're singling out Islam as a problem for being violent and sexist, as if these things weren't rampant in our respective countries to begin with. We're talking about reforming Islam as a means to get less violence and sexism in the world, as if all the secular violence and sexism in the world couldn't be helped. Well, 10 years ago the western world was nowhere near as accepting towards LGBTQ people, and today you have plenty of religious people who have nothing against gay people or gay marriage. Society changes, and religious people are among those people. That includes muslims. I have muslim friends walking in Pride parades here in Sweden, I have christian friends who support gay marriage and even abortion rights. Holy books don't change, but society always does.

So in short, being selective of what you criticize and what you want to achieve with your criticism, is not the same as appealing to ignorance. It's not the same as censorship or lowering the bar for intelligent discussion either, it can just as well be an act of pure responsibility and an eye for the bigger picture.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> I don't really see how the tweets shown in the article signify it as a ban against Muslims, I'm afraid...


YOU may not. Thus far, US Courts have disagreed, and held that whatever sort of "travel restriction" the executive order purports to be and calls itself, both Trump's and Trump surrogate's explicit comments that it IS in fact an attempt to ban Muslims from the country, as well as the facts of its initial implementation where valid green card holders were turned away without due process, demonstrate that this is in fact an attempted Muslim ban. 

I mean, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and is made of wood like a duck, it's probably a witch, you know?


----------



## Dredg

tedtan said:


> Well, ISIS has been known to kill Muslims who are not fundamental/radical enough for their taste, so someone is going after them.
> 
> But you're missing the point. The point is that leaders at all levels have used religion, nationalism, fear, racial supremacy and other ideologies to manipulate the behavior of their followers to suit those leaders' political goals, not that a suicide bomber equals Hitler or Stalin.


Let me rephrase that: Nobody on this forum is advocating for the slaughter of peaceable muslims.

ISIS isn't doing anything new, they're just doing it better. The Sunni and Shia sects view each other as heretical and have been bitterly killing each other since the 7th century. Mosque bombings are shockingly regular between the two largest groups of the entire religion. Any attempt to distance ISIS from Islam is about as effective as saying that WBC aren't Christians. Every single sect views themselves as either the most correct variant, or the only true interpretation; ISIS is no different than the bloodthirsty Wahhabi sect, which includes Saudi Arabia's ruling class (and by default, the entire kingdom), because they ARE wahhabis. As we should all know by now, Saudi Arabia is very well known for its massive human rights violations and strict by-the-religious-books theocracy... which includes plenty of provisions for killing muslims using the exact same logic as ISIS does. The reason why ISIS are the bad guys, is because they're not sitting on a ton of oil, nor are they in possession of Mecca and the Kabah.

There is no broader point, as this entire discussion is about Islam. If you'd like to talk about other religions, nationalism, racism, eugenics, etc then go start that discussion. Comparing the atrocities committed by Islam to other ideologies doesn't make Islam less bad, it shows just how terrible those ideologies either are, or can become.

Nowhere did I equate a suicide bomber to Hitler or Stalin.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> Also, you're saying tribal laws dictate this, right?
> This is a bit silly, and I'll try and explain why.
> 
> What many of you have been saying throughout this thread is 'You can't blame a set of beliefs for this, it doesn't make rational people do irrational things', or something along those lines.
> 
> Yet here you are, blaming ancient beliefs for modern terrorism, but you say 'Islam is used to justify it, not cause it'. How do you know that? How on Earth are you saying the ancient laws that demonised homosexuality are what cause some Muslims to hate the gays, but say that the Qu'ran doesn't inspire them, it merely acts as an 'excuse' for their hatred, which stems from these laws??
> 
> And even then. Even then at a fundamental level, that is why I oppose the fundamentals of Islam. Because it can be used to justify these attacks.


No, that's NOT what we're saying. We're saying, "Islam is not in itself justification for violence, otherwise with more than a billion followers in the world, we'd be having a Very Big Problem, indeed. Rather, it's a bunch of extremist assholes who are the problem, and we need to treat them as such rather than painting their whole religion with their misdeeds.

This is exactly the IRA violence argument in a nutshell - I'm just going to grab this meme off the net because it makes the case far more succulently than I'm likely to do if I tried from the ground up (spoilered for language):


Spoiler












The argument that IS using violence against (mostly) non-Muslims means Islam is a fundamentally violent religion is exactly equivalent to arguing that the IRA using violence against Protestants makes Catholicism a violent religion. It doesn't - it just means a couple assholes happen to be Catholic, just as a couple assholes happen to be Muslim. 

At the end of the day, ANYTHING can be used to justify violence. Let's focus our attention on the real problem; the perpetrators of that violence, and not people they happen to have something in common with (especially when time after time the Muslim community steps up to help in the wake of this violence, like raising thousands of dollars for the victims of the stabbing in Portland last week).


----------



## bostjan

Dredg said:


> Any accusations of racism completely ignore the hundreds of millions of Muslims that are black and Indo-Asian. The irony in the strawman of clyde "a-rabs" jackson assaulting brown people on the streets is that those idiots are attacking out of fear caused by both misinformation and a void of information. They wouldn't be able to tell you anything about their enemy other than they're brown, they speak "durka durka" and they pray to "all-ah" among other warped and garbled non-researched answers. The difference is that the Muslim attackers know the exact religious justifications, as many recite them before or during their atrocities. There are contextual Suras and hadith that spell out their celestial justification, pardon, and reward for their deeds.



None of this addresses anything I said.



Dredg said:


> Comparing critics of Islam to a genocidal lunatic is a stretch I hope even you are willing to concede as nonsensical. Nobody is advocating for the slaughter of peacable Muslims.
> 
> I will blame Islam for Islamically justified terrorist attacks, and I will blame the religion because of its own reluctance to come clean about just how violent it can be. Progressive Muslims will become instantly uncomfortable if you start asking them to explain the hard truths of their scriptures. The closer you get towards the extremist philosophy, the easier the truth comes out, and with more pride as well. I will also blame Christianity, namely the Catholic Church, for its silence during Hitler's FS, and their historic and continued demonization of whom they've billed as Christ's Murderers. Jews were corralled into slums and marked with yellow dots in the early 1200's by decree of the Church - sound familiar?



I'm not comparing critics of Islam to anything. I, myself, am a critic of Islam. Tons of people are advocating for the slaughter of Muslims wholesale. Every time somebody suggests we just nuke the Middle East and move on is doing just that, and Trump was doing just that when he suggested tracking down the families of Islamic extremists and torturing/killing them.

The Quran is the same basic violent stuff as the Bible, the Vedas, the Pentateuch, etc. Which religious texts are less violent than the Quran?! Hmm, you gotta dig a little to find the answer. Which religion is non-violent toward other religions? Same. Look at the history books or read the newspapers, Jews fight Muslims, Muslims fight Jews, Christians fight Muslims, Muslims fight Christians, Christians fight Jews, Hindus fight Muslims, Shiite, Sunni, Catholic, Calvinist, Anabaptist, etc. etc. on and on throughout human history. People are always killing each other in the name of one god or another, and, oddly, in the name of the same god as the other... and if the religion alone is the cause of this, then if you take religion away, the killing should stop, yet you still have Stalin and Pol Pot and Kim Jong Il and tons of other irreligious mass killers throughout history.

People are just shitty. They will kill each other in the name of whatever name they know. Give them a god that says "thou shalt not kill," and watch them kill each other in the name of that god.

I think religion is silly. It's a bunch of stories nobody can prove happened, and if you could prove didn't happen, people would just claim miracles and stick to the story. People want to believe that when you die, your body doesn't reduce itself to a slab of rotten meat, but we know full well that that's what happens.

But, let's look at the bigger picture. The religion is made by a man to the ends of controlling other people. People fall for this all of the time. Look at all of the cults and weird cult-like stuff out there, and some of it has nothing to do with religion. It's because people are way too naive and impressionable. Look at facebook. I can snap a photo of a lizard, take a stock photo of a tropical village, then photoshop the two together in an obviously fake way to make it look like a giant lizard attacked a village, and post it on facebook, and somebody out there is going to buy into it, guaranteed. Note that a lot of the same folks who are deeply religious are the ones who believe in bigfoot, UFO aliens, psychic crime solvers, dowsing, etc. - when much of the stories of that stuff has been unequivocally proven to have been faked.



Insomnia said:


> I don't follow you, and I also think it's silly thinking, because by your logic, Anders Breiveik's actions can't be blamed on the tenants of white supremacy and neo-Nazism because 'they're just beliefs'. Also, there is nothing to do with Chrysler that would support the killing of gays and non-Chrysler users. That is a complete strawman argument.



No, dude, it's argument by analogy. Anders Breivik is responsible for his actions. He is an individual who did horrible things of his own accord. That's a perfect example of what I've been saying in here.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> People are just shitty.


I don't have anything particularly "smart" to add, I'm not a super world-ly person and won't claim to be, but people aren't "just" sh*tty. Everyone certainly has the capacity to be violent, but the values that lead to the decisions to enact said violence have to have been learned somewhere. I'll agree insofar as the details of which religion or culture those values come from is irrelevant, but somewhere along the lines those values are still being passed on.

Do I think that religion in itself is a cause or a base-level driving source of violence? Not really. But I wouldn't shy away from questioning it's role as a tool in continuing to instill the types of values that drive people to violence. I can't blame religion for violence in the same sense that I can't blame a gun for shooting someone- but I still wouldn't hand a gun to the majority of people.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> Do I think that religion in itself is a cause or a base-level driving source of violence? Not really. But I wouldn't shy away from questioning it's role as a tool in continuing to instill the types of values that drive people to violence. I can't blame religion for violence in the same sense that I can't blame a gun for shooting someone- but I still wouldn't hand a gun to the majority of people.



I think people with a predisposition towards violence and with sociopathic tendencies are going to find a way to justify being violent. Be it the god they believe in, be it defending the racial purity of their race, be it stopping the behavior of others they find repugnant, be it their preferred sports team (because let's be honest, you Brits have a lot more brawls after football games than you do people stabbing for their god, and here in the States the Sox/Yankees rivalry has, given ample booze, led to a few murders too), if you believe you're right and someone's wrong and have little empathy to stoop you from using violence to advance your personal aims, then you're going to turn to violence. Religion may up the stakes a little bit since the stakes are eternal, but we see riots after sporting events too so it's not like religion has a lock on tapping violent impulses, and I live in a country with a LONG history of violence based on the color of one's skin.


----------



## Insomnia

Okay, well, I'll ask this: what is the inspiration of violence for people like the Charlie Hebdo attackers, for example? They killed the cartoonists because they depicted the Prophet Muhammad. Depicting the Prophet is banned under Islamic Law.

So what caused them to do this? They were not affected by Western Interventionism and were not inspired by Tribal Laws. They were born and bred in France, and were the sons of Algerian immigrants.

In the attack, they spared a visiting women, and they spared because they said 'you are not a part of this, and it is forbidden under Islam to kill women for such acts' (I'm paraphrasing, but according to the woman we know they spared, that's what they said to her).

So why did they do it? They're not a government, so they're not using it as a means of control of dissidents. What was their inspiration if not Islam which, under a certain interpretation, would've totally justified and called for these attacks? If it isn't Islam, then what was it?

And if it was due to Western Interventionism (which I don't think is a logical argument at all, because they would've specifically targeted soldiers, instead of a magazine whose only 'crime' was going against Islamic Law), why would they abide by an Islamic Law telling them not to kill women, and why would they spare her for not actually participating in the drawing (as she was just a visitor)? If they were angry about Western Interventionism, then why wouldn't they kill indiscriminately? They also apparently burst into the wrong address, but didn't kill anyone there. They also went into a gas station and robbed it of some supplies, but again, didn't kill anyone there. If they were angry about the killing of civilians but were hiding behind Islam, then again, why would they not kill indiscriminately? 

If this wasn't sparked by Islamic terrorism, I don't know what did spark it.


----------



## tedtan

Dredg said:


> Let me rephrase that: Nobody on this forum is advocating for the slaughter of peaceable muslims.



Gotcha.




Dredg said:


> ISIS isn't doing anything new, they're just doing it better. The Sunni and Shia sects view each other as heretical and have been bitterly killing each other since the 7th century. Mosque bombings are shockingly regular between the two largest groups of the entire religion. *Any attempt to distance ISIS from Islam is about as effective as saying that WBC aren't Christians. *Every single sect views themselves as either the most correct variant, or the only true interpretation; ISIS is no different than the bloodthirsty Wahhabi sect, which includes Saudi Arabia's ruling class (and by default, the entire kingdom), because they ARE wahhabis. As we should all know by now, Saudi Arabia is very well known for its massive human rights violations and strict by-the-religious-books theocracy... which includes plenty of provisions for killing muslims using the exact same logic as ISIS does.



I don't disagree in general, but I do want to address the bolded part of the quote (emphasis mine). al-Baghdadi is referred to by his followers as the caliph, or essentially the religious and civil leader of the muslim world. Make no mistake: someone seeking that position is not merely following the Quran, but has a political agenda of his own to benefit himself.




Dredg said:


> The reason why ISIS are the bad guys, is because they're not sitting on a ton of oil, nor are they in possession of Mecca and the Kabah.



Definitely.




Dredg said:


> There is no broader point, as this entire discussion is about Islam. If you'd like to talk about other religions, nationalism, racism, eugenics, etc then go start that discussion. Comparing the atrocities committed by Islam to other ideologies doesn't make Islam less bad, it shows just how terrible those ideologies either are, or can become.



I am in no way saying that Islam is less bad or anything to that effect. In fact, I am condemning all such ideologies and those who use them for personal gain.

Human nature, human mental health conditions, power, hatred, money, poverty, suffering, marginalization, etc. all form a powerful lens through which to view these ideologies, leaving them open to undesirable interpretations. To focus on only one element at play and ignore the others is foolish.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> Okay, well, I'll ask this: what is the inspiration of violence for people like the Charlie Hebdo attackers, for example? They killed the cartoonists because they depicted the Prophet Muhammad. Depicting the Prophet is banned under Islamic Law.
> 
> So what caused them to do this? They were not affected by Western Interventionism and were not inspired by Tribal Laws. They were born and bred in France, and were the sons of Algerian immigrants.
> 
> In the attack, they spared a visiting women, and they spared because they said 'you are not a part of this, and it is forbidden under Islam to kill women for such acts' (I'm paraphrasing, but according to the woman we know they spared, that's what they said to her).
> 
> So why did they do it? They're not a government, so they're not using it as a means of control of dissidents. What was their inspiration if not Islam which, under a certain interpretation, would've totally justified and called for these attacks? If it isn't Islam, then what was it?
> 
> And if it was due to Western Interventionism (which I don't think is a logical argument at all, because they would've specifically targeted soldiers, instead of a magazine whose only 'crime' was going against Islamic Law), why would they abide by an Islamic Law telling them not to kill women, and why would they spare her for not actually participating in the drawing (as she was just a visitor)? If they were angry about Western Interventionism, then why wouldn't they kill indiscriminately? They also apparently burst into the wrong address, but didn't kill anyone there. They also went into a gas station and robbed it of some supplies, but again, didn't kill anyone there. If they were angry about the killing of civilians but were hiding behind Islam, then again, why would they not kill indiscriminately?
> 
> If this wasn't sparked by Islamic terrorism, I don't know what did spark it.



You're losing this debate. I assume you realize that?

The same thing that prompted a woman in a bar north of here last year to, after a bar fight with a guy wearing a Yankees hat and several too many drinks, follow him out of the bar, get into her car, and run him over, killing him, because she was a Red Sox fan. Or the same thing that led a group of homophobes to leave Matthew Shephard to die on a fence in the south. Or the same thing that encouraged someone to shoot Martin Luther King, because of the color of his skin. Some people can't countenance the existence of people or things different than them, and feel entitled to use violence to put an end to it. You point to the fact that the attackers didn't wage indescriminate violence as proof that Islam was at fault - James Earl Ray didn't go around shooting white people either, and that woman on the North Shore didn't then swerve back around and take out a couple fellow Sox fans, either. What does that prove? Hell, David Koresh killed dozens of his followers in Waco. He was ostentaciously Christian, and I don't recall stories about him killing a couple Jews first, just for kicks. Belief is a strange motivator, but there's nothing unique about a couple violence-prone idiots using a belief structure as grounds for killing someone else. 

Lots of people believe in something, rightly or wrongly, and when something happens that runs against their belief, they get upset. That's fine. The problem is when they then feel entitled to use violence to address that. The fact that out of the several hundred thousand Muslims who could conceivably have made it to the Charlie Hebdo headquarters after the publication of that cartoon, only a dozen or so shooters did, should provide pretty strong evidence that what motivated the shooters wasn't unique to the religion they believed in, but was the fact they were sociopaths who felt violence was an appropriate solution. Otherwsie, it wouldn't have been a dozen guys with AK-47s, it'd be a couple hundred thousand, and the Muslim community wouldn't have condemned the attack as well.


----------



## tedtan

Insomnia said:


> Okay, well, I'll ask this: what is the inspiration of violence for people like the Charlie Hebdo attackers, for example? They killed the cartoonists because they depicted the Prophet Muhammad. Depicting the Prophet is banned under Islamic Law... If this wasn't sparked by Islamic terrorism, I don't know what did spark it.



They were Al Quaeda members. Not leaders, but the low level foot soldiers actually doing the dirty work. And they didn't read the Quran and then go shoot up the Charlie Hebdo offices because Islam, they were already brainwashed by Al Queda before they commited the attack.

These are the people I'm talking about when I say "the guy who comes under the control of a leader with an agenda".


EDIT: Drew makes a good point, too, in the post above mine.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> You're losing this debate. I assume you realize that?
> 
> The same thing that prompted a woman in a bar north of here last year to, after a bar fight with a guy wearing a Yankees hat and several too many drinks, follow him out of the bar, get into her car, and run him over, killing him, because she was a Red Sox fan. Or the same thing that led a group of homophobes to leave Matthew Shephard to die on a fence in the south. Or the same thing that encouraged someone to shoot Martin Luther King, because of the color of his skin. Some people can't countenance the existence of people or things different than them, and feel entitled to use violence to put an end to it.
> 
> Lots of people believe in something, rightly or wrongly, and when something happens that runs against their belief, they get upset. That's fine. The problem is when they then feel entitled to use violence to address that. The fact that out of the several hundred thousand Muslims who could conceivably have made it to the Charlie Hebdo headquarters after the publication of that cartoon, only a dozen or so shooters did, should provide pretty strong evidence that what motivated the shooters wasn't unique to the religion they believed in, but was the fact they were sociopaths who felt violence was an appropriate solution. Otherwsie, it wouldn't have been a dozen guys with AK-47s, it'd be a couple hundred thousand, and the Muslim community wouldn't have condemned the attack as well.


But that sense of 'otherness' doesn't stem from nowhere, does it? What would cause them to specifically attack an anti-Islamic publication if not Islam, the same way that the thing that would cause people to kill Matthew Shephard is homophobia (I don't know the case so can't comment on the perpetrators politics or religion, but if they were staunch Christian conservatives, I'd be here blaming Christianity). Also, I've addressed this multiple times already. Just because it's not the majority, it doesn't mean it doesn't stem from Islam. There is such a thing called interpretation, and that is what these killers had, an interpretation of Islam. An interpretation we must condemn, but also one we must critique Islam for allowing. And no, I really don't think I'm losing this debate. So don't try and bring personal attacks into this.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> But that sense of 'otherness' doesn't stem from nowhere, does it? What would cause them to specifically attack an anti-Islamic publication if not Islam, the same way that the thing that would cause people to kill Matthew Shephard is homophobia (I don't know the case so can't comment on the perpetrators politics or religion, but if they were staunch Christian conservatives, I'd be here blaming Christianity). Also, I've addressed this multiple times already. Just because it's not the majority, it doesn't mean it doesn't stem from Islam. There is such a thing called interpretation, and that is what these killers had, an interpretation of Islam. An interpretation we must condemn, but also one we must critique Islam for allowing. And no, I really don't think I'm losing this debate. So don't try and bring personal attacks into this.



That's true of ANY form of otherness, however. Whites lynched blacks because they saw them as other. Romans fed Christians to the lions because they saw them as other, and then Christians slaughtered various infidels in the Crusades because they saw them as other. Hitler killed Jews because he saw them as other, and today Red Sox and Yankees fans get into fights and, yes, occasionally kill each other, because they see each other as other. ANY way of looking at the world as "us vs. them" creates a Self and an Other. 

Now, we can either address this by targeting the particular manifestation, as you're inclined to, and perpetuate the self/other dichotomy... Or, we can take a step back, and realize that the fundamental problem is categorizing each other as Self and Other, and try to find some common ground, if at a _bare_ minimum by agreeing to both condemn those who think those differences are worth killing over.


----------



## TedEH

Insomnia said:


> There is such a thing called interpretation


The catch is that said interpretation is not an autonomous entity in itself. Lots of terrible ideas exist without anyone carrying them to some violent end. Someone has to have put that idea in a person's head, or they have to have been motivated to come up with that interpretation in the first place. If I convince you that a religion is justification for doing something violent, the religion isn't at fault, I am.


----------



## Insomnia

TedEH said:


> The catch is that said interpretation is not an autonomous entity in itself. Lots of terrible ideas exist without anyone carrying them to some violent end. Someone has to have put that idea in a person's head, or they have to have been motivated to come up with that interpretation in the first place. If I convince you that a religion is justification for doing something violent, the religion isn't at fault, I am.


You are at fault, but the religion is also at fault for allowing an interpretation of that. Islamic fundamentalism is very, very widespread. It may be a minority, but there are still millions upon millions upon millions who ascribe to it. That is why I don't think it can be boiled down to people with a predisposition of violence trying to convert others into Islam just to further their own bloodlust.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> You are at fault, but the religion is also at fault for allowing an interpretation of that. Islamic fundamentalism is very, very widespread. It may be a minority, but there are still millions upon millions upon millions who ascribe to it. That is why I don't think it can be boiled down to people with a predisposition of violence trying to convert others into Islam just to further their own bloodlust.


Challenge. Source?


----------



## TedEH

Insomnia said:


> at fault for allowing an interpretation of that


How exactly do you prevent an interpretation of something?


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> I don't have anything particularly "smart" to add, I'm not a super world-ly person and won't claim to be, but people aren't "just" sh*tty. Everyone certainly has the capacity to be violent, but the values that lead to the decisions to enact said violence have to have been learned somewhere. I'll agree insofar as the details of which religion or culture those values come from is irrelevant, but somewhere along the lines those values are still being passed on.
> 
> Do I think that religion in itself is a cause or a base-level driving source of violence? Not really. But I wouldn't shy away from questioning it's role as a tool in continuing to instill the types of values that drive people to violence. I can't blame religion for violence in the same sense that I can't blame a gun for shooting someone- but I still wouldn't hand a gun to the majority of people.



You may be right. However, take a human being out of society completely and see just how well he or she upholds social values such as not killing another person. Obviously, you can't do this as a direct experiment, but there have been several cases of feral children being abandoned and left to fend for themselves, becoming rather violent when approached by other people. I think that lends some support to the idea that people are generally shitty and that society does what it can to curb that. Of course, I'll be the first to point out that the sampling in the above case is horrible, seeing as how these people experienced shitty people very early in life and didn't get a chance to know much else.


----------



## Insomnia

TedEH said:


> How exactly do you prevent an interpretation of something?


By doing what people like Maajid Nawaz say, and that is to look further into mosques who push radical interpretations, be much harsher on those who support terrorism (I believe I'm right in thinking that the majority of people are in the US on here, and I know you're in Canada, but in the UK, we're seriously having a debate over whether we should those who've publicly espoused support for ISIS and, subsequently, their genocidal tendencies), and also stop the teachings of violent verses in a positive light.


----------



## bostjan

Insomnia said:


> You are at fault, but the religion is also at fault for allowing an interpretation of that. Islamic fundamentalism is very, very widespread. It may be a minority, but there are still millions upon millions upon millions who ascribe to it. That is why I don't think it can be boiled down to people with a predisposition of violence trying to convert others into Islam just to further their own bloodlust.



I guess it's all splitting hairs anyway. Religion is not just a set of beliefs, but it is an institution of people. Blaming a religion is blaming a specific institution of people.

For example, I'll pick on Baptists, since I was raised as one. The Baptists are taught that dancing is evil. Nowhere in the Bible is there any scripture that supports that. But, the teaching comes directly from the culture developed by other Baptists, and it can sometimes be strictly enforced.

That's where terrorism comes into play. These groups like ISIS and Al Queda are not just belief systems, they are all-encompassing cultures. So, you start with "Islam" as a cornerstone, and then build up a ton of intolerance and violent crap on top of it, throw in a strong sense of nationalism and militantism, and you have ISIS. Islam is involved, but it's not where things went sideways. Islam can be a peaceful religion or it can be a violent religion. You take a violent group of people and give them Islam and you get violent muslims. Take away the Islam, and you'd still have violent people.

But, as I said, the entire argument is splitting hairs. You can't reform Islam from the outside in either case, so what it the point of the argument? You say tomato, I say tomato, but either way the vegetable is squished and rotten, so the more appropriate term is "garbage."


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> feral children being abandoned and left to fend for themselves, becoming rather violent when approached by other people.


There's a huge leap between feral children being afraid of people, totally unequipped to deal with it, and people being sh*tty given the capacity to chose otherwise. That doesn't negate your point, but that's a huge stretch to use as evidence that sh*ttiness is an inherent human trait.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> By doing what people like Maajid Nawaz say, and that is to look further into mosques who push radical interpretations, be much harsher on those who support terrorism (I believe I'm right in thinking that the majority of people are in the US on here, and I know you're in Canada, but in the UK, we're seriously having a debate over whether we should those who've publicly espoused support for ISIS and, subsequently, their genocidal tendencies), and also stop the teachings of violent verses in a positive light.



You can make laws against crime, we have those already. We also have freedom of expression, freedom of thought and freedom of religion, so unless you're into deconstructing democracy and basic human rights just to stick it to a few potential criminals, that's all pretty much a dead end.

- edit - You can reference Minority Report, it kind of describes the solution you're advocating.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> Religion is not just a set of beliefs, but it is an institution of people.


I wanted to make a point along these lines earlier, but you beat me to it.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> Challenge. Source?


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

The implementation of Sharia is one example. Every implementation of Sharia around to date (and almost every single one in history) promotes the oppression of gays and women and dissidents. It means these Muslims want to base their law not on freedom or democracy, but they want it governed as a theocracy. However, I do realise that someone's interpretation of Sharia is subjective, and could be very wide ranging. But we have to think about where they'd draw their idea of an Islamic theocracy from (probably from the real-world instances of one).

The polls on favourable views of ISIS proves that in Pakistan alone, the 9% of Pakistani's who support ISIS are 17,000,000. The numbers really do start to add up. And that is just the number of Pakistanis who support a terror group who also kill devout Muslims (ISIS). The numbers would get higher if you asked them about terror groups that only kill non-believers, or terror groups that killed gays, or if they support the killings like that of Charlie Hebdo or the fatwa placed on Salman Rushdie. There are tens of millions at bare minimum, and honestly, I think it could be over 100,000,000. 

There are at the very minimum another 2,000,000 in Malaysia, another 12,740,000 in Nigeria, another 1,500,000 in Senegal.


----------



## Insomnia

bostjan said:


> I guess it's all splitting hairs anyway. Religion is not just a set of beliefs, but it is an institution of people. Blaming a religion is blaming a specific institution of people.
> 
> For example, I'll pick on Baptists, since I was raised as one. The Baptists are taught that dancing is evil. Nowhere in the Bible is there any scripture that supports that. But, the teaching comes directly from the culture developed by other Baptists, and it can sometimes be strictly enforced.
> 
> That's where terrorism comes into play. These groups like ISIS and Al Queda are not just belief systems, they are all-encompassing cultures. So, you start with "Islam" as a cornerstone, and then build up a ton of intolerance and violent crap on top of it, throw in a strong sense of nationalism and militantism, and you have ISIS. Islam is involved, but it's not where things went sideways. Islam can be a peaceful religion or it can be a violent religion. You take a violent group of people and give them Islam and you get violent muslims. Take away the Islam, and you'd still have violent people.
> 
> But, as I said, the entire argument is splitting hairs. You can't reform Islam from the outside in either case, so what it the point of the argument? You say tomato, I say tomato, but either way the vegetable is squished and rotten, so the more appropriate term is "garbage."


Well, I'd have to agree with that.


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> You can make laws against crime, we have those already. We also have freedom of expression, freedom of thought and freedom of religion, so unless you're into deconstructing democracy and basic human rights just to stick it to a few potential criminals, that's all pretty much a dead end.
> 
> - edit - You can reference Minority Report, it kind of describes the solution you're advocating.


Is it really that controversial to arrest people for supporting genocide?


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> There's a huge leap between feral children being afraid of people, totally unequipped to deal with it, and people being sh*tty given the capacity to chose otherwise. That doesn't negate your point, but that's a huge stretch to use as evidence that sh*ttiness is an inherent human trait.



I don't think it's any more a stretch than anything we have to the contrary. I'm not talking about being afraid of people, I'm talking about violent outbursts. Respect of human life is a learned trait, not an instinct. If no one is there to teach it, then a person will be violent, more often than not.

Look at it from the highest level. There are a lot of little details and nuances that have profound effects on the way people and society function with or against each other, but in the simplest case: People were once feral creatures. It was through the mutual benefits of forming a society that society was created. Where the wild man killed or else was killed, society stressed the progress that could be made by imposing order, which meant controlling violence. Governments, which rose out of the social aspect of mutual protection, was the culmination of this non-violence pact, with killing another member of the same social structure being the highest form of social transgression. I posit that society and governance were put in place, primarily, to squelch violence.

If the above lemma is correct, then it stands that human beings are generally violent creatures, but in a healthy society, humans are able to move beyond that, to the point where violence is no longer a major issue.

What we are seeing in the early 21st century is simply that people are refusing to be civilized, for which there are reasons that can be discussed, but overall, that's another general topic. In the case of Islamic extremism, militant Islamic terrorists have developed their own culture as a counterculture to the idea of civilization of the West.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/
> 
> The implementation of Sharia is one example. Every implementation of Sharia around to date (and almost every single one in history) promotes the oppression of gays and women and dissidents. It means these Muslims want to base their law not on freedom or democracy, but they want it governed as a theocracy. However, I do realise that someone's interpretation of Sharia is subjective, and could be very wide ranging. But we have to think about where they'd draw their idea of an Islamic theocracy from (probably from the real-world instances of one).
> 
> The polls on favourable views of ISIS proves that in Pakistan alone, the 9% of Pakistani's who support ISIS are 17,000,000. The numbers really do start to add up. And that is just the number of Pakistanis who support a terror group who also kill devout Muslims (ISIS). The numbers would get higher if you asked them about terror groups that only kill non-believers, or terror groups that killed gays, or if they support the killings like that of Charlie Hebdo or the fatwa placed on Salman Rushdie. There are tens of millions at bare minimum, and honestly, I think it could be over 100,000,000.
> 
> There are at the very minimum another 2,000,000 in Malaysia, another 12,740,000 in Nigeria, another 1,500,000 in Senegal.


There is a WORLD of difference, though, between support for Sharia law, and support for violent fundamentalism. You understand that, right? You're intentionally loosening the standard here to make it look like large swathes of Islam promote violence. That's absolutely not the case.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> What we are seeing in the early 21st century is simply that people are refusing to be civilized


I suppose I don't see it from the same angle. I don't think that a person otherwise living within a society committing a violent act with political/religious/whatever motivation is just peeling back their cultured-ness and reverting to feral instincts. Motivated violence is very different from reactionary/instinctual violence. Premeditated terror attacks are not part of human instinct. Disrespect for human life is also a learned trait, IMO, especially when it comes to being selective about which human lives are worth respecting or not.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> There is a WORLD of difference, though, between support for Sharia law, and support for violent fundamentalism. You understand that, right? You're intentionally loosening the standard here to make it look like large swathes of Islam promote violence. That's absolutely not the case.


But it's still Islamic fundamentalism, no?


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> But it's still Islamic fundamentalism, no?



One, I'd say no, it's not, at least not in the sense we're discussing it here. 

Two, I'd say in a conversation about whether or not Islam is fundamentally violent and if we should blame Islam itself for the most recent attack, I'd say the whole thing is besides the point. We're not discussing whether or not gays have adequate human rights protection under Sharia law, we're discussing if Islam itself encourages strapping a bomb to your chest and detonating it in a train station, or driving a van into a crowd, and I'd say the answer is pretty clearly "no."

You can't simply move the goalposts because you're running out of defenses for your view. Face it - Islam no more promotes violence than does the fact I divide the world into "sports teams from Boston" and "sports teams not from Boston," and am eagerly awaiting America's Quarterback Tom Brady™ to have surgery to give him a 6th finger so he can wear one more Super Bowl ring on his hand.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> Is it really that controversial to arrest people for supporting genocide?



Dude, yes! Arresting anyone based on what they simply say or think, or even worse based on what their browser history hints about them, is a violation of the most basic human rights. It's exactly what constitutional freedom of speech laws are designed to prevent, it's the damn foundation of western society. People are innocent until found guilty, that's how it works. You don't arrest someone for having an opinion! Do you realize what you are saying?



Insomnia said:


> But it's still Islamic fundamentalism, no?



By definition, no. Sharia interprets islamic texts as a means to create laws for the betterment of society, fundamentalism however means not interpreting and instead following literally what the text says by the letter. This is a tangent and not a defense of Sharia law, just answering your question.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> One, I'd say no, it's not, at least not in the sense we're discussing it here.
> 
> Two, I'd say in a conversation about whether or not Islam is fundamentally violent and if we should blame Islam itself for the most recent attack, I'd say the whole thing is besides the point. We're not discussing whether or not gays have adequate human rights protection under Sharia law, we're discussing if Islam itself encourages strapping a bomb to your chest and detonating it in a train station, or driving a van into a crowd, and I'd say the answer is pretty clearly "no."
> 
> You can't simply move the goalposts because you're running out of defenses for your view. Face it - Islam no more promotes violence than does the fact I divide the world into "sports teams from Boston" and "sports teams not from Boston," and am eagerly awaiting America's Quarterback Tom Brady™ to have surgery to give him a 6th finger so he can wear one more Super Bowl ring on his hand.


Except it clearly does. There are no 'official texts' of 'sports teams', especially not ones with an otherwordly conviction to commit violence. 

Your point (at least, I think it was yours) about how we will always draw divisions and tribal instincts of an 'other' group is one I hadn't considered. But again, these 'othered' groups are created by ostracising non-believers.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> But again, these 'othered' groups are created by ostracising non-believers.



Wow, did you just explain the cause for our entire human history of slavery, racism, classism, sexism, tribal wars and civil wars and territorial wars and any form of systematic oppression where the majority exploits and degrades minorities, in one little sentence? It's because someone's a "non-believer"?


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> Wow, did you just explain the cause for our entire human history of slavery, racism, classism, sexism, tribal wars and civil wars and territorial wars and any form of systematic oppression where the majority exploits and degrades minorities, in one little sentence? It's because someone's a "non-believer"?



I didn't enter into this debate thinking the conversation would turn into one of 'does Islam inherently create 'other' groups, or is it that we as humans create them, then find reasons to justify them'.


I will admit defeat in the sense that Islam doesn't create 'other' groups, we as humans do, and then we try to rationalise them (trying to rationalise something through religion is rather amusing though, I think).

I think Islam is used to justify out groups, but yes, not to create them. However, I think that it can still be blamed for its texts and their rationalisation of hatred.

I find it interesting that sexism (which is evidently still around today) hasn't caused the mass killings of women, has it? Rather, the oppression of them, treating them as lesser to men.

I have now changed my belief that we create other groups as humans through 'tribal instincts' (I don't think the semantics necessarily matter), but that the things we use to justify these classifications of out groups lead to _how_ we treat the outgroups, but not _why _we class them as out groups. 

I think we all have inclinations to discriminate against that which we do not understand. That's why you will find Muslims and Christians who don't understand homosexuality, and will see in their book it says to dislike them, and then they dislike them. That's why the number of gay people who've read the Qu'ran and read the Bible and then said 'What I'm doing is awful, I need to stop' is very, very small. Because they (a bit of a generalisation, but most of them...) understand their sexuality, and won't let an ancient book dictate who they are. 

I think that people can read the Qu'ran and become more intolerant, but I don't think the the Qu'ran creates those intolerances, rather, it boils them up, it brings them up from an issue that you may see as unimportant, just something you think like 'two blokes kissing, ewww', to something in which the God you ascribe to is calling an evil sin.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> Except it clearly does. There are no 'official texts' of 'sports teams', especially not ones with an otherwordly conviction to commit violence.
> 
> Your point (at least, I think it was yours) about how we will always draw divisions and tribal instincts of an 'other' group is one I hadn't considered. But again, these 'othered' groups are created by ostracising non-believers.



What JohnIce said. There are few things as fundamentally human as dividing people into groups of "us" and "them." I'm obviously being a bit facetious by talking about sports teams, but this is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world. When done right, it's not a bad thing - we're having this conversation in a "us" structure defined by having a preference for more than six strings on a guitar, and the positive way of looking at that is it creates an instant community - we don't see eye to eye on Islam, but we immediately have something in common because of our preference for guitars. That's cool. What gets problematic is when you then take the "them" side of that dichotomy as something deserving of discrimination - I don't know how old you are, and this is a pretty superficial example, but at 36, I've been playing seven strings long enough that I remember the "why don't you just tune your guitar down?" and "seven strings are only for nu-metal" attitude from six stringers. Pretty small potatoes as far as discrimination goes, but there was definitely tension between the "us" group and the "them" group. Again, superficial example. More apt would be a racially-based us/them - not a bad thing when it's a positive, constructive source of national identity, say being from an Italian family and taking intense pride in your national cuisine - but very dangerous when it moves from constructive to negative, such as America's well-documented history of discriminating against people based on the color of their skin. 

Either way, the real problem is seeing an us/them interface, and deciding it's something worth killing over. And that, I'd argue, isn't a fault of the way you've chosen to divide up the world; it's entirely on you for deciding that your world view is worth more than someone else's life.


----------



## tedtan

Insomnia said:


> I have now changed my belief that we create other groups as humans through 'tribal instincts' (I don't think the semantics necessarily matter), but that the things we use to justify these classifications of out groups lead to _how_ we treat the outgroups, but not _why _we class them as out groups.



The why is simple: they're different than us.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> What JohnIce said. There are few things as fundamentally human as dividing people into groups of "us" and "them." I'm obviously being a bit facetious by talking about sports teams, but this is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world. When done right, it's not a bad thing - we're having this conversation in a "us" structure defined by having a preference for more than six strings on a guitar, and the positive way of looking at that is it creates an instant community - we don't see eye to eye on Islam, but we immediately have something in common because of our preference for guitars. That's cool. What gets problematic is when you then take the "them" side of that dichotomy as something deserving of discrimination - I don't know how old you are, and this is a pretty superficial example, but at 36, I've been playing seven strings long enough that I remember the "why don't you just tune your guitar down?" and "seven strings are only for nu-metal" attitude from six stringers. Pretty small potatoes as far as discrimination goes, but there was definitely tension between the "us" group and the "them" group. Again, superficial example. More apt would be a racially-based us/them - not a bad thing when it's a positive, constructive source of national identity, say being from an Italian family and taking intense pride in your national cuisine - but very dangerous when it moves from constructive to negative, such as America's well-documented history of discriminating against people based on the color of their skin.
> 
> Either way, the real problem is seeing an us/them interface, and deciding it's something worth killing over. And that, I'd argue, isn't a fault of the way you've chosen to divide up the world; it's entirely on you for deciding that your world view is worth more than someone else's life.


Also, thank you very much for using that guitar analogy, because actually, they most certainly makes it easier for me to understand. I love extended range basses (7+ strings), and see a lot of players hating on them. They say 'its not a bass' or 'you don't need that many strings' or 'people can do amazing things on 4, why would you want that many?', but no-one can actually provide a real reason as to why they dislike them, they just see them as abnormal, something strange, and (this might sound weird in the context of a guitar), but _threatening. _


----------



## TedEH

Insomnia said:


> I find it interesting that sexism (which is evidently still around today) hasn't caused the mass killings of women, has it?


I don't know much history, but I'll bet someone could come up with an example of this happening.


Insomnia said:


> I think we all have inclinations to discriminate against that which we do not understand.


I'd add to that, and say not only do we tend to react negatively to what we don't understand, but also to things that are just different, even if we DO understand.


Insomnia said:


> I think that people can read the Qu'ran and become more intolerant


I could be wrong about this, but I think most of the time said intolerance, or a set of values that supports that intolerance, would have to exist already for someone to come across any text and have that trigger any real-world manifestation of that intolerance. In other words, if you already don't like something, and your religious text backs you up, then suddenly you have something to fall back on if your distaste is called into question. Either that or you would have had to be unsure in the first place.


----------



## Insomnia

TedEH said:


> I don't know much history, but I'll bet someone could come up with an example of this happening.
> 
> I'd add to that, and say not only do we tend to react negatively to what we don't understand, but also to things that are just different, even if we DO understand.
> 
> I could be wrong about this, but I think most of the time said intolerance, or a set of values that supports that intolerance, would have to exist already for someone to come across any text and have that trigger any real-world manifestation of that intolerance. In other words, if you already don't like something, and your religious text backs you up, then suddenly you have something to fall back on if your distaste is called into question. Either that or you would have had to be unsure in the first place.



1) Perhaps so, but just not as much as racial genocide or homophobic killings, and considering sexism is still apparent is almost every single place on Earth still, I'd say that it's just disproportionate (the amount of women and amount of sexism) to the amount of mass killings, which leads me to believe there is some type of philosophy about, almost, _how_ to discriminate against women.

2) Yes, that's true.

3) I did specify that later on in that comment, about how the intolerance has to already exist, not sure if you read that bit though.


----------



## TedEH

^ Was just wording it differently, not disagreeing.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> I suppose I don't see it from the same angle. I don't think that a person otherwise living within a society committing a violent act with political/religious/whatever motivation is just peeling back their cultured-ness and reverting to feral instincts. Motivated violence is very different from reactionary/instinctual violence. Premeditated terror attacks are not part of human instinct. Disrespect for human life is also a learned trait, IMO, especially when it comes to being selective about which human lives are worth respecting or not.



Why not, though? These folks are not taking a subtle approach to the problem.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> Why not, though? These folks are not taking a subtle approach to the problem.


Nothing to do with subtlety. A feral person/animal/etc. being violent is defensive. It's an immediate survival mechanism. And it's not really a choice. Like if a dog bites you, it didn't do so because it went through a long thought process, weighing the pros and cons, the social implications, the morality of the situation etc and come to a decision. It just reacts. It doesn't mean to harm you, that's not the point. It doesn't know any better.

Terrorism is not like that at all. It's not defensive, it's offensive. You could argue it's sort of a survival mechanism in some cases, but not in the same literal/immediate sense. And it's absolutely a choice. It's premeditated, and intentional. It's very much meant to harm you as it's point.


----------



## Insomnia

TedEH said:


> Nothing to do with subtlety. A feral person/animal/etc. being violent is defensive. It's an immediate survival mechanism. And it's not really a choice. Like if a dog bites you, it didn't do so because it went through a long thought process, weighing the pros and cons, the social implications, the morality of the situation etc and come to a decision. It just reacts. It doesn't mean to harm you, that's not the point. It doesn't know any better.
> 
> Terrorism is not like that at all. It's not defensive, it's offensive. You could argue it's sort of a survival mechanism in some cases, but not in the same literal/immediate sense. And it's absolutely a choice. It's premeditated, and intentional. It's very much meant to harm you as it's point.


I have to agree with this. Like I said, I do now think we create outgroups, but it's just not true that commit terrorism out of basic instinct. It's demonstrably untrue. Communists bombing a government building in Nepal isn't a survival technique, really, it's a premeditated attack. I don't think that comes naturally to us, but dislike (and even hatred) of others does come naturally.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> 1) Perhaps so, but just not as much as racial genocide or homophobic killings, and considering sexism is still apparent is almost every single place on Earth still, I'd say that it's just disproportionate (the amount of women and amount of sexism) to the amount of mass killings, which leads me to believe there is some type of philosophy about, almost, _how_ to discriminate against women.



Heterosexual men hold the power, they want to get laid. The women live. What sexism DOES instead result in is rape, slavery, prostitution, well every imaginable exploitation really. Besides that it's not like women are necessarily spared in genocides, they just don't usually get targeted specifically because whoever initiates a genocide is pretty much 100% of the time a heterosexual male.


----------



## Explorer

Insomnia said:


> So what caused them to do this? They were born and bred in France, and were the sons of Algerian immigrants.
> 
> If this wasn't sparked by Islamic terrorism, I don't know what did spark it.


I have to again return to the NHS doctor and the horrible racism he faces from white citizens of the British Empire, for being a non-white citizen of the British Empire.

You seem blessedly free of the ravages of knowledge regarding Algerian history. The parents were likely automatically French citizens, not really immigrants.

Could you provide your evidence that racism against non-white citizens is irrelevant in radicalization? If you keep trying to make it about the irresistable appeal of one creed, instead of the factors shown to correlate to radicalization, I'm positive you'll never understand the factors you seem bent on denying.

Incidentally... this still means that domestic terrorism is the main threat, not foreigners. As such, it really seems like a losing strategy to avoid examining the roots of radicalization for domestic terrorists.


----------



## Explorer

Insomnia said:


> But that sense of 'otherness' doesn't stem from nowhere, does it?


One possible source of "otherness" is being attacked as "other" by a white majority.


Insomnia said:


> The implementation of Sharia is one example. Every implementation of Sharia around to date (and almost every single one in history) promotes the oppression of gays and women and dissidents. It means these Muslims want to base their law not on freedom or democracy, but they want it governed as a theocracy. .


If you substitute "white Christian dominionism" for "sharia" in that, you've covered most of the subjugation in the modern world, including stripping the heathens of their native religions, and also covered American evangelicals promoting such oppression in the US, and even in foreign countries like Uganda.


Drew said:


> There is a WORLD of difference, though, between support for Sharia law, and support for violent fundamentalism. You understand that, right? You're intentionally loosening the standard here to make it look like large swathes of Islam promote violence. That's absolutely not the case.





Insomnia said:


> But it's still Islamic fundamentalism, no?


Given that there is Christian fundamentalism still working for the deaths of the LGBTQ and to kill abortion providers, no, those Christian fundamentalists are not Islamic fundamentalists.


Insomnia said:


> Your point (at least, I think it was yours) about how we will always draw divisions and tribal instincts of an 'other' group is one I hadn't considered. But again, these 'othered' groups are created by ostracising non-believers.


What did the NHS doctor not believe which led to his being "other"ed by the white UK racist?


----------



## Insomnia

Explorer said:


> I have to again return to the NHS doctor and the horrible racism he faces from white citizens of the British Empire, for being a non-white citizen of the British Empire.
> 
> You seem blessedly free of the ravages of knowledge regarding Algerian history. The parents were likely automatically French citizens, not really immigrants.
> 
> Could you provide your evidence that racism against non-white citizens is irrelevant in radicalization? If you keep trying to make it about the irresistable appeal of one creed, instead of the factors shown to correlate to radicalization, I'm positive you'll never understand the factors you seem bent on denying.
> 
> Incidentally... this still means that domestic terrorism is the main threat, not foreigners. As such, it really seems like a losing strategy to avoid examining the roots of radicalization for domestic terrorists.


I've said multiple times we need to investigate home-grown threats too, and their causes.
The thing I'm questioning about racism (and using Islam to justify it) is that if their primary reason for lashing out at society was racism, why would they look to a religion that barely discusses race whatsoever as what we are calling their 'justification' of the attack? 

If you're talking about being discriminated against for being Muslim (which I would say we shouldn't use the term 'racism' for, but that's sort of besides the point), then that's understandable, but it sounded like you were talking about them being discriminated against for being Algerian? I don't see how that would cause them to use Islam to justify killing random white people, rather, they would've made their objective and statement clear: we want to end this racist tirade against non-white in France. If they'd done that, they might've actually shone some light on the issues they'd faced. But they didn't, which is why I question if that's their motivation.


----------



## Insomnia

Explorer said:


> One possible source of "otherness" is being attacked as "other" by a white majority.
> 
> If you substitute "white Christian dominionism" for "sharia" in that, you've covered most of the subjugation in the modern world, including stripping the heathens of their native religions, and also covered American evangelicals promoting such oppression in the US, and even in foreign countries like Uganda.
> 
> 
> Given that there is Christian fundamentalism still working for the deaths of the LGBTQ and to kill abortion providers, no, those Christian fundamentalists are not Islamic fundamentalists.
> 
> What did the NHS doctor not believe which led to his being "other"ed by the white UK racist?


Please try and read through my comments. Nowhere have I said 'Islam is the cause for ALL extremism' or whatever, I have consistently acknowledged that there are Christian Fundamentalists across the world calling for the deaths of LGBTQ+ people and also atheists, in some cases. It's obvious that I'm not saying 'Islam is the root of all extremism', don't try to twist my words. Also, I would argue that actually, yes, a lot of colonialism was partially pushed by this idea of a Christian crusade against the non-believers.


----------



## Explorer

Insomnia said:


> The thing I'm questioning about racism (and using Islam to justify it) is that if their primary reason for lashing out at society was racism, why would they look to a religion that barely discusses race whatsoever as what we are calling their 'justification' of the attack?


Why would an ostracized and marginalized minority find appeal in an institution which accepted them? Is that a serious question? Give it some thought.



Insomnia said:


> If you're talking about being discriminated against for being Muslim (which I would say we shouldn't use the term 'racism' for, but that's sort of besides the point), then that's understandable, but it sounded like you were talking about them being discriminated against for being Algerian?


I certainly was talking about the discrimination against Algerians, of which you are entirely unaware. 


Insomnia said:


> I don't see how that would cause them to use Islam to justify killing random white people, rather, they would've made their objective and statement clear: we want to end this racist tirade against non-white in France. If they'd done that, they might've actually shone some light on the issues they'd faced. But they didn't, which is why I question if that's their motivation.


Again, I can see a path from being marginalized, to joining a group which is accepting, to then moving to an extreme with that group. This is common with all kinds of extreme groups, including Scientology, the National Front and multilevel marketing schemes like Amway and Nu Skin. There are other commonalities as well. 

You genuinely seem ignorant about how such processes work, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way. You should do some reading about how such groups do their recruitment processes, in order to gain the insight you have stated you don't have. Just do a web search on "recruitment" and each of those organizations in turn, and you'll find plenty of resources on each. 

Let us know what you noticed in common with them all, and whether you think much the same could be said for the group you currently feel is unique.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> Nothing to do with subtlety. A feral person/animal/etc. being violent is defensive. It's an immediate survival mechanism. And it's not really a choice. Like if a dog bites you, it didn't do so because it went through a long thought process, weighing the pros and cons, the social implications, the morality of the situation etc and come to a decision. It just reacts. It doesn't mean to harm you, that's not the point. It doesn't know any better.
> 
> Terrorism is not like that at all. It's not defensive, it's offensive. You could argue it's sort of a survival mechanism in some cases, but not in the same literal/immediate sense. And it's absolutely a choice. It's premeditated, and intentional. It's very much meant to harm you as it's point.



Is that how the terrorists rationalize it, though? Do they spend that much time rationalizing why they attack? Hmm, probably not. They go by their emotions, which are negative toward the west due to what they see as payback or defense. I think you can say there is a difference between a terrorist and a feral child, but I think you can also draw some parallelisms between the two easily. Anyway, I'm not drawing any equal signs in my argument, only making a simile. Terrorism is a result in the breakdown of civilization; a terrorist is like a feral child. You say you don't see it from that angle. I can't really understand why, because, to me, it seems like it's not much of a stretch. 

I'll further fill out the analogy. Groups like Al Queda and ISIS started off as fringe organizations. They were groups very loosely attached to society - break aways. As such, they eschewed mainstream though and social norms, and espoused extreme violence as a means to their ends. Somewhere along the way, their ends ceased to hold realistic meaning. If you thought of ISIS embodied as a person, it would be insane and violent. Unrealistic expectations of world domination/destruction, and knowing no limits as to what needs to be done to get there. This is contrary to any religion, as religion is a set of rules and norms by which to live one's life. ISIS stands by the use of any means in order to inflict harm. No rules = no religion. You could colour ISIS Islam, or colour them Satanist, or whatever, it doesn't matter anymore, because they don't follow the rules. And with such abstract and unrealistic goals, they are not grounded in reality. They don't converse with other cultures nor society, and so, if embodied as a person, they would be, in several ways, like a feral child.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> Is that how the terrorists rationalize it, though?


I'll make zero claims to have any real idea how terrorism is rationalized.  I kinda see where you're making the connection. I still see it kind of differently, but not sure how to put it into words. But my interpretation of an analogy is not super important anyway, I get what the point was.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> I find it interesting that sexism (which is evidently still around today) hasn't caused the mass killings of women, has it? Rather, the oppression of them, treating them as lesser to men.



You know, this struck me as wrong at the time you posted it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I was walking around on my lunch break since it was gorgeous out, and for whatever reason this question started percolating at the back of my mind. I think I can provide you a reasonable answer, in two parts.

First, is why do people turn to violence and violent terrorism in the first place? We've focused mostly on the person perpetrating the violence themselves, but IMO I think that's only part of the piece. Islamic extremists aren't blowing up bombs in crowded subway stations just because they get off on hurting people (although certainly that may be part of it). They're turning to violence because there is a power imbalance, and they're on the wrong side of it; they're not in a position of power to push their agenda (the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state in the Iraq/Syria area), so they're turning to violence (both military in the area and terrorist in the West) to try to shift that balance of power. I think that matters because, if you're in a position of power, there's no need to turn to violence - you don't have to, to accomplish your objectives, since you have the power to do so directly.

So, turning to the surprising lack of mass killings of women, and ignoring logistical questions like it's rare to find areas where only women congregate, I think one of the reasons you don't see similar terrorist violence here is that it's not needed; in most of the world, men have historically always had a dominant position over women, so they don't need to turn to mass violence to assert power, they can do so directly.

And, I think a lot of the violence you DO see towards women is of a much more subtle form, in reflection of the fact that women are at a position of weakness relative to men in much of society. For much of American history, women couldn't vote or own property. Today, if a woman is raped by a man, she's asked why she didn't keep her legs together, why she was drinking, why she wore that shirt, or why she led the guy on if she didn't want to sleep with him. Half the time if they're even convicted, they're given slap-on-the-wrist punishments; six months of probabtion, I think, in the case of that swimmer who raped a passed-out classmate behind a dumpster, because they don't want to "ruin their future" over a "thirty second lapse of judgement" or some such crap. There's violence there, all right, in the implicit statement that a man has every right to have his way with a woman unless she forcefully stops him. And, there are weaker forms of violence -- that women tend to make 80 cents on the dollar a man makes, the fact that only a small percentage of fortune 500 companies have C-level female executives and women are badly outnumbered on boards despite making up 51% of the women's population, that the "traditional" view is the man is a breadwinner and the woman stays home to raise the kids, and sacrifices her career for his, etc.

So, long story short, I think the reason you haven't seen a similar amount of high profile male violence against women is that men simply don't have to, to assert their power and dominance. And I think that also provides interesting insight into why Islamic violence is NOT broad-based and indicative of some flaw in Islam; considering the massive reach of the faith, the fact that Islamic terrorists feel the need to turn to violence means they are NOT operating from a position of strength inside their faith, but rather they are an extremely small minority fighting a much larger and much stronger, more peaceful world order.

tl;dr version - why turn to violence, if you have enough power to get what you want without it? That's why we seem Islamic extremist terrorism, but not overt violence directed at women.


----------



## blacai

> I find it interesting that sexism (which is evidently still around today) hasn't caused the mass killings of women, has it? Rather, the oppression of them, treating them as lesser to men.


In Spain, more than 31 women were killed by ther ex-/partner this year. So, I would say sexism kills more people in Spain than terrorism.
Every year between 50-80 women are killed in Spain. Even during the years were ETA was active, men were killing more people than the terrorist group.

I don't know about other countries, but at least in Spain, sexism is more dangerous than islamic terrorism(And we have all arabs countries trying to take al-andalus back)


----------



## CapnForsaggio

Car crashes kill more people than terrorism, too. Why don't I care?

No one is suggesting we unecessarily import more car crashes. And no one would.


----------



## Drew

CapnForsaggio said:


> Car crashes kill more people than terrorism, too. Why don't I care?
> 
> No one is suggesting we unecessarily import more car crashes. And no one would.


Well, easy. One is an accident, the other is intentional. 

No one is suggesting we "import" car crashes, but we still criminalize drunk driving and speeding. We just don't ban cars, or ban driving. Instead, we punish drivers only when we have clear evidence that they broke the law.


----------



## CapnForsaggio

I was attempting to highlight the false equivalency of anything with terrorism.

It is obvious to most, that any number "X" of deaths (any reason) PLUS terrorism deaths "Y" is worse than the number of deaths "X" without terrorism.

No one is required to put up with ANY amount of terrorism because other forms of death exist and are more common. 

Are there people here who are against nuclear power? Why is that? More people are killed by coal mining every year, so we should just let reactors go up everywhere, right?


----------



## Drew

Wait, so you're actually arguing that "fixes" like Trump's Muslim ban are misguided and idiotic? Are we actually about to agree on something?


----------



## CapnForsaggio

Drew said:


> Wait, so you're actually arguing that "fixes" like Trump's Muslim ban are misguided and idiotic? Are we actually about to agree on something?



I'm not sure... I think you might have missed it.

'Just because something like coal mining causes ALOT of death, doesn't necessarily mean that we are wiling to accept the risks (which are less) of nuclear power in our communities.'

to circle back:

'Just because guns/cars/pools/diabetes cause ALOT of death, doesn't necessesarily mean that we are willing to accept the risks (which are less) of Islamic Terrorism in our communities.'


----------



## JohnIce

@CapnForsaggio Who's talking about "unnecessarily importing" a threat? Please be more specific on what you think is being "imported".


----------



## Explorer

Drew said:


> Wait, so you're actually arguing that "fixes" like Trump's Muslim ban are misguided and idiotic? Are we actually about to agree on something?





CapnForsaggio said:


> I'm not sure... I think you might have missed it.
> 
> to circle back:
> 
> 'Just because guns/cars/pools/diabetes cause ALOT of death, doesn't necessesarily mean that we are willing to accept the risks (which are less) of Islamic Terrorism in our communities.'


But that misses what Trump has actually done by ignoring *domestic* terrorists. 

To more accurately reflect current actions, and the removal of right-wing terrorist groups from consideration, as demonstrated by the Trump administration, here's the rephrasing.

"Just because guns/cars/pools/diabetes cause ALOT of death, doesn't necessesarily mean that we are willing to accept the risks (which are less) of Islamic Terrorism in our communities... but we will accept the risks of, and even ignore, homegrown domestic right-wing terrorists which pose more of a threat than Islamic terrorists."


JohnIce said:


> @CapnForsaggio Who's talking about "unnecessarily importing" a threat? Please be more specific on what you think is being "imported".


Yeah... that sounds CapnForsaggio is arguing that more harm is done by allowing the lower-risk group from outside than by letting the larger demonstrated threat go unchallenged. That defense of the ban doesn't make much sense, if preventing all terrorist violence and killings is the true goal. 

It only makes sense if one is trying to stay in the good graces of those who actually support right-wing domestic terrorists. We've seen those attempts to refuse to acknowledge right-wing terrorists as such for years now from the right wing, including the various right-wing news sources and politicians who happily embraced such individuals who fought against the rule of law like the Bundys while calling the Ferguson protestors terrorists.


----------



## JohnIce

Explorer said:


> Yeah... that sounds CapnForsaggio is arguing that more harm is done by allowing the lower-risk group from outside than by letting the larger demonstrated threat go unchallenged. That defense of the ban doesn't make much sense, if preventing all terrorist violence and killings is the true goal.
> 
> It only makes sense if one is trying to stay in the good graces of those who actually support right-wing domestic terrorists. We've seen those attempts to refuse to acknowledge right-wing terrorists as such for years now from the right wing, including the various right-wing news sources and politicians who happily embraced such individuals who fought against the rule of law like the Bundys while calling the Ferguson protestors terrorists.



It does sound like that, but given his vagueness and reliance on analogies I'd like him to clarify it. We spent 10 pages dissecting every argument around this position, and if this is just a case of the new guy going TL;DR all over the thread then what's the use.


----------



## bostjan

Living people are violent. Dead people much less so. If we kill everyone, there will be a lot less violence. [/heavy sarcasm]


----------



## Drew

JohnIce said:


> It does sound like that, but given his vagueness and reliance on analogies I'd like him to clarify it. We spent 10 pages dissecting every argument around this position, and if this is just a case of the new guy going TL;DR all over the thread then what's the use.


...because what's the fun of trolling it it takes actual work?


----------



## Explorer

JohnIce said:


> It does sound like that, but given his vagueness and reliance on analogies I'd like him to clarify it. We spent 10 pages dissecting every argument around this position, and *if this is just a case of the new guy going TL;DR all over the thread then what's the use*.





Drew said:


> ...because what's the fun of trolling it it takes actual work?


On the plus side, SS.org is great at requiring actual thought in the P&CE section. If someone repeatedly makes unsupported arguments and demonstrates an unwillingness to engage in intelligent, supported debate, the ban hammer comes down... and I'm sure there's at least some part of the membership who appreciates the resulting lack of trolling in this section.


----------



## CapnForsaggio

A difference of opinion is not "trolling."

I am simply a fan of letting the US have a modern immigration policy. I would fully support Canadian-style immigration reform in America.

They seem to have very few issues with terrorism, and I believe it is due to a functioning immigration system.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-may-canada-immigration-policy-20161227-story.html


----------



## Explorer

CapnForsaggio said:


> I am simply a fan of letting the US have a modern immigration policy. I would fully support Canadian-style immigration reform in America.
> 
> They seem to have very few issues with terrorism, and I believe it is due to a functioning immigration system.
> 
> http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-may-canada-immigration-policy-20161227-story.html


From the article:

"Canada’s selectivity is helped by its geographical position. It does not share a border with a country where wages are much lower (as the U.S. does with Mexico), and it isn’t next door to unstable regions (as Europe is to North Africa and the Middle East). The result is that few undocumented migrants move across the country’s southern border, as is the case in the U.S.; and few migrants land on its shores by boat, as in Europe."

Gong further, Canada has aggressively gone after its domestic terrorists, instead of protecting them by removing enforcement resources as the Trump administration has done for right-wing American extremist groups. The Canadian government has greater powers of surveillance, arrest and detention, and can more easily freeze and seize the financial assets of terrorists. Comparing the collegial interadtions between US Republicans and groups like those involved in the various Bundy situations, versus the aggressive actions the Canadian government has taken against domestic groups like the Quebecois separatists (removing civil liberties and making hundreds of arrests to shut down the situation comoletely, and then slowly sorting through what they found), it's clear that US Republicans won't ever go after the homegrown right-wing extremist groups which law enforcement has consistently assessed as being the greatest threat to US domestic safety and security, far beyond immigrants. 

Trump keeps protecting his supporters in right-wing extremist groups, and as long as the right intentionally ignores that greater threat, the statistics will continue to undermine the Republican argument that targeting immigrants is the best or even a moderately effective way to reduce terrorist attacks within the US.


----------



## JohnIce

CapnForsaggio said:


> They seem to have very few issues with terrorism, and I believe it is due to a functioning immigration system.
> 
> http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-may-canada-immigration-policy-20161227-story.html



Canada is a very different country from the US in so many political ways though. Thinking Canada's immigration system is the key to their level of security and equality strikes me as similar to putting on a black/yellow striped sweater and expecting it to make you able to fly like a bee.


----------



## Drew

CapnForsaggio said:


> A difference of opinion is not "trolling."
> 
> I am simply a fan of letting the US have a modern immigration policy. I would fully support Canadian-style immigration reform in America.
> 
> They seem to have very few issues with terrorism, and I believe it is due to a functioning immigration system.
> 
> http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-may-canada-immigration-policy-20161227-story.html



It's trolling when you're making short, unsubstantiated statements that I think I can speak for everyone _else_ who commented on your last two posts in saying we all had no fucking clue what you were talking about, but it sure looked like you were _trying_ to stir the pot.  

Besides, it's also a liiiiiiiittle harder to buy a gun north of the border.  Maybe we could start there!


----------



## Explorer

CapnForsaggio said:


> I am simply a fan of letting the US have a modern immigration policy. *I would fully support Canadian-style *immigration* reform in America.*
> 
> They seem to have very few issues with terrorism, and I believe it is due to a functioning immigration system.





Drew said:


> *It's trolling when you're making short, unsubstantiated statements* that I think I can speak for everyone _else_ who commented on your last two posts in saying we all had no fucking clue what you were talking about, but it sure looked like you were _trying_ to stir the pot.
> 
> *Besides, it's also a liiiiiiiittle harder to buy a gun north of the border.  Maybe we could start there!*


In the "Trump make it" topic, I believe it was CF who asked for liberals to provide evidence of a particular point, and then ignored responses providing evidence while claiming no such responses has been made.

In this topic, he's proving that he is the one incapable of making reasoned responses and providing supporting evidence, while providing a strong counterexample to the claim that conservatives are the ones who use evidence and reason to reach their conclusions.

I'm curious if he can marshall the resources to respond to the evidence undercutting his attempt to use Canada as support for his views, or if he'll just make more short, unsubstantiated statements, even on completely unrelated points in order to distract. That would definitely be trolling, instead of intelligent discussion.

*One great point CF makes though is that Trump is endangering the lives of US citizens by not advocating for US gun control.* It has been an odd point that conservatives in the US have fought to allow potential and suspected terrorists access to guns. How stupid is that?

Given the rush to judge entire classes of people in life-changing ways with no deliberation (voter disenfranchisement, everyone from a "dangerous country" being banned instead of dangerous persons) as well as focusing purely on one type of terrorism instead of looking at threat assessment numbers to decide the best resource allocation, their sudden need to protect against overreaching law is an easily observed sham. 

Still, CF might surprise us by following the evidence behind his most recent attempted distraction. I'm hopeful he's actually going to change his ways this time by using all the available evidence, and even stating that the gun control aspects are something that US conservatives are wrongly opposing.

I'm not expecting or counting on it, but evidence and reason would be a nice change from CF.


----------



## vilk

I feel that when it comes to judgement on the basis of ability to ratify your opinion using real information, Republicans/conservatives have an inherent disadvantage. Most of their policy isn't supported by anything like numbers, statistics, information-- rather it's usually comprised entirely of emotional appeals and callbacks to traditionalism as though the past were necessarily better than now, which is usually measurably untrue. Some examples:


Trickledown economics... this sh/t has been debunked thousands of times over--not to mention our present state of divide between rich and poor despite being the richest nation with the most billionaires. Yet it's still somehow Trump and the Republicans' single most pushed economic policy, and somehow republican voters still think that it's going to work.
Denying the human impact on climate change
Women's rights, specifically on the right to choose, is literally an appeal to religious superstition--and not even a universal one. Yeah, we don't let them actually pass that horeshit, but our sitting president literally said during his campaign that he wants to punish women who get abortions. I'm convinced that when he pantomimed a partial birth abortion during the 2nd debate is when he garnered the evangelical vote.
Insisting that danger of foreign Islamic terror in the United States being greater than domestic terrorists.
Insisting that stricter gun control laws would somehow create more gun violence.
The list goes on and on and on

I guess my real point is just that the expectation that Cap'n F would be able to defend his opinions with real information _even if he wanted to and tried and put in the effort_ is probably setting the bar too high--completely out of reach, even... Not even the smartest of Republican debaters would be able to do it.

However, the reality is that our governance is less dependent on real information than it is dependent on _what people want_, irrespective of whether or not it makes any fucking sense.


----------



## Drew

That may be why the modern GOP has increasingly become anti-science; not just because science supports the conclusion that humankind is causing climate change, which is inconvenient for them, but the broader fact that science and statistical analysis and empirical observation have provided some pretty clear counter-arguments to dearly-held right-wing positions, so they have to choose between, say, the scientific method, and believing that raising the minimum wage will cause large scale job loses and make things more expensive for everyone. Or, try to argue some middle ground where somehow Seattle is different, and it didn't happen there due to specific local factors (that may or may not exist) that would prevent the lessons learned there from being applied more broadly, etc.


----------



## CapnForsaggio

vilk said:


> Trickledown economics... this sh/t has been debunked thousands of times over--not to mention our present state of divide between rich and poor despite being the richest nation with the most billionaires. Yet it's still somehow Trump and the Republicans' single most pushed economic policy, and somehow republican voters still think that it's going to work.
> Denying the human impact on climate change
> Women's rights, specifically on the right to choose, is literally an appeal to religious superstition--and not even a universal one. Yeah, we don't let them actually pass that horeshit, but our sitting president literally said during his campaign that he wants to punish women who get abortions. I'm convinced that when he pantomimed a partial birth abortion during the 2nd debate is when he garnered the evangelical vote.
> Insisting that danger of foreign Islamic terror in the United States being greater than domestic terrorists.
> Insisting that stricter gun control laws would somehow create more gun violence.
> The list goes on and on and on
> 
> I guess my real point is just that the expectation that Cap'n F would be able to defend his opinions with real information _even if he wanted to and tried and put in the effort_ is probably setting the bar too high--completely out of reach, even... Not even the smartest of Republican debaters would be able to do it.



I honestly don't remember stating those particular opinions, or being a "republican".

Basically, unless you are adressing someting that I have said, please leave my name out of your mouths.


----------



## narad

CapnForsaggio said:


> I honestly don't remember stating those particular opinions, or being a "republican".
> 
> Basically, unless you are adressing someting that I have said, please leave my name out of your mouths.



Ah yes, the "I'm libertarian" or "I'm independent" defense. If it looks like a republican, and quacks like a republican, as far as it pertains to the topic you're discussing, you might as well be republican.


----------



## CapnForsaggio

narad said:


> Ah yes, the "I'm libertarian" or "I'm independent" defense. If it looks like a republican, and quacks like a republican, as far as it pertains to the topic you're discussing, you might as well be republican.



Can you show me where I made those GOP arguments?

I don't know why you have to be fascists, place words in my mouth, and demonize my POV....

I bet you all still don't understand why Trump won in the first place. Hint: you are the reason.


----------



## vilk

No one claimed that you had made those GOP arguments. I was making a point entirely separate from your presence in PC&E. I just used you as a way to tie it together with Explorer's comment. I probably should have worded it differently, because my main point was about republicans in general, and not about you as an individual, though I did imply that that you are republican, which I assumed you were based on everything I've ever seen you write here.


----------



## CapnForsaggio

vilk said:


> No one claimed that you had made those GOP arguments. I was making a point entirely separate from your presence in PC&E. I just used you as a way to tie it together with Explorer's comment. I probably should have worded it differently, because my main point was about republicans in general, and not about you as an individual, though I did imply that that you are republican, which I assumed you were based on everything I've ever seen you write here.



There are some overlapping ideas in modern conservatism and libertarianism... sure. Can you show me where I was acting "republican"? 

I want to make sure that i don't do that anymore, else I become the strawman for this entire thread. Oh wait....


----------



## vilk

Just FYI, in Political Science libertarianism and conservatism are on two different scales. Being more or less libertarian doesn't affect whether or not you are a conservative. As conservatism and liberalism are diametrically opposed, so are libertarianism and authoritarianism. What I'm trying to say is: self-identifying as libertarian does not in any way imply that you aren't conservative/republican.


----------



## Explorer

CapnForsaggio said:


> A difference of opinion is not "trolling." I am simply a fan of letting the US have a modern immigration policy. I would fully support Canadian-style immigration reform in America. They seem to have very few issues with terrorism, and I believe it is due to a functioning immigration system.





Drew said:


> It's trolling when you're making short, unsubstantiated statements that I think I can speak for everyone _else_ who commented on your last two posts in saying we all had no fucking clue what you were talking about, but it sure looked like you were _trying_ to stir the pot.
> 
> Besides, it's also a liiiiiiiittle harder to buy a gun north of the border.  Maybe we could start there!





Explorer said:


> In the "Trump make it" topic, I believe it was CF who asked for liberals to provide evidence of a particular point, and then ignored responses providing evidence while claiming no such responses has been made.
> 
> In this topic, he's proving that he is the one incapable of making reasoned responses and providing supporting evidence, while providing a strong counterexample to the claim that conservatives are the ones who use evidence and reason to reach their conclusions.
> 
> I'm curious if he can marshall the resources to respond to the evidence undercutting his attempt to use Canada as support for his views, or if he'll just make more short, unsubstantiated statements, even on completely unrelated points in order to distract. That would definitely be trolling, instead of intelligent discussion.
> 
> *One great point CF makes though is that Trump is endangering the lives of US citizens by not advocating for US gun control.* It has been an odd point that conservatives in the US have fought to allow potential and suspected terrorists access to guns. How stupid is that?
> 
> Given the rush to judge entire classes of people in life-changing ways with no deliberation (voter disenfranchisement, everyone from a "dangerous country" being banned instead of dangerous persons) as well as focusing purely on one type of terrorism instead of looking at threat assessment numbers to decide the best resource allocation, their sudden need to protect against overreaching law is an easily observed sham.
> 
> Still, CF might surprise us by following the evidence behind his most recent attempted distraction. I'm hopeful he's actually going to change his ways this time by using all the available evidence, and even stating that the gun control aspects are something that US conservatives are wrongly opposing.
> 
> I'm not expecting or counting on it, but evidence and reason would be a nice change from CF.





vilk said:


> ...(M)y real point is just that the expectation that Cap'n F would be able to defend his opinions with real information _even if he wanted to and tried and put in the effort_ is probably setting the bar too high--completely out of reach, even...





CapnForsaggio said:


> Basically, unless you are adressing someting that I have said, please leave my name out of your mouths.


I did adress something you said, and pointed out that you were attempting to stupidly narrow how Canada dealt with and continues to deal with terrorism to something equivalent to Trumps muslim ban. 

I pointed out that in a different topic, you kept claiming that no one had responded to your question, in spite of numerous people pointing out that you had gotten your answer. 

I acknowledged that you had inadvertently made a great point about Trump endangering the lives of US citizens by not advocating for gun control as well. 

I also pointed out, given your typical drive-by trolling without actual evidence, that I don't expect you to be able to address the complete picture in an intelligent way, but that I hope you will surprise me this time. 

Basically, if you missed that I was addressing what you said, and how you seem unable to use the complete evidence to make your case, please keep the whining in your mouth. Don't make excuses, just make your case like an adult.


----------



## narad

CapnForsaggio said:


> I bet you all still don't understand why Trump won in the first place. Hint: you are the reason.



Really? Pretty sure Hillary won my state...


----------



## JohnIce

vilk said:


> I feel that when it comes to judgement on the basis of ability to ratify your opinion using real information, Republicans/conservatives have an inherent disadvantage. Most of their policy isn't supported by anything like numbers, statistics, information-- rather it's usually comprised entirely of emotional appeals and callbacks to traditionalism as though the past were necessarily better than now, which is usually measurably untrue. Some examples:
> 
> 
> Trickledown economics... this sh/t has been debunked thousands of times over--not to mention our present state of divide between rich and poor despite being the richest nation with the most billionaires. Yet it's still somehow Trump and the Republicans' single most pushed economic policy, and somehow republican voters still think that it's going to work.
> Denying the human impact on climate change
> Women's rights, specifically on the right to choose, is literally an appeal to religious superstition--and not even a universal one. Yeah, we don't let them actually pass that horeshit, but our sitting president literally said during his campaign that he wants to punish women who get abortions. I'm convinced that when he pantomimed a partial birth abortion during the 2nd debate is when he garnered the evangelical vote.
> Insisting that danger of foreign Islamic terror in the United States being greater than domestic terrorists.
> Insisting that stricter gun control laws would somehow create more gun violence.
> The list goes on and on and on
> 
> I guess my real point is just that the expectation that Cap'n F would be able to defend his opinions with real information _even if he wanted to and tried and put in the effort_ is probably setting the bar too high--completely out of reach, even... Not even the smartest of Republican debaters would be able to do it.
> 
> However, the reality is that our governance is less dependent on real information than it is dependent on _what people want_, irrespective of whether or not it makes any fucking sense.



Another quite infuriating thing for someone like me who's sitting on the other side of the pond, is the republican slamming of other more "socialist" countries to make conservatism look better, Cinderella's step family style. Fox news did a whole push about Sweden where I live, after Trump on an anti-immigration rant said "look what happened last night in Sweden!" at some rally, and he didn't specify what it was cause literally nothing happened here. So Fox gets a swedish ex con private security thug with white supremacist ties to pose as a "Swedish national security expert" on air, they cut up interviews with swedish police to make it look like they said we had "no go zones" of violent immigrants, just lots of stuff like that with the only purpose of slandering Sweden. Why? Because Sweden, like Canada and Germany and many other places where more Bernie Sanders style politics have been implemented for decades, are actually doing very fucking fine. That's the big secret they don't want americans to know about. We might not have as many billionaires as the US, but instead we chose to have waaaay less poverty, homelessness, violent crime, illness and inequality, which paves the way for everything a society needs to blossom, including opportunity to get rich if that's what you want. We're not run by Stalin, never were. Yet I still get american friends checking up on me on facebook with things like "I'm seeing what's happening in Sweden right now, you need to be careful!". Hell, the band Kansas just cancelled a festival gig here cause they were worried about security  It's just so incredibly ridiculous and it's ALL just republican propaganda to make americans think that no matter how much they're screwed over, all other countries have it worse so don't start anything. After Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement, I think if the US keeps this up the rest of the world is just gonna move further into what some people are already calling the "post american" age. And I don't say that as a good thing, nothing good can come of military superpowers being alienated. But this "America First!" crap is gonna have that effect if nothing changes.


----------



## Explorer

JohnIce said:


> After Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement, I think if the US keeps this up the rest of the world is just gonna move further into what some people are already calling the "post american" age. ...(T)his "America First!" crap is gonna have that effect if nothing changes.


On the plus side, at 147 Days of Restocking the Swamp by Moscow's Man in the White House, we're already a fifth of the way there to when the winners of the midterm elections are sworn in. Hopefully that will limit whoever is then President, whether it be a pre-impeachment or pre-resignation-and-pardoned-by-Pence Trump, or Pence discharging his pardoning duties to Trump, due to a shift in congressional power away from the Republicans.


----------



## Drew

We should probably pause to acknowledged that there was ANOTHER terrorist attack over the weekend in London, when a driver slammed a van into a crowd of Muslims leaving a mosque during Ramadan, and is being treated as an anti-Muslim hate crime; the attacker was evidently blowing kisses to the crowd as he was arrested, and was screaming about how he wanted to kill Muslims during the attack.

Insomnia and Captain, I'm sure you'll be wanting to explain why we need to ban white middle aged men from this country, for the safety of our religious groups. Go on, I'll be waiting.


----------



## Explorer

Drew said:


> Insomnia and Captain, I'm sure you'll be wanting to explain why we need to ban white middle aged men from this country, for the safety of our religious groups. Go on, I'll be waiting.


I'm especially interested in @CapnForsaggio and @Insomnia explaining how this man was radicalized and transformed into a terrorist.


----------



## Insomnia

Explorer said:


> I'm especially interested in @CapnForsaggio and @Insomnia explaining how this man was radicalized and transformed into a terrorist.


This man was radicalised through two channels. The long-term issues would be with publications/attitudes like that of The Sun, the EDL, Daily Mail, Britain First (amongst other low-brow, right-wing material), who peddle hatred and division and alienation.

The second, and more 'immediate' cause would be the spate of terror attacks we've seen from Muslims this year alone in the UK. Combine that with the EDL/Sun/DM/BF rhetoric of 'all Muslims', and voila, you have a terrorist.


----------



## JohnIce

Insomnia said:


> This man was radicalised through two channels. The long-term issues would be with publications/attitudes like that of The Sun, the EDL, Daily Mail, Britain First (amongst other low-brow, right-wing material), who peddle hatred and division and alienation.
> 
> The second, and more 'immediate' cause would be the spate of terror attacks we've seen from Muslims this year alone in the UK. Combine that with the EDL/Sun/DM/BF rhetoric of 'all Muslims', and voila, you have a terrorist.



One could argue that the public and media response to islamist terrorism vs. anti-muslim terrorism plays a part too. From what I've seen the amount of each has been rather proportionate, but the way each crime is given media coverage is not. I think part of that is a sense of security amongst the general public in predominantly white and christian/secular countries that regardless of what white right-wing terrorists do, YOU in the majority are not the target and thus it's treated as less dangerous even though it's the same amount of violence. That's yet another problem as that is another way to passively alienate muslims and immigrants which in turn can spark more violence, creating a vicious circle of back and forth retaliation.


----------



## Insomnia

JohnIce said:


> One could argue that the public and media response to islamist terrorism vs. anti-muslim terrorism plays a part too. From what I've seen the amount of each has been rather proportionate, but the way each crime is given media coverage is not. I think part of that is a sense of security amongst the general public in predominantly white and christian/secular countries that regardless of what white right-wing terrorists do, YOU in the majority are not the target and thus it's treated as less dangerous even though it's the same amount of violence. That's yet another problem as that is another way to passively alienate muslims and immigrants which in turn can spark more violence, creating a vicious circle of back and forth retaliation.


I think that's a fair point, but in practice, attacks against minorities do get the same amount of coverage and generate outrage. In some cases, especially the UK (the US is quite different), it seems that some are more sympathetic to the attacks from those in the minority than those in the majority.


----------



## Insomnia

Explorer said:


> I'm especially interested in @CapnForsaggio and @Insomnia explaining how this man was radicalized and transformed into a terrorist.


You wanted me to talk to you in here. So, answer my question. Cheers!


----------



## Drew

We can tag people? That's badass. 

Insomnia, if there's a question, I'm missing it.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> We can tag people? That's badass.
> 
> Insomnia, if there's a question, I'm missing it.


I messaged him in DMs and he told me I had to ask it publically or he wouldn't answer it. :/


----------



## Explorer

Insomnia said:


> You wanted me to talk to you in here. So, answer my question. Cheers!


Thank you for giving me permission to address your private message questions to me in the open forum. I want to stay within the rules of the forum by not disseminating those messages without your permission, so I appreciate you granting it me both here and via PM.


Insomnia said:


> Please highlight where in the 'Another Islamic Terror Attack' I've randomly disregarded facts to support my narrative.


Okay, then!

In your very first post, you laid out your narrative.

MaxOfMetal pointed out the falseness of pointing at Islam as the main source of terrorist threats. 

You had some argument with that, and then falsely argued that although there are other attacks, they are astronomically smaller than those from Islamist groups. 

When someone from Northern Ireland pointed out your error, you wiggled to redefine the terrorism of the IRA to protect your narrative.

When Max pointed out your mistaken sweeping generalizations from here through here, you disappeared for a bit, and then started doubling down on the whole Islam thing again. 

(As an aside, although this was before your time here, another topic made a shift over time when it was revealed that Christian right-wing terrorist had attacked children in Norway. Again, just another example of how your narrative of "extreme vetting" and "Islamic terrorism" is unrealistic in generating a solution to violence.)

I'm just on page three of the topic, incidentally, where you've already argued with established facts, and then conveniently disappeared for a bit whenever you'd have to admit you were wrong. There are more examples of you either arguing with facts or conveniently dropping out, only to pop back up and ignore refutations of your narrative.

Regarding you wanting proof of my factual observation, thus it is demonstrated. 

That'a only quarter of the way in, incidentally. There's more (a lot more) of the same, but that little taste should give you an idea why I'm confident you would have no success with the report button.


----------



## Insomnia

Explorer said:


> Thank you for giving me permission to address your private message questions to me in the open forum. I want to stay within the rules of the forum by not disseminating those messages without your permission, so I appreciate you granting it me both here and via PM.
> 
> 
> 
> Okay, then!
> 
> 
> 
> In your very first post, you laid out your narrative.
> 
> 
> 
> MaxOfMetal pointed out the falseness of pointing at Islam as the main source of terrorist threats.
> 
> 
> 
> You had some argument with that, and then falsely argued that although there are other attacks, they are astronomically smaller than those from Islamist groups.
> 
> 
> 
> When someone from Northern Ireland pointed out your error, you wiggled to redefine the terrorism of the IRA to protect your narrative.
> 
> 
> 
> When Max pointed out your mistaken sweeping generalizations from here through here, you disappeared for a bit, and then started doubling down on the whole Islam thing again.
> 
> 
> 
> (As an aside, although this was before your time here, another topic made a shift over time when it was revealed that Christian right-wing terrorist had attacked children in Norway. Again, just another example of how your narrative of "extreme vetting" and "Islamic terrorism" is unrealistic in generating a solution to violence.)
> 
> 
> 
> I'm just on page three of the topic, incidentally, where you've already argued with established facts, and then conveniently disappeared for a bit whenever you'd have to admit you were wrong. There are more examples of you either arguing with facts or conveniently dropping out, only to pop back up and ignore refutations of your narrative.
> 
> 
> 
> Regarding you wanting proof of my factual observation, thus it is demonstrated.
> 
> 
> 
> That'a only quarter of the way in, incidentally. There's more (a lot more) of the same, but that little taste should give you an idea why I'm confident you would have no success with the report button.



MaxOfMetal's 'rebuttal' doesn't really make sense. There are different strands of religions, and by that I mean there are hundreds. It depends on which part of the Qu'ran you take in preference to others. Evidently, the majority of Muslims take the more peaceful verses over the violent verses. But when the violent verses are taken in preference to the peaceful verses, then it's a problem, and the blame for the attack can be blamed on it's ideology, part of which falls on their interpretation on Islam, amongst other ideologies. 



I will admit that my argument about others ideological terrorism being much smaller was due to my fault of not really thinking about ideologies other than far-right/white supremacy. I also did not know the extent of FARC's actions. I think the argument I was making at the time (although one I did not specify) is that with the IRA, their ideology was entirely one of borders/land. AFAIK, if the IRA had taken over NI, and so established full control of Ireland, they wouldn't have massacred Protestants or gays or non-believers. 



Islamism, on the other hand, while does seek to implement a worldwide Islamic state, would commit genocide under that state. The IRA wouldn't have committed genocide under a united Ireland, at least, I haven't read any texts or seen prominent speakers calling for such things. You could appease the IRA by giving them NI, that would stop the armed conflict (I would've thought). But with Islamism, you can't appease them. They want to commit genocide against non-believers and homosexuals, you couldn't give them a piece of land and expect them to stop. I think bostjan put that in a more condensed form than I just did.



In regards to me disappearing for a bit...I didn't? I responded to Max's comments, you must've somehow missed them. Also, you saying 'then you started doubling down on Islam again' doesn't actually prove anything. If you could refute what I said, then fine, and I will admit most of the other things you mentioned were mistakes on my part, but you haven't provided any nuance that would suggest be 'doubling down on Islam' is incorrect. 



What you seem to be harking on is the idea that I'm ignoring all the arguments against my claims, because I want to live in a little bubble and not have it popped. Well, quite frankly, you're demonstrably wrong. A fundamental understanding of mine has been shaken by this thread, and changed by argument quite strongly. That was the argument that humans have prejudices and THEN find things to justify them e.g. religion. So evidently I haven't shied away from those who question me, I've accepted when I was wrong. 



I would also like to say that many of your arguments on here have been flawed too, particularly the argument that the Charlie Hebdo killers were motivated by racism. First of all, you didn't offer any evidence that suggested they were motivated by racism they faced. Second of all, you didn't answer my question as to why they didn't mention racism whatsoever during their attack. They even had a media interview whilst on the run, I believe, and didn't state any motivation by racism. Quite frankly, you've offered no proof that they were motivated by racism, and I've offered multiple forms of proof that they were motivated by Islamism. I understand your argument is 'they were drawn to extremism and Islam because they faced racism' - but you haven't given any proof of that. Also, you had what I see as a cheap shot by saying 'Given that there is Christian fundamentalism still working for the deaths of the LGBTQ and to kill abortion providers, no, those Christian fundamentalists are not Islam fundamentalists'. I never once suggested ALL extremism came from Islam, yet you twisted by words to make it seem like I was saying that, then never responded to the criticism of such a shoddy claim.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> I would also like to say that many of your arguments on here have been flawed too, particularly the argument that the Charlie Hebdo killers were motivated by racism. First of all, you didn't offer any evidence that suggested they were motivated by racism they faced. Second of all, you didn't answer my question as to why they didn't mention racism whatsoever during their attack. They even had a media interview whilst on the run, I believe, and didn't state any motivation by racism. Quite frankly, you've offered no proof that they were motivated by racism, and I've offered multiple forms of proof that they were motivated by Islamism. I understand your argument is 'they were drawn to extremism and Islam because they faced racism' - but you haven't given any proof of that. Also, you had what I see as a cheap shot by saying 'Given that there is Christian fundamentalism still working for the deaths of the LGBTQ and to kill abortion providers, no, those Christian fundamentalists are not Islam fundamentalists'. I never once suggested ALL extremism came from Islam, yet you twisted by words to make it seem like I was saying that, then never responded to the criticism of such a shoddy claim.



I think you're mis-remembering the conversations we've previously had in this thread. That argument, "Charlie Hebdo was motivated by racism," seems crazy to me, and I can't believe I'd have let that slide, so I went back and reread the thread. You brought up that attack in the final post of p.7 (though I think I have the forum set to 20 posts per page and not the default 10 so it might be 14 for you). Explorer didn't post for another day or two, and when he did, after we'd already discounted your argument that this was an attack prompted by religion, based on the fact that out of the hundreds of thousands to millions of people who could have made it to the offices, only about a dozen thought violence was an acceptable recourse, and the problem was sociopaths and not religion (plenty of Muslims were upset - virtually all expressed their protest in peaceful means).

When he DID post, his argument wasn't that the attack was racially motivated, but rather that discrimination they faced was likely a factor that made them more susceptible to radicalization:


Explorer said:


> Could you provide your evidence that racism against non-white citizens is irrelevant *in radicalization*? If you keep trying to make it about the irresistible appeal of one creed, instead of the factors shown to correlate to radicalization, I'm positive you'll never understand the factors you seem bent on denying.


...which I think is a pretty reasonable argument (emphasis mine). When you're being persecuted, and someone offers to stand up and protect you, you tend to look past a lot. In fact, a lot of first al Qaeda and next ISIS's strategy for building popular support within Islam is to fan anti-Islamic sentiments in the West, so that they can paint the west as waging a war against their religion to make Muslims more willing to turn to radical, violent means, out of a concern for existential survival. I thought this was pretty widely understood to be at the root of their strategy of launching overseas attacks, as pretty clearly if the're killing off a dozen or two westerners at a time they can't realistically expect a purely military victory...?

Not to put words into Explorer's mouth, but that's not really the argument he was trying to make, it seems to me, that the Charlie Hebdo wanted to kill French cartoonists because they were racist and hated French people.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> I think you're mis-remembering the conversations we've previously had in this thread. That argument, "Charlie Hebdo was motivated by racism," seems crazy to me, and I can't believe I'd have let that slide, so I went back and reread the thread. You brought up that attack in the final post of p.7 (though I think I have the forum set to 20 posts per page and not the default 10 so it might be 14 for you). Explorer didn't post for another day or two, and when he did, after we'd already discounted your argument that this was an attack prompted by religion, based on the fact that out of the hundreds of thousands to millions of people who could have made it to the offices, only about a dozen thought violence was an acceptable recourse, and the problem was sociopaths and not religion (plenty of Muslims were upset - virtually all expressed their protest in peaceful means).
> 
> When he DID post, his argument wasn't that the attack was racially motivated, but rather that discrimination they faced was likely a factor that made them more susceptible to radicalization:
> 
> ...which I think is a pretty reasonable argument (emphasis mine). When you're being persecuted, and someone offers to stand up and protect you, you tend to look past a lot. In fact, a lot of first al Qaeda and next ISIS's strategy for building popular support within Islam is to fan anti-Islamic sentiments in the West, so that they can paint the west as waging a war against their religion to make Muslims more willing to turn to radical, violent means, out of a concern for existential survival. I thought this was pretty widely understood to be at the root of their strategy of launching overseas attacks, as pretty clearly if the're killing off a dozen or two westerners at a time they can't realistically expect a purely military victory...?
> 
> Not to put words into Explorer's mouth, but that's not really the argument he was trying to make, it seems to me, that the Charlie Hebdo wanted to kill French cartoonists because they were racist and hated French people.


But I asked for your proof that they faced racial discrimination. I seriously do not think that they wouldn't mention the supposed strong racism against them during the interview, or in any form of manifesto. 

The combination of there being no proof that they faced racism, combined with the fact that they never stated they faced racism in any manifesto or interview, and then them saying that the motivation was to defend the Prophet (not to kill French people for racism) leads me to one conclusion: racism didn't radicalise them. 

Also, your point about 'it can't be Islam because so many Muslims could've attacked their offices, yet didn't' doesn't really make sense to me, as I've already stated that Islam preaches both violence and peace, and people's personal nature leads them to one conclusion or another, whatever fits their (possibly subconscious) mental attitude. 

There have been many, many instances of violent protest and very credible threats of violence against those who mock or depict the Prophet Muhammad, Charlie Hebdo is in no way unique. So to blame it on the brothers having faced racism which led them into Islam which gave them an 'excuse' for their hatred of the French (their interpretation seeing them as 'kuffar') seems ignorant of the dozens of other cases of critics and cartoonists being threatened with death from people from majority-Muslim countries, where they don't face systemic racism.

Also, another question, they didn't kill a visitor to Charlie Hebdo, as they said, and I'm paraphrasing 'You are an innocent woman, our religion forbids us from killing you'. If they hated French people, they most certainly would not have spared her, surely?


----------



## Drew

No, Islamic discrimination in the US and Europe is definitely NOT a thing.  Never heard of it.

Seriously, beyond that, by the time Explorer had chimed in, we'd moved past the immediate attacks (and to your critique, if you argue that Islam can be a path towards peace AND violence, one that's in no way unique from any other religion, two the choice of path is just that, a choice, and three, if approximately 0.0001% of the people in an area theoretically able to attack chose to, then it's clearly an EXTREME minority, to the point where you have to wonder if it has anything to do with the religion, or if we'd be better off just calling a sociopath a sociopath) on to parallels between Islamic violence and violence perpetrated by other groups, and he wasn't even the first to point to the role of a majority discriminating against a minority in causing that minority to turn to violence. Going from that general discussion to "Charlie Hebdo attackers attacked because of racism" is a pretty gigantic leap, and again, I'd suggest going back and re-reading pages 7 through 9 of this conversation.

And, the point of my post, was the attack was NOT motivated by "we hate French people," and that the argument you're accusing Explorer of making is not the one he actually made.  Seriously, go back and re-read the discussion - you either misunderstood a lot of it at the time, or you're remembering it wrong.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> No, Islamic discrimination in the US and Europe is definitely NOT a thing.  Never heard of it.
> 
> Seriously, beyond that, by the time Explorer had chimed in, we'd moved past the immediate attacks (and to your critique, if you argue that Islam can be a path towards peace AND violence, one that's in no way unique from any other religion, two the choice of path is just that, a choice, and three, if approximately 0.0001% of the people in an area theoretically able to attack chose to, then it's clearly an EXTREME minority, to the point where you have to wonder if it has anything to do with the religion, or if we'd be better off just calling a sociopath a sociopath) on to parallels between Islamic violence and violence perpetrated by other groups, and he wasn't even the first to point to the role of a majority discriminating against a minority in causing that minority to turn to violence. Going from that general discussion to "Charlie Hebdo attackers attacked because of racism" is a pretty gigantic leap, and again, I'd suggest going back and re-reading pages 7 through 9 of this conversation.
> 
> And, the point of my post, was the attack was NOT motivated by "we hate French people," and that the argument you're accusing Explorer of making is not the one he actually made.  Seriously, go back and re-read the discussion - you either misunderstood a lot of it at the time, or you're remembering it wrong.


Except that Explorer explicitly stated that he was talking about racism towards Algerians, which he claimed the Kouachi brothers had experienced to such an extent, they felt compelled to embrace radical Islam. He offered no proof whatsoever that the Kouachi brothers had experience said racism, let alone to such an extent.

Also, it most certainly isn't 0.0001%, it's more like 4-5% who support ISIS alone (and that number itself is likely higher). That is a very large number indeed (I can back this up with stats from PRC, here: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/ . This is only for supporting ISIS, and is from a few select countries, not including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Qatar, Afghanistan, and various other Islamic majority countries, by the way, so the number of actual Islamic radicals is likely to be a lot higher).

Finally, and I quote directly from your previous comment: 'Not to put words into Explorer's mouth, but that's not really the argument he was trying to make, it seems to me, that the Charlie Hebdo wanted to kill French cartoonists because they were racist and hated French people.'

I don't know if that was a mistype, but what you just said there was that you think it's because they wanted to kill French cartoonists because they were racist and hated French people.

What you have just now stated is that it's NOT that they were racist against French people. So, what do you think the motivation for radicalisation and the subsequent attack was caused by?


----------



## Drew

No, you misunderstood to me. The phrasing could have been clearer, but "not to put words into Explorers mouth, but it seems to me that's not really the argument he was trying to make, that etc etc etc."

Again, go back and reread my post. Considering according to Wikipedia there are about 7.7 milliom Muslims in metropolitan France and maybe a dozen of them banded up and went on a killing spree in response to that cartoon - a percentage of 0.000156%, remarkably close to the 0.0001% of Muslims plausibly close enough to have done it that I straight-up guessed - I already told you I attributed this to a bunch of sociopathic assholes who are capable of convincing themselves that murdering people for _any_ cause is justifiable. Otherwise, with Muslims representing about 11% of the metropolitcan French population, there would be a whole fuck of a lot more bodies than there were. 

Now, to me, considering we're revisiting topics we've already covered and you're making extremely tenuous arguments to support your prior conclusions, I think you're clutching at straws.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> No, you misunderstood to me. The phrasing could have been clearer, but "not to put words into Explorers mouth, but it seems to me that's not really the argument he was trying to make, that etc etc etc."
> 
> Again, go back and reread my post. Considering according to Wikipedia there are about 7.7 milliom Muslims in metropolitan France and maybe a dozen of them banded up and went on a killing spree in response to that cartoon - a percentage of 0.000156%, remarkably close to the 0.0001% of Muslims plausibly close enough to have done it that I straight-up guessed - I already told you I attributed this to a bunch of sociopathic assholes who are capable of convincing themselves that murdering people for _any_ cause is justifiable. Otherwise, with Muslims representing about 11% of the metropolitcan French population, there would be a whole fuck of a lot more bodies than there were.
> 
> Now, to me, considering we're revisiting topics we've already covered and you're making extremely tenuous arguments to support your prior conclusions, I think you're clutching at straws.


Right, the inclusion of 'it seems to me, that...' is confusing. 

Now, are you really trying to say that 0.0001% of Muslims in Paris are extremists by judging one single terror attack? Talk about small poll sizes. That's just not how statistics works, I can't really believe you just did that. 'Only 1 Muslim committed the Westminster attack, so therefore, only 0.0001% of London-based Muslims have extremist sympathies' - I desperately hope you understand why that makes no sense whatsoever. 

Your argument is, again, undermined by the fact that a) there is no proof of mental illness in the brothers and b) that they spared a woman, as they said it was un-Islamic to kill them. I understand the argument you're trying to make, but you yourself are really clutching at straws now, by claiming something with no actual proof, and by creating an insanely flawed 'statistic'.


----------



## vilk

It seems like what's happening is some people in this thread are conflating _non-criminal but sympathetic towards Muslim extremists_ with _active Muslim extremist just waiting for his chance to terrorize

_


----------



## Insomnia

vilk said:


> It seems like what's happening is some people in this thread are conflating _non-criminal but sympathetic towards Muslim extremists_ with _active Muslim extremist just waiting for his chance to terrorize
> _


I don't mean to conflate them, apologies if I have done, but I'm trying to say that there are still a lot of extremists, whether they're active terrorists or not.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> Right, the inclusion of 'it seems to me, that...' is confusing.
> 
> Now, are you really trying to say that 0.0001% of Muslims in Paris are extremists by judging one single terror attack? Talk about small poll sizes. That's just not how statistics works, I can't really believe you just did that. 'Only 1 Muslim committed the Westminster attack, so therefore, only 0.0001% of London-based Muslims have extremist sympathies' - I desperately hope you understand why that makes no sense whatsoever.
> 
> Your argument is, again, undermined by the fact that a) there is no proof of mental illness in the brothers and b) that they spared a woman, as they said it was un-Islamic to kill them. I understand the argument you're trying to make, but you yourself are really clutching at straws now, by claiming something with no actual proof, and by creating an insanely flawed 'statistic'.


You're being insanely reductionist, to the point where it's almost a waste of time continuing this discussion.

1) There are 7.7 million Muslims in France. Of those 7.7 million Muslims - a pretty damned big sample, by most measures - only two responded by shooting up the office (I actually thought there were a dozen, but there were a dozen victims, not attackers, my bad). So, I'd say a _reasonable_ conclusion, looking at the data, is that an infinitesimally small number of French Muslims thought the appropriate recourse was to shoot the cartoonists. Extrapolating to Westminister, if about 2.6 million Muslims live in England and we've seen less than a dozen of them engage in some sort of terrorist activity, I think it also is a _reasonable_ conclusion that an infinitesimally small number of English Muslims believe terrorism is an appropriate course of action. Otherwise, this would happen a whole HECK of a lot more than it does. In other words, if we're looking for explanatory power, whether or not someone is a Muslim is, statistically speaking, a _remarkably_ poor predictor of terrorism.

2) I thought this was pretty obvious, but I'd argue that shooting up a newspaper office is _not_ the act of a mentally stable person. Hey, maybe I'm over-simplifying, but I don't think that whether or not they had a specific target negates the fact that these two had some pretty deep-seated mental issues.

Let's flip this, though, just in the spirit of friendly discourse. Do you think it's sane to shoot up a newspaper for running something you disagree with? If you were given a 2-in-7,700,000 chance of being successful in a particular outcome, would you consider that prudent?


----------



## bostjan

Al Qaeda is a huge organization of about 5000 individuals. Boko Haram is about the same size, and just as dangerous. Jemaah Islamigah is also about that size. ISIS is much bigger, around 18k members, and the Taliban may be as large as 25k.

Out of 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide, that puts 0.003% as the most violent of the extremists. Those numbers are approximate, but you get the idea. It's a small portion, but it is rapidly growing. Even if you include organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, who are more interested in domestic struggles, that estimate is still in the same ballpark.

60-70 thousand people worldwide who want nothing more than to kill you is a pretty scary thought, for sure. But how do you respond to that? You know? I think any sort of rash decision making in dealing with those extremists risks only creating more extremists if not done wisely. You can't kill a philosophy with conventional weaponry- you have to use logic and psychology in a situation like this. It's not all Muslims, by a longshot, but it IS one group of people with a similar belief system and similar values and a common disgust for the West.


----------



## Insomnia

bostjan said:


> Al Qaeda is a huge organization of about 5000 individuals. Boko Haram is about the same size, and just as dangerous. Jemaah Islamigah is also about that size. ISIS is much bigger, around 18k members, and the Taliban may be as large as 25k.
> 
> Out of 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide, that puts 0.003% as the most violent of the extremists. Those numbers are approximate, but you get the idea. It's a small portion, but it is rapidly growing. Even if you include organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, who are more interested in domestic struggles, that estimate is still in the same ballpark.
> 
> 60-70 thousand people worldwide who want nothing more than to kill you is a pretty scary thought, for sure. But how do you respond to that? You know? I think any sort of rash decision making in dealing with those extremists risks only creating more extremists if not done wisely. You can't kill a philosophy with conventional weaponry- you have to use logic and psychology in a situation like this. It's not all Muslims, by a longshot, but it IS one group of people with a similar belief system and similar values and a common disgust for the West.


I agree with all that, but we must also call out their supporters and facilitators as well.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> I agree with all that, but we must also call out their supporters and facilitators as well.


We are. So are they.


----------



## vilk

Drew said:


> We are. So are they.


Are we/they? because it seems to me like we've been pretty buddy-buddy with Saudi Arabia, and that doesn't seem to be changing.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> You're being insanely reductionist, to the point where it's almost a waste of time continuing this discussion.
> 
> 1) There are 7.7 million Muslims in France. Of those 7.7 million Muslims - a pretty damned big sample, by most measures - only two responded by shooting up the office (I actually thought there were a dozen, but there were a dozen victims, not attackers, my bad). So, I'd say a _reasonable_ conclusion, looking at the data, is that an infinitesimally small number of French Muslims thought the appropriate recourse was to shoot the cartoonists. Extrapolating to Westminister, if about 2.6 million Muslims live in England and we've seen less than a dozen of them engage in some sort of terrorist activity, I think it also is a _reasonable_ conclusion that an infinitesimally small number of English Muslims believe terrorism is an appropriate course of action. Otherwise, this would happen a whole HECK of a lot more than it does. In other words, if we're looking for explanatory power, whether or not someone is a Muslim is, statistically speaking, a _remarkably_ poor predictor of terrorism.
> 
> 2) I thought this was pretty obvious, but I'd argue that shooting up a newspaper office is _not_ the act of a mentally stable person. Hey, maybe I'm over-simplifying, but I don't think that whether or not they had a specific target negates the fact that these two had some pretty deep-seated mental issues.
> 
> Let's flip this, though, just in the spirit of friendly discourse. Do you think it's sane to shoot up a newspaper for running something you disagree with? If you were given a 2-in-7,700,000 chance of being successful in a particular outcome, would you consider that prudent?


You entirely assuming that no other Muslims agreed or sympathised with their cause, that the only reason more people didn't attack Charlie Hebdo is because they didn't do think it was right. The gigantic amount of other factors like money, connections to weapon dealers, time, the sheer guts to do something, these all contribute to it. You have to look at the opinion polls of people to actually get a view of what they believe...


----------



## Insomnia

Let me put it another way: 
There's a terrorist who's been arrested in New Mexico and convicted to life in prison, and he's on his way from the courtroom to prison. 

Just because no-one plants a roadside bomb or shoots up the van, doesn't mean that no-one relatively near the courtroom thought he deserved the death penalty, right?

I have no idea how you think that's how statistics works, but please, look at opinion polls. Your method just doesn't make logical sense in terms of determining how many radicals there are in Paris, and indeed if you used it across the entire world, how many radicals there are on Earth.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

If someone is a "radical" but doesn't act on it, ever, because of reasons, are they really a threat?

People can have some terrible thoughts and opinions, but as long as they stay as such I don't see the immediate harm.

True, I'm sure they'll perpetuate the hate, but without action the chances of it lasting are much more slim.


----------



## Insomnia

MaxOfMetal said:


> If someone is a "radical" but doesn't act on it, ever, because of reasons, are they really a threat?
> 
> People can have some terrible thoughts and opinions, but as long as they stay as such I don't see the immediate harm.
> 
> True, I'm sure they'll perpetuate the hate, but without action the chances of it lasting are much more slim.


Take Anjem Choudary, for example. He's a British Imam, who was recently imprisoned for recruiting for ISIS. Before he was imprisoned, he inspired dozens upon dozens of terror attacks, with some estimates upto the 100s.

The enablers are still a huge threat, because they inspire and teach the attackers, and could easily become attackers themselves.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Insomnia said:


> Take Anjem Choudary, for example. He's a British Imam, who was recently imprisoned for recruiting for ISIS. Before he was imprisoned, he inspired dozens upon dozens of terror attacks, with some estimates upto the 100s.
> 
> The enablers are still a huge threat, because they inspire and teach the attackers, and could easily become attackers themselves.



I'd argue that he falls into the group that has done something. 

Has he fired any actual bullets? No, but he has broken the law on numerous occasions, sometimes violent, for his cause. 

I was referring to those with radical views or sympathy towards them that have done actually nothing.


----------



## TedEH

MaxOfMetal said:


> True, I'm sure they'll perpetuate the hate, but without action the chances of it lasting are much more slim.


Just kind of splitting hairs, but I'd count perpetuating an idea as taking action. Just having an idea is one thing, but spreading it is different. If you look at having an opinion, perpetuating that idea, and taking direct action as three distinct things, then in my mind the perpetuating bit has more in common with taking direct action than it does just holding the idea in the first place.

I mean that in the sense that I'm maybe 80-90% certain that you could pick any given person and they'll have at least one really horrible opinion of some kind that could be harmful if said person had some influence and used that influence to convince people of that same opinion. Keeping in mind as well that day-to-day life for a lot of people involves a lot of "influencers". Everyone with internet access has the potential to be some sort of influencer if they wanted to. And I think we all know that on some level, which is why we react the way we do to otherwise meaningless online interactions - like people getting fired for tweets and things like that.



MaxOfMetal said:


> are they really a threat?


The problem I see is how do you measure the likelihood that someone will act on their "radical" views? Waiting until someone acts defeats the purpose of identifying a "threat", since the whole point of identifying a threat is to call it before the action happens. Once it's happened, it's not a "threat", it's reality.

To be fair, I haven't been following the whole thread, so if I'm way out of context, just ignore me.


----------



## bostjan

The trouble is that there are no statistics on how people secret feel about politics. I only really know my own feelings.

From the outside, we can only measure another person by that person's deeds and public statements.

ISIS is a huge organization, but there is strong opposition to it. The organization itself seems to encourage dismissal of limits. If the organizational goal was simply to establish a nation in western Mesopotamia, maybe it'd be worth considering their demands, but that's not the case. These folks want to rule the planet or else destroy it trying to take it, and know no boundaries at all, so they simply have to be stopped.

There are several sides to the story. Peaceful people are fleeing the areas under siege by ISIS. ISIS has some people willing to take advantage of the refugee situation. Say, hypothetically, 999 refugees and one terrorist are trying to gain access to a small town in Europe. The moral dilemma is the choice between a) allowing one terrorist into your community in order to save 999 refugees or b) turn your back on all 1000 people. IRL, it's never clear that there will be one terrorist at all, but the general principle is the unknown.


----------



## Insomnia

MaxOfMetal said:


> I'd argue that he falls into the group that has done something.
> 
> Has he fired any actual bullets? No, but he has broken the law on numerous occasions, sometimes violent, for his cause.
> 
> I was referring to those with radical views or sympathy towards them that have done actually nothing.


So you mean those with radical views, but that don't preach them, share them, install them...?


----------



## Insomnia

bostjan said:


> The trouble is that there are no statistics on how people secret feel about politics. I only really know my own feelings.
> 
> From the outside, we can only measure another person by that person's deeds and public statements.
> 
> ISIS is a huge organization, but there is strong opposition to it. The organization itself seems to encourage dismissal of limits. If the organizational goal was simply to establish a nation in western Mesopotamia, maybe it'd be worth considering their demands, but that's not the case. These folks want to rule the planet or else destroy it trying to take it, and know no boundaries at all, so they simply have to be stopped.
> 
> There are several sides to the story. Peaceful people are fleeing the areas under siege by ISIS. ISIS has some people willing to take advantage of the refugee situation. Say, hypothetically, 999 refugees and one terrorist are trying to gain access to a small town in Europe. The moral dilemma is the choice between a) allowing one terrorist into your community in order to save 999 refugees or b) turn your back on all 1000 people. IRL, it's never clear that there will be one terrorist at all, but the general principle is the unknown.


What I wish we (by 'we', I mean Europe, more specifically, the European Union) had done when the migrant crisis started is use a fairly uninhabited island (there are a number in Greece, for example, or indeed across Europe) to house refugees in. Each EU member donates to a provisional government which manages the island(s). That way, the likelihood of terror attacks in large Western cities from migrants goes down (ISIS can use a terror attack in, say, Paris or London as much more of an ideological 'win' against the West than one against vast majority Muslims who've been recently relocated in the West, which would hardly be good propaganda when trying to recruit people), it also reduces the risk of Cologne and Sweden-style situations, where you see large amounts of sex attacks against Westerners. 

Then, in a few years, when they have been educated about Western society, and whichever language their island is in, they should be allowed to be relocated across the country(s). This allows for assimilation, rather than putting migrants into a very foreign environment indeed, and expecting them to adapt. These few years on the island(s) will also allow for the security services to identify radicals.

I'm sure there are flaws to this, but it's the best I could come up with right now.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> You entirely assuming that no other Muslims agreed or sympathised with their cause, that the only reason more people didn't attack Charlie Hebdo is because they didn't do think it was right. The gigantic amount of other factors like money, connections to weapon dealers, time, the sheer guts to do something, these all contribute to it. You have to look at the opinion polls of people to actually get a view of what they believe...


What's the difference, though, in practice? 

It's not a crime to think, "man, those Charlie Hebdo guys are assholes, someone should shoot them for what they did."

It's not a crime to think, when someone gets killed, "eh, they had it coming." 

It IS a crime to kill someone. 

People have the right to believe what they want, no matter how repugnant we might find it. They do NOT, however, have a right to act any way they want. Of the 7.7 million Muslims in France, I'm sure a whole bunch were upset about the cartoons, and I'm sure many weren't totally horrified about what happened. Google suggests that 27% of British Muslims polled had "at least some" sympathy for the motives of the attackers. Similarly, though, when Ted Nugent made comments suggesting he might try to shoot Obama, a whole bunch of republicans cheered him on, and I'll confess that when Johnny Depp just recently asked rhetorically "when's the last time an actor shot a president?" well, I hope to god he's joking, but yeah, I can totally understand where he's coming from. At the end of the day, though, Trump is still alive, Obama is still alive, and only two Muslims in France actually pulled a trigger over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. 

At the end of the day, thoughts are not criminal. Actions are. And the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not kill people over religion. Given that in the case of the Charlie Hebdo attackers the religion of the shooter had about a 1-in-3.9-million degree of predictive power, I'd say it's pretty reasonable that we might want to explore at least a few other factors that could potentially have convinced the two brothers that killing people was ok.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> What I wish we (by 'we', I mean Europe, more specifically, the European Union) had done when the migrant crisis started is use a fairly uninhabited island (there are a number in Greece, for example, or indeed across Europe) to house refugees in. Each EU member donates to a provisional government which manages the island(s). That way, the likelihood of terror attacks in large Western cities from migrants goes down (ISIS can use a terror attack in, say, Paris or London as much more of an ideological 'win' against the West than one against vast majority Muslims who've been recently relocated in the West, which would hardly be good propaganda when trying to recruit people), it also reduces the risk of Cologne and Sweden-style situations, where you see large amounts of sex attacks against Westerners.
> 
> Then, in a few years, when they have been educated about Western society, and whichever language their island is in, they should be allowed to be relocated across the country(s). This allows for assimilation, rather than putting migrants into a very foreign environment indeed, and expecting them to adapt. These few years on the island(s) will also allow for the security services to identify radicals.
> 
> I'm sure there are flaws to this, but it's the best I could come up with right now.


Immigrants commit violent crime at a rate signigicantly below native-born citizens, at least here in the States. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/us/trump-illegal-immigrants-crime.html

Also, fencing off undesirables worked SO well the last time youy guys tried it in Europe.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> What's the difference, though, in practice?
> 
> It's not a crime to think, "man, those Charlie Hebdo guys are assholes, someone should shoot them for what they did."
> 
> It's not a crime to think, when someone gets killed, "eh, they had it coming."
> 
> It IS a crime to kill someone.
> 
> People have the right to believe what they want, no matter how repugnant we might find it. They do NOT, however, have a right to act any way they want. Of the 7.7 million Muslims in France, I'm sure a whole bunch were upset about the cartoons, and I'm sure many weren't totally horrified about what happened. Google suggests that 27% of British Muslims polled had "at least some" sympathy for the motives of the attackers. Similarly, though, when Ted Nugent made comments suggesting he might try to shoot Obama, a whole bunch of republicans cheered him on, and I'll confess that when Johnny Depp just recently asked rhetorically "when's the last time an actor shot a president?" well, I hope to god he's joking, but yeah, I can totally understand where he's coming from. At the end of the day, though, Trump is still alive, Obama is still alive, and only two Muslims in France actually pulled a trigger over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
> 
> At the end of the day, thoughts are not criminal. Actions are. And the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not kill people over religion. Given that in the case of the Charlie Hebdo attackers the religion of the shooter had about a 1-in-3.9-million degree of predictive power, I'd say it's pretty reasonable that we might want to explore at least a few other factors that could potentially have convinced the two brothers that killing people was ok.


At this point, we are not talking about crime, we haven't been talking about that for a number of pages on this thread, what on Earth led you to go down that contingent? 

We're talking about the problems we as a society face. The threats we face, how to identify them, and how to recognise who the threats to our fundamental way of life are. 

Your point about Ted Nugent supposedly 'wanting to shoot Obama' (one I was not familiar with until now) is absolutely not comparable to people who actually support the killing of, for example, 'kuffar', or if you want to go down a far-right contingent, the 'degenerates'. His comment was not violent, it was completely in the context of gun rights, and was simply a different way of phrasing 'suck on it', rather than saying, 'If Obama comes for my firearms, I will resist, I will not give up, and I will bring the fight to him!'. I mean, Ted Nugent is still a pretty repugnant character, and I'm surprised I'm defending him, but it simply is not comparable.

Now, even if it were comparable and Ted Nugent had seriously said the hypothetical comment I wrote above, you know what I would do if 27% of Republicans had 'some sympathy' with someone who shot Obama? I would condemn that aspect of the Republican party! 

You keep harking on this point that 'only 2 Muslims were involved in this attack' when you have to look at the WIDER picture to ascertain threats from the Muslim community, or any community for that matter.


----------



## Handbanana

Drew said:


> What's the difference, though, in practice?
> 
> It's not a crime to think, "man, those Charlie Hebdo guys are assholes, someone should shoot them for what they did."
> 
> It's not a crime to think, when someone gets killed, "eh, they had it coming."
> 
> It IS a crime to kill someone.
> 
> People have the right to believe what they want, no matter how repugnant we might find it. They do NOT, however, have a right to act any way they want. Of the 7.7 million Muslims in France, I'm sure a whole bunch were upset about the cartoons, and I'm sure many weren't totally horrified about what happened. Google suggests that 27% of British Muslims polled had "at least some" sympathy for the motives of the attackers. Similarly, though, when Ted Nugent made comments suggesting he might try to shoot Obama, a whole bunch of republicans cheered him on, and I'll confess that when Johnny Depp just recently asked rhetorically "when's the last time an actor shot a president?" well, I hope to god he's joking, but yeah, I can totally understand where he's coming from. At the end of the day, though, Trump is still alive, Obama is still alive, and only two Muslims in France actually pulled a trigger over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
> 
> At the end of the day, thoughts are not criminal. Actions are. And the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not kill people over religion. Given that in the case of the Charlie Hebdo attackers the religion of the shooter had about a 1-in-3.9-million degree of predictive power, I'd say it's pretty reasonable that we might want to explore at least a few other factors that could potentially have convinced the two brothers that killing people was ok.




Thinking is the difference between manslaughter and murder. Which one is worse?


----------



## tedtan

Insomnia said:


> Now, even if it were comparable and Ted Nugent had seriously said the hypothetical comment I wrote above, you know what I would do if 27% of Republicans had 'some sympathy' with someone who shot Obama? I would condemn that aspect of the Republican party!



But his point is that 1) sympathizing with something, even terrorism such as we've seen of late, is not illegal in and of itself, and 2) sympathizing is not a reliable variable upon which to predict who will take action. So what is the practical value of focusing on sympathizers?




Handbanana said:


> Thinking is the difference between manslaughter and murder. Which one is worse?



Not quite. Thinking before taking action is the difference, not thinking alone - there still has to be action taken.


----------



## vilk

tedtan said:


> sympathizing is not a reliable variable upon which to predict who will take action.



As compared with what? I mean, surely it's more reliable than not predicting at all, right? I mean, what percent of _non-Muslims_ do you suppose are sympathetic toward Islamist terrorists? I'm guessing right around zero. So you call it "not a reliable variable", and while it is not 100% reliable, certainly you cannot say that it is totally unreliable. I mean, certainly the people who are continuing to carry out Islamist terror attacks _are _sympathetic towards Islamist terrorists.


----------



## bostjan

Phew, this discussion is getting into some minutiae, and it's all a matter of opinion, at this point.

Sympathy toward the ideas that motivate ISIS, in my mind, is really really dangerous territory. I mean, it'd be one thing to think "you know, if people want a self-governing Islamic state, they should get one," but ISIS's goals don't stop there. It's not far from Nazi Germany - they wanted an independent Germany free of foreign influence, then they wanted to restore German imperial power, then they wanted to genocide the Jews and Roma and slaughter all of the homosexuals and less fortunate, and then take over the world... it's just flat out wrong to sympathize with that at a certain point. What is ISIS going for? Well, they want independence, then they want to spread their political power over the globe, and they want to slaughter the infidels and take over the world. Same MO as the Nazis. If someone sympathizes with the organization knowing those goals, then that someone is just flat wrong.


----------



## tedtan

vilk said:


> As compared with what? I mean, surely it's more reliable than not predicting at all, right? I mean, what percent of _non-Muslims_ do you suppose are sympathetic toward Islamist terrorists? I'm guessing right around zero. So you call it "not a reliable variable", and while it is not 100% reliable, certainly you cannot say that it is totally unreliable. I mean, certainly the people who are continuing to carry out Islamist terror attacks _are _sympathetic towards Islamist terrorists.



Well, the percentage of non-Muslims sympathetic to *Islamic* terrorism is probably zero, as you've noted. But that's not really relevant IMO. (Just as an aside, what percentage of non-Muslims are sympathetic to terrorism of the non-Islamic varieties)? 

As for using variables to predict potential future terroristic behavior, I'm sure there are better variables. For example, if someone participates in discussions on the websites used by the terrorist groups, that's probably a better indicator than mere sympathy for the terrorists/terrorists's goals. If someone has traveled to areas known to be controlled by terrorist groups, or used by terrorist groups for training purposes, that's probably a better indicator of potential future terrorist activities than mere sympathy for the cause. If someone associates with people known to be or suspected of being terrorists, that's probably a better predictor, too.


----------



## tedtan

bostjan said:


> Phew, this discussion is getting into some minutiae, and it's all a matter of opinion, at this point.
> 
> Sympathy toward the ideas that motivate ISIS, in my mind, is really really dangerous territory. I mean, it'd be one thing to think "you know, if people want a self-governing Islamic state, they should get one," but ISIS's goals don't stop there. It's not far from Nazi Germany - they wanted an independent Germany free of foreign influence, then they wanted to restore German imperial power, then they wanted to genocide the Jews and Roma and slaughter all of the homosexuals and less fortunate, and then take over the world... it's just flat out wrong to sympathize with that at a certain point. What is ISIS going for? Well, they want independence, then they want to spread their political power over the globe, and they want to slaughter the infidels and take over the world. Same MO as the Nazis. If someone sympathizes with the organization knowing those goals, then that someone is just flat wrong.



I see your point, but we need to keep in mind that ISIS' terrorism is a subset of Islamic terrorism. Al Queda and the others,a s bad as they are, haven't gone as far as ISIS in their approach or ideologies.

And I think the average sympathizer is more along the lines of your quote that "if people want a self governing Islamic state" than an ISIS butcher much as the typical Nazi party member wasn't aware of the doings of the Nazi leaders (most Germans at the time didn't understand what the Nazi were doing).


----------



## vilk

Why did you bold *Islamic*? I wrote _Islamist_ on purpose, because as far as I knew all these terrorists are Islamists. Islamism = Political Islam = ISIS/Al Queda/Taliban/Etc. Isn't that right, or no? I mean, obviously there's different takes on Islamism, just as there are different takes on democracy, but I don't think we can say that any of these terrorists aren't Islamists, right?


----------



## bostjan

Hmm.

ISIS's actions are very much in the public eye, both in their own region and abroad. I don't think the argument that ISIS sympathizers are ignorant to the organization's no-holds-barred tactics involving terrorism, indiscriminate destruction, and widespread killings of innocent people is really grounded.

I agree that the different groups enact different levels of extremism. Al Qaeda is pretty extreme as well, though, with lofty goals of disrupting life for westerners at any costs. Organisations like the Taliban and Boko Haram are more focused on their own domestic issues, even if they are wildly violent.


----------



## Explorer

Insomnia said:


> I will admit that my argument about others ideological terrorism being much smaller was due to my fault of not really thinking about ideologies other than far-right/white supremacy. I also did not know the extent of FARC's actions. I think the argument I was making at the time (although one I did not specify) is that with the IRA, their ideology was entirely one of borders/land. AFAIK, if the IRA had taken over NI, and so established full control of Ireland, they wouldn't have massacred Protestants or gays or non-believers.


I'm tending to a paella and then running out the door in real life, so forgive rhe brevity of this post.

Somehow, you again missed the examples of groups like Shining Path, also already given by Max IIRC, while trying to draw lines which allow your narrow definition of terrorism being a Muslim problem, at least as far as I've read.

I'll respond in more depth when I have time, but so far it looks like you've ignored more things than you've addressed. If you want to spend a little time rereading and seeing if you might pre-emptively respond as to why you ignored them at the time, feel free.


----------



## JohnIce

I leave this thread for a while, and come back to see people talking about thought-crime. Freedom of thought and freedom of speech, they're such simple concepts, why do people not get it? People actually don't see how vetting people based on their probability to sympathize with one specific type of terrorist goes against these basic pillars of democracy and human rights? The law is the law, whether or not someone may or may not sympathize with the Charlie Hebdo killings is not law, it's freedom of thought and we should be damn grateful to that.



Insomnia said:


> ...it also reduces the risk of Cologne and Sweden-style situations, where you see large amounts of sex attacks against Westerners.



Dude, seriously! You don't live in Sweden, you don't know Sweden, there's NO evidence of any correlation between immigrants and sexual assault/rape in Sweden. I made a lengthy post about this already in response to you. Read it. The vast, vast majority of sexual crime in Sweden is domestic or in close relationships/at dates. Swedish people have worked long and hard to encourage women to come forward and get help out of abusive relationships, that shows an increase in sexual assault charges. The vast, vast majority of sexual offences in Sweden are made by the white guy from high school or Tinder. It's not the muslim immigrant. Seriously dude, don't. You are literally guessing out of your ass and calling it an argument right now. Rise in reported sexual crime is NOT the same as a rise in actual sexual crime. Lastly, Swedish police don't keep records of ethnicity or religion so don't even try to say you have a source on it. You don't.


----------



## CapnForsaggio

JohnIce said:


> Canada is a very different country from the US in so many political ways though. Thinking Canada's immigration system is the key to their level of security and equality strikes me as similar to putting on a black/yellow striped sweater and expecting it to make you able to fly like a bee.



Oh yeah? 

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/asylum-seekers-canada-fled-trump-now-trapped-legal-101501170.html

It works because it isn't blind and stupid. Every other country on earth is allowed to have a "border" but the US....

Here's to the new Supreme Court! MAGA!


----------



## JohnIce

CapnForsaggio said:


> Oh yeah?
> 
> https://ca.news.yahoo.com/asylum-seekers-canada-fled-trump-now-trapped-legal-101501170.html
> 
> It works because it isn't blind and stupid. Every other country on earth is allowed to have a "border" but the US....
> 
> Here's to the new Supreme Court! MAGA!



Seems like you completely missed my point. My point was that the immigration system is far from the only thing different between how Canada and the US are run. All countries are a sum of their political and cultural parts. I would argue that the way taxes are spent in Canada makes a much bigger difference to public security, equality and economy than their immigration policies do. Just because there's a lot of refugees at the moment doesn't mean the age old left vs. right debate is suddenly irrelevant. Canada is not as capitalistic nor conservative as the US is, and there are pros and cons to that which have little to nothing to do with immigration.


----------



## tedtan

vilk said:


> Why did you bold *Islamic*? I wrote _Islamist_ on purpose, because as far as I knew all these terrorists are Islamists. Islamism = Political Islam = ISIS/Al Queda/Taliban/Etc. Isn't that right, or no? I mean, obviously there's different takes on Islamism, just as there are different takes on democracy, but I don't think we can say that any of these terrorists aren't Islamists, right?



I wasn't meaning to play semantics games with the word Islam, I was trying to separate terrorism based in some way on Islam from the terrorism not based in some way on Islam (e.g., the IRA as one example).




bostjan said:


> Hmm.
> 
> ISIS's actions are very much in the public eye, both in their own region and abroad. I don't think the argument that ISIS sympathizers are ignorant to the organization's no-holds-barred tactics involving terrorism, indiscriminate destruction, and widespread killings of innocent people is really grounded.
> 
> I agree that the different groups enact different levels of extremism. Al Qaeda is pretty extreme as well, though, with lofty goals of disrupting life for westerners at any costs. Organisations like the Taliban and Boko Haram are more focused on their own domestic issues, even if they are wildly violent.



Most Christians I've spoken with believe that we must have Armageddon in order to end the world as we know it and bring about the return of Jesus as king. But none of them support nuclear war in order to hasten that process.

I tend to think the average sympathizer of Islamic terrorism (even many ISIS sympathizers, but to a lesser extent) is similar: they believe certain scriptures and support them, but not the bloodshed and violence required to bring them about (e.g., ISIS' caliphate). But keep in mind, I am not excusing sympathizers, I am saying this in the context of why I think that sympathy for these terrorist groups is a poor predictor of future terrorist actions taken by that sympathizer - I don't believe that the average sympathizer is a supporter of the violence taken by these groups. They sympathize with the ideologies, but not the actions. Having said that, I haven't researched this, so this is just my gut feeling, but I do think that there are much better predictors of future terrorist behavior such as support for the terrorist community (providing financial aid, lodging, munitions or anything else of value), training in terrorist camps, associating with known or suspected terrorists, etc. These all make for better independent variables with which to predict future terrorist actions than does sympathy for a cause/ideology.


----------



## bostjan

A sort of worst-case scenario, but still very logically plausible, it may be only a number of years before an organization like ISIS or al Qaeda or Iran or North Korea obtains a nuclear weapon capable of delivery to a large population center in the West, and when that happens, it will bring out the worst dogma in everyone on both sides. Such an event, which has a higher likelihood of happening every year, could potentially spur WWIII, and the odds of such increase infinitesimally, yet continually, as more people grow to hate the West or sympathize with anti-Western sentimentality. It's difficult to see what's going on when you are in the middle of all of this, but the world has never venture far from the verge of widespread nuclear war since the start of the Cold War.

What none of the anti-anti-Western sympathizers seem to understand is that any active intervention against the ME or wherever simply galvanize the beliefs of those who hate us more and more.

Nobody seems to recall how the Ottoman Empire was at the center of the start of WWI. The tensions between all sorts of groups who hated each other certainly fueled the fire, but friction between the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs created the environment where a terrorist organization (the Black Hand) was able to fire the shot that launched the entire world into war with itself.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> At this point, we are not talking about crime, we haven't been talking about that for a number of pages on this thread, what on Earth led you to go down that contingent?
> 
> We're talking about the problems we as a society face. The threats we face, how to identify them, and how to recognise who the threats to our fundamental way of life are.


Have we not been talking about Islamic terrorism all along? In a thread called "Yet another Islamic attack in London?"

Since last I checked terrorism IS a crime, as are most ACTUAL "threats to our fundamental way of life," I have no idea what the fuck your point is here, except for maybe dodging another question you don't want to answer.

Maybe we could put a giant gate on your island, and hang a sign on it that says, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." Wouldn't that be novel, fresh, and definitely-not-something-the-Nazis-have-done-before?


----------



## Drew

Handbanana said:


> Thinking is the difference between manslaughter and murder. Which one is worse?


Actually, _intent_ is the difference between manslaughter and murder. Both kill you just as well, but one requires rational intent whereas the other does not. Good try though.


----------



## bostjan

Ok. Actually, there is a crime "Conspiracy to commit murder," which might be a more appropriate comparison. Manslaughter is killing a person due to negligence rather than intending to kill them. We aren't talking about people accidentally flying planes into skyscrapers or accidentally blowing themselves up in crowded areas, nor are we talking about anyone accidentally shooting up magazine offices nor accidentally stabbing police officers whilst accidentally yelling "Almat ila alkufar! Alahu Akbar!" over and over.

But, even with the attempted comparison with conspiracy, sympathizing with a murderer is not conspiracy. Planning out a murder is. Just like planning out a terrorist attack is conspiracy to commit terror acts, which is also a crime. Sympathy for a murderer is not a crime.

And, well, that's not to say that the people who sympathize with terrorist groups are not dangerous or that we shouldn't be concerned about what they are doing. But you can't just go rounding people up based on their superstitions nor beliefs. You can't block a religious group from travelling to and fro, without taking a lot of justified flack from human rights groups and lawyers. And you can't prove a person's sympathies nor deep seated beliefs in a court of law, unless that person acts upon his or her beliefs.


----------



## Drew

CapnForsaggio said:


> Here's to the new Supreme Court! MAGA!


You know, I was going to let this one slide, because don't feed the trolls and all of that, but I'll take the bait. 

I don't think this is nearly as much of a victory for Trump as he believes. 

The Court ruled 9-0 to allow parts of the immigration ban to go ahead, provided that foreign nationals with a "bona fide relationship" to a person or entity in the States were exempted, and indicated they would hear the case in October. Let that sink in for a few. 

One, the Court's ruling was unanimous. That's extremely rare, and means that noted uber-nationalistic opponents to immigration such as Sotomeyer ruled to let it go ahead. That should be cause for concern, if you're Donald J. Trump. 

Two, a "bona fide relationship" is surprisingly vague guidance. The Times discusses it here, but legal groups are predicting a new round of lawsuits and arguing that it's likely that having a relationship with a refugee nonprofit likely passes this test. If that interpretation is upheld or a temporary judicial stay is issued while the courts rule, then this ban isn't actually going to accomplish much, between now and September. 

Three, Trump has already issued an executive order that the clock starts ticking on his 90-day review only after the Supreme court rules on the executive order. 90 days from the ruling is September 24th, only a few days before the start of the month of October. 

To me, that looks an awful lot like the Court just called Trump's bluff.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> And, well, that's not to say that the people who sympathize with terrorist groups are not dangerous or that we shouldn't be concerned about what they are doing. But you can't just go rounding people up based on their superstitions nor beliefs. You can't block a religious group from travelling to and fro, without taking a lot of justified flack from human rights groups and lawyers. And you can't prove a person's sympathies nor deep seated beliefs in a court of law, unless that person acts upon his or her beliefs.



Put another way, part of democracy and liberty and freedom of belief and rule of law and all these other uniquely American qualities we hod dear is living side-by-side with people who hate you, and being ok with that.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> Have we not been talking about Islamic terrorism all along? In a thread called "Yet another Islamic attack in London?"
> 
> Since last I checked terrorism IS a crime, as are most ACTUAL "threats to our fundamental way of life," I have no idea what the fuck your point is here, except for maybe dodging another question you don't want to answer.
> 
> Maybe we could put a giant gate on your island, and hang a sign on it that says, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." Wouldn't that be novel, fresh, and definitely-not-something-the-Nazis-have-done-before?


We're talking about how many Muslims hold 'dangerous' (yes, I know it's subjective...) views, not 'should it be legal for them to have such views?'


----------



## tedtan

Many people, not just Muslim extremists, hold dangerous views, but we can't do anything about those people (except possibly monitor them) until they take action based on their views. Playing thought police doesn't work in a free society.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> We're talking about how many Muslims hold 'dangerous' (yes, I know it's subjective...) views, not 'should it be legal for them to have such views?'


Yes, and as I _already explained to you_, it's not a crime to hold views you consider dangerous.


Drew said:


> What's the difference, though, in practice?
> 
> It's not a crime to think, "man, those Charlie Hebdo guys are assholes, someone should shoot them for what they did."
> 
> It's not a crime to think, when someone gets killed, "eh, they had it coming."
> 
> It IS a crime to kill someone.
> 
> People have the right to believe what they want, no matter how repugnant we might find it. They do NOT, however, have a right to act any way they want.


What you're proposing is government regulation of thought. That's a step towards totalitarianism that NO believer in democracy should be willing to advocate.

Seriously, you're either not reading what I'm writing, having VERY selective memory, or are intentionally trying to move the goalposts to justify your views.

EDIT - in fact, I'll take this a step further; the level of thought control you're proposing is broadly consistent with what ISIS is actually doing, and anytime defeating an enemy means becoming them, you've lost that fight from day zero.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> Yes, and as I _already explained to you_, it's not a crime to hold views you consider dangerous.
> 
> What you're proposing is government regulation of thought. That's a step towards totalitarianism that NO believer in democracy should be willing to advocate.
> 
> Seriously, you're either not reading what I'm writing, having VERY selective memory, or are intentionally trying to move the goalposts to justify your views.
> 
> EDIT - in fact, I'll take this a step further; the level of thought control you're proposing is broadly consistent with what ISIS is actually doing, and anytime defeating an enemy means becoming them, you've lost that fight from day zero.


Drew, you don't realise the context of the discussion at the time when I was talking about PRC polls. I believe it was you who said 'Challenge!' when I said there were at the very least tens of millions of Muslim radicals on Earth. I'm trying to prove to you that the threat is bigger than you thought it was. That's it.

If that's a step towards totalitarianism, it's a step I'm willing to take. Also, I'm not proposing mass execution or torture or rape of my opponents, so don't equate me with ISIS.


----------



## vilk

Do we consider European nations with laws prohibiting Nazism to be totalitarian?


----------



## JohnIce

vilk said:


> Do we consider European nations with laws prohibiting Nazism to be totalitarian?



If the prohibition was against mere sympathies with nazism, we probably would. I don't know of any such countries though. Making a nazi salute or having a swastika flag hanging from your porch might be seen as hate crime if it seems the intent was to actively promote the ideologies of the third reich. Collecting Nazi memorabilia and reading Mein Kampf in your living room however is, to my knowledge, not illegal anywhere. Neither is thinking your pale fat ass and lack of hair makes you übermensch, you do you etc., the laws are there to protect the rest of us if you can't keep it to yourself.


----------



## vilk

I hadn't realized it was so lax. I thought in Germany you actually could get in trouble for collecting Nazi memorabilia and reading Mein Kampf in your living room. I thought you could get thrown in jail just for saying that the holocaust didn't happen... though I suppose that isn't technically related to being a Nazi...


----------



## JohnIce

vilk said:


> I hadn't realized it was so lax. I thought in Germany you actually could get in trouble for collecting Nazi memorabilia and reading Mein Kampf in your living room. I thought you could get thrown in jail just for saying that the holocaust didn't happen... though I suppose that isn't technically related to being a Nazi...



Europe in general is quite lax. I do know that Germany and Austria are the most particular about it, but Germany still sent a representative of the National Democrats to the EU parliament last election so for all their efforts I don't think Nazi sympathy is all that regulated even in Germany. It goes back to what we've been at already in this thread, thought-policing isn't an alternative so while many countries work to minimize the spread of extremism, a democratic society can only go so far if it wants to remain democratic.


----------



## vilk

Sometimes I forget that USA is just prison-crazy and that not every country in the business of fabricating laws as a means to throw away their citizens for profit.

---------------------------------------------------------------

OK, time to switch gears, because I just read something, a point that someone else made on a different website, that got me thinking about a point that we've talked a lot about in this thread.

Thus far we've brought up a few times that violent Islamism is a response to Western intervention. *But if that's true, then how do we explain Boko Haram in Nigeria, or more recently Islamist radicals wreaking havoc in the Philippines? *I'm sure there are plenty more examples that I'm not aware of, probably especially in India, but like how do we tie that into our theory that radical Islamism is a reaction to Western intervention?


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> Sometimes I forget that USA is just prison-crazy and that not every country in the business of fabricating laws as a means to throw away their citizens for profit.
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> OK, time to switch gears, because I just read something, a point that someone else made on a different website, that got me thinking about a point that we've talked a lot about in this thread.
> 
> Thus far we've brought up a few times that violent Islamism is a response to Western intervention. *But if that's true, then how do we explain Boko Haram in Nigeria, or more recently Islamist radicals wreaking havoc in the Philippines? *I'm sure there are plenty more examples that I'm not aware of, probably especially in India, but like how do we tie that into our theory that radical Islamism is a reaction to Western intervention?



@vilk : "Bokom Haram" literally means "Western influence is sin."


----------



## vilk

I know. I can call my new radical group "Bon Jovi is sin", but it doesn't mean Bon Jovi ever did anything to me.


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> I know. I can call my new radical group "Bon Jovi is sin", but it doesn't mean Bon Jovi ever did anything to me.



Right, but if your radical group was from a country that was under Bon Jovi's colonial rule from 1900-1960, then had Bon Jovi set up a government shortly after independence that ended up being very corrupt and being ousted, only to have Richie Sambora set up the next governmental dictatorship for you after that, then it'd be more pertinent of a name.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> Drew, you don't realise the context of the discussion at the time when I was talking about PRC polls. I believe it was you who said 'Challenge!' when I said there were at the very least tens of millions of Muslim radicals on Earth. I'm trying to prove to you that the threat is bigger than you thought it was. That's it.
> 
> If that's a step towards totalitarianism, it's a step I'm willing to take. Also, I'm not proposing mass execution or torture or rape of my opponents, so don't equate me with ISIS.


And I don't think you understand the distinction I'm making. I totally sympathize with Johnny Depp jokingly speculating about when was it we last had an actor shoot a president. That doesn't mean I want someone to actually do it, nor that I wouldn't condemn the attacks if they happened. And as you'll recall there was an outpouring of Muslim solidarity for the victims after the attack. 

So, what I'm telling you is you're looking at the wrong metrics, and you can't criminalize thought. And, since we glossed over this earlier, I absolutely contend that Nugent's comments are an exact analogue here: "If Obama wins re-election in November, I will either be in dead or in jail by this time next year" is pretty damned explicit, to the point where the Secret Service brought him in for an interview, yet large numbers of his fans and GOP supporters had no issue with his comments - he was cheered, for christ's sake.

Anyway, maybe it's different for you Brits, but in the States our legal code is based on the belief that you're innocent until proven guilty. It's absolutely OK to question The Nug' to make sure what he said wasn't a credible threat providing doing so does not interfere with his civil liberties, but it's not ok to lock him up on an island, along with anyone who has sympathy to his views, simply because they _could_ be made manifest into violence. And if you don't agree with this simple statement that democratic rule of law is based on, then I really don't know what to tell you.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> And I don't think you understand the distinction I'm making. I totally sympathize with Johnny Depp jokingly speculating about when was it we last had an actor shoot a president. That doesn't mean I want someone to actually do it, nor that I wouldn't condemn the attacks if they happened. And as you'll recall there was an outpouring of Muslim solidarity for the victims after the attack.
> 
> So, what I'm telling you is you're looking at the wrong metrics, and you can't criminalize thought. And, since we glossed over this earlier, I absolutely contend that Nugent's comments are an exact analogue here: "If Obama wins re-election in November, I will either be in dead or in jail by this time next year" is pretty damned explicit, to the point where the Secret Service brought him in for an interview, yet large numbers of his fans and GOP supporters had no issue with his comments - he was cheered, for christ's sake.
> 
> Anyway, maybe it's different for you Brits, but in the States our legal code is based on the belief that you're innocent until proven guilty. It's absolutely OK to question The Nug' to make sure what he said wasn't a credible threat providing doing so does not interfere with his civil liberties, but it's not ok to lock him up on an island, along with anyone who has sympathy to his views, simply because they _could_ be made manifest into violence. And if you don't agree with this simple statement that democratic rule of law is based on, then I really don't know what to tell you.


 
But if you were interviewed in a formal survey and asked 'Would you sympathise with someone who shot and killed Donald Trump, a terrorist action?', would you have the same sentiment?

There's a screenshot of an Al Jazeera livestream of the Westminster attack, with hundreds of people doing 'HAHA' reacts to footage of scene. But I don't think that's telling. Why? Because there are just as many edgy 14 year-olds who would do the exact same thing, it doesn't mean anything. But if you sat those 'edgy' kids down and asked them if they actually supported the things they were laughing at, I think you'd get a different story.

There's a world of difference between finding a joke about killing the President funny or sympathising with the joke (or making the joke itself) than sitting down in a formal survey and being asked if you sympathise with terrorism. Understand that distinction.

Also, I'm sorry, I got a completely different Nugent quote, and I will retract my previous argument, because my quote was not the one you were referring to, I got mixed up. So yes, that quote is directly implying physical violence/death threat towards the President.

And I do disagree with that statement, to a degree, because it entirely depends on who the person is. If Nugent had links to extremist anti-government groups or anti-Obama groups and had links to terrorists and terror-funding organisations (as every single outspoken ISIS supporter has links to Islamist terrorists, or almost every outspoken Neo-Nazi in the West has links to Neo-Nazi crime/terror group does), then it's an entirely different matter, in my eyes.


----------



## Drew

Actually, that gets into framing pretty. Framing it as "hey, this is terrorism, it's a Very Bad Thing because we Hate Terrorists. Do you support it?" is going to elicit a very different response than something more muted like "do you sympathize with the motives of the Charlie Hebdo shooters?" I don't know how the question was framed in the survey, so I can't really weigh in, but I think a telephone survey is maybe a lot less formal than oyu think it is; this isn't a police interrogation. 

But, to your broader question, if I was asked "do you sympathize with Johnny Depp's comments about when was the last time an actor shot a president?" I'd probably say no... But, I KNOW I have liberal friends who would say yes. And, again, that's their right. We live in a democracy, they have their right to free expression, and they can only be arrested for that expression if there is concrete evidence that they're going beyond idle talk and are actually preparing to take action, and even then they're entitled to a trial by jury of their peers, before they can be convicted. We can't just lock them up on an island because they said, "yeah, right on, you tell 'em, Johnny!" when they heard his comments. We have rule of law. That's one of the things that _separates_ us from the terrorists.


----------



## eggzoomin

Just to throw a little maths into the debate:

There are about 1.6 billion Muslims on earth. Taking the comment about tens of millions holding extreme views as true and using 20 million as the lowest number of that, that equates to 0.125%. Given the population of Muslims in the UK, that would be around 3400 people. Even at 100 million, that scales to 17000. At the last election, Sinn Feinn (political wing of the IRA) and the DUP (political wing of the UDA) polled over 250 000 votes each. And yes, I am more than old enough to remember long before the Good Friday agreement and am rather nervous about it dissolving at the moment.


----------



## Drew

eggzoomin said:


> Just to throw a little maths into the debate:
> 
> There are about 1.6 billion Muslims on earth. Taking the comment about tens of millions holding extreme views as true and using 20 million as the lowest number of that, that equates to 0.125%. Given the population of Muslims in the UK, that would be around 3400 people. Even at 100 million, that scales to 17000. At the last election, Sinn Feinn (political wing of the IRA) and the DUP (political wing of the UDA) polled over 250 000 votes each. And yes, I am more than old enough to remember long before the Good Friday agreement and am rather nervous about it dissolving at the moment.


While you are 100% correct, the "we are talking about a decimal point rounding error" argument doesn't seem to be one Insomnia is particularly impressed by. 

I mean, with a global population of around 7 billion, Muslims make up almost a quarter of the world's population. If there was something inherently violent towards nonbelievers in the Muslim faith, we'd probably all be dead by now.


----------



## eggzoomin

Drew said:


> While you are 100% correct, the "we are talking about a decimal point rounding error" argument doesn't seem to be one Insomnia is particularly impressed by.
> 
> I mean, with a global population of around 7 billion, Muslims make up almost a quarter of the world's population. If there was something inherently violent towards nonbelievers in the Muslim faith, we'd probably all be dead by now.



Just went back through the last few pages of this thread. I see your point. There was a survey that was conducted by ICM that claimed 4% of UK Muslims supported extremism and used for a Channel 4 programme - its methodology was later comprehensively debunked. To be honest, the general public and the media are not really well set up to deal with data or statistics.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> While you are 100% correct, the "we are talking about a decimal point rounding error" argument doesn't seem to be one Insomnia is particularly impressed by.
> 
> I mean, with a global population of around 7 billion, Muslims make up almost a quarter of the world's population. If there was something inherently violent towards nonbelievers in the Muslim faith, we'd probably all be dead by now.



With the current state of the world, it won't take 1.6 billion people or even 3400 people to end civilization, but just a few people with nuclear weapons and the right opportunity. 

While we are busy bickering about whether Iran is worthy of nuclear weapons or not, we currently have a hot-headed PotUS who doesn't seem to put very much stock in evidence-based decision making, and we also have a group of some small number of people within the USA who want nothing more than to destroy a large number of people. We also have equally nutty small extreme groups who are willing to kill large numbers of innocent people in order to take out their rivals over differences in dogma. We also have a dozen or so nuclear warheads from the USSR that have been totally missing since the 1980's. There is also the fact that any idiot with a couple of old smoke detectors and any one of a thousand combinations of other household items could construct a dirty bomb that might not make an earth-shattering kaboom, but would certainly make headlines, if detonated in any one of several particular areas. There is also the fact that nuclear bomb technology has existed long enough that there are thousands upon thousands of folks out there who know exactly how to construct one, if only they had access to the right grade of fissible materials.

Putting that all together, it truly is a miracle that we haven't annihilated ourselves out of existence already. And odds are actually not too hot that humanity will look at all positive 100 years from now. If humanity gets wiped out, odds are way higher that the culprit will be widespread war or an out-of-control biological weapon than the odds of a massive solar flare or asteroid doing the deed.


----------



## Insomnia

eggzoomin said:


> Just to throw a little maths into the debate:
> 
> There are about 1.6 billion Muslims on earth. Taking the comment about tens of millions holding extreme views as true and using 20 million as the lowest number of that, that equates to 0.125%. Given the population of Muslims in the UK, that would be around 3400 people. Even at 100 million, that scales to 17000. At the last election, Sinn Feinn (political wing of the IRA) and the DUP (political wing of the UDA) polled over 250 000 votes each. And yes, I am more than old enough to remember long before the Good Friday agreement and am rather nervous about it dissolving at the moment.



1) The idea that only 20,000,000 people hold extreme views is utterly ridiculous. It's over 20,000,000 alone that support ISIS, a group that routinely kills moderate Muslims across the world, and does so to such a barbaric and insane extent, that Al Qaeda and Taliban members are calling them 'too extreme'. The number of people who hold severely anti-gay and anti-disbeliever and sexist views is going to be insanely higher than 20,000,000.

2) It's more than upsetting that Sinn Fein and the DUP are not only still around, but are thriving. Whilst they've (seem to have) moved on from actively supporting terrorism, I'm sure the sentiment is still there. It's worrying that they're not relics now. 



Drew said:


> While you are 100% correct, the "we are talking about a decimal point rounding error" argument doesn't seem to be one Insomnia is particularly impressed by.
> 
> I mean, with a global population of around 7 billion, Muslims make up almost a quarter of the world's population. If there was something inherently violent towards nonbelievers in the Muslim faith, we'd probably all be dead by now.



Islam is inherently violent. Islam is inherently peaceful. Welcome to the wacky world of religion, where logic isn't welcome...

However, I would like to say that the groups I've mentioned (gays, disbelievers, women, critics of Islam, liberal reformers) generally don't have good lives in the majority of majority-Muslim countries.


----------



## Insomnia

Drew said:


> Actually, that gets into framing pretty. Framing it as "hey, this is terrorism, it's a Very Bad Thing because we Hate Terrorists. Do you support it?" is going to elicit a very different response than something more muted like "do you sympathize with the motives of the Charlie Hebdo shooters?" I don't know how the question was framed in the survey, so I can't really weigh in, but I think a telephone survey is maybe a lot less formal than oyu think it is; this isn't a police interrogation.
> 
> But, to your broader question, if I was asked "do you sympathize with Johnny Depp's comments about when was the last time an actor shot a president?" I'd probably say no... But, I KNOW I have liberal friends who would say yes. And, again, that's their right. We live in a democracy, they have their right to free expression, and they can only be arrested for that expression if there is concrete evidence that they're going beyond idle talk and are actually preparing to take action, and even then they're entitled to a trial by jury of their peers, before they can be convicted. We can't just lock them up on an island because they said, "yeah, right on, you tell 'em, Johnny!" when they heard his comments. We have rule of law. That's one of the things that _separates_ us from the terrorists.


We've already had one person in this thread say it's absolutely fine to call for the genocide of people. Do you agree with their sentiment?

I see it like this: Quite frankly, it's a lot more harmful to society to allow terrorist sympathisers to recruit and convert, than to ban their speech. You and I disagree on this fundamental level. We can continue arguing down a philosophical road of 'what is freedom, are there limits, and should it be inherent', but I think it'd be much easier for you if you found practical reasons against my view.

For example, if there is an instance of a Western nation arresting terror sympathisers, which causes the sympathisers' followers to rapidly take up arms/commit terror against the state for what they see as injustice, then that is a practical reason against my claim, as it actually causes more terrorism.

By all means, take whatever road you want, I'm just suggesting this to you.


----------



## eggzoomin

Insomnia, you were the one who said tens of millions. I offered two mathematical renderings of that, at either end of the scale. If you meant hundreds of millions, that wasn't clear from the way you said "tens of millions." My point, to be explicit, is that you appear to have greater concern about radical Wahhabi Islamic terrorism than about other forms of extremism, which doesn't appear to be mathematically grounded to me. If we're talking about the likelihood of death, I am far more concerned about the ~150 women a year murdered by men they know in the UK annually - yet we as a nation devote a fraction of the resources and attention to that issue, compared to what gets spent on terrorism.

Re Ireland, neither of the Irish parties have moved on from their roots - Arlene Foster met Jackie McDonald two days after the UDA killed Colin Horner in front of his three year old son, in May. What's more worrying is that the government are quite happy to pal up with them and won't condemn the House of Saud, either.

Re your response to Drew, those groups don't have good lives in virtually any state where religion holds significant sway - and plenty of secular states too.


----------



## Insomnia

eggzoomin said:


> Insomnia, you were the one who said tens of millions. I offered two mathematical renderings of that, at either end of the scale. If you meant hundreds of millions, that wasn't clear from the way you said "tens of millions." My point, to be explicit, is that you appear to have greater concern about radical Wahhabi Islamic terrorism than about other forms of extremism, which doesn't appear to be mathematically grounded to me. If we're talking about the likelihood of death, I am far more concerned about the ~150 women a year murdered by men they know in the UK annually - yet we as a nation devote a fraction of the resources and attention to that issue, compared to what gets spent on terrorism.
> 
> Re Ireland, neither of the Irish parties have moved on from their roots - Arlene Foster met Jackie McDonald two days after the UDA killed Colin Horner in front of his three year old son, in May. What's more worrying is that the government are quite happy to pal up with them and won't condemn the House of Saud, either.
> 
> Re your response to Drew, those groups don't have good lives in virtually any state where religion holds significant sway - and plenty of secular states too.







Insomnia said:


> http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/
> 
> The implementation of Sharia is one example. Every implementation of Sharia around to date (and almost every single one in history) promotes the oppression of gays and women and dissidents. It means these Muslims want to base their law not on freedom or democracy, but they want it governed as a theocracy. However, I do realise that someone's interpretation of Sharia is subjective, and could be very wide ranging. But we have to think about where they'd draw their idea of an Islamic theocracy from (probably from the real-world instances of one).
> 
> The polls on favourable views of ISIS proves that in Pakistan alone, the 9% of Pakistani's who support ISIS are 17,000,000. The numbers really do start to add up. And that is just the number of Pakistanis who support a terror group who also kill devout Muslims (ISIS). The numbers would get higher if you asked them about terror groups that only kill non-believers, or terror groups that killed gays, or if they support the killings like that of Charlie Hebdo or the fatwa placed on Salman Rushdie. There are tens of millions at bare minimum, and honestly, I think it could be over 100,000,000.
> 
> There are at the very minimum another 2,000,000 in Malaysia, another 12,740,000 in Nigeria, another 1,500,000 in Senegal.



Not sure where I said there were only tens of millions of radicals, egg. Now, if you can find me non-Islamic groups in the UK that support violent sexism worldwide through recruiting and financial payment, if you can show me non-Islamic organised anti-women preaching (and especially to such an extent that those who've listened to the talks have gone out and murdered women), if you can show me thousands of known anti-female terrorists/ideological murderers operating in the UK, then I'll put the resources equally. Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism is a much bigger issue in the UK than domestic sexist murder. I also don't see what relevance it has to this conversation? You're now complaining that the UK government spends too much combatting much more prevalent issues?

Also, yet again, your point about 'well other religions treat them badly too' and 'secular states are also bad to them' has no relevance in terms of critiquing Islam. I've already explained how this thread changed my views on Islam earlier, if you want a more detailed response, I recommend you find that post.


----------



## eggzoomin

It's quoted at the top of the page:

"Drew, you don't realise the context of the discussion at the time when I was talking about PRC polls. I believe it was you who said 'Challenge!' when I said there were at the very least tens of millions of Muslim radicals on Earth."

I'm going to politely bow out of this thread now - shouldn't have posted in the first place.


----------



## Drew

eggzoomin said:


> It's quoted at the top of the page:
> 
> "Drew, you don't realise the context of the discussion at the time when I was talking about PRC polls. I believe it was you who said 'Challenge!' when I said there were at the very least tens of millions of Muslim radicals on Earth."
> 
> I'm going to politely bow out of this thread now - shouldn't have posted in the first place.


No, stick around, it's nice to have someone else who understands statistics.  


Insomnia said:


> 1) The idea that only 20,000,000 people hold extreme views is utterly ridiculous. It's over 20,000,000 alone that support ISIS, a group that routinely kills moderate Muslims across the world, and does so to such a barbaric and insane extent, that Al Qaeda and Taliban members are calling them 'too extreme'. The number of people who hold severely anti-gay and anti-disbeliever and sexist views is going to be insanely higher than 20,000,000.
> 
> However, I would like to say that the groups I've mentioned (gays, disbelievers, women, critics of Islam, liberal reformers) generally don't have good lives in the majority of majority-Muslim countries.



I'll merely note in passing that, not only have we already discussed ad nauseum that passage, including a multi-page discussion on what it means to "support" or "approve" of something in the context of a poll, the fact that what we're concerned about is intended or actual actions because we as a free democracy do not ban thought, etc etc etc, and that I'm beginning to have pretty serious concerns about your reading comprehension, ability to retain information, or both, since you keep coming back to that post...

...I'll also point out that in a thread about Islamic terrorism, this is the second or third time you've cited that same poll and then immediately moved on to "yeah and they's also anti-gay and anti women too!" Considering that has nothing to do with the subject of Muslims engaging in terrorism in the US and UK, and considering that _my own country_ has a pretty shitty record of its treatment of women and LGBT communities, if the strongest argument why we need to step up domestic investigation of Muslims and engage in "heavy vetting" of Muslim immigrants is "their governments treat gay people poorly in their own counties," let's just take a moment to acknowledge the fact you're clutching for straws and trying to conflate two unrelated problems, Muslim terrorism and the rights of minorities in foreign countries, because you're not able to make Muslim terrorism look like a pervasive enough problem otherwise.


----------



## Drew

Insomnia said:


> Not sure where I said there were only tens of millions of radicals, egg. Now, if you can find me non-Islamic groups in the UK that support violent sexism worldwide through recruiting and financial payment, if you can show me non-Islamic organised anti-women preaching (and especially to such an extent that those who've listened to the talks have gone out and murdered women), if you can show me thousands of known anti-female terrorists/ideological murderers operating in the UK, then I'll put the resources equally.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church 

Or did you already kick Catholics out to an island off the coast and subject immigrants from Catholic-majority countries to "heavy vetting"?


----------



## eggzoomin

Drew said:


> No, stick around, it's nice to have someone else who understands statistics.



Honestly, having read through the rest of the thread, I recognised that there's no point - if it was going to get resolved, it would have been many pages ago. There's that old saw about arguing on the internet...

Re Catholicism and secular states, insomnia said himself he's only interested in discussing Islam and that is really the key takeout for me - this is not an ecumenical discussion for him. He can hold any opinion he likes - it is a free society. Now if he ACTS on it... that's different. I do wish we were drawing a distinction between Wahhabi Islam and mainstream Islamic scholarship, though - it's like saying the Westboro Baptist Church represent all Christians.


----------



## Drew

eggzoomin said:


> Honestly, having read through the rest of the thread, I recognised that there's no point - if it was going to get resolved, it would have been many pages ago. There's that old saw about arguing on the internet...
> 
> Re Catholicism and secular states, insomnia said himself he's only interested in discussing Islam and that is really the key takeout for me - this is not an ecumenical discussion for him. He can hold any opinion he likes - it is a free society. Now if he ACTS on it... that's different. I do wish we were drawing a distinction between Wahhabi Islam and mainstream Islamic scholarship, though - it's like saying the Westboro Baptist Church represent all Christians.


Well, the other takeaway that's becoming increasingly clear to me, as he continues to conflate discussion on just how legitimate a threat Muslims in general are in the US and UK as a source of Islamic terrorism, with Muslim majority nations' governments having a poor record on minority rights (nowhere near a unique Muslim challenge, even though we've made some progress in recent decades) is that his problem isn't with any legitimate concern for his well-being that Islamic terrorism might pose, per se, so much as it is with Islam in general. Since he seems incapable of separating a belief that Muslims are bad from a legitimate and rational assessment of the risk of terrorism they pose, then we're not going to get anywhere. The best we can hope for is to make it increasingly clear to anyone else reading this that his objections are based on personal bias and not rational analysis.


----------



## bostjan

Man, I can't imagine how crazy things would get in an open religious debate on here with the current state of things...

There are violent people in all walks of life: Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Atheism, Hinduism, even Buddhism. There's not really going to be a reliable statistical gauge of how violent the people are in each group, but maybe we can get some idea, vaguely, and by number of violent acts, which nations are the most violent? Iran? Syria? Iraq? No, it's actually more like Columbia, Venezuela, Panama, etc. How do you square that up with the assumption that Islam is intrinsically more violent than everything that is not Islam?!


----------



## vilk

eggzoomin said:


> Honestly, having read through the rest of the thread, I recognised that there's no point - if it was going to get resolved, it would have been many pages ago. There's that old saw about arguing on the internet...
> 
> Re Catholicism and secular states, insomnia said himself he's only interested in discussing Islam and that is really the key takeout for me - this is not an ecumenical discussion for him. He can hold any opinion he likes - it is a free society. Now if he ACTS on it... that's different. I do wish we were drawing a distinction between Wahhabi Islam and mainstream Islamic scholarship, though - it's like saying the Westboro Baptist Church represent all Christians.



One important thing to point out, however, is that there are 4.5 million Wahhabist Muslims, as well as major gov't entities that embrace Wahhabism. This makes it less comparable to WBC, which only has 70 members and 0 of them in major gov't roles.

Even so, those 4.5 million Wahhabists only make up half a percent of all Muslims.



bostjan said:


> Man, I can't imagine how crazy things would get in an open religious debate on here with the current state of things...
> 
> There are violent people in all walks of life: Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Atheism, Hinduism, even Buddhism. There's not really going to be a reliable statistical gauge of how violent the people are in each group, but maybe we can get some idea, vaguely, and by number of violent acts, which nations are the most violent? Iran? Syria? Iraq? No, it's actually more like Columbia, Venezuela, Panama, etc. How do you square that up with the assumption that Islam is intrinsically more violent than everything that is not Islam?!



Is Islam more violent than Buddhism? =/= Are Muslims more violent than Buddhists?

Everyone brings up the point that there are bad people of every category, which is usually true. However, it is possible to compare religious philosophies on a literary/academic level.

The hero of Islam was a warlord. He commanded armies to kill people. Idk if it happened historically, though I think it's supposed to have, but even just in the literature. Even just in the literature can we see subjugation of women, violently totalitarian theocracy, rape, etc. Anyway, literally more than half of all Muslim men are named after this dude. He's largely thought of as the perfect man.
^and I have many of the same gripes with Judaism. Abe, Moses/Aaron are freaks.


Let's compare that with Jesus. That dude, in the book at least, was a pacifist. The most violent thing he did was flip a table.

Let's compare that to Buddha. The original guy was a pacifist, but there's lots and lots and lots of crazy variations out there. But as someone who has studied Buddhism formally, I'm not really familiar with any that promote any kind of violence. Some of them don't even let you hurt bugs.

Let's compare that to Vishnu. That guy destroys the whole earth. However, he also makes everything. I guess that kinda balances out. And he smokes weed.


I'm rambling, and comparing "main dudes" of a religion isn't the same as comparing the tenets of a religion, necessarily. But the main point I'm trying to make is that it is possible to legitimately find one religious philosophy more violent than another irrespective of the behavior of the actual adherents to that religion.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Per Buddhism, mutilation as punishment for petty crime wasn't officially denounced until the early 20th century. There is not a single major religion without blood on its hands.


----------



## vilk

^yeah, that's what I'm talking about when I say:_ it is possible to legitimately find one religious philosophy more violent than another irrespective of the behavior of the actual adherents to that religion.
_
I believe you that Buddhists might have mutilated people as punishment for petty crime. But what matters in discussion of comparing religious philosophies is whether or not the historical fact of mutilation was derived of a religious mandate. I don't remember anything about mutilation rules when I was reading the Lotus Sutra or any of the other canonical Buddhist literature I've read. It might be out there, because there are soooooo many varieties. But do you get what I'm trying to say?


----------



## bostjan

Ok, so your point is the violence of the religion is not related to the violence of the adherents to the religion. I would say that that would be paradoxical, but not impossible. Being that it is contrary to conventional wisdom, though, I think that stance would be impossible to defend unless you can either explain it with a strong philosophical argument or by using statistics (although the statistics part might even have too much wiggle room around it).

The old religions with a violent god were utilized by ancient leaders to quell uprisings and chaos. Why did that work? Well, the basic argument to the ancient people was "behave or else Cthulhu will cast you into eternal suffering." Christianity and Buddhism, as well as some of the other newer religions are built off of the foundations of those old religions, but shift the paradigm from "god will crush you unless you behave" to "be a better person." Unfortunately, though, the message tends to get lost, and the millennia-old practices of violence persist, and sometimes, are justified by cherry picking some of the religious philosophies and sweeping the more important ideas under the rug.

For example: Christianity. I hate picking on Christianity all of the time, but it's what's around me the most, so it's the lowest-hanging fruit. Anyway, Christianity is modeled after a man who chose riff-raff as his followers, preached non-judgement, non-violence, and, most of all, forgiveness, and yet, modern Christians, on average, are pro-capital punishment, pro-prison-for-drug-offenders, etc. Obviously there are many groups who are not that way, but, statistically, that's the way it generally is.

Christianity should be a very peaceful religion. The gospels of the New Testament preach absolute forgiveness and non-violence. Jesus says it's not okay to carry out the death penalty. Jesus says it's not okay to exact revenge, nor to harm your enemies. But then, the gospels are not the only part of the NT. The epistles are the exact opposite, in spirit, to the gospels, with ordinances and laws about shunning people, subjugating women, etc. So, Christianity is not about the teachings of Jesus. Don't think that even for a second. It's about the teachings of Paul, the apostle who never even met Jesus. Who was Paul? He was a violent dude who killed Christians until he had heat stroke one day and decided Jesus was just alright, oh yeah. He then proceeded to spread the teachings of Christianity how he wanted.


----------

