The Smiley Smile Message Board

No words. Sending best wishes to the people of Paris tonight.

Love and Mercy! :(

My thoughts and concern to the people of France  :-[

Horrifying news. Wake up EU and deport these pieces of sh*t back to their own country to stop this sort of thing happening again.

Sad news. 

And to think, Obama wanted to let those Syrian refugees into the US. 

INfuckingDEED. Total insanity.

The refugees are fleeing the IS attacks in Syria. Their country has been destroyed by IS and by their own government. The refugees, like those poor people in Paris last night, are victims of IS. Some have stayed in Syria to fight IS and their dictator but are now also being bombed by the Russians.

Compassion where it's due.

Hear, hear. There's far too much hate around as it is. Those poor Parisians...

While there are some genuine refugees who have suffered, the vast bulk are wolves in sheep's clothing. Not all of Syria is a warzone, nor the surrounding countries, they have no reason to stray so far into Europe. Look on the news at the migrants (both legal and illegal), there are few women and children, zero old people, just wave after wave of men in their 20s and 30s.

Migrants or refugees? Many are fleeing a war in which their homes and everything they own has been destroyed. Where their own government is slaughtering them. What do you want to send them back to?

It comes down to the same thing for any country that takes them in.

So if you were the PM what would you do? Send "them" home? Surely they'd just return again and again. So the problem of "them" would never go away. Options?

I hope they find the French guy who made the video that pissed them off. Or the cartoonist that offended them. Something set these terrorists off -- and i hope they find whomever offended them and hold them responsible.

Right?  Of course i dont mean any of that nonesense. But can u imagine if people really thought like that?  Sadly, many of the World's "Leaders" do. We have one running for President right now. They're dangerous fakes and fools.

All free nations must close their borders. Rats are getting in.  Lock the doors to the free world, eradicate the communities and cultures producing these psychos.

We know who they are, what they believe, and where they come from.  They're not coming from outer space.  Or from some portal at an undisclosed location on the bottom of he sea.  And because of the fakes and fools running the world, these rats all throughout the house.

We pick our leaders. Wake. The. F-ck up. World!

This attack changes the terrain.  The Eiffel Tower is closed (Thank God.) There are some issues that defy logic.

First, why the International Court of Justice does not appear to actively be involved in prosecuting these "crimes against humanity" as they were post WWII.

Second, I learned that except the UK, there are no border entrance requirements in crossing among the EU member states.  This appears to be a downside of the establishment of the  EU.  It may have looked like a good idea at the time.  Now, it appears to have created a huge and perhaps unanticipated security problem. 

Where are the rest of the "coalition" in responding to this violence? 

A couple of amazing things I saw last night.  Post attack, the crowds singing "La Marseillaise" (French National Anthem) and a phone interview with Simone Rivera (daughter of Geraldo Rivera) on her Junior Year semester abroad in France, and who had been at the stadium watching the game, in the same crowd with two French Presidents (one former) and to the surprise of Geraldo, not at the concert with a So. Cal band close to the stadium. 

France24 has a great online version of it's programming in English for those who want to stay up to speed on what is going on with our allies. 

Word is for the upcoming Dem. debate, the topics are being reframed to include terrorism.

And Hillary tried to get into the Marines?  And was refused?

Today, there are more questions than answers...

For our fellow BB fans in France...please stay safe...

THANK YOU.

Thoughts and prayers to the French people after this barbaric attack on the innocent.

The Shoe Bomber was a Muslim
The Beltway Snipers were Muslims
The Fort Hood Shooter was a Muslim
The underwear Bomber was a Muslim
The U-S.S. Cole Bombers were Muslims
The Madrid Train Bombers were Muslims
The Bafi Nightclub Bombers were Muslims
The London Subway Bombers were Muslims
The Moscow Theatre Attackers were Muslims
The Boston Marathon Bombers were Muslims
The Pan-Am flight #93 Bombers were Muslims
The Air France Entebbe Hijackers were Muslims
The Iranian Embassy Takeover, was by Muslims
The Beirut U.S. Embassy bombers were Muslims
The Libyan U.S. Embassy Attack was by Musiims
The Buenos Aires Suicide Bombers were Muslims
The Israeli Olympic Team Attackers were Muslims
The Kenyan U.S, Embassy Bombers were Muslims
The Saudi, Khobar Towers Bombers were Muslims
The Beirut Marine Barracks bombers were Muslims
The Besian Russian School Attackers were Muslims
The first World Trade Center Bombers were Muslims
The Bombay & Mumbai India Attackers were Muslims
The Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijackers were Muslims
The September 11th 2001 Airline Hijackers were Muslims

Let anyone of this faith into your country at your peril.

Um... holocaust, holodomor, First American Nations genocide, my lai, pearl harbor, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, school massacres, other mass shootings, Oklahoma, Waco, jim jones, the crusades, Genghis khan, Caesar, Alexander, El Salvador, KKK, haymarket, the boer war, the troubles, carlos the jackal, anarchist bombings, Birmingham, lynchings, a mess of assassinations, the bath school bombings, the unibomber, the weather underground, Pinochet, everything that ever happens in argentina, unit 731, Guernica, Dresden, Jamestown, everything in Greece in 1821, numerous massacres of European settlers in the Americas by American Indians, massacres of Chinese Americans by European Americans, kent state, lattimer, genocide of Armenians, hutus/tutsis, Ludlow, the great purge, shanghai massacre, Ludlow, a ton of stuff done by the United Fruit Company, jallianwala bagh, nanking, that Norwegian guy, "freedom fighters," the killing of sandino, the sandinistas, bureau for the repression of communist activities, castro, papa and baby doc, extraordinary rendition, Khmer rouge, a near millennium of just about constant war in Europe of increasing violence culminating in the bloodiest century and place in history, Tamerlane, Atlantic slave trade, congo war, Belgians in congo, apartheid, Russian troubles, Chinese civil wars, Algeria, Somalia, sudan, Ethiopia, Burma/Myanmar, Tenochtitlan, Haifa refinery and other episodes in palestine, jeju, sri Lankan gov't and tamil tigers, shining path, Mr. Huberty, serbs v. croats, Abkhazia, ANC v IFP, Chiapas, port arthur, ira, haditha, pottawatomie, need I go on?
Intentional homicide rate by region:

      Americas 16.3 157,000
      Africa 12.5 135,000
      World 6.2 437,000
      Europe 3.0 22,000
      Oceania 3.0 1,100
      Asia 2.9 122,000

The capacity to be horrible knows no ethnicity.

My apologies to the Real Beach Boy for perpetuating a discussion of hate on your kind and thoughtful thread.

Wonderful history lesson. Meanwhile back here in the 21st Century atrocities are being commited by Islamic madmen.

Several of your examples are not 21st century. Several of my examples occurred after your earliest examples. Where exactly is the cut off by which we say "these people can now be proclaimed good because the atrocities committed by some of their members have not reached x threshold during the last y years. These people are now proclaimed evil because the atrocities committed by some of their members have crossed x threshold during the last y years." What exactly are x and y?
The intentional homicide rate table is contemporary. For a region with a relatively small number of Muslims, the Americas seem to have a lot of homicidal "madmen."

It's true they do. So running the risk of importing more would not be the smartest of plays.

Now I understand that you are not serious because you must be aware of the concept of a mean and that if you mix a higher dilution with a lower dilution, the higher dilution will be lowered.

Play the percentage game all you want, one religious nutjob is one too many.

Ah... Therein lies the primary difference between us. If I'm faced with a homicidal madman, I won't care what his religion is.
Anyway, it's been fun, MB.. but now I must sleep.

These are not Muslims. These are brainwashed zombies----your actual bona fide Walking Dead. Brainwashed by crackpot ideologies that shamelessly exploit Islam. At least that's how I see it.

Eh? I've come to the conclusion that we seem to be arguing two completely different things here.
Anyway, congrats for not resorting to invoking 'Godwin's Law'.

Some people might find this interesting. But if it contradicts what they already think, probably not.

http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-discovered-from-interviewing-isis-prisoners/

Thanks for that, Captain.  I'm not surprised by the demographic of that young prisoner, that he only had about an 8th grade education, that he joined because it was a way to make money for his family.  And, that he was not tightly connected to the ideology.  I came across something interesting yesterday suggesting that the intel was difficult because there was a use of PS4 for the Paris attack - Play Station 4 which has internet capability.  There is a lot of whining about Snowden screwing up the intel to discover what is going on in the dark web. That is nonsense. This could be propaganda from both sides.

Their "overreaching with monitoring regular good citizens" who have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" I think is what got them in trouble.  The article suggests a disconnect as between the Daesh "leaders" and the grunts who are carrying out the dirty work.  The leaders seems to be involved in oil, human trafficking, and heavy use of propaganda and social media for recruitment. 

But, thanks for that link.  The more we learn and know, the better we can strategize to defend ourselves.     

That article confirms what almost every reputable intelligence agency, including the CIA, said before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 - that the invasion would lead to an increase in the threat of terror. This was a major argument taken up my the anti-war activists at the time and it was dismissed. The same people who dismissed those arguments then are now suddenly worried about it and yet still champion policies that will only further increase these threats, like, for example, the closed-door policies that we so often see being reiterated, or the air strikes against Iraq and Syria which intelligence tells us is having the same effect that the attacks on Iraq had. But I'm sure there is always going to be some ludicrous suggestion waiting for those same people ten years down the road when these policies fail too.

I think it is important to condemn horrifying atrocities like this terrible crime in Paris, just as it is important to condemn the drone strikes that are killing innocent people: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147

That was the most frustrating period of my life... the drumming for an irrational war against people who had nothing to do with 9/11 because we had to defend our honor by showing our might and, hey, they're the same religion as the 9/11 terrorists, so what's the diff? And how few people could hear reason. You'd think Americans would have more empathy for other people's insane violence because we had a national fit of it in 2003.

Given the data shown here, can not anyone see how terrorism is created? These deaths feel, to the families of the victims, the same as the deaths caused by "Muslim madmen" feel to the families of their victims. The families of these victims will be just as racist, and think of violent Westerners, and call for revenge, as did Americans after 9/11. Their governments don't have the power or will to pick some western country to attack, devastate, hang the leader on film and occupy, so terrorist violence ensues. Why is it so hard to see that humans of all religions and ethnicities sometimes react to violence with violence, and to poverty with violence, and to oppression with violence? And that reacting to those reactions with further violence just ups the ante?

From Michael Savage...
We’re facing something the West hasn’t had to deal with since the wars of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries. When those religious wars ended in one place, they began in another. They lasted for over one hundred years.

The same thing is happening right now. The radical Muslims are on the warpath and they are against everyone else. They are against Muslims who are not as fanatical. They are against the members of all other religions. They think they are going to take us back to some pristine religious period in human history that never actually occurred.

It’s all complete rubbish. These “faith warriors” live lower than the pigs they despise. They kidnap and rape 8-year-old girls and say the Quran authorizes it. They’re not purists. They’re killers. They’re Nazis in head scarfs. They aren’t leading a religious revival. They’re trying to take us back to a state of barbarism that has been extinct for 1,200 years.

This is a barbaric revolution, and we have a man in the White House who denies its existence. But whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not, it’s going to continue until someone puts a stop to it.

Jonathan Sacks called the fight against radical Islam the “defining conflict of the next generation.” He likened radical Islam to a starfish. When you cut off a spider’s head, it dies. But when you cut off the leg of a starfish, the starfish can regenerate it. Radical political Islam is a starfish. If you defeat ISIS or al-Qaeda, they will merely come back under another name.

Why would any government bring in unvetted Muslim immigrants at a time like this? It would seem that only an insane prince would do this to his country. But Obama is not insane. He’s stoned. He’s stoned on the orthodoxy of the progressive left. Obama and his supporters are drunk on their ideology. They think they’re going to create a progressive utopia by continuing their attack on all Western values.

This is precisely how great civilizations of the past declined and eventually fell. They rejected the values that made them great and degenerated into narcissism and selfishness. They kept on partying until they were too weak to defend themselves. Then, the unthinkable happened. They fell.


Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/a-dance-of-death-in-the-west/#BXTymOADjqfbyQ1X.99

An interesting example right now because it is so close to where the recent tragedy took place is the Algerian election of 1991, which was the to be the first democratic election in the country. Yet when it looked like the Algerians were going to elect the Islamic FIS party, the elections were cancelled, and military rule was put in place leading to the deaths of up to 200,000 Algerians over the next ten years or so.

It's not to do with religion. That, like race or other external group definers, is just an easy thing for simple minds with a short view to grasp on to.
Look at the list I put on the previous page and the list that Mike's Beard put up. What does almost every example have in common? Economic strife or striving, political repression, or poverty. These are the things that lead to political violence every time. When these were the circumstances in Ireland, we saw the IRA. Are the Irish or the Catholics a violent people? No more than anyone else, but they will react to certain conditions with violence. You should read historical texts by the British analyzing the various race-based reasons that the Irish were poor and violent - they're by nature lazy and disorganized, their religion teaches dependency and violence, etc. It's uncanny how precise the terms the British used to talk about the Irish match the terms many Americans and Europeans use to talk about Muslims (and white Americans use to talk about black Americans). Humans are violent when they feel cornered. Like squirrels. If, like Mike's Beard, you can only grasp right now, you can see one set of people performing one type of violence more than others (of course, we are all aware that the US is responsible for many more violent deaths during the same period, but we will all turn a blind eye to that because... oh, no good reason... ) so we can simple mindedly say "those people are more violent than others" but if you have a longer view you will see that it's the conditions that breed the violence. And the conditions are generated over and over again without regard to the religion of the people who live in them.

That WND, the self-described largest Christian website in the world--"the world's best kept secret in Christian content and marketing"--would frame it in such terms isn't very surprising.

WND's mission statement: "WND is an independent news company dedicated to uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty. We remain faithful to the traditional and central role of a free press in a free society — as a light exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power. We also seek to stimulate a free-and-open debate about the great moral and political ideas facing the world and to promote freedom and self-government by encouraging personal virtue and good character."

But that's not quite all. "What makes WND’s mission statement so meaningful is the WND team’s commitment to a Christian worldview."

Uncompromising journalism, truth, justice, presented by an entity committed to a Christian worldview. As long as readers consider sources, all is well.

Ha, Beanghazi posted something from Michael Weiner. Funny.

Also Bean, why doesn't Michael Weiner go by his real name instead of calling himself "Savage"?

Thanks for posting this. I'm not surprised but saddened, as ever, by this cycle that destroys so many lives.

When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and a cross.

Like a little bow on top.

You keep on and on about this over and over again how 'extremist Muslims are not the only people who have/are committing violent acts of terror'. And? Did anybody here claim otherwise? Does it make the threat they possess any less?

It's not to do with religion. That, like race or other external group definers, is just an easy thing for simple minds with a short view to grasp on to.
Look at the list I put on the previous page and the list that Mike's Beard put up. What does almost every example have in common? Economic strife or striving, political repression, or poverty. These are the things that lead to political violence every time. When these were the circumstances in Ireland, we saw the IRA. Are the Irish or the Catholics a violent people? No more than anyone else, but they will react to certain conditions with violence. You should read historical texts by the British analyzing the various race-based reasons that the Irish were poor and violent - they're by nature lazy and disorganized, their religion teaches dependency and violence, etc. It's uncanny how precise the terms the British used to talk about the Irish match the terms many Americans and Europeans use to talk about Muslims (and white Americans use to talk about black Americans). Humans are violent when they feel cornered. Like squirrels. If, like Mike's Beard, you can only grasp right now, you can see one set of people performing one type of violence more than others (of course, we are all aware that the US is responsible for many more violent deaths during the same period, but we will all turn a blind eye to that because... oh, no good reason... ) so we can simple mindedly say "those people are more violent than others" but if you have a longer view you will see that it's the conditions that breed the violence. And the conditions are generated over and over again without regard to the religion of the people who live in them.
[/quote]

THIS! Thank You Emily for such a well written response, so much more eloquent than what I was going to rant. I can't really add much to it.

 I work with teenagers quite a lot and this subject came up. They're young and only look at main stream media so obviously their views were pretty dark. It made me think of a sketch from Mitchell and Webb (British comedy duo) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY - where some German SS officers discover that they are the 'baddies'. The reason I thought of this was when they asked 'Why' and although I obviously cannot answer this I talked a little bit about some of the things that Britain and our wonderful allies the US have done to secure our world view. As I started listing things I kinda thought there is no difference between Paris and the villages in the Middle East that we have bombed, I think there is a bloody good case to be argued that we are the 'baddies' here and this is just retaliation.

 I'm really not making light of this situation, any death is a tragedy - especially on this scale but to blame Muslims is just plain lazy.

Victim blaming - awesome.

Well, first, just for general consumption - what you have in inverted commas is not a quote from me.
For your first question, no one explicitly claimed otherwise, but they implicitly did by singling out one group and stating that that group particularly should be excluded from immigration - clearly implying particular issues with that group.
For your second question, if people could stop a minute with all the bigotry, maybe the threat could be lessened. I hope that realizing that the issue here is humanity, not Islam, would reduce the bigotry, which of course feeds the cycle.

Thanks for posting that video. I've never heard of Mitchell and Webb. I think I'll have to watch more.
Glad you work with teenagers. You are helping in your corner which is more than I can say for myself.

(http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2014/01/140117_WAR_ObamaNSASpeech.jpg.CROP.promovar-mediumlarge.jpg)

Nice, isn't it?  How much longer does the rest of polite, normal society have to pretend to tolerate this nonesnese. I think we've polite long enough.

Yeah! That's the kind of tough talk we need to make America great again. I say no more politeness. Rudeness from here on out. We'll fart at the dinner table, for starters.

Ay, caramba!

I do appreciate your honest candor and ease at delivering such reprehensible and morally ambigous perspectives, but the inability to understand right and wrong, good and evil -- when frankly the lines have never been clearer and easily understandable -- would, under normal circumstances, simply be dismissble in intelligent, decent society.  But given recent events, they're mostly just nauseating. Not just you of course, there's plenty of examples to choose from -- but I know you won't trouble me with a response.  :lol

I love you man! Hmm, i suppose that might work. If your goal was to sneak behind enemy lines, win their trust and gather intelligence. Should we let the Pentagon know?

The second half of this (Dan Carlin's "Common Sense" podcast") is about the Paris attacks and various ideas for responding. (The first half is interesting, too, but irrelevant to this.)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/show-298-innovation-acceleration/id155974141?i=357166511&mt=2

If you and I stand around slapping each other long enough that we can't remember who started it, which is the victim?

I always confuse Michael Savage with Dan Savage. I expect neither would be pleased.

The victims here are clearly the people in Paris who were alive Friday morning and dead Friday night. You are showing empathy for Jihadists, a bunch of barbarians who take the Koran at it's every word and think they are justified in killing all non believers. Why don't you pop over to the Middle East and attempt to broker a truce with them? Tell us how that works out.

My dad used to occasionally advise the Muslim Brotherhood leadership on economic policy. Quite liked them. Humans are all human, you know? Oh, I forgot, you don't know. You think some, whom you haven't met, are somehow other than human. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thinking that fosters the exact circumstance we are all mourning. I think if you look in the mirror you'll see someone who is human, just as they are, and who is bigoted, just as they are, and who can't recognize that our mutual human faults are mutual, just as they can't. In fact, you'll see that your thinking is flawed in the exact same way that theirs is. And that flaw is what led them to this action.

The immediate victims of this immediate incident certainly were the individuals who died in Paris. So, for your "victim blaming" comment, how exactly did Rentatris blame those individuals for anything? ... Exactly. He didn't. Thus, your "victim blaming" comment was not about those victims. It was you insinuating that the victims were, who? You can figure it out. That's right, the people Rentatris indicated had some responsibility for this situation. Specifically, the U.S. and UK. Are you following or are you unable to keep up from one comment to another? You seem to have forgotten the meaning of your own manipulative comment.

Speak for yourself but please don't ever liken me to the human swine you seem intent on defending, ta very much.

Nice logic twisting. The people who bear responsibilty for this situation are the ones who strapped on bombs and opened fire on innocent people. Please kindly tell me exactly who were oppressing the dogs that were living in France who commited these actions?

Again, you exhibit that your way of thinking is very similar to theirs.

No, logic twisting is taking a comment about some countries' historical destabilizing actions and calling it "victim blaming" then when someone responds to that, trying to make that person look like a baddie by pretending the victims to whom you referred were those in Paris. That is manipulative underhanded logic twisting or just a sign of not being very bright, thus unable to follow your own line.

Big difference, I'm not killing people who don't follow my own faith.

Sorry but you seem to be the one incapable of following the bouncing ball here. If someone states that acts of terrorism commited in one country are because of how other countries are treated then that is victim blaming.

yes. See? In this post you are referring to victim-blaming countries which is not the same as victim-blaming the individuals in Paris. That's where you twisted it.

This is getting too ugly. I'm out.

For one, as Emily has correctly pointed out, the victims in this case are not the same people who Rentaris was describing. Therefore your point about victim blaming amounts to nothing more than a rhetorical trick.

Second, it would be victim blaming if anyone was suggesting that the victims of the terrible tragedy on Friday somehow deserved what happened to them. I doubt anyone here would suggest such a ludicrous thing. Obviously, no one deserves that. Quite simply, if you actually care about stopping crimes, you want to find out why they happen. If you don't care then make all the angry substance-free speeches you want but let's not pretend that that's going to solve anything.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, when the US was gearing up to attack Iraq in 2003, intelligence agencies like the CIA as well as activist communities said that the attack was going to increase the threat of terror, not reduce it. This was always a crucial point because those who were in favour of the war at the time were making the case that removing Saddam Hussein from power would make the world safer even as the intelligence made clear that this was a groundless assumption. The US attacked and within two years the country had turned into the world's number one training ground for terrorism. It led to a sharp increase in Islamic fundamentalism unseen since its heyday in the 80s with the war in Afghanistan and Ronald Reagan's support of the Islamization of Pakistan. And as this was being made abundantly clear, those on the extreme right were making the case that, hey, there's no car bombs going off anymore, I guess we were right to support Bush all along and then plugged their ears and sang a jolly tune whenever someone tried pointing out the above. Intelligence has similarly noted that the drone campaigns throughout the region have had the effect of bolstering and increasing the threat of terror throughout the region.

It is an uncontroversial point that the aggressive actions throughout that part of the world have served to help establish, intensify, and bolster terrorist groups like ISIS. Does that give ISIS a free pass to create chaos and mayhem throughout the world? Of course not! What they did and who they are is despicable. But, again, if we are at all serious at trying to prevent these atrocities then we have to locate the cause of them. Calling it "victim blaming" is simply another tactic in the ongoing attempts to ensure instability. I was faced with the same kind of responses when I opposed the Iraq War on the grounds that I didn't want to see events like last Friday happening. But it's interesting how things go: In 2003, I was not supposed to say that the war would like to an increase in violence and instability because, well, I was wrong. But now that those predicted consequences have turned out to be true, I'm not supposed to mention it because it's inconsiderate. It's amazing how everything works out to ensure that this crucial point gets silenced no matter what has happened and what continues to happen.

I believe the youngins might say #FallingForIt

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hating-muslim-refugees-is-exactly-what-the-islamic-state-wants-europe-to-do/2015/11/15/dfe0ca84-87d1-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html?hpid=hp_opinions-for-wide-side_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Agreed, great article showing the true goal of the attacks!

Holy hand-hockey... talk about rhetorical tricks.  :lol

Ya'll need to write this sh-t down, cuz I'm about to drop some b-mbs!  :afro

Psychotic.  Raping.  Murdering.  Cowards.
If you feel the need to assign them purpose, do so in the privacy of your own home, cuz that's some perverted sht.  And these people see it.  They walk into schools, Einsteins.  They burst into rock concerts... and just start blasting away.  And you feel a need to explain and broadcast their reasons for them?  Bravo!

When some loser drags a woman into his loser car and rapes her -- do you look for reason?  Probably not, because that would only celebrate it.  Likewise... terrorists.  People of this mindset are also looking for reasons -- and you're gonna broadcast that?

Some twisted psychotic creep walked up to a reporter and executed her, and posted it on YouTube.  His reasons were?  How about who the fck cares?  Know this... his reasons seemed more and more legit to him with each leftwing broadcast analysis of why people can, should and do act out like this.  It's the gun's fault.  It's society.  It's whitey.  It's oppression.  It's America.

Oy.  How about shut-the-fck-up and let us handle this?!  You lefties need to take a timeout.

They are not attacking us because we annihilated Saddam Hussein's house of torture.  Or because we have a military base somewhere.  Get the fck outta here with that sht!  They are attacking us precisely because they see opportunity in weakness.  Clinton.  Obama.  YOUR weakness.  And no, there's not a damn reason for it.  So just stop it.  Stop.  You're not gonna crack the case.  You're not.  You're just not.  Because, there's not a damn thing ANYBODY EVER DOES to cause this.

You can only tolerate and allow more of it.  Stop playing into their hands.

(https://www.bookapokerpro.com/assets/files/avatars/7ef265ff8e88d530549f673c16d65728.jpg)


It's time for some serious soul searching, ya'll.  Please put the precious Left-wing ideology aside -- for 5 fcking minutes.  It'll be there when you come back -- trust me, nobody else wants it.  If not, you're only displaying and broadcasting to a world full of psychos, that you're weak, you have the inability to do anything about it, and in their minds -- it's their time to go all in.  They're not smart, we hold the cards.

Otherwise, you are only continuing to unleash great pain on the world.  It's time to unleash it on them.  We got this.  Sit this one out.  But that's NEVER gonna happen because liberals can never shut the fck up.

Emily - it can get contentious here, but is a place to exchange information.  These are severe days where we need to be helping each other and to help keep informing each other. 

Don't let anyone "run you off the road."   ;)

http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq

Hope it copies.    ;)

We got this? Lol. It certainly went well under the neocons. (So far both parties have proven themselves entirely inept.) Inspiring stuff.

The tough talk remains adorable.

The center must hold for a solution to these trying times.

I had just written two very nasty and sarcastic posts. I reread them and realized that I was being drawn into the same kind of irrational retaliatory thinking that I am objecting to. So I edited those two post to one less nasty and one that withdrew because I try not to be a jerk even though sometimes it spills out.
But thanks  :)

That's interesting reading. As Rentatris pointed out, everyone thinks they're the good guy. Unfortunately, we're all mistaken. We're all just adjusting our world view to fit our social-economic interest in the end. Some of us are self-aware enough to know that's where our impulses come from and try to temper them a bit to support policies that are closer to the philosophy we'd like to think we hold.

I find it interesting that some people think they know so intimately the motives and impulses driving people they've never interacted with even though, given tons of historical evidence, those are very unlikely to be the motives and impulses. It's an interesting projection and says a lot about human psychology.
If millions of people have behaved the same way in the past, why believe the motives and impulses of this particular set of people are different from those millions?
frankly, it's just dumb.

Excellent post, Chocolate Shake. And El Captain, thanks for bringing in so much great listening and reading.
I guess it turns out that I was only "out" for that particular escalating exchange.  :P

Each time you post you only reveal yourself.  Because, I think I was describing action.

You are talking about a bunch of guys who think that by blowing themselves up and taking as many innocent people with them as they can that they are going to enter an afterlife paradise with dozens of virgins to screw. How do you reason with the likes of that?
You can't. Shut the borders to stop them creeping in. Round up any already living in the west that are known to support, have links, ties, sympathise or preach radical Islamic ideology and deport them if they are migrants or lock them up if they are second/third generation settlers under grounds of treason. And that includes those that would support any form of Sharia Law. They simply have no place in civilised Western society.
Complaining about a war that shouldn't have happened over a decade ago is going to achieve squat.

I agree Emily.  As you said: "why do people think they know so intimately the motives and impulses of people" etc.  Hopefully I made it clear in my post that I DO NOT GIVE A SH-T about their motives and impulses.  In fact, a preoccupation with that is only giving these turds further incentive.

Why does Emily think she "knows so intimately the motives and impulses of these people"?

You, before you edited it out of your quote above: "They are not attacking us because we annihilated Saddam Hussein's house of torture.  Or because we have a military base somewhere.  Get the fck outta here with that sht!  They are attacking us precisely because they see opportunity in weakness.  Clinton.  Obama.  YOUR weakness.  And no, there's not a damn reason for it.  So just stop it.  Stop.  You're not gonna crack the case.  You're not.  You're just not.  Because, there's not a damn thing ANYBODY EVER DOES to cause this."
This was you abscribing motives and impulses.
Show me evidence that their motives and impulses are different from those that drove the IRA. I can show you evidence that they're the same.

You're 100% right.  The incident is France should be a valuable lesson. 

Thanks man, it's nice to see not everybody has their head stuck up their asses on this one.

Your manipulations and/or lack of reading comprehension are/is exhausting.
Stating that someone has motives and impulses that are NOT THE ONES TO BE LOGICALLY EXPECTED IF YOU RELY ON THE VAST PUBLICLY AVAILABLE EVIDENCE (what you and Bean Bag are doing) would require intimate direct knowledge outside of the publicly available evidence.
Abscribing the motives and impulses that are most likely based on lots of publicly available evidence (what I'm doing) would not require intimate direct knowledge.

Please stop with the games and just have a straight conversation. It's very irritating.

Yes, it's time to stop being so PC and stop worrying about offending everybody, and start doing what's right to this country. 

One would've thought 9/11/01 would've provided the needed lesson. 

As are yours.

It isn't about being PC, it's about actually thinking rather than reacting (or over-reacting) out of anger. Political correctness is irrelevant to this discussion, and I don't think anyone advocating an assessment of root causes as part of a solution is basing their arguments on it.

The reality is that without knowing what actually causes extremism, terrorism, jihadism, Islamist terrorism, whatever, you're not going to solve anything. Bombing the sh*t out of "them" feels great to sate bloodthirst, but it doesn't end the problem. It leaves orphaned boys who follow their "martyred" daddies' footsteps. It leaves the options of genocide or permanent occupation.

I don't know what the best solution is. If it were easy, it would've been done already. But I am pretty sure overly broad revenge campaigns will do more harm than good. Just as they always do.

As caller-out of nonsense, bullshit, and hyperbolic bloviating. I agree. Thanks for noticing."

Show me evidence that anyone in this dialog was driven by not wanting to offend, other than when I held back last night.

Ok, I see.  No, I edited my post to make sure my message of STOP GIVING A SH-T ABOUT THEIR MOTIVES was clear.  That's my whole point.  Who gives a sh-t what their motives are.  That's clear isn't it?

But the part about toppling Saddam and the Iraq war being among the terrorist's motives, that's what the LEFT keeps babbling about.  It was an example of how the Left sees everything as America's fault, for some cowardly, dopey reason.

I'm saying trying to justify any of this... no matter what you're intentions -- that's a moment of weakness.  And to say they're pouncing on the opportunity of this perceived weakness ... that's not a motive.  I'm not a criminal detective, but I gather there's a difference between motive and "moment of opportunity."

Killing Jews and anyone else who doesn't fit their views on religion back home is the West's fault? Glad we've cleared that one up.

You can't imagine that invasion by a foreign country might lead someone to want to fight back? Strange, because it seems to me that you are saying we should fight back because of a foreign attack.

 :-D Anytime!

Absolutely, yes.  I would certainly imagine they'd want to fight back.  Unfortunately our leftist President thinks we can walk away -- and announce it.  I mean, yikes.

Hey! We have a tiny area of common ground!

That's nowhere in this thread, but I was just commenting on one of the biggest problems with America, in general.  Extreme political correctness. 

OK. Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.

You're welcome. 

 :wall

Oh good gravy.  Captain.  You just articulated the next phase of the plan for them.  They said, almost verbatim, "You better not over-react... cuz that's what we want."  :lol  Really?

Guys, c'mon.  We're not dealing with a bunch of chess champions here.  Get in the game.

All right, Bean Bag, so what's the plan?

 ;D  We all have A LOT of common ground.  It's what we disagree on, that is tiny.  Itty bitty difference.  Seriously.

That disagreement is only... who is better at getting rid of them.  I say it's my side.  Not even close.  I want annihilate them.  And anything, any person or any nation -- or TV Station that supports them.  Anything that even pretends to support them.  Annihilated.  But not before we waterboard them.  I'll have water shooting a thousand feet into the sky, with lights -- all sync'ed to the music of the 1812 overture.

:-D

To this...oy vey  ::)


To this... Good. Let's leave it on a pleasant note.  8)

I think you need to re-read my post because you have not engaged with my point in the slightest. I'm not entirely sure I agree with your point that you cannot reason with people like this. Otherwise, none of us would ever hold hope that we could, say, rescue people from cults. But putting that aside, let's assume what you say is true. Well, if it is true then my point still holds that we should stop radicalizing people. Like I said above, but I suppose it bears repeating, aggressive policies have led precisely to the increased radicalization of that part of the world, where radicalization had been on the decline for years. As the FBI director pointed out last year, "Support for Islamic State increased after U.S. airstrikes began in Iraq." So if the problem is that we are dealing with zealots who can't be reasoned with then you are only further supporting my point that we need to stop actively creating them.


Of course I support bringing criminals to justice though it would be a real low and set a terrible precedence for prosecuting people on the basis of their beliefs or our belief that they may cause a crime based on spurious evidence. As far as shutting the borders, you are essentially talking about a death sentence for mostly innocent people or forcing large groups into being part the same kind of civil war that essentially brought about the current wave of fundamentalist terrorists. The consequences of these actions could very well serve to radicalize people who are at the moment just trying to survive.


Again, I think you need to re-read what I wrote. First, the war didn't happen over a decade ago. While the war may have started in 2003, US involvement continues to this day. And I brought it up not to complain about it but to explain the causes of contemporary events. But again for those who don't actually care about stopping these sorts of events, it is crucial to silence issues of causation.

So let me modify my point from the above quotation:

In 2003, I was not supposed to say that the war would like to an increase in violence and instability because, well, I was wrong. But now that those predicted consequences have turned out to be true, I'm not supposed to mention it because it's inconsiderate or it happened in the past (despite the fact that I'm talking about how we are currently continuing to support the policies that failed abysmally in the past on the pretense that it's correcting the mistakes of the past). It's amazing how everything works out to ensure that this crucial point gets silenced no matter what has happened and what continues to happen.

Just thought I'd quickly reply to this point too.

Probably because this issue has been exhaustively studied. It’s not Emily who believes it – it’s the consensus of just about all of U.S. (and those outside of the US) intelligence who believes it, and it turns out generally to be correct. So, in October of 2002, in the lead up to the Iraq war, the FBI observed “that a war with Iraq could trigger new domestic terrorism risks.” Meanwhile, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, “the leading French investigation magistrate in charge of counter-terrorism affairs,” observed that “Attacking Iraq would intensify Islamic terrorism, not reduce it.” (influenced, in part, from the book Hegemony of Survival, pg.122). See these websites for the quotations:

http://rense.com/general30/asor.htm
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/nov/04/news/fgnoqaeda4/2

These words are strikingly close to the more recent conclusions reached by the FBI, whose director noted that “support for Islamic State increased after U.S. airstrikes began in Iraq.”

See: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-speech-islamic-state-20140917-story.html

That Western force leads to an increase in radicalism and an increased threat of violence from the Middle East is something that has been long understood by those in power. It may not concern some members of this board what the motives for violence are but it has always been a very large concern for central U.S. powers. As an example, Glenn Greenwald observes how in “2004, Donald Rumsfeld directed the Defense Science Board Task Force” – a committee appointed by the Pentagon – “to review the impact which the administration’s policies – specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – were having on Terrorism and Islamic radicalism. They issued a report in September, 2004 and it vigorously condemned the Bush/Cheney approach as entirely counter-productive, i.e., as worsening the Terrorist threat those policies purportedly sought to reduce.”

Greenwald links to a PDF of the report here though I’m not sure if it is still active: http://www.salon.com/2009/10/20/terrorism_6/

Similar conclusions were reached much earlier in a 1958 National Security Council report (see page 16 of Hayim Gordon's collection Looking Back at the June 1967 War).

So, what we can do here is two things. We can accept the findings made by major intelligence agencies that have done exhaustive studies on the issue and generally have the same results and even accurately predict what would in fact come to happen later, some of which I have posted here. Or we can believe someone who cites no one, has studied nothing, and is not in any position to know anyone's motives and impulses in comparison to the FBI, counter-terrorism experts, the US Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and so on.

If their beliefs tie in with those who think they are justified to kill civillians on religious grounds, then they havn't a leg to stand on as far as I'm concerned.
Declare Islam (by virtue of its political/legal/military aims) as an ideology far beyond that of a religion and therefore not a candidate for religious protection in the West.
Then outlaw it as a terror group, like Hamas or Hezbollah. Then crack down on their hideouts, the Wahabbi funded mosques which is where much of the radicalization is coming from.
Shutting boarders may lead to deaths for those caught in the middle but at the risk of sounding heartless - better them than you or I. Our collective governments ability to spot the 'peaceful' muslim from the terrorist before he straps on the suicide vest is not something I'm willing to stake my life on.
And as I've pointed out before, if so many are in such great peril, why do there seem to be so few women and children refugees? And zero old people? Just wave after wave of men in their prime, the exact type of person who could be fighting those they are supposedly fleeing. It's a Trojan horse if ever I've seen one.

Muslims are the ones who mistreat other muslims, eg beheadings, burnings, raping, chopping hands, stoning, female genital mutilation, child sexual assaults, slavery, etc. The issue is not the west's mistreatment of the poor muslims. They have been doing this to themselves for centuries, the west caused none of this. Granted the "War on Terror" has not solved any of these problems one bit.

Fortunately, they don't. If you read the article that The Captain posted above you will understand that the people carrying this out tend to have a very poor understanding of Islam and, for some, religion is not even the primary motivator.


You might as well declare Jupiter an enemy planet while you're at it.


Where are you getting your information from? Can you point me to any statistics? According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are 4,290,161 registered refugees, 50.3% are women while 49.7% are men and about 20% of the refugees are between the ages of zero and eleven. You can find those stats here:

http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php

Can you provide any evidence that suggests that this information you relay isn't just part of a propaganda campaign?

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the uncontroversial point that our violence in that part of the world is inciting radicalism and increasing the threat of terror.

Also, to you point, you're forgetting that a good deal of the violence that you mention is overwhelmingly supported by the United States. A good of what you are talking about takes place within the favourite US client state of Saudi Arabia as well as the brutal military dictatorships that the US favour and prop up often with violent military support over democratic governments in Egypt, Yemen, Qatar, Oman, Jordan, Morocco, etc. And are we forgetting the fact that the United States toppled the Iranian democratic government in 1953 and replaced it (and continued to give it decisive support) with a tyrannical dictatorship responsible for some of the greatest human rights atrocities in the region? Or the decisive support of the military dictatorship in Pakistan from 1958 to 1969. Or the fact that that "from 1958 to 1965 the United States trained, funded, advised, and supplied the army" that led to Suharto's coup in Indonesia and slaughtered 700,000 people? Or the support of the radical Islamization of Pakistan from 1978-1988? Or funding and backing the massacres that occurred in Lebanon in 1982? Or propping up Saddam Hussein when he was committing his greatest atrocities? Or supporting the ousting of the democratic regime in Algeria and then giving aid to the military dictatorship that took its place and who murdered 200,000 Algerians? Or the ongoing drone war campaign against people who haven't committed crimes? And this is far from a complete list.

It's really nothing short of fantasy to pretend that the country that has dominated the region with military aid and has contributed overwhelmingly towards the instability of the region - in fact, prefers instability over democracy - is "not the issue."

CSM - While you are tracing the history...that was then and this is now.  We have no power or control as civilians over what is going on. What we do know (if it is credible) is that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are funding the ISIS (Daesh) effort. Putin just put out a $50 million bounty leading to the arrest of those who are responsible for the plane bombing from last week.  

What I don't understand is what role the International Court of Justice is doing about "crimes against humanity." We had standing and every right, in 2003 to invade Iraq, just on those grounds.  Not WMD.  "Crimes against humanity" - just like the Nazi terror and Holocaust.  They didn't use those grounds.  WMD was the pretext.  

France should have entered with us then but didn't according to Bernard Kouchner (Medecins sans Frontières) whom I saw at at lecture several days prior to the invasion.  Kouchner  told the audience that they felt badly because of the fear of WMD but also the "crimes against humanity" because of the way in which the US liberated Europe during WWII, but were tied up with an oil deal with Total Fina-ELF and Russia. Their hands were tied.  Now, Russia is "all in" because this has bitten them.  France is "all in" because there two French presidents in that stadium and they wish to maintain a separation of church and state. America was a haven exactly for that reason.  

That said, there was support for invasion.  But it was conducted under the wrong pretext.  And our country should be bringing these dictators to justice in a court of law and not taking it upon themselves to just take out whoever they want.  Bring them to justice.  Take them alive.  

This movement is somewhat loosely based on the pretext of revenge for the Crusades? That was then, and this is now. If you look at the link I provided yesterday you'll see the Daesh training and propaganda manual. That is indefensible.

So, my question is where is the UN?  Where is NATO?  And, where is "the coalition?"  All those countries who send their kids to our US funded universities, for decades, take up seats of Americans, and many who have been coming here with a bag of cash...only recently have laws changed so that the money is supposed to be traced to a bona-fide bank and not a "mattress bank" as the money launderers use.  So, you might rethink the blame game.  It goes back to colonialism, and we can't fix that. It is a fait accompli. This is all about 'going forward." And going forward with some bona fide standard of transparency.

CSM - if you respond, please don't split up the post.  It is splitting hairs.  And, I hate "split ends."  :lol
  

I suggest you look more closely at the examples that I gave. The drone war campaign against non-criminals is now. The support of authoritarian regimes in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, and Jordan is happening right now. So would you care to revise that statement? Furthermore, regardless of when it took place, this discussion is about causation because understanding why tragic events happen is crucial to avoid them happening again.


Yes we do. We are paying taxes and electing leaders who are ardently supporting dictatorships and instability. We aren't living in a dictatorship - we have some power to control these things.


We also know that we are committed to policies that are bolstering and increasing ISIS's power and we know that we have been doing that nearly ten years.


By that logic, Washington could be invaded. Is that something you think other countries have standing and every right to do? If not, what's the difference?

Incidentally, the primary reason why the US did not invade on those grounds was precisely because they supported those crimes and, at the time, were overtly supporting the exact same style of leadership and torture in Equatorial Guinea and Uzbekistan. It would have been far too glaringly hypocritical for them to oppose Iraq on those grounds and it may have forced the Bush Administration into severing ties with brutal dictatorships that it had a vested interest in continuing to prop up.


I agree with that.


I will do that when you keep your responses to two to three sentences and present only one thought. Or we can agree to not dictate the terms to which the other responds?

CSM - we don't agree. 



 

What don't we agree on exactly?

Splitting hairs. Whether they understand their faith fully or not, they are being led to believe that their prophet wants them to kill all non believers.


Rather daft answer.


Exactly - those that we know of. God knows how many more that we don't. Seen enough footage and photos to know that what I said is correct, unless for some reason they're telling all the women and children to hide out of shot.
PS. You can use statistics to prove anything, 74% of people know that.  ;)

First, the distractors introduced in your response.  Most here are not Far or Middle Eastern scholars; certainly not I. Or possess working information those nation-states which arose after the dissolution of the USSR.  The US cannot control (nor should it) every political subdivision on the planet.  Yes, we are paying taxes.  Right now, we have a sitting president who is ruling by Executive Orders instead of the Legislative branch of government. That has the indicia of a dictatorship.  Now, the tail is wagging the dog. And a slow burning backlash is coming from the governors and the Congress.

Second, Washington had standing to invade Iraq.  Your post failed to mention the crimes against humanity context.  The US military did plenty of good for many of those civilians, that their own government didn't provide.  And, for example, I don't agree with the policy of "rendering" or widespread "wiretapping without a warrant" but right now it is immaterial to the "clear and present danger" we face.  The French found a rocket launcher yesterday among their 160+ raids.  Discussion of the past policies is of no consequence except for the "art of the debate." Time for intellectual debate is waning.  We need to save our own, and our families' lives.  And, fast.  That is where we are today.  Not on the debate team.

Third, we aren't dealing with logic or reason.  We are dealing with idelogical lunacy.  Marginalized individuals who have been brainwashed (and in many cases drugged) to carry out these kamikaze raids, with the promise of the virgin orgy post-death.  

It's not splitting hairs because you have been claiming that Islam is at fault as you do when you suggest that we should cease protection of anyone who claims to be Islamic "by virtue of [Islam's]political/legal/military aims." Are you shifting the goal posts now in order to narrow that down to people who mislead others and people with a distorted understanding of religion? And you have neglected to address the central point that for many of these people religion is not even a primary motivator at all.


In other words, we can accept the numbers given to us or we can accept the numbers that "God knows."


Good - just so we are clear, you are basing this off of propaganda (ie. selected photographs) and not facts.


Then show me your statistics. I'd be happy to look them over and then we can debate the issue, rather than base our knowledge about who the millions of refugees are based on a few photos that have been circulated by people with an agenda.

I'm really uncertain what this means.


This is all well and good to say but it doesn't alter the fact that the central US foreign policy since 1945 has been to do just that.


When you have mentioned this before, I demonstrated how Obama has used the Executive Order less per day than any President since 1900. So, is it your contention that the US has been a dictatorship for 115 years and that while Obama might be somewhat dictatorial he is far less so than most of the previous dictators? And then can you explain to me how this is not insulting to people who actually have lived under a dictatorship?


Who apparently only care about use of executive orders when someone they don't like is using them.


It cannot go unmentioned though that the US supported most of the crimes against humanity and then went on to support a sanctions policy that most agencies agree led directly to the deaths of 500,000 children.


Iraq was no paradise before 2003 to be sure but we also can't forget the decisive role that the U.S. played in its policy in the country leading up to 2003, which I have already described. And while it was no paradise before, it wasn't an unstable mess with its citizens becoming victims of an intense civil war as the country plunged into ruin and became a training ground for fundamentalist terrorism after years of the country being fairly secular. This mostly secular country then became radicalized with the US "divide-and-rule policy" which meant "promoting Iraqi organisations founded on religion, ethnicity, nationality or sect rather than politics" (The Guardian).

Again, I ask, if you believe US had standing to invade Iraq, do others have standing to invade Washington (I don't believe they do). If not, why not and what is the difference?


They are not past policies - I'm not sure why you persist in repeating this falsehood. It is the ongoing policy of the United States and it has been for decades.


Again, a great deal of research disproves that that is the general make-up of these criminals, though I would agree with the brainwashed part.

Parts of the Koran make the Old Testament look tame by compairson. It's teachings have no part in a modern civilised society. Just to point out, I'm leary of any religion but am especially wary of one that is being held up as a reason to try kill me. What radicals are doing now is the modern day equivalent of Christians burning people at the stake.


You must have missed that I bolded the word registered. Countless people that have slipped through into Europe unchecked. So I choose not to accept the UN's figures as an accurate figure of how many Muslims are floating about over here.


Nice try but I'm from England, we don't have a 'Fox News problem' over here. Our tabloids may be sh*t but our tv broadcasting is subject to very strict regulations. Even reports that are very sympathetic towards the migrant crisis cannot mask the fact that their cameras are mainly capturing men, men and more men.

On a lighter note, I'm guessing that you are not a Simpsons fan?

That is incorrect. As religion historian Philip Jenkins points out, "By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane, ... Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide." Examples of this are God's wiping out of all on Earth before the flood, his call on King Saul to annihilate the Amalekites.


Okay, but does this not bolster my point that the West should be committed to stopping policies that are increasing radicalization?


What are the actual numbers then? Can you cite a figure that supports your claim that "Countless people ... have slipped through into Europe unchecked"?


Are you honestly suggesting that there is no propaganda in England? And propaganda in the United States is not merely restricted to Fox News.


I am very much so. Is there a reference that I didn't spot? I'm mostly a seasons 3 to 8 kind of guy.
EDIT: Oh yes, the 74% line. I see it now!  :)

The west should be committed to leaving well alone what they cannot fix and have no place really trying to.


I can't and that's the scary thing, our Home Office has admitted more than once that they have lost track of how many illegals are here.

They have no place trying to? It's been demonstrated that our actions have led to the rise of radicalism and the increase risk in terror. Doesn't that mean we have a responsibility in fixing it?

Mike's beard develops his own ersatz stats, history and political philosophy based on images flashing by on TV and hysterical writings on the Internet. You're beating your head against a wall CSM. This whole time, he hasn't once engaged thoughtfully with your central point. And he's not going to.
But, a truly valiant effort; I have learned much from your posts; and you are much more ordered, articulate and calm than I, traits that I admire.

Ha - well I should definitely bow out now before I reach my breaking point which has been known to happen on this board! Thank you though. I've taken a great deal from your posts as well, a good example is where you correctly pointed out my error on the other thread which I was happy to correct. It's been nice to have several voices on this thread.

One nice thing about debating in print, which I've never done before, is you can go back and critique yourself.
I've learned that if someone throws in a tangent, I follow the tangent; if someone tries to frustrate me, I get frustrated. I don't keep my eye on the ball. It's good information.

No, nobody is forcing them to put a gun in their hands. If I was to stab someone in the neck that would be on me, not the fault of someone else. Same applies here albeit on a vast scale.

And where do you get yours from, pray tell? The moon? I get my information from a variety of sources from both sides of the argument.


I have but as it isn't the response you or CSM want to hear you ignore it.

As anyone who is aware of human behaviour knows, some actions have predictable consequences. And when it is made abundantly clear that your actions have this predictable consequence and it is not a good consequence, then, yes, you are under an obligation to stop those actions. That's a cornerstone of basic ethics. Your example is baffling since it bears no relation whatsoever to what we are talking about. Do you believe Charles Manson should not have been charged with any crime in the Tate-Labianca murders?



I have but as it isn't the response you or CSM want to hear you ignore it.[/quote]

No, that's not quite true. First of all, you have never once addressed the point that I have made several times that for many religion is not a motivating factor. You've ignored that outright. Further, you have wavered back and forth between Islam being responsible, to people distorting Islam based on whatever I said last until you finally stopped responding when I challenged your final point that "the Koran make the Old Testament look tame by compairson."

Also, looking back on the thread, you have yet to respond in any way whatsoever to my response to your point that "The issue is not the west's mistreatment of the poor muslims."

CSM - look how easy it is to divert me: MB - if there's a one-off stabbing, no one's going to put many resources into analyzing it or stopping future ones that they have no indication will occur.
If there's a wave of stabbings, I would hope people wouldn't respond by saying "let's round up and deport everyone with a knife in the stabby neighborhoods," but would make an effort to understand why there's a wave of stabbings and what can be done to effectively end it and not generate a new one.
Also, I have leaned some history from from popular resources, of course, but I try to verify with reputable (hopefully primary) sources before I allow it to adjust my understanding.
I also do my best to limit my popular reading on these matters because, as a trained historian, I'm aware how much of it is emotional nonsense and, yes, propaganda.

ETA: getting your information from "both sides of the argument" is not a good strategy if you want to develop understanding. It's only a good strategy for learning how to argue.
And your responses are all either diversions or a repetition of "they're evil religious maniacs," none of which engage with CSM's central point.

I've ignored it because frankly I have a hard time believing it.


Actually I've been quite firm in saying that I'm wary of anyone who wants to base their lives around this ancient garbage. Those that see it as a go ahead to kill others are not so much distorting it as cherry picking the parts that justify (in their minds) their actions.
Lastly, we could trade bloodlust passages from both books all we want but in 2015 we have a lot less to fear from Hardcore Christians then we do Militant Muslims.

No, that's not quite true. First of all, you have never once addressed the point that I have made several times that for many religion is not a motivating factor. You've ignored that outright. Further, you have wavered back and forth between Islam being responsible, to people distorting Islam based on whatever I said last until you finally stopped responding when I challenged your final point that "the Koran make the Old Testament look tame by compairson."

Also, looking back on the thread, you have yet to respond in any way whatsoever to my response to your point that "The issue is not the west's mistreatment of the poor muslims."
[/quote]
Once again, better, more ordered, less reactionary responses than mine.

In that case, please show us the sections of the article that the Captain provided and demonstrate its faults.


Well, which one is it, ancient garbage or a text that contains some passages that could be interpreted by criminals to justify their own actions? After all, people have died over The Catcher in the Rye but I'm not prepared to call that novel garbage.


Yes, but that tells us that there is nothing about the text itself that is causing people to do this. If that were the case then we would have as much if not more to fear from Hardcore Christians since The Bible has just as much if not more calls for violence against non-believers, according to religious scholars. Therefore the problem is not Islam, it is rooted somewhere else. Hence my whole issue with you denying support to anyone simply on the grounds that they practice Islam. We have gone a hundred and a half miles around on this but it's a basic point that you yourself occasionally seem to agree with.

And if you want a quick tally of the things that I last mentioned that you did not address:

1. It is basic ethics that you are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions
2. You still have yet to respond to my response to your point that "The issue is not the west's mistreatment of the poor muslims."

Your first point, as with the UN stats, reinforces your choice to make stuff up rather than listen to expertise, which is why, CSM, this is a pointless exercise.

Yes, I am aware that I probably won't be convincing MB any time soon. But like you have suggested, the very discussion can be a learning experience for all of us in some way, even the ones who are just reading and not participating, so perhaps that makes it worthwhile.

True, nothing you say will make me change my mind and vice versa. Anything I quote is just going to be dismissed as propaganda so I can't be bothered to post it.
Bowing out gracefully.

Very good point.

You weren't quoting things. You were making assertions without backing them up and disregarding supported assertions.

Sorry. I tried to resist but the temptation was too great:


Um... holocaust, holodomor, First American Nations genocide, my lai, pearl harbor, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, school massacres, other mass shootings, Oklahoma, Waco, jim jones, the crusades, Genghis khan, Caesar, Alexander, El Salvador, KKK, haymarket, the boer war, the troubles, carlos the jackal, anarchist bombings, Birmingham, lynchings, a mess of assassinations, the bath school bombings, the unibomber, the weather underground, Pinochet, everything that ever happens in argentina, unit 731, Guernica, Dresden, Jamestown, everything in Greece in 1821, numerous massacres of European settlers in the Americas by American Indians, massacres of Chinese Americans by European Americans, kent state, lattimer, genocide of Armenians, hutus/tutsis, the great purge, shanghai massacre, Ludlow, a ton of stuff done by the United Fruit Company, jallianwala bagh, nanking, that Norwegian guy, "freedom fighters," the killing of sandino, the sandinistas, bureau for the repression of communist activities, castro, papa and baby doc, extraordinary rendition, Khmer rouge, a near millennium of just about constant war in Europe of increasing violence culminating in the bloodiest century and place in history, Tamerlane, Atlantic slave trade, congo war, Belgians in congo, apartheid, Russian troubles, Chinese civil wars, Algeria, Somalia, sudan, Ethiopia, Burma/Myanmar, Tenochtitlan, Haifa refinery and other episodes in palestine, jeju, sri Lankan gov't and tamil tigers, shining path, Mr. Huberty, serbs v. croats, Abkhazia, ANC v IFP, Chiapas, port arthur, ira, haditha, pottawatomie, need I go on?
Intentional homicide rate by region:

      Americas 16.3 157,000
      Africa 12.5 135,000
      World 6.2 437,000
      Europe 3.0 22,000
      Oceania 3.0 1,100
      Asia 2.9 122,000

The capacity to be horrible knows no ethnicity.

Not to mention the somewhat widely reported, but largely ignored by those who prefer focusing elsewhere, study showing that since 9/11, most domestic terrorism has been by antigovernment Americans. Not Muslims. Not immigrants. I'm sure I've cited it before but, at work, haven't got it handy now.

Nobody (with a brain) denies that Islamic fundamentalism/terrorism is a problem, by the way. There's a lot of talking past each other as if someone just loves the sh*t. That's not the disagreement. The disagreements are what are appropriate responses: what does or doesn't work; what limits on our liberty are acceptable in the name of security; what raises the risk of future terrorism; how much money and blood are we willing to sacrifice. So let's try to keep that in mind.

Emily -- I agree.  It's awful.  Violence is everywhere.  Not unique to Muslims.  Progressives are clear, decisive and quick to point that out.  They are vague, shifty and dismissive regarding the War with Muslim Extremism.  Why?

How does ignoring Muslim Extremism advance the Progressive agenda?



Captain -- if nobody (with a brain) denies Islamic fundamentalism is a problem... does that mean Progressives have half a brain?

The Tsarnaevs claimed asylum in 2002.

BB- I don't ignore it. I think about what causes it and what we can do to eliminate the cause. Even if it were morally OK to just say let's round up the extremists, it's neither feasible nor would it stop the generation of more. As the Captain and CSM and Rentatris have been saying, we actually have serious research that identifies the cause. The reaction that you advocate is actually a continuation of the cause and makes the problem worse. Eliminating the cause would alleviate the symptoms.

As did a lot of people who are perfectly good citizens... as did my mom's parents during WWII. Should we throw out the baby with the bathwater?

This was an abject failure of the govt. to deport this family, whose mother was nailed for stealing $1600 from a high end department store and who had an outstanding arrest warrant, and the older son who was run over by the younger brother was on a "watch list for terrorist activities. The sister had criminal charges in Mass., and moved to NJ where she was charged with threatening to "put a bomb" on a person. 

This whole issue was connected to political correctness.  I support bona fide asylum cases and other categories as numerous as the alphabet. However those who commit felonies forfeit the privilege of living in the States.  They make it difficult for good people whom we welcome to bring their talent, skill and diversity to our country.  And my relatives came to this country through Ellis Island.  Most in this country came through a legit immigration route. 

By keeping a minority of criminals, who commit heinous (dangerous felonies) crimes, the "bathwater" as you say becomes polluted.  This is on a case by case basis. 

 

But why did you respond to The Captain's point with this information?

Because he alleged that the terrorists were largely Americans with anti government leanings. 

The Boston Bombings were conducted by trained radicalized terrorists. 

And the way in which a poster responds is up to that poster.  I disagreed with the statement. 

I didn't allege, I stated as documented fact. And the response was irrelevant to the point: an example--or many!--doesn't contradict the fact I noted.

Analogy: if I say the leading cause of death in the USA is cardiovascular disease, it's irrelevant whether someone's uncle died in a car crash. I'm not denying there are car crashes that cause death.

I have not read about that particular case, but I don't find that one error being made means we should change policy.
I don't really understand when you say "the whole issue was connected to political correctness." What do you mean by that?
There are others on this thread who have suggested that we limit immigration among Muslims using much more strict standards than whether they've been convicted of serious crimes. Unless we change the policy for everyone, we should change the policy for no one.

lol.. me + tangent = follow. Geez..I need some training.

Captain - while there are plenty of cases of employees "going postal" we have a growing number of cases whether it is individual felonies or mass attacks such as the Boston Bombings or post mutiple deportation orders such as what has caused the filing of Kate's Law, raising awareness of the insecurity caused by the "secure communties" as an example, which I find to be a joke.  

We have a growing number of undocumented drug runners importing tainted drugs (fentanyl) into the US. killing Americans, and the "secure communities" just perpetuates lawlessness.  Secure communities was designed to protect law abiding undocumented persons.  It has gotten out of control such that criminals are using it as their haven.  So we disagree.

This is on a case by case basis.  And the individual cases are growing day by day.

Reasonable minds can differ.

This is probably the article The Captain is referring to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us-challenges-perceptions-of-top-terror-threat.html

Here's a quote:

"A survey to be published this week asked 382 police and sheriff’s departments nationwide to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction. About 74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed “Al Qaeda-inspired” violence, according to the researchers, Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina and David Schanzer of Duke University."

Interesting. If we apply the solutions proffered by some on this board, we should start rounding up and deporting white supremacists and anti-government extremists. Who's that guy with the ranch in Nevada? He should be deported today.

Here's an excellent solution (along with a fantastic analysis) being suggested:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/turkey-cut-islamic-state-supply-lines-erdogan-isis

Great article! Never looked at it that way! 8)

hmmm. I'm really not a supporter of nationalism and I can understand the Turkish government's mistrust of the PKK.
To fend off attacks, I will state now that I'm also not a supporter of the Turkish historical or current-day policies toward the Kurds.

OK, but I would assume that Turkey is mistrustful of the PKK for a whole different set of reasons than your own - it is part and parcel to their overall fight against popular movements in the country.

Many agree, including Graeber in this article, that the PKK have shifted goals. As Florian Wilde has argued, following "a phase of critical self-reflection," the PKK "abandoned demands for an independent state, advocating a form of “democratic confederalism” in its place. This confederalism would, in practice, mean an association of local democratic structures of self-organisation and self-governance within the existing states."

You can read more on that here: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-kurdish-question-the-pkk-and-the-tasks-of-the-radical-left/

Haha, just stepping back in briefly to mention that you are both backing up the point I made the other day that America (and other collective countries) already have their own share of homicidal madmen and that running the risk of importing more is just dumb.
As you were,
MB over and out.

In that case do you also advocate bans on people moving from one state to another or from one city to another? If not, what is the difference?

How does that question hold any relevance to what I posted?

Because you suggest we shouldn't let anybody into the country because they pose a possible threat. But when you consider that domestic terror is an issue, then anyone moving to your own town could be a possible threat. So, do you advocate bans on people moving from one state to another or from one city to another? If not, what is the difference?

I usually steer clear of political discussions on here for the most part.

But, I just don't understand how people can see what happened in France just five days ago, and still be in favor of the United States bringing in Syrian refugees. 

As MB said, simply saying that the US already has its share of internal threats doesn't justify bringing in more possible threats. 

Then I will put the same question to you, do you advocate bans on people moving from one state to another or from one city to another? If not, what is the difference?

And on top of it, I'll ask another question: are you in favour of gun control?

I can't believe I'm even entertaining this question but........ other then the overwhelming difference in logisitics between stopping people from entering a country and stopping people already in a country from moving around it (why don't you just post "should we ban people from walking from one street to another?"), people native to their country have certain rights/freedoms we are not under any obligation to grant to others from a different country.
Of course the guy moving in next door to me could be a potential axe murderer, just because we don't have the power to prevent everything bad from ever happening does not mean we shouldn't take pre-emptive action when it's available to us.

OK, but I'm talking hypothetically. Let's say logistics for both were equal and you have all the power in the world so what people have and have not a right to doesn't matter -- would you be in favour of this policy?

And are you reaffirming my point I made yesterday which you ignored which was that some actions have predictable consequences and therefore we have an obligation to put an end to the actions that we know will have negative consequences?

I don't mind people moving from one state to another as long as they're tax paying US citizens.  These people don't fall under either category.  

And I don't favor gun control laws because it's been proven time and time again that the criminals will still find ways to get their hands on guns.  

But, that's a totally different argument that's already been debated on another thread.  

So in other words this is not a question of safety nor does it have to do with what happened in Paris.


It actually has not been proven that but let's pretend it has - does it not follow in your head that terrorists will find a way commit crimes against the country regardless of what the laws are? What's the difference in logic for you?

Yeah, but self-organization and self-governance within the existing states" is still a threat to existing states. I am not a fan of the current Turkish government by any means, but I'd expect that any Turkish government would be uneasy with a subset of having a separate right to self-organize.
I'm not against local self-organization, but not along nationalistic lines. That's just an invitation to discrimination, suppression and nonstop war.

I'm more worried about our nations obligation to keep it citizens out of harm's way. As I've stated already, the tensions in the Middle East can't be fixed. Leave well alone and let them carry on murdering each other, just as they've been doing for centuries.

Um, no... that's not how it went. How it went was that I pointed out that the US already has its share of homicidal madmen and you said your thing about importing more being bad (which, within context implies that allowing Muslims to immigrate, which you earlier stated your opposition to, beginning this discussion in the first place) and I pointed out that, as Muslims commit intentional homicide less than Americans, the density of homicidal madmen would be decreased by Muslim immigration, at which point you changed focus because it was obvious the line you were taking made no sense.

You and I obviously have philosophical differences, so this argument is pretty pointless.  

US Citizens moving from state to state is in no way related to Syrian refugees.  And, since the refugees do pose a possible threat, it is 100% a safety issue.  

Of course terrorists can find ways to commit crimes against a country.  9/11/01 is the best example of that.  But, why in the world would we want to make it easier for them?  

So, CSM, I'd say that we'll just have to agree to disagree.  

Read my most recent post.
ETA: Sorry, that was too curt.
It's not right (in terms of ethics and statistics) to generalize to all Syrians based on a few. And in the US, we have a long history of struggling toward equal treatment under the law. I'm not interested in taking a backward step.

It makes perfect sense. KDS twigged to what I posted right away, you seem baffingly unable to do so.
Let me make it nice and simple for you.
Madmen + more madmen = bad.

Do you have any support for this assertion?
Europeans have murdered more of both each other and of non-Europeans by far during recorded history.

Sorry, Emily, you and I will also have to agree to disagree. 

I don't see looking out for our nation's safety as taking a step back, but a step forward.  Maybe this is the first step of the United States finally taking care of its own.

In that case, are you in favour of ceasing policies that are increasing the threat of terror?


On this thread I have given a mountain of evidence from the FBI, leading counter-terrorist experts, and the US Department of Defense which demonstrates that that statement is false. What evidence do you have to support your claim?


There have been many periods of peaceful secularism in the Middle East incidentally, which the Western world opposed and actively destroyed by dismantling those governments, often through funding fundamentalists, and in certain cases installing radical fundamentalist dictatorships in their place.

Yes, but what can't get absorbed here is that Syrians have shown themselves to be less homicidal than Americans.
Again Less Homicidal (Syrians) + More Homicidal (Americans) = Lesser density of homicidal,
Please... please please don't pretend again that you don't understand that basic equation.

Another history lesson and again not relevant to the fact that Islamic madmen are currently killing Westerners.

Citzens who move from state to state pose a possible threat so why don't you treat that like the safety issue it is?


Why make it easier for criminals to access guns?

Again, what you are saying does not contribute to the nation's safety. First, the premise that Syrians are more dangerous than other immigrants is flat out wrong. Second, the solution to terrorism is not to generate more impoverished, repressed, terrorized people, which is what the many suggestion on this thread would do.
I'm sorry KDS. if this sounds brusque, but I've been repeating this point - Syrians kill less than Americans - for a while and the response is still "so letting them immigrate is dangerous." This makes no basic logical sense.

Yes, but it was a direct response to your tangential slur about them "murdering each other, just as they've been doing for centuries." The fact that you will make a slur like that reveals much about your true motives.

Your logic seems to be "Well there's 100 people over there and 5 of them are homicidal maniacs. Let's dump another 500 people in with them of which 5 of them are homicidal maniacs also. There'll be more homicidal maniacs altogether so more people getting killed but as they'll be spread out amongst more people, the odds of you being one of the people that will get killed by them is reduced, so it's a-okay".

My motives are I don't want anymore people to be killed by these rabid dogs, especially if one of them is me.

In that case, are you in favour of ceasing policies that are increasing the threat of terror?

If you are advocating closed borders altogether, against everyone, this would be an argument. As we are not closing borders altogether against everyone, and as we do have a somewhat fixed quantity of Visas released per year, giving a proportion of those Visas to some of the least likely to commit homicide would decrease the proportion of homicidal madmen than giving those Visas to, say, Europeans.

If that were your actual motive, I suspect you would show some interest in learning how to lessen the threat.

So if you had a choice between living in Syria or any European country, you'd choose Syria, yes? Seeing as how they're all so much more peace loving people an' all. Wait, why aren't you there already if the people are so great?

Where would you rather live, Syria or Germany?

No. Their economy isn't doing very well and of course there's a very violent political situation at the moment.
There's also the problem of legal immigration. I'd prefer if all borders were completely open, then I could live where I want, but as it is, we all have very limited freedom in terms of deciding where to live.
ETA: I also don't speak the language, which is a hindrance; and I'm more of a winter/precipitation lover than a summer/sun lover.

Thanks to Merkel, neither!

This has now gone unanswered twice in this conversation. Why is that?

It is true that to do the Carlton is my primary objective in life. Peace on Earth is second.

For fine examples of dancing, see Dana Milibank's W Post opinion piece today highlighting the GOP's intended strategy. Let's see, there was coming up with a strategy. Showing American leadership. Rising to the challenge. Showing courage and resolve. Show a path forward. sh*t, problem solved! Good work.

Now about passing some legislation to authorize this sweet plan...

(a) I'm under no obligation to answer you.
(b) I've been out for a few hours and
(c) I've already answered the question.

I didn't suggest that you were but you've responded to me so many times, I was just curious why this question was repeatedly evaded.


You weren't out when I asked the question twice because you were posting at the same time I asked them.


Please point me to the post of yours where you have answered the question.

(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/151013211207-bernie-sanders-democratic-debate-socialist-large-169.jpg)

Yes. Bean Bag's right.  It's the Climate.

Can't argue with FrankenBernie guys.  Stop pretendin'.  You're Progressives.

Climate change.

That's right Bernie.  The climate's-a-changin'. 

 ;)

(http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2015/10/13/103075643-RTS4COG.530x298.jpg?v=1444789046)

No, it's the video!  The video made them do it.  That's the threat--

Don't let Paris take the spotlight -- get your BLM gear today!

(http://image.spreadshirtmedia.com/image-server/v1/products/1003706603/views/1,width=378,height=378,appearanceId=2,version=1440591543/Black-Lives-Matter-Shirt-Hoodies.png)

Sure sucks for people like Bags that it is just so tough to be a middle-aged white guy in America these days. So many things stacked against them. Just insurmountable odds to beat.

Poor guy.

I have said several times that the West should leave the Middle East alone.

New to me is info about a drug called Captogan which has been found in the bodies of the attackers in Paris.

Seems to be big production in Syria and helping fund the effort.

This drug is a type of amphetamine causing a felling of empowerment and invincibility is propelling attackers during raids and attacks.

http://thestonedsociety.com/2015/02/08/drugs-isis-captagon

https://fr.yahoo.com/     This is in their lead story section.  They did an expanded discussion about the drug on télématin which can be found via fr2/télématin

http://www.hautnews.com/news-2/world-news/1110-saudi-prince-charged-with-captagon-trafficking-and-another-1-5-million-pills-apprehended-at-beirut-airport

Hope it copies... ;)

The biggest thing there since oil, they say. Thanks for the link. It's new to me too.

You have said that but on the basis that we can't do anything to fix it, which isn't really answering my question because the response presupposes something opposite to what the question is asking.

Yes we can fix  this. Public opinion drives public policy. Transparency is a beautiful thing. 

I can't speak for Progressives as a whole (I know there are a few issues upon which most people termed "progressive" and I differ) but for me, yeah, radical Muslims are not the biggest threat to my political agenda.
This is not the first time I've looked for a shaking hands/we're at peace emoticon. But it's not there, so picture it in your head.

I hear ya Em -- we need more emoticons!

You're right.  The Progressive agenda is not threatened by radical Islam.  Unless an attack takes "the agenda" off the front page (as BLACK LIVES MATTER stated).  The biggest threat to "the agenda" is actually dopes like me.  More to point -- the Conservative movement, the US Constitution, American traditions, core values, individualism, liberty... I could go on and on.

Knowing that Progressives view crisis as opportunity (Rahm Emanual -- "never let a crisis go to waste") this discussion is just about ready to get interesting?*





*Unless the Chocolate Sheik needs an article stating 4 out of 5 dentists agree that the discussion is about to get interesting.   :lol

just some adjustments to your post, so we can agree.
Regarding liberty, I can think of some things that most conservatives think we should not be free to do that most progressives think we should, and vice versa. I think the difference is more liberty regarding what?
And, I've never understood that 5th dentist. What is up with him? He would prefer that his patients who chew gum chew sugarfull gum? I mean, I guess it's better for his pocketbook.

The crisis thing is an old line, not an Emanuel original. I think Churchill said it first. to put that on any party or faction while absolving others is ridiculous. It's part of the calculating reality of politics.

Good posts guys.  Fun stuff, on an absolutely sh-ty topic, but it's good to have fun when exercising our brain muscles.  Otherwise, it's just useless work.

You know, glad the Paris "mastermind" is toast.  But, what a wasted life.  I'm seeing these dudes as real f-cked up kids -- in our lingo.  We in the civilized world, got used to pickin' up a pack of smokes and buying some cool music to check out.  These weirdos, living in a sh-ty desert, get to pick up their version of the bible -- I think it's called the Cooran?  Anyway... and they get all weird on that.

it's gonna kill'em.  But our parents said the same thing about cigarettes.  Only, this sh-t is a fcking nightmare for everyone else.

Let's be thankful over the holidays and never forget the kids who were at that rock concert, trying to cut loose and have fun.  Love your family, kids, parents and all the rest -- give them lots of love while we're all still together.

We're doing it right.  And we'll get through this sh-t together.

(http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/34300000/French-Flag-france-34378892-370-227.jpg)

Well, it certainly was sh*tty, BB. And your empathy for the victims is palpable; and empathy is the best part of being human.

This thread is currently being looked at. For those who were offended by the bigoted comments in this thread, I am extremely sorry I didn't read my PMs earlier.

It's a political thread about a massacre, nobody should have walked into this thread expecting a teddy bears picnic.

There's a difference between politics and bigotry.

So being against terrorists is now bigotry? Guess I better only condemn those murderers that have the same skin colour or beliefs as I do from here on out, huh?

You've pretty much stated in this thread that you view all Muslims as terrorists. That's what I have an issue with.

And round and round it goes. I did no such thing. I work in a hospital in England. Do you honestly think I'd be going to work there everyday if I thought I was surrounded by terrorists?

1st page of this thread. 'Let anyone of this faith in your country at your peril '. THAT I find extremely offensive. But hey,  that's a GREAT attitude to have. I mean, there was this guy with similar views, different ethnic group, though, but beliefs that lead to deaths of millions of people,  including some relatives of mine.

"Godwin's Law" invoked - thread is officially pointless. 

I don't recall European Jews hating or trying to subvert Western civilization at any point in history. I mean hey, Western civilization is about the only fair deal the Jews will ever have in this world because the progressive folks in parts of Europe and Asia just won't have anything to do with them.

As someone of Jewish ancestry,  I have no idea how to respond to that.

I'm not making an antisemitic remark. Jews have it better in Western civilization than anywhere else. They're much better off here; they've done great things for Western civilization and culture. People outside of Western civilization would sooner kill them than ever value their contributions to society.

Those people, by the way, are part of that "refugee crisis."

I've moved your quote back to this thread as we were taking over the PP thread.  :-D

It may be different in the States but in the UK, public support (and I mean very public, as in street rallys and such) for an exteme Islamic state rule in western countries and support for groups such as ISIS goes completely unchallenged. Such hate speech is tolorated under our Human Rights and Freedom of Speech Laws.
Not long ago there was footage being floated over here of a guy with a small child on his shoulders and the child was waving the ISIS flag, as he walked down a street in London.
I've seen photos of such protest rallys where you can read signs such as
"Death to all non-believers"
"There is only one LAW - Allah"
"Convert to Islam or die!"
"All your women shall be ours".

There is/was a video floating around on youtube of a women interviewing a radical march in her hometown of Luton. They were protesting that a Muslim man had been arrested by the police for his invlovement in killing a (I believe) women. They chants were that the police were all doomed to hell because they had no right to impose their law on a Muslim.
When she attempted to interview members of the mob,the lady (who was moderately dressed) was called a whore, spat at and told to go home and cover up.

Again, all this crap is protected here by the very thing that they are attempting to tear down - western values. This things go far beyond that of just a religion, it needs to be recognised as such and not be protected under freedom of religion laws.
If they find our values and way of life so repungent, they need to f*** OFF over to a country more in line with their mindset.

More later, I've got to get ready for work. And just to pre empt the inevitable - I AM NOT SAYING EVERY MUSLIM PERSON THINKS THIS WAY.

Good idea!  :)


There is an American equivalent to this which is the Westboro Baptist Church which is permitted to say all sorts of vile things, picket people's funerals, and so forth. And to be honest, I have no problem with that. As Chomsky puts it, if you believe in the freedom of speech, you specifically believe in the freedom of the speech that you hate. Otherwise you're not in favour of freedom of speech, because even the most tyrannical dictator in the world is in favour of freedom of speech for the views that he or she finds acceptable.

Again, what I said was true -- in England there are laws which state that you cannot encourage nor incite terrorism and the country's Human Rights and Freedom of Speech Laws do not allow for those actions. You may not like how the law is being applied but to say that "support for groups such as ISIS goes completely unchallenged" because of the Human Rights laws in the country is simply not true.

Again, Islamic fundamentalism, like all fundamentalism, poses a danger. But we have to be honest about where this particular strain of fundamentalism comes from. You have to remember that by 2002, most serious analysts concluded that "radical Islam" was in decline. Here's a very good article from Jason Burke illustrating this point of view in 2002:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/30/pakistan.islam

By the following year, this position was impossible to articulate. The attack on Iraq sparked a renewed interest in radical Islam. After the attacks in London, the Royal Institute of International Affairs concluded that the attack on Iraq gave a "'boost to the al-Qaida network' in 'propaganda, recruitment and fundraising'" --> http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jul/18/uk.july7

I have noted this before but it bears repeating Glenn Greenwald's point that in “2004, Donald Rumsfeld directed the Defense Science Board Task Force” – a committee appointed by the Pentagon – “to review the impact which the administration’s policies – specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – were having on Terrorism and Islamic radicalism. They issued a report in September, 2004 and it vigorously condemned the Bush/Cheney approach as entirely counter-productive, i.e., as worsening the Terrorist threat those policies purportedly sought to reduce.”

The question becomes, how to deal with the consequences of these actions. I don't believe the response is, as you say, to crack down further on the rights of these groups. As was pointed out in the article that I linked to yesterday, "IS has repeatedly stated that it wants Muslims in Western countries to face increased persecution, because they believe this will catalyze a hijra (migration) to their lands. Official IS statements are unequivocal on this point – attacks like those in Paris are designed to incite violence against local Muslim communities in order to facilitate recruitment and force migration." You may see this as a positive outcome, since you note that, "If they find our values and way of life so repungent, they need to f*** OFF over to a country more in line with their mindset." Let's not forget, as Jason Burke has pointed out, the goal of "Islamic militants" is not to oppose Western values or their way of life, but rather "to beat back what they perceive as an aggressive West that is supposedly trying to complete the project begun during the Crusades and colonial periods of denigrating, dividing, and humiliating Islam." This too has been long understood by the very people carrying out these actions as the position of these militants were made clear in above mentioned report by the Defense Science Board Task Force, as well as conclusions reached by the U.S. National Security Council as far back as the late 1950s. The notion of wanting these people to "f*** OFF over to a country more in line with their mindset" is essentially begging for the conditions that created ISIS in the first place and increased the threat of their terror.

CSM,

So, you're saying you have no problem with people picketing funerals of fallen soldiers, carrying signs full of hate speech? 

Freedom of speech is one thing, but what about the right to mourn peacefully? 

It's not that I have "no problem" with them doing it. Rather, I have "no problem" with their right to be protected to do it, even though I find these actions to be vile, repulsive, and distasteful.

I live here, believe me it is.

I know what the laws are, and people have been arrested there because of them. So no, it's not true.

Look at the examples I gave you earlier. No, things have not reached the point where they can state specific threats of terror but they can certainly shout the kind of stuff I mentioned before with no real reprisal. The law here will only 'monitor' them. Frankly, I don't think that's good enough.

We do disagree because I am not in favour of depriving people of basic rights and I have yet to see a convincing argument that supports doing so especially when one considers that these are the kinds of actions that ISIS is counting on and will more than likely increase the likelihood of a threat of terror.

EDIT: By this post, I don't mean to say that some of the examples that you give are not breaking laws. In fact, there are cases where these signs are advocating violence, which is, in fact, a crime. What I mean is that I don't agree with making a special case outside the boundaries of the laws. Incidentally the reasons why no police action is taken in these cases has nothing to do with Free Speech laws though, as this article makes clear:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/muslimprotest.asp

Given the evidence that crackdowns and reprisals generate further radicalism, why would you support further crackdowns and reprisals?

Emily - some long-overdue common sense, with regard the visitors visa program, for 90 days or less, enacted for business and tourism, is surfacing.  This visa waiver program has been in effect for a long time and allows countries in the program (about 38) to come into the US without a visa.  It has been the subject of criticism as a source of "visa overstays" has been a huge number of "visitors visa" people who have not applied for any upgrade in visa status to allow long-term residency or application for citizenship. 

So, millions who come through the airports can disappear under-the-radar, and do who knows what.  Looking at this is/or will be a crackdown of sorts.  It is the most obvious place that we can fix quickly.

They are "guests who don't leave."  ;)

Evidence suggests that killing the rats eliminates rats.  Taking a bath eliminates odors.  This isn't revolutionary thinking.  Use your talents better.