Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bobboau on March 22, 2016, 06:18:28 am
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inevitable thread
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/22/europe/brussels-explosions/
looks like it's gonna be one of those days
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Bobboau, I hope you were trying to avoid sensationalizing the events that happened in Bruessels, including the death of at least 21 people, with that topic headline ...
To me this is another one hitting close to a friend's home/workplace, so you will excuse me from this discussion while I disapprove of your dry fatalism...
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I do think that the Gaurdian has the best response (or atleast the best one in english) thus far. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/22/response-brussels-bombings-patience-restraint)
None of my relatives appear to be affected, which is good news.
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I think you messed up the link there.
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I'm wary of "best responses" when the corpses aren't even dry yet, sorry if I'm being blunt. But if you want to check the worst responses, just google what the Donald just said some minutes ago.
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"Donald"
I don't think I want that this early in the morning...
@0rph3u5: You are excused. I have known people killed in this **** too, no one close fortunately but I am more than aware that is real people dieing. "dry fatalism" yeah, I'll accept that. that's fair.
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I think you messed up the link there.
Fixed. Sorry!
I'm wary of "best responses" when the corpses aren't even dry yet, sorry if I'm being blunt. But if you want to check the worst responses, just google what the Donald just said some minutes ago.
Well, the Gaurdian's response is basically "Please don't be like Trump", which does seem like the best course of action at this point.
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OK, what did Trump say? I looked at his twitter and all I saw was him talking about how Brussels used to be great or something? That can't be what you all are referring to, that's way too tame.
[edit]oh wait, was it this (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/03/22/warning-of-u-s-attacks-donald-trump-advocates-allowing-torture/)?[/edit]
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I do think that the Gaurdian has the best response (or atleast the best one in english) thus far. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/22/response-brussels-bombings-patience-restraint)
None of my relatives appear to be affected, which is good news.
That article tries hard to pretend that nothing can be done about this terrorism. Which is partially true - the amount of security measures needed to prevent such homegrown incidents would require a total police state, if it is even possible. But there is a catch, an elephant in the room - these attacks are not committed by native Europeans, but overwhelmingly by muslim immigrants or their children! These attacks would actually not be happening if not for very liberal past immigration policies of western Europe. Which allowed the rise of a significant muslim minority serving as a breeding ground for terrorism and religious extremism. Consequently, immigration policy is where the solution to this problem lies. So the best course of action is indeed to be somewhat more like Trump - not as much as to support torture and blanket ban on muslims, but tightening the immigration policy is a very good idea. And it wouldnt even restrict the rights of the citizens as much as increased security measures would.
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I know it's the elephant in the room, but could we wait until the second page this time? I mean I more or less agree with you, but the predictability of this ****, including the meta, is getting old.
also, I like how they bombed the people waiting in the security line. no way to protect against that, and I've been waiting for one of these groups to go after that for just this reason.
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Or at least, you know, point out a reliable source that these folks were what you claim they are. I haven't seen CNN or even Fox confirm ethnicity of the attackers yet.
More to the point banging on past policies and complaining about muslims isn't going to solve the problems at hand. If these people are a problem on their integration, and the resources are lacking to either stop them doing this or ship them all somewhere else, you've got to figure out how to integrate them better.
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you too
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Radical Islam is waging war against the West. Whether sent from the middle east, trained domestically, or self-radicalized, this is the true face of the war on terror, and the war OF terror.
We cannot win this war with weapons. No force of tanks or aircraft carriers is going to stop these events; indeed, each jihadist killed is a martyr to their cause.
We need to fight ideology with ideology of our own. Challenge their ideas with our own, respond to their words with our own. If western civilization is worth defending, then it needs to stand on its merits and show its strengths. Silencing opposition is avoiding the confrontation.
If people want to blow themselves up, threatening them with death will do nothing to dissuade them. What we need to do is to convince them not to; not to address the violence, but to address the motivation to cause violence. Anything else feeds into their narrative, diminishes our own ideology, and spurs the cycle.
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Violence is the weapon of the ignorant, education is the only solution.
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I love Foundation too but let's not pretend it's a valid political philosophy.
Violence is a tool with poor long-term effectiveness, though for short-term problems it can be quite efficacious.
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I do think that the Gaurdian has the best response (or atleast the best one in english) thus far. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/22/response-brussels-bombings-patience-restraint)
None of my relatives appear to be affected, which is good news.
That article tries hard to pretend that nothing can be done about this terrorism. Which is partially true - the amount of security measures needed to prevent such homegrown incidents would require a total police state, if it is even possible. But there is a catch, an elephant in the room - these attacks are not committed by native Europeans, but overwhelmingly by muslim immigrants or their children! These attacks would actually not be happening if not for very liberal past immigration policies of western Europe.
The issue with this is, as ever, that that the countries with the highest relative amount of radicalized muslims in Europe (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeKUpQHXIAAPHzY.jpg:large) are Belgium and France, which are both countries which are rather decidedly un-liberal when it comes to the treatment of immigrants (esp. France, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961)and it's questionable whether colonial subjects can be considered immigrants).
You are going to have to explain why Belgium has more then double the absolute amount of Jihadgoers in comparison to the Netherlands even though The Netherlands has three times as many immigrants then Belgium does (To the point that the amount of non-western immigrants in the Netherlands outranks the total amount of immigrants in Belgium). When you start looking at the relative values instead of the absolute ones, the differences are fairly massive.
This is not something that can be explained trough the amount of immigrants in a country.
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If people want to blow themselves up, threatening them with death will do nothing to dissuade them. What we need to do is to convince them not to; not to address the violence, but to address the motivation to cause violence. Anything else feeds into their narrative, diminishes our own ideology, and spurs the cycle.
Exactly how do you convince radicals not to blow themselves up? An earthly argument won't sway someone who only cares about the afterlife.
Even if you make a theological argument, you probably have less authority than, say, the leader of ISIS (who allegedly has a PhD in Islamic studies).
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One can prevent people from radicalising. It is not an inborn trait, even if some politicians say otherwise.
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We have christian radicals who blow **** up in the US, how would you stop Islamic radicals in the mid east?
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We have christian radicals who blow **** up in the US, how would you stop Islamic radicals in the mid east?
I'd say that's the wrong question to start with. Rather: How did the situation in the US degrade to the point that christian radicals came into existence? What is the driving force behind Trump's rise to promincence? That sorta thing.
And at the moment I'd say that the problem is less stopping Islamic radicals in the mid east but rahter looking at why the Dutch have done a far better job at preventing their muslim population from radicalizing then the Belgians have.
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The issue with this is, as ever, that that the countries with the highest relative amount of radicalized muslims in Europe (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeKUpQHXIAAPHzY.jpg:large) are Belgium and France, which are both countries which are rather decidedly un-liberal when it comes to the treatment of immigrants (esp. France, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961)and it's questionable whether colonial subjects can be considered immigrants).
By "liberal immigration policy" I mean they let lots of them inside, not how they treat them. Belgium and France are some of the most liberal European countries in this aspect, certainly not un-liberal. Anyway, an incident from 1961 isnt relevant and I wouldnt call French treatment of immigrants un-liberal.
You are going to have to explain why Belgium has more then double the absolute amount of Jihadgoers in comparison to the Netherlands even though The Netherlands has three times as many immigrants then Belgium does (To the point that the amount of non-western immigrants in the Netherlands outranks the total amount of immigrants in Belgium). When you start looking at the relative values instead of the absolute ones, the differences are fairly massive.
This is not something that can be explained trough the amount of immigrants in a country.
Dont forget that muslims are not spread out evenly. One important reason why Belgium has so many Jihadgoers is that there is a very significant concentration of muslims in Brussels, which is now almost one third islamised (I kid you not!). In a way, Belgium is just a sign of a future to come as % of muslims in western Europe rises.
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Yeah,
There's no single word to describe how I feel about this. On the other hand I'm sad that people had to die (again) for something completely meaningless. And on the other hand I'm sort of happy that it happened in Bruxelles, hitting close the MEPs. Perhaps we'll now see something more rapid and sensible about this forced immigration issue?
One can prevent people from radicalising. It is not an inborn trait, even if some politicians say otherwise.
I don't think there's a 100 % effective method. There's an old saying in Finnish, which goes like: violence is rarely the working option, but when it is, it is also the only right option. Which refers to people you just can't reason with.
Since I know folk wisdom is not on high scientific basis around here, my suggestion would be the following:
1) When caught in preparing the act, don't throw the would-be martyrs in jail. Declare them clinically insane (well, they are if they are planning something like that) and throw them to asylum, preferably for the rest of their lives. Film their lives and broadcast to outside world, preferably after some years of treatments and sedatives.
2) Bury the suicide bombers with pig carcasses. Any little doubt in their minds helps.
3) Criminally charge those people who did not alert the authorities of preparation of the terrorist attack. There's already laws in place for this, the only thing that needs to be done is to implement them as it was done before. It doesn't matter you'll need to investigate the actions of couple of hundred people (in the worst case); in reality the worst case is not to do anything about their inaction and telling them hiding this sort of activity from the officials is somehow acceptable. If they don't have nationality, expel. If they acquired nationality, or are born in the country, then the verdict is significant time in jail, like 15-20 years.
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4) Offer significant cash rewards and protection for those who expose the jihadists.
Of course, the above has to hold pretty much for everybody so that the muslim population doesn't feel singled out. But hey, if they commit more crimes, then it's their fault as the same rules apply for everybody.
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One can prevent people from radicalising. It is not an inborn trait, even if some politicians say otherwise.
Sure. Prevention is better than cure.
2) Bury the suicide bombers with pig carcasses. Any little doubt in their minds helps.
I don't know if it works, but I've always thought that this idea is diabolically clever, worthy of a "magnificent bastard".
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I don't know if it works, but I've always thought that this idea is diabolically clever, worthy of a "magnificent bastard".
Given the idiocy around, I think it has a small chance of reducing the amount of jihadists. It at least makes them doubt their own prophets, priests and teachers.
It wont take long till there's some kind of addendum that the rule doesn't apply if you are already dead when it happens, but getting them to debate it is already a small victory. And there's still that little nagging doubt regardless what the nowadays priest says compared to a thousand years old sacred text...
But really, the home brewn mass-murderers never needed any religious justification for their actions and these guys are likely not any different, so I think that this should be considered as a mental health issue. Those unable to function in the society end up in the asylum. I think that will work better for everyone than just sitting in the jail.
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/me waits for the above comments about pigskins to be raked over by a dozen HLP justice plasma flamethrowers
:yawn: Something something it would only further radicalize other moderate Muslims something something.
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/me waits for the above comments about pigskins to be raked over by a dozen HLP justice plasma flamethrowers
:yawn: Something something it would only further radicalize other moderate Muslims something something.
Well, I suppose that would work as a litmus test then. Those becoming radicalized, well, if any crime is committed, you lock them up or expel them.
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/me waits for the above comments about pigskins to be raked over by a dozen HLP justice plasma flamethrowers
:yawn: Something something it would only further radicalize other moderate Muslims something something.
Well, I suppose that would work as a litmus test then. Those becoming radicalized, well, if any crime is committed, you lock them up or expel them.
Yeah, personally, I think it could only radicalize those Muslims who were forming a silent assent behind the radical ones. Those who disapproved, while they might also disapprove of such a response, IMHO would not radicalize.
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There's no single word to describe how I feel about this. On the other hand I'm sad that people had to die (again) for something completely meaningless. And on the other hand I'm sort of happy that it happened in Bruxelles, hitting close the MEPs. Perhaps we'll now see something more rapid and sensible about this forced immigration issue?
you piece of ****!
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/me waits for the above comments about pigskins to be raked over by a dozen HLP justice plasma flamethrowers
:yawn: Something something it would only further radicalize other moderate Muslims something something.
Come to think of it, I'm actually a bit curious why would you be cautious about this in the first place and how does this cautiousness relate to the other religions?
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There's no single word to describe how I feel about this. On the other hand I'm sad that people had to die (again) for something completely meaningless. And on the other hand I'm sort of happy that it happened in Bruxelles, hitting close the MEPs. Perhaps we'll now see something more rapid and sensible about this forced immigration issue?
you piece of ****!
I don't think that will help your agenda, whatever it is.
I don't refuse that I'm cold (or appear cold), but that's something you'll just have to cope with.
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Well, my response to this mess is "****!"
Whatever the agenda, seems to me all of the "spying" powers combined doesn't make up for good old fashioned police work and investigation. More time and energy is spent of collection of potential threats than actually investigating said threats and a little cloak and dagger work. European governments seem more concerned about Nationalists than they do about dialogue - and sadly, the European government will only feed into the Nationalistic fears as they make things worse.
Perhaps its time for a military solution to ISIS, or really, a good dose of common Liberal sense, but the current crop of European governments lack both in spades.
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European governments seem more concerned about Nationalists than they do about dialogue - and sadly, the European government will only feed into the Nationalistic fears as they make things worse.
That's the thing what me and some Eastern Europeans have been saying for some time. Nationalism has been down-played and portrayed as a bad thing because that will slow down the integration of the EU, but the unfortunate side effect has been that the EU nations currently lack the self-preservation that comes with healthy nationalism. Then you get the rise of ultra-right wing, and the longer the moderate nationalists image is stretched to the limit in the media, the better support the ultra-right wing gets.
My prediction is that the Schengen treaty will break or become modified within this year and national borders are either partially restored or reinstated.
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Moderate nationalism is indeed a good thing. We used to call it "patriotism" back when it was in fashion. I think that Germany in particular has a big problem with it (what with its experiences with hardline nationalism in the previous century), but other countries are lacking that as well. It's as if they lack the nation-level "will to survive". A sensible amount of patriotism could probably help with integration, since it could instill enthusiasm for the immigrants' new home. Of course, it's not like any of it is going to cross the politicians' minds...
I think that the current crop of European governments is simply inadequate at governing at just about anything but a perfect situation. They're too soft, and that softness is being exploited both by hardline nationalists and terrorists. Compare that to Russia, which despite its own problems (crime and corruption, mostly) is growing stronger. I think that given everything, Russia is currently a safer bet than most European countries. I guess it just shows just how well such enlightened ideas as "human rights", "liberty", "social security" and "democracy" are working out in a time of crisis.
Fortunately, Poland, of all places, seems to be doing rather well. Maybe it's too insignificant to bother bombing it, or perhaps our government did something right for once. I dunno, but I certainly haven't heard of any ultranationalists threatening to dislodge the usual clique that's running the show here. :)
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I wouldn't be willing to write off values such as liberty, democracy or human rights because of this, but social security we could debate to some extent. Those values are what prevents us from becoming the same or falling back to Middle Ages, and I don't want to go there. As in, there is actually a military solution to Middle East despite what people say, but is principally glassing that particular section of the globe. It's just that I don't want to live on that sort of world. It's those values that actually make living above 63 degree of latitude possible in the first place.
So we play by our own laws, and it's up to immigrants whether they like them or not. If they don't follow the laws and still want to stay, it's first a legal matter and if it goes worse, then it is a national defense matter.
I'd refine the statement by saying that all the values touted in the media mean nothing if all what is currently done in the name of the values results in a period of anarchy and revolution.
The politicians are a reflection of the average population; the European nations have not been challenged for some time by any outside force (which was seen with Ukraine), and the current crop of politicians are mostly engaged in securing best deals for themselves and possibly for their countries (or for some major corporations there), with the advantage of the EU coming last - and this is coming from somebody who has dealt with EU officials and travelled to Bruxelles several times.
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2) Bury the suicide bombers with pig carcasses. Any little doubt in their minds helps.
Pork is not Kryptonite to live Muslims, let alone dead ones (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/20/donald-trump-pork-not-muslim-kryptonite-bigotry).
This would be like trying to un-radicalise Westbro Baptists by having gay people **** on their graves. Is there anyone stupid enough to think that it wouldn't entrench the existing radicals more as well as possibly bring in new recruits? Is there anyone who thinks we should start doing that to Jewish terrorists?
The entire idea is basically only useful in recognising who is a bigot incapable of thinking about the problem and instead reaching for quick fix solutions that will make the problem worse if they do anything at all.
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Is there anyone stupid enough to think that it wouldn't entrench the existing radicals more as well as possibly bring in new recruits?
That would sort of be the point in the most Stalinesque way. Radicalize those who can possibly be radicalized and deal with it now rather than later when they've been "integrated" to the society. It'd be possible to do that here with a relative controllable number of muslims around, don't know about Central Europe then.
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I'm pretty sure that suggestion was a joke everyone took too seriously. The problem with dealing with radicals is that it can be difficult to tell who's already radicalized and who isn't. You might err on the side of caution, of course, but that'd be a whole new level of "Stalinesque"... :)
I wouldn't be willing to write off values such as liberty, democracy or human rights because of this, but social security we could debate to some extent. Those values are what prevents us from becoming the same or falling back to Middle Ages, and I don't want to go there. As in, there is actually a military solution to Middle East despite what people say, but is principally glassing that particular section of the globe. It's just that I don't want to live on that sort of world. It's those values that actually make living above 63 degree of latitude possible in the first place.
Maybe not Middle Ages, but if things keep going like that, I can see the world eventually reverting to a more 19th/pre-WWI 20th century philosophy. Somehow, it seems that the most "modern" countries, with spotless human rights records and all that stuff, are the ones that aren't doing all that well lately. On the other hand, we've got countries like Russia and China, which play fast and loose with those values and seem noticeably better off... It's a very cynical conclusion, but that's the way things look.
Of course, I would prefer living in a world in which those things hold up, but ultimately, it seems like such a world can't last long. You're either willing to do horrible things to people, or eventually get overrun by those who are. That's precisely what happened in Ukraine (and those guys weren't even all that soft, the Ukrainians went pretty far themselves). TBH, I'm just resigned to that. If the world decides to drop the enlightened stuff and go back to the old "nobles and peasants" routine, I'll just do my best to find myself in the former category, no matter how they decide to call it.
The politicians do reflect the "average population", but only from the time of the last elections. In the modern world, things change quickly and that "lag" can be quite important. See Germany, which has been furious with the current government for quite a while. Granted, by this point, Merkel gets flak even from her own party, but it took a good while to get to that point, too.
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Well, I see the "security" state as a sham. It's a monster created by paranoia and fear, rather than providing safety, instead becomes as oppressive as the thing it claims to fight. It isn't just the war on encryption, surveillance and crap, but it's the paper tiger erected to provide the government, not the populace a sense of security. And the recent crackdown on free speech in European countries has me deeply concerned.
Rather than dialogue, referendums, and perhaps analysis, the governments were quick to capitulate to migrant demands and regressive leftist policies to stifle any talk. And debate and actually factual solutions are what regressives and hardliners don't want. They benefit politically from the chaos, while people grow desperate. Yeah, and I'm purposely invoking what I and many other pseudo-intellectuals call leftists-marxist asshats, regressive, because their political aims are self-serving and counter productive. The leftist and right-wing media have only made things worst. Attempting to be a centrist is considered career suicide it seems.
That being said though, the bigger problems are a complex set of interactions and events playing off one another. And I think it would take a few firm displays of sanity to starting mooring us on the right course again.
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The pig thing has to be the perfect summary of how ****ing stupid chickenhawk reactionaries are. "Oh this movement is gaining huge ground by spinning a narrative about the righteous being downtrodden by the infidel and fighting back, well let's start acting out their ****ing script, that'll show them!"
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The pig thing has to be the perfect summary of how ****ing stupid chickenhawk reactionaries are. "Oh this movement is gaining huge ground by spinning a narrative about the righteous being downtrodden by the infidel and fighting back, well let's start acting out their ****ing script, that'll show them!"
Well, it's easy to be reactionary on either end of the spectrum - but while I find the pig thing god awfully stupid, Screaming about Islam doesn't help - and I tend to argue the problem for radicalism is a mix of identity crisis and social anxiety. And with the way things are, Western society is beginning to turn on itself in disturbing ways rather than closing ranks and trying to sort things out.
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That would sort of be the point in the most Stalinesque way. Radicalize those who can possibly be radicalized
When it comes to how easy it is to make men do abominable things, one should consider the instructive lessons of Stalin's USSR and Hitler's Germany in two senses.
First, it's easier than you think.
Second, once you've wanked away the problem by using pigs and teaching the people who do the pig bits exactly what they're doing in trying to literally deny people the afterlife with your HARD MEN crap, you've created a bunch of guys who are all HARD MEN DOING THE HARD THINGS basically for the sake of showing off how hard you are. You are literally manufacturing sociopaths.
What do you intend to do with them when you are done?
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Send them to cut trees in taiga. If you're gonna go Stalinesque, go all the way (if your country doesn't have any taiga, you can substitute any back-breaking labor in an isolated location). :)
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i'm sorry was that meant to be a serious answer?
it is hard to tell because i'm working in the reference frame of you thinking all problems of governance can be solved with absolute monarchy
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Second, once you've wanked away the problem by using pigs and teaching the people who do the pig bits exactly what they're doing in trying to literally deny people the afterlife with your HARD MEN crap, you've created a bunch of guys who are all HARD MEN DOING THE HARD THINGS basically for the sake of showing off how hard you are. You are literally manufacturing sociopaths.
What do you intend to do with them when you are done?
Hey that wasn't a problem when we trained the mujahadeen fighters against the Soviets, right? Didn't cause any trouble at all later, no sir!
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I'm pretty sure that suggestion was a joke everyone took too seriously.
Read the article I posted. It's really not.
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I believe one thing you have to do is to break up muslim no-go zones such as Molenbeek. How can they integrate if most of the time they arent even surrounded by western culture? The problem is, you cant do that when muslims are like 30% of the city. Then you are just ****ed, lol. What will happen now is the emergence of a real multiculturalism, not merely a few kebab shops here and there, but cultures with different basic values living side by side. And it wont be pretty..
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Anyway, an incident from 1961 isnt relevant
Perhaps, but it is telling that the french authorities have managed to murder more of their own civilians then any terrorist can lay claim to. The effects of those atrocities do carry trough throughout the ages, as the people that were affected by this are still alive today.
Dont forget that muslims are not spread out evenly. One important reason why Belgium has so many Jihadgoers is that there is a very significant concentration of muslims in Brussels, which is now almost one third islamised (I kid you not!). In a way, Belgium is just a sign of a future to come as % of muslims in western Europe rises.
Not really, but you have touched upon one of the problems that lead to situations like what happened in in Paris in 2005: The banlieue and boroughs like Molenbeek are all areas with a very high amount of immigrants and areas that have been completely neglected by French and Belgian politics. Trough negligence such as this you create a social class where it is very hard to move out from, and history has shown time and time again that those are the people who radicalise.
There's no single word to describe how I feel about this. On the other hand I'm sad that people had to die (again) for something completely meaningless. And on the other hand I'm sort of happy that it happened in Bruxelles, hitting close the MEPs. Perhaps we'll now see something more rapid and sensible about this forced immigration issue?
you piece of ****!
I don't think that will help your agenda, whatever it is.
I don't refuse that I'm cold (or appear cold), but that's something you'll just have to cope with.
Do you realize that this goes both ways? When you aim to use a terror attack to advance the political goals that the terrorists themselves want to be advanced you're not being cold at all: You're simply playing directly into ISIS's hands. For that, you can expect a bit of blowback and cowering behind a double standard really won't help.
Second, once you've wanked away the problem by using pigs and teaching the people who do the pig bits exactly what they're doing in trying to literally deny people the afterlife with your HARD MEN crap, you've created a bunch of guys who are all HARD MEN DOING THE HARD THINGS basically for the sake of showing off how hard you are. You are literally manufacturing sociopaths.
But the thing is, the politics that Mika proposes is not HARD MEN DOING HARD THINGS, it's just hysteria. It's cowardly, even, suggesting to defile the dead as if they are possessed by demons that need to be exorcised. It is, at best, revelling in barbarism in order to hide from insecurity. At worst it's, as others have already pointed out, directly playing into our opponent's hands.
The work is being done in the classroom, teachers who notice that 2 kids (Because these are really just kids, unfortunately) are missing, alert the cops and trough their work prevent 5 more kids from radicalising, is the stuff that matters. It's what the Belgians are doing right now: Offering rooms to those affected, playing a Cello in the ruins without any fear for secondaries, kids chalking compassion into the scorched pavement. It's the blitz spirit: Keep calm and carry on. It speaks credit to the Belgian monarch that he did not respond to a terror attack by being terrified, but rather encouraged the people to respond with "Determination, calmth and dignity".
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1) When caught in preparing the act, don't throw the would-be martyrs in jail. Declare them clinically insane (well, they are if they are planning something like that) and throw them to asylum, preferably for the rest of their lives. Film their lives and broadcast to outside world, preferably after some years of treatments and sedatives.
What a great idea!
Hey, I have an even better one: Do this for all criminals! After all, noone in their right mind would ever commit a crime; getting everyone hopped on drugs is surely going to help.
For real though: This is a terrible idea. Not only are psychiatric care institutions not equipped to deal with something like this, it also runs counter to the goal of psychiatric care. It is generally accepted that deliberately injuring prisoners physically is unethical; why do you believe that doing injury to their minds is not?
2) Bury the suicide bombers with pig carcasses. Any little doubt in their minds helps.
Doubt of what, exactly? Any suicide bomber already knows that doing the deed will elevate him in the eyes of his deity; Surely the transgressions of nonbelievers are irrelevant in this regard.
And yeah, this bull**** would do nothing except drive more moderates into the arms of the extremists, for it would be clear proof that the society that does this actually does hate islam as much as ISIS, Qaeda et al claim they do.
3) Criminally charge those people who did not alert the authorities of preparation of the terrorist attack.
What's the threshold here? The guy at the electronics discounter who sold a prepaid phone to a foreign looking dude? The guy at the used car dealership that sold that van to that arabic looking dude a couple months back? The guy who answered a question on the chemistry stackoverflow? How do you establish, in an airtight way, that someone had enough knowledge to figure out that someone else was planning an attack?
There's already laws in place for this, the only thing that needs to be done is to implement them as it was done before.
Name the laws, please.
It doesn't matter you'll need to investigate the actions of couple of hundred people (in the worst case);
No, the worst case is that people will flood the authorities with bull**** reports because their neighbour prays to Mecca a couple times per day. Which means that perfectly innocent people will be heavily scrutinized, while actual perpetrators will find it easy to evade surveillance.
in reality the worst case is not to do anything about their inaction and telling them hiding this sort of activity from the officials is somehow acceptable. If they don't have nationality, expel. If they acquired nationality, or are born in the country, then the verdict is significant time in jail, like 15-20 years.
So basically a jail sentence or deportation for not being a mindreader. Nice.
You haven't actually thought this through, have you.
EDIT:
4) Offer significant cash rewards and protection for those who expose the jihadists.
Wow, would you look at that. Something that might actually work. Wouldn't have expected to see that here, kudos.
Of course, the above has to hold pretty much for everybody so that the muslim population doesn't feel singled out. But hey, if they commit more crimes, then it's their fault as the same rules apply for everybody.
You have a lot to learn about institutional prejudice.
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3) Criminally charge those people who did not alert the authorities of preparation of the terrorist attack.
What's the threshold here? The guy at the electronics discounter who sold a prepaid phone to a foreign looking dude? The guy at the used car dealership that sold that van to that arabic looking dude a couple months back? The guy who answered a question on the chemistry stackoverflow? How do you establish, in an airtight way, that someone had enough knowledge to figure out that someone else was planning an attack?
There's already laws in place for this, the only thing that needs to be done is to implement them as it was done before.
Name the laws, please.
It doesn't matter you'll need to investigate the actions of couple of hundred people (in the worst case);
No, the worst case is that people will flood the authorities with bull**** reports because their neighbour prays to Mecca a couple times per day. Which means that perfectly innocent people will be heavily scrutinized, while actual perpetrators will find it easy to evade surveillance.
in reality the worst case is not to do anything about their inaction and telling them hiding this sort of activity from the officials is somehow acceptable. If they don't have nationality, expel. If they acquired nationality, or are born in the country, then the verdict is significant time in jail, like 15-20 years.
So basically a jail sentence or deportation for not being a mindreader. Nice.
You haven't actually thought this through, have you.
...so you think that it should not be possible to charge people for choosing to not notice authorities if they have knowledge of a forthcoming case of mass murder? Because that's what you seem to be insinuating under the hyperbole and strawmen.
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...so you think that it should not be possible to charge people for choosing to not notice authorities if they have knowledge of a forthcoming case of mass murder? Because that's what you seem to be insinuating under the hyperbole and strawmen.
How do you prove that someone knew that someone else was planning an attack? If I told you, right here and right now, that I will be bombing my hometown's train station in exactly one hour, would you be compelled to contact the authorities, given all that you know about me through the interactions we've had online?
This is the same problem schools have when dealing with the possibility of a a spree killing by a current or former student. In those cases, there's usually a progression pointing towards the attacker contemplating and planning the attack days if not weeks before it happens, and yet despite all the previous cases, there are still ones that seem to happen out of the blue. Do you think that punishing the parents, teachers and friends of the killer(s) for not noticing what that person was planning would help prevent future killing sprees?
That's what I mean by punishing people for not being mindreaders. A sufficiently determined attacker will be able to conceal his or her intent until it's too late (This is analoguous to people who commit suicide despite being under psychiatric care); punishing the people around the attacker for not being able to figure out that person's true intentions is not going to help matters.
Now, a different case can be made about co-conspirators, people who were fully involved in planning the attacks and such, but as far as I can work out, those are already being prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
If there is a third category here, I would like to know what it is.
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...so you think that it should not be possible to charge people for choosing to not notice authorities if they have knowledge of a forthcoming case of mass murder? Because that's what you seem to be insinuating under the hyperbole and strawmen.
How do you prove that someone knew that someone else was planning an attack? If I told you, right here and right now, that I will be bombing my hometown's train station in exactly one hour, would you be compelled to contact the authorities, given all that you know about me through the interactions we've had online?
No, I wouldn't be. But it wouldn't exactly be a problem if I did and as a result the police caught you on your way out and took you in for questioning. Should you be charged? No. Should you be convicted? Definitely not. Is it wrong to stop you and check that you're not actually carrying a bomb and question you about your claimed intent? No.
Should I be charged for not reporting you? No. Should I be charged for not reporting you, if you actually did carry out the bombing? Seems understandable, even though I would disagree. Should I be convicted, in that case? No, because our interactions are on record and they suggest that it was entirely reasonable to not take your claim seriously.
However, if I believed that there's a decent chance that you're actually going to do it (for example, if you were someone I knew had attempted a bombing before) but still I didn't do anything, then yeah I should be convicted.
This is the same problem schools have when dealing with the possibility of a a spree killing by a current or former student. In those cases, there's usually a progression pointing towards the attacker contemplating and planning the attack days if not weeks before it happens, and yet despite all the previous cases, there are still ones that seem to happen out of the blue. Do you think that punishing the parents, teachers and friends of the killer(s) for not noticing what that person was planning would help prevent future killing sprees?
Obviously not. You'd have to prove that they actually knew or had a strong warranted suspicion and willfully turned a blind eye, just like you have to prove any allegation which involves whether the person knew or didn't know something. That's what courts do. If you don't have evidence that the person knew or clearly should have known, then of course they should not be punished. We don't decriminalize failing to provide assistance to a victim of an accident just because obviously it's possible that in some cases the person just genuinely didn't notice.
I have no doubt that in virtually all school shootings the parents, teachers and friends of the perpetrator didn't think that they'd actually do something like that. A plausible exception would be if they had told of their intentions to similarly-minded friends, who believed them but didn't try to stop it because they wanted it to happen too.
That's what I mean by punishing people for not being mindreaders. A sufficiently determined attacker will be able to conceal his or her intent until it's too late (This is analoguous to people who commit suicide despite being under psychiatric care); punishing the people around the attacker for not being able to figure out that person's true intentions is not going to help matters.
Now, a different case can be made about co-conspirators, people who were fully involved in planning the attacks and such, but as far as I can work out, those are already being prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
If there is a third category here, I would like to know what it is.
Criminals of all sorts reveal their intentions all the time out of stupidity, even though they could conceal them. Only smart and sufficiently determined ones won't.
A third category is of course people who aren't co-conspirators but are aware of what they are or have been up to.
If you want an easily palatable example, then consider a neo-nazi who their pals ask to help carry their ski masks and rifle-sized heavy bags into their unmarked van, while having heard them talk about good locations for a shooting spree and how they're totally gonna nail some of them n-words this time. Not a co-conspirator, yet (unless they're mentally handicapped) they should have known. If they get charged and convicted for failing to alert authorities, that's not punishing them for not being a mindreader.
Maybe there aren't any such non-co-conspirators who knew or should have known, maybe there are.
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If you want an easily palatable example, then consider a neo-nazi who their pals ask to help carry their ski masks and rifle-sized heavy bags into their unmarked van, while having heard them talk about good locations for a shooting spree and how they're totally gonna nail some of them n-words this time. Not a co-conspirator, yet (unless they're mentally handicapped) they should have known. If they get charged and convicted for failing to alert authorities, that's not punishing them for not being a mindreader
Wanna explain how you are going to prove that happened beyond a reasonable doubt without also basically proving said person was actually a co-conspirator? Cause in your above case, I suspect that's exactly what they would be charged as.
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Wanna explain how you are going to prove that happened beyond a reasonable doubt without also basically proving said person was actually a co-conspirator? Cause in your above case, I suspect that's exactly what they would be charged as.
No, I don't. The same way anything similar gets proven.
Cause in your above case, I suspect that's exactly what they would be charged as.
Then all anyone's talking about is co-conspirators and everyone agrees that they should be charged, and The_E would have manufactured perceived disagreement out of thin air. I'll give him more credit than that.
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Mika is suggesting that we criminalise being someone who knows a terrorist on the grounds that although we can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, they should have known. That's bull**** and a complete about-face on the most important assumption in criminal law, innocence unless proven guilty.
Mika is not talking about prosecutions for conspiracy because he's claimed that 3) Criminally charge those people who did not alert the authorities of preparation of the terrorist attack. There's already laws in place for this, the only thing that needs to be done is to implement them as it was done before.
i.e that we don't prosecute for conspiracy when it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. He has of course offered no proof whatsoever that this is actually the case.
Wanna explain how you are going to prove that happened beyond a reasonable doubt without also basically proving said person was actually a co-conspirator? Cause in your above case, I suspect that's exactly what they would be charged as.
No, I don't. The same way anything similar gets proven.
I'm an idiot. Explain to me exactly how it is proven that someone had full knowledge a crime was about to be committed, did nothing and yet wasn't a conspirator. Cause somehow I suspect that such cases are very rare even if they have actually happened. In which case Mika is making mountains out of molehills in an attempt to generate outrage.
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No, I don't. The same way anything similar gets proven.
Hint: it doesn't. You and Mika are complaining about Accessory Before The Fact. This is rarely charged because unless you have someone on video looking into the bag and seeing it's full of rifles then it's more or less impossible to prove they actually know it's full of rifles and not rebar unless they straight up admit that.
I mean, I guess you can hope they break down on the stand and say the wrong thing, if you want. Other than that you can't really say what they knew and did not know.
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Here is a pretty good article about recent attacks and the response to them:
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/a-terrorist-attack-has-happened-in-europe-let-the-standard-response-begin (http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/a-terrorist-attack-has-happened-in-europe-let-the-standard-response-begin)
The banlieue and boroughs like Molenbeek are all areas with a very high amount of immigrants and areas that have been completely neglected by French and Belgian politics. Trough negligence such as this you create a social class where it is very hard to move out from, and history has shown time and time again that those are the people who radicalise.
I think you are vastly overestimating the influence of politics over such places. Politics can be used to prevent the creation of immigrant ghettos in the first place, by strict immigration control, and maybe by a strong policy of spreading the immigrants around.
But once the ghettos began to be established, I doubt French and Belgian politicians could have done much. Trying to integrate someone who does not really want to assimilate is an impossible task. Dont blame the politicians, blame the immigrant communities themselves, they are at fault. It is their duty to integrate, not the duty of politicians to pander to them. We shouldnt have to teach them not to radicalize..
Explain to me exactly how it is proven that someone had full knowledge a crime was about to be committed, did nothing and yet wasn't a conspirator. Cause somehow I suspect that such cases are very rare even if they have actually happened. In which case Mika is making mountains out of molehills in an attempt to generate outrage.
Somehow I suspect you will find several hundred similar cases in Molenbeek. I dont believe that neighbourhood wasnt aware that there are terrorists hiding among them for several months. That said, I dont agree with reducing burden of proof in terrorism related offenses.
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Given that we've had several cases in the past where people kidnapped women and kept them locked up in the basement or worse for years or decades without anyone suspecting anything, the assumption that the community must have known that there were terrorists among them is unfounded.
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Correct me if this is demonstrably false, but aren't openly extremist preachers fairly prevalent in European Islamic communities? These attacks were committed by an organised group in collaboration with a large international movement, comparing them to individual sex offenders is totally disingenuous; and it doesn't sound that unreasonable to me, on the face of it, that probably some members of the perpetrators' community were aware that they were planning to commit a violent attack.
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Correct me if this is demonstrably false, but aren't openly extremist preachers fairly prevalent in European Islamic communities?
No. There has been the occasional bout of political furor when an imam from, say, Saudi-Arabia comes over to preach in a dutch Mosque, but even then the extremism has been rather debatable. We do, unfortunately, have an enviroment where islamic preachers are very tightly monitored to see if they might say something objectionable.
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We do, unfortunately, have an enviroment where islamic preachers are very tightly monitored to see if they might say something objectionable.
And why the heck would that be unfortunate? If you have really managed to monitor them very tightly, then good for you..
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Yeah I don't know how you can call that 'unfortunate', Joshua; do you not 'monitor' people you know to see if they say anything objectionable?
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Yeah I don't know how you can call that 'unfortunate', Joshua; do you not 'monitor' people you know to see if they say anything objectionable?
Monitor might be too light a phrase to describe what I meant with that. It's more an environment that is similar to an US election where Obama got flak because one of the priests he listens to shouted "God bless America? God DAMN America! For killing innocent people!" and depending on who you talk to the last sentence might be omitted. There's probably a very easy english word for it but it doesn't cross my mind right now.
There is a difference in government monitoring and monitoring done by people who are hell bent on discrediting you. It's the latter enviroment that is a bit meh, as it leads to situations where an Imam who is critical of NATO's deployment in Afghanistan is framed as in favour of killing dutch servicemen and a critique of Israel's policies is immeaditely considered anti-semetic in the same vein that the Israeli foreign minister considers the UN to be anti-semetic. A difference between being critical and outright heckling, which is then reported by The Telegraph (not as bad as the Daily Mail but still quite awfull sometimes) and then the statements are questioned by the nationalists in parliament, by then completely devoid of any nuance, context, or even accuracy.
That being said, this has only happened a few times (eg once a year). I'm all in for an enviroment that dissuades intolerance, but there's a limit when statements asking for tolerance to muslims are painted as anti-western.
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There's probably a very easy english word for it but it doesn't cross my mind right now.
"disingenuous"?
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There's probably a very easy english word for it but it doesn't cross my mind right now.
"disingenuous"?
Something in between that and heckler's veto.
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Mika is suggesting that we criminalise being someone who knows a terrorist on the grounds that although we can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, they should have known. That's bull**** and a complete about-face on the most important assumption in criminal law, innocence unless proven guilty.
Well, we'll see whether he agrees. My money's on him not suggesting that.
Mika is not talking about prosecutions for conspiracy because he's claimed that 3) Criminally charge those people who did not alert the authorities of preparation of the terrorist attack. There's already laws in place for this, the only thing that needs to be done is to implement them as it was done before.
i.e that we don't prosecute for conspiracy when it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. He has of course offered no proof whatsoever that this is actually the case.
Excellent point, and a fine choice of how to challenge thatl suggestion. I know nothing of whether and where those kind of people are prosecuted or not, so no disagreement there.
I'm an idiot. Explain to me exactly how it is proven that someone had full knowledge a crime was about to be committed, did nothing and yet wasn't a conspirator.
I can't, because you're apparently insisting that having such full knowledge makes one a (co-)conspirator. And yeah, I don't have anything against that. But, Mika was clearly not calling them co-conspirators, so obviously that's what we've gone by. You can't take his implicit definition of such people not being co-conspirators, switch to your own definition of them being co-conspirators, and then use that to argue that he must have been saying that he thinks people you don't consider as co-conspirators should be prosecuted. Maybe that's not what's happening, but that's what it looks like to me. In any case, this is too many layers deep to be able to say!
Cause somehow I suspect that such cases are very rare even if they have actually happened. In which case Mika is making mountains out of molehills in an attempt to generate outrage.
Yes, seems likely that they are rare.
But if you go back to page 2 and look at that point 3 out of 4 in the original post, and then compare to The_E's response with the pile of hyperbolic strawmen in it ("jail sentence for not being a mindreader", "jail sentence for answering a question on the chemistry stackoverflow", "people will flood the authorities with bull**** reports because their neighbour prays to Mecca"), there ought to be no question of which one "making mountains out of molehills in an attempt to generate outrage" more accurately describes.
So, what does anyone actually disagree about? No one thinks that not being a mindreader should be punishable. Everyone thinks that having full knowledge of forthcoming mass murder and not alerting authorities should be punishable. Everyone agrees that such knowledge can often be impossible to prove in court. There's possibly some disagreement on whether the label co-conspirator should apply to all such people or not. No one seems to know whether the law (where?) considers such people co-conspirators. No one seems to know whether they are usually prosecuted for it, if the law does so consider.
Finally, here's my suggestion:
3) Criminally charge those people who did not alert the authorities of preparation of the terrorist attack. There's already laws in place for this, the only thing that needs to be done is to implement them as it was done before. It doesn't matter you'll need to investigate the actions of couple of hundred people (in the worst case); in reality the worst case is not to do anything about their inaction and telling them hiding this sort of activity from the officials is somehow acceptable. If they don't have nationality, expel. If they acquired nationality, or are born in the country, then the verdict is significant time in jail, like 15-20 years.
What makes you think that the laws in question are not being applied currently? Proving that a person actually had full knowledge of preparations of a terrorist attack is very difficult, and in the rare case that that can be established, it is most likely enough to consider them a co-conspirator, resulting in significant jail time. So, are you saying that there currently tends to be no prosecution in those cases even if the law allows, and if so, what's your source for that?
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Quote of a week (Finnish MEP in Bruxelles): "We're spending quite a wonderful week against racism here!" (And yes, that is sarcasm - attributed actually to the day of the the strike)
Zookeeper's interpretation is correct, as were the earlier Eastern Europeans. Have to make a mental note that charge may not be entirely synonymous with prosecute.
What makes you think that the laws in question are not being applied currently? Proving that a person actually had full knowledge of preparations of a terrorist attack is very difficult, and in the rare case that that can be established, it is most likely enough to consider them a co-conspirator, resulting in significant jail time. So, are you saying that there currently tends to be no prosecution in those cases even if the law allows, and if so, what's your source for that?
Thanks for taking the time for an intelligent reply. I'm not saying there's no prosecution. I'm saying that it's not pressed as far as it could (and should) be within the confines of the law. Unfortunately, we are apparently dealing with people being scared offending the muslims in their own country. The evidence? Swedes have found automatic firearms and hand grenades in home searches of the muslims in - ahem -troubled areas. While I could accept that hiding a hand-grenade without knowledge of your room-mates could be somewhat possible, that defense doesn't work with an assault rifle (and hasn't in the case of Finnish citizens). But that has happened already. There's a case of storing a loaded illegal shotgun in a pizza store here. Had this been a Finnish restaurant, the Finns would be charged and likely facing time in jail - every single one of them. What happened when Turks did it? There's our police saying shotgun blast to the roof was overblown in media, there's no need for alarm and police is looking into this... and one guy of that ruckus was arrested. One.
Additionally, a car was parked next to a reception center in Southern Finland. This raised alarm of the staff, and they requested police to check it out. Turned out to be a Finn with an SMG. An illegal weapon here, and getting discovered with one results in strict punishments and some years in jail. Media immediately speculated this was attempted raid on the reception center, but never thought it could have been the reception center occupants asking for an illegal weapon. Which turned out to be the case. The case was shushed under the carpet, with a slap on the wrist for the reception center participants. The actual Finnish legalization would have allowed for a far more thorough investigation of the reception center people but that was actually not pressed. It has been utilized before in the case of Finnish criminal gangs.
The revealing question is why are no-go-zones allowed in the European cities? I believe the answer lies in the fact that these zones would require far more police work than the other regions, making it look like as if the government was on to them. So instead, the politicians take the easy way out: close their eyes on it and wish it goes away. When the opposite should be done: if the areas need more officers, adding them there is not discrimination, and not doing it is positive discrimination.
So there is a very real double standard in the European legalization enforcement on what it comes to dealing with muslim immigrants compared to the actual citizens of the countries. A Finnish MP actually proposed, and get this, utilizing Sharia law when it doesn't conflict with the existing Finnish law. He saw nothing wrong in the proposal, until a general uproar took place. Don't mind that the muslims are not even the greatest minority here, so why didn't he first propose Russian or Swedish laws? Thankfully, he got out of the office, and probably will never see the parliament building again.
For the rest of you asking the wisdom of angering muslim population with tricks like pig skins:
There's a point in pissing of the immigrants before they get to integrate and move more freely in the society. This is especially relevant here when there is like 30 000 dudes hanging around in the reception centers with no nationality or permits. Those getting radicalized are easiest to recognize at this point and can do least harm. So what would we do with those getting angry? Send them back home. And it's not as if we haven't fed pork to muslims already (accidentally). The result was actually quite hilarious when they found out. :lol: The moderates we want here will not be pissed of by this anyways, and those who get aggravated get the shortest geodesic home.
Given that it's one day after the Bruxelles strike, we were already thinking of imaginative methods of pissing of the muslims in the most offending way possible at the office coffee break. The winning proposal was to capture the Sacred rock from Medina in January, and ground it to fine sand and apply it to the floors of pigsties. Or making videos asking ransoms for the parts of the stone. That doesn't mean we would do it though.
When you are faced with immigration where a significant fraction of the people do not want to integrate, you'll really have to get Macchiavellian on them. You introduce a favorite, and punish those who don't comply (both positive and negative feedbacks being important - positive feedback only doesn't work as evidenced by Sweden).
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Well, I tried... :sigh:
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Mika, consider this your last warning: cut the racist bull**** or stop posting in here.
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The revealing question is why are no-go-zones allowed in the European cities?
Holy ****, were you just not here for the last thread where Goober posted about this and it was debunked by every source from here to Snopes including the ones he cited in the end? Because you posted in it!
Be on the lookout, someone has hijacked Mika's account.
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(both positive and negative feedbacks being important - positive feedback only doesn't work as evidenced by Sweden).
Yeah, Breivik murdering all those kids did wonders for Swedish integration!
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Breivik was in Norway.
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Holy ****, were you just not here for the last thread where Goober posted about this and it was debunked by every source from here to Snopes including the ones he cited in the end? Because you posted in it!
When you say "no go zone" as meaning a zone where police does not enter due to fear, then yeah, those dont exist. But no go zones as a wider term for a muslim ghetto where people are kinda afraid to go due to immigrant crime and muslim culture is dominant over native one is a reality in westen Europe right now. Case in point: Molenbeek. Debunked my ass.
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There's a point in pissing of the immigrants before they get to integrate and move more freely in the society. This is especially relevant here when there is like 30 000 dudes hanging around in the reception centers with no nationality or permits. Those getting radicalized are easiest to recognize at this point and can do least harm. So what would we do with those getting angry? Send them back home. And it's not as if we haven't fed pork to muslims already (accidentally). The result was actually quite hilarious when they found out. :lol: The moderates we want here will not be pissed of by this anyways, and those who get aggravated get the shortest geodesic home.
I agree. I said it before when we were discussing Draw Muhammad Day and Ill say it again: the only people who can radicalize due to insults to their religion were well on their way to be radicals in the first place. Their radicalization is more of a way of uncovering a preexisting problem rather than creating a new one.
The reverse is also true: islamic extremism will certainly not be solved by trying to appease the muslims. They will just see it as a weakness and thus further confirmation that their ideology is superior to western culture. In fact, Western Europe is probably the most tolerant place in the world, and did it help them to integrate muslims? Nope.
My point here isnt that you should go out of your way to piss of muslims, but more like it doesnt really matter if you do or not. It is not the deciding factor. A muslim extremist who does not turn violent because he is being appeased is still a muslim extremist.
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This is very worrying if true, altrough I cant find a better source than Express, so take it with a grain of salt:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/653818/Molenbeek-terror-raid-Paris-attacks-Salah-Abdeslam-Belgium-riot-police
TENSE scenes have broken out between locals and security forces in Molenbeek following the arrest of Salah Abdeslam with some residents reportedly “praising” the evil Paris terrorist.
Riot police were called in to disperse the crowds who gathered in the Brussels suburb after missiles were thrown at the Belgian authorities.
Tensions were sparked after young people from the troubled area started declaring their support for their “hero” Abdeslam, according to a witness.
An eyewitness posted on Twitter: “Great tension in Molenbeek with young people from the area praising their ‘hero’ Salah Abdeslam."
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Holy ****, were you just not here for the last thread where Goober posted about this and it was debunked by every source from here to Snopes including the ones he cited in the end? Because you posted in it!
When you say "no go zone" as meaning a zone where police does not enter due to fear, then yeah, those dont exist. But no go zones as a wider term for a muslim ghetto where people are kinda afraid to go due to immigrant crime and muslim culture is dominant over native one is a reality in westen Europe right now. Case in point: Molenbeek. Debunked my ass.
Actually, Molenbeek is not a case in point at all: Roughly 25 to 40% of it's inhabitants are muslim depending on cathment area. The case of Molenbeek is not one of a dominant muslim culture but more of the area being impoverished and overcrowded. The foreign correspondents of the NOS (dutch public news broadcasters) in Brussels live in Molenbeek (cheap appartments!) and have noted this.
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It's pretty blackly comic that Mika wants blanket cultural reprisals directed at the entire Muslim population of Europe for the actions of a minority of violent extremists, on the hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising.
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As I think I said in the last inevitable topic about such matters, it's frankly somewhat comforting to learn that the US doesn't hold a monopoly on blindingly-ignorant cultural intolerance.
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somewhat misleading title
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Well, Mika's done a fine job putting his foot in his mouth.
In the meantime, we can rest assured Euro governments will arrest people for threatening tweets, rather than aiming for good anti-terror practices (hint, actually get the police and intelligence community to work silently not to tip off terrorist cells).
I've a pretty divided take on the immigration situation - I think it's pretty foolish that many think the immigrants can "magically" integrate, on the other hand though, expecting a sane rational response isn't going to happen as well. The Europeans citizenry have every right to be concerned about it, but the government are so terrified of "racism" and politically incorrect they might as well hand the baton to extremist nationalists. And the worse part is that multiculturalism and tolerance are considered the enemy.
As I've said, really, I've no mercy for idiots who perpetuate "everything is fine" and then try to smooth it over by arresting and silencing people saying it isn't. Just ask Merkel and her quips to Facebook.
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Apparently the Crying TinTin that an artist has drawn in response to the attacks is being called Racist already. Yeah, just like Je suis Charlie. Kinda getting sick of hearing stuff like this.
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Yeah, took me a while to consider whether I bother responding here.
First of all, call me racist all you want. On the questions on why do I employ black humor to this incident is because that's the most reasonable reaction to the stupidity unfolding. Additionally, making political leaders look laughable is the last thing they want.
What it comes to no-go-zones, you'll find plenty of them in Sweden, Belgium and France. One is forming in Eastern Helsinki too. It's also a first time I'm hearing the argument they would not exist. Do not exist, like really? Go travel there yourself then, it should not be a problem. Better yet, go live there yourself and do not ask other people to tolerate (and pay) things for you. I'm sure you can make a big difference on arbitrating between the local immigrant community and the natives living there.
What it comes to other arguments such as "studies have shown that when the income disparity and socio-economic status are corrected, the refugees and immigrants obey law better than natives", pretty much all I can say is: :lol: :lol: :lol:
I do not understand how this kind of study can first of all satisfy any kind of scientific scrutiny, and how arguments such as those could possibly be accepted in peer-reviewed papers. And I have reviewed some myself so I'm actually aware of the process. No doubt the quality of peer reviewing has gone downhill in the last decade, but then again, self irony is an art in itself.
So what's the logical problem in the study? Well, in Physics you can reduce or remove certain factors from the observed results and can expect the effect to work. This is because a large fraction of things in nature are really deterministic. Unfortunately what I see in the above is a generalization of something like a reference measurement in Physics being applied to something like Social Studies. Unfortunately, it does NOT work like that. What you have a statistical process, and applying similar kind of deterministic reduction is actually not possible there at all. I'm also sort of surprised that I need to explain this, since that should really be self-evident. Then again, the Humanistic Sciences never were that good with Maths or Statistics (neither are Physicists but we know that). You'd actually need a reference to do this, but that reference cannot exist as people are individual and not cloned. In any other scenario, you're faced with a number of variable you cannot possibly control, enter the statistics.
So what you have are really only the statistical facts. The undisputed facts there are that people with Middle Eastern origin (arrived early 2000s) are 20 times more likely to commit violent crimes than the natives. Additionally, they are also like 6 times more likely to hit unemployment (17 % of Iraqis are employed, Finnish average 75 %, topped by Nepalese at 85 %, these being Finnish statistics). These are hard facts. Now what I'm seeing is an attempt to explain that these people would have a potential to be something had they been given a different start. It could, or could not happen, but it doesn't take away the fact that the people are here and now with their actual background.
Additionally, it is disheartening to see the happy integration songs being sung once again when the actual integration results are lacking in the EU. France, Sweden and UK come to mind first. People are really quick to point that the natives in the countries are preventing the happy integration being racistic, yet this applies a double-standard towards the refugees/immigrants. They are apparently incapable of wrong doing, (it is really considered as if they were autistic), like being racistic themselves (which is evidenced by rising Anti-Semitism in Sweden). So is it really so that EVERY European country where a substantial amount of immigrants have flowed is racistic by nature, or is it so that the immigrants do not want to integrate themselves? I don't actually believe EU nations being racistic from what I've seen - there's plenty of people from all over the globe are successful in these countries, so I'm inclined to believe that the implied racism is actually a minor thing, and the far bigger thing are the attitudes of the immigrants themselves.
The next question you'll have to ask is whether there is really a difference on the people arriving to the US and the EU. There is, as demonstrated in the earlier thread by MP-Ryan. North American countries actually employ a much more stringent border control (and yes, felt that personally, I need to travel to the US next week - again). There's no screening in Europe, and what we are actually seeing here are the refugees lying their name, lying their age, lying their education and lying their occupation. Great start in a culture that respects honesty, I've to say - had they said sheep herder I'd value that actually far better. If we were to believe all they said, a substantial amount of Iraqi police force is actually residing in this country. When tested in reality, the results are appalling: 75 % of the immigrants that tried to answer to the questionnaire could not read (study performed in a couple of reception centers), and those who could had substantial difficulty filling out a form in their own NATIVE language. While it could be argued that the sampling is not cohesive of the 30 000 arrived persons (actually 22 000, 8 000 have left, next winter is likely going to halve remainder), the counter argument is that the people arrived randomly and were divided randomly to different reception centers.
Interestingly, it also seems that the number of actually highly educated people is greater in earlier countries in the refugees path. If I didn't know better, I'd expect the EU countries in south have done some cherry picking of the immigrants themselves and then complain to us of not dealing with current bunch properly. So we are faced with a bunch of 30-40 year old illiterate people here who cannot possibly be of any use to Finnish society. Why? We have 600 000 unemployed of our own already. The only way I can see immigrants could possibly contribute is that the legalization was changed, but then you are actually favoring those immigrants over the 600 000 unemployed people who HAVE paid their taxes, making it positive discrimination. Not a good idea, nor is it morally sound. This is actually the root cause of "racism" you'll see in the Nordic Countries. But guess what? The unemployed natives also get flak for living on welfare and not contributing.
This begs the question why is the immigration to the EU countries so much hoped for by the politicians? The only rational answer I can think of is the dwindling birth rates in the EU countries. You could say "because we want to be nice" as a reason, but that doesn't actually hold any water. Whenever we are accepting refugees entering illegally, you are taking away those who were applying through the existing process. That process had a better control over the people coming here. Now that we have had 33 % of the people applying for asylum returning back to where they came from, effectively it means that there was a significant abuse of the asylum practices. Not once have I heard anything being said about this. Instead what I'm hearing is that the Lutheran church is protecting those who get a negative decision on the asylum. "Protecting those who got a NEGATIVE decision on their asylum application", and here I thought the laws should be applied to everybody. And once again Finns are burning the wooden churches, likely pre-emptively (this happened in Easter).
And now to the birth rates issue; statistical fact is that the immigrant population indeed has greater birth-rates than natives. We have also seen that 2 to 3 generations is not ENOUGH to integrate Middle Eastern origin people to the EU countries. So while I've no doubt we could integrate the Middle Eastern population over time, my question is how long does that take? I'm expecting well over hundred years, and the birth rates are higher also due to practices I'd consider really to lie in the gray zone to say the least for those easily offended. So what is not said is that the immigrants will start to affect the EU policies, whether you like it or not. Some of their culture will be integrated to the EU level decision making, and you'll have to deal with it in the future.
Question that I'm asking myself is why do I need to tell you this.
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What it comes to other arguments such as "studies have shown that when the income disparity and socio-economic status are corrected, the refugees and immigrants obey law better than natives", pretty much all I can say is: :lol: :lol: :lol:
I do not understand how this kind of study can first of all satisfy any kind of scientific scrutiny, and how arguments such as those could possibly be accepted in peer-reviewed papers. And I have reviewed some myself so I'm actually aware of the process. No doubt the quality of peer reviewing has gone downhill in the last decade, but then again, self irony is an art in itself.
Moreover, you can use the exact same science and come to a very different interpretation about that should be done. For example, even if we assume that differences in criminality are caused by socio-economic differences (a huge assumption indeed), then naturally the next question is why the hell is the immigration so weakly regulated that we import poverty? So either way, it comes down to the need to tighten immigration policy, IMHO.. Socio-economic differences can probably explain some differences in criminality, but they do not explain them away.
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(a huge assumption indeed)
This is, in fact, the real problem with attempting to research the situation. Sometimes, sooner or later, every study makes "a huge assumption" that it then takes for absolutely true. You can easily prove two opposite arguments using the same data if you pick your "huge assumptions" correctly. This is why I seldom put much stock in social sciences. On a rare occasion they don't screw up their methodology (I remember reading an article somewhere that social experiments have a terrible reproducability rates), they assume far more than a physicist could ever get away with.
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What it comes to no-go-zones, you'll find plenty of them in Sweden, Belgium and France. One is forming in Eastern Helsinki too. It's also a first time I'm hearing the argument they would not exist. Do not exist, like really? Go travel there yourself then, it should not be a problem. Better yet, go live there yourself and do not ask other people to tolerate (and pay) things for you. I'm sure you can make a big difference on arbitrating between the local immigrant community and the natives living there.
Why don't you do that yourself then? Show us these no go zones. Bring a bodycam!
Or, you know, Listen to the people that live there (http://www.nrc.nl/next/2015/11/23/is-belgie-een-mislukte-staat-1559642). The relevant bit: "Ook socioloog Dirk Jacobs, eveneens verbonden aan de VUB, signaleert dat de kritiek flink binnenkomt in België. „Aan mensen die Brussel niet kennen heb ik eindeloos moeten uitleggen dat Molenbeek geen jihadistennest is, of een no-go-zone waar je niet over straat kunt.” De socioloog is ervan geschrokken hoe gemakkelijk zo’n grim en ongenuanceerd beeld van België de wereld over gaat. En hoe moeilijk het is dat vervolgens bij te stellen."
Okay, you don't speak dutch (which is a shame as it's a cool language). Lemme try to translate, or use google translate on the entire article:
Dirk Jacobs too notes that the critique hits hard: "I have to endlessly explain to people that do not know Brussel that Molenbeek is not a Jihadists' nest, or a no-go zone where you can not cross the street." The sociologist was shockd by how easily such a grim and unnuanced view on Belgium crosses the world, and how hard it is to adjust this view now that it's there.
Thing is, you really don't have to tell us anything. But I'd really prefer it when you'd stop lying.
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"Show us these no go zones."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42jpuXJPk0w&t=154
/*shrug*/
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"Show us these no go zones."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42jpuXJPk0w&t=154
/*shrug*/
Considering what has already been said in this thread, previous threads, by steven emerson, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Emerson#Comments_on_Fox_News_about_Birmingham.2C_England_and_Paris.2C_France) A swedish local newspaper (http://www.thelocal.se/20160201/sex-attacks-and-radical-racism-are-not-the-new-norm-in-sweden), who has helpfully provided us with the actual no go zones (http://www.thelocal.se/20160204/the-eight-real-no-go-zones-in-stockholm) as well as some interesting states that do undercut a few talking points, I have much doubts about the validity of that report.
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So you've linked to an American jackass who was proven to be wrong, a Swedish piece that vaguely assures us that Sweden isn't a Muslim rape capital, and a joke article and you expect that to convince me that an Australian report showing convincing evidence that hostile migrant enclaves do in fact exist is bull****? I've been saying this for months now and I'll say it again: until the left can actually take the social issues caused by immigration seriously they are going to feed the radical nationalist right more and more people, because they're the only political group that do.
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Your argument would be more convincing if it did not provide a false dichotomy between "social issues are not acknowledged" and "they ****ing murder people here because they're muslims and nobody can do anything about it".
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Please go away until you're willing to make some effort to speak in good faith.
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Please go away until you're willing to make some effort to speak in good faith.
Same to you. You responded in absolute bad faith by making that very argument in response to -Joshua-'s assertion that the no-go zones are not a thing, then immediately leaping to how the fact they might be means people are not taking social issues seriously. There's a lot of ground to cover between those two assertions; you're arguing a pattern of behavior without bothering to demonstrate it and using an extremely marginal single case instead.
I mean, I don't know, maybe there was a brillant midpoint between those in your head, but it's sure as **** not in your post.
EDIT: And even if there was, you've still kind of skipped the necessary step three, which is rather than merely asserting that far-right is acknowledging these problems and therefore people go to them, actually laying out some kind of case for how this is so. Even if they are acknowledging them, that's no guarantee anyone will listen to their proposed remedies or agree with them beyond acknowledgement.
There's a lot of "and then a miracle occurs!" in this equation you want us to believe. You don't seem to understand it's there.
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I have much doubts about the validity of that report.
It is a video, we can see the incident with our own eyes, so what is there to doubt? Unless you think it was paid actors, but then I find that very unlikely..
As I said before, if by no-go zone you mean an area where natives and police do not dare to go, then those dont exist (yet). But if by no go zone we merely mean a muslim ghetto, an area where they cause disproportionate amount of crime and where it may not be a good idea to go alone if you are a scantily clad woman or a Jew, then those zones do exist. And that alone is enough to be considered a huge social problem, IMHO.
"I have to endlessly explain to people that do not know Brussel that Molenbeek is not a Jihadists' nest or a no-go zone where you can not cross the street."
The assassination of the Afghan anti-Taliban commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, immediately before the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001; the train bombings in Madrid in 2004; and the killing of four people at the Brussels Jewish Museum in 2014. And just this year the foiled shooting on a high-speed train, the anti-terrorist raid in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers, the attack on a Paris kosher supermarket and, finally, the Nov. 13 attacks on the French capital — all had some connection to Molenbeek.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/opinion/molenbeek-belgiums-jihad-central.html?_r=0
Sounds like a Jihadist nest to me. But then maybe I am not used to the new normal in western Europe, where having multiple Jihadists coming from a single neighbourhood is considered business as usual, lol..
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So you've linked to an American jackass who was proven to be wrong, a Swedish piece that vaguely assures us that Sweden isn't a Muslim rape capital, and a joke article and you expect that to convince me that an Australian report showing convincing evidence that hostile migrant enclaves do in fact exist is bull****? I've been saying this for months now and I'll say it again: until the left can actually take the social issues caused by immigration seriously they are going to feed the radical nationalist right more and more people, because they're the only political group that do.
Sorry, how did this australian report show "convincing evidence"? It said something about 55 no go areas which it links to migrants, but the swedish report on which this is based (https://www.polisen.se/Global/www%20och%20Intrapolis/Rapporter-utredningar/01%20Polisen%20nationellt/Ovriga%20rapporter-utredningar/Kriminella%20natverk%20med%20stor%20paverkan%20i%20lokalsamhallet%20Sekretesspr%2014.pdf) said the following:
"I Sverige finns i nuläget 55 geografiska områden där lokala kriminella nätverk anses ha negativ påverkan på lokalsamhället." -> "Currently in Sweden there are 55 geographic areas where local criminal networks are considered to have a negative impact on the local community".
There is no mention of migrants or islam at all, nor any mention of "No go areas", it just mentions that it has issues with local criminals. This is not a new phenonom, nor is it a phenonom exclusive to sweden or indeed any european nation. Therein lies the problem with your stance on this: The conclusion you draw is correct in the sense that "if these things exist and hte left is not doing anything about them, then the left is ignoring them and thus deserves backlash" - but the problem is that they don't exist in the way you seem to believe they do. People have been claiming that these zones exist in Belgium, France, the UK and Sweden, and in every statement (http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/nogozones.asp) they have to be continously (http://www.vox.com/2015/1/16/7553975/fox-no-go-zones) debunked. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-14/debunking-the-muslim-nogo-zone-myth)
But to summarize those last links, the confusion with "No go zones" in france is that there are indeed areas in france that are designated as "Sensitive urban zones". These zones are not muslim enclaves where the french won't go, but rather areas that France recognizes have been volatile in the past (remember those riots?), and have been targeted for urban renewal. In short, the right wing media has managed to spin French politicians designating areas as having a social issue and investing money into doing something about it as politicians ignoring the issues caused by immigration. This is complete bull****, but as usual it takes ten times more energy to debunk bull**** then to create bull****, esp. when the people who you throw the bull**** at don't speak your language and in general just don't give a **** about your bull****.
EDITed for more linkage.
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The insane claims that there are a bunch of Sharia microstates embedded in every European city are bull**** and keep getting rightfully rebutted, but that's not really what I'm concerned about. In Northern Ireland there were, and still are to an extent, enclaves of communities so hostile to the police that they would avoid operating there when possible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-go_area#Northern_Ireland); I can absolutely believe, in a climate where certain Islamic communities in Europe are so radicalised that thousands of people have gone to fight with ISIS, that similar zones exist. And after the extreme chilling effect that the establishment response to the Cologne attacks demonstrated, I can absolutely believe that official, public reports on them would euphemise in terms of "local criminal networks" having a "negative impact".
I just don't know who to believe any more. It seems clear to me by now that Islamic immigration and integration into Europe has resulted in a hateful, bloody failure, and something needs to radically change; yet all I ever here are voices like yours telling me loudly that everything's fine, it's all under control, and screaming nationalists telling me that we have to send all the bastards back to Iraq.
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What you are dealing with here is in my opinion a byproduct of the after-WWII legislation, specifically regarding nationalism and racism in Germany, and the integration policy of the EU. Since Germany holds a significant fraction of power due to the recent economical crisis, it can enforce some of its own publication policies elsewhere in the EU. The integration policy itself is a bigger player if you ask me; the idea is to make the EU more united on the national level. Unfortunately, the healthy nationalism and right wing ideas were ridiculed for a number of years in the media, and now that there is a substantial number of people saying the immigration policies do not work, the media is challenged and faces believability issues. The side effect of this effective suppression was the rise of ultra-right wing nationalism, which is what you see now, and rest assured that you are not the only one who has been trying to explain the effect to the left leaning people. And no, I don't have scientific proof for this, this is just what I thought would happen.
All I can say is make up your own mind. You don't have to believe anyone telling you what to do. These are free countries and you are free to act any way you'd like within the bounds of legalization.
Moreover, I can actually speak Swedish - Dutch is a bit too far from Deutsch and svenska to be understandable to me. From the Finnish perspective, the Swedish media has been downplaying and using euphenisms for quite a long time on what it comes to integration policies. When you compare the nationalities in the Nordic Countries, Swedes are the most tolerant; culturally Swedish value the common discussion between participants and tend to continue negotiations until everybody is satisfied. Based on that, I can understand why Sweden is now facing the biggest pressure, up to the point their prime minister admitted the country has been naive with respect to the immigration issues at the end of the last year.
Culturally, a substantial fraction of the Finns will not understand the usage of euphenisms in the same way as Central Europeans (usage of euphenisms tend to get considered as derogatory). Instead dysphemisms are often employed to make things sound harsher than they are. This is something what I tend to talk with expat-Finns, branding that cultural part as Clear Finnish CommunicationTM. But hey, at least the point gets across. Some people will inevitably get offended (and some will laugh), but hey, at least you'll then know their cultural tolerances then. Which is very useful information indeed.
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Additionally, the question I'm asking is the role of racism towards the immigrants.
The root cause for this question are two things I've picked up during my travels. I'll start with a simple question: what is the most integrating country in the world, historically speaking? If your answer is the USA, you are wrong. A better answer would be China. The country's been taken over by several regional players (Manchus, Mongols etc.) during the time, and every single time China has reversed the situation, absorbed and integrated it all. When I talked about this with the Chinese and compared that with the US saying of melting pot, they were actually laughing. When I pressed forwards with that, they said USA does not have the history of actually integrating people there. Which made me wonder what "integration" actually meant in this context - seemed more like absorption in the Chinese context.
The second thing I noted is that since I'm slightly off from a normal Chinese person, every shop I visited had a different pricing for me. One could argue that this is racism, but I tend to think that is more "let's cheat the daft foreigner off his money!" No, I don't attribute that to racism, it's just business to me. Then again I did meet some of the Chinese racism (big nose and all that jizz), but that's partially to be expected. The combined effect of them both is actually an interesting social pressure, where you silently, over the time, conform to the norms of the society.
Which again made me think some of the responses towards the immigrants here. Right now I'm wondering about the role of racism (or perceived racism) in the integration process itself. For me it actually seems that those societies that do exert social pressure towards the minorities have actually integrated the minorities better (or driven them off, but that's another thing). You could call the pressure racism, or you could call the pressure "show us you are actually contributing", and I suspect the interpretation is different depending who is receiving it.
Now that would make an interesting Social study, but I sort of suspect that the topic is too hot.
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yet all I ever here are voices like yours telling me loudly that everything's fine, it's all under control
I have not told you this. Did you miss my talks about how France and Belgium had and still have serious issues? My point is not that there is no issue with immigration policies, but rather that immigration issues are symptoms of far bigger issues that plague contemporary politics. Remember those designated trouble zones in Paris? They were designated in 1996. The Banlieu are an issue not so much because of the composition of immigrants but because french politicians have simply let the area rot. Living in a flat whose elevator has been broken for 20 years is not a social stabilizer. France, as a country, is getting more and more broken, facing rising poverty, unemployment and suicide rates. Belgium suffers from a similar problem in that it is segregated to the point that it is broken politically. There used to be 19 different police districts in Brussel. Now there are six. There should really be one - One can not effectively police a borough when one is actually six. The country's federal politics are more busy with defining what is dutch and what is french and stuck in a cultural divide.
And off course this is giving rise to the nationalists! The nationalists see a complex but broken situation and offer a simple answer, similarily to how Trump can rise in the US by seeing a complex system failing and blaming the mexicans for it. Blaming the migrants is easy, but people see the biggest issues with migrants because migrants are the weakest people in society who still have a clear distinct voice.
My point has never been that everything is fine and everything is under control. My point is simply that we can get issues under control in a way that is ultimately more efficient and empathic then the Trump solution.
The insane claims that there are a bunch of Sharia microstates embedded in every European city are bull**** and keep getting rightfully rebutted, but that's not really what I'm concerned about. In Northern Ireland there were, and still are to an extent, enclaves of communities so hostile to the police that they would avoid operating there when possible; I can absolutely believe, in a climate where certain Islamic communities in Europe are so radicalised that thousands of people have gone to fight with ISIS, that similar zones exist. And after the extreme chilling effect that the establishment response to the Cologne attacks demonstrated, I can absolutely believe that official, public reports on them would euphemise in terms of "local criminal networks" having a "negative impact".
Right, that's fair, although I would say that these things are not at all dissimilar to issues that the US faces, and when it comes down to it it's not the community that radicalises terrorists persé. When you look at interviews with people who live in the same flat as people who were arrested for terrorism in the wake of the paris and brussels attacks the story you hear is always the same "They were isolated people talking to a few others we never knew". It's not so much that the community is radicalized, but rather that the community has so little social cohesion (which, yes, is partly an immigration issue) that there's simply nothing holding people back (and it's not like there's thousands living inside one community - there's hundreds spread all over europe). Is there not a similar story with perpetrators of a mass shooting or other form of domestic terrorism in the US?
Northern Ireland is an interesting case but you know what it took for those communities to form. I have absolutely no doubts that areas can become hostile to the police, but I have seen ways where, for example, the dutch managed to de-escalate that (And that was not so much a case of hostility but rahter a case of people not relying on the cops to solve issues that the cops are best equipped to solve) and heck the British managed to de-escalate that and they had a LOT more on their hands.
But I do think that when the Swedish police talk about 55 areas that they have trouble policing (becuase otherwise there wouldn't be criminal networks obv.), they don't avoid talking about the specifics because they want to be euphamistic - these reports predate Cologne - but rather that they don't have a whole lot of specifics and are investigating. The E has talked about the establishment's response to Cologne before. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91346.msg1811493#msg1811493)
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The issue here remains that you are, as far as I can tell, unreasonably dismissing immigration as a particular, major contributor to 'the bigger issue'. Yes, poverty and deprivation are massive problems, yes I want them fixed, yes I think the nationalists who pretend deporting everyone with a funny skin colour and accent will make everything better are awful con artists. But poverty and deprivation alone don't account for the attacks in Paris and Brussels, or the sexual assaults in Cologne. These both seem to be specifically due to immigration and integration of certain Islamic populations, and to merit urgent, specific action to fix the underlying causes. I believe and hope that that action can be efficient and empathic, but I can't see it coming from a left wing which seems to mostly concern itself with attacking reactionary nationalism and hand-waving about how we just need to fix the real underlying problem.
This quote from the aftermath of Cologne (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35248601) sums up, I think, the most despicable extremes of that attitude:
What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chatrooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women.
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Additionally, the question I'm asking is the role of racism towards the immigrants.
The root cause for this question are two things I've picked up during my travels. I'll start with a simple question: what is the most integrating country in the world, historically speaking? If your answer is the USA, you are wrong. A better answer would be China. The country's been taken over by several regional players (Manchus, Mongols etc.) during the time, and every single time China has reversed the situation, absorbed and integrated it all.
Yeah so your history is bad.
It has nothing to do with China and everything to do with the people who took it over, who weren't empire builders. They were conquerors. They did not build new infrastructures or governments; they made existing ones swear fealty to them. If the Chinese had been conquered by the Romans...yeah, good luck with this.
This also ignores China's long history of an inability to cope with trying to integrate Korea into it, or their total inability to effectively influence the Japanese despite a strong cultural similiarity that has marked Japanese and Chinese interactions since at least the 10th Century, or their strategy for integration basically being colonialism in the model of how the British colonized the Americas by sending in their own people until they could outnumber and disenfranchise the natives and eventually drive them out or rendering them a shrinking underclass. (Which isn't actually integration; it's extermination in slow motion.)
So China has about as much history of successful integration as the UK did before the 1900s.
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The issue here remains that you are, as far as I can tell, unreasonably dismissing immigration as a particular, major contributor to 'the bigger issue'. Yes, poverty and deprivation are massive problems, yes I want them fixed, yes I think the nationalists who pretend deporting everyone with a funny skin colour and accent will make everything better are awful con artists. But poverty and deprivation alone don't account for the attacks in Paris and Brussels, or the sexual assaults in Cologne. These both seem to be specifically due to immigration and integration of certain Islamic populations, and to merit urgent, specific action to fix the underlying causes. I believe and hope that that action can be efficient and empathic, but I can't see it coming from a left wing which seems to mostly concern itself with attacking reactionary nationalism and hand-waving about how we just need to fix the real underlying problem.
You are right, poverty and deprivation don't alone account for the attacks in Paris and Brussels, but they are issues that already lie within the framework of what a state can handle. A similar thing was true for cologne: Those gangs were already known to the police before the attacks happened - And decisive, specific actions were taken when the next big event took place.
And mabye I am misexplaining myself here: I think that if you fix a lot of poverty and deprivation you already go a very long way into fixing immigration issues and vice versa, because they are all part of this ... bigger package. Did I not mention social cohesion in my previous post?
But I think you are mistaken when you think that urgent specific action can fix immigration of islamic populations. The immigrant muslims in the netherlands, for example, were low income workers that were imported into the country on the behest of companies seeking cheap labour in the 1960s. The perpetrators of both Cologne, Brussels and Paris are people of the second generation of immigrants: Raised by immigrant parents in a foreign system who had counted on them to return to their country of origin. In part there are issues there: Your succes in society is heavily dependant on what your parents can give you, and your parents can give you very little when they don't speak the native language. But that's a process that takes years to fix, in a similar sense that the social status of black people in the US is still affected by things that happened 50 years ago (although the issues there were obviously very different but bear with me here). As an immigrant, you can handle the issues you face if you have the time and resources to deal with them. If you are poor, you can handle those issues because you know who to talk to. If you are both poor and an immigrant you have both few resources and not the knowledge to effeciently spend those resources - and then you have to take care of your kids too! If you can fix all that you will not immediately see improvement, but rather improvement in years down the line.
When I talk about this bigger issue is that these issues were already known in the 90s but there's issues in french and belgian politics that ensure that all of those things that show neglect, Poverty, deprevation and lack of social cohesion (in which immigration plays a very big role!), were not dealt with. The 'bigger issue' is that the political system leads to inaction. It's very similar to the refugee crisis in that way (which was known to have happened since 2010).
But now that I think about it, there is an issue that is very specific to muslims in this case:
Because when you are a muslim living in an impoverished neighbourhood in a world that is becoming increasingly hostile towards you for your beliefs or for reasons you know have nothing to do with you, and you turn on the news and see afghanis being bombed, you see palestinian protestors being shot for throwing rocks, you see people like trump and Geert Wilders and Pegida, you see refugees being treated like ****, it's very easy to draw the destructive conclusion: The west, the country you live in, is sending a simple message: "Muslim lives do not matter".
Try to debunk that one! Try to debunk that to someone who lives in an area that is completely neglected by contemporary politics. Try to debunk that in a world where Israel is treating the Palestinians in a way that echoes nazi lebensraum policies. Try to debunk that in a world where the west claims the greatness of democracy yet supports dictators in the middle-east both financially and militarily. Try to debunk that when all countries fall over themselves when they run away from the promises they made after the second world war now that there are muslims involved. When you are already in a bad case that's the point that starts to push you over the edge - that's where ISIS's promises and propaganda start making sense. And whilst I know it's not true, it's not really like I can completely blame them. It's a very galling perspective.
In the end though, that is something that happens when people start reaching a certain breaking point. A state is far better at preventing people from reaching that breaking point then looking at what happens after that breaking point has been reached.
This quote from the aftermath of Cologne sums up, I think, the most despicable extremes of that attitude:
I do think that a german minister has cause to be concerned. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/neo-nazi-plot-to-attack-refugee-centre-with-explosives-and-knives-foiled-by-police-in-germany-a6706447.html)
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'Having cause to be concerned' is a very different thing to literally, outright saying that "German right-wingers saying hateful things online is as bad as or worse than gangs of Muslim men sexually assaulting women". You want to try to debunk something, try to debunk the notion that Western progressives have a vested interest in downplaying that violence. Much like the notion that the West hates Muslims so much that they might as well throw their lives away fighting for an apocalyptic theocracy, you're going to have to; otherwise the entire moral foundation of your political stance will collapse.
Reading through your post, you don't seem to assign much agency to these immigrant people; you see them entirely reactive to Western actions. I don't think this is enough; I don't think you can understand ISIS, say, as just a reaction, and I don't think you can effectively make them go away by undoing whatever action you perceive as causing them.
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So there are two proposed solutions to this problem - one coming from the right is tightening immigration, a concrete and relatively simple to do thing, and the other coming from the left is some vague solving of poverty and muslim disconnect from society, blah blah. As if Europe is not already the most inclusive and wealthy place on the planet, but whatever. I am sure solution number one is much more effective and realistic.
There is also another important thing - this is not the US, right wing in Europe is not opposed to having social programs and the like for poor and immigrants. I dont believe anyone on the right would complain loudly if you treat immigrants well and help them integrate. If they want to try, good for them, I wish them luck! The opposite is not true - try to propose restricting immigration and the left will try their best to block that solution. Even tough it can coexist with their own efforts with no problem.
If you dont want to be part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
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'Having cause to be concerned' is a very different thing to literally, outright saying that "German right-wingers saying hateful things online is as bad as or worse than gangs of Muslim men sexually assaulting women". You want to try to debunk something, try to debunk the notion that Western progressives have a vested interest in downplaying that violence. Much like the notion that the West hates Muslims so much that they might as well throw their lives away fighting for an apocalyptic theocracy, you're going to have to; otherwise the entire moral foundation of your political stance will collapse.
Reading through your post, you don't seem to assign much agency to these immigrant people; you see them entirely reactive to Western actions. I don't think this is enough; I don't think you can understand ISIS, say, as just a reaction, and I don't think you can effectively make them go away by undoing whatever action you perceive as causing them.
"German right wingers saying hateful things online" is not the issue here. You can criticize german ministers for downplaying violence (even though you would be wrong) but to dismiss the rhetoric that is leading to terrorist attacks as "German right wingers saying hateful things online" is in itself a massive downplaying of the issue in an enviroment where the NSU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Underground) (no, not the car company) existed. Sexual assault (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Germany) is a huge issue in Germany as well, but the fascists frame this as a migrant only problem and use that rhetoric to justify attacks on migrants and migrant centers which now occur on a daily basis. (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35633318) That too is an issue. The attacks on women are an issue. The attacks on migrants are also an issue. They are both repugnant. They are both the result of various complicated circumstances that have to be dealt with en-masse.
And no, off course I am not assigning much agency to immigrants: Our contemporary political systems have *far* more agency then individual migrants. Or individual citizens for that matter - People are shaped much more by the world around them then they can shape themselves.
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What PH meant was that you're framing islamic terror purely in terms of it being a reaction to western politics. Which is fair enough, the mistakes we made in this regard are a huge factor in how this is playing out, but it's not the whole story.
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What PH meant was that you're framing islamic terror purely in terms of it being a reaction to western politics. Which is fair enough, the mistakes we made in this regard are a huge factor in how this is playing out, but it's not the whole story.
What can we, as western nations, do about the things that are not the results of western politics?
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in an abstract sense, if they are good, we can embrace them, if they are bad we can defend against them either by isolating ourselves from them or destroying them.
but acting like bad things are good things is certainly not a wise course of action.
what do other people in non-western parts of the world do about things that are the results of western politics?
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If you dont want to be part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
In which case you've just argued why the right should just give in and do what the left want. Since you've already established that there is no way in hell the left are going to do what the right want, the only solution that stands any chance of ever being implemented is the one the left want. You can argue that the restricting immigration solution is more effective all you like, but if it never happens it isn't effective at all. So given that we have a solution that you admit yourself might work, which might be implemented and a solution you believe would work but will never be implemented there can only ever be one choice.
So throw open your countries borders and start working on integration or you are part of the problem, right?
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If you dont want to be part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
In which case you've just argued why the right should just give in and do what the left want. Since you've already established that there is no way in hell the left are going to do what the right want, the only solution that stands any chance of ever being implemented is the one the left want. You can argue that the restricting immigration solution is more effective all you like, but if it never happens it isn't effective at all. So given that we have a solution that you admit yourself might work, which might be implemented and a solution you believe would work but will never be implemented there can only ever be one choice.
So throw open your countries borders and start working on integration or you are part of the problem, right?
You are assuming that just because the left opposes the more effective solution means it has no chance of ever being implemented. The right can gain political power at the expense of the left and implement it without their cooperation - the right is already gaining political power all over Europe. I am not 100% sure this is how things would unfold, but I am even less sure of the viability and success of the leftist solution, so working towards the right's goal is still the best course of action.
That does not mean we cannot try the leftist integration solution in the meantime/alongside - the two are pretty much orthogonal, we can do both at the same time.
Even when we were discussing this topic for the first time, I have stated that the ideal solution would be to seal the borders while at the same time to treat immigrants really well. But, we dont live in an ideal world, and if I can choose only one of those options, I choose the more effective one - seal the border.
And one more thing, European right is pretty tame and even if it gets to power and achieves its goals, Europe as a whole will still be among the most inclusive and integrative places on the planet for immigrants. I dont even know what more we could do that we arent already doing...
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Meanwhile, that same right (as personified by Charlie Hebdo) is doing their best to encourage people to see any accommodation of Islam, even its most liberal, secular strains, as being paramount to enabling and encouraging terrorism (As seen here (https://archive.is/OQRt0)).
That's just pure xenophobia, pure isolationism right there. It's the good old lie about how "PC culture means we can't ask hard questions about Islam" again (Never mind that dozens of those questions are asked every week, every month on newspaper covers, in editorials and other media); it's just grade A bull**** from people who think that segregationism is a really good idea, but can't bring themselves to don the swastika.
Meanwhile, societies that are held up as successful examples of national purity (for lack of a better term) like Japan are having exciting new problems due to their collapsing social security systems, like an incredible rate of senior citizens being caught shoplifting because their pensions are way below the minimum necessary to live (https://www.rt.com/news/338209-elderly-crime-stupidity-keiser/). If that's the world you want to build, go ahead. Personally, I'd want to find ways around those issues, and courting immigration to get the age pyramid balanced again seems like a really good idea.
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And no, off course I am not assigning much agency to immigrants: Our contemporary political systems have *far* more agency then individual migrants. Or individual citizens for that matter - People are shaped much more by the world around them then they can shape themselves.
I really disagree with this, integration is 90% immigrant doing, 10% society doing. Do you think there would be much problems if instead of middle eastern muslims we were getting lets say, mass immigration of Jews or east Asians into Europe? No, there wouldnt be. In fact, both of those immigrant minorities tend to actually outperform the natives when it comes to crime rates or economic output, both in western and eastern Europe. So, while the role of society and political systems is important, there is a certain quality associated with an immigrant population itself that is even more decisive about integration. I dunno, this factor may be a result of parenting, immigrant peers, their cultural and religious baggage, traditional way of life and values, or even *gasp* genetics.. but this intrinsic factor exists and outweights the influence of political system and the like.
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Meanwhile, societies that are held up as successful examples of national purity (for lack of a better term) like Japan are having exciting new problems due to their collapsing social security systems, like an incredible rate of senior citizens being caught shoplifting because their pensions are way below the minimum necessary to live (https://www.rt.com/news/338209-elderly-crime-stupidity-keiser/). If that's the world you want to build, go ahead. Personally, I'd want to find ways around those issues, and courting immigration to get the age pyramid balanced again seems like a really good idea.
That is not the world that I want to build, but it is a world I would choose as a lesser evil. Your balanced age pyramid will be useless if it is balanced by a population with various integration problems. Then the net economic benefits will be quite underwhelming, if not even zero, while also leading to lots of other social problems. Thanks, but Id rather take my chances will demographic contraction.. perhaps go the way of AI and robotics to substitute the missing labor.
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yeah, clearly the solution is to give up on the whole overpopulation thing and just have as many kids as possible, then when we have too many flood them into some other part of the world.
I mean it's not like part of the reason no one has kids in the west is that there is not enough employment to afford them or anything.
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I mean it's not like part of the reason no one has kids in the west is that there is not enough employment to afford them or anything.
I wouldnt be so sure, as far as I know wealthier and employed people tend to have even fewer children. Demographic-economic paradox is just weird...
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or having fewer children tends to make you wealthier.
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you know I just had a thought. It's going to be real funny when anti-gay/anti-women's rights/pro-religious/anti-science political leaders start getting elected in europe because of all of the new voters that have just been imported from the global equivalent of the American deep south.
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That hasn't happened in the past 50 years, doubt it's going to change now.
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you know I just had a thought. It's going to be real funny when anti-gay/anti-women's rights/pro-religious/anti-science political leaders start getting elected in europe because of all of the new voters that have just been imported from the global equivalent of the American deep south.
Oh, it is funny already :D In France, gays are significantly overrepresented among Front National voters. For a normal progressive-left party, this should be a huge embarrassment. Gays having to vote "far-right" to feel represented! Not so for modern western European regressive Left, who will readily choose to sacrifice secularism, womens rights and LGBT rights on the altar of multiculturalism, if required.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/01/how-marine-le-pen-is-winning-frances-gay-vote/
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That hasn't happened in the past 50 years
That's what makes it funny, the fact it never could have possibly happened without the recent demographic altering levels of immigration.
and I forgot anti-jew in my list.
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That hasn't happened in the past 50 years
That's what makes it funny, the fact it never could have possibly happened without the recent demographic altering levels of immigration.
There have been far more demographically altering levels of immigration before this, back when our various nations where importing workers. The Netherlands currently has almost 2 million people (out of 17) living in it that are either themselves immigrants or children of immigrants from non-western descent. That's a big number to demographically alter, you'd have to do something rash like settle the entirety of 2015s syrian refugees in the Netherlands - and since there's a million of those, you would have an impact, but not one to the level of voting people into power.
This is offcourse assuming that they'd vote for the kind of bigotry that drove them away from their home country in the first place which is... meh.
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doesn't have to be enough to elect someone on their own, just enough to push an existing candidate into a win, the rise of the right in europe caused as a reaction against immigration is also promoting this sort of thing, ironically.
Would be funny if the literal nazis and the muslims found agreement on a few issues and managed to make enough of a voting block to start getting candidates elected and started using the weakened state of freedom of expression (weakened to try and shut these very forces down) to start getting 'degenerate' art banned (etc).
I would laugh my ass off if that were to happen.
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doesn't have to be enough to elect someone on their own, just enough to push an existing candidate into a win,
Right. You'd first have to find such a candidate that ticks your checkboxes - none currently exist. Then, you'd have to manage to shift the election in such a way that that party would get something like 40 seats (Which is what the current leading party of the dutch parliament, the VVD, has) out of 150. Then, you'd have to get another party to agree with them enough that they are willing to form a coalition government which has atleast 76 seats in parliament. Or bypass that and ensure that your hypothetical party has 76 seats.
Then you'd have to move up, since implementing the changes you require also requires changing the constitution for which you need 100 out of the 150 seats. Then you'd have to do that all again next election since changes to the constitution can only be implemented after there has been another election.
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Would be funny if the literal nazis and the muslims found agreement on a few issues and managed to make enough of a voting block to start getting candidates elected and started using the weakened state of freedom of expression (weakened to try and shut these very forces down) to start getting 'degenerate' art banned (etc).
I would laugh my ass off if that were to happen.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-ataturk-in-the-nazi-imagination-by-stefan-ihrig-and-islam-and-nazi-germanys-war-by-david-motadel-1421441724
(It's behind a paywall, can't find a copy that's not with a quick Google search)
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Would be funny if the literal nazis and the muslims found agreement on a few issues and managed to make enough of a voting block to start getting candidates elected and started using the weakened state of freedom of expression (weakened to try and shut these very forces down) to start getting 'degenerate' art banned (etc).
I would laugh my ass off if that were to happen.
I'd similarly laugh my arse off if Trump's rhetoric made all the Mexican immigrants band together with the native Americans to kick all the white people out of America.
Doesn't mean it's going to happen though.
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Difference is any person can become a nazi or a muslim, whereas only indians and mexicans can be indians and mexicans.
But you know there IS a line of thinking that a Trump presidency will help foster a leftist revolution in the US that would be impossible while piecemeal trivial superficial changes are offered up.
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Difference is any person can become a nazi or a muslim, whereas only indians and mexicans can be indians and mexicans.
The thing is, when people talk about "Importing muslim voters" they are often treated as members of this massive humongous culture that spans from Marroco to Pakistan with immutable beliefs. This is simply not true: Islam is not an organized religion, it is merely a succession of imams who all have different interpretations of what they preach.
And sure, anyone can become a muslim, but anyone can stop being muslim too, and the current stats point towards the latter happening more then the former: Currently, in the Netherlands, 500 people convert to Islam each year. This is not much in a country where 1% of the population becomes atheïst each year, and where whilst there were 944000 muslims in 2005, there were 825000 in 2012.
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The thing is, when people talk about "Importing muslim voters" they are often treated as members of this massive humongous culture that spans from Marroco to Pakistan with immutable beliefs. This is simply not true: Islam is not an organized religion, it is merely a succession of imams who all have different interpretations of what they preach.
It is a very good approximation. Sure, there are more secular kinds of muslims, too, for example Turks, Balkan muslims, or maybe muslims from Lebanon or Iran. But you also do have this massive culture that spans from Morroco to Indonesia and is full of ultra-conservative types, from western point of view. Importing those is a clear mistake, if you value liberal values. And these ultraconservative countries of origin are prevalent in recent immigration waves.
And sure, anyone can become a muslim, but anyone can stop being muslim too, and the current stats point towards the latter happening more then the former: Currently, in the Netherlands, 500 people convert to Islam each year. This is not much in a country where 1% of the population becomes atheïst each year, and where whilst there were 944000 muslims in 2005, there were 825000 in 2012.
Source for your statistics? I believe Netherlands has relatively strict immigration policy as far as western European ones go, so your relative lack of a well developed muslim problem and even decreasing muslim population may be the result of that. Yet another evidence that strict immigration policy works. Also, Turks - according to my googling, whopping 38% of muslims in Netherlands are Turks. Those are the best kind of muslims. If you think that current Arab immigrant waves will integrate as good as Turkish muslims, then you are mistaken, IMHO. Similar thing holds for Germany, too.
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Those asking what I said from China, go and live there yourself. You'll likely note the conform or get outta here pressure. Not going to Japan or Korea, why should they have done that? China itself has been a collection of several states warring against each other, so any attempt to overextend ones military force results in the neighboring state grabbing the formed vacuum. Unified, it's the Central State between the Earth and Heaven right there after all - and in reality has currently its hands full dealing with the internal pressures that are completely on a different scale compared to typical Western powers. Chinese perspective on China and expansion is something you'll have to realize yourself, and is radically different from Western cultures. They don't need to, and if they can affect or subvert things by other means opposed to projecting force, they'll take the other means.
Meanwhile, those asking whether there is bias in the media, check the current EU non-binding report (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A8-2016-0021+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN) on learning the EU on the school levels. The meat of this stuff is under the topic "Role of the member states". Interpreted in Finnish mindset, points 41, 43 and 44 seem specifically worrisome. It is still as if the EU does not realize that the immigrants themselves should be willing to integrate - not all of that is done by the member states. So I'd call this extending the EU brainwashing from the nowadays media to the school levels in future. Remains to be seen whether the teachers comply, though...
It's astonishing how little cultural differences are generally recognized even between the Western EU and Eastern EU states, and the interesting part here which I also demonstrated in practicum in this forum is the difference between the expressions. If you paid attention with a critical mind, the Eastern Europeans were not offended and responded in a completely different manner which was missed completely by Westerners (because you'd need to know the more frequent usage of dysphenisms) and likely interpreted as "they're all racists!" The result is actually nothing new to me, and it's not the first time I've done this - thank you EU for letting me try these things before in the dinner tables (with me getting labelled as the Northern Barbarian in the beginning, but ending up as the smartest and coolest dude of the bunch). And I confess I've been an evil person with the Chinese as well, giving them an impossible task and asking them to solve it in a short time, forcing them to say "I can't" or "No" for an important cultural lesson of the differences between the host country and the country of origin as they discover the "No" was the factually correct and expected answer all along. This is integration in the Finnish terms. Welcome.
I suspect that the EU is too late reacting to the refugee crisis, this will likely end with the Schengen treaty breaking apart this summer. Additionally, this kind of teaching will not be received well here at the moment at least as the EU time has not been particularly rosy to say the least, with most of the bad things that the critical were saying have happened, while few of the positive things predicted having actually happened. I think we'll see a similar pattern once again with the refugees.
And what it comes to more strict response from Eastern Europeans with respect to immigration, you'll really have to understand these countries have seen mass immigration before, and realized the difference between moderate muslim refugees and current refugees before the EU did. Because of the proximity of Russia, these countries also have to pull an extra duty of guarding themselves, and it is the extend of this guarding which is not understood by the Western EU states. The Nordic countries are somewhat different as well, the main reason for people getting angry here is the abuse of the social security provided to the refugees with little critical insight. No-one has been able to show any kind of advantage for letting illiterate people in to a high-tech profiled country to begin with, and people are asking what's the return of investment of their taxes already on the domestic terms. But hey, Finland has also got our first suicide bomber, so how's that for the cultural enrichment? Looking for more on Finnish take on terrorism, look no further than this stand up routine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTnswqzXBHo).
Interesting statistics have also popped up. The Finnish police says they are monitoring about 300 persons of the 30 000 refugees that arrived here (22 000 remain), while Europol is saying they are monitoring roughly 5 000 persons. The ratio doesn't match up, assuming similar distribution of extremists, Europol should be monitoring +12 000 persons as there were 1.2 million asylum seekers in 2015. Or then the Finnish police is too eager to react (historically though they are not). Or then our refugees are different from Central European. Which could be the case. Central Europeans report lots of Syrians, while we haven't seen many here.
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Mika you realize that Karajorma has lived in China (and may still live there? I'm hazy on that part), right?
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Mika you realize that Karajorma has lived in China (and may still live there? I'm hazy on that part), right?
As an immigrant != foreigner working there. A foreigner just happening to do business / live in China for a while isn't the same as someone who would be trying to make China their new home, as they don't like their old one.
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Yep. I do live there. I've been living 7 years in China with the last 2 in a part of China which wasn't a part of China a thousand years ago. It has an ethnic population which used to be exclusively Naxi and Tibetan and now has a rather large Han Chinese population.
Mika's wrong, NGTM-1R is spot on. The Chinese integrate other territories by sending in Han people until they outnumber the original locals. I see it every day and the only reason I didn't comment earlier was because NGTM-1R made the point so eloquently for me.
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Mika's wrong, NGTM-1R is spot on. The Chinese integrate other territories by sending in Han people until they outnumber the original locals.
Sounds familiar, hmm...
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The combined population of both Syria and Iraq is (was) just over 55 million people. Even assuming that all of them are Muslim (they aren't), that all of them would flee the country (they won't), and that they all go to Europe (they haven't), you get a maximum increase of.... 7%.
Seven. ****ing. Percent. Of the population.
I really don't want to call you stupid, because you've demonstrated that you can actually have a conversation with someone, but your opinions and beliefs are pretty stupid sometimes.
China can force something like that because there are a billion and a half of them. Even if the entire Muslim world descended on Europe in a fantastic orgy of right wing nightmare fuel, they would still be worse at it than China.
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The ethnic areas are also generally poorer. Which means that any Han Chinese moving there tends to do better than they would in their own home town. The lower cost of living ensures that whatever money they have goes further initially. (I actually did this two years ago. I moved from the rich east coast to the much poorer south west and took a job that gave me less money but ended up considerably better off).
This would not be the case with Muslims moving to the West. Unless they are fleeing a war zone, they'd probably break even at best. Those who actually owned property wouldn't be able to buy anything in the West with the money they got from selling it.
Basically beyond every other reason, it's just simply not sensible for most of the people in the Muslim world.
Sounds familiar, hmm...
Yeah. It sounds like a plan on how to secularise Islam by getting Muslims to come to a Western country where they are outnumbered and slowly forced to accept other cultures and ways of thinking.
It doesn't sound like a way to take over the West cause only a moron could actually believe that would work.
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The combined population of both Syria and Iraq is (was) just over 55 million people. Even assuming that all of them are Muslim (they aren't), that all of them would flee the country (they won't), and that they all go to Europe (they haven't), you get a maximum increase of.... 7%.
You are assuming these people will be evenly spread out, which will simply not be true, there will be very strong clustering, you will get many areas where they form a local majority, effectively taking over the area. There are such areas even now, and under your scenario they would get much bigger (perhaps no longer just some city blocks but whole cities). So for a lot of people the effective takeover would come much sooner than only when the global EU percentage crosses 50%. The process is continuous.
Such excuses that its just a few % of current population, its nothing etc.. are very common. Meanwhile, France went from 1% muslims to 10% muslims in one generation, and the rapid rise of the US hispanic population also speaks volumes about the ability of sustained mass immigration to change the demographic composition of a nation (even with political implications):
http://i.imgur.com/TbWz9bS.jpg
Also, the current mass immigration movement consists of many more nations than just Syrians and Iraqi. Current EU policy completely fails to deal with illegal migrants, so there is only a very small chance of deportation once someone manages to get in and disappear, no matter where they are from - you only need to succeed once. This creates a strong incentive for anyone to immigrate, not just genuine refugees but economic migrants too. Its not just Iraqis and Syrians and you know it. Rather you should use the population of the entire middle east and north Africa in your naive comparison. So what is that figure, 100-200% instead of 7%? And then you may as well double that number again because of birth rate differences.
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Yeah. It sounds like a plan on how to secularise Islam by getting Muslims to come to a Western country where they are outnumbered and slowly forced to accept other cultures and ways of thinking.
It is a very risky plan because it is just as likely that you will islamize the secularism in the West. Such hazard with the future of western civilization is incredibly stupid, even if it could work. And I dont even see the point of having secular muslims in Europe rather than no muslims. Secularising muslims only has a point when it is done in middle east. So it is a pointless plan even if it could work.
Your and Scottys problem is that you dont take into account the long term time frame, and you have to if we are talking about demographic changes on the level of whole populations. Islamization will not happen in a decade or two, thats only enough to create a few ghettos here and there. But it is probable that if nothing changes about this immigration policy, then in a century or two from now the West will begin to resemble middle east, complete with the natives being outnumbered in significant areas. You wont even notice the transition, like a frog slowly boiling in water, but when historians a thousand years from now will discuss this period, they will probably call it "islamization of western Europe", in hindsight.
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It is a very risky plan because it is just as likely that you will islamize the secularism in the West. Such hazard with the future of western civilization is incredibly stupid, even if it could work. And I dont even see the point of having secular muslims in Europe rather than no muslims. Secularising muslims only has a point when it is done in middle east. So it is a pointless plan even if it could work.
So despite evidence that a good portion, if not the majority, of muslim immigrants become more secular over time, it is pointless to steer them that way. Good to know.
Also good to know that you do not want any muslims in Europe, I do wonder though what religions you do consider acceptable and why.
Your and Scottys problem is that you dont take into account the long term time frame, and you have to if we are talking about demographic changes on the level of whole populations. Islamization will not happen in a decade or two, thats only enough to create a few ghettos here and there. But it is probable that if nothing changes about this immigration policy, then in a century or two from now the West will begin to resemble middle east, complete with the natives being outnumbered in significant areas. You wont even notice the transition, like a frog slowly boiling in water, but when historians a thousand years from now will discuss this period, they will probably call it "islamization of western Europe", in hindsight.
And that would be bad because...? Look, culture is going to change over long timeframes. It's unavoidable, and if past precedent is anything to go by, we would almost uniformly be horrified at the changes no matter what stances we hold. So why do you think you're able to tell which change is going to be good a century from now? Are you a prophet?
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So despite evidence that a good portion, if not the majority, of muslim immigrants become more secular over time, it is pointless to steer them that way. Good to know.
Also good to know that you do not want any muslims in Europe, I do wonder though what religions you do consider acceptable and why.
It is pointless because you will still have middle east to deal with so you arent actually solving the root of the problem. And a good portion secularising is not enough. Unless they almost all secularise, to match the native European population, you are making Europe less secular and thus it is a change for the worse.
Religions which have gone through comprehensive reformation, modernization and secularization are acceptable. Its not even islam specifically that is the problem, I would be just as opposed to those backwards subsaharan christians coming here. Which they dont, thankfully.
And there is some evidence that muslims do not become more secular over time. It is not clear that they do, as you seem to assume.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540895/Young-British-Muslims-getting-more-radical.html
And that would be bad because...? Look, culture is going to change over long timeframes. It's unavoidable, and if past precedent is anything to go by, we would almost uniformly be horrified at the changes no matter what stances we hold. So why do you think you're able to tell which change is going to be good a century from now? Are you a prophet?
It is bad because it will lead to regression in secularism, womens rights, LGBT rights, atheist rights, treatment of sexual minoroties, sectarian violence, you name it. And whats with this argument stemming from naive cultural relativism? Its like I am in philosophy 101, lol. Yes, I dare to have an actual opinion on the matter.. It will be a change for the worse, and I dont think I need to be a prophet (pbuh) to predict that. Sure, culture is probably going to change, but if it could change in a direction which I consider subjectively bad, then it would be dishonest and cowardly from me to keep quiet. After all, we all do play some small part in how future culture changes, so such apathy is unwarranted.
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You are assuming these people will be evenly spread out, which will simply not be true, there will be very strong clustering, you will get many areas where they form a local majority, effectively taking over the area.
If you think the existence of various Chinatowns, traditionally Jewish districts, Russian or Irish ethnic enclaves, etc. has had some kind of long-term political, legal, and moral effect in the history of America as a whole, I'd love to see you justify it. The only case where this kind of thing has done so has been with the South and former slaves having been ghettoized for a hundred years or more, and this had much to do with the fact they were majority.
Your argument here is defiant of reality, as demonstrated by historical precedent.
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You are assuming these people will be evenly spread out, which will simply not be true, there will be very strong clustering, you will get many areas where they form a local majority, effectively taking over the area.
If you think the existence of various Chinatowns, traditionally Jewish districts, Russian or Irish ethnic enclaves, etc. has had some kind of long-term political, legal, and moral effect in the history of America as a whole, I'd love to see you justify it. The only case where this kind of thing has done so has been with the South and former slaves having been ghettoized for a hundred years or more, and this had much to do with the fact they were majority.
Of course they had a long-term effect, are you saying they didnt? I am sure US would be pretty different now without all the various past migration waves influencing the demographic makeup of the country, especially when talking about the multicultural cities. What is there to justify? Thats just how it is.
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Source for your statistics? I believe Netherlands has relatively strict immigration policy as far as western European ones go, so your relative lack of a well developed muslim problem and even decreasing muslim population may be the result of that. Yet another evidence that strict immigration policy works. Also, Turks - according to my googling, whopping 38% of muslims in Netherlands are Turks. Those are the best kind of muslims. If you think that current Arab immigrant waves will integrate as good as Turkish muslims, then you are mistaken, IMHO. Similar thing holds for Germany, too.
Stats are from our central bureau of statistics.
The Netherlands does not have a strict immigration policy, actually. The relative amounts of immigrants and their direct descendants (the dutch statistics bureau's definition of "Allochthon") have been raised from 17,7 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2015. Despite these 'stricter immigration policies' (which are presumed to have started this millenium) it has not changed that the vast majority of population increase in our country is due to immigrants and their direct descendants.
I am very curious as to what you are basing your claims about turkish muslims integrating on.
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Stats are from our central bureau of statistics.
The Netherlands does not have a strict immigration policy, actually. The relative amounts of immigrants and their direct descendants (the dutch statistics bureau's definition of "Allochthon") have been raised from 17,7 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2015. Despite these 'stricter immigration policies' (which are presumed to have started this millenium) it has not changed that the vast majority of population increase in our country is due to immigrants and their direct descendants.
I am very curious as to what you are basing your claims about turkish muslims integrating on.
Stricter immigration policies when compared to other western European countries. I dont believe you could have actually decreasing, or stagnant, muslim population without having such policy. Compare with other western European countries where number of muslims is increasing. It doesnt mean you have no immigrants at all, just that you are more selective. Indeed, Netherlands thus serves as an example for other western European countries to tighten their immigration policy, too. From wiki:
In the past years the Netherlands passed immigration laws which force future immigrants and their prospective Dutch partners to abide by very strict requirements. Immigrants must pass tests showing knowledge of Dutch in their home countries. The Dutch partner must be at least 21 years old and prove an income of at least 120% minimum wage. These strict laws have caused Dutch interested in marrying people from other countries to move to Belgium for a temporary period, in what has been called "The Belgian Route".[7]
Because of increasingly restrictive legislation on family formation and reunification, and the economic development of their home countries, the number of immigrants from Turkey and Morocco has decreased sharply since 2003.[8] Immigrants from Turkey decreased from 6,703 in 2003 to 3,175 in 2006, and immigrants from Morocco decreased more than halved from 4,894 to 2,085.[9] Net immigration has slumped to a few hundred a year, and has even been negative in some years.
About turkish muslims:
Since 2007 a reduction of around 50.000 Muslims was measured by the CBS, but this is not seen as a significant drop; it is seen as a result of improved research parameters. Secularisation of the second generation has nonetheless been observed, mostly amongst citizens of Iranian and Turkish background.
As you can see, Turks and Iranians secularize more. Probably has to do with the secular heritage of Ataturk in Turkey and their relative proximity to European culture, IMHO. So be careful with comparing past immigration waves of mostly Turks with current Arab and Moroccan waves. Also, note that it says that your observed reduction in number of muslims may only be a research parameters artifact, not reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_Netherlands
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Will reply in more depth later but Maroccan waves are just as old as Turkish ones due to foreign worker programmes. Secondly, would love you to back your statements in the first paragraph (which countries, links?)
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You are assuming these people will be evenly spread out, which will simply not be true, there will be very strong clustering, you will get many areas where they form a local majority, effectively taking over the area.
If you think the existence of various Chinatowns, traditionally Jewish districts, Russian or Irish ethnic enclaves, etc. has had some kind of long-term political, legal, and moral effect in the history of America as a whole, I'd love to see you justify it. The only case where this kind of thing has done so has been with the South and former slaves having been ghettoized for a hundred years or more, and this had much to do with the fact they were majority.
Your argument here is defiant of reality, as demonstrated by historical precedent.
Well this is happening in the "Ghettos" of Berlin already: http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article154174175/Berlins-Unterwelt-ist-verloren-an-die-arabischen-Clans.html
Organized Clan structures forming some kind of family/religion driven Mafia structures which are happily recruiting in front of refugee centers.
Yeah, so basically what Heisig has been warning about 6 years ago already, as no one wanted to hear it yet. Now you can read it in mainstream news.
Coincidentially this also shows that backwater Muslims (not meant as an insult but to differentiate those ultra religious "giant f amily" structures from more secular minded Muslims that respect the country they live in and its laws, which of course also exist.) don't integrate at all even in 3 generations. Rather they they take what territory they can with no respect at all towards the country, its laws or its inhabitants, directly opposing the official justice system with threats and bribes and establishing their own Sharia based law with justices of peace.
I.e. Pretty much Mafia 2.0 with a religious twist and the will to destroy/take over the state they live in.
I'd say that's just a weee bit different from Chinatowns or other ethnic districts, no?
And the real tragedy is of course that instead of cracking down on those proven criminal structures politicians are still pu**yfooting around the issue, not wanting to offend anyone because they may have a different culture.
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I'd say that's just a weee bit different from Chinatowns or other ethnic districts, no?
You've just described Little Italy from the late '40s to the '70s and the mob, you've even been making that explicit comparison, this whole time, and yet you're pretending you're not.
A fascinating capacity for doublethink.
You think that having their own organized crime groups isn't pretty much the norm for this? The Russians bring theirs. The Italians did; even got famous for it. Asian enclaves tend to have their own gangs, many of them of a frighteningly high level of sophistication in comparison to the normal Latino and African-American suspects. The Irish did this, they even had a damn movie about it starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and the New York Draft Riots of 1863 are the largest single civil and racial disturbance in the history the United States, triggered by the perception of Irish immigrants they were being unfairly targeted by the draft for the Civil War.
Unless you've beaten them down so utterly they have nothing and can have nothing, like the Jewish Ghettos in the '30s, or US blacks through most of the history of the South, then this is not only totally normal, but expected. And if you wish to follow either of those examples then you are going to create much bigger problems abroad, in addition to being morally bankrupt and far more likely to trigger civil unrest on a large scale.
You've failed utterly to prove your point with this digression because you never bothered to study the proposition you were trying to argue against.
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The point is, these ghettos are a somewhat expected and, above all, transient effect. They do not last all that long.
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The point is, these ghettos are a somewhat expected and, above all, transient effect. They do not last all that long.
You realize we are talking about Ghettos who have formed over the last 20 years with people who live here in 3rd generation and who have only ever grown bolder in outright opposing the authorities and establishing their own society and legal system in direct opposition to the official one?
Because somehow it doesn t sound like it. Those people are capitalizing on the current refugee crisis ... but they have been entrenching themselves for the last decades already.
And in both the article and especially in Heisigs previous work you can see clearly the part that their culture and religion plays in their dominance and success in the current crime scene and why it is so hard for our legal system to pin them down.
And all you can say is "yeah yeah nothing new, it's only transient, no worries?". Really? To the point ... did we have a Mafia like crime group yet that shares major ideology with bomb wearing maniacs who see it their god given right to behead and kill otherwise as many infidels as they can find? Or are you going to tell me the way this group despises and disrespects anyone not of their own has nothing to do with that ideology? And that they will somehow magically integrate after all when they show not a single sign of that after three generations?
Coincidentially, what do you think Italy would look like if the Italian government would treat the Mafia with the same kids gloves as our government is treating those large arab clans?
If only I could have your positive outlook, but I really can't see how the facts we got agree with it in any way. I mean ... you kinda have to agree at least on that last point, don't you? Or do you really see nothing wrong with the way the government is avoiding action against known criminal groups to the point of even denying the problem exists for the last couple of years? Cutting police budgets further and further and ignoring any cry for help from police personnel and judges alike?
P.S. Just wondering. Did you read Heisigs book yet? Please do if not.
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You realize we are talking about Ghettos who have formed over the last 20 years with people who live here in 3rd generation and who have only ever grown bolder in outright opposing the authorities and establishing their own society and legal system in direct opposition to the official one?
Because somehow it doesn t sound like it. Those people are capitalizing on the current refugee crisis ... but they have been entrenching themselves for the last decades already.
I have lived in a regional hotspot for neonazi activity. I have also lived in what an alarmist like you might call a closed turkish community. Guess where I felt safer.
That's right. There wasn't any difference (I did get more verbal harassment from the neonazis, though). Because what you do not seem to understand is that most of the people living in these places? They're just people. At least according to my experiences, they aren't any more likely to be violent or criminal than the rest of us.
So pardon me for letting my personal experience colour my perceptions here.
And in both the article and especially in Heisigs previous work you can see clearly the part that their culture and religion plays in their dominance and success in the current crime scene and why it is so hard for our legal system to pin them down.
And? You do know that that exact same rhetoric was once brought to bear against irish, jewish, italian communities in the US? That these groups, which are now so much part of America, couldn't possibly be integrated, that they were inherently violent and prone to disrespecting authority?
Do you not realize that this song and dance is old? That there's nothing inherently different between your rhetoric here and those pamphlets back then?
And all you can say is "yeah yeah nothing new, it's only transient, no worries?". Really? To the point ... did we have a Mafia like crime group yet that shares major ideology with bomb wearing maniacs who see it their god given right to behead and kill otherwise as many infidels as they can find? Or are you going to tell me the way this group despises and disrespects anyone not of their own has nothing to do with that ideology? And that they will somehow magically integrate after all when they show not a single sign of that after three generations?
Yes. Because I'm an optimist that way. And because I refuse to punish entire ethnicities for the behaviour of a few individuals, which seems like a foreign concept to you.
Coincidentially, what do you think Italy would look like if the Italian government would treat the Mafia with the same kids gloves as our government is treating those large arab clans?
You... are not really familiar with italian politics, are you.
If only I could have your positive outlook, but I really can't see how the facts we got agree with it in any way. I mean ... you kinda have to agree at least on that last point, don't you? Or do you really see nothing wrong with the way the government is avoiding action against known criminal groups to the point of even denying the problem exists for the last couple of years? Cutting police budgets further and further and ignoring any cry for help from police personnel and judges alike?
I have my share of disagreements with the federal government and its tendency to ignore social issues, yes. But ultimately, I always come down on the side that doesn't demonize entire ethnicities or city districts or whatever.
P.S. Just wondering. Did you read Heisigs book yet? Please do if not.
No, I haven't, and no, I won't.
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This idea that all cultures and all groups are born equal or are equally capable of doing evil things is moral relativism at its worst. Muslim communities are special for the inherent rules and axioms that they live with, which have been polarized and radicalized quite a lot the past decades. There's a **** ton of articles about this written by muslims themselves who have been recognizing and diagnosing the problem for years now.
AFAIK, the "problem" is not the ghettization of these muslim communities. It's not Islam itself. It's not the grievances of middle east islam countries being torn apart by global superpowers. It's not the sheer volume of wealth being distributed towards radical views of islam by Saudis and Iranians throughout the last 40 years and throughout the entire world. It's not decreased identification of muslims as being part of the social contract of their own country.
It's all of these happening at the same time. But this is merely the fuel. The fire is spread by extremists that go and light all these fuels by convincing young angry muslims that their problems all stem from western ideals and paradise is awaiting in the form of the Caliphate. These muslim ghettos are not the spark. They are not the agents. They are merely resources available to be used by the extremists.
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Did you read Heisigs book yet? Please do if not.
Please don't. It's a waste of time and mental effort. His work is overwhelming rejected outside of any circle of science that isn't also pushing racial holy war of some variety. He is beloved of people like ACT! for America, who are fond of calling Europe "Eurabia" because they think it makes them smart and more importantly they think it already describes a reality where Europe is secretly under Sharia Law right now.
Heisig is a moron and a bigot and an enabler of morons and bigots. If he speaks to you, you need to check yourself.
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Ghettos and unassimilated enclaves are not necessarily a transient effect. For all the Irish, Italians and Jews in the US who assimilated well after some period, I can point to black people, gypsies in Europe or for example Albanians in Kosovo, where the assimilation wasnt so successful. Will current muslim immigrants in Europe belong in the former, or the latter group? I suspect its the latter and I sure as hell wont experiment with the future of my country by betting on the former. 40 years of socialism was enough experimenting.
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Did you read Heisigs book yet? Please do if not.
Please don't. It's a waste of time and mental effort. His work is overwhelming rejected outside of any circle of science that isn't also pushing racial holy war of some variety. He is beloved of people like ACT! for America, who are fond of calling Europe "Eurabia" because they think it makes them smart and more importantly they think it already describes a reality where Europe is secretly under Sharia Law right now.
Heisig is a moron and a bigot and an enabler of morons and bigots. If he speaks to you, you need to check yourself.
His? Kirsten Heisig is a her... and that appears to be hardly the only misconception in your post.
P.S. Just wondering. Did you read Heisigs book yet? Please do if not.
No, I haven't, and no, I won't.
Because?
Don't want to read a firsthand observation of a youth criminal judge in Neuköln?
I keep referring to this book specifically because I really wonder how you would rationalize some of your opinions after reading it.
But if you don't want to then I guess that's that.
You'll also have to forgive for my sarcasm in this instance, but I am starting to be a bit amused by the fact that the guy who is always yelling for citations is refusing to look at the sources. Frankly ... as I read your earlier reply I briefly had to wonder if you even read the linked article in this thread.
And to be absolutely clear, there should never be discrimination because of anyones ethnic or religious affiliation as far as I'm concerned. And that is not what this is about, but rather the contrary. What we appear to have indulged up to now is a blind or at least soft spot for crime if only it was committed by members of certain ethnicies/religions that are uh ... "easily offended" is the word I guess. And that too is discrimination, i.e. basically against everyone not belonging to this "partially exempt" group.
And this stuff now coming to light is naturally fueling right wing hate in turn while at the same time giving religious extremism free reign as long as nothing is changed. If religious/ethnic affiliation becomes a de facto free out of jail card in many (court) cases, in a supposedly constitutional state, you have a problem, no?
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This idea that all cultures and all groups are born equal or are equally capable of doing evil things is moral relativism at its worst. Muslim communities are special for the inherent rules and axioms that they live with, which have been polarized and radicalized quite a lot the past decades. There's a **** ton of articles about this written by muslims themselves who have been recognizing and diagnosing the problem for years now.
AFAIK, the "problem" is not the ghettization of these muslim communities. It's not Islam itself. It's not the grievances of middle east islam countries being torn apart by global superpowers. It's not the sheer volume of wealth being distributed towards radical views of islam by Saudis and Iranians throughout the last 40 years and throughout the entire world. It's not decreased identification of muslims as being part of the social contract of their own country.
It's all of these happening at the same time. But this is merely the fuel. The fire is spread by extremists that go and light all these fuels by convincing young angry muslims that their problems all stem from western ideals and paradise is awaiting in the form of the Caliphate. These muslim ghettos are not the spark. They are not the agents. They are merely resources available to be used by the extremists.
But is the solution to this entire thing to revoke the citizenship of anyone praying to Mecca and send them away? Or to shut the borders and not admit anyone with the wrong skin color into the country? Would doing so do anything to make the situation better, or is it just grand-scale NIMBYism?
Personally, I don't believe so. I don't think that we can get to a better status quo by slamming our doors shut and denying people opportunities because they share superficial traits with the international boogeyman du jour.
P.S. Just wondering. Did you read Heisigs book yet? Please do if not.
No, I haven't, and no, I won't.
Because?
Don't want to read a firsthand observation of a youth criminal judge in Neuköln?
Not really, no. Don't get me wrong, I actually agree with the general direction of her argument (that argument being that justice should be swift and that state authority should take a more active hand in shaping communities).
I keep referring to this book specifically because I really wonder how you would rationalize some of your opinions after reading it.
But if you don't want to then I guess that's that.
Because, again, I am an optimist. We can and must do better when it comes to bringing immigrants into the fold, as it were. But the problem areas we do have are not going to take over our country; we're not going to wake up one day and find that the Reichstag has become a mosque.
I also believe that our country is stronger for having the amount of immigrants we do have.
You'll also have to forgive for my sarcasm in this instance, but I am starting to be a bit amused by the fact that the guy who is always yelling for citations is refusing to look at the sources. Frankly ... as I read your earlier reply I briefly had to wonder if you even read the linked article in this thread.
Because this is a case where I do not need to look at your sources. Heisig's book isn't the only thing about her and her methods; there is plenty of discussion about it to be found in other places that paint a complete enough picture of what she was doing that I don't feel like reading about her case studies would improve my understanding of it.
And to be absolutely clear, there should never be discrimination because of anyones ethnic or religious affiliation as far as I'm concerned. And that is not what this is about, but rather the contrary. What we appear to have indulged up to now is a blind or at least soft spot for crime if only it was committed by members of certain ethnicies/religions that are uh ... "easily offended" is the word I guess. And that too is discrimination, i.e. basically against everyone not belonging to this "partially exempt" group.
Interestingly enough, we just had a decently-sized razzia against muslim criminals in Berlin (http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/berlin-polizei-grosseinsatz-gegen-arabische-grossfamilie-a-1086653.html).
That said, there are plenty of voices (some in this very thread) who claim that muslims are basically incorrigibly evil and unable or unwilling to integrate into western society. Those voices, I feel, are at least as (if not more) dangerous than the islamic terror they want to protect us against.
And this stuff now coming to light is naturally fueling right wing hate in turn while at the same time giving religious extremism free reign as long as nothing is changed. If religious/ethnic affiliation becomes a de facto free out of jail card in many (court) cases, in a supposedly constitutional state, you have a problem, no?
And here's where I would ask for statistics. What's the basis of that claim? Are muslim criminals getting softer sentences because they are muslim? Are they getting softer sentences in general? Are they more or less likely to be prosecuted?
You see, it's when you make general statements like that that make me ask for your proof.
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But is the solution to this entire thing to revoke the citizenship of anyone praying to Mecca and send them away? Or to shut the borders and not admit anyone with the wrong skin color into the country? Would doing so do anything to make the situation better, or is it just grand-scale NIMBYism?
Oh yes, it would actually make this situation vastly better. But at the same time, I agree that such extreme isolationism and discrimination would be unethical and could have some other negatives.
However, it is not necessary to go that far, thats just a strawman on your part. Because you dont need to send anyone praying to Mecca away to solve this issue. You just need to have strict immigration policy, and one that is actually enforced. A limited number of regulated, college educated, background checked and economically productive muslim immigrants is fine. A random bunch of two million muslims coming into Europe as happened last year, is not. Thats a recipe for ethnic trouble and a deeply divided society. And one that may or may not be only "transient". A huge gamble.
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and dismantle Islam the same way Christianity has been in western nations. If Islam was treated with the same scepticism and disdain Christianity has been for the last 40 years, that would help things immensely, or it would have if we had started 10 years ago. It shares a huge overlap in apologetics with Christianity, and it's basic theology is the same just with more political and cultural stuff mixed in.
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Because this is a case where I do not need to look at your sources. Heisig's book isn't the only thing about her and her methods; there is plenty of discussion about it to be found in other places that paint a complete enough picture of what she was doing that I don't feel like reading about her case studies would improve my understanding of it.
And to be absolutely clear, there should never be discrimination because of anyones ethnic or religious affiliation as far as I'm concerned. And that is not what this is about, but rather the contrary. What we appear to have indulged up to now is a blind or at least soft spot for crime if only it was committed by members of certain ethnicies/religions that are uh ... "easily offended" is the word I guess. And that too is discrimination, i.e. basically against everyone not belonging to this "partially exempt" group.
Interestingly enough, we just had a decently-sized razzia against muslim criminals in Berlin (http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/berlin-polizei-grosseinsatz-gegen-arabische-grossfamilie-a-1086653.html).
That said, there are plenty of voices (some in this very thread) who claim that muslims are basically incorrigibly evil and unable or unwilling to integrate into western society. Those voices, I feel, are at least as (if not more) dangerous than the islamic terror they want to protect us against.
And this stuff now coming to light is naturally fueling right wing hate in turn while at the same time giving religious extremism free reign as long as nothing is changed. If religious/ethnic affiliation becomes a de facto free out of jail card in many (court) cases, in a supposedly constitutional state, you have a problem, no?
And here's where I would ask for statistics. What's the basis of that claim? Are muslim criminals getting softer sentences because they are muslim? Are they getting softer sentences in general? Are they more or less likely to be prosecuted?
You see, it's when you make general statements like that that make me ask for your proof.
Mh ... looks like we're going in circles now, aren't we?
Hint: I did have a quite specific book in mind that outlines the problems and methods that lead to people from a very specific ethnic group being an incredible tough nut to crack, if not an impossible one. It takes a pretty objective view, on the basis of the actual crime statistics and addresses several groups of criminals, hardly singling out the one discussed here. The only thing that makes this specific group remarkable is how our legal system appears to be pretty much helpless when confronted with the methods of this specific group.
Yet... sadly this is the same book/source you don't want to read for some reason because you know it all better already or something. ;-)
Police Razzias are also pretty meaningless when there is pretty much a complete failure of the legal system waiting in court.
This isn't about good or evil or such nonsense ... this is about an utter inability of our legal system to effectively police a specific group of people for the last couple of decades and the consequences that are now manifesting.
The refugee crisis of course is kind of a catalyst, but the problems now surfacing are the results of decades of failed integration and policing policies.
The point however really is .... now that the refugee crysis is here we really can't go on as we did. We can't. The existing criminal structures are bad enough. Now enter the refugees, we are basically adding a huge amount of "angry young men/poor" with little perspective for the future.
Seriously... we really don't have a snowballs chance in hell to integrate them. Those large arab clans, those however are already busy integrating them perfectly into their criminal structures. They speak the language, they share the culture, and they offer easy answers for desperate people.
Those clans already have changed the face of several districts in major cities and if you think they'll stop here I frankly don't know what to say except I think that's naive.
And yes, I lost my optimism a while ago watching this crap unfold.
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Personally I have no solutions. I think it's a really wicked problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem). I'm pretty sure the most basic, simple populist solutions are terrible, history shows this, fascism has failed. And that whatever the political solutions that have been made so far haven't worked out at all as well: Multiculturalism has failed. Worse than this, I think most politicians have no good ideas nor even good political frameworks (and parties) to work this out. I'm all ears for solutions, but every single thing I've heard or read so far is not convincing me. And even when good ideas are pointed out, it seems they are absolutely ignored by everyone involved.
So my best guess is that this is the new normal now. For a good while at least. I just hope this long storm passes through without any group gathering a WMD or something along those lines.
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Emphasis mine:
AFAIK, the "problem" is not the ghettization of these muslim communities. It's not Islam itself. It's not the grievances of middle east islam countries being torn apart by global superpowers. It's not the sheer volume of wealth being distributed towards radical views of islam by Saudis and Iranians throughout the last 40 years and throughout the entire world. It's not decreased identification of muslims as being part of the social contract of their own country.
It's all of these happening at the same time.
Sadly, that factor is larger than most people will admit. Some issues surrounding it (e.g. extreme sexism) go straight to the core.
This idea that all cultures and all groups are born equal or are equally capable of doing evil things is moral relativism at its worst. Muslim communities are special for the inherent rules and axioms that they live with, which have been polarized and radicalized quite a lot the past decades. There's a **** ton of articles about this written by muslims themselves who have been recognizing and diagnosing the problem for years now.
I agree completely. Of course, the standard response would be that you're an Islamophobe, end of discussion.
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Only in stupid forums, like say, twitter. Or wider media politics. I don't expect that treatment here, so that's not the point. Even Obama is pointing all of this out in a very detailed manner (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2016/04/obama-to-stop-terrorism-islam-must-reconcile-itself-to-modernity/):
… in private encounters with other world leaders, Obama has argued that there will be no comprehensive solution to Islamist terrorism until Islam reconciles itself to modernity and undergoes some of the reforms that have changed Christianity.
(...)
Obama described how he has watched Indonesia gradually move from a relaxed, syncretistic Islam to a more fundamentalist, unforgiving interpretation; large numbers of Indonesian women, he observed, have now adopted the hijab, the Muslim head covering.
(...)
[him:]
It is very clear what I mean, which is that there is a violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam by a faction … within the Muslim community that is our enemy, and that has to be defeated.
(...)
There is also the need for Islam as a whole to challenge that interpretation of Islam, to isolate it, and to undergo a vigorous discussion within their community about how Islam works as part of a peaceful, modern society.
My argument was this: Let’s all stop pretending that the cause of the Middle East’s problems is Israel. We want to work to help achieve statehood and dignity for the Palestinians, but I was hoping that my speech could trigger a discussion, could create space for Muslims to address the real problems they are confronting—problems of governance, and the fact that some currents of Islam have not gone through a reformation that would help people adapt their religious doctrines to modernity. My thought was, I would communicate that the U.S. is not standing in the way of this progress, that we would help, in whatever way possible, to advance the goals of a practical, successful Arab agenda that provided a better life for ordinary people.
So there. Even the so-called "pro-muslim US president" (by idiots of course) lays it all out correctly. I've yet to see anyone calling him an islamophobe for those comments. So while I do recognize what you are complaining about, I do think there's much more recognition of the problem than you think.
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Islam needs to modernize, but how exactly would you go about it? The refugees are lower class, which has historically been the last to change and the most conservative in terms of religion. Middle class in Arab countries is already getting better about this and the upper classes can be outright progressive. Except for the current Saudi king (a detestable old goat, if you ask me), Arab royalty and business leaders seem to be pretty reasonable. It's the rabble that causes most of the problems. Lower-class Catholics from Poland are capable of things usually associated with Islamic extremism when riled up enough. People like this are usually unable to even comprehend the harm they're doing and usually really bloody hard to reason with (and even if you do succeed, they'll revert right back once they hear a sermon reinforcing their original position).
I'm pretty sure the most basic, simple populist solutions are terrible, history shows this, fascism has failed.
Doesn't stop people from trying again, though. Sure, it's no solution, but if nobody comes up with anything, this is what we'll eventually fall back to. Cue 2034 rehashing 1934... And we all know how that ended up. Even hardline islamophobes should be wary of that outcome, as fascists have a tendency to expand the scope of their bigotry should they start running out of their original targets, so it isn't in anyone's interest in the long run.
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"it's the rabble that causes the most problems" yeah the rabble, if only they ate cake instead of complaining about bread amirite
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Say what you will, but I didn't see many sheiks, college graduates or corporate managers among the refugees. Their behavior so far has definitely qualifies them to be called rabble, at least as far as I'm concerned. It might sound like a certain outdated rhetoric, but it was just a statement of fact.
The point was that those who fail to integrate are mostly unintelligent, simple people. They cling to their religion and customs because they're too narrow-minded to see any other way of living. I've dealt with that kind of people before. Reasoning with them is pointless, even if you completely dismantle their stance using logical reasoning, they just shout "No, screw you!" and go on their way. This is why it's so hard to reform them.
The only way that I saw sort-of working is to dilute them and expose their children to enough "different ways" that they rebel against their parents (as children tend to do) and adopt the "local" ways. It's important to create a situation in which their kids will either conform to other, local kids or be lonely. Then you wait for the children to grow up and for the parents to die. However, if you allow them to form a large enough community (which is what's currently happening), they'll never change, since they'll be able to form social groups of "comfortable" size among themselves. And the problem will be getting worse, too.
With "native" minorities that don't integrate (and you're not enough of a prick to forcibly resettle them, or simply don't have enough space for that), the usual solution is to let them form their own state. The refugees are not natives, though, this is not their land, so I wouldn't consider that much a solution.
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It's not outdated, it's pure smug ignorant jackassery. The only cure for it is time and experience. Biggest extremist perpretrators were all well educated and with high degree jobs. Your idea about who gets to "fail" to integrate or not is just absolute nonsense.
But all you say afterwards is also ignorant. The problem is not the "fathers". Most fathers of the extremists that blew themselves up were *not* radical themselves. It was their own rebellious nature that combined with their smarts, a lot of anger and a huge advantage taking from recruiters that catch these guys on their nets that made it. These things spread through friends and personal connections, not through family.
I'm still trying to salvage anything of worth that you've written so far. It's ****ing hard.
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Say what you will, but I didn't see many sheiks, college graduates or corporate managers among the refugees. Their behavior so far has definitely qualifies them to be called rabble, at least as far as I'm concerned. It might sound like a certain outdated rhetoric, but it was just a statement of fact.
Right, how dare these people who didn't have the ressources to flee the country before it got really bad suddenly get the idea that getting murdered by religious fundamentalists would really impact their quality of life.
Silly rabble, always getting ideas above their station in life....
The point was that those who fail to integrate are mostly unintelligent, simple people. They cling to their religion and customs because they're too narrow-minded to see any other way of living. I've dealt with that kind of people before. Reasoning with them is pointless, even if you completely dismantle their stance using logical reasoning, they just shout "No, screw you!" and go on their way. This is why it's so hard to reform them.
Or they may be suffering from PTSD, culture shock, and insufficient help from the authorities.
But no, surely it's just their lack of class that's holding them back.
The only way that I saw sort-of working is to dilute them and expose their children to enough "different ways" that they rebel against their parents (as children tend to do) and adopt the "local" ways. It's important to create a situation in which their kids will either conform to other, local kids or be lonely. Then you wait for the children to grow up and for the parents to die. However, if you allow them to form a large enough community (which is what's currently happening), they'll never change, since they'll be able to form social groups of "comfortable" size among themselves. And the problem will be getting worse, too.
With "native" minorities that don't integrate (and you're not enough of a prick to forcibly resettle them, or simply don't have enough space for that), the usual solution is to let them form their own state. The refugees are not natives, though, this is not their land, so I wouldn't consider that much a solution.
And you would be OK with all of that happening to you, yes? If you had to flee your precious Poland to a muslim country, you would be fine with the group you're travelling with being forcibly broken up and contact between you and your fellow refugees being restricted?
Just checking here. What would your reaction to that scenario be? Would it be acceptance, or would you resent it?
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He would take it with "class". Which probably means he would lift a finger and have the butler do something helpful while he would sigh with the sentiment of having done the utmost right thing.
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I would imagine if it bugged him that much he would not choose a muslim country to flee to, but if his country run by his countrymen fell apart to that degree maybe he might consider that maybe his native culture deserves abandoning, and maybe the people who's country he has moved to which has not yet fallen apart might have something to it, after all out of all the places in the world he could have fled to, he picked that one.
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Sure, most Muslim countries wouldn't be my first choice, but I'm not much of a patriot. Regarding cultures, I trust an ancient maxim "When in Rome, do as Romans do". My choice of a country would be based on geopolitical situation and possible advancement opportunities. And then? Adapt to the new realia, exploit new options, climb up the ladder. When you're open minded, educated and intelligent, you can find your place anywhere where there's civilization.
And you would be OK with all of that happening to you, yes? If you had to flee your precious Poland to a muslim country, you would be fine with the group you're travelling with being forcibly broken up and contact between you and your fellow refugees being restricted?
Just checking here. What would your reaction to that scenario be? Would it be acceptance, or would you resent it?
I'd make the most of out it. I'd try to learn the language, find someone with appreciation of my skills and ideally, money to pay for them as well. Losing my current place in the world wouldn't be pleasant, but it wouldn't be the end of me, either, especially if I managed to take some starting capital with me. In fact, unless my "fellow refugees" had something to offer themselves (unlikely in your scenario), I probably would meet them for company, but not much else. If I ended up in Saudi Arabia I'd probably have to at least pay lip service to their religion, so that'd be the primary issue (I find all religious rituals more or less silly and a waste of time), but that would be a problem with any deeply religious place.
And yes, I'd certainly take it with "class". :) Losing your dignity and composure in face of trouble isn't going to help anyone. If stuff blows up, you pick up the pieces and carry on. Unlike others, I certainly wouldn't protest about things being "not like in Poland".
BTW, there's nothing precious about my country. If it wasn't for a handful of people in it that I like and property owned by my family, it could crash and burn for all I care. Given the current state of Polish politics, if we were invaded by someone with a better government, I could even side with them if they seemed like enough of an improvement. Poland wasn't worth fighting for since the end of WWII.
Right, how dare these people who didn't have the ressources to flee the country before it got really bad suddenly get the idea that getting murdered by religious fundamentalists would really impact their quality of life.
Silly rabble, always getting ideas above their station in life....
Did the war provide them with resources to flee the country? I don't think so. And if only fleeing the war-torn country was the point, why wouldn't they stay in Turkey, for example? No, they want to exploit the very exploitable European social security systems.
That said, it's not their fault. For them, it's a logical thing to do. In fact, I like to say they're probably the smartest people on Earth. They're happy with what Europe gives them. That doesn't mean they're not (in majority) louts and rabble, but the fault is on the people who created those system that they exploit. I only said the rabble was causing trouble, not that it's the rabble's ultimate fault, nor something they should be "punished" for. They're simply doing their own thing, it's not an Islamic conspiracy to take over Europe, but a natural result of boneheaded actions by European governments. If they keep acting like that, the ultimate result will likely be the rise of neo-fascism, with dire consequences for everyone.
My entire point that the solution won't come from them, it has to come from us, or more specifically from our governments. Disperse and integrate them, reform the benefit system so that the lose the incentive to come, kick them out... It's what we have to do. Refugees aren't going to help. They will look out for their own benefit. If we can arrange the world so that this also means they work for our benefit, then it'll be a success. Failing that, the problem could be solved by getting them to get out of our way (that wouldn't recoup the expenses, so to speak, but would still be better than status quo).
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And you would be OK with all of that happening to you, yes? If you had to flee your precious Poland to a muslim country, you would be fine with the group you're travelling with being forcibly broken up and contact between you and your fellow refugees being restricted?
Just checking here. What would your reaction to that scenario be? Would it be acceptance, or would you resent it?
If I would want to settle in this country, not just temporarily stay until the war ends, then of course I would be OK with that. Because you do not go to live in another country and then complain that you lost contact with your fellow former countrymen and have to interact with the locals. You expect that to happen.
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Did the war provide them with resources to flee the country? I don't think so. And if only fleeing the war-torn country was the point, why wouldn't they stay in Turkey, for example?
The point the E is making is that people still don't have the resources to leave the country. It's more that things have escalated to the point that drowning in the Mediterranean is preferable to staying in The Middle East.
Because Turkey sends them back across the border (https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2016/04/turkey-illegal-mass-returns-of-syrian-refugees-expose-fatal-flaws-in-eu-turkey-deal/). Because the various countries in Africa and the Middle East are actually overburdened with refugees: Jordan has taken on 1 million refugees in 2015, the same amount as the EU has collectively. To do that, Jordan relies on the UN funds from the UN Refugee Agency, but the Refugee Agency has been recieving less and less funds. Because the various countries of the EU have, trough their abject refusal to provide humanitarian aid (and indeed taking steps to worsen the situation by cutting funding to the UNHCR) in the face of years of the UN warning that this would become a problem, created a situation where refugees are fleeing refugee camps.
Trying to get the refugees "out of our way" is not going to help: That has been the policy for the past 5 years and it has only created more refugees.
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Honestly, I can't take anyone with any semblance of respect when they start referring to swaths of people as "the rabble". Perhaps it's just me.
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Yeah you're right. But it still bears repeating that there wouldn't be as many refugees if it was not for the EU's disregard.
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What should have Europe done? Put "boots on the ground" in Syria? To be greeted as "liberators"? It's a no win scenario. Russia always backed Assad. It's high time we stop pretending everything that is happening "wrong" is the fault of the "weak" western leaders and put the blames where they actually lay: to the extremist assholes, to Putin, to the Saudis who have been fomenting this **** for decades.
I blame Merkel for a lot of ****, but *not* for Syria's breakdown. That was all Assad and Putin's work.
The migrant crisis was also sparked by Merkel's "open arms" policy and the idiocy of spreading out the idea that they were "letting everyone in". They shouldn't have done that. They should have been very precise on who they were going to let in and very harsh on those who would try to use this to circumvent immigration laws and migrate towards Germany. The fault also lies in leftist outlets that kept crying over "refugees" being deported back to the countries (oh the humanity), to their places of origin (you know, Morroco, Pakistan, etc..... ) without any sense of critical thinking. Last time I remembered, there was no war in Morroco! And yet these scumbag reporters try their best to shame all attempts to prioritize real refugees rather than economic migrants.
I see too many people to blame in this. And when that happens, you know we are in deep trouble. It means everyone failed their duties.
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In other news ... what should have been a nonissue is suddenly blowing up in Merkels face due to the deal with Turkey.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/will-ms-merkel-defend-free-expression/2016/04/13/7f4ab7d8-0199-11e6-b823-707c79ce3504_story.html
And frankly ... I think this now is so stupid that the only thing I feel about it at this point is the desire to get Popcorn and watch it unfold. And in case you were wondering ... Merkel already gave the go ahead and we are now official bringing a comedian to trial in Germany for "insulting a foreign head of state".
The question I'm posing myself now is whether Böhmermann, the comedian, will make a show of "fleeing the country" or actually face trial and possibly insist the court decide whether every single phrase of his "poem" about Erdogan is insulting or not.
Gosh.... Popcorn! LOL.
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That is a very different topic that shouldn't be discussed in this one, frankly.
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That is a very different topic that shouldn't be discussed in this one, frankly.
I was wondering whether to bring it up here or make a different post and frankly wasn't sure.
The connection being of course is the pressure that the refugee crisis and the deal with Turkey puts on German politics.
It does imho showcase how amateurish the political response has become, which I thought was a good followup to Luis Dias' post.
As it appears the followup to the open arms policy is a policy of appeasing the despots you got into bed with to deal with the mistakes you made before. As stupid as this sounds this issue has a huge potential for innerpolitical disaster as well as opening a new book in the refugee crisis if Erdogan blows up over it. I wouldn't have believed it possible, but Merkel may actually manage to achieve both at the same time for maxiumum effect.
Feel free to move it into a seperate thread if you don't want it in here however.
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What should have Europe done? Put "boots on the ground" in Syria? To be greeted as "liberators"? It's a no win scenario. Russia always backed Assad. It's high time we stop pretending everything that is happening "wrong" is the fault of the "weak" western leaders and put the blames where they actually lay: to the extremist assholes, to Putin, to the Saudis who have been fomenting this **** for decades.
I blame Merkel for a lot of ****, but *not* for Syria's breakdown. That was all Assad and Putin's work.
ooh, I didn't mean it that way! I meant it more in the way of this. (https://www.ted.com/talks/antonio_guterres_refugees_have_the_right_to_be_protected) Syria's breakdown is out of our control, but we could have been prepared for the refugees that would come inevitably. Instead, we decommissioned the things we put in place for Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Hmm that might be the first time ever I see foreigners telling me I should listen to Guterres. I'm actually surprised by that. I will do so, don't get me wrong, but still...
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Hmm that might be the first time ever I see foreigners telling me I should listen to Guterres. I'm actually surprised by that. I will do so, don't get me wrong, but still...
Is he that controversial? There's also a transcript in there somewhere.
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No, it's just weird.
I'll explain. To portuguese people, this guy was basically politically dead once he just fled his prime minister office, never to show up in television or whatever to speak to portuguese people anymore. It was a rough time for him, personal issues were absolutely horrible and he just couldn't bear the throne, so he bailed. Next he went to the UN and became this figure for the refugees for more than a decade now. All we thought was, "ok, he bombed in here, so he got himself a job in the UN and now he's all for the weak people", as an act, not as a true calling. We stopped caring about this dude for a long while.
Last year, the socialist party was trying to get someone from the left ranks to come up against what would be a total sweep by one right winger called Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa who was getting 60+% of odds of becoming the next president of the republic this year, and the party tried to place his name on public opinion to understand if he had a shot or not. He totally didn't and he never even said anything about it. But that was the last time I heard about the guy.
Once a year he showed up next to Angelina Jolie trying to get attention to the refugees and so on, but now I guess he's on the forefront of everything in politics because "refugees" became the number one problem that Europe is facing right now. I also think he's one of those who are poised to become the next UN figurehead?
IDK, it's weird to see this guy in the epicenter of everything now. I can barely remember his voice even.
e: That was weird indeed, like a blast from the past. I'm happy to see he's as sharp as he ever was, and his points are on the money. He's a good guy, a socialist (yes, FEAR the socialist, 'murica!), a deep believer in the European project (we can thank him for joining the Euro, FFS what a mistake) and a very intelligent, sharp politician. Who left us and was substituted by a right winger who was ten times less of him, a loon, a thing that should have never got more than being a punching bag, but who got his chance when Guterres bailed. Then, some bright idiot in the EU thought this guy was the **** and named him the "President of the European Commission" and basically saved Portugal from his governance. Yeah, weird times.