Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mikes on December 21, 2016, 05:48:51 am
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In case you haven't seen yet: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/world/europe/berlin-attack-christmas-market.html?_r=0
Still kinda in shock.
Of course pretty much everyone over here knew there was the "threat" of something like this happening.
But that threat was more or less not real / surreal, until yesterday.
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I'm appalled by the rather vultural reaction by the dutch and british far right, surprised by the german's ability to keep calm and carry on and also just sad.
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The far right are doing a great job of making sure these terror attacks are successful in their strategic objective.
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I'm appalled by the rather vultural reaction by the dutch and british far right, surprised by the german's ability to keep calm and carry on and also just sad.
The German far right is at with full force too... and calm isn't that abundant either, esspecially among the Conservatives (the bavarian prime minister was quick to re-take the field with his anti-immigration stance, for example) ...
The media's calm has a lot to do with lessons learned over the past two years (maybe even longer); recently it seems there have been a lot mlre stories that sparked viseral reactions from "the audience", esspecially over issues like.migration and refugees, that lead to the development of a sense of responsibilty...
however there are the usual suspects doing their usual thing (e.g. Bild supposidly titled "ANGST!" - for those not in the know: Bild is more a tabloid but highly popular due to their style of reporting)
Additionally, police failing their PR in wake of major crimes is as a common as everywhere else but the Berlin and Federal police seemed to have learned from the PR failure the police in Munich crwated after a mass shooting earlier this year..
On the other hand if it were any other city things might be different:
The common prejudice against the citizens of Berlin is that they are hard to disturb and rather defiant bordering to dismissiveness. That image helps to cultivate a sense of calm as everyone outside Berlin can basically "rest assured" that it hit the wrong people to be effective.
It is also a good thing that there is an abundance of Berlin citizens to help back up this view in this time. Berlin's communities have a long history of "making due with each other" and standing together despite the differences (since they are really abundant) is a rich tradition which no gentrification has been able to erase so far.
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I'm appalled by the rather vultural reaction by the dutch and british far right, surprised by the german's ability to keep calm and carry on and also just sad.
Got any links? I'm curious. It isn't surprising in the least though, their strategy is to take advantage of any terror attack so they can prop up their message of nationalism and nativism, it's a ****ing given they will respond almost gleefully to any attack of this sort.
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I'm appalled by the rather vultural reaction by the dutch and british far right, surprised by the german's ability to keep calm and carry on and also just sad.
I think there are two factors here: first, the right wing media is actually making noise in Germany, it just took them some time. The other factor is the hate speech legalization in Germany. It's one of the easiest ways to get in legal trouble in Germany, so just to make sure, a lot of people will not express their actual feelings regarding this in the public. Media being "responsible" is another thing, but I think the hate speech legalization has far more to do with the calm in Germany than the media itself.
From what I have heard, there's also considerably less popular support for the acceptance of the refugees in Germany than the international and German media tries to portray.
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I'm appalled by the rather vultural reaction by the dutch and british far right, surprised by the german's ability to keep calm and carry on and also just sad.
Got any links? I'm curious. It isn't surprising in the least though, their strategy is to take advantage of any terror attack so they can prop up their message of nationalism and nativism, it's a ****ing given they will respond almost gleefully to any attack of this sort.
Karajorma already linked Farage's response in the other thread (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/20/nigel-farage-accuses-jo-cox-widower-brendan-cox-of-supporting-extremism). Geert Wilders's response (the dutch nationalist who tweets more in english then any other politician here) was a lot simpler (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C0HhX8_XgAApEBc.jpg:large).
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The far right are doing a great job of making sure these terror attacks are successful in their strategic objective.
Oh, really? Well then you leave me no other option but to point out the obvious that the left is doing an even greater job of that. Several decades of ongoing leftist immigration policies is what created the underlying conditions leading to regular islamist attack in western Europe. Great job indeed.
:rolleyes:
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**** off maslo and stick to threads on things you have the capacity to understand, like rock collecting.
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rock collecting.
geology is underappreciated
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**** off maslo and stick to threads on things you have the capacity to understand, like rock collecting.
Dont you worry, if you proceed to spew nonsense about basic minerals on this poor forum, both me and my mental capacity shall be there to set things right. :D
But right now, I feel like this is the topic where my valuable input is needed the most..
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**** off maslo and stick to threads on things you have the capacity to understand, like rock collecting.
Dont you worry, if you proceed to spew nonsense about basic minerals on this poor forum, both me and my mental capacity shall be there to set things right. :D
But right now, I feel like this is the topic where my valuable input is needed the most..
I disagree. Your input is neither needed nor desired, especially if you're going to come in here and spew your rhetoric again. Get out.
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Objection. I need and desire maslo's input.
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You can get a roughly similar input by rerouting the outflow of a septic tank.
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You can get a roughly similar input by rerouting the outflow of a septic tank.
Well don't get me wrong, I need and desire your input too; no need to reroute anything.
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To get back on topic, it doesn't seem worth pointing out that this or that part of the political spectrum tries to take advantage of any event that they can (the far-right/anti-immigration/etc/etc part in this case); that's kind of a given, of course pretty much everyone does it and there's few who could cast the first stone. The only thing that seems relevant is whether one is being a colossal ass about it, which of course certainly seems to be the case for Farage and Wilders here.
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To get back on topic, it doesn't seem worth pointing out that this or that part of the political spectrum tries to take advantage of any event that they can (the far-right/anti-immigration/etc/etc part in this case); that's kind of a given, of course pretty much everyone does it and there's few who could cast the first stone. The only thing that seems relevant is whether one is being a colossal ass about it, which of course certainly seems to be the case for Farage and Wilders here.
I think PH's point was less about the taking advantage and more about the fact that the political far-right is in fact making these attacks MORE effective.
The entire purpose of terrorism is (if you'll forgive me paraphrasing a mass-murdering scumbag) to cause terror. A visceral reaction of fear to terrorism makes it MORE effective, not less. Clamping down on civil liberties, fundamental freedoms, and minority populations is *precisely* what terrorists want to achieve when they carry out these attacks, and this is exactly what the political right would have countries do. Maslo is a case study in this - he and his ilk would sacrifice the basic tenets of an open, democratic nation in the name of security and do precisely what the flavour-of-the-week-terrorist-assholes carrying out these attacks want to see done. The more the West clamps down, the more victory notches they can carve (and the more potential victims remain to be abused in their territories).
Carrying on with our lives WHILE expressing outrage and legally hunting down the perpetrators defeats the point in the attacks entirely. It seems that a basic tenet of the British defense during the 1940s is intellectually beyond the modern political right/far-right (depending on country), which is a sad state of affairs indeed. The US mounted a case study in what not to do domestically after a major terrorist strike, and France has meandered along the same lines somewhat. Germany has mounted a fairly rational response thus far; it remains to be seen what happens now.
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Can you expand on this? Are you talking about the UK response to the Blitz? I'm not familiar with any other terrorist attacks during the 40's.
It seems that a basic tenet of the British defense during the 1940s...
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The far right are doing a great job of making sure these terror attacks are successful in their strategic objective.
Oh, really? Well then you leave me no other option but to point out the obvious that the left is doing an even greater job of that. Several decades of ongoing leftist immigration policies is what created the underlying conditions leading to regular islamist attack in western Europe. Great job indeed.
:rolleyes:
While I agree that open immigration policies leave Germany and other Western nations more open to attacks by individuals with self-centered mindsets and a chronic lack of education, can you see the side of the Western "leftists", as you call them?
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While I agree that open immigration policies leave Germany and other Western nations more open to attacks by individuals with self-centered mindsets and a chronic lack of education, can you see the side of the Western "leftists", as you call them?
Maybe a little. You see, I have always advocated a two pronged approach of strict immigration policy AND treating legal immigrants excellently. Both of those are needed to address this issue. So I can agree that actual nazis being in parliament certainly doesnt help things.
Yet I also believe that what the west calls "far right" is *mostly* not an actual far right but merely a group of parties that dont want open borders madness to continue. If this "far right" somehow got to power, they wouldnt actually abuse minorities, as some of people here like to believe.
And in the end, strict immigration policy is a much more effective way to prevent the rise of terrorism than trying to appease the migrants. Which is why there are no islamist attacks in eastern Europe, despite what some of you call "far right" being the mainstream policy here. So if I am forced to choose between these two approaches to addressing terrorism, then so-called "far" right (in reality just a center-right) it is.
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There's a certain level of overlap in the aims of the islamists and the European far right. They both, to o e extent or another, want to spark a war between Islam and the West. The biggest difference is what they think the outcome of that war would be.
Incidentally, the geologist in me wants to point out that, done correctly, rock collecting can be super difficult.
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As for strategic goals of ISIS and islamism in general, creating and expanding a potential breeding ground for terrorists and sympathisers right inside kuffar lands certainly ranks near the top of the list. So the goals of far left (called merely left in western Europe) and islamists overlap, too. Its almost like goals of all extremists tend to overlap..
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With respect, I would also like to borrow AdmiralRalwood's post from the other thread:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91203.msg1836687#msg1836687
This is basic sociology: ostracization leads to radicalization.
[...]
It turns out that if you demonize everyone who disagrees with you, they start to think the demons are more agreeable.
if you find nazis agreeable, ostracizing you was exactly the right decision
If you find islamists agreeable, limiting your immigration was exactly the right decision. The notion that immigration restrictions would lead to more immigrants becoming islamists is thus on shaky grounds as an argument, even if it was true (I think such an effect can indeed exist, but is minimal in all cases, the benefits from the restriction policy would far outweight it).
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With respect, I would also like to borrow AdmiralRalwood's post from the other thread
no, and **** you for the false equivalence
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And just to be clear about what the current state of the investigation is: German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for one Anis Amri, whose temporary ID was found in the cab of the truck.
Now, Amri was already known to authorities as a potential terrorist: In fact, he was scheduled to be deported back in Summer, but because Tunisia was unable or unwilling to confirm his citizenship, that wasn't possible.
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I'm appalled by the rather vultural reaction by the dutch and british far right, surprised by the german's ability to keep calm and carry on and also just sad.
I think there are two factors here: first, the right wing media is actually making noise in Germany, it just took them some time. The other factor is the hate speech legalization in Germany. It's one of the easiest ways to get in legal trouble in Germany, so just to make sure, a lot of people will not express their actual feelings regarding this in the public. Media being "responsible" is another thing, but I think the hate speech legalization has far more to do with the calm in Germany than the media itself.
This is a vision of Germany that has not been true since the reunification. The hate speech laws in Germany are rather specific: It basically boils down to "Don't be Hitler". They certainly haven't prevented any politicians for speaking their minds on the issue of refugees, as already mentoined by one of the other posters. I think that Germany being very aware of it's own history plays a bigger role here. Think of the reichstag fire and how it was abused to further a political agenda.
From what I have heard, there's also considerably less popular support for the acceptance of the refugees in Germany than the international and German media tries to portray.
Meh: It's not like the critique that Merkel got wasn't featured in our dutch newspapers, and it's not like there isn't a measure of the acceptance of the refugees which correlates roughly with the popularity of the AfD. The media tends to get hailed by the more right wing a lot, but after Trump, after Wilders and all that jazz it's rather obvious because Trump and Wilders are anti free-speech. The dutch media heckles politicians constantly, but it's only Wilders's party who calls for people to be fired over having expressed an opinion. Wilders shouts that he is being oppressed for knowingly and deliberately breaking the law, but openly calls for Sylvana Simons to be taken out of dutch politics for her own safety.
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I think PH's point was less about the taking advantage and more about the fact that the political far-right is in fact making these attacks MORE effective.
The entire purpose of terrorism is (if you'll forgive me paraphrasing a mass-murdering scumbag) to cause terror. A visceral reaction of fear to terrorism makes it MORE effective, not less. Clamping down on civil liberties, fundamental freedoms, and minority populations is *precisely* what terrorists want to achieve when they carry out these attacks, and this is exactly what the political right would have countries do.
Maybe, but surely only insofar as clamping down weakens the country, causes internal strife, shapes their foreign policy, and so on. It's not like jihadist terrorists gain anything by some european country doing those things, as such. If basically everyone was on the political right and thus clamping down on <whatever the political right actually wants to clamp down on> was something about which there is no political division, then the terrorists wouldn't have achieved anything (except some fame that might attract recruits). Same thing if everyone collectively agreed to basically ignore what happened and to not enact any changes in policy because of it.
Maslo is a case study in this - he and his ilk would sacrifice the basic tenets of an open, democratic nation in the name of security and do precisely what the flavour-of-the-week-terrorist-assholes carrying out these attacks want to see done. The more the West clamps down, the more victory notches they can carve (and the more potential victims remain to be abused in their territories).
That comes with the terribly big assumption that all they want is for the West to clamp down on taking in refugees so that they'll have more victims to abuse. Which might certainly be a big part of it, but also it'd be pretty myopic to think that those guys don't have a massive axe to grind with the West anyway, regardless of refugees.
Besides, it's being left rather unclear what the political right supposedly wants done now that would sacrifice democracy and liberties and all that. Mostly it seems to have been, since forever, about restricting MENA immigration.
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A cornerstone of ISIS' strategy is 'destroying the grey area' of moderate Islam that can cooperate with the West. This is pretty much exactly the far right's aim also.
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A cornerstone of ISIS' strategy is 'destroying the grey area' of moderate Islam that can cooperate with the West. This is pretty much exactly the far right's aim also.
I'm sure that is ISIS' strategy. However, seems a bit silly to say that the far right wants that too. It's more like they believe that moderate islam doesn't exist in the first place, at least in the same way that for example moderate christianity exists. They might be thrilled if they could bring themselves to believe it's actually a thing, and their actions might drive more people to radicalism than moderatism, but of course they'd not rather have a randomly picked muslim be radical than moderate.
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I'm sure that is ISIS' strategy. However, seems a bit silly to say that the far right wants that too. It's more like they believe that moderate islam doesn't exist in the first place, at least in the same way that for example moderate christianity exists. They might be thrilled if they could bring themselves to believe it's actually a thing, and their actions might drive more people to radicalism than moderatism, but of course they'd not rather have a randomly picked muslim be radical than moderate.
ISIS wants us to treat muslims with suspicion and fear so that their argument about how being moderate means compromising muslim beliefs gains weight.
Modern neofascists want us to treat muslims with fear and suspicion because any moderate muslim may just be a few steps away from being a danger to society.
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I'm sure that is ISIS' strategy. However, seems a bit silly to say that the far right wants that too. It's more like they believe that moderate islam doesn't exist in the first place, at least in the same way that for example moderate christianity exists. They might be thrilled if they could bring themselves to believe it's actually a thing, and their actions might drive more people to radicalism than moderatism, but of course they'd not rather have a randomly picked muslim be radical than moderate.
ISIS wants us to treat muslims with suspicion and fear so that their argument about how being moderate means compromising muslim beliefs gains weight.
Modern neofascists want us to treat muslims with fear and suspicion because any moderate muslim may just be a few steps away from being a danger to society.
Yes, of course. But it's far from obvious which ways of "treating muslims with fear and suspicion" would actually end up causing some moderate muslims to think that ISIS seems to have a point. Carting people off to internment camps en masse might do the trick, but for example the kind of strict immigration policies that maslo here likes to go on about are in no way obviously or necessarily going to cause that (unless I'm forgetting something). Implementing them in a dumb way might, just like long-term griefing of one's existing muslim citizenry might, but your policies have to get pretty extreme before it becomes impossible to implement them in a way that a reasonable person with more than half a brain wouldn't consider more agreeable than ISIS.
But I don't really know what kind of treatment and policies you have in mind exactly. If you mean the dumbest far-right suggestions available, like literally deporting all muslims or something, then I agree that one probably can't implement something like that without radicalizing even some reasonable people, but as you move toward more moderate and feasible ideas then it also becomes a lot easier to phrase and implement them in ways that are agreeable enough that only an unreasonable and stupid person would be radicalized as a result.
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But it's far from obvious which ways of "treating muslims with fear and suspicion" would actually end up causing some moderate muslims to think that ISIS seems to have a point. Carting people off to internment camps en masse might do the trick, but for example the kind of strict immigration policies that maslo here likes to go on about are in no way obviously or necessarily going to cause that (unless I'm forgetting something).
Well said. There will be no carting off of people en masse to internment camps even if so-called "far right" wins the elections. There may be strict immigration policy, tough, but that will not radicalize any reasonable person at all.
I would also add that the whole immigration policy thing is obviously mostly orthogonal to the lives of muslims who are already legal citizens. Thats is an important reason why this rhetoric about it leading to their radicalisation turns out to be complete nonsense if you think about it for longer than 5 seconds.
On top of that, there are tens of thousands muslims currently living under a so-called "far right" regime in eastern Europe. Complete with a border fence and all that, what was the word, neofascist (LOL!) stuff. :lol: It is so bad that I found several Hitlers hiding under the bed yesterday. send help
Not only are they not radicalizing at all, they are in fact some of the best integrated muslims ever.
Yet according to the logic of some of our far-left friends on this forum, eastern Europe ought to be several islamist bombings overdue by now, for how we dare to treat them poor oppressed muslim minorities (who actually do not give a single **** if the border is fenced off and immigration regulated strictly, and if anything would agree with it themselves).. :rolleyes:
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Let's get back to the topic, ok?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/22/berlin-christmas-market-attack-polish-truck-driver-lukasz-urban-germany-order-merit
After examining the dead body of the truck driver it turns out, that he was still alive during the attack and actually struggled with the terrorist to stop the truck, in which he succeeded (though it cost him his life in the very end). If this is true, without his intervention, the casualties could have been much higher. Poor consolation, but still...
As for a posthumous reward...petition is a nice idea but I would wait for completion of the investigation and leave the final decision to the German authorities.
What also matter is the fact that he was also shot (we shall see where did the attacker get the firearm but I'm 99% sure it was illegal). I don't want to be a bad prophet but it only give more fuel to the anti-gun campaign within the EU. Politicians like E. Bienkowska (gosh how I hate her... I want to punch the poor screen every time I see her face) seem to be very determined to restrict every kind of access to firearms for lawful citizens (with their last idiotic idea to register every purchased magazine and limit the magazine capacity for assault weapons down to 10 bullets. Like the terrorist were going to give a damn about it)
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Some of the best integrated muslims ever.
Well integrated hmm? (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/28/hungarian-muslim-group-criticises-towns-xenophobic-decrees)
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The one thing that truly worries me about the current "open borders policies" and "welcome culture" and I can't emphasize enough that this worry is completely unrelated to any leftwing rightwing or even moral concerns in general, is the reality of what will happen after ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq.
Where will all those leftover ISIS people go? Frankly, they can't really go anywhere and expect a warm welcome ... except maybe to the one country where you don't even need papers to be welcomed as a refugee and even get paid for merely being there? The same country that now displayed a complete lack of ability to prevent a terrorist attack even tho the person who committed it was already known as a potential terrorist and under observation?
Frankly... I hope my worry turns out to be an unrealistic/irrational one. So by all means shoot many holes in that little theory please, so i can start feeling better about it.
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Which is why there are no islamist attacks in eastern Europe, despite what some of you call "far right" being the mainstream policy here.
Maybe that's because no one gives a **** about eastern Europe and therefore has no reason to attack it?
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I'm appalled by the rather vultural reaction by the dutch and british far right, surprised by the german's ability to keep calm and carry on and also just sad.
I think there are two factors here: first, the right wing media is actually making noise in Germany, it just took them some time. The other factor is the hate speech legalization in Germany. It's one of the easiest ways to get in legal trouble in Germany, so just to make sure, a lot of people will not express their actual feelings regarding this in the public. Media being "responsible" is another thing, but I think the hate speech legalization has far more to do with the calm in Germany than the media itself.
From what I have heard, there's also considerably less popular support for the acceptance of the refugees in Germany than the international and German media tries to portray.
You kind of overestimate the power of the german laws about hate speech.
Even my home country has a law against insulting our flag but the leader of the northern league party has got away with insulting it in public and on camera for decades (he literally said that he would wipe his arse with the flag at one point).
The one thing that truly worries me about the current "open borders policies" and "welcome culture" and I can't emphasize enough that this worry is completely unrelated to any leftwing rightwing or even moral concerns in general, is the reality of what will happen after ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq.
Where will all those leftover ISIS people go? Frankly, they can't really go anywhere and expect a warm welcome ... except maybe to the one country where you don't even need papers to be welcomed as a refugee and even get paid for merely being there? The same country that now displayed a complete lack of ability to prevent a terrorist attack even tho the person who committed it was already known as a potential terrorist and under observation?
Frankly... I hope my worry turns out to be an unrealistic/irrational one. So by all means shoot many holes in that little theory please, so i can start feeling better about it.
After the last vestiges of ISIS in the middle east get annihilated it will be like former nazis after the war, people who went and murdered entire villages of old people and children living quietly under assumed names and hoping nobody will see through them.
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Which is why there are no islamist attacks in eastern Europe...
Just Eastern Europe, just attacks that were executed and claimed lives, just in the 2010's, just attacks that were (or are suspected to be) tied to extremist Islamic groups, and just what I could find in a really quick search of Wikipedia:
• Domodedovo airport bombing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domodedovo_International_Airport_bombing)
• Shooting at the US embassy in Sarajevo (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-15499143)
• Makhachkala checkpoint bombing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Makhachkala_attack)
• Burgas bus bombing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Burgas_bus_bombing)
• Zvornik police shooting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvornik_police_station_shooting)
• Attack on Bosnian soldiers in Sarajevo (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34866890)
• Gun attack on the Derbent Citadel (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35205165)
Yup. Eastern Europe is totally immune to terrorism.
Maybe that's because no one gives a **** about eastern Europe and therefore has no reason to attack it?
Seems less that nobody has a reason to attack eastern Europe and more that news agencies do not feel compelled to give more than minimal coverage to the attacks that do occur in eastern Europe. This then provides the perception that the region isn't attacked.
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The one thing that truly worries me about the current "open borders policies" and "welcome culture" and I can't emphasize enough that this worry is completely unrelated to any leftwing rightwing or even moral concerns in general, is the reality of what will happen after ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq.
Where will all those leftover ISIS people go? Frankly, they can't really go anywhere and expect a warm welcome ... except maybe to the one country where you don't even need papers to be welcomed as a refugee and even get paid for merely being there? The same country that now displayed a complete lack of ability to prevent a terrorist attack even tho the person who committed it was already known as a potential terrorist and under observation?
Frankly... I hope my worry turns out to be an unrealistic/irrational one. So by all means shoot many holes in that little theory please, so i can start feeling better about it.
After the last vestiges of ISIS in the middle east get annihilated it will be like former nazis after the war, people who went and murdered entire villages of old people and children living quietly under assumed names and hoping nobody will see through them.
And the international terror network will just disappear like the ones of the Nazis? ... oh wait ... the Nazis didn't have an international terror network. And afaik ... Nazis didn't have the motivation for suicide attacks all over the world either.
Sorry but ... wishful thinking alone won't make me sleep any better at night. Was hoping for something more solid.
What for example, considering ISIS religous nature, makes it unlikely from your viewpoint that stomping out ISIS in Syria and IRAK will be seen as a case of Martyrdom and fan the flames of international terror even more?
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Just Eastern Europe, just attacks that were executed and claimed lives, just in the 2010's, just attacks that were (or are suspected to be) tied to extremist Islamic groups, and just what I could find in a really quick search of Wikipedia:
• Domodedovo airport bombing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domodedovo_International_Airport_bombing)
• Shooting at the US embassy in Sarajevo (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-15499143)
• Makhachkala checkpoint bombing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Makhachkala_attack)
• Burgas bus bombing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Burgas_bus_bombing)
• Zvornik police shooting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvornik_police_station_shooting)
• Attack on Bosnian soldiers in Sarajevo (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34866890)
• Gun attack on the Derbent Citadel (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35205165)
Yup. Eastern Europe is totally immune to terrorism.
It is immune only as long as it practices strict immigration policy. I mostly meant EU east, Visegrad group, really. North of the Orban Wall. Thats why I said "tens of thousands muslims currently living under a so-called "far right" regime", instead of "millions muslims" as live in the whole east. Sorry for the confusion.
Neither Bosnia nor Russia qualify. Bosnia is a majority muslim country lying on a illegal migration route and thus by my logic there should be lots of terrorism (if anything there is surprisingly little). As for Russia, I suggest you look at their religious demographic and also imperialist instead of isolationist policies when it comes to muslim territories in their sphere of influence. Putin may be "far right" in many ways but he is almost a leftist when it comes to immigration policy. In his quest for power, he wants a big "multicultural" empire instead of a Russian ethnostate. Cant have that without some terrorism. Again, if anything there is surprisingly little terrorism in Russia. There will be more in the future, IMHO.
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News update:
Anis Amri, the prime suspect for the attack, was reportedly shot and killed in Milan.
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The one thing that truly worries me about the current "open borders policies" and "welcome culture" and I can't emphasize enough that this worry is completely unrelated to any leftwing rightwing or even moral concerns in general, is the reality of what will happen after ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq.
Where will all those leftover ISIS people go? Frankly, they can't really go anywhere and expect a warm welcome ... except maybe to the one country where you don't even need papers to be welcomed as a refugee and even get paid for merely being there? The same country that now displayed a complete lack of ability to prevent a terrorist attack even tho the person who committed it was already known as a potential terrorist and under observation?
Frankly... I hope my worry turns out to be an unrealistic/irrational one. So by all means shoot many holes in that little theory please, so i can start feeling better about it.
I think the main problem with your hypothesis is that it relies upon Europe having a 'welcome culture'. It doesn't. Europe's policy for the last two years has been one where it would rather let refugees drown in the meditterenean or be shot by the Turks rather then actually put some effort into the infrastructure of managing the refugee flow (which sounds incredibly dehumanizing, but okay). It reminds me a bit of the republican primaries where everybody focused on trump's bigotry so that they could avoid telling the world how bigoted the republican party in itself had become. The sound that wailed around Europe these past two years were not not the sirens, not the cries of help from the lost or the cries of desperation or anger or bigoted hatred. It was the sound of the EU phoning it in. Reverse charges and everything. The UNHCR, Medicens sans frontieres, OXFAM - all the organisations who actually put some work into the whole refugee thing have decried how some of the richest countries in the world were so eager to drop the ball and not even give countries that were closer to Syria the funding they needed to keep sustaining the camps there.
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The one thing that truly worries me about the current "open borders policies" and "welcome culture" and I can't emphasize enough that this worry is completely unrelated to any leftwing rightwing or even moral concerns in general, is the reality of what will happen after ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq.
Where will all those leftover ISIS people go? Frankly, they can't really go anywhere and expect a warm welcome ... except maybe to the one country where you don't even need papers to be welcomed as a refugee and even get paid for merely being there? The same country that now displayed a complete lack of ability to prevent a terrorist attack even tho the person who committed it was already known as a potential terrorist and under observation?
Frankly... I hope my worry turns out to be an unrealistic/irrational one. So by all means shoot many holes in that little theory please, so i can start feeling better about it.
I think the main problem with your hypothesis is that it relies upon Europe having a 'welcome culture'. It doesn't.
Maybe Europe at large doesn't anymore. Germany is a different matter. Welcome culture right now is not just still quite present, it's heavily encouraged or even reinforced as policy from the top down as well, most notably in currently applyed immigration practices.
Not that a welcome culture is a bad thing as such. The contrary. I'd say being openminded and welcoming of other cultures is one of the better aspects of many western societies. (or as the case may be, at least has been, in some countries).
Coupled with a complete lack of border control, an inability to keep tabs even on people known to plan terrorist attacks (see Berlin) and then ... a boatload of Djihad-Happy ISIS leftovers looking for "a new home" after ISIS gets defeated in Syria and Iraq however ... I'm not sure I like the potential consequences.
That's what I am worried about anyways. I was hoping to hear a response that tells me why a sane/rational being, specifically one living in Germany, no matter if leaning to the left/right, having moral or whatever other considerations, should NOT worry about it. Having to worry about a threat like this sucks quite frankly.
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The one thing that truly worries me about the current "open borders policies" and "welcome culture" and I can't emphasize enough that this worry is completely unrelated to any leftwing rightwing or even moral concerns in general, is the reality of what will happen after ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq.
Where will all those leftover ISIS people go? Frankly, they can't really go anywhere and expect a warm welcome ... except maybe to the one country where you don't even need papers to be welcomed as a refugee and even get paid for merely being there? The same country that now displayed a complete lack of ability to prevent a terrorist attack even tho the person who committed it was already known as a potential terrorist and under observation?
Frankly... I hope my worry turns out to be an unrealistic/irrational one. So by all means shoot many holes in that little theory please, so i can start feeling better about it.
After the last vestiges of ISIS in the middle east get annihilated it will be like former nazis after the war, people who went and murdered entire villages of old people and children living quietly under assumed names and hoping nobody will see through them.
And the international terror network will just disappear like the ones of the Nazis? ... oh wait ... the Nazis didn't have an international terror network. And afaik ... Nazis didn't have the motivation for suicide attacks all over the world either.
Sorry but ... wishful thinking alone won't make me sleep any better at night. Was hoping for something more solid.
What for example, considering ISIS religous nature, makes it unlikely from your viewpoint that stomping out ISIS in Syria and IRAK will be seen as a case of Martyrdom and fan the flames of international terror even more?
ISIS has a reputation for murdering a lot of muslims.
The terror attacks we get, we get because ISIS exists as a statual entity, ceasing to be that will weaken them in front of the eyes of the idiots they recruit here, because after their strength is gone it only remains the fact that they murdered a lot of muslims.
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The one thing that truly worries me about the current "open borders policies" and "welcome culture" and I can't emphasize enough that this worry is completely unrelated to any leftwing rightwing or even moral concerns in general, is the reality of what will happen after ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq.
Where will all those leftover ISIS people go? Frankly, they can't really go anywhere and expect a warm welcome ... except maybe to the one country where you don't even need papers to be welcomed as a refugee and even get paid for merely being there? The same country that now displayed a complete lack of ability to prevent a terrorist attack even tho the person who committed it was already known as a potential terrorist and under observation?
Frankly... I hope my worry turns out to be an unrealistic/irrational one. So by all means shoot many holes in that little theory please, so i can start feeling better about it.
I think the main problem with your hypothesis is that it relies upon Europe having a 'welcome culture'. It doesn't.
Maybe Europe at large doesn't anymore. Germany is a different matter. Welcome culture right now is not just still quite present, it's heavily encouraged or even reinforced as policy from the top down as well, most notably in currently applyed immigration practices.
Not that a welcome culture is a bad thing as such. The contrary. I'd say being openminded and welcoming of other cultures is one of the better aspects of many western societies. (or as the case may be, at least has been, in some countries).
Coupled with a complete lack of border control, an inability to keep tabs even on people known to plan terrorist attacks (see Berlin) and then ... a boatload of Djihad-Happy ISIS leftovers looking for "a new home" after ISIS gets defeated in Syria and Iraq however ... I'm not sure I like the potential consequences.
That's what I am worried about anyways. I was hoping to hear a response that tells me why a sane/rational being, specifically one living in Germany, no matter if leaning to the left/right, having moral or whatever other considerations, should NOT worry about it. Having to worry about a threat like this sucks quite frankly.
Right, which is why that aforementioned and neglected infrastructure is important. I can't really go and say "everything will be fine" considering how "How do we deal with the consequences of Iraq" is a problem that Europe has ignored for the past 6 years, deciding to defund the systems that may have helped with cases like this. The refugee crisis, and all problems associated with it, are the result of an ostrich policy that Merkel has, despite best efforts, failed to turn around. These are all symptoms of a larger problem, in part one of how the systems of the EU prevent decisive action, in part because the approach to economic troubles appear to have been "Cut funding to everything and damn the consequences" - and mainly just because the current destabilization of the middle east is the result of foreign policies that Germany had protested. This has been warned about for years, and under those circumstances there's rather little we can do except ensuring that we have those policies and systems in place next time around, and that we don't forget why we have those policies and systems as soon as an economic crunch happens.
There's little point in worrying about something you can't change :blah:. That being said, that this is not a total surprise to the intelligence services does mean that there's a clear cut and pragmatic solution that can be achieved without turning to becoming a dictatorship or indiscriminate surveillance. It's not like those systems didn't stop people before (they did) - it means that they could be doing a better job but it also means that the problem can be resolved by them doing a better job.
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@niffiwan: Yes, the Battle of Britain and London Blitz
Maybe, but surely only insofar as clamping down weakens the country, causes internal strife, shapes their foreign policy, and so on. It's not like jihadist terrorists gain anything by some european country doing those things, as such. If basically everyone was on the political right and thus clamping down on <whatever the political right actually wants to clamp down on> was something about which there is no political division, then the terrorists wouldn't have achieved anything (except some fame that might attract recruits). Same thing if everyone collectively agreed to basically ignore what happened and to not enact any changes in policy because of it.
That comes with the terribly big assumption that all they want is for the West to clamp down on taking in refugees so that they'll have more victims to abuse. Which might certainly be a big part of it, but also it'd be pretty myopic to think that those guys don't have a massive axe to grind with the West anyway, regardless of refugees.
Besides, it's being left rather unclear what the political right supposedly wants done now that would sacrifice democracy and liberties and all that. Mostly it seems to have been, since forever, about restricting MENA immigration.
I had a great detailed reply written up to this at 2:30 AM when I was awake from the soreness after my dental surgery, and then my daughter started puking and I closed the browser. So this is the less great less detailed reply:
Islamic terrorists have attacked countries all over the globe; they have aimed for and received significant media attention in a few of the Western democracies in particular: the United States, France, and Great Britain. Why? Contrary to the rhetoric, the leadership of the whack-a-mole terrorist organizations have no illusions about "destroying" the West, nor do they intend to. Why focus on the Western democracies with the most damaging attacks? Easy:
1. Russia already essentially capitulated over Chechnya. Russian expansionism into Islamic areas is now quite low.
2. Eastern Europe can't get its own **** together, and it certainly doesn't care to either interfere with Islamic radicals, or take in ordinary Muslims.
3. Historically, the US, GB, and France have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of the Western interference in Islamic countries. They were also among the most willing to take in Muslim immigrants. Mounting terrorist attacks against these nations has already led to and is likely to increase the following chain of events that benefit Islamic extremists:
A. Hysterical media reaction to any attack.
B. Knee-jerk public reaction to the attack favoring a combination of increased "security state," consequently decreased civil liberties, and a measurable reduction in support for their Muslim populations.
C. Political reaction to the public reaction. This is how we get bad security laws, increased surveillance state, and expensive security apparatus.
D. Increased scrutiny of all immigrants and minority populations, and especially Muslim immigrants, making it more difficult for them to flee the extremists in their own countries, and generating hostility towards even those who have integrated in their new countries.
E. Public and political calls for reduced or abolished intervention (even in the face of human rights disasters and genocides; see most recently "Aleppo") by Western countries in areas controlled by Islamic extremists.
F. Propaganda by Islamic extremists showing the oppression of Muslims by the West, driving greater recruitment and opposition to Western influence in their core territories, and allowing a tighter grip of control by the extremists.
The fact remains, any American supporter of - for example - Trump's immigration plans regarding Muslims or "target countries" has a far greater risk of dying from a bullet fired out of a legal gun belonging to another adherent of that ideology in the United States than they have risk of even injury in a terrorist attack carried out under the banner of radical Islam. I don't dispute that terrorist attacks are reprehensible or that we should do our utmost to stop them, but collectively the West is beginning to lose perspective on this issue and it plays entirely into the hands of the people running the show on the other side. While NATO has been faffing about wringing its political hands about ISIS, Assad just finished crushing his majority populace again, reinvigorating a strategic Russia ally in the region and weakening NATO's interests.
So yeah, the political "right" needs to grow the **** up and go sit on its Cold War grandpa's knee and learn about some ****ing history, because the modern right is about ready to capitulate and allow 60 years of relative global stability to crumble because they're either hiding under their beds, or pretending to hide under their beds to win political power. The Trump's, Le Pen's, Farange's, Wilders, Leitch's, etc of the world can **** right off back into the cowardly ignorant holes they crawled out of. Say what you will of George W Bush's idiocy, at least the man understood the basic precepts of recent history. I like Obama, but he has presided over a period of American withdrawal from the world stage and the world is NOT better off for it. Meanwhile, the remainder of NATO cannot go it without the United States.
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I wouldn't be so sure about little terrorism in Russia. They've never had their news media report things contrary to reality... right?
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You can't really shove that kind ofthing under the rug in today's era.
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TBH, at this point, if it wasn't for the fact that the nationalists in the West will invariably turn on other people (Poles, Armenians, Tatars, you name it) after "dealing with" Arabs, I'd be looking forward to both ISIS and nationalists achieving their goal of Islam/West war. I don't know what ISIS is thinking, but if we ever wanted to simply destroy them, we would. The only thing is that so far, we've been trying to destroy them without causing collateral damage. If the power in Western countries is seized by people with no such inhibitions, they wouldn't stand a chance against a single Western country committed to a total war. If we were willing to shell their cities to dust and carpet-bomb them into oblivion, we would've done so (well, the latter would involve borrowing bombers from the US, but I think you catch my drift). Poland would have trouble (mostly for economic reasons), but Germany wouldn't and for the US, it's just a matter of pressing button (of course, the UN would scream bloody murder, but I don't think that any country would actually start a war with the US just over nuking ISIS territory). By inciting nationalist sentiments in the West, ISIS is digging a grave for itself, its own people and plenty of innocent Arabs along the line.
Doom and gloom aside, I'm not so against an idea of sacrificing some freedoms for safety, especially if keeping the status quo would allow terrorists to keep killing people. Nobody wants to die in a terrorist attack, if it means you can't walk around after dark, so be it. Saving lives is more important, freedom is of little use to the dead. The problem is, most proposals currently being trumpeted are completely misaimed. For example, TSA in the US has failed to stop a single terrorist attack, but what it succeeded in doing is causing a huge inconvenience, increase panic and cause people to be hostile to the idea of security measures in general. There, freedoms have been sacrificed for nothing, which understandably ticks people off. Stuff like banning Muslim dress has exactly zero effect on the actual ability to prevent a terrorist attack, in fact increasing its likelihood by pissing off Muslims. Terrorism is always a catch-22, if you ignore them, they'll keep killing you and if you react, they have achieved their goal. What we can do is act efficiently within this catch. Instead of "flashy" and pointless anti-terrorism measures to appease the public, we should only implement measures that work (and quickly back off those that prove not to).
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Regarding the clothing ban, that's an interesting one. I would not object if Finland was to instate a bans regarding Muslim women clothing. The reason for that is simply the women rights to choose whatever clothing they want, and traditionally Finland has been one of the forerunners on women rights. So my reason has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, but enforcing the women rights for the minorities too. And yes I'm aware there are moderate Muslims who don't care about that. Those that we have do.
Interestingly, the feminist movement has also been very quiet about the women oppression by Muslim culture, although this is clearly visible for pretty much anyone looking. Can't escape the feeling they would be screaming very very loud if it were Finnish men doing this. So this double standard has to end.
The worrifying thing is that the German police was not able to thwart this despite the guy being on their watchlist as a potential terrorist. The unfortunate generalization of this is that the intelligence services are not any better than they were before despite the more intrusive digital surveying methods; Secret Services have quite poor track record of stopping anything. More often than not the suspects are caught in standard police check ups such as the perpetrator of Berlin case.
Makes me wonder who tipped of Arlanda airport in Stockholm, it was reported that a plane was boarded by the police and all passenger passports were checked. If it was related to Berlin, the tip lead the officials to the completely opposite direction.
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You can be assured that MP-Ryan reply is mostly wrong. Him praising Bush is a huge red flag, as it was his foreign policy that is to a large degree responsible for this mess.
The main strategic goal of islamic extremists is to spread backward MENA brand of islam worldwide in order to ensure a fat future recruitment pool all over the world. They want to go from a MENA power to a global power. They need to be contained before they can be destroyed.
Due to open border policies, committing terrorist attacks in the West is actually extremely easy and if ISIS truly wanted to, there would be attacks every week. All they have to do is walk over unchecked and start shooting or driving into people. Thats the state of security currently. The fact that there are no attacks every week shows that the terrorists are showing restraint, and the cause is probably them being afraid of triggering a nationalist backslash prematurely, which would be bad for their long term plans.
The Trumps of this world usually want MORE military action against ISIS, so your point about "withdrawal from the world stage" is entirely wrong. It is not withdrawal, just a badly needed reassessment of targets.
Also, whats with that whining about Assad? You really want Bush 2.0, dont you? First deal with ISIS and other islamic extremist groups, and then you can worry about the likes of Assad, who are by far the lesser evil in the region.
But whatever, western EU is trying your approach, Trumps America and eastern parts of EU will instead wall off and tighten immigration policy, and we shall see who has bigger problems with muslim extremism in a decade or two..
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Regarding the clothing ban, that's an interesting one. I would not object if Finland was to instate a bans regarding Muslim women clothing. The reason for that is simply the women rights to choose whatever clothing they want, and traditionally Finland has been one of the forerunners on women rights. So my reason has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, but enforcing the women rights for the minorities too. And yes I'm aware there are moderate Muslims who don't care about that. Those that we have do.
Please explain how you preserve the womens' right to self-expression through clothing by forbidding them to wear certain items of clothing.
Interestingly, the feminist movement has also been very quiet about the women oppression by Muslim culture, although this is clearly visible for pretty much anyone looking. Can't escape the feeling they would be screaming very very loud if it were Finnish men doing this. So this double standard has to end.
Ah yes, the good old "Why don't you care about <thing I think is important>" bit.
The worrifying thing is that the German police was not able to thwart this despite the guy being on their watchlist as a potential terrorist. The unfortunate generalization of this is that the intelligence services are not any better than they were before despite the more intrusive digital surveying methods; Secret Services have quite poor track record of stopping anything. More often than not the suspects are caught in standard police check ups such as the perpetrator of Berlin case.
Okay. No.
You cannot arrest someone just because they have expressed sympathy for terrorists (Well, you can, but you kinda can't call yourself a liberal democracy afterwards). Even a professed willingness to join a terrorist group isn't something you can arrest someone over.
You can be assured that MP-Ryan reply is mostly wrong. Him praising Bush is a huge red flag, as it was his foreign policy that is to a large degree responsible for this mess.
Guess how I know you haven't actually read his post.
The main strategic goal of islamic extremists is to spread backward MENA brand of islam worldwide in order to ensure a fat future recruitment pool all over the world. They want to go from a MENA power to a global power. They need to be contained before they can be destroyed.
And you would have us increase their recruiting pool by slamming our doors shut.
Due to open border policies, committing terrorist attacks in the West is actually extremely easy and if ISIS truly wanted to, there would be attacks every week. All they have to do is walk over unchecked and start shooting or driving into people. Thats the state of security currently. The fact that there are no attacks every week shows that the terrorists are showing restraint, and the cause is probably them being afraid of triggering a nationalist backslash prematurely, which would be bad for their long term plans.
Hmm, yes, the open borders make it so easy. Like that Anis Amri guy, he escaped from Germany and was never caught by Police before leaving the EU and getting to live the high life in ISIS territories.
Oh wait.
The Trumps of this world usually want MORE military action against ISIS, so your point about "withdrawal from the world stage" is entirely wrong. It is not withdrawal, just a badly needed reassessment of targets.
Wait, I thought Hillary Clinton was supposed to be the warmonger.
Also, whats with that whining about Assad? You really want Bush 2.0, dont you? First deal with ISIS and other islamic extremist groups, and then you can worry about the likes of Assad, who are by far the lesser evil in the region.
The lesser evil is still ****ing evil. "Don't worry about Stalin, we can deal with him once this whole Hitler situation has been dealt with."
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Well, too be fair Stalin did die shortly after the war, so I guess that problem mostly solved itself.
As for Assad, knocking him over is too risky at this point, as their is no credible alternative to him, given the people who would overthrow him would likely turn Syria into a Muslim theocracy.
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Trump and Clinton are both warmongers, it's merely a difference in goals. Clinton would be a continuation of destabilization policy, likely prompting a war with Russia over their Syrian and Iranian allies. Trump's target is ISIS and the countries covertly funding ISIS like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Hitler and Stalin were both considered the lesser evil at different points in time. I'm pretty sure one of the reasons for appeasement was that the Nazis were seen as a useful buffer against communism (which had already killed millions in Russia). Of course, that went out the window when he signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets instead.
On Assad, though, the reality is that while he's a brutal dictator, he's at least a brutal dictator who maintains things like women's rights and a decent standard of living. The Islamist rebels are would-be brutal dictators without such silver linings. Recall the Iranian Revolution.
The enemy of your enemy is not your friend.
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And you would have us increase their recruiting pool by slamming our doors shut.
Hey, did you just admit that you are letting inside potential ISIS recruits? LOL! Wow, talk about a security danger!
If not, then the only recruiting pool you are decreasing is a moderate rebel one.
Islamist recruiting pool in MENA is already as big as it can get, and it aint getting any smaller no matter how many so-called "refugees" you let inside. Islamist recruiting pools in OTHER areas of the world need to be prevented from increasing. Which part of "extremists are trying to go from MENA to global power" did you not understand? Thats the main long term strategic goal for them currently. Exporting terrorism abroad and preparing the situation for a new generation of extremists to arise in kuffar lands. Not trying in vain to hold on ISIS territory, higher ups know well that the days of ISIS as a state are numbered.
Last but not least, EU governments ought to worry about islamist recruiting pool inside EU first. Because it is EU they are tasked with to protect, not random arabs from wherever. Even if it doesnt seem that way lately..
Hmm, yes, the open borders make it so easy. Like that Anis Amri guy, he escaped from Germany and was never caught by Police before leaving the EU and getting to live the high life in ISIS territories.
Yes, that guy who made a complete and total mockery of EU security, was allowed to come inside and roam freely over the continent despite having suspected ties to terrorism, and was caught only after he committed the attacks, which is too late. That guy indeed.
Wait, I thought Hillary Clinton was supposed to be the warmonger.
And she is. At this stage, wanting to target Assad or increase tensions with Russia makes you a warmonger. Wanting to increase military action against the likes of ISIS just makes you a decent human being.
The lesser evil is still ****ing evil. "Don't worry about Stalin, we can deal with him once this whole Hitler situation has been dealt with."
You proving my point? Because dealing with Stalin and Hitler all at once would have been such a great idea... Bigger evil takes priority.
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Hey, did you just admit that you are letting inside potential ISIS recruits? LOL! Wow, talk about a security danger!
Oh, **** off. "Potential recruits" aren't a danger. You are a potential recruit for terrorists. Should we lock you up?
Yes, that guy who made a complete and total mockery of EU security, was allowed to come inside and roam freely over the continent despite having suspected ties to terrorism, and was caught only after he committed the attacks, which is too late. That guy indeed.
Yes, maslo. Let's lock up everyone who might eventually commit an act of terrorism. That's certainly safe and will not lead to any human rights violations.
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Interestingly, the feminist movement has also been very quiet about the women oppression by Muslim culture, although this is clearly visible for pretty much anyone looking. Can't escape the feeling they would be screaming very very loud if it were Finnish men doing this. So this double standard has to end.
There's quite a bit of feminism going on from within muslim culture: There's feminist movements in Iran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_rights_movement_in_Iran), Saudi Arabia (http://www.theweek.co.uk/60339/nine-things-women-cant-do-in-saudi-arabia), Marocco (http://www.cihablog.com/the-womens-movement-in-morocco-bridging-the-progressive-islamic-feminist-binary/)... The dutch president of the house, Khadija Arib, was once arrested in Marocco for protesting women's rights there. The reason why you'll hear Finnish feminists talk more about what is going on in Finland is because that's the stuff that directly affects themselves. It's not because feminists don't care, it's because feminists are far better equipped to deal with the things ongoing with their own culture then they are imposing their views upon another culture.
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Regarding the clothing ban, that's an interesting one. I would not object if Finland was to instate a bans regarding Muslim women clothing. The reason for that is simply the women rights to choose whatever clothing they want, and traditionally Finland has been one of the forerunners on women rights. So my reason has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, but enforcing the women rights for the minorities too. And yes I'm aware there are moderate Muslims who don't care about that. Those that we have do.
Please explain how you preserve the womens' right to self-expression through clothing by forbidding them to wear certain items of clothing.
Yes, after you have done the explaining how a religion enforcing women to wear certain clothing can be filled under equal rights between the genders - which is written as an integral part in the Finnish constitution?
The answer is, you can't. You can always find morally sounding reasons why something should not be done. And a conflicting reason why it should be done. I just select to prefer the Finnish way. It's me, who is, afterall, paying the refugees education and bills.
Interestingly, the feminist movement has also been very quiet about the women oppression by Muslim culture, although this is clearly visible for pretty much anyone looking. Can't escape the feeling they would be screaming very very loud if it were Finnish men doing this. So this double standard has to end.
Ah yes, the good old "Why don't you care about <thing I think is important>" bit.
Yeah. Very much so. Which is why the feministic movement is rapidly losing its message and becoming a laughing stock here.
And for Joshua, I wasn't talking about Finnish feminists' doings in other countries, I was talking about their double standards on the Muslims and Muslim refugees here. And not regarding the tatar muslims, but those who came in around 1990s and later.
The worrifying thing is that the German police was not able to thwart this despite the guy being on their watchlist as a potential terrorist. The unfortunate generalization of this is that the intelligence services are not any better than they were before despite the more intrusive digital surveying methods; Secret Services have quite poor track record of stopping anything. More often than not the suspects are caught in standard police check ups such as the perpetrator of Berlin case.
Okay. No.
You cannot arrest someone just because they have expressed sympathy for terrorists (Well, you can, but you kinda can't call yourself a liberal democracy afterwards). Even a professed willingness to join a terrorist group isn't something you can arrest someone over.
Even I've recently expressed sympathy for terrorists, the case being the guy who shot the Russian envoy in Turkey. If there's something what he did right, at least he didn't add collateral damage.
But no, that's no grounds for arrest.
But having a background like this Amir guy did could actuallly net a visit to a psychologist here, which could lead to a possible (in cases the individual is considered too dangerous, involuntary) treatment in the mental hospital.
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Yes, after you have done the explaining how a religion enforcing women to wear certain clothing can be filled under equal rights between the genders - which is written as an integral part in the Finnish constitution?
Does the finnish constitution take precedence over religious dictates? Even in cases where said dictates do not conflict with the state's primary interests (For example, honor killings are such an area, as they conflict with the state's monopoly on violence and law enforcement).
EDIT: I mean, based on what you wrote, there must be catholic priestesses in Finland. Funny how that never comes up anywhere.
The answer is, you can't. You can always find morally sounding reasons why something should not be done. And a conflicting reason why it should be done. I just select to prefer the Finnish way. It's me, who is, afterall, paying the refugees education and bills.
Be careful going down that road. Next thing you know, and you'll be outraged at people on unemployment for not spending your money correctly.
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Yes, after you have done the explaining how a religion enforcing women to wear certain clothing can be filled under equal rights between the genders - which is written as an integral part in the Finnish constitution?
Islam is not in the position to enforce anything: It is a set of beliefs, it has no pyramid power structure like the Catholic Church does, and even the Catholic Church has no power outside the Vatican. If you roll with the rather binary notion that Islam enforces a dress code you are immeaditely ignoring all the people who dress themselves according to islamic practice of their own volition - which in itself is a matter of interpretation. It's saying that muslim women don't have free will.
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I had a great detailed reply written up to this at 2:30 AM when I was awake from the soreness after my dental surgery, and then my daughter started puking and I closed the browser. So this is the less great less detailed reply:
Islamic terrorists have attacked countries all over the globe; they have aimed for and received significant media attention in a few of the Western democracies in particular: the United States, France, and Great Britain. Why? Contrary to the rhetoric, the leadership of the whack-a-mole terrorist organizations have no illusions about "destroying" the West, nor do they intend to. Why focus on the Western democracies with the most damaging attacks? Easy:
1. Russia already essentially capitulated over Chechnya. Russian expansionism into Islamic areas is now quite low.
2. Eastern Europe can't get its own **** together, and it certainly doesn't care to either interfere with Islamic radicals, or take in ordinary Muslims.
3. Historically, the US, GB, and France have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of the Western interference in Islamic countries. They were also among the most willing to take in Muslim immigrants. Mounting terrorist attacks against these nations has already led to and is likely to increase the following chain of events that benefit Islamic extremists:
A. Hysterical media reaction to any attack.
B. Knee-jerk public reaction to the attack favoring a combination of increased "security state," consequently decreased civil liberties, and a measurable reduction in support for their Muslim populations.
C. Political reaction to the public reaction. This is how we get bad security laws, increased surveillance state, and expensive security apparatus.
D. Increased scrutiny of all immigrants and minority populations, and especially Muslim immigrants, making it more difficult for them to flee the extremists in their own countries, and generating hostility towards even those who have integrated in their new countries.
E. Public and political calls for reduced or abolished intervention (even in the face of human rights disasters and genocides; see most recently "Aleppo") by Western countries in areas controlled by Islamic extremists.
F. Propaganda by Islamic extremists showing the oppression of Muslims by the West, driving greater recruitment and opposition to Western influence in their core territories, and allowing a tighter grip of control by the extremists.
Well, isn't that just a longer way (even if shorter than the original) of phrasing the same idea that the way in which a right-wing response would benefit the extremists is by acting as a propaganda tool ("look, they're oppressing us in the West") and by making it harder for their victims to get away? I don't know if the right in general wants to reduce or abolish humanitarian intervention though, so E is maybe a third.
But my point is and was simply that those are far from obvious and unavoidable results. Firstly, you just can't form policy based on whether some completely bat**** insane guys at ISIS will maybe twist your policy into some kind of propagandistic tale of oppression of the righteous. They can do that with anything anyway, because it's not like their audience gets to do or is interested in much fact-checking. Secondly, tightened scrutiny of immigrants doesn't have to mean that you just deport them right back into ISIS's hands or treat them as garbage.
The fact remains, any American supporter of - for example - Trump's immigration plans regarding Muslims or "target countries" has a far greater risk of dying from a bullet fired out of a legal gun belonging to another adherent of that ideology in the United States than they have risk of even injury in a terrorist attack carried out under the banner of radical Islam. I don't dispute that terrorist attacks are reprehensible or that we should do our utmost to stop them, but collectively the West is beginning to lose perspective on this issue and it plays entirely into the hands of the people running the show on the other side. While NATO has been faffing about wringing its political hands about ISIS, Assad just finished crushing his majority populace again, reinvigorating a strategic Russia ally in the region and weakening NATO's interests.
So yeah, the political "right" needs to grow the **** up and go sit on its Cold War grandpa's knee and learn about some ****ing history, because the modern right is about ready to capitulate and allow 60 years of relative global stability to crumble because they're either hiding under their beds, or pretending to hide under their beds to win political power. The Trump's, Le Pen's, Farange's, Wilders, Leitch's, etc of the world can **** right off back into the cowardly ignorant holes they crawled out of. Say what you will of George W Bush's idiocy, at least the man understood the basic precepts of recent history. I like Obama, but he has presided over a period of American withdrawal from the world stage and the world is NOT better off for it. Meanwhile, the remainder of NATO cannot go it without the United States.
I can't see any reason why you're telling me these things.
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If you roll with the rather binary notion that Islam enforces a dress code you are immeaditely ignoring all the people who dress themselves according to islamic practice of their own volition - which in itself is a matter of interpretation. It's saying that muslim women don't have free will.
Paradoxically, sexist practices are sometimes perpetuated by their victims. Did you know that in certain African countries, most women support female genital mutilation? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Support_from_women)
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Regarding the clothing ban, that's an interesting one. I would not object if Finland was to instate a bans regarding Muslim women clothing. The reason for that is simply the women rights to choose whatever clothing they want, and traditionally Finland has been one of the forerunners on women rights. So my reason has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, but enforcing the women rights for the minorities too. And yes I'm aware there are moderate Muslims who don't care about that. Those that we have do.
Interestingly, the feminist movement has also been very quiet about the women oppression by Muslim culture, although this is clearly visible for pretty much anyone looking. Can't escape the feeling they would be screaming very very loud if it were Finnish men doing this. So this double standard has to end.
Well tribalism in general has to end, I don't think the feminist movement is unique in that regard. Of course the feminist movement finds it hard to speak negatively about islam in particular, because criticism of islam is basically owned by people who tend to be very vocal about their dislike of feminism too; you wouldn't have much better luck asking those people to for example condemn gender discrimination in clergy, or sexual harassment specifically by white guys... without any further disclaimers or sarcastic remarks, that is.
As for clothing bans, it's an annoying case because obviously most women you see wearing a burkha+niqab can't have simply freely decided one day that that happens to be the style they want to sport, but also those who are being forced or pressured to wear it can't admit it. The ban on face-concealing clothing in public without acceptable reason (hard to define of course) seems like reasonably reasonable middle ground on that, whereas banning for example the burkini is just dumb. I don't think bans based on what type of clothing is thought to correlate with illegal activity really make sense. What you can do, however, is to make sure to ingrain all this nice stuff about personal freedom into kids in school so that there's a much better chance that if their parents or community try to force them into wearing something, they'll understand what's going on well enough that an outsider can actually get the truth of the matter and they can for example be taken into custody as a last resort.
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If you roll with the rather binary notion that Islam enforces a dress code you are immeaditely ignoring all the people who dress themselves according to islamic practice of their own volition - which in itself is a matter of interpretation. It's saying that muslim women don't have free will.
Paradoxically, sexist practices are sometimes perpetuated by their victims. Did you know that in certain African countries, most women support female genital mutilation? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Support_from_women)
And as long as we don't acknowledge inhuman religious indoctrination as a form of child abuse that will not change.
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If you roll with the rather binary notion that Islam enforces a dress code you are immeaditely ignoring all the people who dress themselves according to islamic practice of their own volition - which in itself is a matter of interpretation. It's saying that muslim women don't have free will.
Paradoxically, sexist practices are sometimes perpetuated by their victims. Did you know that in certain African countries, most women support female genital mutilation? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Support_from_women)
I am aware of this.
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Yes, after you have done the explaining how a religion enforcing women to wear certain clothing can be filled under equal rights between the genders - which is written as an integral part in the Finnish constitution?
Islam is not in the position to enforce anything: It is a set of beliefs, it has no pyramid power structure like the Catholic Church does, and even the Catholic Church has no power outside the Vatican. If you roll with the rather binary notion that Islam enforces a dress code you are immeaditely ignoring all the people who dress themselves according to islamic practice of their own volition - which in itself is a matter of interpretation. It's saying that muslim women don't have free will.
I'm pretty sure the end goal of Islamism is to create such a power structure in the form of theocratic governments.
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Yes, maslo. Let's lock up everyone who might eventually commit an act of terrorism. That's certainly safe and will not lead to any human rights violations.
Not everyone. Legal citizens should be mostly left alone. But people like this should absolutely be locked up and deported long ago, by force if necessary.
Amri arrived for the first time in Europe in 2011 on a refugee raft[55] at the island of Lampedusa. He lied about his age, pretending to be a minor, and was sent to the temporary migrants reception center on the island.[56] At the center, according to Italian security officials, Amri "took part in a particularly violent riot, when the center was set on fire and several people were injured" and was sentenced for it and robbery[57] to four years in prison, which he served in two jails in Sicily.[56] Amri was released in 2015; according to Italian officials, the Tunisian authorities refused to accept his repatriation to Tunisia, and it is believed that he went to Germany around this time.[56]
In Tunisia, Amri was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison, "reportedly for aggravated theft with violence".[58][59] Prior to that he had been arrested several times for possession and use of drugs.[60] According to his family, he drank alcohol, took drugs and was initially not religious, but had been radicalized in Italian jails.[57][61] The man arrived in Germany in July 2015 and applied for asylum in April 2016. He used at least six different aliases and posed as a citizen of Syria, Egypt or Lebanon. He reportedly had tried to recruit participants for a terrorist attack since the spring, and once tried to buy a pistol from an undercover police officer. He had been overheard by the German intelligence offering to carry out a suicide attack,[62] but the German authorities had decided not to arrest him because they deemed him a mere errand boy.[63] In Germany he was involved in a bar brawl and drug dealing; later he was involved in a knife attack over drugs in July 2016 and disappeared after police tried to question him.[64] Three weeks before the attack Moroccan intelligence warned Germany about the terrorist attack planned by him.
European anti-terror security, border security and immigration control is like that of a failed state. It basically does not exist in any meaningful sense (with the possible exception of V4 countries).
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Yes, maslo. Let's lock up everyone who might eventually commit an act of terrorism. That's certainly safe and will not lead to any human rights violations.
Not everyone. But people like this should absolutely be locked up and deported long ago, by force if necessary.
Fun fact: Amri was scheduled to be deported, but couldn't be because Tunisia claimed that he wasn't a Tunisian citizen. The necessary paperwork only arrived after the attack already happened.
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Yes, after you have done the explaining how a religion enforcing women to wear certain clothing can be filled under equal rights between the genders - which is written as an integral part in the Finnish constitution?
Islam is not in the position to enforce anything: It is a set of beliefs, it has no pyramid power structure like the Catholic Church does, and even the Catholic Church has no power outside the Vatican. If you roll with the rather binary notion that Islam enforces a dress code you are immeaditely ignoring all the people who dress themselves according to islamic practice of their own volition - which in itself is a matter of interpretation. It's saying that muslim women don't have free will.
I'm pretty sure the end goal of Islamism is to create such a power structure in the form of theocratic governments.
All abrahamic religions refer to a kingdom of heaven in their teachings (which is why we have a christian theocratic party in our parliament), but I am really uncertain what this has to do with the decision whether or not to wear a headscarf and whether or not the state should interfere with that decision. Just because Iran does it doesn't mean that we should do the same.
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Well ... Germany is now introducing it's own "ministry of truth" errr ... "defense center against disinformation" - and no that is no joke lol: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/die-bundesregierung-will-vor-desinformationen-schuetzen-14589726.html.
So maybe soon we won't have to worry about terrorism anymore ... :cough:
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All abrahamic religions refer to a kingdom of heaven in their teachings (which is why we have a christian theocratic party in our parliament), but I am really uncertain what this has to do with the decision whether or not to wear a headscarf and whether or not the state should interfere with that decision. Just because Iran does it doesn't mean that we should do the same.
Islam is not Abrahamic save perhaps in the loosest sense, in that the Arab peoples seem likely descended from Ishmael. But Islam came LONG after the establishment of both the Jewish faith and Christianity, around the 7th century A.D at the earliest, and, according to some sources, was possibly instigated by the Catholic leadership trying to create a friendly religion in the region by sending nuns out to contact likely fellows such as Mohamed and influence them with ideas that would be friendly to Rome so that Roman Catholicism could take over the Holy Land. Additionally, this "Allah" they operate in the name of is not the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, but rather an idol. That black stone in Mecca that all the Muslim pilgrims kiss because Mohamed did so? That's the last idol left from a shrine that was full of them before Mohammed destroyed all of them except the one he already worshiped, which means this "Allah" is in fact a demon false god, just like Dagon of the Philistines, Ashera(Ishtar), the Baals, Renphan/Moloch, or any other figure followed in pagan religions.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
according to some sources, was possibly instigated by the Catholic leadership trying to create a friendly religion in the region by sending nuns out to contact likely fellows such as Mohamed and influence them with ideas that would be friendly to Rome so that Roman Catholicism could take over the Holy Land. Additionally, this "Allah" they operate in the name of is not the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, but rather an idol. That black stone in Mecca that all the Muslim pilgrims kiss because Mohamed did so? That's the last idol left from a shrine that was full of them before Mohammed destroyed all of them except the one he already worshiped, which means this "Allah" is in fact a demon false god, just like Dagon of the Philistines, Ashera(Ishtar), the Baals, Renphan/Moloch, or any other figure followed in pagan religions.
Citation(s) needed, preferably from neutral sources.
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All abrahamic religions refer to a kingdom of heaven in their teachings (which is why we have a christian theocratic party in our parliament), but I am really uncertain what this has to do with the decision whether or not to wear a headscarf and whether or not the state should interfere with that decision. Just because Iran does it doesn't mean that we should do the same.
Islam is not Abrahamic save perhaps in the loosest sense, in that the Arab peoples seem likely descended from Ishmael. But Islam came LONG after the establishment of both the Jewish faith and Christianity, around the 7th century A.D at the earliest, and, according to some sources, was possibly instigated by the Catholic leadership trying to create a friendly religion in the region by sending nuns out to contact likely fellows such as Mohamed and influence them with ideas that would be friendly to Rome so that Roman Catholicism could take over the Holy Land. Additionally, this "Allah" they operate in the name of is not the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, but rather an idol. That black stone in Mecca that all the Muslim pilgrims kiss because Mohamed did so? That's the last idol left from a shrine that was full of them before Mohammed destroyed all of them except the one he already worshiped, which means this "Allah" is in fact a demon false god, just like Dagon of the Philistines, Ashera(Ishtar), the Baals, Renphan/Moloch, or any other figure followed in pagan religions.
Yeah, yeah, same old anti-catholic conspiracy bull**** ("They have relics! And statues of Saints! So they worship idols! Clearly it's Satan guiding them! They aren't real Christians!" et cetera), this time mixed with islamophobia.
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Funny, I didn't mention relics or saints. That said, I find it most odd that in the Ten Commandments pamphlets handed out by people trying to get folks to come to a Catholic service, they leave out the one about graven images and split the last one, about coveting, into two. The version of the bible they use doesn't do that, but their 10 Commandments tract does. I'm not saying they're not Christians. I am not the Judge of them. That job belongs to Almightly God. There are things I find to be of concern, though. Like the aforementioned tract, or the claim, despite biblical evidence to the contrary, that Peter was the first pope. (Hard to be a celibate supreme pontiff when you're married. Peter's wife is never mentioned, but early in Luke, they are at the house of the mother of his wife. Yes, the Bible documents that Peter had a mother-in-law, and a man would have to be a fool to have a mother-in-law without having a wife.) So I am wary of Catholic doctrine. If it matches scripture read in straightforward manner, fine. But it's definitely an "eat the meat and spit out the bones" situation.
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Which makes me wonder why you used the idolatry angle to harp on Islam not being a True Religion(tm) despite it's rather notorious stance against idolatry.
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If anything, Islam is closer to the ideas from the Old Testament than modern Catholicism. It can be debated whether it's a good thing or not, but Islam did away with many things that caused difficulties and splits among Christians, such as trinitarism, saints and so on. I'm not fond of religions in general, but Islam is definitely "better designed" than Christianity. It still has many flaws, but it did patch some notorious holes and seems to be doing better in the modern world, as far as general adherence to the rituals goes. Less so to principles, but every religion that tells its followers not to be morons and assholes is going to have this problem, because some (well, most, actually) people just can't be helped.
BTW, "Allah" means just "God" in Arabic, nothing more, nothing less. If this is idolatry, so is you talking about "Almighty God" and not "YHWH" or "Adonai". If you were speaking Arabic, you'd use the same word if you were talking about Christian or Jews, too. The only reason it's used in English is that it makes it possible for Christians to single out Muslims as worshiping a different god (not a new idea, though, this dates at least as far back as the crusades). Doing away with translations is another big innovation of Islam over Christianity, even though it did invite some abuse of that sort. Just look up a list of common translation-induced misinterpretations of the Bibile to get an idea of how important that was.
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Funny, I didn't mention relics or saints. That said, I find it most odd that in the Ten Commandments pamphlets handed out by people trying to get folks to come to a Catholic service, they leave out the one about graven images and split the last one, about coveting, into two. The version of the bible they use doesn't do that, but their 10 Commandments tract does. I'm not saying they're not Christians. I am not the Judge of them. That job belongs to Almightly God. There are things I find to be of concern, though. Like the aforementioned tract, or the claim, despite biblical evidence to the contrary, that Peter was the first pope. (Hard to be a celibate supreme pontiff when you're married. Peter's wife is never mentioned, but early in Luke, they are at the house of the mother of his wife. Yes, the Bible documents that Peter had a mother-in-law, and a man would have to be a fool to have a mother-in-law without having a wife.) So I am wary of Catholic doctrine. If it matches scripture read in straightforward manner, fine. But it's definitely an "eat the meat and spit out the bones" situation.
Last I checked, my catholic bible approved by the C.E.I. ("Conferenza Episcopale Italiana", the Italian Council of Bishops) has everything.
Neither protestant nor catholic doctrine are straightforward, for the simple reason that if you take the bible literally things have a tendency to get quite horrific, nonsensical or both.
The relics and saints are the major argument of the protestant bigots that accuse catholics of idolatry.
Popes and the catholic clergy in general could marry for the first few centuries (after all Paul himself he said celibacy was preferable rather than a full obligation), they decided to go full celibate because bishops started to create dinasties and the secular authorities didn't like that so it was either let the kings and emperors nominate the bishops or renounce the right to have families to maintain a minimum of authonomy from secular authority, which was later dressed up with theological justifications as it usually happesn with religion: see slavery in the US.
Regarding the pamphlet: I have no idea about US catholics, I live in a 90% catholic country so I cannot say anything sure about pamphlets (it's usually Geova's witnesses who hand them here, they are considered supremely annoying by essentially everyone), but I kinda get that in a pamphlet they might give only the main bullet points instead of the literal excerpt from the bible since it's quite long-winded and in Sunday school the part about graven images was considered part of the first commandment.
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@Dragon - It should be noted that translations were only introduced into christianity with protestantism due to the catholic church using the Vulgate, which was in Latin, a language nobody spoke at the time: The courts had switched to french as their lingua franca, and thus Latin and knowledge thereoff was exclusive to people who could get into university and/or the church (eg nobody could take the priests to account). Although muslims generally recommend that people read the Quran in Arabic, translations are not prohibited and perhaps more importantly: Arabic actually is a language that is spoken by a lot of people.
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You can be assured that MP-Ryan reply is mostly wrong. Him praising Bush is a huge red flag, as it was his foreign policy that is to a large degree responsible for this mess.
LOL. The last 150 years says hello. The last 46 or so years is coming over to party. This is no more Bush's invention than 9/11 was Clinton's. It took a very long stretch of screwups and shortsighted policy to produce this mess, which brings me to...
The main strategic goal of islamic extremists is to spread backward MENA brand of islam worldwide in order to ensure a fat future recruitment pool all over the world. They want to go from a MENA power to a global power. They need to be contained before they can be destroyed.
Due to open border policies, committing terrorist attacks in the West is actually extremely easy and if ISIS truly wanted to, there would be attacks every week. All they have to do is walk over unchecked and start shooting or driving into people. Thats the state of security currently. The fact that there are no attacks every week shows that the terrorists are showing restraint, and the cause is probably them being afraid of triggering a nationalist backslash prematurely, which would be bad for their long term plans.
No, the fact that there aren't attacks every week is because (1) the security services are doing their jobs, (2) radicalization rates are still quite low and recruitment outside core countries is difficult, and (3) even IF they were able to surmount 1&2, launching widespread attacks will ensure they'll be enduring not only the continual drone-launched Hellfire rain, but ground forces actively hunting them. Islamic State in particular is a shambles of a ground organization that has a few tens of thousands of active members. They're already being steadily wiped out by the closing noose from Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Western assistance.
Of course, a really GOOD way of causing the first two factors to turn in favour of radical Islamic militant organizations is for the West to do exactly what you prescribe. See also: every internal terrorist insurrection in Western Europe in the last two hundred years.
Also, whats with that whining about Assad? You really want Bush 2.0, dont you? First deal with ISIS and other islamic extremist groups, and then you can worry about the likes of Assad, who are by far the lesser evil in the region.
But whatever, western EU is trying your approach, Trumps America and eastern parts of EU will instead wall off and tighten immigration policy, and we shall see who has bigger problems with muslim extremism in a decade or two..
^ Ways I know you don't have a clue about geopolitical security and history. ISIS is a goddamned sideshow; they're trivial in the grand scheme and don't pose even a remotely existential threat to any Western country (of course, do what the far right wants, see their recruitment expand, and that factor will change). The current major threat to global stability's name beings with R and ends with ussia. Putin is expansionist, unpopular at home, and happy to go adventuring to spread influence and bring in money. Syria landing back in the hands of Assad is a major coup for the Russians, and a major blow to Western interests. Islamic militants are bred from regional oppression and insecurity, and guess what Assad represents. It's no coincidence that both Afghanistan and Iraq have seen sizeable reductions of Islamic radicalism in their democratically-controlled areas which are continuing to expand.
ISIS is not a meaningful threat to the West, and so long as Western countries don't start bring the instincts of their nationalists into law, recruitment will remain low and ISIS will remain trivial. Actually, ISIS will be gone entirely in short order as long as the West doesn't do anything spectacularly stupid, but Islamic radicalism will inevitably rear its ugly head under a new name. Regardless, a minor threat to the populace of Western countries so long as we don't start doing our recruitment for them.
On the other hand, allowing the present state of affairs to continue the Middle East is going to ensure this problem never goes away. We're not going to see Assad gone anytime soon thanks to the West's utter failure in Syria, but with luck we can keep Turkey from tipping and continue to see gains in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact that you're ignoring the far bigger picture to wail about ISIS and European immigration speaks volumes.
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But my point is and was simply that those are far from obvious and unavoidable results. Firstly, you just can't form policy based on whether some completely bat**** insane guys at ISIS will maybe twist your policy into some kind of propagandistic tale of oppression of the righteous. They can do that with anything anyway, because it's not like their audience gets to do or is interested in much fact-checking. Secondly, tightened scrutiny of immigrants doesn't have to mean that you just deport them right back into ISIS's hands or treat them as garbage.
Instead, the right-leaning elements in several NATO countries are proposing a completely reactionary set of policies that are guaranteed to play into the recruiters hands.
I've said before and I'll repeat that I have absolutely no problem with enforcement of immigration law or national borders; I have a major problem with policies (e.g. Trump's proposed "Muslim ban" during the election) that are guaranteed to repress existing minorities, reinforce stigma, breed resentment, increase radicalization, and ultimately act as a recruitment mechanism. De-radicalization programs work; clamping down on innocent refugees and legitimate immigrants doesn't. NATO countries *have not* been hit by a major *homegrown* attack by radical Islamists yet. So far its been single actors with limited organization and fairly low casualty counts. It's really easy to make that change.
I can't see any reason why you're telling me these things.
Because while the right-leaning politicians of the West have been busy foolishly hand-wringing about ISIS, they have entirely abdicated their much more rational actual policies concerning geopolitical stability and civilian protection, and Syria is the first real example of the consequences of that particular idiocy we've seen. Unless NATO pulls its collective heads from its collective asses, it won't be the last. You think Syria created a refugee crisis in Europe? Watch its neighbours. For that matter, watch Iran and watch Turkey. Syria just taught every would-be authoritarian that, as of 2016 and for the first time in more than 30 years, you can slaughter opposition and civilians alike by the tens of thousands with the entire world watching it happen on live TV without consequences.
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Funny, I didn't mention relics or saints. That said, I find it most odd that in the Ten Commandments pamphlets handed out by people trying to get folks to come to a Catholic service, they leave out the one about graven images and split the last one, about coveting, into two. The version of the bible they use doesn't do that, but their 10 Commandments tract does. I'm not saying they're not Christians. I am not the Judge of them. That job belongs to Almightly God. There are things I find to be of concern, though. Like the aforementioned tract, or the claim, despite biblical evidence to the contrary, that Peter was the first pope. (Hard to be a celibate supreme pontiff when you're married. Peter's wife is never mentioned, but early in Luke, they are at the house of the mother of his wife. Yes, the Bible documents that Peter had a mother-in-law, and a man would have to be a fool to have a mother-in-law without having a wife.) So I am wary of Catholic doctrine. If it matches scripture read in straightforward manner, fine. But it's definitely an "eat the meat and spit out the bones" situation.
Last I checked, my catholic bible approved by the C.E.I. ("Conferenza Episcopale Italiana", the Italian Council of Bishops) has everything.
Neither protestant nor catholic doctrine are straightforward, for the simple reason that if you take the bible literally things have a tendency to get quite horrific, nonsensical or both.
The relics and saints are the major argument of the protestant bigots that accuse catholics of idolatry.
Popes and the catholic clergy in general could marry for the first few centuries (after all Paul himself he said celibacy was preferable rather than a full obligation), they decided to go full celibate because bishops started to create dinasties and the secular authorities didn't like that so it was either let the kings and emperors nominate the bishops or renounce the right to have families to maintain a minimum of authonomy from secular authority, which was later dressed up with theological justifications as it usually happesn with religion: see slavery in the US.
Regarding the pamphlet: I have no idea about US catholics, I live in a 90% catholic country so I cannot say anything sure about pamphlets (it's usually Geova's witnesses who hand them here, they are considered supremely annoying by essentially everyone), but I kinda get that in a pamphlet they might give only the main bullet points instead of the literal excerpt from the bible since it's quite long-winded and in Sunday school the part about graven images was considered part of the first commandment.
Actually, I didn't say literally. I said in a straightforward manner. That is to say, read history as history, poetry as poetry, prophecy as prophecy, wisdom (proverbs and the like) as wisdom.
There are some arguments, apparently for the graven image text being part of the first commandment and the covet text being split into separate commands against lust and greed, but the wording does not appear to me to support this. I am not an expert, of course, just someone trying to read the text in a straightforward manner and understand it. And if it requires a guru of some kind to explain some meaning that is not consistent with a plain reading, then how can it be trusted? I do not and cannot believe that a plain reading of any of the THREE incidences of the Ten Commandments in scripture supports splitting the covet text into two and lumping the graven image text in with the first commandment. Even leaving out the verse numbers, which are well known to be later additions and not present in the oldest and most reliable texts (which, by the way do NOT in anywise include anything used by Wescott and Hort), a plain reading makes it obvious to me that the graven image section is its very own "Thou shalt not" independent of the first commandment.
As for "Geova's Witnesses," I believe you mean Jehovah's (false) Witnesses, a.k.a. the followers of Charles Taze Russel, or Russelites--though they will vehemently deny this, even though there is ample evidence to show that all JW and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society doctrine comes from the teachings of Russel (see the section on them in Walter Martin's The Kingdom of the Cults)?
Sorry for bouncing around your stuff, as I'm only now addressing the comment about slavery. I think you will find that any support of slavery from the pulpit came from cherry picking, that is, highly selective reading of specific portions of scripture without context. Also, newer versions of the Bible seem to invariably render the term "bondservant" as "slave," which are two entirely different terms. A bondservant is someone who has bound himself (and often his family) to the service of another for a period of time. In ancient Israel, this would have been for, at longest, about 50 years, as all such were to be freed in the Year of Jubilee and their familial property returned to them. Nobody could permanently sell off family lands under the Deuteronomic code. They could only lease them out for a period lasting until the next Year of Jubilee. If someone was particularly bad at managing their finances and wasted everything inside the first year, they could cost their family their lands for nearly 50 years at most, and, as I said above, also bond themselves to another's service for the same period. The closest they came to slavery within the nation of Israel was a way to permanently bind ones family to the service of another if the master had been particularly gracious and the bondservant wished to not leave service, said method involving a ceremony where an awl was pierced through the bondservant's ear into the doorpost of the house of his master (permanently binding your household to the service of another was serious business in ancient Israel). A proper straightforward reading of all the scripture about this in nowise supports slavery.
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^ Ways I know you don't have a clue about geopolitical security and history. ISIS is a goddamned sideshow; they're trivial in the grand scheme and don't pose even a remotely existential threat to any Western country (of course, do what the far right wants, see their recruitment expand, and that factor will change). The current major threat to global stability's name beings with R and ends with ussia. Putin is expansionist, unpopular at home, and happy to go adventuring to spread influence and bring in money. Syria landing back in the hands of Assad is a major coup for the Russians, and a major blow to Western interests. Islamic militants are bred from regional oppression and insecurity, and guess what Assad represents. It's no coincidence that both Afghanistan and Iraq have seen sizeable reductions of Islamic radicalism in their democratically-controlled areas which are continuing to expand.
ISIS is a sideshow, but not for the reasons you think it is. ISIS is a sideshow primarily because it is far away. Open border policies are a great way to change that and export the ideology that created ISIS all over the world.
ISIS is not a sideshow in middle east, tough. It is the biggest threat in middle east, and if it wasnt for western and Russian backing of anti-ISIS forces, it would likely have conquered Baghdad by now. It will rear its ugly head again, the moment you forget that islamic extremism (which is not bred from oppression but also ideologically driven, see Saudi Arabia) is the main threat in middle east. Heck, it will rear its ugly head no matter what we do, but we can prevent it from conquering territory at least.
Also, lol @ Russia being the biggest threat. Russia is a minor threat, there are no terrorist attacks happening in the name of Russia in Europe, and there will not be any direct conflict between Russia and NATO because Russia has no chance at all to win such conflict, nor is it in their interests to attack us. If Russia is the biggest threat to the West, then we are completely safe indeed. :D
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Also, lol @ Russia being the biggest threat. Russia is a minor threat, there are no terrorist attacks happening in the name of Russia in Europe, and there will not be any direct conflict between Russia and NATO because Russia has no chance at all to win such conflict. If Russia is the biggest threat to the West, then we are completely safe indeed. :D
You're missing the point. Yeah, Russia is unlikely to directly attack a NATO country, but everybody else is fair game. As long as the World doesn't give a ****, Russia doesn't really have a reason not to expand its influence. They can veto any UN attempts to resolve a crisis in a way that doesn't benefit them, and NATO probably doesn't want to meddle in the affairs of nations that aren't part of the organisation.
Daesh is gonna fade away and join Al Qaeda in the "terrorist organisation that used to scare the western world" club within a few years. Russia is here to stay, doesn't really give a **** about anybody but itself, and has proven that it can be scary if it wants to.
In short :
The Islamic State is likely to be dead for intents and purposes within a few years, so whatever its long term plans were, they're irrelevant.
Russia won't be collapsing anytime soon, and while we can't really be sure of its long term plans, it has been increasingly expansionist in recent years.
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Instead, the right-leaning elements in several NATO countries are proposing a completely reactionary set of policies that are guaranteed to play into the recruiters hands.
I've said before and I'll repeat that I have absolutely no problem with enforcement of immigration law or national borders; I have a major problem with policies (e.g. Trump's proposed "Muslim ban" during the election) that are guaranteed to repress existing minorities, reinforce stigma, breed resentment, increase radicalization, and ultimately act as a recruitment mechanism. De-radicalization programs work; clamping down on innocent refugees and legitimate immigrants doesn't. NATO countries *have not* been hit by a major *homegrown* attack by radical Islamists yet. So far its been single actors with limited organization and fairly low casualty counts. It's really easy to make that change.
I can't see any reason why you're telling me these things.
Because while the right-leaning politicians of the West have been busy foolishly hand-wringing about ISIS, they have entirely abdicated their much more rational actual policies concerning geopolitical stability and civilian protection, and Syria is the first real example of the consequences of that particular idiocy we've seen. Unless NATO pulls its collective heads from its collective asses, it won't be the last. You think Syria created a refugee crisis in Europe? Watch its neighbours. For that matter, watch Iran and watch Turkey. Syria just taught every would-be authoritarian that, as of 2016 and for the first time in more than 30 years, you can slaughter opposition and civilians alike by the tens of thousands with the entire world watching it happen on live TV without consequences.
I have no idea where you're going with all this on a meta level.
Now you're saying that you only have a problem with particular right-wing policies, citing one of the most radical and dumbest ones proposed as an example, whereas all I've been arguing for all along is that not all policies [that would restrict immigration, be called right-wing, add increased scrutiny of refugees, etc] would necessarily increase radicalization and play into terrorists' hands. So, it sounds like you kind of sort of agree with that after all? What do you think we do disagree on, then?
Actually, I find this whole meta thing more interesting, so if you don't mind, I'll forget the actual topic just for a moment and wager a guess:
You approach things more from the angle of grand historical-political analysis and can look at what, for example in this case, actual implemented right-wing immigration policy tends to be like and what it is likely to result in, and are mostly handling things as categories instead of descriptors. You look at what the category is on average and where it's moving as a whole, and then you're comfortable making a somewhat generalized statement about the category even if it doesn't necessarily match everything or everyone that's actually in that category. However, someone like me treats labels as descriptors and not as categories, so a statement about a category that doesn't actually match everything in that category instantly registers as a logical fallacy, and there is also usually simply less interest in talking about categories in the first place.
Now, point being, different approaches are all fine and dandy and neither is right or wrong, but in practise they are also usually hard to tell apart, causing people to talk past each other. Where one person sees the other making a logical fallacy, the other person sees the other being ignorant of the grand scheme of things. A statement like "right-wing immigration policy is counterproductive" can be read either as saying that all/most immigration policy that's right-wing will be counterproductive, or as saying that based on this and that data, right-wing immigration policy is counterproductive on average. And, while one can try to bundle one's statements with some explanation of which way they should be interpreted, those tend to get easily ignored or misunderstood because we just don't have enough of a tradition of clearly distinguishing between those two modes of thought/speech.
Does that sound about right? That is, generally in context of political discussion/debate, not just specifically in this case?
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Funny, I didn't mention relics or saints. That said, I find it most odd that in the Ten Commandments pamphlets handed out by people trying to get folks to come to a Catholic service, they leave out the one about graven images and split the last one, about coveting, into two. The version of the bible they use doesn't do that, but their 10 Commandments tract does. I'm not saying they're not Christians. I am not the Judge of them. That job belongs to Almightly God. There are things I find to be of concern, though. Like the aforementioned tract, or the claim, despite biblical evidence to the contrary, that Peter was the first pope. (Hard to be a celibate supreme pontiff when you're married. Peter's wife is never mentioned, but early in Luke, they are at the house of the mother of his wife. Yes, the Bible documents that Peter had a mother-in-law, and a man would have to be a fool to have a mother-in-law without having a wife.) So I am wary of Catholic doctrine. If it matches scripture read in straightforward manner, fine. But it's definitely an "eat the meat and spit out the bones" situation.
Last I checked, my catholic bible approved by the C.E.I. ("Conferenza Episcopale Italiana", the Italian Council of Bishops) has everything.
Neither protestant nor catholic doctrine are straightforward, for the simple reason that if you take the bible literally things have a tendency to get quite horrific, nonsensical or both.
The relics and saints are the major argument of the protestant bigots that accuse catholics of idolatry.
Popes and the catholic clergy in general could marry for the first few centuries (after all Paul himself he said celibacy was preferable rather than a full obligation), they decided to go full celibate because bishops started to create dinasties and the secular authorities didn't like that so it was either let the kings and emperors nominate the bishops or renounce the right to have families to maintain a minimum of authonomy from secular authority, which was later dressed up with theological justifications as it usually happesn with religion: see slavery in the US.
Regarding the pamphlet: I have no idea about US catholics, I live in a 90% catholic country so I cannot say anything sure about pamphlets (it's usually Geova's witnesses who hand them here, they are considered supremely annoying by essentially everyone), but I kinda get that in a pamphlet they might give only the main bullet points instead of the literal excerpt from the bible since it's quite long-winded and in Sunday school the part about graven images was considered part of the first commandment.
Actually, I didn't say literally. I said in a straightforward manner. That is to say, read history as history, poetry as poetry, prophecy as prophecy, wisdom (proverbs and the like) as wisdom.
There are some arguments, apparently for the graven image text being part of the first commandment and the covet text being split into separate commands against lust and greed, but the wording does not appear to me to support this. I am not an expert, of course, just someone trying to read the text in a straightforward manner and understand it. And if it requires a guru of some kind to explain some meaning that is not consistent with a plain reading, then how can it be trusted? I do not and cannot believe that a plain reading of any of the THREE incidences of the Ten Commandments in scripture supports splitting the covet text into two and lumping the graven image text in with the first commandment. Even leaving out the verse numbers, which are well known to be later additions and not present in the oldest and most reliable texts (which, by the way do NOT in anywise include anything used by Wescott and Hort), a plain reading makes it obvious to me that the graven image section is its very own "Thou shalt not" independent of the first commandment.
As for "Geova's Witnesses," I believe you mean Jehovah's (false) Witnesses, a.k.a. the followers of Charles Taze Russel, or Russelites--though they will vehemently deny this, even though there is ample evidence to show that all JW and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society doctrine comes from the teachings of Russel (see the section on them in Walter Martin's The Kingdom of the Cults)?
Sorry for bouncing around your stuff, as I'm only now addressing the comment about slavery. I think you will find that any support of slavery from the pulpit came from cherry picking, that is, highly selective reading of specific portions of scripture without context. Also, newer versions of the Bible seem to invariably render the term "bondservant" as "slave," which are two entirely different terms. A bondservant is someone who has bound himself (and often his family) to the service of another for a period of time. In ancient Israel, this would have been for, at longest, about 50 years, as all such were to be freed in the Year of Jubilee and their familial property returned to them. Nobody could permanently sell off family lands under the Deuteronomic code. They could only lease them out for a period lasting until the next Year of Jubilee. If someone was particularly bad at managing their finances and wasted everything inside the first year, they could cost their family their lands for nearly 50 years at most, and, as I said above, also bond themselves to another's service for the same period. The closest they came to slavery within the nation of Israel was a way to permanently bind ones family to the service of another if the master had been particularly gracious and the bondservant wished to not leave service, said method involving a ceremony where an awl was pierced through the bondservant's ear into the doorpost of the house of his master (permanently binding your household to the service of another was serious business in ancient Israel). A proper straightforward reading of all the scripture about this in nowise supports slavery.
Yeah, "cherrypicking" nobody called them out for unless they were those crazy abolitionists. :rolleyes:
"Some arguments" the graven images thing seems really connected to the worship of idols to me.
Yep, that's them, I used the Italian spelling of Jehovah without noticing, there are quite a few here to the point that we talked about ther theology in Sunday school sometimes.
If you think Catholics aren't straightforward you'll love their own theology. :D
I got woken up on Sunday morning once by one of them, "Do you know the end of the world is coming?" "Yeah, don't care" *closes door*
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Worse still, by the mid-1800s, after Darwin's book had become fairly widespread, there was a vast increase of supposedly genetic arguments about slavery and "lesser" vs "favored" races, despite the clear teaching of scripture that we are all "one blood and one kindred." It's amazing how often humans will ignore that which is inconvenient and/or contrary to current popular opinion.
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@Dragon - It should be noted that translations were only introduced into christianity with protestantism due to the catholic church using the Vulgate, which was in Latin, a language nobody spoke at the time: The courts had switched to french as their lingua franca, and thus Latin and knowledge thereoff was exclusive to people who could get into university and/or the church (eg nobody could take the priests to account). Although muslims generally recommend that people read the Quran in Arabic, translations are not prohibited and perhaps more importantly: Arabic actually is a language that is spoken by a lot of people.
You do realize that Vulgate was also a translation? Mostly translated from Septaugint (Greek version), too. That's the problem. The Old Testament was written in multiple languages, some of them dead and none of them widely spoken anymore. New Testament is less problematic, being largely in Greek (not modern Greek, but IIRC it's still intelligible). Both Vulgate and Septaugint introduced their own language quirks and translation errors, also losing a number of subtleties that were in the original text. Protestants made it worse with their multitude of translations of varying quality, but the damage was done much earlier. Translations from original text have only started to appear recently, too recently to fix some common misconceptions. Not to mention they also drop some subtleties, which is kind of inevitable if you don't want to end up with a scholarly edition that has more footnotes than actual text.
While Quran translations are not halal (prohibited), as far as I know they're also not "real Quran", either. They don't have any special status, are not used during rituals and are no longer considered the canonical, infallible word of God. Not sure what's the common stance on the Quran copy you're supposed to always carry around, but it probably has to be the Arabic version as well, because any translation is just a book like any other. Christian scholars have used Vulgate for centuries, but you probably won't be taken seriously if you pull up quote from a translation in a serious debate with an Islamic scholar. Classical Arabic is so widely spoken because of that, actually (Arabic has many dialects, but the classical variant is widely understood and is what they use in mosques).
This is also very logical from a theological point of view. Only God is infallible, which means that though His word is perfect, it cannot be translated into something equally perfect by a human translator. Therefore, any translation, not matter how good, will be imperfect (saying that God was guiding the hand of a monk doing the translation would cause more problems than it solves, given the discrepancies between versions). It follows that it only the literal word of God should have any religious meaning, translations (if not considered sacrilege) might be useful to, say, give a general gist of things to nonbelievers (presumably to properly introduce them to the real text once they convert and start learning the language), but should not be used for actual practice or resolving theological dilemmas.
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Also, lol @ Russia being the biggest threat. Russia is a minor threat, there are no terrorist attacks happening in the name of Russia in Europe, and there will not be any direct conflict between Russia and NATO because Russia has no chance at all to win such conflict. If Russia is the biggest threat to the West, then we are completely safe indeed. :D
In short :
The Islamic State is likely to be dead for intents and purposes within a few years, so whatever its long term plans were, they're irrelevant.
Russia won't be collapsing anytime soon, and while we can't really be sure of its long term plans, it has been increasingly expansionist in recent years.
Precisely. ISIS never had a shot at meaningful changes in the Middle East; they only manage to [barely] hold control in the more remote areas of Syria/Iraq where the governments of those nations were unable to field sufficient force to squash them. They never had a remote shot at Baghdad, nor even a remote shot of holding what they took because they were so busy dodging drone strikes and losing their leadership that their ground game was always going to be crushed the minute anyone bothered to field a sizeable trained force. Al Qaeda / Taliban they weren't/aren't; they're largely the last relatively untrained vestiges of the more "professional" Islamic militant organizations who hadn't already been offed. Maslo is so busy fretting about ISIS militants posing as refugees under every bed that he doesn't apparently see the country that's gone marauding in the borders of his eastern neighbours already.
Now, point being, different approaches are all fine and dandy and neither is right or wrong, but in practise they are also usually hard to tell apart, causing people to talk past each other. Where one person sees the other making a logical fallacy, the other person sees the other being ignorant of the grand scheme of things. A statement like "right-wing immigration policy is counterproductive" can be read either as saying that all/most immigration policy that's right-wing will be counterproductive, or as saying that based on this and that data, right-wing immigration policy is counterproductive on average. And, while one can try to bundle one's statements with some explanation of which way they should be interpreted, those tend to get easily ignored or misunderstood because we just don't have enough of a tradition of clearly distinguishing between those two modes of thought/speech.
Does that sound about right? That is, generally in context of political discussion/debate, not just specifically in this case?
That's not a bad way of summing things up, actually. I'm not necessarily arguing with you, either. You're right in the sense that my points are analysis, rather than description, and perhaps I'm guilty of forgetting that not everyone is operating from the same level of context or background information that I am.
In the context of the current discussion, it's not that *all* specific right-wing policies are extraordinarily bad for the immediate future, but rather that the trajectory of that particular area of the political spectrum appears to have gone completely off the map, which is a rather startling departure from the precedent of the last several decades where, if not always ideal, it at least made sense and was driven by data rather than fear-mongering stupidity.
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In short :
The Islamic State is likely to be dead for intents and purposes within a few years, so whatever its long term plans were, they're irrelevant.
Russia won't be collapsing anytime soon, and while we can't really be sure of its long term plans, it has been increasingly expansionist in recent years.
Islamic State will not be dead, it will just hopefully lose territory, but then it will become decentralized. More importantly, islamic extremism as a whole will not die even if ISIS dies. So this whole reasoning of yours is just wrong. Islamic extremism is not going anywhere, just like Russia.
Maslo is so busy fretting about ISIS militants posing as refugees under every bed that he doesn't apparently see the country that's gone marauding in the borders of his eastern neighbours already.
I see it very well and I also understand why Russia is doing what it is doing and why it does not make Russia a big threat to the West.
Those parts of Ukraine were mostly Russian already. They were conquered because Putin knew very well they will be easy to hold on to.
Russian expansionism is very much self-limiting. It is a threat to a few small territories directly adjacent to Russia, but not a threat to the rest of the West at all.
Islamic extremism is a threat to the whole of western civilization. It knows no borders and is attempting to go global, seed sympathisants even in the heart of Europe and US.
Correction, islamic extremism knows borders as long as they are protected by a well guarded border barriers and strict immigration policy. Thats the surest way to combat this threat, IMHO.
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maslo, we get it, you're a broken record, and it doesn't matter how many times, how thoroughly, or how completely anyone around here demonstrates how ludicrous your stance is, you're going to continue with the same tune. Let us know if you come up with a new song and dance routine.
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I think we can all remember this exchange (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y9oVC-mGW8)...
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This is because he's got a few bloody good points you refuse to acknowledge. His derivation You're not attacking him at the point he's going off tracks with his reasoning, you're talking like his whole train of thought was bunk, which it isn't.
Russian expansionism is very much self-limiting. It is a threat to a few small territories directly adjacent to Russia, but not a threat to the rest of the West at all.
Quite the contrary. You're correct only in a sense that Germany probably won't get annexed by Russia. Neither was Poland after WWII. Direct annexation is only a threat to small territories, that's right. However, that doesn't mean Russia's influence can't spread by other means. That's what threatens the West and is a legitimate long-term concern.
Islamic extremism is a threat to the whole of western civilization. It knows no borders and is attempting to go global, seed sympathisants even in the heart of Europe and US.
It's only a threat to Western domination, really. It's kind of like Spanish Influenza virus. The virus itself did its share of damage, but what made it so lethal was so called "cytokine storm", essentially an overreaction by the immune system (if you remember something about it, it killed mostly young men - that is, ones with strongest immune system). Here, the situation is analogous. The greatest threat aren't extremists themselves (though they are a real threat that must be dealt with), it's those who go too far fighting it. If anyone will destroy Western civilization, it'll be the nationalists. The most the extremists can do is incite a state of panic and political instability leading to rise of such nationalists, after which they'd probably be the first (not the last, always remember that!) to be exterminated.
Closing up borders would be squandering an opportunity to get lots of cheap labor into European countries (not to mention you'll still get terrorists sneaking through). Fix the benefit system, increase security and force the immigrants to work their backs off to earn their living and their place. Just remember to make them think they're not second-class citizens being exploited for the benefit of the natives, and they'll work for you and be grateful for letting them do so. Only that nobody will ever think of that solution in egalitarian, free and democratic countries of the West.
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This is because he's got a few bloody good points you refuse to acknowledge. His derivation You're not attacking him at the point he's going off tracks with his reasoning, you're talking like his whole train of thought was bunk, which it isn't.
Russian expansionism is very much self-limiting. It is a threat to a few small territories directly adjacent to Russia, but not a threat to the rest of the West at all.
Quite the contrary. You're correct only in a sense that Germany probably won't get annexed by Russia. Neither was Poland after WWII. Direct annexation is only a threat to small territories, that's right. However, that doesn't mean Russia's influence can't spread by other means. That's what threatens the West and is a legitimate long-term concern.
Islamic extremism is a threat to the whole of western civilization. It knows no borders and is attempting to go global, seed sympathisants even in the heart of Europe and US.
It's only a threat to Western domination, really. It's kind of like Spanish Influenza virus. The virus itself did its share of damage, but what made it so lethal was so called "cytokine storm", essentially an overreaction by the immune system (if you remember something about it, it killed mostly young men - that is, ones with strongest immune system). Here, the situation is analogous. The greatest threat aren't extremists themselves (though they are a real threat that must be dealt with), it's those who go too far fighting it. If anyone will destroy Western civilization, it'll be the nationalists.
Arguably, laws not being enforced and certain religious groups having "special rights" because they would otherwise be "offended" has nothing to do with the nationalists suddenly finding so many new disgruntled followers. I mean it's kinda hard not to get disgruntled when politicians are talking about condoning things like child marriage, no matter how many German laws it violates, isn't it? Or what about legal proceedings against comedians? Yes we had our first case of that in Germany last year too! Politics have become such a huge cluster**** the last couple of years over here and the number of times current policy is kinda in violation of the constitution (or "Grundgesetz") in order not to "offend people who aren't used to it" just keep piling up.
The greatest threat I would say is ineffective/complacent government that is more interested in manipulating public opinion than it is in solving actual problems and honoring the basic laws that are the foundation of a free society... that first makes the rise of nationalists possible.
Current policies just cause a lot of people to be rightfully disgruntled/disgusted. It's a given that a percentage of them wants something "else" after the next election and will vote for "something else" without looking too close as long as it's not the same old that they are angry with. (The US should know how that works by now too lol.)
The rise of nationalism is an effect, not the cause. And if you don't address the cause then it won't matter who will finally take over and ruin the country, be it nationalists, religious extremists or whoever else manages to mobilize the disgruntled masses for personal gain.
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Yes, the root cause is an ineffective and complacent government that puts popular opinion first and foremost. It also makes very few long-term considerations that extend beyond the next four or five years. Now, I wonder how such government could ever end up running a country...
You might be tired of my railings against democracy, but this is where I'm coming from. If who runs the government is decided by popular opinion, then the government will be made of those good at manipulating popular opinion. This is what representative democracy selects for, not for actual competence or suitability to rule. Today, large democracies seem to be suffering from this more than ever before. All the ways of solving the current crisis in a effective and sensible way would require unpopular decisions, which a popularity-oriented government is extremely unlikely to take (or at least not without someone growing balls and sacrificing his career for the greater good. Which is just as unlikely in the modern Western culture).
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Yes, the root cause is an ineffective and complacent government that puts popular opinion first and foremost. It also makes very few long-term considerations that extend beyond the next four or five years. Now, I wonder how such government could ever end up running a country...
You might be tired of my railings against democracy, but this is where I'm coming from. If who runs the government is decided by popular opinion, then the government will be made of those good at manipulating popular opinion. This is what representative democracy selects for, not for actual competence or suitability to rule. Today, large democracies seem to be suffering from this more than ever before. All the ways of solving the current crisis in a effective and sensible way would require unpopular decisions, which a popularity-oriented government is extremely unlikely to take (or at least not without someone growing balls and sacrificing his career for the greater good. Which is just as unlikely in the modern Western culture).
That's not so much a problem with that form of government as it is with the entire populous no longer having the time and / or inclination to actually be concerned with matters of state, exacerbated by clickbait media - not literally *click*bait for MSM, but still all they want is the $$$$ and sensationalism, not in-depth reporting generates that. Although that also directly feeds back to the populace wanting and rewarding that type of media, because they no longer know any better.
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Been away for the Christmas, making sure there was no internet connection to play with.
Finland is a secular country, our cold climate is excellent in getting rid of the religions, as nothing else will help you than yourself along these latitudes. So having a religion or believing to something is, I find, a possibility that those living on warmer places can afford to do.
Does the finnish constitution take precedence over religious dictates? Even in cases where said dictates do not conflict with the state's primary interests (For example, honor killings are such an area, as they conflict with the state's monopoly on violence and law enforcement).
Yes. As far as I understand it, the Finnish constitution overrides the religious dictates - in a sense that everybody is free to uphold their religion as long as no other person's rights are violated. Some of our own Christian sects have been skirting around the women rights issue for a long time, effectively enforcing ban for abortions or condoms. The average muslims we have are about the same. It is pitiful to see women forced to wear far too thin clothing at -25C (yes they cover their heads but those robes are not enough to actually keep the heat), that's the power of religion for you. Luckily, this stupidity is constricted mostly to the capital region as in the northern parts of the country there's no public transportation to effectively keep you warm while you wait for the bus or train at the stop. The Christian sects have women giving births to something like 16 children during their life time, and recently we have been seeing some woman break outs from the sect saying that it's effectively brainwashing right from the childhood. Community pressure is one of the tools to enforce adults to stay in the sect. Both of these are seen as very clear violations of the women rights by the majority, but the Christian sects get less flak because these people do contribute to the society.
Be careful going down that road. Next thing you know, and you'll be outraged at people on unemployment for not spending your money correctly.
The difference is, those who are currently unemployed are mostly people who have been paying taxes and their unemployment funds, so I see they have been upholding their part of the deal. While our muslims have really no chance of getting work (significant fraction of them are illiterate) and contributing to the society. Those who came around 1990s (Iraq, Somalia) have unemployment rates around 80 - 90 %. These are numbers from Finnish official statistics. How does importing poverty help if we already have half a million unemployed (~ 8 % of population)?
I do have a question for MP-Ryan though:
Because while the right-leaning politicians of the West have been busy foolishly hand-wringing about ISIS, they have entirely abdicated their much more rational actual policies concerning geopolitical stability and civilian protection, and Syria is the first real example of the consequences of that particular idiocy we've seen. Unless NATO pulls its collective heads from its collective asses, it won't be the last. You think Syria created a refugee crisis in Europe? Watch its neighbours. For that matter, watch Iran and watch Turkey. Syria just taught every would-be authoritarian that, as of 2016 and for the first time in more than 30 years, you can slaughter opposition and civilians alike by the tens of thousands with the entire world watching it happen on live TV without consequences.
Because it is not clear to me, are you saying the right wing politicians caused this mess or that they are using the results of the said policies to trump up their agenda?
I've been under the impression that at least in the EU, it is the social technocrats decision making. On the surface they are mostly left leaning, but I think they are mostly working for those who lobby hardest. The green left lean is because the EU has been downplaying member nation nationalism for years to integrate the members better. Unfortunately, the technocrats at the helm of the EU are also utterly clueless of the average working population life quality, as being a politician is a career choice for the majority. The second problem is the power structure of the EU itself - there is not enough executive power in the EU level compared to the national levels. The Central European countries do not want to get vetoed by the outer members and so on.
While of the US, I think Obama's legal education background is at play here. He has hesitated to use the military force when it should have been done, leaving several power vacuums around. So while Obama did wonders to improve the US world wide relations to other nations (except Russia), he failed to utilize the US military. I'm seeing comments from the US military personnel (albeit this is coming from an internet forum) that Russians have managed to hit the US and NATO positions in Syria, and when told to stop, they stopped and then did it again.
It remains to be seen what Trump does next. I maybe looking at a potential conflict between Russia and Finland as Sweden and Finland are not part of the NATO. I personally think this is unlikely, but it still remains a possibility. For those wondering why Finland is not already part of the NATO, see Obama's and Trump's comments about NATO members military expenditure. A significant fraction of us thought that with the conscription army and a potential power base of 1.5 million soldiers (600 000 is the standard, but it can be expanded to ages up to +55 years old IIRC), the majority of the European ground forces in the NATO would come from the Finnish soldiers. Given that this is a conscription army and we have referendums, a significant fraction of Finns thought this would be a Bad Deal. I can't speak for the reasons why Sweden is not in the NATO.
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Closing up borders would be squandering an opportunity to get lots of cheap labor into European countries (not to mention you'll still get terrorists sneaking through).
I wouldnt call that an opportunity. Cheap labor is not needed much nowadays and with the rise of automation and AI cheap labor will increasingly become a burden, not an asset, over the next decades.
As I said many times, the point of "closing up borders" is to prevent the creation of terrorist recruiting grounds inside Europe. Not to prevent every terrorist attack ever. Even with closed borders, there may be sporadic attacks by a foreign terrorist who managed to slip through. But nothing worse than that would be possible. On the other hand, without tight immigration policy, you will have increasing number of attacks and conflict by domestic terrorists/extremists (recruited from children of immigrants), and over the long term the situation can get worse without limit, possibly approaching (but not quite reaching hopefully) a low level ethnic civil war, similar to situation in many MENA countries today. That is a risk I am not willing to take, especially when the benefits of taking this risk are questionable at best (nonexistent at worst).
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Automation alone will never make cheap labor completely irrelevant. This is basic economics. In absence of external regulations, automation and job streamlining effectively increase supply of labor, causing its value to drop. As long as price of human labor can freely decrease, it'll simply drop to a point where hiring a human is cheaper than buying and maintaining a machine. This is exactly why cheap t-shirts, for example, are made in Chinese sweatshops and not on robotic assembly lines. Remember, industrial machinery cost a lot of money up front and requires maintenance as well. Upfront costs of hiring unskilled laborers are near zero and maintenance is entirely dependent on how much money you're willing to pay them (and government regulations).
Does it really matter where terrorists recruit? In modern times, the physical location of terrorist training and recruiting grounds doesn't seem to matter much. If you look at recent ISIS-related terrorist attacks, the perpetrators generally traveled to the location of the attack. Closing the borders won't decrease the overall number of terrorists (might increase it, as a matter of fact) and will not put a significant damper on ISIS-style terrorism. It might change their focus, but I don't believe it would hinder them. It's important to note that international religious terrorism is a new phenomenon, only tangentially related to earlier terrorism cases like IRA.
Generally terrorists that fight "close to home" are of a different kind, fighting for a well-defined goal of independence or rights for a particular location. You don't see Hamas blowing stuff up in France or Britain, because their beef is with Israel, neither did IRA ever struck outside UK (to my knowledge). This is a different kind of problem, different kind of terrorism and its always regional. Concerns about Arab communes coalescing into mini-nations that could then try to establish legitimacy are far-fetched and could be prevented by dispersing immigrants to prevent such communes from forming (not that democratic countries would ever do that, either).
That's not so much a problem with that form of government as it is with the entire populous no longer having the time and / or inclination to actually be concerned with matters of state, exacerbated by clickbait media - not literally *click*bait for MSM, but still all they want is the $$$$ and sensationalism, not in-depth reporting generates that. Although that also directly feeds back to the populace wanting and rewarding that type of media, because they no longer know any better.
Did they even know any better, though? Sensationalism isn't exactly a new concept. I think that the problem is that misleading or even outright fake news were made easier by internet lowering the financial barrier to entry for news providers. To run a newspaper you need, apart from news themselves, to pay for a printing press (big ones are expensive), paper, ink and delivery people to get it to the stands. If you want a lot of people (like an entire state, nevermind the nation) to read your newspaper, those costs can be very large. For large-scale radio broadcasts you need to buy a decent-sized transmitter (also expensive), power for it and have a channel allocated. TV is similar, except you also need a fully-equipped studio. Running a news site on the internet, though? Just buy a web address, download a premade "news site" template and you've got yourself a news page that the entire world can read. You can write anything short of outright libel and quickly make up your investment with on-site ads, so there are no regulations, no reputation to uphold and no consequences to presenting outright lies as "news". These days, stories of that sort come faster than Politifact can debunk them and what's worse, anyone can write and put them up.
Common people were never particularly involved in affairs of state. They read the news and voted based on what they read. However, in the old days, they only had a handful of newspapers to choose from, which were big and had a reputation to uphold, so their articles were competently edited and verified. A candidate could make long-winded speeches all he liked, but if the newspaper printed it side by side with an article debunking every single statement, it wouldn't get him very far. The media used to serve as a filter between politicians and the general public, which probably helped limit attempts to game the system and kept the US democracy working for about 200 years. Now the filter is effectively gone and it seems that politics, both in EU and in the US are rapidly deteriorating.