Paris Attack

[llanlad2]

Re: Paris Attack

But not only are we "doing it wrong" again(consciously accepting segregated unassimilated silo-ing/ghetto-ization), but we have the added problem of not just ethnic/cultural/linguistic barriers to integration, but also the addition of a fundamentally incompatible(in it's current unreformed and progressive iteration) ideology.

If I were living there, I wouldn't be worried about fearing for my life in the present(as like most caucasians I'd be unlikely to have much close/direct interaction that could precipitate the need to fear anything, I'd be more worried about my cholesterol), but I'd be genuinely concerned for my children's future until sufficient assimilation has been achieved and current fundamentally incompatible ideology is reformed to become compatible with the existing dominant culture.

I view it as early stage cancer(polyp, precancerous lesions, whatever floats your boat), that is mostly benign, with not many malignant cells....yet.

Left on it's own, and with no change to lifestyle or far more serious surgical intervention, the chances of it growing into a malignant cancer is certainly high enough to justify some lifestyle changes.

While I agree that there is work to be done I am certain that the use of highly emotive language such as equating "Islam to a cancer that needs to lanced is not helpful". This viewpoint can only lead to conflict and is contrary to enlightened Western values in any case. It is tantamount to saying "convert or die (or leave)"! It is clearly not a viable solution.

Without doubt the liberal voices of Western society and attitudes of "political correctness" have not served us well here in the UK. However to my mind they have laid the foundation for the UK establishment to turn to Muslim community leaders and pressurise them into "getting their house in order" as they can say they were given a chance to go it alone and it has failed. Also the police, social workers etc now have more confidence in dealing with Muslims and not being labelled as a racist.
Muslim leaders have tended to downplay the huge benefits of living in Britain and being a British Muslim. They have promoted sympathy for the plight of Muslims abroad . In the UK I expect more moderate pro-British muslim voices will be heard in the future and have positions of influence now that it has been seen that leaving Muslims to "get on with it themselves" does not work.

For France, I think they face a more difficult route as they have a more militant secular approach which will could lead to further conflict. The legacy of Algeria is still recent. They have religious intolerance. They are far more ghettoised than the UK.

[touchring]

Re: Paris Attack

It's going to get worst. I've predicted this last year that what happened in Ukraine is going to boomerang around and hit Europe and the US.

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...stake-as-Assad

Ferguson, New York, and now Paris.

Chaos breeds chaos. The violence is spreading...

[jpetr48]

Re: Paris Attack

It's going to get worst. I've predicted this last year that what happened in Ukraine is going to boomerang around and hit Europe and the US.

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...stake-as-Assad

Ferguson, New York, and now Paris.

Chaos breeds chaos. The violence is spreading...

You were right touching. Only the causes are coming from multiple areas. Economic and spiritual rebellion is nothing new in history. If you look at the socioeconomic classes back in 50-60AD and compare them to today, the only difference is a more stratified middle class that is doing much better. The wide divergence between the destitute and the elite have created revolts and much bloodshed back then.

Terrorism in other forms was also constant as there were Christians fed to lions, burned at the stake like a torch only it was Romans not ISIS. The hatred in one's heart that is not redeemed remains constant but the faces (Romans to ISIS) do change.

If you are interested in an author who has significant political ties with the Middle East and Washington DC and has written other books (fiction) that have come true (e.g. emergence of ISIS), Joel Rosenberg is one such man. Since he is an evangelical Christian, there will be references to the bible's prophecy - events that have and yet to unfold. His new book is Third Target which I just learned about the other day

[wayiwalk]

Re: Paris Attack

Mike, in the world you describe, this is how your cartoons would look.

http://funfive.net/pictures/images/P...%20cartoon.jpg

Beautiful. I didn't expect that I would ever laugh at a blank page, but this was funny.

[jk]

Re: Paris Attack

block that metaphor: BOILS or ABSCESSES are lanced. cancers are not. cancers are excised, poisoned with chemotherapy and/or radiated.

[DSpencer]

Re: Paris Attack

Absent the bullhorn and without a firm philosophical or theological justification as to why all men have inalienable rights, the demagogue can always persuade a large group of uninitiated that some people aren't really people at all.

The historical evidence that this theological justification does much to prevent religious followers from killing other people seems flimsy at best.

[astonas]

Re: Paris Attack

The human mind CAN be quite fragile, and it CAN be quite robust.

What I believe to be far worse than people who are haunted by participating in/witnessing violence are the people who are inoculated from any mental/emotional consequences of participating in ideologically based violence due to the "Get Out of Moral/Ethical Jail Free Card" they receive from their religion.

I'd broaden this to relate it to what I see as the more fundamental point.

It is the claim to absolve sin that lies at the heart of ideologically motivated evil. In secular contexts, this manifests itself as some form of "the end justifies the means" in pursuit of an ideological goal. In religious contexts, it works by freeing people of guilt and shame that should not be absolved. In Paris, it said that murder would be rewarded, rather than punished.

But religious or not, any notion that wholly frees people from the internal consequences of their actions is evil. If not opposed on the battlefield of ideas, it will eventually force engagement on a more physical battlefield.

[DSpencer]

Re: Paris Attack

And it is unfair to put Christianity on par with Islam. There is nothing in the New Testament that says anything like what the Koran commands followers to do, and permits them to do to non-believers. Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Judaism are truly religions of peace and love. Islam is essentially an ideology invented by a 7th-century Arab warlord to justify his conquests. Someone has said that if Hitler hadn't been defeated, and Naziism had survived for 1400 years, you would have had something like Islam: a supremacist ideology that commands its followers to conquer the world. That is nothing like Christianity.

Did you forget that the Christian Bible has more than a New Testament?

"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

And if only we could go back just a couple hundred years in America to reassure the slaves with Christian masters that in fact their masters' religion was one of peace and love.

[shiny!]

Re: Paris Attack

Ah yes, very good, although I would substitute "persons" for people just to insure we are talking about individuals.

The problem of course is that that principle is not considered universal at all except by those, who either accept it as self evident or who have discovered that the human being is special and worthy of special treatment and dignity via natural philosophy or theological revelation. All men are brothers and must be accorded dignity as human beings. My personal belief is that we are each made in the image of God, but I can also arrive, through philosophical reasoning and based on the evidence before us, at the very probable conclusion that man is truly unique amongst the higher animals, differing in kind from all others; and therefore all humans, simply b/c they are humans are entitled to respect for their dignity.

My secular friends, while tending to be more progressive toward "human rights", do not have a convincing answer when asked why we should treat all humans fairly and equally (other than they know that is the right thing to do - a fine answer indeed - but it does not convince those who don't agree). Absent the bullhorn and without a firm philosophical or theological justification as to why all men have inalienable rights, the demagogue can always persuade a large group of uninitiated that some people aren't really people at all.

All men and women are brothers and sisters and must be accorded dignity as human beings.

There. Fixed it for you :-)

Patriarchial philosophies and patriarchial language tends to make females and our suffering seem invisible. I am not trying to start a war of the sexes in this discussion, but I can't help but see how discrimination and violence against women is tolerated as being "part of their culture" while violence against men in the West creates outrage, huge public discussion and a desire to problem-solve.

Islamic fundamentalists commit all sorts of atrocities against women every day. From floggings, stonings and honor killings to denying women the right to work, drive or even leave their homes. People shake their heads and say "how awful" but accept it as "part of their culture." We certainly don't boycott those countries economically or go to war to force change in those countries. When they bring their religious mysogeny into our Western countries, we allow them to bypass our laws and legal protections so they can practice "their culture."

But let Islamic fundamentalists commit "acts of terrorism" against men in the West and suddenly everyone is trying to figure out how to stop it from happening again.

Imagine how differently Western societies would react, how different this discussion would be if instead of committing atrocities against women in the name of their religion, they treated blacks like animals instead?

If their "everyday victims" were men, or if the crimes were committed by whites against blacks as in S. Africa during apartheid, the public and Western governments would have demanded they change their culture years ago.

[shiny!]

Re: Paris Attack

Did you forget that the Christian Bible has more than a New Testament?

"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

And if only we could go back just a couple hundred years in America to reassure the slaves with Christian masters that in fact their masters' religion was one of peace and love.

Your are correct, but miss the point that Chrisians today no longer behave the way they did centuries ago. They grew and evolved. Islamic fundamentalists are still practicing the barbarism that Christians practiced centuries ago and they want to force the rest of the world to live that way, too.

[Adeptus]

Re: Paris Attack

Recently, there are many mentally deranged people that are acting crazy in the name of religion. I won't be too quick to associate such acts with religion and we should stop "glorifying" them. Mentally deranged people are more common than we think, and some of them are able to act and speak very normal.The human mind is fragile, war, inflation, unemployment, etc, can cause insanity..

BINGO!

My facebook post this morning...

How about a little perspective...


You want to know why Western nations are now seeing terrorist attacks? Because we've been terrorizing Eastern nations for decades and killing them by the 10's of thousands... Time for us to stop the hypocrisy and especially the killing. Here's a 2 minute version on how Western Nations create "terrorists":

[jneal3]

Re: Paris Attack

BINGO!

My facebook post this morning...

'Twas ever thus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wstIBq2H0z8

That western governments and corporations exploit other cultures is just the above behavior on a modern global scale. Not much really changes. The existence/prevalance of 'terrorism' just means the other apes are able to eventually co-opt our methods.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Paris Attack

All you on the left who once again trot out the same apologetics for Muslim atrocities, every time another one occurs...

..."We killed millions in Iraq"
..."Christians committed atrocities hundreds of years ago"
..."White men had slaves hundreds of years ago"
..."We aren't welcoming enough to Muslims, that's why they get frustrated and kill us"
etc
etc
etc

To you I ask my question again, which I notice all of you have ignored:
How many more of us have to die before you admit that Islam is incompatible with Western civilization?

When there's another Muslim atrocity with several dozen more innocent people, will that do it?
How about a few hundred more deaths?
A few thousand?
Would it help if they came all in a bunch like the 3,000 on 9/11? Maybe when they're spread out, with one or two or ten or twenty every few months or so, that isn't dramatic enough to get your attention?

What's it going to take?
Or is there no number, no limit, no point at which you say, "I am weary of defending Islam. It has no place in our society. We do need to be separated from it in order to be safe. Let the Muslims reform Islam in their own lands, and then maybe some time in the future we can allow them into ours."

How many more deaths are you willing to accept so that you can feel morally good about how "tolerant" you are?

And a related question: is there no ideology so anti-human, so depraved, so barbaric, so alien to our culture, that you won't welcome it into our nations as long as it is non-Europeans who practice it? If you will accept Islam, what else will you accept?

Please, be courageous. If this is what you believe, have the guts to write it out: "I will never say that Islam does not belong in the West, no matter how many more people are killed by Muslims."

[vt]

Re: Paris Attack

Totally incorrect.

There have been Muslims in the U.S. for decades; many have come here to flee the repression in the middle east. Many are more secular than religious.

Religions are basically moral codes; they have different cultural backgrounds, but most preach clean living.

The problem is with a very tiny group of radicals and a slightly larger group who condone them. They must be stopped at all costs.

We must make perfectly clear that all citizens have to respect religious, racial, gender and other differences in their fellow citizens. No one faction can dominate. No religious creed like Sharia can replace the constitution or other laws passed by Congress and states.

Assimilation is important. But not only Muslims are slow to assimilate. We've seen this with other ethnic groups over our history. People must open their hearts and minds to different races, cultures and nationalities.

This is America. Out of many one nation of Americans.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

While I agree that there is work to be done I am certain that the use of highly emotive language such as equating "Islam to a cancer that needs to lanced is not helpful". This viewpoint can only lead to conflict and is contrary to enlightened Western values in any case. It is tantamount to saying "convert or die (or leave)"! It is clearly not a viable solution.

Without doubt the liberal voices of Western society and attitudes of "political correctness" have not served us well here in the UK. However to my mind they have laid the foundation for the UK establishment to turn to Muslim community leaders and pressurise them into "getting their house in order" as they can say they were given a chance to go it alone and it has failed. Also the police, social workers etc now have more confidence in dealing with Muslims and not being labelled as a racist.
Muslim leaders have tended to downplay the huge benefits of living in Britain and being a British Muslim. They have promoted sympathy for the plight of Muslims abroad . In the UK I expect more moderate pro-British muslim voices will be heard in the future and have positions of influence now that it has been seen that leaving Muslims to "get on with it themselves" does not work.

For France, I think they face a more difficult route as they have a more militant secular approach which will could lead to further conflict. The legacy of Algeria is still recent. They have religious intolerance. They are far more ghettoised than the UK.

Do you feel it is wrong to use an analogy like a benign tumor to describe some ideologies in general?

A benign tumor is neither beneficial, nor invasive to a system, although there are the frictional costs of supporting the benign cells.

If an ideology neither provides a net benefit to the entire system/network nor removes an inordinate amount of "parasitic drag" from the system/network is the analogy really that inaccurate?

Or does it bear an embarrassing level of accuracy(for an ideology, not individuals, that has produced little to improve the human condition in the last 500 years) with words that are, admittedly, often reserved for things that connote the negative?

What word(s) or analogy would better describe an ideology whereby >90% of adherents residing in the west are collectively benign and <10% of adherents are malignant or at some degree of risk of becoming malignant?

I would strongly disagree with your assertion that "it is tantamout to saying "convert or die(or leave)"!"

I've referenced the Catholic Church's Vatican II and while I think it hasn't gone far enough(probably still stuck in the 1960's in some respects) to close the gap between itself and the dominant majority culture, the gap isn't egregious in words/actions in general and the ideological violence at the extremes is almost non-existent(thankfully no abortion clinic bombings in quite some time).

What I think would be worth aggressive diplomacy is trying to shape islamic reformation in the west to the point of reasonable compatibility with dominant western cultures to which it wishes to join, not eventually dominate as stated in some of it's core doctrine, and as interpreted, perceived, and believed by many.

Renounce/reform stated gender inequities, renounce/reform inequities between believer/non-believer, renounce/reform the easy rationalization for ideological deceit, deception, and violence.

I don't know if I agree with your assertion that "political correctness" has "laid the foundation for the UK establishment to turn to Muslim community leaders and pressure them".

If we were to look at political correctness does it not include:

Several generational waves of gender equality/feminist movements, including a lot of current momentum

Several generational waves of anti-racial discrimination, including overwhelming and aggressive opposition to Rhodesia and South Africa's Apartheid

Islamic ideology possesses more than enough codified inequality to be pressured by gender equality/feminist movements and anti-discrimination movements to reform and deconflict with progressive dominant western cultures.

But the politically correct silence from them is embarrassing, which may also partially explain the institutionalized political correctness that shielded the horrific crimes against a reported 1500 children in the Rotherham scandal.

As has been the politically correct immigration policy in the UK.

Where is the conversation about immigration policy that plays a rather significant contributing factor to this problem?

Or is an enhanced/improved immigration policy caught in the political correctness logic vacuum?

It's all good to favorably compare UK policy to France, but how about Switzerland?

Why does the UK have a problem with immigrant communities, but Switzerland does not?

What are the differences and why?

One thing I wish to make clear is that I'm not trying to dog-pile islam in the all too common backlash sense(I sincerely hope we don't see any backlash violence against western muslim communities), but more along the lines of calling out the awkward fart in the room.