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Why should we stop people who want to join ISIS?


Fragile Bird

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This topic has been bothering me for months.



We have a long history, in most countries, of seeing people go off and join wars in foreign lands that we, the people in in the home land, may not care about, or know about, or actively disagree with.



Young men and women, for the most part, have always been going to join wars because they feel some connection with one of the sides. In the last century, people went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War, people went to China to help the communist cause, people went to South America to fight against dictatorships, many went to the former Yugoslavia to fight on one side or another.



And many people donated money to causes that I certainly wouldn't donate money to. When I was in my final year of high school, a classmate of mine, a very good Irish dancer, took us to various Irish pubs where she would often get up and perform. The drinking age had been dropped to 18, and some of us were old enough and the rest of us had good fake ID. But I quickly realized that when the hat was passed around, it was done to raise funds to go to Ireland, and I was pretty damn sure it was money to support the IRA. While I had sympathy for the cause, I considered a group that regularly planted bombs to kill innocent civilians were terrorists, but that didn't stop thousands of people in North America from donating huge sums of money. Certainly Ronnie Reagan didn't move to try and stop it, something I considered pretty two-faced, especially with his special relationship with Maggie Thatcher.



The topic comes up again because of reports about 11 medical students/young graduate doctors leaving their medical school in the Middle East to join ISIS in Syria and provide medical assistance. The group includes a Canadian, and his father has flown to Turkey to join other parents who are trying to find their sons and daughters and get them out of Syria.



One of the great heroes of the Chinese Communist struggle against the Chinese Japanese is Dr. Norman Bethune, a Canadian doctor who went to China to attend to the needs of Chinese soldiers, and died there. He had done the same service during the Spanish Civil War.



Why stop these young people? Let them go, let them die for their beliefs. If that makes them terrorists, strip them of their citizenships or cancel their passports, don't let them back in, put them on the no fly list.


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FB,

An interesting question. Further, if they have passports who are our respective Nations to tell them where they may and may not travel? I don't want to bolster the Daesh's numbers but is it the State's place to say where indivuduals may and may not travel (at least with respect to exiting a nation where they are not wanted for some criminal offense)?

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The State has the power to confiscate a passport. At least our State does. Whether the State should have this right is for the Libertarianism thread, IMO. The State doesn't currently have the power to revoke citizenship where that would leave the person Stateless.*



*With certain exceptions.


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Because the US (indirectly or not, as it is currently bombing ISIS) is trying to deny them new recruits to keep up with their war?



I mean, it's not as if the US let people go fight with the Chinese in Korea.


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Hereward,

Nitpick. State's have power. People have rights.

Incorrect. Per the UN,

Article 1
Every State has the right to independence and hence to exercise freely, without dictation by any other State, all its legal powers, including the choice of its own form of government.
Article 2
Every State has the right to exercise jurisdiction over its territory and over all persons and things therein, subject to the immunities recognized by international law.
Article 5
Every State has the right to equality in law with every other State.
Article 12
Every State has the right of individual or collective self-defence against armed attack.

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A country at war with ISIS should be able to restrict people, if it has obtained proof that those people are going to join ISIS. This is as simple as not allowing soldiers to defect and join your enemies' ranks during conventional wars.



If a person merely wants to travel and there is suspicion that he/she might join ISIS, that alone shouldn't be enough to restrict travel.



If anyone is stupid enough to give their government proof that they are on their way to join ISIS, they should be stopped (providing the state in question is at war with ISIS).


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Fez,

Interesting. Someone needs to tell my Con Law professor. Perhaps the better way to conceptualize this is that people have "rights" with respect to the "powers" States have over them. As such the UN being a super-national body that is made up of States would delinate the "rights" States have with respect to the powers the UN is supposed to have over member States or with respect to members to each other.

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Fez,

Interesting. Someone needs to tell my Con Law professor. Perhaps the better way to conceptualize this is that people have "rights" with respect to the "powers" States have over them. As such the UN being a super-national body that is made up of States would delinate the "rights" States have with respect to the powers the UN is supposed to have over member States.

States have rights with regard to eg. treaties as well, it's not just the UN.

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You seem to be mistaking the American definition of rights with the view of everyone else in the world, which is why your Con Law professor's views are irrelevant when discussing how other peoples see the balance of State powers and people's Rights, and .the origins thereof.


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I'm sure it comes down to wanting to slow or stop their recruitment of new members. They are getting bombed all the time and must be losing people, if you can prevent them from replenishing, they should begin to lose their grip on territory. Also you don't want citizens of your country going over there for a while, learning some new tricks, and then making their way back into the US (or wherever else) well prepared to create havok.



Perhaps another element is that Westerners who attempt to go and join ISIS tend to be disenfranchised young people who have bought into ISIS ideology for whatever reason. I think that many of them are in for a rude awakening when they get to their destination. I do not think it's the state's responsibility to babysit you or talk you out of making a really bad decision - but it IS a really bad and probably ill-informed decision that is likely to get that person killed. If you're caught red-handed trying to do it, they should stop you, imo.

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Isis' war is a massive middle finger to human rights, freedom and pretty much every reason to let people join them.

People couldnt do anything if Isis was, say a political party like the BNP in the UK which, while a spiteful group of racists still have rights under the laws of freedom.

However unlike them, Isis is willing to act on their threats and have done numerous times.

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Hereward,

He said that States are entites that exist based upon the power they hold to act in particular ways. That "rights" exist as inhibitions upon or requirements to the exercise of State power. Hence his deliniation. It's a useful division when discussing what States may and may not do within a legal framework.

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Well, that was the idea. Of course, both in theory and in practice, that power is limited by, amongst other things, Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, Common Law, Treaty obligations and the need for the consent of the governed. But Parliament could, in theory, overturn any of those things in either direction.



And with that, let's leave this thread to its original purpose.


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