U.S. Politics: Despite Negative Press Covfefe, We Will Always Have Paris

[Dr. Pepper]

Ah, yes, find a marginalized population and further alienate them.   

Most days I can't believe we are where we are with the president we have.  Then I read such asinine bullshit and I totally get it. 

 

[Fragile Bird]

33 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

I also try to take the personal views out of it and separate the ideas. I can't comment on the tweets about London or the Mayor but I will say that Trump's push to limit immigration from muslim majority countries is a good policy for the US given what we are seeing happening in Europe. Lots of nonsense and crazy stuff happening in the government right now but I feel a lot more at ease regarding that policy push. 

My God, I post what a manipulating bullshitting sob Trump is and you nod your head and say, yes it makes me feel safer.   

[Mexal]

43 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

I also try to take the personal views out of it and separate the ideas. I can't comment on the tweets about London or the Mayor but I will say that Trump's push to limit immigration from muslim majority countries is a good policy for the US given what we are seeing happening in Europe. Lots of nonsense and crazy stuff happening in the government right now but I feel a lot more at ease regarding that policy push. 

Except the people committing these atrocities are native citizens and there has been no reported attack in 30 years from the "banned" countries in the US. And if they were going for a visa, it takes 2+ years. Drawing a false equivalence is not a good policy argument.

[LongRider]

44 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

I also try to take the personal views out of it and separate the ideas. I can't comment on the tweets about London or the Mayor but I will say that Trump's push to limit immigration from muslim majority countries is a good policy for the US given what we are seeing happening in Europe. Lots of nonsense and crazy stuff happening in the government right now but I feel a lot more at ease regarding that policy push. 

Those people stabbed to death in Portland were murdered by a white home grown terrorist rather than a Muslim immigrant from one of 'them' countries.  Do their grieving loved ones feel safer with proposed ban too, ya think? 

[Free Northman Reborn]

27 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Except the people committing these atrocities are native citizens and there has been no reported attack in 30 years from the "banned" countries in the US. And if they were going for a visa, it takes 2+ years. Drawing a false equivalence is not a good policy argument.

Is the heart of this issue really so difficult to understand?

Clearly, the current terror problem in Europe is largely made possible by the large Muslim population that is now native to Europe. So logic dictates that if Europe did NOT have such a large Muslim population, Europeans would currently be suffering fewer terrorist attacks, and anti-terror operations could be focused largely on threats originating externally, from outside European borders.

But that ship has sailed, and Europe really has no way to reverse how their society has changed over the past 30-40 years. But the US still can act to prevent this, because its Muslim population is still relatively tiny. Hence, in order to prevent a Europe-type situation in 20 years time, any measures that make it more difficult for travelers from Muslim countries to visit or obtain visas to get into the US, will inevitably have a knock-on effect of slowing the migration of Muslims to the United States.

 And that in turn will mean that Islamist terror plots would be more difficult to pull off in the US than in Europe. Why else is the US - prime evil number one to these terror organizations - a less frequent victim than Europe at the moment? Because it is more difficult for terrorists to get into the US, and the local community within which they can hide and draw support from  is smaller.

However, because it is politically incorrect to state these truths outright, these measures - logical as they may be - need to be disguised as something else, in order to have any hope of being implemented. So weird and convoluted selection criteria need to be dreamed up to decide which travelers get banned and which don't. In the end, every little bit helps, but the hyper tolerant PC nature of society today - which has directly led to the disaster that Europe is facing today - makes it very difficult to act honestly in pursuit of defending your own country from death and mayhem down the line.

[Dr. Pepper]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Is the heart of this issue really so difficult to understand?

 

This question can be tossed right back to the likes of you.  Is it really so difficult to understand that you take an already marginalized population and alienate them further with stupid useless policy you'll begin to have a disaffected population?  This isn't about your ridiculous childish fear of 'political correctness'.  It's basic common sense.  The fact that even seemingly intelligent people don't get this is pretty much what causes the rest of us to have to live in fear.  Not to mention that the countries these policies strike tend to have nothing or little to do with terrorism in the US or Europe.  Which makes it more obvious that these policies have more to do with your own bigotry than with a serious interest in combating terrorism.  

[zelticgar]

FNR covers a response pretty well. Based on what is happening in Europe there seems to be a point in which muslim populations become concentrated enough to allow for terrorism to exist at a normalized level. Trump, in this case, is on the correct side of the issue. 

 

 

[Liffguard]

13 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Is the heart of this issue really so difficult to understand?

Clearly, the current terror problem in Europe is largely made possible by the large Muslim population that is now native to Europe.

That's not necessarily clear at all. It doesn't automatically follow that if most recent attacks were carried out by muslims then more muslims equates to more attacks. It might, but you'd need to demonstrate a causal link. Maybe there's a small dedicated core of extremists who commit attacks, who's numbers don't necessarily change in line with the larger population around them (or maybe not). Or maybe attackers are coming from a particular subset of muslims, and you could easily increase the numbers of other subsets without increasing attacks (or maybe not).

I don't know if any of these scenarios are actually the case. I'm just saying that the situation isn't "clear" at all. Just because something is obvious doesn't make it true.

Edit: also factor in that recent deaths from terrorism in Europe aren't massively out of line with historical averages, and that muslims are just one group amongst many who are disproportionately responsible for attacks.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 minute ago, Dr. Pepper said:

This question can be tossed right back to the likes of you.  Is it really so difficult to understand that you take an already marginalized population and alienate them further with stupid useless policy you'll begin to have a disaffected population?  This isn't about your ridiculous childish fear of 'political correctness'.  It's basic common sense.  The fact that even seemingly intelligent people don't get this is pretty much what causes the rest of us to have to live in fear.  Not to mention that the countries these policies strike tend to have nothing or little to do with terrorism in the US or Europe.  Which makes it more obvious that these policies have more to do with your own bigotry than with a serious interest in combating terrorism.  

Hmm. So it's Europe's marginalization of the Muslim population that is causing this surge of terror attacks that they are suffering from. is it?

[Free Northman Reborn]

Just now, Liffguard said:

That's not necessarily clear at all. It doesn't automatically follow that if most recent attacks were carried out by muslims then more muslims equates to more attacks. It might, but you'd need to demonstrate a causal link. Maybe there's a small dedicated core of extremists who commit attacks, who's numbers don't necessarily change in line with the larger population around them (or maybe not). Or maybe attackers are coming from a particular subset of muslims, and you could easily increase the numbers of other subsets without increasing attacks (or maybe not).

I don't know if any of these scenarios are actually the case. I'm just saying that the situation isn't "clear" at all. Just because something is obvious doesn't make it true.

Why is Europe experiencing more Islamist terror attacks than the US, despite the US being by far the no.1 proclaimed enemy - after Israel - of most Islamic terror organizations?

[Liffguard]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

Why is Europe experiencing more Islamist terror attacks than the US, despite the US being by far the no.1 proclaimed enemy - after Israel - of most Islamic terror organizations?

Good question, and my answer is that I don't know. I'm just very wary of "clear," "obvious" or "common-sense" answers to complicated sociological questions.

[Fragile Bird]

Getting back to my original comment - Trump lied in his tweet by editing the comments of the London mayor.

If you want to argue about the roots of terrorism,  open another bloody thread. Don't  palm off the lie with 'I can't comment about the tweet'. Eta by commenting simplistically about something else you don't know about.

[ljkeane]

4 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Why is Europe experiencing more Islamist terror attacks than the US, despite the US being by far the no.1 proclaimed enemy - after Israel - of most Islamic terror organizations?

By my count the US has still experienced more attacks by terrorists with various Islamic associations than the UK over the last 10 years despite the recent flurry in the UK. They just often get lost in the constant stream of mass shootings in the US.

[zelticgar]

Sorry, i'll stick to important topics like your obsession about Trumps Twitter account. Lets not talk about important topics likes terrorism and immigration policy on the US politics thread. 

[Dr. Pepper]

14 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

FNR covers a response pretty well. Based on what is happening in Europe there seems to be a point in which muslim populations become concentrated enough to allow for terrorism to exist at a normalized level. Trump, in this case, is on the correct side of the issue. 

 

 

So I guess you're also highly concerned about white christian terrorism, right?  You're outraged that the budget to combat white terrorism has been slashed, right?  You're upset that guns are so prevalent and help contribute to our enormous mass shooting, correct?  We obviously need to start locking up white christian men at much higher rates, yes?

2 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

Sorry, i'll stick to important topics like your obsession about Trumps Twitter account. Lets not talk about important topics likes terrorism and immigration policy on the US politics thread. 

We are talking about it.  It's talked about often.  You just don't like the response.  

[LongRider]

Who sponsors lots of Islamic terrorists?  Saudi Arabia.  Who did Trump just sell billions of dollars of weapons to?  ...............................hmmmm, oh yeah, Saudi Arabia.  Gee, think some of those weapon just might be used against some Americans?   I do think that.  The travel ban is unconstitutional and won't stop terrorists if they want to be here.  

 

[Dr. Pepper]

6 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Who sponsors lots of Islamic terrorists?  Saudi Arabia.  Who did Trump just sell billions of dollars of weapons to?  ...............................hmmmm, oh yeah, Saudi Arabia.  Gee, think some of those weapon just might be used against some Americans?   I do think that.  The travel ban is unconstitutional and won't stop terrorists if they want to be here.  

 

Yup.  This is exactly why these people who think Trump's immigration policy is so great are full of fucking shit.  They just don't like Muslims but want to hide behind safer words like 'immigration policy' or 'protecting us from terrorism'.  If any of them gave a fuck about terrorism, they'd be raging also about white terrorism and especially our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

[maarsen]

10 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Who sponsors lots of Islamic terrorists?  Saudi Arabia.  Who did Trump just sell billions of dollars of weapons to?  ...............................hmmmm, oh yeah, Saudi Arabia.  Gee, think some of those weapon just might be used against some Americans?   I do think that.  The travel ban is unconstitutional and won't stop terrorists if they want to be here.  

 

I was just at a Canadian union convention this week. One person who came up to speak was a US veteran who talked directly about shooting at Islamic terrorists and realizing that they were shooting back at him with the same weapons he was using. 

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

 If any of them gave a fuck about terrorism, they'd be raging also about white terrorism and especially our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Correct.  But white X-tian home grown terrorists are like the crazy aunt living in the attic.  We just don't talk about it and pretend it doesn't exist.  

[LongRider]

3 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I was just at a Canadian union convention this week. One person who came up to speak was a US veteran who talked directly about shooting at Islamic terrorists and realizing that they were shooting back at him with the same weapons he was using. 

Truth.