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

[zelticgar]

34 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?

Good luck getting an answer to this one. The deflection on this thread is strong this morning. 

[Dr. Pepper]

8 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

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.  

That's what's so frustrating.  In most of our day to day life, white christian men and boys are the threat.  This is the group who is most likely to commit acts of terrorism, mass shootings, hate crimes and other various violent crime.  And yet white xtian men are favored, in policy, in the media, and in discussions all over the internet.  I want to combat terrorism of all sorts.  I think a lot of people do.  Supporting trump in his immigration policies is as absurd as if I supported someone who decided to initiate the same towards completely random predominately white christian nations.  

[Liffguard]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

But the Lord Mayor is a Muslim.

Just for the sake of clarification, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is muslim. The Lord Mayor, Andrew Parmley, is not. Sorry for the pedantry but the two roles are very different.

[ljkeane]

3 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

Good luck getting an answer to this one. The deflection on this thread is strong this morning. 

Firstly I did answer this one. The UK has experienced less 'Islamic' terror attacks than the US over the last 10 years. What does that say for whatever sweeping sociological point you are trying to make?

Secondly this article Horza posted in the MEN bombing thread bears repeating. Despite the hysteria the likes of you and FNR seem keen to engage in Western Europe is not experiencing some sort of previously unseen level of terror attacks, in fact it's significantly lower than it was in the 70's and 80's.

Thirdly there have been what? Maybe a dozen or so muslims who have committed mass killings in the US over the last 10 years or so. How many non muslims would you say have done the same? I'm going to guess the number would be significantly higher yet you don't seem to be advocating any drastic solutions to that problem.

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Secondly this article Horza posted in the MEN bombing thread bears repeating.

Thanks for the link.  The article is worth reading.  Full of facts though, do they matter to those already convinced?  Most likey not. 

[zelticgar]

7 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Firstly I did answer this one. The UK has experienced less 'Islamic' terror attacks than the US over the last 10 years. What does that say for whatever sweeping sociological point you are trying to make?

Secondly this article Horza posted in the MEN bombing thread bears repeating. Despite the hysteria the likes of you and FNR seem keen to engage in Western Europe is not experiencing some sort of previously unseen level of terror attacks, in fact it's significantly lower than it was in the 70's and 80's.

Thirdly there have been what? Maybe a dozen or so muslims who have committed mass killings in the US over the last 10 years or so. How many non muslims would you say have done the same? I'm going to guess the number would be significantly higher yet you don't seem to be advocating any drastic solutions to that problem.

The question was why is Europe experiencing more attacks? Your response about the UK is noteworthy but it doesn't answer the question. It actually serves to prove my point, lots of deflection going on. 

[LongRider]

1 minute ago, zelticgar said:

The question was why is Europe experiencing more attacks? Your response about the UK is noteworthy but it doesn't answer the question. It actually serves to prove my point, lots of deflection going on. 

Are you unable to research this question on your own?  ask that question to google and find out for yourself.   (hint, ME wars and refugee crisis) 

[all swedes are racist]

49 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?

is it? got numbers to back that up?

[ljkeane]

1 minute ago, zelticgar said:

The question was why is Europe experiencing more attacks. Your response about the UK is noteworthy but it doesn't answer the question. It actually serves to prove my point, lots of deflection going on. 

And Europe's a big place which doesn't have a homogenous culture, Islamic population or security apparatus. The fact that you want to ignore the comparison with the UK, which has a similar sized Muslim population while being a bigger proportion of the total population, or, for that matter, the terrorism statistics which do apply to all attacks in Western Europe says rather more about your deflection I think. 

[LongRider]

1 minute ago, commiedore said:

is it? got numbers to back that up?

Good grief commiedore, get with the program here.  They provide the claims, we provide the facts and they counter-claim that the facts are a 'deflection'.  Don't ask them for the facts, that spoils the game!  

[Free Northman Reborn]

OK, nothing to be alarmed about then. Carry on as normal, folks.

[Ice Queen]

13 hours ago, MerenthaClone said:

Well, also the problem that Pittsburgh voted pretty significantly against him.  Allegheny county went 55 to 39 for Hillary, iirc, and Pittsburgh proper was higher, to the rough tune of ~75% to 80% pro-Clinton.  So, yeah.  

Pittsburgh's standing iconic pop-culture reference is being a failed steel town, which is a perception the city fights very strongly.  The G8 was held here a few years ago specifically because Pittsburgh was an example of the Rust Belt that was choosing to look ahead to biomed, tech, and sustainable energy as viable options instead of clinging so, so desperately to coal like the rest of the region.  And, shockingly, Pittsburgh has had a pretty huge turnaround while outlying western PA and northern WVA continues to shit itself in a heroin-induced dream of coal.

 

IIRC, Beaver narrowly went for Trump, but that area was decimated when steel collapsed and they think that Shell's cracker plant is the answer to their prayers.

Obviously Trump hasn't been to Pittsburgh in decades. We don't want coal back. We don't need it. We have 40+ universities in the region with some of the best young minds from all over the world. We'll get it done. I like being able to breathe when I walk outside. 

Movie quotes: Apollo 13. NASA has made going to the moon as exciting as taking a trip to Pittsburgh. Also, the Bruce Willis film Striking Distance was made here,  as was The Road with Viggo Mortensen.

[Cas Stark]

2 hours 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.

Yes, they are "native" citizen children of immigrants who are overwhelming Muslim and from ME countries.   So, I'm sorry to say that doesn't really help the point, since the reality seems to be that even after one or two generations this particular segment of people remain ripe for radicalization.

[TheKitttenGuard]

4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Yes, they are "native" citizen children of immigrants who are overwhelming Muslim and from ME countries.   So, I'm sorry to say that doesn't really help the point, since the reality seems to be that even after one or two generations this particular segment of people remain ripe for radicalization.

That will point to more the country then the person. Unless you think there that is the intention.

[Cas Stark]

Just now, TheKitttenGuard said:

That will point to more the country then the person. Unless you think there that is the intention.

I think it points to the fact that for whatever reason Europe has done a VERY bad job of integrating these immigrants into their societies...and it strikes me, that when you are desperately failing at something...you should stop doing it.  We probably have a smaller percentage of radicialized Muslims because they are both a much much smaller percentage of the overall population, are less concentrated and because the US has a long history of assimilating immigrants, unlike the Europeans, who have not had to bother with this literally for hundreds of years until the late 20th century.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I think it points to the fact that for whatever reason Europe has done a VERY bad job of integrating these immigrants into their societies...and it strikes me, that when you are desperately failing at something...you should stop doing it.  We probably have a smaller percentage of radicialized Muslims because they are both a much much smaller percentage of the overall population, are less concentrated and because the US has a long history of assimilating immigrants, unlike the Europeans, who have not had to bother with this literally for hundreds of years until the late 20th century.

I think there is some truth in this. Europe doesn't really tend to openly try and integrate anyone for fear of looking imperial. In general you are allowed to come live here and do whatever you want. There is very little encouragement to adopt the culture of your new country. I don't know if that is different in the US or not. Here in the UK there is a problem of ghettoisation, groups of cultures being pushed into their own areas, left alone. Even though I'd suggest London is one of the most mixed and cosmopolitan areas of the planet, we can still split up the city into largely ethnic and cultural divisions. Outside of London I think its worse. The problem of radicalisation of course is made worse when people do not mix.

[Cas Stark]

5 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I think there is some truth in this. Europe doesn't really tend to openly try and integrate anyone for fear of looking imperial. In general you are allowed to come live here and do whatever you want. There is very little encouragement to adopt the culture of your new country. I don't know if that is different in the US or not. Here in the UK there is a problem of ghettoisation, groups of cultures being pushed into their own areas, left alone. Even though I'd suggest London is one of the most mixed and cosmopolitan areas of the planet, we can still split up the city into largely ethnic and cultural divisions. Outside of London I think its worse. The problem of radicalisation of course is made worse when people do not mix.

"Ghettoisation" itself isn't the cause.  Historically the same thing happened with US immigrants.  There were German, Polish, Chinese, Irish, Italian neighborhoods just as now there are African, Indian & Hispanic neighborhoods.  Over time, all of these initially poor groups were assimilated into mainstream American culture.  I would say we are doing a much much worse job of this the last 20 or 30 years...but an initial geographic isolation does not feel like a root cause unless it's matched with other variables.  We still have Chinatowns and Little Italy's, and ethnic neighborhoods.

[Mexal]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

"Ghettoisation" itself isn't the cause.  Historically the same thing happened with US immigrants.  There were German, Polish, Irish, Italian neighborhoods just as now there are African & Hispanic neighborhoods.  Over time, all of these initially poor groups were assimilated into mainstream American culture.  I would say we are doing a much much worse job of this the last 20 or 30 years...but an initial geographic isolation does not feel like a root cause unless it's matched with other variables.  We still have Chinatowns and Little Italy's, and ethnic neighborhoods.

And there was still shit happening in those places too. The issue now is social media and the amplification of every attack into a world news story which is then used to score political points. I think twitter and Facebook (and cable news) is going to ultimately be responsible for destroying the world.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

"Ghettoisation" itself isn't the cause.  Historically the same thing happened with US immigrants.  There were German, Polish, Irish, Italian neighborhoods just as now there are African, Indian & Hispanic neighborhoods.  Over time, all of these initially poor groups were assimilated into mainstream American culture.  I would say we are doing a much much worse job of this the last 20 or 30 years...but an initial geographic isolation does not feel like a root cause unless it's matched with other variables.  We still have Chinatowns and Little Italy's, and ethnic neighborhoods.

Ok yeah true, I'll accept that. Integration would however be much more preferable. Possibly the difference is to do with the lack of culture of the countries they are moving into, in so much as its not encouraged. In the US they still sing the national anthem and I'd guess are more patriotic? Patriotism in Europe is something to generally be ashamed of and is linked with racism, so we back away from it. 

[TheKitttenGuard]

15 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I think it points to the fact that for whatever reason Europe has done a VERY bad job of integrating these immigrants into their societies...and it strikes me, that when you are desperately failing at something...you should stop doing it.  We probably have a smaller percentage of radicialized Muslims because they are both a much much smaller percentage of the overall population, are less concentrated and because the US has a long history of assimilating immigrants, unlike the Europeans, who have not had to bother with this literally for hundreds of years until the late 20th century.

If you believe in integration then you work to improve it. Whatever pause is in the longer term improvement of it. There is a give and take and U.S has done it multiple times though there is an insistence of an absolute assimilation.