[Closed] Driver kills multiple cyclists tonight in New York

pondo - Member

Let's discuss it, then - [b]Farage, the president, gun laws, banning muslims[/b]

Amazing. Such a subtle slight of hand I almost didn't notice it 🙄

Hating on Islam isnt going to fix it and so far that's about all this thread has mustered,

Please point out the hatred? Unless you're confusing criticism with hatred? Does criticism = hatred? Are we not allowed to be critical of beliefs or belief systems? Or is that now racist since there's no such thing as race there's only cultural diversity so to be critical of the belief system of a group of people who celebrate a certain culture is to be xenophobic and therefor racist? Sound about right?

This unswerving defense of an ideology that obviously has problems is IMO just as bad (and unhelpful) as a far right standpoint.

Surely your capable of taking something other than a binary position?

TBH I'm coming to the conclusion that the only thing that will resolve this is a few generations to die off in time and younger people who wont give a **** about Allah or what your Gran did in the war to come to power.

Can be as critical of Islam as any other religion as you like, infact please do, claiming that something like trump's Muslim ban or even his extreme vetting on entry of someone like this seems not to work.
He appears to have become radicalised after entering the states, I wonder what could've helped convince a guy who'd lived and worked peacefully in the US for the last 6 years that America was the enemy of Islam??
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oh look , lets bring trump into it. any excuse

Amazing. Such a subtle slight of hand I almost didn't notice it 

This unswerving defense of an ideology that obviously has problems is IMO just as bad (and unhelpful) as a far right standpoint.

rmacattack - Member
oh look , lets bring trump into it. any excuse

Erm yeah, lets bring Trump into a debate about an Islamic Terror attack in America ?

but it was happening under bush and barack as well.

Well whoever said that it was not looks pretty foolish now - who was it ?

This unswerving defense of an ideology that obviously has problems is IMO just as bad (and unhelpful) as a far right standpoint.
Surely your capable of taking something other than a binary position?

30,000 jihadis in the UK,

Potential jihadhis and its 23,000 as I know you care about facts - Oh what about the right wing folk on trial currently for trying to murder an MP - any comment on the real threat these folk and their brethren pose to us all or do you want to deny the sky is blue?

We mainly agree its a problem some think demonising them all wont hep - its possibly because we know what happened in the troubles when we tried this approach rather than because we dont think its a problem

Some think the way to beat extremism is with state sanctioned extremism - those folk have learnt nothing from history ,have very very questionable motives and dont have great insights into complex issues

Here's a microcosm of how this debate goes everytime one of those harmless islamists commits one of those statistically irrelevant mass murders.

jimjam - Member

Both are equally worthless arguments that involve putting your head in the sand and refusing to discuss the issue.

pondo - Member

Let's discuss it, then - Farage, Trump, gun laws, banning muslims

pondo - Member

Frame it however you want, then.

pondo - Member

This unswerving defense of an ideology that obviously has problems is IMO just as bad (and unhelpful) as a far right standpoint.

Edit - D'you know what, can't be arsed. You crack on with your [b]Daily Heilism,[/b] and much good may it do you.

Everyone's a nazi if they try discuss islam.

junkyark

30,000 jihadis in the UK,

Potential jihadhis and its 23,000

Is that all? Nothing to worry about there then. I mean the IRA had 300 - 450 members in their active service units during the 80s and it's not like they got up to much.

So jambalaya won't lower himself to evidence then, normal service resumed. It's a shame when the facts don't match your ideology.

mikewsmith - Member

So jambalaya won't lower himself to evidence then,

What's the point in evidence when it's statically irrelevant?

Well that is one way of looking at it... Perhaps if you use evidence it's hard to back up your position on being racist and an islamaphobe while proposing laws that would make zero difference.

Everyone's a nazi if they try discuss islam.

Or do I have the wrong end of the stick?

pondo - Member

Not particularly, but if you think Islam is the key (or even A key) threat to people in the states, then you are misguided, pure and simple. I've asked if you want to discuss it, do please explain why islam is a bigger threat to the US than their own gun laws. Or do I have the wrong end of the stick?

Just remember for a second that Islamists flew jet liners into buildings killing 3000 people and injuring 6000 more. That has sent us all into the spiral which we are in today. Yes, we can play the blame game about foreign policy and western imperialism but you can go back 1000 years doing that and accomplish nothing. The point is that one act of terrorism can shift world politics and the reality of daily life for almost everyone on the planet.

Terrorism can do that because the response to terrorism isn't directly and logically proportional to the amount of death and destruction caused by a terrorist act. See also political assassinations.

Premeditated murder carries stiffer sentences than manslaughter. If someone straps a bomb to himself and goes to a concert and blows up himself and 22 young women and girls in act of religious piety and holiness, and a bus driver has a stroke at the wheel and plunges himself and 22 young girls off a cliff they are not equally evil acts.

The bus driver might have been a good person and he never intended to hurt or injure one person in his life. The terrorist is not. There isn't a secret cabal of bus drivers plotting to give themselves strokes at inopportune moments - but there are secret groups of people plotting to cause the maximum amount of suffering, murder and death to men women and children because they live free, secular, liberal lives.

Intentions matter. That is part of our culture. That's also why all acts of violence aren't terrorism. Fred West wasn't a terrorist. Andrei Chikatilo wasn't a terrorist.

You have to acknowledge these facts, not try to obfuscate them.

Was anyone trying to ignore the IRA when they were bombing Britain? Were people sitting on buses or at work discussing how it was a complete statistical impossibility that you'd die in an IRA bomb and therefore it's not really even worth worrying about?

I spent most of my childhood and adult life in Northern Ireland never once did I hear anything remotely like this. This numerical pragmatism toward terrorism only seems to work with one form of terror.

@pondo Gang violence, criminals shooting each other, suicides etc .... a very significant number of Americans understand they dominate the shooting fatalities. You (and Mike) are going to convince precisely no one with the facetious “numbers” argument.

Mike there was a big BBC focus piece this week on gun and knife crime in the UK. I don’t know many people who think that’s a more serious problem than Islamic Jihadi terrorists. Certainly not me.

Knife crime is probably not a problem in the yacht-owning suburbs, but in the city it is certainly a bigger problem than bearded nutters. But don't let the facts start getting in your way.

the response to terrorism isn't directly and logically proportional to the amount of death and destruction caused by a terrorist act.

Interesting. Using your reference of 9/11, what instead (IYO) would have been the 'logically proportional' response to that act of terrorism/those terrorists?

Malvern Rider - Member

the response to terrorism isn't directly and logically proportional to the amount of death and destruction caused by a terrorist act.

Interesting. Using your reference of 9/11, what instead (IYO) would have been the 'logically proportional' response to that act of terrorism/those terrorists?

Well that's a real captain hindsight question but obviously going to war in Afghanistan was a bad move, launching another war in Iraq under false pretenses was also a bad idea. Probably some kind of targeted assassinations of key figures in Al Quaeda and the Saudi royal family, along with measures to undermine or counterfund SA's Wahhabi propaganda campaigns in ****stan, Afghanistan, Africa.....

The problem is that America was attacked in a public and painful way and that required action to appear that justice/vengeance was done. No government could tolerate that being done to them without being seen to act in kind.

Regardless of what I say they should have done, it's obvious they over reacted.