Comments on: Not News to the Blogosphere

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 06 Feb 2005 02:46:25 +0000

The stand up comic Yakov Smirnoff used to say ” I could live in Sweden for twenty years and I wouldn’t be Swedish. I could live in France for twenty years and I wouldn”t be French. This is the only country where I can come to live and say I am an American.”
Not quite the only country which is a melting pot, and I doesn’t always go smoothly, but it is essentially correct. The europeans do not assimilate newcomers. Most don’t wish to. Some have stated policies which make assimilation less likely.

By: dick

dick — Sat, 05 Feb 2005 02:27:10 +0000

I think Shannon is onto something. If you look at history, check out where the leaders of the major terrorist states lived prior to taking over. Lenin was in Switzerland, Ho Chi Minh was in Paris, Khomeini was in Paris. Even Castro lived in the US. The men who crashed into the WTC and the Pentagon lived in Germany and the US.

In a free society the terrorists can communicate with each other in ways that they cannot in a state that is run by a dictator. They can also set up the sources of materiel for when they do take over while living in freedom.

The problem is how much are we prepared to do to stop the terrorists from having a haven? Are we willing to give up some rights if that keeps our country free or are we willing to give up some privileges for the same reason? Something to ponder.

By: Tman

Tman — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 20:40:32 +0000

I think the most telling reason why Islamic terrorists will only increase their numbers in Europe is primarily due to the success of terrorism in Europe.

When America was attacked on our home soil by Islamic terrorists we rolled up our sleeves and went to where the terrorists were hiding and killed them.

When Spain, for instance, was attacked by Islamic terrorists, they fled like scared lemmings from Iraq in hopes of appeasing said terrorists.

With these two examples you can see that the recruitment of new disaffected muslims will only increase when they see that terrorism is successful in these lands. Look at the way the Dutch reacted to the murder of Van Gogh-they took the appeasement angle and ended up banning his movie from awards and such.

I agree wholeheartedly with Richard- this movie will end bad. And we may see a re-run of WWII when the Allies had to go in and clean up the mess again.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 20:20:19 +0000

Europe has become terrorist central because terrorist can only operate in a free-democratic society.

To have any hope of being effective, terrorist need first and foremost a free media. The vast majority of terrorist attacks are so small scale that a country with a controlled media can hush up event. Without the media to spread news and images of the attack to the greater population the terrorist can’t terrorize anybody except those immediately at the attack site.

Second, terrorist need a police force limited by law. It is relatively simple for a police state to dismantle a terrorist network unless the support for it in the general population is rather large. In a democracy, a terrorist network with almost no support in the general population can escape detection for a long time.

Third terrorism can only change the policies of democracies. A terrorized population only serves any purpose if the population has some say on policy. In an undemocratic regime, killing random civilians would only draw the attention of the state without altering policy.

I find it interesting to note that while Mexico is supposedly a chaotic place with weak law enforcement and shares a porous boarder with the US, all the terrorist identified entering the country across the land borders have come from Canada. It think it far easier for terrorist to operate in democratic Canada than in authoritarian Mexico.

By: Richard Heddleson

Richard Heddleson — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:51:00 +0000

I doubt the Euros can change it. Look how hard it is for them to allow free migration of labor for their fellow Europeans. Now we’re talking about accepting a bunch of what appear to them to be fundamentalist religious wackos too? This film ends bad.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:33:25 +0000

There’s no comparison to be made between the United States and the European nations. They are ethnic states and you just can’t assimilate into that—you’re born into it or you aren’t.

Can they change that? Of course they can but not without pain. Look at the anti-immigrant riots here in the 19th century.

By: Ginny

Ginny — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 14:13:39 +0000

The marketplace of ideas isn’t all that open if we can’t communicate with one another – and the vote is more show than substance if big chunks of the population can’t share in the general debate.