The latest word on the NSA scandal, and it is a scandal, is that the FBI is not allowed to snoop on mosques.
Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string[sic] operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.
Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.
We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel’s formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.
That makes sense. After all, all terrorists thus far have been fundamentalist Christians.
Oh wait.
Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.
If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshiped.
We have empowered CAIR, a group linked to Muslim extremists like The Holy Land Foundation, which:
In its earliest days, HLF received a $200,000 cash infusion from Ghassan Elashi’s brother-in-law Musa Abu Marzook, the Hamas senior political leader and Virginia resident who would be deported in 1997 for his involvement in six terror attacks in Israel that killed 47 people. By 1989, HLF had already sent nearly $1 million to Marzook and Hamas co-founder Ahmed Yassin (to the latter through an account called the Islamic Center of Gaza — another ostensibly charitable entity used by Yassin to finance Hamas activities).
Major Hasan, who is now representing himself, was an obvious suspect for jihad before he acted out. Of course, General Casey said it would be sad if the incident of “workplace violence” should harm the Army diversity program .
Well, it survived a previous attack on comrades by a Muslim soldier.
At a hearing last week at the Army base here, Major Hasan told a judge that he was protecting Taliban leaders in Afghanistan from danger when he opened fire on Nov. 5, 2009. In describing his new defense — known in legal terms as a “defense of others” — he told the judge that he had been defending Mullah Muhammad Omar, the founder of the Islamic insurgent group, and its other leaders, from Fort Hood soldiers deploying to Afghanistan.
Oh well, that explains it. Can we be any more clueless with these dangers ?
“We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques.”
I’d rather call them “Muslim”, not “Islamist”, this sounds a lot like a smear.
“That makes sense. After all, all terrorists thus far have been fundamentalist Christians.”
Not quite fundamentalist (unless you count the anti-abortion crowd, which some people would do). Still, many terror acts and the majority of them in the U.S. HAVE been committed by Christians.
“Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists ”” inside mosques ”” and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.”
By their very nature, “sting operations” PRODUCE plots.
Sometimes, defending freedoms means to uphold them instead of sacrificing them. A reduction in the discrimination (and smearing) of Muslims (the vast majority of them being harmless and quite hard-working) may very well be essential to a long-term reduction of violence.
Imagine if, during WWII, American Nazi sympathizers had been using selected Lutheran churches as meeting places to plot sabotage against the war effort. Does anyone seriously believe that the Roosevelt administration would have been inhibited from surveillance on such churches? Would it have been argued that such surveillance represented a “smearing” of German-Americans?
That administration kidnapped thousands of Japanese Americans (U.S. citizens) in an unprecedented act of discrimination. Nowadays this is understood to have been a great sin and violation of rights. The discrimination was plain wrong.
A federal agency deliberately and systematically targeting institutions of one demographic, a tiny part of which turned out to be violent, is wrong.
Maybe it helps to look at an analogy that is more likely to trigger empathy:
Dozens of far right wingers, “militia” and “patriot”, or simply “gun nut” types turned out to be violent. Timothy McVeigh et al.
What would you think if the FBI took this as sufficient justification for targeting the entire far right wing as suspects, snooping into NRA meetings, gun shops, militias, right wing forums, right wing blogs systematically and with the assumption that plenty people there are likely terrorists? Now add FBI sting ops, with FBI agents offering to supply guns, explosives, target lists to these people.
The ratio of innocents to terrorists in this would be on the same order of magnitude as in the “Muslims / AQ” approach.
It’s wrong. To put Muslims under a general suspicion is a sure way to alienate some of them, to produce aversion, conflict, terrorists. Sting operations are a sure way to produce plots.
Let the FBI folks hunt actual criminals instead. Plenty lives can be saved by simply allocating more FBI agents on homicide cases and important yet non-spectacular jobs.
I was told by a number of old residents in Fredericksburg that it was forbidden to speak German in public during WWII – and that there was a local Nazi sympathizer there who was trying to recruit other ethnic Germans in Texas into his spy network, to their utter horror and embarrassment. Everyone was relieved when he was arrested and interned at the Chrystal City camp. And there was one newly-arrived minister, who was a native German speaker from the German-speaking part of Switzerland, called to serve one of the local churches. He wasn’t terribly fluent in English, and kept slipping – and everyone would immediately remind him that he HAD to speak English. But he kept slipping, and finally he was interned in Crystal City, too. But he didn’t mind it all that much, as he was guaranteed a full house on Sunday mornings!
The thing is that the German-Americans in the US by the time of WWII had very well demonstrated where their loyalties lay. I’d feel a damn sight more cordial toward the Muslims in our midst if they demonstrated more clearly and loudly that their loyalties lay unequivocally with the US. Like the uncle of the Beantown Blaster Brothers, (Joxer and Speed-bump) who was quite beautifully emphatic in condemning what his nephews had gotten up to. Relative silence, or a little moaning about how THIS reprehensible act WILL cause an anti-Muslim backlash doesn’t quite cut it.
(Dr. K – I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for expert technical advice for a book – pls email at clyahayes-at-gmail-dot-com. Yeah, I know I’m probably being spied on with a gmail addy, but I hope they are being bored stiff. My whole life flashed in front of my eyes, and it was really boring!)
S O: Have you forgotten about the many terrorist acts committed by leftists and union people?
Didn’t Janet Napolitano say that returning military veterans were more of a threat than muslims?
“I’d feel a damn sight more cordial toward the Muslims in our midst if they demonstrated more clearly and loudly that their loyalties lay unequivocally with the US.”
Did you try to listen?
I did a quick search on “muslims against terrorism” and there is simply no shortage of results.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_attitudes_towards_terrorism#Recent_polls
“John Esposito, using poll data from Gallup, wrote that Muslims and Americans were equally likely to reject violence against civilians. He also found that those Muslims who support violence against civilians are no more religious than Muslims who do not.”
“A 2013 Pew Research Center poll asked Muslims around the world whether attacks on civilians were justified. Globally 72% of Muslims said violence against civilians is never justified, and in the US, 81% of Muslims opposed such violence. About 3% of Muslims globally (and 1% of Muslims in the US) said violence against civilians is “often” justified. 39% of those surveyed in Afghanistan said such attacks were sometimes or often justified.”
I don’t think anyone here has proposed that mosques *in general* be placed under surveillance….rather, that law enforcement should be able to conduct reasonable surveillance in particular cases where there is reasonable suspicion of terrorist activity, without having to jump through special hoops that would not be required if the venue in question were a church or a gun club.
@PST314:
Wouldn’t have stood a chance to do the “empathy” trick to overcome prejudice here, would it?
Besides, the far right wing has clearly been leading over the far left wing in terms of terrorism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States
More comprehensively and not exactly from a leftist source:
http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ChallengersFromtheSidelines.pdf
Look at the figure on page 87!
@David Foster:
I suppose that’s the purpose of limiting surveillance to specific, formally approved cases.
And don’t fool yourself; churches and gun clubs are special enough and politics-prone enough that their surveillance does informally require approval from upper levels.
Sorry, SO – the ones speaking with explosives and violence are somehow being heard over the search engine murmers of others. The uncle of the Beantown Blaster Brothers was the only one what I could recollect speaking loudly and clearly. And meanwhile, everyone in the vicinity of the Fort Hood shooter during his progression through the Army career path was afraid to speak up about him, due to the so-precious ideal of diversity?
@Sgt Mom; well, you not wanting to listen to them is no reason for the FBI to put them under general suspicion.
I’m sure you do understand there are enough leftists who don’t want to listen to peaceful right wingers and who remember Oklahoma bombing etc. so very well they want the right wing under general suspicion, general surveillance by FBI etc. Is that the country you want?
If not, you should share your freedom and protection against big brother government with your fellow Muslim citizens.
Because it’s no freedom if it’s selective; just a temporary advantage till you’re the next in the line.
(Besides; the Ft. Hood shooter WAS investigated at some point, they just didn’t find enough or were generally incompetent.)
CAIR is an Islamist front, based on the organizations it’s known to have supported and the positions it takes. CAIR’s membership is obscure — how many? how few? No one on the outside knows. It could be no more than a thousand or two. It’s not unlike the New Black Panther Party but with more polish. Yet CAIR is given substantial authority by our own govt. It’s as if our executive branch is being run by people who sympathize with Islamism or foolishly think that we should deal with Islamists because Islamists are somehow more authentic than other Muslims or represent the inevitable wave of the future. Nah, couldn’t be.
BTW, I believe that commenter S O is German. Not to be ad hominem but his comments come across as those of a Euro lefty who doesn’t like the USA.
BTW 2, John Esposito is not exactly an uninterested party. Google him. The poll results S O cites are misleading because they are averages. Look at the results by country. Consider also that if even 1% of American Muslims believe violence against (non-Muslim) civilians is justified we might have a problem. How many recent US terror attacks have been by Muslim fanatics and how many by Christian fanatics?
McVey was 1) almost 20 years ago, 2) a one-off and 3) much less typical of US right wingers than today’s Muslim terrorists are of Muslim radicals. These are important distinctions that S O elides.
No, SO – I am tired to death of listening to them, and considering their tender feelings on pain of being called an Islamophobe and a H8er. And hey – what about the Department of Homeland Security putting out the word that military veterans are a ‘must watch’ category? Doesn’t anyone consider my feelings?
Yeah, I know all about those leftist who don’t want to listen to peaceful right-wingers (and that term marks you very well, I think – are you our own very well-establised Pengun under a different nym? Just asking.) No, the trouble is that currently anyone who does attempt a criticism of Islam generally is first slimed with the Islamaphobe label, and accused of being hostile to our dear and conspiciously upright citizens of the Islamic persuasion, who have contributed so very much to our culture … gads, I may barf at that sentance.
No, it’s fairly obvious to me that Hassan (I decline to adorn his name with a military rank) was a problem child from the get-go. Having him in the various medical programs was a Good Thing, and nothing must be allowed which would Harm The Career Progress of Such an Examplar Of Diversity – never mind that he was bat-crap crazy and that anyone who noted this tendency would have been labeled as an Islamophobe and a H8er. So that was why the powers-that-be enabled him, and passed him on to Fort Hood. Nice. Thanks a bunch, higher command; pawning off your Islamic problem child into the field. No – not incompetance, just disinclination to be labeled as one of those Islamic H8ers.
It’s interesting that I seem to have aroused SO to defend the Islamists.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/26/us-imam-calls-on-muslims-in-us-to-wage-jihad/
It only takes a few to wreak havoc. In the eight years following Sept. 11, law enforcement officers reported about 20 homegrown violent jihadist plots or attacks. In the past four years, according to the Congressional Research Service, there have been more than 40.
There was one example here in Irvine where a limousine driver drove himself to LAX and attacked the El Al counter.
“Still, many terror acts and the majority of them in the U.S. HAVE been committed by Christians.”
I would like to see that source. McVeigh’s motive had nothing to do with Christianity.
@Jonathan:
“McVey was 1) almost 20 years ago, 2) a one-off and 3) much less typical of US right wingers than today’s Muslim terrorists are of Muslim radicals. These are important distinctions that S O elides.”
1) 9/11 was already almost 12 years ago, 2) a one-off 3) much less typical of 1.57 billion Muslims than any ever useful profiling criterion.
@MikeK:
“I would like to see that source. McVeigh’s motive had nothing to do with Christianity.”
I actually provided links to sources. Just scroll up. The West Point study has enough on offer to support what I wrote.
Keep in mind I wrote “Still, many terror acts and the majority of them in the U.S. HAVE been committed by Christians.”. Read correctly; I did not write “because of Christianity”.
9/11 had nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with people just sociopathic asshats and other human mental deficits. BTW, McVeigh’s motive was hatred of Fed authorities; that’s quite a commonality with much of the far right wing. The eliminationist motives are popular among the far right wing, after all.
Again; a handful asshats does not justify putting millions under general suspicion. You wouldn’t want it to happen to your kin (and there ARE enough known asshats among far right wingers), so you should remember that freedom is only freedom if it applies to everybody. Otherwise, it’s privilege – and possibly a very temporary one.
Now if you guys really value freedom, you should muster the self-discipline to maintain this principle in face of years of propaganda, scaremongering, scapegoating and primitive instincts. Don’t discriminate against millions of fellow citizens merely because of their faith (practised or not).
Religious freedom means to not be targeted for your religion.
“9/11 had nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with people just sociopathic asshats and other human mental deficits.”
Delusions are alright if they do not endanger the rest of us. You are delusional or disingenuous. Obama, I think, is disingenuous.
Just like Hasan was “workplace violence.”
Some very disturbing trends reported in the Netherlands.
This is what happens when you ignore intimidation in the hope that it will go away.
Wow.
Who are they protecting us from?
“Us????”
They are protecting themselves from US.
Or at least watching.
They don’t need all this info, when they have info banging on their doors they do not act. Muslims are a protected species, especially if they’re radical. They are not our fellow citizens, as their coveted victim status and a radically chic civil rights lobby has elevated them above mere “us”. As 50 million illegals are about to be..
S O – by your words you don’t seem to be American, I doubt if you understand our politics. I could not understand Germany [or wherever you are] from the Internet, or presume to lecture.
Let me contrast: most European governments don’t hate their majority population, the French government doesn’t hate the French, the German government doesn’t hate the Germans, and so on. The Danes positively love Danes, to the point that no one else can live there. *HOWEVER* The American Government Sir positively hates, loathes and fears Americans. They seldom bother to hide it anymore.
It’s rather awkward at the best of times. We simply have anti-majority social democracy. Most of them are of course white, but they’d be horrified if you pointed this out…
OTOH – we’ve only just recently realized this and our responses over the last few months have been 1) stop voting and 2) arm to the teeth.
So the various alphabet soups are watching exactly US…that’s the “protection”. It’s a question of priorities. The CTC West point studies you linked to have recognized this…mind you that wasn’t the case until recently at the CTC.
Because CTC understands our State Religion.
For instance Diversity Sir is not, not political or social policy. It’s religion. The more you invoke goddess Diversity the more holier than thou you are, and hence more status. The goal and method of this religion being exactly status seeking. By White Progs. [Who studiously avoid it where they live, I mean neighborhoods nearly as white as Scandinavia]. There are many Prog deities and thousands of points of Prog theology, but goddess Diversity is probably the most important. Although it’s risky because they’re guaranteed to literally explode in your face , the Highest Homage to Goddess Diversity and hence highest status is to insist that Muslims not be discriminated against, even when they’re openly proclaiming their Jihadi tendencies. One of the Boston Bombers had a license plate – TERRORIST 1. Hasan briefed justified beheadings on Power Point. And so on…
I don’t know what a foreigner could get out of it though…are you perchance receiving a grant from American Academia? Otherwise you are getting nothing from this..and no American academic ever actually lifts a finger for free. Not even to post.
S O:
There have been many acts of Islamist terror against Americans in America since 9/11. None of these acts has been as deadly as the 9/11 attacks but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Where are the Christian terrorists?
Yes, at least a billion Muslims and relatively few Islamist terrorists as a proportion. Yet Islamist terrorism is ubiquitous in the western world while Christian terrorism is so infrequent that I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, except perhaps the bombings of Eric Rudolph. (Tim McVey’s motives were political and he was repudiated by every American right winger I’ve heard of. You simply don’t know what you’re talking about on this point. McVey was wildly aberrant in US political culture. Not so Islamist terrorists, who while a minority among Muslims still enjoy significant sympathy, and even majority sympathy in some Muslim countries.)
Saying the 9/11 terrorists were psychopaths is a dodge. The important point is that they were driven by Islamist ideology, as was Major Hasan, the El Al ticket counter attacker, the Bali bombers, the London subway bombers, the London knife attackers, the Boston bombers, etc., etc., etc.
Islam isn’t monolithic and many if not most Muslims don’t agree with the jihadis. But a significant percentage of Muslims do agree with them, and there are enough jihadis to cause a lot of problems for us. Giving Muslims extra scrutiny makes perfect sense.
Jonathan; look up the West Point study I linked to. There were plenty non-Islamist terrorists in the U.S.. The ratio of dangerous right wing extremists to right wingers overall isn’t much different than the ratio of dangerous Islamists to Muslims overall in the U.S..
To single out the Muslim demographic is arbitrary. by the same guilt by association game the right wing could be put under special surveillance, targeted with federal sting operations etc. You guys don’t seem to want to see this, I get it. Point being, you better respect freedoms as universal freedoms, instead as merely your privilege.
The millions of Muslims who were treated as suspects till the practice was outlawed did not enjoy religious freedom, nor did they enjoy equality. A very weak faith-based profiling linked them to some asshats, that’s all. This appears to be enough for the FBI and also for you guys to discriminate them and put them under general suspicion.
Sorry, you guys are no defenders of freedom. You rather look easily blown away by the wind of propaganda, scapegoating etc. The prejudice and aversion against Muslim sits so very deep here even pointing out that your demographic could be targeted by the same standards doesn’t help you understand how unjustified a general suspicion is.
The ratio of dangerous right wing extremists to right wingers overall isn’t much different than the ratio of dangerous Islamists to Muslims overall in the U.S..
???????
Who are these right wing terrorists?
Other than McVeigh the Muslim terrorists have acted out. Where’s all the right wing terrorism?
Or is this just some made up number?
S.O.
Dr. Arie perliger IS NOT a conservative. That report you cited and his previous activities puts a lie to that statement of yours. It was a blatant attempt to indoctrinate cadets at West Point into the current leftist meme that conservatives and Christians are a greater danger to the US than Islamists. That report also fits in with the other crap the 0bama administration has been doing the last 5 years to get control of the military, like Mike Weinstein being forced on the Pentagon as an advisor. I have two sons in the Marines and one in Army ROTC, and all three have noted a definite change in tone towards practicing Christians and conservatives in the last three years especially.
The activities of so-called “Christian Terrorists” pale in comparison to the activities of muslim terrorists. Everywhere Islam rubs up against other religions has extensive terrorist acts by Muslims. I agree with the others, you sound like a typical Eurolefty, and I just cannot understand how all you Euros can just keep ignoring all the islamist terror acts within your own nations.
Man in France assaulted for eating a ham sandwich…by two men who said they were Muslims and were “offended.”
SO will probably try to tell us that there is an equivalent pattern of anti-pork assaults by offended Jews…
Pages 85-86:
This is garbage.
“Some very disturbing trends reported in the Netherlands.”
What do Muslims call their enclave? They certainly don’t call it Freetown Christiania, which is similar enclave in Copenhagen. The government of the Netherlands should allow Muslims the same rights and privileges over their enclave as Danish government allows the Freetown residents. As best I can tell, the existence of enclaves for separate peoples worked well in Copenhagen; let’s try it in The Hague.
I just cannot understand how all you Euros can just keep ignoring all the islamist terror acts within your own nations.
dhimmi.
The round-up of Japanese, Germans and Italians is easily condemned 50 years after the fact. What would be interesting to know is how many of the internees remained in the US after release as law abiding, if not bitter, citizens and how many left to return home. Were we to round up the muslims now and hold them for the duration, what should we anticipate their behavior to be upon release?
@Bill Brandt and others: It’s disingenuous to ask for evidence long after it was provided.
You want to see non-Muslim terrorists, Christians doing terror for ‘Christian’ or other motives?
No, you don’t want to see it. You merely pretend to want it, ask for it.
Once it’s provided, the cognitive dissonance kicks in and you close your eyes.
These examples were already listed in a link I provided long ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Spokane_bombing_attempt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Holocaust_Memorial_Museum_shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Charles_Kopp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Roeder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Georgia_terrorist_plot#November_2011.2C_Gainesville.2C_Georgia.2C_US
I looked at SO’s pdf file. The index case is that of McVeigh, the wet dream of all leftists who want to justify Bill Ayres. There is NO mention of Waco that I saw. There is No mention of Ruby Ridge, which was an alarm bell to a lot of folks who fear the government. I didn’t fear the government until recently but I understood what McVeigh’s motive was once the story came out. The Clinton Administration was a bit of a preview of what we have now. Elian Gonzales was one incident. Ruby Ridge was another. The jury that was empaneled to try Randy Weaver, not only acquitted him but recommended indictment of the FBI sniper who killed his wife. Were they are “right wing terrorists”, SO ?
The jury acquitted Weaver of all remaining charges except two, one of which the judge set aside. Weaver was found guilty of one count, failure to appear, for which Weaver was fined $10,000 and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was credited with time served plus an additional three months, and was then released. Kevin Harris was acquitted of all criminal charges.[17]
In August 1995, the US government avoided trial on a civil lawsuit filed by the Weavers, by awarding the three surviving daughters $1,000,000 each, and Randy Weaver $100,000 over the deaths of Sammy and Vicki Weaver. The attorney for Kevin Harris pressed Harris’ civil suit for damages, although federal officials vowed they would never pay someone who had killed a U.S. Marshal (Harris had been acquitted by a jury trial on grounds of self-defense). In September 2000 after persistent appeals, Harris was awarded a $380,000 settlement from the government.
Yes, they sure sound like “right wing terrorists” to me.
“Were they are “right wing terrorists”, SO ?”
LOL, one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. It’s no wonder you can’t see right wing terrorists.
That’s still no reason to despise and discriminate against fellow citizens because of their faith, though.
So, the 9/11 terrorists were “freedom fighters”? Whose freedom ? Egypt’s ? Saudi Arabia’s ?
No, they were fighting a war against the West to restore the Caliphate which had been gone at least since 1920 and well before that. By your definition, Hitler was a “freedom fighter.” After all, all he wanted was lebensraum. Of course, he wanted the Jews all dead and the Slavs as slaves in the new Germany but how is that different from what Hamas wants ?
It’s appropriate of you are German.
You’re confused. Feel free to mobilise some clear thinking and try to find any quote where I called or considered the 9/11 wackos freedom fighters. In fact, I already called the something very differently – you just did not pay attention.
S.O says
“That’s still no reason to despise and discriminate against fellow citizens because of their faith, though”
As soon as the Islamists prove they can live in harmony with other faiths and prove it by stopping snti-Christian/Jewish/Hindu/Bhuddist discrimination in majority Muslim nations, then maybe I’ll re-consider my thinking on Muslims
So the 9/11 and other Muslim terrorists who were part of or took their lead from a mass Islamist movement, committed their terrorist acts in the name of Islam, and are popular in Muslim countries and among a significant minority of western Muslims, are mere psychos.
But a few lone nuts who killed abortionists or attacked the Holocaust Museum or the IRS office, for a variety of reasons including mental illness, who are not part of any political movement and who are repudiated by almost everyone in our society are Christian terrorists.
Got it.
S O
The ratio of dangerous right wing extremists to right wingers overall isn’t much different than the ratio of dangerous Islamists to Muslims overall in the U.S..
About half the country can be classified as right wing. What percentage of the country is Muslim? Maybe two percent. Maybe three percent. So, the incidence of right wingers to Muslims in the US is roughly twenty to one. We will assume that the damage done by “dangerous extremists” should be proportional to their incidence in the population.For S O’s hypothesis to be correct, damage by “dangerous right wing extremists” in the US in the 21st Century should be roughly twenty times that done by “dangerous Islamists” in the US. But it isn’t. If anything, damage by “dangerous Islamists” in the US in the 21st Century is closer to twenty times the damage by “dangerous right wing extremists” than it is to one twentieth the damage.
Conclusion: S O speaks nonsense.
S O later cites the Austin IRS Suicide Bomber, in support of his “dangerous right wing extremists” claim. The Wiki article he links to quotes from his suicide note. The suicide notes criticizes unions and corporations profiting from health care and drugs, which might be seen as a right wing point of view. The suicide note also states:
That doesn’t sound very right-wing to me.
SO: “one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. It’s no wonder you can’t see right wing terrorists.”
MK: “So, the 9/11 terrorists were “freedom fighters”? Whose freedom ? Egypt’s ? Saudi Arabia’s ?”
SO: “You’re confused. Feel free to mobilise some clear thinking and try to find any quote where I called or considered the 9/11 wackos freedom fighters.”
And I’m confused ?
Yes Mike, you’re confused. I didn’t call the 9/11 wackos freedom fighters. I stated that one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter – this was aimed at the sympathy which another comment expressed about right wing terror acts. The perception of right wing terror acts as well provoked may explain why some here have such great difficulties seeing right wing terror: They see right wing freedom fighters or government’s victims instead.
The 9/11 = freedom fighter thing is simply your interpretation = fantasy, not mine.
@Gringo:
“About half the country can be classified as right wing.”
Actually, substantially less than half, and I repeatedly referred to the “far right wing”, not only to the mere “right wing”. Use the search function of your browser to see how I repeatedly wrote “far right wing”.
You aimed well past the mark.
From June 14th, 2013 at 2:23 pm
S O
I accurately quoted you. Apparently you have a problem with being accurately quoted. Payaso sos.
S O
From the results of elections from 2000 on, the country seems fairly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Current Democrat control of the Senate and Republican control of the House of Representatives reflects this fairly even split. If one roughly equates Democrat= left wing and Republican = right wing, then it is not far off the mark to roughly classify half the country as right wing. Recall that I stated ABOUT.
According to the Gallup Poll, Conservatives Remain Largest Ideological Group/a> in the US.
Granted,this is not 50%, but I was speaking in rough terms. I said ABOUT. In any event, whether the accurate figure is 40 or 50 per cent, my point about the relative amounts of damage done by “dangerous extremists” in the US in the 21st century stands.
SO You are splitting hairs. You like Muslims who want to establish a new world order using Sharia. You don’t like “right wingers” although I suspect your definition would be suspect.
I am happy to have Muslims who accept assimilation but many don’t. I am not happy that the Saudis support Wahhabi clerics who take over more moderate mosques and turn the teachings toward radical.
There are a number of Muslims who are trying to reform Islam like the Protestant Revolution reformed the Church and Christianity. They are threatened and some are even forced out with Saudi money. You are not helping.
Suhdi Jasser is one who has been trying to turn Islam toward modernity.
I’m sure you never heard of him.
Oh, great. I forgot “far” once. Well, take my comment as a clarification then.
About 50/50 left/right; keep in mind voter turnout is usually below 60%. Election results kind of point at 30/40/30 than 50/50.
Gallup poll about Republicans = waste of time.
@Mike K:
“You like Muslims who want to establish a new world order using Sharia.”
Well, feel free to chose; you’re either ignorant about me or a liar. Or feel free to prove your claim.
I dislike faith-based profiling and discrimination of entire demographics, and this should be obvious by what I wrote so far.
You may dislike Wahhabism; but that’s very different from Muslim faith in general.
Still, it makes sense to protect a large demographic from general suspicion and FBI surveillance by requiring the FBI to ask for extra permission ahead of surveillance and the generally dubious sting ops first.
SO
Oh, great. I forgot “far” once. Well, take my comment as a clarification then.
There is no point debating someone who writes something that he later claims is not an accurate reflection of his point of view.
It is one thing to claim you were misinterpreted. It is an entirely different thing to state that you didn’t mean to write what you did. Talk about changing the goalposts!
Ciao, payaso.
S O
<blockquoteYou may dislike Wahhabism; but that’s very different from Muslim faith in general
You are not telling us anything that we didn’t already know: Wahhabi is not all Islam. What you leave out is there is a strong Wahhabi influence in US mmosques. From Islamic Pluralism:
What is YOUR opinion of Wahhabis?
S O:
Given the large Wahhabi influence in US mosques, I would beg to differ.
Mark Steyn has a way of focusing the camera on the ridiculous.
The other day the Boston Globe ran a story on how the city’s police and other agencies had spent months planning a big training exercise for last weekend involving terrorists planting bombs hidden in backpacks left downtown. Unfortunately, the Marathon bombers preempted them, and turned the coppers’ hypothetical scenario into bloody reality. What a freaky coincidence, eh? But it’s the differences between the simulation and the actual event that are revealing. In humdrum reality, the Boston bombers were Chechen Muslim brothers with ties to incendiary imams and jihadist groups in Dagestan. In the far more exciting Boston Police fantasy, the bombers were a group of right-wing militiamen called “Free America Citizens,” a name so suspicious (involving as it does the words “free,” “America,” and “citizens”) that it can only have been leaked to them by the IRS.
Great column as usual.
“Talk about changing the goalposts!”
Look, there are no goalposts. I’m not in the business of accusing the right wing.
Instead, I brought the example of (far) right wing terrorists in order to provoke some empathy.
The Muslims are being discriminated / were being discriminated by the FBI based on the extremely weak correlation of common faith with some asshats.
You guys have about the same weak correlation of political ideology with other proven asshats.
This should make you think about whether such a weak correlation is really a good-enough reason to discriminate an entire demographic.
Keep in mind someone here even took offense with something so simple as the FBI being required to first get permission before it does surveillance / sting operations in mosques.
“What is YOUR opinion of Wahhabis?”
I personally don’t care. Ignore the normal ones (especially the loud ones) and crack down on the slightest bit of crime perpetrated, period. Oh, and blame the U.S. foreign politicians for being a 100% failure in regard to Saudi Arabia since at the latest 2001 – including both presidents’ administrations.
@Mike K; police departments had exercises based on evil brown people for a decade. Some change is only natural.
SO…”Still, it makes sense to protect a LARGE demographic from general suspicion and FBI surveillance by requiring the FBI to ask for extra permission ahead of surveillance and the generally dubious sting ops first.” (emphasis added)
Why would a LARGE demographic deserve special protection relative to a smaller demographic? Should Greek Orthodox churches be less protected from surveillance than Roman Catholic churches because they represent a smaller group of people?
Well, let’s say there were 50 violent asshats in a Native American reservation of 2,000 people. Such a correlation would probably justify scepticism about the entire group.
The Muslim population in the U.S. on the other hand is somewhere in the region of one to eight million people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States
The pseudo-Muslim terrorists of 9/11 were foreigners who were in the U.S. only for a short time. The really indigenous ‘Muslim’ terrorist count is close to zero. The correlation between them and a million or eight million people is ridiculously weak.
SO:
Ignore the normal ones (especially the loud ones) and crack down on the slightest bit of crime perpetrated, period.
Crack down on whom — dead terrorists, or captured terrorists who are happy to become martyrs? That approach failed in the ’90s and fails to the extent we still use it. What works is to gather intelligence from the populations from which terrorists are most likely to come, in this case populations of young men who attend radical mosques, and to interdict terror attacks before they are implemented. Yet our govt goes out of its way to gather intelligence on threats (and imagined threats) other than those coming from radical mosques, and to avert our eyes from the mosques lest we be accused of bigotry by idiots.
Well, let’s say there were 50 violent asshats in a Native American reservation of 2,000 people. Such a correlation would probably justify scepticism about the entire group.
Native American terrorism isn’t a problem. Islamic terrorism is
The pseudo-Muslim terrorists of 9/11 were foreigners who were in the U.S. only for a short time. The really indigenous ‘Muslim’ terrorist count is close to zero. The correlation between them and a million or eight million people is ridiculously weak.
-The terrorists of 9/11 were Muslims. Who are you to dismiss that fact by calling them pseudo-Muslims? But of course the leftist crackpot who flew a plane into the IRS building was right wing and not pseudo-right wing.
-Most of the Muslim terrorists here and in Europe have been followers of radical Islamist movements and/or members of radical Islamist mosques. That’s a strong correlation and it makes sense for us to conduct surveillance on those Islamist movements and mosques, here and abroad. If someone gets offended that is not our problem.
It makes sense to do surveillance ops based on individual assessments. It’s discrimination and poor allocation of resources to do it against a group numbering millions.
The 9/11 asshats were pseudo-Muslims because they violated so many rules of Muslim faith with their plot, it’s inappropriate to link it to Muslim faith in general.
“…The 9/11 asshats were pseudo-Muslims because they violated so many rules of Muslim faith with their plot, it’s inappropriate to link it to Muslim faith in general…”
Ah, the ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy. (FYI – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman )
“It’s discrimination and poor allocation of resources to do it against a group numbering millions.”
Like searching everybody wanting to go on an airline flight, I suppose.
Following your comments, SO, is like watching a martial arts practioner knock himself out. Usually, pratfalls of this kind involve thrown cream pies.
“”¦The 9/11 asshats were pseudo-Muslims because they violated so many rules of Muslim faith with their plot, it’s inappropriate to link it to Muslim faith in general”¦”
S.O.,
You need to research your claims a little better. Most of the muslim imams tell their radical foot soldiers it is entirely permissible to violate any tenet of the faith in order to kill, enslave, or convert the kaffirs. It is entirely permissible to lie to a kaffir too (Taqqiya).
Sgt. Mom is right, your leftist stupidity is on full display here.
Personally, I now fall in the “kill ’em all and let God sort them out” school until the attacks stop. Islam has been attacking the Western world almost non-stop since the 7th century.
Seriously, the Western world has attacked the Muslim world more than the other way around for more than 300 years.
The U.S. alone has in the last fourty years bombed or otherwise attacked four Muslim countries and helped an enemy of two more during wartime while being ‘neutral’. This led to way more deaths than 9/11 did.
Their grudge against the West as a whole is slightly less unfounded than yours against the Muslim world as a whole.
Muslims are allowed to lie to a non-Muslim in order to maintain their faith in face of discrimination (they are even allowed to feign being no Muslims any more). This does not extend so far as you assert, though. Only a handful of asshat Imams go as far as you claim. Once more you confuse a small group with the whole or a majority thereof.
The entire inability or unreadiness to see the difference between a few and the many, and resulting shotgun approach which violates so many Western civilisation principles, is he key problem here.
You guys need to throw overboard the behaviour based on primitive aversion instincts and begin to look at the issue with the correct proportions (the whole terror thing is a minor scratch in comparison to the evil of tobacco companies, for example) and with an open eye for evidence and differences.
“You guys need to throw overboard the behaviour based on primitive aversion instincts and begin to look at the issue with the correct proportions (the whole terror thing is a minor scratch in comparison to the evil of tobacco companies, for example) and with an open eye for evidence and differences.”
*snf, snf*
I love the smell of great dripping slabs of condescension in the mornining … it smells like mouldy gym socks. Don’t ever change, SO,as a parody you are priceless!
“The 9/11 asshats were pseudo-Muslims because they violated so many rules of Muslim faith with their plot, it’s inappropriate to link it to Muslim faith in general.”
You mean like the Saudi princes who party in the French Riviera and have wine cellars out of the reach of Wahabbi religious police. Whose salaries they pay ? Those Muslims ?
“the whole terror thing is a minor scratch in comparison to the evil of tobacco companies, for example”
Except one is voluntary, a concept you seem to miss.
I would abandon this thread if I hadn’t started it. SO is what we call a “concern troll.”
“Euro lefty”
“payaso”
“leftist”
“concern troll”
It’s interesting how very much interested you guys are in pinning a label of some disliked group to me and to imply that my words should be dismissed thus.
Is this labelling stuff so important to you guys?
___________
By the way;
“Most of the Muslim terrorists here and in Europe have been followers of radical Islamist movements and/or members of radical Islamist mosques. That’s a strong correlation”
I’ve got a stronger correlation: ALL of them ate breakfast.
Not relevant? Well, yes that’s because many, many people eat breakfast. Just like many, many people visit mosques.
I’m not opposed to FBI etc. paying special attention to radical mosques.
“That’s a strong correlation and it makes sense for us to conduct surveillance on those Islamist movements and mosques, here and abroad. If someone gets offended that is not our problem.”
Now about the Islamist (not mere “Muslim”) movements and radical mosques; there are few enough of them to make a process of individual approval of FBI actions et cetera practical.
There’s no reason to put Muslims and mosques in general under general suspicion.
And yes, offending others is always a problem. There is backlash. The whole Muslim terror problem would likely not even exist for the U.S. if not many people had thought you could bomb, invade, offend and bribe others without getting into trouble.
“You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
Yep, SO – we know what you are also, the label-pinning is almost superflous. Didn’t they brief you properly about this website – and let you know that colletively the contributers here have forgotten more history than you will ever know?
(Mike, I would suggest that we keep him around until we get tired of chewing on him. Your post and thread, not mine, though. I am already thinking of him as a handy punching bag, good material for a bit of a workout.)
The shifting sands are making me queasy.
Dude, you don’t know how much history I know.
The arrogance of claiming such knowledge should be obvious.
Yeah, sport – your knowlege of history is on display with every one of your posts.
So S.O., now you’re throwing out another strawman with the eeeevvviiiiiillll tobacco companies because you are losing another argument.
The biggest problem I have with Islam is that their radical fundamentalists actually run and set the tone for ALL muslims. Those who do not buy their arguments are intimidated into silence. I’d refer you to several polls that show most muslims do support the implementation of a worldwide caliphate and sharia, but that would do no good as you would dismiss them. Most muslims tend to support their radicals through either support or silence, which IS NOT the case for Christianity and Judaism.
You really need to read a little more history written by someone else than Howard Zinn and his ilk. The Ottoman Turks raised an army to conquer Vienna in 1683, which marked the highwater of the Islamic attempts to conquer Christian Europe that began when the Moors took the Iberian Peninsula in in 711. Further muslim advances into Europe were stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732.
The various kingdoms of Europe fought off Muslim incursions almost continously for the next 400 years until population pressures gave them the men to strike back with the Crusades, which rocked the islamics to their core and caused them to spend their energies for the next 200 years on regaining the lands they lost. The Plague is what stopped further European attempts (and Islamic too) to push back more, except the Reconquista in Iberia.
After Vienna,most Islamic/Christian conflict was at a low level, mostly in central Europe with the Hapsburg Empire nibbling away at the Ottoman holdings in Southern and Eastern Europe. European colonization of the old islamic middle east did not really get started until Napolean’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 and that was only temporary. The British and French did not take control until World War 1.
Direct US military involvement did not happen until Gulf War 1 in 1990-91, so don’t give me that crapola about decades of American oppression of muslims as the excuse for the current terrorist campaign against us. It does not fly and never has.
S.O
Some history lesson for you S.O.. When the United States became an independent country in 1781 and started it’s own commerce, they found a rather disturbing fact about the sea lanes in the Mediterranean Sea when their merchant ships started disappearing and their embassies started receiving letters from the Barbary Pirates that they had the missing ships and crews and they want the US not only to pay ransom for their captured ships and sailors, they had to pay an annual tribute to the pirates as well for protection and the asking price was 1/3 of the US budget at that time. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams tried to negotiate for the release of the US captives and the Barbary States envoy gave them a lesson on Muslim view of how they see infidels. When Thomas Jefferson became president, he sent a task force to deal with the matter and while they lost the USS Philadelphia when it went aground and later captured by the pirates, they not only recaptured and burned the Philadelphia, they freed the captured crew under enemy fire which earned the respect of Adm Horatio Nelson and the British Navy, but all of the European Navy as well. Also, with a small band of marines and mercenaries led by William Eaton, they captured the city of Derna which forced the ruler of Tripoli to sue for peace. Yes, S.O., that’s where the lyrics,” from the shores of Tripoli came from”.
The Second Barbary War a decade later finally settled the issue in which the American Navy finally forced the Dey of Algiers to sign a treaty with the United States to end pirate attacks on US shipping as well as freeing ten US sailors and a large group of European captives in the city and paying US for the cost of their shipping losses. The following year the British government tried the same tack and while it proved successful at first, the Algerians massacred 200 Christian fishermen after the treaty was signed and this time, a combined British and Dutch fleet after heavy bombardment of the city of Algiers forced the Dey to finally sign a treaty to stop piracy and release all Christian prisoners.
S.O., the radical Islamists were just continuing the war they started in 1782 against the United States, the Americans just really started fighting back in the 1980s after 160 years.
S O
I quote S O: “The ratio of dangerous right wing extremists to right wingers overall isn’t much different than the ratio of dangerous Islamists to Muslims overall in the U.S.”.
S O: I didn’t say that.
Gringo: Yes, you did.
S O: OK I did say that, but I didn’t mean to say it.
Given that dialogue, the label of “payaso” is well deserved.
Gringo
Payaso is charitable to describe S.O.. Useful idiot is a more precise term with Dhimmi and Anti-American a close second and third.
@Wil Cruz; I know this history well; your assumption about my ignorance on this matter only shows your ignorance about myself.
It’s ridiculous to claim that “Muslims” were in conflict with the US for ~160 years, though. The relations only turned sour step by step after the U.S. meddled in Iranian affairs by helping installing the Shah.
About the “fighting back” in the 1980’s; may I remind you that Reagan effectively fled from Lebanon?
@Gringo:
I understand your perspective; it’s built on aversion against me. A neutral observer could -unlike you- look at the many references to “far right” and understand that omitting “far” once was unintentional and meaningless.
Moreover, a neutral observer could spot that you’ve completely lost track of what the thing was about: It was about offering a look from the victim perspective. “far” or not is irrelevant for this purpose; relevant is that you guys have lost (or maybe never had) the ability of empathy, the ability to think about an issue from other people’s perspectives.
I’m sure you guys would whine loud if the FBI/NSA got a universal permission to conduct sting ops and surveillance on far right wing groups because of far right wing terror. You’re apparently unable to see that this would be in principle the same thing you wish to be done on fellow citizens of Muslim faith.
@Joe Wooten:
“I’d refer you to several polls that show most muslims do support the implementation of a worldwide caliphate and sharia, but that would do no good as you would dismiss them.”
Again this arrogance of asserting knowledge about someone else, this time even about the future.
Hey, I provided sources / evidence and you guys first ignored, then dismissed it. I’m no psychologist, but I think what you do is called “projection”. I guess you assume that others share your weaknesses because they’re so natural to you.
About the Caliphate thing; take into account that this is basically the Arab version of a EU or US; a unifying ideology. As Mr. Caryl responded on the bottom of this article here http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/30/muslims_and_the_caliphate , the actual relevance of such polls when actual political decisions need be made is dubious.
“You really need to read a little more history written by someone else than Howard Zinn and his ilk. The Ottoman Turks raised an army to conquer Vienna in 1683(…)”
Again the arrogance. I don’t know who Mr. Zinn is, but you imply I read his stuff. Why can’t you limit yourself to facts, why this dependence on fantasy?
Likewise, I am perfectly aware of the final siege of Vienna. That’s why I chose to write “300 years” in
“Seriously, the Western world has attacked the Muslim world more than the other way around for more than 300 years.”
which you of course totally ignored. A more attentive reader would have spotted the “more than 300 years” and concluded that I’m aware of the event.
Unlike you; you chose to have a fantasy about my knowledge instead of sticking to what facts are at hand.
SO, your comments tell us what we need to know about your knowledge.
You do keep making assertions that are based on appeals to authority.
If you are Muslim, I can understand your defensive POV. Otherwise, you seem hostile and I wonder why you bother with us lesser beings. That’s why I called you a concern troll. That’s what they do. Tell us how brilliant they are and how dumb we are.
Doesn’t that get tiresome ?
S O
No, I looked at WHAT YOU WROTE.
I made the assumption that you stood by what you wrote, and that you did not consider what you wrote to be “unintentional and meaningless.” By your own admission, you are a BS-er,who writes stuff people shouldn’t take seriously: “unintentional and meaningless.” By your own admission, sometimes what you write is meaningful, and sometimes what you write is meaningless. Apparently you have to flip a coin to figure out when what you write is “meaningful” and when it is “meaningless.” You must have been a Sociology major.
In all my years of commenting on blogs, you are the first commenter I have run across who has stated that what he/she wrote is “meaningless.”
Another way of looking at it is that you are in with the “words mean whatever I want them to mean” crowd. Examples:
“I voted for it before I voted against it.” Kerry
“It’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic [to run up the debt].” Obama in 2008. Who proceeds to run up the debt ever faster. No mention in 2012 from Obama about running up the debt to be “irresponsible and unpatriotic.” NOW running up the debt is “investment.” From irresponsible and unpatriotic to investment in four short years.
For argument’s sake, let’s change your statement to what you apparently claim you intended to write:
There are several things wrong with this comparison. First, while it is possible to come up with an approximate figure for Muslims in the US, it is very problematic to come up with a figure for “extreme right wingers” in the US. How do you define your terms? Secondly, the term Muslim is generic and by definition encompasses a lot of moderates- I am reminded of a Muslim neighbor who is the CFO for a small company- while the term “extreme right winger” is not generic nor does it encompass a lot of moderates. Nothing moderate about “extreme right winger.” Not a very well phrased comparison at all.
This thread with regard to SO distilled –
SO: “Why are you horrible right-wingers so distainful of my brilliance and perspecuity? Why aren’t you bowing down to admire my mad rhetorical skilz?”
Chicago Boyz Contributers and Commenters – “Experience, dear boy – experience.”
S.O.
Really dude, From the 7th Century AD until the Ottomans were finally defeated and the second siege of Vienna was lifted in 1683, Christendom was fighting a defensive war and the Crusades especially the First , Second and Third were a belated attempt to really fight back against the muslim invaders. Second, even though the Europeans finally defeated the land invasion, the sea lanes in the Mediterranean sea was still a Muslim lake which finally ended when the Americans finally forced the Dey of Algiers to end piracy and the English and the Dutch made it stick. So all in all, it took 9 centuries for Europe to finally stopped the Islamic dream to conquer Europe, it took an additional 130 years for them to finally deal with the muslim pirates of the Barbary States in the Mediterranean Sea and 20 years later for Greece to declare it’s freedom from the Ottoman empire. Heck, the French occupied Algeria for about 130 years, left Syria after WWII, the English left Egypt,Sudan and Jordan after WWII. So just for fun 1,100 years of Islamic Imperialism against 180 years of Western Imperialism. And oh btw, the reason why Islam was able to contribute much in math, science and the classics was that they invaded, the Christian learning centers found in the Levant and North Africa, the Persian empire and the Indian empires and kingdoms fell into their invading armies and they created their own learning centers which was filled with newly converted( forcefully for many) scholars from 3 continents which made Muslim empires and kingdoms the center for learning from the Dark Ages up until the end of the Crusades.
In regards to Iran, you had conveniently forgotten the other side of the story, the USSR wanted to add Iran to it’s hegemony in the 1950s and if the Soviets succeeded in Iran, they could threaten the oil lanes of the West.
I guess you weren’t yet cognizant during the Eighties but the reasons why Reagan gave up on Lebanon after the Marine barracks bombing was not because he was afraid to deal with muslims, it was because he had a much bigger fish to fry in dealing with the Soviet Union and he will not waste American lives needlessly when the Soviet Bear was in the prowl.
I really really don’t care if you are a Muslim or a white German know it all. History is much more complex than you think and historical revisionism in regards between the West and Islam gets to be very, very insulting for those of us who love history.
Or perhaps S O intended to write the following:
My final paragraph would have the same argument.
@Gringo:
“In all my years of commenting on blogs, you are the first commenter I have run across who has stated that what he/she wrote is “meaningless.” ”
Except, that only happened in your fantasy. I wrote that the omission of a word was unintentional and meaningless:
“(…)that omitting “far” once was unintentional and meaningless.”
Try to make more use of reality, depend less on fantasy. It helps.
____________
“(…) while it is possible to come up with an approximate figure for Muslims in the US, it is very problematic to come up with a figure for “extreme right wingers” in the US. How do you define your terms?”
There’s no need to do it, for I wrote this:
“The ratio of innocents to terrorists in this would be on the same order of magnitude as in the “Muslims / AQ” approach.”
Order of magnitude = factor ten. No matter how you draw the lines, factor ten is a wide enough margin to fit.
You still don’t pay attention to the entire point of the comparison: It was meant to make you think about the issue from a different perspective. This seems to be very, very hard for you guys.
____________
@Wil Cruz; the history stuff of more than one or two centuries ago is really not that helpful or relevant in regard to deciding whether to discriminate millions of fellow citizens based on their faith, is it?
____________
I really wonder why one could be so much interested in discriminating a certain demographic. Aren’t you right wing guys at other times so much into principles, constitution et cetera? Which principle, which constitutional article or amendment is fine with discriminating against a demographic based on its faith?
The question is also: What do you get to gain? Some psychological satisfaction?
Psychological research shows that people aren’t so much interested in absolute well-being as they’re interested in being not at the bottom. Nobody wants to be omega male in his pack.
Maybe you guys are so very much interested in discrimination against a demographic (of which you are no art)
because this way you can think of them as worse citizens than yourself?
Where else could this interest come from? If it was about saving lives, there would be dozens of more relevant topics. Car safety standards, tobacco, misguided pharmaceutical research, avoiding needless wars, suicide prevention …
“Which principle, which constitutional article or amendment is fine with discriminating against a demographic based on its faith?”
As Lincoln so famously stated, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. If a particular religious group is out to attack you, then it is entirely permissible to profile every member of that group to find the bad boys, unless and until their co-religionists start turning them in, which in the case of the Muslims, has not happened to any significant degree. The very intolerance for competing religions on the part of Islam causes an entirely justifiable backlash against them.
They are the ones who keep bringing up the deep past as an excuse to justify current attacks, even though those attacks against them in the past were a reaction to their original aggression.
Trollisms:
“Try to make more use of reality, depend less on fantasy. It helps.”
“You still don’t pay attention to the entire point of the comparison: It was meant to make you think about the issue from a different perspective. This seems to be very, very hard for you guys.”
“Which principle, which constitutional article or amendment is fine with discriminating against a demographic based on its faith?”
In many ways, Naziism was a “faith.” Islam was founded by a man who advocated war and conquering and the subjugation of those conquered.
“Maybe you guys are so very much interested in discrimination against a demographic (of which you are no art)
because this way you can think of them as worse citizens than yourself?”
Consider the other major religions. Which one, besides Islam, is based on attacking those who are not believers? Shinto ?
Errr….
Getting back to the original thread.
The Detroit metro area has the highest concentration of muslims in the US, and the vast majority are indistinguishable from conservative christians. Additionally, different regions have different traditions/sects and approaches regarding how they practice… like Protestant Christian migrants, or Catholics (when they were ‘officially’ allowed), who aren’t always comfortable with the everyday weirdness that is secular America, the social institutional function of their mosque plays as great a role as the metaphysical aspect. To get to the point, i and some associates helped organize at mosques for GOP politicians, and etc.
The problem is that the FBI doesn’t DO outreach. When agitators or newly radicalized return members start causing a fuss, it’s the imam’s who are the first to have to deal with the problem. How hard would it be for a couple FBI agents to give their contact information/cards to local imams, to call if there was a problem, not just with outside agitators, but in general. Not hard at all. but post 9/11 that wasn’t how things worked out. The bureau didn’t differentiate between sects or origins of this or that congregation, and because there WERE real political AND religious agitators who’d threatened and bullied members into cooperating, people who were victims were swept up along with the agitators and jerks.
I didn’t know the Bureau changed it’s stance in 2011, but then, I’m not exactly at the top of their xmas card list. heh.
(Honestly, it was so bad, as late as 2006 there were US Senators (forget Agents in Charge) who couldn’t name the main muslim religious sects in Iraq. )
Still one would like to think the Bureau was able to admit it was wrong once in a while… but in Michigan they’re STILL going after bark eating Survivalists under the old domestic ‘terror’ mandate of the 1990’s. (how humiliating was THAT trial for the Bureau?!)
Anyway….
A. Scott Crawford