TERROR ATACKS IN PARIS

[dean]

Finally, your numbers are very a bit misleading.  You lump all gang-on-gang violence (about 80% or more of that number you quoted) into one pot for the US, but only look at terrorism related violence for France?  Nah.  Throwing a flag on this one.  Whatever conclusion you are trying to imply is not supported by numbers that compare apples to green beans.

Oh I get the risk assessment element, and there's also a basic part of pure human psychology at play here too: people get fired up about terrorism because they think/fear it can happen to them whereas you may feel somewhat able to avoid say a car crash even if that's far more likely to happen to you at some point. My partner is a social psychologist and she mentioned something to that effect being just something people do [though I may have misquoted it somewhat]

Just sick of the people who get so worked up about it that they say 'let's just nuke the Middle East'. That kind of talk is inflammatory and makes people sound like Bond villains...

If you want to get back to the stats side, I didn't find one for France at the time but just did: homicide due to gun violence generally is 0.22 per 100,000 (2009).

I think that with how crazy we all get over terrorist attacks despite the relatively low incidence rate it hardly seems worth the effort, effort which is playing into IS hands.

[indianasmith]

ISIS is about Islamic/Muslim as Westboro/KKK is for Christianity. I would go on, but seeing as how many people have strong opinions on this I wont.

I will disagree only to this extent:  ISIS is Islamic in the sense that it acts like the early Muslim armies under Muhammad and the first caliphs did: it sweeps through a territory demanding conversion, submission, or death.  Most of the world's Muslims reject that tactic today, but because it is written into their Scriptures, groups like ISIS can recruit from the much broader community of non-jihadist Muslims by accusing them of not honoring Muhammad's example.  That's how moderate Muslims like the Fort Hood shooter become radicalized.

There simply is no justification in the New Testament for hatred, murder, or oppression.  The problem is, that hasn't stopped many Christians through history from doing those things in the name of Christ  anyway.

[ulthar]

If you want to get back to the stats side, I didn't find one for France at the time but just did: homicide due to gun violence generally is 0.22 per 100,000 (2009).
 

What does talking about homicide statistics have the first thing to do with terrorist attacks?

Terrorism is not really "crime" like the vast majority of homicides are (including 'spree killings').  It is warfare.

(As an aside, you still can't compare homicide stats in European countries to that in the US for a variety of reasons, not the least of which the stats are kept and categorized very differently.  I'm still not sure what your point is of bringing up some arbitrary US crime statistics and something that sounds similar to, but is not the same thing, for France.  I think you are trying to imply some point with these numbers).

[lester1/2jr]

Westboro Baptist Church is like 4 people. There are millions of adherents of Saudi style Wahabi Islam

[ulthar]

I dig when guys like this cut to the chase and tell it like it IS, rather than how we "wish" the world worked.

http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/11/16/thoughts-on-paris/

[Allhallowsday]

The heart of the problem, I am convinced, lies in Islam's scriptures.
Muhammad repeatedly told his followers to make war on the unbeliever, and those instructions were never rescinded.
Throughout its history Islam has contained a brutal, dark thread of violence and intolerance for all other belief systems.


Or, to put it another way - a Christian who does his best to follow the teachings and example of Christ and the Apostles as contained in the New Testament will be a peaceful and compassionate person.
A Muslim who follows the teachings and example of Muhammad as contained in the Quran and the Hadith will talk about how merciful and compassionate Allah is while cheerfully killing those who refuse to convert.

I think the Quran preaches tolerance for people of the book.  Like other testaments, the Koran has inconsistencies.  

I think this is the end of ISIS/ISIL. They just attacked a NATO country on their home soil. We saw how well that worked for Al-Quaeda. This time they have the Russians p**sed at them too.

...For they owned the bombing of the Russian jet filled with civilians and children... the whole world is despising them.  They think their terror will cow all of these nations?    I think there is a kind of naivete in their thought process.  It is certainly not political. 

[Allhallowsday]

I dig when guys like this cut to the chase and tell it like it IS, rather than how we "wish" the world worked.

http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/11/16/thoughts-on-paris/

Listen.  I have a high opinion of you, Ulthar.  I do not expect anyone to understand.  
I despise guns.  I see the logic of this writer.  I wish I had god-like powers for one moment, I would disable every single firearm in the world.  
I know.  I'm a fool.  But I hate the things.  More than any other purpose, they were designed to kill people.  

[indianasmith]

If no one had any guns, I could conquer the world with a butterknife!!! BWUHAHAHAHAHA!

[dean]

I like you Ulthar and I respect your opinion but I know we're probably on either side of the gun debate. That's not my point though, even if I suspect that you think that it is.

What IS wants is for us to arm up, repress minorities, close borders. What they want is not to win a war, they can't and it's crazy to think they can. What they want is to build their caliphate and to make the world hate the Muslim people so much that Muslims everywhere have no other choice but to join them. This is despite my earlier statement about how most Muslim people hate what IS are doing. It helps their propaganda to have us be harsh, to effectively declare war on immigrants either through the closing of European borders or to just generally persecute. It's in their interests to do that. And I'm just sick of it the whole cycle.

What do you think they want to achieve? They want us afraid, they want us angry and personally I think we shouldn't. I put those statistics up really just to highlight how in, for example the USA, you are way more likely to die by at the local shops by a random shooter than you are by terrorist bomber/shooter. Yet you still go to the store usually without a second thought I imagine. I don't want them to win by letting them get under our skin. It's exactly what they get every time people go on a witch hunt. It's why people of completely different religions get labeled as a terrorist due to some Photoshopping and a healthy dose of ignorance and fear.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/gamergate-photoshopped-a-canadian-sikh-man-to-make-him-seem#.nuq12JMWMq


TLDR: It's what IS want: us blood thirsty and angry. We can be better than that. Sure bomb the hell out of them when they pop their heads up on the battlefield but let's not lose our minds and our souls in the process.

[RCMerchant]

whenever somethign like this happens people go to their usual hobby horses, we need to stop Muslim immigration or libertarians we need to get out of the middle eastwe need to ween ourselves off of oil.

I say let's do ALL of it. whatever we did so far didn't work at all. stop all Muslim imigration, get out of the middle east completely, do what we need to do within reason to support more electric cars and so forth. just focus solely on self preservation

I dunno-isolation didn't work in WWII-in an era of terrorism-hell-ISIS is recruting American teenagers!-it won't work.
We can build a big ass wall-but that won't stop it-it will just limit our freedoms-to be a FREE society-ya gotta take chances-if you wann be a place that represents JUSTICE, and MERCY-and-(this is an atheist talking-me!)-GOD-what would Jesus do?
Would he keep out the Syrian refugees because he feared his own death to help his fellow man?
Me-I aint Jesus-but I dont fear the Syrian refugees-because I would rather try to help these terrified regular folk esscape the horror of their life-and I would deal with the wolves in the herd of running sheep when I find them.
We b***h and moan about terror at home-it's peanuts compared to the s**t going on in the Mideast. Were PUSSIFIED.

[Alex]

I agree totally that IS aim's here is to get the rest of the world against them. They want to get more countries to attack them. The more they can get to do this, the more they can appeal to the extremists out there to come and join them, and the more we repress Muslims in the rest of the world, the more we will push into the extremist bracket. Unfortunately this isn't a fight we are going to see end any time soon, but it is one we can win if we fight carefully and cleverly. Its easy and natural to look at extreme solutions at times like this (right now, between terrorist attacks, child abuse, slavery, repressing other religions and so on I am feeling pretty sick and tired of a lot of them not just stuff connected to IS and I am struggling not to think the best thing would be to ban the lot of them, mostly because the more rational part of me knows that it wouldn't solve anything).

If we are going to change the nature of our societies and all live in fear what are we fighting for anyway? If we go down that route (and many countries have to some degree), then we have already lost.

[RCMerchant]

I agree totally that IS aim's here is to get the rest of the world against them. The more they can get countries to attack them. The more they can get to do this, the more they can appeal to the extremists out there to come and join them, and the more we repress Muslims in the rest of the world, the more we will push into the extremist bracket. Unfortunately this isn't a fight we are going to see end any time soon, but it is one we can win if we fight carefully and cleverly. Its easy and natural to look at extreme solutions at times like this (right now, between terrorist attacks, child abuse, slavery, repressing other religions and so on I am feeling pretty sick and tired of a lot of them not just stuff connected to IS and I am struggling not to think the best thing would be to ban the lot of them, mostly because the more rational part of me knows that it wouldn't solve anything).

If we are going to change the nature of our societies and all live in fear what are we fighting for anyway? If we go down that route (and many countries have to some degree), then we have already lost.

At the risk of sounding like some kinda hippie Abbie Hoffman kinda guy-

RIGHT ON,MAN! 

[ulthar]

Listen.  I have a high opinion of you, Ulthar.  I do not expect anyone to understand.  

And I you.  If you would like to have a respectful conversation on the topic, we can do so in private.  PM me if you have such an interest.

But I will briefly address a couple of points below for the benefit of the larger discussion here on the act of terrorism in Paris.

I wish I had god-like powers for one moment, I would disable every single firearm in the world.

But the reality is, of course, that you don't and you can't.  As grown-up, rational humans, we have to work with the world as it IS, not how we wish it would be.

I suspect that if you had god-like powers, a lot of things in this world would be better.  Perhaps one of those would be to remove the need for all tools of self defense.
  

More than any other purpose, they were designed to kill people.  

So was atomic fission.  Yet it also provides electrical power to hundreds of millions of people.  

So were swords as well, of course.

Technology is neutral.  Technology has no "will" or "purpose."  Those things come from human hands.

But again, none of this really matters that much.  They do exist for whatever reason they were originally designed, and they cannot be disinvented.  And it simply doesn't matter; if you DID get rid of guns...the terrorism would continue.  As would violent crime.

The argument about "guns" is a distraction from the discussion of terrorism and acts of warfare committed by one group against another sovereign state.  Terrorists have used bombs, airplanes, guns and other tools to destroy.

[ulthar]

I like you Ulthar and I respect your opinion but I know we're probably on either side of the gun debate. That's not my point though, even if I suspect that you think that it is.

Wait, though.  I did not bring guns up into this conversation at all.  I simply asked why you keep mentioning crime statistics in regard to an act of war.

What IS wants is for us to arm up, repress minorities, close borders. What they want is not to win a war, they can't and it's crazy to think they can.

This is well documented to be incorrect.  Sorry if being blunt is offensive, but I have no idea where you get such an idea.

Here's a good summary, and it's from The Atlantic lest I be accused of getting my 'neo con talking points' from Fox News or some such.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

What do you think they want to achieve? They want us afraid, they want us angry and personally I think we shouldn't.

No they don't want us afraid and angry.  They want us subjugated. To them. Their mandate and stated goals are, and have been for some time, very clear.  If ISIS rolls into your town, you have three choices: join them by becoming a Muslim jihadist, agree to be a slave and pay a "let me live" tax, or die.

Period.

To pretend they are anything but that is to ignore not only the objective data on the subject (ie, how they ACT) and what they, themselves, are saying.

I put those statistics up really just to highlight how in, for example the USA, you are way more likely to die by at the local shops by a random shooter than you are by terrorist bomber/shooter.

But that's irrelevant.

I'm also more likely to drive to the grocery store without a flat tire, but that does not mean I ignore the big pile of nails in the road and drive over them...just because in the past, statistically, my odds of having a flat tire are low.

The risk equation regarding ISIS (warfare in general) has far different terms than local crime.  One has little to nothing to do with the other.

Yet you still go to the store usually without a second thought I imagine.

I don't go anywhere without a second thought.  Sorry.  As you point out, there ARE dangers (human and others) all around us.  I try not to live my life with blinders on.

I don't want them to win by letting them get under our skin.

First of all, in a war, you don't "let" anyone win.  Winning is forced.  

This is not a game of checkers.  We are not having a friendly poker game on Sunday night.  It's not an intellectual exercise.

Innocent people are being murdered by a group that claims they will not stop until they get what they want...their own country.  Some would argue what they want is "world domination."  I'll leave that alone since it does not really matter.  What matters is what they are doing to achieve their goals.

I don't disagree with some of Ron Paul's and our own lester's foreign policy doctrine.  BUT...this war will likely come to us, and we better be ready for it when it happens.  We sure ain't going to stop them by asking them to "play nice."

When that happens, wishing it away won't stop it.  Asking them nicely to respect our feelings won't stop it.  Telling them "But WE didn't do anything to hurt you" won't stop it.  There is historical precedent for this sort of thing.

TLDR: It's what IS want: us blood thirsty and angry. We can be better than that. Sure bomb the hell out of them when they pop their heads up on the battlefield but let's not lose our minds and our souls in the process.

I don't agree with "bloodthirsty and angry."  I don't agree with people going around beating up Middle Eastern Looking Shop Keepers (or just people they THINK look Middle Eastern) and all that.  I certainly oppose stuff like the Japanese / German internment camps.

But let's be honest.  ISIS doesn't care if we rip ourselves apart (civil liberties wise) from the inside or not.  They are in it to win...and they are committed to achieving that victory.

[lester1/2jr]

I dunno-isolation didn't work in WWII

we didn't do it though, we fought in the war.

People changed their minds as a result of Pearl harbor (which many would argue was the result of an ACTION on FDR's part, not to open that whole can of worms.) Taking your point though I'd agree isolation doesn't ALWAYS work but neither does non-isolation.

isolation would have been great circa Vietnam. We could have avoided that whole thing and tens of thousands of Americans would still be alive. the downside would have been...? less of us getting conceived after protests Idk

Would he keep out the Syrian refugees because he feared his own death to help his fellow man?

would he have allowed gay men circa when AIDS first came on the scene to donate blood, contaminating the blood supply? or people with Ebola to fly on planes I mean it's just a common sense measure. No one is worried about Syrian refugees taking over our culture we're worried about getting blown up.

I get what you are saying about openness and compassion but there has to be SOME reaction to the Paris attacks and a plane getting blown out of the sky. I live in Boston, my Dad lives in NYC this is a genuine if statistically unlikely concern