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On November 25 2015 04:38 oneofthem wrote: lots of nonmuslims in brooklyn talking about jews bombing the wtc and whatnot. lunatic and dangerous conspiracies are not limited to muslims. there is just an organization out there able to take advantage of them.
So how far out of the way are we going to go to pretend that the potential threat from Muslims is no different than the threat posed by other groups?
An aide to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Republican National Committee should defend Trump against a new attempt to take down the businessman's bid for the presidency—or else face the consequences.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that a new, Republican-backed effort was underway to take down Trump. The initiative, led by former RNC operative Liz Mair, was described as "loosely organized and highly confidential."
Michael Cohen, executive vice president and general counsel at the Trump organization, questioned Tuesday on CNN's "New Day" whether Mair's group was an RNC-supported effort. He added that it was a "bad, bad decision" to come after Trump.
"Donald Trump wants to be treated fairly. He will demand that the GOP treat him fairly," Cohen said. "If they treat him fairly, he will honor the pledge cuz he's an honorable guy. If they break that agreement with him, as they say, 'woe be on them.'"
The real estate mogul generated headlines this summer for refusing to rule out a third party bid for the presidency, but signed a pledge to run as a Republican at the beginning of September. Cohen suggested that promise might be in jeopardy if the RNC was behind the effort to derail Trump's campaign.
On November 25 2015 04:38 oneofthem wrote: lots of nonmuslims in brooklyn talking about jews bombing the wtc and whatnot. lunatic and dangerous conspiracies are not limited to muslims. there is just an organization out there able to take advantage of them.
So how far out of the way are we going to go to pretend that the potential threat from Muslims is no different than the threat posed by other groups?
that in no way is the claim i made. read again and see that i'm not disputing the threat of islamic terrorism/radicalization. the problem is identifying muslim population as the cause. a very lazy and ineffectual analysis.
the basic threat as i see it is a combination of organization and easily turned fringe. you always want to tailor the solution narrowly and the narrow cause is the radicalizing factor.
and obviously law enforcement can use muslim as a search term in their investigations, but outside of this i don't see how muslim has any policy implications. you are not going to expel all muslims or control the clerics in a way that would mimic totalitarian states, so even if muslims is seen as a problem your best solution is still to work with the largely upstanding community.
On November 25 2015 04:38 oneofthem wrote: lots of nonmuslims in brooklyn talking about jews bombing the wtc and whatnot. lunatic and dangerous conspiracies are not limited to muslims. there is just an organization out there able to take advantage of them.
So how far out of the way are we going to go to pretend that the potential threat from Muslims is no different than the threat posed by other groups?
70 years ago the greatest threat to the world was a bunch of socialist. After that it was communists. So I say give it another 30 years and we will find a new group. I bet its from the Asia region.
On November 25 2015 04:38 oneofthem wrote: lots of nonmuslims in brooklyn talking about jews bombing the wtc and whatnot. lunatic and dangerous conspiracies are not limited to muslims. there is just an organization out there able to take advantage of them.
So how far out of the way are we going to go to pretend that the potential threat from Muslims is no different than the threat posed by other groups?
70 years ago the greatest threat to the world was a bunch of socialist. After that it was communists. So I say give it another 30 years and we will find a new group. I bet its from the Asia region.
On November 25 2015 04:38 oneofthem wrote: lots of nonmuslims in brooklyn talking about jews bombing the wtc and whatnot. lunatic and dangerous conspiracies are not limited to muslims. there is just an organization out there able to take advantage of them.
So how far out of the way are we going to go to pretend that the potential threat from Muslims is no different than the threat posed by other groups?
70 years ago the greatest threat to the world was a bunch of socialist. After that it was communists. So I say give it another 30 years and we will find a new group. I bet its from the Asia region.
On November 25 2015 04:38 oneofthem wrote: lots of nonmuslims in brooklyn talking about jews bombing the wtc and whatnot. lunatic and dangerous conspiracies are not limited to muslims. there is just an organization out there able to take advantage of them.
So how far out of the way are we going to go to pretend that the potential threat from Muslims is no different than the threat posed by other groups?
that in no way is the claim i made. read again and see that i'm not disputing the threat of islamic terrorism/radicalization. the problem is identifying muslim population as the cause. a very lazy and ineffectual analysis.
Please, no one buys this shit. Your post reeked of equivocation, and you're smart enough to know it.
the basic threat as i see it is a combination of organization and easily turned fringe. you always want to tailor the solution narrowly and the narrow cause is the radicalizing factor.
and obviously law enforcement can use muslim as a search term in their investigations, but outside of this i don't see how muslim has any policy implications. you are not going to expel all muslims or control the clerics in a way that would mimic totalitarian states, so even if muslims is seen as a problem your best solution is still to work with the largely upstanding community.
And here you go with the equivocation again. How can you possibly say that the radicalism of certain Muslims has nothing to do with them being "Muslim" or their own interpretation of their faith? I'll be first to say that socioeconomics matter, but the outright removal of the religion from the equation is intellectually dishonest considering a) what these radicals actually say regarding their motivations, and b) the undisputed occurrence of wealthy Muslims becoming radicalized.
Have you guys seen Killer Mike's speech supporting Bernie Sanders? It's amazing, and I think with more of these powerful, inspirational speeches, he'll be getting far more support from minorities who haven't yet heard of Bernie.
Even if we assume that religion is a factor in the equation, there is no proof that lack of religion is form of immunization to radicalization. Plenty of non-religious people join cults and commit terrorist acts though out history. Scientology prays on both the rich and poor(more the rich), secular and religious. IMO being Muslim is just as likely to make you resist radicalization as it is to make you susceptible.
if you are asking me to criticize the religion i don't have enough knowledge to do so but sure i support the possibility of analysis and criticism in that area. would there be much less radicalization if they were all buddhists or whatever. sure, but you don't really have to go that far to be tolerated.
On November 25 2015 04:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Have you guys seen Killer Mike's speech supporting Bernie Sanders? It's amazing, and I think with more of these powerful, inspirational speeches, he'll be getting far more support from minorities who haven't yet heard of Bernie.
On November 25 2015 04:58 Plansix wrote: Even if we assume that religion is a factor in the equation, there is no proof that lack of religion is form of immunization to radicalization. Plenty of non-religious people join cults and commit terrorist acts though out history. Scientology prays on both the rich and poor(more the rich), secular and religious. IMO being Muslim is just as likely to make you resist radicalization as it is to make you susceptible.
Which is why its best to look at what are the laws and legal institutions in varying countries. Which actually paint aa very bad picture.
On November 25 2015 04:58 Plansix wrote: Even if we assume that religion is a factor in the equation, there is no proof that lack of religion is form of immunization to radicalization. Plenty of non-religious people join cults and commit terrorist acts though out history. Scientology prays on both the rich and poor(more the rich), secular and religious. IMO being Muslim is just as likely to make you resist radicalization as it is to make you susceptible.
Which is why its best to look at what are the laws and legal institutions in varying countries. Which actually paint aa very bad picture.
So they have time to improve, like a whole bunch of other nations including us. I am pretty sure I could travel back 50 years and look at some of our laws we would see some awful shit. Raping your wife was 100% legal until the 70s and only removed in all 50 states in 1993. And that isn't 100%, we still have some states with issues.
Also there are some Christian nations in Africa that are pretty behind in the whole civil rights field. And China as a nation. Some in South American nations too that are not dominated by any one religion.
On November 25 2015 05:00 oneofthem wrote: idk what you mean by equivocation there.
if you are asking me to criticize the religion i don't have enough knowledge to do so but sure i support the possibility of analysis and criticism in that area. would there be much less radicalization if they were all buddhists or whatever. sure, but you don't really have to go that far to be tolerated.
Tell that to the Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar. It's really just a media thing. The Lords Resistance army has displaced hundreds of thousands, but every time someone talks about Muslims people employ some weird Orientalism.
On November 25 2015 05:00 oneofthem wrote: idk what you mean by equivocation there.
if you are asking me to criticize the religion i don't have enough knowledge to do so but sure i support the possibility of analysis and criticism in that area. would there be much less radicalization if they were all buddhists or whatever. sure, but you don't really have to go that far to be tolerated.
Tell that to the Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar. It's really just a media thing. The Lords Resistance army has displaced hundreds of thousands, but every time someone talks about Muslims people employ some weird Orientalism.
yea i was gonna write calvinism but then again you got guys burning witches. not going to expand this into a theological discussion but it is possible that both of
islam has some structural problems that lead to particular forms of bad behavior and beliefs. it's not a problem
can be true. they are, however, different questions. one examines islam as a system of texts and interpretive authorities. the other is a question of how it is practiced, or not practiced by a particular group.
when i expanded the scope of the first question to include 'interpretive authorities' it is already acknowledging that the defining form of a particular religion is always dynamic because religions are artificial concoctions of history. however, true believers receive their particular historical artifacts as the truth, and are influenced accordingly. the lack of reflective higher order view that allows for complete criticism and examination of religious belief is imo the critical problem with religions. i am as critical of religion as you can get without going into bigotry but it still won't get us to where daunt is at.
Without ever leading in a single poll, Ted Cruz has become the frontrunner in Iowa.
The Texas senator and conservative firebrand has closed the gap on real-estate mogul Donald Trump and is now trailing Trump by only a margin of 25% to 23% in the Hawkeye State, according to a poll released on Tuesday by Quinnipiac University. But, more than that, Cruz has been notching up key endorsements in Iowa and positioning himself to win the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses on 1 February.
The poll comes in the aftermath of Cruz’s successful appearance at the Presidential Family Forum in Des Moines last Friday, hosted by social conservative powerbroker Bob Vander Plaats. The event’s moderator, top Republican pollster Frank Luntz, told the Guardian that Cruz “had the biggest meeting after the session. He was the most organized, most professional, doing this all step by step”. Luntz said the Texas senator deserved superlatives for every aspect of his performance: “If there was a most, he had it.”
Steve Deace, a well-connected conservative radio host and Cruz supporter, echoed Luntz’s praise of Cruz’s performance at the event. But he noted that Cruz would have been in strong position regardless of how he had done at the event with “the existing organization and support he had built”.
To Deace, the one area where Cruz had been “a little bit soft” was in ardently conservative north-west Iowa. However, the Texas senator had addressed that weakness when he secured the endorsement of Congressman Steve King earlier in the month, Deace said. King, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration, is wildly popular among Republicans in that part of the state and is considered to be the most influential conservative in the state.
But that doesn’t make Cruz inevitable yet.
Trump has built up a strong organization in the state and has more staffers on the ground there than any other Republican candidate. The real-estate mogul has drawn unprecedented crowds at events across the state and, with the exception of a two-week hiccup during Ben Carson’s October surge in the state, has led in every poll since August.
Even if it were true that being Muslim at time t-1 made you more likely to be a terrorist at time t (all other things being equal), which is the definition of causation, what's the point of making that claim? The only point in making causative claims is intervening on the cause. Or "greater understanding" but that's navelgazing and nothing more.
Are we going to intervene to make there be fewer Muslims because we think that will result in fewer terrorists? Convert em all? That sounds insane and impractical to me. So why not simply intervene on other elements (income, instability, deformed power structure, perceived powerlessness) that are also causative agents of terror? That way you're not actually waging the war on Islam that they say you're waging.
Note that I am extremely skeptical of this claim anyway
This is a pretty common problem in public health when studies show that, for example, being a man "causes" a disease. How is that relevant when we cannot intervene on being a man?
On November 25 2015 06:02 ticklishmusic wrote: it's nice, but didn't santorum and huckabee win in the last two primaries?
i've heard that 4 and 8 years later they're still running for president
The republican establishment is really gunning for Trump now with some fairly large ad buys. It remains to be seen what impact they have. However, it is undeniably funny that if the republican establishment does manage to take out Trump, they'll likely end up buying themselves a Ted Cruz nomination, which is almost certainly worse for them.
Cruz is the only one who hasn't felt the wrath of the Trump yet. I suspect it won't be long with Cruz near the top in Iowa before Trump brings up he's the son of a former communist terrorist. Though really Cruz is just a smarter, more politically aware version of Trump.
I think this sews up what the race will be going forward. It will be Cruz and Trump fighting for the "anti-establishment" vote and Rubio fighting Bush's money for the establishment nomination.
Considering both establishment candidates have immigration baggage and Cruz has his dad issue, supporting anyone besides Trump will be viewed as being soft on immigration by the Republicans currently supporting Trump.
EPT
