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Rather a sign of the success of fearmongering and bigotry.
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On April 09 2017 05:28 Artisreal wrote:Rather a sign of the success of fearmongering and bigotry.
It's a sign of freedom. Also, security as the article suggests. Muslims should adapt to Europe not the opposite way.
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Don't have a strong opinion on burqa ban but why are they even talking about it? It's not in the EU's competences
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I didn't think measles is still a thing. I thought everyone gets a vaccine when they're a child. What the fuck? How do parents avoid that? :D
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On April 09 2017 05:30 Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2017 05:28 Artisreal wrote:Rather a sign of the success of fearmongering and bigotry. It's a sign of freedom. Also, security as the article suggests. Muslims should adapt to Europe not the opposite way.
lmao
freedom of expression and of religion ain't to be for Muslim 2nd class citizens in your book. Am I reading that right?
I have not much against the endeavour to remove religious items and signs out of public life (i.e. schools primarily), but that has to be conducted fairly and encompass every religion and has to be carefully weighed against said freedom of religion.
Whatever is done at the moment points way too much into the direction of targeted discrimination.
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It's ridiculous how easily we give up our essential freedoms for some pretence of security. What have we given up now in order to secure us from Islamic terrorism, which is not a threat at all?
First there was the airfield/plane travel situation. We have to go through scanners which have not only been proven not to work and take a lot of time, but the chances of someone bringing a weapon to hijack the plane are so astronomically small... I wonder how it would compare to the percentage of radicalised Muslims in the world. I'm betting they're even smaller than that, and we're not supposed to worry about one, why would the other matter more?
Then there was the cartoon thing. The media actually started censoring itself in order to try and keep safe from radicalised youth. It's absurd that after this started happening, we are still not supposed to worry about radical Islamic because its such a small group. If we are not supposed to be worried or concerned about such a small percentage, why are we adjusting our behaviour in order to suit the extremists or prevent youth from becoming more radicalised?
I don't know when the surveillance started coming in, but apparently it's justified to spend millions - if not billions - on logging all our internet activities so we can search through it if someone shows signs of becoming radicalised. All this is clearly necessary because there is an almost non-existent percentage of the population that might do something bad. And when they do something bad, like drive a truck or a car into a crowd, well, that just means there needs to be more surveillance because somehow that will help prevent such random, almost spontaneous acts.
And now we have to ban the way people dress, because, well, it's a matter of security. It's not a threat, and nothing to worry about - certainly don't vote for the racist people that say crazy things - but we need to stop people from dressing in the way that they like. It's dangerous to wear something that covers your hair and face. Rip off the burkas of Muslim women on the beach, why don't you (I'm looking at you, France). That will certainly stop the Muslim youth in Europe from turning to radicalism or at least feeling more cornered and clinging on to ultra-conservative ideas.
Maybe instead of denying that there's a problem and calling people racists for pointing out it in a non-eloquent way, while at the same time endorsing a shitton of crap that doesn't do anything to solve that very problem that doesn't exist, the left could try messaging as follows:
"Islamic terrorism spreads far and wide, but it is still only a minority that becomes radicalised to a point of extremism. If you want to prevent the Muslim youth in Europe from becoming radicalised, and stop ultra-conservative ideas from spreading through European countries, we should do three things.
1. Stop terrorizing countries in the Middle East that are not politically aligned behind Saudi Arabia with invasions, bombings and drone strikes.
2. Work hard towards energy independence so we do not need pay Saudi Arabia which encourages radicalised Imams in Europe to spread ultra-conservative teachings.
3. Help educate young Muslims in schools funded by moderate people, with moderate ideas, that teach about things like equality, blah blah blah."
I'm not good at making up catchy shit, but can we just stop shooting ourselves in the foot already?
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On April 09 2017 05:44 Nyxisto wrote:Instead of playing useless symbol politics and ban stupid burqas that nobody wears anyway we could start forcing idiots to vaccinate their children. As Measles Surges In Europe, Officials Brace For A Rough YearIf we want to get serious about public safety, this is actually a good place to start
Thats a false dychotomy. Nothing prevents doing both things at the same time.
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On April 09 2017 06:38 Silvanel wrote:Thats a false dychotomy. Nothing prevents doing both things at the same time.
Well kind of. There's only so much political capital and public attention. And when you waste hours and hours of public discourse about burqas other topics inevitably fall under the table. This is often done intentionally, too.
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On April 09 2017 06:38 Silvanel wrote:Thats a false dychotomy. Nothing prevents doing both things at the same time.
eh a false dichotomy is when you falsely make something a choice between two things. a bit crude but I think his point was saying instead of wasting time on useless things that don't accomplish anything it would be better spent on dealing with actual problems. So yeah saying we can ban burqas or we can deal with x is a false dichotomy. But he's saying that instead of arguing about x we should focus on y which is being ignored. Now it's possible their also working on y at the same time (I am unaware of actual European politics). But the government is a finite body with finite resources so criticizing how they choose to use their resources is valid. Of course it works a lot better showing that when you can point to something actually being ignored instead of just being vague . So it can seem to be a false dichotomy.
This happens in the US too. People will spend a ton of time arguing about something that's more important politically rather than what's statistically important/actually actually a problem. It's why a lot of things are ignored until it becomes a serious problem.
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a_flayer, you have a weird idea of what the left advocates for. All of these things that we should be pushing in your view, we already are. We don't talk about how small the problem is because we want to pretend it doesn't exist, we talk about how small the problem is because it's the logical thing to do when confronted with people who talk about all muslims in every situation, or "a percentage so big that it almost becomes justified to say islam instead of fundamentalism", more or less as you were arguing earlier.
Also it's cute that you think you're going to get away with "non-eloquent". It's not the form that's the problem, it's the ideas behind them. All this time you spend blaming the left for describing bigoted ideas as bigoted and not pushing for what we already push, you could instead use it to spread the thoughts that we both think are correct into the other side, cause they're not there.
Here's the deal, talk to some leftists about limiting fundamentalist religion and pushing renewable energy to limit the power of Saudi Arabia, using clear terminology and no generalizations. Then talk to some far right people about how we should stop bombing muslim countries and accept islam as an european religion. Let us know where you got the most blowback.
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Banning the veils in schools, theaters, operas , administrative buildings etc. should be no brainer. For the same reason you can't go to court in shorts... Some places have dress code. On the street and at home can't see a reason for ban. Overall I don't think that this is a big problem.
EPP is trying to win some far right votes. In the last decade EU is only talk and zero action... Really bad generation of politicians. Considering the international situation ( you know, the revival of the Ottoman empire, Trump, Putin etc...) and the trojan horse that we allowed on our territories (countless radical islam cells), it's really hard to be optimistic.
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On April 09 2017 07:10 Pr0wler wrote:
Banning the veils in schools, theaters, operas , administrative buildings etc. should be no brainer. For the same reason you can't go to court in shorts... Some places have dress code. On the street and at home can't see a reason for ban. Overall I don't think that this is a big problem.
EPP is trying to win some far right votes. In the last decade EU is only talk and zero action... Really bad generation of politicians. Considering the international situation ( you know, the revival of the Ottoman empire, Trump, Putin etc...) and the trojan horse that we allowed on our territories (countless radical islam cells), it's really hard to be optimistic.
You can't go to court in shorts in Bulgaria?
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On April 09 2017 07:00 Nebuchad wrote:
a_flayer, you have a weird idea of what the left advocates for. All of these things that we should be pushing in your view, we already are. We don't talk about how small the problem is because we want to pretend it doesn't exist, we talk about how small the problem is because it's the logical thing to do when confronted with people who talk about all muslims in every situation, or "a percentage so big that it almost becomes justified to say islam instead of fundamentalism", more or less as you were arguing earlier.
Also it's cute that you think you're going to get away with "non-eloquent". It's not the form that's the problem, it's the ideas behind them. All this time you spend blaming the left for describing bigoted ideas as bigoted and not pushing for what we already push, you could instead use it to spread the thoughts that we both think are correct into the other side, cause they're not there.
Here's the deal, talk to some leftists about limiting fundamentalist religion and pushing renewable energy to limit the power of Saudi Arabia, using clear terminology and no generalizations. Then talk to some far right people about how we should stop bombing muslim countries and accept islam as an european religion. Let us know where you got the most blowback.
I know most of what you're saying perfectly well. I just can't get over the idea that politicians on the left are endorsing bullshit measures that don't do anything but undermine our own values in order to address what is genuinely an almost non-existent issue. Why is it that people with really dumb counter-extremist ideas (aka the far-right) manage to spread their shitty ideas amongst the populace so easily? There are undoubtedly many reasons, but one of them is the fact that the left is not practising what its preaches. I mean, we're putting all these nonsensical fascist-like security measures in place while far-right populism is on the political rise, what is left for them to do if they get in power? Should we also pre-build the camps for them?
I think the messaging of the far-right is 'non-eloquent' mostly because it is effective and doesn't 'beat around the bush' so to speak. People easily understand the key of it. Just as Hillary was too muted to garner much enthusiastic support, while Bernie riled up crowds with his overt mentions of the existence of an oligarchy in the US. Not to mention the one that actually won the elections... Incidentally, the reverse is also true, if you utter muted statements, people will often take them out of context and make them appear more extreme to suit their narrative.
You filtered that one sentence out quite nicely in your reply, and then dismissed it when I tried to call you out for that. Look at what I preceded it with, and what I wrote after, because I really feel like that matters also, and mutes the extremism of the statement that you paraphrased back at me just now. I've added some attempts at inflection to further highlight how I tried to mute the statement while at the same time trying to bring some understanding to the views of the right on this matter, who I believe feel like they are in a culture war, which is part of the justification for their rhetoric:
"The majority of European Imams also seem to follow some kind of Salafist ideology, and it's been often cited to be the fastest growing movement on the planet. So perhaps using broad strokes with regards to some of this isn't entirely unjustified? While it's true that following such an ideology by itself isn't particularly harmful to society I do feel that it inherently undermines some the western ideals by strongly imprinting such beliefs on children."
Keep in mind that I'm basically using "Salafist" as a placeholder for any kind of reasonably unwanted aspects of Islam. Before that, I said something about Erdogan and his 70% support. Now, you can make the argument that the 70% has nothing to do with Islam, but a lot of Erdogan supporters use the same sort rhetoric that comes with forms of Islamic fundamentalism. The man himself also comes from an Islamist background and is a social conservative, and all of this plays into this idea on the right that there's a culture war happening. If that 70% support (which is a majority) for this extremist man is any indication, then it's not entirely unjustified to make relatively broad statements when you keep the idea of that culture war in mind (and are not just referring to potential terrorists).
I don't think the left is bigoted, but neither do I think that the right is bigoted. I do think a portion of leftists are blinded by some form of idealism - like what that ex-Muslim lady said in that video I posted, when the left attacks her on twitter for criticizing Islam on subjects where they absolutely need to be criticized (especially if they come to Europe). You're not doing that, but there's a very vocal group on the left that does. I don't know if it's a higher or lower percentage than the vocal group of racists on the right (not just far-right), or how it would compare with the percentage of (fundamental) Islamists. I certainly don't have the numbers on that.
I also think the a lot of the left is overreaching when they say those who vote for the likes of Wilders are largely xenophobic racists, or the infamous 'deplorables'. This just drives them further into a corner and away from being open to sensible thought ("oh, you're just going to call me racist, why should I bother listening to you?"). Just as if you say all Muslims are terrorists, that will marginalize them even further. Meanwhile, we basically let the right push us into a corner where all we say is "no they're not terrorists, but we're going to agree to bomb their countries anyway because that's what you want!", and just as there's a lot of leftists who approve of ridiculous measures, there's a lot of leftists who approve of the bombings and drone strikes. This propaganda of the right that pushes the European left around also comes the US, btw, who still launches drone attacks from Ramstein to this day.
Btw, I wasn't going to post this reply after I'd already typed a large part of it because I was getting tired of this discussion, but then I saw the post above and I felt like I couldn't leave it.
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"Why is it that people with really dumb counter-extremist ideas (aka the far-right) manage to spread their shitty ideas amongst the populace so easily?"
Because there's overlap between the people who really think we ought to do something about those foreigners and the people who think when they don't feel safe, it's someone else's fault. People tend to identify easier with people who are similar to them, so if you're going to scare them into voting for you, it's much easier to do that using foreigners.
"You filtered that one sentence out quite nicely in your reply, and then dismissed it when I tried to call you out for that. Look at what I preceded it with, and what I wrote after, because I really feel like that matters also, and mutes the extremism of the statement that you paraphrased back at me just now."
It doesn't though. It diminishes the extent to which you agree with your own statement, not its logical value. And we then have to question why you would feel the need to produce this uncertain statement in response to the factually, demonstrably true statement that I gave at the start of this whole thing.
"If that 70% support (which is a majority) for this extremist man is any indication, then it's not entirely unjustified to make relatively broad statements when you keep the idea of that culture war in mind (and are not just referring to potential terrorists)."
You're yet to tell us why it's (or might sometimes perhaps be) okay to say islam when you mean something within islam because "a lot" of muslims are that thing so the generalization makes sense (which it doesn't, btw), but at the same time it's not okay to say racism when you describe far right parties because not all of them are racists and it's going to drive them away.
"Meanwhile, we basically let the right push us into a corner where all we say is "no they're not terrorists, but we're going to agree to bomb their countries anyway because that's what you want!""
You're around some weird leftists, seriously.
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The reason why the right can capitalise so easily is I think very straight forward, because many people are nice-weather liberals or democrats. People love to repeat slogans about how liberty is more important than security and so on, but they're not actually willing to live it if things get serious. This happens all the fucking time. People collectively say that they're adamant and mature and whatnot, then one obscene act of violence happens and every law & order candidate and demagogue is rising in the polls.
People overall are just not very honest. They complain about political correctness and want real talk but if you comply they turn into hysterics and buy into the narratives that extremists sell them. People complain about dishonest establishment politicians but they're not willing to forgive politicians even the slightest misjudgment. There's no way to win with an electorate like this if you're in a position of a power.
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On April 09 2017 09:19 Nebuchad wrote:
You're yet to tell us why it's (or might sometimes perhaps be) okay to say islam when you mean something within islam because "a lot" of muslims are that thing so the generalization makes sense (which it doesn't, btw), but at the same time it's not okay to say racism when you describe far right parties because not all of them are racists and it's going to drive them away.
I think it's either both generalizations are mostly OK, or neither are OK. I'd personally rather not use such generalizing labels at all. I really don't like it when people pick and choose which is OK and which is not. Some people basically go "you can't generalize against Islam and say it is incompatible with western values or more vulnerable to radicalism" but then proceed to freely label another group collectively as xenophobic racists.
When I say "might could perhaps" or somesuch, I am trying to look at it from perspectives other than mine where generalization might be possible. You absolutely -could- say all Wilders voters are xenophobic racists for various reasons (like they all vote for an anti-immigrant, anti-Islam party). You -could- also say say that Islam in general is incompatible with the west; we as a society certainly seem to be acknowledging this by banning all of Islam from certain aspects of their religion (such as wearing hijabs in certain locations, and many more things that are generally considered to be part of Islam).
Neither of these things are absolute truths, though. It's entirely possible not to be a racist xenophobe and vote for Wilders based on a worry against 'Islamification' or however you want to frame it. It's also possible to follow Islamic teachings and not be incompatible with European values, nor be more prone to radicalised schools of thought.
On April 09 2017 09:19 Nebuchad wrote:
You're around some weird leftists, seriously.
Just as with Islam, there is a vast array of people with leftist beliefs. A lot of people who claim to support leftist ideas seem to be fine with bombing of one kind or another. Also, my perception of the left is probably tainted by the US. That's on me.
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How about we take this as an example:
Would you consider the following by Plansix an appropriate level of generalization in terms of labeling people racist? Is there a percentage where it becomes statistically significant enough to justify some generalization for political rhetoric or campaign slogans?
On April 07 2017 09:37 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2017 09:33 a_flayer wrote:On April 07 2017 09:26 Plansix wrote:On April 07 2017 09:23 Nyxisto wrote:
She is actually correct though somebody should take out Assad's air capabilities. Should have probably been Obama in 2013. At some point somebody needs to stop Assad massacring his population That would have required Congress to support him in something. They were already trying got get elected in 2014 and win in 2016. You can't have the black president taking on ruthless dictators and getting big wins. Don't you think that always characterizing the ineptitude of Congress under Obama as if it is a racial thing is kind of part of the problem with regards to polarization and so forth? I mean, they're certainly not looking like they're doing any better under Trump... I believe there is a statistically significant number of congress men and women that have issues with a black president. It is not the majority, but it is enough for me to mock. Congress sucks and has sucked for a long time now.
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The AfD in a recent statement argued, that an action of Cologne's bars literally directed against Nazi's, discriminates their voters unfairly.
No Kölsch for Nazi's. No platform for racism.
Is printed on 100k or so coasters.
As to people voting for Wilders and such are being drawn by their more radical, easy solution like politics. In case of the AfD it's pretty clear that they see a big chunk of their clientele in the right to Nazi part of the county. And not just because of their reaction to the political coasters
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On April 09 2017 05:55 Shield wrote:
I didn't think measles is still a thing. I thought everyone gets a vaccine when they're a child. What the fuck? How do parents avoid that? :D
Anti vaccination alternative fact campaign mixed with conspiracy theories has done wonders. After all Trump himself relayed that sheiss. I know rather reasonable people that think that vaccines give autism because of the mercury and that big pharma makes you ill on purpose to be able to sell you the drugs.
When you reach that level of collective stupidity, it's hard to argue.
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EPT
