Rahn

Wow, your how old are you? Did you go through 4+ years of a WORLD WAR? Did you live through Pearl Harbor? You have nothing to say about how or why we dropped that bomb because you didn't go through that experience. I suppose you would've had us go through ANOTHER invasion with MORE dead American and allied soldiers including the rise in kamikazi's, I think you'd be a little more accepting of the way we ended the war AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. You should actually ask why the Japanese government waited until the second bomb to surrender, after all that destruction with the first bomb, you'd think they'd realize we have the upper hand, and a big hand it is.

Ok, so I've learned all about Islamic extremists and now I still want to kill them. What's your arguement again?

Internal evils?

__________________
I'm not the Killer Man...
I'm the Killer Man's son...
But I'll do the killing...
Until the Killer Man comes...

leejo

Yeah that's pretty much where I'm at. I mean look, if you don't want to kill people, you'd better not go to war, right? Militant islamists have got to go.

I've grown up watching these people slaughter women and children, and commit horrible acts on each other and anyone who happens to come within their sorry reach. They have murdered thousands of my countrymen and our allies, some of whom they decided to execute on camera with a short knife, then wave the severed head at the camera as one last f-you from their hearts to me.

I can accept some responsibility for this situation. If we hadn't supported this dictator or maybe had been slightly less supportive of Israel's positions or less harsh on Arafat. Whatever. But isn't there a limit somewhere? How much time and effort do you really expect me to put into empathizing or deal-making with a head-sawer? I don't want to be their friend or partner. I want them dead.

If they want to turn themselves in, that would be helpful, and in exchange I think they can live, but in prison.

If there's a better long-term solution I'm all for it. But in the meantime I want our armed forces stomping them around the clock.

TheFeniX

Appeal to emotion.Red Herring: I don't care why we dropped the bomb. The simple fact remains a comment was made that terrorism is always 100% wrong. I gave an example of America commiting terrorism.

And further, how is that any different than Muslims taking hostages and killing civilians? They don't want a full-scale war with America because they can't win it. They want to bloody our noses so bad we'll leave. Didn't America attempt (and succeed) at the same thing with Japan? Stop the war by killing civilians.

Let me clue you in because you have flat-out ignored when I posted it: Christian and Muslim fundamentalists are just two sides to the same coin. Same motives, different applications of them. So before we go about claiming that it's Good American Christians against the Evil Radical Muslims, we should drop back down to reality for a bit.

__________________

leejo

Well I think I understand what you've posted. I'm just saying I don't care. When the history books judge us they may place more weight on our efforts to understand the Evil Radical Muslims or they may praise our ability to wipe them off the earth. But right here right now we have to DO something and there isn't time to gather all the information to make a perfect decision. I say let's go kill us some Evil Radical Muslims.

Rahn

I never said anything about Christians, you brought them into the conversation in the first place. Right now, it's EVERYONE against these radicals.

Also, you seem to think the world is black and white...you block the shades of gray, for what reason I cannot fathom.

Why do you care about why these Muslims are lopping off heads and not care why we dropped the A-bomb? I mean you chose to make the comparison but don't want to get any deeper because....?

__________________
I'm not the Killer Man...
I'm the Killer Man's son...
But I'll do the killing...
Until the Killer Man comes...

Pokerface

You want a point?

I can't believe a member (and admin!) of a mature gaming community would ever utter without jest "let's go kill us some [insert group here]". It's shortsighted hatemongering, and far from dousing the flames of terrorism, it's fuel to that very fire.

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Rahn

So you want to ignore him for it?

Calm down...I would think people would get more excited over the people actually doing the ****ing killing...

__________________
I'm not the Killer Man...
I'm the Killer Man's son...
But I'll do the killing...
Until the Killer Man comes...

leejo

Right. If wanting to kill child-murdering head-sawers is beyond the pale in your book, then I guess we're just not going to agree.

leejo

And I think you're position advocates useless navel-gazing that gives all of the initiative to the enemy and will get people killed.

How about we kick the crap out of these characters until some of them start saying "hey maybe we need to try to understand these people so they'll stop killing us?" That way WE decide when to stop, and WE decide the terms.

The flames of terrorism? ew.

Dousing the flames of terror, splash splash. I am the warrior.

Rahn

There is no appeasement with these people, Thomas Jefferson saw that and began to build the American Navy because of it.

Fight fire with fire...

__________________
I'm not the Killer Man...
I'm the Killer Man's son...
But I'll do the killing...
Until the Killer Man comes...

improbablecause

Noooo... I don't want anything dumbed down, I want the information to be richer and more complex. In fact, I think the race/religion thing is the most dumbed down stuff you can get (which is what I've been trying to say for the past I don't know how many posts).

"ok i knew when i posted this it would be misquoted, i mentioned that it was in newham london, an area quite poor probably the poorest borough, where i live, where most crime is comitted by black male youths and congregations of teenagers in general, the crime survey reported for the last year..."
- DudeMan

That's what started this entire chain. You gave me incredibly limited information that focused on two factors: age and race. Poverty is a given in your area, and (I'm assuming) not mentioned in the criminal survey. I told you that race is useless and does not get at the underlying causes of criminality; other factors must be explored. What those factors are, who knows, but I suggested a few. I certainly did not focus on just the race. That is the last thing I want to focus on.

I keep forgetting that you're actually from the UK. Sorry about that. However, what I said applies to the US quite well. Most of what I say refers specifically to the US, though there may be leakage that applies elsewhere.

Yeah, my mistake. I should've stated it earlier.

How am I thinking for too many people? Looking at individuals tells us nothing about the situation as a whole. We can talk about me, you, your dad, my dad, your friend Bob, my friend Bob, and maybe Joan, that hot chick that I met the other day, but it doesn't mean a thing in the real world. What we think and do as individuals has very little effect on what's going on with society as a whole. I keep saying this: a few people mean nothing. We have to look at the bigger picture.

I've told my little story about discrimination in this thread already. But my information about Muslim discrimination is second-hand (obviously). Friends of mine have been stopped by US officials and searched when travelling into the country. The rest is from the news.

You say the media hypes things. I agree. They hype up the race/religious reasons for terrorism too much.

You're thinking too shallow. It isn't about race or religion, for goodness sake. What is it about? I don't know. But as long as we cling onto this silly charade, the general public will never know.

I imagine it is quite different in the UK. But we are still all puppets of the media. I'll personally admit that my leftist views aren't exactly built up from my own research into various political topics. They come from discussions with others, from watching and reading the news about a variety of situations, from thinking about scenarios myself and coming up with my own thoughts and opinions. With such limited time, of course most of our information has to come second-hand. When that information comes second-hand, it will have it's inherent biases attached to them. News is never pure, and to think otherwise is naive.

Whether you believe it or not, everything you read or hear changes you. What the people around you are saying will influence you a lot more than you'd think. I've seen students do a complete 180 degree flip on their original stance because nobody around them was agreeing with them. (I've been involved in a number of studies that tested things like this -- it's fascinating.)

The average citizen may not be helping out with the search for terrorists, but they certainly are having a ball discriminating against them.

I concede that race does help reduce the number of given suspects given an appropriate situation in which the profile is used in. But to think that it is the key factor in determining who a terrorist is... well, it's ludicrous. Unfortunately, that's all anybody is told: the terrorist's race and religion. Even when it's not, that's the only thing people seem to pick up.

I ask an open question to everybody here: what else would you put on the "terrorist profile"? Or do you have absolutely no idea? Or is it that you simply believe race and religion is the only thing that matters?

Of course I don't expect you to trust random strangers. If some guy walked up to me and asked for a 100 dollar "loan", whatever race/religion they are, I'm not loaning them anything. You see your friends as truthworthy and know them well. But nobody else sees them the way you do.

I want you to pretend you don't know those friends of yours. Shouldn't they be investigated because they are, clearly, Muslim and fit the stereotypical profiles? Shouldn't they have to be watched ever so closely for being who they are on the outside? This is the kind of nonsense you've been telling me works.

Well, it's rather simple. Religious segregation/profiling is not possible when everybody is of the same religion.

Because of their racial/religious background? Or do you think it's likely that it was something else? After all, none of your Muslim friends have been investigated as of yet. Strange, because they're the typical Muslim.

I'll try to simplify your paragraph here...

1. Terrorist calls you infidel.
Real Muslims don't think you're an infidel.
Real Muslims should not be insulted when you joke with the word infidel.

2. Black man calls black man nigger.
Black men have embraced the word.
White man should not be insulted.

Huh? How does 1 and 2 connect?

Different culture, this is DudeMan. DudeMan, this is different culture.

The hijab (your "head scarf") is worn as a sign of modesty and, similar to how Christians wear a cross, tells everyone around her that her faith is with Islam. Many others feel it also suppresses the view of women as purely sex objects. It ensures the focus on a woman's inner beauty -- for example, intelligence -- and not outward appearances. If you think it is a sign of oppression, that is your call. On the other hand, I'd venture to say that Muslim women would see the whoring of women on television to be oppressive.

Different cultures will have different outlooks.

Why are we even discussing this?

Name them, I'm interested in looking them up and reading a bit about them.

The point is: they did occur. "History proves it". It was highly organized genocide (supported by nearly everybody) in the name of religion. We have yet to see that kind of organization on such a large scale since. This whole extremist Islamic terrorist thing isn't even close to being as widely accepted as the Crusades or witch hunts or whatever was.

You have your insane leaders recruiting more insane people. But they don't exactly have the backing of the entire religious populace behind them.

Do laws not pertain to what the law does to ensure the law is not broken?

Hehe. Seriously though, how I emotionally feel about what should be done should have no bearing on what is done. Whether I'm bombed or not doesn't give me a free ticket to use racial/religious profiling. Besides, New York City, ground zero for 9/11, actually voted against George W. Bush in the 2004 elections. You would think the people who should be most afraid of terrorism would agree with GWB's stance on terror and his freedom infringing methodology (e.g. the PATRIOT Act).

Lets look at the suspect quote again:

"Lord stevens revealed today, that by descriminating against Islamic people comming into this country(my words not his... but baisically by looking for the middle eastern ones and following them) (the UK) we have foiled 8 similar attempts of terror in this country since 9/11 , and for a limited time, had secret survailance on mohammed siddique kahn, the ringleader (alledgedly) of the london bombers... sorry mate, carry on MI5 make sure you catch as many as possible by looking for the steriotypes."
- DudeMan in a previous post

I just want to ensure you know that I was not unfair in the least bit. You took an article and outright lied about it, so I called you out. I'm sorry, but the "my words not his" is hardly "clearing stating [it's your] opinion". As the second bolded sentence shows, you obviously wanted to make a point about how stereotypes worked for the MI5... when nobody even remotely mentioned use of racial/religious profiling at all.

But enough, the comment is retracted and there's no point in discussing this further.

Actually, I think you'd be surprised how much of what I said rings true. Come on, from the typical Muslim terrorist descriptions, to the insulting of an entire race/religion, to the lack of sympathy for the average Muslim... it can all be seen in this thread alone.

__________________

CingularDuality

I think it's important to point out here exactly what group he suggested going out and killing. He didn't suggest going out and killing muslims. He didn't suggest going out and killing radical demonstrators. He didn't suggest going out and killing a single good person. He specifically narrowed the group down to Evil Radical Muslims. I think that Evil Radical Muslims=terrorists and I want them dead, too.

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leejo

I consider myself an average citizen. Please explain to me how the hell I discriminate against a terrorist? Are they entitled to something that I'm denying them? Does a terrorist need a job or a house? If my daughter brings a terrorist home for dinner should I be polite?

Do you mean that I'm discriminating against Muslims? I am fully capable of hating terrorists and wanting them dead for what they've done while admiring, respecting, and trusting the Muslims with whom I happen to work every day or the Muslims on the other side of the earth who are trying to be decent and earn a living.

Still, I don't remember seeing anything about our efforts to understand fascism or Germans in WWII. We killed them until they surrendered. That's how you win a war.

If some tender Muslim is offended by a t-shirt that says "Infidel" perhaps they can empathize with the "average citizen" and comprehend how I feel when I see an American head dangled in front of a camera. When I see a black comedian tell a joke about honkeys, I don't get offended. Why are white men the only people on the whole damn planet who are expected to take a joke without getting sand in their vaginas?

USN_Squid

If I was trying to pick one out of a crowd I would use this list; let's start with the most obvious and work our way down the list:
1-Middle Eastern Appearance
2-Middle Class Appearance (in the west anyway)
3-Educated Appearance
4-Probably Nervous Appearance

These are the things we can see. Notice the common descriptor "appearance"? That's all we have to go on if we are trying to identify a terrorist in a crowd in the US, UK, or possibly Canada.

In all likelihood we wouldn't be able to see that a person was muslim or not, although it is inarguable that the terrorists which pose the greatest threat to the west are indeed Islamofacists.

Buck Fush

Wow, you just described 90% of the programers I work with.