Quote from: Cindy on March 23, 2016, 12:58:10 PM

"the culture of the area is a large reason for these actions

Nobody disagrees with this. We're disagreeing with your implication that it's the culture as opposed to the religion which is at play; as if you can separate those two things so cleanly. Religion is culture.

It's much like the rectangle/square argument, though

I definitely won't argue that the Quran and Islam in general is much more open to violent interpretation than other religions such as Christianity or Judaism, and I also won't argue that Islam has a multitude of problematic aspects to the daily practice of the religion especially in its treatment of women - unlike the strawman image that Mordo had posted in the other thread which, in case anyone was wonder, was why I refused to continue the debate in that thread. I'm not going to argue with a person who declares what he thinks my viewpoint is in a hilariously dumb strawman post and then debates with that instead of me.

Anyways, I digress. As I said, it's a lot more to do with the rectange/square argument - ever notice how, while the vast majority of these violent perpetrators come from the Middle East, there are vastly large sums of Muslims elsewhere in the world? Less than 40% of the world's Muslim population lives in the Middle East, with incredibly large pockets living in India and Indonesia, but you don't nearly as often hear about radicalization of the religious sectors in those countries bombing churches or executing women. Now, as I'd said earlier, India certainly has its own problem with their treatment of women, but that's a different subject entirely and I won't really touch on it here.

The Middle East has had many problems in the past with in-fighting and especially recent problems with invasions by western powers, alongside a history of an especially violent Bedouin judicial code. It makes it especially easy for anti-western propaganda to be spread throughout the region against people who have seen their home countries torn apart and may not fully understand why. Much like many Christians may falsely interpret a realistic, religious view of hell to look like the picture painted by Dante's Inferno despite the fact that the Bible only makes slight references to the smell of sulfur and incredible heat, or say that Lucifer and Satan are the same entity despite actually being two different beings - Muslims, especially those uneducated in their religion and in their daily lives in general, are much easier to twist to the whim of groups like ISIS and their more violent interpretation of the Quaran. And in case anyone is to come out and say, "well, the quaran just encourages violence at its core," then a reminder to you that Jihad simply means "struggle in the ways of Allah." The Bible has just as many violent, classist, and sexist messages as the Quaran does, but it is, obviously, less often interpreted in those ways. Jihad of the Sword is not the only interpretation that the Quaran offers and, at its heart, it is no different than the Christian message; everyone in the world should be converted it Islam in order to be saved by God.

Am I saying that Islam is a perfect religion and there is nothing wrong with it? Of course not, but I'd say the same of most religions that exist today. Am I saying that there should be no checks on immigrants or attempts to assimilate them? No, of course not. Germany has faced a similar debate with Turkish immigrants for years before the "immigration" crisis and I grew up with a similar argument being faced in my day to day life - not to mention the arguments since then with Hispanic immigration into America. I simply say that attempts to demonize or force out all immigration simply aid to the message and goal of groups like ISIS at its core. ISIS wants to play off of the fear of middle eastern culture and of Islam in order to say, "look, they're the bad guys. They're the evil ones. We need to get revenge on them for what they're done." Leaving immigrants to fend for themselves against an upcoming regime and/or refusing them only assists in this message. Similar things happened in the past with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. You would have citizens joining their ranks because they'd been led to believe that the west was truly evil and had come to kill them, or farmers gunning down soldiers because they'd been approached and told, "you'll do this or we'll kill your family" and they'd had nowhere to escape to.

The majority of my argument, at its core, is that the demonization of all muslims for the act of the radical few is as ridiculous as pointing at a snowflake and saying "look, climate change can't be real" or pointing at a rapist and saying "look, all men are terrible." No one said that Christianity was terrible at its core back when the KKK and white supremacists were lynching people left and right - because it's much easier to try and apply this sort of logic to a foreign or minority group. It's the same train of logic that spurns the "women/asians are terrible drivers" stereotypes because, when a man is a terrible driver, most people simply assume "that man sucks at driving." When a women or asian is a terrible driver, however, people use it to support the stereotype and apply blanket statements across the entire groups.

Furthermore, a majority of this board seems to support Trump's temporary Muslim ban, and that is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen in my life, so allow me to address that for a moment. First of all, how does it even accomplish that goal? How do you ban a religion, exactly? Unlike Judaism, it's not an ethnic religion, so there is no way to properly enforce it unless the true goal is "ban brown-skinned people". Mohammad, an ISIS agent, could easily simply say that he's converted to Christianity while Hassan, a young refugee looking for asylum who simply doesn't want to give up his upbringing and culture, would be turned away for being one of those evil muslims. There's simply no way to enforce the rule at its base.

But let's humor the idea for a moment. Let's say that there is an actual way to trace who is a Muslim and effectively ban them from the United States and/or Europe. Does that apply to white muslims already living in those countries, with lineage tracing back generations? Does that apply to muslims who already lived in the country who were visiting foreign states when the ban was in place - such as my friend Ata, who returns to Turkey each summer to visit his aunt and uncle? Does that apply to foreign delegates or political figures who happen to be muslim and would visit the country? How long is 'temporary'? It's a ridiculous rule with no more substance to it than any more of Trump's largest campaigning policies.

But the Muslim ban, the wall, and the attempts to ban refugees entirely from Europe are all nothing more than fear mongering at their core, anyways. And yes, meme all you like, but it is bigoted to judge a vast majority of peoples because they happen to contain an excessively violent group within. I've stressed this multiple times throughout this argument and given multiple examples, but a felt the need to punctuate it one final time. The strawman that "lmao u dum libbies think there's nothing wrong with islam!" is absurd - obviously there are things wrong with it. The treatment of women and the ease with which it is twisted towards violence are, of course, terrible things, but the problem lies in summarizing all Muslims as wife beating, western hating, terrorists who want nothing more than to rape the women and burn the churches. As I've said, it's as ridiculous as saying that all men are dangerous criminals and should be avoided because a small minority of them commit rape more than other groups of people do.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing Islam nor is there anything wrong with demonizing those who would use its message to spread terror. The issues arise when that 'criticism' is used for fear mongering to demonize everyone of a particular religious, cultural, or ethnic background.

ever notice how, while the vast majority of these violent perpetrators come from the Middle East, there are vastly large sums of Muslims elsewhere in the world? Less than 40% of the world's Muslim population lives in the Middle East, with incredibly large pockets living in India and Indonesia, but you don't nearly as often hear about radicalization of the religious sectors in those countries bombing churches or executing women.

No, but why are you limiting the problem solely to violent fundamentalism? We already know a worrying number of Muslims, even in the West, hold views about gays or women or even democracy which simply aren't compatible with our liberal society. Is the Middle East, as a region, uniquely suited to producing insurgencies and militant groups? Yeah, I wouldn't dispute that. But it doesn't follow that there are no other problems with a large section of the global Muslim community.

There have been problems historically with all of the other religions, too. Were I living through the Reformation, I would no doubt be railing against the tribalism of Christianity and weeping over the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. We don't live in a world, however, where Christianity has a unique problem with producing people who hold incredibly violent and illiberal world views. Is this inherent to Islam? No, certainly not. In fact, I would argue a big piece of the puzzle is the manipulation of religion by authoritarian states in the Middle East to suit their agenda. Nevertheless, due to reasons involving the scripture, theology and history of Islam it does seem to have a unique ability to produce these kinds of people.

And, fuck, I'm not even saying it's a majority. I'm don't even believe the conveyer belt theory of terrorism. It's just a bigger problem within Islam than it currently is with any other religion (not to suggest Christian extremists don't exist; groups like anti-Balaka and the LRA should considered as warped in their worldview as al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but they just don't command our attention because they aren't a significant security threat).

and especially recent problems with invasions by western powers

The literature really doesn't support this theory of blowback. Does foreign policy contribute to terrorism in the sense it adds to terrorists' grievances? Yeah, it gives them a narrative to work with. But by and large that narrative is only really effective within the already-existing radicalised community. Drone strikes--even failed ones--demonstrably lead to a reduction in the lethality of terrorist attacks, Palestinian support for attacks on Israel has been falling, even through Operation Cast Lead, all of the 7/7 bombers were radicalised before the invasion of Iraq, the direction of causality strongly runs from Israeli casualties leading to Palestinian casualties and not vice versa.

If foreign policy is the cause of terrorism, how come most Muslims do not like bin Laden or al-Qaeda? It's fairly clear our foreign policy doesn't necessarily entail the creation of significant grievances among Muslim communities, so we have to question why some of them respond the way that they do. Obviously, we're dealing with a highly irrational and fanatical side of the Muslim population.

And let's be honest, these are exactly the people who are going to be trying to establish caliphates and Talibanised regimes across the Middle East whether or not we get involved. It's certainly a lot easier for them if we don't, and it makes the lives of those under them a hell of a lot worse. At some point, our foreign policy must be motivated by our values--which cannot be compromised. If our values entail stopping the establishment and spread of insurgencies seeking to overthrow their government--particularly democratic ones--then so be it.

Muslims, especially those uneducated in their religion and in their daily lives in general, are much easier to twist to the whim of groups like ISIS and their more violent interpretation of the Quaran.

See, it's comments like this that show you don't know what the evidence says. The relationship between education and terrorism is not very tight at all, and if anything runs in the direction opposite to what you suggest. Radicals tend to come from more affluent backgrounds than the working classes of their society. And, of course, we should expect this. While it's not unlikely that working-class people bombarded with propaganda could become radicalised, it's a hell of a lot more likely that they're just like working-class people anywhere else, and just want to get the fuck on with their lives with some degree of security.

And in case anyone is to come out and say, "well, the quaran just encourages violence at its core," then a reminder to you that Jihad simply means "struggle in the ways of Allah." The Bible has just as many violent, classist, and sexist messages as the Quaran does, but it is, obviously, less often interpreted in those ways.

The fact that it simply means "struggle in the ways of Allah" is not a point in the Qur'an's favour. That's a ridiculously ambiguous definition, and could lend itself just as easily to violence as peace. And, indeed, part of the problem with the Qur'an is the fact that it's so much shorter and less 'open to interpretation' than the Bible; there's much less wiggle-room.

You're also correct, the Bible (or, at least the Old Testament) does indeed have violent, classist and sexist passages. But this is irrelevant. I don't really care what the Bible says--at least outside of metaphysical, epistemological and moral discussion--but I care what Christians are doing. And, as I said, right now the scale of Christian fundamentalism and its associated effects isn't quite on the same level as Islamic fundamentalism.

I simply say that attempts to demonize or force out all immigration simply aid to the message and goal of groups like ISIS at its core. ISIS wants to play off of the fear of middle eastern culture and of Islam in order to say, "look, they're the bad guys. They're the evil ones. We need to get revenge on them for what they're done."

Two points: nobody except those on the far-right are arguing for the demonisation or expulsion of immigrants. Secondly, I don't care what ISIS wants, and neither should you. These people will create grievances against you where none really exist; let nobody forget that one of the greatest UN diplomats who ever lives, and several Australian tourists in Bali, were murdered by al-Qaeda because a Western coalition wouldn't allow the Muslim-majority Indonesia to commit genocide in the Christian-majority East Timor.

I don't care what they want; I only care about the most effective way to destroy them.

The majority of my argument, at its core, is that the demonization of all muslims for the act of the radical few is as ridiculous as pointing at a snowflake and saying "look, climate change can't be real" or pointing at a rapist and saying "look, all men are terrible."

Except literally nobody here has ever made the argument that all Muslims are horrible people and deserve to be demonised. You are presenting a strawman argument, quite literally.

No one said that Christianity was terrible at its core back when the KKK and white supremacists were lynching people left and right - because it's much easier to try and apply this sort of logic to a foreign or minority group.

That's because it's quite difficult to justify the murder of other races on Biblical scripture. The main justification that was used was the passage which stated God created the light before the dark; compare this to Islamic fundamentalists, who have no shortage of passages to justify their murder of infidels.

It's also worth noting that racial violence and the KKK is not quite the same as ideological warfare, based on fundamentally differing values.

stereotypes because

It's a shame stereotypes tend to be mad accurate then.

Furthermore, a majority of this board seems to support Trump's temporary Muslim ban, and that is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen in my life, so allow me to address that for a moment.

I literally haven't seen a single person here support that, and would expect only the 'usual suspects' like Midget, Cadenza and PSU to support that. They certainly don't represent conservative opinion on this board, and it's definitely not what I, Mordo, Turkey etc. believe.

Quote from: Cadenza on March 24, 2016, 05:28:19 AM

Be honest liberals, how many people have to die before you admit your fetish for non-whites is a bad thing?

About the same amount of time it takes you to realize that blacks in the US do in fact deal with different situations than whites

Could you be more specific with what you mean by situations? I'm not going to pretend that they have an equal footing with whites but I'm not sure where your trying to point that question.

unlike the strawman image that Mordo had posted in the other thread which, in case anyone was wonder, was why I refused to continue the debate in that thread. I'm not going to argue with a person who declares what he thinks my viewpoint is in a hilariously dumb strawman post and then debates with that instead of me.

Honestly, the progressive victim/aggressor mentality never ceases to amaze me.

My dude, you busted into MY thread labelling me and anyone that agreed with me a backwards racist /pol/ browser first. But this is the beauty of cognitive dissonance on the left isn't it? Going out of your way to be professional provocateurs then playing the victim card as soon as you get a taste of your own medicine in response. It's a great tactic for anyone that's a retard, but unfortunately for you, we can all see through the bullshit.

No, but why are you limiting the problem solely to violent fundamentalism? We already know a worrying number of Muslims, even in the West, hold views about gays or women or even democracy which simply aren't compatible with our liberal society. Is the Middle East, as a region, uniquely suited to producing insurgencies and militant groups? Yeah, I wouldn't dispute that. But it doesn't follow that there are no other problems with a large section of the global Muslim community.

And there are plenty of Christians which believe that gays are of the devil and transgender people are straying from god's light - trust me, I live in Houston, Texas, I'm familiar with that. But, of course, no one protests against Christianity because of these things. Naturally, they shouldn't. They protest against the groups spreading these hateful messages such as the Westboro Baptist Church, to name the most notable one.

My point isn't that Islam is flawless or that it doesn't, at times, teach bad messages. As I said in my initial post, I would say that Islam is certainly the most problematic of all modern day "big" religions because of certain lessons it teaches. I'm simply saying that demonizing all practitioners of Islam is bad.

The literature really doesn't support this theory of blowback. Does foreign policy contribute to terrorism in the sense it adds to terrorists' grievances? Yeah, it gives them a narrative to work with. But by and large that narrative is only really effective within the already-existing radicalised community. Drone strikes--even failed ones--demonstrably lead to a reduction in the lethality of terrorist attacks, Palestinian support for attacks on Israel has been falling, even through Operation Cast Lead, all of the 7/7 bombers were radicalised before the invasion of Iraq, the direction of causality strongly runs from Israeli casualties leading to Palestinian casualties and not vice versa.

Do you have a source for this? I'm not doubting it's credibility, I'm just curious and I'd like to see the numbers.

If foreign policy is the cause of terrorism, how come most Muslims do not like bin Laden or al-Qaeda? It's fairly clear our foreign policy doesn't necessarily entail the creation of significant grievances among Muslim communities, so we have to question why some of them respond the way that they do. Obviously, we're dealing with a highly irrational and fanatical side of the Muslim population.

I wouldn't say that it is, more often that not, the direct cause - I'd simply say that it's either an indirect cause or a contributing factor. I also definitely wouldn't say that Islam is a non-factor in terrorism - if that's the message that I seem to have been sending, then I apologize. I do believe that the more warlike foundations of the religion and the culture that it has existed in lend itself more to a violent outlook.

And let's be honest, these are exactly the people who are going to be trying to establish caliphates and Talibanised regimes across the Middle East whether or not we get involved. It's certainly a lot easier for them if we don't, and it makes the lives of those under them a hell of a lot worse. At some point, our foreign policy must be motivated by our values--which cannot be compromised. If our values entail stopping the establishment and spread of insurgencies seeking to overthrow their government--particularly democratic ones--then so be it.

I don't disagree with this at all. The core of my argument is essentially that a vast amount of people fall to scare tactics and demonize all muslims

See, it's comments like this that show you don't know what the evidence says. The relationship between education and terrorism is not very tight at all, and if anything runs in the direction opposite to what you suggest. Radicals tend to come from more affluent backgrounds than the working classes of their society. And, of course, we should expect this. While it's not unlikely that working-class people bombarded with propaganda could become radicalised, it's a hell of a lot more likely that they're just like working-class people anywhere else, and just want to get the fuck on with their lives with some degree of security.

Hmm, once again, I have to ask if you have any sources for this. Again, I don't mean to sound like a prick going "YOU MUST BE WRONG BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T CITE IT LIKE A COLLEGE ESSAY" but I'm just curious if knowing if that is true.

If it is, then I suppose I'll have to say I was wrong on this respect, but the twisting of the lower class does still come into effect. As I mentioned in the initial post, the poor in those countries are fairly easily manipulated by force or coercion from groups such as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, etc.

And, as I said, right now the scale of Christian fundamentalism and its associated effects isn't quite on the same level as Islamic fundamentalism.

This is a very fair point, but Christianity is also much more prevalent among first world countries. Again, I'm not trying to say that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, only that terrorists are motivated by much more than Islam and that the religion is not the root problem of these, nor should everyone practicing the faith be held accountable.

Two points: nobody except those on the far-right are arguing for the demonisation or expulsion of immigrants.

Except literally nobody here has ever made the argument that all Muslims are horrible people and deserve to be demonised.

It's a fairly largely-held belief on this board that immigrants are ruining Europe. I'm not going to be pointing fingers, but you only need to look at some of the posts on the Serious board. Immigrants are pretty heavily demonized on this board.

Some have out-right said "they're ruining europe" and others just post memes where it's fairly obvious what they're implying.

It's a shame stereotypes tend to be mad accurate then.

No offence, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of causation/correlation confusion. Some stereotypes may prove to be accurate simply because of a correlation between the two, but that does not mean that one causes the other.

I literally haven't seen a single person here support that, and would expect only the 'usual suspects' like Midget, Cadenza and PSU to support that. They certainly don't represent conservative opinion on this board, and it's definitely not what I, Mordo, Turkey etc. believe.

In all fairness, I'm not entirely sure what the attitude towards Trump on this board is and I will admit that it's a bit of a leap for me to say that I've seen it supported multiple times. I apologize for that, as it was a bit of a tangent that wasn't so much related to my main point.

Send me a PM tomorrow reminding me to respond to this if I don't get around to it. I didn't sleep last night so I really can't be arsed to trawl through a word document full of sources/respond in full to you.

I will say, however:

No offence, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of causation/correlation confusion.

No, it isn't. I didn't even begin to imply any kind of causal factor here. I actually don't even know what you think I think the causal factor is here, or how it relates to stereotypes. Are you implying that I think high crime rates among blacks are the result of criminals simply being black? Because I don't. Literally all I'm pointing out is that stereotypes are pretty accurate perceptions of correlations. At no point did I even slightly suggest that X group commits Y act because they are X group.

Quote from: Cindy on March 24, 2016, 08:31:09 AM

Send me a PM tomorrow reminding me to respond to this if I don't get around to it. I didn't sleep last night so I really can't be arsed to trawl through a word document full of sources/respond in full to you.

I will say, however:

Quote

No offence, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of causation/correlation confusion.

No, it isn't. I didn't even begin to imply any kind of causal factor here. I actually don't even know what you think I think the causal factor is here, or how it relates to stereotypes. Are you implying that I think high crime rates among blacks are the result of criminals simply being black? Because I don't. Literally all I'm pointing out is that stereotypes are pretty accurate perceptions of correlations. At no point did I even slightly suggest that X group commits Y act because they are X group.

Fair and fair

Quote from: Mordo on March 24, 2016, 08:36:31 AM

"oMg WHY IS A PERSON LIKE TRUMP WHO DOESN'T TAKE SHIT FROM ANYONE STRIKING A cHORD WITH SO MANY pEoPLE?1?!?!?!

lmao trump is just such a alpha bro i don't get why all those fucking beta cucks don't want him tbh

Didn't this argument start because you were complaining about people strawmanning you?

It seems like you do it in every disagreement you get into around here.

Well, going back into Brussels by train now. I'm not sure what it's going to be like.

Stay safe, mate.