Quote:Serial killers are peaceful 99 percent of the time. So what?

You missed the point completely. I was saying 99% of BLM protests were peaceful with violent actors being a small minority who were condemned.

Quote:I couldn't read your washington post link because it says I have to sign up. I know that you can't just educate those current supremacists and change their minds. You focus on the younger generations and hope they turn out better. And to respond to the Grand Nudger's post, the US never tried to educate the Iraqis. They just wanted to stay there forever and take their resources. It's not surprising that the Iraqis didn't take kindly to that "education". Education does work because clearly the US and other western countries are way less racist than they used to be. I actually think the theory that a reduction in racism leads

Education won't solve racism and racism wasn't solved in the western world education either so 

Quote:Bret Weinstein and his wife explain in this video 

That video is bullshit 

Quote:Nothing will solve police brutality. There are always going to be flawed and defective officers on the job who take out their anger on citizens or even well intentioned officers that make really bad decisions. You can only try to fight police brutality. Not solve it.

It won't even fight  police brutality so your just splitting hairs.

So again a diatribe of worthless prattle

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(February 5, 2021 at 10:50 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: A wonderful example of the failures of education.  Presumably, we all here have a western education, they got to us when we were young.  That doesn't stop us from believing in strange things like white supremacy, or that the us was shaking down iraq for it's resources.  Equally inexplicable, the notion that we're less racist™..today..in a thread about the rise of global right wing extremism.

Education is great and all, but with respect to extremists, it just produces better educated extremists.  People who can actually build ieds or capture then command an abusive and sprawling infrastructure - rather than those who impotently dream about it.  People who understand which psychological levers to pull and how to tailor their propaganda to a specific audience, rather than stumps who put on their nazi cosplay regalia and damage their brand.  Education is a tool, and like any tool, it's value neutral.  Good and bad people find equal use in education when it comes to furthering their aims - and with respect to global extremism, the capture of education is itself an aim.  The reason for this being plainly apparent.  We don't live in a world where dumb extremism can succeed.  They have to replace all of the educated people who oppose them with educated extremists in order for their dream society to be more than just a dream.  In order for the trains to run on time.

History is full of brilliant racists and that's sad

(February 5, 2021 at 4:31 pm)SUNGULA Wrote: History is full of brilliant racists and that's sad

William Shockley for one.

It's full of whatever a country happens to be full of at the time.

As mistaken as their existential dread may be, in the case of white supremacists or islamic extremists, it's genuinely felt. The transformation of racial antipathy to racial apathy and finally, victimization propaganda in it's current form coincided with a massive amount of americans getting a better education by any number of metrics. In it's current form, it exploits the education and liberal indoctrination of it's targets as well as their belief that their intelligence or education somehow guards them (or prevents a smart propagandist) from being who and what they are - or even realizing it as is so often the case. It presents itself as skepticism. It presents itself as realism. It presents itself as science. It presents itself as an appeal to save a targeted minority, de jure or de facto.

We have many of the same cultural misapprehensions about domestic terrorists and their sympathizing demographic as we do about islamic extremists and theirs. In both cases, they are seeking a government or authority as an alternative to one which they believe has failed them, and failed them in specifically relevant and thematic ways. The list of those people is longer than the list of poor people, or uneducated people, or out and out racists. It's pretty good copy - and we can point to the rise of global extremism to establish that they've gotten slicker and expanded their targetable demos.

OTOH, in fairness to the conceptually or actually undereducated and poor - and as a way to open the door to correcting our misapprehension of the relationship between those things and extremism...lets recall that when we ultimately find ourselves beating back far right nonsense it is overwhelmingly the blood of the poor and uneducated which ends up getting spilt.

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(February 5, 2021 at 4:43 pm)HappySkeptic Wrote:

(February 5, 2021 at 4:31 pm)SUNGULA Wrote: History is full of brilliant racists and that's sad

William Shockley for one.

A particularly good example, I think, because it straddles the line between when our academic institutions were very much in the tank for things we think education solves today.  

Quote:Shockley was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 1982 United States Senate election in California. He ran on a single-issue platform of highlighting the "dysgenic threat" of some racial groups, including African-Americans, to American society.[46][47][48] He came in eighth place in the primary, receiving 8,308 votes and 0.37% of the vote.

Plays better today.  

(February 5, 2021 at 10:15 pm)WinterHold Wrote: Proud Boys are a white-nationalist movement, so I expect them to believe in this doctrine even if they didn't admit it.

Proud boys believe that they are suffering erasure by minorities, many hold to physical replacement but, as a group, they focus more on cultural replacement.  These are themes common to islamism as well, ofc.

All of the extremists, believe that they are righteous extremists. It's a pretty big part of the gig.

(February 5, 2021 at 10:15 pm)WinterHold Wrote: Every action has a reaction; Bin Laden was a reaction to the American war against Afghanistan, BLM are a reaction to the racist white supremacist hold on American politics during the era of Trump.

Wow, this guy is equating Talibans with BLM.

But 9/11 had a same reason behind it as Taliban's attack on Muslims (which you constantly keep forgetting).

Taliban consider themselves pure traditional Muslims, but their ideology is influenced by the works of an Egyptian named Sayyid Qutb. To him, Islam was already dead, having wandered far from its pure, narrow path. For Qutb, the non-Islamic world—including not just the West, but the vast majority of mainstream Muslims, was the enemy.

Osama’s pal Ayman al-Zahawiri, have amplified his ideas, building the case to abolish all democracies and even nationalities.

(February 5, 2021 at 10:45 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:

(February 5, 2021 at 10:15 pm)WinterHold Wrote: Proud Boys are a white-nationalist movement, so I expect them to believe in this doctrine even if they didn't admit it.

Proud boys believe that they are suffering erasure by minorities, many hold to physical replacement but, as a group, they focus more on cultural replacement.  These are themes common to islamism as well, ofc.

All of the extremists, believe that they are righteous extremists.  It's a pretty big part of the gig.

No, they believe also in killing and murdering those who oppose them; evidence: the invasion of the Capitol + threats + seizing weapons they had.

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(February 5, 2021 at 10:57 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote:

(February 5, 2021 at 10:15 pm)WinterHold Wrote: Every action has a reaction; Bin Laden was a reaction to the American war against Afghanistan, BLM are a reaction to the racist white supremacist hold on American politics during the era of Trump.

Wow, this guy is equating Talibans with BLM.

But 9/11 had a same reason behind it as Taliban's attack on Muslims (which you constantly keep forgetting).

9/11 was carried out by Al-Qaeda not the Taliban.
+ BLM are a consequence to tyranny.

The proud boys are terrorists because they employ terror in order to achieve their political aims. Their political aim is, itself, a terror threat. We make a distinction between rioters and terrorists, so there's really no cover for our favorite band of terrorists to be had here no matter how we choose to conceptualize a protest for equality. If you'd like to learn more, you'll find plenty of information online. Terrorism is pretty serious business.