I'd also add, just as a point of fact - islamic extremists kill more innocent muslims than The West™ for exactly the same reasons that domestic extremists are the wests greater concern with respect to innocent westerners.

I'll throw this up here for anyone who likes to read boring shit.

Quote:It is far too easy for analysts who are not Muslim to focus on the small part of the extremist threat that Muslim extremists pose to non-Muslims in the West and/or demonize one of the world's great religions, and to drift into some form of Islamophobia—blaming a faith for patterns of violence that are driven by a tiny fraction of the world's Muslims and by many other factors like population, failed governance, and weak economic development.

It is equally easy to avoid analyzing the links between extremist violence and Islam in order to be politically correct or to avoid provoking Muslims and the governments of largely Muslim states. The end result is to ignore the reality that most extremist and terrorist violence does occur in largely Muslim states, although it overwhelmingly consists of attacks by Muslim extremists on fellow Muslims, and not some clash between civilizations.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/islam-and-...-extremism

There's a bit that speaks to my previous post in there as well - and, ofc, a chart.

Quote:Extremism Poses a Critical Threat to the Ability of Largely Islamic States to Meet the Needs of Their Rapidly Growing Populations

The data and trend charts in the seventh section provide a wide range of metrics showing the other pressures that divide largely Muslim states, and that can drive their populations towards extremism. Each can be a study in itself, but it is clear that many Muslims feel their governments are corrupt and that secular options fail to protect them and provide adequate future opportunities.

Population pressure and corruption are critical factors, as are ethnic and sectarian divisions and hyperurbanization. Youth lack jobs and opportunity in many states, and per capita incomes are sometimes critically low.

The challenge for those states, right now, is to both reduce the pressures that society feels in order to move them away from extremism - it's about feelings..not smarts....while preventing the infiltration or capture of critical services that the extremists must, by necessity, attempt to control in order to exert their authority and legitimacy over the same.

We have a tendency to see these people a particular way (and the linked paper goes on at length about that) which is both wrong, and actively harmful to the goal of suppressing extremism. It isn't because they are uneducated that they are extremists, it is because they are extremists that they seem to be uneducated. Largely, terrorist organizations have failed to capture these services, or fail to be stable - but they're making gains there. They're making gains on the backs of smart people with much better ideas of how to manifest an extremist state. Making gains on the backs of our mistaken beliefs about them.

I think it's clear that the us has an identical challenge, it's something that should unite us, or at least could. That, ultimately, is the aim of making the us a global power for good.

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 4, 2021 at 11:50 pm)Irreligious Atheist Wrote:

(February 4, 2021 at 11:15 pm)WinterHold Wrote: Of course 9/11 was an expected consequence for America fucking with the world. But that doesn't make Bin Laden a hero.
Of course when you bomb people with fire, they will respond with fire too. 

Especially poor, black people getting stomped by spoiled white racists who want to bring the Confederation era back.

It makes Bin Laden a hero to many, many people. A freedom fighter. To others, it makes him a terrorist. The same goes for the BLM movement. It is seen as heroic, even though they burn down black and Asian businesses. Even though their supporters set up barriers in the streets and have shot and killed a black child because his mom drove past the barrier. Even though they try to burn down court houses. Even though they tried to burn down an apartment building just because a mayor lives there, not caring who else they hurt. Some see them as freedom fighters. Others see them as terrorists. I see them somewhere in between. Many of them are good people with good intentions, but many of them just want to see the country burn and they want others to hurt because they are hurting.

You should be outraged at the Neo-Nazi types. They are despicable. I understand your outrage at the attacks on Mosques. I watched the video the one guy made when he was shooting up the Mosque. It was horrible and I can't blame you for feeling so strongly. The Proud Boys did not do that though. We can't just lump all these people in together. I don't believe the Proud Boys chairman wants an all white country, because then they will kick him out for being Cuban-American. What good will that do him? The Proud Boys chairman has not ordered Proud Boys members to go around shooting people. He did not order Proud Boys members to go and invade the Capitol building. The Proud Boys in Canada do not get up to much mischief, so just calling them terrorists because some of their members are racist or some of them have done some really dumb stuff is going way too far. You fight racism with education. You fight police brutality against black people by getting all police to wear body cams so it's harder for them to get away with abusing black people or framing them for crimes. You change the system by making it easier for the "good cops" to turn in the bad cops without the fear of losing their jobs for doing so. Give them some kind of protection for turning on their fellow cops. You won't defeat racism by making racists terrorists under the law. You don't defeat it by taking away people's civil liberties. Racism will always exist.

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.

So many despise racism and double standards because they lead to this exact consequence: the rise of extremist movements as a reaction to the unjust actions.

But sometimes the extremist movements rise in response to a righteous move such as winning over racism.

The shooter in NZ commit his slaughter for the same reason, he believed in this extremist terrorist theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement

Quote:The Great Replacement (French: Grand Remplacement), also known as the replacement theory,[1][2] is a white nationalist[3] far-right[4] conspiracy theory[5][6][7] which states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites,[a][5][8] the white French population—as well as white European population at large—is being progressively replaced with non-European peoples—specifically Arab, Berber and sub-Saharan Muslim populations from Africa and the Middle East—through mass migration,

Proud Boys are a white-nationalist movement, so I expect them to believe in this doctrine even if they didn't admit it.

(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.

(February 5, 2021 at 10:15 pm)WinterHold Wrote:

(February 4, 2021 at 11:50 pm)Irreligious Atheist Wrote: It makes Bin Laden a hero to many, many people. A freedom fighter. To others, it makes him a terrorist. The same goes for the BLM movement. It is seen as heroic, even though they burn down black and Asian businesses. Even though their supporters set up barriers in the streets and have shot and killed a black child because his mom drove past the barrier. Even though they try to burn down court houses. Even though they tried to burn down an apartment building just because a mayor lives there, not caring who else they hurt. Some see them as freedom fighters. Others see them as terrorists. I see them somewhere in between. Many of them are good people with good intentions, but many of them just want to see the country burn and they want others to hurt because they are hurting.

You should be outraged at the Neo-Nazi types. They are despicable. I understand your outrage at the attacks on Mosques. I watched the video the one guy made when he was shooting up the Mosque. It was horrible and I can't blame you for feeling so strongly. The Proud Boys did not do that though. We can't just lump all these people in together. I don't believe the Proud Boys chairman wants an all white country, because then they will kick him out for being Cuban-American. What good will that do him? The Proud Boys chairman has not ordered Proud Boys members to go around shooting people. He did not order Proud Boys members to go and invade the Capitol building. The Proud Boys in Canada do not get up to much mischief, so just calling them terrorists because some of their members are racist or some of them have done some really dumb stuff is going way too far. You fight racism with education. You fight police brutality against black people by getting all police to wear body cams so it's harder for them to get away with abusing black people or framing them for crimes. You change the system by making it easier for the "good cops" to turn in the bad cops without the fear of losing their jobs for doing so. Give them some kind of protection for turning on their fellow cops. You won't defeat racism by making racists terrorists under the law. You don't defeat it by taking away people's civil liberties. Racism will always exist.

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.

So many despise racism and double standards because they lead to this exact consequence: the rise of extremist movements as a reaction to the unjust actions.

But sometimes the extremist movements rise in response to a righteous move such as winning over racism.

The shooter in NZ commit his slaughter for the same reason, he believed in this extremist terrorist theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement

Quote:The Great Replacement (French: Grand Remplacement), also known as the replacement theory,[1][2] is a white nationalist[3] far-right[4] conspiracy theory[5][6][7] which states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites,[a][5][8] the white French population—as well as white European population at large—is being progressively replaced with non-European peoples—specifically Arab, Berber and sub-Saharan Muslim populations from Africa and the Middle East—through mass migration,

Proud Boys are a white-nationalist movement, so I expect them to believe in this doctrine even if they didn't admit it.

So you will call the Proud Boys all terrorists because they might have an ideology that you disagree with, but you won't call BLM and Antifa members/ supporters terrorists when they almost burn down apartment buildings full of people? I would certainly call those people trying to burn down apartment buildings full of people for their political cause terrorists. Isn't that textbook terrorism by definition? It shouldn't matter that they say they're against racism or whatever, if they are doing something that might end up killing a bunch of people.

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.