# How many more attacks before the West has to consider the previously unthinkable? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 15, 2016, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950 "2016-07-15T02:38:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/21 "2016-07-15T03:55:45Z")
In the US, I hope we learned our lesson with the Japanese in WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/22 "2016-07-15T03:58:13Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m suggesting one contiguous territory, with roughly 10% of the land and 10% of France’s economic resources (I’m sure an enterprising geographer could find something that would fit the bill, maybe on the Mediterranean coast). Are you suggesting that French Muslims would not be able to be enterprising enough to make the economy work? That’s on you then–the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and all that. Nice job drumming up that strawman so you could project your racist. Your plan is bad and you should feel bad. It’s impossible, but even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t work. Those Muslims would never be allowed back in France? The EU freedom of movement would be suspended for the members of that one specific country? Islamists from other countries would be affected by this plan how? The French Muslims would be stopped from going on vacation in Germany and driving into France how? Dumb. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/23 "2016-07-15T04:04:42Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I never said they would want it. I meant they would be given it and be told this is their new home, like it or not. Oh, yeah; and how well did that work out in South Africa? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/24 "2016-07-15T04:06:16Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The only long term solution is for the norm within Islam to be peace and tolerance. And the best way to achieve this is to highlight the Muslims who already live peacefully and tolerantly (such as the vast majority of American Muslims, for example), and be open and tolerant of Muslims who are not violent in every Western country. Vigilance, but also tolerance and openness, is the best long term solution, IMO. The norm–as in the vast majority of the world’s **one billion** Muslims–are about peace and tolerance. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/25 "2016-07-15T04:33:04Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m suggesting one contiguous territory, with roughly 10% of the land and 10% of France’s economic resources (I’m sure an enterprising geographer could find something that would fit the bill, maybe on the Mediterranean coast). So not only are we talking about a mass roundup and evacuation of millions of people into a latter-day Bantustan, but we have to kick the people who live there _now_ out of their homes and destroy their communities and towns that have existed for centuries? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/26 "2016-07-15T05:04:30Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m suggesting one contiguous territory, with roughly 10% of the land and 10% of France’s economic resources (I’m sure an enterprising geographer could find something that would fit the bill, maybe on the Mediterranean coast). Are you suggesting that French Muslims would not be able to be enterprising enough to make the economy work? That’s on you then–the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and all that. Nothing to do with the people, it’s to do with the situation. Firstly, the favourable land and economic resources split wouldn’t happen. Is that just somehow snatched from the people who have it now? No, it would be the crappy land, and the unsuccessful parts of the economy. Same as everywhere else this sort of thing has been set up. Secondly Muslims in France find getting into the economy hard enough as it is, being cultural outsiders. Is that going to improve or get worse when they are banished to one part of the country and publically affirmed as being potential terrorists? Economies thrive on trade and relationships, but you are saying these Muslims won’t even be able to _leave_. They work entirely by Skype or something, huh? Yeah, that’s going to work. Or are they going to be allowed to move around, trade etc? Oops, your terrorists just got out. Based on the facts and half an ounce of intelligence you could work out that it is never going to work. Further, this sort of thing has been tried and has never worked; it has invariably been a disaster. The lessons of history are available. You’re not only a cretin, you are an ignorant cretin who will not learn. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/27 "2016-07-15T05:47:45Z")
And here I thought that **the previously unthinkable** was thermonuclear war. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/28 "2016-07-15T06:01:39Z")
Reservations. Internment camps. Apartheid. The Pale. Ghettos. It isn’t “previously unthinkable.” It’s been done. And it has been awful. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/29 "2016-07-15T06:08:37Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > And here I thought that **the previously unthinkable** was thermonuclear war. :smack: Oh, that’s not unthinkable. It’s just nobody’s had the balls to kickstart one yet. But just you wait until my secret volcano lair is finished building… [QUOTE=Smapti] So not only are we talking about a mass roundup and evacuation of millions of people into a latter-day Bantustan, but we have to kick the people who live there _now_ out of their homes and destroy their communities and towns that have existed for centuries? [/QUOTE] Hey, it worked for Palestine ! Sort of. For theoretical values of “working” that don’t necessarily not involve constant mutual violence and hatred for the foreseeable future. Look, it’s a work in progress, okay ? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/30 "2016-07-15T06:13:29Z")
Let’s give them **SlackerInc** ’s place for a start. Lord, what an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/31 "2016-07-15T06:15:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Are you suggesting that French Muslims would not be able to be enterprising enough to make the economy work? That’s on you then–the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and all that. It’s close, but I think this bit here is actually dumber than Stringbean’s truck control thread. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/32 "2016-07-15T06:19:04Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > How many more attacks before the West has to consider the previously unthinkable? I’ve already decided on the unthinkable. For the first time in nearly a decade, I’m not going to France this year. It just ain’t worth the risk. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/33 "2016-07-15T09:43:10Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > So, you are suggesting that they round up all the Muslims… Heard them onto, you thinking trains here or just a long march? And forcibly expatriate them to a land that is not their home. Sort of clean the Islam out of most of France? > > You get how this sounds right? It’s not like this hasn’t been done before, but it’s pretty much always been remembered as an atrocity. Nah, this time it’ll be different…maybe they’ll have festive hats. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/34 "2016-07-15T10:16:17Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But I do wonder if it will require something like the proposed settlements in Israel/Palestine: giving French Muslims their own country, of proportional size (and resources) to their percentage of the population. You are completely ignorant of history, aren’t you? Because that’s the only way I can see someone proposing this as a “solution”. Already covered by others. > [@](#): > > But I am not sure, when anyone can make a vehicle into an incredibly deadly weapon (even without the explosives), that we’re too far away from it. You mean like back in 2001 when terrorists used vehicles to kill almost 3,000 people in 3 states? We’ve been seeing these sorts of “ordinary vehicles used as weapons” attacks for some time now. > [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](#): > > They don’t want their own country. They want YOUR country. ^ This. This, in the end, is why (along with other reasons) Slacker’s plan won’t work. They don’t want their own space. They want _the entire world_. Their land AND your land as their land. They want to destroy your culture and replace it with their own, with no compromise or tolerance or multiculturalism or freedom of speech, religion, thought, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/35 "2016-07-15T10:17:00Z")
The best way to solve the problem is just to kill everyone. Then you won’t have to worry that people might be secret terrorists because they’ll be dead and so will you. Peace in our time. Simple! ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/36 "2016-07-15T10:19:58Z")
Ethnic cleansing and apartheid have worked \*so \*well elsewhere, haven’t they? Get a grip, dude. The idea is to be \*better \*than “the bad guys”. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/37 "2016-07-15T10:20:59Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > nd what would ya do when the non Arabian moslem decides to avenge his bretherns exile with a bombing wave? Just make everyone declare their religion and make the muslims move to muslimistan and let the Arab Christians come freely over because they’re persecuted over there. After all, no one has ever lied about religion, especially when so much is at stake! ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/38 "2016-07-15T10:34:02Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > The norm–as in the vast majority of the world’s **one billion** Muslims–are about peace and tolerance. I mean that the numbers for those who support violence to shrink to the levels of other religions and non religions. Which also has to do with economics and other factors. But I think the best remedy is openness and tolerance. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/39 "2016-07-15T10:40:56Z")
If I understood the little bit I read about ISIS’s apocalyptic ideology, they want the West to begin a war of extermination against them (or was it all Muslims?) that eventually brings on doomsday. To me that sounds similar to fundamentalist Christians who want to speed up the coming of Armageddon. So declaring war on Islam is about what they want and maybe what a right wing fundamentalist in the White House would also like to bring about. I think we’re fresh out of creative solutions. This might be something we’ll just have to slog through and live with for many years. Hopefully without bringing about the end of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950/40 "2016-07-15T11:20:38Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I mean that the numbers for those who support violence to shrink to the levels of other religions and non religions. Which also has to do with economics and other factors. But I think the best remedy is openness and tolerance. Oh, you mean like those Buddhists who obviously support murdering Muslims? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-more-attacks-before-the-west-has-to-consider-the-previously-unthinkable/759950.md?page=3)