# "I'll Ride With You" in Aftermath of Aussie Terror Attack: Touching or Misguided? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 16, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406 "2014-12-16T17:04:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [December 17, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/61 "2014-12-17T15:54:09Z")
> [@BOOM](#): > > I’m here, living and working amongst it. That liberal dream died 15 years ago - no one bought that bogus coffee-coloured utopia. Economic migrants laugh at it. > > There is no assimilation for the first generation, there is variable assimilation for subsequent generations - in fact, many first generation have no intention of their even being a second generation (the wife will return home with the chilrden where they will live middle class lives based on the husbands first world income). > > It’s not hard to fathom; who the fuck would aspire to western values and western culture. … > > I have no idea where you live but this is the this real world we live in here… As someone married to a first-generation immigrant, I disagree. First generation immigrants can and do assimilate – that doesn’t mean all of them do, but many certainly do. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/62 "2014-12-17T16:10:29Z")
> [@Onyerbike](#): > > My opinion it is a bit of both - touching and misguided. Touching in that it reaffirms the attitude of the majority, misguided in **thinking it will change the minority of people who only care to see problems about another people** … Perhaps that isn’t the point, though? Maybe it works just fine as a message to assure the scapegoated people, and to publicly affirm the values of tolerance and inclusion. It doesn’t have to actually change any confirmed bigot’s mind to have value for the rest of us. > [@Onyerbike](#): > > The vast majority of us see, live and feel everyday what a much better country we are with variety than without. From art to football to food to education… So much better than my parents parents day when everybody was white, burned their steaks by default and dressed identically to every other person of the same gender and ran people out of town that were contrary. Yech, no way. > > So ride with me may be a bit cheesy, but I’d much rather exist in a day where things like this can happen that one where it wouldn’t. So I will ride with you too. With anybody. Cool. 🙂 I have to say, as an outside observer, it makes _me_ feel better toward majority Australians to see such embrace of the gesture. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/63 "2014-12-17T20:39:24Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > When you start from nearly zero, a 1700% increase may still not amount to much. If you think there were nearly zero anti-Muslim hate crimes going on pre-9/11 you’re living in a fantasy world. They have been the bad guy de jure for Hollywood for a long time prior to 2001. > [@astorian](#): > > Muslims are not being lynched in the US. No, just Sikhs being murdered by people too stupid to tell the difference between the two. Some comfort, that. > [@astorian](#): > > Contrary to what Hollywood showed us in _ **The Siege** _, the Army is not rounding up Muslims and hauling them to prison camps. If “they’re not being lynched in the streets” “they’re not being put into internment camps ala WW2 Japanese-American style” and “mosques aren’t being burned down” (just huge stinks to stop the ‘Ground Zero’ mosque from being built) are your markers to prove that there was no such thing as the anti-Muslim backlash after 9/11 and consider a 1700% increase in hate crimes directed towards Muslims in the year after the 2001 attack reported by the FBI as unimportant it rather shows where you are coming from. Using benchmarks like this I could prove racism no longer exists in the US. After all, nobody’s lynching blacks or burning down black churches anymore, right? > [@astorian](#): > > This is both patronizing to Muslims AND tacitly insulting to ordinary Americans. The unspoken assumption (one YOU clearly share) is that the average American is a bigoted yahoo who’s just dying to beat up or kill some AY-rabs. You’d do well to restrict your absurd assumptions to your views on the world and not use them to tell me what I think as you are yet again way off the ball on this one. Using exactly which statements of mine were you able to arrive at this clear conclusion that this is something I share? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/64 "2014-12-17T21:01:16Z")
Check out this thread that was started while the 9/11 attacks were still going on. > **[Time to start rounding up the Arabs!](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=86467)** > > Because we all know that they’re the only people who could be responsible for what happened to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It’s also well known that all Arabs are terrorists and obviously support the killing of innocent Americans. Lord... ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/65 "2014-12-17T21:41:31Z")
The most recent FBI stats I’ve seen for hate crimes in the US are for the calendar year 2012. The stats are here: > **[Victims](https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/victims_final)** How many religion-based hate crimes were there in 2012? One thousand, three hundred and forty. And the great majority of the victims were… Jewish! Just over 11% of the victims were Muslims. That’s 11.6% of 1,340 people. Or (drum roll) 155 people. NOBODY deserves to be assaulted or to have a home or business vandalized, but come now! In a nation of over 300,000,000, that’s all but insignificant. Muslims in the US are not under siege, they are NOT being assaulted left and right, and rednecks are NOT murdering them in broad daylight. Religious hate crimes overall are extremely rare in America, thank God (or law enforcement). Shouldn’t you be HAPPY about that, rather than inflating the danger Muslims face? ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/66 "2014-12-17T21:46:54Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The most recent FBI stats I’ve seen for hate crimes in the US are for the calendar year 2012. The stats are here: > > [http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/victims\_final](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/victims_final) > > How many religion-based hate crimes were there in 2012? One thousand, three hundred and forty. And the great majority of the victims were… Jewish! > > Just over 11% of the victims were Muslims. That’s 11.6% of 1,340 people. Or (drum roll) 155 people. > > NOBODY deserves to be assaulted or to have a home or business vandalized, but come now! In a nation of over 300,000,000, that’s all but insignificant. > > Muslims in the US are not under siege, they are NOT being assaulted left and right, and rednecks are NOT murdering them in broad daylight. Religious hate crimes overall are extremely rare in America, thank God (or law enforcement). > > Shouldn’t you be HAPPY about that, rather than inflating the danger Muslims face? Why would there be a Muslim backlash in the US in 2012? did you check the numbers after 9/11? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/67 "2014-12-17T21:57:04Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > How many religion-based hate crimes were there in 2012? > … > Just over 11% of the victims were Muslims…155 people. > [@astorian](#): > > “Islamophobia” is not a greater threat ANYWHERE than actual Muslim terrorists. So… you’re saying there were more than 155 victims of actual Muslim terrorists, in the United States in 2012? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/68 "2014-12-17T22:12:01Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > So… you’re saying there were more than 155 victims of actual Muslim terrorists, in the United States in 2012? IF all 155 of those Muslims were murdered (and they weren’t obviously- most of those crimes involved vandalism), and if that kept up for 20 years, it would equal 9/11. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/69 "2014-12-17T22:26:16Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > IF all 155 of those Muslims were murdered (and they weren’t obviously- most of those crimes involved vandalism), and if that kept up for 20 years, it would equal 9/11. He asked you about 2012, not 2001. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/70 "2014-12-17T23:38:55Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The most recent FBI stats I’ve seen for hate crimes in the US are for the calendar year 2012. The stats are here: > > [http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/victims\_final](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/victims_final) > > How many religion-based hate crimes were there in 2012? One thousand, three hundred and forty. And the great majority of the victims were… Jewish! > > Just over 11% of the victims were Muslims. That’s 11.6% of 1,340 people. Or (drum roll) 155 people. > > NOBODY deserves to be assaulted or to have a home or business vandalized, but come now! In a nation of over 300,000,000, that’s all but insignificant. > > Muslims in the US are not under siege, they are NOT being assaulted left and right, and rednecks are NOT murdering them in broad daylight. Religious hate crimes overall are extremely rare in America, thank God (or law enforcement). > > Shouldn’t you be HAPPY about that, rather than inflating the danger Muslims face? So 11% of religious hate crimes are carried out against something less than 2% of the American population - and you consider that a success? And I’m certain that the crimes against Jews are also out of proportion to their share of the population, but that is a non sequitur in this conversation. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/71 "2014-12-18T03:20:03Z")
What is offensive about the ride with you sentiment is that it assumes that other Australians are stupid and violent people who are just going to react to the terrorist attack by assaulting the first muslim they see. It betrays such a low opinion of the rest of their fellow countrymen. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/72 "2014-12-18T03:29:43Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > If “they’re not being lynched in the streets” “they’re not being put into internment camps ala WW2 Japanese-American style” and “mosques aren’t being burned down” (just huge stinks to stop the ‘Ground Zero’ mosque from being built) are your markers to prove that there was no such thing as the anti-Muslim backlash after 9/11 and consider a 1700% increase in hate crimes directed towards Muslims in the year after the 2001 attack reported by the FBI as unimportant it rather shows where you are coming from. Using benchmarks like this I could prove racism no longer exists in the US. After all, nobody’s lynching blacks or burning down black churches anymore, right? The use of percentages makes the actual increase seem much bigger than it really was. There were 28 hate crimes against muslims in 2000 and 481 in 2001. That is a big increase in terms of percentage but it was still less than half of the number of hate crimes committed against white people and 650 less than were committed against jews. In 2000 99.9985% of muslims were not victims of a hate crime and in 2001 99.975% of muslims were not victims of a hate crime. Hate crimes went from really, really, really, really rare, to really, really, really rare. Not much of a backlash. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/73 "2014-12-18T03:58:51Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > In 2000 99.9985% of muslims were not victims of a hate crime and in 2001 99.975% of muslims were not victims of a hate crime. Hate crimes went from really, really, really, really rare, to really, really, really rare. Not much of a backlash. On September 11, 2001, 99.9999895% of Americans were not victims of actual Muslim terrorism. For the whole span since, and for every year and day within that span, the figure has been _much_ closer to 100%. So it appears that–by percentages–actual Muslim terrorism went from really, really, really, really, really rare, on that one day, to damn near nonexistent ever since. Well, this _is_ a relief all round, I’m sure. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/74 "2014-12-18T04:47:38Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > With respect, this makes you part of the problem. It is the expectation that other muslims are obligated to do this which causes the injustice addressed by #illridewithyou in the first place. > > For each muslim you encounter, your initial assumption should be “this is an ordinary person who would not in a million years kill people for the sake of ideology.” The reason this should be your initial assumption is the fact that it is almost certainly going to be true, every time. If you are initially assuming something else, you’re part of the problem. If you’re expecting muslims to cater this assumption on your part or this assumption you expect others to hold, then you’re part of the problem. > > You’re invited to be part of the solution instead. And just who are those folks fighting for ISIL in Syria and Iraq? With the Taliban in Afghanistan? Killing students in Pakistan? Kidnapping girls in Nigeria? etc. These people came from somewhere and are multitudinous. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/75 "2014-12-18T04:56:48Z")
> [@BOOM](#): > > I’m here, living and working amongst it. That liberal dream died 15 years ago - no one bought that bogus coffee-coloured utopia. Economic migrants laugh at it. > > There is no assimilation for the first generation, there is variable \*\*assimilation for subsequent generations - in fact, many first generation have no intention of their even being a second generation (the wife will return home with the chilrden where they will live middle class lives based on the husbands first world income). > > It’s not hard to fathom; who the fuck would aspire to western values and western culture. … > > I have no idea where you live but this is the this real world we live in here… _meh_ If I recall, you live in the UK,where, for various odd reasons, Pakistani assimilation has tended to be slower than among other groups. However, assimilation is still occurring among Pakistanis and it is occurring more swiftly among Muslims from other locales. Meanwhile, Muslim assimilation in Europe and North America is continuing at about the same pace as previous immigrant populations. Claims that Muslims just do not want to join the larger society are nothing more than the false rhetoric of the anti-immigrtion polemicists. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/76 "2014-12-18T05:01:41Z")
\*\* > [@madsircool](#): > > These people came from somewhere and are multitudinous. Nah. There are more than we would like to see, (as is any number greater than zero), but claims that there are multitudes of them is simply not factual. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/77 "2014-12-18T05:09:19Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > \*\*Nah. There are more than we would like to see, (as is any number greater than zero), but claims that there are multitudes of them is simply not factual. Really? They have the manpower to resist the Armies of such nations as Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, The Phillipines etc. Thats a lot of people willing to die for their cause. And make others die. In Western countries a certain level of assimilation is absolutely required. We dont allow slavery; forced and child marriage nor honor killings. We believe in the equality of the sexes. Sure. lets give everyone the benefit of the doubt while at the same time remaining vigilant. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/78 "2014-12-18T05:10:35Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The use of percentages makes the actual increase seem much bigger than it really was. There were 28 hate crimes against muslims in 2000 and 481 in 2001. That is a big increase in terms of percentage but it was still less than half of the number of hate crimes committed against white people and 650 less than were committed against jews. Of course, this conveniently ignores the fact that the driver for anti-Muslim hate crimes only occurred when more than two-thirds of the year had passed and probably does not include those Sikhs and Lebanese, Syrian, or Egyptian Christians who were targeted because some idiot decided that they “looked Muslim” or had Arabic names. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/79 "2014-12-18T05:26:18Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Really? They have the manpower to resist the Armies of such nations as Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, The Phillipines etc. Thats a lot of people willing to die for their cause. And make others die. Nice goalpost shift. You were initially responding to a comment thaat referred to those you would “meet on the street.”. Unless you have the habit of wandering down the streets of Aleppo, Kabul, Kandahar, and similar cities on a regular basis, you are not going to encounter " multitudes" of bloodthirsty Muslims. (And that is without even going into the various differences and ethnic and political conflicts that are behind the strife in the places you named.) ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406/80 "2014-12-18T05:43:53Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Nice goalpost shift. You were initially responding to a comment thaat referred to those you would “meet on the street.”. Unless you have the habit of wandering down the streets of Aleppo, Kabul, Kandahar, and similar cities on a regular basis, you are not going to encounter " multitudes" of bloodthirsty Muslims. (And that is without even going into the various differences and ethnic and political conflicts that are behind the strife in the places you named.) Not a goalpost shift as these groups recruit internationally. And, of course, are financed internationally. A bit off-topic, but lets also give a thought to the various minority Christian communities across the Islamic world that are being decimated; their daughters being sold into slavery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-ride-with-you-in-aftermath-of-aussie-terror-attack-touching-or-misguided/707406.md?page=5)