This is just a juvenile and ignorant response, IMO. If we look at the last half century or so, America has been far, far more welcoming of Muslim immigrants than most other western countries, to our benefit and their detriment. What you advocate would make America weaker and less safe.
I don’t think it takes bravery to take the exit door, especially when you think paradise is outside, and the aftermath of your despicable action is on the inside.
I think the reason people get confused about this, and think there is some double-standard, is because soldiers who, say, run through enemy fire, are lauded as being incredibly brave.
The difference though is they are not (usually) *trying *to die; their normal fear of death is right there; they are just fighting it temporarily.
OTOH pressing a button that will blow your body to bits in a fraction of a second is arguably less brave than taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
In as far as suicide bombing requires any bravery, it is mainly the thought of What if the bomb doesn’t go off?
I’ll concede you either need balls to accept that risk, or to be ignorant of that possibility.
I think the term brave is meaningless when you’re talking about suicide bombers. What are they supposed to be scared of? Going to heaven forever? Ooh how brave :rolleyes:
But Slacker asked why it is that if suicide bombing is because of western colonialism, the bombers only belong to one religion? You said it’s because non Muslims are wimps. In other words people who don’t fly planes into western civilians are cowards. So woke :rolleyes:
Yeah, really brave:
Can you please point to something specific that you think a particular Twitter user did wrong in publicly disagreeing with Kelly’s tweet about Churchill? Because AFAICT, there was no concerted “attack” or “hounding” of Kelly: there were just a bunch of his followers calmly disagreeing with him on Twitter about whether or not Churchill was one of the greatest leaders of modern times. ISTM that the only people who would consider that “extremist loon” behavior are the hysterical anti-PC types who get vociferously upset about anything in the way of public moral or political controversy.
By the way, are you also going to get upset about the Churchill fans who tweeted disagreement with Kelly for his apology for his original tweet? AFAICT they are just as much a “Twitter mob” who “attacked and hounded” Kelly as the ones you’re complaining about.
Was that “fucking ridiculous” behavior too? If not, why not? Why is it automatically “extremist loon” behavior to criticize Churchill publicly but perfectly normal to defend Churchill publicly against criticism?
Sure, that’s why I asked for clarification about exactly what was meant by “mass immigration” and “in large numbers” in this context.
But your “51%” number doesn’t provide a lot of clarification in that regard. Because AFAICT there is no realistic scenario under which European Muslim populations are on track to reach anything like 51% of the total population. Even if refugee resettlement continued indefinitely at the same high levels as in 2014-2016, which is extremely unlikely, Muslims would still make up less than a third of the population of every (currently non-Muslim-majority) western European country by 2050, and in most countries less than a fifth. Under more realistic immigration scenarios, those percentages would be considerably smaller.
So, again, exactly what numbers are we talking about when we express concern about Muslim immigration “in large numbers”?
Certainly not, which is why I asked for clarification about exactly what was meant by the “danger” and “reasonable fear” concerning Muslim immigrants.
But I would think that if “western secular values” are of such importance to Scandinavian countries, they need to pay more attention to their own rapidly growing far-right neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic political movements.
Er, you maybe need to learn a little more about Indian Hindus vis-a-vis religious tolerance issues.
Of course, the vast majority of Indian Hindus are peaceful non-extremists who would not kill somebody for holding the “wrong” views on religion. But then, so are the vast majority of Pakistani Muslims.
From your link:
I guess we need to define “welcoming”. According to Pew, Muslims now make up 1.1% of the U.S. population. I’m sure there were some American Muslims fifty years ago, but I think we can safely assume that fifty years ago the percentage was less than half that, and perhaps much less.
Nine percent of France’s population is Muslim; the number is eight percent in Sweden in Belgium; and it is six or seven percent in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K. I can’t find historical numbers before 1990, but Pew says the Muslim population of Europe grew by 50% between 1990 and 2010.
Point being that Western European and Nordic countries have increased their Muslim populations by far more than the U.S. has over the fifty years you reference. To me, that makes them more “welcoming”. But you are presumably talking about a greater backlash against Muslim immigration on a grassroots level in Europe. While I think that’s debatable given that Trump won the election (which, again according to Pew, has resulted in a drastic drop in Muslim immigration since Trump came into office, one of the only good things about his presidency) and those trying to unseat Angela Merkel lost, it’s still apples and oranges because what would we expect? The U.S. should be expected to have far less backlash for increasing its Muslim population from less than one percent to one percent, compared to those other countries that were probably at one percent or less fifty years ago and are at six, seven, eight, or nine percent now.
Not to mention that the U.S. has had nothing remotely similar to the sexual assault problems Europeans have had with Muslim immigrants. If that were going on here, you can be sure there would be a huge backlash and a politician like Merkel who is strongly in favor of Muslim immigration would lose in a landslide instead of continuing to win as she has.
You make a good point that this is pretty troublesome all on its own. The other thing that occurred to me is that even if we accepted these attacks as a morally justified response to oppression, Dibble was basically doing some selective victim-blaming there. By his logic, Polish Jews who didn’t rise up against the Nazis were also “wimpy”. :dubious:
Because it’s Winston fucking Churchill. :smack: For god’s sake, the 2018 Best Actor Oscar just went to Gary Oldman a few months ago for his hagiographic portrayal of Churchill. Another award-winner at that most recent Oscars was “Dunkirk”, which closes with a stirring Churchill speech on the radio. And these awards were voted on by the new, more “woke” Academy that famously had its “court packed” with younger and more diverse members. So again: regardless of what facts one can bring to bear for this Chomskyesque historical revisionism, it looks like “extremist loon” behavior to your average Joe and Jane, or even to somewhat less average folks, while a defense of Churchill looks very, very, very mainstream. It’s honestly bizarre that I even have to explain this. Are you somehow not experiencing American culture?
Okay, your cite convinces me that I was wrong to give Indian Hindus a pass. Now will you in turn concede that savoy’s cite demonstrates that you were way off in your characterization of Pakistani Muslims? :dubious:
ETA: I see you quoted something about 95% of Pakistanis supporting religious freedom in some general, nebulous way. But this means at least 57 percent of Pakistanis “support religious freedom” but also favor the death penalty for apostasy. That seem coherent to you? What do you think “religious freedom” means to them?
Um, that isn’t really an answer.
:dubious: This is all kind of beside the point. AFAICT there is nobody, even among those disagreeing with Kelly’s original tweet, who’s trying to argue that Churchill was completely devoid of admirable qualities or that he had some great achievements as a war leader. They’re just disagreeing—calmly, reasonably disagreeing, AFAICT—that his total record makes him “one of the greatest leaders of modern times”. It seems a bit excessive to recoil in horror from such statements as “hounding” and “attacks” that will cause liberals in general to be perceived as “extremist loons”.
Maybe I’m just too idealistic in believing that the average Joe and Jane are capable of understanding that even a respected historical figure can be validly criticized as not actually “one of the greatest leaders of modern times” without making the critic an “extremist loon”.
In any case, I certainly don’t think that we should be trying to repress valid criticisms of historical figures out of deference to Joe and Jane’s alleged hagiographic preconceptions.
If you interpreted my “characterization” along the lines of “most Pakistani Muslims don’t express adherence to any religious beliefs that aren’t peaceful and tolerant”, then sure, I readily admit that the cite disproves that statement.
But it does not disprove what I actually said, namely that the vast majority of Pakistani Muslims are “peaceful non-extremists who would not kill somebody for holding the ‘wrong’ views on religion”. Especially if we’re talking about Pakistani Muslim immigrants to the US.
“that he had” should be “that he didn’t have”, of course; sorry.
The “welcoming” I speak of is mainly about culture – America, for the most part, has a culture that is especially welcoming towards immigrants. In my understanding, most European countries do not, in general. Hence Dearborn, MI, vs nigh-segregated ethnic enclaves filled with distrust in many European cities. It’s not surprising that countries next to the MENA region will have more Muslim immigrants than a country across the Atlantic.
It’s one of the few (very few, perhaps) examples in which American culture is more progressive than European culture, in my understanding.
This sounds like right-wing propaganda. I’m unaware of some epidemic of sexual assault by Muslims in Europe, aside from Breitbartian nonsense.
Kimstu your last post was so dishonest it gave me a headache. You said the vast majority of Pakistani Muslims wouldn’t kill anybody for holding the wrong religious views. Guess what, “Hmmm Maybe Islam isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I think I’ll leave” is a religious view and 62% of them think the state should kill you for it! You literally couldn’t be more wrong.
nm
I am certainly not defending the doctrine of capital punishment for ridda or the logical consistency of the Muslims who say they support it but also support religious freedom. But I thought what we were talking about here was people actually killing people for holding the “wrong” religious beliefs.
Note, by the way, that actual Pakistani law does not impose the death penalty for apostasy from Islam. Was your own post “dishonest” for not pointing that out?
Any question??? The question was do you think apostates should be killed!!!
I guess polls which show some percentage of Americans want a wall don’t tell you ANYTHING unless you can prove they’re willing to mix the cement personally :rolleyes:
This. I mean, Kimstu: srsly? C’mon. :dubious:
I acknowledged your point about Hindus, but you just won’t admit when the stats show your position to have been erroneous.
Or maybe you just won’t admit that what the stats disprove is not the same as what I actually said?
My basic point here (which is borne out by the analysis of German rape statistics as well) is that popular stereotypes are not a reliable guide to assessing how rational or justified our fears about immigrants are.