That’s fair. I should have said the Provisional IRA in the modern era were murdering criminal scum. It’s not true they were nothing more or less than murderers, because of their other criminal actions.
My comment was more based around a complete opposition to the granting of political status to such thugs. It wasn’t meant (though I accept it read as such) to make any comment on Ireland’s history and the IRA’s role in that.
I’m not sure you get my point. The modern PIRA didn’t exist in a vacuum, their foundation was a direct result of violence visited on the Catholic minority in NI at the time by representatives of the state etc.
This screams for a cite. And I mean a good one.
This is exactly the problem, and why I’ve concluded that these hearings aren’t the best idea. I think the downside outweighs any upside I can see. I think it would be better for them to dial up the FBI vigilance and have them report to congress in a closed session. This is just an opportunity for grandstanding and speechifying from both sides.
Oh, and Ellison’s anecdote about the Muslim on 911: :rolleyes: Good for the man who willingly risked his life, like many other did. But to hold him up as proof that King’s fears aren’t justified is ridiculous.
No doubt. Having an excuse doesn’t make someone less of a murderer.
No, but when you state that they were murderers, nothing more, nothing less, you ignore that the context in which they acted, for good or ill, made them something more than murderers in the eyes of many. This includes the British and Irish states as evinced by the de facto bestowal of political status on both Republican and Loyalist terrorists and the release of prisoners post-Good Friday Agreement.
Oklahoma City, all by itself.
Just because something was deemed pragmatic doesn’t make it right. I don’t know if there was another choice to the kowtowing to terrorists that occurred, but it wasn’t done out of any recognition that political status was merited.
I’d agree that many people saw them as more than murderers. Doesn’t make a difference to their true status (as well as that of the loyalist murderers too).
I realize I’m a couple days behind here, but I just have to say that this is about as perfect a rebuttal as I’ve ever seen. No wonder **astorian **ignored it.
We already have the evidence that King’s fears are not justified. They were noted in the news article to which I linked as well as the university study to which I referred. On the other hand, that man’s experience is exactly proof that King’s (invented) fears are not justified while Ellison’s fears regarding the results of King’s grandstanding are justified. A person who actually participated in helping at the WTC site has been abused by people since that time for the simple fact that he is Muslim. In other words, the man is suffering for exactly the sort of behavior that King is promoting by pretending that Muslims are not actually opposing terrorism or behaving as good Americans. King has deliberately set up the hearings to ignore testimony that countered the fearmongering he wants to push.
Anyone who claims that Muslims are not doing their part or not doing enough is guilty of dishonesty or willfull ignorance. There is plenty of information out there regarding the efforts of American Muslims to oppose terrorism and anyone who says that it is an open question is either lying or deliberately ignoring that information.
Muslims in the U.S. have been instrumental in exposing about half the attempts at terrorist attacks that have been planned, here. Law enforcement officials have noted that they have received excellent cooperation from Muslim communities. These facts contradict King’s claims.
Except:
Irrelevant. Every incident is only one incident, and I didn’t say it was the only incident, but it’s the only incident I need to support my case. I’m saying Oklahoma City, in itself, killed more people than all incidents of political violence committed by “homegrown” Muslims put together.
I beg to differ.
He didn’t start saying he was an agnostic until years after the crime. Before that he was still indicating that he had “strong beliefs,” though he admitted he’d drifted away from capitalism.
You’re also nitpicking a descriptive details that don’t really matter. The essential point was that he was a homegrown, white, Christian raised conventional American white boy. He was not a Muslim.
There are also several other examples of irrefutaby “Christian,” terrorism against abortion providers and homosexuals. There is virtually no violence committed by homegrown Muslims.
You don’t get it. Muslims (of all political stripes) shout, “Allahu akbar,” all the time for any number of reasons. It’s like, “Yee-haw,” or something. Even if every terrorist in North America shouted that, there would still be orders of magnitude more Muslims who are prone to say, “Allahu akbar,” who aren’t.
Well, not if one is trying to get a holy war going. Perhaps the distinguished gentleman is concerned that American Muslims aren’t keeping up their end of the Clash of Civilizations[sup]TM[/sup] and thinks they need to be more alienated.
Except for all those terrorist plots by homegrown Muslims listed in that Rand report I linked to the other day. Most of them didn’t result in violence because the plots failed…people turned them in, or the FBI caught them.
And you’re right. There’s virtually no violence committed by homegrown Muslims. There’s virtually no violence committed by homegrown Christians either. Most people are decent and lawabiding. A few aren’t.
How soon they forget the Irish mob. 
I’m going to have to disagree here on practical grounds. You want us to put all the Irish nationalists in the USA in prison? Like we don’t have enough overcrowding!
People should remember when arguing with Dio that he insists that acts committed by Muslim Americans like myself who were born outside the US shouldn’t be considered to be examples of domestic terrorism.
He’d like to pretend that the vast majority of Muslims in America were born in America versus having immigrated there.
I should add that such an attitude is not only exceptionally stupid and irrational, but that it’s also extremely offensive and nativist.
No it hasn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
While technically within the rules as an attack on an idea, rather than a poster, the effect of this comment is obviously intended as an insult.
Back off.
[ /Moderating ]
My quote was that organized crime is LARGELY an Italian affair, and it is.
There have been big-time Irish gangsters, but the days of Bugsy Moran are long gone. There are still gangs like the Westies, but even they know better than to antagonize the Italians.
Is that still the case though? I know the growth of Eastern European organized crime has been massive, and the role of the Yardies in the UK (I don’t know about the US) is commonly discussed. And then you have the Asian gangs.
“Perhaps you’ve heard of the Yakuza — the Poison Fists of the Pacific Rim — the Japanese mafia.” 