It’s true that not all terrorists are living on welfare, but quite a few of them are (or were). E.g. most of the Palestinian suicide bombers and most of the Arab thugs who are terrorizing Jews throughout much of Europe.
What’s really stupid is the theory that terrorism is caused by poverty and desperation. Virtually none of the WTC attackers, suicide bombers, etc. are desperately impoverished. Yet that theory is considered respectable.
No doubt, terrorism has many causes. Some are more important than others.
Question: *What’s your choice as the single most significant cause of terrorism? *
You may be hard-pressed to find a single cause that accounts for more of the terrorism than welfare does.
What was that phrase I saw in another thread? Oh yeah.
“Watch out where you point that causality arrow, you could hurt somebody”.
I’ve read Steyn’s work. he’s an entertaining, intelligent writer, but he’s also a right-wing loon whose work in the National Post was always to be taken with a grain of salt and who had little problem jumping to vast conclusions to back up his sometimes poorly-thought-out conclusions.
I’m starting to wonder if Kaus is joking, however, because this is pretty dumb. Would cutting off support actually help? Let’s see… the U.S. has a weaker welfare state than Canada, cultures are similar, so by this logic Canada should have more terrorists and more violence. This is quite simply not the case, and I’m sure comparisons of other nations that controlled for the innumerable confounding factors would go similarly.
The situation in Palestine is not welfare in any ordinary sense of the word, but something rather different. An occuption, illegal under international law and in an area where the economy is dysfunctional for non-market reasons. Fucking stupidity.
The Arab thugs as you put it, well perhaps many are on various forms of social aid, we’d have to look at what the data says. However, acts of vandalism, hate crimes against Jews etc (which are hardly the sole province of ‘Arab’ thugs, as anyone who has followed European events knows, e.g. bias crimes in former East Germany) are not terrrorism – unless we begin to radically expand the meaning of the word into new realms.
That theory at least has something more than some right-wing whackos with obvious axes to grind.
The drooling idiocy which you’re promoting here, not only sad for the obvious agenda (hey let’s link welfare to terrorism) but also for its a priori nature.
Virtually none of the WTC terrorists appear to have been on welfare either, to my knowledge. 2 perhaps at one time were on the dole, perhaps.
This of course abstracts away from anything that we actually know about terror organizations, e.g. origins of Jihadi orgs.
No december prefers to engage the lowest form of smearing one could imagine. One need not even like the idea of welfare - social welfare systems to be revolted by this anti-intellectual, anti-rational nonesense he has spewed here.
No, you would not, if one were not wearing ideological blinders and looking for new and yet more disgusting ways to smear.
This really is a new low.
Learn something real about terrorist orgs before planting your head more firmly up your rear.
I read Kaus’ agrument some time ago and it confused me, as his theories usually hold more water. I believe he is simply overreacting at the news a Western government was ‘funding’ a terrorist. He would have been better suited to try blaming it directly on unemployment, though I also have another suspect.
Terrorism occurs nominally in certain situations, like rust on iron. It’s not a new concept. What we think of as modern terrorists, i.e. suicide bombers, skyjackers, truck bombers, mail bombers, snipers, etc, is merely a more technologically advanced and intellectually refined version of a crazed rioter. That job has probably been around longer than prostitution.
Rioters riot because of desperation and anger. Terrorists, at least the footmen, have the same emotions but carefully plan and execute their release for better effect. Their leaders are by necessity even more calculating. They do not have the excuse of sudden passion. So add intelligence bent to evil to the mix, too.
I would also add that there is a distinction in my mind between the impoverished and those that decide terrorism is a valid option. The latter are quite often from entirely different circles, such as the privileged Bin Laden and his Egyptian/Saudi lackeys, taking cover between the Palestinians for their own reasons, bloodlust very possibly among them.
Having, myself, lived on British welfare for a depressingly long time, I can assure you all that it does not provide enough spare money for flying lessons, assault rifles, Semtex, or any of the other 1,001 necessities of modern terrorist life. Organized terrorist groups are backed by either national governments or well-heeled private individuals with an axe to grind. Supplementary Benefit and Housing Allowance are most certainly inadequate for the task.
But poverty, oppression, powerlessness and hopelessness create a fertile breeding ground for terrorism.
And remember: these “terrorists” aren’t thinking “we have a bad standard of life, we shall become terrorists and terrorise”, they are thinking “we are oppressed, we shall become freedom fighters and fight for freedom.”
But istara, december is not saying that poverty is the main cause of terrorism (if he was he’d at least have a somewhat defensible position) his stance is that welfare is the leading cause of terrorism. So it’s not the fact that these people are living in sub-standard conditions that fuels the ire-- it’s the fact that they are receiving aid that causes them to strap bombs on their chests and blow up innocent people.
I’m still astounded that december thinks the UN should have (or even could have) set up a Palestinian State. Hey, if it was a good idea in the 40’s it’s a good idea in the '00s. The UN should march into the Holy Land RIGHT NOW and set up that mini-country. That should put an end to the terrorism.
And after that the ACLU should open an office in the capital of Palestinia and fight for the end of religious discrimination.
Since you have provided not one shred of evidence that “Welfare” accounts for terrorism at all, and in fact have yet to even provide a reasonable logical argument why it would, I’d say it would be very easy to find causes that account for more terrorism.
Ethnic and religious hatred would be a good place to start.
Mark Steyn is the guy who made up the lie, spread without retraction (despite its exposure) by many, including the poster of the OP, that Hillary Clinton said she was named after Edmund Hillary.
Anyone who chooses to take a proven liar such as Steyn at face value is welcome to do so, but at the expense of looking foolish rather than convincing.
I think that this is one of those insidious things – an assertion with some truth to it, but a premise that is grossly oversimplified. I’ve read in several places (and, for the life of me, I can’t recall where) that the most likely time for terrorist/revolutionary acts is when a people is on its way up – when they are beginning to have greater influence, a better standard of living, less cruashing poverty and less discrimination. The reason may be that they see the way things could be, but that they have not achieved parity yet, or not at a fast enough rate, or think they may not get it at all, whereas earlier they were not aware of it, or were so brutally repressed that it seemed an unreachable goal. If your aim is to prevent or minimize terrorism or revolts, your obvious reaction is thus to keep your opponents in repression, poverty, and bondage.
From the viewpoint of a thinking, humane person, of course, this is monstrous. It is the paradox of creating liberty, and I do not know the solution. Do you really suggest keeping immigrants in poverty, or rejecting all of them?
Incidentally for an example of unintentionally state-supported revolution, look at the relatively lenient way the Russians treated Lenin and company. He had plenty of leisure for his writings. I’m sure a lot of Russians blamed the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 on the freeing of the serfs.