If that’s what he means (and I’ll let him speak for himself. If you told me the sky was blue I’d look outside to doublecheck), then there’s been a communication problem. Because what I’ve been hearing from him is that ALL muslims “spend a lot of time listening to radical clerics…don’t have many friends…and don’t try to integrate themselves into society”.
No, that sounds more like what you want to hear.
YIKES! I don’t how you gleaned that from my words. But this thread has been quite interesting in how much commentary there has been on things I have not said and do not believe, yet have been attributed to me. Equally astounding is the flak I’ve been getting for an exceedingly benign position: that if we’d like to protect ourselves against the threat from radical Islam—and I believe we should, as the threat is real—then it makes perfect sense to be wary of Muslims, if that is the only information one has. Others seem to think that we should pay as much attention to Christians or Jews or Quakers. The stupidity of that position is so monumental that it is almost inconceivable. It’s as if you were looking for rabid pit bulls and wouldn’t first narrow down your search to all pit bulls, but include golden retrievers and springer spaniels and toy poodles in your search. But such is what political correctness does to the mind. In this regard (the effects of one having an infatuation with being politically correct) the radio personality Michael Savage is right: liberalism is a mental disease.
It’s really quite unbelievable.
I suggest that people reread the thread. Yeesh!
In the sense that it is intended, he wasn’t. And he did not commit his heinous, murderous act in the name of Christianity. If you didn’t know that, now you do. And hopefully can see how his motivation had nothing to do with religion, which contrasts greatly from the barbarian animals who kill innocents, or try to kill innocents, in the name of Islam.
You are conflating two different positions. You’re right that it doesn’t make sense to be extra-wary of Christians or Jews when searching for radical Muslims. But! Just because we should be wary of Muslims as opposed to Christians or Jews concerning the issue of Radical Islam specifically does NOT mean that we should be wary of ALL Muslims just because of the existence of radical Islam. You say “if that is the only information one has”. But that is never going to happen outside a hypothetical situation. There is always more information, and it is almost always more pertinent than religion. One’s religion is typically fairly irrelevant, because people behave in all wildly sorts of different ways despite being the same religion, and because there are countless varieties of almost every religion. The fact that you think everyone should be wary of Muslim people based solely on their religion suggests that you do think that it is an indicator of future behavior, which is, as I explained repeatedly, both stupid and inaccurate.
Let’s take an analogy. Say, in Largecity USA there were a rash of robberies, and every eyewitness reported the assailants as being black. Yes, it would be stupid for the police to arrest people of every race equally for this particular crime. But! It would be equally stupid for you to be fearful of every black person in the city because of the rash of robberies.
I’m not sure if you’ve read the whole thread, but I’ve repeatedly said that it makes sense as a first step. Do we want to identify radical Muslims? Assuming “yes”, then you first tighten the scope from 300 million people to about 2.5 by using “Muslim” as the first filter. That’s all I’ve been saying. And that doesn’t necessitate any action at that point, because the pool is still too large. So, next you maybe tighten the scope further by looking at, for instance, gender, age, particular mosque affiliation, travel to Yemen. You apply as many filters as you can. But the first one is the easiest and the most logical—and it will need to be applied at some time in the process anyway. A radical Muslim belongs to the larger set of “Muslims”.
The first question I have to ask is: what percent of Largecity is black. If the answer is 99%, that information will not be nearly as useful as if the population was less than 1% black.
If that’s all you’re saying, that’s fine. I agree. But yes I have read the whole thread, and that’s not what it sounded like you were saying, is all.
The national average, seeing as it’s a hypothetical example. 14%.
Well, if you’d care to pull out some quotes of mine that might conflict with I just said, I’d be happy to address them. And be curious to see them.
Then it would probably be somewhat helpful. The point is that the smaller the percent the more helpful it would be. Obvious if the percent were so small that it defined only five individuals, that would be REALLY helpful.
Lets say that we have statistical proof that vegetarian are more likely to become genocidal tyrants than omnivores. Should we be wary of electing vegetarians?
Christian. The odds are overwhelmingly in my favor.
Yeah, pretty much.
I don’t disagree (i don’t think ANYONE disagrees) that there is a threat from radical Islam. I disagree that we cast a “wary” eye towards ALL muslims because I am so fucking afraid one of them is going to be wearing a suicide vest.
I think I’d like evidence that a muslim did it before I started rounding them up.
It sounds like you have a LOT of other factors you can use for your filter before you cast a broad net over all muslims. If you guys want to refine your wariness to religious radicals that spout hateful bullshit that don’t seem to have many friends other than the other radicals they meet at the church/mosque/temple/shrine that allows radical fuckwits to preach there, then fine. If there is a history of violence from members of that congregation then I’ve got no problem with what you are saying but when you say, “lets watch out for those muslims” thats just bigotry.
Especially when the exhortation is to be “wary” (wink wink nudge nudge)
Yes ^ this
Or radical muslims belong to the larger set of radicals. Why not just keep an eye on all radicals, why cast the net as muslims and filter out the radicals why not just cast the net at radicals?
OK lets say its NYC with a population of 20 million. 1% would be about 200,000 blacks. You are casting a net that is unnecessarily racist/bigoted. My instinct would be to cast the net at radicals of all flavors, white supremecists, christian identity, pro-lifers, the weather underground, skinheads, teabaggers, American Patriots for Freedom Foundation, Central Texas Militia, Texas Well Regulated Militia, vegetarians, American Armenian Militia, Freedom Force International, and all manner of other radical groups.
The thing is that he is only suggesting we be “wary” of muslims based on their muslimness because there are some radicals among them. Why not just target radicals (e.g. militais and radical muslim groups)?
Depends on the numbers.
And I don’t disagree either.
Nope. It’s common sense. If you’re looking for rabid pit bulls, looking for pit bulls is a pretty good start.
I think that’s fine, too. I’d look at it both ways. It’s my guess that there is a greater likeliood that a Muslim radical could fly under the radar as a “radical”, so I’d start with “Muslim”. But even if you start with “Radical”, isn’t “Muslim” the next sieve? I hope so, because otherwise you’re wasting a lot of time looking at people that, by definition, you know are not Muslim radicals. But for some strange reason you are INTENT on ignoring Muslimness as a qualifying factor. That’s just dumb when the people you are looking for are 1) Muslim, of the 2) radical strain.
Well, this is just insane, and shows where your priorities are. You have a crime that you know to be committed by a black person, yet you would waste time and resources looking at skinheads and white supremacists? Please tell me you made a mistake. Because that is just plain counterproductive. Not to mention just plain dumb.
You really felch at analogies. It’s actually as if one were looking for a rabid dog, but focused on pit bulls because a few of them are rabid. If I’m looking for a rabid dog, I’m looking for loss of memory, mood changes, motor control issues, and drooling in any breed of dog. You would be looking for dogs that have genetic features that matched the last dog you saw with rabies.
You are, unsurprisingly, wrong. In my example we are trying to find “rabid pit bulls”—that was the danger we’ve identified. Not just rabid dogs, but rabid pit bulls. we have that much information, not less. THAT much is a given in the exercise. In which case my analogy works perfectly:
starting set… Americans… Dogs
smaller benign subset… Muslims…Pit bulls
smaller still dangerous subset…Radical Muslim… Rabid pit bulls
Or…
Americans : Muslims : Radical Muslims :: Dogs : Pit Bulls : Rabid Pit Bulls
If you want to redefine the task, that’s different. But my analogy works perfectly. If not, feel free to point out where the flaw is. But you don’t get to redefine the problem in the process. Or don’t you know what an analogy is?
I don’t think he knows what an analogy is.
Still, at least Damuri has kept quiet since that ridiculous paragraph upthread.
Help, I’ve been savaged by a poodle.
Then your example sucks. We’re looking for terrorists, not Muslim terrorists.
It’s only muslim terrorists that are talking about waging a Holy War - I’m fucked if I know how one of them works, but still - against The Infidel West And All Its Allies.
Just sayin’, like.
IOW… you muslims do what you can to expose the haters among your crowd, and right-thinking people across the divide will do their best to limit the hateful elements among our kind.
Let’s, for a minute, say you’re correct and that terrorism defined more broadly is a threat we need to be concerned with. Wouldn’t the next step be to try to define that terrorism more narrowly so we can address it. Maybe say, “Okay, we have three strains of terrorists that we need to try to stop before they kill: Skinheads, Christian anti-abortionists, and Muslim extremists.” Notice that we are allowing the groups themselves to narrow down who they are. And it needn’t be religious. But it can be religious. Would you agree that that makes sense so far?
To quote the New York Post of April 20, 1995:
“Knowing that the car bomb indicates Middle Eastern terrorists at work, it’s safe to assume that their goal is to promote free-floating fear and a measure of anarchy thereby disrupting American life.”
Granted, the event of April 19, 1995, they were editorializing about turned out to have been perpetrated by non-Muslim Timothy McVeigh, but that’s just one of those minor technicalities.
Therefore:
starting set… Americans… Dogs
smaller benign subset… Right Wingers…Pit bulls
smaller still dangerous subset…Radical Right Wingers… Rabid pit bulls
Or…
Americans : Right Wingers : Radical Right Wingers :: Dogs : Pit Bulls : Rabid Pit Bulls
Gotta be wary of them Right Wingers.
Failing that, we get more occurrences of the Alfred P. Murrah building, Atlanta Olympics bombing, etc.