Wow. I wish he’d followed up that question about how the American people are to trust him when he’s providing false information while denigrating the media for “fake news” with this one:
“How can you as president, trust advisors who are apparently providing incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading information to him that is causing him to mislead the American public? And as a follow-up, are you now considering vetting that information provided to you more closely before disseminating it?”
Or maybe he just takes the stats with a pinch of salt? Swedish authorities do have previous for downplaying sexual assaults by minorities. A decade ago the parents of Rotherham would have had no idea a rape crimewave was on their doorstep if they only looked at official statistics.
I get that, but as I’ve also been in receipt of anecdotal data from people in Malmo that there is no rape crimewave caused by refugees/migrants, I don’t see which can be taken more seriously. If it was one-sided that locals insisted it was a problem, sure, it should be investigated more closely.
I mean, the point about Rotherham is, we didn’t just suddenly believe anecdote, rumour and assumption - we discovered the data was incomplete, and improved data led to action.
We didn’t just decide to blame a section of society because it ‘made sense’ or made us feel good.
Bolding mine. Let’s be clear: your “radicalized Muslim” was an American-born citizen of immigrant parents who’d been in the U.S. legally for over 30 years and who has been reported to have been violent and troubled since elementary school. He also seemed to have a preoccupation with guns and was reported to be mentally unstable. I wonder how much his family’s religion had to do with the shooting given all the other factors of it that are shared by so many other mass shootings. I wonder why it’s so important to point out the religion of Muslim shooters but not that of non-Muslim shooters.
How about exending the tme frame a little:
I added the ‘Christian’ part as Wikipedia hasn’t got around t that yet
You might as well toss in the Unabomber, too.
I don’t know of any evidence that Ted Kaczynski was a Christian or a member of any other organized or semi-organized religion, but I’d be interested in seeing some.
I think he was being somewhat sarcastic in the sense of suggesting that Kaczynski was as Christian as McVeigh.
McVeigh was raised nominally Catholic professed to be an agnostic though just before dying requested a priest.
Like most Polish Americans of his generation, Kaczynski was raised nominally Catholic but I think he came to more vocally reject it than McVeigh did.
I don’t think either’s actions could be connected at all to their religious backgrounds or beliefs.
Ah, you could be right about it being sarcasm ; sarcasm can be tough to discern on the internet.
Do you have a cite for Kaczynski being raised nominally Catholic? I’ve never seen anything referring to any religious aspect of his life. The Wikipedia page doesn’t mention anything, for instance.
A minor quibble about your wording; we discovered the data from Rotherham was being deliberately hidden rather than incomplete.
To be honest what you or I think about Rotherham or Malmo is of minor importance. Neither of us are experiencing the situation their from day to day. The only way the stats should effect us is on whether we think Trump has a point. With regards to the actual situation on the ground in Malmo or Rotherham the only people whose opinions really matter are locals. It is Malmo locals who experience their own lives and community relations at first hand. Certainly the locals of Rotherham suspected something was amiss long before official stats caught up with their concerns. Now, the locals of Malmo may be wrong about fearing immigrants; their fears may be irrational. However, im sitting here in a comfy suburb in the UK. I am not about to tell Malmo locals they have little or nothing to fear from immigrants. They know far better than you or I what currently concerns them.
My cite from Ted Chiang’s short story shows that there has been a concern for years about the problems caused by alien invasions from outer space. Why does the media not give more reporting to these genuine concerns?
Wikipedia says:
His professed motive had a whole lot to do with his religion, which is why I mentioned it.
I didn’t see religion mentioned. You’re inferring he was seeking revenge for Islam and not for the people the USA bombed several thousands miles away from its own borders?
Ah, but of course, the USA only kills ‘known terrorists’.
It seems an “expert” featured on The O’Reilly Factor was nothing of the sort…
It’s not as though it’s the first time, either.
It is true that there is a concern among some ill-informed people, based on the rhetoric of xenophobes, that such a Muslim desire exists.
However, there is no general movement or desire among Muslims (in or out of Europe) for any such conversion. When Bat Ye’or/Gisèle Littman, Christopher Caldwell, Mark Steyn, Niall Ferguson, Geert Wilders, or other vile haters, (to be unthinkingly quoted by idiots and politics-driven xenophobes such Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter or Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum) make their bold claims about what “Muslims want,” they are generally talking about a fringe group of Muslims who do not even live in Europe (ISIS/Caliphate groupies) or they are making it up for their own political purposes.
Studies in Europe persistently demonstrate that Muslim immigrants have been happy to assimilate into European culture. Rather than wishing to self-segregate and live by themselves, immigrant segregation has been the result of poor immigrants settling in the most affordable (cheapest) housing along with the rules of several European nations that makes it difficult for non-citizens to purchase housing.
And, as noted in the notorious “Muslim” riots in France, a few years ago, most of the rioters were unemployed kids who had already turned away from the faith of their parents. In other words, the only connection religion had to the violence was that the rioters, who no longer held those beliefs, perceived themselves to have been persecuted for being associated with that religion.
The concerns may be truly felt, but they are based on lies and old fashioned xenophobia.
(For a good examination of this phenomenon, check out The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West? by Doug Saunders.)
Absolutely right.
Trouble is, for many Republicans their feelings are more important than factual information.
For some of them, this is uncomfortable, because they know deep down that facts are important. Lucky for them, they can now fall back on the “FAKE NEWS!” bullshit that is being promoted by their Dear Leader, and now they can simply pretend the facts don’t even exist.
I don’t know if it really counts as an “inference” when the guy pledged allegiance to ISIS during the middle of his terrorist attack. Here is a little more detail:
It’s about as classic a case of Islamic terrorism as I can come up with. You seem to be trying to argue that his religion had nothing to do with it. That seems like a silly argument to try to make, but I’ll be delighted if you continue trying.
ETA: I’ll get back to this …