Murders in France

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Kizmet, Nov 15, 2015.

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  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    There are a lot of very smart, accomplished people all over the world who are trying to form a response to these sorts of murders. They know much more about these things than me so I'm not going to pretend to have an answer for this problem. It seems increasingly clear, however, that this is a problem that the world has, not just the USA, and that it will require a tremendous amount of cooperation and trust to find some resolution. I grieve for the murdered French citizens and admire their strength.
     
  2. Koolcypher

    Koolcypher Member

    I say throw political correctness out the door and call it for what it is. It is time for the Muslim community to stand with the rest of the world and denounce these terrorist attacks. Muslims say that Islam is a religion of peace, well, it is time to walk the talk. Far too many Muslim countries stay quiet on the subject. Many Muslims point to the atrocities that Christians did during the Middle Ages, yes those are all true. However, they happened well over 600 years ago, times have changed, the world has changed, we no longer live in a world bound by the ideology of the Middle Ages. However, Muslims all over seem to be stuck on this rhetoric. And don't tell me Islam is a religion of peace until proven otherwise. It is fine for a Muslim to distribute Islamic literature, and open mosques in the United States, Canada, U.K., France and the rest of Europe. However, if Christians try to do the same thing in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and many other Islamic countries then they can and will be executed (heads chopped off) and no one will say anything, just another regular day.
     
  3. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Sounds like a plan.

    Of course, I'm still waiting for all pro-life Christians to publicly denounce the murder of George Tiller and other physicians who were killed by extremists.

    And, you know, the peaceful survivalists to denounce Timothy McVeigh.

    And we have a pretty sizable Buddhist temple nearby and I've not once heard them denouncing the oppression by the Buddhist majority in Myanmar.

    Collective guilt is a weird approach for a lot of reasons. Aside from the fact that a recent convert to Islam living in Dearborn Michigan has nothing to do with the activities of an extremist in France it seems that no amount of denouncing is ever really enough for people.

    I'm somewhat sensitive about the subject, however, because my great-grandfather was forced to sign a "Yay, America! Boo, Germany!" Pledge during WW2 despite the fact that the Neuhaus family has been eating their schnitzel in the US of A since the 1800s (family lore has us arriving as Hessian mercenaries during the revolutionary war but we've only been able to verify the line back to the mid 1800s). But, of course, despite the fact that my family's only connection to the "Fatherland" was our refusal to anglicize the spelling of our surname, that didn't stop people from deciding that we had no right to be horrified the same way other Americans were horrified. Nope, our family was expected to be horrified in a different and public way.

    And, naturally, no amount of denouncing Hitler was enough to convince people that my family wasn't some sort of covert Nazi operatives so, written pledges. That didn't really convince anyone either, but at least that's where things ended (internment would have been the next unfortunate step).

    ISIS is to the typical Muslim living in America, the UK and most of Europe what the Lord's Resistance Army is to the typical Christian in those same places.
     
  4. rook901

    rook901 New Member

    Frankly, I'm surprised that an aspiring theologian holds this "us versus them" mentality. Though, perhaps I shouldn't be.

    1) First of all, many Muslim leaders have, time and time again, publicly denounced the attacks of extremist militants. Source: Paris Attacks: Muslims Speak Out Against Terrorism

    2) Christian and Jewish churches and synagogues are allowed in many Muslim countries. Sources: Are Christian churches allowed in Muslim countries? | Examiner.com / PolitiFact: Most Muslim countries allow churches, synagogues | loonwatch.com

    3) Pointing out that Muslims are "stuck on . . . rhetoric" while simultaneously promoting divisiveness is just a little hypocritical.

    The problem is religion itself. Get rid of all religion, and we'll solve most of the world's issues.
     
  5. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Responding to this attack and the attackers is almost meaningless. What is necessary is a complete re-thinking of the Middle East and the West's role in it.

    We set up the Middle East for failure, then held it together with preferred strongmen like Pehlavi, Hussein and the Saudi royal family. That worked, but then we BROKE THAT with a stupid invasion of Iraq. Propping up dictators and sponsoring Israel is no way to go about, nor is this tit-for-tat with terrorists. Hard questions should ensue, rather than the easy answers we always reach for.
     
  6. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    If nothing else, the slaughter in France highlighted the utter failure and dangerousness of 2 of the favorite policies of liberals; open borders/floodgate immigration, and confiscatory gun control.
     
  7. Koolcypher

    Koolcypher Member

    While I'm studying theology, I still have a long way to go. I'm a deeply flawed individual :newangel:. And you are absolutely correct, I should have risen above the mere rhetoric and mentality of us vs them. However, I do get mad when these things happen, and well, it gets the worst of me. I, however, do not think that religion is the problem. Mankind has been, and will always be at war. Today is religion, tomorrow who knows what will it be. :thinking:
     
  8. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    It is sad that terrorist attacks are everywhere, but I chose to be silence from now and so on. Because whenever I said something, people think I am an *****le Conservative. I can see more attacks are coming around the world as long as ISIS, Al Qaida, Boko Harram, Hamas, and other terrorist groups still exist.
     
  9. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    I think that someday it will be about water.
     
  10. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    That's certainly one perspective. Another is that the neocons that controlled the White House and that former coke fiend and dry drunk broke the Middle East with absolutely no plan for anything other than being worshipped as heroes as democracy spread like wildfire. That didn't work out, of course, nor did rational people ever think it would. Instead, we got ISIS. Nice job, neocons.
     
  11. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Hard to argue with that. Unless....

    Desalinization takes place on a much larger scale. Right now, it's hard because it's inefficient and very energy-demanding. In most parts of the world, the cost of producing water this way isn't worth it. Yet.

    Either way, major changes to how we see water and how we manage it are in order.
     
  12. jhp

    jhp Member

    This is, at minimum historically incorrect.

     
  13. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    No, yours is. (That was easy.)
     
  14. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Again the obsession with conservatives? Rich, I'm starting to believe that you have a serious hangover case of BDS; Bush Derangement Syndrome. He's been out of office for 7 years, time for a new schtick.

    The Islamic world has been unstable and a religious slaughterhouse for thousands of years, and even radical Islam's history with the United States goes back to the days of the Barbary Pirates. Bush had just met Laura, gotten married, and wasn't even eligible to be President when Islamists took over the American Embassy in Iran. The attack on 9/11 was conceived and planned long before Bush took office.

    Islamist's hatred of the West predates the formation of the United States itself. It's foolish and incredibly short-sighted to try to blame it on the actions of President Bush, I certainly don't blame President Clinton (under whose tenure the 9/11 attack was planned).
     
  15. Helpful2013

    Helpful2013 Active Member

    I agree completely.
     
  16. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I agree with you that Islamists have hated the U.S. since long before the Bush administration, but the Barbary corsairs were primarily motivated by piracy and capturing slaves for profit, not by religious fervor.
     
  17. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I absolutely love conservatives, and not just for the entertainment value. For example, in reference to invading Iraq, Colin Powell made it clear that "if you break it, you own it." (What Thomas Friedman called the "Pottery Barn Rule.")Interesting how the ones who broke it want to blame the next guy for not cleaning it up to their satisfaction. (Just like they did with the economy.) Well, that truly stupid move will have ramifications long beyond 7 years.

    The reason things aren't going just swimmingly has far more to do with the complicated geopolitics of the issue, rather than the President 's actions--which have almost certainly been flawed. But the GOP's solution of "do it again, only more," is just dumb. Another leader in the Bush Administration, General Shinseki, warned it would take far more troops and a much more in-depth commitment than the neo-cons had planned. Funny how that AWOL coke head ignored two 4-star generals and did it anyway.

    It isn't "BDS" to remember these things. And 7, or 70, years doesn't absolve him and his idiot cronies for what they did to our national security, economy, and world standing. If you don't like that assessment, that' your problem, not mine.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 16, 2015
  18. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    You seem to forget that the invasion of Iraq took place AFTER the Islamist's attack on the United States on 9/11/01. They were coming after us regardless of what we did, because they hate us for being a mostly Judeo-Christian nation with personal freedoms, not because we toppled a ruthless dictator in Iraq with WMD's (which were found in Syria) and a penchant to use them.

    For someone who loves to use the term "ad hominem attack" when a debate doesn't go your way, you sure love to throw around derogatory terms like "dry drunk" and "coke head" to describe President Bush, without a single shred of supporting evidence.

    Are you going to hold President Obama to those same standards?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 16, 2015
  19. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Propping up despots does not win us friends overseas. It never has and it never will.

    Oh, the Iranians hate us? Why? Just because we propped up a dictator who lorded over them, tortured them and deprived them of about as many liberties as the present regime? Who'da thunk it?

    We only cared about the Afghanis until the Russians were out of the picture. After that, we left them with their weapons and military training and nothing by way of, you know, infrastructure.

    And then we constantly go on about how the region is "unstable" and act surprised when that instability leads to radicalization. Is it any surprise that the Palestinians idolize suicide bombers? It shouldn't be. Because the Palestinians have their fair share of innocent people who were killed doing truly horrible things like cooking in their homes, playing with their children or sleeping. Tragedies like these fan the flames of radicalism and convince young Palestinians to join Hamas and young Israelis to vote for Netanyahu.
     
  20. major56

    major56 Active Member

    That’s unlikely … :cool2:
     

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