Oh Good. Another post about me and not things that actually matter.
Coyote writes:
Let in tens of thousands of "refuges," almost all of whom are young Arab/muslim males and you expect something different?
Covyote thinks we should let thousands of Arab and African people die so we can avoid about a hundred Europeans dying. Given the outrage, me saying the opposite caused, I'm surprised this overt wishing for countless deaths hasn't drawn much attention. It's basically as racist as 'nice' people get these days. Nobody thinks this is awful?
Coyote writes:
Also, until there is some reliable way to determine which ones are true refuges and which are ticking time bombs, wouldn't it be prudent to halt the overwhelming immigration?
Hurray for dying Arabs.
Faith writes:
That wouldn't be politically correct!!! No no no we must let more of them in. We must pretend these are truly refugees and give up everything for them and pretend it's just a tiny minority of .... well somebody else I guess... that's doing the bombing. And the raping too that's going on all over Europe. We must give up our own living spaces for them.
Faith writes:
Being invaded by enemies is one of the judgments of a nation that God spells out in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
Faith writes:
any Muslim is a ticking time bomb.
As for actions, based on the above knowledge, and the knowledge which is available in all kinds of Muslim official pronouncements that their aim is not to stop short of forcing the whole world to bow to Allah, the only solution is sending them all back where they came from. Really. And keep armed and ready against them. When they see they haven't the power to execute Allah's will they become docile. But you have to force them into that position.
Faith writes:
The problem is that Islam is an ideology that preaches violence and death against outsiders. THAT is the problem. Any other analysis is only going to prolong the problem.
Faith writes:
Islam is murder...keep your Muslims while they slaughter you.
Faith writes:
Inviting in a horde of dangerous people is not protecting their citizens.
Faith writes:
But no sane society invites people into it who have an ideology that considers that society fair game for rape and murder by order of "God."
Coyote writes:
And all over the west they are admitting more of these guys?
Safer to kiss a rattlesnake.
Tangle writes:
Islam claims to be the religion of peace; it's leaders don't seem to agree.
Forgetting the other arguments about this, its just not true. Many Islamic leaders preach for peace and nonviolence. However, many among those that utilize violence in practice or in rhetoric, generally want their lands to be a peaceful Islamic paradises and they believe their violence will achieve this.
So this is generalizing a diverse religion to take a slogany potshot.
This was the tone of the debate as I came in. Quite quickly Tangle elected to focus on side issues and try to argue against the most absurd interpretation rather than the most sensible one, resulting in a rather surreal back and forth. Finally Tangle challenged me to tackle the real matter: Picking a side.
Tangle writes:
Now you have to decide which side has the better motivations and which is most likely to achieve the greater good for the most people.
I retorted
Mod writes:
The real matter here is the Parisian bombing, associated attacks and what the best response to them should be - in the short and long term. I can't speak to military strategy, but I know that a military response against ISIS cannot be the only plan in dealing with the crisis.
Setting us up for strategic planning discussion rather than reactions.
After dismissing Tangle's distraction response all about me as simply wrong, I went on to discuss some of the strategic concerns in the region:
Mod writes:
The Alawites face an existential threat in ISIS. The Alawites are Shia - but they are also a particularly weird form of Shia that, for instance, does not pray 5 times a day. If ISIS gets their hands on them, they're dead. All of them.
So do we help the Alawites? Well there are other factions helping the Alawites. Iran, noticeably, as well as Russia. If we help the Alawites, we are entering a de facto military alliance with the Shia and Russia.
On the other hand, if the Alawites fall, then so does Damascus for sure. The internally displaced civilians will become refugees and the refugee crisis will be three times as worse as it is today.
Of course, the Alawites HAVE to fall. We want them gone. But if it happens now - we're fucked.
If we do attack ISIS we strengthen the Alawites for now, but what happens if they are attacked by the many other militant groups that want them dead as soon as ISIS is pushed back enough to stop fighting the militant groups?
Or do we contain for now, and push from Iraq? Yet more Shia alliance here, which is messy and risks pushing them straight at Assad, destroying what's left of Syria's stability entirely.
Then Tangle responds by making it about me again and I replied
Mod writes:
I am arguing that we are all humans, and we share universal behavioural characteristics. I am in favour of avoiding dehumanizing people.
You seem to think that this boils down to me equating the various factions' idiosyncratic motivations and value. This is mistaken...
Well we are all the same, just people. If we lose sight of this primary point, we risk becoming monsters too. I think it's ridiculous to waste our time establishing that we all agree murder and rape are bad things and the perpetrators are bad people, but apparently one still has to occasionally spell this out to people. If you don't, you evidently open yourself up absurd cheap shots.
Then, continuing with the strategic level discussions rather than the personal one:
Mod writes:
Our societies are not at threat from the behaviours of Islamist extremists. Theirs are.
Tangle also brought the subject to domestic concerns so,
Mod writes:
The Muslims here? We need to work on mutually integrating with them. We learn to tolerate the beliefs we disagree with, and they learn to play by the rules in so far as advocating their beliefs.
...
So let's promote moderate Islam, which we can only do by being careful not to blame Islam for the violence.
We need a response to Saudi Arabia that is effective.
We need to pull out our military units from Muslim lands. It means we sacrifice control of the situation, but one key feature repeats itself in martyrdom videos and jihadist propaganda: Military forces in their lands.
As for ISIS? I have no clue, it's a mess of the war class and it's way too messy for me to be confident in the best steps.
Tangle replied with arguing for the need for better integration of Muslim immigrants.
I asked for details.
Tangle asked me to start.
I did.
Tangle wanted more. We agreed the law should be followed and enforced.
I asked if he had any suggestions about promoting enforcement.
Tangle says we should do it better. And we should promote moderate Islam.
I ask for specifics, and offer suggestions:
Mod writes:
Might I propose treating all Muslims with equal dignity and respect, even if they hold abhorrent beliefs?
Might I propose talking near exclusively about moderate Islam? Might I propose we barely deign to call extremist Islam, Islam?
Might I propose we consume media that gives sober analysis of immigration policies, the refugee crisis and the events that caused it, Islam and avoid hysterical fear mongering stories in attempt to shift the incentives to produce good material on the subject rather than easy material.
Might I propose we don't blame Islam itself. Sectarianism? Sure. Religion, fine. But Islam itself? That's probably not going to actually help.
Might I propose we take pains to avoid perceptions that this is a war against Islam, or the Sunni faith?
Might I propose we read the Qur'an as we read the Bible? The Hadith? Read some of the works by notable moderates and make efforts to actively engage with Muslims in our lives?
Perhaps we can donate money to charities dedicated to Muslims escaping the threat of familial reprisal for innocuous offences?
Maybe we should encourage others to do likewise?
At which point of course it became all about how Mod respects inciters and Nazis. Which is the important point to take away from what I said, of course.
And, Tangle said with regard to the immigration issue he had no other ideas and once again proposed I solve the problems he thought existed.
Mod writes:
I don't think there's as significant problem as you seem to.
And of course
Mod writes:
I haven't been persuaded there is any need to do anything but calm the anti-Muslim/Islam hysteria down and to earnestly seek ways to live side by side with people of different creeds. Apparently you feel very strongly we should do something more, but I haven't see anything specific from you. Really the best I can get from you is that we should 'improve' things and criticize ideas we don't like more.
And Tangle replied
Tangle writes:
Meanwhile several hundred people died in Paris.
I replied, again talking about the strategic issue of immigrants and refugees coming into our lands, the topic at hand:
Mod writes:
You think this is a problem?
What is wrong with everyone? Non-Muslim Frenchmen have killed more Parisians than Islamists. Maybe we should be getting rid of them?
What about alcohol? Surely we can more efficiently enact an alcohol law that saves more lives than this?
If it's lives we're worried about.
In the meantime 3 or more orders of magnitude niore{sic} people are dying in Syria, Iraq etc. So no, a few scores of dead people does not a problem make.
As far as immigration policy, the subject we were discussing. If we're worried about letting people from Muslim countries in because people are dying in France I find this parochialism grotesquely offensive. The reason those people are fleeing is because they are dying in much greater numbers there.
I'd sooner take a terrorist campaign fear deathtoll over the warzone and refugee camps fear and deathtoll. Because I value the lives of the fleeing victims of a civil war we participated in just as much as people in France, and think they are the ones facing the problem, I'm an outrageous and heartless crass piece of shit.
Tangle also mentioned a bunch of international affairs, in reply to our discussion about integrating British Muslims and me not thinking there was as big a deal as everyone was making out. So I said
Mod writes:
If you think that we are able to control Turkish missiles, Russian Airplanes, civil wars, and foreign sovereignty issues by integrating Muslims into Britishness - then I am all ears.
To stress that we were talking about integrating Muslims.
Mod writes:
6 score deaths and you think this is a blip on the radar of problems that we face? Get a fucking grip, man and stop being so worried about the fact that the PC thing to do is sound sad about it.
How many children died in Africa from malnutrition related complications this year? Millions. How many people have died in the civil war and its associated conflicts? Hundreds of thousands. How many refugees have died escaping war? Tens of thousands.
If you want to call barely over 100 French people dying a problem - that's fine. But at the scale we are talking about here, its a negligible problem. One which we seemed determined to spend a disproportionate amount of money 'combating' and which we'll no doubt lose fundamental freedoms for too. As you say, we also want to deploy expensive explosive devices as part of the solution.
After all, we stopped terrorism after we did that after 2001 right?
Again, here I am stressing that if its lives we want to save, we shouldn't be focussing on the small number of lives we are losing, but on the huge numbers of lives being lost elsewhere, that we have the power to help with.
Tangle once again decided to call me crass.
I ignored him mostly, with a little chastisement thrown in and tried to get the focus back to the issue he had originally raised himself.
Tangle replied that he was choosing to ignore me because he preferred the discussion to be focussed on my character
Tangle writes:
I'm ignoring you distraction tactics regarding other points for the moment, I'm more interested in how deep you can dig your hole.
I simply asked Tangle to deal with the issues that had been raised within the topic so far.
Tangle snidely remarked that since
I don't think there's a problem why bother discussing how he thinks we might solve the problems he sees we face as a result of insufficient Muslim integration.
Most recently Tangle has reiterated that he thinks problems exist in the world today.
I have asked him he has any ideas he'd like to propose to tackle these problems. No response.
But you are right Percy. I chose a particularly provocative and offensive way of saying 'a few scores of people dying is insignificant compared with the thousands that are dying in Syria, Iraq etc.'. It is an outrageous proposition to think that Tangle has ignored what I am saying on the whole and tried to focus in on something that he can spin to sound outraged about. It's not like he's been doing that the entire thread or anything, is it? It's not like I was accused of being an ISIS apologist, and so on is it? Nope. Tangle has definitely not deliberately focussed this on me. It was all my doing. I've done nothing but try to shift the focus back on me me me me me with my outrageous statements.
Tangle refused to give details, but the stakes are so high that changing policy to be more stringent surrounding immigration is likely to cost more human lives than it saves.
But fine, it's my fault. Please explain how I can put into perspective that in the arena of immigration and asylum policy how the deaths in France are a orders of magnitude smaller problems, for people that value all human life equally, than the ones we are trying to alleviate by allowing people to flee here, and perhaps even settle in the long term in such a way that someone like Tangle couldn't find a way to magnify on it and make it the new 'We must establish who is liable in some stupid side issue in an evcforum debate' rather than actually trying to collate our thoughts and ideas to see if we can, as voters, decide how we want our countries to react to the situations we face. Because who wants that? So let me know, I'll even go back and edit the posts {keeping the original, hiding it and noting this in the edit notes} to avoid any further misunderstandings. Anything that will satisfy you.
It's clearly my responsibility in a back and forth discussion like that to ensure that the full context of the discussion is laid bare, so it is clear that I am not being inhuman, but I'm talking big picture strategic issues. Things that should cause us to change our strategic decision making.
THat is why I am now posting this monstrosity. There is the ridiculous side issue, from my perspective, if people really want to continue discussing it.
If anyone would like to work out what might be the preferred avenue of action I'd much prefer that.
Dronester - you may have a position on this - what is the kind of magnitude of financial support from Saudi Arabia ISIS and co are receiving? I'm guessing precise numbers are impossible, but what, in your view, are the bestimates?
For those that think strategy level discussion sounds crass, I say you are part of the problem. You know why? Because you are voting for the kinds of people that stand up and say 'the French situation is terrible, let's all focus on that issue and how we can retaliate and remove freedoms to fight terror'. Whenever a politician speaks in terms of '130 dead French people is bad, but it does not shake our resolve or change our policy with regards to welcoming asylum seekers, in fact in order to save lives we need let more in, and probably stop dropping bombs', they risk losing his or her seat. So you drive the overreactions and you can't just blame the politicians
But let's talk about people individually if that is less crass
Refugee
quote:
Before the war started in Syria I was a carpenter in a village in the south of the country, close to Dara’a. I had a simple life, but a good life. But when the war began, people stopped wanting to build and spend money on such things, so life started to become harder.
I have nine children, aged between two and 16. One of my sons was two and a half when the war started. Every time he could hear bombing he would get very scared and hide under the covers. He still does this here in the camp when he sees planes coming over, as he thinks they are coming to bomb us.
My children haven’t only seen bombing; they have also seen death with their own eyes. One of my cousins has lost two children, and his mother, sister and brother, from the bombing. This is why I left: I had to save my family’s lives.
When we arrived at the Zataari camp in February 2013 it was very cold. At first we were all living in a tent that used to leak every time it rained. But there was no option. We either stayed in that tent or took our children to their death.
My wife was about to give birth to twins so it was important to get more settled before their arrival. I borrowed money from a friend to buy two caravans for us to live in. Imagine once living in your own house and now you come home to a caravan where there isn’t enough space to sit or sleep and no electricity.
I’ve heard that most of the houses in our village have now been destroyed so there are very few people left. We find out what is happening back home mostly through a neighbour who sends us messages. Even though I’m here in Jordan, whenever I hear news about my homeland I feel as if I am with my fellow Syrians. What is happening there has affected me deeply.
So yeah. There is some individual lives to consider if we want to talk asylum policy on this scale rather than the 'crass' perspective.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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