General Chat / Shootings and explosions in Paris 11/13/2015

I wouldn't say under attack, just some idiot drove a land rover into a pavement on a bridge and then stabbed a police officer.

Of course it's not great, but it's being a bit over dramatised, it really isn't on the same scale as any of the other 'terror' attacks.

I agree. It sucks obviously but this is not something you'll explicitly remember a few years from now. It's a minor incident in an ongoing international conflict.

Unless muslims are to blame, then people make a conscious effort to not forget it

Yes got a call from my parents asking if I was alright here in London, and I was amazed how sensationalised all the details they had were. 

The media is there for entertainment, not to inform. Sometimes they stumble upon both.

Unless muslims are to blame, then people make a conscious effort to not forget it

 

 

I don't think that really has anything to do with it, but at the same time they generally ARE the ones are to blame.

 

I know how that came out, so let be clear about what I mean here. Most Muslims are great people, the ones who try to demonize them (mostly for political gain like Donald Trump) or put racist travel bans in place are intolerant twats because as a whole, they're great people. That being said, it's also sort of growing tired of progressives refusing to acknowledge that there's any sort of connection with Islam and terrorism.

 

For whatever reason it does seem to be the only religion that (in the year 2017) has this many people willing to commit violence in the name of their religion. It's still a minuscule part of a large group of people but I feel like people on the (in American terms) left are way too quick to jump on anyone that brings that up. It's not fair to say that people only make conscious efforts to remember Muslim terrorist attacks as to imply that they're not responsible for a disproportionate number of terrorist attacks. They are. As I said, most of them are great, I'm a pretty liberal guy, I'm all for bringing in refugees, I don't blame Muslims as a whole for the actions of a tiny percentage of the Muslim population but at the same time there IS a link there and I'm tired of people refusing to acknowledge that fact.

 

 

 

I don't think that really has anything to do with it, but at the same time they generally ARE the ones are to blame.

 

I know how that came out, so let be clear about what I mean here. Most Muslims are great people, the ones who try to demonize them (mostly for political gain like Donald Trump) or put racist travel bans in place are intolerant twats because as a whole, they're great people. That being said, it's also sort of growing tired of progressives refusing to acknowledge that there's any sort of connection with Islam and terrorism.

 

For whatever reason it does seem to be the only religion that (in the year 2017) has this many people willing to commit violence in the name of their religion. It's still a minuscule part of a large group of people but I feel like people on the (in American terms) left are way too quick to jump on anyone that brings that up. It's not fair to say that people only make conscious efforts to remember Muslim terrorist attacks as to imply that they're not responsible for a disproportionate number of terrorist attacks. They are. As I said, most of them are great, I'm a pretty liberal guy, I'm all for bringing in refugees, I don't blame Muslims as a whole for the actions of a tiny percentage of the Muslim population but at the same time there IS a link there and I'm tired of people refusing to acknowledge that fact.

That's part of the problem. It's not just muslims. There are Buddhists slaughtering rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. There are Christians killing non-Christians in Africa. It's just Muslim attacks are in the limelight 

Yes, but in the west (which, right or wrong is what everyone who's having this conversation in regards to America and Europe is talking about since it's where they live) it's predominately a Muslim problem. Not always of course (just look at Quebec) but the majority of the time the attacks are being carried out by people who are claiming that they're doing it in the name of Islam.

 

The left (which I mostly consider myself a part of) loves to point to examples of non muslims carrying out terrorist attacks in less developed parts of the world or throughout history and while they're not wrong, the issue remains that there's a disproportionate number of terrorist attacks being carried out by Muslims throughout the world.

 

The issue of people in the west only caring about things that happen in the west is entirely accurate, but it's also a completely separate issue. People in the west would make a big deal out of a terrorist attack in the west regardless of who carried it out (see Sandy Hook) and they would ignore a terrorist attack in a non developed country regardless of who carried it out.

I think you're missing what you yourself are saying here. In America, there have been more terror attacks in recent memory by non-muslims than by Muslims. Now if you look at it in a broad spectrum, most murders are carried out by non-muslims but if you want to define it only by terrorist attacks, the definition there itself is iffy. How do you define a terrorist attack as opposed to a murder

The definition is:

 

The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature.

 

So I would go with that (though personally I'd make more of a distinction between actual violence and the threat of violence. When people describe a terrorist attack, they're never referring to just a "threat of violence".

 

I think you're missing what you yourself are saying here. In America, there have been more terror attacks in recent memory by non-muslims than by Muslims

 

This is only true if you completely ignore any reasonable definition of terrorism and frame every murder as a "terrorist attack". That's an issue, but it's a separate issue.

literally today a white supremacist murdered a black man in new york

Okay, and that's terrible. But this really just backs up my point that the left will do absolutely anything so that they don't have to address the fact that (while we all agree that Muslims as a whole are a peaceful group) there's a disproportionate number of people who kill people in the name of Islam in the west compared to any other religion.

Again, I'm liberal as hell. I literally still drive around with a Bernie Sanders sticker on my car, I want more refugees, I'm against the travel ban, I voted for Hillary, it's not like I'm a conservative guy, but to pretend that there's not a disproportionate number of terrorist attacks being carried out in the name of Islam is absurd and the left's refusal to face reality is part of the reason why we lost the election.

But what we're saying is it isn't disproportionate, but the lens is being shone on Muslims to make it look as though that is the case

I know what you're saying, I just think it's completely absurd. The only way you can make that argument is to argue over the definition of the word "terrorism" and try to apply it to things that nobody would ever apply it to. The fact of the matter is that when this attack happened everyone knew right away who was behind it no matter how liberal or conservative they were, and guess what... they were right... again.

But that's also part of the problem, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. All terrorist attacks are by Muslims, therefore any terrorist attack is by Muslims, therefore, if the attacker isn't Muslim, it's not a terrorist attack. This is a real albeit not conscious mentality people have, and it excuses non-muslims who commit terrorism which only makes the problem worse

Oh give me a break... what other religious / ideological group is going around killing otherwise random groups of people in the west with this kind of frequency? None. In order to make that argument you're completely skewing the definition of terrorism.

If the left keeps denying reality with this issue, the right will keep winning and nobody wants that.

Oh give me a break... what other religious / ideological group is going around killing otherwise random groups of people in the west with this kind of frequency? None. In order to make that argument you're completely skewing the definition of terrorism.

If the left keeps denying reality with this issue, the right will keep winning and nobody wants that.

But there aren't Islamic groups going around North America killing people. Heck, in Europe, most of these people aren't even part of Islamic terror groups. But you see the same actions in America, people killing people for religious reasons e.g. Matthew Shepard or the two Indian Guys.  

Whether or not they're officially connected to an "official" terrorist group is irrelevant when they openly state that they're committing these attacks in the name is Islam. Come on, you're grasping at straws.

so  breaking up is a bigger threat than islam by that logic

What the hell are you talking about?