San Bernardino mass shooting...

[gourimoko]

Now when we are talking about what Trump said, which is Muslim immigration, I'm assuming others can follow along. I'll stop and make sure it's really spelled out so you don't have to waste time clarifying a known value.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean.

When you said "he wants to stop all immigration" and then said that doesn't violate anyone's rights. Whom were you referring to? I assumed Donald Trump, no?

Am I missing something?

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

That's pure propaganda. They don't give a fuck about anyone's civil liberties. All that tells me is the government knew about these people ahead of time, let them in to do what they were going to do, in order to accomplish exactly what they are accomplishing, hatred of Muslims and Boobus calling for the government to take away their own guns. Much like when they let 9/11 happen in order to accomplish their goals of a comprehensive surveillance state.

Just because I don't give disagrees without explanation, its the "they knew about 9/11 and the San Bernardino attacks ahead of time and deliberately let them happen" conspiracy stuff with which I disagree.

I'm not fan of Obama (slight understatement) but I don't believe for a second that his goal is for Americans to get killed in terrorist attacks. I don't believe it at all about Bush either, but at least you could argue that by "letting it happen" at the beginning of his presidency, he was trying to get more power for the rest of it.

Obama has barely a year left - if he wanted to use a terrorist attack to assume greater powers or to accomplish some other goal, waiting until his last year would be a dumbass move.

 

[OptimusPrime]

Obama has barely a year left - if he wanted to use a terrorist attack to assume greater powers or to accomplish some other goal, waiting until his last year would be a dumbass move.

I didn't say he. I said they. The government. The ruling class. That includes Obama, Congress, all of the bureaucracies, all of the businesses that are in bed with government, the entire banking system, especially the central bank. They all work as one. More power is always good even if Obama only has one more year to enjoy it. He is and will continue to be well taken care of for his contributions.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I'm not defending or am I supporting the Trump plan on Muslims. The Carter thing has one vast difference, the ban was against a Country and its citizens. What Trump is suggesting is a ban against a religion. That is so hard for so many people on both sides to stomach because one of the main reasons this country was established was freedom of religion and freedom from the persecution of the religion of their choice.

I don't agree with the substance of what Trump said, and in particular the insensitivity with which he said it. It's like he doesn't even care if what he says piss off some allies or Muslim Americans.

That being said, I'm not sure I see that big a difference from what Carter did. I don't think it was just a diplomatic sanction - a tit for tat for the embassy being overrun - when he booted Iranians. It was that he legitimately believed them to be a security threat (rightly so - I remember the anti-U.S. marches by Iranian students in Akron.

And one argument you could make on the other side is that you generally don't choose your nationality, whereas religion is a matter of volitional choice that evinces a particular belief system. Seems more just to penalize choices you make as opposed to your status. And of course, Carter actually kicked people out, not just stopped them from coming in. But, just or not, it was also much more narrow than what Trump proposed.

On the flip side, I agree that our vetting is not adequate, and that the Administration's proposal to increase immigration from that region seems bizarre when we can't even adequately vet the smaller numbers entering right now.

But I still think Trump's blanket prohibition went way too far. A slowing of immigration until we unfuck the vetting makes sense to me. Maybe a temporary ban from the countries of origin that are the toughest to vet. But crap, what he sad literally means that doctors who happen to be Muslim who have routinely traveled overseas - to India for example - would not be allowed to re-enter the country. Just a wildly overbroad statement.

And I still don't understand why we're not making more of an effort to bringing in more of the persecuted Christian minority. The number we're admitting is disproportionately tiny. And frankly, they should be much easier to vet.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I didn't say he. I said they. The government. The ruling class. That includes Obama, Congress, all of the bureaucracies, all of the businesses that are in bed with government, the entire banking system, especially the central bank. They all work as one. More power is always good even if Obama only has one more year to enjoy it. He is and will continue to be well taken care of for his contributions.

And that's much much worse, and even less credible. All these thousands of people - including Presidents, etc., somehow joined this massive conspiracy without anyone blowing the whistle.

It's more likely that I win the lottery.

 

[Randolphkeys]

Reading up on the history of the Islamic movement from 400 c.e. until now, and the interactions with Western Christianity is an absolutely worthwhile pursuit. As a man of Western European descent, I can't help but feel ashamed for the majority of the Crusades period.

For hundreds of years, uneducated, illiterate Europeans attempted to rid Islam from the Holy Land, which had universities and basically invented algebra at the time. They succeeded in the first Crusade due to the element of surprise and funded it by slaughtering Jews and Christian Armenians along the way for their wealth. The rest was a progressively worsening shit show that ceased around the Renaissance due to Western Europe becoming more educated.

I'm sure Muslims living in the U.S. and possessing an education feel the same way when hearing about these brainwashed barbaric fundamentalist morons.

 

[Frank Reynolds]

The Muslims need to have their own version of the "million man march."

The people who commit these acts of violence need to be denounced from their faith altogether. Whoever the Muslim Pope is, he needs to publicly come out and say that those people were never Muslims at all.

The Muslims need some serious PR help, they just keep to themselves. I know the good/decent ones are outraged, but there hasn't been that "one shining moment" where all of the good ones publicly denounce these acts; because 99% of their people are peaceful and the 1% is ruining everybody's reputation.

Get out there Muslims and take a stand. Don't just keep to yourselves.

You need your moment of great publicity, the moment when ALL Muslims turn on these fucking savages and insult the terrorists by saying "you were never Muslim at all."

There just isn't enough of that. They keep to themselves too goddamn much.

 

[No Regard]

The Muslims need to have their own version of the "million man march."

The people who commit these acts of violence need to be denounced from their faith altogether. Whoever the Muslim Pope is, he needs to publicly come out and say that those people were never Muslims at all.

The Muslims need some serious PR help, they just keep to themselves. I know the good/decent ones are outraged, but there hasn't been that "one shining moment" where all of the good ones publicly denounce these acts; because 99% of their people are peaceful and the 1% is ruining everybody's reputation.

Get out there Muslims and take a stand. Don't just keep to yourselves.

You need your moment of great publicity, the moment when ALL Muslims turn on these fucking savages and insult the terrorists by saying "you were never Muslim at all."

There just isn't enough of that. They keep to themselves too goddamn much.

I think you completely right. The reformation (or whatever you want to call it) needs to come from within.

 

[gourimoko]

The Muslims need to have their own version of the "million man march."

The people who commit these acts of violence need to be denounced from their faith altogether. Whoever the Muslim Pope is, he needs to publicly come out and say that those people were never Muslims at all.

The Muslims need some serious PR help, they just keep to themselves. I know the good/decent ones are outraged, but there hasn't been that "one shining moment" where all of the good ones publicly denounce these acts; because 99% of their people are peaceful and the 1% is ruining everybody's reputation.

Get out there Muslims and take a stand. Don't just keep to yourselves.

You need your moment of great publicity, the moment when ALL Muslims turn on these fucking savages and insult the terrorists by saying "you were never Muslim at all."

There just isn't enough of that. They keep to themselves too goddamn much.

Because these people are not as interconnected as you might think. No more than a given Christian might be interconnected with another.

It's far too easy for people to try and lump a billion+ individuals together and call them Muslims, all while expecting some form of media blitz and collective action.

Nothing like that is going to happen.

 

[AZ_]

The Muslims need to have their own version of the "million man march."

The people who commit these acts of violence need to be denounced from their faith altogether. Whoever the Muslim Pope is, he needs to publicly come out and say that those people were never Muslims at all.

The Muslims need some serious PR help, they just keep to themselves. I know the good/decent ones are outraged, but there hasn't been that "one shining moment" where all of the good ones publicly denounce these acts; because 99% of their people are peaceful and the 1% is ruining everybody's reputation.

Get out there Muslims and take a stand. Don't just keep to yourselves.

You need your moment of great publicity, the moment when ALL Muslims turn on these fucking savages and insult the terrorists by saying "you were never Muslim at all."

There just isn't enough of that. They keep to themselves too goddamn much.

The press releases they keep sending to Fox News I'm sure will do wonders.

They're probably really interested in changing the narrative.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Reading up on the history of the Islamic movement from 400 c.e. until now, and the interactions with Western Christianity is an absolutely worthwhile pursuit. As a man of Western European descent, I can't help but feel ashamed for the majority of the Crusades period.

Well, if you were Muslim, you should feel the same about them during that period

For hundreds of years, uneducated, illiterate Europeans attempted to rid Islam from the Holy Land, which had universities and basically invented algebra at the time.

Aren't you sort of skipping a key part of the story...?

All of that land had been Christian for hundreds of years prior to the Muslim conquests. The Muslim conquests of the Holy Land didn't really start until the late 620's (not 400 - Muhammed wasn't even born until 570).

How is the Christian attempt to take those lands back any less moral than the Muslim seizure of those lands from Christians in the first place?

I don't think that the Crusades themselves indict Western Christendom any more than the conquests by Mohammed and the Rashidun Caliphate indicts Middle Eastern Muslims.

It should also be pointed out that the Muslim conquest didn't stop with the seizure of Syria, the Levant, Eqypt, North Africa, etc. etc.. The impetus for the First Crusade was a request by the Eastern Roman Emperor for help against the invading Muslim Turks, who gave their name to a land to which they were not native, and only conquered (eventually) by force.

They succeeded in the first Crusade due to the element of surprise and funded it by slaughtering Jews and Christian Armenians along the way for their wealth. The rest was a progressively worsening shit show that ceased around the Renaissance due to Western Europe becoming more educated.

Again, depicting the Muslims of that era as pacifistic people whose efforts to live in peace were thwarted by a bunch of invading, warlike Christians completely ignores the larger dynamic of continued, relentless Muslim conquest during that entire period. Muslims had invaded and conquered Christian Spain, and actually made it to France before being repelled.

The western invading arm of Islam had been stopped in the 700's, but the rest of it was still trucking at the time of the Crusades. In fact, invading Muslims eventually conquered Turkey (wiping out many of the Christian natives in the process), and took Constantinople in 1453. Those were all Christian lands.

In fact, the last Muslim thrust was only defeated in 1683 at Vienna. That's more than a thousand years of Islam attempting to conquer Christiandom, so singling out the Crusades as being proof that the Christians were the bad guys seems very selective to me.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not arguing in favor of refighting old grudges and who should own what. And I'm not saying that the Christians were the good guys and the Muslims bad.

I'm just saying that looking at the Crusades while ignoring the much broader trend of Muslim conquests creates a distorted historical picture.

If you really want to point to Christianity's most inexcusable excesses, it wasn't the Crusades to the Holy Land, but rather the various crusades against pagans and (especially) heretics outside the Holy Land. Those people presented little threat to anyone outside their own borders and were not part of a longer-term military struggle.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

This is sickening - death by PC, I suppose:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/secret-us-policy-blocks-agents-social-media-visa/story?id=35749325

US: ‘Things Went Wrong’ in Shooting Suspect’s Background Check

he State Department today said that “obviously things went wrong” in the visa background check for one of the San Bernardino shooters -- comments that came in the wake of an ABC News report that said officials by policy generally do not check social media postings of applicants due to civil liberties concerns and therefore would not have seen purported evidence of Tashfeen Malik’s radicalization online.

“It’s difficult to say exactly what [went wrong] and how, but for an individual to be able to come into this country – one who the FBI has maintained had terrorist tendencies or affiliations or sympathies at least for a couple years, and then to propagate an attack like that on our own soil, obviously, I think it’s safe to say there’s going to be lessons learned here,” State Department spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

The excuse that it's "difficult to know" what went wrong is apparently complete bullshit, though, because we now know exactly what went wrong. That bitch's jihadi posts on public social media went undetected because our goverment deliberately chose not to look at that stuff.

Fearing a civil liberties backlash and "bad public relations" for the Obama administration, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused in early 2014 to end the secret U.S. policy that prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas, according to a former senior department official.

"During that time period immigration officials were not allowed to use or review social media as part of the screening process," John Cohen, a former acting under-secretary at DHS for intelligence and analysis. Cohen is now a national security consultant for ABC News.

One current and one former senior counter-terrorism official confirmed Cohen's account about the refusal of DHS to change its policy about the public social media posts of all foreign

That's insane.

 

[macbdog]

Active shooter situation at Naval Medical Center in San Diego. No solid info out yet...

 

[Maximus]

Allegedly one person posted on FACEBOOK that she heard what sounded like 3 shots...she didn't even call police. Now the Naval Base and all area schools are on lock down.
God willing nothing happened.