Re: Another slaughter of innocents in Brussels . . .

Post #408,920 by Another Scott 3/23/16 1:27:16 PM 3/23/16 1:27:16 PM Reply	Re: Another slaughter of innocents in Brussels . . . NY Times: Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center. The slaying of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church last week, with an avowed white supremacist charged with their murders, was a particularly savage case. But it is only the latest in a string of lethal attacks by people espousing racial hatred, hostility to government and theories such as those of the “sovereign citizen” movement, which denies the legitimacy of most statutory law. The assaults have taken the lives of police officers, members of racial or religious minorities and random civilians. Non-Muslim extremists have carried out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have taken place in the same period. There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Blaming Islam for Daesh or the attacks we've seen in Europe or the US is nonsensical. It makes more sense to blame the attacks on single men under age 45... My $0.02. Cheers, Scott.
Post #408,923 by Andrew Grygus 3/23/16 2:43:49 PM 3/23/16 2:43:49 PM Reply	Statistics for the United States do not reflect the world. The United States has a particularly low incidence of Muslim extremist events - probably because we have a low percentage of Muslims, and many of them are here to get away from that. And, I certainly do despise White Supremacists and the like - they are dangerous trash. So, there are 1.6 Billion Muslims in the world, and these radicals are giving them a very bad reputation, and many of the innocent victims are Muslims. So why do they offer little but lip service, "This isn't Islam", leaving fighting these extremists to non-Muslims? I suspect many feel anything they say or do against Jihad is against Islam, and Jihad is built deeply into the religion. All these radicals claim to be on Jihad. "Death to the Infidels" is a deeply ingrained principle of the religion. Also, that large supply of disaffected "single men under 45" is a product of polygamy, encouraged by Islam. Women follow the money, so rich guys have plenty of wives and a large pool of young men have no hope for a normal family life. China is well aware of this problem, because their one child policy has caused a huge surplus of young men without hope, a very unstable situation. Of course, a young woman in China can now charge whatever the hell she wants. If you don't own significant property, your chances of marriage to a Chinese woman are very poor. Many Chinese men now go to Southeast Asia looking for wives. All in all, a bad situation.
Post #408,926 by a6l6e6x 3/23/16 3:51:30 PM 3/23/16 3:51:30 PM Reply	Re: Women follow the money, so rich guys have plenty of wives So now you're talking about Trump ?:) Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #408,928 by Andrew Grygus 3/23/16 5:09:57 PM 3/23/16 5:09:57 PM Reply	Yeah, and others. It's bad enough here - even though . . . . . being legally married to more than one person at a time is not permitted. Of course, serial marriages aren't the same. There the rich are just passing wives around. That still leaves a lot of "unqualified" wives for the guys who aren't so rich. Of course, even in the lower financial realm, what women really want is a real jerk (it's just a lot better if he has money). This is why you see a lot of nice guys married to fat ugly women - the ones who aren't confident they can land a real jerk.
Post #408,933 by Another Scott 3/23/16 9:17:37 PM 3/23/16 11:27:59 PM Reply	Ok, how about some statistics for Belgium then. Berkeley Blog (from 2015): Belgium has a sad record. With some 450 jihadists, it is Europe’s largest contributor per capita of ISIS fighters in Syria. The country has also been mentioned in connection to a series of recent ISIS attacks: In May 2014, a returned jihadist from Syria opened fire at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. In January 2015, two suspected jihadists were shot by the police in the city of Verviers. In August 2015, two members of the U.S. military stopped a jihadist attacker who had boarded a train in Brussels. Wikipedia: Islam is the second largest religion in Belgium, accounting for 5 to 7% of the total population. (If all immigrants with Islamic backgrounds are included, Muslims' share of the population rises to 8.1% as of 2011). Muslims are concentrated in certain regions of the country, constituting 23.6% of the population in Brussels, but just 4.0% in Wallonia and 3.9% in Flanders. The entire population of Belgium is about 11 M, so roughly 900,000 Muslims in the country. In this latest event, there were 4 people directly involved. 4/900,000 = 4.4E-6. The Navy Yard shooting was done by one guy. He killed 12 plus himself. Roughly 16,000 people work there. 1/16,000 = 6.3E-5. It looks like it's a lot more likely to come across a crazy coworker in the USA than a jihadist that is willing to blow himself up in Belgium. Like over 10 times more likely. Yeah, I know, the ratios are apples and oranges. But the point is, these events are extremely rare. They have more to do with them being male ~~then~~ than them claiming to be Muslim. Daesh isn't Islamic. Daesh is a cult created by remnants of Saddam's Baathist internal security apparatus. HTH. Cheers, Scott. Edited by Another Scott March 23, 2016, 11:27:59 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #408,937 by Andrew Grygus 3/23/16 11:11:46 PM 3/23/16 11:11:46 PM Reply	So Daesh isn't Islamic . . . . . . and that they can so easily and effectively manipulate Islam is in no way a weakness in the religion? It is a religion that expanded by violent conquest and "conversion by the sword", with techniques not so sophisticated as those by Daesh, but in the same category. It is so easy to preach romantic notions of Jihad. News articles often feature guys who declare Daesh is wrong and making excuses, but there is no real structure of authority in Islam. It's many individual "schollars", with authority over their own followers, and little farther. The next schollar down the road has a different interpretation of the Koran, different ideas, perhaps different ambitions, and a different batch of followers. If one becomes too disruptive to another, it's nothing a little assassination can't fix. "Here's your bomb. 71 virgins await you!" And yes, there's that continuous state of violence between Sunni and Shiite, which Daesh plans to encourage and exploit.
Post #408,938 by Another Scott 3/23/16 11:31:18 PM 3/23/16 11:31:18 PM Reply	I don't hold Pat Robertson against the Quakers. YMMV.
Post #408,943 by mmoffitt 3/24/16 8:05:58 AM 3/24/16 8:05:58 AM Reply	They're all equally contemptible.
Post #418,073 by CRConrad 5/10/17 8:01:25 AM 5/10/17 8:01:25 AM Reply	So you know their motivations better than they do themselves? There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Blaming Islam for Daesh or the attacks we've seen in Europe or the US is nonsensical. It makes more sense to blame the attacks on single men under age 45... I'm not sure how many single men under age 45 there are in the world, but it must be around the same number you quote for Muslims, perhaps more. Just like the overwhelming majority of Muslims, the overwhelming majority of single men under age 45 do not commit terrorist acts. Of the people that do commit terrorist acts, the overwhelming majority are both single men under age 45 and Muslims. How many of them claim to do it in the name of Allah, vs how many in the name of being single and under 45? And how large a proportion of the non-Muslim single men under age 45 in the world do commit terrorist acts -- more, or less, than of the Muslim single men under age 45? -- Christian R. Conrad Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi (Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)

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