European Countries Seek Sweeping New Powers To Curb Terrorism 219
New submitter cooler-than-ice (3981829) writes with this story from the Washington Post: Belgian leaders on Friday sought sweeping new powers to monitor and punish their citizens for involvement with terrorism, joining France in an effort to rewrite laws just hours after dozens of arrests across Europe offered dramatic evidence of the threats security officials say are facing the continent.
From the article: Apart from expanding powers to strip citizenship for dual nationals, Belgian leaders on Friday proposed devoting an additional $348 million to counterterrorism efforts. They also said they wanted the ability to take away identity documents to make it more difficult for people to travel to Syria and elsewhere. ... “As a result of the events in Paris, combined with what happened yesterday in Belgium, the political unanimity is quite great,” said Rik Coolsaet, a terrorism expert at Ghent University. “It is a bit of 9/11 syndrome.”
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats — and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism. Leaders this week called for new legislation to significantly bolster domestic intelligence agencies.
Dammit, Europe! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Dammit, Europe! (Score:2)
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Action - reaction.
I've noticed that the Al Quai-da, ISIS or whoever want a war with the West. They should be careful what they wish for. And they shouldn't assume they'll be victorious because their god will help them.
They are under the impression that the war is happening and it's with the USA and Western Europe. Where the Al-Quaida pussies can run and hide in a mosque, sleep, get something to eat, jack-off etc ... knowing that the US will not go in. Same for hiding among civilians.
As this BS continues, t
Re:Dammit, Europe! (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlikely. A good deal of the west is more likely to go out with a whimper rather then a bang.
This has happened before. Rome fell under similar circumstances.
The collapse of its national religion, serious economic problems, worn out from war, massive immigration from cultures not loyal to the empire... and lots of corruption.
This is how the West falls.
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That was only part of it. This rebellion of the peasants concept is countered by examples of societies existing for thousands of years despite their peasantry being quite poor.
It takes more then that to collapse a society.
A society is an arbitrary association of people.
What destroys all societies ultimately is belief. When a nation is not believed in anymore... it ceases to exist. The association breaks down.
So long as people believe the country, nation, empire cannot die.
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That was never the problem with Christianity. Since when did Christians have a hard time killing people? They don't. Thousands of years of war in Europe AFTER the conversion to Christianity make my point rather clearly.
Rather the issue was that it created social disorder because there were a lot of pagans in Rome. All the old buildings, the old gods, the old legends, the old traditions... the whole society was polytheistic.
And some stupid emperor presumed to just change the religion of a culture that went b
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That would be the United States that has that fire power. Belgium has waffles.
The combined forces of NATO without the US were unable to defeat Yugoslavia. Go back and read/watch the reports from the time. The US stayed out of it until it became pathetically clear that Yugoslavia had fought the combined forces of NATO minus the US to a standstill.
This is an under equipt, backward, vastly out numbered, cold war dystopia... had an equivalent military force to ALL of NATO... minus the US.
Europe is weak. Everyon
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Nuclear arms are overrated outside of WW3 and are largely ineffective offensively unless matched with a conventional force.
The notion that a country doesn't need conventional military forces so long as it has nukes is shown to be fairly laughable when you look at what is happening to Japan versus China.
China is mostly taking whatever it wants and Japan can't really do anything about it. If Japan were invaded by China, then the US is obligated by treaty to retaliate including launching nukes at china. So jap
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The US backstops their flaws with its own nuclear arsenal. If France gets nuked then we'll nuke whomever nuked France. That is actually what protects France. Not Frances nukes unless they have them on such submarines. Correct me if I am wrong, I don't think they've bothered with them.
France and Britain each have 4 ballistic missile subs. Each sub can carry 16 M45/51 (French) or Trident II (UK) missiles, capable of reaching pretty much anywhere on earth.
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Then I cede that point. Those should be capable of providing a credible deterrent of nuclear attack or invasion.
However, that does give them no ability to project power or even use them in self defense in any situation where they're not willing to go to nuclear war.
For example, lets say Argentina attacked the Falklands again and this time did better... The UK is not going to nuke Argentina over the Falklands.
The ability of nuclear weapons to replace conventional forces is over estimated by European leaders.
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I was never suggesting anyone would go into a full scale war against europe.
I was rather saying that Europe wasn't going to attack anyone else.
Someone else said that europe might get agitated and lash out at the islamic world. I pointed out that won't happen.
So we're not talking about the same things. what is more, i said if the west goes down a good deal of it will go with a whimper rather then a bang. What happens is enough people that don't value french culture basically vote it out of existence? what th
Re:Dammit, Europe! (Score:4, Insightful)
In case you've been living under a rock for the last 14 years, they already have a war with the West/NATO.
In a somewhat ironic turn of events, Muslim fundamentalists in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Gaza now have an actual real honest-to-science angry skydaddy with winged creatures that shoot fire from the sky.
Of course, this does not really bring us any closer to peace with the Islamists. If anything it probably helps them recruit.
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Recently New Zealand introduced tougher speeding and drink drive penalties. With the result that road deaths over the Christmas period went up. So probably best not to expect too much of The Beehive. There's also the Megaupload mess to consider.
Signs and Portents (Score:2)
We have exited the steaming waters of the Acheron and now the maelstrom of the Lethe pulls on our prow.
Oh, go right ahead with that (Score:5, Insightful)
'Cause the Patriot Act worked out so well for us.
Never mind worrying about the terrorists winning, it's the fascists who are doing the winning
Punish those that do not readily condemn?!?! (Score:3)
"Yes, you called the terrorists evil, damn, evil S.O.B.S. But you paused before you said evil. Take him away BOYS."
It's bad enough to punish those that use their freedom of speech to praise criminals, but to go that far pushes you beyond the bar of reason and into tyranny.
If we used this in America, I think Obama could arrest the entire cast of Fox News for praising Putin. That is just plain wrong. Fox news should be laughed at, not arrested.
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Indeed. This comes awfully close to Thought Crime.
What I could understand, though I do struggle with it, is identifying those that appear to approve of terrorism, and keeping an eye on them. But of course that would be abused.
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I think an argument can be made for keeping imams known to preach violent jihad under surveillance, much as the FBI probably keeps a close eye on white suppremacist preachers who preach violent overthrow of government and racial violence.
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The crackhead who attacked Parliament was pissed off that he couldn't get a passport and leave the country or even get thrown in jail to clean himself up.
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The crackhead who attacked Parliament was pissed off that he couldn't get a passport and leave the country or even get thrown in jail to clean himself up.
He didn't want to go to Syria to "get cleaned up."
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He didn't want to go to Syria at all, rather to Libya.
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Born in Montreal, he later lived in Calgary and Vancouver, then went to Ottawa on Oct. 2 to deal with an issue regarding his passport application, Paulson said. Police believe he was hoping to travel to Syria from Ottawa.
Same as the Quebec terrorist: [globalnews.ca]
The Quebec man accused of running down two soldiers, killing one of them, had already had his passport revoked for trying to go to Syria.
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We'll never really know if he was planning on going to Syria or if he really wanted to get clean and being a crackhead he may well not known as well. As for what the police believe, well they're going to parrot the prevailing current meme that all Muslims are terrorists and all terrorists are Muslim.
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As for what the police believe, well they're going to parrot the prevailing current meme that all Muslims are terrorists and all terrorists are Muslim.
Congratulations. You win the prize for most ignorant post of the day.BTW - the cop they killed in Paris was Muslim [slashdot.org] And so was the guy who hid Jews in the freezer in Paris [cnn.com]. They're both being hailed as heroes in France and around the world.
Wait, What? (Score:4, Informative)
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats -- and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism.
WTF? R'ing TFA... not a whole lot, but here's a bit more from the article:
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats -- and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism. Leaders this week called for new legislation to significantly bolster domestic intelligence agencies.
Another law, a fast-track judicial process for accusations related to terrorism, was on the books as of November but had not been widely used before the Paris attacks. In recent days, however, prosecutors have filled the dockets with more than 100 cases that are speeding through courtrooms. People who have expressed support for the attacks have been sentenced to as much as 15 months in prison.
A top French opposition politician, Eric Ciotti, said this week that the government should withhold social benefits from the parents of children who failed to observe moments of silence in schools.
Re:Wait, What? (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole recent thing about France being a bastion of freedom of speech has been a lie. Hell, the country won't even let people wear certain (but not all) religious headdress in public places, even when the choice of outfit interferes with nobody else. Trade in various expressions of speech, disgusting as the principles they represent, is illegal - the ban on trade in swastikas is well known, for example.
To say things like, "Fewer people than reported died in the Holocaust," is illegal to merely say in France, even though
i) it's accurate - about 5.1 million people died, not 6 million (still one of the worst genocides in history, which is why it needs to be recorded with utmost accuracy);
ii) it's a straight freedom of speech issue.that a person should be able to spout whatever shit (perhaps as long as their speech isn't part of planning to cause harm).
Indeed, Charlie Hebdo had to face the French legal system various times for its depictions from Catholicism through Israeli policy (and one of its contributors was an explicit, self-confessed anti-semite - a really nasty chap, but still, merely practising freedom of speech).
tl;dr France has no freedom of speech. Everything you are hearing on the news is a lie.
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Maybe still more free than the mean / median / top decile of Muslim religion-states? So whether or not you're right on this point is kind of irrelevant.
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Wow, that's a great argument to justify oppression. MLK should've just left the US; what a whiner. Anyone who wants to change anything should just leave the countries they want to change, because the best way to change the countries you want to change is to not interact with them at all and leave hardcore freedom-hating authoritarians such as yourself to run the country.
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I wonder if people sentenced for "expressing support for the attacks" includes any vocal critics of surveillance or related government actions. Also punishing those who don't readily condemn terrorism sounds like terrifying thoughtcrime stuff; I hope governments heard me condemning the attacks to my dog so I don't get raided.
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I hope governments heard me condemning the attacks to my dog so I don't get raided.
I'm sorry, but condemning the attacks to your dog is not considered sufficiently patriotic. You must find at least three people who practice Islam and condemn the attacks to them. For example, "Hey, Muslim guy, apparently you don't know this; terrorism is wrong." Then just ask him if he is planning any terrorist attacks, take down the details if he is, and have him sign your patriotism verification form.
Nazis (Score:2, Informative)
You know, the Nazis sought sweeping powerrs to curb terrorism after a building was set on fire. How did that slippery slope work out in the 40s'? Are the 2010's the new 1940s?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
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If on one occasion, A preceded B, then A must have caused B and must cause it almost a century later.
If the alternative to your hypothetical B is a definite C, and a definite C is worse than a hypothetical B, while a realised B would be as bad as C, then we should still remain on course for C.
There's nothing irrational ... (Score:2)
... about responding to violent threats.
It's irrational not to respond to violent threats.
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But when your response as a supposedly free country is to limit people's freedoms, you have failed to uphold the principles you're supposed to aspire to and have become the enemy of liberty. I'll take freedom over this kind of 'safety.' If they want safety, they have to do it in a way that doesn't violate our freedoms and privacy.
Why not promote the Enlightenment instead (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't it make much more sense to devote some effort and expense to promoting the values of the enlightenment? In particular, devoting some educational effort towards eradication of irrational beliefs. Why not actually treat Islam (and Scientology, and Christianity) as the mental equivalent of a public heath hazard, where those who believe need to be helped to overcome it?
I think we make a serious mistake in our public discourse, by considering that:
violent minority = extremists = misinterpretation of scripture vs. peaceful majority = mainstream = correct interpretation of scripture.
whereas it would be more intellectually honest to consider:
violent minority = literalists = correct interpretation of scripture vs. peaceful majority = reformists = those who wilfully mis-interpret their scripture.
In other words, while almost all humans (of all faith and of none) are decent, good, tolerant peaceful people, they are decent to the extent that they discard their holy books, not to the extent that they follow them. The holy books themselves are beyond redemption, and should be considered to be "on the side of the devil".
Consider the spectrum of belief: (a)Secular humanist ---- (b) "Moderate" religion ----- (c) Extremist religion.
Position (b) involves belief in gods, prophets, and veneration of "perfect" scriptures. Position (c) is a very small step beyond, namely to actually read those scriptures, already considered perfect, and interpret them the literally, as they are written. So, if we want to prevent Islamic terrorism, the most effective argument is not detailed discussion of which Koranic verse overrides which other one (an argument which the moderates can never win), but instead, to argue for the wholesale abandonment of holy books.
Education, science, secular values, and human rights are the most potent weapon we have against faith, and yet politicians refuse to deploy them! If we took the money from the security services, and put it into schools, I think it would be far more effective.
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In particular, devoting some educational effort towards eradication of irrational beliefs. Why not actually treat Islam (and Scientology, and Christianity) as the mental equivalent of a public heath hazard, where those who believe need to be helped to overcome it?
Should that come to pass then welcome a whole new world where Christian and Scientology driven terrorist organizations are more common than homeowner associations. That in itself does not mean that you are wrong however.
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Politicians won't embrace that path until the populace at large is already going that way. To do otherwise would be political suicide. As it stands now most state candidates have to declare some sort of religous belief, and so long as it isn't satanic or athieism then your odds of election aren't hurt. And on the national scale you'd best pick some kind of mainstream chrisitan religion. The only exception I can think of in recent US history would be Rommney, and he didn't win.
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True in the US, but in Europe, we are already past tipping point: the majority of people now see organised religion as a force for harm.
In the US, the approach might be to apply sanctions to Saudi Arabia etc untill they fix their human rights record - this approach worked on South Africa wrt apartheid.
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> True in the US, but in Europe, we are already past tipping point: the majority of people now see organised religion as a force for harm.
Haha, good one :-) There are countries like the UK where there is strong economic sense to be (pretend to be) religious, if not for something else, to benefit from superior schools while not having to pay for "public" (=private) schools.
Even if what you said were true, it would be a snapshot. Want to guess that families of which religion procreates more? That tipping p
Because it does not work (Score:3)
If that worked religion would have disappeared a some tiems ago with the itnernet. But it does not, because you cannot use rationality to convince people (rare exception may happen) that belief they came to in irrational way are wrong. Try thisd : go into a creationist forum and try to argue that radiometric dating works and explain why. Good luck with that. So if we are not even able to get ride of creationism in the
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In particular, devoting some educational effort towards eradication of irrational beliefs
If that worked religion would have disappeared a some tiems ago with the itnernet
Educated people are always less religious. Provide more education and religion always fades. It doesn't just go away, because some people just refuse to be educated. But education helps people learn how to ask questions and think, if it's done even vaguely right, and religion can't withstand that.
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I grant that it doesn't work all the time. But let's at least stop giving "it's my faith" a free pass against criticism, and be done with the faith-schools. Politicians love to think that moderate religion is on their side; it isn't. So they work in the (imho) vain struggle to keep people from moving from position (b) to (c) rather than trying to get them to move from (b) to (a). In epidemiological terms, there are several risk factors for becoming a terrorist... including social exclusion, poverty, griev
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The CIA did that with modern art.
Modern art was CIA 'weapon' ( 22 October 1995) http://www.independent.co.uk/n... [independent.co.uk]
"the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years."
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> they are decent to the extent that they discard their holy books, not to the extent that they follow them
There is some very humane and peaceful stuff in the New Testament. So you're simplifying to the extent of being wrong.
But I agree with your larger point that hazards to society should be treated as such, because we have one life, one planet etc. so let's do a good amount of risk prevention to protect what's important to us, and good risk prevention starts with earnest analysis of causes and effects
Free speech? (Score:2)
The Islamist terrorist groups perform attacks in order to limit free speech, and in response, these counties help the terrorists along by limiting speech even further?
Who's side are these guys on anyway?
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Not accurate at all.
The editorial cartoons created a lot of stir, which attracts a lot of eyeballs, and therefore money. After the initial thrust by the editors, it became a pissing contest -- a reality show -- that crossed the line of common sense.
Delfeil adds: “I believe that we are fools who took an unnecessary risk. That’s it. We think we are invulnerable. For years, decades even, it was a provocation and then one day the provocation turns against us.
“He shouldn’t have done it, but Charb did it again a year later, in September 2012. [independent.co.uk]”
Alternate title (Score:2)
European Countries Using Terrorism to Seek Sweeping New Powers
Definition, please (Score:3)
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Wishy-washy thing you're saying. Who cares about the 'definition'. These terrorists killed a dozen or two, for political reasons, in Europe, sounds un-vague enough for me and probably another few hundred million EU citizens.
Be careful what you wish for (Score:2)
We get mad when we hear about the Snowden revelations. We get mad when the government doesn't monitor "known" threats. We get mad when our government doesn't treat captured terrorist killers kindly. You cannot have it both ways.
The best answer is for each citize
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> When you're angry, the media is spreading fear, and citizens are demanding action from their government, its all to easy to swing wildly too far in giving up freedom and privacy. We've had more than a decade of that in the US and it isn't pretty.
A lot of us here are in STEM or work with data in some way. How on Earth are you going to prevent shit like this from happening if not by close surveillance? For it is not an individual action but a pattern of individually innocent-looking actions that is predi
Welcome to the Slippery Slope! Enjoy the ride! (Score:4, Interesting)
..now, that all having been said:
If you don't, for more than a second or two, think that these 'sweeping powers' they want to grab (and make no mistake, it's a power-grab) are going to end up being grossly and indiscriminately mis-used to further political agendas that have nothing to do with anti-terrorism, then you are incredibly, unbelievably naive, because that's exactly, precisely what's going to happen. Euros, you need to clamp down on this shit right now, because once they get this kind of power, they will not let go of it, ever, and they will ironically enough use it to destroy whatever freedom of speech you have in your country. Mark my words.
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It may still be the smaller bad, in comparison to not doing anything on the excuse that it incurs the risk (or even the likelihood) of what you talk about. Life is action -> reaction, get used to it. Noone believes that the states won't misuse their powers, but it's naive and insulting of YOU to assume that people don't consider that self-defense and self-preservation has costs. If you think about it, the modern state is way more knowledgeable about you than it was in the medieval or industrial times, cr
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Abnormal people realize it too. It just goes to show how governments are neither normal people or abnormal people. Whose line is it, again?
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If by "normal" you mean the normal curve, I guess you're right... probably the majority of the population is ignorant people that can't analyze the facts for themselves. Easier to watch Fox News and hate the other group.
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No, the OP does not have a point. Why are you focusing on one specific instance? Violence is widespread, and is committed by all kinds of people. Christians of all denominations in the US were quite content with the fact their government torture people (or offshore the task). The loads of innocent people that are killed in drone attacks are also not victims of muslim terrorists.
Religions are stupid and should be extinguished, but the correct way to achieve that goal is through education. With violence you'l
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Saying the issue is pretty much totally muslims is like saying "violent pit bull attacks are pretty much totally dogs" or "christian child molesters are pretty much totally christians". Being technically true doesn't mean it's helpful (and doesn't make it less harmful)
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Crimes against fashion don't count as terrorism, bro. Reality TV might, but the viewers are victims, not perpetrators.
Who's us? Last time I
Re:2nd/3rd generation of immigrants are IMMIGRANTS (Score:4, Insightful)
France belongs to the French
Germany belongs to the Germans
Sweden belongs to the Swedes
Italy belongs to the Italians
In other words, they are the indigenous for their ancestors, for thousands of years, have settled in that place
And immigrants ? No matter if they are 2nd / 3rd / 4th or whatever generation, once they have decided to harm the indigenous they should be kicked out, immediately !
America belongs to...
Australia belongs to...
Ah, never mind.
Re:2nd/3rd generation of immigrants are IMMIGRANTS (Score:5, Funny)
America belongs to...
. . . the rich.
Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
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Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
:)
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Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
And then there's all the marsupials, snakes, and spiders ..... ba dum tish
Re: 2nd/3rd generation of immigrants are IMMIGRANT (Score:2)
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why use different labels for the same thing?
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Well lets see there's only the platypus, the corroboree frog and the birdwing butterfly for poisonous critters, so I'd be much more worried about the venomious critters down-under.
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America is a civil state.
The Americas were, for the most part, colonised by European immigrants that kicked the shit out of the people that already lived there. I really don't see how that's different than what happening now (or is about to happen) in Europe in the mind of many scared/aggressive people. And for the record: I don't hold current day Americans responsible for that, it's not like they got to choose what their forefathers did or did not do, although of historically/societally you do have some kind of responsibility (jus
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Europe has mostly become pacifist as a result of a rise of existentialism, which itself arised from a rejection of extremes (such as communism and fascism) that were highly destructive during WWII (only about 70 years ago, Fascism was considered an example of European governance as a LOT of countries practiced it at the time; not just the Axis powers.)
Though before that, France has somewhat of a history of violently killing people who they believe don't even think the same way as themselves. Take the reign
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Huh? Your response is a shocking example of idiocy in action.
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It was in the 70's, today the whole world is a dream for Nazis...
There's nowhere to hide anymore - the world's too crowded and politicians are corrupt everywhere.
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The European countries are ethnic states, have been for thousands of years
You might want to brush up on your history. Up until 200 years ago or so, there wasn't even such a nationality as "French" or "Spanish". There were Bretons, Catalans etc. And most European states up until then were united not by shared ethnicity, and in many cases not even by shared culture or religion, but by allegiance to the same monarch. It wasn't until the advent of what we now call Romantic nationalism at the end of the 18th century, that ethnicity really began to matter in national politics in a big
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Most Italians do not descend from the ancient Italic tribes.
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Mods, please! That was funny, not insightful... If it was serious, it would be troll/flamebait.
Seeing all the support for the typical right wing reaction illustrates very clearly the bit of fascism in everybody. There are no national boundaries there. This feeling is global, natural, animal. Humanity becomes a little less humane.
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Which is impossible for any human being to prove. Or do you have records of all or even most - or even a single one - of your ancestral lines going back to the height of the Roman Empire?
Furthermore, nations are not genetic but memetic. Being French means nothing more and nothing less than that you think of yourself as French. People born in France typically do, as do some of the people who've liv
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Kicked out to where exactly? It could be said that your abusive system turned them into criminals so why should other countries be forced to receive them. You created them, your problem, especially 2nd generation on. Once you accept them, they are yours and they become within your society is what you turned them into to, they are you.
Let's just focus upon how you let them in in the first place and learn to accept the consequences of that. Why not just include psychological testing as part of the immigran
Re:Immigrants are natives (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of muslims are ethnic Persians, which are anything BUT brown. Related: Iran changed its name from Persia in reference to it being the "land of the Aryans" with the Persian word for Aryan transliterating to English as Iranian.
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Re:Why are they punishing the law abiding citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
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Freedom is *far* more at risk from our own governments than it ever was from terrorists.
Really? How many newspapers feel free to publish cartoons featuring Mohammed as a character? Is it the government that causes that fear? There has been a recent terrorist attack over this resulting in a dozen deaths, with more threatened. And that isn't the only problem from this vector.
Oxford University Press bans use of pig, sausage or pork-related words to avoid offending Muslims [telegraph.co.uk]
Salafist Muslim Group Forms 'Sharia Police' Patrol in Germany [nbcnews.com]
Anti-gay, anti-alcohol: London's "Sharia patrol" [slashdot.org]
Swedish Police [dailycaller.com]
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So you can't trust government when it comes to stopping people with a demonstrated and announced desire to poison, shoot, or blow you up...
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the same governments that provide universal health care
No. It may strike you as odd, but governments change over time. I have serious suspicions that universal health care was founded based on the kind of fear we're seeing dictate our laws these days. It seems that every law that comes out these days in every country amounts to "give police and/or governments as much power as we can squeeze in on the vague chance that it will be useful, and to hell with any sense of privacy."
And honestly, a lot of those laws would make great sense -- under one condition: Th
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Part of collect it all. Bring it out for use in open courts. Everything collected is now more legal. No more parallel construction needed.
All that new data can then be shared with other EU, UK and US beyond the "The Ring of Five" Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Denmark.
The part most nations dont seem to have fully understood is what the GCHQ understood decades ago. Never mention the collection part and people keep on trusting their phones and computer networks.
Now that nations adm
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is it really a large number? Here in Scandinavia as far as I can tell there are indeed Muslim extremists, but a quite small number. I work with a number of Muslims in a regular office job, and they are more or less normal people. More religious than the average Scandinavian, but then so are Americans.
And in terms of actual crimes committed, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of terrorism going on here. There have actually been many more people killed by anti-Muslim nativists (like Anders Breivik) than by
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Is it really a large number?
Islam is opposed to the separation of church and state. So you would have to say that every good Muslim is to some degree opposed to western civilization. I don't think I'm alone in understanding that theocracy is evil and must be avoided, that's the founding principle of the country I live in after all.
The biggest problems are more run-of-the-mill socioeconomic problems.
Yes, but those exacerbate problems caused by theocracies (or would-be theocracies — in this case, it varies by region) which depend on ignorance. That's why the Catholics want to interpret the bible fo
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This is an inherent contradiction between Islam and western society, and it cannot be reconciled without either giving up on religious freedom, or throwing away the Quran. They're not allowed to edit it.
And yet there large numbers of moderate muslims that do not feel at all obliged or even inclined to impose the sharia on the rest of the Western country they live in. Maybe they're not real muslims in the eyes of fundamentalists, but why should we take the same view as fundamentalists in this regard while we reject them on all other points?
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And yet there large numbers of moderate muslims that do not feel at all obliged or even inclined to impose the sharia on the rest of the Western country they live in.
Are you sure? Maybe they don't feel a need to do it by force, but that's not really the whole story, is it? That's far morally superior to those who do, but it's still going to be an unending source of conflict.
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And yet there large numbers of moderate muslims that do not feel at all obliged or even inclined to impose the sharia on the rest of the Western country they live in.
Are you sure?
About as sure as you can be from watching documentaries, listening to interviews, reading opinion pieces, talking to people etc.
Maybe they don't feel a need to do it by force, but that's not really the whole story, is it? That's far morally superior to those who do, but it's still going to be an unending source of conflict.
If you are convinced that part of the population has the destruction of a lot of what you hold dear as their secret agenda , then I don't see a possibility besides endless conflict either.
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If you are convinced that part of the population has the destruction of a lot of what you hold dear as their secret agenda
How it is a secret agenda? It seems pretty out in the open to me.
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If you are convinced that part of the population has the destruction of a lot of what you hold dear as their secret agenda
How it is a secret agenda? It seems pretty out in the open to me.
Well, I thought that in case of the moderate muslims it could be a secret agenda in your view. In any case, feel free to ignore the "secret" in that sentence.
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Islam is opposed to the separation of church and state.
Eh, and so is Christianity generally. So much so that we do not even have separation of church and state in Denmark: the Church of Denmark is the official state church, which is written into the Constitution. There is freedom of conscience and worship, but one religion (Lutheran Protestant Christianity) is officially established, while the others are (according to the Constitution) merely tolerated, allowed to worship as they wish "provided that nothing
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Blah-blah-blah. Why is it that e.g. the Poilsh can integrate more nicely into the UK society? Maybe because they try, and there are more shared values? Religions teach people things and values that may or may not be compatible with Western values. There is an undeniable pattern between Islam and disrespect for Western values, e.g. secularity (separation of church and state), religious freedom, women's rights, child (girl) education, types of punishments, I could go on and on.Once the demographic processes t
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I don't know what they do in the UK, but Eastern Europeans do not integrate well here. They are pretty notorious for being heavily involved in criminality [rt.com].
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That is a pretty damning statistic, I admit. But it would be weird for Western Europeans to limit migration from Eastern Europe, because Western Europe in general, made the mistake of accepting millions of culturally very different immigrants en masse who's values are radically different, and migration from Eastern Europe is the only route to improve demographic balance. So if I were a Western European far right wing politician (which I'm not, not even a sympathizer) then I'd _definitely_ insist on strength
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Are the Slavs really more culturally similar than the Arabs, though? They feel at best "equally foreign" to me. Slavs are the eastern fringe of Europe, and Arabs are the southern fringe. They both intertwine with European history while remaining not quite entirely within it. And in the modern era, they are both more religious than the average Scandinavian, which manifests itself in fairly similar ways (the Slavs and Arabs both seem to hate gays). I'm not sure I would really prefer to have Slav neighbor than
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The big trouble here, is that a disturbingly large number of Muslims hold opinions that are complete anathema to open and free Western societies.
Then again, this is matched by the disturbingly large number of non-Muslims who make unfounded generalised comments about Muslims!
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I agree that the US should eliminate its dependence on Islamic oil, so that the source of funding for jihadi campaigns, gulf sheikhdoms pampering their sheikhs and Islamic regimes acquiring nuclear weapons or all sorts of other weaponry dries up. After all, until the 60s, when oil was discovered, the Muzzies weren't buying up all sorts of property in the West, and aside from the wars on Israel, they weren't anywhere near a threat to the rest of the world as the Soviets were. And despite now 50 years of U
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