Europe - The Barbarian Invasion has Begun.

[arkirk]

Amazing!!! I came to this thread just now expecting the moslem apologists in full flight explaining the Paris atrocity.
Not a word, what's happening!! A report I just heard says that at least one of the terrorist was a refugee who only arrived recently from Syria.

No, he was a Frenchman who trained in Syria and then returned via the refugee route as the government is watching for the guys who went to ISIS for training.

Thanks for setting angelo straight, Loren.

 

[untermensche]

We have to stop that hoard of Frenchmen invading Europe.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Your editing seems to have accidently scrambled the identity of who wrote what. So rather than trying to untangle it, I quoted some of your points and here are my views:

Yes. Too bad I couldn't go back and fix it.

First, the anti-immigrant movements are justly opposed to the current immigration policies. They fear that the historic German population, its culture, and its values will be either hybridized or replaced by millions of Muslims and their descendents. They understandably and rightly oppose the social, economic, and behavioral consequences of prior and future immigration.

I'm just fundamentally opposed to this way of seeing culture. It's what we call "identity politics". It's focusing too much on superficial shit that don't matter. Germany doesn't have one culture. It has many cultures. Urban cultures are different from rural cultures. The middle-class is different from the working class. Steel workers are different from auto industry workers. A computer engineer has a different culture from a salesman. Painters have a different culture from opera singers. The culture of 40 year olds is radically different from the culture of 20-somethings. A 20 year old Egyptian of course has more in common with a 20 year old Swede, than the same Egyptian has with a 40 year old in the same country, or even in the same family. All these are more different, than what cultural differences you manage to define between nations.

There is one huge problem with national identity politics, and that it is complete bullshit. There is no substance to a hypothetical national culture. Nobody can pin down what it is. It leads to nationalists wanting there to be something concrete so they invent it. It becomes a kind of national performance. People worry more about what they should be, than what they really are. Another major problem with this is that it's all negatively defined. It's not, "this is what a Swede is". It's all, "this is what a Swede is different from an Arab", "or a Dane". It all becomes hopelessly confused and vague.

I say this, not as a liberal with a bleeding heart for suffering darkies. I've had a long career of leading cross cultural teams. I've worked with teams spread out over the globe in India, Israel, USA, Russia and quite few more. I'm so experienced with this I've even had lectures explaining how this works. I'm right now working as a volunteer at a homeless shelter that mostly caters to homeless people who are here illegally. The so called economic immigrants. So my skills aren't just for engineers. It took me half a day to help educate the people who have worked there for 10+ years and I immediately made their life easier and made communication better with the guests in a number of concrete and measurable ways.

One of the things that is apparent with culture, is that it is very fluid and as long as you adopt a humble attitude, it's flexible as hell. I can switch cultures back and forth instantly with no effort. Not just across national cultural boundaries, but across cultural boundaries within a country. Anybody can do it, once you accept that there's nothing obvious or natural with culture. It's real easy. Also, culture around things spring up naturally. Start a new company, and it will quickly develop a unique culture that is different from any other company. So the idea that immigrants have a different culture than us... so what? Every country has a huge variety of cultures, and we all need to cope with switching cultural identities, if we're to survive in the modern world.

What messes with this is simply intransigence. A lot of people, if not most, think that there culture is embedded in their genes somehow or are hard to change. Or behave like their way of doing it is the best or natural, the "it's always the way I have done it" - attitude, or "why should I change? They're the ones moving here. They should change". You can have that attitude. And a lot do. But it's to no benefit for anyone. It's it's only about inflating one's ego. Trying to feel superior to others, who don't share "my culture". It certainly won't benefit the person doing it, nor the people you are trying to communicate with. That's a positive thing with having lots of immigration. It forces cultures to open up and become more functional/useful. That's just good for everybody. Sooner is better. I'm a big fan of multi-culturalism.

As far as values are concerned. I believe values come from structure, ie what behaviours are beneficial to achieve high status in a group. They too are extremely flexible. This one is mostly down to memes, and does change very slowly. But here to, once you have a humble attitude, this to can switch super easily. And often are values a complicated network of interconnected shit. Human basic needs are universal. Maslows hierarchy of needs, and so on. So once you've untangled how your own network of values work, it's super easy for you to connect with people from any culture instantly. But this has to do with self knowledge, and requires a lot of work for anybody. But works that we all should be doing at some point in our lives IMHO.

This forum, and Internet forums is a good example why multi-culturalism needs to be the norm. If you're used to it it'll be easier to communicate on-line across borders

Second, there is no chance that a new Nazi party will arise. The antipathy to fascism is, after 70 years, so deeply ingrained in the German (and European) psyche that even legitimate and weak dissent (see Pegida Platform below) is routinely denounced as racist. If, after 70 years, the German people have not learned democratic values the most likely source of repression will be from the left, not the right. We've seen that in recent events.

I'll answer with an example. When communism was introduced to Europe it was staunchly opposed to what they called religious oppression. It was the "opium of the masses". But what happened? Whenever there was a communist cell it very quickly became modelled on the very church they were trying to replace. The agitator was the priest, read from communist texts as if they were the Bible and the meeting halls became churches, their union banners became sacred objects. And most importantly, because just as fucking authoritarian as the church had been. Why did they do this? Because they were familiar with this structure of organising things. It felt natural to them.

If we get a resurgence of fascism in Europe, it will:

1) Label itself as being democratic and free and all the popular buzzwords.
2) In practice won't be
3) We won't notice until it'll be too late

I agree it'll most likely come from the left. But that's simply because we're not expecting it. The interesting thing about fascists are that they rarely understand how intolerant they are.

Third, the state sponsored repression is obvious. For example:

I agree it terrifies me. This is trying so hard to not be fascist that you end up being fascist.

Pegida:

I'm aware of Pegida. I think they're clowns. I suspect they're in reality racists who are trying to not appear as racists. I think they should be ignored completely.

 

[angelo]

Quote Originally Posted by maxparrish View Post
Second, there is no chance that a new Nazi party will arise. The antipathy to fascism is, after 70 years, so deeply ingrained in the German (and European) psyche that even legitimate and weak dissent (see Pegida Platform below) is routinely denounced as racist. If, after 70 years, the German people have not learned democratic values the most likely source of repression will be from the left, not the right. We've seen that in recent events.

No?
islam..........1,Dictatorship government. 2,Muslims are supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal is World Domination. 5, Killed, 270 million and counting. 6, Viewed as a Religion of peace in the West.

Nazism........1, Dictatorship government. 2, Aryan race is supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal was World Domination. 5, Killed [approx] 11 million. 6, Viewed as evil and an enemy to the West.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Quote Originally Posted by maxparrish View Post
Second, there is no chance that a new Nazi party will arise. The antipathy to fascism is, after 70 years, so deeply ingrained in the German (and European) psyche that even legitimate and weak dissent (see Pegida Platform below) is routinely denounced as racist. If, after 70 years, the German people have not learned democratic values the most likely source of repression will be from the left, not the right. We've seen that in recent events.

No?
islam..........1,Dictatorship government. 2,Muslims are supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal is World Domination. 5, Killed, 270 million and counting. 6, Viewed as a Religion of peace in the West.

Nazism........1, Dictatorship government. 2, Aryan race is supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal was World Domination. 5, Killed [approx] 11 million. 6, Viewed as evil and an enemy to the West.

Well. The problem is fascism. If you replace Nazism with Christianity, then the comparison is accurate. But then you need to acknowledge that this is only the most extreme interpretation of said religion. If USA isn't a fascist dictatorship, then we know that it's not inevitable for a predominantly Islamic country to be a dictatorship either.

islam..........1,Dictatorship government. 2,Muslims are supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal is World Domination. 5, Killed, 270 million and counting. 6, Viewed as a Religion of peace in the West.

Christianity........1, Dictatorship government. 2, Aryan race is supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal was World Domination. 5, Killed [approx] 11 million. 6, (Viewed as evil and an enemy to the West, only for member of this forum and other sceptics).

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I agree it'll most likely come from the left. But that's simply because we're not expecting it. The interesting thing about fascists are that they rarely understand how intolerant they are.

Here in the US it is more likely to come from the right disguised as "libertarians". If you listen to their rhetoric from these people, they want freedom from "government oppression" (regulation, guns), but are quick to demand that government oppress and regulate those that are exercising their basic rights (guns, speech, religion, sexuality, freedom of movement, etc.).

 

[maxparrish]

No, he was a Frenchman who trained in Syria and then returned via the refugee route as the government is watching for the guys who went to ISIS for training.

Thanks for setting angelo straight, Loren.

Yes, its so much more comforting that Isis and French Muslims are teaming up, and use the refugee waves to re-infiltrate.

 

[Jokodo]

Thanks for setting angelo straight, Loren.

Yes, its so much more comforting that Isis and French Muslims are teaming up, and use the refugee waves to re-infiltrate.

We don't know that, do we? As in, we don't really know the real identity of the person carrying the Syrian passport.

What we do know, though, is that at least four of the perpetrators were French and Belgian citizens who didn't need to re-infiltrate because they were already there.

It is pretty clear that ISIS would have had the operational capacities to carry out the attacks in the same or a very similar fashion if not a single Syrian refugee had been let onto the continent in the last 4 years.

You and ISIS have a lot in common: ISIS want Muslims to believe that there is a total war going on between (their version of) Islam and everyone else, and that it's not up to an individual Muslim to choose sides, that being Muslim alone is sufficient to predetermine on which side one is. You want non-Muslims to believe the same. If you get your way and it becomes official policy for European countries to make life hell for all Muslims they can get their hands on, starting with their own citizens and refugees, the only thing that will achieve is to make ISIS's narrative appear all the more credible.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You and ISIS have a lot in common: ISIS want Muslims to believe that there is a total war going on between (their version of) Islam and everyone else, and that it's not up to an individual Muslim to choose sides, that being Muslim alone is sufficient to predetermine on which side one is. You want non-Muslims to believe the same. If you get your way and it becomes official policy for European countries to make life hell for all Muslims they can get their hands on, starting with their own citizens and refugees, the only thing that will achieve is to make ISIS's narrative appear all the more credible.

We want non-Muslims to recognize how ISIS believes and thus no appeasement-based answer can work.

 

[Jokodo]

You and ISIS have a lot in common: ISIS want Muslims to believe that there is a total war going on between (their version of) Islam and everyone else, and that it's not up to an individual Muslim to choose sides, that being Muslim alone is sufficient to predetermine on which side one is. You want non-Muslims to believe the same. If you get your way and it becomes official policy for European countries to make life hell for all Muslims they can get their hands on, starting with their own citizens and refugees, the only thing that will achieve is to make ISIS's narrative appear all the more credible.

We want non-Muslims to recognize how ISIS believes and thus no appeasement-based answer can work.

I for one have not argued that appeasement-based policies vis-a-vis ISIS can work.

What I'm arguing against is equating ISIS and Islam as a whole, and then arguing that "appeasement-based answers can't work" vis-a-vis the latter.

Doing so is actually doing ISIS a huge favour.

Being humane to Muslim refugees (remember which thread we're in?) is the opposite of appeasing ISIS. If you really want to be a pain in their ass, you're doing much more by showing that their narrative of an inevitable clash of Islam and the West, and of Muslims' perpetual oppression, isn't the end of the story than you could ever hope to achieve by bombing them.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

You and ISIS have a lot in common: ISIS want Muslims to believe that there is a total war going on between (their version of) Islam and everyone else, and that it's not up to an individual Muslim to choose sides, that being Muslim alone is sufficient to predetermine on which side one is. You want non-Muslims to believe the same. If you get your way and it becomes official policy for European countries to make life hell for all Muslims they can get their hands on, starting with their own citizens and refugees, the only thing that will achieve is to make ISIS's narrative appear all the more credible.

We want non-Muslims to recognize how ISIS believes and thus no appeasement-based answer can work.

SO where should we bomb next? Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey. If all Muslims are evil terrorists that can be trusted, we should be attacking 1/4 of the peoples of the world. However, if there are terrorists from certain groups, maybe it is better to trust those peoples who do not have ties to the terrorists.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Amazing!!! I came to this thread just now expecting the moslem apologists in full flight explaining the Paris atrocity.
Not a word, what's happening!! A report I just heard says that at least one of the terrorist was a refugee who only arrived recently from Syria.

No, he was a Frenchman who trained in Syria and then returned via the refugee route as the government is watching for the guys who went to ISIS for training.

The problem is we just let these people back in. What and easy target Europe has become.

 

[whichphilosophy]

We want non-Muslims to recognize how ISIS believes and thus no appeasement-based answer can work.

SO where should we bomb next? Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey. If all Muslims are evil terrorists that can be trusted, we should be attacking 1/4 of the peoples of the world. However, if there are terrorists from certain groups, maybe it is better to trust those peoples who do not have ties to the terrorists.

Maybe Yemen.

 

[whichphilosophy]

No, he was a Frenchman who trained in Syria and then returned via the refugee route as the government is watching for the guys who went to ISIS for training.

Thanks for setting angelo straight, Loren.

This also demonstrates what happened when you let these people back in.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We want non-Muslims to recognize how ISIS believes and thus no appeasement-based answer can work.

I for one have not argued that appeasement-based policies vis-a-vis ISIS can work.

What I'm arguing against is equating ISIS and Islam as a whole, and then arguing that "appeasement-based answers can't work" vis-a-vis the latter.

Doing so is actually doing ISIS a huge favour.

Being humane to Muslim refugees (remember which thread we're in?) is the opposite of appeasing ISIS. If you really want to be a pain in their ass, you're doing much more by showing that their narrative of an inevitable clash of Islam and the West, and of Muslims' perpetual oppression, isn't the end of the story than you could ever hope to achieve by bombing them.

There's a difference between appeasement of ISIS and taking in refugees from ISIS lands. I do think we should be taking in refugees from ISIS--it's just we should be screening them better. Most of the current "refugee" flood is really economic migrants who are not from Syria/ISIS lands in the first place.

 

[KeepTalking]

No, he was a Frenchman who trained in Syria and then returned via the refugee route as the government is watching for the guys who went to ISIS for training.

The problem is we just let these people back in. What and easy target Europe has become.

Please note: In this case "these people" means French citizens with French passports.

 

[bilby]

No, he was a Frenchman who trained in Syria and then returned via the refugee route as the government is watching for the guys who went to ISIS for training.

The problem is we just let these people back in. What and easy target Europe has become.

What do you mean 'has become'? Granting one's own citizens the right to enter the country at will is not a new thing; Indeed, the fundamental basis of citizenship has always been that citizens are allowed to enter the country freely.

The 'these people' you are saying it is a 'problem' to 'let' back in are citizens. If citizens are to be denied the right to re-enter their country of citizenship, then citizenship becomes meaningless. If certain citizens are to be denied that right based on the mere suspicion that they may have done something that is not itself illegal, but that might lead to their having an increased ability and/or desire to commit a crime in the future, then you are arguing for nations to have the arbitrary and capricious right to render any person stateless on a whim.

If you think that's got the potential to be less of a problem than a few hundred people per decade being killed by terrorists, then you are fucking insane.

Of course, if by 'these people' you mean 'French passport holders who are not white enough to be REAL frenchmen^TM', then why not just strip all of 'these people' of their citizenship right away? The ones who have no other country to go to can simply be held in camps; and if that becomes too costly, then you could exterminate them.

If that's not the obvious endpoint of your line of logic regarding 'these people', then what is?

 

[ksen]

I, for one, am glad our intrepid governor is working his hardest to save the 20 million people in my state from around 500 Syrian refugees ISIS super mutants coming here to murder us all in our sleep.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

SO where should we bomb next? Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey. If all Muslims are evil terrorists that can be trusted, we should be attacking 1/4 of the peoples of the world. However, if there are terrorists from certain groups, maybe it is better to trust those peoples who do not have ties to the terrorists.

Maybe Yemen.

Where are you currently stationed?

 

[angelo]

No?
islam..........1,Dictatorship government. 2,Muslims are supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal is World Domination. 5, Killed, 270 million and counting. 6, Viewed as a Religion of peace in the West.

Nazism........1, Dictatorship government. 2, Aryan race is supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal was World Domination. 5, Killed [approx] 11 million. 6, Viewed as evil and an enemy to the West.

Well. The problem is fascism. If you replace Nazism with Christianity, then the comparison is accurate. But then you need to acknowledge that this is only the most extreme interpretation of said religion. If USA isn't a fascist dictatorship, then we know that it's not inevitable for a predominantly Islamic country to be a dictatorship either.

islam..........1,Dictatorship government. 2,Muslims are supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal is World Domination. 5, Killed, 270 million and counting. 6, Viewed as a Religion of peace in the West.

Christianity........1, Dictatorship government. 2, Aryan race is supreme. 3, Destruction of all Jews. 4, Goal was World Domination. 5, Killed [approx] 11 million. 6, (Viewed as evil and an enemy to the West, only for member of this forum and other sceptics).

Trying to paint xtianity, which has had a reformation, with the same brush as Islamism ain't gonna work as xtianity and islam are like cheese and chalk.