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Radical Islamic Terrorism's days are numbered

It's the converts that are more likely to end up religious nuts than those born to the faith.
How many Muslim converts do you know or have known in real life? And from where is this assumption born? I don't imagine there are facts for this type of assumption, but you're free to prove me incorrect.

For the record, I have known as you'd expect other Muslim converts, and I have not seen even one end up a "religious nut" in any sense of the term. And again, TSwizzle's ad hominem in this thread then is not any more validated with your unsubstantiated claim now.

Blame that discrimination on the radicals. One of their objectives is to drive a wedge between Muslims and everyone else. To some extent they are succeeding.
So, regular Joe and Suzy can get a free pass on bigotry? No, thank you. I blame the people responsible for their bigotry. The radicals are responsible for their own bigotry. And regular Joe and Suzy are responsible for their own bigotry. No one gets a free pass, as that is neither responsible nor a well-thought-out position.

I'd like you to tell me how you'd feel if a man said that you are responsible for your own rape. Well, Islamophobia is the rape of Muslim identity and Islam and erasure of common decency when dealing with Muslims, and no person should get a free pass from other Muslims because of the existence of radical Muslims.

Let's turn to a real life example.

If you were living in the time wherein KKK was popular in 20th century and hatred of blacks popular, would you want to be part of the group that opposed that bigotry or part of the group that inflamed that bigotry? Just because something is becoming popular does not mean it is right. And people should stand with what is right. Identity politics mean frankly nothing when it comes to truth, rightness, and justice. As an atheist, I stood for what I believe is right. And I continue doing so now as a Muslim. If you don't want or are unable to do that, then you or others shouldn't try to shift the blame and instead own up to the responsibility you have for you, your ideas, and your prejudices.

It's not hatred. It's fear.

Fear of the unknown? If someone fears something, the best thing to do is not wallow in the fear but to become informed and I don't mean with the sites that peddle Islamophobia so that such hatred can later be regurgitated by readers of said such sites under the cloak of anonymity on Internet boards like this one. What I'm referring to is more a common sense approach based in decency and sincere desire to learn: Go to your local Islamic Centers, interact with Muslims, learn from Muslims on what they're about, what they really think. You might be surprised to know that they are just as human as you and bleed just as red as anyone. Fear and hatred are all part of the same coin and one will sooner or later follow the other, and both are unjustifiable and in the ends up warping and harming the person carrying that burden far more than anyone else. It's like carrying a burning coal in your hand and expecting someone else to be instead burning while ignoring the fact that your hands are the ones in the meantime burnt. People should learn to deal with people on an individual basis and understand that the worst elements in any community cannot and do not represent the best elements in any community. I don't think it's that long gone that people should forget that blacks were ones the recipient of the same fear and hatred and so were the Jews and so have been other minorities in any heyday of different ages in different cultures and nations, but good people have never been the perpetrators of the fear and hatred. Everyone has a choice: Every person chooses what he/she wants for himself. And in the end if he/she doesn't like the results of what he/she sees, that person has no one but himself/herself to blame for his/her own choices. Ignorance and fear and hatred has never been rewarding and will never be.

Peace.
 
But you're talking about the money for Islamophobia which is small potatoes compared to the money for terrorism. You're focusing on the pebble instead of the boulder.

I have told you that I like facts and figures and data points. Talking to me without them is not going to help you make your case. Frankly, I am astonished that you would want to have this conversation without them. We're talking about millions of dollars being poured into not only terrorism but also millions of dollars being poured into Islamophobia. And I have already conceded that many millions of dollars are poured into terrorism and also said the same for Islamophobia. And yet you still have not proven to me that there is substantially more money being poured into terrorism than there is Islamophobia, and I will not accept assertions at face value simply because not only do I not know you in real life to know on what basis I should place my trust in your unsubstantiated conjectures but also that I'd find it impossibly simple-minded to do so because that's not a healthy approach to obtaining or learning information.

That's not Islamophobia. It's based on the fact that the burkini is mostly a tool of oppression.
Burkini is not a tool of oppression. I find the burkini a stylistic choice in terms of swimwear that should be afforded to all women regardless of religion who'd want to wear it. And there are still conservative non-Muslim cultures elsewhere in the world that do welcome the burkini. Yet if I choose to wear the burkini, you are telling me you'd assume I'm oppressed and therefore you would support governments freeing me from this presumed oppression by removing from myself the right and choice to elect what swimwear I should be able to wear. I should tell you that absolutely makes no sense. Oppression should not be allowed to be defined by people in power simply because of who they are. That's classic and textbook definition of discrimination. Do you even understand the history of Western countries with respect to swimsuits? I think you should see the article "History of Bathing Suits" because it should prove to you that women have been wearing conservative types of swimsuits for much longer than most people would imagine and no one thought to criticize those women or criticize common ancestors for making those choices specific to swimwear.

Actually, I wouldn't call it that--because Trump doesn't know what truth is. He says what he thinks his audience wants to hear. If Trump were sane I would agree it's Islamophobia.
And in the end, you assume his words are meaningless because you don't think President Trump is sane? He's the President of the world's number one nation, and you think the constituency that elected him chose insane person to the Office? I didn't vote for President Trump in the election, but even I don't think he's insane. He might want to say what his audience wants to hear, but I wouldn't say that his speeches are not a reflection of him because they are. Our words and actions are always a reflection of who we are and presume to be.

You're assuming it's unrelated to actual actions. Without more evidence I don't want to decide one way or the other.
Of myself and you, I think I can safely say I haven't been the one making the assumptions without evidence. And have you read the article to form an opinion one way or the other and what evidence would you need to draw specific warranted conclusions?

I don't see anyone denying it's existence. What I see is that it's constantly invoked any time something comes up that's negative to a Muslim. It's the same thing as blacks playing the race card any time they are accused of wrongdoing.
I see clearly that that's the way you feel. However, opinions should be ideally formed on the basis of facts and not assumptions. Shouldn't you seek out Muslims to ask them yourself what the feel and think and what their experiences of Islamophobia are before you dismiss them as playing a card? This is real life, not a game, in which people receive get-out-of-jail cards akin to Monopoly. What I can surmise so far from what you've written is that because you are neither a Muslim nor a black person you feel any criticism of bigotry means that there is a card that is being played. Other than that, I have nothing.

You'll find plenty of nutters in newspaper comments. That doesn't reflect the population.
Yes and no. I don't need to just read newspaper articles' comments' section to know that Islamophobia has been increasing and more Islamophobic incidents have happened in 2016 than perhaps other years of significance. Also, comments in the Internet might not reflect the entire population, but they do reflect the winds of hatred and fear if there's a consistent pattern. And I'm sure you can start to track comments in comments' sections in various newspapers and articles yourself and investigate for yourself it there is a consistent pattern.

Because we bend over backwards to avoid Islamophobia to the point of ignoring very real problems.

And CAIR has close ties with Hamas. A legitimate civil rights organization would avoid anything resembling such ties.
So, "real problems" are problems only you and those like-minded care about and not the ones minorities of any stripe might want to bring attention? Real problems I've always been of the mind are problems that affect everybody, and last time I checked, Islamophobia does fall into that category. I had earlier in the thread linked to the site of a university's definition of Islamophobia that has included linkage to and propaganda that then falls into accepting wars in foreign countries. That is a matter of great concern and should be to any sane person. Terrorism doesn't exist in a vacuum but has specific causes, and although I do despise terrorism, I don't imagine for a second that our fighting foreign wars in countries isn't culpable for specific incidents of terrorism in recent memories and history.

Peace.
 
If the history of the world teaches us anything, it is that the days are numbered for the practical application for any "ism". The real question is how far in the future is the end.
 
Great day for crystal balls.

No crystal balls required. You're a fundy muslim on allah's "right path" to teh islam.

It is very obvious to me that you are uninformed on the subject of Islam and Muslims. Therefore, I really don't take your insults seriously and so have countenanced and countered them with my trademark humor and unique brand of cheeky reality checks. However, if I may offer a suggestion? Insults and assumptions are the currency of the people who are in the wrong and do not have arguments to offer. Therefore, you should employ them sparingly to maintain some semblance of governing yourself in the manner that would enable people to take you seriously and enable them to come away with food for thought.

And since you have offered your unsolicited opinion on my "path," let me take the liberty of informing you that I'm a Muslim and I'm pleased with my religious identity. I do not and will not cower in shame because I have done nothing of which to be ashamed. I have exercised the choice to choose my path of my own free will and chosen a spiritual path that I have found infinitely fulfilling. I have never been a fundamentalist nor do I see myself as becoming one; I have always been of the opinion that moderation and balance are the key to success in all areas of life.

However, you should question why you are choosing to go down a path of inexplicable and as yet unidentifiable fundamentalism that is taking the form of the compulsion to insult, berate, and assume things about me of which you have no objective way of knowing. Winning and losing are funny things. I win actually by letting you insult and letting you lower your own dignity and respect in responding in an unbecoming manner when you are unable to write anything in the way of logic or argument to refute my valid points. I can no more understand why you would then choose to lose nor why you'd let me win.

Peace.
 
How many Muslim converts do you know or have known in real life? And from where is this assumption born? I don't imagine there are facts for this type of assumption, but you're free to prove me incorrect.

For the record, I have known as you'd expect other Muslim converts, and I have not seen even one end up a "religious nut" in any sense of the term. And again, TSwizzle's ad hominem in this thread then is not any more validated with your unsubstantiated claim now.

Converts are disproportionately represented amongst the ones that engage in terrorist attacks.

Blame that discrimination on the radicals. One of their objectives is to drive a wedge between Muslims and everyone else. To some extent they are succeeding.
So, regular Joe and Suzy can get a free pass on bigotry? No, thank you. I blame the people responsible for their bigotry. The radicals are responsible for their own bigotry. And regular Joe and Suzy are responsible for their own bigotry. No one gets a free pass, as that is neither responsible nor a well-thought-out position.

The problem is one of human nature. Muslims sometimes explode in murderous violence. It's rare but the only pattern we can identify is that they are Muslim. It causes a legitimate fear.

If you were living in the time wherein KKK was popular in 20th century and hatred of blacks popular, would you want to be part of the group that opposed that bigotry or part of the group that inflamed that bigotry? Just because something is becoming popular does not mean it is right. And people should stand with what is right. Identity politics mean frankly nothing when it comes to truth, rightness, and justice. As an atheist, I stood for what I believe is right. And I continue doing so now as a Muslim. If you don't want or are unable to do that, then you or others shouldn't try to shift the blame and instead own up to the responsibility you have for you, your ideas, and your prejudices.

The KKK is active, lynching uppity blacks. You're black and not content to be in servitude. Aren't you going to look with a bit of fear upon every white man?

It's not hatred. It's fear.

Fear of the unknown? If someone fears something, the best thing to do is not wallow in the fear but to become informed and I don't mean with the sites that peddle Islamophobia so that such hatred can later be regurgitated by readers of said such sites under the cloak of anonymity on Internet boards like this one. What I'm referring to is more a common sense approach based in decency and sincere desire to learn: Go to your local Islamic Centers, interact with Muslims, learn from Muslims on what they're about, what they really think. You might be surprised to know that they are just as human as you and bleed just as red as anyone. Fear and hatred are all part of the same coin and one will sooner or later follow the other, and both are unjustifiable and in the ends up warping and harming the person carrying that burden far more than anyone else. It's like carrying a burning coal in your hand and expecting someone else to be instead burning while ignoring the fact that your hands are the ones in the meantime burnt. People should learn to deal with people on an individual basis and understand that the worst elements in any community cannot and do not represent the best elements in any community. I don't think it's that long gone that people should forget that blacks were ones the recipient of the same fear and hatred and so were the Jews and so have been other minorities in any heyday of different ages in different cultures and nations, but good people have never been the perpetrators of the fear and hatred. Everyone has a choice: Every person chooses what he/she wants for himself. And in the end if he/she doesn't like the results of what he/she sees, that person has no one but himself/herself to blame for his/her own choices. Ignorance and fear and hatred has never been rewarding and will never be.

Peace.

Most Muslims are fine. It's just we can't tell the decent ones from the terrorists.
 
I have told you that I like facts and figures and data points. Talking to me without them is not going to help you make your case. Frankly, I am astonished that you would want to have this conversation without them. We're talking about millions of dollars being poured into not only terrorism but also millions of dollars being poured into Islamophobia. And I have already conceded that many millions of dollars are poured into terrorism and also said the same for Islamophobia. And yet you still have not proven to me that there is substantially more money being poured into terrorism than there is Islamophobia, and I will not accept assertions at face value simply because not only do I not know you in real life to know on what basis I should place my trust in your unsubstantiated conjectures but also that I'd find it impossibly simple-minded to do so because that's not a healthy approach to obtaining or learning information.

The inability to get exact numbers is not evidence the money isn't there. There's little doubt it's there except amongst those who stick their heads in the sand about it.

That's not Islamophobia. It's based on the fact that the burkini is mostly a tool of oppression.
Burkini is not a tool of oppression. I find the burkini a stylistic choice in terms of swimwear that should be afforded to all women regardless of religion who'd want to wear it. And there are still conservative non-Muslim cultures elsewhere in the world that do welcome the burkini. Yet if I choose to wear the burkini, you are telling me you'd assume I'm oppressed and therefore you would support governments freeing me from this presumed oppression by removing from myself the right and choice to elect what swimwear I should be able to wear. I should tell you that absolutely makes no sense. Oppression should not be allowed to be defined by people in power simply because of who they are. That's classic and textbook definition of discrimination. Do you even understand the history of Western countries with respect to swimsuits? I think you should see the article "History of Bathing Suits" because it should prove to you that women have been wearing conservative types of swimsuits for much longer than most people would imagine and no one thought to criticize those women or criticize common ancestors for making those choices specific to swimwear.

Do women freely choose it of their own accord, or do they put themselves at risk by not wearing it? The latter is the problem in France--once again, trying to drive a wedge between Muslims and the rest of society. There are places where not wearing it is asking to be raped.

Actually, I wouldn't call it that--because Trump doesn't know what truth is. He says what he thinks his audience wants to hear. If Trump were sane I would agree it's Islamophobia.
And in the end, you assume his words are meaningless because you don't think President Trump is sane? He's the President of the world's number one nation, and you think the constituency that elected him chose insane person to the Office? I didn't vote for President Trump in the election, but even I don't think he's insane. He might want to say what his audience wants to hear, but I wouldn't say that his speeches are not a reflection of him because they are. Our words and actions are always a reflection of who we are and presume to be.

What we can see of him has basically all the indications of being a sociopath and having narcissistic personality disorder. While neither make him insane in the criminal sense I still feel the word is appropriate.

I don't see anyone denying it's existence. What I see is that it's constantly invoked any time something comes up that's negative to a Muslim. It's the same thing as blacks playing the race card any time they are accused of wrongdoing.
I see clearly that that's the way you feel. However, opinions should be ideally formed on the basis of facts and not assumptions. Shouldn't you seek out Muslims to ask them yourself what the feel and think and what their experiences of Islamophobia are before you dismiss them as playing a card? This is real life, not a game, in which people receive get-out-of-jail cards akin to Monopoly. What I can surmise so far from what you've written is that because you are neither a Muslim nor a black person you feel any criticism of bigotry means that there is a card that is being played. Other than that, I have nothing.

I do not feel it's always a card being played. I do feel it's a card being played when I have to disinfect computers on a monthly basis because one black guy keeps going to bad websites. Management felt it was better to keep cleaning up the mess than open the can of worms of firing him. They felt they would also have to let go his girlfriend at the same time--the two blacks in that office. Neither was a very good worker, either.

I do feel it's a card being played when a teacher at the college tried to get me fired because I didn't like Hispanics (she taught a Hispanic outreach class) as evidenced by the fact that deleted part of her document and the general hostility we had towards her. (Reality: Of course we had a general hostility--she was incredibly disruptive of the operation of the computer lab and she was a moron besides. There was a gotcha in the word processor we were using. We told everybody about it, a few fell victim anyway--resulting in a document that couldn't be loaded. In my two years there exactly one person fell victim to it twice--her. During some slow time I worked out a way to recover the damaged files and taught it to a couple of others there that were sufficiently competent to be trusted not to mess it up (one part of the repair involved editing the directory structure of the floppy, one wrong key could trash the entire floppy.) There was also a block of control data that had to be overwritten with blank spaces. The document becomes a text file with 4 blank lines on top, read it back in and you were good to go. Unfortunately, she made a document that was right at the size limit, create 4 blank lines, lose 4 lines off the bottom of the file. Devising the fix was **far** beyond the job description, simply something I did for the challenge--but I was somehow at fault for not having made it perfect.)

You'll find plenty of nutters in newspaper comments. That doesn't reflect the population.
Yes and no. I don't need to just read newspaper articles' comments' section to know that Islamophobia has been increasing and more Islamophobic incidents have happened in 2016 than perhaps other years of significance. Also, comments in the Internet might not reflect the entire population, but they do reflect the winds of hatred and fear if there's a consistent pattern. And I'm sure you can start to track comments in comments' sections in various newspapers and articles yourself and investigate for yourself it there is a consistent pattern.

Islamic terrorism wasn't exactly on the radar of the average American before 9/11.

Because we bend over backwards to avoid Islamophobia to the point of ignoring very real problems.

And CAIR has close ties with Hamas. A legitimate civil rights organization would avoid anything resembling such ties.
So, "real problems" are problems only you and those like-minded care about and not the ones minorities of any stripe might want to bring attention? Real problems I've always been of the mind are problems that affect everybody, and last time I checked, Islamophobia does fall into that category. I had earlier in the thread linked to the site of a university's definition of Islamophobia that has included linkage to and propaganda that then falls into accepting wars in foreign countries. That is a matter of great concern and should be to any sane person. Terrorism doesn't exist in a vacuum but has specific causes, and although I do despise terrorism, I don't imagine for a second that our fighting foreign wars in countries isn't culpable for specific incidents of terrorism in recent memories and history.

Peace.

I'm not saying that there isn't an actual problem with Islamophobia. I'm saying you're portraying it as far bigger than it is and you're ignoring the reasons it exists. You think it's about prejudice rather than fear.
 
Converts are disproportionately represented amongst the ones that engage in terrorist attacks.
So that others can follow the discussion if they've been reading, I'll break this down: Earlier, in post #38, you said, "It's the converts that are more likely to end up religious nuts than those born to the faith." This is false as you'll find the article to which I've linked you here proves.

However, your second statement that of terrorists, converts are disproportionately represented might be true because current research does does tend to indicate that, although researchers of the 2016 report researching the topic themselves emphasize that "overrepresentation may not be the norm in all Western countries and that it may be a relatively recent development" and that this is as yet the most "under-esearched topic" which means that more research would need to be undertaken before we can make definitive conclusions. However, on the side of caution, I'd say you are probably right with your statement on terrorists in our time seeming to have a higher proportion of converts as recruits.

Still, the fact remains that most converts are law-abiding citizens and are no more likely to become extremist than a person who's been born to the faith. However, an article based on a MI5 report on terrorism did say the following which is notable: "Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation."

So, actually, whether a convert or a born-Muslim, a person's well-established religious identity is a protective barrier against radicalization. And conversely, terrorists (whether born-Muslims or converts) have been found to those that would lack competency in Islam and are generally not observant of their faith.

The problem is one of human nature. Muslims sometimes explode in murderous violence. It's rare but the only pattern we can identify is that they are Muslim. It causes a legitimate fear.
While I agree with you that fear is a problem unique to human nature, I don't think it's from wisdom to make excuses for it to dictate one's life. And the statement "Muslims sometimes explode in murderous violence" shows your lack of competency on Islam and Muslims. As a Muslim who's been part of a few Internet Islamic and Muslim forums, let me tell you that while the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, I have also had run-ins with a few vocal extremists on the Internet since the Internet is the hub of all types of people - good and bad.

While these few extremists on the Internet with whom I had run-ins were just keyboard warriors, they were not shy about expressing their opinions on the rightness of violence to achieve an end. And I, like my fellow Muslims, opposed their viewpoints using arguments based in Islam and some of them had been either banned or left the forums of their own accord. So, I can safely say that I've learned and gained competency on why they feel as they do, and they are about retaliation against what they perceive as the monolithic West for droning of Muslim majority lands in which millions of innocent lives have been claimed. So, Muslims, converts or not, who have well-heeled roots in a religious identity are unlikely to commit violence. However, extremists who are angry and hateful might do so and especially if they feel alienated from a culture in which Islamophobia is gaining traction in the West and they feel the need to avenge deaths of innocent people elsewhere.

Extending that now to fear that is felt by people who are not Muslim, I'd say that people shouldn't give into their fears ideally because they are not legitimate. Fear, due to its very irrational nature, I'd say is by itself also illegitimate as a recourse to any perceived problem even when that problem is legitimate in nature. Moreover, by all accounts, that fear is unfounded as a person is more likely to be a fatal victim of things other than a terrorist attack: "You’re more likely to be fatally crushed by furniture than killed by a terrorist."

The KKK is active, lynching uppity blacks. You're black and not content to be in servitude. Aren't you going to look with a bit of fear upon every white man?
I am not the type of person who gives into fear as I don't like to be held hostage to any negative emotions. For example, there was an actress on a talk show conversing about having to do a scene which required skydiving and she talked about how much she was scared of skydiving and how she could never imagine skydiving because she has a great fear of heights. So, the host then asked her, "So, what did you do?" She said, "I went skydiving." That's the type of people I tend to admire. I admire people who don't give into their fears. I don't imagine it would have been hard for her to ask that a body double be found, but she chose what I'd term as "not-fear."

So, if I were a black person and I was living in that time as you've described, you can be certain I would be the type of person who would not be content to live in fear. I would choose "not-fear" and veer into activism and try to seek allies in my fight against injustice and oppression so that I wouldn't look with "fear upon every white man." For example, the ordinary people whom I admire most from history are people who took extraordinary chances and made a difference like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Kathrine Virginia "Kathy" Switzer, Rabi'a al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyy, Al-Ghazali, Moinuddin Chishti for different reasons. And of course, this is not a comprehensive list, but these are the few who did come to my mind within the frame of this discussion as I was writing this post.

Most Muslims are fine. It's just we can't tell the decent ones from the terrorists.
So, engaging with Muslims should be the first step. Having said that, and for the record, I don't think there's a foolproof recipe to tell who is a terrorist, otherwise our intelligence agencies and police force would have no investigative work to do and we wouldn't be having this conversation to begin with because there would have been no terrorists that would have committed their act of terror as they'd long have been caught making this discussion moot. However, what I can tell you is that there is a recipe to tell which people are decent, and that is by their character and actions and words.

Peace
 
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The inability to get exact numbers is not evidence the money isn't there. There's little doubt it's there except amongst those who stick their heads in the sand about it.
With all due respect to you as a person, do you have any idea that you sound here like a conspiracy theorist? And I tend to not want to have conversations or discussions with conspiracy theorists because the lack of evidence is presumed to be evidence in itself. Let me tell you I have researched this topic, and I can tell you that there is no evidence that the money being poured into terrorism is any bigger than the money being poured into Islamophobia. In fact, my research suggests the opposite. Therefore, I asked you for evidence in the first place because I'm open to being corrected, but I'm not open to being taken in for a ride on the basis of some unsubstantiated conjectures which you are making here simply because you think so. "Think so" are not facts. I would say of the two of us, I'm not the one placing my head in the sand; on a lighter note, I don't admire ostriches, though I do like their white feathers.

Do women freely choose it of their own accord, or do they put themselves at risk by not wearing it? The latter is the problem in France--once again, trying to drive a wedge between Muslims and the rest of society. There are places where not wearing it is asking to be raped.
Again, you are making assumptions that are born of your own feelings and preconceived ideas. You should talk to women who are wearing the burkini or who know women that wear that wear the burkini and ask them if they feel oppressed wearing it or if they feel they are putting themselves at risk by not wearing it. I'd say you should watch this YouTube video called "Banning the Burkini" and hear the opinion of this Muslim woman who is educated on this subject and had made a video at the height on the controversy of the burkini ban. And the people who are trying to drive a wedge between Muslims and the rest of society are not the women who are choosing to wear the burkini but the intolerant people who only advocate "freedom" when it is about their "freedom" and not others' freedom of expression when it tends to make them uncomfortable and does not mind their ideas of what a woman should be free to wear. However, last time I checked, that is and never will be a legitimate reason to ban any article of clothing, and limiting others' freedom of expression in any secular society is frankly more appropriately deemed a fascist move under false propagandizing of how an article of clothing is oppression and will lead then instead to freedom. Freedom by definition is about choice.

I do not feel it's always a card being played. I do feel it's a card being played when I have to disinfect computers on a monthly basis because one black guy keeps going to bad websites. Management felt it was better to keep cleaning up the mess than open the can of worms of firing him. They felt they would also have to let go his girlfriend at the same time--the two blacks in that office. Neither was a very good worker, either.

I do feel it's a card being played when a teacher at the college tried to get me fired because I didn't like Hispanics (she taught a Hispanic outreach class) as evidenced by the fact that deleted part of her document and the general hostility we had towards her. (Reality: Of course we had a general hostility--she was incredibly disruptive of the operation of the computer lab and she was a moron besides. There was a gotcha in the word processor we were using. We told everybody about it, a few fell victim anyway--resulting in a document that couldn't be loaded. In my two years there exactly one person fell victim to it twice--her. During some slow time I worked out a way to recover the damaged files and taught it to a couple of others there that were sufficiently competent to be trusted not to mess it up (one part of the repair involved editing the directory structure of the floppy, one wrong key could trash the entire floppy.) There was also a block of control data that had to be overwritten with blank spaces. The document becomes a text file with 4 blank lines on top, read it back in and you were good to go. Unfortunately, she made a document that was right at the size limit, create 4 blank lines, lose 4 lines off the bottom of the file. Devising the fix was **far** beyond the job description, simply something I did for the challenge--but I was somehow at fault for not having made it perfect.)
I've already told you that I don't like identity politics. Any person who is incompetent in the job should be fired. However, in the first case you've posited, you've presented an instance of the management not firing people because they are afraid of being perceived as racist, which in my humble opinion is form of subtle racism. In this instance, the "card" which you keep bringing up in discussions is a card that is not being played by minorities but the management as an excuse to not do what they think is right.

In the second instance you've posited, I don't know why you wouldn't like Hispanics especially if it is based on instances like this one. I do understand that you have a right to your opinion. And while I do sympathize with you as to what happened, I don't see how it legitimizes your position as you feeling that someone is playing a card. Maybe I'm not understanding the situation correctly, but that's my honest opinion.

Islamic terrorism wasn't exactly on the radar of the average American before 9/11.
You're right, but it should have been. And the reason is because America had been arming the Afghanis against the Soviets and promoting jihadism as a convenient and ill-thought-out way to rid ourselves of the Soviet threat. This is a well-established fact of history. You can Google Operation Cyclone. In fact, I'll also link you to a YouTube video interview of an ex-Al-Qaeda Mufti who talks about why 9/11 happened and why terror attacks are happening.

I'm not saying that there isn't an actual problem with Islamophobia. I'm saying you're portraying it as far bigger than it is and you're ignoring the reasons it exists. You think it's about prejudice rather than fear.

I will respectfully disagree with you here: If anything, I think I'm understating the actual problem of Islamophobia because Islamophobia is the reason we're going to be fighting wars in the time of President Donald Trump and also the primary reason we've been fighting wars in Middle East and why we Americans have been been the recipient of propaganda on why such wars are justified in different countries long after 9/11. Remember that University of California, Berkeley, for purposes of anchoring their research and research project on Islamophobia identified it as "a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure. It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve 'civilizational rehab' of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise). Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended." So, Islamophobia is not simply prejudice or fear or discrimination that Muslims like me might face due to ignorance, but it is far bigger and comprehensive and dangerous than you're conceding.

Peace.
 
So that others can follow the discussion if they've been reading, I'll break this down: Earlier, in post #38, you said, "It's the converts that are more likely to end up religious nuts than those born to the faith." This is false as you'll find the article to which I've linked you here proves.

I do not consider the Guardian to be a credible source on matters like this.

The KKK is active, lynching uppity blacks. You're black and not content to be in servitude. Aren't you going to look with a bit of fear upon every white man?
I am not the type of person who gives into fear as I don't like to be held hostage to any negative emotions. For example, there was an actress on a talk show conversing about having to do a scene which required skydiving and she talked about how much she was scared of skydiving and how she could never imagine skydiving because she has a great fear of heights. So, the host then asked her, "So, what did you do?" She said, "I went skydiving." That's the type of people I tend to admire. I admire people who don't give into their fears. I don't imagine it would have been hard for her to ask that a body double be found, but she chose what I'd term as "not-fear."

Note that I said a bit of fear. That's not to say you can't do the thing you're afraid of.

Most Muslims are fine. It's just we can't tell the decent ones from the terrorists.
So, engaging with Muslims should be the first step. Having said that, and for the record, I don't think there's a foolproof recipe to tell who is a terrorist, otherwise our intelligence agencies and police force would have no investigative work to do and we wouldn't be having this conversation to begin with because there would have been no terrorists that would have committed their act of terror as they'd long have been caught making this discussion moot. However, what I can tell you is that there is a recipe to tell which people are decent, and that is by their character and actions and words.

Peace

No, this doesn't work--the terrorists pretend to be decent until they go boom.
 
With all due respect to you as a person, do you have any idea that you sound here like a conspiracy theorist? And I tend to not want to have conversations or discussions with conspiracy theorists because the lack of evidence is presumed to be evidence in itself. Let me tell you I have researched this topic, and I can tell you that there is no evidence that the money being poured into terrorism is any bigger than the money being poured into Islamophobia. In fact, my research suggests the opposite. Therefore, I asked you for evidence in the first place because I'm open to being corrected, but I'm not open to being taken in for a ride on the basis of some unsubstantiated conjectures which you are making here simply because you think so. "Think so" are not facts. I would say of the two of us, I'm not the one placing my head in the sand; on a lighter note, I don't admire ostriches, though I do like their white feathers.

I've already given you one way to see billions--the Hamas budget. And how about the probably 9 figures worth of rockets that Hezbollah has based in southern Lebanon under the blind eyes of the UN forces there?

[
Do women freely choose it of their own accord, or do they put themselves at risk by not wearing it? The latter is the problem in France--once again, trying to drive a wedge between Muslims and the rest of society. There are places where not wearing it is asking to be raped.
Again, you are making assumptions that are born of your own feelings and preconceived ideas. You should talk to women who are wearing the burkini or who know women that wear that wear the burkini and ask them if they feel oppressed wearing it or if they feel they are putting themselves at risk by not wearing it.

Think the ones in fear will talk in any fashion they can be identified?

I've already told you that I don't like identity politics. Any person who is incompetent in the job should be fired. However, in the first case you've posited, you've presented an instance of the management not firing people because they are afraid of being perceived as racist, which in my humble opinion is form of subtle racism. In this instance, the "card" which you keep bringing up in discussions is a card that is not being played by minorities but the management as an excuse to not do what they think is right.

It's not racism to know that firing every black in the office is asking for trouble no matter how justified it is.

In the second instance you've posited, I don't know why you wouldn't like Hispanics especially if it is based on instances like this one. I do understand that you have a right to your opinion. And while I do sympathize with you as to what happened, I don't see how it legitimizes your position as you feeling that someone is playing a card. Maybe I'm not understanding the situation correctly, but that's my honest opinion.

I have nothing against Hispanics. I have a problem with that one woman.

Islamic terrorism wasn't exactly on the radar of the average American before 9/11.
You're right, but it should have been. And the reason is because America had been arming the Afghanis against the Soviets and promoting jihadism as a convenient and ill-thought-out way to rid ourselves of the Soviet threat. This is a well-established fact of history. You can Google Operation Cyclone. In fact, I'll also link you to a YouTube video interview of an ex-Al-Qaeda Mufti who talks about why 9/11 happened and why terror attacks are happening.

We were arming Afghanis to hurt the Soviets. We weren't promoting jihadism.

I'm not saying that there isn't an actual problem with Islamophobia. I'm saying you're portraying it as far bigger than it is and you're ignoring the reasons it exists. You think it's about prejudice rather than fear.

I will respectfully disagree with you here: If anything, I think I'm understating the actual problem of Islamophobia because Islamophobia is the reason we're going to be fighting wars in the time of President Donald Trump and also the primary reason we've been fighting wars in Middle East and why we Americans have been been the recipient of propaganda on why such wars are justified in different countries long after 9/11.

Here you have it really wrong.

We went into Iraq because Saddam looked to be in a position to conquer enough oil that he would have been a serious problem. We went back because we got tired of playing games with him about the resolution to the first war. And we went into Afghanistan because of 9/11.

Note that everything has been in response to what happened over there. Trump is enough of a lunatic I don't want to make predictions, though.


Sorry, but I wouldn't trust Berkeley on social issues, period.
 
I do not consider the Guardian to be a credible source on matters like this.
I have no idea why you wouldn't consider The Guardian a reliable source. However, I hope you know that many people (including me) do not share your skepticism. And therefore we do regard it is a credible source.

No, this doesn't work--the terrorists pretend to be decent until they go boom.
I'm sorry, but this is a myth. Terrorists don't become terrorists overnight. They experience brainwashing and alienation beforehand. For example, if you read the FBI site on the radicalization process, you'll realize there are stages that include grievance, ideology/narrative/mobilization and of course the Internet in our time is playing a very dastardly role in this radicalization process. Decent people are not attracted to violent messages. However, malcontents of any social or societal group are.

Peace.
 
I've already given you one way to see billions--the Hamas budget. And how about the probably 9 figures worth of rockets that Hezbollah has based in southern Lebanon under the blind eyes of the UN forces there?

I will do further research on this topic and get back at you in this thread when I find evidence to either support or not support you. However, I will need time to do this, and so I'll take a rain check on responding immediately to you on this matter in the interests of fairness and truth. I'll reiterate that my prior research does not support your ideas, but as I've said, I'm open to being proven incorrect as I like to go with facts wherever they may lead.

Think the ones in fear will talk in any fashion they can be identified?
Think you that the people who may have never met or conversed with Western Muslim women or Muslim women living in the West should assume that these are women who must be living in fear and therefore are unidentifiable? This is an assumption, and I am likely to chalk it up to ignorance. Did you listen to the woman speaking on the controversy in the YouTube video to which I'd linked you? I'm not saying by the way that it cannot ever be the case. However, in the West, from my own experience, Muslim women in the West are more likely to be vocal and feminists as the convert reporter Yvonne Ridley too found. Muslim women deserve the dignity and respect of not being defined by people who are not them.

It's not racism to know that firing every black in the office is asking for trouble no matter how justified it is.
Why are we talking about "firing every black in the office" as didn't you point out there were two incompetent persons who incidentally were black? Their race doesn't come into play when it's a matter of incompetence. And I'm not sure what manner of trouble we're speaking here. Unless the corporation or workplace has a history of racism and no record-keeping for judging incompetence/competence levels of employees, I'd say there is no reason to fear any trouble.

We were arming Afghanis to hurt the Soviets. We weren't promoting jihadism.
This is false. In an article written in 2002 from The Washing Post called, "From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad," the authors write the following:

"In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.

"As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence."


So, actually, we were promoting jihadism and not simply arming the Afghanis against the Soviets. How do you imagine the U.S. could have rallied the Afghanis living in a third world country and extreme poverty with a thousand worries other than the Soviets to fight otherwise until and unless they'd sweetened the pot by promoting the idea of fighting jihad.

We went into Iraq because Saddam looked to be in a position to conquer enough oil that he would have been a serious problem.
That's one reason. However, I don't know if you remember correctly, but I do distinctly hear hearing that we need to go to Iraq not only for WMDs but also because we needed to bring democracy to Iraq because Muslims needed "us" to save them. Hence, the definition I gave you from University of California, Berkley provides a comprehensive definition of Islamophobia and part of Islamophobia is to propagandize wars as a means to maintain or export cultural, political, or economic hegemony. Islamophobia includes ethnocentrism.

And we went into Afghanistan because of 9/11.
I don't dispute that. However, I do distinctly recall former President Bush mentioning the word "Crusade" as it's a well-established fact that he did use the term and people did have a response or reaction to the term. And the use of historical terms with religious connotations to bolster arguments against Muslim majority nations or Muslim peoples I'd regard as part of Islamophobia.

Note that everything has been in response to what happened over there. Trump is enough of a lunatic I don't want to make predictions, though.
Let's wait and watch. However, I can tell you that Michael Flynn whom he's hired as a national security adviser is by any rational account a person who not only holds anti-Islam sentiments but also has specific anti-Muslim fervor.

Sorry, but I wouldn't trust Berkeley on social issues, period.
I am sorry to hear that's the case. However, I do trust Berkeley and I can see no reason why someone else shouldn't.

Peace.
 
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So, Trump sacked the CIA head and replaced him with his buddy who is pro-torture, and pro-NSA surveillance. Going in the right direction, Trump fans?
 
So, Trump sacked the CIA head and replaced him with his buddy who is pro-torture, and pro-NSA surveillance. Going in the right direction, Trump fans?

Thanks for sharing. I didn't know that. That's sad.

Peace.
 
I have no idea why you wouldn't consider The Guardian a reliable source. However, I hope you know that many people (including me) do not share your skepticism. And therefore we do regard it is a credible source.

I've seen too many cases where they lied to support a leftist position.

No, this doesn't work--the terrorists pretend to be decent until they go boom.
I'm sorry, but this is a myth. Terrorists don't become terrorists overnight. They experience brainwashing and alienation beforehand. For example, if you read the FBI site on the radicalization process, you'll realize there are stages that include grievance, ideology/narrative/mobilization and of course the Internet in our time is playing a very dastardly role in this radicalization process. Decent people are not attracted to violent messages. However, malcontents of any social or societal group are.

Peace.

Off target--I fully realize they don't become terrorists overnight, but are brainwashed into it. That's not a rebuttal, though--I'm talking about outward appearances. If the guy is already radicalized there's nothing to see. It's only while he's being radicalized that things might be spotted but even then most people aren't psychologists to spot what's going on. The average person can't spot brainwashing even when it's happening to them.
 
It's not racism to know that firing every black in the office is asking for trouble no matter how justified it is.
Why are we talking about "firing every black in the office" as didn't you point out there were two incompetent persons who incidentally were black? Their race doesn't come into play when it's a matter of incompetence. And I'm not sure what manner of trouble we're speaking here. Unless the corporation or workplace has a history of racism and no record-keeping for judging incompetence/competence levels of employees, I'd say there is no reason to fear any trouble.

Very naive.

At the point this happened we had already had repeated run-ins with the EPA because we "refused" to get our VOC emissions down to those of a nearby competitor who emitted only a few percent of what we did. The boss repeatedly told the investigators the numbers were impossible, those reports were faked. It was a decade later before the competitor got busted for faking their EPA reports.

We also had a run-in with the labor department over a supposed overtime violation. We had hired a bad installer. The installers were paid purely piecework--here are the jobs to be done today, take what you want, just do what you take. There was nothing resembling time tracking. The papers had a drawing of the layout, a description of the materials, an address and how much it paid. Do the work, have the supervisor look it over and sign the paper, turn it in to get paid. We even had two "installers" that were actually teams of two, simply tell payroll how you want the check split. The guy was quickly fired and he promptly went to the labor department saying that our system was forced (because of the do what you take rule) overtime paid at a regular rate. The labor department ruled in his favor.

The EEOC would most likely be all over the firing of every black in the place and there probably would have been some heavy punishment. The fact that he was incompetent would be all but ignored.

Sorry, but I wouldn't trust Berkeley on social issues, period.
I am sorry to hear that's the case. However, I do trust Berkeley and I can see no reason why someone else shouldn't.

Peace.

There have been too many cases where they were in loony territory on social issues.
 
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