Not everyone who is a muslim is a terrorist, just like in the 70's not everyone who was a lefty was a terrorist.
The issue is that extremist religion or ideology can encourage those acts, thus the chances that they are terrorists are many times greater than normal.
If 1% of muslims are inclined to such acts then the greater their numbers the greater the chances of those acts happening. But 99% are not, and here is your moral problem.
Also Left wing terrorism collapsed after the end of the Soviet Union, but there is no guarantee that Saudi Arabia will go the way of the communists.
Young men are also disproportionately implicated. It would be grotesque to say men were the enemy.
Islam is the enemy. It just IS. They say it, and they mean it. Why deny it. Pff.
No Muslim ever said it to me. Your problem is that you are taking Isis as more representative than Muslims you meet and talk to.
I'm going by global polls of Muslims, by Pew and others, which show deep rooted antagonism to anything we consider remotely liberal and western.
Let us slowly constrict their ability to practise their faith, so they leave, peacefully. This can be done. The situation is not hopeless. We have to be imaginative, and bold.
The nice liberal Muslims are VERY welcome to stay, of course.
I don't think that makes them your enemy or responsible for terrorism. You just disagree with them about politics so. Section 28 was law 15 years ago, much tougher laws in our parents' time. And of course you think they are too left-wing in other ways, e.g. Labour Party support, so it is not just a story of our unalloyed modern liberalism versus their backward reaction!
This is delusional. Let me help. Think of it this way.
It is 1932 or 1933. Muslims are Germans. Nationalism is Islam. And Islamism = Nazism.
The hitherto rational if sometimes hostile German nation has been seized by a psychosis called Nazism, peculiar to a small but horribly persuasive number of Germans. Our best bet is to distance ourselves from Germany, arm ourselves, and prepare for war, while hoping for peace.
Sadly, all Germans must be somewhat suspect. Exile or internment might, in the end, be the only option.
And our big fear is that this is not 1933, but 1938. Or 1939.
I would be careful here. Britain fought the Germans by going out and shooting them.
I hope you are not suggesting Britain should get ready to go out and shoot Muslims.
Yes, so you can convert them into Swiss Francs and Dollars if Jezza gets anywhere near power. Their Sterling value will soar, which will be some small solace as we all contemplate the economic Stalingrad we are faced with in Britain.
If Corbyn gets in, half the country will have left for Australia, most of the other half will leave too after a year or two of forced nationalisations, 90% tax rates and daily strikes and Sharia Law awareness weeks. The only people left in the UK will be in Camden, Islington, Newham, Brighton, Glasgow and Manchester!
But how will this affect house prices.
There won't be house prices as Corbyn will have banned home ownership as too capitalist and everyone will be forced to live in a shared communal apartment rented off the state which they pay for from their public sector wage (99% of the economy will be public sector except for the Co-Op)
Britain Elects @britainelects 18s19 seconds ago There has been no snap YouGov poll regarding the Labour leadership race tonight. Figures making the rounds are fake.
Britain Elects @britainelects 18s19 seconds ago There has been no snap YouGov poll regarding the Labour leadership race tonight. Figures making the rounds are fake.
Britain Elects @britainelects 18s19 seconds ago There has been no snap YouGov poll regarding the Labour leadership race tonight. Figures making the rounds are fake.
Labour Insider @Labour_Insider "After tonight's dismal performance a few of us are going to ask Owen to drop out of the leadership election" rebel MP tells @Labour_Insider
£18m spent, a £500,000 salary, no interviews carried out... and a resignation statement just two lines long https://t.co/3OD440b9Xo
They must have been doing something. I can't believe she and her staff just sat about twiddling their thumbs for a year.
I can well believe it.
They should drastically limit the inquiry's terms of reference to make it much more focused, impose a time limit for its report, appoint a senior QC - of which there are plenty good ones - to head it or even someone like the senior Scottish social worker who reported on Rotherham and focus on getting some practical recommendations for organisations to follow. Most of this stuff is known and a no nonsense person in charge determined to write something useful within our lifetimes should have no difficulty getting on with it.
Dreadful Labour debate. Party looking fecked. Looked like a Steptoe and son remake.
Owen better than Corbyn. Will never 'get' appeal of Corbyn. All empty platitudes, delivered poorly.
I find Corbyn to have quite an appealing voice and his delivery can be decent, although I'd agree on the empty platitudes, I really have never understood why people suggest his content is fantastic (even if viewed from a very left wing slant), since its the sort of thing that's been heard before.
Re Chakrabati: I have always thought of her as a ninny. She did no thinking at all when at Liberty on how to maintain human rights during a time of terrorism threats and her support for such liberties as freedom of speech was always very qualified. So I was not surprised to find her taking Corbyn's shilling nor at her producing an execrable report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. A hugely overrated individual lacking good judgment.
This article skewers her very effectively. It's not the first to have done so. Sadly, the talentless and unscrupulous rise to the top like scum on water.
While not disagreeing with your general point, politics nevertheless remains one of the more egalitarian vocations.
You (one) wants to be a politician? Go for it. All you need is people to vote for you.
I don't think (m)any politicians are talentless.
Except that she will have got precisely no-one to vote for her and yet has power over the laws which govern us. It is as offensive to democracy as having an unelected EU bureaucrat bossing us about. And it is something we can do something about.
Baubles should not give one a role in the legislature.
She got to where she is because she really really wanted to. Nothing undemocratic about her. Or Mark Zuckerberg.
She then gets rewarded with a gong. And becomes part of the legislature. OK but then between her and Dickie Attenbrough there's not much to choose. Blame the system.
Attenborough has immense knowledge and has contributed to society. Chakrabati is an idiot who has not.
True, but I would cut REMAIN bleaters more slack if they'd had the guts to be honest, before the vote.
Just say you want a Federal Europe. With Free Movement and a Federal President and a truly unified superstate blah blah
It's a noble idea. Not popular. Not my goal (though I can see the emotional and political logic). But certainly noble. Instead they lied, and tried to enact it by stealth, and eventually they got caught out. Meh. Let them cry. I despise them for their cowardice.
On a personal level I quite liked the idea of a European Federation.
But the following three thoughts hit me:
(1) I might like it, but clearly millions of other Brits don't. It doesn't appear to be Britain's natural destiny - but it looks like it might be continental Europe's. That looks like an increasingly poor fit for the future.
(2) Millions of Brits might not like it, but they might vote for it anyway because they're afraid of the alternatives and don't realise quite how serious the likes of Clegg, Farron, Lucas, various Tory and Labour Eurofederalists are. It's only an accident of political history that Blair didn't take us into the euro (David Herdson has written an interesting "alternative history" story about that). Just a couple of percent of the population - overrepresented in my circles, but small nationally and concentrated in the social and economic elite - want to steer Britain's course so deeply into the bowels of Europe. I can very much see the attraction of The Grand Idea, but the fact this minority have so far been very successful at directing the national fate is democratically on seriously dodgy ground. If, like the federalists, I were to wish Project Fear well - hope that millions of people who have no love whatsoever for Project Europe can be bribed, cajoled or threatened into voting for the status quo - while rubbing my hands at the thought that the all-knowing destiny-makers can ultimately use this "endorsement" in decades to come to bring about the political union they desire... well frankly that would make me a complete and utter flaming c***, wouldn't it?
(3) Well okay, I like the idea of European Unity. I do feel emotionally and culturally connected with European people and the European concept (quite distinct things). Peace and cooperation and democracy and inter-cultural communication and human rights, it's all rather lovely isn't it? No hints of xenophobia or archaic bigotry or historical hang-ups in that pretty flag or rather fun anthem. But the thought crossed my mind ... am I loving all this, because some manipulative bugger in a Brussels bunker wants me to like it? Okay, if there isn't a tinfoil hat element to this, there's certainly some cognitive dissonance. But...
He is right. She has ruined her reputation for the sake of a title.
She ruined what reputation she had with her execrable report. Why would you expect anything better from someone who saw nothing wrong with the LSE accepting money from the Ghaddafi family while she was a trustee of the LSE and who described Moazzem Begg of Cage and Taliban supporter as a wonderful advocate for human rights?
A talentless ninny with no judgment and no moral conscience either. So the perfect choice for today's Labour Party.
Re Chakrabati: I have always thought of her as a ninny. She did no thinking at all when at Liberty on how to maintain human rights during a time of terrorism threats and her support for such liberties as freedom of speech was always very qualified. So I was not surprised to find her taking Corbyn's shilling nor at her producing an execrable report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. A hugely overrated individual lacking good judgment.
This article skewers her very effectively. It's not the first to have done so. Sadly, the talentless and unscrupulous rise to the top like scum on water.
While not disagreeing with your general point, politics nevertheless remains one of the more egalitarian vocations.
You (one) wants to be a politician? Go for it. All you need is people to vote for you.
I don't think (m)any politicians are talentless.
Except that she will have got precisely no-one to vote for her and yet has power over the laws which govern us. It is as offensive to democracy as having an unelected EU bureaucrat bossing us about. And it is something we can do something about.
Baubles should not give one a role in the legislature.
She got to where she is because she really really wanted to. Nothing undemocratic about her. Or Mark Zuckerberg.
She then gets rewarded with a gong. And becomes part of the legislature. OK but then between her and Dickie Attenbrough there's not much to choose. Blame the system.
Attenborough has immense knowledge and has contributed to society. Chakrabati is an idiot who has not.
He's been dead two years, no?
I was thinking of David Attenborough. Not his brother. My mistake. Still even the film-maker is better than silly Shami.
£18m spent, a £500,000 salary, no interviews carried out... and a resignation statement just two lines long https://t.co/3OD440b9Xo
They must have been doing something. I can't believe she and her staff just sat about twiddling their thumbs for a year.
I can well believe it.
They should drastically limit the inquiry's terms of reference to make it much more focused, impose a time limit for its report, appoint a senior QC - of which there are plenty good ones - to head it or even someone like the senior Scottish social worker who reported on Rotherham and focus on getting some practical recommendations for organisations to follow. Most of this stuff is known and a no nonsense person in charge determined to write something useful within our lifetimes should have no difficulty getting on with it.
How do these fiascos occur? Why is no-one ever brought to book for it?
O/T, re the London stabbings, it seems like those with mental health problems are the new group to be thrown under the bus so that we can all convince ourselves that there is no terrorism / radicalisation aspect.
Still, I can see why this would be a potential nightmare for all those who are anti-Trump - an American gets killed in London by a (probably) Muslim youth. It would hit all the themes of the Trump campaign.
The lies we are telling ourselves about Russell Square are really quite impressive.
Given that 5% at most of the population is Islamic, it's amazing I was personally able to guess the killer was Islamic. Which he was.
Not everyone who is a muslim is a terrorist, just like in the 70's not everyone who was a lefty was a terrorist.
The issue is that extremist religion or ideology can encourage those acts, thus the chances that they are terrorists are many times greater than normal.
If 1% of muslims are inclined to such acts then the greater their numbers the greater the chances of those acts happening. But 99% are not, and here is your moral problem.
Also Left wing terrorism collapsed after the end of the Soviet Union, but there is no guarantee that Saudi Arabia will go the way of the communists.
Young men are also disproportionately implicated. It would be grotesque to say men were the enemy.
Islam is the enemy. It just IS. They say it, and they mean it. Why deny it. Pff.
No Muslim ever said it to me. Your problem is that you are taking Isis as more representative than Muslims you meet and talk to.
I'm going by global polls of Muslims, by Pew and others, which show deep rooted antagonism to anything we consider remotely liberal and western.
Let us slowly constrict their ability to practise their faith, so they leave, peacefully. This can be done. The situation is not hopeless. We have to be imaginative, and bold.
The nice liberal Muslims are VERY welcome to stay, of course.
That doesn't sound very liberal. I agree that the problems aren't just a matter of violence but forcing people to leave the country because they are socially conservative?
Socially conservative? You really have no clue about how illiberal a lot of mainstream Islamic thinking really is.
I'm happy to consider each case on its merits. Sean suggested that nice liberal muslims be allowed to stay. I took that as meaning he thought social conservatives should be forced out of the country.
The White Rabbit - "There are people with mental health issues that perpetrate acts of violence that are unrelated to any particular ideology, every day in this country."
Would you care to cite any event in the past 12 months where there has been an attack by someone with a mental health issue that was similar to what happened at Leytonstone tube or yesterday in Russell Square and where there was no question of a possible religious / terrorism angle?
I don't have any specific ones/dates in mind but knife attacks by schizophrenics were not uncommon a couple of years ago
I'm a maladjusted soul who hates advertising because I know it - actually that's too impersonal, I hate that somebody - is trying to make me think what they want me to think, so that I buy what they (rather than I) want me to buy. I hate sappy music because someone is trying to manipulate what I feel. Guess my feeling about speakers droning carefully selected tracks when I am in a shop... And be in no doubt, there are eurocrats out there who earn their daily keep by trying to change what you and I think.
Places I used to teach all had these "Maps of the European Union", showing the EU as a distinct entity from the rest of Europe, impressing students with how its population and economy compared to the USA or Japan. Even in me it produced a vague sense of pride at being in world's No 1 economy. Their ubiquity came from being cheap wall-fillers - all produced in Brussels. Can't remember equivalent "maps of Britain" dotted all over the place. I once visited a Jewish primary school, whose walls were similarly coated with maps of Israel - you may not be surprised that Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights were shown as integral parts of Israel, and with Hebrew rather than Palestinian names ("Judea and Samaria" not "West Bank"). That was a choice too. Its goal was to influence world-views - if we're harsh, to indoctrinate. So why was someone in Brussels being paid to make educational maps of the EU, rather than leaving that to private publishers? What were the objectives set out for that guy, and others making the myriad of "EU educational resources"?
Remember those cute EU-funded Erasmus students at university, who'd make you feel that Europe was a small place, we have cultural differences but a surprising amount in common, made us feel all touchy-feely about our fellow Europeans (possibly literally)? Well that was largely the point (except the literal bit) of the whole scheme getting money chucked at it.
An ex-employer of mine had some EU funding. In return they had to fly an EU flag. Fair enough. (If British schools and colleges routinely flew the Union Flag, as they were funded by the UK government, would they be denounced as archaic, nationalistic, xenophobic and racist?) See also: EU flags on road signs, EU flags on plaques near building projects. Have you sensed how EU car number plates feel less "foreign" now than registration plates from elsewhere in the world, due to standardised design and having that EU flag in the corner, just like us? Somebody thought it was a good idea to stick it there. Why? When I see the EU flag on my driving licence, I do think "aren't you pushing it a bit, mon ami?"
I voted Leave in the end, but the only extent to which I was tempted to Remain - right up til I was in the booth - wasn't Project Fear or wanting to dissociate myself from xenophobes and isolationists, but rather a vague romantic idealism: "if we do stay, let's make the full fist of it this time and dive right in".
Re Chakrabati: I have always thought of her as a ninny. She did no thinking at all when at Liberty on how to maintain human rights during a time of terrorism threats and her support for such liberties as freedom of speech was always very qualified. So I was not surprised to find her taking Corbyn's shilling nor at her producing an execrable report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. A hugely overrated individual lacking good judgment.
This article skewers her very effectively. It's not the first to have done so. Sadly, the talentless and unscrupulous rise to the top like scum on water.
While not disagreeing with your general point, politics nevertheless remains one of the more egalitarian vocations.
You (one) wants to be a politician? Go for it. All you need is people to vote for you.
I don't think (m)any politicians are talentless.
Except that she will have got precisely no-one to vote for her and yet has power over the laws which govern us. It is as offensive to democracy as having an unelected EU bureaucrat bossing us about. And it is something we can do something about.
Baubles should not give one a role in the legislature.
She got to where she is because she really really wanted to. Nothing undemocratic about her. Or Mark Zuckerberg.
She then gets rewarded with a gong. And becomes part of the legislature. OK but then between her and Dickie Attenbrough there's not much to choose. Blame the system.
Attenborough has immense knowledge and has contributed to society. Chakrabati is an idiot who has not.
He's been dead two years, no?
No. David Attenborough is alive and still broadcasting.
Comments
I hope you are not suggesting Britain should get ready to go out and shoot Muslims.
There has been no snap YouGov poll regarding the Labour leadership race tonight. Figures making the rounds are fake.
Lab 399
UKIP 174
Con 80
Ind 54
Lab gain from Caring Party (elected as UKIP in 2014).
Lab won it easily (2 to 1) in May 2015. Ward didn't vote this year
25 questions
24 Corbyns 1 Smith from me
Owen better than Corbyn. Will never 'get' appeal of Corbyn. All empty platitudes, delivered poorly.
They should drastically limit the inquiry's terms of reference to make it much more focused, impose a time limit for its report, appoint a senior QC - of which there are plenty good ones - to head it or even someone like the senior Scottish social worker who reported on Rotherham and focus on getting some practical recommendations for organisations to follow. Most of this stuff is known and a no nonsense person in charge determined to write something useful within our lifetimes should have no difficulty getting on with it.
Clinton 48 .. Trump 33
https://www.scribd.com/document/320225575/McClatchy-Marist-Poll-National-Nature-of-the-Sample-and-Tables-August-2016
Clinton 47 .. Trump 38
https://www.scribd.com/document/320223703/16579-NBCWSJ-August-Poll-8-4-Release
UKIP 373 Lab 243 Con 240 Green 31
#BREAKING The Russian Vice-Consul in #Rio has shot dead an armed mugger who tried to hold up in his car #Rio2016
But the following three thoughts hit me:
(1) I might like it, but clearly millions of other Brits don't. It doesn't appear to be Britain's natural destiny - but it looks like it might be continental Europe's. That looks like an increasingly poor fit for the future.
(2) Millions of Brits might not like it, but they might vote for it anyway because they're afraid of the alternatives and don't realise quite how serious the likes of Clegg, Farron, Lucas, various Tory and Labour Eurofederalists are. It's only an accident of political history that Blair didn't take us into the euro (David Herdson has written an interesting "alternative history" story about that). Just a couple of percent of the population - overrepresented in my circles, but small nationally and concentrated in the social and economic elite - want to steer Britain's course so deeply into the bowels of Europe. I can very much see the attraction of The Grand Idea, but the fact this minority have so far been very successful at directing the national fate is democratically on seriously dodgy ground. If, like the federalists, I were to wish Project Fear well - hope that millions of people who have no love whatsoever for Project Europe can be bribed, cajoled or threatened into voting for the status quo - while rubbing my hands at the thought that the all-knowing destiny-makers can ultimately use this "endorsement" in decades to come to bring about the political union they desire... well frankly that would make me a complete and utter flaming c***, wouldn't it?
(3) Well okay, I like the idea of European Unity. I do feel emotionally and culturally connected with European people and the European concept (quite distinct things). Peace and cooperation and democracy and inter-cultural communication and human rights, it's all rather lovely isn't it? No hints of xenophobia or archaic bigotry or historical hang-ups in that pretty flag or rather fun anthem. But the thought crossed my mind ... am I loving all this, because some manipulative bugger in a Brussels bunker wants me to like it? Okay, if there isn't a tinfoil hat element to this, there's certainly some cognitive dissonance. But...
A talentless ninny with no judgment and no moral conscience either. So the perfect choice for today's Labour Party.
Places I used to teach all had these "Maps of the European Union", showing the EU as a distinct entity from the rest of Europe, impressing students with how its population and economy compared to the USA or Japan. Even in me it produced a vague sense of pride at being in world's No 1 economy. Their ubiquity came from being cheap wall-fillers - all produced in Brussels. Can't remember equivalent "maps of Britain" dotted all over the place. I once visited a Jewish primary school, whose walls were similarly coated with maps of Israel - you may not be surprised that Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights were shown as integral parts of Israel, and with Hebrew rather than Palestinian names ("Judea and Samaria" not "West Bank"). That was a choice too. Its goal was to influence world-views - if we're harsh, to indoctrinate. So why was someone in Brussels being paid to make educational maps of the EU, rather than leaving that to private publishers? What were the objectives set out for that guy, and others making the myriad of "EU educational resources"?
Remember those cute EU-funded Erasmus students at university, who'd make you feel that Europe was a small place, we have cultural differences but a surprising amount in common, made us feel all touchy-feely about our fellow Europeans (possibly literally)? Well that was largely the point (except the literal bit) of the whole scheme getting money chucked at it.
An ex-employer of mine had some EU funding. In return they had to fly an EU flag. Fair enough. (If British schools and colleges routinely flew the Union Flag, as they were funded by the UK government, would they be denounced as archaic, nationalistic, xenophobic and racist?) See also: EU flags on road signs, EU flags on plaques near building projects. Have you sensed how EU car number plates feel less "foreign" now than registration plates from elsewhere in the world, due to standardised design and having that EU flag in the corner, just like us? Somebody thought it was a good idea to stick it there. Why? When I see the EU flag on my driving licence, I do think "aren't you pushing it a bit, mon ami?"
I voted Leave in the end, but the only extent to which I was tempted to Remain - right up til I was in the booth - wasn't Project Fear or wanting to dissociate myself from xenophobes and isolationists, but rather a vague romantic idealism: "if we do stay, let's make the full fist of it this time and dive right in".
Result LIB DEM GAIN FROM CONSERVATIVE.
Except for Ashford UKIP down down down.