No links from me to stories or news.
No summary of events.
No analysis or insight.
All that is globally visible.
Just an open thread to discuss the facts of the UK being under attack by Islamists.
Welcome to the “Religion of Peace” As long as you SUBMIT
(Mu salim is roughly ‘I submit myself’ while islam is roughly ‘submission’. So islamist ought to be roughly ‘those who would make you submit’, eh?)….
I wonder how long before my UK relatives, who withstood German assaults, show their spine and cast off this attempted invasion as well. Or perhaps it is time to remove that line about never never never shall be slaves…
Welcom to ramadan…
Musings from the Chiefio 
For context:
Our politicians constantly tell us that Islam is a Religion of Peace, but they never tell us in which country this Religion of Peace is practiced. I would like to know. I have a fairly good grasp of geography and I really struggle to think of a country where this Religion of Peace is practiced. Perhaps Japan, but then again Japan has very few Muslims, so perhaps that tells us something of significance.
Troubled times lie ahead since we have not yet reached the stage where we can even identify the problem, still less openly talk about it and discuss proposals to address the problem. Our politicians are cowards and are in denial, so too MSM. All those who engage in the continued appeasement of this religion, have blood on their hands and should be held partially responsible for the events inflicting the West these past 10 or so years.
Trump could not get his temporary travel ban passed. The UK has never mooted such a ban, but had the UK had such a ban in place then many young children who were horribly and brutally murdered in Manchester some 2 weeks ago would not now be lying in a morgue or a coffin, and would be going to school tomorrow. The Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, only returned from Libya a week before he carried out the atrocity.
.
The Israeli response, under Golda Meir, to the ’72 Munich Olympics’ massacre of the Israeli team was the one effective action against the whole of modern Islamist/Palestinian terror. Israeli intelligence tracked down and killed everyone they could who had any connection to the terrorists.
Israel’s mistake was in caving to pressure brought on them by their (supposed) ally, the U.S. under Jimmy Carter, to recognize Yasser Arafat and the PLO as speaking for the so called Palestinian people. The _only_ reasons Arafat wanted to make talk-talk was to save his own skin, and he also recognized the U.S. had weak leadership and would create a one-sided war where the PLO could kill and the rest of the world would sit on their collective thumb and rotate.
It is past time for England to resurrect the Meir solution; track down and kill everyone involved in any terrorist event. Don’t try them, don’t deport them. Kill them. We can’t do that here because of our Constitution, but England is not so limited. Hell, they don’t even have freedom of speech, the press or of assembly (the riot act* wasn’t repealed until 1967).
Islamists are waging war on the West, especially on England. There hasn’t been a PM with real balls since Thatcher. That has to change. Pressure has to be brought to bear against the Salafists to the point that Medieval Islam is brought into the 21st century as a no longer evil, terrorist religion.
gary
* Loosely, disperse or die.
Except of course very rarely do any of the perpetrators actually show much in the way of true Islamic principles or ethical constraints. Very typically they are the excluded and disaffected, often from a criminal or narcotically engaged background, ie the easily led and useful patsies.
The previous Manchester atrocity appears to be blowback from our attack on Libya and funding/arming/support of rebel Islamists.
Many of the abhorrent practices, eg gender inequality or ritual slaughter, in Islamic countries should be dealt with and made conditional in our trading here in order to strengthen the moderates in Islam, if we were really serious about addressing this.
I anticipate a slow re-awakening of direct action responses to Islamic Terror in Europe. Much of the infrastructure and knowledge for such action already exists and need only be directed toward that goal. It is the historical natural reaction to repeated attacks. (note I am not advocating this only making the historical observation that it is the norm in such situations) The only way to prevent private actions is for the various governments to be seen as effectively reacting to the terror attacks.
The folks in the IRA, the Italian Mafia, the Russian Mafia (Bratva), French Mafia ( Corsican mafia ) specifically rather than the newer groups (Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans) etc. and similar all know how to do that sort of thing and have done it very effectively in the past. These groups all could, under the proper circumstances, declare war on the Jihadis especially if they got a gentle push from the official government to either create the necessary friction or just a green light to clean up some turf battles. Even if the organizations did not take on the effort some in those groups are the type, and have the training experience and means to take on extra-judicial responses.
If the governments do not take direct action themselves other groups or individuals will. Based on the six degrees of separation concept, each attack dramatically increases the number of people who will have a personal direct connection to the atrocity and some of them will be the sorts that will take action based on a personal vendetta.
For example right now the Italian Mafia is supposed to be engaged in smuggling (arms people etc.) in cooperation with some Islamic groups, but on the condition that no major terrorist actions take place in areas “protected” by the Italian Mafia. That could change if some over ambitious Jihadi stepped on the wrong toes ( for example a direct attack on the Pope ).
It takes time to shift a populations willingness to engage in violence to protect their own, especially in a society that has been in a largely non-violent culture for almost 70 years.
Watching D-Day programs today. It’s sad to think of all the Americans killed that day, only to have Europe invaded by Muslims.
Yes there are a lot of W.W.II vets who are really upset about all they endured only to have idiots give it all away in pursuit of a fairy tale view of the world.
It’s not a matter of recognising that we have a problem, it’s working out how to solve them. The first step in the right direction is Brexit. The EU is dominated by Germany, torn with guilt over it’s war record. It (and the UK for the same reasons) allowed socialists free to make rules for a ‘better world’ and in the process made it impossible to deal with these issues.
From the other direction we have a US style litigation culture, which means that the authorities can’t step in any direction without someone suing somebody. Similarly our prison service is now so loaded with legislation that not only do prisoners have an easy time, we are paying a fortune to lock people up. Which in turn means that few people get locked up. Almost all of our terrorists have a conviction list as long as your arm. Under a 3 crimes and you’re out, they’d have been locked up long ago. Our lax prisons mean that the biggest threat to inmates are other inmates and drugs are rife. Islamic extremist indoctrination happens in prison, along with a lot of other recruitment to crime. Again, all those civil liberty rules stops the authorities even trying to stop stuff they know goes on.
Another element to the mess is the media. Papers like the Guardian, endlessly condemning anything they deem inhumane. Like voting Tory. They issue drip after drip of bile for western societies, creating grievances where there should be none. It leaves our politicians frozen, thinking that the public disapprove, when the opposite is true.
And then there’s the fear that anything they do will add fuel to interracial anger. Not unreasonably so, since everything is used as an excuse to be offended. The authorities allowed underage girls to be turned into sex slaves because they worried that to interfere would be racist. To be fair, they also didn’t want to be accused of damaging the girl’s human rights either. Apparently if kids want to be a sex victim, they should be allowed and the rest of us will be charged with assault if we do anything to stop them ruining their own lives.
But all that would be hard enough without the bastardisation of globalisation. Instead of exporting work to the poorer countries of the World, we’ve imported the people to work here. I’d say ‘cheaply’, but only compared to other UK workers. Even then, they’re guaranteed a minimum wage and those low wages are heavily subsidised by government. Those people are not earning enough to pay for themselves and what they take from the country. At the same time we allow the companies employing them to pay tax in other EU countries through convoluted rules. So we end up with poorly paid underclass who form ghetto communities where they live the same lives they did in their homeland. We provide translated documents and interpreters for those people, so some, especially women don’t bother learning the language. Their children no longer mix and grow up as if they were also living in their parents’ country. Those who try to break free are condemned and even some are killed in ‘honour’ killings.
Now some cultures have managed to integrate themselves. The Indians and Sikhs do well, Pakistani Muslims not so much. So in a land of milk and honey the 2nd or 3rd generations may be as poor and as alien as their parents. You then have a militant youth, thinking they deserve more, turning to petty crime and drugs. They’re surrounded by people and women in particular who are doing better than them. They’re in the right frame of mind to be recruited by older men who convince them that they have a shortcut to paradise if only they murder members of the society that has short changed them.
Where do you start to fix all that?
From twitter – speaks for its self
Thomas Wictor @ThomasWictor
Replying to @brianklaas
(1) Last night, I saw something that I would’ve never thought possible.
It made me realize that the UK is likely doomed.
(2) Breitbart writers don’t matter. They have no authority. Their opinions are just blather. HERE’S what matter.
(3) A British man took video as unarmed, helpless police came into a bar and told everyone to lie down on the floor.
(4) In the middle of a mass-casualty terrorist attack, one customer shouted “F*cking Muslim c*nts!” He thought he was about to die.
(5) The man filming–in the MIDDLE OF THE ATTACK–began lecturing the other about how he shouldn’t say such things.
(6) The comments on this man’s Twitter feed showed that MANY Brits think it’s rational to criticize victims of terrorism for their language.
(7) Keep in mind that the terrorist attack WAS IN PROGRESS, the victims were cowering on the floor, yet offensive language was the issue.
(8) An Israeli told me a joke once: Two Jewish men are being led to the wall to be executed by firing squad.
(9) One man says, “To hell with it. I’m going to demand a last cigarette.” “Be quiet!” say the other. “You’ll get us in trouble!”
(10) The joke is funny because it’s based in reality, BUT IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN FOR REAL.
(11) Last night, that joke happened FOR REAL in the UK.
(12) As two men waited to be killed by terrorists, one criticized the other for offensive language against Muslims.
(13) The fact that so many Brits APPLAUDED this insanity shows that Britain is likely doomed.
Gilana @Gilana25 7 minutes ago
Replying to @ThomasWictor @brianklaas
Thomas, it’s part of British psyche to moan about the small stuff, deflect and nitpick. We did it as Luftwaffe rained down bombs on us
Gilana @Gilana25 5m5 minutes ago
Doesn’t mean we’re weak or lost. We take a while to wake up/get angry, but it’s happening. There were some sensational acts of courage
#SoulWar @jihadaeon 1 hour ago
Replying to @ThomasWictor @brianklaas
They WILL wake up
IF they get the right Leadership(& I don’t even mean Gov.)
IF the Jihadis overreach & attack a School like Israel in 70’s
Edson Higgly @donogunn_s 17 minutes ago
Replying to @ThomasWictor @brianklaas
Folks it’s beyond appeasement its now Vichy Collaboration
“Where do you start to fix all that?”
Accept that multiculturalism is really another word for ghetto or plantation. What is needed is to immediately move to the ‘melting pot’ approach. Everyone has to speak the same language for a start if they do not or members of their families do not then they must attend classes to learn both the language and the traditions of the country they voluntarily came to. Initial failure to attend and take part results in stopping of all ‘benefits’ until attendance and attempts to learn. Failure to attend or attempt to learn results in immediate deportation to country of origin. This applies as much to Germans, Finnish and Poles as it does to Somalis, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Attempts to enforce non-local laws such as Sharia, should be severe possibly even resulting in immediate (within 48 hours) deportation. Similarly, any move by judiciary to accept parts of Sharia should result in immediate and permanent disbarment. Think that sounds harsh – see the list of things that result in a green card holder being deported: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/grounds-deportability-when-legal-us-residents-can-be-removed.html yet illegal immigrants are not.
At the same time maximum attempts should be made to welcome and assimilate all nationalities into the melting pot – after all they wanted to come to the country if after finding what it is really like they dislike it – then fine deportation will be arranged free.
It is carrot and stick – anyone associating with terrorists or terrorist sympathizers should to be deported immediately. If they are actual terrorists then the Golda Meier solution would be best but dropping them back to where they came from is the next-best.
All the ships with ‘migrants’ who all appear to be military age males (with working cell phones!!) but claim they are child refugees – should be turned around and taken back to a holding area in Libya for extreme vetting.
This is close to the Australian approach and it must be enforced; as a wave of migrants into a country that insist on their new host country accepting their laws and traditions are not migrants they are invaders.
“They WILL wake up
IF they get the right Leadership(& I don’t even mean Gov.)
IF the Jihadis overreach & attack a School like Israel in 70’s”
Well they attacked a children’s pop concert. Killed and maimed a lot of children – I don’t see any reaction from people apart from don’t antagonize them – don’t use harsh language – don’t upset them, whatever you do don’t blame their religion…….
The people that saw this coming such as Tommy Robinson are banned from Twitter; People that try to point out what the leadership could be doing like http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4570622/You-right-Theresa-like-this.html are excoriated on social media, where nobody has said a harsh word against the terrorists!
@TinyCO2 says: 4 June 2017 at 8:55 pm.
In a first aid situation involving loss of blood, the first thing you do is STOP THE BLEEDING!!
Stop importing people from terrorist countries. You don’t have to be Einstein to figure this one out.
@Ian W says: 4 June 2017 at 9:32 pm.
That’s going a bit easier that what I had in mind, but some good suggestions there. Anyone aiding, encouraging, and/or abetting terrorists should be expeditiously tried and summarily executed. No deportation for that sort.
Ian, Jim, but those aren’t the first layer of problem. We’ve have multiculturism for decades. There are whole segements of society whose career revolves around enabling foreigners. Translators, educators, community welfare, blah, blah, blah. We’ve got legal aid so they can go to court for free. We’ve got EU rules that prevent us solving problems and if we don’t comply, WE end up in court. We try to stop more coming and the EU threatens us. We can’t send criminals home because their homeland is dangerous. We can’t transfer them to prisons in their homeland because their prisons are sub standard. We’ve even sent money to improve those prisons because it’s cheaper than keeping them here.
Our politicians make bold claims and then the media and NGOs take them apart in exactly the way Trump is being hampered. And because most of the time, people rub along ok, the public are easy to shame into returning into their rut. Revolution is put off until another day.
After the Manchester bombing I called one of my sisters who still lives in the UK to commiserate. She shocked me by trotting out the “we simply have to get used to this, it is the new norm” meme.
You folks are right, the UK is doomed………………because the European Union (also doomed) infected my countrymen with defeatism and passivity.
From InfoWars
CNN faked a muslim protest at London Bridge and have been called out on it – even after the BBC gullibles repeated it several times
I understand what you mean TinyCO2. About half the US has been brainwashed the same way. We are on the brink of being lost. It’s going to be close which way it goes here.
Julian Jones:
True Islamic Principles? Like, oh, regularly attacking and destroying the West for 1400 years? Only stopping when mercilessly counter attacked and driven from the land and into submission? Those principles?
I’ve read their book. The terrorists are doing EXACTLY what it directs them to do.
EM :
Great that you “have read their book”, most Muslims have moved on in the past 1400 years (as also have Christians) – what is your direct experience of Islam ? Have you visited many Islamic countries ?
In past few decades it is us that have been invading and attacking Islamic countries.
While Islam has come a long way in many people, it’s still incompatible with western culture’s freedoms. Also, there are many countries where it is practiced very much closer to to the original version than the modern and happily accepts practices that we’d reject outright. Its attitude to women for example. While the small numbers that arrived decades ago have now mostly adapted, when we started importing large numbers of people, they stopped integrating and just transfered their habits in toto. Kids that might have grown up indistinguishable by now from locals under the old system are now clearly still foreign. That in turn bolsters their own feelings of not belonging and triggers the reactions of locals to strangers. The foreigness of these enclaves have then driven people of all other nationalities away. Much like America, we are seeing mono cultures rather than the true mixing us Brits tolerated far better. Multiculturism ideas pushed this even further, encouraging people to celebrate their foreigness and not ‘lose their identity’. The suggestion was that us Brits would adapt to the incomers. Disaster.
What we need to do is work out what a Brit should be. What values do we admire and what we reject. With rights, we need responsibilities and they need to be universally applied. Newcomers should be schooled in those and not attain citizenship until they understand and agree with them. There should be a lifetime bond that if you break a serious law, your citizenship is withdrawn and you go home.
The UK isn’t lost yet, but it needs to work fast. If we don’t get a good Conserative majority at this election, we’re in trouble. If we get a Labour government, I’d seriously consider becoming an immigrant myself. They’d surrender over Brexit and we’d stay tied to the EU, which may wake up in time to its demise but I doubt it. There are other more PC issues to fret about, like climate change.
Apparently after 2 attacks just outside the Houses of Parliament, the establishment have finally cottoned on the FACT that some people are murderous thugs —
“Enough is enough – things have to change” said Theresa May as she warns Britain faces a “new trend” in the threat from extreme Islamist terrorism — shout some local newspapers.
Well she and they have it wrong, it is not a ‘new trend’ it is what it has always been — putting the public in peril for quick and easy political expediency.
@Larry – That picture is very disturbing. It shows an increase in the activities, probably because it seems to be working. The West has to change tactics or they will perish.
@TinyCO2 says:
5 June 2017 at 8:21 am
Islam is completely incompatible with western ideals, and has no place in an enlightened society.
It is a scary thought that the government of all western countries must regularly discuss, what level of collateral damage is acceptable appeasement in the pursuit of multi-culturalism so as not to alienate a sector of society who they know are within our ranks and will do us harm if we upset them. Recall the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the earlier rioting when offense was had at some Danish cartoons, which demonstrates the extreme reaction to even the slightest offense.
When I talk about collateral damage in the pursuit of multi-culturalism, do governments consider that say 50 deaths every 5 to 7 years is acceptable, or 20 deaths each year, or 10 deaths a months etc? What about gang rapes and child grooming which are on the rise, and the UK has a severe problem with asian men of a certain background grooming thousands of young girls 13 to 15 for sex. What about honour killings, how many a year are acceptable? In Germany there have been at least 30 honour killings in the first 5 months of the year. I say at least, since the reporting is often disguished and honour killings are classified more generally as domestic violence, so the true numbers are not easy to know. See: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10441/germany-muslim-honor-killings
There have been a huge number of attacks on Coptic Christians with many deaths this year. Strangely enough, we do not see our politicians wearing badges Je suis Coptic Christian whereas we did see them wearing Je suis Charlie Hebdo. Why is that? I think that all right thinking minds know the answer.
The appeasement needs to stop, and we need to ditch the PC platitudes and start talking straight. The problem will not go away, and will only get worse unless st6rong steps are urgently taken.
.
A shooting tonight in my home city, Melbourne, Oz. Appears to be
terrorist linked.
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/06/05/hostage-situation-after-melbourne-explosion.html
Sucks that you can’t believe anything by the LSM anymore. It would be so much more time efficient if we didn’t have to fact check everything… http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/06/shock-video-cnn-creates-fakenews-london-following-terror-attacks-stages-anti-isis-muslim-protesters/
richard verney, governments fear their own media more that they fear extremists. The fear the luvvies and the gobby citizens who shout anyone down who want a new direction. You have tv channels that have access to the public ear, that politicians can only dream of. They can expound their world view, without a balancing voice pointing out their falsehood, exaggerations and weaknesses. If they’re upset at the government, they make it look like we’re all upset and because they’re good at it, they convince the undecided too. They can raise up or ruin a politician over night. How can any political party win against that?
And many politicians and BBCites don’t recognise antisocial immigrants as a serious problem. In some ways they admire the anti west, anti white attitude. They think we deserve it. It’s a loathing of our imperial past, our success and everything capitalist, with the exception of themselves of course.
I absolutely agree with Richard Verney’s last paragraph (and his quote of Tiny’s). How the hell we get the “entitled” ruling powers to stop it is another thing, particularly given that it’s all their project to start with.
The main problem, I suspect, comes from the fact that it is only people around my own age (mid-60s) and older who can actually appreciate the shocking degradation this country has experienced over the last few decades. We grew up in the deeply civilised society run by a generation which had just run a war, and damn well intended to run a peace. The two generations behind us have grown up in the increasingly multi-culti, PC dystopia we have now, so tend to accept that, instead, as “normal”.
The society I grew up in – my people, if you like – was white, as simple as that. We were British, why the hell would we be anything else? When Enoch Powell delivered his “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968, he caused instant off-the-scale outrage among all the bien-pensant intelligentsia who were the precursors of today’s “liberals”, but it is hard now to say that he was wrong either in having or expressing the concern. My teenage self thought he was distinctly over the top (although I always, even then, loved the stiffly classical way he spoke). My sixtysomething self has known for years that he was bang on.
The “society” I live in now disgusts me in so many ways. The infrastructure of the country is falling apart. When I go to the shops, I find myself feeling pathetically grateful on the rare occasions that I pass someone actually speaking English. When I get to the shops, there’s an ancient baboushka regularly begging there. Hatreds from around the world are moving into parts of our cities, places where even our police do not go. Dare to express an opinion, and some gibbering halfwit will try to shout you down for some imagined thought crime. In a very deep sense, this is no longer my country.
If our traitorous, meretricious politicians had any idea how many of us feel that way, they’d be getting very worried about their own futures.
And now another bloody meaningless election which will no doubt scupper the Brexit process nicely, as intended. Hmm, should I pick this multi-culti Remainiac or that? After all, if I don’t vote, the wrong lizard might get in …
Unfortunately I suspect the powers that be simply intend on waiting for the generation that grew up in the 1950’s and early 1960’s before the Left went crazy to die off.
In 20+ years there will be few if any of us left who remember that a polite well educated thoughtful and politically aware generation even existed. We will be replaced by the MTV generation who have no understanding of history, geography or international conflicts, and think useful political discourse is shouting down someone you disagree with.
@Julian James:
No, I’ve not “visited Islamic countries”. I have an aversion to going places that would kill me for my absolutely normal and reasonable behaviours and personal traits.
I have worked for a few years for a company run by Muslims (all the management above first line, where I was one of the first line mgt.) and I’ve worked side by side on job sites with Muslims for several years. One on one, and in the minority, they can be very nice and reasonable people. I even caught a lot of flack for my defense of Muslim allies:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/why-i-like-arabs/
Now, go stand on a street corner in a Muslim Majority country (or ghetto) and read from the Bible (or just wear a cross or star of David…) or make a “Piss Mohamed” “work of art” like the “Piss Jesus” one and see how long you live. I’ll wait, it won’t take long the news reports…
You do know there’s a lady who’s under death threat and was attacked in Texas (local LEOs kill the two jihadis in a gun fight) for exercising her free speech rights, right?
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/advice-on-texas-for-those-ill-informed/
Now I’m not prone to pre-judge. I usually wait until way too late to think ill of someone. (Mum’s influence I think). So I read the Koran. A few times. Cover to cover. Then I watched news, for decades. Then I listened closely to workmates talking. Eventually you can make a pretty good deduction or two. So I did.
I’d throw it back at you: Have YOU spent years immersed in a Muslim workplace? “Cooled out” Muslim workmates when they were getting over excited about things? Have YOU read the Koran, cover to cover, closely and more than once? Hmmm? Does it not say it is just FINE to lie to the infidel in the furtherance of Islam? Does it not say to slay the infidel where you find them? Does it not say do not take Christians to be your friends? Now it may very well be that Islam is undergoing a reformation in a few spots, like maybe Qatar. The problem is that in the majority of the Muslim World you are still highly likely to be killed if you carry a bible and say you think Mohammad was a lost soul who didn’t get his preaching of Christianity right. Despite the clear historical facts that he had a bible, preached it was the right religion, and gathered a following (until the goat ate it…)
So please, do not presume to toss the “pre-judge-ice” line at me. I’m very much post judging. I have worked with Muslims, find it quite acceptable (provided you constantly avoid their sensibilities that you must learn in depth) and avoid any other than very positive references to Islam. I would be happy to work with them again. Further, I would come to the aid of any innocent Muslim being harassed without cause by my countrymen. I’ve done it before.
Yet NONE of that prevents me from realizing that “Freedom of speech” as practiced in the West is incompatible with Muslim Sensitivities. Just can’t mix them without eventual violence.
Nor does it prevent me from knowing that a 2nd generation Muslim WILL experience alienation and resentment. I know that as on my Mum’s side I’m the kid of an immigrant and I felt resentment and alienation and that vague “not fitting in”; and she was British so most similar in many ways to the dominant culture. My best buddy was Mexican and both his parents were wetbacks from Mexico. We talked. It’s a universal condition. Yet WE didn’t go out and kill people because they didn’t embrace us and we felt out of place.
The list of incompatibilities is very very long. From polygamy to alcohol to “honor killings” to wife beating (directly allowed by the Koran and Sharia so approved by Allah…) to killing Jews and infidels “where you find them”. All approved under Islam and incompatible with the West.
Now can some Muslims “suck it up” enough to quietly blend in and work well in the west? Certainly. The Koran tells them to do so, but only until 51%… Then it’s Sharia time, baby.
Now I’m even fine with THAT. As long as their are some nice strong borders and we agree “your rules in your home, my rules in mine” and we each keep our citizens domiciled in our own countries, with some preservation of the West as a result. “Strong fences make good neighbors” and all that. Demographic swamping and slow invasion not allowed.
But if you expect me to endorse cultural suicide and potentially personal death for the sake of not telling the truth and making someone unhappy, well, sorry, not in my nature.
There is nothing wrong with separate cultures and different views. There is also ZERO reason to go courting disasters by mixing incompatible cultures. We can all be happy living separate lives. I don’t need to hear their call to prayer and they don’t need to smell my bacon frying.
So as soon as the Islamic Reformation has 50 or 100 stable years under its belt, you can read a Bible in a park in the Muslim World and be left alone, there are no “Islamist Attacks” in western cities for a lifetime, and there are no Islamic Ghettos in the West where you can not go safely, then sure, I’ll be all for a nice big hug fest.
But while we still have nut job jihadi wannabees killing little girls by the dozen, and driving over tourists on a day or night out: I’m FINE with zero immigration, zero tolerance for Islamist literature, mosques, and all. Deport any folks leaning that way, and hunt down and kill anyone doing attacks or providing support to the attackers. Quarantine is a primitive but effective means of treating a threat to life.
BTW, NONE of that is my emotional status nor related to it. All of that is just data and analysis. Looking for practical solutions that work. Inevitably, folks will try to read that with emotional loading and all sorts of fantasy crap. My emotional status is just “I’d rather the problem just went away and I feel sorry for the killed and annoyed at the stupidity of the jihadis” Yeah, kind of flat. But that’s what I am, emotionally flat. Call it Buddhist Centered if you like. I think of it as part of a tidy mind. “Centered” and at peace. Killing little girls by the dozen tends to upset my Centered and at Peace, so I would like it to stop. Yeah, it’s also a very simple emotional process.
I want peace. We will not get it via mixing incompatibles, but rather will get violence. Separation allows mutual respect and peace. OK, we are go for separation…
Sidebar on Western Violence:
FWIW, I’m also against what is called “adventurism”. Were it up to me, I’d have ZERO foreign bases and ZERO troops abroad. It would take a larger fleet and long range air force, but I’m fine with that. I’d also like to return to the Rule Of Law and require a congressional Declaration Of War for any hostilities (other than a prompt nuclear counterstrike when we have clear nuclear attack underway – there isn’t enough time for a vote and you must have that credible threat to prevent the first strike). I am, fundamentally, a pacifist and despise the global enterprise of “Diplomacy by other means” we’ve had for the last 50 years. ( Play on “War is diplomacy by other means”…) But I also do not believe that one wrong justifies another…
“We will be replaced by the MTV generation who have no understanding of history…”
I understand what Larry means. But in my view, the following generations were raised by the Counter Culture, that is their only crime in all of this.
It takes a long time to undo all of the things the Boomers taught me. To give some idea of how much effort it has required, it takes about a year-and-a-half of hitting the books to undo every year of “education” from the Boomers. My awakening was spiritual; when I read and believed the Gospel of John the world became new. He IS and He loves us and He is going to return someday. After that I had to start rebuilding all of history and science** from scratch. Those who do not take this course will be extreme environmentalists, chemophobes, and will regard all applied science using chemicals, em waves or cultivars for every day human life as harmful to the earth. So sad.
One of the phrases I heard many times during my upbringing was, “It’s all just different names for the same god, maaan.” People hold philosophies that in effect try to erase any distinction between this and that. But Sharia is a dark ages monstrosity, and it is unconstitutional to practice it here. Also, do you think that freedom of religion and of conscience was just springing up every where spontaneously in the 1600’s? It was a truly unique approach in the New England colonies.
So now is a learning opportunity. Can freedom of speech, of religion, of association and of arms-bearing even exist under certain religions? Experience and observations show that it cannot. But people’s long-cherished beliefs and their addictions to experts may not allow them to recognize this. For too long, all the trendy, counter-culture smart set have hated and denigrated all of the free, open, Protestant, English-speaking countries and their histories. It is a lifelong habit of thought and of academia. Think how much everyone hates June Cleaver, and Christmas!
As evidence of the sheer blindness and contempt for our unique history, we see that now people are actually concluding that the freedoms and cultures we enjoy are because we are “white!” This is a totally superficial, historically ignorant and worthless assertion. This kind of gross misattribution to skin color is just as bad as the PC nonsense that is afflicting half of our countrymen now. We escaped the old world and all of its popes, prelates, kaisers and kings in order to live before God as free and responsible people, providing for our own family and wishing and doing well towards our neighbors. And so, with Nigel Farage, I agree. “You can’t deal with a problem, until first you come clean about what you’ve got wrong.”
EM, you are so right about Congressional war powers. So right.
@Zeke:
Thanks.
BTW, I’m on the lower bound of “boomers”, so it isn’t all boomers that got things messed up.
Per skin color vs “white”: One of my pet peeves. The idea that race is about skin color. It isn’t. It is about so much more. I’ve said before that there is “no one white race”, and it is a simple truth. The Caucasian type includes from blonds and red heads to brown and black hair; and from near pink transparent skin of the redhead to the black skin of India’s darkest. It also includes the Basque, who are unique genotype and language group and the Ainu of Japan (at least prior to their recent blending in with Asian types). So who is “white”? The Arab and Berber? The Indian? The Basque? The Sami / Lapps? All unique genetic types.
IMHO the reducing all that to “skin color” is a fantasy made up by the folks shouting “racist” at every turn to foment wider hatred. As I’ve said before, most of my ancestors have been trying to kill each other for thousands of years…
So the purpose is to force submersion of all differences into one mush of compliance…
Where I’d rather have a 1000 different peoples and cultures celebrating their many differences. YES to making distinctions between tribes and nations. How else could we end up with a hundred different cuisines to enjoy, or the contrasting art types of Japanese water colors vs French oils? I want a salad, not a melting pot of one mush. Melt all the crayons together, you get one wretched non-color blah. Give me the contrast, please.
On the “issues” of mixing incompatibles:
When you have kids fighting, everyone knows that when they can’t stop, you separate them. It’s the first step in stopping things. You pull them off each other and enforce separation. The current PC Stupid is to say they have to hold hands and smile. That just gets you into stronger resentment and hidden elbow digs and foot stomps. You would think politicians and the PC Crowd had never raised kids before or broke up a fight in the sandbox…
Julian says, ” Except of course very rarely do any of the perpetrators actually show much in the way of true Islamic principles or ethical constraints. ”
EM is correct, the terrorists, and shockingly high percentages of the general Islamic population in EVERY nation, demonstrate Islamic principles of brutality in pew polls supporting terrorists, supporting legal religious rule( sharia) in global attacks on Christians, in FGM, etc…
I know Mike, being “white” did not save a lot of European countries from catastrophes and dictatorships. This idea has no explanatory power at all, and yet young people are trying to make sense of what makes the US, Canada, Aus and NZ different, and they draw such a complete blank and are so lost that they cannot even begin to even ask a relevant question.
My remark to Julian James would be that he might be interested in studying countries that were taken over by Islam, even recently. For example, Lebanon. Also, I think that any objective observer can say that Sharia law is totally unconstitutional. The constitution enshrines freedom of religion, it protects free expression, it forbids cruel and unusual punishments, and certainly fgm cannot be allowed for those reasons. Many Persians and Arabs are here because they are fleeing persecution under Islam. They are also relying on us to protect them from Islam.
I wish we could have individual, legal immigration, for people who want to come over here and build a better life. I am very proud of the fact that many Latvians and Estonians were able to come here after WWI and WWII and save their languages and holidays and cuisines, which were endangered at the time. There were European languages that were completely wiped out in the 1700-1900s and we are a unique place where it is safe to come, as real refugees. Many American Indians are working to pass on their language to the next generation. Immigrants can preserve their language and folklore, and also learn English in our country.
Correction, “Many American Indians are working to pass on their languages to the next generation.”
And not to lessen the importance of what the UK has suffered in the loss of life. But the attack on our businesses is also real danger to us. There is a Little Caesars here in town, and we go there every Wed. before the Wed. service to get three pizzas. It’s just fun thing that the teenagers like. Their prices are reasonable enough for us to do that. But now Little Caesars is being sued for $100 million dollars because it is claimed that a pepperoni pizza was mislabeled as halal meat. If this law suit is successful, we will end up paying for that every time we eat there. There are already enough companies that are paying a halal extortion tax on our food. (This restaurant also employs the funny teenagers around here, who work very hard on their feet, I have noticed.)
So between weapons grade environmentalists and halal extortions, just about any one who engages in legitimate economic activity is coming under severe attack. Not to mention the need of some people to insert a dambureaucrat into every interaction.
I hope it wasn’t my casual and perhaps rather careless use of the word “white” last evening whick kicked off the subsequent colourist comments, if so I apologise. In the course of the half-century I’ve spent travelling from “there” to “here” I’ve known and got on perfectly well with people of most colours, from palest Scandi to inky black equatorial African. Our tolerant, easygoing British culture, though, is very much buckling under the impact of the last few years, under continual attack from everything from the PC gibberers to governments which declare that every other culture must be expressed even as ours is stamped out. (Ask any Morris dancing troupe with a “blackface” tradition.)
The inkiest of the Africans was one of the first black people I ever got to know, and he carried on a pretty normal “white” life in the 70s as an art dealer. He completely threw his (mainly white) customers on first meeting, because over the phone all they would have heard was one of the most perfect Oxford accents I’ve ever heard, then in person they would meet one of the blackest people they would ever see. He never, ever slipped into the “Jamaican Rasta speak” British black kids so often use now to keep themselves separate, ecven as a joke.
Interestingly, he agreed with us whites that instant awareness of “otherness” was an absolutely fundamental, hardwired part of human nature. At a very deep level, if you meet someone who is obviously “different” – skin colour, funny clothes, whatever – the “Not My Tribe” flag is immediately set and you become warier whether you will it or no. I sometimes wonder what he’s up to now, since even in the early 70s when I knew him he was “too white for the blacks and too black for the whites” (his own words) as he flipped “NMT” flags in everybody.
It’s worth noting too that I’ve had many casual conversations with (mainly) Pakistani shopkeepers in the UK, who for years have been aware that, while their gerneration had come to Britain to live the life, their kids, second- and third-generation, were out of their control and causing their parents grief in many ways, with hostility to, rather than interest in, the host culture predominant. That rather seems to be coming to maturity these days.
John Derbyshire recently coined an excellent new word for the phenomenon – absimilation, as an opposite to “assimilation”. There’s a thoughtful article here where he uses it, reflections on the Westminster Bridge attack of March. His main point is spot on: the Japanese got it right after WWII, the British got it wrong. Our almost-dead culture bears eloquent witness to that truth.
The fault line is not black/white, any more than it is male/female, left/right or any other imaginary difference. It is (outside of the normal “clash of cultures”!) arrogant psychopath/human nature, and sadly human nature doesn’t yet seem to have evolved a way of dealing with the arrogant psychopaths whose misrule is currently running the world into the ground. I silently applaud PG every time he says “we don’t need them”, but what we really need now is some way of convincing them of that.
Thank you EM :
I have only voluntarily holidayed in some moderate Islamic countries but also asked to work in a few more fundamentalist states. In all these trips I found all the people I encountered to be charming, kind, generous and generally wishing to emulate moderate ‘Western/Materialist’ values, generally with more grace than encountered in UK.
In the fundamentalist states a simmering hatred of the extremist constraints placed upon them, particularly the awful conditions of women. A situation that if ignored would very likely implode; especially if Western nations took their trade & aid elsewhere.
Why would anyone wish to go and shout offensive statements in these countries, or not respect local traditions? Respecting others’ views is a basic tenet of good manners, to do otherwise is not only rude but ignorant and asking for trouble. Not that different to standing on a London street corner chanting Millwall FC when you know Crystal Palace FC is the local team; just bl**dy stupid, despite our laws you would very likely get a thumping.
The lady you refer who’s under death threat and was attacked in Texas for exercising her free speech rights appears to have been intentionally provoking extremists by her actions. Her rights to free speech allowed what one must assume was the publicity and outcome she wanted – with a suitable Texan response to the jihadis. Everyone a winner here it appears.
I did make a big mistake in my youth of marrying a Muslim, for 12 very difficult years. She was from a primitive animist culture, and severely damaged by this. I do not deny the appalling culture that associates with fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran (and also to a lesser degree seen in the bigots of other Abrahamic faiths).
Multiculturalism has some merits but many huge risks – overall should only evolve very slowly. eg the slow painful evolution of rational science as fundamentalist Christian dogma was worn down during the Enlightenment, though this of course was also very ‘bloody’. All fundamentalism contains within it’s ultimate undoing and is best ignored.
But of course that is not what has happened – vested interests have stirred the fundamentalist movement to serve other purposes. From Western funding of madrassas & mujahedeen to help evict the Soviets in central asia to our Saudi NATO allies supporting Wahhabism and now apparently Qatar promoting ISIS.
The “violent political awakening among post-colonial Muslims” appears to be very largely contrived by our own leadership and allies. I believe this to be part of an agenda, described by Hilary Clinton, “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions.”
During my 70 years of dealing with bureaucrats I have found an interesting truism that the more you pay these people the less work they do and the more arrogant they get. These are servants not rulers! A very good income with no real personal responsibility draws the wrong kind of people to a government job. These kind of people strive to build personal empires rather then serve the people that pay the bills. The only cure is to CUT their funding. End their ability to access none restricted funding. MONEY is their life blood, they do not create wealth that citizens want to buy. So they make their services mandatory and their funding compulsive.
They must be convinced that they are SERVANTS. That we don’t need them…pg
ooops, apologies, “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions.” was Brzezinski not Clinton.
Steve C says, “I hope it wasn’t my casual and perhaps rather careless use of the word “white” last evening whick kicked off the subsequent colourist comments, if so I apologise.”
I am so sorry! I did not mean to criticize or misunderstand Steve C’s use of the word “white” on this thread.
I was genuinely responding to the young commenters I saw recently on youtube (for example, a RebelMedia video’s thread) who plainly think that Western culture, constitutional governments with separation of powers, and civil liberties listed in the Amendments just naturally come from “white” heritage. It just defies all belief that the kids are so lost.
Apologies for that Steve C, and EM. I did not mean to harass a much-valued commenter here. At least we got the benefit of his experiences, tho! (My experiences are a bit different, here in the US. The churches I have gone to and my favorite Bible teachers have congregations of N. European, black, Hawaiian and Japanese backgrounds. What matters is the inward person and the love to His name. “Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh…” 1 Cor 5)
I’d like to point out that the degraded, sex-drugs-occult revolution mess is not culture. If any one thinks that the trashy entertainment that has become so ubiquitous is such a great gift to the next generations and to the world, that is just a generational form of mania.
I am still waiting for the Counter-Culture to realize that the sex-drugs-occult revolution had no brakes, no rational limitations built into it, no feedback for the negative and destructive results, and is worsening by day, but no joy.
Honestly, are we all supposed to assimilate to that? Am I supposed to assimilate to the continuing sex-drugs-occult revolution? I will not. I already chose to become a criminal rather than pay for that and for the eugenics the Boomers are always trying to introduce by legal force.
Also, I managed to “absimilate” in other areas as well. Very happy as my children are not on prescription psychotropics so they can sit in rows and be sexually and environmentally propagandized by Fundamentalist Boomers with their pet theories, which are obviously failing abysmally.
There is a limitation to the drug use part. We have already been through that drill during the days of LSD and prior to that heroin when junkies were dropping dead in the flop houses of New York (1950’s and 60’s the movie The French Connection was based on this period 1962).
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a-brief-history-of-the-heroin-scene-in-new-york-city
Now we are repeating it with Opioids. They will have to kill another 150,000 folks or so before the light bulb comes on and the “Hip culture” veers away from hard drugs for a decade or two.
@Julian Jones:
Part of why I despise the Clinton Camp. Their “adventures” destroying stable Muslim countries from North Africa to middle Asia. I am ashamed by it. I’m equally ashamed of what Daddy Bush did in creating the Taliban against the Russians in Afghanistan. We are trying to play in the New Great Game and just screwing the pooch.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/old-ending-for-a-new-great-game/
WHY I want the Congress to be required to vote to kill our children and screw over other nations. WHY I want our troops stationed on US soil. Get our State Department out of the business of Nation Building AND Nation Destroying. Basically, stick to our own damn knitting.
But do realize: Sitting in a park reading a Bible is not “shouting offensive statements”. Heck, even if read out loud. ALL “offense” is entirely a creation of the mind of the offended. One can choose to be offended, or not. The Western culture (at least until recently) accepted that it was our duty to not take offense at speech. The Muslim culture makes it a capital crime, punishment to be delivered on the spot by anyone offended. Like I said, incompatible.
So a question: If we live by “offense wins” rules, can I not claim moral outrage and capital offense at the words of the Koran saying I am to be killed? Can I not demand that it be banned and all copies burned? All followers to be hung at dawn? “Be the mirror” philosophy demands that right for me, if their right is the mirror image…
@P.G.:
Great gains can be had just by shutting off the money spigots. I’m all for a Constitutional Amendment saying roughly “No moneys shall be allocated nor disbursed to any foreign country nor organization nor agency but upon an open bid and for products and services rendered.” I’d also have one for “No moneys shall be collected in taxes, allocated, nor disbursed where the total such taxes, allocations or disbursements exceeded 10% of the Domestic Product in any one year. No debts may be incurred beyond 1% of Domestic Product.”
Just shut off the money and a whole lot will get better all on its own. ZERO to any NGOs, foreign governments, whatever.
@Zeke:
Like that absimilate.
Do realize that a significant part of the “counter culture” was deliberate communist driven subversion of the USA. So far, they are winning the cold war long game…
I’m also one of those folks who obsess over the loss of “minor languages”. (Yet despite having the tapes for it and the book have NOT managed to learn Irish Gaelic yet… My relatives live in the Gaeltacht so still keep the language alive; and I feel guilty… I really wish Gaelic had found a home in the New World and hung on in Eastern Canada better.
I LOVE diversity. Of languages, foods, clothing, song, you name it. The main reason I hate the globalists is their desire to melt all the crayons together into one muddy mess. A MacDonald’s on every corner and everyone wearing blue suits… ( In Tokyo, I had lunch at a MacDonald’s one day. After 2 weeks of Japanese food, it was nice to have a burger, but the experience left me feeling ‘tainted’… ) I extend that diversity to my friends who are Son’s Of The South and had ancestors fighting for the Confederacy. Their history is just as important as mine from the North; which is why I’m against erasing the statues from the public square. To forget it is to repeat it… Oh well, I also am annoyed that Ohio no longer speaks German (where my German ancestors came from) and Louisiana is now almost devoid of French. Surviving only in pockets.
@Steve C:
No Worries. It is just one of my personal hot buttons where every so often I find an excuse to vent on it. Nothing aimed at any person, nor triggered by any person. Could just as easily have picked any news story with someone calling Trump “racist” in it and done my dump there.
Too much genetics education and too much looking at differences of genetic and cultural history to accept that there is such a thing as a “white race”, though it is shoved down my throat daily by the PC Police on TV.
There is a Caucasian race with traits that are clearly identifiable, but it comes in all shades.
There is a Black race, yet it comes in Jewish, Arab, and Sub-Saharan clads that are themselves made of divergent genotypes ( Pygmy vs Watusi for example ).
There is an Asian race, yet it comes in a rainbow from near white to near black and with all sorts of add-ins on the edges. Redheads over toward where the Tocharians blended in.
It is that redhead Chinese that first gave me clue how color could be useful. But it isn’t skin color. The redhead gene is unique. It has impact on all systems using melanin and on any systems dependent or indirectly using that gene (the holographic gene thesis). It is also strongly recessive. So whenever it shows up, you know something. You know that a particular genotype is involved and that it isn’t just a local adaptation / selection.
For that reason, I like using the redhead gene as a gene flow marker. It can let you track the movements of peoples over time (or at least, one people). They originated in central north Eurasia as Mammoth Hunters and spread down over (eventually) Egypt as the bringers of cattle herding. Eventually ending their move in the USA going one way, Australia going the other. Behind them, a filling in of darker haired types as agriculture and cattle herding spread to other cultures via non-genetic means.
Now, unfortunately, with nowhere new to move, that single digit percentage of the population is undergoing genetic swamping and in a few more generations will be a sporadic anomaly cropping up from time to time. ( I suppose one could hope for a Ginger Space Program to give new vistas to conquer… but multicultural PC will kill any Ginger Space Station colony).
But skin color? It has a high selection pressure to both dark and light depending on UV exposure. It is found in all genetic types in one form or another (most extreme albino Africans) and it isn’t even a THING. It is a spectrum. Just where does “white but gets a good tan” turn into “brown but gets very light in winter”? Miguel, my Mexican buddy, got almost as light as me in winter, but nice and brown in summer. Similarly Asians often have quite white color in winter, modest tans in summer. So “white” is just lousy as a genotype (and as a phenotype is so variable as to be nearly moot too).
I’d be much more comfortable with a racial system that classed folks by percentage of Neanderthal, Denosovan, and Cro Magnon in their mix. That, at least, would tend to give what folks think of as “White”, “Asian”, and “Black”. (Yes, I do think the classic “3 races” are derived from those three root stocks as admixtures. I also think there’s more to be found in the stew for sub-types). I’d also guess that redhead genes and likely blue eyes came from Neanderthal mixing, while the Asian “almond eye” and high cheekbones are Denosovan. The Cro Mangon type being very gracile and agile shows up as superiority on the basketball court among other places, IMHO.
But just call someone “white” or “brown” or “black”, it is meaningless genetically. There are black skins in India and Pakistan that make American Blacks look pale, and Mexicans who are whiter than some “whites” in Italy. It just isn’t a precise enough nor accurate enough term to say anything about genetics or heritage.
Yeah, personal hot button. Not “tidy” ;-)
A story of confrontation against Jihadists at London Bridge. Terrorists don’t expect effective response to their attacks but even a single person putting up a good fight or delaying action can save lives.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-bridge-terror-attack-fk-fuck-you-im-millwall-hero-roy-larner-football-fan-lion-of-london-a7775246.html
[Reply: The F-bomb in the link routed this to trash, to be found weeks later. I’d snip it but that breaks the link. Perhaps avoid such links in future… -Mod ]
Thank you EM :
Surely we can add Bush Jr, Major, Blair, Cameron et al to your list; I would add that these are responsible for creating the present situation by their ludicrous overseas military adventurism that has only served the military-industrial-intelligence complex. And led to the deaths and suffering of millions … all in our names if we do not expose this.
Apparently even a significant number of these consequential homeland atrocities are actively enabled by our own security forces (eg http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html?_r=2 ). It does also conveniently justify that other ludicrous ‘double-speak’ Bushism of ‘giving up our freedoms to protect our freedom’ – there are other agendas in play here that seem happy to curtail our freedom of speech.
I certainly agree (as I think you are inferring by “offense wins” rules) that we should have the right to treat ‘like with like’ and say exactly what we like. That is no longer the case in UK – we would be accused of hate-speech and suffer legal sanction.
As far as different countries ‘sensibilities’ – for much if not most of the past 1400 years Jews, Christians and Moslems have lived fairly harmoniously throughout the Middle East. The present problems are very recent and appear very substantially contrived – to suit Western aims. Yes, Islam in its original form does not meet our standards of conduct but the present extremes and problems associated do not originate within the mainstream Islamic world – but rather our own and our allies.
I think it was a Christian saint who counseled ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do’. Whether this was as a natural application of the tenet that ‘the meek shall inherit’ or just common sense, I do not know.
BUT there is much more afoot here than these revolting atrocities against us by terrorists – I think you and many respondents here are missing the real culprits, and they are not Muslims.
If you call a blood bath every few years for all but the last couple centuries living harmoniously.
Islam has been on a continuous warfare footing since the late 600’s, was finally kicked out of Spain in 1492, and stopped at Vienna’s gates in 1683, so more or less 800 years of continuous warfare, punctuated with brief pauses to rearm and heal. Some 548 major battles over that period.
Thank you Larry :
Yes, as I said “for much if not most of the past 1400 years Jews, Christians and Moslems have lived fairly harmoniously throughout the Middle East. ” It was the ‘Pax Islamica’ established by military force in the region that enabled this.
I should think we Brits alone could probably give the Moslems a good challenge to the number of battles fought through this period and certainly ranged much farther in our military adventurism and incurred quite likely as many deaths and injuries. And we managed all this without the spurious justification of some sacred text, just simply expansionist monarchs and their advisers – not really that different to the Islamic empire building – or ours today.
Dr Warner is highly selective in his comparisons.
Nevertheless, for all of its sins, the British Empire did eventually relinquish its colonies voluntarily and recognize them as equal trading partners. The resulting alliances, called the Commonwealth, is a collection of very diverse countries that shared trade preferences and traditions in English law.
When the UK joined the EU, it was forced to cease most favored trade with these countries. It abandoned them and adopted EU tarriffs against them. But with Brexit, it may be possible to restore these ties once more, to the benefit of all. It is important at this crossroads in history for Britain and all Western nations to begin a new policy: trade not aid. It is a simple idea: aid attracts psychopaths; trade rewards the normal, productive people who have so much to offer.
What happened to former colonies all over the world was not very pretty. In many, commies rushed in and bloodbaths ensued. Civil wars decimated some.
But the Commonwealth Nations cover 1/4 of the land and had something like one fifth of the world’s population. It included people form every continent. If you like diversity, the Commonwealth is the place for you to look. Sad that members from these nations are practically excluded from coming to Britain, as preference is given to mass migration through Syria. Also, as Nigel Farage said, “Ugandans have become the most successful immigrants to Britain.”
Here is a map.
We can’t be in the Commonwealth tho. Nothing against the Queen personally, and long live the Queen.
Julian, war and agression from Islam did not stop during the Pax Islamica’ but continued without abatement.
That you see nothing wrong with a doctrine that demands war and submission, and historically acts on said doctrine is astounding. Ask 90 million dead in India. The examples are endless.
Yes, the O was a disaster, Yes the British took economic advantage of the ME, particularly Iran, but Islamic doctrine is primarily responsible for the continued failure of Islamic nations to prosper as they could.
Thank you David :
My apologies, I was not clear – I was pointing out that despite the appalling provenance associated with Islam there were long extended periods of fairly harmonious co-existence between Muslims, Jews and Christians under and specifically within Islamic rule – as also Pax Britannica similarly subdued otherwise warring faiths, within the empire. (Much as EM described above in his past working relationship with Moslems; these apparent war-like maniacs can actually be quite humane).
There are appalling atrocities being conducted presently in the name of Islam – these cannot be defended in any way and must be treated as the sick crimes they are, but also are not typical of the vast majority of Moslems actions or views despite the provenance of their faith. Get these into perspective as the recent phenomenon they are on our streets – and what has led to them, as well as the scale here.
I expect the vast majority of true Christians (and also western secularists) abhor the recent huge scale military aggression that has substantially enabled and triggered these angry (and perhaps desperate or just simple) jihadist atrocities. The massive interventions that NATO nations have engaged in on wholly spurious, contrived grounds, causing huge deaths, suffering and the wave of immigrants that often spawn the jihadis – this surely is the real “doctrine that demands war and submission, and historically acts on said doctrine” you refer to ? The atrocities in London pale against these.
Just as with our century long interference with democratic processes and economic interests in Iran I think you are also referring to, it is time to address the causes of these problems and move on; not as we are presently doing which is to obfuscate the recent past and also much of our present actions.
I agree that Islamic doctrine appears to hobble economic progress you are probably right but all may not be as it appears. Islamic states may well have the last laugh on us as their prohibition of usury may partly protect them from any future catastrophic banking failures.
Of course Donald Trump campaigned as an opponent to the Iraq war, and most of us agree that all of the Western interventions since then have made things worse, not better. When John Kerry and John McCain tried to get us involved with so-called “moderate Muslims” against Assad, no one wanted it. We have spent trillions and have less than nothing to show for it.
However, Saddam Hussein was funding suicide bombers. There is a large sum that was paid to the families of young men or even girls who detonated themselves in crowds, and that did drop off considerably once he was deposed and his assets were frozen.
But we can all agree that Britain, France, the US and others who have destroyed regimes and into the vacuum worse things rused in; Trump’s election is a response to that. I don’t think he is going to sit by and let ISIS run its stolen oil fields.
Thank you Zeke … This ‘mess upon a mess’ goes way back and it is not possible to fully judge past actions, rights or wrongs.
I believe the other secular Baathist leader Assad Snr also promoted suicide bombers. (see Hypernormalization, BBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM)
But how about this, a German Jew promoting jihad in 1914 : “Denkschrift betreffend die Revolutionierung der islamischen Gebiete unserer Feinde (“Memorandum on revolutionizing the Islamic territories of our enemies”) of October 1914. The memo argued for enlisting the Sultan to call on the world’s Muslims to engage in a Holy War against the colonial powers, France and Great Britain. To develop the necessary propaganda, the Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient (Intelligence Bureau for the East) was established in Berlin. Oppenheim became its head. ” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_von_Oppenheim#First_World_War)
No doubt many other examples of ‘faith’ being misled – and clearly very misunderstood. Yes appalling medieval beliefs, but actually wholly manipulated by other interests in both the examples above with no sympathy whatsoever for Islam.
We should not think the situation today is any different. But many apparently especially in our media, even those commenting on this blog would have us believe otherwise. I wonder why ?
Julian James link:
“In late 1915, British High Commissioner in Cairo Henry McMahon claimed in a report that Oppenheim had been making speeches in mosques approving of the massacre of Armenians initiated by the Young Turk government earlier that year.[4]
Oppenheim was credited with being the one who came up with the dual approach to fighting the British and French: through regular troops and by encouraging uprisings by the masses.[5] Some among the Arabs reportedly referred to Oppenheim as Abu Jihad (“Father of Holy War”).[6]
In 1917, Oppenheim returned to Berlin and began to work on the publication of his excavation results.[1]:16″
And then we have the extreme hatred of the Jews and Israel in the following world war, which was also started by Germany. Thanks, I did not know about Oppenheim but probably every one else here did.
It provides an interesting segway back to the original post, which says that that mass migration from Islamic countries is destructive to the forms of representative democracies of Europe and is more like an invasion than immigration. This thread would not be complete if we did not point out that Germany has not only invited the migrants to come, but Ms Merkel has used the force of the European economic bloc to cause every European country to take quotas of young mooos11m men into their cities.
Basically, in its present form the seventh century totalitarian religion of Islam with its strictures for absolutely every aspect of its adherents behaviour is incompatible with twenty-first century socially liberal democratic civilisation.
With its inherent misogyny, inability to tolerate any competing theistic belief and utterly vile Sharia law, under which rape victims can be stoned to death, gays thrown from tall buildings and apostates (that is anyone who does not subscribe to the particular subset of Islam current in that particular location) subject to the death penalty, it is inconceivable that Islam should be permitted to acquire any foothold in any Western civilised nation.
All Muslims are committed to the eventual absolute triumph of Dar al-Islam – the house of Submission over Dar al-Harb – the house of War, it is merely a question of how long they are prepared to wait for it to happen.
Until the teachings of Sayeed Qtab became widespread, most were content to wait for wait they considered to be the inevitable triumph of Islam, Qutb destroyed all that.
If the by no means perfect work in progress that is Western civilisation does not wish to throw away over a thousand years’ worth of scientific, social and humanitarian progress, the upsurge of radical Islam must be halted and reversed. The longer we leave this, the bloodier will be the conflict.
It is not a war we can afford to lose, the threat of Islam is massively greater than that posed by Nazism.
I note incidentally Julian Jones has absolutely nothing whatsoever to say about the somewhat unfortunate matter that orders of magnitude more Muslims are killed by other Muslims in the struggle between Sunni and Shia that has been ongoing since AD 632 than have ever been killed in the battle between the West which has been ongoing – with occasional pauses – since the Muslims invaded Spain in AD 732.
Curious how many apologists for Islam seem to overlook that…
As you say many are unaware that the modern Jihad is an outgrowth of intentional provocation by the Germans prior to WWI in Turkey. This is not a short term problem!
Civilizational arcs take centuries to play out. Like it or not this is at least a 100 years war.
Hi catweazle – no wish to deny the conflict within Islam or all the other horrors noted above …
But please, ‘all Muslims are most certainly not committed to the eventual absolute triumph of Dar al-Islam’. Most Muslims, like most Westerners, are mainly engaged with the matter of enjoying their lives and bringing up their families; many follow the faith because they are forced to do so. An infinitesimally tiny portion engage in jihad, mainly with (as detailed above) either with the primary encouragement of non-Islamic interests, or their outrage at the unjustified military adventurism of NATO and allies over recent decades.
To reiterate it take huge effort to mobilise a tiny percentage of Muslims to jihad.
We are already throwing huge resources into wars in Muslim states, stopping these and, as EM suggest above, withdrawing all our forces and resources from states we have no right to be in can bring an immediate cessation.
The two UK atrocities in the run up to the election have had the transformative effect of catapulting the formerly pacifist no-hoper Corbyn into a real contention.
“The two UK atrocities in the run up to the election have had the transformative effect of catapulting the formerly pacifist no-hoper Corbyn into a real contention.”
Wrong.
Corbyn the antisemitic terrorist supporter was catapulted into apparent contention by two massive policy mistakes by Theresa May, neither in any way related to the terrorist atrocities, which did nothing whatsoever to produce the somewhat illusory swing towards Corbyn.
The first serious mistake took place before the GE campaign and was to plan to increase National Insurance contributions from the self-employed and small businessmen.
The second was an announcement that increase in old age pensions were no longer to be covered by the Triple Lock.
Thus May succeeded in unnecessarily seriously antagonising her two most dedicated voter blocs – the enterpreneurs and the ‘Grey Vote’, which – along with placing a commitment to have a vote on foxhunting – indicated her judgement to be drastically impaired.
The soon to be revealed to be highly temporary slump in Conservative support apparently indicated by the polls was nothing whatsoever to do with any attraction of the electorate to Jeremy Corbyn or his policies, but a great deal to do with focussing the minds of Theresa May and her advisers. I assure that on Friday morning it will become clear that once again the opinion polls have been seriously wrong, and that when the votes are counted, the expected slump in conservative voters will prove to have been totally illusory as will be the idea that he was ever a contender. There are just not that many Jew-hating Provisional IRA, Hizbollah and Hamas supporters in Great Britain that Corbyn could ever come within a mile of Downing Street, possibly as a result of the Internet these days the electorate have become massively more sophisticated of late and the pollsters have not come close to keeping up.
As to the intentions of Islam, having spent over half a century associating on and off with Muslims, I can assure you that outside of the proportionately small number of Muslims in Europe, the USA and UK, amounting to a few tens of millions out of a total of around 1.3 billion in Pakistan, the Middle East and the Pacific states for example, the vast majority of them are indeed broadly committed to the triumph of Dar al-Islam over Dar al-Harb. To judge the intentions and desires of global Islam on acquaintance with a very few Westernised Muslims is the mistake that – if we do not wake up soon – is going to spell the downfall of Western civilisation.
Nice theory about quiescent Islam. As with any theory, it is best to ask yourself and to know what the consequences are if you are wrong, and what, if anything, would disprove the theory.
Many people here are already moving on because of observations, and up close experience. Remember, one experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions. Many have previously held very indulgent views as you do now. But if you are misjudging the intentions of Islamists, and if you have the history of Islam wrong, it can lead to even worse errors. That is the situation esp. in France.
At any rate, Germany is artificially flooding Europe with young male migrants, claiming that it is addressing the underpopulation problem in Europe. And this to the exclusion of immigration from many other countries, and to the exclusion of Christians who are being killed and trafficked by Islamists.
The destruction of the Libyan state, as Wikileaks has documented, was under Hillary Clinton, who was involved during the entire process. See “Libya Tick Tock.” The deliberate policy of failed states in the ME is clearly a pattern the globalists have pursued; whereas those who supported a military response in Iraq went to the UN and voted in Congress. No one ever envisioned that the following administration and globalists would use the Iraq vote to then destroy and destabilize all of these other countries. The American people and the elected government hate this and elected President Trump (Nigel Farage made similar arguments about the ME during Brexit), but the Deep State and the Globalists are continuing the policy of General Mayhem (perhaps working to create a revived Ottoman Empire and get migrants to destroy the nation-states of Europe?).
Thank you catweazle :
You may be correct about Corbyn’s rise in popularity also linking to manifesto cock-ups by Tories. You are not correct about Corbyn’s antisemitism, he is anti-zionist.
My experience with muslims is extensive, from mainly outside of Europe, as partly mentioned above. Most recently with a Sharia Judge’s brother, a very eloquent PhD oil engineer who spoke highly (to my surprise) of the great benefits to Sudan of the British occupation.
The Western civilization is doing a perfectly good job of bringing about its own downfall for numerous reasons, some of which are also covered above, military over-extension being just one.
And thank you Zeke : I hope I am not passing on just theories but direct experience with no particular bias other than wishing to see a peaceful world.
Also Zeke,your very pertinent point above (a bit off topic) about the “sex-drugs-occult revolution having no brakes”, this movement of course well pre-dates baby boomers. Tracing back through Aleister Crowley from circa 1910 (I think) using this specifically as a mechanism to destroy Western Civilisation to make way for his vaunted New Aeon. I suspect also Sabbatai Zvi’s apostasy having some influence, from 17th century, ongoing.
There is no doubt that there is a small portion of believers in Islam who are interested in a more secular and westernized “reformed – Islam”. The problem is that as a percentage of the world population they are completely insignificant. Islam in my view is about where the Catholic Church was just prior to Martin Luther picking up a hammer and nailing his reformation demands to the door. Unfortunately the record of history says that there will be about 200-300 years of disruption and adaption before that becomes a reality in any practical sense.
(png image need to click on the link)
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/
Some random bits:
Hitler had a Muslim corps and indoctrinated them with Jewish hatred. The rump of them formed the root of the PLO and the attempt at a unified Egypt / Arab combine. It also lead to the Baathists and Saddam. Essentially, the collapse of muslim tolerance for Christians and Jews traces back to the Nazi movement and their embrace of Arabs. Pick names out of here and dig in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world
As for measuring who’s is biggest or longest… perhaps it is best to say all sides have dirty hands and ought to stop, rather than using one dirty hand to justify two more…
What is quite clear is that the jihadis are happy to kill innocents and the west is not. That, to me, is enough distinction to justify kicking out the ideology behind it. Islam may have been more tolerant pre 1900, but it isn’t now, post W.W.II.
Per Germany and globalists:
The stated desire is to destroy nations (to eliminate “nationalism – based on the thesis National Socialism only failed due to the nationalism, not the socialism or the warfare) A secondary goal is to destroy any sense of any pure race (similar thesis) so flooding any place dominant white with loads of brown is the goal) Then dirty up the language and culture so mindless drones follow simple orders and propaganda.
Any nation not going along with the program gets a war to break it. Muslim nations, being strongly national, and religiously tribal, got the full treatment. Europe got the EU, immigrants by the train load, and ethnic stir with language blending. The Obama did his best to do it to the USA, with limited “success” and we got Trumped. Now they are trying the Color Revolution take down. If that fails, expect assassination attempts or eventually a new “civil” war. They can not except 4 years of unfettered freedom and Trump…
We are at a hinge point of history and they can see the Global International 3rd Way Socialism in their reach. They will not slow or stop the attempt to grasp it.
A major part of why I’d like our troops out of global adventurism is to prevent them being used in this shell game of destruction of nations.
Note that the House Of Saud was close to the British Royals. They just got $ Billions of arms and the go ahead to use them, have started a freeze-out of Qatar, and are against the Shiia. Sunni dominate the ISIS folks. They just attacked the Iranian Parliament…. and Saud is taking fown Shiia Yemin. Syria having their Shiia minority leadership dethroned was a goal too…. It is not a big leap to think the Saudis are in the inner circle of the globalists and using it to push Sunni Islam globally as their price for membership. Note, too, they have stability while their neighbors get take downs… Makes a fellow say Hmmmmm….
IMHO, breaking that process by breaking the genetic , cultural, and religious swamping is critical. Eliminating the wars, almost as much.
Julian James says, “Also Zeke,your very pertinent point above (a bit off topic) about the “sex-drugs-occult revolution having no brakes”, this movement of course well pre-dates baby boomers. Tracing back through Aleister Crowley from circa 1910 (I think) using this specifically as a mechanism to destroy Western Civilisation to make way for his vaunted New Aeon. I suspect also Sabbatai Zvi’s apostasy having some influence, from 17th century, ongoing.”
I know I know. In fact, I’ll see you one higher and say that nothing the Boomers came up with in the Counter Culture was original to them. But they were determined as a cohort to attack American culture, history and law, and replace it with the pet theories the were besotted with. I will be very untactful and say that they are one third Marxist-, one third German sympathizer-, and one third Jesuit-created. But as a generation, they mainstreamed it all. Hatred of free markets and middle class, check. Hatred of American involvement in WWI, blaming UK for WWII, and love of population control/eugenics, check. Hatred of Protestants, check.
I think they are about to drag all of the mainline protestant churches over to Rome and lay them dead at the feet of that Green Jesuit. Except two. And never even tell themselves what they have done, as usual.
PS Do I want to know what the New Aeon is?
Don’t use too broad of a brush about blaming the boomers (just like millennials) a significant fraction of us have no sympathy for the sex-drugs-occult-leftist scene.
It was the portion that the media glamorized through woodstock and the flower power meme, but perhaps 30% or more of us actively resisted that trend. We just got shouted down by the media.
catweazle666 says: 7 June 2017 at 9:47 pm “Corbyn the antisemitic terrorist supporter was catapulted into apparent contention by two massive policy mistakes by Theresa May”
Are you sure that they were mistakes and not a deliberate act to cut the Tory lead or even pass control to Labour so that Brexit becomes impossible?
After all she was and probably still is a Remainer.
AC, I had the same thought.
Larry, thank you for the link to Muslim surveys regarding Sharia. The “most Muslims are not terrorist” camp Julian is part of ignores such polls as you showed regarding Sharia, and similar ones showing broad support of death to unbelievers, support of FGM, support of terrorists in general. It is deeply irrational to not recognise the cultural suicide ANY freedom based culture is engaging in by bringing in large numbers of folk supporting the last empire religion of antiquity.
E. M. I concur with your broad strokes regarding the past and stopping the ME war games.
Such basic findemetal moral perspective is required in my view. I think it is Dennis Prager who succinctly states, ” If the Jews lay down their arms tomrrow, they will cease to exist, if the Arabs lay down their arms tomorrow, peace will exist.” it is the denial of such obvious fundamental observations that leads to sloppy thinking.
With respect to the counter-culture thing, well remember that human corporations are extensions of individuals. God => man => families => tribes/cultures/societies. Cultures and societies, then are what people make them to be. Over time, good ideas become predominant (conducive to life and more abundant life) or bad ones become predominant (conducive to death and less abundant life).
The whole thing about sex/drugs/occult thing really was about destruction and it dates to the beginning of humanity. Existence exists, regardless of our perceptions and notions. For man to be what he was created to be, there are rules for interpersonal interaction. Since we are sexually reproducing creatures, in our current form, sex *is* about the children. Be fruitful and multiply, lest ye be replaced. That’s what marriage is about: binding one man to one woman so they become ‘one flesh’, from which children are born and raised to be civilized and productive.
Note that economic decisions ultimately reside in individuals. Corporations can’t really make economic decisions, whether the corporation is a family, a business or a government. Members of corporations obviously can put in their two copper; but the decision will have to be made by one individual, either for the one or for the group (set).
About drugs, well, the issue with drugs is intoxication. Until ‘goody two-shoes’ busybodies got political power, these were all legal to possess, sell, or make. Public intoxication is a vice and thus was mostly handled via the culture/custom and not by statutory law. Said busybodies realized that if they got the government to force others, they could, via guilt, exert tyrannical control. This is why I dislike the drug laws, They made things worse. Criminalizing commerce cannot have a good outcome, in the end; for political appeals will be made based on jealousy, envy and covetousness.
It is a fact of human nature that we can know, apparently absolutely, things with certainty from either experience or faith; where faith is knowledge of things you can’t know by experience. Religion is about what you put your faith in, its absolute truth in addition to its conditional truth, and the rituals associated with the dogmas propounded by faith. Where one puts their faith in things that cannot be absolute truth, or are inherently contradictory, said faith is vain. This is why I say that socialism is a religion (and a false one, based on things incompatible with life and abundant life). This is why atheism and agnosticism are also religions. Of course, the occult is a religion.
So here we are and what do we do? We must roll back government and promote civic virtues. Christianity has shown the way. Its rules work.
@Zeke : I do not recommend inquiring into Crowleyan thinking on the New Aeon, it is unfolding and may explain a lot but ‘Occult’ means ‘hidden’ for very good reasons, hence the secret societies that further this. It does I think significantly relate to gender issues.
@Larry/David : Thank you for the the link to Muslim surveys regarding Sharia – how many of those supporting Sharia do you think also support Jihad … ?
There will of course be an association here but there are very different orders of magnitude between the two issues; I suggest were Pew to repeat the survey to question the results for jihad would be negligible – but please forward the relevant data if you have this. I see the 86% Sharia approval for in Malaysia, where I have direct experience – I would seriously doubt here any significant support for Jihad here.
But of course with the huge effort and provocation going on this past century by forces entirely separate to Islam to encourage such actions anything is possible, and yes increasingly likely. Which makes it all the more pathetic.
Dennis Prager’s comment is about as practical and helpful as ‘inviting a swordsman to a gun fight’ however.
Julian says, Muslim surveys regarding Sharia – how many of those supporting Sharia do you think also support Jihad.”
Virtually 100 percent. The MB document revealed in the Holy Land foundation trial aptly describes “Jihad” in all its meanings, including cultural Jihad. The common denomitor is the goal, religious rule, what is essentially and undeniably sedition. As stated, similar polls for instance regarding widespread Muslim support for the death penalty for apostasy are real.
Dennis Prayers comment is immenesely practical and profoundly moral. The practically is recognizing the futility of negotiating with a group DEDICATED to your death!
This understanding is fundemental to survival, and provides moral justification to their border patrols, resistance to the two state solution, right of return, ( very false anyway) and deadly response to Islamic offensives hiding behind Mosques and civilians.
Thank you David : It was violent Jihad – not cultural jihad that was the subject of this post. But in either respect I believe you are wholly wrong.
And your ‘evidence’ – “the Holy Land foundation trial”.
This is the case where after the first mistrial it was stated “The whole case was based on assumptions that were based on suspicions”, said juror Scroggins, who added: “If they had been a Christian or Jewish group, I don’t think [prosecutors] would have brought charges against them.”
And following the second trial, “Francis FitzGibbon QC has called the second trial a ‘show trial’ which relied on ‘untested and untestable evidence,’ hearsay evidence, prejudicial evidence, and the showing to the jury of additional material which was not part of the evidence at all. These add up to ‘patent failings and abuses in the legal process.’[22] FitzGibbon also doubts the strength of the prosecution’s case because, among other reasons, the United States Agency for International Development funded the same zakat committees named in the indictment of the HLF, and continued to do so for three years after it had shut down the HLF”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Land_Foundation_for_Relief_and_Development)
Not very convincing; though I concede maybe Juror Scroggins & FitzGibbon QC are Palestinian sympathizers, which do seem to be increasing. Yes Israel does seem to be in a bind, perhaps time for some new approaches. Violence breeds violence after all.
Can’t you do better ?
An interesting twist in the immigration flood into Europe. Group forming to directly confront the flood at the source on the high seas.
http://defend-europe.org/en/the-mission_fr/
Two general points: The question of the percentage of Islamists who support Sharia vs. those who support J i had is not that helpful of a distinction. If a person does not have a problem with Sharia law courts within the target countries, I have serious doubts if he is opposed to j i had in any way that extends beyond verbal acknowledgment in polite conversation. Partly because the death penalty and dismemberment are given for non-capital crimes and for petty offenses. (I think it dates back to Assyrian amputations, beheading and flayings.)
Next general response: When we talk about theories, what I mean specifically are the theories that people hold that result in social experiments, changes in law and education, and policy. And when theories are erroneous, daft, totally unproven, or uninformed in some way, someone is going to pay the price. And I don’t think many people here understand that. I am already paying a very steep price for a whole bunch of Boomer theories. My neighborhood is not safe and is going down in value because of drug houses, trashy foot traffic and needles and mattresses in the woods — and it is a beautiful area with big new homes and a river. Public schools are very expensive to taxpayers and also totally unfit for purpose because of sexual and environmental propagandization. I have literally been in danger of being a criminal for not paying for the forms of birth control that the Boomers have forced on every one. And I am also not paying for the psychiatric diagnosing and drugging of children and other target populations (such as veterans) and would rather go to jail or pay a 3-nearly-4-digit fine. These are huge, life-altering prices for me. All because the powerful rich Boomers are narcophiles, don’t know what they are talking about, and won’t listen to the victims. Now if people want to hold a theory and pursue it, than they should be capable of at least recognizing and admitting past failed social experiments, and they should be capable of doubting themselves. I do not see that here. And thinking that Sharia courts can operate within western representative republics is simply a bad idea with an incredibly steep price to others.
“How many of those supporting Sharia do you think also support Jihad … ?”
We cannot have separate law systems for separate castes. That was what our founders and English law eliminated. That is the greatest achievement of the free, English-speaking Protestant countries, and is what distinguishes us from the Old World and the Classical world.
“You are not correct about Corbyn’s antisemitism, he is anti-zionist.”
He is quite clearly both, as his record unambiguously demonstrates. In any case, the two are to all intents and purposes interchangeable, it is well said that Zionism is the respectable antisemitism of the middle classes.
Further, that was also the opinion of Martin Luther King – a man who knew a bit about racism in its various varieties.
Antisemitism runs through and through the Labour movement like ‘Brighton’ through a stick of seaside rock.
The very strong work ethic of the Jews is entirely antithetical to the ‘Three Pillars of Socialism’ – Greed, Sloth and Envy, no Socialist would dream of making money for himself if he could acquire it – by force if necessary – from someone who had worked for it. “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” — Margaret Thatcher
“The Western civilization is doing a perfectly good job of bringing about its own downfall for numerous reasons”
You sound as if you welcome that. ISIL supporter, by chance?
Personally I will fight to the death to prevent a seventh century death cult that inter alia
believes women to be worth no more than animals, that stones gang rape victims to death, that wishes to exterminate gays and that will kill me because I do not believe in their paedophile prophet.
Nor am I the only one who feels thus, as Islam will find out to its cost.
We drove them out of Europe before and we destroyed the Ottoman Empire, we will certainly be capable of repeating our victories again.
“how many of those supporting Sharia do you think also support Jihad … ?”
How about 100.00%?
catweazle : “the expected slump in conservative voters will prove to have been totally illusory …”
May’s snap election gamble set to backfire
Exit poll puts majority in doubt as Tories fail to win target seats in early returns
https://www.ft.com/content/d50a9332-4c89-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43
@ Julian your post is rather sad in my view. I will take the time to give a more thorough response.
Julian says,
=========================================
” It was violent Jihad – not cultural jihad that was the subject of this post. But in either respect I believe you are wholly wrong”
=========================================
The error of response is yours, as you failed to address what I wrote;
““…Jihad” in all its meanings, including cultural Jihad. The common denominator is the goal of ALL Jihad, Islamic religious rule, what is essentially and undeniably sedition.”
So you see you completely failed to even make a cogent response. Additionally ALL schools of Islamic jurisprudence clearly state this. Jihad and Sharia are one.
Regarding the Holy Land Foundation you pathetically go to all of two people who make claims that were anything but specific, but in general claiming the Holy land Foundation trial was basically rumor. This is false.
The Holy Land Foundation and leaders were convicted on providing material support to Hamas Terrorist Organization. But much more then this was not innuendo and rumors. Hamas’ parent organization, is the the Muslim Brotherhood.
Among documents found, and presented was the MB strategic goal for North America stating…
=======================================
““The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
========================================
For a beginning to real research of what was presented, instead of Huffington post nonsense, or a very insufficient wiki article…
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiri_bAgrDUAhUBzWMKHeDqBAIQFghTMAY&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcounterjihadreport.com%2Ftag%2Fholy-land-foundation-trial%2F&usg=AFQjCNE7MGyIQrtctwzqNgrgoryl539zOQ&sig2=yjrZfTjDpRtdsHr6pgUtxA
For A primer on Sharia… http://shariahthethreat.org/a-short-course-1-what-is-shariah/
A primer on the INSEPERABLE relationship between Sharia and Jihad… http://shariahthethreat.org/a-short-course-1-what-is-shariah/a-short-course-2-how-does-shariah-define-jihad/ ( well Illustrating the vacuous nature of your attempt to separate them.)
In addition I quoted Dennis Prager ”
” If the Jews lay down their arms tomorrow, they will cease to exist, if the Arabs lay down their arms tomorrow, peace will exist.”
Your inane rebuttal was as follows, Julian says…
“Dennis Prager’s comment is about as practical and helpful as ‘inviting a swordsman to a gun fight”
I responded with “Dennis Prager’s comment is immensely practical and profoundly moral. The practically is recognizing Dennis Prager’s comment is that this understanding is fundamental to recognizing the futility of negotiating with a group DEDICATED to your death! Additionally it provides moral justification to Israel border patrols, resistance to the two state solution, (which would be suicide) denial of the right of return, ( very false anyway) and their deadly response to Islamic offensives hiding behind Mosques and civilians.”
Julian, your poor response to this was
“Israel does seem to be in a bind, perhaps time for some new approaches. Violence breeds violence after all.”
Talking about inviting a swordsman to a gun fight. Sheesh, I guess you completely missed ” recognizing the futility of negotiating with a group DEDICATED to your death!” Islamist, who killed 90 million Hindus, inspired Gandhi, the historical expert on “non-violence” or “Ahimsa” to say he preferred violence to cowardly behavior, after some particularly evil Muslim atrocities were not responded to. EM could give you a primer on historical example of where a culture failed to protect themselves from hateful violence. Responding to homicidal violence with violence does not require hate, but is often necessary.
Clarification to last sentance,…
Responding to homicidal violence with violence does not require hate, but VIOLENT response is often necessary.
Well, Allah’s Cowards and their repellent antics don’t seem to have persuaded us Brits to vote for Theresa’s strict discipline, and with her slim majority go our hopes of the relatively honourable full Brexit she had declared. Now every Remainer out there will be weakening this, leaving the EU in that, and generally screwing the exit into nothing, and we are set full sail towards the worst possible outcome: no majority for anything, except flabby compromise.
To put it another way, the deep state has won again. Now the City of London will be engineering just enough of a “Brexit” to make sure they escape the (already far too weak) EU controls due to come into force soon, while (with the wholesale assumption into British law of 40-odd years’ worth of EU crap) maintaining maximum control over the stupid populace. And with the City now free once again to do as it likes, “unto him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath”.
And doubtless Allah’s Cowards will continue to blow a few of us up from time to time, to keep us running scared so that the laws treating us all as terrorists can be developed and extended ad libitum. Back to business as usual, folks, and in less than a year.
Mrs. May made the mistake of telling the electorate the truth, in that social care was going to cost more and that people would need to pay for their care if they got Alzheimer’s or similar, and also that the so-called “triple lock” on pensions was not affordable on the long-term and that thus the pensioners would only get increased money to keep pace with the cost of living rises and not that bit on top. Meantime, Mr. Corbyn promised the students free tuition and lots of benefits for everyone, with tax rises only for the top 5% to pay for it (and of course a lot of borrowing). Of course, the top 5% would vote against that, but that still leaves 95% who think they’d be better off under Corbyn.
The result is that the pensioners, who used to be such Tory supporters, either haven’t voted or have changed their vote, and that the students (who normally don’t turn out to vote) have turned out this time.
We’re not used to politicians telling the truth, it seems. In the same way, Trump is being castigated for doing exactly what he promised on the stump. We’re not used to politicians keeping their promises, either. Oh well….
If the government wants to reduce the bad things people do, they put the tax up. Tax alcohol more, and people will drink less of it. Tax fuel, and people will drive less. All as expected. Strangely, if they tax businesses more (corporation taxes) they expect there to be no change, and if minimum wage is raised then this is supposed to lead to higher employment. Maybe another thing the general populace don’t recognise is that if, say, the banks’ high profits are taxed (they make too much money, so they deserve to be taxed!) then all that happens is that we’ll pay more for the banking services we use. Tax the supermarket chains more, and the cost of groceries goes up. We all pay those higher taxes, even though they aren’t levied on us personally.
Thus, Corbyn’s higher taxes on the 5% will still get paid by the 95%, and the higher borrowing means that we’ll be paying larger amounts in future to pay the interest on that borrowing. You get stuff right now, but you’ll pay over the odds to get it now rather than when it’s been earned. Money can be brought into existence at the stroke of a pen, but wealth needs to be created.
@Simon Derricutt says: 9 June 2017 at 2:16 pm
The turnout of the young shot up to 70%. I wouldn’t be surprised if Soros interfered with the Brit election.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/06/09/the-yoof-what-swung-it-72-per-cent-of-young-people-vote/
Isn’t Labour for the Schengen Zone?
Why did Theresa May threaten the pensioners, when the UK pays the EU £55 million per day?
(Figure is pre-rebate, but why should Angela Merckel be allocating your funds in your country?)
Well is he had a bet in play that the currency would take a dive (short the pound) after the election he made a bundle.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/british-pound-sterling-after-uk-election-exit-poll.html
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Soros interfered with the Brit election.”
“Well is he had a bet in play that the currency would take a dive”
My wild speculative guess is that during the Wannacry cyber attack, when the hospitals in the UK were shut down for a day, the voter registrations for the seniors were vulnerable to alterateration.
If you only have young people voting, God help you. Progressive grey foxes like to promise young, gullible people free things.
Zeke, like I said before I think she threw it, can anybody be that incompetent to produce such a bad Manifesto and then do such a poor job of not only defending it, but also very poor campaigning as well?
AC Osborn says, “like I said before I think she threw it, can anybody be that incompetent to produce such a bad Manifesto and then do such a poor job of not only defending it…”
And what was this? “These attacks are aweful. We had better control the internet now!”
She threw it, but that was while the focus and discussion of the election was constantly interrupted by the Islamist attacks.
It brings back memories of the terrorist train attacks in Spain during an election which tilted it away from a more conservative candidate, and of France, which recently had terrorist attacks during elections. Macron was elected without being properly scrutinized. He had leaked emails revealing his plans to institute a French I mam.
David A, Julian James inre: “Yes Israel does seem to be in a bind, perhaps time for some new approaches. Violence breeds violence after all. Can’t you do better ?”
See David A’s response
David A, In my previous incarnations I can remember using this phrase and others like it. I have since learned it is the kind of generality that not only is not saying anything, but it actually stops thought.
As Julian James has said, he wants to see a peaceful world. We can all agree on that. But “violence breeds violence” is not going to get you there. My idea of a peaceful world is one of small, representative and stable states with proper civil liberties that are able to exist and trade together. The problem is, small free states tend to become prosperous, and very soon a larger neighbor wants to make them into a possession and take their resources. Look at Bavaria and Catalonia, swallowed by Germany and Spain. Look at Lithuania and Latvia. Very small states, invaded by Germany and Russia, back and forth, and then abandoned by the victors after WWII. More examples are easy but maybe another time.
So what breeds violence? Prosperity breeds the violence of other states who want to seize it. And of course, in Europe the ideal has been to be the next Roman Empire, gobbling up the nation-states and eradicating languages and taking resources. Reich means Empire. ME states want to be the next Caliphate. So folks need to have a more Biblical view of these world empires. They’re bad.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=daniel+7&version=NKJV
“violence begets violence”
If we use more specific language, we can get to more accurate thought. If smaller, freer, prosperous states stand always in danger of being involuntarily annexed by larger states, then one must ask the question, “If the smaller state defends itself, is that violence?” or a corollary question, “If another larger state assists the smaller state in defending itself, is that violence?”
For example, after countless states were taken over by commies and millions of their citizens were murdered, was it violence to defend South Vietnam? Or if Germany invades the tiny peaceful state of Belgium on its way to France, is it violence to defend Belgium, a small colleague of the UK? But for some, everything is blanket violence, and this blurs and distorts the distinction between aggressor and defender. But the main question every citizen needs to ask himself is whether this will be a world where smaller states can exist next to large powerful states. I am sorry to say that larger states tend to respect the fact that if a smaller state is invaded, it will have to deal with its larger friends.
And it must always be kept in mind that the expansionist states are able to use more and more young men in their armies with every little state that they seize. That is precisely what happened when Germany and Italy unified. They amassed larger forces. Not a good outcome. Rinse and repeat: European Union army, flag and anthem. Please UK don’t let them take your boys for that.
Of course, there are military buildups in Eastern Europe, and a lot of demonizing of Russia taking place at the same time. If the EU wants peace, why the build-up? Who is the military preparing against? Russian Pres. Putin has made a note of this mixed messaging and contradictory policy himself.
Probably what we all need to do is make sure that there is no draft legislation slinking through the corridors. If Angela Merkel is able to send the young men of Europe (possibly entangling Americans) into conflict, who will the women and children be left home with?
It is a simple balance sheet calculation, much like MADD the key to maintaining peace, is to make sure your most likely opponent knows any assault will be too expensive in blood and treasure to contemplate.
The scary part is what if the opponent uses different calculus of cost vs benefit than you do?
This is what happened in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese (and Korea) were willing to pay a horrific cost in casualties for a victory, and so were the Russians and Chinese who were the arms suppliers in both conflicts.
It gets very dangerous when the aggressor thinks the victory will be quick and cheap, then you are actually inviting assault when you live next to a country with a long history of over running neighbor states.
Like the bully in the school yard, folks (countries) with the mindset of the aggressor, only respect strength, and a clear will to use it when necessary. That is the key difference. The aggressor uses force when it is not necessary the defender uses force only when required (note this can be preemptive force, you don’t have to wait for the other guy to throw the first blow).
An article that is several years old but worth reading.
https://www.politicalislam.com/non-muslim-muslims-and-the-jihad-against-the-west/
Raemaeker on Belgium
“Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, war refugees began streaming into Holland bringing with them tales of German brutality that Raemaekers at first found difficult to believe. Raemaekers decided to investigate on his own the reports of German army atrocities in neighboring Belgium, whose declarations of neutrality did not prevent the German army from during their initial campaign to sweep into France and capture the capital. What Raemaekers witnessed during his furtive forays across the border so outraged him that he began regularly to publish anti-German cartoons in the Dutch newspaper Telegraaf whose editor was equally appalled by Dutch indifference to the fate of their neutral neighbor.”
Larry Ledwick says, “The scary part is what if the opponent uses different calculus of cost vs benefit than you do?”
Perhaps the calculus might be that of a banker loaning money to both sides. Or perhaps the calculus is simply to bog down a greater power through inability to respond because of political actions, and through wall-to-wall press. As the liberals say, “The surest way to end a war is to lose.” Or it involves the calculus of the Deep State with the goal of securing drugs from the Asian or Central American region. Our country has experienced all of these, in my view.
Now we probably lost Julian James, but there are two other forms of violence that must be given distinct categories of their own. The first is democide, or the killing of the citizens of a country by its own government, and the other is violence perpetrated within a society by combatants dressed as citizens, and hiding amongst citizens. In the second case, it is extremely difficult for any state to make a legitimate armed military response to attacks in cities and towns. The combatants are hiding under day cares and hospitals.
In the case of democide, RJ Rummel wrote an exhaustive study of democide in the last century. He breaks down the WWII dead in this way: Estimates of the casualties of this war are around 60 million. However, Dr. Rummel points out that of the 60 million, 45 million had been killed by actions taken by their own governments within their own borders. The remaining 15 million were battle dead. The problem is, Dr. Rummel says, is that none of the textbooks used differentiate between the two types of deaths. I know about his book from a recommendation by a commenter here several years ago, so thanks again David and EM.
The data shows that it is the authoritarian and totalitarian governments that are the most dangerous to life and limb, because they first kill many of their own people, and then they invade their neighbors. The more democratic a country is, the less democide and state-to-state aggression there is. Democide is not absent from democracies, but it is orders of magnitude lower.
Just a quick note on Rummel. It was not just democracy, but individual rights giving protection from group, primarily government, power. Chief among those rights is private property rights. These limitations on government power made government less inclined to wage war, and practice democide.
Excellent David A. Thank you for fixing that.
(Was it you who recommended the book Democide?)
Perhaps, I read his papers several years ago and often mention them in discussions regarding central goverment power.
@Larry – leave it to the crude British media to decide the 7 bad words are now fine in headlines!
Larry Ledwick commented on UK Under Islamic Attack.
“Don’t use too broad of a brush about blaming the boomers (just like millennials) a significant fraction of us have no sympathy for the sex-drugs-occult-leftist scene.
It was the portion that the media glamorized through woodstock and the flower power meme, but perhaps 30% or more of us actively resisted that trend. We just got shouted down by the media.”
How can someone who advocates legalizing all of these street drugs not consider themselves a part of the the sex-drugs-occult revolution?
I really could not believe you excluded yourself from the boomer generation in that respect and that is why I did not answer until now.
Ummmm what?
I do not support unrestricted and recreational use of drugs especially hard drugs, and never have.
I also do not support unthinking prohibition, but that is a different issue, simply because it does not work. (unless you use the Chinese solution that they used to shut down the Opium dens).
There is a fine line somewhere in between those two.
I do let adults make their own choices though, and do not get on a soap box about it, as long as the activity does no impact others.
Drug use can only be controlled by education and awareness of their negative effects, and social controls not legal controls. It will only be reduced when it becomes “un-cool” like smoking tobacco is now. Although some drugs have beneficial use (morphine as a pain killer) all drugs have risks and side effects and none are “harmless”, especially if over used – that extends all the way down to caffeine and alcohol etc if they are over used/abused.
I do support legal sanctions against pushers and unethical doctors and those who profit from enslaving those who get hooked on drugs. I have little sympathy for those who play with fire and get burned so for those who intentionally get into drugs and get hooked – sorry you lose.
For that small fraction who unintentionally get hooked (like over use by doctors of pain killers etc. they should get help to get that monkey off their back)
I watched too many of my generation get totally screwed up playing with drugs and the permissive culture of their use.
The point I was making is the perceived monoculture of sex drugs age of aquarius occult bull sh*t and rock and roll in my generation is a myth and a lot of people did not buy into it. We just generally keep our mouth shut because the myth is so pervasive there is not much point in fighting it.
It is like being an honest stock broker who does not cheat on taxes, or an honest used car salesman, the majority in that culture cannot imagine that there are those who do not cut corners and bend the rules because they perceive that “everyone does it”. Fact is everyone does not do it.
When I went to CU many of the folks in the engineering college and the hard sciences like physics thought the hippies and the far left were idiots (I still do), kids I went to high school with joined SDS and went to woodstock, and still think they were cool for doing so. I still talk to some of them. I let them make their own choices and do not / did not get in their faces about their choices. They were adults and they could make their own life choices, as long as their life choices don’t impact me negatively I don’t much care what they do. I know a very small handful of folks who responsibly use drugs and control their usage so they are not destructive (just like I occasionally drink alcohol and like to have a bit of caffeine each day to stay alert). I know a lot more who are already on a long slow slide toward a bad end and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it but watch and maybe offer a helping hand someday in the future when they ask for it like I did with my best friend and brother.
Yeah, coz the ‘War on Drugs’ is doing ever so well and Prohibition was such a huge success, wasn’t it?
There are more options than simply downright banning all drugs or removing all control over all drugs, don’t you think?
How about the massive problem with prescription drugs, how are you going to deal with that, ban them too?
On the Drugs Bit:
It is impossible to cure stupidity. Can’t even ameliorate it much. There will always be stupid people doing stupid things. Making laws against doing stupid things is, itself, a stupid thing…
To Larry’s point: I was one of those “goody two shoes” types all the way through high school. Not even a drink. In college, since it was “cool” in the ’70s, I “dabbled” in beer, wine, and ‘soft drugs’. Generally found I was not keen on most of it.
M.J. gave me memory problems, often persistent. It would take a good 6 months of abstinence to get back to full ability. Now that may be more noticeable to to me since at the time I had near eidetic memory. (Now I have very good memory, but a lot of “junk” I used to remember I now don’t – is that a failure or has my memory system just learned it doesn’t need to remember every shoe I ever bought?… or how my Converse All Stars used to wear a hole where the rubber toe joined the canvas…) So I caught myself learning “tricks” to get past forgetting things. It was like the whole memory world was de-resing, going from HD 4K to 480i … So I just stopped. Since then, the few times someone has gotten me to try it again, I’m asleep in about 2 hours. What’s the fun in that?
Cocaine was interesting, but I could get about the same effect out of Irish Coffee. A “wide awake and happy buzz”. One was $100, the other was $10. Eventually the Jazz Player who was buying wanted me to pony up and not be a leach, I was happy to just make Irish Coffee instead. Just couldn’t see the cost / benefit. (And NOT being a Jazz Player, the “cool factor” was of little interest).
Since then, my ‘recreational drug of choice’ has generally been beer or wine, with the occasional run of Scotch or Tequila. Even there, I’m really not “up for it” more than once every week or three… Just resent losing a day of productive think time. So only when I just can’t get much done anymore will I “go there”. (It can be an effective ‘reset button’ on stickage in a fixation halt loop…)
So how to explain “folks like me”? Didn’t give a damn, really, about the legality. Mostly that just made it an interesting ‘walk on the wild side’ to try. Had it been perfectly legal would I have done more? Nope. Most likely less. No “forbidden fruit” temptation. It would just be “look, those folks are messed up, why would I want to do that?”. Medical problems are not “classy” or “cool”…
Bit of history:
Near as I can tell, the progressive banning of marijuana, cocaine and codeine has not reduced their usage. They were legal in the 1800’s and even into the early 1900s.
I remember my folks buying Cheralcol-D over the counter. It had codeine in it. In a town of 3000+ we had one or at most 2 folks who would buy it and abuse it. (Only 2 pharmacists and they knew everyone in town, so ‘folks talked’). Now, post opioid ban, there are many more users in my old home town.
Marijuana use has skyrocketed since banning. My Mum, in England as a little girl, had a best friend. The best friend’s Mum was an herbalist. She sold M.J. off her cart for “melancholy and poor appetite” (which it does, in fact, fix). As a medicinal herb, it was used, but not in large amounts as a lifestyle. Now, post ban, I know some folks who start and end every day with a bomber of the stuff. Our “Founding Fathers” grew it for ropes and cloth, yet we don’t hear of the great M.J. / Hemp Epidemic of 1776… Sailors who used to “smoke the ropes” were socially deprecated, unlike now where the smokers are literally rock stars…
Cocaine was in use by such folks as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (thus ‘The 7% Solution’ Holmes story) and Sigmund Freud (among others). Do we really think society has improved by making it an offense tossing millions in prison and ruining their ability to get a job? Would the world have been better had the first two gentlemen been so treated?
So what to do?
Folks learn by experience. Some personal and direct, some via observation of others. You can not ban your way to wisdom. So better to provide a ladder of experience where folks can learn early and get off easily. Now how to do that?
Keep your drug laws and bans on the stuff that is significantly lethal right out the gate or horridly addictive. Yes, only Doctors ought to be prescribing things like Oxycontin. Let folks have open access to softer drugs. The Codeine, Cocaine, Marijuana type. Now the folks who want to ‘self medicate’ have a thing to try, and most of them will find they don’t like it, don’t want it, or that it actually benefits them enough and their pain is gone. Those that find it ‘not enough’ can go to the Doctor and get treatment and maybe stronger stuff.
In any case, the bulk of the population has either ‘never gone there’, or had a simple “trial and not interested”. Only a few are the bad examples from which the first group learns… The hard cases are a medical problem, so “not cool”, and are treated as such. We recover a generation of folks from being routed through prisons and into gangs and crime.
In short: You can’t legislate away Darwin. There will always be someone who wins the Darwin Award For Stupid. Even bright folks can do it. ( I’ve come close a couple of times… so it isn’t like I’m saying to let some unknown them be trashed and not worried about ‘me and mine’…) What you can do is smooth the path and clip the peaks off of it. Like letting your 3 year old fall off a bike a couple of times and skin their knees. They learn that since that hurt a lot, then riding a Harley at 100 MPH while drunk is likely going to hurt more, so they buy that Volvo instead…
It’s the folks trying for a 100% controlled world who have it 100% wrong. That’s an impossible state and as you approach it, things get worse, not better. Peak clip the worst and leave the lesser ills alone so folks can learn from them. Don’t punish learning. Making that a crime is worse than the problem. Treat those who are “slow learners” as either a medical or education issue, since that’s what it is.
EM to your comments about memory. The reason I have never even tried MJ is I got warned off by my best friend in Navy Boot Camp. He was a Chinese kid from San Francisco who for some time before joining the Navy was a regular user. We talked about it – he quit because “It left holes in my Mind” – That is a direct quote of how he described the side effect on memory he saw from heavy regular use. I liked Charlie and trusted his assessment and have never had the slightest interest in trying it since that conversation. Over they years I have watched too many bright and intelligent folks slowly become befuddled goof balls right out of a Cheech and Chong movie from over use. The stereotype in their comedy act works because it is a caricature of reality that everyone recognizes. Most everyone knows a space cadet stoner who is just a little bit off plumb.
As I get older and the filing cabinets in my brain get more and more stuffed with data I occassionly have those “it’s on the tip of my tongue” moments where I can’t quite find the right folder in the memory drawer but have a mental picture of the event or situation but just can’t put my finger on that person’s name etc. I think that is an artifact of collecting memories for many decades, and just having more stuff to rifle through to find the data. They also say memory links need to be refreshed periodically for them to remain easy to recall so stuff you rarely use gets harder to recall. It is still in there you just have to shuffle around for a while to find the key index to pull it up.
First things first. While I am willing and happy to discuss street drugs and prescription psychotropics, I want you to know that while many of you made up your mind a long long time ago about how harmless they are, you are in a massive, grave, generational delusion. The conditions of drug use in this country and around the world have moved so far past what they were, that I feel there is almost no possibility of even communicating with people who are woodenly bringing up prohibition and acting like the war on drugs is a failed federal program. Your paradigms about drug use are utterly failed, and yet you do not take in any new observations or evidence of those massive failures but instead double down on your efforts to flood this country with drugs and their attendant prostitution and crimes.
Your paradigm about the benefits of drug use have allowed you to fail to acknowledge following:
1. Your generation’s extreme narcophilia has destroyed multiple countries. Just so some rich kids could get stoned, you have created a huge multi-billion dollar industry in places like Columbia, Mexico and Afghanistan. Then you say that a rich American supporting this entire narco-economy, domination of the farmlands, the production, the gangs, the mules and the dealers is just “responsible use” that does not hurt any one else.
2. You have put one fourth of our children on drugs so they will sit and be propagandized in rows. Parents are told that their children must take drugs that are similar to meth in order to stay in school, women who are pregnant are encouraged in magazines to keep taking anti-psychotics and anti-depressants during the entire pregnancy, workers are diagnosed with adhd and high stress and medicated, housewives are encouraged to get on happy pills, psychiatric evaluations for anxiety in teens are carried out without consent, and some children are medicated and given shocks at school without the parents’ knowledge and no way to stop it. Many of you are collecting pensions from the schools that have done this to the next generation, without a twinge of conscience, because the schools were all about you, not the kids.
3. You have made me into a criminal because I refuse to pay for any of that by purchasing insurance which forces me to cover psychiatry. So I had to stop going to the doctor for anything, pay fines, and I had to be willing to go to jail.
4. Children not on psych medication you have lured into street drug use and overdoses are at an all time high. Yet I am lectured about the chemicals used by farmers to grow the year-round crops we enjoy. That alone ought to make you re-assess your whole world view, but it never does.
5. The war on drugs is the will of the people and local areas, the rural areas, and it is the cities and boomers that are trying to destroy our towns with drugs. The drug use here in my town profoundly affects property values, crime rates, trashy foot traffic through neighborhoods, insurance deductibles from getting hit by drug users, destruction of wooded parks with needles and mattresses, homeless drug users in summer, having to keep your daughters form taking walks because of drug houses in nice neighborhoods, fires, overdoses, etc.. You ignore that it does this to me. You do not care about how the locals feel about this. You do not take in new information. You do not seek anything that disconfirms your narco-vision for America.
6. The war on drugs is not being executed. Heroin is flowing into the Seattle area and there are almost no drug busts at all. Instead of busting the entire bunch of bad guys, King County hits up every one else to pay for drug houses and needles, and clean ups of camps and party areas, and suffer the higher crime and thefts because addicts will do what addicts will do. Don’t tell me the war on drugs has failed because it was barely ever enforced.
7. But the war on drugs is working every single time a nasty bunch of meth, heroin, and pot (five to six digit street value) along with the usual cash and guns are stopped from entering a city, reservation or town where minorities are being targeted and destroyed by drug use. But let us not be ignorant. Not only do these drug perpetrators target blacks and Indians, they then, after decades of this drug use, claim that they were right all along, that Darwin is right, some people are genetically inferior than others. I am confronting your eagerness to confirm “racial realism” and genetic superiority and “differential psychology,” on people that have been decimated by drug use, the destruction of the family, and by fetal exposure.
8. You are intellectual revolutionaries making false promises about the harmlessness and benefits of creating a narco-economy and a narco-culture in the states. You make thefts less a crime to cover up the crime increases. The press does not mention the inevitable drug use of perpetrators of crimes, including the links with psych med users and crimes and terrorists using drugs for heinous attacks. So in this way you are minimizing and confirming your own theory and every one else around the world pays the price for your falsehoods about drugs.
And drug advocates set up these medical clinics to serve drug users in those neighborhoods, and all that data stays out of the local emergency rooms and hospitals. Along with the data on drug use and crime, because that is not included in the reports necessarily. In this way it is made to appear that there are less crimes and overdoses than ever, as drug use increases. Also, if there are no rap sheets on drug use, than criminal activity and drug use can be disconnected in the statistics. That is a convenient outcome.
PS. I have used the pronoun you, and am addressing Boomers. I am sorry for the personal nature of the format, because I actually read and valued each person’s comments, and also consider it a very kind service that this blog has allowed me to give a counter answer to the ruling paradigm, which I find to be crushing to live under. Refs are too many to include but I can provide any that are needed. For example, Peter Hitchens has done tremendous research into suicides, suicide attacks and drug use, and the links between terrorist attacks and both drug dealing and drug use.
Zeke I am in full agreement with your summary of the problem stated above, which is why I took exception that there are some of us in the boomer generation who never bought into the whole drugs are good idiocy and are fully aware of the down sides. There are a large block of folks who have no interest in drugs and would very much prefer that culture went away and see the same down sides you mentioned above, but we lost that cultural war a long time ago. At this point we have to wait for it to get bad enough for the public to demand an end to it (or the wheels fall of the horse cart and it no longer matters).
A lot of people “outside the illegal drug culture” are making a lot of money off the drug epidemic in addition to the pushers and drug lords, as you say, psychiatrists, drug treatment centers, self help gurus who do the talk show circuit, hollywood culture who use drugs to induce and manipulate their stars, magazines who sell to the pro-drug culture etc. I am inclined to think that there are a lot of people who are intentionally pushing the drugs are cool culture for malicious reasons of self enrichment or to enable other agendas. Until that is recognized there is no fix.
The current opiate epidemic is much like the heroin epidemic in the later 1940’s and 50’s where folks were dying of Over Dose on the front stoops on the streets of New York, and then again during the 1970s, and the LSD bad trips of the 60’s – – eventually the light bulb goes on in the popular mind and for a while drugs are not cool and usage falls.
This usually requires the tragic story of some high profile death to get the public’s attention. I thought that would happen following Whitney Houston, or Prince etc. but even those were not a big enough shock to get the message across. Street videos of parents passed out from OD with their kids in the back seat are not doing it either (although have raised the issue to a bit higher public profile). One of the hooks in the affordable care act was the mandatory drug rehab coverage of $30,000 included in the package. Now on late night TV you see lots of ads for those rehab clinics who are sucking money out of the program to make a fortune treating those who have a monkey on their back. This is plain and simple carpetbagger skimming from the government feed trough at the expense of a lot of gullible drug users and average wage earners who are getting ripped off paying for the care.
I fear it will not be until someone uses fentanyl and related super synthetic opiods as a chemical weapon that action will be taken.
Only when they kill hundreds at one whack by dispersing a few kilos in a densely packed public space will it get attention.
I wish my prediction was wrong but I doubt it, and I think it is only a matter of time until we see that.
@Larry:
Yes. The general Rule Of Thumb is that a memory needs to be accessed at least once in 5 years to be renewed. If you don’t use it, you lose it.
Now IMHO I’ve got some much older memories that I’ve not bothered with for a decade+ that come to the top when stimulated. My belief is just that the pointers get buried and folks are not willing to wait for them to be uncovered.
It’s a database problem. As the indirect pointers accumulate, it takes ever longer to get to the right pointer. You “time out” and move on. I’ve adopted the “it will come to me” approach instead, and now found that some things several decades old will surface, after an hour or three…
Now, one other bit: Memories are stored in “chunks”, called (something…) that can be swapped, but it takes about 2 to 3 seconds to swap “data stores” (oh, right, that’s what the “something” was ;-) HOWEVER if you are stressed, you can not swap data stores. ONLY the things commonly accessed are available in your top use store. Thus the experience of being introduced to someone you met before and being unable to remember their name as you panic… the panic forbids the swap to the “old name store” and you can’t pull it up. AND the “coping mechanism” of saying “Oh, hey, long time no see, how are the kids?… Janet?” as the 2 seconds elapses…
The key takeaway being that calm acceptance and patience gets the memories back…
Per “holes in my mind”: I agree completely. Like a rodent gnawing at your memories. Just not acceptable to me. (For others, with much to forget, perhaps a feature…)
Um, Zeke:
Chill a bit eh?
NEVER did I advocate for the Drug Lords system nor all the damage it does globally. Let folks grow their own pot, the whole thing collapses.
NEVER did I say being drugged up was a good thing. Only that making it illegal is often worse for some classes of drugs (and perhaps for some very hurt folks “self medication” can in fact work, which it does and has since the first primate ate a medicinal herb).
You clearly have a BIG chip on the ol’ shoulder. I suggest perhaps some chill time and a bit of perspective on what folks actually say might help…
Also note that I’m 100% in agreement with you that prescribed drugging is way too high. That wasn’t a topic, but you’ve used it as a cudgel…
How you make a connection between “street drugs” and pesticides is a bit curious. Not really seeing it… I’m not keen on either of them, really.
As per the “war on drugs” being the “will of the people”: Um, no.
That’s right. NO! Or maybe “Hell NO!”. It’s the will of a few political animals using it as a way to gain power and position. NOBODY voted for the “war on drugs”. It was handed to them by political animals. It incarcerates millions and ruins their lives while accomplishing nothing. Put the poor sots in a rehab program and you will get more done.
Per the link to “crime” and prostitution: IF it were legal to buy the common mild drugs, those would not exist as the cost would be cheap. The whole explosion of crime from drug use came AFTER the prohibition and subsequent huge profits available from astounding prices. I’ve never seen anyone interested in theft or prostitution if they could grow their own M.J. (And I’ve known several who have done it, including me. Yes, me. In my brief college years of using, I had a ‘grow’ of a half dozen plants under fluorescent lamps in my dining room. Provided more than I could use for free. Guess what, at “free” the interest in theft and prostitution to support your use is zero. Perhaps less than zero.)
I suspect you have some issues to work out, probably from some personal interactions with the “drug culture”, that are clouding an unbiased POV.
So I”m NOT advocating for a drug culture. Just recognizing that making a crime from a medical failure isn’t the right approach either. Folks will be stupid and do stupid things. The best approach is NOT to condemn them to a life of crime, unemployment, and more stupid things; but to get them recovered to good function and stability.
That is NOT accomplished by a “war on drugs”.
LarryLedwick,
I want to thank you for your thoughtful and accurate response. It means a lot to me.
I had to go do a few things involving bureaucracies today and I am beside myself in tears. I ended up producing two birth certificates and also was asked to sign a bad agreement, and I feel like my life is being decided by these people behind desks and arbitrary rules changes that make things just that much harder to do, always with the potential of a denial. It causes me very deep anxiety which other people do not even understand. When I get home I fall apart. Thank you for being your normal steady on self today! You really are a gem.
EM I have also found the same thing if you calmly accept that “indexing please wait” is going on, and give yourself a positive suggestion that it will come to you soon, it almost always does.
If nothing else a short time later you remember something associated with what you are trying to remember so you can use it as a pry bar to get into the right drawer of information.
They say that memories are indexed with multiple handles and the trick to recall is to pick the right handle to call up the memory. That is the basis of those memorization tricks where you make up a funny mental image about someone’s name to help you recall it.
Women you met at a party 30 years ago, index keys include:
Hot red dress
pleasant laugh
long Brown hair
Friend of Becky
Talked about hiking in Montana
Did not like red wine
Call up any one of those index keys and that can lead you through a chain of associations back to the real memory of the event.
Using “Friend of Becky” as your index, you realize her name started with a “J” but you keep getting switched onto another track of memories every time you get near Jenny or Judy, but using the index key “Talked of hiking in Montana” avoids distracting contexts of Jenny or Judy and you suddenly remember her name was Julia, because it was in July that you went to Montana.
Someone familiar with how a relational data base can cross index information probably finds the above much easier to understand than folks who have not experience with such matters.
I do the same as you I just say, data currently unavailable – accessing please wait, and let that associative process run its course with no pressure.
Zeke – thanks for the kind words!
We are all working our way through our own wilderness and sometimes it is helpful to find a trail left by someone else to speed the way.
I meant every word — you are such good people LL. It is just awesome when someone has broad enough shoulders at just the right moment. (: Esp when the way I was communicating was definitely going to get a bristle response and make any reasonable, intelligent, good looking reader think I “have issues”! (:
Oh alright. I have issues.