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European Countries Seek Sweeping New Powers To Curb Terrorism
New submitter cooler-than-ice (3981829) writes with this story from the Washington Post: Belgian leaders on Friday sought sweeping new powers to monitor and punish their citizens for involvement with terrorism, joining France in an effort to rewrite laws just hours after dozens of arrests across Europe offered dramatic evidence of the threats security officials say are facing the continent.
From the article: Apart from expanding powers to strip citizenship for dual nationals, Belgian leaders on Friday proposed devoting an additional $348 million to counterterrorism efforts. They also said they wanted the ability to take away identity documents to make it more difficult for people to travel to Syria and elsewhere. ... “As a result of the events in Paris, combined with what happened yesterday in Belgium, the political unanimity is quite great,” said Rik Coolsaet, a terrorism expert at Ghent University. “It is a bit of 9/11 syndrome.”
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats — and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism. Leaders this week called for new legislation to significantly bolster domestic intelligence agencies.
I was hoping your be the ones to bail us out when the U.S. went full fascist. Alright, New Zealand, all eyes are on you. No pressure!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
'Cause the Patriot Act worked out so well for us.
Never mind worrying about the terrorists winning, it's the fascists who are doing the winning
The whole recent thing about France being a bastion of freedom of speech has been a lie. Hell, the country won't even let people wear certain (but not all) religious headdress in public places, even when the choice of outfit interferes with nobody else. Trade in various expressions of speech, disgusting as the principles they represent, is illegal - the ban on trade in swastikas is well known, for example.
To say things like, "Fewer people than reported died in the Holocaust," is illegal to merely say in France, even though
i) it's accurate - about 5.1 million people died, not 6 million (still one of the worst genocides in history, which is why it needs to be recorded with utmost accuracy);
ii) it's a straight freedom of speech issue.that a person should be able to spout whatever shit (perhaps as long as their speech isn't part of planning to cause harm).
Indeed, Charlie Hebdo had to face the French legal system various times for its depictions from Catholicism through Israeli policy (and one of its contributors was an explicit, self-confessed anti-semite - a really nasty chap, but still, merely practising freedom of speech).
tl;dr France has no freedom of speech. Everything you are hearing on the news is a lie.
Wouldn't it make much more sense to devote some effort and expense to promoting the values of the enlightenment? In particular, devoting some educational effort towards eradication of irrational beliefs. Why not actually treat Islam (and Scientology, and Christianity) as the mental equivalent of a public heath hazard, where those who believe need to be helped to overcome it?
I think we make a serious mistake in our public discourse, by considering that:
violent minority = extremists = misinterpretation of scripture vs. peaceful majority = mainstream = correct interpretation of scripture.
whereas it would be more intellectually honest to consider:
violent minority = literalists = correct interpretation of scripture vs. peaceful majority = reformists = those who wilfully mis-interpret their scripture.
In other words, while almost all humans (of all faith and of none) are decent, good, tolerant peaceful people, they are decent to the extent that they discard their holy books, not to the extent that they follow them. The holy books themselves are beyond redemption, and should be considered to be "on the side of the devil".
Consider the spectrum of belief: (a)Secular humanist ---- (b) "Moderate" religion ----- (c) Extremist religion.
Position (b) involves belief in gods, prophets, and veneration of "perfect" scriptures. Position (c) is a very small step beyond, namely to actually read those scriptures, already considered perfect, and interpret them the literally, as they are written. So, if we want to prevent Islamic terrorism, the most effective argument is not detailed discussion of which Koranic verse overrides which other one (an argument which the moderates can never win), but instead, to argue for the wholesale abandonment of holy books.
Education, science, secular values, and human rights are the most potent weapon we have against faith, and yet politicians refuse to deploy them! If we took the money from the security services, and put it into schools, I think it would be far more effective.
France belongs to the French
Germany belongs to the Germans
Sweden belongs to the Swedes
Italy belongs to the Italians
In other words, they are the indigenous for their ancestors, for thousands of years, have settled in that place
And immigrants ? No matter if they are 2nd / 3rd / 4th or whatever generation, once they have decided to harm the indigenous they should be kicked out, immediately !
America belongs to...
Australia belongs to...
Ah, never mind.
Donate free food here
Multiculturalism only works when everyone agrees to the same rules of the road.
The big trouble here, is that a disturbingly large number of Muslims hold opinions that are complete anathema to open and free Western societies. They are only too happy to benefit from the freedoms afforded them; yet, as we've seen in the last week, they despise with every fibre of their being, other people exercising their _own_ rights in a free society.
This hypocrisy is going to tear Western societies apart unless something is done soon. The solutions, as I see them: 1) we let Muslims impose their culture on us; or 2) we impose our own culture while we are still a strong majority -- and then force the minority to pick sides.
Something has to give.
Because terrorism is a red herring, and this looks like a shiny new power they can grab without much hassle from the rabble. Fear is a great vehicle for stripping away liberties. Freedom is *far* more at risk from our own governments than it ever was from terrorists.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
America belongs to...
. . . the rich.
Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
A lot of muslims are ethnic Persians, which are anything BUT brown. Related: Iran changed its name from Persia in reference to it being the "land of the Aryans" with the Persian word for Aryan transliterating to English as Iranian.