Hundreds of Verified Twitter Accounts Compromised, Post Swastikas, Pro-Erdogan Content (bloomberg.com)

From a report on Bloomberg: At least 25 verified international Twitter accounts (Editor's note: other outlets are saying the number is in hundreds) have posted content supporting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his feud with Germany and the Netherlands, with hashtags reading, in Turkish, "NaziGermany" and "NaziHolland." The accounts that were hacked include international news organizations such as the German newspaper Die Welt, Forbes Magazine, BBC North America, and Reuters Japan. It also targeted the Twitter accounts of the European Parliament, French politicians like Alain Juppe, Sprint Corp's CEO and President Marcelo Claure, among others. Gizmodo adds:It was an incredibly bad week for Dutch-Turkish relations. Turkish voters go to the polls next month on April 16th to decide whether President Erdogan should be given more powers. In the lead up to this vote, Turkish diplomats in the Netherlands had been speaking at Dutch rallies to Turkish ex-pats in support of the referendum. But Dutch officials prevented the Turkish ministers from speaking, causing a dust-up between the two countries. [...] Even where some of the tweets have been deleted, the banner image of the Turkish flag sometimes remains, like on the account for Starbucks Argentina.Twitter said in a statement, "We are aware of an issue affecting a number of account holders this morning. Our teams are working at pace and taking direct action on this issue. We quickly located the source which was limited to a third party app. We removed its permissions immediately."

Comments

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

The headline says hundreds of accounts were compromised but the story says at least 25??

Which is it???????????????????

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both. Hundreds of accounts is also at least 25 accounts.

Re: What?

[Anonymous Coward]

25 confirmed.

The real problem

[Aethedor]

This shows the real problem. The problem with a dictator is not the dictator himself, but the amount of people allowing and even supporting him to be a dictator.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the problem is also the dictator himself. Anyway, Turkey is fucked. Erdogan is leading his people backwards straight into previous century and it will take at least 50 years to recover him.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Wherever this is a dictator, this has to be true. There has to be a sufficient percentage of the population that benefits (I have no idea - 10-15%? Maybe less. Often the beneficiaries are in the military - they have the guns). Otherwise the dictator will be ousted pretty quickly. The core problem is that it is only a minority that is really required if you have sufficient means to make the rest of the population fearful of reprisals.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

That's it. Let's not forget the AKP, with Erdogan at its top was elected democratically. Heck, even Hitler (to Godwin this thread) had his democratic path before his party "took over".

There's this thing going around (anyone have sources?) that you need around thirty percent of the population to keep a dictatorship going.

I think the biggest danger to democracy is the "we won" mentality: having won the elections gives a party the right to make decisions, but the *huge* responsibility of taking along the others, keeping up dialogue and all that.

Not bombing their villages (as Erdogan is doing to the Kurds. Not all Kurds are PKK, but if he continues like that...)

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the problem is also the dictator himself. Anyway, Turkey is fucked. Erdogan is leading his people backwards straight into previous millennium and it will take at least 50 years to recover him.

FTFY

Re:The real problem

[Opportunist]

Seriously, if Ataturk was still alive, he'd kick that SOBs ass SO fucking hard that he'd land next Tuesday from the kick.

Re:The real problem

[Opportunist]

And he was elected about as democratically as Hitler... well, no, Hitler didn't manage to shuffle embassy personnel around to ensure votes from voters abroad.

Re:The real problem

[Bongo]

Yes, and this goes to the question of what makes a modern state. It isn't just ballot boxes. Nor is it a complete absence of tribalistic-minded people.

Every nation has those, because the tribal mindset is a stage everyone goes through at age 8 onwards... and many stay there. So there's always a tribal tendency in society.

What really makes a modern state is probably in the character of its institutions. Like the famous Yes Minister where politicians simply come and go, whilst the real control and continuity is in the civil service.

And in turn, do the people in those institutions retain a sense of resisting corruption. For all its faults, there is a huge contrast between the USA where everyone seems to be clear and hold dear the notion of free gun ownership as a civil right, compared to the "state" of Turkey where Erdogan somehow managed to fire thousands and thousands of people on the spot from their jobs in various institutions, just because he perceived them to possibly have links to his opponents.

I mean who wakes up in the morning and says, hey today I'm going to totally change the character of all the nation's important institutions, and people go along with it?? Of course, Turkey is sitting next to a war zone, and Saddam was praised for at least retaining control, so perhaps this is just Turkey returning to a level which it is more comfortable at. And authoritarianism is a stage that most societies have gone through or are going through. It isn't bad as such. It is what can be managed.

In any case, any pretence of it being similar to Europe is over.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, don't talk trash about people who voted for Trump

Re:The real problem

[hey!]

Well... sure. I can call myself dictator of the world but if nobody else agrees with me it doesn't matter. The question is how do dictators get people to agree to give them power. And over years of watching them and reading about them, my conclusion is bullshit.

Bullshit is a lie that isn't for believing; it's for going along with. A lot of diplomacy is a kind of constructive bullshit.

Now it should be clear that all politicians bullshit. The ones who do it the least are contemptuously dismissed as "professorial" or "technocratic". Bullshit is an essential part of political discourse: we want a politician to inspire us, which is just another way of saying we want him to bullshit us. Classic example:

We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...

Taken on its own, this could be the finest piece of political bullshit ever uttered. But taken in context, Kennedy is making a coherent and rational point: liberal democracies must seize control of progress and direct it toward peaceful ends, that this will harness the ambition and competitive instincts of people and put them to constructive use.

And that's the difference between dictatorial bullshit and leadership bullshit: whether or not context matters. Dictators freely contradict themselves and their followers don't mind because all that matters is how the bullshit makes them feel in the moment. One of the most compelling historical figures for me is Joseph Goebbels, who was probably the most intelligent and certainly most educated member of the Nazi regime. He was also a man consumed by bullshit, even though it was the very bullshit he as propaganda minister was in charge of manufacturing. He had a sophisticated understanding of how bullshit works.

This suggests to me that what people need is training, not in critical thinking but critical feeling. It's not enough to be able not to be fooled; you have to want not to be fooled. You have to be able to reject something that makes you feel good because it is false.

Re: The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

He turned into a complete moron a long time ago but it looks like you're trying to catch up.

Re:The real problem

[NicknameUnavailable]

This shows the real problem. The problem with a dictator is not the dictator himself, but the amount of people allowing and even supporting him to be a dictator.

FYI - the types of people who post swastikas aren't the types of people who support Erdogan. This is clearly someone in the EU trying to vilify Turkey (not that they are wrong in the attempt.)

Re: The real problem

[Opportunist]

Dude, the only "Hitler" in the whole spiel is Erdogan himself. The law he tries to push through has a lot in common with Hitler's "Ermächtigungsgesetz" that turned Germany back then into a dictatorship.

If that law passes, he's basically dictator for life.

Re:The real problem

[naranek]

The real problem is that a compromised Twitter app can post spam on your account (and all the accounts using the app) even if you have have strong passwords, 2FA and have basically done everything correctly with regards to security.

Re: The real problem

[Maritz]

The Turkeys will probably vote for Christmas, yet again. Pun partially intended. People that keen to dive headlong into tyranny don't deserve sympathy when they reap what they sow.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama was more of a dictator, yet you lined up to suck his dick.

Re:The real problem

[dryeo]

It may be a sort of false flag operation. It is in Erdogan's interest to make the Turks living aboard fearful as he needs their votes.

Re: The real problem

[Grishnakh]

The similarity doesn't stop there. Hitler and his Nazis were big fans of genocide, obviously. Well, the Turks are too, since they refuse to admit that their murder of millions of Armenians was genocide.

Turks are looking more like Nazi-era Germans every day.

Re: The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Is he related to trump? Actually, they might be the same person.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the problem is also the dictator himself. Anyway, Turkey is fucked. Erdogan is leading his people backwards straight into previous millennium and it will take at least 50 years to recover him.

FTFY

Last century and last millennium ended on the same day.

Re: The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does that sound so familiar?....

My God, It's The Nazis!

[Anonymous Coward]

And this time the Nazi words invade us from the birthplace of wheat cultivation!! How do we defend us from this Twitter Blitzen? I zuggest seven women für each men to ensure the survival of the species.

Seems Like A Case Of "All Your Base"

[dryriver]

Reminds me of this early 2000s internet gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re: Seems Like A Case Of "All Your Base"

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you say internet gem? https://youtu.be/l7nzke7dDdI

Expats?

[johannesg]

They have been living in the Netherlands for three generations already. Some were born in the Netherlands, of one or even two parents that were also born in the Netherlands. Of course they still speak Turkish, have a Turkish passport (and a Dutch one), serve in the Turkish military (and the Dutch parliament if they want to), watch Turkish TV, eat Turkish food, and go to Turkish supermarkets and Turkish mosques, where they get indoctrinated by Diyanet - the Turkish ministery of religious affairs. And if their government wishes to speak to them, but the evil white oppressors forbid that, they go out and riot throughout the conquered province in the name of Erdogan and allah.

Yet somehow we are all supposed to pretend they are also Dutch people that are perfectly well integrated into Dutch society. Now tell me why I should NOT vote Wilders (the Dutch Trump).

Re:Expats?

[Tranzistors]

I'm not following Dutch politics that close, but how does Wilders tackle this? Revoke citizenship and deport Turks? Or does he have reasonable integration plan?

Re:Expats?

[Chrisq]

They have been living in the Netherlands for three generations already. Some were born in the Netherlands, of one or even two parents that were also born in the Netherlands. Of course they still speak Turkish, have a Turkish passport (and a Dutch one), serve in the Turkish military (and the Dutch parliament if they want to), watch Turkish TV, eat Turkish food, and go to Turkish supermarkets and Turkish mosques, where they get indoctrinated by Diyanet - the Turkish ministery of religious affairs. And if their government wishes to speak to them, but the evil white oppressors forbid that, they go out and riot throughout the conquered province in the name of Erdogan and allah.

Yet somehow we are all supposed to pretend they are also Dutch people that are perfectly well integrated into Dutch society. Now tell me why I should NOT vote Wilders (the Dutch Trump).

You certainly should vote for him. Your culture and way of life is at risk. They are not content to live unintegrated, they want to dominate.

Re:Expats?

[johannesg]

He wants to forbid dual citizenship. They can stay, but they will have to choose to either be fully Dutch, or fully Turkish - no longer both. In the first case they can act as citizens of the Netherlands (with all rights and duties associated with that). In the second case they will be considered permanent foreign residents. That means they can no longer vote in the national elections, are not eligible for some functions, and if found guilty of a crime, can be deported to their country of origin.

Obviously, Turkey must agree to striking citizenship for those who choose to be Dutch (that means no more service in the Turkish army, among other things). And should Turkey choose to not cooperate - well, that really leaves only one choice then, doesn't it?

As for "reasonable integration plans", we have tried those for the last three generations. What makes you think such a thing can work _at all_? The group is large enough that it can easily form Turkish enclaves where contact with Dutch people is not necessary (so there is no pressure to integrate), and there is considerable financial and religious support from Turkey to retain their original cultural identity. That's kind of a tough fight, isn't it?

Re:Expats?

[mean pun]

... For small values of 'they', but hey, xenophobes would never generalise, would they?

But go ahead, vote for Wilders, it's better than suppressing this idiocy. One warning, though: Wilders has as much of a clue as Trump, so don't expect coherency, honesty, or fairness if he ever gets any real power.

Re:Expats?

[dunkelfalke]

Because it will mark you as very much the same as the people you despise, simple as that. The name of the religion or the nationalist you are voting for doesn't matter, the outcome is the same, the policies similar enough, the angry mobs alike.

Re:Expats?

[MtHuurne]

He doesn't tackle anything. He is very good at figuring out what people are upset about and then tweeting about it. He is not good at working with other people to actually solve problems. It's been over 10 years (he left the VVD in 2004, founded the PVV in 2006) and his party is still essentially a one-man show. He can't participate in a government because his party doesn't have people capable of becoming ministers. Even the experiment where his party supported a minority government (2010-2012) failed when compromises had to be made.

Re:Expats?

[Calydor]

Don't expect coherency, honesty, or fairness if the non-integrated muslims throughout Europe ever get any real power, either.

Re:Expats?

[mean pun]

If with 'integration' you mean that all traces of their ancestorship have been erased, then yes, you may argue that integration has failed. But then integration of the immigrants from Indonesia, China, and Suriname has failed as well. Hell, even the Hugenots that fled from France centuries ago still have some French-language churches in the Netherlands.

For reasonable definitions of 'integration' things are working pretty well.

Re:Expats?

[Freischutz]

They have been living in the Netherlands for three generations already. Some were born in the Netherlands, of one or even two parents that were also born in the Netherlands. Of course they still speak Turkish, have a Turkish passport (and a Dutch one), serve in the Turkish military (and the Dutch parliament if they want to), watch Turkish TV, eat Turkish food, and go to Turkish supermarkets and Turkish mosques, where they get indoctrinated by Diyanet - the Turkish ministery of religious affairs. And if their government wishes to speak to them, but the evil white oppressors forbid that, they go out and riot throughout the conquered province in the name of Erdogan and allah.

Yet somehow we are all supposed to pretend they are also Dutch people that are perfectly well integrated into Dutch society. Now tell me why I should NOT vote Wilders (the Dutch Trump).

You could say all the same things about American and Dutch Jews who hold Israeli passports. I'm not trying to dump on Jews, they can speak Hebrew, have an Israeli passport (and an Amercan one), serve in the Israeli military (and run for the US Congress or Dutch parliament if they want to), watch Israeli TV, eat Jewish food, and go to Jewish delicatessen markets and Jewish Synagogues, where they may or may not (depending on their choice of Synagogue) get indoctrinated by Zionist activists supported by the Israeli government. I just wonder why it's OK for Israeli-Americans or Israeli-Netherlanders to do all of these things but not Turkish-Netherlanders?

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now tell me why I should NOT vote Wilders (the Dutch Trump).

Wilders isn't just the "Dutch Trump". He is also the "Dutch Erdogan".
He blames all the problems on a minority and claims that other politicians are weak for not doing anything about it.
Everyone else knows he is just full of shit since attacking the minority won't actually solve any problems but some people like simple solutions more than they like something that actually helps.

The attitude that gave Erdogan power is the same attitude that Wilders benefits from.

Re:Expats?

[mean pun]

Don't expect coherency, honesty, or fairness if the non-integrated muslims throughout Europe ever get any real power, either.

Since there is zero chance of that happening in the next 50 years, and after that the world will have changed too much to make any reasonable predictions anyway, your prediction is uninteresting.

Re: Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is fundamentally wrong and it's the fatal mistake that Western liberals have made and now refuse to acknowledge.

The concepts of freedom of religion and beliefs has progressively been equated to equality of religion and beliefs over the years, without anyone ever stopping to really think that statement through.

Western, Judeo-Christian culture is not "equal" - for lack of a better word - to that of Islamic culture. This is self-evident when you compare the stark differences between the Western world and the Middle East, or any of the pre-dominantly Muslim countries in Asia.

The West has seen the abolition of slavery, legal rights for citizens, elected, secular governments, equality of men and women, freedom of speech and religion. These principles have helped establish the many advances we have had in society, such as distribution of wealth, universal education, accessible healthcare and an effective legal and political system. The tangible results of these advances need not be named - just consider what you're looking at right now.

It is a sad reality that Islamic societies of the Middle East and Asia have seen either none or very little of this, with a clear, inverse correlation between "progress" and the degree of theological involvement in society. This is unlikely to be a coincidence.

I should be clear, I'm not saying these two cultures - or perhaps certain aspects of them - are incompatible in any way, just different and we need to acknowledge that difference: European/American nationalists are not "just as bad" or "the same" as Islamists in our society and it is a very dangerous mistake to try and kid yourself that they are.

Re:Expats?

[Tranzistors]

Thanks for clarification. If plan is to remove dual citizenship, I can share experience of my country, Latvia. We too have large community of people who don't integrate that well — Russians. We have never allowed dual citizenship to begin with., but just forcing to choose one passport does not help. Most likely most of Turks will choose Dutch passport (since they live there and it is a more wealthy), they will still be able to live in enclaves, watch Turkish news, eat Turkish food and all that just like before.

However, you could be more explicit on “that really leaves only one choice then, doesn't it?”.

Re:Expats?

[Nocturna81]

I think for most people in the Netherlands the biggest difference would be that we hardly hear of criminal or rioting jews. Not saying they don't exist but it's a pretty safe bet if there's a wanted person on the news or a riot happening nowadays it's either a Turkish or Moroccan person / group. Statistics from our prisons also back this up with a majority of about 60% of all incarcerated criminals having a migration background. I personally blame the failed immigration policies of the last 70 years in the Netherlands. Originally these people came in on the equivalent of H1B visa's so no pressure to integrate, then they could stay for a prolonged time but still no pressure to integrate. And then we kind of decided they could stay forever and bring over their families but we gave them little to no help to integrate. We gave these people no perspective and no incentive to integrate and now people act shocked that they indeed have not integrated and at least some of them don't see themselves as part of the Netherlands.

We have had trouble with people from Indonesian descent as well in the past and it follows a similar path. After the Netherlands lost their overseas colonies we promised the Moluccans they could stay in the Netherlands for a while while the government of the Netherlands made a deal with the Indonesian government for an independent Moluccan state. Then the government of the Netherlands kind of forgot about the whole issue and the Moluccans and we ended up with a two train hijackings. After they spend 25 years in limbo in old concentration camps I think they where fairly patient with it all.

So yea, not saying I condone the behaviour but I can kind of see where they're coming from.

Re: Expats?

[dunkelfalke]

It is not self evident because you are cherry-picking your examples. To prove you wrong I just have to name one counter-example and it is modern Russia. Most of the recent crazy laws there were sponsored by Christian fundamentalists and the country is nowadays less secular than Erdogan's Turkey.

Your mistake is a perfect example of survivorship bias. You see certain wealthy countries and think that they are wealthy because of a certain attribute they have - in your case the attribute is the Judeo-Christian culture. What you ignore are the countries with a similar or the same culture that fail to prosper (several countries in Latin and South America would be examples) and countries with a different culture that are prosperous (Japan, South Korea, Singapore). Matter of fact, Indonesia - a predominantly Muslim country - is more successful than quite a lot Christian countries.

And yeah, I still don't see any real difference between Turkish nationalists and our very own Neonazis, except maybe the skin colour.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I could and do say that your argument is little more than whataboutism.
The popular tu quoque fallacy that's meant to divert from the fact that Turkey is currently turning into a fascist state where the head of state incarcerates political opponents. Thousands of teachers, judges and journalists were put into jail. What happens in Israel does in no way change this fact. And it doesn't mean that their injustices make Erdogan's injustices alright or even less severe. It only means that there are more than just the one problem. And just like you don't benefit from being stabbed in the stomach when you already broke your leg, more problems can't be justified this way.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

> However, you could be more explicit on “that really leaves only one choice then, doesn't it?”.

If the Turkish government doesn't allow them to give up their Turkish nationality, then they'll have to give up their Dutch one...

Re:Expats?

[drinkypoo]

where they may or may not (depending on their choice of Synagogue) get indoctrinated by Zionist activists supported by the Israeli government.

That's not OK either, Zionism has become little different from Nazism. But it's a much less serious problem than Islam, because Judaism is shrinking and Islam is growing, and because Judaism as a whole is becoming more progressive while Islam is not. When is the last time you saw a Jew make a terror attack on anyone but a Palestinian?

Re:Expats?

[johannesg]

Well, fortunately that is not what integration means, and nowadays most former immigrants from Surinam, Indonesia, and China are considered to be well integrated. You see, this is where the accusation of racism and hatred falls apart: there are large groups of non-white people in the Netherlands who are simply considered to be Dutch, despite having foreign roots. I have friends who have their roots in Indonesia, Lebanon, and Surinam. They celebrate that by serving exotic food once in a while, and for the rest they are as Dutch as I am.

Integration does not mean erasing your ancestry. It does, however, mean choosing your new country over your old. It means joining into its society, rather than staying within your own clan. Making friends with the natives. Learning the language. Raising your kids in the full expectation that they will only ever be citizens of the new country, and nothing else.

It's fine to want to celebrate some festival in honor of your country of origin. It is not ok to demand that festivals celebrated by the natives in your new country are abandoned because they make you feel bad. If you feel that strongly about it, _leave_. It is also not ok to demand that everyone abides by your food rules, your religious sensibilities, or whatever else you bring with you. As the newcomer, it is up to you to adapt. If you cannot do that... Go home.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wilders is a real politician, and a real, honest person. He's not some fucking business clown who doesn't know how to run a business let alone a government. He's not a horny spray-tanned old idiot who talks about grabbing pussies.

Re: Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, you accuse me of cherry picking examples then do exactly that.

Russia is an anomalous result (cherry, anyone?), yes. As is Malaysia (which has a very large population of Chinese and there is religious oppression there, or so I have been told by Chinese Malays).

I didn't argue that Christian-Judeo society is the "best" or only "positive" - again I use these rather clumsy terms - culture, so not sure what your angle was there by mentioning China. Japan is not a valid example, as it's pretty much been extension of Western culture since the conclusion of WWII - if you're talking about Imperial Japan, then they had practically none of the advancements I mentioned.

I would urge you to just stop and think about what we're talking about, before assuming I'm out to attack something or promote something else. I don't think modern Western culture is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just honest enough to see where it stands compared to Islamic societies.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now tell me why I should NOT vote Wilders (the Dutch Trump).

Because his plans are vague and mostly counterproductive and he refuses to tell how he is going to accomplish the few things he makes explicit. Because he has shifted the political debate from things that actually matter to a non-stop exchange about his personal obsessions. Because he refuses to take any responsibility for anything. Because his 'party' is not a real democratic party (Geert determines everything) and it is funded by foreign extremists. Wilders' way is to say stupid things in order to attract votes from stupid people. Don't be one of the stupid people.

Voting for Wilders won't change anything about what you wrote. It will merely make you one of the fools who waste their vote.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually very difficult to get dual citizenship there IF you're from a developed country. European countries really seem to have dropped the ball in how they've been handling immigration. It's very difficult for those from non-EU developed countries to get a visa, unless you're very well skilled and experienced in a limited number of things, and many don't offer dual citizenship to them, but they have numerous ways of offering visas and dual citizenship to people from less developed countries. I could understand that if they needed lower skilled labor desperately, but that hasn'tbeen the case for most of these countries for decades. Many of the Turks in Europe were first brought over decades ago for labor and came from poorer regions of Turkey. If they were just giving visas and citizenship to highly skilled Turks, I am sure we'd be seeing a different picture today, rather than one where those whose recent ancestors originated south of Europe are living in enclaves in the poorest suburb areas, don't feel they are the same as the Europeans, maintain a parallel society, feel a stronger allegiance to their ancestors' home country many have never lived in, etc. And now, due to this (and the far right's effectiveness in spreading propaganda on the Internet), many European countries are seeing the rise of far right parties. The Netherlands being one of the countries where the far right party has been close to being the most popular party in recent polls.

Re:Expats?

[vinlud]

While the problems you mention do exist, Wilders barely presents any form of solutions. Abolishing passports sounds nice but doesn't do a whole lot, a strong cultural identity is not changed by taking away some paperwork.

You need to realize that most Turks in the Netherlands live their happy life without causing any form of trouble and without being nationalistic supporters of Erdogan. Erdogans main voting base is mostly rural Turkey, not varying degrees of westernized Turks in Europe. This whole (completely planned) thing got started by Erdogan because he is

Most Dutch Turks do not serve in the Turkish military at all as it can be bought off for roughly 7500 EUR.
There are no third degrees Dutch Turks that do not speak Dutch. They may speak Turkish most of the time, but they can speak Dutch generally very well.

Integration can work, hell it does even work pretty decently. We've had many more cultures integrate, usually with some frictions. It only works though with enough time and lack of hate. This is where Wilders is simply dangerous, he fuels hate, he rarely debates, doesn't compromize. He wants to assimilate anyone that doesn't fit his exact narrative. The ironic thing is that Wilders is almost as far from a traditional tolerant, well thought, compromizing Dutch as these rioting group of Turks.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a bit strange if you consider the circumstances. Education is basically free in these European countries. There's nothing that prevents them from becoming scientists, engineers, medical doctors and similar things. And there are certainly some among them who embrace the possibilities, suffering from all the crap they're now getting from generalization. But then there are many others who don't. Living mostly among themselves and aggregating in 'Turkish only' clubs and organizations it's also kind of odd why those people feel like they're left out and oppressed by the rest of society.
I'm not sure how it is in the Netherlands, but I suppose it's very similar in all central European countries. There are immigrants from many different nations. Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Albans, Czechs, Romanians, Bulgarians, Croatian, Russians, Indians and so on. Many of them don't seem to have that much problem integrating into the native society.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really believe Wilders will make the world (or the country you live in) a better place?

Good luck with that.

Re: Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, you accuse me of cherry picking examples then do exactly that.

Nope, Dunkel was pointing out examples of countries that you did not consider, rather than advancing an argument, it is pointing out the flaws in yours.

Of course, you try to point them out as anomalies, which just reinforces the point that you are cherry-picking, even to the point of ignoring South America and the Caribbean, as well as the Balkans, and even the American South, there is a lot going on that you aren't giving sufficient consideration.

PS, Indonesia, not Malaysia.

Re:Expats?

[EzInKy]

Just what is it that keeps you from becoming fully integrated in Dutch society?

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wilders is a real politician, and a real, honest person

Sure......

Re: Expats?

[Khyber]

"It is a sad reality that Islamic societies of the Middle East and Asia have seen either none or very little of this, with a clear, inverse correlation between "progress" and the degree of theological involvement in society. "

Yea, about that, you do realize that Islamic people were responsible for most of our stuff today thanks to that one little thing called Algebra, right? In fact, Islamic communities were once highly-regarded as scholarly and scientific types. Meanwhile, the Judeo-Christians brought about the Dark Ages.

Back to school for you.

Re:Expats?

[dunkelfalke]

About two years ago. Which is sad, because I consider modern Judaism the most progressive abrahamic religion. Especially this deserves a lot of respect.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

No - he's worse.. He's not honest at all. He just shouts what some people want to hear to gather power, without having any vision of solution for the named problems. He's just a power hungry populist, that would be the same or even worst as Erdogan if he gets the chance.
The moment he can grab power, he will become the same dictator for the country as he is already in his private "movement" PVV (they won't call it a political party, because there is only one ruler and one member - And that's Wilders).

Re: Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how long ago was that period of algebra and astronomy? Does their culture from that time period even vaguely resemble that of today (or last century, or the century before that, or...)? Something has clearly and fundamentally changed in their culture.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Albanians and other poorer immigrants from Balkan countries have a pretty bad reputation, particularly gangs and not integrating. Russians also have a bad reputation in many European countries for not integrating. Asians as well are well known for sticking to ethnic enclaves and only socializing with people from their same home countries, but have a better reputation in terms of working and keeping a low profile (though there are also Asian gangs in Europe).

I think the common theme is, if you are able to move somewhere but have to live in enclaves in the poorest areas and have trouble finding decent work, or can live without needing a job, that's a recipe for trouble. Some bust their ass and do their best to integrate, many others don't. If countries want to avoid this issue, they need to get stricter about allowing in lower skilled immigrants and those who came illegally, and instead encourage more immigration of highly skilled immigrants (if there are jobs for them), and require those receiving government assistance due to being jobless to show evidence that they are actively seeking employment or have other good reasons, to stop people from migrating from the poorest EU countries to the wealthiest and expecting to live off of welfare.

Re:Expats?

[dunkelfalke]

Exactly. I live in Germany and things are generally quite similar here. For example my manager is a Turk, actually first generation, but living here for so long that he speaks Turkish with a German accent (in his own words). He's a decent software developer, an atheist and can't stand Erdogan. There are other Turks at the company, both first and second generation, and all of them are perfectly integrated and speak German just fine. Better, in fact, than most lesser - educated Germans.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Germany, Turkish people have the worst reputation in most places, although there are gangs from all kinds of nationalities. It's probably due to the relatively large number of Turkish people (over 3 million) and the parallel societies that's possible through this. The 'enclaves' have become so large and established that there's practically no incentive to integrate any more. No incentive to learn the language, since you can find work among your peers. Usually those jobs aren't good jobs, but jobs nonetheless. Of course this leads to a certain isolation.
From personal experience, I can confirm your observation. Those who are well integrated usually don't live among many other Turkish people and have many interactions with other nationalities.

It's certainly also the fault of the federal and local governments for putting the early immigrants into areas that were segregated from the native population.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

You use the same rhetoric Wilders does. There is a small minority of Turks and Muslims that actually think and/or act like extremist. The vast majority does not think or act this way. I am, and most people are, all for punishing the extremists.

Most people in jail are men. All men are bad. Right?

In any group there are people who are well integrated into society and people who are not. There are many Turkish people who are perfectly integrated. And there are many people of Dutch origin who I do not consider integrated at all.

Not many people were against the way the Dutch government reacted to the Turkish provocations this weekend. Not even the leftest people I know. This to me shows that there is a clear limit as to what most (by far) of the Dutch people are willing to accept.

Re:Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair in the Netherlands eating something other than pancakes, Oliebollen, hagelslag, muisjes, Stroopwafels and potatos (mostly, not necessarily together or at the same time) makes a good deal of sense. If it has to be Turkish or Indonesian so be it.

Re:Expats?

[Bert64]

You make a good point..
If you left the country you started in, to permanently go to another country chances are you did so because there was something about that country which makes it preferable to the one you came from (or else you could easily have stayed there)...

So why then would you want to change this country to be more like the one you wanted to leave?
You may think it's only small things your changing, but it's all these small things added up over the years that resulted in the differences between the country you came from and the country you chose to move to. If you start changing these things then you will end up ruining this country to the extent that you now want to move somewhere else instead.

Instead, embrace what makes the country different, because it's those differences that made you choose that country over the one you came from.

Re: Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Western liberals have made and now refuse to acknowledge.

That doesn't even make sense.
Liberals means completely different things in Europe and the US. You have to specify if it is American Liberals or European Liberals you mean.
From the context it seems to me that you mean American Liberals but without you clarifying it isn't possible to be sure.

Re: Expats?

[theArtificial]

In fact, Islamic communities were once highly-regarded as scholarly and scientific types.

All of them? They actively were hostile to science since explaining the natural world went against Allah as blasphemy. Science arose only in Christian Europe because only medieval Europeans believed that science was possible and desirable. And the basis of their belief was their image of God and his Creation (see Theology, and Scholastics.) Christian Theology was essential for the rise of science, just as non-Christian thologies had stifled the scientific enterprise everywhere else. Explained at the Lowell Lectures at Harvard by Alfred North Whitehead, co-author of Principia Mathematica, he explained:

The greatest contribution of medievalism to the formation of the scientific movement [was] the inexpungeable belief .. that there was a secret, a secret which can be unveiled. How has this conviction been so vividly implanted in the European mind? .... It must come from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher. Every detail was supervised and ordered: the search into nature could only result in the vindication of faith in rationality."

Rene Descartes justified his search for the "laws" of nature on the ground that such laws must exist because god is perfect and therefore "acts in a manner as constant and immutable as possible." That is, the universe functions according to rational rules of laws. Many early scientists felt morally obliged to pursue these secrets because god has given humans the power of reason it ought to be possible for us to discover the rules established by god.

In contrast, most religions outside the Judeo-Christian tradition do not posit creation at all. The universe is said to be ternal, without beginning or purpose, and never having been created, it had no creator. From this view, the universe is a supreme mystery, inconsistent, unpredictable and perhaps arbitrary. For those holding this view, the only paths to wisdom are meditation or inspiration - there being nothing to reason about. But if the universe was created in an accord with rational rules by a perfect, rational creator, then it ought to yield its secrets to reason and observation. Hence, the scientific truism that natur is a book meant to be read. Many of the Greeks considered the universe as eternal and uncreated - Aristotle condemned the idea "that the universe came into being at some point in time ... as unthinkable." Indeed none of the traditional Greek gods would have been capable of such a creation. But, worst of all, the Greeks insisted on turning the cosmos, and inanimate objects more generally, into living things. Consequently, they attributed many natural phenomena to motives, not to inanimate forces. Thus according to Aristotle, heavenly bodies moved in circles because of their affection for doing so, and objects fall to the ground "because of their innate love of for the centre of the world."

As for Islam. There is no suggestion in the Qur'an that Allah set his creation in motion and then let it run. Rather, it is assumed that he often intrudes into the world and changes things as it pleases him. Thus, through the centuries, many of the most influential Muslim scholars have held that all efforts to formulate natural laws are blasphemy in that they would seem to deny Allah's freedom to act. Thus did their images of God and the universe deflect scientific efforts in China, ancient Greece, and Islam.

It was only because Europeans believed in God as the Intelligent Designer of a rational universe that they pursued the secrets of creation. In the words of Johannes Kepler, "The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony imposed on it by God and which when he revealed to us in the language of mathematics."

Re: Expats?

[Khyber]

It was a long period. What changed that whole thing about them was the Children's Crusades and the bringing about of the Dark Ages. Christianity came around and decided to start some shit, and we've been paying for it ever fucking since.

Re:Expats?

[Bert64]

The problem is that people like wilders and trump are actually offering a solution to the problems people are facing, while many of the mainstream politicians are not...
Wether that solution will work or not is not really the point, the people want a solution and will vote for the only candidate offering one. It's up to the other candidates to offer a better solution.

Re: Expats?

[david_thornley]

To address one point, while the development of science may have been influenced by the nature of Christianity, there are scientists of all religions (and quite frequently no religion). There are plenty of Japanese scientists, and a couple of centuries ago Japan was a thoroughly backward nation. In the meantime, we have a lot of idiot Christians in our country who reject science (but not its products), so it's a matter of degree.

Western civilization dominates the planet and will continue to do so, because no other form is nearly as efficient at making stuff and killing people. Nobody here would give a crap about Islam if Muslims weren't sitting on a lot of easily accessible oil. The importance of Middle East oil is temporary, and when it's mostly over we'll treat the Middle East rather like we treat sub-Saharan Africa. At that point, Muslims can Westernize or be irrelevant.

Re: Expats?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, fine... then it wasn't their fault that they became a theocratic backwater. It was all the mean Christians that came and made them renounce science and progress. That doesn't change the fact that their current culture does not even remotely resemble the glorious one.

Turkey is in trouble.

[Falconhell]

Erdogan is their May, Trump or Turnbull, leading them bacwards into the past, whilst behaving like spoied children.
The great Turkish leader, Kemal Attaturk would be spinning in his grave.
Thanks Obama!

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[mean pun]

Thanks Obama!

I mostly agree with the first part, but I'm confused by this. Is this ironic? Are you seriously blaming the rise of Erdogan on Obama?? Is this an in-joke I'm missing?

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[Falconhell]

Irony.

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[dinfinity]

LMGTFY:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/...

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[swb]

A common criticism of Obama that seems to transcend political wings has been his tepid foreign policy behavior. Lines in the sand in Syria, weak responses to Erdogan, and so on.

My sense is that Obama is a kind of purposefully analytical leader who only makes measured responses if, and only if, in-depth analysis shows them to be worthwhile. I think this is good on paper and in a lot of situations doing nothing isn't the worst possible choice relative to its nominal cost.

That being said, global foreign policy is a stage where bold leadership has a value that seems to be beneficial even when its outcomes are suboptimal. In so many cases it kind of boils down to a dealing-with-bullies psychology, where the bullies don't back off unless you bloody their noses.

Would the situation in Syria, in total, be worse if Obama had responded to Assad's use of chemical with strikes on his residences or key military assets in response to his chemical weapons use? Might it have undermined Assad enough that he had to settle somehow, or even possibly killed him and prevented the final siege in Aleppo?

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[Anonymous Coward]

Erdogan tries to move the center of the power from the military to the civilians. The only way he knows is the authoritarian way to bolster his power over the older system and appear credible to his peers. Too bad the strategy has its risks, and the power madness has started to raise its ugly head. It will take decades for the Turkey to sail back to the sane waters, unless something unexpected (or inevitable) happens.

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[AmiMoJo]

Would the situation in Syria, in total, be worse if Obama had responded to Assad's use of chemical with strikes on his residences or key military assets in response to his chemical weapons use? Might it have undermined Assad enough that he had to settle somehow, or even possibly killed him and prevented the final siege in Aleppo?

Most likely, the whole country would have fallen to various factions and tribes, instead of just part of it.

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not any of that. It's just blaming Obama for things he had nothing to do with. Welcome to the Internet.
On local Fox29 news, one anchor was blaming Obama for snow storms and hurricanes. No joke.

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would the situation in Syria, in total, be worse if Obama had responded to Assad's use of chemical with strikes on his residences or key military assets in response to his chemical weapons use? Might it have undermined Assad enough that he had to settle somehow, or even possibly killed him and prevented the final siege in Aleppo?

Most likely, the whole country would have fallen to various factions and tribes, instead of just part of it.

Which means issuing the initial "red line" threat was stupid, no?

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama couldn't respond in Syria because Iran said they would cancel their deal if Obama did anything significant in Syria about use of chemical weapons.

That then showed Iran that they could ignore any deal they signed with Obama because he could easily be convinced to not do anything if a "red line" was crossed.

Congratulations, that Iran deal will now...
Excuse use of chemical weapons in Syria
Allow Iran to get nuclear weapons
Screw up Turkey

Obama, making nothing great ever.

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[Falconhell]

Iran is no danger to anyone, only to people who still havent got over the Embassy affair who ignore the reason, the US overthrow of a democraticly elected government in Iran, and the truth is stranger than fiction bit, to restore a monarchy.

It is US behaviour and posturing that drives them to develop their own weapons. I dont blame then one bit, a quick glance at the last 50 years paints a clear picture of who the number one agreesor invading and bombing other countries in the world has been, and Iran simply doesnt rate.

Other than defending itself from a US armed Iraq, including supplying WMD to them, who then ended up invading Iraq, stuffing it up comletely based on the shallowest of lies, and creating ISIS Iran hasnt beem in a war at all .
You really couldnt be more ironic if you tried.

If you read the testimonials of Westerners visiting Iran, they say the people are very hospitable and friendly
To just pile the irony on, there was not one mention of ill treatment at the border either, whilst US ICE at an airport made a 71 year old childrens author Australian Mem Fox, who had visited 117 times so terrified she will not go to America again.

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[Maritz]

Distinct lack of anything to back up some outlandish claims there. Allow me to retort:

Nah.

Re:Turkey is in trouble.

[fredrated]

Yes, but it was demanded by warmongers like Hillary.

The real problem is ISALM

[Chrisq]

The real problem is ISALM. That's why so many Muslims want to turn their back on Ataturk's dream of a modern, secular Turkey and make it yet another Sharia hell-hole.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don' t see what the International Symposium Advances in Legal Medicine has to do with the issue.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Freischutz]

The real problem is ISALM. That's why so many Muslims want to turn their back on Ataturk's dream of a modern, secular Turkey and make it yet another Sharia hell-hole.

The problem is not Islam by it self, it's what we in the software business call rotten 'legacy code' common to all Abrahamic religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. They all have the same problematic common legacy of misogynism, violence, homophobia and intolerance. People talk as if Islam is all hate and Christianity is all hugs, kisses and fluffy bunny rabbits but in reality you don't have to search very long for bible passages like Deuteronomy 22:13-21 to which the bible thumpers usually respond that Christians don't follow such hateful passages in the bible and (my favourite christian snowflake argument) the hateful old testament laws are "only for Jews" (amazing how quickly the followers of the religion of hugs kisses and fluffy bunny rabbits revert to medieval antisemitism) which leads us to Matthew 5:17-18. But I think we've had enough fun with scripture. Let's address your main argument that the problem is Islam. What the hell makes you think that all Christians disregard bronze age laws about stoning or otherwise abusing and suppressing women (just to cite one example) but that all Muslims gleefully embrace such commandments instead of ignoring them like many Christians apparently do because that's what you just insinuated, i.e. that all Muslims religiously (pun not intended) follow passages in the Quaran requiring them to practice barbaric reprisals (similar to ones found in the bible) against people who break religious laws and commandments and just for your information: millions of Muslims don't do that and would, for example, not dream of stoning a woman.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

oh look, another useful idiot posting.

Islam has as much role here as communism had in Soviet Union. Meaning, none.

People, want power. They will use any ideology as a weapon to get the power and money. It makes no difference what particular brand of ideology to legitimize it is, islam or free love or capitalism or what Khmer Rouge believed in.

Weak.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, no. The dictatorships were created the same way before Islam and will continue to be created the same way after Islam is long gone.
Just look at Christians today. The extreme part of them picks the same sections from the Old Testament that Sharia law is based on and tries to push the same fucking bullshit in Christian countries.
The only thing holding them back is that there isn't a strong leader that wants to use it to strengthen his power.

Getting rid of Islam won't solve the issue. Just look at Russia, asshats like Erdogan or Putin can use stupid peoples desire for strong leadership and simple solutions to get into power and remove and resemblance of democracy without relying on religion.

Just blame all problems on some unrelated group and claim that other politicians are weak for not doing anything about it.
In reality other politicians won't do anything about it because it wouldn't actually solve anything but a lot of people want the simple solution so badly that they won't recognize that.

The solution is more education, not necessarily less religion, even if the two of them often goes hand in hand.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is lots of dim twits, like *you*. Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, atheist: doesn't matter much.

Erdogan's voters are exactly that kind of people.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

oh look, another useful idiot posting.

Islam has as much role here as communism had in Soviet Union. Meaning, none.

People, want power. They will use any ideology as a weapon to get the power and money. It makes no difference what particular brand of ideology to legitimize it is, islam or free love or capitalism or what Khmer Rouge believed in.

Weak.

While the poster above yours is certainly an idiot, there are from a theological/doctrinary point of view real differences that exist between Islam, Judaism and Christianity. There are even fundamental differences between the Roman Catholic church and the other christian churches. Not all of Christianity has a hard-on for the Old Testament and its teachings of "justice" of an eye for an eye and all that shit.

In any case Islam doesn't have a central authority like the Roman Catholic Church does. That means that every Iman and their goats can decide on the kind of interpretation they give to the Coran. And guess what ? All islamic interpretations are theologically correct. So you're going to find a large swath of worshippers that really believe in the literal understanding of a 1400 year old book. While there are different interpretations of the Coran, some more tolerant than others, there is really no way to say to the 2 billion worshippers of islamic faith that they've got to adhere to a more tolerant interpretation of islam. Islamic theology doesn't allow for that. And that is one major unsolvable problem. Another is the absence of an elightenement and reformation periods in Islam like we had in western culture. And yes the Roman Catholic Church went through a series of reformations and the Church of today is nothing like the Church of the year 1000. People that think otherwise are simply fucking idiots.

To simply say abolish all religions is like saying don't breath anymore. You cannot do it, the Soviets tried and failed. Other communists regimes tried and fail. Because you cannot replace a deep fundamental yearning for something greater than yourself with a rational explanation or the worship of materialistic idols.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Kiuas]

Getting rid of Islam won't solve the issue. Just look at Russia, asshats like Erdogan or Putin can use stupid peoples desire for strong leadership and simple solutions to get into power and remove and resemblance of democracy without relying on religion.

Exactly. More to the point 'getting rid of islam' is itself something that paves the way for authoritarianism. I mean, we're essentially talking about banning beliefs and an ideology. This is the definition of thought crime and pretty much the least liberal thing one could do. If this is done, if we admit that the state has the power to regulate what people are allowed to believe, then the banning of other ideologies and other thoughts can naturally follow. Both Turkey and Russia have laws in place right now which criminalize critiquing the ruling powers. Trump is talking about media as 'the opposition party' because the media dares to highlight when he's not using facts.

Wahabbism treats those who oppose it as enemies of god. Right wing demagogs replace god with the nation state and deem those in opposition to them as 'enemies of the state', or 'un-*insert national adjective*'. Two sides of the same coin.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is lots of dim twits, like *you*. Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, atheist: doesn't matter much.

Erdogan's voters are exactly that kind of people.

Yep, all those Buddhist suicide bombers trying to kill all Jews are a threat to us all.

Who's the "dim twit"?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[denzacar]

Yep, all those Buddhist suicide bombers trying to kill all Jews are a threat to us all.

Who's the "dim twit"?

Those were called "kamikaze" you twit.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, all those Buddhist suicide bombers trying to kill all Jews are a threat to us all.

Who's the "dim twit"?

Those were called "kamikaze" you twit.

Google "Shinto", you brainless howler monkey.

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Nidi62]

The real problem is ISALM. That's why so many Muslims want to turn their back on Ataturk's dream of a modern, secular Turkey and make it yet another Sharia hell-hole.

My argument is always this: Islam is roughly 600 years younger than Christianity. Look at where Christianity was 600 years ago. Inquisitions, witch hunts, regular mass killings of Jews, regular armed conflict between believers of different sects, strict and oppressive interpretations of religion and law, etc. All things that we are basically seeing now with Islam. Take Christianity of the 14th/15th Century and put it in the 20th/21st Century and you would see something that looks a lot like extremist Islam. You want to fix it, you don't try to shut down all things Islam. That just fuels the fire. Instead, you have to embrace and support the moderate elements within Islam, as they are the only ones that can bring Islam out of the dark ages and transform it into a more modern religion. Unfortunately, there are too many people on both sides who derive profit and power through the fear and hate of Islam, so it seems as if is going to take longer and longer for that to happen.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Wahabbism treats those who oppose it as enemies of god. Right wing demagogs replace god with the nation state and deem those in opposition to them as 'enemies of the state', or 'un-*insert national adjective*'. Two sides of the same coin.
You stopped short, you forgot that left wing authoritarians do the same thing only declare enemies of the people or the revolution. It is a common tactic among all authoritarians, delegitimize your enemies, whether it be by declaring them mentally unsound or just hateful bigots who opinions can be ignored or censored. That sounds familiar.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[gtall]

Yes...and no. Muslims are generally well-disposed to Sharia as a political system while the other two are not well disposed to religion as a political system. I suspect the reason is the greater abuse in the other two in years past. Now that reformation has taken place in the sense that the Bible Thumpers are running the show (doesn't prevent them from trying, however), Islam is looking worse for wear.

The problem becomes apparent in the political systems of many Muslim countries and the tyranny of the majority in places like Malaysian and Indonesia. Islam as a political construct is old, creaking, and cannot keep up with the hopes of the younger generations. The problem for them is they have no real alternative "in their bones" so to speak. Their only exposure to political leadership is to their local mosque leaders who will be damned if they are gong to give up the delights of telling everyone else what to do.

It doesn't help that many societies in the Mid-East are tribal. That only gives political Islam a guaranteed divide and conquer strategy. With everyone fighting like that, no one notices the deal the central governments have with Islam, i.e., keep'em fighting and keep local politics local so the people do not notice our incompetence.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[AmiMoJo]

Not really, the same shit happened in Germany in the 1930s and is happening again now in the UK, US and maybe even the Netherlands and France.

Hate is a powerful argument. Blame one group for everything. Make sure they don't have a voice to counter your arguments. It could be infidels, Jews, immigrants, Muslims, the disabled, anyone.

Islam is getting over the worst aspects, just like Christianity and countless other religions did. It's no different than other religions that preach violence and hatred in their scared texts, like "an eye for an eye" or the various genocides God commits in the Bible. It's unfortunate that we are having to experience this transition, but in centuries past we had crusades and inquisitions that we inflicted on others too. The point is that it's not uniquely bad, maybe just slightly above averagely bad.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Mashiki]

The reality is Christianity went through this phase. Remember that in the US, the majority of founding fathers weren't Christians but deists. You jump further back, and you had the same reasoning within Christianity. Reform or else vs "we're perfect" and the enlightenment phase. The real question is, do you feel the same way with Nazism? After all it's an ideology, it's banned in most countries.

Trump calls the media the "opposition party" because the media is very happy to lie when it suits their cause. Either directly, or lies through omission. His statement isn't just his own, it's a reflection of the public in the west in general of their absolute distrust of the media. It doesn't matter if it's the US, Canada, France or the UK. A majority of the population distrust the mainstream press and the press created the situation all by themselves.

Right wing demagogs replace god with the nation state and deem those in opposition to them as 'enemies of the state', or 'un-*insert national adjective*'. Two sides of the same coin.

And left wing demagogues replace god with communism, Leninism, collectivism and so on. Openly advocate against free speech, peaceful assembly, and so on. Horseshoe theory in action, the only difference is that in the west you're unlikely to see your belief come to fruition -- unless there's been decades of one particular ideology holding institutional power, and actively working against the voting public or engaging in policies that actively damage the voting public. You should be joyous that Trump was elected, because his solutions will be far worse then in another decade. If you need your canary in the coalmine, I suggest looking in Sweden. Where the media and politicians lie, and people who report the truth are charged/jailed/threatened for doing so. Keep in mind, that Sweden isn't right-wing but those left-wing policies will ensure that the backlash will be something exceptionally bad -- because only those "far right" groups are the ones listening to people.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Killall -9 Bash]

Apologist!

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

... millions of Muslims don't do that ...

Millions of people don't steal cars but cars still have door-locks. As Aethedor noted, the problem is the people who support those doing the wrong thing.

In many cultures one can take the job of memorizing the Quoran: How many people are admired or paid for memorizing the bible? The local priests, perhaps.

The bible claims to be holy writ but too often it sounds like sheepherders spouting their self-serving patriarchal rules. Even better, over the centuries, those sheepherders have contradicted their forebearers, making it difficult for the devout to obey without practicing double-think.

Many of rules and adjuncts and policies provided by the bible are the practices that demonstrate one is a good, double-thinking christian. The Quoran strictly defines a society and the laws it must have. The fact that most of Sharia law isn't enforced is overshadowed by the few cases where it is enforced absolutely and without mercy. It makes people think their society depends on Islam, when it doesn't.

Because Islam is an intrinsic part of the culture, there are more people willing to support wrong deeds committed in the name of Islam.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, I think you are confused, it is the left wing which seeks to replace God with the State. The Right wing seeks to make everyone the same religion, or to make over all laws based upon one or another religious document.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Luthair]

Heck look at them today - they still want to force their belief system on others.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[drinkypoo]

The problem is RELIGION. It leads to people thinking that they have all the answers and are thus better than other people, and then making decisions for those other people on that basis. Islam is merely the most successful and offensive example available today. Catholicism is still running around raping children and subjugating women, for example. It's just not doing as much of either as Islam. They are both evil and must be destroyed, along with every other religion that teaches people that they are superior to others.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Kiuas]

The real question is, do you feel the same way with Nazism? After all it's an ideology, it's banned in most countries.

Yes, I do feel the same way about it. We're currently having a court-case coming here in Finland wherein the local (very small) nazi party is probably going to be banned because the party itself holds to principles which are against the constitution. I agree with that as well. See, in my view, it should not be a crime to just hold an opinion, and it isn't. That is, being a nazi, or being an islamist, is not and cannot be a crime but this doesn't mean nazi-organizations should be tolarated any more than we should tolerate jihadists groups. Actions - such as running a group based on violence - can be penalized, mere thoughts and opinions cannot.

you need your canary in the coalmine, I suggest looking in Sweden

As a Finn that lives next to sweden, speaks some of the language and has some friends there I suspect your idea of what exactly is going on in Sweden is not accurate. Sweden has had and is having some immigration related problems which are caused primarily by 2 things: the way they handled the housing and education reform has lead to the rise of suburbs with predominantly immigrant populations. This has made integration harder, leading to higher unemployment which in turn generally leads to increased crime, especially organized crime. So gang activity in immigrant-heavy areas is up, similarly to the situation in some american inner cities, But crime overall has not skyrocketed.

Violent crime in sweden has been relatively steady throughout the 2000s and is in fact down from the 70s and 80s. There's been a lot of talk made about the rape statistics coming from sweden but these numbers are hugely inflated by 2 factors: they changed the definition of rape to include many things that in other countries get charged under sexual harassment and more importantly the way they track the numbers differs from most other countries in that each incident of rape is counted separately. So if someone reports their boss as having sexually harassed them once a week for a year, it's possible that this is recorded as 52 incidents of suspected rape instead of as 1 case of sexual harassment as it would be in many other places.

Now this is a result of the left in sweden being more bent on the SJW-rhetoric than in most other places. So those blaming the left in sweden for the increased stats on rape are indeed correct, but the reason for this is not because rapes on the streets by raving jihadists gangs have suddenly exploded, it's that they've defined rape so broadly now, the rough translation of the current definition is: "The sexual act can be intercourse, but also other sexual acts because of coercion or other circumstances are serious offensive can lead to a person being convicted of rape. Anyone who exploits someone who is asleep, unconscious, drunk or under the influence of another drug, mentally disturbed, sick or otherwise is in a particularly vulnerable situation is also convicted of rape."

but those left-wing policies will ensure that the backlash will be something exceptionally bad -- because only those "far right" groups are the ones listening to people.

Well, I wouldn't say it's looking like there'll be a major 'backlash' right now. Even with the recent influx of refugees, the average of the recent polls puts the rightmost populist party (Sweden Democrats) at approximately 20 % support. They currently have 49 seats in the parliament. Getting 20 % of the votes would increase that to around 70 which is an increase but it's still a far cry from them winning the lection or even getting to form a government.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Bongo]

This is the big issue, and whilst the monotheistic abrahamic religions are all basically the same, they are also somewhat different. And a big debate is whether those differences matter or not. Some people, Moslem Islamic academics, argue that it is not reformable the way Christianity was. Some argue that the natural progress of authoritarian to modern is a natural developmental process which will unfold for all societies sooner or later.

Of course, a bigoted view will simply paint all with the same brush. The debate for modern liberals though, is more about, how do you estimate how many percent of the hundreds of millions or billions, will tend over the decades, towards a reformed Islam? I don't think anyone can answer that.

There are arguments that, Jesus did something very strange (if he existed), namely, he inserted the idea of personal freedom into what would otherwise be an authoritarian and dogmatic imperialistic religion. He was Buddha for the West. And that kernel eventually helped the empire (Christianity) fall. Whereas other branches of the monotheistic belief didn't have that. There's the argument that Islam is "wholistic" ie. covers everything and hasn't had the necessary separation of church and state which Europe discovered was necessary after decades of wars. There's also the argument that the obsession with purity is part of a "all or nothing" view in Islam which is uncompromising, totalitarian, and without compromise, there can be no modern culture or model. (Moslems themselves write books stating this). Plus Jesus was never a tribal warrior. So many argue that there are differences and they do matter. But those are all opinions.

I think life goes on and I'm a big believer in change being chaotic and unexpected, so regardless of how many reasons there are for why "Islam is different", I figure it'll change as everything changes, in an evolutionary way.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[denzacar]

Read something, you putz.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Mashiki]

As a Finn that lives next to sweden, speaks some of the language and has some friends there I suspect your idea of what exactly is going on in Sweden is not accurate. Sweden has had and is having some immigration related problems which are caused primarily by 2 things: the way they handled the housing and education reform has lead to the rise of suburbs with predominantly immigrant populations. This has made integration harder, leading to higher unemployment which in turn generally leads to increased crime, especially organized crime. So gang activity in immigrant-heavy areas is up, similarly to the situation in some american inner cities, But crime overall has not skyrocketed.

I have friends that I've known since the 90's who live in Sweden, I'll trust their word that things are far worse today then they were then. Much like I would tell someone that Toronto is a complete shit hole compared to 20 years ago, and we have ghetto-enclaves appearing there where violent crime is going through the roof. Keep in mind that media actively discourages particular types of reporting. If you need a clearer evidence of that, look at Tim Pool and his recent trip to Sweden. If your country is suffering grenade attacks in public places, you have a serious problem. If a particular segment of the population is directly responsible for that, then you also have a problem. If it's directly related to an immigrant population, you have a very serious problem. Since it means that those people have: Imported their problems, refuse to integrate into society, are willing to use "olde world" responses to the same issues. And if these locations are enclaves? Then you likely have a serious social problem that is going to explode.

Now let's keep in mind that Sweden has scrubbed identifier information from violent crimes, rape, violent assault, this happened during a statistically significant upwards swing. Also keep in mind that clearance rates(the rate at which people are arrested and charged for a crime) from everything from those violent crimes against persons, to crimes against property and petty crimes are falling through the floor. That means that police are overburdened either due to a lack of manpower, and/or direct policies. That also means that people are less willing to report a crime to the police because they feel it won't be solved regardless of the circumstance of the crime. Or they feel that the justice system won't deal with an offender or they're going to be lenient towards the offender(s), so the person doesn't bother reporting the crime. Which can show "less crime" when there is an actual increase in crime. Now, Sweden's own crime reports says crime is going up. It doesn't what area of crime you're looking at, whether it be petty or violent. They've all gone up, the incidence rates of reported sexual crimes for instance have deceased from 25% reporting to 9% of victims reporting, that means there's a fundamental lack of trust in the justice system to deal with alleged and actual cases. Noting that from their own statistics estimated unreported sexual crimes have gone from ~160k/year to nearly 500k/year in a decade. That's not the : "The sexual act can be intercourse, but also other sexual acts because of coercion or other circumstances are serious offensive can lead to a person being convicted of rape." That's the violent assault of a person aka actual rape.

Well, I wouldn't say it's looking like there'll be a major 'backlash' right now. Even with the recent influx of refu

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[tehcyder]

To simply say abolish all religions is like saying don't breath anymore. You cannot do it, the Soviets tried and failed. Other communists regimes tried and fail. Because you cannot replace a deep fundamental yearning for something greater than yourself with a rational explanation or the worship of materialistic idols.

You can be an atheist and feel the need for something greater than yourself, you just choose something like art or love or nature that actually exist.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

As sure as death and taxes, any thread about the evils of Islam will always result in somebody talking about how evil Christianity is.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[lucasnate1]

the other two are not well disposed to religion as a political system.

I don't about jews in general, but as an israeli jew, I can tell you that there are plenty of people here who want religion to play a stronger part in our government. In Israel marrige and divorce must go through a rabbi, and there are parties whose size is roughly one sixth (the biggest party in general is one quarter) that define themselves as "religious parties". It is feasible that Israel might become "sharia-lite - jewish version" at some point.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

All organized religion is garbage. Your relationship with God is personal. Any group trying to guide, help, explain or interpret for you is most likely doing so with ulterior motives.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[lucasnate1]

Is worshipping nature really that different from worshipping god?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

the hateful old testament laws are "only for Jews" (amazing how quickly the followers of the religion of hugs kisses and fluffy bunny rabbits revert to medieval antisemitism)

Never heard it said that way, then again I live in Germany and don't have to suffer through the crazy that is common in some splinter groups of "christianity" ( prosperity gospel - wtf?? ). So two reasons that kind of statement isn't common around here.

The laws also weren't as one sided as you make them out, the passage you link to describes one instance of a woman passing herself of as virgin when married. While the punishment is over the top and nonsensical by todays standards men sleeping with unmarried women weren't better of when caught either. I think possible punishments mentioned in Deuteronomy include all available combinations, depending on location of the act and wether the woman was to be married to someone else: stone the woman (your example), stone the man (rape), stone both ( no rape, woman married) or have them married ( no rape ). Sex outside of marriage just wasn't a thing.

which leads us to Matthew 5:17-18

The laws are still there, we just let God pass judgement. Meanwhile I enjoy my pork and actually try to take care of sick family members instead of throwing them out of the house. Some of these laws made sense in a low resource society without modern medicine, which Israel was when Moses declared them.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

There seems to be quite a large amount of Yanks who want the old testament to trump their own constitution...

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Grishnakh]

I live in Germany and don't have to suffer through the crazy that is common in some splinter groups of "christianity" ( prosperity gospel - wtf?? )

That's not a "splinter group". Here in America, the Prosperity Gospel megachurches are now the mainstream in the suburban areas. You're probably thinking they're "splinter groups" because their rise has been so quick; that whole theology really didn't exist over 30 years ago I think. But they've become the dominant form of Christianity here in the US now, especially in suburban areas.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[EzInKy]

Probably because both stipulate believe as I do or you are fucked.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

I have friends that I've known since the 90's who live in Sweden, I'll trust their word that things are far worse today then they were then.

That is foolish. People don't even have to intend to deceive to be wrong about how things are, the filter of time compromises a lot of views.

Trusting people's word only when it reinforces your preestablished views is also part of the problem. You want to believe accounts that support your ideology.

The funny thing is that I suspect you would harp on this in others who don't share your views, but you won't even make a token gesture of applying it to yourself.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[I'm New Around Here]

They have to believe it is. Whether it is different or not doesn't matter.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

I've followed Tim Pool a while. Before you take his "man on the street" information at face value it could be worth checking out who he follows on twitter.
Those of them that lives in Sweden are pretty much exclusively active in the neo-nazi movement.
I doubt that he gets a balanced view of things himself.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Maritz]

Sounds relevant. Did you have a point beyond pointing out what is in the thread?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[entropy01]

Your ignorance can only be matched by your arrogance. Assuming that this is ignorance and not an intentional twisting of the truth, I'll try to help you understand: The passage in Deuteronomy that you reference is part of what's know as the "old covenant." https://www.gotquestions.org/o... I see what you're trying to do there with the Matthew reference, and I think you know that you're misleading others. If you really don't know, you can educate yourself here: https://www.gci.org/bible/matt... First thing that pops up in a search - not hard to find.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Maritz]

Is worshipping nature really that different from worshipping god?

Nature actually exists.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Maritz]

Aw were the nasty leftists mean to you?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

So the problem with a murderer isn't that he murdered someone but that someone else is also a murderer with the same methods but a slightly different motive? Ok. That makes it all justifiable. You certainly have logically presented your case.

If I only had a nickle for everytime one of you knuckle heads seemingly agreed but your only defense was "but.... but.... but.... whaddabout him!??!??!?!?!"

It's ingrained into our religion, our politics, our sports and our entertainment. When will you finally get sick of justifying the hypocrisies of others in an attempt to profit by soothing your own precious bigotry? Seriously, how much is enough for people like you? How many more false dichotomies do the rest of us have to suffer through until people like you decide to be humans again and not goose steppers and cheerleaders? Are you that invested in your own little world that you've forgotten that you're one in seven and a half billion people?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Maritz]

Trump calls the media the "opposition party" because the media is very happy to lie when it suits their cause.

It takes a special kind of idiot to (a) regard the 'media' as a monolithic entity (all the same people, sure!) and (b) heavily imply that Trump doesn't lie. Seriously.... LOL.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[lucasnate1]

Not in the way most people who worship it think about it, i.e. "GMOs are not natural".

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslims are generally well-disposed to Sharia as a political system while the other two are not well disposed to religion as a political system.

And Sharia is demonized as evil/bad/wrong in the West to a complete degree. By people with no factual understanding of the particulars. Usually by the same people who want their but their precious Ten Commandments enshrined in law and custom, along with a lot of other Biblical law. That is what tells me it is bogus. When the Roy Moore's of the world are involved.

It doesn't help that many societies in the Mid-East are tribal. That only gives political Islam a guaranteed divide and conquer strategy. With everyone fighting like that, no one notices the deal the central governments have with Islam, i.e., keep'em fighting and keep local politics local so the people do not notice our incompetence.

You mean the same thing that happens in the West? There is a reason why the Trump's and Steve King's of the world are inclined to ranting and raving over others, why California and New York are stigmatized. Watch the screams about Detroit and Chicago.

Show me where the Ten Commandments support the stoning of gays like sharia does.

Show me where the Ten Commandments support the killing of, umm, kafirs like sharia does.

Show me where the Ten Commandments say that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man, like sharia does.

GO FUCK YOURSELF

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Maritz]

Agreed. What the "alt-right" and other associated dickheads fail to realise is that going after moderate muslims is precisely what the likes of IS want to see happen. They like to see things like the veil ban in France. Anything that adds to their propaganda.

The best thing to do is to ignore them in terms of public attention, and quietly go after them with law enforcement. Being politicised and seen as a boogey man is again precisely what they are after.

This is basically another way of saying that the shrill, panicky anti-muslim sentiment is actually just... dumb. Stupid as fuck.

Then you have the likes of Trump, Sarkozy etc - bigging them up and talking endlessly about how scary they are. They are bigger allies of IS than they realise.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Maritz]

Pretty much all religions want to force their belief system on others. That's how they exist in the first place.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Maritz]

I agree but I would calm the language down. You can't defeat religion with force. It has to become a popular figure of ridicule.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean the new old legacy code that is coming back in force?
That you must follow feminism by not looking at women (or at that time cover them up), always have a male family member following them and protect them against rape when they go outside, and always do things for her like driving her around so she doesn't need to drive?
And if you are not a feminist, you have to be publicly chastised. And if you leave feminism, you are to be harassed?

We are currently at Islam 2.0, codename new old feminism
Get with the times grandpa.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[drinkypoo]

I agree but I would calm the language down. You can't defeat religion with force. It has to become a popular figure of ridicule.

You probably cannot stamp religion out with violence. But you can stamp it out with education. That's why the conservatives are always trying to harm it.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[drinkypoo]

Muslims are generally well-disposed to Sharia as a political system while the other two are not well disposed to religion as a political system.

I don't agree with that at all. A lot of people vote Republican specifically because they have been conned into believing that it is the Christian party. Those people would love to see more theocracy.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because both stipulate believe as I do or you are fucked.

Christianity - believe as I do, or you'll be fucked over.
Islam - believe as I do, or I'll fuck you over.

Moral equivalency fail.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[dryeo]

You do have countries like America where it is impossible for a non-christian to get elected. Shit one of the biggest lies about Obama was that he was Muslim and how bad that was instead of a sign of religious tolerance.
Here in Canada, usually the religion of a politician is never mentioned. The exception was the last Conservative government where the PM proudly talked about his Christian morals such as "fuck the poor", "need to lock more people up", "never forgive", "the rich are the only important people" "science is a means of transferring taxpayers money to the rich", "a democratically elected government should be able to remove any rights it wants and fuck the undemocratic courts" and I'm sure if he could have got the support, he would have instituted something like Sharia law.
The truth is that all these religions based on the Bible have a tendency to some really fucked up morals, which makes it funny in a sad way to see them putting each other down.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[sabri]

All organized religion is garbage. Your relationship with your version of a Grand Skywizard is personal.

Fixed that for you.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Maritz]

Yeah. If every kid had a 'religious studies' class that looks at all religions and not just one, the implication would be clear... they can't ALL be right, how about NONE of them are right? ;)

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[dryeo]

Depends on how the worshiping is done. The natives here seem to have equated worshiping nature as respecting and it's kind of understandable. When cutting down a 10 ft thick tree with stone and fire, a lot can go wrong. Same with going out with a spear to kill a grizzly bear.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Jason Levine]

As an American Jew, I see the efforts to give religion a stronger role in the USA's government and it frightens me. First of all, the religion that's pushed is always Christianity so I'd become a second class citizen unless I decided to worship Christ. Not that I'd support it if Judaism was the "official religion", mind you, because of my second point which is that I've seen where "Religion And State Are Mixed" ends up and it's never good. Historically speaking, we Americans fled from such a system. (The King of England ran the Church of England and you basically needed to be a member of that church to participate in government.) The Founding Fathers wisely saw the problems with this and wanted a Separation of Church and State. They didn't want religion mucking in government or vice versa. Which brings me to the third point. Anyone who wants to mix religion and government is foolish because it goes both ways. Do you really want the GOVERNMENT having a say in how you worship? Or telling you what your clergy must do to be Official Government Church Clergy? Or how your holidays are celebrated? I would think that the same people who want government out of their lives in other aspects would be frightened about having the government dictate their religious practices. Of course, looping back to my first point, when people in favor of this picture "church and state mixed", they picture THEIR form of religion running the show. Replace their religion with someone else's, though, and suddenly they're opposed to this horrible government overreach. As long as they get to impose their will on others, it's fine but they won't stand for anyone else doing the same to them.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Kiuas]

If your country is suffering grenade attacks in public places, you have a serious problem. If a particular segment of the population is directly responsible for that, then you also have a problem.

Of course. But this is something the Swedes themselves admit. The authorities admit that gang acitivyt has increased and become more violent which is a problem. Keep in mind though, the immigrants responsible for organized crime tend not to be muslims as much as they're from eastern Europe/former yugoslavia area. Running drugs and guns tends to be the area of the mafia, which does not traditionally mingle with muslims.

Now, Sweden's own crime reports says crime is going up. It [www.bra.se] doesn't [www.bra.se] what [www.bra.se] area of crime you're looking at, whether it be petty or violent. They've all gone up,

If you look at the stats for 2016 there's been an increase from 2015, but that's because 2015 saw a decline in crime.

“What criminologists do is to look at the 10-year, 20-year development. Then we can see the trends. Year to year, it’s impossible to judge why changes occur,” he added.

An example of a figure from Brå’s statistics which paints one picture in isolation but a different one with further context is that the number of rapes reported in Sweden increased by 13 percent in 2016 to 6,560.

But when that number is compared to 2014, where the number of reported rapes was 6,700, then a slight decrease can actually be seen. In other words, the number of reported rapes in Sweden dipped in 2015 (down by 12 percent to 5,920) then in 2016 it returned to around the same level as 2014.

Seen over a ten-year period, the number of reported rapes has gone up from 4,208 in 2006, partly because of legislative changes in the previous year and in 2013 broadening the definition, according to Brå.

According to Brå's figures, 10,500 incidents of sexual molestation were reported in the country in 2016 – a striking increase of 20 percent on 2015 (when 8,840 were reported).

But once again, 2015 was a year when reported sexual molestation had dropped significantly – it was down by eight percent that year compared to 2014, when 9,640 incidents were reported.

“The number of crimes reported can depend very much on the propensity to report,” Sarnecki noted.

“In 2016 for instance there was a lot of discussion about sexual assault and the relation between sexual assault and immigration. We know through research that those kind of years with more discussion of those subjects see the number of crimes reported increase.”

"The problem with explaining these figures is that very many variables not necessarily related to crime impact the figures. You have to be very careful, in particular if you look at changes on a year-to-year basis," he concluded.

(Source

Noting that from their own statistics estimated unreported sexual crimes have gone from ~160k/year to nearly 500k/year in a decade. That's not the : "The sexual act can be intercourse, but also other sexual acts because of coercion or other circumstances are serious offensive can lead to a person being convicted of rape." That's the violent assault of a person aka actual rape.

[CITATION NEEDED]

What information do you have to back up your claim that this estimate is not affected by the broadening of the definition of rape and the way the stats are calculated?

20% of the voting public isn't a statistically insignificant number.

I never said it was. I simply said that even at that level of polling it's far from clear at this point that they'll be able to win the elections and form a government.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[penandpaper]

Does that mean morals are derived from nature? Yay nihilism.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[OhPlz]

Not a good belief to have considering that our President was critical of the pope's comments about building walls and pointed out the hypocrisy of the vatican defending itself with walls.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be referring to the Crusades, which last time I checked, was fighting with just as many, if not more, Muslims at the time. So trying to compare the two religions in age to sort of justify actions is like comparing 2 peoples personality based on age. Not very accurate or representative of either.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Your relationship with God is personal.

This is totally reasonable, but the reason it's reasonable is that you're dancing around the fact that the "relationship with God" is also total and complete bullshit. It isn't real. And as long as people keep their batshit crazy idea in their head, then it won't do much damage. That's a religion we have all learned to tolerate.

But imagine if you believed it.

If it weren't batshit crazy and instead, it were reality, then there is no fucking way it would be merely personal relationship. God is fucking telling you to this is a virtuous act, and that is a sinful, ungodly act. This is top authority, and objectively true. God's rules are never merely opinions. And it's not only undeniably correct, but it's important.

Given such a situation, would it really be so arrogant, to use government force to enforce your beliefs? Remember: the premise is that the beliefs are true. They aren't the product of your limited, mistake-prone human mind. They aren't the product of scientific instruments which might not be fully accurate, and they didn't come from a math error in a statistical analysis that the journal's editors failed to spot.

The beliefs are True. These aren't your ideas, they're HIS. You aren't responsible. And if you, puny human, were to question Him and make policies based on the reasoning of your pathetic human brain, you would be the arrogant one.

Why should a relationship with gods be personal? The mis-step is in thinking you have such relationship. After that, though, there is no course of action which is necessarily an error, or going too far.

Hoping that mystics keep their "relationship" personal is just a compromise that rational people make with them. It's how we keep the peace, so I know why we do it. But why do they do it? Is it for the same reason, or something else?

Think about what this compromise means to them. We have an agreement where they have to STFU about something they "know" is true. How would you react to that? Is that likely to be a stable agreement?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[tender-matser]

FWIW, sharia courts are actually run and backed by the state in Israel.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[dryeo]

Not really, the same shit happened in Germany in the 1930s and is happening again now in the UK, US and maybe even the Netherlands and France.

Hate is a powerful argument. Blame one group for everything. Make sure they don't have a voice to counter your arguments. It could be infidels, Jews, immigrants, Muslims, the disabled, anyone.

I'll just add here that the blame and hate thing works best when things like the economy are bad. Much of this hateful blame is a reaction to the 2008 financial meltdown, high unemployment, especially amongst the youth, low wages creates this environment and parts of Europe were particularity hard hit through no fault of their own.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Grishnakh]

Historically speaking, we Americans fled from such a system

This isn't really true. Yes, *some* of the founders were in favor of a separation of church and state, most famously Jefferson. However, many of the initial colonists who came here, especially the infamous Puritans in Massachusetts, were religious extremists who left Europe because Europe wouldn't let them have the theocracy they wanted so much. America was a favorite place for religious nuts, "fleeing" from Europe to find a place where they could be as oppressive as they wanted, where they could set up colonies with official religions and laws based on their religion. It was later that these colonies banded together to counter the mother country, but the roots of America really lie with religious extremists.

Anyone who wants to mix religion and government is foolish because it goes both ways. Do you really want the GOVERNMENT having a say in how you worship? Or telling you what your clergy must do to be Official Government Church Clergy?

That's not what these people want; they want it to be the other way around, where the government is beholden to their church.

As long as they get to impose their will on others, it's fine but they won't stand for anyone else doing the same to them.

Yes, of course. That's what religion is all about: promoting your nonsensical belief system and forcing it on others, and resisting any attempts by outsiders to do the same.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Grishnakh]

Religious people are all in favor of *their* religion being dominant and oppressing everyone else. There's nothing hypocritical here; American Christians (i.e. Protestants) don't believe in Catholicism, and most don't even believe that Catholics are "true Christians". What the pope says is irrelevant to them and their theology.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Grishnakh]

GMOs aren't natural, it's true.

Selective breeding isn't natural either, but that doesn't make the above statement untrue.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Grishnakh]

> I have friends that I've known since the 90's who live in Sweden, I'll trust their word that things are far worse today then they were then.

That is foolish. People don't even have to intend to deceive to be wrong about how things are, the filter of time compromises a lot of views.

Perhaps, and while I really know nothing about how it is in Sweden now, or in the 90s, as an American I really do think things here are generally worse than they were in the 90s. For starters, we didn't have a right-wing white nationalist as President back then.... It also didn't cost as much to live back then, college was a lot cheaper, the economy was a lot better, and we didn't have Windows 10 or Facebook. I will say, however, that I really do not miss NTSC televisions and that horribly annoying whine they had.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the real problem is the spell check STILL does not work on ALL-CAPS. ....

Or that you are an idiot.

Either way, ya know?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[lucasnate1]

Excellent point, I forgot about this part, but it's correct, Israel, despite being considered racist/facist/whatever is actually more multi cultural than many eurpoeans countries, TOO multi cultural in this case.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not EASTER BUNNY WORSHIP by it self, it's what we in the software business call rotten 'legacy code' common to all IMAGINARY CHARACTER religions, EASTER BUNNY WORSHIP, GREAT PUMPKIN WORSHIP and SANTA CLAUSE WORSHIP. They all have the same problematic common legacy of misogynism, violence, homophobia and intolerance. People talk as if EASTER BUNNY WORSHIP is all hate and SANTA CLAUSE WORSHIP is all hugs, kisses and fluffy bunny rabbits but in reality you don't have to search very long for BIG BOOK OF STORIES passages like Deuteronomy 22:13-21 [BIG BOOK OF STORIES gateway.com] to which the BIG BOOK OF STORIES thumpers usually respond that SANTA CLAUSE WORSHIPERS don't follow such hateful passages in the BIG BOOK OF STORIES and (my favourite SANTA CLAUSE WORSHIP snowflake argument) the hateful BOOK OF STORIES laws are "only for GREAT PUMPKIN WORSHIPERS" (amazing how quickly the followers of the religion of hugs kisses and fluffy bunny rabbits revert to medieval antisemitism) which leads us to Matthew 5:17-18 [BIG BOOK OF STORIES gateway.com]. But I think we've had enough fun with scripture. Let's address your main argument that the problem is EASTER BUNNY WORSHIP. What the hell makes you think that all SANTA CLAUS WORSHIPERS disregard bronze age laws about stoning or otherwise abusing and suppressing women (just to cite one example) but that all EASTER BUNNY WORSHIPERS gleefully embrace such commandments instead of ignoring them like many SANTA CLAUS WORSHIPERS apparently do because that's what you just insinuated, i.e. that all EASTER BUNNY WORSHIPERS religiously (pun not intended) follow passages in the FUN BOOK OF STORIES requiring them to practice barbaric reprisals (similar to ones found in the BIG BOOK OF STORIES) against people who break religious laws and commandments and just for your information: millions of EASTER BUNNY WORSHIPERS don't do that and would, for example, not dream of stoning a woman.

There. Fixed that for you. Now shut up!

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Freischutz]

Muslims are generally well-disposed to Sharia as a political system while the other two are not well disposed to religion as a political system.

And Sharia is demonized as evil/bad/wrong in the West to a complete degree. By people with no factual understanding of the particulars. Usually by the same people who want their but their precious Ten Commandments enshrined in law and custom, along with a lot of other Biblical law. That is what tells me it is bogus. When the Roy Moore's of the world are involved.

It doesn't help that many societies in the Mid-East are tribal. That only gives political Islam a guaranteed divide and conquer strategy. With everyone fighting like that, no one notices the deal the central governments have with Islam, i.e., keep'em fighting and keep local politics local so the people do not notice our incompetence.

You mean the same thing that happens in the West? There is a reason why the Trump's and Steve King's of the world are inclined to ranting and raving over others, why California and New York are stigmatized. Watch the screams about Detroit and Chicago.

Show me where the Ten Commandments support the stoning of gays like sharia does.

Show me where the Ten Commandments support the killing of, umm, kafirs like sharia does.

Show me where the Ten Commandments say that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man, like sharia does.

GO FUCK YOURSELF

Well done! You just rendered all his arguments invalid by the cunning use of mindless profanity.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Nidi62]

You seem to be referring to the Crusades, which last time I checked, was fighting with just as many, if not more, Muslims at the time.

The Crusaders actually didn't care who they were fighting. They would raid and sack Christian cities on the way to the Holy Land, often killed any Jews they found along the way and, when they finally made it to the Holy Land and captured a city, they killed or enslaved every inhabitant in most cases, whether Muslim, Jew, or Christian. You see, the Crusades weren't about religion (except for the poor schmucks doing most of the fighting). All the knights, nobles, etc were there for money and land. It's a lot easier to steal property and possessions if the former owners are dead. For those few centuries the quickest path to upward mobility was through the Crusades. It was a chance for peasants to make some money and for minor nobles or younger children in noble families (who had little chance of significant inheritance) to gain lands and income, thereby bumping themselves up the social order.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me where the Ten Commandments support the stoning of gays like sharia does.
Show me where the Ten Commandments support the killing of, umm, kafirs like sharia does.
Show me where the Ten Commandments say that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man, like sharia does.
GO FUCK YOURSELF

Wherever those interested in doing those things want to find it, of course.

Why not look for the individuals in the US like Roy Moore and Steve King instead? Why not look at what they do?

There's a reason why I mentioned they also want to use a lot of other Biblical law. But you would rather scream and yell, rather than look at the actual behavior of Self-proclaimed Christians who went out of their way to oppose same sex marriage, who oppose having to respect homosexuals and even want to inspect who goes to what bathroom.

The same folks who also have suggested concentration camps for homosexuals, that is women working outside the home the causes problems, that still treat divorce as anathema, and more.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Notable exception (perhaps proving the rule): Sikhism.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Freischutz]

Your ignorance can only be matched by your arrogance. Assuming that this is ignorance and not an intentional twisting of the truth, I'll try to help you understand: The passage in Deuteronomy that you reference is part of what's know as the "old covenant." https://www.gotquestions.org/o... I see what you're trying to do there with the Matthew reference, and I think you know that you're misleading others. If you really don't know, you can educate yourself here: https://www.gci.org/bible/matt... First thing that pops up in a search - not hard to find.

Sounds like a very long winded case trying to show why the old testament laws do not apply to Ckristians despite Christ him self saying they do in no uncertain terms according to Matthew 5.17-18, I'm still wondering what your point is?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Nidi62]

Pretty much all religions want to force their belief system on others. That's how they exist in the first place.

To be fair, when I was working my college summer job at an airport, I was talking to this cute Mormon girl who was about to head out for a mission trip. She started asking if I would be interested in visiting their website. I said "no thanks" and she was like "ok, no problem". Having grown up in the South surrounded by Evangelicals that was a welcome change and it actually bumped up Mormonism a bit in my book, even if a lot of their beliefs are batshit insane. I respected the fact that she wasn't pushy about it at all.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

> ...seen as a boogey man is again precisely what they are after.

In their religious culture, it is a necessity that one be attacked or scorned first. Because it then allows defensive measures of continuous & relentless counterattacks, expansion, and possession until the offender repents or is killed. Even current terrors against civilian populations are excused & allowed, (even encouraged by some), because at some point in the past, (even if historical past), the individual, culture, or entire religion was offended- and it's AOK to continue a revenge until the whole world is yoked.

See why some strive for oppression? It allows them to do stuff.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet, we can go back to the crack epidemic and all of the gang violence. Violent crime is 1/10th what it was then.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not EASTER BUNNY WORSHIP by it self, it's what we in the software business call rotten 'legacy code' common to all IMAGINARY CHARACTER religions, EASTER BUNNY WORSHIP, GREAT PUMPKIN WORSHIP and SANTA CLAUSE WORSHIP. They all have the same problematic common legacy of misogynism, violence, homophobia and intolerance. People talk as if EASTER BUNNY WORSHIP is all hate and SANTA CLAUSE WORSHIP is all hugs, kisses and fluffy bunny rabbits but in reality you don't have to search very long for BIG BOOK OF STORIES passages like Deuteronomy 22:13-21 [BIG BOOK OF STORIES gateway.com] to which the BIG BOOK OF STORIES thumpers usually respond that SANTA CLAUSE WORSHIPERS don't follow such hateful passages in the BIG BOOK OF STORIES and (my favourite SANTA CLAUSE WORSHIP snowflake argument) the hateful BOOK OF STORIES laws are "only for GREAT PUMPKIN WORSHIPERS" (amazing how quickly the followers of the religion of hugs kisses and fluffy bunny rabbits revert to medieval antisemitism) which leads us to Matthew 5:17-18 [BIG BOOK OF STORIES gateway.com]. But I think we've had enough fun with scripture. Let's address your main argument that the problem is EASTER BUNNY WORSHIP. What the hell makes you think that all SANTA CLAUS WORSHIPERS disregard bronze age laws about stoning or otherwise abusing and suppressing women (just to cite one example) but that all EASTER BUNNY WORSHIPERS gleefully embrace such commandments instead of ignoring them like many SANTA CLAUS WORSHIPERS apparently do because that's what you just insinuated, i.e. that all EASTER BUNNY WORSHIPERS religiously (pun not intended) follow passages in the FUN BOOK OF STORIES requiring them to practice barbaric reprisals (similar to ones found in the BIG BOOK OF STORIES) against people who break religious laws and commandments and just for your information: millions of EASTER BUNNY WORSHIPERS don't do that and would, for example, not dream of stoning a woman.

There. Fixed that for you. Now shut up!

I do hope you realise that the five minutes you spent composing that post would have been better spent looking for a psychotherapist who specialises in anger management.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump! Trump! Trump!

In fact, there's a political party called, ironically, the Constitution Party (U.S. Taxpayers Party in some states) that believes that the Bible supersedes the Constitution.

(No, that's not explicit on page I linked, but dig just a little deeper and you'll see what I mean.)

I imagine most people who vote R imagine that the R team is something like "Constitution"-lite, just like others who vote R imagine that the R team is something like Libertarian-lite or D voters may imagine that the D team is Green-lite.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

The silent majority, moderates are what enable everything. Look at Nazis. People wouldn't have any issues with immigrants if they adopted the customs and language of the host country, you know, integration.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK fear of crime has gone up, but crime, as measured by the British Crime Survey, which interviews people to determine whether or not they have been a victim shows that crime has been falling. That sort of effect in which people say everything has gone to hell in a handbasket, but say things have improved if you ask them specific questions is a well known effect.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Grishnakh]

Not in the neighborhoods I lived in.

Besides, the gang violence is going to come back when Jeff Sessions prosecutes marijuana like in the bad ol' days. Look for things to get much, much worse nationally, in many ways (crime, violence, economy, etc.) in the next 4 years.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Pinky's Brain]

They have an alternative, invade and sponge off western Europe ... for as long as it lasts. Couple of decades at best until white flight sets in and it all goes to shit.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you attempting to make the point that politicians that claim to be Christians actually aren't? Those "Christian morals" that you listed are the exact opposite of Jesus' teachings, but the way you've worded this suggests that your intended point was that Christians make bad policy.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Pinky's Brain]

Christianity by it's very dispensationalist nature allows separation of church and state even while all the politicians are devout Christians, which the "we Americans" who founded America generally were in the early days.

Forget that you are a jew for a moment and take an honest look at history. Christianity stood at the basis of classical liberalism, civilization is Christian centric.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeff Sessions is just channeling Nancy Reagan.

Can you blame him? America was at its greatest back them, full of crime, pollution and corruption! Bring back Ollie and Pat Buchanan!

But I'm pretty sure that NTSC thing was the fault of the Greek Orthodox.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[vel-ex-tech]

It seems to me that SJWs, if those are who we're talking about (maybe only I am), follow the pattern of Right-Wing Authoritarianism as defined by Altemeyer (The Authoritarians). Most of them are Right-Wing Followers, and they have a select few who are charismatic Right-Wing Leaders.

The leaders are the people who pick odd tweets, blow them out of proportion, and get somebody doxed, fired, and harassed to the point their career is ruined and they may need to change their name if they want to get on with life. Those leaders seem to also really like Patreon. I believe the followers can sometimes be referred to as "goons."

But someone who lived in a country long ruled by Communists and who ardently supported the Communist Party would also be one of my psychological right-wing authoritarians even though we would also say he was a political left-winger. (Altemeyer 9)

It just so happens that their causes (and their particular compartmentalizations and cognitive dissonances) are things that we'd typically think are "leftist" or progressive.

He gives an example of what would be a left-wing authoritarian on the next page but doesn't really expand on how this is different from right-wing authoritarianism.

You could have left-wing authoritarian followers as well, who support a revolutionary leader who wants to overthrow the establishment. I knew a few in the 1970s, Marxist university students who constantly spouted their chosen authorities, Lenin or Trotsky or Chairman Mao. Happily they spent most of their time fighting with each other, as lampooned in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the People's Front of Judea devotes most of its energy to battling, not the Romans, but the Judean People's Front. (Altemeyer 10)

I think the key is their relationship to the establishment. In the 80s, one might have left-wing authoritarians actually warrior-ing for social justice. However, in the 10s, we've found that those causes had become the status quo establishment. So now we have right-wing authoritarian SJWs.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Pinky's Brain]

Oh yeah, with those wonderful family reunification and immigration laws they are the epitome of multiculturalism.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is the appalling standards of literacy of many young people.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[lucasnate1]

When you try to respect ALL cultures, you have to respect the racist (jewism) and misogynistic (islam) ones too. And just to clarify, I agree with you, I would rather if citizenship criteria here was something better than "you are related to someone who prayed to the jehovah the blood god". I prefer to believe in IQ tests (despite all their flaws) than in jehovah.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws that belonged to Israel in the past do not apply to Christians today. Laws that applied to specific circumstances are not universal. The laws of Moses only applied to Israel's marriage to God. This marriage has long been destroyed and therefore has no applicability to anybody, Israeli or otherwise. That passage in Matthew 5 is complete as heaven and earth, the symbol of Israel's marriage to God, has already been destroyed.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that Jesus's words in Matthew 5 have been completed. The laws of Moses are exclusively between Israel's marriage to God. That marriage was completely finished at the destruction of King Herod's temple at 70 CE. Modern Jews who claim a special connection to God are plain ignorant.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[guises]

You're right to criticize left-wing ideologues for this, but "authoritarian" is the wrong word when you're describing someone who has been labeled as an enemy of the revolution (or whatever). Those are opposite extremes, and authoritarianism is the domain of the right - the actions are similar, but the rhetoric is different.

It's the difference between an "enemy of the state" and an "enemy of the people." It seems silly to nitpick this, since they're both just excuses to get rid of someone, but they come from different places and someone who is anti-authoritarian can wind up on the left extreme just as someone who is anti-dissident can wind up on the right.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Raenex]

It seems silly to nitpick this, since they're both just excuses to get rid of someone

It is silly, because at its heart its authoritarianism. The left/right angle does not matter one bit. Oh, and if "the people" win and become the state, the rhetoric stays the same: it is still "enemies of the people", but now with the full power of government behind it (see any communist regime that arose in the 20th century).

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[I'm New Around Here]

Is killing a bear with a spear holier than doing so with a rifle?

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Mashiki]

Of course. But this is something the Swedes themselves admit. The authorities admit that gang acitivyt has increased and become more violent which is a problem. Keep in mind though, the immigrants responsible for organized crime tend not to be muslims as much as they're from eastern Europe/former yugoslavia area. Running drugs and guns tends to be the area of the mafia, which does not traditionally mingle with muslims.

Not quite. The numbers of those violent crimes are enclaved areas which are predominantly muslim. See Malmo in Sweden or Molenbeek in Belgium. Those people aren't from eastern europe.

If you look at the stats for 2016 there's been an increase from 2015, but that's because 2015 saw a decline in crime.

I posted the 2016 crime stats above, read them.

What information do you have to back up your claim that this estimate is not affected by the broadening of the definition of rape and the way the stats are calculated?

The crime stats themselves, you did read the links right? They very happily break it down into both categories, they're listed above.

I never said it was. I simply said that even at that level of polling it's far from clear at this point that they'll be able to win the elections and form a government.

You seem to forget that forming a majority government has less of a social impact in northern european countries, then in say the Americas. And that minor political parties have enough say to "get what they want" with cross-party associations.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[dryeo]

Would have to be pretty holy to build a rifle with stone age tools. Jade rifle barrel would be neat though and there was enough gold laying around to make rounds with.
Me, I found myself once in grizzly country with nothing but a single shot 12 gauge loaded with a slug. Found religion pretty quick when I saw a she bear standing up a few hundred feet away with her cubs besides her. Grizzlies are hard to kill even with a rifle, and they're a lot bigger then the local black bears.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Mashiki]

It takes a special kind of idiot to (a) regard the 'media' as a monolithic entity (all the same people, sure!) and (b) heavily imply that Trump doesn't lie. Seriously.... LOL.

It takes a special kind of idiot to not see that there are organizations like Journolist around which exist to drive ideological narratives. That the media has been caught doing this numerous times. Including in other media like games media(see gamejournopros) Or media groups which will publish political propaganda directly from political parties as gospel truths. The DNC did that with multiple media organizations in the last election. The Obama administration did that multiple times, it became so common that the WH Press corps., openly wrote a letter about it. In most of the west, the 4th estate is broken and the people in it, are nothing but puppet mouthpieces trading favors for favors.

Now it's time for you to understand the difference when "Trump says something" and when an entire arm of a political party uses their weight in order to push an ideological view point, and the media accepts it as truth and repeats it. Or turns around and forwards it to the party in question to ensure it has ideological purity. Keep in mind, that in the beltway +90% of the reporters are democrat voters, donate directly to the DNC, and hold either democrat or progressive views. That drops to 80% outside of the beltway. Time for you to grow up a bit perhaps, and realize just how much institutional power the left has held for decades and why there is such a backlash brewing across the west.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[guises]

Authoritarianism is about promoting an authority - a person or central body who will... do what needs be done. Usually this means protecting you from whatever it is that you are afraid of, possibly because you've been instructed to be afraid of that thing. Facism is the governmental system at the extreme of this. This is right-wing.

Anti-authoritarianism is about tearing that down - opposition to central rule. Anarchy is the "governmental system" at the extreme of this. This is left-wing.

This is fundamentally what the left/right split is about, this is practically the definition. There is nothing authoritarian about anarchy.

It's true that if you're killed by jack-booted thugs then you're just as dead as if you're killed by radical anarchists, but this does not mean that there's no value in distinguishing between them. For one thing, if you just start labeling everything bad about the government as "authoritarian" then you push people further into radical anti-authoritarianism: "If authoritarianism is always bad, then that means that fighting the power is always good... right?"

I don't know what you mean by "the people" becoming the state. Sometimes an authoritarian figure will claim to be acting on behalf of the people, and not of the state, but even though their actions may be similar to an openly fascist leader the rhetoric is still influential - it effects how people think of themselves and their role as citizens and ultimately what the leader can and can not do. Further, this is not the inevitable consequence of revolution. ... I wrote a whole thing about federalists and anti-federalists, but I deleted it because I think I'm just rambling now.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Raenex]

This is fundamentally what the left/right split is about, this is practically the definition. There is nothing authoritarian about anarchy.

You're wrong. Look at the lefty, idiot thugs at Berkeley smashing shit up and attacking people who went to go see a Milo talk. They used violence to shut down somebody else's speech. That's authoritarian.

I don't know what you mean by "the people" becoming the state

"see any communist regime that arose in the 20th century"

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Mashiki]

You don't have a right-wing write nationalist president now. If you think you do, you're either an idiot, or so grossly misinformed(aka living in a bubble) that you deserve to be lied to. Besides, I'm sure it would have been better that Hillary was elected right? She only wanted to start WWIII, bomb Russia, and was actively pushing to attack them in Syria during Obama's last few years in office. Yeah great plan, good candidate. I'm sure you'd have been lining up to do your country proud and fight the good fight. Not even touching on the massive corruption. Or did you fail to notice that all those clinton foundation donations have dried up?

There are plenty areas of the US that are worse then in the 1980's, there are a lot which are better too. It's the same in Canada, but there's been a serious problem with urban decay in most western countries like Canada, and in the EU compared running it towards what happened in the late 1970's in the US.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[guises]

Authoritarianism does not have a monopoly on violence, I don't know where you got that idea. I'll repeat myself: "authoritarian" is not a catch-all label for "everything which is bad."

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Raenex]

Authoritarianism does not have a monopoly on violence

And neither does the right have a monopoly on authoritarianism. The point of the violence wasn't just violence for the sake of it. It was for an authoritarian position on who is allowed to speak.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[guises]

And neither does the right have a monopoly on authoritarianism.

This is literally what it means to be right wing. Look, I'll spell this out: the terms right and left wing come from the French revolution. When the National Assembly moved from Versailles to Paris the new assembly hall had seating which was split in two. In Versailles the members had sat according to district, but in Paris they started sitting according to ideology - monarchists, who supported the king (i.e.: the authority) sat on the right, and republicans, who opposed the king, sat on the left. That is where the terms come from, and that is what the terms continue to mean today.

What you seem to be suggesting is that anyone who tells you what to do is acting as an authoritarian. That is not true. An anarchist can certainly boss you around, if they are a bossy person. Being a bully does not make you an authoritarian. An authoritarian is someone who favors a strong central authority, an anti-authoritarian is someone who favors a weak central authority, or no central authority at all.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

He was pointing out the hypocrisy of claiming to be christian and then following through on the contrary policies.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Raenex]

What you seem to be suggesting is that anyone who tells you what to do is acting as an authoritarian.

Yes, I judge people by their actions, not whether they follow some loose left/right ideology with a basis in monarchy versus republic. What does a monarchy versus a republic have to do with the idiot leftists in Berkeley? Pretty much nothing.

Now what does somebody who wants to control what others can do have with authority? Pretty much everything. They consider themselves arbiters of what should be allowed. They are setting themselves up as authoritarians. That they claim to be anarchists, anti-fascists, or leftists, none of that shit matters when it comes to their authoritarian tendencies.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[guises]

I'm done, this feels like arguing with that idiot in the white house himself. You go ahead and make up your own facts if you want.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[Raenex]

And you keep living in your pedantic fantasy world where only the right acts authoritarian.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[david_thornley]

It's strange. I always thought that a Christian should believe that that Jesus guy had a clue as to what he was talking about, which is clearly not true of prosperity gospel believers.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[david_thornley]

What you seem to be suggesting is that anyone who tells you what to do is acting as an authoritarian

Someone who tells me what to do and tries to base it on authority is acting as an authoritarian. The authority may be a person or an organization or an ideology, but if the idea is to make me do what someone else says because someone else says it it's authoritarianism. (Yes, I'm leaving out some exceptions and nuances. Deal with it.)

We need some level of authoritarianism, such as telling people not to kill or maim each other. In most social activities, we need some. It isn't all bad, and most libertarians would want some (they tend to be big on a court system). It would be a lot simpler if we could just reject it entirely and live in a cooperative anarchy, but that's going to last maybe five minutes before it starts breaking down, probably much less.

The Republicans could be authoritarian, as was seen by the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution. They adhered to different authority. Right-wingers tend to like traditional authority, but then they tend to like traditional everything. It may be that left-wingers tend to be less authoritarian, but I really can't say. We've all got our own beliefs, and an authority saying things we agree with is going to seem a lot less authoritarian than an authority saying things we don't agree with.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[david_thornley]

While the Right tends to favor organized religion more, there are plenty of religious people on the Left.

Re:The real problem is ISALM

[guises]

The Republicans could be authoritarian, as was seen by the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution.

Robespierre was authoritarian, or he became so over time. The fact that he seized power does not mean that the republicans (small r - not a political party) of the French revolution were authoritarian. The Rein of Terror was... well it depends how narrowly you want to define that. A portion of it was purely political, in support of maintaining the power of the committee of public safety, but always under the guise of rooting out enemies of the revolution. In other words, monarchists. In that respect it was explicitly anti-authoritarian.

Yes, if you're making an appeal to authority then you're acting in an authoritarian manner. And yes, republicans (of any stripe) can act in both an authoritarian and anti-authoritarian manner at different times. One hopes that they do - if they stick to only one of those then it puts them on one of the extremes of either fascism or anarchy. This doesn't change anything though: if a person on the left occasionally has right-leaning opinions or tendencies, it doesn't mean that the left isn't really the left. It just means that this particular person isn't all the way on the left.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not you DO have a relationship with God.
Your relationship is that you regard it as bullshit. But it's still a relationship.
You went out of your way to tell us about it. It consumed some of your time,relationships are nothing of not time consuming.

Re: The real problem is ISALM

[rakslice]

"or so grossly misinformed(aka living in a bubble) that you deserve to be lied to"
welp, I guess kudos for honesty; most people would veil their contempt enough to give us a reason to keep on reading.

Well this is quite frankly...

[Anonymous Coward]

your own fault. Should have let him be overthrown rather than calling in the special forces. Ok maybe Merkel didn't give the dutch a choice...

Re:Well this is quite frankly...

[mean pun]

your own fault. Should have let him be overthrown rather than calling in the special forces. Ok maybe Merkel didn't give the dutch a choice...

What the hell are you even talking about?

Re:Well this is quite frankly...

[Maritz]

All I'm wondering is if you even know what the hell you're on about.

Islam and Nazism - blood brothers

[Anonymous Coward]

Literally.

United in genocidal anti-Semitism, treats "nonbelievers" as subhuman and worthy only of death.

Have some balls - actually look at the connections. Because they are there.

Hell, just Google "Islam Holocaust denial". Just look at this pathetic Guardian apology for Islamic Holocaust denial:

Arabs have a complex relationship with the Holocaust

A "complex relationship"!?!?!? With the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews?!?! WTF IS "COMPLEX" ABOUT THAT?!?!! THEY HAVE SOME SUPPORT FOR THE RESULTS?!?!?!

Re:Islam and Nazism - blood brothers

[Anonymous Coward]

And Israel has yet to answer for the burning of Jericho and the murder of everyone in it 3500 years ago. Talk about a holocaust in the true sense of the word.

Re:Islam and Nazism - blood brothers

[Maritz]

Part of that article:

There is no dispute that Holocaust denial has been on the rise in Arab countries during the last two decades. This has been illustrated in a disgraceful way by the hero-like reception that Roger Garaudy, the French former communist turned Catholic, turned Muslim, turned Holocaust denier, received in several Arab countries in the late 1990s, after his sentencing by a French court for a Holocaust-denying book.

You should have had a read through it, because it's an apology in no way, shape or form. Now you just look like an idiot. Sorry, I mean you obviously are an idiot, it's just now you've outed yourself.

Still, at least you didn't log in.

Re:Islam and Nazism - blood brothers

[Maritz]

I'd need to check if there are extra-biblical sources for that first, on account of how it is one of the most untrustworthy documents out there.

Re:Islam and Nazism - blood brothers

[david_thornley]

A "complex relationship"!?!?!? With the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews?!?! WTF IS "COMPLEX" ABOUT THAT?!?!! THEY HAVE SOME SUPPORT FOR THE RESULTS?!?!?!

Of course it's a complex relationship. Around here, most people agree that there was a holocaust, that Nazi Germany murdered about six million Jews (their other victims are less well known), and that it was an evil thing to do. Nice and simple. It's when you try to justify industrial megamurders that things get complex.

The Dutch were justified

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

Ex-pats have no right to be politically active either in their host society or with regard to the society they came from. They are "second class" for precisely the fact that they have left the country where they held/hold citizenship and have taken no steps to become a citizen of their host society and submit to its norms and adopt its culture, fully. That's because whether you're a Turk in the Netherlands or a white American in Mexico or Asia, you are nothing more than a guest. Therefore, you have no right to participate in the workings of your host and your political activity with regard to your former homeland is tolerable only to the extent it creates no disturbances for your host.

Re:The Dutch were justified

[campuscodi]

yes they were, but the new Turkish administration is full of retards pushing a pro-Russian agenda against anything EU

Re:The Dutch were justified

[denzacar]

That's because whether you're a Turk in the Netherlands or a white American in Mexico or Asia, you are nothing more than a guest.
Therefore, you have no right to participate in the workings of your host and your political activity with regard to your former homeland is tolerable only to the extent it creates no disturbances for your host.

By that logic, they should also pay no taxes.

What? You never heard of "No taxation without representation"?
And why would you tax your guests? Just what kind of a host are you? What's next? Paying for food and lodging?

Oh wait... did you perhaps mean "slaves" but mistyped it as "guests"?
Cause that's what you're describing. Foreign citizens with no rights. I.e. Slaves.

Re:The Dutch were justified

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, let's jump right to slaves. Why not call them Nazis a bit more? Works for the trolls on Twitter who hijacked the accounts apparently.

> And why would you tax your guests?

Because they get to use all the tax-paid infrastructure and institutions.

> Paying for food and lodging?

Both of which they get for free if they cannot afford it themselves, even without ever having paid into the systems that provide these supports. And there are tons of "guests" who take advantage of that.

Not to mention that there are so many Turks in EU countries that even only the pro-Erdogan portion is starting become worrisome. Germany recently had a massive demonstration by pro-Erdogan supporters. They were also barred from having Turkish politicians address them.

Your idiotic rhetoric is misplaced.

Re:The Dutch were justified

[Opportunist]

You want to be represented? No problem there, dump your Turkish allegiance and become Dutch. Or German for that matter. It's actually quite easy, way easier than in other countries.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[KiloByte]

People assume that Islam is just a kind of Christianity with a different brand and a few ceremonies swapped. It's not. The Bible is a big honking pile of contradictions, making cherry-picking not only permitted but the only possible way to worship it. You also need a lot of doublethink, but if you got conditioned to it as a child, you take it for granted and accept as normal.

The Koran, on the other hand, is consistent. Instead of being made of a bunch of different books from over a thousand years written by different authors of different religions (Yahvism of 800BC was a tribal polytheism, Christianity as created in early 2nd century AD based mostly on Platonism (with little heed to an illiterate itinerant preacher Yehoshuah) flavoured with myths from all around have nothing in common), Islam is the work of one man. (Not counting nameless scribes, no one ever credits them.) That man was not Muhammad but Uthman who sifted through tales about the former, took what he liked and banned at the pain of death anything else. And Uthman's work was pretty thorough for standards of the time: the biggest contradiction in Islam is permissiveness of alcohol, with everything else being either a literary device ("how long is a day of Allah?") or a mythological quirk (is Iblis an angel or a djinn?).

And with this consistent message, that tells you to murder the infidels at all cost, there's no wonder a portion of worshippers actually believe their holy book. It takes far more dishonesty to cherry-pick from Koran than it is from the Bible.

That some orange clown goes about it wrong (banning people because of their nationality at birth!?!) doesn't make Islam any more compatible with the civilized world.

Trump is Empowering Despots and Dictators

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's place the blame for stuff like this squarely where it belongs - right on Trump's shoulders. He is deliberately empowering despots like Erdogan, Kim Jong Un, and Putin through his desperately inadequate foreign policy and reckless lack of diplomacy. He's turning instead to reckless, hollow saber rattling which everyone knows is meaningless.

At least Obama made efforts both to include Muslim states at the table of world diplomacy and to moderate Israel's warmongering. Trump is doing just the opposite - ignoring the significance of the world's 3 billion Muslims (which outnumber Christians btw) and instead throwing his support behind a couple million violent, warmongering Jews who have occupied land that is not theirs and refuse to leave.

Re:Trump is Empowering Despots and Dictators

[DrXym]

Trump is riding the same wave of populism as these others. In times of economic or political stress some people are swayed by simplistic solutions to complex problems. Invariably these solutions involve getting rid of "them", where "them" is some easily definable outside force for which all of society's ills can be blamed on.

Re:Trump is Empowering Despots and Dictators

[Maritz]

ignoring the significance of the world's 3 billion Muslims (which outnumber Christians btw)

Your post is one that I agree with in broad terms, but this is incorrect. In 2012 there were 1.6 billion Muslims to Christianity's 2.2 billion.

It's better to be right, even if it doesn't help your argument.

Re:Trump is Empowering Despots and Dictators

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslims are ROUTINELY undercounted by the world authorities who do not want to admit to the significance of Islam.

You forgot the Fascist+Inquisition bits...

[denzacar]

http://www.geertwilders.nl/ind...

This is what the PVV will do:

1. De-islamize the Netherlands
- Zero asylum seekers and no immigrants anymore from Islamic countries: close the borders
- Withdraw all asylum residence permits which have already been granted for specific periods, close the asylum centers
- No Islamic headscarves in public functions
- Prohibition of other Islamic expressions which violate public order
- Preventive detention of radical Muslims
- Denaturalization and expulsion of criminals with a dual nationality
- Jihadists who went to Syria will not be allow to return to the Netherlands
- Close all mosques and Islamic schools, ban the Koran
2. The Netherlands independent again. Leave the EU
3. Direct democracy: a binding referendum, power to the citizens
4. Completely abolish health care deductibles
5. Lower housing fees
6. Retirement age at 65, indexation of supplementary pensions
7. No public money for development aid, windmills, art, innovation, broadcasting, etc.
8. Rollback cuts in home care and elderly care, more hands on the bed
9. A lot of extra money for defense and police
10. Lower income taxes
11. Halving of car taxes

Banning books, closing churches, abolishing healthcare, canceling representative democracy while amassing more power, militarization + police state, no more public money for freeloaders like artists, engineers, media and "etc." - but hey... free money and cheap cars!
And according to his back of the envelope calculation - it will cost nothing.
He actually tries to balance the budget by guesstimating costs for things like "De-islamize the Netherlands" - which according to him will create 7.2 billion Euros.

Cause " Islamic headscarves in public functions" cost money. You wouldn't think it does... but you aren't thinking it through.
Cause when you let the women start wearing scarves, they're gonna keep buying scarves until their closets are bursting with scarves - and then they'll just buy more closets.
Those things are made out of silk too, you know? That shit ain't cheap.

Re:You forgot the Fascist+Inquisition bits...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you explain what's wrong with those policies?

1. This sounds reasonable. The Dutch have a rich and longstanding culture. They were too generous, and essentially let in a lot of hostile foreigners who have shown deep disrespect toward the Dutch and their generosity. It's perfectly reasonable for the Dutch to tell these foreigners to shape up or ship out, even the ones who were born in the Netherlands but who reject pretty much every aspect of Dutch culture. I'm sure you'd have no problem kicking a rude, violent, destructive, unruly guest out of your own personal home. That's essentially what the Dutch are now facing, on a national scale.

2. This sounds reasonable. The Dutch should be able to freely govern themselves, without interference from bureaucrats (especially unelected ones) in Brussels.

3. This sounds reasonable. The citizens of the nation should be able to have far more direct influence over the affairs of state.

4. This sounds reasonable. Healthcare should be affordable. In fact, as we've seen in the US and other nations, insurance and other financial shenanigans just cause pricing distortions that make healthcare unaffordable for most.

5. This sounds reasonable. Housing should be as affordable as possible.

6. This sounds reasonable. It's actually good to get older people out of the workforce, so that younger people can enter it. It avoids the problems seen in other nations where people are forced to work into their 70s if not later, preventing others from being promoted into their positions, which cascades down the entire population, at the bottom preventing younger workers from entering at all.

7. This sounds reasonable. The Dutch citizens should be able to choose who and what they support by making donations on their own, when it comes to art and charities. Innovation and broadcasting should be left up to the private sector.

8. This sounds reasonable. Providing care for the elderly and disabled is a hallmark of developed civilizations.

9. This sounds reasonable. All of Europe is facing a severe threat thanks to horribly failed immigration policies and border control failures. Just look at the many violent and deadly attacks in Germany, France, and Belgium. Look at the hundreds of grenade attacks that started happening in Sweden after they brought in so many third-worlders. The Dutch are perfectly justified in defending themselves from the failed immigration policies of the EU.

10. This sounds reasonable. The citizens of a nation are typically better at allocating capital than governments are.

11. This sounds reasonable. A strong economy needs affordable transportation.

Those are all very reasonable policies, solidly grounded in common sense and economics. I'm not sure why you're trying to intentionally spin them as being "bad", when they're clearly the opposite of that.

Re:You forgot the Fascist+Inquisition bits...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Abolishing health care"??? Read it again: it's quite the opposite. Do you know what health care deductibles are?

Re:You forgot the Fascist+Inquisition bits...

[Tranzistors]

That's the thing with populism, on the headline front it all sounds reasonable (at least for some). Like when Trump says he will replace ACA with something better and cheaper, that would cover healthcare for everyone. On this level it is a no-brainer, but implementation and context is what matters. So with no further adieu:

1. One element of the rich and long standing culture of Netherlands is the tolerance of religion. And you seem to conflate religious label with attitude towards a country. And I don't see how forced conversion (to what, exactly?) would solve problems of attitude. If anything, this would increase radicalization.

2. In that case, why shouldn't, say, Holland or southern Netherlands declare independence from the rest of the lot?

3. This depends on the culture of referendums. Where I live, those are “confidence in government” vote, and not about the actual question in the ballot.

4. This depends. Any subsidy is problematic and should be weight case by case.

5. Could be reasonable, could be totally catastrophic.

6. On the other hand, Europe's population is ageing, so more young people (it seems mostly Turks) have to support more retirees. This needs extensive economic analysis, not just common sense.

7. And why not drop subsidies for health care then? That sounds reasonable.

8. If you put in new money, where is it coming from? Especially if you retire more people.

9. Police? Maybe, but army is not going to help here. Btw, where is the money coming form?

10. Great, another income source cut. How do you sponsor your good stuff above.

11. It's Netherlands. Public transport + bicycles makes more sense.

My point is, if you just have policy headlines, it might sound sensible, but you really need to analyse impact to see if it would actually work, can be sustainably funded and not have too bad negative side effects.

Re:You forgot the Fascist+Inquisition bits...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wilders is mostly anti-Islam. A lot of other policies he proposes are left leaning. The Netherlands has been a pretty tolerant country and his party has been fairly popular because he's addressing something other parties have been afraid to do until recently (the center right party has started taking a tougher position since they're in danger of being less popular than Wilders' party) while not adopting other positions associated with traditional far right parties.

That said, you can't trust any of these parties since they have held little to no power and they see themselves as right of center-right parties and attack the left. If they were essentially left parties who cared mainly about the working and middles classes but were stricter about immigration and religious practices, they would be aligning themselves as left. Far right parties elsewhere in the past in Europe do not have a good record at all. The fascist parties used the same rhetoric and promises and once in power, served the interests of major corporations and wealthy and used their power to crack down on dissidents. The first of the new right types to gain power is Trump/Bannon and so far they have done very little to live up to their promises to the working class and in fact have filled the government with billionaires and Goldman Sachs people and some of the major domestic policies he's pushing are going to hurt the working and middle classes the hardest.

Re:You forgot the Fascist+Inquisition bits...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a strong, pro-growth, law and order, Netherlands first agenda. I can see why the elites are opposed to it. Go Geert Wilders!

Re:You forgot the Fascist+Inquisition bits...

[Maritz]

You don't ban books and tear down churches in a free country. It's not a very dutch attitude. That's why it's not "reasonable".

Re: You forgot the Fascist+Inquisition bits...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good.

Minor legal note

[mwvdlee]

Turkish diplomats in the Netherlands had been speaking at Dutch rallies to Turkish ex-pats in support of the referendum

Please note that this is illegal according to the Turkish constitution.

Re:Minor legal note

[Gilgaron]

Erdogan already purged anybody that is going to call him out on it.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

[Anonymous Coward]

History and namecalling... Turkey still has to recognize the Armenian genocide, not to mention centuries of invasions north up to Vienna (stopped there, thank you, Poland).

Real problem is Not-Islam, the unnamed religion.

[Anonymous Coward]

The real REAL problem is this Not-Islam, the religion followed by millions that whine and complain about how their religion is totally nice and fine and they are being victimized for a "minorities actions".
Yeah, that huge minority, a 700 million minority. You know, totally not the majority of Islam. Oh, wait.

These people that claim to follow Islam but don't believe in the bad parts, the parts about conquest against unbelievers, females as second class citizens, Sharia, etc., they are lying to themselves.
They don't follow Islam. At all. They follow some cherry-picked bastardized form of Islam.
When are they going to name their religion already? That's literally all they need to do. They are not going to change their beliefs, just name it. It certainly isn't Islam.
Anyone that doesn't is clearly delusional or a violent fuck that DOES belief in the evil shit in Islam about killing, about abuse towards women, them having no rights and so on.
So, what is it?

I know many people who think this, but they don't know what to do. Their own words are nothing compared to the many.
All they need is the momentum. They need a person in power to finally stand up and say, "hey, you know what, fuck Islam, we don't believe in it, we believe in [name]".
Until then, they will continue to be associated with terrorists and woman-beaters.
Fucking sucks. Do something about it. Otherwise you are going to continue losing people to ACTUAL Islam every year, because people are constantly being recruited by those fucks IS around the world.

promissing

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to see there is room for nuance in the discussion with the Turks.

Central authority

[XXongo]

In any case Islam doesn't have a central authority like the Roman Catholic Church does.

Well, but that's useless: Christianity, as a whole, does not have a central authority since not all Christians are Roman Catholics, There are other groups of Christians who do not consider the Pope the central authority.

Individual groups of Muslims--shiites-- have a central authority, their Ayatollah (technically only acting as leaders until the return of the Mahdi.)

Whether it is good to have a central authority is another question.

Re:Central authority

[Pinky's Brain]

A central absolute authority like the pope can reform a religion unilaterally, worked out well for Catholicism. Less well for Shiite Islam.

Still, I'd take it over Sunni religion ... defined by adherence to schools of Shariah jurisprudence a millennium old with little room for reform.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[XXongo]

People assume that Islam is just a kind of Christianity with a different brand and a few ceremonies swapped.

No, it's a kind of religious fundamentalism with a different brand and a few ceremonies swapped.

Armenian Genocide

[MrKaos]

So Turkey, the country that is yet to acknowledge that they wiped out 1.5 million Armenians, is trying to call out a country that has acknowledged the genocide they committed.

Hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Re:Armenian Genocide

[Anonymous Coward]

So Turkey, the country that is yet to acknowledge that they wiped out 1.5 million Armenians, is trying to call out a country that has acknowledged the genocide they committed.

Hypocrisy knows no bounds.

If you want to latch onto history for justifications for one's own wrongs, well, we'll all end up like the Middle East. "In this very old book, it shows that my distant distant distant distant distant distant great-great great-great great-great great-great great-great great-great grandfather owned this land according to the foreign occupiers at that time, and that means I have every right to treat others like shit."

I just have to point out that according to my family's book that has been handed down for a hundred thousand years - and claimed true by GOD (if you don't believe me then you are arrogant to think you know better than GOD!) - I own this planet.

Re:Armenian Genocide

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost ironically...

There is a book in England called the Doomsday book that is almost exactly what you describe. It has that kind of exact information, for England at least, and from my understanding is still used to this day for some land disputes. It was written around 1070.

Re:Armenian Genocide

[argStyopa]

Do you really think Mr Erdogan's comments and actions are based on a rational dispute over historical fact?

Do you think that even has ANY bearing on what he's doing, saying, & why?

Re:Armenian Genocide

[Maritz]

The Armenian genocide was a century ago. In terms of history, that's not long ago.

Re:Armenian Genocide

[MrKaos]

Do you really think Mr Erdogan's comments and actions are based on a rational dispute over historical fact?

I don't think he is being rational at all. He is whipping up anger so that people feel justified and morally superior whee there is no basis for it.

Do you think that even has ANY bearing on what he's doing, saying, & why?

What he is doing is being a hypocrite because he is propagating a lie based on the suffering of the Armenian people. This propagates the suffering of the remaining Armenian people which has assisted the guilty escape punishment and extends the pathology of those lies onto the Turkish people.

Re:Armenian Genocide

[MrKaos]

If you want to latch onto history for justifications for one's own wrongs,

The Armenian mass murder was the prototype for the Nazi extermination of the Jews, that hardly qualifies as a justification. More like a propagation of wrongs.

well, we'll all end up like the Middle East.

If you had studied history you would realized that the arabs there were sold a vision of the middle east by the UK and the US so that they would fight as allies or at least not enemies. The agreement was reneged and Israel was installed with a nuclear weapons capacity to look after US oil interests. So no, unless you have oil.

Re:Armenian Genocide

[Anonymous Coward]

If he's playing international politics on the public stage, he should at least have the mediocum of discernment of hypocrisy.

Re:Armenian Genocide

[david_thornley]

The Armenian genocide was a century ago.

Considerably less than a century, unfortunately. At least well into the 1940s, native children were kidnapped from their families, got haircuts, were beaten severely if they tried to keep any of their culture, and taught to be second-class citizens.

Irony is invisible on the internet

[XXongo]

Irony.

Irony is invisible on the internet, because it is indistinguishable from cluelessness.

You should know that by now.

The irony

[DrXym]

Turkey is walking down the path towards authoritarianism and dictatorship, arresting political opponents, suppressing freedom of speech, beating up dissenters etc.. And they call other nations nazis for not facilitating it... Bunch of hypocrites.

Re:The irony

[Opportunist]

Welcome to the post-factual times.

What you say needn't conform with reality. All that matters is how it makes people feel.

Re:The irony

[Maritz]

Makes Erdogan's popularity all the more bewildering, especially among ex-pats.

Re: The real problem is ISLAM

[Anonymous Coward]

I know right, i mean we don't KNOW that they're Nazis just because they're German and we areâ at war with them, so let them into the country since we can't possibly know their ideology. Wtf are you smoking? You absolutely can discriminate based on county of origin, see: any war.

All experiment, no control

[XXongo]

Hindsight is so wonderful.

History lacks the ability to have an experimental case and a control case for the "what if we had done XX instead?"

If instead Obama had done this or that, maybe things would have spiraled out of control and been much much worse. Without a time machine, you can only speculate.

...That being said, global foreign policy is a stage where bold leadership has a value that seems to be beneficial even when its outcomes are suboptimal....

At the risk of Godwinizing the thread, let me point out that this was exactly Hitler's theory: bold leadership (even when its outcome is suboptimal.)

Re:All experiment, no control

[swb]

The problem is you have this situation where the *appearance* of weak leadership is taken for weak leadership itself with ramifications for other nation's behavior.

You're right in that "boldness" alone is a poor measure of leadership, and by itself, it's best labelled "reckless". But the other side is of that is "boldness" combined with measured action, best perhaps described as "decisiveness".

Personally, I think Obama is open to some criticism where he's appeared indecisive, and it's made him look weak. Whether he's *right* is another matter, but even if he is by some kind of cost/benefit analysis, it still make him appear indecisive and weak, with all of the ramifications that has on other nation behavior.

Re:All experiment, no control

[david_thornley]

There have been plenty of people who thought that civilized people were weak. Ever since civilization gained a military advantage over their enemies (usually technical), plenty of people have found otherwise. Before WWII, Germany and Japan thought the US was basically weak.

Verified Twitter Accounts

[CastrTroy]

To me, the story seems to be that a bunch of "verified" Twitter accounts can be so easily taken over. All kinds of havoc can be created simply by posting a message to a high profile account. Imagine if somebody were to take over Donald Trump's Twitter account. I think that Twitter should require that all verified accounts undergo extra security to ensure that the accounts aren't taken over. Whether that means two factor authentication, client certificates, or some other means, they should be doing more to ensure that this kind of stuff doesn't happen. That verified checkmark should come with some extra requirement. Twitter currently recommends using two factor authentication for verified accounts, but it isn't a requirement.

Re:Verified Twitter Accounts

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine if somebody were to take over Donald Trump's Twitter account. I think that Twitter should require that all verified accounts undergo extra security to ensure that the accounts aren't taken over.

I think that certain people should stay the hell off Twitter.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[Anonymous Coward]

once again we have some idiot with a little knowledge acting as if they are an expert.

Hey! Asshole: Maybe you didn't read the whole Quran, but the good Muslim is also supposed to 'protect the people of the Book' meaning Jews and Christians.

Look it up.

What a crock of BULLSHIT! Cherry picked at that.

[denzacar]

First of all, trying to untie Koran from the Bible doesn't really work cause it contains the same damn stories and same damn people.
Only real difference being that Jesus is not the son of god but just another prophet.
So that "Islam by one hand" is a crock of shit regardless if that one hand is Allah's or Uthman's as you put it.

Second, saying shit like that "Islam is the work of one man. (Not counting nameless scribes, no one ever credits them.)" is basically proof that you don't know jack shit about Islam.
Or you would have known of hadith.
Which is basically an attempt to expand the Koran after the death of its writer - by compiling quotes attributed to him by various sources.
All of which are specifically and strictly credited because... well... some might choose not to believe some sources.

There are many flavors of Islam. Just like with Judaism or Christianity
Painting it with a generalization-brush of "one Islam by one hand", particularly in today's climate of CLEAR AND OBVIOUS EXAMPLES of Shia-Sunni divisions is beyond ignorant or retarded.

Third turd... Just like the Bible which was not written in modern languages it suffers from transcription and translation errors.
Which compound when most of the text is metaphoric in nature - as is the case with all religious texts.
Saying it is consistent requires more than just belief - it requires blind faith.

Fourth... The Bible is plentiful with DIRECT commands to murder anyone from witches and gays to infidels.
And both Koran and Bible, old testament and new give even more reasons for hate and murder of everyone.

Fifth... Islam is as "compatible with the civilized world" as any ancient religion, cooked up by schizophrenic hermits in a cave, desert or jungle somewhere, edited by lunatics, crooks and child molesters and left "unchanged" for thousands of years.
You know... like all those flavors of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism...

Not that newer religions cooked up by loons and crooks are any better!
Mormonism, Scientology and Moonism are the same kind of shit.
Just with fewer genocides to their name.
So far.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all very well to say about the Koran, but the hadith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith make things MUCH more complicated than you most non-believers can imagine.

Different branches of Islam (Sunni, Shia, Ibadi) refer to different collections of hadith, and the relatively small sect of Quranists reject the authority of any of the hadith collections.

Kind of like, but much more convoluted, whether one accepts the Book of Mormon and/or all the other apocrypha or not.

And I can assure you, it takes little dishonesty at all to cherry-pick from the hadith :)

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[Anonymous Coward]

... which is the whole problem:

In France, most of us are *atheists*, so outside the 'protect the people of the Book', and our muslims here are making that very clear.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we need more good honest Christian countries like Russia that only do things like commit war crimes, invade foreign sovereign states, crush civil liberties, and have corruption running through every aspect of their lives.

Fucking muslims, why can't they be more like us good Christians!

Just a hint, in case you didn't get it, what I'm actually saying is such the fuck up you nationalist fascist cock end. You're the problem, because just like ISIS you're touting an extremist mindset of tarring a population of 1.3 billion people with the brush of only a relatively negligible handful of them and trying to stoke some kind of religious war in the process. You wont see this, because you're a fucking idiot, but facts are facts - the real truth is you're no different to ISIS twat heads, you've just not been pushed to the level of poverty where you're willing to act on it yet which is at least something we should be grateful for I guess.

HUNDREDS?

[newdsfornerds]

Did it say HUNDREDS? Well that's a big number!

Thanksgiving is coming early this year

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you guys prefer deep fried or baked?

First Post! Erdogan's Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least I would have gotten first post if my twitter account didn't get compromised.

so whats so wrong with swastikas???

[Anonymous Coward]

I get erdogan is a cockroach, but whats so bad with swastikas? did any swastika carrying sausage eater GERMANE ever harmed a mudslim during hitler-senpai funny times? werent they like pals?

that is... unless mudslims and jews are actually the same thing.......... HOLY SHIT, THEY WERE RIGHT, THE CATHOLIC KINGS OF SPAIN KNEW IT ALL AGES AGO!!!!

i knew it! its all in the numbers
number one: thats terror

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we have someone with no knowledge. Describing the Bible as loaded with contradictions is typical of people who have no first-hand experience, and blindly trust people who have a militant hatred rooted in vague memories of the King James translation.

Yes, for centuries Islam respected Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians. Many of the great structures in the middle east were drawn up and built by Jewish and Christian engineers paid in treasures taken from the polytheistic remnants of old Greek and Roman settlements and temples. While Christians prefer to debate with heathens, and Jews and Zoroastrians prefer to just keep their rituals, few in those areas opposed Islam's habit of raiding those who refused to convert (in fairness, many of the cities Islamic forces raided had a habit of killing Jews and Christians, probably Muslims and Zoroastrians as well).

Then something changed. Exactly what seems to be hard to track down, but a significant sect of Islam decided that the other "People of the Book" were suddenly no better than the animistic tribes practicing human sacrifices. The invaded Israel, they invaded Spain, they tried to invade Romania, and it took centuries for the Roman Catholic Church to organize something resembling an international force to counter-attack. The follow-up crusades grew less military and more pillage, or in one case, just a front for a man to get rich selling European children into slavery to Islam.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[KiloByte]

No, all of Islam is a problem, not merely the fundamentalists. While at a given moment only a "small" minority of several hundred million are fundies, anyone else, even someone whose parents and grandparents were civilized people who didn't give a damn about religion and visited churches/mosques only for weddings and funerals, may have a mental crisis, hear a sermon, follow a fashion (the recent revival of Islam is just that, a fashion) or the like, and start reading the Koran.

And since, unlike the Bible, the Koran presents an unambiguous message, that person will think "if the God commands to murder unbelievers, perhaps I should do so".

It's not that the Bible doesn't contain juicy passages. Are you approaching a town of another tribe? You're supposed to give them an ultimatum. If they refuse, you need to murder them all. If they surrender, you murder only the elderly and infirm, make the men your slaves and take the women as wives. Except for a few tribes which happened to be neighbours of Israel at that time -- you need to murder them all without even offering them to surrender.

But whenever the Bible says A, in another book it will say B, then in yet another both C and D. Thus, it is relatively easy to persuade a rational person that the demands of their holy book are only a parable and it's "only the spirit that counts".

The result? The majority of muslims believe their savage medieval law is given by god and needs to be forced upon everyone -- while I don't exactly hear about many christians or jews demanding adulterers or those who question their parents should be stoned to death.

Re:Real problem is Not-Islam, the unnamed religion

[Maritz]

These people that claim to follow Islam but don't believe in the bad parts, the parts about conquest against unbelievers, females as second class citizens, Sharia, etc., they are lying to themselves.They don't follow Islam. At all. They follow some cherry-picked bastardized form of Islam.

Your lack of self-awareness is staggering. Every Christian that doesn't sell everything he owns, give the money to the poor, and hit the road spreading the good news, is not doing what Jesus specifically fucking told everybody they have to do.

In other words, a cherry-picked bastardised form of Christianity.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[Maritz]

You can't blame him for not reading the Quran. Most people like their fairy tales light and frothy.

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Judeo-Christian and Islamic culture have traditionally been very similar. They share the same roots and originate in the same region of the world. All 3 have violent histories and violent sects. Only recently and in the most developed countries is that different because these countries have chosen secularism, though many still have a significant Christian religious conservative portion of their population that want their governments to enforce religious rules on others. In Europe, this is most evident in Poland right now. In most other European countries, the religious conservatives are not strong enough to pressure the government into adopting their religious rules anymore. That said, Islam definitely takes the cake in terms of okaying extreme violence for religious purposes, but like many Christians today, most rely on sermons from preachers, not taking everything in a massive book, which most have likely not read, literally. If countries get more serious about cracking down on the extremist sects, then fewer will be taught and pushed towards the worst aspects of them.

I expect this is state action

[Anonymous Coward]

Performed by the state that would most benefit from wagging the nazi.

Kudos to Obama

[phantomfive]

I have to say, Obama handled the Turkey coup really well, and he deserves a ton of credit for it, because I'm sure there was a lot of pressure internally to take different actions. What did he do?

He didn't get involved

He didn't send in bombers. He didn't send in the military. He didn't send in snipers. Or anything. He let the situation take its natural course, in a place where the US has no business getting involved. That might not seem like much of an accomplishment but Well done Obama. That turns out to be something really hard for US presidents to do, and he did it.

Re:Kudos to Obama

[JustNiz]

I think Obama pretty much sucked as a president but I'm totally with you on the importance of not getting involved.
It turns out that Obama has the dubious record of being the president with the most days that the US was at war, than literally any other US president in history. In fact I believe (but still need to confirm) that there wasn't a single day under either of his terms when the US wasn't at war somewhere.

Contrary to the leftist propaganda that Trump is a crazy-eyed warmonger who wants to nuke everyone, his own words and more importantly actions, at least so far, show exactly the opposite, and that he wants America to stop playing World Police and just focus on internal issues.

It seems clear that a Hillary win would have meant a much higher likelihood of the US starting more wars. I mean just look at her awful war record when she was just Secretary of State.

Re:Kudos to Obama

[phantomfive]

It seems clear that a Hillary win would have meant a much higher likelihood of the US starting more wars. I mean just look at her awful war record when she was just Secretary of State.

That is the #1 thing that worried me about Hillary.

Re:What a crock of BULLSHIT! Cherry picked at that

[Anonymous Coward]

>contains the same damn stories and same damn people.
>contains SOME of the same stories, (about one quarter), and reference SOME events mentioned in the Torah & Bible but is not a continuation of these older works. The Koran contains many, many new other different & new stories.

FTFY

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Describing the Bible as loaded with contradictions is typical of people who have no first-hand experience, and blindly trust people who have a militant hatred rooted in vague memories of the King James translation.

No, I don't have to do that. I prefer to read from The Message. It's a very recent translation, but enough things check out against what I remember from the copious footnotes in a Bible my religious grandparents (but not extremist like my father's mother turned into when her husband passed away) got me when I was a teenager and often read that I'm fairly certain it's close enough as a translation can be for somebody like me who doesn't know Greek or Aramaic or any of the other languages (or cultures from an independent, say archaeological standpoint), even to the point of being more accurate than just taking the text of the NIV without those copious footnotes.

The contradictions are still there. It's better to look on the Bible as an anthology of myths and legends. It cannot be taken as one work that has a central, consistent theme. Many of the individual myths and stories have a consistent, central theme from murdering women and homosexuals by stoning, to military campaigns, to marrying 12 year old "girl children" (sorry folks, MikeeUSA tells no lies about this), to politics, to philosophy.

It's in no way consistent in the manner that modern Protestants claim it to be.

Never trust a Christian fond of slinging scripture who eats bacon.

Next 'coup' will be real.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given his hostility to Europe he will not get any help from NATO.

What a pile of Ignorant Bull Sh*#!

[Anonymous Coward]

People assume that Islam is just a kind of Christianity with a different brand and a few ceremonies swapped. It's not.

No, people have no such assumption. You may know a few ignorant people, but your generalization fallacy is simply false.

The Bible is a big honking pile of contradictions, making cherry-picking not only permitted but the only possible way to worship it. You also need a lot of doublethink, but if you got conditioned to it as a child, you take it for granted and accept as normal.

Which Bible are you referring to? What separates Christians from Jews is that work called the "New Testament". Christians read the Old Testament for history, but follow the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. And why bring Christians into the discussion at all? Is your point that Christians are out blowing themselves up in the name of their Religion? Are the Christians out cutting heads off of people who have a different Religious belief? Throwing homosexuals off of buildings? Beating their wives?

The Koran, on the other hand, is consistent.

Keep piling on the Bullshit right? No, the Koran isn't consistent. You have obviously never even attempted to read any of it, because the Koran is full of contradictions. That is why it's easy for people to select certain passages to teach and have a radicalized public as a result. The inconsistency is also why there are Muslims attempting to create a peaceful enlightenment in the Religion.

Further, just like Christians, the Islamic faith believes in the Old Testament. Why do you not mention that important fact? The Muslims believe in Jesus but call him a prophet like Mohamed. You don't mention that either.

Your last statements are exactly those of a Muslim apologist, and typical Leftist bullshit. You dislike President Trump, and spread fake stories about how a ban from 5 failed States and 1 Terrorist state is a ban on all Muslims. Which ignores the fact that 91% of the Muslim population is not impacted at all by this temporary ban.

Grats on being another lying leftist shill.

Posting AC since communist^Wleftists hate honesty and truth

It's time

[Lauriy]

to unfriend Turkey.

Re:What a crock of BULLSHIT! Cherry picked at that

[Raenex]

Only real difference being that Jesus is not the son of god but just another prophet.

Bullshit. Jesus, as described in the gospels, was basically a hippie who preached virtue, love, and peace. Muhammad, as described in the Quran, hadith, and Sunna, was a conquering warlord.

Islam is as "compatible with the civilized world" as any ancient religion [..] You know... like all those flavors of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism

Bullshit. Islam is uniquely violent, political, authoritarian, and expansionist. Not that you can't find some of the above in other religions, in particular the Old Testament, but Islam took it to a whole new level:

"Nevertheless, there is a problem that goes back to the very beginnings of Muslim history: From the time that the first Muslims established themselves as the rulers of Medina, Islam was a political and increasingly a legal system as well as a faith. In Medina Muhammad continued to be a prophet, but he also became the head of a state and a military leader. With the exception of Southeast Asia (where Islam was spread by traders from the the subcontinent), what we now know as the Muslim world was established by conquest. It is no accident that in traditional Muslim thought the world is divided into two spheres--the realm of Islam (dar ul-Islam) and the realm of war (dar ul-harb). Put simply, it is assumed that the border between Islamic rule and the rest of the world marks a state of war, even if periods of armistice are possible. One should be cognizant of the important fact that there are Muslim thinkers today who are reformulating the nature of Islamic law (sharia) and of Islamic war (jihad) in a much more liberal manner. But one must also recognize that there is a weighty tradition to the contrary and that a large number of Muslims, possibly the majority, does not favor these reformulations."

Re:What a crock of BULLSHIT! Cherry picked at that

[Anonymous Coward]

was basically a hippie who preached virtue, love, and peace.

Almost. He didn't replace the Jewish law of the time and did mention the numerous ways to deserve to be punished or burned in hell in his sermons at the mountains. Cause and the mental effect, so to speak. Of course, any normal follower always takes such things literally.
 

that a large number of Muslims, possibly the majority, does not favor these reformulations

Same thing as with Jesus. People are simple and introducing subtlety to a belief of the common man leads to violent reactions. I think it would be fair to say that the later followers of Muhammad took what is basically war instructions and war time legislation and adapted it to the base of the law in their belief system.

Re:What a crock of BULLSHIT! Cherry picked at that

[Raenex]

Almost. He didn't replace the Jewish law of the time and did mention the numerous ways to deserve to be punished or burned in hell in his sermons at the mountains.

He didn't replace the law, but he explicitly said not to resist evil, give Caesar his due, etc. And as you say, the harshest punishments were to be passed down in judgment after death. No examples of Jesus stoning people, etc.

I think it would be fair to say that the later followers of Muhammad took what is basically war instructions and war time legislation and adapted it to the base of the law in their belief system

More like Muhammad went from a peaceful footing when he was weak to a wartime footing when he was strong, expanding his rule through conquest, along with being an authoritarian. He turned into a violent tyrant, and his followers continued in his tradition.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[david_thornley]

At one time, the most advanced civilization, highly tolerant of others, was Muslim. Not that many centuries ago, Christianity had most of the same abuses as Islam has now. The important thing is the people, not their religious text. Christians are perfectly capable of disregarding their scripture to come up with beliefs that have no basis ("prosperity gospel", which appears to me to go a long way back). There's no reason Muslims won't do that.

Re:The real problem is ISLAM

[david_thornley]

Describing the Bible as loaded with contradictions is typical of people who have no first-hand experience, and blindly trust people who have a militant hatred rooted in vague memories of the King James translation.

As one who has read some of the Bible, and has Christian friends with fairly deep theological knowledge, I'm telling you that the Bible is loaded with contradictions.

It's Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

That the protesters and internet trolls chose Nazism as their point of reference. Erdogan has distinctly authoritarian tendencies, much more so than the Dutch. So I guess it takes one to know one? No, that's not quite it. It takes one to accuse one? No, still not right. It takes one to deflect attention from oneself!

Ataturk is rolling in his grave.