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

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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

Seems Like A Case Of "All Your Base"

[dryriver]

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

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?

[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?

[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]

> 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?

[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?

[EzInKy]

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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

[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.

[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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[lucasnate1]

Is worshipping nature really that different from worshipping god?

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

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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: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.

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

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...

[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...

[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: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.

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.

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.

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

[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

[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: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.

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.

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.

HUNDREDS?

[newdsfornerds]

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

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.

Re:Well this is quite frankly...

[Maritz]

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

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: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: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: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.

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.

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

[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.

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.