Terror attack Knifeman may have wanted to behead Victim

[cronus]

Religion's are prisons of the mind. Any problem on Earth can be solved with the careful application of high explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off. Something the average Muslim extremist hasn't resolved. Trust me on this, we make it too costly for the hidden 'atheist Muslims' to stay and they'll flee. The religion will fail, like all religions do....have done throughout history. Where are the Greek Gods today? the Egyptian ones? We've never had a modern failed religion - maybe it is time for that? And then Christianity...don't think I'm here to waste a victory.

[Hermit]

Agreed in theory, and certainly there are, of course, many moderate muslims, whatever Scumple and Seth claim...

However, it remains true that there are currently a lot more muslims that believe in the death sentence for apostasy, and would enact it, than there are christians who would be happy to follow your apt biblical quote...

Quite so. Is this in any way justification to treat all Muslims, the vast majority of whom are not extremists as if they were, you know, like, just in case?

Clearly not, but it is justification for increased surveillance, and real penalties for those who can be shown clearly have endorsed or supported jihad...

Yes, profiling, though regarded ass objectionable by some, adds effectiveness to crime fighting. What I oppose is the attitude that it is OK to regard all Muslims as extremists, or at least treat them as such just in case they are. You might remember we had the same idiotic attitude here in Australia when we were hit by a wavelet of refugees during the Lebanese civil war, half of whom were not even Muslims.

[Hermit]

Religion's are prisons of the mind. Any problem on Earth can be solved with the careful application of high explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off. Something the average Muslim extremist hasn't resolved. Trust me on this, we make it too costly for the hidden 'atheist Muslims' to stay and they'll flee. The religion will fail, like all religions do....have done throughout history. Where are the Greek Gods today? the Egyptian ones? We've never had a modern failed religion - maybe it is time for that? And then Christianity...don't think I'm here to waste a victory.

Now you are just rambling incoherently. Isn't it a bit early in the day for you to be drunk? Or have you forgotten to take your 9am meds?

[mistermack]

What if he'd been wearing a suicide bomb vest too? One shot to the head and he's down.

Our police are trained to only shoot innocent Brazilians in the head.

With bomb vests, a high voltage taser is obviously the best weapon.

[Brian Peacock]

... I do not doubt that extremists would want to kill them, but again you have not provided any evidence whatsoever that all Muslims would. You keep on making the same mistake again and again, which is to correctly observe that some Muslims are in fact extremists, then falsely conclude that all Muslims are extremists

it's called generalising from the particular, and is wholly self-authorising. We see the same thing when we're told things like, "All men are oppressed by women," or, "All atheists hate the religious," or, "All non-libertarians are Marxists." This is how tribalism works, and in the case of Islam we should recognise that it works well for the extremists when we start pushing all Muslims into a single camp.

[Brian Peacock]

Most Nazis where on the fringe. Most never killed any Jews or nothing. That sort of Nazi that only herded his sheep and drank his German beer is still not gonna make a Nazi moderate. And on account of the stuff he's propaganda'd with, under the right circumstances he'd do nasty damage with his pitchfork.

The Nazis succeeded in Germany not because a few extremists were prepared to be bad, but because a great many Germans were afraid of them enough not to be good. I grant that we should make more effort to encourage the latter to overcome the former, but presenting Islam at large as an unstoppable force bent on devolving civilisation back to the Dark Ages is not the way to do it.

[cronus]

It should be made easier to leave Islam, new identities and placed in communities with a welcoming bohemian lifestyle here in the Western world. The alternative should be a clear line in the sand beyond which our modern daisy-cutter bombs drop loudest as we fully confront this fascistic religion.

[Jason]

Religion's are prisons of the mind. Any problem on Earth can be solved with the careful application of high explosives. The trick is not to be around when they go off. Something the average Muslim extremist hasn't resolved. Trust me on this, we make it too costly for the hidden 'atheist Muslims' to stay and they'll flee. The religion will fail, like all religions do....have done throughout history. Where are the Greek Gods today? the Egyptian ones? We've never had a modern failed religion - maybe it is time for that? And then Christianity...don't think I'm here to waste a victory.

New religions have almost always been a synthesis of beliefs from the systems of belief which preceded them. I know of no society in history in which religion died out and failed to evolve to the contemporary environment when pressures in that environment grew to such level as change was irrepressible. I don't expect to kill religion, I expect to evolve it.

[Jason]

Agreed in theory, and certainly there are, of course, many moderate muslims, whatever Scumple and Seth claim...

However, it remains true that there are currently a lot more muslims that believe in the death sentence for apostasy, and would enact it, than there are christians who would be happy to follow your apt biblical quote...

Quite so. Is this in any way justification to treat all Muslims, the vast majority of whom are not extremists as if they were, you know, like, just in case?

Clearly not, but it is justification for increased surveillance, and real penalties for those who can be shown clearly have endorsed or supported jihad...

Yes, profiling, though regarded ass objectionable by some, adds effectiveness to crime fighting. What I oppose is the attitude that it is OK to regard all Muslims as extremists, or at least treat them as such just in case they are. You might remember we had the same idiotic attitude here in Australia when we were hit by a wavelet of refugees during the Lebanese civil war, half of whom were not even Muslims.

Allowing behavioural profiling (spying on your citizens, or spying on the citizens of another country in a spy exchange- which is what is actually done today) is allowing a social pruning tool that can be used to target any group for any behaviour. First they came for the terrorists and I said nothing because none of my friends where terrorists..

No. I don't think so. I'm happy to face the problems of the world without sacrificing liberties or laying tracks for any future regime to drive into those liberties at a whim.

[cronus]

You call it evolution and I call it dilution. Same thing. Difference is dilution can go all the way.

[Hermit]

Yes, profiling, though regarded as objectionable by some, adds effectiveness to crime fighting. What I oppose is the attitude that it is OK to regard all Muslims as extremists, or at least treat them as such just in case they are. You might remember we had the same idiotic attitude here in Australia when we were hit by a wavelet of refugees during the Lebanese civil war, half of whom were not even Muslims.

Allowing behavioural profiling (spying on your citizens, or spying on the citizens of another country in a spy exchange- which is what is actually done today) is allowing a social pruning tool that can be used to target any group for any behaviour. First they came for the terrorists and I said nothing because none of my friends where terrorists...

Profiling is abused all too often. That is the reason why it is regarded as objectionable by some. But it is a more effective way of fighting crime than the random approach. With what we know we look at Muslims rather than Quakers when we try to ferret out who might be hopping on a bus while wearing a belt made of explosives after receiving a tipoff, for instance. In Australia the fraud squad has learnt that investigations are more likely to find the culprit ripping off a company by ignoring the office cleaners and checking out who among that company's executives is known for frequent visits to the horse races or casinos or has a TAB account.

And no, Martin Niemöller's regret does not apply to profiling. Communists, social democrats, trade unionists and Jews were not persecuted as a result of profiling. The Nazis went after them because they were communists, social democrats, trade unionists and Jews.

Nor does profiling represent a sacrifice of liberty. Profiles are built from patterns. Who are the people we know of that have gone on suicide missions in the past 15 years? All right then. Let's concentrate on investigating Universal Unitarians and stamp collectors. Makes sense? Didn't think so.

[Jason]

The concept does apply. The only reason they weren't victims of the profiling is because it wasn't feasible at the time. Monitoring the communication of your entire population to identify undesirables is not only feasible today, it is efficient. Patterns are built from data and data is obtained by infringing on the right to privacy of your citizens. We know who our ideology of the day has us target? All right then, let us use this tool we laid the lawful framework for in a time of fear to cull them.

First you allow a 'socially acceptable' infringement of liberty, then once ensconced in law and culture, it becomes all to easy to use to less 'acceptable' ends. Regret certainly applies. This isn't data pulled from the ether, this is active invasion of privacy we're talking about here.

[Hermit]

The concept does apply. The only reason they weren't victims of the profiling is because it wasn't feasible at the time.

You got the concept arse about face again. Profiling is precisely about pulling data from past events. Any abuse of profiling is the result of adding an additional element that has nothing to do with profiling. It is one thing to realise that most suicide bombers are Muslims. It is quite another to convince the broad masses that therefore the Muslims at large are evil suicide bombers and consequently must be fought tooth and nail, oppressed and perhaps even annihilated.

[Brian Peacock]

It should be made easier to leave Islam, new identities and placed in communities with a welcoming bohemian lifestyle here in the Western world. The alternative should be a clear line in the sand beyond which our modern daisy-cutter bombs drop loudest as we fully confront this fascistic religion.

When was the last Muslim apostate murdered in the Western World? As I recall there have been incidents of the 'honour killing' of daughters/sisters of Muslims, mostly on the grounds of their somehow not maintaining the 'correct' attitude in acting like chattel, but it doesn't seem to be any more difficult for a Muslim to leave Islam than a Christian to leave Christianity - you just stop going to the services and deal with the family fallout as best you can.

[cronus]

It should be made easier to leave Islam, new identities and placed in communities with a welcoming bohemian lifestyle here in the Western world. The alternative should be a clear line in the sand beyond which our modern daisy-cutter bombs drop loudest as we fully confront this fascistic religion.

When was the last Muslim apostate murdered in the Western World? As I recall there have been incidents of the 'honour killing' of daughters/sisters of Muslims, mostly on the grounds of their somehow not maintaining the 'correct' attitude in acting like chattel, but it doesn't seem to be any more difficult for a Muslim to leave Islam than a Christian to leave Christianity - you just stop going to the services and deal with the family fallout as best you can.

Honour killings, less important for some because they involve females leaving the religion to pursue a Western lifestyle?