50 murdered by Islamic terrorist.

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High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Jun 22, 2016 - 10:09am PT

Let the Muslims do their own thing, as long as they don't bother me, I'm OK with them. They haven't done anything here in America that I can complain about... I am not afraid of terrorists, they do not affect me, -Craig

Most of it applies to other countries, which we will never be able to affect, so why worry about it. -Craig

Seriously, do you have HUGE holes, blank spaces, in your memory?

Last I check we're a global system now (growing global markets, growing global travel, growing global awareness, etc).

dirtbag

climber

Jun 22, 2016 - 10:10am PT

dirtbag, does it have to be a "main" problem in the mix before it can be dealt with? Isn't there a basis or justification for dealing with the "minority" components to a systemic problem?

It's important to understand what his motive was. He apparently had a tortured approach to his sexuality

There is also some suggestion that he made that claim about Isis because he wanted to get attention.

Radical Islam is a part of it.

But overall--We just don't know.

It's ok to say that! "We just don't know."

HFCS: Look I get it. Radical jihadism/Islam, whatever the fook people want to call it is a cancer. I'm not an apologist. But people are also quick to jump the gun before knowing all the facts.

And i also think that hysteria about radical Islam has caused much bigger problems for the US than the underlying problem itself.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Jun 22, 2016 - 10:19am PT

I just really hate to see liberals at each others throats over this - what really shouldn't be an issue for liberals mindful of liberal principles. Maher has said same.

Fundamentalist Islamic dogma/doctrines (currently in place in muslim majority countries) are a complete and total affront to traditional liberal principles (free speech, women's rights, freedom of religion, etc.)

What adds to the confusion of course are the different levels of understanding and the different spheres (academic, ge, political), each with their own nomenclature and ways of expressing themselves.

I can name off the top of my head a half dozen or so secular liberal Muslims (most of them modern, progressive and science-respecting) from other countries who cannot get out from under the oppression of their fundamentalist Islamic (sub)culture that surrounds them in their Muslim-majority countries. This is a tragedy. They should be so lucky as we.

These progressive, secular, liberal Muslims need support - they could use our help - not by boots on the ground but through honest, reasonable, intellectual discourse via academia, social media, politics too.

Death for apostates. Death to adulterers and homosexuals. Death to blasphemers. God wills it. Death to infidels. God wills it. And beat your wife. God allows it. And sex her all you want if you're married even violently it is not rape if you're man and wife. God allows it. This is Islamic fundamentalism and it is the mindset of tens of millions of conservative Muslims around the world.

Note I didn't say majority. Did not say majority. Thank goodness it is not a majority in most of these areas. Banal fact: but it doesn't have to be a majority to be a problem to greatly affect life and lifestyle in America or the West.

And ignoring it... or misidentifying... or minimalizing it, like 'fear' and his naive misguided troupe likes to do, is a misservice in this 21st century day and age. It comes to our shores one way or another.

Which is exactly what we are in the middle of right now - seeing and experiencing - with no end in sight.

All Trump needs right now in order to win in Nov is a 9/12 sometime in October. God-forbid.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-morality/

There's more, chart after chart. Don't forget pages 4,5, 7 and 8. Forget the anecdotes (eg, that very nice Muslim family next to the Nile you visited in 1995 on your vacation to Luxor); check the data; what does the data say?

Recall your own experiences in your own life with fundamentalist Christians and their mindset. Now extrapolate.

JEleazarian

Trad climber

Fresno CA

Jun 22, 2016 - 10:48am PT

The same behavior has likely been happening for thousands of years. Probably since we crawled out of the Rift Valley. Power is gained through fear when people are reacting on emotion rather than using what critical thinking skills they may have. An added bonus is few have those skills. We're all subject to it in varying degrees.

Amen! Societies' reactions to crises tend to fail under dispassionate examination, because hasty decisions almost never consider all possible consequences. I think the framers of the Constitution recognized that truth in making amendments so difficult and time-consuming. Already in this thread we read calls to get rid of rights guaranteed in the First, Second and Fourth Amendments.

We also tend to get ourselves sidetracked dealing with the Word Police. We don't like racial, sexual or religious "profiling," but if the victim says her attacker was a male about 5' 8" tall and weighing about 120 pounds, we don't look for a female, a sumo wrestler, or a six-foot-six person. Is that "profiling" or is it merely assembling clues to narrow the search?

Whether the administration calls ISIS and its sympathizers "radical Islamists," "Jihadists" or just "domestic mass murderers with foreign sympathies," does it change the set of people we consider? What's wrong with trying to shoot with a rifle, rather than with thermonuclear devices?

I personally find it in the interest of both the United States and the world to minimize alienating a billion or so people because we need to stop the behavior of, say, 100,000. As long as Obama takes reasonable steps to prevent harm from ISIS and its ilk and their sympathizers, I don't care if he calls them Eleazarians (which may not be a bad idea, since there are very few of us in the United States, and he's unlikely to change our votes).

Instead of focusing on the real enemy, we concentrate most of our energy on our political opponents. Just read this thread. How many people seem more at war with their domestic opposition than with those seeking to destroy our country and our way of life? That's one of the consequences of using crises to motivate decisions.

John

Craig Fry

Trad climber

So Cal.

Jun 22, 2016 - 10:54am PT

All Trump needs right now in order to win in Nov is a 9/12 sometime in October.

What kind of proof do you have to say this will happen?
I call BS

No one will be running to Trump if there is 9/12
Hillary will still be standing at the same level she is now

and nothing will change if Obama uses different words to call the radical terrorists
America is actively trying to bring liberalism to Muslim Countries,
it's the right wingers of every society that resist all change, they hate liberalism, they like that they can beat their wives and watch the local head chopping

I don't see why you got your panties so bunched up over this.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Jun 22, 2016 - 10:55am PT

Already in this thread we read calls to get rid of rights guaranteed in the... Second... Amendments.

Yep, it's called growth, adaptation, upgrading.

Note ditching the 2nd wouldn't mean prohibiting firearms either. What it would mean would be the removal of a ridiculous obstacle in the path to reasonable gun control measures (akin to obtaining a drivers license, pilot's license).

...

Well, Craig, let's both hope we don't have to experience this outcome to see.

nothing will change if Obama uses different words to call the radical terrorists

Well...

1) it would certainly neutralize Trump's #1 talking point currently in his campaign. Wouldn't it?

(2) it would give everybody, Muslim and non-muslim, the means to distinguish liberal Muslim from radical (violent fundamentalist) Muslim. Wouldn't it?

If I've got my panties in a bunch it is because we're spending all this time and energy over this crazy stuff that's better spent on a bunch of other 21st century problems.

crankster

Trad climber

No. Tahoe

Jun 22, 2016 - 11:13am PT

I get the point, HFCS. Hillary doesn't have a problem using it, most likely to neutralize that talking point.

"From my perspective, it matters what we do more than what we say," Clinton said on CNN's "New Day." "And it mattered we got bin Laden, not what name we called him. I have clearly said we -- whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I'm happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing."

fear

Ice climber

hartford, ct

Jun 22, 2016 - 11:23am PT

We could stop half of these crazies from killing if we had common sense gun control

lol...Stop... think...take a breath... do you really believe that?

blahblah

Gym climber

Boulder

Jun 22, 2016 - 11:27am PT

If it does't matter what you call something, why did the Obama administration censor the transcripts of the the Orlando shooter's 911 call?

JEleazarian

Trad climber

Fresno CA

Jun 22, 2016 - 11:39am PT

Fear,

"Common sense gun control" is a tautology. Common sense gun control is a constitutional set of laws that would prevent the latest notorious killings. Therefore, existing laws, by definition, cannot constitute "common sense gun control." That wonderful-sounding phrase of Craig's, when applied to real life, becomes meaningless.

It shouldn't surprise us - although it certainly disappoints me - to see that advocates of gun control always assume that it would have stopped the latest outrage, and opponents of it always assume that it would not.

Gun control functions a bit like a safe. Safes don't prevent theft, but delay - and therefore deter - theft by making it more difficult. The issue comes in the trade-offs. Few would consider spending more money on a safe than the value of its contents. With gun control, immigration holds, racial or religious "profiling" issues and the like, the issue is whether the increased difficulty in carrying out terrorist attacks is worth the increased loss of rights to the innocents the changes may affect.

The Bill of Rights requires more than a mere balance, of course, and I'm glad it does. We're all too eager to trample on our rights (and even more so on the rights of others) in times of panic (see my post supporting yours, above, and, e.g. the Japanese Internment of World War II). Calm reason has fewer friends at times like these.

John

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Jun 22, 2016 - 11:41am PT

Crankster, I'm the first to admit it's a very complex problem.
Multi-sided and all that. And very very deep.

It's just very sad it's come down to this.

...

Just what the world needs right now... more Abrahamic influence...

That's right, Ky. Teach your kids not a myth but the truth.

For you, Norton. :)

fear

Ice climber

hartford, ct

Jun 22, 2016 - 11:51am PT

FWIW, that ark looks NOTHING like the one on the moon.

Craig Fry

Trad climber

So Cal.

Jun 22, 2016 - 01:28pm PT

Common Sense Gun Control

Yes, it would have STOPPED the latest murder spree

why do you have to lie about your cause to make a point?

1) An assault Rifle Ban, which is a "Common Sense Gun Control" measure would have stopped the killer from buying a assault rifle to kill with.

2) A thorough Back Ground Check would have found that he was a terrorist threat, if the back ground checks included FBI terrorist investigations.
The back ground checks can be expanded to never allow someone like Omar through again.

Why the Republicans have to lie about how these things should have worked is just another reminder that they are completely gullible to any right wing talking point no matter how stupid or meaningless.

and please explain how these common sense things will affect your rights?
Please
Because I don't get it.

I guess you are in favor of doing nothing, which affects my rights of feeling safe from crazies with guns

The Democrats in the House are staging a sit-in at this very moment!
They want to vote on the Gun issues, the Republicans will not bring up issue for a vote because of their cowardice for governing.

Obviously, this whole issue once again brings up the point about how Republicans suck, they have blood on their hands for siding with a Private Gun lobby (the NRA) over the people's wishes

pud

climber

Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia

Jun 22, 2016 - 01:46pm PT

1) An assault Rifle Ban, which is a "Common Sense Gun Control" measure would have stopped the killer from buying a assault rifle to kill with.

He walked around the place killing for three hours.
He could have done it with a single fire musket.

Any semi auto carbine is just as lethal as so called "assault weapons".
Banning them would do nothing to change these attacks.

A good defense is the best offense.

Craig Fry

Trad climber

So Cal.

Jun 22, 2016 - 01:48pm PT

He could have done it with a single fire musket.

WOW
So lame
so typical
and so WRONG

nothing will change as long as we have a population of people that don't want change

He was holed up in a bathroom, not walking around the place for 3 hours like you say,
what you say would be called a "LIE"

A good defense is the best offense.

So we all have to carry weapons now because of our failed Gun Control laws.
Is that your advice.

pud

climber

Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia

Jun 22, 2016 - 01:53pm PT

I definitely don't think you should own firearms.

aspendougy

Trad climber

Los Angeles, CA

Jun 22, 2016 - 01:56pm PT

In the U.S. Constitution the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness trumps the right to own a gun. Even bureaucratic, expensive, inefficient gun control would save some lives. If it saves even one life, it is worth it.

Guns could be re-designed, so that the only legal guns for private citizens are those that you can only fire one bullet, then you have to manually load another ammunition clip. They could be designed so that it is not so easy, and takes some time and effort. This would make mass shootings much more difficult.

We could have a mass turn in event, where people turn in their existing guns and get a "safe" gun.

There are many other ways to do mass killings besides using guns, but most of them are harder to pull off.

If we got rid of auto and semi automatic weapons, and hand guns, every one could still have some sort of long barreled single action rifle. That would make it much harder, both to kill someone with a gun, as well as get away with it.

Craig Fry

Trad climber

So Cal.

Jun 22, 2016 - 02:05pm PT

A majority of people want change in the gun laws, over 80% according to polls

The Republican Congress just won't give it to them,
they would rather take bribes from the NRA than do what's right and what the people want

so once again, vote out the treasonous Republicans

crankster

Trad climber

No. Tahoe

Jun 22, 2016 - 02:09pm PT

HFCS, I just finished a good book on the Middle East by Richard Engel, "And Then All Hell Broke Loose". One repeating theme is how easily seemingly ordinary Muslims are radicalized by images from the Internet, social media, etc. Anything interpreted as America declaring war on Islam is a recruitment tool.