Merged Terror attack on German Christmas market

[McHrozni]

I'm in favour of a) above. These people are murderers and should be hunted down and arrested by the police. But I believe that's already happening. It happened in France after the atrocities there.

What we must not do is start action against sections of the population on grounds of their relegion or ethnicity, in order to forestall fascist pogromist mobs by validating, and even anticipating, their actions. The way to deal with terrorists is to apply the laws, within the social principles, that all these bigots are striving to destroy.

Well, if the latter happens, I hope you're right and b) doesn't take place. I told you so would be much more bitter than sweet.

Furthermore it would be polite to read my proposals from time to time. I believe I spelled them out to you in our last 'discussion' on the topic, and judging from this you ... didn't read them at all <snip>. Can you please address them someday? Thanks!

McHrozni

Edited by Loss Leader: 

Edited for Rules 0/12

 

[Craig B]

<snip>

Edited by Loss Leader: 

Deleted response to edited material.

 

[William Parcher]

Police are saying that they may have the wrong guy in custody.

 

[Arcade22]

Instead of supporting open, democratic and liberal western societies when they are under attack the fascists are instead hard at work undermining it. They jump out of the woodwork to point figures at foreigners and minorities even before the dust has settled (and casually disperse if it so happens that the terrorist is one of their own, a la Breivik). They are accomplices of the terrorists themselves by exacerbating the terror.

Liberal democracy is strong enough to survive terrorism and fear. People can live with the fear of death by terrorism. Life is lethal. It's not strong enough to survive the fear of fear itself. Thus the question is whether people will allow a temporary fear to turn into an everlasting nightmare.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

... What we must not do is start action against sections of the population on grounds of their relegion or ethnicity, in order to forestall fascist pogromist mobs by validating, and even anticipating, their actions. The way to deal with terrorists is to apply the laws, within the social principles, that all these bigots are striving to destroy.

I agree, even if there are variations on the theme that may range from passive to more aggressive. Certainly it would be nice in the EU to emphasize Europe's own Charter of Fundamental Rights. In it, we find:

Title VII. Article 54. Prohibition of abuse of rights.
Nothing in this Charter shall be interpreted as implying any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms recognised in this Charter or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for herein.

That one is the key. It means that none of the freedoms may be understood as allowing one person or group to deny any other any freedoms. Specifically, this prohibits Sharia Law, which mandates the opposite, an unrestricted right to suppress the rights of non-believers. Now, to avoid a doctrinal debate or discussion of who is and is not a moderate, for me the simple yet key task is to loudly broadcast to all and sundry that there is to be:

- no forcing any religion or creed on anyone
- an unrestricted right to abandon any creed, as often as one wishes and with no justification
- no killing in the name of any God, no matter the name or holy book
- no right to restrict free speech regarding any creed or religion

As historically understood in the US (who knows now), religious freedom does not entail the right to act on beliefs when contrary to civil law, such as no polygamy for Mormons. What remains of concern to me is that this is not accepted or assumed to be the case among a large or at least quite visible number of believers in the West, who when polled do support actions contrary to my list above. Here is the battleground, then: getting all believers of any faith to be OK with the list. In the case of Islam, there are centuries of work ahead, as it has no formally recognized reformed sect that accepts the above. As it stands, and as found in a case before a European court, Islam is not compatible with the Charter, let alone my little list, or even democracy itself.

All that said, the stellar opportunity was during the large influx of refugees, when the refrain should have been: "Welcome, here is a sandwich. You have rights now under our civil laws and institutions (perhaps adding: but you have been given asylum here because you are fleeing a faith that does not respect or protect those rights). You may believe as you wish while residing among others of other beliefs, but you may not act as you wish, regardless of any and all other considerations. Here, the rule of civil law is the prevailing and only legal system. If that is a problem, leave."

The reason that even this reasonable minimum is impossible on both sides of the Atlantic is the presence of fundamentalists of other religions who would not agree, making the broader fight one of reason against faith, fact-based opinion vs myth. What we have instead is new Crusaders against Saracens which, in my view, is a direct result of liberals forgetting how rights work and what rights are. When you enlist a guardian angel, careful it doesn't turn out to be a demon.

 

[Aepervius]

The problem of the proposal of people I see always have the wrong accent.

Here is the sentence : a muslim terrorist.

many right wing folk do this accentuation :
(1) a muslim terrorist
But the real accentuation should be like this :
(2) a muslim terrorist

Show us solution which take into account (2) and not do the accentuation (1) and we'll talk.

 

[Beerina]

I agree, even if there are variations on the theme that may range from passive to more aggressive. Certainly it would be nice in the EU to emphasize Europe's own Charter of Fundamental Rights. In it, we find:


That one is the key. It means that none of the freedoms may be understood as allowing one person or group to deny any other any freedoms. Specifically, this prohibits Sharia Law, which mandates the opposite, an unrestricted right to suppress the rights of non-believers. Now, to avoid a doctrinal debate or discussion of who is and is not a moderate, for me the simple yet key task is to loudly broadcast to all and sundry that there is to be:

- no forcing any religion or creed on anyone
- an unrestricted right to abandon any creed, as often as one wishes and with no justification
- no killing in the name of any God, no matter the name or holy book
- no right to restrict free speech regarding any creed or religion

As historically understood in the US (who knows now), religious freedom does not entail the right to act on beliefs when contrary to civil law, such as no polygamy for Mormons. What remains of concern to me is that this is not accepted or assumed to be the case among a large or at least quite visible number of believers in the West, who when polled do support actions contrary to my list above. Here is the battleground, then: getting all believers of any faith to be OK with the list. In the case of Islam, there are centuries of work ahead, as it has no formally recognized reformed sect that accepts the above. As it stands, and as found in a case before a European court, Islam is not compatible with the Charter, let alone my little list, or even democracy itself.

All that said, the stellar opportunity was during the large influx of refugees, when the refrain should have been: "Welcome, here is a sandwich. You have rights now under our civil laws and institutions (perhaps adding: but you have been given asylum here because you are fleeing a faith that does not respect or protect those rights). You may believe as you wish while residing among others of other beliefs, but you may not act as you wish, regardless of any and all other considerations. Here, the rule of civil law is the prevailing and only legal system. If that is a problem, leave."

The reason that even this reasonable minimum is impossible on both sides of the Atlantic is the presence of fundamentalists of other religions who would not agree, making the broader fight one of reason against faith, fact-based opinion vs myth. What we have instead is new Crusaders against Saracens which, in my view, is a direct result of liberals forgetting how rights work and what rights are. When you enlist a guardian angel, careful it doesn't turn out to be a demon.

Kind of, though there are those that disagree with those laws (or the laws against peyote in religious ceremonies) as the arguments involve some sophistry, and the motivations for the laws are not so much pure as they are "those other weirdos don't do it the way our religion does".

To say "one man, one wife" is a law of general applicability that can be forced on Mormons smacks of "marriage is defined as between a man and a woman, so therefore gay people have equal rights to marry the opposite gender, all is fair!"

You can dig up studies about bad Mormon marriage issues if you want, but that has nothing to do with the motivation of the law as that lifestyle is yicky, ya know?

The courts are moving more towards "the government better have a damned good, provable reason" for a law that treads on peoples' exercise of religion in their daily activities, and not mere assertions. This seems right to me as a first step anyway, given the First Amendment.


And now, for my militant atheist hat: Religion needs to die, but it needs to die because of free speech and free choice and freedom of religion, and not because a secular religion of no religion became (after centuries of free speech changing things) finally ascendant, and could now take over, doing all the rotten things other religions did in the same position, shutting down their rivals through the power of the state.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

... The courts are moving more towards "the government better have a damned good, provable reason" for a law that treads on peoples' exercise of religion in their daily activities, and not mere assertions. This seems right to me as a first step anyway, given the First Amendment.

Wrong direction. Civil law is the only good faith arbiter, and sole solution, in a multi-faith (and no faith) society. Only civil law may prevail as the law of the land. Any other option means there has been an effective establishment of religion, an asymmetry in the standing of dogmas.

 

[McHrozni]

The problem of the proposal of people I see always have the wrong accent.

Here is the sentence : a muslim terrorist.

many right wing folk do this accentuation :
(1) a muslim terrorist
But the real accentuation should be like this :
(2) a muslim terrorist

Show us solution which take into account (2) and not do the accentuation (1) and we'll talk.

Well, we could examine the motives of such terrorists. When we do we see the accenuation (1) is the one we need to talk about.

McHrozni

 

[Craig B]

Well, we could examine the motives of such terrorists. When we do we see the accenuation (1) is the one we need to talk about.

McHrozni

Then there is a third category, who should not be the target of this operation (3) Muslim non-terrorist.

 

[Giz]

Then there is a third category, who should not be the target of this operation (3) Muslim non-terrorist.

There should be three categories:

1) Muslim terrorist
2) Muslim sympathetic to terrorism or extremist positions
3) Muslim moderate

2 and 3 are both "Non-terrorists" but 2 is important in counter-terror planning. As Mao Zedong said: "A guerilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea". The sympathizers provide cover for the first category.

 

[Childlike Empress]

The suspect has been released. No evidence that he was involved.

 

[William Parcher]

Reports are saying that the original truck driver (Polish) was shot and stabbed. He was already dead when cops got to the truck.

Authorities are saying that the driver is at large and is armed (no weapons found at scene). They can't say definitively that it is only one person they are seeking.

It seemed promising that they had the right guy because an eyewitness apparently followed him away from the scene and had police on the phone to apprehend him about a mile away. Wrong person in spite of all that.

 

[Craig B]

There should be three categories:

1) Muslim terrorist
2) Muslim sympathetic to terrorism or extremist positions
3) Muslim moderate

2 and 3 are both "Non-terrorists" but 2 is important in counter-terror planning. As Mao Zedong said: "A guerilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea". The sympathizers provide cover for the first category.

Thus, in your understanding, "Muslim non-terrorist" by any rational definition doesn't exist. Is the "moderate" a moderate terrorist, or merely moderately sympathetic to terrorism? But all Muslims are defined in relation to terrorism, and the least than can be said of even the most innocuous of them is that in a discussion of terrorism the term "moderate" may be applied. And the moderate is in the same "non-terrorist" category as the "sympathetic to terrorism" Muslim.

So if I say "non-terrorist" it's the same thing as saying "terrorist sympathiser". I see.

 

[Childlike Empress]

It seemed promising that they had the right guy because an eyewitness apparently followed him away from the scene and had police on the phone to apprehend him about a mile away. Wrong person in spite of all that.

The eyewitness lost track of the culprit in Tiergarten, which is a large and rather foresty park. The police then detained the suspect following the vague description the eyewitness gave, somewhere around the general fleeing direction. Wrong place, wrong time for the Pakistani, apparently.

 

[William Parcher]

I think I read yesterday that ISIS claimed responsibility.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

It's not xenophobia, it's a fear of of what a random Muslim might do to you.

It's not often someone contradicts themselves so clearly in one sentence. Good work.

 

[Giz]

Thus, in your understanding, "Muslim non-terrorist" by any rational definition doesn't exist.

I don't see how you can possibly get that from what I wrote. You are off again, tilting at windmills.

T
So if I say "non-terrorist" it's the same thing as saying "terrorist sympathiser".

The point is that some non-terrorists will be sympathizers and some will be appalled moderates. Acknowledging that both types exist would seem to be a necessity for a successful counter-terror strategy.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

The point is that some non-terrorists will be sympathizers and some will be appalled moderates. Acknowledging that both types exist would seem to be a necessity for a successful counter-terror strategy.

Would someone/anyone who supports an independent united Ireland be an IRA-terrorist sympathiser by your definition?

Generally people's motivations and positions don't fall so neatly into little categories.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

Attacks like these can really put people like AfD in charge. No one will like what happens after that, no one.

McHrozni

I will.

Seriously though, what is it you think "happens after that" which is so scary?