At ZipDialog Charles Lipson remarks on the challenge we face:
The problem is how to prevent these attacks, both in the short run (surveillance, arrests, etc.) and long run (tougher restrictions on immigration and rethinking the obvious failure to integrate the communities into the liberal west).
I agree. It’s a problem. Here in the United States at least tougher restrictions on immigration will do nothing to address the problem we actually have which is with the native born children of immigrants. Unless you have a time machine or intend to ban all immigration, how does that do anything about the children of the immigrants you do accept?
Also left unanswered: what if the problem is not that we’re not integrating immigrants into our communities but that our immigrants no longer want to be integrated into our communities? Integrating immigrants is so 20th century.
Dave Schuler: what if the problem is not that we’re not integrating immigrants into our communities but that our immigrants no longer want to be integrated into our communities?
The cultural power of Western Civilization is such that it assimilates and integrates everything. This is why there is such a strong reaction in traditional societies. The new generation adopts Western technology, and with it, the influence of Western culture. Children want to marry whom they want to marry. They want to be able to make their own paths to the future.
Terrorism is the tactic of the weak.
“…Terrorism is the tactic of the weak.”
Heartening words, I’m sure, for the survivors of the attack last night in London.
roadgeek: Heartening words, I’m sure, for the survivors of the attack last night in London.
As the Philosopher said, “Always look for the helpers.“
The survivors in London are aware that their grandparents took 43,000 casualties from the Blitz without freaking out. Both Londoners and Mancunians are keeping calm and carrying on; the panic is confined to right-wing Americans and Putin’s favorite knob-polisher.
Short term palliative notions: Boost sidewalks another 8 inches or so above roadbeds, plant bollards at ten-fifteen intervals along the side of roads to make it hard for drivers to swerve sideways into pedestrians.
Longer run — ten years say — I think it’s going to be very unusual for trucks to have human drivers, and I suspect trucks will not be permitted onto roads without filing a detailed itinerary listing all expected stops and turns and expected speed ranges. Deviate even slightly and automatic cameras will begin tracking you, and nearby police will be alerted. Ultimately, ordinary automobiles will be covered similarly.
The Telegraph reports that the terrorist cell these men belonged was being monitored for weeks. So I’d suppose the question is when is the appropriate time to roll these networks up?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/04/police-uncover-youtube-link-london-terror-attack/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
I don’t know about this attack, but so far the people responsible in England and in France seemed to have been hitting clubs, smoking weed, dealing a bit, and going nowhere until they converted to Islam. I don’t think there have there been any life-long devout Muslim immigrants involved. And in French prisons Islam seems to be like the Aryan Nation. So it’s a stretch to blame lack of integration, especially since going postal is a term invented in the West to describe this exact thing.
And saying that Muslim immigrants as a whole are refusing integration is like saying Irish immigrants refused integration because they didn’t give up being dirty Papists. It’s despicable. More importantly, outside of the nutjob whites who froth at the mouth at the idea of Islam, nobody cares. Humans walk down the street wearing veils and it bothers nobody except the brainwashed idiots.
It’s bizarre watching the dysfunctional American response to horror and death. This is one of the attackers:
Ken Chigbo, 26, a market analyst, said he recognised the man from pictures that emerged overnight that appeared to show one of the attackers, after he had been shot dead by the police, dressed in an Arsenal football shirt . “I saw him yesterday at about 3pm and he was wearing exactly the same clothes,†he said.
He added that he had known the man to “say hello to†for three years and occasionally played football or table tennis with him at the flats. The man had invited him to a BBQ at the flats last week. “He was very sociable, a friendly guy and the BBQ was friendly – there was a good vibe.”
Humans are crazy messed-up animals who wear Arsenal shirts and do BBQs and then go on rampages against Arsenal fans in the name of religion, but the problem somehow can be quantified into a system that makes sense to elderly citizens unable to name any popular song of the last 10 years.
“If they can’t sing the first verse to ‘Easter Parade’ they should get the hell out.”
The plain truth is that Muslims (like blacks) do not assimilate, and their children react against Western culture and become jihadis. A large fraction of terrorists are second or third generation immigrants, and many are well educated.
Islam, itself, is the problem. It is an aggressive, intolerant, violent totalitarian ideology that is utterly incompatible with Western values. The only solution to the terrorist problem is mass deportation.
Of whom? Our Islamist terrorists have been mostly native-born American citizens. Do you think that exporting the parents of these American Muslims will make them more or less likely to resort to terrorism?
“The survivors in London are aware that their grandparents took 43,000 casualties from the Blitz without freaking out. Both Londoners and Mancunians are keeping calm and carrying on; the panic is confined to right-wing Americans and Putin’s favorite knob-polisher.”
The survivors in London are also aware the the Blitz was part of an existential war against a foreign enemy. I don’t think your context applies here. By that logic London can absorb several of these attacks each hour and no big deal because it still doesn’t compare to the Blitz. Context matters. I doubt Londoners will tolerate monthly attacks like this even if they don’t kill a lot of people.
Unless you think that Theresa May’s comments were just for the rubes, I think there’s likely to be some sort of reaction.
BTW, when it comes to what Islam is and isn’t and how it relates to terrorism, this is both short and accurate:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/06/the-jihadi-war-will-last-forever.html
Pat’s point (mentioned in the link above) that violent jihad is endemic in Islam due to the lack of a magisterium in the religion (my diction not his) is a good one.