Brendan O’Neill says it’s time for anger:
The post-terror cultivation of passivity speaks to a profound crisis of – and fear of – the active citizen. It diminishes us as citizens to reduce us to hashtaggers and candle-holders in the wake of serious, disorientating acts of violence against our society. It decommissions the hard thinking and deep feeling citizens ought to pursue after terror attacks. Indeed, in some ways this official post-terror narrative is the unwitting cousin of the terror attack itself. Where terrorism pursues a war of attrition against our social fabric, seeking to rip away bit by bit our confidence and openness and sense of ourselves as free citizens, officialdom and the media diminish our individuality and our social role, through instructing us on what we may feel and think and say about national atrocities and discouraging us from taking responsibility for confronting these atrocities and the ideological and violent rot behind them. The terrorist seeks to weaken our resolve, the powers-that-be want to sedate our emotions, retire our anger, reduce us to wet-eyed performers in their post-terror play. It’s a dual assault on the individual and society.
Civilizations are destroyed not from without, but rot from within.
Well that article didn’t say anything.
“Hatred? Anger? Fury?” To what end?
Don’t get mad, get even?
Get mad enough to organize, agitate and facilitate change, obviously.
The left media blows up every attack by a free range psychopath using an “assault rifle” into a week long NRA hate fest. This often results in one more ratcheting down of gun freedom. Some concerned citizens showing up at congressional town halls and asking why 10s of thousands of Islamic “refugees” are being purposely being brought into the country every year when a safe space could be provided for them overseas would be a good start.
“This often results in one more ratcheting down of gun freedom”
If we are talking about the last 15 years or so, I think it almost never does.
Not for lack of trying.
If you live in California then you’re woefully uninformed. But we knew that.
Or Chicago…..
At the national level Democrats haven’t had too much success punishing their political opponents using laws, as opposed to using government agencies. But in states and cities controlled by Democrats they have been fairly successful in passing punative regulations that target the lawful constitutionally protected activities their political opponents engage in.
If you’re a follower of the “strong horse” model of Arab politics, hitting fast and hitting hard might be more effective than hitting smart.
Raze all the mosques in a 20 mile radius. Erect monuments to the fallen.
Do that each and every time. See if it makes a difference
Not a big Trump fan (I agree with Kurt Schichter that so far what Trump has done best is NOT be Hillary Clinton); and not much of a student foreign policy or military affairs. In fact, I know as much about such matters as Bernie Sanders knows about economics. Yes, that little. But if Trump said in response to the Manchester bombing, “We’ve gotta get those guys,” I’m sure his critics would be yelling, “Lunatic war monger!” Weird.
This is going to go on for decades. It will get worse and the death toll with grow exponentially. There will be attacks that make 9/11 pale in comparison. And then one day the civilized world will have had enough, and fight back with a ferocity that will shock the world. Or we’ll just submit and die as slaves of the caliphate.
It can’t go on for decades, because demographics will push many Western nations to the ‘fight or die’ point well before that.
Things are not going to get any better, and governments seem to be doing their best ensure they get worse.
Exactly. Time and demographics are not on our side.
If 9/11 didn’t spark a murderous rage against the presence of Muslims in the West, I don’t know what will.
The real enemy is the Leftist elite who seem hell-bent on importing the Third World to the West, and are willing to punish any Western citizen who speaks up in opposition. I think they are basically totalitarians who welcome Muslim violence as a way to cow the citizenry and condition them to accept ever more restrictions on their freedom.
The Western “leaders” who allow Muslim immigration into our countries are guilty of the greatest act of treason in human history.
The traditional British punishment for treason is hanging, drawing, and quartering. Perhaps a few politicians and judges need to be made an example of.
This is what I’m talking about.
Tommy Robinson has been persecuted by the British authorities. He’s been arrested, beaten, imprisoned, dragged out of his house in front of his family, put in solitary confinement, and on and on. All because he refuses to shut up about this. I don’t think it’s far-fetched to compare him to Soviet dissidents.
Nearly a half a million views and it’s still not ‘trending’ on Youtube. How unusual….
AFAIK the UK has plenty of experience with terrorism (e.g. the IRA). Plus they can more easily control their borders than other places because, well, GB is an island. As usual this guy seems to have been recruited in jail. So there is a definite pattern that could be investigated here.
This is radically different to the IRA. The IRA did terrorism for the media, and would usually call ahead to warn that they were about to blow up a bomb, or would explode them at night when they knew few people were around; they’d much rather do millions in property damage than kill a kid. The main exception was political targets, who they actually did want to kill.
These people want to kill as many Britons as possible. And expect those same Britons to keep paying welfare to the people who want to kill them.
As Kipling said decades ago, it won’t end well when the English come to hate.
This reminds me of the starting (well, middle) salvos of the war of extermination in the beginning of The Moon Maid (Edgar Rice Burroughs).
What you describe happened in the last few years of the Provisional IRA campaign, the policy of avoiding deaths is what eventually made it possible for the British Government to start talking peace with IRA intermediaries.
The reality is that for the majority of the time of the “troubles” the IRA had a policy of killing people. and did kill around 3000 people including over 1,800 civilians in the 32 years of the Troubles.
In comparison Islamist extremist attacks have taken about 90 lives in Britain since they started 12 years ago.
So your suggestion that the IRA was, throughout most of their campaign, less interested in killing civilians than the Islamists is wrong.
I lived in the UK through most of the IRA’s terror campaign. They were a minor annoyance to those who lived on the mainland (‘oh, crap, I’m going to be late for work because the IRA blew something up again’). Islamic terrorists are not.
IRA attacks were more frequent and more deadly, if the Islamist attacks are more annoying than the IRA attacks it’s because the reaction of the authorities has been more profound and the attitude of the public more paranoid, as you say, the British held a stiff upper lip to the IRA. the reaction to the Islamists has been extreme in comparison.
Because the IRA was trying to achieve an actual political goal. These barbarians are making war on civilization itself.
Thinking about it, it might have something to do with the way the media reports stories these days, the big stories are more dramatized, it used to be that an IRA bombing was just the lead story, now-a-days it’s pushed and pushed for all it’s worth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army_campaign
During the IRA’s 25-year campaign in England, 115 deaths and 2,134 injuries were reported, from a total of almost 500 attacks.[77] Malcolm Sutton reports 125 fatalities in Britain, 68 civilians, 50 members of the security forces and 7 paramilitaries.[78
Rand, yours is a fine, fine Web site, but it could be improved if you attracted a higher intellectual caliber of people disagreeing with your positions.
Paul is using the figures for England, I’m using the figures for Britain.
Andrew, you use Britain because it’s convenient to your argument, since the Irish troubles were mostly directed against other Irish and British troops in Northern Ireland. Since nearly all of the Islamist terror attacks in Britain have occurred in England, English figures seem natural to apply for a more apples-vs-apples argument.
Andrew_W
Bullshit. Have you heard of Rotherham? I know you have. Rape isn’t murder but it’s damned close. And where did you get 12 years from? Does that help you exclude some other atrocities in the past? Quit apologizing for the Muslim madmen.
I’m talking about Islamist terror attacks on Britain, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about and I doubt you do either.
And I’m not apologizing for terror attacks, I’m pointing out that, despite what you want to believe, such attacks are condemned by the vast majority of British Muslims and Muslims internationally.
But you can’t handle that can you, you just want to go get revenge and don’t care that your would-be victims had nothing to do with the crimes you’d like to punish them for, just like the NAZI’s
I’ve no idea what you’re talking about
Obviously.
The problem of Islamic radicals extends beyond just terror attacks and to how the change the fabric of societies through creating no go zones and propagate the view that native women are sub human and thus deserving of abuse and sex slavery.
It is also not a problem limited to the UK but affects every country in Europe as well as all of the Muslim controlled countries as well. It is a global problem with global support. A majority of Muslims support the ideology, if not always the violence. But many also support the violence.
There is some polling on this.
I expect Great Britain and Europe could do a lot against terrorism with simple civilized law enforcement. Prosecute violent crime, don’t let ethnicity be a defense. “No go” zones are in a state of insurrection, and need to be treated as such. And let citizens exercise self defense.
Like I don’t know that.
The lunatics that advocate razing all the mosques in a 20 mile radius are on a par with the lunatics that advocated carpet bombing of Dublin in response to the IRA.
So, nonexistent?
There were idiots in the UK who did advocate such nonsense at the height of the IRA attacks, and there are similar idiots advocating similar nonsense around today.
Do you have a solution? I’m just curious.
In fifty years, there will either be no mosques in the UK or no churches. It’s just a question of which.
Could we close down mosques that preach jihad?
I believe incitement to violence is a crime under any civilized law.
So far as I’m aware, I’m the only person suggesting razing all the mosques in a 20 mile radius. We have a body count now, perhaps picking 22 of the mosques at random in a 20 mile radius would be better.
Razing a mosque doesn’t kill anyone (depending on how you do it, of course).
Here’s a link to the Kipling poem referred to by Edward:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/kiplings-the-wrath-of-the-awakened-saxon/
I have a book of Kipling’s poems (allegedly complete) and it is left out as it is in many other collections.
Smart man, our Kipling. The enemies of the west should read it.
I vividly remember the righteous hate that came after 9-11-2001. For many it was just a moment in time. For me, my hatred of that evil began when the second tower was hit and has has not diminished in the least to this very second.
Irrational hate is bad. Righteous, informed hatred of evil can motivate a civilized person to do exactly what is required. Something they would normally not be able to do. Hatred of evil is a good but dangerous thing. That anger has to be controlled.
Islam is an algorithm for world destruction. It absolutely does not tolerate any rivals. If not opposed it has to win; there is no other outcome to the algorithm.
Trump referred to Islam as a great religion. This is a simple, factually true statement. It is not a moral judgement which has confused many people. We are not at war or hate muslims. We have to be at war with Islam because that algorithm wins if we are not.
To be effective in winning that war requires distasteful actions. It remains to be seen how we will act. Having the right kind of hate and maintaining it and following through is not easy but required to survive. What is clear is that some will be pushed to act, but likely with out of control hatred. It’s going to be a mess.
Nothing will change. You still have the pols doing analytics. People like Andrew will point to their datasets and justify doing nothing based on statistics. Ok, they’ll do something because they need someone to provide their healthcare and pick up their recyclables, so they’ll import the help. They’ll say, “We can absorb 22. It will cutdown on production in a few years, but we can make it up from open border immigrants.” You can’t argue with analytics.
Alas, the best you can do is laugh at progressive media that calls people racists, proves it by showing a Sikh offering free taxi service to victims, and then calling him Muslim. See, they all look and act the same to them, but you are the racist for noticing the difference.
And then, one day, mosques will be burning all across the UK, and the usual suspects will ask ‘but how did it come to this?’
As Kipling said, the English are very nice and tolerant people. Until the day they’re not. Then they burn your cities to the ground.
This is why you never, ever want to make them hate you.
The big problem is that governments have backed themselves into a corner, and there’s now no longer any non-violent way out. They could have done something twenty years ago, but it’s far too late today.
“As Kipling said, the English are very nice and tolerant people. Until the day they’re not. Then they burn your cities to the ground.”
I would like to believe that’s true. Not sure I can. Same in the US as well.
Germany used to be like that…not sure they are now either.
Totally aside from the thread (and therefore fit to be ignored):
I wonder if Germany could ever become warlike; Uk ever have designs on France. In short if countries can ever go back to being what they once were without a major catastrophe (like worldwide nuclear war).
So we just have to learn to live with this sort of thing, according to the “elites” ??? What happened to the Progressive/Elites policy that nothing is too difficult or too costly or politically incorrect if it saves only one child’s life?
In the UK, Muslims almost exclusively vote Labour. That’s why the left want more of them.
Though they do seem to he getting a little bit concerned now said Muslims are electing Muslim MPs rather than British ones. How are the Progressive ‘elite’ going to become The Great Leader if the ‘masses’ they’ve imported won’t vote for them?
“What happened to the Progressive/Elites policy that nothing is too difficult or too costly or politically incorrect if it saves only one child’s life?”
As you well know lives only matter if they can be used to steal more of our rights.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/23/trump-administration-manchester-bomber-name-leak
Yeah, yeah, The Guardian, blah, blah, Fake News, blah, blah, and more blah. But the British sharing the name of the suspect (or maybe U.S. intelligence found out on their own) but wanting to keep this quiet for another 48 hours so they could perform critical evidence and intelligence gathering seems like a rather important request from a major ally that wasn’t satisfied.
Was Mr. Trump or someone in his inner circle the blabbermouth? The Guardian is hinting as much but Fake News and All That Jazz. An Obama Administration holdover trying to discredit Mr. Trump? A career person in the U.S. intelligence services? Letting out that name appears, at least based on what is expressed in The Guardian, as either rather incompetent (if Mr. Trump’s people) or vicious (if someone trying to discredit the Trump Administration).
Islamists are once again on the march into Europe just like in the 7-9th centuries and the 17th century. Except this time the gates of Vienna are wide open and there’s no Pippin or El Cid in sight. And they have learned that large groups of Jihadis are easier to kill than small teams. Meanwhile, I guarantee that like the previous few years, the most popular boy’s name in the UK next year and the years to follow will be Mohammad.
Edward M. Grant
May 24, 2017 at 7:47 AM
“In the UK, Muslims almost exclusively vote Labour. That’s why the left want more of them.”
This has been explicitly admitted by Labour members.
Offtopic. But what are your thoughts on the XS-1?
It seems kind of like a pork chop toss to Boeing more than anything to me. What can someone like Boeing do in 3 years like the plan says is supposed to be the time until the test vehicle launch? Boeing has proved unable to do a capsule in 3 years. So how does DARPA think they will develop a vehicle that fast?
Not to mention that the whole project seems awfully ill timed to me. What with the Raptor and BE-4 engines still in development. Or perhaps that is the whole point they don’t expect them to actually achieve anything.
It would make a lot more sense IMO to make this a prize. i.e. the first, second, and maybe third to launch a rocket that can meet the requirements get a prize. With a higher prize for those that finish first. With the prize ceremony conducted after the contest time expires. I think this would mitigate some of the issues we had with the X-Prize. I think the winner takes it all approach kinda deflated the possible outcomes.
Boeing seems to behave differently when dealing with the military than they do with NASA. The X-37s are fantastic. Maybe the military keeps them honest. But the X-37s did face a convoluted development process too.
This comment is going to be lost completely on this thread. Perhaps repost it on the “light posting” thread. And I’m thinking that calling it “XS” is probably a little too on the nose.