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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| bucheon bum wrote: |
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| "They" are the collected denizens of the city or cities in question. Yes, the individuals in question may vary over time, but society is an exercise in making choices for our descendants and treating oneself as entitled to be the beneficiary of the choices and efforts of one's antecedants. Unfortunately, the door swings both ways in that regard. |
That 'door' seems to have some issues.
I'll leave the same link, as I would be interested to hear your take on this as well.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/XELWyJeKSV0?feature=player_detailpage
Perhaps you can't be far enough away from this kind of problem if it is going to infect the planet...yes? |
Last time I checked, Alberta was in Canada, not the United States. I'm guessing you're not familiar with the prayer in school debate in the USA. Lots of Christians have made the same argument as the Muslims did in your video. |
It was a link to develop the conversation. Not sure what your point is?
I was not advocating for Christian religious rights. |
My point was that situation in the video doesn't apply that much to the USA. And this thread was about a specific state in the USA. If it occured in the USA, Muslims would actually have some evangelical Christian support. Keyword: some. Obviously there are some hyopcrites that would say how evil Islam is and whatnot. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:44 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
I'd love to hear more, in far greater detail. In fact, I'd prefer a response which focused entirely on this point, tracking the matter historically in terms of economics and demographics and providing a strong causal argument. Dealing in counterfactuals is difficult, so a high standard must be met. Give me something worth thinking about on this one.
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Example: Bosnians in St. Louis
WaPo article
Al Jazeera story
70,000 bosnians in a city of maybe 400K.
I went to college in St. Louis. The area that the Bosnians moved to was pretty much a no-go area at night. Now? Apparently it's one of the "hip" parts of the city.
Yeah, Bosnians are European, but they built mosques and are Muslim.
Fremont, CA is another example of a large number of Muslim immigrants assimilating. It has the most Afghans of any city in the USA. Prosperous suburb of SF and where the Tesla factory is located.
Scroll down to bottom
Yes, most Afghan immigrants were well-educated and technocrats before arriving in the USA. Thankfully, as Plain Meaning noted, Syrians are generally well-educated, especially those who manage to make it here to the United States.
It really does come to economic and educational background. Look at the East Asian community here in the States. What group has had the most trouble assimilating and succeeding here? The Hmong. Who is behind them? Cambodians. Funny how they came from the poorest, least educated parts of S.East Asia. |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 6:39 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Really? Haven't they already provided enough data points? How much data does it take... |
Enough data for whom? For the mayor of Boise? Obviously not. For Kuros? He thinks we're boring for even considering the matter, and insists our inability to readily and unreservedly agree with him proves we either have an agenda or are uninformed. |
Nope. Its tiresome that we're on thread two (SYRIAN INVASION! America Edition) of this worn-out topic and we still don't have any examples of Syrian refugees behaving badly. Not one. Maybe if some sort of data point, to use Cosmic Hum's term, were provided with regard to Syrian refugees behaving badly there might be an interesting discussion.
As for Muslims in America in general, I've already dealt with your weak claim that a single incident, the action of a couple of officers and a prosecutor to charge some people (very improperly) with a misdemeanor for protected speech, reflects that Muslims in an entire city might create problems. Its not serious and I don't have to treat it as such simply because you're playing the I'm-just-asking-questions game. |
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The Cosmic Hum
Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 8:24 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| Really? Haven't they already provided enough data points? How much data does it take... |
Enough data for whom? For the mayor of Boise? Obviously not. For Kuros? He thinks we're boring for even considering the matter, and insists our inability to readily and unreservedly agree with him proves we either have an agenda or are uninformed. For me? Enough for me to not want to live there while whatever is going to unfold there unfolds. But more information never hurts, especially since people have a tendency to forget. Think about vaccines, for example: their very success in eliminating disease caused people to begin to doubt their necessity, which in turn results in some parents refusing to vaccinate their children, which in turn results in potential new outbreaks of the disease.
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| They and their descendants may/will have a negative impact on your descendents...yes? |
My descendants? My descendants have dual citizenship, so if they don't want to live with the results of the choices made by Americans, they needn't. East Asia has a very different idea about what makes for sound immigration policy, and atheists/apatheists/irreligious people are a near-majority in Korea (probably an actual majority if one also includes the "religious" people who partake for purely social reasons while not actually believing). I think my descendants are reasonably well-positioned to avoid the negative impact of religion.
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
Doctor says...you have a tumor. We can operate. It takes a steady conscience and direct action, but we can treat this.
Patient - I want a second opinion....and a third...and a fourth...etc.
The patient eventually admits that yes the tumor exists. But now so far advanced nothing can be done.
Are these at all similar? |
I understand the metaphor, but you used second person when you should have used third person. It's my neighbor that seems to have the tumor, and he insists that not only is it not a tumor, it's a special organ that will actually make him healthier if only he lets it grow a bit more. Sounds dubious to me, but it's his life, and while it will be sad if his wife ends up being widowed and his children end up growing up fatherless because he misjudged his situation, that's the way of the world.
| The Cosmic Hum wrote: |
| This is a sensitive topic, sure. But if you are inclined to continue this discussion, I would be interested to hear your views on this. |
It's certainly not a sensitive topic to me. The truth, though, is that I haven't lived in Dearborn, Michigan, or Boise, Idaho, and I never will; I have neither experience with those regions nor any "skin in the game," so to speak. So I'm fine with keeping an open mind, listening to what people have to say, and watching how it all turns out. Of course I've got my suspicions, but maybe Steelrails will defy all expectation and produce a lengthy description of how Dearborn has developed which conclusively proves it would have been an unlivable cesspit absent the Midas Touch of Islam. I don't lose anything by listening, do I? |
Thank you for this reply.
I don't have much to add to this save offering my respect to you for taking the time to share your exemplary powers of rhetoric.
I am still waiting for your book of life. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 8:41 am Post subject: |
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As for Dearborn, I think SR is exaggerating a bit. I don't think Arab immigrants "saved" the city. I mean it is the HQ of Ford. I doubt it would have become yet another crappy part of SE Michigan had Arabs not settled there. On the other hand, they haven't made it any worse.
article on dearborn
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| The city’s median annual income is about $45,000, slightly less than the state median of $48,000. In 2013, there were 347 violent crimes in Dearborn, according to FBI statistics, along 3,104 property crimes, 126 robberies, and two homicides—numbers not out of whack with the Michigan’s other mid-sized cities. The same year, Lansing—the state capital—home to roughly 20,000 more residents, had 1,204 violent crimes, 3,960 property crimes, 256 robberies and eight murders. |
Article 2
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The city's main drag, Michigan Avenue, is lined with roadside temples to the commercialization of iniquitous flesh. And without an angry protester in sight. The neon signage on the enormous buildings housing the Pantheon Club and BT's Executive Club are among the city's most conspicuous landmarks. “If Dearborn practiced Sharia law,” O'Reilly wrote in a frustrated but playful open letter to Jones, “would we have three adult entertainment bars and more alcohol-licensed bars and restaurants per capita than most other cities?”
Then there's the matter of the Dearborn Sausage Company, churning out its famous pork products across the street from a Southend mosque. |
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Perhaps Dearborn accepts its Arab-American population because they have kept Dearborn clean—and relatively prosperous. Immigrants have restored it to what it looked like when O'Reilly was a kid. Retailers pack city streets and most homes are occupied. "Now with the Arab-American community here, Warren Avenue is back with these owner-operated shops," the Mayor tells me. "I go there all the time. I love it."
"The east side Warren Avenue was 80-percent vacancy and now it's 100 percent occupancy," says current ACCESS executive director Hassan Jaber. Jaber came to the U.S. from Lebanon during the civil war, though his grandfather lived in Michigan City, Indiana, throughout his childhood, working for Ford. "The city has seen the benefit of being a welcoming city."
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Swartz
Joined: 19 Dec 2014
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 12:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Plain Meaning wrote: |
| ...we still don't have any examples of Syrian refugees behaving badly. Not one. |
Because we all know how honest and impartial the media has been in covering this issue, of course. I mean, look at the reaction when an “open borders activist” gets raped by refugees. She’s told to shut up so she doesn’t “hurt the cause”.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/10/european-open-borders-activist-gang-raped-by-migrants-at-camp-told-to-keep-quiet/
Back to the educated, renowned, and wonderful Syrians who do no wrong: Will the recent honor killing in Germany suffice for the data point you were looking for?
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/10/09/suspected-honor-killing-stokes-german-fears-about-customs-crimes-middle-eastern/
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| Thankfully, as Plain Meaning noted, Syrians are generally well-educated, especially those who manage to make it here to the United States. |
This is not really true, but since immigration shills continue to parrot the NYT and trot out this trope as if it is somehow a net positive across the board, it deserves greater scrutiny. The real unemployment rate in the US is probably around 20%. We have dismantled much of our industry. Wages have been going down for over 40 years. Millions of people are struggling. Yet, we still import millions of people every year. Low-skilled American workers now have to compete against illegal border-jumpers, but even high-skilled workers have to compete against imported laborers, H1Bs, etc. Average American citizens are then forced to flee their own cities and even their own countries to find stable employment, as most here are directly aware of.
The US is essentially a free-trade zone with a wage-race to the bottom, a service economy that produces very little. Minus the select few, importing *ANY* amount of cheap labor is bad for *EVERYONE*. Get it? Nobody wins except for the corrupt class and cheap labor lobbies. And they get what they want because they depend on much of the populace being, as evidenced here, uninformed stooges who will promote their own policies for them.
Lastly, even if we were to assume that we are importing some brilliant, entrepreneurial class of Middle Easterners (which again is not the case), that means their absence will leave their home countries in an even worse position. The negative effects far outweigh the positive, and these tactics amount to little more than top-down assaults on the populations of every nation involved. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
I'd love to hear more, in far greater detail. In fact, I'd prefer a response which focused entirely on this point, tracking the matter historically in terms of economics and demographics and providing a strong causal argument. Dealing in counterfactuals is difficult, so a high standard must be met. Give me something worth thinking about on this one.
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Example: Bosnians in St. Louis
WaPo article
Al Jazeera story
70,000 bosnians in a city of maybe 400K.
I went to college in St. Louis. The area that the Bosnians moved to was pretty much a no-go area at night. Now? Apparently it's one of the "hip" parts of the city.
Yeah, Bosnians are European, but they built mosques and are Muslim.
Fremont, CA is another example of a large number of Muslim immigrants assimilating. It has the most Afghans of any city in the USA. Prosperous suburb of SF and where the Tesla factory is located.
Scroll down to bottom
Yes, most Afghan immigrants were well-educated and technocrats before arriving in the USA. Thankfully, as Plain Meaning noted, Syrians are generally well-educated, especially those who manage to make it here to the United States.
It really does come to economic and educational background. Look at the East Asian community here in the States. What group has had the most trouble assimilating and succeeding here? The Hmong. Who is behind them? Cambodians. Funny how they came from the poorest, least educated parts of S.East Asia. |
I'll try to look into these areas a bit more when I have some time. Thanks for the information, Bucheon Bum. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
According to the City of Dearborn, "They were engaging in a peaceful dialogue." Is peaceful dialogue with Muslims provocative? If so, you're proving the point of your opposition. If not, then you're abandoning your own argument. I won't opine as to which is the correct interpretation.
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The City of Dearborn is constantly subjected to anti-Muslim outside agitators coming into the city for the purposes of gaining publicity and being deliberately provocative. Apparently in one of those, a couple of police officers at the street level decided that 3 protesters were disturbing the peace and made an arrest. This could and does happen with any kind of protest. We don't know the religion or race of the arresting officers. There's no evidence that this was a directive from on high. In fact the most notable thing about this is its uniqueness. There have been repeated protests like this in Dearborn and there has been ONE incident. This does not suggest a pattern of behavior. In fact, the pattern of behavior with Dearborn is one of tolerance and forbearance in the face of repeated outside agitators coming into the place and claiming what a violent, disastrous place it is to love and deliberately trying to provoke the people living there.
This is the equivalent of Crown Heights being subjected to repeated protests by right-wing Americans from outside New York City, proclaiming Jews to be violent and dangerous, staging Torah burnings, staging anti-Jewish Open Carry protests, calling for their removal from the United States, saying that no Jewish people should be allowed to immigrate, and that 2,000 Jewish refugees are actually an invading force in disguise designed to conquer America and impose Halakha on America, engaging in deliberately provocative acts to garner publicity, having major presidential candidates and TV hosts expressing anti-Jewish views to the point of saying a Jewish person shouldn't be president, with the counter protests that would inevitable ensue. And through all of this the police had a single incident of improper arrest for disturbing the peace. And none of these people live in Crown Heights or anywhere near it. They come from Texas or Oregon or Louisiana or Ohio and talk about what a danger the Jewish neighborhood is and how its the worst thing ever in the city and state of New York. That would be beyond illogical, that would be insane. And that's how we regard these protesters and their "message".
| Quote: |
| Tolerating provocative free speech is part of our culture, Steelrails. You like to argue. If you got arrested for engaging in public discourse, you'd be legitimately upset by it. |
The provocative I'm talking about is some of the tactics these groups engage in. Some just stand in the corner and do their thing and no one has a problem. Some get right into people's faces and are deliberately trying to be confrontational in hopes of provoking a violent response to create notoriety. Again, if what they were saying was true, they A) Wouldn't be there in the first place because it is too dangerous and B) Would have been lynched on the spot or had 50 Muslims with AKs gun them down. Instead we have Dearborn going out of its way and spending considerable sums of money and police resources ensuring that these groups can protest (despite a single arrest of one for disturbing the police- clearly the cops thought they had overstepped the bounds of peaceful protests), out of dozens of these protests, we've had a single bad arrest, and no incidents of mob violence.
Do these people have no shame? Can't they look at that and realize that maybe their assumptions and beliefs regarding Arabs and Muslims are wrong?
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| The City of Dearborn literally has a letter of apology it was forced to write as part of a settlement on its website apologizing for not respecting the rights of certain parties, and then you turn around and insist, "Their rights WILL be respected?" You're insisting they don't do something that they've already apologized for doing, and it's only the intervention of the courts which protected the rights of the citizens in question. |
And again, the city has had to deal with repeated protests of various forms and has had one incident of wrongfully arresting someone. This was probably the decision of the responding officer's or possibly whoever was supervising them, not a departmental one. The officers probably had reason to think that some disruption was going on. They might not have had all the facts regarding the situation. When officers respond they have to shift through a lot of info. A single incident is not evidence of a pattern of behavior.
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| Well, I don't know about guns, but I've seen a video of local Muslims hurling rocks. Yes, it was in the face of what could be reasonably construed as provocation, but "provocation" does not justify the violence. There is nothing you could say to me, nor any sign which you could loft in the air, which would cause me to throw a rock at you with violent intent. |
Children hurled trash and empty plastic cups and bottles. There was no stoning. This was after a group of protesters went to a community festival and started harassing children. The children responded by throwing trash while the adults and police tried to calm the situation.
Why this demonstrates Muslims are inherently violent, but Disco Demolition Night, Ten Cent Beer Night, the various Snowball Games in the NFL, and the Malice at the Palace do not represent how Americans are inherently violent is beyond me. Note that all of those incidents involved adults.
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| "X is worse than Y, therefore, Y is not a problem." I think we can all see the defect in this reasoning. |
X is worse than Y, therefore we should devote more time and resources to being concerned about X. In this case, considerably more time. In terms of issues SE Michigan faces, local Muslims are so low n the totem pole that they are essentially a non-issue when put in comparison to the host of problems the area faces. In fact, its notable that there is no virulently anti-Muslim SE Michigan politician simply because its such a non-starter with the public as a whole. If Muslims were such a disaster for America and their community, the people of SE Michigan should be screaming to be freed from Sharia law as the Muslims wage a campaign of terror. That's not the case. They are screaming to be free of bad Detroit mayors and trickle down economics.
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| I have one example of Muslims shutting down free speech in Dearborn so obviously and flagrantly that the city government ended up having to apologize for it on their own website. |
You have one example of Dearborn police officers making an arrest for disturbing the peace that was later overturned on appeal. Not all Dearborn police officers are Muslim. Cops especially tend to not be too high on people coming from outside the city and screaming at children as a means of "protest". Who is provoking and being intolerant of who?
| bucheon bum wrote: |
| I don't think Arab immigrants "saved" the city. I mean it is the HQ of Ford. I doubt it would have become yet another crappy part of SE Michigan had Arabs not settled there. |
Not necessarily. SE Michigan and Detroit is notorious for carving out "Green Zones" for certain institutions while everything else around it falls apart. It probably wouldn't have collapsed completely, but it would have certainly declined. Southwest Detroit is pretty rough and probably would have gone into Dearborn, but thanks to Middle Eastern immigrants, Dearborn is fine and now the neighborhood that borders Dearborn and Southwest, Chadsey-Condon, is getting a lot better, again thanks to Middle Eastern immigrants who are buying all the old houses and refurbishing them and saving the schools. I also cited Hamtramck as another example. People credit the immigrant influx for preventing Hamtramck from spiraling out of control. Now, its a prime candidate for people looking to buy cheap and rebuild. You could connect it to Midtown through Milwaukee Junction (also has potential) and New Center and get a nice stretch all the way to Downtown.
Last edited by Steelrails on Fri Oct 16, 2015 6:59 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Plain Meaning
Joined: 18 Oct 2014
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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Congrats on finding some bad stuff some Syrian refugees may have done, Swartz. Its only been 23 pages but you finally got something!
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The US is essentially a free-trade zone with a wage-race to the bottom, a service economy that produces very little. Minus the select few, importing *ANY* amount of cheap labor is bad for *EVERYONE*. Get it? Nobody wins except for the corrupt class and cheap labor lobbies. And they get what they want because they depend on much of the populace being, as evidenced here, uninformed stooges who will promote their own policies for them. |
What does employment immigration policy have to do with asylum policy? H1B visas may be controversial, but asylees are fleeing a country to preserve their lives and the lives of family members. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
The City of Dearborn is constantly subjected to anti-Muslim outside agitators coming into the city for the purposes of gaining publicity and being deliberately provocative. Apparently in one of those, a couple of police officers at the street level decided that 3 protesters were disturbing the peace and made an arrest. This could and does happen with any kind of protest. We don't know the religion or race of the arresting officers. There's no evidence that this was a directive from on high. In fact the most notable thing about this is its uniqueness. There have been repeated protests like this in Dearborn and there has been ONE incident. |
This was one incident, but was there only one incident? Has the City of Dearborn only been taken to court once with regards to such speech-related matters? Are you sure?
| Steelrails wrote: |
| This is the equivalent of Crown Heights being subjected to repeated protests by right-wing Americans from outside New York City, proclaiming Jews to be violent and dangerous, staging Torah burnings, staging anti-Jewish Open Carry protests, calling for their removal from the United States, saying that no Jewish people should be allowed to immigrate, and that 2,000 Jewish refugees are actually an invading force in disguise designed to conquer America and impose Halakha on America, engaging in deliberately provocative acts to garner publicity, having major presidential candidates and TV hosts expressing anti-Jewish views to the point of saying a Jewish person shouldn't be president, with the counter protests that would inevitable ensue. |
People should be able to do those things without fear of arrest or violence. And indeed, there is plenty of anti-Jewish thought expressed both in America and across the globe. Right on these forums we have had plenty of anti-Jewish thought expressed. Tolerance of free expression is not just an American value, it is the greatest American value. Well, at least I think so, anyway.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| Do these people have no shame? Can't they look at that and realize that maybe their assumptions and beliefs regarding Arabs and Muslims are wrong? |
No, I imagine they have no shame, and yes, I imagine their views are more or less set in stone. But they are hardly alone in that regard, are they? My opinion of these folks is probably no higher than yours, but they are still citizens, and still possess civil rights. The de facto erosion of those rights would be a failure.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| Children hurled trash 5and empty plastic cups and bottles. There was no stoning. This was after a group of protesters went to a community festival and started harassing children. The children responded by throwing trash while the adults and police tried to calm the situation. |
I feel like I remember at least some rocks being thrown in one of the videos I glanced over, but I would not swear on it; many of the objects were too blurry to properly make out (which perhaps suggests you should not be so certain, either). It is also not clear to me that only children threw things. But yes, it is important to point out that there were community members who tried to keep things cool, and such individuals are behaving admirably. I have already acknowledged in other threads that some denizens of the Middle East are a fine fit for western societies, remember, and a good immigration system can select for such individuals (albeit at the cost of subjecting already poor, developing societies to brain drain). This is why refugees would concern me more than standard immigrants.
| Steelrails wrote: |
X is worse than Y, therefore we should devote more time and resources to being concerned about X. In this case, considerably more time. |
Yes, urban cesspits and the cultural, economic, and legal factors which produce them are a problem which warrants more attention, I agree. Detroit has gotten its share of mentions on this forum, as have the broader issues related to its current state. I am sympathetic to, "X is more pressing than Y, so X warrants more time and attention," but "X" has already gotten plenty of time and attention on this forum, so bringing it up to discourage conversation on "Y" strikes me as unreasonable.
| Steelrails wrote: |
Who is provoking and being intolerant of who? |
I do not understand why you keep bringing up "provocation." We are a society that tolerates provocation, and it would be to America's credit if that did not change. Implying that Muslims cannot handle provocative rhetoric and displays undermines your case, and it does a disservice to those who can handle it in the bargain. |
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Swartz
Joined: 19 Dec 2014
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Plain Meaning wrote: |
| Congrats on finding some bad stuff some Syrian refugees may have done, Swartz. Its only been 23 pages but you finally got something! |
When logical fumbles are second nature, humility should rise to its appropriate value. You asked a question on this page, I answered it on this page. You wanted a data point, I gave you one. Upon entering the last thread, I made note of what seemed like immaterial whining. Fox has brought this up here. I will note it for the second time. If you think the topic is worn out or boring, and have little of value to contribute yourself, perhaps you should be sitting it out. Beats looking foolish.
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| What does employment immigration policy have to do with asylum policy? H1B visas may be controversial, but asylees are fleeing a country to preserve their lives and the lives of family members. |
Rogue US actors are clearing out the Middle East for Greater Israel by way of terror spree and resettling these malcontents in Western countries. I have no doubt that the warm and fuzzy PC legal semantics impress those in your personal life, but it does nothing for me. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 7:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
This was one incident, but was there only one incident? Has the City of Dearborn only been taken to court once with regards to such speech-related matters? Are you sure?
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There was the Terry Jones incident as well. Of course the idea that a mass public burning might not be considered safe and a reasonable example of free speech or that Pastor Jones' comments might be considered an attempt to incite a riot is a legitimate case for people to make.
The city and residents of Dearborn are repeatedly subjected to this. Can you name one other city in America that attracts this kind of regular protesting based on ethnicity and religion? I agree we have free speech, but its clear that the residents of Dearborn are being singled out and that they are facing a unique situation regarding protest. No other community, no other group of people is facing this kind of concentrated and repetitive protest.
How come no one questions the legitimacy of "normal" Americans as an entire community if they throw molotovs during a WTO protest or extreme environmentalist protest tactics or other such stuff. Why is Muslim children throwing pop bottles held as an example of the dangers of Muslim immigration? Detroit has seen some throwing and some violence. It's called 1967. A few kids throwing trash at some outsider aholes who are insulting them. (Adults insulting kids? Really?) doesn't strike us as the crime of the century.
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People should be able to do those things without fear of arrest or violence. And indeed, there is plenty of anti-Jewish thought expressed both in America and across the globe. Right on these forums we have had plenty of anti-Jewish thought expressed. Tolerance of free expression is not just an American value, it is the greatest American value. Well, at least I think so, anyway.
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The protesters in Dearborn are. As I said, there have been dozens of protests. Most go off without an arrest or anything. But some of the protesters attempt to push the boundary as far as possible in terms of legal protests and come dangerously close to harassment. That there are some disagreements with police over the exact nature of that boundary is not surprising. At some point there is a boundary and it must be enforced. There are plenty of protests that do not involve Muslims in any way and may involve questionable arrests by the police. Are we applying the same scrutiny?
And Crown Heights has not been subjected to that level of repeated, focused, virulently anti-Jewish protest in a long time, and even then it wasn't sustained the way it has been with Dearborn. I think people would be extremely alarmed if a far-right group staged an open-carry protest calling for the removal of Jewish persons from the US and declaring 2000 Jewish refugees as invaders.
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| I feel like I remember at least some rocks being thrown in one of the videos I glanced over, but I would not swear on it; many of the objects were too blurry to properly make out (which perhaps suggests you should not be so certain, either). It is also not clear to me that only children threw things. |
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| I am sympathetic to, "X is more pressing than Y, so X warrants more time and attention," but "X" has already gotten plenty of time and attention on this forum, so bringing it up to discourage conversation on "Y" strikes me as unreasonable. |
The thing is that Y has been happening in our area for decades now, and all of the predictions of doom and gloom have failed to materialize. As I've said, if it were such a danger, there should be at least one local politician who would take an anti-Muslim stance. There isn't. In fact, I think its at the point where we can question whether it is a danger at all. Or at least a danger beyond random chance of death by falling down the stairs or slipping on your bathroom floor.
| Quote: |
| I do not understand why you keep bringing up "provocation." We are a society that tolerates provocation, and it would be to America's credit if that did not change. Implying that Muslims cannot handle provocative rhetoric and displays undermines your case, and it does a disservice to those who can handle it in the bargain. |
We give legal protections, but this is something beyond an article in Harper's or an ordinary protest with signs. These are people deliberately trying to provoke a violent response from someone. In essence "fighting words", and doing so repeatedly. If it happened in schools, we'd consider it bullying and likely harassment. A teacher would not be allowed to speak in such a way to a single group of students. We're talking the very edges of free speech. They also aren't protesting an idea, but the very existence of these people in our country. And these people do not live in that community, have no interaction with it, have no first-hand experience. And this is being done to them continuously.
Anyways, if a man insulting children and the children responding by throwing trash at him is an example of Muslim intolerance, I don't know what to say. Instead of talking about the dangers of Muslims, shouldn't we be talking about what an embarrassment this man is? No Muslim-Americans have come into my community, insulted my values, insulted local kids, and demanded we leave the country.
I agree that even if these protests push the boundary of free speech, they should be protected, but I won't use a couple of arrests at that boundary as an example of the imposition of Sharia Law. Not when many other protests face similar arrests when they approach the boundary. Not when the protesters are deliberately trying to push that boundary as far as possible. And I'm certainly not going to say that Islam is here to damage our freedoms with an example of an adult insulting children and the kids pelting him with trash.
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| I feel like I remember at least some rocks being thrown in one of the videos I glanced over, but I would not swear on it; many of the objects were too blurry to properly make out (which perhaps suggests you should not be so certain, either). It is also not clear to me that only children threw things. |
No, they were bottles and it was kids. Maybe some 18-22 year olds, but that's it.
And for goodness sakes, could these people have their once a year holiday without people from out of town coming in and trying to cause a ruckus? The amount of nonsense the people of Dearborn have had to put up with is just ridiculous. This is like anti-foreigner protests being staged every weekend in Itaewon and Itaewon having an annual foreigner fest that drew a bunch of Koreans saying we posed more of a danger than North Korea and constantly harassing us and how we constituted an invading force. Even the anti-American protesters here have the sense to do it outside the embassy and not insult children. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
There was ... |
So not one. As I suspected.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| Can you name one other city in America that attracts this kind of regular protesting based on ethnicity and religion? |
I do not know. First, tell me exactly how many protests occurred in Dearborn last year, and approximately how many people participated in each. Armed with that precise information, I would be situated to answer your question. After all, the only reason I have read anything about Dearborn at all is because you spoke of it in such glowing terms, inspiring me to look it up a bit on the Internet. You are the expert on Dearborn, here, so please instruct me as to the exact scope of the problem.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| These are people deliberately trying to provoke a violent response from someone. |
Well, I can believe that some of these protesters may hold such intentions, but all of them? To the man? The apology letter on the city's web page explicitly states that the arrested parties were engaged in peaceful dialogue. Why is it so hard to believe that sincere Christians, members of a religion which proselytizes all across the world, might do the same in Dearborn, and in good faith? If proselytizing to Muslims is "provocative" in and of itself, well, that does not bode well for your position (the ultimate validity of which will be measured in generations, not decades), and if it is not automatically provocation, then remember not to include proselytizers who speak no offensive words or commit any offensive deed as "protesters" when you provide your list.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| I agree that even if these protests push the boundary of free speech, they should be protected, |
Good.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| ...but I won't use a couple of arrests at that boundary as an example of the imposition of Sharia Law. |
I do not remember saying Dearborn is governed under Sharia law. I also do not remember suggesting all Muslims are violent.
| Steelrails wrote: |
| No, they were bottles and it was kids. Maybe some 18-22 year olds, but that's it. |
Well, I am amazed that you personally know the physical composition of every object hurled in anger that day, but I won't argue. I will point out, though, that a 22 year old is not a child.
I'd rather hear the in-depth response to point #6 (and get that detailed list of protests) than go back and forth like this, to be honest. You are the one with the knowledge and first-hand experience here, so please share it. I understand your abstract argument well enough. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| First, tell me exactly how many protests occurred in Dearborn last year, and approximately how many people participated in each. Armed with that precise information, I would be situated to answer your question. After all, the only reason I have read anything about Dearborn at all is because you spoke of it in such glowing terms, inspiring me to look it up a bit on the Internet. You are the expert on Dearborn, here, so please instruct me as to the exact scope of the problem. |
Well, I don't have that information. Suffice to say, I check in daily to the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press websites, and these stories are so regular. Not to mention you have the protests that go unreported in the news. Its kind of like asking me for numbers on abortion clinic protests. It's become so unremarkable that people now have to carry guns to them to draw attention.
Suffice to say, if your city is repeatedly subject to protesters attempting to push the envelope, you are going to have incidents of arrest that are later deemed to be improper. That's just the nature of things. A cop may decide it is better to intervene first and defuse a situation and eat it later, rather than risking it rapidly degenerating into violence. He may make a call that it is appropriate to make an arrest based on the facts that are presented to him at the time. Remember, our cops are not constitutional law experts. They are jacks of all-trades. They have to fulfill a wide-variety of roles and expecting them to be perfect on Con Law is unreasonable and holding them to a standard of perfection in envelope-pushing situations is unreasonable. Apparently cops are supposed to be legal experts, crack shots, stunt drivers, EMTs, CSI experts, detectives, Sensitivity Counselors, Mental Health experts, and be in perfect shape. That they occasionally fail in these roles should be understood. What IS clear is that there is no pattern of behavior.
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?9456-What-did-Dearborn-do-right
It should be noted that SE Michiganders praise the Dearborn PD for its response times and service.
| Quote: |
| Well, I can believe that some of these protesters may hold such intentions, but all of them? To the man? |
Oh I agree that many are well-intentioned, non-confrontational, and perfectly fine. I thought I mentioned that not all protesters were being jerks about it. Some have a compassionate evangelist message. Some are even ethnic Chaldeans or Lebanese from the region, though they tend to do it by actually getting to know the person, rather than trying to draw attention for themselves.
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| Well, I am amazed that you personally know the physical composition of every object hurled in anger that day, but I won't argue. I will point out, though, that a 22 year old is not a child. |
If you look at the full unedited video its clearly predominantly juveniles and maybe a few college aged youths. The overall point is that this is not representative of the crowd as a whole. What is also clear is that this was not a stoning. If they really were hurling a bunch of rocks, this would have gone very differently and there would have been people in the hospital.
| Quote: |
| I'd rather hear the in-depth response to point #6 (and get that detailed list of protests) than go back and forth like this, to be honest. You are the one with the knowledge and first-hand experience here, so please share it. I understand your abstract argument well enough. |
Yeah, I'm not up to form on this one in terms of giving a more analytical response vs. a visceral emotional one. My arguments for some points aren't the most logical.
The thing is that for people in SE Michigan, the Middle Eastern community is just a regular fact of life that is unremarkable. Any negative feelings have long been replaced by "Thank goodness I can turn off at Dearborn and get gas after the Tigers game in safety". Truckers driving through Dearborn aren't praying that their rig doesn't break down there. That they have helped save Dearborn is just self-evident to us.
So when people who are not from the area start talking about how bad Dearborn is or how its some no-go zone and haven of Sharia Law, we just can't help but laugh really. We have REAL no-go zones in Metro Detroit. Dearborn is NOT one of them.
There also comes a point with all the protesters where we see our neighbors having to put up with this all the time and we can't help but think "For goodness sakes, can you just leave these people alone? Can you let them live in peace? What have they done to you? Why are you coming all this way just to tell them that they are evil?" We understand its legal, that doesn't mean it isn't a jerk thing to do. When you see people armed with assault rifles, going into someone else's neighborhood and shouting at unarmed people, including women and children, about what dangers and threats they are, one really starts to move on from a logical "well this is what free speech is all about" to one of "these people are pathetic cowards".
When we hear how the acceptance of 2,000 Muslim refugees will destroy the fabric of society we just find it perplexing given that we have had decades of Muslim immigration and have nothing of the sort happen.
I know these aren't the kinds of arguments you are looking for, but I really don't know what else to offer. |
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young_clinton
Joined: 09 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2015 11:55 am Post subject: Re: Unwanted in Idaho..? |
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| sligo wrote: |
| trueblue wrote: |
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/thousands_of_muslim_invaders_slated_for_idaho.html
C'mon SR...lay out your book of circular excuses as if it were a baseball card collection. |
Irony = a nation of immigrants complaining about imigration. |
When my ancestors immigrated Germany, it was to a farm. There was room for them. Also in addition to economic factors part of the reason for immigrants to come was freedom. There isn't any more resources for immigrants here in the US, we are running out. Also many Muslim immigrants coming here do not understand that freedom in this country is a big ethical issue. You can be Muslim in the US if you want, in fact you can be Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Agnostic or Atheist if you want. Many Muslims come here not thinking that way. Many Muslims feel that Judaism and Christianity is OK because they are "people of the book". Freedom is all according to the dictates of the Koran for many.
Anyhow Muslims thronging to Idaho is hardly an invasion, just exactly where are they supposed to go? What is ironic is they are flocking (if this is really true) to an area that is full of racial nasties. |
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