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bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 9:27 am Post subject:

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.

Leon

Joined: 31 May 2010

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 11:09 am Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

Leon wrote:

I tend to think of American cities pop. In terms of their metro area, but I've only lived on the east coast, so maybe Midwest metro areas are more spread out (which makes sense). I cannot really see this as a mass refugee resettlement program. Perhaps your scale is different than mine, but as you mentioned the program has been ongoing, we have had test cases in the past. Not to say they've been perfect, but far less than a catastrophe. Not trying to convince you of anything, just giving my take on it.

Not to get off topic, but Idaho is far from the Midwest.

But yes, a couple thousand in a city of even 200K isn't that many.

I have a very loose concept of what the Midwest actually is, I kind of assume that everything not on the coasts or Deep South is the mid-west, which I guess was just proven wrong.

slothrop

Joined: 03 Feb 2003

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 11:47 am Post subject:

i think the headquarters of the aryan nation used to be in idaho. lots of neo nazi skinheads up there. and a few years ago they had a white supremist hate rock festival. they should have put the musslman migrants in montana where there are mostly hippie communes. the montana police already recieve tens of millions from the feds each year to militarize their police force and supply them with cutting edge technology to spy on the hippies, so they could spy on the musslmen as well.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 3:56 pm Post subject:

The Cosmic Hum wrote:

Fox wrote:

Or, for that matter, we could glance at the area Steelrails keeps holding up as some sort of success story vis a vis mass Muslim immigration in America: Dearborn, Michigan. Look at their website, and what will you find? A letter they had to post as part of a settlement, apologizing for unjustly arresting a few Christians in service to Muslim sensibilities. You might not think much of religion, and neither do I, but I do think more than a little of free speech, by which of course I mean actual speech, not equivocations like, "money is speech," or "habitual prayer rituals on the ground in public places are speech," or so forth. In any case, it's a data point.

Ultimately, though, what is one to do? The denizens of these regions can do as they please, you and I cannot stop them, and while I don't know about you, I would not stop them even if I could. They'll do as they please, they (and their descendants) will reap the logical consequences of their actions, desirable or otherwise, and in the bargain, they'll provide more data points for the rest of us. If the rest of the world wants to learn from that data, that's great, and if they want to dismiss it, diminish it, or ignore it in order to ideologically status-seek, that's fine as well. For now, Koreans seem like they are inclined towards the former.

trueblue

Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:36 pm Post subject:

Sligo, Go ahead and print this out, complete it and send it in. http://s263.photobucket.com/user/Bullseye415/media/HurtFeelingsReport.jpg.html

Steelrails

Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:15 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Arggh..Dave's logged out and lost my response. I have no energy for a full reply and am just going to spew bullet points.

1. These protest groups are outside agitators that come in and try to be deliberately provocative. They are doing anything they can to draw a response. The residents of Dearborn have to deal with this seemingly every month. Can you imagine every month people coming into your neighborhood to protest your very existence in the country you live and are probably a citizen of? If this is the worst incident that has happened all these years, given how often these protest occur, then things are alright. Also, there's a good chance that there was some sort of "grey area" incident that led to the arrest. Chief Haddad is well-regarded locally and has had to put up with A LOT of nonsense from these outside groups. These protests usually go off without incident.

2. These protest groups choose Dearborn precisely because IT IS SAFE. Their rights WILL be respected. The local Muslims WON'T come after them with guns and rocks. If Dearborn were really as unsafe as they claim, they wouldn't be there. It would be too dangerous. There have been dozens of these protests and no violence. They know they can go there and act like morons and people will let them have their say, so they keep on trying to up the ante and be more and more provocative. They're like the Westboro Baptist Church or PETA. You'll never see Westboro protesting a Hell's Angels or Crips funeral. You'll never see PETA screaming Meat is Murder at a Soul Food festival. Recently we had an Open Carry, Anti-Muslim protest in Dearborn. Can you imagine the outrage if a bunch of Muslims did an open carry and rolled into Rochester Hills? Who is threatening who here? Seriously, walking into their neighborhood, with loaded guns, protesting their existence in our country, and its the Muslims who are extreme, intolerant, and dangerous???

3. The cops should have dropped these 3 people off at the corner of Gratiot and Houston-Whittier. They would have run back to Dearborn and thanked it for being an island of sanity.

4. We have one incident here. How many times have Muslims been wrongfully arrested because of speech, association, or religion?

5. As far as troubling issues in SE Michigan go, Muslim immigrants rank wayyyy below many of the problems we face. The Zebra Mussel, Emerald Ash Borer, and Asian Carp are more invasive than Muslim immigrants have been. 10,000 Korean cars would bother SE Michiganders more than 10,000 Lebanese immigrants.

6. Thanks to Middle Eastern immigrants, some of our neighborhoods are not as bad as they could have been and are actually help revitalizing them. Dearborn would have probably gone the way of Brightmoor if it hadn't been for the Middle Eastern population. Hamtramck was on life-support until the influx of immigrants helped it to slowly begin to recover, despite it being surrounded on 4 sides by Detroit. We've already had the social experiment. They've made things better.

7. If the citizens of Boise are such sissies that they are quaking in fear at the sight of 2,000 refugee men, women, and children, Detroit would be happy to send them some real problems to teach them a proper sense of perspective. Detroiters have seen a lot of bad stuff, they don't cower at the sight immigrant women and children. Boise should worry more about meth-running biker gangs than Muslim refugees. Muslim immigrants are nowhere near the threat to community and family stability that crystal meth is.

Plain Meaning

Joined: 18 Oct 2014

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:55 pm Post subject:

This is starting to get boring. Muslims have assimilated well in the United States. Anyone who says otherwise either has an agenda or doesn't know what they're talking about. Syrian refugees are ahead of the game because they came from somewhat developed Syria instead of a more backwards Middle Eastern country.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:55 pm Post subject:

Steelrails wrote:

1. These protest groups are outside agitators that come in and try to be deliberately provocative.

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.

Let me be clear: I don't care if people are trying to be provocative. "Of, of course the cartoonist who drew a picture of Muhammed should expect death threats, he was being provocative." "Oh, of course the guy burning a Koran should expect riots and violence, he was being provocative." "Oh, of course the Christians who dare to share their views in a Muslim-dominated municipality should expect to be arrested and tried, they were being provocative." You know what? In a society which genuinely supports freedom of speech, being a bit provocative isn't a big deal. 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.

Steelrails wrote:

2. These protest groups choose Dearborn precisely because IT IS SAFE. Their rights WILL be respected.

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.

Steelrails wrote:

The local Muslims WON'T come after them with guns and rocks.

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.

Steelrails wrote:

3. The cops should have dropped these 3 people off at the corner of Gratiot and Houston-Whittier. They would have run back to Dearborn and thanked it for being an island of sanity.

...

5. As far as troubling issues in SE Michigan go, Muslim immigrants rank wayyyy below many of the problems we face. The Zebra Mussel, Emerald Ash Borer, and Asian Carp are more invasive than Muslim immigrants have been. 10,000 Korean cars would bother SE Michiganders more than 10,000 Lebanese immigrants.

"X is worse than Y, therefore, Y is not a problem." I think we can all see the defect in this reasoning.

Steelrails wrote:

4. We have one incident here. How many times have Muslims been wrongfully arrested because of speech, association, or religion?

If the civil rights of an individual Muslim citizen of the United States of America are violated, I for one am completely on their side. But that's not the point here. The point is that you've been holding up Muslim-dominated Dearborn as an example of a Muslim-immigration success story, which opens it to scrutiny, and when scrutinized, your Disney-esque portrayal of the region seems less than accurate. Indeed, non-Muslim citizens being arrested on pretextual charges for daring to engage in religious discourse with Muslims is the exact kind of thing your opponents in this thread would predict.

Steelrails wrote:

6. Thanks to Middle Eastern immigrants, some of our neighborhoods are not as bad as they could have been and are actually help revitalizing them. Dearborn would have probably gone the way of Brightmoor if it hadn't been for the Middle Eastern population. Hamtramck was on life-support until the influx of immigrants helped it to slowly begin to recover, despite it being surrounded on 4 sides by Detroit. We've already had the social experiment. They've made things better.

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.

Steelrails wrote:

7. If the citizens of Boise are such sissies that they are quaking in fear at the sight of 2,000 refugee men, women, and children, Detroit would be happy to send them some real problems to teach them a proper sense of perspective.

I'm not a manly man, Steelrails; you aren't going to get anywhere with me with this rhetoric about "sissies" and "fear" and "quaking." Being concerned about the legacy you are leaving to your descendants seems completely legitimate to me, and careful thought is no sign of cowardice as far as I am concerned.

I look forward to hearing about point #6 in much greater detail.

The Cosmic Hum

Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 8:55 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Ultimately, though, what is one to do? The denizens of these regions can do as they please, you and I cannot stop them, and while I don't know about you, I would not stop them even if I could. They'll do as they please, they (and their descendants) will reap the logical consequences of their actions, desirable or otherwise, and in the bargain, they'll provide more data points for the rest of us. If the rest of the world wants to learn from that data, that's great, and if they want to dismiss it, diminish it, or ignore it in order to ideologically status-seek, that's fine as well. For now, Koreans seem like they are inclined towards the former.

Really? Haven't they already provided enough data points? How much data does it take...or is this a situation in which there is never enough? Religion often falls into this category...yes?

They and their descendants may/will have a negative impact on your descendents...yes?
When your descendants ask you, "Why didn't you do something?"
The answer will be...what could we do?
And that answer was predicated on not enough data...or at least until it was so overwhelming, and at that point nothing could be done?
Interesting times.

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?

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.

The Cosmic Hum

Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 9:06 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

The Cosmic Hum wrote:

Fox wrote:

It was a link to develop the conversation. Not sure what your point is?

I was not advocating for Christian religious rights.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 9:40 pm Post subject:

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?

Last edited by Fox on Thu Oct 15, 2015 10:30 pm; edited 1 time in total

trueblue

Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Location: In between the lines

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 10:04 pm Post subject:

Fox, which I do not always agree with, has a good way of stating points, as opposed to tap dancing around a self chosen tune that happens to be a reoccurring chord progression with no resolution. While SR IS well versed in rhetoric, Fox is able to not only present his stance...but consider the opposition as well. One can can provide a well stated precies to SR but is in vain,because, SR will simply chose to put his head in the sand. The citizens of Idaho should have a say in this matter but they are being held bound by the Feds, which, brings up a point of the right(s) of individual states...or lack there of. Why don't tbe Saudis take these refugees?

Plain Meaning

Joined: 18 Oct 2014

Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 12:42 am Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Steelrails wrote:

4. We have one incident here. How many times have Muslims been wrongfully arrested because of speech, association, or religion?

Scrutiny? You have one incident of police excess, which is about the most American thing ever. Also, I'm pretty sure you just strawmanned SR with the Disney reference. In any case, charging these protesters with a misdemeanor isn't exactly Gangs of New York ethnic violence. Although I suppose proper Americans such as Dianne Feinstein or organizations such as UCLA would never violate the First Amendment, ever. Because unconstitutional conduct is the hallmark of people who are from other places.

The Islam in Dearborn appears pretty American to me, especially in light of your one example.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 1:14 am Post subject:

Plain Meaning wrote:

You have one incident of police excess, which is about the most American thing ever.

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. There are other incidents on the Internet for curious parties to explore. What people decide to think (perhaps feel is a better word) about those incidents is up to them. Thoughtful parties considering the matter will doubtlessly reach different conclusions about different incidents. More ideologically-inclined readers will no doubt either frame them all as damning or frame them all as something to be brushed aside and trivialized. It would actually be an interesting exercise in self-examination, if one actually thought the examined life was worth living.

Plain Meaning wrote:

Also, I'm pretty sure you just strawmanned SR with the Disney reference.

He essentially said Muslims swept into the area and saved it from becoming another Brightmoor. Add in a few musical numbers and that would be a fine Disney movie. But it's true, he didn't explicitly say they engaged in catchy musical numbers as they saved the city, something that makes my portrayal of his position mild hyperbole, which is not the same as a strawman.

Thanks for sharing your take on the matter.

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:18 am Post subject:

slothrop wrote:

i think the headquarters of the aryan nation used to be in idaho. lots of neo nazi skinheads up there. and a few years ago they had a white supremist hate rock festival.

they should have put the musslman migrants in montana where there are mostly hippie communes. the montana police already recieve tens of millions from the feds each year to militarize their police force and supply them with cutting edge technology to spy on the hippies, so they could spy on the musslmen as well.

Actually Montana has lots of right-wing militia people. The hippies are concentrated in the Missoula area. Once you get away from there, it's more like Idaho (but less focus on race, more focus on the evil federal government).

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