It's almost as if getting stabbed in the throat while minding your own business is perceived as worse than getting into a car accident!
Terrorist attack in London [up: 6 people killed, ~50 injured, 3 attackers dead]
- Thread starter chadskin
- Start date
It's almost as if getting stabbed in the throat while minding your own business is perceived as worse than getting into a car accident!
Theonik
Member
They don't have to. They might be but that's not important. You are just creating distinctions here for the sake of argument. Actually in the case of the Finish example, is every person sniping people from rooftops part of his organisation? They all use the same methods.
BossDarkseid
Member
Yep
AcademicSaucer
Member
That doesn't seem to be politically motivated.
habithipster
Member
I'd say fight poverty, inequality, oppression, on a global scale. Invest in education.
nekkid
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
I hear law enforcement officers are constantly being arrested for viewing child pornography while attempting to solve child abuse leads.
Can we have Farage strapped onto a missile and launched into space?
Religion is used to justify attacks with political motivation, which is never mentioned, it's just the religion that gets the heat.
Every time it's reported "Islamic terrorism", nothing else. It defines the terrorism as religiously motivated instead of political so people gloss over what is happening abroad.
Weird that all these terrorists attacks happen while the middle-east is in turmoil following western intervention. It must be Islam.
It fosters the idea that the west is at war with Islam, and probably generates actual religious terrorism too.
It's the accepted definition of terrorism. If you call every violent incident terrorism it's meaningless.
Theonik
Member
There is no accepted definition of terrorism. It is the state that decides what is so.
That's no hill I'm willing to die on anyway. It's a meaningless argument on the semantics of a meaningless term.
You're welcome to look up a dictionary
The police recently said they had no record of people contacting them about him. I don't know if that includes other avenues.
Doesn't matter anyways. There aren't social structures in place to prosecute thought crimes. You have to wait until they act to get them.
GeorgioCostanzaX
Member
So Trump's out there https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/871331574649901056 claiming somehow no one is talking about gun control...this doesn't even make sense. To me this is proof that England's gun laws clearly work and I'm continually shocked that something at this scale hasn't happened in the U.S yet only with hunting rifles or high capacity clips.
Are america's gun shop owners just racist and not selling to brown people but somehow a creepy looking 19 year old is AOK?
Are america's gun shop owners just racist and not selling to brown people but somehow a creepy looking 19 year old is AOK?
do u know who ur talking about
Miles Quaritch
Member
What if I told you the security services have increased the threat level to severe many times in the past?
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/threat-levels
And here's a look at when there has been successful terrorist attacks in the UK between 2000 and 2017 (missing yesterday's attack)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/many-people-killed-terrorist-attacks-uk/
The response by people in this thread is hysterical. You were very emotional when you posted this morning and taking time away hasn't really helped and it's not just you, people are seriously debating giving up personal freedoms and civil liberties to protect against something that isn't that big of a threat to their safety.
I love it how you say "unfortunately". As far as Farage goes I think there's very little wrong with that statement.
Here's another "hot take" for you - people are getting sick of it. People are sick of seeing kids blown up or people hacked to bits in the street in planned attacks against our way of life.
That this is "unfortunate" to you or is any way a surprise is baffling. Frighteningly so.
GeorgioCostanzaX
Member
Point taken...it did get me thinking though from some kind of weird counter logic scenario. I'm just genuinely baffled since school shootings and armed robberies happen here with such frequency: how is it that an organized event like this hasn't happened here yet? Are middle eastern looking dudes just flat out being blocked at point of sale by racial profiling? This is a fucking tragedy but at least these fuckers were only armed with a truck and knives.
Theonik
Member
I don't think a dictionary would be an appropriate document. Each state has their own definition of what they consider terrorism and there has been a failure to negotiate a comprehensive definition since as early as the 1930s.
That's not even the point, I'm happy to label this as a terrorist incident. The original post I was replying to was about terrorism not happening in Finland, which is of course untue, but I chose this example in particular due to its recency. (and admittedly in part to have this discussion)
Did you guys read this post?
It's very easy to look at life purely logically or by the numbers and tell someone the numbers say they're more likely to die in some other random accident, but life is more than just numbers and stats. Psychologically, I think it's ok for someone to be more scared of having their legs blown off or their throats stabbed by a madman no matter how small the odds are. Just the fact that the chance of an experience that horrible happening has increased, even if that chance is miniscule, is concerning to people.
People aren't only thinking about themselves either. They're thinking of their spouses, or their siblings, or their children too. I don't know, I get that it might be irrational, but I can empathize and see how people aren't afraid of driving, but are afraid of being intentionally murdered.
so you think internment camps are the answer now? do you even know what that is and/or the history of what he's saying?
What states are defining are the exact legal definitions, of course is that more complicated. The dictionary definition is more than enough for discussions like these though.
Lionel Richie
Member
True, but it's frustrating because authorities have been caught with their dicks in their hands all the time. I'm sure it isn't the case when you really look into it, but it feels like there isn't much intelligence going on when looking from the outside.
And when you say that no country had terrorist incidents of varying frequency it might be true, but there was always a sense of purpose in these incidents. Like they were groups who wanted something that was clear and frequently even reasonable (although by unreasonable means). In the case of what's happening recently in Europe, what the fuck does this people even want? What are they trying to achieve? It's not just about the violence, but the reason for that violence.
Yep.
This isn't a numbers game and I find reducing it to that absolutely ridiculous. I'm not the sort who will personally alter my behaviour, hobbies or activities based around "fear", but I think being wary in certain situations is increasingly less "irrational".
I'd never known anybody who has ever been involved with, or even known anybody who has, a terrorist incident before.. but my girlfriend personally knows 2 people who are still in hospital full of shrapnel and another who is dead after Manchester last week. That's 3 of the 100 people injured out of a crowd of 20,000 and we live an hour and a half away from where it happened. I've stopped thinking about "the odds".
Miles Quaritch
Member
I think people are overreacting and over-exaggerating the threat, yourself included.
Yes, people died last night and it's horrible, but that's still an anomaly, not the norm as you're trying to suggest by using highly charged language and suggesting people are tired of kids being blown up. When was the last time kids were actively targeted prior to Manchester?
It does.
He's saying it's for his family and his religion.
By family he's very likely referring to muslims killed abroad. Muslim brothers, etc. Hell, he may have even had actual family abroad that were killed by strikes.
In what he probably considers a war on Islam, considering the number of Islamic countries affected by UK politics.
It's how ISIS got so popular. In that sense I guess it is religious, but that's dismissive of strong factors for motivation, over-simplification.
The islamophobia at home doesn't help with that either, especially labeling terrorist attacks as islamic with no other motivation, which is what the media and some people want to do. A way to justify blanket hatred of others that gets a lot of clicks and satisfies some small-minded people.
It's not surprising that terrorist will claim it's religious, they're committing atrocities, but self-justification isn't the initial motivation.
Though I think that it can develop into religious hatred. Like when the Sunni and Shia muslims were killing each other in Iraq, it was a power struggle that turned into a religious sectarian war, where each side hated the other because of their sect of the same religion. Which isn't surprising either with how many died.
The commonly reported notion that the terrorist attacks are islamic should stop. I'm slowly being convinced it's spread by people who want it to be an actual war with islam.
Where is the profit in that though?
Does it matter? How many times does it take? Is there an arbitrary point in time or a death count we need to get to before that becomes relevant or until people, yourself included, stop downplaying this and start to even acknowledge there is a problem?
Airola
Member
You are comparing accidents to planned mass murders.
It's not about the number of deaths that worries people.
It's about the idea and the type of danger.
We've been living in a world where, apart from accidents, the most a regular person would have to endure would be maybe being in a bank while robbers come in. And even then the aim for the robbers is not to kill anyone.
These terrorism examples, however, bring out the idea that there are groups of people who don't quite care who they will kill as long as they kill as many as they can. And it doesn't need to be a bank. It doesn't need to be a factory. It doesn't need to be a school. It doesn't need to be a church. Any place where there are people is a potential place for them to do it. And they are actively encouraging others to join them. They engourage each other from other side of the world to the other side of the world.
Now, let's talk about car accidents.
I knew a guy who died when a car crashed him. It was an accident. It didn't make me fear for cars or people who drive them. At most it made me a bit more aware while walking around. Now, let's say there was a lunatic whose sole purpose was to crash and kill. That would've made me certainly more aware of my surroundings but maybe not scared if I thought it was just one crazy person being crazy. Now imagine there would be groups of people who were encouraging others to crash their cars at poeple. It makes the situation completely different.
Even if the amounts of deaths wouldn't get much higher and even if it wouldn't make statistically much more likely to die in a car crash, I definitely would have my right to be worried about the current situation.
You are also ignoring that it probably is way tougher for people to cope with a friend or a relative dying because a madman decided to bomb people or stab them on the streets than it's to cope with a friend or a relaive dying in an accident. Accidents at least don't happen because someone did something out of hate. In accidents there normally isn't any ill will pointed towards anyone.
So it's not just about how many dies when it profoundly affects also those people who knew people who died and those people who were in danger of dying.
It's not just the dead or injured who are victims there. Victims are also those who have to witness such tragedy.
The number of terrorist incidents should be zero in western countries.
One is too much. There is something very wrong when we start to think we should expect yearly terrorist attacks.
Regural crime is enough already. We don't need groups of people who just want to kill another groups of people. We have already desensitized towards regular crimes. We accept regular crimes happen. We even accept people die during thes crimes.
In Finland we already have have our own crazy people doing crazy things. One woman killed herself and her children because she was angry at her spouse so she decided to ram her car against the bus the spouse was travelling in. We've had a couple of school shootings. We've had someone randomly attack others with a knife. One guy stabbed a young girl to death. Another stabbed a random homeless person to death.
We don't need to expect groups of people who are dedicated in planning mass killings to make their yearly massacres. We have enough other things here already. Thankfully we are not yet expecting attacks in Finland. But then again France, Germany, the UK and even Sweden weren't forced to expect that this frequently either a few years ago but here we are.
Boy Wander
Member
Mate you're not getting it. There's no point in actively fighting terrorism because more people choke to death on chicken bones so we might as well not bother. Or something.
AstroNut325
Member
What if I told you the security services have increased the threat level to severe many times in the past?
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/threat-levels
And here's a look at when there has been successful terrorist attacks in the UK between 2000 and 2017 (missing yesterday's attack)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/many-people-killed-terrorist-attacks-uk/
The response by people in this thread is hysterical. You were very emotional when you posted this morning and taking time away hasn't really helped and it's not just you, people are seriously debating giving up personal freedoms and civil liberties to protect against something that isn't that big of a threat to their safety.
So... in almost 40 years, fewer people have died from terrorist attacks than road fatalities?
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35494136
T
Transhuman
Unconfirmed Member
22 people isn't just low, it's "Lightning Strike fatalities" low.
habithipster
Member
If you want 100% protection you need 100% control. How is it worth it?
People do understand that acts of terrorism have been daily life in western countries since the 1950s right? Be it the far left in Germany, the IRA in the Uk, the Basque separatists in Spain, the far right in America - terrorism *is* part of life whether you like it or not. It wasn't invented by al'quida inspired terrorism.
I'm sorry, but the amount of ignorance in this thread is astonishing, particularly from all the people who think they know better than the intelligence and security services, and the people involved in dealing with this on a daily basis.
I'm sorry, but the amount of ignorance in this thread is astonishing, particularly from all the people who think they know better than the intelligence and security services, and the people involved in dealing with this on a daily basis.
You're dismissivenes to these attacks is something else.
A murderius cult isn't the same as accidents and if any other group were carrying out attacks of this magnitude to this day, like the IRA for example, we'd all have the same 'hysterical' reaction
Even half their death count since 2001 in the U.K. alone would be alarming.
But this united effort has killed far more globally, Muslims being targeted the most, and many attacks have been thwarted.
You're like that character in a room full of fire telling everyone. "This is fine".
Miles Quaritch
Member
You continually talk about people are tired of kids being blown up and people being hacked to bits in our streets but for some reason you won't or can't accept that these are still incredibly rare events and not the norm.
I think the issue is you're not thinking rationally, you're scared and want to lash out at something, anything, and so you keep talking about acknowledging a problem, but because of how you're feeling, you don't know what the real problem is.
We already have all the laws we need to deal with terrorism in place, but what we don't have is proper funding.
.
So if you want to acknowledge the real problem, focus on how our police services have been decimated through cuts, focus on how our intelligence community isn't funded adequately, focus on the government, that has for the past seven years, taken an axe to all the services that are meant to keep us safe.
habithipster
Member
Good point. The profit for humanity would be immense.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
The dictionary isn't law though.
As far as I understand, there are a lot of different definitions used by various legal systems/governments around the world, mostly because it's a loaded political term. I don't think there is a universally agreed definition.
Airola
Member
Exactly.
While it's rare to die in a plane crash, people still can be afraid of getting into a plane.
It's not the death that scares them, it's how it will happen if it happens. It's unbearable to think one has to endure the last minute or so in knowing the plane is going down in high speed and they are not able to do anything about it.
In car accidents one can make things safer by driving according to the rules and being aware of the streets and other cars. But there isn't much of anything to do to make your own actions be something that makes the streets safer, or at least not until the attack has already started.
It is also way less emotionally burdening to have to dodge an uncontrollable car than to having to dodge a bullet or a knife or (ironically) a car where there is a clear hate-based motivation for someone to kill you and all the people around you.
I think people who compare these things to car accidents and who are bringing up the statistics are actively taking steps, and making others to take steps, towards desensitization of this types of tragedies.
Look at the figures above. The IRA killed far more people in Britain than al'quaida inspired terrorism has done. The IRA tried to assassinate two sitting prime ministers, and blew up the queens cousin and godfather of the heir to the throne. They levelled shopping blocks and towers and trains.
Ask yourself why the terrorist group who were, by *any* objective measure, more successful in terms of killing and hurting people, causing damage and destruction, and staying alive and out of reach of the law, didn't get anywhere near this hysterical level of response.
In other words, Terrorists Win. People need to be more aware about when they're playing into exactly what ISIS and other terrorists are trying to achieve.
Miles Quaritch
Member
I'm not being dismissive of the loss of life, I am trying to bring some rational debate to a thread that's talking about internment and willing giving up civil liberties because of attacks that are still incredibly rare.
The reaction is hysterical and people are overreacting, it's understandable but it's not something that should be ignored because 'emotions are high'.
I'm pretty sure most countries agree that terrorism is defined by an overarching goal to affect society in general, be it political, religious, ideological, etc., which is what the initial poster was talking about by comparing it to people shooting other random people for no other reason than wanting to kill.
In which case most of these recent attacks wouldn't count as terrorism, because they have no demands behind them, no overarching agenda other than killing and scaring people. It's not like they are even demanding we withdraw from middle eastern countries or implement their twisted version of Sharia law.
cpp_is_king
Member
But for 90% protection you need much less than 90% control. You suffer diminishing returns as you add more protection. I'm ok with more control until we start hitting diminishing returns
Airola
Member
The thing is that kids being blown up happens in other parts of the world already. Those places haven't always had that happening either.
The fact that the same type of terrorism with the same motivations is spreading around is and should be alarming.
And before you say anything like "well the IRA have..." I will say yes, there has been other types of terrorists around forever, but should we let these terrorists get into their level before we can start to worry about them? No, there should be zero tolerance for an uprise of any kind of terrorism. This needs to be stopped rather now than later. Awareness for it might be a good thing to help stop it too, and like it or not, people can and will have moments of fear and they have every right for that emotion.
Wrestlemania
Banned
What percentage protection do you think we have now?