Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Well, that's OK then. Nothing to worry about.
Just have a look at the comparison you're making. The number of people dead in 3 hours as opposed to 30 days. You could at least normalise the data to try make a legitimate comparison.
The road deaths are an unfortunate side-effect of modern life, having your life ended by terrorists in the manner of 9/11 can in no way be compared to that.

The way the UK railways have been mismanaged, I can't really blame them. It certainly was looking like it might become a common occurance.

By the same token we should leave all that food contaminated with Sudan I on the shelves, because there really is only a very tiny risk associated with it in the quantities in which it is found in that food.
If you discontinue with something because of an associated risk when you don't need to continue with it is not irrational, it's sensible.

It is true that some people's response to a perceived threat (i.e. risk) can sometimes be irrational. I have an irrational fear of spiders. Fortunately it doesn't rule my life because I am WAY bigger than said spider, and I can reason my way around that one (and/or flatten the spider.)
If, however, we are faced with a threat/risk we cannot properly quantify or control, then how can we know what is a measured/rational response?

You say quite categorically:

I'm saying that it's not at all that straightforward.

This is straight repetition of what you said before, and assumes that the threat is less real than maybe we perceive. It also assumes the terrorists motive, which I dispute, since the terrorists have not really given us any reason to assume that.

If, however, that was what their game plan was, then indeed we'd be risking playing into their hands. But before we follow that strategy I'd like some proof.

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Watch channel 4......right now!.......'Immigration time bomb' :D

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

I've just put it on boss man :)

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Damn straight! :D
..............Now that made interesting viewing.............1% of UK population is African men but they make up 37% of aids cases and account for 95% of hiv treatments in hospital :shocked:
Islam is completely opposed to homosexuality......
etc, etc....bluddy hell, that was an eye opener :(

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

And I missed it.. :(

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Of course in the interests of balance you should have seen Monday's programme putting forward the alternative viewpoint. In the interests of balance I missed both of them ;)

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Well I missed it too however having veiwed the channel 4 website on tonights programme Immigrant time bomb it would certainly seem biased in some points, mainly in defense of immigratin tho calling politiians and press attitudes to the problem as complete hogwash.
What was the other program you mention from monady and which side did it balance ?

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Balance? Channel 4? Eh????? Asking a bit much there....

Not watching any 'documentaries' is about the only way of getting balance.

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

In all of the above you have managed to *totally* miss the point.

You are much more likely to die in a road accident than from a terrorist attack.

You are much more likely to die in a road accident than in a rail accident.

If you are female you are more likely to die from complications in pregnancy due to *not* taking that type of Pill than from any risk of heart disease.

Yet in *ALL* of the above cases, people's *perceptions* of risks were totally at odds with what the *actual* risks were and they took the *more* dangerous option open to them.

By actually bothering to *think* instead of letting others tell us (especially those in the tabloid media) what our opinions should be.

By *not* simply saying "well the government or some senior Policeman says there's a threat, so we have to give up our basic freedoms in order to be safe"

By actually using our *own* brains for once.

And I'm saying that just because the government says "we need to take away these rights for your own safety" it's not that straightforward either.

If you are asking me to 100% categorically *prove* the above, then, no, of course I can't, nor can I go up to Osama Bin Laden et al and ask their motivations.

But perhaps you can suggest what *other* motivations the terrorists might have, because I have thought a lot about this and cannot see any other reasonable explanation (or even "unreasonable" explanation) for what they are doing.

Their aim cannot simply be to "Kill the infidel". Whatever their beliefs may be, they are not stupid and realise that they will not be able to "wipe out the West" by sheer weight of numbers.

So what can they do? They can attack us or threaten us in ways that make us *react* to what they do.

The aim of the IRA was to try to force the British out of Ireland by terror, intimidation or simply by hoping that people would say "sod them, it's not worth our while, let's leave them to sort it out themselves".

The Muslim terrorists aim is, I believe, primarily to get the West out of the Middle East and related areas so that they can create their idea of an Islamic state. Since they cannot do this by force of arms, they do it by attacking economic or civilian targets.

Their hope is, I think, that we respond in irrational and "knee jerk" ways by passing laws to restrict freedoms with the result that they cause unrest and make life so difficult and repressive for us *here* that we won't have the time or the money to go and interefere in their "back yards".

If we fall for this trap, we give them a victory and the more liberties we give up here, the greater their success.

If we do this, the terrorists *WIN*.

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

No, I didn't miss the point. The point you were trying to make is just one way of looking at the issue - namely the comparative risk involved.
I was showing how each one could be rationalised, which I thought was important since your view is that anyone that doesn't rationalise it your way is wrong.

No - it's your evaluation that such is the case. And since you have decided that the comparative risks are what you say they are, then everyone else's evaluation of those risks must by your definition be wrong.

Just because the risk of shooting myself in russian roulette is less than not shooting myself doesn't mean that playing the game is a good idea.

Based on those statements I take it you consider that only you use your brain and only you are impervious to outside influence.

Since I doubt you did all the research that determined the comparative risks as you describe them I must assume you relied on some other party for that information.

Indeed, any government that tells you it's restricting your personal freedoms for your own good is tyring to act out the 1984 scenario.

But that's not quite how everyone hears it..

OK, so we don't know that they're playing some complex psychological game - they might simply be out to kill us all.
Hence, different people will have a different evaluation of the comparative risks, since they'll probably choose neither of those alternatives.

Here you're asking me for alternative motivations, yet at the same time trying to deduce that "kill the infidel" is inpractical and therefore not a candidate.

Let's look at some alternative motivations. Maybe it is just "kill the infidel" - maybe they are stupid enough to believe they can achieve it. Maybe they believe the person that tells them they can achieve it.

If that person then also uses their religion to colour that belief and next thing we have these people who actually believe that God is helping them to achieve that seemingly impossibe goal.

Beginning to sound a bit like our fanatical extremists, I think.

But I am equally prepared to consider that they envy us for the 'power' that the west has. The fact that we have sex, drugs and rock & roll, and they haven't. In fact, any number of reasons why they are jealous of us.

Or they hate us. For not being Muslims. For being Christians. Because they still hate us for the Crusades. Because we don't believe in Allah like they do. Because we're not monotheistic (the Christians that believe in the trinity, anyway.) For being American. For being richer.

I think there are plenty of other motivations besides a realisation that they can't defeat us physically, and that therefore it has to be psychological.

In fact, I don't even think that any number of terrorists all have the same motivation. It's just that the ultimate goal suits them equally.

That's your conclusion because it suits your argument. It's not in any way the only inevitable conclusion.

No. The IRA were (and maybe still are) committed to driving the Brits out of Ireland. It is true that over the years some people thought that maybe we should just "sod them and leave them to it", but when we started voicing those kind of ideas we just ended up breeding Unionists terrorism - the faction that was going to keep us in there at all cost.
If there was any intimidation by the IRA, it was to try to intimidate the British public into demanding British withdrawal from Ireland from the British government.

They never really succeeded in that.

Yet in the Iraq war that voice spoke up before the terrorists started their campaign. So having already achieved that, what might they be trying to achieve now? If the anti-war message is not enough for them, then they must want more.

We were suffering casualties from the 'insurgents' from very early on after the defeat of Saddam. That wasn't about pushing out the 'west' to make way for an Islamic state. That was about a group wanting to take control in post-Saddam Iraq. It's just that we won't let them. And boy, do they hate that!

It may well be true that they also want to create an Islamic state - probably along the fundamentalist lines, since that's the most attractive to the power hungry.

So you think it is more likely that these people think in terms of a 'domino effect' - instill fear, cause governmental restrictions, generate disaffection - rather than simply 'kill' and dominate?

That wonderful quote, attributed to Sherlock Holmes:

I think you have taken this to mean that the improbable must be true. I suggest we consider those 'impossibilities' first.

That is your conclusion, and you love repeating it, but the statement is no stronger for it's repetition, because it is based on your singular line of reasoning.

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Answer my question first.

Here, I'll repeat it for you again so that you don't have to bother looking it up.

An islamic fundamentalist terrorist is most likely to be:

A) White

B) Black

C) Asian

D) Oriental

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Lets keep this civil ladies...

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Does that mean I'm well balanced??! ;)

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Peversely.... yes :)

Re: Muslims should expect to be stopped....
 

Got it in one.

There is no political agenda, they are not like terrorists we have been used to dealing with, because those other terrorists like ETA/IRA have a political goal and therefore can be negotiated with.

Al-Qaedas goal is to make islam the only religion in the world.

We are all infidels and therefore death to us is the only answer, they cannot bear us sharing the same planet as we are an abomination.