Islam is NOT a race. Let's be clear about that. It is a predatory and invasive civilization.

Do you know any followers of Islamic faith? Have you been invited over to dinner at their homes? Do you engage in conversation with any as a friend and equal? Because it is a religion, not a civilization, practiced in a wide range of forms, and is in no way remotely unified.

I've been asked once by a Muslim friend if I was interested in converting, and she hasn't asked me again since I said that I wasn't.

So, "predatory and invasive civilization" describing the whole of Islam is simply unfounded and just wrong.

It's not about what the Mayor wants to impliment, it's about what his constituants want to impliment, and what they'll be more emboldened to push for next election cycle.

Who mentioned anything about racism, and why do you think Muslism are all brown?

Sure, not every Muslim is brown, but the point still stands. The us vs them ideology isn't gonna work either. And I really doubt anyone's gonna implement Sharia law in England. You have a problem with what a Muslim mayor might mean for England, so we clearly shouldn't elect any non-Christians as per your beliefs. Isn't that contrary to Western values? I thought we all believed in merit here, not discrimination then merit. I'm pretty sure that's what Western values mean.

Sure we can have a problem with a Muslim guy becoming mayor, but not problem with Trump running for president, who also clear anti-Western values. There's a clear double standard there.

Islam is NOT a race. Let's be clear about that. It is a predatory and invasive civilization.

It's not about what the Mayor wants to impliment, it's about what his constituants want to impliment, and what they'll be more emboldened to push for next election cycle.

Exactly ! Why do westerners want to massively import a system of ideology with so many values opposed to freedom, democracy, and other western values?

It should be obvious that The Far Left is a political ally of Islam. Ironically, Islam severely persecutes non-Muslims, gays, women, and dissenters. Why the Left would ally with their natural enemy is beyond me.

So what do you want to do? Nuke every country with Muslims in it? Kill the ones already in the West? What do you want to ban after that then? Anything that doesn't originate from the West, because it's not "Western" enough? That's basically what your nativist philosophy is going towards. It's this train of thought of destroy the enemy, whatever the cost, that lead to creation of jihadis in Afghanistan, when we replaced Muslims with Soviets/Communism as our enemy. You destroy this "enemy" from whatever means necessary and you'll create two more.

How every single Muslim is predatory and invasive is something that escapes my understanding. We can apply this sort of blanket stereotyping to nearly any group out there. Someone mentioned earlier that we could say the same about gamers, because that one mass shooter at Sandy Hook was a huge gamer.

I've been asked once by a Muslim friend if I was interested in converting, and she hasn't asked me again since I said that I wasn't.

But if she was in front of a convenience store with pamphlet in hand, then she'd be trying to save your soul and force a rebirth every time she saw you.

A thread about Islamaphobia that seems to show who has the fear due to all the links and stats given to promote more Islamaphobia. Why? To what end? Have a fear of them? Join the military. Trying to build more fear serves no purpose. Fear makes you change your life and the way you interact with people physically. I speak from experience on this. An event in my childhood change the way I interacted with a certain group of people for a few years, but it didn't change my life as I stayed to my routine. Terrorism is designed to make people fear; seeing people spreading things to build fear just shows terrorists are winning. People are canceling trips within the US due to fear. Americans are starting to distrust everyone and stay close to home out of fear. Looking at what some are saying here makes it clear the terrorists have already won with some here.

The us vs them ideology isn't gonna work either.

But when you have mid-double digit support in majority Muslim countries for attacks on civilians in the USA, it is what it is, right?

You have a problem with what a Muslim mayor might mean for England, so we clearly shouldn't elect any non-Christians as per your beliefs. Isn't that contrary to Western values? I thought we all believed in merit here, not discrimination then merit. I'm pretty sure that's what Western values mean.

Personally I'm agnostic, but I wouldn't have an issue with Christians winning because modern Christianity is far less toxic than modern Islam.

The problem with Islam is that it's very insular, and they never seem to integrate with the host countries they move to. The Western ideal of inclusion relies on the concept of integration. With Muslim populations it has failed, and it either needs an alternative or we need to restrict their immigration wherever possible.

How exactly is Trump anti-Western values?

So what do you want to do? Nuke every country with Muslims in it? Kill the ones already in the West? What do you want to ban after that then? Anything that doesn't originate from the West, because it's not "Western" enough? That's basically what your nativist philosophy is going towards. It's this train of thought of destroy the enemy, whatever the cost, that lead to creation of jihadis in Afghanistan, when we replaced Muslims with Soviets/Communism as our enemy. You destroy this "enemy" from whatever means necessary and you'll create two more.

Slippery slope What we need to do is destroy Wahabbi Sunni groups whever they are completely, as well as remove clerics who preach hate regardless of their heirarchy. Yes, this includes many elements in countries typically viewd as our ally, for example Saudi Arabia. Once that's done, it's just a matter of preventing any radical clerics from coming into power.

How every single Muslim is predatory and invasive is something that escapes my

It's about tolerance. Even if the majority of Muslims are not predatory, the ones who are enjoy double digit support from "moderate" Muslims. This breeds a toxic environment that drives people to become radicalized.

Why? To what end? Have a fear of them?

To encourage our governments to stop Muslim immigration/bomb extremists. It's not that I'm scared of getting attacked by a Muslim terrorist, the odds of that are extremely low. But we should make our goal to remove those elements from the world, which is something only political-backed action can accomplish. As I said before, it's not even really the biggest issue (Well, unless you live next to a migrant camp in Europe maybe) facing the world geopolitically.

But of course. And we all know that bombing extremists works oh so well for combating terrorism....

Nothing says "We're a loving and peaceful modern nation, and you should love us too!" like blowing up someone's home.

I'm sure everyone in the USA just agree that it was "Worth the cost" if dozens of innocent neighbours were killed if the home of some general who authorized bombing targets to take out terrorist leaders was bombed in retaliation for the civilian deaths.

That's how things work in the modern world, right?

But of course. And we all know that bombing extremists works oh so well for combating terrorism....

Nothing says "We're a loving and peaceful modern nation, and you should love us too!" like blowing up someone's home.

I'm sure everyone in the USA just agree that it was "Worth the cost" if dozens of innocent neighbours were killed if the home of some general who authorized bombing targets to take out terrorist leaders was bombed in retaliation for the civilian deaths.

That's how things work in the modern world, right?

Attacking viable targets regardless of casualties has only been done by Russia, and it's had great effect at harming ISIS (see the video I posted of Russia cluster bombing ISIS positions despite them being around a hospital in this thread).

We specifically try not to target Mosques/Clerics, when those are the critical targets we need to attack to begin breaking down the infrastructure Wahabbi Sunni extremists use for recruiting.

Meanwhile, no one has done a goddamn thing to prevent gun violence

Uh, we do alot to prevent gun violence in the executive branch of the government - but one of the problems preventing reasonable legislation is the "all or nothing" extremity of polarized politics in the USA. The average Republican leader is afraid that if they give the Democrats an inch, they'd take a mile.
The average Democrat leader really does want to ask for an inch today, so they can take a mile tomorrow. And then the NRA spends buttloads of money, funded by the people who profit from gun sales, to prevent any legislation, reasonable or not.
And all the people in the middle who wants to take reasonable steps, don't have the support to do anything.

The only way you can say, "no one has done a thing", is if you redefine "a thing" to mean legislate federal laws, and ignore state and local laws, and federal, state, and local, executive action. Again, redefining words to mean what you want.

Yes, the problem hasn't been solved, yes we haven't done near enough because of polarized politics. But alot has been done, and alot is being discussed.

And that discussion is especially interesting, because this thread is about discussion of Islamic extremism. In the USA, we've talked about gun violence more than we've talked about Islamic extremism. But you seem to be saying we can't talk about Islamic extremism, because we haven't taken action enough of gun violence. You're drawing comparisons between things that only make sense if you pick and choose what you think matters, and dismiss the parts that don't support your arguments.

You'd make a much more interesting point if you said, "Relative to the amount of talk of Islamic extremism, we've taken an inordinate amount of action at the federal level, but relative to the amount of talk on gun violence, we've taken relatively little action at the federal level."

But you didn't say that. Instead you compared Islamic extremism action to gun violence talk, which doesn't seem like a reasonable comparison to me.

But the reason why there has been excessive (and irrational (and irresponsible (and ill-thought-out))) action on Islamic extremism is because multi-billion dollar corporations profit from it.
And the reason why there has been so little action on gun violence (at the federal level) is because multi-billion dollar corporations would stand to lose money from it (and those two groups of corporations actually partially overlap: some of those gun manufacturers sell them to the USA army).

If you take the money and politics out of the picture, then it'd be easy to take reasonable action against Islamic extremism and gun violence. In fact, reasonable steps taken on the latter would help reduce casualties in domestic occurrences of the former, and reasonable restrictions on USA gun sales abroad would *maybe* help reduce the amount of guns in Middle-eastern countries in-general (unless they start making their own, or if Russia doesn't reduce selling as well).

The point is that America has done far more harm to the rest of the world (in the name of the "war on terror") than Islamic terror has done to it.

By "the rest of the world", you mean "the nations we invaded" - and we all agree invading Iraq was stupid and the USA had no justification for it.

Hell, the war on terror has had a greater cost to American lives than 9/11.

Well, yea, a military ground invasion into a foreign country is going to have more casualties than a one-time terrorist attack.

I'm not saying Islamic terror isn't a problem, I'm saying that it's nowhere near the problem it's made out to be.

So we're switching from Islamic extremism worldwide (including in their power-bases), to Islamic terrorist attacks on USA soil. Is that an effort to dismiss the problem as a whole?

Meanwhile, your country's infrastructure is slowly starting to rival that of the third world with water problems, a crumbling highway system.... oh and nuclear weapons that are controlled via technology that was outdated in the 90s

Certainly - our country is crumbling fast into the dustbins of history.

Does that mean, as an individual, I can't consider the problems of Islamic extremism, or that Islamic extremism doesn't exist?

Maybe instead of spending billions to kill [...] people in far off countries,

I definitely disagree with our approach.
I'm just not dismissing the problem, because the USA has taken the wrong approach to addressing it.

Just as I think it's a violation of free will for Muslims to kill people who try to leave their faith, I also don't think it's a smart idea for the USA to parachute in and topple governments bringing mass instability to entire nations.

Maybe instead of spending billions to kill brown people

Now you are switching to "It's race-motivated".

So we have:
- A) There's bigger issues, so let's not do anything.
- B) It's racist, so let's not do anything.
- C) It's costing the USA too much (in lives and money), so let's not do anything.
- D) The USA has taken the wrong approach, so let's not do anything.
- E) The USA is crumbling, so let's not do anything.

It seems like you are introducing alot of additional issues, in an effort to dismiss the discussion as a whole.
Perhaps that's just me misunderstanding you - what precisely is your point? That going to war, toppling nations, scattering millions of people, to hunt down the mere tens of thousands that are explicitly extremists, is a bad idea?
If so, yea, I think almost everyone here already agrees with that - and has for years. If not, what is the point you are trying to make? I'm missing the conclusion, and perhaps improperly inferring a wrong conclusion from what you are saying.

Can you sum up your view of Islamic extremism in a single paragraph? Is it, "ignore them overseas, and just focus on defending your borders and prospering your people" (a valid tactic)?

Maybe instead of [...] giving ISIS more recruitment material, you could build a few more schools or hospitals at home.

The war effort is pushed by multi-billion corporations who profit from the trillions of dollars of USA military spending.

That means we have at least two problems: Undue influence of money in military decisions, and Islamic extremism (and about 50 other unrelated problems in the USA).

The introduction of additional problems does not make the first problem go away. It doesn't make Islamic extremism not a ""real problem"", and doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss it.

But of course. And we all know that bombing extremists works oh so well for combating terrorism....

Nothing says "We're a loving and peaceful modern nation, and you should love us too!" like blowing up someone's home.

I'm sure everyone in the USA just agree that it was "Worth the cost" if dozens of innocent neighbours were killed if the home of some general who authorized bombing targets to take out terrorist leaders was bombed in retaliation for the civilian deaths.

That's how things work in the modern world, right?

Attacking viable targets regardless of casualties has only been done by Russia, and it's had great effect at harming ISIS (see the video I posted of Russia cluster bombing ISIS positions despite them being around a hospital in this thread).

We specifically try not to target Mosques/Clerics, when those are the critical targets we need to attack to begin breaking down the infrastructure Wahabbi Sunni extremists use for recruiting.

Who exactly is "We" in your context? I haven't been following nationalities too closely. But no air bombing campaign in the middle east has been without issue. Russian missions have been more aggressive and potentially have a higher non-combantant to valid target ratio than US and Friends missions, but I don't have solid numbers from the last year or so to reliably comment on.

Don't forget that the great bastion of Freedom that is the US armed forces has dropped bombs on "Scary hostile targets" such as weddings with small arms fire, and even a troop of Canadian forces out on a training mission. That is besides the bombing of one actual terrorist, his wife, his kids, his brother in law, his neighbours, etc.

Bombing campaigns aren't going to stop terrorism, and anyone who thinks that dropping high explosives from a jet aircraft will help makes things better at this point IS a terrorist.

Who exactly is "We" in your context? I haven't been following nationalities too closely. Butno air bombing campaign in the middle east has been without issue. Russian missions have been more aggressive and potentially have a higher non-combantant to valid target ratio than US and Friends missions, but I don't have solid numbers from the last year or so to reliably comment on.

By "We" I meant specifically the USA. Our Rule Of Engagement make us strictly avoid damaging religious non-combatants who support the enemy. This includes Hostile Mosques/Hostile Clerics.

Don't forget that the great bastion of Freedom that is the US armed forces has dropped bombs on "Scary hostile targets" such as weddings with small arms fire, and even a troop of Canadian forces out on a training mission. That is besides the bombing of one actual terrorist, his wife, his kids, his brother in law, his neighbours, etc.

Most of those are accidents, however, a terrorist surrounded by his family is a valid target, as it prevents the use of human shields as a valid tactic.

Otherwise you get situations like this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2753176/Hamas-DID-use-schools-hospitals-Gaza-Strip-human-shields-launch-rocket-attacks-Israel-admits-says-mistake.html

Bombing campaigns aren't going to stop terrorism, and anyone who thinks that dropping high explosives from a jet aircraft will help makes things better at this point IS a terrorist.

I don't agree with that, simply because there's a limited number of potential fighters, and an even more limited number of critical targets. A good place to start would be bombing any cleric that calls a violet fatwa. The thing is, politically this is impossible because many of them live in Saudi Arabia/Iran.