Private gun ownership is a fundamental human right. Europeans should have preserved that right

While I support private gun ownership (despite not being a gun-owner myself), everyone calls everything a "fundamental human right", but that's not actually true.

Not even voting is a fundamental right (self-determination does not automatically mean a right to vote). Some nations may make gun ownership or voting a right, but that's a national right, not a 'fundamental human right'.

"Kill everyone preaching violence, and anyone around them!" isn't preaching violence?

This isn't a video game where there are a set number of "Bad guys" and just just have to keep ticking them off a list one by one till you reach the objective. We have been bombing terrorist members for more than a decade now. And yet there are more active supporters now than there were a decade ago...

Your math of violence by means of 'nice safe bombing campaigns' simply doesn't add up.

To encourage our governments to stop Muslim immigration/bomb extremists

Wait! Everyone complains that their governments don't listen to them. Now everyone wants to encourage them to stop Muslim immigration. So which is it? If they don't listen then everyone is just a bunch of fear mongering whiners. If they listened, then this would be a non-issue.

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?

Sadly it is the modern world. More and more are becoming fine with collateral damage and even possible nuclear attack so long as they are safe. Nuke entire city or civilization off the face off the planet? Perfectly fine so long as the rest of the world feels safe. So what if their were families that didn't agree with the extremists? We are all safe now and can get back to first world mythical issues like wage gap and patriarchy. Why stress over poverty or veterans being dropped in the societal dumpster?

Islamists have every right to live in the USA and most of them are good people.

That being said, the main goal of Islam is to overtake the entire world and Islamists are massively colonizing western nations. France has over 20% of births being from Islamic families and the percentage is climbing. France might already be too late to avoid being Islamized. The same is true for Sweden. At current rates of mass immigration and high birthrates of Islamists, Britain and Germany will be nearing the point of no return in 20-30 years. Much of this is generating appeal for people such as Nigel Farage and Donald Trump for eventual national leaders.

Sadly, it should be obvious that the clash of civilizations of Islam and The West will only get worse - until Jesus Christ establishes his worldwide kingdom ( who knows how long that will be ^_^ ).

Islamists and Muslims are two different things unlike your claim of politically correctness. Islamist is the one pursuing political agenda and especially nowadays stemming from near ancient canonical law while Muslim is simply the one practicing (or not practicing) Islamic faith.

And for colonization, Syrians refugees in Turkey (of 3 million) has same birthrate of Greece (of 12 million) , should we assume that they try to colonize a 99% Muslim country? High birthrate is a common pattern in underdeveloped and developing countries (historically witnessed to drop in corelation with development) , other than that social security measures of Europeans also "encourage" this pattern.

Immigration of Muslims are something (which is not a big deal as long as they integrate somehow) , blindly immigrating Islamists are another one which Europeans have master degree especially before they have been hit.

Paris attacks were complete terrorist acts because they lack apparent motive and a specific target therefore death out of nowhere but US ones are more understandable ( even leading to fostering of an unseen for a very long while rise of a state ) , this is why there is a support for American targets. Even Al Qaeda considers ISIS as extremists, you can't explain situation as ISIS view is a common or widely supported one.

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And it's just lovely that the country reinventing term "collateral damage" (of people) is said to be innocent in civilian casualties during Iraqi war (unlike aliens killing over 1 million Iraqi during that term)

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.

See that's the point that a lot of people are missing. They want us to be so afraid that we completely forget what we believe in and start going absolutely nuts in the name of security and safety.

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", as an excuse to dismiss it.

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.

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.

See the problem is definitely our approach. I agree here that we do have a problem, that is that there are certain people who want to hurt people living in the West. The real issue is that we've started demonizing an entire faith/set of people and are advocating things that simply won't work.

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.

See now here's the real crux of the debate here. There are definitely some people here who believe we are at war. The enemy is possibly Islam for some people here. Thing is, the sort of war people are proposing cannot be successfully fought and won. I don't know how people thing that aggressive bombing campaigns will stop terrorism, because it won't. It'll create more terrorists, and the problem never ends. Do airstrikes have their place? Certainly, against certain types of targets. Will there be casualties? Obviously, that's how military operations work. But if we are dropping bombs indiscriminately and achieving very little, then obviously that doesn't work either. Are we fighting an enemy? Yes, namely elements that are using Islam as an ends to gain power. Use of military force is necessary, but it's not the solution, especially when we are just creating more enemies from it. The best solution? Use military force as a preventive means for credible threats and to not go overboard doing so. Black operations, special forces, as a preventive means can work. Their is no solution that guarantees you no terrorists and no terrorist attacks, short of nuking all Muslim nations, which is genocide, which I think we can agree on is wrong.

The Trump issue? I'm not going to derail this thread, but one can easily argue that some of his constituents, who are known to be KKK, neo Nazis, and other white nationalist groups that Trump has had significant difficulty in condemning can also demand anti-Western things in elections, just like the way you find fault with the Muslim mayor's constituents. We can argue about what he's said himself as well, but let's not go there, because we'd derail this thread once again.

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.

Integration? You mean assimilation. More times than not, forced.

gun stuff

I've already said I don't want to derail this with a discussion of gun violence. It was an example of a much bigger problem that the USA continues to ignore in favour of the "war on terror".

But you seem to be saying we can't talk about Islamic extremism, because we haven't taken action enough of gun violence.

Where did I say that? You can talk about it all you want. You're confusing criticism and comment with censorship.

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.

No, the amount of talk and action taken on Islamic extremism far outweighs the actual problem.

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).

Agreed.

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.

Don't forget Afghanistan, 'cos you had bugger all justification invading there either.

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?

Look at the top of your browser. You'll see the tab you're currently reading says "Islamaphobia in the United States".
So it's actually you who's switching to Islamic extremism worldwide.

But no, I am not attempting to avoid discussing that.

Yes, ISIS having their own state is a problem, much more so than any amount of terror attacks.
As to what to do about it, I really don't know, but I very much doubt the answer will be military action.

And let's not forget why ISIS exists in the first place.

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?

Not at all. But don't you think your country would be better off addressing these problems instead of pouring billions of dollars into this increasingly unproductive war?

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.

The problem is simply not that big in the grand scheme of things. This might sound callous, but a few hundred people killed in terror attacks (while undoubtedly tragic for those involved) is small potatoes compared to the other problems the world faces.
We are staring down the barrel of catastrophic climate change, overpopulation, hunger, and god knows what else.

Imagine if the money spent on the "war on terror" had instead been put into renewable energy research, eliminating poverty, new food technology.

You know I'm not a fan of religion, but Christ had the right idea about turning the other cheek, and the OT concept of "swords into ploughshares" is needed now more than ever.

I believe the vast majority of Islamic extremists aren't evil, they're just poor and hungry and manipulated by fanatics.

Maybe instead of spending billions to kill brown people

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

Oh, it's totally race motivated. As I've said before, if the UK had drones in the 80s, do you think for one second that killing white Irish people to get to IRA terrorists would be accepted as easily as murdering Pakistanis?
Don't kid yourself.

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.

I never said let's not do anything. I said action should be proportional to the threat.

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)?

ok, here goes.
Islamic extremism (like almost all terror campaigns) is ultimately born out of other issues. Islam is the tool used to manipulate people into committing heinous acts, but the root causes are legitimate grievances that go back decades (globalisation, exploitation, political interference in the middles east). Ultimately, Islamic terrorism (outside of their power bases) is not nearly as much of a problem as it's made out to be by politicians and the media and certainly not worth the vast resources we are squandering on it when there are bigger issues, nor is it worth the wholesale violations of civil liberties in the name of "security".

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).

Agreed.

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.

Once again, we can discuss it all you want (I kinda thought that's what we were doing).

But the point of this topic is "Islamaphobia", and the question was:

In light of the politics we've seen this year in the US, it seems a little unnerving. Is Islamaphobia an increasing problem?

to which my answer is "yes, Islamaphobia is definitely a problem". When you have the presidential nominee for one of the two major parties of the world's most powerful military talking about banning Muslims..... that's a fucking problem.

And Trump scares me far more than ISIS.

Rome was polytheistic and noted as one of the greatest empires of all time because of their unity as a "roman", they were proud of the state, not a specific religion(there's your nationalism/patriotism), not over a god. They expanded for tangible goods and land, not to impose a religion of "one true god". In fact one of the attributed down falls of the Roman empire was the adoption of Christianity, which literally split the empire in two.(but that is altogether a different story, but shows the impact of religion on a culture).

This is the narrative that Gibson suggested, and it's laughably flawed by today's standards.

Entire armies would refuse to do battle until the Sacred Chickens had been consulted and reported back favorably. (I'm not making this up, a priest would feed chickens a corn cake, and if the chickens ate it, the gods were pleased). If grown men would refuse to do battle on what a chicken said to them, I find that as religious or more religious than most examples of Christianity. (Again, let me repeat, they would ignore state and civil duties because a chicken refused to eat cake)

The Eastern and Western Empires were two different beasts, and that conclusion is evidenced by how the Romans themselves split it between two Emperors. Gibson's thesis conveniently ignores that the Eastern Empire lasted until the late 1400's, and was equally Christian as the Western Empire. Again, Gibson portrays the Eastern Empire as a thousand years of decline, but come on. There's no decline that lasts a thousand years.

If you are not an Islamist, then trust me: You do not want to live in a predominately Islamic nation. Chances are that it would be a living hell for you.

We can no longer pretend that the lie which President Hussein Obama said is true: "Islam is a religion of peace."

What religion of peace commands its followers to kill those who leave it? What religion of peace has a verse in its holy scriptures which says, "Kill all Jews and Christians wherever you find them." ? What religion of peace treats non-Islamists as less than second class? What religion of peace commands its followers to kill all who criticize it?

There exists a large portion of people in this discussion who apparently feel that all cultures should be accepted regardless of their beliefs, except for the American culture? That it is a condemnable act to have foreign immigrants assimilate to American culture, that Americans are somehow sadist when we want outsiders to come into our country and become an American.... If you migrate to this country, you are an American, not a Muslim, not a Mexican, not some form of European, you are an American. And this fact is what makes America such a pragmatic world leader, but people have some how forgotten this.

If somebody, or a group of somebodies, threatens what it means to be American, we as the American citizen suddenly don't have the right to defend our culture and who we are, because that makes us bigots? Try getting Islam to inherit American values, go preach Old Glory in the middle east and see how quickly you get thrown into the pyre. They would not hesitate to lay claim to your life.

The fact stands, Islam is not a religion of peace. It may be interoperated and practiced peacefully by a minority here in the United States, but go live a day in the middle east and see how you feel afterwards. Islam is the most exclusive religion, culture, way of life, that has ever existed and that is not what America is. And it is rather irritating to see these sarcastic retorts of "So it is ok to just kill everyone?" in terms of America defending itself from the Islamic culture invading the US.

Where is your national pride? Where is your pride as an American? Guess what, the world has a lot of evil in it, not all Muslims or practitioners of Islam are evil, but we don't want anything to do with it. And by we I mean the majority, because the majority will always have the say.

Ill wait for whatever arguments you all produce twisting everything I said into some form of hate speech.