Ok, so time to respond to some of these.
Let me start with the original solution that GrumpyOldDude responded with to my original query
1): How does this work? Short of mind reading, there's no fool proof means of testing immigrants for compatible values. Moreover, let's define compatible values. Whose idea? Yours? Mine? And at what point do we draw a line? Here in the US, we can't even agree on many seemingly basic things (e.g. gay rights). How would we define that now? Let's leave even that aside, as maybe we can find something that everyone can agree on. But what's to stop someone from just spitting out the 'right' answers just to get in?
Now by no means do I believe that we shouldn't look at who we are allowing into the country. I am not against doing sane things like background checks, etc. just so that we can know that we aren't letting in some obvious criminal. That's fair enough. But these sort of things cannot catch everything. There's a point when you just have to realize that there's only so much you can do.
2): Pretty much above.
3): To an extent, already exists. At least here in the US, and I'd imagine, even in Europe. My only commentary here is where do we stop? Once governments are given the power to spy on people, for 'national security', where do we stop? At what point do we say that 'we are safe now'? What's to stop the government from abusing this power by claiming that more threats exist and therefore more is needed to combat the threat? Power, once given, is really difficult to get back.
4): Again, already exists to an extent, and I would again posit the above argument.
5): We've touched on this a bit, but in general, I'd now begin to argue about costs and feasibility. How would doing any of this be doable within costs and time constraints?
6): Police/military on the streets pushing into people's lives? Again, monetary costs, and where does it stop? And I'd guess that Muslim looking people (and note how I say looking) would probably bear the brunt of this entire onslaught? Where does it stop? How far do you want to go? Let's say for a moment that Muslims are your main concern and those are the ones you really want to crack down on (and by the way, I do not at all agree with this). How many totally unrelated people are going to be caught in the crosshairs? Let me give you an example. My own. I am not Muslim. None of my family is. I was born Hindu and am now Agnostic. Yet I am very often mistaken for an Arab man, since my family comes from Punjab, India, where many of us look somewhat Arab to the untrained eye. I'm absolutely frightened at times as is, and I'm not even Muslim. Now extend the logic a bit. Even some non immigrant Europeans can be mistaken for Arab since they have darker tone of skin. And now, imagine if you are Muslim. See where I'm going?
And here's the real kicker, a ton of Muslims would pass as Caucasian to top it off. The Boston Marathon bombings were done by such people.
And where does it stop? How far do you go? You can literally give up every right in the name of safety. You'll be safe from terrorists, sure. But you won't be living in the Western nation you knew and loved. And you'll have a new problem: the government.
Sure, it's extreme. But nothing happens in one day.
Then there's the issue that alienating the group in question, Muslims, does in fact only create more extremism. Extremism does indeed breed more extremism.
7): I won't even get started on Trump. My posting history here on this site makes my views on Trump very clear. And everything I've said so far applies to his 'ideas'. I will state this: that man is the solution to literally nothing.
"The hell you can't. Because we did it. These Muslims are no different than the [Imperial] Japanese. The Japs had their suicide bombers too. And we stopped them. What it takes is the resolve and will to use a level of brutality and violence that your generations can't stomach. And until you can, this shit won't stop. It took us on the beaches with bullets, clearing out caves with flame throwers, and men like LeMay burning down their cities killing people by the tens of thousands. And then it took 2 atom bombs on top of it. But if that was what it took to win we were willing to do it. Until you are willing to do the same...well I hope you enjoy this shit, because it ain't going to stop."
Quote from a WWII veteran overhearing someone say that `You can't bomb an ideology."
It can be done. But current leaders don't have the willpower to do it. People of the "love everyone", "no guns just hugs", and "tolerance above all especially to those who wish to kill us" attitudes don't have the willpower.
People can think that will work all they want. It won't. All these celebrities that preach this, I am waiting for them to go over somewhere in that part of the world and just walk down the street or hold a concert. No, not on a military base or something like that, but really out amongst those people.
All the people that support letting anyone and everyone into their country, why don't they let them come live at their house (or one of many houses for the rich). Why do they lock their doors at night? Why do they live in a gated community or gates around their house?
If you move to another country and want to be part of it then you should assimilate to their culture. You dont need to give up everything you came from, but you cant expect the new country to change its culture to fit you. You are the one that decided to go there. One of the guys that did the Manchester or London attack (forgot which one) has been on documentaries in the UK out in a public park in the UK. Praising ISIS. Demanding Sharia law be imposed immediately in the UK.
And then you have the Mayor of London about a year ago, just saying that terrorist attacks are just part of living in a major city and to get used to it? Really? Really?!?
We, people of Western Civilization, are just too weak-willed and too "OMG I got to be PC" to do anything about it.
I've seen this attitude a lot, and I've offered the same questions and points over and over, with no good response. Let's break this down.
Bombing an ideology can be done? Really? Do tell me how? Comparing the Japanese in WW2 to radicalized Muslims is a piss poor comparison for a number of reasons. The first one: Japan was and still is a nation-state. A very clearly well defined enemy. It's pretty damned easy to bomb a clearly defined enemy into oblivion. There's clear, visible, targets: enemy soldiers, tanks, planes, warships, factories, trains, etc. Here, there's people who are targets, like ISIS. However, the majority of terrorist attacks are committed by citizens, not foreigners. So who's the enemy? Citizens who are Muslim? Not really, since there's a ton of Muslim citizens, and many have been living in these countries for decades. Yea, it's the ideology again, right? But tell me, how do you eradicate an ideology? Ban it? How? Kill people espousing it? Put limits on speech? Where does it stop? As I've mentioned before, how far do we go? Go far enough, and indeed, you will stop this extremism, but you won't recognize the country that you live in. Then there's also the alienation problem I mentioned earlier. And here's one thing I will note in all of this, I am not even talking about racism or other PC labels here, this is simply an argument based on reasoning.
Another point about the Japan thing: people forget the sheer amount of effort put into rebuilding Japan and West Germany after the war. The last time effort was not made to do so was WW1, and look what happened right after. So it is not about 'bombing the enemy into pieces'. As Khatharr has appropriately stated, we've been doing this for years, and it's gotten us literally nowhere.
And can we please stop misquoting the mayor of London? His quote was that he believes that major cities should be prepared for terrorist attacks. Is there anything untrue about this? I do not see him saying to 'get used to terrorism' since it's 'normal'. This is bullshit. And this is also a witch hunt, just like the PC witch hunt that people love railing about.
My final points on this: this is a much more complicated issue than people want to believe. It does not have a simple solution. Let me pose this question to everyone in the thread: why would any sane, rational, human being living a life somewhere want to do something that meant certain brutal death for his or her self? The answer is not as simple as 'ideology'. It is one part of the answer, but there are more aspects to it than that.
EDIT: So I typed up this response while a bunch of people responded. Some more thoughts:
It is worth noting that terrorism gets the attention it does mainly because of how publicized the attacks are. In the US, more people are dying of gun violence than terrorism itself, as @OberonCommand pointed out. That being said, it is a problem worth examining and trying to remedy, but perhaps not in the heavy handed and expensive methods we are already using. A lot of the issue now is that there are massively vested interests involved in this issue. Some are like Trump, a demagogue whose sole purpose is perhaps just to enrich himself. Others are companies like Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors, whose sole goal is to create a threat, by means of lobbying senators and congressman and others, so that they can sell weapons and make profits. There's a ton of others too, including media to generate sales, and filmmakers. Then there's also the foreign policy failures involved, dating all the way back to the Cold War, when some fool thought it'd be a good idea to arm radicalized nut jobs in a then unknown place called Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. One of those guys who was armed was called Osama bin Laden. Maybe you remember him.
cowsarenotevil (that's still an awesome name man, which always fascinates me for some reason) makes another great point too: ISIS does not want to conquer the West, the way many people seem to think/fear. The whole goal is simply to break down Western society and start catastrophic global warfare. They don't really care if they live or not. They just want to divide people up. That's always been terrorism's goal: fear. And that's what we should fear most: fear itself, as FDR famously said. I'd also argue that the other reason a lot of this exists is actually much simpler: resources. Not many people know this, but the reason why the Syrian civil war started in the first place was actually because of a water crisis and poor government management. Ironically enough, this is the reason that a lot of these issues exist. Resources are scarce, and even scarcer in some places in the Middle East.
