Off Topic Politics Thread

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I was a kid so Daisy Duke wasn't quite as appealing to me. For me it was more about the bright orange car that was driven fast and used to jump over stuff.
 
Whiteley Saint said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39387550

I have no idea which is best but I can't help smiling that Trumps healthcare vote has been withdrawn and Obama care lives to see another day. Not enough support apparently. :)
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Yay.! Even Republicans realise that Obamacare has something going for it. Plus the fact that several millions of people would suddenly be deprived of decent healthcare. The backlash from that wouldn't be healthy.

EDIT: Just looked at the video. When Trump doesn't speak, he sounds reasonable. <laugh>
 
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Schad said:
It's undoubtedly more of a challenge from a logistical standpoint, because most of these idiots aren't part of some shadowy, worldwide group no matter what ISIS suggests...they're just angry people who found something that tells them they are right to be angry, and tells them that their anger can be used for violence in service of a greater cause, often with no direct connection between the radicalizing force and the individual. That's hard to track, and harder to prosecute.

That's extremely difficult to handle, but it's not an Islam problem. It happens to be the exact same model followed by modern white supremacists, as an example; they are more likely to meet openly, but self-radicalization via the internet has become the biggest recruiting tool for that community of ****s, too. Dylann Roof, who shot up a black church, had his general anger focused by reading white supremacist material online. Alexandre Bissonnette, who shot up a Quebec City mosque, was timid and bullied in life but found power as a far right troll online, and eventually stepped up to mass murder.

There's your problem: angry (usually, but not always) young men, not religion or creed or race. Disaffected and believing that the world has wronged them, generally narrowing that down to a self-selected cause and target for their violence Westerners, in the case of the Islamic State wannabees. Black people or Muslims, in the above two cases. Women who won't sleep with him, in the case of Elliott Rodger in California, or feminists (who won't sleep with him) a generation earlier with Marc Levine in Montreal. Classmates who didn't afford them the respect they believed due, in countless numbers of school shootings. Their stated causes may have differed, but the root cause was generally the same.

Which isn't to say that all attacks fall into that category...many of the larger-scale, more organized attacks do have political aims, as the IRA did before them.
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Agree with most of this. Each case will of course have its own particular causes but the other interesting thing about many of these attackers (I've read today that this includes Masood) is that they're regular drug users. Whether it be the likes of Anders Breivik and Raoul Moat taking steroids or the many others who regularly took other drugs. There seems to be some evidence that there's a link between cannabis use and psychosis (although exactly what the link is has yet to be fully established) so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that regular drug use plays a role here.
 
Puck said:
Agree with most of this. Each case will of course have its own particular causes but the other interesting thing about many of these attackers (I've read today that this includes Masood) is that they're regular drug users. Whether it be the likes of Anders Breivik and Raoul Moat taking steroids or the many others who regularly took other drugs. There seems to be some evidence that there's a link between cannabis use and psychosis (although exactly what the link is has yet to be fully established) so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that regular drug use plays a role here.
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There might be a link, but correlation is not causation. I'd say the more likely cause for the link is the fact that drug use is a common means by which people escape or numb realities that they find difficult to confront head-on. Similarly, committing violence in the fight against [insert cause here] seems to be a means by which extremely broken people escape their realities and personal failings by focusing their rage outward and casting themselves as a hero and/or martyr for that cause.

Taking that a step further, I'd argue that the common thread for most is feelings of emasculation. I mean, you don't exactly need to summon the ghost of Freud to see it at play with a guy like Breivik, who took steroids, cared greatly about appearing strong, and wrote screeds against feminists. Or the aforementioned dipshits who hated women. But I don't think that it's coincidental that most (though again, not all) of these dipshits are men, and generally young; violence becomes a tool of assertion for people who lack the capacity to actually assert themselves, a way to show the world just how powerful you really were and how much you really mattered despite its previous indifference.
 
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Schad said:
There might be a link, but correlation is not causation. I'd say the more likely cause for the link is the fact that drug use is a common means by which people escape or numb realities that they find difficult to confront head-on. Similarly, committing violence in the fight against [insert cause here] seems to be a means by which extremely broken people escape their realities and personal failings by focusing their rage outward and casting themselves as a hero and/or martyr for that cause.

Taking that a step further, I'd argue that the common thread for most is feelings of emasculation. I mean, you don't exactly need to summon the ghost of Freud to see it at play with a guy like Breivik, who took steroids, cared greatly about appearing strong, and wrote screeds against feminists. Or the aforementioned dipshits who hated women. But I don't think that it's coincidental that most (though again, not all) of these dipshits are men, and generally young; violence becomes a tool of assertion for people who lack the capacity to actually assert themselves, a way to show the world just how powerful you really were and how much you really mattered despite its previous indifference.
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I didn't suggest that drugs are the sole cause, I simply pointed out that most of these attacks are carried out by habitual drug users. Masood used drugs, the San Bernardino killers were drug users, Breivik and Moat were steroid users as was Omar Mateen (the Orlando killer), at least one of Lee Rigby's killers was not just a drug user but also a dealer, the Berlin attacker was a frequent drug user who may have been high during the attack, the Leytonstone "You ain't no muslim bruv" attacker was a schizophrenic and a forensic psychiatrist told the Court that convicted him that his cannabis use had affected his paranoia, the Tunisia beach attacker was high on cocaine during the attack, the Charlie Hebdo attackers were drug users, as were some of the Bataclan attackers. I'm sure there are more examples. There may not be anything more to it than coincidence but it's hardly a stretch to suggest taking steroids (known to cause increased aggression, mood swings etc in some users) or other drugs that are taken specifically because they alter the way your mind works (and that in the case of cannabis seem to have some, as yet undefined, link to mental illness) might have some connection to these attacks. It's something that should probably be investigated.

I'm really not that interested in the fact it's usually men doing these things. Any brief look at crime statistics will tell you that men are much more likely to commit violent crimes than women so that's hardly surprising. Emasculation (or lack of "success" in life) may well be significant in some cases but I think that - or general alienation from society - is more likely to be a necessary precondition rather than a cause in and of itself. It may make someone more vulnerable to manipulation by others and so on. I witnessed a few angry outbursts for that sort of reason myself while I was at university (although on a much smaller, non-violent scale).
 
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I don't think that we actually disagree that significantly. Mental illness, drug use, general alienation, etc...they're all ultimately indicators of individual problems, which can end up being directed outward and which can affect whole nations. Individuals who feel like some force has been holding them back that decide to fight against it. What they are not, generally, is politically important; they're reminders that it is remarkably easy for an individual, when sufficiently able to shed their inhibitions (and will to live), to do incredibly destructive things.

That makes it harder to deal with, but not an existential issue; you can crush any of the particular ideologies they claim to subscribe to, but the problem remains. Yet, ultimately, the problem is one that needs to be addressed on an individual level, not a societal one; you aren't going to stop violent assholes by winning a battle. You're rarely going to stop them with a bunch of security checks or surveillance. But you can limit the damage through restrictions on weaponry and try to defuse the sources that convince them that killing in the name of that cause is not to anyone's benefit. It's not a complete solution, but there are no complete solutions.
 
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Happy Birthday EU!! 60 years today!! Look at it. No borders between the member countries so let's cherish the free movement of people, goods, services and money throughout. It is sad that some national Governments try to restrict this very human right. The EU has kept the peace in Europe after it tore itself apart in the first 45 years of the last century.
 
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The Ides of March said:
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Happy Birthday EU!! 60 years today!! Look at it. No borders between the members countries so let'scherish the free movement of people, goods, services and money throughout. It is sad that some national Governments try to restrict this very human right. The EU has kept the peace in Europe after it tore itself apart in the first 45 years of the last century.
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Begun with the European Coal and Steel Community just short of 66 years ago. Where the European project has succeeded, it has been in the efforts when the benefit to its constituents have been clear. It's a shame that it likely won't include the UK, but hopefully that setback reminds the powers of the EU why they had member buy-in in the first place.
 
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Schad said:
I don't think that we actually disagree that significantly. Mental illness, drug use, general alienation, etc...they're all ultimately indicators of individual problems, which can end up being directed outward and which can affect whole nations. Individuals who feel like some force has been holding them back that decide to fight against it. What they are not, generally, is politically important; they're reminders that it is remarkably easy for an individual, when sufficiently able to shed their inhibitions (and will to live), to do incredibly destructive things.

That makes it harder to deal with, but not an existential issue; you can crush any of the particular ideologies they claim to subscribe to, but the problem remains. Yet, ultimately, the problem is one that needs to be addressed on an individual level, not a societal one; you aren't going to stop violent assholes by winning a battle. You're rarely going to stop them with a bunch of security checks or surveillance. But you can limit the damage through restrictions on weaponry and try to defuse the sources that convince them that killing in the name of that cause is not to anyone's benefit. It's not a complete solution, but there are no complete solutions.
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Didn't DT say he was going to wipe IS from the face of the Earth? How, he has yet to reveal? As we all know it is rhetoric to appear strong in the eyes of his followers. Or is he on the same substances as these mass killers if he begins to unleash the might of US weaponry against countries that "harbour" IS? Hey, that includes us!!
 
The Ides of March said:
Didn't DT say he was going to wipe IS from the face of the Earth? How, he has yet to reveal? As we all know it is rhetoric to appear strong in the eyes of his followers. Or is he on the same substances as these mass killers if he begins to unleash the might of US weaponry against countries that "harbour" IS? Hey, that includes us!!
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IS as a "State" is coming towards the end of its days. The area it controls is shrinking rapidly and its leadership has been decimated. Abroad it has been restricted to a few "kill a handful of people with a vehicle" attacks (though the effect can still be many deaths). The Belgian and French component has been degraded massively according to European police sources (source: Economist).

I suspect it'll fade down to the kind of obscurity currently enjoyed by Al-Quaeda. There'll be other groups but their abilities will decline over time. One of the sources of this decline is the willingness of the USA to kill terrorists and suspected terrorists using drone strikes across the world (aka extra-judicial execution). They are slowly decapitating these organisations. Whether you agree with the method or not, it's certainly having an effect.

What matters for the future is whether the rump of the organisations can still motivate people unconnected with them to carry out attacks. Another relevant point is whether people will carry on without the motivation from abroad. Who knows? I predict a decline but then I'm an optimist.

Vin
 
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