White Supremecists Slay 49 in NZ Mosques

[Dill]

(03-15-2019, 05:46 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote:  My biggest problem when it comes to comparing white supremacists to Islamic extremists is that it forgets one very important factor. Pretty much anyone can be an Islamic extremist if they follow the faith. 
Only white people can really be white supremacists.

My point being, the two aren't really all that comparable in terms of the problems they create.

Quote:LOL bit of a non sequitur there. 
Or how are you measuring "problems"?

Care to elaborate on the claim that what I said is a non sequitur?

Sure.  Your conclusion is about "problems they create," which in this case, I'm assuming, would be terrorist murder.  Does that accurately represent your point? Or did you have other problems in mind?

Mass shooting of people in a night club in one event, and in  a mosque in another, are not comparable as terrorist acts if one was done because some crazy guy was fired from his job and his girlfriend left him, and the other was perpetrated because of who the victims were and what they represented--and with the intent to terrorize all members of that group. 

But if people in one Synagogue are killed by a white supremacist because they are Jews and people in another synagogue are killed by an Islamist because they are Jews, then I would say the acts certainly are comparable as terrorist acts. And the perps are comparable as actors--especially if their goals form mirror images of one another. They would legally be tried under the same statutes in the U.S.--at least until there is one distinct set of statutes for White Supremecists and another set for Muslims.

The premise to your conclusion is a kind of tautology--only Muslims can become Islamic extremists.  If I am a Baptist, I cannot be a Muslim extremist.   Followed by a second tautology--only white people can be white supremacists. "White" can be a fuzzy category, but even if you have a clear idea of what you mean, neither tautology implies that terrorist acts are not comparable because only a "white person" can do one kind and only a Muslim can do another. Race and religion are not built into any current definition I can think of. Your tautologies don't shed light on the situation any more than any other claim true by definition, e.g., that only terrorists commit terrorists acts. They don't make things "incomparable" which are already subject to general definition.

So, so long as there is a general legal/political definition of terrorism not based upon ethnicity or religion, then the acts will be comparable. It cannot follow then that such acts are incomparable if perpetrated by a racially motivated group in one instance and a religiously motivated in another.