03-18-2019, 10:26 PM
(03-18-2019, 05:22 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: I think you're misunderstanding what I am saying here.
I'm saying that white supremacy and Islamic extremism aren't really all that comparable because they do not currently create the same problems in a way that represents how dangerous one actually is as opposed to the other in today's world. I'm not denying that you can compare a white supremacist terrorist attack to an Islamic extremist terror attack and draw some similarities from the two attacks. I'm saying that when looking deeper into the complexity of the issue and going beyond the surface questions of "Who killed what people and why" the two really don't stand up well to comparison in today's world.
Even if you just look at it from the standpoint of terrorist murder, I believe the argument still stands because the influential factor plays a big role in these murders. The probability that someone will act out in the ideology of Islamic extremism is significantly higher than someone acting out within the ideology of white supremacy. This is why I brought up the fact that "Only whites can be white supremacists but anyone can be an Islamic extremist" because more people can be and have been influenced by Islamic extremism than people have been influenced by white supremacy in recent times because more people are proportionately able to be influenced by Islamic extremism, including whites. Islam isn't exclusive to Arabs, whereas white supremacy for the most part is exclusive to whites only, thus creating an advantage for Islamic extremism to be the more dangerous of the two.
This is one of those "problems" I was talking about, and why comparing the two as if they’re on a similar path is silly.
The idea of white supremacy being "on the rise" is laughable in comparison to the continuous flow and rise of Islamic extremism. If you look at the KKK alone it's nowhere near what it used to be. Its membership numbers are currently reported to be around 12,000 members when in the past they had around 4 million members at the early days of their organization and around 6 million at their peak. Yet even at these high numbers they weren't able to keep themselves afloat and remain as a serious threat to American Democracy. But the media somehow wants people to believe that white supremacy is this monstrous problem in the present day even when whites are increasingly becoming a minority?
This is why I'm stressing the point that we need to bring the conversation more towards the realms of what is happening now when discussing the "rise" of white supremacy. Too often people are distracted and bring up the past and start talking about Nazi’s as if that's really all that meaningful to the argument of how dangerous white supremacy is in comparison to Islamic extremism in today's society. What Nazi's, the KKK, etc… did 80 years ago is irrelevant when determining how dangerous white supremacy is now.
I'm not denying that it's important to look at why these groups became what they were back then, because I believe that actually is important in a historical sense. But to try and use that history and take the number of people that were murdered and apply it to the argument to try and act as if white supremacy is becoming or is as big of an issue as it's ever been is absolutely ridiculous.
The National Socialist Movement is considered the largest Neo-Nazi group in the United States and only consists of an estimated 400 members. Add that to the 12,000 KKK members that currently exists and you still don't even come close to filling just a third of the Bengals stadium. The truth is, this media narrative that "White supremacy is on the rise" is a deliberate attempt to stoke fear among the general population and ignore the fact that the time for white supremacy is over and that Islamic extremism is replacing it as the prominent problem in the world.
Just because five hundred white guys were sitting on their couches and saw Donald Trump win the presidency and went "YEAH GO WHITE PEOPLE" and decided to join some racist groups that vary in sizes ranging from a track and field team to a high school gym class, does not mean "White supremacy is on the rise" in any real meaningful sense that translates into a massive problem of white supremacy taking hold of the world. But that’s what the media wants you to believe.
The world has changed Dill. Whites are increasingly becoming a minority and the world as a whole is becoming increasingly more moral. This is not a great recipe for white supremacy.
To act as if white supremacy is some huge problem like it was in the past is to deny the fact that the world has been substantially progressing towards a more moralistic environment, and that any regressions popping up in today's society are nothing more than anomalies in current times where the immoral ideology of white supremacy is fading more than it is "rising". As I mentioned earlier, the fact that "Only whites can be white supremacists but anyone can be an Islamic extremist" gives a far greater advantage to Islamic extremists. Even more so, the increasing moralistic view of the world that I just mentioned also adds to this advantage, because more people are losing their sense of "superiority" and becoming more accepting of different races, cultures, religions, sexes, etc.....
This is why I have such a problem with the comparisons. They don’t translate how these comparisons matter realistically today, and when examining the realities of these two groups, you will find that they aren’t really all that comparable.
“The New Zealand white supremacist Trump lover wrote a manifesto that mimics ISIS”
So what??
Everyone should be afraid that a bunch of white people are going to come out of the forest now and start shooting people? I mean honestly Dill, what is this comparison really trying to say by comparing this guys manifesto to the rhetoric of Islamic extremist groups like ISIS? That white supremacy is becoming or currently is just as dangerous? What a comedy show.
ISIS was the fastest growing extremist group the world had seen in recent times. People were joining them by THE THOUSANDS, from across the globe and they were taking over large portions of land and violently executing anyone who stood in their way and continually drove a message of establishing a caliphate at home and then establishing one throughout the entire world.
What white supremacist group compares to that today that you know of? What white supremacy group is doing close to anything that ISIS accomplished?
Again, this isn't about whether there's some surface level comparison when it comes to comparing these white supremacist attacks to Islamic extremist attacks. Of course there is, but in the context of current day happenings the two ideologies really aren't comparable in the severity of the problems that they create today that go beyond "This group attacked this building and that group attacked that building and they both killed people". Islamic extremism is more influential, more destructive, and more divisive than white supremacy has been in the last 20 years and the problem only seems to be growing while white supremacists needed someone like Donald Trump to help boost their numbers.
So then, why are we even spending time to compare them? I know why. Because the media is all about building a narrative and having people believe the garbage they’re putting out. Fear white supremacy! Fear the white man! Trump’s America is gonna kill us all!
Spare me….
The turnout for the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in 2017 that turned deadly has been estimated to have had roughly over 700 individuals who came out to support the rally. You ever notice that the media never says anything about the fact that the following year (2018) when a 2nd Unite the Right rally was held only about 30 people showed up to support the rally while over a thousand protestors came to counter them? Yet they continually bring up the Charlottesville rally from 2017 and the violence that extended from it and how Donald Trump emboldened them. Why is that? Because it doesn't fit the narrative of how white supremacy is "On the rise".
A more accurate headline would be "White supremacy is fluctuating, but overall it is declining". What we're seeing with white supremacy right now isn't some significant rise that is going to threaten American democracy, or even the world at large. What we are really seeing with white supremacy today are its last ditch efforts to prevent the extinction of white identity that is being threatened by the overwhelming push of cultural diversity and moralistic values.
Parts of your post are clearly about the entire world, but then you make a lot of comments about the United States and Donald Trump.
So just to be clear, are you claiming that violent acts by white supremacists in the United States are declining? And are you claiming that there are more violent acts committed by Muslim extremists in the United States than white supremacists? If so what is the source for this claim?
