03-20-2019, 11:38 AM
(03-18-2019, 07:56 PM)Dill Wrote: Where we do not agree:
First, you say that if “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.” I say you have this exactly backwards. The message of white supremacy appeals precisely to white people in places where they feel their numbers and/or privilege is challenged and diminished by immigration. As a result of this appeal, the world is not becoming “more moral” (by non-supremacist definitions). Rather, we see countries in Central Europe, like Poland and Hungary, moving from liberal to illiberal democracy—following the footsteps of Russia. In Germany is not in danger yet, but the first far right party to enter the Bundestag since the end of WWII won 94 of 598 seats in the 2017 election. Similar danger in France and Italy. This turn to the right involves tens of millions of European voters. Add to this the increasing turn to illiberal government outside Europe (though not motivated by white supremacy), and this represents to me a more serious Global danger than terrorism perpetrated by Islamists, mostly against other Muslims in Africa and the Middle East.
I think we are actually in agreement here, at least in part. When I said, “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.” the point I was making is that it is not a good recipe for white supremacy to survive. I actually agree with what you said here about how the threat to white identity is in fact feeding into white supremacy and I alluded to this in my previous post when I said, "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."
So to be clear, my point wasn't that it isn't a good recipe for white supremacy to find inspiration. Rather, my point was that although white supremacy is being "inspired" or is "rising" due to diminishing white identity, I believe that the cultural and moral changes that are happening is killing off white supremacy more than it is helping it to survive, therefore it is "not a good recipe".
Quote:Second, in the US, where there are many more white people worried about impending minority status than there are Muslims, the threat of white supremacist terrorism is greater. The last five years have shown a rise in the number of hate crimes, according to sources like the FBI and the Southern Poverty law Center.
Okay so this is definitely where I say we disagree. I have an issue with what you said for a couple of reasons.
1) The FBI and SPLC have said there has been a rise in the number of reported hate crimes, but we don't know how many of these "hate crimes" are actually related to white supremacy.
2) There is no information given that tells us about how many of these reported "hate crimes" actually even took place. In fact, I can counter argue that the number of reported hate crimes can't be trusted as concrete evidence that hate crimes are actually "rising" because there has been a large number of hoaxes being reported.
Quote:An Israeli-American man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Israel for making about 2,000 hoax bomb threats that forced evacuations of US Jewish community centres and forced planes to make emergency landings.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-23/us-israeli-man-sentenced-in-israel-over-global-bomb-threats/10547198
Transgender gay-rights activist set own home on fire in hate-crime hoax, police say
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/26/nikki-joly-transgender-gay-rights-activist-set-own/
‘White Supremacist accused of shooting black girl to death by the public and the media. Turns out the shooter was a black man."
https://abcnews.go.com/US/authorities-interviewing-persons-interest-murder-year-jazmine-barnes/story?id=60187049
https://www.click2houston.com/news/someone-was-falsely-accused--barnes-family-regrets-hate-crime-cries
Black college lacrosse player, 21, is arrested for spraying N-word and swastika graffiti targeting HIMSELF and other minority students in two incidents that terrorized the campus
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6450101/Black-college-lacrosse-player-arrested-racist-N-word-swastika-graffiti.html?ITO=applenews
Black suspect in swastika graffiti vandalism arrested
https://www.thetodaypress.com/2018/11/27/suspect-in-swastika-graffiti-vandalism-arrested/
For second time in two years, racist slur at Kansas State was a hoax, police say
https://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article221373355.html
Student busted for making anti-LGBT threats against herself
https://nypost.com/2018/10/10/student-busted-for-making-anti-lgbt-threats-against-herself/
Woman, 19, who accused four Trump-supporting teens of slashing her tires and leaving a note that said 'Go home' on her car is charged for 'fabricating the story'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6173315/New-York-woman-arrested-fabricating-story-alleging-hate-crime-four-Trump-supporting-teens.html
Waiter who got customer barred for ‘we don’t tip terrorist’ message ‘fabricated the entire story’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/waiter-got-customer-barred-don-111840078.html
Girl accused of falsely reporting hate crime in Prince William County
https://pilotonline.com/news/nation-world/virginia/article_bc984aa4-3cc2-11e8-adc4-a3dda1af6b30.html
Air Force Academy cadet wrote racial slur outside his own dorm room
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2017/11/08/air-force-academy-cadet-wrote-racial-slur-outside-his-own-dorm-room/
Black man admits putting racist graffiti on his own car as a prank
https://nypost.com/2017/11/07/black-man-admits-to-putting-racist-graffiti-on-his-own-car/
Black man admits spray-painting racist graffiti, setting fire at south KC church to try and trick police
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article217279680.html
White man sets his family's own vehicles on fire and paints racist words on their house garage
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2016/12/23/denton-man-set-vehicles-ablaze-painted-racial-slur-garage-door-wife-says
Black man who is an ex student charged with spraying racist graffiti around the school
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/10/23/suspect-arraigned-racially-offensive-graffiti-case-eastern-michigan-last-year/791811001/
Church's own organ player admits to racist and homophobic graffiti spray painted on the church
https://fox59.com/2017/05/03/police-organist-spray-painted-heil-trump-swastika-gay-slur-on-brown-county-church/
And this isn't even all of them. It's just some of them.
Now to be clear, I'm not saying this means all or even a majority of the reported hate crimes aren't real. What I am saying is that just because someone reports a hate crime doesn't make the hate crime real. Secondly, just because a hate crime is reported doesn't mean that the hate crime is automatically white supremacist in nature.
We need to be objective about this and treat every case individually to determine what is representative of white supremacy rising and what isn't. I appreciate you noting the statistics of reported hate crimes, but I don't see how any of that proves that white supremacy is "rising" in a way that makes it more or as much of a threat to the US as Islamic extremism.
Quote:While Islamist terrorism worldwide (including the US) has dropped rather precipitously over the last three years, right wing terrorism has taken a sharp upturn in the U.S. https://qz.com/1355874/terrorism-is-surging-in-the-us-fueled-by-right-wing-extremists/
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/05/politics/global-terrorism-index-2018/index.html
So it's not a matter of 500 guys sitting on a couch or some such. It is matter of statistical occurrence--e.g., 37 right wing terrorist attacks in 2017 vs. 7 from Islamists.
Okay, so a couple things I need to address here.
1) "Islamic terrorism is dropping world wide".
Would you say that you find that surprising? Because I honestly don't.
ISIS (and its affiliates) have been the premier terror group over the last 4-5 years and has been committing a vast amount of terror throughout the world that caused a spike in global terror as a whole. Who has the US and other countries been mainly targeting and obliterating the last 3 years? ISIS.
So, I don't find it all that surprising that Islamic terrorism around the world has been dropping considering the world has been destroying the biggest perpetrators of it. The fact that global Islamic terror is declining doesn't mean that Islamic extremism is becoming less of an issue because Islamic extremism is dying. The decline in Islamic extremism is actually happening because we have been actively destroying it at a dramatically faster pace than any other extremist ideology out there, including white supremacy. Which leads me to the next point.
2) Right wing terrorism has taken a sharp upturn in the U.S.
Sure. Lets say right wing terrorism has taken a sharp upturn in the U.S.
What does that mean? Are you saying that this "upturn" proves that white supremacy is more dangerous than Islamic extremism? Again, I have to disagree here.
What I find interesting about the statistical argument about how there have been more attacks by white supremacists in the US than Islamic extremists is that the argument completely ignores the fact that Islamic extremists have killed more people in the US than white extremists from the studies done from 2001 to 2017, but with fewer attacks and this is excluding the 9/11 terror attacks which would make the Islamic extremist numbers catastrophically higher.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that between Sept 12, 2001 - December 31st 2016 (They excluded Sept 11th to make the numbers a little more comparable), there had been 85 terrorist attacks committed by violent extremists.
Of the 85 attacks, 62 were from far-right extremists and 23 were from Islamic extremists.
These 85 attacks resulted in 225 total deaths.
Out of the 225 deaths, 106 deaths were attributed to white extremists and 119 deaths were attributed to Islamic extremists.
Now, if you take the statistics from 2017 and include them in these numbers the results become....
129 total terror attacks - 99 attributed to white extremists and 30 attributed to Islamic extremists.
253 total deaths - 126 deaths for white extremists and 127 for Islamic extremists.
What's important about this? Well a couple of things.
Firstly, while the statistics may show that white supremacists are on average committing more attacks, Islamic extremists are actually killing more people per attack.
Secondly, because Islamic extremists are causing more deaths per attack, this means that they are actually more efficient with the terrorism they are causing and are therefore more destructive. If you were to flip the numbers around and say that Islamic extremists committed 99 terrorist attacks and white extremists committed only 30, I believe the number of deaths caused by Islamic extremists would be catastrophically higher than deaths caused by white extremists because the statistics currently show that Islamic extremists have been more efficient with there attacks.
I believe people are having the wrong conversation. This shouldn't be about who is causing more attacks. It should be about who is actually more destructive with their attacks. This kind of goes back to my whole comparison argument and why I have such a problem with them. Not all terrorist attacks are equal.
White supremacists stabbing 20 people in 15 separate attacks is not really all that comparable to Islamic extremists flying 2 planes into the World Trade Center and murdering 3000 US citizens. The white supremacists may have committed more attacks, but their attacks were far less destructive per attack.They both may be terrorist attacks, but they tell very different stories about how dangerous one ideology is over the other. It tells a story about how even though we are actively and continually destroying Islamic extremism at a far greater rate than we are targeting white extremists (and the left has even conceded to this point of more targeting going towards Islamic extremism from which part of the argument is based upon), Islamic extremism continues to prosper and create far more destruction and contribute to the instability of the world as a whole far greater than white extremism has in the last 20, 10, 5, years....
Don't you find it a little strange that the media (and a lot of people in general) have been complaining that we don't take the threat of white supremacy seriously enough and that we need to contribute as many resources to fighting it that we're contributing to fighting radical Islamic terror, but then go on to point out that white supremacy is showing that it is more of a problem with increasing attacks over the years?
It's as if they've basically answered their own question. White supremacy is experiencing more successful attacks because they are being investigated and targeted less often than Islamic extremism which by comparison is having more resources being poured into stopping it.
So, I'd like to go back and answer a questioned you posed to me in an earlier post. I wasn't ignoring it, I just knew I'd eventually come back to it, and so here we are. Your question was....
Quote:If we are speaking of the US, do you see grounds for fearing Islamists more than White supremacists?
Yes. My answer is above.
