3 Militia members arrested in plot to bomb mosque and apartments

[IronWing]

They're not even on the same scale. The reflexive attempt to equate them is disingenuous.

As is the persistence attempt to divert this thread away from domestic right wing terrorism to Muslim terrorism.

 

[Atreus21]

Yes, there's a disproportionately large amount of terrorism claimed in the name of Islam. The question is, what's prompting it?

Before you go any further, I wonder if people ask this question when abortion clinics get bombed.

The danger is in assuming that the very nature of Islam is at fault. Besides the logical problems (it presumes that Islam commands perfect obedience from most followers, for one), it sidesteps a lot of the additional factors that play into extremism, like economic hardship, a lack of political self-determination or sectarian violence.

And that excuses the murder of innocents?

The concern in the case of this thread isn't that American terrorism is suddenly as much of a threat, but that it would be largely (if not entirely) avoidable if we didn't have demagogues like Trump fanning the flames. The world is bad enough with the terrorism we have -- we don't need rogue Americans murdering Muslims because they were told boogeyman stories.

Perhaps we should take their economic hardship or lack of political self-determination into account before we condemn the men who are the subject of this thread.

 

[Atreus21]

As is the persistent attempt to divert this thread away from domestic right wing terrorism to Muslim terrorism.

I don't excuse what these men planned to do.

 

[fskimospy]

They're not even on the same scale. The reflexive attempt to equate them is disingenuous.

Of course it's not. Right wing extremism is absolutely a threat. To ignore it is disengenuous.

I never said they were equal, but it's important to recognize conservative terrorism because it absolutely exists. Wouldn't you agree?

 

[Commodus]

Before you go any further, I wonder if people ask this question when abortion clinics get bombed.

Often. The answer: decades of indoctrination by hardline religious people (usually Christians in North America).

And that excuses the murder of innocents?

Did I say that? No, I didn't. I'm saying that the solution to fighting terrorism is not some facile policy like banning all Muslims. You have to not only fight extremists, but eliminate the conditions that foster them.

Perhaps we should take their economic hardship or lack of political self-determination into account before we condemn the men who are the subject of this thread.

Only that's not what drove them, and you know it. They weren't paupers living in a hopeless economic system with no independence; their only motivation was that demagogic leaders had scared them into thinking that Muslims are inherently dangerous, and that murdering all Muslims was somehow a form of defense.

 

[OutHouse]

right wingers are the same as isis except with a different culture.

link to support your fucked up mentality?

 

[Commodus]

link to support your fucked up mentality?

He's overstating the case. There are plenty of rational right-wing people in the US and abroad.

The issue, rather, is that there are some uncomfortably close parallels between American right-wing extremists' paranoia over Muslims and ISIS' own views. Both see non-believers as the world's greatest evil, and both are willing to commit terrible, hypocritical crimes in the name of purging their homelands of contrary ideas.

This isn't to say that American terrorism is as widespread as the ISIS kind... of course it isn't. But you'd be making a serious mistake to gloss over domestic terrorism, because it's fuelled by that same kind of foam-at-the-mouth fear of anyone who doesn't see the world your way.