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pearnon: Since Godwin has already been invoked, more than half of 1940s Germany would indicate that they weren't in favor of concentration camps or blitzkrieging the rest of the world, and we all know where that led.
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Vainamoinen: Sure, the number of citizens who went "Oh, he won't do those terrible things he's promising" was astonishing and even included his secretary Traudl Junge. That's why I keep pulling my hair out over Trump apologists, who are sporting the exact same argumentation schemes.

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pearnon: That's a bit of a tone-deaf case you're making, when the main issue is one religion whose adherents are slaughtering each other as they have been doing for centuries, and now are slaughtering Westerners as well.
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Vainamoinen: This whole discussion was launched by a shooting motivated by RIGHT-WING extremism. By a German of Iranian descent ("Iran" means "Land of the Aryans") who officially changed his name from Ali to David so he wouldn't be associated with the Muslim religion (which the press swiftly ignored). Who was proud sharing a birthday with Adolf Hitler. Who supported our spanking new Nazi party, the Afd. Who killed seven muslims plus two with a slightly darker skin tone.

We have a definite problem integrating refugees, there definitely is a clash of cultures, and Merkel has no solutions at all but "steady, folks". But let this not blind you to the absurd and hateful entity that is the so called Western culture, including especially the Christian religion. These peeps have a God that told Moses to conquer the land that rightfully belonged to the Canaanites, and to kill every last one of them.

Am I cherry-picking the bible here? Yes of course I do, but that's what I'm seeing daily when people talk about the Q'ran.

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Gilozard: It's an absolute statistical nothing that only makes you look silly when trying to draw some sort of comparison on any level
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Vainamoinen: Right-wing male extremism isn't by any means an absolute statistical nothing, it's just that you can't limit it to attacks on abortion clinics.

How about extending the scope to attacks on social democrat gatherings, black community churches, cinemas showing feminist movies, German shopping malls, etc.? This is a real and unfortunately huge threat, very similar to islamist extremism, and that extremism isn't even sparked by the daily terror of war in front of your own door.

All sources I saw are calling right-wing extremism to be a bigger threat than Islamist extremism in Western countries.

As to the victims of "feminist extremism": none to my knowledge. Call me up when the first female shooter storms a peaceful KKK gathering! No, you don't need my number.
You got that last quote mixed up. I think you want to respond to the person who actually said that, who was not me.
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Mnemon: Also don't forget that Islam is present in far more countries than just the Middle East. Albania and Azerbaijan (more than half the population indicates that religion doesn't play a major role in their life)
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pearnon: Since Godwin has already been invoked, more than half of 1940s Germany would indicate that they weren't in favor of concentration camps or blitzkrieging the rest of the world, and we all know where that led. As a very smart lady called Brigitte Gabriel once said, the peaceful majority is irrelevant ( http://bit.ly/1ZdWfo8 ). Especially when a radical minority manages to assert itself or use the majority as cover or leverage.
...snip for space...
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Gilozard: People who provide abortions get harassed DAILY. Being killed is an actual job risk for clinics in the southern states.
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pearnon: 11 people have been killed in attacks on abortion clinics in the United States since 1993. Seven murders occurred in the 90s. People who say they will vote for Trump will also get harassed daily, occasionally assaulted, maybe even short at.

This isn't even a fat tail. It's an absolute statistical nothing that only makes you look silly when trying to draw some sort of comparison on any level, let alone attempt to draw some sort of equivalence between "right-wing fundies" and Islamic terrorism. Shame on you.

In the US, mass shooters are often doing it because they don't feel like they get enough recognition (especially true for men with low self esteem and mental issues, we need to do something about toxic masculinity and mental health care to really fix this).
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pearnon: I'm with you on mental health care, but toxic femininity is a much bigger issue for those young men.
1) [Citation Needed] I have seen no evidence that people who say they will vote for Trump are getting harassed on any kind of a significant scale. Trump supporters have been recorded as harassing others for disagreeing with them, and then claiming they were the victims of harassment.

2) Right-wing Christian/survivalist extremists are absolutely the most dangerous group currently in America. This is not debatable, by any statistic. I don't know how you're getting your numbers (focusing solely on publicly known abortion clinics?) but there's really no doubt about this. Right-wingers from other religions seem to be the most prevalent terrorists outside of the US too. At this point I'm very comfortable with saying that extreme conservative beliefs are tied to attacking others, regardless of the religion in question.

3) I see a lot of emphasis on being unhealthily buff, not showing emotion, constantly aggressive and a lot of pushing to have tons of sex aimed at guys, but nothing that I can really call 'toxic femininity' being pushed at guys. That said, I haven't paid a lot of attention since my sibling hit adulthood, so I could be missing things.

Just to make sure we're on the same page about this, 'toxic masculinity' is things like "real guys don't cry / show emotion", "men and women can't ever really be friends because sex", "men aren't good parents", "being interested in 'girly' things is bad and wrong", all the guys who think date-rape or being really, really pushy is OK because 'real men' have lots of sex, thinking it's ok to abandon your girl if she gets pregnant, using gay as an insult, using violence even when it's really not appropriate, etc. Basically the all-men-should-be-manly-buff-and-stoic crap that keeps guys from connecting with people or developing non-stereotypical interests. It also impacts how guys are treated - there's some interesting stuff about how male babies are assumed to be more self-sufficient than female babies and so cuddled less.

I think we can agree that there's a lot of really nasty stereotypes out there that damage people, and if we could get Western culture to have a greater emphasis on respecting people as they are everyone would be better off. That would decrease a lot of the marginalization that pushes people into the arms of terrorists (a huge problem in parts of the EU afaik), and would help people spot those about to go off the rails.
Post edited August 05, 2016 by Gilozard
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Gilozard: 1)I have seen no evidence that people who say they will vote for Trump are getting harassed on any kind of a significant scale. Trump supporters have been recorded as harassing others for disagreeing with them, and then claiming they were the victims of harassment.
Hear no evil, see no evil, feel no evil, etc. Come on, man, you have to be mendacious, completely uninformed or wilfully blind to deny it. I'm not saying this to portray Trump supporters as an innocent hivemind that has done no wrong, but the rank bias and sheer refusal of yours to acknowledge an observable reality is rather telling.

2) Right-wing Christian/survivalist extremists are absolutely the most dangerous group currently in America. This is not debatable, by any statistic. I don't know how you're getting your numbers (focusing solely on publicly known abortion clinics?) but there's really no doubt about this.
You can check the numbers on Wikipedia, for starters, or anywhere else, for that matter. You won't find data that supports this tone-deaf, utterly out-of-touch stance of yours, especially when trying to imply that it's somehow a much greater threat to the West than Islamic extremism. It has absolutely no basis on reality, and, honestly, can only thrive in a completely sheltered, indoctrinated existence.

3) I see a lot of emphasis on being unhealthily buff, not showing emotion, constantly aggressive and a lot of pushing to have tons of sex aimed at guys
Masculinity is, at its core, about strength, having control over one's emotions, aggression (a very misunderstood and misused word) and having sex (i.e., spreading your seed), and women respond to it. Being a man is about balancing these in varying degrees (not every man is or needs to be buff or display more aggression than everybody else or have as much sex as Casanova, for example) with a productive life, taking responsibility for one's actions. You can choose not to do so, but will be treated accordingly by your peers and the opposite sex, no matter how many essays on gender studies you throw against this biological reality.

'toxic masculinity' is things like "real guys don't cry / show emotion"
They definitely need to have more control over their emotions, as is expected from a provider/protector/leader. There's a big gulf between weeping when your son dies, and turning on the waterworks when reading news about starving children in another continent or when your classmates bust your balls.

"men and women can't ever really be friends because sex"
Sex isn't the reason.

"men aren't good parents"
That one's actually on toxic femininity.

"being interested in 'girly' things is bad and wrong"
Not 'bad' or 'wrong' per se, but it's definitely weird, and girls will react accordingly to it. So, unless your son is gay, you'll be doing him a disservice by encouraging it, or - even more worryingly - pushing it upon him to show everyone how progressive you are.

being really, really pushy is OK because 'real men' have lots of sex
There's a line between persistence - which is an absolute necessity if you want high-value women - and being pushy. That you can't tell the two apart leads me to believe you don't have much experience in that area.

thinking it's ok to abandon your girl if she gets pregnant
Nobody thinks that. Nobody high-fives anyone over that. It's not masculinity, toxic or otherwise - that's just being a piece of trash. Seriously, it's like you conceived this hyper-testosterone, hirsute, swole brogeyman that doesn't even exist.

using gay as an insult
Women do that too. Insults are meant to call people what they don't like about themselves or what they don't want to be. Nothing intrinsically masculine about that.

using violence even when it's really not appropriate
Women do that too. That's called lack of self-control, which is antithetical to masculinity.

nothing that I can really call 'toxic femininity' being pushed at guys.
That's because it isn't being 'pushed' at guys, but is part of their lives. Toxic femininity is, just for starters:
- What drives women to overwhelmingly be the initiators of divorce, leading to single-parent households and the absence of fathers, which is the single biggest cause of most issues plaguing young men today.
- The notion that women can't be faulted for anything and should have lighter punishments
- Self-victimization to exempt oneself from having to take responsibility and appeal to the male protective instinct
- The prevalence of the inept male/goofy dad who gets kicked in the balls, scolded or told off by women and shown to never know any better in movies, TV shows and commercials.
Post edited August 05, 2016 by pearnon
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pearnon: snip for space
1) You're linking me to random YouTube videos to prove your point? [Citation Still Needed]

2) 6 out of 10 law enforcement officials think you're wrong, but you do you. [Citation Still Needed]

Yeah, toxic masculinity often pushes the hyper-swole jackass stereotype, that's part of the damage it does. I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing, so I described the commonly recognized facets of toxic masculinity. I also said that was what I was doing. I have no idea why you are surprised that I was describing a stereotype, I put a warning label on it for your and everything

The stereotype is that moms raise kids and dads bankroll the family, and when dads get involved in actual parenting they get either praised WAY out of proportion to their contribution or get side-eyed and made fun of as 'Mr. Mom'. This assumption that being male means being bad at or uninterested in kids, and that raising kids is weird when men do it, is toxic masculinity - it's an example of "being interested in 'girly' things is bad and wrong" and "real guys don't get emotional".

You are coming off as someone who judges people solely by your personal experience and hasn't actually done a lot of thinking or learning about this. A bunch of what you say is perpetuating stereotypes that harm men, for example. There's quite a few studies coming out about this if you want to look up the differences between nurturing and socialization for male and female children, for example.

Also, a bunch of what you're saying is PUA crap, aka the most off-putting thing me and my female friends encounter when trying to date. 'High-value women', lol, #1 flag right there. We're not contest prizes you can assign a value to.

What drives women to initiate no-fault divorce is often men not keeping up their end of the relationship. Go look up the actual cited causes of divorce, 'emotional labor', and the division of work in homes. Also domestic violence and emotional abuse, these can be huge factors although it's often very dangerous to try and divorce an abuser, regardless of the genders involved and those wind up as at-fault divorces too.

TL;DR You need to use reliable sources, educate yourself, and perhaps not project your personal experience where it's not applicable.
Post edited August 05, 2016 by Gilozard
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Gnostic: How do you know it is hate speech or people uncovering the lies of the government? Because the government say so?

Why do you want to give more power to the government?
do you have some basis for your accusations? Just throwing in some hypothetical conspiracy theory won't get us anywhere.

As I said before, the government/police didn't get any new powers (at least not with regard of persecuting hate speech).
The police just arrived in the 21th century and put some focus on the internet & social media. ;)
and yes, of course there are cases where the police acts too much, or acts too little or simply screws up. But in general I don't have a problem with the current policy.

There seems some weird conception (like voiced by pearnon) that the government is repressing dissenting opinions. Which is rather absurd if you take a minute to look at German politics & media.
There is a pretty much open conflict for months now in the government coalition about Merkels refugee politic. There is a new political party who is solely thriving on their critic against immigration & Islam. There are people marching on the streets demonstrating against Merkel. Go into a book store and you'll find books normally published writing about how Germany damages itself with its migration policy or how Islam equals fascism.
Hearing the argument that critic is forcefully suppressed by the police feels like some bizarre alternate reality :p
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immi101: <snip>
It's nice to hear someone express this view. There seems to be a desire that people here have to be oppressed. Not to experience oppression, but to be able to say that they are being oppressed. Thus despite the obvious truth that we do have free speech in all of the EU, everyone is keen to start saying "First they came for the xyz", as though there's some campaign to limit our freedom gradually progressing with it's evil scheme.

It seems the worst thing for some people is to not have anything to be fighting against.
A quick recap on the latest news:

1. The biggest outcry on Internet has been about the cancellation of the famous Lille flea market (in Northern France) which is the biggest one in Europe and hasn't been cancelled since World War 2.

2. To stay in France: there was a manhunt in the mid-week about an Afghan refugee who supposedly planned to attack "Paris Plage" (they just drop lots of sand along the Seine and call it a beach). They found him yesterday in a refugee association.
http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2016/08/04/2395808-menaces-importantes-d-attentat-sur-paris-plages.html
http://www.liberation.fr/direct/element/un-afghan-suspecte-arrete-ce-matin-france-terre-dasile-plaide-pour-un-meilleur-accueil_44835/

3. We now know more about the suicide bomber of Ansbach has he actually was an IS soldier who got wounded by a sharpnel explosion and then went to Europe in 2013 as a refugee and lied about his past.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/world/europe/germany-refugees-terrorism.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&amp;smtyp=cur&amp;_r=1

4. The Belgian joke of the day... Due to a too slow justice procedure, a woman considered as the head of a terrorist network and which had been sentenced to 15 years of prison has just been freed after 4 months of jail.
http://www.dhnet.be/actu/faits/une-terroriste-liberee-a-condition-de-ne-pas-aller-a-molenbeek-57a4b95935709a3105583745
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Post edited December 23, 2016 by tinyE
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tinyE: Last night in Rio for a few hours there was no burning, no terrorism, no racism, no standoffs, no Brexit, no threats, no fear, no borders. For a few hours in Rio last night no one condemned multiculturalism or blamed anyone for what was wrong in the world. No flags were burned, no churches were burned, and a not a tear was shed but for those of awe and inspiration.
You forget the burglar disarmed and killed by the russian agent. Enjoying your no-border-bullshit delusion, E?
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tinyE: Last night in Rio for a few hours there was no burning, no terrorism, no racism, no standoffs, no Brexit, no threats, no fear, no borders. For a few hours in Rio last night no one condemned multiculturalism or blamed anyone for what was wrong in the world. No flags were burned, no churches were burned, and a not a tear was shed but for those of awe and inspiration.
I was thinking of posting something similar. It's Catpower's strategy with these threads. His goal is to turn it into a place where he can post cherry picked news stories to build up an attitude of fear, as is a common strategy for far right groups. I noticed there was no reference to the syrian refugee that has been crowned "wine queen" of one of Germany's regions (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36974346). Nice to see asylum seekers integrating well.
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Post edited December 23, 2016 by tinyE
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tinyE: Unfortunately something tells me I'm going to regret posting that. As is, I refuse to let the cynics and naysayers ruin my parade. It's a beautiful day.
It is, there's a really good cricket match on at the moment too. England vs Pakistan, currently in the fourth day, and the match is so finely balanced. Edge of the seat stuff.
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Post edited December 23, 2016 by tinyE
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Gnostic: How do you know it is hate speech or people uncovering the lies of the government? Because the government say so?

Why do you want to give more power to the government?
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immi101: do you have some basis for your accusations? Just throwing in some hypothetical conspiracy theory won't get us anywhere.

As I said before, the government/police didn't get any new powers (at least not with regard of persecuting hate speech).
The police just arrived in the 21th century and put some focus on the internet & social media. ;)
and yes, of course there are cases where the police acts too much, or acts too little or simply screws up. But in general I don't have a problem with the current policy.

There seems some weird conception (like voiced by pearnon) that the government is repressing dissenting opinions. Which is rather absurd if you take a minute to look at German politics & media.
There is a pretty much open conflict for months now in the government coalition about Merkels refugee politic. There is a new political party who is solely thriving on their critic against immigration & Islam. There are people marching on the streets demonstrating against Merkel. Go into a book store and you'll find books normally published writing about how Germany damages itself with its migration policy or how Islam equals fascism.
Hearing the argument that critic is forcefully suppressed by the police feels like some bizarre alternate reality :p
You just said "government/police didn't get any new powers (at least not with regard of persecuting hate speech)."

So how that can be a argument against my point. "Why do you want to give more power to the government?"

You are dodging the question, why you want to give more power to the government.

The government lies. If they have to power to take down "hate speech" that they define themselves, how you can be sure they are not abusing it and feed lies instead? The government is not exactly trustworthy, no matter government of which ideology.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-28/top-german-journalist-admits-mainstream-media-completely-fake-we-all-lie-cia

http://newobserveronline.com/german-govt-lies-over-invasion-says-police-chief/

http://www.dw.com/en/lying-press-germanys-misleading-media/a-18816438

I am sure your reply will dodge the question why we should give more power to the government when it can easily be abused.
Post edited August 06, 2016 by Gnostic
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Gnostic: You just said "government/police didn't get any new powers (at least not with regard of persecuting hate speech)."

So how that can be a argument against my point. "Why do you want to give more power to the government?"

You are dodging the question, why you want to give more power to the government.

The government lies. If they have to power to take down "hate speech" that they define themselves, how you can be sure they are not abusing it?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-28/top-german-journalist-admits-mainstream-media-completely-fake-we-all-lie-cia

http://newobserveronline.com/german-govt-lies-over-invasion-says-police-chief/

http://www.dw.com/en/lying-press-germanys-misleading-media/a-18816438

I am sure your reply will dodge the question why we should give more power to the government when it can easily be abused.
You touch a very sensitive matter. Only an idiot can't see that much. Of course authorities lie; and the more the incidents, the more they ARE GOING TO LIE, to cover up, not their incompetence, but their "plan". Like "Ali Sonboly", the iranian refugee staying in Germany; police initially fed the public that "killer was GERMAN"! Or the recent event i linked before; Norwegian-Somalian. Yeah, right, Viking from Timpuktu. Authorities have profane audacity, as of late. Not only they desecrate the memory of the victims, but they think we all are fools.
Post edited August 06, 2016 by KiNgBrAdLeY7