Why it's good we don't have guns in Europe (Live from Paris):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrGAS109dl8

We actually have them, just a lot less and we either lack a gun culture to go with it or the gun culture is the opposite of the one prevalent in the US. (i.e: Switzerland)

My previous posts in this thread have already outed me as a bigoted literally worse than Hitler KKK NRA Nazi member of the Westboro Baptist Church. So yeah, it was sarcasm.

I'm only bigoted against Swedes though. And they're still 85% white people, so I guess it's ok to hate on them. :)

I am muslim through conversion, previously I was what could be called agnostic. More specifically I am what you would probably identify as Sunni Muslim, though to us it only means "not shia, not sufi" (they are the ones who differentiate themselves from others). Truth is the rabbit hole goes much deeper if you want to pick apart and sort different scholarly ideas under different labels. To most muslims this isn't a concious decision, you live life in broad strokes, not by analysing every single decision and principle and catalogising them under different names.

I have absolutely zero concern about racist and bigoted trolls on the internet, though I think the FBI should probably check up on infinite9 for promoting terrorism just to be sure he isn't part of a network of actual race war fetishists (when is that shit going down, by the way? You've been preparing for decades by now!). I see trolls every day, and I see a fair bit of shameful racism in my country, mostly from older people (55+). No one has ever laid hands on me, my family or my property, though there have been a couple of disturbing non-physical confrontations over the years. The one I thoroughly regret not reporting was when a ~60yo man approached my wife and played a sound clip on his phone where a call to prayer is cut short by two shotgun blasts. I was so shocked and uncomfortable with it that I couldn't speak before he walked away. Tried to pretend it was nothing, just some stupid asshole thing, and to forget about it. That, I regret.

Btw I never block people online, not even bigots, because they tend to block me first after dumping their garbage where I can see it.

You kind of missed my point. Germans in WWII were from one country, and Muslims are not. Assuming that all Muslims hold the same political beliefs is a much weaker assumption than assuming that all WWII Germans held the same political beliefs.

That said, if you want to get into culpability for organizational actions - the problem with the 'keeping their heads down and feigning loyalty' excuse is that makes that person a supporter. That's performing actions in support of the regime and following orders. Disagreeing or disliking an order means nothing if a person isn't prepared to stand up for their beliefs.

No one is a 'born fighter'. We're all born incapable of controlling our muscles, much less fighting. Some people learn to fight and some people don't. But that's not an excuse. Standing up against evil is hard. Sometimes fatal. But that's not an excuse either. A lot of people teach themselves that they can't do anything and just go with the flow. But that doesn't let them off the hook. Anyone can learn to take a stand, whether covertly or overtly.

Ah yes, telling other people to forfeit their lives just so some people might think of them more highly. We call that Gratismut.

Really? For as long as muslims have been politically aware in any meaningful way (ca 1960 and onwards) there haven't been many systems to choose from. Europe in the 1920's and 30's on the other hand was WILDLY divided in most countries, Germany included. All kinds of political parties vied for power, and that didn't change just because the National Socialists ursurped power, it just meant the German communists, liberals etc were forced into hiding.

Either way, both assumptions are so humanly flawed they are not worth exploring. It is as helpful as arguing how much less lethal a 45th story fall is compared to a 46th story fall.

(btw if you ever see me using the word "liberal" in a political setting, it is the opposite of what it means in American political terminology)

Please don't take this the wrong way, but the whole "everyone can stand up against EVIL" kinda makes you sound...I dunno...sheltered? Naïve?

"You're either following orders and supporting the regime or you're making a stand for what's right" is a very black-and-white zero-sum perception. If you read some accounts from people living in ISIS territory, you usually get a more nuanced view. When faced with oppression, most people simply go into survival mode so as not to make waves. It's easy to say: "I will stand by my principles and laugh in the face of evil", but for many people it's not just their own lives at stake, but also those of around them. Knowing that making waves doesn't just put one's own freedom and life at risk, but may also cause your wife and children to be imprisoned, tortured or executed (and in places like North Korea you can be sent to a prison camp for something your cousin did) tends to make people think twice. Few people are willing to gamble with the lives of others when not attracting attention provides higher odds of you and your loved ones lasting through this crap.

It's easy to pass judgement from the safety of an attic room located in a country that never faced true tyranny before. :|

The expression you're looking for is "armchair courage".

I know, but I try to spread more German words. It's always nice to hear how non-German speakers butcher those ;)

Personally, my only complaint is how easy it is for me to obtain a firearm here. I don't think they should be pulled or banned from the market, but the screening process is extremely lackluster (or non-existent in some cases). The loopholes for people who aren't "supposed" to be able to purchase them are downright silly.

Unfortunately the market for "Backpfeifengesicht" cratered together with Ted Cruz' campaign. That one had a really nice ring.

See, this is what a lot of people forget - namely that the vast majority of Muslims go through life living life more according to the principles that are passed down to them as opposed to actual religious tenets. I doubt many Muslims have even read the Qu'ran, let alone internalised it. Many in the Middle East can't even read. Over time, many of these cultural principles have become confused with religious principles. The way they conduct themselves is largely an instinctive pattern congruent with how they were raised as opposed to any religious scripture.

The problem is that people like infinite9 and people who actually put such threats into practice are the product of racist and bigoted trolls online. Actual terrorists feed off of the approval of such people. And honestly, I respect and admire your restraint - I probably wouldn't have shown the same reticence.

In fact, I already showed my lack of reticence once when my wife and I were walking along a street in the UK at one point, speaking in German, and this pair of thugs decided to shadow us, doing Hitler salutes and singing "Deutschland über alles". I turned around to give them a threatening glare and walked on, and they persisted anyway, so I just instinctively punched one of them in the face and broke his nose. In doing so, I risked the wrath of British justice (nothing ever came of it), but honestly, although my reaction was instinctive, I have no regrets about it.

So while I imagine that you probably wouldn't have reacted in the same way as I did, I can certainly understand your frustration at not having acted. Honestly, he sounds like a bitter old racist that probably wouldn't have done much else, but I think reporting him to the cops for making a credible terror threat would have been enough to think twice about harassing someone on the street like that again. Leaving such acts unpunished only makes things worse.

Typical. They're quick to dish out all this vitriol, but not so quick to actually face the consequences of their actions. Shows them for the cowards that they are.

I think people who expect to be excused from supporting evil because they thought or felt that what they were doing was wrong are kind of naive. Own your actions - doing something you believe is wrong so that your family stays safe is a logical choice, but it's still doing something that's wrong.

I also don't think dying/being harmed is the worst thing that can happen, and that living through something because I compromised my core principles isn't worth it. I'm aware that my perspective is not the typical one.
Where on earth did you get the idea that this is about my opinion of others? *is bemused* Most people couldn't care less about my opinion of them.

People learn helplessness very easily, and their lives will be better if they teach themselves better habits.

In extreme outliers like North Korea the calculus is different, but that doesn't mean people who play along with the regimes aren't doing wrong things, it just means that doing wrong things is logical under those extremely messed up circumstances.

I prefer this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVAkarTy788

Or these...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5bYgEqB4DI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgucy4xTC50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywOKTuuNmcQ

By the way, gun control advocates would rather have that woman in the first video raped and stabbed to death. They also consider what she did "evil gun violence" or "gun murder." They also call it a "gun-related incident" and some agencies include that in the statistics of gun-related crimes even though the only thing "gun-related" about it was that a gun was successfully used in defense.
You mean you would allow the federal government to block someone from legally buying a gun by putting him/her on a "watch list" or "no fly list" regardless of evidence or the lack of even though there are plenty of guns and ammo on the blackmarket?

I would rather simply destroy the "rights" of Muslims. We need to control Islam and its followers and not guns or gun owners. We should also eliminate the rights of left-wingers. They prefer Islam over Constitutional rights and when they cannot blame white people, they blame guns.

Gun rights > Muslim rights
Gun rights > Rights of left-wing subhumans