If the alt-right is what you say they are, Iro, then we beat those Ratzis back in 1945!
And if they want to come back, then let Adolf, Hideki, and Benito Jr. just try! We'll mertilize the bums!
Yeah, but wouldn't it be better if we beat them
before allowing years of warfare and genocide to happen first?
Do I really need to explain the distinction between targeting innocent civilians and targeting people deliberately hiding among them? Because international law's been pretty clear on the difference since approximately forever.
I suppose not.
I don't have any inherent objection to extreme examples. They usually get a bad rap, even though they're ideal for illustrating the limits of a given principle, for example. I object to them being equated to clearly incomparable things. For example, likening the murder of innocent civilians to health care reform, for goodness' sake.
Then the question becomes whether you reject it as an absurd non sequitur or if you actually think about what kind of circumstances would lead to someone genuinely making such a claim. If the concern with radical Islam is that it controls state governments and has them implement policies that have negative consequences for certain demographics, then consider what the U.S. government does that would merit such a comparison. The reason I brought up the GOP's plan to repeal the ACA (even though they were having trouble agreeing on a suitable replacement plan) is because that is a government policy where the consequences will negatively affect certain demographics. The major concern with getting rid of it completely is that preventing people from being able to access health care would ultimately lead to people being unable to get better from illnesses and eventually dying. If a person dies because government legislature prevents them from being cured, does that not mean that the state is indirectly responsible for their death? It may not involve death squads straight-up murdering people on explicitly religious grounds, but does that mean the deaths that do happen are automatically more acceptable? That's without taking actual religious/conservative American politicians like Pence into account, though that could fill a paragraph on its own. All I'm saying is that maybe there's a reason people are concerned enough to make such an extreme comparison.
But again, all of this is beside the point. You're giving me all sorts of reasons you doubt whether he really cares about the march's goals. That's all fair. You're giving me reasons he should rethink the methods we use to combat terrorism. Also fair. But none of it explains why radical Islam is supposed to be analogous to the alt-right so that his concern for one must apply to the other, nor does it explain why you wouldn't take his concerns for the former at face value. That has nothing to do with any of this stuff about marches or methods.
They're both ideologically driven movements that have an invested interest in amassing political power, though I'll concede there are differences between the two and that the practical enforcement of one ideology can be more readily observed than with the other (though who knows how much that'll change with Steve Bannon of all people as chief White House strategist). As for whether or not I should take Steel's concern at face value, I think that is admittedly the result of spending so long on the defensive and being unable to tell at a glance whether a question is coming from a place of genuine interest or actually does have an ulterior motive (as with aforementioned "concern trolls", which I've spent far too much time dealing with on here alone). At least now that he's elaborated on it to a satisfactory extent I can at least respond in kind, but the particular phrasing of the original post was structured in a way that didn't seem quite right to me.
So do I, which is one of the reasons I disagreed with him, too. And I somehow managed to do it without implying or assuming anything about his motives, let alone anything dramatic about how maybe he doesn't really care about terrorism for the reasons he says.
The added context didn't help matters, that's for sure.
Iro, I understand the reasons for the women's marches. I realize it goes beyond JUST Trump's "open-mic" comments. But the response to Trump (the protests) has gone global.
I've just been wondering why that same fervor is never and has never been demonstrated toward something far more extreme and that's been going on at a constant & growing rate for at least 15 years (Islamic terrorism).
I sort of touched on this already, but I guess the main question would be to ask not what the protest is about but who the protest is aimed towards. Almost everyone agrees that Islamic State is bad regardless of their own political or religious affiliations and there are already efforts to attack regions where they are known to be a presence. However, the state of international diplomacy and the military capabilities of various nations makes further intervention a difficult and untenable situation. That's another problem with Trump - between his volatile personality and political inexperience, the reason why people are so afraid that he'll use nukes or whatnot is that such a decision (even against an universally disagreeable group like IS) could end up setting off a world war because it would disregards the delicate tensions between various opposing nations. One of his campaign points was that he would be tougher on ISIS, which may sound impressive to the voter base but isn't necessarily so practical in reality.
To tie this all back into the question of why people don't protest IS - what would be the point? Everyone knows it's bad and, as you acknowledge later on, such protests would paint people as targets for IS. The only real protests would be coming from people who wanted the government to be even tougher on ISIS (and their more practical course of action would have been to support a leader who planned to get tougher on ISIS), but that's off-set by the fact that there's no telling what the consequences of greater direct action against ISIS would be.
We all know the answer, but no one wants to say it. (shhh... it's all about political correctness, but it would take up too much space to type out a subject entire books are written on.)
Yet in your next paragraph you say that the reason is because there is no protection against terrorist violence. Political correctness is irrelevant in this case, so bringing it up like this doesn't help anyone.
One part of it is that women (and others) are free to protest Trump. Trump's very office stands for protecting people's rights to criticize it freely and without fear of reprisals. No one has to worry about America declaring fatwas on people for protesting it's leader. The reason no one protests fundamentalist Islam and the terrorism it produces is because there is no protection - to speak out against it publicly is a death warrant, to do so enmasse would be the next excuse for thousands more dead in the street at the hands of jihadist who seek to teach anyone who speaks the truth about their ideology a fatal lesson (i.e. they'll kill you and your whole family for saying Islam is NOT a religion of peace!)
Yeah, well, it's only been a few days. With stuff like Sean Spicer's press conference and Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts" becoming such memetic instances of the Trump administration's inability to handle the truth, people do question how far they'll go to contradict those who oppose them even in the form of peaceful protest. At the very least, I don't think people's concerns about these being the circumstances to give rise to all-out fascism are totally overreacting.
I've never said no one should protest Trump, I've only asked why that same fervor and level of protest (global) is not, nor has ever been leveled against actual terrorists or terrorist ideologies?
You did kind of answer your own question in that last paragraph.
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