Wilders speech to the Danish Free Press Society


Richard Wiig

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It doesn't change what I think, which is that nobody can be "radicalized" against their will, except perhaps by physical force.

Tony,

This is another issue. Brainwashing is something I study a lot.

If you are interested, I can point you to studies that might open your eyes. The fact is we have a prefrontal neocortex, where our will resides, and we have an "under-mind" which runs on autopilot.

If you find a way to penetrate this "under-mind" or unconscious or subconscious or lizard/neomammalian brain or whatever you want to call it, you actually can brainwash people up to a point. Why do you think propaganda works? (Or marketing? :smile: )

I grant you that people have to choose to seek out places to become radicalized. They are generally not forced to go there unless they live in that environment. But once there, if they land up in a radicalization place, the conveyor belt of spiritual deformation is gradual and nonvolitional. It is not an on-off switch a person chooses.

Let me give you an example of one real evil thing in Islam, not all that garbage about Mohammed being a pedophile, etc. That stuff is horseshit.

Let's start with a premise. Muslims are human beings. Do you agree with that? Or do you believe they are some kind of creature that resembles humans?

If they are human, their minds work identical to all other humans. Agree or disagree?

Presuming you agree, then let's see how one toxic process in Islam works on that mind--just like this same toxic process works on the human mind in non-Islamic environments.

Here's the process. A devout Muslim must pray five times a day. Now here's the mind part. The only way a person can challenge or change deeply held convictions is to reflect deeply. Without that, the person never changes. And deep mulling of this sort needs hours, days, and sometimes weeks to run its full course. That's just the way humans are. This is universal.

The practice of praying five times a day interrupts all deep mulling where people try to think on their own--on premise-level stuff--and steers their reflective minds into pre-canned messages. They want to mull and meditate, but they have that Imam honking religious mind-control stuff in their ear five times a day.

This is how indoctrination works. Indoctrination technicians use the same mental-limitation process in reeducation camps and they try to in propaganda (often successfully). (Even in marketing. :smile: )

A guy named Blair Warren whose work I studied calls this process "isolation." It's an odd term at first, but I like it. You'll see why below.

The most primitive form of isolation is to lock someone up or create physical barriers of some kind. You physically isolate the person. If a person is locked within an environment, he does not know the reality outside of it. He cannot observe it. (This is one of the reasons I believe the Internet--which penetrates all physical barriers on earth--will ultimately destroy fundamentalism of all kinds as a world-shaping force, but that is beyond the scope here.)

A more insidious way is to create mental isolation. In other words, isolate certain parts of the mind--generally the critical thinking parts--from others within a person, then send all willful focus on something that ignores them. How? Generally by storytelling and scapegoating. (This is a fascinating topic, but too broad for this post.)

This praying five times a day process works well because it does not allow the reflective part of the mind (the critical thinking part for premises) to kick in and challenge dogma. It isolates that part of the mind by directing all mental focus to other things. Since the focus stays elsewhere, that part of the mind stays ignored and, probably, atrophies. I'm merely supposing this last, but it makes sense to me. That would explain why you detect such difficulty in getting through to devout Muslims with logical arguments about big-picture stuff.

The Sufis say we become what we gaze upon. If you are gazing upon Islamic messages with intensity five times a day, your subconscious will tend to adopt those messages. You physically create neural pathways. If the Imam only (or mostly) presents the icky and violent stuff in the prayers, that's what your subconscious will absorb. If he presents love and peace and so on, that's what your subconscious will absorb.

So is there a part of Islam I believe that is inherently evil? Yes. But it is the brainwashing process, not the substance of the texts, the life of the Prophet or whatever.

Note that when people choose to pray five times a day on their own because they want to shape their subconscious, I have no problem with that. I'm a self-help dude underneath and that is a great way to adopt a new and productive habit.

But I do have a problem with tricking people.

For example, if a young Muslim goes through the phase where he believes adults all suck because they ignore injustice and are hypocrites and only young people know about life (didn't you go through that yourself? I did... :smile: ), then lands up doing the five-times a day routine with an evil fuck of an Imam (as opposed to a good benevolent Imam), he will become radicalized against his will.

He goes to that Imam to eliminate injustice and serve the good according to the perspective of his developing mind (aided by piss-and-vinegar hormones). He thinks that Imam (or ISIS or whatever) is kickass and stands up to bullies. He does not go there to learn how to kill innocent people and become a bully himself. His Imam turns him into that. Pure bait and switch.

How many people do you know want to go to church or learn a philosophy because they want to be bad guys? Learn how to be more cruel bullies? Learn how to oppress innocent victims more ruthlessly with more blood?

None. No one does that.

Yet the Imam turns our young Muslim into that.

An ill-intentioned Imam would not be able to do that without a good brainwashing process that worked.

That's just one part.

Another is that the Qur'an is the only holy book written in the present tense. This tense works much more strongly on the subconscious than the past and future tenses do.

Don't get me started...

:smile:

I could go on and on about this stuff, especially when we get to crossovers with other religions.

I am saying this because I want you to see that I agree there are some bad things about Islam--processes that allow evil people to manipulate others because they make the practitioners vulnerable, processes that leave their subconscious wide-open.

I do not agree that the stories or the culture are bad. There is plenty of good in Islam--beautiful stories and storytelling, seriousness of study, some really good moral principles, etc., just like there are bad things.

I strongly disagree with blanking out any of it.

Michael

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You can wash your brain with The New York Times every morning.

I think the writing style of its editorial page influenced Rand's post-Atlas writing style somewhat, even if not its top-down superiorism. I read that paper for decades and the similarities always got to me. Being the far superior writer she was readable while those damnable editorials were hardly standable.

--Brant

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Brant,

Intense daily contact does have an impact, but nothing like interrupting your natural thought processes five times a day.

Very astute about Rand's style reflecting the NYT editorial page. When I was in college, then went down to Brazil, I had a subscription to the Ayn Rand Letter. (They actually sent the issues down there.) I was reverent and eager in reading them, but always a little disappointed that the style seemed plodding.

I wanted the fire of Atlas Shrugged back then and The Ayn Rand Letter was not that. I was also confused about Rand's excessive references to the NYT. The villain was supposed to be Toohey or Ferris or James Taggart, or in life, Nixon or Carter or somebody, not a newspaper I never read. :)

I hadn't thought about how that paper influenced Rand subconsciously before, but I think you are on to something. A study of stylistic mannerisms would make a very interesting study indeed.

Apropos, how about washing your brain with daily doses of OL? What does that do?

:)

Michael

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Moi?

I'm the brainwasher, not a brainwashee.

I'm so good nobody knows this, not even you. (I didn't either until you mentioned the contrary and I inverted the proposition.)

My apologies to the washed and the to be washed.

If you don't like it just reboot your brain to its default (ignorant) status.

Make sure you turn off (exit) OL first or the cycle will merely repeat itself and unless you go into the OL archives and read this--you might be doing that now--YOU'LL BE PERMANENTLY TRAPPED (I'll not post this information twice).

--Brant

Call to Read (OL)! Call to Read (OL)! Call to Read (OL)!

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Richard is holding the wrong end of the stick. You are both conflating jihad with Muslims generally. I think we'd get clarity if we specify what's to be done with 1.3 billion Muslims. Me? Nothing. Jihadists? Kill them where you find them. As to psychological warfare? Be careful. You may create more of what you hate. Telling Muslims Mohammed had sex with a 9 yo girl isn't necessarily wise. Etc. Targeting members of a faith for being members of a faith because some use it for terrible purposes has a tendency to radicalize other members. War with a 1.3 billion people pool is not winable if not unending. A secular state needs to wage secular war against secular forces hiding behind a religion. Jihadists are murderous, tyrannical fascists. They want the Richards of the world to help them recruit. These Richards are the jihadists "useful idiots." That's why this thread is on The Garbage Pile. Michael isn't supporting this approach and calls it bigotry. I guarantee if it keeps up he'll do more than that. He won't pay for the platform for such animadversion upon comparatively innocent people. In the meantime, maybe you can see the light. The "humanitarian" won't. He's been doing this stuff for years and years on SOLO with little attention to anything else.

--Brant

I see this as a recipe for the downfall of Western civilisation.

Richard is holding the wrong end of the stick. You are both conflating jihad with Muslims generally.

What are you saying here? We know that not all muslims are jihadists, but we also know that jihadists come from, and live within, the Muslim community. So what does that mean in regards to determining who is and who isn't a jihadist? You want to kill the jihadists. Fine, but dealing with them on the battlefield, once they are overtly out there, is relatively easy. You see them, you take aim, you fire. What about before then? What about the covert, the surreptitious, the deceitful? Should this be a concern, and how do you deal with it without upsetting the Muslim community as a whole? Or is it of no concern?

I think we'd get clarity if we specify what's to be done with 1.3 billion Muslims. Me? Nothing.

I agree, do nothing with them. The 1.3 billion Muslims are not the issue. The Jihadists and their supporters within our respective countries is the issue, along with any openly hostile groups such as the Islamic State.

Jihadists? Kill them where you find them.

As I said, fine, but again, what about the ones you cannot see who are acting within your nation, on a much more subtle level than in your face brutality.

As to psychological warfare? Be careful. You may create more of what you hate. Telling Muslims Mohammed had sex with a 9 yo girl isn't necessarily wise. Etc.

In other words, stop speaking truth and appease. Appeasement is no way to defend values.

Targeting members of a faith for being members of a faith because some use it for terrible purposes has a tendency to radicalize other members.

Speaking truths cannot honestly be characterised as targeting members of a faith for being members of a faith. You are saying that the West must muzzle itself lest those who don't like what they hear get even angrier and become jihadists. We should voluntarily act as if we live under Sharia blasphemy laws.

War with a 1.3 billion people pool is not winable if not unending. A secular state needs to wage secular war against secular forces hiding behind a religion. Jihadists are

murderous, tyrannical fascists. They want the Richards of the world to help them recruit.

They don't make recruits by pointing to people like me. I don't say anything that they don't say themselves. They make recruits by appealing to a muslims commitment to his religion and by convincing him that this is what Muhammad and Allah wants from him. By convincing him that, here is the true Islam. They do this by reference to Islamic theology. Not by reference to me, or anyone like me.

These Richards are the jihadists "useful idiots."

The useful idiots are the ones who are mired in PC relativism and so do all they can to sever the link between Jihad and Islamic theology. In other words, people who work to ensure we all remain ignorant. Obama and Cameron are both prime examples.

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Richard, you need to reset and think of relations of one country to another. A country's foreign policy: what should it be? You have two workable perspectives. One is Australia and the other the United States. I've been working the latter. Not being an Aussie I cannot get specific enough about what Australia needs to do to protect itself. That's your job, if you want it, as an Australian. Geert in Denmark represents much the same thing with Denmark replacing Australia. Etc.

I've lived in the United States all my life except one year in South Vietnam. I'm 100% American WASP culturally. I know this country in a way no one who hasn't lived here for decades can, if then, if not born here. (That includes Ayn Rand. She only got 2/3rds of the way up the American cultural mountain.) I'm also a ground combat military veteran. I've been thinking military protect my country things since I was seven--I'm now 70--ever since I learned we dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the attack on Pearl Harbor and Nazis murdering Jews. I have the seasoned and basic military mindset of an American warrior, not that of a businessman or a doctor. etc. (I don't pursue happiness. I am interested in protecting the pursuit.) There are millions of Americans just like me and we've no intention of fighting a religious war, something we can't even imagine doing, but we'll clobber fascists as fascists when they crawl out of their holes with the greatest of ease if we're allowed to do so. Whack-a-mole.

Now, as an Australian, what are Australia's problems with Islam and what might Australia and Australians do? And what is your moral and political philosophy--extant and should be--and how does that power your actions? It seems you've been writing as a citizen of the world respecting Islam but the world is not a country and has no foreign policy or army. Are you ending up with a default of what the United States should do? All the U.S. will do respecting Australia that it should do is guarantee its continued existence as an independent nation just as it pretty much does with all the nations of the Pacific with its powerful navy. I can Walter Mitty all I want with great coherence about what the U.S. can and should not do for whatever that's worth, but when you leave Australia and imagine doing what I do respecting my country you end up with what Michael calls "bigotry". I really don't care if you are a bigot. I might if I owned this site. I just feed off what people post and react to it trying for more and better understandings. I suggested Michael throw certain threads of yours onto The Garbage Pile for the reasons stated at the time and because I know Michael and he was about to ban you out-right. I saved your OL ass--for now--by blasting your "fascism" leaving you free to deal with your "bigotry" whatever those really are. I cannot make you change--if you need changing--that'd be up to you.

I can't save you next time nor would I try. I suggest you review your attitude towards Muslims as human beings trapped in a terrible religion and realize there's no fighting them; they can't fight. If they could they'd be tossing their leaders and the jihadists into the fires set by burning down their mosques. Instead "converts" are trying to get into Iraq and Syria to defend The Caliphate--not the religion. They want a country to fight for being young, ignorant and stupid. I've been there and done that myself. This makes smashing ISIS a legitimate foreign policy objective of the United States (IMHO) qua self defense leaving them with nowhere to go and nowhere to fight and good reason to use their testosterone for the more selfish pursuit of one virgin on Earth who is worth all the pretend virgins in heaven. Heck, maybe they can find more than one--especially if they pass her around.

--Brant

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Richard, you need to reset and think of relations of one country to another. A country's foreign policy: what should it be? You have two workable perspectives. One is Australia and the other the United States. I've been working the latter. Not being an Aussie I cannot get specific enough about what Australia needs to do to protect itself. That's your job, if you want it, as an Australian. Geert in Denmark represents much the same thing with Denmark replacing Australia. Etc.

Although, Geert Wilders, doesn't think that way. He sees it as a global issue and he acts globally.

"As I said, our leaders still refuse to defend our freedoms because they are either cowards or appeasers. This is why the task of defending freedom has now fallen on us. On you, on me, on ordinary citizens.

To this end, I have established the International Freedom Alliance IFA."

"IFA aims to be a network of resistance fighters in all the countries threatened by Islam."

but we'll clobber fascists as fascists when they crawl out of their holes with the greatest of ease if we're allowed to do so. Whack-a-mole.

You have my respect for what you've done and where you've been, it doesn't change the reality though. Islam is fascist. That is a bare-naked fact, and responding to it defensively isn't to fight a religious war. It's to defend liberty.

It's a simply Now, as an Australian, what are Australia's problems with Islam and what might Australia and Australians do?

To the extent that any problems are universal, they don't just apply to Australia. Australia is wrestling with the exact same things they are in New Zealand, in Canada, in France, etc. We all can learn from each other.

It seems you've been writing as a citizen of the world respecting Islam but the world is not a country and has no foreign policy or army.

As someone who values freedom. That isn't country specific, and neither is Islam country specific.

The Caliphate--not the religion.

The Caliphate is a religious imperative.

They want a country to fight for being young, ignorant and stupid.

They want Islam to be united and strong, headed by a Caliph. In Islamic law only a legitimate Caliph can all Muslims to war. That is one of the aims the jihadists are working towards. They want the Ummah to unite and put an end to Dar al-Harb for good. This is what they're aiming for. It is a religious imperative, and they work for it across a broad front, overt and covert.

You might find this an interesting read. It was written ten years ago, and so far what was predicted has all come to pass.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/exposed-obama-helped-decade-old-plan-to-create-is/

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You may create more of what you hate. Telling Muslims Mohammed had sex with a 9 yo girl isn't necessarily wise. Etc. Targeting members of a faith for being members of a faith because some use it for terrible purposes has a tendency to radicalize other members.

--Brant

Brant: That word "radicalize" or "radicalization" has got to go. (I sense you're uncomfortable with it as well).

It's a nothing word and anti-concept, foisted on us by a media in step with progressivist intellectuals; I think it's based on false causation and the denial of individual self-accountability. Being handled with kid-gloves is the biggest insult to anybody with self-respect, and the soft treatment is obviously failing with the radicals anyway.

Whoever heard of some Christians, for example, being "radicalized" into committing acts by hurtful or insulting references to Jesus Christ? If a few did, they'd get laughed out of town. Islam is not exactly so tiny it needs special protection (outside of individual rights protection, in advanced nations) and some Muslims' outrage at any perceived slight, meant or not, uttered on the other side of the world, is insanely out of touch with reality - creating a victimhood mentality by protesting too much. If the world of Islam wants to be treated with the same civilised dues that every religion is treated - not feared - each has to look to themself and mature.

That some Muslims relish or encourage the growing fear and paranoia in the West, as some evidently do, is something else entirely.

I'd thought it was clear that I meant 'radicalization' by westerners - as when a westerner has ever shown any perceived contempt for Islam -- thereby 'causing' one or many Muslims to respond aggressively. (Obviously, he/they had no choice but to do it). This false causality, and an incomprehension of individual self-determination, is what has completely undone the people and leaders of Prog-Lib nations.

Appeasing, afraid collectivists won't have the faintest idea of how to respond morally against violent collectivists.

Some guy wrote nasty things about your religion? (mea culpa, sorry we've offended you).

You fellows want nuclear power without the bomb? (of course! we believe you).

You get angry because we are friendly with country X? (don't worry, we'll change that).

Etc. etc.

Rationalized "insults" will serve nicely as justification to do what they would have done anyway.

It's the West's principled ideology radical Islam first set out to overcome, they understand its significance even as westerners have been forgetting it.

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I've lost interest in this subject, Tony. It's to the point of repeating myself--to wit, fight exported or to be exported fascism, not Islam. Without its fascism Islam goes. If it keeps its fascism at home, that's not on the United States. The Caliphate and Iran are thus targeted. The first by the U.S.; the second by Israel. This means Israel will attack Iran with the aid of Saudi Arabia with the possible direct participation of the U.S. Of course, the dolts will ruin this simplicity with the wrong complexities.

--Brant

the way out is through

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  • 8 months later...

Well one aspect is certain, the EU has shown the way to the beauty of open borders and diversity.

Now the EU has no problems with race or immigration...

Calais-migrants-crisis-324823.jpg

Recycling...

66583.jpg

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/594851/Eurotunnel-Calais-migrants-Britain-Channel-Theresa-May-government-security-immigration

A...

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Where are all those brown/black/white/MuslimOrNot people coming from, and why do they want to end up in Britain (and not, for example, France or Germany)? Spurred by that question, I write a little bit too much, off the top of my head.

I don't think that anyone but Mssrs deStraw have stated for argument purposes that the EU proper has no problem with 'race' and with immigration. They say, "The UK has a migrant crisis; the EU has a migrant crisis; the EU has a refugee crisis: the EU is letting Italy and Greece deal with the boat people on their own; Hungary must build a wall to prevent entries from non-EU Serbia..." It's a right front and centre crisis. Everyone and their dog has an opinion and speaks it.

It reminds me a bit of the time of the Vietnamese 'Boat People.' In effect, perhaps half of the flows "push" from official policy, if not outright threat or coercion. There are international treaties that require a certain kind of response from particular folks in particular circumstances. This is what makes the Libyan/Syrian escapees to Europe a kind of a shaggy dog story. Once 'landed' in a state, certain conventions take over, whether you want to or not, whether your household or town or region or nation has any money to attempt to help the folks on your beach. It is a huge freaking stress, with saturation points and choke-points and empty pockets and hands-off attitudes. There is no central point in the EU that migrants/refugees are determined to get to. If I was one, I would try to hold out for Sweden or Canada or the UK. A structured welcome.

I remember in Canada, it took a while to sort out our policy. The boat people who had made it to Hong Kong were in detention camps about the time we figured it out. We picked a magic number, 50k, and began selecting and processing our share of the fleeing and fled. Your magic figure was more like a half million, I think.

The overwhelming number of people fleeing are caught on the wrong side of conflict, be it ethnic-religious or political or just bizarre horror. The folks washing up in the eastern Mediterranean are fleeing civil wars mostly. For example, the monstrosity that is the Syrian government has effectively bombed out half its population. It does not hesitate to torture or murder. What do you say to someone who would rather die than go 'home' or live in a squalid camp.

It only takes an individual story to understand the motivation of the "hordes" and "swarms" of humanity "Invading" our pure shores. Even if we must say, sorry, not my problem, it's okay to hear the stories before towing them back to sea.

I feel for the Eritreans, especially, whatever their class or story. The junta they flee from is ever ugly and punitive. But permutations of religio-politico-ethno hatreds and persecution drive other flows from the bloody countries on a list of 'invaders.'

Whatever our political stripe, we should be aware of details, the causative factors, the conflicts and dangers -- not just the draw of Western paradise, but the push of pain and horror. Not every 'migrant' squatter is a peach of a person, of course, and self-interest on the run is likely to live in amoral emergency mode. Governments and military supposedly have a responsibility to defend 'our shores' from massive influxes of strangers. What must be done must be done in a security sense, in my mind. What seems to be the common denominator is hold and protect -- whether by self-sorting militia or by official forces of the USA at all levels. In the thickets of what is necessary and what is a nightmare of altruism, I don't have an ultimate figured out.

So, man the ramparts, yes, but observe also that waves of violence propel people to abandon their homes and livelihoods. Fear of torture and death motivate strongly. Looking at the various nationalities on the march, you can often trace back to brutal events. Mass terror, expulsions, state terror, destruction, cleansing. Permutations of force and coercion. Wish Europe well in coping with the outflow from conflict, take in a token selection via magic number, and hand them over to private sponsors for insertion into our societies. I think you guys are on hook for ~10k Syrians per annum. Canada has selected 1000 or so. So she goes. It is not really our problem.

gog.jpg

During the boat people crisis up here, as you imagine, the private sectors provided the impetus, the cooperative oomph that propelled the government to make policy. It was a regulated transaction paid for by the churches, associations, businesses and individuals. We took in a sluice of the flow, settled them, integrated them, and set them on their way to root themselves here.

If I could live another fifty-seven years, I think I will expect the Greater Middle Eastern Wars of 2011-2069 to have been won by "Western" (Canadian-style) muslims, against "Eastern" (crazy state terrorist) muslims. There will be a Great Sorting Out.

I've found it is generally the refugees who root themselves and liberate themselves best in Canada, who are most profoundly attached to its traditional freedoms and values. They battled and competed to get here, the flag is their victory.

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Where are all those brown/black/white/MuslimOrNot people coming from, and why do they want to end up in Britain (and not, for example, France or Germany)? Spurred by that question, I write a little bit too much, off the top of my head.

I don't think that anyone but Mssrs deStraw have stated for argument purposes that the EU proper has no problem with 'race' and with immigration. They say, "The UK has a migrant crisis; the EU has a migrant crisis; the EU has a refugee crisis: the EU is letting Italy and Greece deal with the boat people on their own; Hungary must build a wall to prevent entries from non-EU Serbia..." It's a right front and centre crisis. Everyone and their dog has an opinion and speaks it.

It reminds me a bit of the time of the Vietnamese 'Boat People.' In effect, perhaps half of the flows "push" from official policy, if not outright threat or coercion. There are international treaties that require a certain kind of response from particular folks in particular circumstances. This is what makes the Libyan/Syrian escapees to Europe a kind of a shaggy dog story. Once 'landed' in a state, certain conventions take over, whether you want to or not, whether your household or town or region or nation has any money to attempt to help the folks on your beach. It is a huge freaking stress, with saturation points and choke-points and empty pockets and hands-off attitudes. There is no central point in the EU that migrants/refugees are determined to get to. If I was one, I would try to hold out for Sweden or Canada or the UK. A structured welcome.

I remember in Canada, it took a while to sort out our policy. The boat people who had made it to Hong Kong were in detention camps about the time we figured it out. We picked a magic number, 50k, and began selecting and processing our share of the fleeing and fled. Your magic figure was more like a half million, I think.

The overwhelming number of people fleeing are caught on the wrong side of conflict, be it ethnic-religious or political or just bizarre horror. The folks washing up in the eastern Mediterranean are fleeing civil wars mostly. For example, the monstrosity that is the Syrian government has effectively bombed out half its population. It does not hesitate to torture or murder. What do you say to someone who would rather die than go 'home' or live in a squalid camp.

It only takes an individual story to understand the motivation of the "hordes" and "swarms" of humanity "Invading" our pure shores. Even if we must say, sorry, not my problem, it's okay to hear the stories before towing them back to sea.

I feel for the Eritreans, especially, whatever their class or story. The junta they flee from is ever ugly and punitive. But permutations of religio-politico-ethno hatreds and persecution drive other flows from the bloody countries on a list of 'invaders.'

Whatever our political stripe, we should be aware of details, the causative factors, the conflicts and dangers -- not just the draw of Western paradise, but the push of pain and horror. Not every 'migrant' squatter is a peach of a person, of course, and self-interest on the run is likely to live in amoral emergency mode. Governments and military supposedly have a responsibility to defend 'our shores' from massive influxes of strangers. What must be done must be done in a security sense, in my mind. What seems to be the common denominator is hold and protect -- whether by self-sorting militia or by official forces of the USA at all levels. In the thickets of what is necessary and what is a nightmare of altruism, I don't have an ultimate figured out.

So, man the ramparts, yes, but observe also that waves of violence propel people to abandon their homes and livelihoods. Fear of torture and death motivate strongly. Looking at the various nationalities on the march, you can often trace back to brutal events. Mass terror, expulsions, state terror, destruction, cleansing. Permutations of force and coercion. Wish Europe well in coping with the outflow from conflict, take in a token selection via magic number, and hand them over to private sponsors for insertion into our societies. I think you guys are on hook for ~10k Syrians per annum. Canada has selected 1000 or so. So she goes. It is not really our problem.

gog.jpg

During the boat people crisis up here, as you imagine, the private sectors provided the impetus, the cooperative oomph that propelled the government to make policy. It was a regulated transaction paid for by the churches, associations, businesses and individuals. We took in a sluice of the flow, settled them, integrated them, and set them on their way to root themselves here.

If I could live another fifty-seven years, I think I will expect the Greater Middle Eastern Wars of 2011-2069 to have been won by "Western" (Canadian-style) muslims, against "Eastern" (crazy state terrorist) muslims. There will be a Great Sorting Out.

I've found it is generally the refugees who root themselves and liberate themselves best in Canada, who are most profoundly attached to its traditional freedoms and values. They battled and competed to get here, the flag is their victory.

Are you willfully or innocently naive? By and large it's not the adults, though some may be agents, it will be their atavistic children.

--Brant

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I've found it is generally the refugees who root themselves and liberate themselves best in Canada, who are most profoundly attached to its traditional freedoms and values. They battled and competed to get here, the flag is their victory.

Are you willfully or innocently naive? By and large it's not the adults, though some may be agents, it will be their atavistic children.

--Brant

By and large, I am swayed by facts.

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I've found it is generally the refugees who root themselves and liberate themselves best in Canada, who are most profoundly attached to its traditional freedoms and values. They battled and competed to get here, the flag is their victory.

Are you willfully or innocently naive? By and large it's not the adults, though some may be agents, it will be their atavistic children.

--Brant

By and large, I am swayed by facts.

Now you're channeling Bob.

--Brant

but Bob you're not

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Speaking of people I know personally, a friend from Cambodia, immigrated with his mom and four younger brothers. As a child he saw piles of bodies of people killed by Khmer Rouge. Came here at 11-12, did not speak English. He's doing well in high tech, very good electronics designer and troubleshooter, married w/ two kids. His younger brothers all enlisted in the Army and have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan, one is special forces. They are all very patriotic, very glad and grateful to be naturalized citizens. Second generation.

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Are you willfully or innocently naive? By and large it's not the adults, though some may be agents, it will be their atavistic children.

By and large, I am swayed by facts.

Now you're channeling Bob.

Given a forced choice, I'd choose "willfully" ... as I hope I have a will behind my arguments. Here, I don't really know what particulars you take issue with -- a lack of insight into Canadian refugees, or a general Pollyanna-ish avoidance of some ugly set of facts. By and large it (?) is not the adults. Some adults may be agents (of what?). It (?) will be the adults' children atavism (of something). It.

If you have some overlooked facts about Canadian refugees' attachment to the country that contradict my impressions, great, happy to be corrected. This may be one of those instances where you know me better than I know myself.

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It is generally not elders struggling to make ends meet, but their children who aren't, some of whom may feel a little guilty for their relative if not unstrugling affluence. The anti-war activism of the late 1960s was primarily out of the middle-class college age I don't wanna be drafted cohort. A townhouse in NYC Greenwich Village blew up because the prominent left-wing lawyer who owned it had kids who decided they were going to make and use bombs. Patty Hearst went over to her kidnappers. Islam makes it worse for its conquering, Jihadist make the infidel submit doctrine and virgins in paradise reward for martyrdom. Christians can go ape also. "Onward Christian Soldiers"--metaphorical and literal. I knew one now dead because he believed in a better afterlife against which his current life could not compare, but not for any la causa; he was simply irrational.

It's not good for your objectivity to see these things through your nice, secular--that's for Greg!--Canadian eyes. I'm enough as a WASP American culturally to know what Islam needs: a straight arm trample down so they don't do their wanted doing.

--Brant

the army and Vietnam turned me into a member of the warrior caste lusting for more shoot 'em uppers--that plus my masculine DNA (fight, fight, fight for the right to be right free! [of fascist Islam and all other fascist tyranny (--or civilize them with a Craig)]!)

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It is generally not elders struggling to make ends meet, but their children who aren't, some of whom may feel a little guilty for their relative if not unstrugling affluence.

In the context of refugees (to North America)?

It's not good for your objectivity to see these things through your nice, secular [...] eyes. I'm enough as a WASP culturally to know what Islam needs: a straight arm trample down so they don't do their wanted doing.

Okay, from Canada refuge to violent or viciously anti-Western Islam and a needed trample down of the latter, if not the former. My nice secular eyes not seeing the Canadian reality of viciousness among the refugees I have known. Not good. I think I get it, WASP or not. I am wrongly optimistic at refugee 'implantation' as citizens, you are right to suspect them as a class or collective, and the world is turning as she should.

Beware lurking danger, incipient violent alienation, which ought to shine through Canucki myopia and make me reconsider my opinion ... in favour of fear and loathing.

Mike, you make a good point. Sometimes refugees make exemplary citizens, and adopt the values and freedoms of the 'host' country.

Brant, this sometimes is perhaps what we three each want to be almost-all-times attachment to 'ideals' and 'values' and 'norms' ...

I submit that both the USA and Canada, on balance, have some of the best 'integrations' of any of the major refugee-accepting nations of the Western World. A good argument can be had, of course, about the facts and how they fall out.

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A younger friend, his artist wife and their infant son emigrated to the US almost 20 years ago. Vaugn is one of nature's gentlemen I am proud to know; he was also smart enough to see that RSA would turn sour for whites, even then. Anyhow, they WORKED for their immigration. Not the refugee's route - he planned, saved money, learned a new career in film editing, and applied tirelessly for the family's citizenship. Eventually he was accepted into a Miami studio, then went on to employment with a large West Coast studio. The three of them are, for me, perfect new US citizens with a cheerfully stoic attitude to life.

Of all things, about 18 months ago their son, Julian (a terrific teenager), was driving home alone, late after dropping off his girlfriend after her Prom dance and a visit to a nightclub. He, in a tuxedo. For no reason the police can still ascertain, he was shot four times at a traffic light in a quiet, upmarket LA suburb. He was close to dying if not for people hearing the shots and rushing out of their homes to help him. Several operations and many months later, after doctors' warnings he wouldn't walk again, Julian is partially back on his feet and proving them wrong.

My friends, the Archer's, have come to mind often in these debates about immigration and refugees. I must admit, what's crossed my mind is the consideration that maybe it was some illegal immigrant who came close to randomly murdering an exemplary, legal one.

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It is generally not elders struggling to make ends meet, but their children who aren't, some of whom may feel a little guilty for their relative if not unstrugling affluence.

In the context of refugees (to North America)?

It's not good for your objectivity to see these things through your nice, secular [...] eyes. I'm enough as a WASP culturally to know what Islam needs: a straight arm trample down so they don't do their wanted doing.

Okay, from Canada refuge to violent or viciously anti-Western Islam and a needed trample down of the latter, if not the former. My nice secular eyes not seeing the Canadian reality of viciousness among the refugees I have known. Not good. I think I get it, WASP or not. I am wrongly optimistic at refugee 'implantation' as citizens, you are right to suspect them as a class or collective, and the world is turning as she should.

Beware lurking danger, incipient violent alienation, which ought to shine through Canucki myopia and make me reconsider my opinion ... in favour of fear and loathing.

Mike, you make a good point. Sometimes refugees make exemplary citizens, and adopt the values and freedoms of the 'host' country.

Brant, this sometimes is perhaps what we three each want to be almost-all-times attachment to 'ideals' and 'values' and 'norms' ...

I submit that both the USA and Canada, on balance, have some of the best 'integrations' of any of the major refugee-accepting nations of the Western World. A good argument can be had, of course, about the facts and how they fall out.

Greg snips me when he wants to agree with me. You snip me when you want to disagree with me.

--Brant

by and large--Greg's a little more consistent

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