Why don't you google "Are Muslim immigrants more likely to commit rape?" If you simply survey the results, I think you'll understand what I mean. You will get a whole lot of websites which will tell you that Muslim immigrants are dangerous and that they are responsible for a vastly disproportionate amount of rape.
If you look up "Jews are evil" you'll find a few websites too. And they'll tell you all sorts of things that aren't true. Some of them have books.
lain:
I could very well cite these things and pull sources for any number of claims that I could be making.
Would you accept from a student writing a paper on a serious subject an unsubstantiated claim gleaned from a website? No, source matter matters. You don't get objective data from stormfront, or any sites trading in alarmist rhetoric, etc.
The problem, of course, that you will find with it is that these tend to be anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, right-wing websites and news sources. You'll accuse them of bias.
I don't have to. You just did.
...Once again, this goes back to my question about whether anyone's bothering to do these surveys, who those people are, how they are doing it, etc.
Look to studies on immigration and violence that break that down across gender and other particulars. Look for something within the last five years, ideally but not within the most recent year absent a fairly iron clad source. Else, look to academic and public journals with credible credentials, rated among the more objectively accurate at reporting facts. There are even rankings of think tanks available online.
It seems clear to me that Western governments and liberals in general have a determinate political agenda, and that agenda involves importing Muslim immigrants and sweeping the obvious consequences of these things under the rug.
But you've already demonstrated a fairly severely negative and assumptive bias on the topic, so it doesn't surprise me.
I'd have been surprised by, "Thinking on my methodology and understanding my historical struggles to value or view the other objectively, as a creature of reason I'm going to have to withdraw an insufficiently supported opinion and sensational notion until I feel I have an opinion rooted in an objective understanding of the topic."
That would have blown my academic doors off.
Again, consider the fact that EU leaders are insisting that muslim immigration has nothing to do with Cologne. Never mind...the assailants were pretty much all muslim immigrants.
Do they mean that the anecdote shouldn't be confused with a rule for determining policy? If so, they're right. But we'll come to another consideration being mulled by the German government and its implications for them and for you in a moment.
Why should I think that liberal Western institutions should have even the slightest interest in focusing their attention on the problem and getting hard data which actually would show that muslim immigration is a bad idea? It's in direct conflict with liberal ideology.
Rather, governments and institutions of power have a vested interest in preserving that power. They will look into issues like "violence and immigration" because it is in their best interests to do so. Most ideology is at its heart self serving.
So no, TH, I ultimately don't agree with your assessment. My views aren't based on ignorance.
You've literally admitted that your views were based on anecdotes without correlating data. That's ignorance, no matter how you feel about it.
...The cologne attacks are evidence of something. What degree of evidence? I won't dispute it. But they are evidence.
You find a man hanging in the woods. It's evidence of something too. The problem comes in when we assume we know the "of what" instead of determining it objectively as best we can.
TH, these examples actually work against your case.
No, they really don't. I'm noting that mob violence is far from uncommon and has no necessary ties to a religion or immigration. See, you saw a crowd of Muslims breaking the law and assumed it was a Muslim problem. You wouldn't see a soccer riot and violence in a mostly Catholic country and assume the Church was responsible.
But do tell me, TH, what the cause of the Cologne attacks were.
I don't know, but if you want speculation let's begin with what the government has to say about it. If we are to believe the German government, around 1,000 men gathered in a train station before fragmenting to commit various crimes in Cologne. Sounds like terrorism to me. Hamburg and Stuttgart saw similar happenings on the night. They're looking into linkage as we write.
Germany took in over a million refugees through immigration in the year preceding it. It's not beyond the realm of reasonable speculation that some of those came to do this sort of thing. If so, you need to ask yourself why that would be in their best interests?
Is it merely a good cover from which to do damage? Possibly, but this sort of damage isn't harming the economy or taking lives. So what is it accomplishing?
The best way to answer that might be to note the six Pakistanis who, without being charged or convicted of anything, were attacked in the wake of this by a German mob of some twenty men. Two of the Pakistanis were hospitalized.
So what damage did those mobs of immigrants really do and how does your suggestion appear to serve that aim?
Ex hypothesi, if the West decided to expel all Muslims, there would be no legal Muslim immigrants.
I noted the law gave them the right to be exactly where they are, in contradiction to your declaration. No one is arguing that changing the law would alter that.
...The Islamic "religion" is diametrically opposed to Western values, legal and political doctrine, etc.
The native Muslim population will be mostly surprised to hear it. As will the people of Turkey.
I leave off your skewing of history and appeal to emotion in lieu of reason. Barbaric race? God, Trad, is this as far as you've come?
Your claim that unequal laws are unjust laws is just flat wrong, depending on what you mean.
So I'm wrong though you aren't sure you understand me.
lain: