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[Owlbread]

No. Fascism, nationalism and racism are all too intertwined. I know you probably think your Scottish nationalism is different, but I doubt it. If you ever get independence and don't have the English to blame and hate on any more I think you'll see people turning on the immigrants in a heartbeat.

I think you're looking at this in a very simplistic, narrow-minded manner. I'm especially offended that you would accuse the majority of my nation of being English-hating racists, as you've done rather surreptitiously by referring to us collectively.

Also - for your information lots of people in my country have already turned on immigrants. I regularly encounter such people during independence debates, and they are invariably pro-Union, making statements like "I don't support independence because Salmond is going to let all the immigrants in". The alternative to independence is just another kind of nationalism, only one form may be more likely to create a truly peaceful, democratic, new country that can be moulded into any shape our people desire. Choose the lesser evil.

Yep, the train cars are tumbling down the mountainside as we speak.

[Gervassen]

Scriver, at a time when you could be rightfully angry at Islamism, it's telling of the weaknesses and fears in the Western mind that instead you choose to rail against nationalism. Nationalists don't often cut the throats of critics like Theo van Gogh, so you get a lot of "brave" "righteous" people attacking the easy targets in times like these. It's not exactly the picture of bravery that they probably have in their minds.

A bomber was caught. Frankly, I'm not an American and I haven't been paying attention to this, it seems a pathetically small event to capture a bomber after he is successful... but on the other hand, it's not a time to rail against irrelevant scapegoats when the problem itself was quite clearly not nationalism.

[Owlbread]

Though some may say that Nationalism and Islamism were intertwined in the Tsarnaev brothers' motivation.

[Gervassen]

Doubtful. Bombing Russia, perhaps nationalism. How could a Chechen nationalist statement be made by bombing the Great Satan?

[Loud Whispers]

When Dzhokhar was captured I was struck by the outpouring of nationalism. I watched people chanting "USA, USA, USA", waving American flags and guys on video camera saying how everyone just felt so proud to be American. Well, I don't know about you chaps but I'd just be thankful that I was alive and my family was safe. Whether I'd be American or not doesn't matter. Nationalism in the USA is the strongest I have seen in the 21st century.

This is where nationalism was brought up and there it was on topic. This lengthened discussion of it is all rather nice and such, but it is drifting further away from Boston geographically by the post.
It'd be nice to have this thread not get locked by people taking things too personally as well, if it were possible.

[misko27]

People, you make me sad with your"not understanding geopolitics" thing.

RUSSIA, NOT THE US OF A, Is the Great Satan Here. Chechnya, has ABSOLUTELY NO BEEF WITH THE US. NONE. If you think that, YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO ANYTHING. The degree to which Chechnya dislikes the US is approximately equal to the degree the IRA dislikes it. Non-existant. They hope for money and SUPPORT here.

Furthermore, if the people of the US decide, unprompted, to celebrate a man's death, Well, too freaking bad.

To continue, there are no major western powers that are in any manner fascist. Seriously. That is extremeness to the point of absurdity. And if you can't accept that, accept you are in the minority.

Finally, to take a position I hope will distract peopel long enough to end the argument, or at least shift it's focus, I feel sympathy for the remaining bomber's plight. I mean man, your brother steam-rolls you into something, he dies, you get wounded and taken into police custody, Everyone hates you, your own cause disavows you. Sucks BALLS to be him.

[Max White]

Sympathy for this man? I just hope he gets what he is entitled to, a fair trial. After that, he was the maker of his own fate...

[Brotato]

How can you say that when you look at the face of a boy?  I know he's 19 and technically an adult but all I can see is some poor kid who was lied to, manipulated, and through some twisted belief system he'd been spoon-fed, he felt compelled to do the unimaginable.  No,  I feel sorry him.  He deserves whatever fate is handed to him, but I pity him.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't. I'm 19 and I know better than to murder and maim people.

I hope he is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole rather than death, but that's probably wishful thinking.

[Loud Whispers]

Furthermore, if the people of the US decide, unprompted, to celebrate a man's death, Well, too freaking bad.

It's nice to see from time to time that the world isn't populated by monsters.

...

[Max White]

How can you say that when you look at the face of a boy?  I know he's 19 and technically an adult but all I can see is some poor kid who was lied to, manipulated, and through some twisted belief system he'd been spoon-fed, he felt compelled to do the unimaginable.  No,  I feel sorry him.  He deserves whatever fate is handed to him, but I pity him.

He is responsible for the death and maiming of several people. Will his imprisonment help these victims in any way? No, it will not. But it will set the example for what happens when you set out to hurt people.

A justice system should never be about revenge. It should be about making people accountable for their actions. I don't care if this guy is 19, he needs to be held accountable for what he chose to do.

[Frumple]

... and imprisonment or execution does that... how?

But no, a justice system should be about helping those who stray reintegrate with society. Sometimes that includes reparation, sometimes it doesn't. Imprisonment or execution is a sign of failure, a flaw in the justice system, not indications of it functioning as desired. You can't make reparation to society when you're removed from it. You can't reintegrate locked up or dead. Those are ways of saying "We can't fix this." not "We did right."

Mind you, that's rather irrelevant considering the US justice system is more about revenge than just about anything (We're making inroads! Slowly. Also occasional setbacks.) but whatever.

Anyone know if they've given ETA on more information? If they're missing someone, etc., so forth, so on? I'm guessing it's too soon, but... maybe?

[SalmonGod]

It was done to the minority in question because there was a political drive to see it done. Because there was a perception that they were a threat to the well being of the nation's war efforts by either some form of sabotage, or through making the population question the war, and because nationalistic fervor had made the population perceive these people that lived among them but were culturally unlike them as a threat that should be take out.

Are you talking about the Nazi concentration camps, or the US ones?

Just now catching up and it's old now (fast moving thread), but I have to say that no one could have possibly said anything to better reinforce the point here.

[Max White]

There is sometimes a fine point to my ranting and general foolery.
Sometimes.

[Pnx]

... I did do that on purpose you know...