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[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'd offer a correction there. Islam is receptive to criticism. Islamists aren't.

Fair enough.

[FearfulJesuit]

I don't necessarily think it's Islam primarily. Turkey, after all, is mostly Muslim and yet is mostly OK.

What it is is tribalism, poor education, social stagnation and a mass of poor, unemployed, hopeless people with no power and a lot of anger. And that's something that cutting off aid won't fix. Unfortunately.

I mean, that's the thing; were we working with a First World country with rational electorates who could understand issues, cutting aid might do something. But Libya? That can only lead to bad things.

[Tellemurius]

Americans don't have a cultural mandate for violence.

Excuse me? Are you going to withdraw that utterly ludicrous statement, or am I going to have to bring up every violent thing the USA has ever done in the name of "America", God, and "Freedom"?

I'm not withdrawing shit. Actions of violence are sometimes committed by the USA, and sometimes they are unjustified. This is not the same thing as having a cultural mandate for violence. Americans do not go out into the streets and kill people because someone half-way around the world criticized something related to our culture. That is the key difference. Indeed, I'd say that Americans are rather thick-skinned as far as that goes. If we weren't it'd be chaos, what with all the undeserved criticism we get from everyone else constantly.

Islam is not receptive to criticism. At all. It mandates death for such things. Western society, and by extension American society, holds inquiry and criticism as important and protected. I think you can see how our peaceful coexistence just isn't going to happen until someone budges, and it sure as hell isn't going to be the free world.

He has a point. With all of our protests here, very few ever gotten violent to the sizes of say of Europe.
We don't go batshit insane, hell right now...... no one is rioting about a dead consulate.....

[Digital Hellhound]

I've only seen this in a Finnish article, but both the president and the Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagour have condemned and apologized 'to the US and the whole world' for the attacks, for what it's worth.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't necessarily think it's Islam primarily. Turkey, after all, is mostly Muslim and yet is mostly OK.

Turkey had Ataturk's reforms. I still cannot fathom how that man pulled off so much progress in a place that was the heart of the Ottoman Empire when he was born, but he did.

That said, Turkey does have an Islamist problem, it's just a lot less prevalent because the military has a mandate to keep the government secular.

[Leafsnail]

I hate to come across as a Freeper, but there's a reason the American franchise was restricted to property owners before Jackson came along

Bad.  Very very bad.  Stop it.

[scriver]

Americans don't have a cultural mandate for violence.

Excuse me? Are you going to withdraw that utterly ludicrous statement, or am I going to have to bring up every violent thing the USA has ever done in the name of "America", God, and "Freedom"?

I'm not withdrawing shit. Actions of violence are sometimes committed by the USA, and sometimes they are unjustified. This is not the same thing as having a cultural mandate for violence. Americans do not go out into the streets and kill people because someone half-way around the world criticized something related to our culture. That is the key difference. Indeed, I'd say that Americans are rather thick-skinned as far as that goes. If we weren't it'd be chaos, what with all the undeserved criticism we get from everyone else constantly.

Islam is not receptive to criticism. At all. It mandates death for such things. Western society, and by extension American society, holds inquiry and criticism as important and protected. I think you can see how our peaceful coexistence just isn't going to happen until someone budges, and it sure as hell isn't going to be the free world.

Things America have mandate to do -

Torture people for little to no reason.
Invade whatever country they like.
Kill all civilians they want.
Commit whatever war crimes they want.
Overthrow whatever governments they want.
Fund and/or create whatever terrorist groups they want.

All in the name of Freedom and the American Way.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Torture people for little to no reason.

There's generally a reason even if it is wrong, and this is an action purported by the government.

Invade whatever country they like.

You do realize that this is also an action purported by the government, right?

Kill all civilians they want.

Firstly, if we killed all the civilians we could there would be no one left alive in Iraq or Afghanistan. Civilian casualties from warfare are at a historic low. Secondly, government again.

Commit whatever war crimes they want.

Government.

Overthrow whatever governments they want.

Government.

Fund and/or create whatever terrorist groups they want.

Government.

All in the name of Freedom and the American Way.

All in the name of geopolitical power and getting re-elected. You clearly are not getting what I'm saying.

The government doing bad things is not the same as having a cultural mandate for violence amongst the populace.

[Frumple]

I think MSH is attempting to draw a divide between the government and the people on the ground, scrive. The general populace doesn't go about their day-to-day doing many of those, and in general even the extremist groups within our population don't tend to spaz out violently very often (at least where we can see, anyway). Meanwhile you do see violence erupting in these flashpoint areas, as RK put it, much more often.

Most of that difference is because we're well fed, I'd wager, but whatev'.

The US government and our people in power may be another story. They do some pretty reprehensible shit pretty often, but just as we shouldn't paint the entire population of these flashpoint areas by the reprehensible actions of a few, neither should we paint the entire population of the first world countries by the actions of their nominal representatives.

E: Just barely ninja'd, bah.

[Digital Hellhound]

No country has a 'cultural mandate for violence'. That might be the most offensive thing I've heard all week.

[Tellemurius]

Things America have mandate to do -

Torture people for little to no reason.
Invade whatever country they like.
Kill all civilians they want.
Commit whatever war crimes they want.
Overthrow whatever governments they want.
Fund and/or create whatever terrorist groups they want.

All in the name of Freedom and the American Way.

Torture is everywhere doesn't matter if we do it or not, no country has ever denied torturing either their foes or their own citizens.

While i do note we invaded everyone we liked too it has cause alot of outrage from the world community and people were pissed that we invaded Iraq for bullshit reasons so its not without consequences

Kill all civilians they want. Excuse me? When the fuck did we started mowing down innocents?

commit whatever war crimes they want. Please explain this more as we haven't been carpet bombing or using chemical warfare for a while now.

Overthrow what governments they want. once again countries playing dirty

Fund and/or create whatever terrorist groups they want. Once again countries playing dirty.

[EveryZig]

Islam is not receptive to criticism. At all. It mandates death for such things. Western society, and by extension American society, holds inquiry and criticism as important and protected. I think you can see how our peaceful coexistence just isn't going to happen until someone budges, and it sure as hell isn't going to be the free world.

Gee, Islam sure is uniquely violent in its mandated treatment of dissent. Why, just the other day I heard Islam saying:

And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.

Wait a minute...

(The point being that Islam is not alone in mad mandates, so while it contributes it is most likely not the active ingredient here.)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No country has a 'cultural mandate for violence'. That might be the most offensive thing I've heard all week.

Then how do you explain why this keeps happening? This doesn't happen on even a semi-regular basis anywhere else, but if anyone in the West commits an act critical of Islam that gets well known, bam, violence. Every time.

I'm not saying this from nothing, you know. This is an evidence-based claim.

Gee, Islam sure is uniquely violent in its mandated treatment of dissent. Why, just the other day I heard Islam saying:

And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.

Wait a minute...

(The point being that Islam is not alone in mad mandates, so while it contributes it is most likely not the active ingredient here.)

I'm not defending the Bible. If it were followed literally by the majority of the population nations with lots of Christians would be in similar straights (and in places like Uganda this is indeed the case), but secularism is prevalent in Western governments. In MENA, secularism has only ever came from loony-bin foreign-installed dictators instead of rational elected leaders.

[Frumple]

No country has a 'cultural mandate for violence'. That might be the most offensive thing I've heard all week.

Then how do you explain why this keeps happening? This doesn't happen on even a semi-regular basis anywhere else, but if anyone in the West commits an act critical of Islam that gets well known, bam, violence. Every time.

I'm not saying this from nothing, you know. This is an evidence-based claim.

Because they're fucking hungry, MSH. That's most of the foundational cause. The situation is shit poor in the areas in question and the disenfranchised, hungry, poor, hopeless portions of the population (which are a considerably larger fraction compared to the comparatively well fed first world) get violent.

Do you see the same sort of violence coming with the same sort of frequency from followers of Islam in more stable areas?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Because they're fucking hungry, MSH. That's most of the foundational cause. The situation is shit poor in the areas in question and the disenfranchised, hungry, poor, hopeless portions of the population (which are a considerably larger fraction compared to the comparatively well fed first world) get violent.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. If you're hungry you riot over food. If you riot over religion you're extremists.

Do you see the same sort of violence coming with the same sort of frequency from followers of Islam in more stable areas?

I don't know, the most stable places where there are many followers of Islam are Turkey, Lebanon, and very recently Tunisia. As I mentioned before Turkey still has an Islamist problem, Lebanon is home to Hezbollah, and Tunisia is so new to stability that we can't really tell yet.