nc_girl wrote:
I don't see how we're repeating history... The Jews NEVER tried to take over the world. They never went around killing masses of people.
| Actually they did. The exploits of the fabled Joshua amount to genocide. But, that is not the point. The point is that no one is responsible for the actions of anyone else (unless they hold a gun to their head - and even then you can say no if you have the courage). Yes, there are Muslims who would like to repress women, kill homosexuals, kill or convert the infadel (us) and would go to any lengths to do so. But most are just like us and not at fault for that, anymore than my much loved Jewish friend is responsible for Joshua. Please God, don't blame me for the slave trade, the invasion of The Americas (make no mistake invasion it was), the British Empire and the horrors it delivered to India, or what we did to Germany in the first world war!
Even more to the point: finding a group of people to blame, guilty or not, is a staggeringly potent political tool, if you do not mind getting your hands really dirty. It does not actually matter who (Jews, Muslims, Hippies, "Reds under the bed"). It was central to Hitler's political plans in the 30s. He also accused any member of the press who disagreed with him of falsehoods, treason and anti-German - pro-Jewish sentiments (fake news of his day). His propagandist had a reason for everything he did and the German people were carefully primed for every political move. If he could have tweeted in those days, he would have done so, constantly. 'And otherwise kind, good, friendly, intelligent Germans fell for it utterly. Press repression grew to the point that any contrary opinion was condemmed out of hand. This culminated in mass book-burnings of any alternate viewpoint. It was Germany first! "Deutchland, Deutchland Uber Alles!" The programming of the German mind was so complete that good, kind people, who would give their last crust of bread to a hungry neighbor, could live within yards of the nearest concentration camp and not dare to notice it. Ring any bells now?
Incidentally, we have a huge immigration problem here. We are a tiny island capable of feeding about 25 million souls and we now house about 70 million, of which a large portion are immigrants. Our hospitals are overcrowded, our jobs taken and we have far too many homeless. But people are still people. They still matter! They still feel! Twice in the last decade my husband's life was saved by immigrant surgeons, one Islamic from Pakistan and one from a province of India and therefore Hindu (India is not Islamic by the way).
All employers pick the best they can get, for as little as they can get away with. That can hurt when it is your job on the line. But, closing borders and adopting protectionist tactics earns reciprocal protectionism from other countries. That makes the original protectionism self defeating: it effectively amounts to isolationism, which impoverishes countries as if they had imposed trade sanctions on themselves. Look at Zimbabwe and North Korea, they are prime examples of protectionism. (They both have propaganda machines of huge proportions and have picked a group to demonise too.)
'And what about those wholly innocent souls, kept apart suddenly from friends and family, in some cases in a time of crisis. That is how you empower your enemies and make even more of them. Ayatollah Kohemeni immediately pointed to Trump's travel ban and used it to point out that the concept of America as the Great Devil was correct.
Making anyone feel picked on, or singled out can often provoke MORE terrorism. Over here, The IRA was composed of a few impotent extremists until the Bloody Sunday massacre. Afterwards they became a potent terrorist organisation which harried the British for decades, killing hundreds. In most cases it is those denied rights and justice who are the ones which turn nasty.
Islam is a problem - no argument there. I would class as anti-Islamic by anyone's standards. But this is not the way to tackle it. This is not a cure: it is an exacerbation!
------------- How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving.
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