When the people rise up, they choose the fundamentalists. Why? Because the body of Islamic teachings, text, history, the life of Muhammad himself, far more closely fits the fundamental view than the liberal view. This is doubly reinforced by Islam's unique prescriptions about how to live your daily life and how to organize your government - political elements which simply don't exist in other religions.

Ultimately that's what it's about, and why Islam is fundamentally different and not capable of internal reform on any time frame that encompasses our lifetimes at least.

It's not a case at all that people are repressed by fundamentalism. The people choose fundamentalism. Enough of them actively choose it, actively campaign for it, actively fight for it, that societies that are majority Muslim always become more fundamental over time when left to their own devices.

I'm thinking about betting on the Packers this weekend. Thoughts?

I don't like that.

100s of millions of Muslims are not jihadis. Like any set of ideas, people emphasize the parts most relevant to their lives and make the religion their own.

So this should be the lock of the week then, thanks!

No they don't. The fundamentalists choose them.

Why are you so self-obsessed that change has to come in your lifetime? How long did it take Christianity to become moderate after the inquisition etc?

Right. And 99% of Nazis were not Jew killers. What, precisely, is your point?
So because of this, Islam is the same as Buddhism? KKKism is the same as liberalism? Because "people take the parts most relevant to their lives and make it their own"?

The question is Muslims will or can reform. Your answer is just a low-rent dodge. When you want to have a conversation, I'm here.

Actually I am loading up on Patriots ML.

GL.

Everybody is corrupt in politics. I'm happy we are getting rid of the liberal ones. Liberals have blood on their hands and are now experiencing the Karma they so deserve.

Don't you think it's time to change the way you think? It obviously doesn't work for you.

Sorry guys.

Weekends are for football. Will get thread back on track on Monday.

This is hopelessly biased thinking.

For a start, the liberal candidate won 1 or 2 million more votes than the Republican, but to you that's a rout for the Right.

Then there's the case that it's neoliberalism that's left large numbers of working and middle class people adrift, not classic liberalism.

Disclaimer: I'm not a liberal.

OMG you are full of yourself. But someone who thinks Muslims think uniformly like Nazis is not going to have detailed knowledge of the region so I'll pass.

These are fair points...in a vacuum in which we don't live. First let's address known reality. While increasing the labor pool does depress wages in many scenarios, the size of the labor pool is not the only determinant of wages. The power of labor to organize at all is a more important factor, as is the legal environment which allows the shadow job exportation to loom over any negotiations. Furthermore, it doesn't make sense to focus on Mexican immigrants in a current assessment while there is a net migration back to Mexico.

As to perception, which is what you are addressing, you leave out the fundamental manipulation and racism which drive the attribution for lower wages to immigrants and away from real determinants. Politicians exploit longstanding racist beliefs in their fear mongering which diverts frustration away from real causes and into nationalism and other emotional bull****. The politicians are bad, but without a baseline level of extant racism and xenophobia those exploitative efforts would have no traction.

Your point about the orientation of the upper manager/technical class rings true (though many technical people are now starting to feel the stings). These people also comprise the political donor class, and so the disconnect between them and the majority is reflected in major political outcomes which reinforce their positions. This situation has just about become untenable, obviously, resulting in Trump on the right and Bernie on the left. But you can't leave out the deplorable aspects of the American character around which many on the right are organizing, along with their rational economic concerns. They have more beliefs controlling their politics than what you portray here.

He doesn't view them uniformly in action. He like trump does not mind one of the worst actors (human rights wise and extremist Muslim wise) in the middle east getting nukes, Saudi Arabia. He supports some extremist Muslims, does not others.

I didn't for one instance consider anything about race during this election when deciding my own vote. I voted Trump because Hilary is ****ing terrifying. The no-fly zone comments in that mid October debate sealed the deal.

I'm kinda shocked that anyone gave a **** about race/lgbtq/sexism stuff at all. I thought that was one of the least relevant things. What's worse for black people? A president who doesn't like them and believes they're lazy or a president with a much higher probability of starting international conflict with Russia who may have Saudi interests in mind when she's deciding whether or not to **** with the middle east further? It's not going to be all sunshine and roses over there the next 8 years; some other problem will come up and I don't want somebody in power who has a track record of making their problems our problems because we always seem to lose out in the end. Can the president really do much to oppress minorities anyway? I guess the ones who are here illegally, but that's just enforcing existing laws...


I'm an uncertainty averse voter. I don't like that Clinton clearly has a lot to hide and has taken money from foreign interests and seems to have an adversarial relationship with Putin on a personal level. I felt way less uncertainty with Trump.


Honestly, who's worse? KKK or Saudis? Throwing homosexuals off of roofs and acid in the face, still some slavery, and terrorism I think is a bit worse than reviving Jim crow.

Anyway, point I'm trying to make which I think is relevant to the OP and discussion thusfar is that there were lots of votes for trump that had nothing to do with racism... I feel like lib media was very successful in making this an election about race, lgbtq, xenophobia, islamophobia, and holding "the right opinions" when the candidates differed in many other ways and many voters on either side gave 0 consideration to the above factors and were chiefly concerned with other issues....

Liberals brains are infected/infested with these topics and thoughts around these topics. A liberal education has become a narrow politically-based indoctrination in these topics, at the expense of understanding the vast number of philosophical and political positions that one can take. Which in turn makes one lose perspective.

Their minds are actually broken. They've had a frame created for them which captures a tiny and fairly unimportant part of reality and politics, blown into everything that matters, and their groupthink now reinforces the narrative and the importance of the narrative.

It'll end eventually, and it'll be interesting to see what causes its decline. There was talk of Trump defunding humanities departments - probably a very good start. They're indoctrination camps into the broken side of left-wing thinking.

Man, you've got some weird hangups via-a-vis higher education.

God... How much does the president even influence these things? They are part of CULTURE, and I'm just not sure how much politicians impact that. I don't even blame Bill Clinton for the black community falling further... yeah some people argue that expanding the welfare state destroyed the black family, but at some point it was culturally acceptable to have kids out of wedlock and rely on the state instead of organizing as a 2 parent household. I mean I don't know the stats offhand, but I almost doubt expanding the welfare state worsened the single-motherhood epidemic in the black community. It was a cultural thing and I am not sure presidents or lawmakers have that much capacity to influence that.


Which is why it's so absurd to make lgbtq and race stuff so central to the election when in the big picture it's not what the president actually has power over either way... I guess he does potentially influence immigration policy though.

FWIW I don't think defunding humanities departments would help anything. Universities will allocate to whatever's popular, and ****ty ideological majors will become less and less popular as the signalling power of any ole college degree rapidly vanishes. Gender studies profs already make a tiny fraction of real fields. Sociology and political science are undergoing the same kind of quantitative revolution that happened in economics in the 1950s and are consequently becoming less ideological and more data-driven.

People will need to choose stuff that confers usable skills and I reckon more schools will follow the "caltech" model of focusing on these things.

Speaking of higher education, neither candidate talked about it much and I thought that was unfortunate. I guess Bernie did for a bit but it was mostly incoherent make everything free talk. Another massive issue largely unrelated to race/gays/trans that was important to me as a voter....

This is clearly the case with some voters since Trump won, in part, by winning over some Obama voters.

But while your vote was not motivated by white nationalism, an awful lot were, as evidenced by those folks' jubilation.

The president can have a powerful effect on mood and activism, as evidenced by the wave of vandalism by white supremacists.

And in another thread, Jman reported that his fellow police officers were jumping with joy over Trump's win. I think the knowledge that Trump has there back, no matter what they do, can effect how police interact with the public.

Please quantify "an awful lot". I'd say it's a fraction of 1% at most.

Some of those are proven hoaxes, including with arrests. No doubt dozens are if they've caught several already.

One was two Jewish guys drawing swatiskas. They were arrested and charged.
Another was a Jewish girl - university student - caught by camera drawing them herself after repeatedly complaining to campus policy that someone was drawing swastikas outside her room.

The leftist mind is deeply disturbed...people will do anything for sympathy and attention and smearing enemies.

The media expects white nationalists to be jubilant by Trump's victory and goes looking for them. They find some and report it. What a surprise.

My kids will not be going to these discusting liberal institutions. I will home school them throughout their their graduate programs.