But that doesn't mean I'm not concerned about what I see happening. Someone I read recently pointed out that though the Bible describes some pretty horrendously violent happenings, it doesn't prescribe them. On the other hand, the Koran, which I read a couple decades ago does prescribe violence against unbelievers. There are those who claim that attacks by Muslims are carried out by people who are outside the mainstream of Muslim belief, but that simply isn't so.
Hi Russ,
The concerns about spreading violence are universal. Religions (of almost
any variety, even some Buddhists) and other extremely dogmatic convictions have historically been a source of intolerance and resulting violence. That violence is usually a sign of weakness, since verbal persuasion, or compromise) is apparently not considered as feasible. Sometimes it is used as a tool to get people to unite, by creating an outside threat (e.g. Inquisition, witch-hunts, WMD, foreigners, etc.). So people either get hung up about dogmatic believes or they are played by others.
Sometimes there is an actual threat that people can agree about, and that's when (both preventative and curative) action is warranted. Also when one of the earlier mentioned groups are disrupting to the functioning of society as a whole, one can use lawful means (e.g. Law enforcement officers, judges/courts) to correct such behavior.
The problems that we are discussing though, are mostly caused by those who do not play by the book.
The fact that Europe, and to some extent the U.S., is voluntarily accepting an invasion of people who don't understand Western values, want to live under Sharia law, and include people who intend to follow the dictates of their religion to the death, scares the hell out of me.
That would scare me as well, but most of those folks do not pose a threat, because they are simply trying to flee from certain death in their homelands. They are humanitarian casualties, refugees, if they even make it alive across dangerous seas in crummy vessels.
Then there is a small number of bad guys/gals, a few rotten apples in a basket full of good ones. But let's not make that potential threat larger than it is, because many terrorists are home grown/radicalized. One should ask why they are so susceptible for some the hate-speech that is preached by populists and/or extremists.
Again, their tool of violence is a sign of weakness. So to prevent it, we'd have to understand it first and then address it efficiently (i.e. not adding more fuel to the fire, but still effectively).
What do you do when you face a mass of people, most of whom aren't killers, but who agree with or even urge on the killers amongst them? Eventually you have to deal with the problem or watch your civilization collapse.
Since we agree that is not what we want, we must understand what it is they agree with (maybe they don't agree with everything), and perhaps lead by example and show them that they perhaps are wrong in their social/religious pre-programming concepts, and maybe we can get a bit less uptight about some of our own hang-ups. We do not even necessarily (especially within one generation) need to fully integrate, we can agree to co-exist while upholding the Nation's laws (e.g. non-discrimination). In fact, cultural diversity can be a blessing, look at the USA, most inhabitants have non-native (e.g. Indian) ancestral lineage.
I'm not willing to let that happen, and if necessary I'll go back to being armed to prevent it. Waiting for the cops doesn't get the job done. It would be nice if it did.
One of the reasons that I have trouble with such (knee-jerk more guns 'solution') reactions is that it is not a solution, it's a last resort at best. I think that there are many things that can be done before we only have that left.
Another reason why I have difficulty with a 'solution' that brings it's own set of drawbacks, is that I come from a society that somewhat proves (so it's not just theory) that there are alternative possible.
Today the crime statistics for the year 2015 in the Netherlands were published. We scored
the lowest annual number of man-slaughters/homicides in 20 years, while the population has grown (dis-proportionally due to net immigration compensating for low birth rates) from 15,493,889 to 16,980,049. The crime statistics even include non-Dutch residents, e.g. refugees and tourists, so its the total or all crime recorded within the borders.
An analysis of those 120 victims shows that those from foreign origin represent the largest number from that group. And of those, the largest number of victims is due to (illegal) gun violence amongst non-westerners (often from the (former Dutch) Antilles, Morocco and Turkey). The still sad total came to 120 people on a population of almost 17 million people.
So despite the influx of foreigners, many of them refugees, 'locals' have relatively little to fear.
I'm not saying that will remain so forever, because we also know (as was confirmed by an analysis of the FBI) that defeating ISIS in their middle-East home-turf will generate more asymmetrical warfare in the form of terrorism elsewhere, which is a sign of weakness, but still not something we'd like to have more of.
So what should be done, is not pile up more guns (and gun accidents), but improve the capabilities of Law enforcement and Security services, but without stretching the legal boundaries beyond the legal limits. And even stretching those limits should not be an automatism, because that would ultimately lead to a society that is no longer free (which is also one of the Terrorist goals, have the system turning on its own citizens, and then collapse). We also need to make better use of what we call field-coaches, people from the communities that work with the communities to spot the bad apples, and attempt to cure the things that are wrong
before they spiral out of control.
I'm sure we in the Netherlands are going to get hit by a terrorist attack someday. But I'm also sure that it is partly unavoidable (despite our trying to prevent it), and until it happens we live a happy life, not behind walls and crouched in a corner clutching a gun.
I wish the same happiness to others.
Cheers,
Bart