I trust Jorge will be watching this Channel 4 programme tomorrow tonight

[Monty91]

hosted by that notorious bigot Trevor Phillips.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-musli ms-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law)

“There is no division”

[7evens]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

There were moments when I thought he must have been reading yuour debate, and was addressing jorge personally.

[Monty91]

glaring problem that is Islam.

In recent weeks I’ve heard two Radio 4 documentaries that have gone in pretty hard on the Allans and the Guardian now regularly cover these types of polls - though they do make great clickbait.

[Berni]

I liked this bit: '78% said they would like to integrate into British life on most things apart from Islamic schooling and some laws'

Delivered with an entirely straight face :hehe:

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

'MOST MUSLIMS FEEL CONNECTED TO GREAT BRITAIN', rather than the somewhat more shocking 'most muslims want to chuck faggots off tall buildings'.

[Monty91]

[Luis Anaconda]

well not exactly but
Half of all British Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal, poll finds

Unless I am getting a different headline. Also would have been more relevant in the piece to compare the views of muslims with those of other religious denominations rather than the "public at large". I should imagine with the exception of the church of England which is basically run by whoopsies, you would get significant closer results

[Berni]

[Monty91]

Although any prejudice against gay people was unacceptable, the fact that nearly 50% of Muslims did not think homosexuality should be illegal was a sign that attitudes were shifting.

Nearly 1 in 2! Progress!

"There is no division"

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Intriguing tie.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

I'm sure you'd find the odd drooling loon in a church to tell you that homos are the devil's work, but that's not really the same as whole swathes of a community wishing for the matter to be made illegal.

[redgunamo]

but nobody has ever called it a "religious denomination" :-(

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

on TV every night?

Oh.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Luis Anaconda]

but Catholic Churches are hardly full of men in dresses who like buggering young boys are they ... oh

[Berni]

I am unaccepting of Tottenham Hotspur support. Doesn't mean I think it should be made illegal.

[Monty91]

and refusal to tell police if they know of a terrorism plot?

Let's not even imagine what the numbers would have been had the polls been conducted anonymously rather than face to face.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

The Allans have got you. Please try not to explode somewhere, la. Think of the mess.

[Luis Anaconda]

and you sneering laughter at such a point just shows an ignorance on your part, as does your constant use of that phrase in quotes, when you use to belittle j despite the fact that you never really grasp the point he was trying to make and just rambled on in your blinkered way

[Luis Anaconda]

Just trying to fill the Jorge-sized hole in the argument

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Classic Jorge]

I think you need to find a new hobby my friend :driving:

[Classic Jorge]

And in a higher percentage than our eastern-end-of-the-compass bothering bredren?

[Luis Anaconda]

[Classic Jorge]

Feel free to read up on the poll's inconsistencies.

I'm really confused by this new, Kelvin Mackenzie-esque Monty though.

[Classic Jorge]

This five a day is worser than the other five a day, I can tell you brother.

[Monty91]

meaning it is likely to have been skewed towards more deprived areas.

Feel free to adjust these figures to allow for this and then tell me the results are not still problematic.

Moreover, tell me that even if every Allan living in Hampstead and Knightsbridge think the gays are great, the figures are not still problematic.

[Berni]

[Monty91]

same-sex marriage was "wrong".

Meanwhile more than 50% of muslims polled think homosexuality should be illegal.

[Classic Jorge]

I knew you'd be a fan of that level of profiling but it doesnt really make for good polling.

I mean, unless it's almost designed specifically to achieve the results it has, it doesnt really seem like a very reliable methodology to me.

I think we all want better integration really, I'm just not terribly sure othering anyone has ever been a cast-iron way of getting them to integrate, muscularly or otherwise.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Wd Dublin.

[Classic Jorge]

What I'm more interested in is whether your problem is with all religions or just islam. It seems to be islamic mostly, but then you talk about us being a secular country which we're very, very much not.

You're coming off very Dawkins in all of this.

[Monty91]

So you acknowledge there is a problem. Blimey, that only took the best part of a week to prize out of you.

[Monty91]

in recent days did you not understand?

Islam is the prevailing problem though.

[Berni]

[Luis Anaconda]

[Ashberto]

[Monty91]

with extremist views to integrate into British society. The 7/7 bombers were hardly on the fringes of society - one had a family, one played in a local football team, one worked in the local chippy.

So even "better integration" is not really a satisfactory solution.

[Classic Jorge]

I'm for a secular society, secular education and a secular head of state. I often find that these few, simple but fundamental measures can be problematic for even the most fervent integrationalists though.

I'm also very pro-not-f**king-bombing-people-or-selling-weapons-to-people though, which I have experienced to also be mystifyingly problematic.

[Ashberto]

*May have been more than this. Great swathes of emptiness though. I was very surprised.

[Classic Jorge]

Beyond very loose, and frankly quite worrying sounding cliches.

Also, "acquiescence"?

[Monty91]

Your stance of opposing bombing people is weakened if the only reason is because of a fear of blow-back.

[Classic Jorge]

How do you defeat it though? Is Islam the problem, or is Islamism? Are they the same thing to you?

[Ashberto]

Do you think that there would be more integration if, for example, Libya had not been bombed?

[Classic Jorge]

[Monty91]

I would increase profiling and I will continue to support the legitimate and increasingly vocal public voices railing against the culture of political correctness and spurious accusations of 'Islamophobia' that, until now, have made it impossible to even acknowledge the problem that exists, let alone tackle it.

[Classic Jorge]

I mean, fine, if you want all your opinions formed on a third hand, anecdotal basis and collected with the clear agenda of a sensationalist TV show then fine.

I chose to believe my own eyes and ears a little more.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Monty91]

Nazism was a set of ideas.

We have already made great progress. And with globalisation and increased access to information, there's every hope this will continue. We are already seeing ex religionists on other continents mobilising. Security in numbers, n'all that.

[Classic Jorge]

f**k sake, dont ever let anyone accuse you of having an ounce of substance to back up your rhetoric.

[Berni]

bombed. Indeed, their roots go back to post-Mutiny India.

Stop trying to blame everything on the West, j.

[Classic Jorge]

...grounds. And human grounds for that matter.

The fact you're chucking bombs at people's kin whilst shouting "Integrate, damn you! Are you some kind of f**king terrorist?! Sing our religious anthem you c**t!" is a surefire way of winning people round though.

[Berni]

[Classic Jorge]

Or would your inability to even countenance any wrongdoing on behalf of the west preclude you from admitting this?

[redgunamo]

[Ashberto]

As you know, I object to western interventionism, even the fashionable ones in Yugoslavia, but I have doubts about the line of thought that casts it as an agenda against muslims, and therefore an explaination of a hardening of opinion affecting either integration on one hand, or the spawning of terrorists on the other.

Hence I suspect that the actions in Iraq, Syria and Libya have created *opportunity* for increased Islamism, rather than *motive*.

[Classic Jorge]

You realise that globalisation and the increased access to information is one of the things facilitating ISIS' turr and radicalisation's spread, dont you?

Are you seriously suggesting you can get more than a quarter of the world's population to divest from their religion?

I have no words for this, just none.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

I suppose it's a Godwin but how do you feel about us intervening in WWll, for example?

[Monty91]

be populist.

[Classic Jorge]

You know that islam has a particularly strong idea of all muslamics being one people, brothers and all that. I'm merely saying that a fabricated war, as the whole 2002/03 season basically was, really didnt help matters.

The London bombings were, as the videos from the bombers admitted themselves, were a response to this. The security services' response further drove a wedge between people too.

[Monty91]

Would the Englightenment and Reformation not have appeared similarly fat-fetched at one point in human history?

[Classic Jorge]

I'm mostly interested in how someone coming from a liberal background can arrive at such illiberal conclusions, let alone thing they are seriously workable.

[redgunamo]

As do we with our "war on terror".

[Classic Jorge]

[Monty91]

going straight to paradise and as much untouched fanny as they could shake a ****ty stick at?

So let's be straight here: this was more than a political protest against western intervention. They were inspired directly by the specific words written in their made up holy book.

[Ashberto]

and reduce the opportunity for distraction, but it seems to have happened anyway. :hehe:

WW2 counts as defensive. As does action against IS (though we're not the ones who should be doing it).

Bombing countries that cannot harm us because politicians derive a sense of mission and authority from it doesn't count as defensive. Nor does bombing countries where one group has hired a powerful PR firm to create a victim who needs rescuing scenario. Or narrative, to use the internet's most popular word.

[Classic Jorge]

Would they have blown themselves up if we'd not went along with the absolute folly that was the Iraq war?

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

One might argue that the Normandy landings and subsequent push through to Berlin was a war of liberation, and thus intervention, rather than defence.

[Monty91]

I support immigration, just as you do.

:shrug:

[redgunamo]

They didn't teach "nation building" at West Point :shrug:

[Monty91]

of collateral damage (which is pretty much inevitable in any military intervention).

If someone responded to one such interventionist act by blowing themselves up in London or elsewhere, would you then in hindsight deem the intervention folly?

[Monty91]

No problem at all with the tradition-led ritualistic stuff.

Just the theocracy that needs to go.

The ambition should be that religion only exists as a form of historical anecedote

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Shocking really.

[redgunamo]

[Ashberto]

Let's face it, we didn't actually do anything for Poland in the end. Lots of Poles fought for us, of course.

Nazi Germany was a superpower on the rampage. Comparing the small countries of recent conflicts with it to justify military activity is erroneous godwinisation imo.

One might even argue that the Normandy landings were, in the end, as much about stopping Stalin taking over the whole of Europe as of contributing to the defeat of Germany.

[Classic Jorge]

But no, I dont support pre-emptive attacks on a country based on a powerpoint presentation, if that's why you're asking.

[Monty91]

the interventionist act that preceeds (and provokes)them are, to your mind, unjustified or immoral.

Do you see that? And can you clarify your position on terrorism, for the sake of any doubt?

[Ashberto]

There had been wars in Yugoslavia though, where some of the Saudi 911 gang fought in Bosnia with the financial, military and propaganda support of the US. Back in the day when bin Laden was an ally. Many of the foreign fighters in Bosnia were veterans of the Mujahedin in Afghanistan, which was the first time that radical muslims were to be used as the west's attack dog, as per the Zbigniew Brzezinski policy.

I do hold the west partly to blame for contemporary Islamism, but because they helped to create it, not because of an agenda against muslims. But I blame the terrorists alone for their actions.

[Classic Jorge]

That said, guerilla warfare against the military or police of an oocupying state is fair enough.

It's not entirely unequivocal, but there you go.

[Monty91]

to individual terrorists themselves.

Now, when can we talk about what inspires them? You know, Islam?

[Classic Jorge]

Bang on with all the 80s Afghan Mujaheed stuff too.

[Snin]

And don't pick your nose.

you Better keep listening to Trevor tho. Might be a bit about 'Blessed are the big noses.'

[Snin]

[Classic Jorge]

That's what inspires them, it isnt islam, it's revenge, either imagined or real. Islam is just the mediun, it could be any other doctrine from nationalism to race to religion.

[Snin]

id happily back a terrorist bomb up your arse mate

[Monty91]

but not when they, and every other jihadist tells us ad infinitum that they are acting on behalf of the prophet?

[Classic Jorge]

Take Brehvik, he had the same set of random justifications (clarkson, the EDL, Aryanism) but you dont blame those things for his actions, you blame the nutter.

[Classic Jorge]

With all the other stuff, "core western values" :hehe:

[Ashberto]

to grab.

The West even helped IS by attempting to stop Russia blowing them up and hindering the land forces of the Kurds and Assad. Fortunately Russia and the Syrian army look to have been successful.

[Monty91]

be suicidal terrorists?

[Classic Jorge]

[Classic Jorge]

[Ashberto]

They also blamed you and me for Chechnya, in their list of greivances, which is interesting. The sense of grievance, of muslims as victims, was a constant feature of the British media during their coverage of the conflicts in Yugoslavia and Chechnya in the 90's. This is the stuff the 7/7 bombers grew up on, where journalists were winning awards for faking atrocity porn and portraying battlefield opponents of the muslim sides as Nazis.

Honestly I have no idea what goes on in the mind of lunatic mass murderers, but it wouldn't surprise me if some other excuse for their actions would have been at the fore even without the Iraq war.

[Ashberto]

I was just trotting out a political line that you and I agree on. Are you sure that wasn't supposed to be a reply to where I lumped you in with Rich on the subject of bicycles?

If so, sorry about that. #bantz

[Ashberto]

And a friendly country next door to sell the oil to.

It's almost as if .... no, that would be too absurd.

[Ashberto]

A bit like being a footballer, almost. But with a longer career.

[redgunamo]

not the other way about, as is commonly thought.

This is also the difference in motivation that makes us better than our "opponents".