Mass Shooting in Las Vegas

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Ghost of Barry Endean, Oct 2, 2017.

  1. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    As the son of a Catholic Northern Irish father, I can see where Squibba is coming from.

    When there was an IRA atrocity in the 70s and 80s my father did get some stick, especially as he was a teacher. Ironically he is a pacifist and was never a practicing Catholic (he's a devout atheist now).

    The problem is that people's natural reaction is to group people into boxes and then give them all the same attributes and affiliations, based on faith, appearance or nationality.

    The media should try to avoid such lazy prejudices but it is understandable.

    As Meister says, perhaps a debate for another day though and this thread should try and stay on subject out of respect for the victims of this horrific attack.
     
    Moose likes this.
  2. wfcSinatra

    wfcSinatra Predictor Choker 14/15

    Will leave it for another day, this clearly isn't the place for it. Nor is this forum in general, 50 dead in Las Vegas = a thread. 436,000 Rohingya fleeing and thousands dying = no thread. It's clear what matters more to most people on here.
     
    PhilippineOrn and Godfather like this.
  3. domthehornet

    domthehornet Moderator Staff Member

  4. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    You are free to start a thread on other atrocities. What is stopping you?

    The fact is your chip on your shoulder seems to be more important to you than people getting shot dead at a concert. That's what I find repellant.
     
  5. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Actually I think there is a general understanding and I think that that dictionary definition (#56) pretty much captures it. Of course, legal systems differ in their precise definitions but that's true of pretty much any concept.

    I think that what this thread proves is that there may be disagreement about whether we think that that definition is sufficiently broad to capture what we would wish to label as "terrorism".

    FWIW, I agree with Sydney (#17) above. I think labelling is genuinely important here, partly for the reasons that Squibba suggests, but also because calling someone a "terrorist" gives the act some degree of cachet - a "badge of honour" - to those that are similarly minded. Avoiding labelling acts like this as terrorism and calling them mass murder (on the basis of the evidence we have so far) is therefore important, it!s not a matter of mere semantics.
     
  6. Stevohorn

    Stevohorn Watching Grass Grow

    Inevitable now i'm afraid.
    Just looking on social media the last couple of days and it seems there is more discussion about the politics surrounding the attack in Vegas than the attack itself.
    Today ive been reading all the usual "false flag" rubbish that is spouted as soon as something happens in the world. Kids sat around making up conspiracy theories because they cant get their head around the fact that people can commit atrocities off their own back and not everything has to be part of some wider political plot to control mankind. The Rothschilds did it!

    Anyway i digress... i suggested earlier in this thread that the politics section was not the best place to discuss the Vegas attack, as it will only lead to argument.
    Well that was a bit daft of me! I think these days you will never have a straight discussion only on the details of something like this.. and thinking back that's been the case on here every time something has occurred in recent times.


    PS For those that think the definition of terrorism is simple, as simple as saying it's anything that causes terror, well you should have a read through this.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_terrorism
    When you are done (in a couple of days time) come back and tell us you still think the same way.
     
    sydney_horn likes this.
  7. Mollyboo

    Mollyboo First Year Pro

    It's probably nothing more sinister than many people in the UK feeling more culturally connected with people in the US than in other parts of the world. I know I do.

    The label 'terrorism' is all about the intent of the atrocity. If the intent is to instill a sense of terror amongst a populace in order to achieve some ideological or political ambitions, that's terrorism. If you just want to experience the power trip that shooting a big gun into a packed crowd of people brings, that's insane. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
     
  8. domthehornet

    domthehornet Moderator Staff Member

    I do find it does depend on the action, say something like this and the Manchester attacks. There was a clear motive for one and not the other. Until the motive is established it can't be classed as a terrorist attack.
     
  9. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Hang on, hang on, hang on. You don't get to tell me what matters most to me. I've been to Vegas, I know Americans, I've been to music festivals. I simply feel better placed to make a comment on such a matter as the Vegas incident. Maybe, just maybe, most people on here feel better informed about the situation in America than the situation in Myanmar? That doesn't make them ignorant. If you feel it is something you'd like to discuss or draw peoples attention to, post a thread on it - personally, I'd read what you have to say and would likely engage with you about it. But I don't feel informed enough to start the thread myself and would worry about perhaps offending people if I did. That doesn't mean that one incident means more to me than the other and that's an inflammatory assumption to make.
     
    HappyHornet24 likes this.
  10. fan

    fan slow toaster

    personally I loved your thread and all previous posts about rohingya. and Nepal. and your beautiful high horse too!
     
  11. cyaninternetdog

    cyaninternetdog Forum Hippie

    So much wrong with the world we live, where do we start?
     
  12. Fitz

    Fitz Squad Player

    And the south west and the Rocky Mountains and New England. An by South, I'm sure you're right and that it includes everything south of The Great Lakes. Even liberal-ass California is armed to the teeth.
     
  13. Fitz

    Fitz Squad Player

    By this definition, a Halloween haunted house fundraiser is terrorism. The definition simply must have more to it.
     
    Jumbolina likes this.
  14. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    It seems as if white people want to kill you at a concert or murder their fellow classmates or drop napalm on villages of brown people or use deformity making depleted uranium and phosphorus on civilians and blah blah blah.

    Either we racialise or we don't. Best we don't.
     
  15. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    What do you mean?
     
  16. Markoa$

    Markoa$ Squad Player

    Cali is gun crazy. I lived in SoCal for just over 3 years and they love their guns.
     
  17. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I'm reinforcing Squibba's point. Who are obviously the terrorists is going to vary upon where you live and who bombs you. What terrorises a wedding in the tribal regions? Someone flying a drone from Berkshire. Maybe that's not the first intention, but a lot of **** happens.

    There is no problem with condemning Islamic fascists as terrorists, but we can't act like that is the only terrorism or only certain sorts of people do it and just dismiss everyone else as randoms. I get Squibba's frustrations, though not all of his nuances. Maybe the Las Vegas killer is a terrorist, but not a political terrorist.
     
  18. cyaninternetdog

    cyaninternetdog Forum Hippie

    Maybe it is the abstract nature of the collective consciousness?
     
  19. Stevohorn

    Stevohorn Watching Grass Grow

    That's a fair point. But..

    I cant recall the exact timeline of how and when things were reported during the Borough Market attack, but i guess it's fair to say people.. and the media.. would have drawn their conclusion as to what was happening on a few related factors.
    Firstly that several terrorist attacks had occurred in the UK within a few months of each other. Secondly the fact they started by running over people on London Bridge meant it had the exact same MO as the Westminster attack. Thirdly.. and i think i'm right in saying.. that quite early on people had stated via social media that the attackers were of Asian appearance and had been wearing, what turned out to be fake, suicide vests.
    If you add all that up it it's unsurprising that anyone came to the conclusion that this was related to Muslim extremists, as the previous attacks had been.
    At least in the classic understanding of what it means to be a terrorist, Islamic extremists have proved to be under that classification.

    As for the Vegas attack.. well again i dont know the exact timeline but wasnt it something like an hour had passed before the first media announcements were made that he was a "lone wolf"? I think prior to that they were just refereeing to it as a 'gun attack'
    If i'm right about that i would guess with today's security intelligence that would be enough time to do enough backgrounds checks to see if the perpetrator had any association with any known groups or was seemingly acting alone.


    Having said that i'm open the fact that we should think about using the term terrorist in a different manner. If only because a lot of people are now turning the term "Lone Wolf" into what they see as an excuse to not label white folk terrorists.
    Perhaps it is time to class any large scale attack under terrorism..
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2017
  20. jw-

    jw- Reservist

    That's exactly the kind of reactionary and sweeping decision that leads to gifting the state power it does not, and should not, need.
     
  21. Stevohorn

    Stevohorn Watching Grass Grow

    Reactionary?
    I was just going by what some people on here suggested about all acts that cause terror being referred to as terrorism... and i did say perhaps (though maybe i should have ended with a question mark?)

    What would you suggest then.. stop calling all acts of terror, terrorism...?
     
  22. PhilippineOrn

    PhilippineOrn First Team

    Terrorism surely has to have some ideology behind it. There are countless acts of terror (Hungerford, Dunblane, Columbine et al) that have never been described as terrorist attacks.
     
  23. cyaninternetdog

    cyaninternetdog Forum Hippie

    Unified field, everything came from one source. Stars, planets, ants, dogs and consciousness. Everybody just needs to chill out, back off and see the bigger picture.
     
  24. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I suppose the issue that Squibba gets annoyed with is that these along with countless others were all committed by white men, but we don't join the dots.

    Islamic terrorism results in all Muslims being held under group suspicion in the US and calls for travel bans and profiling.

    A law calling for all white men to have their baggage scanned when booking into a hotel would have saved 600 casualties, but no one would call for it, because it's obviously discriminatory.
     
  25. jw-

    jw- Reservist

    I didn't mean to harass you as if it was your personal suggestion, sorry.

    I'd stop classifying these things based on their output, but rather on their input; who did it and why?

    When it's input focused then the Las Vegas shooting and the London attacks are patently different, even if their outputs may be similar.

    The danger with being output focused is the government can use things like the Las Vegas shooting as leverage for more power to deal with things like the London attack (it's all terrorism right?), despite the fact that greater surveillance isn't really going to stop lone attackers, but will take away our freedom.
     
    Stevohorn likes this.
  26. jw-

    jw- Reservist

    This is a false equivalence that's continually made. Being white does not entail following an ideology, being Muslim does.
     
  27. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    No, most Muslims are secular. Spot the difference between one who is and one who isn't.
     
  28. Relegation Certs

    Relegation Certs Squad Player

    Luton. Raze it to the ground.
     
  29. jw-

    jw- Reservist

    You're right, you can't spot the difference - because skin colour or appearance entails absolutely nothing about ideology of belief.
    Again, this is exactly my point, it's nonsensical to equate a chosen ideology (secular or not), with an involuntary attribute of a person.
     
  30. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    That's ridiculous. Do you think that US immigration would profile atheist Pakistani person different from Muslim Pakistan person? The identification as 'muslim' is so total as to be 'involuntarily'.
     
  31. KelsoOrn

    KelsoOrn Squad Player

    It's always psilocybin season in the doghouse.
     
  32. KelsoOrn

    KelsoOrn Squad Player

    Quite right. Nuke it, barrel-bomb it, poke it in the eye with a pointed stick.
     
  33. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    That last paragraph is just ridiculous and it demonstrates just how illogical your argument is.

    You give me an example of any other group/race/religion apart from Muslim extremists that have publicly declared effective war on the general public, not just in the west, but anywhere - including places like Bali. They are even slaughtering fellow Muslims.

    It is obvious that they are a constant threat. Why the hell shouldn't there be extra vigilance (you call it profiling) when it comes to a particular threat? Heavens above, do you honestly think the security services should spend as much anti terrorist resource shadowing middle age, white, non-Muslim people as they do Muslims that are travelling backwards and forwards to Syria, for example.

    Head of Anti Terrorist Unit instructions, "Right lads, we are on heightened security alert, forget about any returning Muslims from Syria, get out there and track some dodgy looking office workers in Slough as they go home to their business. that will lower the threat!"

    It is all about maximising resource, nothing more.

    This PC bollox sickens me as there is absolutely no logic to your argument. Blimey, you even resort to bringing up the Vietnam War from 50 years ago to try and justify it.
     
    KelsoOrn likes this.
  34. jw-

    jw- Reservist

    I think the point is that profiling ends up just discriminating people that match our perceived notion of what an 'average Muslim' looks like. Your example isn't fair. Clearly there is extra relevant information in the case of someone traveling back from Syria, but I don't think this is the situation Moose was talking about.

    I hazard a guess to say that someone British and Atheist, yet matches the perceived appearance of a Muslim, will be treated differently to a White Brit when traveling to the US.
     
  35. wfcSinatra

    wfcSinatra Predictor Choker 14/15

    My cousin is an artist manager in music, travelled to New York with 3 white people, he was the only person to get taken to security and asked loads of questions. "Why were you in Dubai sir?" being one of the questions lol.

    You don't get stopped because you're a Muslim, how can you tell? You get stopped because you're brown with an Asian sounding name. Funnily enough I know some lovely guys who wear traditional clothes, big beard, typical "terrorist" profile image but are the most peaceful guys and then I know of a lawyer with a nice big house, Rolex, Audi A7, nice long wool coat, trimmed beard, never ever looks messy and yet he's someone whose take on Islam I find slightly weird. I believe in God & Islam but I drink, I don't pray and I wouldn't blow myself up to save my dear Mother let alone for a God I've never met, yet I'll still get stopped. Is it racist? Probably not, what else can they do realistically? You can't search everyone..
     

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