Non-IT News Thread
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
The 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by people who were here on work or student visas.
We should arrest all workers and students then!
More people have died by US citizens accidentally or purposefully shooting each other then have ever been killed in a extremist terrorist attack. So by this logic we should lock up everyone with a gun right?
Edit: @scottalanmiller beat me too it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@dafyre said:
But there's still the minority that will.
Statistically that's not true. No refugees have ever done that in the US. Historically our screening process and refugee processes have kept us safe from refugee concerns like that. This argument, that some of a group ARE poison, would suggest that all gun owning Americans today be locked up or department immediately because we should "gag ourselves" knowing that a small percentage of them will go around shooting up schools and churches, right? So if we are to throw out the innocent with the tainted, why do it only to imaginary threats and not to very established and known ones?
...and right there, you just turned liberalism back on itself. One point you missed is that by and large, gun-related crimes are committed by illegal gun-possessors. The analogy would apply more to illegal aliens than to refugees, in that sense.
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A good example of how this would logically work is France. France's response was to take more refugees. They aren't afraid of refugees, they want to help them and not support the extremists. Remember that the goal of the extremists, or one goal, is to make you fear untainted M&Ms. They make you think that 10% have been poisoned where there isn't the slightest reason to believe so. And then they use the M&Ms you don't eat against you in other ways. So by following the desires of the people trying to hurt you, you don't get to enjoy delicious M&Ms today AND have a bigger risk of being poisoned tomorrow.
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@art_of_shred said:
...and right there, you just turned liberalism back on itself. One point you missed is that by and large, gun-related crimes are committed by illegal gun-possessors. The analogy would apply more to illegal aliens than to refugees, in that sense.
No, that would be unrelated here. MOST terrorist attacks are by outsiders, yet we are only talking about the ones perpetrated by refugees. There isn't anything liberal here in any way, logic is not unique to liberals. Just because it is a rational point doesn't keep conservatives from being able to use it to. It's just about safety and stats.
The point is not who "commits the most crimes" or else we'd excuse refugees on that fact alone. So the fact that MOST gun crimes are by illegal gun owners is misdirection. It is the number of crimes committed by legal gun owners that is in question.
Refugees commit almost no major crimes, yet we fear them and want to expel them based on perceived risk. How is that different than wanting to expel gun owners based on a more statistically supported, perceived risk?
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I think the bigger question is who's going to the SuperBowl...
AM-I-Right?!
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@DustinB3403 said:
I think the bigger question is who's going to the SuperBowl...
AM-I-Right?!
Via public transportation, no less. It was a friend of mine that spoke to the city and ran a campaign to get public transportation set up for the event.
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@DustinB3403 said:
I think the bigger question is who's going to the SuperBowl...
AM-I-Right?!
Wooo Sportsball!
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This whole "refugee" ball of wax is a slippery slope / hot potato. Of course, one wants to help refugees. Of course, America is a land of immigrants. On the other hand, we're up against an enemy today (Islamic extremism) that doesn't identify itself by standing and attacking. It hides and waits and then employs cowardly acts to attack its enemies. Obviously, the only way to completely stop some (you know they're in there, but you just can't prove it before it's too late) arsenic-laced m&m's from getting in the bowl is to stop eating m&m's. We don't want to do that, so therein lies the dilemma. You can have a valid opinion on either side of the issue, but no matter which side of the fence you're on, you know you're sacrificing something sacred to be there. Either you're a racist bigot for wanting to protect your country, or you're a lib-tard for being willing to throw security to the wind in the attempt to preserve freedom and equality.
Personally, I'm taking the stance that freedom and equality for Americans, while we're discussing American security, trumps the "freedom and equality" of the non-American whom we're looking at here. Sure, it's not "fair", but life seldom is. I know that liberals like "fair", but that doesn't even happen in fairy tales. It would be nice, but I'm not sacrificing security for the sake of "fair", and I'm going to be very unhappy when 1 random refugee blows something up and kills a bunch of American citizens; and I will be completely justified in my anger when it happens.
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@coliver That's really funny, given your background.
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@art_of_shred said:
@coliver That's really funny, given your background.
Yep, never was a sports fan... just don't enjoy watching it.
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@art_of_shred said:
This whole "refugee" ball of wax is a slippery slope / hot potato. Of course, one wants to help refugees. Of course, America is a land of immigrants. On the other hand, we're up against an enemy today (Islamic extremism) that doesn't identify itself by standing and attacking. It hides and waits and then employs cowardly acts to attack its enemies. Obviously, the only way to completely stop some (you know they're in there, but you just can't prove it before it's too late) arsenic-laced m&m's from getting in the bowl is to stop eating m&m's. We don't want to do that, so therein lies the dilemma. You can have a valid opinion on either side of the issue, but no matter which side of the fence you're on, you know you're sacrificing something sacred to be there. Either you're a racist bigot for wanting to protect your country, or you're a lib-tard for being willing to throw security to the wind in the attempt to preserve freedom and equality.
That's where I don't agree, nor do any studies that I know. Yes, there is a risk to any immigrant OR existing American. Yes there is a risk to refugees. But that risk has, over time, proven to be incredible small.
What is left out are two big factors. One is that to call them M&Ms leads us to think of ourselves as humans needing to be protected from poison and refugees as disposable candy that we can ignore if we don't want to risk it. But that's not what it is. It is humans on both sides, humans whose lives are equal and who need protecting (unless you take the Christian hardline then the refugees being primarily non-Christian far more important to save because the chance to witness to them is critical.) But assuming equal value, it's the overall risk, not the risk only to one side, that has to be considered.
But even treating them as M&Ms, there is, it is generally accepted, far greater risk to not eating them than eating them. So if the goal is humanitarian, we take them. If the goal is risk mitigation, we take them. If the goal is to expose them to Christianity, we take them. Three agendas, who of them fully supported by conservatives, all point to taking them.
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@art_of_shred said:
Either you're a racist bigot for wanting to protect your country, or you're a lib-tard for being willing to throw security to the wind in the attempt to preserve freedom and equality.
That's the thing, I believe being on the racist side is also throwing security to the wind. The idea that refugees is a security risk is part of the racist argument. What facts support the idea that refugees pose any significant risk (when screened through the processes that we have?)
We know for a fact that supporting terrorist agendas elsewhere, providing them with M&Ms of their own will create more terrorists and that doing so provokes attacks on American soil, right? We've done this before. So why repeat a pattern shown to create risk AND hurt individuals when we could do the best thing for everyone?
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So let's make the whole planet "America" and then all the problems will be solved, and they won't hate us anymore. Cause it's the conservative thing to do.
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@art_of_shred said:
Personally, I'm taking the stance that freedom and equality for Americans, while we're discussing American security, trumps the "freedom and equality" of the non-American whom we're looking at here.
While I don't agree and believe that all life is equally important, I appreciate the value of the point. However, I don't agree that supporting that point is best done by turning away refugees. I believe that the best way to secure America is to take refugees, lots of them. Tons of them. Get them jobs, get them educations, get them futures.
The alternative is to send them to ISIS. Who do you fear more, school kids or ISIS recruits? Yes, one is local and one is far away, but even so a kid in an American school (even one making clocks) is less scary than one building bombs and beheading Americans.
Those are, effectively, your choices. Make refugees love America, or make them hate it. From the most conservative, selfish, America-first agenda I can imagine, you still accept refugees.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Who do you fear more, school kids or ISIS recruits?
A: ISIS recruits, hiding amongst school kids.
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@art_of_shred said:
It would be nice, but I'm not sacrificing security for the sake of "fair", and I'm going to be very unhappy when 1 random refugee blows something up and kills a bunch of American citizens; and I will be completely justified in my anger when it happens.
No one is going to be happy. The question is....
- What if instead of blowing up a car bomb, they fly a plane into a high rise from outside of the country?
- What if instead of blowing up a building, they are organizing militias?
- What if instead of ten Americans it ends up being thousands of Syrians, Kurds, Yazidis?
- What if instead of a few American Christians dead, it is many mass graves for Christians overseas?
How many American lives are worth foreign lives? One to two? One to ten? One to unlimited?
And how many American lives killed by "people we let in" weigh against those killed by "those we didn't let in?"
Sure, you'll feel terrible that a refugee that we let in killed someone. But if that same refugee kills people without being let in, which is far more likely to happen based on what we know so far, wouldn't we feel worse because not only did we not protect Americans, we didn't protect the innocent refugees either?
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@art_of_shred said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Who do you fear more, school kids or ISIS recruits?
A: ISIS recruits, hiding amongst school kids.
And you actually think that that is a risk? How many times has this been accomplished that you feel it is a reasonable fear?
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And remember, Texas has ISIS cells. How do we react when ISIS is already here?
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@scottalanmiller said:
And remember, Texas has ISIS cells. How do we react when ISIS is already here?
Upstate NY supposedly has ISIS cells as well, just for reference.
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#Earthquake: 4.7-Magnitude Strikes Northwest Oklahoma Thursday Morning
The US Geological Survey reported the earthquake hit at a depth of 6.2 kilometers, 13 kilometers outside the town of Cherokee. The region had rain, snow and tornadoes in the previous 48 hours.
