2016 Presidential Horse Race

[NDgradstudent]

This is false.

So only 81% say that they disapprove of suicide bombing of civilian targets (topline questionnaire, pg. 115), the same percentage say that they have a very/somewhat unfavorable view of Al-Qaeda (117), and we are supposed to be happy about that? The numbers in both instances are of course considerably higher in Muslim countries, where new immigrants are coming from.

Interestingly, Japan does not have a domestic Islamic terrorism problem- unlike our country, France, Belgium, the U.K., Sweden, etc. I wonder why that is? Must be magic.

 

[IrishinSyria]

So only 81% say that they disapprove of suicide bombing of civilian targets (topline questionnaire, pg. 115), the same percentage say that they have a very/somewhat unfavorable view of Al-Qaeda (117), and we are supposed to be happy about that? The numbers in both instances are of course considerably higher in Muslim countries, where new immigrants are coming from.

Interestingly, Japan does not have a domestic Islamic terrorism problem- unlike our country, France, Belgium, the U.K., Sweden, etc. I wonder why that is? Must be magic.

"Suicide bombing/other violence against civilians is justified to defend Islam from its enemies..." Often: 1%, Sometimes 7%, Rarely 5%, Never 81%

Let's Americanize that question real quick

"Bombing or killing civilians is justified to defend America from its enemies..."

What do you think the number for sometimes would be? I'd bet over 80%. Justified in some circumstances =/= approve


As for your link, Japan had one of the only terrorist chemical attacks ever. Was it less bad because it wasn't Islamic?

 

[woolybug25]

So only 81% say that they disapprove of suicide bombing of civilian targets (topline questionnaire, pg. 115), the same percentage say that they have a very/somewhat unfavorable view of Al-Qaeda (117), and we are supposed to be happy about that? The numbers in both instances are of course considerably higher in Muslim countries, where new immigrants are coming from.

Interestingly, Japan does not have a domestic Islamic terrorism problem- unlike our country, France, Belgium, the U.K., Sweden, etc. I wonder why that is? Must be magic.

See my link one page back. Your stats are wrong and you are intentionally trying to skew facts.

Regarding Japan, you are not so naive to think a small island nation can handle immigration the same as the United States, right? Also, leave it to you to suggest and link a strategy that has a slogan of "one civilization. One culture. One race". Are honestly suggesting that we aim for limiting the race mix of our country too?

This isn't the first time that you've made comments like this either. So tell me... Are you one of those people that spew bigotry and claim not to be a bigot, or do you openly admit your hateful beliefs?

 

[IrishLax]

This is false.

Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism | Pew Research Center

That's the exact polling data I'm talking about, and let me rephrase because what I said was wrong... in that poll, only 81% of Muslims had a very unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable view of Al Qaeda. There were 19% in the very favorable, somewhat favorable, neutral, or don't know category.

So there are roughly 20% who don't denounce Al Qaeda, but only 5% that actually affirmatively support it. In that same poll, there was a similar chunk of people that weren't completely against the idea of suicide bombing. And in a 2013 Pew poll, 8% of Muslims said violence against civilians was often or sometimes justified to defend Islam. Are you going to tell me that 5-20% of Jews or Christians would be supportive of terrorist organizations or suicide bombings or civilian attacks? The answer is obviously not. And it's also important to remember that 1) these are polls of Muslims living here and the worldwide numbers are much more dire and 2) this is what people are willing to publicly admit in a poll... odds are strong that even if you support terrorism, you're generally not going to tell strangers that you do. So these numbers are almost surely underestimations.

 

[T Town Tommy]

That's the exact polling data I'm talking about, and let me rephrase because what I said was wrong... in that poll, only 81% of Muslims had a very unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable view of Al Qaeda. There were 19% in the very favorable, somewhat favorable, neutral, or don't know category.

So there are roughly 20% who don't denounce Al Qaeda, but only 5% that actually affirmatively support it. In that same poll, there was a similar chunk of people that weren't completely against the idea of suicide bombing. And in a 2013 Pew poll, 8% of Muslims said violence against civilians was often or sometimes justified to defend Islam. Are you going to tell me that 5-20% of Jews or Christians would be supportive of terrorist organizations or suicide bombings or civilian attacks? The answer is obviously not. And it's also important to remember that 1) these are polls of Muslims living here and the worldwide numbers are much more dire and 2) this is what people are willing to publicly admit in a poll... odds are strong that even if you support terrorism, you're generally not going to tell strangers that you do. So these numbers are almost surely underestimations.

And it only takes two to act on that belief... as we saw last week.

 

[GoIrish41]

So what is your plan to solve the problem? Holding their hands and quoting some kitsch from the Statue of Liberty plaque?

I've said many times that all of our most pressing problems are stitched together and the thread that binds them is corporate greed. We are addicted to oil so we treat the Middle East as if it is a colony that exists to support our consumption and so the powerful lobbiests who pay off our politicians and ghost write our laws keep us in a never ending trap. On the front end its oil and when the people who live in the Middle East get too big for their britches we bomb them, which gives the military industrial complex a stake in keeping things just as they are. Then we send in giant contractors like Halliburton to rebuild the infrastructure we destroyed, giving them a taste.

So let's get out of the Middle East and let these people who have grown to loathe us their space. Build our capacity to generate renewable sources of energy and revive our manufacturing base at home to support it. This addresses our loss of good manufacturing jobs and climate change. They hate us because we are there and won't leave ... So maybe we should leave and let them to their ancient conflicts with one another instead of always forcing our way into them.

 

[woolybug25]

Lax, take a look at the link I put up one page back. I don't know where you are getting these statistics from, but there are plenty of statistics out there that say the exact opposite of what you are presenting.

Furthermore, a lot of these statistics are simply misleading. As they often use a belief in sharia law, as a baseline for "radical". Which sharia law varies around the globe and most Muslims don't think sharia law relates to non Muslims.

Just think of the math, Lax. How accurate do you think the polling of 1.6 Billion people would be? Or how realistic that 80% of that worldwide population would be unified in the same brand of hate?

 

[IrishLax]

Lax, take a look at the link I put up one page back. I don't know where you are getting these statistics from, but there are plenty of statistics out there that say the exact opposite of what you are presenting.

Furthermore, a lot of these statistics are simply misleading. As they often use a belief in sharia law, as a baseline for "radical". Which sharia law varies around the globe and most Muslims don't think sharia law relates to non Muslims.

Just think of the math, Lax. How accurate do you think the polling of 1.6 Billion people would be? Or how realistic that 80% of that worldwide population would be unified in the same brand of hate?

I'm using the exact same statistics and Pew research Syria is using. And it's NOT a poll of 1.6 billion people and it's NOT about Sharia Law, etc.

They're asking Muslims of the United States (approximately 2.6 million people I think) questions, and they're getting answers that show unequivocally that hundreds of thousands of them are willing to publicly admit in a poll to being in some fashion or another at least somewhat not against Islamic extremist terrorism.

Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism | Pew Research Center

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

I've said many times that all of our most pressing problems are stitched together and the thread that binds them is corporate greed. We are addicted to oil so we treat the Middle East as if it is a colony that exists to support our consumption and so the powerful lobbiests who pay off our politicians and ghost write our laws keep us in a never ending trap. On the front end its oil and when the people who live in the Middle East get too big for their britches we bomb them, which gives the military industrial complex a stake in keeping things just as they are. Then we send in giant contractors like Halliburton to rebuild the infrastructure we destroyed, giving them a taste.

So let's get out of the Middle East and let these people who have grown to loathe us their space. Build our capacity to generate renewable sources of energy and revive our manufacturing base at home to support it. This addresses our loss of good manufacturing jobs and climate change. They hate us because we are there and won't leave ... So maybe we should leave and let them to their ancient conflicts with one another instead of always forcing our way into them.

For shits and giggles, let's pretend we do what you want: get out of the Middle East completely, become self sufficient with oil, and cut off all ties over there politically and militarily. Won't happen, but we can pretend just for you:

Do you REALLY believe ISIS will put down their guns, knives, and bombs? Do you really believe that will end the jihad? Do you really believe our nation will face fewer threats? If so, you're more out of touch with the motivation of our enemy than I thought.

Radical Islam: some are fighting what they believe is a defensive jihad (as you referenced above) because they don't want US troops on Muslim lands. The OTHER is an offensive jihad, these people want Sharia Law to take over the world and are moving their "culture" west. See: Europe, the UK, hell even the US.

 

[wizards8507]

Just think of the math, Lax. How accurate do you think the polling of 1.6 Billion people would be? Or how realistic that 80% of that worldwide population would be unified in the same brand of hate?

Worldwide it would be far, far worse. Most of the polling I've seen is of American or European Muslims. No, that's not a representative sample of the worldwide population, but the westerners are likely to be among the most moderate of the lot. If you start polling the Muslims who live in societies that stone women for adultery, the extremism statistics are going to skew even higher.

Regardless of whether we can calculate an accurate number of radicals with a 95% confidence interval, the answer is without a doubt non-zero and significant.

 

[GoIrish41]

For shits and giggles, let's pretend we do what you want: get out of the Middle East completely, become self sufficient with oil, and cut off all ties over there politically and militarily. Won't happen, but we can pretend just for you:

Do you REALLY believe ISIS will put down their guns, knives, and bombs? Do you really believe that will end the jihad? Do you really believe our nation will face fewer threats? If so, you're more out of touch with the motivation of our enemy than I thought.

Radical Islam: some are fighting what they believe is a defensive jihad (as you referenced above) because they don't want US troops on Muslim lands. The OTHER is an offensive jihad, these people want Sharia Law to take over the world and are moving their "culture" west. See: Europe, the UK, hell even the US.

The short answer ... Yes.I believe that over time their aggression would fade. In addition, I believe that this action would remove one of their most effective recruiting tools -- destroying the great Satan that is the United States. This, in turn, would reduce the numbers of "radicalized" (I hate this term) individuals in our country and reduce the threat of violence.

This country seems unwilling or unable to understand the mindset and the built up frustrations that have led to the type of anger that leads them to these violent acts. We talk about their religion as if we understand it. We use terms like "fighting ... a defensive jihad" and "offensive jihad," but the word jihad does not mean "war". A jihad is not fought. It is an individual's striving for spiritual self-perfection -- to strive in the way of Allah. The Western world has hijacked the term to mean holy war. It even appears in most dictionaries that way, even though Muslim scholars regularly try to correct the flawed definition. While jihad holds a very important status in the doctrine of Islam, it has nothing to do with holy war. The term Sharia law as well is widely misused and corrupted and changed to fit the fear mongering narrative on the right to keep churning the cycle that I described in my previous post. These new definitions are used to scare people and to drum up support for the holy war that many on the right seem to want to happen.

The point is that we don't seek to understand anything about these people, what makes them tick, WHY they are so angry. Instead, we assign meaning to language in their sacred texts, paint them as evil, and impose ourselves on them in their own lands -- all because they have lots and lots of oil. Becauses let's face it ... if they didn't have oil we wouldn't give a shit about the Middle East. Hateful, brainless, misinformed rhetoric like Trump's and all of the people who repeat the same and other stupid things over and over again make the hatreds run deeper and more profound. We are taught from a young age that the best way to avoid being stung is to avoid the bee hive. We've ignored that sound advice of our youth and instead chose to whack it with a stick. Maybe its time to put the stick down and walk away.

 

[ND NYC]

anyone see the Frontline special on ISIS a couple weeks back?

Basically this reporter is granted access to an ISIS Group in Afghanistan, and you get to see how their "society" lives:

kids in school being trained on kalishnikovs, knifes and handguns

local villagers saying how ISIS pays them more, and so they went from Taliban to ISIS

my overall take away was that they (ISIS) were bunch a phonys and that its not about much to do about their religion at all...but rather having "power" over people.

definitely more like a cult to me using religion as their cover.

check it out if you can, it may be online on pbs.

 

[NDgradstudent]

"Suicide bombing/other violence against civilians is justified to defend Islam from its enemies..." Often: 1%, Sometimes 7%, Rarely 5%, Never 81%

Let's Americanize that question real quick

"Bombing or killing civilians is justified to defend America from its enemies..."

What do you think the number for sometimes would be? I'd bet over 80%. Justified in some circumstances =/= approve

Random violence in the middle of a city, not in the context of war, to defend Islam, is what Pew was asking about. Not the military of some country bombing a munitions factory where civilians are working. It constitutes an open approval of terrorism.

As for your link, Japan had one of the only terrorist chemical attacks ever. Was it less bad because it wasn't Islamic?

Every country has some domestic terrorism, of course. But if domestic terrorism is such a big problem in Japan (or the US), does it make sense to import more terrorism-prone foreigners?

 

[EddytoNow]

The short answer ... Yes.I believe that over time their aggression would fade. In addition, I believe that this action would remove one of their most effective recruiting tools -- destroying the great Satan that is the United States. This, in turn, would reduce the numbers of "radicalized" (I hate this term) individuals in our country and reduce the threat of violence.

This country seems unwilling or unable to understand the mindset and the built up frustrations that have led to the type of anger that leads them to these violent acts. We talk about their religion as if we understand it. We use terms like "fighting ... a defensive jihad" and "offensive jihad," but the word jihad does not mean "war". A jihad is not fought. It is an individual's striving for spiritual self-perfection -- to strive in the way of Allah. The Western world has hijacked the term to mean holy war. It even appears in most dictionaries that way, even though Muslim scholars regularly try to correct the flawed definition. While jihad holds a very important status in the doctrine of Islam, it has nothing to do with holy war. The term Sharia law as well is widely misused and corrupted and changed to fit the fear mongering narrative on the right to keep churning the cycle that I described in my previous post. These new definitions are used to scare people and to drum up support for the holy war that many on the right seem to want to happen.

The point is that we don't seek to understand anything about these people, what makes them tick, WHY they are so angry. Instead, we assign meaning to language in their sacred texts, paint them as evil, and impose ourselves on them in their own lands -- all because they have lots and lots of oil. Becauses let's face it ... if they didn't have oil we wouldn't give a shit about the Middle East. Hateful, brainless, misinformed rhetoric like Trump's and all of the people who repeat the same and other stupid things over and over again make the hatreds run deeper and more profound. We are taught from a young age that the best way to avoid being stung is to avoid the bee hive. We've ignored that sound advice of our youth and instead chose to whack it with a stick. Maybe its time to put the stick down and walk away.

The above sums up the situation very well. Ask yourself when the United States became the Great Satan to many people of the Middle East. You will find that it began with the colonialism of the Europeans and accelerated when we started to provide Israel with advanced weaponry and when we began to exploit the area for its oil reserves. We cozied up to the area's military dictators in exchange for oil and supported Israel as it "settled" more and more Muslim land. Our policy now seems to be to remove the local dictator, leaving a vacuum that is quickly filled by the masses that are being schooled in the role the United States has historically played in the area. If we want to change their perception of the United States, we need to change the policies that have created those perceptions.

 

[phgreek]

We're a year away and I don't put much stock into polls this far out. At some point, Trump is going to have to say something intelligent and substantive, or people are going to give up on him. I know a whole lot of Republicans who have told me that if Trump gets the nomination, they aren't going to vote in the election at all. If that carries through with the wider electorate, I think the GOP stronghold on Congress may also be in real peril in 2016.

I'm writing myself in.... Just so I can tell my kids I never missed a vote.

Not following on the Congress thing. All the things people ran from Democrats on are still there...the people in congress now aren't embracing Donald Trump, so I don't see it. maybe something will change by then...shrug.

 

[GoIrish41]

I'm writing myself in.... Just so I can tell my kids I never missed a vote.

Not following on the Congress thing. All the things people ran from Democrats on are still there...the people in congress now aren't embracing Donald Trump, so I don't see it. maybe something will change by then...shrug.

Republicans who believed there was some sort of political revolution that happened in the last congressional elections, ignore the fact that Democrats historically do not show up to vote during off-year elections. Wait and see the Democratic party's voter participation rate in 2016 ... guarantee you will see a large jump. Republicans on the other hand, generally show up for every election.

Now, let's say for the sake of argument that 10 percent of the GOP voters stay home out of frustration with their ridiculous selection of perhaps the worst candidate in American political history for the GOP nomination, and 20 or 25 percent (probably a conservative estimate) more Democrats show up to vote than showed in the last off-year election. That could cause a huge swing in Congressional seats -- especially among folks who vote a one-party ticket in the voting booth.

I'm not saying this will happen ... but I'm saying it is a real possibility if a guy like Trump gets the nomination. So many people in the Republican party dislike him as much as Democrats do. He is doing a lot of damage to the party.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Trump vs. Hillary is seriously amongst the worst tickets I could imagine.

Up there with Cuban vs. Maddof, or the Terminator vs. a radical feminist, just bad all the way around.

 

[NDgradstudent]

The short answer ... Yes.I believe that over time their aggression would fade. In addition, I believe that this action would remove one of their most effective recruiting tools -- destroying the great Satan that is the United States. This, in turn, would reduce the numbers of "radicalized" (I hate this term) individuals in our country and reduce the threat of violence.

What evidence do you have this will actually happen?

We know that it has not happened in France, Sweden, or Belgium (notoriously right-wing countries).

We know that it didn't happen for the Boston Bomber Brothers, who grew up 'American' in that appalling right-wing city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Again, Japan does not have this problem. Why not? Because it doesn't let in tons of immigrants. Terrorists are deliberately taking advantage of our stupid, relaxed immigration policies. We are now paying the price.

 

[pkt77242]

What evidence do you have this will actually happen?

We know that it has not happened in France, Sweden, or Belgium (notoriously right-wing countries).

We know that it didn't happen for the Boston Bomber Brothers, who grew up 'American' in that appalling right-wing city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Again, Japan does not have this problem. Why not? Because it doesn't let in tons of immigrants. Terrorists are deliberately taking advantage of our stupid, relaxed immigration policies. We are now paying the price.

Do you know what else Japan doesn't have? Guns. It is very difficult to get guns in Japan.

Also I would say that ISIS is more taking advantage of our stupid foreign policy since 9/11 than anything. Add in Trump's (and many of the people who will vote for him) rhetoric to that as well as it will make it easier for them to recruit disenfranchised muslim-americans.

 

[IrishLax]

Do you know what else Japan doesn't have? Guns. It is very difficult to get guns in Japan.

Also I would say that ISIS is more taking advantage of our stupid foreign policy since 9/11 than anything. Add in Trump's (and many of the people who will vote for him) rhetoric to that as well as it will make it easier for them to recruit disenfranchised muslim-americans.

Isn't it also very difficult to get guns in France? I'm not being rhetorical, I don't know what their gun laws are.

 

[Grahambo]

Isn't it also very difficult to get guns in France? I'm not being rhetorical, I don't know what their gun laws are.

The flip side is even if its hard to, get it from an easier EU country and just drive on in.

 

[MJ12666]

The short answer ... Yes.I believe that over time their aggression would fade. In addition, I believe that this action would remove one of their most effective recruiting tools -- destroying the great Satan that is the United States. This, in turn, would reduce the numbers of "radicalized" (I hate this term) individuals in our country and reduce the threat of violence.

This country seems unwilling or unable to understand the mindset and the built up frustrations that have led to the type of anger that leads them to these violent acts. We talk about their religion as if we understand it. We use terms like "fighting ... a defensive jihad" and "offensive jihad," but the word jihad does not mean "war". A jihad is not fought. It is an individual's striving for spiritual self-perfection -- to strive in the way of Allah. The Western world has hijacked the term to mean holy war. It even appears in most dictionaries that way, even though Muslim scholars regularly try to correct the flawed definition. While jihad holds a very important status in the doctrine of Islam, it has nothing to do with holy war. The term Sharia law as well is widely misused and corrupted and changed to fit the fear mongering narrative on the right to keep churning the cycle that I described in my previous post. These new definitions are used to scare people and to drum up support for the holy war that many on the right seem to want to happen.

The point is that we don't seek to understand anything about these people, what makes them tick, WHY they are so angry. Instead, we assign meaning to language in their sacred texts, paint them as evil, and impose ourselves on them in their own lands -- all because they have lots and lots of oil. Becauses let's face it ... if they didn't have oil we wouldn't give a shit about the Middle East. Hateful, brainless, misinformed rhetoric like Trump's and all of the people who repeat the same and other stupid things over and over again make the hatreds run deeper and more profound. We are taught from a young age that the best way to avoid being stung is to avoid the bee hive. We've ignored that sound advice of our youth and instead chose to whack it with a stick. Maybe its time to put the stick down and walk away.

I work with a Coptic Christian whose family is originally from Egypt and she still has relatives who still lives there.They have no connection to the US or any European country and their culture predates the Muslim invasion of Egypt, yet they are still persecuted and in some instances killed. How does there situation fit into the above scenario?

 

[NDgradstudent]

Do you know what else Japan doesn't have? Guns. It is very difficult to get guns in Japan.

It's pretty hard to get guns in France, Belgium, Sweden, and the U.K., too.

 

[pkt77242]

It's pretty hard to get guns in France, Belgium, Sweden, and the U.K., too.

In the UK it is very expensive to get illegal guns. In France it isn't very expensive. Also Grahambo made a good point about getting it in another EU country and taking it in. With Japan that would be very difficult to do.

The flip side is even if its hard to, get it from an easier EU country and just drive on in.

It is the reason why gun laws in one state in the US doesn't really matter if you can go to a nearby state and easily obtain the gun. For example, it matters little if the gun laws are strict in Chicago if you can easily drive into Indiana and buy it.

 

[ND NYC]

like Tom Friedman said:

ISIS provides 3 things for young, sunni, muslim males in the Middle East that they've never had before:

Girls
Power
Jobs

must be pretty easy to recruit young guys promising all 3 of those in that part of the world

 

[Grahambo]

The short answer ... Yes.I believe that over time their aggression would fade. In addition, I believe that this action would remove one of their most effective recruiting tools -- destroying the great Satan that is the United States. This, in turn, would reduce the numbers of "radicalized" (I hate this term) individuals in our country and reduce the threat of violence.

This country seems unwilling or unable to understand the mindset and the built up frustrations that have led to the type of anger that leads them to these violent acts. We talk about their religion as if we understand it. We use terms like "fighting ... a defensive jihad" and "offensive jihad," but the word jihad does not mean "war". A jihad is not fought. It is an individual's striving for spiritual self-perfection -- to strive in the way of Allah. The Western world has hijacked the term to mean holy war. It even appears in most dictionaries that way, even though Muslim scholars regularly try to correct the flawed definition. While jihad holds a very important status in the doctrine of Islam, it has nothing to do with holy war. The term Sharia law as well is widely misused and corrupted and changed to fit the fear mongering narrative on the right to keep churning the cycle that I described in my previous post. These new definitions are used to scare people and to drum up support for the holy war that many on the right seem to want to happen.

The point is that we don't seek to understand anything about these people, what makes them tick, WHY they are so angry. Instead, we assign meaning to language in their sacred texts, paint them as evil, and impose ourselves on them in their own lands -- all because they have lots and lots of oil. Becauses let's face it ... if they didn't have oil we wouldn't give a shit about the Middle East. Hateful, brainless, misinformed rhetoric like Trump's and all of the people who repeat the same and other stupid things over and over again make the hatreds run deeper and more profound. We are taught from a young age that the best way to avoid being stung is to avoid the bee hive. We've ignored that sound advice of our youth and instead chose to whack it with a stick. Maybe its time to put the stick down and walk away.

They are establishing a caliphate in which you either are forced to convert or if you're Christian, you pay a tax and are a 2nd class citizen. They are printing their own money so to your point, there will eventually be a time when they settle in but make no mistake, they will continue this physical fight. Its an extremely complicated issue as we all know. But one that CAN be won on the ground. They are TERRIBLE at fighting. So, if you go boots on the ground, you have to do it properly. You can defeat them.

Your point about the oil, al Shabaab is aligned with ISIL and do just as awful atrocities yet you hardly hear about them, why? No oil.

In the UK it is very expensive to get illegal guns. In France it isn't very expensive. Also Grahambo made a good point about getting it in another EU country and taking it in. With Japan that would be very difficult to do.



It is the reason why gun laws in one state in the US doesn't really matter if you can go to a nearby state and easily obtain the gun. For example, it doesn't matters little if the gun laws are strict in Chicago if you can easily drive into Indiana and buy it.

That's really all they do; buy it elsewhere then bring it in.

 

[Wild Bill]

They are establishing a caliphate in which you either are forced to convert or if you're Christian, you pay a tax and are a 2nd class citizen. They are printing their own money so to your point, there will eventually be a time when they settle in but make no mistake, they will continue this physical fight. Its an extremely complicated issue as we all know. But one that CAN be won on the ground. They are TERRIBLE at fighting. So, if you go boots on the ground, you have to do it properly. You can defeat them.

Your point about the oil, al Shabaab is aligned with ISIL and do just as awful atrocities yet you hardly hear about them, why? No oil.



That's really all they do; buy it elsewhere then bring it in.

You could be right. But why should we put American boots on the ground to fight these bastards, and at the same time open our borders to so called refugees fleeing the region who are military age men? Let them fight for their own land.

 

[RDU Irish]

That's what he's proposing. Its not no new Muslims coming into the country ... it's NO Muslims coming in.


He has a nice resume on paper, but he pulls politically suicidal, stupid stunts like lead the charge to shut down the government. But again, he's just not a likable guy. Most people I know who are Republicans and Democrats can't stand him. Expressing a desire to punch in the face comes up a lot when his name is mentioned.

HEY - I resemble that statement! And I would add he looks like Grandpa Munster. All I think about debate champions is "wanna fight! - YEAH - stick your head up your ass and fight for air" - Classic legislator who fights for everything and accomplishes nothing. I at least respect Rubio for getting frustrated with being 1/100th of the process in the Senate and acknowledging his limitations as a Senator. The other 99 seem to think they are running the world.

Going by the 24 hour workout place yesterday some guy is working out in full beard with the big towel on his head next to all the others in gym shorts and t-shirts. If I am looking to become an American, I think I might try to assimilate a bit more. Start watching some football and drinking some beers to chat more casually with my co-workers. Maybe I am a whore to peer pressure but assimilation is kind of what this country is all about. Just like Hispanics who don't even try to learn English, you are only holding yourself back.

As for the pleas for "substance" from Democrats toward Republican candidates - holy f-ing sh!t is that hilarious coming from the electors the Mr. Hope and Change circle jerk.

 

[Goldedommer44]

Isn't it also very difficult to get guns in France? I'm not being rhetorical, I don't know what their gun laws are.

The question was posed to why Japan does not have the same problem and I would ask if Japan has ever been apart of a coalition to " free there country". They seem to be targeting countries who have invaded there homeland . I don't think Japan has ever done that.

 

[MJ12666]

I understand the Muslim talk but this is not a problem that will go away by bombing the hell out of them or by banning them from our country.

What I want to know is how republicans can say that abortion should be illegal but then they don't want anything to do to help those kids or mothers after they are born. They want to cut welfare and every other social service program that may help those kids have a little better life because they are born into a family that doesn't want them.

If you are pro life you should be pro life throughout the entire life not just while you are in the womb.

I can only speak for myself but I just do not believe that the Federal government should be involved with welfare or social services. I have no problem with states and private charities providing these services. I personally donate monthly to a private charity that provides services to unwed mothers and I would gladly give more if the federal government would cut all social service spending and my federal tax bill would drop accordingly. If it is argued that the Federal government simply collects the tax and returns it to the states as grants, I would say cut out the "middleman" to free up funds to be spent directly on actual services.