Lorry crashes into Berlin Market -- ISIS Terror Attack

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And the day gets even grimmer. A lorry deliberately crashed into a street market in Berlin.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38373867

 

UPDATE:

And a manhunt is under for the terrorist who drove the lorry, or hijacked it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-20/we-are-state-war-berlin-london-high-alert-terrorism-suspect-said-be-large

 

UPDATE 2:

ISIS claim responsibility for the attack, was wondering when they would say so.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38385961

[TekindusT 3,809]

Supected driver arrested, co-driver dead. Around 9 dead, 50 wounded according to the police.

It is in these moments I wish the Police would guarantee a slow, very painful torture to the driver before they shot them down like an animal. Next in the queue after they were done with the infamous U-Bahn attacker that went viral a couple weeks ago.

I was strolling down that Christmas market yesterday afternoon.

[_Michael 2,681]

Just been reading about this. Truly awful. 

[Toothless Stitch 2,901]

Have two friends in Berlin I haven't heard from yet. Let's hope for the best. After all, this is just sick. Thank you.

[simmytu 605]

This is such a weird and eventful Monday, starting from the assassination of a Russian ambassador and now this attack in Germany.

[schokoladeneis 1 193]

1 hour ago, TekindusT said:

Supected driver arrested, co-driver dead. Around 9 dead, 50 wounded according to the police.

It is in these moments I wish the Police would guarantee a slow, very painful torture to the driver before they shot them down like an animal. Next in the queue after they were done with the infamous U-Bahn attacker that went viral a couple weeks ago.

I was strolling down that Christmas market yesterday afternoon.

What is wrong with you? Until now it's not clear if this is an attack and you demand that the driver should be tortured and get killed? And even if it was a terrorist attack, it's not okay at all to do somethik like this to a person, as bad as the person might be. But I guess it's now "normal" to start a big manhunt until we take "revenge".

 

[_Michael 2,681]

Hue Edwards and Jenny Hill have just said on the BBC News at 10 that the police are not conclusively saying this is a terror incident, and are keeping the possibility of it being a traffic accident open.

Given the truck in Nice was continuously driven through the crowd, that was clealy a dilerate attack. From what I've read this truck didn't drive through and so the similarities to Nice are not as apparent as they may first seem...

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32 minutes ago, simmytu said:

This is such a weird and eventful Monday, starting from the assassination of a Russian ambassador and now this attack in Germany.

There was also an Islamic terrorist attack in Zurich; three injured.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-shooting-idUSKBN1481X0

 

My bet is the driver and co-driver were from ISIS, so waiting for ISIS to claim responsibility for the attack in 3... 2... 1...

[_Michael 2,681]

2 minutes ago, Ln X said:

There was also an Islamic terrorist attack in Zurich; three injured.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-shooting-idUSKBN1481X0

 

My bet is the driver and co-driver were from ISIS, so waiting for ISIS to claim responsibility for the attack in 3... 2... 1...

 

I'm not so sure about that affilitation...

(Didn't know about the thing in Zurich - thanks for letting me know. (I have family there.)) 

[TekindusT 3,809]

30 minutes ago, schokoladeneis 1 said:

What is wrong with you? Until now it's not clear if this is an attack and you demand that the driver should be tortured and get killed? And even if it was a terrorist attack, it's not okay at all to do somethik like this to a person, as bad as the person might be. But I guess it's now "normal" to start a big manhunt until we take "revenge".

 

A very twisted explanation is needed in order to "justify" this event is not a terrorist attack.  Think about it. That stretch of the Budapester Strasse is the perfect place to accelerate any vehicle to a high speed, the gentle turn would make the vehicle to ram directly against the market. A Christmas market which is roughly 5 meters away from the road, even much less at the Tauenzienstrasse side. A Christmas market, during Advent time right under a Christian church, right at one of the two shopping hubs of the city. 

About what I wrote before, I tend to heaten up quite quickly as you see, and most of the times I try to keep out of ST during the heat up. I know it will never happen, but despite how anti-progressist and anti-my-way-of-thinking it might sound, I would suport a re-enactment of the death penalty in cases of any kind of terrorism. Not something I thought this evening, I have thought about that a long time ago. Just because in my brain it doesn't sound fair that you can deliberately plan to the detail how to raze as many lives as possible, kill 9 and keep with yours as if nothing had happened. But yeah, that's a topic for the death penalty thread, not this one.

 

[schokoladeneis 1 193]

39 minutes ago, Ln X said:

There was also an Islamic terrorist attack in Zurich; three injured.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-shooting-idUSKBN1481X0

 

My bet is the driver and co-driver were from ISIS, so waiting for ISIS to claim responsibility for the attack in 3... 2... 1...

Please read the article you posted. Nobody says that it (shooting in the mosque in Zurich) was an islamic terror attack. Please everybody calm down and please don't spread any misinformation or rumors until the motives or circumstances are better known.

Yeah maybe it was an terror attack at the Gedächtniskirche we will know better in one day. Maybe Daesh will claim responsibility maybe not.

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5 minutes ago, schokoladeneis 1 said:

Please read the article you posted. Nobody says that it (shooting in the mosque in Zurich) was an islamic terror attack. Please everybody calm down and please don't spread any misinformation or rumors until the motives or circumstances are better known.

Yeah maybe it was an terror attack at the Gedächtniskirche we will know better in one day. Maybe Daesh will claim responsibility maybe not.

Yeah I made a mistake there. If someone attacked a mosque then it would make it a far-right terrorist attack.

[catty-cb 4,392]

6 hours ago, TekindusT said:

Suspected driver arrested, co-driver dead. Around 9 dead, 50 wounded according to the police.....

According the polish owner of the company who owned the truck, his cousin was driving it and the last he heard from him he was doing his normal deliveries and he didn't have a co-driver with him ...

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And the driver was a Pakistan born refugee. So this will add yet more fuel to the growing far-right and anti-immigration parties in Europe.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-19/truck-ploughs-berlin-christmas-market-least-one-dead-multiple-injured

[TekindusT 3,809]

The police is doubting about the attack authorship by the arrested suspect. The Morgenpost live feed says that the attacker might be free (and possibly armed) in the city; to which the police encourages the population on Twitter to be alert. 

[metarvo 710]

My my.  Whether the suspect was affiliated with a known terrorist group like ISIS or just a lone wolf, with or without any religion, this attacker goes pretty low.  The attack was on a Christmas market, was it not?  Terrorist attacks seem to have become a way of life in Europe within the last few years.

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And now a manhunt is under to find the terrorist who hijacked the lorry.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-20/we-are-state-war-berlin-london-high-alert-terrorism-suspect-said-be-large

 

And also you're right metarvo, attacking a Christmas market is very low. Unfortunately unprecedented emigration of people from the Middle East and poor to non-existent border checks means a lot more terrorism; how many ISIS, Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists slipped in last year and this year due to lax immigration controls? It's extremely poor policy and this is causing increased support for far right groups. Just wait until some of these groups get armed and start committing terrorist attacks against Muslims and mosques.

Let's not forget that the most deadliest force on the planet is European nationalism.

[Bdub01 201]

What happened to Germany? Where is the country that struck fear in the hearts of Europeans, the country that started not one but two world wars? Oh how the mighty have fallen. 

Ok I say this in jest of course. But ISIS has got to be stopped. Hopefully once Trump takes over the presidency of the USA, ISIS may finally get crushed!!! Prayers and good thoughts going to the victims in Germany. 

[Larks2242 251]

This is beyond ridiculous, Germany's open boarder policy will be the death of them, You cannot expect people to integrate and conform to your way of life and western culture is not going to conform to theirs, It is wishful thinking to believe otherwise.

890,000 of them, When will the next attack happen, Who is the target?, Time for Merkel to resign or they will end up having to bring back the gestapo to sort this mess out. 

1 hour ago, Bdub01 said:

ISIS has got to be stopped. Hopefully once Trump takes over the presidency of the USA, ISIS may finally get crushed!!! Prayers and good thoughts going to the victims in Germany. 

At least Trump gets it, I don't want to even contemplate ISIS's success if it had gone the other way.

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8 hours ago, Larks2242 said:

This is beyond ridiculous, Germany's open boarder policy will be the death of them, You cannot expect people to integrate and conform to your way of life and western culture is not going to conform to theirs, It is wishful thinking to believe otherwise.

890,000 of them, When will the next attack happen, Who is the target?, Time for Merkel to resign or they will end up having to bring back the gestapo to sort this mess out. 

At least Trump gets it, I don't want to even contemplate ISIS's success if it had gone the other way.

That 890000 was from last year. This year it is expected that another 300000 refugees will arrive. It should be noted that last year a major reason for the influx of people came from Turkey, I think at least two million refugees left the countries refugee camps and entered via Greece and Italy. Personally I think Turkey wanted to decrease the number of people in their refugee camps to allow their country (Turkey) to cope. Think about it- where was the Turkish army and border control as those two million refugees went past the Turkish border and into Europe?

[TekindusT 3,809]

Leaving aside the topic in favor or against refugees, Germany opened its doors to the refugees for a very simple reason: Germany needs more workforce, if possible, very cheap. It's not different of what West Germany did with Turkish citizens or of what East Germany did with Vietnamese and Cuban citizens during the 20th century.

The welfare state can only be sustained if more young hands do the hard and badly paid work the more educated German natives don't want to do anymore. More and more people are getting retired while there are not enough young workers to fill in the gaps. That's what you'll hear say any company manager you meet. 

On the other hand, there is The Big Question. Why aren't enough Germans who want to fill in these gaps? Well, salaries are indecent in many branches, and the cost of living is constantly rising. Germany only introduced a minimum wage law last year. Rents in cities like Berlin are becoming prohibitive, those who can't afford the rents are moved out to the edge of the city. And those who can't pay the edge of the city are moved out to the state of Brandenburg, where rents are cheap because you will need 1 hour to get to work every day. This way, those who can, study their way through university to have better jobs and not to fall in a future-less badly-paid minijob. And still, these jobs are needed.

The government didn't open its doors to refugees out of charity. They are needed to sustain the country's way of life and pension system as we know it.

[CapTon 592]

On 12/21/2016 at 9:39 AM, TekindusT said:

Leaving aside the topic in favor or against refugees, Germany opened its doors to the refugees for a very simple reason: Germany needs more workforce, if possible, very cheap. It's not different of what West Germany did with Turkish citizens or of what East Germany did with Vietnamese and Cuban citizens during the 20th century.

The welfare state can only be sustained if more young hands do the hard and badly paid work the more educated German natives don't want to do anymore. More and more people are getting retired while there are not enough young workers to fill in the gaps. That's what you'll hear say any company manager you meet. 

On the other hand, there is The Big Question. Why aren't enough Germans who want to fill in these gaps? Well, salaries are indecent in many branches, and the cost of living is constantly rising. Germany only introduced a minimum wage law last year. Rents in cities like Berlin are becoming prohibitive, those who can't afford the rents are moved out to the edge of the city. And those who can't pay the edge of the city are moved out to the state of Brandenburg, where rents are cheap because you will need 1 hour to get to work every day. This way, those who can, study their way through university to have better jobs and not to fall in a future-less badly-paid minijob. And still, these jobs are needed.

The government didn't open its doors to refugees out of charity. They are needed to sustain the country's way of life and pension system as we know it.

And unfortunately for them, they can't resort to capitalism (which would help them) to alleviate this workforce problem because that would require taking unnecessary benefits away from people who now feel entitled to them. You can see the same sort of thing in the United States with Social Security; the elderly feel entitled to all of the benefits that Social Security provides, and AARP will fight tooth and nail to protect those benefits from someone like Paul Ryan, who wants to cut Social Security spending and save the federal government some money.

[metarvo 710]

Well, the thing with Social Security though is that people who work often pay into Social Security, i.e. it is held out of their paychecks by their employers.  As a result, these hard workers feel as though they've paid into it and therefore are entitled to it once they retire (or even before if they continue working past minimum Social Security drawing age), if that makes any sense.  This is somewhat off-topic, though, but I digress.

[CapTon 592]

40 minutes ago, metarvo said:

Well, the thing with Social Security though is that people who work often pay into Social Security, i.e. it is held out of their paychecks by their employers.  As a result, these hard workers feel as though they've paid into it and therefore are entitled to it once they retire (or even before if they continue working past minimum Social Security drawing age), if that makes any sense.  This is somewhat off-topic, though, but I digress.

Right, but if the elderly people of today, who have paid into Social Security, refuse to allow SOME spending on Social Security to be cut, then what's going to be left for future generations? There won't BE any Social Security because we won't be able to afford it a couple decades down the road.

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The root of the Islamic terrorism problem which people from the left are too afraid to talk about, and people from the right hint at but don't go into more depth, is this: the truth is that there are laws in the Quran which are utterly obsolete in this day and age. They may have been appropriate 1400 years ago but this is the modern world. The Muslims who become secular get this and put distance between the negative and regressive aspects of Islamic culture: holy war, woman only having half the rights of a man, stoning women for adultery, etc...

A distinction must be made between the Quran and Islam. Islam arises from the interpretation of the Quran and other religious and cultural traditions. The Quran is God's word as dictated by the Angel Gabriel to Muhammed. Nowhere in the Quran did Muhammed call for the creation of Islam.

Problem is Muhammed never gave instructions as to who should interpret the Quran or who would succeed him. Most people would say that it was silly of Muhammed not to do this, the spiritually minded would say Muhammed's lack of action was a test from God...

What Muslims are going through is the exact same thing which Christians and Jews are going through- parts of their respective religions are obsolete in the modern age or have been grossly misinterpreted. How many Christian priests used the Bible to justify segregation and slavery back in the olden days of the US? Or Zionist Rabbis interpreting the Torah through the Talmud and using that as an excuse to treat the non-Jews as Goyim?

The Old Testament is very violent in parts- an eye for an eye. Which is why Israel is so brutal with terrorists. The New Testament preaches restraint and forgiveness in the face of violence and insults. The Quran preaches holy war when followers of Muhammed are so threatened that words cannot defuse a situation which will lead to violence. The Wahabis though have taken this to mean any threat to a Muslim is excuse enough for holy war.

Then again the Wahabis twist everything in the Quran and in Islam to ensure their patriarchal structure remains. Wahabis have zero respect for the ten commandments because those Wahabis in power, in Saudi Arabia, will fund terrorist groups to spread Wahabism through violence and brainwashing.

Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Chechen rebels... All follow Wahabism. Saudi Arabia is a very evil country as it uses its oil money to spread Wahabism through "education" and terrorist groups.

But... Bottom line- there are parts of the Quran which have NO place in today's modern society. The same can be said for parts of the Old and New Testament.

[raynev1 1,886]

@Scribosilyn Sorry for being so late , but I had to add my two cents and couldn't agree more . What people see on the news , they act as it is gospel . Though a lot of it is no more than propaganda , to keep people in fear and to heighten anger . Television news is controlled by the government in its broadcasting area . So yeah , take it with a grain of salt . Dead men tell no tales , so they can't defend themselves . This is a very corrupt world we live in nowadays with so much power mongering that nothing surprises me anymore  . I can't even watch the news anymore as it is hard to believe what is being said .

[T Wrecks 10,209]

On 20.12.2016 at 7:24 PM, Ln X said:

 how many ISIS, Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists slipped in last year and this year due to lax immigration controls?

Not the guy responsible for the attack on the Christmas market in Berlin, that much is known now.

Just as a word of caution, many right-wing people in Germany, who are against any form of immigration (especially of Muslims!) anyway, are quick to link pretty much anything that's happening recently to last year's refugee peak. The New Year's events in Cologne (robberies, sexual harassment) were another case - quickly blamed on the refugees who entered Germany in 2016. "1,000 refugees organised a mass rape/robbery - thank you, chancellor Merkel!" was a quick reaction from the right wing. As it turns out, the offenders were by far not that many, were not really organised beforehand, and mostly belonged to other, "older" immigrant groups that were already known to be problematic. Equally ugly, but still: the story was given a spin by interested parties, and what can be regarded as halfways hard facts has turned out to be far less simple and spectacular.

Likewise, there are many conspiracy theories about media in Germany these days, claiming that they are all controlled by the government ("system media"), lie on purpose ("Lügenpresse", a word uncomfortably close to Nazi Germany) and conspire to deny reality ("reality" = planned destruction of Germany's citizenship by mass immigration, ruining it all and dumbing down everything until a few powerful people can rule a nation of mixed-race slaves, in the eyes of the right-wing crowd).

Here, this kind of talk is taken by many as the gospel, and this kind of talk is used to spread fear, hostility, and contempt for everything that's moderate, diverse, and not purely nationalist. It's less the media. If anything, the media are accused of trying to belittle problems (see above).

 

[Fantozzi 4,067]

6 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

As it turns out, the offenders were by far not that many, were not really organised beforehand, and mostly belonged to other, "older" immigrant groups that were already known to be problematic.

Truth is different from opinion. Even shared opinion isn't truth. The strange thing is - while you seek it (and it's impossible to seek it alone) it is truth but as soon as you own it, it isn't truth anymore. So one can say: it is something we share but we can't own. This his how majorities create truth. "1+1=2", we can agree on this, but this doesn't mean we own this now.

There were 1000 criminal complaints made on the cologne night.

There are 19 trials and 22 suspects.

All other information was obtained by eye victims and people/media making conclusions on their reports.

Frm this 'data' it is possible to create nearly any truth you want. If an eye victim says she was attacked by a refugee - how may she know? If an eye victim says she was attacked by an african - how may she know?

Like to tell a completely different story. Public german radio was used to investigate what music people prefered to hear since 1945. They made simply questionnares where people simply could check of they prefer opera or blues or musicals or string quartes or rock music and so on - pretty much choices. And the producers got the results and played the music people wanted to hear. But people kept on complaining about the music they played in radio. So the producers got used to the fact, that it doesn't matter if they do as people want or not - they will always complain.

But in the 90ies of last century a social professor became interested in this phenomenon - that producers played the music people wanted but they still did complain. 

After they had filled the usual questionnare this professor asked the interviewee to stay and listen to some piece of music and to categorize it. He found - for example - that 40 percent  of the people listen to a musical named it an opera, while the producers named it obviously a musical. More than a half of the people listen to a blues tune marked it as rock music - meanwhile, again, the producers named it as blues music.

It turned out that the listeners and the producers were talking about completely different things when they were talking about 'opera' or 'rock music'. One could say: the producers had to much expert knowledge to even understand what 'normal people' were talking about, to understand them.

I'm pretty shure - if you would investigate how people recognize a 'refugee' - what are the exterior characteristics of a 'refugee' or a 'muslim', you'd be surprised.

At the end all those things we are able to talk about, they have to pass the gates of language. And passing through this gates most of the 'truth' gets very funny costumes put on. Truth becomes a quick-change artist.

Most of the time it seems we are talking about the same. But most of the time we need much talking to discover - it's a different understanding of those words what we called 'truth'. But what there is, in the words, what filled them up with sense, it wasn't truth, it was only our imagination.

How we imagine 'opera', how we imagine a 'refugee' - vastly by experience, mostly by listening to media, how we can say our imagination is 'true'?  It isn't the same how we separate a rainbow trout from a brown trout. Especially those heavy weight words we use in a common, ary way. Stangely we use the word 'rainbow trout' much more precisely than words like 'God' or 'Truth' and also 'refugee'.

And therefore is no truth shown, no matter how intense the use of words in long walls of text becomes. And we complain about too much 'opera' in Radio and we complain about too much 'refugees' without even recognizing that first of all these words are like sketches made from our minds - casts or molds taken from our imagination.

 

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10 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

Not the guy responsible for the attack on the Christmas market in Berlin, that much is known now.

Just as a word of caution, many right-wing people in Germany, who are against any form of immigration (especially of Muslims!) anyway, are quick to link pretty much anything that's happening recently to last year's refugee peak. The New Year's events in Cologne (robberies, sexual harassment) were another case - quickly blamed on the refugees who entered Germany in 2016. "1,000 refugees organised a mass rape/robbery - thank you, chancellor Merkel!" was a quick reaction from the right wing. As it turns out, the offenders were by far not that many, were not really organised beforehand, and mostly belonged to other, "older" immigrant groups that were already known to be problematic. Equally ugly, but still: the story was given a spin by interested parties, and what can be regarded as halfways hard facts has turned out to be far less simple and spectacular.

Likewise, there are many conspiracy theories about media in Germany these days, claiming that they are all controlled by the government ("system media"), lie on purpose ("Lügenpresse", a word uncomfortably close to Nazi Germany) and conspire to deny reality ("reality" = planned destruction of Germany's citizenship by mass immigration, ruining it all and dumbing down everything until a few powerful people can rule a nation of mixed-race slaves, in the eyes of the right-wing crowd).

Here, this kind of talk is taken by many as the gospel, and this kind of talk is used to spread fear, hostility, and contempt for everything that's moderate, diverse, and not purely nationalist. It's less the media. If anything, the media are accused of trying to belittle problems (see above).

 

There is a reason why the right-wing, and those on the dark side of nationalism, are flourishing and it is because the left wing are mirroring an extreme which is the polar opposite viewpoint. We are currently experiencing a wrenching societal transformation as the forces of the far left and the far right are simultaneously pulling Western countries to more extreme left and right politics, policies and practices.

Let me explain.

And... when I say "you" I say so in the strict second person, it ain't aimed at you T Wrecks. Now this kind of sentiment is a small part of the problem which I will explain below.

 

Islamic problems- an example of the issue
 

Spoiler

Leftist politics has gagged itself so much that it is utterly terrified of offending minorities, it hast to guard its speech so much that it cannot treat minorities as equals. Any legitimate criticism or observations are quickly denounced as bigoted, sexist or racist. Conversations are becoming minefields in the political scene, university scene and in the media. For instance the media rarely mentions that the perpetrators of recent terrorist attacks are Muslim or Islamic, they will always mention the attack is linked to ISIS or Al Qeada. It never delves into the true religious motivations behind these attacks and I don't think it ever mentions Wahhabism as a factor.

It, the media, rarely makes the distinction between being a Muslim and Islam itself. A Muslim follows the Prophet Muhammed's teachings and accepts the Quran as the Word of God. But Islam is the culture that has arisen from the interruptation of Muhammed's sayings, doings and the Holy Book he revealed as dictated by the angel Gabriel. Now virtually everyone outside of Islam is getting this whole thing wrong. The far right just read certain sections of the Quran and just runs away with it, the left wing and the media won't even explore why Muslims turn to Jihad or why Muslims become coerced by Wahhabism. Wahhabism is a blatant perversion of Islam and misinterprets the Quran and Muhammed's teachings for the sake of material power and also male dominance over women (patriarchy). All the Islamic militants out there: the Talbian, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Bokom Haram... They are follow Wahhibism. They hate secularization, of the sort which happened in Syria, Libya, Jordan and Turkey. Where Islamic values are reconciled with modern values all the while worshipping Allah and turning to the Quran for guidance.

 

The soft bigotry of the left
 

Spoiler

See what has happened is that these nuances are not being explored and they are not being clarified, because to do is to critique them and to determine their worth or lack of. But, going back to self-censuring of the left, they cannot do this because its bigotry, its racism, its xenophobia, blah, blah... They cannot treat minorities as equals because if you are afraid to properly converse with someone from these groups then it boils down to two reasons: hostile racism or bigotry of low expectations. If whites, and particularly males, can be criticized without fear of causing offence linked with bigotry, then why can't the same standard be applied to minorities?

Don't you see, to be human is to have agreements and disagreements and to still get along. But if you cannot discuss a viewpoint which could cause disagreement for fear of causing offence, then its mollification and soft bigotry- it's treating minorities like pets or little children. They can do no wrong, they are above reproach. It is an utterly patronizing attitude because you are presuming what is and is not offensive to minorities, and if they cannot be criticized because that is always some kind of racist attack then they have, by definition, no accountability, and thus you are robbing them of their faculties as human beings. To be a human being is to have freedom, responsibility and accountability. This fear of offence is denying to those minorities a part of what makes them, them- accountability. You are not seeing them as equals and when you start doing that it is soft bigotry and you are not seeing them as actual human beings.

Now, there will be agreements and disagreements but it can be done in a civilized fashion, and with a bit of common sense. There may be trial and error, there will be times when you accidentally say the wrong thing. But that's how you learn to talk with people from different cultural and religious backgrounds, you don't constantly go around being terrified of doing anything that could offend them. You don't learn ANYTHING and you are effectively segregating yourself from them: one standard for your race and another standard for their race. That's racism; pure racism at its core. And so many in the far left just don't get this!

 

Consequences of PC culture and identity politics
 

Spoiler

But the left's hysteria and soft bigotry has eroded the middle ground, and now with hate crime a lot of people are afraid to speak their minds or say something inadvertent but something which can be misconstrued. And the far right is literally been given it all on a silver platter. Combined with the chaotic immigration of two years ago and left politicians being just as same as the right when it comes to governments and those special interests, it is fuelling a surge in both the far left and the far right.

And the big thing is the highly divisive identity politics which the far left and the left play. What happened to there just being the human race? Why should the colour of your skin or your ethnicity determine your personality entirely? Now skin colour does affect people and does alter perception, but deep down we all know we are the same race, with the same biological functions and the same red blood that courses through our veins. Identity politics in the US has caused racial relations to deteriorate. MLK did not fight for this, he fought for black and white people to be as EQUALS, to be both recognised as human beings with inalienable rights.

The sad thing is PC culture and identity politics is causing cultural segregation to very gradually come back, and the reason is this- once you start going after legitimate criticism, or observations, and denouncing it as racist/bigoted AND then having a system to enforce this, i.e. hate crimes, then it creates a culture utterly adverse to all kinds of intolerance and it starts to straitjacket that culture, that race, that group into a certain way of thinking. Look at how some liberals, SJWs and those in minority groups ostracise their own against those individuals who have an opinion different to the group consensus; the consensus of what is right, what is wrong, what is offensive and what is not offensive. You know the sort of thing when blacks brandish blacks as coons, or Uncle Toms and that horrible language, or when some (it's not very common given their PC nature) liberals call a person of an ethnic minority a "race traitor" for holding a view considered "offensive". There is bigotry and racism flourishing in both the far left and the far right, the latter is pretty open and unabashed in its bigotry, while the former is also bigoted but justifies this bigotry as morally and politically correct- thus it is not actually bigotry, see? The left is causing the far right to gain power, traction and a following.

 

My own experiences of racism/bigotry
 

Spoiler

Now if you wonder why I come off a bit conservative, a bit offensive or a bit unorthodox it is because I have seen and experienced both sides of the coin that is racism. In case you are wondering I am a Baha'i, a small religion and one where if you're a Baha'i in Iran you get persecuted just for being a Baha'i. To clarify I was born in the UK and am almost as pale as a vampire, my family are mostly British and Eastern European. But sometimes when I was at school I would be bullied for being Baha'i, often it was silly stuff and other times it was deliberately mispronouncing the name Baha'i. So I know that feeling of paranoia minorities must feel, where you wonder if what someone said, or if some little action, may have been hidden racism... Or was it? Even a look or how a person passed you by could trigger that feeling, a few times in my past it has made me wonder. It's like a very sensitive detector. The SJWs call this micro-aggression, it's one of their few terms I do like because for me at least there is some personal truth to that.

Now on to the other side of the coin, feeling racism and bigotry. About several years ago I was into conspiracy theories, and let me tell you something, after you get off them there is baggage left; literally you kind of brainwashed yourself and you've got that baggage- I won't go into details but with any conspiracy theory it always leads to the usual things. I kept it to myself, I was never stupid enough to be openly racist which showed how little I actually believed in that conspiracy theory crap in the first place. But that racist feeling sometimes pops up again and it takes willpower to ignore it and to look at the other side; to those who the racism is being directed at. It comes down to mistrust and inner insecurity. It's a struggle to overcome. One which could be similar to getting off drugs or cigarettes, it is dangerously attractive to have more of that bad stuff but you know it doesn't do you any good.

But, in today's climate where things have become so muddied, it is causing the middle ground, the sensible ground where most people are at, to crumble and to give rise to the SJWs and Cultural Marxists on the left, and the Neo-Nazis and far right nationalists on the right. And the real sad truth is that both sides: far left and far right have their merits and are correct in some of their views. Having been on both sides of that coin which is racism, it is much easier to see the conflicting views and the nuance and subtleties too.

 

Education and the Far Left
 

Spoiler

Education plays a key role in much of the discourse and controversy today in the West. Education is very left-leaning and topics like sex education have been a springboard to teach children views the far left hold, or for instance US Common Core where in the interests of being diverse and preserving equality, children are taught about gender being a social construct, choice of sexuality and basically adult topics which are stripped of the adult gravitas (made child-friendly) I think these topics are taught from about the age of 10? Any Americans here, if you have further information I will be happy to hear it.

The younger generations, especially when going through college and university (and those taking woman studies classes, black studies, humanities, etc...), are being taught about internalized misogyny, rape culture, patriarchy, the mythical wage gap -- which ain't quite the gap people understand it to to be! -- , mansplaining, issues with white men (remember patriarchy), subconscious racism, traditional gender being a social construct, a person can be any gender they want, there are numerous genders, being cis-gendered (if you are a man and cis-gendered hang your head in shame! _{that was sarcasm if you didn't know and you never know these days!}), racial privilege and all kinds of ideas which boggle my mind.

I like the one about subconsciousness racism, it reminds me of Original Sin; everyone is a sinner. Well the far left gospel of today states that everyone is now apparently racist whether they realise it or not. Or the explosion in new genders- all social constructs when biological gender is either male, female or rarely a bit of both (intersex) due to the testes and sexual organs not properly differentiating. I think there is, and this is extremely rare, people born with no sexual organs? So four biological genders in total.

But this is currently rewriting the very conceptions of human social constructs, challenging them and sometimes distorting them. Here's the good thing about all of this, when it is all said and done for this century bigotry is going to be a very rare thing. The bad thing is that, before we get to the end of the 21st century, societal values are going to become even more muddled and confusing as orthodoxy and the far left clash. Then its going to return to a hybrid of traditional values fused with true tolerance and understanding (kind of like in Star Trek and in the Federation).

So expect more single parents, less dating, more divorce and whole hordes of women who have been brainwashed into distrusting men and fearing men. I also see many millions of young people, as they get older, being very confused about who they are sexually and physically... Say, for instance, you identify as gender-fluid, I have no idea how that works out, if you are intersex I get that you have a bit of both. But what if someone who is not biologically intersex identifies as intersex? Does being gender fluid mean you are entitled to call yourself intersex too? Are you intersex because you feel or believe you are intersex even though biologically you are not? Or is it a fad and some label to brand oneself to feel special? 

All this new stuff is creating new ethical considerations and new societal considerations at an unprecedented rate, I will say this much... In ten or twenty years most SJWs who are into this stuff may feel conservative as these new identities keep emerging and evolving in the generations that will come afterwards. This is because the educational system will become further left-leaning and the universities, with their safe spaces and the courses they deliver, will help to create this. It's going to get stranger and as a moral person you can't just shut it down because that has been done before and that brutality and inhumanity should be left in the 20th century. I don't care what people identify as, or what kind of sex they are. I do care if there decisions about such things gives them distress, uncertainty or regret. But I do see all of this becoming increasingly divisive due to identity politics and this brings me onto my next point.

 

Left and Right are two sides of the same coin
 

Spoiler

I don't think many people realise this but the West is simultaneously moving towards Cultural Marxism (and redder Socialism) and Plutocracy, while those in the centre ground are in general moving towards apathy and towards a lack of any political or ideological consideration. While materialism influences many members from all groups. We are moving, at least in the US, UK and Europe, towards a system which will become oppressive culturally and economically. The worse-case scenario is that Marxists will rule the culture and determine what isn't and is culturally objectionable, and To Big To Fail and the plutocracy will control the material affairs of a nation: banks, government, services, etc... Think about hate speech and how even just the accusation of hate speech has already been used in universities, media and government to scorn, criticize and cajole people who disagree with left or far left views.

Now consider the far right which wants tiny government, an end to the wealthfare state, an end to immigration, simpler international relations whilst harbouring a seeming blindness to crony capitalism, To Big To Fail and the dangers of nationalism and racism. Capitalism has its inefficiencies too, just like Socialism, but crony capitalism is destroying the integrity and morality of governments in the West and elsewhere. The incestuous marriage of corporations to governments is why so many politicians flip-flop on positions and/or appear oblivious to the problems of their constituents because they have to tow the party line, the corporatist line, the leftist line?

This is why I say the whole left/right paradigm is so stupid and myopic. Until lots of people, the media and the government start talking about this stuff, then the far right is going to keep on increasing, the far left is going to become more and more bizarre and this awful polarization will continue. Unless we start openly talking about this then the far left and the far right are going to march lockstep in bringing about societal disintegration. I don't know how many years there are left until this all comes to the boil, but Brexit and Trump and the European migration crisis has agitated all sides, especially the left which is going into a meltdown. This kind of stuff was happening just before WW1 and WW2 broke out: crazy rhetoric and deep, deep polarization which gave rise to populist leaders and the clash of nations.

 

Conclusion
 

Spoiler

I pray that this stuff gets defused- yet there are people who want the whole thing to blow, they are stupid and are utter fools. Because if what they want comes true then it means civil war, or European war, or WW3, or racial genocide or the kind of horrible things which Europe went through during WW1 and WW2, or what the Middle East is enduring right now. These idiots don't know the terror of getting their house bombed, or their family members killed or injured, or being homeless, or fleeing from the army or militants, or living in refugee camps, or having no electricity and none of those creature comforts which these pampered idiots enjoy. It is a God awful existence and I most certainly don't want it to happen to my country or other Western countries or any other peaceful country in the world; I don't know these horrors and I don't EVER want to know these horrors. I watch the video clips of the stuff happening in the Ukraine, in Syria and in Yemen; it is God awful and people want that to happen in this country, the UK? Or in the US or Europe? They are bonkers.

Because that's what will happen if a solution isn't found and until we reach that moment where we all learn what went wrong.

 

Phew! Got that off of my chest!