I need to vent!

[BigTransformerTrev]

I never said that military action wasn't a reasonable course of action. It may well be. I'm not a blind flower loving hippy, sometimes violence is the only answer sadly. But dropping bombs on another country 2 days after you have had a terrorist attack in your own, when you don't even have all the details of who/why/how is a little premature and unwise. I suppose at least they are so far limiting it to dropping bombs from afar and not (overly) putting people's lives at risk.

My wife was filling me in on the days news I missed while at work and she pretty much echoed your sentiments. You both would make better world leaders than I - I'm very anti-war but after something like this if I was the French leader id be finding the best, most valid target of the enemy with the least civilian casualties (preferably none) and be bombing the living $h!t out of it! I wouldn't stop until the area was a giant smoking crater and then say 'This is what you f**king get when you mess with us!' And then I'd do it again.

I may be a little too much attached to Paris

[kup]

^This

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
- Mahatma Gandhi

"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

- History has proven otherwise but nevertheless, that quote oversimplifies the issue so much it makes it look silly.

- What if the others don't want to evolve? We just let them kill us while we hold hands circling a tree?

They only respect ONE THING and that thing is what they should get.

[DaptoDog]

I don't get into the city much but wifey and I were near there today. She suggested having coffee there until I reminded her what happened there, then she didn't want to go near the place. I must admit I had some small amount of morbid curiosity about going in there, but we found somewhere else to have a sit.

That's a shame that it's come to that but I don't fault you for giving it a miss. A few years ago I used to go sometimes to Lindt with my boss but haven't been there since. But after that day it was amazing to see all the flowers throughout Martin Place, it was a powerful message about the people we want to be.

[GoktimusPrime]

- History has proven otherwise but nevertheless, that quote oversimplifies the issue so much it makes it look silly.

- What if the others don't want to evolve? We just let them kill us while we hold hands circling a tree?

They only respect ONE THING and that thing is what they should get.

But how did people get to being that way? Okay, once a person has been radicalised to the point that they're willing to blow themselves up and kill others, it's likely that it may be too late to save them; and if someone is itching to kill people, then the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. But how did they become radicalised in the first place? I don't think that it's a normal part of the human condition for most people.

Prevention is better than "cure," and I think that it would be useful if we looked at more pro-active measures in preventing or minimising the risk of people becoming radicalised in the first place. A few suggestions include:

* Investing more in education.

* Better parenting. Both schools and parents play an important role in raising children correctly and teaching them how to think, not what to think.

* Investing more in health, including facilities for and access to mental health.

* Pro-active attitudes and actions from the community. We all know that theses extremists don't represent the majority of Muslims, but the Muslim community can help by ensuring that everyone knows that views of intolerance towards are not acceptable. I think that it means a lot more when members of one's own demographic speak up, because when others do it, then it can be seen as condescending. A good example of this was when Waleed Aly shut down Zaky Mallah. Mallah has previously made controversial public statements, and when other non-Muslim Australians have tried to argue with Mallah, he's simple ignored them. But when Aly, a fellow Muslim Australian, effectively told him - on live television - that his views were dangerous and irresponsible, Mallah was publicly owned. When White people tell off Arabs, then they're seen as being racist, even if they're not. People like Mallah will play the Race Card and thus ignore any rational claims from non-Arabs. But when a fellow Arab comes forth and publicly shoots him down, then Mallah just has no come back. He cannot play the Race Card. Here you have a fellow Aussie Muslim, of Arab (Egyptian) heritage, telling Mallah to kindly shut the hell up. We need more people like Aly in the Muslim community who are willing to speak up against fellow Muslims if they're going to make stupid comments.

Waleed Aly, you bloody legend!

[GoktimusPrime]

- History has proven otherwise but nevertheless, that quote oversimplifies the issue so much it makes it look silly.

- What if the others don't want to evolve? We just let them kill us while we hold hands circling a tree?

They only respect ONE THING and that thing is what they should get.

But how did people get to being that way? Okay, once a person has been radicalised to the point that they're willing to blow themselves up and kill others, it's likely that it may be too late to save them; and if someone is itching to kill people, then the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. But how did they become radicalised in the first place? I don't think that it's a normal part of the human condition for most people.

Prevention is better than "cure," and I think that it would be useful if we looked at more pro-active measures in preventing or minimising the risk of people becoming radicalised in the first place. A few suggestions include:

* Investing more in education.

* Better parenting. Both schools and parents play an important role in raising children correctly and teaching them how to think, not what to think.

* Investing more in health, including facilities for and access to mental health.

* Pro-active attitudes and actions from the community. We all know that theses extremists don't represent the majority of Muslims, but the Muslim community can help by ensuring that everyone knows that views of intolerance towards are not acceptable. I think that it means a lot more when members of one's own demographic speak up, because when others do it, then it can be seen as condescending. A good example of this was when Waleed Aly shut down Zaky Mallah. Mallah has previously made controversial public statements, and when other non-Muslim Australians have tried to argue with Mallah, he's simple ignored them. But when Aly, a fellow Muslim Australian, effectively told him - on live television - that his views were dangerous and irresponsible, Mallah was publicly owned. When White people tell off Arabs, then they're seen as being racist, even if they're not. People like Mallah will play the Race Card and thus ignore any rational claims from non-Arabs. But when a fellow Arab comes forth and publicly shoots him down, then Mallah just has no come back. He cannot play the Race Card. Here you have a fellow Aussie Muslim, of Arab (Egyptian) heritage, telling Mallah to kindly shut the hell up. We need more people like Aly in the Muslim community who are willing to speak up against fellow Muslims if they're going to make stupid comments.

Waleed Aly, you bloody legend!


P.S.: Waleed Aly has recently released this impassioned statement; ISIL is Weak. It talks about how every time someone does or says anything which divides Muslims and Non-Muslims, we're actually helping ISIL. The greatest weapon we can have against them atm is for Muslims and Non-Muslims to remain united. As clichéd as it sounds, united we stand, divided we fall.

[Handsprime]

P.S.: Waleed Aly has recently released this impassioned statement; ISIL is Weak. It talks about how every time someone does or says anything which divides Muslims and Non-Muslims, we're actually helping ISIL. The greatest weapon we can have against them atm is for Muslims and Non-Muslims to remain united. As clichéd as it sounds, united we stand, divided we fall.

I was just about to share that! That video needs to go viral. It also helps to know that being an anti-muslim bigot is actually what helps fuel the fire for ISIL.

[BigTransformerTrev]

I was just about to share that! That video needs to go viral. It also helps to know that being an anti-muslim bigot is actually what helps fuel the fire for ISIL.

A helluva lot of Muslims hate IS. They've been killing a lot of other Muslims that don't share their particular ideology and fanning the flames of hatred amongst biggots who take it out on perfectly innocent Muslim communities.

I think you can hate IS without hating Muslims as a whole.

[GoktimusPrime]

It's what sociology refers to as the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. If you keep telling people that they're dangerous outcasts who don't belong in our society, then eventually they're going to believe it.

This is one reason why I personally refuse to use the words "Aussie" or "Australian" as synonyms for White Australians, because it helps to reinforce this divisive notion that being White is the 'default' for being Aussie. It sustains this "us and them" social attitude. If I want to explicitly talk about White Australians, then I'll just say "White Australians." But if I say the word "Australian" or "Aussie," then I mean any kind of Aussie -- white, black, yellow, brown, purple, straight, gay, male, female... don't care. And people often do this without knowing it. I recently saw an online post that started off by saying, "An Asian, and Indian and an Aussie walk into a bar..." or something like that. So I responded with this...

The intention was to tear down stereotypes. The 'Asian' there is a person of Middle Eastern appearance, because the Middle East is part of Asia. A lot of people say "Asian" when they just mean East Asians (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos etc.), but the fact is that the Middle East is part of Asia too. Anyone who's ever followed sports like the Asian World Cup would already know this. The 'Aussie' is an image of an alien, because the word "Aussie" on its own doesn't specify ethnicity. I once had a white student try to argue with me that Aborigines aren't "Aussie."

[jazzcomp]

I never said that military action wasn't a reasonable course of action. It may well be. I'm not a blind flower loving hippy, sometimes violence is the only answer sadly. But dropping bombs on another country 2 days after you have had a terrorist attack in your own, when you don't even have all the details of who/why/how is a little premature and unwise. I suppose at least they are so far limiting it to dropping bombs from afar and not (overly) putting people's lives unnecessarily at risk.

I'm not saying you are. These leaders were elected to represent them. If the French agree to this action, let them deal with it.

[kup]

I am in agreement with what Waleed Aly has said, specially in that ISIS is weak video. It is balance and intelligent and shows exactly what is happening.

A lot of what I have been hearing from the left and right is either over simplifications that border on (or is) fantasy to suit their own agendas. There is only one enemy here and it is Islamic State and it needs to be dealt with in a unified manner.

Since Paris, all I hear are extreme splits between left and right all saying all kinds of unrealistic BS. The world is not black and white, it's gray. Sometimes we do need to defend ourselves with violence and other times we do have to point the finger and call things for what they are and act accordingly.

If there are those who wish to stand up against what ISIL stands for, I want to hear them do so and I don't care if they are Muslim or Christian, I would stand with them side by side against those murdering assholes. What I don't want to see is fucked up BS like "Nobody cried when Lebanon got hit so you guys are hipocrists" divisive bullshit.

France got attacked because they value freedom as a way of life, that means all of us who believe in that got attacked too. We should all be outraged at ISIS and extremists who share in their ideology not make stupid ass Right winged or left winged accusations against one another.