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I call complete BS. "The 1909 murder of Elsie Sigel in New York, of which a Chinese person was suspected, was blamed on the Chinese in general and led to physi

I call complete BS. "The 1909 murder of Elsie Sigel in New York, of which a Chinese person was suspected, was blamed on the Chinese in general and led to physical violence. "The murder of Elsie Sigel immediately grabbed the front pages of newspapers, which portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to "innocent" and "virtuous" young white women. This murder led to a surge in the harassment of Chinese in communities across the United States."" - from the Wikipedia article "Anti-Chinese Sentiment in the United States" The article goes on to talk about the "yellow peril" theory, in which scholars believed that "China, India, Japan and Korea were attacking England and the U.S., but that Jesus Christ would stop them" Here's a pretty thorough argument on the characterization of the Irish as terrorists: http://inthepastlane.com/when-americans-saw-irish-immigrants-as-terrorists/ http://inthepastlane.com/when-americans-saw-irish-immigrants... I'll also point out that one of the final pardons of President Obama was of a Puerto Rican nationalist who led the FALN, a group that executed multiple bombings in major US cities in the 1970's. So your allegation that the linkage of Muslims to terrorist extremism is unique is provably untrue.

paulddraper 10y ago
Well, "complete BS" right back. > portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to "innocent" and "virtuous" young white women Suspecting a group of criminal activity is hardly terrorism; you could have just quoted attitudes towards blacks for a less obscure analogy. > So your allegation that the linkage of Muslims to terrorist extremism is unique is provably untrue. I never said that no other group has ever been linked to terrorism. I said it hasn't ever been close to the scale it is now, with major attacks in every culture across dozens of countries. Comparing IRA to ISIS is a big stretch, not in type but in magnitude.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I never said that no other group has ever been linked to terrorism. I said it hasn't ever been close to the scale it is now, with major attacks in every culture across dozens of countries. Actually, it was far worse (and more coordinated, backed by—among others—both major superpowers) during much of the Cold War, it's just that the armed forces using terrorism as a mechanism (especially ones successful in seizing and holding territory on the scale the "Islamic State" has) were more likely to be popularly labelled as militias or revolutionaries of whatever ideology their rhetoric focussed on (Communist, etc.) or, by governments sympathetic to their cause, simply as "freedom fighters". The ones that were labelled "terrorists" rather than other things were the ones that were comparatively unsuccessful.
  - Chathamization 10y ago
    And even then, there were still a number of high-profile terrorist groups around the world connected to the Cold War/anti-colonialism. The Red Army Faction, the Japanese Red Army, various PLO factions, the IRA, etc. In the U.S. alone there a bunch of different groups (Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, Black Liberation Army, Puerto Rican nationalists etc.). There was also a lot of violent groups on the Right, but for whatever reason they didn't get labelled as terrorists as much and didn't seem to have the same kind of view of ideological solidarity. So the Sabra and Shatila massacre doesn't tend to get labelled a terrorist attack even though it dwarfed the actions of most of the above groups in brutality and death toll, and as far as I know there wasn't much solidarity between the Phalange and the KKK (even though they were both violent right-wing Christian groups).
- URSpider94 10y ago
  Here's a list of the terrorist attacks in the UK over the past 40-odd years. You can see that up until the early 2000's, the vast, vast majority of them were perpetrated by the IRA, and the sheer number was much greater than those by Islamic extremists in current times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... Also, here's a list of plane hijackings by Cuban sympathizers from the 50's and 60's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba%E2%80%93United_States_aircraft_hijackings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba%E2%80%93United_St... My point is not that Islamist extremist terrorism is not A BAD THING that we should do our best to eliminate. It's more that we should resist the temptation to label it as a unique existential threat that justifies discrimination against an entire religion. History tells us that we've been down this path scores of times before, we've been wrong every time, and we've lived to regret our prejudice.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Italians were literally accused of terrorism. That's what "anarchism" meant in the 1920s. And just as there is today with "Radical Islamism", there was a nationwide panic about anarchism.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    Again, like I said, many groups have been labeled terrorist. That's irrelevant though.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      That seems like the opposite of the argument you're making, so not only is it relevant, but it also seems like a non-sequitur rebuttal. What am I missing?
      - paulddraper 10y ago
        My argument is not that the "terrorist" label that is unique about Muslims; it's that the frequency, scope, and violence of their actions is unique. Disagree, but at least disagree with what I said :)

paulddraper 10y ago

Well, "complete BS" right back. > portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to "innocent" and "virtuous" young white women Suspecting a group of criminal activity is hardly terrorism; you could have just quoted attitudes towards blacks for a less obscure analogy. > So your allegation that the linkage of Muslims to terrorist extremism is unique is provably untrue. I never said that no other group has ever been linked to terrorism. I said it hasn't ever been close to the scale it is now, with major attacks in every culture across dozens of countries. Comparing IRA to ISIS is a big stretch, not in type but in magnitude.

deleted 10y ago
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dragonwriter 10y ago
> I never said that no other group has ever been linked to terrorism. I said it hasn't ever been close to the scale it is now, with major attacks in every culture across dozens of countries. Actually, it was far worse (and more coordinated, backed by—among others—both major superpowers) during much of the Cold War, it's just that the armed forces using terrorism as a mechanism (especially ones successful in seizing and holding territory on the scale the "Islamic State" has) were more likely to be popularly labelled as militias or revolutionaries of whatever ideology their rhetoric focussed on (Communist, etc.) or, by governments sympathetic to their cause, simply as "freedom fighters". The ones that were labelled "terrorists" rather than other things were the ones that were comparatively unsuccessful.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  And even then, there were still a number of high-profile terrorist groups around the world connected to the Cold War/anti-colonialism. The Red Army Faction, the Japanese Red Army, various PLO factions, the IRA, etc. In the U.S. alone there a bunch of different groups (Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, Black Liberation Army, Puerto Rican nationalists etc.). There was also a lot of violent groups on the Right, but for whatever reason they didn't get labelled as terrorists as much and didn't seem to have the same kind of view of ideological solidarity. So the Sabra and Shatila massacre doesn't tend to get labelled a terrorist attack even though it dwarfed the actions of most of the above groups in brutality and death toll, and as far as I know there wasn't much solidarity between the Phalange and the KKK (even though they were both violent right-wing Christian groups).
URSpider94 10y ago
Here's a list of the terrorist attacks in the UK over the past 40-odd years. You can see that up until the early 2000's, the vast, vast majority of them were perpetrated by the IRA, and the sheer number was much greater than those by Islamic extremists in current times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... Also, here's a list of plane hijackings by Cuban sympathizers from the 50's and 60's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba%E2%80%93United_States_aircraft_hijackings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba%E2%80%93United_St... My point is not that Islamist extremist terrorism is not A BAD THING that we should do our best to eliminate. It's more that we should resist the temptation to label it as a unique existential threat that justifies discrimination against an entire religion. History tells us that we've been down this path scores of times before, we've been wrong every time, and we've lived to regret our prejudice.
tptacek 10y ago
Italians were literally accused of terrorism. That's what "anarchism" meant in the 1920s. And just as there is today with "Radical Islamism", there was a nationwide panic about anarchism.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  Again, like I said, many groups have been labeled terrorist. That's irrelevant though.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    That seems like the opposite of the argument you're making, so not only is it relevant, but it also seems like a non-sequitur rebuttal. What am I missing?
    - paulddraper 10y ago
      My argument is not that the "terrorist" label that is unique about Muslims; it's that the frequency, scope, and violence of their actions is unique. Disagree, but at least disagree with what I said :)