4 ms·

Using this as a criticism of Trump's travel ban is a false equivalency. There have literally been a rash of terrorist attacks in Europe perpetrated by radicali

Using this as a criticism of Trump's travel ban is a false equivalency. There have literally been a rash of terrorist attacks in Europe perpetrated by radicalized Syrians, Somalians, and Iranians. Not to mention the knife attack from Somalian refugee (who was getting a free ride) at Ohio State. Read through these lists and tell me there is nothing to be worried about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... Yes, being a victim of a terrorist attack is as likely as getting hit by lightning but that doesn't mean you should wrap yourself in aluminum foil and go outside in a thunderstorm. You usually protect yourself and take shelter. Its ok to protect yourself when there is a conceivable threat. That being said, I do feel the travel ban was hastily rolled out without much coordination and caused some people to be detained that shouldn't have been but to completely disregard the principle of it as misguided or racist in some way is just disregarding the truth of the state of world. In fact, many pundits are saying this going to create more propaganda or create more terrorists. First, I disagree with notion that we should care about ISIS's propaganda. People don't become terrorists because a country bans them. They become terrorists when foreign power drops bombs and puts boots on the ground in a country they feel is theirs. Others become terrorists because they are forced to or naive minded people looking for some purpose in life. If all we care about is their propaganda we will be frozen to inaction because anything you do can be spun against you. Furthermore, the things ISIS hates the most is the cultural imperialism imposed on them. They don't like western values and don't want to adopt any western ideas since they are a threat to the foundations of their belief system. A threat they are willing to kill for. So really you are damned if you do and damned if you don't with ISIS. It's an ugly and complicated mess and comparing to Italians or Japanese is a gross oversimplification.

jcranmer 10y ago
The last time I looked, the perpetrators of mass casualty incidents in the US were at best only 40-50% immigrants. Even for most of the immigrants, I suspect they were radicalized subsequent to entry in the US. The number of terrorists that the travel ban would have stopped is at best in the low single digits. It is not at all clear that the number will exceed the number of people in the US who will become radicalized due to this policy (which I would also estimate at low single digits).
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  I don't know how the argument that this will cause Muslims to "become radicalized" helps Muslims, at all. If there really are people who can be turned into killers with a little bit of propaganda, then scrutinizing immigrants from those countries seems prudent.
tptacek 10y ago
What travel ban should we enact to create common-sense protections in this country from the gathering toddler threat? In 2015, more people were shot by toddlers than by radical Islamist foreign nationals.
- idlewords 10y ago
  In fairness, the statistics don't disambiguate whether these were multiple toddlers, or a single armed toddler on a spree.
- jbmorgado 10y ago
  As a initial disclaimer, being European I'm totally in favour of gun control... which of course would solve all of these toddler's acidental killings and many of the mass shootings. That being said, your argument is intellectually deceiving. Toddlers neither carry out acts of terrorism, neither they kill or hurt in the name of any ideology. Terrorism by definition means to terrorise the population, not kill the greatest amount of people. Besides that, when you carry out a terrorist act in the name of some ideology, be that radical islam, white supremacy, national separatism, etc., society is called not to act upon the results of your actions but on the ideology committing the terrorist act itself. The answer to why toddlers accidentally kill people with guns is easy: they have guns available and they aren't old enough to understand what they are doing. But the answer to why do radical islamists or white supremacists kill people is all but simple. Also as a final thought. Even inside terrorism there are degrees on morality. Sure it's bad to carry out terrorism even in the name of national identity and freedom (i.e. IRA, ETA), but at least you have a clear message on what are the terrorists' demands and how to stop it. Radical Islam (and others) don't even have these demands - unless the submission of all the western world to radical islam can be considered a valid demand.
- dionidium 10y ago
  This has become a pretty popular retort. More people are killed by cows or staplers or whatever every year. But I think it fails in two very important ways: 1. Toddlers and cows and staplers do not have the potential to destroy Midtown Manhattan. This is a different category of threat entirely. 2. We aren't robots. We're humans who have evolved in a particular set of environments and contexts to be more scared of some things than others. It's perfectly rational to try to reduce the chance of harm from certain classes of things that we happen to fear more, even if those things aren't the most harmful over all. Fear matters. Reducing fear matters. Because we're people. You seem to think this is evidence that people just need to be educated about the relative risks. But I think it's evidence of something much deeper in the species.
cshipley 10y ago
> Its ok to protect yourself when there is a conceivable threat. But that's not the argument. The argument is about if the policy put forth by Trump&Co make sense given the data. To ONLY part of the data for policy decisions makes no sense. Consider this: Immigrants and refugees commit crimes at lower rates than others. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/us-record-shows-refugees-are-not-threat http://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/us-record-shows-refugees... https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-says https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-sa... Comparatively, what is the threat of terrorism: http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrorism-disease-accidents-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrori... I cannot speak to the vetting process for allowing refugees into European countries, however the current vetting process is a lengthy 1 1/2 - 2 year process. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infographic-screening-process-refugee-entry-united-states https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infogra... Do our policies make sense: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/trump-immigration-ban-terrorism/514361/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/tr...

jcranmer 10y ago

The last time I looked, the perpetrators of mass casualty incidents in the US were at best only 40-50% immigrants. Even for most of the immigrants, I suspect they were radicalized subsequent to entry in the US. The number of terrorists that the travel ban would have stopped is at best in the low single digits. It is not at all clear that the number will exceed the number of people in the US who will become radicalized due to this policy (which I would also estimate at low single digits).

nsxwolf 10y ago
I don't know how the argument that this will cause Muslims to "become radicalized" helps Muslims, at all. If there really are people who can be turned into killers with a little bit of propaganda, then scrutinizing immigrants from those countries seems prudent.

tptacek 10y ago

What travel ban should we enact to create common-sense protections in this country from the gathering toddler threat? In 2015, more people were shot by toddlers than by radical Islamist foreign nationals.

idlewords 10y ago
In fairness, the statistics don't disambiguate whether these were multiple toddlers, or a single armed toddler on a spree.
jbmorgado 10y ago
As a initial disclaimer, being European I'm totally in favour of gun control... which of course would solve all of these toddler's acidental killings and many of the mass shootings. That being said, your argument is intellectually deceiving. Toddlers neither carry out acts of terrorism, neither they kill or hurt in the name of any ideology. Terrorism by definition means to terrorise the population, not kill the greatest amount of people. Besides that, when you carry out a terrorist act in the name of some ideology, be that radical islam, white supremacy, national separatism, etc., society is called not to act upon the results of your actions but on the ideology committing the terrorist act itself. The answer to why toddlers accidentally kill people with guns is easy: they have guns available and they aren't old enough to understand what they are doing. But the answer to why do radical islamists or white supremacists kill people is all but simple. Also as a final thought. Even inside terrorism there are degrees on morality. Sure it's bad to carry out terrorism even in the name of national identity and freedom (i.e. IRA, ETA), but at least you have a clear message on what are the terrorists' demands and how to stop it. Radical Islam (and others) don't even have these demands - unless the submission of all the western world to radical islam can be considered a valid demand.
dionidium 10y ago
This has become a pretty popular retort. More people are killed by cows or staplers or whatever every year. But I think it fails in two very important ways: 1. Toddlers and cows and staplers do not have the potential to destroy Midtown Manhattan. This is a different category of threat entirely. 2. We aren't robots. We're humans who have evolved in a particular set of environments and contexts to be more scared of some things than others. It's perfectly rational to try to reduce the chance of harm from certain classes of things that we happen to fear more, even if those things aren't the most harmful over all. Fear matters. Reducing fear matters. Because we're people. You seem to think this is evidence that people just need to be educated about the relative risks. But I think it's evidence of something much deeper in the species.

cshipley 10y ago

> Its ok to protect yourself when there is a conceivable threat. But that's not the argument. The argument is about if the policy put forth by Trump&Co make sense given the data. To ONLY part of the data for policy decisions makes no sense. Consider this: Immigrants and refugees commit crimes at lower rates than others. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/us-record-shows-refugees-are-not-threat http://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/us-record-shows-refugees... https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-says https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-sa... Comparatively, what is the threat of terrorism: http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrorism-disease-accidents-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrori... I cannot speak to the vetting process for allowing refugees into European countries, however the current vetting process is a lengthy 1 1/2 - 2 year process. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infographic-screening-process-refugee-entry-united-states https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infogra... Do our policies make sense: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/trump-immigration-ban-terrorism/514361/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/tr...