Adults in New Mexico were training kids to shoot up schools

[JRB]

Jeez, there really ARE radioactive muties in New Mexico.

Nope, just research labs, a bigass military bombing & missile range, lots of sparsely populated nothing, and meth. Taos at least 1+hr away from all of that but the meth (and heroin).

"Muties" in this state are vastly more likely to be junkies or drunks than anything else. Though I did see an obvious junkie begging at a red light that was claiming to have been the victim of gov't experiments on the same AFB I work on. Kind of hard to sell that with a needle literally hanging out of your arm.

Man with Muslim connections trains kids to shoot -“Radical Islam is on the loose!”
Gang affiliated man with Christian connections trains kids to shoot in urban America -“crickets”

I don't think anyone here is making the leap of illogic to equate radicalized assholes with ALL people of a particular faith. We all know the media won't ever miss a chance to push a divisive narrative.

On your second point, to be fair, most criminal element folks seem to find religion as a path to peace - even if that's only for the parole board.
Though if you're citing a specific example I'd be really interested in an article about it. I didn't ever hear about that kind of thing happening.

[Joe in PNG]

Assholes have always used good things like religion as a shield & cover for being able to do nasty asshole things to people.
Usually in direct contravention to the rules set by that religion.
It's just a human thing. We're really good at making excuses.

[blues]

Assholes have always used good things like religion as a shield & cover for being able to do nasty asshole things to people.
Usually in direct contravention to the rules set by that religion.
It's just a human thing. We're really good at making excuses.

On a much lesser scale I truly "enjoy" (sarcasm) watching the bad behavior conducted by folks who wouldn't miss church on Sunday. I wonder what the heck they're preaching there that's not getting through. (This goes for frauds pretending to follow any religion.)

[Irelander]

...Gang affiliated man with Christian connections trains kids to shoot in urban America...

If that is a news headline then I'm guessing the "news" source added in the Christian label to spice things up. Christians are not affiliated with gangs and do not train children to harm others. Those things are not compatible with true Christian living.

[Casual Friday]

Man with Muslim connections trains kids to shoot -“Radical Islam is on the loose!”
Gang affiliated man with Christian connections trains kids to shoot in urban America -“crickets”

Oh how precious.

If the guy that was starving 11 kids in some third world type encampment in the desert and training them to shoot up schools was white, it'd be constant coverage and more virtue signalling than a show dog could jump over. This one is barely being covered because he's black and muslim and the left biased media can't spin that in their favor.

[RevolverRob]

But the ones that are clearly get around a lot...

Realistically, the number of assholes in any ideology is vastly overestimated by the media and general populace, but underestimated by those who should be in the business of keeping tabs on them.

[blues]

Realistically, the number of assholes in any ideology is vastly overestimated by the media and general populace, but underestimated by those who should be in the business of keeping tabs on them.

Rob, I think you may underestimate just how many assholes there are in the world. (Though I do take your point.)

I never took you to have such an optimistic point of view.


(Oh, and for the record, "those who should be keeping tabs on them" don't have sufficient manpower or resources. So maybe that calls for rethinking the number of assholes. Does that make this a circular argument?)

[RevolverRob]

(Oh, and for the record, "those who should be keeping tabs on them" don't have sufficient manpower or resources. So maybe that calls for rethinking the number of assholes. Does that make this a circular argument?)

Is it that they don't have sufficient manpower and resources because the number of assholes is too big - or is it because we disproportionately focus our resources on select groups of assholes through social and political policy?

One way definitely makes a loop that becomes ad nauseum pretty fast but the other suggests that a priority shift may render a greater degree of "asshole supervision" ("asshole awareness"?) without a substantial uptick in resources being necessary. Don't get me wrong, I recognize we have limited resources and always will and we'll never have "enough" resources to keeps tabs on every asshole out there. But I, personally, think we're focused on the wrong end of the spectrum about 60% of the time.

For instance - we know who the few hundred assholes at the top of the drug foodchain are - but we focus resources on the seemingly infinite number of miniature asshole spawn they produce, instead of getting the producers. Of course, I recognize that those who make up the resources are trying to get the producers and in their way is substantial social and political policy (hence my point above, if we shifted policy, would we be able to accomplish this?).

I have an "easy" solution to it...but my solution on "getting the producers" doesn't mean having DOJ put them in jail. It tends to mean using our resources to put bullets in heads, put their heads on pikes, and keep burning through their replacements until the asshole factory shuts down or declines to the point where it is easily controlled.

Of course that's a double edged sword - it certainly makes it easy to keep tabs on the assholes...but then police states are usually pretty good at surveillance of the citizenry....

[LorenzoS]

I'm interested to learn how the plan was supposed to work. Enroll the kids in school and wait for the right time to sneak in a rifle? Pull up in a van and unload the "assault kids" to attack?

[Sensei]

Realistically, the number of assholes in any ideology is vastly overestimated by the media and general populace, but underestimated by those who should be in the business of keeping tabs on them.

This Pew Research Center poll has some pretty good perspective.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/t...-about-sharia/

Although it is now 5 years old, I have no reason to think that a wave of tolerance has swept through Asia and Africa. Apparently, there are a lot of assholes in countries with names that start with the “Islamic Republic of...”

This poll basically aligns with what Maajid Nawaz, a former militant Islamist, says about the “Islam Problem.” At the problem’s core is about 5% of Muslims who are militant Islamists; people who will take up arms to kill infidels. Another 10% are Islamists who believe in violence toward infidels, but are not will to strap on a bomb or pick up a gun themselves. That is not to say that they will not financially support their violent brothers. Outside of the Islamists is 30-40% who are conservative Muslims and believe in the supremacy of Sharia Law. That leaves only 50% of 1.8 billion people who are ideological moderates capable of integrating into Western society (as opposed to setting up minature theocracies in European cities where police rarely venture).

People who draw some equivalence to other religions are nuts. 10% of Christians and Hindus are not proselytizing at muzzle end of an AK47. Yes, our religions are bad - theirs are worse.