From Chicken Yogurt: "A television advert. You round up 50-odd celebrities, sportsmen and women, the whole nine yards – a spread to appeal to the knuckle draggers on the Right and the wankers with their hard-ons for the virgins. Each celebrity says the name of one of those killed last week. At the end of the advert, a simple caption, black on white: ‘If you think Muslims did this, you’re a prick’."
In other news, there’s finally a sensible reason to be annoyed with the French.
Well I guess I’m a prick then – didn’t Muslims do it?
Change it to If you think that The Muslims did this, you’re a prick and I’m with you.
I’d prefer something like ‘If you think the defining feature of the people who did this was that…’
cue fade to black, and then back with:
‘they were Muslim…’
another fade, and back to:
‘then you’re a fucking moron’
That really sums it up.
What about:
"If you think that those who did this were representative of the majority of Muslims in this country…"
Fade out, fade back:
"…then you are a fucking wanker. Because they put different emphasis on different parts of the Holy Koran."
To be honest I don’t think there’s milage in this as it stands. Apart from anything else, I’d consider it to be disrespectful to the bomb-victims to have their names read out by Keith Chegwin or the Chuckle Brothers or whoever. So how about we just cut it down to its essentials:
An empty black screen for 3 seconds, and then a voice: "you’re a prick".
"If you think Muslims did this, you’re a prick""
John,
Do you think that the people who did this were Muslims? That is to say, do you "think Muslims did this"?
Answers in the comments, please.
Larry and Andrew have it right in pedantic terms, although I’d still argue a case for the original wording (the bombers are not Muslims – they’re silly bastards who are very lucky if Islam is wrong and Allah doesn’t exist, since if he does then they’re going to have all sorts of horrible Hell in store for themselves).
Hey John it looks like we might have been right about the "Power of Nightmares" Semtex angle. Mark Urban just on Newsnight saying that the house in Leeds was full of acetone peroxide explosive. Check out the Wikipedia entry for "Mother of Satan". All the power of Semtex, all the stability of a one-legged dog on ice skates. Not the sort of stuff that you would tend to have in your house if you had a world-spanning organisation to supply you with military explosives.
the bombers are not Muslims – they’re silly bastards who are very lucky if Islam is wrong
Come on JB, of course the bombers are Muslims. Just as the wankers at http://www.godhatesfags.com and the people who attack abortion doctors are Christians, human-sacrificing Kali-cultists are Hindus, etc, etc. Most religions have got their extremist-cunt elements. We can’t just define the problem away.
So while they are indeed very lucky if mainstream Islam is wrong, the other side of the coin is the possibility that their reading of Islam is in fact the Truth. Not one we need to worry about for too long, I don’t think…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_triiodide
This stuff is great, I knocked up about 250g of it in my last day at school (well it was guaranteed to be my last day after this beauty went off!)
There’s several people who are still suffering hearing problems….. Oh and one wall of the chemistry lab is still stained purple!!
About as stable as Imelda Marcos with PMT in a Jimmy Choo Sale
Slide 1: "If you think that those who did this were representative of the majority of Muslims in this country, you’re a prick."
Slide 2: "And if you think the people who did and support this are just a tiny minority of Muslims, you’re a PC dupe."
Slide 3: "73% are okay."
Slide 4: "But 13% of British Muslims think the attacks on New York were justifiable. 15% didn’t know if they were or weren’t. – ICM"
Slide 5: "28% … be vigilant."
JB: I’m with Larry here. The bombers were Muslims, but they obviously weren’t very good ones (or maybe they were, in which case, God himself is a cunt). You can’t have Christian Voice (etc…) being Christian on one hand, but al Qaeda not being Muslim on the other.
Peter, is your campaign to smear as many Muslims as you think you can get away with being conducted with the knowledge and approval of Conservative Central Office?
I only ask because you seem to be doing exactly what Michael Howard explicitly urged the British people not to do…
"Anyone who reaches out for a stone to throw at the window of a mosque, anyone who nurtures resentment against our Muslim community, is the enemy of all of us. They would be acting the way terrorists want us to act – helping them to achieve their objective of dividing us one from another."
…and I would have thought this doubly applied to his own party’s activists.
Michael, anyone who understands English and statistics would have trouble seeing how quoting an opinion poll can meet your definition, or Michael Howard’s. Nor can I understand how making clear a large majority (73%) of Muslims oppose Al Qaeda terrorism is an attempt to ‘smear as many Muslims as I think I can get away with’. Anyone who doubts a majority of British Muslims are on the same side as the majority of Britons in this struggle need only refer to ICM’s figures, which I quoted. I don’t really see how, when I make the mathematics central to the post, it could be any clearer that any resentment I feel is to the substantial minority who do sympathise with terrorism, not the substantial majority who don’t, or the entirety of British Muslims. If you go to a shop counter with a bar of chocolate and the cashier says "28p please" do you exclaim "How can you justify charging a pound for this!"?
‘Smear’ is also a stupid word to use in response to objective data. Are you so unquestioning of PC that you think an opinion poll that offends your political instincts is proof of some sort of conspiracy by ICM or by sinister forces pulling their strings to ‘smear’ the people polled?
I don’t think you really believe what you are saying is true. I don’t think much of you, but I think you can read slide one (which I quoted from Dave, by the way – I try to avoid such language) or slide three. I don’t think you’re a paranoid conspiracy theorist. And I even think you can calculate percentages. Does servicing a vendetta against me really make it worth pretending otherwise? Shame on you.
"’Smear’ is also a stupid word to use in response to objective data."
Not really, not really at all. You can only present so much data, and you can only present it in a certain way. It is perfectly possible to present a misleading picture of the world with reference only to things which are true.
If you don’t know this, then you are dim.
Andrew
Please enlighten us as to what you are talking about? Is there some point to your post….Or is it pointless. I would offer 10- 1 on it being pointless. Based upon your track record of pointlessness.
It is perfectly possible to present a misleading picture of the world with reference only to things which are true.
Too bloody right. I’ve been keeping an eye on USSNeverdock recently and the opinion poll which Peter cites with such relish is also the weapon of choice for many of the Neanderthals there.
Extremist nutjobs all over the internet base their entire lives around digging up objective (but very one-sided) data with which to smear their particular adversaries whether it be the Israelis, thomosexuals, the Muslims, or whoever.
Michael’s accusation is by no means unfair. The point of Peter’s slide-show was to get a handle on the proportion of British Muslims who did and support this i.e the *London* bombings. And the figure he suggests is 28%. I suggest that figure is *wildly wrong*, and therefore constitutes a smear against a large number of British Muslims.
The first obvious point is that if you’re looking for the proportion who support this then a more correct figure to pull for the ICM survey is 13% not 28%. So that’s 15% of British Muslims smeared already.
The second obvious point is that that ICM survey isn’t about the *London* bombings. However distasteful you might find people who approve of the 9/11 attacks (and I should make clear that I do too), it’s psychologically much easier to show bravura about such things from thousands of miles away than is it to support the slaughter of people down the road (as it were).
The ICM survey suggests that less than 1% of British Muslims "actively support" terrorist groups.
I would be pretty confident that the number of British Muslims who actively support terrorist acts perpetrated in Britain is very substantially lower than that.
Having said all of which, I do think that Peter has a point to the extent that while the proportion of potential terrorists among the British Muslim community is very small, it is not (as is being suggested in some places) infinitesimal.
Peter, this is deeply – though not surprisingly – disingenuous. I weighed my words carefully – "as many Muslims as you think you can get away with" was referring to your clear implication that a very significant number of British Muslims might support suicide attacks on London commuters. I wasn’t referring to your 73% figure but to your 28% one – just four points behind the Tory share of the vote in the last election.
As "evidence", you cite what I assume is this ICM poll (you don’t supply a more explicit reference, but the figures you quote seem to match). You conveniently omit the fact that the poll was not only taken more than a year ago, but that it was taken on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. You also misquote the question that produced the figures that you cited, which was referring to whether or not respondents would approve of a hypothetical future attack on the US (i.e. in the wake of the Iraq invasion, Islamic countries comprising two-thirds of Bush’s "axis of evil" and so on), not on whether they explicitly approved of "the attacks on New York" – which the poll doesn’t refer to at all .
Even assuming you don’t accept that there’s a difference, you’re left with the problem that while the data may have been an objective snapshot of attitudes in the first week of March 2004, this is hardly likely to be the case in the wake of the 7/7 bombings of July 2005, any more than the opinion polls that put the Tories ahead during the September 2000 fuel crisis had anything valid to offer when it came to the election the following June.
My main point, though, is that you’ve been making a whole series of these posts, across at least three blogs (doubtless more: despite apparently "servicing a vendetta" I’ve stuck to the handful of blogs I read regularly). This started on Harry’s Place when the 7/7 bodies were still warm and at a time when everyone you normally profess to respect (the police, religious leaders, the leader of your own party) was urging people not to make inflammatory comments. And what do you do? On Matthew Turner’s blog over the weekend, you claimed that Islam itself is "a threat", that attacks against Muslim individuals and buildings were "largely imaginary", and you even initially pooh-poohed the idea that Muslim leaders would unconditionally condemn the 7/7 bombings until faced with incontrovertible evidence that they had done, and here you’re misquoting and distorting ICM data in order to build up a similar thesis.
Which is why I asked a perfectly fair question – at a time when your own party leader made it clear that he unconditionally condemned "anyone who nurtures resentment against our Muslim community", why are you repeatedly going out of your way to make it seem as though more than one in four Muslims might be a potential apologist for the London bombings, completely ignoring the obvious sea-change in attitude over the past week now that the realities of suicide terrorism have hit the UK?
Do you really not see how crassly insensitive this behaviour is (at the very least: a great may others might use stronger language), or is your ego so gargantuan that it smothers all sense of the social responsibility you usually bend over backwards to insist that others should respect?
Larry
I presume your post is not a genuine attempt to do anything other than "flame", I believe this is the correct term for you young rascals.
"people who approve of the 9/11 attacks (and I should make clear that I do too)" would imply that the attacks on New York were justified. Therefore you should assume that 100% of muslims would be in favour of terrorism/ the London bombings, since we are an aly of the Great Satan?
PS: I do hope your comments, obviously said in jest, do not lead to any young malcontents thinking that terrorism is a cool thig to do.
Don’t try this at home kids….
In the event of any ambiguity, for
However distasteful you might find people who approve of the 9/11 attacks (and I should make clear that I do too)
read
However distasteful you might find people who approve of the 9/11 attacks (and I should make clear that I also find such opinions very distasteful)
Having said all of which, I do think that Peter has a point to the extent that while the proportion of potential terrorists among the British Muslim community is very small, it is not (as is being suggested in some places) infinitesimal.
Larry, you’ve just expressed the entirety of my point, so I’m unsure what you think it is you and I disagree about, beyond the fact that saying you "don’t know" if the attacks on New York were justified or not is a bad (my view) or neutral response (yours). I think Oliver Kamm had it exactly right in saying at the time that this poll shows "More than a quarter of the respondents in this survey are either incapable of exercising the most basic moral discrimination imaginable or explicit proponents of evil".
Michael, I have not made inflammatory comments or describes Islam as a threat. I know Muslims in Britain who I have seen deeply sickened by signs of anti-Semitism and I believe they are more representative of the majority than those who support terrorism. By "social responsibility", I would consider something like working to ensure 7/7 never happens again, that the guilty are captured and punished and the innocent unmolested. What you really mean, if you’re honest, is that when I see someone make a false claim, stating that infinitesimal numbers of Muslims support terrorism, I should not try to correct that mistake/deliberate lie. You want me to subordinate truth to this conception of "social responsibility", apparently because you actually believe some moron is going to read political blog comments and attack random Muslims because they have been exposed to new data from ICM opinion polls. I think you should be ashamed at trying to silence the facts, and I think it’s incredibly dangerous for anyone to think that this is somehow the way to improve community relations.
Larry
Unfortunately I have already called the anti – terrorist hot line. They should be breakin down your door pretty soon. Tell them it was typing error..Sure they will understand
Larry, you’ve just expressed the entirety of my point, so I’m unsure what you think it is you and I disagree about
Sorry Peter, that’s total garbage. I repeat: you were trying to get a handle on the proportion of British Muslims who support this [the London bombings],and the figure you arrived at was 28%, a figure which is beyond doubt *wildly wrong*.
I don’t in any way think that saying you "don’t know" if the attacks on New York were justified or not is a… neutral response. It’s just that unlike you I’m able to distinguish between different degrees and types of badness.
You wish to equate .saying you "don’t know" if the attacks on New York were justified with supporting the London bombings.
If you’re unable to see how disgracefully disingenuous that is, then youcertainly have no business haranguing other people about their capacity to make moral distinctions.
Bugger. Fixed?
Not fixed. Fixed now?
Michael, I have not made inflammatory comments or describes Islam as a threat.
How is a comment like "28%… be vigilant" not inflammatory, set as it is in a context that clearly implies that more than one in four British Muslims might have supported the London bombings? As for your second point, I’ll happily concede that your exact cut-and-pasted words were "recognising that it’s within Islam that the threat lies". I don’t think it’s much of an improvement, myself, but I do acknowledge there’s a difference. Any chance of you owning up to your figure-fiddling in return?
What you really mean, if you’re honest, is that when I see someone make a false claim, stating that infinitesimal numbers of Muslims support terrorism, I should not try to correct that mistake/deliberate lie.
No, not at all – my problem was that your "correction" involved telling another deliberate lie (I’m not going to call it a mistake, as it clearly wasn’t).
You know as well as I do that the 28% figure is a ludicrous exaggeration, more than half of it comprising people who responded "don’t know" to the question (which in any case was a different question from the one you claimed they were responding to), and yet you’re happy to conclude your "slideshow" with that figure, as though it represented a logical conclusion! So who’s the one being dishonest here?
You want me to subordinate truth to this conception of "social responsibility", apparently because you actually believe some moron is going to read political blog comments and attack random Muslims because they have been exposed to new data from ICM opinion polls.
Now you’re just being silly – if I seriously thought that, I’d have reported you to the police and let them deal with it. I’m intrigued that you claim it’s "new data", though – are you saying that I was wrong to assume it was the March 2004 poll? (Of course, I shouldn’t need to ask this in the first place, as you’d have supplied the date with your original post).
I think you should be ashamed at trying to silence the facts, and I think it’s incredibly dangerous for anyone to think that this is somehow the way to improve community relations.
So let me get this straight – you think that calling for tact and sensitivity (indeed, going along with your own party leader’s similar call) in the wake of what is clearly the most profoundly soul-searching (and also potentially hugely productive) shock to hit the British Muslim community since 9/11 is "incredibly dangerous", while blatantly manipulating sixteen-month-old data to imply that more than one in four Muslims might sympathise with the London atrocities is more likely to improve community relations?
This is just fruitless repetition, so unless there is anything new to add, I think this post will be my last in this thread.
Michael, here’s what happened. You saw a post I made that was deliberately sarcastic and challenging to the main message of the post. Unfortunately, based as it was on entirely objective data you couldn’t actually find anything factually wrong with it. But as you dislike me so much, you couldn’t simply let it slide, either, as everyone else did. So you pretended not to understand what views I believe and express. You pretended quoting figures showing 73% opposing terrorist attacks, with the other 28% refusing to or openly supporting them, was a way of smearing as many Muslims as I could get away with. Because I simply point back calmly to the figures, you’re now resorting to the most pathetic nitpicking imaginable. "sixteen-month-old data"??
1. By ‘new’ I simply mean "new to them". As in, after reading the facts that ICM has gathered on political blogs, racist morons will act on this new information by going out attacking random Muslims. This is not going to happen. You’re right it’s ridiculous to believe that it would, so what exactly is the danger in making the data known?
2. That the poll was taken sixteen months ago is a ridiculous criticism to make. Almost exactly the same people alive then will be alive now, and comparatively few British Muslims who are in the country now were not in the country then. That these people were willing to support/unwilling to condemn terrorist atrocities sixteen months ago most certainly matters when it comes to determining whom to investigate and monitor in order to prevent terrorist atrocities.
3. I don’t trust you, and I would not advise anyone else to, either. That you could possible describe as figure-fiddling or manipulation or ludicrous exaggeration or a lie the noting that 28% could not even condemn terrorist attacks on America even as I split the figures into the 13% who supported them and the 15% who "didn’t know" shows how little your respect for truth is (and your lack of proper moral discrimination when it comes to those who cannot express the most basic respect for human life). Forget about me for a moment – repeat this: I do not matter to you; we’ll never meet. Ask yourself if this sort of behaviour is something you want to indulge in no matter how irritated you are at someone. The best response to those you find abhorrent is resolute refusal to lower yourself in opposition to them.
Are you really willing to join the often literally lunatic left of the blogosphere and start a vendetta against Oliver Kamm that is common to them all? Because his response to the poll was even stronger and fiercer than mine – "More than a quarter of the respondents in this survey are either incapable of exercising the most basic moral discrimination imaginable or explicit proponents of evil". This line does not make him a liar, or a manipulator, or a figure-fiddler or guilty of ludicruous exaggeration. It makes him someone willing to recognise and speak out when people express views no decent person can possibly hold – that they support terrorist atrocities or that they don’t know if they are justified. It’s again sad that you’re letting your vendetta against turn you into an apologist for those Oliver Kamm described so eloquently – your last line implying unambiguously that you don’t mind people refusing to oppose terrorism against Americans as long as they don’t take the same view of terrorism against Britains, or at least that you will defend them on those grounds. So what if they support/refuse to oppose terrorism in New York but dislike it in London? That they support/refuse to oppose any terrorism makes them dangerous! That, by the way, is why polls with the highest figure are the most important. If one polls shows 13% support and another asking a similar question shows 8% support, then that suggests 8% of general terrorism supporters but another 5% who are supporters of some terrorism, and therefore also a problem.
I was too harsh at one point in my last paragraph and expressed myself badly. What I mean when I say that you are apparently willing to defend people who support terrorism in New York but support it in London is that you don’t challenge ICM’s figures for attacks on America, but you do seem to think it outrageous to extrapolate from that likely support for attacks on Britain. This suggests to me that you make some great moral distinction between support for the former and support for the latter, and will defend those who ‘only’ want terrorism in America. If you do in fact condemn the 13% who support terrorism against America and the 15% who refused to oppose it, and accept that their abhorrent views make them potentially dangerous to Britain in terms of terrorism, I completely withdraw this claim (though I don’t think my deduction from your initial statement unreasonable).
"defend people who support terrorism in New York but oppose it in London", I mean.
I’m not going to do an in-depth fisking, but I hope this addresses all your points:
1. Since you omitted the date of the ICM poll and failed to provide a link for independent verification, it’s hardly "pathetic nitpicking" to point out that the data are sixteen months old – it’s merely a statement of fact, which you have finally (albeit belatedly) conceded to be the case. For the record, I didn’t know myself how old the survey was until I looked it up in order to write my second post in this thread.
2. It emphatically does matter that it was taken sixteen months ago – it would also matter if it was taken sixteen days ago, because it cannot be said to be an accurate snapshot of post-7/7 British Muslim attitudes in the way that you’re clearly implying. I have another specific reason for questioning the objectivity of data compiled in early 2004, which I’ll address separately.
3. It was by no means obvious that your post was "deliberately sarcastic", perfectly chiming as it did with views that you’ve repeatedly expressed both here and elsewhere. Or were those "deliberately sarcastic" too? (And why are you going to such lengths to defend a "deliberately sarcastic" post – indeed, waiting this long before describing it as such in the first place?)
4. I didn’t pretend that implying that 28% of British Muslims support the 7/7 bombings was "smearing as many Muslims as you could get away with", I made a direct accusation to that effect. And as long as you continue to champion that figure without providing far more concrete proof than misquoted sixteen-month-old data, I will continue to make it.
5. (Just to be clear, I’m responding to your corrected post) I’m not remotely willing to defend people who support terrorism in New York – and you won’t find anything I’ve said or written that supports that interpretation. But the original question didn’t mention New York – it actually referred to a hypothetical future attack on "the USA". As Larry pointed out, correctly in my view, it is far easier to respond "yes" or "don’t know" to a hypothetical scenario than it is to express approval of something that has actually happened (if only out of bravado) – which is why I dispute that you’re in any way justified in assuming that because 13% of people said "yes" to that particular question they (or even the majority of them) would therefore condone the 7/7 bombings.
6. Just to elaborate on the above, a great many people, rightly or wrongly, do not interpret the Iraq affair in anything like the black-and-white, good-versus-evil Manichean terms that you and Oliver Kamm appear to do. In particular, it cannot be emphasised enough that this poll was taken less than two months after the Abu Ghraib affair burst onto front pages worldwide, and it was still very much a current issue – and this allegedly "objective" ICM data should very much be read in that light.
7. In other words, you’re a Muslim, you’ve been told repeatedly that the US respects your faith and that the "war on terror" is not any kind of anti-Islamic crusade… and then you see images of naked Muslims being humiliated by sniggering Americans, and unveiled American women, what’s more. Under these circumstances, are you really going to give a balanced and considered opinion when asked whether or not you’d support a hypothetical revenge attack against an unspecified US target? Under these circumstances, I’d be pleasantly surprised that the figure was as low as 13% – and I’d certainly defend the 15% who chose not to answer (not least because I myself often reply "don’t know" to polls, if only because my answers don’t fit the pollsters’ template – it doesn’t actually mean that literally I don’t know, more that my answer isn’t conveniently machine-readable in the way that they want).
8. Other than reaffirming that it’s totally ridiculous, I honestly can’t be arsed to tackle this "personal vendetta" accusation in any detail – so I’ll stand aside and let others decide which of us has been keener to resort to personal jibes!
Peter,
fair enough. If you want to interpret Michael Howards’s warning against helping [the terrorists] to achieve their objective of dividing us one from another as encouragement to go about the place being deliberately sarcastic about the scale of support for the 7/7 attacks among the British Muslim population, and as an urgent instruction to rummage around for the polls with the highest figure with which to scaremonger and stir up suspicion, then that is your right.
And anyone who takes you up on it, is motivated by personal animosity alone, obviously.
When is someone going to interpose some alternative figres if the first lot isn’t acceptable? Because the number sure ain’t zero. Except in cloud-cuckoo land, or ostrich-land.
"…and then you see images of naked Muslims being humiliated by sniggering Americans, and unveiled American women, what’s more."
For which they have been punished. Now compare the humiliation with beheadings. Or bombings – Russia, Bali, Israel, US, Britain, Madrid, etc. Your attempt at moral equivalence here is sickening.
"Under these circumstances, I’d be pleasantly surprised that the figure was as low as 13% – and I’d certainly defend the 15% who chose not to answer"
So given the circumstances of bombings and beheadings, how many of us in the west should be supporting carpet bombings then, by your logic?
Here is some anecdotal rather thn statistical evidence, from thre anti-war New York Times. The percentage of people who damn well hate us is NOT zero.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/international/europe/16muslims.html?hp&ex=1121572800&en=7b1f44fe6658c193&ei=5094&partner=homepage
JohninLondon, if you think nobody hates you, you’re flattering yourself. If you think a sizeable number of people hate you, you’re paranoid. (Probably. I mean, some people are just that unpleasant.) Why worry? You’re not dead. Read the new Harry Potter (it’s not that bad – or at least, the first 400 pages aren’t). Have a cup of tea.
(That paragraph isn’t a skanky personal attack, by the way. It could apply to anybody in the whole wide world, except people who’re dead and people who don’t like tea.)
Harry Potter is crap. Juvenile crap.
It is banal and blind to ignore the threat inside Britain right now. Too many people ignored it too long when there were clear examples of suicide bombers being recrited in Britain and actually setting out on missions.
Debate the scale of it, sure. But it is a week too late to make out that zero people HERE NOW hate us.
I have not pitched ny number. Certainly not any high nuumber. I am simply saying that it is not zero. And the mont of denil that seems to be aaround suggests that it is well above zero. The earlier police estimates of, say, 200 potentially real dangerous types were mocked at the time. Should they be mocked now ? A couple of the people involved in 7/7 had slipped off the radar simply because resources were too stretched to keep tabs on them.
"well above zero"
What does this mean? No one would argue it ‘zero’ people hate ‘us’. But well above zero? Well, one is well above zero, being an infinite number of times greater in size.
I was sying the argument about whether there was X% in aaa particlar category was being carried to the point that it seemed to deny any value for X. X has a value, and it is non-trivial.
Your reference to 1 being infinitely greater than zero is trite, but par for the course for your level of argument. I said WELL ABOVE. Not GREATER THAN. There is is a clear mathematical distinction between the comparative terms.
Harry Potter is crap. Juvenile crap.
So try Phillip Pullman or Lemony Snicket, and drink the tea. (Of course it’s juvenile. It’s a children’s book. Plus, it gets kids reading and really excited about what they’re reading, which is good enough for me.)
But it is a week too late to make out that zero people HERE NOW hate us.
Yes, that would be the bit of my comment where I said anyone who thinks nobody hates them is flattering themselves. Which would kind of imply that I don’t think the figure is zero.
It is banal and blind to ignore the threat inside Britain right now.
And it’s stupid and unpleasant to live in fear and knee-jerk conviction that one’s neighbours are probably trying to kill one, when actually, the chances of that happening are pretty remote. Given a choice between the two, gimme banal and blind. At least you get a good night’s sleep and don’t have to look at random people funny.
"There is is a clear mathematical distinction between" "WELL ABOVE" and "GREATER THAN". Well one is both greater than and well above zero.
Of course this is trite, but it is a demonstration of the sort of sloppy thinking that can simply assert that ‘many more people’ than zero ‘hate us’. Which is rather funny, as it leads you into a badly thought out attack on a straw man – noone has argued that zero people ‘hate us’, but even responding to this tailor-made statement you manage to make an ass of yourself.
I don’t look at random people funny. I was in the East End two days last week and actually smiled at every Asian I saw – presumably mostly Muslim in the area I visited. Because it is essential to work togwether to root out the cancer. But unfortunately there IS a cancer in their community which will strike again unless prevented. Time for denil is past. It is complacent of you to recommend ignoring the problem or treat it as de minimis.
Like sticking your fingers in your ears and saying you can’t hear.
I don’t look at random people funny. I was in the East End two days last week and actually smiled at every Asian I saw – presumably mostly Muslim in the area I visited. Because it is essential to work togwether to root out the cancer. But unfortunately there IS a cancer in their community which will strike again unless prevented. Time for denil is past. It is complacent of you to recommend ignoring the problem or treat it as de minimis.
Like sticking your fingers in your ears and saying you can’t hear.
Andrew Bartlett
Are you disputing that many more people than zero hate us ? Cos that is the issue. Not footling about with 1 being greater than zero.
Do you dispute, for example, the police suggestion of 200 really dangerous people ? Or are you arguing that they are making that figure up ? Sounds to me like you are in denial.
For those in denil, try reading the full text of Blair’s speech today. And then say if and where the thrust of his his detailed analysis is wrong.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4689363.stm
When is someone going to interpose some alternative figres if the first lot isn’t acceptable? Because the number sure ain’t zero. Except in cloud-cuckoo land, or ostrich-land.
The number certainly isn’t zero – but Peter’s ‘slideshow’ was constructed to imply that nearly half a million UK citizens supported (or at least condoned) the 7/7 bombings (I emphasise this point: not Islamist terrorism in general but the London attacks in particular). If you believe that without demanding much more reliable (and much more recent) evidence, you haven’t so much sided with cuckoos and ostriches as with blind hawks who are so devoted to their trainers that they unquestionably follow even the most deranged orders.
I’m not going to interpose alternative figures because at present there are no statistically reliable snapshots of post-7/7 British Muslim opinion. I’m sure there will be, and probably sooner rather than later, but until then the only sensible answer to your question is "whenever such polls are taken and reliable figures compiled".
And that’s why it’s crucially important that anyone citing existing polling data should make it absolutely clear when the poll was taken and in what circumstances. I don’t have any problem with people citing that ICM poll per se, provided they make those qualifications clear – which is why I don’t have the same problem with page 41 of this week’s Economist.
Do you dispute, for example, the police suggestion of 200 really dangerous people ? Or are you arguing that they are making that figure up ?
Why would anyone dispute this – and how is it remotely relevant to the main argument? No-one’s denying that there are 200 really dangerous people (at least) currently at large – but what I’m challenging is the implication that they’re being actively or tacitly supported by a nearly half a million British citizens.
(This claim may of course be entirely correct, but it’s such an inflammatory one to make in the current climate – references to fires and crowded theatres spring to mind – that the onus is firmly on the person making it to back it up with rock-solid evidence. So where is it?)
Time for denil is past. It is complacent of you to recommend ignoring the problem or treat it as de minimis.
Like sticking your fingers in your ears and saying you can’t hear.
Oh, I’m sure I’ll get around to worrying about it eventually. It’ll just have to get in line and be patient, because first I’ve got to worry about heart disease, cancer, traffic accidents, murder by someone I know (feel free to make a snarky comment regarding provocation and my personality at this point), suicide, diabetes (with my family history, anyway), and all the other much more likely ways I could snuff it. (A thought that’s almost welcome after being at work all day in this heat, really.)
I think I’m right in saying – though maybe I’m too tired to think up decent keywords, because Google is not playing nice – that hanging around friends, family, lovers and acquaintances is complacent, and in denial about the people who’re most likely to kill or harm us. And yet we keep doing it.