Explosion at Boston Marathon

[wheelchairman]

MUSLIM...PERIOD. Add up all the Muslim terrorist attacks beginning with the 911 Twin Towers. Subtract those attacks from ALL known terrorist attacks. Bet you have a really small number leftover.

But I have an even better category, you could say 99% of all terrorists were religious. See my category is more inclusive and thus by your logic, more accurate. Also as far as I know they were all human beings, since by definition chimpanzees can't be considered terrorists, then the category 'human' is 100% more accurate.

Of course using a large umbrella category like that means we know less and less relevant information as to the motivation of the attack. Like how there are so many muslim terrorists, that's fairly well known, but the category of muslim tells us little about their motivation. Which is why people start saying annoying things like "they hate our freedom." A better category makes for more accurate generalizations. In a nutshell, thats why details are important and could possibly prevent you from looking like a moron. Its why people see Justin as intelligent and Bighead as a moron, despite saying the same thing.

Personally I'm convinced terrorism has something 100% to do with poor finger-nail hygiene and 5 o'clock shadows. That seems to also include 100% of all terrorists I've seen pictures of. Though honestly the finger nail thing is something I just assumed.

[bighead384]

I respect that you guys are insisting on attention to important details so as not to unfairly slight a whole group of people, but I don't see how saying something like "radical muslims" is inappropriate. Not all Muslims are being slighted, just the radical ones in groups like Al-Qaeda.

And T-6005, I'm not sure I agree with how you're applying the term "terrorism" to this argument. Sure, terrorism is best defined as a political statement, but since when are politics and religion mutually exclusive? Basically everything in the list below involves religion and politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives...ber_11_attacks

Their religion is a big part of why they have committed these acts. I don't understand why it is wrong to focus on that.

[Tiny Vessels]

There's something to think about. A Muslim blows up a building and that's terrorism. But when a Christian blows up an abortion clinic how come we don't consider that terrorism? Both are acts based on religion beliefs and innocent people are killed in both. What I don't get is at one attack we are like oh wow that sucks. But at the other attack we're ready to go out and kill people.

[MOTO13]

There's something to think about. A Muslim blows up a building and that's terrorism. But when a Christian blows up an abortion clinic how come we don't consider that terrorism? Both are acts based on religion beliefs and innocent people are killed in both. What I don't get is at one attack we are like oh wow that sucks. But at the other attack we're ready to go out and kill people.

Go ahead and begin listing the christian abortion clinic attacks killing innocent people. Show me the planes flying into buildings, the bombs planted indiscriminently and being set off to kill or injure ANYBODY within range for no other reason than to create chaos. Don't even begin to equate abortion with terrorism. This has to be one of the fucking dumbest things I have ever read on this site.

[Tiny Vessels]

Don't even begin to equate abortion with terrorism. This has to be one of the fucking dumbest things I have ever read on this site.

You missed my point COMPLETELY. What I'm saying is why don't we call Christians BOMBING abortion clinics terrorism but yet a Muslim bombing a builiding terrorism. I'm sorry but both are terrorism. Both of them are doing it for religion beliefs.

[MOTO13]

You missed my point COMPLETELY. What I'm saying is why don't we call Christians BOMBING abortion clinics terrorism but yet a Muslim bombing a builiding terrorism. I'm sorry but both are terrorism. Both of them are doing it for religion beliefs.

Trust me, your totally stupid fucking point was not missed. You do not understand what terrorism is or you wouldn't even equate the two. Start listing the Christian abortion clinic bombings idiscrminently killing innocent people first off. You know...blowing people all to shit NOWHERE near a clinic just because that is where you happen to lay a fucking bomb. Killing and maiming anyone or anything in sight just for the sake of blowing off a bomb and somehow reconciling it with some dip-shitted idea that it will draw attention to something. Killing people who have ZERO...nada...nothing to do with anything you might be pissed off about...they were simply unlucky enough to be in the area of the bombing. Secondly, abortion clinics are factories made to kill babies. If you want to twist it up enough, you could, in some derranged way, call eliminating abortion clinics saving lives. I wouldn't go that far by any means but it illustrates a point. Hell, why not call one kid beating up another kid terrorism...one of them was scared i am sure.

[Llamas]

MUSLIM...PERIOD. Add up all the Muslim terrorist attacks beginning with the 911 Twin Towers. Subtract those attacks from ALL known terrorist attacks. Bet you have a really small number leftover.

In the world? Then yes, it's true. Al Qaeda accounts for the vast majority of terrorist attacks throughout the world (at least according to English records). Though it is absurd to take the terrorist attacks committed by the world's largest terrorist organization which happens to be Muslim, and say that terrorist attacks are mostly committed by Muslims... would make much more sense to say they're committed by Al Qaeda.

However, in the US, it's absolutely not true. The last terrorist attack I remember was that Christian dude in WI who shot up a Sikh temple. And I don't remember any recent "Muslim" attacks in the US...

But I have an even better category, you could say 99% of all terrorists were religious. See my category is more inclusive and thus by your logic, more accurate. Also as far as I know they were all human beings, since by definition chimpanzees can't be considered terrorists, then the category 'human' is 100% more accurate.

Of course using a large umbrella category like that means we know less and less relevant information as to the motivation of the attack. Like how there are so many muslim terrorists, that's fairly well known, but the category of muslim tells us little about their motivation. Which is why people start saying annoying things like "they hate our freedom." A better category makes for more accurate generalizations. In a nutshell, thats why details are important and could possibly prevent you from looking like a moron. Its why people see Justin as intelligent and Bighead as a moron, despite saying the same thing.

Personally I'm convinced terrorism has something 100% to do with poor finger-nail hygiene and 5 o'clock shadows. That seems to also include 100% of all terrorists I've seen pictures of. Though honestly the finger nail thing is something I just assumed.

Terrorists are pretty much always men. Should we look into statistics regarding these men's height and weight? Hair length? This is probably just as important as their religion.

I respect that you guys are insisting on attention to important details so as not to unfairly slight a whole group of people, but I don't see how saying something like "radical muslims" is inappropriate. Not all Muslims are being slighted, just the radical ones in groups like Al-Qaeda.

And T-6005, I'm not sure I agree with how you're applying the term "terrorism" to this argument. Sure, terrorism is best defined as a political statement, but since when are politics and religion mutually exclusive? Basically everything in the list below involves religion and politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives...ber_11_attacks

Their religion is a big part of why they have committed these acts. I don't understand why it is wrong to focus on that.

If there was a Christian terrorist organization anywhere close to as "successful" as Al Qaeda, you can be sure Christians everywhere would be denouncing them as Christians - and rightfully so. Being brainwashed by an organization that convinces you that some religion teaches nutzo shit that it doesn't actually teach doesn't make you a "radical" of that religion; it makes you a brainwashed crazy. The Orthodox Christians of Serbia committed genocide not too long ago on the Muslims of Bosnia in the name of their religion. Christians the world over denounce them as Christians, because Christianity - like Islam - does not teach people to go out and murder a shitload of people.

Don't even begin to equate abortion with terrorism.

Well, that made exactly zero sense... who was equating abortion with terrorism? Lol...

Trust me, your totally stupid fucking point was not missed. You do not understand what terrorism is or you wouldn't even equate the two. Start listing the Christian abortion clinic bombings idiscrminently killing innocent people first off. You know...blowing people all to shit NOWHERE near a clinic just because that is where you happen to lay a fucking bomb. Killing and maiming anyone or anything in sight just for the sake of blowing off a bomb and somehow reconciling it with some dip-shitted idea that it will draw attention to something. Killing people who have ZERO...nada...nothing to do with anything you might be pissed off about...they were simply unlucky enough to be in the area of the bombing. Secondly, abortion clinics are factories made to kill babies. If you want to twist it up enough, you could, in some derranged way, call eliminating abortion clinics saving lives. I wouldn't go that far by any means but it illustrates a point. Hell, why not call one kid beating up another kid terrorism...one of them was scared i am sure.

I'm pretty sure the women who went to the clinic to get a cancer screening or to pick up some condoms and happened to be there when the bomb went off were not the intended targets. And I'm sure plenty of terrorist attacks are justified in similar ways. Hey, let's attack the US government buildings. That will distract them from the drone strikes (aka terrorism) they're committing, and save lives. Anything can be "justified" by some crazy explanation.

[Eskimo]

A Muslim blows up a building and that's terrorism. But when a Christian blows up an abortion clinic how come we don't consider that terrorism?

Of course that'd be labelled terrorism. No different to any douche bombing a place for secular reasons, like McVeigh.. The initial media go-to-theory over the Boston thing was right-wingers making a shitstorm on tax-day. Turned out not to be true, but if it were, that'd be labelled terrorism too.

The Christian/abortion analogy isn't so great, as while fuck yeah it's terrorism, actual bombing of abortion clinics has been pretty crazily rare, you get an odd loon now and again shooting a doctor or whatever, but the number of attacks scaled enough to matter more than some lone crazyface are so low it doesn't really register.

Again, while Bighead and the other dude fondle walruses (walri?) all day long, the fact is the current, here-and-now threat the U.S. and Canada/Australia/Western Europe/whoever-the-hell-else-we-like faces tends to come in large part from extreme-viewed young Muslim males. Crazy under-25 white kids with automatic rifles terrorizing schools and shopping malls or whatever else for non-political reasons, and crazy under-25 middle-eastern kids with suicide vests and a hard-on for martyrdom wanting to link everything and its grandma's boobies to Afghanistan or Israel. It tends to be organized, and funded, and structured, whereas just about every other form of stupid public violence is the irrational whims of a psychotic batshit-wacko or cruel douche doing it for kicks.

Still terrorism, it's just not directed and guided and funded by a network of people who have their shit together. These guys weren't Al-Qaeda proper, but the elder guy sure as shit learned all of this stuff from sympathizers in Russia.

[WebDudette]

I haven't read a large part of this thread, but bighead originally said 'Like many, I'm wondering if this is the work of radical muslims.' That seems to have been blown way out of proportion, he wasn't demonizing brown people, shit talking foreigners, or hate mongering. He simply said 'I'm wondering if this is the work of radical muslims', which all things considered, was a pretty reasonable question. I'm not a fan of speculation, but he wasn't even doing that.

Speaking of speculation, I was watching the CNN coverage of the situation with the second suspect in the boat and it was just straight speculation, it was crazy obnoxious. At one point one of the reporters even quoted a man basically saying 'journalists shouldn't speculate' and then went right back to speculating. I also got a vibe from them that some body on tumblr was able to put into words better than me, it was something like 'the media is confused, they don't know whether to humanize the bombers as misguided white kids, or demonize them as Muslim terrorists', because they didn't know what was going on they were awkwardly laying the groundwork for both, it was unnerving.

[0r4ng3]

Hey, remind me never to meet MOTO13 in person. I'm not Muslim, but my skin's brown enough that I would still be concerned about getting my ass kicked.