More on the Islamic "lone wolves"

The report below very much confirms what I said yesterday

This summer, Thomas Mücke managed a coup: he dissuaded a young German from joining the Islamic State.

The teenager, a Kurd whose family is originally from Turkey but now living in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, had landed in prison after committing a petty crime. Angry, confined, and looking to lash out, he “had pretty much given up with life and was ready to pack his bag" for Syria, Mr. Mücke says.

But Mücke, a street worker and head of the Berlin-based Violence Prevention Network (VPN) in Berlin, challenged the aspiring jihadi. Did he know that Islamic State fought against Kurds? No, the boy didn’t. In fact, he had no idea about his religion. It was a prison inmate that gave him the idea to go to Syria.

Recommended: How much do you know about Germany? Take our quiz!
"In the end he said, 'If IS fights against the Kurds I can’t go with them,'" says Mücke. The youth is out of prison now, and while he will receive counseling for months to come, he is no longer seen as in imminent danger of radicalization.

The success that Mücke and his organization, a nonprofit group that helps incarcerated young people with extremist biographies find a way out, has experienced in dissuading would-be jihadis is significant. But the VPN did not originally target radical Islamists. Rather, it had a much more familiar German radical in mind: violent neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists.

But advocates like Mücke say that just like that fascist ideology, fighting Islamic extremism among the young has less to do with religion than with young people’s vulnerability to the ideology. When dealing with extremists, be they neo-Nazis or jihadis, it is crucial to work with each person individually. And with at least 550 Germans in Syria, part of a swelling group of several thousand Europeans, Germany's lessons in fighting the spread of neo-Nazi ideology could prove key to stopping Islamic radicalization.

“They are both fascist ideologies,” says Mücke, who has counseled hundreds of imprisoned young people, often from the violent right extremist scene. ”One is using a certain idea of the nation, the other is using religion as its instrument.”

SOURCE

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Social justice warriors

If social justice were justice it would not need the "social" in front of it

The term "social justice" is usually dated back to the mid-19th century when it was coined by the Jesuit priest and scholar Luigi Taparelli. Taparelli believed that law should serve morality because unrestrained freedom harmed the cohesiveness of society even if the expression of freedom was nonviolent. A virtuous society required "positive law" that did not merely protect person and property but which also imposed moral standards.

More recently, a spin-off term has entered the popular vocabulary: social justice warrior (SJW). SJWs embody a radical left-wing ideology that expresses an aggressive political correctness by which 'incorrect' behavior and words are suppressed by the force of law whereas 'correct' behavior is promoted by law and tax-funding. PC feminists and other advocates of a progressivism tend to be SJWs that target white males as the nexus of oppression in Western society.

The term has become a pejorative because of the prominent harassment used by SJWs on forums such as the Internet or university campuses where they shout down dissenting voices and attempt to have the dissenters fired or otherwise punished. The SJW's activism seeks to impose a uniformity of far-left expression upon society and to force compliance from others. The act of argumentation – that is, an exchange of differing opinions – is rare. Instead, rage-filled invective is hurled at the dissenter so that every word is defined as hate speech. The tactic comes directly from Cultural Marxism, which is the forerunner of political correctness. According to Cultural Marxism the content of what is said – that is, the truth or falsehood of statements – means nothing compared to 'who' is making the statement. The class affiliation is everything. A SJWer checks a person's gender, skin color and sexual orientation in order to decide whether their words should be tolerated or whether they are speech-offenders.

In short, SJWs do not deal in truth or falsehood when engaging with others. Typically, SJWs will swarm or dogpile a website at which someone has posted an 'incorrect' sentiment; for example, a white man might make a joke about fat people that would have occasioned no notice if it had been made by a black woman. Using social media sites, like Tumblr or Twitter, a coordinated attack is launched on the individual. Or a speaker at a university is shouted down or suddenly uninvited. The SJW goal is to control the narrative, to own the ideas and words that can be spoken, the thoughts that can be presented. They rarely present evidence and often repeat 'facts' that have been debunked because all that is important is to drown out competing ideas. In essence, SJWs have no other choice because their ideas cannot be sustained in an open forum, a free market of ideas.

To the extent there is a solid SJW goal, it is probably "equality" or equal distribution of privilege. What the words mean, however, is mandated and special benefits to preferred groups. There is no defined end point, no sense of when equality is and can be attained because SJWs reach back to the dawn of time when assessing the social debt owed to the preferred groups. They are remedial historians who impose the cost of centuries of wrongdoing on individuals who are innocent. They will continue to do so because there is no downside for them.

The downside is imposed on those whose peaceful behavior and ideas do not comply, and the mechanism of enforcement is the state. Using the state is part and parcel of the SJW definition of justice itself. SJWs approach justice as an end state. A just society is one in which there is an equal distribution of wealth, opportunities and privilege, where there is no patriarchy or capitalism, in which only correct words and ideas are represented. In other words, justice is a specific arrangement, a specific society that embodies economic, political, legal and cultural arrangements. For example, SJW justice requires no one to utter certain syllables, everyone to share a consensus of attitudes.

By contrast, those who value individual freedom view justice as a means-oriented process, not as an ends-oriented state. That is, the concept of justice refers to the method by which society operates and not to a particular arrangement of society being produced. The methodology is "anything that is peaceful," "society by contract," "the non-initiation of force," voluntaryism. Any outcome to which all of the adults involved have consented is, by definition, a just arrangement. The only end-state attributable to people who wish to live in freedom is precisely that: freedom. Otherwise stated, those who value liberty require only the protection of person and property, the prevention of force and fraud within society. Past that point, how society operates, what people choose to peacefully believe or do with their own bodies and property is up to them.

Consider marriage as an example of justice being a process or means-oriented rather than being a defined arrangement or ends-oriented. In freedom, any 'marriage' that results from the consent of the adults involved is "just." It could be a traditional marriage with the woman as a housewife or a homosexual one with children adopted from around the world. Monogamy, polygamy, sexual abstention ... there is no end state that can be called a "just" marriage; a marriage in which one party willingly supports the other is no more or less just than one in which each party contributes 50%. All that is important is the ability of peaceful adults to choose and continue to choose for as long as the relationship lasts. The specific arrangement is not what makes the arrangement just; the method by which it is reached IS.

This doesn't mean that everything peaceful or voluntary is moral. For example, a voluntary society may contain racism. I married into an Hispanic family and I feel strongly about anyone slandering or demeaning my family. I have been known to yell and scream in the face of people who do so. And anyone who refuses to hire my niece or nephew because of their race can take my contract, my business dollar and tear it in two. I would use every peaceful means at my disposal to change the vicious behavior of whoever discriminates and I would make them pay as high a price as I could. With one exception.

There are many options available to influence individuals and social trends. Persuasion, peer pressure, bribery, protest, social shaming, shunning, boycott ... The only option that is not available to decent human beings is the use of force as a means to make peaceful human beings comply. And, yet, that is the single arrow that SJWs have in their quiver. Why? Because if people are free to disagree and not associate with them, then they have no funding, no power, no validity. If a person is free not to fund PC projects with tax dollars, not to hire an employee for any reason, including gender, if he or she has the right to say 'no,' then the SJW is impotent.

And, so the SJWer must use the state. Those who respect freedom and genuine human dignity do not have that option. You cannot use force to impose a voluntary society: it is a contradiction in terms. You cannot put a gun to a person's head and say, "You are now free to choose." Freedom involves removing force from the situation. And, in the final analysis, this is what SJWs are against: choice.

SOURCE

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Dimensions Of Dysfunction Suffered By Secular Leftists

When people say Leftists suffer from mental illness, it is true, but only part of the story

ALLAN ERICKSON

I confess. I’m a recovered Leftist. I drank the voodoo juice in college. For a time, I joined the ranks of deranged control freaks. Our professors drilled Marx, Freud, and Darwin into our skulls for four years, leaving us glassy-eyed, numb, and unfit for worthwhile employment.

College brainwashed us well. Many graduates drone on to this day, dutifully reciting the scripted narrative. This explains the daily insanity expressed on TV news programs. “We agree with the president. He believes ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, that a jobs program will solve everything. He believes most police departments are racist. He thinks capitalism is a failure. He believes the economy is recovering. He thinks the clerics will not launch a nuke from Iran because it is against their religion. He believes government can run health care better than doctors. We agree!”

Have you noticed the central government is overrun by control freaks — real freaks warring reality? College indoctrination centers were successful these last 45 years. For me and for increasing numbers, reality eventually penetrated denial. We were reborn into a world of individual responsibility, moral clarity, productive endeavor, common sense, and meaningful living. We climbed out of the rabbit hole to escape Wonderland.

When people say Leftists suffer from mental illness, it is true, but only part of the story. Typical Leftists are compulsive about minding everyone else’s business. They pry. They interfere. They make assumptions. They accuse and condemn. In short, they will do anything to justify using government power to force submission and compliance. It’s an addiction pursued with religious zeal.

Leftists assume they are morally and intellectually superior, without a shred of evidence (and frequently contradicting the best evidence). It is delusional, but necessary. After all, one must assume supremacy to justify tyranny. It’s comparable to the jihadist mentality: “We are doing this for your own good because we know better.”

Pushed to the extreme (an inevitable outcome in order to overcome resistance), it is easy to justify infringement of rights, legal action, sanction, incarceration, even violence. One simply cannot let deficient people override the wisdom of the enlightened elite. Why waste time trying to persuade the uneducated? Much more efficient to threaten, humiliate, ridicule, and brow-beat them into submission while you brainwash their children and grandchildren.

Which leads to another dimension of the illness: Leftists are convinced they possess special knowledge. Leftists simply “know” things, such as human activity is destroying the planet, doomsday is right around the corner, gun control reduces crime, white people are inherently racist, capitalism is the root of all evil, Republicans are the spawn of Satan, Muslims are cool, Baptists drool, Marxism rocks, love is free, as clinics should be. For a Leftist, this special PC knowledge requires no substantiation, because “it feels right.” Things should be the way Leftists perceive because they have the special knowledge, debate over. And if you disagree, well, you just aren’t “cool.”

A snapshot to exemplify: poverty bad, redistribution good, expand government power to steal from one to give to another, (liberty lost), problem solved, case closed. Trouble is, reality is found elsewhere, and problems proliferate. Think the 50-year war on poverty declared by Lyndon Johnson and waged by Democrats, wasting $5 trillion dollars in that time.

Leftists are prone to misdiagnose problems, given their arrogant presumption, an illusion spread across generations by drug and alcohol abuse. One sees cars and heat waves, then observes a melting iceberg, and shazzam!, human beings are destroying the planet! Al Gore says so! The real trouble comes when “solutions” are “proposed.” In this case, man-made global warming can only be halted by destroying the economies of the industrialized nations, giving all the remaining wealth to the third world to supply solar panels and bicycles. There is nothing quite like a radical, irrational solution to an unidentified problem. What could go wrong?!

You will notice, as well, that Leftists tend to stifle debate by insisting that issues are settled and catastrophe is at hand: We have to act right now, or we all die! Intolerance generally accompanies the hysteria and the rush to judgment and action, however ill-advised. When serial failures ensue, the only way they can salvage some form of sanity is to project those failures on others. “Well,” they say, “we only failed because of obstructionist Republicans. We didn’t fail actually. They prevented success. We were underfunded. The media was complicit. The Chinese undercut our margins. It just isn’t fair.” Unfairness is a very convenient accusation when projecting failure on others. Think Solyndra.

Always angry, irritable, and demanding, like menopausal women trying to stop smoking, Leftists never sleep. They never miss an opportunity to attack, slander, and engage character assassination. There is no satisfying these people. If you support traditional marriage but have no interest in persecuting homosexuals, you are a homophobic hate monger. If you don’t think affirmative action is such a great idea, but have no interest in discriminating for any reason, you are a racist moron. If you think unborn human beings have a right to life, without being insensitive to the needs of women in crisis pregnancy situations, you are a sexist pig. If you support equal rights for all without seeing the destruction of males as required, you are a chauvinist waging a war on women. And if you think history teaches that liberty can only be sustained by a decentralized federal government, the separation of powers, the consent of the governed, and the right to private property, you are a Nazi.

If you’re Republican, you deserve a firing squad.

Finally, Leftists tend to be very self-absorbed and paranoid, immune to all factual information contradicting the narrative. If not experiencing immediate gratification, they go all Veruca, then spin another conspiracy theory. It often gets very emotional.

In short, hell hath no fury like a Leftist scorned. Go ahead. Scorn one. See what happens. Or you can tune into MSNBC and watch them go berserk. Great fun, until you realize the psychos really are in control, and thus, the world has become one enormous asylum.

Perhaps we should cling to our guns and our Bibles.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog

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