Comments about inflammatory topics need to get more civil and substantive, not less, if you want to post them to HN. If you rant like this about a thorny social issue, you're just poisoning this place and setting it on fire. That's vandalism, regardless of the issue you're commenting on, and it's the opposite of what you ought to be doing if you're genuinely concerned about the substantial underlying problems.
Please don't create HN accounts to break the site guidelines with.
To give this guy some backup: this happens here in The Netherlands as well. Gay couples could feel safe in the public space at the end of last century.
Now they are harassed, sometimes even to the point they decide to leave their neighbourhoods. It is not safe anymore to hold hands or kiss for gay couples in public spaces in Amsterdam.
Young women without their hair covered are considered fair game by muslim youth and are less safe than before. Some students are actually starting to cover their hair in the evening to prevent getting harassed.
Amsterdam past a 'law' last week to try to counter this harassment but it has no teeth, will be unenforceable.
Not talking about problems do not make them go away.
The problem is that racist shitheads poison the well. There's absolutely a need to have frank discussions on integration (including the failures by state organizations, civil society and yes, immigrants and descendants themselves), immigration policies, social support (which is more than how much money should be allocated), etc, but as soon as you start such a conversation, there's a good chance that one of those trouser stains will pop up and "agree" with you, making you look like one of them.
I am not sure how much I agree with your position. My late father taught me something which I still enjoy to this day, almost weekly.
He was a civil servant. 'People who feel they are not listened to will get angry.' So first you do listen to a citizen(customer), then you defend your position.
The comment was flagged because of its tone and the frailty of its reasoning.
It's not impossible to write a survivable comment expressing (what I presume to be) the same kernel of thought that comment did, but to do so requires more careful writing and more clarity of thought than that comment had.
Recklessly inflammatory comments don't survive on HN, and that's a good thing.
The problem with gp mindset is that extremisms grow stronger when countered with extremisms, you can see and profit from this looking from either side.
But it's not just crude; it's both ignorant (there are millions of Muslims in the EU already, not "letting them in" is not a solution) and disgusting in its support for the political groups that damaged Europe at a level much greater than any radical Muslims could ever hope to.
It's comments like those that derail reasonable conversations and make people like me want to stay the fuck away.
I have reread his comment now repeatedly and let us take it apart.
1. "Why let them in in the first place? Why this obsession western Europe has with self destruction?"
Although loaded, these are questions. Maybe we should be able to answer these to this angry citizen. Apparently we failed.
2. "I'm soooooo looking forward to the rise of the far right"
So here he is suggesting his solution. Well, that is just his opinion man.
3. "of all the news, of my girlfriend telling me how she doesn't feel secure walking alone in the city, I'm just so fucking tired of all of this, and over time it's just going to get worse."
And here he is describing how he feels and how it affects him.
I don't disagree with you; I'd like an answer too. But our collective failure to come up with one doesn't justify every reaction.
In a very real way, supporting the far-right is supporting terrorists[1]. And if we can excuse that, how can we blame extremist Muslims for supporting their own version?
>"I'm soooooo looking forward to the rise of the far right"
Millions of people have died under far-right regimes. Cheering them on is not funny and it's not an ordinary opinion. It is cheering for an ideology that has murdered millions of people within living memory.
More people died under far-left regimes. But somehow cheering them is funny and cool, especially in the SV tech community. Just take a look on recent HN comments on Castro or Venezuela. Everyone criticizing these far-left regimes or ideologies were getting downvoted to hell and flagged.
I am pretty sure that OP would prefer some more centered political forces to solve the problem. But so far any other forces do not want even to admit its existence.
That is factually false, as icebraining went through the tedium of demonstrating.
We've asked you many times to stop doing this, and you appear to have responded by creating new accounts to keep doing what we asked you not to do, and worse, using them in the same thread to create the false appearance of multiple voices.
These behaviors are bannable offences on Hacker News, so we've banned your accounts. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com. We unban accounts if their owners give us reason to believe that they'll change and use the site as intended from now on.
We've banned your account for repeatedly ignoring our requests to stop using HN for political battle, and for other apparent abuses, such as employing multiple accounts in the same thread.
What happens after you expel Muslims? I'm assuming you won't find another scapegoat minority to pin all of your problems on. Definitely not, since Europe has never done that before.
Regarding safety, you're telling me that your girlfriend will feel safe walking alone once there are no Muslims? Makes sense, I guess, since we Muslims designed the concepts of rape and burglary.
Seriously though, there is some merit to what Italy is doing, but such a system can easily be abused. Extremism - of any kind! - is a tough problem to deal with.
What a vile instance of religious flamewar. Given how many times we've asked you to not to flout the intent of this site—which is civil, substantive discussion, the polar opposite of religious flamewar—we'd ban you for this comment alone. But we'd already banned you before I saw it, and banning is idempotent.
There are 1+ billion Muslims worldwide. There are over 5 million in France alone. If all Muslims actually supported the vile, disgusting acts that you speak of, Europe would be in pure chaos! Just imagine if 5 million "terrorists" went on a rampage in France. The fact that such terrible incidents are few and far in between is proof that the vast majority of Muslims have nothing to do with it.
Ironically, most of the perpetrators of the recent terrorist attacks in Europe were quite assimilated into local culture. They drank, did not pray, and didn't actually know the basics of Islam in general! I believe that they were easy targets for recruiters because of their lack of knowledge. Moreover, I'm not sure how you can call someone who doesn't know how to practice a religion a follower of said religion.
I know that, but this makes the whole issue even more dangerous.
People who were living their whole life like Europeans, were not interested in Islamic culture and religion, can wake up one day and attack in the name of it. It shows that cultural identity is hard wired much more deeper than many think and assimilation is in fact impossible.
No, in my view it shows that assimilation isn't objectively better in all cases. In other words, pressuring people to shed away their culture and customs because you're afraid or annoyed by their "otherness" can sometimes backfire. This is why laws that target minorities aren't a good idea.
I am not saying that it's OK to murder innocents because of such laws! But I am saying that forced assimilation can push some types of people to an extreme viewpoint.
It also shows that the techniques recruiters use can be effective on some people.
Definitely. If it wasn't Muslim youths blowing themselves up, castrating people in the Bataclan, and running over people in trucks, it'd be Protestant and Roman Catholic youths. Or maybe atheists. Atheists are usually pretty angry.
We should bring in more Muslims, to make the Muslims who are already here feel more comfortable, so they don't blow up as much.
> This is misapplied in this circumstance and is wholly inappropriate.
It's entirely appropriate. Every country cannot be under attack by oncoming waves of Muslim immigrants and by a corrupt liberal elite at the same time. The OP, now flagged and removed, was openly cheering for the rise of far-right governments in Europe, and was spouting far-right rhetoric.
Quoting a poem about the last time far-right governments took over Europe is very appropriate. Fascism must be opposed root and branch: any seemingly "relevant" points made in the name of fascism are in bad-faith, and are only being made to justify the advancement of fascism.
Well that depends. Does s/he come from a country known for its current religious extremism? Does s/he follow a religion that espouses violence? How about massive cultural differences, including violence?
And the biggest one is is s/he willing to conform to the country they'll be moving to and assimilate to your country's culture etc?
Those are pretty damn big reasons to not let someone in.
Are you seriously going to try to equate the most extreme differences in culture, religion, and modern history of violence from muslims to something that happened several hundred years ago?
and most of the world has moved away from the barbarous ways of the past. Do you find it acceptable to tolerate that kind of behavior these days? Because I have news for you. It won't end well if we tolerate their intolerances, violence, and backward religious culture of oppression.
Including by those that belong to the biggest religion in Europe, and use the name of God to justify war, crime, corruption, paedophile, forced conversion, support for dictatorships, state police and many other actions that just shame all kinds of religions.
>I'm soooooo looking forward to the rise of the far right in Europe because I'm soooooo tired of all of this, of all the news, of my girlfriend telling me how she doesn't feel secure walking alone in the city,
It's interesting that even behind a green account, apparently created just to comment here, you're neither willing nor able to mention what city your girlfriend is too scared to walk alone in, for fear of the Muslim hordes.
I don't know what's more disappointing, the low effort in your comment, or how readily people seem to be falling for the bait. We should demand higher standards, even from trolls.
The far right won't just come for Muslims. You're girlfriend better hope shes the right ethnicity, without the wrong blood type or any genetic inferiority.
I love enlightened Europeans attitudes as soon as they don't get their way.
This comment breaks the HN guidelines by continuing the flamewar and by calling names.
It's not ok to violate the rules here, regardless of how badly other commenters have done so or how wrong they are. Otherwise we just get into a descending spiral. So please don't do this.
