Explosion at Boston Marathon II

YF, would you be satisfied if the question was restated as, "What makes someone turn to radical Islam?" rather than "terrorism"? It's half a dozen of one, six of the other.

 

Well, except for the fact that folks who embrace radical Islam are exposed to lots of folks urging them to kill non-Muslims.

They read Inspire magazine, and watch YouTube videos of radical Imams.

Tamerlan did both of these things.

Folks who embrace an anti-abortion stance are not regularly encouraged to kill abortion doctors.

 

What about people who embrace an anti-gun control stance? I seem to recall a United States senatorial candidate urging, "Second Amendment solutions."

 

I suppose I would, but that would be equating radical Islam with terrorism, and many/most in the media don't want to do that, so they dance around it.

 

One goofy candidate, who has no following, made, in one instance, a dumb statement.

Is that really the same thing?

 

I read the New York Times fairly exclusively, and somehow, I have managed to realize that the brothers embraced radical Islam, despite the paper's best efforts to obfuscate about it.

 

Can you imagine if a radical Islamist, urging jihad, came that close to the United States Senate, running as a Democrat?

I'm sure you'd just brush it off.

 

That position is straight out the current NRA position's founding fathers -- the Black Panthers.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/

And I don't know that the candidate "had no following." The race between Angle and Reid was airtight the whole way, and it was a suprise that Reid won 50-45.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/nov/02/harry-reid-takes-lead-over-sharron-angle/

Now, if someone had committed murder and cited Sharron Angle as his inspiration, is it her fault? The fault of radical Republicanism?

 

Dick, Jihad is at the heart of radical -- even Orthodox -- Islam.

Concepts like Apostates deserving death are doctrines in Islam.

In the case of many of these terrorists, they got more radical, as they became more religious.

Tamerlan's mother encouraged him to embrace his Muslim faith, in part because he was doing things like drinking and smoking, which she didn't approve.

I don't believe most of these folks turn immediately to "radical" Islam or terrorism. Most of them were not very religious at first. Some were even converts.

But, as they embraced Islam, they were drawn into an Orthodox/radical version of it, which encourages the kind of behavior Tamerlan eventually executed.

 

She was dumb, and a terrible candidate. And she lost a race that would have been won by a halfway decent candidate.

She won a divided primary, and she didn't win it because she was encouraging the murder of politicians.

She made a really dumb statement, after winning the primary, and her support dropped as a result.

She has no current following. Folks aren't pulling up YouTube videos of her speeches, looking for inspiration.

It's just a terrible comparison.

 

This time around The Times has decided to drop the pretense much to their credit.

 

Fair enough. Her sentiment is quite rare on the American right these days.

Lone wolf, that one.