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More Peace From Our Friends


Jimmy Leeds

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I'm not interested in defending monsters. period.

But the second half of your question is a math lesson so I'll take a swing at it.

Let's make some generous assumptions for your side of the argument (that radical Muslims are not a "small" minority).

-There are 500,000 ultra-radical muslims around the world who are currently willing to kill to make make whatever twisted religious point they want to make

-There are 4,500,000 near-radical muslims who, either are terrorist sypmathizers or under the right conditions could easily be converted to ultra-radical

That's about 5,000,000 Islamic terrorists, extremists, w/e

 

There are 1,600,000,000 muslims on the planet

 

5,000,000 / 1,600,000,000 = ~0.31%
(and again, I have to qualify I think I am being extremely generous with my estimates, please feel free to substitute your own values if you think I am wildly off)

 

Now this is going to be the subjective part of the argument, what constitutes "small". In my book, 0.31% qualifies as small. 5 million is a not a small number in and of itself, and certainly you only a need a fraction of that to inflict harm, nor should we just ignore the 5 million. But if you randomly encounter a muslim and you have a 99.69% chance that they are not a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer, then maybe you should stop trying to stereo type the entire group based on the "small" minority.

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I'm not interested in defending monsters. period.

But the second half of your question is a math lesson so I'll take a swing at it.

Let's make some generous assumptions for your side of the argument (that radical Muslims are not a "small" minority).

-There are 500,000 ultra-radical muslims around the world who are currently willing to kill to make make whatever twisted religious point they want to make

-There are 4,500,000 near-radical muslims who, either are terrorist sypmathizers or under the right conditions could easily be converted to ultra-radical

That's about 5,000,000 Islamic terrorists, extremists, w/e

 

There are 1,600,000,000 muslims on the planet

 

5,000,000 / 1,600,000,000 = ~0.31%

(and again, I have to qualify I think I am being extremely generous with my estimates, please feel free to substitute your own values if you think I am wildly off)

 

Now this is going to be the subjective part of the argument, what constitutes "small". In my book, 0.31% qualifies as small. 5 million is a not a small number in and of itself, and certainly you only a need a fraction of that to inflict harm, nor should we just ignore the 5 million. But if you randomly encounter a muslim and you have a 99.69% chance that they are not a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer, then maybe you should stop trying to stereo type the entire group based on the "small" minority.

 

There's a certain shortcoming with the idea of looking at the percentage of bad actors among a certain population and making conclusions about the scale of the problem.  I've heard this a lot when people are defending a certain dangerous city -- say Newark -- where someone argues that only a miniscule number of people in Newark are murderers or violent criminals.  The problem is, that's still a lot of violent people and a lot of people that are affected by it.  Basically, if you live in Newark over a certain period of time, you are VERY likely to be the victim of a violent crime at some point. 

 

So yeah, the percentage of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers might be small as compared to the total number of Muslims, but the fact remains that if you are a non-Muslim in a Muslim land, the chances that something bad is going to happen to you is quite significant.  On the other hand, if you are Muslim in a non-Muslim country, the chances that you are going to be the victim of a violent "hate crime" are miniscule, because the actual number of people that are inclined to commit anti-Muslim violent hate crimes is almost negligible. 

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There's a certain shortcoming with the idea of looking at the percentage of bad actors among a certain population and making conclusions about the scale of the problem.  I've heard this a lot when people are defending a certain dangerous city -- say Newark -- where someone argues that only a miniscule number of people in Newark are murderers or violent criminals.  The problem is, that's still a lot of violent people and a lot of people that are affected by it.  Basically, if you live in Newark over a certain period of time, you are VERY likely to be the victim of a violent crime at some point. 

 

So yeah, the percentage of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers might be small as compared to the total number of Muslims, but the fact remains that if you are a non-Muslim in a Muslim land, the chances that something bad is going to happen to you is quite significant.  On the other hand, if you are Muslim in a non-Muslim country, the chances that you are going to be the victim of a violent "hate crime" are miniscule, because the actual number of people that are inclined to commit anti-Muslim violent hate crimes is almost negligible. 

I didn't discount the scale of the problem of terrorism. It's an obvious ongoing issue that should not be ignored (as I stated)

He asked how any one could consider this a small minority and the answer is pretty straight forward.

Re Newark: and yet, people still live there, and non-muslims still live the middle east. Again, that doesn't diminish the problem, but if you were "very likely" to die in an area at some point, you would most likely leave. I think this is a case of the squeaky wheel gets the oil. All my life I heard how Israel was a desolate war zone until I went there and felt safer walking the streets of Jerusalem at night then I ever did in Manhattan. Yes there are bad places, I am not advocating strolling around Newark at 3 am with stacks of cash in your hand to see if you get jumped or not, but the reality doesn't match the rhetoric on the other end either. There are 200 million Muslims in indonesia for example who haven't harmed a fly and don't deserve the typecasting that people like Leeds want to place on them.

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I didn't discount the scale of the problem of terrorism. It's an obvious ongoing issue that should not be ignored (as I stated)

He asked how any one could consider this a small minority and the answer is pretty straight forward.

 

 

Understood, although I just wanted to point out how focusing on percentages sometimes misses the bigger picture.

 

Re Newark: and yet, people still live there, and non-muslims still live the middle east. Again, that doesn't diminish the problem, but if you were "very likely" to die in an area at some point, you would most likely leave. I think this is a case of the squeaky wheel gets the oil. All my life I heard how Israel was a desolate war zone until I went there and felt safer walking the streets of Jerusalem at night then I ever did in Manhattan. Yes there are bad places, I am not advocating strolling around Newark at 3 am with stacks of cash in your hand to see if you get jumped or not, but the reality doesn't match the rhetoric on the other end either. There are 200 million Muslims in indonesia for example who haven't harmed a fly and don't deserve the typecasting that people like Leeds want to place on them.

 

I would guess that most people that live in Newark, or the violent parts of Newark, do so because they don't otherwise have much of a choice.  There was an article by Ross Douhat that I don't have the inclination to provide a link for which demonstrated that being a victim of a serious crime in the course of one's lifetime for the entire population was large.  Imagine what it is if you're living in one of the most dangerous cities in the country.

 

Jerusalem is a safe place for non-Muslims because they do not control the police, and the IDF has waged war and killed a lot of the types that would provide the means to make it an unsafe place for non-Muslims.  You would probably last less than an hour if you walked around wearing a yarmukah in Ramallah.  OTOH, the worst you would get in an ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhood if you were a Muslim, Christian or secular Jew would be an extreme form of rudeness. 

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Understood, although I just wanted to point out how focusing on percentages sometimes misses the bigger picture.

 

 

I would guess that most people that live in Newark, or the violent parts of Newark, do so because they don't otherwise have much of a choice.  There was an article by Ross Douhat that I don't have the inclination to provide a link for which demonstrated that being a victim of a serious crime in the course of one's lifetime for the entire population was large.  Imagine what it is if you're living in one of the most dangerous cities in the country.

If it were the case that you have a high probability of being a victim of a serious crime over your lifetime, wouldn't that run more to my point? That it doesn't matter where you go, you are just as safe (or not safe) regardless of where you go?

 

Jerusalem is a safe place for non-Muslims because they do not control the police, and the IDF has waged war and killed a lot of the types that would provide the means to make it an unsafe place for non-Muslims.  You would probably last less than an hour if you walked around wearing a yarmukah in Ramallah.  OTOH, the worst you would get in an ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhood if you were a Muslim, Christian or secular Jew would be an extreme form of rudeness. 

 

Sure but you are picking the who, what, where, when and why and saying "danger!" as if it applies to everywhere. Palestinians have a lot of resentment towards Israeli's and Jews, but If you were an American visiting you would probably be treated like royalty. Arabs are notoriously generous and hospitable people; like most people around the world. The problem is CNN isn't going to run a segment on the nice Arab who gave you driving directions when you were hopelessly lost navigating the streets of Cairo.

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