independent.co.uk, Mythili Sampathkumar
"Right-wing extremists, often white supremacists, were responsible for 115 incidents within the same period. Events like Robert Dear’s killing of three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood women's health clinic in December 2015 for offering abortion services would fall into this category. In terms of police action, 76 per cent of the Islamist incidents were thwarted versus just 35 per cent of the right-wing extremist incidents. Sting operations were used in nearly half of the Islamist-related incidents, a rate four times higher than police operations on right and left-wing extremist acts."
Keep in mind "sting operations" are under criticism because they may provoke people into becoming terrorists who would not have done anything like that without such motivation by the FBI. The statistic may thus be inflated by "sting" ops.
"More people died in the Islamist incidents, a total of 90 due to mass shootings like the one in Fort Hood, Texas in 2009. However, around 33 per cent of right-wing extremist incidents involved deaths versus 13 per cent of Islamist terror acts. They also caused 79 deaths."
The notion that Islamic jihad ideology terrorism is much more lethal is actually widespread, and evidently wrong. The attention paid (most of the time, not these few days) is also out of proportion regarding the lethality.
"The evidence appears to belie Donald Trump’s rhetoric, however. The report said that Mr Trump’s “fixation” on “radical Islamic terrorism” is “irrational”."
It is, and that's important. Such evidence reveals who has the capacity to understand the real world & its problems and potentially devise and enact solutions to problems, or exploit opportunities for progress - and who's easily mislead by prejudice, feelings and/or ideology. It's a marker for the difference between a politician who may be of great use to his people (who these people are is another issue) and a politician who's no better than the figurative drunk ranting uncle at the family barbecue.
Ideally, we get to observe politicians in positions of little power (such as sub-national legislatures, as mayors et cetera) where we can weed out the bad ones, then they gain additional experience and exposure as national-level politicians where we can weed out even more so we have a certain pool to choose from for the highest national-level and supranational offices of great power. Populists who propel entirely untested "charismatic" politicians and their followers into highest offices lack this multi-level vetting, just as do 'shooting stars' in established parties who rise too quickly due to help of some top politicians.
The aforementioned vetting by the public is far from perfect, but still better than nothing.
Even reformist / populist parties should march through the political instances slowly - there's hardly ever a crisis so bad that a slow (~4-8 years) advance would be too slow. In fact, they may have the most thorough success if they are particularly slow (~10-20 years) as were the greens in Germany, who achieved participation in a national-level cabinet for the first (and so far only) time after almost two decades. By then their original environmental protection focus had affected the policies of other parties; they had achieved most of their original aims without being in power.
They also had some extremely questionable personalities and political viewpoints in their early years, which they now regret. This went as far as tolerance for pedophiles. In hindsight, them advancing to national level power in the early 80's would not have been a good thing. They had not weeded out their misfits. The AfD (new right wing party) of today was even overwhelmed by its misfits - now the vast majority of Germans seems to be glad that the AfD missed capturing national parliament seats months after its foundation.
S O
*: Such as the former German minister of defence von Guttenberg, who
shouldn't have made it past a town council level of responsibility.
.
Meh. So if your anti abortion you're a right wing extremist? Me thinks the books were cooked on this study.
ReplyDeleteYes, that counts as right wing extremism because the far left is "pro choice". It's the right wing that opposes abortion in the U.S., and more importantly, the institutions and campaigners against abortion clinics et cetera are right wingers.
DeleteThis is a remarkably stupid piece.
ReplyDeleteIslamist attacks killed 90 vs 79 (14% more) at a rate, per carried-out attack, of 6 vs 1.07 (460% higher). Attacks which kill more by number and rate are by definition more lethal.
The above calculation understates the lethality of Islamist attacks as it assumes the accuracy of the cited study. In fact, 22 of the killings described were 'conventional' murders, including:
- Man kills parents and two motorists who gave him a lift.
- Shooter angry at women for rejecting him (Elliot Rodger).
- Man shoots Muslims after posting general anti-religious
sentiments online [likely radical atheist].
That the report treated the Isla Vista shootings by Elliot Rodger, the self-described "supreme gentleman" who couldn't get laid, as a right-wing terrorist attack is enough by itself to dispose of the authors' credibility.
If they had any after treating general anti-religious violence as right-wing.
For what it's worth, after adjusting for the misattributed deaths we find that Islamist attacks killed 58% more by number and 614 % by rate.
Neither you nor anyone at The Independent bothered to check the raw data on which the study purports to be based. You assumed. The study accorded with your preconceptions and you bought it sight-unseen. Careless, sloppy work for a university graduate, and an engineer at that.
"Such evidence reveals who has the capacity to understand the real world & its problems...and who's easily mislead [sic] by prejudice, feelings and/or ideology."
Agreed.
Boys learn to accept the rules of a game at about age 5-8. That's when they stop just making up rules in dice games. I suggest you follow their lead.
DeleteI didn't write about the lethality of attacks. I wrote about the lethality of Islamic terrorism in America as a whole. You suggested that lethality of attacks contradicts what I wrote - but it didn't because I didn't write about the lethality of individual attacks. You just didn't pay attention and made up your own rules.
The Rodger case revealed that he visited nazi topics on the internet before going amok. It's disputable whether that makes him a right wing terrorist, but not much more than some "Islamist" terrorists provoked into being such by sting ops.
You seem to have a desire to downplay right wing terrorism - else you would have noticed that even if one accepts your figure (that Islamist terrorists killed 58% more) Trump's focus on them and his disinterest in the threat of right wing terror would still be utterly ill-advised and the bigger point of the article would still prevail.
This reminds me of people who face ten arguments against their opinion, succeed in countering a single one and then proclaim victory in a debate.
You were right about one thing, though; I didn't fact check a database of 100+ cases one by one. I would have done so if it was a central part of a scientific publication of mine, but this is a mere blog.
I noticed that you spoke of "we find", but you didn't offer a source for those findings. That would be sloppy by your own purported standard.
"I didn't write about the lethality of attacks. I wrote about the lethality of Islamic terrorism in America as a whole."
ReplyDeleteThis is the core of the matter, the rest is obiter.
Taken together, these sentences are nonsensical, but that may be due to poor expression.
The lethality of the various Islamic terrorist attacks constitutes the lethality of Islamic terrorism as a whole.
Therefore, what distinction are you articulating between "the lethality of attacks" and "the lethality of Islamic terrorism in America as a whole"?
By the former do you mean "death toll from" and by the latter "death rate from"?
Hypothetical example: 2 attacks kill 30 and 40 people. The (average because of plural) lethality of the attacks is 35. The sum of their lethality and thus the lethality of that kind of terrorism is 70.
Delete-----------------
This quote from the blog post
"The notion that Islamic jihad ideology terrorism is much more lethal is actually widespread, and evidently wrong. The attention paid (most of the time, not these few days) is also out of proportion regarding the lethality."
is 100% accurate. You just need to pay attention and read/comprehend what's written - and not fantasize about the meaning. Pay attention to the words "much more" and "out of proportion".
I get that some people prefer to think in binary where no such words appear. I already dumbed down this article by much to make it more understandable in a short format.
I could have gone on about diminishing returns, the importance of marginal returns for resource allocation and about opportunity costs. I did so in other blog posts instead.
Long blog story short: Leaders should be smarter than you are. Don't be offended, I also like them smarter than I am.
"The notion that Islamic jihad ideology terrorism is much more lethal is actually widespread, and evidently wrong"
ReplyDeleteIn writing "much more", you were making a comparison.
Were you comparing the lethality of Islamic terrorism to that of right-wing terrorism?
Or were you comparing the lethality of Islamic terrorism to public perception of its lethality?
You have a problem either way.
As mentioned, my statement was accurate and I provided a source.
DeleteIt's your turn to provide the source that you referred to.
What is my source? I cannot tell whether you are evasive or obtuse. My comments reference only your post and the study.
ReplyDeleteYou asserted one of the following:
1.
the public incorrectly believes Islamist terrorists have killed many more people than have right-wing terrorists; or
2.
the public incorrectly believes Islamist terrorists have killed many more than 90 people.
The first is demonstrably false even on the figures you quoted.
The second necessarily implies the public has another casualty figure in mind, a figure you neither provided nor provided a source for.
Take your pick.
I'll cut this short and block you until you provide a source for
Delete"For what it's worth, after adjusting for the misattributed deaths we find that Islamist attacks killed 58% more by number and 614 % by rate."
Your rephrasing of my claim is inaccurate, and you display no understanding of the topic or attention.
You also made an inaccurate claim (a.k.a. you lied). 90 is not "many more" than 79, especially not in the context of the utterly disproportionate political and executive branches attention.
I concluded that you're a mere hostile troll.
Aaaand he's banned for good. Stopped reading his next comment after the 2nd insult.
DeleteWell, I've got my own opinion about such people, and I'm not interested in giving them a platform.