Breaking News - Major Terrorist Attack In Oslo, Norway

[Richard Hakluyt]

Are you guys familiar with the maxim "hard cases make bad law" ?

One of the problems of the past 20 years or so is that this maxim has been forgotten or disregarded.  Norway is a lovely country, with excellent systems and laws that have made most people's lives there pretty good. What they need to do, imo, is change very little but just make sure that if this ever happens again that they have a more responsive SWAT team.

[Martinus]

Are you guys familiar with the maxim "hard cases make bad law" ?

One of the problems of the past 20 years or so is that this maxim has been forgotten or disregarded.  Norway is a lovely country, with excellent systems and laws that have made most people's lives there pretty good. What they need to do, imo, is change very little but just make sure that if this ever happens again that they have a more responsive SWAT team.

I agree. There is just a temptation, when something like this happens, to try to find a cause and deal with it. But what I said was mostly to annoy Slargos, because he is annoying me.

[Viking]

Hmm... if I understand what you're saying (and Viking too) it's that "we should understand what ABB is saying, why he's so alienated and change our society to be more in line with what he wants to avoid alienating people like him further."

I'm not sure that sentiment sits that well with me, whether it's Muslim terrorists, people like ABB or anyone else.

Or did I misunderstand?

What we are saying is "Know thine enemy" and we should avoid engaging in comfortable delusions that allow us to merely get on with life again.

[Martinus]

Ok, I know Polish jokes and all are kinda lame but sometimes my compatriots really get the cookie.

Massive headline on one of the biggest Polish news websites: "[Polish]Expert police psychologist: The probable motive was [him] being left by a woman"

[Neil]

Slargos, you're really irking my sensibilities with your shenanigans in this thread.

Overruled.

[grumbler]

Also, I think it is a bit disingenuous for Americans to look down upon Europeans and talk about their melting pot superiority. The melting pot doctrine developed when the majority of immigrants to the US were fellow Europeans (or, at most, Latinos, who are also pretty European - at least their are Christian). When non-European, non-Christian immigrants were coming - and not that many did - they were slaughtered, like the Chinese in California, or deprived of constitutional rights - like the Japanese during WW2.

Yeah, I think it is very fair to sum up the overall success of Japanese Americans in US society based on a singular incident spanning a couple years during the worst war that humanity has ever experienced.

As usual, Marty strikes at the core of what it is to understand America.

Don't forget the "slaughter" of almost 20 Chinese in California in the 1870s!  Next to that, the Polish contributions to the Holocaust pale.

[Viking]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-europe-14266815

Mr Breivik's lawyer Geir Lippestad told Norwegian media: "He thought it was gruesome having to commit these acts, but in his head they were necessary.

"He wished to attack society and the structure of society," Mr Lippestad said.

....

and that is his lawyer.... 

[DGuller]

Also, I think it is a bit disingenuous for Americans to look down upon Europeans and talk about their melting pot superiority. The melting pot doctrine developed when the majority of immigrants to the US were fellow Europeans (or, at most, Latinos, who are also pretty European - at least their are Christian). When non-European, non-Christian immigrants were coming - and not that many did - they were slaughtered, like the Chinese in California, or deprived of constitutional rights - like the Japanese during WW2.

Yeah, I think it is very fair to sum up the overall success of Japanese Americans in US society based on a singular incident spanning a couple years during the worst war that humanity has ever experienced.

As usual, Marty strikes at the core of what it is to understand America.

Don't forget the "slaughter" of almost 20 Chinese in California in the 1870s!  Next to that, the Polish contributions to the Holocaust pale.

To be fair to Martinus, when you factor out his ignorant hyperbole (pretty much SOP with his posts), he does have a point.  Chinese immigrants in particular were pretty severely legally discriminated against, and their plight didn't compare to the plight of Irish, Italians, or Eastern Europeans.

[citizen k]

Also, I think it is a bit disingenuous for Americans to look down upon Europeans and talk about their melting pot superiority. The melting pot doctrine developed when the majority of immigrants to the US were fellow Europeans (or, at most, Latinos, who are also pretty European - at least their are Christian). When non-European, non-Christian immigrants were coming - and not that many did - they were slaughtered, like the Chinese in California, or deprived of constitutional rights - like the Japanese during WW2.

Yeah, I think it is very fair to sum up the overall success of Japanese Americans in US society based on a singular incident spanning a couple years during the worst war that humanity has ever experienced.

As usual, Marty strikes at the core of what it is to understand America.

Don't forget the "slaughter" of almost 20 Chinese in California in the 1870s!  Next to that, the Polish contributions to the Holocaust pale.

To be fair to Martinus, when you factor out his ignorant hyperbole (pretty much SOP with his posts), he does have a point.  Chinese immigrants in particular were pretty severely legally discriminated against, and their plight didn't compare to the plight of Irish, Italians, or Eastern Europeans.

And so, that invalidates the melting pot process?

[Viking]

19th century people were raciss, film at eleven.

[grumbler]

Chinese immigrants in particular were pretty severely legally discriminated against, and their plight didn't compare to the plight of Irish, Italians, or Eastern Europeans.

Remember that the first wave of Chinese immigrants were far different from the European immigrants when it came to the conditions and reasons for their immigration.  They were brought in as temporary labor; neither they, nor their employers, expected them to settle.  That's why over 90% of them were single males, and almost none of them families.  When some decided to stay is when racism really reared its head, but even then the incidents of violence were rare (probably less than 200 victims all told, in a series of incidents all over the West).  The racism was bad enough that the total number of Chinese-born and second-generation in the US actually declined.

I'd argue that the Italians at one point had it almost as bad, but agree that no group was discriminated against as much as the Chinese, nor for as long.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Nor did any deserve it as much. The Chinamen were a plague (still are in fact), and were horrible monsters that spread opium addiction and various other horrible things throughout the American west.

[CountDeMoney]

Slargos, you're really irking my sensibilities with your shenanigans in this thread.

Overruled.

You have to sleep sometime.

[Neil]

Slargos, you're really irking my sensibilities with your shenanigans in this thread.

Overruled.

You have to sleep sometime.

Maybe, but I'm up early.

[Admiral Yi]

Nor did any deserve it as much. The Chinamen were a plague (still are in fact), and were horrible monsters that spread opium addiction and various other horrible things throughout the American west.

Such as clean clothes.