Nice attack - the nightmare continues?

Open Forum in English
21

Brucenator also wrote, “although not really; his positions are too extreme for me and I’m not sure they would actually solve anything.” Funny how you left that part of the quote out.

You also left out the Nice attacker (the main topic of discussion here) who was a native of Tunisia and had been prosecuted for a violent crime (my other main point). So deporting him alone would have “just” thwarted an attack which resulted in at least 286 casualties in Nice (84 dead, 52 critical, 150 stable, as of the latest counts). It made me think, at least Geert Wilders would have been absolutely right in this case.

Maybe you missed the part where I said that I wholeheartedly agree that there should be a defined class of crimes, namely violent crimes of any sort, for which you can be deported and put on the no-fly list. (Granted, maybe I didn’t make it clear enough that I was talking about foreigners, not naturalized citizens. Or petty crimes. That was Geert Wilders. If a citizen is naturalized, you’ve bought the farm, so to speak, and you no longer have anywhere to deport them to. Everyone but Geert Wilders seems to understand this.)

I also already noted that “the Orlando terrorist was a natural born citizen and had no history of violent crime… So there are no easy solutions.” So you’re not telling my anything I don’t already know.

You also left out Timothy McVeigh. Home-grown Oklahoma City terrorist, killed 76 people. Anders Behring Breivik. Home-grown Norwegian terrorist, killed 77 people. Why not add them to the list of the not-Nice terrorists?

I also pointed out, “I think all foreigners who weasel their way into other countries and then commit violent crimes, or have already committed violent crimes in their home country, should be swiftly deported and put on the … no-fly list. … In any event, it would impede them from traveling to other countries and causing more harm. Let them commit their violent crimes in their home country and let their home country deal with them as violent criminals.”

That goes beyond “mere” terrorism. Deporting violent criminals would still thwart extreme acts of violence. Would it stop all terrorists? No. Would it impede violent criminals, including this one in Nice? Yes.

Oh, but wait a minute, I already said that , too. Did you miss the part where I was talking about violent criminals? And the Nice attacker, who was not a naturalized citizen?

22

Ok, I got the first statement about Wilders wrong. Sorry.

I left out the attacker at Nice, because we don’t know anything about his motives. At the moment there are reports, that he was mentally ill, not very religious and not directly connected to terrorist groups. We also don’t know, whether his wife and children are French citizens. Would you deport a violent criminal, seperating him from his (not foreign) family?

You wrote: "I think all foreigners who weasel their way into other countries and then commit violent crimes, or have already committed violent crimes in their home country, should be swiftly deported and put on the … no-fly list. … "

Depending on the definition of violent crime, that would certainly cause a lot of problems for many sportsmen, actors, businessman and of course the tourist industry. :slight_smile: Do you know how many persons would be affected by that? In Germany we had about 500.000 cases of violent crimes just in 2015 (I guess the numbers in the US are much higher).

In any case, I don’t see the connection between “minor” violent criminal offenses and extreme acts of violence like in Nice, Brussels or Paris.

23

I was expecting this from Peter Hitchens:

"…In the US, mass murder is blamed on relaxed gun laws, though other countries with strong gun laws have mass murders. And mass murders are new, as is the widespread use of mind-altering drugs, while America’s gun laws are very old.

Over here, mass murder is blamed on Islamic radicalisation – though the killers are almost invariably drugged-up low-lifes with criminal records for violence and theft. I can already be sure that this is what the Nice murderer will turn out to be, once all the facts are in. By definition, devout Muslims wouldn’t live such lives…"

It is remarkable how often these mass killers do turn out to have a history of drug abuse. Of course correlation isn’t necessarily the same as cause-and-effect. But still…

24

Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s where the problem lies: sheer numbers. As my sister educated me about recently, we already have laws on the books against violent crimes that are supposed to have foreigners who are violent criminals deported, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough resources devoted to enforcing the existing laws.

As a rule, I’m against separating families, so I know it sounds extreme, but yeah, I would be for deporting a foreigner convicted of a violent crime, even if it’s considered a “minor” violent crime, and regardless of whether they’re athletes, actors, business people or what-have-you. Definitely before – especially before – deporting anyone with a family whose only “crime” is entering the country illegally to seek work, like the Mexicans featured in this Dutch documentary:
http://www.npo.nl/de-muur/04-08-2015/VARA_101375170

Unlike the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, I’m also for accepting Syrian refugees, so long as they’re properly vetted. The Syrian families in my town are all successful business people. Even though I think the religion they practice is nonsense (which is what I think of all religions), I’m not concerned that their kids will suddenly become radicalized and attack a crowd of people screaming “Allahu Akbar!”

The problem in the U.S. is with the slow, tedious vetting process. I think it’s dreadful that the United States, which is about 25 times the size, 4 times the population and 5 times the GDP of Germany has only taken in about 1.2 percent of the refugees Germany has. Germany has taken in 85 times as many refugees as the U.S. (340 times, when you consider the population ratio), which seems excessive. Surely there’s a happy medium between the two.

My point about the Nice attacker, regardless of whether he had a family with French citizenship rights or he was mentally ill or motivated by Islam or whatever his motives were, was that (from what I can gather) he was already prosecuted for a violent crime and was supposed to go to jail for 6 months. Separating him from his family wouldn’t concern me in the least. I would gladly trade him for the other guy with a family who got deported and separated from his family simply for entering the country illegally to seek work.