The Donald Trump Thread

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Whoa... can't believe I didn't notice Saruman and Voldemort the first time. Though, in fairness, the villains do draw the most attention.
 

Truth is stranger than fiction.

No one writing a historical fiction would put a scene like this in there if they wanted their story to be taken as realistic.

...but here we are in good old solid reality... not a fantasy story about wizards and witches... not a historical fiction... and we have an archetypal symbol of the evil power hungry tyrants.

Are they trolling us with this in your face symbolism? Was it a poorly planned accident? Or is the synchromystical nature of the universe semantically arranging things for us... dropping foreshadowings here and there to clue us in to the plot?
 
OT but it's a political question. Maybe a naive one, but I hear that the secret services already knew about the Manchester bomber. I've heard that said in other recent terrorist attacks and I wonder, why can't do they do anything beforehand?
 
OT but it's a political question. Maybe a naive one, but I hear that the secret services already knew about the Manchester bomber. I've heard that said in other recent terrorist attacks and I wonder, why can't do they do anything beforehand?
Probably because they are "aware of" thousands of people. To closely watch any individual person might take dozens of personnel. The usual practice is only to step up to such close action when there is some specific reason to do so. At least that seems like a summary of what I've heard.

Edit:
Just heard some approximate numbers given on a news interview. Maybe say ten or twenty thousand people on a 'watch list'. (That is simply an electronic list). To watch an individual 24 hours a day - and do a good job of it - could take over twenty people.
- comment - if those figures are realistic, it could take upwards of a quarter of a million people to watch everyone on the list.
 
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OT but it's a political question. Maybe a naive one, but I hear that the secret services already knew about the Manchester bomber. I've heard that said in other recent terrorist attacks and I wonder, why can't do they do anything beforehand?

It's just more complicated than that, and goes back further. The UK has been allowing radicals to leave the UK to fight, then allowing them to return to the UK. When they return they are more radicalised and better trained.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/s...sent-british-libyans-fight-gaddafi-1219906488

Other Libyans now say Salman Abedi was fighting in Libya as a youngster, and the French say he was fighting much more recently in Syria.

There is a conflict between the idea of the UK establishment doing something with these people before they commit an act of terror within the UK, and the willingness of the establishment to also let them leave and return to fight in destabilising conflicts. You can't have it both ways...
 
Please take some time to acquaint yourself with Islamic ideology - from the Quran, and be aware that there is a clause that says any contradiction should be solved by taking the latter quote over the one before:

9:5 Slay the idolaters wherever you find them.

I know this is a post from long ago, and is one to which I've already responded, but I've been talking with a Muslim friend, whose view is that the Quran only justifies violence in self-defence - so I came back to this verse in particular, since it seems to be the worst of those which you (Red) supplied, and I did a bit of reading for context.

Wikipedia lays it out quite nicely in the article, Sword Verse. The take-away is this (my bolding):

"According to several mainstream Islamic scholars, the verse relates to a specific event in Islamic history -- namely that Arabian pagans made and broke a covenant with Arabic Muslims. The verses immediately preceding and following 9:5, 9:4 and 9:6, make the context very clear: Only those pagans who broke the covenant were subject to violent repercussions, so that any pagans who honoured the covenant or repented their betrayal were to be spared".

It is helpful, too, I think, to see the verse in context with the verses which surround it (quoted from the Wikipedia article - unlike the Bible, verse numbers follow each verse rather than preceding it; emboldening mine):

"An acquittal, from God and His Messenger, unto the idolaters with whom you made covenant: (1) 'Journey freely in the land for four months; and know that you cannot frustrate the will of God, and that God degrades the unbelievers.' (2) A proclamation, from God and His Messenger, unto mankind on the day of the Greater Pilgrimage: 'God is quit, and His Messenger, of the idolaters. So if you repent, that will be better for you; but if you turn your backs; know that you cannot frustrate the will of God. And give thou good tidings to the unbelievers of a painful chastisement; (3) excepting those of the idolaters with whom you made covenant, then they failed. you naught neither lent support to any man against you. With them fulfil your covenant till their term; surely God loves the godfearing. (4) Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. (5) And if any of the idolaters seeks of thee protection, grant him protection till he hears the words of God; then do thou convey him to his place of security -- that, because they are a people who do not know. (6) How should the idolaters have a covenant with God and His Messenger? -- excepting those with whom you made covenant at the Holy Mosque; so long as they go straight with you, do you go straight with them; surely God loves the godfearing. (7)"

Notice that from the second half of verse 4, instructions are given to "let [those who repent] go their way", to "grant protection" to those unbelievers who seek it, and to "convey [them] to [their] place of security", and that "excepting those with whom you made covenant at the Holy Mosque; so long as they go straight with you, do you go straight with them" - hardly compatible with a view that this verse sanctions indiscriminate killing of non-Muslims, let alone in the modern age!

Notice also that the chapter begins with an "acquittal" of the betrayers of the covenant: that they may travel freely for four months.

In summary: this verse has been cherry-picked and utterly misrepresented.
 
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