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Notes -
UK, are you OK?
Labour councillor calls for people to 'cut the throats' of 'Nazis and fascists'
Suspended Labour councillor arrested over video ‘urging people to cut throats’
Probably anyone reading this is familiar with the story so far: three gradeschool children in Southport were knifed to death, and ten others injured, on July 29th at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club. The alleged perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, is reportedly the son of Rwandan immigrants and was 17 years old at the time of the incident, but has apparently since passed his 18th birthday. The events, allegedly in part as the result of some false reporting concerning Axel's identity, led to a number of protests, which led to a number of counterprotests.
Why would you counterprotest a protest against the knifing of schoolgirls? Well, apparently the original protests were racist. It's pretty important to not be racist. Sufficiently important, I suppose, that people would rather talk about that, than about the dead schoolchildren who, but for recent immigration from Africa, would likely still be alive. Not that Axel is an immigrant, of course. He was born on the magic soil of the UK, so it's apparently racist to notice that his parents weren't. I saw one article suggesting he might be autistic? Good sources are hard to find.
That brings us to the current events! Labour councillor Ricky Jones apparently found some inspiration in Axel's extracurricular activities, as he is very clearly articulating additional knife violence as the proper response to people protesting the murder of little girls. I actually had a surprisingly difficult time finding the original video; most of the articles throwing around the word "alleged" did not judge me fit to judge for myself. I assume Ricky was born tone deaf because throat cutting seems like an especially poor choice of words given the circumstances--though I guess I don't know for certain that Axel managed any literal throat cutting in the process of (EDIT: ALLEGEDLY) butchering schoolchildren. The UK does not have any particularly meaningful or toothy Free Speech legislation, either, though in this particular case I can imagine Mr. Jones facing consequences even here in the United States. Remind me, is it still okay to call for the punching of U.S. Nazis? Was it ever? I seem to have lost track.
Axel's knifework is not being treated as a terrorist attack (yet?), but here's where things get weird.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
Taylor Swift shows in Vienna canceled over alleged planned terrorist attack
Suspects in foiled attack on Taylor Swift shows were inspired by Islamic State group, officials say
Will we hear more about Axel's motivations? I suppose Taylor Swift is just so famous that at this point any plot to kill large numbers of people would, statistically, run into Taylor Swift events eventually. But now I'm wondering if Axel was just, you know, reading the same weird terrorist handbook as the Austrian terrorists. They were even the same age--the two arrested in Vienna are 19 years old and 17 years old. If I had a nickel for every time a 17 year old boy tried to murder Swifties en masse, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice!
I'm sure much smarter and well-connected analysts out there are way ahead of me on this one. And probably it's nothing! And it wouldn't really matter if it was something, beyond maybe bankrupting a handful of Taylor Swift event ticket scalpers in the near future. But it's all very weird.
Especially the part where counterprotesters started literally calling for and cheering on more knifings.
The anti-immigration argument expressed in this post seems too strong. It seems to be along the lines of if there is any kind of downside from immigration then immigration is bad. But I don't think this is a realistic benchmark for any government policy. The positives have to be weighed against the negatives. Maybe certain classes of immigrants are net-negative and a better immigration policy would be able to discriminate against these people but I don't think the UK is at the point where all immigration is net-negative.
Do you see this "better" immigration policy on the horizon anywhere in Europe? Is anyone calling for cutting out sub-Saharan Africans or MENA migrants specifically while maintaining your hypothetical improved immigration system?
If not, why not?
Poland welcomed $BIGNUM Ukrainians while having limited enthusiasm about other migrants and being poorer than Germany, Sweden and UK and therefore migrants themselves preferring to go elsewhere?
Note also border wall and illegal pushbacks of migrants imported by Łukaszenko and Putin (with illegality ignored by basically everyone, including EU).
EU is busy bribing countries in north Africa and Turkey so they will apply violence to keep migrants out.
I suspect that’s going to bite Poland in the ass eventually, but for different reasons.
Do you have specific predictions in which way it will go wrong?
they are selected for "we run away from war", and for "fuck Russia" part there will be no to little disagreement
no idea why they would activate after Ukraine loses (and I guess that if they want they could go to East as partisans)
nope, it is not
It is Russia who invaded because they could not accept not being a superpower anymore
alternative (helping Russia to be superpower or pretending it is) would be worse
what would be even motive, reasoning and strategy here?
Which one? Because it ranges from "utterly impractical in covert terrorism" and "they had it already" with side of "trying to do MH17 will end with partitioning your country if you are Ukraine, not Russia".
Well, the United States overthrew their government to replace it with one less neutral to Russia, then they pressured them to be more and more militant towards Russia while arming them to the teeth, then after the invasion Boris Johnson scotched the potential peace deal, then the lead Ukrainian negotiator got mysteriously shot in the head, then NATO law makers procrastinated for 9 months before sending any of significant armaments they promised, so I would say it’s true.
Anger when they realize they got their country destroyed based on a bunch of fake promises from people who didn’t really care about them at all.
As for your first point, the normal people will all have to stay behind and suffer but the ideological hardliners like what’s left of Azov Battalion will probably make it out. Those types usually do.
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