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Notes -
Going to jump in with what I want to see discussed:
Police and political leaders in Northern Ireland call for calm after Belfast knife attack.
What we know is that a MENA immigrant has attacked a native in the street, gouged out his eyes, and was attempting to behead him when stopped by passers-by.
Details beyond that seem shaky. I've seen the attacker described as Somali, though Sudanese is more consistent. I've seen the victim described as a man in his 40s, though 15-year old boy is also popular. And I've seen that the victim's life was saved, but also that he's perished in the hospital.
What's certain is that the major concern of the people in charge is, of course, that this is liable to upset the native population.
Perhaps that's more understandable than usual because of where it happened. Belfast! A storied town. Across twitter I see various historically-enemy paramilitary sympathizers calling to set aside their differences and unite against the common enemy; that it doesn't matter who controls Northern Ireland unless there's any such place left to save.
Last I heard, all major transport routes into and out of the city have been shut down, businesses are forced to close at 17:30, and curfews have been established. The place seems to be gearing up for major rioting.
Is it just me or have the straws been landing more heavily, lately, on the camel's back?
And, provided that the historically-armed underground belligerent factions of the area haven't withered into insignificance; provided that they do get serious about uniting and using force; might they serve as a template, or at least an inspiration, for other places?
I believe Kulak once predicted that the flashpoint for organized European resistance would happen in Northern Ireland.
I responded to FtttG here before realizing why there was so little action in that thread.
Tl;dr
Seriously, social media is probably the worst way to learn about public opinion. Unfortunately, most of the public which is opining probably got the idea through social media.
This is still pretty silly. If the IRA is plotting a cooperative pogrom, they’re not doing it on Twitter.
Just you. Belfast has a smaller total population than LA’s black population. In the 90s. I’m not expecting to see anything remotely on the scale of the ‘92 riots.
Kulak predicts a lot of things. I don’t know that he’s been right yet. I’d take the other side of this bet.
With respect, I think you are falling into the centrist trap. Twitter isn't radicalising people. All the horrible murders are radicalising people. Twitter is merely declining to censor them afterwards.
Again, it's not about the discourse, it's about the horrible murders. I don't think you're a leftist shill but I think you are okay, fundamentally, with this kind of thing happening. That doesn't mean that you wouldn't fix it if you could snap your fingers and magically prevent all horrible murders, but ultimately you seem to prefer all the horrible murders to any of the things that would prevent the horrible murders.
If "calling for calm" means "calmly discussing how we are going to begin repatriating these people" then that's fair enough, but otherwise "it's good that politicians are calling for calm" does absolutely translate to "I want you to sit down and do nothing". That's not a discourse thing. That's a basic divergence of political preferences.
Why do you call that "the centrist trap"?
Because it’s a mental trap I see friends and family who think of themselves at centrists fall into a lot.
Something along the lines of:
In short, blaming the discourse for popular upset flatters centrist sensibilities/*, gives an excuse for authoritarian action to silence the scary people before they ruin everything, and best of all it’s sometimes correct. So it’s very alluring.
* like all of us, centrists are only human
Perhaps a misleading phrasing I admit.
Got it. Yeah, I just asked because I sometimes call myself a centrist but I don't make those kinds of arguments. It's certainly possible that the majority of centrists would make such arguments, though.
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