Hudson Jones

Don't be naive. It's not religion. The 9/11 attackers were not religious. The motivation is revenge for what the West has done or what they think the West is responsible for: In Osama Bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to America", he explicitly stated that al-Qaeda's motives for their attacks include: Western support for attacking Muslims in Somalia, supporting Russian atrocities against Muslims in Chechnya, supporting the Indian oppression against Muslims in Kashmir, the Jewish aggression against Muslims in Lebanon, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, US support of Israel, and sanctions against Iraq. Link

I agree 100%. Canada should do the right thing. However, Canada doesn't really have a role or influence in this matter, right? So why even talk about them in this context?

It increases the chances of it happening. Kind of like the French and Belgium nationals who carried out the Paris attacks. It takes one lone pissed off impressionable kid, to be embraced by the terrorist organizations and then learn to make a bomb in his basement in Kentucky, to make a huge impact. The point is that discrimination and marginalizing a group of people is not only the wrong thing to do morally but it's also counterproductive.

The Saudi monarchs support the Wahabists/Salafist tribes who directly support ISIS. The reason the monarchs turn a blind eye and give these tribes money, is to control their urge to revolt against them. They have been doing this since Saudi Arabia was created. The Saudi kings, much like many other monarchs and dictators were planted by the British. This is sort of like how the West, lead by U.S. and the U.K. turn a blind eye to Saudi monarch's indirect support for ISIS. The Saudis have stable oil, money and they use this money to buy billions in weapons from U.S., the U.K., France and other European countries. The military industrial complex needs to be fed and it's rare that you will see any Western government jeopardizing these contracts. So what will U.S. do? They certainly will not jeopardize the billions in military contracts to do the right thing; Which is to cut ties with one of the worst human rights abusers and the biggest funder of terrorist groups. Iran, with or without U.S. coming in, is going to go through big changes. Europeans are already signing contracts with them as it's one of the biggest untouched markets in the world with a highly educated young population ready to burst. Most likely, the U.S. will not take any sides. They'll continue to enjoy the divisions and instability of the middle east, which means they can sell more weapons, and then once the sanctions are officially lifted, the floodgates will open and the corporations will be rushing into Iran to set-up shops.

So what are you trying to say? It's okay to discriminate against them? That they should just take it? It sounds like you are trying to excuse the bigotry and discrimination against Muslims. But anyway, there is already a fairly large number of Muslims in the U.S. army. Back in word war 2, alone, there were over 15000 Arab American, in which the majority were Muslims serving in the U.S. military. What about when U.S. were engaged in questionable wars, against Muslim countries? The number of enlisted Muslim Americans in the U.S. military has increased substantially since these previous wars. According to Department of Defense figures, more than 3,500 Muslims fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Link

Discrimination against Muslims have skyrocketed since the Paris attacks. For example, in the UK, it has tripled. You know very well that it's more than some guy insulting someone on a bus. In the U.S., you have a presidential candidate saying Muslims should be banned from entering a country and you have other politicians saying Syrian refugees should be shot in the head. It's become ugly. Really ugly. Marginalization and discrimination based on ignorance and bigotry does nothing to improve the situation. Not to mention that we are continuously bombing Syria and Iraq where at least 200 people a day are being killed. The West's military approach and the discrimination against Muslims is only helping the ISIS recruiters.

When you segregate and isolate a group of people based on the acts of a much smaller group, it's inevitable that they will go towards those who will embrace them. The more Islamophobia increases, the more harassment and discrimination you see towards Muslims, the more bombing of and killing of civilians, the easier it will be for ISIS to recruit.

Nothing will be 'shut down'. It's about going through a faster transition to renewables and finding other ways for our country to make money.

With all the oil being pumped out of the ground around the world, oil prices will continue to stay cheap for many years to come. Especially since Iran is going to be officially coming back into the market. That's a big hit to our economy. The Liberals will have to find a way to diversify our economy. An economy that is too dependent on the energy sector and natural resources. Renewable energy is obviously something that most countries are investing in, so that goes without saying. At the same time, we should be looking at nurturing the tech sector and attracting skilled workers, like engineers and programmers from around the world. We should also look at our agriculture industry. Organic fruits and vegetables, grown in greenhouses is a market that is still young, but has lots of potential. This is something both the feds and the provincial governments should be investing in.

You know how many Muslims ISIS has killed? Thousands more Muslims than non-Muslims. Which again, goes back to the point that some people are unable grasp, for some reason; You cannot equate the ideology and beliefs of everyone, because they are called Muslim. It's ridiculous to do so. "It's a different kind of killing" - C'mon. The reason the killer has created for the killing makes no difference. At the end of the day, a person has been killed. At the end of the day, the person who has been killed has left a son, daughter, sister, brother, father, mother behind. Taking the life of another person is an unnatural act. It cannot be explained away, no matter what the motive is.

That is a total misinformed comment. How can you say that when you obviously haven't even looked at what they're discussing in regards to groups like ISIS? If you did do some looking into, you'd learn that Arabs and Muslims in general distance themselves from these crazy groups.

Islam (yes, I know, I'm allowing the continuation of these superficial little games by generalizing) is no different than other religions. Groups who follow Christianity have killed more people in the 20th century than Islam ever did in its history. I don't have the patience to sit here and pick apart your narrow-minded and shallow view of people and history. Not today anyway.

You go ahead and label yourself all you want. I rather not allow labels and groups to define my thoughts and ideas.

Just in this thread alone, there has been displays of generalizations, bigotry in different degrees.

Free speech, criticism and debating is good. Generalization based on ignorance is a waste of time and counter productive. The biggest problem here is that there are people who label and generalize and "paint a whole group with one stroke". I know Muslims and I know how wrong these bigots are. I am not going to accept grouping 1.5 billion as one. I am not going to accept, expecting Muslims to apologize for extremists.

I don't equate ISIS to Muslims. That's a shallow way of looking at the world. Radical Islam is an issue, but so is our foreign policy. We have to look at the different reasons why there is radicalism in the Middle East and its ability to recruit and draw people. Contrary to what some say here, that it's the Koran that turns people like this, I believe our policies are the major reason. Everything from wars that destabilize the area, to supporting dictators and to turning a blind eye to the major supporters of extremist groups like ISIS.

I don't think discrimination and bigotry is acceptable. I am saying that it seems like it is acceptable among a large percentage of people.

I'm sure most of us are witnessing a taste of the increased bigotry towards Muslims from the media, political forums like this and are even seeing it on our social media feeds. These are people who think over 1.5 billion people look, act, feel, eat and sleep the same. It's even worse down south; an eventual presidential candidate is calling to ban Muslims from entering the country, while a lesser known GOP politician says she wants to shoot syrian refugees in the head. I wonder what will be acceptable next.

The whole victim card thing is SO overplayed. Harper stopped taking questions from the media. He muzzled his own party members and even scientists. Try to break away from being another predictable Harper supporter. Here is the media going against Harper the day before the election:

You mean relying on not enough people showing up to vote, vote splitting and on the guaranteed 30% who are easily moved by the trigger words (economy, terrorism, burka). Are they still going to name the airport after him?

Agreed. Even though I see how this could be interpreted as "taxpayer funded childcare", I can't really accept that the UCCB is equivalent to the nannies, who are considered as domestic staff for the Prime Minister. I have no problem calling out hypocrisy when I see it, but I just don't see this as hypocrisy. The UCCB is a program for all Canadians, while having staff at the Prime Minister's home is only an exclusive option for the PM. My understanding is that Trudeau disagreed with the wealthy receiving the same tax break as those who have a lower family income. I just don't see the hypocrisy.

White crackheads.

Hilarious. I am curious as to who was pushing "for something, anything" to happen. I am curious to see if Harper, who worked so hard to make us live in fear had a hand in this.

I don't want to waste any more energy on the ugliness of humans (at least for today). I rather think about the good:

The over 1 million Muslims in Canada. There are doctors, engineers, teachers, civil servants, etc. What is the upside of you being in Canada?