Mayor Peduto Wants The Syrian Refugees To Come To Pittsburgh (Lebanon: living in, military)

[ny789987]

Originally Posted by eschaton

In contrast, terrorists are almost always unattached young men.

Most of the refugees are unattached young men by the way. But even if that wasn't the case tell that to the White Widow Samantha Lewthwaite, who has murdered 400 people after becoming a key figure in jihadist terror group al Shabaab. Tell that to the citizens of Israel who have been blown up by young jihadi juniors as young as 13 years old. As much as ISIS enjoyed hitting France, they would love nothing more than to hit the U.S.A. and will employ any means necessary to do so including recruiting women and children to do so.

[Goinback2011]

Originally Posted by eschaton

1. My understanding is that the U.S. is concentrating on accepting "special needs" refugees with disabilities.

2. Most refugees are families with small children. In contrast, terrorists are almost always unattached young men.

3. Unlike Europe, we have the ability to control who gets into the U.S. from overseas pretty well. We will presumably be screening the migrants.

4. Going the Syrian refugee route would be too obvious. Why wouldn't ISIS try with some Bosnian or Black Muslim converts or something.

You have no idea if the ''US is concentrating on accepting special needs refugees''. That's completely made up.

Most refugees in Europe are young men.

We have no ability to screen them as the country is in civil war and there are no databases documenting them.

Nothing in life is certain of course. But even if we did have a terrorist attack on a similar scope to Paris, accepting the refugees would be worth it, as long as more innocent Syrians were saved than Americans who died.

Nice. Do you feel the same way about the lives of your wife and kids? Do they know? Or is it just other Pittsburghers that don't matter? It's one thing to be willing to sacrifice you own life, but to be willing to sacrifice those in your city for your beliefs? It's just detestable.

[Merge]

Originally Posted by Craziaskowboi

I've been debating people about this elsewhere, and I believe it's a matter of natural rights versus legal rights. The right to life, liberty and property are natural rights that can never be taken away from anybody. On the other hand, freedom of religion is a legal right, and those who abuse it deserve to have it taken away. The problem is, when militant Muslims practice their religion the way they choose, it results in massive loss of life, liberty and property, which means they're abusing the freedom of religion that the Western world affords them. Other people's natural rights supersede their legal rights. If Muslims want to practice their religion freely, then they can practice it peacefully, without violating the natural rights of others. If they refuse to do that, then they don't deserve the legal right to freedom of religion, because they brazenly interfere with other people's natural right to life, liberty and property.

I appreciate your willingness to discuss the situation in an analytical way, but "natural rights" vs "legal rights" doesn't seem to offer much insight.

"Life, liberty and property"? Way too vague. Our legal rights are a specific articulation of the purposefully vague concept of "natural rights". They aren't two mutually exclusive classifications of rights that you can compare and contrast.

I don't even know if you would even support the natural extension of your post. Are you for the death penalty, for instance? What about eminent domain when it comes to the arrest of drug dealers/organized crime figures?

There are way too many gray areas for this arbitrary "natural rights vs. legal rights" formulation to make any sense of the complicated issues discussed in this thread.

[SammyKhalifa]

SS St Louis: The ship of Jewish refugees nobody wanted

[Blackbeauty212]

If they'll scare all the Yinzers out to Beaver and Butler counties... I say bring'em on .... Where they can sulk in fear with their Guns and drink endless counts of Faux News BS!

America already dangerous threat to itself by its own natural born citizens ..... More worried about "Bruce" finding his fathers AR-15 and blowing away movie theater full of people just wanting to have a enjoyable evening out.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

If they'll scare all the Yinzers out to Beaver and Butler counties... I say bring'em on .... Where they can sulk in fear with their Guns and drink endless counts of Faux News BS!

America already dangerous threat to itself by its own natural born citizens ..... More worried about "Bruce" finding his fathers AR-15 and blowing away movie theater full of people just wanting to have a enjoyable evening out.

I don't know that anybody in Butler or Beaver County that's scared about it. After all, they're not going to target those areas.

[SammyKhalifa]

Originally Posted by erieguy

I don't know that anybody in Butler or Beaver County that's scared about it.

You don't talk to very many people then.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

You don't talk to very many people then.

You talk to people thinking they're going to target Butler or Beaver County?

I'm sure many are concerned about the city being targeted, however.

[Der Schwabe]

I'm far more concerned with home grown right wing extremism and far right terror that exacts a far greater toll on our country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us...or-threat.html

But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center.

We've taken in refugees from the middle east for a decade. 750,000 of them and not a single attack and only two arrests. And here is information regarding the actual process used to screen refugees, rather than these utterly ridiculous right wing screeds.

The Economist explains: Why America does not take in more Syrian refugees | The Economist

After refugees are referred by an American embassy or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, they are screened by Department of State Resettlement Service Centers all over the world. They undergo multiple investigations of their biographies; biometric checks of their fingerprints and photographs; in-depth interviews by highly trained Department of Homeland Security officers; medical screenings as well as investigations by the National Counterterrorism Center and by intelligence agencies. The entire process can take longer than three years.

If a potential terrorist is determined to enter America to do harm, there are easier and faster ways to get there than by going through the complex refugee resettlement process. Of the almost 750,000 refugees who have been admitted to America since 9/11, only two Iraqis have arrested on terrorist charges; they had not planned an attack in America, but aided al-Qaeda at home. Syrians in America have fared better than other groups of refugees, integrating quickly and finding work. Some have done very well indeed: the father of Steve Jobs, the ground-breaking innovator and founder of Apple, was a refugee from Syria. And the mother of Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian, is of Jewish Syrian descent.

Come to think of it, UKYank: can we see your papers, please? Far right extremists of British extraction aren't really what we're looking for. They are some of the the most sexist, homophobic & racist group of people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. We have plenty of that here already.

[UKyank]

If they go anywhere it's just going to be the poor areas of the city hence why most posters don't care as they see little actually affecting themselves.