[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Good post, but frankly those statistics would likely support isolationist policy. Why? Because when you look at the number of attacks purported by Islamic extremists outside of the U.S., the figures would look much different. Based on the dialogue, it would appear that Americans want their terrorists to be of the ####oo white variety, not the Virgin aeekinbrg brown variety. What a joke!

Actually, that would be just the opposite. The greater threat is domestic, still from radical extremists, but domestic. The fact they are white is irrelevant, the fact they are extremist in nature is relevant. This extremism is going to exist in every country so your argument of including Mulsim acts of terror and not others is specious. Radicalism in the general culture exists across Europe and violence is pervasive there as well.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...ing_extremism/
http://www.dw.com/en/right-wing-extr...ort/a-18554812
http://sciencenordic.com/more-extrem...en-and-finland

I think you need to look at the root cause of radicalism itself, but for the most part the media does not present the details to allow people to develop a comprehensive understanding of the issue. This article presents some of those back stories and why radicalization continues to gain traction.

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/14/our_..._at_ourselves/

But let's not kid ourselves that jihadism is not an issue. The conflicts that are eradicating any sort of economic opportunity, any sort of cultural stability, and creating mass killing and mass migration crises ... It has to be addressed.

Jihadism is a symptom, not the disease. Radicalism is the disease and the only thing that will change radicalism is education and that opportunity you speak of. Sadly, opportunity will never present itself without proper education.

Sam Harris and Douglas Murray had an interesting conversation on this recently, a worthwhile listen: http://www.samharris.org/podcast/ite...f-civilization

I love Harris, who is a great thinker, but the cold hard reality about thinkers like this is they are too rational. They think people are prudent, intelligent and rational. This is grossly false. The vast majority of people are thoughtless, ignorant and irrational. Most importantly, people are emotional. The only way you can achieve the state of zen that Harris scribes to is to become extremely well educated, well read, and well traveled. That doesn't happen in the "egalitarian West" let alone the Middle or Far East where education opportunities are not available to the masses. Harris knows this! He's a neuroscientist! He knows how and why we are wired they way we are! So his rationalism gets old at times, especially when he knows we're dealing with the uneducated and people who have only read one book, if they can read at all. Sam needs to get down to the basics of what causes extremism and fundamentalism. That is where we find the root problem, both in the Middle East and in the church just down the street here in North America.