Van hits multiple pedestrians in Toronto

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by transplant99

So you are upset that ISIS was incorrectly assumed to be behind this?

Why?

When I first read and saw this I to thought it looked like something they have done before all over the world. Dozens of times.

Screw ISIS and everything to do with them. Why do they deserve any sort of protection from a rush to judgement by some, when they have been responsible for the rape and murder of thousands of innocent people?

There's a huge difference between claiming it was probably ISIS and what happened early in this thread with statements of "You can guess what religion this guy was".

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by jayswin

There's a huge difference between claiming it was probably ISIS and what happened early in this thread with statements of "You can guess what religion this guy was".

Agreed, but he was stating that because there was no mention of ISIS then assuming they could be associated with this, he is a bigot.

Just weird to me.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by transplant99

So you are upset that ISIS was incorrectly assumed to be behind this?

Why?

When I first read and saw this I to thought it looked like something they have done before all over the world. Dozens of times.

Screw ISIS and everything to do with them. Why do they deserve any sort of protection from a rush to judgement by some, when they have been responsible for the rape and murder of thousands of innocent people?

Because it leads to blaming Muslims and the Islam religion for all terrorist attacks. In Canada we had the Parliment Hill shooting and the Edmonton attacks as Isis motivated. Outside of those two we have a history of all kinds of grounds from Air India, to Polytechnic, to the mosque shooting to this van rampage. Isis motivated attacks are not the majority of fatalities in Canadian Terror events.

So saying I bet I know the religion of this guy is hate filled bigotry.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

These guys can't climb the dominance hierarchy in society so they lash out. Not sure what the solution is, by nature there are more men than women because some of us are supposed to die off in conflict.

The Star Chamber may have a use after all.

Seriously though, how does anyone help this kind of individual? This is not a mental health issue, (though I can most certainly see where those with such issues could fall into this kind of thing fairly easily) so interventions are out.

Im not even sure how you would identify guys like this unless they are posting their picture/info with the kind of talk these cowards like to display while anonymous.

[FlamesAddiction]

Ugh, keep in mind that I can't find a reliable source for this, but a few people told me today that rumours are flying that 2 infants were killed.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by GGG

Because it leads to blaming Muslims and the Islam religion for all terrorist attacks. In Canada we had the Parliment Hill shooting and the Edmonton attacks as Isis motivated. Outside of those two we have a history of all kinds of grounds from Air India, to Polytechnic, to the mosque shooting to this van rampage. Isis motivated attacks are not the majority of fatalities in Canadian Terror events.

So saying I bet I know the religion of this guy is hate filled bigotry.

All ISIS are Muslim, all Muslim are not ISIS.

So if you assume ISIS was behind the attack yesterday (again much like we have seen them do dozens of times world wide) you are not assuming all muslims were behind the attack, only that the group of muslims that are indeed ISIS were.

This is nothing close to "hate filled bigotry".

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Ugh, keep in mind that I can't find a reliable source for this, but a few people told me today that rumours are flying that 2 infants were killed.

I saw an interview with an eyewitness...he stated he saw a stroller flying through the air.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by transplant99

So you are upset that ISIS was incorrectly assumed to be behind this?

Why?

When I first read and saw this I to thought it looked like something they have done before all over the world. Dozens of times.

Screw ISIS and everything to do with them. Why do they deserve any sort of protection from a rush to judgement by some, when they have been responsible for the rape and murder of thousands of innocent people?

Screw ISIS and everything to do with them. On that point, you and I are in absolute agreement. I will push back against people who automatically assume every terrorist attack was perpetrated by a follower of the Islam religion, though, and I especially push back against people who then use that as an excuse to spew hatred at random Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist terrorism. It has a huge negative impact on innocent lives when people rush to judgement and assume every terrorist attack was committed by a Muslim, so don't do that.

One of my best friends was born in the Middle East but immigrated to Canada with her family as a toddler. She has no memory of her birth country, and Canada is the only home she's ever known. She grew up in Toronto and moved to Calgary as an adult. As I'm sure you can imagine, hearing the news that her hometown was the site of a terrible mass killing hit her pretty hard. Beyond that, though, the news meant something else for her yesterday: fear. Even though she is non-religious and doesn't wear any paraphernalia that could identify her as a believer in any faith, she has brown skin and a foreign-sounding name, so everyone assumes she's a Muslim. Almost every single day of her life, she's subjected to a moderate amount of bigotry, but she's learned how to tune it out for the most part. Whenever there's a terrorist attack, though, the hate she receives from complete strangers goes up to 11, and she becomes genuinely concerned for her own safety. Almost everyone with brown skin will tell you they've experienced the same thing.

When leaving her workplace yesterday evening, she had to ask security to escort her to the CTrain station. She spent the train ride home worried that some random bigot was going to assault her verbally or physically in a reprisal attack (thankfully this didn't happen). Now, a day later, we know the murderer was a white male who was apparently motivated by misogyny rather than religious extremism. Do I, a fellow white male, have to live in fear of reprisal during my commute home from work today? Are random strangers on the street going to hurl invectives at me because I look vaguely like Mr. Minassian? I think you know the answer to those questions.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

Because it leads to blaming Muslims and the Islam religion for all terrorist attacks. In Canada we had the Parliment Hill shooting and the Edmonton attacks as Isis motivated. Outside of those two we have a history of all kinds of grounds from Air India, to Polytechnic, to the mosque shooting to this van rampage. Isis motivated attacks are not the majority of fatalities in Canadian Terror events.

So saying I bet I know the religion of this guy is hate filled bigotry.

C'mon GGG. Was it hasty to assume the attack was by an ISIS zealot or some other radicalized Muslim? Yes. Was it hate filled bigotry to think that was a likely identity of the attacker? Not in world where almost all of the previous mass-murders using that method have been carried out by Islamic radicals.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Screw ISIS and everything to do with them. On that point, you and I are in absolute agreement. I will push back against people who automatically assume every terrorist attack was perpetrated by a follower of the Islam religion, though, and I especially push back against people who then use that as an excuse to spew hatred at random Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist terrorism. It has a huge negative impact on innocent lives when people rush to judgement and assume every terrorist attack was committed by a Muslim, so don't do that.

One of my best friends was born in the Middle East but immigrated to Canada with her family as a toddler. She has no memory of her birth country, and Canada is the only home she's ever known. She grew up in Toronto and moved to Calgary as an adult. As I'm sure you can imagine, hearing the news that her hometown was the site of a terrible mass killing hit her pretty hard. Beyond that, though, the news meant something else for her yesterday: fear. Even though she is non-religious and doesn't wear any paraphernalia that could identify her as a believer in any faith, she has brown skin and a foreign-sounding name, so everyone assumes she's a Muslim. Almost every single day of her life, she's subjected to a moderate amount of bigotry, but she's learned how to tune it out for the most part. Whenever there's a terrorist attack, though, the hate she receives from complete strangers goes up to 11, and she becomes genuinely concerned for her own safety. Almost everyone with brown skin will tell you they've experienced the same thing.

When leaving her workplace yesterday evening, she had to ask security to escort her to the CTrain station. She spent the train ride home worried that some random bigot was going to assault her verbally or physically in a reprisal attack (thankfully this didn't happen). Now, a day later, we know the murderer was a white male who was apparently motivated by misogyny rather than religious extremism. Do I, a fellow white male, have to live in fear of reprisal during my commute home from work today? Are random strangers on the street going to hurl invectives at me because I look vaguely like Mr. Minassian? I think you know the answer to those questions.

Dont disagree with a single thing you said.

I will leave it at this though,

Anyone who assumed yesterdays attack was perpetrated by ISIS had every reason to do so. Its in their history...repeatedly.

[CliffFletcher]

Today's Globe & Mail has a good take on this:

When young men play the victim – and then take the lives of others

...Ideologies that encourage young men to turn their personal dissatisfaction into violence promote self-victimization without restraint. This is true even for ideologies that are superficially very different from one another. As Amarnath Amarasingam and Julia Ebner of the counter-extremism organization ISD have explained, the worldviews of extremist groups are “terrifyingly intertwined.” Jihadist groups such as the Islamic State, for instance, promote a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam by convincing young Muslims (who are often recent religious converts) they are unhappy because Europe and North America are prejudiced, hateful places for Muslims. Far-right extremists and neo-Nazis similarly tell young white men that life is difficult because immigrants and diversity advocates are turning the West into a prejudiced, hateful place for whites...

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Anyone who assumed yesterdays attack was perpetrated by ISIS had every reason to do so. Its in their history...repeatedly.

Why would anyone assume these murders were perpetrated by ISIS rather than by a neo-Nazi like the vehicle attack at Charlottesville last summer? Or by a racist bigot like Dylann Roof who murdered a bunch of African Americans in their Charleston church in 2015? Or by a misogynist like Elliot Rodger in 2014 (or the Polytechnique killer before him in 1989)? Or by someone whose motives remain unknown, like the 2017 Las Vegas shooter? Or by any number of spree shooters in the US, almost all of whom are white males. It seems to me that when it comes to indiscriminate mass killings on North American soil, white men are far more likely to be the murderers than Muslim extremists are, so why is the automatic assumption to blame ISIS rather than a white man? It's in their history...repeatedly.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Why would anyone assume these murders were perpetrated by ISIS rather than by a neo-Nazi like the vehicle attack at Charlottesville last summer? Or by a racist bigot like Dylann Roof who murdered a bunch of African Americans in their Charleston church in 2015? Or by a misogynist like Elliot Rodger in 2014 (or the Polytechnique killer before him in 1989)? Or by someone whose motives remain unknown, like the 2017 Las Vegas shooter? Or by any number of spree shooters in the US, almost all of whom are white males. It seems to me that when it comes to indiscriminate mass killings on North American soil, white men are far more likely to be the murderers than Muslim extremists are, so why is the automatic assumption to blame ISIS rather than a white man? It's in their history...repeatedly.

I think because of the method. Using a van to ram people. It's disgusting and largely used and espoused by ISIS.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

C'mon GGG. Was it hasty to assume the attack was by an ISIS zealot or some other radicalized Muslim? Yes. Was it hate filled bigotry to think that was a likely identity of the attacker? Not in world where almost all of the previous mass-murders using that method have been carried out by Islamic radicals.

Typically what the bigots do is use this as a launching point to spew their invective about the religion as a whole. We've seen it here unfortunately whenever there are these horrible events.

They can't wait to spread their hate filled agenda and the garbage ISIS types are their opening.

And as MarchHare posted this has real consequences for innocent people who have to live in fear of potential reprisal. It's not just words on an internet forum... it's unfortunately defenceless people who bear the brunt.

So thinking it was ISIS immediately after in this case is not the issue. It's those that conflate it with all the members in the religion. Scumbag cowards like to do this.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

I think because of the method. Using a van to ram people. It's disgusting and largely used and espoused by ISIS.

True, it may have been popularized by ISIS, but now that that method of mass killing is widely known, anyone can use it. And indeed, we saw a neo-Nazi commit murder by plowing a vehicle into a crowd of people less than a year ago.

[meritmat]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Why would anyone assume these murders were perpetrated by ISIS rather than by a neo-Nazi like the vehicle attack at Charlottesville last summer? Or by a racist bigot like Dylann Roof who murdered a bunch of African Americans in their Charleston church in 2015? Or by a misogynist like Elliot Rodger in 2014 (or the Polytechnique killer before him in 1989)? Or by someone whose motives remain unknown, like the 2017 Las Vegas shooter? Or by any number of spree shooters in the US, almost all of whom are white males. It seems to me that when it comes to indiscriminate mass killings on North American soil, white men are far more likely to be the murderers than Muslim extremists are, so why is the automatic assumption to blame ISIS rather than a white man? It's in their history...repeatedly.

Like a few people said using a vehicle is been very common in Europe. On top of that Canada became a target when they intervened in The flight to destroy ISIS.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

True, it may have been popularized by ISIS, but now that that method of mass killing is widely known, anyone can use it. And indeed, we saw a neo-Nazi commit murder by plowing a vehicle into a crowd of people less than a year ago.

In addition, this method was actually used multiple times by ISIS AFTER it had been used in multiple terrorist attacks between 2016-2017.

ISIS isn’t even the most common perpetrator of this method.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

In addition, this method was actually used multiple times by ISIS AFTER it had been used in multiple terrorist attacks between 2016-2017.

ISIS isn’t even the most common perpetrator of this method.

Which non-ISIS attacks do you mean?

I do draw a distinction between the ISIS ones and Charlottesville. The Charlottesville one, I seem to recall, was a crime of opportunity of sorts - a spur of the moment decision to plow into a crowd that was there. There's a key methodological difference between that and a pre-planned attack.

However, you still shouldn't guess before the facts come out. Always wait for information and make judgments when you have the facts. Especially now, when so much misinformation gets thrown around in the wake of a disaster or attack like this. Any a-hole can look at an ISIS van attack and think "that seems like a good way to kill unsuspecting innocent people", there's nothing inherently ideological about the method. I don't think it's bigoted to jump to a conclusion based on past evidence, but it is dumb. Just wait.

[missdpuck]

Originally Posted by transplant99

So you are upset that ISIS was incorrectly assumed to be behind this?



Why?



When I first read and saw this I to thought it looked like something they have done before all over the world. Dozens of times.



Screw ISIS and everything to do with them. Why do they deserve any sort of protection from a rush to judgement by some, when they have been responsible for the rape and murder of thousands of innocent people?

When I read the post my first thought was of Sam Harris making a similar statement in “The End of Faith”.


Sent from my Princess phone

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Why would anyone assume these murders were perpetrated by ISIS rather than by a neo-Nazi like the vehicle attack at Charlottesville last?

AFAIK...Neo nazis have driven a car into a crowd ....once. Ever. During neonazi demonstrations with thousnads of opponents around them.

Had they been demonstrating in Toronto yesterday with thousands of counter-protestors there against them...then yes that too would be a reasonable assumption.

However, we have seen, literally, dozens of these types of attacks, usually with a van IIRC, in the middle of large metropolitan cities worldwide, unprovoked and out of the blue in random busy street...and almost unanimously it was ISIS/Radical Muslim group related.

Yes or no? This was nothing new unfortunately and almost ALWAYS it comes down to one very effed up group. That fact simply cannot be ignored.

Had this been a random mass shooting somewhere in the states, i doubt many would immediately go to ISIS as a culprit, as this type of attack is usually young white guy.

So I am not sure why you cant see how the actual type of event has a bearing on where someone might start to go to in wondering who did it.

This is not hard. In fact it is in their marching orders from the leadership.

In September 2014, ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani called for lone wolf attacks using improvised weaponry, "If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock or slaughter him with a knife or run him over with your car or throw him down from a high place or choke him or poison him."