When Power wants something

Posted by Spandrell on

So there's been another Islamic terrorist attack, this time in Spain. A dozen dead. This time though, funnily, the terrorists didn't kill themselves. They're still on the loose. Apparently the main actor is a 17 year old Moroccan. Even if they catch him, as a minor he'll probably get a slap in the wrist and some community service.

After Charlottesville, people should have noticed that when Power wants something, it gets it. It will take any means necessary, put any resources needed to achieve it. If the Power in the West wanted to get rid of Islamic terrorism, it could do it.

As an example, China wants to get rid of Islamic terrorism. Pretty damn strongly. So what do they do?

I just love this picture. The huge banner on the mosque says: Love the Party, Love the Country. On a mosque. In rural Kashgar. Which is 100% Uyghur. Look at it again. "Love the party". They don't say that back in China proper. In Beijing you would get laughed at for being so in your face. But the Uyghurs must take it.

This of course is enforced by a huge security apparatus, killing suspects on sight, and a police state that would've scared the shit out of Orwell. You haven't seen Internet control like China's. Although I hear Germany's is getting close.

So anyway, it isn't hard. Xinjiang is 50% Muslim, and increasingly so. But China will take care of it. It can be done. When there's a will. In Europe there obviously isn't.

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  • [] When Power wants something []

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    • All correct but for this: "So anyway, it isn’t hard. Xinjiang is 50% Muslim, and increasingly so. But China will take care of it. It can be done. When there’s a will. In Europe there obviously isn’t." There is no will because Power does not want to deal with the situation - yet - because it is not in the interests. However, even if the left do maintain power then one day they will do something about it, but it will not be like the Chinese. It will be a mixture of co-opting Muslim women, creating a Muslim middle-class and for those Muslim men who refuse, they will allow them to create a pointless political party and for the violent - they will be sent to medical institutions.

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      • I'm not sure there's enough money around to create a Black middle-class, a Muslim middle-class and a Hispanic middle-class on the public purse.

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        • A Chinese scholar (graduate-level exchange student/postdoc) is in the U.S. studying "non-profits." Such a person is writing a draft of a scholarly paper apologizing for Mao's ban on non-governmental charitable organizations, where the ban had been lifted only recently and the paper is the telling of the great things now taking place in China. Has that person "gone Progressive"? Is that person trying to be polite to U.S. university hosts? Is that person faithful to the current CCP party line in criticizing Mao, much like Krushchev initiated criticism of Stalin? This relates to subject at hand of the hard line of the CCP on cultural diversity. Without attribution and through a "cut out", I suggested that there may been pragmatic reasons to keep the NGOs out -- the experience of Myanmar as explained here comes to mind -- and that the paper need not belabor the criticism of Mao on this particular point. The author is probably wondering "why am I being told this" -- if she only knew, if she only knew.

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          • In the US? we don't have enough money to create much of a middle class period wages measured as percentage of GDP are less than half what they were in the 1970's and the number of people on welfare /food aid,/underemployed for their skill level even ignoring population aging is enormous

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            • Agreed, so there strategy there is not likely to work, so more medical institutions then!

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          • The interesting thing is that the CCP has effectively dissuaded the muslims from congregating in mosques By showing Islam as powerless in the face of the CCP. Who wants to associate with the powerless? If you don't have a place to congregate, you're dead. And India thinks they can beat China! Hahahahaha!

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            • Beat China at what? Invade Tibet and take it over?

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              • Win a glorious war to save the future of democracy or something like that.

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                • I guess it could relate to the ongoing border dispute.

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                  • No, India doesn't do conquest. Can't do conquest. Beating China means preventing China from grabbing the north east India and all of Ladakh. No chance given current trends being projected into the future.

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                    • No way China wants the Northeast. They'd build some puppet state or something. Ladakh they probably should take, and give Kashmir to the Pakis.

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                      • Should take Ladakh and give Kashmir to the Pakis? "Should?" WTF!!! You mean "would" take Ladakh and give Kashmir to the Pakis? Replacing the "should" with the "Would" makes more sense. I'm guessing that's what you really mean.

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                        • I'm a fan of China having greater territorial security. Why does India want Ladakh anyway? And why does India want to rule over 10 million Muslims up north in Kashmir? That piece of land is indefensible.

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                          • why does India want Ladakh anyway? Hahaha! Which country does not want more land or to keep what it already has? And If the opinion of the Ladakhis matters at all, they are Tibetan Buddhists and would like to stay with India. As for Kashmir, India only holds part of Kashmir. Kashmir is part of India's folklore and mythology and the point of origin of lot of modern day Indian culture. Losing this entirely to the terrorist state of Pakistan (TSP) will be a huge psychological blow for the Hindus. The part of Kashmir India holds has the Indus River passing through it into Pakistan. This gives us some leverage in dealing with the TSP. Also losing Indian held Kashmir will in turn give the TSP leverage over us since some of our rivers also pass through Indian Kashmir. A leverage they will use with ruthlessness unlike Hindus whose minds have seemingly been crippled permanently by Gandhianism.

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                          • On further thought, you guys can have Ladakh. I had the mistaken idea that Ladakh was mostly Tibetan, but now I see it's full of ethnic Kashmiri Muslims. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Leh\_old\_market.jpg Although I guess those could be sent packing to Pakistan if needed.

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                      • Oops, I forgot to include Sikkim and Bhutan to the earlier list

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                    • When I try to bring up Jim's blog all I get is this: "Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress." ?

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                    • There can be no will as long as there is adherence to the religion of Human Rights. The smartest thing I read on how to renounce this religion in France was written by Pierre Manent in 2015, but he was misunderstood, especially by patriots. They failed to see the upside of granting specific rights and obligations to Muslims, which would be to have the State drawing a formal distinction within the population between Muslims and non-Muslim French people. Contrary to positive discrimination, such a policy would be strictly incompatible with the Human Rights narrative. It would establish an official separation line between "us" and "them". Such an official separation line would accomplish a needed break with Progressivism. China doesn't adhere to human rights, and wisely so. Thus it can discriminate between citizens of different categories.

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                    • No doubt some would be Sardar Patels covet Tibet and view it as naturally part of a future Indian sphere of influence, but really they just want to one up China in something, anything, the latest border impasse being just another excuse. I suspect at this point the issue is no longer about any bit of dirt but more important status which is a finite resource. The Indians have grand ambitions, grander than most Westerners are really aware of, and they crave recognition as a new rising power. The US is either willing to play along with this or just as equally likely as to share India's self conception but the Chinese aren't willing to play ball. This would mean after all a diminishing of their own relative status. The CCP has a low opinion of Indians not shared by the West and certainly not Indians themselves. The average Chinese basically have no conception of India beyond curry, bollywood, and open defecation. The military and foreign affairs bureaucracies on the other hand responsible for India relations does have one, it just so happens to mirror that of the Straits Chinese. They basically see the Indians elites as arrogant but delusional shysters of no account that can be ignored if they don't actively engage in bandwagoning with the US. The caste Hindu both as an individual and as a race has a more than healthy opinion of himself and his own capabilities which has been fueled in no small part by Western flattery. An opinion which they've come to realize the Chinese are openly contemptuous of. This leads to no small amount of resentment which manifests itself in marginal irritants being magnified so that they can claim some type of psychological victory over China by both demonstrating resistance and more importantly to be mentioned in the same sentence and associated with, China.

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                      • Are you mad? Or are you just playing for effect. The Indians are terrified of China. All they want is to not be either an Islamic republic or a Chinese colony in the future. They just want to survive.

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                        • I think perhaps you've spent too much time outside of India or perhaps you've never really belonged as your way of thinking seems to be extremely non-conformist to the standard attitudes I've come across Indians in the decade and a half I've been observing them. Elite Indian attitudes, and basically any English speaking Indian you run across on the internet is an elite, I've found are far from terrified. To be fearful is to have realistic assessment of the likely future and both knowledge of your actual strengths and weaknesses and how affairs could potentially go wrong. Indian elites, as a rule of thumb (9 out of 10) do not seem to be capable of this and instead possess an unfounded degree of hubris, the type of unfounded hubris that resulted in northern India being a quarter Muslim and growing. Indian attitudes towards the Chinese more closely ape their Pakistani Muslim cousins than they would likely care to admit. Rather than fearful, the majority tend to be quite triumphalist. Just as the Pakistani operates from the delusion that one proud Muslim warrior is the equal of ten weak cowardly Hindus, the Hindus themselves seem to believe that one proud Hindu is the equal of ten weak cowardly Hans. They see the social timidity of the average Chinese and lack of verbal faculty particularly with English as glaring weakness in contrast to their more loquacious and self-assured selves. Now granted my observations are derived from observing the Indian Rght, rather than the Indian left. This is mostly because the Indian left are really just brown doppelgangers aping that of the White Western left and are thus mostly uninteresting to me. However with the Congress party in disarray for the forseeable future and the Indian Right now ascendant, I don't feel that this sampling bias is particularly unwarranted.

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                          • I think Lalit once said he was a Dalit, or similar. One of the brown ones — I'm not really familiar with the poo-in-the-loo caste system —, but not quite the native variant, and certainly far more intelligent than the norm for his race.

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                            • Who knows, maybe he's even squatting in a dirt-floored hut somewhere in India on his dial-up mobile phone connection, with none of his friends or relatives even knowing that he can speak English at all.

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                              • Hahaha! I'm not a Dalit, but my caste is the caste of Employees, the Shudras, second from the bottom. Those who survive by means of their skills, be it farming, engineering, manual labor etc. 65% of India is of this caste and we used to make up the biggest chunk of Students (But less than 65%) in the Universities when the British first arrived in India to trade. This Book details the Indian education system as the British found it when they got to India https://archive.org/details/TheBeautifulTree-Dharampal Castes are more like occupational Guilds as in Medieval Europe or Tribes as in Afghanistan. Some scholars say that the Dalits were basically losers in a Civil war that took place long ago and instead of Genociding them as the Europeans did in the Americas (the northern part), they were allowed to live, albeit in a much lower social status.

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                                • Interesting. As far as India's population substructure is concerned, it was obviously formed by waves of invasion by whiter peoples into browner ones, conquistadors before the Spaniards were a thing, and keeping the newly subjugated natives (or "natives") as slaves, or servants and farmers. Replacement colonization as found in North America is an historical anomaly; it might even be unique to the 17th through 19th centuries Anglo left, as even with complete Western domination of the world by various independent groups only those descended from the English had any success: America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It seems to take a fairly distributed sovereignty dominated mainly by yeoman farmers — full-on landed aristocrats have a striking tendency to set up a caste system like the South — and to either successfully break away from the parent power, as in the case of America, or to simply escape effective oversight, as in the cases of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, in the bad old days when communication traveled only as quickly as a letter on the fastest ship and an outsider's visibility into internal matters was nearly zero. Australia can't even have a decent nativist riot nowadays because within a few minutes there's full-HD video in the Imperial Capital.

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                                  • You refer to the Aryan invasion theory that Indian scholars reject categorically. Then there is the out of India theory which claims that modern day Euros originate from the Punjab in India, hence the similarity of some Euro languages to sanskrit.

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                                    • Indian scholars can claim whatever bullshit they like. It's written in the genes.

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                                      • Here's something to read: "The origins and affinities of the ∼1 billion people living on the subcontinent of India have long been contested. This is owing, in part, to the many different waves of immigrants that have influenced the genetic structure of India. In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank. To explore the impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we compared mtDNA (400 bp of hypervariable region 1 and 14 restriction site polymorphisms) and Y-chromosome (20 biallelic polymorphisms and 5 short tandem repeats) variation in ∼265 males from eight castes of different rank to ∼750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians. For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank. Nevertheless, the mitochondrial genome and the Y chromosome each represents only a single haploid locus and is more susceptible to large stochastic variation, bottlenecks, and selective sweeps. Thus, to increase the power of our analysis, we assayed 40 independent, biparentally inherited autosomal loci (1 LINE-1 and 39 Aluelements) in all of the caste and continental populations (∼600 individuals). Analysis of these data demonstrated that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians, and the upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are the lower castes. Collectively, all five datasets show a trend toward upper castes being more similar to Europeans, whereas lower castes are more similar to Asians. We conclude that Indian castes are most likely to be of proto-Asian origin with West Eurasian admixture resulting in rank-related and sex-specific differences in the genetic affinities of castes to Asians and Europeans." http://genome.cshlp.org/content/11/6/994.long In short, successive waves of horny white males.

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                                • “the Hindus themselves seem to believe that one proud Hindu is the equal of ten weak cowardly Hans” Never in my life have I heard any Indian, in any capacity (academic, official, think tank, media, pop culture, films, individual opinion etc) express something even remotely close to this sentiment either in India or abroad. Where in the devil are you getting this information? Perhaps some link or citation will help? The Indian establishment is terrified of China given China’s economic and military power, the fact that China generously funds various Mao-ists Guerilla movements such as the Naxalites, Basically gave the Nuclear bomb to Pakistan, Grabbed Aksai Chin in 1962, Is surrounding India by acquiring Ports all around India from Gwadar in Pakistan to Hambantota in Sri Lanka to Burma to Maldives, the cultural genocide of Tibetan culture which is really so similar to ancient Indian culture. The Indian establishment is further terrified of the impunity with which China can humiliate it’s Muslims in Xinjiang while still importing millions of barrels of oil daily from the Middle East without any talk of an Oil-Embargo or even a word of censure from Saudi Barbaria, that Citadel of Islam. This is something even the Yanks or Euros cannot do and India cannot even dream about it. The Indian Establishment further knows how Ruthless China is capable of being after learning how Ruthlessly you Gentlemen wiped out millions of Muslims in the Dungan Jihad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan\_Revolt\_(1862–77) It is this fear that is pushing India is support the re-arming of Japan, opening up the entire Indian infrastructure contract market to Japanese firms, a possibly military alliance with Japan in the Future, military co-operation with Vietnam while simultaneously avoiding getting too close to the West (We have a history with them as well) Yes it is fair to say we are not exactly crazy about China but that is a fear borne out of self preservation and your history as an expansionary power. You are unbelievably Delusional to suggest that Indian foreign policy with regard to China is anything apart from avoiding becoming a Chinese Colony in the Future. Just re-read at your post! It reeks if Hindu-Phobia. You should be ashamed of writing filth like that.

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                                  • Do you actually listen to your own media, pundits, and politicians? Read your English language newspapers, observe the commentary. Watch Indian television, observe the commentary. Here is a little hint, use YouTube and run a search for China as the keyword and limit results for today or the last week. Half of the results will be from Indian sources about the border issues and most of the commentary will be in the vein of declaring victory. Normally YouTube or Mass media comments are the domain of lumpen proles in the West and drawing extrapolations from them as to elite opinion is a fool's errand. However, unlike deluded Westerners I realize the comments are coming from basically India's top decile and that it's actual lumpen proletariat population consists of semi literate helots. My Hindu phobia was formed by actual interaction with Hindus. I have watched how Singapore has been basically invaded by a parasitic band of caste Hindus after Lee Kuan Yew intentionally destroyed Chinese racial asabiyah. Leaving us vulnerable to predation by a more cohesive and racially chauvinistic band of outsiders just as Europe is being overrun by Muslims. I have seen the most well paying sectors of the economy such as banking and IT ethnically cleansed of Chinese by Indian managers who were foolishly hired, who then proceeded fire all non Indians and hire his own immediate family, village, and jail all the while proclaiming his own prodigious talent while productivity rapidly circles down the drain and rent seeking is maximized. I have been denounced by the same caste Hindus for pointing out the obvious of what was happening as a racist and most painful of all been called the same by the class of deracinated Western aping compradors that the Lee family has created. I have seen the same sad state of affairs in America in the same industries and the same clueless elites bounce to the racism card when what is happening is pointed out. I am not at all ashamed to say I despise Indians because of their behavior, being low rent Jews, and the threat they pose to the welfare of my race and nation. I want nothing to do with you, not to rule over you. You should be the one that should be ashamed. The fundamental organization of your society is degenerate because the system of Varna and Jati while creating system stability has also created a system of all encompassing mediocrity and parasitic rent seeking by fixing status at birth without effort and reproductive access without competition. This has resulted an exceedingly arrogant but ultimately incompetent elite whose prime advantage compared to others is racial endogamy and caste nepotism.

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                                    • Really? I have articles from the Top English Language newspapers in the country. Let's say what they have to say about China. Where exactly are they declaring victory? Where is the Hubris you talk about? They seem quite cautious to me or anyone who can take the trouble to read them. 1. Indian Express: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/doklam-standoff-dolam-5-km-from-face-off-with-india-china-high-alert-but-conflict-far-from-minds-gnathang-valley-doka-la-4806002/ 2a. Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/chinas-army-conducts-military-exercises-in-tibet-region-to-strike-awe-in-india/articleshow/60154331.cms 2b. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/china-rebukes-japan-for-comment-on-doklam/articleshow/60127537.cms 3. The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/all-you-need-to-know-about-doklam-and-the-india-china-border-standoff/article19357499.ece 4. Deccan Chrionicle: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/240717/what-is-the-india-china-border-standoff.html 5. The Tribune: http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/editorials/china-india-standoff/444544.html Do you want more? Since you are a Singaporean, you really do not have skin in the game in this quarrel and so this just becomes a venue for you to express your HinduPhobia. This reply was not for your benefit. This is for other commentators on this blog. They can see for themselves and judge. You don't seem to like the great man Lee Kuan Yew, I see. Yes, he made some mistakes, who does not? But Let me ask you this, "Are you still following the Taoist/Buddhist faith of your Chinese ancestors or are you now a Christian/Free-thinker or one of those several mental diseases originating from the middle eastern deserts.

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                                      • Your dishonesty couldn't be more transparent. Half of the news you linked to are nothing more than boiler plate recycled agency feeds. As always, the interesting trends are to be found in the comments section which you have chosen to ignore. Pajeet, you are going to have to do a lot better than accusing me of Hinduphobia to try and work the crowd and shame me in a cowardly and womanish manner. Perhaps you are actually forgetting who the audience here is and that playing the racism card isn't going to get you very far. I distrust Muslims because I see them as a virulent outgroup with strong cohesion and social aggression directed against non-muslims in order to force obeisance to their social norms and a threat to the continuity of my people. I also distrust Hindus because I see them as a virulent outgroup with strong cohesion and social aggression directed against non-hindus in order to force obeisance to their social norms and a threat to the continuity of my people. Just because you are less violent and but just as rape prone doesn't make your kind any less dangerous. A mistake is speeding and getting a traffic ticket. Deracinating your own kinfolk in order to make a multi-ethnic city state viable is treason. Lee Kuan Yew should have cleansed Singapore of all non-Chinese to begin with when he had the chance. The faith of my ancestors is Materialism; power as a means to secure the welfare of my people, to honor the memory of my forefathers by leaving a better future for my descendants. For many other peoples who require gibberish metaphysics, this is not enough. For most Chinese, it will suffice.

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                                        • LIAR! Like the left, you accuse me of doing something you are already doing. 1. First you say that the Indian media is chock full of Jingoistic (1 Hindu=10 Han) articles, but you fail to produce any link or any citation whatsoever. 2. I don’t follow the English media, so I went to the top English newspapers to see if there is any truth to your assertion. I did not find anything to support your claim. I linked to those. 3. Then you claim that those were just boiler plate agency feeds. Here, I ask you, “Would a jingoistic media recycle agency feeds that are neutral to it’s anti-Han narrative?” Does the Chinese state media reference Reuters or AP? 4. Then you say that I ignored the comments section. Yes, I usually ignore those. They bore me. But now I went to the trouble to look at them. Yes, there are always a couple of the sort of Idiots you talk about, but when I look at them, I simply don’t find too many of them. Let me take the trouble to post one sample comment “Nice article. China is doing this to bring India to the table of CPEC. Also, its been flexing its muscle off-late with all its neighbours. India should form a Joint Military Organisation (Similiar to NATO) with border countries of China like Vietnam, Phillipines, Japan etc to prevent such threats from the dragon” Does not sound anything like what you make them out to be. LIAR 5. You accuse Hindus in Singapore of being Rape prone? As usual no links or citations. 6. And I guess you are a Christian or a lefty having abandoned the ways of your ancestors. TRAITOR!

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                                          • Pajeet, I don't mind the chauvinism. I am a Han chauvinist myself so complaining about other people's arrogance would be more than a little hypocritical. I'm just willing to point out that you and the Muslims share more in common that you are willing to acknowledge in that your arrogance is wedded to the same sense of obviously unwarranted tribal supremacism fueled by high levels of endogamy that animates the Mohammedan in their interactions with outgroups. Media everywhere is full of poorly paid halfwits. Usually it's easier and less effort to copy an agency press clipping than to even write an angry screed. Singapore is 75% ethnic Chinese. They only make up 25% of the prison population. Indian and Malay prisoners have much high recidivism rates, much more likely to be in jail for a serious crime, e.g rape and murder. Refer to Peter Lloyds book about life in Singapore prison. Hindus are more prone to rape compared to Chinese or even Whites. This shouldn't even be debatable at this point because the general lecherousness of Indian men is commonly known. The flipside of Hindu societies control over its own females is that it views outgroup females as open targets. From the high profile gang rapes of foreign tourists to the general daily molestations of your own women, and the "show vegana" comments Indians leave on Facebook it is dishonest to pretend otherwise that your people aren't prone to opportunistically taking advantage of women. I am not a Christian and I don't see how anything I have written yet could be construed as leftist.

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                                        • He has a point: the ancient Chinese did not follow some "Taoist/Buddhist faith" at all. Those were just idols who people prayed to when they wanted something. They were not a faith, by any means, not a moral code which people followed to the letter. The moral norms of the old Chinese was filial piety and loyalty to one's patrons. That's quite intact these days.

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                                          • This puts you in the same camp as some Higbrow Hindu purists who maintain that almost no Hindu follows the "Hindu (Sanatana Dharma)" faith either since he too spends his time worshipping some idols when he wants something or during major festivals or so the Gods don't get too angry that he has neglected them. The Hindu purist wishes (or pretends to wish) that these low-brow masses would practice some meditation, read the upanishads and vedas and appreciate the finer points of Hindu philosophy like his own exalted holy self. The point I am trying to make as I made in an earlier comment to Garr is that the Hindu philosophy as in the Upanishads bores most Hindus and puts them to sleep. So what? Philosophy is not for everyone and in all likelihood is a waste of time. But they need those Idols to pray to in order to keep them connected to their community. People come together over shared activities rather than shared beliefs. It is this idol worship that keeps the community cohesive. Let's see you tell me that a festival like this in Taiwan honoring the city God is not good for social cohesion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsSAFACC\_EE The Filial Piety will stay intact as long as the Chinese maintain their Taoist/Confucian character. It will not survive Christianity since Christianity explicitly condemns the heathen parents of Christian children to Hell. Would a Truly Filial child convert to Christianity and then believe that his parents will go to hell due to the mere fact that they refuse to acknowledge that the Christians are the "sole exclusive" possessors of the truth? If Christianity makes inroads into China, not only will Filial piety die out (which the Church Padre replacing the biological parents as recipients of veneration), but China might see another version of the Taiping Rebellion , the central character some guy who saw himself as the younger brother of Jesus 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping\_Rebellion 2. https://vajrin.wordpress.com/2014/09/27/lessons-for-hindus-from-the-terminal-phase-of-the-qing-dynasty/ : A hindu point of view 3. https://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/braided-power-a-brief-note-on-last-great-steppe-power-the-mongol-manchu-system/ : Some notes here on the Taiping from a Hindu point of a view. Lee Kuan Yew's one mistake was banning the taoist rituals such as burning paper calling them "superstitions". He did not realize that the Taoist "Supersitions" were a result of long evolution and the causes of social cohesion. In the absence of such activities, there was a vacuum that Christianity was only too eager to fill with the result that close to 30% of Singaporean Chinese are Christians. This can't bode too well for Singapore in the long Run. Our friendly commentator, The Duke of Qin shows all the classic behavior patterns (textbook) of a Christian in a polytheist culture such as accusing others of doing what he is already doing, making unsubstantiated claims, shifting goalposts, outright lying and crying out in pain while striking vicious blows.

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                              • When power want's something, it get's it, is a good definition of what qualifies as a power. But it doesn't go beyond that. Who has power and how much? Sure, Europe could get rid of Islamic terrorism, if the the government would want it. The governments of Hungary or Poland have the will and hence no Islamic terrorism. Germany, Italy, Spain, France want Islamic Immigration and therefore keep their borders open. They are certainly powerful enough to keep the police and military from closing the borders. Are they powerful enough to order the police or the mlitary to do something the officers don't like to do? Yes, to some extent. Historically, blatant disobidience is a rare exception. Incompetence is far from rare, and it can be faked easily. Police and military officers have their sympathies and opinions. They will act accordingly within the frame of their orders. If you hold a rally, it makes a huge difference which side the officers are sympathetic to. For example Merkel's government wanted Pegida rallies to stop. The never managed in Dresden. Everywhere a lot depended on the police. I've seen police charge on horseback into a antifa group blocking the path of a pegida rally. I've also seen the police not clearing a blockade of about 20 antifa and using force (pepper spray and sticks) to disperse a right wing rally, five minutes after their alloted time was up. You don't know where loyalties are, until it really counts. Rallies and activism can give you an idea where the loyalties of the police are. Activism might even influence them.

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                                • What is "Europe", and when did it come into existence as a recognizable political entity? 496? 800? 1517? 1804? 1918? 1945? Where is the locus of European sovereignty? Is it in Germany, a country which in the year of our Lord two thousand and seventeen so graciously hosts thirty-five thousand (35,000) United States military personnel? Depending on your received notions of the world, this may or may not strike you as odd; in the latter case, please contemplate it for a moment or three. Borders are made to be crossed, maan.Look at their cute little dusky faces, you racist bastard. They're even Christian! :) That little warm feeling is the brotherhood of man tugging at your heartstrings. Truly, 'tis the brotherhood of man. We hold these truths to be self-evident, y'allllllll.

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                                  • "Look at their cute little dusky faces, you racist bastard. They’re even Christian" That's the point that scholars of Ethno-nationalist religions such as the Hindus and the Shintos are trying to make to any Christian scholar who can listen with an open mind. You cannot claim to have a Universal religion such as Christianity, then convert hordes of people that have nothing like your mindset to Christianity and then object when they want to come to your countries to worship Jesus along with you, their brothers in Christ. It is for this reason that you don't see Hindu and Shinto missionaries going around trying to convert non-Indians and non-Japanese to their respective faiths which are basically expressions of ethno-nationalism with a Transcendental components (Devas for Hindus and Kami for the Shinto). You see why Universal ideologies are such a bad idea and why an ancient Cultures like India and Japan want nothing to do with them?

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                                    • Just curious, Lalit: is there much interest in Upanishads-style philosophical mysticism (or mystical philosophizing) among your friends/family-members? When I think "India" I think "Upanishads" and when I think "China" I think "Confucius" or "Lao-Tzu" and I feel as though I sort of get what's going on in the Upanishads (it's very recognizable -- looks like a lot of Western stuff) but can't process the Chinese thinking. A note on what you actually said above with regard to universal religions being politically harmful -- Christianity spread within an already-established transnational empire. (Buddhism is also universal -- was there an analogous political situation where/when it started to spread?) Of course, religion is one thing, philosophizing (e.g. the Upanishads) another, so I assume you don't see a problem with Westerners liking Upanishads and Indians liking Plato ...

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                                      • in General, the Upanishads bore most Indians. To the average layman, The philosophy is mentally taxing, quite dry to be honest and puts most people to sleep, present self included. The stories illustrating philosophical concepts are interesting, but people tend to remember the story and entirely miss the point that was being made. However they are an excellent source of Virtue-Signaling among Hindus. I tried reading them online and man, is that stuff boring. The stories are nice though. The comics are even better http://www.amazon.in/Tales-Upanishads-Amar-Chitra-Katha/dp/818482047X I am not too aware of the details regarding the spread of Buddhism sorry. Just have not studied it enough to be able to make a comment. But yes, Buddhism claims to show a universal path out of suffering. Buddhists don't like to think of Buddhism as a religion. They like to think of it as a universal remedy for universal ills. Of course, no Hindu sees a problem with any other Hindu liking any western philosopher from Socrates to Seneca to Thoreau to Spengler. Indians must read Great men regardless of where they originate from. And the Hindu right wing absolutely admires the ancient Greek and Roman Philosophers. It is becoming the in-thing among right winger meet-ups here to drop quotes from Marcus Aurelius' meditations. And why not? He was a great man. And very importantly, admiring the ancient Greco-Romans or modern Shintos does not in any way destroy the social cohesion of the Hindus. I can't say the same thing about an admiration for Muhammad or Jesus as both those Gentlemen preached a universal "exclusivist" religion which condemns those of other beliefs to eternal hellfire. What bothers me is Indians bending towards Mecca 5 times a day, a place that is outside the country, a religion that did not originate here, a religion that is basically an ideology of Arab domination over the rest of Humanity with Indians assigned the place second from bottom (African Muslims being the bottom, whites being #2 after Arabs, Persians and Turks followed by the East Asians etc etc) once the whole world goes Islamic. I can then make the same argument against Christianity being a means for a foreign power to break the cohesion of the natives by splitting them from their roots. Becoming Christian opens the doors to the return of western domination in the viewpoint of many right winger Hindus.

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                                      • Garr, just to give you a flavor of how modern Hindus think about the Ancient Greeks http://devdutt.com/books/olympus-an-indian-retelling-of-the-greek-myths.html

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                                        • You religious guys are so highbrow. When I think of India I think of Curry, when I think of China I think of noodle soup.

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                                          • Good! Then the left cannot claim that they are the intellectuals while we are unwashed country hicks. You may call me religious, my view of religion is the same as yours, an organizing/binding principle with a transcendental component that allows members to willingly die for the tribe. I pretend to believe in the God of my tribe for the Good of my tribe. That, And the Hindus need a new religion as well.

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                                        • "You cannot claim to have a Universal religion such as Christianity, then convert hordes of people that have nothing like your mindset to Christianity and then object when they want to come to your countries to worship Jesus along with you, their brothers in Christ." Yes you can. Until very, very recently, the Church had no trouble doing so whatsoever. You don't see a whole bunch of Ethiopians or Kongolese coming to live in Italy or France until well after the decline of Christianity. The same goes for the various Goths, Gauls, Lombards, etc. You have Leo X saying we should, if we can, offer these people sanctuary from the Hun, out of brotherly charity, but definitely NOT saying we should allow them to displace us and our own families, much less become a lumpenproletariat or underclass while doing so.

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                                          • The point is that missionary activity overseas was evil, and in a way this is payback. He has a point.

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                                            • Well, I was not conveying a meta-physical point as in the law of Karma (in short payback). what I was saying was that the same factors that cause Christianity to be such a useful tool in Colonialism (i.e. it's exclusive Universalism, it's monotheism) are also the factors in Europeans being ambivalent in the mass-immigration of people who share nothing like their mindset coming into their midst. Every European should go read what the Wise Roman philosophers had to say about Christianity. Their observations are trenchant and spot on. If only Julian the Apostate had not launched that ill advised invasion of Persia.

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                                            • Missionary activity was evil, because it aimed to bring Gawd to the savages, or for some other reason, such as lifting them out of the Stone Age?

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                                              • Hahahahaha! Missionary activity is about subjugating the native mind and breaking the cohesiveness of native groups. Think missionaries in Japan and Taiwan. Neither of those countries could ever have said to be in the stone age while the missionaries were active there. Anyhoo, I know you cavalier are joking.

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                                            • "Until very, very recently, the Church had no trouble doing so whatsoever. You don’t see a whole bunch of Ethiopians or Kongolese coming to live in Italy or France until well after the decline of Christianity." In the short run when you are riding the crest of high energy, YES. In the long run when you have to contend with cycles of low energy, NO. Colonialism of Africa and missionary activity in Africa (Related in the opinion of the Hindu reactionaries) began in 1830 or there-abouts. You enjoyed the short run up to now or the 1960s depending on who you ask. Now you will have endure the long run. Look what the Churches in America are up to. http://www.thedailybeast.com/churches-prepare-to-shelter-immigrants-from-trump And can any White reactionary say with a straight face that the modern left/cultural marxism is not a child of Protestantism which in turn is a child of Catholicism?

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                                              • "And can any White reactionary say with a straight face that the modern left/cultural marxism is not a child of Protestantism which in turn is a child of Catholicism?" What's your point? Heresy does not invalidate belief. Signaling spirals are a rather common problem, not a specifically Christian problem.

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                                                • I believe I already made that point above. A universal ideology, by its very nature has the tendency to weaken the sources of local cohesion. It is what causes some local factions to import ideologically similar outsiders to help them in their struggle with rival local factions Who are ironically similar to them in all respects except for ideology. Got dammit universal ideology

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                                                  • I believe I already made that point above. A universal ideology, by its very nature has the tendency to weaken the sources of local cohesion. It is what causes some local factions to import ideologically similar outsiders to help them in their struggle with rival local factions Who are ironically similar to them in all respects except for ideology.

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