Fear in the city

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

the proportion of YouGov's respondents who, while not condoning the London attacks, have some sympathy with the feelings and motives of those who carried them out is considerably larger - 24 per cent.

Sympathizing with the motives of the attackers sounds like "thinking the Londoners had it coming" to me.

However, six per cent insist that the bombings were, on the contrary, fully justified.

Which is not far off from wanting to do it themselves. They thought the attacks were justified, meaning they wanted the attacks, or something like them, to happen. Which is just a stone's throw away from wanting to do it yourself.

I may have exaggerated, but I don't think by very much.

[Idaho]

Sympathizing with the motives of the attackers sounds like "thinking the Londoners had it coming" to me.


Which is not far off from wanting to do it themselves. They thought the attacks were justified, meaning they wanted the attacks, or something like them, to happen. Which is just a stone's throw away from wanting to do it yourself.

I may have exaggerated, but I don't think by very much.

Drivel. 6% of a small sample of 500 (taken where?!?) said that the bombings were justified - ie war in Iraq and Afghanistan should be a war here too.

24% said they understood the motives. I understand the motives - so what?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Drivel. 6% of a small sample of 500 (taken where?!?) said that the bombings were justified - ie war in Iraq and Afghanistan should be a war here too.

You or I can't know how accurate the poll is. I'm drawing my conclusions from the available data. If it's wrong, all I can do is withdraw my conclusions.

And if someone thinks that the war should be in (England and/or the US) as well as in the Middle East, then they want actions like those on July 7th to be perpetrated. It would not be terribly overreaching to suggest that those people (the 6%) would have wanted to do the same thing the attackers did. One reason or another (fear of death, fear of getting caught, responsibilities such as family, lack of resources. laziness) kept them from doing it themselves.

24% said they understood the motives. I understand the motives - so what?

24% sympathized with the attackers' motives, not just understood them. You or I could understand them and still be horrified and/or disgusted by the motives. But that doesn't mean we sympathize with the motives. At least in my mind, sympathizing goes to the stage where you think, "I know why those blokes blew up those subway tunnels. Maybe it wasn't the best thing way to act out their motives, but it must be carried out anyway."

[JAG]

I have sympathy for the causes of the hate much of the muslims feel. Wow, that makes me a terrorist? I bet that makes ~30% of the whole country - Muslim, Christian, white, black, whatever - a terrorist then, if you are loosing such loose terms.

[ICantSpellDawg]

24% said they understood the motives. I understand the motives - so what?

i agree - i understand their motives too
i didnt get that the 24% sympathized from what i read

if people like me would have stated that they "understood" some of the reasons for the bombings, wouldnt that calm your mind just a tad about how dangerous the 24% was?

Id bet you that more people who said "No, it is terrible" actually supported them than those who took the moderate and understanding response ( a wild hunch, but i'm gonna expose it)

lets be fair here when discussing this.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

There was a difference, no matter how subtle, between merely understanding and sympathizing - because they were different responses.

Moreover, the proportion of YouGov's respondents who, while not condoning the London attacks, have some sympathy with the feelings and motives of those who carried them out is considerably larger - 24 per cent.

A substantial majority, 56 per cent, say that, whether or not they sympathise with the bombers, they can at least understand why some people might want to behave in this way.

56% said they understood. 24% sympathized and we can assume they also understood. The 6% that condoned the attacks must also understand (or we'll assume they do). That leaves 28% of those polled who understood but did not sympathize with the motives or condone the attacks. So sympathizing and understanding are separate things, at least to some of the polled Muslims.

Sympathizing with them doesn't make you a terrorist, JAG. However, my ideas of British citizens who sympathize with them will go un-aired.

And some of the other trends in the article disturb me:

For example, YouGov asked respondents how loyal they feel towards Britain. As the figures in the chart show, the great majority say they feel "very loyal" (46 per cent) or "fairly loyal" (33 per cent) but nearly one British Muslim in five, 18 per cent, feels little loyalty towards this country or none at all.

Equally remarkable are YouGov's findings concerning many Muslims' attitudes towards Western society and culture.

YouGov asked respondents how they feel about Western society and how, if at all, they feel Muslims should adapt to it. A majority, 56 per cent, believe "Western society may not be perfect but Muslims should live with it and not seek to bring it to an end".

However, nearly a third of British Muslims, 32 per cent, are far more censorious, believing that "Western society is decadent and immoral and that Muslims should seek to bring it to an end".

[PanzerJaeger]

I have sympathy for the causes of the hate much of the muslims feel.

As he said, big difference between understand and sympathize. One makes you intelligent, the other makes you an enabler/apologist.

Which are you?

[Azi Tohak]

Cause and effect, cause and effect. I think this is an interesting article for this thread:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...708325,00.html

Open societies must find ways of modulating public discourse without losing the openness that defines them.

Does include screaming 'racist!' whenever someone blames the perversion of a religion for what is happening?

Azi

[JAG]

As he said, big difference between understand and sympathize. One makes you intelligent, the other makes you an enabler/apologist.

Things are not black and white as you so often think they are. It is not either you hate them or you love them - them being the terrorists. Many, many people - I would suggest a vast majority - dislike to a great extent what the terrorists are doing and have done but can understand / sympathise with the reasons for their actions. It is only in your world where that is suddenly apologising for them.

[Fragony]

Oh common, relativaters are collaboraters. It is pure and simple, hate hate and more hate. Maybe you don't understand because you don't hate, but these fanatics from the religion of pieces all over the place do. There is only one way to counter hate and that is fear, in the old days we would have gone out and cracked their skulls, but I guess we are civilised now. After WW2 we all cried never again, and we let it happen again before our very eyes.

[Ser Clegane]

@Fragony:

Your PM box is full. I suggest that you have a thorough look at your last post and make some changes...

[Fragony]

@Fragony:

Your PM box is full. I suggest that you have a thorough look at your last post and make some changes...

That is all you get, changed it to fanatics. Fact remains, we do shit against these butchers, we know exactly where the fanatic mosks are, we know exactly who they are, they openly support the terrorist cause and for some reason they are still standing. That reason being the undying support they get from our fuzzy wuzzy cuddly government that was visiting a burned door at a islamic school when they should have visited the parents of van Gogh.

[King Ragnar]

He does have a very good point which is my opinion also of the government.