9 Dead in Munich Shooting

[Pwnzerfaust]

It's going to be interesting to see the backlash brewing up against the migrants after attacks such as these.

Perhaps people will demand accountability, and governments will finally be forced to listen.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Certainly an interesting development. At least it explains the exchange in the video footage where the guy is on the roof of the car park. Will be interesting to see if this is indeed "lone-wolf" action taking previous massacers like Erfurt to the next level (from the school grounds into more public space) or if there was indeed an extremist/ideological motivation behind it.

As a side note: There are actually plenty of right-wingers with a migration background (either them or their parents) in Germany and some are actually leaning towards neo-nazism. Which might sound strange, but for many the idea of an "Arian masterrace" is now replaced with the idea of "German culture" ("Deutschtum") and the fight against the liberal regime.

Back when I was still in school (which, tbf, is *quite* a while back) we actually had two of these guys (one Iranian, one Armenian). I didn't have to much contact with them, but from what I remember they identified strongly as German (and spoke it without any accent). They mostly picked their ideology because of the authorian, anti-women and anti-jewish sentiment. Although at that age it might have been "just a phase".

 

[abradley]

Link to video.

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book, 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764

“False idee di utilità.” translation:

(Before It's News)

David Davis

I quote:-

Carrying of arms
Jefferson copied many excerpts from the various books he read into his “Legal Commonplace Book.”[82] One passage he copied which touches on gun control was from Cesare Beccaria‘s Essay on Crimes and Punishments. The passage, which is written in Italian, discusses the “false idea of utility” (false idee di utilità) which Beccaria saw as underlying some laws. It can be translated, in part, as:

A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility … who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.

The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. … It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.[83]

Jefferson’s only notation was, “False idee di utilità.”[83] It isn’t known whether Jefferson agreed with the example Beccaria used, or with the general idea, or if he had some other reason for copying the passage.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

What an extraordinarily articulate and educated man this was: I never knew. You learn something new and exciting every day, as you get older and older – I only looked him up out of interest as I was arguing with a student about the exact contents of the USA’s Declaration of Independence.

Filed under: Anglosphere, LA Papers, Law, Liberty, politicians, poor people, Science and Engineering, USA

Read more at The Libertarian Alliance
http://beforeitsnews.com/libertarian/2010/12/thomas-jefferson-on-gun-control-334420.html

What do you think was Jefferson's reason for copying this passage to his book?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What do you think was Jefferson's reason for copying this passage to his book?

I'm more curious as to whether you think there was some point in copying it here.

 

[Tahuti]

Muslim terrorists are right wing nutjobs.

Finally, somebody who sees! Muslim terrorists are religious nutjobs are right-wing nutjobs. Jihadists are essentially the Islamic counterparts of the KKK.

That is a definition that is technically correct, but does not match the reality of the decades after the 1960s.
Basically, the "left" won in economics after WW2. And it won in social organization in the 60s. Thus the left became the political order. The right then became the opponents of that political order, seeking to roll back things. During the 80s and 80s they succeeded in economics, but failed in rolling back social changes.
What had once been the left, the parties and organizations of the left, gave up fighting on economic issues, and decided to focus on what had already been won: social issues. The easy path. But society is conditioned by economics: the distribution of wealth and income, inequality... if many of the social institutions are organized on a "market basis" then the inequality of wealth becomes as important as social inequality (inequality of status) once was.

The problem of the Left is basically that the Right manages to entrench themselves so well that the Left has no other choice but to fold to Right viewpoints. This is not because the Left is naturally weak or those on the Right are political geniuses: It's the way how states tend to work. The Right just had gotten its momentum back in Europe, thanks to the 1973 oil crisis and the collapse of Bretton Woods, as the Left got blamed for the ensuing economic chaos. Before long, popular political discourse became Right-Wing in general; Jimmy Carter instituted Reaganomics before, well.. eh... Reagan. And the late 1970s saw the election of Margeret Thatcher as well; by the time she left office, the British state apparatus was changed so much that Labour moved to the Right to fit in, because any return to the status quo would seem radical, until recently.

The new left = Tony Blair and his imitators. I could blame Mitterrand and others, I know, but Tony Blair and later Bil Clinton (who I think changed policies to imitate Blair, though I may be wrong about who inspired whom) were the ones who spread it.
The "home cause" of the new left, identity politics = divide and rule as a gift to the hoarders of wealth.
The "foreign cause" of the new left, interventionism = the new imperialism.

The (traditional) left was materialistic: progress requires resources, development should be carried out, under pragmatic political guidance, in order to improve people's lives. The goal should be to maximize individual freedom by providing for the needs of all: "after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly - only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" Positive liberty.

The "new left" is idealistic: resources are not an object of political decisions, the "market" will better take care of allocating them. This leads to increasing inequality of wealth that is to be alleviated through subsidies, not by changing social organization or carrying out policies to empower a broader group of people, such as full employment. Development is no longer seen as an uplifting force, in some circles associated with the new left the opposite is defended: development is bad and must be subordinated to ideological considerations such as global warming (now "climate change"), environmentalism, and "free" trade. Individual freedom is to be maximized by allegedly removing social restrictions upon individuals (thus identity politics). Negative liberty.

The (traditional) left defended an inherent collaborative bias in human beings, seeking to enable a "better humanity" through the offer of free education. People were expected to do better through education and political discussion that free from the distortions (propaganda) caused by special interests groups (religions, businesses, etc) and class opposition. Educations should be secular, scientific and free, artistic creation should be free and freely accessible (no patents, no copyright).
People would naturally, rationally create a better society once the restrictions on resources and education were lifted.

The "new left" defends an inherent oppositional bias if human beings: it is natural for individuals to be unequal and a free market is necessary to deal with that; material inequality is accepted as a given. Nor even education or the arts are to be spared from that logic of the market. You are worth what you can sell or beg. It is natural for different people to hold different and even opposing "identities" and those should be accepted and encouraged. Organized special interest groups are welcome in the interest of "diversity".

The "new left" makes me sick. there is no positive agenda, no hope for a better future, in it. It's all about management of the status quo. No surprise that we are going through an age of despair and escapism: politics, the real world, offer no hope for improvement.

Nice answer! Surprising also; I thought the term "New Left" was only used to describe a component of the 1960s counterculture, the ideology underpinning of the French 1968 strikes. I had become accustomed to call the Blairites and Clintonites "the Third Way". There seemed to be some self-awareness of the right-wing viewpoints adopted by the "left".

I really have no idea how "screening immigrants" is supposed to work in this context.
There are question techniques to weed out the not that good liars (which surely catches some since lying will be the general course of action in the situations the refugees find themselves in). Like how detailed are the accounts, do the accounts feel studied. But if someone got that down - and to lie well is not some masterful art, everyone can achieve it given sufficient effort - you don't have much left.

It may work for the USA which only hand-picks a tiny amount of refugees under very tight conditions. For a nation facing a whole mass of them and being legally required to take them in - there is no remotely reliable screening, let's face it.

Immigration laws essentially go against nature; not that it is bad because of that (that would be a natural fallacy) though anyone who is a bit mature knows that immigration laws won't change much unless the country is an island or a hell-hole like North Korea.

USA gets plenty of illegal immigrants, similarly to the EU. The USA is wealthy and accessible and therefore attractive to migrants. The same goes to the EU. If migration laws are impossible to fulfill for a low-skilled worker, they will ignore it. After all, what's the point? The same logic applies to cannabis and to plenty of stuff in general.

 

[luiz]

From the video that was released early on the crisis it seemed pretty obvious to me that this guy, with his completely black hair and tanned skin, was most likely not of German ethnic origin. And big surprise, he wasn't.

I think people desperately wanted this not to be by some immigrant / refugee, because they are terrified of what can happen now that they've taken in over one million of them in one year with no checks whatsoever. They really wanted to believe it was some Nazi type, even though all logic and all evidence said it wasn't, because people are far less scared of nazis than of radical Islam these days.

Turns out the guy was indeed of immigrant Muslim background, but this is looking more like a seriously disturbed individual than an ISIS type. But we will see. The fact that he was Iranian can't rule out ISIS, btw, as they are recruiting people who don't have any particularly sophisticated grasp of Islam. But the fact they haven't claimed it does strongly rule it out, because ISIS is known to claim all of its attacks and to never claim a false one. So the afghani axe attacker was ISIS, but apparently not this one. But he did have a black shirt with a white logo, I wonder if it has already been reported what was it?

 

[Tahuti]

The fact that he was Iranian can't rule out ISIS, btw, as they are recruiting people who don't have any particularly sophisticated grasp of Islam.

Not ruled out, though very unlikely. Most Iranians are Shi'a which ISIS hates perhaps worse than Westerners.

Talking about lack of sophisticated grasp of Islam; Some of the viewpoints of ISIS are ironically lifted from Shi'a theology: Daesh's use of sex slaves is justified by Nikah al-Mutha, a Shi'a theological construct which allows pre-marital sex in the context of a romantic relationship, by being technically a marriage for a fixed period.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

[...]
I think people desperately wanted this not to be by some immigrant / refugee, because they are terrified of what can happen now that they've taken in over one million of them in one year with no checks whatsoever. They really wanted to believe it was some Nazi type, even though all logic and all evidence said it wasn't, because people are far less scared of nazis than of radical Islam these days.
[...]

Sorry, but your assessment is wrong. The situation is actually a lot more complex than that.

The actual root of today's problems actually lies several years in the past, back when the CDU started to abandon their traditional center-to-right standpoints in favor of winning over the more moderate-to-left parts of the electorate to contest both the SPD and B90/Die Grünen. This more or less left a gaping whole on the right side of the spectrum, which was first exploited by the far right parties (like NPD and DVU) with rather limited success and later encouraged the rise of the AfD.

Right-wing extremism is a big problem at this point. In some states (like Saxony) far-right ideology has already taken root in whole regions, up to the level of state officials. In addition to that, we have also seen a massive increase in right-wing violence against both migrants/refugees and the establishment. And on top of that, we still have the ongoing trial of the NSU terror group.

Most of us over here know pretty well that a successful islamic terror attack will happen eventually. At this point, it's really about the "when and where", and not so much about the "if". With Germany destabilizing the fear is more about the fact every migrant-related incident will deteriorate the situation even further.

We are, pretty much, locked in a propaganda war at this point, with the government trying to justify their actions and the right wing playing the nationalist fiddle, blaming Merkel and the media at every opportunity to rally more people to their cause. The whole thing is a big mess, but fanning the flames of the right and far-right won't make it better. History has taught us what happens when Germany goes right - it goes right through Belgium. So many people are obviously quite sensitive when it comes to anything on the right side of the political spectrum.

 

[luiz]

Sorry, but your assessment is wrong. The situation is actually a lot more complex than that.

The actual root of today's problems actually lies several years in the past, back when the CDU started to abandon their traditional center-to-right standpoints in favor of winning over the more moderate-to-left parts of the electorate to contest both the SPD and B90/Die Grünen. This more or less left a gaping whole on the right side of the spectrum, which was first exploited by the far right parties (like NPD and DVU) with rather limited success and later encouraged the rise of the AfD.

Right-wing extremism is a big problem at this point. In some states (like Saxony) far-right ideology has already taken root in whole regions, up to the level of state officials. In addition to that, we have also seen a massive increase in right-wing violence against both migrants/refugees and the establishment. And on top of that, we still have the ongoing trial of the NSU terror group.

Most of us over here know pretty well that a successful islamic terror attack will happen eventually. At this point, it's really about the "when and where", and not so much about the "if". With Germany destabilizing the fear is more about the fact every migrant-related incident will deteriorate the situation even further.

We are, pretty much, locked in a propaganda war at this point, with the government trying to justify their actions and the right wing playing the nationalist fiddle, blaming Merkel and the media at every opportunity to rally more people to their cause. The whole thing is a big mess, but fanning the flames of the right and far-right won't make it better. History has taught us what happens when Germany goes right - it goes right through Belgium. So many people are obviously quite sensitive when it comes to anything on the right side of the political spectrum.

I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't address my point at all. Everything about this attacks said this was NOT a neonazi thing: the chosen target, the suicidal nature of the hit, the modus operandi, and the looks of the attacker. And yet, despite all this evidence and all this logic, I saw people in this thread and on the media insisting, almost hoping really, that it looked like a neonazi attack.

Well, it wasn't.

If you want to defeat your demons, you need to face them head on. The murderer was of Muslim immigrant background. Period. Stop pretending nazis had anything to do with this. The fact that at this point you're still insisting that maybe this was a Nazi thing says more about your personal views than about reality.

At this point it is looking more like a mentally disturbed individual than an Islamist, but Islamism obviously can't be ruled out considering the situation. Germany is a target of Islamists, and some of the refugees / migrants that arrived with the gigantic mass of the past year are indeed radical Islamists or susceptible to quick radicalization. Acknowledging this is not empowering the far-right, it is being realistic and true to the facts. Denying this is empowering the far-right, because it makes them look like the only ones telling the truth to ordinary folks.

 

[Camikaze]

But from the details I've seen so far, the motivations here seem much more in the way of a response to the early 90s neo-Nazi resurgence, and the migration difficulties Germany faced surrounding that, than more contemporary migration issues arising out of the refugee crisis, i.e. the failure of Germany to adequately offer a path to integration for economic migrants, rather than the more basic 'clash of civilizations' type thing which is more commonly highlighted nowadays.

Contextualising this in terms of the former rather than the latter German problem seems fairly important, and certainly doesn't require misunderstanding this as an actual neo-Nazi attack. Any acknowledgement about Islamic extremism and its link to the refugee crisis is entirely irrelevant to this particular event if we're talking about a much longer-term and more deeply ingrained problem.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

My assessment back then was done by the information available ( under the usual reserve, ofc).
And you are right - we still know nothing about the attacker's motive at this point, so we can't really conclude or dismiss anything - including my right wing hypothesis [*].

Also he was apparently *NOT* an immigrant. He had both German and Iranian citizenship, which indicates that he was born and raised in Germany.
So this isn't really an issue related to the recent immigration problems, but rather something related to failed naturalization (which harkens back all the way to the 70's).
(Although I want to point out that I am not particularly familiar with the dual-citizenship laws.)

- - - - -

[*] Maybe some additional explanation is necessary:
We had several amok incidents in the past (e.g. the Erfurt shooting in 2002), and in post-war Germany the right-side of the spectrum traditionally caters to the mindset of these "disturbed individuals" (honor, violence, vigilantism). So "right-wing" wasn't equal to "neo-nazi" in this case. There is a pretty big spectrum between the "middle", the NPD and something like the ultra-right NSU.

 

[Akka]

Immigration laws essentially go against nature; not that it is bad because of that (that would be a natural fallacy) though anyone who is a bit mature knows that immigration laws won't change much unless the country is an island or a hell-hole like North Korea.

Or Japan. Which is a country famously known to be a hellhole. I guess ?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

An update from the currently ongoing police conference:
- Police searched the house/room of the attacker and found no evidence related to IS (or the like)
- Howeveer, plenty of material (news articles, books) related to previous amok-sprees was present
- They assume that the deed had no ideolgical background
- Attacker apparently shot himself in the head
- No previous involvement with the police (outside of 2 minor cases where he was victim of theft and physical violence between a bounch of youngsters)
- The perpetrator apparently suffered from a depression-related illness
- Police is investigating that the attacker apparently hacked a Facebook account and promised freebees at the restaurant where he started the killing spree
- All victims are from Munich or the surrounding area and most seem to be younger than 20 (youngest victim was apparently 14 or 15)
- His backpack contained a large amount of ammunition (300+ shots)

 

[GoodSarmatian]

But from the details I've seen so far, the motivations here seem much more in the way of a response to the early 90s neo-Nazi resurgence, and the migration difficulties Germany faced surrounding that, than more contemporary migration issues arising out of the refugee crisis, i.e. the failure of Germany to adequately offer a path to integration for economic migrants, rather than the more basic 'clash of civilizations' type thing which is more commonly highlighted nowadays.

I'd say that the attacks in France are also a result of failed integration, as many of the attackers were born in France. ISIS may provide those people with an additional ideological motivation and the means to carry out terror attacks, but that people who are born in Europe are even vulnerable to this extreme ideology is largely a homegrown problem. There'a a lot of resentment against a society that rejects you even if you're native to it yourself just because you don't look right or have the wrong name.
In this case it sems to have been caused mostly by mental illness and enabled by Germany's very lax- by European standards- gun laws.

Also he was apparently *NOT* an immigrant. He had both German and Iranian citizenship, which indicates that he was born and raised in Germany.
So this isn't really an issue related to the recent immigration problems, but rather something related to failed naturalization (which harkens back all the way to the 70's).
(Although I want to point out that I am not particularly familiar with the dual-citizenship laws.)

Iirc you can have dual citizenship if you're born in Germany and your parents are foreign nationals, but you must pick one between the age of 18 and 23 or your German citizenship is revoked automatically. There are exception if our other "home" country is being a dick and won't let you renounce their citizenship.

Btw, the shooter's name is David and he reportedly shouted "I don't care about anything".
Time to round up nihilists with Hebrew names ?

 

[luiz]

My assessment back then was done by the information available ( under the usual reserve, ofc).
And you are right - we still know nothing about the attacker's motive at this point, so we can't really conclude or dismiss anything - including my right wing hypothesis [*].

Also he was apparently *NOT* an immigrant. He had both German and Iranian citizenship, which indicates that he was born and raised in Germany.
So this isn't really an issue related to the recent immigration problems, but rather something related to failed naturalization (which harkens back all the way to the 70's).
(Although I want to point out that I am not particularly familiar with the dual-citizenship laws.)

- - - - -

[*] Maybe some additional explanation is necessary:
We had several amok incidents in the past (e.g. the Erfurt shooting in 2002), and in post-war Germany the right-side of the spectrum traditionally caters to the mindset of these "disturbed individuals" (honor, violence, vigilantism). So "right-wing" wasn't equal to "neo-nazi" in this case. There is a pretty big spectrum between the "middle", the NPD and something like the ultra-right NSU.

My point was that your assessment was really, really bad. So bad it leads me to consider it wishful thinking. We had a foreign-looking shooter, on a suicide mission, attacking random people at a shopping mall. And your assessment is that it looked like a far-right / Nazi thing. Really???

Of course, you were not alone in making this really bad assessment. A lot of people seemed to be hoping it would not turn out to be someone of Muslim background.

Also, I said he had immigrant background, not that he was an immigrant himself. Probably 2nd generation Iranian immigrant.

I think in this case the attack had nothing to do with Islam, but it was obviously not a Nazi thing, and it never looked like a Nazi thing, and anyone who thought this was a Nazi thing at any point was engaging in serious wishful-thinking and self-delusion.

There'a a lot of resentment against a society that rejects you even if you're native to it yourself just because you don't look right or have the wrong name.

Ah nice, victim blaming.
France is the most generous country in the world to immigrants, and integrates anyone who wants to be integrated.

Anyone who thinks there's some sort of "apartheid" in France obviously never spent a second in any major French city, never looked at the couples in the streets or the groups of friends hanging out. Those who are not integrating don't want to integrate, it's as simple as that.

Btw, the shooter's name is David and he reportedly shouted "I don't care about anything".
Time to round up nihilists with Hebrew names ?

Who's talking of rounding up anyone?
Shall we stop with the strawmen and scare crows and actually address the points being made?

 

[kronic]

In this case it sems to have been caused mostly by mental illness and enabled by Germany's very lax- by European standards- gun laws.

It was an illegal gun. I don't think it's a problem of a lax law.

Iirc you can have dual citizenship if you're born in Germany and your parents are foreign nationals, but you must pick one between the age of 18 and 23 or your German citizenship is revoked automatically. There are exception if our other "home" country is being a dick and won't let you renounce their citizenship.

There are more exceptions but they shouldn't apply here (for example, you can hold dual citizienship forever if you the other citizienship is from another EU country or Switzerland and you can get it even past birth).

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Ah nice, victim blaming.
France is the most generous country in the world to immigrants, and integrates anyone who wants to be integrated.

Hmm.
I don't often agree with you, but I always thought you are smart enough to understand the difference between blaming, justifying and trying to understand the cause of something.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

My point was that your assessment was really, really bad. So bad it leads me to consider it wishful thinking. We had a foreign-looking shooter, on a suicide mission, attacking random people at a shopping mall. And your assessment is that it looked like a far-right / Nazi thing. Really???

Yes, my assumption was that it was a right-wing issue (edit: as in: anti-immigration, anti-government or Erfurt-style lone wolf). Which, again, has nothing to do with your far-right / neo-nazi interpretation. I am still not sure why you keep coming back to this. Is it because I went into more detail with the current right and far-right problems in Germany later on?

Either way, if this had been a serious terror attack, I'd have expected that the coordination and body count would have been much higher. So this was my main rason to disregard the "terror-plot" option.

 

[luiz]

Hmm.
I don't often agree with you, but I always thought you are smart enough to understand the difference between blaming, justifying and trying to understand the cause of something.

The cause is the spread of salafism in France, not lack of opportunities to integrate. Note that the people doing the spreading are not at all "poor and helpless", they are educated and often wealthy. All countries in the world have frustrated young men, but not all countries in the world have a booming salafist scene such as France and Belgium.

Yes, my assumption was that it was a right-wing issue. Which, again, has nothing to do with your far-right / neo-nazi interpretation. I am still not sure why you keep coming back to this. Is it because I went into more detail with the current right and far-right problems in Germany later on?

Either way, if this had been a serious terror attack, I'd have expected that the coordination and body count would have been much higher. So this was my main rason to disregard the "terror-plot" option.

Your assumption was really, really bad as I said, and didn't make any sense at any point. Just because there is ongoing far-right problems in Germany and there were in the past far-right terror attacks doesn't mean that all attacks are plausibly attributable to the far-right. This attack didn't have any element pointing to the far-right, and it had several elements that rather conclusively eliminated the far-right as a culprit. I mean, Germany also has a long history of bloody left-wing terrorism, but that doesn't mean it would make any sense to imagine this attack was carried out by some resurgent RAF.

Your reason to disregard "terror-plot" are also quite bad. We know for a fact that the Afghani kid who attacked train passengers this week was inspired by ISIS, who claimed his attack and posted a video of him. But he didn't even succeed in killing anyone (though there are people in critical condition who might die). ISIS operates with amateurish lone-wolves all the time, and this attack fits perfectly with that profile. It is turning out to be the act of a mentally disturbed individual, but the Islamist explanation made perfect sense, unlike the Nazi one which was plainly ridiculous.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Think of it what you want, I gave you what was my estimation as someone living in Germany. The ongoing investigations of the police will ultimately show if I was wrong.
I actually hope that I am, because it would be for the best if the attacker had no ideological agenda at all.

Oh and, yes, we probably still have an RAF-successor terror cell operating in Germany. But these guys seem mostly busy with robbing money transports in the northern regions.