DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Ben Carson Compares Syrian Refugees to Dogs

I'm an optimist.

I also believe in a fine line between proactivity, and unfounded paranoia.

Do we really think the NSA still isn't tapping everyone to death? They probably know more about us than we know about ourselves.

That's not the question.

What do they know about these "refugees"? That's the question. The answer is: not much.

Kinda like guns, right?


Some 315 million people in this country, some 300 million guns. And yet when there's a shooting (not including in the inner city because somehow the people that care about shootings don't care about the inner city drug murders...) But, gun owners get dragged down. Law abiding, legal gun owners, get dragged down by the infinitesimal number of bad guys that use guns in the wrong, and illegal manner.

We can generalize about the .001% of gun owners, and that's fine and we want to punish the 99.9% of the good gun owners?

Yet we can't make a statement on the refugees?

I don't understand your math.

If they were refugees from a country that doesn't hate America I would be full of compassion. I have no compassion for people who wish I was dead. I am smart enough to save my compassion for those who deserve it. Syrians are self professed enemies of the USA. They are proud to hate us. So let them fend for themselves.

Yep. Kinda like that.



Not by me. You've read enough of my posts over the years to know that I speak the truth here. Time and again, I've posted that I don't own or carry, but have no problem with the right of others to do so.

The math is about the same. Which is why I have a problem with the thoughts of folks like Razor who says he wants NONE of them here. To me, that's the same as some other poster who says "round up all the guns" after an event like Sandy Hook. Flip sides of the same coin, if you ask me. It's the "all or nothing" absolutism I object to. Why?

Because every time a nation- ANY nation- adopts that attitude as its policy, it always leads to truly repulsive ugly chapters in History. Every single time.

And the rhetoric I'm hearing over the past week is getting dangerously close to that. Not from posters here at DT... it's relatively mild and civilized here- but elsewhere? It's turning my stomach on the daily.

You know what really worries me? That this kind of talk will lead to US based vigilantism, pogroms and public lynchings if reason isn't exercised soon. Against people who who are already here... and have done nothing wrong. And please don't say that it couldn't happen- the covers of too many American family bibles already list the names of folks who have suffered just such a fate. We've already seen an uptick in domestic hostility since the Paris terror attack. And if that uptick turns into a trend... the 'global war' these pieces of human detritus want will happen.

This is where fear can lead us.

Someone HAS to be smarter than they.



Arch: I can't tell you how heartbroken I'd be if I saw this happening just a few blocks from my home. We've lived here in peace and cooperation for as long as I've been here. I've known nothing else for almost 30 years. That's half my life. I would consider it a personal, social and civic defeat if the acts of terror in Paris provoked acts of domestic terror here in my own back yard.

I just can't take much more of this ugliness. It offends the very core of who I am. It's the antithesis of what we should aspire to as a species. And it reduces all of us to the lowest common denominator if we allow it. Such is the insidious nature of Evil. It makes good people less good. And it poisons everything it touches.

p.s. If you haven't listened to the link I shared earlier, please do. Good work is being done here by good people. America is still the shining city on the hill. THAT is what we should be about. We can be smart about threats to our security, while still being what we were always meant to be.

Ever met a Syrian?

Clem I am happy you have the rare feel good story in your neck of the woods but its a simple fact its not going to be all sunshine and roses and you know it.

You don't invite a people with a culture of hating you into your home. That just stupid IMHO. It's not about hatred. It's just common sense.

Prejudice
unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group.
Link to definition


Racism
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
Link to definition

Unfounded? No.

My experience is based upon real-time, real life evidence. Almost 30 years of it, to be honest.

Your POV is based upon what you BELIEVE... but cannot prove. Ever.

I'll take empirical evidence over hypotheticals, theories, and ideological demagoguery any day.

If you don't know any of these people, you are unqualified to speak to me about their intentions. I know them better and deeper than I know YOU. They are folks who have traded commerce with me. They are people who have patronized my place of work. They are people who have entrusted the education of their children with me.

...and it doesn't get more Real than that.


Do you honestly believe that anyone who is hellbent upon destroying America from the inside would actually allow their very own offspring to be educated/influenced by someone like me? Unchaperoned? For one hour a week- EVERY week? For years on end?

My God... THINK, man!

It flies in the very face of 'The Jihadist's Handbook,' for Allah's sake!

These are people who have, in every single measurable way, done what every other immigrant class has to become American citizens.

I know them as friends, neighbors and fellow citizens. People whom I've looked in the eye, shaken hands with, and broken bread with at dinner. People who have asked me for advice on everyday issues. People who have shared their fears about success/failure and hopes for their kids. They are REAL PEOPLE.

By comparison: YOU- ...are pixels on my computer screen.


I know and trust them more than I can ever extend the same to you... because I don't really KNOW you. Can you get that? Does that even compute to you?

And my experiences aren't "rare." They happen every single day where I live. And they happen elsewhere in America, as well. I get my information from Real Life. You seem to get yours from the television. I don't trust TV to give me anything other than fantasy. It's what I pay for.... but I also know what I'm getting when I turn the damn thing on. TV isn't real. Neither is 99% of the internet.

Your misgivings about the world are your own. It's not my place to tell you that you are wrong. All I can do is tell you what real people in America are doing. What you make of my report is yours to interpret.

I wish you would see things as I do, but I'm not in control of what you think. All I can say is this:

I think you are wrong about this issue.
And you'll have to present a much better argument than you've made so far, to convince me that you're right.

.02,
Clemdawg.

No wonder we can't all agree, the Syrians already here can't all agree.

CBS News



In America's Little Syria, a divide on accepting refugees




ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- A few days ago, a pastor asked Syrian-born restaurant owner Marie Jarrah to donate food to a welcoming event for recently arrived Syrian refugees. Jarrah, who said she regularly helps people in need, declined.

Like many of Allentown's establishment Syrians, she doesn't think it's a good idea to bring refugees to the city. She clung to that view even before last week's terrorist attacks in Paris. "Problems are going to happen," said Jarrah, co-owner of Damascus Restaurant in a heavily Syrian enclave.

As debate intensifies nationally over the federal government's plan to accept an additional 10,000 refugees from war-ravaged Syria, a similar argument is taking place in Allentown - one with a sectarian twist.

Pennsylvania's third-largest city is home to one of the nation's largest populations of Syrians. They are mostly Christian and, in no small number, support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - a dynamic that's prompting some of them to oppose the resettlement of refugees, who are Muslim and say they fled violence perpetrated by the Assad regime.

Aziz Wehbey, an Allentown auto dealer and president of the American Amarian Syrian Charity Society, worries some Syrian refugees might have taken part in the fighting in Syria's civil war and have "blood on their hands."

"We need to know who we are welcoming in our society," said Wehbey, who immigrated to the United States a quarter-century ago and became a citizen.

The Obama administration says refugees must undergo a rigorous screening process that can take years. Nevertheless, the U.S. House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to make it more difficult for Syrian and Iraqi refugees to come to America.

Refugees say that they are aware of the opposition of some of Allentown's Syrians to their presence, but that they have not witnessed overt hostility or discrimination. Three refugees spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they worry the Assad government has informants in the city of about 120,000 - a widely held belief among Syrians here, both Christian and Muslim - and will retaliate against family back home.

The refugees said they're here to make a new life for themselves, not to stir up trouble. They have formed their own miniature support network, with earlier arrivals helping newcomers. Dozens have resettled in Allentown since March, with dozens more slated to come.

"I hope that one day I'm going to be a citizen of this great country," said one man, a married father of four.

The Muslim Association of Lehigh Valley, a mosque and school outside Allentown, has been working with the refugees, integrating them socially, sorting through donations of clothes, appliances and school supplies, and enrolling them in English-language classes.

"There's a lot of rhetoric, but we try not to even acknowledge the rhetoric, because right now there's a crisis," said Sherrine Eid, refugee coordinator at the Muslim Association. "We have much bigger fish to fry."

The refugees are joining a Syrian community that dates to the late 1800s. Now numbering some 5,200 in the greater Lehigh Valley region, Syrian-Americans are deeply intertwined in Allentown's business and political life. The retired police chief, of Syrian descent, was elected county sheriff this month.

Some Syrian Christians say they welcome the refugees.

"I don't have a problem with anyone coming here. I came to America as an immigrant. That's what I am," said Osama Dayoub, 23, who was raised in Syria but moved to Allentown in 1999 and gained citizenship. "You're going to make them feel uncomfortable? No. Let them live."

An Orthodox church where many pro-Assad Syrians worship - and which recently sent a delegation to the Russian embassy in Washington to express gratitude for Russia's backing of Assad and its airstrikes in Syria - is hosting a benefit next month for Syrian refugees locally and abroad. The church has already directly assisted a Muslim refugee family in Allentown.

"We are concerned like everyone else," said Nasser Sabbagh, a board member of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church and brother of the pastor. "We are concerned about the safety of the Lehigh Valley community and the Syrian community." But, he said, the refugees "are not terrorists. I don't think we should isolate them and push them way."

On Sunday, religious leaders are hosting an interfaith event to welcome refugees to the area. The refugees have expressed reluctance to attend - concerned about a backlash in the wake of the Paris attacks - but the Rev. Larry Pickens, the event's coordinator, said he is working to "make them feel secure."

The event is meant to "break down a barrier or two," Pickens, ecumenical director of the Lehigh Conference of Churches, said earlier this month. "There's a lot of distrust."

Matthew 10-28

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

To me the Christian thing to do is to help them out.

I don't think anyone is defending internment camps..

You have to put yourself in that time and place. People were scared. Japan attacked without warning. It scared them that folks of Japanese decent were all over the place and one has to wonder, what if anything did they have to do with this attack.

Doesn't make internment camps right, but it does explain the fear.

I have completed my study on how to tell the difference between a Good Syrian Muslim and a Killer Syrian Muslim and I found that you can't until they act.

This leaves me wondering what to do with the refugees.

I have decided to take a common sense approach that is tried and true from America's past. We do not accepted refugees from the ranks of those we are at war with. It is common sense to continue with this and to prudently stop risking our Nation by temporarily halting their coming to America.

If I was like President Obama I would simply FORCE my decision on the rest of you, despite your concerns.

Now I will begin my next study to find the difference between our fellow citizens who terrorize our cities and Foreign Terrorist.

Chicago
JAN. 1, 2015 - NOV. 21, 2015
2,6891
shooting victims
http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/shootings

Baltimore
309 Homocides
Jan. 1, 2015 - Present
35 in the last 30 days
http://data.baltimoresun.com/bing-maps/homicides/

Washington DC
124 Homocides
Jan. 1, 2015 - Present
http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/dc...years/32044145/

Why does this issue have to be all or nothing? That is not the case. Most of us care about our fellow human beings and wish to behave compassionately toward them. In this case, time to assess, plan, and move forward is prudent.

It really does not have to be all or nothing. We can be the America many of us are so proud of AND keep everyone safe at the same time. We simply need to use our heads AND our hearts.

Furthermore, if Obama wants to grandstand the little children as he has done, thinking Americans are fools and simpletons, then let them and their mothers in. Men must wait for their opportunity, or, of course, they could choose to go elsewhere if they do not like the options presented to them.

I think one of the suicide bombers in Paris was a young woman.

No day is all sunshine and roses. We have the highest murder rate of most countries.

There are already a host of haters trying to live in your bedrooms and bodies.

Just like every issue the radicals get fired up about, this is selective hatred of people who are no different except you don't like them.

this is confusing.

you're one of the biggest complainers about family units and the importance of a father in the household, but then you turn around and advocate splitting up families.

Like the Hate you spewed when Chick-Fil-A announced as a company, we support traditional family values and this is why we close on Sundays and Holidays? Yea, I remember all those hateful posts.

What about the families that got split up because someone was killed?

You, weiner, clem and rocket sure do like to ignore the half of the argument we are presenting.

Almost like you willingly stuck a pencil in your eyes just so you can have this perspective.

It's not like people haven't just recently been killed on a large scale here.

I'm still ticked off that Carson offended dogs.

Syrian president says his troops are advancing on all fronts thanks to Russian airstrikes

Syria's president says his forces are advancing on "almost" all fronts thanks to Russian airstrikes that began nearly two months ago and have tipped the balance in his favor in some parts of the country.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/11/22/...n/?intcmp=hpbt3

-See, soon the Syrian Refugees will be able to return home!

3 Syrians with fake passports detained in Dutch Caribbean island of St. Maarten, 1 stopped in Honduras

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten – Three Syrians traveling with fake Greek passports are being held in the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Maarten, authorities said, while officials in the Central American nation of Honduras reported detaining a Syrian and two Pakistanis traveling by bus Saturday.

The St. Maarten public prosecutor's office said that the three Syrians were detained Nov. 14 and that an investigation was still trying to determine their identities and how and where they obtained the fake documents. Officials said they did not believe the Syrians are tied to any terrorist groups and had not asked for asylum.

Honduran officials said a Syrian woman and two Pakistanis were detained after they crossed into the country by bus from Nicaragua.

Police spokesman Anibal Baca told The Associated Press that authorities were looking for any links between the trio and five Syrian men who were detained in Honduras' capital Tuesday for traveling with passports allegedly stolen in Greece. Four of those five apparently were students.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/11/21/.../?intcmp=hplnws

we're ignoring you because you're argument makes no sense.

i'm still waiting on a link from 40 that refugee's were involved. i've looked at abc news and other sources. refugee's didn't have anything to do with the attacks.

so i'm ignoring your argument because you have none.

A ‘refugee’ in killers’ ranks: Terrorist linked to Syrian refugee route

At least one Syrian refugee who had recently entered Europe was among the seven terrorists who carried out the deadliest attacks in France since World War II, according to authorities.

http://nypost.com/2015/11/15/two-syrian-refugees-among-seven-terrorists-in-paris-attacks/

oh you mean the one that turned out to be fake?

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/2...e-paris-attack/

maybe wanna keep updated on the story bro.

like i said, y'all have no argument.

Look at the dates, wasn't reported fake until days after I reported what was on the News.
Once again I was mislead by the Liberal Media.

Perhaps when they reported 18 dead and we talked about it that day but 2 days later it was hundreds, you would call everyone who said 18 dead were lying.

but you just repeated that yesterday though.

you had plenty of time to be updated on the story.

Perhaps when they reported 18 dead and we talked about it that day but 2 days later it was hundreds, you would call everyone who said 18 dead on day one, liars. rolleyes

My argument is the 129 dead people and the hundreds injured.

That's good enough for me.

How 'bout those killed in the Boston bombing? And those injured? Those two practically grew up here and they still ended up thinking they were justified in doing what they did.

did i call you a liar?

or did i say you weren't updated?

this is the part where you start slinging mud and hoping it sticks, because your whole argument just fell apart.

because you're generalizing the refugee's, something you and others cry about me doing all the time: generalizing.

what happened is tragic, bro. nobody is arguing that. however, you're aiming your hatred at the wrong people, thats the point.

you routinely say westboro baptist church doesn't represent christians in this country right?

so why do you continue to associate refugee's who had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks?

First of all, I don't recall saying you generalized anything.

Second, I don't hate them, didn't say that they all are like the ones I'm concerned about (guess that would be Third on the list).

Again, how many people did it take to turn our world upside down? 19. They were all here legally.

What was it, 7 or 8 people in France? How many lives have they destroyed? HOW MANY?

Do I hate them? No.

Do I trust them? I'm sure most of them could be, but I DON'T KNOW THAT! Therefore I'd rather err on the SIDE OF CAUTION before something horrible happens and more lives are destroyed!

Like I said before, it's not like we're basing our concerns on circumstances made up out of thin air.

and I'll ask again, Which of those who are lost can you bring back?

So if I go back thru all the posts you ever made with links to the News article and find them to be updated, your entire argument falls apart?

So that's how you fly now, Huh?

So wrong, so silly, so long.

thats fine.

but of those 9 attackers, how many were refugee's?

zero. i believe i posted before that we should be cautious. but there's ton of people on this board advocating that we shouldn't bring them here.

so i'm asking why? and based off what? since they weren't involved with the attacks.

yes, if information changed and the real scenario comes to light, then the original articles are invalid.

i don't have a double standard, but you seem to have a problem being wrong.

the refugee's weren't involved. so stop posting as if they were. because that means you're knowingly spreading misinformation.

I don't recall anyone saying they shouldn't come at all, I do recall a bunch of people saying we aren't being cautious enough and given that getting a true 'vet' of these people is impossible considering the state of information technology in that part of the world makes it extremely difficult to know who is trustworthy and who isn't.

Well we have people who get guns legally and then commit crimes. But I wouldn't take people's guns just because they MIGHT do something.

There's plenty of people saying they don't want refugees on this board. Plenty.

When you by into the fear mongering, the terrorist win.

Agreed. The debate on this thread has been interesting to read and there are valid points for sure - and most seem to agree that a balance is needed.

Assistance and security are not mutually exclusive. We can do both and we should do both.

Our church supports the refugees directly and we have taken the stance that these are people in need and need help, and that will be the driving decision - like GM mentioned. My family will open up our house and goods to assist when that opportunity arises locally.

I could not image what they are going through and what I would think if I was in their spot and the world would help my family just because of what a few folks are deciding to do in an bad way.

My wife and I spent some time with the Burma Refugee camps in northern Thailand a few years ago, and that was one experience that really opened up our eyes to the word Refugee and what it can entail.

Obviously the answer is never that easy, but hopefully we never become so fearful that we are paralyzed into not doing the right thing.