Well, you don't have to roll the clock back that far and we had all the Japs & Germans locked up.

Maybe Pauline will show some leadership on that one. .. Or, what about someone from the Shooters Party? Someone else perhaps?

(we may not have an official militia ey boys but we sure could put a fair few bolt action shooters on the streets quick smart if they were called upon.)

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Dear LEGO,

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You wrote :

« I have a book by the British police officer who was in charge of investigating who was responsible for the London tube bombings. He said that the one thing which puzzled the police, was that the local Muslim community must have known what was going down, and they did nothing … He said that much success in fighting drug trafficking was the result of public tip offs to police, and that the police could not understand why the Muslim public did not tip off the police when it was obvious that the perps were making bombs … Similarly, the father of one terrorist claimed that he did not know that his son was a terrorist … Within a month, that same Muslim man was praising his son's terrorist act to the media … probably because the local Muslims were slapping him on the back and praising the actions of his son »

The British police officer is making assumptions which I suspect are true but nowhere near the extent that he indicates, that “the local Muslim community must have known”.

The attacks killed 52 people and injured over 700. While I’m willing to believe there were a few accomplices and perhaps one or two others in on the secret, I doubt that the 4 jihadists took the risk of jeopardising an operation of that importance by allowing news of it to leak out to “the local Muslim community”.

The “perps” were probably just as aware as the police officer that “much success in fighting drug trafficking was the result of public tip offs to police” and made sure that only those who had some role to play in the project were informed - and no more than what was expected of them. In other words, they were only told what they needed to know.

The fact that the operation “succeeded” is a fair indication that not too many people got wind of it beforehand.

I suspect the police officer is making sweeping statements (generalisations) from one or two specific examples.

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To Banjo.

The police officer made no social or political comments about Muslims. He was entirely unbiased. What he said was that he could not understand why the local Muslim community, who knew the perps, and who must have plainly seen the men on the streets, in the shops, and in the mosques, and knew that that they must have been making bombs, because their ever lightening complexions was giving the game away, did not contact the police.

What we have, is a religion who's leaders quite openly claim that it is their religious duty to make everyone in the world a Muslim. And their religious holy texts say that it is OK to use force and terrorism to do it. And when Muslims do exactly what their leaders and their Koran tells them to do, people like your good self perform the most bizarre mental gymnastics trying to absolve Muslims when they conform to their religious duty.

The Grand Mufti of Australia, who I presume is another one of these mythical "moderate" Muslims, refused to recognise the Parramatta terrorist murder as terrorism at all. He then went on to blame terrorism, on the victims of terrorism. The old wife beaters excuse. "I am sorry honey, but if you had not made me mad, I would not have beat the everylovin' shiit outa you. Please don't make me mad again." Or in the case of the Mufti, "Just become Muslims, and our boys won't shoot you, or blow you up."

He can't criticise Muslims for using force and terrorism to create the worldwide caliphate, because that is exactly what they are supposed to do.

Maybe if the Mufti had blond hair, and blue eyes, and shouted "Heil Hitler", you might figure out that the people who follow this ideology are not disposed to be nice to you, and that you sure picked the wrong crowd to defend

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Dear LEGO,

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« The police officer made no social or political comments about Muslims. He was entirely unbiased. What he said was that he could not understand why the local Muslim community, who knew the perps, and who must have plainly seen the men … and knew that that they must have been making bombs, because their ever lightening complexions was giving the game away, did not contact the police. »

Eyes relay images, LEGO, but we “see” with our brains. That’s the problem. We “see” what we know (understand) and what we want to “see” (prejudice). I wouldn’t have a clue how to make a bomb and, rightly or wrongly, imagine that most of the members of “the local Muslim community” wouldn’t either.

The only person I ever “saw” whose complexion grew lighter was Michael Jackson and that was on TV. It never occurred to me that he was making a bomb. I doubt that the police officer thought he was either.

The autopsy that was performed following Jackson’s death revealed that he had a skin disorder called vitiligo and used special creams to bleach the rest of his skin. Apparently some people use these creams even if they’re not suffering from vitligo. It has nothing to do with making bombs.

I suspect the police officer “sees” what he knows. He obviously knows about making bombs but he may not know anything about vitiligo and special creams to bleach skin.

As a general principle I have a strong aversion to injustice. Crime is an injustice and I consider that it should be punished proportionately, according to the nature and gravity of the crime and with discernment if it is a first offense. I am in favour of the death penalty for particularly atrocious crimes involving first degree murder.

Unless proven otherwise, I consider that each individual is responsible for his acts and omissions. I reject the notion of collective responsibility and am fiercely opposed to anybody being condemned - or even suspected - simply because he belongs to a particular ethnic group, class, religion, community, etc.

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To Mr Patterson.

Your primary premise appears to be, that people of any particular group can not be condemned collectively as a group for the actions of individual members of that group. That is not an entirely valid concept. The concept that nobody can be judged by their group affiliations is a good general principle, but it can not be a moral absolute. Because it then becomes an overly idealistic concept which makes no concessions to plain common sense. Criminal behaviour is often a pre requisite to group membership. "Outlaw" motorcycle gangs require their members to engage in serious criminal behaviour in order to belong to the group, and they openly brag about that.

It is simply a common sense survival instinct to assign suspicion and deep mistrust to members of any group already notorious for serious criminal behaviour. Even one the USA's most respected leaders of the National Association of American Coloured People (NAACP), Jesse Jackson, quite famously said, that when walking around Washington at night, he "felt a lot safer when there was a white man walking behind me, than a black."

Assigning collective guilt is quite valid, where the cultural values which define group membership are definitely a factor in criminal behaviour. All Muslims share collective guilt for the very high incidence of rape of non Muslim women committed in western countries by Muslim males, because their group beliefs mandate extreme hostility to non Muslims, and validate the idea that women who get raped deserve it. Not only deserve it, they are the guilty party. Muslims can only absolve themselves of their group responsibility for this, by firmly, and publically, renouncing their sacred texts which tell them that women who do not conform to Muslim standards of behaviour deserve to be raped.

Racial profiling is also quite valid. Race specific crimes do exist. Serial killers are almost exclusively white males. Nobody knows why. Men who rape elderly women are almost exclusively black males. Nobody knows why. In this world today, almost every act of senseless terrorism is committed by Muslims. Everybody with a brain knows why.

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Dear LEGO,

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You wrote :

« The concept that nobody can be judged by their group affiliations is a good general principle, but it cannot be a moral absolute. Because it then becomes an overly idealistic concept which makes no concessions to plain common sense. »
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That’s true, LEGO, but common sense alone is not a sufficient legal basis for finding someone guilty of a crime, as was demonstrated in Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem in 1961. I watched a rather lengthy documentary on it on French TV a few months back.

He was indicted on 15 criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership in a criminal organisation. The judges declared him not guilty of personally killing anyone and not guilty of overseeing and controlling the activities of the Einsatzgruppen (a special task force). He was deemed responsible for the dreadful conditions on board the deportation trains and for obtaining Jews to fill those trains. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes against Poles, Slovenes and Gypsies. He was also found guilty of membership of three organisations that had been deemed criminal at the Nuremberg trials: the Gestapo, the SD, and the SS.

When considering the sentence, the judges concluded that Eichmann had not merely been following orders, but believed in the Nazi cause wholeheartedly and had been a key perpetrator of the genocide.

The trial lasted 56 days and the prosecution presented hundreds of documents and 112 witnesses. Many of them were Holocaust survivors.

Eichmann was sentenced to death and hanged on 1 June 1962 after successive appeals to the Israeli supreme court and President Ben-Gurion were rejected.

I consider that, unless proven otherwise, every individual possesses the faculty of free will and must assume responsibility for his acts and omissions. Simply belonging to a community does not automatically imply responsibility for the acts and omissions committed by the members of that community.

However, as demonstrated in the Eichmann trial, belonging to a criminal organisation may be deemed a criminal act.

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