Van attacks people outside of mosque in London

[Hedra42]

Illusion said:

Teeqoz said:

Indeed, I haven't seen threads about neither the London fire nor the fores fires in portugal here on VGC. Maybe some were created, but in that case they died down way quicked than any thread about these terrorist attacks. I find it sort of worrying that people let such a small aspect of cases largely dominate their way of thinking.

About 13000 people in France alone died from multiresistant bacterial strains in 2012. No doubt a number that has only grown. Yet this gets oh so little attention from neither the media nor from people. Yet I remember reading a news article which said terrorism was the most important factor for the french people when making their decision on who to vote for.

And 40000 people died in traffic in the US last year, and almost 5 million injured.

Terrorism is a problem, yes, but it gets blown way out of proportions. It's a big problem in Syria, Pakistan, Nigeria and Iraq, especially if you include ISIS more "normal" military actions as terrorism. But it's not that big a problem in the west.

There is a huge moral difference between people dying from natural causes and people dying as a result of pre-meditated murder from a hostile, foreign terrorist group.  For example, if you accidentally kill somebody with your car while you were making every reasonable effort to drive safely nothing will probably happen to you legally.  On the other hand, if you purposely premeditate to kill and then run somebody down whom you hate, you are likely to be charged with second degree murder and you will probably spend the rest of your life in prison or on death row.

The above two situations demand very different responses and it is the same with terrorism.  Yes, it is sad that people die from bacteria, but the bacteria isn't self-aware or intelligent, it doesn't choose to give itself to evil and to seek out innocence and kill a human being out of malice.  A terrorist is without a doubt one of the lowliest of criminals and it is a grave injustice when our governments, who are sworn to protect their own citizens first and foremost, refuse to accept that their own negligent policies such as allowing open borders and their refusal to prosecute radical mosques is creating conditions that are ideal for terrorism to thrive.  

Terrorism was not even 1/10th the problem that it is today even just 20 years ago and this is the result of a grave cancer in the leadership of our society.  Most leaders and the media today are corrupt and are controlled by big money that does not care about the well-being of our society --  terrorism is just one very severe symptom of this underlying problem.  The situation will continue to degrade very quickly if we continue to be politically correct pawns and only do what our leaders and corporations (such as the mainstream media) deem acceptable.

In isolation, this brings up some salient points. However, they're largely irrelevant to the discussion you replied to about the safety of living in London compared with places where terrorist attacks and/or gun crime are the norm. And while Teeqoz didn't mention other types of violent crime in his argument, he is right that there does need to be a greater sense of perspective when looking at terrorist incidents in the west.

We shouldn't forget that the attention given to this most recent attack in London has enabled far-right elements to celebrate it, and islamists to use it as propaganda to justify their cause. Likewise, it's a reasonable assumption that the intense coverage of the earlier incidents in Westminster, Manchester and London Bridge probably incited this most recent one.

That doesn't mean coverage should be suppressed or the issues ignored. Atrocities need to be reported, and they need to be talked about, don't get me wrong. But blowing it out of proportion only plays into the hands of terrorists on both sides.

I don't pretend to have the answer on how to perform that balancing act, but when I see the latest headlines sometimes, I have to wonder.

For example, this morning, there have been live updates on BBC about a man being tasered for waving a shoehorn about outside a mosque at 1.am. I mean, live updates? For a shoehorn? Really? Would this have even made the news had the van attack not happened? Would it have been covered if the shoehorn had been waved outside a supermarket instead? Would the guy with the shoehorn even have bothered, had he not read about the van attack?

Perspective is important, and is so easy to lose.