Don't you think it wrong though? That people deliberately have x amount of kids just to get thousands of pounds of money! This system is WRONG!! It benefits the fat and lazy than the hard working!
He is definitely abusing the system, and I agree that is wrong. The tricky bit is what to do about it. If you make an exception of him, you create a precedent and all of a sudden you can deny people benefits just for expressing unpopular ideas. If you change the system as a whole, innocent, hardworking people with large families get penalised. For example: I know a secretary who is a single mom with four kids (three now adult). She works in the NHS for a pittance and singlehandedly keeps a whole service managed. I'm not kidding: without her it would crash and burn. You ever heard that nobody is indispensible? Well, she is indispensible. At the same time she has raised four children, and they are solid, hardworking, decent kids. If I had kids I'd want them to be like hers. Because her job pays so little, she has depended on child benefits a lot. Personally I cannot think of a better investment of my taxes into the future of this country. So you have to be careful before you mess with or change existing systems. Anjem Choudhary is just one crazy person. People just like this secretary are in their thousands, family men and women, all over the UK, quietly and unassumingly keeping the country going.
Sometimes this is exactly the case, and yes, this is very wrong. But do we actually know the exact details of Anjem Choudary's situation? edit: Well if he doesn't have a very good reason to be on benefits, and is cheating the system, then I agree to pressure the government to protest against leeches like this. Feel free to protest, while you still can...
Child benefit is child benefit. Stopping child benefit because we're not happy with the way a parent is raising a child is potentially one of those slippery slopes that could encroach upon our private lives. Are parents under any obligation to purposefully raise their children in a way that is to the benefit of society? Perhaps by claiming child benefit parents do take on a certain amount of that obligation, but I haven't read the small print for child benefits so I don't know. And of course assessing and policing that would be a nightmare and result in an (imo) unacceptable level of social bureaucracy in our homes. Leads to the same discussion about the health service - should every piece of healthcare provision be means-tested, with the patient having to prove that they have not voluntarily done anything to harm their health in any way? This evidence and risk based society we have is already a real bitch to put up with. How long before we are living purely to serve and comply with the state (or have we already reached that point)?
I agree the system works well for most but those few who take the mickey out of the system should be forced to work. What is stopping Anjem from working? What is different from him and everyone else The latter would be, the single parent asks the mother/friend to look after the child whilst they work. People like Anjem should NOT have children if they CANNOT afford them and if they do go against the law, they shouldn't get any benefits! That's my two pence anyway!
Again, I don't think anyone would disagree in principle, but it is harder to put it into practice. Anjem has a right not to work, as long as he provides for himself and does not claim Jobseeker's allowance (which he does not). He appears to live off child benefits to which any parent is entitled. We could argue that he should not have children if he is unable to support them, but that also goes for the parents of a third of all children in this country who live below the poverty line. The problem is that parents who get children when they cannot afford them do not tend to be the most responsible people --they will get them regardless of their finances, and hence regardless of whether they get child benefits or not. OK: so now you have a whole lot of children born in deprived families. Whacha gonna do? Leave them in abject poverty and deprivation, saying: "Well, their parents should have known better"? Or do you sigh, roll your eyes and fork out some child benefits so that these children can actually eat, wear shoes and clean clothes and have some sort of chance to a decent start in life? Before you answer, consider the bigger picture. Children who live in poverty have more health problems in later life (costly to the NHS), more educational difficulties resulting in unemployment (costly in terms of unemployment benefits) and more behavioural difficulties (costly to the legal system). They also --you guessed it-- are more likely to produce children that they could not possibly care for. As Elton John croons: It's the ciiiiircle of liiiiife... Take the kids away and put them with more affluent families? Has been tried in the past --it was a disaster because affluent parents are nor necessarily better parents. Unless you create a massive adoption bureaucracy to screen the adoptive parents, there is no guarantee that they will end up anywhere better in psychological terms. And of course the birth parents are not likely to give them up without a fight. Expect the mother of all rioting if you come onto any sink estate in Britain and take someone's kids away for no other reason than that they are poor.
Regardless of benefits from the state. He has no qualifications in islamic studies then calls himself a imam and preaches shariah law. I find it very irresponsible of those news channels that allow him air time. It's like calling up a professor for an expert opinion in forensics example. But to speak an air a interview with a homeless man speculating on forensics. Misrepresentations
His lack of credentials doesn't bother the press, because he makes all the right (i.e. controversial) noises and he has credentials where it matters: he is brown, foreign-looking, has a weird religion and he expresses hostility towards Britain. He probably smells funny too. Oh, and he doesn't work but sits at home fathering a lot of kids. It's tabloid gold! So never mind that he is not a real Imam or Muslim. He fits the stereotype. He is what tabloid readers expect Muslims to be like. In tabloid world, superficial appearances are all that matters.
May I remind you of the most sensible question that you contributed in this thread: Nobody thinks of Catholics as terrorists, regardless of what the IRA (or the "real IRA", "Continuity IRA" or "I can't believe it's not IRA") get up to. Nobody thinks of them as habitual child molesters regardless of the behaviour of some of their clergy. Because they are not portrayed, by the media, as representative of all Catholics. But some crazy-ass extremists get up to **** while proclaiming themselves to be Muslims, and everybody just takes their word for it. Nobody says: "They're just a bunch of nutters, aren't they? Not all Muslims are like that". They are portrayed as typical Muslims. Those extremists are not Muslims. Muslims don't think that these people are Muslims. Muslims are ordinary people like you and I just trying to live their lives and raise their families. Sure, we've all seen the graphic pictures of Muslims protesting against the Danish cartoons. What the media does not show us, of course, are the images that these Muslims are all too familiar with: Allied soldiers stomping all over Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing their villages, shooting their people. Collateral damage, "Kill Teams" killing civilians and keeping body parts as trophies for sport, platoons going nuts and raping women and wiping out their unarmed families to get rid of witnesses. It's all a matter of record, a matter of ongoing trials, but the media doesn't make a fuss about that. No, Muslims are all crazy. They just hate us for no reason, as crazy people do. You should fear them and hate them. Here, buy a poppy to support our troops stomping all over their countries. The media likes to stereotype. Youths all are disaffected and wear hoodies; you should fear them. Single mothers are all promiscuous whores playing the benefits system; you should despise them. The unemployed are all lazy layabouts; you should comdemn them. Immigrants are all taking our jobs and women; you should kick them out. Men who like children are all paedo's; you should suspect them. Black people are all gangsta's; you should avoid them. Muslims are all terrorists; you should report them... The media likes to tell us not only how scared we should be, but also exactly why, because that is what sells copy. You asked one bright question, now follow it through. Think about the answer.
I'm not arguing with you on the media side but there was a time not so long ago when many people did exactly that. "Catholic are you? How many did you blow up this week? Oh that's not your thing. I expect that you prefer young boys then? Why don't you go back to where you came from?" Perhaps not so blatantly as that but people were shunned because of their faith and ethnic origin, exactly as is happening now to a different group. They are/were extremists and everyone with even the vaguest association was tainted. Having Irish family wasn't prosecutable by law but you certainly didn't announce it to anyone related to the forces or MoD. Irish relatives on both sides was kept very quiet as at the least it would have cost my father his job. The UK has never been tolerant of those seen as outsiders and to me it simply appears to be history repeating itself with a different target this time. Agreed but unfortunately the exact same situation as Irish Catholics mentioned above - they all end up tarred with the same brush. It is, as you've said, all down to media perception and at the moment it's "The Muslim Enemy". Next week it may be "Satanists Eat Babies! (Poll: Should we drown them or burn them?) The Muslims are the current enemy and every bugger and his cousin is climbing on the bandwagon. @Dwarfer: Look at the headlines and decide for yourself whether they're giving an accurate representation or just selling papers. "Muslims Burn Poppies! - It's disrespectful of our troops - Disgruntled of Tundridge Wells" or "BNP Posts Racist **** Through Letterbox in Birmingham - Again It's the third time this week - A N Other resident". Scandal and sensation sell, same **** different day doesn't.
Can you share a link for what they supposedly posted through letter boxes that was so racist? I've just read in my local paper the council has scrapped sending out leaflets to Muslims because they were deemed as racist! All they said was to clean up your area, it's a disgrace! That's NOT racist! As 99% of my local city is what they like to call “Muslim areas” why not make it more applicable and understandable to Muslims. How the hell can suggesting that people should keep the area in which they live in tidy, be even remotely “inciting racial hatred”? I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous. Touchy or what? I’ve driven through some of these areas , and some can look like Mogadishu on a bad day. If people kept their yards tidy the council wouldn’t have to waste money printing stupid leaflets, which would probably be thrown into the street anyway.
You are totally missing the point and this is drifting way off topic now. The very idea of "Muslim areas" is stereotyping, just as it is in Northern Ireland when they talk about "Protestant areas" or "Catholic areas". Your city cannot be "99% Muslim areas". No city in the UK is. And I could show you some areas in Birmingham with a predominantly White British population that look like landfill sites, so YMMV. It is racism to send leaflets asking people to keep their area clean to areas with predominantly ethnic minorities if the same is not done with predominantly white areas. And who says that it is "inciting racial hatred"? Where do you get these ideas? Do you have any links? Care to supply us with facts? You just state these opinions, without either reason or fact to back them up, and when they are challenged you simply move on to stating yet another opinion without reason or fact. No debate is possible. I'm bowing out of this thread. As usual it has achieved nothing, has started wandering like an Alzheimer's patient and anyway it violates one of Nexxo's rules: Don't argue with people who have an over-investment in closed, self-serving worldviews.
Have you actually spoken to any of them? How exactly have you worked out who is calling the areas in question 'muslim areas'? First hand research or what you've been told by the others/media? And as for what you read in your local paper i'd take that with a large pinch of salt. I've read countless similar stories where it ends up that the real situation is nothing like what has been reported but the truth doesn't sell as well as a story about having to stop sending out leaflets due to racism.
Never heard of MAC before but the title is a contradiction. Muslims against crusades when the purpose of the group is to crusade in whatever country they choose. Invariably these groups and the white racists groups all share one thing in common... a lack of logic. Inability to see the bigger picture and a total absence of logical thought. Such groups function entirely on an emotional level which makes them rather stupid and dangerous.
Would like to point out also that religion = mass delusion and when large numbers of people are walking around with delusions then you're going to have trouble. It's the same with many religious delusions from christianity to satanism. When people function entirely on emotion without logic then big problems arise.
What such groups have in common is fear. They are terrified, and hence they seek attachment to a 'secure base' (which they usually did not get in their parental home). This is through seeking a Big Daddy leader, whether a Fuhrer, a prophet or a God, and the derived sense of mattering that this provides, and seeking a group/tribe to belong to. The quest for the former often facilitates the latter, in that one finds identification with others who attach to the same parent figure/great leader/god to feel safe and relevant, so that's handy. Of course they will also unite around a cause that reflects their fears: a paranoid need to protect against a perceived threat in the shape of certain out-groups, which of course are invariably perceived as hostile, evil and inferior; and a quest to conquer and change the whole world to become an idealised place in which they can feel safe and free of threat: one with no scary out-groups, a strong leader/parent/god to make them feel safe and important and nothing that can threaten their fragile sense of self. The reason why Islamic extreminsts and white racists clash so much is not because they have opposing views, but an identical underlying ideology. They are exactly the same: hostile, angry, paranoid, egocentrically narcissist, closed-minded, feeling victimised and above all frightened. They continually spark off against each other in a weird collusion which facilitates the mutual reinforcement of their worldviews. They need each other as out-group enemy to keep their in-group tight. The Bush administration could not have done what he did without a token Islamic terrorist enemy. Islamic fundamentalists could not have united and recruited so effectively without the Bush administration's efforts. Subconsciously, they are in cahoots. If you want to get a feel for how those people function, think of two groups of little boys continuously fighting each other. Who 'owns' this part of the park, who has the biggest tree house. Which group is better than the other. The incessant fights without real reason other than they are the 'enemy'. In certain neighbourhoods it graduates to gang wars and post code shootings when they are old enough to hold a gun. Or people join the BNP, EDL or fundamentalist group of their choice. Occasionally it goes national and we see Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa, or Serbia vs Bosnia and Rwanda Hutu's vs Tutsi. It all serves to strengthen the in-group; to feel important and safe. Religion is but one facilitating ritual. Culture is another, as is dress, custom, language, or on a smaller scale, gang colours, which football team you support, whether you wear a red, poppy, a white one or none at all... Whether you burn the poppy or call people traitors for not wearing one, it is all the same thinking underneath.
