The war-mongering and hysterics are ridiculous.
Apparently we have much to fear, an unprecendented threat and need to give up our liberties.
Bullshit.
We have no history of Islamic extremism in NZ. No groups wanting sharia law. No noticeable support for IS.
We have a small moderate Muslim community.
And we have the likes of Stephen Franks on the right claiming NZ has 30% Muslim support for IS, but – as RadioNZ Mediawatch worked out – in fact it was an international survey, a number of years ago, and the 30% was the number of Muslims who thought that the caliphate would be re-established in their lifetimes. So hardly support for IS.
The threat is hardly “unprecedented” – IS are not so dissimilar from al-Qaeda, except much more focussed on the Middle East, much less on the West. Islamic militantism has been about since the 7th century when they made the Mediterranean a Muslim lake.
It’s intriguing the great increase in powers the UK has given their authorities over IRA days – despite the fact that IRA was a much greater threat. We don’t need to continue down that path.
I see no reason for us to send troops to Iraq to clean up US’s mess – we weren’t involved in the first place. Humanitarian aid? Sure.
I see no reason for us to give our spy agencies more powers. A few (and the number is probably literally that) who are misguided and actual potential risks can be easily monitored in current ways.
I see no reason for us to make people stateless against UN conventions by canceling their passports while overseas. We can follow the rule of law, and monitor anyone and charge them with any crimes in the proper way.
Let’s just tone it all back a notch.
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