Fourth Muslim group rejects federal grant to fight extremism

Chomsky said:

The italicized text in my original post is cited from the article.

The rest is entirely my original thought.

Under Obama, we had intelligence abilities and a working relationship with & within these four groups. Now we've been expelled - due specifically to Trump it seems.

He's breeding terrorism, whether he knows it or not.

And America is *not* safer for it.

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Are you saying there are Muslims here considering terrorism now because of Trump?

Beaudreaux said:

Those are domestic groups without ties to external groups, and the FBI already has a specific division that does what the CVE is trying to do with external influences on both external and internal (domestic) threats. But, maybe we should give the Methodist Men a million dollars to root out those Christian extremists in the Methodist Church for balance? I was unaware that the four groups that had refused to participate were Islamic Extremist groups? That makes it a hell of a lot easier to identify them, doesn't it? By that logic, all we have to do is ask a Muslim group to help identify Islamic Extremists, and if they refuse, they're obviously Islamic Extremists because that's who the program is focused on. The fact that groups like Westboro Baptist may be a focus of FBI surveillance wouldn't concern me at all, nor do I think that the majority of Christians would be concerned with it, since they are Christian extremists, just as snake handlers in the Appalachian mountains are as well and those groups are under police surveillance also.

But, once again, for that logic to hold, given the CVE is focused on violent extremists and not peaceful religious groups or people, the groups that refuse to participate because they feel the program is targeting them, must be violent extremists. Think about it.

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You miss the point, in a big way. I am not suggesting such focus would be good, I am suggesting that if, to use your example, CVE was changed to focus on just baptists because of Westboro, baptists in general would be unhappy, feeling singled out and targeted based on the actions of a tiny few. And they would be justified in feeling that. This is nothing different. Muslims, who by and large are decent, good people(just like any other religion) do not like being singled out as the threat. There is a feeling, and the changes in CVE are part of this, that they are being scapegoated for partisan gain. The problems in the US are not our fault, it is the Mexicans, the Chinese, and those damn muslims.

Redress said:

You miss the point, in a big way. I am not suggesting such focus would be good, I am suggesting that if, to use your example, CVE was changed to focus on just baptists because of Westboro, baptists in general would be unhappy, feeling singled out and targeted based on the actions of a tiny few. And they would be justified in feeling that. This is nothing different. Muslims, who by and large are decent, good people(just like any other religion) do not like being singled out as the threat. There is a feeling, and the changes in CVE are part of this, that they are being scapegoated for partisan gain. The problems in the US are not our fault, it is the Mexicans, the Chinese, and those damn muslims.

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I don't feel I've missed your point at all. I do think that I haven't been able to articulate my point well enough to allow you to see it - which is my fault, not yours. As happens sometimes, we seem to have fallen into talking to each other rather than with each other. What I call transmission only mode.

A good example of this, is that I was not trying to portray your position as suggesting such focus would be good. Not at all.

Another example is that it's not my understanding that the CVE has identified all Muslims as violent extremists, as would be required for your Baptist analogy would require for Baptists as a whole to be rightfully enraged as you state they would be, but rather that the CVE is only going to focus on Islamist Extremists not all Muslims.

You should know by now that I'm not going to try to defend Trump for anything, yet I will support and defend policies that I feel are valuable and/or required when it comes to securing the life, health, and safety of the American people. Which is why I supported the CVE when Obama introduced it, and why I support it now. Even though the focus has been narrowed (I don't think it's a change as much as a narrowing). It's possible that later on, the focus could expand again to cover other international violent extremists.

Domestic violent extremists, as I said earlier, are already covered under the FBI's program and are not, nor should be, a part of the CVE program. Terrorists that are here domestically that have been radicalized by foreign actors or influence should be, or at least could be, part of the focus of the CVE. Currently internationally, with the exception of small areas and small groups (Christian, Buddhist, Etc.) in Africa, Mongolia, Tibet, and other minor examples that haven't shown a threat to the US, the overwhelming amount of critical warlike violence along with the most obvious threat to the US from violent extremists comes from Violent Islamic Extremists.

That's not racist, or an infringement on their religious freedom, or xenophobic, it's just fact.

Any Baptist that wouldn't be willing to assist in identifying violent extremist Baptists to the FBI should and could be held just as liable for any harm befallen innocent people by the actions of the extremists if the peaceful Baptists knew and did nothing.

The same is true for the overall Muslim community, especially the four groups that have refused to participate in the CVE program for whatever reason they use as an excuse.

Beaudreaux said:

You said:



To wit I replied:



My meaning is that when it comes to the CVE program, groups should not use Trump or his rhetoric as a reason to refuse to participate, unless the group supports violent extremists, given that the program originated under and by President Barrack Obama and not Trump.

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Sorry for the extremely delayed reply here.

If you're still interested, the problem seems to be in Trump's changing the CVE program, along with his inflammatory remarks and actions.

Redress & I had quite a bit of back-and-forth in the thread, but I think my post #13 explains the CVE problem well enough:

Post #13