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curious2 says

I return to my suggestion that we should offer everyone a free one-way ticket to Mecca

I think in the case of Europe, the case is more serious.
I would make people (everyone) sign an extensive declaration that they believe in European values (respect of others, respect of human life, separation of church and state, equality of men and women, and with a special clause for Muslims that they renounce violence and beliefs such a stoning or otherwise killing others).

If they refuse, I would not offer a one way ticket to Mecca. I would strip them of citizenship and deport them on the spot to closest African shore.

But right now we are so stuck in denial that the battle is against ourselves.

Heraclitusstudent says

- PM Erdogan of Turkey (an 'ally' of the US and Europe) often praised for being a 'moderate': "The Term “Moderate Islam” Is Ugly And Offensive; There Is No Moderate Islam; Islam Is Islam"

He is right, there is no moderate Islam. There are moderate Muslims, those who don't practice the crap in Islam.

Heraclitusstudent says

I think in the case of Europe, the case is more serious.

Yes, definitely, especially in the countries that are nearly 10% Muslim (e.g. Belgium and France). They are approaching the tipping point, and could go the way of Lebanon.

Heraclitusstudent says

But right now we are so stuck in denial that the battle is against ourselves.

You have a point there, but our solutions have to be consistent with our own laws. Islam says to go Mecca. It doesn't say go to the closest shore of Africa. Being nice can be more effective than being mean: you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar; as a Christian would say, you must love your enemy.

Offering a free ticket is nice. Be generous even with who those say they want to kill you: smile as you offer them a free ticket to go away; then, if you must fight them, do it at a safe distance. In any conflict, the battleground suffers most. If you want to protect your own country, or Europe, then that task becomes much easier if your adversary leaves voluntarily.

Your declaration might have some effect, but as long as the believers remain, even those who sign your declaration, the effect would likely be weak and temporary. Even if they read your declaration aloud every day and sign it every day, it won't match the power of a cancer diagnosis or the death of a spouse or the loss of a job. Even the San Bernardino terrorists could have signed your papers: one had just cleared her background checks to immigrate, and the other had a steady government job, but they planned their attacks and checked out when their child was born. (The new father was reportedly "triggered" and ejected prematurely after somebody allegedly made fun of his beard.) With paradise waiting just around the corner, your meager pieces of earthly paper won't mean as much.

curious2 says

but our solutions have to be consistent with our own laws.

Laws can be changed. Even constitutions can be changed.
We should not make laws a barrier to reacting to people who would use our constitutional rights and then, once in power, would turn around and burn that constitution.

curious2 says

the effect would likely be weak and temporary.

The declaration is just one part as I explained. Other parts include education, media, foreign policy, surveillance, immigration, etc...
But the declaration serves several important purposes: First it separates moderate people from extremists (so it draws a line in the sand where it should be), it may weakly influence people and separate them from seeing texts as absolute truths, and moreover it eliminates the denialist argument that we should not bother the Muslim community at all because most of them are moderates. Such a declaration doesn't target moderates and shouldn't bother them.

Heraclitusstudent, as I read your comments, I can't help noticing that you don't acknowledge the areas where we seem to agree, and you seem to resort only to negative remedies with regard to addressing the problem. Why resort first to changing laws and even the Constitution, without even offering a free ticket? Amending the Constitution takes years and costs a lot of money; the founders made the process difficult precisely to prevent over-reaction to the concerns of the moment. Please don't let anger cloud your judgment. We do have a problem, but anger about the source of the problem should not distract from finding the cheapest and simplest legal solution.

curious2 says

Why resort first to changing laws and even the Constitution, without even offering a free ticket?

Because as I said I don't believe many people would take a free ticket if it meant to never come back.

Heraclitusstudent says

curious2 says

Why resort first to changing laws and even the Constitution, without even offering a free ticket?

Because as I said I don't believe many people would take a free ticket if it meant to never come back.

The believers believe that they must go. The free ticket offers them the opportunity. If you're considering going full snackbar because Islam says so, then you'd better not skip your free trip to Mecca first, because that would make you an unbeliever and ineligible for paradise. If they stay, even when offered a free ticket, then they are effectively declaring that they are unbelievers, infidels. You can repeat the offer every day, everywhere. The refusal of a free ticket is a daily declaration, with actions speaking louder than words. Every day a "Muslim" doesn't sign up for his free ticket, every waking hour he attends to other things instead of signing up, he is effectively saying he doesn't believe that he needs to go to Mecca, which means he doesn't really believe Islam, and he isn't going to do what it tells him to do. Even if he prays 5x/day, he knows the whole time that Islam says he has to go, and he has failed to go, even though he could have gone. What if he gets hit by a bus tomorrow, how will he explain his failure to go when he had the chance? The inconvenience of not being allowed back? That is but a mere earthly matter, which would not trouble him if he were a true believer and trusted that all things are the will of Allah.

curious2 says

If they stay, even when offered a free ticket, then they are effectively declaring that they are unbelievers, infidels.

Well but tickets to Mecca aren't THAT expensive.
Most people wouldn't take a free ticket at the price of never coming back. It's much easier to go buy your own ticket, go there and come back.

So yes we can do that but I don't think it would have much effect.

Also this is a worldwide problem. You can't ignore the rest of the world. You need to go for the root of the problem. You need to fight the ideas.

Heraclitusstudent says

You need to fight the ideas.

I agree about that, and I've lamented previously that two presidents in a row (R+D) have insisted on publicly expressing "respect" for Islam.

Heraclitusstudent says

It's much easier to go buy your own ticket, go there and come back.

I had already suggested the possibility of legislation saying people who choose to go to a specific list of countries that, for example, advocate the violent overthrow of our Constitutional government are thereby choosing to renounce whatever right to return they may have had. The offer of a free ticket would in itself require legislation if it is to be publicly funded. The two suggestions could be easily combined in one statute. I think such a prudent defensive measure would be more patriotic than the so-called Patriot Act using the presence of potential terrorists as an excuse to spy on everyone.

"BRUSSELS — Ilyass Boughalab may be dead, but his brief stint working in Belgium's nuclear industry is still very much alive in the minds of this country's nuclear security officials worried about the Islamic State.

Boughalab's family said he was radicalized after he had security clearances, but in 2014 someone else committed an act of sabotage at the plant by opening a valve, draining lubricant from a turbine and causing it to burn out. The plant was never in danger but had to shut down for four months, and the damage cost between $100 million and $200 million."

Donald Trump Finds New City to Insult: Brussels

Note the Date of article -January 28th, 2016.

LONDON — He incensed Paris and London by saying that some of their neighborhoods were so overrun with radicals that the police were too scared to enter.

He raised Scottish tempers by threatening to pull the plug on his investments there, including his luxury golf courses, if British politicians barred him from entering Britain.

Now Donald J. Trump has upset the already beleaguered people of Belgium, calling its capital, Brussels, “a hellhole.”

Asked by the Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo about the feasibility of his proposal to bar foreign Muslims from entering the United States, Mr. Trump argued that Belgium and France had been blighted by the failure of Muslims in these countries to integrate.

“There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on.”