Maybe they could generate one of those "cap and gown" portraits for the terrorist to show what a good boy he had always been. And they also need a loudmouth with a name like Ali Sharptohamed bullhorning a crowd wearing t-shirts with the poor terrorist's picture on the front..
This article misses an important point. "Radicalization", by definition, involves coming to actually believe and act upon the platitudes which are required in a given culture. Even close friends and family members of Muslim youth have no idea whether they are 'serious' about wiping out Israel and violently overthrowing America (and the rest of Dar Al Harb) for the very simple reason that this is what all devout Muslim youth say as part of their culture. Most of them don't really mean it, they are just parroting the words, and an even greater proportion of their parents and elders never really meant those things (as evidenced by the fact that they settled down to raise kids rather than be martyrs themselves).
But it is simply impossible to tell the difference until they actually commit a terrorist attack. Even for close friends and family, and especially for non-Muslim bureaucrats looking at paper summaries of interviews in which the dangerous radicals have every incentive as well as religious sanction to lie about their real intentions.
The same has been noted repeatedly here from the other side. We have little way of telling a committed III%er from a 'keyboard warrior' other than actual actions. I myself don't see the point of worrying too much about this for the most part until you've got someone saying "give me your time, money and resources", at which point you have to make a judgment about the sincerity of their commitment before you divert resources you could otherwise use for personal/community preparation. But as far as spreading the message is concerned, the very fact that some people now find it socially beneficial to pose as III% means that we're gaining cultural momentum, and in the process of pretending they spread the message and the meme of armed resistance to government overreach (they may even do it better than those of us who aren't so good at caring how crazy we look).
In other words, just as 'fake' or 'all talk' III% still help spread the idea that armed resistance to tyranny is acceptable, so every Muslim who repeats their mantra of waging Jihad, exterminating Jews, America is the great Satan, etc. helps to spread the culture in which coming to sincerely believe what everyone repeats leads to acts of terrorism, and just as the insincere Muslims who merely parrot the 'Arab street' end up making it difficult or impossible to discover the real Jihadists in time so those posing as III% serve as weeds behind which the Feds have to imagine an unknown number of rifles.
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Maybe they could generate one of those "cap and gown" portraits for the terrorist to show what a good boy he had always been. And they also need a loudmouth with a name like Ali Sharptohamed bullhorning a crowd wearing t-shirts with the poor terrorist's picture on the front..
This article misses an important point. "Radicalization", by definition, involves coming to actually believe and act upon the platitudes which are required in a given culture. Even close friends and family members of Muslim youth have no idea whether they are 'serious' about wiping out Israel and violently overthrowing America (and the rest of Dar Al Harb) for the very simple reason that this is what all devout Muslim youth say as part of their culture. Most of them don't really mean it, they are just parroting the words, and an even greater proportion of their parents and elders never really meant those things (as evidenced by the fact that they settled down to raise kids rather than be martyrs themselves).
But it is simply impossible to tell the difference until they actually commit a terrorist attack. Even for close friends and family, and especially for non-Muslim bureaucrats looking at paper summaries of interviews in which the dangerous radicals have every incentive as well as religious sanction to lie about their real intentions.
The same has been noted repeatedly here from the other side. We have little way of telling a committed III%er from a 'keyboard warrior' other than actual actions. I myself don't see the point of worrying too much about this for the most part until you've got someone saying "give me your time, money and resources", at which point you have to make a judgment about the sincerity of their commitment before you divert resources you could otherwise use for personal/community preparation. But as far as spreading the message is concerned, the very fact that some people now find it socially beneficial to pose as III% means that we're gaining cultural momentum, and in the process of pretending they spread the message and the meme of armed resistance to government overreach (they may even do it better than those of us who aren't so good at caring how crazy we look).
In other words, just as 'fake' or 'all talk' III% still help spread the idea that armed resistance to tyranny is acceptable, so every Muslim who repeats their mantra of waging Jihad, exterminating Jews, America is the great Satan, etc. helps to spread the culture in which coming to sincerely believe what everyone repeats leads to acts of terrorism, and just as the insincere Muslims who merely parrot the 'Arab street' end up making it difficult or impossible to discover the real Jihadists in time so those posing as III% serve as weeds behind which the Feds have to imagine an unknown number of rifles.
One way or another, they are ALL in on it.
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