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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31400 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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I do not think people "really" want alcohol unless acculturated into it by other people. There are many Muslim nations with ~0 alcohol consumption and these countries have none or little of these long-term effects you propose.

Many Muslim nations still have drug problems, but with drugs other than alcohol: qat and captagon come to mind most prominently, and aren't to my knowledge issues in the West. Opium was an issue in Afghanistan, but IIRC the Taliban was actually against it.

I don't know if the quintessential Western hard drugs (meth, fentanyl, probably missing a few because I like my life boring) are major issues elsewhere in the world these days.

Meth is a thing in developing countries with really long work days.

I mean, with Islam they also abstain from Pork despite that being an insanely popular dish in most countries that can afford bacon.

They've got the sort of equilibrium that I suspect is hard to achieve for most places.

I've also noted before how unlike most other immigrant groups, Arabs/Muslims DON'T seem to create any organized crime syndicates in their host countries in the way that, say Irish, Italian, Russian, or various South American immigrants did in the U.S..

Instead, they tend to form political units which, in their worst instantiation look like ISIS, but even in milder form look like Hezbollah or the Taliban.

So, STILL engaging in violence, but directed to a very different objective.

What about rape/grooming gangs in Europe?

Aren’t Arab criminals a major problem in some European countries, eg Sweden? I’ve certainly heard from Dutchmen that Moroccan organized crime is a serious problem over there, as well.

Sweden has seen a noted uptick in criminality in immigrant-heavy suburbs and it has significant boosted their violent crime rate.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/10/22/swedens-brutal-gang-problem-heres-what-officials-blame-it-on/

Could you expound on that difference? My understanding of American immigrant crime syndicates is that they were also historically quite involved in machine politics like Tammany Hall. I'm not sure if the mafia, for example, became a bipartisan bugbear of its own volition, or more because it became politically expedient to oppose organized crime circa the 1930s. There are probably still rumors of involvement by organized crime in politics -- maybe see the current longshoremen union?

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