That's why I've stuck with SE for fifteen years - the sense of purpose and belonging to a tight-knit community of red-necks and racists.

Hard truths are often obvious but impossible to accept. - Someone smarter then me.
I heard this when I was in mechanic school in reference to weird problems and starting from the basics on every diagnosis. I think it applies much more broadly. In this case I think the problems we are seeing are reactions to the last 30years of policy. The anger is being harnessed to ideaologies that have been out of favor. (I'm not saying these are equal in validity) But communist, authoritarian, racist and nationalist groups have had a huge resurgence.

Meaning that the hard truth is that [communist/authoritarian/racist/nationalist] goals are unachievable (or not worth achieving)? I expect we'll be able to add "capitalist" to that list when the unavoidable negative impact of global warming becomes undeniable. Or maybe we should add it already. Quality of living in the WEIRD countries is going to go down, and there's no way around that unless someone invents a cheap dilithium reactor in their garage.

I was thinking that it doesn't really solve the problems it is be worked against. We have had capitalism as "the answer" with a few variety of flavors to choose from until it has come to it's illogical extremes. I believe we need a blend of these systems. Or maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy and I'm sick of watching new people say the same things. I believe that we always have to be working on the fundamentals. And expanding and refining our systems and workings still requires work on the most basic things as well.

Horseshoe theory, son.

The jihadists aren't leftists.

Neither is the word Christianity, despite its ties to the neo-Nazis. And since you claim you've read the article, perhaps you remember reading this?

"In many ways, the ideology is just window dressing. Many of the jihadists I’ve spoken to, other than the recruiters and the leadership side of it, are not particularly religious, are not particularly well versed in their faith at all. For them, it’s about feeling righteous and believing that they’re doing something important and meaningful in life."

Try harder, troll.

The problem is that people are generally pretty bad at having rational conversations about religion. If you want to talk about the extremist form of Religion X, you pretty much *have* to avoid talking about the "regular" version of Religion X at the same time, or the whole thing just devolves into butthurt Religion Xers going, "See? They're calling us all crazy extremist terrorists again! Wah, persecution!" and hardcore Anti-Religion Xers going, "See? All Religion Xers are crazy extremist terrorists because Religion X is bad!" and the whole point about extremism gets lost in yet another tired argument about Religion X.

This started adjacent to accidental self-awareness, and devolved rapidly into arglebargle.

Please wait until your meds kick in before trying to contribute next time.