Timberdoodle

[Dan Burmawi @DanBurmawy]

Let me tell you why would a Muslim drive his car into a crowd of innocent people. I was raised Muslim, and I know exactly why this happens. It’s not poverty. It’s not oppression. It’s not even radicalization. It’s the logical outcome of Islamic doctrine itself.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Muslim or not, we as human beings carry guilt deep inside us. We know we are not good enough, and we spend our life trying to redeem ourself through good deeds, thinking it will make the suffocating guilt go away.

Christianity for example offers a way out of guilt, a solution not based on your works but on Christ’s. Salvation isn’t earned, it’s given. You accept that you can’t redeem yourself, because Christ already did everything on your behalf. That means you’re free. Free to live, free to build, free to serve, free to love.

And when a Christian feels lost, broken, and in need of forgiveness, they can go to church, talk to a pastor or priest, and leave knowing they are forgiven.

Islam, on the other hand, doesn’t offer redemption, it weaponizes guilt. Instead of providing salvation, Allah exposes you, holds your sins over your head, and threatens you with hellfire and torture in the grave.

The Quran isn’t a book of peace, it’s a book of threats. It bullies Muslims into obedience through fear, humiliation, and punishment.

So what happens when a Muslim seeks redemption? They try to be better Muslims. They pray, fast, give to charity, go on Hajj, do everything Allah commands. But it never works. I know. I did it.

And no matter how much you pray, no matter how much you try, the guilt never goes away. Because deep down, every Muslim knows it’s not enough. Allah always demands more.

Allah loves those who die fighting against the infidels. That’s not an opinion, it’s in the Quran, in Hadith, in every lesson taught to children.

This is why Muslims, even the so-called "moderates," always hesitate to condemn terrorism. Because they know jihad is required by Allah. They might not be willing to commit it themselves, but they cannot say it’s wrong.

So when a Muslim fails to reach peace through religious rituals, they have two choices:

Give up, stop being devout, and learn to live with the guilt, or commit to jihad, because that’s the only way to be true to yourself.

The Quran spells it out clearly: “Kill those who do not worship Allah or obey the Prophet” (9:29).

So when a Muslim embraces this identity fully, killing infidels isn’t just justified, it’s joyful. It’s an act of:

✔ Saving yourself
✔ Obeying Allah
✔ Securing your eternity
✔ Finally escaping the crushing weight of guilt

This is why a Muslim can drive his car into a crowd of innocent people and feel nothing but satisfaction.
Because for the first time in his life, he finally believes he has done something worthy of redemption.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

It's becoming clearer and clearer that we're looking at a seismic shift in the US's relationship with the world, between:

1) The US dismantling its foreign interference apparatuses (like USAID 👇)
2) Marco Rubio stating that we're now in a multipolar world with "multi-great powers in different parts of the planet" (https://t.co/dyHpStHPsO) and that "the postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us" (https://t.co/TPOksRgnwP)
3) The tariffs on supposed "allies" like Mexico, Canada or the EU

This is the US effectively saying "our attempt at running the world is over, to each his own, we're now just another great power, not the 'indispensable nation'."

It looks "dumb" (as the WSJ just wrote) if you are still mentally in the old paradigm but it's always a mistake to think that what the US (or any country) does is dumb.

Hegemony was going to end sooner or later, and now the U.S. is basically choosing to end it on its own terms. It is the post-American world order - brought to you by America itself.

Even the tariffs on allies, viewed under this angle, make sense, as it redefines the concept of "allies": they don't want - or maybe rather can't afford - vassals anymore, but rather relationships that evolve based on current interests.

You can either view it as decline - because it does unquestionably look like the end of the American empire - or as avoiding further decline: controlled withdrawal from imperial commitments in order to focus resources on core national interests rather than being forced into an even messier retreat at a later stage.

In any case it is the end of an era and, while the Trump administration looks like chaos to many observers, they're probably much more attuned to the changing realities of the world and their own country's predicament than their predecessors. Acknowledging the existence of a multipolar world and choosing to operate within it rather than trying to maintain an increasingly costly global hegemony couldn't be delayed much further. It looks messy but it is probably better than maintaining the fiction of American primacy until it eventually collapses under its own weight.

This is not to say that the U.S. won't continue to wreak havoc on the world, and in fact we might be seeing it become even more aggressive than before. Because when it previously was (badly, and very hypocritically) trying to maintain some semblance of self-proclaimed "rules-based order", it now doesn't even have to pretend it is under any constraint, not even the constraint of playing nice with allies. It's the end of the U.S. empire, but definitely not the end of the U.S. as a major disruptive force in world affairs.

All in all this transformation may mark one of the most significant shifts in international relations since the fall of the Soviet Union. And those most unprepared for it, as is already painfully obvious, are America's vassals caught completely flat-footed by the realization that the patron they've relied on for decades is now treating them as just another set of countries to negotiate with.

[James A. Furey @JamesAFurey]

For every disruptive, violent student we insist on keeping in the classroom and taking a “light touch” approach to discipline, there are twenty other kids whose educational needs, and in some cases safety, we’re ignoring.

[Jordan H Knight @jordanhknight_]

Hey man, I’ll be honest, I just don’t want to compete with the entire world for housing or jobs