Ire and Ideology

All Christians belong to the KKK. All of them. Therefore all Christianity should be banned.

(I…uh…what the hell is going here?)

What? I mean, all Muslims are terrorists, right? So it stands to reason that all Christians belong to the KKK. Because of all people of a faith must be equated with the least common denominator of that particular faith. That's how it works, doesn't?

(Um, not really….)

No, not really. Not in any way, shape or form, frankly. Yet social media is full of rants and ravings decrying the Muslim faith, calling for internment camps, deportations, and refusal to accept refugees. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The ignorant reactions so many people in the country have to situations of terrorism makes me ashamed to be an American.

Muslim extremists are just that; they are extreme factions of a faith that act upon misplaced ideology separately, distinctly and apart from the basic tenet of the underlying faith. Hence my analogy above. Do we equate all Christians with the KKK, or the Westborough Baptist Church? No. Do we equate all African-Americans with the few that spew anti-white rhetoric? No, we do not. So why is okay to equate all Muslims with the actions of what is in actuality a miniscule percentage of the world's Muslim population? That isn't right, and it isn’t okay. It's ignorance.

[Writer's Note: As I writer I know that it's ill-advised to repeat the same words over and over in your text, but in this post you'll see the word "ignorance" or its derivatives repeated many times. There simply are no other, applicable, descriptive words I can use.]

I'm not saying we should turn a blind eye and accept what's happened. Nor am I denying the possibility that a terrorist could infiltrate this country as an immigrant or a political refugee. But we need to stop reacting on a knee-jerk basis. We need our leaders to take the right action to protect us, not to act for the sake of taking action. For those conservatives blaming Obama – I remind you that 9/11 happened under George W. Bush's watch. For those liberals blaming Bush – I remind you that the first World Trading Center bombing occurred under Clinton's watch. It doesn't matter who is in the White House. It doesn't matter, towards which political affiliation you lean. What matters is that we as a people have to be better than those that seek to destroy us, and if we fuel ourselves by ignorant ideology, then that is one less attribute with which we can differentiate ourselves from our enemies.

Points to ponder:

·         We are a nation of immigrants, built by immigrants.

·         For those suggesting that we inter Muslims the way we did the Japanese during World War II – The Civil Liberties Act was passed in 1988, which legislation "admitted that government actions were based on 'race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.'"* You know who signed that legislation? The shining pillar of conservatism that most conservatives look to as one of the all-time leaders of conservative governance, Ronald Reagan.

·         Most refugees leaving Syria are fleeing the very extremism we are denouncing. There, more than the five hundred dead or injured in Paris, die or are injured EVERY SINGLE DAY.

·         The same atrocity occurs on a daily basis in Israel. Where is your outrage over that?

To put terrorism in a more intimate perspective:

·         Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 people and injured nearly 700 others in the Oklahoma City bombing.

·         Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 13 people and injured 21 others in Columbine.

·         Adam Lanza killed 26 people, mostly children, in Sandy Hook.

·         James Holmes killed 12 and injured 70 others in the theatre shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

·         Dylann Roof killed nine people in the Charleston church shooting.*

*For expediency I got this information from Wikipedia. Not the best source, I know, but reliable in these instances.)

So what do we do about that? All of these killings were committed by white men. By the logic I'm seeing espoused on the interwebs, all white men in America should be sent to internment camps, because clearly white men kill people and can't be trusted.

Yet…

I doubt those calling for all Muslims to be deported, interred, rejected, etc. will agree with me on that point. But why not? I'm using their exact, same logic. If all Muslims are terrorists, then all white men are domestic terrorists just like the individuals named above.

Of course that's not the case. Are you people seeing my point yet? I truly hope so, though I'm sure those so deeply entrenched in your beliefs to the contrary will ignore this writing. And you won't even see the irony in the fact that you're basing your belief on an extreme ideology….

I don't pretend to know the answer. I don't believe that what's happened in France, Syria, or Israel is in any way okay. And I think something must be done. But if we, and by "we" I mean America and our government, are to adequately address this threat with which we're faced, we need to start by raising ourselves far above the level at which these terroristic animals reside. We need to put aside our own ignorance and our own extreme ideology and our own prejudices. We need to be ONE people. ONE nation. Unless and until we are those things, I fear, and predict, that we will continue to be the target of extremism. Even then, we will probably still be targeted because extremists will hate or unity, too. But right now? As a nation fractured by dissent, disillusion, yes, ignorance, we are easy pickings and fall right into the trap these terrorists desire to set for us. How can we fight them when we can't stop fighting amongst ourselves? Clearly, as these attacks occur, we continue to prove that we cannot.

Final points:

1.      I don't care who resides in the White House. Republican. Democrat. Socialist. Tea Party-ist. Whoever you are or will be, do something that rises above politics, for once in our history. Do something that unites us. Make us the United States of America. Protect us.

2.      For those of us voting for that individual – Educate yourselves, and make a choice based on knowledge, not belief. Lemmings follow one another off cliffs, and cattle follow each other to the slaughter. Be smarter.

3.      THINK. Listen to yourselves. If you refuse to accept your own arguments simply because the parties are changed (i.e. saying all Muslims are terrorists is okay, but saying all white men are domestic terrorists is not), then there is something wrong with your argument.  

4.      Yes, you're entitled to your opinion. That doesn't make you right, and no, not all your opinions are valid simply because you hold them.

I'm not perfect. I have my own prejudices and ignorance, no doubt. But when it comes to something this important, like our freedom, or security, or our hope to thrive as a nation, let's try to be better.

Please. And thank you.

 

© 2015 J.J. Goodman. All rights reserved.