Disquiet And Justice

Hate is insidious. Shortly after I wrote about the significant difference between most Muslims and the monsters who make up Al Qaeda and similar terror groups, I found a swarm of comments. Some ignored the main thrust of my argument, others went ahead and blamed Islam in total absence of any supporting evidence, and others evoked paranoid images with their fears in print. I found it peculiar that I also received a fair bit of mail on the article. For some reason the public comments were largely opposed to my point, while the private emails were unanimous in support. Doubtless, some of the haters may wish to adjust that balance by shooting off a hate mail or two.

One particularly interesting comment at Wizbang! was this one (writer left anonmymous out of courtesy):

“Do I think all muslims should be rounded up and interned/deported? No. Do I think that people from muslim controlled theocracies should be rounded up and interned/deported? Do I believe that we should stop allowing people from terrorist states entry into the US? ABSOLUTELY. Send them home, and lock the door on the way out.

Saudi Arabia exchange student programs? Cancel them. Iranian student
visas? Cancelled, return home.

I'd like to see some money spent on compiling the various sources of data that have recorded entry into the US by foreigners from terrorist nations. Once we have the data compiled, we should give that data to the US Marshall Service to track down, arrest, and intern/deport each and every immigration offender, known terrorist/terrorist ally, and foreign national from a terrorist state. Clean the books. Track them all down, and throw them out.”

Just a quick walk through that set of statements. The writer seems oblivious to the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who come to the United States from places like Iran and Syria, do so to flee from the tyranny of the reigning mullahs. Most Iranian immigrants fled the Ayatollah, for crying out loud. I am sure that Mahmoud “I Have A Bomb” Amahdinejad would be delighted if the United States chased down and forcibly brought those émigrés to the tender mercies of his idea of a police force. The same may be said of Syria, where the Baath Party still rules, in much the same way as Baathist former President Saddam Hussein did in Iraq. Strange, that the paranoid here have so much in common with the paranoid there.

Now as for interning or deporting legal residents of the United States, on exactly what grounds would that be done? I have always supported strong no-nonsense enforcement of our laws, which by the way already calls it illegal to enter the United States on false pretenses or from a hostile nation. We already try to track anyone who enters the country illegally. Why this does not work, and what should be done to fix the problem is under intense discussion. It’s quite a false suggestion to claim that anyone who does not have a (D) after their name is not intent on finding a solution, or that you are somehow the first person to discover there is a problem. But such people are prone to ‘bumper sticker’ slogans, in the stupid and malevolent idea that they have it all figured out, and that anyone who does not but 100% into their personal plan is necessarily wrong and must be attacked and destroyed.

And about those student visas. Not one of these geniuses seems to have considered why, exactly, the student visa project exists. Remember those student protests in Iran over the past two years? Here’s a clue, Sherlock: They did not get their ideas about political representation and universal suffrage from Teheran Tech, Bubba. There is a real and significant gain to be had from exposing foreign students to American education. While the political character of many universities is unfortunately leftist, regular interaction with American students and culture has a real value in advancing American interests in the Middle East and Asia. Yes, some go bad but many more go good. It’s unfortunate that so many people just refuse to look beyond the shouting. Or to put it another way – when those Muslim crowds marched in protest against the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, how many of you Nimrods noticed that the marchers were similar in age, physical condition, and social class no matter where they went? It’s because the Jihadists put together those mobs from the unemployed and the dispossessed. What you did not see at those protests were doctors and engineers who went to American schools, or anyone whose life was not largely dependant on the power of the Jihadists.

There are smart, savvy ways to fight terrorism through careful use of the tools we have, and no one with a working brain is denying the threat of Islamofascism. But the notion of locking up people for their faith is stupid, cruel, unjust, and in every practical sense a loser. If we were, for example, to go after religious groups deemed to be a potential threat to the ‘American Way of Life’ as it is most commonly described, we would have to go after the Nation Of Islam, certain sects of Christian extremist communities, the Mormons, certain Catholic organizations, every survivalist group and a large chunk of Montana. We would soon after be forced to “protect” America by disarming veterans of souvenir weapons and deny any sort of protest by military veterans, on the basis that political dissent by any group experienced in combat would represent a threat to National Security.

Sound whacko? Once you decide that what a person believes should be outlawed, rather than responding to what is actually done, the cliff has already been jumped.

What troubles me the most in all of this, is how many of these hotheads do not personally know a single Muslim. They judge the whole issue by what they see on television or are told by a biased party. And we are all biased. Yes, it’s true that at the present time the heavy portion of international terrorist acts are committed by professed Muslims. But in my own lifetime, that has not always been the case. The IRA was not Muslim, nor was the Bahder-Meinhoff gang. The Weathermen of the 1960s were not Arabs nor Muslim. Going back a generation before that, Islam had nothing to do with the rise of Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin, or even Mao or Pol Pot. Idi Amin was not a Muslim. Jim Jackson did not teach Islam, nor did David Koresh. The Unabomber was not a Muslim, nor was Dr. King killed by a Muslim.

Please wake up, and see the difference between the monsters and the people. Those who cannot, are becoming monsters themselves.