Obama is in Turkey, a Muslim country, and he is telling Americans to cool it. He is going ahead with accepting some 65,000 Syrian refugees. Meanwhile a number of states have moved to say they won't accept them, including Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina.
The events in Paris give Obama a chance to push the pause button, and I think he should do it. It is clear that America does not have a good handle on which young men are so filled with anger or romantic idealism or religious fervor or whatever motivates them that they choose to do violence. Obama and Hillary Clinton need to remember the emotions that caused them to look to gun control measures in response to the shootings in Sandy Hook and Roseburg are ones that are washing across the country. We have got to do something, anything. We cannot just let people get killed.
Well, a great many people are feeling that same emotion after Paris--that same feeling that we have to do something. No one thinks it would be easy to scope out mental illness and to keep guns out of the hands of a person on the brink of mass murder in a school. But gun control advocates want to try. For many Americans a policy that admits Syrian refugees is the equivalent of letting just anyone buy an AR-15. Dangerous.
And it is far more practical to try to protect ourselves by excluding Syrians than it is to attempt to determine which native born Americans are crazy enough to do mass murder. Is banning Syrians the right thing to do? Well, we have got to do something, anything. We cannot just let people get killed.
Meanwhile, Obama is losing ownership of the symbols of patriotism. The events in Paris, like those of 9-11, have created a wave of fear which the president has the opportunity to direct. His speech today in Turkey is saying, in effect, not to worry, that we can weather the storms and whatever violent people might do won't be that bad. Besides, he said, anything violent or bellicose we might do will backfire and make things worse.
That is the argument used by opponents of gun control--that we can weather any damage done by guns and that gun control will do more damage than good.
Obama needs to own and integrate the fear people have, not dismiss it. And having owned it he can adopt the symbols of patriotism. He can speak of defense, not endurance. Increase visible public safety activities. Encourage watch groups. Go to Muslim communities in the US and meet them in venues festooned with flags. Get American Muslims to speak of patriotism as they condemn attacks and jihad.
Americans have a big defense establishment, and much of it takes the form of submarines and aircraft carriers stationed far away, invisibly. Americans have a right to see some of the defense they are paying for.
If Obama does not lead a resurgence of patriotism, one which includes loyal patriotic Muslims, then the leaders of the patriotism movement will be Republican candidates for president who will shape the issue as one of Christian versus Muslim. Trump or Cruz or any of the Republican candidates will be eager to lead that effort.
The events in Paris give Obama a chance to push the pause button, and I think he should do it. It is clear that America does not have a good handle on which young men are so filled with anger or romantic idealism or religious fervor or whatever motivates them that they choose to do violence. Obama and Hillary Clinton need to remember the emotions that caused them to look to gun control measures in response to the shootings in Sandy Hook and Roseburg are ones that are washing across the country. We have got to do something, anything. We cannot just let people get killed.
Well, a great many people are feeling that same emotion after Paris--that same feeling that we have to do something. No one thinks it would be easy to scope out mental illness and to keep guns out of the hands of a person on the brink of mass murder in a school. But gun control advocates want to try. For many Americans a policy that admits Syrian refugees is the equivalent of letting just anyone buy an AR-15. Dangerous.
And it is far more practical to try to protect ourselves by excluding Syrians than it is to attempt to determine which native born Americans are crazy enough to do mass murder. Is banning Syrians the right thing to do? Well, we have got to do something, anything. We cannot just let people get killed.
Meanwhile, Obama is losing ownership of the symbols of patriotism. The events in Paris, like those of 9-11, have created a wave of fear which the president has the opportunity to direct. His speech today in Turkey is saying, in effect, not to worry, that we can weather the storms and whatever violent people might do won't be that bad. Besides, he said, anything violent or bellicose we might do will backfire and make things worse.
That is the argument used by opponents of gun control--that we can weather any damage done by guns and that gun control will do more damage than good.
Obama needs to own and integrate the fear people have, not dismiss it. And having owned it he can adopt the symbols of patriotism. He can speak of defense, not endurance. Increase visible public safety activities. Encourage watch groups. Go to Muslim communities in the US and meet them in venues festooned with flags. Get American Muslims to speak of patriotism as they condemn attacks and jihad.
Americans have a big defense establishment, and much of it takes the form of submarines and aircraft carriers stationed far away, invisibly. Americans have a right to see some of the defense they are paying for.
If Obama does not lead a resurgence of patriotism, one which includes loyal patriotic Muslims, then the leaders of the patriotism movement will be Republican candidates for president who will shape the issue as one of Christian versus Muslim. Trump or Cruz or any of the Republican candidates will be eager to lead that effort.
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| Willie Horton |
1 comment:
I am a Democrat, but as a Vietnam combat veteran, there is one paramount obligation of citizenry-- protection of the homeland. If I think Hillary is going to open America to immigration for tens of thousands from Muslim countries, and I think that Trump will keep them out, then my duty to defend the homeland may win out. Here's why.
For the past six months I have been watching the self-destructive death spiral in Germany and Sweden in allowing mass Muslim migration. I have watched scores of Youtube videos of Allah chanting rioters in Muslim enclaves and “no go zones” across the continent, and in refugee camps, including the attempted lynching by enraged refugees of a man who flushed pages of the Koran down the toilet in a German camp. France has a reported up to 10,000 Muslims on its terror watch list, and another one or two thousand fighters with ISIS. Belgium, trying to recover from its Sharia4Belgium radicals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia4Belgium) is even worse off. Pew surveys reported in 2007 and 2010 that about 1 in 7 American Muslims support at least "rare" use of suicide bombing (the number is 1 in 3 for Muslim Americans under age 24). All of these numbers are much higher for Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan -- i.e. the refugees pouring into Europe. (See for eg. http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/01/concerns-about-islamic-extremism-on-the-rise-in-middle-east/pg-2014-07-01-islamic-extremism-10/, and prior surveys referenced there).
France didn't even make it one year from the Charlie Hebdo massacre to last week, and it's politicians now tell the people such attacks are the new normal. Americans are listening. François Hollande's Socialist party is now swerving hard right in hopes of staving off a takeover by Marine La Pen's National Front party. The same political dynamic, driven by fears of mass Muslim migration, is happening in the United Kingdom and Sweden. People who live in Western democracies put security of the homeland first and foremost, and if politicians who otherwise represent their liberal values act at odd with homeland protection, then the duty of citizenship compels their ouster, and replacement by leaders whom voters otherwise never would have elected. Yet, so far, all three Democratic candidates appear to be learning nothing from our sister democracies. Hillary appears too cowed by political or diplomatic correctness to even speak the terms "Islamic" or "Muslim" extremists, and all three candidates want to import even more Muslim refugees than Obama-- people who American votes understandably see as loaded with a toxic theology of martyrdom and sexism. Democrats seem to be learning nothing from the rise of the anti-immigration political right in Germany and across Europe.
Against this innate view of social incompatibility with these Muslim immigrants, Trump, in my opinion, is headed to being the most authoritative and trust-worthy anti-immigration politician in the world, poised to take that mantle from Marine La Pen. When Trump says I will keep them out, and keep a hawkish eye on Muslim enclaves in the US, people believe he will actually do it. I now think that on this single issue of homeland security, he would beat Hillary in the general election, aided by independents and cross over democrats who feel strongly-- like I do-- that America should not allow mass Muslim country migration. We Democrats should focus on protecting the Latino immigrants from our hemisphere who are under siege and assault by Republicans. Hillary needs to understand, that American citizens have a right to not live in fear from tens of thousands of new Muslim immigrants. If she does not get that, then she may well be dooming us to right wing leadership at home.
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