Extreme Policy!

In the wake of Obama's milquetoast speech that was more concerned with an American backlash against Muslims than with ISIS killing Americans, it is no surprise that Trump offers the other extreme.  Where Obama wants to bring in Syrian refugees over the objections of many governors and legislators, Trump wants to shutdown any Muslim from entering the country.  Pick your bad policy.  It is only because of Obama's failed foreign policy that Trump is able to get cheers for his proposed policy.  Much the same is happening in Europe.  The left-leaning parties have been shown to be unserious about the threat posed by Islamic terrorists so the citizens, with no other option, are voting for reactionaries who will bring a whole host of other issues but at least they appear to be serious about the terror threat.  Obama's repeated abdication on illegal immigration and Islamic terrorists has made the rise of Trump possible, even inevitable.  Given a choice between being flooded with Muslim refugees who may be infiltrated by ISIS operatives or barring all Muslims from the country, what does the rational person choose?  One choice is reckless and one is unjust.  Pick!

 

Has Trump gone too far this time?  Probably not.  Those who support him are unfazed by his hyperbole.  And this sort of hyperbole was recently practiced by the Democrats.  In the wake of Dylan Roof killing 9 black churchgoers, there was a push to strip every Confederate symbol from every public place throughout the south.  It went so far that reruns of the Dukes of Hazzard were pulled from TV Land because the General Lee sported a Confederate Flag on the roof.  So, if it is appropriate to attack all things Confederate over Roof, is it not in the same spirit to deny Muslims access to the US in wake of San Bernardino?  The extreme on the one invited the extreme on the other.

 

After the American Revolution, the Founders had such fear of a powerful central government that they created a pathetically weak one under the Articles of Confederation.  They soon learned that government needed to be more powerful to keep the peace but still wanted a limited government.  This time, having seen both the extremes, they modeled something more toward the middle which proved to be good policy.  Perhaps somewhere between Trump's nativism and Obama's borderless world, there is a good policy to be had.  Maybe Ted Cruz can offer that policy.

Ideological State of Iraq and Syria

Syed Farook was born in Illinois to Pakistani immigrants.  He had worked at the San Bernardino public health department for 5 years.  Two years ago, he married his wife, Tashfeen Malik, and they had a baby girl 6 months ago.  Then, out of the blue, he and his wife shot more than 30 people, mostly Farook's co-workers.  Sure, they were both Muslims but that had nothing to do with it.  No, this was probably work place violence.  Oh, the wife pledged allegiance to ISIS on Facebook during the attack?  But it still has nothing to do with Islam.  Islam is a religion of peace.  ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hezbollah, Al-Shabaab, Ansar al-Islam, and all the rest are doing Islam wrong.

 

It turns out that ISIS is not Islamic.  Which must mean that all of those other groups aren't Islamic either.  There is an interesting article on Think Progress that explains it:

 

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/09/11/3566181/why-isis-is-in-fact-not-islamic/

 

Well, that cleared things up.  So Mohammad wasn't a Muslim.  You see, he was a warlord who led his 'peaceful' followers into a score of battles.  His followers began as bandits who struck Meccan caravans, the better to get wealth and power.  After a successful battle against a Meccan force where he was vastly outnumbered, his following grew.  Eventually, he conquered Mecca and then Arabia.  It was all done very peacefully, because Islam is the religion of peace.

 

But back to Farook.  Though he has been described as 'very religious,' we know that his path led him not to true Islam but to Ideology!  Yes, it was an evil Ideology that somehow exclusively afflicts Muslims.  Those terror groups have all wrongly appropriated the title of Islam.  Of course, no one should ask why Muslims are so susceptible to Ideology.  Just be satisfied that Ideology is not Islam.  There is no link.  If you think otherwise, you are an Islamaphobe and may be subject to prosecution by the DOJ!

 

http://www.dailywire.com/news/1593/loretta-lynch-vows-prosecute-those-who-use-anti-james-barrett

 

Maybe Attorney General Lynch could use that same reasoning to protect Christians and Jews?  Maybe?

President Broken Record

I say this every time we've got one of these mass shootings. This just doesn't happen in other countries,

Barack Obama after San Bernardino Shooting

 

So quickly we forget Paris, Mr. President.  On a per capita basis, there are half a dozen European countries where the odds of getting killed in a mass shooting are higher than in the US.  Of course, a mass shooting in Europe has to be much bigger to get any coverage here in the US.  Four people killed in Serbia is hardly going to play on the evening news but that same thing in Chatanooga, TN, can run for days.  The bias of the news to report US shootings rather than similar shootings in Europe gives verisimilitude to the president's claim.  No, the only European shootings reported here are the big ones, like Paris last month, or the massacre of 77 Norwegians - mostly teenagers - in 2011.

 

As with every such incident, President Obama suggests gun control.  It is irrelevant to him that the guns used in the San Bernardino shooting were illegal in California.  California has been ratcheting up gun control for years, for the safety of its citizens, don't you know.  What gun control does, as I have mentioned time and again, is to disarm the law-abiding while providing a safer environment for the criminals.  Criminals hate when their victims shoot back.

 

Every time Obama broaches the gun control issue, gun sales go through the roof.  EVERY TIME.  He is a gun store's best advertisement.  He can't not know this.  No one has done more for gun proliferation in the past 7 years than Barack Obama.  If he had been a gun advocate instead, he would not have been able to convince so many to buy guns.  When it is counterproductive to even mention a policy, maybe that is a policy best avoided.