Killing Terrorism

Seen on Facebook:

With guns, you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.

Malala Yousafzai

 

Wow, that sounds deep.  For those not in the know, Malala is a Nobel Peace Prize winner.  She had been outspoken in favor of education rights in 2008, which she was only 11.  By the time she was 15, she had become famous among Westerners but infamous among Taliban-supporters.  Living in Pakistan made her a target.  She was shot in the face in 2012 but survived to continue to call for education rights.  She is a truly extraordinary person and I wish her well.  However, her claim is demonstrably false.

Khalid Sheik Muhammad - one of the major figures in the 9/11 attack - has a BS in Mechanical Engineering (earned in North Carolina!).  Osama Bin Laden had at least a couple years of college where he studied civil engineering or public administration.  Muhammad Atta - who flew into the twin towers - had a degree in architecture.  Ayman al-Zawahiri - current leader of al-Qaeda - is a surgeon. Omar Abdel Rahman (the blind sheikh who instigated the 1993 bombing of the twin towers) is a Doctor of Theology. Nidal Hasan - the Fort Hood Shooter - has a BS in Biochemistry and an MD.  Syed Farook - the San Bernadino shooter - had a bachelor's degree in environmental health.  His wife, Tashfeen Malik, had a pharmacology degree.  Omar Mateen - the Orlando shooter - had an associates degree in Criminal Justice, of all things.

 

These are not uneducated bumpkins with no better options than to kill themselves and others in the name of Allah.  Each could have had a bright future by Western standards.  Maybe they didn't get the education that Malala thinks would kill terrorism.  The only education that is going to do that is to teach them that Islam is an evil religion.  Indeed, every Islamic terrorist can give a solid argument for their actions by quoting the Koran or the Hadith.  It should be noted that the Koran is the word of Allah while the Hadith is Muhammad's interpretation of the Koran.  Of course, it is utterly unthinkable that one could teach against Islam in Muslim countries.  To do so is to court imprisonment or death.

 

The Religion of Peace website has an instructive graphic: Ramadan Bombathon 2016.  It shows how many people have been killed in the name of religion or by Islamaphobes.  So far, Islam is in the lead with 220 attacks and 1573 deaths.  All other religions combined come in a distant second of 0 attacks and 0 deaths.  Islamophobes also had 0 attacks for 0 deaths.  Huh.

 

All right, so we've tossed education as a way to stop terrorism.  What other alternatives might we have?  Sadly, the only way to stop people willing to detonate themselves is to kill them before they get the chance.  Oh, but that is SO politically incorrect as to be hate speech.  Terrorism must become so counterproductive that the terrorists abandon it.  But it is part of their religion.  That's a really tough nut to crack.  First, much like we did with Communism, we should contain Islam.  Where it spreads, rape, murder, and explosions follow.  Yes, containment.  Conversion.  Oh, that is really, really politically incorrect!  Unlike Fascism, Nazism, Communism, and other evil ideologies, Islam is integrated into a religion.  This makes it a particularly nasty ideology when coming against Western tolerance of religious belief.  Abridge the 1st Amendment freedom of religion or suffer more Fort Hoods, Orlandos, and San Bernardinos?  There are many reasons why the War on Terror has been so hard to win.

 

Of course, my prescriptions are irrelevant.  No Western nation will implement them.  Islam is most likely going to find Russia or China as their main foe.  These countries are not constrained by Western values and will pulverize Muslim countries when given enough cause to do so.  Whether Clinton or Trump wins, the US is going to mostly leave the Middle East to stew, perhaps offering some bombing to satisfy the hawks.

Here is David Wood also blasting the "Education prevents terrorism" myth.  He provides excellent sourcing for why Islam is the cause of terrorism.

Kate Steinle Redux

On July 1st of last year, Kate Steinle was out with her parents on Pier 14 in San Francisco when she was shot and killed by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez.  Sanchez was illegally in the United States, a chronic 'undocumented worker' who had been deported 5 times.  You know, the border has never been more secure, so the administration has said on multiple occasions.  To make matters worse, San Francisco had declined to transfer Sanchez to ICE in March 2015 because San Francisco is a sanctuary city.  Sanchez only had 7 felony convictions.  No big deal, right?  And one wonders why Trump gets support for his border wall.

The Steinle story got a lot of press but the Woodburn triple homicide is getting a lot less press.  Yes, now it is Bonifacio Oseguera-Gonzalez who killed three and wounded one in Woodburn, Oregon.  Where Sanchez had been deported 5 times since 1994, Gonzalez had been deported 6 times since 2003!  You know, the border has never been more secure.

 

Why has the press been relatively quiet on this 'mass shooting?'  Simple.  It isn't easily converted into a call for gun control.  If it can't fit into the gun control narrative, the press is only too happy to ignore it.  That it plays into Trump's calls for more border security and deporting illegals doesn't help either.

Brexit

Why is the Brexit bad?  I have heard a lot about the British people being stupider than Republican primary voters who chose Trump as the nominee.  Gee, let's insult vast swathes of people.  But if one opposes Brexit, shouldn't one also have preferred for the United States not to declare independence from England back in 1776?  The UK has morphed into a client state of a legalistic European empire based in various parts of the continent.  A once powerful nation, the guarantor of the Pax Britannica, had been reduced to an administrative district in the European Union.  It's like being demoted from CEO to middle management.  Who wants that?

 

Unlike many continental powers, the UK has lots of options for trading partners in the Anglosphere, many of whom are part of the British Commonwealth.  Moreover, much as the EU may be miffed by this mini-rebellion, it needs access to the British markets.  As Daniel Hannan has said, the UK has merely repatriated sovereignty to the UK.  Rather than merely have a representation in the European Empire, the UK assumes captaincy of its fate.  Nelson and Wellington would approve.

 

I admit some bias here.  As a big fan of Federalism, I have a default position against all centralization of authority and almost always favor more power for localities.  If the city can't do it, then look to the county.  If the county can't do it, look to the state.  If the state can't do it, then - and only then - look to the national government.  Will that result in a variety of standards?  Yes, but they will be standards that the local peoples have chosen for themselves rather than had imposed upon them from a distant potentate.  The Brexit is a move toward more local control, which is a good thing.

News on the Gender Wars

This was entirely predictable.  If two students were caught filming girls showering in the 'gender-neutral' bathroom, how many weren't caught?  I did like the sarcasm when describing those who want gender specific bathrooms as bigots.  Yes, what was normal behavior yesterday is now bigotry.  It is hard to keep up with the social justice warriors.

 

With the rare exception of maybe 1 in 1500 people who, according to Wikipedia (take with a grain of salt), are born intersex (possessing physical or genetic characteristics of both sexes), there are only two sexes.  Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner is a man with psychological issues that are currently in fashion.  There is something called body integrity identity disorder (BIID), sometimes called amputee identity disorder, in which a person wants to amputate a healthy limb.  Note how it is a disorder?  However, if a man wants to amputate his penis, that's laudable and he should start using the ladies room.  Heck, Caitlyn managed to be woman of the year!  There should be some cognitive dissonance in this.

 

One of my favorite memes of the gender wars is this: JFK put a man on the moon.  Barack Obama put a man in the ladies room.  It says something about the seriousness of our times.  Transgenders account for a fraction of 1% of the population - vastly less than homosexuals - and yet this is the civil right of the era.  The vast majority must conform to the desires of a barely there minority.  In so doing, we get the inevitable Peeping Tom antics and probably worse to come.  Yes, this is so much better.

A Reason to have Borders

There was a time that we would not allow immigrants into the country if they had a communicable disease.  Ellis Island sent many immigrants back to their country of origin if they didn't pass the health check.  Why don't we still do that?  Measles is making a comeback.  The US had managed to stamp out a variety of such outbreaks by keeping those carrying them out of the country.  But if you don't bother to maintain the border, and even flout the law to increase the inflow, the likelihood of TB, Measles, et al. to cross the border with them skyrockets.

Know Your Place, Peasant!

Why is it that a man who is surrounded by armed men keeps telling us that our access to guns must be curtailed?  This man calling for gun control will have armed guards surrounding him and his family for the rest of his life but the rest of us must wait for the police to arrive.  Why is it a man who has a fence around his mansion (and wants a bigger fence) tells us that a fence along the southern border would be racist and not work anyway?  There is one set of rules for the elites, the noble class, and another for everyone else, the peasants.

Expand Gun Free Zones!

Another Islamic radical has gone on a killing spree and the blame is placed upon... the gun.  Yes, it is the gun's fault, and thus the NRA's fault and Republicans' fault.  Millions upon millions of guns in the United States but the problem guns keep corrupting innocent Muslims.  If only we had gun controls as strict as France, we would be safe.  There was a massacre in Paris that was even worse than Orlando?  But how?

Question 1: If 1 in 20 of the patrons at Pulse had had concealed handguns, would the carnage have been more, less, or about the same?

Question 2: You are a terrorist and have gotten your hands on a gun.  You want to kill as many people as possible before you are taken down.  Do you attack A) a Police Station, B) a Gun Range, or C) a Gun Free Zone?

Question 3: Your city is on high alert for a terrorist attack because of a Craigslist ad.  Where do you think you will be most safe?  A) Police Station, B) Donut Shop, C) Church, D) Gun Free Zone.

When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.  Wouldn't it have been nice if this was the reception that Omar Mateen had received?