Posts

@zeevico people who use comic sans deserve to have their fingers broken so that they can never type again

@dk the endless pipeline of family reunification is far more speculative than the idea that alleviating social ills reduces the threat of terrorism. as for the rest, we’ll have to agree to disagree.  but you are nonetheless conflating hias’ support for immigration reform w/ the threat of islamist terror, they have virtually nothing to do with each other, and it’s defamatory of a great organization that does immeasurably valuable work.  case in point:  if hias hadn’t been here to lobby on behalf of folks like sergey brin, there’d be no google. 

wait a minute! terrorists could use google maps to plot attacks!  zomg, hias hearts terrorism!

(fyi, that’s what you sound like.)

There are between 2-4 million Muslims in America, David.  How many of them have committed acts of religiously- or politically-motivated violence in the last 50 years? 20? 30? 50? What’s that? .0016%? Conversely, how many Christians in America have committed acts of religiously- or politically-motviated violence?  Take a look at the stats on anti-abortion violence.  They make the threat of Islamic terrorism in the U.S. look practically irrelevant. And yet you’re not making a stink about the Christian Right’s penchant for violence at all.

I’m not arguing that immigration reform alone is going to ease the grievances of Muslims.  That would be preposterous.  But heaping further discrimination upon them is certainly not going to help. Have you considered redressing their grievances, instead of exacerbating them?  Since you acknowledge that we’ve harmed them, I can’t help but wonder why you’d want to give them further cause to hate us.

Institutionalized racism wasn’t solely responsible for Hassan’s actions.  There were lots of factors:  Being deployed to a war you ideologically oppose, hearing horror stories from the PTSD patients you’re treating, having some screws loose.  That doesn’t help either.  But could you imagine if you were asked, as a Jewish soldier, to go kill your fellow Jews, by an army which consistently humiliated you for being Jewish? Me, I’d go AWOL before I turned a gun on my fellow soldiers. But I’d probably be no less disgusted than Hassan was.

Finally, I reject your characterization of HIAS’ work as "aggressive, ostensibly universalist, pushy, ivory tower constructed, almost unilateral Jewish-preferred domestic policy." Beyond not seeing how their policy positions either defy or impose on the American public, the notion that it is innappropriate for Americans of any stripe to lobby the Congress is beyond chutzpah.  If you’re so offended by aggressive, pushy, self-serving lobbies, perhaps you should devote some time to attacking the insurance lobby, or the entertainment lobby, or any of the corporate lobbies which have far more pernicious influence and which exploit the American people in far more destructive ways than those who seek simply to protect the human rights of others.

@DK Disproportion in terms of violence? 1 in 4 human beings on Earth is Muslim. Out of 1.5 billion people, pray tell, what percent is responsible for Islamist violence?  Even if it were 1,000,000 that would still only be .06%. Of course, the number is nowhere near 1,000,000, so no, I don’t see Muslims as being disproportinately engaged in violence or terrorism.

In fact, since 1960, there have been only 12 successful terrorist attacks
committed by Muslims in the United States, 3 of which were directed against other Muslims, and most of which were post-9/11 and motivated by hatred of Israel (speaking of which, since we’re most often the target, if we were to lobby to keep Muslims out, wouldn’t that too be considered self-interested dick-swinging?). Virtually none of the attackers or would-be attackers arrested since 9/11 have been connected to any formal terrorist organization. Almost all are lone-wolves who self-radicalized, many are American citizens who converted to Islam, and most have turned out to be crazy assholes so inept that they had little to no chance of success anyhow. So I fail to see the imminancy of the threat. Rather, I see your obsession with Islamists to be disproportionate.

Thinking like yours enabled Hitler to enact the Nuremberg Laws after the Reichstag Fire. (One Communist Jew burned down a building, so let’s enact laws persecuting all Communists and Jews.) And considering that between 1960-1990, nearly half the terrorist attacks in this country were committed by Jews, left- and right-wing alike, you might want to reconsider making a precendent of the collective punishment of a particular religious or ethnic group for the actions of a few lone nuts, or even a few sects (lest you think we should all suffer the consequences of the JDL’s actions).

Political violence is the threat, whether committed by Muslims, Christians, Jews,  or whoever, or whatever group, regardless of ideological motivation.  Ultimately radicalism is only an outlet for frustrations that emanate from our collective inability to adequately address our society’s ills. By ignoring the causative issues and, instead, shooting the messenger, you only reinforce the delusion. Alleviate the social ills and the allure of radicalism and the threat of violence will fade.