Terrorism: More than our profiles need to change

Sorry, but you will not find my Facebook profile decked out in the colors of the French flag to show my support for them following last week’s brazen attacks by ISIS. To me, this merely trivializes the magnitude of what ISIS has pulled off and only encourages them to push on with more attacks in other major cities across Europe. It is going to take more than changing our profiles to show our support over ridding the world of these animals. Just how far we willing to go remains to be seen.

You do not have to look very far to find people, some prominent, others just common every day citizens, who believe it is time to do something. The problem is, what is “something?”

For some, it means rounding up all Muslims in the country and sending them packing. This is a great idea if you want to add to the problem, but does nothing good in the long run. It only shows the level of individual ignorance toward a religion that shares much in common in terms of values found and preached in Christian churches across the nation.

It shows how easy it is to fear what we do not understand, and in the United States, Americans pale in their understanding of world religions much like we do in other subject areas. We fail to see the correlation between the actions of extreme violent radicals acting in the name of Allah with those who claim to be acting in the name of God. Violence and hate in any form should be intolerable and never justified for religious reasons.

Where do we send Muslims packing is another issue to consider. Again, our ignorance comes into play here. Because our nation has shoved a curriculum heavy on math and science, we have ignored the teaching of history to the point many see history as everything that has happened since 1990. Few truly understand events like World War II, the Crusades, or ancient Greece and Rome.

Why is this a big deal? When our political leaders fail to grasp history as much as the average citizen, we begin to hear solutions like rounding up law abiding people and taking away their rights, just as we did to Japanese Americans in World War II.

Rounding up and placing people into “internment camps” (a nice way of saying prison camps), was every bit as wrong as our reliance on slave labor. To take away a person’s home, business, and freedom simply because of their race or religion is wrong in any form and yet, we are beginning to hear this idea tossed around as a solution to our war against ISIS.

“Okay,” you say. “This is not such a good idea.” However, what about those who we hear touting the plan of closing down all the Mosques in the nation? The level of contradiction I hear justified by people who will fight to the death over any changes to the Second Amendment but are in favor of denying others their freedom of religion makes me wonder how some people can be so blind to their level of contradiction.

If it is okay to take away a law abiding citizen’s right to worship after an act of terror, why isn’t okay to take a way a law abiding citizen’s guns after one?

So back to those colorful profiles you have flooded Facebook with since Friday. If this is the average person’s idea of showing support for a cause or group of people, we are screwed as a nation. The attacks of 9/11 saw a flood of young men and women volunteering for military service. Meanwhile, the rest of the nation went on with business as usual. he economy crashed, jobs were lost, college debts increase, homelessness increases, the jobless rate drops in large part because millions of Americans have stopped looking for work all together, and those with jobs are over worked and under paid.

The new America does not look nearly as rosy as some would have you think and now we rate ISIS as the number one threat this nation faces. Okay, you are willing to change your profile, but just how much more are you willing to sacrifice if this is what is most important to the nation?

If you are under the age of 30, are you willing to sacrifice your current goals and dreams and go serve the country knowing that those who served most recently have not exactly been treated all that well when it comes to finding work, receiving medical care, or dealing with horrific mental, emotional, and physical challenges? In case you missed it, war is not pretty.

If you are a taxpayer, are you willing to have more money taken out of your income to pay for the added cost of not just defeating this enemy, but keeping in place a system of security that makes future enemy acts of terrorism impossible to experience? Much of the nation already questions where the money will come to pay for many of the great social programs Democrats are offering up.

You might also want to ask yourself, of the current social programs in place, which ones are you willing to do away with to help pay for an on going and never ending war against terrorism? Oh, and lets not forget the NSA. Are you okay with every phone call, every credit card purchase, and every web site you visit being known and logged by your government?

There is also the loss of life, not just American, but life in general, to consider. How many innocent refugees are you willing to let die rather than taking them in knowing some might be terrorists in disguise? How many innocents do you mind seeing being killed by U.S. or coalition bombs while the bad guys hide behind human shields inside of schools and hospitals?

What about the loss of environmental life? Are you okay seeing an entire region of the world devastated by bombs aimed at oil refineries, dams, industrial centers, hillsides, caves, and anything else? If so, ask yourself if this is in line with your thinking toward things like the Keystone Pipeline, fracking, and off shore drilling at home. Are you okay with being a living contradiction? Is preserving the environment more important than preserving your freedoms?

Then there is this little matter called an election. Who is best equipped to lead this war on terror? es, Hillary Clinton has an amazing portfolio she offers up, but she is also linked to the current administration which has taken the approach that ISIS is the JV squad, or more recently being well contained.

Do you want our next leader to be someone who was a vital part of the current state of our intelligence community, which has made more than its share of major blunders in recent years?

Then again, is there a Republican candidate out there that can offer up more than chest thumping rhetoric designed to tap into your current anger, but fails to really address a long term solution to a problem, terrorism, that we will have to live with quite possibly for decades to come?

It’s easy to change your Facebook profile and show support for the French. However, you may want to do some deeper thinking and ask yourself just how much are you willing to change, give up, or do to defeat a very real and very scary enemy? For many, this is not a “fun” thing to do, but failing to think about these things now may well lead you into going along with some decisions you will live to regret down the road.