When Paris occurred, one of the things that stuck out like a sore thumb was the US commentators who said, this is a problem of European integration but that won't happen in the US. Our Moslems are better integrated, less marginalised.
What Trump's comment does do is to expose the conceit of the nothingish status quo.
What worries me is the complacency of those unwilling to think about the problem. Who justify doing nothing by saying whatever response someone tries "is what ISIS wants". Many are prepared to wander in lockstep towards the next major terrorist event, upon which they will say - as they always do - I don't understand why these people do what they do, because it has nothing to do with Islam.
Unfortunately, interpretation of any book creates a spectrum of understandings. And some of those acting on theirs are quoting verses in the Koran and the Hadith that are plain as day and that they interpret to permit them to operate as they do.
For whatever reason, these people exist right now within Islam and they endanger people's lives. Everywhere.
We can pray, like the benign and foolish monks of Bangor, as the enemy approaches with its weapons drawn. Or we can try to think our way out of the box we are in.
While suggesting something unworkable and in many ways unjust, Trump at least exposes the aggressive conceit of the nicey nice people who think their passive response is somehow going to work. It ain't.
Something's got to give. If no one offers good ideas, bad ones enter the vaccuum.
At least the nature of the problem is clear.
I wonder how folks felt on the balmy Hawaiian evening of December 6, 1941. No curiosity about what is going on in the Far East, far, far away across the Pacific. Somehow the world's troubles aren't going to wash ashore in the United States of America. Roll out the swimsuit. Let's take a dip.
| 