Sigh.
There must be a solution to this problem.
By this point in proceedings, I think you may have figured out
that the state of the world makes me less than happy. Mostly
because the people spearheading this particular war don’t seem
to have thought it through. (And the people saying that all
Muslims are terrorists … don’t know what they’re on about -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/omar-alnatour/muslims-are-not-terrorist_b_8718000.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063).
Firstly, have they even thought about what
a post-war world will be like? All the evidence; towns colonised
that were reclaimed later, say that no. If you actually look at
any of the villages, you’d see very little upright and even less
of it as usable buildings. In what way would any world invaded
by those people be usable in any real way.
And this isn’t even taking into account the
warzones as whole regions and the people that are displaced as a
result (which frankly is an issue in and of itself). Nobody
would be able to predict who would be affected by wars like
this. The problem is that the extremist groups don’t actually
care, which is a far bigger problem than even what it may seem.
Because the whole regions become far less usable and desirable
as you may expect during a war. Logic following, the people
living there pack up and leave. But where exactly do they go?
Immigration is a problem. Both legal and
illegal migration to most countries. New Zealand has increased
its refugee quota to accommodate some extra people. It may not
be an especially significant quota, but it’s a start. Refugees
cost money in the short-term. I don’t disagree with that logic,
it would be futile. The thing is; it doesn’t cost money in the
long-term if refugees assimilate properly, and people should be
able and allowed to live in a place free from war and
persecution.
Which leads me neatly and tidily on
to the whole American thing. Paranoia spreads. The Cold War and
Japanese internments
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans;
during WW2, presumably after Pearl Harbour) are examples of when
this goes horrifically wrong. It doesn’t help that isolated
terror attacks around the world (Paris, and a plane crash in
Egypt), make being Muslim in the world a stigma. See; clock kid.
Even though, apparently, that did look like a bomb, so might be
at least somewhat justified. Trump’s campaign hasn’t helped
this, with a press release (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases)
suggesting Muslim immigration stop to the US, and Muslims wear
identifying badges. This suggests a very paranoid, and
very offensive notion that every Muslim is a risk to American
society. As should be clear by now, I feel the real risk to
American society is Donald Trump.
Is it possible to accept that by ignoring
and degrading people that seek refuge (especially Muslims from
Syria), we give the radical extremists what they want. They seem
to want the total persecution of the Muslim religion so that
there is nowhere safe to turn except for them. The spread of
paranoia and intolerance helps them. Because, of course, closing
borders is pointless. Cutting off travel may reduce the number
of attacks from foreigners, but that’s only a hypothetical. Is
it not also possible that the number of attacks committed by
locals would increase after the travel cuts too? These
extremists seem to only want the kind of people that are exactly
the same as them to populate the world. Are we not just as bad
as them by outlawing people different from us? Admittedly
there’s no videoed decapitations, but the West doesn’t need to
do that, do they? We leave it all to them …
That’s still far longer than it needs to be. But less long than it could have been. Overall I consider this a success.