Have we sunk this low?

Although this is not the mosque in the article, "As Houston Islamic Center burns, firefighter posts "Let it burn - Block the fire hydrant" , it illustrates what is on much of conservative America's mind - blind hatred to others who are not like them.  It's not just Islam - Sikhs are being caught up in the hatred of the ignorant, as noted in this article.  Even my father lumps Sikhs in with Muslims, calling them all "Towel Heads", without the slightest understanding that Sikhs are often at odds with Muslims because of their religion and practice of it.

This is the kind of event that disgusts me.  There is nothing wrong with fearing the unknown. I fear the potential of having an unassimilated ethnic group demanding rights they have in other countries that no ethnic group should have in ours. But giving into that fear is something else.  The quickest way to radicalize the Muslims in the United States is to treat them as third class citizens.

There are legitimate fears - Americans do not want to see the United States become like Europe.  We successfully absorbed millions of people from around the world in simpler times - and virtually every major group has been successfully brought into the mainstream. People coming here wanted to become Americans and leave the old world behind.  Current European immigrants want to bring the old country (and culture) with them - and this poses a dilemma for today's Americans:  Will newcomers (in any large number) from truly foreign cultures assimilate successfully?

I'm concerned with the growth of Islam in the United States.  It's because I see Saudi Arabia funding many of the prison chaplains, spreading the most conservative practice of Islam in the world.  I'm afraid that their barbaric culture (vs. the barbaric culture we're already familiar with) will cause us problems if its members grow too large in our society.  

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However, I also fear radical Christianity.  We've identified the San Bernardino shootings as terrorist activity. But what about the bombing of Abortion Clinics, as well as the assassination of doctors who have practiced there.  Many of the same people who say abortion is wrong often try to impose their moral values on the rest of us by also getting in the way of women having a full range of safe and legal contraception options.  (The "Hobby Lobby" case comes to mind here.)  So I am concerned for the women who do not have convenient access to safe and legal medical procedures to keep a baby healthy while it's in the womb, as well as access to safe and legal medical procedures for those women (for whatever reasons) need to abort the fetuses inside them.

Once a woman's right to control her own body is taken away by social conservatives, what is next?  We've already seen legislators pander to the religious right by saying that church attendance should be made mandatory.  How would Atheists fare?  Then, I'd bet that religious purity zealots would go after "social undesirables" such as Homosexuals, Bisexuals, and Transgender people.  And then, who would be next to suffer in the potential religious purges?

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If you don't think anything like this could happen here, you haven't been paying attention to history.  Politicians will lie to the people.  But sometimes, they get caught up in their lies, and have to act in disgusting ways.  For example, we've seen Japanese Americans herded up into prison camps -  only because of their ancestry.  Was this done to people of either German or Italian ancestry?  No.  But we feared the Japanese, and "needed" to control the "Japanese" in our midst in the most brutal and inhumane way possible.  (And Donald Trump) is using this as a model of what we should do to Muslims living in America.

After seeing pictures of Jews wearing Yellow Stars in Germany, it sickens me to see this crap being proposed here.  And I feel very sorry that the most "conservative" of Christians are making the same mistake Germany made in the 1930's. Instead, I'd like to see America address the problems brought up in this video clip from the HBO series, The Newsroom.  Only then, can America be great again (no help from Trump.)

Reflections - Post San Bernardino

As much as I disagree with the NRA, I'll agree with them in regards to mass killings - it's not a gun problem, but a people problem. Gun free zones are meaningless in the same way that Drug free zones are meaningless. They are only a public statement that guns (or drugs) are not welcome, and not a reflection of reality - because those unwelcome items are already there.

Even if we were to take the NRA's stance that we have a mental health problem (in the case of the Connecticut school massacre in Sandy Hook), how do we change the mental health and legal systems (as well as provide adequate funding) to deal with such issues? If we focus on terrorism, how many freedoms do we want to sacrifice in the name of security? Can we trust our governments, with the history of corruption we have in this country (from both parties)?

We need intelligent regulation that crosses state lines, and has few (if any) loopholes. Population density and homogeneity is important. In areas of low population density, where people tend to be from a single ethnic group, we find a very low level of gun crime. In areas of high population density and a heterogeneous population base (such as in most urban areas), we find a high level of gun crime.

So, what do we do?

In the case of potential non-terrorist gun crime, we can work on providing better mental health treatment to people at a low cost. We can look for people who are alienated from society in general, and find ways to better integrate them into society - jobs, friends, social networks, etc. - so that they feel they have something to lose from going on violent rampages.

In the case of potential terrorist gun crime, we can allow the government to use a limited amount of spying tools (with appropriate warrants and vetted public monitoring to help protect us from becoming a police state) that analyze content and traffic on the internet (and associated social networks) to detect these terrorists (such as could have been done for the San Bernardino killings) and stop them.

Federal regulation based on population density and population heterogeneity must be enacted to supersede that existing on state levels, and must reflect the reality of metropolitan areas that cross state lines, as well as trafficking materials from areas with lenient regulation to those areas with restrictive regulation.   

Will this end all gun crime?

Certainly not!  America is a nation in love with its guns, and we have a constitution that protects our gun rights, in part, to insure that we can overthrow a tyrannical government. But, if we can cut this crime by a significant amount, we can start focusing on other problems that are just as important - such as seeing that ALL Americans who want a job can get a job (or have one provided to them that supplies them with a reasonable income).  I am tired of hearing Americans shout past each other, not listening to the valid points their opposition brings up. We have it in ourselves to make this nation a greater nation than it already is - Let's find a way to make it so.....