Plutarch - Let's Speak Plainly

Are we ever going to Repudiate ‘Political Correctness'?

Paul Ryan, our new Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, piously denounced presidential candidate Donald Trump for proposing a temporary moratorium on immigration from Muslim countries. He can try to convince me that what he is concerned about is freedom of religion; he might even convince others. But he knows better. He knows that what Trump is trying to get at, in his often inelegant way, is that the United States has never experienced terrorist attacks from people of Swedish, Danish, Italian, and Germanic or French ancestry. Obama’s sycophants often refer to the bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City as an act of terror carried out by a Christian. Is there irrefutable evidence that Timothy McVeigh was a Christian? More importantly, is there any indication that McVeigh carried out that horrendous act because his Christian beliefs had driven him to it? Was he heard by anyone to scream, “This is for God!” as the explosion ripped through that building, taking 168 lives?

The honest answer is, “No, of course not.” That attack was not motivated by hatred born of Christian beliefs; not even from a bastardization of Christian beliefs. That act, despicable as it was, clearly was in retaliation for the attack on the commune at Waco, Texas that took the lives of many Branch Davidians, followers of David Kuresh. Insofar as it made any sense at all, it was a response to what the attackers perceived as the overreach of the government in destroying that compound, thereby causing the deaths of its occupants. Religion, misguided or no, as far as we know had nothing to do with the Murrah bombing.

Donald Trump, like most Americans, is concerned that the Obama administration has thrown wide open the door of freedom to Muslims who declare themselves to be refugees from Syria or another area in which they claim they are being repressed. Muslims repressing Muslims. It happens—Sunni against Shia, and vice versa. These refugees make application to the United Nations for resettlement in another country. Care to hazard a guess as to which country accepts the lion’s share of ‘refugees’?

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) assigns a certain number of refugees (many if not most from Muslim countries) to another nation to provide homes for them. You might ask who gave the United Nations the prerogative to demand that the United States accept what the UN deems refugees. Anyway, the United States State Department has several contractors who find communities that will provide homes, food, shelter, education, healthcare, etc.—whether those communities are equipped to handle that chore or not. For instance, Ann Corcoran writes about her small city of Greenbelt, Maryland with a population of 20,000 receiving more than 2,000 Somali refugees—overwhelming that city’s meager resources.

UNHCR presently has major missions in Lebanon, South Sudan, Chad/Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan as well as Kenya to assist and provide services to IDPs (Indigent Displaced Persons?)and refugees. In reality, they are looking for and recruiting refugees for America and other nations to assimilate. How reliable would a vetting provided by the security services of any of those nations be?

Who does the vetting of these refugees? Or could we be honest and admit that there is no effective vetting in countries that have no reliable security service or who are majority Muslim. Keep in mind that the woman, Tashfeen Walika, who was involved in the San Bernardino terrorist attack, came over to the United States on a K-1 visa for fiancés planning to marry within 90 days of their arrival in the US. The U S Department of Homeland Security allegedly vetted that woman, failing to pick up or ignoring the fact that the address she provided was bogus. She ostensibly came out of Pakistan, a nation with whom Obama says we have ‘friendly’ relations. If our vetting is so woefully inept, what can we expect from third world countries? I’m quite sure that Syria would be reluctant to provide the United States all the negative information in their files for every refugee seeking to flee that war-torn nation. 

We can provide humanitarian services for those refugees in secure camps which we and others can build and maintain over there, in Syria and/or Iraq. While it would be costly, it would not be nearly as expensive as bringing all those people to the United States, where most have no intention of becoming Americanized. It would give all of us an enhanced incentive to resolve the Middle East problems so that the refugees might be repatriated to their own homeland. That transport home would not then require a major uprooting but in some instances refugees would be close enough to make transportation a minor problem.

Why should we take the chance that some among those we propose to accept as immigrants might be terrorists, ready and eager to commit acts such as those in France and in our own country? Do we not have enough difficulties of our own making? If there was one chance in a thousand that someone you invited into your home might kill one of your children, would you ignore those long odds and extend that invitation anyway? My own answer is “Hell NO!”

May I add another very important factor? Americans no longer trust their government to place their safety and security first. That is a terrible indictment, but it is also true. The Obama administration, as was the case with former presidencies, began its tenure with a massive amount of trust and goodwill. As it failed time after time to deal truthfully with the American people, that trust, slowly at first and then at breakneck speed began to erode and evaporate until many look at Barack Obama and his administration as the veritable ‘little boy who cried wolf’. One should not forget that at one point or another in your life/administration it is going to be tremendously important that you be believed. When you have squandered the trust vouchsafed to you by a trusting electorate, that group, unwillingly at first, begins to look at you askance when you utter the most basic of truths. That, Mr. Obama, is where you are now. Anyone who believes you is a complete fool.

Recently, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly posited two views of President Obama to a guest. The first was that Obama is completely incompetent; that he is over his head and has no idea what to do about terrorism, the economy or anything else. The second view is that President Obama is one of those ‘blame America first’ Progressives doing exactly what he set out to do from the day of his election; that he does not like America, that he feels America should pay an egregious price for perceived maltreatment of other (particularly Muslim and black) nations, and that he is determined to reduce our nation to the status of a third or fourth tier nation.

What do you think?

Personally, I believe that it is perhaps a little bit of both. But if I were given no options other than those offered, I believe that his communist grandfather, communist ‘uncle’ Frank Davis (who had an inordinate influence on the young Barack Obama), his early life among Islamic Indonesians, his twenty-plus years sitting under the tutelage of race-baiting Pastor Jeremiah Wright, his friendship with uber radicals William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn—all these experiences of the young Obama would cause me to believe that O’Reilly’s second option is more nearly correct.