The Syrian Refugee Problem - Part 1

Battle lines have been drawn on the issue of Syrian refugees.  (Whether or not the refugees are actually from Syria is beside the point.)  The questions everyone is struggling with are these:

• Are the refugees fleeing a war?
• Are they coming here for a better life?
• Do we owe them a better life? 
• Are they coming here to conquer us?  
• Is coming here the best way for them to have a better life?
• Can we know they are not terrorists?
• Can we discriminate against refugees based on religion?
• Does the West have an obligation to absorb every civil war torn population?

All good questions.  Before I answer them, please watch some Syrians sing about one of their favorite events:  

(YouTube has deleted this content, and as we now know this censorship is often done at the direction of the U.S. government in direct violation of the First Amendment to The Constitution of The United States.)



I'll answer the questions in my next post - Part 2.

The Syrian Refugee Problem - Part-2

Déjà vu à Paris

I wrote the following in March of this year:

Kinetic Islam Déjà vu 

In March of 2001 Mullah Omar and the Taliban destroyed two 1700 year-old stone Buddahs in Afghanistan.  One of them stood 165 feet tall.  At the time few westerners understood that act.  Six months later when the twin towers of The World Trade Center were destroyed we all got an education in how kinetic Islam feels about infidel idols and symbols.  

Fast forward to today and the exact same thing is happening in Iraq.  Islamic State, or ISIS, or ISIL, is summarily destroying ancient churches, statues, artwork, and symbols of the infidels.  This time we have some perspective on why this behavior is occurring – Islam, or at least a fundamental interpretation of Islam, leads its followers to destroy these symbols.  It turns out the Quran, like the Old and New Testaments, contains a fair amount of idol destruction.  The difference is Christians and Jews do not go about re-enacting these verses from the early days of monotheism.  Muslims do, particularly the kinetic radical fundamental type. 

What scares me is the timing of all this.  Six months after the Buddahs came down we got 9/11.  I hope kinetic Islam has a different schedule this time.