A root-cause analysis of the ‘terror state’

In an astounding variation of the “never let a crisis go to waste” adage, the GOP and its sensibly naive if not willfully ignorant constituency is largely mandating not allowing immigrants from Syria into this country. Any of them.

Come again?

The mere fact that most of them are in fact immigrant stock themselves notwithstanding, there is a tacit absurdity to this notion that such an approach would be effective, let alone consistent, with our constitution as a people.

Within what seemed like hours of the attacks in Paris last week, an all-encompassing state of emergency was declared, and the French military had taken to the streets. Parisians were told that for a period of up to three months this action, tantamount to martial law, would be rigidly enforced in the name of their safety. That in order to make them safe, a “temporary” stay on many of their liberties needed to be mandated.

Can anyone say “Patriot Act”?

There are two overlying problems with this, and the first is the historical reality that laws once passed are rarely, if ever, repealed. So much for temporary.

The second and more obvious problem is best illustrated by the famously quoted Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

You see, when the state of emergency was declared in Paris and the ensuing police state took to the streets, the perpetrators won a major victory. They compelled their adversaries to operate from a position of fear.

And that is precisely what we here in America would be doing if we adopted such an immigration policy as what the conservative right is largely advocating.

But I digress.

A root-cause analysis of the “terror state” we are loosely and vaguely at war with would reveal a great many things up to but not excluding America’s disguised yet obvious hand in creating these factions. It is not unreasonable to suspect that the CIA (capitalism’s invisible army) has its fingerprints on this.

To what end, you ask? Oil.

When you thank a veteran or an active-duty service person for his or her service, does it occur to you that perhaps you are not thanking them so much for defending your freedom as you are congratulating them on a job well done in protecting your lifestyle? A lifestyle that is intrinsically dependent on crude oil?

Is it so far-fetched to assert that fifteen years in the Middle East is not a war but rather an occupation? History also tells us about world superpowers that spread their populations and resources thin by occupying foreign countries.

But a perhaps less-acknowledged root cause of the terror state is the utter ignorance of the religious on all fronts in assuming that their invisible god is superior to your invisible god; and to demonstrate loyalty to said invisible god, one must either kill or convert others to their impeachable yet disprovable worldview, or both.

Rather than a mandate of fear promoting that the only way to abolish terrorism is to kill terrorists through violence with the added caveat of removing your liberties, perhaps education would abolish the mindset that creates terrorism. Perhaps critical and rational thought should be the litmus by which decisions are made with regards to humanity instead of profit margins and erroneous premises about the origins and well-being of man and morality.

This conversation must be had, and it will be a difficult one, but the proven track record of the other approach only serves to demonstrate its futility.

See you out there.