Ever since 9-11 we have known that the day would come when we would get hit again. We did not know when or where or how many would be lost, but we knew the day was coming. And now that the day has arrived, many are in denial. For some reason many of our national leaders cannot accept the fact that a home-grown extremist has committed an act of terror against his fellow soldiers on our own soil. I do not understand why they are in denial. We cannot fix a problem if we refuse to recognize that we have a problem. Once again, some impressionable person has arrived at the conclusion that killing is the proper way to serve God. The political goals of some spiritual leader became more important than even his own life.
Yes, I know we are supposed to be politically correct, and we should wait until all the facts are in, and if things turn out differently than I think they will, I will apologize and retract my statements in this post, but it is already quite clear that the reason this Army major went berserk and killed 13 people is because he was deluded by a religious call to do harm to others based on religious and political grounds: our country does not agree with the extremists’ point of view.
I watched the Fort Hood memorial service, and I saw and heard our president call these acts incomprehensible. That is an absurd statement. These acts are not at all difficult to comprehend. The sacred text that the major looks to for guidance calls for what we consider in modern times to be barbaric behavior toward unbelievers. To be fair, the Christian sacred texts also call for similar barbaric behavior towards unbelievers, and Christians have happily slaughtered hundreds of thousands. But Christians mostly ignore their sacred text’s requirements to commit murder in the modern era. And they have been ignoring these requirements to slaughter unbelievers for several hundred years, so Christians tend to not be as forgiving of such ritual murder in modern times as their Islamic counterparts.
Most modern-day Muslims have abandoned the barbaric requirements of the Koran as modern Christians have ignored the barbaric requirements of the Bible. Unfortunately, we all know that some clerics urge their followers to commit jihad and kill infidels. And many of their followers follow their leaders’ urgings and reach martyrdom, leaving behind them a trail of death, destruction and heartbreak. Normal people cannot understand the special breed of murderous insanity necessary to produce a suicide bomber or any jihadist, for that matter. Most of us cannot fathom how someone can hate that much, how they can throw their life away in order to kill and maim their perceived enemies. What kind of God would reward such barbaric behavior with eternity in paradise?
Is Islam to blame? Islam is certainly partly to blame. There can be no doubt. If a member of the Westboro Baptist Church was to start shooting up a funeral, Christians from coast to coast and around the world would condemn the act, and there would be no politically correct group protesting that their religion was not to blame. Certainly, their religion would be to blame. This sect’s members believe that “God hates fags”. People do not confuse members of the Westboro Baptist Church with other Baptists. I don’t believe that most people confuse mainstream Islam with radical Islam, but mainstream Islam does not do nearly enough to distance itself from radical Islam. Islam must defeat radical Islam with religious arguments that the deluded will accept. We cannot convince these extremists with any arguments. We have to kill them or capture them to stop them.
Moderate and mainstream Muslims have condemned the terrorist act at Fort Hood, and that is proper, but they have gone on the defensive, because they fear a backlash. I think they have a valid fear. They should continue to vigorously distance themselves from all radical Islam and spend some time actively campaigning and educating their own. They have an enormous problem on their hands. Muslims, more than anyone, need to figure out how to deal with radical Islam. No one else can do that for them.
And we need to be honest with ourselves. Political correctness is at least partly to blame for the slaughter in Texas. We need to identify and fix this problem. Otherwise, even more will die.
Let us not blind ourselves to what is going on here. If racists lynch someone because of his race, we recognize the bigotry and condemn racism. If an ideologue blows up a building or assassinates an opponent, we condemn him and his ideology. If people murder others because of their ethnicity or nationality, we condemn extreme nationalism and ethnic cleansing. The same is true for other violent extremist activity. We recognize that the perpetrator is insane by the definitions of civilized behavior, and we recognize that extreme anti-social behavior based on ethnicity, nationality, religion, race or other such group identities, is uncivilized. As a species we are growing out of such barbaric behavior, but sadly, our evolution is still incomplete.
For the government to say that we must not blame Islam is absurd. This attitude is insulting, arrogant and condescending. Federal authorities are telling us we are not capable of figuring out on our own what is mainstream Islam and what is radical Islam. All we need do is follow the trail of bodies. Yes, there are bigoted and close-minded Americans who will blame all Muslims. We can deal with them. Dealing with blind, politically correct government bureaucrats is a much larger problem.
Freethought is a step in the right direction. Freethought celebrates individuality, which is the opposite of groupthink. We need free and critical reasoning to prevail to defeat groupthink.
I am not surprised that a terrorist killed Americans, but I am surprised that it was a soldier killing soldiers. I am saddened by the loss and the weak leadership that we are exhibiting in response. I do sense a resolve, however, that people are not going to accept this weak response. Perhaps that will clear the minds of our leaders. If it does not, we need new leaders.
