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Saturday, November 21, 2015

Fear Of Muslims And Refugees



There is a great deal of noise and chatter on the web between cells of differing world views about Muslims: what do we do with the Muslims fleeing the Middle East once we have opened the flood gates of destruction to inundate their homelands?

Tough question.

I have prayed in a mosque, and I have watched basketball being played in a madrasa.
At one time I did.

I only fear the darkness of the human soul, and even then I expect God to be there.

Governor Snyder of Michigan was the first to suspend immigration of Syrian refugees.



However, Governor Snyder, for all my disagreements with him, is the true Anti-Trump, and it is unfortunate that others following his lead choose to make things ugly.

NPR
Governor Who Started Stampede Against Refugees Says He Only Wants Answers
Updated November 20, 20152:45 PM ET
http://www.npr.org/2015/11/20/456713306/governor-who-started-stampede-on-refugees-says-he-only-wants-answers

...In an interview with NPR on Thursday, Governor Snyder suggested he didn't mean to create a partisan issue. He insisted he's still willing to accept more Syrians in Michigan and said he merely wants a little reassurance that the federal screening process for refugees is sound. He said a call from the president assuring him of the process would be "helpful."

According to Snyder's office, he did join a call with the White House earlier this week that included senior staff, FBI, State, Homeland Security and counterterrorism officials but the governor still wants a detailed response to a letter he sent to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry outlining his concerns. Snyder told NPR he wants those officials to make the review and to "please respond to my letter that you're confident that we have the appropriate response in place."
Interview Highlights

On 'pausing' immigration from Syrian refugees

I'm very much in favor of immigration. If you look at what's happened in our country, what made our country great was immigration. And in particular, you have people around the world that their lives have been shattered ... We've always been good about accepting people, having come to our country to rebuild their lives. So, in a general sense I've been very much in favor of being proactive with Middle Eastern refugees, along with refugees across the world.

The issue that I said we should hit the pause button for is, one, these horrific terrorist events that have sort of coincided. We have Paris, we have Lebanon, we have the Egyptian airline bombing. Again, I have not criticized the federal system at all. What I said was, it'd be great if we had more transparency and awareness of the review processes. ... When you have terrible events like these in other countries, isn't it appropriate that you just pause to make sure that you do an appropriate review and look at what lessons-learned you can see from these other events to see if processes should be improved and enhanced in some fashion? ...

I find it interesting that Governor Snyder mentioned Lebanon, which is an event mostly ignored by the Media.

I also find it interesting how easily voices of reason are tsunamied by panic and hatred.

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3 comments:

Reading the Signs said...

We are living in dark days indeed, Montag. Anna and I are living on Facebook these days. We watched a Youtube of a friendship between a dog and a fish - to help keep our spirits up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaUayYNFKpM

Reading the Signs said...

I am confused. Did my comment go through? Testing.

Montag said...

I have no idea what the problem may have been. I hate being confused at teh critical moment for commentary, so I always copy the comment, which sometimes is quite long and garrulous.

I haven't changed anything, but it seems as if everything gets strange after a while. I think the programmers get bored and try out new stuff and we are the guinea pigs, even though they call it a "beta" test in public.