Wednesday, May 24, 2017

How to combat Terrorism

With the most recent bombing I was listening o the news and thinking about this issue.
Some people are blaming Radical Islamic Ideology but is that just an excuse or symptom or the real reason for these acts?
Hate speech certainly does not help, we have seen an increase in domestic terrorism, hate crimes and violence here in America.

Terrorism is very very rarely done by refugees or short term immigrants.  Most of the time it is from citizens with lower income and who feel they have suffered hardship and disenfranchisement.
The problem seems to be people who feel they have nothing to lose and looking for someone to blame.
We see this throughout history.
The Nazis blamed the Jews for a ruined economy left over from the staggering debt they had from World War 1.
The IRA blamed England.
And what about the US?
Domestic Terrorism has been credited mostly to Right Wing groups with notable exceptions being the Animal Liberation Front and Animal Rights groups.
Timothy McVeigh the bomber of the largest domestic terro act prior to 9-11 was a Gulf War vet who blamed the Federal government for Ruby Ridge and Waco  and had been bullied as a child and later in life considered the US Government to be the biggest bully of all. He was a noted KKK member and got in trouble for buying and wearing a "White Power" on base.

Looking at the history we have seen most of these people had come to the attention of authorities prior to their attack. Unfortunately the Republican party and Donald Trump (likely at the behest of Bannon) have decided to curb funding and make watching these people a lower priority.
Looking over these people we see a lot of common things about them.  The Ideology and group they claim to support changes but the circumstances remain very similar.
These are generally lower educated people, with a criminal or even violent history and feel oppressed or powerless.
That gives us our answer.

Effectively Combating  Domestic Terrorism

Empower our citizens so they have opportunities to get and keep good jobs, reduce school bullying and domestic violence and give people hope for a better future.
We also need to monitor hate groups and deny guns to those identified as mentally ill.
What we should not do is stir up hate vs. religions, ethnic groups, different genders, or differing sexuality.  I am proud of my state of Oklahoma where to my knowledge we have not succumbed to the hate crimes we see in other states against Muslims and we have a very charitable Muslim community here in OKC.  Now if we can stop the anti black hate crimes, especially in Tulsa.

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