MORE AND MORE

     More hatred. More violence. More accusations. More shouting. More threats. More half truths and no truths. More hiding the head in the sand. And more sad stories of lives cut short, hopes dashed, dreams morphing into nightmares and more know it alls coming out of the woodwork.
     Yet another terrorist incident and before the screams are shushed and the cleanup begun here are already self declared mavens who are analyzing it with their own bias and slant. So the extremists on one side are all for having mobs go around and round up every immigrant and toss them out. Well, is that every one with an Islamic sounding name? Well, not such a good idea for if one goes into the Syrian Jewish enclaves, there are many, many last names that are shared with Arabs. So then what? Do we include them or skip over their homes as the Angel of Death did on Passover? Or what about the Hispanic surnames? Gotta go too?
    But then what of the names like oh, say, Hamilton, he of the hit show - an immigrant from the West Indies, or Andrew Carnegie, an immigrant from Scotland and we could list millions. In fact, at the time of the Revolution, all were immigrants, even the native Americans found here for they came from elsewhere and had their own territorial wars with other tribes and forced the loser in their war to move. So should we then just abandon the continent? Extreme ideas can be taken to the extreme, without thought and with much danger. 
     So get rid of all Moslems. Well, we began the discussion with that idea and while I agree that all terrorist ones should go, we must remember that not everyone in a class is the same. I, for one, would not like a particular doctor I saw be thrown out - but oh, he is a Christian Arab so I guess he is safe. It is not a particular whole group we must rout and sniff out and defend ourselves against, but rather the Islamic extremist for make no bones about it, this is a religious war and remember, humankind is quite adept at having these. When our leaders can stand up and say that phrase - Islamic extremism, Islamic terrorism - then maybe we have a beginning, and when another so called leader can stop the rhetoric of hatred, perhaps we have another percent of a chance.
     We need laws to deal with radical Islamic terrorism and the wisdom to see that this is the issue.  We need to call it by its proper name, and only in that way will we be able to combat it.Without them there would be less of a crisis with the guns! But in fact we must deal with all radical fundamentalists for there is inherent within them the tendency to dictate and hurt and demand and demand more and more. Be it police in France or kids over here or a right wing militia or civilians in Israel - it is all the same and needs to be stopped.
     What we need is not more laws, but better laws, laws without the holes of a Swiss cheese approach. I believe in the right to have a gun. I do. But why would one need an AR-15 unless one is planning to go and kill lots of people or is a survivalist who will have all sorts of stuff hanging around and even then, people suspected of harboring violent tendencies should not be allowed to own these weapons. People who boasted of plans to kill lots of people should be taken seriously and banned from gun ownership. It is not a violation of that person's rights but rather an affirmation of mine and yours.
     Then  of course we have those oh so godly people who just know for a fact that the people killed and wounded deserved it for  they were gasp! gay!!! Well, first of all, not all were gay but happened to be there for a job or as a friend. Second of all, being gay does not mean that a cosmic force is at work to have one killed for that. So what then are the excuses one can gin up for the other killings. Sandy Creek and its little ones and teachers who were heroic in their deeds - were they in the closet, all those 6 and 7 year olds? No, so what, because they would eventually be gay?Does one not see the stupidity, the dangerous stupidity of such thinking?
     So Obama purses his lips and Trump foams at the mouth, just oh so exactly like the calm leader in stressful moments that we are looking for and need - right? And Clinton asks for unity, a difficult undertaking at this exact moment so perhaps too premature, but certainly correct in her demands that gun laws must be strengthened. Rights can be sensibly controlled without violating them and what we need is a Republican Party that gets off its hind legs and rejoins the country and an NRA that stops and thinks and sees the light!
     But right now we need to let the families grieve in peace, not hound them, not make a big fuss over the sexual orientation of most of the victims, and work hard, instead, on picking up the pieces, figuring out how to avoid this - and let me tell you, hearing his job and who he worked for gave me a chill right down and back up my spine. Perhaps we ought to have a chat with our security company and their vetting processes. Can't hurt. We need to figure out how to handle this sensibly and sensitively, work on behavior observation, education, inclusion, teach patriotism again, pledge "one nation under G-d' once more in our classrooms on a daily basis and have all of us remember that we were or our families were immigrants at one time, and quite a few were illegal at that time too!
     So as frightened as we all are, as tense as we all are, we need to keep calm and react properly. So maybe better screening, tighter thinking by our security forces, calmer modes of behavior, a recognition that this is religious terrorism so it does not to be kickstarted but can be done on an individual basis with the group giving the original inspiration, if we can call it that, but then the person is on his own. Scary, but with the right attitudes and thinking it can be controlled. But please, to act from fright is to allow another dictator such as a Hitler to come into power for fright demands comfort from whatever the source. Think. Be calm and care for one another.