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     "It takes twenty years to bring man from his vegetable state inside the womb... to the stage where he begins to grow into maturity. It took thirty centuries to learn something about his structure. It would take an eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes only an instant to kill him."    Voltaire, 1764
     Read those words and feel their wisdom. Feel the truth found within those sentences and then ask oneself what the hell are we doing? We find ourselves living in a world that seems to echo all day and all night with the sounds of violence, with the sound of weeping, with the roar of hatred and we wonder what to do about it.
     And amongst the wonderers certain thoughts come forth. We remember Goldwater and his "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." We encounter the thinking throughout history that says that one must lose some individual liberties if we are to have security, but then we must think over that again for how many societies over the centuries have promised that security and never truly kept it going nor gave security to those who were ripped away from their families in the middle of the night?
     War always comes up as an answer to the violence of terrorism. It has been tried often, but masses of troops are not the answer either as we have found that out to our detriment as we continue a war of almost two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan. War seems to irritate those caught within its spiked web, only raising more violence and die hard opinions. "Men are not made for war. But neither are they made for slavery." (Jean Guehenno, 1942). Yes, there are some wars that needed to be fought because all else failed and we need to be able to see more clearly which path needs to be taken, but we need to be absolutely clear and make the decision in a calm and rational manner.
     Having a madman sit there and tweet away, use his capitals incessantly, get into a fight with the mayor of a city under attack, shout about how we need to tighten bans here in America to keep us safe - no, folks, this is not the answer either. We are not made for slavery either - not for the slavery of rules that break the back of society, that turn us from the achievements of mankind back to the rude and crude ways of a dictatorial society. That has been tried before and is still being tried in certain countries and it leads to naught but more violence.
     We need sanity more than ever but it seems that all we are getting is more insanity, more shouting and more threats. Ban these people, threaten those, attach suspicion on anyone who dares to question and Eugene McCarthy is smiling in his grave. Yes, we need to be vigilant but we also need to be realistic and wise. Unfair rules and regulations cause people's backs to rise and tighten and then we simply get more violence and a split in society such as the one we are building right here in our country. The two sides will never hear each other, never think over the concerns and worries of the other person and the dream of America will be gone, shattered and for what? Turning America into Amerika is not the answer. Never the answer. Never!!
     So the USA is tightening visa applications. Fine, although it is already very tight - if only we would remember to scrutinize and smooth the operation into being able to actually see the individual standing before the booth waiting for entry. But we are careless there and also forget that the borders of any country are leaky, even the borders of the countries that used to live within the Iron Curtain boundaries. It is never sealed tight with no space for leaks so simply adding pages to an application that is already tight is foolish. Besides the fact, once we set up sealed borders, no visitor laws and crazy competition out there in the world rather than cooperation in the economic and scientific and humane areas, what do we have left? Only the desire  to keep breathing, even under awful rules in breakback societies, but is that what we want for ourselves and our children? Can you remember all the names and passwords you have used in the past five years? I cannot and I bet you cannot either so why do we expect others to be able to do so and if not, what? They are banned forever? So we lose their contributions to our society? We ignore the value that immigrants have added to our country over the centuries. Think of the names of foreigners who fought in our own Revolutionary War, from Lafayette to Kosciusko to von Steuben and others. Alexander Hamilton was an immigrant as were so many of our fighters in our ragtag army.
    We must keep our sanity and our heads and only that way will we keep our freedoms. Yes, it appears to be that this streak of violent and extreme Islam must be stopped, but we must find the right ways. Setting up extra burdens on those of our citizens who happen to be Muslim is not the answer. It only pushes them away and stops them from helping authorities. We have lost too many people because of religion. Jews were often the target of this religious hatred and religious canards, the Holocaust being the most recent and actually the anti Zionism that is barely disguised anti Jewish hatred appears to be alive and well today. Must we add more hatred of others to the cause?? It never works.
     Today four Arab nations have cut ties with Qatar due to their support of terrorism, one being Saudi Arabia - hypocrisy to the nth degree, but perhaps they are learning,  We will see. And do we hear  Trump saying we are pulling our 10,000 troops out of Qatar where they are based? Shhhh - nope, sorry. All is quiet.
     So we continue to live in a world that is changing its geography, changing the challenges, man made and natural, denying reality in the words of others, losing our perspective and even our leaders are loyal to themselves and to their party, demanding personal loyalty from Party members and is this America? Is this the future of the world? It is a sad future - an awful present - we are expecting and living with.
     Do I know the answers? No, way above my pay grade, but certainly the answers we are getting now are not the answers that work either. We need thinking outside of the box. We need open minds and hearts. We need to develop trust. We need to reach out to others, allow them into society so that they will turn against those who would destroy it. We need to show that all of us are victims. Now I am not a particular admirer of Justin Bieber, but out of the mouths of babes we hear words of wisdom. At the OneLove concert in Manchester he shed tears, as did many others and said, that he has not lost hope, that  "God is good in the midst of the darkness; God is good in the midst of evil. God is in the midst, no matter what is happening in the world. And He loves you, and He's here for you." Perhaps we need to refer back to the Image hidden within us for we are sure not doing so well right now. We must change. We must.