Political Irony

On Saturday, Democrat John Bel Edwards won a runoff election and was elected governor of Louisiana. Why is this newsworthy? Because he is the first Democrat elected to a statewide office there since 2008. His opponent was David Vitter, who has been plagued by scandals.

Why wasn’t current governor Bobby Jindal in the race? Because he was term limited, but might have lost even if he could have run. Despite running for president, when he dropped out of the presidential race last Wednesday his approval rating in his own state had dropped to 20%. Clearly, people there were ready for a change.

The other good news is that the new governor has pledged to expand Medicaid in his state under Obamacare, which could make Louisiana the first state in the deep south to do so. That will provide health insurance to around 225,000 people in the state, which is one of the poorest in the nation.

© Nick Anderson

Yeah, thanks GOP for keeping America safe.

not.

I love how the right manages to remain reality-free. The latest news is that conservatives are threatening to move to Canada if the US takes in Syrian refugees. I guess nobody told them.

Can you tell the difference between a Daesh terrorist and a Syrian Refugee. It isn’t that difficult!

© Jen Sorensen

In the wake of the Paris attacks, we are scared shitless of the Syrian refugees, even though these are the people who are trying to escape Daesh. Besides, all the Paris terrorists had European passports. You would think that the smart thing to do would be to support those people fleeing the Islamic State, rather than demonize and punish them. But I guess we don’t do “smart” any more.

UPDATE: Jon Green has an awesome rant about the anti-refugee Republicans. It is short and you really should read the whole thing, but I’ll bait you with a few sentences from it, discussing the Governors who have said they won’t let refugees enter their state:

These governors know the rules, and are saying they’ll ignore them to make their constituents feel like they’re doing something about, you know, those people. But with the overall level of nonsense from Republicans in positions of power getting out of hand, getting them together to go back over the basics became necessary. No, they can’t violate the Refugee Act of 1980. Yes, if the federal government decides that “orphans under the age of 5” don’t pose a national security risk, Chris Christie will have to deal with it. No, religious tests for refugees are not constitutional. And seriously, John Kasich, we are not launching a new federal program for spreading Judeo-Christian values abroad.

Green also points out the stunning stupidity of Republican proposals to “solve” the refugee problem. Like that law that the House just passed to require refugees to get clearance from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security before we let them into our country. That sounds great until you find out that we are already doing it!

I keep thinking this is obvious, but then something like the (latest) massacres in Paris happen and our reaction shows that we just don’t get it. The point is: Islamic radicals want us to hate Muslims. It is their best recruiting tool ever.

An article in The Washington Post spells it out:

This is precisely what ISIS was aiming for — to provoke communities to commit actions against Muslims. Then ISIS will be able to say, “I told you so. These are your enemies, and the enemies of Islam.”

And it isn’t like we haven’t fallen for this before. A dozen years ago, the Islamists even told us this was their strategy:

This strategy gained traction in the early 2000s after al-Qaeda was sent into hiding by Western military action. Abu Musab al-Suri, an influential jihadi thinker whom the Wall Street Journal called “the new mastermind of jihad,” argued for a distributed network of terrorist cells recruited from the Islamic diaspora, carrying out terrorist strikes in their own communities. These attacks, and the backlash they generated, would inspire others to radicalize.

The US is big and powerful, and we have meddled in the Middle East enough times to make plenty of enemies there. But they cannot attack us directly – nation to nation – that would be suicide. So instead, they got 20 people with box cutters to destroy the twin towers for them. And we played right into their hands. After 9/11, we attacked Iraq, and ended up creating the group variously known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh (the derogative Arabic term for the Islamic State, and now my preferred term).

And the west keeps falling for it. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, attacks against Muslims and vandalism of mosques more than quadrupled in France.

This time around, the reprisals are even more widespread. A mosque in Canada was deliberately set on fire. In liberal Portland Oregon, protestors held a rally outside a mosque wearing T-shirts saying things like “Proud to be an infidel, Islam is a LIE“. Other Islamic buildings received threatening phone calls, like one in Florida:

We are tired of your [expletive] and I [expletive] personally have a militia that is going to come down to your Islamic Society of Pinellas County and firebomb you and shoot whoever is there in the head.

Think about it for a second. Why would Islamic militants stage an operation that kills 129 people in Paris? Certainly they aren’t so stupid that they think it will make the west stop bombing them.

Just last month, they planted a bomb on a Russian airplane leaving Egypt, killing almost twice as many people than died in Paris. But somehow that didn’t work as well. They need to take the terrorism to where we live, whether it is Paris or New York. Even more important, they need to take it to cities where there are large Islamic populations, so they can radicalize even more future terrorists.

And they do need to create more future terrorists. The vast majority of Muslims are against terrorism. Just this week, the King of Jordan (a Muslim country that shares a large border with Syria) denounced Daesh, saying “The atrocious Paris attacks shows that scourge of terrorism can strike anywhere and any time.” He also announced a war against the Daesh terrorists (Jordan is already bombing Daesh in Syria, so this is no hollow threat).

Unfortunately, our reaction to Paris here in the US is even more idiotic than normal this time. Yes, our Republican presidential candidates are waving their sabers around, but that sadly is normal. No, the big news is that 30 governors have announced that they will refuse to let Syrian refugees settle in their states.

First of all, how in the world would a state government stop someone from settling in their state? Religious quizzes at the state border? Even more traffic stops of people who look middle eastern? It boggles the mind. But even if there was a physical way to stop them, what legal reason could they use to stop them? A law explicitly discriminating against Muslims? They would have to repeal the First Amendment before they could do that.

But that doesn’t matter. Do the governors realize just how idiotic this is? The Syrian refugees are people fleeing Daesh. They are trying to get away from Daesh. Indeed, absolutely none of the Paris terrorists were Syrian refugees. They were Muslims already living in Europe. It would make more sense for the governors to threaten to deport all Muslims living in their states (not that it makes any sense at all).

So not letting Syrian refugees find a new home means that they won’t be able to leave Syria and will be stuck there under Daesh. Is that what we want? If you are a Muslim living in the US, and your siblings or parents are unable to leave Syria, who are you going to blame? If your mosque is set on fire, or your friends are beat up by some skinhead, at whom are you going to get angry?

I’m not saying that two wrongs make a right. I’m just saying that through our actions, we managed to create Daesh and we continue to be their best recruiting tool. Just look at our results. They are playing us like idiots, and we keep falling for it.

© Matt Bors

The last panel of this comic shows the terrorists popping open a bottle of champagne, even though the Muslim religion prohibits alcohol. Maybe this is a subtle reminder that the terrorists in Paris were not particularly religious.

UPDATE: Republican-controlled House has passed a bill to severely restrict the entry of Syrian refugees to the US. Obama is threatening to veto the bill, assuming it gets through the Senate.

Rupert Murdoch (the dark lord of Fox News) tweeted the following:

Obama facing enormous opposition in accepting refugees. Maybe make special exception for proven Christians.

Seriously? Proven Christians?

Of course, the best part is all the responses to his tweet. Here are just a few:

• ‘proven’ Christians. Lolz. Some sort of bible quiz on the borders, then? That’ll be a hit with Passport Control.
• a religious test for citizenship says the Sith Lord
• How to find ‘proven’ Christians? Splash them with holy water? Or maybe some sort of heathen dunking stool? #SimpleDarkAgeFixes #DrunkTweeting
• isn’t that the logic isis employs when deciding whether to kill someone. Works SO well for them.
• how about a Saturday night reality show? Live or Let Die with Simon Cowell? Viewers could vote on who looks the most muslimy
• “Can you prove you’re a Catholic?” “Sure. But how?” “See this 8-year old boy?” “Yes?” “Fuck him.”
• Refresh my memory, I forget how it works – if they float, they’re a witch, and if they sink they’re a Christian? #buffoon

UPDATE: More Twitter responses to Murdoch:

• This is about the least Christ like thing i can imagine
• Is Rupert Murdoch a Christian? If so, prove it.
• I’m not even sure he’s human!
• wish we could get rid of proven arseholes like you
• what’s the test for “proven Christians?” A recent case of stigmata? Able to show documented proof of slave ownership?
• I would have thought a “proven Christian” would make no distinction between people in dire need
• Conservatives okay w/ selling AK-47s to people w/o asking if they have criminal or mental issue but refugees must prove they’re Christians.
• yeah because Christians don’t shoot up schools or do anything else bad !!!

Actually, Murdoch gives me an idea. I think we should only allow people to own or run TV broadcasters, radio stations, and newspaper publishers if they are natural born Americans.

A woman in Massachusetts won the right to wear a colander on her head in her driver’s license photo:

Lindsay Miller is a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Also known as Pastafarians, members are encouraged to wear a colander in official identification photos as a public expression of their belief.

I think this is actually a very serious issue. Religious extremism is a very real problem in this world. People like Kim Davis think that the constitution gives them the right to violate other people’s rights (and the law) because of their “sincerely held beliefs”. But this puts the state in the position of deciding what is a religious belief (and thus what is a religion) and what is not (even though the First Amendment “prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion”).

People react in horror at what ISIL is doing in the name of religion, but Christianity had their “crusades“. Shouldn’t Christians practice what they preach: that only people without sin should cast stones?

Where do we get the moral authority to condemn ISIL? Note that I am not defending ISIL – we definitely need authority to condemn ISIL and their atrocities. But that authority can not come from a religious disagreement between Christianity and Islam. If judging a belief as “sincerely held” is the only requirement for violating the law, is there anyone who thinks that ISIL’s beliefs are not sincerely held? They are clearly willing to die for their beliefs.

No, our moral authority can only come from our being a nation of laws that follows the rule of law. I believe (sincerely!) that the Constitution intends that government keep out of the religion business. That means that everybody has to follow the law, regardless of their religion.

Otherwise, I sincerely believe that I should be allowed to deduct 18% of my federal taxes because funding war is against my religion.