2016 March 22nd
The massacre in Belgium is the major news this morning; so
what do the various Presidential candidates have to say about this tragedy? All
of them had sympathetic words for the people of Brussels. Trump, the current
leader, reminisces about “how lovely Brussels once was and now it’s a hell
hole.” Trump went on to point out that we must keep Muslims out of this country.
Kasich confined himself to words of sympathetic support for Brussels’ people;
Clinton and Sanders took the same tack. Ah, but Ted Cruz had more than sympathetic
words for the Belgians; Senator Cruz took this opportunity to blame the
President for failing to put an end to ISIS. Cruz also said that he would
authorize police “to patrol and secure” Muslim neighborhoods. He didn’t
elaborate on the “secure” part; maybe he will padlock all the Mosques. Is he a
tough guy or what?
One observer on the morning news, a former ambassador, was
asked about the likelihood of a similar attack in this country. He claimed that
the attacks here had all been by solitary individuals, or at least had not obviously coordinated with a network of other terrorists as had all of the
European attacks. He went on to point out that Muslims are not ghettoized in
this country; they do not live in communities specifically reserved for them.
The situation in Europe is far different; there Muslims tend to live largely
isolated from the rest of the population. Their unemployment rate is much higher
than it is for the larger society and while Muslims make up ten percent of the
French population they are ninety percent of the prison population.
Now we have Senator Cruz who believes that ghettoizing
American Muslims will decrease the likelihood that any of them will foment a
terrorist attack here. This is the same man who believes that President Obama
should not have gone to Cuba. What curious positions for a Bible toting Christian
to take: Problems can be solved if we are just belligerent enough. And Cruz is
the man the Republicans hope will defeat Trump; why is one of them better than
the other?
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