Wherefore, Humanity?

What a week.


What happened in Paris was, undoubtedly, a tragedy. A group of evil cowards saw fit to terrorize a city in a brazen display of hatred. Unconscionable.


The greater tragedy, to me, has been the disgusting displays of hatred from my fellow Americans. I have witnessed more sickening, hateful, bile from people that I know personally, as well as from outside my personal circles. The worst by far have been the calls to arms in order to exterminate all Muslims from the face of the earth.


Let's just take a moment to digest that. I mean, honestly. All Muslims? All of them? And this, from God-fearing, red-blooded AMERICANS! The same people who lament the days of yore, when our founding fathers really stood for something! Like religious freedom!


...oh, wait. Surely, the founding fathers only meant Christianity, right? Not so much, no.


And while we're at it, Trigger Finger, because a small subset of the 1.6 BILLION Muslims are crazy terrorists, we should kill them ALL? Let's go ahead and extrapolate, then. After we're done murdering 1.6 billion people, let's go ahead an really make things right:


- By definition, all black-on-black crime is perpetrated by black people. If we kill all of them, that'll stop.


- Most serial killers are white men. We can really make everyone safe if we kill all of them, too.


- School shootings are mostly perpetrated by high school students. Let's just do them in, as well.


Heck, with just a bit more effort, I bet we could find enough justification to rid the world of humanity entirely. We'd all be safe as houses, then!


Here's the thing. Muslims aren't the enemy. Terrorists are. The average Muslim isn't any more of a danger to Joe Murican than your average Protestant. I've known several. They are just as appalled with their so-called bretheren as I am with so-called Christians who would like to see a significant percentage of the world's population murdered.


Another important point is that creating an environment in which Muslims are held apart from the rest of the world is exactly what the cowards in ISIS wants. When the West scorns Muslims at large, recruiting becomes so much easier. If we show them that we hate them, their rhetoric becomes true. The sad truth about Mr. Trump's knee-jerk vow to "bomb the shit out of ISIS" is that ISIS would love for that to happen. Their ranks would swell overnight, especially if we accidentally killed some women and kids in there, too.


And yet, angry, scared Americans are calling for blood. They are closing their borders to refugees fleeing the hell that ISIS is creating in Syria, because there might be some embedded terrorists in those groups. They are refusing the tired, poor, huddled masses because they have, in their fear, forgetting that we are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of refugees. When did we forget this? When did we forget to be human? When did we cease being a melting pot, reveling in the chance to become stronger in our diversity? Have we really lost that courage? Are we so afraid that we can no longer treat other humans as humans? Undoubtedly, there are bad guys out there who wish to do harm. You know what, though? Those people already live here. Every time some coward shoots up a school or a church or a movie theater, we are reminded of that. Those are American citizens doing the shooting.


Fellow Americans, you are breaking my heart. Please be better. The terrorists are ineffective if we don't allow ourselves to be terrorized. Remember what it is to be great, and behave accordingly. More hate is not what this world needs right now.