Tonight France was ripped apart once again by terrorist acts of violence. This time killing 120 people. As social media erupts with solidarity with the people of France we're all reminded that Islamists, fueled by their religious dogma and fanaticism are killing innocent people. What can we do? We are all speechless. I tweeted #ImageNoReligion. That's unhelpful. Who cares? If we could snap our fingers now and Islam never existed would we see this problem? Probably not - which should tell you the religion is at the heart of this matter despite what your liberal friends tell you. I understand the fine line, but American "moderate" Muslims are not most Muslims. We all probably know very peaceful Muslims that live in this country and they actually are lucky enough to live in a free nation that lets them practice their faith. Sure, they face discrimination from asshole redneck conservatives that can't get their tiny brains to actually do something called nuance.
What would you say to these kids, these jihadists if you could? How would you solve this problem? What I think was the worst thing that could have happened was our nation's overreaction after 9/11. I often wonder if democracy would have actually been carried out in 2000 and Gore would have been President during 9/11 if we would have lashed out the same. We'll never know, but the way Bush and the neocons handled it made things SO much worse. It created the mess we are in now by putting boots on the ground and invading a country right at the heart of the Muslim world. The "War on Terror" was started by us. We had the option to take a step back and act smart, but we dusted off the old empire manual and threw our entire military might into an unending war.
Don't get me wrong, I was wrong back then. I was one of those annoying Michael Moore liberals back then that said Islam wasn't the problem it was only American imperialism. I only got half of that right. Our quest for unending war stirred a religious hornets nest and like many modern wars manifested itself into a full on civil war. Islam was also part of the problem. Islam is still part of the problem. We saw that today on full display as men chanted to Allah while blowing themselves and others to bits. There is no denying the connection between religious belief and terrorism - all in a backdrop of America all up in the midst of it all - with an bloated military budget and plenty of war toys to try out on these crazies in their countries.
I want to say to these jihadists you can cause ripples in the world, but don't with bombs. Don't with old ideas old men teach you from old books. Here's how...
Education. Specifically science education. Once you have the tools to understand the physics, mathematics, chemistry, and mechanics behind the tools you use everyday (that's your smart phone I'm talking about Jihad John) you can see the value of innovation and technology for innovation and technology sake. Oh, and also you can make good money and we all want more money, I don't care how many prayers you say a day.
Science - properly understood, studied, demonstrated via thinking and application is indispensable for living a good life. It opens the most important door that MUST be opened to evolve and become more civilized and social .. - Perspective! Stop praying to old father figures in fanciful supernatural realms and suppressing every single little thing that makes you like another species of animal. I'm not blaming all of you, some of you have no option, some of you are from war-torn countries with a passion for vengeance against the great Satan America for bombing your family who had nothing to do with any of this.
But my hope is to see that science education spreads somehow. Think if instead of bombing a country that had not attacked us on 9/11 but instead shoveled even half the amount of money we did on the Iraq war into educating and giving social programs to help the sick, hungry and poor in many different Muslim countries in the Middle East. Think about that amount of schooling and drive to success if we had done that instead of bombing cities and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people that of course will now hate us.
Our country, in it's empire form, is not sustainable. We need to rethink how we deal with these countries. At this point I almost suggest pulling out completely and letting the civil war happen between the sects of Islam. Apparently blood has to flow in the streets to sort things out. Religions and their blood. They love a good blood bath from time to time. They must kill off as many people as possible to see which form of the religion is right, which one properly displays God's love the most.
In Solidarity Paris! We stand with you and we need to find a way to stop this virus. This virus of religion -
Let's start with the most violent religion of our time - Islam.
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