Are We Even Asking the Right Questions With Refugees?

For people who still think that we should continue trucking in refugees without stopping to have a serious think about it:

I am not just afraid of the refugees (or rather, of the relatively small number of refugees who are likely to be a threat), I am also afraid of us and of where this might lead. Let's say that the overwhelming majority of the refugees are wonderful people and only 4 terrorists sneak in and start killing people in Southwest Missouri. Let's even say that it is not as bad as what happened in Paris (which is likely).

How would our people respond? After Paris, French and even Americans are demanding more intense bombing in Syria. France, the US, and Russia have all intensified their bombing raids and people are cheering. Do most people even care if the bombs will help solve the problem? Do most people stop to ask if the right people are being blown up or what the moral cost is with the women and children who are also dying? Maybe it is worth the cost, maybe it is going to be effective, but do we stop to ask?

Most people do not have a Syrian in their neighborhood to take the anger out on. Syria is far away and the government acts as our proxy. We would like to think that they are acting with restraint and targeting the attacks, for instance, to avoid hospitals run by international humanitarian missions. Maybe they are, maybe they are not.

What happens after an attack in our cities when we have a handy group of Syrian refugees to take out the anger on?

Ask yourself whether some of our hotheads are going to stop and ask whether those particular refugees are really at fault. What happens here when we have American police having to decide whether to fire on American citizens attacking Syrian refugees in retaliation for dead Missourians killed by Syrians. Ask yourself who moderate Muslims will side with after pictures of Americans attacking refugees are played over and over on international news.

Don't think this can happen? You maybe have not paid attention: to the fact that Sikhs (who are not even Muslim) were mass-murdered in Milwaukee after 9-11, or that a Mosque in Joplin was burned to the ground after that same community actively volunteered to help victims of The Tornado. Or that Evangel in Springfield had to close an event related to refugees because of someone who wrote something they absolutely *should not* have written. Maybe you missed the Muslim family who had their house shot up while they were (fortunately) attending an event in support of the Paris victims. Maybe you have not been paying attention to what Trump has been advocating which belongs more in '30s Germany than in America. If we go through with this, Trump's solution is going to get much more popular. Could we live with that and call ourselves Americans? I know that I could not.

We need to stop and think this through. Very, very carefully.