Indiana’s Governor (along with governors from other enlightened states like Alabama and Louisiana) is using the Paris tragedies as an excuse to exclude a small handful of Syrian refugees who were to be settled in Indiana.
These refugees are fleeing from the same psychopaths who perpetrated the atrocities in Paris –and before Paris, in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and several other places, although (in a topic for another day) those massacres didn’t get the U.S. media coverage that the Paris attacks generated.
Given all that, you might think that a man who wears his piety like a badge of honor, who talks about “Christian Charity” and the “generosity of Hoosiers” would embrace desperate people who’ve left their possessions behind, who have fled once-comfortable homes and once-thriving businesses and professions in a frantic effort to get away from the naked evil that is ISIS. You might think that heartbreaking photographs like the one of the dead three-year-old whose body washed ashore–photos that went viral and were hard to miss–would convey the urgency and human need of this incredible migratory flood.
You’d be wrong.
Instead of human compassion, we get grandstanding and political calculation.
Why do I think the Governor’s response would be different if the refugees were conservative Christians who looked more like us?
Bernard, there is an excellent book by James Bamford Pretext for War. It outlines that from nearly Day One GWB was determined to attack Saddam, after that it was a question of how to justify an invasion. 9/11 provided the general wave of hysteria, and essentially, it became the means justifies the end.
Hermann Goering said in an interview after WW 2 ended – ” The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
Theresa. Believe me you are standing up for America. That requires dismissing Gropper’s amerika.
Thanks, Pete. Your support feels good.
Those oil rich countries in the Middle East, Joanne, are run by the stooges our country installed. Why can’t we control them? We can when we want, and we can’t when we should.
Louie, ISIS is Barry’s creation. He was the one who approved the covert funding of these rebels to fight in Syria, Libya and elsewhere as part of his continuation of W’s ill-fated “nation-building” exercises. Those rebels became what is known as ISIS. The American people are the most propagandized people in the world. They are clueless about the evil policies our nation pursues overseas in the interest of the globalist bankers, energy companies and military/industrial complex that result in the useless killing and destruction of lives and property in so many of these countries.
When Herod issued his order to kill all male children under two years of age, Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with Jesus. Fortunatly for them, Mike Pence was not governor of Egypt.
Gary, do you really believe that the Arab Spring was created by Obama? If so, do you deny that a world that embraces democracy would be a good thing??
I wonder if your faith embraced many globally during the American Revolution? Oh those damn Americans wanting freedom. Aristocracy is good enough for Europe why can’t it be good enough for them!
Michael. Pence probably is better suited for the role of King Herod.
Once more, the history of the Syrian Revolution in 5 minutes.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10153796767828410&id=232843448409&mds=%2Fsharer-dialog.php%3Ffs%3D8%26m%3Dmessage%26sid%3D10153796767828410%26u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fm.facebook.com%252Fezraklein%252F%2523!%252Fstory.php%253Fstory_fbid%253D10153796767828410%2526id%253D232843448409%26internal_preview_image_id&mdf=1
If there is insight to be gained from this history it is that the entire world would be best off if we relied on our sun rather than the Mid East’s oil for energy. Then we could let Sunnis and Shiites figure their own world out.
Pete, Are you telling me you are so uninformed not to know that the U.S. funded, trained and armed the rebels who created the mayhem in Syria that led to this refugee crisis? Or have you forgotten Hillary Clinton’s infamous line about toppling Gaddafi in Libya and managing to destroy the country’s infrastructure in the process–“We came, we saw, he died”? Obama was the one who bragged about the goodness that would come from an Arab Spring, which was never anything more than the U.S. and its allies meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations for selfish, not humanitarian reasons.
Those toppled dictators were the glue that held the middle east in check. Now instead of democracy for millions who are not ready for it, we have the power vacuum that is being filled by the boldest and most violent. In hindsight a more measured response to 9/11 might have yielded different/better outcomes; but the die is cast.
As time goes on, the comments from the one I shall not name get scarier and scarier. I assume he is getting comfortable and revealing his true self.
Pete, you were right about drawing him out. At least Sheila knows who we all are and can turn him in if he goes over the edge.
There is NOTHING about Mike Pence that exudes Christianity! This man has stolen $3.5 million from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to invest in a christian based womens facility. He has left Indiana children without basic living needs, so more women will birth babies he refuses to take care of? Im sorry Mike Pence, but you are a disgrace to Christianity, in your self fulfilling need to promote your dreams of how things should be in this state, and to impress Tea Party members in Congress in your dream of becoming POTUS. I call major hippocracy on you Mike Pence. What you are is a FAKE!
I knew you would refuse to stretch out your unchristian arm to the Syrian refugees, just by your recent history of unjustified spending of Hoosier dollars. Spending over $11,000 for each door on your castle, was when a big red flag was sent up. The existing doors were just fine, but didnt meet your royal taste.
Pontius Pence, Must Go …
“Are you telling me you are so uninformed not to know that the U.S. funded, trained and armed the rebels who created the mayhem in Syria that led to this refugee crisis?”
Yes I am. Embarrass me with the evidence of it.
“Those toppled dictators were the glue that held the middle east in check. Now instead of democracy for millions who are not ready for it, we have the power vacuum that is being filled by the boldest and most violent.”
Daleb, would you have said this about the American or French Revolutions?
I think that there are two inherent Mid East realities.
First, the west has made their dirt extremely valuable (oil) which buys lots of arms. Second, fate gave them both Sunni and Shiite faiths.
We have to correct the first problem and we are. That fact will make them more troublesome for quite awhile but eventually less so. It will also remove any and all stake that the west has in their business.
They have to deal with the second. If democracy can prevail through the liberal conservative divide here than it could work there too. They have to figure out a revolution (transition) that works for them (like our founding fathers did).
I understand your point about dictators creating stability at the expense of human rights but it’s always temporary. Human progress cannot be denied.
Please, again, watch the short video that I posted above on the history of the Syrian Revolution.
I think that we’d all like to believe that America controls the universe even to the point that our denial of climate change will change the reality of it.
Just not so. We are one of many players totally defined by a tiny role in reality. Things happen regularly that we have no control over. That’s been true forever and still is.
It’s a measure of this time and place that conservatives believe that Democrats are all powerful while Republicans are merely the victims of fate.
Gary, never waste your time thinking you’re going to have a discussion with Pete or that he’s going to answer honestly.
Bop him on the head when you make your point, then leave him to ruin.
He, like so many who post here, are Marxists who are anti-White and anti-American.
Israel wants to redraw the map of the Middle East, and they’re using America to do it. So many who post here know this foundationally and are fine with destroying America for foreign benefit.
Did you hear about the CIA meeting with French intelligence prior to the Paris attack?
Gopper, we aren’t destroying our America but your amerika.
This just in — since most of the terrorists in Paris were French and Belgian nationals, Pence has now banned all French and Belgian citizens from seeking asylum or visiting Indiana…..
Actually, that is not true, but it only shows the extent of the stupidity and idiocy (redundancy for emphasis) that the GOP and governors like Pence have come to exemplify. Slippery slope indeed
Joe, Joe, Joe; I hope you haven’t planted that idea in Pence’s brain! He is so easily led by anything negative.
Pete; conversations with Gopper are always one-sided, but it does give you the opportunity to share what information you have. He/she hides behind that ridiculous title but at least no longer uses “Former Gopper” trying to trick us.
Sheila’s final comment is on target in this issue but, there are conservative Christian LGBTs (and educated, employed women on birth control) Pence would gladly remove from this state if only he could. I look forward to this new bill touted to “balance rights”. What could he call a bill to keep refugees from crossing our state borders? He probably has something in in the works along with a “fix” just in case. PENCE MUST GO!
A question I ask is why they would ever want to settle in Indiana. Not only is the governor a jerk, but we have the worst water quality and the second worst air quality in the country. We have elevated levels of stroke, heart attack and emphysema, teen pregnancy is above the national average and income is below it. Perhaps the governor is doing them a favor.
Really Jim Sack. I wouldn’t want to live there again and I was born there! I was back for 3 weeks this past summer and I knew then, Indiana was not going into the 21st Century with bells on, it was going in whole hog red neck. At least most of it. No thanks.
I don’t respect Pence very much, but having said that, I don’t think he is motivated by racism or any other sinister motive other than the fact that there is no way to adequately vet any Syrian refugee. Unless his or her name appears on a watch list, assuming they didn’t change it or aren’t lying about their real name, you cannot be certain they aren’t here to participate in a jihad. The mastermind of the Paris massacres posed as a Syrian refugee and even left France despite the fact that his photo was disseminated to the military and he was even stopped by a soldier who didn’t make the connection. That’s reason enough to ban them from settling here. I do think this was Pence’s motivation and I can’t take issue with that.
Those responsible for bombing the Russian aircraft and the Paris attacks have invited their followers to kill the rest of us by any means and even on an individual basis–hit us in the head with a rock, run us down with a car, poison our crops or our water, anything, because they believe themselves to be the divinely-appointed masters of a coming apocalypse. When you have people motivated by this sort of radical religious belief, there is no reasoning with them because there are no grounds for peace–sort of like the aliens in “Independence Day”–they want us all dead. All you can do is be proactive. Banning them from settling here is one way to be proactive.
I’m sure Natacha that we aren’t safe from any of those threats with or without more Syrian refugees in the mix. Do 10,000 of them change the risk? I doubt it. Does showing compassion to the victims of terrorism blunt it’s value as a weapon. Probably, IMO.
Unfortunately life comes with no guarantee so sticking to our values is about all that we an do.
BTW, great discussion today everyone. Let’s shoot for 100 posts.
Yes, Gopper, I made a mental note of the coincidence of CIA Director John Brennan arriving before the terrorist attacks began in Paris to “brief” French intelligence. No, I don’t believe in coincidences when it comes to these recurring events that serve only one purpose–to justify endless wars in countries where we have no business interfering in their internal affairs.
It seems to get down to a choice between our safety or our principles. This is one of the hardest choices there is, has ever been, or will ever be. We need to be careful. Very, very careful.
Natacha; are you familiar with the murder rate on Indianapolis streets this year alone? And the number of shootings that didn’t end in death, or knife attacks, or severe beatings, rapes, home invasions, and on and on. We are not safe with or without Syrian refugees; there is a better chance they will be identified, classified and sent to specific destinations to be tracked by the government. That tracking system cannot be done on our city streets to protect us anywhere; streets, homes, stores, malls, schools, businesses, on our roads…it is against the civil rights of criminals who are better protected than victims and potential victims. But we have beautiful, expensive, tax supported venues to house balls of all shapes, sizes and colors.
The trail of blood reaches at least back to Madeleine Albright Secretary of State (1997–2001). Quotes > “But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.”
Lesley Stahl asked Madeline Albright on May 12, 1996, “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Lesley is referring to Iraq Children Madeline’s reply > “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”
Decades later we had Arab Spring in Libya which required NATO Bombing and then Hillary’s giddy laughter on Gaddafi’s death, We came, We saw, He died in October 2011.
Arab Spring did not work out to well in Egypt. In June 2012, Mohamed Morsi won the presidential election with 51.73% of total votes to become the first democratically elected president of Egypt. When the people voted, it was decided they voted wrong and Military Coup ensued.
The Saudi’s, Jordan, and the Gulf States will never send their armies into Iraq or Syria to destroy ISIS. Their Armies are armed thugs in uniforms good at brutalizing their own citizens and preserving the dictatorships.
Gopper,
I do not know you sir/maam, but I think you need to explain this quote from your earlier posting.
“like so many who post here, are Marxists who are anti-White and anti-American”. Explain how a person can be anti-his own country.
JoAnn, I really enjoy reading your comments and appreciate how well- thought-out they are with facts to back them up.
A thought for everyone: I believe if we are going to be attacked, that the attackers are already in our country. The existence of US citizens that have been radicalized via the internet has been public information for years. It is just a matter of them potentially getting organized enough to carry out an attack.
However, it is newsworthy to note that our intelligence officials and Homeland Security have been watching these people 24/7 in every way possible for years and have already thwarted many attacks. Someone may eventually be successful, but not without our security teams doing everything possible to prevent an attack.
The inability to vet Syrian refugees came about as a result of a recent Senate hearing, in which the process was explained. One technique used is to check government records where these people originate. That process is futile, for all intents and purposes. There are no extensive fingerprint database records to check for prior criminal activity or radicalism. They don’t have identification, drivers licenses, birth certificates or any other form of identification that can be validated and can easily change their names, so even if we had information on them, we wouldn’t know they had changed their name without checking fingerprints or something else.
If this wasn’t an ideological war being waged by zealots who have the goal of annihilating all of us in the name of their religion, it would be different. I agree that Indianapolis’s crime rate is concerning, and that we aren’t safe, but that has nothing to do with the decision whether to allow unknown persons who could be jihadists to settle here, when there is no way to confirm it is safe to do so. This is especially true given the fact that the mastermind of the Paris tragedy entered France posing as a refugee and even escaped despite the fact that his name and photo were on record, they were looking for him and even detained him, but let him go. He boasts that this is a sign of approval from Allah, and that they should go full speed ahead. That means that some prospective jihadists who might have been on the fence will now probably join the fray. Allowing in refugees won’t change this.
If I were the Governor of Indiana, I would make the same decision. Safety first. As to letting them in and then watching them, how many millions would this cost, and realistically, how effective would this be, anyway? Are we going to microchip them, follow their every move, every purchase, internet activities, where they go, what they do, who they see, etc.? That still wouldn’t work necessarily, as Paris has proven.
Announcement: Big important Marxist cell meeting tomorrow night at the usual place. Topic will be “Is Gropper a Man, Woman, Crazy Group, Bunch of College Students who Like to Prank People or Fidel Castro using Downtime?”
People come into my life very often not one of them in any way vetted. I’m still here. I have friends who advise me to carry a gun. I don’t. I’m still here. A few months ago my entertainment machine told me that Ebola was right outside my door. I went out anyway. I’m still here. I never scrub my hands with antibacterial juice. I’m still here. I had a heart attack but I’m still here. As a child I rode without a helmet or seat belt and was advised that I was doomed to eat a peck of dirt and probably did but I’m still here.
Lucky? No. Average.
And yet, Natacha, the terrorists who skyjacked the planes on 9/11 and managed to kill 3,000 on our home ground were trained to fly those planes here in this country. Timothy McVey was born, bred and trained here to build a bomb using a truck and fertilizer to destroy the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 – including babies. The man who built the truck bomb and planted it in the World Trade Center, causing massive destruction and killing workers and visitors lived here while he planned and carried out his terrorist death plot. The two brothers who planned and carried out the Boston Marathon bombing were living and being educated here, the older brother known to have terrorist connections but they succeeded. The CIA and FBI knew Harvey Lee Oswald’s history, his years in Russia and Communist connections; they also knew his Communist activities here and his views on President Kennedy and knew he was living and active in Dallas, Texas on that terrible day.
We can run but we cannot hide.
Will you oddballs quit saying this country was founded on “people trying to escape religious persecution.”
It’s a lie.
The oldest cities in America are St. Augustine and Santa Fe, both founded by people from a country in which the religion and the government were fully and happily conjoined.
The French settlers had no tension with their religion.
The Jamestown Colony (1607) was founded by people who had no tension with their government’s religion.
The much-publicized Mayflower (1620) missed Virginia by hundreds of miles and contained wackos who banned Christmas and were religious zealots greater than anything ever seen by the posters here. The intention of the Pilgrims and Puritans in coming to America was TO BAN religious freedom and create their own theocracy.
All the successful European immigrants to America, the ones who really made the country, had no tension with the religion of the home country.
Below is a partial list of “Christian” hate groups identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center currently operating in this country. I’m much more concerned about these groups than I am refugees trying to escape torture and killing.
America’s Promise Ministries
American Border Patrol
American Family Association
American Freedom Party
American Renaissance
Aryan Brotherhood
Barnes Review
Brotherhood of Klans
Council of Conservative Citizens
The Creativity Movement
Family Research Council
To see others, go to https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/groups
For once I agree with you Gopper. That’s why the freedom to practice any and all religions, including none, came so naturally to Americans. We were religiously diverse from the beginning.
Joy, be careful. The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of America’s most extreme hate groups.
You should stay off their website, especially at work.
Pete, your 8:01 is in error. Religious tolerance is not natural to people or to this country.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/
Cue JoAnn to insult the Smithsonian.
If news was reported dispassionately on the magic box we’d sleep through it. That is, I believe, more true on TV than in a book or newspaper. So TV anchors are paid to make it emotional. Frightening or angering.
So as TV now rules our lives and the Internet has emulated it what used to be the reporting of rational facts has now become theater. Emotion inducing tragedy or white knuckle narrative that makes us feel present on the scene.
But, only some of it. When the news is about “us”. When it’s about “them” it comes across as remote and foreign.
The black ghetto. The overseas tragedy. The foreign wars. The desperate displaced refugees. They seem so far away.
I remember coming home from work unusually early to see on TV the beginning of Bush the First’s attack on Bagdad. Just like watching a war movie.
It’s no longer just news. It’s the window between “us” and “them”. It’s what scares and angers and excites “us” and what’s merely happening to “them”.
And yet, Gopper, despite the reporting by the Smithsonian of religious events to the contrary there religious freedom is high and mighty in our Constitution. It’s what the founding fathers could agree on as best for the country. It stands as evidence that even the most pious sectarian can see that theocracy simply doesn’t work.
No better evidence of that wisdom than the Mid East today.
We have our religious lives and our secular lives. Politics, at least in functional countries, is a secular function.
In a country of passionate sectarians, democracy still works as the only true source of freedom.
Who does The Southern Poverty Law Center hate and what is the evidence of that?
Pete, the SPLC hates hate groups.
Joy and Pete,
According to Gopper’s logic: America and its Allies in WW II were a hate group similar to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In other words, anyone who hates hate groups, is a hate group. That doses make sense if you’re a Nazi sympathizer like Gopper.
The Gopper is only at this time, emphasis added to “time,” exercising his First Amendment Rights in America to Freedom of Speech.
At least in Germany they understand the limits to it. They learned there lesson well. Maybe this time they can save us from the “Mutating Monster.” However, I doubt it.
I strongly suggest, we better take care of it ourselves.
Please pardon my grammatical mistake with “doses.’
I don’t know, Sheila, why do you think that since there is no evidence of it? Perhaps, you are prejudiced. Another thing. You mentioned two other states in addition to Indiana and slurred those states in doing so with your snide aside. However, your prejudices aside for a moment, Indiana is one of 29 states who have come out in favor of stopping refugees from Syria coming to their states. 29 – not the 3 you insinuate.
Cases can be made for both points of view by resonable people. I am sorry for people who agree with you because you ahve represented that case very poorly.
whoops – got a little careless in my last two sentences – of course, I mean reasonable and have. Given a choice, I would rather make typos than represent a case poorly, but I am happy I don’t have to make that choice.