Anti Muslim Rhetoric

The New Yorker cover illustration features a caricature of Marco and Jeanette Rubio happily purchasing rifles, hand grenades, and cartons of milk. The political statement signalled by the cartoonist is that he and the editorial staff believe guns are too easy to buy. How unaware of irony the editors must be, since this illustration needs just a few tweaks to accurately portray the San Bernardino attackers. Just replace the hand grenades with pipe bombs, and darken their skin a little, and viola! you have Farook and Malik.

I have a better idea for a cover than that, even. Just now CNN flashed to an overhead shot of the Inland Regional Center. A technician wearing booties was exiting the building. All around her were parked cars. Those parked cars have been there for two days. The persons who drove those cars to the Christmas party on Wednesday are all lying on slabs. They won't be coming back for their cars.

Investigators are still trying to determine a motive. Apparently they have determined that they have all the evidence they will ever need from the Farook residence, as MSNBC reporters are corrupting the scene. Reporters are opening underwear drawers, displaying documents on live TV. Top. Men.

When I heard that Farook was a health inspector, my first thought was how much, as a devout muslim, he must have hated his job. Muslims have very specific dietary restrictions, and they are forbidden to eat pork. Maybe having to grade restaurants that were serving haram food contributed to his hatred of the West. Or maybe he was resentful about having student loan debt. NPR was theorizing that he may have felt a sense of alienation. I get that. Everywhere he went with his wife, they got dirty looks because she was covered.

The only way Christian Americans can register their discomfort with aliens among us is with dirty looks and stares. We have been admonished for holding onto the instinct of self-preservation. They call it "islamophobia." That doesn't really fit me. I'm not afraid of muslims so much as I openly despise them. Perhaps I should start referring to myself as "mislamic."

Attorney General Lynch has delivered a brush-back pitch to those who may tire of our government's dereliction of duty. Lynch has promised to prosecute those who use "anti-muslim rhetoric."

This is the reason we are losing, and will probably lose this war. And we are in a war against islam. We are certainly not in a war with every muslim, any more than we were at war with the people of Imperial Japan or the people of Nazi Germany. But make no mistake that we are in a war, and we are forbidden to mock, criticize or deploy weaponized rhetoric against those people who want to destroy us.

Farook had a very nice job with the County. Not only was it illegal to not hire him, there was probably a diversity bonus for the person in HR who did hire him. There is nothing unconstitutional about discriminating in hiring or housing of persons based on their religion. The constitution only says the state can't prohibit the free exercise of religion.

Preventing a person's employment based on religion is a statutory obligation. And statutes can and should be thrown out in time of war. Lincoln suspended habeus corpus. Japanese-Americans were interned. Why should a person like Robert Adams be forced to work with people who are compelled to murder him? Why should a misguided goal like diversity mandate that Adams' 20-month old daughter, Savannah, grow up with a giant hole in her life where her father should be?

Why should Adams' wife have to be the one to come pick up his car, under such circumstances?