It is becoming apparent that San Bernardino is a cathartic, seminal event for Americans. More so, perhaps, than 9-11.
The California massacre has the distinction of having been carried out by someone who had every reason to not only assimilate, but to embrace the country in which he was born. We all know someone like him. This is a betrayal, and it exposes the futility of continuing to attach the word “radical” to the word “Islam”.
The people feel they have been put into a position that requires them to read minds in order to feel safe, or protect their own, and San Bernardino brought this to the fore. Where it happened, how it happened, and who did it makes this a significant emotional event for Americans.
Trump’s proposal, in singling out all immigrant muslims not yet having arrived, becomes the first to break through the definitional logjam, and detach the word “radical” from the conversation. In the minds of the people, this makes the policy more sane, not less.
Perhaps San Bernadino will become the turning point, the event which signaled a change of course, a change in the way Islam is viewed. Certainly, Islam now qualifies in the minds of most Americans as deserving a different legal status-that of a dangerous cult-instead of a religion entitled to constitutional protections. Trump sees it, and the reaction to his proposal, on both sides of the aisle, exposes those who don’t as downright dangerous, IMHO.
If I am wrong, and we continue the current course, this is headed for the people taking matters into their own hands. Knowing we have not the ability to read minds, Americans can make this country a very inhospitable place for muslims. If they know what’s good for them, Trump’s proposal should now focus the American muslim mind in such a manner that they finally begin to police their own.
Who can wonder why they have not, given the out we have provided them with the insistence on blaming this only on “radicals”, instead of Islam itself? Who can believe that not one “good” muslim became privy to what Sayed and Tashfeen were up to?
Ironically, this makes Trump’s proposal the only humane one. If we continue the current course, mosques will burn, and vigilantism will spell death for muslims in America. San Bernardino has crystalized in the everyday American’s mind that there is no solution to this problem that doesn’t involve consequences that accrue to all muslims, good and bad, because we simply can no longer tolerate being asked to read their minds.
Good points. Agree that San Bernadino has put us in a new place. It feels like a bookend to the 9/11 era. 9/11 was an attack from outside. We bent over backwards to give Muslims in America the benefit of the doubt. But now we have this betrayal that changes the social logic, both practically and emotionally. You are dead on about the “reading their minds” aspect.