The immediate consequences from the Orlando terror attack are obvious: dozens dead and maimed – families changed forever.
The next layer of consequences, arriving soon, are not as obvious, but they are coming. Here they are:
We are getting a divorce. First, a poll shows that Americans are pretty much divided on their opinions about the attack. Most of the Democrats see it as a gun control issue. Most Republicans see it as a terror attack. And there seems to be no sign of compromise (why can’t it be mostly “terror” and a little “guns?” asks the therapist, Dr. Gutfeld)
This poll hints at an ongoing, disturbing change in this country – one that brings forth a series of even more problems – those of which I see as almost unsolvable. We quarrel about the quarrel. We cannot agree on the fight. And therefore we cannot begin to fight. Instead, we are like that proverbial snake that devours its own tail. Except, we think it’s sushi. But it’s blowfish. You get the idea. We’re dead.
How can America defeat ISIS if we have vocal factions believing that we are worse? How can we fight the enemy if a large portion of our population thinks an inanimate object – a gun – caused Orlando?
We assume different identities lead to different values. Does a black person, or a gay person or a fat white male, see a terror attack differently? I wouldn’t think so, but activists, talking heads and assorted thought-processors disagree. Now we no longer look at a tragedy as an American one, but through the divisive eyes of balkanized camps of competing identities.
An activist at the University of Missouri, during a vigil for the victims of Orlando, actually expressed disappointment that she had to speak in front of grievers, who happened by birth, to be white. My only relief comes from the fact that a few people heckled her (a brave gay couple). That relief left when others drowned them out.
The beat-down is dead. We need to train our populace on the basics of group self-defense – meaning how to cooperate and risk their skins to take down the lone aggressor.
If ten people attack a man with a gun, one or two may die – but the alternative is worse. “Be Like 93” should be the motto – in honor of the heroic actions of the passengers of Flight 93, who saved uncountable lives on September 11, 2001 by attacking the hijackers and bringing the jet down in a Pennsylvania field.
But that’s not what I’m really talking about. I mean justifiable aggression: explicitly meting out justice to those who deserve it. How can we do that, when we cannot agree who deserves it?
The New York Times blamed Republicans for Orlando. The Huffington Post blamed Christians. Every liberal blames guns, as well as the complicit wife of the murderous, terrorist dirtbag. And the dirtbag’s dad blames social networks. He’s even suing them.
The more we spread the condemnations around, the less we have for the truly guilty party. Hence our incremental approach to ISIS. President Obama treats the war on “terror” (a polite phrase for Islamism), like we’re playing Jenga. Slowly, and on rainy days.
We lose respect for evidence. Our inability to call a spade a spade is the result of divorcing cause from effect. If we can’t call Islamism out for this horribleness, then what’s left? Blame Guns. Christians. White Zinfindal. It’s as though you blame a massive wild fire not on dry tinder and a lit cigarette, but on poor self-esteem among carbon products.
Here’s science: Islamism preaches the murder of gays; then an Islamist murders a club full of gays. Cause…effect.
Why does the left deny science?
The way the media and our White House deny the effects of Islamism seems eerily similar to a certain industry we grew to loathe over time. Remember how the tobacco companies denied the role of their product in lung cancer? To deny that link, now, would have you laughed off the planet. My prediction: 20 years from now we will feel the same way about Islamism.
“Remember when we had a president who refused to admit the link between atrocity and Islamism” will be the same as “Remember when people used to say cigarettes didn’t cause cancer.”
Refusing to link Islamism to evil is denying the evidence before your objective eyes.
You don’t even need to bring up Orlando. Try honor killings. Read up on the Taliban and what they do to girls who want to go to school. Google “Taliban” and “acid.”
President Obama isn’t just on the wrong side of history, he’s on the wrong side of the future. For a guy who claims to be all about science, he lives in a fairy tale.
We have murdered sympathy. A product of modern leftism’s regressive identity politics: we see victimhood as a zero-sum game. If you grieve for the victims of terror, is there any left for Black Lives Matter? If you light a candle for Orlando, why not for Ferguson?
If you aren’t gay, how are you able to sympathize with gay victims of terror?
What if you’re against gay marriage? Are you as evil as terrorists? Perhaps, some might say (or have said).
One anchor at another network actually chided a sympathizing politician, in the state where the terror took place… because she did not support gay rights enough to his satisfaction. I was bummed he’d play bouncer to the “Who gets to grieve” night club. That’s beneath him. Obama was against gay marriage just a handful of years ago, my friend.
Now sympathy is saddled with considerations for approval of other groups and classes. Maybe just keep quiet instead of expressing sympathy, one might conclude.
We have killed debate. To better enhance well-being, one must be able to argue and even allow oneself to be proven wrong. Science is all about that: prove me wrong, please. Now, no one wants to be wrong, even when it’s an abstract debate.
Look, I think the gun control debate is a deflection from the core concern, which is terror. But I’m willing to listen to some common sense, or at least informed opinions on how to prevent terrorists from getting guns. Sadly, the gun control argument is a misleading one: used not to ban guns (we know it ain’t happening), but to drive the debate away from the more volatile issue, which Islamism’s universal plans.
And! – wouldn’t it be nice to talk about gun control with people who actually knew something about guns? Or control? If Orlando had been done not by gun, but by bomb -- where would the left’s argument be? Where it was, after Boston. Nowhere.
We have disabled our impulse control. My motto has always been: your first public thought is often your worst public thought. Meaning: think before unloading.
We now know that this is an impossible wish in this current climate of Twitter, Facebook and Piers Morgan. What happened to reserve? Contemplation? Thoughtfulness? What about waiting a few days before you spout an opinion?
Now every celebrity and their less famous sibling is on Twitter lecturing us on “assault weapons” and “tolerance” as if the world right now really needs a hot take from a sitcom star on his third bout of chlamydia.
The strong and silent type has been replaced with the weak and loud. I’d include myself in this, except that I only speak when spoken to. Otherwise, I sit quietly in a corner and drink copious amounts of wine.
We no longer cooperate. This sad and sober consequence is the result of combining all the results mentioned above together. Without cooperation, society is doomed. Cooperation contributes to better lives, over all. If what’s good for you, is good for them you help them get what you have.
That’s not the case in this era of moral relativism.
The problem is: we no longer believe that what we have is good. How can America defeat ISIS if we have vocal factions believing that we are worse? How can we fight the enemy if a large portion of our population thinks an inanimate object – a gun – caused Orlando? And not this pernicious ideology you can’t even call a death cult, because radical Islam is worse than that? It’s a death movement. A death phenomenon. It’s a force that sees our conscious lives as inferior to what happens after you die. Which is why, for them, killing gays is an act of love. They’re doing those sinners a favor – in their twisted skulls, killing innocents in a night club just gave the murdered a Fast Pass to Nirvana.
Boy, this is a depressing article. And I wrote it.
Read it and weep.
For the victims. For the country. For your family. For you and me.
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