Name:   copperline - Subject:   Counterpoints Date:   6/15/2016 1:01:42 PM

I think there may be a few things we can agree on, I hope.   1) we need to improve the immigration system with increased background screenings and follow up on people who over stay their Visas.   2) not all Muslims are Islamic extremists dedicated to the distruction of this country and 3) we need to carefully consider the unintended consequences of anything that we say or do.

There are 3.3 million US citizens who identify themselves as Muslim.   25% of that number are African-American Muslims, the rest are white, Arab, Indonesian, Persian, people who were born here from parents & grandparents that immigrated from all over the world.  I cannot believe that people don't recognize the potential damage that wholesale discrimination would do to US race relations... but I acknowledge that doing so fits neatly with many people's habitual suspicion of any non-white, non-christian group.

There are also an untold number of Muslim businessmen, diplomats, and tourists who would be prevented from entering the US in the case of a travel ban.   From that, I would expect large scale economic reprocussions.   Businesses would leave the US for friendlier governments, allies would stop supporting & cooperating with us, and a raft of economic retaliations would hit the US stock market.   No country in the free world screens people based on their religion from entering their borders.   

Trump's overall approach, and it's implicit endorsement by many voters (or at least a refusal to firmly reject his ideas) would begin with a travel ban, increased surveilance of Mosques and a national registry of Muslims.   I can imagine a Department of Homeland Security maintaining the registry, eavesdropping on the Mosques, secretly observing innocent Muslim families, and working hard to determine if any given individual was secretly a worshipper of Allah.   The IRS could be empowered to audit people based on their religion.   Local communities could be forgiven for not wanting Muslims to live there, and we could move to prevent Mosques from being built in our towns.

As Americans, we are prone to over-react.  You can see good examples of this on the forum all the time.   We are confident in our self-righteousness, and incredibly short-sighted.   For example, we invaded Iraq based on shoddy intelligence & poor judgement because we told ourselves that if we didn't take drastic action we would be inviting increased problems here at home.     By focusing on creating a war with the Islamic World, we are creating the problems we said we wanted to prevent.

   In the movies, the good guys always win and the US comes out on top every time.   What could possibly go wrong if we declare war on the world's third largest religion?