9) Rhetoric Is Turning Toxic
When facts no longer mean anything, it’s easy for rhetoric to turn toxic. Most recently, this has been happening with Syrian refugees. Ben Carson has publicly compared those fleeing ISIS to rabid dogs. Trump has called for all Syrians to be monitored or deported and for Muslims to be banned from entering the US entirely. Multiple governors have banned refugees from their states.There is doubtless a good debate to be had about America’s refugee policy. This is not that good debate. When mainstream rhetoric turns violent, violence usually follows. That’s why the UN spoke out after British columnist Katie Hopkins called migrants “cockroaches.”
Words often lead to actions. The list of violent incidents targeting American Muslims in the wake of recent rhetoric is long and depressing to read. It includes a 15-year-old boy who had his legs severed in Kansas City, a taxi driver shot with a rifle, and over 23 incidents when Sikhs were beaten, stabbed, or shot because idiots couldn’t tell the difference between their religion and Islam. This is not normal.
A prime-time TV news host calling for death squads to execute every member of a Muslim political party is not something that happens in a sane world. Alabama outlawing sharia law when there is literally no way sharia could ever be applied in an American court isn’t common sense. It’s madness. Inflammatory speech isn’t just harmful where religion is concerned. In 2013, the conservative Family Research Council was shot up by a liberal radical who chose his target after seeing the Southern Poverty Law Center describe them as an antigay “hate group.” The recent shooting of a Planned Parenthood clinic may also have been triggered by extreme antiabortion rhetoric. Obviously, banning such opinions would infringe on free speech laws. But it shouldn’t take the law to convince people to exercise some basic decency, especially when they have a popular outlet for their views. Words can kill, and the words our pundits are using are more extreme than ever
When facts no longer mean anything, it’s easy for rhetoric to turn toxic. Most recently, this has been happening with Syrian refugees. Ben Carson has publicly compared those fleeing ISIS to rabid dogs. Trump has called for all Syrians to be monitored or deported and for Muslims to be banned from entering the US entirely. Multiple governors have banned refugees from their states.There is doubtless a good debate to be had about America’s refugee policy. This is not that good debate. When mainstream rhetoric turns violent, violence usually follows. That’s why the UN spoke out after British columnist Katie Hopkins called migrants “cockroaches.”
Words often lead to actions. The list of violent incidents targeting American Muslims in the wake of recent rhetoric is long and depressing to read. It includes a 15-year-old boy who had his legs severed in Kansas City, a taxi driver shot with a rifle, and over 23 incidents when Sikhs were beaten, stabbed, or shot because idiots couldn’t tell the difference between their religion and Islam. This is not normal.
A prime-time TV news host calling for death squads to execute every member of a Muslim political party is not something that happens in a sane world. Alabama outlawing sharia law when there is literally no way sharia could ever be applied in an American court isn’t common sense. It’s madness. Inflammatory speech isn’t just harmful where religion is concerned. In 2013, the conservative Family Research Council was shot up by a liberal radical who chose his target after seeing the Southern Poverty Law Center describe them as an antigay “hate group.” The recent shooting of a Planned Parenthood clinic may also have been triggered by extreme antiabortion rhetoric. Obviously, banning such opinions would infringe on free speech laws. But it shouldn’t take the law to convince people to exercise some basic decency, especially when they have a popular outlet for their views. Words can kill, and the words our pundits are using are more extreme than ever
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