Here we go again...

One out of over one million emigrants who arrived in Europe recently may have been involved in the IS attack on Paris.  To right-wing European governments like those in Poland and Hungary, that is ample reason to continue denying entrance to refugees.  To right-wing politicians like Marine LePen of France, it is an opportunity to expand their bases of paranoid xenophobes.

Needless to say, the opportunity has not been overlooked by American politicians who pander to our homegrown paranoid xenophobes.  Our current immigration policy is so rigid that only 1800 Syrians have gained asylum in the USofA over the past two years — half of them children, and only three per cent men of "fighting age" — but that's not good enough for most Republicans.  Fifteen Republican governors and all Republican presidential hopefuls are on the anti-refugee bandwagon (Christie: Not even three-year-old orphans!), and nobody should be surprised if some purple-state Democrats join them.

I can't imagine how it feels to be one of the Americans who inspire such panders; one of the rigid right-wingers who feel so afraid all the time, despite the assault rifles in their bedroom closets; who see every "outsider" (including our "African" President) as an existential threat; whose dark fantasies haunt our politics as much as they haunt their own twisted little psyches.

I'm glad I can't imagine it.  I'm sufficiently upset by what's real.

An Immodest Proposal

Like just about everybody else who isn't an Islamic extremist, I'm upset and angered by yesterday's attacks in Paris.  At times like these, one's thoughts are inclined to turn towards revenge.

Needless to say, it is very difficult, to say the least, to take revenge on a suicide bomber.  Nevertheless, I've had some thoughts on the matter.  Given that the perpetrators of such attacks are motivated by religion, and assuming that such religionists are generally irrational (not to mention dead), and given that they expect rewards in an "afterlife," I've come up with a means to screw with their religiously inspired brains that might have some sort of impact: ritual pollution.

Gather up the remains of the attackers.  Pack them in lard before dumping them into the ocean, where their bodies cannot be recovered and "purefied."  Surely, the stench of pork grease would be so offensive to their medieval concept of Allah that entry into Paradise would be out of the question.  I have other ideas for any captured alive, involving lard as a lubricant and homosexual rapists, but I suspect the "enlightened" Western world would disapprove; on the other hand, given that the CIA has shown itself to be impervious to Western Enlightenment, I suppose we could get around such disapproval if amply motivated.

Outrageous?  You betcha!  More outrageous than murdering random innocents?  I don't think so.  If such a policy dissuades a few angry, misguided young people from strapping on suicide bombs, I think a dose of political incorrectness would be perfectly okay.  Hell, even if it didn't slow the rate of extremist atrocities one bit, it still would make me feel better.