Why Do Terrorist Threats Bring Out The Crazies?

Some random thoughts on the responses to the world's growing terrorist threat, and related news:

REFUGEES:  OK, I totally understand the desire to vet any potential refugees coming here from Syria, to make sure they're really just families fleeing war and violence and depravation. Makes sense to me.

But, as always, we have politicians going over the top with this one.

The one that made me groan the most came from U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, according to Think Progress.

As Think Progress reported, Brooks thinks all those refugees want to come to the United States because they're a bunch of greedy welfare queens.

"We're paying them about $15,000 a year in free health care, free food, free shelter, free clothing, free transportation...That answers very quickly why so many of them want to come to the United States of America.

"We're paying them to come here....It'a a paid vacation!"

I don't know the precise details of what benefits refugees who arrive in the United States get, but somehow I think a family fleeing bombs and machine guns aren't just looking for a pleasant weekend getaway on Dauphin Island.

Besides, why all the focus on refugees? If I were a terrorist wanting to cause mayhem in the United States, I'd get here on a tourist or student visa. Much less vetting there. Why not scream and holler about those visas?

Just a theory, but maybe because tourist and student visas bring in money? And refugees, at least when they first get here and are not employed yet, cost money? Is this really about economics and not security?

Just askin'.

THOSE CELEBRATIONS IN JERSEY CITY: Much has been made in the past couple of days about Donald Trump's assertion that "thousands" of Muslims in Jersey City, New Jersey celebrated as they watched the Twin Towers fall during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Of course, that didn't happen, but here's the mystery: Every time Trump tells a whopper like that, he gets more popular. Do that many people just want to hear this fiction to reinforce their own wackadoodle opinions?

Of course, Trump's campaign manager has figured out why we haven't seen film of these celebrations. It turns out the main stream media is colluding to suppress the videos, thereby tensuring an establishment candidate like Jeb Bush is elected instead.

Boy, this guy doesn't know how journalists operate. If such a video exists and a journalist found it, they'd be blasting it out far and wide. It would be a career making scoop.

WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE TERRORISTS?   Everybody is rightly worried about the possibility of Islamic terrorists causing mayhem in the United States. It's also a legitimate argument whether President Obama's administration is doing enough to prevent that type of thing.

It seems we're too dismissive of white male terrorists in our own country, though. True, how do you define terrorism? Does it include every person who causes mayhem, like the movie theater shooting in Colorado a couple of years ago?

Or must it have a political agenda. Even if you go by that definition, there's plenty of worry to go around about some white, super right wing men in America. Tim McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 comes immediately to mind.

Then there's the guy who shot up the Charleston, South Carolina church in June and killed nine people because racism. And just this morning, we learned some white supremists shot and wounded Black Lives Matters protestors in Minneapolis a few nights ago. 

Obviously, I don't have the skill and ability to tamp down terrorism and all the societal and political complications that go with it

But I just think those three things I just described are among the things we should be at least thinking about.