129 are dead in Paris, 40 are dead in Beirut, and there are hundreds of injured as a result of two attacks carried out by a single terrorist organization. People are terrified and incredibly angry. It is scary to think there are people out there who would harm innocent civilians. It is infuriating that ISIS would commit these atrocities and herald them as an accomplishment. Terrorism feeds off of our collective emotions. Terrorists see fear struck in the hearts of millions and says \u201cLook how powerful we are!\u201d They point to the violent backlash of our anger and say \u201cLook how ruthless they are!\u201d That is why, in light of recent events, I believe the best course of action we can take is to accept Syrian refugees.
\nWe carry the big stick in international affairs. Carrying that big stick is a dual responsibility. We can use it forcefully against our enemies, but that obligates us to allow the innocent to shelter behind it. Syrian refugees are a result of the policies America has chosen to employ. Whether your opinion of these policies is positive or negative there are still innocent people that are trying to escape the brutality of a country we helped tear apart.
\nWe are not living in the land of the scared home of the vengeful. This is America, land of the free home of the brave and we need to live up to that name. We can\u2019t be a world leader cowering in fear because rogue individuals want to do us harm. We won\u2019t win any hearts and minds in the Middle East by continuing a campaign of vicious destruction. We need to lead by example and we can do that by showing compassion in retaliation to violence.
\nWe have pursued a campaign of violence for 13 years. This campaign is what created ISIS. We will never root out all of the evil in the world or the people that wish us harm. We can, however, stop creating more enemies by being compassionate and showing would be recruits that America isn\u2019t the world\u2019s bully. Accepting Syrian refugees after these attacks will not change perceptions by itself. Taking these refugees in will be a statement. It says that we will use all of the power we wield to not only bring justice to our enemies but we will shelter the innocent. Lady Liberty, a gift from France, says it best:
\n\u201cGive me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.\u201d<\/p>\n
She is an icon of our great country, and while people are scared and angry I hope we can live up to the promise on her pedestal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
129 are dead in Paris, 40 are dead in Beirut, and there are hundreds of injured as a result of two attacks carried out by a single terrorist organization. People are terrified and incredibly angry. It is scary to think there are people out there who would harm innocent civilians. It is infuriating that ISIS […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leaddetroit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}