President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address was far from a blockbuster. In many respects, it was that of a realist preparing for a senseless political war instead of an optimist pitching common solutions to real world problems that Democrats and Republicans can both support. In essence, it was a departure from what people would expect from a State of the Union Address, especially from an optimistic guy like President Obama.
In many respects, however, the State of the Union Address did reflect the actual State of the Union. While there is hope for a brighter future and the country is strong enough to cope with the long rooted dysfunction in Washington that hope and resilience is being undermined by those in government. President Obama’s tax proposal, for example, demonstrates the overall problem with Legislative and Executive Branches.
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For many, tragedy is a mystifying experience, because the human mind struggles with the apparent lack of rationale for such emotional experiences taking place. There are, however, times when tragedies like the Paris Terror Attacks coincide with other events to give the senseless deaths of victims a purpose. Thanks to the so-called Charlie Hebdo shootings and the protests by Muslims around the world decrying the publication’s disrespectful depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, Martin Luther King Jr. Day serves a special purpose this year.
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was an amazing individual, because he helped lead America to a brighter future and rallied the oppressed to demand reasonable treatment while, most importantly, rejecting violence. Through his leadership and hardships, Dr. King was able to both help people realize they could have a brighter future where people would be judged on their character instead of their race and convince the beneficiaries of an oppressive society that change needed to be embraced, not rejected. Sadly, the vision of Martin Luther King has only been partially fulfilled. Not only are protesters in America fighting to deal with the shooting deaths of too many young blacks at the hands of police, economic disparity is an all time high for all races. That said, the reality that Americans are voicing their views on these issues as the rest of the world stands against terrorism and marginalized Muslims stand up for their right to be respected as human beings demonstrates the vision of Dr. King is far from dead. Islamic extremists are the enemy of the West, peaceful Muslims, and the rest of the world because they have declared war on anyone living outside of their beliefs. The same is, of course, true of a multitude of other violent extremists, whether rationalizing their destructive behavior with religious rhetoric or not. Terrorism, especially globalized terrorism, is a common threat to all the nations and Peoples of the world.
Aside from the fear, violence, and devastation of terrorist attacks, terrorism costs the world in terms of lost opportunity, because we are forced to devote time and resources to defending ourselves from destruction instead of serving the needs of people. An animal in the wild must spend all of his time searching for food, water, and shelter while guarding himself from natural threats, including other animals. Sheltered from the harshness of nature, humans have grown increasingly prosperous and innovative as our homes and communities have grown increasingly secure. Terrorism has always existed as a threat. It was, however, not until after the Cold War when the International Community came to enjoy an era of relative peace and stability defined by global economic competition instead of violent conflicts between countries that terrorism could be considered the most serious threat to national and international security. The French love to praise themselves for the contributions of their intellectuals to democracy, yet it is their often self-serving, patronizing elites who present the greatest threat to the French People’s democracy. Ironically, the French government is using a terrorist attack targeting the highly controversial “Charlie Hebdo” publication to crackdown on what it deems to be “hate speech” while taking a giant step toward “martial law” with its largest peacetime deployment of soldiers on French soil in history.
Not only do efforts to restrict what is arbitrarily deemed “hate speech” threaten publications like Charlie Hebdo, the current focus on speech that could incite Islamic violence reinforces sentiments that the West is against the Muslim world, thus giving Islamic extremists a win in their efforts to divide the world and undermining the open, pluralist ideals of French democracy. From an American perspective, the European Union is a threat to democracy, despite European views that support opening borders in order to create free and open societies. The reason Americans hold this view is that distance creates a lack of access to representation. That is, the more layers of government that exist, the less responsive governments become to the needs of individuals and individual communities. In providing for the common defense and economic welfare of EU members, diplomatic institutions of the EU are rapidly superseding the authority of the democratically elected national governments of European countries. It has become a tradition in America for organizations like the MATV Foundation of Erie, PA to offer a showing of community strength at the scenes of violent crimes. The idea behind such gatherings is to send a message that violence is unacceptable to the community while allowing community members to present a unified show of force against perpetrators of violence. The Paris March, involving millions, on Sunday, January 11, 2015 was intended to send a similar message in response to the Paris Terror Attacks.
Unfortunately, the news quickly shifted way from an anti-violence message to petty, gossipy partisan politics when pundits realized the Obama Administration had not sent a more recognizable official to the gathering. Where many pundits have even gone so far as to criticize President Obama for failing to personally attend, the reality is that these types of events are meant to reflect the feelings of a community. Politicians have plenty of forums to voice their anti-violence message, so making the Paris March about political leaders only undermines the entire point of the rally. Furthermore, politics is just one factor that can easily muddy the meaning of anti-violence gatherings. Where the Civil Rights Movement was often attacked for being a communist initiative, which discredited the effort in the minds of many, the Paris March can easily be misrepresented as an anti-Islam rally, especially since the most famous victim of the Paris Terror Attacks was a cartoonist targeted for his disrespectful depictions of Islam. Unfortunately, there is also growing anti-Islam sentiments in places like France and Germany while the French government has a recent history of enacting what could be considered anti-Muslim laws, e.g. banning the use of the burqa. |
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April 2020
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