Disagreement is healthy!

When I first started writing this blog, I generally was thinking of keeping an online journal of my thoughts. But now, as I think more (a dangerous thing!) about the purpose of this blog, I have come to the conclusion that I'd like it to be a catalyst for conversation and debate. Disagreement is healthy! The more someone disagrees with you, the more you are exposed to new ideas and ways of thinking. Nobody should limit their world view. It's that kind of behavior that not only leads to fundamentalist thinking and terrorism; but bigotry and violence in general. So I openly encourage people to constructively "flame" my posts, and maybe we all will learn and grow from it.

Anyway, I decided--me being the opinionated person I am--to send my thoughts to CNN about the bombings in London. Here's what I wrote, and it is in many ways what I said in yesterday's dissertation on the nature of evil:

I have seen one person comment, in regards to the London bombings, that we cannot "give in" to the terrorists and become pacifist. I don't think that's what the terrorists want. I believe they do want us to stand up to them. More accurately, they want the vast majority of us to either say or think along these lines:

"They should just turn their land into one big, glassy plain."

I've heard similar things from the mouths of people I know, and it is unacceptable. You only have to look at peoples' reactions after 9/11 to understand how things could go. Racial profiling and harassment went on the increase. Imagine how we'd react if (and when) the terrorists accomplish a larger feat of terror? The problem becomes this: how do we stop these kind of atrocities without resorting to things like racial profiling and ...well, for a lack of more concise phrasing... turning their homelands into glassy plains?

This is how Evil spreads, boys and girls. It pushes the forces of Good so far so that Good resorts to evil means to protect itself; and thus becomes Evil itself. It is insidious.

In George Orwell's 1984, the repressive government used the constant threat of external aggression to help justify its extreme measures of security. We don't want to go that way. We also don't want to go the way of racial profiling; nor do we want to resort to what essentially becomes genocide. That is not justice; that is just revenge.

So what do we do? Everyone needs to keep their eyes open for anything suspicious. People who learn that a neighbor is part of an extremist group and/or are plotting a terrorist event need to report it to the authorities. People need to be brave and not cow to fear. It takes patience, vigilance and discipline; and the terrorists are betting we don’t have it.