It seems as if Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump gets one set of rules, and everyone else gets another. Of course he’s always right, and Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, gave advice not to presume a link between the explosion in New Jersey to the other recent incidents in New York and Minnesota.
The governor warned against jumping to any conclusions, saying:
“This comes from my background as a prosecutor for seven years. You don’t want to jump to conclusions, and you don’t want to put information out there that you don’t know is absolutely true.”
Donald Trump has of course used the latest attacks as part of his fear-mongering political tactic. Before anyone knew anything for sure, Trump had already called the explosions ‘bombs’ at a rally in Colorado Springs, just moments after it happened:
“I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly what’s going on but, boy we are really in a time – we better get very tough, folks.”
Terrorists come in all shapes and sizes. Over the years, various incidents of violent outbursts have come from almost every part of society. Nobody is denying there is a current insurgency of Islamic Terrorism, however there are also violent extremists of other kinds.
There is a real danger in calling every incident an Islamic Terrorist attack before it is proven to be an actual attack.
There are also hate crimes against innocent Muslims. There are white terrorists such as Dylan Roof, who walked into a church and shot people dead because they were Black.
There are currently many scary and extreme ideologies out there. The danger is assuming – or as Christie put it, ‘jumping to conclusions’ – before evidence is shown.
In the 1980s, white on white terrorism was common in Northern Ireland and London.
You only have to watch the film In the Name of the Father to see the climate of mistrust that existed and how innocent people were persecuted simply for being who they are.
We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. Banning all Muslims from the U.S. will not stop terrorism; it actually will just play into the ‘us versus them’ narrative.
Watch Trump do exactly what Gov. Christie warned against:
Watch Chris Christie say it’s OK for Trump to speculate, but no one else should:
Featured image via You Tube Video.
