Brussels, and the reaction.

The bombings happened last night, I was aware of them at the time but it is usually unwise to start a rant about something when basically nothing is known, not a ton is known at the moment either, but enough reactions have happened that I feel it is worth commenting on.

What we know is that three bombs were detonated, two suicide bombers at the airport, and one bomb apparently planted at the Maelbeek/Maalbeek Metro Station. At least 31 people, not counting the  bombers, are dead, and something like 250 are injured. It was the deadliest terror attack in Belgium's history.

I am aware that terror attacks take place virtually daily, and we only really care about them when they hit western countries, and by that I mean white people, it's awful, true, but it shouldn't stop you from caring about it anyway, and it also isn't why I am writing about this today.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but even before they did so the reaction was pretty predictable here and only became more so when details became known, anti Islamic rhetoric popped up from the usual sources and eventually of course the presidential candidates decided to chime in, Sanders and Clinton with the usual platitudes, which I think are fine, when you are a public figure showing support for a country or group of people after a tragedy, it isn't the time to go on a diatribe about the causes of terrorism or the detailed plans of action, it's the time to say you're sorry for them and to show a bit of support.
John Kasich followed suit, but then we turn to Trump and Cruz, Trump released a predictably incoherent statement that called for "Waterboarding and more", as well as apparently a demand to close the borders entirely for some reason? Like, to everyone, it is pretty mind boggling.
Ted Cruz decided that enough was enough and moved to become more fascist that Trump by suggesting we start, among other things "empowering the police to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized."

I want to contrast that with President Obama's reaction, specifically what he did today after he gave a speech in Cuba, he went to a baseball game, his reasoning was basically that what the terrorists want is to disrupt our lives, and we can best fight them by coming together and refusing to let them. Though of course he said it somewhat better than I put it here.

So choose fear or choose hope, those are literally the options before us, and the idea that people might choose fear is horrifying to me at this stage.

Donald Trump is a coward, his platform, such as it is, is almost entirely based on keeping people away, when he perceives a threat his first instinct is to hide from it, or to have it killed.
Ted Cruz is a Theocrat, he believes that his twisted form of Christianity is the only true path, and has cast everyone else, but specifically those who follow Islam, as agents of evil that must be destroyed at any cost.

Both have called for various appalling actions, ranging from torture, the killing of innocent families, carpet bombing, camps, and now literally policing communities based on their religion.

Around seventyish years ago a war ended in which all these things happened, mostly the Nazis yes, but we have our own shame from the time, we are now suggesting we do worse, with less excuse and not even in a time of war.

Some things are actually simple, and when people try to make it complicated it is usually because ironically they don't want you to think about it. The Civil War was pretty much caused by slavery, like quite literally that was the reason, when someone tries to tell you it was "economics" or "states rights" they are trying to make you not think because those reasons are actually "the economics of slavery" and "the right of the states to legalize slavery".
A similar thing can be seen here, the terrorists goals are to destroy our society, our responses that persecute our own citizens and restrict our freedoms do just that, it is that simple, there is a price to pay for freedom and that price is that things like these attacks can happen, they shouldn't happen and when they do those responsible must be caught, but we must accept that they can happen.

If this was a cartoon and one of the characters began talking about how we should torture one of their enemies family to prevent them from fighting, would we assume that character was the villain, or the hero? When a general gave the order to carpet bomb a neighborhood because there was a rumor that a small group of opponents where there, would we be cheering him on?
It is easy to see the villain in cartoons, hell even in most action movies the bad guy is pretty straightforward, and it is often so in real life as well, you don't need a subtext, you don't need a deeper reading or background information what they are saying is wrong, you know it.

America has a... complicated history, we've never really been the good guy, not for long anyhow, a sa country we have kept quiet or actively supported enough awful things that our moral high ground looks a lot like a sinkhole. The genocide of the Native peoples in particular is a mark that we will never really get over. But we can be better, and we have become better by inches over the decades, if we elect these people, and if we support their ideas, we can never claim to be the good guys again, we will have proved that when the chips are down, our country enthusiastically throws off its mantle of restraint and descends to depths where no one should go. We will be the bad guys, the world will see it and we will have proven to ourselves that we can't, and in fact won't even try, to live up to the principles we claim to be founded on.

I would very much like to not let that happen. Be better than this.