Most of us traditionally think of April 15th as the federal tax deadline. In Massachusetts, it was the 3rd Monday of April, which means it was Patriot's Day, a day to commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concord, which started the American Revolution.
And to celebrate Patriot's Day, they have the Boston Marathon, which is one of the tougher marathons because of all the uphill running involved.
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Whenever a terrorist attack occurs, we all naturally start to question "who was involved?"
There was talk of a Saudi suspect, a "dark-skinned male" being involved.
A New York Post showed a photo of Moroccan-American teenager as a suspect.
Meanwhile, Salon's David Sirota was openly hoping that a "white male" would be involved, just to shut the anti-immigration fanatics up!
It turns the suspects were 2 white-skinned (so much for a dark-skinned suspect) guys who were of Chechen ancestry. Chechnya is in the southern part of Russia. In fact, Chechnya is in the Caucasus mountains, the same mountain range in which the word "Caucasian" (commonly referred to the white people of Europe) came from.
Wikipedia
The Caucasus region
(look for Chechnya among the light pink sections)
Whereas most of Russia traditionally practices the Eastern Orthodox form of Christianity, Chechnya is mostly Muslim. Because of these difference, some Chechens wanted to make their own country, which led to an armed rebellion against a powerful brutal Russian force.
But the 2 suspects didn't have much experience in Chechnya, being that they moved around a lot.
They arrived to the US as minors, being of 8 and 15 years old in their first arrival.
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Because of the suspect's immigration status, the anti-immigration crowd is going bezerk!
They felt those 2 boys shouldn't have been allowed to enter the country.
But remember, they were still kids when they entered. The younger one was only 8 years old when he arrived.
As anyone with a brain knows, you can only predict so much about an 8 year old kid's future behavior.
Even with a 15-year old, you can only predict so much.
I mean, I remember former classmates who were either slackers, gangstas or wanabees at 15 years old, who now in their early 30's, are living a productive law abiding life.
I also remember one classmate, who at 15 years old, was a quiet guy with so much academic potential. Didn't bother anyone. Yet, in his early 20's, killed his music professor with a meat cleaver. That would be Jackson Ngai.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2004-11-12/237295/
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/ut-piano-professors-killer-remains-in-state-custod/nWQcH/
As for the terror suspects, most of their classmates had never predicted they would become terrorists.
So much for the idea of predicting someone's future behavior.
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Some reason from the Reason Magazine website
http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/30/conservative-restrictionists-get-silly-a
None of this, however, would have prevented the attack given that the Tsarnaev brothers obtained asylum around 2002 at the ages of 8 and 15 along with their parents, fleeing persecution in Russia. Reportedly, the older brother Tamerlan, a boxing champion, became radicalized only eight years later, after his mother, not seriously religious then, reminded him of his Islamic faith's strictures to wean him off alcohol and drugs. When he met his wife, Katherine Russell, at a nightclub, he was a nominally pious, somewhat confused young adult with few signs that he'd become a raving zealot.
That U.S. immigration authorities leave something to be desired when vetting dangerous foreigners has been apparent since Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 hijacker, was handed a visa after he flew a plane into the World Trade Center. But expecting the immigration system to predict that Tamerlan would become a lunatic is as reasonable as expecting psychiatrists to diagnose that Timothy McVeigh would become a terrorist when he was a toddler. The lack of omniscience in human institutions is not a curable flaw.
And more Reason
Requiring foreigners to go through rigorous background checks is perfectly legitimate. But shutting the border to economic migrants, whether computer geeks from China or apple-pickers from Mexico, in a vain effort to deter a future Tamerlan won't make Americans better off. Indeed, since the vast majority of immigrants are here because some American wants to hire them or marry them or whatever, the government can't chase them out without asserting Draconian powers overs Americans as well. Witness Alabama laws imposing a business death penalty by revoking the license of any company found hiring illegals. Or Arizona's effort to detain individuals not carrying their papers to prove their legality.
Every year, Americans are less likely to die through a terrorist attack than a lightning strike — or wrongful death by overzealous law enforcement. More immigration restrictions will make Americans less — not more — safe.
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And what about Radical Islam? Here, a real Muslim tells it like it is!
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/i_am_not_the_tsarnaevs/
Before brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were even identified as the Boston bombing suspects, the media announced the usual villains: a “dark-skinned suspect,” a 21-year-old Saudi “jihadi” whose only crime was to run away from a violent explosion, and a 17-year-old Moroccan high school track star who attended the marathon carrying a bag. There was also a clarion call from conservative columnist (and sometime Fox News guest) Erik Rush to murder all Muslims.
We now know the suspected brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan, are ethnically Chechen, and lived in America for several years. They are literally Caucasian since their family originates from the northern Caucasus region. Neither of them were dark-skinned, “Saudi,” bearded or brandished a fiery red trident or horns on their head.
The profile of these two brothers highlights the conclusions of the British Intelligence Agency MI5 report that states Muslim terrorists in the West “are a diverse collection of individuals, fitting no single demographic profile, nor do they all follow a typical pathway to violent extremism.” In the words of Olivier Roy, a French scholar on Islamic societies, “the process of violent radicalization has little to do with religious practice.” In fact, most Islamic fundamentalists are “religious novices” and “there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalization.” A MAPOS study found that Muslims’ religiosity curbs anti-American extremism and “that mosques and religiosity are associated with high levels of civic engagement and support for the American political system.”
[my note: that's just like how the most fanatical Christians you might've met tend to be the "born-agains" who just joined the Church and now want to "spread the good news"]
Undeterred, the Twitter tribunal persisted and asked why Muslims do not renounce and actively discourage violent extremism? Well, 40 percent of all extremist plots in America were thwarted as a result of Muslim American help. Also, Muslim Americans continue to aid law enforcement, are more likely to reject violence than any other U.S. religious community, and overwhelmingly renounce the extremist ideologies of al-Qaida. A Muslim American community in Virginia proactively tipped off the FBI and turned in five radicalized youths. A Senegalese Muslim vendor was the first to mention the burning car bomb in New York’s Times Square incompetently engineered by Faisal Shahzad. Muslims in Orange County received a restraining order against a mosque attendee who advocated jihad against America. Ironically, he turned out to be a mosque crawler: Craigh Monteilh, an FBI informant, who said he was paid to infiltrate the local community and entrap potential radicals.
But you know what?
The anti-immigration fanatics are losing!
Their loudmouth freakouts have cost the Republican Party in 2012!
And many Republican politicians (at least the ones who care more about winning elections than kissing the rears of talk show loudmouths and conspiracy morons) are joining the Democrats in crafting a new immigration policy that would be much more lenient than the current policy.
The tragedy pimping of the anti-immigration fanatics no longer work!
