Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States:
It’s easy to let emotions get the better of us in the moments after a tragedy and blurt out a thought that sounds a lot more cogent in our heads than it does hitting the open air. We’d like to believe that’s what happened with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in the aftermath of another terror attack in France.
In an interview on Fox News Channel after a Muslim extremist drove an 18-wheeler into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France, killing 84 people, Gingrich offered a suggestion that is the antithesis of American values.
“Let me be as blunt and direct as I can be: Western civilization is in a war,” he told host Sean Hannity. “We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in Sharia, they should be deported.”
As flawed as his arguments are in factual terms – for instance, all the ISIS-inspired attacks on U.S. soil have been carried out by American citizens, making it unclear to where they would be deported – the very idea of treating people as lesser citizens because of their religion is repulsive.
We are experiencing a troubling rise in America in which people are being painted as one mass group, with the indiscretions of a small slice of that group being applied wholly to others who share a skin color or cultural background. All Hispanics are here illegally. All African-American protesters support executing police officers. All law enforcement is out to kill black suspects.
To lump together a group based on their faith is unfair, un-American and abhorrent.
The world seems to be coming unglued. We’ve watched in horror as a truck driver plowed through crowds in Nice, France, killing at least 84 people. Military leaders staged a coup attempt in Turkey, killing 265.
Britain’s vote to leave the European Union prompted a change in governments there. World markets are still recovering from the investor shock of that decision. The “Brexit” vote along with a massive wave of immigration are bolstering nationalist movements around Europe as other nations question whether they want to remain in the EU.
Here in the United States, killings of police officers in Baton Rouge, La., and Dallas, along with various police-involved shootings of black citizens, sharpened racial tensions. Let’s not forget last month’s massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
The world unquestionably is in turmoil.
We as a nation must not allow fear and confusion to cloud our better judgment. Some suggest, for example, the tragedy in Nice resulted from a lack of U.S. leadership, as if American foreign policy somehow governs the way France polices its streets. Beware the politician who blindly criticizes but fails to offer a better plan.
Our task, as citizens, is to demand clarity of thought and studied plans to address major challenges. If the politician at the podium seems to be selling snake oil, the answer is simple: Don’t buy it.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Americans should be eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in refined grains and added sugars. However, through the billions of dollars in subsidies the USDA doles out each year, it is saying something quite different.
Overwhelmingly, tax dollars dedicated to supporting the nation’s food system go to crops that end up as ingredients in the most highly processed and unhealthy foods. Consequently, those foods are cheap, and now they make up most of the American diet, costing tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in health care costs each year.
It is a lunacy that has us encouraging farmers to grow the very crops that are killing us, and it has to stop.