Blaming It On Religion (the "Wrong" Religion)

THE STUDENT AT Ohio State who used a car and a knife to brutalize people was evidently not associated with any terrorist organizations, but had evidently self radicalized. A student gets on the internet, surfs the web, and decides he hates the United States and becomes loyal to the Islamic State, and goes on a suicidal attempted murder spree. That would seem to indicate that the internet is either a very powerful force, or can become a very influential and powerful force under certain conditions. Either way, its alarming. What will the internet be used for next? The fact that he did all that damage without using a gun will only serve to inspire America's pro gun conservatives to say: "See? We told you so. If somebody wants to kill people badly enough, almost anything can become a weapon, not just guns. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. We must allow every good law abiding citizen to carry a gun, so that every good law abiding citizen will have the power at his or her disposal to stop mass killers or attempted mass killers in advance, whether or not the would be mass killer has a gun or some other weapon, like a car or a knife." Dubious as this argument sounds, and dubious as it is, it will be used, over and over again. Also we should be ready for the anti-Islamic bigots to return from the woodwork, since this young man had a middle eastern sounding name. No, he may not have been directly associated with any known terrorists organization, although we can never know for sure, but he was sure as hell acting on behalf of terrorist ideology, because he had a middle eastern name, proving that stringent measures to monitor and control Muslims entering and living in the United States are necessary. You know we're going to hear more of that. But the real problem is something else, something deeper in our minds. We are a culture of fear and hatred, on a planet in which most cultures are similarly afflicted, with fear, and hatred. For all we know our computers and cell phones are poisoning our minds.