So in another Twilight Zone episode of history repeating itself, Donald Trump is not ruling out tagging, logging, and tracking every Muslim in the US just in case one might be a terrorist:
“Some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule,” Trump said.
“Certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy,” he added. “We’re going to have to do things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”
Trump would not rule out warrantless searches in his plans for increased surveillance of the nation’s Muslims, Yahoo reported Thursday.
He also remained open toward registering U.S. Muslims in a database or giving them special identification identifying their faith, the news outlet added.
“We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely,” Trump continued. “We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”
The fact that this smells very similar to Hitler tagging Jews with bright, yellow stars is already problematic. But we don’t even have to go outside our own borders or history for an example of this same mistake. Does anyone remember the Japanese internment camps during WWII? Remember how ashamed we are that that happened? Yeah? Are we really going to do that again? Are we really going to allow the civil government to completely flout civil liberties for just the barest increase in our feeling of security?
I’m honestly wondering why it’s even close to permissible for anyone to even be hinting seriously at domestic policies like this. This is yet another sign of how fear has corrupted our once free nation. If you single out Muslims living peaceably in this country, you are making certain enemies of possible allies. And do you really think this will end with Muslims? What happens when they lump all the “religious extremists” together? Just wait. A few years ago, it was “unthinkable” to track and log all Muslims. A few years more and who knows what won’t be unthinkable anymore.
There is just so much stupid fear, corruption, and demagoguery in and around Washington right now. It’s unfortunate we can’t just tag, log, and track politicians. It would probably do us far more good.