Your Survey of the Day, From Forbes Magazine, 1938
(CNN) — “Donald Trump thinks the United States should accept some refugees from Syria due to the ‘unbelievable humanitarian problem.’
“Trump has made anti-immigration rhetoric a cornerstone of his campaign, but the Republican presidential candidate said Tuesday evening that though the migrants could pose a security risk — floating the idea that there may be individuals with ties to Islamic militants — he supported allowing them into America.
“I hate the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis, with what’s happening, you have to,” Trump said to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.”
— Donald Trump on Sept. 9, 2015
So weeks ago he was all for taking in the Syrian refugees, telling O’Reilly, “You have to.”
But that was then. All that has changed since September is that one killer in France may have posed as a Syrian refugee.
(Repeat: “may have.” That story has never been confirmed but is being spread by fear-mongers with aversions to stuff like facts as the gospel truth.)
At any rate, Trump flips and flops more than your average dolphin, but so it goes politics–even though he keeps telling us he’s not a politician.
Here’s Flipper’s new and improved position on taking in Syrian refugees:
Washington (CNN)Donald Trump says he’s now more against allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S. than ever, warning it could be a way for terrorists to sneak into the country.
“We have no idea who these people are, we are the worst when it comes to paperwork,” Trump said Monday on CNBC. “This could be one of the great Trojan horses.”
Trump has been saying for weeks on the campaign trail that the U.S. should not accept refugees from the civil war torn country, and he says he’s only standing by that position stronger in the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris.
At least six of the suspects in the Paris attack have ties to Syria, according to French affiliate BFM, and at least one is believed to have entered Europe with refugees.
“We cannot let them into this country, period,” Trump said Monday. “Our country has tremendous problems. We can’t have another problem.”
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That other leading presidential contender and politician who claims he’s not a politician, Dr. Ben Carson, is not helping the refugee debate by misstating the facts about who the Syrian refugees are.
He, and so many others who are either ignorant of the facts or willfully misrepresenting them, keep spreading the lie that “the majority of Syrian refugees are “young males.”
According the break-down of the registered 4 million refugees, women in fact outnumber men, and children 11 years and younger, male and female, account for 38.5 percent of all the refugees.
Read that again: 40 percent are children under 11 who’ve never bombed or killed anybody, but who’ve been displaced by the real killers who should be the objects of our fear.
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I can understand why some people would be apprehensive about taking in the Syrians–even Trump expressed apprehension when he was all for taking them in.
But I can’t understand how this country of ours keeps reacting out of paranoia and knee-jerk emotionalism to every crisis that pops up.
But then, history has a way of repeating itself–ugly American history included.
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