Police Raids, Torture- Maybe the GOP Can Just Call for a Concentration Camp Next

Everyone who watched the terror in Brussels yesterday was horrified. The senseless death and pain inflicted on the public by the monsters of ISIS deserves a tough response. While that may not mean another ground war in the Middle East (in fact, it shouldn't, at least if we're fighting it), all decent people should join together to destroy ISIS.

We also should not abandon our values. We have a free and open society. The minute America abandons that for the sake of safety, we're just not the same people. We become not much better, frankly, when we start targeting innocents in any group of people, for the purpose of making others feel safe. Here's the truth- America is a very safe place, but there will always be exceptions to the rule. I ride in subways in New York, in Philadelphia, in Washington, and I know the risks associated with that. I do not want us to infringe on the civil liberties and human rights of others to make me .01% safer from the frankly impossible to totally prevent events like we saw in Paris and in Brussels. There will always be crazies. They will always commit harm. We will always be disappointed to see this. I think our government does a very good job preventing as much of this as possible. I'm fine with their current efforts.

Ted Cruz apparently is not though. He's a Presidential candidate, but he called for police to patrol and secure "Muslim neighborhoods." This disgusting suggestion of engaging in strong-man, "big brother" tactics across the nation are beneath a Presidential candidate. The good Muslim-Americans in Orange County, Dearborn, Brooklyn, and other places are not criminals, and do not deserve to have their civil rights infringed on by a megalomaniac like Cruz. This suggestion is beneath our nation.

But.... Donald Trump had to one up that. He accused British Muslims of not reporting suspicious activity, agreed with Cruz, and then said we need to go back to waterboarding suspected terrorists. Basically, Donald Trump called for us to use torture. This is obviously illegal, stupid, and doesn't work. He wants to do it anyway. Because of course he does, he's Donald Trump.

Since the GOP candidates are trying to one-up each other with crazy xenophobic statements about Muslims, I guess we can expect someone to call for "internment camps" like we used during World War II for Muslims, or maybe full-blown concentration camps after that. This kind of red-meat feeding to the masses of ignorant voters these two are attracting to the primary polls is well beneath the standard of such past Republican Presidents as Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and even Reagan and the Bush duo. The Republican Party should be embarrassed to have these men running for their nomination.