Many media sites especially news outlets have a comments section where readers can add their opinion about a particular story. In Canada the CBC news site does it. They moderate the comments to keep the totally outrageous at a minimum but leaving that aside…the “comments” section is often far more interesting and revealing than the story being addressed. There is no doubt that there are a lot of people with too much time on their hands and not a lot of reason on their minds. There are haters and trolls and people whose frustration is so tangible that I’m almost glad they have this outlet for their rage. After a while you begin to recognize the pseudonyms of certain commentators…or if they change names, the tone and content are so consistent that you know this troll has been here before. Not that we need any evidence of the political polarization that has occurred over the past dozen…but cruising through the comments tells you all you need to know. The rabid right hates the rabid left. There are never any winners because the battle just goes on and on. The middle ground gets lost because no reasonable argument gains traction.
The problem is that the comments section has awakened me to knowledge I wished never to have. It’s not that I was so blissfully ignorant before but…I enjoyed the delusion that the depth and heat of rage and frustration was not so great that one should be alarmed. But now I am alarmed. The shit that people are carrying in their heads is frightening. Not only because of things they might do…but because of things they won’t do…things that they will allow to happen. Not only can they be the mob but they can stand by and do nothing when the mob gets out of control. Or they can cheer the mob on. Tough choices.
We’re currently facing a crisis…along with many other countries. Absolutely horrible foreign policy mistakes by the worlds great powers have split open the schism among muslims in Syria and Iraq. The outrageous question of whether the monster in Damascus should be supported in virtually unanswerable. Millions of people are running in any direction to get away from Assad’s military…and more millions are running in any other direction to get away from ISIS and their cronies. And our crisis is whether to take some of these dispossessed thousands into our country…to give them homes and help them find jobs…help them and their families to survive. The question of “whether” has been resolved. We will. The questions of “how” and “how many” remain to be answered. And this is where our polarized society finds its dilemma. There can be no doubt that quickly screening thousands of people in, from Syria or Iraq, will provide an opportunity for terrorists and ISIS supporters to slip into the mix…they can wait months or years and blow themselves and us up in the grocery store down the street. Of course the rising tide of home grown terrorists born around the corner is problematic but for some stupid reason the thought that the poison could be lurking among the refugees is more alarming. What to do? Well, some say a suitable period of quarantine while checking out backgrounds and histories is done…Sounds good. There may be a problem getting reliable information from Syria or Iraq…but it’s better than nothing. Then there are those who say NO WAY…we can’t take the risk…Don’t take any of them. Or take a few dozen at a time so we can spend more time checking them out…weed out the bad guys. Sounds good. Of course winter is coming and with millions of refugees starving and freezing along the borders of Europe a lot of people will die…a lot of children and women and old people (if you care about those groups) will die…and then there’s the possibility that all of those people in dire straits can become a perfect breeding ground for disease…for epidemics. And the longer we wait the greater the possibility that we’ll be bringing diseases along with the refugees. Never-mind…we have doctors for that.
According to the people who write the comments…opinion is in favour of bringing the refugees in. Good news for the kinder and gentler humans. But the opinions also show that the minority of ravers is a fairly large group and if the news from Europe is anything to go by…this group is getting bigger.
All of this is unfolding at a time when the polarization of politics has hardened the dogma of our society. These are the things I didn’t want to learn about in the comments section of the news.
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