America in 2016: balkanized camps of competing identities

Greg Gutfield writes,

Now we no longer look at a tragedy as an American one, but through the divisive eyes of balkanized camps of competing identities.

... Most of the Democrats see it as a gun control issue. Most Republicans see it as a terror attack.

...The New York Times blamed Republicans for Orlando. The Huffington Post blamed Christians. Every liberal blames guns, as well as the complicit wife of the murderous, terrorist dirtbag. And the dirtbag’s dad blames social networks. He’s even suing them.

...The more we spread the condemnations around, the less we have for the truly guilty party. Hence our incremental approach to ISIS. President Obama treats the war on “terror” (a polite phrase for Islamism), like we’re playing Jenga. Slowly, and on rainy days.

We lose respect for evidence. Our inability to call a spade a spade is the result of divorcing cause from effect. If we can’t call Islamism out for this horribleness, then what’s left? Blame Guns. Christians. White Zinfindal. It’s as though you blame a massive wild fire not on dry tinder and a lit cigarette, but on poor self-esteem among carbon products.

Here’s science: Islamism preaches the murder of gays; then an Islamist murders a club full of gays. Cause…effect.

Why does the left deny science?

The way the media and our White House deny the effects of Islamism seems eerily similar to a certain industry we grew to loathe over time. Remember how the tobacco companies denied the role of their product in lung cancer? To deny that link, now, would have you laughed off the planet. My prediction: 20 years from now we will feel the same way about Islamism.

...We have killed debate. To better enhance well-being, one must be able to argue and even allow oneself to be proven wrong. Science is all about that: prove me wrong, please. Now, no one wants to be wrong, even when it’s an abstract debate.

...What happened to reserve? Contemplation? Thoughtfulness? What about waiting a few days before you spout an opinion?

...We no longer cooperate. This sad and sober consequence is the result of combining all the results mentioned above together. Without cooperation, society is doomed. Cooperation contributes to better lives, over all. If what’s good for you, is good for them you help them get what you have.

That’s not the case in this era of moral relativism.

The problem is: we no longer believe that what we have is good. How can America defeat ISIS if we have vocal factions believing that we are worse? How can we fight the enemy if a large portion of our population thinks an inanimate object – a gun – caused Orlando? And not this pernicious ideology you can’t even call a death cult, because radical Islam is worse than that? It’s a death movement. A death phenomenon. It’s a force that sees our conscious lives as inferior to what happens after you die. Which is why, for them, killing gays is an act of love. They’re doing those sinners a favor – in their twisted skulls, killing innocents in a night club just gave the murdered a Fast Pass to Nirvana.

Read more here.