A Quick Run Around the Web--Immigration Crises Addition

Yesterday, I gave my thoughts about the immigration crises, backed up with some points raised by other pundits. Today, I thought I would just hit some highlights from other authors and news sites.

• "Genocide, Islam and Weaponized Empathy"--Declination. The author warns that Islam and its apologists are using our empathy against us--"weaponized empathy"--to reduce our defenses against Islam. As a descendant of Armenians that fled Turkey prior to the Armenian genocide, he reminds us that allowing Islam into Europe or the United States is to, as I've noted, harbor the serpent in our breast. He writes:

But back to the central point, why, then, if America sheltered my family, must the West turn back the refugees of Syria, of Somalia, of Libya?

Because they bring the source of infection with them. Armenians had managed, through some strength I sometimes find difficult to fully grasp, to hang on to their European culture and Christian religion through millenia of conflict with Islam. They had stubbornly resisted assimilation into Islam and its ideals. These refugees, for all that my heart yearns to give them sanctuary and a place to escape to, nonetheless carry Islam with them.

There are good Muslims in the world, and I want to make this clear. My own family lived only because an Ottoman official warned my great-grandfather that genocide was coming. This man, whose name I cannot remember — something that genuinely pains me, for my grandfather died when I was young and his stories are almost dream-like to me, now — paid for the ticket to America for my family, for English language lessons, and everything else needed to escape before it was too late.

I hope that I will meet this good and righteous man in the life to come. I hope God saw fit to accept him into His kingdom.

But Islam nonetheless is a contagion, even if some maintain a stubborn moral immunity to the infection. Where Islam goes, this violence will follow. You will never save all the little boys, you will never stop the slaughter. All you will do is bring it to your own shores.

And if there is something I know for certain, it is that my ancestors did not escape Islam only to see their descendants fight it again, once more in their own homes.

• One of the main tools of this "weaponized empathy" is the poignant picture of a Syrian boy that died in the attempt to reach safety in Europe--or at least, that is what the MSM would like us to believe. However, he didn't die as his family fled to safety. His family had been living safely in Turkey for 3 years. Instead, he died because his father was trying to sneak into Europe for dental work.

1. "Story Begins To Unravel About Drowned Syrian Boy"--The Daily Caller.
2. "The 5 Awkward Questions They Won't Answer About The Drowned Boy, Syria, And Our 'Moral Duty'"--Breitbart. 

• "'They’re not refugees. This is an invasion,' said Bishop Laszlo Kiss-Rigo, whose dominion stretches across the southern reaches of this predominantly Catholic nation. 'They come here with cries of "Allahu Akbar." They want to take over.'”--from The Washington Post.
• "Syrian refugees have turned Lesbos into a war zone, residents claim, as migrants chant 'f*** you' at Hungarian police amid fears ISIS is using the crisis to enter Europe"--Daily Mail.
• "We'll see who cracks first, the guests or the hosts, but sooner or later, somebody's getting loaded into cattlecars, because that's how things go in Europe," from View From The Porch.

Update (9/13/2015): We has since learned that the father of the drowned Syrian boy wasn't even trying to get to Europe, but was the pilot of the boat that sank, and part of a human smuggling ring:

• "Aylan Kurdi's father is a people smuggler, woman claims"--The Sidney Morning Herald.
• "Migrant crisis: father of dead toddler a ‘people smuggler’"--The Australian.
• "Alan Kurdi’s father worked with human smuggler and captained boat that capsized, survivor says"--The National Post.

Also, apparently things were not so bad for him in Syria: The Guardian reports that "Abdullah Kurdi says he no longer wants to continue on to Europe and will take the bodies of his two sons and wife to be buried in home town of Kobani."