The Watering Hole - Conversations on 21st. Century religion.

Prevent Child Terrorists

Copyright © 2020 Dorian S. Cole

Abstract What we put into the world is what we get back. If we put out hate, we get hate in return. If we put out love, we more often get love in return. We have to discern what people's intentions are who ask us to be part of their cause. This is something we have to ingrain in our children.

Preventing your children from becoming terrorists

Are your children susceptible?

The methods used by terrorist organizations to recruit terrorists is well known.

First, they go to people who are receptive to their message. That often involves the same religious belief, the same nationality, peer affiliation, sometimes disaffected and disenfranchised, and often people who live in poverty.

This doesn't mean those people are uneducated or stupid. Psychiatrists and other physicians have become terrorists.

Their second step is indoctrination. They saturate them not so much with an ideology, but with compelling video or other material that focuses on injustice. They show "The Great Satan," or some other monster destroying and manipulating their culture. You have to have an enemy to focus anger on. Then you show the great needs of the people and how The Great Satan is standing in the way.

The third stage, after getting them compelled that there is a serious problem that needs rectified, is to get them to feel helpless and hopeless about the situation. Helplessness and hopelessness can be great motivators to do something ... anything.

The fourth stage is obsession. The person is motivated and saturates themselves with a steady diet of this compelling information.

The fourth stage is to put before that person an action that can relieve their sense of outrage, helplessness, and hopelessness. Usually it's blowing up a bunch of people. The person can't not do it. They feel they have to do it. Drugs help.

There is nothing new about this, and it's done in society every day.

The "Revolutionaries" did it in several countries last century. Their goal was to overturn repressive regimes in which the people lived in poverty, and install a different type of government. Usually the new government failed.

In our educational system, young adults who become disaffected and loners, often see their only hope is to strike against the system to make a point, which is their outrage at being ignored or abused by others. They see power and big, dramatic, attention getting statements in guns and death, and go shoot up their school.

Several militia groups in our society have similar motivations. The FBI regards many of them as terrorists and watches them closely. They get with others of like mind, get indoctrinated by widely available literature that misplaces blame on select people or groups. At some point their mission in life becomes to destroy those people. Often as not it's the government or police. Other times it's Jews, blacks, and "liberals." Or it might be all of them. They focus on hate and destruction.

The extreme right and extreme left in the US and other countries are similarly driven. They are saturated endlessly by propaganda in the media to take up their cause, and their action is usually voicing outrageous opinions and at the ballot box.

Forewarned is forearmed. The things to to advise your children are:

1. Propagandists and ideologists don't have your interest in mind, just theirs. You work for them.
2. People are generally most motivated not by knowledge, but by emotion. Their goal is to get you wound up and motivated. Are your passions at high levels? You're probably being manipulated. If they are using extremist language, that's a telltale sign.
3. Obsessing over things, instead of seeking a balanced view, is a major step toward doing something. That something may be illegal and may destroy or end your life. For someone other's goal.
4. Ask yourself if you are harboring an extremist belief. That's not a good sign.
5. Are people being ignored socially, economically, in school settings, and in other ways that would drive them toward being loners, or in groups that are being ignored, so that they might do illegal things. Poverty drives crime. Loneliness and isolation make some people strike out. If you want to be a warrior for something, put your efforts into making the world better, not divided and dead.
6. Consider giving your child a copy of the book, "Tabernacle of Hate." It is from a real group that wanted to live in Christian peace by themselves, but was seduced into extremism, armed terrorism, and were about to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building, which Timothy McVey later did.
7. Get to know others, different ways of living, and different points of view.

There are many in this country who use propaganda to slant our economic system in their favor, making them wealthy, while endlessly driving others toward poverty and dependency on the government. The question to ask yourself is why. Many are good people and help others, and just do what is in their wheelhouse. Others are just greedy. Political office often brings great wealth and corruption.

In business and organizations, just as in life, there is rarely just one way to do things. You have to weigh the pros and cons, then make the choice that will maximize the benefits and minimize the loss. Unfortunately we're usually presented with choices labeled as good or bad, or only one way is right. There is usually no such dichotomy.

What we put into the world is what we get back. If we put out hate and selfishness, we get hate and selfishness in return. If we put out caring love, we more often get caring love in return. We have to discern what people's intentions are who ask us to be part of their cause. This is something we have to ingrain in our children.

Ted Talk

"What drives someone to commit politically motivated violence? The unsettling answer lies in daily habits. Behavioral historian Christiane-Marie Abu Sarah shares startling insights into how seemingly mundane choices can breed polarization that lead to extreme, even deadly, actions -- and explains how to identify and bypass these behaviors in order to rediscover common ground."

- Dorian

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