WhatFinger


Breaking the tender heart of CBS reporter John Dickerson, who can't bring himself to believe it

DHS Secretary Nielsen: Data shows 73 percent of U.S. terrorism convicts are foreign-born



DHS Secretary Nielsen: Data shows 73 percent of U.S. terrorism convicts are foreign-born One fiction the left desperately wants to peddle is that most acts of terrorism in the United States are committed not by Islamic radicals, but by white, male, Christian Americans. I guess it's easy enough to understand why. The left has no higher agenda than the marginalization of Christianity, which requires two things: 1. Associate Christians and Christian beliefs with evil and ignorance wherever possible; and 2. Defend any belief system that disagrees with Christianity, no matter what its adherents do. So when the Department of Homeland Security came out today with a study showing that 73 percent of those convicted of terrorism in the United States in recent years have been foreign-born, it was all just too much for CBS's John Dickerson to take. In an interview with Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, Dickerson tried his based to argue it can't be true:
Dickerson: But say of foreign nationals who are responsible for murders during the time period you've looked at here, how many foreign born nationals are responsible for terrorism deaths in America? Nielsen: Terrorism deaths? I would have to get back to you. I think the number that we're looking at, what we've used is a number that's related to international terrorism-related charges. That could be a death abroad, that could be a death here, that could be an attack on a U.S. interest, abroad or here. But they're all prosecuted in federal court. So that's that 73 percent number that's foreign born. Dickerson: In the history of America in this period, what's caused more mayhem, more deaths? People who are U.S. citizens who've been radicalized, or foreign-borns who've been radicalized? Nielsen: I don't believe I can give you that in an unclass level. But I would say we're worried about both. Dickerson: But isn't it – isn't it widely the case if it's more U.S. citizens when you think of the Pulse nightclub shooting and San Bernardino and some of these other – these were U.S. citizens. Nielsen: Some of them were naturalized, yes. Some of them were legal, permanent residents, yes. Dickerson: Well, some were born in America. Nielsen: And some were born in America. Dickerson: So in those cases, when you're born in America, that's the – those are the people killing just more Americans than foreign born. Nielsen: I'm not ready to commit to that – again, because we have a lot of ongoing investigations and a lot of plots that we've disrupted. But your point is right. We need to do more to prevent radicalization, the inspiration of terrorism in this country.

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A couple of things about the argument Dickerson is trying to make: First, the Cato Institute has an agenda against foreign excursions to fight terrorism, so they've got an incentive to define terrorism broadly to include things that are really something else. Terrorism is usually defined as the use of violence for the purpose of furthering a political agenda. To apply that to Orlando, for example, is really a stretch. Would you apply it to Las Vegas, when no one knows what motivated the shooter? The left likes to bring up Timothy McVeigh, and that's clearly an example that applies. He had a separatist, anti-government agenda. But a) there aren't many examples like McVeigh; and b) before you can call him Christian you'd have to show that he actually practiced the faith rather than just labeling himself as such at some point in his life. Almost everyone has done that. Doesn't mean anything. Also: Dickerson seems to think it's more important to count the number of dead bodies than the number of perpetrators. I'm not sure why. For law enforcement purposes, you're trying to track down people before they kill anyone. A would-be perp might intend to kill 100 people, but you're trying to arrest one person. It makes no sense to devote more resources to surveilling white people when the vast majority of the perps are foreign, and you could deploy protocols to make it harder for them to get into the country in the first place. I think the only reason Dickerson is making that argument is that the whole interview is agenda-driven. He doesn't like data that shows most terrorists are foreign-born because it gives credence to any number of Trump policies, and complicates the left's attempts to claim that terrorism is really a home-grown thing. The left claims to love facts and data. But it only loves some facts and some data. Present them with data that counteract their beloved narratives, and watch how they try to pick them apart. Case-in-point: This.

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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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