syrian clock phobia
This one might not be what most people want to hear.
Taking apart your bedside clock and putting it arbitrarily into a metal suitcase kinda makes it look like a bomb.
Home made clock this was not, it was not some invention. I was taking things apart at a much younger age than this kid, and I probably even did similar things to this, but I was younger, and I was also not bringing them to school.
Once I did get in trouble for talking about lighters or torches or something in like, 3rd or 4th grade, I think the teachers thought it was odd I was playing with fire, they thought I was like, smoking cigarettes or something. Kind of funny how that went down. Not like how this kid’s situation went down, I’ll say that much.
However, now that they’re suing for millions, i think it should be said that the kid admitted it looked suspicious and that he had changed the wiring on it because it looked even more suspicious previously. He also was told by his teacher that it looks kinda suspect and not to show it around anymore, then proceeds to set the clock alarm off in the middle of his next class. What needs to be said is that the kid was looking for attention. Maybe not racist attention, but clearly he was seeking negative attention.
The police reaction was probably overkill given they knew by that time it was basically not a bomb, and/or a hoax bomb. Why not arrest the kid for a hoax bomb? They already knew it wasn’t a bomb, I guess. Even so, it’s odd how this was handled, and more and more I start to think this kid acted the part intentionally.
He was more than old enough to know that he didn’t really invent anything, but insisted as if it’s some great invention? Man, I remember being 15, it wasn’t that long ago, either this kid’s a real dumbass who gets excited over taking things apart at way too old of an age for that to be all that interesting (the opposite of a genius inventor) or he knew exactly what he was doing the whole time. I remember being much younger, like, 8 or 9, and realizing that a soldering gun was a pretty intimidating looking device to someone who had no idea, I think I scared the crap out of my cousins one time with one. However, even as an 8 or 9 year old, I knew it looked intimidating. By age 15 I was a hell of a lot more mature than that. You can’t tell me this kid’s got the reasoning of an 8 year old at age 15. Oh yeah, and should I mention, I basically knew how to solder at age 8 or 9. Yeah, solder. Not take a damn clock out of a case. Solder wires together. I was doing more than this kid did in his so called invention at nearly half his age.
However, should he be rewarded for the overreaction? I think it would be a sad mistake to do so. He got the attention he wanted, and now that he’s got his scholarship in Qatar, and is ditching the country, I think it’s safe to say he’s more than set now, so why the money?
Truth is, this goes deeper. Much deeper. The whole issue with the Syrian refugees is the not so much that they might be terrorists, rather, they come from a rigid culture that is usually unwilling to compromise, and time and time again leads to conflict.
It’s not so much that they’re muslims or this or that, it’s that they aren’t leaving behind what they’re running from. They are still taking with them all the things that created the very situation they are trying to escape. Rather than adapt to a new culture, it’s more of the old.
Also the point that Bill Maher often makes regarding the percentages of muslims that believe in sharia law, and wish that it were imposed in the places they live, including these countries they are immigrating to, it’s a scary thought indeed.
Truth be told, US Syrian immigration isn’t the issue, if you’re trying to come here as a refugee you’ve already got a long road ahead. It’s more so these countries near by the middle east that seem like a hop skip away, if they show up at the door knocking it’s a lot easier than an expensive plane ticket and years worth of paperwork.
Will they adapt, will they not, what is the future of islam? Truth be told, my opinion on religion is the same, it should all be abolished. More than ever is it apparent that religion is just a way to push agendas without sound reasoning, the fact we ever accept anything less than rationality is a slippery slope to extremism of many forms, islamic terrorism being only one of many possibilities.
That said, to pay this clock kid even a single dime would be an intellectually dishonest maneuver. Even if the kid had experienced some sort of racial profiling, he was looking for trouble to begin with. Maybe detention for causing a ruckus in class would have been more appropriate, but the supposed “overreaction” by the police has already gotten him a lot more than most kids will ever have, and really, the rest is all in vain.
Maybe the police are racist and overreacted, maybe so. However, recently, the liberal knee-jerk reaction has been playing to the “omfg-we-accept-you-all” card, even when it comes to cultures that are blatantly intolerant to the very principals that allow them to be so liberal in the first place. I only play to one card, and that’s abolish all religion card, then there’s no “us versus them” in the first place. The fact he just ran off to qatar also makes you wonder…I can’t help but feel the political correctness machine of america was way too quick to label him this great victim of islamophobia.