Wondering, on Wednesday (v18)

Tonight on the way home, we caught part of a semi-local radio talk show host putting an idea out for his listeners. The host does a local show in Rochester in the morning and an afternoon show here in Syracuse; for a time on his show he would do a Bible verse of the day, and he regularly complains about Andy Cuomo and President Obama and sometimes against Republicans as well. He likes guns and soldiers and veterans and hates commies and liberals (and on rare occasions, he might admit there's a difference between them).

Having set the stage, here's what he offered today, in the shadow of the attacks in Paris and lone wolf terrorists or radicalized jihadists who turn on the rest of us:

We should stop allowing unskilled Muslims in the country. 

He asked us not to yell at him, not to call him a racist or anything like that. It's OK, he went on, to accept Pakistani doctors, and all the engineers and scientists and all the smart Muslims but we need to keep the unskilled ones out.  They come here, you see, and don't work or are under-employed and mostly they're just sitting around trying to figure out how to get in on their share of welfare money.

There are some that work out, he said, but even those shopkeepers, the ones who run the corner stores, they're spending time and energy trying to figure out how they can get their fare share of welfare money, even if they have to cheat to get it. They should probably go, too.

I didn't listen to what came next - I admit to having difficulty listening to him at all most days, and today was no exception. But it did get me wondering, on this Wednesday, if he was simply trying to provoke a reaction, or if he had the courage to take his idea all the way to the only possible conclusion:

We should not allow any unskilled people in our country. Don't let the come here from other countries, regardless of ethnicity, and don't allow the ones who are already here, even if they are our children, to remain.

See, that's really what we need to do! We should only have productive people in America. We don't need to have 47% of the people here on the dole, we need to have 100% of the people we allow to stay making positive contributions, just like the Pakistani doctors and, even, the Indian hoteliers.

I clearly didn't take this idea far enough back in 2013 when I thought I had everything figured out, after spending a more than a little too much time reading social media comments.

As I said, I didn't stick around to hear if the host took it all the way and included all unskilled residents, citizens or otherwise, or if he left it at just unskilled Muslims.  I have my guess, but I'll leave you wondering with me on that one.