I am little troubled by the notion of “rooting out extremists from the military” … 🪖

It’s all the fault of the bad dudes, as former President Trump once said about migrants trying to cross the border. Then there was George W. Bush who liked to talk about the “evil doers” that are out to do in our country. We want to believe they are different from the rest of us.

The problem with bad dudes and evil doers is they don’t really exist. They are just ordinary people, who go on to commit infamous acts of crime or violence. They are the product of bad socialization, not enough positive reinforcement and mixing with people who are of difference class, creed, race and background.

If you want to fix extremism, you need to emphasize diversity and learning. People need to become less afraid of people who are different from them. Racism and biogtry isn’t rooted in bad thought or bad people, it’s rooted in a lack of understanding and acceptance of people that live very different lives then they do. We much as a society share different experiences, increase learning and respect of people who are different then ourselves.

Rooting out bigotry and hatred doesn’t work by excluding people you have decided are evil. The opposite is true – we need to ensure all of our institutions are inclusive, learning places were people of all backgrounds are accepted and there is learning from one and another.