Where Scott Adams Goes Awry

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) weighs in:

Trump’s plan to discriminate against immigrants based on religion offends me to the core. I hope it offends you too, on some level. Religious freedom is about as basic an American right as you can get. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we sometimes have to make hard choices based on our assessment of the odds. So let’s look at the odds.

Suppose you knew that 90% of Elbonians were in favor of killing U.S. citizens and they had plans to do so upon entering the country. Would you accept the bad ones to avoid discriminating against the good ones?

If you said you would let all Elbonians into the country and accept the certainty of more terror attacks, congratulations, you are not a racist. But if that risk seems too high, your only option is to go full-Hitler and ban people based on their Elbonian ethnicity. You can try screening each person, but if 90% of Elbonians are up to no good, some will slip through. I pause here to state unequivocally that no group has that many bad actors in it.

But what if only 1% of Elbonians are terrorists? If you let in a million Elbonians, that gives you 10,000 terrorists. Are you good with that risk in return for maintaining the ideal of equal treatment for all?

The odds of a Muslim immigrant being a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer is probably far lower than 1%, assuming we’re good at screening.

We know for a fact that screening does not work. To make this assumption is to assert something which is false, empirically false, and the FBI admits as much. Plus, the ISIS recruitment is now over the internet, and is world-wide.

I don’t know the exact odds, and neither do you, because it depends on how hard ISIS is trying to infiltrate in that particular way. If they are trying hard, one assumes the number is higher than if they are not trying. But the bottom line is that we don’t know.

I propose that instead of calling fellow citizens racists or idiots we do a deeper dive into the risks and put a price tag on our preference for religious intolerance. If the risk of future terror attacks is tiny, most of us would prefer maintaining our respect for religious differences.

But if the risk is more than tiny, can you put a price on your love of religious tolerance?

Here is the main false assumption, one made mostly by the Left: the subject is said to be religious tolerance. No. It is absolutely not. If Scott knew anything at all about Islam, he would know that it is not just a religion, it is much more than that. Islam is a closed worldview which is complete in and of itself, including governance and military as well as 6th century views which are exclusionary of all outsiders, especially Jews, Christians, women, children, Atheists, homosexuals including all aspects of LGBTQLHORYNBC, as well as ALL aspects of western society, especially its liberalism (religious tolerance, Democracy and liberty are not Islamic traits).

So this entire premise is incorrect and is the source of the ideological problem the Left maintains, but let's continue:

In other words, how many dead Americans are you willing to accept? I’ll go first.

Personally, I would accept up to 1,000 dead Americans, over a ten-year period, to allow Muslim non-citizens to enter this country. My calculation assumes we are better off accepting some degree of tragedy in the name of freedom. That is often the case with freedom.

Scott feels free to scold us if we do not accept Islamic atrocities in order to claim to be "free", and under the precept of "religious tolerance".

If you believe there is no risk from allowing Muslim immigration to continue as is, please explain that thinking in the comments. I have not seen that argument yet.

And if you believe there is some risk of a Muslim terrorist slipping through our current system of screening, what level of American deaths do you consider an acceptable tradeoff?

Using Scott's rationale, I would settle for a grand total of one (1): Scott. Read the next to see why.

And keep in mind that you are not offering to die for freedom, since your personal odds of dying in a terror attack are negligible. What you are offering is a higher risk that other people will die so you can live in a country with uncontested religious freedom.

In summary, I will agree with critics who say Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigration – even temporarily – is Hitler-scary. I hope all good Americans are offended by the suggestion on some visceral level even if you think it has to be done.

This is the final judgment call made based on Scott and the Left's false image of Islam - whether they actually believe it or not. According to Scott, there is some non-zero number of brutal deaths of non-combatant, civilian American citizens that can make it worth having the false illusion of "religious tolerance" by allowing an intolerant religio-governmental closed ideology entry to the USA. AND, he considers keeping them out of the USA to be equivalent of Hitler's NAZIs.

No, Scott. Forbidding them to leave, putting them in death camps, saving their teeth, skin and hair while immolating what's left would be Hitler-equivalent. Apparently Scott knows very little about Hitler and the NAZIs as well.

The Left is not concerned about "religious tolerance" when it comes to the hated Christianity. But after Islamic terror murders they make sure to attend Mosque to show alliance with Islam. When one has a narrative to protect, blatant irrationality is to be expected. Narratives are fixed agendas; rationality would include discernment, logic, deduction, and at least a modicum of self-awareness. Narrative protection require none of these, only loud voices all saying the Narrative in unison.

Actually, I find Scott's apparent ignorance cum judgementalism to be scary, more on the Neville P. Chamberlain model.