There is also domestic terrorism that is not based around Islam. In 2015 a gunman opened fire outside a Planned Parenthood and killed 3 people, injured 9 others. This man had no association with Islam, he was anti-abortion and decided shooting up Planned Parenthood would promote his viewpoint. In 2016 a sniper killed 5 police officers and injured 10 others because he believed law enforcement was discriminating against blacks and deserved to be shot. The reasons terrorism is committed are varied and not isolated to Islam. As such, claiming that the root of terrorism is from organizations in the Middle East is objectively wrong.


I lived in Canada for 16 years. I've seen it firsthand too. Holding on to your home culture is not inherently a bad thing, and serves as a way to acclimate immigrants into the broader culture. Plus, you have no idea how wrong you think these communities effect integration. Reason why I say this? I'm a second generation immigrant. I've literally lived through it. And you know what? I'd say I'm pretty damn well integrated into society. Who cares if my favorite foods are all ethnic, or that I eat better with chopsticks instead of a fork and knife, or that I participate in cultural events native to my parent's country of origin? I still function in society as well as the next person. What I can say is that an immigrant community serves as a way for the first generation of immigrants to not have major culture shock by establishing a bastion of people in similar circumstance who can provide a support network for everyone else.

Also, Chinatown is literally the product of Chinese immigrants turning what would otherwise be a slum into an area to conduct business. The entire front of any Chinatown is always dressed up to look more exotic for the sole purpose of attracting non-Asian people in for business.


Cultural suicide? Do you honestly have such little faith in your Western culture? The UN said in 2016 that there's ~65 million refugees in the entire world. The entire population of the U.S. is ~318 million. Even including the ~43 million immigrants that currently live in the U.S., and assuming that every foreign-born person has the same culture, the native population would still outnumber the foreign-born population two to one. With these numbers, do you still believe Western culture would die in the face of accepting refugees? No offense, but you have no idea what you're talking about here.


Definition of terrorism: the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

So no, terrorism is not conducted because "they hate the country they're terrorizing". Terrorism is conducted to push for political changes through violent coercion. Hate doesn't even need to exist for terrorism to occur.

Also, let's be clear. "Hating someone for trying to preserve themselves is petty and illogical" means you're admitting you're being petty and illogical. Refugees are trying to escape war. They are trying to preserve themselves. Yet you will punish them for the crimes of the very people they are trying to escape from. As such, you are punishing people for trying to preserve themselves. At least hating someone is still in the realm of thought, actually punishing them for it takes it into action. Arguably, that should make you worse than being petty and illogical.


Because it's not reason you're peddling. It's fear. You are afraid of death, they are actively escaping from it. To say that you won't let them escape from the actual threat of death because you fear the possibility of death is not reason. It's panic.


As I've mentioned above, it's fairly obvious the root of terrorism is not in the Middle East because terrorism is not localized to any one location. Until you understand what terrorism fundamentally means, you will never understand the true scope of the problem.

Terrorism happens when somebody becomes desperate to get political change enacted. The moderates of today can become the radicals of tomorrow if they're forced into such desperation. Al-Qaeda was born from the U.S. purging Iraq of it's Sunni government, causing thousands of moderate Sunnis to lose everything. These moderates became radicalized and became the bulk of Al-Qaeda. And from within Al-Qaeda, another group radicalized even further. This group would see the conflict in Syria when al-Assad gassed his own citizens and see opportunity to recruit. They moved from Iraq into Syria, radicalized moderates in Syria, and became the Islamic State. Islam was never the cause of radicalization, it was misfortune providing the opportunity to give a person who had lost everything a reason. Keeping moderates in such an environment creates this opportunity.


If you believe it's impossible to separate a terrorist from a refugee through interviews and background checks, how can you be sure you'll kill all the terrorists unless you kill all the refugees? After all, you'll have even less to work with to separate the two.

Your positions are mutually exclusive unless you want to be a genocidal maniac, so you have to come to terms with one or the other. Either it's possible to separate refugee from terrorist, in which case a travel ban is not necessary, or you do not need to kill the terrorists to beat terrorism.