Are you ever tempted to re-tweet a tweet with “facts” you already agree with? Without checking the story first?
I sure was today when I saw:
Posted from @TheEconomist.
When I saw it, that tweet had been retweeted 304 times and liked 202 times.
If you following the link to: Yearning to breathe free, you will find the sixth paragraph reads in full:
Refugee resettlement is the least likely route for potential terrorists, says Kathleen Newland at the Migration Policy Institute, a think-tank. Of the 745,000 refugees resettled since September 11th, only two Iraqis in Kentucky have been arrested on terrorist charges, for aiding al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In order to reconcile “not one” in the graphic and “two Iraqis” in the story, I have to assume the graphic artist didn’t read the story.
Moreover, I have to assume most of the 304 retweeters didn’t read the story either.
I wish the graphic were true but people being people the story sounds closer to the truth. Any sufficiently large number of people is going to have a few terrorists in it.
So? I assume there were some rapists, murderers, pedophiles, as well as doctors, lawyers, dentists and a lot of just decent people, the vast majority of the 750,000.
Generosity towards refugees should not be moderated or limited by as selfish and base a motive as fear. Not now, not ever.
BTW, read before you re-tweet. Yes?