"Desperate" Parents of Young Jihadis Beg the Government: "Fix" My Kid--But Don't Stick Him In the Slammer

One of the ways you can tell the difference between a leftist and someone on the right is by how they view the government. For a lefty, the government looms large in the lives of citizens--and that's seen as a good thing. For a non-lefty, however, life is better when government takes more of a back seat and people bear responsibility for their own lives.

An example of the lefty way of seeing things is on display in today's New York Times. An article about a Muslim dad who was so concerned about his son's radicalization that he snitched on him to the FBI, resulting in the son being locked up in the joint, criticizes the government--yes, the government--for failing to offer jihad-besotted young'uns an alternative to "spending 20 years in jail." Since there's no "alternative," claims the reporter, parents are forced to take their own drastic actions to keep 'em down on the farm after they've heard the siren call of jihad:

The Justice Department’s campaign against American supporters of the Islamic State is rife with examples of family members acting out of desperation. Mothers have hidden passports and money to keep their sons from traveling. In Minnesota, a fight broke out as relatives tried to keep a young man from flying out of the country. In Texas, a family lured a 19-year-old home from Turkey by tricking him into thinking his mother had fallen ill. 

Mr. Shafi chose a different route. He did what the government asked. His story is a desperate search for someone to help his son.

Why did he think his son needed help? Well, no alarm bells went off when the now-22-year-old began spending all his free time at a local mosque--"Perhaps, Mr. Shafi thought, Adam, who was 21 at the time, was at a mosque working on a social cause." In fact, it wasn't until the lad up and vanished--to Turkey, a gateway to ISIS--that the dad thought something fishy might be going on, and contacted the FBI.

Now his son's in jail, and the dad, who has the ear of the Times' lefty sob sister, bemoans authorities' failure to 1) prevent young Muslims from going over to the dark side and 2) offer any alternative to locking them up.

Let's think about that for a second. Is it the government's fault the dad never bothered to check out what his kid was being exposed to at the mosque? Is it the government's responsibility to keep tabs on what's being preached there? (Any time authorities do poke into mosque affairs, there's a huge outcry from Muslims, and investigators are forced to back off.) Is it up to the government to teach a child what's right and wrong? And when Muslim young'uns go off the rails, is the government supposed to grant them special privileges, ones unavailable to others, just because they are Muslim?

The New York Times and these "desperate" parents may think that's how things should work. I, on the other hand, believe that parents should be the first line of defence. If they aren't willing to acknowledge the problematic aspects of their faith, the ones that their kids find so enticing, and if their own communities are sitting around and waiting for someone else, someone in authority, to ride to their rescue, then nothing will change. And if Muslim parents are sincere in their desire to put the brakes on their kids' jihadi antics, it is the responsibility of individual Muslims and Muslim communities to pay close attention to what their kids are up to, and mix in big time--as any Jewish mom would do.