America needs to get a grip

Chill, America. This is a great big powerful country, armed to the teeth, with strong institutions and a rich economy. If we can muster the courage to stand with our better angels, ISIS will eventually crumble.

A Syrian refugee holds her baby after arriving in Greece.
(Image credit: (REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis))

The Paris attacks have brought back the dark shadow of America's Bush-era anti-terror politics. Conservatives are demanding repression and violence, while many Democrats are running scared. They are enabled in this by mainstream journalists like The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, who breezily declares that barring refugees is "smart politics" because conservatives are worried about Islamic extremism; or Slate's William Saletan, who argues that our late period of libertarian isolationism (???) is simply going to have to end.

My fellow Americans: Don't listen to this garbage. Let's take a deep breath and get a grip.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.