From the midweek edition of the Morning Jolt:

No, ‘Unity, Love and Coexistence’ Will Not Resolve the Threat of Terrorism

There’s not too much point in fuming about Katy Perry’s saccharine-to-the-point-of-insulting comments about the Manchester bombing, her declaration that, “I think the greatest thing we can do is just unite, and love on each other… no barriers, no borders, we all need to just coexist.”

I just wish there was someone around Perry who could pull her aside after a statement like that and say, “Katy, dear, a lack of unity, love, and coexistence is really not the problem here.”

If there were 20,000 people around the bomb as it detonated this week, 19,999 of them had no real significant conflict with each other. Whatever gripes, grievances and problems they had, they had no murderous rage directed at another person. They just were there to either enjoy a concert or do their jobs at the venue.

There was only one guy in that whole crowd who couldn’t unite, who didn’t have love for anyone, and who couldn’t coexist with everyone else around him. And all it took was his bloodthirsty act to end young, innocent lives and create a lifetime of pain for so many people there that night.

Unity, love, and coexistence? We saw how quickly and eagerly people were to open their homes and offer assistance with the #openformanchester campaign. Generous souls have already donated more than one million pounds to help the families. So many people donated blood that the blood banks in the Manchester area said they’re full and can’t take any more contributions.

The vast majority of people walking down the street in Manchester on any given day are good people – or at least, they bring out their best in a crisis. This is not a collective or a societal problem, and it doesn’t do us much good to pretend that it is, that if somehow we just walked around with more “unity, love, and coexistence,” the problem of the next suicide bomber would be resolved.

I’m sure this hits home for Katy Perry; as she said in that interview, “Ari’s fans are my fans and my fans are Ari’s fans.” Yes, that’s precisely the point, in the eyes of the Islamists, you must be wiped out. Through no real fault of your own, you have filled them with murderous rage simply by existing and contradicting their twisted dark vision of how the world should be. This is what unites Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, you, me – they hate all of us. None of us did anything to them, insulted them, provoked them, mistreated them or “triggered” them. We have to dispel this idea that there’s some proper combination of words and actions that will stop them from wanting to attack us.

The only way they will not feel murderous rage towards us is if we completely submit to their worldview. That’s their idea of coexistence.

A couple folks online are focusing on the “no borders” aspect of Perry’s comments, and arguing that the Manchester attack demonstrates the danger of refugees or immigrants. The problem with this argument is that the bomber* was born in Manchester. His parents were Libyan refugees who fled the rule of Qaddafi.