Pyrrhic Defeat Theory Connections Between Essay

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In America, the social ostracism of Muslims can feel even more acute. Many Muslims may face discrimination: feared as terrorists, they turn to terrorism. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the widely-publicized abuses at the Guantanamo prison, all continue to foster this sense of social isolation of Muslims. These policies may have created a more fertile environment for terrorism, just as police violations of civil liberties and racial profiling have perpetuated crime in many American cities, according to Reiman. Injustice breeds injustice. And Reiman adds, if being 'tough on crime' is so effective, why does America have such a high crime rate, despite being one of the few democratic nations in the world to still use the death penalty? (Scully 2009).

Reiman writes: "We know that poverty, slums and unemployment are sources of street crime. We know that these things are a source of crime, even if we do not know how it causes crime -- yet we do virtually nothing to improve the life chances of the vast majority of the inner city poor. We know that unemployment has gone up and down, yet it has remained steady at the bottom of society, which is considerably worse than the national average" (Scully 2009). Crime and rises in nationwide unemployment are not necessarily perfectly correlated. But it is the culture of poverty and the creation of a permanent underclass that lead to crime amongst the poor. The poor, criminal element have no hope of struggling out of the confines of their crime-ridden inner cities or rural communities, Reiman also points out that the rise in urbanization and crime are not correlated, either, as once thought, rather it is the degree of the economic discrepancy between the lower and higher strata of society that leads to crime.

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While it is true that Reiman suggests that: "the definitions of crime in the criminal law do not reflect the only or the most dangerous of antisocial behavior" and it is difficult to think of a more dangerous crime than the destruction of the lives of innocent civilians in a terrorist attack, Reiman's point is that many of the crimes that perpetuate poverty and the social isolation of the poor are not crimes at all (Scully 2009). Laws and social policies that favor the rich, or are racially discriminatory in the name of being 'tough on crime' and for protecting 'national security' are indefensibly criminal in a moral sense, to Reiman, and merely perpetuate the social isolation that gives rise to all types of violence. Reiman's fundamental premise of Pyrrhic defeat theory seems logical: "at people resort to terrorism when they believe -- rightly or wrongly -- that terrorism is worth it; that is, when they believe the political gains of terrorism minus the political costs are greater than if they engaged in some other, more peaceful form of protest" (Schneier 2008). Eliminate the causes, and reduce the ranks of people who become terrorists......

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