After a week following the attacks in Paris, France, GOP candidates surely haven't held back when it comes to voicing their stances on the Muslim community and as to whether or not the United States should be accepting Syrian refugees. According to NBC News, the following are direct quotes from presidential runners of the Republican party:
Donald Trump: "I would certainly implement [a database system tracking Muslims]...There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases," he added. "We should have a lot of systems."
Ben Carson: On Thursday, Carson suggested that concerns about Syrian refugees in the United States are similar to a parent's concerns about 'mad dogs.' "If there's a rabid dog running around in your neighborhood, you're probably not going to assume something good about that dog, and you're probably going to put your children out of the way...It doesn’t mean you hate all dogs, but you’re putting your intellect into motion.”
Marco Rubio: "[Not saying 'radical Islam'] would be like saying we weren't at war with Nazis, because we were afraid to offend some Germans who may have been members of the Nazi Party but weren't violent themselves. We are at war with radical Islam… This is a clash of civilizations."
Republican opponents Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz both have opposing views in relation to Trump's.
Jeb Bush: "I do think we have a responsibility to help with refugees after proper screening," he told NBC. "And I think our focus ought to be on the Christians who have no place in Syria anymore." Bush also told CNBC that "there are no Christian terrorists wandering around the world trying to take out peace-loving Muslims — this is a serious problem…(But) it does not mean we should be disrespectful of Muslims in our country or anything like that. In fact, I find it abhorrent that Donald Trump is suggesting that we register people.”
Ted Cruz told CNBC, “I’m a big fan of Donald Trump’s but I’m not a fan of government registries of American citizens. The First Amendment protects religious liberty, I’ve spent the past several decades defending religious liberty.”
On Thursday, Trump and Carson were both criticized also by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who described the candidates' remarks as "Islamophobic and unconstitutional."
Times of crisis, whether national or world-wide, are definitely a testing time for presidential candidates. These are times where we, as American citizens, can see what these candidates have to offer and how they handle difficult situations. It is warranted to have resentment towards terrorists of any race, however, it only shows the ignorance of the candidate when they are blaming an entire community for horrific events.
