A Pro-ISIS Demonstration in Dearborn, Michigan, Last December?

I was sent a photograph, yesterday, of a December rally in Dearborn, Michigan — a town with a very high Arab and Muslim population (they’re not necessarily the same thing) — in which ISIS flags were flying proudly from American cars, etc.

The object of sending me the photo, of course, was to demonstrate that I’m a naïve Pollyanna and a fool for failing to recognize that They need to be expelled from the country because They’re dangerous and They hate us.  We neither need nor want people like Them in the United States.

My initial reaction was that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t actually see a single ISIS flag in the photo.

The whole thing smelled funny.

So I checked:

http://www.factcheck.org/2015/12/dearborns-anti-isis-rally/

Somebody is lying.

There are serious and difficult public policy issues related to terrorism, national security, and public safety.  How, for example, should we balance legitimate expectations of privacy against the surveillance capabilities needed by law enforcement personnel?  How should we weigh safety versus security?  When does religious tolerance and allegiance to the First Amendment become recklessness?  When does appropriate vigilance become intolerance or even unconstitutional oppression?  And so on and so forth.

Telling and spreading lies, however, doesn’t move the conversation on such issues forward in any useful way.  Quite the contrary.

If you’re ever sent the same photo that was sent to me, please don’t pass it forward.  And, if you can, please gently inform the person who sent it to you that he or she has been misled and has been made the victim of a dishonest and even malicious fraud.