Thinking About Joining Islamic State?

To my fellow Americans thinking about joining the Islamic State: Don't do it.
There's no honor or glory in it. The friendship and camaraderie they offer you is highly conditional. You have to be a slave to their ideas to get along. If you are lonely and at odds with much that you find going on in your life, I urge you to try to tell it to others. If you don't know anyone you can talk to about what really hurts you, I understand. I've been there. You can't tell friends because they don't have time, and they might tell others. Your family maybe doesn't want to listen but wants to preach and be disappointed by you instead of hearing you. The best advice I can give you is to suggest talking therapy. Try to find yourself a counselor or therapist who specializes in Cognitive Therapy. It is the kind of therapy where you can discuss your feelings and the ideas that lay behind your feelings. Then the therapist will discuss the rationality of your ideas while remaining very respectful of you. It is rational, very respectful talking and discussing. He does not tell you what to do, unlike the radical Islamists. He leaves that up to you, as he should. He respects your individuality. He does not take advantage of your problems, your pain, to mold you into his idea or even Allah's suppossed idea of how you are to think and behave.
    I've got to wrap this up now so let me ask you to contact a therapist or a psychotherapy - a pretentious word, I think- business and tell the person you are interested in Cognitive Therapy. If they don't offer it, ask them, "Do you know of anyone who does Cognitive Therapy?" When you find someone, ask for a sliding scale. Money is a big problem, but it's better than any alternative like having to be liked by some ruler to get your basic needs and more fulfilled. Here's another idea: Go to a priest or minister and ask for counseling to discuss your dissatisfaction with where you are in life right now and ask him if he can talk with you without bringing up God, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha -Whatever- and anything related to God or Whatever. If he's interested in you as a person, as I am, then he will hear you and talk to you without trying to convert you. Did this help you? Don't get involved in the Islamic State, man. They kill babies, children, men, and rape and enslave girls and women. You're a better man than that no matter how angry or lonely or down you are. Two wrongs don't make a right.
    Peter Nickerson, Philosophy Major, Class of '68, William and Mary College, 352-359-0850