Let me begin by saying that I think John Roberts will be a great Supreme Court Justice. I have no doubt that he will be confirmed -- I don't even think the Democrats will bother filibustering him, there's just not enough to go with to make it worth it. I look forward to many many years of service from him and I'm anxious to read his first opinion, hopefully this October. If you want to discuss SCOTUS issues check out Pragmaticism.
After the Tancredo debacle -- which, as far as I know, he still has not apologized for -- Hugh Hewitt asked his listeners what they thought about the "bomb Mecca" strategy. To my horror there were many callers who wholeheartedly supported the idea. Of course, most of them showed that they were totally ignorant, which is never surprising when someone makes such an appalling statement. Most of them believed that all of Islam was secretly against us, and acting nice and civilized is just a front. One man said that all Muslims should be barred from the armed forces, politics, and deported when possible. Of course then he showed just how ignorant he is by saying "unless they take some sort of pledge to protect the country"... He claimed he served in Vietnam, so I guess he forgot that part where every US serviceman pledges allegiance to the US. When presented with this fact he said (paraphrase) "Well, they need to do a better job because wasn't there a Muslim in the military who used a hand grenade against other officers?" Yes. Again, he claims to have fought in Vietnam where 'Fragging' officers was fairly common, and there was no religious affiliation with the enemy. Its just stupid logic. I knew there had to be some people that felt this way, I mean Pat Buchanan had some followers. But I thought they were mostly backwoods rednecks who thought Islam was a kind of sausage until a few years ago. Apparently not. Some of them even referenced the Japanese Internment as though it were an acceptable measure. Absolute insanity. Absolutely appalling.
Meanwhile, Muslims in Iran like Akbar Ganji are fighting to end the repressive Islamisist regime in Iran. These people are Muslims that are championing democracy and bravely facing maiming, torture, and death to stand up for freedom. And yet we have Americans saying that all Muslims are evil and secretly waiting to take over the country/the world. Near the end of the first article I linked an Iranian talks about how the US support for Iranian freedom is a driving force giving all Iranians courage. We cannot allow ignorance to get in the way. We cannot allow fear and ignorance to turn us into the evil state many of the terrorists believe we are. There are people in mainstream America, some of my neighbors for all I know (especially when I'm living in Texas), who are willing to disenfranchise and minimalize the lives of fellow Americans because of the religion they follow. How hypocritical of the far-right. This cannot go on. They have the right to hold that belief, thanks to freedom and democracy, but we must do everything we can to change their minds. The war on terror is a war for democracy and freedom and must go on. But the war on ignorance here is almost just as important. If we fall into McCarthyism again, all our fighting may be for nothing. We cannot allow blind hate and ignorance to taint mainstream thought in our country, or we will become much like those we are currently opposing. I am at a loss for words to describe the horror I feel thinking that such bigoted sentiment might be more widespread than I believe. I'm not sure what we can do about it, but I know that somehow this ignorance must be addressed head on and put to rest. Freedom and democracy mean nothing if you use them to abuse others.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Thanks for this spirited defense of civil liberties and a measure of tolerance. We need to strive to find that perfect balance between protection and freedom. The right in this country tends to overemphasize protection against civil liberties, while the left is too permissive. When forced to choose the lesser of these two evils, however, I tend to support the left, as they seem (to me) to do a better job. My question for you is, do you choose the conservative way as just slightly better than the liberal way, or as pretty much on target?
If by conservative and liberal ways you mean the distinction you made above I guess I would say that I choose the conservative way as the better of two evils. It seems to me that if we don't have security then we're going to lose all our civil liberties anyway, so its better to sacrifice a few to save them all. But I don't think either way is ideal, obivously.
If you meant something else then you'll have to define exacly what you mean by the 'liberal' and 'conservative' way.
Nothing deep--I just meant that I am deeply dissatisfied with both of my political options, from voting (Kerry vs. Bush) to foreign policy (Clinton's bizarre relationship with China and random, ineffective cruise-missile-ing of everyone, Bush's war in Iraq.) I'm just curious as to how closely the current administration reflects your views and values--this is not something I'm looking to argue about.
I respect President Bush and trust him most of the time. As for the GOP in general, I too am dissatisfied. I am torn, because I feel like more options would be nice. I would like candidates to run on something besides party. But most multi-party systems historically have not done well. I would like politicians to actually have to know popular opinion and make popular laws, rather than just getting one party to support them and then voting party line. Of course, then there is the problem that I don't trust the majority of Americans to be informed enough to make good decisions, so I don't want popular opinion to be paramount... so I am torn. But I do wish there were a better system where it wasn't often a choice between extremes. I know a lot of Democrats who are rather moderate, but most of the senior leadership is hardcore, Michael Moore style (well, maybe not that far) liberal. And the same can probably be said for the right as well. So you're left with a choice between the two extremes which is why I think that you see the balance of power swing so completely these days. During Clinton the country was pretty liberal. But its an extreme and so we left it. But there was no middle ground so now we're getting pretty conservative. And unless something in the party system changes, the next time there's a change we're probably going to swing hard left again. It makes the country a fairly confusing place to live in, politically, and must create some interesting reactions internationally as US policy shifts so drastically so quickly.
In terms of having more (and better) choices to vote for I think we are at a catch-22 type situation. Most people are disatisfied with the current system since it comes down to a lesser-of-two-evils type choice... but the alternative with a multiparty system is that you would have leaders elected without anything close to a majority of the vote. It's hard enough to push legislature through when your side controls 55% of congressional votes- just imagine trying to do it when 60% of the populace voted against the imcumbents...
Post a Comment