Whew! So much to say, I don't know where to start. I'll take it point by point, like you did, but I have to say I agree with many of your points.
1) I don't think 1.2 billion Muslims are morally and intellectually bankrupt, but I think that so far they have failed to LEAD the world in figuring out how to solve a problem that seems to be pervasive among them.
2) Truth is lots of holocausts have occurred. I bet most people don't know that 20 million Russians died in WWII, along with the 6 million Jews. Many of them died in the same hate-inspired manner as the Jews. So the key reason I brought this up is that the world CANNOT allow the kind of hatred of Jews and westerners being spread in Muslim mosques and madrahsas to continue.
3) Illiteracy is bad for society no matter where it is, in LA or in the Middle East. The difference is that the combination of Islam and illiteracy leads to international terrorism. LA gangs are localize terrorists and I think more should be done to squash existing ones including more stringent illegal alien laws and more money for education in LA.
4) I think you confuse freedom OF religion with freedom FROM religion. Freedom OF religion doesn't mean we need to erase all vestiges of the traditions that made this country great. This country was founded based on Christian morals and ideals and those have served us very well in guiding our policies. Seperation of church and state does not mean that we have become completely secular. The kind of religious freedom you are advocating is actually more like active anti-religiousity instead of ensuring seperation.
5) Yes, that's bad. Racism of any sort is horrible. I do believe that we should use some profiling, though. The Muslim religion transcends loyalties to nation. We have seen that conclusively. So we need to be vigilant, since this isn't a war against another country, but a war against a destructive ideology, which has it's roots in a corrosive type of Islam.
6) You make a good points about democracy's efficiency and effectiveness under less than ideal circumstances. However, the basic problem in Arab countries is the complete lack of government accountability to the people. If the people are suffering because of fraud and corruption, then at least they can do something about it in the U.S. They just elect someone from among themselves that will promise to change things. If you don't have the right to elect your own leaders, then you have NO outlet for your frustration, except violence. The mafia and organized crime used to run rampant in the U.S. But we in the U.S. banded together to stamp alot of it out. You can never completely stamp this type of thing out, but you can get it down to a level where it doesn't destroy society.
7) If women in Saudi Arabia had complete freedom and democracy, then if they didn't get the rights that they deserve, they'd leave and go to another country where they had that kind of freedom. THe U.S. has worked very hard in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring that kind of freedom and democracy to both those countries. If it wasn't for us, you can be damn sure it would take a lot longer for women to gain their freedom and suffrage in those countries.
8) We'll never know if China would have done better under a democracy rather than under their autocratic rule. But I suspect, they would have. Look at the difference between Hong Kong and other Chinese cities. Hong Kong was wealthy and a hub of commerce long before that type of wealth started reaching the shores of Shanghai and other cities. The reason is that Hong Kong enjoyed tremendous freedom long before China's Communist Party allowed similar commercial freedoms within the mainland.
9) Women have tremendous freedoms in the U.S. In my lifetime, I have seen dramatic changes which ensued as a direct result of women deciding to enter the workforce in large numbers from the 70's onwards. I would agree that women have a little further to go until they reach full equality, but they are very close to it. Question for you? As a woman, would you rather live in a country in the Middle East or would you rather live here? On the one hand you complain women don't have freedoms in the M.E., but then on the other you complain that the U.S. has never had a woman president.
How would you solve the terrorism problem? :) |
