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Here is an interesting dichtomy between a secular view on tolerance vs. a fundamentalist view on tolerance.
In the West, we have interpreted tolerance to be an open invitation to exclude God from church and state. The Pope referred to the current religious phase as secular pluralism or something like that. However, the separation of Church and state has completely eliminated the value of God in our culture which is the complete opposite of teaching tolerance for other religions.
Obviously, Muslims are not afraid to defend the fundamentals of their religion with force. They don't have tolerance for any other faith, often threatening Christians, Jews, and apostates with death.
Obviously, there is no point trying to tell people how to behave. However, no good can come of Danish cartoonists making blasphemous cartoons against religious icons like Muhammed. Eventually, someone is going to become offened and kick their fucking asses. I guess they are still trying to make points against the Muslims who killed Van Gogh's nephew.
At some point, we need to realize the constraints of humor and intolerance should follow certain guidelines. You don't hear white people making black jokes. In fact, the only place to hear black jokes is to listen to a black comedian like Chris Rock. WASP's don't make fun of Jews, Chinese, or any ethnic group unless they want to be called a racist pig.
The Muslims are fighting for the same dignity. On some level, we are supposed to be helping the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan resist the ultra violent jihadis that have abandoned all social awareness. The jihadis have become psychotic killers that rape and intimidate all of the Muslims in their countries.
In the West, we keep thinking the war against terrorism is about keeping the terrorists from hurting us. That is certainly part of the point, as they have attacked the US, London and Spain in the past 5 years. However, the real problem with Muslim intolerance is the DAILY rebellions that the jihadis make against their own people. They are struggling for power against the moderate Muslim people. We have done a poor job distinguishing our position to help the people in the ME, much as ultra liberals try to persuade the US to come to the aid of Dafur. It is our current mission to help the people of Iraq and Afghistan. Why do you help people and then make dispoaraging cartoons about them? Oh yeah, Europe is too weak to provide that much support.
I don't see why Dennis Miller and other keep profiling Muslims as the ones we should be strip searching before they board the subways in the US. Sure, there might be a few loose nut jobs out there, but we have far more problems with our own people like the fucknuts in Colorada, Pennsylvania, and the latest school shooter -can't remember the state. That is 3 shootings in the US against the children and the TSA hasn't set up a single screening device to protect the kids in the schools.
Meanwhile, we are going to act like we can prevent random acts of murder by profiling Muslims? In America, I fear the most from isolated lunatics like the one's attacking kids in our schools. In the ME, I fear the most from Muslim extremists. In the US, I fear very little of Muslim extremists because I don't come into contact with any Muslims.
We are never going to prevent crimes in our schools or airports, but we are doing nothing to make the schools safer. We may not need 10 TSA agents screening every kid that walks into school, but the doors at every elementary school in this country are swinging wide open. How many more assaults against the schools before we share some of the resources in this country to protect the kids?
For some reason, we always seem to be inclined to have racist inclination towards the people with whom we are trying to help. The media plays into this bias by painting the as the aggressor and the Japs, the Germans, the Russians or the Chinese, or the Muslims as people that the US troops are attacking. As the dust always settles, we find it very easy to deal with the Koreans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, Germans, Italians and every level. They integrate into our society, form great trade alliances, and smooth out the geopolitical differences.
In these situation, we created liberals and conservatives from the unfortunate realities that we learned from those conflicts. I remain a conservative not on the shoulders of Bush or Rumsfelt, but because of the inescapable responsibility that we must uphold. Even if Kerry were in office, I would support the military's effort 100%. I'm sure we could have more troops or kill more bad guys, but this whole process needs time to run it's course. We have maintained military bases in every country in the ME except for Iran, and I expect to see those bases stay open. |
