Posted by
Bill Crawford on Monday, October 25, 2010 9:14:54 AM
This is another one that has .been on the radar for a while, but took a mainstream turn and bubbled up onto everybody's screen.
This issue is at the center of the Ground Zero mosque controversy, the set walk-off by Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar on "The View" a couple of weeks ago and the unceremonial firing of Juan Williams by NPR a few days ago.
While it would be entertaining to rehash the NPR doings (especially the press conference later), that stuff is incidental. The core issue is the interpretation of the nature of Islam and those who practice it.
There seems to be a worldview being bandied about by the counter culture types and their issue supporters that grudgingly admits there is a radical Muslim problem, but if you don't use the specific "radical" subset each and every time you mention Muslims, you are inciting riot.
Let's get real, folks. 9/11 happened almost a decade ago. After almost every Muslim owned or operated business in the country sprouted flags like crabgrass along with the rest of us, there was no backlash. There still are no vigilante posses travelling through Newark, Brooklyn and the Dearborne section of Detroit. Hell, if I had a c-note for every time George W. Bush used the phrase "hijacked a peaceful religion", I'd be retired now.
So, what it comes down to is that Whoopi and her allies are able to make the distinction between mainstream Muslims and terrorist Muslims. Unfortunately, the rest of us are somehow learning impaired and need these guardians to keep us from rampaging the streets on a new Christian Crusade.
This is just another issue in the great culture war here. And once again, one side has decided that their conclusions are the only ones possible at the end of a critical thinking session. Anybody who hasn't fallen in with that is beneath them, and must be restrained.
You can imagine my response to that one. We have a Muslim problem, folks. We have a problem with the too-large number of radicals among them, and we have a problem with the mainstream Muslims who either tacitly agree with the radicals or are too intimidated by them to do anything about them. We have a problem with Europe having so many Muslims among them that they are paralyzed to act. That leaves us to deal with them.
If I occasionally leave out the distinction adjectives, I honor the intelligence of the average American to have already taken that particular critical step. The counter culture doesn't seem to be enamored of returning that favor. Intelligence here would be defined as agreement with them, which only honors the Webster's definition of "arrogance".