| Liberals (like myself) often worry about the slippery slope. We spend a lot of time telling folks that if we go down path X it could lead to result Y. Some of the time we are flatly wrong about it but not always and sadly not often enough. The growing fervor about the construction of Islamic community centers and mosques is a good example of where we seem to be right about the slippery slope.
It has always been the case that when this nation is at war we have dehumanized our opponents. In the North the Southern soldiers were Rebels, during WWI the Germans were called Huns, and then in WWII Kruats; the Japanese were called Nips; the Vietnamese were called Gooks or Slants. These were probably terms that were used by a minority of racist or bigoted folks already, but in a time of war they get pressed into service. All of this makes it easier for young men to go and kill other young men. If they are "other" then they can be assigned all kinds of heinous traits which justify the actions of our soldiers.
The problem with this tacit is in long wars it bleeds into the general population. It spreads and can become mainstream in the national consciousness. After all, even Doctor Seuss drew racist cartoons during the Japanese interment period. Take a look at this one below.
To his credit, he did express regrets about these cartoons later in life. Still at a time of war this was acceptable enough to print in the LA Times.
Which brings us to the problem of anti-Muslim fervor today; the Right in this nation has been told by Talk Radio and its radical hate mongers that we are at war with all of Islam. That 1.5 billion practitioners of that faith are constrained by their religious tenets to bring Islam to whole world by any means necessary. The fact that this is not true, has not stopped them from purveying this slime. As an atheist is rather galling to me to have to defend any religion, but this meme of monolithic intent is so ridiculous that I have stand up for Islam right now. There are many, many points of view as to what the requirements of the Qu'ran are. Just as there is interpretation of the Bible (all versions), Torah and the Bhagavad Gita there are differing schools of thought on the holy book of the Muslims.
Still it does not matter to those who have internalized the message of war with Islam. They are willing to use terms like "rag head" and "camel jockey" to demonize their fellow citizens, who happen to be Muslim.
Hate is a very dangerous emotion. It is possible for it to start out rationally, but it almost always progresses to the irrational. Once you hate a person or group of people it is easy to be intellectually lazy and accept any negative stereotype presented about them. In this way hate grows and consumes those who engage in it. After the 9/11 attacks and nearly a decade of constant war in predominately Muslim nations it is easy to see how some of our less mentally rigorous citizens have come to the place where their hate has overrun their reason.
Acts of bigotry or racial violence almost always include a component of praise seeking. The number of people who will say racist and bigoted things is always going to be larger than the subset which will act out on those ideas. However the more socially acceptable bigoted speech is the higher the percentage of those who think they will be praised for their violence becomes.
This is the slippery slope we find ourselves on today. As many of the national figures on the Right find it acceptable to compare Muslims in general to Nazis (I am looking right at your pudgy face Newt!) and even some leading Democrats fall for the bogus sensitivity argument and say so on national TV the Overton window on acceptable bigotry against Muslims grows. This means the size of the population who might act out violently grows as well.
The issue of the Park51 Islamic Center and the other buildings is not one that we can just shrug on and look away. It goes to basic freedoms in this country. When churches of Christian religions are fire bombed there is a serious outcry. As it should be. However when a minority religion like Islam suffers the same fate you can find comments in local news story praising the action and telling American citizens to go home. It is good that the newspaper removed these comments and there are those that argued against them but the fact that there were folks who would advocate further terror in public is a sign of how far the window has moved.
There are those among us who will never be tolerant. They do not want a pluralistic nation where many cultures are welcome, as long as they respect the rights of other cultures. They can't be reached and I would not spend a minute trying to do so. However there is a large group of Americans who can be reached. Standing up for the rights of Muslims to build wherever zoning permits is not about liking or disliking their religion, it is about standing up for one of the founding ideals of this nation. The premise that everyone should be able to be as involved in religion as they choose, whether that is deeply or not at all.
More importantly it is the core principal that democracy can only function when it protects the rights of disliked minorities. If we start to give in on that issue then we truly are on a slippery slope, where your Constitutional protections are only as strong as the majority group you happen to belong to. This is not what the Founders wanted. They were clear about the importance of all people having the same protections. The whims of a King, even a King mildly restrained by a Parliament taught them what being on the wrong side of the majority was like and they insisted that their descendants would not suffer it.
Standing up for the rights of Muslims is the right thing to do, not because I am of their faith or even like their faith. It is the right thing to do because it is the American thing to do. Standing up for those who would be oppressed by the majority is about as American as it gets.
The floor is yours. |
