[Vision2020] Arrest aftermath
Douglas
dougwils@moscow.com
Fri, 28 Feb 2003 14:56:24 -0800
Dear visionaries,
Carl Westberg asks if I would be willing to urge residents of our town to
treat the strangers among us with respect, kindness and dignity. The answer
is absolutely. "And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall
not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as
one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God" (Lev. 19:33-34).
But kindness, respect and dignity are, like everything else, defined by a
particular standard. As a Christian, I think that standard ought to be
biblical, and not to be defined by a mule-like PCness that refuses to
profile according to ethnicity at airports. Forgetting this, we rifle
through the luggage of 85-year-old Swedish grandmothers while letting
28-year-old Saudi young men go on through. My position is not a violation
of the Golden Rule. If the roles were reversed and I was in Saudi Arabia,
and some Anglos blew something up over there, I would expect them to
profile *all* the Anglos leaving the country. They would do it to -- not
being wooly-headed like we are.
Tom Hansen has applied his insights in such a way as to make detective work
an impossibility. When a bunch of people are intent on doing bad things to
you, and you know their general description (language, country of origin,
race, etc.) it is not a hate crime to look closely at everyone who answers
to that description. If a white guy knocks off a convenience store, you
don't have the cops patrol black neighborhoods looking for him in the
interests of fairness.
My use of "as has not yet been established" was to make the opposite point
from how Tom Hansen took it. The gentleman arrested is innocent until
proven guilty, and that is the way it ought to be. Mr. Hansen italicized
"yet" when he should have italicized "established."
Auntie Establishment was talking about *somebody* when she averred that she
would not give a plug nickel to hear an intolerant preach talk through his
hat on the nature of Islam. She is in luck, for I am willing to offer all
these observations for free.
Sunil said the "only conclusion that could be drawn would be that the
particular person charged was not following the rules he is to follow."
This is one possible conclusion, but not the only one. Another possibility
is that the rules are not what they are being represented as being. In
other words, it is at least a logical possibility that jihad means real
physical war, and that lying to the infidel is no more reprehensible in
some Muslim eyes than lying to Nazis would be to me.
Here is the dilemma you all have. My "intolerant" insistence that jihad is
about far more than subduing the lusts within (a medieval Islamic
innovation) is a position that is *shared* by many Muslims around the
globe. Such Muslims can find themselves in positions of influence -- e.g.
cockpits of highjacked airliners. You cannot condemn my position that jihad
involves physical warfare against the infidel without simultaneously
condemning the many Muslims who agree with me. Are you willing to say that
United Methodists in Moscow, Idaho have a better grasp of what makes a true
Muslim than does, say, Osama?
Doesn't it bug you to have spokesmen for the Bush administration making
pronouncements about what does and does not constitute true Islam? It bugs
me. Why not let Muslims define it?
Cordially,
Douglas