I'm saddened by the following from Cornell News.
About 27 percent of respondents said that all Muslim Americans should be required to register their location with the federal government, and 26 percent said they think that mosques should be closely monitored by U.S. law enforcement agencies. Twenty-nine percent agreed that undercover law enforcement agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations, in order to keep tabs on their activities and fund raising. About 22 percent said the federal government should profile citizens as potential threats based on the fact that they are Muslim or have Middle Eastern heritage. In all, about 44 percent said they believe that some curtailment of civil liberties is necessary for Muslim Americans.
Conversely, 48 percent of respondents nationally said they do not believe that civil liberties for Muslim Americans should be restricted.
Wow. Just wow. The actions of a handful of extremists results in the indictment of an entire religious belief system. This is the kind of thing that drives me absolutely batty. The leap of logic required to jump from "a handful of religious zealots commit horrible acts" to "all Muslims are potential terrorists" is astounding. Seriously, this is the epitome of the hasty generalization fallacy.
Why is it that the majority of U.S. Americans don't call for the surveillance of Christian organizations when an abortion clinic is bombed? No need to answer; it's a rhetorical question.
I have zero hope that our country will ever get its collective shit together.
3 comments:
I agree with you (Okay get up off the floor now).
Although I can sort of see the other point. Christians don't call for violence at embassies for cartoons either. And that was much more mainstream than fringe.
And note I said I can sort of see the other side, not agree with it.
The increasing cultural/religious balkanization of America is one of the biggest things wrong with the country.
And the vast majority of Muslims didn't call for violence at embassies, either. Were there some? Yes. The media, for whatever reason, loves to portray Islam as an exceedingly violent religion. Any study of the basic belief system reveals that it is not.
When you have a diverse group of people living within such a large country, I'm really not sure how we can avoid some balkanization. The notion that we're all "just Americans" doesn't wash. Being "just American" all too often requires individuals to give up important aspects of their identity (religious, ethnic, etc.) in favor of a homogenized non-identity. Isn't there some way we can celebrate multiplicity?
Good points all. As usual.
And where to draw that line is the whole problem - at what point are we losing identiy, and at what point are we working toward become a unified nation.
And that line is different for different people, which is where a good deal of the problems come from.
And I generally agree with the last line of the original post. I don't see a way to balance cultural/religous/philisophic identity against the "over culture" of the US for large groups of people.
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