Critique Of An Unthinking Man, Pt. 2

Yesterday, I responded to a short excerpt from Robert A. Hall's "I'm Tired." Unfortunately, he wrote plenty more.

I’m tired of being told how bad America is by leftwing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the religious freedom and women’s rights of Saudi Arabia, the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Gay people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela. Won’t multiculturalism be beautiful?

This is the most stunningly unthinking paragraph I may have ever read. Is he really saying that the American Left is the side pushing down gay rights, freedom of speech and women's rights?! While I certainly have plenty of problems with the one-sided tactics of Michael Moore, what the Right doesn't get about the Left is this: most people criticizing America from the Left really love the country- they love it so much, in fact, that they're willing to point out when it's not living up to its potential. America, most on the Left would say, is a wonderful and promising place; but like every place, it isn't perfect and we need to continue to move it toward reaching the promise made by the founding fathers. To say that the Left wants the worst aspects of other countries merely because they don't despise everything foreign is a sad and typical line of attack.

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor;” of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers;” of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery;” of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

Absolutely. All of these things are horrific and despicable acts of cruelty. It's hard to reconcile the media's portrayal of these acts with being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace." However, it's interesting that here Mr. Hall bases his argument on what the media tells him and later rails against the media for doing such a poor job. If all Muslims are willing to kill all non-Muslims, how have other religious groups lasted for centuries in Muslim-majority countries? It's easy to lump together a whole group of people whom we don't understand very well and paint them with the brush of the worst of their kind. But they could just as easily lump together Christians as the people who falsely say that the Bible tells them to hate "niggers" and "faggots." Are all Christians the same as the skinheads and neo-Nazis who purport to be acting within their faith? Then why does Hall make such generalizations of all Muslims? Let's all agree that extremists suck.

I believe “a man should be judged by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin.” I’m tired of being told that “race doesn’t matter” in the post-racial world of President Obama, when it’s all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of US Senators from Illinois. I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less in an all-knowing government.

Ah, the old "I'm not racist, but..." I do wish that everyone could just be judged by their own merits and believe that one day (I think we're getting closer and closer) we can do away with affirmative action practices. But we don't live in a vacuum and, sadly, not everyone has an equal chance to succeed in America because not everyone starts off from the same spot. Sure, if a child isn't read to by his mother and grows up with no father figure and winds up in the "ghetto culture of violence" it's certainly the parents' fault. But doesn't it make more sense to help those kids better their situation than to let them sink into the cycle? Shouldn't we also promote diverse representation in the Congress and other leadership positions and give those kids people of their background and ethnicity to look up to and emulate? I don't think anyone really likes affirmative action (I'd love it if we all started out with the same chances), we're just broken up into the camps of people who think it's necessary and those who don't.