A post by Maynard
How many times have we heard Leftists insist that we should respond to threats and attacks by searching our souls and repenting of our wickedness? We heard it after 9/11 and we continue to hear it now. Just the other day, Ted Kennedy again fumed from the Senate floor that a troop surge would “make us more hated”.
Such statements rest upon an implicit assumption that hatred is somehow, if not reasonable, at least rational. But that’s utter nonsense. What did the Jews do to make the Nazis hate them? What did Abel do to make Cain hate him? When we hear of murderous hatred, isn’t our first assumption that it was the hater, and not the object of his hatred, who was inexcusably evil? Why is it that only attacks made upon America and Americans are assumed to be understandable?
In recent years, there’s been a rash of legislation against what are referred to as “hate crimes”. Some of us regard the trend with suspicion. If someone intentionally breaks your nose, then is it really relevant whether you’re a member of a politically-favored class? But, like it or not, hate crime legislation increases the harshness of certain sentences. To be consistent with the sensitivity towards those who hate Americans, maybe it should work the other way around. If a crime were alleged to be a hate crime, then perhaps the sentence should be reduced, because the victim is a member of a class of people that have done things to make themselves hated. Do you remember when James Byrd, a black man, was dragged to his death? Maybe Jesse Jackson should have capped that incident by pleading with African-Americans not to do things to make white people hate them.
With respect to hating America, isn’t it obvious that this nation is far greater than any other nation? People have come here from all over the world to make better lives for themselves. Where we’ve influenced other regions, we’ve made them better than anyone else has done. Look at South Korea versus North Korea, West Germany versus East Germany, Taiwan versus mainland China or Vietnam. How can any sane person look at the big picture of history and conclude that Americans owe the world an apology?
This is not to suggest that America — or anyone else — is above criticism. America may be grand compared to the rest of the world, but we fall short of utopia. Of course we need to work on our flaws! Please, let’s just not lose perspective.
Dinesh D’Souza wrote an interesting article on how the Turks are angry with America for turning pornography into mainstream global entertainment. Is this, D’Souza asks, why they hate us? The irony is that so many Americans are also concerned about the degradation of our culture. D’Souza distinguishes between the pornographers — who are quick to admit they’re making unglorious trash — versus the ACLU-type moonbats, who aggressively work to batter down the cultural infrastructure, such that none of us may be spared from the flood.
Wouldn’t it be absurd if, in the final analysis, the people who paint the target on our backs happen to be the same people who insist that we not respond when outsiders shoot at us?
The why do they hate us travesty was started over 57 years ago by two competing, super star “news”men: Walter Cronkite (CBS) and Chet Huntley (ABC). They started the bogus “Ugly America” propaganda barage “news reporting” in 1951 and within 2 years were joined by NBC. Their dogma had 2 parts: 1. America was an awful country and 2. Because America was rotten to the core it was the cause of all the problems in the rest of the world.
So many people watched so many “news” stories (and they were really stories) about how bad America was that by 1960 when they were told that America was the cause of the rest of the world’s problems they believed it without questioning the “fact”. People in Africa and Asia hated us because were were bad people. After 10 years of being told how bad we were many of us believed it an believed the rest of the world was right to hate us. It was our fault. We were the “Ugly Americans”.
I saw Dinesh on Your World with Neil Cavuto. Maybe you’re making the same point, but he said that what’s actually pissing off Muslims in the Middle East is the Left’s insistence on getting its way in their culture. He cited a few examples I don’t remember, but they illustrated the fact that even despite democratic action on the part of Muslims to have civil codes the way they want, left-wing groups are coming in and challenging the rules that have been established. He contends it’s *this* that get Muslims riled up and angry at us. He said they fear we’re imposing ourselves on their culture, and they fear that. They see the kind of explicit entertainment we put out and they don’t want any part of it.
One thing he said was a misperception on their part is they think that American culture is actually like what they see in the entertainment we export. They don’t understand that most Americans don’t live like we’re portrayed in the movies.
As D’Sousa points out, there is a legitimate distinction between seeking out porn in privacy and having it foisted on you everywhere. But I wondered just how forcefully pornography has to be imposed on the Muslim world.
I know a secret about those Turks and other God-loving, pure-hearted, clean-living Muslims. Google has a nifty little search tool, http://www.google.com/trends. You see what the world is searching for by entering a search term. You get a chart showing Google search volume on that term broken down by regions of the world. The top ten regions are displayed. I searched on “sex†and “Islamâ€. Then I searched on combinations of terms.
SEX: Pakistan, Egypt, India, Iran, TURKEY, Morocco, Viet Nam, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Indonesia
ISLAM: Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Algeria, UAR, TURKEY, Egypt
I realize a chart can’t explain why people were searching the Internet on that term. Maybe the Turks were just confirming how decadent WE are. It seems to me they’re more interested in sex than in Islam. God knows.
You can search on multiple terms. The order you enter the terms makes a difference in the dataset. There’s a separate bar for each term showing comparative volume within each region. I searched on “basketball, sex†and the U.S. came up number two with “sex†outdistancing “basketball†of the pair. I searched on “sex, basketball†and the U.S. didn’t come up at all. Number one and two on that search were Pakistan and Egypt. Comparatively they weren’t the least bit interested in basketball. If you put in “sex, Islamâ€, the comparative graph has sex beating out Islam by far with the usual suspects.
The Internet is passive; it is not imposing itself on anyone. It’s your fingers that type in SEX at the behest of your brain. I guess it’s still our fault because we invented the Internet.
Oh, I did search on “Tammy Bruceâ€. Results: U.S., New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Croatia, Romania, Kuwait. Go get ‘em Tammy!
To Rod,
I lived through the “Ugly American” era. It’s just as you said. Through WWII, the American people depended on the news media for information, reassurance, and comfort. The “super star “news” men” exploited that after the war was over to promote their own liberal “hobby horse”,
hate America first. If the news people said it it must be true. The baby boom generation were impressionable children in the 1950’s and they became the anti-culure rebels in the 1960’s. Fortunately, sanity is returning with ensuing generations as the Cronkites and Murrows pass-on and the boomers move to Sun City and enroll in Medicare.
Islam has been trying to take over the world it their effort to make all humans Muslim, subordinate to Muslims, or dead since the time of Mohammad, and they have found useful idiots in people like Ted Kennedy.
We have a unique opportunity with extreme military dominance, to end this now. If Alexander the great and Julius Caesar had pussyfooted around the way we are we would still be living under primitive tyrants like the Mesopotamians (that is very possibly the way they would have spelled it) and the Huns and Barbarians (and I happen to be a Hun myself).
Lets show these tyrannical pigs just what total air dominance and unrestrained military conquest of their evil heretic empire can do and change the world the way it is meant to be changed when God puts a nation in our position.
I should have woke up and had a cup of coffee before writing the above.
Just saw Bill Maher on HBO advertising his new season…part of his spew was ‘if all it takes to get the terrorist off our backs is to convert to Islam then (he lets off with the Muslim war cry)’…I was appalled…and he gets paid for this tripe…more fuel for the enemy within…these are people who still practice animal sacrifice for heavens sake…wake up Ted…your prize pooch could be next…
Ahwahtukeejohn, Your spelling is shaky but the thinking is solid.
[His spelling is fixed, but let’ s please use spell check in the future :)–ed].
Marie:
It is easy for some one like our Bill to convert to a religion. If you do not believe in God in the first place than you simply put on airs in public and do what you want out of sight. It is important I, believe. for believers to just not consider the opinions of non-believers (in the true God) irrelevant.
[Ahwa–please use spell check. I’ve corrected big spelling mistakes here, too. I’m inclined to correct your spelling, but really, this is ridiculous–ed].
Ahwa, couldn’t agree more…what bothers me is that people in the public eye, like Maher, throw out an idea to the viewers, he thinks it’s funny for a laugh and the weak minded might think it’s a great idea!!! I quit watching him after his 9/11 comment…apparently he still doesn’t reveiw his own work before sending it out over the airwaves nationwide…I believe comments like his and Ted Kennedy’s are damaging and undermining to the American people as a whole…